[
  {
    "path": ".gitignore",
    "content": "# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files\n__pycache__/\n*.py[cod]\n\n# C extensions\n*.so\n\n# Distribution / packaging\n.Python\nenv/\nbuild/\ndevelop-eggs/\ndist/\ndownloads/\neggs/\n.eggs/\nlib/\nlib64/\nparts/\nsdist/\nvar/\n*.egg-info/\n.installed.cfg\n*.egg\n\n# PyInstaller\n#  Usually these files are written by a python script from a template\n#  before PyInstaller builds the exe, so as to inject date/other infos into it.\n*.manifest\n*.spec\n\n# Installer logs\npip-log.txt\npip-delete-this-directory.txt\n\n# Unit test / coverage reports\nhtmlcov/\n.tox/\n.coverage\n.coverage.*\n.cache\nnosetests.xml\ncoverage.xml\n*,cover\n\n# Translations\n*.mo\n*.pot\n\n# Django stuff:\n*.log\n\n# Sphinx documentation\ndocs/_build/\n\n# PyBuilder\ntarget/\n\ndatasets/\n*.gz\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": ".vimrc",
    "content": "\" Force indentation styles for this directory\nautocmd FileType python set shiftwidth=4\nautocmd FileType python set tabstop=4\nautocmd FileType python set softtabstop=4\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "LICENSE",
    "content": "This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.\n\nAnyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or\ndistribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled\nbinary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any\nmeans.\n\nIn jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors\nof this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the\nsoftware to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit\nof the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and\nsuccessors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of\nrelinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this\nsoftware under copyright law.\n\nTHE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,\nEXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF\nMERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.\nIN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR\nOTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,\nARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR\nOTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.\n\nFor more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org>\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "README.rst",
    "content": "Deep learning & neural networks\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/README.rst",
    "content": "Use Python 3 with Numpy enabled\n\n[for example ~/bin/venv/py36-numpy]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/dino.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom rnn_provided import *\nimport random\n\ndata = open('dinos.txt', 'r').read()\ndata= data.lower()\nchars = list(set(data))\ndata_size, vocab_size = len(data), len(chars)\nprint('There are %d total characters and %d unique characters in your data.' % (data_size, vocab_size))\n\nchar_to_ix = { ch:i for i,ch in enumerate(sorted(chars)) }\nix_to_char = { i:ch for i,ch in enumerate(sorted(chars)) }\nprint(ix_to_char)\n\n\ndef clip(gradients, maxValue):\n    '''\n    Clips the gradients' values between minimum and maximum.\n\n    Arguments:\n    gradients -- a dictionary containing the gradients\n                 \"dWaa\", \"dWax\", \"dWya\", \"db\", \"dby\"\n    maxValue -- everything above this number is set to this number,\n                and everything less than -maxValue is set to -maxValue\n\n    Returns:\n    gradients -- a dictionary with the clipped gradients.\n    '''\n    dWaa, dWax, dWya, db, dby = (gradients['dWaa'], gradients['dWax'],\n                                 gradients['dWya'], gradients['db'],\n                                 gradients['dby'])\n\n    for gradient in [dWax, dWaa, dWya, db, dby]:\n        np.clip(gradient, a_min=-maxValue, a_max=maxValue, out=gradient)\n\n    gradients = {\"dWaa\": dWaa, \"dWax\": dWax, \"dWya\": dWya, \"db\": db, \"dby\": dby}\n    return gradients\n\n\ndef sample(parameters, char_to_ix, seed):\n    \"\"\"\n    Sample a sequence of characters according to a sequence of probability\n    distributions output of the RNN\n\n    Arguments:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing the\n                  parameters Waa, Wax, Wya, by, and b.\n    char_to_ix -- python dictionary mapping each character to an index.\n    seed -- used for grading purposes. Do not worry about it.\n\n    Returns:\n    indices -- a list of length n containing the indices of the\n               sampled characters.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Retrieve parameters and relevant shapes from \"parameters\" dictionary\n    Waa, Wax, Wya, by, b = (parameters['Waa'], parameters['Wax'],\n                            parameters['Wya'], parameters['by'],\n                            parameters['b'])\n    vocab_size = by.shape[0]\n    n_a = Waa.shape[1]\n    n_x = Wax.shape[1]\n\n    ### START CODE HERE ###\n    # Step 1: Create the one-hot vector x for the first character (initializing\n    # the sequence generation).\n    x = np.zeros((n_x, 1))\n    # Step 1': Initialize a_prev as zeros\n    a_prev = np.zeros((n_a, 1))\n\n    # Create an empty list of indices, this is the list which will contain the\n    # list of indices of the characters to generate.\n    indices = []\n\n    # Idx is a flag to detect a newline character, we initialize it to -1.\n    idx = -1\n\n    # Loop over time-steps t. At each time-step, sample a character from a\n    # probability distribution and append its index to \"indices\". We'll stop if\n    # we reach 50 characters (which should be very unlikely with a well trained\n    # model), which helps debugging and prevents entering an infinite loop.\n    counter = 0\n    newline_character = char_to_ix['\\n']\n\n    while (idx != newline_character and counter != 50):\n        # Step 2: Forward propagate x using the equations (1), (2) and (3)\n        a = np.tanh(np.dot(Waa, a_prev) + np.dot(Wax, x) + b)\n        z = np.dot(Wya, a) + by\n        y = softmax(z)\n\n        # for grading purposes\n        np.random.seed(counter+seed)\n\n        # Step 3: Sample the index of a character within the vocabulary from the\n        # probability distribution y\n        idx = np.random.choice(np.arange(vocab_size), p=y.ravel())\n\n        # Append the index to \"indices\"\n        indices.append(idx)\n\n        # Step 4: Overwrite the input character as the one corresponding to the sampled index.\n        x = np.zeros((n_x, 1))\n        x[idx, 0] = 1\n\n        # Update \"a_prev\" to be \"a\"\n        a_prev = a\n\n        # for grading purposes\n        seed += 1\n        counter +=1\n\n    if (counter == 50):\n        indices.append(char_to_ix['\\n'])\n\n    return indices\n\n\ndef optimize(X, Y, a_prev, parameters, learning_rate = 0.01):\n    \"\"\"\n    Execute one step of the optimization to train the model.\n\n    Arguments:\n    X -- list of integers, where each integer is a number that maps to\n         a character in the vocabulary.\n    Y -- list of integers, exactly the same as X but shifted one index\n         to the left.\n    a_prev -- previous hidden state.\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n      Wax -- Weight matrix multiplying the input, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_x)\n      Waa -- Weight matrix multiplying the hidden state, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a)\n      Wya -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output,\n             numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      b --  Bias, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, 1)\n    learning_rate -- learning rate for the model.\n\n    Returns:\n    loss -- value of the loss function (cross-entropy)\n    gradients -- python dictionary containing:\n      dWax -- Gradients of input-to-hidden weights, of shape (n_a, n_x)\n      dWaa -- Gradients of hidden-to-hidden weights, of shape (n_a, n_a)\n      dWya -- Gradients of hidden-to-output weights, of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      db -- Gradients of bias vector, of shape (n_a, 1)\n      dby -- Gradients of output bias vector, of shape (n_y, 1)\n    a[len(X)-1] -- the last hidden state, of shape (n_a, 1)\n    \"\"\"\n    # Forward propagate through time\n    loss, cache = rnn_forward(X, Y, a_prev, parameters, vocab_size)\n\n    # Backpropagate through time\n    gradients, a = rnn_backward(X, Y, parameters, cache)\n\n    # Clip your gradients between -5 (min) and 5 (max)\n    gradients = clip(gradients, 5)\n\n    # Update parameters\n    parameters = update_parameters(parameters, gradients, learning_rate)\n\n    return loss, gradients, a[len(X)-1]\n\n\ndef model(data, ix_to_char, char_to_ix,\n          num_iterations = 35000, n_a = 50, dino_names = 7, vocab_size = 27):\n    \"\"\"\n    Trains the model and generates dinosaur names.\n\n    Arguments:\n    data -- text corpus\n    ix_to_char -- dictionary that maps the index to a character\n    char_to_ix -- dictionary that maps a character to an index\n    num_iterations -- number of iterations to train the model for\n    n_a -- number of units of the RNN cell\n    dino_names -- number of dinosaur names you want to sample at each iteration.\n    vocab_size -- number of unique characters found in the text, size of the vocabulary\n\n    Returns:\n    parameters -- learned parameters\n    \"\"\"\n\n    # Retrieve n_x and n_y from vocab_size\n    n_x, n_y = vocab_size, vocab_size\n\n    # Initialize parameters\n    parameters = initialize_parameters(n_a, n_x, n_y)\n\n    # Initialize loss (this is required because we want to smooth our loss,\n    # don't worry about it)\n    loss = get_initial_loss(vocab_size, dino_names)\n\n    # Build list of all dinosaur names (training examples).\n    with open(\"dinos.txt\") as f:\n        examples = f.readlines()\n    examples = [x.lower().strip() for x in examples]\n\n    # Shuffle list of all dinosaur names\n    np.random.seed(0)\n    np.random.shuffle(examples)\n\n    # Initialize the hidden state of your LSTM\n    a_prev = np.zeros((n_a, 1))\n\n    # Optimization loop\n    for j in range(num_iterations):\n\n        ### START CODE HERE ###\n\n        # Use the hint above to define one training example (X,Y) (≈ 2 lines)\n        index = j % len(examples)\n        X = [None] + [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in examples[index]]\n        Y = X[1:] + [char_to_ix[\"\\n\"]]\n\n        # Perform one optimization step: Forward-prop -> Backward-prop -> Clip\n        # -> Update parameters Choose a learning rate of 0.01\n        curr_loss, gradients, a_prev = optimize(X, Y, a_prev, parameters, 0.01)\n\n        # Use a latency trick to keep the loss smooth. It happens here to\n        # accelerate the training.\n        loss = smooth(loss, curr_loss)\n\n        # Every 2000 Iteration, generate \"n\" characters thanks to sample() to\n        # check if the model is learning properly\n        if j % 2000 == 0:\n\n            print('Iteration: %d, Loss: %f' % (j, loss) + '\\n')\n\n            # The number of dinosaur names to print\n            seed = 0\n            for name in range(dino_names):\n\n                # Sample indices and print them\n                sampled_indices = sample(parameters, char_to_ix, seed)\n                print_sample(sampled_indices, ix_to_char)\n\n                seed += 1  # To get the same result for grading purposed, increment the seed by one.\n\n            print('\\n')\n\n    return parameters\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    #np.random.seed(2)\n    #_, n_a = 20, 100\n    #Wax, Waa, Wya = np.random.randn(n_a, vocab_size), np.random.randn(n_a, n_a), np.random.randn(vocab_size, n_a)\n    #b, by = np.random.randn(n_a, 1), np.random.randn(vocab_size, 1)\n    #parameters = {\"Wax\": Wax, \"Waa\": Waa, \"Wya\": Wya, \"b\": b, \"by\": by}\n\n    #indices = sample(parameters, char_to_ix, 0)\n    #print(\"Sampling:\")\n    #print(\"list of sampled indices:\", indices)\n    #print(\"list of sampled characters:\", [ix_to_char[i] for i in indices])\n    parameters = model(data, ix_to_char, char_to_ix)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/dinos.txt",
    "content": "Aachenosaurus\nAardonyx\nAbdallahsaurus\nAbelisaurus\nAbrictosaurus\nAbrosaurus\nAbydosaurus\nAcanthopholis\nAchelousaurus\nAcheroraptor\nAchillesaurus\nAchillobator\nAcristavus\nAcrocanthosaurus\nAcrotholus\nActiosaurus\nAdamantisaurus\nAdasaurus\nAdelolophus\nAdeopapposaurus\nAegyptosaurus\nAeolosaurus\nAepisaurus\nAepyornithomimus\nAerosteon\nAetonyxAfromimus\nAfrovenator\nAgathaumas\nAggiosaurus\nAgilisaurus\nAgnosphitys\nAgrosaurus\nAgujaceratops\nAgustinia\nAhshislepelta\nAirakoraptor\nAjancingenia\nAjkaceratops\nAlamosaurus\nAlaskacephale\nAlbalophosaurus\nAlbertaceratops\nAlbertadromeus\nAlbertavenator\nAlbertonykus\nAlbertosaurus\nAlbinykus\nAlbisaurus\nAlcovasaurus\nAlectrosaurus\nAletopelta\nAlgoasaurus\nAlioramus\nAliwalia\nAllosaurus\nAlmas\nAlnashetri\nAlocodon\nAltirhinus\nAltispinax\nAlvarezsaurus\nAlwalkeria\nAlxasaurus\nAmargasaurus\nAmargastegos\nAmargatitanis\nAmazonsaurus\nAmmosaurus\nAmpelosaurus\nAmphicoelias\nAmphicoelicaudia\nAmphisaurus\nAmtocephale\nAmtosaurus\nAmurosaurus\nAmygdalodon\nAnabisetia\nAnasazisaurus\nAnatosaurus\nAnatotitan\nAnchiceratops\nAnchiornis\nAnchisaurus\nAndesaurus\nAndhrasaurus\nAngaturama\nAngloposeidon\nAngolatitan\nAngulomastacator\nAniksosaurus\nAnimantarx\nAnkistrodon\nAnkylosaurus\nAnodontosaurus\nAnoplosaurus\nAnserimimus\nAntarctopelta\nAntarctosaurus\nAntetonitrus\nAnthodon\nAntrodemus\nAnzu\nAoniraptor\nAorun\nApatodon\nApatoraptor\nApatosaurus\nAppalachiosaurus\nAquilops\nAragosaurus\nAralosaurus\nAraucanoraptor\nArchaeoceratops\nArchaeodontosaurus\nArchaeopteryx\nArchaeoraptor\nArchaeornis\nArchaeornithoides\nArchaeornithomimus\nArcovenator\nArctosaurus\nArcusaurus\nArenysaurus\nArgentinosaurus\nArgyrosaurus\nAristosaurus\nAristosuchus\nArizonasaurus\nArkansaurus\nArkharavia\nArrhinoceratops\nArstanosaurus\nAsiaceratops\nAsiamericana\nAsiatosaurus\nAstrodon\nAstrodonius\nAstrodontaurus\nAstrophocaudia\nAsylosaurus\nAtacamatitan\nAtlantosaurus\nAtlasaurus\nAtlascopcosaurus\nAtrociraptor\nAtsinganosaurus\nAublysodon\nAucasaurus\nAugustia\nAugustynolophus\nAuroraceratops\nAurornis\nAustralodocus\nAustralovenator\nAustrocheirus\nAustroposeidon\nAustroraptor\nAustrosaurus\nAvaceratops\nAvalonia\nAvalonianus\nAviatyrannis\nAvimimus\nAvisaurus\nAvipes\nAzendohsaurus\nBactrosaurus\nBagaceratops\nBagaraatan\nBahariasaurus\nBainoceratops\nBakesaurus\nBalaur\nBalochisaurus\nBambiraptor\nBanji\nBaotianmansaurus\nBarapasaurus\nBarilium\nBarosaurus\nBarrosasaurus\nBarsboldia\nBaryonyx\nBashunosaurus\nBasutodon\nBathygnathus\nBatyrosaurus\nBaurutitan\nBayosaurus\nBecklespinax\nBeelemodon\nBeibeilong\nBeipiaognathus\nBeipiaosaurus\nBeishanlong\nBellusaurus\nBelodon\nBerberosaurus\nBetasuchus\nBicentenaria\nBienosaurus\nBihariosaurus\nBilbeyhallorum\nBissektipelta\nBistahieversor\nBlancocerosaurus\nBlasisaurus\nBlikanasaurus\nBolong\nBonapartenykus\nBonapartesaurus\nBonatitan\nBonitasaura\nBorealopelta\nBorealosaurus\nBoreonykus\nBorogovia\nBothriospondylus\nBrachiosaurus\nBrachyceratops\nBrachylophosaurus\nBrachypodosaurus\nBrachyrophus\nBrachytaenius\nBrachytrachelopan\nBradycneme\nBrasileosaurus\nBrasilotitan\nBravoceratops\nBreviceratops\nBrohisaurus\nBrontomerus\nBrontoraptor\nBrontosaurus\nBruhathkayosaurus\nBugenasaura\nBuitreraptor\nBurianosaurus\nBuriolestes\nByranjaffia\nByronosaurus\nCaenagnathasia\nCaenagnathus\nCalamosaurus\nCalamospondylus\nCalamospondylus\nCallovosaurus\nCamarasaurus\nCamarillasaurus\nCamelotia\nCamposaurus\nCamptonotus\nCamptosaurus\nCampylodon\nCampylodoniscus\nCanardia\nCapitalsaurus\nCarcharodontosaurus\nCardiodon\nCarnotaurus\nCaseosaurus\nCathartesaura\nCathetosaurus\nCaudipteryx\nCaudocoelus\nCaulodon\nCedarosaurus\nCedarpelta\nCedrorestes\nCentemodon\nCentrosaurus\nCerasinops\nCeratonykus\nCeratops\nCeratosaurus\nCetiosauriscus\nCetiosaurus\nChangchunsaurus\nChangdusaurus\nChangyuraptor\nChaoyangsaurus\nCharonosaurus\nChasmosaurus\nChassternbergia\nChebsaurus\nChenanisaurus\nCheneosaurus\nChialingosaurus\nChiayusaurus\nChienkosaurus\nChihuahuasaurus\nChilantaisaurus\nChilesaurus\nChindesaurus\nChingkankousaurus\nChinshakiangosaurus\nChirostenotes\nChoconsaurus\nChondrosteosaurus\nChromogisaurus\nChuandongocoelurus\nChuanjiesaurus\nChuanqilong\nChubutisaurus\nChungkingosaurus\nChuxiongosaurus\nCinizasaurus\nCionodon\nCitipati\nCladeiodon\nClaorhynchus\nClaosaurus\nClarencea\nClasmodosaurus\nClepsysaurus\nCoahuilaceratops\nCoelophysis\nCoelosaurus\nCoeluroides\nCoelurosauravus\nCoelurus\nColepiocephale\nColoradia\nColoradisaurus\nColossosaurus\nComahuesaurus\nComanchesaurus\nCompsognathus\nCompsosuchus\nConcavenator\nConchoraptor\nCondorraptor\nCoronosaurus\nCorythoraptor\nCorythosaurus\nCraspedodon\nCrataeomus\nCraterosaurus\nCreosaurus\nCrichtonpelta\nCrichtonsaurus\nCristatusaurus\nCrosbysaurus\nCruxicheiros\nCryolophosaurus\nCryptodraco\nCryptoraptor\nCryptosaurus\nCryptovolans\nCumnoria\nDaanosaurus\nDacentrurus\nDachongosaurus\nDaemonosaurus\nDahalokely\nDakosaurus\nDakotadon\nDakotaraptor\nDaliansaurus\nDamalasaurus\nDandakosaurus\nDanubiosaurus\nDaptosaurus\nDarwinsaurus\nDashanpusaurus\nDaspletosaurus\nDasygnathoides\nDasygnathus\nDatanglong\nDatonglong\nDatousaurus\nDaurosaurus\nDaxiatitan\nDeinocheirus\nDeinodon\nDeinonychus\nDelapparentia\nDeltadromeus\nDemandasaurus\nDenversaurus\nDeuterosaurus\nDiabloceratops\nDiamantinasaurus\nDianchungosaurus\nDiceratops\nDiceratusDiclonius\nDicraeosaurus\nDidanodonDilong\nDilophosaurus\nDiluvicursor\nDimodosaurus\nDinheirosaurus\nDinodocus\nDinotyrannus\nDiplodocus\nDiplotomodon\nDiracodon\nDolichosuchus\nDollodon\nDomeykosaurus\nDongbeititan\nDongyangopelta\nDongyangosaurus\nDoratodon\nDoryphorosaurus\nDraconyx\nDracopelta\nDracoraptor\nDracorex\nDracovenator\nDravidosaurus\nDreadnoughtus\nDrinker\nDromaeosauroides\nDromaeosaurus\nDromiceiomimus\nDromicosaurus\nDrusilasaura\nDryosaurus\nDryptosauroides\nDryptosaurus\nDubreuillosaurus\nDuriatitan\nDuriavenator\nDynamosaurus\nDyoplosaurus\nDysalotosaurus\nDysganus\nDyslocosaurus\nDystrophaeus\nDystylosaurus\nEchinodon\nEdmarka\nEdmontonia\nEdmontosaurus\nEfraasia\nEiniosaurus\nEkrixinatosaurus\nElachistosuchus\nElaltitan\nElaphrosaurus\nElmisaurus\nElopteryx\nElosaurus\nElrhazosaurus\nElvisaurus\nEmausaurus\nEmbasaurus\nEnigmosaurus\nEoabelisaurus\nEobrontosaurus\nEocarcharia\nEoceratops\nEocursor\nEodromaeus\nEohadrosaurus\nEolambia\nEomamenchisaurus\nEoplophysis\nEoraptor\nEosinopteryx\nEotrachodon\nEotriceratops\nEotyrannus\nEousdryosaurus\nEpachthosaurus\nEpanterias\nEphoenosaurus\nEpicampodon\nEpichirostenotes\nEpidendrosaurus\nEpidexipteryx\nEquijubus\nErectopus\nErketu\nErliansaurus\nErlikosaurus\nEshanosaurus\nEuacanthus\nEucamerotus\nEucentrosaurus\nEucercosaurus\nEucnemesaurus\nEucoelophysis\nEugongbusaurus\nEuhelopus\nEuoplocephalus\nEupodosaurus\nEureodon\nEurolimnornis\nEuronychodon\nEuropasaurus\nEuropatitan\nEuropelta\nEuskelosaurus\nEustreptospondylus\nFabrosaurus\nFalcarius\nFendusaurus\nFenestrosaurus\nFerganasaurus\nFerganastegos\nFerganocephale\nForaminacephale\nFosterovenator\nFrenguellisaurus\nFruitadens\nFukuiraptor\nFukuisaurus\nFukuititan\nFukuivenator\nFulengia\nFulgurotherium\nFusinasus\nFusuisaurus\nFutabasaurus\nFutalognkosaurus\nGadolosaurus\nGaleamopus\nGalesaurus\nGallimimus\nGaltonia\nGalveosaurus\nGalvesaurus\nGannansaurus\nGansutitan\nGanzhousaurus\nGargoyleosaurus\nGarudimimus\nGasosaurus\nGasparinisaura\nGastonia\nGavinosaurus\nGeminiraptor\nGenusaurus\nGenyodectes\nGeranosaurus\nGideonmantellia\nGiganotosaurus\nGigantoraptor\nGigantosaurus\nGigantosaurus\nGigantoscelus\nGigantspinosaurus\nGilmoreosaurus\nGinnareemimus\nGiraffatitan\nGlacialisaurus\nGlishades\nGlyptodontopelta\nSkeleton\nGobiceratops\nGobisaurus\nGobititan\nGobivenator\nGodzillasaurus\nGojirasaurus\nGondwanatitan\nGongbusaurus\nGongpoquansaurus\nGongxianosaurus\nGorgosaurus\nGoyocephale\nGraciliceratops\nGraciliraptor\nGracilisuchus\nGravitholus\nGresslyosaurus\nGriphornis\nGriphosaurus\nGryphoceratops\nGryponyx\nGryposaurus\nGspsaurus\nGuaibasaurus\nGualicho\nGuanlong\nGwyneddosaurus\nGyposaurus\nHadrosauravus\nHadrosaurus\nHaestasaurus\nHagryphus\nHallopus\nHalszkaraptor\nHalticosaurus\nHanssuesia\nHanwulosaurus\nHaplocanthosaurus\nHaplocanthus\nHaplocheirus\nHarpymimus\nHaya\nHecatasaurus\nHeilongjiangosaurus\nHeishansaurus\nHelioceratops\nHelopus\nHeptasteornis\nHerbstosaurus\nHerrerasaurus\nHesperonychus\nHesperosaurus\nHeterodontosaurus\nHeterosaurus\nHexing\nHexinlusaurus\nHeyuannia\nHierosaurus\nHippodraco\nHironosaurus\nHisanohamasaurus\nHistriasaurus\nHomalocephale\nHonghesaurus\nHongshanosaurus\nHoplitosaurus\nHoplosaurus\nHorshamosaurus\nHortalotarsus\nHuabeisaurus\nHualianceratops\nHuanansaurus\nHuanghetitan\nHuangshanlong\nHuaxiagnathus\nHuaxiaosaurus\nHuaxiasaurus\nHuayangosaurus\nHudiesaurus\nHuehuecanauhtlus\nHulsanpes\nHungarosaurus\nHuxleysaurus\nHylaeosaurus\nHylosaurusHypacrosaurus\nHypselorhachis\nHypselosaurus\nHypselospinus\nHypsibema\nHypsilophodon\nHypsirhophus\nhabodcraniosaurus\nIchthyovenator\nIgnavusaurus\nIguanacolossus\nIguanodon\nIguanoides\nSkeleton\nIguanosaurus\nIliosuchus\nIlokelesia\nIncisivosaurus\nIndosaurus\nIndosuchus\nIngenia\nInosaurus\nIrritator\nIsaberrysaura\nIsanosaurus\nIschioceratops\nIschisaurus\nIschyrosaurus\nIsisaurus\nIssasaurus\nItemirus\nIuticosaurus\nJainosaurus\nJaklapallisaurus\nJanenschia\nJaxartosaurus\nJeholosaurus\nJenghizkhan\nJensenosaurus\nJeyawati\nJianchangosaurus\nJiangjunmiaosaurus\nJiangjunosaurus\nJiangshanosaurus\nJiangxisaurus\nJianianhualong\nJinfengopteryx\nJingshanosaurus\nJintasaurus\nJinzhousaurus\nJiutaisaurus\nJobaria\nJubbulpuria\nJudiceratops\nJurapteryx\nJurassosaurus\nJuratyrant\nJuravenator\nKagasaurus\nKaijiangosaurus\nKakuru\nKangnasaurus\nKarongasaurus\nKatepensaurus\nKatsuyamasaurus\nKayentavenator\nKazaklambia\nKelmayisaurus\nKemkemiaKentrosaurus\nKentrurosaurus\nKerberosaurus\nKentrosaurus\nKhaan\nKhetranisaurus\nKileskus\nKinnareemimus\nKitadanisaurus\nKittysaurus\nKlamelisaurusKol\nKoparion\nKoreaceratops\nKoreanosaurus\nKoreanosaurus\nKoshisaurus\nKosmoceratops\nKotasaurus\nKoutalisaurus\nKritosaurus\nKryptops\nKrzyzanowskisaurus\nKukufeldia\nKulceratops\nKulindadromeus\nKulindapteryx\nKunbarrasaurus\nKundurosaurus\nKunmingosaurus\nKuszholia\nLabocania\nLabrosaurus\nLaelaps\nLaevisuchus\nLagerpeton\nLagosuchus\nLaiyangosaurus\nLamaceratops\nLambeosaurus\nLametasaurus\nLamplughsaura\nLanasaurus\nLancangosaurus\nLancanjiangosaurus\nLanzhousaurus\nLaosaurus\nLapampasaurus\nLaplatasaurus\nLapparentosaurus\nLaquintasaura\nLatenivenatrix\nLatirhinus\nLeaellynasaura\nLeinkupal\nLeipsanosaurus\nLengosaurus\nLeonerasaurus\nLepidocheirosaurus\nLepidus\nLeptoceratops\nLeptorhynchos\nLeptospondylus\nLeshansaurus\nLesothosaurus\nLessemsaurus\nLevnesovia\nLewisuchus\nLexovisaurus\nLeyesaurus\nLiaoceratops\nLiaoningosaurus\nLiaoningtitan\nLiaoningvenator\nLiassaurus\nLibycosaurus\nLigabueino\nLigabuesaurus\nLigomasaurus\nLikhoelesaurus\nLiliensternus\nLimaysaurus\nLimnornis\nLimnosaurus\nLimusaurus\nLinhenykus\nLinheraptor\nLinhevenator\nLirainosaurus\nLisboasaurusLiubangosaurus\nLohuecotitan\nLoncosaurus\nLongisquama\nLongosaurus\nLophorhothon\nLophostropheus\nLoricatosaurus\nLoricosaurus\nLosillasaurus\nLourinhanosaurus\nLourinhasaurus\nLuanchuanraptor\nLuanpingosaurus\nLucianosaurus\nLucianovenator\nLufengosaurus\nLukousaurus\nLuoyanggia\nLurdusaurus\nLusitanosaurus\nLusotitan\nLycorhinus\nLythronax\nMacelognathus\nMachairasaurus\nMachairoceratops\nMacrodontophion\nMacrogryphosaurus\nMacrophalangia\nMacroscelosaurus\nMacrurosaurus\nMadsenius\nMagnapaulia\nMagnamanus\nMagnirostris\nMagnosaurus\nMagulodon\nMagyarosaurus\nMahakala\nMaiasaura\nMajungasaurus\nMajungatholus\nMalarguesaurus\nMalawisaurus\nMaleevosaurus\nMaleevus\nMamenchisaurus\nManidens\nMandschurosaurus\nManospondylus\nMantellisaurus\nMantellodon\nMapusaurus\nMarasuchus\nMarisaurus\nMarmarospondylus\nMarshosaurus\nMartharaptor\nMasiakasaurus\nMassospondylus\nMatheronodon\nMaxakalisaurus\nMedusaceratops\nMegacervixosaurus\nMegadactylus\nMegadontosaurus\nMegalosaurus\nMegapnosaurus\nMegaraptor\nMei\nMelanorosaurus\nMendozasaurus\nMercuriceratops\nMeroktenos\nMetriacanthosaurus\nMicrocephale\nMicroceratops\nMicroceratus\nMicrocoelus\nMicrodontosaurus\nMicrohadrosaurus\nMicropachycephalosaurus\nMicroraptor\nMicrovenator\nMierasaurus\nMifunesaurus\nMinmi\nMinotaurasaurus\nMiragaia\nMirischia\nMoabosaurus\nMochlodon\nMohammadisaurus\nMojoceratops\nMongolosaurus\nMonkonosaurus\nMonoclonius\nMonolophosaurus\nMononychus\nMononykus\nMontanoceratops\nMorelladon\nMorinosaurus\nMorosaurus\nMorrosaurus\nMosaiceratops\nMoshisaurus\nMtapaiasaurus\nMtotosaurus\nMurusraptor\nMussaurus\nMuttaburrasaurus\nMuyelensaurus\nMymoorapelta\nNaashoibitosaurus\nNambalia\nNankangia\nNanningosaurus\nNanosaurus\nNanotyrannus\nNanshiungosaurus\nNanuqsaurus\nNanyangosaurus\nNarambuenatitan\nNasutoceratops\nNatronasaurus\nNebulasaurus\nNectosaurus\nNedcolbertia\nNedoceratops\nNeimongosaurus\nNemegtia\nNemegtomaia\nNemegtosaurus\nNeosaurus\nNeosodon\nNeovenator\nNeuquenraptor\nNeuquensaurus\nNewtonsaurus\nNgexisaurus\nNicksaurus\nNigersaurus\nNingyuansaurus\nNiobrarasaurus\nNipponosaurus\nNoasaurus\nNodocephalosaurus\nNodosaurus\nNomingia\nNopcsaspondylus\nNormanniasaurus\nNothronychus\nNotoceratops\nNotocolossus\nNotohypsilophodon\nNqwebasaurus\nNteregosaurus\nNurosaurus\nNuthetes\nNyasasaurus\nNyororosaurus\nOhmdenosaurus\nOjoceratops\nOjoraptorsaurus\nOligosaurus\nOlorotitan\nOmeisaurus\nOmosaurus\nOnychosaurus\nOohkotokia\nOpisthocoelicaudia\nOplosaurus\nOrcomimus\nOrinosaurusOrkoraptor\nOrnatotholusOrnithodesmus\nOrnithoides\nOrnitholestes\nOrnithomerus\nOrnithomimoides\nOrnithomimus\nOrnithopsis\nOrnithosuchus\nOrnithotarsus\nOrodromeus\nOrosaurus\nOrthogoniosaurus\nOrthomerus\nOryctodromeus\nOshanosaurus\nOsmakasaurus\nOstafrikasaurus\nOstromia\nOthnielia\nOthnielosaurus\nOtogosaurus\nOuranosaurus\nOverosaurus\nOviraptor\nOvoraptor\nOwenodon\nOxalaia\nOzraptor\nPachycephalosaurus\nPachyrhinosaurus\nPachysauriscus\nPachysaurops\nPachysaurus\nPachyspondylus\nPachysuchus\nPadillasaurus\nPakisaurus\nPalaeoctonus\nPalaeocursornis\nPalaeolimnornis\nPalaeopteryx\nPalaeosauriscus\nPalaeosaurus\nPalaeosaurus\nPalaeoscincus\nPaleosaurus\nPaludititan\nPaluxysaurus\nPampadromaeus\nPamparaptor\nPanamericansaurus\nPandoravenator\nPanguraptor\nPanoplosaurus\nPanphagia\nPantydraco\nParaiguanodon\nParalititan\nParanthodon\nPararhabdodon\nParasaurolophus\nPareiasaurus\nParksosaurus\nParonychodon\nParrosaurus\nParvicursor\nPatagonykus\nPatagosaurus\nPatagotitan\nPawpawsaurus\nPectinodon\nPedopenna\nPegomastax\nPeishansaurus\nPekinosaurus\nPelecanimimus\nPellegrinisaurus\nPeloroplites\nPelorosaurus\nPeltosaurus\nPenelopognathus\nPentaceratops\nPetrobrasaurus\nPhaedrolosaurus\nPhilovenator\nPhuwiangosaurus\nPhyllodon\nPiatnitzkysaurus\nPicrodon\nPinacosaurus\nPisanosaurus\nPitekunsaurus\nPiveteausaurus\nPlanicoxa\nPlateosauravus\nPlateosaurus\nPlatyceratops\nPlesiohadros\nPleurocoelus\nPleuropeltus\nPneumatoarthrus\nPneumatoraptor\nPodokesaurus\nPoekilopleuron\nPolacanthoides\nPolacanthus\nPolyodontosaurus\nPolyonax\nPonerosteus\nPoposaurus\nParasaurolophus\nPostosuchus\nPowellvenator\nPradhania\nPrenocephale\nPrenoceratops\nPriconodon\nPriodontognathus\nProa\nProbactrosaurus\nProbrachylophosaurus\nProceratops\nProceratosaurus\nProcerosaurus\nProcerosaurus\nProcheneosaurus\nProcompsognathus\nProdeinodon\nProiguanodon\nPropanoplosaurus\nProplanicoxa\nProsaurolophus\nProtarchaeopteryx\nProtecovasaurus\nProtiguanodon\nProtoavis\nProtoceratops\nProtognathosaurus\nProtognathus\nProtohadros\nProtorosaurus\nProtorosaurus\nProtrachodon\nProyandusaurus\nPseudolagosuchus\nPsittacosaurus\nPteropelyx\nPterospondylus\nPuertasaurus\nPukyongosaurus\nPulanesaura\nPycnonemosaurus\nPyroraptor\nQantassaurus\nQianzhousaurus\nQiaowanlong\nQijianglong\nQinlingosaurus\nQingxiusaurus\nQiupalong\nQuaesitosaurus\nQuetecsaurus\nQuilmesaurus\nRachitrema\nRahiolisaurus\nRahona\nRahonavis\nRajasaurus\nRapator\nRapetosaurus\nRaptorex\nRatchasimasaurus\nRativates\nRayososaurus\nRazanandrongobe\nRebbachisaurus\nRegaliceratops\nRegnosaurus\nRevueltosaurus\nRhabdodon\nRhadinosaurus\nRhinorex\nRhodanosaurus\nRhoetosaurus\nRhopalodon\nRiabininohadros\nRichardoestesia\nRileya\nRileyasuchus\nRinchenia\nRinconsaurus\nRioarribasaurus\nRiodevasaurus\nRiojasaurus\nRiojasuchus\nRocasaurus\nRoccosaurus\nRubeosaurus\nRuehleia\nRugocaudia\nRugops\nRukwatitan\nRuyangosaurus\nSacisaurus\nSahaliyania\nSaichania\nSaldamosaurus\nSalimosaurus\nSaltasaurus\nSaltopus\nSaltriosaurus\nSanchusaurus\nSangonghesaurus\nSanjuansaurus\nSanpasaurus\nSantanaraptor\nSaraikimasoom\nSarahsaurus\nSarcolestes\nSarcosaurus\nSarmientosaurus\nSaturnalia\nSauraechinodon\nSaurolophus\nSauroniops\nSauropelta\nSaurophaganax\nSaurophagus\nSauroplites\nSauroposeidon\nSaurornithoides\nSaurornitholestes\nSavannasaurus\nScansoriopteryx\nScaphonyx\nScelidosaurus\nScipionyx\nSciurumimus\nScleromochlus\nScolosaurus\nScutellosaurus\nSecernosaurus\nSefapanosaurus\nSegisaurus\nSegnosaurus\nSeismosaurus\nSeitaad\nSelimanosaurus\nSellacoxa\nSellosaurus\nSerendipaceratops\nSerikornis\nShamosaurus\nShanag\nShanshanosaurus\nShantungosaurus\nShanxia\nShanyangosaurus\nShaochilong\nShenzhousaurus\nShidaisaurus\nShingopana\nShixinggia\nShuangbaisaurus\nShuangmiaosaurus\nShunosaurus\nShuvosaurus\nShuvuuia\nSiamodon\nSiamodracon\nSiamosaurus\nSiamotyrannus\nSiats\nSibirosaurus\nSibirotitan\nSidormimus\nSigilmassasaurus\nSilesaurus\nSiluosaurus\nSilvisaurus\nSimilicaudipteryx\nSinocalliopteryx\nSinoceratops\nSinocoelurus\nSinopelta\nSinopeltosaurus\nSinornithoides\nSinornithomimus\nSinornithosaurus\nSinosauropteryx\nSinosaurus\nSinotyrannus\nSinovenator\nSinraptor\nSinusonasus\nSirindhorna\nSkorpiovenator\nSmilodon\nSonidosaurus\nSonorasaurus\nSoriatitan\nSphaerotholus\nSphenosaurus\nSphenospondylus\nSpiclypeus\nSpinophorosaurus\nSpinops\nSpinosaurus\nSpinostropheus\nSpinosuchus\nSpondylosoma\nSqualodon\nStaurikosaurus\nStegoceras\nStegopelta\nStegosaurides\nStegosaurus\nStenonychosaurus\nStenopelix\nStenotholus\nStephanosaurus\nStereocephalus\nSterrholophus\nStokesosaurus\nStormbergia\nStrenusaurus\nStreptospondylus\nStruthiomimus\nStruthiosaurus\nStygimoloch\nStygivenator\nStyracosaurus\nSuccinodon\nSuchomimus\nSuchosaurus\nSuchoprion\nSugiyamasaurus\nSkeleton\nSulaimanisaurus\nSupersaurus\nSuuwassea\nSuzhousaurus\nSymphyrophus\nSyngonosaurus\nSyntarsus\nSyrmosaurus\nSzechuanosaurus\nTachiraptor\nTalarurus\nTalenkauen\nTalos\nTambatitanis\nTangvayosaurus\nTanius\nTanycolagreus\nTanystropheus\nTanystrosuchus\nTaohelong\nTapinocephalus\nTapuiasaurus\nTarascosaurus\nTarbosaurus\nTarchia\nTastavinsaurus\nTatankacephalus\nTatankaceratops\nTataouinea\nTatisaurus\nTaurovenator\nTaveirosaurus\nTawa\nTawasaurus\nTazoudasaurus\nTechnosaurus\nTecovasaurus\nTehuelchesaurus\nTeihivenator\nTeinurosaurus\nTeleocrater\nTelmatosaurus\nTenantosaurus\nTenchisaurus\nTendaguria\nTengrisaurus\nTenontosaurus\nTeratophoneus\nTeratosaurus\nTermatosaurus\nTethyshadros\nTetragonosaurus\nTexacephale\nTexasetes\nTeyuwasu\nThecocoelurus\nThecodontosaurus\nThecospondylus\nTheiophytalia\nTherizinosaurus\nTherosaurus\nThescelosaurus\nThespesius\nThotobolosaurus\nTianchisaurus\nTianchungosaurus\nTianyulong\nTianyuraptor\nTianzhenosaurus\nTichosteus\nTienshanosaurus\nTimimus\nTimurlengia\nTitanoceratops\nTitanosaurus\nTitanosaurus\nTochisaurus\nTomodon\nTonganosaurus\nTongtianlong\nTonouchisaurus\nTorilion\nTornieria\nTorosaurus\nTorvosaurus\nTototlmimus\nTrachodon\nTraukutitan\nTrialestes\nTriassolestes\nTribelesodon\nTriceratops\nTrigonosaurus\nTrimucrodon\nTrinisaura\nTriunfosaurus\nTroodon\nTsaagan\nTsagantegia\nTsintaosaurus\nTugulusaurus\nTuojiangosaurus\nTuranoceratops\nTuriasaurus\nTylocephale\nTylosteus\nTyrannosaurus\nTyrannotitan\nIllustration\nUberabatitan\nUdanoceratops\nUgrosaurus\nUgrunaaluk\nUintasaurus\nUltrasauros\nUltrasaurus\nUltrasaurus\nUmarsaurus\nUnaysaurus\nUnenlagia\nUnescoceratops\nUnicerosaurus\nUnquillosaurus\nUrbacodon\nUtahceratops\nUtahraptor\nUteodon\nVagaceratops\nVahiny\nValdoraptor\nValdosaurus\nVariraptor\nVelociraptor\nVectensia\nVectisaurus\nVelafrons\nVelocipes\nVelociraptor\nVelocisaurus\nVenaticosuchus\nVenenosaurus\nVeterupristisaurus\nViavenator\nVitakridrinda\nVitakrisaurus\nVolkheimeria\nVouivria\nVulcanodon\nWadhurstia\nWakinosaurus\nWalgettosuchus\nWalkeria\nWalkersaurus\nWangonisaurus\nWannanosaurus\nWellnhoferia\nWendiceratops\nWiehenvenator\nWillinakaqe\nWintonotitan\nWuerhosaurus\nWulagasaurus\nWulatelong\nWyleyia\nWyomingraptor\nXenoceratops\nXenoposeidon\nXenotarsosaurus\nXianshanosaurus\nXiaosaurus\nXingxiulong\nXinjiangovenator\nXinjiangtitan\nXiongguanlong\nXixianykus\nXixiasaurus\nXixiposaurus\nXuanhanosaurus\nXuanhuaceratops\nXuanhuasaurus\nXuwulong\nYaleosaurus\nYamaceratops\nYandusaurus\nYangchuanosaurus\nYaverlandia\nYehuecauhceratops\nYezosaurus\nYibinosaurus\nYimenosaurus\nYingshanosaurus\nYinlong\nYixianosaurus\nYizhousaurus\nYongjinglong\nYuanmouraptor\nYuanmousaurus\nYueosaurus\nYulong\nYunganglong\nYunmenglong\nYunnanosaurus\nYunxianosaurus\nYurgovuchia\nYutyrannus\nZanabazar\nZanclodon\nZapalasaurus\nZapsalis\nZaraapelta\nZatomusZby\nZephyrosaurus\nZhanghenglong\nZhejiangosaurus\nZhenyuanlong\nZhongornis\nZhongjianosaurus\nZhongyuansaurus\nZhuchengceratops\nZhuchengosaurus\nZhuchengtitan\nZhuchengtyrannus\nZiapelta\nZigongosaurus\nZizhongosaurus\nZuniceratops\nZunityrannus\nZuolong\nZuoyunlong\nZupaysaurus\nZuul"
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  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/input.txt",
    "content": "\nok, Air Monster, by Edwin Green\n\n\nThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most\nother parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions \nwhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of\nthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at \nwww.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have\nto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.\n\n\n\n\nTitle: Air Monster\n\n\nAuthor: Edwin Green\n\n\n\nRelease Date: November 14, 2017  [eBook #55965]\n\nLanguage: English\n\nCharacter set encoding: UTF-8\n\n\n***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AIR MONSTER***\n\n\nE-text prepared by Roger Frank\n\n\n\nAIR MONSTER\n\nby\n\nEDWIN GREEN\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Company\nNew York\n\nCopyright 1932\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Company\n\nMade in U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I. On Secret Duty\n    II. The Air Monster\n    III. Mystery Plane\n    IV. Danger in the Air\n    V. No Clues\n    VI. The Night Alarm\n    VII. Suspicions\n    VIII. Mysterious Moves\n    IX. On the East Side\n    X. The Neptune Sails\n    XI. In the Hangar\n    XII. Trial Flight\n    XIII. Wings of the Storm\n    XIV. Flood Relief\n    XV. In Northern Seas\n    XVI. Rescue in the Arctic\n\n\n\n\nAIR MONSTER\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nOn Secret Duty\n\n\nLights glowed brightly in the large, bare tower room which was the\nheadquarters of the Gerka, secret police organization of Rubania. It was\nmidnight and a meeting of the supreme council of the Gerka at that hour\ncould mean only the most urgent business.\n\nResidents of Kratz, the capital of Rubania, who happened to be in the\nstreets that night and who saw the lights in the tower of the government\npalace shook their heads and hurried on their way with fear in their\nhearts for the Gerka was the most dangerous organization in all Rubania\nand for that matter one of the most powerful groups of secret police in\nthe whole world.\n\nThe creation of the new Europe which had followed the World War had\nresulted in the formation of Rubania, a rich, fertile land east of\nPrussia. It had been made a free state but Alex Reikoff, an unscrupulous\ndictator with a lust for world power, had risen to supreme command of\nthe government, crushing out all opposition. He had built up the armed\nforces of his country until Rubania was recognized as a world power,\nfeared for the might of its armada of submarines and the power of its\nfleets of airplanes, for Reikoff believed in the power of aircraft as an\ninstrument of war.\n\nThat the midnight meeting of the Gerka was of unusual importance was\nborne out when Reikoff himself strode into the room and took his place\nat the head of the table around which a half dozen men were seated. They\nlooked expectantly at him. Reikoff, short and dark with closely cropped\nhair, stroked his bristly mustache. He looked intently at the men before\nhim. One after another met his gaze until his eyes looked into those of\nSerge Larko, in the uniform of a lieutenant of the air force.\n\n“Ah, Serge,” said Reikoff, “I’m glad that you could leave your beloved\nflying machines long enough to answer my call.”\n\n“Yes, Excellency,” smiled Serge. “I came at once but there is much that\nremains to be done on the new XO5 before it will be ready for the long\nflights for which it has been designed.”\n\n“The XO5 must be ready for a six thousand mile non-stop trip by the day\nafter tomorrow,” replied Reikoff, his words short and sharp. “I shall\ninform the commander of your field that you are to be given every\npossible assistance. An emergency has come up which makes it imperative\nthat you go soon on a special mission.”\n\nSerge, who was one of the newest members of the secret police, gasped at\nthe news that he was to be assigned to special work. He had been trained\nin Germany at Friedrichshafen for service in the lighter-than-air\ndivision of the Rubanian air force and only recently had been shifted\nunexpectedly and without explanation to the airplane division where he\nhad been given an intensive course in the handling of long-distance\nplanes. For the last month he had been supervising the construction of\nthe XO5, the latest type in Rubanian super air cruisers. Surprised\nthough he was at the news that he had been selected for a special\nmission. Serge felt that he was ready for whatever task might be\nordered.\n\nThe dictator of Rubania spoke again, his words cracking through the\nmidnight stillness of the room.\n\n“You are all well aware,” he said, “that the United States is our only\nrival in the building of dirigibles. Their Los Angeles is antiquated now\nbut their new Akron is superior to anything in the world. It is even a\nmightier fighting craft than the new Blenkko which we will launch next\nmonth. This must not be. We must be supreme in the air!”\n\nReikoff hammered the table with his fists to emphasize his determination\nand his face reddened at the thought that some nation might have men\nwith more brains and skill than his own engineers.\n\n“And now,” he continued, “comes more bad news. The National Airways,\nInc., largest passenger aviation company in the United States, has\nturned to dirigibles. They have been granted a large subsidy by the\nfederal government and now have under construction an airship that will\ndwarf anything the world has ever known. It is intended primarily for\npassenger carrying, between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but, it is\nso designed that it can be turned into a powerful fighting craft, a\nfloating mother ship in the sky that will be capable of housing a large\nnumber of fighting planes. If this dirigible, which has been named the\nGoliath, is completed and flies, America will remain supreme in the air\nfor at least four more years. It would take us that long to build such a\ncraft as their Goliath in our Blenkko aircraft plant. For America to\ncontinue supreme in the air is not in line with my plans. I do not\nintend that the Goliath shall rule the air.”\n\nSerge heard the last words with a sinking heart. He sensed what his\nmission would be. He knew now why they had rushed the XO5 to completion.\n\nReikoff was talking again.\n\n“Lieutenant Larko,” he said, “your mission will take you on a non-stop\nflight to the United States in the new XO5. Complete details will be\ngiven you later but this you must remember. On reaching the United\nStates it is essential that you crash your plane in some manner so that\nidentification will be impossible. You will then proceed to Bellevue\nwhere the Goliath is under construction and join the staff of the\nNational Airways.”\n\nWhen the dictator paused, Serge rose to ask a question.\n\n“But won’t they question my appearance at Bellevue?”\n\n“That will be arranged,” promised Reikoff. “Before you leave Rubania you\nwill be supplied with the credentials of a dirigible expert from the\nFriedrichshafen works in Germany. I warn you, however, that your mission\nwill be dangerous. The American secret service knows that I will let\nnothing stand in the way of Rubania’s supremacy in the air and they have\nbeen guarding this new dirigible with the greatest secrecy. Our agents\nin the United States have known for some months that the National\nAirways was building a ship to enter the transcontinental passenger\nservice but it was only two days ago that they learned the details of\nthe plans. Boris Dubra, one of our cleverest agents in America, has\nsecured employment at the main assembly plant under the name of Cliff\nBolton. You will work with him in the accomplishment of your mission.\nCompletion of the Goliath will mean domination of the skies for America.\nIt must not be.”\n\nThere was a chorus of agreement from the members of the supreme council\nof the Gerka grouped around the table.\n\n“The National Airways have ambitious plans for the Goliath,” went on\nReikoff.\n\n“Capt. John Harkins, probably the best dirigible commander in the world,\nwill be in charge of the big ship,” he said, fingering the yellow sheets\nof flimsy, the wireless reports from the American branch of the Gerka\nwhich had brought news of the Goliath and its menace to Rubania’s air\nleadership.\n\n“Construction at Bellevue is under the direction of Charles High, vice\npresident in charge of operations, and his son, Andy, who is reported to\nbe an unusually resourceful young scientist and who will be Captain\nHarkins’ first assistant.”\n\n“Your duty,” went on Reikoff, addressing himself directly to Serge,\n“will be to win the confidence of Andy High. In America you will be\nknown as Herman Blatz. Once you have done that you should be in a\nposition to bring about the destruction of the Goliath. You must learn\nits every secret. If necessary that the ship be allowed to fly in order\nto accomplish that goal, do not interfere until you have mastered every\nsecret of these American aircraft builders. When you have done that,\ndestroy the Goliath!”\n\nSerge nodded slowly. So this was why he had been drafted into the secret\npolice. He was to destroy the new king of the skies. Serge loved the\ngreat, gracefully looking airships on which he had been trained at\nFriedrichshafen and the thought of destroying one of them sickened him.\nBut he was a Rubanian, a member of the great army which lived as Alex\nReikoff dictated and he finally forced himself to accept the mission.\n\nThe meeting of the supreme council adjourned at two o’clock and Serge\ndrove hastily through the deserted streets of the capital until he\nreached the flying field where he was supervising the final work on the\nXO5, the new distance plane.\n\nMechanics were routed from their beds and set to work preparing the big\nmonoplane for its long flight across the Atlantic. For eighteen hours\nSerge worked feverishly over the craft, making test flights over the\nfield and checking every detail of the preparations. Satisfied that his\ncraft was ready, he rolled into a bed at the field and slept for twelve\nhours. Awakened at dawn the second day following the secret meeting of\nthe supreme council, he found Reikoff at the field to see him off.\n\nLast minute instructions followed, a checking of weather maps,\nacceptance of the secret papers which would put him in touch with the\nAmerican headquarters of the Gerka and the last words from Reikoff.\n\n“Learn the secrets of the Goliath; then destroy that air monster.”\n\nWith those words ringing in his ears. Serge climbed into the cockpit of\nthe dull-gray low-winged monoplane, opened the throttle, shot his squat\nlooking craft down the field and into the air. He circled the field once\nwhile gaining altitude. Then the young lieutenant of the Rubania air\nforce headed his ship westward. He had started his 6,000 mile flight to\nAmerica, a mission of destruction which was to involve the Goliath, its\nbuilders and especially Andy High, young assistant pilot.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe Air Monster\n\n\nBefore Andy High and the construction experts of the National Airways\nhad arrived to supervise the building of the Goliath, Uncle Sam’s newest\nbid for supremacy in the skies, Bellevue had been a sleepy little\nvillage in the heart of the bluegrass section of Kentucky. It had been\nselected as the construction site for several reasons. One of the most\nimportant was its location between two long rows of hills which insured\nit of protection from high winds. Another was its comparative isolation.\nThere were no main highways leading into the bluegrass town and only\none branch line railroad, which, however, was sufficient to handle the\nshipments of supplies.\n\nThe secrecy which shrouded the building of the Goliath was another\nfactor in the selection of Bellevue, for the isolated little village was\nhard to get to without being seen and it was a comparatively easy thing\nto guard all entrances to the valley.\n\nConstruction headquarters had been set up almost two years before the\nspring in which the Goliath was scheduled for trial tests. First had\ncome freight trains heavily laden with building materials. A little\nvillage of construction houses had gone up alongside the railroad to\nshelter the workmen whose task it was to build the great hangar which\nwas to house the Goliath.\n\nAs mighty as the hangar of the Akron was, that of the Goliath was even\nlarger. It measured 1,400 feet from one of its “orange peel” doors to\nthe other and was broad enough for the Goliath, when completed, to nest\ncomfortably alongside the Los Angeles, when that dirigible hopped over\nfrom Lakehurst for a friendly call.\n\nAndy High, son of the vice president of operations of National Airways,\nhad arrived with the first of the construction crews and had hardly left\nthe village during the two intervening years. His father, Charles High,\nand Capt. John Harkins, who was to be in command of the new sky king,\nhad shuttled back and forth between the assembly plant at Bellevue and\nthe various factories in other cities which were supplying materials\nwhich went into the construction. It had been Andy’s duty to stay on the\njob at Bellevue and see that every part of the carefully organized\nconstruction machine kept to its schedule for every day represented\nthousands of dollars to the National Airways and they made each working\nminute count.\n\nThe hangar had been completed and parts of the dirigible, much of which\nhad been fabricated at the Zeppelin plant at Akron, arrived by the\ntrain-load to be assembled in the big dome-shaped shed just outside\nBellevue.\n\nOn this particular spring morning, Andy was in his office just outside\nthe hangar, pouring over the set of blueprints for the big gondola which\nwas being assembled for the forward end of the dirigible. He was\nengrossed in the blueprints and failed to hear Bert Benson, who was to\nbe chief radio operator on the Goliath, enter the room.\n\n“Hello, Andy,” said Bert quietly.\n\nThe unexpected greeting startled the young aircraft engineer and he\njumped involuntarily. When he saw that his visitor was Bert he grinned\nsheepishly.\n\n“Sorry I jumped like that,” he said, “but we’ve been having so many\nmishaps in the last two weeks my nerves are on edge.”\n\n“I know it,” replied Bert gravely. “It’s been just one thing after\nanother. First something goes wrong here and then something turns up in\nanother part of the plant. Seems as though there was a hoodoo on this\nvalley.”\n\n“I wouldn’t exactly call it a hoodoo,” said Andy, “but we’ve certainly\nbeen having our share of tough breaks. I’ll be glad when Dad and Captain\nHarkins get back from Akron. Then we’ll be able to give more of our time\nto closer supervision of the plant and these accidents may be stopped.”\n\nThe words were barely out of Andy’s mouth when Bert, who had been\nlooking toward the far end of the hangar, gripped the young engineer\nhard.\n\n“Look, Andy,” he cried, “one of the doors at the other end of the hangar\nis opening!”\n\nAndy looked in the direction Bert pointed. There was no mistake. One of\nthe huge “orange peel” doors which sealed the ends of the hangar was\nswinging back on the railroad track on which it was mounted.\n\n“Something’s gone wrong down there,” said Andy sharply. “A crew is\nworking on top of that door this morning. They may be brushed off if\nthat door isn’t stopped at once.”\n\nBert realized the danger to men working on the top of the 225 foot, 600\nton door, and he nodded grimly. There was something decidedly wrong, for\nspecific orders had been issued that the doors were never to be opened\nunless Andy or Capt. Harkins were at the controls of the motors which\nmoved the giant doors.\n\n“Come on,” cried Andy. “We’ve got to stop that door.”\n\nThey left the office and jumped into Andy’s roadster which was parked\nnearby. With a clashing of hastily shifted gears, they roared along the\noutside of the hangar. While they dashed toward the end, the door\ncontinued its slow, relentless movement. At the top they could see a\nhalf dozen men clinging to the girders. The control room for the doors\nwas on the other side and Andy whipped his roadster around the end of\nthe hangar. He was out of the machine before it stopped and raced toward\nthe motor room with Bert at his heels.\n\nThere was no one at the control board and the powerful motors were\nhumming softly. With one swift movement Andy shut off the power and the\ngreat door stopped.\n\n“Run outside and tell that crew on top of the door to hang on for\nanother five minutes,” Andy told Bert. “Warn them to hold on tight when\nI start rolling the door in.”\n\nThe radio operator departed on the run and Andy, looking through a\nwindow, saw Bert megaphone with his hands and shout the warning to the\ndesperate crew clinging on top of the door.\n\nAndy threw over the controls and turned on the motors. He let the clutch\nwhich operated the door mechanism in easily and the great “orange peel”\nmoved slowly back into place.\n\nWhile the motors sang at their task, Andy’s mind was busy over this near\ntragedy. It could not have been an accident by the furthest stretch of\nthe imagination for motors do not start all by themselves and clutches\ndo not jump into place without a guiding hand. In the last two weeks\nthere had been one minor accident after another. It had been maddening.\nThe Goliath was scheduled to make its trial flights in two more months\nand there wast much remaining to be done. Each little delay meant\nvaluable time lost and Andy had about come to the conclusion that a\ndeliberate attempt was being made to delay the construction of the great\nship. He promised himself that there would be a thorough investigation\nof this latest incident.\n\nThe door finally rolled into place and the half dozen men who had been\nin danger of their lives quickly climbed down to a place of safety.\n\nAndy disengaged the clutch and shut off the motors. Bert returned and\nthey made a thorough inspection of the little room but found nothing\nwhich would identify the man who had started the motors.\n\n“Now I’ll tell you why I came into your office,” Bert told Andy after\nthey had securely locked the control room. “Last night someone tampered\nwith my radio equipment and broke up a lot of it.”\n\nAndy’s lips snapped into a thin, straight line.\n\n“How much damage was done?” he asked.\n\n“Not as much as I first feared,” replied Bert. “As luck would have it\nwhoever used the hammer destroyed experimental equipment and the\ninstallation for the Goliath is almost intact. He must have been an\namateur at the job or he would have singled out the set for the Goliath\nand smashed it.”\n\n“What you’ve told me and what’s just happened,” said Andy grimly, “makes\nme positive that there is a well-defined plot under way to injure the\nGoliath in every way possible. I thought we had a hand-picked crew that\ncouldn’t be bribed but it looks like I was wrong.”\n\nFrom the timber-covered hills behind the hangar came the sharp crackle\nof rifle fire, which was followed by a tense quiet as every man in the\ngreat hangar stopped work. When the rifle fire was not repeated, the\ncrews slowly resumed their work and Andy and Bert headed for the hills\non the run.\n\nSince the Goliath had been partially financed by a government\nappropriation and its construction embodied secrets valuable to the war\ndepartment, a military guard had patrolled the construction site from\nthe day the hangar had been completed and the actual assembly of the\ndirigible started. On a number of occasions they had apprehended men\ntrying to make their way into Bellevue and without exception the secret\nservice detail at the hangar had found them to be agents of foreign\ngovernments. They had been quietly sent to military prisons but in the\nlast few weeks there had been no such arrests and the vigilance of the\nguards had been relaxed somewhat.\n\nAndy and Bert were half-way up the slope to the guard line when they met\nMerritt Timms, chief of the secret service unit at Bellevue, coming down\nthe hill.\n\n“Anybody hurt at the hangar?” asked Timms anxiously.\n\n“No,” replied Andy. “We stopped the door in time. What happened on top\nof the hill?”\n\n“The guard had to stop a man who was trying to get away,” explained\nTimms. “I’ve been suspecting one of the motor mechanics for some time of\nsabotage and only ten minutes ago saw him sneak out of the control room\ndoor. A second later one of the doors started to open and I knew what he\nhad been up to. I saw you coming to shut off the power and I took after\nthis fellow. He knew he’d have to make a quick get-away and he tried to\nget past the guard line.”\n\n“Did he refuse to stop?” asked Bert.\n\n“Not only that,” replied the secret service chief, “but he attempted to\nshoot and the guard fired, but he wasn’t seriously wounded.”\n\n“I can’t feel very sorry for him,” said Andy, “when I think of the\nhalf dozen men, on top of the door, he almost killed. If the door had\nrun to the end of its track with the power still on it would have ripped\naway from its fastenings and perhaps have crushed an end of the hangar.”\n\n“Which is exactly what this chap wanted,” added Timms. “I’ve got a\nlittle leather packet here in which he carried some secret papers. We’ll\nhave a look at them.”\n\nThe name on the leather folder was that of Cliff Bolton, a common enough\nAmerican name, but the secret service man and Andy and Bert were in for\na surprise when they examined the contents. Documents there showed the\ntrue name of the spy to have been Boris Dubra, an agent of the dreaded\nRubanian Gerka, whose reputation for unscrupulous methods was known even\nin Bellevue.\n\n“This puts a new angle on the whole case,” said Timms gravely. “Of\ncourse you know that Alex Reikoff, dictator of Rubania, is determined\nthat his air force shall be the most powerful in the world. Until just\nnow we hadn’t discovered a single Rubanian agent trying to get through\nthe lines but it certainly looks as though Reikoff is definitely\ninterested in the Goliath, all of which means we will have to redouble\nour vigilance.”\n\n“But why should Reikoff have designs against the Goliath?” asked Bert.\n\n“It’s a long story,” replied the secret service chief, “but to boil it\ndown it means that he plans to make Rubania a world power through the\ndevelopment of a great air force. When his planes and dirigibles are the\npeer of anything else in the world, he will strike out for world power.”\n\n“Which would mean another war,” said Andy quietly.\n\n“Just exactly,” replied Timms, “and when the Goliath is completed and in\nthe air it will dwarf even the great dirigibles Reikoff has turned out\nat his Blenkko plant in Rubania. Now you understand why the Rubanian\nsecret police, or Gerka as it is better known, is interested in the\nGoliath. So far we’ve been pretty successful in checking sabotage and\nthis mechanic was the only man they could get into the plant.”\n\n“He was enough,” said Andy, “for had his plan succeeded and the door\nhave crushed an end of the hangar we might have been delayed for\nmonths.”\n\nThey walked slowly back toward the hangar, discussing further the events\nwhich had just taken place and planning for the tightening of the guard\nlines around the plant.\n\n“As soon as this agent of the Gerka is patched up in the hospital I’ll\ngo over and give him a thorough grilling,” said Timms as they reached\nthe hangar.\n\n“Let me know when you go,” said Andy. “I’d like to see what he has to\nsay.”\n\n“I’ll do that,” promised the secret service agent as Andy and Bert got\ninto the young engineer’s roadster.\n\nWhen they reached the little building which served as Andy’s office,\nthey found a messenger boy with a telegram for Andy.\n\n“Must be from Dad,” he said as he ripped open the envelope, “and believe\nme I’ll be glad to have him back here in charge of things.”\n\nAndy scanned the telegram; then he read it again hardly able to believe\nthe words which were typed on the yellow sheet.\n\n“What’s the matter?” asked Bert anxiously.\n\n“Nothing wrong,” grinned Andy, “but it’s news, big news!” With eyes\naglow and face reflecting his own enthusiasm he handed the telegram to\nBert.\n\n“Rush work with all possible speed,” said the message. “Have just\ncompleted plans for Goliath’s first official flight this summer which\nwill take us to North pole for an exchange of mail with the Submarine\nNeptune, which will be commanded by Gilbert Mathews.”\n\n“My gosh,” exclaimed Bert, “a trip to the North pole. Well, that is\nnews.”\n\n“I’ll say,” replied Andy. “Watch us make time from now on for there\nwon’t be any more accidents with this Rubanian secret agent out of the\nway.”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nMystery Plane\n\n\nThe change of the seasons was at hand and the last dirty patches of snow\nmelted under the rays of the March sun. Andy spread the news that the\nfirst official flight of the Goliath would take it into the polar\nregions and the crews inside the lofty hangar were filled with new\nenthusiasm and energy. They were making history, placing America in the\nforefront of the air-minded nations, and they thrilled at their task.\n\nIn the afternoon Andy helped Bert check over the damage which the agent\nof the Gerka had done to the radio apparatus and they were greatly\nrelieved to find that the set intended for installation on the Goliath\nworked perfectly.\n\nWhen Andy returned to his office, Bert accompanied him and they\ndiscussed the outlook for the polar flight.\n\n“It will be a real test of the Goliath,” said Andy, “and it means we’ll\nmake plenty of trial flights before we undertake a cruise into the\nnorthland.”\n\n“Why do you suppose your father decided on such a daring trip?” asked\nBert.\n\n“There has been some criticism of the government for appropriating a\npart of the money necessary for the construction of the Goliath,”\nexplained Andy. “This was especially true when it became known that the\ndirigible would eventually be used for transcontinental passenger\ntraffic. What most people do not realize is that the Goliath will be a\nveritable airship of the skies, a craft that can be turned from a\npeace-time airship into an aerial battleship if the United States is\never attacked by an enemy force. With its enormous cruising radius of\n15,000 miles without refueling it will be able to scout far from our\nown shores and uncover the approach of any enemy fleet.”\n\n“Then the whole idea of the polar flight will be to popularize the\nGoliath with the general public,” said Bert.\n\n“I expect that’s about how Dad’s figured it,” agreed Andy. “The trial\nflights will take us to a good many cities in various sections and as\nsoon as people get a glimpse of the Goliath they’ll be glad Uncle Sam\nappropriated funds to help build it. Once they’ve seen the airship\nthey’ll follow its polar flight with double interest and when the\nGoliath comes back from the north it will be a familiar name to everyone\nin the country.”\n\n“Sounds like a good idea,” nodded Bert. “This country needs to be\nair-minded or foreign nations like Rubania, which have dictators\nambitious to extend their powers, will put us on a shelf.”\n\nThe afternoon mail arrived and with it was a letter addressed to Andy\nand from the war department.\n\n“Wonder what’s up now?” he mused as he silt open the envelope. He read\nthe letter carefully for the war department communications were usually\nlengthy affairs which required careful scrutiny.\n\n“We’re going to have company,” Andy told Bert when he finished. “The war\ndepartment has granted permission for a dirigible expert from the\nFriedrichshafen works in Germany to come down here and study the general\nplans for the Goliath. He will probably remain until after the trial\nflights have been completed.”\n\n“How about our construction secrets we’ve been guarding so closely?”\nasked Bert. “It doesn’t seem right that we should let this fellow have\nthe run of the works.”\n\n“We won’t exactly do that,” explained Andy, “for this letter outlines\ndefinitely just what information to which the Friedrichshafen man is to\nhave access. Our own research department has had much help and advice\nfrom Dr. Hugo Eckener and his co-workers in Germany and it is only fair\nthat we return the favor as long as we do not divulge any of the\nmilitary secrets of the Goliath.”\n\n“Wonder what kind of a fellow he’ll be?” asked Bert.\n\n“You know as much about him as I do,” replied Andy. “Except that I have\nbeen told his name is Herman Blatz.”\n\n“That sounds like a brand of near beer,” grinned Bert. “Wonder if he’ll\nbe able to talk much English?”\n\n“I expect so,” nodded Andy. “Those chaps at the Friedrichshafen\nworks are cosmopolitan; they have to be the way the Graf Zeppelin\nhas been hopping from one hemisphere to another. A fellow certainly\nhas to hand it to Doctor Eckener for his work in proving how capable\nlighter-than-air craft can be.”\n\n“When will this expert from Germany arrive?” Bert wanted to know.\n\n“This letter doesn’t give an exact date, but I should imagine it would\nbe within the week. I’ll show it to Merritt Timms so he won’t have his\nsecret service men chasing Blatz out of here when he tries to get\nthrough the guard line.”\n\nBert stepped to the door of Andy’s small office and scanned the clear\nafternoon sky. He sniffed at the air eagerly. There was no mistaking it.\nThere was a real tang and zest of spring on the breeze. Beyond the great\ndoors of the home of the Goliath stretched a meadow which had been\nturned into an airport for the aviation experts who made visits to\nBellevue usually came in their own plane and ships of the National\nAirways dropped down several times a day.\n\n“It’s a wonderful afternoon,” said Bert suggestively.\n\nAndy left his desk with its blue prints and stepped to the door. He\nchuckled as he looked at the sky and then at the wind sock on the beacon\ntower.\n\n“That wasn’t, by any chance, a hint that it would be a nice afternoon\nfor a little vacation in the clouds?” he grinned.\n\n“Take it that way if you want to,” chuckled Bert. “There’s nothing that\nwould suit me better than a hop over the hills. I’ve been on the ground\nfor nearly a month; it’s been slushy and muddy underfoot and I’d like\nnothing better than a joy hop.”\n\n“Tell you what,” said Andy. “I feel the same way about it but I’ve got\nto check over the final specifications on the assembly of the control\nroom in the gondola. I’m about half through now. It will take half an\nhour to finish the job. As soon as I’m done I’ll meet you down on the\nfield and we’ll take a ride in my sportster. The sunset this afternoon\nis going to be grand.”\n\n“I’ll be waiting,” promised Bert and he left Andy alone to study over\nthe intricate set of blueprints. Final assembly of the main control room\nwas to start the next day and Andy wanted to be sure that he had every\ndetail in mind. In the absence of Captain Harkins this task would\nrequire his closest personal supervision and the son of the vice\npresident in charge of operations for the National Airways concentrated\non his task before him.\n\nAndy was a natural airman. He had first flown a plane at fifteen and at\neighteen had qualified for a transport license, which he had never had\ntime to use for from that time on he had devoted his attention to\ndirigibles. A year at Friedrichshafen under Doctor Hugo Eckener had\ngiven him a firm foundation for his later experiments in his father’s\nown laboratory and he had watched the building of the Akron at the\nGoodyear-Zeppelin plant in Ohio. When the National Airways had decided\nto go into the dirigible field and construct the Goliath, suitable for\npassenger service in peace time or as a battleship of the skies in time\nof war, Andy had been given an important role in the construction\nprogram. His technical advice was sound, based on his thorough schooling\nat Friedrichshafen and Akron, and his more advanced ideas were supported\nby the experiments he had made in his father’s laboratory.\n\nPlans for the Goliath had been worked out by Charles High, Andy’s\nfather, Captain Harkins, the chief engineer and pilot, and a special\nboard of army experts designated by the war department. If the Goliath\nlived up to the expectations of its builders, more ships of the same\ntype would be constructed in the Kentucky hills while the aircraft plant\nat Akron was enlarged to handle the construction of other ships the size\nof the Goliath. Secret plans of the National Airways and the war\ndepartment called for the eventual construction of ten of the giant sky\nliners, five of them at the Bellevue plant of the National Airways and\nthe rest at the Goodyear-Zeppelin factory at Akron.\n\nAndy completed his minute study of the blueprints and straightened up.\nHe was six feet one tall, with broad shoulders and a well-developed body\nthat revealed his love for sports in his hours away from his work. His\neyes were a clear, bright blue and his light hair had just a tinge of\nred, an indication of his temper when he was aroused to a fighting\npitch.\n\nThe sun had dropped behind the arched roof of the main hangar when Andy\nleft his office and started for the meadow beyond the huge structure. He\nhad been inside it at least a dozen times that day to watch the progress\nof the work on the Goliath but now, with the crews through for the day,\nhe couldn’t resist the urge to step in and gaze in silent admiration at\nthe great hulk that was soon to rule the skies.\n\nThe hangar was silent except for a few birds, which made their home\nthere. They wheeled high over the framework of the Goliath, chirping\ntheir defiance.\n\nStructural work on the Goliath had been completed several months before\nand crews of riggers had been busy since then testing and placing the\ngreat gas bags which would contain the precious helium, the life-blood\nof the great craft.\n\nSpecifications for the Goliath called for 12 of the large gas bags,\nwhich in reality were balloons held captive by the duralumin framework\nwith its covering of sturdy metal cloth. Ten of the large bags had been\ntested and were in place while the last two would be in place before the\nend of the week. There would be six in the forward half of the Goliath\nand six in the after section. In the space between them was the\nespecially designed hold which in peace time would be used for\ncargo-carrying and in war as the hold in which the Goliath would carry\nits swarm of fighting planes.\n\nThe framework of the Goliath was 850 feet long, sixty-five feet longer\nthan that of the Akron. It’s diameter was 135 feet, only three feet more\nthan the Akron but a new manufacturing process had increased the tensile\nstrength of the duralumin used in the Goliath so that it could stand\ndouble the strain of the metal used in any previously constructed\nairship. This process, which had been worked out by Captain Harkins with\nthe assistance of Andy, was one of the great features of the Akron. It\nwas expected that the ship would be able to withstand any storm of less\nthan cyclonic intensity and such an accident as befell the Shenandoah\nwas practically impossible.\n\nThe increased strength of the Goliath’s framework also allowed the\nmounting of more powerful engines, which meant greater speed. If the\nhopes of Andy and the other engineers were realized, the great craft\nwould cruise at 100 miles an hour with a top speed of 120, a decided\nadvantage over any other craft then in service.\n\nMechanics had been busy the last three weeks mounting the 12 engines\nwhich were to provide the power. Each engine was mounted in a separate\nengine room, completely insulated from the rest of the ship to do away\nwith the danger of fire and lessen noise. Power shafts would project\nthrough the side with six propellers on each side.\n\nAll of these facts Andy knew by heart and in the silence of the sunset\nhour he stood in awe before the sky king he was helping to create. In\ntwo more months the great doors would roll open, the huge mooring mast,\nwith the Goliath in tow, would waddle out on the concrete runway, and\nthe world’s greatest airship would be introduced to its public, some of\nwhom would welcome it enthusiastically while others would gaze at it\nwith questioning eyes, waiting for its trial flights to prove the claims\nof its builders.\n\nAndy knew that Bert was waiting for him out on the field and he finally\nforced himself to leave the hangar. He had lived with the Goliath for\nmonths and the great ship was almost a part of him.\n\nMechanics had warmed up Andy’s plane and the trim red sportster was\nready for the late afternoon spin.\n\n“I thought you weren’t going to show up,” Bert shouted. “Been in\n‘talking’ with the Goliath?”\n\nAndy grinned and nodded.\n\n“I don’t blame you,” shouted back Bert. “I go in there every once in a\nwhile and just sit down and look at it. Some ship!”\n\n“I’ll say,” replied Andy. “You’d better get into a sheepskin coat. The\nair will be a little nippy when we get up five or six thousand feet.”\n\nBert agreed with the suggestion and ran to one of the airplane hangars,\nwhich was dwarfed in the lengthening shadows from the Goliath’s home. He\nreturned with two coats, one for himself and one for Andy.\n\nThe sportster was an Ace two-place biplane with stubby wings, painted\nsilver, and a crimson fuselage. Andy had ordered up dual controls the\nweek before and had promised to give Bert flying instructions whenever\nthey had a spare hour during the spring.\n\n“Let your feet and hands rest lightly on the controls,” Andy told his\nfriend, “and whatever you do, don’t hang onto them. If you do I may have\nto clout you over the head with a wrench.”\n\nThey slipped into their parachute harnesses for Andy was a safe and sane\nflyer who believed in taking commonsense precautions. Bert climbed into\nthe forward cockpit and Andy slipped into the rear seat.\n\nThe motor was warm but he tested it thoroughly before waving to the\nmechanics to pull the blocks. The sun was a great red disk of flame when\nthey skipped down the meadow and raced into the air.\n\nBert, who had learned his radio knowledge at a department of commerce\nstation, had never had the opportunity to do much flying until he joined\nthe National Airways radio force and was assigned to Bellevue to take\ncharge of the installation of the equipment on the Goliath. He had\narrived the previous fall and during the winter had become Andy’s\nclosest friend. They were almost inseparable and Andy, realizing Bert’s\nambition to become a flyer, had promised to give his friend\ninstructions.\n\nBert studied each move of the controls and its effect on the maneuvers\nof the plane. At Andy’s suggestion he had read up on the principles of\naeronautics and understood the reason for the shifts in the stick and\nthe rudder bar.\n\nAt three thousand feet Andy leveled off and waggled the stick,\nindicating that Bert was to take control. The chunky little radio\noperator felt his heart go into his throat, but he took a firm grip on\nthe stick and moved it cautiously backward. The nose came up slowly. He\nmoved it ahead. The nose went down ever so slightly. He could fly; he\nwas flying!\n\nHe turned around and shouted at Andy in his excitement. The next moment\nhis head was snapped back against his seat. He gasped and jerked around\nto look at the controls. To his surprise the nose of the plane was in a\nsteep dive and he felt the pit of his stomach start to turn a flip flop.\n\nHe knew the thing to do was to pull back on the stick and he did so\nenthusiastically. The nose came up, the ground disappeared and he found\nhimself staring toward a bank of fleecy clouds that rolled along lazily.\nHis safety belt snapped tight and to his astonishment the ground whirled\ninto view again.\n\nAndy was signaling for the stick and Bert gladly turned over the\ncontrols. Andy throttled down and grinned at the radio operator.\n\n“Nice work,” he shouted. “I guess you’ve set a record. At least you’re\nthe only fellow I know who looped on his first flight.”\n\n“Who what?” cried Bert.\n\n“You looped,” replied Andy. “You did a nice piece of flying but I’ll bet\nit was more luck than sense.”\n\n“You’re right,” admitted Bert, who slumped down in his seat, glad enough\nthat Andy was back at the controls.\n\nAndy loafed around the field in easy circles, gradually gaining\naltitude. The sun was dropping over the horizon and the purple shadows\nthat preceded night were wrapping the countryside in their soft shroud.\nIt was a glorious feeling to be able to take to the air and for the\nmoment forget the pressing cares which he felt around him every minute\nhe was on the ground.\n\nThe sportster handled beautifully and Andy found himself at the six\nthousand foot level almost before he knew it. The air was growing colder\nand the shadows below deepened rapidly. He throttled down, preparatory\nto drifting down when he heard a cry from Bert.\n\nThe radio operator was shouting and pointing excitedly toward a bank of\nclouds in the east.\n\nAndy turned and saw a large gray monoplane, traveling fast and high,\nabove the cloud bank. The plane was different from any machine with\nwhich he was familiar and he decided to get a closer look at the\nstranger.\n\nThe other machine must have been up 10,000 feet and Andy opened the\nthrottle and sent the Ace scooting upward. At eight thousand he knew the\npilot of the other ship had seen him and the gray machine seemed to leap\nahead with a sudden burst of speed. They were directly over Bellevue, a\nprohibited flying area for any except army or National Airways ships,\nand Andy was curious to know who this flyer was who dared to defy strict\nair regulations.\n\nThe sportster was fast but in less than a minute he knew the other ship\nwas superior in speed. It was a squat, low-winged craft, evidently an\nall-metal machine and distinctly foreign looking in appearance. Andy\nmade a mental note that he’d get out his design guides when he landed\nand find out just what make of plane it was that could pull away from\nhis with such apparent ease. It was a useless chase and after five more\nminutes Andy gave up and swung the Ace back toward Bellevue while the\nstrange ship disappeared in the south.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nDanger in the Air\n\n\nThe landing field at Bellevue was shrouded in heavy shadows of the\nfast-coming night when Andy dropped his Ace sportster down after the\nfutile pursuit of the strange plane.\n\nMerritt Timms, the secret service chief, was waiting for them when the\nyoung engineer and the radio operator climbed out of the fuselage.\n\n“Did you get the department of commerce number on the fellow I saw you\nchasing?” he asked.\n\n“I should say we didn’t,” replied Andy. “He was too fast for one thing\nand for another, he didn’t have any number on his wings that I could\nsee.”\n\n“Outlaw plane?” asked Timms.\n\n“Yes,” replied Andy, “and a strange machine. I’ve never seen one exactly\nlike it. I’m going over to the office and see if I can check up on its\ndesign. I’ve some guide books there that may help us.”\n\n“How’s the Rubanian agent that was winged earlier this morning?” Bert\nasked the secret service man.\n\n“He’ll come through nicely,” replied Timms, “and probably spend about\nthe next five years in a military prison wondering what it is all\nabout.”\n\n“Have you had a chance to talk to him?” Andy wanted to know.\n\n“Not yet. I’m going over after supper. Want to come along?”\n\n“Yes,” said the young engineer. “How about you, Bert?”\n\n“Count me in,” replied the radio operator. “It’s too bad he’s wounded.\nI’d like to give him a punch on the nose after all the damage he did to\nmy radio room.”\n\n“I don’t blame you,” chuckled Andy. “He certainly did mess things up but\nif he had been very intelligent he’d have recognized the installation\nfor the Goliath and have smashed it all to pieces. I guess we’ve been\nlucky after all.”\n\nWhen they reached the office Andy dug some reference books on airplane\ndesign out of a box and sat down to hunt for a description of the type\nof craft that he had encountered only a few minutes before.\n\n“I don’t think it was an American-made machine,” he said, “so we won’t\nwaste time hunting there. Let’s try the foreign designers first.”\n\nBritish, French, Italian and German divisions failed to furnish any\ndesigns similar to the craft he had pictured in his mind’s eye.\n\nThe Russians had a low-winged monoplane but the wing mounting was too\nhigh to answer the description of the craft Andy and Bert had seen.\n\nAndy turned on to the section devoted to the aviation activities and\ndesigns of the Rubanian air force. Here was something nearer what he\nsought. Pictured on one page was a low-winged machine with a streamlined\nfuselage that very nearly answered the description of the machine he had\nseen. A footnote added that planes of this type were in production at\nthe Blenkko works near Kratz, the Rubanian capital, but that it was\npossible minor changes might be made in them when they were put through\nactual air tests.\n\n“How does this picture strike you?” Andy asked Bert.\n\n“Looks almost exactly like the monoplane we chased,” replied the chubby\nradio operator.\n\nMerritt Timms was intensely interested in the description of the\nRubanian plane.\n\n“I’m not surprised,” he said, “and I have a hunch we’ll find that it was\na Rubanian monoplane.”\n\n“But how could it get clear over here?” asked Bert.\n\nTimms pointed at the specifications of the monoplane which were printed\nunder the picture.\n\n“Cruising range 7,000 miles,” read Bert.\n\n“That would give a good flyer an ample margin to fly from Rubania to\nBellevue,” said Timms, “and such a feat isn’t at all impossible.”\n\n“You talk as though you thought the Goliath was in great danger of\ndamage by Rubanian agents,” said Bert.\n\n“I don’t think now; I know,” replied Timms gravely, “for you may be sure\nthat there is danger connected with anything in which Alex Reikoff,\ndictator of Rubania, is interested. Will you write a brief description\nof this plane?” he asked, turning to Andy.\n\n“It won’t take five minutes,” promised Andy.\n\n“Thanks,” said Timms. “I’ll have a complete description broadcast and\nwe’ll be sure to pick him up somewhere. He can’t fly on forever and\nhe’ll find that disobeying Uncle Sam’s orders and flying over a\nforbidden area is not to be joked with.”\n\nAndy wrote a brief but thorough description of the mystery plane and\nTimms departed to get his message on its way to the broadcasting\nstations from which a complete description and warning to watch out for\nthe gray monoplane would soon be sent to hundreds of thousands of\nlisteners.\n\n“Think Timms will be able to pick up the flyer of this Rubanian plane?”\nBert asked.\n\n“It will be something out of the ordinary if he doesn’t,” replied Andy.\n“Timms may be a little slow to get started but once he is on the job he\nis like a bull dog; he never gives up.”\n\nAndy made sure that all of the precious specifications for the Goliath\nwere in the big steel vault before he locked the office. They walked\ndown to the one hotel, where they had made their home while in Bellevue,\nand cleaned up for supper. A regular mess hall had been built at the\nplant for the crews, who worked, ate and slept in the buildings erected\nbeside the hangar, but technicians and crew foremen lived at the hotel.\n\nThe two long tables in the dining room were well filled when Andy and\nBert entered and they were joined a minute or two later by Timms.\n\n“The alarm will be all over the country in another fifteen minutes,”\nsaid the secret service man, “and we ought to have some news either\ntonight or the first thing in the morning.”\n\nStructural experts, gas experts, motor specialists and expert fitters\nwere at the table and the talk, as it always did, centered on the\nGoliath, how much progress had been made that day, what they would do\nthe next and to speculation on the exact day the big ship would take the\nair and what would be its destination on its first official flight.\n\n“Any news on where we’ll go on our first long trip?” one of the motor\nexperts asked Andy.\n\n“Sure,” replied the young engineer. “We’re going to the North pole to\nexchange mail with the submarine Neptune this summer.”\n\n“What!”\n\n“Quit your kidding.”\n\n“Say it again.”\n\n“You’re dreaming.”\n\nThese and a chorus of similar exclamations greeted Andy’s quiet\nstatement. He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that most of the men\nin the room thought he was joking and he had to repeat his statement two\nmore times before they took him seriously.\n\n“Wait a minute,” he added. “I’ll read you the telegram that came this\nafternoon.”\n\nHe pulled the message from his pocket and read his father’s words. When\nhe had finished they were all grave. There was no question now. They\nwere going to the North pole on their first great test of the new\nairship. Every man in the room knew something of the dangers of a polar\nflight and they admired Andy’s father for his courage in sending the\nGoliath on such a voyage.\n\n“We’ll make a lot of flights to various cities in this country,”\nexplained Andy, “before we start on the long trip north so the ship will\nhave a thorough test and we’ll know just exactly what she’ll do.”\n\n“She’ll do everything the specifications call for and more too,”\nexclaimed one of the rigging foremen and his words represented the\nsentiment of every expert in the room for they all had explicit\nconfidence that the Goliath would live up to expectations of her\ndesigners and builders.\n\n“When do you think we’ll be ready for the test flights?” one of the\nhelium experts asked Andy.\n\n“With the polar trip definitely decided on,” replied Andy, “we’ll have\nto be in the air before the end of the next sixty days. That means we\ncan’t afford even a single hour’s delay on the assembly schedule and we\nmay have to lengthen the shifts in order to get through.”\n\n“We’ll work 24 hours a day if we have to,” said one of the enthusiastic\nforemen, for after nearly two years of exacting construction work, they\nwere all anxious to see the Goliath test its wings.\n\nThe remainder of the supper hour was devoted to heated discussions of\nthe various features of the dirigible, and who would be selected for the\ncrew. Every man in the room hoped that he would get by the final weeding\nout process and win a permanent berth on the world’s largest airship.\n\nTimms was waiting for Andy and Bert after supper in the lobby of the\nhotel.\n\n“I’m going over and talk to the Rubanian,” he said. “Better come along.”\n\nThey were about to leave the lobby when the program of dance music which\nwas coming in on the radio stopped abruptly for a station announcement.\n\n“Wait a minute,” said Bert. “They haven’t stopped for the usual station\nidentification. They cut that piece off in the middle.”\n\nThey went closer to the receiver and it seemed as though the announcer\nin the station miles away had seen their movement for he started his\nannouncement at once.\n\n“We have just received a special bulletin,” said the voice on the ether\nwaves. “A powerful monoplane, of low-winged construction, was sighted\njust at sunset near Bellevue, Ky. It was flying over a restricted area\nin violation of department of commerce rules. The machine is fast and\nslate-gray in color. There appeared to be only one man in the machine\nand from the description at hand it is evidently of foreign make. It is\npossible that some European flyer, on a secret long-distance flight, has\ncrossed the Atlantic, and, unaware of the department of commerce\nregulation, flew over Bellevue, home of the giant airship Goliath. Now,\nnews hounds, get busy and let’s see what you can find out about this\nstrange, low-winged monoplane. Any information should be sent direct to\nthis station. Our program of music will continue.”\n\nThe voice stopped and the dance band which was featured at that hour on\nthe air resumed.\n\n“That ought to get results,” said Andy. “Anyone listening in on this\nprogram who has heard or seen a plane in the last two hours will\nundoubtedly send in a report.”\n\n“We’ll have a lot of misinformation,” said Timms, “but a real clue may\ndevelop.”\n\n“How many stations carried that announcement?” asked Bert.\n\n“The message was sent to about 50 of the major broadcasters,” replied\nTimms, “and every one of them will put it on the air.”\n\n“In other words, you covered the whole country,” grinned Bert.\n\n“That’s what I hoped to do,” replied Timms. “Now we’ll see just how much\nvalue the radio is to the secret service in an emergency when we need\nthe cooperation of the public.”\n\n“You’ll have something definite before midnight,” predicted Bert, who\nwas quick to rise to the defense of his chosen profession.\n\n“It’s seven-thirty now,” said Andy, glancing at the clock in the lobby.\n“That gives you four and a half hours.”\n\n“That’s enough,” replied Bert. “If there isn’t some real clue by that\ntime I’ll buy your suppers tomorrow night.”\n\n“And if you win?” Andy asked.\n\n“Then I’ll eat supper tomorrow night and the next on you two,” grinned\nBert.\n\n“I’ll buy your suppers for a week,” promised Timms, “if we know by\nmidnight where this mysterious plane went.”\n\nThe doctor in charge of the little emergency hospital which was a part\nof the National Airways equipment at Bellevue informed them that Dubra,\nor Cliff Bolton as he had been listed on the payroll, was resting easily\nand in condition to talk.\n\nThe Gerka agent was in a private room and a soldier was seated across\nthe hall, facing the door. The windows were barred and there was little\nchance that Reikoff’s secret agent would go free until Uncle Sam decided\nhe had paid the penalty for his treachery.\n\nDubra was propped up on pillows, reading an evening paper. He looked up\nexpectantly when they entered but the moment he saw Timms he became\nsullen. The radio down the hall was plainly audible and Andy recognized\nthe music of the dance band they had heard over the receiving set at the\nhotel. Unquestionably Dubra had heard the emergency announcement. Andy\nwondered if there had been any connection between Dubra’s attempt to\nwreck the hangar that morning and the arrival of the Rubanian plane. It\nwas logical to believe that it was part of a carefully laid out plot. He\nhad thought the Goliath safe from an air attack by a jealous foreign\ncountry but if the gray plane they had sighted that afternoon proved to\nbe a Rubanian ship, they would have to station several fast army pursuit\nships at the field or perhaps install searchlights to ward off any night\nattack. Possibilities of destruction of the Goliath by an air attack\nwere limitless and Andy grew sick at the thought that the great ship,\nwhich represented the labor and love of hundreds of men, was in danger\nand he looked at the wounded agent of the Gerka with little sympathy.\n\n“How do you feel tonight?” Timms asked Dubra.\n\n“How do you suppose?” was the sullen reply. “I’ve got two bullet holes\nin my right leg and another in my left one.”\n\n“You’re lucky you didn’t get one through the heart,” replied Timms\ncheerfully.\n\n“You’ll suffer for this outrage,” promised Dubra, whose eyes shifted\nfrom the secret service agent to Andy, then to Bert, and back to Timms.\n\n“Just as soon as my government learns of this unwarranted attack you’ll\nbe in enough trouble to last you the rest of your life.”\n\nDubra’s bravado angered Timms, who spoke fiercely.\n\n“Shut up and listen to me,” said the secret service agent. “You’re a\nRubanian resident who posed as a naturalized American. You entered this\ncountry unlawfully, you’re a secret agent of the Gerka, you attempted to\ncommit murder this morning when you turned on the power of the hangar\ndoor and almost killed a half dozen men working on it, you attempted to\nescape from a military reservation and were shot when you failed to obey\nrepeated commands to halt. A full report of this has been forwarded to\nthe department of justice. You’ll be lucky if you don’t spend the rest\nof your life behind the bars at a military prison for remember, Dubra,\nthat military, not civil, courts will deal with your offense and army\ncourts are well known for the severity of their sentences on scoundrels\nsuch as you.”\n\nThe concise, bitter indictment by Timms broke Dubra’s spirit of bravado\nand the agent of the Gerka cringed as he thought of his black future.\n\n“How much were you to be paid for wrecking the hangar?” asked Timms.\n\nDubra refused to answer.\n\n“How much?” Timms repeated the question.\n\nStill no answer.\n\n“All right, boys,” said the secret service agent. “We’ll just turn off\nthe light and leave Dubra alone in the dark tonight. He has plenty to\nthink about. Oh, yes, I’ll tell the orderly down the hall Dubra’s to\nhave no water to drink and any calls from this room are not to be\nanswered.”\n\nTimms reached for the light switch and Dubra suddenly changed his mind.\n\n“I’ll talk, I’ll talk,” he cried, “only don’t leave me alone in the\ndark. Something might happen. What do you want to know?”\n\n“Are you the only agent of the Gerka in the plant now?” asked Timms, his\nwords snapping through the quiet of the room.\n\n“Yes,” replied Dubra so quickly that the others were convinced he had\ntold the truth.\n\n“And your job was to wreck the hangar and delay construction until\nanother and more powerful agent could get here and finish the job of\nsabotage against the Goliath?” went on Timms.\n\nThis time there was no reply to the question and Dubra turned his face\ntoward the wall.\n\n“I’ll give you a minute to make up your mind,” said Timms.\n\nThe seconds ticked away and there was no sound from any of the four in\nthe small room.\n\n“Make up your mind,” warned Timms. “Ten more seconds and the lights go\nout.”\n\nThe secret service chief, Andy and Bert turned to leave the room. They\nwere on the threshold when Dubra called them back.\n\n“My job was to wreck the hangar,” he confessed, the words coming slowly\nand evidently with the greatest reluctance.\n\n“Who is going to attempt to wreck the Goliath?” demanded the secret\nservice chief.\n\n“I don’t know,” whispered Dubra. “The Gerka doesn’t work that way. Each\nof us is assigned a specific task to carry out independent of anyone\nelse.”\n\n“Then you don’t know who flew that gray monoplane over here this\nafternoon?” asked Andy.\n\n“I didn’t know a monoplane came over.”\n\n“Don’t lie,” said Timms. “If you didn’t hear the noise you certainly\nheard the announcement over the radio just a few minutes ago. Did you\nexpect someone to make a long-distance flight from Rubania for the\npurpose of destroying the Goliath?”\n\n“I didn’t expect anyone,” replied Dubra.\n\n“But someone else was to carry out the attack on the Goliath?” persisted\nTimms.\n\n“Yes,” whispered Dubra.\n\n“That’s enough for the present,” said Timms. “Let’s go, boys.”\n\n“You promised Dubra some pretty rough treatment if he wouldn’t talk,”\nsaid Bert when they left the hospital.\n\n“It was bluff, pure and simple,” smiled Timms, “but he’s in a precarious\nsituation and is smart enough to realize that his case will be handled\nby a court-martial. He’s between two fires. If he talks too much his own\norganization, the Gerka, will revenge themselves on him. If he refuses\nto talk to us, his penalty will be doubly severe.”\n\n“At least the talk with Dubra did one thing,” said Andy gravely. “We\nknow for sure that the Goliath is in grave danger and that the man\nselected to carry out its destruction has not yet arrived at Bellevue.”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNo Clues\n\n\nOn leaving the hospital after questioning the agent of the Gerka, Andy,\nBert and the secret service chief walked over to Andy’s office. There\nthey discussed plans for additional precautions in the guarding of the\nGoliath.\n\n“I’m convinced now,” said Andy, “that the plane we sighted this\nafternoon was a Rubanian ship. Either the pilot had made a non-stop\nflight across the Atlantic or he stopped at some remote place where\nthere was little chance that news of his landing would spread, took on\nadditional fuel, and continued here.”\n\n“The fact that we were up sky-larking may have prevented a bomb attack\non the Goliath,” said Bert.\n\n“That’s possible,” conceded Timms, “but I doubt that Rubania would dare\nto use such an open and violent method. An air attack would mean war\nwith popular sentiment of the world with the United States.”\n\n“A more likely explanation,” said Andy, “is that the agent who is to\ncarry on the actual campaign of destruction against the Goliath arrived\nin the plane we sighted.”\n\n“I’m inclined to believe as you do,” Timms told Andy. “Our first step,\nafter doubling the guards around Bellevue, will be to trace this strange\ncraft. I’m hopeful that the radio appeal will bring results.”\n\n“I know it will,” said Bert confidently.\n\n“Dad will be back within a day or two,” said Andy, “and I’ll be mighty\nglad to turn the responsibility of this whole affair over to him. When\nhe’s back on the job, we’ll take a whirl at finding this unknown agent\nof the Rubanian Gerka who is to destroy the Goliath,” he told Bert.\n\nTimms was busy with a long-distance call to the department of justice in\nWashington, informing his chief there of the latest development at\nBellevue. When he finished, he turned to talk with Andy and Bert.\n\n“Half a dozen army pursuit planes, fully equipped for combat, will drop\ndown here tomorrow morning,” he said. “They’ll remain until the Goliath\nis ready to take the air and after that at least two of them will\naccompany the big ship on all of its trial flights. In addition, an\nanti-aircraft battery with complete night lighting equipment will arrive\nbefore sundown tomorrow.”\n\n“That ought to insure us against the success of any attack from the\nair,” said Andy.\n\n“From the air, yes,” conceded Timms, “but our danger will lie from an\nattack within. Everyone who comes on the reservation from now on will be\ndoubly checked.”\n\nBy ten o’clock that night every possible precaution to safeguard the\nGoliath had been taken. The military guard around the grounds of the\nNational Airways reservation had been doubled, and extra watchmen had\nbeen placed at the hangar. It didn’t seem humanly possible for anyone to\nget within the lines without discovery.\n\nDescriptions of the mysterious plane had been broadcast hourly from the\nprincipal radio stations and a mass of information had been received,\ntelegrams having been relayed from the radio stations to which they had\nbeen sent.\n\nThese messages were checked, one by one, against the large map which had\nbeen hung on one wall of Andy’s office. On this map had been worked out\nthe probable course of the strange plane. It had come out of the\nnortheast, swung over the home of the Goliath, and then darted away in a\nsoutheasterly direction, heading toward the mountains.\n\nTelegrams which failed to indicate a plane in this general line of\nflight were consigned to the wastebasket. The few that might furnish\ninformation were studied carefully but in a majority of cases the\ndescription of the plane which the sender of the message had seen failed\nto come close to that of the machine they sought.\n\nTimms found several messages which appeared worth telephone calls to the\nsenders but on each occasion he was doomed to disappointment.\n\n“I thought you said we’d have some definite news before midnight,” he\ntold Bert.\n\n“There’s nearly two more hours,” replied the radio operator hopefully. “I\nwon’t concede defeat until the last minute.”\n\nTimms snorted and turned to another handful of telegrams that had just\nbeen forwarded. He was half-way through the pile when an exclamation\nbrought Andy and Bert to his side.\n\n“Read that,” said the secret service agent, tossing a yellow sheet to\nthem.\n\nThe message had been sent from Alden, a small town in the mountains of\nsoutheast Kentucky.\n\n“Plane crashed near here early tonight. Description appears to tally\nwith that broadcast. From wreckage it must have been a low-winged\nmonoplane, painted gray. No trace found of pilot.” The message was\nsigned by Frank Hacke, editor, the Alden Advocate.\n\n“Who said the radio wouldn’t bring results?” demanded Bert. “This message\nlooks like a real tip.”\n\n“It does,” agreed Timms, reaching for the phone and placing a long\ndistance call for the editor of the Alden paper.\n\nHalf an hour elapsed before the operator was able to get the call\nthrough and Timms fumed with impatience. When the wire was finally\ncleared for his conversation, he fairly leaped at the telephone.\nQuestion after question was fired over the wire and Andy and Bert, from\nthe very tenseness of Timms’ attitude, knew that the secret service man\nwas getting valuable information. His final words were highly\nsignificant.\n\n“I’ll be there as soon as possible. If I can fly in, have auto lights\nturned on to mark the boundaries of a field that is safe for a landing.”\n\nTimms banged the receiver on the hook and turned to Andy and Bert.\n\n“We’ve found the wreckage of the gray plane,” he said. “It smacked into\nthe side of a mountain about three miles from Alden. The editor of the\npaper was one of the first ones to reach the scene but they were unable\nto find any trace of the pilot. We’ve got to get to Alden at once for we\nmustn’t let that flyer get away. He’s the man who is slated to bring\nabout the actual destruction of the Goliath.”\n\nThe words rang through Andy’s head. The pilot had somehow escaped in the\ncrash. It was possible to crack up a ship without injury but it was more\nlikely that the man they sought had jumped while the plane was in\nflight, drifting down in his chute and leaving the plane to crash to its\nown destruction.\n\nAndy heard Timms asking if he could fly him to Alden that night. He\nreplied almost mechanically and then hastened out of the office and down\nthe field to rout out several mechanics, who rolled his red sportster\nout on the concrete apron and checked it thoroughly. The motor sent\nechoes blasting through the stillness of the night as Andy himself\ntested it.\n\nHe was joined several minutes later by Bert and the secret service\nagent.\n\nTimms climbed into the forward cockpit and Bert started to crowd in with\nhim.\n\n“Sorry, Bert,” called Andy. “You’ll have to stay on the ground this\ntrip. The Ace is only a two-place job and I can’t afford to overtax its\ncapacity tonight. I’ll need all my speed and climbing ability in dodging\nover the mountains.”\n\nBert was keenly disappointed but he knew the truth of Andy’s words and\nhe dropped back to the ground.\n\n“I’ll warn Alden that you’re coming by air,” he said, “and they’ll be\nsure to have a field marked in some way.”\n\n“Fine,” yelled Andy. “See you tomorrow.”\n\nFlame licked around the exhaust vent of the motor as Andy opened the\nthrottle. The Ace came to life with a quick flirt of its tail. The\nriding lights gleamed sharply in the night; then were swallowed in the\nhaze of dirt swept up from the field by the wash of the propeller.\n\nAlden was just a little under an hour of fast flying from Bellevue and\nAndy opened the Ace up until they were skimming through the half clear\nnight at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. The lights of Bellevue\ndisappeared as if blotted out by the hand of an unseen giant and they\nwere alone in the sky.\n\nAndy had plotted a compass course and he followed it closely for Alden\nwas tucked away in the mountains and he could easily miss the village if\nslightly off course.\n\nBy the end of the first half hour the clouds had cleared and a thin moon\ntried vainly to dissipate the blackness of the night. Lights on the\nground were few and far between with midnight almost at hand. The air\nwas raw and Andy snuggled deeper into the sheepskin he had donned for\nthe trip. He checked the time and compass again. Alden should show on\nthe horizon any moment if his calculations were correct. Another two\nminutes passed and he sighted a glow of light to the left. He nosed the\nAce over and dropped lower.\n\nLights below flashed on and off. He blinked his riding lights and those\non the ground answered. There was no way of detecting the direction of\nthe light wind and Andy had to take a chance that there were no bad\nground currents. He skimmed over the field to determine its length. It\nappeared to be on a side-hill for level stretches of land were few and\nfar between in that section of the state. The field was long enough for\nan easy landing and he cut the motor and slid down the invisible trail.\n\nHe was going in too fast and he opened the throttle and zoomed into the\nsky for another try. The second time he stalled all the way down,\ndrifted over the top of the car whose lights marked the near end of the\nfield, and dropped to an easy landing. He swung the Ace around and\ntaxied back over the uneven field. A group was waiting when they climbed\ndown from the cockpits.\n\nFred Hacke, the editor, stepped up and introduced himself. With him was\nSheriff Jud Barnes, a six foot two man of the mountains who was proud of\nhis great, booming voice.\n\n“Get in my car,” said the sheriff, “and I’ll run you over to the hill\nwhere that airplane busted.”\n\nFor half an hour they bounced over a rough mountain road and were glad\nenough when the sheriff stopped the car and led the way through a patch\nof timber. The grade was steep and they were compelled to rest several\ntimes. Finally they came to a small clearing, crossed this and just\nbeyond saw a darker mass against the trees. The sheriff turned his\nflashlight on a tangled pile of cloth and metal, the broken remnants of\nthe machine Andy had chased only a few hours before.\n\nThe editor and his party came up and they made a thorough inspection of\nthe wreckage. Motor numbers and the name of the maker had been filed\naway, the plates on the fuselage had been removed and every means of\nabsolute identification taken off. In spite of this Andy and the secret\nservice agent were positive that the plane was of Rubanian make and that\nan agent of the Gerka had been at the controls when it had been sighted\nat Bellevue.\n\n“We haven’t found the flyer yet,” said the sheriff. “Maybe he spilled\nout somewhere before the wreck. We’ll search the hills in the morning.”\n\n“I don’t think it will do any good,” replied Andy. “The chap that was\nflying this machine undoubtedly took to his parachute. He may have\nlanded some miles away. If the controls were locked before he jumped,\nthe ship could have cruised alone for three or four minutes on a quiet\nnight like this.”\n\n“We’ll have a look anyway,” said the sheriff, and Andy and Timms decided\nto remain at least until noon to see if the searching parties discovered\nanything of importance.\n\nThey returned to Alden, took a room at the hotel, and slept until dawn.\nAndy went out to the field where they had landed and went over the Ace\ncarefully while Timms accompanied the sheriff into the hills.\n\nThe secret service agent returned at noon and announced that the search\nhad proved fruitless. There were no more clues, either at the scene of\nthe wreck or in the nearby hills, and they decided to return to Bellevue\nat once.\n\nAndy got the Ace off the improvised airport without trouble and they\nheaded for home through the bright rays of the spring sun. As they sped\nover the tree-covered hills, Andy flew mechanically, his mind busy on\nthe new problem which confronted them. There was no question now. The\nGoliath was in serious danger and every means at their command must be\nused to protect the great airship, destruction of which would mean the\nruin of the National Airways, which had invested millions in its\nconstruction. But more than the mere financial loss which it would mean\nwas the month of labor by the loyal crew, the years of planning on the\npart of his father and Captain Harkins, and his own love for the great\ncraft.\n\nAn attack from the air was improbable for the Rubanian agent had wrecked\nhis own plane deliberately. Whatever happened would be caused by someone\nwho had easy access to the hangar and Andy resolved that he would be\ndoubly vigilant in the days to come.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nThe Night Alarm\n\n\nWhen Andy taxied the Ace across the field at Bellevue and up to the\nconcrete apron, he found Bert waiting for him. The radio operator was\nnearly bursting with curiosity to learn what Andy and the secret service\nchief had found at Alden.\n\n“Control yourself, Bert, control yourself,” grinned Andy as he hoisted\nhimself out of the cockpit and slid to the ground.\n\n“You can’t blame me for being curious,” replied Bert, “when I’ve been\nmarooned here for the last twelve hours while you’ve been chasing\nexcitement all over southeastern Kentucky.”\n\n“That’s just it,” said Andy. “We were only chasing. We didn’t find a\nthing to give us thrill.”\n\n“No trace of the mysterious flyer?” asked Bert.\n\n“Nary a sign,” replied Andy. “We found where his plane had attempted to\nbore its way through the side of a hill but he had evidently dropped out\nsome time before in his chute. He’s probably securely hidden waiting for\na chance to bring about the destruction of the Goliath.”\n\n“That won’t be an easy thing to accomplish,” said Bert. “The guard lines\nhave been tightened so a bird can hardly fly over them without being\nstopped. The army planes came in before noon and any flyer who violates\nthe department of commerce regulations by flying over this air\nreservation will find a handful of slugs singing through his wings.”\n\nAndy nodded grimly as he looked at the group of army machines in front\nof a hangar further down the field.\n\n“We’re ready for business now,” he said. “I’d like to meet the officer\nin command.”\n\n“He’s a fine fellow,” enthused Bert. “Not much older than we are. His\nname is Lieutenant Jim Crummit of Selfridge Field, Mich. He’s one of the\nace pursuit flyers of the air force and the rest of the fellows with him\nare not far behind when it comes to handling a plane with a machine gun\non the business end of it. They’re just itching for something to\nhappen.”\n\n“I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed,” said Merritt Timms, who had just\nemerged from the cockpit, having experienced some trouble in unfastening\nhis safety belt. “They would have had plenty of fun if they had been\nhere yesterday but from now on the game will be played on the ground or\naboard the Goliath when it goes on its trial flights.”\n\n“Here comes Lieutenant Crummit now,” said Bert, stepping forward to\ngreet the tall young officer in command of the detachment from Selfridge\nField.\n\nBert introduced the lieutenant to Andy and the secret service agent, who\ncordially welcomed the army man to Bellevue.\n\n“Our field is a little bumpy but we’ll try and make up in hospitality\nwhat we lack in air accommodations,” said Andy.\n\n“The field is O.K.,” smiled Lieutenant Crummit. “A couple of the boys\ncame in too fast and bounced a little high but they’ll soon get over\nthat. We’re all glad to be here where we can watch the completion of the\nGoliath.”\n\n“I understand several ships will be detailed to accompany us on all\ntrial flights,” said Andy.\n\n“Those are the orders direct from Washington,” said the lieutenant. “Now,\nsomebody tell me what all the fuss is about?”\n\nThey walked over to the office where Andy and the secret service chief\nexplained in detail every event of the preceding twenty-four hours.\n\n“That does look serious,” said Lieutenant Crummit, “especially since you\nhave an admission from the agent of the Gerka you caught here that an\nattempt was to be made to destroy the Goliath. At least you can feel\nreasonably safe from an air attack. Anti-aircraft equipment with night\nlights will be in tonight and the unit also carries special microphones\nfor the detection of planes in flight. Any craft approaching here will\nbe known while it is miles away and we can give it a warm reception.”\n\nAssignment of the army flyers to quarters had been held up pending\nAndy’s return and he arranged for them to have accommodations at the\nhotel, six of the construction foremen agreeing to give up their double\nrooms and move over to the company houses on the reservation proper.\n\nIt was late afternoon before Andy was alone in his office with an\nopportunity to go over the day’s mail There were several important\nlooking letters on top but he shuffled through the stack until he came\nto one in his father’s familiar writing. He slit it open and read it\neagerly. It was with a real feeling of relief that he learned his father\nand Captain Harkins would return late the next day, coming in on a\nspecial National Airways plane. His father wrote that final arrangements\nhad been finished for all of the delicate apparatus which was to go into\nthe control room of the Goliath and that, unless there were unforeseen\ndevelopments, everything was now lined up so that construction would be\ncompleted ahead of schedule.\n\nThe afternoon freight train brought the anti-aircraft unit, with its\nsearchlights, field pieces and other equipment. The twenty-five men of\nthis company were housed in company quarters, which had been vacated\nonly the week before by a crew which had finished its work.\n\nBefore nightfall Bellevue had been turned into a truly military camp\nwith its strict guard around the grounds of the National Airways plant,\nthe army planes ready to take the air at any time of day or night, and\nthe great searchlights, crouching under their shrouds of canvas, eager\nto send their searing blue-white beams tracing through the night sky.\n\n“When a fellow looks over the field now,” said Bert as they walked to\nthe hotel for supper, “he realizes just how valuable the Goliath is to\nUncle Sam.”\n\n“We’ve got the jump on them now,” said Andy. “Dubra failed in his\nattempt to damage the hangar and is now in our hands. That means the\n‘inside man’ on whom Reikoff had counted for cooperation with this\nnewcomer from Rubania is out of the picture and our guard lines have\nbeen tightened until it is almost physically impossible for anyone to\nget through. But even with all those precautions, we’ll continue to keep\nour eyes and ears open.”\n\nSupper that night was a jolly affair, with introductions of Lieutenant\nCrummit and his companions to the engineers and foremen in charge of the\nbuilding of the Goliath. The army flyers were keenly interested in the\nconstruction of the great dirigible and Andy enjoyed Lieutenant\nCrummit’s practical inquiries on the stability of the big gas bag, what\nit was expected to do when in the air and its availability for war-time\nuse.\n\n“We know in a general way,” he said, “but nothing very definite has\nappeared on the actual capability of the craft.”\n\nAndy had an enthusiastic second in Bert and they went over a complete\noutline of the Goliath and its range, both in peace and war times, for\nthe army men. By the time they were through, supper was over and the\ngroup broke up in twos and threes and straggled into the lobby of the\nold-fashioned hotel. The air was chilly and a great fire had been built\nin the fireplace. Lights were low and there was a general spirit of\ncomradeship in the room. The radio had ceased its accustomed blare and a\nreally excellent orchestra, devoid of the usual advertising propaganda,\nwas playing familiar airs.\n\nSomeone started humming and in another minute the room was filled with\nlusty voices that took up the refrain. For half an hour they enjoyed the\nimpromptu concert until a messenger boy came in with a telegram for\nBert.\n\nThe young radio operator looked surprised as he fingered the yellow\nenvelope, turning it over as though half expecting to find the address\nof the sender on the back.\n\n“Now who under the sun could be telegraphing me?” he asked.\n\n“Better open it and find out,” suggested Andy.\n\n“A most original proposal,” replied Bert tartly. “It’s from Harry\nCurtis,” he cried as he read the message. “He’s going to the North pole\nas radio operator for Gilbert Mathews on the submarine Neptune.”\n\n“My gosh,” Bert continued in the same breath. “That means we’ll meet\nHarry at the North pole sometime this summer.”\n\n“Well, that is a coincidence,” said Andy, who had met Harry Curtis the\nyear before. Bert and Harry had served the department of commerce\ntogether and were close friends, a friendship which had not dimmed by\ntheir separation. Andy had taken a liking to Harry on their first\nmeeting. Harry had visited at Bellevue during the preceding summer and\ntheir friendship had developed rapidly.\n\n“What a thrill we’ll have saying ‘hello’ to each other in the Arctic,”\nhe said.\n\n“But that isn’t all,” added Bert. “It seems that your father and Mathews\nhave agreed to keep in touch with each other by radio so Harry has been\nordered here to check up on our radio equipment with me. We’ll arrange\nfor complete synchronization of the sets so that we’ll be able to get\nthrough to each other at any time.”\n\n“That sounds like Dad,” said Andy. “He’s always looking ahead and\nplanning for any emergency. It will take careful timing to bring both\nthe Neptune and the Goliath to the pole at the same time. Believe me,\nBert, you’re going to have an important job when the Goliath finally\nsticks her nose into the air and heads north.”\n\n“I’m commencing to realize how really important it is,” said Bert\nsoberly.\n\n“Hey, wait a minute,” he added. “I almost forgot one of the most\nimportant parts of this telegram. Harry said he was starting at once for\nBellevue.”\n\n“Good,” said Andy. “Where was the message sent from?”\n\n“New York,” replied Bert.\n\n“That means it will be tomorrow afternoon before he arrives,” reasoned\nAndy as he mentally outlined the train schedules between the metropolis\nand the isolated Kentucky valley.\n\nThe group in the hotel lobby broke up, most of the men going to their\nrooms to write letters or read while a few gathered around a chess\nboard. Andy had some correspondence to finish and he walked down to his\noffice. Reports for the day showed better than average progress had been\nmade on the Goliath and he wrote these into the permanent record of the\nconstruction of the mammoth craft.\n\nFor an hour he worked at his desk, catching up on the mail which had\ncome in that morning. All of it was routine with the exception of\nanother short notice from the war department that Herman Blatz, the\ncivilian observer from Friedrichshafen, would arrive at Bellevue the\nnext day. It added that every courtesy of the National Airways plant\nshould be made available to the newcomer.\n\nThe note irritated Andy. He was inclined to be suspicious of any\nnewcomer now but he realized that he would have to master that feeling\nfor they were deeply indebted to Doctor Eckener for his many\ncontributions to the advancement of dirigibles. Andy filed the letter\nfrom the war department and was about to leave his office and return to\nthe hotel when the blast of a siren cracked the night wide open. It was\nshrill, penetrating, alarming—the kind of noise that creeps up and down\nthe spine and makes the short hair at the back of the neck stand\nstraight up.\n\nLights flashed on in the anti-aircraft battery down the field. Hangar\ndoors swung open. Mechanics popped out of beds and into their clothes.\nCanvas hoods were ripped off the searchlights and the dynamos hummed\nwith energy.\n\nThe microphones had picked up the sound of an approaching airplane.\nPropellers of the army planes spun. Flame whimpered around the exhaust\nstacks. Ammunition belts were fed into the black, deadly little guns.\n\nAndy ran along the line of fighting planes. They were poised; eager for\nthe word to go. Every other light in Bellevue had been put out. There\nwas only the occasional flicker of the exhaust of one of the waiting\nplanes. He felt out of the picture; the army was in command. He stopped\nbeside Lieutenant Crummit’s plane and the army officer leaned down.\n\n“Room enough in here if you want to pile in and see this shindig,” he\nshouted.\n\nThe invitation was followed by the acceptance in action and Andy vaulted\ninto the cockpit of the speedy fighter. It was lucky they were both\nslender but even then it was a tight squeeze.\n\n“How do you know when to go?” asked Andy.\n\n“The plane was ten miles away and heading this way when the ‘mike’\npicked it up,” replied Lieut. Crummit. He glanced at his wrist watch.\n\n“The searchlights will go on in ten more seconds. We’ll start up the\nminute they fasten on anything.”\n\nThe words were hardly out of his mouth when the night awoke to a\nblue-white brilliance as the searchlights sent their beams soaring into\nthe sky. Back and forth moved the giant fingers of light, each one\ncovering a certain area. Any plane near the reservation was certain of\ndetection.\n\nThere was a cry from Lieutenant Crummit.\n\n“There it is,” he shouted as he gunned the pursuit ship. It seemed to\nAndy that they jumped straight into the air, so fast was the rise of\ntheir craft. Up and up they went, the brilliant light from below\npointing an unerring path toward the plane they sought. It was a black\nbiplane, fast and streamlined.\n\nThe pilot was twisting and turning to get away from the pursuing beams\nof light but his task was useless with the army pursuit ships rising\nfrom below in an angry swarm.\n\nThey were at two thousand feet in no time and level with the craft they\nsought. Lieutenant Crummit pressed the trigger of his machine gun and a\nstream of tracer bullets coursed through the night, singing past the\nmachine ahead.\n\nAndy saw the pilot turn a desperate, terror-stricken face in their\ndirection. Someone in the forward cockpit was waving. They drew closer.\nThe plane was giving up. A white handkerchief was being waved by the\npassenger.\n\nLieutenant Crummit drew closer and signaled for the black biplane to\nfollow him down. The pilot waggled his wings to indicate that he\nunderstood the order and they began the strange descent, Lieutenant\nCrummit and Andy in the leading plane, then the strange biplane followed\nby the five other army ships.\n\nThe operators of the searchlights changed the direction of their beams,\nturning them on the field to make it easy for the night landing.\n\nAs soon as their own plane had stopped rolling, Andy leaped out and ran\ntoward the black biplane. Lieutenant Crummit was only one stride behind\nand in his right hand he carried a service automatic.\n\nAndy was astounded to hear a familiar voice from the black plane.\n\n“What kind of a reception is this?” was the demand and he looked up into\nthe face of Harry Curtis, radio operator of the Neptune, whom they had\nnot expected until the following day at the earliest.\n\n“Who is this fellow?” Lieutenant Crummit wanted to know.\n\nAndy explained that Harry had been ordered to Bellevue to plan for the\nradio communication between the Goliath and Neptune during their Arctic\ntrips and Lieutenant Crummit broke into a broad smile.\n\n“At least we gave you a real army welcome,” he chuckled. “It’s lucky one\nof the other boys didn’t reach you first, though. This is restricted\nflying territory and he might not have sent his first burst of tracers\nalongside just as a warning.”\n\n“I was scared to death,” confessed Harry, who had climbed down from the\nplane just in time to receive a hearty greeting from Bert. “Believe me I\nsure scrambled around trying to get a handkerchief out of my pants\npocket.”\n\nThe civilian pilot of Harry’s plane came in for a severe reprimand from\nLieutenant Crummit, who warned him not to repeat the offense again.\n\nDynamos for the searchlights were turned off, planes wheeled back into\nthe hangars and Bellevue turned on its lights once more. They had had\ntheir first night alarm and the army men on the job had proved their\nability to handle the emergency.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nSuspicions\n\n\nAndy, Bert and Harry talked until far into the night, discussing the\nproposed meeting of the Goliath and the submarine Neptune at the North\nPole.\n\n“There’s no doubt in my mind,” said Andy, “that the Goliath will be able\nto make the trip on schedule. What I’m wondering about is the tin fish.”\n\n“You can cease worrying right now,” replied Harry. “The Neptune isn’t\na cast-off navy submarine refitted for a polar cruise. It’s a\nlong-distance underwater cruiser of the latest type and only a\nmulti-millionaire explorer like Gilbert Mathews could afford to operate\nsuch a craft. Believe me, it’s some boat.”\n\n“And believe me,” added Bert, “the Goliath is some airship. Wait until\nyou see it in the daylight. Its size will fairly take your breath away.”\n\n“I can believe you easily enough,” replied Harry, “for the eastern\nnewspapers have been carrying a great many feature stories about the\nGoliath. Only the National Airways haven’t been giving out a lot of\nactual facts and with reporters barred from the plant here, they’ve had\nto guess at part of the stories they’ve been printing. Everyone is\nanxious for an actual view of the big ship.”\n\n“You’ll be in on all of the previews,” Andy promised, “and if you stay\nwith us long enough I can promise you several trial flights.”\n\n“Bert and I will probably be through in a month,” said Harry. “Then I’ll\nhave to hop down to Brooklyn and make the final adjustments on the set\naboard the Neptune. After that’s done I may be able to get back here for\na few days. I’d certainly like to go along on the trial runs.”\n\nThere were no more alarms that night and finally the three young\nenthusiasts ceased talking and dropped into deep slumber.\n\nThe next day was clear with a warm sun and a definite note of spring was\nin the air. Birds, on their northward flight, wheeled over the hangar\nand the grass was a fresher, brighter green.\n\nAndy made the rounds at the hangar with Harry, an eager observer, at his\nside. Assembly of the main gondola was starting, a task which Andy was\nto personally supervise. In this large car would be located the control\nroom and the passengers quarters with their individual staterooms,\ndining salons and lounging quarters. Quarters for the crew were built\ninside the hull and in the middle of the ship between the banks of gas\ncells.\n\nHarry was properly impressed with the size of the Goliath and exclaimed\nat the engineering progress which had been made in its construction.\n\nAndy explained how the double-strength duralumin had increased the\nstrength of the frame to such a point that a disaster such as had\nbefallen the Shenandoah could not strike the Goliath.\n\n“How many passengers will you be able to carry when the ship goes into\ntranscontinental service?” Harry asked.\n\n“We’ll have sleeping accommodations for 200,” replied Andy, “and during\ndaytime runs between large cities will be able to carry an extra 100.”\n\n“Will the fares be pretty stiff?” asked Harry. “Not as much as you would\nexpect. They will average railroad plus Pullman.”\n\n“In that case,” said Harry, “you can be sure of capacity business for a\ngood many years.”\n\n“We’ll have to if National Airways is to break even on the operation of\nthe Goliath,” said Andy.\n\nBert, who had remained in the office to check over blueprints on an\nespecially complicated piece of radio equipment for the Goliath, hurried\nup.\n\n“Andy,” he said. “Herman Blatz is here.”\n\n“Who?” asked Andy.\n\n“Blatz,” repeated Bert, “Herman Blatz. He’s the civilian observer from\nFriedrichshafen.”\n\n“Of course,” grinned Andy. “I’d forgotten the name for a moment. What\ndoes he look like?”\n\n“Fine looking sort of a fellow,” replied Bert. “He’s just about our own\nage; not quite as tall as you are and dark; brown eyes and hair that is\nalmost coal black.”\n\n“If you don’t mind running back to the office,” said Andy, “tell him\nthat I’ll be along presently. I want to make sure that the assembly of\nthe gondola starts smoothly.”\n\nAndy became engrossed in the direction of the subforemen and their crews\nand he even forgot Harry, much less the newcomer who was waiting for him\nin the office.\n\nAn hour later Bert returned.\n\n“What’s the idea?” he demanded. “I thought you said you’d be along right\naway. Blatz has been cooling his heels for more than an hour.”\n\n“Sorry,” grinned Andy, who had been helping with the assembly. “I was so\ninterested I forgot all about him. I’ll come along with you.”\n\nThe young engineer crawled out from beneath the duralumin frame on which\nhe had been working, wiped his hands on a piece of waste, brushed off\nhis dungarees, the universal uniform of engineers, foremen and mechanics\nat the Bellevue plant.\n\nAndy stepped into his office, blinked his eyes to accustom them to the\ndark interior, and looked into the face of Lieut. Serge Larko, secret\nagent of Alexis Reikoff’s Grega, who had been assigned the task of\nbringing about the destruction of the Goliath. But Andy was to know the\nvisitor as Herman Blatz, civilian observer from Friedrichshafen, and he\nstepped forward with a cordial greeting.\n\n“We shall be delighted to have you with us,” said Andy, “and I must\napologize for my tardiness in greeting you. We have just started the\nassembly of the main gondola and I have been giving it my personal\nsupervision.”\n\n“The Goliath is that near completion?” asked Lieutenant Larko, who from\nhere on we shall speak of in his new role as Herman Blatz.\n\n“We’ll be making trial flights in less than two months,” replied Andy\nenthusiastically.\n\n“It was well that I arrived at this time,” said Blatz, “for I will be\nable to remain long enough for the trial flights.”\n\n“The war department communications indicated that you would probably\naccompany us on the test trips,” said Andy.\n\n“Yes,” replied Blatz. “Europe is greatly interested in the Goliath and I\nfeel it a rare privilege that I have been assigned here.”\n\nThe young German’s pronunciation of English was clear and precise, his\nwords close-clipped in the Teuton manner.\n\n“I understand that you have been at Friedrichshafen some time,” said\nAndy.\n\n“Yes,” replied Blatz, who dreaded questions about the Germany airship\nbase. He wondered how much this young American might really know about\nhim; how much he might suspect for he had sensed instantly that Andy was\nsuspicious of every newcomer.\n\n“I spent a year at Friedrichshafen,” said Andy. “It is possible that we\nknow a number of the same men there. Do you recall Bauer and Schillig,\nwho were the aces of the navigation class in 1929?”\n\n“The names are familiar,” replied Blatz, “but I went through navigation\nthe preceding year.” Harry and Bert came into the office and Andy\nintroduced the German expert and the radio operator of the Neptune.\n\n“You are going to carry a submarine radio operator on an airship?” asked\nBlatz.\n\n“Oh, no,” replied Bert quickly. He was about to explain that the Goliath\nand the Neptune were to meet at the North pole that summer but a warning\nglance from Andy silenced him, and he added, rather lamely.\n\n“Harry and I were department of commerce operators and he’s down here\nhelping me with the final assembly of the set for the Goliath.”\n\n“Very fortunate. I’m sure,” said Blatz.\n\n“You understand,” said Andy, “that there are certain construction\nsecrets which I can not divulge?”\n\n“Of course,” replied Blatz, “and I assure you that you need have no\nworry on that score.”\n\nAndy suggested that they make a tour of the plant and Blatz readily\nassented for he was anxious to see the Goliath. He had received some\nidea of the size when he had flown over at sunset two days before and\nglimpsed the hangar. As they walked toward the huge structure, he\nwondered who had chased him in the red plane. He had been tired after\nthe long flight across the Atlantic and had lost his way after striking\nthe Atlantic coast. He had not intended coming as close to Bellevue but\nwhen he finally got his bearings he was less than a hundred miles away\nand he could not resist the temptation. But it had been a foolish move\nfor a little red plane had darted out of the shadows below and pushed\nhim hard before he had escaped into the coming night. Another hundred\nmiles and he had slipped out of the cockpit of the Blenkko which had\nserved him so faithfully in the long flight from Rubania, and had\ndropped through the night in his chute. He had clutched a suitcase with\nfresh clothes and his precious identification papers as Herman Blatz in\nhis arms.\n\nThe landing had been easy and after washing the grime of the long flight\noff in a nearby creek, he had changed clothes; then burned his old\nclothes, the parachute and the suitcase. Into the fire had gone\neverything which would identify him as Lieut. Serge Larko of the\nRubanian air force on special duty as an agent of the Gerka. Out of the\ntimber and onto the highway had stepped Herman Blatz, who had\nhitch-hiked to the nearest town where he had rested for a day, bought a\nfresh wardrobe, and then continued by train and auto to Bellevue.\n\nA suppressed excitement gripped his whole being He had done the\nseemingly impossible, flown the Atlantic and made his way into this\ncarefully guarded dirigible plant, thanks to the clever subterfuge\nReikoff must have used in getting permission for a civilian observer to\nvisit Bellevue. He would get in touch with Boris Dubra, the mechanic who\nwas a member of the Gerka, at the first opportunity.\n\nThey entered the hangar and Blatz stopped involuntarily. Andy had\nexpected that reaction and it told him that the newcomer was a true\nairman for the majestic bulk of the Goliath usually struck those who\nwere viewing it for the first time speechless.\n\n“It’s inspiring,” gasped Blatz. “I never dreamed an airship could be so\nlarge.”\n\n“Of course it looks larger in the hangar than it really is,” said Andy,\n“but we’re rather proud of the Goliath.”\n\n“Friedrichshafen has never done anything like it,” said Andy. “Or, for\nthat matter, has anyone else in the world.”\n\n“You’re right,” nodded Blatz. “I wonder that you ever tore yourself away\nfrom here and came out to meet me.”\n\n“I’ve just about lived with the Goliath,” admitted Andy, “for Dad and\nCaptain Harkins have been forced to make many trips to see about\nmaterials. They will return this afternoon to greet you.”\n\n“I look forward to meeting two such famous men. The honor is great.”\n\nThey continued through the hangar, Andy pointing out and explaining the\nprogress which had been made on the component parts of the great\nairship.\n\n“One of the pleasantest years of my life,” said Andy, “was the one\npassed at Friedrichshafen. I recall the day I went up in one of the\nsmall dirigibles, the Strassburg, I believe. Karl Staab was at the\ncontrols and a wind squall hit us. It pushed us clear across Lake\nConstance and we were lucky to get home the same day. Karl was a great\njoker but a wonderful navigator despite that.”\n\n“Yes, you’re quite right,” nodded Blatz. “He always enjoyed a good\nlaugh.”\n\nAndy’s eyes narrowed and he looked closely at the newcomer. He started\nto say something; then thought better of it and quickly switched the\nconversation from reminiscences of days at Friedrichshafen to the\npresent.\n\nAndy, Bert, Harry and Blatz lunched together at the hotel where Andy\nintroduced the German expert to the heads of the construction staff at\nBellevue. Blatz was accorded a warm welcome and after lunch resumed his\ntour of the plant with Andy.\n\nIn mid-afternoon a National Airways plane dropped in from the north. The\narmy flyers, warned of its coming, did not roar into the sky in angry\npursuit, but squatted beside their planes and watched the cabin\nmonoplane skid to a stop in front of one of the smaller hangars.\n\nAndy excused himself and ran toward the plane. The first man out of the\ncabin was his father, and Andy received an affectionate greeting.\n\n“Everything going O.K. son?” asked the vice president of the National\nAirways.\n\n“We’ve had a little excitement. Dad,” replied Andy, “but it didn’t\naffect the work on the Goliath. We’re well ahead of schedule.”\n\n“Fine,” replied Andy’s father. “We’ll need all of the extra time for\ntrial flights before we start our northward trip.”\n\n“Then it’s definitely settled that we’ll meet the Neptune at the North\npole?”\n\n“Very definitely settled,” replied Charles. High. “The contracts were\nsigned yesterday. Captain Harkins has our copies with him.”\n\nThe tall, bronzed airman who was the chief designer and captain of the\nGoliath stepped out of the cabin of the monoplane.\n\n“Hello, Andy,” he said, extending his hand for a cordial greeting. “Have\nyou started the assembly of the main gondola?”\n\n“Work got under way on that project this morning,” replied Andy, “and\nthe crews are making unusually good time.”\n\n“I’ve decided on several minor changes,” said Captain Harkins, “but they\nneed not delay the general construction work on the main car.”\n\nAs they walked toward the office buildings, Andy briefly explained what\nhad happened during their absence, how Dubra had attempted to damage the\nhangar, the passage and pursuit of the foreign plane, the arrival of the\narmy patrols and Dubra’s admission that an attempt was under way to\ndestroy the Goliath.\n\n“The wonder of it is,” said Andy’s father, “that some foreign power\nhasn’t made the attempt before. Now that we are fore-warned, there is\nlittle chance of success in damaging the big ship.”\n\nAndy saw Herman Blatz waiting for him some distance away and he spoke to\nhis father and Captain Harkins in low tones, explaining that Blatz had\nbeen sent to Bellevue on special orders of the war department.\n\n“I can see no objection to that,” said Captain Harkins. “Doctor Eckener\nat Friedrichshafen has placed us deeply in his debt through suggestions\non the improvement of our general design and one of his observers is\nwelcome as far as I am concerned.”\n\n“National Airways feels the same way,” added Andy’s father.\n\nAndy took his father and Captain Harkins over to Blatz where he made the\nnecessary introductions. They were soon engaged in a spirited discussion\nof the improvements in aircraft building which were represented in the\nGoliath and Andy left them to walk back to his own office.\n\nThe arrival of Blatz had disturbed him strangely. He had hoped that he\nwould be able to welcome the newcomer with real cordiality but instead\nhe found a mounting barrier of resentment rising between himself and the\nGerman.\n\nBlatz’ story didn’t ring true. Andy had tested him that afternoon when\nhe had recalled the incident at Friedrichshafen when he and Karl Staab\nhad been blown across Lake Constance in the old Strassburg. Blatz had\nrecalled knowing Staab when, in reality, there was no such navigator at\nFriedrichshafen. The whole story and the name had been invented by Andy\nto test Blatz. If, as he claimed, he had been connected with the\nFriedrichshafen plant for a number of years, he could not have\nremembered a man who did not exist. Blatz had agreed too readily. Andy’s\nsuspicions were aroused and he promised himself an investigation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nMysterious Moves\n\n\nWhen Herman Blatz, alias Lieut. Serge Larko of the Rubanian secret\npolice, was alone in his room late that afternoon preparing for supper,\nhe was torn between conflicting emotions. He had reached Bellevue\nsafely. He was even inside the plant of the National Airways, accepted\nas a German civilian observer. The opportunity for him to wreck the\nGoliath might present itself at any moment but two mighty emotional\nforces were at work. One was his inherent love for anything man-made\nthat could conquer the elements. Only that afternoon he had viewed the\ngreatest of all airships and he quailed inwardly at the thought that his\ntask was to destroy the mighty craft.\n\nHe heard the call for supper and descended to the dining room where he\nwas seated at the head table with Andy, Bert, Harry, Andy’s father and\nCaptain Harkins. There was a vacant chair at his left and he wondered\nwho the late-comer would be.\n\nConversation at the table was devoted almost solely to topics centering\naround the Goliath and the young Rubanian airman reveled in the sheer\njoy it brought him. For the time he forgot his ominous mission and was\nlight-hearted and gay.\n\nSupper was half over when a quiet man slipped into the chair beside him.\nAndy turned and introduced the late arrival.\n\n“Mr. Blatz,” he said, “I want you to know Merritt Timms, chief of the\nsecret service agents here.”\n\nBlatz acknowledged the introduction mechanically and Andy, watching his\nevery move and facial expression, failed to see any note of alarm. It\nwas well for Blatz that Andy’s eyes could not penetrate beneath the\nsurface for Blatz’s mind was working rapidly.\n\nThe chief of the secret service agents at Bellevue seated beside him!\nHad he aroused suspicion already? Had there been a slip somewhere along\nthe line; could these alert Americans know his identity and be playing\nwith him, waiting for him to make a slip so they could send him to some\nmilitary prison?\n\nHe knew the careful workings of the Gerka and he doubted that a slip had\nbeen made. That thought gave him some reassurance and his gay attitude\nreturned.\n\nThey finished the meal and chairs were pushed back.\n\n“I’m going over to the hospital,” said Timms to Andy. “Want to go along\nand hear what Dubra has to say?”\n\nAndy darted a glance at Blatz. He saw the civilian observer start ever\nso slightly. It was hardly more than a tremor but it helped to verify\nAndy’s suspicions.\n\n“I’ll go,” he replied. “Perhaps Blatz here would like to come with us?”\n\n“Yes, of course,” replied the other. “Some mechanic hurt?”\n\n“A little,” replied Timms. “A couple of bullets hurt him. He was an\nagent of the Gerka, Rubanian secret police organization, planted here to\ndamage the hangar. He failed and the guards didn’t miss when he tried to\nescape.”\n\n“I’m surprised to hear that,” said Blatz. “I didn’t suppose anyone would\ndirect any destructive efforts toward the Goliath.”\n\n“We’ll be surprised if anyone else does,” said Timms, “for we know that\nAlex Reikoff, dictator of Rubania, would like nothing better than to\nhear about the destruction of the Goliath. As a result, we’ve taken\nevery precaution that is humanly possible.”\n\n“That is wise,” said Blatz, “for in Europe we have come to fear Reikoff\nas a menace to the peace of the world.”\n\nThey were in the doorway of the hospital now and Blatz saw Andy’s keen\nblue eyes boring into him, probing as though questioning the truth of\nhis words. He felt that his answers, especially the reference to Reikoff\nas a menace, had been well put.\n\nA slight infection had set in on Dubra’s right leg and the Rubanian was\nrestless with pain.\n\n“Hello, Dubra,” said the secret service chief. “Just dropped in to see\nhow you are getting along.”\n\n“They’re killing me,” cried the man on the bed. “My leg hurts so.”\n\n“They’re doing no such thing,” replied Timms. “The doctor here is making\nevery effort to save your worthless life. Have you got anything else to\nadd to what you said the other night?”\n\nDubra’s eyes were bright with fever but his mind was clear and he shook\nhis head.\n\nBlatz kept well in the background. He had lost the ally Reikoff had told\nhim he would have. Dubra, over-anxious to cause harm, had been caught\nand wounded. His usefulness as an agent of destruction was at an end and\nBlatz would have to go on alone. Perhaps it would be easier that way.\n\nThere was no more information to be had from the wounded Rubanian and\nthey left the hospital. When they returned to the hotel, Blatz excused\nhimself and went to his room. Timms signified his intention to do\nlikewise but changed his mind when Andy insisted that they take a walk\ntogether.\n\n“What’s the idea?” the secret service chief asked when they were well\naway from the hotel and walking in the open.\n\n“It’s Blatz,” said Andy. “There’s something about him that doesn’t ring\ntrue.”\n\nThe assistant pilot of the Goliath related the incident of the afternoon\nwith the fake story of the adventure at Friedrichshafen.\n\n“That sounds a little fishy,” admitted Timms, “but that’s not enough to\naccuse a man of being a spy.”\n\n“I realize that,” admitted Andy, “but you should have seen him tonight\nwhen you asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and see Dubra.\nBlatz’s face paled and he trembled ever so slightly. No one else noticed\nit but I had been watching him closely.”\n\n“Still there is nothing definite,” insisted Timms.\n\n“There’s enough so that I’m not going to let him get very far away from\nme,” replied Andy. “Can’t you start a quiet tracer through the secret\nservice; find out where and when he landed; how he came to receive the\npermission from the war department and anything else your people in\nEurope can dig up?”\n\n“It might be rather serious if your suspicions proved unfounded,” said\nTimms.\n\n“I’m willing to take the risk,” replied Andy.\n\n“Then I’ll see what can be done,” promised the secret service chief.\n\nEvents during the next month at Bellevue were quiet enough. Andy kept a\nclose watch of Blatz, but the German observer’s conduct was model. He\nconfined his activities solely to observance and taking notes on the\nparts of the Goliath to which he was allowed access and he made no move\nto delve into the military secrets which were a part of the giant craft.\n\nBert and Harry had been busy with the installation of the intricate\nradio equipment which was a part of the Goliath. Late in April they\ncompleted their joint task and Bert announced that the communications\napparatus was ready.\n\nAssembly of the gondola had been completed, motor crews were busy tuning\nup the 12 giant engines which were to provide the power and fitters\nworked overtime on the installation of the luxurious furnishings of the\nlounge and sleeping quarters in the passenger cabins.\n\nThe gondola of the Goliath was a two-deck affair. In the fore part of\nthe lower deck was the control and operations room with the\ncommunications room just behind. The main lounge was located on this\ndeck with the dining room and the chef’s quarters at the rear of the\ngondola. An enclosed promenade deck, encircled the lounge and dining\nroom. The upper deck was devoted solely to passenger cabins, which were\nfitted like the staterooms of a Pullman. Every modern convenience for\nthe comfort of travelers had been built into the gondola and the Goliath\nwas truly a revelation in luxury.\n\nBlatz was enthusiastic in his praise of the great machine and Andy was\nforced to admit to himself that his earlier suspicions appeared\nunfounded. He relaxed his vigilance somewhat and the secret agent of the\nGerka sensed this change in the assistant pilot’s attitude. Between them\na real friendship started to develop and it was only natural that Bert\nand Harry were included in this feeling of comradeship.\n\nOn more than one occasion Blatz proved his sound technical knowledge,\nwhich could have been gained only at Friedrichshafen, a fact which\ninfluenced Andy in quieting his suspicions. In addition, there had been\nno report from the Washington headquarters of the secret service and it\nappeared that Blatz’s record was all right.\n\nShipments of helium, the life-blood of the Goliath, were arriving daily\nfrom the Texas gas fields. The long, narrow cylinders were stacked in\nrows outside the hangar. When needed they would be trucked inside, the\nvalves opened, and their contents would flow into the gas cells inside\nthe duralumin hull. In this respect the United States led all the other\nnations in its precious supply of helium, a non-inflammable gas. Some of\nthe Europeans were forced to use hydrogen, a highly inflammable gas, the\nuse of which had resulted in some of the major dirigible catastrophes.\n\nWork on the Goliath was well ahead of schedule and when Bert and Harry\nfinished their work on the radio equipment, Harry announced that it\nwould be necessary for him to return to Brooklyn at once for a final\ntest of the equipment of the Neptune.\n\nThe submarine was to leave soon and Andy and Bert obtained leave to\naccompany Harry on his return east. When Blatz heard of the plans, he\nasked permission to accompany them. It would give him an opportunity to\nvisit the American headquarters of the Gerka in New York.\n\n“You might just as well make it a real holiday,” Andy’s father said when\napprised of their plans. “One of our cabin monoplanes will be in\ntomorrow and I’ll see that you are given the use of it for a week. Then\nyou can fly east together.”\n\nThe suggestion appealed to them and they accepted with enthusiasm. Two\ndays later they were ready to depart. After stowing their luggage into\nthe baggage compartment of the trim, fast National Airways monoplane,\nthey each took farewell looks at the Goliath and then climbed into their\nplaces.\n\nAndy was at the controls with Blatz in the seat beside him. Bert and\nHarry were sprawled in comfortable wicker chairs to the rear. The plane\nskimmed across the field and took off in a steep climb, circled the\nfield once, and then headed northeast in a bee-line for New York.\n\nThe mountains, their crests covered with the fresh green of early spring\nfoliage, reared their misty heads to the east. They would cut diagonally\nacross them and Andy held the stick back and watched the altimeter\nclimb. At five thousand he leveled off and settled down to the trip.\nThey had plenty of gas to make it on one long hop.\n\nBlatz was enjoying the trip, the rolling country beneath, the mountains\nwhich they were approaching and even the thrill of being in the air,\nwhich never grew old to him. His eyes sparkled and there was a bright\nglow to his cheeks. He’d like to get his hands on the controls and see\nhow this American commercial job handled.\n\nAn hour later Andy turned to Blatz.\n\n“Ever handled a ship like this?” he asked.\n\n“I’ve done a little flying,” admitted the European.\n\n“Think you could handle it?”\n\nBlatz nodded eagerly and Andy slipped out from behind the controls which\nthe other took over.\n\nAndy watched him keenly and noticed that Blatz settled into his chair\nlike a veteran. His touch on the controls was firm but light and, unlike\nthe beginner, he did not over-control.\n\nThe air over the mountains was rougher and Andy wondered how Blatz would\ncome through. His question was soon answered. A down draft swirled them\ndownward three hundred feet in the twinkling of an eye. A novice would\nhave been panic-stricken, but Blatz gave her the gun and flipped out of\nit nicely.\n\n“Good work,” said Andy.\n\n“More luck than anything else,” was the reply, but Andy was very much\ninclined to disagree. There was no question in his mind now. Blatz was\nnot only a good dirigible man but he was an expert flyer as well. The\nlong-allayed suspicions Andy had harbored in the first weeks the\ncivilian observer had been at Bellevue were re-awakened. He would\ncommunicate his distrust to Bert and Harry when they had a chance to\ntalk alone. Until now he had kept his misgivings to himself but he felt\nthat it was time the others knew how he felt.\n\nThey lunched over eastern Pennsylvania with the plane clipping the miles\noff at 110 an hour. Sandwiches had been brought in a liberal supply but\nthe cool air had whetted their appetites and the basket of lunch soon\ndisappeared.\n\n“Oh, boy,” said Bert. “Wait until I get to New York and sink my teeth in\na big, juicy steak. Honestly, I’m almost starved. Those sandwiches were\njust teasers.”\n\n“How long before we’ll be in?” asked Harry, who likewise confessed that\nthe lunch had not satisfied his hunger.\n\n“Another hour,” replied Andy, who was back at the controls. “Next time\nwe’ll bring a restaurant along. From the way you fellows complain\nsomeone might get the idea you’d been working this morning.”\n\nFifty-five minutes later they dipped over the National Airways field on\nthe Jersey side and Andy nosed down to land. Blatz touched his arm.\n\n“If Bert and Harry won’t starve for five more minutes,” he said, “I’d\nlike to see New York from the air.”\n\n“We’ll manage to hold out another few minutes,” conceded the hungry\npair, and Andy headed the monoplane east across the Jersey flats.\n\nThey dipped a wing in salute as the Statue of Liberty was passed and\nclimbed steeply as they approached the Battery. On up town they sped\nover the canyons between the skyscrapers where hurrying crowds of\nshoppers were thronging the streets. The Empire State’s gleaming tower\nwas ahead, then beside, and then behind them. The Chrysler spire\nglittered in the sun and they looked down on the crowds in Times Square.\nCentral Park was a fleeting panorama. Then they were over the Hudson,\nback to Jersey and sliding down out of the skyway with motor idling.\nThey touched gently and rolled to a landing in front of the main control\nstation where the number of their plane was taken and they were assigned\nto a hangar. Andy taxied the monoplane down the line to the No. 5 hangar\nwhere mechanics were ready to take it in charge.\n\n“How did you like your aerial view of New York?” Andy asked Blatz.\n\n“It was marvelous, breath-taking,” laughed the other. “In Europe we have\nno city to compare with it. Your buildings; they go into the clouds.”\n\n“I’ll say,” replied Harry. “I’ve been on the Empire State tower when the\nclouds were so thick you couldn’t see the street.”\n\nThey entered the main administration building at the airport, cleaned\nup, and then took a taxi for New York. Through Jersey City and under the\nHudson they went in the Holland Tubes and then through the maze of\nmid-afternoon traffic to their hotel just off Times Square.\n\nWhile Andy was registering for the party, Bert saw the sign above the\ndoor of the grillroom, and, with a “See you later,” departed to order\nthe steak he had promised himself.\n\nAndy, Blatz and Harry went up to their rooms, assured themselves that\nthe double quarters were satisfactory, and then went down to join Bert\nin the grill.\n\n“I ordered steaks for everyone,” said the radio operator of the Goliath.\n“Anyone have any objections?”\n\nThere was no vocal protest and the steaks were placed before them a\nminute later.\n\n“I’ve got to go over to the shipyard and report that I’m in town,” said\nHarry. “Anyone like to run over to Brooklyn now and see what the Neptune\nlooks like?”\n\n“Count me in,” replied Bert. “I want to see what kind of a tin can\nyou’re going to use in your attempt to reach the North Pole.”\n\n“How about you two?” asked Harry, turning to Andy and Blatz.\n\n“I’ll be glad to go in the morning,” said Blatz, “but just now I’m a\nlittle tired. I’ll stay here at the hotel, rest a while, and then\nperhaps stroll out and look around the city a bit.”\n\n“You’ll have to count me out, too,” said Andy. “I’ve a few errands that\nmust be attended to and the sooner they are out of the way the more time\nI’ll have to spend over at the shipyard.”\n\nHarry and Bert departed, after promising that they would return early in\nthe evening so they could enjoy a show together. Blatz went up to their\ndouble room and Andy sat down at a writing desk to pen several important\nnotes. He had been writing not more than five minutes when he looked up\nand saw a familiar figure going through the main doorway. He recognized\nthe German civilian observer. But Blatz had just said that he was tired\nand was going to his room to rest?\n\nWithout waiting to ponder the question, Andy picked up the note he had\nbeen writing, stuffed it in his pocket, and hurried toward the entrance.\n\nIt was late afternoon and dusk had settled but he reached the street\njust in time to see Blatz step into a cab. There was something furtive,\nmysterious in the other’s manner and Andy decided to follow. He motioned\nfor a cab cruising by to stop. The driver was an alert, keen looking\nfellow and he responded instantly when Andy spoke to him.\n\n“Keep that cab ahead in sight,” said Andy, “and there’s an extra five\nfor you.”\n\nGears meshed harshly as the cab lurched ahead and Andy started on one of\nthe strangest adventures of his life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nOn the East Side\n\n\nLieutenant Larko, or Blatz as he was known to his American friends,\nwanted to get his visit to the American headquarters of the Gerka over\nas soon as possible. He did not look forward to it with pleasure and was\nanxious to return to his friends. The deeper he got into the intrigue\nthe less he liked the mission which had been assigned to him by the\ndictator of Rubania.\n\nOn leaving the hotel, he sank back in the cushions of the taxicab and\nmarveled at the dexterity of the driver, who guided his car between the\nmoving streams of traffic with amazing skill. They worked away from the\nmid-town section, getting over on the east side where the streets were\nnarrower, the lights dimmer and the pavement rough and bumpy.\n\nOccasionally the gleam of the headlights of another car flashed in the\nmirror over the driver’s head, but Blatz thought nothing of it until the\ndriver leaned back as he slowed for a turn.\n\n“There’s another cab been following us ever since we left the hotel,” he\nsaid. “Want me to try and shake them?”\n\n“Not right now,” replied Blatz. “Keep going; I’ll watch them.”\n\nHe turned and looked out the rear window. There was no mistake on the\npart of the driver; another machine was following, making every turn\nthey did, maintaining the same speed and keeping about a block to the\nrear. Had the American secret service become suspicious of him and\nplaced him under surveillance?\n\nThe thought alarmed Blatz and he ordered the driver to attempt to lose\nthe pursuing machine. For fifteen minutes they turned and twisted from\none street to another, darted through alleys and doubled back onto\nthoroughfares. At last the lights of the other machine vanished and\nBlatz felt sure that they had lost their pursuers.\n\nHe gave the order to continue to the address he had given the driver and\nrelaxed again. He would be glad to get back to the hotel and rejoin his\nfriends.\n\nThe American headquarters of the Gerka were located on the fifth floor\nof a warehouse building on the east side, a district which was anything\nbut reassuring after dusk had fallen. Street lights cast their feeble\nrays at infrequent intervals and there was no traffic on the street. One\ndusty electric globe hung in the little cubby which was marked\n“watchman’s office.”\n\n“Want me to wait?” asked the taxi driver.\n\n“That’s not necessary,” replied Blatz. “I’ll call a cab when I’m ready\nto return.”\n\nThe taxi lurched down the street and Blatz walked up to the watchman’s\nwindow.\n\nThe password of the Gerka was in Rubanian and Blatz spoke a guttural\nphrase.\n\nThe watchman, a middle aged man with distinct Rubanian features, stepped\nto a phone and made sure that Blatz was really an agent of the Gerka.\nInformed that the newcomer was to be shown to the headquarters, he took\nBlatz into the dim confines of the building and showed him into a\nfreight elevator. They were lifted slowly to the fifth floor and when\nthe door opened, Blatz stepped out into a comfortably furnished suite of\nrooms.\n\nA secretary took his number and mission and five minutes later he was\nushered into the inner chamber, to face Lothar Vendra, head of the\nAmerican branch of the Gerka.\n\nVendra was an impressive individual. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and\nhandsome in a bitter sort of way.\n\n“I am most happy to greet you,” he told Blatz, extending his hand in\nwelcome.\n\n“I am happy to be here,” replied Blatz, with an enthusiasm that he did\nnot honestly feel.\n\n“Sit down,” motioned Vendra, “and tell me all that has happened since\nyou arrived at Bellevue and how you happen to be in New York at this\ntime.”\n\nBlatz recounted in detail the events that had taken place since he had\narrived at the home of the Goliath. When he mentioned the name of Boris\nDubra, the mechanic who had been wounded in his attempt to damage the\nGoliath’s hangar, Vendra’s face clouded with anger.\n\n“I had heard of that,” he said. “Dubra was a fool. We are just as well\noff without him. You will be able to accomplish the task alone.”\n\n“I’m not so sure that I will fulfill my mission,” replied Blatz.\n\n“What’s that?” demanded Vendra.\n\n“I have a feeling that the Americans, especially Andy High, are\nsuspicious,” explained Blatz. “When I left the hotel a few minutes ago I\nwas followed and only by the amazing dexterity of my taxi driver was I\nable to elude my pursuer.”\n\n“You must have been mistaken,” insisted Vendra. “Your papers are in\nperfect order.”\n\n“I was not mistaken,” said Blatz, clearly and decisively. “Every\nprecaution must be taken or I will find myself in an American military\nprison.”\n\n“I agree that you must be careful,” admitted Vendra, “but His Excellency\nis most anxious that the Goliath be destroyed at once. In his latest\ncommunication he especially stressed this point. This air monster must\nnever become the king of the skies!”\n\nThe words came to Blatz through a mist of memories. He could see the\nsilver sides of the Goliath as the great ship lay in its hangar, hear\nthe tap of hammers and cries of the workmen as they rushed it to\ncompletion, see the pride and joy in Andy’s eyes as the young engineer\nlooked at the great skycraft he had helped to create. And his job was to\ndestroy all this. The airman in him rebelled and Vendra, sensing the\nemotional conflict, moved closer.\n\n“Remember,” he warned. “You are a Rubanian, a member of the Gerka, who\nis pledged to duty even unto death!”\n\nBlatz nodded dismally. There was no getting away from the facts. He\nwould have to destroy the Goliath.\n\n“You may inform His Excellency,” he said, “that I will do my best.”\n\nHe was about to leave when a buzzer rang sharply. Vendra seized the\ntelephone and a look of alarm came over his face.\n\n“There’s trouble down at the entrance,” he said. “The watchman just\nfound a man prowling around. He knocked him out and is bringing him up\nhere.”\n\nAndy’s pursuit of the German observer had not been successful for his\ndriver had finally lost the cab in the maze of quick turns Blatz’s\ndriver had made after being ordered to shake off pursuit.\n\nBut Andy was not easily discouraged and he ordered his own taxi to\nreturn to the street on which they had been when Blatz had started his\nzig-zig tactics. There was a possibility that the cab he sought might\nreturn and continue its journey from that point. His hunch was correct\nand within ten minutes the machine he had lost rolled down the street.\nThis time his driver put out his lights and they followed, Andy in the\nmeantime having agreed to fend off any police charges that might be\nbrought for running without lights.\n\nHe was less than two hundred yards away when Blatz entered the warehouse\nand Andy was slipping into the building when the night watchman returned\nand caught him.\n\nThe challenge was in Rubanian, a language unfamiliar to Andy. He replied\nin American, explaining that he was looking for a friend who was to meet\nhim at that address.\n\nThe explanation failed to satisfy the watchman, who ordered Andy out.\nThe watchman was too anxious to get rid of him and Andy refused to\nleave. The attack followed almost instantly, and the burly watchman\nhurled himself at the slender airman with surprising speed.\n\nTaken unaware, Andy went down in a heap. He struggled to his feet and\nturned to face the next rush by the watchman. He partially fended off\nthe first blow but another, starting low and coming up with tremendous\nforce, caught him on the point of the chin. His knees wobbled, a mist\nclouded his eyes, his mouth was strangely dry and he had a sensation of\nfalling from a great height. Then a curtain of darkness descended.\n\nThe watchman picked him up carried him into the elevator, and finally\nwalked into Vendra’s office with the unconscious Andy in his arms.\n\nBlatz started back in white-faced amazement.\n\n“Is he badly hurt?” he asked.\n\n“No,” grunted the watchman. “He’ll come around in a few minutes. He\nstruck his head against a door sill when I knocked him down.”\n\n“This is terrible,” said Blatz. “Now Andy’s suspicions of me will be\nconfirmed. It will be no use for me to return to Bellevue after this.”\n\n“What do you mean?” asked Vendra.\n\n“Just this,” explained Blatz. “Your bulldog watchman here has knocked\nout Andy High, son of Charles High, executive vice president of the\nNational Airways who is in charge of the building of the Goliath. Andy\nis my ‘chaperon’ at Bellevue and the only one who has appeared to be\nsuspicious of me. He must have followed me from the hotel.”\n\nVendra was silent for a minute, pondering the situation which confronted\nthem.\n\n“It is regrettable,” he said. “You must return to Bellevue to fulfill\nyour mission of destroying the Goliath, the air monster.”\n\n“But I can’t go back now,” protested Blatz.\n\n“Return to your hotel at once,” said Vendra.\n\n“When anyone asks where you have been, tell them on a long taxi ride\nthrough the city and Central Park.”\n\n“Andy will never believe such a story,” protested Blatz.\n\n“He won’t be able to disprove it,” countered Vendra. “As soon as you\nleave I’ll take him out of here. We’ll leave him in another street\nbefore he recovers consciousness. He’ll never be able to find his way\nback here and you’ll make a complete denial if he ever openly accuses\nyou. It is ticklish, I admit, but it is the only way out.”\n\nBlatz finally agreed and hastened from the room, to return at once to\nthe hotel where he found Bert and Harry waiting.\n\n“Where’s Andy?” asked Bert.\n\n“I don’t know,” replied Blatz. “I’ve been on a long taxi ride.” Which,\nhe told himself, was quite true.\n\nAn hour later Andy arrived in a cab, his clothes so dirty and disheveled\nthat he attracted open attention as he walked through the fashionable\nlobby of the hotel. The clerks eyed him with disgust but they dared not\nprotest at his appearance. When he appeared in his room, he was greeted\nwith exclamations of astonishment.\n\n“What under the sun happened to you?” asked Bert. “Did a taxi walk all\nover you?”\n\n“Something, hit me,” said Andy, “while I was down on the east side. The\nnext thing I knew I was lying in a street and a policeman was shaking\nme. I finally convinced him that I was sane and sober, and he let me\ncome back here. I haven’t figured it out just yet; my head’s too dizzy.”\n\nHe looked straight at Blatz when he added:\n\n“But I have a hunch I’ll get it straight when I get over this headache.”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThe Neptune Sails\n\n\nAndy was shaky from his experience over on the east side and while Bert,\nHarry and Blatz went out to a show, he remained at the hotel to rest and\nthink things over.\n\nHe was positive that he had seen Blatz go into the warehouse and the\nconviction grew that the German civilian observer was not all that he\nclaimed to be. Andy felt a crisis coming, something he couldn’t exactly\nput into words, but a vague feeling that trouble was just around the\ncorner. He was asleep when the others returned at midnight from the\ntheater and they did not waken him.\n\nAndy felt much refreshed the next morning and they decided to accompany\nHarry on his visit to the shipyard.\n\n“It’s the finest tin fish I’ve ever seen,” said Bert, who had visited\nthe Neptune the afternoon before. “They’ve got just about everything\nthey need in it.”\n\n“It is a wonderful boat,” admitted Harry proudly, “but I’ll have to\nconfess that traveling in the Neptune won’t be able to compare with the\nGoliath. When we’re submerged the air isn’t any too good if we’re down\nthree or four hours and we’re pretty cramped for space.”\n\n“Let’s get under way,” said Andy. “I’m anxious to see this wonderful tin\nfish.”\n\nThey took a taxi across town, rolled over the Brooklyn bridge and\nfifteen minutes later were walking into the shipyard where the Neptune\nwas being groomed for its polar trip.\n\nThe submarine was lying beside a stubby wharf with its main hatch open.\nWorkmen were busy passing supplies down into its depths as Andy and his\nparty arrived.\n\n“My gosh,” exclaimed Andy. “I didn’t suppose you had a submarine of this\ntype. It’s almost as big as one of the navy’s super-cruisers.”\n\n“Just about,” agreed Harry. “As a matter-of-fact, this sub was built for\nnaval purposes by the Seabright yards. They used it as a demonstrator in\nselling similar models to South American navies. It has just about every\nmodern gadget on it that inventors could devise. As a result of this\nworking model, the Seabright people landed contracts for about 25\nmillion in work. The Neptune had served its purpose and they were\nwilling to sell it to Gilbert Mathews at a very reasonable figure when\nhe started looking for a ship in which to make the polar trip. The\nSeabright engineers have made all of the necessary changes for polar\ncruising and have just put their official approval on the Neptune, which\nmeans we’ll be starting north within a few days.”\n\n“I’d like to see inside the Neptune,” said Blatz, adding, “I’ve never\nbeen in a submarine before.”\n\n“All right,” agreed Harry, “but we’ll have to keep out of the way of the\ncrew bringing in stores Let’s go.”\n\nThey scrambled down the ladder and reached the rivet-studded deck of the\nNeptune. There was a lull in the steady stream of boxes being carried\ninto the interior and they hurried through the main hatch and into the\nconning tower, then down into the main control room.\n\nAndy looked about in amazement at the compactness of the instruments in\nthe “brains” of the submarine. There was not an inch of waste space in\nthe spotlessly white interior of the steel fish.\n\nHarry led them through the forward engine room and into the crew\nquarters where double-decked bunks lined the walls. Just ahead were the\nofficers’ quarters, slightly better furnished than those of the crew and\nbeyond this was the radio cubby where Harry would practically live from\nthe time they left the Brooklyn shipyard until they returned from the\ndesolate ice wastes of the far north.\n\nThey went on ahead into the room usually used as a torpedo room. This\nhad been fitted with scientific equipment for sounding the ocean depths,\nand determining the material at the bottom of the Arctic. In addition to\nthe scientific paraphernalia, the forward room contained the all\nimportant rescue chambers. In this room was located the powerful drill\nwhich was capable of boring fifty feet upward straight through the ice,\nopening a tunnel large enough for a man to wriggle through in case the\nsubmarine became trapped by ice. There was also an escape passage\nthrough the forward torpedo tubes.\n\nThe inspection of the forward half of the sub completed, they turned to\nthe after quarters. Another large engine room was located after the main\ncontrol room and beyond this was another room with double-decked bunks\nwhile just back of that was the galley.\n\n“You’ve got a place to cook food,” said Bert, “but where do you eat?”\n\n“Just about any place we find convenient,” replied Harry. “There are a\nnumber of folding tables that can be pulled out in the crews’ quarters\nbut if the going is rough or we’re busy, we take on food when and where\nwe can get it.”\n\n“When you’re pitching around on the North Atlantic and trying to connect\na little food with that hungry mouth of yours, just remember what a\npleasant time I’ll be having on the Goliath where there’s plenty of room\nto stretch and plenty of room to eat,” said Bert.\n\n“I’ll probably remember that a good many times,” grinned Harry, “but if\nyou radio me a description of some of those nice meals of yours. I’ll\nrefuse to answer.”\n\nThey completed their inspection of the Neptune and had climbed back to\nthe wharf when a roadster rolled through the shipyard gate.\n\n“Just a minute, fellows,” said Harry. “Here comes Gilbert Mathews. I’d\nlike to have you meet him.”\n\nThe commander of the Neptune was tall and broad-shouldered. His walk was\nvigorous and he was hatless. His brown hair was slightly gray at the\ntemples and he might be anywhere from 35 to 45 years old.\n\n“Hello, Harry,” he said as he came up. “Your radio equipment all ready?”\n\n“Everything’s tested and in fine shape,” replied the radio operator. “I’d\nlike to have you meet my friends.”\n\n“Delighted,” said the explorer, and he greeted Blatz, Bert and Andy\ncordially.\n\n“I’ve had some very pleasant conferences with your father,” he told\nAndy. “Will we meet at the North pole this summer?”\n\n“I sincerely hope so,” replied Andy. “Bert is chief radio operator on\nthe Goliath and I will make the trip as assistant to Captain Harkins.”\n\n“Then I am sure that we will meet again,” replied Mathews. He turned to\nHarry.\n\n“Did the orders reach you at your hotel before you left this morning?”\nhe asked.\n\n“No sir,” replied Harry.\n\n“Then this will come as somewhat of a surprise,” smiled Mathews. “We’ll\nleave at sunrise and every member of the crew has been ordered on board\ntonight.”\n\n“It certainly is a surprise,” gasped Harry, “but I’ll be aboard ship\ntonight.”\n\n“You’re leaving almost two weeks earlier than you had first planned,”\nsaid Andy.\n\n“Conditions in the Arctic are more open than they have been for a number\nof years,” replied the explorer, “and I am anxious to get the Neptune\ninto the ice as soon as possible.”\n\n“We probably will not see you again,” said Andy, “but we wish you every\ngood fortune and we’ll see you at the North pole.”\n\n“Thank you for your good wishes,” replied Mathews. “In return, I wish\nthe Goliath a fair voyage and a fast one.”\n\nThe explorer left them and hurried down the ladder to supervise the\nfinal preparations for the departure of the Neptune.\n\nHarry was busy the remainder of the day, finishing the task of getting\nhis kit together and sending goodbye telegrams to relatives, for his\nparents lived in Illinois and would not be able to reach New York before\nsailing time.\n\nHotel reporters learned that the assistant pilot of the Goliath was in\nthe city and when they returned to the hotel in late afternoon, half a\ndozen were waiting for Andy.\n\nThey plied him with questions. How long would it be before the Goliath\nwas ready to take the air; what would the big ship do; where would it go\non its trial flights; was it true that attempts had been made to destroy\nthe ship in its hangar; when would it start on the cruise into the\nArctic regions?\n\nTo all these questions Andy was able to give only the most general of\nanswers for he was bound in secrecy not to reveal definite information\nabout the Goliath or the plans for its trial flights. Andy and his\nfriends posed while flashlights flared but finally they were alone in\ntheir rooms.\n\nHarry had finished the score of small tasks which had been necessary\nwhen the final sail order, was given and he stretched out on one of the\nbeds, his hands clasped above his head.\n\n“Tonight we’re all here together,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll be going down\nthe sound in the tin fish; next week you’ll be aloft as the Goliath\ntries its wings, and the next time we meet will be at the North pole.\nBelieve me, that’s adventure.”\n\n“How I envy you all,” said Blatz, his voice low and earnest, and Andy\nactually felt sorry for the European whom he had come to firmly\nsuspicion. If he could wipe those doubts out of his mind, he would\nthoroughly like Blatz for the foreigner was a born airman and would be a\nreal asset to the technical staff of National Airways.\n\n“When you sail away for the North pole in the Goliath,” he told Andy,\n“I’ll stay on the ground at Bellevue and watch you fade into the north\nbut I’ll glory with you in success.”\n\n“I’m hungry,” announced Bert. “Let’s go down and get something to eat.\nIf we sit around here we’ll all get blue for we’re going to miss Harry a\nlot. There’s just this one consolation. We’ll be able to talk back and\nforth daily on our low wave sets unless the Arctic puts up a wall of\nstatic we can’t break through.”\n\nTheir last meal together was a quiet affair despite Bert’s efforts to\nmake it jolly and cheerful. With Harry going aboard ship within the next\nhour or so and the Neptune casting off at dawn, they knew the start of\nthe great adventure was at hand and it awed them all.\n\nA messenger paged Harry in the dining room and handed him a telegram.\nThe Neptune’s radio operator tore it open with fingers that shook just a\nlittle and read it hungrily. His face whitened for a moment and he\nfolded the message carefully and placed it in an inner pocket. There was\na suspicion of a tear in one eye.\n\n“A wire from Dad and Mother,” he said. “They’re the best ever.”\n\nAn hour later they stepped out of a taxi on the Brooklyn wharf. Lights\nglowed over the Neptune; cars hurried up to disgorge other members of\nthe crew, newspaper men were buzzing around, flashlights blazed and over\nthe whole scene there was a feeling of tension.\n\nGilbert Mathews was at the head of the ladder, checking in every man as\nhe came aboard. Harry reported and was checked off the list. He turned\nto his friends from Bellevue.\n\n“I can’t say very much,” he told them. “Everything is sort of choked up\nin my throat. Bert, old scout, I’ll be tuning up for your messages.\nDon’t forget me.”\n\n“I won’t,” promised the Goliath’s operator.\n\n“So long, fellows,” said Harry and he turned and hastened down the\nladder to the deck of the Neptune. He paused for a moment and waved\nbefore stepping inside the steel hull.\n\nWhen they returned to their hotel, Blatz stopped at a newsstand to buy\nan early edition of one of the morning papers. They were so much more\ncomprehensive than the Rubanian papers to which he had been accustomed\nand he thoroughly enjoyed reading them. In the quiet of his room he\ndigested the news of the day. A story on an inside page caught and held\nhis attention. The dateline was “KRATZ, Rubania.” The story told of the\ngrowing unrest against the regime of Dictator Reikoff, adding that this\nbad feeling was centered in the powerful air corps, the largest unit of\nthe Rubanian army.\n\nBlatz knew what they meant. Reikoff had been making unjust demands of\nhis airmen and he was sitting on an open powder keg which was likely to\nexplode with disastrous results to himself. Blatz almost wished that\nrevolution would sweep the country and rid Rubania of its dictator. He\nwas thoroughly disgusted and out of sympathy with the task to which he\nhad been assigned, that of destroying the Goliath, and he would welcome\nany opportunity to escape but as long as Reikoff lived and ruled it\nwould mean death for Blatz if he failed to carry out his mission.\n\nAndy stepped through the door which connected the double room.\n\n“Any objections to our returning to Bellevue in the morning?” he asked.\n\n“No, why?” replied Blatz.\n\n“Oh, there’s no reason for us to stay on longer here but I thought you\nmight have some business over on the east side to transact.”\n\nAndy’s keen eyes were watching Blatz’s face, searching for some change\nof expression that would indicate his alarm. There was none; the\ncivilian observer outwardly appeared cool and unruffled but it was well\nthat Andy could not see the flash of fear that seared across his mind.\nIt was true, then, that Andy did suspect him. He was warning him in this\nway to watch his step. Undoubtedly he would tell the secret service. If\nhe, Blatz, were to accomplish his mission of destruction it must be\nimmediately after his return to Bellevue.\n\n“There is nothing to keep me in the city,” replied Blatz, “and I am\nanxious to get back and see the finishing touches put on the Goliath.”\n\n“Then we’ll get an early start,” said Andy, “drop down the harbor and\nsay goodbye to the Neptune and then head for home. We ought to be there\nin time for lunch.”\n\nThey were up shortly after dawn but it was eight o’clock by the time\nthey reached the airport of the National Airways in Jersey, had stowed\ntheir baggage in the monoplane and were ready to take the air. Andy took\nover the controls, Blatz climbed in beside him and Bert stowed his more\nample bulk in a chair just behind and beside a window where he could\nwave when they passed the Neptune.\n\nSatisfied that the motor of the monoplane was functioning perfectly,\nAndy sent the plane speeding over the crushed rock runway and into the\nslanting rays of the sun. He circled the field until he had plenty of\naltitude, and then cut across the Jersey flats where the blue Atlantic\ngleamed in the distance.\n\nThe Neptune must have started at the crack of dawn, for the submarine\nwas far down the bay when they finally picked it up. The Neptune was\nrunning on the surface at ten knots an hour, its sharp nose cleaving\nthrough the sparkling waves and its decks almost awash. The main hatch\nwas open and half a dozen of the crew were on top of the conning tower.\n\nAndy sent the monoplane down in a gentle glide, levelled off, and\nskimmed over the water with motor on full. They flashed past the\nNeptune, raced out to sea, turned and roared back: Someone on the\nconning tower was waving frantically.\n\nThe three in the monoplane caught a fleeting glimpse of Harry as they\nsped past. The Neptune was off, headed for Plymouth, England, on the\nfirst leg of its long and adventurous trip into the Arctic.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nIn The Hangar\n\n\nThe return flight to Bellevue was uneventful and the monoplane settled\ndown beside the Goliath’s hangar shortly after noon. Andy taxied the\nplane up to the apron and they piled out and hurried into the main\nhangar to see what progress had been made on the Goliath since their\ndeparture.\n\nEven in the short time they had been away the crews had put on the\nfinishing touches. The great silver hull gleamed in the softened light\nof the hangar. The main gondola had been completed, the observation\ncockpits on top of the big bag were in place and hundreds of helium\ntanks were piled along the walls of the hangar—empty. That meant that\nthe gas cells had been filled with the precious gas. The Goliath was\nalmost ready to take the air.\n\nCharles High and Captain Harkins hurried up to them.\n\n“How does the Goliath look today?” Andy’s father asked.\n\n“Wonderful, Dad, simply wonderful,” replied Andy. “When will you make\nthe first test?”\n\n“We may walk it out of the hangar tomorrow but we won’t make a real\nflight for several days,” replied the vice president in charge of\noperations for the National Airways. “The army has a finger in the pie\nand when we actually take the air several members of the general staff\nand a dozen air corps experts will want to be aboard to see if it\nbehaves to specifications.”\n\n“I’m sure it will,” put in Blatz. “I’ve seen a good many of Doctor\nEckener’s ships at Friedrichshafen and with all due respect to the Herr\nDoctor, the Goliath is the finest, most carefully designed and built\naircraft I have ever seen.”\n\n“That’s a real compliment,” chuckled Bert. “It isn’t very often a\nEuropean will concede superiority to an American in anything.”\n\n“Blatz is right,” said Captain Harkins quietly. “There is no question\nabout the Goliath being the finest airship ever built. I expect it to\nlive up to our every hope in its performance in the air.”\n\n“We were surprised when Gilbert Mathews informed Harry of the advance in\nsailing plans,” Andy told his father.\n\n“I was a trifle surprised, too,” admitted the vice president of National\nAirways. “Mathews wired me the same day of the change in plans and I\nreplied that the Goliath would be able to advance its air tests and keep\nthe date to meet him at the pole even with the earlier sailing. I can’t\nblame him, though, for wanting to take advantage of the favorable ice\nconditions which are reported in the north now.”\n\n“The Neptune is a great submarine,” said Bert, “as far as subs go but\nI’ll take an airplane or dirigible any day. Being shut up in one of\nthose things is like sailing around in a tub. I wouldn’t trade my radio\ncubby on the Goliath for a dozen jobs on the Neptune.”\n\n“Someone had to go on the Neptune and we’ll give Harry plenty of credit\nfor his nerve,” said Andy. “Will you be able to pick up his message\ntonight?”\n\n“I promised him I’d tune in every night at eight,” replied Bert. “We\nought to hear him plainly.”\n\nCaptain Harkins asked Andy to accompany him to the main office to check\nover the final construction reports on the Goliath while Andy’s father\ntook Blatz on an inspection trip over the big bag. They entered the\nluxuriously furnished gondola with its lounge and radio room, the dining\nsalon and the glass enclosed promenade. Then to the upper deck of the\ngondola where the passenger cabins were located. The interior finish was\nin a cool, pleasing gray, a favorable contrast to the silver of the\nmetalized hull.\n\nAfter leaving the gondola, they walked down the main runway which was\nbuilt lengthwise down the middle of the Goliath. In the earlier\ndirigibles this had been little more than a catwalk and none too safe. A\nplunge off would have meant crashing through the outer fabric and a fall\nto earth. In the Goliath the main runway was a substantial affair six\nfeet wide. Made of duralumin, it was strong but light and guard rails\nproved ample protection for members of the crew or passengers who might\nbe permitted to view the interior of the big airship.\n\nThe gas bags were inflated with, helium and held rigidly in place, six\nof them in the forward part of the ship and six of them in the after\nsection. The transverse rings built of girders of duralumin separated\neach bag and there was a narrow catwalk between each large gas cell to\nfacilitate the stopping of any possible leaks.\n\nThe motor gondolas were built inside the hull with the flexible\npropeller shafts sticking through the side. There were six of the motor\ngondolas on each side and each car was carefully insulated so that fire\ncould be confined to one section of the dirigible.\n\nThe mid-section of the Goliath was forbidden ground to Blatz for it was\nhere that space had been provided for the storing of airplanes in time\nof war. A special device which hooked onto the planes while they were in\nflight and lifted them into the hold in the center of the airship had\nbeen perfected by Captain Harkins and Blatz was anxious to see this. He\nwas in for a disappointment that afternoon for Charles High did not take\nhim back that far. Instead, they stopped at the fourth transverse girder\nwhere a stairway led to the top of the dirigible. There were six of\nthese stairs all told, each running to the top and giving access to the\nobservation cockpits. There was a runway on top of the Goliath with\nstrong cables stretched along the side but it would be almost worth a\nman’s life to attempt to walk on it while the dirigible was in motion\nand especially if the air happened to be the least bit rough. A fine\nplace, thought Blatz, for anyone who was inclined to be seasick.\n\nThey walked along the outer runway toward the rear of the Goliath and\nfrom this elevation Blatz had a real opportunity to realize the size of\nthe new king of the air—the craft which Reikoff had termed an “air\nmonster.” When they reached the after part of the dirigible with its\ngreat fin and elevators, they descended into the interior. Motor crews\nwere busy tuning up the engines and the air was filled with the\ntenseness of preparation.\n\nAt dinner that night Captain Harkins announced that he had received word\nfrom the army air corps that the officers who would report on the trial\nflights of the Goliath would be at Bellevue before noon the next day.\n\n“That means we’ll walk the Goliath out at one o’clock if the wind and\nweather are favorable.”\n\nThe words came to Blatz through a daze. He had seen Andy and Merritt\nTimms of the secret service conferring before dinner and from the look\nTimms had shot his way he knew that he had been the object of their\ndiscussion. The Goliath would be out of its hangar tomorrow. Army\nofficers would arrive and from then on there would be little opportunity\nto damage the big ship. Tonight was the time! Even though Andy might be\nsuspicious, he would hardly believe him capable of so daring an attempt\non the Goliath. Blatz set his jaw firmly. It was going to be a task he\ndid not fancy for his love for the Goliath had grown until he quailed at\nthe thought of its destruction. But he was a Rubanian, a member of the\nGerka. He could not escape from his duty.\n\nAndy found an item of interest in the evening paper which he showed\nBlatz. It was another bulletin from Rubania. Revolution was threatening.\nReikoff’s power was tottering.\n\nBlatz read it eagerly. Perhaps he would not be forced to destroy the\nGoliath after all. If he could only wait a few more days. But the one\nbig opportunity was at hand. Tonight was the logical one for his task.\n\nAndy noticed the European’s hands shook as he read the item, but Blatz’s\nface showed no change of emotion.\n\n“Come on, you two,” called Bert. “Let’s get over to my radio shack and\nwe’ll see if we can pick up Harry somewhere off Long Island in his tin\nfish.”\n\nIt was nearly eight o’clock when they reached the radio shack just\noutside the main hangar and it took Bert some time to time up his\napparatus. He plugged in on the main transmitter and a minute later\nturned around with a grin.\n\n“Harry is burning up the air,” chuckled Bert. “I was late coming in and\nwants to know what I’d been doing. Accuses me of over-eating. Imagine.”\n\nThe stream of dots and dashes which had been flickering through the air\nceased.\n\n“We’re going to try the radiophone now,” explained Bert, “and we’ll be\nable to talk back and forth.”\n\nWhen Bert completed the proper adjustments Andy almost fell out of his\nchair as Harry’s voice echoed in the little room.\n\n“Hello Bert. Hello Andy,” said Harry, eight hundred miles away and under\nwater in the radio room of the Neptune. “Tell Blatz hello, too, if he’s\nwith you,” added Harry.\n\n“The three of us are in the radio shack,” replied Bert, “and I resent\nyour implication that I overate tonight. I over-talked.”\n\n“Which is just as bad,” came back the voice over the ether waves.\n\nAndy picked up the microphone and spoke to Harry.\n\n“How is the trip going?” he asked, “and where are you?”\n\n“We’re about 130 miles out of New York harbor,” replied Harry. “The sea\nis a little choppy but nothing to write home about. Everything is\nrunning smoothly so far and we ought to put in at Plymouth in about 12\ndays.”\n\n“How’s the air in your tin fish?” Bert wanted to know.\n\n“Fine,” replied Harry. “The main hatch has been open all of the time and\nI haven’t a thing to complain about. I’ll have to sign off now and send\nsome messages for Mr. Mathews. I’ll buzz you again at eight in the\nmorning.”\n\n“Be sure you make it at eight o’clock our time,” warned Bert as he\nsigned off.\n\nBert had some work to do on his reserve radio equipment and Andy went to\nhis own office to look over the correspondence which had accumulated\nduring his absence in New York.\n\nBlatz, professing to be tired after the flight down from New York, said\nhe would go to the hotel and retire early. Andy watched until the German\ncivilian observer bad crossed the track and was well on his way to the\nhotel. He had told Timms of his experience in New York but the secret\nservice man was still inclined not to doubt Blatz’s right to be at\nBellevue. Whatever watching of the observer was done would have to be by\nAndy.\n\nThe assistant pilot of the Goliath was busy half an hour reading and\nsorting the mail. It was unusually quiet around the hangar that night so\nthe scuffing of something against a stick caught Andy’s attention.\nSomeone was walking cautiously toward the hangar!\n\nAndy remained in his chair, fingering through the pile of letters before\nhim. The guarded sound came again. At the end of a minute he turned out\nthe light and slipped out of his office. A small door which led into the\nmain hangar was open.\n\nAndy returned to his office to get his flashlight. Remembering that he\nhad left it at the hotel, he found some matches beside a half dozen red\nlanterns which were used to mark danger places on the field. Since the\nGoliath used helium there was no danger of an explosion from striking a\nmatch in the hangar or, for that matter, aboard the Goliath itself.\n\nThe assistant pilot of the dirigible stepped quickly through the door\nand paused to accustom his eyes to the heavy darkness of the interior.\nHe slipped off his shoes and then moved slowly toward the lighter\noutline of the silvered hull of the Goliath.\n\nAndy paused. Someone was moving slowly just ahead of him. The young\nairman groped his way ahead, hands outstretched. The next second he was\nclutching someone’s coat.\n\nThey came to grips, but only for a second. The unknown invader of the\nhangar slipped out of his coat and Andy heard him running out of the\nhangar.\n\nMuttering to himself in disgust, Andy stooped to strike a match and look\nat the coat he had seized. As he struck a match, he slipped and stumbled\nheadlong. The match dropped into a chunk of oily waste. It flared and\nburst into flame but Andy remained motionless on the floor, his head\nresting against a heavy wood block it had struck.\n\nThe fire in the waste glowed brightly and leaped higher as it fed on the\noil which saturated the waste. Unless help reached Andy soon the fire\nwould spread to other parts of the hangar and the Goliath itself would\nbe in danger of destruction!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTrial Flight\n\n\nWhile Andy lay senseless on the floor of the hangar with the flames from\nthe oil-soaked waste mounting higher, a shadow appeared in the doorway.\nIt was Blatz, whom Andy had surprised in the hangar as he was about to\nattempt the destruction of the Goliath.\n\nThe German observer crept closer to the flames and it was not until he\nwas almost at the blaze that he discerned the inert form of the\nassistant pilot.\n\n“Andy,” he cried, “Andy!”\n\nThere was no answer and Blatz acted with sudden determination. He picked\nup the coat which Andy still clutched and used the garment to beat out\nthe flames. That task accomplished he turned on his flashlight and bent\ndown to examine the lump on Andy’s forehead. The young airman groaned\nand Blatz chuckled grimly. The game was nearly over. He was glad.\n\nHe managed to pick Andy up and carried the now half-conscious American\nout of the hangar and into his office, where he turned on the light.\n\nAndy came to several minutes later and finally focused his eyes long\nenough on one spot to see Blatz standing in front of him.\n\n“I’m on to you,” cried Andy, struggling to get out of his chair. “You’re\ntrying to destroy the Goliath.”\n\n“Easy, Andy, easy,” urged Blatz. “You’ve had another nasty bump on your\nhead. The Goliath is all right.”\n\n“The last I remember is falling,” said Andy. “How did I get in here and\nwhat are you doing around the hangar at this time of night?”\n\n“You took a tumble, all right,” agreed Blatz, “and the match you had in\nyour hand fell into a handful of greasy waste. You’d chased me out of\nthe hangar but if I hadn’t been curious when you failed to follow, the\nwhole thing might have burned up. As it was, I got back in time to put\nout the fire before it got to you or the Goliath.”\n\nAndy looked at the speaker with incredulous eyes.\n\n“If that’s true,” he said, “I have done you a great wrong.”\n\nBefore the observer could reply, Bert burst through the door.\n\n“Big news,” he said. “The Rubanian air force rebelled this afternoon and\nforced Dictator Reikoff clear out of the country. I just got that\nbulletin over in the radio shack.”\n\n“You’re sure there’s no mistake?” asked Blatz.\n\n“Positive,” replied Bert. “It was an Associated Press dispatch\nbroadcast through the courtesy of one of the Louisville papers.”\n\nBlatz looked at Andy and they smiled understanding.\n\n“What’s the joke,” demanded Bert.\n\n“There isn’t any joke,” replied Blatz gravely, “and I can now tell you\nthe truth. I am Lieut. Serge Larko of the Rubanian air force. I was\nassigned to special duty as an agent of the Gerka, our secret police,\nand my mission was to make a non-stop flight to the United States, make\nmy way to Bellevue and bring about the destruction of the Goliath.”\n\nBert stared at him in speechless wonder but Andy nodded and said.\n\n“Then you were piloting the gray monoplane we chased that afternoon?”\n\n“Right,” said Serge. “You gave me a real scare.”\n\n“And you went into that warehouse on the east side while we were in New\nYork?” continued Andy.\n\n“Right again.”\n\n“And tonight you went into the hangar for the purpose of destroying the\nGoliath?”\n\n“I started in with that purpose,” admitted Serge, “but I’m too much of\nan airman. After I got inside I couldn’t bring myself to damage that\nbeautiful craft. I was about to leave when you entered and we met in the\ndark. You know the rest of the story.”\n\n“I know that it was mighty fortunate for me that you came back,” replied\nAndy and be grasped Serge warmly by the hand. “Now that the menace of\nReikoff has been removed from your homeland, I’m sure we’ll become real\nfriends. We’ll see Dad and Captain Harkins about having you added to the\npermanent staff of the National Airways.”\n\n“I’d like that,” smiled Serge happily, “but they’ll probably order me\naway from Bellevue or the secret service may take a hand in my case.”\n\n“I think Merritt Timms can be made to see things my way,” replied Andy.\n\n“When did you first suspect me?” asked Serge. “Almost as soon as you\narrived,” admitted Andy. “If you remember I questioned you about\nFriedrichshafen and suggested that you might know Karl Staab? When you\nadmitted that you knew Staab I decided something was wrong for as far as\nI know Staab never existed outside of my own mind.”\n\n“But I really have been at Friedrichshafen,” replied Serge.\n\n“I believed that,” said Andy, “for your technical knowledge showed you\nhad been trained with the Germans. Now let’s go over to the hotel and\nsee Dad and Captain Harkins.”\n\nThe conference at the hotel was interesting and successful and before\nthe long evening drew to a close it was agreed that Serge Larko, who had\nassumed his real identity, should become a permanent member of the\nGoliath’s crew.\n\nEven though the next day promised to be unusually busy, it was midnight\nbefore they were in bed but they were up at the crack of dawn.\n\nSerge was happier than he had been in months and Andy felt that a great\nweight had been lifted from his mind. There was no further danger to the\nGoliath from inside sources and they were practically ready for the test\nflights.\n\nLieut. Jim Crummit, in command of the army pursuit ships at Bellevue,\nstopped them as they left the hotel.\n\n“Will you want us to stand by this afternoon in case you decide to take\nthe Goliath aloft?” he asked Captain Harkins.\n\n“I hardly think that will be necessary, Lieutenant!” replied the\ncommander of the Goliath. “Any flight we might make would be confined to\nthe limits of the field.”\n\n“Right, sir,” said the army officer as he turned and walked toward the\nhangars which housed the army ships.\n\nAt eight o’clock Andy, Serge and Bert gathered in the radio shack and\nBert turned his set to talk with the Neptune. There was a steady crackle\nof interference but Bert stepped up the power with the hope that he\nwould get through to the Neptune.\n\n“Looks like we’re out of luck this morning,” he finally announced, “but\nI’ll give it one more try.” He turned to the dial again, tuning so\ncarefully the black disks hardly moved.\n\n“Harry’s coming in now,” he said. “I’ll have it strong in a minute.”\n\nBert switched over to the radiophone loudspeaker and the boys heard\nHarry calling, “Hello Bellevue. Good morning.”\n\n“Good morning yourself,” replied Bert. “Have fish for breakfast?”\n\n“Not this morning,” replied Harry. “Besides, it’s mid-forenoon out where\nwe are. How’s the Goliath?”\n\nAndy picked up the microphone and told Harry briefly what had taken\nplace the night before, adding that Serge had been added to the crew of\nthe Goliath and would make the trip to the North pole.\n\n“I’m glad to hear that,” replied Harry over the magic waves which\nbridged the hundreds of miles between them. “I’ll say hello to Serge if\nhe’ll take the mike now.”\n\nThe young Rubanian conversed with Harry for several minutes and then the\noperator of the Neptune signed off.\n\n“I’ll be back on the air tonight at eight,” he told Bert. “Be sure and\nlet me know how the Goliath behaves on her first trip out of the\nhangar.”\n\nThe interior of the great hangar was alive with activity that morning.\nFinal weight checks were being made for the war department.\nSpecifications on the total weight were very strict and builders of\ndirigibles were always prone to exceed the specification limit.\n\nCaptain Harkins and Andy’s father were at first one end of the Goliath\nand then at the other supervising the countless last minute tasks.\n\nA tri-motor droned over the field at 11 o’clock, circled and dropped\ndown to waddle across the fresh green of the meadow. It stopped at one\nside of the Goliath’s hangar and a dozen army officers, all with the\nwings of the air corps on their collars, descended and walked toward the\nhangar.\n\nCaptain Harkins and Andy’s father hastened to make them welcome and\nassure them that the Goliath would be ready for a walk-out test\nimmediately after lunch.\n\nWhile the builders and chief engineers of the Goliath entertained the\nvisiting army delegation at the hotel at noon, Andy and Serge made the\nfinal inspection of the big ship. The ground crew had been drilled in\nits task and the operator of the portable mooring mast to which the nose\nof the Goliath had been fastened had thoroughly rehearsed his part.\n\nAt one o’clock the army officers, accompanied by Captain Harkins and\nCharles High, returned from the hotel. For the next hour the army men\nwent over the Goliath, inspecting every yard of fabric and testing every\nduralumin beam. Motors were put on test, Bert demonstrated the power of\nhis radio equipment and even the passenger cabins came in for a rigid\ninspection.\n\nAt two o’clock Captain Harkins stepped into the control room at the\nforward end of the gondola.\n\n“Everything ready?” he asked Andy, in whom he had placed a large share\nof responsibility for the successful flight.\n\n“Everything ready, sir,” replied Andy.\n\nCaptain Harkins took over the controls. The army officers lined the\nwindows of the control room. Andy leaned out one window on the right\nside and placed a whistle to his mouth. He was wearing a telephone\nheadset while on the wall of the control room was a compact little\nswitchboard so that he could instantly communicate with any part of the\ndirigible whenever Captain Harkins gave a command.\n\nThe great moment was at hand. The Goliath was ready for its first test,\nthe walk-out from the hangar. Months of work and planning were\nrepresented in the great ship; would it live up to expectations?\n\nAndy sounded a shrill blast on the whistle. The ground crew, which had\nbeen waiting for the signal, leaped to its stations. The operator of the\nportable mooring mast started the engine of the big tractor-truck which\ncarried the mast.\n\nThe assistant pilot of the Goliath looked at Captain Harkins, who nodded\nquietly.\n\nAndy sounded two long blasts on the whistle. The shackles which had held\nthe Goliath in the hangar for so many months were loosened. The great\nairship quivered slightly as though eager to test its power.\n\nThe blasts of the whistle echoed through the hangar and the operator of\nthe huge tractor ahead eased in the clutch and started forward. The\nGoliath lurched slightly at the tug of the mooring mast, and then slowly\nstarted ahead. The ground crew steadied the great hulk as it was eased\nout of the shed. There was no wind and in ten minutes the Goliath was\noutside the hangar in which it had been born and in which it had grown\nto such proportions that it was king of all the skycraft.\n\nThe Goliath moved steadily ahead until it was well away from the hangar.\nCaptain Harkins signaled Andy and another blast of the whistle stopped\nthe portable mooring mast.\n\nCaptain Harkins conferred with the ranking air corps officer and Andy\ncaught a snatch of their conversation. They were going to take the\nGoliath up. The big ship was behaving perfectly and the army men were\nanxious for an air test. Captain Harkins assented and turned to Andy.\n\n“Have the motors started at once,” he ordered.\n\nAndy cut in a main phone connection so that he could talk to each of the\n12 motor rooms at the same time.\n\n“Start your motors,” he said, “and stand by for flight.”\n\nSharp, joyous answers echoed in his ears as the engineers hastened to\nstart the engines which were capable of sending the Goliath through the\nair at a maximum speed of 120 miles an hour.\n\nThe rear engine crews were the first to get their motors turning over\nbut within a minute the steady pulse of the 12 powerful engines could\nbe heard. Engine room after engine room reported to Andy and he checked\neach one off as they reported ready. In three minutes he turned to\nCaptain Harkins and said:\n\n“The engineers are ready.”\n\nThe Goliath was ready to test its wings. For a moment it hung, poised\njust above the ground. Then Captain Harkins nodded again, Andy’s whistle\nshrilled the “lines away” call and the Goliath floated upward into the\nheavens. For the moment it was the world’s largest balloon, drifting\nupward in the warm rays of the afternoon sun, lifted higher and higher\nby the buoyancy of its helium gas.\n\nAndy, Bert and Serge were grouped at one of the windows in the control\ncabin together. The ground simply floated away from them. There was no\nsense of sudden rising; no undue motion to the great craft.\n\nFifty, one hundred and then two hundred feet the Goliath climbed into\nthe skies, its powerful motors purring smoothly and ready to take up\ntheir task.\n\nAndy cut in the general connection to all of the engine rooms and warned\nthe engineers to stand by for further orders.\n\nWhen the Goliath was three hundred feet above the field, Captain Harkins\nturned to Andy and gave the order for slow speed ahead.\n\n“Slow speed ahead,” Andy repeated into the transmitter.\n\nThe Goliath came to life almost instantly. The great gas bag shook\nitself as though getting accustomed to its new power and then moved\nslowly ahead, the ground beneath drifting away in a fascinating\npanorama.\n\nCaptain Harkins, at the controls, moved the wheel which operated the\nelevators at the tail of the Goliath, and the earth dropped rapidly away\nfrom them as they climbed for altitude and circled over the home field.\nAndy, looking down, could see the members of the ground crew, faces\nupturned, watching their every move.\n\nThe great moment had come and passed. The Goliath had soared aloft and\neven now was proving the claims of its builders. Captain Harkins ordered\nhalf speed ahead and Andy repeated the command to the engine rooms. The\nspeed quickened as the beat of the motors increased but so carefully\ninsulated were the engine rooms that there was no unpleasant or\ndisturbing noise.\n\nThe air corps officers appeared elated at the ease with which the\nGoliath handled and they were outspoken in their praise of the engineers\nand staff which had constructed the new king of the skies.\n\nFor half an hour the Goliath cruised leisurely around the field, now\nclimbing, now dipping lower at the will of the silent man at the\ncontrols.\n\nAndy turned his telephone set over to Bert to relay Captain Harkins’\ncommands to the engine rooms and in company with his father, made an\ninspection of the whole ship.\n\nThere had been no shifting of the big gas bags and stress and strain\nindicators on the transverse rings of duralumin, the real backbone of\nthe dirigible, exceeded their expectations. Engine performance was more\nthan satisfactory and before returning to the control cabin, they\nmounted one of the stairways to an observation cockpit on the top of the\nGoliath.\n\nAhead and behind them stretched the smooth, silvered surface of the\nGoliath. Far to the east, were the haze enshrouded mountains while below\nthem was the rich, fresh green of the countryside in spring.\n\nAndy stood close to his father for he knew how much the successful\nflight of the new dirigible meant to the vice president of the National\nAirways. His father, with Captain Harkins, had dreamed and planned for\nyears for the Goliath, and the culmination of their hopes meant their\nlife careers. Andy, himself, had shouldered no small part of the burden\nin the studying and engineering necessary for the construction of the\nhuge ship but he felt his own share small in comparison to the manifold\nburdens which his father had carried. They stood together in the\nobservation cockpit, happy in the knowledge that the Goliath represented\na great task well done.\n\n“Son,” said Charles High, “I’m mighty proud of all that you’ve done in\nthe building of the Goliath.”\n\n“And I’m mighty proud of you, Dad,” said Andy, “for I have some idea of\nthe obstacles you’ve had to face and the problems you’ve been called on\nto solve. The Goliath is certainly an accomplishment for which the world\nwill pay you tribute.”\n\n“I’m not looking for tribute or praise,” replied his father.\n“Satisfaction in knowing that the job is done, and done well, is all\nthat I ask. Now I’m looking forward to the day when our plant here at\nBellevue and the Goodyear-Zeppelin people at Akron will be busy all the\ntime turning out air cruisers like the Goliath; when the country will be\ncrossed with a network of dirigible lines carrying passengers, express\nand valuable freight at a high rate of speed and much more safely than\nairplanes.”\n\n“The day is coming and it is not so far in the dim and distant future,”\nsaid Andy confidently.\n\nA telephone in the observation cage buzzed and Andy answered the call.\nIt was Bert, warning them that Captain Harkins was about to descend.\n\n“We’d better get back to the control cabin,” said Andy’s father, and\nthey hurried down the ladder, along the main interior runway, and into\nthe control room where Captain Harkins was giving Bert orders to relay\nto the engine rooms.\n\nWith power on, the Goliath nosed down for its first landing. The ground\ncrew was strung out along the field, ready to grasp the lines which\nwould be dropped while the portable mooring mast had been maneuvered\ninto position for the landing.\n\nThey were dropping rapidly but smoothly and there was only a slight\nfeeling of downward motion. Captain Harkins checked the forward speed of\nthe Goliath, lines were dropped, and the big ship was back to earth\nafter a flight in which it had lived up to the fondest hopes of its\ndesigners and builders.\n\nThe nose was pushed up against the mooring mast where the automatic\ncoupling was made and the slow entry into the berth in the hangar\nstarted with the mooring mast, on its tractor-truck, waddling along\nahead and the Goliath following obediently.\n\nIn fifteen minutes the big ship was in its berth and the “orange peel”\ndoors were rolling shut.\n\nBefore leaving the gondola, Captain Harkins and Andy’s father held a\nconference with the air corps officers who had made the trip with them\nand definite plans for the first long trial flight were made. Captain\nHarkins turned to Andy when the conference was over.\n\n“See that orders are issued for the crew to be aboard ship and ready to\ndepart at three in the morning,” he said. “We’re going to make a\nsurprise visit to Washington if the weather reports at 2 A. M. are\nfair.”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nWings of the Storm\n\n\nCaptain Harkins’ announcement that the Goliath would make its first long\ntest flight the next morning meant hours of work ahead for Andy but the\nassistant pilot of the airship threw himself into the task with his\nusual unfailing energy. He had able assistants in Serge and Bert.\n\nThe visit to Washington was to be a complete surprise and every effort\nwas made to keep the news from getting out from Bellevue. If all went\nwell the first intimation the capital would have of the visit of the new\nsky king would be when the rising sun silvered the nose of the Goliath\nwith its rays.\n\nAndy received detailed reports from each of the engine rooms on the\nperformance during the trip over the field and found them highly\nsatisfactory. Fuel consumption had been less than he had anticipated.\nSupplies for the flight the next day must be ordered and placed aboard\nfor breakfast and lunch would be served to the army officers and to the\nmembers of the crew. Serge volunteered to attend to that task while Bert\nkept his radio busy getting the latest weather reports. He asked the\nWashington bureau for a special report at two o’clock the next morning\nand Washington came back with:\n\n“What’s up? Are you chaps going to make a trial flight at that hour of\nthe night?”\n\nBert refused to give the curious operators at Washington any information\nbut secured the promise that he could have a special meteorological\nreport at the desired hour.\n\nPreparations for the flight were completed by early evening and members\nof the crew were ordered to bed by nine o’clock. They would be aroused\nshortly after two if the weather report at that hour was favorable for\ntheir plans.\n\nAt eight that night the three young friends gathered in Bert’s radio\nshack to talk with Harry, now well out to sea in the Neptune. They\npicked up Harry’s signal on time to the minute and learned that the\nNeptune had been having a bad time of it.\n\n“I’ve been sick most of the day,” said Harry miserably. “The sea got\nmighty choppy this morning and we’ve been tossed all over the inside of\nthis tin fish. The air’s bad, too, and it’s been so rough we couldn’t\nhave eaten much if we had felt like it.”\n\n“That’s too bad,” replied Bert, “but it’s just what you get for\ngallivanting around the world in a cast-iron cigar.”\n\n“When is the Goliath going to test its wings?” asked Harry.\n\n“Can’t tell you,” replied Andy, who had picked up the microphone.\n\n“You mean you won’t tell me,” said Harry.\n\n“I guess that’s it,” admitted Andy, “but the first long flight is\nsupposed to be a surprise trip and if I told you where and when we were\ngoing to take the air someone with a low wave set might pick it up and\nthe newspapers would spread it all over their front pages.”\n\n“I get you,” replied Harry. “When shall I come on the air again.”\n\nAndy turned to Bert, cutting off the mike temporarily.\n\n“We ought to be over Washington around six o’clock,” he said. “How about\nhaving Harry tune in then and we’ll talk to him while we’re circling\nover the capital?”\n\n“Fine idea,” replied Bert enthusiastically. “Make it six o’clock and\nI’ll make a note of it now and put it on my instrument board on the\nGoliath. If I don’t I may get so excited I’ll forget to call Harry and\nhe’ll be sitting around out there in the ocean wondering what has\nhappened.”\n\nAndy cut in the mike again.\n\n“Turn on your juice tomorrow morning at six o’clock, eastern standard\ntime,” he told Harry. “I’m going to sign off now. We’re rolling out\nearly in the morning and I need a little ‘shut-eye’.”\n\nAndy, accompanied by Bert and Serge, made a final inspection of the\nGoliath. Everything was in readiness for the early morning flight. They\nreturned to their rooms at the hotel but sleep was a long time in coming\nfor Andy. He had worked so many long months over the plans and on the\nactual construction of the Goliath that their realization had seemed,\nuntil now, an almost unattainable dream. But now the Goliath was ready\nto claim its place as the king of all the man-made crafts which cruised\nthe heavens for only that afternoon the great dirigible had tested its\nwings and found them strong and reliable. On the morrow it would sail\naway into the eastern sky on its first long trip.\n\nAndy finally fell asleep but in his ears was the steady beat of the\nGoliath’s engines, the sweetest music of all to him.\n\nBert had left a call at the hotel desk for 1:45 o’clock and he was at\nhis receiving set promptly at two for the special meteorological report\nfrom Washington.\n\nThe report promised fair weather with a light west wind and an unlimited\nceiling.\n\nBert copied the report in triplicate, placed one copy in his own files\nfor a record and hastened back to the hotel with the other two. He\nawakened Andy and read the report to the assistant pilot.\n\n“That means we sail at three,” said Andy, as he rubbed the sleep from\nhis eyes and hurriedly got into his clothes.\n\n“I’ll go wake Dad and Captain Harkins,” he added.\n\n“Here’s a copy of the report for them,” said Bert as he handed Andy the\nthird tissue he had made.\n\nAndy awakened his father and the commander of the Goliath and they\nagreed that weather conditions were ideal for the flight to Washington.\n\nBy two-thirty the hangar was ablaze with light as the members of the\ncrew, their eyes still heavy with sleep, hurried to their posts. Motors\nwere given a final going over, rigging was thoroughly checked, the water\nballasts tanks and the water condenser at the top of the big bag were\ninspected. Finally the Goliath was pronounced ready to go.\n\nAt two forty-five the big doors at the end of the hangar started to roll\nback on their tracks and Andy, from his post in the control room, could\nhear the roar of engines as the army pilots, assigned to fly with the\nGoliath on any of its longer trips, warmed up their craft. Four of the\narmy planes under the command of Lieutenant Crummit would accompany the\nGoliath on the trip to Washington.\n\nThe air corps board which was to pass on the performance of the\ndirigible climbed aboard. Captain Harkins took his place at the main\ncontrol station and Andy’s whistle shrilled for the ground crew to take\nhold.\n\nThe whistle sounded again and the tractor-truck with the portable\nmooring mast lurched into motion and the Goliath moved slowly ahead. The\nbig ship was walked out into the soft moonlight, which bathed it with\nits radiance.\n\nAndy gave a general order for the 12 engine rooms to stand by. Then\nfollowed the order to start the engines and the night was broken by the\nsubdued roar of the powerful motors.\n\n“All lights out except the riding lights,” said Captain Harkins and Andy\nturned to the bank of switches to carry out the command. Only the shaded\nlights over the instruments in the control room and those in the engine\nrooms were left on.\n\nDown the field Andy could see the sputtering stream of fire from the\nexhausts of the four army planes which were to escort them on the flight\nto Washington. They would take off as soon as the Goliath was clear of\nthe field.\n\nReports checked back to Andy from the engine rooms indicated that every\nmotor was functioning perfectly and Andy relayed the report on to\nCaptain Harkins.\n\nBert, who had kept tuned in on Washington, hurried into the control\nroom, a hastily penciled message in his hand.\n\nCaptain Harkins took the message, held it down under one of the shaded\nlights, and read it aloud so that everyone in the control room could\nhear.\n\n“Weather from Kentucky east to Atlantic seaboard fair; light west wind;\nunlimited visibility.”\n\n“The weather reports continues favorable,” said Captain Harkins. Then,\nturning to Andy, he said:\n\n“Give the signal for the ground crew to let go.”\n\nAndy stepped to the open window. In the moonlight below he could see the\nline of workmen stretched back into the shadows under the great hulk.\nHis whistle shrilled the release signal. The ground crew let go their\nhold on the great gas bag and at the same moment the operator of the\nmooring mast released the automatic coupling.\n\nThere was only the slightest tremble as the Goliath started upward. The\nground dropped silently away. Below Andy could see the streaks of flame\nfrom the exhausts of the fast army planes. A few lights glowed in\nBellevue itself but the rest of the country seemed asleep. The Goliath\nrose to a level with the hills which enclosed the valley and drifted\nsteadily upward, the beat of its engines muffled by the interior engine\nroom as the powerful motors waited for the command to start driving the\ndirigible through the air.\n\n“Tell the engine rooms to stand by,” said Captain Harkins. A moment\nlater Andy got the command of slow speed ahead and he felt the Goliath\ngather itself for the trip through the night. The big ship felt steadier\nwith the power on and he leaned from his window to listen to the steady\nmonotone of the muffled exhausts.\n\nLights of the field drifted out of sight and they slipped over the hills\non the start of their surprise visit to Washington. Gradually the speed\nwas stepped up. Forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour they pushed their way\nthrough the moonlit sky, soaring through the heavens. The altimeter\nshowed a steady climb and Captain Harkins kept the nose of the Goliath\nup until they had reached the ten thousand foot level. At that height\nthe muffled sound of the airship’s engines could not be heard on the\nground and it was doubtful if anyone would see the great silver craft\nslipping through the sky.\n\nThe army planes caught up with them, circled around once or twice, and\nthen climbed five thousand feet above the Goliath, riding the high\nheavens in unceasing vigilance.\n\nBert came into the control room again and spoke to Captain Harkins.\n\n“Washington wants to know what’s up,” said Bert. “What shall I tell\nthem?”\n\nCaptain Harkins looked at his watch. It was three-thirty.\n\n“Tell them they’ll have a surprise for breakfast,” he said, and Bert\nreturned to his radio cubicle to dispatch the message.\n\nThe army inspectors were busy going over the Goliath, checking every\ndetail of the airship’s operation, rate of climb, maneuverability,\nspeed, engine performance, fuel consumption and the hundred and one\nspecifications which Uncle Sam had decided must be met by the Goliath\nbefore it would be acceptable and the remainder of the federal\nappropriation paid to the National Airways.\n\nWith the engines thoroughly warmed to their task. Captain Harkins\nincreased the speed until the Goliath was racing along at an even 100\nmiles an hour. There was no sense of motion or undue speed; only the\nground slipping away beneath in an ever-changing pattern of lights and\nshadows. Occasionally the streaking lights of a train would be visible\nor a larger town could cast its reflection upward, but Captain Harkins\nshifted his course to avoid the larger cities. Some enterprising\nnewspaperman might catch the muffled beat of the engines and take the\nsurprise element out of their visit to the capital.\n\nAndy checked their position on the map and stepped over to Captain\nHarkins.\n\n“We’ll be over Washington about five-thirty if we maintain our present\nrate of speed,” he said.\n\n“That’s too early,” replied the commander. “Order the engines down to\nhalf speed. We can speed up later if we find we’re a little behind.”\n\nAndy phoned the order to the engine rooms and the Goliath slowed down to\na steady fifty miles an hour, with the distance slipping off its\nsilvered sides like magic miles.\n\nThe assistant pilot got permission to leave his post and make a tour of\ninspection. He stopped at Bert’s cubby on his way back into the\ninterior.\n\n“Washington is about crazy with curiosity,” grinned Bert, who had a\nheadset on, “He knows we’ve left the field because our signals are\nstronger but he doesn’t believe we’re on our way east. Bet he stretches\nhis neck when we arrive.”\n\n“A good many thousand people are going to have Stiff necks before the\nday’s over,” smiled Andy. “See you later. I’m going to make a swing\naround this big weiner.”\n\nAll lights in the main gondola, except those in the control and radio\nrooms were out, but enough moonlight came through the windows of the\npromenade deck for Andy to see his way clearly back to the main catwalk\nin the interior. The catwalk was well lighted and he passed along under\nthe towering gas cells, filled with the precious helium. The stress and\nstrain meters showed that the duralumin framework was reacting even more\nfavorably than they had dared hope to under the test of actual flight.\n\nAndy continued on until he was in the middle of the ship where the great\ncargo hold was located. It yawned an empty, dimly lighted space. In the\nfore part were the quarters for the members of the crew and officers and\nAndy stepped into the tiny cabin he shared with Bert. The night had been\nraw when he started and he had put on an extra jacket of heavy brown\nsuede but it was not needed now for with their approach to the eastern\nseaboard the temperature was climbing steadily.\n\nAfter leaving his cabin, Andy ran up one of the ladders which led to the\ntop of the dirigible and its observation cockpits. He saw the shadow of\nsomeone ahead of him and discovered that Serge, who had been making a\ntrip through the interior, could not resist the temptation and had also\ngone up top.\n\n“You Americans should be very proud of the Goliath,” said Serge. “I have\nnever dreamed of anything so complete. It is a Pullman of the air; every\ncomfort thought of and anticipated.”\n\n“The thing that pleases me,” said Andy, “is that the ship is so far\nexceeding every specification set for it. The army men haven’t said very\nmuch but I can tell that they are highly pleased.”\n\nThey remained up top for ten of fifteen minutes as the new king of the\nskies slid through its domain. The sky was reddening in the east with\nthe approach of the new day. The mountains were in the west, smeared\nwith the sullen shadows of a night which seemed reluctant to leave.\nBefore them stretched the smoother country of Virginia.\n\n“We’re climbing again,” said Andy. “Captain Harkins must be going up so\nhigh we won’t be heard or seen on the ground.”\n\nThe army planes, faithful guardians through the night, circled far\noverhead.\n\n“I don’t envy those chaps,” grinned Serge. “We are moving so slowly they\nmust find it hard to stay anywhere near us. Lieutenant Crummit told me\ntheir low cruising speed was 100 miles an hour. Look how they zig-zag\nback and forth.”\n\n“They’ll leave us when we get over Washington and drop down on Bolling\nfield to refuel,” said Andy. “By the time we get back to Bellevue\nthey’ll be pretty much all in. Handling one of those delicate pursuit\nships for eight or ten hours is no picnic.”\n\nThe red disk of the sun popped into view and Andy and Serge left the\nobservation cockpit and returned to the control room. Captain Harkins\nhad hardly moved since leaving Bellevue but now he turned the main\ncontrols over to Andy.\n\n“The course is north, northeast,” he said. “Hold her as she is and at\n12,000 feet.”\n\n“North by northeast,” replied Andy, “and at 12,000 feet. Yes sir.”\n\nThe steward had been busy for the last hour and a hot breakfast was\nserved to the army observers and officers of the dirigible in the main\ndining salon while the crew had its breakfast in the dining room\nmidships.\n\nBert brought Andy a cup of coffee and a sandwich but the assistant pilot\nwas too interested in the way the Goliath handled to think of asking for\nrelief so he could go back and have the hot cereal, toast and jam that\nthe others enjoyed.\n\nHe was master of their dirigible, the king of the skies, the greatest\nairship ever built by man! Andy’s hands firmly grasped the wheels which\ncontrolled the elevators and the rudder. The Goliath responded easily\nand he swung it a point or two off course to see just how it handled.\n\nCaptain Harkins returned from breakfast while Andy was bringing the\nGoliath back on course.\n\n“Experimenting a little to see how the big boy handles?” asked the\ncommander.\n\n“I couldn’t resist,” replied Andy.\n\n“I know how you feel,” smiled Captain Harkins. “I did a little of it\nmyself while we were over the mountains.” He turned to Serge.\n\n“Step up here and take control,” he told the young Rubanian, whose\nmission had once been the destruction of the craft in which they now\nrode in comfort and security.\n\nSerge smiled gratefully as he accepted Captain Harkins’ invitation. It\nhad been months since he had stood at the controls of a dirigible. The\nlast time had been early in the winter when he had guided one of the\nlarge Blenkkos over Kratz, the capital of Rubania. The day following\nthat trip he had been ordered into the Gerka and then put on the long\ndistance planes, with the result that he was now in the United States, a\nmember of the crew of the Goliath. It all seemed like a vague dream, his\nlong flight across the ocean, his acceptance at Bellevue as a civilian\nobserver from Friedrichshafen and the final discovery of his identity by\nAndy and the downfall of Alex Reikoff, dictator of Rubania. Within the\nhour he would soar over Washington, the capital of the United States,\nand he felt his body glow with the happiness and contentment that was\nhis.\n\nCaptain Harkins checked the position of the Goliath and ordered a slight\nincrease in speed. The sun cleared away the morning mists and the entire\ncountryside lay below them, clothed with the green freshness of the\nspring.\n\nThe commander took over the controls and Andy returned to his station at\nCaptain Harkin’s right where he was in a position to relay instantly\norders to the engine crews.\n\nAndy, watching ahead intently, was the first to catch the white gleam of\nthe Washington monument and a minute later the dome of the capitol was\nsighted. The Potomac curved lazily below and they soared over\nAlexandria, Va; In order to reach Washington at six, Captain Harkins had\ndipped further into Virginia than he had first intended and approached\nWashington from the south and east.\n\nThe assistant pilot of the Goliath had made many air trips to Washington\nbut he had never viewed the city from that height and he marveled at the\nbeauty of the capital; its great, gleaming white buildings, its broad\nboulevards and its stately memorials.\n\nIt was just six o’clock when Bert hurried out of the radio room.\n\n“Harry just came in on the air,” he said. “Can you get off a minute and\nwe’ll say good morning to him?”\n\nSerge relieved Andy at the phones and the assistant pilot accompanied\nBert back to the radio cubby, where he was handed a headset.\n\n“Harry wants to know what’s up?” chuckled Bert.\n\n“All right,” grinned Andy. “Cut him in and then listen to him explode.”\n\nBert made the necessary adjustments and Andy heard Harry’s familiar\nvoice.\n\n“Hello, hello, hello,” said Andy. “This is the dirigible Goliath, now\nover the city of Washington, in a special broadcast to the Arctic\nsubmarine Neptune, en route from Brooklyn, New York, to Plymouth,\nEngland, on the first leg of its trip to the North pole where it will be\nmet this summer by the Goliath for an exchange of mail. This is a\nbeautifully clear spring morning with a light west wind. We are paying a\nsurprise visit to the capital after an unannounced departure this\nmorning at three o’clock from the Goliath’s home field at Bellevue, Ky.”\n\nAndy heard an excited exclamation and then Harry, now far out to sea in\nthe Neptune, started plying him with questions.\n\n“Are you really over Washington now? How is the Goliath behaving? Why\ndidn’t you tell a fellow what you were going to do?”\n\nOne by one Andy answered them and before he signed off Harry gave three\nstirring cheers for the Goliath and the success of its first long\nflight.\n\n“The weather is still bad,” he said as he signed off, “and if you don’t\nget me at eight tonight, don’t worry. I’m more than a little seasick and\nI may not feel up to talking with anyone but I’ll be on sure tomorrow\nmorning at eight.”\n\nAndy met his father on the way back to the control room and found him\njubilant.\n\n“The army board is more than enthusiastic about the performance,” he\ntold Andy, “and there is no question but what we will get an immediate\napproval and payment of the balance of the government appropriation.”\n\n“I’m mighty glad to know that, Dad,” replied Andy, “for I realize how\nmuch the success of the Goliath means to you. It will prove the\npracticability of these big ships for commercial service and mean we can\nbuild more of them for National Airways.”\n\nWhen Andy returned to his post in the control room, they were circling\nover the heart of the city and losing altitude rapidly for Captain\nHarkins was coming down to give the early morning risers a close view of\nthe world’s largest airship.\n\nThey swung out over the Potomac and the crew of the night boat, up from\nNorfolk, Va., which was just steaming into the tidal basin, waved as the\nGoliath drifted overhead, its speed now cut down to a mere thirty miles\nan hour. They cruised over the city at a thousand feet.\n\nNews of the Goliath’s arrival spread rapidly and hundreds of people\nflocked into the streets to see the big airship.\n\nCaptain Harkins headed for the White House and dropped the airship down\nto seven hundred and fifty feet. Back of the White House a group of men\nceased their game of medicine ball to gaze up at the great silver hulk.\n\nAndy nudged Serge and pointed downward.\n\n“There’s the president and his ‘medicine ball’ cabinet,” he said.\n\n“What kind of a cabinet is that?” asked Serge.\n\n“It’s the group of men with which the president plays medicine ball,”\nexplained Andy. “They get together every morning for their exercise.\nThere’s usually the president’s personal physician, at least one of his\nprivate secretaries and several cabinet members and usually a justice of\nthe supreme court.”\n\nOfficers and crew of the Goliath lined the windows as they passed over\nthe White House and waved at the group below, which returned the\ngreeting enthusiastically.\n\nCaptain Harkins dipped the bow of the airship in salute and then threw\nover the elevator controls and sent the Goliath to a safer altitude. For\nan hour they cruised over the capital and its environs, now swinging\ndown into Virginia, idling slowly over Arlington and then back over the\ncapital.\n\nSeveral of the army officers had been in the radio room, getting in\ntouch with their superiors. When they returned they went into a\nconference with Captain Harkins and Andy’s father. The assistant pilot\ncaught snatches of the conversation. He heard Baltimore, New York and\nPhiladelphia mentioned and his heart leaped as Captain Harkins turned to\nhim and handed over the controls.\n\n“Make one more circle over the city,” he said, “and then set your course\nfor Baltimore.”\n\n“Yes sir,” said Andy. “After Baltimore do we start home?”\n\n“Not yet,” replied Captain Harkins, his fine eyes twinkling. “The army\nmen are anxious that New York and Philadelphia get a glimpse of the\nGoliath so we won’t be home until night.”\n\nThey made a final circle of the city and Andy set the course for\nBaltimore. Serge, at the telephone, relayed the order for the engines to\nincrease their speed to eighty miles and hour and in less than half an\nhour they were within sight of the city that made the oyster famous.\n\nNews that they had headed toward Baltimore had preceded them and the\nstreets were thick with thousands of people craning their necks to see\nthe sky king. They gave Baltimore a half hour view at two thousand feet\nand by that time the air was full of planes which circled around them.\nThe faithful army ships had rejoined them and had a busy time chasing\nnewspaper planes whose ambitious photographers insisted on getting too\nclose to the Goliath.\n\nThe ever-growing procession left Baltimore and headed north for\nPhiladelphia, which was also given a half hour view of them before they\nproceeded on toward New York.\n\nCaptain Harkins took charge again and set the speed so the Goliath would\nreach the metropolis during the noon hour when the thousands of down\ntown workers would be out to lunch and free to watch the maneuvers of\nthe airship.\n\nBert stuck his head out of the radio room and called to Andy.\n\n“I’ve just picked up a message from Washington to Lakehurst,” he said.\n“The Akron and the Los Angeles are being ordered out to join us in a\nparade over New York.”\n\n“I’d almost like to be on the ground to see it,” said Andy, “but I guess\nI’ll be contented and stay here.”\n\nThe sun mounted toward its zenith as New Jersey unfolded below them and\nthe hangars at Lakehurst grew from tiny dots into good-sized mushrooms,\noutside which two silver ships were starting to take the air. By the\ntime they were over the home of the naval aircraft, the Akron and Los\nAngeles were at the two thousand foot level and Captain Harkins\nradiophoned to both ships to decide on the formation. It was agreed that\nthe Los Angeles would lead with the Akron next and the Goliath, the\ngiant of them all, bringing up the rear, a pageant of the progress of\naircraft.\n\nThe Los Angeles, slimmer and more graceful than the bulkier Akron or the\ngiant Goliath, took the lead and the other two ships fell in behind.\n\nIt was a magnificent fleet that paraded over the Jersey flats that\nspring morning. To the east rolled the sparkling waters of the Atlantic\nwhile ahead of them loomed the spires of Greater New York.\n\nThe aerial argosy swung out over the bay, dipped in salute as it circled\nthe Statue of Liberty, and then proceeded over the Battery and up the\nman-made canyon that is known the world over as Broadway.\n\nWhistles of tugs and ferryboats blended in a concerted shriek of welcome\nand the streets below were thronged with humanity. Traffic in down town\nNew York was at a standstill, tied up so hopelessly that it took hours\nto get it moving again.\n\nThey passed the mooring mast atop the Empire State at fifty miles an\nhour and then dipped slightly to the west to look down on Times Square.\nCentral park displayed its greenery ahead of them and in another minute\nthey were over Riverside drive and the Hudson.\n\nCaptain Harkins shifted the course and they turned and cut across\nManhattan to give Brooklyn a view of the Goliath. For an hour and a half\nthe three dirigibles zig-zagged back and forth over the metropolitan\narea. At one-thirty the command was given to start for home and with the\nfinal scream of whistles in their ears, the crew of the Goliath watched\nthe mighty buildings of Manhattan disappear behind them.\n\nLunch was served while they were on the return to Lakehurst, where the\nLos Angeles and the Akron left them and they proceeded on toward\nBellevue accompanied only by the four army planes.\n\nCaptain Harkins set a bee-line course that took them over New Jersey,\nwest of Philadelphia, and across the heart of the mountains to their\nsheltered valley home in Kentucky.\n\nBert had obtained a mid-afternoon weather forecast from Washington,\nwhich he handed to Andy. The prediction was none too favorable. A storm\nhad swept down off the Great Lakes and was now over Ohio. If it\ncontinued its present rate and course it would bisect the path of the\nGoliath. Andy passed the forecast on to Captain Harkins, whose lips\ntightened into a firm, straight line.\n\n“Looks like we’ll be in for some nasty weather before we get home,”\nobserved the commander of the Goliath. “Keep in touch with Washington,\nBert, and advise me at once of any changes in the weather report.”\n\nCaptain Harkins ordered the speed stepped up until they were doing an\neven ninety an hour. In calm weather they would have been averaging a\nhundred but a westerly wind cut them down ten miles an hour.\n\nClouds rolled out of the west and the sun was obscured by the drifting\nbanks of gray.\n\nBert came back to the control room to say that weather reports now\nindicated spotty weather all of the way home with local showers and\nthunderstorms.\n\nThey ran under a bank of rain clouds and the Goliath got its first taste\nof dirty weather, but it rode through the shower without difficulty, the\nrain shooting off its metalized sides in steady sheets.\n\nDusk found them two hundred miles from Bellevue with storms all around\nthem. Lightning was flashing steadily in the northwest and the sky was\nfull of wind squalls with the clouds rolling and twisting in an ominous\nmanner.\n\n“Just the kind of a night for a tornado,” Andy heard his father tell\nCaptain Harkins in a low voice. The Commander of the Goliath, his face\nlined with worry, nodded.\n\nThe storm was thickening. It would break at any minute. They had stuck\nto their course as long as they dared before Captain Harkins gave the\norders to run before the storm. The Goliath heeled sharply as a vicious\ngust of wind caught it broadside while it was circling. Then they were\nrunning into the southeast with the storm behind them.\n\nElectrical interference was so heavy that it was impossible for Bert to\ncommunicate with the Washington weather bureau and learn the conditions\nthey were running into. They simply had to take the course of the least\nresistance and hope that they could escape the fury of the elements.\n\nFor half an hour the Goliath sped through the heavy night. Rain beat\nagainst its silvered sides and flashes of lightning cast their glare\nover the boiling clouds. If the big airship returned to Bellevue without\nmishap it would certainly have won its laurels on its maiden flight.\n\nThe weather was getting thicker and Captain Harkins ordered Andy and\nSerge into the observation cockpits on top of the big bag.\n\n“Keep in constant touch with me,” he ordered. “If you see a break in the\nstorm let me know and we’ll try and run through it.”\n\nFrom their lonely posts atop the dirigible Andy and Serge, clad in\noilskins, braced themselves against the heat of the rain and the rush of\nthe wind. With headsets on their ears and transmitters slung across\ntheir chests, they kept in touch with the main control room. All around\nthem was a sea of churning clouds, rolling thunder, bolts of glittering\nblue and through it all the steady beat of the powerful engines as they\ndrove the Goliath on through the night.\n\nThey were at the seven thousand foot level and Captain Harkins warned\nthem he was going to attempt to get above the storm. The nose shot\nskyward and they pushed their way up through the clouds. Eight, nine and\nten thousand feet dropped away, but even at that level the storm raged.\nThere was no escape. Flickers of static played along the runway atop the\nGoliath and Andy was grateful that the gas cells were filled with the\nnon-explosive helium.\n\nAt ten thousand feet the Goliath was making the fight for its life.\nGrim-faced engineers watched over their engines while in the control\nroom Captain Harkins and Andy’s father stood side by side as they guided\nthe great airship through the storm. The army officers, grouped close\nbehind, watched every move for their lives hung in the balance that\nfateful night. Would the storm rip the Goliath asunder and drop it, a\nbroken, lifeless thing, like it had the Shenandoah? Would their fate be\nthe same? Those questions were in the mind of every man.\n\nThe storm increased in violence and Andy, atop the dirigible, felt the\nframe trembling under the terrific blows from the wind. He looked about\ndesperately for some break in the clouds that would let them through to\nsafety. The Goliath was making a brave battle but it was only a question\nof how long it could stand such a battering.\n\nBert, down in the control room, was on the other end of the phone, and\nthe news he gave Andy was none too encouraging. No. 5 engine had cut\nout. The crew reported a burned out bearing, which meant that the engine\nwas disabled for the remainder of the trip. Ten minutes later No. 9 on\nthe opposite side developed trouble and had to be shut down. They were\ncruising with 10 motors running, ample power for any average storm but\nthis spring disturbance of the weather was anything but usual.\n\nAn occasional brilliant glare of lightning would reveal Serge at his\nobservation post further back along the top and Andy wondered how the\nyoung Rubanian was faring. If they could only locate a break in the\nclouds. Andy’s eyes swept the darkness again but it was to no avail.\n\nThe Goliath heeled savagely and he clung to the edge of the cockpit.\nThey were knifing off to the right. The speed of the motors had\nincreased. Could the men in the control room have sighted a break or had\nSerge’s eyes been keener than his own?\n\nThe Goliath was running for its life, pulsating to the throbbing power\nof the engines. They must be doing well over a hundred, thought Andy.\n\nThe clouds ahead thinned; the rain lessened, the force of the wind\nabated and in ten more minutes they were out of the main storm, sailing\nthrough a light spring shower. Andy dropped down on a seat in the\nobservation cockpit. He was exhausted for he had fought every step with\nthe Goliath and now that safety was at hand he felt a great wave of\nfatigue sweep over him.\n\nAfter a five minute rest he descended into the heart of the dirigible\nand then made his way forward to the control room. Captain Harkins was\nstill at the controls but the lines of his face had softened.\n\n“We’re through the worst of it,” he told Andy. “We’ll loaf along here\nuntil the weather north and west of us clears enough so we can get back\nto Bellevue. You take charge while I go back for a bite to eat. I’m\npretty much all in.”\n\nAll Andy knew was that they were somewhere over the western part of the\nCarolinas, and he let the Goliath ease through the night at a bare\nthirty-five miles an hour. The rain ceased and the moon was struggling\nto break through the clouds.\n\nBert had managed to get in touch with Washington and allayed the fears\nof officials at the capital. He also learned that the four army planes\nwhich had accompanied the Goliath had landed safely in West Virginia.\nThis was good news to Andy, who in his concern over the safety of the\nGoliath had forgotten the army flyers.\n\nSerge came down from his observation post and Captain Harkins praised\nhim highly.\n\n“It was Serge,” he told Andy, “who spotted the break in the storm. If it\nhadn’t been for his keen eyes one guess is as good as another as to\nwhere we would be now.”\n\nBy ten o’clock the storms had drifted away and they were free to start\nthe return to Bellevue. The trouble on No. 9 motor had been repaired and\nwith only No. 5 out, they sped toward home.\n\nThe lights of Bellevue came into view at eleven-fifteen and ten minutes\nlater the Goliath drifted down to stick its squat nose into the\nautomatic coupling on the portable mooring mast. Eager hands steadied\nthe great ship as it was towed into the hangar and lodged securely in\nits berth.\n\nBefore leaving the hangar, a thorough inspection was made to ascertain\nif any sections had undergone damage during the storm. The outer fabric\nwas in perfect condition and outside of the failure of No. 5 motor, the\nGoliath had won its laurels in its first long flight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nFlood Relief\n\n\nNews of the Goliath’s victorious battle against the most severe storm of\nthe spring was spread on the front page of every newspaper in the\ncountry the next day and special writers and correspondents for the big\npress associations besieged the military patrol at Bellevue. Venturesome\nphotographers even attempted to fly over the plant and snap pictures of\nthe hangar but the army planes soon put an end to that stunt.\n\nThe insistence of the reporters compelled the attention of Andy’s father\nand Captain Harkins, and they called Andy into their conference. He\nadvised that reporters be escorted through the hangar and taken on a\nthorough trip over the dirigible.\n\n“We want the public to have faith in the Goliath,” counseled Andy, “and\nthe reporters must have the facts if they are to write intelligently.”\n\n“I believe you’re right,” agreed his father and Captain Harkins added a\nword of approval.\n\nAndy and Bert were designated as the tour conductors and they met the\nreporters at the hotel. Nine men and two women were in the group they\nescorted to the plant.\n\nAndy was amused by their exclamations of wonder at the size of the\nGoliath and he was pleased at their open praise of the beauty of the\ngreat ship. The inspection tour required two hours that afternoon for\nthey went into every part of the dirigible, even up to the observation\ncockpits on top and several of the more daring reporters walking along\nthe upper catwalk.\n\nWhen they returned to the main cabin, they found that Captain Harkins\nhad ordered the steward to serve tea. It was late afternoon by the time\nthe reporters departed, but they left highly elated over their\nexpedition and promised that glowing stories of the Goliath would appear\nin their papers and on the press association wires.\n\nWhen they had gone, Andy and Bert sat down on the steps of the hotel.\nThe tension of fighting with the Goliath through the storm of the night\nbefore had carried them along but now they relaxed and an enveloping\ncloak of fatigue settled over them.\n\n“I’m so tired I can hardly wiggle,” groaned Bert.\n\n“I’m just about that bad,” agreed Andy. “Believe me, I’ll go to bed early\ntonight.”\n\n“Wonder what’s happened to Harry and the Neptune?” said Bert. “I managed\nto roll out this morning in time to tune in at eight o’clock but I\ndidn’t get even a peep out of him.”\n\n“I must have been sound asleep when you got up,” said Andy, “for I\ndidn’t hear a thing.”\n\n“I came back to bed after failing to get in touch with Harry,” replied\nBert. “I’ll try again tonight at eight. Hope I have better luck. I\nwouldn’t trust one of those tin fish as far as I could throw my hat.\nThey don’t look safe to me.”\n\n“I expect a sailor feels the same way about an airship,” said Andy. “It\nall depends on what you’re used to.”\n\nAfter dinner that night Andy’s father announced that special tests would\nbe made the next week, including the attaching of a plane to the Goliath\nwhile in flight. This had been successfully accomplished by the Akron\nand they expected no difficulty. The special rigging was already at\nBellevue and it would be only the matter of a few days to complete the\ninstallation. The Goliath differed from the Akron in one capacity. Where\nthe Akron could carry a single plane slung underneath in a special\ncarriage, the Goliath had a special hold midships where the planes could\nbe raised and stored. It could accommodate four fast pursuit ships,\nlaunching them as it sped through the air at one hundred miles an hour.\nIt was from this viewpoint that the Goliath held unusual value to the\narmy officers.\n\nShortly before eight o’clock Andy and Bert went to the radio room, where\nBert tuned up his receiver for a talk with Harry, now far out to sea in\nthe Neptune.\n\nHe turned on the power at eight o’clock and waited patiently for a\nsignal from the submarine. When it failed to come he tried calling Harry\nbut even then failed to get a reply.\n\nBert worked for an hour hoping that he could get some answer from the\nNeptune but at nine o’clock was forced to admit defeat.\n\n“I’m getting worried,” confessed Bert. “It was too stormy to make\ncontact last night so it’s been nearly 36 hours since we’ve heard from\nHarry and anything can happen out there in mid-ocean.”\n\n“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” counseled Andy, who\nadmitted to himself that he was afraid some accident had befallen the\nNeptune. “They’ve probably run into a streak of bad weather and may have\nsubmerged to try and ride it out.”\n\n“I’ll try again the first thing in the morning,” said Bert. “We’ve just\ngot to hear from Harry,” he added desperately.\n\nIn spite of their fatigue, Andy and Bert passed a restless night and\nthey were up with the first sign of the dawn. Without waiting for\nbreakfast they hurried to the radio room where Bert tuned in on the wave\nlength used for communication between the station at Bellevue and the\nNeptune.\n\n“Someone’s on the air,” he said quickly. “I can hear the hum of his\ntransmitter; sounds like Harry’s set.”\n\n“Hello, Neptune,” said Bert. “This is the station at Bellevue, Ky.,\ncalling for the submarine Neptune, now en route to Plymouth, England.\nHello, Neptune, hello!”\n\nAndy bent close to the loud speaker, waiting eagerly for the ether waves\nto bring a reply to Bert’s call.\n\nIt failed to come and Bert repeated his call. Still there was no answer\nand the call went out a third and then a fourth time.\n\n“I can’t understand his failure to reply,” said Bert. “His set is\nrunning.”\n\n“Try it once more,” urged Andy. “Maybe we’ll have better luck.”\n\nBert repeated his call and then gazed at Andy incredulously as Harry’s\nfamiliar voice replied almost immediately.\n\n“You must be a prophet,” Bert told Andy. “Where in the dickens have you\nbeen for the last two days?” he asked Harry. “We’ve been scared stiff\nfor fear your tin fish might have sunk.”\n\n“No such luck,” replied Harry. “I’ve been so seasick I couldn’t even sit\nup. This is my first message since I last talked with you two days ago.”\n\n“Been running into rough weather?” asked Andy.\n\n“I never dreamed the ocean could be so nasty,” replied Harry in a hollow\nvoice. “We’ve been tossed around like a cork and half the crew has been\nunder the weather. This morning is the first time in 48 hours we could\ncruise on the surface with any degree of comfort.”\n\n“Don’t blame us for your predicament,” said Bert unfeelingly. “I warned\nyou to keep out of the submarine. But, no, you knew best.”\n\n“Listen,” replied Harry. “I couldn’t let you go to the North Pole and\nslip one over on me so when I heard the Neptune was going to make the\ntrip I signed up. You fellows wait until old man weather gets a real\ngood shot at you and you won’t think it is quite so funny.”\n\n“We’ve had our turn,” said Andy, and he told Harry in detail of the\nevents which had occurred on their return from New York and of their\nstrenuous battle against the elements.\n\n“Looks to me like the Goliath and the Neptune proved their ability at\nabout the same time,” said Harry. “After the last two days in the\nNeptune, I’ve got every confidence in it.”\n\n“I called you for fifteen minutes before you answered,” said Bert. “Your\ntransmitter was on the air but I couldn’t get any reply.”\n\n“The answer is simple,” replied Harry. “I wasn’t here. As I said before,\nI’ve been feeling pretty rocky. Well, I came up to the radio room and\nturned on the set, intending to call you. Then I got shaky again and had\nto go back and lie down. Guess I forgot to turn off the set and it kept\nbuzzing away.”\n\n“How much longer will it take you to reach Plymouth?” asked Andy.\n\n“With the delay we’ve encountered on account of the storm, it will take\nnearly another week,” replied Harry, “and here’s hoping that we’ll have\nfair weather from now on.”\n\nThey signed off a few minutes later after agreeing to talk again that\nnight at eight o’clock.\n\nThe remainder of that day and the rest of the week was devoted to the\ninstallation of the special landing apparatus which would snare a plane\nout of mid-air and haul it safely into the inner hold of the Goliath.\n\nAndy and Bert talked with Harry every day and learned that the Neptune,\naided by favorable weather, was making good progress. The sea had\nsteadied down and Harry had found his sea legs and his appetite had\nreturned.\n\n“Which means,” laughed Bert, “that the cook aboard that sub is going to\nhave a man-sized job keeping Harry filled with food.”\n\nAir corps officers from various posts flew in to inspect the Goliath\nwhile the members of the official board which had accompanied the\nairship on its flight to New York remained at hand for further tests. It\nwas Tuesday of the following week before the installation of the special\ngear had been completed and the Goliath pronounced ready for further\ntests.\n\nThe pursuit ship of Lieutenant Crummit was also fitted with special\nrigging and when this was completed they were ready for another trial.\n\nTuesday was an ideal spring day with plenty of sunshine and only a\nslight breeze from the south. The Goliath was walked out of its hangar\nand, with Captain Harkins at the controls and Andy at his side, made its\nthird trip aloft.\n\nWhen they were well under way, Andy went back midships to supervise the\ncontact with the pursuit plane.\n\nLieutenant Crummit buzzed nervously about the Goliath in his fast\nsingle-seater. The airship gradually stepped up its speed until it was\ndoing a hundred miles an hour, going fast enough for the contact to be\nmade.\n\nBack in the cavernous hold of the Goliath a tense crew was waiting to\nleap to its task. Andy’s father came back to watch the operation.\n\nA great arm hung beneath the dirigible and from this arm extended a\nV-shaped coupler into which the coupler on the plane would fit.\nSynchronization of speed was the main thing upon which success depended\nand it was up to Lieutenant Crummit to creep up under the Goliath at\njust a trifle more than a hundred miles an hour.\n\nFrom the observation windows in the keel Andy watched the approach of\nthe pursuit plane. Lieutenant Crummit was coming in as slowly as he\ndared, maneuvering carefully in an attempt to make the coupling on the\nfirst contact.\n\nThe triangular coupling mounted on the upper wing of the army plane\nslipped into the “V” of the arm below the Goliath. There was a slight\njolt at the shock of contact and Lieutenant Crummit, assured that the\ncoupling was fast, cut the switches on his motor and looked up\nexpectantly.\n\nAndy threw over the switch on the main control. The large trap door at\nthe bottom of the Goliath rolled back. Simultaneously the arm which held\nthe army plane fast in its grip moved upward rapidly, bringing the\npursuit ship with it. In another thirty seconds the army fighter was\ndeposited safely in the hold, the trap door was back in place and the\npowerful crane, or arm, which had caught and lifted the plane, was back\nin position.\n\nLieutenant Crummit leaped from the cockpit and ran toward Andy.\n\n“That’s the greatest aerial stunt I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Why, it’s\nas simple as falling off a log. I couldn’t miss that big ‘V’ and the\nnext thing I knew the plane was being whirled upward.”\n\nArmy officers who had watched the operation from the control room came\nback to interview the lieutenant and get his report. It was decided to\nrepeat the maneuver, only this time the plane would be set into flight\nfrom the Goliath.\n\nThe large crane was lifted back into the hold and made fast to the\nplane. When Lieutenant Crummit signalled he was ready, Andy opened the\ntrap door and dropped the plane through. The army flyer switched on his\ninertia starter, the warm motor caught the first time over and the\npropeller went into its dazzling whirl.\n\nLieutenant Crummit threw up his left arm as a signal for the release and\nthe big crane relinquished its grip on the pursuit ship. The army plane\ndropped down and away from the Goliath, then climbed and raced wildly\naround the mother ship. The Goliath had passed another one of its\nexacting tests successfully and Andy returned to the main control room\nand relieved Serge, who had taken his place during his absence in the\nhold.\n\nInstead of heading back for Bellevue, the Goliath swung north and Andy\nlooked inquiringly at his father, who had just returned from a\nconference with the army men.\n\n“We’re going to give Cincinnati a treat,” said the vice president of the\nNational Airways. “We can make the trip up there and be back home before\ndark.”\n\nWith Lieutenant Crummit’s plane and another army craft as escorts, the\nGoliath roared northward at a hundred miles an hour, knifing its silver\nhull through the lazy, fleecy clouds.\n\nThe Ohio river, heavy-burdened with a spring flood, rolled ahead of them\nand just beyond was the haze which hung over Cincinnati. It was a\nsurprise visit but the townspeople were not long in hurrying into the\nstreets to glimpse the king of the air. They wheeled and turned over\nCincinnati for a half hour before heading back for Bellevue.\n\nBert, who had left his radio room, leaned out a window and looked down\nat the swollen Ohio.\n\n“There’s plenty of water rolling down to the Gulf,” he told Andy, “and\nfrom all reports the Ohio isn’t the only river on a rampage. Almost\nevery large tributary of the Mississippi is at flood stage, which means\nplenty of trouble for people living down in the lower river country. It\nwill take several days for the flood waters to get there, but when they\ndo the country is going to forget about the Goliath and think about the\nflood.”\n\n“You’re a cheerful sort of a soul,” smiled Andy.\n\n“Just mark my words,” insisted Bert. “I predict a big flood on the lower\nportions of the Mississippi.”\n\nThey returned to Bellevue as twilight was draping its mantle of soft\npurple over the valley and it was dark, by the time the Goliath was in\nits berth.\n\nThere were minor adjustments and changes to be made on the Goliath and\nthe next three days were busy ones for the officers and members of the\ncrew.\n\nBert’s prediction was coming true, if the stories appearing in the\npapers were not exaggerating the situation. From Memphis down the\nMississippi was on a rampage, crashing through the man-made barriers\nthat had been erected to keep it in its channel and spreading death and\ndestruction over large areas of fertile land.\n\nThe Friday morning paper, which reached Bellevue by bus shortly after\nnoon, emphasized the need for relief measures, stressing that refugees\nwere without proper clothes or food. The national Red Cross had stepped\nin and was making every effort to relieve the situation but it was\nimpossible to reach some of the more isolated regions and women and\nchildren were believed to be in want.\n\n“What they need is a dirigible,” said Andy. “Why, we could load the\nGoliath with tons of food and clothing, cruise over that area at a low\naltitude, and drop supplies for hundreds of refugees.”\n\n“Why don’t you suggest it to your father?” said Bert.\n\n“I’ll do it right now,” said Andy, and he started toward the hotel.\n\nCharles High heard his son’s story without comment and when Andy was\nthrough, spoke with his characteristic decision.\n\n“I’ll put through a call to the national Red Cross office in\nWashington,” he said, “and if the need is as serious as you feel, we’ll\nstart before dawn.”\n\nThe national headquarters of the Red Cross confirmed the emergency and\nwelcomed the offer of the National Airways to send the Goliath into the\nflood region. Arrangements were made to bring in supplies on a special\ntrain from Cincinnati and the loading of the Goliath was set for shortly\nafter midnight.\n\nThe special train arrived an hour late and the crew of the airship\nworked with feverish haste to transfer the clothes and food from the\nexpress cars to the Goliath. The task was completed at four o’clock and\nwith the first tints of dawn in the sky, the Goliath was taken out of\nits hangar and started on its errand of mercy.\n\nCaptain Harkins held the big ship at a steady eighty miles an hour and\nby mid-forenoon they were well below Memphis and swinging over the flood\narea. The Mississippi had turned its valley into an immense brown lake.\nThe waters had swilled through towns, inundating streets and sweeping\nhouses from their foundations.\n\nMany of the towns had been deserted while others, on higher ground, were\ncompletely cut off by the flood. It was to the latter that the Goliath\nwas directed.\n\nBert kept in touch with the latest radio reports on the conditions and\nthe Goliath swung from one village to another. Andy, back in the hold,\nsuperintended the dropping of food and clothes. The food was put into\nbundles of clothes and then dropped overboard, the Goliath descending\nuntil it was a bare fifty feet above the towns to which it brought\nrelief. With motors shut off, it was possible for Andy to carry on a\nconversation with the marooned people and ascertain their needs. Serge\nwas with Andy and they directed the crew in the relief work.\n\nThrough the morning and afternoon they worked and their supply of food\nand clothing dwindled at a surprising rate. Two more towns to serve and\nthey would be through. They dropped food and clothing to the first one\nand hurried on to supply the second. After that they would start for\nhome.\n\nLieutenant Crummit and another army flyer had stuck with them all day\nlong, leaving only when it was necessary to fly to some city and\nreplenish their fuel supply, but one of the army pursuit ships had\nalways been on duty.\n\nA scene of complete desolation greeted them as they neared the last town\nto which they were bringing assistance. Flood waters were pouring\nthrough every street and the inhabitants who had not escaped were\nhuddled on house tops. More than fifty men, women and children were\ncongregated on the flat roof of a garage, the largest building in the\ntown. Out of the northwest a chill wind was presaging a raw, bitter\nnight and Andy shivered as he thought of the suffering which the little\nband on the rooftop would undergo before rescuers could reach them by\nboat.\n\n“Why don’t we drop down and take them aboard?” suggested Bert. “With\nmuch more exposure some of those people will have pneumonia.”\n\n“It might be possible,” agreed Andy. “We’ll see Captain Harkins.”\n\nThey presented their suggestion to the commander of the Goliath, and,\nafter a careful survey, Captain Harkins agreed. Orders were given for\nthe descent of the Goliath and Andy went back midships to supervise the\ndropping of a flexible steel ladder. The Goliath could not land directly\non the roof, but would hover just above it. The refugees would have to\nclimb the ladder to safety.\n\nWith a megaphone in his hands, Andy directed the rescue work. The\nGoliath, its motors turning over just enough to hold it above the roof,\nhung almost motionless. The excited townspeople grasped the ladder,\nwhich four men held fast to the rooftop. The ladder was none too steady\nbut the refugees, preferring the climb to the airship to another night\non the rooftop, bravely made their way aloft. Women came up alone with\nthe boys and girls following them. Babes in arms were carried up by the\nmen. In fifteen minutes the transfer had been completed, the ladder was\ndrawn up, the command given to proceed and the refugees hurried forward\ninto the main cabin where it was warm and where the stewards had\nprepared a hot meal.\n\nIt was a grateful group that came into the control room later to express\ntheir thanks to Captain Harkins, but the commander referred them to\nAndy, saying:\n\n“You can thank Andy High, assistant pilot, for he was the one who\ndirected the rescue.”\n\nThey made the run back to Memphis without difficulty but it was well\nafter dark when they soared over the city. Bert had radioed the story of\nthe rescue and the news that they would stop at Memphis and leave the\nrefugees. The airport was aglow with lights and when the Goliath nosed\ndown for an easy landing, police were taxed to the utmost to keep back\nthe cheering throng.\n\nFlashlights boomed as newspaper photographers snapped the refugees as\nthey disembarked. The Red Cross was on hand to care for the unfortunate\ntownspeople and after ascertaining that the weather was fair, the\nGoliath continued its homeward journey.\n\nThe next month was a succession of busy days with further tests for the\ngiant airship. Reports from Harry indicated the daily progress of the\nNeptune toward its goal in the Arctic, first to Plymouth, England, on to\nBergen, Norway, then toward the Arctic with the last stop at King’s Bay,\nSpitzbergen.\n\nPreparations at Bellevue were now centering on the flight to the Arctic.\nSpecial oils for the motors were arriving as well as equipment and\nclothing for the officers and crew. Insulation of the engine rooms and\nthe gondola was increased to stand the colder temperatures of the\nnorthland. The tentative date for the start of the flight was set for\nJuly 10th and the month of June rolled away as though on magic wheels.\n\nHarry radioed from King’s Bay that the Neptune was about ready to start\nthe final dash to the pole. On the 20th of June he reported that they\nwere nosing out of the bay, running on the surface. A few hours later\ncame the news that the Coast of Spitzbergen was disappearing over the\nhorizon and that the Neptune was headed north into the land of eternal\nice and snow.\n\nThe exchange of mail by the Goliath and Neptune had attracted the\nattention of stamp collectors in all parts of the world and extra mail\nclerks were brought to Bellevue to handle the hundreds of letters which\nhad been sent there for mailing aboard the Goliath, which would transfer\nthe pouches when it met the Neptune at the North Pole. The amount of\nmail had been limited to five tons, a total which was reached long\nbefore the date for closing the pouches was reached. A special\ncancellation stamp had been devised to show that the letters had been\nsent by the Goliath.\n\nWith the Neptune definitely slipping through the broken ice of the\nArctic, the importance of Bert’s task of keeping in touch with the\nNeptune increased and he almost lived in the radio room of the Goliath.\n\nThe days marched by in a steady procession. Daily reports from Harry\nindicated that ice conditions were most favorable and that the Neptune\nwas finding much clear water. Occasionally it was necessary to dive\nunder some particularly stubborn ice field but this had not happened\noften.\n\nThen things changed; high winds prevailed in the northland; progress was\nretarded; ice jammed in front of the Neptune; static set up a wall of\ninterference that was almost impossible to break through; messages from\nHarry were few and far between, and lines of worry deepened as Bert and\nAndy waited anxiously in the radio room.\n\nOn the 28th of June a wave of static turned back every query sent into\nthe Arctic. On the 29th the same conditions prevailed. When the static\ncleared on the 30th of June, Bert called in vain for the Neptune but\nthere was no answer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nThe Northern Seas\n\n\nAfter a rough crossing of the Atlantic from New York to Plymouth,\nEngland, where the Neptune had put in to replenish its supply of fuel,\nthe cruise of the polar submarine had been much smoother and Harry had\nreally enjoyed his trip. The daily talks by radiophone with Bert, Serge\nand Andy were the high spots of the day for he missed the pleasure of\ntheir companionship.\n\nHis first days aboard the Neptune had been miserable with the weather\nrough and his stomach turning flip-flops every time he tried to eat. But\nafter leaving Plymouth and heading north for Bergen he had found the sub\nand its tricks to his liking. Bob Smith, first officer of the Neptune,\nwas not much older than Harry. Bob was a navy man, loaned to Gilbert\nMathews especially for the Polar cruise, and he was thoroughly at home\nin the underwater craft.\n\nFrom Bergen to King’s Bay, Spitzbergen, was a lonely voyage for there\nare few ships in the Arctic. An occasional gull wheeling overhead, stray\nbergs drifting by, and the eternal blue of the cold North Atlantic was\nall they saw day after day. Harry kept the radio humming with the press\nmessages which the explorer sent back to his syndicate in New York. One\nmethod Mathews had used in spreading out the cost of the trip was the\nsale of exclusive stories of what went on aboard the Neptune to a\nnewspaper syndicate. Morning and afternoon stories were required and\nHarry, who was adept at writing a readable story, was often pressed into\nservice to write the daily dispatch.\n\nWeather favored them all the way to King’s Bay, where they were to make\ntheir final stop for supplies, which had been sent on ahead by steamers.\n\nHarry deserted his post and went up on deck when Bob called down to\ninform him that they were slipping into King’s Bay, scene of the start\nof many a famous Arctic flight. It was from here that Byrd and Floyd\nBennett had made their dash to the North pole, to be followed a few days\nlater by Nobile and Ellsworth in the Italian dirigible Norge. It was\nhere that Wilkins and Eielson had landed after their long flight from\nAlaska across the barrens of the Arctic and it was from here that the\nill-fated Norge had made a second expedition into the Arctic.\n\nBy the time the sleek, black submarine had nosed its way up to the large\ncoal dock, the entire population of King’s Bay was down to greet it. The\ncrew and officers welcomed the opportunity to leave the Neptune and\nstretch their legs on land, but preparations for the trip into the\nArctic were pushed with all possible haste. The weather was too\nfavorable for any unnecessary delay and the crew worked steadily at the\ntask of refilling fuel tanks and taking on fresh stores of food.\n\nOn the morning of the 20th of June they cast their lines off the coal\ndock, the big Diesels turned over smoothly, and the Neptune backed away\nand turned its nose toward the open bay.\n\nAs many of the crew of 31 as could crowd onto the deck watched the\nchanging scene, and listened to the wishes for good fortune shouted by\nthe townspeople on the dock. There was a fresh breeze in the outer bay\nand they were forced below by the crisp wind which sent waves slapping\nover the deck in steady succession.\n\nThey were in the land of the midnight sun where in summer there is no\nnight, only a dusk as the sun dips to the horizon. At dusk the mainland\nof Spitzbergen was to the rear and they were slipping past Amsterdam\nisland, which lay to their right. Ahead of them was the uncharted\nmystery of the Arctic ocean.\n\nHarry was surprised at the comparative mildness of the Arctic summer but\nthe temperature of the Arctic sea was not such that a fall overboard was\ninviting and as a result the outer hull of the craft was ice-cold.\nSpecial electrical heating devices had been installed in the living\nquarters and the control room so it was fairly comfortable inside the\nsub.\n\nAs they pushed northward, Gilbert Mathews and the two scientists with\nhim kept busy in the forward torpedo room where they made soundings of\nthe ocean depth and drew off samples from the bottom to determine the\nnature of the floor of the Arctic. Because of the scientific\ninvestigations, the Neptune made slow progress and it was the fourth day\nout before they encountered much pack ice.\n\nConditions were favorable for the progress of the Neptune, for the ice\nfields were open with wide leads between them. Occasionally a small berg\nscraped the side of the submarine and on the fifth day, when they\nencountered a solid mass of ice, the diving order was given and the\nNeptune, its special electrical feelers projecting ahead, slipped under\nthe wall of ice and into the open water on the other side. Such an\noperation was under the direct charge of Bob Smith, who demonstrated his\nability in that one brief maneuver.\n\nThe weather remained fair and on the 26th and 27th, the Neptune\nincreased its speed for the ice was fairly open. They were following\nalmost the same route taken by Byrd and Bennett in their successful dash\nby air to the North Pole. On the twenty-eighth the sky closed in on\nthem. A cold Arctic fog obscured the sun and a wall of static shut them\noff from communication with the outside world. They were now well into\nthe unknown regions of the Arctic, further north than any vessel had\npreviously penetrated, in the region which had been seen by man only\nfrom the air.\n\nOn the night of the twenty-eighth a bitter wind whipped down out of the\nnorthwest and the leads commenced to close under the pressure of the\ndrifting ice. The Neptune scuttled from one open area to another seeking\nsafety but the gravity of the situation increased every minute. With the\nice pack closing in, it was possible that the submarine might be caught\nbetween the ice and crushed like an egg shell for despite its sturdy\nconstruction it could not withstand the enormous pressure which the ice\nwould exert.\n\nBob was glued to the controls while Gilbert Mathews searched madly for\nan opening through which the Neptune might slip to safety. There was\nnone and reluctantly the order was given to submerge.\n\nThey would be safe down below for the time being but they would be\nunable to tell in what direction safety lay. They would have to feel\ntheir way almost blindly under the ice, hoping that they would\neventually find an opening where they could rise to the surface.\n\nBob sent the Neptune down five fathoms and they slipped under the ice\npack.\n\nHour after hour passed as the Neptune crept under the great mass of ice.\nAt times it was necessary to go down to 10 and 12 fathoms but for the\nmost part they were only five or six fathoms under the ice. The Neptune\nwas a good underwater boat, steady and smooth-riding and the crew\nexperienced little discomfort. There was plenty of air for 40 hours\nunder the ice and they felt no alarm, when, at the end of twenty hours,\nthey had failed to find an opening.\n\nThey stopped and made a test with the ice drill which had been\nespecially designed and installed for just such an emergency but the\ndevice jammed tight before they could get it working and that avenue of\nescape was cut off.\n\nWhen another ten hours had elapsed and they were still groping blindly\nunder the ice. Bob expressed his private opinion that they were in a\ntight situation. Harry agreed as he stood beside the first officer in\nthe control room. Another three hours slipped away and the air was\nheavy. Harry’s head felt light and the blood raced through his veins.\nUnless they found an opening soon it would be curtains for the Neptune\nand its crew. Gilbert Mathews relieved Bob at the main controls and the\nfirst officer walked back to the radio cubby with Harry.\n\n“If we don’t get out of this,” he said, “no one will ever know what\nhappened to us. They’ll have plenty of guesses and some of them will be\nright, but they’ll never really know. I wish you could get a message\nthrough.”\n\n“So do I,” said Harry, “but that won’t be possible until we emerge.”\n\n“I’m all in,” confessed Bob, “and I don’t suppose worrying will help us\nany. Wake me up in half an hour,” he added as he slumped down in the one\ncomfortable canvas chair in the room.\n\nHarry returned to the control room where a white-faced, worried crew\nstuck grimly to their stations.\n\nThe air was bad; lights dim. They were barely creeping forward. Several\nof the men dropped at their posts and were carried away by more\nfortunate companions. Others took their places. The chief engineer, a\nquiet Yankee, came in to tell the explorer that the power was going. The\nbatteries wouldn’t last more than another hour.\n\nThere was nothing Harry could do in the control room and he returned to\nhis own quarters. Bob was sound asleep in the chair. One dim light\nglowed over the now useless radio set. Harry sat down and picked up a\nmessage blank. He’d write a note to Andy and Bert. Someone might find\nthe hulk of the submarine some day; a freak of the Arctic might cast it\nwhere it would again be viewed by man.\n\nHarry had just started the note when he was startled by a sudden bumping\nand scraping. The Neptune tilted sharply. Were they headed for the\nbottom; crushed under the ice pack? The thought shot through Harry’s\nmind as he roused Bob.\n\nThere were cries from the control room. They were going up. They had\nfound an opening in the ice pack.\n\nThree minutes later the main hatch was thrown open and a wave of cool,\nfresh air swept down into the dank, stinking interior of the submarine.\n\nThey were in a small lead between the sheer walls of the ice pack. The\nNeptune had nosed into it blindly at a time when officers and crews had\ndespaired of their own lives.\n\nAs soon as the batteries had been charged sufficiently, Harry tried to\nsend out a call but the wall of static still engulfed the Arctic and his\nefforts were futile.\n\n“I don’t think I got out more than a hundred miles,” he told Bob, “and\nthere isn’t one chance in a thousand that anyone heard us.”\n\nThe Neptune remained securely in the sheltered lead all day on the 30th,\ncrew and officers resting after the strenuous ordeal they had been\nthrough. Above them and over the ice pack a high wind raged and toward\nthe close of day there were ominous crackings and rumblings in the ice.\n\nWith the exception of one man left in the conning tower, the crew of the\nNeptune was sound asleep at midnight. Two hours later they were awakened\nby the alarmed cries of the watch. An eerie rumbling and groaning filled\nthe night. When they tumbled out on deck a terrifying sight greeted\nthem. The walls of the ice pack were closing in. They were trapped in\nthe lead!\n\nThe rapid movement of the ice was astounding. Orders cracked from the\nlips of Gilbert Mathews and Bob Smith. The crew tumbled back into the\nsubmarine. The main hatch was slammed and battened down. A crash dive\nwas in order. They were going under the ice again.\n\nHarry dreaded the thought. The last time their margin of safety had been\nslim; too slim. This time they might not come up.\n\nThe tension inside the Neptune was terrific as Bob gave the orders for\nthe dive. Valves were opened wide; water roared into the diving tanks.\nThe Neptune settled swiftly. The conning tower was almost under when\nthere was a terrific bump. Their downward motion stopped. The water\ncontinued to rush into the diving tanks but the depth indicated remained\nmotionless.\n\n“We’re caught on an ice shelf,” cried the explorer.\n\n“Blow the tanks and we’ll get back to the surface,” commanded Bob. “We\nwon’t have a chance if we’re caught by the ice under water.”\n\nCompressed air whistled into the diving tanks and the needle of the\ndepth gauge quivered and moved upward. With a rush they were back on the\nsurface.\n\nThe walls of the ice had moved closer. There was the steady thunder of\nthe pack as the pressure increased and miles of ice, driven by the\nbiting gale, moved forward, crushing all before it.\n\nUnder Gilbert Mathews’ direction, members of the crew made hasty\nsoundings. To their dismay it was found that the tremendous pressure of\nthe advancing ice had driven a shelf of it under them. There wasn’t a\nsingle hole large enough to allow them to dive through to the\ncomparative safety of the depths.\n\nIn the next seconds a tremendous decision must be made: Should they stay\nwith the Neptune or abandon the submarine and attempt to escape over the\nice?\n\nThe walls of ice were moving forward relentlessly, closing the gap foot\nby foot.\n\nGilbert Mathews, white-faced, grim, spoke.\n\n“Get out the emergency equipment,” he said. “We’ll abandon the Neptune.”\n\nFor the next ten minutes the crew worked desperately. Food, tents,\nsnowshoes, medical supplies, and the portable radio and stoves were\nrushed up from below. The Neptune was nosed over against the nearest\nwall of ice and the supplies tossed on the pack. Others of the crew,\nhurrying over the treacherous ice, carried the supplies back to a place\nof safety for the tremendous pressure which would be exerted when the\nwalls of ice met might cause an explosion.\n\nHarry took a final look at his beloved set before abandoning the\nNeptune. He tried one more desperate call but the static strangled his\ncry for help. They were alone in the desolate Arctic.\n\nThe Neptune abandoned to its fate, the crew retired from the edge of the\nice pack. From a distance of half a mile they watched the walls of ice\ncome together. Gilbert Mathews turned away when the first of the\nrumbling explosions shattered the air. Ice rose in great pyramids,\nshattering and flying in every direction. The pack on which they were\nstanding quivered and moved dangerously. In several places wide gaps\nappeared but they were fortunate enough not to fall in.\n\nWhen the pressure eased, they returned to the place where they had left\nthe Neptune. Instead of a haven of open water they found great masses of\nice, twisted and piled in grotesque fashion as though some giant of the\nnorth had been playing a game all his own.\n\n“We’ve seen the last of the Neptune,” said Bob Smith sadly. “It was a\ngood tub but not good enough to beat the Arctic.”\n\nBut Bob was wrong for on the far side of the twisted mass of ice they\ncame upon the bow of the Neptune. From all appearances the shell of the\nsubmarine had withstood the terrific pressure and the undersea craft had\nbeen hurled out of the water and caught fast in the ice.\n\nIt would be impossible to use the Neptune as a means of travel but if\nthe ice held its grip, they could live in the submarine until a rescue\nexpedition could reach them.\n\nAxes were brought from the supplies they had taken off the Neptune and\nthe crew turned to the task of chopping a hole through the ice until\nthey reached the main hatch. Working in shifts, it took them two hours\nto accomplish the task.\n\nWhen the hatch was finally opened, Gilbert Mathews insisted that he be\nthe first to enter for the danger of chlorine gas lurked inside the\nNeptune. If the batteries had upset, the deadly gas might have formed.\nAnxiously the crew awaited the return of their leader. They cheered\nwildly when he called that there was no sign of gas and they tumbled\nback inside for a thorough inspection. Seams had been wrenched so\nseverely that the Neptune would sink like a rock if it ever slid into\nthe ocean but it was dry and comfortable inside and there was plenty of\nfuel oil in the tanks to keep them warm for months to come.\n\nThe first thing was to send word of their plight to the outside world.\n\nThe portable radio with its aerial was set up on the ice outside and\nHarry sat down to send out the first message and ask for relief. The\nstatic had cleared since his last attempt and he finally picked up an\namateur station at Hopedale, Labrador, to which he communicated the\nevents which had befallen the Neptune. As nearly as possible, Harry gave\ntheir position and asked that the officers of the Goliath at Bellevue,\nKy., be notified at once.\n\nThe operator at Hopedale, after recovering from the astonishment of\nHarry’s message, promised to relay it at once.\n\nThe hours dragged by and there was no reply from the operator at\nHopedale, except that he had relayed the message to Montreal for further\ntransmission.\n\nThe tent which had been erected around Harry’s portable set was little\nprotection from the bitter wind and he was numb from cold and miserable\nwhen the Hopedale operator finally came back at him. The message had\nreached Bellevue. The reply was on the way. It cracked through the\nether.\n\n“Goliath leaves at midnight. Estimate distance to you is 5,500 miles.\nShould make it in 60 hours after departure. Signed, Andy High, Assistant\nPilot.”\n\nHarry ran to the Neptune with the message and the news it contained\ncheered them greatly. With the wind rapidly whipping into a storm, they\ntook refuge in the warmth of the Neptune and awaited the coming of the\nGoliath.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nRescue in the Arctic\n\n\nFor two days after the static cleared, there was no word from the silent\nnorthland. Bert, Serge, and Andy remained in the radio room\ncontinuously, calling vainly for the Neptune but each time their call\nwent unheeded.\n\n“Something mighty serious has happened to the Neptune,” declared Bert,\n“or Harry would have answered just as soon as the static cleared.”\n\n“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Andy. “They were getting into dangerous\nwater when we last heard from them. Personally, I’ve doubted all along\nthat the Neptune would ever get to the North Pole. The ice pack there is\ntoo solid. They’d have to do too much underwater cruising.”\n\n“Do you think they’ve been trapped under the ice?” asked Bert anxiously.\n\n“No,” replied Andy, “for they have the ice drill to cut a path to\nsafety. But a submarine has so many things that can go wrong.”\n\nLate the second day Andy’s father returned from Washington and they\ninformed him of the gravity of the situation.\n\n“How long would it take to get the Goliath ready for a polar trip?” he\nasked Andy.\n\n“Not much more than six hours,” Andy replied.\n\n“Better warn the crew to stand by. If we don’t hear from the Neptune in\nanother 48 hours we’ll start north in an attempt to locate them.”\n\nTwo hours later the Canadian station at Montreal broke in with an urgent\nmessage.\n\n“Amateur operator at Hopedale, Labrador, has just messaged that\nsubmarine Neptune is disabled and caught in ice. Crew safe. Approximate\nposition: latitude 82° 21'; longitude, east 9° 31'. Ask relief\nexpedition.”\n\nBert copied the message with a hand that shook so much the words were\nlittle more than a scrawl.\n\n“Tell Montreal to stand by,” said Andy, “while I rush this over to Dad\nand Captain Harkins.” Andy found his father and the commander of the\nGoliath at the hotel where he burst in on their conference, the message\nin his hand.\n\n“I was afraid of something like this,” said Andy’s father. “The navy\npeople in Washington were inclined to be pretty pessimistic when I\ntalked with them, yesterday. Well, what do you say Captain?”\n\nThe commander of the Goliath asked Andy for the latest weather report.\nIt was favorable.\n\n“We’ll start north at midnight,” he said.\n\n“Will you be able to make the trip, Dad?” asked Andy.\n\n“Sorry, son, but I’m due back in Washington tomorrow for a conference\nthat may mean the construction of more ships like the Goliath. The army\npeople have been tremendously pleased with the performance and are\nanxious for more, semi-commercial, semi-military dirigibles.”\n\nAndy hurried back to the radio room where he communicated the news to\nBert and Serge. The message that the Goliath would start north at\nmidnight flashed to Montreal but static delayed its transmission to\nHopedale, to which it was finally relayed and from there sent on to the\nwaiting crew of the Neptune.\n\nReporters assigned to Bellevue to cover various trial flights of the\nGoliath sent out the news of the Neptune’s fate and the word that the\nGoliath was starting north at midnight. Through the early hours of the\nnight the hangar was ablaze with light as final preparations were made.\n\nEvery motor was thoroughly checked, extra helium put in the gas cells\nand every precaution taken to insure the success of the long flight.\n\nAndy and Captain Harkins studied charts of the northland, plotting their\nproposed course.\n\nIt was finally agreed that they would fly north and east to Montreal and\nthen almost due north nearly 3,000 miles along the 76th meridian until\nthey reached Etah, Greenland, on the northwestern tip of that\nice-covered land. At Etah they would swing east, skirting the north\ncoast of Greenland, then out over the desolate waste of ice on the last\nleg of their trip to find the crew of the Neptune.\n\nBy eleven-thirty every member of the crew selected for the rescue trip\nwas aboard, including two mail clerks. There would be no transfer of the\nmail to the Neptune but the postoffice department had rushed a special\ncancellation from Washington and letters already aboard would be carried\ninto the Arctic. At the scene of the rescue of the Neptune’s crew the\npostal clerks would cancel the letters with the special stamp.\n\nWhen the Goliath started out of its hangar at midnight on the second of\nJuly, there were 62 men aboard, including the two postoffice clerks. The\ncrew had been reduced to a minimum for they would pick up the 31 men\nfrom the Neptune.\n\nA typical July heat wave had gripped the nation for three days and they\nwere glad to soar into the cooler heights. A thin moon peeped down at\nthem as the great silver airship climbed into the sky and started north\non its mission of rescue.\n\nLights of Bellevue vanished in the night. They went up to eight thousand\nfeet and headed for Montreal. Bert, in the radio room, advised the\nCanadian station of their start and asked that the news be sent on to\nthe Neptune, via the station at Hopedale.\n\nAndy made a thorough trip over the Goliath while Serge remained in the\ncontrol room as first assistant to Captain Harkins. In the last month\nSerge had proved invaluable. He was thoroughly capable of handling the\nGoliath and had the ability to size up an emergency in an instant and\nmake the right decision.\n\nA little more than an hour after leaving Bellevue, the lights of\nPittsburgh appeared to their right. Tongues of flame from the steel\nfurnaces along the Monongahela shot into the night as though in greeting\nto the king of the skyways.\n\nThe sky was brightening with the rose of a summer dawn when they passed\nover Buffalo and headed down Lake Ontario.\n\nCaptain Harkins, who had been at the controls, complained of a severe\nabdominal pain and retired into the main lounge, leaving Andy in charge.\nAs they neared Montreal, the commander’s suffering became more intense.\n\n“I’m going to radio ahead and have a doctor meet us at Montreal,” said\nBert. “Captain Harkins is a mighty sick man and unless I miss my guess,\nthe trouble is acute appendicitis.”\n\nAndy agreed and told Serge to make preparations to land the Goliath when\nthey reached the airport outside Montreal. Fortunately there was a\nmooring mast that had been used by British dirigibles in their\ntrans-Atlantic flights.\n\nIt was eight o’clock when the Goliath nosed over Montreal and prepared\nto descend after its 750 mile flight from its home field. A company from\na Canadian regiment stationed in the city had bean turned out and was\nready to assist in bringing down the big airship. News that the Goliath\nwould stop had spread over the city and roads leading to the airport\nwere jammed with cars.\n\nWith Andy at the main elevator and rudder controls and Serge beside him\nwith a megaphone to direct the actions of the ground crew, they brought\nthe Goliath to an easy landing. As soon as the big ship was fastened\nsecurely to the mooring mast Andy hastened back into the main salon\nwhere a doctor, who had boarded it the moment they landed, was examining\nCaptain Harkins.\n\n“Acute appendicitis,” was the verdict and the doctor added: “To continue\non this flight will undoubtedly cost Captain Harkins his life.”\n\n“We’ve got to go on,” protested the commander of the Goliath. “The lives\nof 31 men in the Neptune, trapped in the Arctic, depend on us.”\n\n“You’ve got to think of yourself once in a while,” replied the surgeon\ntartly.\n\n“We can take the Goliath on, Captain Harkins,” said Andy. “Serge has\ndemonstrated that he is an expert pilot and navigator. Between the two\nof us we can handle the ship.”\n\nCaptain Harkins smiled through pain-tightened lips.\n\n“I’m sure you can,” he said, “but you’d better get an official O. K.\nfrom your father. He planned to fly back to Washington but you may be\nable to get him at Bellevue before he starts.”\n\nBert got through to Bellevue at once and in five minutes Andy was\ntalking with his father by radiophone.\n\n“We’ve got to go on,” said the assistant pilot of the Goliath, “and\nCaptain Harkins is desperately ill. Serge and I can take the Goliath\nthrough if you’ll give your permission.”\n\n“Then don’t waste any time,” replied the executive vice president of the\nNational Airways. “Tell Captain Harkins I’ll fly up to see him as soon\nas possible. Good luck, son, and the best of weather.”\n\nBreakfast was served to the crew while the Goliath was moored at the\nMontreal airport and at nine o’clock Andy gave orders to resume the\nflight.\n\nCaptain Harkins refused to leave the airport until the Goliath was under\nway and he watched the big ship move away from the mooring mast and soar\ninto the sky from his cot beside an ambulance. Andy dipped the nose of\nthe Goliath in salute to its commander and then headed the dirigible due\nnorth, following just east of the 76th meridian.\n\nThe day was clear and warm with a slight breeze from the south to speed\nthem on their way and they roared into the northland at a steady hundred\nmiles an hour. The fertile lands around Montreal were replaced by the\nheavier forests of middle Quebec and as the sun sped on its western path\nthey looked down on a desolate land of brush, swamp and giant mosquitoes\nwhich infested the region in summer. There was little habitation in the\ncountry below them for it was a quagmire in summer and a frozen waste in\nwinter.\n\nThere were innumerable lakes and rivers sighted during the day but by\nsundown these had thinned out into a few streams which sent their waters\nwestward into Hudson Bay.\n\nBert kept in almost constant communication with Montreal for the rescue\nflight of the Goliath was the news of the hour for every paper in the\nUnited States and Canada.\n\nSerge had taken a long afternoon shift at the controls while Andy slept\nand at sundown they changed, Serge going back into the main cabin for a\nwarm supper and a few hours sleep. At midnight he would relieve Andy.\n\nThe wind had died down to a whisper. The sky was brilliant with stars\nand the Goliath made steady progress northward. There was a chill in the\nair by midnight and Serge had on his sheepskin when he came forward to\nrelieve Andy.\n\n“They’re having trouble with No. 5 engine again,” said Andy, “and I’m\ngoing back and see what’s up. I’ll have them cut it off until they find\nout just what’s the matter.”\n\nSerge nodded, squinted at the chart and compass, and swung the nose of\nthe Goliath one point east.\n\nBack in No. 5 engine room Andy found the motor crew battling a stubborn\npiece of machinery. The motor would turn over all right but they\ncouldn’t get the necessary speed. Andy slipped into a pair of coveralls\nand worked with the crew. The trouble was in the timing and it took them\ntwo hours to do the job.\n\nWhen Andy returned to the main gondola, the sky was light in the east\nfor they were getting into a latitude where the summer nights were short\nand the days extremely long. Andy stepped into the control room and\nSerge pointed ahead of them to a blue expanse of water.\n\n“Hudson Strait,” he cried and Andy, hardly believing the words, looked\nat the chart. An hour later they were cutting across a corner of Fox\nLand. Then the Goliath was over Baffin Land with the waters of Baffin\nBay ahead and to their right.\n\nAt five a.m. Andy, who had slept for two hours, relieved Serge. A sharp\nwind had come out of the north and the Goliath’s speed was down to\nseventy miles an hour.\n\nThe broad expanse of Baffin Bay was dotted with ice. They nosed out over\nHome Bay with the open area of the South water beneath them. Ahead was\nthe great area of everlasting ice known as the Middle ice. For three\nhours the Goliath fought its way over the ice sheet. Then came the 25\nmile stretch of open water known as Middle water and then another sheet\nof desolate ice. It was noon when the Goliath finally left the Middle\nice and looked down on the berg-dotted stretch of North water. To their\nright was that majestic land of eternal ice—Greenland, while to their\nleft was the desolate reaches of Ellesmere island.\n\nSerge took over the controls but Andy, instead of going back to rest,\nremained at the window, looking down at the ever-changing panorama.\n\nBert had managed to pick up the wireless station at Etah and had asked\nfor a weather report.\n\n“Clear but a thirty mile wind from the north,” Etah had replied, when\nthe operator had recovered from his astonishment at learning of the\nproximity of the Goliath.\n\nWith their speed greatly curtailed by the strong wind and a desire to\neconomize as much as possible on fuel, it was late in the day when the\nGoliath stuck its nose into Smith Sound and looked down at Etah, the\nfarthest north year-round settlement of Greenland.\n\nThe Goliath dropped low over Etah in salute to its residents. Then the\nmotors of the Goliath echoed their power through the stillness of the\nArctic, Andy brought the nose up, and they proceeded up Smith’s Sound\nand into Kane Basin.\n\nAhead of them loomed a gray blanket of fog and Andy sent the Goliath\nclimbing for altitude. Four, five, six, even seven thousand feet they\nfought their way against the bitter wind but the drifting mist of gray\nenveloped them. They came down to eight hundred feet but there was no\nescape. The fog clung to the earth and it was impossible to see more\nthan two hundred feet ahead of the control room. Double lookouts were\nposted and extra men ordered into the observation cockpits atop the\nGoliath with telephone sets strapped to them so they could communicate\nany possible danger or send news of a break in the fog bank.\n\nThe Goliath crept ahead under reduced speed, barely feeling its way\nalong. Andy knew that below them was the great ice cap which covered\nGreenland and in the region over which they were now flying an\noccasional mountain peak reared its head through the eternal blanket of\nice and snow. The danger of colliding with such a peak was known to\nevery member of the crew and not a man so much as closed his eyes while\nthe Goliath battled the fog.\n\nThe real danger from the fog, which only Andy and Serge realized, was\nice. In less than half an hour the outer covering of the Goliath was\nsheathed in ice. The sides of the gondola were covered with the\ntreacherous stuff and even the windows froze over. It was necessary to\nlower them and the cold fog swept into the control room. Sheepskins were\nbuttoned close as the Goliath moved slowly ahead.\n\nSerge kept his eyes on the altimeter. The needle was wavering at eight\nhundred feet. Then it dropped to seven-fifty and finally to seven\nhundred. The weight of the ice was forcing them down.\n\nSerge nudged Andy and pointed significantly to the needle. It was down\nto six seventy-five. Andy nodded grimly and ordered more speed, at the\nsame time trying to nose the Goliath higher with the increased lifting\npower of the additional speed.\n\nThey gained a bare hundred feet, held it for five minutes, and then saw\nthe needle of the altimeter start down.\n\n“Take the controls,” Andy told Serge. “I’m going to ask for volunteers\nto go on top with me and try and chop the ice loose.”\n\n“You can’t do that,” protested Serge. “The risk is too great. Someone\nwill slip off and be killed.”\n\n“It’s either going up top and trying to clear off the ice or wait here\nuntil we’re forced down and crash into something, which would mean the\nloss of the Goliath and the end of the rescue flight to the Neptune.\nI’ve got to go.”\n\nThere was no hesitancy among the crew in volunteering for the dangerous\ntask. They equipped themselves with short axes and steel bars, special\nsteel cleated shoes and ropes fastened around their waists. Andy divided\nhis crew of volunteers, four of them going aft and three of them\naccompanying him aloft at the bow of the Goliath.\n\nWhen they emerged in the observation cockpit where another member of the\ncrew was huddled trying to peer into the fog, they found themselves in a\nworld alone. Ahead, behind, and on each side stretched the solid wall of\ncold, gray mist. The top of the Goliath shone dully under the sheet of\nice, the depth of which was increasing every minute.\n\n“Lash yourselves to the steel cable along the catwalk,” Andy cautioned\nthem, “and be careful in using the axes. Don’t chop through the\nmetalized covering if you can help it.”\n\nThe men nodded grimly and crept cautiously out on the catwalk, each one\ncareful to fasten the rope around his body. Setting the spikes on their\nshoes firmly into the ice, they began hacking away at the menacing\nshield which covered the Goliath.\n\nIt was a slow, tedious task and the air was bitter cold. They cleaned\noff the forward part of the catwalk and then started cautiously out on\ntop of the Goliath. Great sheets of ice slipped away under the prying of\ntheir bars but it seemed that new sheets formed almost as fast as they\npried the old ones loose.\n\nAndy’s hands became numb and his face felt like an icy mask.\n\nThe lookout in the observation cockpit shouted at them.\n\n“Control room says we’re holding steady now at five hundred feet. Asks\nif you want more help.”\n\n“Tell them to send up a relief crew,” replied Andy. Ten minutes later\nthree fresh men were working with him and they attacked the ice with\nrenewed vigor. Andy felt fortunate that there had been no accident so\nfar but the thought was hardly in his mind when one of the new men,\noverly-enthusiastic, slipped and disappeared in the fog. His safety rope\nwas fastened to the cable along the catwalk, but he had been in too much\nhaste to tie it securely and Andy saw the rope slipping. Somewhere over\nthe side of the Goliath this man was hanging, undoubtedly feeling the\nquiver of the rope as the knot slipped.\n\nForgetting his own danger, Andy hurled himself along the catwalk. He\nseized the other man’s safety rope just before the knot gave way. Andy’s\narms jerked out straight and he cried aloud at the sudden pain. He\nwrapped his legs around the cable on the catwalk and sprawled out on top\nof the Goliath, head-foremost toward the edge over which the other man\nhad disappeared.\n\nAndy’s cries brought the attention of the watch in the observation\ncockpit and the other two men working on top with him. As fast as the\ntreacherous condition of the catwalk would permit, they hastened toward\nhim but to Andy their progress was painfully slow.\n\nThe rope was slipping through his hands. His fingers tightened until it\nseemed they would crack but they were so numb from cold he couldn’t put\nhis full strength on the rope. It was slipping faster and faster.\nSomewhere on the other end the man who had been working beside him only\na minute before was swinging like a pendulum along the side of the\nice-encrusted dirigible.\n\nAndy cried out again. He saw the three coming to his aid hurl themselves\ntoward him. He closed his eyes. The rope was slipping faster. Something\nhit him so hard that he gasped for breath and the rope raced through his\nfingers. He clutched at it and his fingers closed against his own palms.\n\nWhen Andy opened his eyes one of the crew was bending over him while the\nother two were pulling their companion up over the side of the Goliath.\nThey had reached Andy just as his numbed fingers let go their hold.\n\nA minute later the man who had been looking death in the face was safe\non the catwalk, grateful to Andy for the risk he had taken.\n\nBert, who had sensed something wrong when the watch in the forward\ncockpit had failed to answer, came charging up. Andy was in no condition\nto remain up top longer and Bert made him go below into one of the\nengine rooms to thaw out.\n\nCrews on top of the Goliath were changed every half hour and in this\nmanner the dirigible wallowed through the fog. It was mid-forenoon\nbefore the haze showed any signs of lifting but at noon there was a\ndefinite break and the Arctic sun soon dispelled the menace in gray.\n\nWhen Andy was able to shoot their position again, he found that the\nGoliath was approaching Cape Morris Jessup, the northernmost tip of\nGreenland.\n\nThere were irregular leads in the ice pack which surrounded the cape,\nbut these soon dropped behind and the Goliath moved out over the white\nexpanse of the silent Arctic. They were on the last leg of their long\nflight, heading east and north now for the position from which Harry had\nsent his appeal for help. The second day slipped away and they recorded\nthe coming of the third in their log book.\n\nThey were fifty-five hours out from Bellevue. The sky was clear but the\nchill wind still swept out of the north. The interior of the main cabin\nand control room was warm again and the crew experienced no discomfort\nin its flight.\n\nThey crossed the Greenwich meridian at noon the third day. The Neptune\nwas somewhere east of them by nine degrees and 31 minutes and about two\ndegrees north. Andy altered the course slightly and the Goliath swept\nnearer the North Pole, although still some three hundred miles from that\nvisionary goal.\n\nEvery man who was not on duty in the control or engine rooms was at the\nwindows or stationed in the observation cockpits atop the dirigible,\nstraining ahead for some glimpse of the Neptune and its marooned crew.\n\nStatic had been bad all morning but Bert kept up an incessant call for\nHarry. It was an hour after crossing the Greenwich meridian when he\nreceived his first answer and his wild whoop of joy brought Andy into\nthe radio room on the run.\n\n“I’m talking with Harry now,” cried Bert. “He says to hurry. The pack\nice is breaking up and the Neptune may be lost at any minute.”\n\n“Tell them to get out of the tin tub and get onto the ice where they’ll\nbe safer,” replied Andy. “We’ll be there within another hour.”\n\n“Two members of the crew are sick,” replied Bert.\n\n“Then they’ll have to fix up some kind of shelter on the ice,” said\nAndy.\n\n“And Harry says it looks like a norther is coming up,” added the radio\noperator.\n\n“Tell him we’re coming at full speed. Have him keep his set going and\nuse your radio compass in guiding us to him.”\n\nBert agreed and Andy hastened back to the control room.\n\n“Bert’s just talked with Harry,” he told Serge, “and Harry says it looks\nlike a bad storm is brewing. We’ll put on full speed and pick them up\njust as soon as possible.”\n\nWord telephoned down from the observation cockpits warned the control\nroom that clouds to the north looked bad. This news added confirmation\nto that received from Harry and the Goliath raced over the waste of ice\nand snow at a hundred miles an hour. Every eye was strained ahead to\ncatch some sign of the trapped submarine and its crew.\n\n“The ice is more open here,” Andy told Serge. “I wouldn’t be surprised\nif the Neptune has disappeared by the time we reach there. Harry said\nthe ice was getting dangerous and I warned them to get out at once.”\n\n“I’ve had enough of the Arctic right now,” said Serge. “The experience\nwith the fog scared me half to death. I thought sure we were going to\ncrash over Greenland and we would if you hadn’t gone aloft and kept\nenough of it chopped off.”\n\n“We ought to be near the Neptune now,” said Andy, “unless my\ncalculations are way off.”\n\n“Want me to start circling from here?” asked Serge.\n\nBefore Andy could reply, Bert came from the radio room.\n\n“The Neptune is due north of us,” he cried. “Harry sent a flash. Said he\ncaught a glimpse of us with the sun slanting off the silver sides.”\n\nSerge swung the rudder over hard and the Goliath, its motors working\nrhythmically, bored into the heart of the northland. Ahead a solid wall\nof gray was mounting toward the heavens. In less than an hour the\nblizzard would be on them.\n\nFive minutes later the watch in the No. 1 cockpit on top phoned that he\nhad sighted the Neptune.\n\n“Crew’s on the ice,” was the terse message. “The sub’s still in sight\nbut the ice is moving and it won’t be long until the sub is gone.”\n\nAndy’s keen eyes were the first in the control room to sight the\nmarooned crew of the Neptune. Behind them he saw the great ridge of ice\nin which the Neptune had been caught. The dark nose of the undersea\ncraft was still in sight but the ice was heaving and churning under the\npressure of the moving ice pack.\n\nFissures in the ice were widening and the wind swooped out of the north\nwith an ominous roar. Flurries of snow swept past them. The temperature\nwas dropping fast. The rescue must be a matter of minutes or the Arctic\nmight claim the Goliath as well as the Neptune.\n\n“You’re better at a landing than I am,” Serge told Andy. “Take over.”\n\nAndy stepped into the place of command and under his skillful hands the\nGoliath slid down toward the crew of the Neptune. Steel cables, with\nheavy grapnels, had been rigged especially for a landing on the ice.\nWhen Andy gave the order to shut off the engines, the steel hooks were\ndropped. They caught on the uneven ice and electric winches to which\nthey were fastened rapidly drew the Goliath down until the main gondola\nrested just above the ice pack.\n\nHarry was the first to reach the gondola where he was greeted\nenthusiastically by Andy, Bert and Serge.\n\n“You’re just in time,” he told them. “The ice is breaking up. That means\nthe end of the Neptune and this blizzard would probably have finished\nus.”\n\nWhile Harry was talking, the sound of the coming storm was drowned by a\nseries of splintering crashes. The ice ahead of them heaved and buckled.\n\nGreat chunks were hurled into the air. The nose of the Neptune was\npushed straight up. For a moment the submarine hung in this position.\nThen, to the accompaniment of the steady booming of the ice, the sleek,\nsteel hull slid from view. It was gone in ten seconds—devoured by the\never-hungry Arctic.\n\nGilbert Mathews, who had aged years in the last few days, stumbled\nacross the ice.\n\n“Thank heaven you’ve arrived,” he cried. “We must hurry. The blizzard is\nalmost upon us.”\n\nIn twos and threes the crew of the Neptune hurried toward the Goliath. A\ntwilight had settled over the scene and the lights from the cabin\nwindows of the Goliath shone strangely through the dusk of the coming\nstorm.\n\nSerge and a crew from the Goliath brought the two men from the Neptune\nwho were ill aboard. Some of them carried a few personal possessions.\nMost of them had only the clothes they wore but they were thankful to\nhave even those.\n\nThe last hours aboard the Neptune had been hours of terror with the\nconstant danger of the ice breaking up and dropping them into the depths\nof the Arctic. With rescue at hand, some of them were almost hysterical\nwith joy. Mathews spoke to Andy.\n\n“I know the Arctic,” he said. “Get out of here as soon as you can. This\nstorm is going to be terrific. As soon as the last man is aboard, take\noff.”\n\nEvery motor was running smoothly and easily.\n\n“Stand by for a quick take off and a run before the storm,” he warned\nthe engineers. “Our lives will depend on you. We’ve got to make time.”\n\nBack in one of the cabins the postal clerks were busy cancelling the\nletters which had been the only pay cargo aboard the Goliath on the\npolar trip. They were obvious to the dangers of the coming storm and\nAndy envied them their lack of worry.\n\n“Everybody on,” reported Serge. “Let’s go.”\n\n“Let’s go,” echoed Andy and the command was flashed back to the engine\nrooms. The Goliath quivered to the pulsation of the powerful motors. To\nsave time, the steel cables with the grapnels were dropped on the ice\nand the Goliath shook its nose at the gathering storm as it roared\naloft.\n\nThe take-off had not come a moment too soon. The Goliath had barely\nturned around and headed south, when the blizzard struck in all its\nfury. A dry, biting snow enveloped the dirigible and the lights from the\ncabin windows made only faint glows in the sea of swirling white.\n\nWith motors turning over at full speed, the Goliath raced due south. But\nfast though the Goliath traveled, the storm kept pace. Andy was thankful\nfor one thing. The snow was dry. It wouldn’t freeze to the sides and\nforce them down.\n\nThe air outside was bitter cold and despite the heating system in the\ngondola, a penetrating chill crept in.\n\n“How about the two men who are sick?” Andy asked the explorer.\n\n“It’s flu,” replied Mathews. “They’re over the worst of it but so weak\nthey can hardly move. However, if they had been exposed to many\nhardships, it would have turned into pneumonia and they wouldn’t have\nhad a chance.”\n\nBert had managed to send out a flash on the rescue of the crew of the\nNeptune and had added that they were running before an Arctic blizzard.\nThis meager information was relayed by the Hopedale station and for\nhours a waiting world wondered and waited for news of the Goliath and\nits daring crew. They knew the king of the skies was battling for its\nlife somewhere in the northland; they knew that its commander was ill in\na Montreal hospital and they wondered at the stuff of which Andy and his\nassistants were made. Could they bring the Goliath through the dangers\nand rigors of a blizzard in the Arctic?\n\nRadio stations all over the northland tuned their sensitive ears for\nsome word from the Goliath, but the wall of static had dropped and their\ncalls went unanswered.\n\nIn the meantime, the Goliath was racing south, its motors on full as it\nsped through the storm. They were doing a hundred and thirty miles an\nhour but the snow stayed with them and the cold was even more intense.\n\nThe great ship was running blind. The only direction was south. Anything\nto escape the tearing savagery of the Arctic. Serge stood silent at the\ncontrols while Andy went on a tour of inspection. The engine crews were\ngetting drowsy from their long vigil and he ordered the steward to serve\na hot lunch for everyone.\n\nAndy was in the rear of the Goliath, leaving the last engine room, when\nhe heard a peculiar whistling sound. A draft of cold air struck him and\nhe turned quickly toward the tail of the ship, stopping only long enough\nto get a flashlight from the engine room. He worked his way along the\nnarrow catwalk in the tail. The blast of air was stronger. The beam of\nhis flashlight traced a finger of light through the duralumin girders\nand cables which formed and controlled the main elevator.\n\nThe light fastened on one section of the right elevator. There was a\ngreat tear in the metalized fabric through which the wind was whistling\nin an increasing crescendo. Unless the tear was repaired at once, the\nGoliath would be in grave danger of getting out of control for the\nopening was growing larger and would soon render the elevators useless.\n\nAndy ran back to the engine room where he telephoned Serge to reduce\ntheir speed to a minimum. The same call brought Bert and Harry back on\nthe run and another call brought two expert riggers with a roll of the\nmetal cloth and a can of cement, which they heated in the engine room.\n\nThe chief rigger, Mac Glassgow, looked at the rip in the elevator.\n\n“It’s a mean one to fix,” he asserted, “but we’ll do the job.”\n\n“We’ve got to,” urged Andy. “It’s growing larger every minute.”\n\n“An inside job won’t be so hard,” said Mac, “but to make it stick, it\nshould be patched from the outside.”\n\n“There’s no place to land and do that,” protested Bert.\n\n“I know, I know,” said Mac, “but an inside patch will never hold.”\n\n“You mean someone ought to go up top, lower themselves down on the\noutside, and make the patch?” asked Andy.\n\nMac nodded.\n\n“That’s the ticket,” he said. “I’m a bit too old and stiff or I’d do it\nin a minute. The Graf Zeppelin’s crew had to do it one time off the\nAtlantic coast in weather about as bad as this.”\n\n“I’ll go up,” replied Andy. “Get the patch ready, Mac. Bert and Harry\nwill come along to lower me away.”\n\nAndy’s friends protested that it was a foolhardy attempt, but he refused\nto listen to them.\n\n“We are all in grave danger,” he said. “The attempt must be made. As\nlong as you fellows hang onto the rope I’ll be in no danger.”\n\nOther members of the crew were summoned and under Mac’s expert direction\na temporary patch was placed inside the elevator fin. While this was\nbeing accomplished, Andy prepared for the outside job.\n\nA harness of leather straps was rigged around his shoulders and body and\nto this was attached a strong new one inch rope. Mac had cut the patch\nto the proper size and the cement had been placed in a double bucket to\nretain its heat. The motors were turning over just fast enough to give\nthe Goliath steerage way.\n\nAndy and his two companions ascended the ladder to the rear right\ncockpit, from which the commander of the Goliath was to be lowered over\nthe side.\n\nThe wind was blowing a gale that chilled them instantly.\n\n“You’ll freeze to death before you get down to the fin,” said Bert.\n\n“I’ll hug this cement pot,” replied Andy. “All set?”\n\nAndy slid over the side and Bert and Harry lowered away on the rope.\nFoot by foot Andy eased down over the smooth side of the Goliath.\nTwenty, thirty, forty feet he went out and down. Just below he caught\nthe glow of light inside the fin and the outline of the makeshift patch\nwhich Mac and his rigger had slapped on inside.\n\nThe young pilot sprawled flat on the surface of the fin, arms\noutstretched. The cloth to complete the patch was fastened on his back.\n\nWith chilled hands he opened the top of the cement pot and seized the\nbrush. The rip in the fin was about twelve feet long and two feet wide.\nAndy slapped the cement on the back end first, shut the top of the pot,\nreadied for the patch, and put the end in place before the cement had a\nchance to cool. The Goliath was drifting through the storm and Andy had\npatched the end of the hole which received the greatest force of the\nwind.\n\nHe worked forward carefully, stopping now to apply the cement liberally,\nthen unrolling the patch, and moving ahead another foot to repeat the\noperation. In the fin beneath, he could hear Mac, the rigger, shouting\nencouragement. He needed it. He was worn almost to the breaking point by\nthe responsibility which had been on his shoulders ever since the\nGoliath left the airport at Montreal. Tears froze to his cheeks and he\ncried aloud at the pain in his cold white hands. His movements were\nmechanical. Slap on the cement, unroll the patch, slap on the cement,\nunroll the patch.\n\nSuddenly there was no more cement to put on, no more cloth to unroll.\nThe job was done. The danger that the fin might be ripped off by the\nwind was over. Andy closed his eyes and his numbed hands slipped. There\nwas a sensation of falling and he knew that he was slipping off the fin\nbut he was in a lethargy, unable to help himself. He felt himself dip\nover the edge of the fin; knew he was falling into the storm and\ndarkness.\n\nWhen he opened his eyes half an hour later he was in the warmth of one\nof the rear engine rooms. Bert and Harry were beside him.\n\n“What happened while I was on the fin?” demanded Andy.\n\n“The cold got you,” replied Bert, “and you slipped off. Good thing we\nhad a rope around you.”\n\n“Is the fin all right?” Andy asked eagerly.\n\nMac Glassgow, the chief rigger who had remained in the background,\nstepped up.\n\n“Best job of patching I ever saw,” he exclaimed. “We’ll have no more\ntrouble with that fin this trip.”\n\n“How’s the storm?” was Andy’s next question.\n\n“We’re running out of it now,” replied Harry.\n\n“Serge just phoned back that the sky was clearing and it is much\nwarmer.”\n\nDespite Andy’s protest, they made him go to bed, and Harry sat down to\nsee that their wishes were enforced.\n\nWhen Andy awoke again the sky had cleared and the Goliath was cruising\nthrough brilliant sunshine. The events of the storm were like a\nnightmare.\n\nSerge was still at the controls. He was tired and worn by the long\nordeal, but he smiled happily when he saw Andy.\n\nBert came out of the radio room with a sheaf of messages.\n\n“I’ve sent out a complete story of our trip,” he informed Andy, “and\nmessages are coming in almost every minute now. Here’s a couple you’ll\nwant.” The first was from Andy’s father, then in Washington.\n\n“Have just learned of fine work of yourself and crew of Goliath. I’m\nproud of you, son.”\n\nThe other was from Captain Harkins. It read: “Great work, Andy. My\ncongratulations to Bert, Harry and Serge. Many happy landings.” Andy\npassed the messages along to Harry and Serge, who read them eagerly.\n\n“You’ve done a fine piece of work in taking the Goliath into the Arctic\nand bringing back the Neptune’s crew,” said Harry. “You deserve all the\ncongratulations.”\n\n“They’re embarrassing,” grinned Andy, “for you fellows deserve just as\nmuch credit as I do.”\n\n“We won’t quarrel over that,” said Serge. “Incidentally, if anyone is\ncurious, that point of land to our left is Cape Bismark and that rather\ninhospitable-looking stretch of ice and snow beyond is King William\nland.”\n\n“Which means nothing at all to me,” replied Bert.\n\n“If you could read a chart,” replied Serge lightly, “you’d know that we\nare now off the east coast of Greenland, proceeding south by west at\nninety miles an hour with clear skies and a favoring tail wind. Also,\nI’m going to bed.”\n\nWith motors tuned perfectly to their task, the Goliath sped southward\ntoward New York, where it would stop to land the crew of the Neptune.\nAndy, again at the controls, smiled happily for the Goliath had proved\nbeyond any question that it was master of the elements—king of the\nskies.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GO AHEAD BOYS SERIES\n\nBy ROSS KAY\n\n  On Smuggler’s Island\n  The Treasure Cave\n  Mysterious Old House\n  In the Island Camp\n  And the Racing Motor\n  And Simon’s Mine\n\nThese stories will appeal to any boy who is imbued with “The Go Ahead”\nspirit. Whether on Smuggler’s Island, at Simon’s Mine or in The Treasure\nCave, the boys have adventures that are as thrilling as they are\nunusual. The scene of each volume is laid in some beautiful and historic\npart of our country. This adds to the interest and value of the stories\nand makes them doubly attractive.\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Co\n\nNEW YORK, N.Y.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MUSKET BOYS SERIES\n\nBy GEORGE A WARREN\n\n  The Musket Boys of Old Boston\n  The Musket Boys Under Washington\n  The Musket Boys on the Delaware\n\nStirring times were these—and stirring deeds made boys into men before\ntheir time.\n\nAgainst the picturesque background of the revolutionary war, George A.\nWarren tells a tale of heroism and patriotism of the boys of long ago\nwho heard the call of their country and rallied to the colors.\n\nWhat trials of valor and responsibilities beyond their years comes to\n“The Musket Boys” is told in an enthralling manner.\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Co\n\nNEW YORK, N.Y.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS for BOYS\n\n\nTHE TIM MURPHY SERIES\n\nBy Graham M. Dean\n\nGraham M. Dean is a newspaper editor. He lives and knows how to tell the\nromance of newspapering. Tim Murphy learns how to fly at the expense of\nthe “Atkinson News” because the editor firmly believes some of the\nbiggest news stories will break above the clouds. Every boy and girl\nimbued with the spirit of adventure will want to read these books.\n\n\n  DARING WINGS\n  SKY TRAIL\n\n\nAIR MONSTER\n\nBy Edwin Green\n\nA story of the world’s largest dirigible and of the dangers in the\nfrozen wastes of the Arctic—a combination sure to provide thrills for\nevery reader. What befalls this “Air Monster” on the Arctic trip is only\na part of the smashing action of this great book for boys.\n\n\nEXTRA\n\nBy George Morse\n\nBaffling mystery, startling disappearances, roaring presses, etc., the\ntenseness of the deadline hour of great newspapers—all these and more\nare in this book written by a newspaper man in a style every young\nreader will enjoy.\n\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Co\n\nNEW YORK\n\n\n\n\nALL AMERICAN SPORT SERIES\n\nby Harold M. Sherman\n\nHarold M. Sherman, one of the most popular authors of boys’ books, needs\nno introduction to the vast majority of young readers.\n\nTo boys who like, as every red-blooded boy must, these high type sport\nstories, we dedicate this series.\n\n  FOOTBALL . . . INTERFERENCE\n  FOOTBALL . . . IT’S A PASS!\n  FOOTBALL . . . OVER THE LINE\n  BASKETBALL . . . UNDER THE BASKET\n  ICE HOCKEY . . . DOWN THE ICE\n  BASE BALL . . . STRIKE HIM OUT\n  TENNIS . . . THE TENNIS TERROR\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Co.\n\nNEW YORK\n\n\n\n\nTHE OUTDOOR CHUMS SERIES\n\nBy Captain Quincy Allen\n\n  The Outdoor Chums\n  On the Lake\n  In the Forest\n  On the Gulf\n  After Big Game\n  On A House Boat\n  In the Big Woods\n  At Cabin Point\n\nFor lovers of the great outdoors (and what boy is not?) this “Outdoor\nChums” series will be a rare treat. After you have read the first book\nand followed the fortunes of the “Chums,” you will realize the pleasure\nthe other seven volumes have in store for you.\n\nThese rollicking lads know field, forest, mountain, sea and stream—and\nthe books contain much valuable information on woodcraft and the living\nof an outdoor life.\n\nThe Goldsmith Publishing Co.\n\nNEW YORK\n\n\n\n***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AIR MONSTER***\n\n\n******* This file should be named 55965-0.txt or 55965-0.zip *******\n\n\nThis and all associated files of various formats will be found in:\nhttp://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/5/9/6/55965\n\n\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will\nbe renamed.\n\nCreating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\nroyalties. 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  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/rnn.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom rnn_utils import sigmoid, softmax\n\n\ndef rnn_cell_forward(xt, a_prev, parameters):\n    \"\"\"\n    Implements a single forward step of the RNN-cell as described in Figure (2)\n\n    Vectorized over 'm' samples.\n\n    Arguments:\n    xt -- your input data at timestep \"t\", numpy array of shape (n_x, m).\n    a_prev -- Hidden state at timestep \"t-1\", numpy array of shape (n_a, m)\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n      Wax -- Weight matrix multiplying the input,\n             numpy array of shape (n_a, n_x)\n      Waa -- Weight matrix multiplying the hidden state, numpy array of\n             shape (n_a, n_a)\n      Wya -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output,\n             numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      ba -- Bias, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array\n            of shape (n_y, 1)\n    Returns:\n    a_next -- next hidden state, of shape (n_a, m)\n    yt_pred -- prediction at timestep \"t\", numpy array of shape (n_y, m)\n    cache -- tuple of values needed for the backward pass, contains\n             (a_next, a_prev, xt, parameters)\n    \"\"\"\n    # Retrieve parameters from \"parameters\"\n    Wax = parameters[\"Wax\"]\n    Waa = parameters[\"Waa\"]\n    Wya = parameters[\"Wya\"]\n    ba = parameters[\"ba\"]\n    by = parameters[\"by\"]\n\n    a_next = np.tanh(np.dot(Waa, a_prev) + np.dot(Wax, xt) + ba)\n    yt_pred = softmax(np.dot(Wya, a_next) + by)\n\n    # store values you need for backward propagation in cache\n    cache = (a_next, a_prev, xt, parameters)\n    return a_next, yt_pred, cache\n\n\ndef rnn_forward(x, a0, parameters):\n    \"\"\"\n    Implement the forward propagation of the recurrent neural network described\n    in Figure (3).\n\n    Arguments:\n    x -- Input data for every time-step, of shape (n_x, m, T_x).\n    a0 -- Initial hidden state, of shape (n_a, m)\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n      Waa -- Weight matrix multiplying the hidden state, numpy array\n             of shape (n_a, n_a)\n      Wax -- Weight matrix multiplying the input, numpy array\n             of shape (n_a, n_x)\n      Wya -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array\n             of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      ba -- Bias numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array\n            of shape (n_y, 1)\n\n    Returns:\n    a -- Hidden states for every time-step, numpy array of shape (n_a, m, T_x)\n    y_pred -- Predictions for every time-step, numpy array\n              of shape (n_y, m, T_x)\n    caches -- tuple of values needed for the backward pass,\n              contains (list of caches, x)\n    \"\"\"\n\n    # Initialize \"caches\" which will contain the list of all caches\n    caches = []\n\n    # Retrieve dimensions from shapes of x and parameters[\"Wya\"]\n    n_x, m, T_x = x.shape\n    n_y, n_a = parameters[\"Wya\"].shape\n\n    # Hidden states have shape:\n    #   n_a, m, T_x (hidden dimension, num samples, seq index)\n    a = np.zeros((n_a, m, T_x))\n    y_pred = np.zeros((n_y, m, T_x))\n\n    a_next = a0\n\n    # loop over all time-steps\n    for t in range(0, T_x):\n        # Update next hidden state, compute the prediction, get the cache\n        a_next, yt_pred, cache = rnn_cell_forward(x[:,:,t], a_next, parameters)\n        a[:,:,t] = a_next\n        y_pred[:,:,t] = yt_pred\n        caches.append(cache)\n\n    # store values needed for backward propagation in cache\n    caches = (caches, x)\n    return a, y_pred, caches\n\n\ndef lstm_cell_forward(xt, a_prev, c_prev, parameters):\n    \"\"\"\n    Implement a single forward step of the LSTM-cell as described in Figure (4)\n\n    Arguments:\n    xt -- your input data at timestep \"t\", numpy array of shape (n_x, m).\n    a_prev -- Hidden state at timestep \"t-1\", numpy array of shape (n_a, m)\n    c_prev -- Memory state at timestep \"t-1\", numpy array of shape (n_a, m)\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n      Wf -- Weight matrix of the forget gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bf -- Bias of the forget gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wi -- Weight matrix of the update gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bi -- Bias of the update gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wc -- Weight matrix of the first \"tanh\", numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bc --  Bias of the first \"tanh\", numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wo -- Weight matrix of the output gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bo --  Bias of the output gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wy -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, 1)\n\n    Returns:\n    a_next -- next hidden state, of shape (n_a, m)\n    c_next -- next memory state, of shape (n_a, m)\n    yt_pred -- prediction at timestep \"t\", numpy array of shape (n_y, m)\n    cache -- tuple of values needed for the backward pass,\n             contains (a_next, c_next, a_prev, c_prev, xt, parameters)\n\n    Note: ft/it/ot stand for the forget/update/output gates, cct stands for the\n          candidate value (c tilde), c stands for the memory value\n    \"\"\"\n\n    # Retrieve parameters from \"parameters\"\n    Wf = parameters[\"Wf\"]\n    bf = parameters[\"bf\"]\n    Wi = parameters[\"Wi\"]\n    bi = parameters[\"bi\"]\n    Wc = parameters[\"Wc\"]\n    bc = parameters[\"bc\"]\n    Wo = parameters[\"Wo\"]\n    bo = parameters[\"bo\"]\n    Wy = parameters[\"Wy\"]\n    by = parameters[\"by\"]\n\n    # Retrieve dimensions from shapes of xt and Wy\n    n_x, m = xt.shape\n    n_y, n_a = Wy.shape\n\n    # Concatenate a_prev and xt\n    concat = np.zeros((n_a + n_x, m))\n    concat[: n_a, :] = a_prev\n    concat[n_a :, :] = xt\n\n    # Compute values for ft, it, cct, c_next, ot, a_next using the formulas\n    # given figure (4)\n    ft = sigmoid(np.dot(Wf, concat) + bf)\n    it = sigmoid(np.dot(Wi, concat) + bi)\n    cct = np.tanh(np.dot(Wc, concat) + bc)\n    c_next = ft * c_prev + it * cct\n    ot = sigmoid(np.dot(Wo, concat) + bo)\n    a_next = ot * np.tanh(c_next)\n\n    yt_pred = softmax(np.dot(Wy, a_next) + by)\n\n    # store values needed for backward propagation in cache\n    cache = (a_next, c_next, a_prev, c_prev, ft, it, cct, ot, xt, parameters)\n    return a_next, c_next, yt_pred, cache\n\n\ndef lstm_forward(x, a0, parameters):\n    \"\"\"\n    Implement the forward propagation of the recurrent neural network using an\n    LSTM-cell described in Figure (3).\n\n    Arguments:\n    x -- Input data for every time-step, of shape (n_x, m, T_x).\n    a0 -- Initial hidden state, of shape (n_a, m)\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n      Wf -- Weight matrix of the forget gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bf -- Bias of the forget gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wi -- Weight matrix of the update gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bi -- Bias of the update gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wc -- Weight matrix of the first \"tanh\", numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bc -- Bias of the first \"tanh\", numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wo -- Weight matrix of the output gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a + n_x)\n      bo -- Bias of the output gate, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n      Wy -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n      by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, 1)\n\n    Returns:\n    a -- Hidden states for every time-step, numpy array of shape (n_a, m, T_x)\n    y -- Predictions for every time-step, numpy array of shape (n_y, m, T_x)\n    caches -- tuple of values needed for the backward pass, contains (list of all the caches, x)\n    \"\"\"\n\n    # Initialize \"caches\", which will track the list of all the caches\n    caches = []\n\n    # Retrieve dimensions from shapes of x and parameters['Wy'] (≈2 lines)\n    n_x, m, T_x = x.shape\n    n_y, n_a = parameters['Wy'].shape\n\n    a = np.zeros((n_a, m, T_x))\n    c = np.zeros((n_a, m, T_x))\n    y = np.zeros((n_y, m, T_x))\n\n    # Initialize a_next and c_next\n    a_next = a0\n    c_next = np.zeros_like(a_next)\n\n    # loop over all time-steps\n    for t in range(T_x):\n        # Update next hidden state, next memory state, compute the prediction,\n        # get the cache.\n        a_next, c_next, yt, cache = lstm_cell_forward(x[:,:,t], a_next, c_next,\n                                                      parameters)\n        a[:,:,t] = a_next\n        y[:,:,t] = yt\n        c[:,:,t] = c_next\n        caches.append(cache)\n\n    # store values needed for backward propagation in cache\n    caches = (caches, x)\n\n    return a, y, c, caches\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    np.random.seed(1)\n    x = np.random.randn(3,10,7)\n    a0 = np.random.randn(5,10)\n    Wf = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    bf = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    Wi = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    bi = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    Wo = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    bo = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    Wc = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    bc = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    Wy = np.random.randn(2,5)\n    by = np.random.randn(2,1)\n\n    parameters = {\"Wf\": Wf, \"Wi\": Wi, \"Wo\": Wo, \"Wc\": Wc, \"Wy\": Wy, \"bf\": bf, \"bi\": bi, \"bo\": bo, \"bc\": bc, \"by\": by}\n\n    a, y, c, caches = lstm_forward(x, a0, parameters)\n    print(\"a[4][3][6] = \", a[4][3][6])\n    print(\"a.shape = \", a.shape)\n    print(\"y[1][4][3] =\", y[1][4][3])\n    print(\"y.shape = \", y.shape)\n    print(\"caches[1][1[1]] =\", caches[1][1][1])\n    print(\"c[1][2][1]\", c[1][2][1])\n    print(\"len(caches) = \", len(caches))\n\n\n    #np.random.seed(1)\n    #xt = np.random.randn(3,10)\n    #a_prev = np.random.randn(5,10)\n    #c_prev = np.random.randn(5,10)\n    #Wf = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    #bf = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    #Wi = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    #bi = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    #Wo = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    #bo = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    #Wc = np.random.randn(5, 5+3)\n    #bc = np.random.randn(5,1)\n    #Wy = np.random.randn(2,5)\n    #by = np.random.randn(2,1)\n\n    #parameters = {\"Wf\": Wf, \"Wi\": Wi, \"Wo\": Wo, \"Wc\": Wc, \"Wy\": Wy, \"bf\": bf, \"bi\": bi, \"bo\": bo, \"bc\": bc, \"by\": by}\n\n    #a_next, c_next, yt, cache = lstm_cell_forward(xt, a_prev, c_prev, parameters)\n    #print(\"a_next[4] = \", a_next[4])\n    #print(\"a_next.shape = \", c_next.shape)\n    #print(\"c_next[2] = \", c_next[2])\n    #print(\"c_next.shape = \", c_next.shape)\n    #print(\"yt[1] =\", yt[1])\n    #print(\"yt.shape = \", yt.shape)\n    #print(\"cache[1][3] =\", cache[1][3])\n    #print(\"len(cache) = \", len(cache))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/rnn_provided.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    e_x = np.exp(x - np.max(x))\n    return e_x / e_x.sum(axis=0)\n\ndef smooth(loss, cur_loss):\n    return loss * 0.999 + cur_loss * 0.001\n\ndef print_sample(sample_ix, ix_to_char):\n    txt = ''.join(ix_to_char[ix] for ix in sample_ix)\n    txt = txt[0].upper() + txt[1:]  # capitalize first character\n    print ('%s' % (txt, ), end='')\n\ndef get_initial_loss(vocab_size, seq_length):\n    return -np.log(1.0/vocab_size)*seq_length\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    e_x = np.exp(x - np.max(x))\n    return e_x / e_x.sum(axis=0)\n\ndef initialize_parameters(n_a, n_x, n_y):\n    \"\"\"\n    Initialize parameters with small random values\n\n    Returns:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n                        Wax -- Weight matrix multiplying the input, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_x)\n                        Waa -- Weight matrix multiplying the hidden state, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a)\n                        Wya -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n                        b --  Bias, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n                        by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, 1)\n    \"\"\"\n    np.random.seed(1)\n    Wax = np.random.randn(n_a, n_x)*0.01 # input to hidden\n    Waa = np.random.randn(n_a, n_a)*0.01 # hidden to hidden\n    Wya = np.random.randn(n_y, n_a)*0.01 # hidden to output\n    b = np.zeros((n_a, 1)) # hidden bias\n    by = np.zeros((n_y, 1)) # output bias\n\n    parameters = {\"Wax\": Wax, \"Waa\": Waa, \"Wya\": Wya, \"b\": b,\"by\": by}\n\n    return parameters\n\ndef rnn_step_forward(parameters, a_prev, x):\n\n    Waa, Wax, Wya, by, b = parameters['Waa'], parameters['Wax'], parameters['Wya'], parameters['by'], parameters['b']\n    a_next = np.tanh(np.dot(Wax, x) + np.dot(Waa, a_prev) + b) # hidden state\n    p_t = softmax(np.dot(Wya, a_next) + by) # unnormalized log probabilities for next chars # probabilities for next chars\n\n    return a_next, p_t\n\ndef rnn_step_backward(dy, gradients, parameters, x, a, a_prev):\n\n    gradients['dWya'] += np.dot(dy, a.T)\n    gradients['dby'] += dy\n    da = np.dot(parameters['Wya'].T, dy) + gradients['da_next'] # backprop into h\n    daraw = (1 - a * a) * da # backprop through tanh nonlinearity\n    gradients['db'] += daraw\n    gradients['dWax'] += np.dot(daraw, x.T)\n    gradients['dWaa'] += np.dot(daraw, a_prev.T)\n    gradients['da_next'] = np.dot(parameters['Waa'].T, daraw)\n    return gradients\n\ndef update_parameters(parameters, gradients, lr):\n\n    parameters['Wax'] += -lr * gradients['dWax']\n    parameters['Waa'] += -lr * gradients['dWaa']\n    parameters['Wya'] += -lr * gradients['dWya']\n    parameters['b']  += -lr * gradients['db']\n    parameters['by']  += -lr * gradients['dby']\n    return parameters\n\ndef rnn_forward(X, Y, a0, parameters, vocab_size = 27):\n\n    # Initialize x, a and y_hat as empty dictionaries\n    x, a, y_hat = {}, {}, {}\n\n    a[-1] = np.copy(a0)\n\n    # initialize your loss to 0\n    loss = 0\n\n    for t in range(len(X)):\n\n        # Set x[t] to be the one-hot vector representation of the t'th character in X.\n        # if X[t] == None, we just have x[t]=0. This is used to set the input for the first timestep to the zero vector.\n        x[t] = np.zeros((vocab_size,1))\n        if (X[t] != None):\n            x[t][X[t]] = 1\n\n        # Run one step forward of the RNN\n        a[t], y_hat[t] = rnn_step_forward(parameters, a[t-1], x[t])\n\n        # Update the loss by substracting the cross-entropy term of this time-step from it.\n        loss -= np.log(y_hat[t][Y[t],0])\n\n    cache = (y_hat, a, x)\n\n    return loss, cache\n\ndef rnn_backward(X, Y, parameters, cache):\n    # Initialize gradients as an empty dictionary\n    gradients = {}\n\n    # Retrieve from cache and parameters\n    (y_hat, a, x) = cache\n    Waa, Wax, Wya, by, b = parameters['Waa'], parameters['Wax'], parameters['Wya'], parameters['by'], parameters['b']\n\n    # each one should be initialized to zeros of the same dimension as its corresponding parameter\n    gradients['dWax'], gradients['dWaa'], gradients['dWya'] = np.zeros_like(Wax), np.zeros_like(Waa), np.zeros_like(Wya)\n    gradients['db'], gradients['dby'] = np.zeros_like(b), np.zeros_like(by)\n    gradients['da_next'] = np.zeros_like(a[0])\n\n    ### START CODE HERE ###\n    # Backpropagate through time\n    for t in reversed(range(len(X))):\n        dy = np.copy(y_hat[t])\n        dy[Y[t]] -= 1\n        gradients = rnn_step_backward(dy, gradients, parameters, x[t], a[t], a[t-1])\n    ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n    return gradients, a\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/rnn_utils.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    e_x = np.exp(x - np.max(x))\n    return e_x / e_x.sum(axis=0)\n\n\ndef sigmoid(x):\n    return 1 / (1 + np.exp(-x))\n\n\ndef initialize_adam(parameters) :\n    \"\"\"\n    Initializes v and s as two python dictionaries with:\n                - keys: \"dW1\", \"db1\", ..., \"dWL\", \"dbL\" \n                - values: numpy arrays of zeros of the same shape as the corresponding gradients/parameters.\n    \n    Arguments:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing your parameters.\n                    parameters[\"W\" + str(l)] = Wl\n                    parameters[\"b\" + str(l)] = bl\n    \n    Returns: \n    v -- python dictionary that will contain the exponentially weighted average of the gradient.\n                    v[\"dW\" + str(l)] = ...\n                    v[\"db\" + str(l)] = ...\n    s -- python dictionary that will contain the exponentially weighted average of the squared gradient.\n                    s[\"dW\" + str(l)] = ...\n                    s[\"db\" + str(l)] = ...\n\n    \"\"\"\n    \n    L = len(parameters) // 2 # number of layers in the neural networks\n    v = {}\n    s = {}\n    \n    # Initialize v, s. Input: \"parameters\". Outputs: \"v, s\".\n    for l in range(L):\n    ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 4 lines)\n        v[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = np.zeros(parameters[\"W\" + str(l+1)].shape)\n        v[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = np.zeros(parameters[\"b\" + str(l+1)].shape)\n        s[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = np.zeros(parameters[\"W\" + str(l+1)].shape)\n        s[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = np.zeros(parameters[\"b\" + str(l+1)].shape)\n    ### END CODE HERE ###\n    \n    return v, s\n\n\ndef update_parameters_with_adam(parameters, grads, v, s, t, learning_rate = 0.01,\n                                beta1 = 0.9, beta2 = 0.999,  epsilon = 1e-8):\n    \"\"\"\n    Update parameters using Adam\n    \n    Arguments:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing your parameters:\n                    parameters['W' + str(l)] = Wl\n                    parameters['b' + str(l)] = bl\n    grads -- python dictionary containing your gradients for each parameters:\n                    grads['dW' + str(l)] = dWl\n                    grads['db' + str(l)] = dbl\n    v -- Adam variable, moving average of the first gradient, python dictionary\n    s -- Adam variable, moving average of the squared gradient, python dictionary\n    learning_rate -- the learning rate, scalar.\n    beta1 -- Exponential decay hyperparameter for the first moment estimates \n    beta2 -- Exponential decay hyperparameter for the second moment estimates \n    epsilon -- hyperparameter preventing division by zero in Adam updates\n\n    Returns:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing your updated parameters \n    v -- Adam variable, moving average of the first gradient, python dictionary\n    s -- Adam variable, moving average of the squared gradient, python dictionary\n    \"\"\"\n    \n    L = len(parameters) // 2                 # number of layers in the neural networks\n    v_corrected = {}                         # Initializing first moment estimate, python dictionary\n    s_corrected = {}                         # Initializing second moment estimate, python dictionary\n    \n    # Perform Adam update on all parameters\n    for l in range(L):\n        # Moving average of the gradients. Inputs: \"v, grads, beta1\". Output: \"v\".\n        ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 2 lines)\n        v[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = beta1 * v[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] + (1 - beta1) * grads[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] \n        v[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = beta1 * v[\"db\" + str(l+1)] + (1 - beta1) * grads[\"db\" + str(l+1)] \n        ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n        # Compute bias-corrected first moment estimate. Inputs: \"v, beta1, t\". Output: \"v_corrected\".\n        ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 2 lines)\n        v_corrected[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = v[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] / (1 - beta1**t)\n        v_corrected[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = v[\"db\" + str(l+1)] / (1 - beta1**t)\n        ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n        # Moving average of the squared gradients. Inputs: \"s, grads, beta2\". Output: \"s\".\n        ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 2 lines)\n        s[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = beta2 * s[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] + (1 - beta2) * (grads[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] ** 2)\n        s[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = beta2 * s[\"db\" + str(l+1)] + (1 - beta2) * (grads[\"db\" + str(l+1)] ** 2)\n        ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n        # Compute bias-corrected second raw moment estimate. Inputs: \"s, beta2, t\". Output: \"s_corrected\".\n        ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 2 lines)\n        s_corrected[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] = s[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] / (1 - beta2 ** t)\n        s_corrected[\"db\" + str(l+1)] = s[\"db\" + str(l+1)] / (1 - beta2 ** t)\n        ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n        # Update parameters. Inputs: \"parameters, learning_rate, v_corrected, s_corrected, epsilon\". Output: \"parameters\".\n        ### START CODE HERE ### (approx. 2 lines)\n        parameters[\"W\" + str(l+1)] = parameters[\"W\" + str(l+1)] - learning_rate * v_corrected[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] / np.sqrt(s_corrected[\"dW\" + str(l+1)] + epsilon)\n        parameters[\"b\" + str(l+1)] = parameters[\"b\" + str(l+1)] - learning_rate * v_corrected[\"db\" + str(l+1)] / np.sqrt(s_corrected[\"db\" + str(l+1)] + epsilon)\n        ### END CODE HERE ###\n\n    return parameters, v, s"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/shakespeare.txt",
    "content": "THE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n1\nFrom fairest creatures we desire increase,\nThat thereby beauty's rose might never die,\nBut as the riper should by time decease,\nHis tender heir might bear his memory:\nBut thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,\nFeed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\nMaking a famine where abundance lies,\nThy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\nThou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\nAnd only herald to the gaudy spring,\nWithin thine own bud buriest thy content,\nAnd tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\nPity the world, or else this glutton be,\nTo eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n2\nWhen forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\nAnd dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\nThy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\nWill be a tattered weed of small worth held:  \nThen being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\nWhere all the treasure of thy lusty days;\nTo say within thine own deep sunken eyes,\nWere an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\nHow much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,\nIf thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\nShall sum my count, and make my old excuse'\nProving his beauty by succession thine.\nThis were to be new made when thou art old,\nAnd see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n3\nLook in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,\nNow is the time that face should form another,\nWhose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\nThou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\nFor where is she so fair whose uneared womb\nDisdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\nOr who is he so fond will be the tomb,\nOf his self-love to stop posterity?  \nThou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\nCalls back the lovely April of her prime,\nSo thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\nDespite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\nBut if thou live remembered not to be,\nDie single and thine image dies with thee.\n4\nUnthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,\nUpon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\nNature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,\nAnd being frank she lends to those are free:\nThen beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,\nThe bounteous largess given thee to give?\nProfitless usurer why dost thou use\nSo great a sum of sums yet canst not live?\nFor having traffic with thy self alone,\nThou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,\nThen how when nature calls thee to be gone,\nWhat acceptable audit canst thou leave?  \nThy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\nWhich used lives th' executor to be.\n5\nThose hours that with gentle work did frame\nThe lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell\nWill play the tyrants to the very same,\nAnd that unfair which fairly doth excel:\nFor never-resting time leads summer on\nTo hideous winter and confounds him there,\nSap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,\nBeauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\nThen were not summer's distillation left\nA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\nBeauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\nNor it nor no remembrance what it was.\nBut flowers distilled though they with winter meet,\nLeese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.\n6  \nThen let not winter's ragged hand deface,\nIn thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:\nMake sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,\nWith beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:\nThat use is not forbidden usury,\nWhich happies those that pay the willing loan;\nThat's for thy self to breed another thee,\nOr ten times happier be it ten for one,\nTen times thy self were happier than thou art,\nIf ten of thine ten times refigured thee:\nThen what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\nLeaving thee living in posterity?\nBe not self-willed for thou art much too fair,\nTo be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n7\nLo in the orient when the gracious light\nLifts up his burning head, each under eye\nDoth homage to his new-appearing sight,\nServing with looks his sacred majesty,  \nAnd having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,\nResembling strong youth in his middle age,\nYet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\nAttending on his golden pilgrimage:\nBut when from highmost pitch with weary car,\nLike feeble age he reeleth from the day,\nThe eyes (fore duteous) now converted are\nFrom his low tract and look another way:\nSo thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:\nUnlooked on diest unless thou get a son.\n8\nMusic to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\nSweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\nWhy lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\nOr else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\nIf the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\nBy unions married do offend thine ear,\nThey do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\nIn singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:  \nMark how one string sweet husband to another,\nStrikes each in each by mutual ordering;\nResembling sire, and child, and happy mother,\nWho all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\nWhose speechless song being many, seeming one,\nSings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.\n9\nIs it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\nThat thou consum'st thy self in single life?\nAh, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\nThe world will wail thee like a makeless wife,\nThe world will be thy widow and still weep,\nThat thou no form of thee hast left behind,\nWhen every private widow well may keep,\nBy children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\nLook what an unthrift in the world doth spend\nShifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\nBut beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\nAnd kept unused the user so destroys it:  \nNo love toward others in that bosom sits\nThat on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n10\nFor shame deny that thou bear'st love to any\nWho for thy self art so unprovident.\nGrant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,\nBut that thou none lov'st is most evident:\nFor thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,\nThat 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\nSeeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\nWhich to repair should be thy chief desire:\nO change thy thought, that I may change my mind,\nShall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?\nBe as thy presence is gracious and kind,\nOr to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,\nMake thee another self for love of me,\nThat beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n11  \nAs fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,\nIn one of thine, from that which thou departest,\nAnd that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\nThou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,\nHerein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,\nWithout this folly, age, and cold decay,\nIf all were minded so, the times should cease,\nAnd threescore year would make the world away:\nLet those whom nature hath not made for store,\nHarsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\nLook whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;\nWhich bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\nShe carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\nThou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n12\nWhen I do count the clock that tells the time,\nAnd see the brave day sunk in hideous night,\nWhen I behold the violet past prime,\nAnd sable curls all silvered o'er with white:  \nWhen lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\nWhich erst from heat did canopy the herd\nAnd summer's green all girded up in sheaves\nBorne on the bier with white and bristly beard:\nThen of thy beauty do I question make\nThat thou among the wastes of time must go,\nSince sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,\nAnd die as fast as they see others grow,\nAnd nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\nSave breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.\n13\nO that you were your self, but love you are\nNo longer yours, than you your self here live,\nAgainst this coming end you should prepare,\nAnd your sweet semblance to some other give.\nSo should that beauty which you hold in lease\nFind no determination, then you were\nYour self again after your self's decease,\nWhen your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.  \nWho lets so fair a house fall to decay,\nWhich husbandry in honour might uphold,\nAgainst the stormy gusts of winter's day\nAnd barren rage of death's eternal cold?\nO none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,\nYou had a father, let your son say so.\n14\nNot from the stars do I my judgement pluck,\nAnd yet methinks I have astronomy,\nBut not to tell of good, or evil luck,\nOf plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,\nNor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;\nPointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\nOr say with princes if it shall go well\nBy oft predict that I in heaven find.\nBut from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\nAnd constant stars in them I read such art\nAs truth and beauty shall together thrive\nIf from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:  \nOr else of thee this I prognosticate,\nThy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.\n15\nWhen I consider every thing that grows\nHolds in perfection but a little moment.\nThat this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\nWhereon the stars in secret influence comment.\nWhen I perceive that men as plants increase,\nCheered and checked even by the self-same sky:\nVaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\nAnd wear their brave state out of memory.\nThen the conceit of this inconstant stay,\nSets you most rich in youth before my sight,\nWhere wasteful time debateth with decay\nTo change your day of youth to sullied night,\nAnd all in war with Time for love of you,\nAs he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n16  \nBut wherefore do not you a mightier way\nMake war upon this bloody tyrant Time?\nAnd fortify your self in your decay\nWith means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\nNow stand you on the top of happy hours,\nAnd many maiden gardens yet unset,\nWith virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\nMuch liker than your painted counterfeit:\nSo should the lines of life that life repair\nWhich this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen\nNeither in inward worth nor outward fair\nCan make you live your self in eyes of men.\nTo give away your self, keeps your self still,\nAnd you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.\n17\nWho will believe my verse in time to come\nIf it were filled with your most high deserts?\nThough yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\nWhich hides your life, and shows not half your parts:  \nIf I could write the beauty of your eyes,\nAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,\nThe age to come would say this poet lies,\nSuch heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.\nSo should my papers (yellowed with their age)\nBe scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,\nAnd your true rights be termed a poet's rage,\nAnd stretched metre of an antique song.\nBut were some child of yours alive that time,\nYou should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.\n18\nShall I compare thee to a summer's day?\nThou art more lovely and more temperate:\nRough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\nAnd summer's lease hath all too short a date:\nSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\nAnd often is his gold complexion dimmed,\nAnd every fair from fair sometime declines,\nBy chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:  \nBut thy eternal summer shall not fade,\nNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\nNor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,\nWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\nSo long as men can breathe or eyes can see,\nSo long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n19\nDevouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,\nAnd make the earth devour her own sweet brood,\nPluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\nAnd burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,\nMake glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,\nAnd do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time\nTo the wide world and all her fading sweets:\nBut I forbid thee one most heinous crime,\nO carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\nNor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,\nHim in thy course untainted do allow,\nFor beauty's pattern to succeeding men.  \nYet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\nMy love shall in my verse ever live young.\n20\nA woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\nHast thou the master mistress of my passion,\nA woman's gentle heart but not acquainted\nWith shifting change as is false women's fashion,\nAn eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:\nGilding the object whereupon it gazeth,\nA man in hue all hues in his controlling,\nWhich steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\nAnd for a woman wert thou first created,\nTill nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,\nAnd by addition me of thee defeated,\nBy adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\nBut since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,\nMine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n21  \nSo is it not with me as with that muse,\nStirred by a painted beauty to his verse,\nWho heaven it self for ornament doth use,\nAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\nMaking a couplement of proud compare\nWith sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:\nWith April's first-born flowers and all things rare,\nThat heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\nO let me true in love but truly write,\nAnd then believe me, my love is as fair,\nAs any mother's child, though not so bright\nAs those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:\nLet them say more that like of hearsay well,\nI will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n22\nMy glass shall not persuade me I am old,\nSo long as youth and thou are of one date,\nBut when in thee time's furrows I behold,\nThen look I death my days should expiate.  \nFor all that beauty that doth cover thee,\nIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,\nWhich in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,\nHow can I then be elder than thou art?\nO therefore love be of thyself so wary,\nAs I not for my self, but for thee will,\nBearing thy heart which I will keep so chary\nAs tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\nPresume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\nThou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n23\nAs an unperfect actor on the stage,\nWho with his fear is put beside his part,\nOr some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\nWhose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\nSo I for fear of trust, forget to say,\nThe perfect ceremony of love's rite,\nAnd in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\nO'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:  \nO let my looks be then the eloquence,\nAnd dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\nWho plead for love, and look for recompense,\nMore than that tongue that more hath more expressed.\nO learn to read what silent love hath writ,\nTo hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n24\nMine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,\nThy beauty's form in table of my heart,\nMy body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\nAnd perspective it is best painter's art.\nFor through the painter must you see his skill,\nTo find where your true image pictured lies,\nWhich in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\nThat hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:\nNow see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,\nMine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\nAre windows to my breast, where-through the sun\nDelights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;  \nYet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\nThey draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n25\nLet those who are in favour with their stars,\nOf public honour and proud titles boast,\nWhilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars\nUnlooked for joy in that I honour most;\nGreat princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,\nBut as the marigold at the sun's eye,\nAnd in themselves their pride lies buried,\nFor at a frown they in their glory die.\nThe painful warrior famoused for fight,\nAfter a thousand victories once foiled,\nIs from the book of honour razed quite,\nAnd all the rest forgot for which he toiled:\nThen happy I that love and am beloved\nWhere I may not remove nor be removed.\n26  \nLord of my love, to whom in vassalage\nThy merit hath my duty strongly knit;\nTo thee I send this written embassage\nTo witness duty, not to show my wit.\nDuty so great, which wit so poor as mine\nMay make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;\nBut that I hope some good conceit of thine\nIn thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:\nTill whatsoever star that guides my moving,\nPoints on me graciously with fair aspect,\nAnd puts apparel on my tattered loving,\nTo show me worthy of thy sweet respect,\nThen may I dare to boast how I do love thee,\nTill then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n27\nWeary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\nThe dear respose for limbs with travel tired,\nBut then begins a journey in my head\nTo work my mind, when body's work's expired.  \nFor then my thoughts (from far where I abide)\nIntend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\nAnd keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\nLooking on darkness which the blind do see.\nSave that my soul's imaginary sight\nPresents thy shadow to my sightless view,\nWhich like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)\nMakes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\nLo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,\nFor thee, and for my self, no quiet find.\n28\nHow can I then return in happy plight\nThat am debarred the benefit of rest?\nWhen day's oppression is not eased by night,\nBut day by night and night by day oppressed.\nAnd each (though enemies to either's reign)\nDo in consent shake hands to torture me,\nThe one by toil, the other to complain\nHow far I toil, still farther off from thee.  \nI tell the day to please him thou art bright,\nAnd dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\nSo flatter I the swart-complexioned night,\nWhen sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\nBut day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\nAnd night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger\n29\nWhen in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,\nI all alone beweep my outcast state,\nAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\nAnd look upon my self and curse my fate,\nWishing me like to one more rich in hope,\nFeatured like him, like him with friends possessed,\nDesiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\nWith what I most enjoy contented least,\nYet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\nHaply I think on thee, and then my state,\n(Like to the lark at break of day arising\nFrom sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,  \nFor thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,\nThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n30\nWhen to the sessions of sweet silent thought,\nI summon up remembrance of things past,\nI sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\nAnd with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\nThen can I drown an eye (unused to flow)\nFor precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\nAnd weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,\nAnd moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.\nThen can I grieve at grievances foregone,\nAnd heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\nThe sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\nWhich I new pay as if not paid before.\nBut if the while I think on thee (dear friend)\nAll losses are restored, and sorrows end.\n31  \nThy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\nWhich I by lacking have supposed dead,\nAnd there reigns love and all love's loving parts,\nAnd all those friends which I thought buried.\nHow many a holy and obsequious tear\nHath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\nAs interest of the dead, which now appear,\nBut things removed that hidden in thee lie.\nThou art the grave where buried love doth live,\nHung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\nWho all their parts of me to thee did give,\nThat due of many, now is thine alone.\nTheir images I loved, I view in thee,\nAnd thou (all they) hast all the all of me.\n32\nIf thou survive my well-contented day,\nWhen that churl death my bones with dust shall cover\nAnd shalt by fortune once more re-survey\nThese poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:  \nCompare them with the bett'ring of the time,\nAnd though they be outstripped by every pen,\nReserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\nExceeded by the height of happier men.\nO then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,\n'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\nA dearer birth than this his love had brought\nTo march in ranks of better equipage:\nBut since he died and poets better prove,\nTheirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n33\nFull many a glorious morning have I seen,\nFlatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\nKissing with golden face the meadows green;\nGilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:\nAnon permit the basest clouds to ride,\nWith ugly rack on his celestial face,\nAnd from the forlorn world his visage hide\nStealing unseen to west with this disgrace:  \nEven so my sun one early morn did shine,\nWith all triumphant splendour on my brow,\nBut out alack, he was but one hour mine,\nThe region cloud hath masked him from me now.\nYet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,\nSuns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.\n34\nWhy didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\nAnd make me travel forth without my cloak,\nTo let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\nHiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?\n'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\nTo dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\nFor no man well of such a salve can speak,\nThat heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\nNor can thy shame give physic to my grief,\nThough thou repent, yet I have still the loss,\nTh' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\nTo him that bears the strong offence's cross.  \nAh but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\nAnd they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n\n35\nNo more be grieved at that which thou hast done,\nRoses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,\nClouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\nAnd loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\nAll men make faults, and even I in this,\nAuthorizing thy trespass with compare,\nMy self corrupting salving thy amiss,\nExcusing thy sins more than thy sins are:\nFor to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,\nThy adverse party is thy advocate,\nAnd 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:\nSuch civil war is in my love and hate,\nThat I an accessary needs must be,\nTo that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n36  \nLet me confess that we two must be twain,\nAlthough our undivided loves are one:\nSo shall those blots that do with me remain,\nWithout thy help, by me be borne alone.\nIn our two loves there is but one respect,\nThough in our lives a separable spite,\nWhich though it alter not love's sole effect,\nYet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\nI may not evermore acknowledge thee,\nLest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\nNor thou with public kindness honour me,\nUnless thou take that honour from thy name:\nBut do not so, I love thee in such sort,\nAs thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n37\nAs a decrepit father takes delight,\nTo see his active child do deeds of youth,\nSo I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite\nTake all my comfort of thy worth and truth.  \nFor whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\nOr any of these all, or all, or more\nEntitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\nI make my love engrafted to this store:\nSo then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,\nWhilst that this shadow doth such substance give,\nThat I in thy abundance am sufficed,\nAnd by a part of all thy glory live:\nLook what is best, that best I wish in thee,\nThis wish I have, then ten times happy me.\n38\nHow can my muse want subject to invent\nWhile thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,\nThine own sweet argument, too excellent,\nFor every vulgar paper to rehearse?\nO give thy self the thanks if aught in me,\nWorthy perusal stand against thy sight,\nFor who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\nWhen thou thy self dost give invention light?  \nBe thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\nThan those old nine which rhymers invocate,\nAnd he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\nEternal numbers to outlive long date.\nIf my slight muse do please these curious days,\nThe pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n39\nO how thy worth with manners may I sing,\nWhen thou art all the better part of me?\nWhat can mine own praise to mine own self bring:\nAnd what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\nEven for this, let us divided live,\nAnd our dear love lose name of single one,\nThat by this separation I may give:\nThat due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:\nO absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,\nWere it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\nTo entertain the time with thoughts of love,\nWhich time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.  \nAnd that thou teachest how to make one twain,\nBy praising him here who doth hence remain.\n40\nTake all my loves, my love, yea take them all,\nWhat hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\nNo love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,\nAll mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:\nThen if for my love, thou my love receivest,\nI cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,\nBut yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest\nBy wilful taste of what thy self refusest.\nI do forgive thy robbery gentle thief\nAlthough thou steal thee all my poverty:\nAnd yet love knows it is a greater grief\nTo bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.\nLascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\nKill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n41  \nThose pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\nWhen I am sometime absent from thy heart,\nThy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\nFor still temptation follows where thou art.\nGentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\nBeauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.\nAnd when a woman woos, what woman's son,\nWill sourly leave her till he have prevailed?\nAy me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\nAnd chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,\nWho lead thee in their riot even there\nWhere thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\nHers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\nThine by thy beauty being false to me.\n42\nThat thou hast her it is not all my grief,\nAnd yet it may be said I loved her dearly,\nThat she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\nA loss in love that touches me more nearly.  \nLoving offenders thus I will excuse ye,\nThou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,\nAnd for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\nSuff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.\nIf I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\nAnd losing her, my friend hath found that loss,\nBoth find each other, and I lose both twain,\nAnd both for my sake lay on me this cross,\nBut here's the joy, my friend and I are one,\nSweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.\n43\nWhen most I wink then do mine eyes best see,\nFor all the day they view things unrespected,\nBut when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\nAnd darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\nThen thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright\nHow would thy shadow's form, form happy show,\nTo the clear day with thy much clearer light,\nWhen to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!  \nHow would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,\nBy looking on thee in the living day,\nWhen in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,\nThrough heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\nAll days are nights to see till I see thee,\nAnd nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n44\nIf the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\nInjurious distance should not stop my way,\nFor then despite of space I would be brought,\nFrom limits far remote, where thou dost stay,\nNo matter then although my foot did stand\nUpon the farthest earth removed from thee,\nFor nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\nAs soon as think the place where he would be.\nBut ah, thought kills me that I am not thought\nTo leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\nBut that so much of earth and water wrought,\nI must attend, time's leisure with my moan.  \nReceiving nought by elements so slow,\nBut heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n45\nThe other two, slight air, and purging fire,\nAre both with thee, wherever I abide,\nThe first my thought, the other my desire,\nThese present-absent with swift motion slide.\nFor when these quicker elements are gone\nIn tender embassy of love to thee,\nMy life being made of four, with two alone,\nSinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.\nUntil life's composition be recured,\nBy those swift messengers returned from thee,\nWho even but now come back again assured,\nOf thy fair health, recounting it to me.\nThis told, I joy, but then no longer glad,\nI send them back again and straight grow sad.\n46  \nMine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\nHow to divide the conquest of thy sight,\nMine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\nMy heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,\nMy heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\n(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)\nBut the defendant doth that plea deny,\nAnd says in him thy fair appearance lies.\nTo side this title is impanelled\nA quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,\nAnd by their verdict is determined\nThe clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.\nAs thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,\nAnd my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n47\nBetwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\nAnd each doth good turns now unto the other,\nWhen that mine eye is famished for a look,\nOr heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;  \nWith my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\nAnd to the painted banquet bids my heart:\nAnother time mine eye is my heart's guest,\nAnd in his thoughts of love doth share a part.\nSo either by thy picture or my love,\nThy self away, art present still with me,\nFor thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\nAnd I am still with them, and they with thee.\nOr if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\nAwakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n48\nHow careful was I when I took my way,\nEach trifle under truest bars to thrust,\nThat to my use it might unused stay\nFrom hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\nBut thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\nMost worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\nThou best of dearest, and mine only care,\nArt left the prey of every vulgar thief.  \nThee have I not locked up in any chest,\nSave where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\nWithin the gentle closure of my breast,\nFrom whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,\nAnd even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\nFor truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n49\nAgainst that time (if ever that time come)\nWhen I shall see thee frown on my defects,\nWhen as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\nCalled to that audit by advised respects,\nAgainst that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\nAnd scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,\nWhen love converted from the thing it was\nShall reasons find of settled gravity;\nAgainst that time do I ensconce me here\nWithin the knowledge of mine own desert,\nAnd this my hand, against my self uprear,\nTo guard the lawful reasons on thy part,  \nTo leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,\nSince why to love, I can allege no cause.\n50\nHow heavy do I journey on the way,\nWhen what I seek (my weary travel's end)\nDoth teach that case and that repose to say\n'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'\nThe beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\nPlods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\nAs if by some instinct the wretch did know\nHis rider loved not speed being made from thee:\nThe bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\nThat sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\nWhich heavily he answers with a groan,\nMore sharp to me than spurring to his side,\nFor that same groan doth put this in my mind,\nMy grief lies onward and my joy behind.\n51  \nThus can my love excuse the slow offence,\nOf my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,\nFrom where thou art, why should I haste me thence?\nTill I return of posting is no need.\nO what excuse will my poor beast then find,\nWhen swift extremity can seem but slow?\nThen should I spur though mounted on the wind,\nIn winged speed no motion shall I know,\nThen can no horse with my desire keep pace,\nTherefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)\nShall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,\nBut love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,\nSince from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\nTowards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.\n52\nSo am I as the rich whose blessed key,\nCan bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\nThe which he will not every hour survey,\nFor blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.  \nTherefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\nSince seldom coming in that long year set,\nLike stones of worth they thinly placed are,\nOr captain jewels in the carcanet.\nSo is the time that keeps you as my chest\nOr as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\nTo make some special instant special-blest,\nBy new unfolding his imprisoned pride.\nBlessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\nBeing had to triumph, being lacked to hope.\n53\nWhat is your substance, whereof are you made,\nThat millions of strange shadows on you tend?\nSince every one, hath every one, one shade,\nAnd you but one, can every shadow lend:\nDescribe Adonis and the counterfeit,\nIs poorly imitated after you,\nOn Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\nAnd you in Grecian tires are painted new:  \nSpeak of the spring, and foison of the year,\nThe one doth shadow of your beauty show,\nThe other as your bounty doth appear,\nAnd you in every blessed shape we know.\nIn all external grace you have some part,\nBut you like none, none you for constant heart.\n54\nO how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,\nBy that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\nThe rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\nFor that sweet odour, which doth in it live:\nThe canker blooms have full as deep a dye,\nAs the perfumed tincture of the roses,\nHang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,\nWhen summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\nBut for their virtue only is their show,\nThey live unwooed, and unrespected fade,\nDie to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,\nOf their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:  \nAnd so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\nWhen that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.\n55\nNot marble, nor the gilded monuments\nOf princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,\nBut you shall shine more bright in these contents\nThan unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.\nWhen wasteful war shall statues overturn,\nAnd broils root out the work of masonry,\nNor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:\nThe living record of your memory.\n'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\nShall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,\nEven in the eyes of all posterity\nThat wear this world out to the ending doom.\nSo till the judgment that your self arise,\nYou live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n56  \nSweet love renew thy force, be it not said\nThy edge should blunter be than appetite,\nWhich but to-day by feeding is allayed,\nTo-morrow sharpened in his former might.\nSo love be thou, although to-day thou fill\nThy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\nTo-morrow see again, and do not kill\nThe spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:\nLet this sad interim like the ocean be\nWhich parts the shore, where two contracted new,\nCome daily to the banks, that when they see:\nReturn of love, more blest may be the view.\nOr call it winter, which being full of care,\nMakes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n57\nBeing your slave what should I do but tend,\nUpon the hours, and times of your desire?\nI have no precious time at all to spend;\nNor services to do till you require.  \nNor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\nWhilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,\nNor think the bitterness of absence sour,\nWhen you have bid your servant once adieu.\nNor dare I question with my jealous thought,\nWhere you may be, or your affairs suppose,\nBut like a sad slave stay and think of nought\nSave where you are, how happy you make those.\nSo true a fool is love, that in your will,\n(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.\n58\nThat god forbid, that made me first your slave,\nI should in thought control your times of pleasure,\nOr at your hand th' account of hours to crave,\nBeing your vassal bound to stay your leisure.\nO let me suffer (being at your beck)\nTh' imprisoned absence of your liberty,\nAnd patience tame to sufferance bide each check,\nWithout accusing you of injury.  \nBe where you list, your charter is so strong,\nThat you your self may privilage your time\nTo what you will, to you it doth belong,\nYour self to pardon of self-doing crime.\nI am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\nNot blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n59\nIf there be nothing new, but that which is,\nHath been before, how are our brains beguiled,\nWhich labouring for invention bear amis\nThe second burthen of a former child!\nO that record could with a backward look,\nEven of five hundred courses of the sun,\nShow me your image in some antique book,\nSince mind at first in character was done.\nThat I might see what the old world could say,\nTo this composed wonder of your frame,\nWhether we are mended, or whether better they,\nOr whether revolution be the same.  \nO sure I am the wits of former days,\nTo subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n60\nLike as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\nSo do our minutes hasten to their end,\nEach changing place with that which goes before,\nIn sequent toil all forwards do contend.\nNativity once in the main of light,\nCrawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,\nCrooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\nAnd Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.\nTime doth transfix the flourish set on youth,\nAnd delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\nFeeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\nAnd nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.\nAnd yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand\nPraising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n61  \nIs it thy will, thy image should keep open\nMy heavy eyelids to the weary night?\nDost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\nWhile shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\nIs it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\nSo far from home into my deeds to pry,\nTo find out shames and idle hours in me,\nThe scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\nO no, thy love though much, is not so great,\nIt is my love that keeps mine eye awake,\nMine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\nTo play the watchman ever for thy sake.\nFor thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\nFrom me far off, with others all too near.\n62\nSin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,\nAnd all my soul, and all my every part;\nAnd for this sin there is no remedy,\nIt is so grounded inward in my heart.  \nMethinks no face so gracious is as mine,\nNo shape so true, no truth of such account,\nAnd for my self mine own worth do define,\nAs I all other in all worths surmount.\nBut when my glass shows me my self indeed\nbeated and chopt with tanned antiquity,\nMine own self-love quite contrary I read:\nSelf, so self-loving were iniquity.\n'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,\nPainting my age with beauty of thy days.\n63\nAgainst my love shall be as I am now\nWith Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,\nWhen hours have drained his blood and filled his brow\nWith lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn\nHath travelled on to age's steepy night,\nAnd all those beauties whereof now he's king\nAre vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\nStealing away the treasure of his spring:  \nFor such a time do I now fortify\nAgainst confounding age's cruel knife,\nThat he shall never cut from memory\nMy sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.\nHis beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\nAnd they shall live, and he in them still green.\n64\nWhen I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced\nThe rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,\nWhen sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,\nAnd brass eternal slave to mortal rage.\nWhen I have seen the hungry ocean gain\nAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,\nAnd the firm soil win of the watery main,\nIncreasing store with loss, and loss with store.\nWhen I have seen such interchange of State,\nOr state it self confounded, to decay,\nRuin hath taught me thus to ruminate\nThat Time will come and take my love away.  \nThis thought is as a death which cannot choose\nBut weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n65\nSince brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\nBut sad mortality o'ersways their power,\nHow with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\nWhose action is no stronger than a flower?\nO how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\nAgainst the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,\nWhen rocks impregnable are not so stout,\nNor gates of steel so strong but time decays?\nO fearful meditation, where alack,\nShall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\nOr what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,\nOr who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\nO none, unless this miracle have might,\nThat in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n66  \nTired with all these for restful death I cry,\nAs to behold desert a beggar born,\nAnd needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\nAnd purest faith unhappily forsworn,\nAnd gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\nAnd maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\nAnd right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\nAnd strength by limping sway disabled\nAnd art made tongue-tied by authority,\nAnd folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\nAnd simple truth miscalled simplicity,\nAnd captive good attending captain ill.\nTired with all these, from these would I be gone,\nSave that to die, I leave my love alone.\n67\nAh wherefore with infection should he live,\nAnd with his presence grace impiety,\nThat sin by him advantage should achieve,\nAnd lace it self with his society?  \nWhy should false painting imitate his cheek,\nAnd steal dead seeming of his living hue?\nWhy should poor beauty indirectly seek,\nRoses of shadow, since his rose is true?\nWhy should he live, now nature bankrupt is,\nBeggared of blood to blush through lively veins,\nFor she hath no exchequer now but his,\nAnd proud of many, lives upon his gains?\nO him she stores, to show what wealth she had,\nIn days long since, before these last so bad.\n68\nThus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\nWhen beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\nBefore these bastard signs of fair were born,\nOr durst inhabit on a living brow:\nBefore the golden tresses of the dead,\nThe right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\nTo live a second life on second head,\nEre beauty's dead fleece made another gay:  \nIn him those holy antique hours are seen,\nWithout all ornament, it self and true,\nMaking no summer of another's green,\nRobbing no old to dress his beauty new,\nAnd him as for a map doth Nature store,\nTo show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n69\nThose parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,\nWant nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:\nAll tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,\nUttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\nThy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,\nBut those same tongues that give thee so thine own,\nIn other accents do this praise confound\nBy seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\nThey look into the beauty of thy mind,\nAnd that in guess they measure by thy deeds,\nThen churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)\nTo thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:  \nBut why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\nThe soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n\n70\nThat thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,\nFor slander's mark was ever yet the fair,\nThe ornament of beauty is suspect,\nA crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\nSo thou be good, slander doth but approve,\nThy worth the greater being wooed of time,\nFor canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\nAnd thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\nThou hast passed by the ambush of young days,\nEither not assailed, or victor being charged,\nYet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\nTo tie up envy, evermore enlarged,\nIf some suspect of ill masked not thy show,\nThen thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n\n71  \nNo longer mourn for me when I am dead,\nThan you shall hear the surly sullen bell\nGive warning to the world that I am fled\nFrom this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\nNay if you read this line, remember not,\nThe hand that writ it, for I love you so,\nThat I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\nIf thinking on me then should make you woe.\nO if (I say) you look upon this verse,\nWhen I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,\nDo not so much as my poor name rehearse;\nBut let your love even with my life decay.\nLest the wise world should look into your moan,\nAnd mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n\n72\nO lest the world should task you to recite,\nWhat merit lived in me that you should love\nAfter my death (dear love) forget me quite,\nFor you in me can nothing worthy prove.  \nUnless you would devise some virtuous lie,\nTo do more for me than mine own desert,\nAnd hang more praise upon deceased I,\nThan niggard truth would willingly impart:\nO lest your true love may seem false in this,\nThat you for love speak well of me untrue,\nMy name be buried where my body is,\nAnd live no more to shame nor me, nor you.\nFor I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\nAnd so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n\n73\nThat time of year thou mayst in me behold,\nWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang\nUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,\nBare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\nIn me thou seest the twilight of such day,\nAs after sunset fadeth in the west,\nWhich by and by black night doth take away,\nDeath's second self that seals up all in rest.  \nIn me thou seest the glowing of such fire,\nThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\nAs the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\nConsumed with that which it was nourished by.\nThis thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\nTo love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n\n74\nBut be contented when that fell arrest,\nWithout all bail shall carry me away,\nMy life hath in this line some interest,\nWhich for memorial still with thee shall stay.\nWhen thou reviewest this, thou dost review,\nThe very part was consecrate to thee,\nThe earth can have but earth, which is his due,\nMy spirit is thine the better part of me,\nSo then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\nThe prey of worms, my body being dead,\nThe coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\nToo base of thee to be remembered,  \nThe worth of that, is that which it contains,\nAnd that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n\n75\nSo are you to my thoughts as food to life,\nOr as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;\nAnd for the peace of you I hold such strife\nAs 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\nNow proud as an enjoyer, and anon\nDoubting the filching age will steal his treasure,\nNow counting best to be with you alone,\nThen bettered that the world may see my pleasure,\nSometime all full with feasting on your sight,\nAnd by and by clean starved for a look,\nPossessing or pursuing no delight\nSave what is had, or must from you be took.\nThus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\nOr gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n\n76  \nWhy is my verse so barren of new pride?\nSo far from variation or quick change?\nWhy with the time do I not glance aside\nTo new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\nWhy write I still all one, ever the same,\nAnd keep invention in a noted weed,\nThat every word doth almost tell my name,\nShowing their birth, and where they did proceed?\nO know sweet love I always write of you,\nAnd you and love are still my argument:\nSo all my best is dressing old words new,\nSpending again what is already spent:\nFor as the sun is daily new and old,\nSo is my love still telling what is told.\n\n\n77\nThy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\nThy dial how thy precious minutes waste,\nThese vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\nAnd of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.  \nThe wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,\nOf mouthed graves will give thee memory,\nThou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,\nTime's thievish progress to eternity.\nLook what thy memory cannot contain,\nCommit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\nThose children nursed, delivered from thy brain,\nTo take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\nThese offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\nShall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.\n\n\n78\nSo oft have I invoked thee for my muse,\nAnd found such fair assistance in my verse,\nAs every alien pen hath got my use,\nAnd under thee their poesy disperse.\nThine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,\nAnd heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\nHave added feathers to the learned's wing,\nAnd given grace a double majesty.\nYet be most proud of that which I compile,\nWhose influence is thine, and born of thee,\nIn others' works thou dost but mend the style,\nAnd arts with thy sweet graces graced be.\nBut thou art all my art, and dost advance\nAs high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n\n79\nWhilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\nMy verse alone had all thy gentle grace,\nBut now my gracious numbers are decayed,\nAnd my sick muse doth give an other place.\nI grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument\nDeserves the travail of a worthier pen,\nYet what of thee thy poet doth invent,\nHe robs thee of, and pays it thee again,\nHe lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,\nFrom thy behaviour, beauty doth he give\nAnd found it in thy cheek: he can afford\nNo praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.  \nThen thank him not for that which he doth say,\nSince what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.\n\n\n80\nO how I faint when I of you do write,\nKnowing a better spirit doth use your name,\nAnd in the praise thereof spends all his might,\nTo make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.\nBut since your worth (wide as the ocean is)\nThe humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\nMy saucy bark (inferior far to his)\nOn your broad main doth wilfully appear.\nYour shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\nWhilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,\nOr (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,\nHe of tall building, and of goodly pride.\nThen if he thrive and I be cast away,\nThe worst was this, my love was my decay.\n\n\n81  \nOr I shall live your epitaph to make,\nOr you survive when I in earth am rotten,\nFrom hence your memory death cannot take,\nAlthough in me each part will be forgotten.\nYour name from hence immortal life shall have,\nThough I (once gone) to all the world must die,\nThe earth can yield me but a common grave,\nWhen you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,\nYour monument shall be my gentle verse,\nWhich eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,\nAnd tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\nWhen all the breathers of this world are dead,\nYou still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)\nWhere breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n\n82\nI grant thou wert not married to my muse,\nAnd therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\nThe dedicated words which writers use\nOf their fair subject, blessing every book.  \nThou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\nFinding thy worth a limit past my praise,\nAnd therefore art enforced to seek anew,\nSome fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\nAnd do so love, yet when they have devised,\nWhat strained touches rhetoric can lend,\nThou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,\nIn true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.\nAnd their gross painting might be better used,\nWhere cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.\n\n\n83\nI never saw that you did painting need,\nAnd therefore to your fair no painting set,\nI found (or thought I found) you did exceed,\nThat barren tender of a poet's debt:\nAnd therefore have I slept in your report,\nThat you your self being extant well might show,\nHow far a modern quill doth come too short,\nSpeaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.  \nThis silence for my sin you did impute,\nWhich shall be most my glory being dumb,\nFor I impair not beauty being mute,\nWhen others would give life, and bring a tomb.\nThere lives more life in one of your fair eyes,\nThan both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n\n84\nWho is it that says most, which can say more,\nThan this rich praise, that you alone, are you?\nIn whose confine immured is the store,\nWhich should example where your equal grew.\nLean penury within that pen doth dwell,\nThat to his subject lends not some small glory,\nBut he that writes of you, if he can tell,\nThat you are you, so dignifies his story.\nLet him but copy what in you is writ,\nNot making worse what nature made so clear,\nAnd such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\nMaking his style admired every where.  \nYou to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\nBeing fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n\n85\nMy tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,\nWhile comments of your praise richly compiled,\nReserve their character with golden quill,\nAnd precious phrase by all the Muses filed.\nI think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,\nAnd like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,\nTo every hymn that able spirit affords,\nIn polished form of well refined pen.\nHearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,\nAnd to the most of praise add something more,\nBut that is in my thought, whose love to you\n(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,\nThen others, for the breath of words respect,\nMe for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n\n86  \nWas it the proud full sail of his great verse,\nBound for the prize of (all too precious) you,\nThat did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\nMaking their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\nWas it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\nAbove a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\nNo, neither he, nor his compeers by night\nGiving him aid, my verse astonished.\nHe nor that affable familiar ghost\nWhich nightly gulls him with intelligence,\nAs victors of my silence cannot boast,\nI was not sick of any fear from thence.\nBut when your countenance filled up his line,\nThen lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.\n\n\n87\nFarewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\nAnd like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\nThe charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:\nMy bonds in thee are all determinate.  \nFor how do I hold thee but by thy granting,\nAnd for that riches where is my deserving?\nThe cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\nAnd so my patent back again is swerving.\nThy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\nOr me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,\nSo thy great gift upon misprision growing,\nComes home again, on better judgement making.\nThus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,\nIn sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n\n88\nWhen thou shalt be disposed to set me light,\nAnd place my merit in the eye of scorn,\nUpon thy side, against my self I'll fight,\nAnd prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:\nWith mine own weakness being best acquainted,\nUpon thy part I can set down a story\nOf faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:\nThat thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:  \nAnd I by this will be a gainer too,\nFor bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\nThe injuries that to my self I do,\nDoing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\nSuch is my love, to thee I so belong,\nThat for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.\n\n\n89\nSay that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\nAnd I will comment upon that offence,\nSpeak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:\nAgainst thy reasons making no defence.\nThou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,\nTo set a form upon desired change,\nAs I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,\nI will acquaintance strangle and look strange:\nBe absent from thy walks and in my tongue,\nThy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\nLest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:\nAnd haply of our old acquaintance tell.  \nFor thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\nFor I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n\n90\nThen hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,\nNow while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\njoin with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\nAnd do not drop in for an after-loss:\nAh do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,\nCome in the rearward of a conquered woe,\nGive not a windy night a rainy morrow,\nTo linger out a purposed overthrow.\nIf thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\nWhen other petty griefs have done their spite,\nBut in the onset come, so shall I taste\nAt first the very worst of fortune's might.\nAnd other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\nCompared with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n\n91  \nSome glory in their birth, some in their skill,\nSome in their wealth, some in their body's force,\nSome in their garments though new-fangled ill:\nSome in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.\nAnd every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\nWherein it finds a joy above the rest,\nBut these particulars are not my measure,\nAll these I better in one general best.\nThy love is better than high birth to me,\nRicher than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\nOf more delight than hawks and horses be:\nAnd having thee, of all men's pride I boast.\nWretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,\nAll this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n\n92\nBut do thy worst to steal thy self away,\nFor term of life thou art assured mine,\nAnd life no longer than thy love will stay,\nFor it depends upon that love of thine.  \nThen need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\nWhen in the least of them my life hath end,\nI see, a better state to me belongs\nThan that, which on thy humour doth depend.\nThou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\nSince that my life on thy revolt doth lie,\nO what a happy title do I find,\nHappy to have thy love, happy to die!\nBut what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\nThou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n\n93\nSo shall I live, supposing thou art true,\nLike a deceived husband, so love's face,\nMay still seem love to me, though altered new:\nThy looks with me, thy heart in other place.\nFor there can live no hatred in thine eye,\nTherefore in that I cannot know thy change,\nIn many's looks, the false heart's history\nIs writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.  \nBut heaven in thy creation did decree,\nThat in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,\nWhate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\nThy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\nHow like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\nIf thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\n\n\n94\nThey that have power to hurt, and will do none,\nThat do not do the thing, they most do show,\nWho moving others, are themselves as stone,\nUnmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:\nThey rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\nAnd husband nature's riches from expense,\nTibey are the lords and owners of their faces,\nOthers, but stewards of their excellence:\nThe summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\nThough to it self, it only live and die,\nBut if that flower with base infection meet,\nThe basest weed outbraves his dignity:  \nFor sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,\nLilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n\n95\nHow sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,\nWhich like a canker in the fragrant rose,\nDoth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\nO in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!\nThat tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)\nCannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,\nNaming thy name, blesses an ill report.\nO what a mansion have those vices got,\nWhich for their habitation chose out thee,\nWhere beauty's veil doth cover every blot,\nAnd all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!\nTake heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,\nThe hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.\n\n\n96  \nSome say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,\nSome say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,\nBoth grace and faults are loved of more and less:\nThou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:\nAs on the finger of a throned queen,\nThe basest jewel will be well esteemed:\nSo are those errors that in thee are seen,\nTo truths translated, and for true things deemed.\nHow many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\nIf like a lamb he could his looks translate!\nHow many gazers mightst thou lead away,\nif thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\nBut do not so, I love thee in such sort,\nAs thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n97\nHow like a winter hath my absence been\nFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\nWhat freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\nWhat old December's bareness everywhere!  \nAnd yet this time removed was summer's time,\nThe teeming autumn big with rich increase,\nBearing the wanton burden of the prime,\nLike widowed wombs after their lords' decease:\nYet this abundant issue seemed to me\nBut hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,\nFor summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\nAnd thou away, the very birds are mute.\nOr if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\nThat leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n\n98\nFrom you have I been absent in the spring,\nWhen proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)\nHath put a spirit of youth in every thing:\nThat heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\nYet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\nOf different flowers in odour and in hue,\nCould make me any summer's story tell:\nOr from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:  \nNor did I wonder at the lily's white,\nNor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,\nThey were but sweet, but figures of delight:\nDrawn after you, you pattern of all those.\nYet seemed it winter still, and you away,\nAs with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n\n99\nThe forward violet thus did I chide,\nSweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\nIf not from my love's breath? The purple pride\nWhich on thy soft check for complexion dwells,\nIn my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.\nThe lily I condemned for thy hand,\nAnd buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,\nThe roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\nOne blushing shame, another white despair:\nA third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,\nAnd to his robbery had annexed thy breath,\nBut for his theft in pride of all his growth  \nA vengeful canker eat him up to death.\nMore flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\nBut sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n\n100\nWhere art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\nTo speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\nSpend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\nDarkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\nReturn forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\nIn gentle numbers time so idly spent,\nSing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,\nAnd gives thy pen both skill and argument.\nRise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\nIf time have any wrinkle graven there,\nIf any, be a satire to decay,\nAnd make time's spoils despised everywhere.\nGive my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\nSo thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.\n\n\n101\nO truant Muse what shall be thy amends,\nFor thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?\nBoth truth and beauty on my love depends:\nSo dost thou too, and therein dignified:\nMake answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,\n'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,\nBeauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:\nBut best is best, if never intermixed'?\nBecause he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\nExcuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,\nTo make him much outlive a gilded tomb:\nAnd to be praised of ages yet to be.\nThen do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,\nTo make him seem long hence, as he shows now.\n\n\n102\nMy love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,\nI love not less, though less the show appear,\nThat love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,  \nThe owner's tongue doth publish every where.\nOur love was new, and then but in the spring,\nWhen I was wont to greet it with my lays,\nAs Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\nAnd stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\nNot that the summer is less pleasant now\nThan when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\nBut that wild music burthens every bough,\nAnd sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\nTherefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\nBecause I would not dull you with my song.\n\n\n103\nAlack what poverty my muse brings forth,\nThat having such a scope to show her pride,\nThe argument all bare is of more worth\nThan when it hath my added praise beside.\nO blame me not if I no more can write!\nLook in your glass and there appears a face,\nThat over-goes my blunt invention quite,  \nDulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\nWere it not sinful then striving to mend,\nTo mar the subject that before was well?\nFor to no other pass my verses tend,\nThan of your graces and your gifts to tell.\nAnd more, much more than in my verse can sit,\nYour own glass shows you, when you look in it.\n\n\n104\nTo me fair friend you never can be old,\nFor as you were when first your eye I eyed,\nSuch seems your beauty still: three winters cold,\nHave from the forests shook three summers' pride,\nThree beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,\nIn process of the seasons have I seen,\nThree April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,\nSince first I saw you fresh which yet are green.\nAh yet doth beauty like a dial hand,\nSteal from his figure, and no pace perceived,\nSo your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand  \nHath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.\nFor fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,\nEre you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n\n105\nLet not my love be called idolatry,\nNor my beloved as an idol show,\nSince all alike my songs and praises be\nTo one, of one, still such, and ever so.\nKind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\nStill constant in a wondrous excellence,\nTherefore my verse to constancy confined,\nOne thing expressing, leaves out difference.\nFair, kind, and true, is all my argument,\nFair, kind, and true, varying to other words,\nAnd in this change is my invention spent,\nThree themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\nFair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.\nWhich three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n\n106\nWhen in the chronicle of wasted time,\nI see descriptions of the fairest wights,\nAnd beauty making beautiful old rhyme,\nIn praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,\nThen in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\nOf hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\nI see their antique pen would have expressed,\nEven such a beauty as you master now.\nSo all their praises are but prophecies\nOf this our time, all you prefiguring,\nAnd for they looked but with divining eyes,\nThey had not skill enough your worth to sing:\nFor we which now behold these present days,\nHave eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n\n107\nNot mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,\nOf the wide world, dreaming on things to come,\nCan yet the lease of my true love control,  \nSupposed as forfeit to a confined doom.\nThe mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,\nAnd the sad augurs mock their own presage,\nIncertainties now crown themselves assured,\nAnd peace proclaims olives of endless age.\nNow with the drops of this most balmy time,\nMy love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,\nSince spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,\nWhile he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.\nAnd thou in this shalt find thy monument,\nWhen tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n\n108\nWhat's in the brain that ink may character,\nWhich hath not figured to thee my true spirit,\nWhat's new to speak, what now to register,\nThat may express my love, or thy dear merit?\nNothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,\nI must each day say o'er the very same,\nCounting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,  \nEven as when first I hallowed thy fair name.\nSo that eternal love in love's fresh case,\nWeighs not the dust and injury of age,\nNor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\nBut makes antiquity for aye his page,\nFinding the first conceit of love there bred,\nWhere time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n\n109\nO never say that I was false of heart,\nThough absence seemed my flame to qualify,\nAs easy might I from my self depart,\nAs from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\nThat is my home of love, if I have ranged,\nLike him that travels I return again,\nJust to the time, not with the time exchanged,\nSo that my self bring water for my stain,\nNever believe though in my nature reigned,\nAll frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\nThat it could so preposterously be stained,  \nTo leave for nothing all thy sum of good:\nFor nothing this wide universe I call,\nSave thou my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n\n110\nAlas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\nAnd made my self a motley to the view,\nGored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\nMade old offences of affections new.\nMost true it is, that I have looked on truth\nAskance and strangely: but by all above,\nThese blenches gave my heart another youth,\nAnd worse essays proved thee my best of love.\nNow all is done, have what shall have no end,\nMine appetite I never more will grind\nOn newer proof, to try an older friend,\nA god in love, to whom I am confined.\nThen give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\nEven to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n\n111\nO for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\nThe guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\nThat did not better for my life provide,\nThan public means which public manners breeds.\nThence comes it that my name receives a brand,\nAnd almost thence my nature is subdued\nTo what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\nPity me then, and wish I were renewed,\nWhilst like a willing patient I will drink,\nPotions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,\nNo bitterness that I will bitter think,\nNor double penance to correct correction.\nPity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,\nEven that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n\n112\nYour love and pity doth th' impression fill,\nWhich vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,\nFor what care I who calls me well or ill,  \nSo you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\nYou are my all the world, and I must strive,\nTo know my shames and praises from your tongue,\nNone else to me, nor I to none alive,\nThat my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.\nIn so profound abysm I throw all care\nOf others' voices, that my adder's sense,\nTo critic and to flatterer stopped are:\nMark how with my neglect I do dispense.\nYou are so strongly in my purpose bred,\nThat all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n\n113\nSince I left you, mine eye is in my mind,\nAnd that which governs me to go about,\nDoth part his function, and is partly blind,\nSeems seeing, but effectually is out:\nFor it no form delivers to the heart\nOf bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,\nOf his quick objects hath the mind no part,  \nNor his own vision holds what it doth catch:\nFor if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\nThe most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\nThe mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:\nThe crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\nIncapable of more, replete with you,\nMy most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n\n114\nOr whether doth my mind being crowned with you\nDrink up the monarch's plague this flattery?\nOr whether shall I say mine eye saith true,\nAnd that your love taught it this alchemy?\nTo make of monsters, and things indigest,\nSuch cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\nCreating every bad a perfect best\nAs fast as objects to his beams assemble:\nO 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\nAnd my great mind most kingly drinks it up,\nMine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,  \nAnd to his palate doth prepare the cup.\nIf it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,\nThat mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n\n115\nThose lines that I before have writ do lie,\nEven those that said I could not love you dearer,\nYet then my judgment knew no reason why,\nMy most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,\nBut reckoning time, whose millioned accidents\nCreep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\nTan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\nDivert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:\nAlas why fearing of time's tyranny,\nMight I not then say 'Now I love you best,'\nWhen I was certain o'er incertainty,\nCrowning the present, doubting of the rest?\nLove is a babe, then might I not say so\nTo give full growth to that which still doth grow.\n\n\n116\nLet me not to the marriage of true minds\nAdmit impediments, love is not love\nWhich alters when it alteration finds,\nOr bends with the remover to remove.\nO no, it is an ever-fixed mark\nThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;\nIt is the star to every wand'ring bark,\nWhose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\nLove's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\nWithin his bending sickle's compass come,\nLove alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\nBut bears it out even to the edge of doom:\nIf this be error and upon me proved,\nI never writ, nor no man ever loved.\n\n\n117\nAccuse me thus, that I have scanted all,\nWherein I should your great deserts repay,\nForgot upon your dearest love to call,  \nWhereto all bonds do tie me day by day,\nThat I have frequent been with unknown minds,\nAnd given to time your own dear-purchased right,\nThat I have hoisted sail to all the winds\nWhich should transport me farthest from your sight.\nBook both my wilfulness and errors down,\nAnd on just proof surmise, accumulate,\nBring me within the level of your frown,\nBut shoot not at me in your wakened hate:\nSince my appeal says I did strive to prove\nThe constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n\n118\nLike as to make our appetite more keen\nWith eager compounds we our palate urge,\nAs to prevent our maladies unseen,\nWe sicken to shun sickness when we purge.\nEven so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\nTo bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\nAnd sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,  \nTo be diseased ere that there was true needing.\nThus policy in love t' anticipate\nThe ills that were not, grew to faults assured,\nAnd brought to medicine a healthful state\nWhich rank of goodness would by ill be cured.\nBut thence I learn and find the lesson true,\nDrugs poison him that so feil sick of you.\n\n\n119\nWhat potions have I drunk of Siren tears\nDistilled from limbecks foul as hell within,\nApplying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\nStill losing when I saw my self to win!\nWhat wretched errors hath my heart committed,\nWhilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!\nHow have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted\nIn the distraction of this madding fever!\nO benefit of ill, now I find true\nThat better is, by evil still made better.\nAnd ruined love when it is built anew  \nGrows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\nSo I return rebuked to my content,\nAnd gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.\n\n\n120\nThat you were once unkind befriends me now,\nAnd for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\nNeeds must I under my transgression bow,\nUnless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.\nFor if you were by my unkindness shaken\nAs I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,\nAnd I a tyrant have no leisure taken\nTo weigh how once I suffered in your crime.\nO that our night of woe might have remembered\nMy deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\nAnd soon to you, as you to me then tendered\nThe humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\nBut that your trespass now becomes a fee,\nMine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n\n121\n'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,\nWhen not to be, receives reproach of being,\nAnd the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,\nNot by our feeling, but by others' seeing.\nFor why should others' false adulterate eyes\nGive salutation to my sportive blood?\nOr on my frailties why are frailer spies,\nWhich in their wills count bad what I think good?\nNo, I am that I am, and they that level\nAt my abuses, reckon up their own,\nI may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\nBy their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown\nUnless this general evil they maintain,\nAll men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n\n122\nThy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\nFull charactered with lasting memory,\nWhich shall above that idle rank remain  \nBeyond all date even to eternity.\nOr at the least, so long as brain and heart\nHave faculty by nature to subsist,\nTill each to razed oblivion yield his part\nOf thee, thy record never can be missed:\nThat poor retention could not so much hold,\nNor need I tallies thy dear love to score,\nTherefore to give them from me was I bold,\nTo trust those tables that receive thee more:\nTo keep an adjunct to remember thee\nWere to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n\n123\nNo! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,\nThy pyramids built up with newer might\nTo me are nothing novel, nothing strange,\nThey are but dressings Of a former sight:\nOur dates are brief, and therefore we admire,\nWhat thou dost foist upon us that is old,\nAnd rather make them born to our desire,  \nThan think that we before have heard them told:\nThy registers and thee I both defy,\nNot wond'ring at the present, nor the past,\nFor thy records, and what we see doth lie,\nMade more or less by thy continual haste:\nThis I do vow and this shall ever be,\nI will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n\n124\nIf my dear love were but the child of state,\nIt might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,\nAs subject to time's love or to time's hate,\nWeeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.\nNo it was builded far from accident,\nIt suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\nUnder the blow of thralled discontent,\nWhereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\nIt fears not policy that heretic,\nWhich works on leases of short-numbered hours,\nBut all alone stands hugely politic,  \nThat it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\nTo this I witness call the fools of time,\nWhich die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n\n125\nWere't aught to me I bore the canopy,\nWith my extern the outward honouring,\nOr laid great bases for eternity,\nWhich proves more short than waste or ruining?\nHave I not seen dwellers on form and favour\nLose all, and more by paying too much rent\nFor compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\nPitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?\nNo, let me be obsequious in thy heart,\nAnd take thou my oblation, poor but free,\nWhich is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,\nBut mutual render, only me for thee.\nHence, thou suborned informer, a true soul\nWhen most impeached, stands least in thy control.\n\n\n126\nO thou my lovely boy who in thy power,\nDost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:\nWho hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,\nThy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\nIf Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)\nAs thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,\nShe keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\nMay time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.\nYet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,\nShe may detain, but not still keep her treasure!\nHer audit (though delayed) answered must be,\nAnd her quietus is to render thee.\n\n\n127\nIn the old age black was not counted fair,\nOr if it were it bore not beauty's name:\nBut now is black beauty's successive heir,\nAnd beauty slandered with a bastard shame,\nFor since each hand hath put on nature's power,  \nFairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,\nSweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,\nBut is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.\nTherefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\nHer eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,\nAt such who not born fair no beauty lack,\nSlandering creation with a false esteem,\nYet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\nThat every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n\n128\nHow oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\nUpon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\nWith thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\nThe wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\nDo I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\nTo kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\nWhilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\nAt the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.\nTo be so tickled they would change their state  \nAnd situation with those dancing chips,\nO'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\nMaking dead wood more blest than living lips,\nSince saucy jacks so happy are in this,\nGive them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n\n129\nTh' expense of spirit in a waste of shame\nIs lust in action, and till action, lust\nIs perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,\nSavage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,\nEnjoyed no sooner but despised straight,\nPast reason hunted, and no sooner had\nPast reason hated as a swallowed bait,\nOn purpose laid to make the taker mad.\nMad in pursuit and in possession so,\nHad, having, and in quest, to have extreme,\nA bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,\nBefore a joy proposed behind a dream.\nAll this the world well knows yet none knows well,  \nTo shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n\n130\nMy mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,\nCoral is far more red, than her lips red,\nIf snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:\nIf hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:\nI have seen roses damasked, red and white,\nBut no such roses see I in her cheeks,\nAnd in some perfumes is there more delight,\nThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\nI love to hear her speak, yet well I know,\nThat music hath a far more pleasing sound:\nI grant I never saw a goddess go,\nMy mistress when she walks treads on the ground.\nAnd yet by heaven I think my love as rare,\nAs any she belied with false compare.\n\n\n131\nThou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,  \nAs those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\nFor well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\nThou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\nYet in good faith some say that thee behold,\nThy face hath not the power to make love groan;\nTo say they err, I dare not be so bold,\nAlthough I swear it to my self alone.\nAnd to be sure that is not false I swear,\nA thousand groans but thinking on thy face,\nOne on another's neck do witness bear\nThy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\nIn nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\nAnd thence this slander as I think proceeds.\n\n\n132\nThine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,\nKnowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\nHave put on black, and loving mourners be,\nLooking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\nAnd truly not the morning sun of heaven  \nBetter becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\nNor that full star that ushers in the even\nDoth half that glory to the sober west\nAs those two mourning eyes become thy face:\nO let it then as well beseem thy heart\nTo mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\nAnd suit thy pity like in every part.\nThen will I swear beauty herself is black,\nAnd all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n\n133\nBeshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\nFor that deep wound it gives my friend and me;\nIs't not enough to torture me alone,\nBut slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\nMe from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,\nAnd my next self thou harder hast engrossed,\nOf him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,\nA torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:\nPrison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,  \nBut then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,\nWhoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,\nThou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.\nAnd yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,\nPerforce am thine and all that is in me.\n\n\n134\nSo now I have confessed that he is thine,\nAnd I my self am mortgaged to thy will,\nMy self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,\nThou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\nBut thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\nFor thou art covetous, and he is kind,\nHe learned but surety-like to write for me,\nUnder that bond that him as fist doth bind.\nThe statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\nThou usurer that put'st forth all to use,\nAnd sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,\nSo him I lose through my unkind abuse.\nHim have I lost, thou hast both him and me,  \nHe pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n\n135\nWhoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,\nAnd 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,\nMore than enough am I that vex thee still,\nTo thy sweet will making addition thus.\nWilt thou whose will is large and spacious,\nNot once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\nShall will in others seem right gracious,\nAnd in my will no fair acceptance shine?\nThe sea all water, yet receives rain still,\nAnd in abundance addeth to his store,\nSo thou being rich in will add to thy will\nOne will of mine to make thy large will more.\nLet no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,\nThink all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n\n136\nIf thy soul check thee that I come so near,  \nSwear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\nAnd will thy soul knows is admitted there,\nThus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.\n'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\nAy, fill it full with wills, and my will one,\nIn things of great receipt with case we prove,\nAmong a number one is reckoned none.\nThen in the number let me pass untold,\nThough in thy store's account I one must be,\nFor nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,\nThat nothing me, a something sweet to thee.\nMake but my name thy love, and love that still,\nAnd then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.\n\n\n137\nThou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\nThat they behold and see not what they see?\nThey know what beauty is, see where it lies,\nYet what the best is, take the worst to be.\nIf eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,  \nBe anchored in the bay where all men ride,\nWhy of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\nWhereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\nWhy should my heart think that a several plot,\nWhich my heart knows the wide world's common place?\nOr mine eyes seeing this, say this is not\nTo put fair truth upon so foul a face?\nIn things right true my heart and eyes have erred,\nAnd to this false plague are they now transferred.\n\n\n138\nWhen my love swears that she is made of truth,\nI do believe her though I know she lies,\nThat she might think me some untutored youth,\nUnlearned in the world's false subtleties.\nThus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\nAlthough she knows my days are past the best,\nSimply I credit her false-speaking tongue,\nOn both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\nBut wherefore says she not she is unjust?  \nAnd wherefore say not I that I am old?\nO love's best habit is in seeming trust,\nAnd age in love, loves not to have years told.\nTherefore I lie with her, and she with me,\nAnd in our faults by lies we flattered be.\n\n\n139\nO call not me to justify the wrong,\nThat thy unkindness lays upon my heart,\nWound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,\nUse power with power, and slay me not by art,\nTell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\nDear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,\nWhat need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might\nIs more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?\nLet me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,\nHer pretty looks have been mine enemies,\nAnd therefore from my face she turns my foes,\nThat they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\nYet do not so, but since I am near slain,  \nKill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n140\nBe wise as thou art cruel, do not press\nMy tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:\nLest sorrow lend me words and words express,\nThe manner of my pity-wanting pain.\nIf I might teach thee wit better it were,\nThough not to love, yet love to tell me so,\nAs testy sick men when their deaths be near,\nNo news but health from their physicians know.\nFor if I should despair I should grow mad,\nAnd in my madness might speak ill of thee,\nNow this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\nMad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\nThat I may not be so, nor thou belied,\nBear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n\n141\nIn faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,  \nFor they in thee a thousand errors note,\nBut 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\nWho in despite of view is pleased to dote.\nNor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,\nNor tender feeling to base touches prone,\nNor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\nTo any sensual feast with thee alone:\nBut my five wits, nor my five senses can\nDissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\nWho leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,\nThy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\nOnly my plague thus far I count my gain,\nThat she that makes me sin, awards me pain.\n\n\n142\nLove is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\nHate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,\nO but with mine, compare thou thine own state,\nAnd thou shalt find it merits not reproving,\nOr if it do, not from those lips of thine,  \nThat have profaned their scarlet ornaments,\nAnd sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,\nRobbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.\nBe it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,\nWhom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,\nRoot pity in thy heart that when it grows,\nThy pity may deserve to pitied be.\nIf thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\nBy self-example mayst thou be denied.\n\n\n143\nLo as a careful huswife runs to catch,\nOne of her feathered creatures broke away,\nSets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch\nIn pursuit of the thing she would have stay:\nWhilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\nCries to catch her whose busy care is bent,\nTo follow that which flies before her face:\nNot prizing her poor infant's discontent;\nSo run'st thou after that which flies from thee,  \nWhilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,\nBut if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:\nAnd play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.\nSo will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,\nIf thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n\n144\nTwo loves I have of comfort and despair,\nWhich like two spirits do suggest me still,\nThe better angel is a man right fair:\nThe worser spirit a woman coloured ill.\nTo win me soon to hell my female evil,\nTempteth my better angel from my side,\nAnd would corrupt my saint to be a devil:\nWooing his purity with her foul pride.\nAnd whether that my angel be turned fiend,\nSuspect I may, yet not directly tell,\nBut being both from me both to each friend,\nI guess one angel in another's hell.\nYet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,  \nTill my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n\n145\nThose lips that Love's own hand did make,\nBreathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\nTo me that languished for her sake:\nBut when she saw my woeful state,\nStraight in her heart did mercy come,\nChiding that tongue that ever sweet,\nWas used in giving gentle doom:\nAnd taught it thus anew to greet:\n'I hate' she altered with an end,\nThat followed it as gentle day,\nDoth follow night who like a fiend\nFrom heaven to hell is flown away.\n'I hate', from hate away she threw,\nAnd saved my life saying 'not you'.\n146\nPoor soul the centre of my sinful earth,  \nMy sinful earth these rebel powers array,\nWhy dost thou pine within and suffer dearth\nPainting thy outward walls so costly gay?\nWhy so large cost having so short a lease,\nDost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\nShall worms inheritors of this excess\nEat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?\nThen soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,\nAnd let that pine to aggravate thy store;\nBuy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\nWithin be fed, without be rich no more,\nSo shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,\nAnd death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n147\nMy love is as a fever longing still,\nFor that which longer nurseth the disease,\nFeeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\nTh' uncertain sickly appetite to please:\nMy reason the physician to my love,  \nAngry that his prescriptions are not kept\nHath left me, and I desperate now approve,\nDesire is death, which physic did except.\nPast cure I am, now reason is past care,\nAnd frantic-mad with evermore unrest,\nMy thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,\nAt random from the truth vainly expressed.\nFor I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\nWho art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n148\nO me! what eyes hath love put in my head,\nWhich have no correspondence with true sight,\nOr if they have, where is my judgment fled,\nThat censures falsely what they see aright?\nIf that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\nWhat means the world to say it is not so?\nIf it be not, then love doth well denote,\nLove's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\nHow can it? O how can love's eye be true,  \nThat is so vexed with watching and with tears?\nNo marvel then though I mistake my view,\nThe sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.\nO cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,\nLest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n149\nCanst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,\nWhen I against my self with thee partake?\nDo I not think on thee when I forgot\nAm of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?\nWho hateth thee that I do call my friend,\nOn whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\nNay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend\nRevenge upon my self with present moan?\nWhat merit do I in my self respect,\nThat is so proud thy service to despise,\nWhen all my best doth worship thy defect,\nCommanded by the motion of thine eyes?\nBut love hate on for now I know thy mind,  \nThose that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n150\nO from what power hast thou this powerful might,\nWith insufficiency my heart to sway,\nTo make me give the lie to my true sight,\nAnd swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\nWhence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\nThat in the very refuse of thy deeds,\nThere is such strength and warrantise of skill,\nThat in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?\nWho taught thee how to make me love thee more,\nThe more I hear and see just cause of hate?\nO though I love what others do abhor,\nWith others thou shouldst not abhor my state.\nIf thy unworthiness raised love in me,\nMore worthy I to be beloved of thee.\n151\nLove is too young to know what conscience is,  \nYet who knows not conscience is born of love?\nThen gentle cheater urge not my amiss,\nLest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.\nFor thou betraying me, I do betray\nMy nobler part to my gross body's treason,\nMy soul doth tell my body that he may,\nTriumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,\nBut rising at thy name doth point out thee,\nAs his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,\nHe is contented thy poor drudge to be,\nTo stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\nNo want of conscience hold it that I call,\nHer love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n152\nIn loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\nBut thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,\nIn act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,\nIn vowing new hate after new love bearing:\nBut why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,  \nWhen I break twenty? I am perjured most,\nFor all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:\nAnd all my honest faith in thee is lost.\nFor I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:\nOaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,\nAnd to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,\nOr made them swear against the thing they see.\nFor I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,\nTo swear against the truth so foul a be.\n153\nCupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,\nA maid of Dian's this advantage found,\nAnd his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\nIn a cold valley-fountain of that ground:\nWhich borrowed from this holy fire of Love,\nA dateless lively heat still to endure,\nAnd grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,\nAgainst strange maladies a sovereign cure:\nBut at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,  \nThe boy for trial needs would touch my breast,\nI sick withal the help of bath desired,\nAnd thither hied a sad distempered guest.\nBut found no cure, the bath for my help lies,\nWhere Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n154\nThe little Love-god lying once asleep,\nLaid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\nWhilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,\nCame tripping by, but in her maiden hand,\nThe fairest votary took up that fire,\nWhich many legions of true hearts had warmed,\nAnd so the general of hot desire,\nWas sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.\nThis brand she quenched in a cool well by,\nWhich from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\nGrowing a bath and healthful remedy,\nFor men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,\nCame there for cure and this by that I prove,  \nLove's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\n                THE END"
  },
  {
    "path": "coursera-sequence-models/week-1-building-recurrent-network/utils.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    e_x = np.exp(x - np.max(x))\n    return e_x / e_x.sum(axis=0)\n\ndef smooth(loss, cur_loss):\n    return loss * 0.999 + cur_loss * 0.001\n\ndef print_sample(sample_ix, ix_to_char):\n    txt = ''.join(ix_to_char[ix] for ix in sample_ix)\n    print ('----\\n %s \\n----' % (txt, ))\n    \ndef get_initial_loss(vocab_size, seq_length):\n    return -np.log(1.0/vocab_size)*seq_length\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    e_x = np.exp(x - np.max(x))\n    return e_x / e_x.sum(axis=0)\n\ndef initialize_parameters(n_a, n_x, n_y):\n    \"\"\"\n    Initialize parameters with small random values\n    \n    Returns:\n    parameters -- python dictionary containing:\n                        Wax -- Weight matrix multiplying the input, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_x)\n                        Waa -- Weight matrix multiplying the hidden state, numpy array of shape (n_a, n_a)\n                        Wya -- Weight matrix relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, n_a)\n                        b --  Bias, numpy array of shape (n_a, 1)\n                        by -- Bias relating the hidden-state to the output, numpy array of shape (n_y, 1)\n    \"\"\"\n    np.random.seed(1)\n    Wax = np.random.randn(n_a, n_x)*0.01 # input to hidden\n    Waa = np.random.randn(n_a, n_a)*0.01 # hidden to hidden\n    Wya = np.random.randn(n_y, n_a)*0.01 # hidden to output\n    b = np.zeros((n_a, 1)) # hidden bias\n    by = np.zeros((n_y, 1)) # output bias\n    \n    parameters = {\"Wax\": Wax, \"Waa\": Waa, \"Wya\": Wya, \"b\": b,\"by\": by}\n    \n    return parameters\n\ndef rnn_step_forward(parameters, a_prev, x):\n    \n    Waa, Wax, Wya, by, b = parameters['Waa'], parameters['Wax'], parameters['Wya'], parameters['by'], parameters['b']\n    a_next = np.tanh(np.dot(Wax, x) + np.dot(Waa, a_prev) + b) # hidden state\n    p_t = softmax(np.dot(Wya, a_next) + by) # unnormalized log probabilities for next chars # probabilities for next chars \n    \n    return a_next, p_t\n\ndef rnn_step_backward(dy, gradients, parameters, x, a, a_prev):\n    \n    gradients['dWya'] += np.dot(dy, a.T)\n    gradients['dby'] += dy\n    da = np.dot(parameters['Wya'].T, dy) + gradients['da_next'] # backprop into h\n    daraw = (1 - a * a) * da # backprop through tanh nonlinearity\n    gradients['db'] += daraw\n    gradients['dWax'] += np.dot(daraw, x.T)\n    gradients['dWaa'] += np.dot(daraw, a_prev.T)\n    gradients['da_next'] = np.dot(parameters['Waa'].T, daraw)\n    return gradients\n\ndef update_parameters(parameters, gradients, lr):\n\n    parameters['Wax'] += -lr * gradients['dWax']\n    parameters['Waa'] += -lr * gradients['dWaa']\n    parameters['Wya'] += -lr * gradients['dWya']\n    parameters['b']  += -lr * gradients['db']\n    parameters['by']  += -lr * gradients['dby']\n    return parameters\n\ndef rnn_forward(X, Y, a0, parameters, vocab_size = 71):\n    \n    # Initialize x, a and y_hat as empty dictionaries\n    x, a, y_hat = {}, {}, {}\n    \n    a[-1] = np.copy(a0)\n    \n    # initialize your loss to 0\n    loss = 0\n    \n    for t in range(len(X)):\n        \n        # Set x[t] to be the one-hot vector representation of the t'th character in X.\n        x[t] = np.zeros((vocab_size,1)) \n        x[t][X[t]] = 1\n        \n        # Run one step forward of the RNN\n        a[t], y_hat[t] = rnn_step_forward(parameters, a[t-1], x[t])\n        \n        # Update the loss by substracting the cross-entropy term of this time-step from it.\n        loss -= np.log(y_hat[t][Y[t],0])\n        \n    cache = (y_hat, a, x)\n        \n    return loss, cache\n\ndef rnn_backward(X, Y, parameters, cache):\n    # Initialize gradients as an empty dictionary\n    gradients = {}\n    \n    # Retrieve from cache and parameters\n    (y_hat, a, x) = cache\n    Waa, Wax, Wya, by, b = parameters['Waa'], parameters['Wax'], parameters['Wya'], parameters['by'], parameters['b']\n    \n    # each one should be initialized to zeros of the same dimension as its corresponding parameter\n    gradients['dWax'], gradients['dWaa'], gradients['dWya'] = np.zeros_like(Wax), np.zeros_like(Waa), np.zeros_like(Wya)\n    gradients['db'], gradients['dby'] = np.zeros_like(b), np.zeros_like(by)\n    gradients['da_next'] = np.zeros_like(a[0])\n    \n    ### START CODE HERE ###\n    # Backpropagate through time\n    for t in reversed(range(len(X))):\n        dy = np.copy(y_hat[t])\n        dy[Y[t]] -= 1\n        gradients = rnn_step_backward(dy, gradients, parameters, x[t], a[t], a[t-1])\n    ### END CODE HERE ###\n    \n    return gradients, a"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/_z.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\nimport cifar10\nimport timer\n\ndir = 'datasets/cifar-10-batches-py'\nX_train, y_train, X_test, y_test = cifar10.load_CIFAR10(dir)\n\n# Subsample to save on time/space\nnum_training = 5000\nnum_validation = 1000\nnum_test = 1000\n\n# Our validation set will be num_validation points from the original\n# training set.\nmask = range(num_training, num_training + num_validation)\nX_val = X_train[mask]\ny_val = y_train[mask]\n\n# Our training set will be the first num_train points from the original\n# training set.\nmask = range(num_training)\nX_train = X_train[mask]\ny_train = y_train[mask]\n\n# We use the first num_test points of the original test set as our\n# test set.\nmask = range(num_test)\nX_test = X_test[mask]\ny_test = y_test[mask]\n\n# Reshape the image data into rows: each item in these arrays is a 3072-element\n# vector representing 3 colors per image pixel.\nX_train = np.reshape(X_train, (X_train.shape[0], -1))\nX_val = np.reshape(X_val, (X_val.shape[0], -1))\nX_test = np.reshape(X_test, (X_test.shape[0], -1))\n\nprint 'Train data shape: ', X_train.shape\nprint 'Train labels shape: ', y_train.shape\nprint 'Validation data shape: ', X_val.shape\nprint 'Validation labels shape: ', y_val.shape\nprint 'Test data shape: ', X_test.shape\nprint 'Test labels shape: ', y_test.shape\n\n# Preprocessing: subtract the mean image\n# 1. compute the image mean based on the training data\nmean_image = np.mean(X_train, axis=0)\n\ndef report_mean_image(mimg):\n    print mimg.shape, mimg[:10] # print a few of the elements\n    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n    plt.figure(figsize=(4, 4))\n    plt.imshow(mimg.reshape((32, 32, 3)).astype('uint8'))\n    plt.show()\n\n# 2. subtract the mean image from train and test data\nX_train -= mean_image\nX_val -= mean_image\nX_test -= mean_image\n\n#import k_nearest_neighbor\n#knn = k_nearest_neighbor.KNearestNeighbor()\n#knn.train(X_train, y_train)\n\n#with timer.Timer('Computing distances...'):\n    #dists = knn.compute_distances_no_loops(X_test)\n\n#with timer.Timer('Running label prediction...'):\n    #y_test_pred = knn.predict_labels(dists, k=5)\n\n## Compute and print the fraction of correctly predicted examples\n#num_correct = np.sum(y_test_pred == y_test)\n#accuracy = float(num_correct) / num_test\n#print 'Got %d / %d correct => accuracy: %f' % (num_correct, num_test, accuracy)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/cifar10.py",
    "content": "# Access to the CIFAR-10 dataset.\n#\n# Some of the code is based on the cs231n data utils code\n# [http://cs231n.github.io/]\n# See https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/cifar.html for information on the\n# data set and its format.\n#\n# * Xs (data) are arrays of 32x33x3 arrays of pixels. Logically, the values are\n#   between 0-255, so they would fit into a uint8. However, since we want to\n#   perform math on them without running into uint overflow and other problems,\n#   we load them as float64.\n# * ys (labels) are arrays of integers in the range 0-9\nimport cPickle as pickle\nimport numpy as np\nimport os\n\n\ndef _load_CIFAR_batch(filename):\n    \"\"\"Load a single batch of CIFAR from the given file.\"\"\"\n    with open(filename, 'rb') as f:\n        datadict = pickle.load(f)\n        X = datadict['data']\n        Y = datadict['labels']\n        X = X.reshape(10000, 3, 32, 32).transpose(0,2,3,1).astype('float64')\n        Y = np.array(Y)\n        return X, Y\n\n\ndef load_CIFAR10(rootdir):\n    \"\"\"Load the whole CIFAR-10 data set.\n\n    Given a path to the root directory containing CIFAR-10 samples in batches.\n    Returns a 4-tuple: (Xtraining, Ytraining, Xtest, Ytest).\n    \"\"\"\n    xs = []\n    ys = []\n    for b in range(1,6):\n        f = os.path.join(rootdir, 'data_batch_%d' % (b, ))\n        X, Y = _load_CIFAR_batch(f)\n        xs.append(X)\n        ys.append(Y)\n    Xtr = np.concatenate(xs)\n    Ytr = np.concatenate(ys)\n    Xte, Yte = _load_CIFAR_batch(os.path.join(rootdir, 'test_batch'))\n    return Xtr, Ytr, Xte, Yte\n\n\ndef show_CIFAR10_samples(X_train, y_train):\n    \"\"\"Show some sample images with classifications from the dataset.\"\"\"\n    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n    classes = ['plane', 'car', 'bird', 'cat', 'deer',\n               'dog', 'frog', 'horse', 'ship', 'truck']\n    samples_per_class = 7\n    for y, cls in enumerate(classes):\n        idxs = np.flatnonzero(y_train == y)\n        idxs = np.random.choice(idxs, samples_per_class, replace=False)\n        for i, idx in enumerate(idxs):\n            plt_idx = i * len(classes) + y + 1\n            plt.subplot(samples_per_class, len(classes), plt_idx)\n            plt.imshow(X_train[idx].astype('uint8'))\n            plt.axis('off')\n            if i == 0:\n                plt.title(cls)\n    plt.show()\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    dir = 'datasets/cifar-10-batches-py'\n    X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test = load_CIFAR10(dir)\n\n    print 'Training data shape: ', X_train.shape, X_train.dtype\n    print 'Training labels shape: ', y_train.shape, y_train.dtype\n    print 'Test data shape: ', X_test.shape, X_test.dtype\n    print 'Test labels shape: ', y_test.shape, y_test.dtype\n\n    print 'Showing a few samples from the dataset.....'\n    show_CIFAR10_samples(X_train, y_train)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/k_nearest_neighbor.py",
    "content": "# KNN classifier with L2 distance function.\n# See http://cs231n.github.io/linear-classify for background.\nimport numpy as np\n\n\nclass KNearestNeighbor:\n    \"\"\"K nearest neighbor classifier with L2 distance.\"\"\"\n    def __init__(self):\n        pass\n\n    def train(self, X, y):\n        self.X_train = X\n        self.y_train = y\n\n    def compute_distances_two_loops(self, X):\n        \"\"\"Compute L2 distance matrix for the test vectors X.\n\n        Each vector in X is a test sample. We compute its L2 distance from each\n        training vector in X_train and put it in the matrix.\n\n        The returned matrix at [i, j] has the L2 distance between test i and\n        training sample j.\n\n        Note: this is a very slow version using Python-level loops.\n        \"\"\"\n        num_test = X.shape[0]\n        num_train = self.X_train.shape[0]\n        dists = np.zeros((num_test, num_train))\n        for i in xrange(num_test):\n            for j in xrange(num_train):\n                dists[i, j] = np.sqrt(\n                        np.sum(np.square(X[i, :] - self.X_train[j, :])))\n        return dists\n\n    def compute_distances_one_loop(self, X):\n        \"\"\"Partially-vectorized distance matrix computation.\"\"\"\n        num_test = X.shape[0]\n        num_train = self.X_train.shape[0]\n        dists = np.zeros((num_test, num_train))\n        for i in xrange(num_test):\n            # X_train is (num_train, imgsize)\n            # X[i] is (imgsize,)\n            # X_train - X[i] broadcasts X[i] over each row of X_train.\n            # np.square is elementwise; sum over axis=1 sums up all the columns\n            # into a single number per row.\n            dists[i, :] = np.sqrt(np.square(self.X_train - X[i]).sum(axis=1))\n        return dists\n\n    def compute_distances_no_loops(self, X):\n        \"\"\"Fully-vectorized distance matrix computation.\"\"\"\n        # The sum in L2 distance is:\n        #\n        #   distance[i,j] = sqrt(Sum_p (X_train[i,p] - X[j,p])^2\n        #\n        # where 'p' is running over the pixels/colors vector.\n        #\n        # The expression inside the sum can be rewritten as:\n        #\n        #   X_train[i,p]^2 - 2*X_train[i,p]*X[j,p] + X[j,p]^2\n        #\n        # Note that the first and last items only depend on one of i or j, not\n        # both, so they can be broadcast over the result array. And the middle\n        # item can be computed as matrix multiplication between X_train and X\n        # (one of them transposed).\n        X_train_T = self.X_train.T\n\n        # First compute the \"cross-correlation\" item using matrix mul,\n        # transposing X_train since we want tests in rows and train in columns.\n        # The shape of this is (num_test,num_train), which is also the shape\n        # of the result.\n        cross = -2.0 * X.dot(X_train_T)\n\n        # Now compute the first item: norm of X_train. Sum all columns together,\n        # getting a row vector.\n        X_train_norm = np.sum(self.X_train ** 2, axis=1)\n\n        # Similarly for X, but this time the results go into a column vector so\n        # it gets broadcast per column of the result.\n        X_norm = np.sum(X ** 2, axis=1, keepdims=True)\n\n        # Finally sum up the parts and compute their sqrt.\n        return np.sqrt(X_norm + cross + X_train_norm)\n\n    def predict_labels(self, dists, k=1):\n        \"\"\"Predict labels, given a distances matrix.\n\n        dists - (num_test, num_train) array; dists[i, j] is the distance between\n                the ith test point and the jth trainin point.\n\n        k - how many neighbors to use.\n\n        Output: a vector of length num_test where each element is the predicted\n                label for the test point.\n        \"\"\"\n        num_tests = dists.shape[0]\n        y_pred = np.zeros(num_tests, dtype='int64')\n        for i in xrange(num_tests):\n            # dists[i] has the ith test distance from each training example.\n            # argsort will produce sorted indices of training examples, from\n            # smallest distance (closes) to largest distance. We can use this\n            # to index into y_train to find the labels that are closest.\n            closest_y = self.y_train[np.argsort(dists[i])]\n            k_closest_y = closest_y[:k]\n\n            # k_closest_y is a list of k labels that were the closest among\n            # the training samples. Find the most common label among these.\n            values, counts = np.unique(k_closest_y, return_counts=True)\n            y_pred[i] = values[np.argmax(counts)]\n\n        return y_pred\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/k_nearest_neighbor_test.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport sys, unittest\nfrom k_nearest_neighbor import KNearestNeighbor\n\nclass TestKNearestNeighborDistance(unittest.TestCase):\n    \"\"\"Tests that distance computations all return the same result.\"\"\"\n    def test_arange(self):\n        train = np.arange(150).reshape(5, -1)\n        test = np.square(np.arange(2, 122)).reshape(4, -1)\n        knn = KNearestNeighbor()\n        knn.train(train, None)\n        d_two = knn.compute_distances_two_loops(test)\n        d_one = knn.compute_distances_one_loop(test)\n        d_no = knn.compute_distances_no_loops(test)\n        self.assertAlmostEqual(0, np.linalg.norm(d_two - d_one, ord='fro'))\n        self.assertAlmostEqual(0, np.linalg.norm(d_no - d_one, ord='fro'))\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/linear_classifier.py",
    "content": "# This is a generic linear classifier that implements SGD - Stochastic Gradient\n# Descent (actually its mini-batch generalization).\n#\n# It has to be derived from by classes that provide a 'loss' member function,\n# to implement different classifiers.\n# See http://cs231n.github.io/classification/ for background.\nimport numpy as np\nimport random\n\nclass LinearClassifier:\n    def __init__(self):\n        self.W = None\n\n    def train(self,\n              X,\n              y,\n              learning_rate=1e-3,\n              reg=1e-5,\n              num_iters=100,\n              batch_size=200,\n              verbose=False):\n        \"\"\"Train this linear classifier using stochastic gradient descent.\n\n        Inputs:\n        - X: D x N array of training data. Each training point is a\n             D-dimensional column.\n        - y: 1-dimensional array of length N with labels 0...K-1, for K classes.\n        - learning_rate: (float) learning rate for optimization.\n        - reg: (float) regularization strength.\n        - num_iters: (integer) number of steps to take when optimizing\n        - batch_size: (integer) number of training examples to use at each step.\n        - verbose: (boolean) If true, print progress during optimization.\n\n        Outputs:\n        A list containing the value of the loss function at each training\n        iteration.\n        \"\"\"\n        D, N = X.shape\n        K = np.max(y) + 1\n        if self.W is None:\n            # Lazily initialize W to a random matrix\n            self.W = np.random.randn(K, D) * 0.001\n\n        # Run stochastic gradient descent to optimize W\n        loss_history = []\n        for it in xrange(num_iters):\n            batch_samples = np.random.choice(N, batch_size)\n            X_batch = X[:, batch_samples]\n            y_batch = y[batch_samples]\n\n            # Evaluate loss and gradient\n            loss, dW = self.loss(X_batch, y_batch, reg)\n            loss_history.append(loss)\n\n            self.W += -learning_rate * dW\n\n            if verbose and it % 100 == 0:\n                print 'iteration %d / %d: loss %f' % (it, num_iters, loss)\n        return loss_history\n\n    def predict(self, X):\n        \"\"\"Use the trained weights of this linear classifier to predict labels.\n\n        Inputs:\n        - X: D x N array of training data. Each column is a D-dimensional point.\n\n        Returns:\n        - y_pred: Predicted labels for the data in X. y_pred is a 1-dimensional\n          array of length N, and each element is an integer giving the predicted\n          class.\n        \"\"\"\n        y_pred = self.W.dot(X)\n        return y_pred.argmax(axis=0)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/linear_svm.py",
    "content": "# Linear SVM classifier.\n# See http://cs231n.github.io/classification/ for background.\n# And http://cs231n.github.io/optimization-1/ for the gradient parts.\nimport numpy as np\nimport random\n\nimport linear_classifier\n\n\ndef svm_loss_naive(W, X, y, reg):\n    \"\"\"Structured SVM loss function, naive implementation (with loops).\n\n    Important dimensions: K is number of classes we classify samples to. D is\n    the dimensionality of data (for example, 32x32x3 images have D=3072). Note\n    that bias is often folded into the sample as \"1\", so the actual\n    dimensionality may be +1 (or 3073 for those images).\n    N is simply the number of samples we're working with.\n\n    This function uses a delta value of 1.\n\n    Inputs:\n      - W: K x D array of weights.\n      - X: D x N array of data. Each datum is a (D-dimensional) column.\n      - y: 1-dimensional array of length N with labels 0...K-1, for K classes.\n           y[i] is the correct classification of sample i.\n      - reg: (float) regularization strength\n\n    Returns a tuple of:\n      - loss as single float\n      - gradient with respect to weights W; an array of same shape as W\n    \"\"\"\n    delta = 1\n    dW = np.zeros(W.shape)  # initialize the gradient as zero\n\n    # compute the loss and the gradient\n    K = W.shape[0]\n    N = X.shape[1]\n    loss = 0.0\n    for i in xrange(N):\n        # Compute the loss for this sample.\n        # The equation is:\n        #\n        #   Li = Sum_{j!=yi} max(0, wj*xi - wyi*xi + delta)\n        #\n        # We use W * Xi to find both wj*xi and wyi*xi, so we just index into\n        # the result to find these distinct parts.\n        #\n        # X[:, i] is the ith column of X. scores now has the shape K x 1\n        scores = W.dot(X[:, i])\n\n        # wyi*xi is not changing in the sigma (internal loop), so precompute it.\n        correct_class_score = scores[y[i]]\n\n        # This computes the sigma.\n        for j in xrange(K):\n            margin = scores[j] - correct_class_score + delta\n            if j == y[i]:\n                continue\n            if margin > 0:\n                loss += margin\n\n                # The gradient is only updated when margin > 0.\n                dW[j, :] += X[:, i]\n                dW[y[i], :] -= X[:, i]\n\n    # Average the loss over N samples and add regularization.\n    loss = (loss / N) + 0.5 * reg * np.sum(W * W)\n    # Same for gradient.\n    dW = (dW / N) + reg * W\n    return loss, dW\n\n\ndef svm_loss_vectorized(W, X, y, reg):\n    \"\"\"Structured SVM loss function, vectorized implementation.\n\n       Inputs and outputs are the same as svm_loss_naive.\n    \"\"\"\n    N = X.shape[1]\n    delta = 1\n\n    # scores's shape is (K, N): contains scores for all N samples, in columns.\n    scores = W.dot(X)\n\n    # We want to select the score of the correct class for every sample. Samples\n    # are in columns. y[i] gives, for sample i, the correct class. Therefore\n    # we need to index into every column at the appropriate y[i].\n    # The result is a (N,) vector.\n    correct_class_scores = scores[y, np.arange(N)]\n\n    # Vectorized sum for all samples. This computes the sigma for all Li.\n    # scores is (K,N), correct_class_scores is (N,) so it's broadcast over each\n    # row of scores.\n    # The shape remains (K,N) since it contains the score per class for each\n    # sample.\n    si = scores - correct_class_scores + delta\n\n    # Sum all class scores for each sample into a total \"loss per sample\".\n    # clip performs the max(0,...) operation.\n    s = si.clip(min=0).sum(axis=0)\n\n    # The sum was supposed to ignore the category with the correct score. But\n    # for j=yi, the summed element is just max(0, delta), so we subtract delta\n    # from the sums.\n    s -= delta\n\n    # Finally compute the average loss with regularization.\n    loss = np.mean(s) + 0.5 * reg * np.sum(W * W)\n\n    # To compute the vectorized gradient, create a (K,N) array of indicators\n    # where each cell is the gradient contribution to the row's class from the\n    # column's sample.\n    indicators = np.zeros(scores.shape)\n\n    # This is for all dW_j\n    indicators[si > 0] = 1\n\n    # For dW_yi, subtract the number of positive indicators\n    num_positive = np.sum(si > 0, axis=0)\n    indicators[y, np.arange(N)] -= num_positive\n\n    # Finally, indicators * X.T will give use the result\n    dW = indicators.dot(X.T) / N + reg * W\n    return loss, dW\n\n\nclass LinearSVM(linear_classifier.LinearClassifier):\n    \"\"\" A subclass that uses the Multiclass SVM loss function \"\"\"\n    def loss(self, X_batch, y_batch, reg):\n        return svm_loss_vectorized(self.W, X_batch, y_batch, reg)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/math_utils.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom random import randrange\n\ndef rel_error(x, y):\n    \"\"\"Relative error between x and y.\"\"\"\n    return np.max(np.abs(x - y) / (np.maximum(1e-8, np.abs(x) + np.abs(y))))\n\n\ndef grad_check_sparse(f, x, analytic_grad, num_checks):\n    \"\"\"Run some checks of the computed analytic gradient vs. numeric gradient.\n    \"\"\"\n    h = 1e-5\n\n    for i in xrange(num_checks):\n        ix = tuple([randrange(m) for m in x.shape])\n\n        x[ix] += h  # increment by h\n        fxph = f(x)  # evaluate f(x + h)\n        x[ix] -= 2 * h  # increment by h\n        fxmh = f(x)  # evaluate f(x - h)\n        x[ix] += h  # reset\n\n        grad_numerical = (fxph - fxmh) / (2 * h)\n        grad_analytic = analytic_grad[ix]\n        rel_error = abs(grad_numerical - grad_analytic) / (\n            abs(grad_numerical) + abs(grad_analytic))\n        print 'numerical: %f analytic: %f, relative error: %e' % (\n            grad_numerical, grad_analytic, rel_error)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/neural_net.py",
    "content": "# Simple neutral net classifier\n#\n# See http://cs231n.github.io/neural-networks-case-study\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef two_layer_net(X, model, y=None, reg=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Run two-layer fully connected NN.\n\n      The net has an input dimension of D, a hidden layer dimension of H, and\n      performs classification over C classes. We use a softmax loss function and\n      L2 regularization of the weight matrices. The two layer net should use a\n      ReLU nonlinearity after the first affine layer.\n\n      The two layer net has the following architecture (FC = fully connected\n      layer):\n\n      [input] -- [FC] -- [ReLU] -- [FC] -- [softmax]\n\n      The outputs of the second fully-connected layer are the scores for each\n      class.\n\n      Inputs:\n      - X: Input data of shape (N, D). Each X[i] is a training sample.\n      - model: Dictionary mapping parameter names to arrays of parameter values.\n        It should contain the following:\n        - W1: First layer weights; has shape (D, H)\n        - b1: First layer biases; has shape (H,)\n        - W2: Second layer weights; has shape (H, C)\n        - b2: Second layer biases; has shape (C,)\n      - y: Vector of training labels. y[i] is the label for X[i], and each\n        y[i] is an integer in the range 0 <= y[i] < C. This parameter is\n        optional; if it is not passed then we only return scores, and if it is\n        passed then we instead return the loss and gradients.\n      - reg: Regularization strength.\n\n      Returns:\n      If y not is passed, return a matrix scores of shape (N, C)\n      where scores[i, c] is the score for class c on input X[i].\n\n      If y is passed, instead return a tuple of:\n      - loss: Loss (data loss and regularization loss) for this batch of\n        training samples.\n      - grads: Dictionary mapping parameter names to gradients of those\n        parameters with respect to the loss function. This should have the same\n        keys as model.\n    \"\"\"\n    # unpack variables from the model dictionary\n    W1, b1, W2, b2 = model['W1'], model['b1'], model['W2'], model['b2']\n    N, D = X.shape\n\n    # Compute the forward pass: layer 1, ReLU, layer 2\n    Hout = X.dot(W1) + b1\n    ReLU = np.maximum(0, Hout)\n    scores = ReLU.dot(W2) + b2\n\n    # The shape of scores is (N, C) -- for each input it has an array of scores\n    # for each of the classification classes. scores[i][c] is the score of input\n    # X[i] for class c.\n\n    # The softmax data loss is defined as follows: for every input i, we have an\n    # array F holding its scores for C classes (in the notation above, F is one\n    # line of 'scores'). Li is the data loss for input i. The total data loss\n    # for all inputs is the average:\n    #\n    # L = 1/N * Sum_i Li\n    #\n    # Each Li is:\n    #\n    # Li = -log( exp(F[y[i]]) / (Sum_j exp(F[j])))\n    #\n    # Where y[i] is the correct class for input i.\n\n    # Compute the expression inside the log for all possible scores, and then\n    # select only the relevant ones. probs's shape is (N, C) just like scores,\n    # since it collects losses for all possible classes. correct_probs only\n    # selects the losses for the correct classes, which is what we need. It\n    # selects one column in each row, resulting in shape (N,)\n    exp_scores = np.exp(scores)\n    probs = exp_scores / np.sum(exp_scores, axis=1, keepdims=True)\n    correct_probs = probs[range(N), y]\n\n    # Finally compute the loss for all examples\n    data_loss = np.sum(-np.log(correct_probs)) / N\n\n    # Regularization loss is sum of 1/2 * reg * w^2 for every weight in the\n    # model.\n    reg_loss = 0.5 * reg * (np.sum(W1 ** 2) + np.sum(W2 ** 2))\n\n    # Compute the loss.\n    loss = data_loss + reg_loss\n\n    # Compute the gradients based on\n    # http://cs231n.github.io/neural-networks-case-study/\n    dscores = probs\n    dscores[range(N), y] -= 1\n    dscores /= N\n\n    grads = {}\n    grads['W2'] = Hout.T.dot(dscores) + reg * W2\n    grads['b2'] = np.sum(dscores, axis=0)\n\n    # Next backprop into hidden layer\n    dhidden = dscores.dot(W2.T)\n    # Backprop the ReLU non-linearity\n    dhidden[Hout <= 0] = 0\n    grads['W1'] = X.T.dot(dhidden) + reg * W1\n    grads['b1'] = np.sum(dhidden, axis=0)\n\n    # Return scores or (loss, grads) based on y.\n    if y is None:\n        return scores\n    else:\n        return loss, grads\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/run_knn.py",
    "content": "# Runs a KNN classifier on a subset of CIFAR-10 data.\nimport numpy as np\n\nimport cifar10\nimport timer\n\ndir = 'datasets/cifar-10-batches-py'\nX_train, y_train, X_test, y_test = cifar10.load_CIFAR10(dir)\n\nprint 'Training data shape: ', X_train.shape, X_train.dtype\nprint 'Training labels shape: ', y_train.shape, y_train.dtype\nprint 'Test data shape: ', X_test.shape, X_test.dtype\nprint 'Test labels shape: ', y_test.shape, y_test.dtype\n\n# Subsample to save on time/space\nnum_training = 50000\nX_train = X_train[:num_training]\ny_train = y_train[:num_training]\n\nnum_test = 100\nX_test = X_test[:num_test]\ny_test = y_test[:num_test]\n\n# Reshape the image data into rows: each item in these arrays is a 3072-element\n# vector representing 3 colors per image pixel.\nX_train = np.reshape(X_train, (X_train.shape[0], -1))\nX_test = np.reshape(X_test, (X_test.shape[0], -1))\n\nprint 'Reshaped training data shape: ', X_train.shape, X_train.dtype\nprint 'Reshaped test data shape: ', X_test.shape, X_test.dtype\n\nimport k_nearest_neighbor\nknn = k_nearest_neighbor.KNearestNeighbor()\nknn.train(X_train, y_train)\n\nwith timer.Timer('Computing distances'):\n    dists = knn.compute_distances_no_loops(X_test)\n\nwith timer.Timer('Running label prediction'):\n    y_test_pred = knn.predict_labels(dists, k=5)\n\n# Compute and print the fraction of correctly predicted examples\nnum_correct = np.sum(y_test_pred == y_test)\naccuracy = float(num_correct) / num_test\nprint 'Got %d / %d correct => accuracy: %f' % (num_correct, num_test, accuracy)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/run_nn.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\nimport math_utils\nimport neural_net\n\n\n# Create some toy data to check your implementations\ninput_size = 4\nhidden_size = 10\nnum_classes = 3\nnum_inputs = 5\n\n\n# The toy model is a 2-layer network: it has one hidden layer and one output\n# layer.\ndef init_toy_model():\n    model = {}\n    # Layer 1 has 10 neurons. Each has 4 connections (one from each input).\n    # Overall number of weights is 4 * 10, with weight [i][j] being the\n    # weight from input i to neuron j in this layer.\n    model['W1'] = np.linspace(-0.2, 0.6, num=input_size * hidden_size)\n    model['W1'].shape = (input_size, hidden_size)\n\n    # Each neuron in layer 1 has a bias.\n    model['b1'] = np.linspace(-0.3, 0.7, num=hidden_size)\n\n    # Layer 2 has 3 neurons (outputs). Each has 10 connections (one from each\n    # neuron in the hidden layer). Overall number of weights is 10 * 3, with\n    # weight [i][j] being the weight from hidden neuron i to output neuron j.\n    model['W2'] = np.linspace(-0.4, 0.1, num=hidden_size * num_classes)\n    model['W2'].shape = (hidden_size, num_classes)\n    model['b2'] = np.linspace(-0.5, 0.9, num=num_classes)\n    return model\n\n\ndef init_toy_data():\n    X = np.linspace(-0.2, 0.5, num=num_inputs * input_size)\n    X.shape = (num_inputs, input_size)\n    y = np.array([0, 1, 2, 2, 1])\n    return X, y\n\n\nmodel = init_toy_model()\nX, y = init_toy_data()\n\nloss, grads = neural_net.two_layer_net(X, model, y, reg=0.1)\nprint(loss)\n\nimport pprint\npprint.pprint(grads)\n\n#print(scores)\n#correct_scores = [[-0.5328368, 0.20031504, 0.93346689],\n #[-0.59412164, 0.15498488, 0.9040914 ],\n #[-0.67658362, 0.08978957, 0.85616275],\n #[-0.77092643, 0.01339997, 0.79772637],\n #[-0.89110401, -0.08754544, 0.71601312]]\n#print 'Difference between your scores and correct scores:'\n#print np.sum(np.abs(scores - correct_scores))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/run_svm.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\nimport cifar10\nimport linear_svm\nimport softmax\nimport math_utils\nimport timer\n\ndir = 'datasets/cifar-10-batches-py'\nX_train, y_train, X_test, y_test = cifar10.load_CIFAR10(dir)\n\n# Subsample to save on time/space\nnum_training = 5000\nnum_validation = 100\nnum_test = 100\n\n# Our validation set will be num_validation points from the original\n# training set.\nmask = range(num_training, num_training + num_validation)\nX_val = X_train[mask]\ny_val = y_train[mask]\n\n# Our training set will be the first num_train points from the original\n# training set.\nmask = range(num_training)\nX_train = X_train[mask]\ny_train = y_train[mask]\n\n# We use the first num_test points of the original test set as our\n# test set.\nmask = range(num_test)\nX_test = X_test[mask]\ny_test = y_test[mask]\n\n# Reshape the image data into rows: each item in these arrays is a 3072-element\n# vector representing 3 colors per image pixel.\nX_train = np.reshape(X_train, (X_train.shape[0], -1))\nX_val = np.reshape(X_val, (X_val.shape[0], -1))\nX_test = np.reshape(X_test, (X_test.shape[0], -1))\n\nprint 'Train data shape: ', X_train.shape\nprint 'Train labels shape: ', y_train.shape\nprint 'Validation data shape: ', X_val.shape\nprint 'Validation labels shape: ', y_val.shape\nprint 'Test data shape: ', X_test.shape\nprint 'Test labels shape: ', y_test.shape\n\n# Preprocessing: subtract the mean image\n# 1. compute the image mean based on the training data\nmean_image = np.mean(X_train, axis=0)\n\ndef report_mean_image(mimg):\n    print mimg.shape, mimg[:10] # print a few of the elements\n    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n    plt.figure(figsize=(4, 4))\n    plt.imshow(mimg.reshape((32, 32, 3)).astype('uint8'))\n    plt.show()\n\n# 2. subtract the mean image from train and test data\nX_train -= mean_image\nX_val -= mean_image\nX_test -= mean_image\n\n# 3. append the bias dimension of ones (i.e. bias trick) so that our SVM\n# only has to worry about optimizing a single weight matrix W.\n# Also, transform data matrices so that each image is a column.\nX_train = np.hstack([X_train, np.ones((X_train.shape[0], 1))]).T\nX_val = np.hstack([X_val, np.ones((X_val.shape[0], 1))]).T\nX_test = np.hstack([X_test, np.ones((X_test.shape[0], 1))]).T\n\nprint X_train.shape, X_val.shape, X_test.shape\n\nW = np.random.randn(10, 3073) * 0.0001\n\nwith timer.Timer('SVM loss naive'):\n    loss, grad = linear_svm.svm_loss_naive(W, X_train, y_train, 0.00001)\nwith timer.Timer('SVM loss vectorized'):\n    loss, grad = linear_svm.svm_loss_vectorized(W, X_train, y_train, 0.00001)\n\nclassifier = linear_svm.LinearSVM()\n\n# Note: the softmax classifier works but it's slow (I only have the\n# non-vectorized version implemented so far). Therefore it remains commented out\n# by default.\n#classifier = softmax.Softmax()\n\nloss_hist = classifier.train(X_train, y_train, learning_rate=1e-7, reg=5e4,\n                       num_iters=800, verbose=True)\n\ny_train_pred = classifier.predict(X_train)\nprint 'training accuracy: %f' % (np.mean(y_train == y_train_pred), )\ny_val_pred = classifier.predict(X_val)\nprint 'validation accuracy: %f' % (np.mean(y_val == y_val_pred), )\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/softmax.py",
    "content": "# Softmax classifier loss function\nimport numpy as np\nfrom random import shuffle\n\nimport linear_classifier\n\n\ndef softmax_loss_naive(W, X, y, reg):\n    \"\"\"Softmax loss function, naive implementation (with loops)\n\n    Important dimensions: K is number of classes we classify samples to. D is\n    the dimensionality of data (for example, 32x32x3 images have D=3072). Note\n    that bias is often folded into the sample as \"1\", so the actual\n    dimensionality may be +1 (or 3073 for those images).\n    N is simply the number of samples we're working with.\n\n    Inputs:\n      - W: K x D array of weights.\n      - X: D x N array of data. Each datum is a (D-dimensional) column.\n      - y: 1-dimensional array of length N with labels 0...K-1, for K classes.\n           y[i] is the correct classification of sample i.\n      - reg: (float) regularization strength\n\n    Returns a tuple of:\n      - loss as single float\n      - gradient with respect to weights W; an array of same shape as W\n    \"\"\"\n    # Note: this code is from the internet, since I couldn't find an explanation\n    # of how to compute the softmax gradient in lecture notes.\n\n    # Initialize the loss and gradient to zero.\n    loss = 0.0\n    dW = np.zeros_like(W)\n\n    for i in range(X.shape[1]):\n        scores = W.dot(X[:, i])\n\n        # Shift down by max to improve numerical stability -- now the highest\n        # number is 0.\n        scores -= np.max(scores)\n        prob = 0.0\n        loss -= scores[y[i]]\n\n        for curr_score in scores:\n            prob += np.exp(curr_score)\n\n        for j in range(W.shape[0]):\n            prob_ji = np.exp(scores[j]) / prob\n            margin = -prob_ji * X[:, i].T\n\n            if j == y[i]:\n                margin = (1 - prob_ji) * X[:, i].T\n            dW[j, :] += -margin\n\n        loss += np.log(prob)\n\n    loss /= X.shape[1]\n    dW /= X.shape[1]\n\n    # Regularization\n    loss += 0.5 * reg * np.sum(W * W)\n    dW += reg * W\n\n    return loss, dW\n\n\nclass Softmax(linear_classifier.LinearClassifier):\n    \"\"\" A subclass that uses the Softmax + cross entropy loss function \"\"\"\n\n    def loss(self, X_batch, y_batch, reg):\n        return softmax_loss_naive(self.W, X_batch, y_batch, reg)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "cs231n/timer.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport sys\nimport time\n\nclass Timer(object):\n    def __init__(self, name=None):\n        self.name = name\n\n    def __enter__(self):\n        self.tstart = time.time()\n        if self.name:\n            print('[%s] ' % self.name, end='')\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n\n    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):\n        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "gradients/numgrad.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\n\ndef eval_numerical_gradient(f, x, verbose=False, h=1e-5):\n    \"\"\"A naive implementation of numerical gradient of f at x.\n\n    Used for gradient checking.\n\n    f: function taking a single array argument and returning a scalar.\n    x: array starting point for evaluation.\n\n    Based on http://cs231n.github.io/assignments2016/assignment1/, with a\n    bit of cleanup.\n    Also uses the centered formula described in\n    http://cs231n.github.io/neural-networks-3/#gradcheck\n\n    Returns a numerical gradient, same shape as x.\n    \"\"\"\n    grad = np.zeros_like(x)\n    # iterate over all indexes in x\n    it = np.nditer(x, flags=['multi_index'], op_flags=['readwrite'])\n    while not it.finished:\n        ix = it.multi_index\n        oldval = x[ix]\n        x[ix] = oldval + h\n        fxph = f(x) # evalute f(x + h)\n        x[ix] = oldval - h\n        fxmh = f(x) # evaluate f(x - h)\n        x[ix] = oldval # restore\n\n        # compute the partial derivative with centered formula\n        grad[ix] = (fxph - fxmh) / (2 * h)\n        if verbose:\n            print(ix, grad[ix])\n        it.iternext()\n    return grad\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "gradients/sigmoid.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\n\nimport numpy as np\nfrom numgrad import eval_numerical_gradient\n\n\ndef sigmoid(z):\n    \"\"\"Computes sigmoid function.\n\n    z: array of input values.\n\n    Returns array of outputs, sigmoid(z).\n    \"\"\"\n    # Note: this version of sigmoid tries to avoid overflows in the computation\n    # of e^(-z), by using an alternative formulation when z is negative, to get\n    # 0. e^z / (1+e^z) is equivalent to the definition of sigmoid, but we won't\n    # get e^(-z) to overflow when z is very negative.\n    # Since both the x and y arguments to np.where are evaluated by Python, we\n    # may still get overflow warnings for large z elements; therefore we ignore\n    # warnings during this computation.\n    with np.errstate(over='ignore', invalid='ignore'):\n        return np.where(z >= 0,\n                        1 / (1 + np.exp(-z)),\n                        np.exp(z) / (1 + np.exp(z)))\n\ndef sigmoid_grad(x):\n    return sigmoid(x) * (1 - sigmoid(x))\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    x = np.array([1.0, 2.1, 0.3, 0.7])\n    print('sigmoid', sigmoid(x))\n    print('sigmoid_grad', sigmoid_grad(x))\n\n    # Note: eval_numerical_gradient works for scalar functions. Therefore we'll\n    # run it for each element of sigmoid separately.\n    print('Numerical gradient')\n    for i in range(x.shape[0]):\n        print(i, eval_numerical_gradient(lambda z: sigmoid(z)[i], x))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "gradients/tanh.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\n\nimport numpy as np\nfrom numgrad import eval_numerical_gradient\n\n\ndef tanh_grad(x):\n    return 1 - np.tanh(x) ** 2\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    x = np.array([1.0, 2.1, 0.3, 0.7])\n    print('tanh', np.tanh(x))\n    print('tanh_grad', tanh_grad(x))\n\n    # Note: eval_numerical_gradient works for scalar functions. Therefore we'll\n    # run it for each element of tanh separately.\n    print('Numerical gradient')\n    for i in range(x.shape[0]):\n        print(i, eval_numerical_gradient(lambda z: np.tanh(z)[i], x))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/CCPP-dataset/Readme.txt",
    "content": "The CSV file is taken from Sheet 1 of the data set, downloaded from\nhttp://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Combined+Cycle+Power+Plant\n\nBelow is the original contents of this Readme file.\n\n----\n\nThe dataset contains 9568 data points collected from a Combined Cycle Power\nPlant over 6 years (2006-2011), when the power plant was set to work with full\nload. Features consist of hourly average ambient variables Temperature (T),\nAmbient Pressure (AP), Relative Humidity (RH) and Exhaust Vacuum (V) to predict\nthe net hourly electrical energy output (EP)  of the plant. A combined cycle\npower plant (CCPP) is composed of gas turbines (GT), steam turbines (ST) and\nheat recovery steam generators. In a CCPP, the electricity is generated by gas\nand steam turbines, which are combined in one cycle, and is transferred from one\nturbine to another. While the Vacuum is colected from and has effect on the\nSteam Turbine, he other three of the ambient variables effect the GT\nperformance. For comparability with our baseline studies, and to allow 5x2 fold\nstatistical tests be carried out, we provide the data shuffled five times. For\neach shuffling 2-fold CV is carried out and the resulting 10 measurements are\nused for statistical testing. We provide the data both in .ods and in .xlsx\nformats.\n\nRelevant Papers to cite:\n\nPınar Tüfekci, Prediction of full load electrical power output of a base load operated combined cycle power plant using machine learning methods, International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, Volume 60, September 2014, Pages 126-140, ISSN 0142-0615, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2014.02.027.\n(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142061514000908)\n\nHeysem Kaya, Pınar Tüfekci , Sadık Fikret Gürgen: Local and Global Learning Methods for Predicting Power of a Combined Gas & Steam Turbine, Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Trends in Computer and Electronics Engineering ICETCEE 2012, pp. 13-18 (Mar. 2012, Dubai)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/CCPP-dataset/data.csv",
    "content": "AT,V,AP,RH,PE\n14.96,41.76,1024.07,73.17,463.26\n25.18,62.96,1020.04,59.08,444.37\n5.11,39.4,1012.16,92.14,488.56\n20.86,57.32,1010.24,76.64,446.48\n10.82,37.5,1009.23,96.62,473.9\n26.27,59.44,1012.23,58.77,443.67\n15.89,43.96,1014.02,75.24,467.35\n9.48,44.71,1019.12,66.43,478.42\n14.64,45,1021.78,41.25,475.98\n11.74,43.56,1015.14,70.72,477.5\n17.99,43.72,1008.64,75.04,453.02\n20.14,46.93,1014.66,64.22,453.99\n24.34,73.5,1011.31,84.15,440.29\n25.71,58.59,1012.77,61.83,451.28\n26.19,69.34,1009.48,87.59,433.99\n21.42,43.79,1015.76,43.08,462.19\n18.21,45,1022.86,48.84,467.54\n11.04,41.74,1022.6,77.51,477.2\n14.45,52.75,1023.97,63.59,459.85\n13.97,38.47,1015.15,55.28,464.3\n17.76,42.42,1009.09,66.26,468.27\n5.41,40.07,1019.16,64.77,495.24\n7.76,42.28,1008.52,83.31,483.8\n27.23,63.9,1014.3,47.19,443.61\n27.36,48.6,1003.18,54.93,436.06\n27.47,70.72,1009.97,74.62,443.25\n14.6,39.31,1011.11,72.52,464.16\n7.91,39.96,1023.57,88.44,475.52\n5.81,35.79,1012.14,92.28,484.41\n30.53,65.18,1012.69,41.85,437.89\n23.87,63.94,1019.02,44.28,445.11\n26.09,58.41,1013.64,64.58,438.86\n29.27,66.85,1011.11,63.25,440.98\n27.38,74.16,1010.08,78.61,436.65\n24.81,63.94,1018.76,44.51,444.26\n12.75,44.03,1007.29,89.46,465.86\n24.66,63.73,1011.4,74.52,444.37\n16.38,47.45,1010.08,88.86,450.69\n13.91,39.35,1014.69,75.51,469.02\n23.18,51.3,1012.04,78.64,448.86\n22.47,47.45,1007.62,76.65,447.14\n13.39,44.85,1017.24,80.44,469.18\n9.28,41.54,1018.33,79.89,482.8\n11.82,42.86,1014.12,88.28,476.7\n10.27,40.64,1020.63,84.6,474.99\n22.92,63.94,1019.28,42.69,444.22\n16,37.87,1020.24,78.41,461.33\n21.22,43.43,1010.96,61.07,448.06\n13.46,44.71,1014.51,50,474.6\n9.39,40.11,1029.14,77.29,473.05\n31.07,73.5,1010.58,43.66,432.06\n12.82,38.62,1018.71,83.8,467.41\n32.57,78.92,1011.6,66.47,430.12\n8.11,42.18,1014.82,93.09,473.62\n13.92,39.39,1012.94,80.52,471.81\n23.04,59.43,1010.23,68.99,442.99\n27.31,64.44,1014.65,57.27,442.77\n5.91,39.33,1010.18,95.53,491.49\n25.26,61.08,1013.68,71.72,447.46\n27.97,58.84,1002.25,57.88,446.11\n26.08,52.3,1007.03,63.34,442.44\n29.01,65.71,1013.61,48.07,446.22\n12.18,40.1,1016.67,91.87,471.49\n13.76,45.87,1008.89,87.27,463.5\n25.5,58.79,1016.02,64.4,440.01\n28.26,65.34,1014.56,43.4,441.03\n21.39,62.96,1019.49,72.24,452.68\n7.26,40.69,1020.43,90.22,474.91\n10.54,34.03,1018.71,74,478.77\n27.71,74.34,998.14,71.85,434.2\n23.11,68.3,1017.83,86.62,437.91\n7.51,41.01,1024.61,97.41,477.61\n26.46,74.67,1016.65,84.44,431.65\n29.34,74.34,998.58,81.55,430.57\n10.32,42.28,1008.82,75.66,481.09\n22.74,61.02,1009.56,79.41,445.56\n13.48,39.85,1012.71,58.91,475.74\n25.52,69.75,1010.36,90.06,435.12\n21.58,67.25,1017.39,79,446.15\n27.66,76.86,1001.31,69.47,436.64\n26.96,69.45,1013.89,51.47,436.69\n12.29,42.18,1016.53,83.13,468.75\n15.86,43.02,1012.18,40.33,466.6\n13.87,45.08,1024.42,81.69,465.48\n24.09,73.68,1014.93,94.55,441.34\n20.45,69.45,1012.53,91.81,441.83\n15.07,39.3,1019,63.62,464.7\n32.72,69.75,1009.6,49.35,437.99\n18.23,58.96,1015.55,69.61,459.12\n35.56,68.94,1006.56,38.75,429.69\n18.36,51.43,1010.57,90.17,459.8\n26.35,64.05,1009.81,81.24,433.63\n25.92,60.95,1014.62,48.46,442.84\n8.01,41.66,1014.49,76.72,485.13\n19.63,52.72,1025.09,51.16,459.12\n20.02,67.32,1012.05,76.34,445.31\n10.08,40.72,1022.7,67.3,480.8\n27.23,66.48,1005.23,52.38,432.55\n23.37,63.77,1013.42,76.44,443.86\n18.74,59.21,1018.3,91.55,449.77\n14.81,43.69,1017.19,71.9,470.71\n23.1,51.3,1011.93,80.05,452.17\n10.72,41.38,1021.6,63.77,478.29\n29.46,71.94,1006.96,62.26,428.54\n8.1,40.64,1020.66,89.04,478.27\n27.29,62.66,1007.63,58.02,439.58\n17.1,49.69,1005.53,81.82,457.32\n11.49,44.2,1018.79,91.14,475.51\n23.69,65.59,1010.85,88.92,439.66\n13.51,40.89,1011.03,84.83,471.99\n9.64,39.35,1015.1,91.76,479.81\n25.65,78.92,1010.83,86.56,434.78\n21.59,61.87,1011.18,57.21,446.58\n27.98,58.33,1013.92,54.25,437.76\n18.8,39.72,1001.24,63.8,459.36\n18.28,44.71,1016.99,33.71,462.28\n13.55,43.48,1016.08,67.25,464.33\n22.99,46.21,1010.71,60.11,444.36\n23.94,59.39,1014.32,74.55,438.64\n13.74,34.03,1018.69,67.34,470.49\n21.3,41.1,1001.86,42.75,455.13\n27.54,66.93,1017.06,55.2,450.22\n24.81,63.73,1009.34,83.61,440.43\n4.97,42.85,1014.02,88.78,482.98\n15.22,50.88,1014.19,100.12,460.44\n23.88,54.2,1012.81,64.52,444.97\n33.01,68.67,1005.2,51.41,433.94\n25.98,73.18,1012.28,85.78,439.73\n28.18,73.88,1005.89,75.41,434.48\n21.67,60.84,1017.93,81.63,442.33\n17.67,45.09,1014.26,51.92,457.67\n21.37,57.76,1018.8,70.12,454.66\n28.69,67.25,1017.71,53.83,432.21\n16.61,43.77,1012.25,77.23,457.66\n27.91,63.76,1010.27,65.67,435.21\n20.97,47.43,1007.64,71.18,448.22\n10.8,41.66,1013.79,81.96,475.51\n20.61,62.91,1013.24,79.54,446.53\n25.45,57.32,1011.7,47.09,441.3\n30.16,69.34,1007.67,57.69,433.54\n4.99,39.04,1020.45,78.89,472.52\n10.51,44.78,1012.59,85.29,474.77\n33.79,69.05,1001.62,40.13,435.1\n21.34,59.8,1016.92,77.06,450.74\n23.4,65.06,1014.32,67.38,442.7\n32.21,68.14,1003.34,62.44,426.56\n14.26,42.32,1016,77.43,463.71\n27.71,66.93,1016.85,58.77,447.06\n21.95,57.76,1018.02,67.72,452.27\n25.76,63.94,1018.49,42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006.06,69.13,437.81\n27.11,69.59,1008.56,79.2,437.2\n19.51,48.78,1021.03,86.33,453.27\n18.01,54.9,1017.04,77.82,455.91\n14.41,40.71,1016.78,69.77,467.01\n24.66,72.24,1011.35,77.45,434.33\n10.59,41.54,1019.94,73.88,477.05\n12.28,40.55,1005.72,98.56,472.47\n11.19,40.64,1020.57,84.49,472.86\n14.62,42.86,1015.56,84.5,470.79\n10.05,37.14,1012.64,75.97,474.16\n24.91,71.29,1008.29,69.06,437.03\n30.96,69.82,1009.6,51.55,438.74\n30.31,74.16,1010.69,58.81,436.23\n17.47,43.77,1012.25,76.78,456.41\n30.36,71.8,1010.9,63.27,437.4\n25.06,44.57,1007.39,56.07,443.66\n20.57,42.8,1013.1,75.48,460.43\n17.79,46.21,1010.38,85.25,448.74\n18.51,50.9,1012.95,82.71,459.11\n13.21,40.56,1018.12,64.49,475.86\n30.24,68.3,1016.21,48.25,431.82\n24.4,67.45,1015.63,57.1,435.47\n8.72,40.02,1031.32,78.09,477.86\n11.16,40.96,1023.49,83.7,478.3\n20.28,48.78,1017.4,82.51,451.59\n8.57,41.17,1020.18,72.47,484.2\n31.2,73.17,1010.28,53.23,431.23\n21.83,63.07,1011.57,87.02,443.1\n14.43,44.47,1028.57,70.7,466.56\n31.35,70.8,1010.11,66.37,432.19\n12.27,41.17,1019.41,58.1,475.13\n10.09,41.62,1015.21,96.56,463.86\n5.24,38.68,1018.03,78.65,486.67\n7.14,39.4,1011.68,91.84,482.82\n6.63,39.42,1024.81,72.58,482.02\n27.37,65.06,1013.09,50.92,440.5\n30.39,71.8,1010.87,64.11,435.82\n15.75,47.45,1009.86,86.68,451.5\n28.82,71.43,1011.51,58.58,443.68\n24,75.23,1010.69,72.46,443.78\n28.17,72.43,1007.37,68.92,428.88\n27.2,78.05,1010.15,90.2,430.55\n30.08,68.14,1003.99,77.38,425.27\n9.65,41.03,1021.09,64.97,481.68\n28.15,70.72,1009.76,73.38,436.19\n27.21,68.12,1012.96,54.69,435.2\n14.65,41.92,1030.61,63.07,464.95\n32.18,65.74,1010.89,46.52,435.58\n7.57,41.14,1028.23,87.97,477.8\n27.2,49.16,1005.33,46.73,440.57\n25.89,59.22,1013.4,80.17,445.75\n25.01,66.56,1009.68,64.94,435.73\n26.68,68.08,1011.41,67.33,433.04\n17.72,50.9,1012.02,85.55,456.4\n28.62,70.94,1007.38,53,432.71\n27.06,61.41,1011.99,45.23,452.85\n24.27,74.99,1007.73,82.49,438.26\n32.15,69.98,1013.3,55.13,429.86\n17.08,38.58,1015.41,73.42,461.49\n22.08,45.61,1014.02,75.71,456.71\n13.27,52.75,1025.86,65.12,464.82\n30.24,68.24,1009.68,64.67,426.25\n13.13,40.75,1016.05,80.87,472.5\n26.2,63.56,1013.39,67.07,442.4\n9.74,41.01,1019.12,98.39,465.8\n23.83,58.79,1009.77,78.13,444.34\n24.49,60.27,1018.96,72.62,440.87\n26.66,64.27,1012.83,58.88,437.87\n14.42,44.66,1016.1,93.89,461.34\n10.76,44.58,1016.41,79.24,483.54\n21.79,58.2,1017.21,66.74,446.94\n9.51,38.38,1022.77,73.82,474.93\n11.06,41.16,1018.52,89.14,467.46\n27.69,69.71,1009.9,69.91,440.43\n20.48,39.72,1001.61,57.32,455.58\n22.03,64.79,1017.95,76.2,450.25\n5.81,45.87,1009.63,94.38,479.66\n12.23,41.58,1018.76,87.66,464.45\n6.29,40.78,1024.75,96.37,478.29\n24.64,58.79,1009.82,73.96,444.26\n24.05,67.83,1009.35,63.8,442.53\n11.06,36.71,1021.67,80.44,473.85\n32.49,71.32,1005.03,57.12,433.59\n19.69,57.32,1012.41,75.51,449.59\n23.82,44.89,1009.39,74.69,445.45\n11,40.23,1019.08,86.5,475.9\n10.15,41.14,1025.5,91.54,473.56\n23.41,74.99,1007.22,84.55,442.51\n19.31,67.71,1005.31,77.15,446.23\n30.34,68.08,1010.85,49.4,428.34\n25.2,57.5,1015.19,59.62,446.26\n28.26,69.23,1013.01,42.1,436.31\n23.39,73.5,1011.37,88.48,441.18\n5.98,39.61,1017.27,84.86,482.17\n29.62,73.18,1012.21,61.6,427.22\n22.59,70.32,1007.07,74.39,437.39\n21.53,58.05,1012.9,87.57,447.93\n15.86,38.62,1016.65,67.51,462.58\n12.36,40.56,1022.11,72.99,474.71\n21.09,59.8,1016.94,76.95,451.98\n25.07,60.27,1018.13,70.33,439.52\n31.12,67.69,1005.3,50.46,425.21\n30.27,64.69,1006.3,53.69,435.67\n19.48,63.09,1019.28,78.04,449.6\n12.95,43.71,1025.63,90.7,469.15\n23.62,67.45,1014.63,59.8,439.45\n18.93,67.71,1005.04,82.4,444.55\n14.57,42.18,1015.13,74.89,465.75\n22.75,57.76,1017.83,66.54,452.33\n25.5,67.83,1009.29,61.29,437.49\n29.67,66.51,1015.6,34.1,434.8\n25.88,69.13,1002.44,85.67,426.14\n14.57,39.28,1015.1,76.94,469.27\n13.44,42.34,1018,96.65,459.6\n18.67,44.06,1017.13,77.18,454.51\n29.53,71.97,1008.6,79.25,434.96\n18.31,52.9,1015.99,66.14,459.61\n13.09,41.62,1011.82,83.14,457.29\n26.56,52.3,1007.4,62.04,439.25\n10.46,37.5,1013.12,76.74,472.16\n20.73,41.1,1001.86,47.51,456.44\n28.82,77.24,1008.35,78.93,433.69\n28.52,70.72,1009.64,66.76,437.72\n16.13,53.82,1015.63,63.08,459.16\n22.82,64.63,1020.78,66.73,449.34\n22.84,67.32,1013.77,64.67,438.36\n30.56,69.04,1009.29,55.73,442.24\n29.9,74.99,1002.28,59.76,436.77\n8.47,41.03,1021.72,70.16,485.1\n27.89,70.94,1007.54,49.18,435.21\n12.12,41.17,1017.68,78.72,470.67\n20.42,45.01,1012.23,66.5,451.28\n33.2,73.88,1005.67,48.48,438.12\n23.62,56.85,1011.11,64.44,442.96\n14.79,46.48,1007.46,92.4,462.55\n19.94,44.63,1004.73,78.48,455.58\n17.16,53.16,1013.2,82.85,456.93\n8.67,40.77,1011.81,89.4,479.23\n21.41,56.9,1007.03,79.41,441.41\n7.93,42.28,1008.43,85.57,484.75\n29.7,67.17,1007.31,66.56,438.04\n15.84,41.04,1025.64,63.43,456.21\n25.63,69.89,1015.17,77.42,434.47\n5.71,45.87,1012.04,93.42,482.49\n25.31,67.9,1006.34,68.04,440.36\n29.65,72.86,1004.26,69.63,434.67\n20,69.48,1011.05,85.51,448.79\n13.78,41.16,1021.65,75.77,460.44\n14.14,43.34,1017.1,81.77,464.36\n23.65,71.98,1006.09,93.39,434.11\n15.33,43.13,1015.41,53.17,466.86\n26.98,43.77,1010.95,40.8,446.05\n29.29,70.36,1006.64,60.82,431.26\n30.85,68.94,1007.31,68.99,426.1\n11.35,38.91,1017.93,83.45,474.22\n30.26,59.22,1013.18,61.08,442.98\n28.16,71.94,1007.69,68.17,430.46\n34.03,73.56,1006.49,51.07,440.29\n20.15,58.59,1014.13,91.96,443.85\n17.01,50.9,1013.23,82.03,460.14\n9.88,40.71,1015.34,84.32,471.8\n12.71,41.39,1019.3,74.2,475.13\n30.89,74.87,1008.99,56.58,432.68\n10.84,40.27,1005.24,87.27,479.22\n27.34,59.87,1012.06,59.04,448.26\n14.81,44.88,1019.1,66.7,464.65\n18.2,45.01,1013.82,68.14,452.21\n22.7,60.84,1019.15,71.48,438.59\n22.43,63.94,1012.76,93.24,444.53\n30,61.5,1009.4,48.63,435.6\n25.72,59.21,1012.37,66.62,437.72\n20.88,56.85,1010.91,84.28,440.08\n28.31,66.17,1009.75,72.66,444.51\n12.42,41.58,1019.49,86.31,466.05\n21.35,58.16,1017.21,67.66,452.83\n26.66,73.56,1006.9,99.27,433.62\n16.61,45.87,1009.34,97.93,455.86\n17.14,58.16,1018.59,77.22,458.61\n20.98,42.23,1013.12,67.37,461.9\n13.41,54.3,1016.48,79.28,467.88\n11.99,49.83,1008.33,95.2,468.22\n17.27,44.9,1007.85,78.8,454.19\n22.58,59.14,1017.2,80.91,439.78\n18.89,58.66,1010.96,84.07,453.33\n22.41,70.98,1005.67,95.03,441.51\n24.06,69.94,1005.47,60.46,436.88\n30.37,76.09,1006.95,65.93,435.01\n13.42,41.74,1020.96,61.8,473.45\n10.63,42.28,1008.37,92.68,474.97\n10.94,25.36,1009.47,100.1,470.9\n31,77.95,1010.14,65.97,431.62\n8.47,41.26,1020.57,91.28,477.14\n18.33,52.08,1001.78,100.09,448.23\n28.43,69.59,1008.79,73.33,439.26\n24.97,58.95,1017.19,56.24,440.03\n10.5,39.28,1016.55,91.75,480.92\n27.35,77.95,1017.43,73.36,437.61\n25.06,64.63,1020.66,54.93,446.57\n29.39,68.24,1009.06,66.76,427.96\n24.18,58.49,1011.3,77.82,445.49\n15.75,39.99,1007.02,77.44,464.95\n10.32,42.02,998.27,99.12,472.16\n17.36,39.53,1008.28,68.87,456.57\n12.27,41.17,1019.41,58.1,475.13\n15.11,40.71,1017.96,69.31,465.42\n22.2,63.94,1017.38,56.17,445.6\n22.88,59.21,1011.51,86.93,440.25\n28.96,75.23,1010.88,49.45,439.03\n5.35,35.57,1027.12,80.81,488.65\n20.2,64.45,1009.03,61.77,452.33\n11.01,37.5,1015.08,73.36,474.36\n15.5,44.92,1024.16,86.44,462.12\n20.19,62.26,1011.37,89.69,443.58\n24.95,64.33,1011.34,81.05,440.97\n19.7,51.3,1014.88,88.1,454.94\n28.57,65.27,1013.27,51.11,440.51\n8.07,41.01,1023.26,97.5,474.09\n19.68,68.28,1002.62,71.57,452.47\n8.64,38.56,1016.51,66.03,484.45\n10.53,37.5,1008.55,99.91,472.32\n23.53,50.05,1005.63,78.4,443.71\n24.9,67.25,1017.77,66.17,433.71\n5.01,39.4,1003.69,91.9,475.34\n22.66,69.84,1006.16,82.79,439.06\n29.76,57.19,1008.59,51.1,436.21\n26.3,61.41,1012.45,56.85,448.55\n30.17,74.22,1007.46,49.27,432\n8.02,40.23,1017.42,90.26,484.22\n19.12,50.16,1011.52,99.71,451.49\n14.87,42.18,1015.23,74.41,465.89\n9.71,42.44,1014.29,94.03,481.03\n24.33,77.54,1008.5,82.45,435.38\n7.17,39.4,1011.48,90.38,484.33\n24.61,62.96,1020.1,63.83,445.79\n23.48,66.44,1011.28,61.11,443.21\n23.7,70.32,1007.21,66.85,439.59\n25.44,69.59,1008.22,80.73,433.97\n17.46,62.1,1019.96,83.99,451.06\n22.97,62.4,1010.25,75.18,445.3\n26.22,49.82,1015.48,55.8,454.2\n23.27,68.28,1005.01,74.83,444.86\n11.76,41.58,1020.91,88.35,465.45\n14.02,40.1,1015.56,82.44,467.32\n16.65,49.69,1014.01,91,460.03\n13.19,39.18,1023.67,66.78,469.62\n31.32,74.33,1012.92,36.48,429.57\n24.48,69.45,1013.86,62.39,435.74\n21.6,62.52,1017.23,67.87,453.28\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/README.rst",
    "content": "Python code for solving linear regression problems.\n\nThe files ``simple_linear_regression.py`` and ``multiple_linear_regression.py``\nare companions to a `blog post on linear regression\n<https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2016/linear-regression/>`_, so they shouldn't\nchange besides bug fixes.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/multiple_linear_regression.py",
    "content": "# Example of solving multivariate linear regression in Python.\n#\n# Uses only Numpy, with Matplotlib for plotting.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport csv\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\nfrom timer import Timer\n\n\ndef read_CCPP_data(filename):\n    \"\"\"Read data from the given CCPP CSV file.\n\n    Returns (data, header). data is a 2D Numpy array of type np.float32, with a\n    sample per row. header is the names of the columns as read from the CSV\n    file.\n    \"\"\"\n    with open(filename, 'rb') as file:\n        reader = csv.reader(file)\n        header = reader.next()\n        return np.array(list(reader), dtype=np.float32), header\n\n\ndef feature_normalize(X):\n    \"\"\"Normalize the feature matrix X.\n\n    Given a feature matrix X, where each row is a vector of features, normalizes\n    each feature. Returns (X_norm, mu, sigma) where mu and sigma are the mean\n    and stddev of features (vectors).\n    \"\"\"\n    num_features = X.shape[1]\n    mu = X.mean(axis=0)\n    sigma = X.std(axis=0)\n    X_norm = (X - mu) / sigma\n    return X_norm, mu, sigma\n\n\ndef compute_cost(X, y, theta):\n    \"\"\"Compute the MSE cost of a prediction based on theta, over the whole X.\n\n    X: (k, n) each row is an input with n features (including an all-ones\n       column that should have been added beforehead).\n    y: (k, 1) observed output per input.\n    theta: (n, 1) regression parameters.\n\n    Note: expects y and theta to be proper column vectors.\n    \"\"\"\n    k = X.shape[0]\n    # Vectorized computation of yhat per sample.\n    yhat = np.dot(X, theta)\n    diff = yhat - y\n    # Vectorized computation using a dot product to compute sum of squares.\n    cost = np.dot(diff.T, diff) / k\n    # Cost is a 1x1 matrix, we need a scalar.\n    return cost.flat[0]\n\n\ndef gradient_descent(X, y, nsteps, learning_rate=0.1):\n    \"\"\"Runs gradient descent optimization to fit a line y^ = theta.dot(x).\n\n    X: (k, n) each row is an input with n features (including an all-ones column\n       that should have been added beforehead).\n    y: (k, 1) observed output per input.\n    nsteps: how many steps to run the optimization for.\n    learning_rate: learning rate of gradient descent.\n\n    Yields 'nsteps + 1' pairs of (theta, cost) where theta is the fit parameter\n    shaped (n, 1) for that step, and its cost vs the real y. The first pair has\n    the initial theta and cost; the rest carry results after each of the\n    iteration steps.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    theta = np.zeros((n, 1))\n    yield theta, compute_cost(X, y, theta)\n    for step in range(nsteps):\n        # yhat becomes a (k, 1) array of predictions, per sample.\n        yhat = np.dot(X, theta)\n        diff = yhat - y\n        dtheta = np.zeros((n, 1))\n        for j in range(n):\n            # The sum over all samples is computed with a dot product between\n            # (y^-y) and the jth feature across all of X.\n            dtheta[j, 0] = learning_rate * np.dot(diff.T, X[:, j]) / k\n        theta -= dtheta\n        yield theta, compute_cost(X, y, theta)\n\n\ndef compute_normal_eqn(X, y):\n    \"\"\"Compute theta using the normal equation.\n\n    X is the input matrix with a leftmost column of 1s. Returns theta as a\n    column vector.\n    \"\"\"\n    XTX = np.dot(X.T, X)\n    # Using linalg.inv here, which will bomb for a singular matrix.\n    # Alternatively, we could use linalg.pinv to compute a pseudo-inverse.\n    XTX_inv = np.linalg.inv(XTX)\n    xdot = np.dot(XTX_inv, X.T)\n    return np.dot(xdot, y)\n\n\ndef split_dataset_to_train_test(dataset, train_proportion=0.8):\n    \"\"\"Splits the dataset to a train set and test set.\n\n    The split is done over a random shuffle of the rows of the dataset. Assumes\n    each row in the data has the expected outcome in the last column.\n\n    train_proportion:\n        The proportion of data to keep in the training set. The rest goes to the\n        test set.\n\n    Returns (X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test) where y_train/y_test are column\n    vectors taken from the last column of the dataset.\n    \"\"\"\n    shuffled_dataset = np.random.permutation(dataset)\n    k_train = int(shuffled_dataset.shape[0] * train_proportion)\n\n    X_train = shuffled_dataset[:k_train, :-1]\n    y_train = shuffled_dataset[:k_train, -1].reshape(-1, 1)\n    X_test = shuffled_dataset[k_train:, :-1]\n    y_test = shuffled_dataset[k_train:, -1].reshape(-1, 1)\n    return X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test\n\n\ndef compute_rsquared(X, y, theta):\n    \"\"\"Compute R^2 - the coefficeint of determination for theta.\n\n    X: (k, n) input.\n    y: (k, 1) observed output per input.\n    theta: (n, 1) regression parameters.\n\n    Returns the R2 - a scalar.\n    \"\"\"\n    k = X.shape[0]\n    yhat = np.dot(X, theta)\n    diff = yhat - y\n    SE_line = np.dot(diff.T, diff)\n    SE_y = len(y) * y.var()\n    return (1 - SE_line / SE_y).flat[0]\n\n\ndef plot_cost_vs_step(costs):\n    \"\"\"Given an array of costs, plots them vs. index.\n\n    Uses logarithmic scale for y be cause the cost tends to be very large\n    initially.\n    \"\"\"\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    ax.plot(range(len(costs)), costs)\n    ax.set_yscale('log')\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef plot_correlation_heatmap(X, header):\n    \"\"\"Plot a heatmap of the correlation matrix for X.\n\n    This requires the seaborn package to be installed.\n    \"\"\"\n    import seaborn\n    cm = np.corrcoef(X.T)\n    hm = seaborn.heatmap(cm,\n            cbar=True,\n            annot=True,\n            square=True,\n            yticklabels=header,\n            xticklabels=header)\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef sample_predictions_vs_truth(X, y, theta, nsamples=10):\n    \"\"\"Display a sample of predictions vs. true values.\"\"\"\n    print('Sample of predictions vs. true values')\n    yhat = np.dot(X, theta)\n    sample_indices = np.random.choice(X.shape[0], size=nsamples, replace=False)\n    for index in sample_indices:\n        print('  sample #{0}: yhat={1}, y={2}'.format(index,\n                                                      yhat[index][0],\n                                                      y[index][0]))\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    # Follow through the code here to see how the functions are used. No\n    # plotting is done by default. Uncomment relevant lines to produce plots.\n\n    # For reproducibility\n    np.random.seed(42)\n\n    # This file was dowloaded from:\n    # https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/00294/ and then\n    # unzipped.\n    filename = 'CCPP-dataset/data.csv'\n    with Timer('reading data'):\n        X, header = read_CCPP_data(filename)\n\n    # Plot a heatmap for the correlation matrix of X. This requires the seaborn\n    # package. This heatmap is a useful visualization for finding features that\n    # are most correlated with the result, and features that are possibly\n    # collinear.\n    #plot_correlation_heatmap(X, header)\n\n    print('Read {0} data samples from {1}'.format(len(X), filename))\n    X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test = split_dataset_to_train_test(X)\n    print('Data shapes:')\n    print('  X_train:', X_train.shape)\n    print('  y_train:', y_train.shape)\n    print('  X_test:', X_test.shape)\n    print('  y_test:', y_test.shape)\n\n    # Normalize X to bring all features into the same scale. Also, add a\n    # all-ones column as the first column of X (\"augmented X\") to serve as the\n    # bias term.\n    ktrain = X_train.shape[0]\n    X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X_train)\n    X_train_augmented = np.hstack((np.ones((ktrain, 1)), X_train_normalized))\n\n    # Run gradient descent.\n    NSTEPS = 500\n    with Timer('Running gradient descent ({0} steps)'.format(NSTEPS)):\n        thetas_and_costs = list(gradient_descent(X_train_augmented,\n                                                 y_train, NSTEPS))\n    # Plot cost vs. step for the last 100 steps (the first steps have an\n    # enourmous errors compared to the final steps).\n    #plot_cost_vs_step([cost for _, cost in thetas_and_costs][:100])\n\n    last_theta = thetas_and_costs[-1][0]\n    print('Best theta found:', last_theta)\n\n    print('Training set MSE:',\n          compute_cost(X_train_augmented, y_train, last_theta))\n    print('Training set R^2:',\n          compute_rsquared(X_train_augmented, y_train, last_theta))\n\n    # Normalize the test set using the mu/sigma computed from the training set,\n    # and augment it with the bias column of 1s.\n    ktest = X_test.shape[0]\n    X_test_normalized = (X_test - mu) / sigma\n    X_test_augmented = np.hstack((np.ones((ktest, 1)), X_test_normalized))\n    print('Test set MSE:',\n          compute_cost(X_test_augmented, y_test, last_theta))\n    print('Test set R^2:',\n          compute_rsquared(X_test_augmented, y_test, last_theta))\n\n    # To assess how good the fit is, print out a random sample of predictions\n    # for the test set compared to the real y values for these inputs.\n    sample_predictions_vs_truth(X_test_augmented, y_test, last_theta)\n\n    # Compute theta using the normal equation and report MST / R^2.\n    theta_from_normal_eqn = compute_normal_eqn(X_train_augmented, y_train)\n    print('Theta from normal equation:', theta_from_normal_eqn)\n    print('Test set MSE / normal:',\n          compute_cost(X_test_augmented, y_test, theta_from_normal_eqn))\n    print('Test set R^2 / normal:',\n          compute_rsquared(X_test_augmented, y_test, theta_from_normal_eqn))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/multiple_linear_regression_test.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport unittest\n\nfrom multiple_linear_regression import feature_normalize\n\n\nclass Test(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_feature_normalize(self):\n        X = np.array([[1, 2, 3], [9, 4, 4]])\n        X_norm, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X)\n        np.testing.assert_array_equal(mu, [5, 3, 3.5])\n        np.testing.assert_array_equal(sigma, [4, 1, 0.5])\n        self.assertEqual(X_norm[0][0], -1)\n        self.assertEqual(X_norm[-1][-1], 1)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/simple_linear_regression.py",
    "content": "# Example of solving simple linear (y(x) = mx + b) regression in Python.\n#\n# Uses only Numpy, with Matplotlib for plotting.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nfrom matplotlib import cm\nfrom matplotlib.animation import FuncAnimation\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nfrom mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D\nimport numpy as np\n\nfrom timer import Timer\n\n\ndef generate_data(n, m=2.25, b=6.0, stddev=1.5):\n    \"\"\"Generate n data points approximating given line.\n\n    m, b: line slope and intercept.\n    stddev: standard deviation of added error.\n\n    Returns pair x, y: arrays of length n.\n    \"\"\"\n    x = np.linspace(-2.0, 2.0, n)\n    y = x * m + b + np.random.normal(loc=0, scale=stddev, size=n)\n    return x, y\n\n\ndef plot_data_scatterplot(x, y, mb_history=None):\n    \"\"\"Plot the data: y as a function of x, in a scatterplot.\n\n    x, y: arrays of data.\n    mb_history:\n        if provided, it's a sequence of (m, b) pairs that are used to draw\n        animated lines on top of the scatterplot.\n    \"\"\"\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n    fig.set_size_inches((8, 6))\n    save_dpi = 80\n\n    ax.scatter(x, y, marker='x')\n    ax.set_xlabel('x')\n    ax.set_ylabel('y')\n\n    if mb_history:\n        m0, b0 = mb_history[0]\n        line, = ax.plot(x, x * m0 + b0, 'r-', linewidth=2.0)\n\n        # Downsample mb_history by 2 to reduce the number of frames shown.\n        def update(frame_i):\n            mi, bi = mb_history[frame_i * 2]\n            line.set_ydata(x * mi + bi)\n            ax.set_title('Fit at iteration {0}'.format(frame_i * 2))\n            return [line]\n\n        anim = FuncAnimation(fig, update, frames=range(len(mb_history) // 2),\n                             interval=200)\n        anim.save('regressionfit.gif', dpi=save_dpi, writer='imagemagick')\n    else:\n        fig.savefig('linreg-data.png', dpi=save_dpi)\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef compute_cost(x, y, m, b):\n    \"\"\"Compute the MSE cost of a prediction based on m, b.\n\n    x: inputs array.\n    y: observed outputs array.\n    m, b: regression parameters.\n\n    Returns: a scalar cost.\n    \"\"\"\n    yhat = m * x + b\n    diff = yhat - y\n    # Vectorized computation using a dot product to compute sum of squares.\n    cost = np.dot(diff.T, diff) / float(x.shape[0])\n    # Cost is a 1x1 matrix, we need a scalar.\n    return cost.flat[0]\n\n\ndef gradient_descent(x, y, nsteps, learning_rate=0.1):\n    \"\"\"Runs gradient descent optimization to fit a line y^ = x * m + b.\n\n    x, y: input data and observed outputs, as array.\n    nsteps: how many steps to run the optimization for.\n    learning_rate: learning rate of gradient descent.\n\n    Yields 'nsteps + 1' triplets of (m, b, cost) where m, b are the fit\n    parameters for the given step, and cost is their cost vs. the real y. The\n    first triplet has the initial m, b and cost; the rest carry results after\n    each of the iteration steps.\n    \"\"\"\n    n = x.shape[0]\n    # Start with m and b initialized to 0s for the first try.\n    m, b = 0, 0\n    yield m, b, compute_cost(x, y, m, b)\n    for step in range(nsteps):\n        # Update m and b following the formulae for gradient updates.\n        yhat = m * x + b\n        diff = yhat - y\n        dm = learning_rate * (diff * x).sum() * 2 / n\n        db = learning_rate * diff.sum() * 2 / n\n        m -= dm\n        b -= db\n        yield m, b, compute_cost(x, y, m, b)\n\n\ndef plot_cost_3D(x, y, costfunc, mb_history=None):\n    \"\"\"Plot cost as 3D and contour.\n\n    x, y: arrays of data.\n    costfunc: cost function with signature like compute_cost.\n    mb_history:\n        if provided, it's a sequence of (m, b) pairs that are added as\n        crosshairs markers on top of the contour plot.\n    \"\"\"\n    lim = 10.0\n    N = 250\n    ms = np.linspace(-lim, lim, N)\n    bs = np.linspace(-lim, lim, N)\n    cost = np.zeros((N, N))\n    for m_idx in range(N):\n        for b_idx in range(N):\n            cost[m_idx, b_idx] = costfunc(x, y, ms[m_idx], bs[b_idx])\n    # Configure 3D plot.\n    fig = plt.figure()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n    ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1, 2, 1, projection='3d')\n    ax1.set_xlabel('b')\n    ax1.set_ylabel('m')\n    msgrid, bsgrid = np.meshgrid(ms, bs)\n    surf = ax1.plot_surface(msgrid, bsgrid, cost, cmap=cm.coolwarm)\n\n    # Configure contour plot.\n    ax2 = fig.add_subplot(1, 2, 2)\n    ax2.contour(msgrid, bsgrid, cost)\n    ax2.set_xlabel('b')\n    ax2.set_ylabel('m')\n\n    if mb_history:\n        ms, bs = zip(*mb_history)\n        plt.plot(bs, ms, 'rx', mew=3, ms=5)\n\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef plot_cost_vs_step(costs):\n    \"\"\"Given an array of costs, plots them vs. index.\"\"\"\n    plt.plot(range(len(costs)), costs)\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef compute_mb_analytic(x, y):\n    \"\"\"Given arrays of x, y computes m, b analytically.\"\"\"\n    xbar = np.average(x)\n    ybar = np.average(y)\n    m = (xbar * ybar - np.average(x * y)) / (xbar ** 2 - np.average(x ** 2))\n    b = ybar - m * xbar\n    return m, b\n\n\ndef compute_rsquared(x, y, m, b):\n    \"\"\"Compute R^2 - the coefficient of determination for m, b.\n\n    x, y: arrays of input, output.\n    m, b: regression parameters.\n\n    Returns the R^2 - a scalar.\n    \"\"\"\n    yhat = m * x + b\n    diff = yhat - y\n    SE_line = np.dot(diff.T, diff)\n    SE_y = len(y) * y.var()\n    return 1 - SE_line / SE_y\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    # Follow through the code here to see how the functions are used. No\n    # plotting is done by default. Uncomment relevant lines to produce plots.\n\n    # For reproducibility.\n    np.random.seed(42)\n\n    # Generate some pseudo-random data we're goign to fit with linear\n    # regression.\n    N = 500\n    x, y = generate_data(N)\n    print('Generated {0} data points'.format(N))\n\n    # Run gradient descent.\n    NSTEPS = 50\n    with Timer('Running gradient descent [{0} steps]'.format(NSTEPS)):\n        mbcost = list(gradient_descent(x, y, NSTEPS))\n        mb_history = [(m, b) for m, b, _ in mbcost]\n\n    print('Final m={0}, b={1}; cost={2}'.format(mbcost[-1][0], mbcost[-1][1],\n                                                mbcost[-1][2]))\n\n    # Plot the data in a scatterplot, with an animated line fit.\n    #plot_data_scatterplot(x, y, mb_history)\n\n    # Plot the cost function in 3D and as contours; add markers for the costs\n    # values returned by the gradient descent procedure.\n    #plot_cost_3D(x, y, compute_cost, mb_history)\n\n    m, b = compute_mb_analytic(x, y)\n    print('Analytic: m={0}, b={1}'.format(m, b))\n\n    rsquared = compute_rsquared(x, y, m, b)\n    print('Rsquared:', rsquared)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/simple_linear_regression_test.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport unittest\n\nfrom simple_linear_regression import compute_cost\n\n\nclass Test(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_compute_cost(self):\n        self.assertAlmostEqual(\n            compute_cost(\n                np.column_stack(([1, 2, 3], )),\n                np.column_stack(([7, 3, 5], )),\n                m=2,\n                b=3),\n            12.0)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "linear-regression/timer.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport sys\nimport time\n\nclass Timer(object):\n    def __init__(self, name=None):\n        self.name = name\n\n    def __enter__(self):\n        self.tstart = time.time()\n        if self.name:\n            print('[%s] ' % self.name, end='')\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n\n    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):\n        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/.gitignore",
    "content": "LICENSE\nUSE_POLICY*\nllama-2-*\ntokenizer.model\ntokenizer_*\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/README.md",
    "content": "Following Umar Jamil's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM4VmoabDAI\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/download.sh",
    "content": "#!/bin/bash\n\n# Taken from the official Llama2 repo\n# Custom URL pasted from the registration process at https://www.llama.com/llama-downloads/\n\n# Copyright (c) Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.\n# This software may be used and distributed according to the terms of the Llama 2 Community License Agreement.\n\nread -p \"Enter the URL from email: \" PRESIGNED_URL\necho \"\"\nread -p \"Enter the list of models to download without spaces (7B,13B,70B,7B-chat,13B-chat,70B-chat), or press Enter for all: \" MODEL_SIZE\nTARGET_FOLDER=\".\"             # where all files should end up\nmkdir -p ${TARGET_FOLDER}\n\nif [[ $MODEL_SIZE == \"\" ]]; then\n    MODEL_SIZE=\"7B,13B,70B,7B-chat,13B-chat,70B-chat\"\nfi\n\necho \"Downloading LICENSE and Acceptable Usage Policy\"\nwget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"LICENSE\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/LICENSE\"\nwget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"USE_POLICY.md\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/USE_POLICY.md\"\n\necho \"Downloading tokenizer\"\nwget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"tokenizer.model\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/tokenizer.model\"\nwget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"tokenizer_checklist.chk\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/tokenizer_checklist.chk\"\n(cd ${TARGET_FOLDER} && md5sum -c tokenizer_checklist.chk)\n\nfor m in ${MODEL_SIZE//,/ }\ndo\n    if [[ $m == \"7B\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=0\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-7b\"\n    elif [[ $m == \"7B-chat\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=0\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-7b-chat\"\n    elif [[ $m == \"13B\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=1\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-13b\"\n    elif [[ $m == \"13B-chat\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=1\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-13b-chat\"\n    elif [[ $m == \"70B\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=7\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-70b\"\n    elif [[ $m == \"70B-chat\" ]]; then\n        SHARD=7\n        MODEL_PATH=\"llama-2-70b-chat\"\n    fi\n\n    echo \"Downloading ${MODEL_PATH}\"\n    mkdir -p ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/${MODEL_PATH}\"\n\n    for s in $(seq -f \"0%g\" 0 ${SHARD})\n    do\n        wget --retry-connrefused --waitretry=1 --read-timeout=20 --timeout=15 -t 0 --continue ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"${MODEL_PATH}/consolidated.${s}.pth\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/${MODEL_PATH}/consolidated.${s}.pth\"\n    done\n\n    wget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"${MODEL_PATH}/params.json\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/${MODEL_PATH}/params.json\"\n    wget ${PRESIGNED_URL/'*'/\"${MODEL_PATH}/checklist.chk\"} -O ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/${MODEL_PATH}/checklist.chk\"\n    echo \"Checking checksums\"\n    (cd ${TARGET_FOLDER}\"/${MODEL_PATH}\" && md5sum -c checklist.chk)\ndone\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/inference.py",
    "content": "from typing import Optional\nimport torch\nimport time\nfrom pathlib import Path\nimport json\nfrom sentencepiece import SentencePieceProcessor\nfrom tqdm import tqdm\n\nfrom model import ModelArgs, Transformer\n\n\nclass LLaMA:\n    def __init__(\n        self,\n        model: Transformer,\n        tokenizer: SentencePieceProcessor,\n        model_args: ModelArgs,\n    ):\n        self.model = model\n        self.tokenizer = tokenizer\n        self.model_args = model_args\n\n    @staticmethod\n    def build(\n        checkpoints_dir: str,\n        tokenizer_path: str,\n        load_model: bool,\n        max_seq_len: int,\n        max_batchsize: int,\n        device: str,\n    ):\n        prev_time = time.time()\n        if load_model:\n            checkpoints = sorted(Path(checkpoints_dir).glob(\"*.pth\"))\n            assert len(checkpoints) > 0, f\"No checkpoints found in {checkpoints_dir}\"\n            chk_path = checkpoints[0]\n            print(f\"Loading model from {chk_path}\")\n            checkpoint = torch.load(chk_path, weights_only=False, map_location=\"cpu\")\n            print(f\"Model loaded in {time.time() - prev_time:.2f} seconds\")\n            prev_time = time.time()\n\n        with open(Path(checkpoints_dir) / \"params.json\", \"r\") as f:\n            params = json.load(f)\n\n        model_args = ModelArgs(\n            max_seq_len=max_seq_len,\n            max_batchsize=max_batchsize,\n            device=device,\n            **params,\n        )\n\n        tokenizer = SentencePieceProcessor()\n        tokenizer.load(tokenizer_path)\n        model_args.vocab_size = tokenizer.vocab_size()\n\n        if device == \"cuda\":\n            torch.set_default_dtype(torch.cuda.HalfTensor)\n        else:\n            torch.set_default_dtype(torch.bfloat16)\n\n        model = Transformer(model_args).to(device)\n\n        if load_model:\n            del checkpoint[\"rope.freqs\"]  # we calculate these ourselves\n            model.load_state_dict(checkpoint, strict=False)\n            print(f\"State dict loaded in {time.time() - prev_time:.2f} seconds\")\n\n        return LLaMA(model, tokenizer, model_args)\n\n    def text_completion(\n        self,\n        prompts: list[str],\n        temperature: float = 0.6,\n        top_p: float = 0.9,\n        max_gen_len: Optional[int] = None,\n    ):\n        if max_gen_len is None:\n            max_gen_len = self.model_args.max_seq_len - 1\n\n        # convert each prompt into tokens\n        prompt_tokens = [\n            self.tokenizer.encode(prompt, out_type=int, add_bos=True, add_eos=False)\n            for prompt in prompts\n        ]\n        # make sure the batch size is not too large\n        batch_size = len(prompt_tokens)\n        assert (\n            batch_size <= self.model_args.max_batchsize\n        ), f\"Batch size {batch_size} exceeds max batch size {self.model_args.max_batchsize}\"\n        max_prompt_len = max(len(tokens) for tokens in prompt_tokens)\n\n        # make sure the prompt length is not larger than the mex seq len\n        assert max_prompt_len <= self.model_args.max_seq_len\n        total_len = min(self.model_args.max_seq_len, max_prompt_len + max_gen_len)\n\n        pad_id = self.tokenizer.pad_id()\n        tokens = torch.full(\n            (batch_size, total_len),\n            pad_id,\n            dtype=torch.long,\n            device=self.model_args.device,\n        )\n        for k, t in enumerate(prompt_tokens):\n            tokens[k, : len(t)] = torch.tensor(\n                t, dtype=torch.long, device=self.model_args.device\n            )\n        eos_reached = torch.full((batch_size,), False, dtype=torch.bool)\n        print(eos_reached.dtype)\n        prompt_tokens_mask = (\n            tokens != pad_id\n        )  # True if token is a prompt token, False otherwise\n        print(prompt_tokens_mask.dtype)\n\n        for cur_pos in tqdm(range(1, total_len), desc=\"Generating\", unit=\"tokens\"):\n            with torch.no_grad():\n                logits = self.model.forward(tokens[:, cur_pos - 1 : cur_pos], cur_pos)\n            if temperature > 0:\n                probs = torch.softmax(logits[:, -1, :] / temperature, dim=-1)\n                next_token = self._sample_top_p(probs, top_p)\n            else:\n                # Greedy sampling\n                next_token = torch.argmax(logits[:, -1], dim=-1)\n\n            next_token = next_token.reshape(-1)\n            # only replace the token if it is a padding token\n            next_token = torch.where(\n                prompt_tokens_mask[:, cur_pos], tokens[:, cur_pos], next_token\n            )\n            tokens[:, cur_pos] = next_token\n            # EOS reached only if we found EOS token for a padding position\n            eos_reached |= (~prompt_tokens_mask[:, cur_pos]) & (\n                next_token == self.tokenizer.eos_id()\n            )\n            if all(eos_reached):\n                break\n\n        out_tokens = []\n        out_text = []\n        for prompt_index, current_prompt_tokens in enumerate(tokens.tolist()):\n            # cut to the eos token, if present\n            if self.tokenizer.eos_id() in current_prompt_tokens:\n                eos_idx = current_prompt_tokens.index(self.tokenizer.eos_id())\n                current_prompt_tokens = current_prompt_tokens[:eos_idx]\n            out_tokens.append(current_prompt_tokens)\n            out_text.append(self.tokenizer.decode(current_prompt_tokens))\n        return (out_tokens, out_text)\n\n    def _sample_top_p(self, probs, p):\n        # (B, vocab_size)\n        probs_sort, probs_idx = torch.sort(probs, dim=-1, descending=True)\n        # (B, vocab_size)\n        probs_sum = torch.cumsum(probs_sort, dim=-1)\n        # (B, vocab_size)\n        # (Substracting \"probs_sort\" shifts the cumulative sum by 1 position to the right before masking)\n        mask = probs_sum - probs_sort > p\n        # Zero out all the probabilities of tokens that are not selected by the Top P\n        probs_sort[mask] = 0.0\n        # Redistribute the probabilities so that they sum up to 1.\n        probs_sort.div_(probs_sort.sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True))\n        # Sample a token (its index) from the top p distribution\n        next_token = torch.multinomial(probs_sort, num_samples=1)\n        # Get the token position in the vocabulary corresponding to the sampled index\n        next_token = torch.gather(probs_idx, -1, next_token)\n        return next_token\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    torch.manual_seed(0)\n\n    allow_cuda = False  # OOM on my machine\n    device = \"cuda\" if torch.cuda.is_available() and allow_cuda else \"cpu\"\n\n    prompts = [\n        \"Simply put, the theory of relativity states that\",\n        \"If Google was an italian company founded in Milan, it would\",\n        \"The meaning of life is\",\n    ]\n\n    model = LLaMA.build(\n        checkpoints_dir=\"llama-2-7b\",\n        tokenizer_path=\"tokenizer.model\",\n        load_model=True,\n        max_seq_len=1024,\n        max_batchsize=len(prompts),\n        device=device,\n    )\n\n    # Inference the model\n    out_tokens, out_text = model.text_completion(prompts, max_gen_len=64)\n    assert len(out_text) == len(prompts)\n    for i in range(len(out_text)):\n        print(f\"Prompt: {prompts[i]}\")\n        print(f\"Output: {out_text[i]}\")\n        print(f\"Tokens: {out_tokens[i]}\")\n        print()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/model.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\nimport torch.nn.functional as F\nimport math\nfrom dataclasses import dataclass\nfrom typing import Optional, Tuple\n\n\ndef precompute_theta_pos_frequencies(\n    head_dim: int, seq_len: int, device: str, theta: float = 10000.0\n):\n    # As written in the paragraph 3.2.2 of the paper\n    # >> In order to generalize our results in 2D to any xi ∈ Rd where **d is even**, [...]\n    assert head_dim % 2 == 0, \"Dimension must be divisible by 2\"\n    # Build the theta parameter\n    # According to the formula theta_i = 10000^(-2(i-1)/dim) for i = [1, 2, ... dim/2]\n    # Shape: (Head_Dim / 2)\n    theta_numerator = torch.arange(0, head_dim, 2).float()\n    # Shape: (Head_Dim / 2)\n    theta = 1.0 / (theta ** (theta_numerator / head_dim)).to(device)  # (Dim / 2)\n    # Construct the positions (the \"m\" parameter)\n    # Shape: (Seq_Len)\n    m = torch.arange(seq_len, device=device)\n    # Multiply each theta by each position using the outer product.\n    # Shape: (Seq_Len) outer_product* (Head_Dim / 2) -> (Seq_Len, Head_Dim / 2)\n    freqs = torch.outer(m, theta).float()\n    # We can compute complex numbers in the polar form c = R * exp(m * theta), where R = 1 as follows:\n    # (Seq_Len, Head_Dim / 2) -> (Seq_Len, Head_Dim / 2)\n    freqs_complex = torch.polar(torch.ones_like(freqs), freqs)\n    return freqs_complex\n\n\ndef apply_rotary_embeddings(x: torch.Tensor, freqs_complex: torch.Tensor, device: str):\n    # Separate the last dimension pairs of two values, representing the real and imaginary parts of the complex number\n    # Two consecutive values will become a single complex number\n    # (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim) -> (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2)\n    x_complex = torch.view_as_complex(x.float().reshape(*x.shape[:-1], -1, 2))\n    # Reshape the freqs_complex tensor to match the shape of the x_complex tensor. So we need to add the batch dimension and the head dimension\n    # (Seq_Len, Head_Dim/2) --> (1, Seq_Len, 1, Head_Dim/2)\n    freqs_complex = freqs_complex.unsqueeze(0).unsqueeze(2)\n    # Multiply each complex number in the x_complex tensor by the corresponding complex number in the freqs_complex tensor\n    # Which results in the rotation of the complex number as shown in the Figure 1 of the paper\n    # (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2) * (1, Seq_Len, 1, Head_Dim/2) = (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2)\n    x_rotated = x_complex * freqs_complex\n    # Convert the complex number back to the real number\n    # (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2) -> (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2, 2)\n    x_out = torch.view_as_real(x_rotated)\n    # (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim/2, 2) -> (B, Seq_Len, H, Head_Dim)\n    x_out = x_out.reshape(*x.shape)\n    return x_out.type_as(x).to(device)\n\n\n@dataclass\nclass ModelArgs:\n    dim: int = 4096\n    n_layers: int = 32\n    n_heads: int = 32  # number of heads for queries\n    n_kv_heads: Optional[int] = None  # number of heads for keys and values\n    vocab_size: int = -1  # set when we load the tokenizer\n\n    # hidden dim of FF layers.\n    multiple_of: int = 256\n    ffn_dim_multiplier: Optional[float] = None\n\n    norm_eps: float = 1e-5\n\n    # Needed for KV cache\n    max_batchsize: int = 32\n    max_seq_len: int = 2048\n\n    device: str = None\n\n\ndef repeat_kv(x: torch.Tensor, n_rep: int):\n    batch_size, seq_len, n_heads, head_dim = x.shape\n    if n_rep == 1:\n        return x\n    else:\n        # (B, seq_len, n_heads, 1, head_dim)\n        return (\n            x[:, :, :, None, :]\n            .expand(batch_size, seq_len, n_heads, n_rep, head_dim)\n            .reshape(batch_size, seq_len, n_heads * n_rep, head_dim)\n        )\n\n\nclass RMSNorm(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, dim: int, eps: float = 1e-6):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.eps = eps\n        # The gamma parameter\n        self.weight = nn.Parameter(torch.ones(dim))\n\n    def _norm(self, x: torch.Tensor):\n        # (B, Seq_Len, Dim) * (B, Seq_Len, 1) = (B, Seq_Len, Dim)\n        # rsqrt: 1 / sqrt(x)\n        return x * torch.rsqrt(x.pow(2).mean(-1, keepdim=True) + self.eps)\n\n    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor):\n        # (Dim) * (B, Seq_Len, Dim) = (B, Seq_Len, Dim)\n        return self.weight * self._norm(x.float()).type_as(x)\n\n\nclass SelfAttention(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, args: ModelArgs):\n        super().__init__()\n\n        # number of key/value heads\n        self.n_kv_heads = args.n_heads if args.n_kv_heads is None else args.n_kv_heads\n\n        # number of query heads\n        self.n_heads_q = args.n_heads\n\n        # Ratio between the number of heads for queries and keys/values\n        # (how many times the k/v heads should be repeated to match the q heads)\n        self.n_rep = self.n_heads_q // self.n_kv_heads\n\n        # dimension of each head\n        self.head_dim = args.dim // self.n_heads_q\n\n        self.wq = nn.Linear(args.dim, self.n_heads_q * self.head_dim, bias=False)\n        self.wk = nn.Linear(args.dim, self.n_kv_heads * self.head_dim, bias=False)\n        self.wv = nn.Linear(args.dim, self.n_kv_heads * self.head_dim, bias=False)\n        self.wo = nn.Linear(self.n_heads_q * self.head_dim, args.dim, bias=False)\n\n        self.cache_k = torch.zeros(\n            (args.max_batchsize, args.max_seq_len, self.n_kv_heads, self.head_dim),\n            device=args.device,\n        )\n        self.cache_v = torch.zeros(\n            (args.max_batchsize, args.max_seq_len, self.n_kv_heads, self.head_dim),\n            device=args.device,\n        )\n\n    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor, start_pos: int, freqs_complex: torch.Tensor):\n        batch_size, seq_len, _ = x.shape  # (B, seq_len=1, dim)\n\n        xq = self.wq(x)  # (B, 1, n_heads_q * head_dim)\n        xk = self.wk(x)  # (B, 1, n_kv_heads * head_dim)\n        xv = self.wv(x)  # (B, 1, n_kv_heads * head_dim)\n\n        xq = xq.view(\n            batch_size, seq_len, self.n_heads_q, self.head_dim\n        )  # (B, 1, n_heads_q, head_dim)\n        xk = xk.view(\n            batch_size, seq_len, self.n_kv_heads, self.head_dim\n        )  # (B, 1, n_kv_heads, head_dim)\n        xv = xv.view(\n            batch_size, seq_len, self.n_kv_heads, self.head_dim\n        )  # (B, 1, n_kv_heads, head_dim)\n\n        # positional embeddings applied to q and k\n        xq = apply_rotary_embeddings(\n            xq, freqs_complex, device=x.device\n        )  # (B, 1, n_heads_q, head_dim)\n        xk = apply_rotary_embeddings(\n            xk, freqs_complex, device=x.device\n        )  # (B, 1, n_kv_heads, head_dim)\n\n        # Replace the entry in the cache for this token\n        self.cache_k[:batch_size, start_pos : start_pos + seq_len] = xk\n        self.cache_v[:batch_size, start_pos : start_pos + seq_len] = xv\n\n        # Retrieve all the cached keys and values so far\n        # (B, Seq_Len, n_kv_heads, head_dim)\n        keys = self.cache_k[:batch_size, : start_pos + seq_len]\n        values = self.cache_v[:batch_size, : start_pos + seq_len]\n\n        # Repeat the heads of the K and V to reach the number of heads of the Q\n        # (this is not an optimized implementation, but it is the most readable)\n        keys = repeat_kv(keys, self.n_rep)  # (B, Seq_Len, n_heads_q, head_dim)\n        values = repeat_kv(values, self.n_rep)  # (B, Seq_Len, n_heads_q, head_dim)\n\n        # Reshape to parallelize the heads\n        # (B, 1, H_q, head_dim) -> (B, H_q, 1, head_dim)\n        xq = xq.transpose(1, 2)\n        keys = keys.transpose(1, 2)\n        values = values.transpose(1, 2)\n\n        scores = torch.matmul(xq, keys.transpose(2, 3)) / math.sqrt(self.head_dim)\n        scores = F.softmax(scores.float(), dim=-1).type_as(xq)\n\n        out = torch.matmul(scores, values)\n        out = out.transpose(1, 2).contiguous().view(batch_size, seq_len, -1)\n        return self.wo(out)  # (B, 1, dim)\n\n\nclass FeedForward(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, args: ModelArgs):\n        # FF layer with SwiGLU activation function\n        super().__init__()\n        self.args = args\n\n        hidden_dim = 4 * args.dim\n        hidden_dim = int(2 * hidden_dim / 3)\n        if args.ffn_dim_multiplier is not None:\n            hidden_dim = int(args.ffn_dim_multiplier * hidden_dim)\n\n        # Round the hidden_dim to the nearest multiple_of parameter\n        hidden_dim = args.multiple_of * (\n            (hidden_dim + args.multiple_of - 1) // args.multiple_of\n        )\n\n        self.w1 = nn.Linear(args.dim, hidden_dim, bias=False)\n        self.w2 = nn.Linear(hidden_dim, args.dim, bias=False)\n        self.w3 = nn.Linear(args.dim, hidden_dim, bias=False)\n\n    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor):\n        swish = F.silu(self.w1(x))\n        x_V = self.w3(x)\n        x = swish * x_V\n        x = self.w2(x)\n        return x\n\n\nclass EncoderBlock(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, args: ModelArgs) -> None:\n        super().__init__()\n        self.args = args\n\n        self.n_heads = args.n_heads\n        self.dim = args.dim\n        self.head_dim = args.dim // args.n_heads\n\n        self.attention = SelfAttention(args)\n        self.feed_forward = FeedForward(args)\n\n        # Normalization before self-attention\n        self.attention_norm = RMSNorm(args.dim, eps=args.norm_eps)\n        # Normalization before feed-forward\n        self.ffn_norm = RMSNorm(args.dim, eps=args.norm_eps)\n\n    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor, start_pos: int, freqs_complex: torch.Tensor):\n        # (B, Seq_Len, Dim) -> (B, Seq_Len, Dim)\n        h = x + self.attention.forward(self.attention_norm(x), start_pos, freqs_complex)\n        out = h + self.feed_forward.forward(self.ffn_norm(h))\n        return out\n\n\nclass Transformer(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, args: ModelArgs) -> None:\n        super().__init__()\n\n        assert (\n            args.vocab_size > 0\n        ), \"vocab_size must be set before initializing the model\"\n\n        self.args = args\n\n        # Names have to align with the stored Llama2 checkpoints so PyTorch\n        # knows how to load them\n        self.vocab_size = args.vocab_size\n        self.n_layers = args.n_layers\n        self.tok_embedding = nn.Embedding(args.vocab_size, args.dim)\n\n        self.layers = nn.ModuleList()\n        for _ in range(args.n_layers):\n            self.layers.append(EncoderBlock(args))\n        self.norm = RMSNorm(args.dim, eps=args.norm_eps)\n        self.output = nn.Linear(args.dim, self.vocab_size, bias=False)\n\n        self.freqs_complex = precompute_theta_pos_frequencies(\n            self.args.dim // self.args.n_heads,\n            self.args.max_seq_len * 2,\n            device=self.args.device,\n        )\n\n    def forward(self, tokens: torch.Tensor, start_pos: int):\n        # (B, seq_len)\n        batch_size, seq_len = tokens.shape\n        assert seq_len == 1, \"only one token at a time\"\n\n        # Embed the tokens\n        # (B, seq_len) -> (B, seq_len, dim)\n        h = self.tok_embedding(tokens)\n\n        # Retrieve the position embeddings pairs (m, theta) corresponding\n        # to the positions [start_pos, start_pos + seq_len]\n        freqs_complex = self.freqs_complex[start_pos : start_pos + seq_len]\n\n        # Apply all layers\n        for layer in self.layers:\n            h = layer(h, start_pos, freqs_complex)\n        h = self.norm(h)\n        output = self.output(h).float()\n        return output\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "llama2-from-scratch/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"llama2-from-scratch\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"numpy>=2.2.5\",\n    \"sentencepiece>=0.2.0\",\n    \"torch>=2.7.0\",\n    \"tqdm>=4.67.1\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/.gitignore",
    "content": "*.gz\n*.png\n*.gif\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/.vimrc",
    "content": "\" Force indentation styles for this directory\nautocmd FileType python set shiftwidth=4\nautocmd FileType python set tabstop=4\nautocmd FileType python set softtabstop=4\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/README.rst",
    "content": "Python code for solving logistic regression problems.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/mnist_binary_classifier.py",
    "content": "# A binary linear classifier for MNIST digits.\n#\n# Poses a binary classification problem - is this image showing digit D (for\n# some D, for example \"4\"); trains a linear classifier to solve the problem.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport argparse\nimport numpy as np\nimport sys\n\nfrom mnist_dataset import *\nfrom regression_lib import *\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    argparser = argparse.ArgumentParser()\n    argparser.add_argument('--type',\n                           choices=['binary', 'logistic'],\n                           default='logistic',\n                           help='Type of classification: binary (yes/no result)'\n                                'or logistic (probability of \"yes\" result).')\n    argparser.add_argument('--set-seed', default=-1, type=int,\n                           help='Set random seed to this number (if > 0).')\n    argparser.add_argument('--nsteps', default=150, type=int,\n                           help='Number of steps for gradient descent.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--recognize-digit', default=4, type=int,\n                           help='Digit to recognize in training.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--display-test', default=-1, type=int,\n                           help='Display this image from the test data '\n                                'set and exit.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--normalize', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Normalize data: (x-mu)/sigma.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--report-mistakes', action='store_true',\n                           default=False,\n                           help='Report all mistakes made in classification.')\n    args = argparser.parse_args()\n\n    if args.set_seed > 0:\n        np.random.seed(args.set_seed)\n\n    # Load MNIST data into memory; this may download the MNIST dataset from\n    # the web if not already on disk.\n    (X_train, y_train), (X_valid, y_valid), (X_test, y_test) = get_mnist_data()\n\n    if args.display_test > -1:\n        display_mnist_image(X_test[args.display_test],\n                            y_test[args.display_test])\n        sys.exit(1)\n\n    if args.normalize:\n        print('Normalizing data...')\n        X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X_train)\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train_normalized)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_valid - mu) / sigma)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_test - mu) / sigma)\n    else:\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_valid)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_test)\n\n    # Convert y_train to binary \"is this a the digit D\", with +1 for D, -1\n    # otherwise. Also reshape it into a column vector as regression_lib expects.\n    D = args.recognize_digit\n    print('Training for digit', D)\n    y_train_binary = convert_y_to_binary(y_train, D)\n    y_valid_binary = convert_y_to_binary(y_valid, D)\n    y_test_binary = convert_y_to_binary(y_test, D)\n\n    # Hyperparameters.\n    LEARNING_RATE = 0.08\n    REG_BETA=0.03\n\n    if args.type == 'binary':\n        print('Training binary classifier with hinge loss...')\n        lossfunc = lambda X, y, theta: hinge_loss(X, y,\n                                                  theta, reg_beta=REG_BETA)\n    else:\n        print('Training logistic classifier with cross-entropy loss...')\n        lossfunc = lambda X, y, theta: cross_entropy_loss_binary(\n            X, y, theta, reg_beta=REG_BETA)\n    n = X_train_augmented.shape[1]\n    gi = gradient_descent(X_train_augmented,\n                          y_train_binary,\n                          init_theta=np.random.randn(n, 1),\n                          lossfunc=lossfunc,\n                          batch_size=256,\n                          nsteps=args.nsteps,\n                          learning_rate=LEARNING_RATE)\n\n    for i, (theta, loss) in enumerate(gi):\n        if i % 50 == 0 and i > 0:\n            print(i, loss)\n            # We use predict_binary for both binary and logistic classification.\n            # See comment on predict_binary to understand why it works for\n            # logistic as well.\n            yhat = predict_binary(X_train_augmented, theta)\n            yhat_valid = predict_binary(X_valid_augmented, theta)\n            print('train accuracy =', np.mean(yhat == y_train_binary))\n            print('valid accuracy =', np.mean(yhat_valid == y_valid_binary))\n\n    print('After {0} training steps...'.format(args.nsteps))\n    print('loss =', loss)\n    yhat_valid = predict_binary(X_valid_augmented, theta)\n    yhat_test = predict_binary(X_test_augmented, theta)\n    print('valid accuracy =', np.mean(yhat_valid == y_valid_binary))\n    print('test accuracy =', np.mean(yhat_test == y_test_binary))\n\n    # For logistic, get predicted probabilities as well.\n    if args.type == 'logistic':\n        yhat_test_prob = predict_logistic_probability(X_test_augmented, theta)\n\n    if args.report_mistakes:\n        for i in range(yhat_test.size):\n            if yhat_test[i][0] != y_test_binary[i][0]:\n                print('@ {0}: predict {1}, actual {2}'.format(\n                    i, yhat_test[i][0], y_test_binary[i][0]), end='')\n                if args.type == 'logistic':\n                    print('; prob={0}'.format(yhat_test_prob[i][0]))\n                else:\n                    print('')\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/mnist_dataset.py",
    "content": "# Helper code for downloading, unpickling and displaying MNIST data.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport cPickle as pickle\nimport gzip\nimport os\nfrom shutil import copyfileobj\nfrom urllib2 import urlopen\nfrom urlparse import urljoin\n\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef maybe_download(base_url, filename, expected_size, force=False):\n    \"\"\"Download a file if not present, and make sure it's the right size.\"\"\"\n    if force or not os.path.exists(filename):\n        print('Attempting to download:', filename)\n        in_stream = urlopen(urljoin(base_url, filename))\n        with open(filename, 'wb') as out_file:\n            copyfileobj(in_stream, out_file)\n        print('Download Complete!')\n    statinfo = os.stat(filename)\n    if statinfo.st_size == expected_size:\n        print('Found and verified', filename)\n        return True\n    else:\n        print('Unable to verify size: {0} vs. expected {1}'.format(\n            statinfo.st_size, expected_size))\n        return False\n\n\ndef load_pickle_from_gz(filename):\n    \"\"\"Load a pickle from a gzip archive.\"\"\"\n    with gzip.open(filename, 'rb') as f:\n        return pickle.loads(f.read())\n\n\ndef get_mnist_data():\n    \"\"\"Get data sets for MNIST.\n\n    If needed, downloads the data as a pickled .gz archive; Taken from my mirror\n    of the archive at http://deeplearning.net/tutorial/gettingstarted.html.\n\n    The pickle contains 3 sets in a tuple: training, validation and test data\n    sets. Each data set is a pair of numpy arrays: data (N x 784) and numeric\n    labels (N,) where N is the set size.\n    \"\"\"\n    baseurl = 'http://thegreenplace.net/files/'\n    filename = 'mnist.pkl.gz'\n    if maybe_download(baseurl, filename, expected_size=16168813):\n        return load_pickle_from_gz(filename)\n    else:\n        return None\n\n\ndef display_mnist_image(x, y=None):\n    \"\"\"Displays a single mnist image with a label.\n\n    x: (784,) image vector, as stored in the mnist pickle.\n    y: optional numeric label\n    \"\"\"\n    xmat = x.reshape(28, 28)\n    plt.imshow(xmat, cmap='gray')\n    if y is not None:\n        plt.title('label={0}'.format(y))\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef display_multiple_images(xs):\n    \"\"\"Displays multiple images side-by-side in subplots.\"\"\"\n    fig = plt.figure()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n\n    for i, x in enumerate(xs):\n        ax = fig.add_subplot(1, len(xs), i + 1)\n        ax.imshow(x.reshape(28, 28), cmap='gray')\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef convert_y_to_binary(y, correct_digit):\n    \"\"\"Converts a vector y taken from MNIST data to binary \"is it this digit\".\n\n    y: array of digits.\n    correct_digit: the digit we expect to be \"correct\"\n\n    Returns array of +1 or -1; +1 where the original y had the \"correct\" digit,\n    and -1 otherwise. The returned array is always a column vector.\n    \"\"\"\n    return np.where(y == correct_digit,\n                    np.ones_like(y),\n                    -1 * np.ones_like(y)).reshape(y.size, 1)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    train, valid, test = get_mnist_data()\n\n    print('Train shapes:', train[0].shape, train[1].shape)\n    print('Valid shapes:', valid[0].shape, valid[1].shape)\n    print('Test shapes:', test[0].shape, test[1].shape)\n\n    #display_mnist_image(train[0][20], train[1][20])\n\n    display_multiple_images((train[0][9974],\n                             train[0][9734],\n                             train[0][9161],\n                             train[0][8788]))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/mnist_multinomial_classifier.py",
    "content": "# A multiclass logistic regression (OvA) for MNIST digits.\n#\n# Trains 10 different logistic regressions, one for each digit, and classifies\n# new inputs based on the highest probability among all the trained classifiers.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport argparse\nimport numpy as np\nimport sys\n\nfrom mnist_dataset import *\nfrom regression_lib import *\n\n\ndef train_for_digit(X, y, digit, nsteps, learning_rate=0.12, reg_beta=0.02):\n    \"\"\"Train a logistic regression binary classifier for recognizing the digit.\n    \"\"\"\n    y_binary = convert_y_to_binary(y, digit)\n\n    lossfunc = lambda X, y, theta: cross_entropy_loss_binary(\n        X, y, theta, reg_beta=reg_beta)\n\n    n = X.shape[1]\n    gi = gradient_descent(X,\n                          y_binary,\n                          init_theta=np.random.randn(n, 1),\n                          lossfunc=lossfunc,\n                          batch_size=256,\n                          nsteps=nsteps,\n                          learning_rate=learning_rate)\n    # Run GD to completion.\n    for i, (theta, _) in enumerate(gi):\n        if i % 100 == 0 and i > 0:\n            print('{0}...'.format(i), end='')\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n    print('')\n    return theta\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    argparser = argparse.ArgumentParser()\n    argparser.add_argument('--normalize', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Normalize data: (x-mu)/sigma.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--nsteps', default=150, type=int,\n                           help='Number of steps for gradient descent.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--set-seed', default=-1, type=int,\n                           help='Set random seed to this number (if > 0).')\n    argparser.add_argument('--load-thetas', type=str,\n                           metavar='filename',\n                           help='Load trained thetas from this pickle file '\n                                'instead of training.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--save-thetas', type=str,\n                           metavar='filename',\n                           help='Save trained thetas to this pickle file. '\n                                'Helpful since training can take a long time.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--report-mistakes', action='store_true',\n                           default=False,\n                           help='Report all mistakes made in classification.')\n    args = argparser.parse_args()\n\n    if args.set_seed > 0:\n        np.random.seed(args.set_seed)\n\n    (X_train, y_train), (X_valid, y_valid), (X_test, y_test) = get_mnist_data()\n\n    if args.normalize:\n        print('Normalizing data...')\n        X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X_train)\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train_normalized)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_valid - mu) / sigma)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_test - mu) / sigma)\n    else:\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_valid)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_test)\n\n    # Training may take a long time and we may want to experiment with a trained\n    # model; therefore the save-thetas and load-thetas arguments let us save the\n    # trained model parameters into a pickle file and quickly reload them on a\n    # subsequent run.\n    if args.load_thetas:\n        print('Loading thetas from \"{0}\"'.format(args.load_thetas))\n        with open(args.load_thetas, 'rb') as f:\n            thetas = pickle.load(f)\n    else:\n        # Train a logistic classifier for every image [0..9]; thetas[n] will\n        # hold the regression parameters for recognizing digit n.\n        thetas = []\n        for digit in range(10):\n            print('Training for digit {0}...'.format(digit))\n            thetas.append(train_for_digit(X_train_augmented,\n                                          y_train,\n                                          digit=digit,\n                                          nsteps=args.nsteps))\n    print('thetas shape:', ', '.join([str(theta.shape) for theta in thetas]))\n\n    if args.save_thetas:\n        print('Saving thetas to \"{0}\"'.format(args.save_thetas))\n        with open(args.save_thetas, 'wb') as f:\n            pickle.dump(thetas, f)\n\n    # Compute probabilities for every digit and stack them into a (k, 10) matrix\n    # where allprobs[i, j] is the predicted probability for test sample i being\n    # the digit j. Note that these probabilities come from different classifiers\n    # so they don't add up to 1.\n    probs = [predict_logistic_probability(X_test_augmented, theta)\n             for theta in thetas]\n    allprobs = np.hstack(probs)\n    print(allprobs.shape)\n\n    # Use argmax to find the highest probability for every row.\n    predictions = np.argmax(allprobs, axis=1)\n    print(predictions.shape)\n    print(y_test.shape)\n\n    print('test accuracy =', np.mean(predictions == y_test))\n    if args.report_mistakes:\n        for i in range(y_test.size):\n            if y_test[i] != predictions[i]:\n                print('{0}: real={1} pred={2}'.format(i, y_test[i],\n                                                      predictions[i]))\n                print('  probs=', ' '.join('{0:.2f}'.format(p)\n                                           for p in allprobs[i, :]))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/mnist_softmax_classifier.py",
    "content": "# A multiclass logistic regression using softmax for MNIST digits.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport argparse\nimport numpy as np\nimport sys\n\nfrom mnist_dataset import *\nfrom regression_lib import *\n\n\ndef train(X, y, nsteps, learning_rate=0.09, reg_beta=0.01):\n    \"\"\"Train a logistic regression binary classifier for recognizing the digit.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    assert y.shape == (k,)\n\n    lossfunc = lambda X, y, W: softmax_cross_entropy_loss(\n        X, y, W, reg_beta=reg_beta)\n\n    init_W = np.random.randn(n, 10)\n\n    # The gradient_descent is generic across different algorithms, so it uses\n    # the name \"theta\" for the regression parameters. Here we assign our W into\n    # theta.\n    gi = gradient_descent(X,\n                          y,\n                          init_theta=init_W,\n                          lossfunc=lossfunc,\n                          batch_size=256,\n                          nsteps=nsteps,\n                          learning_rate=learning_rate)\n    # Run GD to completion.\n    for i, (W, loss) in enumerate(gi):\n        if i % 100 == 0 and i > 0:\n            print('{0}... [loss={1}]'.format(i, loss))\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n    print('')\n    return W\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    argparser = argparse.ArgumentParser()\n    argparser.add_argument('--normalize', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Normalize data: (x-mu)/sigma.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--nsteps', default=150, type=int,\n                           help='Number of steps for gradient descent.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--set-seed', default=-1, type=int,\n                           help='Set random seed to this number (if > 0).')\n    argparser.add_argument('--load-weights', type=str,\n                           metavar='filename',\n                           help='Load trained weights from this pickle file '\n                                'instead of training.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--save-weights', type=str,\n                           metavar='filename',\n                           help='Save trained weights to this pickle file. '\n                                'Helpful since training can take a long time.')\n    argparser.add_argument('--report-mistakes', action='store_true',\n                           default=False,\n                           help='Report all mistakes made in classification.')\n    args = argparser.parse_args()\n\n    if args.set_seed > 0:\n        np.random.seed(args.set_seed)\n\n    (X_train, y_train), (X_valid, y_valid), (X_test, y_test) = get_mnist_data()\n\n    if args.normalize:\n        print('Normalizing data...')\n        X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X_train)\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train_normalized)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_valid - mu) / sigma)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column((X_test - mu) / sigma)\n    else:\n        X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train)\n        X_valid_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_valid)\n        X_test_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_test)\n\n    # Here \"weights\" is a matrix with N rows and 10 columns, where N is the\n    # number of features (pixels) in every MNIST image.\n    if args.load_weights:\n        print('Loading weights from \"{0}\"'.format(args.load_weights))\n        with open(args.load_weights, 'rb') as f:\n            W = pickle.load(f)\n    else:\n        # Train a softmax classifier for every image [0..9]; W is the trained\n        # weights.\n        W = train(X_train_augmented, y_train, nsteps=args.nsteps)\n    print('W shape:', W.shape)\n\n    if args.save_weights:\n        print('Saving weights to \"{0}\"'.format(args.save_weights))\n        with open(args.save_weights, 'wb') as f:\n            pickle.dump(W, f)\n\n    probs = softmax_layer(X_test_augmented, W)\n    print('Probs shape:', probs.shape)\n\n    # Softmax assigns probabilities of each digits per data item; argmax will\n    # pinpoint the column with the highest probability.\n    predictions = np.argmax(probs, axis=1)\n    print('Predictions shape:', predictions.shape)\n    print('y_test shape:', y_test.shape)\n    print('test accuracy =', np.mean(predictions == y_test))\n\n    if args.report_mistakes:\n        for i in range(y_test.size):\n            if y_test[i] != predictions[i]:\n                print('{0}: real={1} pred={2}'.format(i, y_test[i],\n                                                      predictions[i]))\n                print('  probs=', ' '.join('{0:.2f}'.format(p)\n                                           for p in probs[i, :]))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/plot_binary_decision.py",
    "content": "# Helper code to plot a binary decision region.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    # Our input is (x,y) -- 2D. Output is the scalar y^ computed by the\n    # dot-product of (1, x, y) with theta (1 is for the bias, and theta_0 is the\n    # bias parameter). This is a plane equation in 3D.\n    # Therefore, the plot we aim to produce is 3D -- some scalar as a function\n    # of two parameters. The contours are then the equi-value lines of the 3D\n    # plot, and we're only interested in the main contour at value 0 -- meaning\n    # the line where the plane intersects the x/y plane.\n    #\n    # Note: if we flip all values here we get the same intersection.\n    theta = np.array([[-4], [0.5], [1]])\n\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n\n    xs = np.linspace(-4, 8, 200)\n    ys = np.linspace(-4, 8, 200)\n    xsgrid, ysgrid = np.meshgrid(xs, ys)\n    plane = np.zeros_like(xsgrid)\n    for i in range(xsgrid.shape[0]):\n        for j in range(xsgrid.shape[1]):\n            plane[i, j] = np.array([1, xsgrid[i, j], ysgrid[i, j]]).dot(theta)\n    cs = ax.contour(xsgrid, ysgrid, plane, levels=[0])\n    cs.clabel(inline=1)\n    ax.grid(True)\n    ax.annotate(r'here $\\hat{y}(x) > 0$', xy=(4, 4), fontsize=20)\n    ax.annotate(r'here $\\hat{y}(x) < 0$', xy=(0, 0), fontsize=20)\n\n    fig.savefig('line.png', dpi=80)\n    plt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/plot_binary_losses.py",
    "content": "# Helper code to plot binary losses.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n\n    xs = np.linspace(-2, 2, 500)\n\n    # plot L0/1 loss\n    ax.plot(xs, np.where(xs < 0, np.ones_like(xs), np.zeros_like(xs)),\n            color='r', linewidth=2.0, label='$L_{01}$')\n\n    # plot square loss\n    ax.plot(xs, (xs - 1) ** 2, linestyle='-.', label='$L_2$')\n\n    # plot hinge loss\n    ax.plot(xs, np.maximum(np.zeros_like(xs), 1 - xs),\n            color='g', linewidth=2.0, label='$L_h$')\n\n    ax.grid(True)\n\n    plt.ylim((-1, 4))\n    ax.legend()\n\n    fig.savefig('loss.png', dpi=80)\n    plt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/plot_sigmoid.py",
    "content": "# Helper code to plot the sigmoid function.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\nfrom regression_lib import sigmoid\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n\n    x = np.linspace(-6, 6, 200)\n    y = sigmoid(x)\n\n    ax.plot(x, y, 'b-', linewidth=2)\n    ax.grid(True)\n\n    fig.savefig('sigmoid.png', dpi=80)\n    plt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/regression_lib.py",
    "content": "# Common library code for running logistic regressions and classifiers.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef augment_1s_column(X):\n    \"\"\"Augments the given data matrix with a first column of ones.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features.\n\n    Returns a (k, n+1) matrix with an additional column of 1s at the start.\n    \"\"\"\n    return np.hstack((np.ones((X.shape[0], 1)), X))\n\n\ndef feature_normalize(X):\n    \"\"\"Normalizes the feature matrix X.\n\n    Given a feature matrix X, where each row is a vector of features, normalizes\n    each feature. Returns (X_norm, mu, sigma) where mu and sigma are the mean\n    and stddev of features (vectors).\n\n    Where stddev is zero for a feature, it's clamped to one. In X that means\n    all items had the same value for the feature. For normalizing other data,\n    sigma=1 means the feature remains its value with mean subtracted, and no\n    scaling.\n    \"\"\"\n    num_features = X.shape[1]\n    mu = X.mean(axis=0)\n    sigma = X.std(axis=0)\n    sigma[sigma == 0] = 1\n    X_norm = (X - mu) / sigma\n    return X_norm, mu, sigma\n\n\ndef predict_binary(X, theta):\n    \"\"\"Makes classification predictions for the data in X using theta.\n\n    For a given data item x, the prediction is +1 if x.dot(theta) >= 0, and -1\n    otherwise. Note that this also works for logistic regression since for\n    x.dot(theta) >= 0 the sigmoid is >= 0.5 which we also consider +1.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features; augmented.\n    theta: (n, 1) regression parameters.\n\n    Returns yhat (k, 1) - either +1 or -1 classification for each item.\n    \"\"\"\n    yhat = X.dot(theta)\n    # Fix the cases where yhat == 0 to be positive; otherwise np.sign would\n    # return 0. Note that it should be exceedingly rare in practice to get an\n    # exact 0 for some result.\n    yhat[yhat == 0] = 1\n    return np.sign(yhat)\n\n\ndef sigmoid(z):\n    \"\"\"Computes sigmoid function.\n\n    z: array of input values.\n\n    Returns array of outputs, sigmoid(z).\n    \"\"\"\n    # Note: this version of sigmoid tries to avoid overflows in the computation\n    # of e^(-z), by using an alternative formulation when z is negative, to get\n    # 0. e^z / (1+e^z) is equivalent to the definition of sigmoid, but we won't\n    # get e^(-z) to overflow when z is very negative.\n    # Since both the x and y arguments to np.where are evaluated by Python, we\n    # may still get overflow warnings for large z elements; therefore we ignore\n    # warnings during this computation.\n    with np.errstate(over='ignore', invalid='ignore'):\n        return np.where(z >= 0,\n                        1 / (1 + np.exp(-z)),\n                        np.exp(z) / (1 + np.exp(z)))\n\n\ndef softmax_layer(X, W):\n    \"\"\"Computes the softmax layer for inputs X and weights W.\n\n    Works in a vectorized manner for a whole batch of k data items.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features; augmented.\n    W: (n, t) t is the number of classes.\n\n    Applies the softmax function to X.dot(W). Returns an array of probabilities\n    with shape (k, t). Each row is the probabilities of the t classes for that\n    datum.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Compute logits: (k, t)\n    logits = X.dot(W)\n    # Vectorized sofmax computation on every row of logits. The normalization\n    # is done as a sum of columns, which is then broadcast over exp_logits.\n    # The result is also (k, t)\n    exp_logits = np.exp(logits)\n    return exp_logits / np.sum(exp_logits, axis=1, keepdims=True)\n\n\ndef softmax_cross_entropy_loss(X, y, W, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Softmax cross entropy loss and gradient computation.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features; augmented.\n    y: (k,) a number in the closed interval [0..t-1] - the correct class, for\n            each of the k inputs.\n    W: (n, t) t is the number of classes.\n\n    Applies the xent loss (comparing with y) for softmax_layer and computes its\n    gradient w.r.t. W. Returns (loss, dW).\n    \"\"\"\n    softmax = softmax_layer(X, W)\n\n    # y contains class IDs -- numbers in range [0, t) -- which is useful for the\n    # selection we need for xent.\n    # For each sample, we have to select the \"right\" softmax result and log it.\n    # The right one comes at index for any given input. Since in softmax the\n    # inputs are rows, [range(k), y] selects the yth in each row in a vectorized\n    # manner.\n    k = X.shape[0]\n    logprobs = -np.log(softmax[range(k), y])\n    loss = np.sum(logprobs) / k\n\n    # Add regularization loss.\n    loss += np.sum(W * W) * reg_beta / 2\n\n    # Compute gradient for the weights in a vectorized way. Again for vectorized\n    # indexing [range(k), y] selects the yth weight in each row.\n    dW = softmax\n    dW[range(k), y] -= 1\n    dW = np.dot(X.T, dW) / k\n\n    # Gradient of regularization.\n    dW += W * reg_beta\n    return loss, dW\n\n\ndef predict_logistic_probability(X, theta):\n    \"\"\"Makes classification predictions for the data in X using theta.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features; augmented.\n    theta: (n, 1) logistic regression parameters.\n\n    Computes the logistic regression prediction. Returns yhat (k, 1) - number\n    in the range (0.0, 1.0) for each item. The number is the probability that\n    the item is classified as +1.\n    \"\"\"\n    z = X.dot(theta)\n    return sigmoid(z)\n\n\ndef cross_entropy_loss_binary(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Computes the cross-entropy loss for binary classification.\n\n    Applies the cross-entropy loss function to sigmoid activation for X and\n    theta.\n\n    See square_loss for arguments and return value.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    # Calls to predict_logistic_probability may produce probabilities that are\n    # 0.0 and 1.0, due to the exponent in sigmoid and the large numbers\n    # involved. np.log on 0.0 overflows, so we clip the input of np.log to\n    # values very close to 0 instead.\n    eps = np.finfo(np.float32).eps\n    yhat_prob = np.clip(predict_logistic_probability(X, theta),\n                        a_min=eps,\n                        a_max=1.0-eps)\n    loss = np.mean(np.where(y == 1,\n                            -np.log(yhat_prob),\n                            -np.log(1 - yhat_prob)))\n    # Add regularization.\n    loss += np.dot(theta.T, theta) * reg_beta / 2\n\n    yh = np.where(y == 1, yhat_prob - 1, yhat_prob)\n    dtheta = np.dot(yh.T, X).T / k + reg_beta * theta\n    return loss.flat[0], dtheta\n\n\ndef square_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Computes squared loss and gradient.\n\n    Based on mean square margin loss.\n\n    X: (k, n) data items.\n    y: (k, 1) result (+1 or -1) for each data item in X.\n    theta: (n, 1) parameters.\n    reg_beta: optional regularization strength, for L2 regularization.\n\n    Returns (loss, dtheta) where loss is the aggregate numeric loss for this\n    theta, and dtheta is (n, 1) gradients for theta based on that loss.\n\n    Note: the mean (division by k) helps; otherwise, the loss is very large and\n    a tiny learning rate is required to prevent divergence in the beginning of\n    the search.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    margin = y * X.dot(theta)\n    diff = margin - 1\n    loss = np.dot(diff.T, diff) / k + np.dot(theta.T, theta) * reg_beta / 2\n\n    dtheta = np.zeros_like(theta)\n    for j in range(n):\n        dtheta[j, 0] = (2 * np.dot((diff * y).T, X[:, j]) / k +\n                        reg_beta * theta[j, 0])\n    return loss.flat[0], dtheta\n\n\ndef hinge_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Computes hinge loss and gradient.\n\n    See square_loss for arguments and return value.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    # margin is (k, 1)\n    margin = y * X.dot(theta)\n    loss = (np.sum(np.maximum(np.zeros_like(margin), 1 - margin)) / k +\n            np.dot(theta.T, theta) * reg_beta / 2)\n\n    dtheta = np.zeros_like(theta)\n    # yx is (k, n) where the elementwise multiplication by y is broadcast across\n    # the whole X.\n    yx = y * X\n    # We're going to select columns of yx, and each column turns into a vector.\n    # Precompute the margin_selector vector which has for each j whether the\n    # margin for that j was < 1.\n    # Note: still keeping an explicit loop over n since I don't expect the\n    # number of features to be very large. It's possible to fully vectorize this\n    # but that would make the computation even more obscure. I'll do that if\n    # performance becomes an issue with this version.\n    margin_selector = (margin < 1).ravel()\n    for j in range(n):\n        # Sum up the contributions to the jth theta element gradient from all\n        # input samples.\n        dtheta[j, 0] = (np.sum(np.where(margin_selector, -yx[:, j], 0)) / k +\n                        reg_beta * theta[j, 0])\n    return loss.flat[0], dtheta\n\n\ndef generate_batch(X, y, batch_size=256):\n    \"\"\"Generate a randomized batch from X, y.\n\n    X (k, n), y (k, 1): as usual.\n    batch_size: size of the batch to create.\n\n    Returns X_batch (batch_size, n), y_batch (batch_size, 1) pair.\n    \"\"\"\n    batch_indices = np.random.choice(X.shape[0], batch_size, replace=False)\n    return X[batch_indices, :], y[batch_indices]\n\n\ndef gradient_descent(X, y, init_theta,\n                     lossfunc=None,\n                     nsteps=100,\n                     batch_size=None,\n                     learning_rate=0.1):\n    \"\"\"Runs gradient descent optimization to minimize loss for X, y.\n\n    Starts with init_theta. The shapes of X, y, init_theta have to work with\n    the loss function provided. The actual theta array learned will have the\n    same shape as init_theta.\n\n    lossfunc:\n        a function computing loss and gradients. Takes (X, y, theta).\n        Returns (loss, dtheta) where loss is the numeric loss for this theta,\n        and dtheta is the gradients for theta based on that loss (same shape\n        as theta - every element is a gradient).\n    nsteps: how many steps to run.\n    batch_size:\n        if None, the whole data set is used for every step. Otherwise\n        batches of batch_size randomly-selected data items are used.\n    learning_rate: learning rate update (multiplier of gradient).\n\n    Yields 'nsteps + 1' pairs of (theta, loss). The first pair yielded is the\n    initial theta and its loss; the rest carry results after each of the\n    iteration steps.\n    \"\"\"\n    theta = init_theta.copy()\n\n    if batch_size is None:\n        loss, dtheta = lossfunc(X, y, theta)\n    else:\n        X_batch, y_batch = generate_batch(X, y, batch_size)\n        loss, dtheta = lossfunc(X_batch, y_batch, theta)\n    yield theta, loss\n\n    for step in range(nsteps):\n        theta -= learning_rate * dtheta\n\n        if batch_size is None:\n            loss, dtheta = lossfunc(X, y, theta)\n        else:\n            X_batch, y_batch = generate_batch(X, y, batch_size)\n            loss, dtheta = lossfunc(X_batch, y_batch, theta)\n        yield theta, loss\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/regression_lib_test.py",
    "content": "# Unit testing for regression_lib.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport unittest\n\nfrom regression_lib import *\nfrom timer import Timer\n\n\ndef hinge_loss_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Unvectorized version of hinge loss.\n\n    Closely follows the formulae without vectorizing optimizations, so it's\n    easier to understand and correlate to the math.\n    \"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    loss = 0\n    dtheta = np.zeros_like(theta)\n    for i in range(k):\n        # The contribution of each data item.\n        x_i = X[i, :]\n        y_i = y[i, 0]\n        m_i = x_i.dot(theta).flat[0] * y_i  # margin for i\n        loss += np.maximum(0, 1 - m_i) / k\n        for j in range(n):\n            # This data item contributes gradients to each of the theta\n            # components.\n            dtheta[j, 0] += -y_i * x_i[j] / k if m_i < 1 else 0\n\n    # Add regularization.\n    loss += np.dot(theta.T, theta) * reg_beta / 2\n    for j in range(n):\n        dtheta[j, 0] += reg_beta * theta[j, 0]\n\n    return loss, dtheta\n\n\ndef cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n    \"\"\"Unvectorized cross-entropy loss for binary classification.\"\"\"\n    k, n = X.shape\n    yhat_prob = predict_logistic_probability(X, theta)\n    loss = np.mean(np.where(y == 1,\n                            -np.log(yhat_prob),\n                            -np.log(1 - yhat_prob)))\n    loss += np.dot(theta.T, theta) * reg_beta / 2\n\n    dtheta = np.zeros_like(theta)\n    for i in range(k):\n        for j in range(n):\n            if y[i] == 1:\n                dtheta[j, 0] += (yhat_prob[i, 0] - 1 ) * X[i, j]\n            else:\n                dtheta[j, 0] += yhat_prob[i, 0] * X[i, j]\n    dtheta = dtheta / k + reg_beta * theta\n    return loss, dtheta\n\n\ndef softmax_gradient_simple(z):\n    \"\"\"Unvectorized computation of the gradient of softmax.\n\n    z: (N, 1) column array of input values.\n\n    Returns dz (N, N) the Jacobian matrix of softmax(z) at the given z. dz[i, j]\n    is DjSi - the partial derivative of Si w.r.t. input j.\n    \"\"\"\n    Sz = softmax(z)\n    N = z.shape[0]\n    dz = np.zeros((N, N))\n    for i in range(N):\n        for j in range(N):\n            dz[i, j] = Sz[i, 0] * (np.float32(i == j) - Sz[j, 0])\n    return dz\n\n\ndef eval_numerical_gradient(f, x, verbose=False, h=1e-5):\n    \"\"\"A naive implementation of numerical gradient of f at x.\n\n    f: function taking a single array argument and returning a scalar.\n    x: array starting point for evaluation.\n\n    Based on http://cs231n.github.io/assignments2016/assignment1/, with a\n    bit of cleanup.\n\n    Returns a numerical gradient\n    \"\"\"\n    grad = np.zeros_like(x)\n    # iterate over all indexes in x\n    it = np.nditer(x, flags=['multi_index'], op_flags=['readwrite'])\n    while not it.finished:\n        ix = it.multi_index\n        oldval = x[ix]\n        x[ix] = oldval + h\n        fxph = f(x) # evalute f(x + h)\n        x[ix] = oldval - h\n        fxmh = f(x) # evaluate f(x - h)\n        x[ix] = oldval # restore\n\n        # compute the partial derivative with centered formula\n        grad[ix] = (fxph - fxmh) / (2 * h)\n        if verbose:\n            print(ix, grad[ix])\n        it.iternext()\n    return grad\n\n\nclass TestSquareLoss(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_simple_vs_numerical_noreg(self):\n        X = np.array([\n            [0.1, 0.2, -0.3],\n            [0.6, -0.5, 0.1],\n            [0.6, -0.4, 0.3],\n            [-0.2, 0.4, 2.2]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([\n            [1],\n            [-1],\n            [1],\n            [1]])\n\n        loss, grad = square_loss(X, y, theta)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: square_loss(X, y, theta)[0], theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n    def test_simple_vs_numerical_withreg(self):\n        # Same test with a regularization factor.\n        X = np.array([\n                [0.1, 0.2, -0.3],\n                [0.6, -0.5, 0.1],\n                [0.6, -0.4, 0.3],\n                [-0.2, 0.4, 2.2]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([\n            [1],\n            [-1],\n            [1],\n            [1]])\n\n        beta = 0.1\n        loss, grad = square_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=beta)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: square_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=beta)[0],\n            theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n\nclass TestHingeLoss(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkHingeLossSimpleVsVec(self, X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n        loss_vec, dtheta_vec = hinge_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta)\n        loss_simple, dtheta_simple = hinge_loss_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta)\n        self.assertAlmostEqual(loss_vec, loss_simple)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(dtheta_vec, dtheta_simple)\n\n    def test_hinge_loss_small(self):\n        X = np.array([\n                [0.1, 0.2, -0.3],\n                [0.6, -0.5, 0.1],\n                [0.6, -0.4, 0.3],\n                [-0.2, 0.4, 2.2]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([\n            [1],\n            [-1],\n            [1],\n            [1]])\n        # Without regularization.\n        self.checkHingeLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0)\n\n        # With regularization.\n        beta = 0.05\n        self.checkHingeLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=beta)\n\n        # With regularization, compare to numerical gradient.\n        loss, grad = hinge_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=beta)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: hinge_loss(X, y, theta, reg_beta=beta)[0],\n            theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n    def test_hinge_loss_larger_random(self):\n         np.random.seed(1)\n         k, n = 20, 5\n         X = np.random.uniform(low=0, high=1, size=(k,n))\n         theta = np.random.randn(n, 1)\n         y = np.random.choice([-1, 1], size=(k,1))\n         self.checkHingeLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta)\n\n    def test_hinge_loss_even_larger_random(self):\n         np.random.seed(1)\n         k, n = 350, 15\n         X = np.random.uniform(low=0, high=1, size=(k,n))\n         theta = np.random.randn(n, 1) * 2\n         y = np.random.choice([-1, 1], size=(k,1))\n         self.checkHingeLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta)\n\n\nclass TestCrossEntropyBinaryLoss(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(self, X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0):\n        loss_vec, dtheta_vec = cross_entropy_loss_binary(X, y, theta, reg_beta)\n        loss_simple, dtheta_simple = cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(\n            X, y, theta, reg_beta)\n        self.assertAlmostEqual(loss_vec, loss_simple)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(dtheta_vec, dtheta_simple)\n\n    def test_xent_no_overflow_from_0(self):\n        X = np.array([[100, 200, 300]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [-1.0],\n            [-1.1],\n            [-1.2]])\n        y = np.array([[1]])\n        loss, grad = cross_entropy_loss_binary(X, y, theta)\n        self.assertTrue(np.isfinite(loss))\n\n    def test_xent_loss_oneitem(self):\n        X = np.array([[0.1, 0.2, -0.3]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([[1]])\n\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0)\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n\n        loss, grad = cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y, theta,\n                                                           reg_beta=0.1)[0],\n            theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n    def test_xent_loss_small(self):\n        X = np.array([\n                [0.1, 0.2, -0.3],\n                [0.6, -0.5, 0.1],\n                [0.6, -0.4, 0.3],\n                [-0.2, 0.4, 2.2]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([\n            [1],\n            [-1],\n            [1],\n            [1]])\n\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0)\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n\n        loss, grad = cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y,\n                                                           theta,\n                                                           reg_beta=0.1)[0],\n            theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n    def test_xent_loss_larger(self):\n        X = np.array([\n                [0.1, 0.2, -0.3, 1.2],\n                [0.6, -0.5, 0.1, -0.1],\n                [0.6, -0.4, 0.3, 0.0],\n                [0.4, -0.3, 0.3, 0.0],\n                [-0.2, 0.4, 2.2, 0.7]])\n        theta = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [0.3],\n            [-1.5],\n            [2.35]])\n        y = np.array([\n            [1],\n            [-1],\n            [-1],\n            [1],\n            [1]])\n\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.0)\n        self.checkXentLossSimpleVsVec(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n\n        loss, grad = cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y, theta, reg_beta=0.1)\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda theta: cross_entropy_loss_binary_simple(X, y,\n                                                           theta,\n                                                           reg_beta=0.1)[0],\n            theta, h=1e-8)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum, rtol=1e-4)\n\n\nclass TestPredictBinary(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_simple(self):\n        # Make sure positive gets +1, negative -1 and zero also gets +1.\n        theta = np.array([[2], [-1]])\n        X = np.array([\n            [7, 3],\n            [2, 4],\n            [-1, 1]])\n        yhat = predict_binary(X, theta)\n        np.testing.assert_equal(yhat, np.array([[1], [1], [-1]]))\n\n\nclass TestPredictLogisticProbability(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_close_to_zero(self):\n        # For very large negative z, predicted probability is close to zero.\n        X = np.array([\n            [10.0, 20.0],\n            [20.0, 30.0],\n            [30.0, 40.0]])\n        theta = np.array([[-5], [-6]])\n        p = predict_logistic_probability(X, theta)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(p, np.zeros_like(p), atol=1e-8)\n\n    def test_close_to_one(self):\n        # For very large positive z, predicted probability is close to one.\n        X = np.array([\n            [10.0, 20.0],\n            [20.0, 30.0],\n            [30.0, 40.0]])\n        theta = np.array([[3], [4]])\n        p = predict_logistic_probability(X, theta)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(p, np.ones_like(p), atol=1e-8)\n\n    def test_half(self):\n        # For z=0 we get probability 0.5\n        X = np.array([\n            [10.0, 20.0],\n            [20.0, 40.0],\n            [40.0, 80.0]])\n        theta = np.array([[-2], [1]])\n        p = predict_logistic_probability(X, theta)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(p, np.full(p.shape, 0.5))\n\n\ndef tuplize_2d_array(arr):\n    \"\"\"Returns a list of tuples, each tuple being one row of arr.\"\"\"\n    return [tuple(row) for row in arr]\n\n\nclass TestGenerateBatch(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_simple(self):\n        X = np.array([\n            [10.0, 20.0],\n            [12.0, 22.0],\n            [13.0, 24.0],\n            [20.0, 40.0],\n            [40.0, 80.0]])\n        y = np.array([[3], [4], [5], [9], [10]])\n\n        Xt = tuplize_2d_array(X)\n        yt = tuplize_2d_array(y)\n\n        for _ in range(10):\n            X_batch, y_batch = generate_batch(X, y, batch_size=3)\n            Xbt = tuplize_2d_array(X_batch)\n            ybt = tuplize_2d_array(yt)\n\n            # Make sure the items in Xbt are unique and each comes from Xt.\n            self.assertEqual(len(set(Xbt)), len(Xbt))\n            for row in Xbt:\n                self.assertIn(row, Xt)\n\n            # ... same for yt.\n            self.assertEqual(len(set(ybt)), len(ybt))\n            for row in ybt:\n                self.assertIn(row, yt)\n\n    def test_with_row_y(self):\n        # Test that generate_batch works well with y as a row vector\n        X = np.array([\n            [10.0, 20.0],\n            [12.0, 22.0],\n            [13.0, 24.0],\n            [20.0, 40.0],\n            [40.0, 80.0]])\n        y = np.array([3, 4, 5, 9, 10])\n        for _ in range(10):\n            _, y_batch = generate_batch(X, y, batch_size=2)\n            ybt = tuple(y_batch)\n            self.assertEqual(len(set(ybt)), len(ybt))\n            for yy in ybt:\n                self.assertIn(yy, y)\n\n\nclass TestGradientDescent(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_applies_dtheta(self):\n        # Tests that gradient_descent applies dtheta to an initial theta as\n        # expected\n        k, n = 40, 3\n        t = 10\n        dtheta = np.random.randn(n, t)\n        learning_rate = 0.1\n        def lossfunc(X, y, theta):\n            return 0, dtheta\n\n        init_theta = np.random.randn(n, t)\n        gi = gradient_descent(\n                X=np.ones((k, n)),\n                y=np.ones((k, 1)),\n                init_theta=init_theta,\n                lossfunc=lossfunc,\n                nsteps=10,\n                learning_rate=learning_rate)\n\n        # Take note of initial theta.\n        first_theta, _ = gi.next()\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(init_theta, first_theta)\n\n        for i, (theta, _) in enumerate(gi, 1):\n            expected = init_theta - i * learning_rate * dtheta\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(expected, theta)\n\n\nclass TestFeatureNormalize(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_simple(self):\n        X = np.array([\n            [3, 6],\n            [5, 14]])\n\n        X_norm, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X)\n        np.testing.assert_equal(mu, np.array([4, 10]))\n        np.testing.assert_equal(sigma, np.array([1, 4]))\n        np.testing.assert_equal(X_norm, np.array([[-1, -1], [1, 1]]))\n\n    def test_with_nans(self):\n        # stddev of second feature is 0, so we'd get nan's if feature_normalize\n        # wasn't fixing them.\n        X = np.array([\n            [3, 6],\n            [5, 6]])\n        X_norm, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X)\n        np.testing.assert_equal(mu, np.array([4, 6]))\n        np.testing.assert_equal(sigma, np.array([1, 1]))\n        np.testing.assert_equal(X_norm, np.array([[-1, 0], [1, 0]]))\n\n\nclass TestSoftmaxCrossEntropyLoss(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkGradientVsNumeric(self, X, y, W, reg_beta):\n        _, dW = softmax_cross_entropy_loss(X, y, W, reg_beta)\n        grad_num = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            f=lambda WW: softmax_cross_entropy_loss(X, y, WW, reg_beta)[0],\n            x=W)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(dW, grad_num)\n\n\n    def test_trivial(self):\n        # Compares loss with hard-coded results from the CS231n sample\n        # at http://cs231n.github.io/linear-classify/\n        X = np.array([\n            [1.0, -15, 22, -44, 56]])\n        W = np.array([\n            [0.0, 0.2, -0.3],\n            [0.01, 0.7, 0.0],\n            [-0.05, 0.2, -0.45],\n            [0.1, 0.05, -0.2],\n            [0.05, 0.16, 0.03]])\n        y = np.array([2])\n        self.checkGradientVsNumeric(X, y, W, reg_beta=0.0)\n        self.checkGradientVsNumeric(X, y, W, reg_beta=0.1)\n\n    def test_random_small(self):\n        np.random.seed(1)\n        k, n = 20, 5\n        t = 10\n        X = np.random.uniform(low=-3.0, high=3.0, size=(k,n))\n        W = np.random.normal(size=(n,t))\n        y = np.random.randint(low=0, high=t, size=(1,k))\n        self.checkGradientVsNumeric(X, y, W, reg_beta=0.0)\n        self.checkGradientVsNumeric(X, y, W, reg_beta=0.2)\n\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/simple_binary_classifier.py",
    "content": "# Simple binary linear classifier with synthetic data.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport argparse\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\nfrom timer import Timer\nimport sys\n\nfrom regression_lib import *\n\n\ndef generate_data(k, num_neg_outliers=0):\n    \"\"\"Generates k data items with correct labels (+1 or -1) for each item.\n\n    k: number of data items to generate.\n    num_neg_outliers: number of outliers for the negative samples.\n\n    Returns X (k, 2) - k data items in 2D, and y (k, 1) - the correct label\n    (+1 or -1) for each data item in X.\n    \"\"\"\n    kneg, kpos = k / 2, k / 2\n    kneg_regular = kneg - num_neg_outliers\n    # Generate positive data items and negative data items; for negatives, the\n    # \"regulars\" are generated using different parameters from \"outliers\".\n    positives = (np.full((kpos, 2), 3.0) +\n                 np.random.normal(scale=0.9, size=(kpos, 2)))\n    outliers = (np.hstack((np.ones((num_neg_outliers, 1)) * 3,\n                           np.ones((num_neg_outliers, 1)) * 5)) +\n                np.random.normal(scale=0.8, size=(num_neg_outliers, 2)))\n    negatives = (np.full((kneg_regular, 2), 1.0) +\n                 np.random.normal(scale=0.7, size=(kneg_regular, 2)))\n\n    # Stack all items into the same array. To match y, first come all the\n    # positives then all the negatives.\n    X = np.vstack((positives, negatives, outliers))\n\n    # Create labels. We have kpos +1s followed by kneg -1s.\n    y = np.vstack((np.full((kpos, 1), 1.0), np.full((kneg, 1), -1.0)))\n\n    # Stack X and y together so we can shuffle them together.\n    Xy = np.random.permutation(np.hstack((X, y)))\n    return Xy[:, 0:2], Xy[:, 2].reshape(-1, 1)\n\n\ndef plot_data_scatterplot(X, y, thetas=[]):\n    \"\"\"Plots data as a scatterplot, with contour lines for thetas.\n\n    X: (k, 2) data items.\n    y: (k, 1) result (+1 or -1) for each data item in X.\n    thetas: list of (theta array, label) pairs to plot contours.\n\n    Plots +1 data points as a green x, -1 as red o.\n    \"\"\"\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    fig.set_tight_layout(True)\n\n    pos = [(X[k, 0], X[k, 1]) for k in range(X.shape[0]) if y[k, 0] == 1]\n    neg = [(X[k, 0], X[k, 1]) for k in range(X.shape[0]) if y[k, 0] == -1]\n\n    ax.scatter(*zip(*pos), c='darkgreen', marker='x')\n    ax.scatter(*zip(*neg), c='red', marker='o', linewidths=0)\n\n    colors = iter(('blue', 'purple', 'black'))\n    contours = []\n    for theta, _ in thetas:\n        xs = np.linspace(-2, 6, 200)\n        ys = np.linspace(-2, 6, 200)\n        xsgrid, ysgrid = np.meshgrid(xs, ys)\n        plane = np.zeros_like(xsgrid)\n        for i in range(xsgrid.shape[0]):\n            for j in range(xsgrid.shape[1]):\n                plane[i, j] = np.array([1, xsgrid[i, j], ysgrid[i, j]]).dot(\n                    theta)\n        contours.append(ax.contour(xsgrid, ysgrid, plane,\n                                   colors=colors.next(), levels=[0]))\n\n    if thetas:\n        plt.legend([cs.collections[0] for cs in contours],\n                   [label for theta, label in thetas])\n    fig.savefig('binary.png', dpi=80)\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef L01_loss(X, y, theta):\n    \"\"\"Computes the L0/1 loss for the data X using theta.\n\n    X: (k, n) k rows of data items, each having n features; augmented.\n    y: (k, 1) correct classifications (+1 or -1) for each item.\n    theta: (n, 1) regression parameters.\n\n    Returns the total L0/1 loss over the whole data set. The total L0/1 loss\n    is the number of mispredicted items (where y doesn't match yhat).\n    \"\"\"\n    results = predict_binary(X, theta)\n    return np.count_nonzero(results != y)\n\n\ndef search_best_L01_loss(X, y, theta_start=None,\n                         npoints_per_t=150, tmargin=0.1):\n    \"\"\"Hacky exhaustive search for the best L0/1 loss for given X and y.\n\n    X: (k, n) data items.\n    y: (k, 1) result (+1 or -1) for each data item in X.\n    theta_start: (3, 1) theta to start search from.\n    npoints_per_t: number of points to search per dimension of theta.\n    tmargin: search within [-tmargin, tmargin] of theta_start.\n\n    Since the search is combinatorial, it is slow and works best when we begin\n    with a reasonable good theta. When theta is already close to optimal, this\n    search will do a good job finding the best theta in its vicinity. A\n    realistic approach which I didn't commit to code (but it could be easily\n    done) is to run this search on multiple \"zoom\" levels (kinda like simulated\n    annealing).\n\n    Returns a pair best_theta, best_loss.\n    \"\"\"\n    if theta_start is None:\n        theta_start = np.array([[1], [1], [1]])\n    assert theta_start.shape == (3, 1)\n\n    k = X.shape[0]\n    best_loss = k\n    best_theta = theta_start\n    t0_range = np.linspace(theta_start[0, 0] + tmargin,\n                           theta_start[0, 0] - tmargin,\n                           npoints_per_t)\n    t1_range = np.linspace(theta_start[1, 0] + tmargin,\n                           theta_start[1, 0] - tmargin,\n                           npoints_per_t)\n    t2_range = np.linspace(theta_start[2, 0] + tmargin,\n                           theta_start[2, 0] - tmargin,\n                           npoints_per_t)\n    for t0 in t0_range:\n        for t1 in t1_range:\n            for t2 in t2_range:\n                theta = np.array([[t0], [t1], [t2]])\n                loss = L01_loss(X, y, theta)\n                if loss < best_loss:\n                    best_loss = loss\n                    best_theta = theta\n\n    return best_theta, best_loss\n\n\ndef run_gradient_descent_search(X, y, lossfunc, max_nsteps, learning_rate,\n                                verbose=False):\n    \"\"\"Helper function to run GD search for the given data and loss function.\n\n    For help on arguments, see the gradient_descent function. max_nsteps is like\n    nsteps except that this function will stop once the loss isn't changing much\n    any more, which may take fewer than max_nsteps steps.\n    \"\"\"\n    n = X.shape[1]\n    gradient_descent_iter = gradient_descent(X, y,\n                                             init_theta=np.random.randn(n, 1),\n                                             lossfunc=lossfunc,\n                                             nsteps=max_nsteps,\n                                             learning_rate=learning_rate)\n    # Run GD until the changes in loss converge to some small value, or until\n    # max_nstepsis reached.\n    prev_loss = sys.float_info.max\n    converge_step = 0\n    for i, (theta, loss) in enumerate(gradient_descent_iter):\n        if verbose:\n            print(i, ':', loss)\n        # Convergence of loss beneath a small threshold: this threshold can also\n        # be made configurable, if needed.\n        if abs(loss - prev_loss) < 1e-5:\n            converge_step = i\n            break\n        prev_loss = loss\n    print('... loss converged at step {0}'.format(converge_step))\n    return theta\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    argparser = argparse.ArgumentParser()\n    argparser.add_argument('--plot', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Produce scatterplot with fit contours')\n    argparser.add_argument('--search01', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Run combinatorial search for best L0/1 loss')\n    argparser.add_argument('--verbose-gd', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Verbose output from gradient-descent search')\n    argparser.add_argument('--normalize', action='store_true', default=False,\n                           help='Normalize data: (x-mu)/sigma.')\n\n    args = argparser.parse_args()\n\n    # For reproducibility\n    np.random.seed(42)\n\n    X_train, y_train = generate_data(400, num_neg_outliers=10)\n    print('X_train shape:', X_train.shape)\n    print('y_train shape:', y_train.shape)\n\n    if args.normalize:\n        X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = feature_normalize(X_train)\n    else:\n        X_train_normalized, mu, sigma = X_train, 0, 1\n\n    X_train_augmented = augment_1s_column(X_train)\n    print('X_train_augmented shape:', X_train_augmented.shape)\n\n    # A pretty good theta determined by a long run of search_best_L01_loss with\n    # coarse granularity. Works for the seed set above. For different data,\n    # we'll need to find a new theta for good L01 loss.\n    theta = np.array([-0.9647, 0.2545, 0.2416]).reshape(-1, 1)\n    print('Initial theta:\\n', theta)\n    print('Initial loss:', L01_loss(X_train_augmented, y_train, theta))\n\n    if args.search01:\n        with Timer('searching for best L01 loss'):\n            best_theta, best_loss = search_best_L01_loss(X_train_augmented,\n                                                         y_train,\n                                                         theta)\n        print('Best theta:\\n', best_theta)\n        print('Best loss:', best_loss)\n    else:\n        best_theta, best_loss = theta, L01_loss(X_train_augmented, y_train,\n                                                theta)\n\n    # Run GD with square loss.\n    square_nsteps = 5000\n    square_learning_rate = 0.01\n    print('Running GD with square loss for {0} steps, learning_rate={1}'.format(\n        square_nsteps, square_learning_rate))\n    theta_square = run_gradient_descent_search(\n        X_train_augmented,\n        y_train,\n        lossfunc=square_loss,\n        max_nsteps=square_nsteps,\n        learning_rate=square_learning_rate,\n        verbose=args.verbose_gd)\n    print('Found theta:\\n', theta_square)\n    print('0/1 loss:', L01_loss(X_train_augmented, y_train, theta_square))\n\n    # Run GD with hinge loss.\n    hinge_nsteps = 5000\n    hinge_learning_rate = 0.01\n    print('Running GD with hinge loss for {0} steps, learning_rate={1}'.format(\n        hinge_nsteps, hinge_learning_rate))\n    theta_hinge = run_gradient_descent_search(\n        X_train_augmented,\n        y_train,\n        lossfunc=hinge_loss,\n        max_nsteps=hinge_nsteps,\n        learning_rate=hinge_learning_rate,\n        verbose=args.verbose_gd)\n    print('Found theta:\\n', theta_hinge)\n    print('0/1 loss:', L01_loss(X_train_augmented, y_train, theta_hinge))\n\n    if args.plot:\n        plot_data_scatterplot(X_train, y_train,\n                              [(best_theta, '$L_{01}$'),\n                               (theta_square, '$L_2$'),\n                               (theta_hinge, '$L_h$')])\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "logistic-regression/timer.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport sys\nimport time\n\nclass Timer(object):\n    def __init__(self, name=None):\n        self.name = name\n\n    def __enter__(self):\n        self.tstart = time.time()\n        if self.name:\n            print('[%s] ' % self.name, end='')\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n\n    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):\n        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/cnus-clean.txt",
    "content": "the complete sherlock holmes\narthur conan doyle\ntable of contents\na study in scarlet\nthe sign of the four\nthe adventures of sherlock holmes\na scandal in bohemia\nthe red-headed league\na case of identity\nthe boscombe valley mystery\nthe five orange pips\nthe man with the twisted lip\nthe adventure of the blue carbuncle\nthe adventure of the speckled band\nthe adventure of the engineer's thumb\nthe adventure of the noble bachelor\nthe adventure of the beryl coronet\nthe adventure of the copper beeches\nthe memoirs of sherlock holmes\nsilver blaze\nthe yellow face\nthe stock-broker's clerk\nthe \"gloria scott\"\nthe musgrave ritual\nthe reigate squires\nthe crooked man\nthe resident patient\nthe greek interpreter\nthe naval treaty\nthe final problem\nthe return of sherlock holmes\nthe adventure of the empty house\nthe adventure of the norwood builder\nthe adventure of the dancing men\nthe adventure of the solitary cyclist\nthe adventure of the priory school\nthe adventure of black peter\nthe adventure of charles augustus milverton\nthe adventure of the six napoleons\nthe adventure of the three students\nthe adventure of the golden pince-nez\nthe adventure of the missing three-quarter\nthe adventure of the abbey grange\nthe adventure of the second stain\nthe hound of the baskervilles\nthe valley of fear\nhis last bow\npreface\nthe adventure of wisteria lodge\nthe adventure of the cardboard box\nthe adventure of the red circle\nthe adventure of the bruce-partington plans\nthe adventure of the dying detective\nthe disappearance of lady frances carfax\nthe adventure of the devil's foot\nhis last bow\na study in scarlet\ntable of contents\npart i\nmr. sherlock holmes\nthe science of deduction\nthe lauriston garden mystery\nwhat john rance had to tell\nour advertisement brings a visitor\ntobias gregson shows what he can do\nlight in the darkness\npart ii\non the great alkali plain\nthe flower of utah\njohn ferrier talks with the prophet\na flight for life\nthe avenging angels\na continuation of the reminiscences of john watson, m.d.\nthe conclusion\npart i\n(being a reprint from the reminiscences of\njohn h. watson, m.d.,\nlate of the army medical department.)\nchapter i\nmr. sherlock holmes\nin the year 1878 i took my degree of doctor of medicine of the\nuniversity of london, and proceeded to netley to go through the\ncourse prescribed for surgeons in the army. having completed my\nstudies there, i was duly attached to the fifth northumberland\nfusiliers as assistant surgeon. the regiment was stationed in india\nat the time, and before i could join it, the second afghan war had\nbroken out. on landing at bombay, i learned that my corps had\nadvanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's\ncountry. i followed, however, with many other officers who were in\nthe same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching candahar in\nsafety, where i found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new\nduties.\nthe campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had\nnothing but misfortune and disaster. i was removed from my brigade\nand attached to the berkshires, with whom i served at the fatal\nbattle of maiwand. there i was struck on the shoulder by a jezail\nbullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. i\nshould have fallen into the hands of the murderous ghazis had it not\nbeen for the devotion and courage shown by murray, my orderly, who\nthrew me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to\nthe british lines.\nworn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which i had\nundergone, i was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to\nthe base hospital at peshawar. here i rallied, and had already\nimproved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to\nbask a little upon the verandah, when i was struck down by enteric\nfever, that curse of our indian possessions. for months my life was\ndespaired of, and when at last i came to myself and became\nconvalescent, i was so weak and emaciated that a medical board\ndetermined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to\nengland. i was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship orontes, and\nlanded a month later on portsmouth jetty, with my health\nirretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government\nto spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.\ni had neither kith nor kin in england, and was therefore as free as\nair--or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day\nwill permit a man to be. under such circumstances, i naturally\ngravitated to london, that great cesspool into which all the loungers\nand idlers of the empire are irresistibly drained. there i stayed for\nsome time at a private hotel in the strand, leading a comfortless,\nmeaningless existence, and spending such money as i had, considerably\nmore freely than i ought. so alarming did the state of my finances\nbecome, that i soon realized that i must either leave the metropolis\nand rusticate somewhere in the country, or that i must make a\ncomplete alteration in my style of living. choosing the latter\nalternative, i began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to\ntake up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive\ndomicile.\non the very day that i had come to this conclusion, i was standing at\nthe criterion bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and\nturning round i recognized young stamford, who had been a dresser\nunder me at bart's. the sight of a friendly face in the great\nwilderness of london is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. in\nold days stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now\ni hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be\ndelighted to see me. in the exuberance of my joy, i asked him to\nlunch with me at the holborn, and we started off together in a\nhansom.\n\"whatever have you been doing with yourself, watson?\" he asked in\nundisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded london streets.\n\"you are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.\"\ni gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded\nit by the time that we reached our destination.\n\"poor devil!\" he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my\nmisfortunes. \"what are you up to now?\"\n\"looking for lodgings,\" i answered. \"trying to solve the problem as\nto whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable\nprice.\"\n\"that's a strange thing,\" remarked my companion; \"you are the second\nman to-day that has used that expression to me.\"\n\"and who was the first?\" i asked.\n\"a fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the\nhospital. he was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not\nget someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had\nfound, and which were too much for his purse.\"\n\"by jove!\" i cried, \"if he really wants someone to share the rooms\nand the expense, i am the very man for him. i should prefer having a\npartner to being alone.\"\nyoung stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass.\n\"you don't know sherlock holmes yet,\" he said; \"perhaps you would not\ncare for him as a constant companion.\"\n\"why, what is there against him?\"\n\"oh, i didn't say there was anything against him. he is a little\nqueer in his ideas--an enthusiast in some branches of science. as far\nas i know he is a decent fellow enough.\"\n\"a medical student, i suppose?\" said i.\n\"no--i have no idea what he intends to go in for. i believe he is\nwell up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as i\nknow, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. his\nstudies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of\nout-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors.\"\n\"did you never ask him what he was going in for?\" i asked.\n\"no; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be\ncommunicative enough when the fancy seizes him.\"\n\"i should like to meet him,\" i said. \"if i am to lodge with anyone, i\nshould prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. i am not strong\nenough yet to stand much noise or excitement. i had enough of both in\nafghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. how\ncould i meet this friend of yours?\"\n\"he is sure to be at the laboratory,\" returned my companion. \"he\neither avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from\nmorning to night. if you like, we shall drive round together after\nluncheon.\"\n\"certainly,\" i answered, and the conversation drifted away into other\nchannels.\nas we made our way to the hospital after leaving the holborn,\nstamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom i\nproposed to take as a fellow-lodger.\n\"you mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him,\" he said; \"i know\nnothing more of him than i have learned from meeting him occasionally\nin the laboratory. you proposed this arrangement, so you must not\nhold me responsible.\"\n\"if we don't get on it will be easy to part company,\" i answered. \"it\nseems to me, stamford,\" i added, looking hard at my companion, \"that\nyou have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. is this\nfellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? don't be mealy-mouthed\nabout it.\"\n\"it is not easy to express the inexpressible,\" he answered with a\nlaugh. \"holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it\napproaches to cold-bloodedness. i could imagine his giving a friend a\nlittle pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of\nmalevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in\norder to have an accurate idea of the effects. to do him justice, i\nthink that he would take it himself with the same readiness. he\nappears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.\"\n\"very right too.\"\n\"yes, but it may be pushed to excess. when it comes to beating the\nsubjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking\nrather a bizarre shape.\"\n\"beating the subjects!\"\n\"yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. i saw\nhim at it with my own eyes.\"\n\"and yet you say he is not a medical student?\"\n\"no. heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. but here we\nare, and you must form your own impressions about him.\" as he spoke,\nwe turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door,\nwhich opened into a wing of the great hospital. it was familiar\nground to me, and i needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone\nstaircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of\nwhitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. near the further end a low\narched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical\nlaboratory.\nthis was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.\nbroad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,\ntest-tubes, and little bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering\nflames. there was only one student in the room, who was bending over\na distant table absorbed in his work. at the sound of our steps he\nglanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. \"i've\nfound it! i've found it,\" he shouted to my companion, running towards\nus with a test-tube in his hand. \"i have found a re-agent which is\nprecipitated by hoemoglobin, and by nothing else.\" had he discovered\na gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.\n\"dr. watson, mr. sherlock holmes,\" said stamford, introducing us.\n\"how are you?\" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength\nfor which i should hardly have given him credit. \"you have been in\nafghanistan, i perceive.\"\n\"how on earth did you know that?\" i asked in astonishment.\n\"never mind,\" said he, chuckling to himself. \"the question now is\nabout hoemoglobin. no doubt you see the significance of this\ndiscovery of mine?\"\n\"it is interesting, chemically, no doubt,\" i answered, \"but\npractically--\"\n\"why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.\ndon't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains.\ncome over here now!\" he seized me by the coat-sleeve in his\neagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been\nworking. \"let us have some fresh blood,\" he said, digging a long\nbodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood\nin a chemical pipette. \"now, i add this small quantity of blood to a\nlitre of water. you perceive that the resulting mixture has the\nappearance of pure water. the proportion of blood cannot be more than\none in a million. i have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to\nobtain the characteristic reaction.\" as he spoke, he threw into the\nvessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a\ntransparent fluid. in an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany\ncolour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the\nglass jar.\n\"ha! ha!\" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a\nchild with a new toy. \"what do you think of that?\"\n\"it seems to be a very delicate test,\" i remarked.\n\"beautiful! beautiful! the old guiacum test was very clumsy and\nuncertain. so is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles.\nthe latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. now, this\nappears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. had this test\nbeen invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who\nwould long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.\"\n\"indeed!\" i murmured.\n\"criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. a man is\nsuspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. his\nlinen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon\nthem. are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit\nstains, or what are they? that is a question which has puzzled many\nan expert, and why? because there was no reliable test. now we have\nthe sherlock holmes' test, and there will no longer be any\ndifficulty.\"\nhis eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his\nheart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his\nimagination.\n\"you are to be congratulated,\" i remarked, considerably surprised at\nhis enthusiasm.\n\"there was the case of von bischoff at frankfort last year. he would\ncertainly have been hung had this test been in existence. then there\nwas mason of bradford, and the notorious muller, and lefevre of\nmontpellier, and samson of new orleans. i could name a score of cases\nin which it would have been decisive.\"\n\"you seem to be a walking calendar of crime,\" said stamford with a\nlaugh. \"you might start a paper on those lines. call it the 'police\nnews of the past.'\"\n\"very interesting reading it might be made, too,\" remarked sherlock\nholmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his\nfinger. \"i have to be careful,\" he continued, turning to me with a\nsmile, \"for i dabble with poisons a good deal.\" he held out his hand\nas he spoke, and i noticed that it was all mottled over with similar\npieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.\n\"we came here on business,\" said stamford, sitting down on a high\nthree-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his\nfoot. \"my friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were\ncomplaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, i\nthought that i had better bring you together.\"\nsherlock holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms\nwith me. \"i have my eye on a suite in baker street,\" he said, \"which\nwould suit us down to the ground. you don't mind the smell of strong\ntobacco, i hope?\"\n\"i always smoke 'ship's' myself,\" i answered.\n\"that's good enough. i generally have chemicals about, and\noccasionally do experiments. would that annoy you?\"\n\"by no means.\"\n\"let me see--what are my other shortcomings. i get in the dumps at\ntimes, and don't open my mouth for days on end. you must not think i\nam sulky when i do that. just let me alone, and i'll soon be right.\nwhat have you to confess now? it's just as well for two fellows to\nknow the worst of one another before they begin to live together.\"\ni laughed at this cross-examination. \"i keep a bull pup,\" i said,\n\"and i object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and i get up at\nall sorts of ungodly hours, and i am extremely lazy. i have another\nset of vices when i'm well, but those are the principal ones at\npresent.\"\n\"do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?\" he asked,\nanxiously.\n\"it depends on the player,\" i answered. \"a well-played violin is a\ntreat for the gods--a badly-played one--\"\n\"oh, that's all right,\" he cried, with a merry laugh. \"i think we may\nconsider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to\nyou.\"\n\"when shall we see them?\"\n\"call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we'll go together and settle\neverything,\" he answered.\n\"all right--noon exactly,\" said i, shaking his hand.\nwe left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together\ntowards my hotel.\n\"by the way,\" i asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon stamford,\n\"how the deuce did he know that i had come from afghanistan?\"\nmy companion smiled an enigmatical smile. \"that's just his little\npeculiarity,\" he said. \"a good many people have wanted to know how he\nfinds things out.\"\n\"oh! a mystery is it?\" i cried, rubbing my hands. \"this is very\npiquant. i am much obliged to you for bringing us together. 'the\nproper study of mankind is man,' you know.\"\n\"you must study him, then,\" stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.\n\"you'll find him a knotty problem, though. i'll wager he learns more\nabout you than you about him. good-bye.\"\n\"good-bye,\" i answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably\ninterested in my new acquaintance.\nchapter ii\nthe science of deduction\nwe met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at no.\n221b, baker street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. they\nconsisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large\nairy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad\nwindows. so desirable in every way were the apartments, and so\nmoderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain\nwas concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.\nthat very evening i moved my things round from the hotel, and on the\nfollowing morning sherlock holmes followed me with several boxes and\nportmanteaus. for a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking\nand laying out our property to the best advantage. that done, we\ngradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our\nnew surroundings.\nholmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. he was quiet\nin his ways, and his habits were regular. it was rare for him to be\nup after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out\nbefore i rose in the morning. sometimes he spent his day at the\nchemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and\noccasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the\nlowest portions of the city. nothing could exceed his energy when the\nworking fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize\nhim, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the\nsitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning\nto night. on these occasions i have noticed such a dreamy, vacant\nexpression in his eyes, that i might have suspected him of being\naddicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and\ncleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.\nas the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his\naims in life, gradually deepened and increased. his very person and\nappearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual\nobserver. in height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively\nlean that he seemed to be considerably taller. his eyes were sharp\nand piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which i have\nalluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an\nair of alertness and decision. his chin, too, had the prominence and\nsquareness which mark the man of determination. his hands were\ninvariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was\npossessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as i frequently had\noccasion to observe when i watched him manipulating his fragile\nphilosophical instruments.\nthe reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when i confess how\nmuch this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often i endeavoured to\nbreak through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned\nhimself. before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how\nobjectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my\nattention. my health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather\nwas exceptionally genial, and i had no friends who would call upon me\nand break the monotony of my daily existence. under these\ncircumstances, i eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around\nmy companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel\nit.\nhe was not studying medicine. he had himself, in reply to a question,\nconfirmed stamford's opinion upon that point. neither did he appear\nto have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a\ndegree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him\nan entrance into the learned world. yet his zeal for certain studies\nwas remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so\nextraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly\nastounded me. surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise\ninformation unless he had some definite end in view. desultory\nreaders are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. no\nman burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good\nreason for doing so.\nhis ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. of contemporary\nliterature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to\nnothing. upon my quoting thomas carlyle, he inquired in the naivest\nway who he might be and what he had done. my surprise reached a\nclimax, however, when i found incidentally that he was ignorant of\nthe copernican theory and of the composition of the solar system.\nthat any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not\nbe aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me\nsuch an extraordinary fact that i could hardly realize it.\n\"you appear to be astonished,\" he said, smiling at my expression of\nsurprise. \"now that i do know it i shall do my best to forget it.\"\n\"to forget it!\"\n\"you see,\" he explained, \"i consider that a man's brain originally is\nlike a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such\nfurniture as you choose. a fool takes in all the lumber of every sort\nthat he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to\nhim gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other\nthings so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. now\nthe skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into\nhis brain-attic. he will have nothing but the tools which may help\nhim in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and\nall in the most perfect order. it is a mistake to think that that\nlittle room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. depend\nupon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you\nforget something that you knew before. it is of the highest\nimportance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the\nuseful ones.\"\n\"but the solar system!\" i protested.\n\"what the deuce is it to me?\" he interrupted impatiently; \"you say\nthat we go round the sun. if we went round the moon it would not make\na pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.\"\ni was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but\nsomething in his manner showed me that the question would be an\nunwelcome one. i pondered over our short conversation, however, and\nendeavoured to draw my deductions from it. he said that he would\nacquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. therefore\nall the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to\nhim. i enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he\nhad shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. i even took a\npencil and jotted them down. i could not help smiling at the document\nwhen i had completed it. it ran in this way--\nsherlock holmes--his limits.\n1. knowledge of literature.--nil.\n2. philosophy.--nil.\n3. astronomy.--nil.\n4. politics.--feeble.\n5. botany.--variable. well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons\ngenerally. knows nothing of practical gardening.\n6. geology.--practical, but limited. tells at a glance different\nsoils from each other. after walks has shown me splashes upon his\ntrousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of\nlondon he had received them.\n7. chemistry.--profound.\n8. anatomy.--accurate, but unsystematic.\n9. sensational literature.--immense. he appears to know every detail\nof every horror perpetrated in the century.\n10. plays the violin well.\n11. is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.\n12. has a good practical knowledge of british law.\nwhen i had got so far in my list i threw it into the fire in despair.\n\"if i can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all\nthese accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them\nall,\" i said to myself, \"i may as well give up the attempt at once.\"\ni see that i have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. these\nwere very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other\naccomplishments. that he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, i\nknew well, because at my request he has played me some of\nmendelssohn's lieder, and other favourites. when left to himself,\nhowever, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized\nair. leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his\neyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his\nknee. sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. occasionally\nthey were fantastic and cheerful. clearly they reflected the thoughts\nwhich possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or\nwhether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more\nthan i could determine. i might have rebelled against these\nexasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by\nplaying in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a\nslight compensation for the trial upon my patience.\nduring the first week or so we had no callers, and i had begun to\nthink that my companion was as friendless a man as i was myself.\npresently, however, i found that he had many acquaintances, and those\nin the most different classes of society. there was one little sallow\nrat-faced, dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as mr. lestrade,\nand who came three or four times in a single week. one morning a\nyoung girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour\nor more. the same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor,\nlooking like a jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and\nwho was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman. on another\noccasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my\ncompanion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform.\nwhen any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance,\nsherlock holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and i\nwould retire to my bed-room. he always apologized to me for putting\nme to this inconvenience. \"i have to use this room as a place of\nbusiness,\" he said, \"and these people are my clients.\" again i had an\nopportunity of asking him a point blank question, and again my\ndelicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. i\nimagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding\nto it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject\nof his own accord.\nit was upon the 4th of march, as i have good reason to remember, that\ni rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that sherlock holmes\nhad not yet finished his breakfast. the landlady had become so\naccustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my\ncoffee prepared. with the unreasonable petulance of mankind i rang\nthe bell and gave a curt intimation that i was ready. then i picked\nup a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time\nwith it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. one of the\narticles had a pencil mark at the heading, and i naturally began to\nrun my eye through it.\nits somewhat ambitious title was \"the book of life,\" and it attempted\nto show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and\nsystematic examination of all that came in his way. it struck me as\nbeing a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. the\nreasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to\nbe far-fetched and exaggerated. the writer claimed by a momentary\nexpression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a\nman's inmost thoughts. deceit, according to him, was an impossibility\nin the case of one trained to observation and analysis. his\nconclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of euclid. so\nstartling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they\nlearned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well\nconsider him as a necromancer.\n\"from a drop of water,\" said the writer, \"a logician could infer the\npossibility of an atlantic or a niagara without having seen or heard\nof one or the other. so all life is a great chain, the nature of\nwhich is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. like all\nother arts, the science of deduction and analysis is one which can\nonly be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to\nallow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.\nbefore turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which\npresent the greatest difficulties, let the enquirer begin by\nmastering more elementary problems. let him, on meeting a\nfellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the\nman, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. puerile as such\nan exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and\nteaches one where to look and what to look for. by a man's finger\nnails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the\ncallosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his\nshirt cuffs--by each of these things a man's calling is plainly\nrevealed. that all united should fail to enlighten the competent\nenquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.\"\n\"what ineffable twaddle!\" i cried, slapping the magazine down on the\ntable, \"i never read such rubbish in my life.\"\n\"what is it?\" asked sherlock holmes.\n\"why, this article,\" i said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as i\nsat down to my breakfast. \"i see that you have read it since you have\nmarked it. i don't deny that it is smartly written. it irritates me\nthough. it is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who\nevolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own\nstudy. it is not practical. i should like to see him clapped down in\na third class carriage on the underground, and asked to give the\ntrades of all his fellow-travellers. i would lay a thousand to one\nagainst him.\"\n\"you would lose your money,\" sherlock holmes remarked calmly.  \"as\nfor the article i wrote it myself.\"\n\"you!\"\n\"yes, i have a turn both for observation and for deduction. the\ntheories which i have expressed there, and which appear to you to be\nso chimerical are really extremely practical--so practical that i\ndepend upon them for my bread and cheese.\"\n\"and how?\" i asked involuntarily.\n\"well, i have a trade of my own. i suppose i am the only one in the\nworld. i'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that\nis. here in london we have lots of government detectives and lots of\nprivate ones. when these fellows are at fault they come to me, and i\nmanage to put them on the right scent. they lay all the evidence\nbefore me, and i am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of\nthe history of crime, to set them straight. there is a strong family\nresemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a\nthousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the\nthousand and first. lestrade is a well-known detective. he got\nhimself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what\nbrought him here.\"\n\"and these other people?\"\n\"they are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. they are all\npeople who are in trouble about something, and want a little\nenlightening. i listen to their story, they listen to my comments,\nand then i pocket my fee.\"\n\"but do you mean to say,\" i said, \"that without leaving your room you\ncan unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although\nthey have seen every detail for themselves?\"\n\"quite so. i have a kind of intuition that way. now and again a case\nturns up which is a little more complex. then i have to bustle about\nand see things with my own eyes. you see i have a lot of special\nknowledge which i apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters\nwonderfully. those rules of deduction laid down in that article which\naroused your scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work.\nobservation with me is second nature. you appeared to be surprised\nwhen i told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from\nafghanistan.\"\n\"you were told, no doubt.\"\n\"nothing of the sort. i knew you came from afghanistan. from long\nhabit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that i\narrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate\nsteps. there were such steps, however. the train of reasoning ran,\n'here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a\nmilitary man. clearly an army doctor, then. he has just come from the\ntropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of\nhis skin, for his wrists are fair. he has undergone hardship and\nsickness, as his haggard face says clearly. his left arm has been\ninjured. he holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. where in the\ntropics could an english army doctor have seen much hardship and got\nhis arm wounded? clearly in afghanistan.' the whole train of thought\ndid not occupy a second. i then remarked that you came from\nafghanistan, and you were astonished.\"\n\"it is simple enough as you explain it,\" i said, smiling. \"you remind\nme of edgar allen poe's dupin. i had no idea that such individuals\ndid exist outside of stories.\"\nsherlock holmes rose and lit his pipe. \"no doubt you think that you\nare complimenting me in comparing me to dupin,\" he observed. \"now, in\nmy opinion, dupin was a very inferior fellow. that trick of his of\nbreaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a\nquarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. he\nhad some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a\nphenomenon as poe appeared to imagine.\"\n\"have you read gaboriau's works?\" i asked. \"does lecoq come up to\nyour idea of a detective?\"\nsherlock holmes sniffed sardonically. \"lecoq was a miserable\nbungler,\" he said, in an angry voice; \"he had only one thing to\nrecommend him, and that was his energy. that book made me positively\nill. the question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. i could\nhave done it in twenty-four hours. lecoq took six months or so. it\nmight be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to\navoid.\"\ni felt rather indignant at having two characters whom i had admired\ntreated in this cavalier style. i walked over to the window, and\nstood looking out into the busy street. \"this fellow may be very\nclever,\" i said to myself, \"but he is certainly very conceited.\"\n\"there are no crimes and no criminals in these days,\" he said,\nquerulously. \"what is the use of having brains in our profession? i\nknow well that i have it in me to make my name famous. no man lives\nor has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of\nnatural talent to the detection of crime which i have done. and what\nis the result? there is no crime to detect, or, at most, some\nbungling villany with a motive so transparent that even a scotland\nyard official can see through it.\"\ni was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. i thought\nit best to change the topic.\n\"i wonder what that fellow is looking for?\" i asked, pointing to a\nstalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the\nother side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. he had a\nlarge blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a\nmessage.\n\"you mean the retired sergeant of marines,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"brag and bounce!\" thought i to myself. \"he knows that i cannot\nverify his guess.\"\nthe thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we\nwere watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly\nacross the roadway. we heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and\nheavy steps ascending the stair.\n\"for mr. sherlock holmes,\" he said, stepping into the room and\nhanding my friend the letter.\nhere was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. he little\nthought of this when he made that random shot. \"may i ask, my lad,\" i\nsaid, in the blandest voice, \"what your trade may be?\"\n\"commissionaire, sir,\" he said, gruffly. \"uniform away for repairs.\"\n\"and you were?\" i asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my\ncompanion.\n\"a sergeant, sir, royal marine light infantry, sir. no answer? right,\nsir.\"\nhe clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was\ngone.\nchapter iii\nthe lauriston garden mystery\ni confess that i was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the\npractical nature of my companion's theories. my respect for his\npowers of analysis increased wondrously. there still remained some\nlurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a\npre-arranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly\nobject he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension. when\ni looked at him he had finished reading the note, and his eyes had\nassumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression which showed mental\nabstraction.\n\"how in the world did you deduce that?\" i asked.\n\"deduce what?\" said he, petulantly.\n\"why, that he was a retired sergeant of marines.\"\n\"i have no time for trifles,\" he answered, brusquely; then with a\nsmile, \"excuse my rudeness. you broke the thread of my thoughts; but\nperhaps it is as well. so you actually were not able to see that that\nman was a sergeant of marines?\"\n\"no, indeed.\"\n\"it was easier to know it than to explain why i knew it. if you were\nasked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some\ndifficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. even across the\nstreet i could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the\nfellow's hand. that smacked of the sea. he had a military carriage,\nhowever, and regulation side whiskers. there we have the marine. he\nwas a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of\ncommand. you must have observed the way in which he held his head and\nswung his cane. a steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the\nface of him--all facts which led me to believe that he had been a\nsergeant.\"\n\"wonderful!\" i ejaculated.\n\"commonplace,\" said holmes, though i thought from his expression that\nhe was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. \"i said just\nnow that there were no criminals. it appears that i am wrong--look at\nthis!\" he threw me over the note which the commissionaire had\nbrought.\n\"why,\" i cried, as i cast my eye over it, \"this is terrible!\"\n\"it does seem to be a little out of the common,\" he remarked, calmly.\n\"would you mind reading it to me aloud?\"\nthis is the letter which i read to him--\n\"my dear mr. sherlock holmes:\n\"there has been a bad business during the night at 3, lauriston\ngardens, off the brixton road. our man on the beat saw a light there\nabout two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one,\nsuspected that something was amiss. he found the door open, and in\nthe front room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a\ngentleman, well dressed, and having cards in his pocket bearing the\nname of 'enoch j. drebber, cleveland, ohio, u.s.a.' there had been no\nrobbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death.\nthere are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his\nperson. we are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house;\nindeed, the whole affair is a puzzler. if you can come round to the\nhouse any time before twelve, you will find me there. i have left\neverything in statu quo until i hear from you. if you are unable to\ncome i shall give you fuller details, and would esteem it a great\nkindness if you would favour me with your opinion.\n\"yours faithfully,\n\"tobias gregson.\"\n\"gregson is the smartest of the scotland yarders,\" my friend\nremarked; \"he and lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. they are both\nquick and energetic, but conventional--shockingly so. they have their\nknives into one another, too. they are as jealous as a pair of\nprofessional beauties. there will be some fun over this case if they\nare both put upon the scent.\"\ni was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. \"surely there is\nnot a moment to be lost,\" i cried, \"shall i go and order you a cab?\"\n\"i'm not sure about whether i shall go. i am the most incurably lazy\ndevil that ever stood in shoe leather--that is, when the fit is on\nme, for i can be spry enough at times.\"\n\"why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.\"\n\"my dear fellow, what does it matter to me. supposing i unravel the\nwhole matter, you may be sure that gregson, lestrade, and co. will\npocket all the credit. that comes of being an unofficial personage.\"\n\"but he begs you to help him.\"\n\"yes. he knows that i am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but\nhe would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third\nperson. however, we may as well go and have a look. i shall work it\nout on my own hook. i may have a laugh at them if i have nothing\nelse. come on!\"\nhe hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed\nthat an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.\n\"get your hat,\" he said.\n\"you wish me to come?\"\n\"yes, if you have nothing better to do.\" a minute later we were both\nin a hansom, driving furiously for the brixton road.\nit was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the\nhouse-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets\nbeneath. my companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away\nabout cremona fiddles, and the difference between a stradivarius and\nan amati. as for myself, i was silent, for the dull weather and the\nmelancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.\n\"you don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,\" i said\nat last, interrupting holmes' musical disquisition.\n\"no data yet,\" he answered. \"it is a capital mistake to theorize\nbefore you have all the evidence. it biases the judgment.\"\n\"you will have your data soon,\" i remarked, pointing with my finger;\n\"this is the brixton road, and that is the house, if i am not very\nmuch mistaken.\"\n\"so it is. stop, driver, stop!\" we were still a hundred yards or so\nfrom it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our\njourney upon foot.\nnumber 3, lauriston gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. it\nwas one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two\nbeing occupied and two empty. the latter looked out with three tiers\nof vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that\nhere and there a \"to let\" card had developed like a cataract upon the\nbleared panes. a small garden sprinkled over with a scattered\neruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the\nstreet, and was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour,\nand consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel. the\nwhole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through\nthe night. the garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a\nfringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning\na stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers,\nwho craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of\ncatching some glimpse of the proceedings within.\ni had imagined that sherlock holmes would at once have hurried into\nthe house and plunged into a study of the mystery. nothing appeared\nto be further from his intention. with an air of nonchalance which,\nunder the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he\nlounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground,\nthe sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. having\nfinished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather\ndown the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes\nriveted upon the ground. twice he stopped, and once i saw him smile,\nand heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction. there were many\nmarks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil, but since the police had\nbeen coming and going over it, i was unable to see how my companion\ncould hope to learn anything from it. still i had had such\nextraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties,\nthat i had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden\nfrom me.\nat the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,\nflaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward\nand wrung my companion's hand with effusion. \"it is indeed kind of\nyou to come,\" he said, \"i have had everything left untouched.\"\n\"except that!\" my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. \"if a\nherd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess.\nno doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, gregson,\nbefore you permitted this.\"\n\"i have had so much to do inside the house,\" the detective said\nevasively. \"my colleague, mr. lestrade, is here. i had relied upon\nhim to look after this.\"\nholmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. \"with two\nsuch men as yourself and lestrade upon the ground, there will not be\nmuch for a third party to find out,\" he said.\ngregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. \"i think we have\ndone all that can be done,\" he answered; \"it's a queer case though,\nand i knew your taste for such things.\"\n\"you did not come here in a cab?\" asked sherlock holmes.\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"nor lestrade?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"then let us go and look at the room.\" with which inconsequent remark\nhe strode on into the house, followed by gregson, whose features\nexpressed his astonishment.\na short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and\noffices. two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. one\nof these had obviously been closed for many weeks. the other belonged\nto the dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious\naffair had occurred. holmes walked in, and i followed him with that\nsubdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires.\nit was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence\nof all furniture. a vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it\nwas blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips\nhad become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster\nbeneath. opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a\nmantelpiece of imitation white marble. on one corner of this was\nstuck the stump of a red wax candle. the solitary window was so dirty\nthat the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to\neverything, which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which\ncoated the whole apartment.\nall these details i observed afterwards. at present my attention was\ncentred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched\nupon the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the\ndiscoloured ceiling. it was that of a man about forty-three or\nforty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp\ncurling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. he was dressed in a\nheavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured\ntrousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. a top hat, well brushed\nand trim, was placed upon the floor beside him. his hands were\nclenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were\ninterlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. on\nhis rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed\nto me, of hatred, such as i have never seen upon human features. this\nmalignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead,\nblunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly\nsimious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing,\nunnatural posture. i have seen death in many forms, but never has it\nappeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy\napartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban\nlondon.\nlestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway,\nand greeted my companion and myself.\n\"this case will make a stir, sir,\" he remarked. \"it beats anything i\nhave seen, and i am no chicken.\"\n\"there is no clue?\" said gregson.\n\"none at all,\" chimed in lestrade.\nsherlock holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it\nintently. \"you are sure that there is no wound?\" he asked, pointing\nto numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.\n\"positive!\" cried both detectives.\n\"then, of course, this blood belongs to a second\nindividual--presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. it\nreminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of van jansen,\nin utrecht, in the year '34. do you remember the case, gregson?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"read it up--you really should. there is nothing new under the sun.\nit has all been done before.\"\nas he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and\neverywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes\nwore the same far-away expression which i have already remarked upon.\nso swiftly was the examination made, that one would hardly have\nguessed the minuteness with which it was conducted. finally, he\nsniffed the dead man's lips, and then glanced at the soles of his\npatent leather boots.\n\"he has not been moved at all?\" he asked.\n\"no more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.\"\n\"you can take him to the mortuary now,\" he said. \"there is nothing\nmore to be learned.\"\ngregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. at his call they\nentered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. as\nthey raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor.\nlestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.\n\"there's been a woman here,\" he cried. \"it's a woman's wedding-ring.\"\nhe held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. we all\ngathered round him and gazed at it. there could be no doubt that that\ncirclet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.\n\"this complicates matters,\" said gregson. \"heaven knows, they were\ncomplicated enough before.\"\n\"you're sure it doesn't simplify them?\" observed holmes. \"there's\nnothing to be learned by staring at it. what did you find in his\npockets?\"\n\"we have it all here,\" said gregson, pointing to a litter of objects\nupon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. \"a gold watch, no. 97163,\nby barraud, of london. gold albert chain, very heavy and solid. gold\nring, with masonic device. gold pin--bull-dog's head, with rubies as\neyes. russian leather card-case, with cards of enoch j. drebber of\ncleveland, corresponding with the e. j. d. upon the linen. no purse,\nbut loose money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. pocket\nedition of boccaccio's 'decameron,' with name of joseph stangerson\nupon the fly-leaf. two letters--one addressed to e. j. drebber and\none to joseph stangerson.\"\n\"at what address?\"\n\"american exchange, strand--to be left till called for. they are both\nfrom the guion steamship company, and refer to the sailing of their\nboats from liverpool. it is clear that this unfortunate man was about\nto return to new york.\"\n\"have you made any inquiries as to this man, stangerson?\"\n\"i did it at once, sir,\" said gregson. \"i have had advertisements\nsent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the\namerican exchange, but he has not returned yet.\"\n\"have you sent to cleveland?\"\n\"we telegraphed this morning.\"\n\"how did you word your inquiries?\"\n\"we simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be\nglad of any information which could help us.\"\n\"you did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you\nto be crucial?\"\n\"i asked about stangerson.\"\n\"nothing else? is there no circumstance on which this whole case\nappears to hinge? will you not telegraph again?\"\n\"i have said all i have to say,\" said gregson, in an offended voice.\nsherlock holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make\nsome remark, when lestrade, who had been in the front room while we\nwere holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the\nscene, rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.\n\"mr. gregson,\" he said, \"i have just made a discovery of the highest\nimportance, and one which would have been overlooked had i not made a\ncareful examination of the walls.\"\nthe little man's eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in a\nstate of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his\ncolleague.\n\"come here,\" he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of\nwhich felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. \"now,\nstand there!\"\nhe struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.\n\"look at that!\" he said, triumphantly.\ni have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. in this\nparticular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a\nyellow square of coarse plastering. across this bare space there was\nscrawled in blood-red letters a single word--\nrache.\n\"what do you think of that?\" cried the detective, with the air of a\nshowman exhibiting his show. \"this was overlooked because it was in\nthe darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there.\nthe murderer has written it with his or her own blood. see this smear\nwhere it has trickled down the wall! that disposes of the idea of\nsuicide anyhow. why was that corner chosen to write it on? i will\ntell you. see that candle on the mantelpiece. it was lit at the time,\nand if it was lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the\ndarkest portion of the wall.\"\n\"and what does it mean now that you have found it?\" asked gregson in\na depreciatory voice.\n\"mean? why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name\nrachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. you\nmark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find\nthat a woman named rachel has something to do with it. it's all very\nwell for you to laugh, mr. sherlock holmes. you may be very smart and\nclever, but the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.\"\n\"i really beg your pardon!\" said my companion, who had ruffled the\nlittle man's temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. \"you\ncertainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,\nand, as you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the\nother participant in last night's mystery. i have not had time to\nexamine this room yet, but with your permission i shall do so now.\"\nas he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying\nglass from his pocket. with these two implements he trotted\nnoiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally\nkneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. so engrossed was he with\nhis occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for\nhe chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping\nup a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries\nsuggestive of encouragement and of hope. as i watched him i was\nirresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it\ndashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its\neagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. for twenty minutes\nor more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact\ncare the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me,\nand occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally\nincomprehensible manner. in one place he gathered up very carefully a\nlittle pile of grey dust from the floor, and packed it away in an\nenvelope. finally, he examined with his glass the word upon the wall,\ngoing over every letter of it with the most minute exactness. this\ndone, he appeared to be satisfied, for he replaced his tape and his\nglass in his pocket.\n\"they say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,\" he\nremarked with a smile. \"it's a very bad definition, but it does apply\nto detective work.\"\ngregson and lestrade had watched the manoeuvres of their amateur\ncompanion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. they\nevidently failed to appreciate the fact, which i had begun to\nrealize, that sherlock holmes' smallest actions were all directed\ntowards some definite and practical end.\n\"what do you think of it, sir?\" they both asked.\n\"it would be robbing you of the credit of the case if i was to\npresume to help you,\" remarked my friend. \"you are doing so well now\nthat it would be a pity for anyone to interfere.\" there was a world\nof sarcasm in his voice as he spoke. \"if you will let me know how\nyour investigations go,\" he continued, \"i shall be happy to give you\nany help i can. in the meantime i should like to speak to the\nconstable who found the body. can you give me his name and address?\"\nlestrade glanced at his note-book. \"john rance,\" he said. \"he is off\nduty now. you will find him at 46, audley court, kennington park\ngate.\"\nholmes took a note of the address.\n\"come along, doctor,\" he said; \"we shall go and look him up. i'll\ntell you one thing which may help you in the case,\" he continued,\nturning to the two detectives. \"there has been murder done, and the\nmurderer was a man. he was more than six feet high, was in the prime\nof life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed\nboots and smoked a trichinopoly cigar. he came here with his victim\nin a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old\nshoes and one new one on his off fore leg. in all probability the\nmurderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand\nwere remarkably long. these are only a few indications, but they may\nassist you.\"\nlestrade and gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.\n\"if this man was murdered, how was it done?\" asked the former.\n\"poison,\" said sherlock holmes curtly, and strode off. \"one other\nthing, lestrade,\" he added, turning round at the door: \"'rache,' is\nthe german for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for miss\nrachel.\"\nwith which parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals\nopen-mouthed behind him.\nchapter iv\nwhat john rance had to tell\nit was one o'clock when we left no. 3, lauriston gardens. sherlock\nholmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a\nlong telegram. he then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take\nus to the address given us by lestrade.\n\"there is nothing like first hand evidence,\" he remarked; \"as a\nmatter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still\nwe may as well learn all that is to be learned.\"\n\"you amaze me, holmes,\" said i. \"surely you are not as sure as you\npretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.\"\n\"there's no room for a mistake,\" he answered. \"the very first thing\nwhich i observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts\nwith its wheels close to the curb. now, up to last night, we have had\nno rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep\nimpression must have been there during the night. there were the\nmarks of the horse's hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far\nmore clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was\na new shoe. since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not\nthere at any time during the morning--i have gregson's word for\nthat--it follows that it must have been there during the night, and,\ntherefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.\"\n\"that seems simple enough,\" said i; \"but how about the other man's\nheight?\"\n\"why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from\nthe length of his stride. it is a simple calculation enough, though\nthere is no use my boring you with figures. i had this fellow's\nstride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. then i had a\nway of checking my calculation. when a man writes on a wall, his\ninstinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. now that\nwriting was just over six feet from the ground. it was child's play.\"\n\"and his age?\" i asked.\n\"well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest\neffort, he can't be quite in the sere and yellow. that was the\nbreadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked\nacross. patent-leather boots had gone round, and square-toes had\nhopped over. there is no mystery about it at all. i am simply\napplying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and\ndeduction which i advocated in that article. is there anything else\nthat puzzles you?\"\n\"the finger nails and the trichinopoly,\" i suggested.\n\"the writing on the wall was done with a man's forefinger dipped in\nblood. my glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly\nscratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the\nman's nail had been trimmed. i gathered up some scattered ash from\nthe floor. it was dark in colour and flakey--such an ash as is only\nmade by a trichinopoly. i have made a special study of cigar\nashes--in fact, i have written a monograph upon the subject. i\nflatter myself that i can distinguish at a glance the ash of any\nknown brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. it is just in such\ndetails that the skilled detective differs from the gregson and\nlestrade type.\"\n\"and the florid face?\" i asked.\n\"ah, that was a more daring shot, though i have no doubt that i was\nright. you must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.\"\ni passed my hand over my brow. \"my head is in a whirl,\" i remarked;\n\"the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. how came\nthese two men--if there were two men--into an empty house? what has\nbecome of the cabman who drove them? how could one man compel another\nto take poison? where did the blood come from? what was the object of\nthe murderer, since robbery had no part in it? how came the woman's\nring there? above all, why should the second man write up the german\nword rache before decamping? i confess that i cannot see any possible\nway of reconciling all these facts.\"\nmy companion smiled approvingly.\n\"you sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,\"\nhe said. \"there is much that is still obscure, though i have quite\nmade up my mind on the main facts. as to poor lestrade's discovery it\nwas simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by\nsuggesting socialism and secret societies. it was not done by a\ngerman. the a, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the german\nfashion. now, a real german invariably prints in the latin character,\nso that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a\nclumsy imitator who overdid his part. it was simply a ruse to divert\ninquiry into a wrong channel. i'm not going to tell you much more of\nthe case, doctor. you know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has\nexplained his trick, and if i show you too much of my method of\nworking, you will come to the conclusion that i am a very ordinary\nindividual after all.\"\n\"i shall never do that,\" i answered; \"you have brought detection as\nnear an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.\"\nmy companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest\nway in which i uttered them. i had already observed that he was as\nsensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of\nher beauty.\n\"i'll tell you one other thing,\" he said. \"patent-leathers and\nsquare-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway\ntogether as friendly as possible--arm-in-arm, in all probability.\nwhen they got inside they walked up and down the room--or rather,\npatent-leathers stood still while square-toes walked up and down. i\ncould read all that in the dust; and i could read that as he walked\nhe grew more and more excited. that is shown by the increased length\nof his strides. he was talking all the while, and working himself up,\nno doubt, into a fury. then the tragedy occurred. i've told you all i\nknow myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. we have\na good working basis, however, on which to start. we must hurry up,\nfor i want to go to halle's concert to hear norman neruda this\nafternoon.\"\nthis conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its\nway through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. in\nthe dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a\nstand. \"that's audley court in there,\" he said, pointing to a narrow\nslit in the line of dead-coloured brick. \"you'll find me here when\nyou come back.\"\naudley court was not an attractive locality. the narrow passage led\nus into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings.\nwe picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines\nof discoloured linen, until we came to number 46, the door of which\nwas decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name rance was\nengraved. on enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we\nwere shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.\nhe appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed\nin his slumbers. \"i made my report at the office,\" he said.\nholmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it\npensively. \"we thought that we should like to hear it all from your\nown lips,\" he said.\n\"i shall be most happy to tell you anything i can,\" the constable\nanswered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.\n\"just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.\"\nrance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though\ndetermined not to omit anything in his narrative.\n\"i'll tell it ye from the beginning,\" he said. \"my time is from ten\nat night to six in the morning. at eleven there was a fight at the\n'white hart'; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. at one\no'clock it began to rain, and i met harry murcher--him who has the\nholland grove beat--and we stood together at the corner of henrietta\nstreet a-talkin'. presently--maybe about two or a little after--i\nthought i would take a look round and see that all was right down the\nbrixton road. it was precious dirty and lonely. not a soul did i meet\nall the way down, though a cab or two went past me. i was a strollin'\ndown, thinkin' between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot\nwould be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the\nwindow of that same house. now, i knew that them two houses in\nlauriston gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who\nwon't have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived\nin one of them died o' typhoid fever. i was knocked all in a heap\ntherefore at seeing a light in the window, and i suspected as\nsomething was wrong. when i got to the door--\"\n\"you stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,\" my companion\ninterrupted. \"what did you do that for?\"\nrance gave a violent jump, and stared at sherlock holmes with the\nutmost amazement upon his features.\n\"why, that's true, sir,\" he said; \"though how you come to know it,\nheaven only knows. ye see, when i got up to the door it was so still\nand so lonesome, that i thought i'd be none the worse for some one\nwith me. i ain't afeared of anything on this side o' the grave; but i\nthought that maybe it was him that died o' the typhoid inspecting the\ndrains what killed him. the thought gave me a kind o' turn, and i\nwalked back to the gate to see if i could see murcher's lantern, but\nthere wasn't no sign of him nor of anyone else.\"\n\"there was no one in the street?\"\n\"not a livin' soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. then i pulled myself\ntogether and went back and pushed the door open. all was quiet\ninside, so i went into the room where the light was a-burnin'. there\nwas a candle flickerin' on the mantelpiece--a red wax one--and by its\nlight i saw--\"\n\"yes, i know all that you saw. you walked round the room several\ntimes, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through\nand tried the kitchen door, and then--\"\njohn rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in\nhis eyes. \"where was you hid to see all that?\" he cried. \"it seems to\nme that you knows a deal more than you should.\"\nholmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.\n\"don't get arresting me for the murder,\" he said. \"i am one of the\nhounds and not the wolf; mr. gregson or mr. lestrade will answer for\nthat. go on, though. what did you do next?\"\nrance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified\nexpression. \"i went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. that\nbrought murcher and two more to the spot.\"\n\"was the street empty then?\"\n\"well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.\"\n\"what do you mean?\"\nthe constable's features broadened into a grin. \"i've seen many a\ndrunk chap in my time,\" he said, \"but never anyone so cryin' drunk as\nthat cove. he was at the gate when i came out, a-leanin' up ag'in the\nrailings, and a-singin' at the pitch o' his lungs about columbine's\nnew-fangled banner, or some such stuff. he couldn't stand, far less\nhelp.\"\n\"what sort of a man was he?\" asked sherlock holmes.\njohn rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. \"he\nwas an uncommon drunk sort o' man,\" he said. \"he'd ha' found hisself\nin the station if we hadn't been so took up.\"\n\"his face--his dress--didn't you notice them?\" holmes broke in\nimpatiently.\n\"i should think i did notice them, seeing that i had to prop him\nup--me and murcher between us. he was a long chap, with a red face,\nthe lower part muffled round--\"\n\"that will do,\" cried holmes. \"what became of him?\"\n\"we'd enough to do without lookin' after him,\" the policeman said, in\nan aggrieved voice. \"i'll wager he found his way home all right.\"\n\"how was he dressed?\"\n\"a brown overcoat.\"\n\"had he a whip in his hand?\"\n\"a whip--no.\"\n\"he must have left it behind,\" muttered my companion. \"you didn't\nhappen to see or hear a cab after that?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"there's a half-sovereign for you,\" my companion said, standing up\nand taking his hat. \"i am afraid, rance, that you will never rise in\nthe force. that head of yours should be for use as well as ornament.\nyou might have gained your sergeant's stripes last night. the man\nwhom you held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this\nmystery, and whom we are seeking. there is no use of arguing about it\nnow; i tell you that it is so. come along, doctor.\"\nwe started off for the cab together, leaving our informant\nincredulous, but obviously uncomfortable.\n\"the blundering fool,\" holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our\nlodgings. \"just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of\ngood luck, and not taking advantage of it.\"\n\"i am rather in the dark still. it is true that the description of\nthis man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery.\nbut why should he come back to the house after leaving it? that is\nnot the way of criminals.\"\n\"the ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. if we have\nno other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the\nring. i shall have him, doctor--i'll lay you two to one that i have\nhim. i must thank you for it all. i might not have gone but for you,\nand so have missed the finest study i ever came across: a study in\nscarlet, eh? why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. there's the\nscarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of\nlife, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every\ninch of it. and now for lunch, and then for norman neruda. her attack\nand her bowing are splendid. what's that little thing of chopin's she\nplays so magnificently: tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.\"\nleaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a\nlark while i meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.\nchapter v\nour advertisement brings a visitor\nour morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health, and i\nwas tired out in the afternoon. after holmes' departure for the\nconcert, i lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of\nhours' sleep. it was a useless attempt. my mind had been too much\nexcited by all that had occurred, and the strangest fancies and\nsurmises crowded into it. every time that i closed my eyes i saw\nbefore me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the murdered man.\nso sinister was the impression which that face had produced upon me\nthat i found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who\nhad removed its owner from the world. if ever human features bespoke\nvice of the most malignant type, they were certainly those of enoch\nj. drebber, of cleveland. still i recognized that justice must be\ndone, and that the depravity of the victim was no condonement in the\neyes of the law.\nthe more i thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion's\nhypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. i remembered how\nhe had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected\nsomething which had given rise to the idea. then, again, if not\npoison, what had caused the man's death, since there was neither\nwound nor marks of strangulation? but, on the other hand, whose blood\nwas that which lay so thickly upon the floor? there were no signs of\na struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have\nwounded an antagonist. as long as all these questions were unsolved,\ni felt that sleep would be no easy matter, either for holmes or\nmyself. his quiet self-confident manner convinced me that he had\nalready formed a theory which explained all the facts, though what it\nwas i could not for an instant conjecture.\nhe was very late in returning--so late, that i knew that the concert\ncould not have detained him all the time. dinner was on the table\nbefore he appeared.\n\"it was magnificent,\" he said, as he took his seat. \"do you remember\nwhat darwin says about music? he claims that the power of producing\nand appreciating it existed among the human race long before the\npower of speech was arrived at. perhaps that is why we are so subtly\ninfluenced by it. there are vague memories in our souls of those\nmisty centuries when the world was in its childhood.\"\n\"that's rather a broad idea,\" i remarked.\n\"one's ideas must be as broad as nature if they are to interpret\nnature,\" he answered. \"what's the matter? you're not looking quite\nyourself. this brixton road affair has upset you.\"\n\"to tell the truth, it has,\" i said. \"i ought to be more\ncase-hardened after my afghan experiences. i saw my own comrades\nhacked to pieces at maiwand without losing my nerve.\"\n\"i can understand. there is a mystery about this which stimulates the\nimagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. have\nyou seen the evening paper?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"it gives a fairly good account of the affair. it does not mention\nthe fact that when the man was raised up, a woman's wedding ring fell\nupon the floor. it is just as well it does not.\"\n\"why?\"\n\"look at this advertisement,\" he answered. \"i had one sent to every\npaper this morning immediately after the affair.\"\nhe threw the paper across to me and i glanced at the place indicated.\nit was the first announcement in the \"found\" column. \"in brixton\nroad, this morning,\" it ran, \"a plain gold wedding ring, found in the\nroadway between the 'white hart' tavern and holland grove. apply dr.\nwatson, 221b, baker street, between eight and nine this evening.\"\n\"excuse my using your name,\" he said. \"if i used my own some of these\ndunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.\"\n\"that is all right,\" i answered. \"but supposing anyone applies, i\nhave no ring.\"\n\"oh yes, you have,\" said he, handing me one. \"this will do very well.\nit is almost a facsimile.\"\n\"and who do you expect will answer this advertisement.\"\n\"why, the man in the brown coat--our florid friend with the square\ntoes. if he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.\"\n\"would he not consider it as too dangerous?\"\n\"not at all. if my view of the case is correct, and i have every\nreason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything\nthan lose the ring. according to my notion he dropped it while\nstooping over drebber's body, and did not miss it at the time. after\nleaving the house he discovered his loss and hurried back, but found\nthe police already in possession, owing to his own folly in leaving\nthe candle burning. he had to pretend to be drunk in order to allay\nthe suspicions which might have been aroused by his appearance at the\ngate. now put yourself in that man's place. on thinking the matter\nover, it must have occurred to him that it was possible that he had\nlost the ring in the road after leaving the house. what would he do,\nthen? he would eagerly look out for the evening papers in the hope of\nseeing it among the articles found. his eye, of course, would light\nupon this. he would be overjoyed. why should he fear a trap? there\nwould be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be\nconnected with the murder. he would come. he will come. you shall see\nhim within an hour.\"\n\"and then?\" i asked.\n\"oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. have you any arms?\"\n\"i have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.\"\n\"you had better clean it and load it. he will be a desperate man, and\nthough i shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for\nanything.\"\ni went to my bedroom and followed his advice. when i returned with\nthe pistol the table had been cleared, and holmes was engaged in his\nfavourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.\n\"the plot thickens,\" he said, as i entered; \"i have just had an\nanswer to my american telegram. my view of the case is the correct\none.\"\n\"and that is?\" i asked eagerly.\n\"my fiddle would be the better for new strings,\" he remarked. \"put\nyour pistol in your pocket. when the fellow comes speak to him in an\nordinary way. leave the rest to me. don't frighten him by looking at\nhim too hard.\"\n\"it is eight o'clock now,\" i said, glancing at my watch.\n\"yes. he will probably be here in a few minutes. open the door\nslightly. that will do. now put the key on the inside. thank you!\nthis is a queer old book i picked up at a stall yesterday--de jure\ninter gentes--published in latin at liege in the lowlands, in 1642.\ncharles' head was still firm on his shoulders when this little\nbrown-backed volume was struck off.\"\n\"who is the printer?\"\n\"philippe de croy, whoever he may have been. on the fly-leaf, in very\nfaded ink, is written 'ex libris guliolmi whyte.' i wonder who\nwilliam whyte was. some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, i\nsuppose. his writing has a legal twist about it. here comes our man,\ni think.\"\nas he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. sherlock holmes rose\nsoftly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. we heard the\nservant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she\nopened it.\n\"does dr. watson live here?\" asked a clear but rather harsh voice. we\ncould not hear the servant's reply, but the door closed, and some one\nbegan to ascend the stairs. the footfall was an uncertain and\nshuffling one. a look of surprise passed over the face of my\ncompanion as he listened to it. it came slowly along the passage, and\nthere was a feeble tap at the door.\n\"come in,\" i cried.\nat my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a\nvery old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. she appeared\nto be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a\ncurtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling\nin her pocket with nervous, shaky fingers. i glanced at my companion,\nand his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was\nall i could do to keep my countenance.\nthe old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our\nadvertisement. \"it's this as has brought me, good gentlemen,\" she\nsaid, dropping another curtsey; \"a gold wedding ring in the brixton\nroad. it belongs to my girl sally, as was married only this time\ntwelvemonth, which her husband is steward aboard a union boat, and\nwhat he'd say if he comes 'ome and found her without her ring is more\nthan i can think, he being short enough at the best o' times, but\nmore especially when he has the drink. if it please you, she went to\nthe circus last night along with--\"\n\"is that her ring?\" i asked.\n\"the lord be thanked!\" cried the old woman; \"sally will be a glad\nwoman this night. that's the ring.\"\n\"and what may your address be?\" i inquired, taking up a pencil.\n\"13, duncan street, houndsditch. a weary way from here.\"\n\"the brixton road does not lie between any circus and houndsditch,\"\nsaid sherlock holmes sharply.\nthe old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little\nred-rimmed eyes. \"the gentleman asked me for my address,\" she said.\n\"sally lives in lodgings at 3, mayfield place, peckham.\"\n\"and your name is--?\"\n\"my name is sawyer--her's is dennis, which tom dennis married\nher--and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he's at sea, and no\nsteward in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what with\nthe women and what with liquor shops--\"\n\"here is your ring, mrs. sawyer,\" i interrupted, in obedience to a\nsign from my companion; \"it clearly belongs to your daughter, and i\nam glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.\"\nwith many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old\ncrone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs.\nsherlock holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and\nrushed into his room. he returned in a few seconds enveloped in an\nulster and a cravat. \"i'll follow her,\" he said, hurriedly; \"she must\nbe an accomplice, and will lead me to him. wait up for me.\" the hall\ndoor had hardly slammed behind our visitor before holmes had\ndescended the stair. looking through the window i could see her\nwalking feebly along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her\nsome little distance behind. \"either his whole theory is incorrect,\"\ni thought to myself, \"or else he will be led now to the heart of the\nmystery.\" there was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for\ni felt that sleep was impossible until i heard the result of his\nadventure.\nit was close upon nine when he set out. i had no idea how long he\nmight be, but i sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the\npages of henri murger's vie de bohme. ten o'clock passed, and i\nheard the footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. eleven,\nand the more stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for\nthe same destination. it was close upon twelve before i heard the\nsharp sound of his latch-key. the instant he entered i saw by his\nface that he had not been successful. amusement and chagrin seemed to\nbe struggling for the mastery, until the former suddenly carried the\nday, and he burst into a hearty laugh.\n\"i wouldn't have the scotland yarders know it for the world,\" he\ncried, dropping into his chair; \"i have chaffed them so much that\nthey would never have let me hear the end of it. i can afford to\nlaugh, because i know that i will be even with them in the long run.\"\n\"what is it then?\" i asked.\n\"oh, i don't mind telling a story against myself. that creature had\ngone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being\nfoot-sore. presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler\nwhich was passing. i managed to be close to her so as to hear the\naddress, but i need not have been so anxious, for she sang it out\nloud enough to be heard at the other side of the street, 'drive to\n13, duncan street, houndsditch,' she cried. this begins to look\ngenuine, i thought, and having seen her safely inside, i perched\nmyself behind. that's an art which every detective should be an\nexpert at. well, away we rattled, and never drew rein until we\nreached the street in question. i hopped off before we came to the\ndoor, and strolled down the street in an easy, lounging way. i saw\nthe cab pull up. the driver jumped down, and i saw him open the door\nand stand expectantly. nothing came out though. when i reached him he\nwas groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to\nthe finest assorted collection of oaths that ever i listened to.\nthere was no sign or trace of his passenger, and i fear it will be\nsome time before he gets his fare. on inquiring at number 13 we found\nthat the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named keswick,\nand that no one of the name either of sawyer or dennis had ever been\nheard of there.\"\n\"you don't mean to say,\" i cried, in amazement, \"that that tottering,\nfeeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in\nmotion, without either you or the driver seeing her?\"\n\"old woman be damned!\" said sherlock holmes, sharply. \"we were the\nold women to be so taken in. it must have been a young man, and an\nactive one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. the get-up was\ninimitable. he saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this\nmeans of giving me the slip. it shows that the man we are after is\nnot as lonely as i imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to\nrisk something for him. now, doctor, you are looking done-up. take my\nadvice and turn in.\"\ni was certainly feeling very weary, so i obeyed his injunction. i\nleft holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into\nthe watches of the night i heard the low, melancholy wailings of his\nviolin, and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem\nwhich he had set himself to unravel.\nchapter vi\ntobias gregson shows what he can do\nthe papers next day were full of the \"brixton mystery,\" as they\ntermed it. each had a long account of the affair, and some had\nleaders upon it in addition. there was some information in them which\nwas new to me. i still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and\nextracts bearing upon the case. here is a condensation of a few of\nthem:--\nthe daily telegraph remarked that in the history of crime there had\nseldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. the german\nname of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister\ninscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political\nrefugees and revolutionists. the socialists had many branches in\namerica, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten\nlaws, and been tracked down by them. after alluding airily to the\nvehmgericht, aqua tofana, carbonari, the marchioness de brinvilliers,\nthe darwinian theory, the principles of malthus, and the ratcliff\nhighway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the government\nand advocating a closer watch over foreigners in england.\nthe standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the\nsort usually occurred under a liberal administration. they arose from\nthe unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent\nweakening of all authority. the deceased was an american gentleman\nwho had been residing for some weeks in the metropolis. he had stayed\nat the boarding-house of madame charpentier, in torquay terrace,\ncamberwell. he was accompanied in his travels by his private\nsecretary, mr. joseph stangerson. the two bade adieu to their\nlandlady upon tuesday, the 4th inst., and departed to euston station\nwith the avowed intention of catching the liverpool express. they\nwere afterwards seen together upon the platform. nothing more is\nknown of them until mr. drebber's body was, as recorded, discovered\nin an empty house in the brixton road, many miles from euston. how he\ncame there, or how he met his fate, are questions which are still\ninvolved in mystery. nothing is known of the whereabouts of\nstangerson. we are glad to learn that mr. lestrade and mr. gregson,\nof scotland yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it is\nconfidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily\nthrow light upon the matter.\nthe daily news observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being\na political one. the despotism and hatred of liberalism which\nanimated the continental governments had had the effect of driving to\nour shores a number of men who might have made excellent citizens\nwere they not soured by the recollection of all that they had\nundergone. among these men there was a stringent code of honour, any\ninfringement of which was punished by death. every effort should be\nmade to find the secretary, stangerson, and to ascertain some\nparticulars of the habits of the deceased. a great step had been\ngained by the discovery of the address of the house at which he had\nboarded--a result which was entirely due to the acuteness and energy\nof mr. gregson of scotland yard.\nsherlock holmes and i read these notices over together at breakfast,\nand they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.\n\"i told you that, whatever happened, lestrade and gregson would be\nsure to score.\"\n\"that depends on how it turns out.\"\n\"oh, bless you, it doesn't matter in the least. if the man is caught,\nit will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be\nin spite of their exertions. it's heads i win and tails you lose.\nwhatever they do, they will have followers. 'un sot trouve toujours\nun plus sot qui l'admire.'\"\n\"what on earth is this?\" i cried, for at this moment there came the\npattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by\naudible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.\n\"it's the baker street division of the detective police force,\" said\nmy companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room\nhalf a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street arabs that ever i\nclapped eyes on.\n\"'tention!\" cried holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little\nscoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. \"in\nfuture you shall send up wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you\nmust wait in the street. have you found it, wiggins?\"\n\"no, sir, we hain't,\" said one of the youths.\n\"i hardly expected you would. you must keep on until you do. here are\nyour wages.\" he handed each of them a shilling. \"now, off you go, and\ncome back with a better report next time.\"\nhe waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many\nrats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.\n\"there's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than\nout of a dozen of the force,\" holmes remarked. \"the mere sight of an\nofficial-looking person seals men's lips. these youngsters, however,\ngo everywhere and hear everything. they are as sharp as needles, too;\nall they want is organisation.\"\n\"is it on this brixton case that you are employing them?\" i asked.\n\"yes; there is a point which i wish to ascertain. it is merely a\nmatter of time. hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a\nvengeance! here is gregson coming down the road with beatitude\nwritten upon every feature of his face. bound for us, i know. yes, he\nis stopping. there he is!\"\nthere was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the\nfair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and\nburst into our sitting-room.\n\"my dear fellow,\" he cried, wringing holmes' unresponsive hand,\n\"congratulate me! i have made the whole thing as clear as day.\"\na shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion's expressive\nface.\n\"do you mean that you are on the right track?\" he asked.\n\"the right track! why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.\"\n\"and his name is?\"\n\"arthur charpentier, sub-lieutenant in her majesty's navy,\" cried\ngregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.\nsherlock holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.\n\"take a seat, and try one of these cigars,\" he said. \"we are anxious\nto know how you managed it. will you have some whiskey and water?\"\n\"i don't mind if i do,\" the detective answered. \"the tremendous\nexertions which i have gone through during the last day or two have\nworn me out. not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the\nstrain upon the mind. you will appreciate that, mr. sherlock holmes,\nfor we are both brain-workers.\"\n\"you do me too much honour,\" said holmes, gravely. \"let us hear how\nyou arrived at this most gratifying result.\"\nthe detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed\ncomplacently at his cigar. then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a\nparoxysm of amusement.\n\"the fun of it is,\" he cried, \"that that fool lestrade, who thinks\nhimself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. he is\nafter the secretary stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime\nthan the babe unborn. i have no doubt that he has caught him by this\ntime.\"\nthe idea tickled gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.\n\"and how did you get your clue?\"\n\"ah, i'll tell you all about it. of course, doctor watson, this is\nstrictly between ourselves. the first difficulty which we had to\ncontend with was the finding of this american's antecedents. some\npeople would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or\nuntil parties came forward and volunteered information. that is not\ntobias gregson's way of going to work. you remember the hat beside\nthe dead man?\"\n\"yes,\" said holmes; \"by john underwood and sons, 129, camberwell\nroad.\"\ngregson looked quite crest-fallen.\n\"i had no idea that you noticed that,\" he said. \"have you been\nthere?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"ha!\" cried gregson, in a relieved voice; \"you should never neglect a\nchance, however small it may seem.\"\n\"to a great mind, nothing is little,\" remarked holmes, sententiously.\n\"well, i went to underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of\nthat size and description. he looked over his books, and came on it\nat once. he had sent the hat to a mr. drebber, residing at\ncharpentier's boarding establishment, torquay terrace. thus i got at\nhis address.\"\n\"smart--very smart!\" murmured sherlock holmes.\n\"i next called upon madame charpentier,\" continued the detective. \"i\nfound her very pale and distressed. her daughter was in the room,\ntoo--an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about\nthe eyes and her lips trembled as i spoke to her. that didn't escape\nmy notice. i began to smell a rat. you know the feeling, mr. sherlock\nholmes, when you come upon the right scent--a kind of thrill in your\nnerves. 'have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder\nmr. enoch j. drebber, of cleveland?' i asked.\n\"the mother nodded. she didn't seem able to get out a word. the\ndaughter burst into tears. i felt more than ever that these people\nknew something of the matter.\n\"'at what o'clock did mr. drebber leave your house for the train?' i\nasked.\n\"'at eight o'clock,' she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her\nagitation. 'his secretary, mr. stangerson, said that there were two\ntrains--one at 9.15 and one at 11. he was to catch the first.'\n\"'and was that the last which you saw of him?'\n\"a terrible change came over the woman's face as i asked the\nquestion. her features turned perfectly livid. it was some seconds\nbefore she could get out the single word 'yes'--and when it did come\nit was in a husky unnatural tone.\n\"there was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a\ncalm clear voice.\n\"'no good can ever come of falsehood, mother,' she said. 'let us be\nfrank with this gentleman. we did see mr. drebber again.'\n\"'god forgive you!' cried madame charpentier, throwing up her hands\nand sinking back in her chair. 'you have murdered your brother.'\n\"'arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,' the girl answered\nfirmly.\n\"'you had best tell me all about it now,' i said. 'half-confidences\nare worse than none. besides, you do not know how much we know of\nit.'\n\"'on your head be it, alice!' cried her mother; and then, turning to\nme, 'i will tell you all, sir. do not imagine that my agitation on\nbehalf of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand\nin this terrible affair. he is utterly innocent of it. my dread is,\nhowever, that in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to\nbe compromised. that however is surely impossible. his high\ncharacter, his profession, his antecedents would all forbid it.'\n\"'your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,' i answered.\n'depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.'\n\"'perhaps, alice, you had better leave us together,' she said, and\nher daughter withdrew. 'now, sir,' she continued, 'i had no intention\nof telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it\ni have no alternative. having once decided to speak, i will tell you\nall without omitting any particular.'\n\"'it is your wisest course,' said i.\n\"'mr. drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. he and his\nsecretary, mr. stangerson, had been travelling on the continent. i\nnoticed a \"copenhagen\" label upon each of their trunks, showing that\nthat had been their last stopping place. stangerson was a quiet\nreserved man, but his employer, i am sorry to say, was far otherwise.\nhe was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways. the very night\nof his arrival he became very much the worse for drink, and, indeed,\nafter twelve o'clock in the day he could hardly ever be said to be\nsober. his manners towards the maid-servants were disgustingly free\nand familiar. worst of all, he speedily assumed the same attitude\ntowards my daughter, alice, and spoke to her more than once in a way\nwhich, fortunately, she is too innocent to understand. on one\noccasion he actually seized her in his arms and embraced her--an\noutrage which caused his own secretary to reproach him for his\nunmanly conduct.'\n\"'but why did you stand all this,' i asked. 'i suppose that you can\nget rid of your boarders when you wish.'\n\"mrs. charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. 'would to god\nthat i had given him notice on the very day that he came,' she said.\n'but it was a sore temptation. they were paying a pound a day\neach--fourteen pounds a week, and this is the slack season. i am a\nwidow, and my boy in the navy has cost me much. i grudged to lose the\nmoney. i acted for the best. this last was too much, however, and i\ngave him notice to leave on account of it. that was the reason of his\ngoing.'\n\"'well?'\n\"'my heart grew light when i saw him drive away. my son is on leave\njust now, but i did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper\nis violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. when i closed\nthe door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. alas,\nin less than an hour there was a ring at the bell, and i learned that\nmr. drebber had returned. he was much excited, and evidently the\nworse for drink. he forced his way into the room, where i was sitting\nwith my daughter, and made some incoherent remark about having missed\nhis train. he then turned to alice, and before my very face, proposed\nto her that she should fly with him. \"you are of age,\" he said, \"and\nthere is no law to stop you. i have money enough and to spare. never\nmind the old girl here, but come along with me now straight away. you\nshall live like a princess.\" poor alice was so frightened that she\nshrunk away from him, but he caught her by the wrist and endeavoured\nto draw her towards the door. i screamed, and at that moment my son\narthur came into the room. what happened then i do not know. i heard\noaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle. i was too terrified to\nraise my head. when i did look up i saw arthur standing in the\ndoorway laughing, with a stick in his hand. \"i don't think that fine\nfellow will trouble us again,\" he said. \"i will just go after him and\nsee what he does with himself.\" with those words he took his hat and\nstarted off down the street. the next morning we heard of mr.\ndrebber's mysterious death.'\n\"this statement came from mrs. charpentier's lips with many gasps and\npauses. at times she spoke so low that i could hardly catch the\nwords. i made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that\nthere should be no possibility of a mistake.\"\n\"it's quite exciting,\" said sherlock holmes, with a yawn. \"what\nhappened next?\"\n\"when mrs. charpentier paused,\" the detective continued, \"i saw that\nthe whole case hung upon one point. fixing her with my eye in a way\nwhich i always found effective with women, i asked her at what hour\nher son returned.\n\"'i do not know,' she answered.\n\"'not know?'\n\"'no; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.'\n\"'after you went to bed?'\n\"'yes.'\n\"'when did you go to bed?'\n\"'about eleven.'\n\"'so your son was gone at least two hours?'\n\"'yes.'\n\"'possibly four or five?'\n\"'yes.'\n\"'what was he doing during that time?'\n\"'i do not know,' she answered, turning white to her very lips.\n\"of course after that there was nothing more to be done. i found out\nwhere lieutenant charpentier was, took two officers with me, and\narrested him. when i touched him on the shoulder and warned him to\ncome quietly with us, he answered us as bold as brass, 'i suppose you\nare arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel\ndrebber,' he said. we had said nothing to him about it, so that his\nalluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.\"\n\"very,\" said holmes.\n\"he still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as\nhaving with him when he followed drebber. it was a stout oak cudgel.\"\n\"what is your theory, then?\"\n\"well, my theory is that he followed drebber as far as the brixton\nroad. when there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the\ncourse of which drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of\nthe stomach, perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. the\nnight was so wet that no one was about, so charpentier dragged the\nbody of his victim into the empty house. as to the candle, and the\nblood, and the writing on the wall, and the ring, they may all be so\nmany tricks to throw the police on to the wrong scent.\"\n\"well done!\" said holmes in an encouraging voice. \"really, gregson,\nyou are getting along. we shall make something of you yet.\"\n\"i flatter myself that i have managed it rather neatly,\" the\ndetective answered proudly. \"the young man volunteered a statement,\nin which he said that after following drebber some time, the latter\nperceived him, and took a cab in order to get away from him. on his\nway home he met an old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. on\nbeing asked where this old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any\nsatisfactory reply. i think the whole case fits together uncommonly\nwell. what amuses me is to think of lestrade, who had started off\nupon the wrong scent. i am afraid he won't make much of--why, by\njove, here's the very man himself!\"\nit was indeed lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were\ntalking, and who now entered the room. the assurance and jauntiness\nwhich generally marked his demeanour and dress were, however,\nwanting. his face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were\ndisarranged and untidy. he had evidently come with the intention of\nconsulting with sherlock holmes, for on perceiving his colleague he\nappeared to be embarrassed and put out. he stood in the centre of the\nroom, fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. \"this\nis a most extraordinary case,\" he said at last--\"a most\nincomprehensible affair.\"\n\"ah, you find it so, mr. lestrade!\" cried gregson, triumphantly. \"i\nthought you would come to that conclusion. have you managed to find\nthe secretary, mr. joseph stangerson?\"\n\"the secretary, mr. joseph stangerson,\" said lestrade gravely, \"was\nmurdered at halliday's private hotel about six o'clock this morning.\"\nchapter vii\nlight in the darkness\nthe intelligence with which lestrade greeted us was so momentous and\nso unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumbfounded. gregson\nsprang out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and\nwater. i stared in silence at sherlock holmes, whose lips were\ncompressed and his brows drawn down over his eyes.\n\"stangerson too!\" he muttered. \"the plot thickens.\"\n\"it was quite thick enough before,\" grumbled lestrade, taking a\nchair. \"i seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.\"\n\"are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?\" stammered\ngregson.\n\"i have just come from his room,\" said lestrade. \"i was the first to\ndiscover what had occurred.\"\n\"we have been hearing gregson's view of the matter,\" holmes observed.\n\"would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?\"\n\"i have no objection,\" lestrade answered, seating himself. \"i freely\nconfess that i was of the opinion that stangerson was concerned in\nthe death of drebber. this fresh development has shown me that i was\ncompletely mistaken. full of the one idea, i set myself to find out\nwhat had become of the secretary. they had been seen together at\neuston station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. at\ntwo in the morning drebber had been found in the brixton road. the\nquestion which confronted me was to find out how stangerson had been\nemployed between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become\nof him afterwards. i telegraphed to liverpool, giving a description\nof the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the american boats.\ni then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in\nthe vicinity of euston. you see, i argued that if drebber and his\ncompanion had become separated, the natural course for the latter\nwould be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then\nto hang about the station again next morning.\"\n\"they would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,\"\nremarked holmes.\n\"so it proved. i spent the whole of yesterday evening in making\nenquiries entirely without avail. this morning i began very early,\nand at eight o'clock i reached halliday's private hotel, in little\ngeorge street. on my enquiry as to whether a mr. stangerson was\nliving there, they at once answered me in the affirmative.\n\"'no doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they said.\n'he has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'\n\"'where is he now?' i asked.\n\"'he is upstairs in bed. he wished to be called at nine.'\n\"'i will go up and see him at once,' i said.\n\"it seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and\nlead him to say something unguarded. the boots volunteered to show me\nthe room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor\nleading up to it. the boots pointed out the door to me, and was about\nto go downstairs again when i saw something that made me feel\nsickish, in spite of my twenty years' experience. from under the door\nthere curled a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across\nthe passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other\nside. i gave a cry, which brought the boots back. he nearly fainted\nwhen he saw it. the door was locked on the inside, but we put our\nshoulders to it, and knocked it in. the window of the room was open,\nand beside the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his\nnightdress. he was quite dead, and had been for some time, for his\nlimbs were rigid and cold. when we turned him over, the boots\nrecognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had engaged\nthe room under the name of joseph stangerson. the cause of death was\na deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart.\nand now comes the strangest part of the affair. what do you suppose\nwas above the murdered man?\"\ni felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,\neven before sherlock holmes answered.\n\"the word rache, written in letters of blood,\" he said.\n\"that was it,\" said lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all\nsilent for a while.\nthere was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the\ndeeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness\nto his crimes. my nerves, which were steady enough on the field of\nbattle tingled as i thought of it.\n\"the man was seen,\" continued lestrade. \"a milk boy, passing on his\nway to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the\nmews at the back of the hotel. he noticed that a ladder, which\nusually lay there, was raised against one of the windows of the\nsecond floor, which was wide open. after passing, he looked back and\nsaw a man descend the ladder. he came down so quietly and openly that\nthe boy imagined him to be some carpenter or joiner at work in the\nhotel. he took no particular notice of him, beyond thinking in his\nown mind that it was early for him to be at work. he has an\nimpression that the man was tall, had a reddish face, and was dressed\nin a long, brownish coat. he must have stayed in the room some little\ntime after the murder, for we found blood-stained water in the basin,\nwhere he had washed his hands, and marks on the sheets where he had\ndeliberately wiped his knife.\"\ni glanced at holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which\ntallied so exactly with his own. there was, however, no trace of\nexultation or satisfaction upon his face.\n\"did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the\nmurderer?\" he asked.\n\"nothing. stangerson had drebber's purse in his pocket, but it seems\nthat this was usual, as he did all the paying. there was eighty odd\npounds in it, but nothing had been taken. whatever the motives of\nthese extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them.\nthere were no papers or memoranda in the murdered man's pocket,\nexcept a single telegram, dated from cleveland about a month ago, and\ncontaining the words, 'j. h. is in europe.' there was no name\nappended to this message.\"\n\"and there was nothing else?\" holmes asked.\n\"nothing of any importance. the man's novel, with which he had read\nhimself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair\nbeside him. there was a glass of water on the table, and on the\nwindow-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.\"\nsherlock holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.\n\"the last link,\" he cried, exultantly. \"my case is complete.\"\nthe two detectives stared at him in amazement.\n\"i have now in my hands,\" my companion said, confidently, \"all the\nthreads which have formed such a tangle. there are, of course,\ndetails to be filled in, but i am as certain of all the main facts,\nfrom the time that drebber parted from stangerson at the station, up\nto the discovery of the body of the latter, as if i had seen them\nwith my own eyes. i will give you a proof of my knowledge. could you\nlay your hand upon those pills?\"\n\"i have them,\" said lestrade, producing a small white box; \"i took\nthem and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a\nplace of safety at the police station. it was the merest chance my\ntaking these pills, for i am bound to say that i do not attach any\nimportance to them.\"\n\"give them here,\" said holmes. \"now, doctor,\" turning to me, \"are\nthose ordinary pills?\"\nthey certainly were not. they were of a pearly grey colour, small,\nround, and almost transparent against the light. \"from their\nlightness and transparency, i should imagine that they are soluble in\nwater,\" i remarked.\n\"precisely so,\" answered holmes. \"now would you mind going down and\nfetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so\nlong, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain\nyesterday.\"\ni went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. it's\nlaboured breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from\nits end. indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already\nexceeded the usual term of canine existence. i placed it upon a\ncushion on the rug.\n\"i will now cut one of these pills in two,\" said holmes, and drawing\nhis penknife he suited the action to the word. \"one half we return\ninto the box for future purposes. the other half i will place in this\nwine glass, in which is a teaspoonful of water. you perceive that our\nfriend, the doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.\"\n\"this may be very interesting,\" said lestrade, in the injured tone of\none who suspects that he is being laughed at, \"i cannot see, however,\nwhat it has to do with the death of mr. joseph stangerson.\"\n\"patience, my friend, patience! you will find in time that it has\neverything to do with it. i shall now add a little milk to make the\nmixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he\nlaps it up readily enough.\"\nas he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer\nand placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry.\nsherlock holmes' earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we\nall sat in silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some\nstartling effect. none such appeared, however. the dog continued to\nlie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but\napparently neither the better nor the worse for its draught.\nholmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without\nresult, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment\nappeared upon his features. he gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers\nupon the table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience.\nso great was his emotion, that i felt sincerely sorry for him, while\nthe two detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this\ncheck which he had met.\n\"it can't be a coincidence,\" he cried, at last springing from his\nchair and pacing wildly up and down the room; \"it is impossible that\nit should be a mere coincidence. the very pills which i suspected in\nthe case of drebber are actually found after the death of stangerson.\nand yet they are inert. what can it mean? surely my whole chain of\nreasoning cannot have been false. it is impossible! and yet this\nwretched dog is none the worse. ah, i have it! i have it!\" with a\nperfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in\ntwo, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. the\nunfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in\nit before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid\nand lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.\nsherlock holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from\nhis forehead. \"i should have more faith,\" he said; \"i ought to know\nby this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train\nof deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some\nother interpretation. of the two pills in that box one was of the\nmost deadly poison, and the other was entirely harmless. i ought to\nhave known that before ever i saw the box at all.\"\nthis last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that i could\nhardly believe that he was in his sober senses. there was the dead\ndog, however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. it\nseemed to me that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing\naway, and i began to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.\n\"all this seems strange to you,\" continued holmes, \"because you\nfailed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the\nsingle real clue which was presented to you. i had the good fortune\nto seize upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has\nserved to confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the\nlogical sequence of it. hence things which have perplexed you and\nmade the case more obscure, have served to enlighten me and to\nstrengthen my conclusions. it is a mistake to confound strangeness\nwith mystery. the most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious\nbecause it presents no new or special features from which deductions\nmay be drawn. this murder would have been infinitely more difficult\nto unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the\nroadway without any of those outr and sensational accompaniments\nwhich have rendered it remarkable. these strange details, far from\nmaking the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making\nit less so.\"\nmr. gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable\nimpatience, could contain himself no longer. \"look here, mr. sherlock\nholmes,\" he said, \"we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a\nsmart man, and that you have your own methods of working. we want\nsomething more than mere theory and preaching now, though. it is a\ncase of taking the man. i have made my case out, and it seems i was\nwrong. young charpentier could not have been engaged in this second\naffair. lestrade went after his man, stangerson, and it appears that\nhe was wrong too. you have thrown out hints here, and hints there,\nand seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we feel\nthat we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of the\nbusiness. can you name the man who did it?\"\n\"i cannot help feeling that gregson is right, sir,\" remarked\nlestrade. \"we have both tried, and we have both failed. you have\nremarked more than once since i have been in the room that you had\nall the evidence which you require. surely you will not withhold it\nany longer.\"\n\"any delay in arresting the assassin,\" i observed, \"might give him\ntime to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.\"\nthus pressed by us all, holmes showed signs of irresolution. he\ncontinued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his\nchest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in\nthought.\n\"there will be no more murders,\" he said at last, stopping abruptly\nand facing us. \"you can put that consideration out of the question.\nyou have asked me if i know the name of the assassin. i do. the mere\nknowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the\npower of laying our hands upon him. this i expect very shortly to do.\ni have good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it\nis a thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and\ndesperate man to deal with, who is supported, as i have had occasion\nto prove, by another who is as clever as himself. as long as this man\nhas no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of\nsecuring him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change\nhis name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants\nof this great city. without meaning to hurt either of your feelings,\ni am bound to say that i consider these men to be more than a match\nfor the official force, and that is why i have not asked your\nassistance. if i fail i shall, of course, incur all the blame due to\nthis omission; but that i am prepared for. at present i am ready to\npromise that the instant that i can communicate with you without\nendangering my own combinations, i shall do so.\"\ngregson and lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this\nassurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police.\nthe former had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the\nother's beady eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. neither\nof them had time to speak, however, before there was a tap at the\ndoor, and the spokesman of the street arabs, young wiggins,\nintroduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.\n\"please, sir,\" he said, touching his forelock, \"i have the cab\ndownstairs.\"\n\"good boy,\" said holmes, blandly. \"why don't you introduce this\npattern at scotland yard?\" he continued, taking a pair of steel\nhandcuffs from a drawer. \"see how beautifully the spring works. they\nfasten in an instant.\"\n\"the old pattern is good enough,\" remarked lestrade, \"if we can only\nfind the man to put them on.\"\n\"very good, very good,\" said holmes, smiling. \"the cabman may as well\nhelp me with my boxes. just ask him to step up, wiggins.\"\ni was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about\nto set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about\nit. there was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out\nand began to strap. he was busily engaged at it when the cabman\nentered the room.\n\"just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,\" he said, kneeling\nover his task, and never turning his head.\nthe fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put\ndown his hands to assist. at that instant there was a sharp click,\nthe jangling of metal, and sherlock holmes sprang to his feet again.\n\"gentlemen,\" he cried, with flashing eyes, \"let me introduce you to\nmr. jefferson hope, the murderer of enoch drebber and of joseph\nstangerson.\"\nthe whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that i had no time\nto realize it. i have a vivid recollection of that instant, of\nholmes' triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the\ncabman's dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering\nhandcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. for a\nsecond or two we might have been a group of statues. then, with an\ninarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched himself free from\nholmes's grasp, and hurled himself through the window. woodwork and\nglass gave way before him; but before he got quite through, gregson,\nlestrade, and holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. he was\ndragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict.\nso powerful and so fierce was he, that the four of us were shaken off\nagain and again. he appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man\nin an epileptic fit. his face and hands were terribly mangled by his\npassage through the glass, but loss of blood had no effect in\ndiminishing his resistance. it was not until lestrade succeeded in\ngetting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we\nmade him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and even then\nwe felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his\nhands. that done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.\n\"we have his cab,\" said sherlock holmes. \"it will serve to take him\nto scotland yard. and now, gentlemen,\" he continued, with a pleasant\nsmile, \"we have reached the end of our little mystery. you are very\nwelcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no\ndanger that i will refuse to answer them.\"\npart ii\nthe country of the saints.\nchapter i\non the great alkali plain\nin the central portion of the great north american continent there\nlies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served\nas a barrier against the advance of civilisation. from the sierra\nnevada to nebraska, and from the yellowstone river in the north to\nthe colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence.\nnor is nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. it\ncomprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy\nvalleys. there are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged\ncaons; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with\nsnow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust. they all\npreserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness,\ninhospitality, and misery.\nthere are no inhabitants of this land of despair. a band of pawnees\nor of blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other\nhunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose\nsight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon\ntheir prairies. the coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps\nheavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through\nthe dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the\nrocks. these are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.\nin the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from\nthe northern slope of the sierra blanco. as far as the eye can reach\nstretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of\nalkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes.\non the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain\npeaks, with their rugged summits flecked with snow. in this great\nstretch of country there is no sign of life, nor of anything\nappertaining to life. there is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no\nmovement upon the dull, grey earth--above all, there is absolute\nsilence. listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that\nmighty wilderness; nothing but silence--complete and heart-subduing\nsilence.\nit has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad\nplain. that is hardly true. looking down from the sierra blanco, one\nsees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is\nlost in the extreme distance. it is rutted with wheels and trodden\ndown by the feet of many adventurers. here and there there are\nscattered white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out\nagainst the dull deposit of alkali. approach, and examine them! they\nare bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate.\nthe former have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. for fifteen\nhundred miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these\nscattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.\nlooking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of may,\neighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. his\nappearance was such that he might have been the very genius or demon\nof the region. an observer would have found it difficult to say\nwhether he was nearer to forty or to sixty. his face was lean and\nhaggard, and the brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the\nprojecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and\ndashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with\nan unnatural lustre; while the hand which grasped his rifle was\nhardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton. as he stood, he leaned\nupon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure and the massive\nframework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous constitution.\nhis gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so baggily over\nhis shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him that\nsenile and decrepit appearance. the man was dying--dying from hunger\nand from thirst.\nhe had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little\nelevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. now the\ngreat salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of\nsavage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which\nmight indicate the presence of moisture. in all that broad landscape\nthere was no gleam of hope. north, and east, and west he looked with\nwild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had\ncome to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to\ndie. \"why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,\"\nhe muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.\nbefore sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless\nrifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had\ncarried slung over his right shoulder. it appeared to be somewhat too\nheavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the\nground with some little violence. instantly there broke from the grey\nparcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small,\nscared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled,\ndimpled fists.\n\"you've hurt me!\" said a childish voice reproachfully.\n\"have i though,\" the man answered penitently, \"i didn't go for to do\nit.\" as he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty\nlittle girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart\npink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care.\nthe child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that\nshe had suffered less than her companion.\n\"how is it now?\" he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the\ntowsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.\n\"kiss it and make it well,\" she said, with perfect gravity, shoving\nthe injured part up to him. \"that's what mother used to do. where's\nmother?\"\n\"mother's gone. i guess you'll see her before long.\"\n\"gone, eh!\" said the little girl. \"funny, she didn't say good-bye;\nshe 'most always did if she was just goin' over to auntie's for tea,\nand now she's been away three days. say, it's awful dry, ain't it?\nain't there no water, nor nothing to eat?\"\n\"no, there ain't nothing, dearie. you'll just need to be patient\nawhile, and then you'll be all right. put your head up agin me like\nthat, and then you'll feel bullier. it ain't easy to talk when your\nlips is like leather, but i guess i'd best let you know how the cards\nlie. what's that you've got?\"\n\"pretty things! fine things!\" cried the little girl enthusiastically,\nholding up two glittering fragments of mica. \"when we goes back to\nhome i'll give them to brother bob.\"\n\"you'll see prettier things than them soon,\" said the man\nconfidently. \"you just wait a bit. i was going to tell you\nthough--you remember when we left the river?\"\n\"oh, yes.\"\n\"well, we reckoned we'd strike another river soon, d'ye see. but\nthere was somethin' wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin', and it\ndidn't turn up. water ran out. just except a little drop for the\nlikes of you and--and--\"\n\"and you couldn't wash yourself,\" interrupted his companion gravely,\nstaring up at his grimy visage.\n\"no, nor drink. and mr. bender, he was the fust to go, and then\nindian pete, and then mrs. mcgregor, and then johnny hones, and then,\ndearie, your mother.\"\n\"then mother's a deader too,\" cried the little girl dropping her face\nin her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.\n\"yes, they all went except you and me. then i thought there was some\nchance of water in this direction, so i heaved you over my shoulder\nand we tramped it together. it don't seem as though we've improved\nmatters. there's an almighty small chance for us now!\"\n\"do you mean that we are going to die too?\" asked the child, checking\nher sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.\n\"i guess that's about the size of it.\"\n\"why didn't you say so before?\" she said, laughing gleefully. \"you\ngave me such a fright. why, of course, now as long as we die we'll be\nwith mother again.\"\n\"yes, you will, dearie.\"\n\"and you too. i'll tell her how awful good you've been. i'll bet she\nmeets us at the door of heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot\nof buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like bob and me\nwas fond of. how long will it be first?\"\n\"i don't know--not very long.\" the man's eyes were fixed upon the\nnorthern horizon. in the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared\nthree little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly\ndid they approach. they speedily resolved themselves into three large\nbrown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and\nthen settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. they were\nbuzzards, the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of\ndeath.\n\"cocks and hens,\" cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their\nill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. \"say, did\ngod make this country?\"\n\"of course he did,\" said her companion, rather startled by this\nunexpected question.\n\"he made the country down in illinois, and he made the missouri,\" the\nlittle girl continued. \"i guess somebody else made the country in\nthese parts. it's not nearly so well done. they forgot the water and\nthe trees.\"\n\"what would ye think of offering up prayer?\" the man asked\ndiffidently.\n\"it ain't night yet,\" she answered.\n\"it don't matter. it ain't quite regular, but he won't mind that, you\nbet. you say over them ones that you used to say every night in the\nwaggon when we was on the plains.\"\n\"why don't you say some yourself?\" the child asked, with wondering\neyes.\n\"i disremember them,\" he answered. \"i hain't said none since i was\nhalf the height o' that gun. i guess it's never too late. you say\nthem out, and i'll stand by and come in on the choruses.\"\n\"then you'll need to kneel down, and me too,\" she said, laying the\nshawl out for that purpose. \"you've got to put your hands up like\nthis. it makes you feel kind o' good.\"\nit was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to\nsee it. side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the\nlittle prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. her\nchubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to\nthe cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with\nwhom they were face to face, while the two voices--the one thin and\nclear, the other deep and harsh--united in the entreaty for mercy and\nforgiveness. the prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the\nshadow of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the\nbroad breast of her protector. he watched over her slumber for some\ntime, but nature proved to be too strong for him. for three days and\nthree nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. slowly\nthe eyelids drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and\nlower upon the breast, until the man's grizzled beard was mixed with\nthe gold tresses of his companion, and both slept the same deep and\ndreamless slumber.\nhad the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight\nwould have met his eyes. far away on the extreme verge of the alkali\nplain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and\nhardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but\ngradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid,\nwell-defined cloud. this cloud continued to increase in size until it\nbecame evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of\nmoving creatures. in more fertile spots the observer would have come\nto the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze\nupon the prairie land was approaching him. this was obviously\nimpossible in these arid wilds. as the whirl of dust drew nearer to\nthe solitary bluff upon which the two castaways were reposing, the\ncanvas-covered tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen\nbegan to show up through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself\nas being a great caravan upon its journey for the west. but what a\ncaravan! when the head of it had reached the base of the mountains,\nthe rear was not yet visible on the horizon. right across the\nenormous plain stretched the straggling array, waggons and carts, men\non horseback, and men on foot. innumerable women who staggered along\nunder burdens, and children who toddled beside the waggons or peeped\nout from under the white coverings. this was evidently no ordinary\nparty of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had been\ncompelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new\ncountry. there rose through the clear air a confused clattering and\nrumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of\nwheels and the neighing of horses. loud as it was, it was not\nsufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.\nat the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave\nironfaced men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with\nrifles. on reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held a\nshort council among themselves.\n\"the wells are to the right, my brothers,\" said one, a hard-lipped,\nclean-shaven man with grizzly hair.\n\"to the right of the sierra blanco--so we shall reach the rio\ngrande,\" said another.\n\"fear not for water,\" cried a third. \"he who could draw it from the\nrocks will not now abandon his own chosen people.\"\n\"amen! amen!\" responded the whole party.\nthey were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and\nkeenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag\nabove them. from its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,\nshowing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. at the\nsight there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of\nguns, while fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the\nvanguard. the word \"redskins\" was on every lip.\n\"there can't be any number of injuns here,\" said the elderly man who\nappeared to be in command. \"we have passed the pawnees, and there are\nno other tribes until we cross the great mountains.\"\n\"shall i go forward and see, brother stangerson,\" asked one of the\nband.\n\"and i,\" \"and i,\" cried a dozen voices.\n\"leave your horses below and we will await you here,\" the elder\nanswered. in a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened\ntheir horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up\nto the object which had excited their curiosity. they advanced\nrapidly and noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of\npractised scouts. the watchers from the plain below could see them\nflit from rock to rock until their figures stood out against the\nskyline. the young man who had first given the alarm was leading\nthem. suddenly his followers saw him throw up his hands, as though\novercome with astonishment, and on joining him they were affected in\nthe same way by the sight which met their eyes.\non the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a\nsingle giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,\nlong-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. his\nplacid face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep.\nbeside him lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling\nhis brown sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the\nbreast of his velveteen tunic. her rosy lips were parted, showing the\nregular line of snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played\nover her infantile features. her plump little white legs terminating\nin white socks and neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange\ncontrast to the long shrivelled members of her companion. on the\nledge of rock above this strange couple there stood three solemn\nbuzzards, who, at the sight of the new comers uttered raucous screams\nof disappointment and flapped sullenly away.\nthe cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about\nthem in bewilderment. the man staggered to his feet and looked down\nupon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken\nhim, and which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of\nbeasts. his face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed,\nand he passed his boney hand over his eyes. \"this is what they call\ndelirium, i guess,\" he muttered. the child stood beside him, holding\non to the skirt of his coat, and said nothing but looked all round\nher with the wondering questioning gaze of childhood.\nthe rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways\nthat their appearance was no delusion. one of them seized the little\ngirl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported\nher gaunt companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.\n\"my name is john ferrier,\" the wanderer explained; \"me and that\nlittle un are all that's left o' twenty-one people. the rest is all\ndead o' thirst and hunger away down in the south.\"\n\"is she your child?\" asked someone.\n\"i guess she is now,\" the other cried, defiantly; \"she's mine 'cause\ni saved her. no man will take her from me. she's lucy ferrier from\nthis day on. who are you, though?\" he continued, glancing with\ncuriosity at his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; \"there seems to be a\npowerful lot of ye.\"\n\"nigh upon ten thousand,\" said one of the young men; \"we are the\npersecuted children of god--the chosen of the angel merona.\"\n\"i never heard tell on him,\" said the wanderer. \"he appears to have\nchosen a fair crowd of ye.\"\n\"do not jest at that which is sacred,\" said the other sternly. \"we\nare of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in egyptian\nletters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy\njoseph smith at palmyra. we have come from nauvoo, in the state of\nillinois, where we had founded our temple. we have come to seek a\nrefuge from the violent man and from the godless, even though it be\nthe heart of the desert.\"\nthe name of nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to john ferrier.\n\"i see,\" he said, \"you are the mormons.\"\n\"we are the mormons,\" answered his companions with one voice.\n\"and where are you going?\"\n\"we do not know. the hand of god is leading us under the person of\nour prophet. you must come before him. he shall say what is to be\ndone with you.\"\nthey had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were\nsurrounded by crowds of the pilgrims--pale-faced meek-looking women,\nstrong laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. many were the\ncries of astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when\nthey perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution\nof the other. their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on,\nfollowed by a great crowd of mormons, until they reached a waggon,\nwhich was conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and\nsmartness of its appearance. six horses were yoked to it, whereas the\nothers were furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. beside the\ndriver there sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years\nof age, but whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as\na leader. he was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd\napproached he laid it aside, and listened attentively to an account\nof the episode. then he turned to the two castaways.\n\"if we take you with us,\" he said, in solemn words, \"it can only be\nas believers in our own creed. we shall have no wolves in our fold.\nbetter far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that\nyou should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time\ncorrupts the whole fruit. will you come with us on these terms?\"\n\"guess i'll come with you on any terms,\" said ferrier, with such\nemphasis that the grave elders could not restrain a smile. the leader\nalone retained his stern, impressive expression.\n\"take him, brother stangerson,\" he said, \"give him food and drink,\nand the child likewise. let it be your task also to teach him our\nholy creed. we have delayed long enough. forward! on, on to zion!\"\n\"on, on to zion!\" cried the crowd of mormons, and the words rippled\ndown the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died\naway in a dull murmur in the far distance. with a cracking of whips\nand a creaking of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon\nthe whole caravan was winding along once more. the elder to whose\ncare the two waifs had been committed, led them to his waggon, where\na meal was already awaiting them.\n\"you shall remain here,\" he said. \"in a few days you will have\nrecovered from your fatigues. in the meantime, remember that now and\nforever you are of our religion. brigham young has said it, and he\nhas spoken with the voice of joseph smith, which is the voice of\ngod.\"\nchapter ii\nthe flower of utah\nthis is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations\nendured by the immigrant mormons before they came to their final\nhaven. from the shores of the mississippi to the western slopes of\nthe rocky mountains they had struggled on with a constancy almost\nunparalleled in history. the savage man, and the savage beast,\nhunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease--every impediment which nature\ncould place in the way--had all been overcome with anglo-saxon\ntenacity. yet the long journey and the accumulated terrors had shaken\nthe hearts of the stoutest among them. there was not one who did not\nsink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad\nvalley of utah bathed in the sunlight beneath them, and learned from\nthe lips of their leader that this was the promised land, and that\nthese virgin acres were to be theirs for evermore.\nyoung speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well\nas a resolute chief. maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which\nthe future city was sketched out. all around farms were apportioned\nand allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual. the\ntradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling. in the\ntown streets and squares sprang up, as if by magic. in the country\nthere was draining and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next\nsummer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop. everything\nprospered in the strange settlement. above all, the great temple\nwhich they had erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller and\nlarger. from the first blush of dawn until the closing of the\ntwilight, the clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never\nabsent from the monument which the immigrants erected to him who had\nled them safe through many dangers.\nthe two castaways, john ferrier and the little girl who had shared\nhis fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the\nmormons to the end of their great pilgrimage. little lucy ferrier was\nborne along pleasantly enough in elder stangerson's waggon, a retreat\nwhich she shared with the mormon's three wives and with his son, a\nheadstrong forward boy of twelve. having rallied, with the elasticity\nof childhood, from the shock caused by her mother's death, she soon\nbecame a pet with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life\nin her moving canvas-covered home. in the meantime ferrier having\nrecovered from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful\nguide and an indefatigable hunter. so rapidly did he gain the esteem\nof his new companions, that when they reached the end of their\nwanderings, it was unanimously agreed that he should be provided with\nas large and as fertile a tract of land as any of the settlers, with\nthe exception of young himself, and of stangerson, kemball, johnston,\nand drebber, who were the four principal elders.\non the farm thus acquired john ferrier built himself a substantial\nlog-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that\nit grew into a roomy villa. he was a man of a practical turn of mind,\nkeen in his dealings and skilful with his hands. his iron\nconstitution enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and\ntilling his lands. hence it came about that his farm and all that\nbelonged to him prospered exceedingly. in three years he was better\noff than his neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was\nrich, and in twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of\nsalt lake city who could compare with him. from the great inland sea\nto the distant wahsatch mountains there was no name better known than\nthat of john ferrier.\nthere was one way and only one in which he offended the\nsusceptibilities of his co-religionists. no argument or persuasion\ncould ever induce him to set up a female establishment after the\nmanner of his companions. he never gave reasons for this persistent\nrefusal, but contented himself by resolutely and inflexibly adhering\nto his determination. there were some who accused him of lukewarmness\nin his adopted religion, and others who put it down to greed of\nwealth and reluctance to incur expense. others, again, spoke of some\nearly love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pined away on\nthe shores of the atlantic. whatever the reason, ferrier remained\nstrictly celibate. in every other respect he conformed to the\nreligion of the young settlement, and gained the name of being an\northodox and straight-walking man.\nlucy ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted\nfather in all his undertakings. the keen air of the mountains and the\nbalsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother\nto the young girl. as year succeeded to year she grew taller and\nstronger, her cheek more rudy, and her step more elastic. many a\nwayfarer upon the high road which ran by ferrier's farm felt\nlong-forgotten thoughts revive in their mind as they watched her\nlithe girlish figure tripping through the wheatfields, or met her\nmounted upon her father's mustang, and managing it with all the ease\nand grace of a true child of the west. so the bud blossomed into a\nflower, and the year which saw her father the richest of the farmers\nleft her as fair a specimen of american girlhood as could be found in\nthe whole pacific slope.\nit was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child\nhad developed into the woman. it seldom is in such cases. that\nmysterious change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by\ndates. least of all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of\na voice or the touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her,\nand she learns, with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a\nlarger nature has awoken within her. there are few who cannot recall\nthat day and remember the one little incident which heralded the dawn\nof a new life. in the case of lucy ferrier the occasion was serious\nenough in itself, apart from its future influence on her destiny and\nthat of many besides.\nit was a warm june morning, and the latter day saints were as busy as\nthe bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. in the fields\nand in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. down the\ndusty high roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all\nheading to the west, for the gold fever had broken out in california,\nand the overland route lay through the city of the elect. there, too,\nwere droves of sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture\nlands, and trains of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary\nof their interminable journey. through all this motley assemblage,\nthreading her way with the skill of an accomplished rider, there\ngalloped lucy ferrier, her fair face flushed with the exercise and\nher long chestnut hair floating out behind her. she had a commission\nfrom her father in the city, and was dashing in as she had done many\na time before, with all the fearlessness of youth, thinking only of\nher task and how it was to be performed. the travel-stained\nadventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and even the unemotional\nindians, journeying in with their pelties, relaxed their accustomed\nstoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.\nshe had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road\nblocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen\nwild-looking herdsmen from the plains. in her impatience she\nendeavoured to pass this obstacle by pushing her horse into what\nappeared to be a gap. scarcely had she got fairly into it, however,\nbefore the beasts closed in behind her, and she found herself\ncompletely imbedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed, long-horned\nbullocks. accustomed as she was to deal with cattle, she was not\nalarmed at her situation, but took advantage of every opportunity to\nurge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way through the\ncavalcade. unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures, either by\naccident or design, came in violent contact with the flank of the\nmustang, and excited it to madness. in an instant it reared up upon\nits hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way\nthat would have unseated any but a most skilful rider. the situation\nwas full of peril. every plunge of the excited horse brought it\nagainst the horns again, and goaded it to fresh madness. it was all\nthat the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a slip\nwould mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and\nterrified animals. unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began\nto swim, and her grip upon the bridle to relax. choked by the rising\ncloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she\nmight have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice\nat her elbow which assured her of assistance. at the same moment a\nsinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and\nforcing a way through the drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.\n\"you're not hurt, i hope, miss,\" said her preserver, respectfully.\nshe looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. \"i'm\nawful frightened,\" she said, naively; \"whoever would have thought\nthat poncho would have been so scared by a lot of cows?\"\n\"thank god you kept your seat,\" the other said earnestly. he was a\ntall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse,\nand clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over\nhis shoulders. \"i guess you are the daughter of john ferrier,\" he\nremarked, \"i saw you ride down from his house. when you see him, ask\nhim if he remembers the jefferson hopes of st. louis. if he's the\nsame ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick.\"\n\"hadn't you better come and ask yourself?\" she asked, demurely.\nthe young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes\nsparkled with pleasure. \"i'll do so,\" he said, \"we've been in the\nmountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting\ncondition. he must take us as he finds us.\"\n\"he has a good deal to thank you for, and so have i,\" she answered,\n\"he's awful fond of me. if those cows had jumped on me he'd have\nnever got over it.\"\n\"neither would i,\" said her companion.\n\"you! well, i don't see that it would make much matter to you,\nanyhow. you ain't even a friend of ours.\"\nthe young hunter's dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that\nlucy ferrier laughed aloud.\n\"there, i didn't mean that,\" she said; \"of course, you are a friend\nnow. you must come and see us. now i must push along, or father won't\ntrust me with his business any more. good-bye!\"\n\"good-bye,\" he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over\nher little hand. she wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with\nher riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling\ncloud of dust.\nyoung jefferson hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and\ntaciturn. he and they had been among the nevada mountains prospecting\nfor silver, and were returning to salt lake city in the hope of\nraising capital enough to work some lodes which they had discovered.\nhe had been as keen as any of them upon the business until this\nsudden incident had drawn his thoughts into another channel. the\nsight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the sierra\nbreezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths.\nwhen she had vanished from his sight, he realized that a crisis had\ncome in his life, and that neither silver speculations nor any other\nquestions could ever be of such importance to him as this new and\nall-absorbing one. the love which had sprung up in his heart was not\nthe sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce\npassion of a man of strong will and imperious temper. he had been\naccustomed to succeed in all that he undertook. he swore in his heart\nthat he would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance\ncould render him successful.\nhe called on john ferrier that night, and many times again, until his\nface was a familiar one at the farm-house. john, cooped up in the\nvalley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning\nthe news of the outside world during the last twelve years. all this\njefferson hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested\nlucy as well as her father. he had been a pioneer in california, and\ncould narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost\nin those wild, halcyon days. he had been a scout too, and a trapper,\na silver explorer, and a ranchman. wherever stirring adventures were\nto be had, jefferson hope had been there in search of them. he soon\nbecame a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his\nvirtues. on such occasions, lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek\nand her bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young\nheart was no longer her own. her honest father may not have observed\nthese symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man\nwho had won her affections.\nit was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and\npulled up at the gate. she was at the doorway, and came down to meet\nhim. he threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.\n\"i am off, lucy,\" he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing\ntenderly down into her face; \"i won't ask you to come with me now,\nbut will you be ready to come when i am here again?\"\n\"and when will that be?\" she asked, blushing and laughing.\n\"a couple of months at the outside. i will come and claim you then,\nmy darling. there's no one who can stand between us.\"\n\"and how about father?\" she asked.\n\"he has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all\nright. i have no fear on that head.\"\n\"oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there's\nno more to be said,\" she whispered, with her cheek against his broad\nbreast.\n\"thank god!\" he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. \"it is\nsettled, then. the longer i stay, the harder it will be to go. they\nare waiting for me at the caon. good-bye, my own darling--good-bye.\nin two months you shall see me.\"\nhe tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his\nhorse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though\nafraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at\nwhat he was leaving. she stood at the gate, gazing after him until he\nvanished from her sight. then she walked back into the house, the\nhappiest girl in all utah.\nchapter iii\njohn ferrier talks with the prophet\nthree weeks had passed since jefferson hope and his comrades had\ndeparted from salt lake city. john ferrier's heart was sore within\nhim when he thought of the young man's return, and of the impending\nloss of his adopted child. yet her bright and happy face reconciled\nhim to the arrangement more than any argument could have done. he had\nalways determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing\nwould ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a mormon. such a\nmarriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a\ndisgrace. whatever he might think of the mormon doctrines, upon that\none point he was inflexible. he had to seal his mouth on the subject,\nhowever, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter\nin those days in the land of the saints.\nyes, a dangerous matter--so dangerous that even the most saintly\ndared only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest\nsomething which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring\ndown a swift retribution upon them. the victims of persecution had\nnow turned persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the\nmost terrible description. not the inquisition of seville, nor the\ngerman vehmgericht, nor the secret societies of italy, were ever able\nto put a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a\ncloud over the state of utah.\nits invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this\norganization doubly terrible. it appeared to be omniscient and\nomnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. the man who held out\nagainst the church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone\nor what had befallen him. his wife and his children awaited him at\nhome, but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at\nthe hands of his secret judges. a rash word or a hasty act was\nfollowed by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be\nof this terrible power which was suspended over them. no wonder that\nmen went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of\nthe wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed\nthem.\nat first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the\nrecalcitrants who, having embraced the mormon faith, wished\nafterwards to pervert or to abandon it. soon, however, it took a\nwider range. the supply of adult women was running short, and\npolygamy without a female population on which to draw was a barren\ndoctrine indeed. strange rumours began to be bandied about--rumours\nof murdered immigrants and rifled camps in regions where indians had\nnever been seen. fresh women appeared in the harems of the\nelders--women who pined and wept, and bore upon their faces the\ntraces of an unextinguishable horror. belated wanderers upon the\nmountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked, stealthy, and\nnoiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. these tales and\nrumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and\nre-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.\nto this day, in the lonely ranches of the west, the name of the\ndanite band, or the avenging angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened\none.\nfuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible\nresults served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it\ninspired in the minds of men. none knew who belonged to this ruthless\nsociety. the names of the participators in the deeds of blood and\nviolence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.\nthe very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the\nprophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth\nat night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. hence\nevery man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which\nwere nearest his heart.\none fine morning, john ferrier was about to set out to his\nwheatfields, when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking\nthrough the window, saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming\nup the pathway. his heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other\nthan the great brigham young himself. full of trepidation--for he\nknew that such a visit boded him little good--ferrier ran to the door\nto greet the mormon chief. the latter, however, received his\nsalutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the\nsitting-room.\n\"brother ferrier,\" he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer\nkeenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, \"the true believers\nhave been good friends to you. we picked you up when you were\nstarving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to\nthe chosen valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you\nto wax rich under our protection. is not this so?\"\n\"it is so,\" answered john ferrier.\n\"in return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that\nyou should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its\nusages. this you promised to do, and this, if common report says\ntruly, you have neglected.\"\n\"and how have i neglected it?\" asked ferrier, throwing out his hands\nin expostulation. \"have i not given to the common fund? have i not\nattended at the temple? have i not--?\"\n\"where are your wives?\" asked young, looking round him. \"call them\nin, that i may greet them.\"\n\"it is true that i have not married,\" ferrier answered. \"but women\nwere few, and there were many who had better claims than i. i was not\na lonely man: i had my daughter to attend to my wants.\"\n\"it is of that daughter that i would speak to you,\" said the leader\nof the mormons. \"she has grown to be the flower of utah, and has\nfound favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.\"\njohn ferrier groaned internally.\n\"there are stories of her which i would fain disbelieve--stories that\nshe is sealed to some gentile. this must be the gossip of idle\ntongues. what is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted\njoseph smith? 'let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the\nelect; for if she wed a gentile, she commits a grievous sin.' this\nbeing so, it is impossible that you, who profess the holy creed,\nshould suffer your daughter to violate it.\"\njohn ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his\nriding-whip.\n\"upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested--so it has been\ndecided in the sacred council of four. the girl is young, and we\nwould not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of\nall choice. we elders have many heifers*1, but our children must also\nbe provided. stangerson has a son, and drebber has a son, and either\nof them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. let her\nchoose between them. they are young and rich, and of the true faith.\nwhat say you to that?\"\nferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.\n\"you will give us time,\" he said at last. \"my daughter is very\nyoung--she is scarce of an age to marry.\"\n\"she shall have a month to choose,\" said young, rising from his seat.\n\"at the end of that time she shall give her answer.\"\nhe was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face\nand flashing eyes. \"it were better for you, john ferrier,\" he\nthundered, \"that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon\nthe sierra blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against\nthe orders of the holy four!\"\nwith a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and\nferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.\nhe was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how\nhe should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid\nupon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. one glance\nat her pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had\npassed.\n\"i could not help it,\" she said, in answer to his look. \"his voice\nrang through the house. oh, father, father, what shall we do?\"\n\"don't you scare yourself,\" he answered, drawing her to him, and\npassing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair.\n\"we'll fix it up somehow or another. you don't find your fancy kind\no' lessening for this chap, do you?\"\na sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.\n\"no; of course not. i shouldn't care to hear you say you did. he's a\nlikely lad, and he's a christian, which is more than these folk here,\nin spite o' all their praying and preaching. there's a party starting\nfor nevada to-morrow, and i'll manage to send him a message letting\nhim know the hole we are in. if i know anything o' that young man,\nhe'll be back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.\"\nlucy laughed through her tears at her father's description.\n\"when he comes, he will advise us for the best. but it is for you\nthat i am frightened, dear. one hears--one hears such dreadful\nstories about those who oppose the prophet: something terrible always\nhappens to them.\"\n\"but we haven't opposed him yet,\" her father answered. \"it will be\ntime to look out for squalls when we do. we have a clear month before\nus; at the end of that, i guess we had best shin out of utah.\"\n\"leave utah!\"\n\"that's about the size of it.\"\n\"but the farm?\"\n\"we will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. to\ntell the truth, lucy, it isn't the first time i have thought of doing\nit. i don't care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do\nto their darned prophet. i'm a free-born american, and it's all new\nto me. guess i'm too old to learn. if he comes browsing about this\nfarm, he might chance to run up against a charge of buckshot\ntravelling in the opposite direction.\"\n\"but they won't let us leave,\" his daughter objected.\n\"wait till jefferson comes, and we'll soon manage that. in the\nmeantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie, and don't get your eyes\nswelled up, else he'll be walking into me when he sees you. there's\nnothing to be afeared about, and there's no danger at all.\"\njohn ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident\ntone, but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to\nthe fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned\nand loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his\nbedroom.\n-----\n*1: heber c kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred\nwives under this endearing epithet.\nchapter iv\na flight for life\non the morning which followed his interview with the mormon prophet,\njohn ferrier went in to salt lake city, and having found his\nacquaintance, who was bound for the nevada mountains, he entrusted\nhim with his message to jefferson hope. in it he told the young man\nof the imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it\nwas that he should return. having done thus he felt easier in his\nmind, and returned home with a lighter heart.\nas he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to\neach of the posts of the gate. still more surprised was he on\nentering to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room.\none, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair,\nwith his feet cocked up upon the stove. the other, a bull-necked\nyouth with coarse bloated features, was standing in front of the\nwindow with his hands in his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. both\nof them nodded to ferrier as he entered, and the one in the\nrocking-chair commenced the conversation.\n\"maybe you don't know us,\" he said. \"this here is the son of elder\ndrebber, and i'm joseph stangerson, who travelled with you in the\ndesert when the lord stretched out his hand and gathered you into the\ntrue fold.\"\n\"as he will all the nations in his own good time,\" said the other in\na nasal voice; \"he grindeth slowly but exceeding small.\"\njohn ferrier bowed coldly. he had guessed who his visitors were.\n\"we have come,\" continued stangerson, \"at the advice of our fathers\nto solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem\ngood to you and to her. as i have but four wives and brother drebber\nhere has seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.\"\n\"nay, nay, brother stangerson,\" cried the other; \"the question is not\nhow many wives we have, but how many we can keep. my father has now\ngiven over his mills to me, and i am the richer man.\"\n\"but my prospects are better,\" said the other, warmly. \"when the lord\nremoves my father, i shall have his tanning yard and his leather\nfactory. then i am your elder, and am higher in the church.\"\n\"it will be for the maiden to decide,\" rejoined young drebber,\nsmirking at his own reflection in the glass. \"we will leave it all to\nher decision.\"\nduring this dialogue, john ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,\nhardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two\nvisitors.\n\"look here,\" he said at last, striding up to them, \"when my daughter\nsummons you, you can come, but until then i don't want to see your\nfaces again.\"\nthe two young mormons stared at him in amazement. in their eyes this\ncompetition between them for the maiden's hand was the highest of\nhonours both to her and her father.\n\"there are two ways out of the room,\" cried ferrier; \"there is the\ndoor, and there is the window. which do you care to use?\"\nhis brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,\nthat his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat.\nthe old farmer followed them to the door.\n\"let me know when you have settled which it is to be,\" he said,\nsardonically.\n\"you shall smart for this!\" stangerson cried, white with rage. \"you\nhave defied the prophet and the council of four. you shall rue it to\nthe end of your days.\"\n\"the hand of the lord shall be heavy upon you,\" cried young drebber;\n\"he will arise and smite you!\"\n\"then i'll start the smiting,\" exclaimed ferrier furiously, and would\nhave rushed upstairs for his gun had not lucy seized him by the arm\nand restrained him. before he could escape from her, the clatter of\nhorses' hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.\n\"the young canting rascals!\" he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration\nfrom his forehead; \"i would sooner see you in your grave, my girl,\nthan the wife of either of them.\"\n\"and so should i, father,\" she answered, with spirit; \"but jefferson\nwill soon be here.\"\n\"yes. it will not be long before he comes. the sooner the better, for\nwe do not know what their next move may be.\"\nit was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and\nhelp should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted\ndaughter. in the whole history of the settlement there had never been\nsuch a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the elders. if\nminor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this\narch rebel. ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no\navail to him. others as well known and as rich as himself had been\nspirited away before now, and their goods given over to the church.\nhe was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors\nwhich hung over him. any known danger he could face with a firm lip,\nbut this suspense was unnerving. he concealed his fears from his\ndaughter, however, and affected to make light of the whole matter,\nthough she, with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at\nease.\nhe expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from\nyoung as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in\nan unlooked-for manner. upon rising next morning he found, to his\nsurprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his\nbed just over his chest. on it was printed, in bold straggling\nletters:--\n\"twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then--\"\nthe dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. how\nthis warning came into his room puzzled john ferrier sorely, for his\nservants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been\nsecured. he crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter,\nbut the incident struck a chill into his heart. the twenty-nine days\nwere evidently the balance of the month which young had promised.\nwhat strength or courage could avail against an enemy armed with such\nmysterious powers? the hand which fastened that pin might have struck\nhim to the heart, and he could never have known who had slain him.\nstill more shaken was he next morning. they had sat down to their\nbreakfast when lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. in the\ncentre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently,\nthe number 28. to his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not\nenlighten her. that night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and\nward. he saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27\nhad been painted upon the outside of his door.\nthus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his\nunseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some\nconspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the\nmonth of grace. sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls,\nsometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards\nstuck upon the garden gate or the railings. with all his vigilance\njohn ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings\nproceeded. a horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at\nthe sight of them. he became haggard and restless, and his eyes had\nthe troubled look of some hunted creature. he had but one hope in\nlife now, and that was for the arrival of the young hunter from\nnevada.\ntwenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no\nnews of the absentee. one by one the numbers dwindled down, and still\nthere came no sign of him. whenever a horseman clattered down the\nroad, or a driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the\ngate thinking that help had arrived at last. at last, when he saw\nfive give way to four and that again to three, he lost heart, and\nabandoned all hope of escape. single-handed, and with his limited\nknowledge of the mountains which surrounded the settlement, he knew\nthat he was powerless. the more-frequented roads were strictly\nwatched and guarded, and none could pass along them without an order\nfrom the council. turn which way he would, there appeared to be no\navoiding the blow which hung over him. yet the old man never wavered\nin his resolution to part with life itself before he consented to\nwhat he regarded as his daughter's dishonour.\nhe was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles,\nand searching vainly for some way out of them. that morning had shown\nthe figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be\nthe last of the allotted time. what was to happen then? all manner of\nvague and terrible fancies filled his imagination. and his\ndaughter--what was to become of her after he was gone? was there no\nescape from the invisible network which was drawn all round them. he\nsank his head upon the table and sobbed at the thought of his own\nimpotence.\nwhat was that? in the silence he heard a gentle scratching\nsound--low, but very distinct in the quiet of the night. it came from\nthe door of the house. ferrier crept into the hall and listened\nintently. there was a pause for a few moments, and then the low\ninsidious sound was repeated. someone was evidently tapping very\ngently upon one of the panels of the door. was it some midnight\nassassin who had come to carry out the murderous orders of the secret\ntribunal? or was it some agent who was marking up that the last day\nof grace had arrived. john ferrier felt that instant death would be\nbetter than the suspense which shook his nerves and chilled his\nheart. springing forward he drew the bolt and threw the door open.\noutside all was calm and quiet. the night was fine, and the stars\nwere twinkling brightly overhead. the little front garden lay before\nthe farmer's eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there\nnor on the road was any human being to be seen. with a sigh of\nrelief, ferrier looked to right and to left, until happening to\nglance straight down at his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man\nlying flat upon his face upon the ground, with arms and legs all\nasprawl.\nso unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall\nwith his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out.\nhis first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some\nwounded or dying man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the\nground and into the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a\nserpent. once within the house the man sprang to his feet, closed the\ndoor, and revealed to the astonished farmer the fierce face and\nresolute expression of jefferson hope.\n\"good god!\" gasped john ferrier. \"how you scared me! whatever made\nyou come in like that.\"\n\"give me food,\" the other said, hoarsely. \"i have had no time for\nbite or sup for eight-and-forty hours.\" he flung himself upon the\ncold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his\nhost's supper, and devoured it voraciously. \"does lucy bear up well?\"\nhe asked, when he had satisfied his hunger.\n\"yes. she does not know the danger,\" her father answered.\n\"that is well. the house is watched on every side. that is why i\ncrawled my way up to it. they may be darned sharp, but they're not\nquite sharp enough to catch a washoe hunter.\"\njohn ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a\ndevoted ally. he seized the young man's leathery hand and wrung it\ncordially. \"you're a man to be proud of,\" he said. \"there are not\nmany who would come to share our danger and our troubles.\"\n\"you've hit it there, pard,\" the young hunter answered. \"i have a\nrespect for you, but if you were alone in this business i'd think\ntwice before i put my head into such a hornet's nest. it's lucy that\nbrings me here, and before harm comes on her i guess there will be\none less o' the hope family in utah.\"\n\"what are we to do?\"\n\"to-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are\nlost. i have a mule and two horses waiting in the eagle ravine. how\nmuch money have you?\"\n\"two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.\"\n\"that will do. i have as much more to add to it. we must push for\ncarson city through the mountains. you had best wake lucy. it is as\nwell that the servants do not sleep in the house.\"\nwhile ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching\njourney, jefferson hope packed all the eatables that he could find\ninto a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he\nknew by experience that the mountain wells were few and far between.\nhe had hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned\nwith his daughter all dressed and ready for a start. the greeting\nbetween the lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious,\nand there was much to be done.\n\"we must make our start at once,\" said jefferson hope, speaking in a\nlow but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the\nperil, but has steeled his heart to meet it. \"the front and back\nentrances are watched, but with caution we may get away through the\nside window and across the fields. once on the road we are only two\nmiles from the ravine where the horses are waiting. by daybreak we\nshould be half-way through the mountains.\"\n\"what if we are stopped,\" asked ferrier.\nhope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his\ntunic. \"if they are too many for us we shall take two or three of\nthem with us,\" he said with a sinister smile.\nthe lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the\ndarkened window ferrier peered over the fields which had been his\nown, and which he was now about to abandon for ever. he had long\nnerved himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the\nhonour and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his\nruined fortunes. all looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees\nand the broad silent stretch of grain-land, that it was difficult to\nrealize that the spirit of murder lurked through it all. yet the\nwhite face and set expression of the young hunter showed that in his\napproach to the house he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that\nhead.\nferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, jefferson hope had the\nscanty provisions and water, while lucy had a small bundle containing\na few of her more valued possessions. opening the window very slowly\nand carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured\nthe night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden.\nwith bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and\ngained the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came\nto the gap which opened into the cornfields. they had just reached\nthis point when the young man seized his two companions and dragged\nthem down into the shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.\nit was as well that his prairie training had given jefferson hope the\nears of a lynx. he and his friends had hardly crouched down before\nthe melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards\nof them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small\ndistance. at the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the\ngap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal\ncry again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.\n\"to-morrow at midnight,\" said the first who appeared to be in\nauthority. \"when the whip-poor-will calls three times.\"\n\"it is well,\" returned the other. \"shall i tell brother drebber?\"\n\"pass it on to him, and from him to the others. nine to seven!\"\n\"seven to five!\" repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away\nin different directions. their concluding words had evidently been\nsome form of sign and countersign. the instant that their footsteps\nhad died away in the distance, jefferson hope sprang to his feet, and\nhelping his companions through the gap, led the way across the fields\nat the top of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when\nher strength appeared to fail her.\n\"hurry on! hurry on!\" he gasped from time to time. \"we are through\nthe line of sentinels. everything depends on speed. hurry on!\"\nonce on the high road they made rapid progress. only once did they\nmeet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid\nrecognition. before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a\nrugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. two dark\njagged peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile\nwhich led between them was the eagle caon in which the horses were\nawaiting them. with unerring instinct jefferson hope picked his way\namong the great boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse,\nuntil he came to the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the\nfaithful animals had been picketed. the girl was placed upon the\nmule, and old ferrier upon one of the horses, with his money-bag,\nwhile jefferson hope led the other along the precipitous and\ndangerous path.\nit was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face\nnature in her wildest moods. on the one side a great crag towered up\na thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long\nbasaltic columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some\npetrified monster. on the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and\ndebris made all advance impossible. between the two ran the irregular\ntrack, so narrow in places that they had to travel in indian file,\nand so rough that only practised riders could have traversed it at\nall. yet in spite of all dangers and difficulties, the hearts of the\nfugitives were light within them, for every step increased the\ndistance between them and the terrible despotism from which they were\nflying.\nthey soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the\njurisdiction of the saints. they had reached the very wildest and\nmost desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry,\nand pointed upwards. on a rock which overlooked the track, showing\nout dark and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel.\nhe saw them as soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge\nof \"who goes there?\" rang through the silent ravine.\n\"travellers for nevada,\" said jefferson hope, with his hand upon the\nrifle which hung by his saddle.\nthey could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down\nat them as if dissatisfied at their reply.\n\"by whose permission?\" he asked.\n\"the holy four,\" answered ferrier. his mormon experiences had taught\nhim that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.\n\"nine from seven,\" cried the sentinel.\n\"seven from five,\" returned jefferson hope promptly, remembering the\ncountersign which he had heard in the garden.\n\"pass, and the lord go with you,\" said the voice from above. beyond\nhis post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break\ninto a trot. looking back, they could see the solitary watcher\nleaning upon his gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post\nof the chosen people, and that freedom lay before them.\nchapter v\nthe avenging angels\nall night their course lay through intricate defiles and over\nirregular and rock-strewn paths. more than once they lost their way,\nbut hope's intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain\nthe track once more. when morning broke, a scene of marvellous though\nsavage beauty lay before them. in every direction the great\nsnow-capped peaks hemmed them in, peeping over each other's shoulders\nto the far horizon. so steep were the rocky banks on either side of\nthem, that the larch and the pine seemed to be suspended over their\nheads, and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon\nthem. nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the barren valley\nwas thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had fallen in a\nsimilar manner. even as they passed, a great rock came thundering\ndown with a hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges,\nand startled the weary horses into a gallop.\nas the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the\ngreat mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival,\nuntil they were all ruddy and glowing. the magnificent spectacle\ncheered the hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy.\nat a wild torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and\nwatered their horses, while they partook of a hasty breakfast. lucy\nand her father would fain have rested longer, but jefferson hope was\ninexorable. \"they will be upon our track by this time,\" he said.\n\"everything depends upon our speed. once safe in carson we may rest\nfor the remainder of our lives.\"\nduring the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles,\nand by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles\nfrom their enemies. at night-time they chose the base of a beetling\ncrag, where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind,\nand there huddled together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours'\nsleep. before daybreak, however, they were up and on their way once\nmore. they had seen no signs of any pursuers, and jefferson hope\nbegan to think that they were fairly out of the reach of the terrible\norganization whose enmity they had incurred. he little knew how far\nthat iron grasp could reach, or how soon it was to close upon them\nand crush them.\nabout the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store\nof provisions began to run out. this gave the hunter little\nuneasiness, however, for there was game to be had among the\nmountains, and he had frequently before had to depend upon his rifle\nfor the needs of life. choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a\nfew dried branches and made a blazing fire, at which his companions\nmight warm themselves, for they were now nearly five thousand feet\nabove the sea level, and the air was bitter and keen. having tethered\nthe horses, and bade lucy adieu, he threw his gun over his shoulder,\nand set out in search of whatever chance might throw in his way.\nlooking back he saw the old man and the young girl crouching over the\nblazing fire, while the three animals stood motionless in the\nback-ground. then the intervening rocks hid them from his view.\nhe walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another\nwithout success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees,\nand other indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in\nthe vicinity. at last, after two or three hours' fruitless search, he\nwas thinking of turning back in despair, when casting his eyes\nupwards he saw a sight which sent a thrill of pleasure through his\nheart. on the edge of a jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet\nabove him, there stood a creature somewhat resembling a sheep in\nappearance, but armed with a pair of gigantic horns. the\nbig-horn--for so it is called--was acting, probably, as a guardian\nover a flock which were invisible to the hunter; but fortunately it\nwas heading in the opposite direction, and had not perceived him.\nlying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and took a long\nand steady aim before drawing the trigger. the animal sprang into the\nair, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and then\ncame crashing down into the valley beneath.\nthe creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented\nhimself with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. with this\ntrophy over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the\nevening was already drawing in. he had hardly started, however,\nbefore he realized the difficulty which faced him. in his eagerness\nhe had wandered far past the ravines which were known to him, and it\nwas no easy matter to pick out the path which he had taken. the\nvalley in which he found himself divided and sub-divided into many\ngorges, which were so like each other that it was impossible to\ndistinguish one from the other. he followed one for a mile or more\nuntil he came to a mountain torrent which he was sure that he had\nnever seen before. convinced that he had taken the wrong turn, he\ntried another, but with the same result. night was coming on rapidly,\nand it was almost dark before he at last found himself in a defile\nwhich was familiar to him. even then it was no easy matter to keep to\nthe right track, for the moon had not yet risen, and the high cliffs\non either side made the obscurity more profound. weighed down with\nhis burden, and weary from his exertions, he stumbled along, keeping\nup his heart by the reflection that every step brought him nearer to\nlucy, and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food for the\nremainder of their journey.\nhe had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left\nthem. even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the\ncliffs which bounded it. they must, he reflected, be awaiting him\nanxiously, for he had been absent nearly five hours. in the gladness\nof his heart he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo\nto a loud halloo as a signal that he was coming. he paused and\nlistened for an answer. none came save his own cry, which clattered\nup the dreary silent ravines, and was borne back to his ears in\ncountless repetitions. again he shouted, even louder than before, and\nagain no whisper came back from the friends whom he had left such a\nshort time ago. a vague, nameless dread came over him, and he hurried\nonwards frantically, dropping the precious food in his agitation.\nwhen he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where\nthe fire had been lit. there was still a glowing pile of wood ashes\nthere, but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. the\nsame dead silence still reigned all round. with his fears all changed\nto convictions, he hurried on. there was no living creature near the\nremains of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. it was only\ntoo clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during\nhis absence--a disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left\nno traces behind it.\nbewildered and stunned by this blow, jefferson hope felt his head\nspin round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from\nfalling. he was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily\nrecovered from his temporary impotence. seizing a half-consumed piece\nof wood from the smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and\nproceeded with its help to examine the little camp. the ground was\nall stamped down by the feet of horses, showing that a large party of\nmounted men had overtaken the fugitives, and the direction of their\ntracks proved that they had afterwards turned back to salt lake city.\nhad they carried back both of his companions with them? jefferson\nhope had almost persuaded himself that they must have done so, when\nhis eye fell upon an object which made every nerve of his body tingle\nwithin him. a little way on one side of the camp was a low-lying heap\nof reddish soil, which had assuredly not been there before. there was\nno mistaking it for anything but a newly-dug grave. as the young\nhunter approached it, he perceived that a stick had been planted on\nit, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of it. the\ninscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:\njohn ferrier,\nformerly of salt lake city,\ndied august 4th, 1860.\nthe sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was\ngone, then, and this was all his epitaph. jefferson hope looked\nwildly round to see if there was a second grave, but there was no\nsign of one. lucy had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to\nfulfil her original destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the\nelder's son. as the young fellow realized the certainty of her fate,\nand his own powerlessness to prevent it, he wished that he, too, was\nlying with the old farmer in his last silent resting-place.\nagain, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which\nsprings from despair. if there was nothing else left to him, he could\nat least devote his life to revenge. with indomitable patience and\nperseverance, jefferson hope possessed also a power of sustained\nvindictiveness, which he may have learned from the indians amongst\nwhom he had lived. as he stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the\nonly one thing which could assuage his grief would be thorough and\ncomplete retribution, brought by his own hand upon his enemies. his\nstrong will and untiring energy should, he determined, be devoted to\nthat one end. with a grim, white face, he retraced his steps to where\nhe had dropped the food, and having stirred up the smouldering fire,\nhe cooked enough to last him for a few days. this he made up into a\nbundle, and, tired as he was, he set himself to walk back through the\nmountains upon the track of the avenging angels.\nfor five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which\nhe had already traversed on horseback. at night he flung himself down\namong the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before\ndaybreak he was always well on his way. on the sixth day, he reached\nthe eagle caon, from which they had commenced their ill-fated\nflight. thence he could look down upon the home of the saints. worn\nand exhausted, he leaned upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand\nfiercely at the silent widespread city beneath him. as he looked at\nit, he observed that there were flags in some of the principal\nstreets, and other signs of festivity. he was still speculating as to\nwhat this might mean when he heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and\nsaw a mounted man riding towards him. as he approached, he recognized\nhim as a mormon named cowper, to whom he had rendered services at\ndifferent times. he therefore accosted him when he got up to him,\nwith the object of finding out what lucy ferrier's fate had been.\n\"i am jefferson hope,\" he said. \"you remember me.\"\nthe mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment--indeed, it\nwas difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with\nghastly white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of\nformer days. having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his\nidentity, the man's surprise changed to consternation.\n\"you are mad to come here,\" he cried. \"it is as much as my own life\nis worth to be seen talking with you. there is a warrant against you\nfrom the holy four for assisting the ferriers away.\"\n\"i don't fear them, or their warrant,\" hope said, earnestly. \"you\nmust know something of this matter, cowper. i conjure you by\neverything you hold dear to answer a few questions. we have always\nbeen friends. for god's sake, don't refuse to answer me.\"\n\"what is it?\" the mormon asked uneasily. \"be quick. the very rocks\nhave ears and the trees eyes.\"\n\"what has become of lucy ferrier?\"\n\"she was married yesterday to young drebber. hold up, man, hold up,\nyou have no life left in you.\"\n\"don't mind me,\" said hope faintly. he was white to the very lips,\nand had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning.\n\"married, you say?\"\n\"married yesterday--that's what those flags are for on the endowment\nhouse. there was some words between young drebber and young\nstangerson as to which was to have her. they'd both been in the party\nthat followed them, and stangerson had shot her father, which seemed\nto give him the best claim; but when they argued it out in council,\ndrebber's party was the stronger, so the prophet gave her over to\nhim. no one won't have her very long though, for i saw death in her\nface yesterday. she is more like a ghost than a woman. are you off,\nthen?\"\n\"yes, i am off,\" said jefferson hope, who had risen from his seat.\nhis face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was\nits expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.\n\"where are you going?\"\n\"never mind,\" he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his\nshoulder, strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the\nmountains to the haunts of the wild beasts. amongst them all there\nwas none so fierce and so dangerous as himself.\nthe prediction of the mormon was only too well fulfilled. whether it\nwas the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful\nmarriage into which she had been forced, poor lucy never held up her\nhead again, but pined away and died within a month. her sottish\nhusband, who had married her principally for the sake of john\nferrier's property, did not affect any great grief at his\nbereavement; but his other wives mourned over her, and sat up with\nher the night before the burial, as is the mormon custom. they were\ngrouped round the bier in the early hours of the morning, when, to\ntheir inexpressible fear and astonishment, the door was flung open,\nand a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode\ninto the room. without a glance or a word to the cowering women, he\nwalked up to the white silent figure which had once contained the\npure soul of lucy ferrier. stooping over her, he pressed his lips\nreverently to her cold forehead, and then, snatching up her hand, he\ntook the wedding-ring from her finger. \"she shall not be buried in\nthat,\" he cried with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could be\nraised sprang down the stairs and was gone. so strange and so brief\nwas the episode, that the watchers might have found it hard to\nbelieve it themselves or persuade other people of it, had it not been\nfor the undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her as\nhaving been a bride had disappeared.\nfor some months jefferson hope lingered among the mountains, leading\na strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for\nvengeance which possessed him. tales were told in the city of the\nweird figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which\nhaunted the lonely mountain gorges. once a bullet whistled through\nstangerson's window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot\nof him. on another occasion, as drebber passed under a cliff a great\nboulder crashed down on him, and he only escaped a terrible death by\nthrowing himself upon his face. the two young mormons were not long\nin discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led\nrepeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or\nkilling their enemy, but always without success. then they adopted\nthe precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of\nhaving their houses guarded. after a time they were able to relax\nthese measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their\nopponent, and they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.\nfar from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. the hunter's\nmind was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of\nrevenge had taken such complete possession of it that there was no\nroom for any other emotion. he was, however, above all things\npractical. he soon realized that even his iron constitution could not\nstand the incessant strain which he was putting upon it. exposure and\nwant of wholesome food were wearing him out. if he died like a dog\namong the mountains, what was to become of his revenge then? and yet\nsuch a death was sure to overtake him if he persisted. he felt that\nthat was to play his enemy's game, so he reluctantly returned to the\nold nevada mines, there to recruit his health and to amass money\nenough to allow him to pursue his object without privation.\nhis intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a\ncombination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the\nmines for nearly five. at the end of that time, however, his memory\nof his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on\nthat memorable night when he had stood by john ferrier's grave.\ndisguised, and under an assumed name, he returned to salt lake city,\ncareless what became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he\nknew to be justice. there he found evil tidings awaiting him. there\nhad been a schism among the chosen people a few months before, some\nof the younger members of the church having rebelled against the\nauthority of the elders, and the result had been the secession of a\ncertain number of the malcontents, who had left utah and become\ngentiles. among these had been drebber and stangerson; and no one\nknew whither they had gone. rumour reported that drebber had managed\nto convert a large part of his property into money, and that he had\ndeparted a wealthy man, while his companion, stangerson, was\ncomparatively poor. there was no clue at all, however, as to their\nwhereabouts.\nmany a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of\nrevenge in the face of such a difficulty, but jefferson hope never\nfaltered for a moment. with the small competence he possessed, eked\nout by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to\ntown through the united states in quest of his enemies. year passed\ninto year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on,\na human bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon\nwhich he had devoted his life. at last his perseverance was rewarded.\nit was but a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told\nhim that cleveland in ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit\nof. he returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance\nall arranged. it chanced, however, that drebber, looking from his\nwindow, had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder\nin his eyes. he hurried before a justice of the peace, accompanied by\nstangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to\nhim that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and\nhatred of an old rival. that evening jefferson hope was taken into\ncustody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained for some\nweeks. when at last he was liberated, it was only to find that\ndrebber's house was deserted, and that he and his secretary had\ndeparted for europe.\nagain the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred\nurged him to continue the pursuit. funds were wanting, however, and\nfor some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his\napproaching journey. at last, having collected enough to keep life in\nhim, he departed for europe, and tracked his enemies from city to\ncity, working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking\nthe fugitives. when he reached st. petersburg they had departed for\nparis; and when he followed them there he learned that they had just\nset off for copenhagen. at the danish capital he was again a few days\nlate, for they had journeyed on to london, where he at last succeeded\nin running them to earth. as to what occurred there, we cannot do\nbetter than quote the old hunter's own account, as duly recorded in\ndr. watson's journal, to which we are already under such obligations.\nchapter vi\na continuation of the reminiscences of john watson, m.d.\nour prisoner's furious resistance did not apparently indicate any\nferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself\npowerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes\nthat he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. \"i guess you're going\nto take me to the police-station,\" he remarked to sherlock holmes.\n\"my cab's at the door. if you'll loose my legs i'll walk down to it.\ni'm not so light to lift as i used to be.\"\ngregson and lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this\nproposition rather a bold one; but holmes at once took the prisoner\nat his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his\nankles. he rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself\nthat they were free once more. i remember that i thought to myself,\nas i eyed him, that i had seldom seen a more powerfully built man;\nand his dark sunburned face bore an expression of determination and\nenergy which was as formidable as his personal strength.\n\"if there's a vacant place for a chief of the police, i reckon you\nare the man for it,\" he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at\nmy fellow-lodger. \"the way you kept on my trail was a caution.\"\n\"you had better come with me,\" said holmes to the two detectives.\n\"i can drive you,\" said lestrade.\n\"good! and gregson can come inside with me. you too, doctor, you have\ntaken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.\"\ni assented gladly, and we all descended together. our prisoner made\nno attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been\nhis, and we followed him. lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the\nhorse, and brought us in a very short time to our destination. we\nwere ushered into a small chamber where a police inspector noted down\nour prisoner's name and the names of the men with whose murder he had\nbeen charged. the official was a white-faced unemotional man, who\nwent through his duties in a dull mechanical way. \"the prisoner will\nbe put before the magistrates in the course of the week,\" he said;\n\"in the mean time, mr. jefferson hope, have you anything that you\nwish to say? i must warn you that your words will be taken down, and\nmay be used against you.\"\n\"i've got a good deal to say,\" our prisoner said slowly. \"i want to\ntell you gentlemen all about it.\"\n\"hadn't you better reserve that for your trial?\" asked the inspector.\n\"i may never be tried,\" he answered. \"you needn't look startled. it\nisn't suicide i am thinking of. are you a doctor?\" he turned his\nfierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.\n\"yes; i am,\" i answered.\n\"then put your hand here,\" he said, with a smile, motioning with his\nmanacled wrists towards his chest.\ni did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing\nand commotion which was going on inside. the walls of his chest\nseemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when\nsome powerful engine was at work. in the silence of the room i could\nhear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same\nsource.\n\"why,\" i cried, \"you have an aortic aneurism!\"\n\"that's what they call it,\" he said, placidly. \"i went to a doctor\nlast week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before\nmany days passed. it has been getting worse for years. i got it from\nover-exposure and under-feeding among the salt lake mountains. i've\ndone my work now, and i don't care how soon i go, but i should like\nto leave some account of the business behind me. i don't want to be\nremembered as a common cut-throat.\"\nthe inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to\nthe advisability of allowing him to tell his story.\n\"do you consider, doctor, that there is immediate danger?\" the former\nasked.\n\"most certainly there is,\" i answered.\n\"in that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to\ntake his statement,\" said the inspector. \"you are at liberty, sir, to\ngive your account, which i again warn you will be taken down.\"\n\"i'll sit down, with your leave,\" the prisoner said, suiting the\naction to the word. \"this aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and\nthe tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. i'm on the\nbrink of the grave, and i am not likely to lie to you. every word i\nsay is the absolute truth, and how you use it is a matter of no\nconsequence to me.\"\nwith these words, jefferson hope leaned back in his chair and began\nthe following remarkable statement. he spoke in a calm and methodical\nmanner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace\nenough. i can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for i\nhave had access to lestrade's note-book, in which the prisoner's\nwords were taken down exactly as they were uttered.\n\"it don't much matter to you why i hated these men,\" he said; \"it's\nenough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings--a\nfather and a daughter--and that they had, therefore, forfeited their\nown lives. after the lapse of time that has passed since their crime,\nit was impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any\ncourt. i knew of their guilt though, and i determined that i should\nbe judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. you'd have done\nthe same, if you have any manhood in you, if you had been in my\nplace.\n\"that girl that i spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago.\nshe was forced into marrying that same drebber, and broke her heart\nover it. i took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and i vowed\nthat his dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his\nlast thoughts should be of the crime for which he was punished. i\nhave carried it about with me, and have followed him and his\naccomplice over two continents until i caught them. they thought to\ntire me out, but they could not do it. if i die to-morrow, as is\nlikely enough, i die knowing that my work in this world is done, and\nwell done. they have perished, and by my hand. there is nothing left\nfor me to hope for, or to desire.\n\"they were rich and i was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me\nto follow them. when i got to london my pocket was about empty, and i\nfound that i must turn my hand to something for my living. driving\nand riding are as natural to me as walking, so i applied at a\ncabowner's office, and soon got employment. i was to bring a certain\nsum a week to the owner, and whatever was over that i might keep for\nmyself. there was seldom much over, but i managed to scrape along\nsomehow. the hardest job was to learn my way about, for i reckon that\nof all the mazes that ever were contrived, this city is the most\nconfusing. i had a map beside me though, and when once i had spotted\nthe principal hotels and stations, i got on pretty well.\n\"it was some time before i found out where my two gentlemen were\nliving; but i inquired and inquired until at last i dropped across\nthem. they were at a boarding-house at camberwell, over on the other\nside of the river. when once i found them out i knew that i had them\nat my mercy. i had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their\nrecognizing me. i would dog them and follow them until i saw my\nopportunity. i was determined that they should not escape me again.\n\"they were very near doing it for all that. go where they would about\nlondon, i was always at their heels. sometimes i followed them on my\ncab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then\nthey could not get away from me. it was only early in the morning or\nlate at night that i could earn anything, so that i began to get\nbehind hand with my employer. i did not mind that, however, as long\nas i could lay my hand upon the men i wanted.\n\"they were very cunning, though. they must have thought that there\nwas some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out\nalone, and never after nightfall. during two weeks i drove behind\nthem every day, and never once saw them separate. drebber himself was\ndrunk half the time, but stangerson was not to be caught napping. i\nwatched them late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but\ni was not discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost\ncome. my only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a\nlittle too soon and leave my work undone.\n\"at last, one evening i was driving up and down torquay terrace, as\nthe street was called in which they boarded, when i saw a cab drive\nup to their door. presently some luggage was brought out, and after a\ntime drebber and stangerson followed it, and drove off. i whipped up\nmy horse and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for\ni feared that they were going to shift their quarters. at euston\nstation they got out, and i left a boy to hold my horse, and followed\nthem on to the platform. i heard them ask for the liverpool train,\nand the guard answer that one had just gone and there would not be\nanother for some hours. stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but\ndrebber was rather pleased than otherwise. i got so close to them in\nthe bustle that i could hear every word that passed between them.\ndrebber said that he had a little business of his own to do, and that\nif the other would wait for him he would soon rejoin him. his\ncompanion remonstrated with him, and reminded him that they had\nresolved to stick together. drebber answered that the matter was a\ndelicate one, and that he must go alone. i could not catch what\nstangerson said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and\nreminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant, and that\nhe must not presume to dictate to him. on that the secretary gave it\nup as a bad job, and simply bargained with him that if he missed the\nlast train he should rejoin him at halliday's private hotel; to which\ndrebber answered that he would be back on the platform before eleven,\nand made his way out of the station.\n\"the moment for which i had waited so long had at last come. i had my\nenemies within my power. together they could protect each other, but\nsingly they were at my mercy. i did not act, however, with undue\nprecipitation. my plans were already formed. there is no satisfaction\nin vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that\nstrikes him, and why retribution has come upon him. i had my plans\narranged by which i should have the opportunity of making the man who\nhad wronged me understand that his old sin had found him out. it\nchanced that some days before a gentleman who had been engaged in\nlooking over some houses in the brixton road had dropped the key of\none of them in my carriage. it was claimed that same evening, and\nreturned; but in the interval i had taken a moulding of it, and had a\nduplicate constructed. by means of this i had access to at least one\nspot in this great city where i could rely upon being free from\ninterruption. how to get drebber to that house was the difficult\nproblem which i had now to solve.\n\"he walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops,\nstaying for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. when he came out\nhe staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. there was\na hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. i followed it so\nclose that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the\nwhole way. we rattled across waterloo bridge and through miles of\nstreets, until, to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the\nterrace in which he had boarded. i could not imagine what his\nintention was in returning there; but i went on and pulled up my cab\na hundred yards or so from the house. he entered it, and his hansom\ndrove away. give me a glass of water, if you please. my mouth gets\ndry with the talking.\"\ni handed him the glass, and he drank it down.\n\"that's better,\" he said. \"well, i waited for a quarter of an hour,\nor more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling\ninside the house. next moment the door was flung open and two men\nappeared, one of whom was drebber, and the other was a young chap\nwhom i had never seen before. this fellow had drebber by the collar,\nand when they came to the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a\nkick which sent him half across the road. 'you hound,' he cried,\nshaking his stick at him; 'i'll teach you to insult an honest girl!'\nhe was so hot that i think he would have thrashed drebber with his\ncudgel, only that the cur staggered away down the road as fast as his\nlegs would carry him. he ran as far as the corner, and then, seeing\nmy cab, he hailed me and jumped in. 'drive me to halliday's private\nhotel,' said he.\n\"when i had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy\nthat i feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. i\ndrove along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. i\nmight take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted\nlane have my last interview with him. i had almost decided upon this,\nwhen he solved the problem for me. the craze for drink had seized him\nagain, and he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. he went in,\nleaving word that i should wait for him. there he remained until\nclosing time, and when he came out he was so far gone that i knew the\ngame was in my own hands.\n\"don't imagine that i intended to kill him in cold blood. it would\nonly have been rigid justice if i had done so, but i could not bring\nmyself to do it. i had long determined that he should have a show for\nhis life if he chose to take advantage of it. among the many billets\nwhich i have filled in america during my wandering life, i was once\njanitor and sweeper out of the laboratory at york college. one day\nthe professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students\nsome alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some\nsouth american arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least\ngrain meant instant death. i spotted the bottle in which this\npreparation was kept, and when they were all gone, i helped myself to\na little of it. i was a fairly good dispenser, so i worked this\nalkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill i put in a box with\na similar pill made without the poison. i determined at the time that\nwhen i had my chance, my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one\nof these boxes, while i ate the pill that remained. it would be quite\nas deadly, and a good deal less noisy than firing across a\nhandkerchief. from that day i had always my pill boxes about with me,\nand the time had now come when i was to use them.\n\"it was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard\nand raining in torrents. dismal as it was outside, i was glad\nwithin--so glad that i could have shouted out from pure exultation.\nif any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for\nit during twenty long years, and then suddenly found it within your\nreach, you would understand my feelings. i lit a cigar, and puffed at\nit to steady my nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples\nthrobbing with excitement. as i drove, i could see old john ferrier\nand sweet lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me,\njust as plain as i see you all in this room. all the way they were\nahead of me, one on each side of the horse until i pulled up at the\nhouse in the brixton road.\n\"there was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the\ndripping of the rain. when i looked in at the window, i found drebber\nall huddled together in a drunken sleep. i shook him by the arm,\n'it's time to get out,' i said.\n\"'all right, cabby,' said he.\n\"i suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,\nfor he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden.\ni had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a\nlittle top-heavy. when we came to the door, i opened it, and led him\ninto the front room. i give you my word that all the way, the father\nand the daughter were walking in front of us.\n\"'it's infernally dark,' said he, stamping about.\n\"'we'll soon have a light,' i said, striking a match and putting it\nto a wax candle which i had brought with me. 'now, enoch drebber,' i\ncontinued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, 'who\nam i?'\n\"he gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then i\nsaw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features,\nwhich showed me that he knew me. he staggered back with a livid face,\nand i saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth\nchattered in his head. at the sight, i leaned my back against the\ndoor and laughed loud and long. i had always known that vengeance\nwould be sweet, but i had never hoped for the contentment of soul\nwhich now possessed me.\n\"'you dog!' i said; 'i have hunted you from salt lake city to st.\npetersburg, and you have always escaped me. now, at last your\nwanderings have come to an end, for either you or i shall never see\nto-morrow's sun rise.' he shrunk still further away as i spoke, and i\ncould see on his face that he thought i was mad. so i was for the\ntime. the pulses in my temples beat like sledge-hammers, and i\nbelieve i would have had a fit of some sort if the blood had not\ngushed from my nose and relieved me.\n\"'what do you think of lucy ferrier now?' i cried, locking the door,\nand shaking the key in his face. 'punishment has been slow in coming,\nbut it has overtaken you at last.' i saw his coward lips tremble as i\nspoke. he would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it\nwas useless.\n\"'would you murder me?' he stammered.\n\"'there is no murder,' i answered. 'who talks of murdering a mad dog?\nwhat mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from\nher slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and\nshameless harem.'\n\"'it was not i who killed her father,' he cried.\n\"'but it was you who broke her innocent heart,' i shrieked, thrusting\nthe box before him. 'let the high god judge between us. choose and\neat. there is death in one and life in the other. i shall take what\nyou leave. let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we\nare ruled by chance.'\n\"he cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but i drew my\nknife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. then i\nswallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a\nminute or more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to\ndie. shall i ever forget the look which came over his face when the\nfirst warning pangs told him that the poison was in his system? i\nlaughed as i saw it, and held lucy's marriage ring in front of his\neyes. it was but for a moment, for the action of the alkaloid is\nrapid. a spasm of pain contorted his features; he threw his hands out\nin front of him, staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily\nupon the floor. i turned him over with my foot, and placed my hand\nupon his heart. there was no movement. he was dead!\n\"the blood had been streaming from my nose, but i had taken no notice\nof it. i don't know what it was that put it into my head to write\nupon the wall with it. perhaps it was some mischievous idea of\nsetting the police upon a wrong track, for i felt light-hearted and\ncheerful. i remembered a german being found in new york with rache\nwritten up above him, and it was argued at the time in the newspapers\nthat the secret societies must have done it. i guessed that what\npuzzled the new yorkers would puzzle the londoners, so i dipped my\nfinger in my own blood and printed it on a convenient place on the\nwall. then i walked down to my cab and found that there was nobody\nabout, and that the night was still very wild. i had driven some\ndistance when i put my hand into the pocket in which i usually kept\nlucy's ring, and found that it was not there. i was thunderstruck at\nthis, for it was the only memento that i had of her. thinking that i\nmight have dropped it when i stooped over drebber's body, i drove\nback, and leaving my cab in a side street, i went boldly up to the\nhouse--for i was ready to dare anything rather than lose the ring.\nwhen i arrived there, i walked right into the arms of a\npolice-officer who was coming out, and only managed to disarm his\nsuspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.\n\"that was how enoch drebber came to his end. all i had to do then was\nto do as much for stangerson, and so pay off john ferrier's debt. i\nknew that he was staying at halliday's private hotel, and i hung\nabout all day, but he never came out. i fancy that he suspected\nsomething when drebber failed to put in an appearance. he was\ncunning, was stangerson, and always on his guard. if he thought he\ncould keep me off by staying indoors he was very much mistaken. i\nsoon found out which was the window of his bedroom, and early next\nmorning i took advantage of some ladders which were lying in the lane\nbehind the hotel, and so made my way into his room in the grey of the\ndawn. i woke him up and told him that the hour had come when he was\nto answer for the life he had taken so long before. i described\ndrebber's death to him, and i gave him the same choice of the\npoisoned pills. instead of grasping at the chance of safety which\nthat offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my throat. in\nself-defence i stabbed him to the heart. it would have been the same\nin any case, for providence would never have allowed his guilty hand\nto pick out anything but the poison.\n\"i have little more to say, and it's as well, for i am about done up.\ni went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until i\ncould save enough to take me back to america. i was standing in the\nyard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called\njefferson hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at\n221b, baker street. i went round, suspecting no harm, and the next\nthing i knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and\nas neatly snackled as ever i saw in my life. that's the whole of my\nstory, gentlemen. you may consider me to be a murderer; but i hold\nthat i am just as much an officer of justice as you are.\"\nso thrilling had the man's narrative been, and his manner was so\nimpressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. even the professional\ndetectives, blase as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to\nbe keenly interested in the man's story. when he finished we sat for\nsome minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching\nof lestrade's pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his\nshorthand account.\n\"there is only one point on which i should like a little more\ninformation,\" sherlock holmes said at last. \"who was your accomplice\nwho came for the ring which i advertised?\"\nthe prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. \"i can tell my own\nsecrets,\" he said, \"but i don't get other people into trouble. i saw\nyour advertisement, and i thought it might be a plant, or it might be\nthe ring which i wanted. my friend volunteered to go and see. i think\nyou'll own he did it smartly.\"\n\"not a doubt of that,\" said holmes heartily.\n\"now, gentlemen,\" the inspector remarked gravely, \"the forms of the\nlaw must be complied with. on thursday the prisoner will be brought\nbefore the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. until\nthen i will be responsible for him.\" he rang the bell as he spoke,\nand jefferson hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my\nfriend and i made our way out of the station and took a cab back to\nbaker street.\nchapter vii\nthe conclusion\nwe had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the\nthursday; but when the thursday came there was no occasion for our\ntestimony. a higher judge had taken the matter in hand, and jefferson\nhope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would\nbe meted out to him. on the very night after his capture the aneurism\nburst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of\nthe cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been\nable in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on\nwork well done.\n\"gregson and lestrade will be wild about his death,\" holmes remarked,\nas we chatted it over next evening. \"where will their grand\nadvertisement be now?\"\n\"i don't see that they had very much to do with his capture,\" i\nanswered.\n\"what you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,\" returned\nmy companion, bitterly. \"the question is, what can you make people\nbelieve that you have done. never mind,\" he continued, more brightly,\nafter a pause. \"i would not have missed the investigation for\nanything. there has been no better case within my recollection.\nsimple as it was, there were several most instructive points about\nit.\"\n\"simple!\" i ejaculated.\n\"well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,\" said\nsherlock holmes, smiling at my surprise. \"the proof of its intrinsic\nsimplicity is, that without any help save a few very ordinary\ndeductions i was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three\ndays.\"\n\"that is true,\" said i.\n\"i have already explained to you that what is out of the common is\nusually a guide rather than a hindrance. in solving a problem of this\nsort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. that is a\nvery useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not\npractise it much. in the every-day affairs of life it is more useful\nto reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. there are\nfifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason\nanalytically.\"\n\"i confess,\" said i, \"that i do not quite follow you.\"\n\"i hardly expected that you would. let me see if i can make it\nclearer. most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will\ntell you what the result would be. they can put those events together\nin their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass.\nthere are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would\nbe able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps\nwere which led up to that result. this power is what i mean when i\ntalk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.\"\n\"i understand,\" said i.\n\"now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to\nfind everything else for yourself. now let me endeavour to show you\nthe different steps in my reasoning. to begin at the beginning. i\napproached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely\nfree from all impressions. i naturally began by examining the\nroadway, and there, as i have already explained to you, i saw clearly\nthe marks of a cab, which, i ascertained by inquiry, must have been\nthere during the night. i satisfied myself that it was a cab and not\na private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. the ordinary\nlondon growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman's brougham.\n\"this was the first point gained. i then walked slowly down the\ngarden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly\nsuitable for taking impressions. no doubt it appeared to you to be a\nmere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon\nits surface had a meaning. there is no branch of detective science\nwhich is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing\nfootsteps. happily, i have always laid great stress upon it, and much\npractice has made it second nature to me. i saw the heavy footmarks\nof the constables, but i saw also the track of the two men who had\nfirst passed through the garden. it was easy to tell that they had\nbeen before the others, because in places their marks had been\nentirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. in\nthis way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal\nvisitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as i\ncalculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably\ndressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his\nboots.\n\"on entering the house this last inference was confirmed. my\nwell-booted man lay before me. the tall one, then, had done the\nmurder, if murder there was. there was no wound upon the dead man's\nperson, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he\nhad foreseen his fate before it came upon him. men who die from heart\ndisease, or any sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit\nagitation upon their features. having sniffed the dead man's lips i\ndetected a slightly sour smell, and i came to the conclusion that he\nhad had poison forced upon him. again, i argued that it had been\nforced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. by\nthe method of exclusion, i had arrived at this result, for no other\nhypothesis would meet the facts. do not imagine that it was a very\nunheard of idea. the forcible administration of poison is by no means\na new thing in criminal annals. the cases of dolsky in odessa, and of\nleturier in montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.\n\"and now came the great question as to the reason why. robbery had\nnot been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. was it\npolitics, then, or was it a woman? that was the question which\nconfronted me. i was inclined from the first to the latter\nsupposition. political assassins are only too glad to do their work\nand to fly. this murder had, on the contrary, been done most\ndeliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the\nroom, showing that he had been there all the time. it must have been\na private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a\nmethodical revenge. when the inscription was discovered upon the wall\ni was more inclined than ever to my opinion. the thing was too\nevidently a blind. when the ring was found, however, it settled the\nquestion. clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of\nsome dead or absent woman. it was at this point that i asked gregson\nwhether he had enquired in his telegram to cleveland as to any\nparticular point in mr. drebber's former career. he answered, you\nremember, in the negative.\n\"i then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which\nconfirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height, and furnished\nme with the additional details as to the trichinopoly cigar and the\nlength of his nails. i had already come to the conclusion, since\nthere were no signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the\nfloor had burst from the murderer's nose in his excitement. i could\nperceive that the track of blood coincided with the track of his\nfeet. it is seldom that any man, unless he is very full-blooded,\nbreaks out in this way through emotion, so i hazarded the opinion\nthat the criminal was probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. events\nproved that i had judged correctly.\n\"having left the house, i proceeded to do what gregson had neglected.\ni telegraphed to the head of the police at cleveland, limiting my\nenquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of enoch\ndrebber. the answer was conclusive. it told me that drebber had\nalready applied for the protection of the law against an old rival in\nlove, named jefferson hope, and that this same hope was at present in\neurope. i knew now that i held the clue to the mystery in my hand,\nand all that remained was to secure the murderer.\n\"i had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked\ninto the house with drebber, was none other than the man who had\ndriven the cab. the marks in the road showed me that the horse had\nwandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there been\nanyone in charge of it. where, then, could the driver be, unless he\nwere inside the house? again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane\nman would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it\nwere, of a third person, who was sure to betray him. lastly,\nsupposing one man wished to dog another through london, what better\nmeans could he adopt than to turn cabdriver. all these considerations\nled me to the irresistible conclusion that jefferson hope was to be\nfound among the jarveys of the metropolis.\n\"if he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased\nto be. on the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden chance\nwould be likely to draw attention to himself. he would, probably, for\na time at least, continue to perform his duties. there was no reason\nto suppose that he was going under an assumed name. why should he\nchange his name in a country where no one knew his original one? i\ntherefore organized my street arab detective corps, and sent them\nsystematically to every cab proprietor in london until they ferreted\nout the man that i wanted. how well they succeeded, and how quickly i\ntook advantage of it, are still fresh in your recollection. the\nmurder of stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected,\nbut which could hardly in any case have been prevented. through it,\nas you know, i came into possession of the pills, the existence of\nwhich i had already surmised. you see the whole thing is a chain of\nlogical sequences without a break or flaw.\"\n\"it is wonderful!\" i cried. \"your merits should be publicly\nrecognized. you should publish an account of the case. if you won't,\ni will for you.\"\n\"you may do what you like, doctor,\" he answered. \"see here!\" he\ncontinued, handing a paper over to me, \"look at this!\"\nit was the echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed\nwas devoted to the case in question.\n\"the public,\" it said, \"have lost a sensational treat through the\nsudden death of the man hope, who was suspected of the murder of mr.\nenoch drebber and of mr. joseph stangerson. the details of the case\nwill probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good\nauthority that the crime was the result of an old standing and\nromantic feud, in which love and mormonism bore a part. it seems that\nboth the victims belonged, in their younger days, to the latter day\nsaints, and hope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from salt lake\ncity. if the case has had no other effect, it, at least, brings out\nin the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police\nforce, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do\nwisely to settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to\nbritish soil. it is an open secret that the credit of this smart\ncapture belongs entirely to the well-known scotland yard officials,\nmessrs. lestrade and gregson. the man was apprehended, it appears, in\nthe rooms of a certain mr. sherlock holmes, who has himself, as an\namateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with such\ninstructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their\nskill. it is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be\npresented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their\nservices.\"\n\"didn't i tell you so when we started?\" cried sherlock holmes with a\nlaugh. \"that's the result of all our study in scarlet: to get them a\ntestimonial!\"\n\"never mind,\" i answered, \"i have all the facts in my journal, and\nthe public shall know them. in the meantime you must make yourself\ncontented by the consciousness of success, like the roman miser--\n\"'populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo\nipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca.'\"\nthe sign of the four\ntable of contents\nthe science of deduction\nthe statement of the case\nin quest of a solution\nthe story of the bald-headed man\nthe tragedy of pondicherry lodge\nsherlock holmes gives a demonstration\nthe episode of the barrel\nthe baker street irregulars\na break in the chain\nthe end of the islander\nthe great agra treasure\nthe strange story of jonathan small\nchapter i\nthe science of deduction\nsherlock holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece\nand his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. with his long,\nwhite, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled\nback his left shirt-cuff. for some little time his eyes rested\nthoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred\nwith innumerable puncture-marks. finally he thrust the sharp point\nhome, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the\nvelvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.\nthree times a day for many months i had witnessed this performance,\nbut custom had not reconciled my mind to it. on the contrary, from\nday to day i had become more irritable at the sight, and my\nconscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that i had lacked\nthe courage to protest. again and again i had registered a vow that i\nshould deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the\ncool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with\nwhom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. his\ngreat powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which i had had\nof his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and\nbackward in crossing him.\nyet upon that afternoon, whether it was the beaune which i had taken\nwith my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme\ndeliberation of his manner, i suddenly felt that i could hold out no\nlonger.\n\"which is it to-day?\" i asked,--\"morphine or cocaine?\"\nhe raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which\nhe had opened. \"it is cocaine,\" he said,--\"a seven-per-cent solution.\nwould you care to try it?\"\n\"no, indeed,\" i answered, brusquely. \"my constitution has not got\nover the afghan campaign yet. i cannot afford to throw any extra\nstrain upon it.\"\nhe smiled at my vehemence. \"perhaps you are right, watson,\" he said.\n\"i suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. i find it,\nhowever, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind\nthat its secondary action is a matter of small moment.\"\n\"but consider!\" i said, earnestly. \"count the cost! your brain may,\nas you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and\nmorbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at\nlast leave a permanent weakness. you know, too, what a black reaction\ncomes upon you. surely the game is hardly worth the candle. why\nshould you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great\npowers with which you have been endowed?  remember that i speak not\nonly as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose\nconstitution he is to some extent answerable.\"\nhe did not seem offended. on the contrary, he put his fingertips\ntogether and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who\nhas a relish for conversation.\n\"my mind,\" he said, \"rebels at stagnation. give me problems, give me\nwork, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate\nanalysis, and i am in my own proper atmosphere. i can dispense then\nwith artificial stimulants. but i abhor the dull routine of\nexistence. i crave for mental exaltation. that is why i have chosen\nmy own particular profession,--or rather created it, for i am the\nonly one in the world.\"\n\"the only unofficial detective?\" i said, raising my eyebrows.\n\"the only unofficial consulting detective,\" he answered.  \"i am the\nlast and highest court of appeal in detection. when gregson or\nlestrade or athelney jones are out of their depths--which, by the\nway, is their normal state--the matter is laid before me. i examine\nthe data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. i claim\nno credit in such cases. my name figures in no newspaper. the work\nitself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my\nhighest reward. but you have yourself had some experience of my\nmethods of work in the jefferson hope case.\"\n\"yes, indeed,\" said i, cordially. \"i was never so struck by anything\nin my life. i even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat\nfantastic title of 'a study in scarlet.'\"\nhe shook his head sadly. \"i glanced over it,\" said he.  \"honestly, i\ncannot congratulate you upon it. detection is, or ought to be, an\nexact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional\nmanner. you have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which\nproduces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an\nelopement into the fifth proposition of euclid.\"\n\"but the romance was there,\" i remonstrated. \"i could not tamper with\nthe facts.\"\n\"some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of\nproportion should be observed in treating them. the only point in the\ncase which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from\neffects to causes by which i succeeded in unraveling it.\"\ni was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially\ndesigned to please him. i confess, too, that i was irritated by the\negotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should\nbe devoted to his own special doings. more than once during the years\nthat i had lived with him in baker street i had observed that a small\nvanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. i made no\nremark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. i had a jezail\nbullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me\nfrom walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.\n\"my practice has extended recently to the continent,\" said holmes,\nafter a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. \"i was consulted\nlast week by francois le villard, who, as you probably know, has come\nrather to the front lately in the french detective service. he has\nall the celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the\nwide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher\ndevelopments of his art. the case was concerned with a will, and\npossessed some features of interest. i was able to refer him to two\nparallel cases, the one at riga in 1857, and the other at st. louis\nin 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. here is the\nletter which i had this morning acknowledging my assistance.\" he\ntossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. i\nglanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration,\nwith stray magnifiques, coup-de-matres and tours-de-force, all\ntestifying to the ardent admiration of the frenchman.\n\"he speaks as a pupil to his master,\" said i.\n\"oh, he rates my assistance too highly,\" said sherlock holmes,\nlightly. \"he has considerable gifts himself. he possesses two out of\nthe three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. he has the\npower of observation and that of deduction. he is only wanting in\nknowledge; and that may come in time. he is now translating my small\nworks into french.\"\n\"your works?\"\n\"oh, didn't you know?\" he cried, laughing. \"yes, i have been guilty\nof several monographs. they are all upon technical subjects. here,\nfor example, is one 'upon the distinction between the ashes of the\nvarious tobaccoes.' in it i enumerate a hundred and forty forms of\ncigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates\nillustrating the difference in the ash. it is a point which is\ncontinually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of\nsupreme importance as a clue. if you can say definitely, for example,\nthat some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an indian\nlunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. to the trained eye\nthere is as much difference between the black ash of a trichinopoly\nand the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a\npotato.\"\n\"you have an extraordinary genius for minutiae,\" i remarked.\n\"i appreciate their importance. here is my monograph upon the tracing\nof footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of paris as\na preserver of impresses. here, too, is a curious little work upon\nthe influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes\nof the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers,\nand diamond-polishers. that is a matter of great practical interest\nto the scientific detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed\nbodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. but i weary\nyou with my hobby.\"\n\"not at all,\" i answered, earnestly. \"it is of the greatest interest\nto me, especially since i have had the opportunity of observing your\npractical application of it. but you spoke just now of observation\nand deduction. surely the one to some extent implies the other.\"\n\"why, hardly,\" he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair,\nand sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. \"for example,\nobservation shows me that you have been to the wigmore street\npost-office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there\nyou dispatched a telegram.\"\n\"right!\" said i. \"right on both points! but i confess that i don't\nsee how you arrived at it. it was a sudden impulse upon my part, and\ni have mentioned it to no one.\"\n\"it is simplicity itself,\" he remarked, chuckling at my\nsurprise,--\"so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous;\nand yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of\ndeduction. observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould\nadhering to your instep. just opposite the seymour street office they\nhave taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in\nsuch a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering.\nthe earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as\ni know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. so much is observation. the\nrest is deduction.\"\n\"how, then, did you deduce the telegram?\"\n\"why, of course i knew that you had not written a letter, since i sat\nopposite to you all morning. i see also in your open desk there that\nyou have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards.  what\ncould you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire?\neliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the\ntruth.\"\n\"in this case it certainly is so,\" i replied, after a little thought.\n\"the thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest.  would you\nthink me impertinent if i were to put your theories to a more severe\ntest?\"\n\"on the contrary,\" he answered, \"it would prevent me from taking a\nsecond dose of cocaine. i should be delighted to look into any\nproblem which you might submit to me.\"\n\"i have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any\nobject in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality\nupon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. now, i\nhave here a watch which has recently come into my possession. would\nyou have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or\nhabits of the late owner?\"\ni handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in\nmy heart, for the test was, as i thought, an impossible one, and i\nintended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he\noccasionally assumed. he balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard\nat the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his\nnaked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. i could hardly keep\nfrom smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case\nto and handed it back.\n\"there are hardly any data,\" he remarked. \"the watch has been\nrecently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.\"\n\"you are right,\" i answered. \"it was cleaned before being sent to\nme.\" in my heart i accused my companion of putting forward a most\nlame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. what data could he\nexpect from an uncleaned watch?\n\"though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,\" he\nobserved, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.\n\"subject to your correction, i should judge that the watch belonged\nto your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.\"\n\"that you gather, no doubt, from the h. w. upon the back?\"\n\"quite so. the w. suggests your own name. the date of the watch is\nnearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so\nit was made for the last generation. jewelry usually descents to the\neldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the\nfather. your father has, if i remember right, been dead many years.\nit has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.\"\n\"right, so far,\" said i. \"anything else?\"\n\"he was a man of untidy habits,--very untidy and careless. he was\nleft with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for\nsome time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity,\nand finally, taking to drink, he died. that is all i can gather.\"\ni sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with\nconsiderable bitterness in my heart.\n\"this is unworthy of you, holmes,\" i said. \"i could not have believed\nthat you would have descended to this. you have made inquires into\nthe history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this\nknowledge in some fanciful way. you cannot expect me to believe that\nyou have read all this from his old watch! it is unkind, and, to\nspeak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.\"\n\"my dear doctor,\" said he, kindly, \"pray accept my apologies.\nviewing the matter as an abstract problem, i had forgotten how\npersonal and painful a thing it might be to you. i assure you,\nhowever, that i never even knew that you had a brother until you\nhanded me the watch.\"\n\"then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these\nfacts? they are absolutely correct in every particular.\"\n\"ah, that is good luck. i could only say what was the balance of\nprobability. i did not at all expect to be so accurate.\"\n\"but it was not mere guess-work?\"\n\"no, no: i never guess. it is a shocking habit,--destructive to the\nlogical faculty. what seems strange to you is only so because you do\nnot follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which\nlarge inferences may depend. for example, i began by stating that\nyour brother was careless. when you observe the lower part of that\nwatch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but\nit is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard\nobjects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. surely it is no\ngreat feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so\ncavalierly must be a careless man. neither is it a very far-fetched\ninference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty\nwell provided for in other respects.\"\ni nodded, to show that i followed his reasoning.\n\"it is very customary for pawnbrokers in england, when they take a\nwatch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the\ninside of the case. it is more handy than a label, as there is no\nrisk of the number being lost or transposed. there are no less than\nfour such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.\ninference,--that your brother was often at low water. secondary\ninference,--that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could\nnot have redeemed the pledge. finally, i ask you to look at the inner\nplate, which contains the key-hole. look at the thousands of\nscratches all round the hole,--marks where the key has slipped. what\nsober man's key could have scored those grooves? but you will never\nsee a drunkard's watch without them. he winds it at night, and he\nleaves these traces of his unsteady hand. where is the mystery in all\nthis?\"\n\"it is as clear as daylight,\" i answered. \"i regret the injustice\nwhich i did you. i should have had more faith in your marvellous\nfaculty. may i ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot\nat present?\"\n\"none. hence the cocaine. i cannot live without brain-work. what else\nis there to live for? stand at the window here. was ever such a\ndreary, dismal, unprofitable world? see how the yellow fog swirls\ndown the street and drifts across the duncolored houses. what could\nbe more hopelessly prosaic and material? what is the use of having\npowers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? crime\nis commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those\nwhich are commonplace have any function upon earth.\"\ni had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp\nknock our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.\n\"a young lady for you, sir,\" she said, addressing my companion.\n\"miss mary morstan,\" he read. \"hum! i have no recollection of the\nname. ask the young lady to step up, mrs. hudson. don't go, doctor. i\nshould prefer that you remain.\"\nchapter ii\nthe statement of the case\nmiss morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward\ncomposure of manner. she was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well\ngloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. there was, however, a\nplainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a\nsuggestion of limited means. the dress was a sombre grayish beige,\nuntrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull\nhue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. her\nface had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but\nher expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were\nsingularly spiritual and sympathetic. in an experience of women which\nextends over many nations and three separate continents, i have never\nlooked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and\nsensitive nature. i could not but observe that as she took the seat\nwhich sherlock holmes placed for her, her lip trembled, her hand\nquivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.\n\"i have come to you, mr. holmes,\" she said, \"because you once enabled\nmy employer, mrs. cecil forrester, to unravel a little domestic\ncomplication. she was much impressed by your kindness and skill.\"\n\"mrs. cecil forrester,\" he repeated thoughtfully. \"i believe that i\nwas of some slight service to her. the case, however, as i remember\nit, was a very simple one.\"\n\"she did not think so. but at least you cannot say the same of mine.\ni can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly\ninexplicable, than the situation in which i find myself.\"\nholmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. he leaned forward in\nhis chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his\nclear-cut, hawklike features. \"state your case,\" said he, in brisk,\nbusiness tones.\ni felt that my position was an embarrassing one. \"you will, i am\nsure, excuse me,\" i said, rising from my chair.\nto my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.\n\"if your friend,\" she said, \"would be good enough to stop, he might\nbe of inestimable service to me.\"\ni relapsed into my chair.\n\"briefly,\" she continued, \"the facts are these. my father was an\nofficer in an indian regiment who sent me home when i was quite a\nchild. my mother was dead, and i had no relative in england. i was\nplaced, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at\nedinburgh, and there i remained until i was seventeen years of age.\nin the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment,\nobtained twelve months' leave and came home. he telegraphed to me\nfrom london that he had arrived all safe, and directed me to come\ndown at once, giving the langham hotel as his address. his message,\nas i remember, was full of kindness and love. on reaching london i\ndrove to the langham, and was informed that captain morstan was\nstaying there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not\nyet returned. i waited all day without news of him. that night, on\nthe advice of the manager of the hotel, i communicated with the\npolice, and next morning we advertised in all the papers. our\ninquiries let to no result; and from that day to this no word has\never been heard of my unfortunate father. he came home with his heart\nfull of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and instead--\" she\nput her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence.\n\"the date?\" asked holmes, opening his note-book.\n\"he disappeared upon the 3d of december, 1878,--nearly ten years\nago.\"\n\"his luggage?\"\n\"remained at the hotel. there was nothing in it to suggest a\nclue,--some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of\ncuriosities from the andaman islands. he had been one of the officers\nin charge of the convict-guard there.\"\n\"had he any friends in town?\"\n\"only one that we know of,--major sholto, of his own regiment, the\n34th bombay infantry. the major had retired some little time before,\nand lived at upper norwood. we communicated with him, of course, but\nhe did not even know that his brother officer was in england.\"\n\"a singular case,\" remarked holmes.\n\"i have not yet described to you the most singular part. about six\nyears ago--to be exact, upon the 4th of may, 1882--an advertisement\nappeared in the times asking for the address of miss mary morstan and\nstating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. there was\nno name or address appended. i had at that time just entered the\nfamily of mrs. cecil forrester in the capacity of governess. by her\nadvice i published my address in the advertisement column. the same\nday there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed\nto me, which i found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. no\nword of writing was enclosed. since then every year upon the same\ndate there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar\npearl, without any clue as to the sender. they have been pronounced\nby an expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value. you\ncan see for yourselves that they are very handsome.\" she opened a\nflat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that i\nhad ever seen.\n\"your statement is most interesting,\" said sherlock holmes.  \"has\nanything else occurred to you?\"\n\"yes, and no later than to-day. that is why i have come to you.  this\nmorning i received this letter, which you will perhaps read for\nyourself.\"\n\"thank you,\" said holmes. \"the envelope too, please. postmark,\nlondon, s.w. date, july 7. hum! man's thumb-mark on corner,--probably\npostman. best quality paper. envelopes at sixpence a packet.\nparticular man in his stationery. no address. 'be at the third pillar\nfrom the left outside the lyceum theatre to-night at seven o'clock.\nif you are distrustful, bring two friends. you are a wronged woman,\nand shall have justice. do not bring police. if you do, all will be\nin vain. your unknown friend.' well, really, this is a very pretty\nlittle mystery.  what do you intend to do, miss morstan?\"\n\"that is exactly what i want to ask you.\"\n\"then we shall most certainly go. you and i and--yes, why, dr.\nwatson is the very man. your correspondent says two friends. he and i\nhave worked together before.\"\n\"but would he come?\" she asked, with something appealing in her voice\nand expression.\n\"i should be proud and happy,\" said i, fervently, \"if i can be of any\nservice.\"\n\"you are both very kind,\" she answered. \"i have led a retired life,\nand have no friends whom i could appeal to. if i am here at six it\nwill do, i suppose?\"\n\"you must not be later,\" said holmes. \"there is one other point,\nhowever. is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box\naddresses?\"\n\"i have them here,\" she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of\npaper.\n\"you are certainly a model client. you have the correct intuition.\nlet us see, now.\" he spread out the papers upon the table, and gave\nlittle darting glances from one to the other. \"they are disguised\nhands, except the letter,\" he said, presently, \"but there can be no\nquestion as to the authorship. see how the irrepressible greek e will\nbreak out, and see the twirl of the final s. they are undoubtedly by\nthe same person. i should not like to suggest false hopes, miss\nmorstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of\nyour father?\"\n\"nothing could be more unlike.\"\n\"i expected to hear you say so. we shall look out for you, then, at\nsix. pray allow me to keep the papers. i may look into the matter\nbefore then. it is only half-past three. au revoir, then.\"\n\"au revoir,\" said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from\none to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and\nhurried away. standing at the window, i watched her walking briskly\ndown the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a\nspeck in the sombre crowd.\n\"what a very attractive woman!\" i exclaimed, turning to my companion.\nhe had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping\neyelids. \"is she?\" he said, languidly. \"i did not observe.\"\n\"you really are an automaton,--a calculating-machine!\" i cried.\n\"there is something positively inhuman in you at times.\"\nhe smiled gently. \"it is of the first importance,\" he said, \"not to\nallow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. a client is\nto me a mere unit,--a factor in a problem. the emotional qualities\nare antagonistic to clear reasoning. i assure you that the most\nwinning woman i ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little\nchildren for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my\nacquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a\nmillion upon the london poor.\"\n\"in this case, however--\"\n\"i never make exceptions. an exception disproves the rule. have you\never had occasion to study character in handwriting? what do you make\nof this fellow's scribble?\"\n\"it is legible and regular,\" i answered. \"a man of business habits\nand some force of character.\"\nholmes shook his head. \"look at his long letters,\" he said. \"they\nhardly rise above the common herd. that d might be an a, and that l\nan e. men of character always differentiate their long letters,\nhowever illegibly they may write. there is vacillation in his k's and\nself-esteem in his capitals. i am going out now. i have some few\nreferences to make. let me recommend this book,--one of the most\nremarkable ever penned. it is winwood reade's martyrdom of man. i\nshall be back in an hour.\"\ni sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were\nfar from the daring speculations of the writer. my mind ran upon our\nlate visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the\nstrange mystery which overhung her life. if she were seventeen at the\ntime of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty\nnow,--a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and\nbecome a little sobered by experience. so i sat and mused, until such\ndangerous thoughts came into my head that i hurried away to my desk\nand plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. what\nwas i, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account,\nthat i should dare to think of such things? she was a unit, a\nfactor,--nothing more. if my future were black, it was better surely\nto face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere\nwill-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.\nchapter iii\nin quest of a solution\nit was half-past five before holmes returned. he was bright, eager,\nand in excellent spirits,--a mood which in his case alternated with\nfits of the blackest depression.\n\"there is no great mystery in this matter,\" he said, taking the cup\nof tea which i had poured out for him. \"the facts appear to admit of\nonly one explanation.\"\n\"what! you have solved it already?\"\n\"well, that would be too much to say. i have discovered a suggestive\nfact, that is all. it is, however, very suggestive. the details are\nstill to be added. i have just found, on consulting the back files of\nthe times, that major sholto, of upper norword, late of the 34th\nbombay infantry, died upon the 28th of april, 1882.\"\n\"i may be very obtuse, holmes, but i fail to see what this suggests.\"\n\"no? you surprise me. look at it in this way, then. captain morstan\ndisappears. the only person in london whom he could have visited is\nmajor sholto. major sholto denies having heard that he was in london.\nfour years later sholto dies. within a week of his death captain\nmorstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated\nfrom year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her\nas a wronged woman. what wrong can it refer to except this\ndeprivation of her father? and why should the presents begin\nimmediately after sholto's death, unless it is that sholto's heir\nknows something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? have\nyou any alternative theory which will meet the facts?\"\n\"but what a strange compensation! and how strangely made! why, too,\nshould he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? again, the\nletter speaks of giving her justice. what justice can she have? it is\ntoo much to suppose that her father is still alive. there is no other\ninjustice in her case that you know of.\"\n\"there are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties,\" said\nsherlock holmes, pensively. \"but our expedition of to-night will\nsolve them all. ah, here is a four-wheeler, and miss morstan is\ninside. are you all ready? then we had better go down, for it is a\nlittle past the hour.\"\ni picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but i observed that holmes\ntook his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. it\nwas clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious\none.\nmiss morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was\ncomposed, but pale. she must have been more than woman if she did not\nfeel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were\nembarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered\nthe few additional questions which sherlock holmes put to her.\n\"major sholto was a very particular friend of papa's,\" she said. \"his\nletters were full of allusions to the major. he and papa were in\ncommand of the troops at the andaman islands, so they were thrown a\ngreat deal together. by the way, a curious paper was found in papa's\ndesk which no one could understand. i don't suppose that it is of the\nslightest importance, but i thought you might care to see it, so i\nbrought it with me. it is here.\"\nholmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his\nknee. he then very methodically examined it all over with his double\nlens.\n\"it is paper of native indian manufacture,\" he remarked. \"it has at\nsome time been pinned to a board. the diagram upon it appears to be a\nplan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and\npassages. at one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it\nis '3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing.  in the left-hand\ncorner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with\ntheir arms touching. beside it is written, in very rough and coarse\ncharacters, 'the sign of the four,--jonathan small, mahomet singh,\nabdullah khan, dost akbar.' no, i confess that i do not see how this\nbears upon the matter. yet it is evidently a document of importance.\nit has been kept carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as\nclean as the other.\"\n\"it was in his pocket-book that we found it.\"\n\"preserve it carefully, then, miss morstan, for it may prove to be of\nuse to us. i begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be\nmuch deeper and more subtle than i at first supposed. i must\nreconsider my ideas.\" he leaned back in the cab, and i could see by\nhis drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. miss\nmorstan and i chatted in an undertone about our present expedition\nand its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his\nimpenetrable reserve until the end of our journey.\nit was a september evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day\nhad been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great\ncity. mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. down\nthe strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which\nthrew a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. the yellow\nglare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous\nair, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded\nthoroughfare. there was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like\nin the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow\nbars of light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. like all human\nkind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into\nthe gloom once more. i am not subject to impressions, but the dull,\nheavy evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged,\ncombined to make me nervous and depressed. i could see from miss\nmorstan's manner that she was suffering from the same feeling. holmes\nalone could rise superior to petty influences. he held his open\nnote-book upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted down figures\nand memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.\nat the lyceum theatre the crowds were already thick at the\nside-entrances. in front a continuous stream of hansoms and\nfour-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of\nshirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. we had hardly\nreached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small,\ndark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.\n\"are you the parties who come with miss morstan?\" he asked.\n\"i am miss morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,\" said\nshe.\nhe bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon\nus. \"you will excuse me, miss,\" he said with a certain dogged manner,\n\"but i was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your\ncompanions is a police-officer.\"\n\"i give you my word on that,\" she answered.\nhe gave a shrill whistle, on which a street arab led across a\nfour-wheeler and opened the door. the man who had addressed us\nmounted to the box, while we took our places inside. we had hardly\ndone so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away\nat a furious pace through the foggy streets.\nthe situation was a curious one. we were driving to an unknown place,\non an unknown errand. yet our invitation was either a complete\nhoax,--which was an inconceivable hypothesis,--or else we had good\nreason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey.\nmiss morstan's demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. i\nendeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures\nin afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, i was myself so excited at\nour situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories\nwere slightly involved. to this day she declares that i told her one\nmoving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of\nnight, and how i fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. at first i\nhad some idea as to the direction in which we were driving; but soon,\nwhat with our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of london,\ni lost my bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed to be going\na very long way. sherlock holmes was never at fault, however, and he\nmuttered the names as the cab rattled through squares and in and out\nby tortuous by-streets.\n\"rochester row,\" said he. \"now vincent square. now we come out on the\nvauxhall bridge road. we are making for the surrey side, apparently.\nyes, i thought so. now we are on the bridge. you can catch glimpses\nof the river.\"\nwe did indeed bet a fleeting view of a stretch of the thames with the\nlamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on,\nand was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other side.\n\"wordsworth road,\" said my companion. \"priory road. lark hall lane.\nstockwell place. robert street. cold harbor lane. our quest does not\nappear to take us to very fashionable regions.\"\nwe had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbidding neighborhood.\nlong lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse\nglare and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the corner. then came\nrows of two-storied villas each with a fronting of miniature garden,\nand then again interminable lines of new staring brick\nbuildings,--the monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing\nout into the country. at last the cab drew up at the third house in a\nnew terrace. none of the other houses were inhabited, and that at\nwhich we stopped was as dark as its neighbors, save for a single\nglimmer in the kitchen window. on our knocking, however, the door was\ninstantly thrown open by a hindoo servant clad in a yellow turban,\nwhite loose-fitting clothes, and a yellow sash. there was something\nstrangely incongruous in this oriental figure framed in the\ncommonplace door-way of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.\n\"the sahib awaits you,\" said he, and even as he spoke there came a\nhigh piping voice from some inner room. \"show them in to me,\nkhitmutgar,\" it cried. \"show them straight in to me.\"\nchapter iv\nthe story of the bald-headed man\nwe followed the indian down a sordid and common passage, ill lit and\nworse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he\nthrew open. a blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the\ncentre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a\nbristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining\nscalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from\nfir-trees. he writhed his hands together as he stood, and his\nfeatures were in a perpetual jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but\nnever for an instant in repose. nature had given him a pendulous lip,\nand a too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove\nfeebly to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part\nof his face. in spite of his obtrusive baldness, he gave the\nimpression of youth. in point of fact he had just turned his\nthirtieth year.\n\"your servant, miss morstan,\" he kept repeating, in a thin, high\nvoice. \"your servant, gentlemen. pray step into my little sanctum. a\nsmall place, miss, but furnished to my own liking.  an oasis of art\nin the howling desert of south london.\"\nwe were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which\nhe invited us. in that sorry house it looked as out of place as a\ndiamond of the first water in a setting of brass. the richest and\nglossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back\nhere and there to expose some richly-mounted painting or oriental\nvase. the carpet was of amber-and-black, so soft and so thick that\nthe foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. two great\ntiger-skins thrown athwart it increased the suggestion of eastern\nluxury, as did a huge hookah which stood upon a mat in the corner. a\nlamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost\ninvisible golden wire in the centre of the room. as it burned it\nfilled the air with a subtle and aromatic odor.\n\"mr. thaddeus sholto,\" said the little man, still jerking and\nsmiling. \"that is my name. you are miss morstan, of course. and these\ngentlemen--\"\n\"this is mr. sherlock holmes, and this is dr. watson.\"\n\"a doctor, eh?\" cried he, much excited. \"have you your stethoscope?\nmight i ask you--would you have the kindness? i have grave doubts as\nto my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. the aortic i may\nrely upon, but i should value your opinion upon the mitral.\"\ni listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find\nanything amiss, save indeed that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for he\nshivered from head to foot. \"it appears to be normal,\" i said. \"you\nhave no cause for uneasiness.\"\n\"you will excuse my anxiety, miss morstan,\" he remarked, airily.  \"i\nam a great sufferer, and i have long had suspicions as to that valve.\ni am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted. had your father,\nmiss morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he\nmight have been alive now.\"\ni could have struck the man across the face, so hot was i at this\ncallous and off-hand reference to so delicate a matter. miss morstan\nsat down, and her face grew white to the lips. \"i knew in my heart\nthat he was dead,\" said she.\n\"i can give you every information,\" said he, \"and, what is more, i\ncan do you justice; and i will, too, whatever brother bartholomew may\nsay. i am so glad to have your friends here, not only as an escort to\nyou, but also as witnesses to what i am about to do and say. the\nthree of us can show a bold front to brother bartholomew. but let us\nhave no outsiders,--no police or officials. we can settle everything\nsatisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference. nothing\nwould annoy brother bartholomew more than any publicity.\" he sat down\nupon a low settee and blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery\nblue eyes.\n\"for my part,\" said holmes, \"whatever you may choose to say will go\nno further.\"\ni nodded to show my agreement.\n\"that is well! that is well!\" said he. \"may i offer you a glass of\nchianti, miss morstan? or of tokay? i keep no other wines. shall i\nopen a flask? no? well, then, i trust that you have no objection to\ntobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odor of the eastern tobacco. i am\na little nervous, and i find my hookah an invaluable sedative.\" he\napplied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily\nthrough the rose-water. we sat all three in a semicircle, with our\nheads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange,\njerky little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in\nthe centre.\n\"when i first determined to make this communication to you,\" said he,\n\"i might have given you my address, but i feared that you might\ndisregard my request and bring unpleasant people with you. i took the\nliberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my\nman williams might be able to see you first. i have complete\nconfidence in his discretion, and he had orders, if he were\ndissatisfied, to proceed no further in the matter. you will excuse\nthese precautions, but i am a man of somewhat retiring, and i might\neven say refined, tastes, and there is nothing more unaesthetic than\na policeman. i have a natural shrinking from all forms of rough\nmaterialism. i seldom come in contact with the rough crowd. i live,\nas you see, with some little atmosphere of elegance around me. i may\ncall myself a patron of the arts. it is my weakness. the landscape is\na genuine corot, and, though a connoisseur might perhaps throw a\ndoubt upon that salvator rosa, there cannot be the least question\nabout the bouguereau. i am partial to the modern french school.\"\n\"you will excuse me, mr. sholto,\" said miss morstan, \"but i am here\nat your request to learn something which you desire to tell me. it is\nvery late, and i should desire the interview to be as short as\npossible.\"\n\"at the best it must take some time,\" he answered; \"for we shall\ncertainly have to go to norwood and see brother bartholomew. we shall\nall go and try if we can get the better of brother bartholomew. he is\nvery angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to\nme. i had quite high words with him last night. you cannot imagine\nwhat a terrible fellow he is when he is angry.\"\n\"if we are to go to norwood it would perhaps be as well to start at\nonce,\" i ventured to remark.\nhe laughed until his ears were quite red. \"that would hardly do,\" he\ncried. \"i don't know what he would say if i brought you in that\nsudden way. no, i must prepare you by showing you how we all stand to\neach other. in the first place, i must tell you that there are\nseveral points in the story of which i am myself ignorant. i can only\nlay the facts before you as far as i know them myself.\n\"my father was, as you may have guessed, major john sholto, once of\nthe indian army. he retired some eleven years ago, and came to live\nat pondicherry lodge in upper norwood. he had prospered in india, and\nbrought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large collection\nof valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants. with these\nadvantages he bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. my\ntwin-brother bartholomew and i were the only children.\n\"i very well remember the sensation which was caused by the\ndisappearance of captain morstan. we read the details in the papers,\nand, knowing that he had been a friend of our father's, we discussed\nthe case freely in his presence. he used to join in our speculations\nas to what could have happened. never for an instant did we suspect\nthat he had the whole secret hidden in his own breast,--that of all\nmen he alone knew the fate of arthur morstan.\n\"we did know, however, that some mystery--some positive\ndanger--overhung our father. he was very fearful of going out alone,\nand he always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at\npondicherry lodge. williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them.\nhe was once light-weight champion of england. our father would never\ntell us what it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to\nmen with wooden legs. on one occasion he actually fired his revolver\nat a wooden-legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman\ncanvassing for orders. we had to pay a large sum to hush the matter\nup. my brother and i used to think this a mere whim of my father's,\nbut events have since led us to change our opinion.\n\"early in 1882 my father received a letter from india which was a\ngreat shock to him. he nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he\nopened it, and from that day he sickened to his death. what was in\nthe letter we could never discover, but i could see as he held it\nthat it was short and written in a scrawling hand. he had suffered\nfor years from an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse,\nand towards the end of april we were informed that he was beyond all\nhope, and that he wished to make a last communication to us.\n\"when we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and\nbreathing heavily. he besought us to lock the door and to come upon\neither side of the bed. then, grasping our hands, he made a\nremarkable statement to us, in a voice which was broken as much by\nemotion as by pain. i shall try and give it to you in his own very\nwords.\n\"'i have only one thing,' he said, 'which weighs upon my mind at this\nsupreme moment. it is my treatment of poor morstan's orphan. the\ncursed greed which has been my besetting sin through life has\nwithheld from her the treasure, half at least of which should have\nbeen hers. and yet i have made no use of it myself,--so blind and\nfoolish a thing is avarice. the mere feeling of possession has been\nso dear to me that i could not bear to share it with another. see\nthat chaplet dipped with pearls beside the quinine-bottle. even that\ni could not bear to part with, although i had got it out with the\ndesign of sending it to her. you, my sons, will give her a fair share\nof the agra treasure. but send her nothing--not even the\nchaplet--until i am gone. after all, men have been as bad as this and\nhave recovered.\n\"'i will tell you how morstan died,' he continued. 'he had suffered\nfor years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from every one. i\nalone knew it. when in india, he and i, through a remarkable chain of\ncircumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure. i\nbrought it over to england, and on the night of morstan's arrival he\ncame straight over here to claim his share. he walked over from the\nstation, and was admitted by my faithful lal chowdar, who is now\ndead. morstan and i had a difference of opinion as to the division of\nthe treasure, and we came to heated words. morstan had sprung out of\nhis chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he suddenly pressed his hand\nto his side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards,\ncutting his head against the corner of the treasure-chest. when i\nstooped over him i found, to my horror, that he was dead.\n\"'for a long time i sat half distracted, wondering what i should do.\nmy first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but i could\nnot but recognize that there was every chance that i would be accused\nof his murder. his death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in\nhis head, would be black against me. again, an official inquiry could\nnot be made without bringing out some facts about the treasure, which\ni was particularly anxious to keep secret. he had told me that no\nsoul upon earth knew where he had gone. there seemed to be no\nnecessity why any soul ever should know.\n\"'i was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, i saw my\nservant, lal chowdar, in the doorway. he stole in and bolted the door\nbehind him. \"do not fear, sahib,\" he said. \"no one need know that you\nhave killed him. let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?\" \"i did\nnot kill him,\" said i. lal chowdar shook his head and smiled. \"i\nheard it all, sahib,\" said he. \"i heard you quarrel, and i heard the\nblow. but my lips are sealed. all are asleep in the house. let us put\nhim away together.\" that was enough to decide met. if my own servant\ncould not believe my innocence, how could i hope to make it good\nbefore twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? lal chowdar and i\ndisposed of the body that night, and within a few days the london\npapers were full of the mysterious disappearance of captain morstan.\nyou will see from what i say that i can hardly be blamed in the\nmatter. my fault lies in the fact that we concealed not only the\nbody, but also the treasure, and that i have clung to morstan's share\nas well as to my own. i wish you, therefore, to make restitution. put\nyour ears down to my mouth. the treasure is hidden in--at this\ninstant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes stared\nwildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled, in a voice which i can never\nforget, 'keep him out! for christ's sake keep him out'! we both\nstared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. a\nface was looking in at us out of the darkness. we could see the\nwhitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. it was\na bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of\nconcentrated malevolence. my brother and i rushed towards the window,\nbut the man was gone. when we returned to my father his head had\ndropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.\n\"we searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the\nintruder, save that just under the window a single footmark was\nvisible in the flower-bed. but for that one trace, we might have\nthought that our imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face.\nwe soon, however, had another and a more striking proof that there\nwere secret agencies at work all round us. the window of my father's\nroom was found open in the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been\nrifled, and upon his chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the\nwords 'the sign of the four' scrawled across it. what the phrase\nmeant, or who our secret visitor may have been, we never knew. as far\nas we can judge, none of my father's property had been actually\nstolen, though everything had been turned out. my brother and i\nnaturally associated this peculiar incident with the fear which\nhaunted my father during his life; but it is still a complete mystery\nto us.\"\nthe little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully\nfor a few moments. we had all sat absorbed, listening to his\nextraordinary narrative. at the short account of her father's death\nmiss morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment i feared that\nshe was about to faint. she rallied however, on drinking a glass of\nwater which i quietly poured out for her from a venetian carafe upon\nthe side-table. sherlock holmes leaned back in his chair with an\nabstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering\neyes. as i glanced at him i could not but think how on that very day\nhe had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life. here at\nleast was a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. mr.\nthaddeus sholto looked from one to the other of us with an obvious\npride at the effect which his story had produced, and then continued\nbetween the puffs of his overgrown pipe.\n\"my brother and i,\" said he, \"were, as you may imagine, much excited\nas to the treasure which my father had spoken of. for weeks and for\nmonths we dug and delved in every part of the garden, without\ndiscovering its whereabouts. it was maddening to think that the\nhiding-place was on his very lips at the moment that he died. we\ncould judge the splendor of the missing riches by the chaplet which\nhe had taken out. over this chaplet my brother bartholomew and i had\nsome little discussion. the pearls were evidently of great value, and\nhe was averse to part with them, for, between friends, my brother was\nhimself a little inclined to my father's fault. he thought, too, that\nif we parted with the chaplet it might give rise to gossip and\nfinally bring us into trouble. it was all that i could do to persuade\nhim to let me find out miss morstan's address and send her a detached\npearl at fixed intervals, so that at least she might never feel\ndestitute.\"\n\"it was a kindly thought,\" said our companion, earnestly. \"it was\nextremely good of you.\"\nthe little man waved his hand deprecatingly. \"we were your trustees,\"\nhe said. \"that was the view which i took of it, though brother\nbartholomew could not altogether see it in that light. we had plenty\nof money ourselves. i desired no more. besides, it would have been\nsuch bad taste to have treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion.\n'le mauvais got mne au crime.' the french have a very neat way of\nputting these things. our difference of opinion on this subject went\nso far that i thought it best to set up rooms for myself: so i left\npondicherry lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and williams with me.\nyesterday, however, i learn that an event of extreme importance has\noccurred. the treasure has been discovered. i instantly communicated\nwith miss morstan, and it only remains for us to drive out to norwood\nand demand our share. i explained my views last night to brother\nbartholomew: so we shall be expected, if not welcome, visitors.\"\nmr. thaddeus sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious\nsettee. we all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new\ndevelopment which the mysterious business had taken. holmes was the\nfirst to spring to his feet.\n\"you have done well, sir, from first to last,\" said he. \"it is\npossible that we may be able to make you some small return by\nthrowing some light upon that which is still dark to you. but, as\nmiss morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the\nmatter through without delay.\"\nour new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his\nhookah, and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged\ntopcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs. this he buttoned tightly up,\nin spite of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished his\nattire by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which\ncovered the ears, so that no part of him was visible save his mobile\nand peaky face. \"my health is somewhat fragile,\" he remarked, as he\nled the way down the passage. \"i am compelled to be a\nvaletudinarian.\"\nour cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently\nprearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace.\nthaddeus sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose high above\nthe rattle of the wheels.\n\"bartholomew is a clever fellow,\" said he. \"how do you think he found\nout where the treasure was? he had come to the conclusion that it was\nsomewhere indoors: so he worked out all the cubic space of the house,\nand made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be\nunaccounted for. among other things, he found that the height of the\nbuilding was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of\nall the separate rooms, and making every allowance for the space\nbetween, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the\ntotal to more than seventy feet. there were four feet unaccounted\nfor. these could only be at the top of the building. he knocked a\nhole, therefore, in the lath-and-plaster ceiling of the highest room,\nand there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it,\nwhich had been sealed up and was known to no one. in the centre stood\nthe treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters. he lowered it through\nthe hole, and there it lies. he computes the value of the jewels at\nnot less than half a million sterling.\"\nat the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another\nopen-eyed. miss morstan, could we secure her rights, would change\nfrom a needy governess to the richest heiress in england. surely it\nwas the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet i am\nashamed to say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my\nheart turned as heavy as lead within me. i stammered out some few\nhalting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head\ndrooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. he was clearly a\nconfirmed hypochondriac, and i was dreamily conscious that he was\npouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring\ninformation as to the composition and action of innumerable quack\nnostrums, some of which he bore about in a leather case in his\npocket. i trust that he may not remember any of the answers which i\ngave him that night. holmes declares that he overheard me caution him\nagainst the great danger of taking more than two drops of castor oil,\nwhile i recommended strychnine in large doses as a sedative. however\nthat may be, i was certainly relieved when our cab pulled up with a\njerk and the coachman sprang down to open the door.\n\"this, miss morstan, is pondicherry lodge,\" said mr. thaddeus sholto,\nas he handed her out.\nchapter v\nthe tragedy of pondicherry lodge\nit was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our\nnight's adventures. we had left the damp fog of the great city behind\nus, and the night was fairly fine. a warm wind blew from the\nwestward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a\nmoon peeping occasionally through the rifts. it was clear enough to\nsee for some distance, but thaddeus sholto took down one of the\nside-lamps from the carriage to give us a better light upon our way.\npondicherry lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a\nvery high stone wall topped with broken glass. a single narrow\niron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance. on this our\nguide knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat.\n\"who is there?\" cried a gruff voice from within.\n\"it is i, mcmurdo. you surely know my knock by this time.\"\nthere was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. the\ndoor swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in the\nopening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his\nprotruded face and twinkling distrustful eyes.\n\"that you, mr. thaddeus? but who are the others? i had no orders\nabout them from the master.\"\n\"no, mcmurdo? you surprise me! i told my brother last night that i\nshould bring some friends.\n\"he ain't been out o' his room to-day, mr. thaddeus, and i have no\norders. you know very well that i must stick to regulations. i can\nlet you in, but your friends must just stop where they are.\"\nthis was an unexpected obstacle. thaddeus sholto looked about him in\na perplexed and helpless manner. \"this is too bad of you, mcmurdo!\"\nhe said. \"if i guarantee them, that is enough for you. there is the\nyoung lady, too. she cannot wait on the public road at this hour.\"\n\"very sorry, mr. thaddeus,\" said the porter, inexorably. \"folk may be\nfriends o' yours, and yet no friends o' the master's. he pays me well\nto do my duty, and my duty i'll do. i don't know none o' your\nfriends.\"\n\"oh, yes you do, mcmurdo,\" cried sherlock holmes, genially. \"i don't\nthink you can have forgotten me. don't you remember the amateur who\nfought three rounds with you at alison's rooms on the night of your\nbenefit four years back?\"\n\"not mr. sherlock holmes!\" roared the prize-fighter. \"god's truth!\nhow could i have mistook you? if instead o' standin' there so quiet\nyou had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under\nthe jaw, i'd ha' known you without a question. ah, you're one that\nhas wasted your gifts, you have! you might have aimed high, if you\nhad joined the fancy.\"\n\"you see, watson, if all else fails me i have still one of the\nscientific professions open to me,\" said holmes, laughing. \"our\nfriend won't keep us out in the cold now, i am sure.\"\n\"in you come, sir, in you come,--you and your friends,\" he answered.\n\"very sorry, mr. thaddeus, but orders are very strict. had to be\ncertain of your friends before i let them in.\"\ninside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump\nof a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a\nmoonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. the vast\nsize of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck\na chill to the heart. even thaddeus sholto seemed ill at ease, and\nthe lantern quivered and rattled in his hand.\n\"i cannot understand it,\" he said. \"there must be some mistake. i\ndistinctly told bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is\nno light in his window. i do not know what to make of it.\"\n\"does he always guard the premises in this way?\" asked holmes.\n\"yes; he has followed my father's custom. he was the favorite son,\nyou know, and i sometimes think that my father may have told him more\nthan he ever told me. that is bartholomew's window up there where the\nmoonshine strikes. it is quite bright, but there is no light from\nwithin, i think.\"\n\"none,\" said holmes. \"but i see the glint of a light in that little\nwindow beside the door.\"\n\"ah, that is the housekeeper's room. that is where old mrs. bernstone\nsits. she can tell us all about it. but perhaps you would not mind\nwaiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together and\nshe has no word of our coming she may be alarmed. but hush! what is\nthat?\"\nhe held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light\nflickered and wavered all round us. miss morstan seized my wrist, and\nwe all stood with thumping hearts, straining our ears. from the great\nblack house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and\nmost pitiful of sounds,--the shrill, broken whimpering of a\nfrightened woman.\n\"it is mrs. bernstone,\" said sholto. \"she is the only woman in the\nhouse. wait here. i shall be back in a moment.\" he hurried for the\ndoor, and knocked in his peculiar way. we could see a tall old woman\nadmit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.\n\"oh, mr. thaddeus, sir, i am so glad you have come! i am so glad you\nhave come, mr. thaddeus, sir!\" we heard her reiterated rejoicings\nuntil the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled\nmonotone.\nour guide had left us the lantern. holmes swung it slowly round, and\npeered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which\ncumbered the grounds. miss morstan and i stood together, and her hand\nwas in mine. a wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two\nwho had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word\nor even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of\ntrouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. i have\nmarvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural\nthing that i should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me,\nthere was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and\nprotection. so we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there\nwas peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.\n\"what a strange place!\" she said, looking round.\n\"it looks as though all the moles in england had been let loose in\nit. i have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near\nballarat, where the prospectors had been at work.\"\n\"and from the same cause,\" said holmes. \"these are the traces of the\ntreasure-seekers. you must remember that they were six years looking\nfor it. no wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.\"\nat that moment the door of the house burst open, and thaddeus sholto\ncame running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his\neyes.\n\"there is something amiss with bartholomew!\" he cried. \"i am\nfrightened! my nerves cannot stand it.\" he was, indeed, half\nblubbering with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out from\nthe great astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a\nterrified child.\n\"come into the house,\" said holmes, in his crisp, firm way.\n\"yes, do!\" pleaded thaddeus sholto. \"i really do not feel equal to\ngiving directions.\"\nwe all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the\nleft-hand side of the passage. the old woman was pacing up and down\nwith a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of\nmiss morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.\n\"god bless your sweet calm face!\" she cried, with an hysterical sob.\n\"it does me good to see you. oh, but i have been sorely tried this\nday!\"\nour companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few\nwords of kindly womanly comfort which brought the color back into the\nothers bloodless cheeks.\n\"master has locked himself in and will now answer me,\" she explained.\n\"all day i have waited to hear from him, for he often likes to be\nalone; but an hour ago i feared that something was amiss, so i went\nup and peeped through the key-hole. you must go up, mr.\nthaddeus,--you must go up and look for yourself. i have seen mr.\nbartholomew sholto in joy and in sorrow for ten long years, but i\nnever saw him with such a face on him as that.\"\nsherlock holmes took the lamp and led the way, for thaddeus sholto's\nteeth were chattering in his head. so shaken was he that i had to\npass my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees\nwere trembling under him. twice as we ascended holmes whipped his\nlens out of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to\nme to be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoa-nut matting\nwhich served as a stair-carpet. he walked slowly from step to step,\nholding the lamp, and shooting keen glances to right and left. miss\nmorstan had remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.\nthe third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some\nlength, with a great picture in indian tapestry upon the right of it\nand three doors upon the left. holmes advanced along it in the same\nslow and methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our\nlong black shadows streaming backwards down the corridor. the third\ndoor was that which we were seeking. holmes knocked without receiving\nany answer, and then tried to turn the handle and force it open. it\nwas locked on the inside, however, and by a broad and powerful bolt,\nas we could see when we set our lamp up against it. the key being\nturned, however, the hole was not entirely closed. sherlock holmes\nbent down to it, and instantly rose again with a sharp intaking of\nthe breath.\n\"there is something devilish in this, watson,\" said he, more moved\nthan i had ever before seen him. \"what do you make of it?\"\ni stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. moonlight was\nstreaming into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shifty\nradiance. looking straight at me, and suspended, as it were, in the\nair, for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a face,--the very face\nof our companion thaddeus. there was the same high, shining head, the\nsame circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance.\nthe features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and\nunnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring\nto the nerves than any scowl or contortion. so like was the face to\nthat of our little friend that i looked round at him to make sure\nthat he was indeed with us. then i recalled to mind that he had\nmentioned to us that his brother and he were twins.\n\"this is terrible!\" i said to holmes. \"what is to be done?\"\n\"the door must come down,\" he answered, and, springing against it, he\nput all his weight upon the lock. it creaked and groaned, but did not\nyield. together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and this time\nit gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within\nbartholomew sholto's chamber.\nit appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. a double\nline of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite\nthe door, and the table was littered over with bunsen burners,\ntest-tubes, and retorts. in the corners stood carboys of acid in\nwicker baskets. one of these appeared to leak or to have been broken,\nfor a stream of dark-colored liquid had trickled out from it, and the\nair was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor. a set of\nsteps stood at one side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath\nand plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling large\nenough for a man to pass through. at the foot of the steps a long\ncoil of rope was thrown carelessly together.\nby the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was\nseated all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder, and\nthat ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. he was stiff and cold,\nand had clearly been dead many hours. it seemed to me that not only\nhis features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most\nfantastic fashion. by his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar\ninstrument,--a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a\nhammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. beside it was a torn\nsheet of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. holmes glanced\nat it, and then handed it to me.\n\"you see,\" he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows.\nin the light of the lantern i read, with a thrill of horror, \"the\nsign of the four.\"\n\"in god's name, what does it all mean?\" i asked.\n\"it means murder,\" said he, stooping over the dead man. \"ah, i\nexpected it. look here!\" he pointed to what looked like a long, dark\nthorn stuck in the skin just above the ear.\n\"it looks like a thorn,\" said i.\n\"it is a thorn. you may pick it out. but be careful, for it is\npoisoned.\"\ni took it up between my finger and thumb. it came away from the skin\nso readily that hardly any mark was left behind. one tiny speck of\nblood showed where the puncture had been.\n\"this is all an insoluble mystery to me,\" said i. \"it grows darker\ninstead of clearer.\"\n\"on the contrary,\" he answered, \"it clears every instant. i only\nrequire a few missing links to have an entirely connected case.\"\nwe had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the\nchamber. he was still standing in the door-way, the very picture of\nterror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. suddenly, however,\nhe broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.\n\"the treasure is gone!\" he said. \"they have robbed him of the\ntreasure! there is the hole through which we lowered it. i helped him\nto do it! i was the last person who saw him! i left him here last\nnight, and i heard him lock the door as i came down-stairs.\"\n\"what time was that?\"\n\"it was ten o'clock. and now he is dead, and the police will be\ncalled in, and i shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. oh,\nyes, i am sure i shall. but you don't think so, gentlemen? surely you\ndon't think that it was i? is it likely that i would have brought you\nhere if it were i? oh, dear! oh, dear! i know that i shall go mad!\"\nhe jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive\nfrenzy.\n\"you have no reason for fear, mr. sholto,\" said holmes, kindly,\nputting his hand upon his shoulder. \"take my advice, and drive down\nto the station to report this matter to the police. offer to assist\nthem in every way. we shall wait here until your return.\"\nthe little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him\nstumbling down the stairs in the dark.\nchapter vi\nsherlock holmes gives a demonstration\n\"now, watson,\" said holmes, rubbing his hands, \"we have half an hour\nto ourselves. let us make good use of it. my case is, as i have told\nyou, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of\nover-confidence. simple as the case seems now, there may be something\ndeeper underlying it.\"\n\"simple!\" i ejaculated.\n\"surely,\" said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor\nexpounding to his class. \"just sit in the corner there, that your\nfootprints may not complicate matters. now to work! in the first\nplace, how did these folk come, and how did they go? the door has not\nbeen opened since last night. how of the window?\" he carried the lamp\nacross to it, muttering his observations aloud the while, but\naddressing them to himself rather than to me. \"window is snibbed on\nthe inner side. framework is solid. no hinges at the side. let us\nopen it. no water-pipe near. roof quite out of reach. yet a man has\nmounted by the window. it rained a little last night. here is the\nprint of a foot in mould upon the sill. and here is a circular muddy\nmark, and here again upon the floor, and here again by the table. see\nhere, watson! this is really a very pretty demonstration.\"\ni looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs. \"this is not a\nfootmark,\" said i.\n\"it is something much more valuable to us. it is the impression of a\nwooden stump. you see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot\nwith the broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the\ntimber-toe.\"\n\"it is the wooden-legged man.\"\n\"quite so. but there has been some one else,--a very able and\nefficient ally. could you scale that wall, doctor?\"\ni looked out of the open window. the moon still shone brightly on\nthat angle of the house. we were a good sixty feet from the ground,\nand, look where i would, i could see no foothold, nor as much as a\ncrevice in the brick-work.\n\"it is absolutely impossible,\" i answered.\n\"without aid it is so. but suppose you had a friend up here who\nlowered you this good stout rope which i see in the corner, securing\none end of it to this great hook in the wall. then, i think, if you\nwere an active man, you might swarm up, wooden leg and all. you would\ndepart, of course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up\nthe rope, untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the\ninside, and get away in the way that he originally came. as a minor\npoint it may be noted,\" he continued, fingering the rope, \"that our\nwooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional\nsailor. his hands were far from horny. my lens discloses more than\none blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which i\ngather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin\noff his hand.\"\n\"this is all very well,\" said i, \"but the thing becomes more\nunintelligible than ever. how about this mysterious ally? how came he\ninto the room?\"\n\"yes, the ally!\" repeated holmes, pensively. \"there are features of\ninterest about this ally. he lifts the case from the regions of the\ncommonplace. i fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals\nof crime in this country,--though parallel cases suggest themselves\nfrom india, and, if my memory serves me, from senegambia.\"\n\"how came he, then?\" i reiterated. \"the door is locked, the window is\ninaccessible. was it through the chimney?\"\n\"the grate is much too small,\" he answered. \"i had already considered\nthat possibility.\"\n\"how then?\" i persisted.\n\"you will not apply my precept,\" he said, shaking his head. \"how\noften have i said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible\nwhatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? we know that\nhe did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. we also\nknow that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is\nno concealment possible. whence, then, did he come?\"\n\"he came through the hole in the roof,\" i cried.\n\"of course he did. he must have done so. if you will have the\nkindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches\nto the room above,--the secret room in which the treasure was found.\"\nhe mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he\nswung himself up into the garret. then, lying on his face, he reached\ndown for the lamp and held it while i followed him.\nthe chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way\nand six the other. the floor was formed by the rafters, with thin\nlath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from\nbeam to beam. the roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner\nshell of the true roof of the house. there was no furniture of any\nsort, and the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.\n\"here you are, you see,\" said sherlock holmes, putting his hand\nagainst the sloping wall. \"this is a trap-door which leads out on to\nthe roof. i can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping\nat a gentle angle. this, then, is the way by which number one\nentered. let us see if we can find one other traces of his\nindividuality.\"\nhe held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so i saw for the\nsecond time that night a startled, surprised look come over his face.\nfor myself, as i followed his gaze my skin was cold under my clothes.\nthe floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked\nfoot,--clear, well defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the\nsize of those of an ordinary man.\n\"holmes,\" i said, in a whisper, \"a child has done the horrid thing.\"\nhe had recovered his self-possession in an instant. \"i was staggered\nfor the moment,\" he said, \"but the thing is quite natural. my memory\nfailed me, or i should have been able to foretell it. there is\nnothing more to be learned here. let us go down.\"\n\"what is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?\" i asked, eagerly,\nwhen we had regained the lower room once more.\n\"my dear watson, try a little analysis yourself,\" said he, with a\ntouch of impatience. \"you know my methods. apply them, and it will be\ninstructive to compare results.\"\n\"i cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts,\" i answered.\n\"it will be clear enough to you soon,\" he said, in an off-hand way.\n\"i think that there is nothing else of importance here, but i will\nlook.\" he whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about\nthe room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long\nthin nose only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes\ngleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. so swift, silent, and\nfurtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound\npicking out a scent, that i could not but think what a terrible\ncriminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity\nagainst the law, instead of exerting them in its defense. as he\nhunted about, he kept muttering to himself, and finally he broke out\ninto a loud crow of delight.\n\"we are certainly in luck,\" said he. \"we ought to have very little\ntrouble now. number one has had the misfortune to tread in the\ncreosote. you can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here\nat the side of this evil-smelling mess. the carboy has been cracked,\nyou see, and the stuff has leaked out.\"\n\"what then?\" i asked.\n\"why, we have got him, that's all,\" said he. \"i know a dog that would\nfollow that scent to the world's end. if a pack can track a trailed\nherring across a shire, how far can a specially-trained hound follow\nso pungent a smell as this? it sounds like a sum in the rule of\nthree. the answer should give us the--but halloo! here are the\naccredited representatives of the law.\"\nheavy steps and the clamor of loud voices were audible from below,\nand the hall door shut with a loud crash.\n\"before they come,\" said holmes, \"just put your hand here on this\npoor fellow's arm, and here on his leg. what do you feel?\"\n\"the muscles are as hard as a board,\" i answered.\n\"quite so. they are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding\nthe usual rigor mortis. coupled with this distortion of the face,\nthis hippocratic smile, or 'risus sardonicus,' as the old writers\ncalled it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?\"\n\"death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid,\" i answered,--\"some\nstrychnine-like substance which would produce tetanus.\"\n\"that was the idea which occurred to me the instant i saw the drawn\nmuscles of the face. on getting into the room i at once looked for\nthe means by which the poison had entered the system. as you saw, i\ndiscovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force\ninto the scalp. you observe that the part struck was that which would\nbe turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the man were erect in\nhis chair. now examine the thorn.\"\ni took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. it was\nlong, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though\nsome gummy substance had dried upon it. the blunt end had been\ntrimmed and rounded off with a knife.\n\"is that an english thorn?\" he asked.\n\"no, it certainly is not.\"\n\"with all these data you should be able to draw some just inference.\nbut here are the regulars: so the auxiliary forces may beat a\nretreat.\"\nas he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on\nthe passage, and a very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode\nheavily into the room. he was red-faced, burly and plethoric, with a\npair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from\nbetween swollen and puffy pouches. he was closely followed by an\ninspector in uniform, and by the still palpitating thaddeus sholto.\n\"here's a business!\" he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. \"here's a\npretty business! but who are all these? why, the house seems to be as\nfull as a rabbit-warren!\"\n\"i think you must recollect me, mr. athelney jones,\" said holmes,\nquietly.\n\"why, of course i do!\" he wheezed. \"it's mr. sherlock holmes, the\ntheorist. remember you! i'll never forget how you lectured us all on\ncauses and inferences and effects in the bishopgate jewel case. it's\ntrue you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was\nmore by good luck than good guidance.\"\n\"it was a piece of very simple reasoning.\"\n\"oh, come, now, come! never be ashamed to own up. but what is all\nthis? bad business! bad business! stern facts here,--no room for\ntheories. how lucky that i happened to be out at norwood over another\ncase! i was at the station when the message arrived. what d'you think\nthe man died of?\"\n\"oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over,\" said holmes,\ndryly.\n\"no, no. still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head\nsometimes. dear me! door locked, i understand. jewels worth half a\nmillion missing. how was the window?\"\n\"fastened; but there are steps on the sill.\"\n\"well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do\nwith the matter. that's common sense. man might have died in a fit;\nbut then the jewels are missing. ha! i have a theory. these flashes\ncome upon me at times.--just step outside, sergeant, and you, mr.\nsholto. your friend can remain.--what do you think of this, holmes?\nsholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. the\nbrother died in a fit, on which sholto walked off with the treasure.\nhow's that?\"\n\"on which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door\non the inside.\"\n\"hum! there's a flaw there. let us apply common sense to the matter.\nthis thaddeus sholto was with his brother; there was a quarrel; so\nmuch we know. the brother is dead and the jewels are gone. so much\nalso we know. no one saw the brother from the time thaddeus left him.\nhis bed had not been slept in. thaddeus is evidently in a most\ndisturbed state of mind. his appearance is--well, not attractive. you\nsee that i am weaving my web round thaddeus. the net begins to close\nupon him.\"\n\"you are not quite in possession of the facts yet,\" said holmes.\n\"this splinter of wood, which i have every reason to believe to be\npoisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see the mark; this\ncard, inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay\nthis rather curious stone-headed instrument. how does all that fit\ninto your theory?\"\n\"confirms it in every respect,\" said the fat detective, pompously.\n\"house is full of indian curiosities. thaddeus brought this up, and\nif this splinter be poisonous thaddeus may as well have made\nmurderous use of it as any other man. the card is some\nhocus-pocus,--a blind, as like as not. the only question is, how did\nhe depart? ah, of course, here is a hole in the roof.\" with great\nactivity, considering his bulk, he sprang up the steps and squeezed\nthrough into the garret, and immediately afterwards we heard his\nexulting voice proclaiming that he had found the trap-door.\n\"he can find something,\" remarked holmes, shrugging his shoulders.\n\"he has occasional glimmerings of reason. il n'y a pas des sots si\nincommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!\"\n\"you see!\" said athelney jones, reappearing down the steps again.\n\"facts are better than mere theories, after all. my view of the case\nis confirmed. there is a trap-door communicating with the roof, and\nit is partly open.\"\n\"it was i who opened it.\"\n\"oh, indeed! you did notice it, then?\" he seemed a little crestfallen\nat the discovery. \"well, whoever noticed it, it shows how our\ngentleman got away. inspector!\"\n\"yes, sir,\" from the passage.\n\"ask mr. sholto to step this way.--mr. sholto, it is my duty to\ninform you that anything which you may say will be used against you.\ni arrest you in the queen's name as being concerned in the death of\nyour brother.\"\n\"there, now! didn't i tell you!\" cried the poor little man, throwing\nout his hands, and looking from one to the other of us.\n\"don't trouble yourself about it, mr. sholto,\" said holmes. \"i think\nthat i can engage to clear you of the charge.\"\n\"don't promise too much, mr. theorist,--don't promise too much!\"\nsnapped the detective. \"you may find it a harder matter than you\nthink.\"\n\"not only will i clear him, mr. jones, but i will make you a free\npresent of the name and description of one of the two people who were\nin this room last night. his name, i have every reason to believe, is\njonathan small. he is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his\nright leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the\ninner side. his left boot has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an\niron band round the heel. he is a middle-aged man, much sunburned,\nand has been a convict. these few indications may be of some\nassistance to you, coupled with the fact that there is a good deal of\nskin missing from the palm of his hand. the other man--\"\n\"ah! the other man--?\" asked athelney jones, in a sneering voice, but\nimpressed none the less, as i could easily see, by the precision of\nthe other's manner.\n\"is a rather curious person,\" said sherlock holmes, turning upon his\nheel. \"i hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the\npair of them. a word with you, watson.\"\nhe led me out to the head of the stair. \"this unexpected occurrence,\"\nhe said, \"has caused us rather to lose sight of the original purpose\nof our journey.\"\n\"i have just been thinking so,\" i answered. \"it is not right that\nmiss morstan should remain in this stricken house.\"\n\"no. you must escort her home. she lives with mrs. cecil forrester,\nin lower camberwell: so it is not very far. i will wait for you here\nif you will drive out again. or perhaps you are too tired?\"\n\"by no means. i don't think i could rest until i know more of this\nfantastic business. i have seen something of the rough side of life,\nbut i give you my word that this quick succession of strange\nsurprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. i should like,\nhowever, to see the matter through with you, now that i have got so\nfar.\"\n\"your presence will be of great service to me,\" he answered. \"we\nshall work the case out independently, and leave this fellow jones to\nexult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct. when you\nhave dropped miss morstan i wish you to go on to no. 3 pinchin lane,\ndown near the water's edge at lambeth. the third house on the\nright-hand side is a bird-stuffer's: sherman is the name. you will\nsee a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window. knock old sherman\nup, and tell him, with my compliments, that i want toby at once. you\nwill bring toby back in the cab with you.\"\n\"a dog, i suppose.\"\n\"yes,--a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. i would\nrather have toby's help than that of the whole detective force of\nlondon.\"\n\"i shall bring him, then,\" said i. \"it is one now. i ought to be back\nbefore three, if i can get a fresh horse.\"\n\"and i,\" said holmes, \"shall see what i can learn from mrs.\nbernstone, and from the indian servant, who, mr. thaddeus tell me,\nsleeps in the next garret. then i shall study the great jones's\nmethods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms. 'wir sind\ngewohnt, da die menschen verhhnen was sie nicht verstehen.' goethe\nis always pithy.\"\nchapter vii\nthe episode of the barrel\nthe police had brought a cab with them, and in this i escorted miss\nmorstan back to her home. after the angelic fashion of women, she had\nborne trouble with a calm face as long as there was some one weaker\nthan herself to support, and i had found her bright and placid by the\nside of the frightened housekeeper. in the cab, however, she first\nturned faint, and then burst into a passion of weeping,--so sorely\nhad she been tried by the adventures of the night. she has told me\nsince that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. she\nlittle guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of\nself-restraint which held me back. my sympathies and my love went out\nto her, even as my hand had in the garden. i felt that years of the\nconventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave\nnature as had this one day of strange experiences. yet there were two\nthoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips. she was\nweak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. it was to take her at a\ndisadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. worse still,\nshe was rich. if holmes's researches were successful, she would be an\nheiress. was it fair, was it honorable, that a half-pay surgeon\nshould take such advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought\nabout? might she not look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker? i\ncould not bear to risk that such a thought should cross her mind.\nthis agra treasure intervened like an impassable barrier between us.\nit was nearly two o'clock when we reached mrs. cecil forrester's. the\nservants had retired hours ago, but mrs. forrester had been so\ninterested by the strange message which miss morstan had received\nthat she had sat up in the hope of her return. she opened the door\nherself, a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how\ntenderly her arm stole round the other's waist and how motherly was\nthe voice in which she greeted her. she was clearly no mere paid\ndependant, but an honored friend. i was introduced, and mrs.\nforrester earnestly begged me to step in and tell her our adventures.\ni explained, however, the importance of my errand, and promised\nfaithfully to call and report any progress which we might make with\nthe case. as we drove away i stole a glance back, and i still seem to\nsee that little group on the step, the two graceful, clinging\nfigures, the half-opened door, the hall light shining through stained\nglass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. it was soothing to\ncatch even that passing glimpse of a tranquil english home in the\nmidst of the wild, dark business which had absorbed us.\nand the more i thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it\ngrew. i reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as i\nrattled on through the silent gas-lit streets. there was the original\nproblem: that at least was pretty clear now. the death of captain\nmorstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the\nletter,--we had had light upon all those events. they had only led\nus, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. the indian\ntreasure, the curious plan found among morstan's baggage, the strange\nscene at major sholto's death, the rediscovery of the treasure\nimmediately followed by the murder of the discoverer, the very\nsingular accompaniments to the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable\nweapons, the words upon the card, corresponding with those upon\ncaptain morstan's chart,--here was indeed a labyrinth in which a man\nless singularly endowed than my fellow-lodger might well despair of\never finding the clue.\npinchin lane was a row of shabby two-storied brick houses in the\nlower quarter of lambeth. i had to knock for some time at no. 3\nbefore i could make my impression. at last, however, there was the\nglint of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the\nupper window.\n\"go on, you drunken vagabone,\" said the face. \"if you kick up any\nmore row i'll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon\nyou.\"\n\"if you'll let one out it's just what i have come for,\" said i.\n\"go on!\" yelled the voice. \"so help me gracious, i have a wiper in\nthe bag, an' i'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it.\"\n\"but i want a dog,\" i cried.\n\"i won't be argued with!\" shouted mr. sherman. \"now stand clear, for\nwhen i say 'three,' down goes the wiper.\"\n\"mr. sherlock holmes--\" i began, but the words had a most magical\neffect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute\nthe door was unbarred and open. mr. sherman was a lanky, lean old\nman, with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted\nglasses.\n\"a friend of mr. sherlock is always welcome,\" said he.  \"step in,\nsir. keep clear of the badger; for he bites. ah, naughty, naughty,\nwould you take a nip at the gentleman?\" this to a stoat which thrust\nits wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. \"don't\nmind that, sir: it's only a slow-worm. it hain't got no fangs, so i\ngives it the run o' the room, for it keeps the bettles down. you must\nnot mind my bein' just a little short wi' you at first, for i'm guyed\nat by the children, and there's many a one just comes down this lane\nto knock me up. what was it that mr. sherlock holmes wanted, sir?\"\n\"he wanted a dog of yours.\"\n\"ah! that would be toby.\"\n\"yes, toby was the name.\"\n\"toby lives at no. 7 on the left here.\" he moved slowly forward with\nhis candle among the queer animal family which he had gathered round\nhim. in the uncertain, shadowy light i could see dimly that there\nwere glancing, glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny\nand corner. even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn\nfowls, who lazily shifted their weight from one leg to the other as\nour voices disturbed their slumbers.\ntoby proved to an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half spaniel\nand half lurcher, brown-and-white in color, with a very clumsy\nwaddling gait. it accepted after some hesitation a lump of sugar\nwhich the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an\nalliance, it followed me to the cab, and made no difficulties about\naccompanying me. it had just struck three on the palace clock when i\nfound myself back once more at pondicherry lodge. the\nex-prize-fighter mcmurdo had, i found, been arrested as an accessory,\nand both he and mr. sholto had been marched off to the station. two\nconstables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me to pass with\nthe dog on my mentioning the detective's name.\nholmes was standing on the door-step, with his hands in his pockets,\nsmoking his pipe.\n\"ah, you have him there!\" said he. \"good dog, then! athelney jones\nhas gone. we have had an immense display of energy since you left. he\nhas arrested not only friend thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the\nhousekeeper, and the indian servant. we have the place to ourselves,\nbut for a sergeant up-stairs. leave the dog here, and come up.\"\nwe tied toby to the hall table, and reascended the stairs. the room\nwas as we had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the\ncentral figure. a weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the\ncorner.\n\"lend me your bull's-eye, sergeant,\" said my companion. \"now tie this\nbit of card round my neck, so as to hang it in front of me. thank\nyou. now i must kick off my boots and stockings.--just you carry them\ndown with you, watson. i am going to do a little climbing. and dip my\nhandkerchief into the creasote. that will do. now come up into the\ngarret with me for a moment.\"\nwe clambered up through the hole. holmes turned his light once more\nupon the footsteps in the dust.\n\"i wish you particularly to notice these footmarks,\" he said. \"do you\nobserve anything noteworthy about them?\"\n\"they belong,\" i said, \"to a child or a small woman.\"\n\"apart from their size, though. is there nothing else?\"\n\"they appear to be much as other footmarks.\"\n\"not at all. look here! this is the print of a right foot in the\ndust. now i make one with my naked foot beside it. what is the chief\ndifference?\"\n\"your toes are all cramped together. the other print has each toe\ndistinctly divided.\"\n\"quite so. that is the point. bear that in mind. now, would you\nkindly step over to that flap-window and smell the edge of the\nwood-work? i shall stay here, as i have this handkerchief in my\nhand.\"\ni did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry\nsmell.\n\"that is where he put his foot in getting out. if you can trace him,\ni should think that toby will have no difficulty. now run\ndown-stairs, loose the dog, and look out for blondin.\"\nby the time that i got out into the grounds sherlock holmes was on\nthe roof, and i could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling\nvery slowly along the ridge. i lost sight of him behind a stack of\nchimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more\nupon the opposite side. when i made my way round there i found him\nseated at one of the corner eaves.\n\"that you, watson?\" he cried.\n\"yes.\"\n\"this is the place. what is that black thing down there?\"\n\"a water-barrel.\"\n\"top on it?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"no sign of a ladder?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"confound the fellow! it's a most break-neck place. i ought to be\nable to come down where he could climb up. the water-pipe feels\npretty firm. here goes, anyhow.\"\nthere was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily\ndown the side of the wall. then with a light spring he came on to the\nbarrel, and from there to the earth.\n\"it was easy to follow him,\" he said, drawing on his stockings and\nboots. \"tiles were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he\nhad dropped this. it confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express\nit.\"\nthe object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven\nout of colored grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round it.\nin shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. inside were\nhalf a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the\nother, like that which had struck bartholomew sholto.\n\"they are hellish things,\" said he. \"look out that you don't prick\nyourself. i'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they\nare all he has. there is the less fear of you or me finding one in\nour skin before long. i would sooner face a martini bullet, myself.\nare you game for a six-mile trudge, watson?\"\n\"certainly,\" i answered.\n\"your leg will stand it?\"\n\"oh, yes.\"\n\"here you are, doggy! good old toby! smell it, toby, smell it!\" he\npushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the\ncreature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most\ncomical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of\na famous vintage. holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance,\nfastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and let him to the\nfoot of the water-barrel. the creature instantly broke into a\nsuccession of high, tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the\nground, and his tail in the air, pattered off upon the trail at a\npace which strained his leash and kept us at the top of our speed.\nthe east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some\ndistance in the cold gray light. the square, massive house, with its\nblack, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and\nforlorn, behind us. our course let right across the grounds, in and\nout among the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and\nintersected. the whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and\nill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized\nwith the black tragedy which hung over it.\non reaching the boundary wall toby ran along, whining eagerly,\nunderneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a\nyoung beech. where the two walls joined, several bricks had been\nloosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the\nlower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.\nholmes clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over\nupon the other side.\n\"there's the print of wooden-leg's hand,\" he remarked, as i mounted\nup beside him. \"you see the slight smudge of blood upon the white\nplaster. what a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy rain\nsince yesterday! the scent will lie upon the road in spite of their\neight-and-twenty hours' start.\"\ni confess that i had my doubts myself when i reflected upon the great\ntraffic which had passed along the london road in the interval. my\nfears were soon appeased, however. toby never hesitated or swerved,\nbut waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. clearly, the pungent\nsmell of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.\n\"do not imagine,\" said holmes, \"that i depend for my success in this\ncase upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his foot\nin the chemical. i have knowledge now which would enable me to trace\nthem in many different ways. this, however, is the readiest and,\nsince fortune has put it into our hands, i should be culpable if i\nneglected it. it has, however, prevented the case from becoming the\npretty little intellectual problem which it at one time promised to\nbe. there might have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for\nthis too palpable clue.\"\n\"there is credit, and to spare,\" said i. \"i assure you, holmes, that\ni marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case,\neven more than i did in the jefferson hope murder. the thing seems to\nme to be deeper and more inexplicable. how, for example, could you\ndescribe with such confidence the wooden-legged man?\"\n\"pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. i don't wish to be\ntheatrical. it is all patent and above-board. two officers who are in\ncommand of a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried\ntreasure. a map is drawn for them by an englishman named jonathan\nsmall. you remember that we saw the name upon the chart in captain\nmorstan's possession. he had signed it in behalf of himself and his\nassociates,--the sign of the four, as he somewhat dramatically called\nit. aided by this chart, the officers--or one of them--gets the\ntreasure and brings it to england, leaving, we will suppose, some\ncondition under which he received it unfulfilled. now, then, why did\nnot jonathan small get the treasure himself? the answer is obvious.\nthe chart is dated at a time when morstan was brought into close\nassociation with convicts. jonathan small did not get the treasure\nbecause he and his associates were themselves convicts and could not\nget away.\"\n\"but that is mere speculation,\" said i.\n\"it is more than that. it is the only hypothesis which covers the\nfacts. let us see how it fits in with the sequel. major sholto\nremains at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his\ntreasure. then he receives a letter from india which gives him a\ngreat fright. what was that?\"\n\"a letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free.\"\n\"or had escaped. that is much more likely, for he would have known\nwhat their term of imprisonment was. it would not have been a\nsurprise to him. what does he do then? he guards himself against a\nwooden-legged man,--a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white\ntradesman for him, and actually fires a pistol at him. now, only one\nwhite man's name is on the chart. the others are hindoos or\nmohammedans. there is no other white man. therefore we may say with\nconfidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with jonathan\nsmall. does the reasoning strike yo as being faulty?\"\n\"no: it is clear and concise.\"\n\"well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of jonathan small. let\nus look at it from his point of view. he comes to england with the\ndouble idea of regaining what he would consider to be his rights and\nof having his revenge upon the man who had wronged him. he found out\nwhere sholto lived, and very possibly he established communications\nwith some one inside the house. there is this butler, lal rao, whom\nwe have not seen. mrs. bernstone gives him far from a good character.\nsmall could not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no\none ever knew, save the major and one faithful servant who had died.\nsuddenly small learns that the major is on his death-bed. in a frenzy\nlest the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs the gauntlet of\nthe guards, makes his way to the dying man's window, and is only\ndeterred from entering by the presence of his two sons. mad with\nhate, however, against the dead man, he enters the room that night,\nsearches his private papers in the hope of discovering some\nmemorandum relating to the treasure, and finally leaves a memento of\nhis visit in the short inscription upon the card. he had doubtless\nplanned beforehand that should he slay the major he would leave some\nsuch record upon the body as a sign that it was not a common murder,\nbut, from the point of view of the four associates, something in the\nnature of an act of justice. whimsical and bizarre conceits of this\nkind are common enough in the annals of crime, and usually afford\nvaluable indications as to the criminal. do you follow all this?\"\n\"very clearly.\"\n\"now, what could jonathan small do? he could only continue to keep a\nsecret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure. possibly he\nleaves england and only comes back at intervals. then comes the\ndiscovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it. we again\ntrace the presence of some confederate in the household. jonathan,\nwith his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty room of\nbartholomew sholto. he takes with him, however, a rather curious\nassociate, who gets over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot\ninto creasote, whence come toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay\nofficer with a damaged tendo achillis.\"\n\"but it was the associate, and not jonathan, who committed the\ncrime.\"\n\"quite so. and rather to jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way the\nstamped about when he got into the room. he bore no grudge against\nbartholomew sholto, and would have preferred if he could have been\nsimply bound and gagged. he did not wish to put his head in a halter.\nthere was no help for it, however: the savage instincts of his\ncompanion had broken out, and the poison had done its work: so\njonathan small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the\nground, and followed it himself. that was the train of events as far\nas i can decipher them. of course as to his personal appearance he\nmust be middle-aged, and must be sunburned after serving his time in\nsuch an oven as the andamans. his height is readily calculated from\nthe length of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. his\nhairiness was the one point which impressed itself upon thaddeus\nsholto when he saw him at the window. i don't know that there is\nanything else.\"\n\"the associate?\"\n\"ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. but you will know all\nabout it soon enough. how sweet the morning air is! see how that one\nlittle cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo.\nnow the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the london cloud-bank.\nit shines on a good many folk, but on none, i dare bet, who are on a\nstranger errand than you and i. how small we feel with our petty\nambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces\nof nature! are you well up in your jean paul?\"\n\"fairly so. i worked back to him through carlyle.\"\n\"that was like following the brook to the parent lake. he makes one\ncurious but profound remark. it is that the chief proof of man's real\ngreatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. it argues, you\nsee, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a\nproof of nobility. there is much food for thought in richter. you\nhave not a pistol, have you?\"\n\"i have my stick.\"\n\"it is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get\nto their lair. jonathan i shall leave to you, but if the other turns\nnasty i shall shoot him dead.\" he took out his revolver as he spoke,\nand, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the\nright-hand pocket of his jacket.\nwe had during this time been following the guidance of toby down the\nhalf-rural villa-lined roads which lead to the metropolis. now,\nhowever, we were beginning to come among continuous streets, where\nlaborers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were\ntaking down shutters and brushing door-steps. at the square-topped\ncorner public houses business was just beginning, and rough-looking\nmen were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after\ntheir morning wet. strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly\nat us as we passed, but our inimitable toby looked neither to the\nright nor to the left, but trotted onwards with his nose to the\nground and an occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.\nwe had traversed streatham, brixton, camberwell, and now found\nourselves in kennington lane, having borne away through the\nside-streets to the east of the oval. the men whom we pursued seemed\nto have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of\nescaping observation. they had never kept to the main road if a\nparallel side-street would serve their turn. at the foot of\nkennington lane they had edged away to the left through bond street\nand miles street. where the latter street turns into knight's place,\ntoby ceased to advance, but began to run backwards and forwards with\none ear cocked and the other drooping, the very picture of canine\nindecision. then he waddled round in circles, looking up to us from\ntime to time, as if to ask for sympathy in his embarrassment.\n\"what the deuce is the matter with the dog?\" growled holmes. \"they\nsurely would not take a cab, or go off in a balloon.\"\n\"perhaps they stood here for some time,\" i suggested.\n\"ah! it's all right. he's off again,\" said my companion, in a tone of\nrelief.\nhe was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up\nhis mind, and darted away with an energy and determination such as he\nhad not yet shown. the scent appeared to be much hotter than before,\nfor he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his\nleash and tried to break into a run. i cold see by the gleam in\nholmes's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our journey.\nour course now ran down nine elms until we came to broderick and\nnelson's large timber-yard, just past the white eagle tavern. here\nthe dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side-gate\ninto the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work. on the\ndog raced through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a\npassage, between two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp,\nsprang upon a large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley on\nwhich it had been brought. with lolling tongue and blinking eyes,\ntoby stood upon the cask, looking from one to the other of us for\nsome sign of appreciation. the staves of the barrel and the wheels of\nthe trolley were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was\nheavy with the smell of creasote.\nsherlock holmes and i looked blankly at each other, and then burst\nsimultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.\nchapter viii\nthe baker street irregulars\n\"what now?\" i asked. \"toby has lost his character for infallibility.\"\n\"he acted according to his lights,\" said holmes, lifting him down\nfrom the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard. \"if you\nconsider how much creasote is carted about london in one day, it is\nno great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. it is much\nused now, especially for the seasoning of wood. poor toby is not to\nblame.\"\n\"we must get on the main scent again, i suppose.\"\n\"yes. and, fortunately, we have no distance to go. evidently what\npuzzled the dog at the corner of knight's place was that there were\ntwo different trails running in opposite directions. we took the\nwrong one. it only remains to follow the other.\"\nthere was no difficulty about this. on leading toby to the place\nwhere he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and\nfinally dashed off in a fresh direction.\n\"we must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where\nthe creasote-barrel came from,\" i observed.\n\"i had thought of that. but you notice that he keeps on the pavement,\nwhereas the barrel passed down the roadway. no, we are on the true\nscent now.\"\nit tended down towards the river-side, running through belmont place\nand prince's street. at the end of broad street it ran right down to\nthe water's edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. toby led us\nto the very edge of this, and there stood whining, looking out on the\ndark current beyond.\n\"we are out of luck,\" said holmes. \"they have taken to a boat here.\"\nseveral small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and on\nthe edge of the wharf. we took toby round to each in turn, but,\nthough he sniffed earnestly, he made no sign.\nclose to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a\nwooden placard slung out through the second window. \"mordecai smith\"\nwas printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, \"boats to\nhire by the hour or day.\" a second inscription above the door\ninformed us that a steam launch was kept,--a statement which was\nconfirmed by a great pile of coke upon the jetty. sherlock holmes\nlooked slowly round, and his face assumed an ominous expression.\n\"this looks bad,\" said he. \"these fellows are sharper than i\nexpected. they seem to have covered their tracks. there has, i fear,\nbeen preconcerted management here.\"\nhe was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a\nlittle, curly-headed lad of six came running out, followed by a\nstoutish, red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.\n\"you come back and be washed, jack,\" she shouted. \"come back, you\nyoung imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that,\nhe'll let us hear of it.\"\n\"dear little chap!\" said holmes, strategically. \"what a rosy-cheeked\nyoung rascal! now, jack, is there anything you would like?\"\nthe youth pondered for a moment. \"i'd like a shillin',\" said he.\n\"nothing you would like better?\"\n\"i'd like two shillin' better,\" the prodigy answered, after some\nthought.\n\"here you are, then! catch!--a fine child, mrs. smith!\"\n\"lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. he gets a'most too\nmuch for me to manage, 'specially when my man is away days at a\ntime.\"\n\"away, is he?\" said holmes, in a disappointed voice. \"i am sorry for\nthat, for i wanted to speak to mr. smith.\"\n\"he's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell, i\nam beginnin' to feel frightened about him. but if it was about a\nboat, sir, maybe i could serve as well.\"\n\"i wanted to hire his steam launch.\"\n\"why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone.\nthat's what puzzles me; for i know there ain't more coals in her than\nwould take her to about woolwich and back. if he'd been away in the\nbarge i'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him as\nfar as gravesend, and then if there was much doin' there he might ha'\nstayed over. but what good is a steam launch without coals?\"\n\"he might have bought some at a wharf down the river.\"\n\"he might, sir, but it weren't his way. many a time i've heard him\ncall out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. besides, i\ndon't like that wooden-legged man, wi' his ugly face and outlandish\ntalk. what did he want always knockin' about here for?\"\n\"a wooden-legged man?\" said holmes, with bland surprise.\n\"yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once for\nmy old man. it was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what's\nmore, my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up in the launch. i\ntell you straight, sir, i don't feel easy in my mind about it.\"\n\"but, my dear mrs. smith,\" said holmes, shrugging his shoulders, \"you\nare frightening yourself about nothing. how could you possibly tell\nthat it was the wooden-legged man who came in the night? i don't\nquite understand how you can be so sure.\"\n\"his voice, sir. i knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy.\nhe tapped at the winder,--about three it would be. 'show a leg,\nmatey,' says he: 'time to turn out guard.' my old man woke up\njim,--that's my eldest,--and away they went, without so much as a\nword to me. i could hear the wooden leg clackin' on the stones.\"\n\"and was this wooden-legged man alone?\"\n\"couldn't say, i am sure, sir. i didn't hear no one else.\"\n\"i am sorry, mrs. smith, for i wanted a steam launch, and i have\nheard good reports of the--let me see, what is her name?\"\n\"the aurora, sir.\"\n\"ah! she's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad\nin the beam?\"\n\"no, indeed. she's as trim a little thing as any on the river. she's\nbeen fresh painted, black with two red streaks.\"\n\"thanks. i hope that you will hear soon from mr. smith. i am going\ndown the river; and if i should see anything of the aurora i shall\nlet him know that you are uneasy. a black funnel, you say?\"\n\"no, sir. black with a white band.\"\n\"ah, of course. it was the sides which were black. good-morning, mrs.\nsmith.--there is a boatman here with a wherry, watson. we shall take\nit and cross the river.\n\"the main thing with people of that sort,\" said holmes, as we sat in\nthe sheets of the wherry, \"is never to let them think that their\ninformation can be of the slightest importance to you. if you do,\nthey will instantly shut up like an oyster. if you listen to them\nunder protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.\"\n\"our course now seems pretty clear,\" said i.\n\"what would you do, then?\"\n\"i would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the\naurora.\"\n\"my dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. she may have touched at\nany wharf on either side of the stream between here and greenwich.\nbelow the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for\nmiles. it would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set\nabout it alone.\"\n\"employ the police, then.\"\n\"no. i shall probably call athelney jones in at the last moment. he\nis not a bad fellow, and i should not like to do anything which would\ninjure him professionally. but i have a fancy for working it out\nmyself, now that we have gone so far.\"\n\"could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?\"\n\"worse and worse! our men would know that the chase was hot at their\nheels, and they would be off out of the country. as it is, they are\nlikely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly\nsafe they will be in no hurry. jones's energy will be of use to us\nthere, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the daily\npress, and the runaways will think that every one is off on the wrong\nscent.\"\n\"what are we to do, then?\" i asked, as we landed near millbank\npenitentiary.\n\"take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's\nsleep. it is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again.\nstop at a telegraph-office, cabby! we will keep toby, for he may be\nof use to us yet.\"\nwe pulled up at the great peter street post-office, and holmes\ndespatched his wire. \"whom do you think that is to?\" he asked, as we\nresumed our journey.\n\"i am sure i don't know.\"\n\"you remember the baker street division of the detective police force\nwhom i employed in the jefferson hope case?\"\n\"well,\" said i, laughing.\n\"this is just the case where they might be invaluable. if they fail,\ni have other resources; but i shall try them first. that wire was to\nmy dirty little lieutenant, wiggins, and i expect that he and his\ngang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.\"\nit was between eight and nine o'clock now, and i was conscious of a\nstrong reaction after the successive excitements of the night. i was\nlimp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in body. i had not the\nprofessional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could i\nlook at the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem. as far as\nthe death of bartholomew sholto went, i had heard little good of him,\nand could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers. the treasure,\nhowever, was a different matter. that, or part of it, belonged\nrightfully to miss morstan. while there was a chance of recovering it\ni was ready to devote my life to the one object. true, if i found it\nit would probably put her forever beyond my reach. yet it would be a\npetty and selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as\nthat. if holmes could work to find the criminals, i had a tenfold\nstronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure.\na bath at baker street and a complete change freshened me up\nwonderfully. when i came down to our room i found the breakfast laid\nand holmes pouring out the coffee.\n\"here it is,\" said he, laughing, and pointing to an open newspaper.\n\"the energetic jones and the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up\nbetween them. but you have had enough of the case. better have your\nham and eggs first.\"\ni took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed\n\"mysterious business at upper norwood.\"\n\"about twelve o'clock last night,\" said the standard, \"mr.\nbartholomew sholto, of pondicherry lodge, upper norwood, was found\ndead in his room under circumstances which point to foul play. as far\nas we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon mr.\nsholto's person, but a valuable collection of indian gems which the\ndeceased gentleman had inherited from his father has been carried\noff. the discovery was first made by mr. sherlock holmes and dr.\nwatson, who had called at the house with mr. thaddeus sholto, brother\nof the deceased. by a singular piece of good fortune, mr. athelney\njones, the well-known member of the detective police force, happened\nto be at the norwood police station, and was on the ground within\nhalf an hour of the first alarm. his trained and experienced\nfaculties were at once directed towards the detection of the\ncriminals, with the gratifying result that the brother, thaddeus\nsholto, has already been arrested, together with the housekeeper,\nmrs. bernstone, an indian butler named lal rao, and a porter, or\ngatekeeper, named mcmurdo. it is quite certain that the thief or\nthieves were well acquainted with the house, for mr. jones's\nwell-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation\nhave enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not\nhave entered by the door or by the window, but must have made their\nway across the roof of the building, and so through a trap-door into\na room which communicated with that in which the body was found. this\nfact, which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that\nit was no mere haphazard burglary. the prompt and energetic action of\nthe officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on\nsuch occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind. we cannot but\nthink that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to see our\ndetectives more decentralized, and so brought into closer and more\neffective touch with the cases which it is their duty to\ninvestigate.\"\n\"isn't it gorgeous!\" said holmes, grinning over his coffee-cup. \"what\ndo you think of it?\"\n\"i think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested\nfor the crime.\"\n\"so do i. i wouldn't answer for our safety now, if he should happen\nto have another of his attacks of energy.\"\nat this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and i could hear\nmrs. hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of\nexpostulation and dismay.\n\"by heaven, holmes,\" i said, half rising, \"i believe that they are\nreally after us.\"\n\"no, it's not quite so bad as that. it is the unofficial force,--the\nbaker street irregulars.\"\nas he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the\nstairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and\nragged little street-arabs. there was some show of discipline among\nthem, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in\nline and stood facing us with expectant faces. one of their number,\ntaller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of\nlounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable\nlittle carecrow.\n\"got your message, sir,\" said he, \"and brought 'em on sharp. three\nbob and a tanner for tickets.\"\n\"here you are,\" said holmes, producing some silver. \"in future they\ncan report to you, wiggins, and you to me. i cannot have the house\ninvaded in this way. however, it is just as well that you should all\nhear the instructions. i want to find the whereabouts of a steam\nlaunch called the aurora, owner mordecai smith, black with two red\nstreaks, funnel black with a white band. she is down the river\nsomewhere. i want one boy to be at mordecai smith's landing-stage\nopposite millbank to say if the boat comes back. you must divide it\nout among yourselves, and do both banks thoroughly. let me know the\nmoment you have news. is that all clear?\"\n\"yes, guv'nor,\" said wiggins.\n\"the old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat.\nhere's a day in advance. now off you go!\" he handed them a shilling\neach, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and i saw them a moment\nlater streaming down the street.\n\"if the launch is above water they will find her,\" said holmes, as he\nrose from the table and lit his pipe. \"they can go everywhere, see\neverything, overhear every one. i expect to hear before evening that\nthey have spotted her. in the mean while, we can do nothing but await\nresults. we cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the\naurora or mr. mordecai smith.\"\n\"toby could eat these scraps, i dare say. are you going to bed,\nholmes?\"\n\"no: i am not tired. i have a curious constitution. i never remember\nfeeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. i am\ngoing to smoke and to think over this queer business to which my fair\nclient has introduced us. if ever man had an easy task, this of ours\nought to be. wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other man\nmust, i should think, be absolutely unique.\"\n\"that other man again!\"\n\"i have no wish to make a mystery of him,--to you, anyway. but you\nmust have formed your own opinion. now, do consider the data.\ndiminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet,\nstone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. what\ndo you make of all this?\"\n\"a savage!\" i exclaimed. \"perhaps one of those indians who were the\nassociates of jonathan small.\"\n\"hardly that,\" said he. \"when first i saw signs of strange weapons i\nwas inclined to think so; but the remarkable character of the\nfootmarks caused me to reconsider my views. some of the inhabitants\nof the indian peninsula are small men, but none could have left such\nmarks as that. the hindoo proper has long and thin feet. the\nsandal-wearing mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the\nothers, because the thong is commonly passed between. these little\ndarts, too, could only be shot in one way. they are from a blow-pipe.\nnow, then, where are we to find our savage?\"\n\"south american,\" i hazarded.\nhe stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the\nshelf. \"this is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being\npublished. it may be looked upon as the very latest authority. what\nhave we here? 'andaman islands, situated 340 miles to the north of\nsumatra, in the bay of bengal.' hum! hum!  what's all this? moist\nclimate, coral reefs, sharks, port blair, convict-barracks, rutland\nisland, cottonwoods--ah, here we are. 'the aborigines of the andaman\nislands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race\nupon this earth, though some anthropologists prefer the bushmen of\nafrica, the digger indians of america, and the terra del fuegians.\nthe average height is rather below four feet, although many\nfull-grown adults may be found who are very much smaller than this.\nthey are a fierce, morose, and intractable people, though capable of\nforming most devoted friendships when their confidence has once been\ngained.' mark that, watson. now, then, listen to this. 'they are\nnaturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes,\nand distorted features. their feet and hands, however, are remarkably\nsmall. so intractable and fierce are they that all the efforts of the\nbritish official have failed to win them over in any degree. they\nhave always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the\nsurvivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them with their\npoisoned arrows. these massacres are invariably concluded by a\ncannibal feast.' nice, amiable people, watson! if this fellow had\nbeen left to his own unaided devices this affair might have taken an\neven more ghastly turn. i fancy that, even as it is, jonathan small\nwould give a good deal not to have employed him.\"\n\"but how came he to have so singular a companion?\"\n\"ah, that is more than i can tell. since, however, we had already\ndetermined that small had come from the andamans, it is not so very\nwonderful that this islander should be with him. no doubt we shall\nknow all about it in time. look here, watson; you look regularly\ndone. lie down there on the sofa, and see if i can put you to sleep.\"\nhe took up his violin from the corner, and as i stretched myself out\nhe began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,--his own, no doubt,\nfor he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. i have a vague\nremembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and\nfall of his bow. then i seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a\nsoft sea of sound, until i found myself in dream-land, with the sweet\nface of mary morstan looking down upon me.\nchapter ix\na break in the chain\nit was late in the afternoon before i woke, strengthened and\nrefreshed. sherlock holmes still sat exactly as i had left him, save\nthat he had laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. he looked\nacross at me, as i stirred, and i noticed that his face was dark and\ntroubled.\n\"you have slept soundly,\" he said. \"i feared that our talk would wake\nyou.\"\n\"i heard nothing,\" i answered. \"have you had fresh news, then?\"\n\"unfortunately, no. i confess that i am surprised and disappointed. i\nexpected something definite by this time.  wiggins has just been up\nto report. he says that no trace can be found of the launch. it is a\nprovoking check, for every hour is of importance.\"\n\"can i do anything? i am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for\nanother night's outing.\"\n\"no, we can do nothing. we can only wait. if we go ourselves, the\nmessage might come in our absence, and delay be caused. you can do\nwhat you will, but i must remain on guard.\"\n\"then i shall run over to camberwell and call upon mrs. cecil\nforrester. she asked me to, yesterday.\"\n\"on mrs. cecil forrester?\" asked holmes, with the twinkle of a smile\nin his eyes.\n\"well, of course miss morstan too. they were anxious to hear what\nhappened.\"\n\"i would not tell them too much,\" said holmes. \"women are never to be\nentirely trusted,--not the best of them.\"\ni did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. \"i shall be\nback in an hour or two,\" i remarked.\n\"all right! good luck! but, i say, if you are crossing the river you\nmay as well return toby, for i don't think it is at all likely that\nwe shall have any use for him now.\"\ni took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a\nhalf-sovereign, at the old naturalist's in pinchin lane. at\ncamberwell i found miss morstan a little weary after her night's\nadventures, but very eager to hear the news. mrs. forrester, too, was\nfull of curiosity. i told them all that we had done, suppressing,\nhowever, the more dreadful parts of the tragedy. thus, although i\nspoke of mr. sholto's death, i said nothing of the exact manner and\nmethod of it. with all my omissions, however, there was enough to\nstartle and amaze them.\n\"it is a romance!\" cried mrs. forrester. \"an injured lady, half a\nmillion in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian.\nthey take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.\"\n\"and two knight-errants to the rescue,\" added miss morstan, with a\nbright glance at me.\n\"why, mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. i\ndon't think that you are nearly excited enough. just imagine what it\nmust be to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!\"\nit sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed\nno sign of elation at the prospect. on the contrary, she gave a toss\nof her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took\nsmall interest.\n\"it is for mr. thaddeus sholto that i am anxious,\" she said. \"nothing\nelse is of any consequence; but i think that he has behaved most\nkindly and honorably throughout. it is our duty to clear him of this\ndreadful and unfounded charge.\"\nit was evening before i left camberwell, and quite dark by the time i\nreached home. my companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he\nhad disappeared. i looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but\nthere was none.\n\"i suppose that mr. sherlock holmes has gone out,\" i said to mrs.\nhudson as she came up to lower the blinds.\n\"no, sir. he has gone to his room, sir. do you know, sir,\" sinking\nher voice into an impressive whisper, \"i am afraid for his health?\"\n\"why so, mrs. hudson?\"\n\"well, he's that strange, sir. after you was gone he walked and he\nwalked, up and down, and up and down, until i was weary of the sound\nof his footstep. then i heard him talking to himself and muttering,\nand every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with 'what\nis that, mrs. hudson?' and now he has slammed off to his room, but i\ncan hear him walking away the same as ever. i hope he's not going to\nbe ill, sir. i ventured to say something to him about cooling\nmedicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that i don't\nknow how ever i got out of the room.\"\n\"i don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, mrs. hudson,\" i\nanswered. \"i have seen him like this before. he has some small matter\nupon his mind which makes him restless.\" i tried to speak lightly to\nour worthy landlady, but i was myself somewhat uneasy when through\nthe long night i still from time to time heard the dull sound of his\ntread, and knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this\ninvoluntary inaction.\nat breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of\nfeverish color upon either cheek.\n\"you are knocking yourself up, old man,\" i remarked. \"i heard you\nmarching about in the night.\"\n\"no, i could not sleep,\" he answered. \"this infernal problem is\nconsuming me. it is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle,\nwhen all else had been overcome. i know the men, the launch,\neverything; and yet i can get no news. i have set other agencies at\nwork, and used every means at my disposal. the whole river has been\nsearched on either side, but there is no news, nor has mrs. smith\nheard of her husband. i shall come to the conclusion soon that they\nhave scuttled the craft. but there are objections to that.\"\n\"or that mrs. smith has put us on a wrong scent.\"\n\"no, i think that may be dismissed. i had inquiries made, and there\nis a launch of that description.\"\n\"could it have gone up the river?\"\n\"i have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party\nwho will work up as far as richmond. if no news comes to-day, i shall\nstart off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat.\nbut surely, surely, we shall hear something.\"\nwe did not, however. not a word came to us either from wiggins or\nfrom the other agencies. there were articles in most of the papers\nupon the norwood tragedy. they all appeared to be rather hostile to\nthe unfortunate thaddeus sholto. no fresh details were to be found,\nhowever, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the\nfollowing day. i walked over to camberwell in the evening to report\nour ill success to the ladies, and on my return i found holmes\ndejected and somewhat morose. he would hardly reply to my questions,\nand busied himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which\ninvolved much heating of retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at\nlast in a smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. up to the\nsmall hours of the morning i could hear the clinking of his\ntest-tubes which told me that he was still engaged in his malodorous\nexperiment.\nin the early dawn i woke with a start, and was surprised to find him\nstanding by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a\npea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.\n\"i am off down the river, watson,\" said he. \"i have been turning it\nover in my mind, and i can see only one way out of it. it is worth\ntrying, at all events.\"\n\"surely i can come with you, then?\" said i.\n\"no; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my\nrepresentative. i am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that\nsome message may come during the day, though wiggins was despondent\nabout it last night. i want you to open all notes and telegrams, and\nto act on your own judgment if any news should come. can i rely upon\nyou?\"\n\"most certainly.\"\n\"i am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for i can\nhardly tell yet where i may find myself. if i am in luck, however, i\nmay not be gone so very long. i shall have news of some sort or other\nbefore i get back.\"\ni had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time. on opening the\nstandard, however, i found that there was a fresh allusion to the\nbusiness.\n\"with reference to the upper norwood tragedy,\" it remarked, \"we have\nreason to believe that the matter promises to be even more complex\nand mysterious than was originally supposed. fresh evidence has shown\nthat it is quite impossible that mr. thaddeus sholto could have been\nin any way concerned in the matter. he and the housekeeper, mrs.\nbernstone, were both released yesterday evening. it is believed,\nhowever, that the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and\nthat it is being prosecuted by mr. athelney jones, of scotland yard,\nwith all his well-known energy and sagacity. further arrests may be\nexpected at any moment.\"\n\"that is satisfactory so far as it goes,\" thought i. \"friend sholto\nis safe, at any rate. i wonder what the fresh clue may be; though it\nseems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a\nblunder.\"\ni tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye\ncaught an advertisement in the agony column. it ran in this way:\n\"lost.--whereas mordecai smith, boatman, and his son, jim, left\nsmith's wharf at or about three o'clock last tuesday morning in the\nsteam launch aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a\nwhite band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can\ngive information to mrs. smith, at smith's wharf, or at 221b baker\nstreet, as to the whereabouts of the said mordecai smith and the\nlaunch aurora.\"\nthis was clearly holmes's doing. the baker street address was enough\nto prove that. it struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be\nread by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the\nnatural anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.\nit was a long day. every time that a knock came to the door, or a\nsharp step passed in the street, i imagined that it was either holmes\nreturning or an answer to his advertisement. i tried to read, but my\nthoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the\nill-assorted and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. could there\nbe, i wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning. might\nhe be suffering from some huge self-deception? was it not possible\nthat his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory\nupon faulty premises? i had never known him to be wrong; and yet the\nkeenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived. he was likely, i\nthought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his\nlogic,--his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a\nplainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand. yet, on the\nother hand, i had myself seen the evidence, and i had heard the\nreasons for his deductions. when i looked back on the long chain of\ncurious circumstances, many of them trivial in themselves, but all\ntending in the same direction, i could not disguise from myself that\neven if holmes's explanation were incorrect the true theory must be\nequally outr and startling.\nat three o'clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell,\nan authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a\nperson than mr. athelney jones was shown up to me. very different was\nhe, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense\nwho had taken over the case so confidently at upper norwood. his\nexpression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.\n\"good-day, sir; good-day,\" said he. \"mr. sherlock holmes is out, i\nunderstand.\"\n\"yes, and i cannot be sure when he will be back. but perhaps you\nwould care to wait. take that chair and try one of these cigars.\"\n\"thank you; i don't mind if i do,\" said he, mopping his face with a\nred bandanna handkerchief.\n\"and a whiskey-and-soda?\"\n\"well, half a glass. it is very hot for the time of year; and i have\nhad a good deal to worry and try me. you know my theory about this\nnorwood case?\"\n\"i remember that you expressed one.\"\n\"well, i have been obliged to reconsider it. i had my net drawn\ntightly round mr. sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in the\nmiddle of it. he was able to prove an alibi which could not be\nshaken. from the time that he left his brother's room he was never\nout of sight of some one or other. so it could not be he who climbed\nover roofs and through trap-doors. it's a very dark case, and my\nprofessional credit is at stake. i should be very glad of a little\nassistance.\"\n\"we all need help sometimes,\" said i.\n\"your friend mr. sherlock holmes is a wonderful man, sir,\" said he,\nin a husky and confidential voice. \"he's a man who is not to be beat.\ni have known that young man go into a good many cases, but i never\nsaw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. he is\nirregular in his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at\ntheories, but, on the whole, i think he would have made a most\npromising officer, and i don't care who knows it. i have had a wire\nfrom him this morning, by which i understand that he has got some\nclue to this sholto business. here is the message.\"\nhe took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. it was\ndated from poplar at twelve o'clock. \"go to baker street at once,\" it\nsaid. \"if i have not returned, wait for me. i am close on the track\nof the sholto gang. you can come with us to-night if you want to be\nin at the finish.\"\n\"this sounds well. he has evidently picked up the scent again,\" said\ni.\n\"ah, then he has been at fault too,\" exclaimed jones, with evident\nsatisfaction. \"even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. of\ncourse this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an\nofficer of the law to allow no chance to slip. but there is some one\nat the door. perhaps this is he.\"\na heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and\nrattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. once or\ntwice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at\nlast he made his way to our door and entered. his appearance\ncorresponded to the sounds which we had heard. he was an aged man,\nclad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his\nthroat. his back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing\nwas painfully asthmatic. as he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his\nshoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. he had\na colored scarf round his chin, and i could see little of his face\nsave a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and\nlong gray side-whiskers. altogether he gave me the impression of a\nrespectable master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.\n\"what is it, my man?\" i asked.\nhe looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.\n\"is mr. sherlock holmes here?\" said he.\n\"no; but i am acting for him. you can tell me any message you have\nfor him.\"\n\"it was to him himself i was to tell it,\" said he.\n\"but i tell you that i am acting for him. was it about mordecai\nsmith's boat?\"\n\"yes. i knows well where it is. an' i knows where the men he is after\nare. an' i knows where the treasure is. i knows all about it.\"\n\"then tell me, and i shall let him know.\"\n\"it was to him i was to tell it,\" he repeated, with the petulant\nobstinacy of a very old man.\n\"well, you must wait for him.\"\n\"no, no; i ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one. if mr.\nholmes ain't here, then mr. holmes must find it all out for himself.\ni don't care about the look of either of you, and i won't tell a\nword.\"\nhe shuffled towards the door, but athelney jones got in front of him.\n\"wait a bit, my friend,\" said he. \"you have important information,\nand you must not walk off. we shall keep you, whether you like or\nnot, until our friend returns.\"\nthe old man made a little run towards the door, but, as athelney\njones put his broad back up against it, he recognized the uselessness\nof resistance.\n\"pretty sort o' treatment this!\" he cried, stamping his stick. \"i\ncome here to see a gentleman, and you two, who i never saw in my\nlife, seize me and treat me in this fashion!\"\n\"you will be none the worse,\" i said. \"we shall recompense you for\nthe loss of your time. sit over here on the sofa, and you will not\nhave long to wait.\"\nhe came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face\nresting on his hands. jones and i resumed our cigars and our talk.\nsuddenly, however, holmes's voice broke in upon us.\n\"i think that you might offer me a cigar too,\" he said.\nwe both started in our chairs. there was holmes sitting close to us\nwith an air of quiet amusement.\n\"holmes!\" i exclaimed. \"you here! but where is the old man?\"\n\"here is the old man,\" said he, holding out a heap of white hair.\n\"here he is,--wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. i thought my disguise\nwas pretty good, but i hardly expected that it would stand that\ntest.\"\n\"ah, you rogue!\" cried jones, highly delighted. \"you would have made\nan actor, and a rare one. you had the proper workhouse cough, and\nthose weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. i thought i knew\nthe glint of your eye, though. you didn't get away from us so easily,\nyou see.\"\n\"i have been working in that get-up all day,\" said he, lighting his\ncigar. \"you see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know\nme,--especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my\ncases: so i can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise\nlike this. you got my wire?\"\n\"yes; that was what brought me here.\"\n\"how has your case prospered?\"\n\"it has all come to nothing. i have had to release two of my\nprisoners, and there is no evidence against the other two.\"\n\"never mind. we shall give you two others in the place of them. but\nyou must put yourself under my orders. you are welcome to all the\nofficial credit, but you must act on the line that i point out. is\nthat agreed?\"\n\"entirely, if you will help me to the men.\"\n\"well, then, in the first place i shall want a fast police-boat--a\nsteam launch--to be at the westminster stairs at seven o'clock.\"\n\"that is easily managed. there is always one about there; but i can\nstep across the road and telephone to make sure.\"\n\"then i shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance.\"\n\"there will be two or three in the boat. what else?\"\n\"when we secure the men we shall get the treasure. i think that it\nwould be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the\nyoung lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. let her be the\nfirst to open it.--eh, watson?\"\n\"it would be a great pleasure to me.\"\n\"rather an irregular proceeding,\" said jones, shaking his head.\n\"however, the whole thing is irregular, and i suppose we must wink at\nit. the treasure must afterwards be handed over to the authorities\nuntil after the official investigation.\"\n\"certainly. that is easily managed. one other point. i should much\nlike to have a few details about this matter from the lips of\njonathan small himself. you know i like to work the detail of my\ncases out. there is no objection to my having an unofficial interview\nwith him, either here in my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is\nefficiently guarded?\"\n\"well, you are master of the situation. i have had no proof yet of\nthe existence of this jonathan small. however, if you can catch him i\ndon't see how i can refuse you an interview with him.\"\n\"that is understood, then?\"\n\"perfectly. is there anything else?\"\n\"only that i insist upon your dining with us. it will be ready in\nhalf an hour. i have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a\nlittle choice in white wines.--watson, you have never yet recognized\nmy merits as a housekeeper.\"\nchapter x\nthe end of the islander\nour meal was a merry one. holmes coud talk exceedingly well when he\nchose, and that night he did choose. he appeared to be in a state of\nnervous exaltation. i have never known him so brilliant. he spoke on\na quick succession of subjects,--on miracle-plays, on medieval\npottery, on stradivarius violins, on the buddhism of ceylon, and on\nthe war-ships of the future,--handling each as though he had made a\nspecial study of it. his bright humor marked the reaction from his\nblack depression of the preceding days. athelney jones proved to be a\nsociable soul in his hours of relaxation, and face his dinner with\nthe air of a bon vivant. for myself, i felt elated at the thought\nthat we were nearing the end of our task, and i caught something of\nholmes's gaiety. none of us alluded during dinner to the cause which\nhad brought us together.\nwhen the cloth was cleared, holmes glanced at this watch, and filled\nup three glasses with port. \"one bumper,\" said he, \"to the success of\nour little expedition. and now it is high time we were off. have you\na pistol, watson?\"\n\"i have my old service-revolver in my desk.\"\n\"you had best take it, then. it is well to be prepared. i see that\nthe cab is at the door. i ordered it for half-past six.\"\nit was a little past seven before we reached the westminster wharf,\nand found our launch awaiting us. holmes eyed it critically.\n\"is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?\"\n\"yes,--that green lamp at the side.\"\n\"then take it off.\"\nthe small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were\ncast off. jones, holmes, and i sat in the stern. there was one man at\nthe rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors\nforward.\n\"where to?\" asked jones.\n\"to the tower. tell them to stop opposite jacobson's yard.\"\nour craft was evidently a very fast one. we shot past the long lines\nof loaded barges as though they were stationary. holmes smiled with\nsatisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us.\n\"we ought to be able to catch anything on the river,\" he said.\n\"well, hardly that. but there are not many launches to beat us.\"\n\"we shall have to catch the aurora, and she has a name for being a\nclipper. i will tell you how the land lies, watson. you recollect how\nannoyed i was at being balked by so small a thing?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"well, i gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical\nanalysis. one of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of\nwork is the best rest. so it is. when i had succeeded in dissolving\nthe hydrocarbon which i was at work at, i came back to our problem of\nthe sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again. my boys had been\nup the river and down the river without result. the launch was not at\nany landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned. yet it could hardly\nhave been scuttled to hide their traces,--though that always remained\nas a possible hypothesis if all else failed. i knew this man small\nhad a certain degree of low cunning, but i did not think him capable\nof anything in the nature of delicate finesse. that is usually a\nproduct of higher education. i then reflected that since he had\ncertainly been in london some time--as we had evidence that he\nmaintained a continual watch over pondicherry lodge--he could hardly\nleave at a moment's notice, but would need some little time, if it\nwere only a day, to arrange his affairs. that was the balance of\nprobability, at any rate.\"\n\"it seems to me to be a little weak,\" said i. \"it is more probable\nthat he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his\nexpedition.\"\n\"no, i hardly think so. this lair of his would be too valuable a\nretreat in case of need for him to give it up until he was sure that\nhe could do without it. but a second consideration struck me.\njonathan small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his\ncompanion, however much he may have top-coated him, would give rise\nto gossip, and possibly be associated with this norwood tragedy. he\nwas quite sharp enough to see that. they had started from their\nhead-quarters under cover of darkness, and he would wish to get back\nbefore it was broad light. now, it was past three o'clock, according\nto mrs. smith, when they got the boat. it would be quite bright, and\npeople would be about in an hour or so. therefore, i argued, they did\nnot go very far. they paid smith well to hold his tongue, reserved\nhis launch for the final escape, and hurried to their lodgings with\nthe treasure-box. in a couple of nights, when they had time to see\nwhat view the papers took, and whether there was any suspicion, they\nwould make their way under cover of darkness to some ship at\ngravesend or in the downs, where no doubt they had already arranged\nfor passages to america or the colonies.\"\n\"but the launch? they could not have taken that to their lodgings.\"\n\"quite so. i argued that the launch must be no great way off, in\nspite of its invisibility. i then put myself in the place of small,\nand looked at it as a man of his capacity would. he would probably\nconsider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would\nmake pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. how,\nthen, could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when\nwanted? i wondered what i should do myself if i were in his shoes. i\ncould only think of one way of doing it. i might land the launch over\nto some boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a trifling\nchange in her. she would then be removed to his shed or hard, and so\nbe effectually concealed, while at the same time i could have her at\na few hours' notice.\"\n\"that seems simple enough.\"\n\"it is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be\noverlooked. however, i determined to act on the idea. i started at\nonce in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all the yards down\nthe river. i drew blank at fifteen, but at the\nsixteenth--jacobson's--i learned that the aurora had been handed over\nto them two days ago by a wooden-legged man, with some trivial\ndirections as to her rudder. 'there ain't naught amiss with her\nrudder,' said the foreman. 'there she lies, with the red streaks.' at\nthat moment who should come down but mordecai smith, the missing\nowner? he was rather the worse for liquor. i should not, of course,\nhave known him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his\nlaunch. 'i want her to-night at eight o'clock,' said he,--'eight\no'clock sharp, mind, for i have two gentlemen who won't be kept\nwaiting.' they had evidently paid him well, for he was very flush of\nmoney, chucking shillings about to the men. i followed him some\ndistance, but he subsided into an ale-house: so i went back to the\nyard, and, happening to pick up one of my boys on the way, i\nstationed him as a sentry over the launch. he is to stand at water's\nedge and wave his handkerchief to us when they start. we shall be\nlying off in the stream, and it will be a strange thing if we do not\ntake men, treasure, and all.\"\n\"you have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men\nor not,\" said jones; \"but if the affair were in my hands i should\nhave had a body of police in jacobson's yard, and arrested them when\nthey came down.\"\n\"which would have been never. this man small is a pretty shrewd\nfellow. he would send a scout on ahead, and if anything made him\nsuspicious lie snug for another week.\"\n\"but you might have stuck to mordecai smith, and so been led to their\nhiding-place,\" said i.\n\"in that case i should have wasted my day. i think that it is a\nhundred to one against smith knowing where they live. as long as he\nhas liquor and good pay, why should he ask questions? they send him\nmessages what to do. no, i thought over every possible course, and\nthis is the best.\"\nwhile this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the\nlong series of bridges which span the thames. as we passed the city\nthe last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of\nst. paul's. it was twilight before we reached the tower.\n\"that is jacobson's yard,\" said holmes, pointing to a bristle of\nmasts and rigging on the surrey side. \"cruise gently up and down here\nunder cover of this string of lighters.\" he took a pair of\nnight-glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. \"i\nsee my sentry at his post,\" he remarked, \"but no sign of a\nhandkerchief.\"\n\"suppose we go down-stream a short way and lie in wait for them,\"\nsaid jones, eagerly. we were all eager by this time, even the\npolicemen and stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was going\nforward.\n\"we have no right to take anything for granted,\" holmes answered. \"it\nis certainly ten to one that they go down-stream, but we cannot be\ncertain. from this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and\nthey can hardly see us. it will be a clear night and plenty of light.\nwe must stay where we are. see how the folk swarm over yonder in the\ngaslight.\"\n\"they are coming from work in the yard.\"\n\"dirty-looking rascals, but i suppose every one has some little\nimmortal spark concealed about him. you would not think it, to look\nat them. there is no a priori probability about it. a strange enigma\nis man!\"\n\"some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal,\" i suggested.\n\"winwood reade is good upon the subject,\" said holmes. \"he remarks\nthat, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the\naggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. you can, for example,\nnever foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with\nprecision what an average number will be up to. individuals vary, but\npercentages remain constant. so says the statistician. but do i see a\nhandkerchief? surely there is a white flutter over yonder.\"\n\"yes, it is your boy,\" i cried. \"i can see him plainly.\"\n\"and there is the aurora,\" exclaimed holmes, \"and going like the\ndevil! full speed ahead, engineer. make after that launch with the\nyellow light. by heaven, i shall never forgive myself if she proves\nto have the heels of us!\"\nshe had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind\ntwo or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up\nbefore we saw her. now she was flying down the stream, near in to the\nshore, going at a tremendous rate. jones looked gravely at her and\nshook his head.\n\"she is very fast,\" he said. \"i doubt if we shall catch her.\"\n\"we must catch her!\" cried holmes, between his teeth. \"heap it on,\nstokers! make her do all she can! if we burn the boat we must have\nthem!\"\nwe were fairly after her now. the furnaces roared, and the powerful\nengines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart. her sharp,\nsteep prow cut through the river-water and sent two rolling waves to\nright and to left of us. with every throb of the engines we sprang\nand quivered like a living thing. one great yellow lantern in our\nbows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. right\nahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the aurora lay, and the\nswirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was\ngoing. we flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and\nout, behind this one and round the other. voices hailed us out of the\ndarkness, but still the aurora thundered on, and still we followed\nclose upon her track.\n\"pile it on, men, pile it on!\" cried holmes, looking down into the\nengine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,\naquiline face. \"get every pound of steam you can.\"\n\"i think we gain a little,\" said jones, with his eyes on the aurora.\n\"i am sure of it,\" said i. \"we shall be up with her in a very few\nminutes.\"\nat that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with\nthree barges in tow blundered in between us. it was only by putting\nour helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before we could\nround them and recover our way the aurora had gained a good two\nhundred yards. she was still, however, well in view, and the murky\nuncertain twilight was setting into a clear starlit night. our\nboilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated\nand creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us along. we had\nshot through the pool, past the west india docks, down the long\ndeptford reach, and up again after rounding the isle of dogs. the\ndull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly enough into the\ndainty aurora. jones turned our search-light upon her, so that we\ncould plainly see the figures upon her deck. one man sat by the\nstern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped.\nbeside him lay a dark mass which looked like a newfoundland dog. the\nboy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace i\ncould see old smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling coals for\ndear life. they may have had some doubt at first as to whether we\nwere really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and\nturning which they took there could no longer be any question about\nit. at greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. at\nblackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. i\nhave coursed many creatures in many countries during my checkered\ncareer, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad,\nflying man-hunt down the thames. steadily we drew in upon them, yard\nby yard. in the silence of the night we could hear the panting and\nclanking of their machinery. the man in the stern still crouched upon\nthe deck, and his arms were moving as though he were busy, while\nevery now and then he would look up and measure with a glance the\ndistance which still separated us. nearer we came and nearer. jones\nyelled to them to stop. we were not more than four boat's lengths\nbehind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. it was a clear\nreach of the river, with barking level upon one side and the\nmelancholy plumstead marshes upon the other. at our hail the man in\nthe stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clinched fists at\nus, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. he was a good-sized,\npowerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride i\ncould see that from the thigh downwards there was but a wooden stump\nupon the right side. at the sound of his strident, angry cries there\nwas movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. it straightened\nitself into a little black man--the smallest i have ever seen--with a\ngreat, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair.\nholmes had already drawn his revolver, and i whipped out mine at the\nsight of this savage, distorted creature. he was wrapped in some sort\nof dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that\nface was enough to give a man a sleepless night. never have i seen\nfeatures so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. his small\neyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were\nwrithed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a\nhalf animal fury.\n\"fire if he raises his hand,\" said holmes, quietly. we were within a\nboat's-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. i\ncan see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his\nlegs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with\nhis hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the\nlight of our lantern.\nit was well that we had so clear a view of him. even as we looked he\nplucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood,\nlike a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. our pistols rang out\ntogether. he whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of\nchoking cough fell sideways into the stream. i caught one glimpse of\nhis venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters. at\nthe same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder\nand put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the\nsouthern bank, while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a\nfew feet. we were round after her in an instant, but she was already\nnearly at the bank. it was a wild and desolate place, where the moon\nglimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant\nwater and beds of decaying vegetation. the launch with a dull thud\nran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush\nwith the water. the fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank\nits whole length into the sodden soil. in vain he struggled and\nwrithed. not one step could he possibly take either forwards or\nbackwards. he yelled in impotent rage, and kicked frantically into\nthe mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden\npin the deeper into the sticky bank. when we brought our launch\nalongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only by throwing the\nend of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out,\nand to drag him, like some evil fish, over our side. the two smiths,\nfather and son, sat sullenly in their launch, but came aboard meekly\nenough when commanded. the aurora herself we hauled off and made fast\nto our stern. a solid iron chest of indian workmanship stood upon the\ndeck. this, there could be no question, was the same that had\ncontained the ill-omened treasure of the sholtos. there was no key,\nbut it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to\nour own little cabin. as we steamed slowly up-stream again, we\nflashed our search-light in every direction, but there was no sign of\nthe islander. somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the thames\nlie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.\n\"see here,\" said holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. \"we were\nhardly quick enough with our pistols.\" there, sure enough, just\nbehind where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts\nwhich we knew so well. it must have whizzed between us at the instant\nthat we fired. holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his\neasy fashion, but i confess that it turned me sick to think of the\nhorrible death which had passed so close to us that night.\nchapter xi\nthe great agra treasure\nour captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had\ndone so much and waited so long to gain. he was a sunburned,\nreckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all over\nhis mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. there was\na singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who\nwas not to be easily turned from his purpose. his age may have been\nfifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with\ngray. his face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy\nbrows and aggressive chin gave him, as i had lately seen, a terrible\nexpression when moved to anger. he sat now with his handcuffed hands\nupon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with\nhis keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his\nill-doings. it seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in\nhis rigid and contained countenance. once he looked up at me with a\ngleam of something like humour in his eyes.\n\"well, jonathan small,\" said holmes, lighting a cigar, \"i am sorry\nthat it has come to this.\"\n\"and so am i, sir,\" he answered, frankly. \"i don't believe that i can\nswing over the job. i give you my word on the book that i never\nraised hand against mr. sholto. it was that little hell-hound tonga\nwho shot one of his cursed darts into him. i had no part in it, sir.\ni was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. i welted the\nlittle devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done,\nand i could not undo it again.\"\n\"have a cigar,\" said holmes; \"and you had best take a pull out of my\nflask, for you are very wet. how could you expect so small and weak a\nman as this black fellow to overpower mr. sholto and hold him while\nyou were climbing the rope?\"\n\"you seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. the\ntruth is that i hoped to find the room clear. i knew the habits of\nthe house pretty well, and it was the time when mr. sholto usually\nwent down to his supper. i shall make no secret of the business. the\nbest defence that i can make is just the simple truth. now, if it had\nbeen the old major i would have swung for him with a light heart. i\nwould have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar.\nbut it's cursed hard that i should be lagged over this young sholto,\nwith whom i had no quarrel whatever.\"\n\"you are under the charge of mr. athelney jones, of scotland yard. he\nis going to bring you up to my rooms, and i shall ask you for a true\naccount of the matter. you must make a clean breast of it, for if you\ndo i hope that i may be of use to you.  i think i can prove that the\npoison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached\nthe room.\"\n\"that he was, sir. i never got such a turn in my life as when i saw\nhim grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as i climbed through\nthe window. it fairly shook me, sir. i'd have half killed tonga for\nit if he had not scrambled off. that was how he came to leave his\nclub, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which i dare say\nhelped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more\nthan i can tell. i don't feel no malice against you for it. but it\ndoes seem a queer thing,\" he added, with a bitter smile, \"that i who\nhave a fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money should spend\nthe first half of my life building a breakwater in the andamans, and\nam like to spend the other half digging drains at dartmoor. it was an\nevil day for me when first i clapped eyes upon the merchant achmet\nand had to do with the agra treasure, which never brought anything\nbut a curse yet upon the man who owned it. to him it brought murder,\nto major sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery\nfor life.\"\nat this moment athelney jones thrust his broad face and heavy\nshoulders into the tiny cabin. \"quite a family party,\" he remarked.\n\"i think i shall have a pull at that flask, holmes.  well, i think we\nmay all congratulate each other. pity we didn't take the other alive;\nbut there was no choice. i say, holmes, you must confess that you cut\nit rather fine. it was all we could do to overhaul her.\"\n\"all is well that ends well,\" said holmes. \"but i certainly did not\nknow that the aurora was such a clipper.\"\n\"smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that\nif he had had another man to help him with the engines we should\nnever have caught her. he swears he knew nothing of this norwood\nbusiness.\"\n\"neither he did,\" cried our prisoner,--\"not a word. i chose his\nlaunch because i heard that she was a flier. we told him nothing, but\nwe paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached\nour vessel, the esmeralda, at gravesend, outward bound for the\nbrazils.\"\n\"well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to\nhim. if we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick\nin condemning them.\" it was amusing to notice how the consequential\njones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of\nthe capture. from the slight smile which played over sherlock\nholmes's face, i could see that the speech had not been lost upon\nhim.\n\"we will be at vauxhall bridge presently,\" said jones, \"and shall\nland you, dr. watson, with the treasure-box. i need hardly tell you\nthat i am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing\nthis. it is most irregular; but of course an agreement is an\nagreement. i must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector\nwith you, since you have so valuable a charge. you will drive, no\ndoubt?\"\n\"yes, i shall drive.\"\n\"it is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.\nyou will have to break it open. where is the key, my man?\"\n\"at the bottom of the river,\" said small, shortly.\n\"hum! there was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. we have\nhad work enough already through you. however, doctor, i need not warn\nyou to be careful. bring the box back with you to the baker street\nrooms. you will find us there, on our way to the station.\"\nthey landed me at vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff,\ngenial inspector as my companion. a quarter of an hour's drive\nbrought us to mrs. cecil forrester's. the servant seemed surprised at\nso late a visitor. mrs. cecil forrester was out for the evening, she\nexplained, and likely to be very late. miss morstan, however, was in\nthe drawing-room: so to the drawing-room i went, box in hand, leaving\nthe obliging inspector in the cab.\nshe was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white\ndiaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and\nwaist. the soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned\nback in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and\ntinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant\nhair. one white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and\nher whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. at the\nsound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright\nflush of surprise and of pleasure colored her pale cheeks.\n\"i heard a cab drive up,\" she said. \"i thought that mrs. forrester\nhad come back very early, but i never dreamed that it might be you.\nwhat news have you brought me?\"\n\"i have brought something better than news,\" said i, putting down the\nbox upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my\nheart was heavy within me. \"i have brought you something which is\nworth all the news in the world. i have brought you a fortune.\"\nshe glanced at iron box. \"is that the treasure, then?\" she asked,\ncoolly enough.\n\"yes, this is the great agra treasure. half of it is yours and half\nis thaddeus sholto's. you will have a couple of hundred thousand\neach. think of that! an annuity of ten thousand pounds. there will be\nfew richer young ladies in england. is it not glorious?\"\ni think that i must have been rather overacting my delight, and that\nshe detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for i saw her\neyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.\n\"if i have it,\" said she, \"i owe it to you.\"\n\"no, no,\" i answered, \"not to me, but to my friend sherlock holmes.\nwith all the will in the world, i could never have followed up a clue\nwhich has taxed even his analytical genius.  as it was, we very\nnearly lost it at the last moment.\"\n\"pray sit down and tell me all about it, dr. watson,\" said she.\ni narrated briefly what had occurred since i had seen her\nlast,--holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the aurora,\nthe appearance of athelney jones, our expedition in the evening, and\nthe wild chase down the thames. she listened with parted lips and\nshining eyes to my recital of our adventures. when i spoke of the\ndart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that i\nfeared that she was about to faint.\n\"it is nothing,\" she said, as i hastened to pour her out some water.\n\"i am all right again. it was a shock to me to hear that i had placed\nmy friends in such horrible peril.\"\n\"that is all over,\" i answered. \"it was nothing. i will tell you no\nmore gloomy details. let us turn to something brighter. there is the\ntreasure. what could be brighter than that? i got leave to bring it\nwith me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see\nit.\"\n\"it would be of the greatest interest to me,\" she said. there was no\neagerness in her voice, however. it had struck her, doubtless, that\nit might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize\nwhich had cost so much to win.\n\"what a pretty box!\" she said, stooping over it. \"this is indian\nwork, i suppose?\"\n\"yes; it is benares metal-work.\"\n\"and so heavy!\" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. \"the box alone\nmust be of some value. where is the key?\"\n\"small threw it into the thames,\" i answered. \"i must borrow mrs.\nforrester's poker.\" there was in the front a thick and broad hasp,\nwrought in the image of a sitting buddha. under this i thrust the end\nof the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. the hasp sprang open\nwith a loud snap. with trembling fingers i flung back the lid. we\nboth stood gazing in astonishment. the box was empty!\nno wonder that it was heavy. the iron-work was two-thirds of an inch\nthick all round. it was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest\nconstructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or\ncrumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. it was absolutely and\ncompletely empty.\n\"the treasure is lost,\" said miss morstan, calmly.\nas i listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great\nshadow seemed to pass from my soul. i did not know how this agra\ntreasure had weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed.\nit was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but i could realize\nnothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us. \"thank\ngod!\" i ejaculated from my very heart.\nshe looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. \"why do you say\nthat?\" she asked.\n\"because you are within my reach again,\" i said, taking her hand. she\ndid not withdraw it. \"because i love you, mary, as truly as ever a\nman loved a woman. because this treasure, these riches, sealed my\nlips. now that they are gone i can tell you how i love you. that is\nwhy i said, 'thank god.'\"\n\"then i say, 'thank god,' too,\" she whispered, as i drew her to my\nside. whoever had lost a treasure, i knew that night that i had\ngained one.\nchapter xii\nthe strange story of jonathan small\na very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary\ntime before i rejoined him. his face clouded over when i showed him\nthe empty box.\n\"there goes the reward!\" said he, gloomily. \"where there is no money\nthere is no pay. this night's work would have been worth a tenner\neach to sam brown and me if the treasure had been there.\"\n\"mr. thaddeus sholto is a rich man,\" i said. \"he will see that you\nare rewarded, treasure or no.\"\nthe inspector shook his head despondently, however. \"it's a bad job,\"\nhe repeated; \"and so mr. athelney jones will think.\"\nhis forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank\nenough when i got to baker street and showed him the empty box. they\nhad only just arrived, holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had\nchanged their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon\nthe way. my companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual\nlistless expression, while small sat stolidly opposite to him with\nhis wooden leg cocked over his sound one. as i exhibited the empty\nbox he leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.\n\"this is your doing, small,\" said athelney jones, angrily.\n\"yes, i have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it,\" he\ncried, exultantly. \"it is my treasure; and if i can't have the loot\ni'll take darned good care that no one else does. i tell you that no\nliving man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the\nandaman convict-barracks and myself. i know now that i cannot have\nthe use of it, and i know that they cannot. i have acted all through\nfor them as much as for myself. it's been the sign of four with us\nalways. well i know that they would have had me do just what i have\ndone, and throw the treasure into the thames rather than let it go to\nkith or kin of sholto or of morstan. it was not to make them rich\nthat we did for achmet. you'll find the treasure where the key is,\nand where little tonga is. when i saw that your launch must catch us,\ni put the loot away in a safe place. there are no rupees for you this\njourney.\"\n\"you are deceiving us, small,\" said athelney jones, sternly. \"if you\nhad wished to throw the treasure into the thames it would have been\neasier for you to have thrown box and all.\"\n\"easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover,\" he answered,\nwith a shrewd, sidelong look. \"the man that was clever enough to hunt\nme down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a\nriver. now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a\nharder job. it went to my heart to do it, though. i was half mad when\nyou came up with us. however, there's no good grieving over it. i've\nhad ups in my life, and i've had downs, but i've learned not to cry\nover spilled milk.\"\n\"this is a very serious matter, small,\" said the detective. \"if you\nhad helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would\nhave had a better chance at your trial.\"\n\"justice!\" snarled the ex-convict. \"a pretty justice! whose loot is\nthis, if it is not ours? where is the justice that i should give it\nup to those who have never earned it? look how i have earned it!\ntwenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under\nthe mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts,\nbitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed\nblack-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. that\nwas how i earned the agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice\nbecause i cannot bear to feel that i have paid this price only that\nanother may enjoy it! i would rather swing a score of times, or have\none of tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and\nfeel that another man is at his ease in a palace with the money that\nshould be mine.\" small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this\ncame out in a wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the\nhandcuffs clanked together with the impassioned movement of his\nhands. i could understand, as i saw the fury and the passion of the\nman, that it was no groundless or unnatural terror which had\npossessed major sholto when he first learned that the injured convict\nwas upon his track.\n\"you forget that we know nothing of all this,\" said holmes quietly.\n\"we have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may\noriginally have been on your side.\"\n\"well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though i can see\nthat i have you to thank that i have these bracelets upon my wrists.\nstill, i bear no grudge for that. it is all fair and above-board. if\nyou want to hear my story i have no wish to hold it back. what i say\nto you is god's truth, every word of it. thank you; you can put the\nglass beside me here, and i'll put my lips to it if i am dry.\n\"i am a worcestershire man myself,--born near pershore. i dare say\nyou would find a heap of smalls living there now if you were to look.\ni have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is\nthat i was never much of a credit to the family, and i doubt if they\nwould be so very glad to see me. they were all steady, chapel-going\nfolk, small farmers, well known and respected over the country-side,\nwhile i was always a bit of a rover. at last, however, when i was\nabout eighteen, i gave them no more trouble, for i got into a mess\nover a girl, and could only get out of it again by taking the queen's\nshilling and joining the 3d buffs, which was just starting for india.\n\"i wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however. i had just got\npast the goose-step, and learned to handle my musket, when i was fool\nenough to go swimming in the ganges. luckily for me, my company\nsergeant, john holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was\none of the finest swimmers in the service. a crocodile took me, just\nas i was half-way across, and nipped off my right leg as clean as a\nsurgeon could have done it, just above the knee. what with the shock\nand the loss of blood, i fainted, and should have drowned if holder\nhad not caught hold of me and paddled for the bank. i was five months\nin hospital over it, and when at last i was able to limp out of it\nwith this timber toe strapped to my stump i found myself invalided\nout of the army and unfitted for any active occupation.\n\"i was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for\ni was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year. however,\nmy misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. a man named\nabelwhite, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an\noverseer to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work. he\nhappened to be a friend of our colonel's, who had taken an interest\nin me since the accident. to make a long story short, the colonel\nrecommended me strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to\nbe done on horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for i had enough\nknee left to keep good grip on the saddle. what i had to do was to\nride over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked,\nand to report the idlers. the pay was fair, i had comfortable\nquarters, and altogether i was content to spend the remainder of my\nlife in indigo-planting. mr. abelwhite was a kind man, and he would\noften drop into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white\nfolk out there feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do\nhere at home.\n\"well, i was never in luck's way long. suddenly, without a note of\nwarning, the great mutiny broke upon us. one month india lay as still\nand peaceful, to all appearance, as surrey or kent; the next there\nwere two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was\na perfect hell. of course you know all about it, gentlemen,--a deal\nmore than i do, very like, since reading is not in my line. i only\nknow what i saw with my own eyes. our plantation was at a place\ncalled muttra, near the border of the northwest provinces. night\nafter night the whole sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and\nday after day we had small companies of europeans passing through our\nestate with their wives and children, on their way to agra, where\nwere the nearest troops. mr. abelwhite was an obstinate man. he had\nit in his head that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it\nwould blow over as suddenly as it had sprung up. there he sat on his\nveranda, drinking whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the\ncountry was in a blaze about him. of course we stuck by him, i and\ndawson, who, with his wife, used to do the book-work and the\nmanaging. well, one fine day the crash came. i had been away on a\ndistant plantation, and was riding slowly home in the evening, when\nmy eye fell upon something all huddled together at the bottom of a\nsteep nullah. i rode down to see what it was, and the cold struck\nthrough my heart when i found it was dawson's wife, all cut into\nribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native dogs. a little further\nup the road dawson himself was lying on his face, quite dead, with an\nempty revolver in his hand and four sepoys lying across each other in\nfront of him. i reined up my horse, wondering which way i should\nturn, but at that moment i saw thick smoke curling up from\nabelwhite's bungalow and the flames beginning to burst through the\nroof. i knew then that i could do my employer no good, but would only\nthrow my own life away if i meddled in the matter. from where i stood\ni could see hundreds of the black fiends, with their red coats still\non their backs, dancing and howling round the burning house. some of\nthem pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head; so i\nbroke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at night\nsafe within the walls at agra.\n\"as it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. the\nwhole country was up like a swarm of bees. wherever the english could\ncollect in little bands they held just the ground that their guns\ncommanded. everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. it was a\nfight of the millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part of\nit was that these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and\ngunners, were our own picked troops, whom we had taught and trained,\nhandling our own weapons, and blowing our own bugle-calls. at agra\nthere were the 3d bengal fusiliers, some sikhs, two troops of horse,\nand a battery of artillery. a volunteer corps of clerks and merchants\nhad been formed, and this i joined, wooden leg and all. we went out\nto meet the rebels at shahgunge early in july, and we beat them back\nfor a time, but our powder gave out, and we had to fall back upon the\ncity. nothing but the worst news came to us from every side,--which\nis not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see\nthat we were right in the heart of it. lucknow is rather better than\na hundred miles to the east, and cawnpore about as far to the south.\nfrom every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and\nmurder and outrage.\n\"the city of agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce\ndevil-worshippers of all sorts. our handful of men were lost among\nthe narrow, winding streets. our leader moved across the river,\ntherefore, and took up his position in the old fort at agra. i don't\nknow if any of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that\nold fort. it is a very queer place,--the queerest that ever i was in,\nand i have been in some rum corners, too. first of all, it is\nenormous in size. i should think that the enclosure must be acres and\nacres. there is a modern part, which took all our garrison, women,\nchildren, stores, and everything else, with plenty of room over. but\nthe modern part is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where\nnobody goes, and which is given over to the scorpions and the\ncentipedes. it is all full of great deserted halls, and winding\npassages, and long corridors twisting in and out, so that it is easy\nenough for folk to get lost in it. for this reason it was seldom that\nany one went into it, though now and again a party with torches might\ngo exploring.\n\"the river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects\nit, but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had\nto be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which\nwas actually held by our troops. we were short-handed, with hardly\nmen enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns.\nit was impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at\nevery one of the innumerable gates. what we did was to organize a\ncentral guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate\nunder the charge of one white man and two or three natives. i was\nselected to take charge during certain hours of the night of a small\nisolated door upon the southwest side of the building. two sikh\ntroopers were placed under my command, and i was instructed if\nanything went wrong to fire my musket, when i might rely upon help\ncoming at once from the central guard. as the guard was a good two\nhundred paces away, however, and as the space between was cut up into\na labyrinth of passages and corridors, i had great doubts as to\nwhether they could arrive in time to be of any use in case of an\nactual attack.\n\"well, i was pretty proud at having this small command given me,\nsince i was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that. for two\nnights i kept the watch with my punjaubees. they were tall,\nfierce-looking chaps, mahomet singh and abdullah khan by name, both\nold fighting-men who had borne arms against us at chilian-wallah.\nthey could talk english pretty well, but i could get little out of\nthem. they preferred to stand together and jabber all night in their\nqueer sikh lingo. for myself, i used to stand outside the gate-way,\nlooking down on the broad, winding river and on the twinkling lights\nof the great city. the beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and\nthe yells and howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang,\nwere enough to remind us all night of our dangerous neighbors across\nthe stream. every two hours the officer of the night used to come\nround to all the posts, to make sure that all was well.\n\"the third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small,\ndriving rain. it was dreary work standing in the gate-way hour after\nhour in such weather. i tried again and again to make my sikhs talk,\nbut without much success. at two in the morning the rounds passed,\nand broke for a moment the weariness of the night. finding that my\ncompanions would not be led into conversation, i took out my pipe,\nand laid down my musket to strike the match. in an instant the two\nsikhs were upon me. one of them snatched my firelock up and levelled\nit at my head, while the other held a great knife to my throat and\nswore between his teeth that he would plunge it into me if i moved a\nstep.\n\"my first thought was that these fellows were in league with the\nrebels, and that this was the beginning of an assault. if our door\nwere in the hands of the sepoys the place must fall, and the women\nand children be treated as they were in cawnpore. maybe you gentlemen\nthink that i am just making out a case for myself, but i give you my\nword that when i thought of that, though i felt the point of the\nknife at my throat, i opened my mouth with the intention of giving a\nscream, if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. the\nman who held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as i braced\nmyself to it, he whispered, 'don't make a noise. the fort is safe\nenough. there are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' there was\nthe ring of truth in what he said, and i knew that if i raised my\nvoice i was a dead man. i could read it in the fellow's brown eyes. i\nwaited, therefore, in silence, to see what it was that they wanted\nfrom me.\n\"'listen to me, sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the\none whom they called abdullah khan. 'you must either be with us now\nor you must be silenced forever. the thing is too great a one for us\nto hesitate. either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on\nthe cross of the christians, or your body this night shall be thrown\ninto the ditch and we shall pass over to our brothers in the rebel\narmy. there is no middle way. which is it to be, death or life? we\ncan only give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing,\nand all must be done before the rounds come again.'\n\"'how can i decide?' said i. 'you have not told me what you want of\nme. but i tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of\nthe fort i will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your\nknife and welcome.'\n\"'it is nothing against the fort,' said he. 'we only ask you to do\nthat which your countrymen come to this land for. we ask you to be\nrich. if you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you upon\nthe naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no sikh was ever\nknown to break, that you shall have your fair share of the loot. a\nquarter of the treasure shall be yours. we can say no fairer.'\n\"'but what is the treasure, then?' i asked. 'i am as ready to be rich\nas you can be, if you will but show me how it can be done.'\n\"'you will swear, then,' said he, 'by the bones of your father, by\nthe honor of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no\nhand and speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?'\n\"'i will swear it,' i answered, 'provided that the fort is not\nendangered.'\n\"'then my comrade and i will swear that you shall have a quarter of\nthe treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us.'\n\"'there are but three,' said i.\n\"'no; dost akbar must have his share. we can tell the tale to you\nwhile we await them. do you stand at the gate, mahomet singh, and\ngive notice of their coming. the thing stands thus, sahib, and i tell\nit to you because i know that an oath is binding upon a feringhee,\nand that we may trust you. had you been a lying hindoo, though you\nhad sworn by all the gods in their false temples, your blood would\nhave been upon the knife, and your body in the water. but the sikh\nknows the englishman, and the englishman knows the sikh. hearken,\nthen, to what i have to say.\n\"'there is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth,\nthough his lands are small. much has come to him from his father, and\nmore still he has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and\nhoards his gold rather than spend it. when the troubles broke out he\nwould be friends both with the lion and the tiger,--with the sepoy\nand with the company's raj. soon, however, it seemed to him that the\nwhite men's day was come, for through all the land he could hear of\nnothing but of their death and their overthrow. yet, being a careful\nman, he made such plans that, come what might, half at least of his\ntreasure should be left to him. that which was in gold and silver he\nkept by him in the vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones\nand the choicest pearls that he had he put in an iron box, and sent\nit by a trusty servant who, under the guise of a merchant, should\ntake it to the fort at agra, there to lie until the land is at peace.\nthus, if the rebels won he would have his money, but if the company\nconquered his jewels would be saved to him. having thus divided his\nhoard, he threw himself into the cause of the sepoys, since they were\nstrong upon his borders. by doing this, mark you, sahib, his property\nbecomes the due of those who have been true to their salt.\n\"'this pretended merchant, who travels under the name of achmet, is\nnow in the city of agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort.\nhe has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother dost akbar,\nwho knows his secret. dost akbar has promised this night to lead him\nto a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his\npurpose. here he will come presently, and here he will find mahomet\nsingh and myself awaiting him. the place is lonely, and none shall\nknow of his coming. the world shall know of the merchant achmet no\nmore, but the great treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us.\nwhat say you to it, sahib?'\n\"in worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred\nthing; but it is very different when there is fire and blood all\nround you and you have been used to meeting death at every turn.\nwhether achmet the merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air\nto me, but at the talk about the treasure my heart turned to it, and\ni thought of what i might do in the old country with it, and how my\nfolk would stare when they saw their ne'er-do-well coming back with\nhis pockets full of gold moidores. i had, therefore, already made up\nmy mind. abdullah khan, however, thinking that i hesitated, pressed\nthe matter more closely.\n\"'consider, sahib,' said he, 'that if this man is taken by the\ncommandant he will be hung or shot, and his jewels taken by the\ngovernment, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them. now,\nsince we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well?\nthe jewels will be as well with us as in the company's coffers. there\nwill be enough to make every one of us rich men and great chiefs. no\none can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from all men.\nwhat could be better for the purpose?  say again, then, sahib,\nwhether you are with us, or if we must look upon you as an enemy.'\n\"'i am with you heart and soul,' said i.\n\"'it is well,' he answered, handing me back my firelock. 'you see\nthat we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken. we\nhave now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.'\n\"'does your brother know, then, of what you will do?' i asked.\n\"'the plan is his. he has devised it. we will go to the gate and\nshare the watch with mahomet singh.'\n\"the rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning\nof the wet season. brown, heavy clouds were drifting across the sky,\nand it was hard to see more than a stone-cast. a deep moat lay in\nfront of our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up, and\nit could easily be crossed. it was strange to me to be standing there\nwith those two wild punjaubees waiting for the man who was coming to\nhis death.\n\"suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other\nside of the moat. it vanished among the mound-heaps, and then\nappeared again coming slowly in our direction.\n\"'here they are!' i exclaimed.\n\"'you will challenge him, sahib, as usual,' whispered abdullah. 'give\nhim no cause for fear. send us in with him, and we shall do the rest\nwhile you stay here on guard. have the lantern ready to uncover, that\nwe may be sure that it is indeed the man.'\n\"the light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing,\nuntil i could see two dark figures upon the other side of the moat. i\nlet them scramble down the sloping bank, splash through the mire, and\nclimb half-way up to the gate, before i challenged them.\n\"'who goes there?' said i, in a subdued voice.\n\"'friends,' came the answer. i uncovered my lantern and threw a flood\nof light upon them. the first was an enormous sikh, with a black\nbeard which swept nearly down to his cummerbund. outside of a show i\nhave never seen so tall a man. the other was a little, fat, round\nfellow, with a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up\nin a shawl. he seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands\ntwitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left and\nright with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he\nventures out from his hole. it gave me the chills to think of killing\nhim, but i thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard as a\nflint within me. when he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup\nof joy and came running up towards me.\n\"'your protection, sahib,' he panted,--'your protection for the\nunhappy merchant achmet. i have travelled across rajpootana that i\nmight seek the shelter of the fort at agra. i have been robbed and\nbeaten and abused because i have been the friend of the company. it\nis a blessed night this when i am once more in safety,--i and my poor\npossessions.'\n\"'what have you in the bundle?' i asked.\n\"'an iron box,' he answered, 'which contains one or two little family\nmatters which are of no value to others, but which i should be sorry\nto lose. yet i am not a beggar; and i shall reward you, young sahib,\nand your governor also, if he will give me the shelter i ask.'\n\"i could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. the more i\nlooked at his fat, frightened face, the harder did it seem that we\nshould slay him in cold blood. it was best to get it over.\n\"'take him to the main guard,' said i. the two sikhs closed in upon\nhim on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched in\nthrough the dark gate-way. never was a man so compassed round with\ndeath. i remained at the gate-way with the lantern.\n\"i could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through\nthe lonely corridors. suddenly it ceased, and i heard voices, and a\nscuffle, with the sound of blows. a moment later there came, to my\nhorror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud\nbreathing of a running man. i turned my lantern down the long,\nstraight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind,\nwith a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels,\nbounding like a tiger, the great black-bearded sikh, with a knife\nflashing in his hand. i have never seen a man run so fast as that\nlittle merchant. he was gaining on the sikh, and i could see that if\nhe once passed me and got to the open air he would save himself yet.\nmy heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure\nturned me hard and bitter. i cast my firelock between his legs as he\nraced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. ere he could\nstagger to his feet the sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice\nin his side. the man never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay\nwere he had fallen. i think myself that he may have broken his neck\nwith the fall. you see, gentlemen, that i am keeping my promise. i am\ntelling you every work of the business just exactly as it happened,\nwhether it is in my favor or not.\"\nhe stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whiskey-and-water\nwhich holmes had brewed for him. for myself, i confess that i had now\nconceived the utmost horror of the man, not only for this\ncold-blooded business in which he had been concerned, but even more\nfor the somewhat flippant and careless way in which he narrated it.\nwhatever punishment was in store for him, i felt that he might expect\nno sympathy from me. sherlock holmes and jones sat with their hands\nupon their knees, deeply interested in the story, but with the same\ndisgust written upon their faces.  he may have observed it, for there\nwas a touch of defiance in his voice and manner as he proceeded.\n\"it was all very bad, no doubt,\" said he. \"i should like to know how\nmany fellows in my shoes would have refused a share of this loot when\nthey knew that they would have their throats cut for their pains.\nbesides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort. if he\nhad got out, the whole business would come to light, and i should\nhave been court-martialled and shot as likely as not; for people were\nnot very lenient at a time like that.\"\n\"go on with your story,\" said holmes, shortly.\n\"well, we carried him in, abdullah, akbar, and i. a fine weight he\nwas, too, for all that he was so short. mahomet singh was left to\nguard the door. we took him to a place which the sikhs had already\nprepared. it was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to\na great empty hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to\npieces. the earth floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural\ngrave, so we left achmet the merchant there, having first covered him\nover with loose bricks. this done, we all went back to the treasure.\n\"it lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. the box\nwas the same which now lies open upon your table. a key was hung by a\nsilken cord to that carved handle upon the top. we opened it, and the\nlight of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as i have\nread of and thought about when i was a little lad at pershore. it was\nblinding to look upon them. when we had feasted our eyes we took them\nall out and made a list of them. there were one hundred and\nforty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which has been\ncalled, i believe, 'the great mogul' and is said to be the second\nlargest stone in existence. then there were ninety-seven very fine\nemeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, however,\nwere small. there were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten\nsapphires, sixty-one agates, and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes,\ncats'-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very names of which i\ndid not know at the time, though i have become more familiar with\nthem since. besides this, there were nearly three hundred very fine\npearls, twelve of which were set in a gold coronet. by the way, these\nlast had been taken out of the chest and were not there when i\nrecovered it.\n\"after we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest\nand carried them to the gate-way to show them to mahomet singh. then\nwe solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other and be true to\nour secret. we agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the\ncountry should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among\nourselves. there was no use dividing it at present, for if gems of\nsuch value were found upon us it would cause suspicion, and there was\nno privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them. we\ncarried the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had buried\nthe body, and there, under certain bricks in the best-preserved wall,\nwe made a hollow and put our treasure. we made careful note of the\nplace, and next day i drew four plans, one for each of us, and put\nthe sign of the four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we\nshould each always act for all, so that none might take advantage.\nthat is an oath that i can put my hand to my heart and swear that i\nhave never broken.\n\"well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the\nindian mutiny. after wilson took delhi and sir colin relieved lucknow\nthe back of the business was broken. fresh troops came pouring in,\nand nana sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. a flying column\nunder colonel greathed came round to agra and cleared the pandies\naway from it. peace seemed to be settling upon the country, and we\nfour were beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we might\nsafely go off with our shares of the plunder. in a moment, however,\nour hopes were shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of\nachmet.\n\"it came about in this way. when the rajah put his jewels into the\nhands of achmet he did it because he knew that he was a trusty man.\nthey are suspicious folk in the east, however: so what does this\nrajah do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to\nplay the spy upon the first? this second man was ordered never to let\nachmet out of his sight, and he followed him like his shadow. he went\nafter him that night and saw him pass through the doorway. of course\nhe thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission\nthere himself next day, but could find no trace of achmet. this\nseemed to him so strange that he spoke about it to a sergeant of\nguides, who brought it to the ears of the commandant. a thorough\nsearch was quickly made, and the body was discovered. thus at the\nvery moment that we thought that all was safe we were all four seized\nand brought to trial on a charge of murder,--three of us because we\nhad held the gate that night, and the fourth because he was known to\nhave been in the company of the murdered man. not a word about the\njewels came out at the trial, for the rajah had been deposed and\ndriven out of india: so no one had any particular interest in them.\nthe murder, however, was clearly made out, and it was certain that we\nmust all have been concerned in it. the three sikhs got penal\nservitude for life, and i was condemned to death, though my sentence\nwas afterwards commuted into the same as the others.\n\"it was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then.\nthere we were all four tied by the leg and with precious little\nchance of ever getting out again, while we each held a secret which\nmight have put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use\nof it. it was enough to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand\nthe kick and the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have rice to\neat and water to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him\noutside, just waiting to be picked up. it might have driven me mad;\nbut i was always a pretty stubborn one, so i just held on and bided\nmy time.\n\"at last it seemed to me to have come. i was changed from agra to\nmadras, and from there to blair island in the andamans. there are\nvery few white convicts at this settlement, and, as i had behaved\nwell from the first, i soon found myself a sort of privileged person.\ni was given a hut in hope town, which is a small place on the slopes\nof mount harriet, and i was left pretty much to myself. it is a\ndreary, fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was\ninfested with wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a\npoisoned dart at us if they saw a chance. there was digging, and\nditching, and yam-planting, and a dozen other things to be done, so\nwe were busy enough all day; though in the evening we had a little\ntime to ourselves. among other things, i learned to dispense drugs\nfor the surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his knowledge. all the\ntime i was on the lookout for a chance of escape; but it is hundreds\nof miles from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those\nseas: so it was a terribly difficult job to get away.\n\"the surgeon, dr. somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the\nother young officers would meet in his rooms of an evening and play\ncards. the surgery, where i used to make up my drugs, was next to his\nsitting-room, with a small window between us. often, if i felt\nlonesome, i used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then,\nstanding there, i could hear their talk and watch their play. i am\nfond of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as having\none to watch the others. there was major sholto, captain morstan, and\nlieutenant bromley brown, who were in command of the native troops,\nand there was the surgeon himself, and two or three prison-officials,\ncrafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game. a very snug little\nparty they used to make.\n\"well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was\nthat the soldiers used always to lose and the civilians to win. mind,\ni don't say that there was anything unfair, but so it was. these\nprison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had\nbeen at the andamans, and they knew each other's game to a point,\nwhile the others just played to pass the time and threw their cards\ndown anyhow. night after night the soldiers got up poorer men, and\nthe poorer they got the more keen they were to play. major sholto was\nthe hardest hit. he used to pay in notes and gold at first, but soon\nit came to notes of hand and for big sums. he sometimes would win for\na few deals, just to give him heart, and then the luck would set in\nagainst him worse than ever. all day he would wander about as black\nas thunder, and he took to drinking a deal more than was good for\nhim.\n\"one night he lost even more heavily than usual. i was sitting in my\nhut when he and captain morstan came stumbling along on the way to\ntheir quarters. they were bosom friends, those two, and never far\napart. the major was raving about his losses.\n\"'it's all up, morstan,' he was saying, as they passed my hut. 'i\nshall have to send in my papers. i am a ruined man.'\n\"'nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the\nshoulder. 'i've had a nasty facer myself, but--' that was all i could\nhear, but it was enough to set me thinking.\na couple of days later major sholto was strolling on the beach: so i\ntook the chance of speaking to him.\n\"'i wish to have your advice, major,' said i.\n\"'well, small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his\nlips.\n\"'i wanted to ask you, sir,' said i, 'who is the proper person to\nwhom hidden treasure should be handed over. i know where half a\nmillion worth lies, and, as i cannot use it myself, i thought perhaps\nthe best thing that i could do would be to hand it over to the proper\nauthorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence shortened\nfor me.'\n\"'half a million, small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if i\nwas in earnest.\n\"'quite that, sir,--in jewels and pearls. it lies there ready for\nanyone. and the queer thing about it is that the real owner is\noutlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first\ncomer.'\n\"'to government, small,' he stammered,--'to government.' but he said\nit in a halting fashion, and i knew in my heart that i had got him.\n\"'you think, then, sir, that i should give the information to the\ngovernor-general?' said i, quietly.\n\"'well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might\nrepent. let me hear all about it, small. give me the facts.'\n\"i told him the whole story, with small changes so that he could not\nidentify the places. when i had finished he stood stock still and\nfull of thought. i could see by the twitch of his lip that there was\na struggle going on within him.\n\"'this is a very important matter, small,' he said, at last. 'you\nmust not say a word to any one about it, and i shall see you again\nsoon.'\n\"two nights later he and his friend captain morstan came to my hut in\nthe dead of the night with a lantern.\n\"'i want you just to let captain morstan hear that story from your\nown lips, small,' said he.\n\"i repeated it as i had told it before.\n\"'it rings true, eh?' said he. 'it's good enough to act upon?'\n\"captain morstan nodded.\n\"'look here, small,' said the major. 'we have been talking it over,\nmy friend here and i, and we have come to the conclusion that this\nsecret of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but is a\nprivate concern of your own, which of course you have the power of\ndisposing of as you think best. now, the question is, what price\nwould you ask for it? we might be inclined to take it up, and at\nleast look into it, if we could agree as to terms.' he tried to speak\nin a cool, careless way, but his eyes were shining with excitement\nand greed.\n\"'why, as to that, gentlemen,' i answered, trying also to be cool,\nbut feeling as excited as he did, 'there is only one bargain which a\nman in my position can make. i shall want you to help me to my\nfreedom, and to help my three companions to theirs.  we shall then\ntake yo into partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide\nbetween you.'\n\"'hum!' said he. 'a fifth share! that is not very tempting.'\n\"'it would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said i.\n\"'but how can we gain your freedom? you know very well that you ask\nan impossibility.'\n\"'nothing of the sort,' i answered. 'i have thought it all out to the\nlast detail. the only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat\nfit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time.\nthere are plenty of little yachts and yawls at calcutta or madras\nwhich would serve our turn well. do you bring one over. we shall\nengage to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any\npart of the indian coast you will have done your part of the\nbargain.'\n\"'if there were only one,' he said.\n\"'none or all,' i answered. 'we have sworn it. the four of us must\nalways act together.'\n\"'you see, morstan,' said he, 'small is a man of his word. he does\nnot flinch from his friend. i think we may very well trust him.'\n\"'it's a dirty business,' the other answered. 'yet, as you say, the\nmoney would save our commissions handsomely.'\n\"'well, small,' said the major, 'we must, i suppose, try and meet\nyou. we must first, of course, test the truth of your story. tell me\nwhere the box is hid, and i shall get leave of absence and go back to\nindia in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'\n\"'not so fast,' said i, growing colder as he got hot. 'i must have\nthe consent of my three comrades. i tell you that it is four or none\nwith us.'\n\"'nonsense!' he broke in. 'what have three black fellows to do with\nour agreement?'\n\"'black or blue,' said i, 'they are in with me, and we all go\ntogether.'\n\"well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which mahomet singh,\nabdullah khan, and dost akbar were all present. we talked the matter\nover again, and at last we came to an arrangement. we were to provide\nboth the officers with charts of the part of the agra fort and mark\nthe place in the wall where the treasure was hid. major sholto was to\ngo to india to test our story. if he found the box he was to leave it\nthere, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was\nto lie off rutland island, and to which we were to make our way, and\nfinally to return to his duties. captain morstan was then to apply\nfor leave of absence, to meet us at agra, and there we were to have a\nfinal division of the treasure, he taking the major's share as well\nas his own. all this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind\ncould think or the lips utter. i sat up all night with paper and ink,\nand by the morning i had the two charts all ready, signed with the\nsign of four,--that is, of abdullah, akbar, mahomet, and myself.\n\"well, gentlemen, i weary you with my long story, and i know that my\nfriend mr. jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. i'll\nmake it as short as i can. the villain sholto went off to india, but\nhe never came back again. captain morstan showed me his name among a\nlist of passengers in one of the mail-boats very shortly afterwards.\nhis uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and he had left the army,\nyet he could stoop to treat five men as he had treated us. morstan\nwent over to agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that\nthe treasure was indeed gone. the scoundrel had stolen it all,\nwithout carrying out one of the conditions on which we had sold him\nthe secret. from that day i lived only for vengeance. i thought of it\nby day and i nursed it by night. it became an overpowering, absorbing\npassion with me. i cared nothing for the law,--nothing for the\ngallows. to escape, to track down sholto, to have my hand upon his\nthroat,--that was my one thought. even the agra treasure had come to\nbe a smaller thing in my mind than the slaying of sholto.\n\"well, i have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one\nwhich i did not carry out. but it was weary years before my time\ncame. i have told you that i had picked up something of medicine. one\nday when dr. somerton was down with a fever a little andaman islander\nwas picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. he was sick to death,\nand had gone to a lonely place to die. i took him in hand, though he\nwas as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months i got\nhim all right and able to walk. he took a kind of fancy to me then,\nand would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about\nmy hut. i learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him\nall the fonder of me.\n\"tonga--for that was his name--was a fine boatman, and owned a big,\nroomy canoe of his own. when i found that he was devoted to me and\nwould do anything to serve me, i saw my chance of escape. i talked it\nover with him. he was to bring his boat round on a certain night to\nan old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up.\ni gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of\nyams, cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes.\n\"he was stanch and true, was little tonga. no man ever had a more\nfaithful mate. at the night named he had his boat at the wharf. as it\nchanced, however, there was one of the convict-guard down there,--a\nvile pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring\nme. i had always vowed vengeance, and now i had my chance. it was as\nif fate had placed him in my way that i might pay my debt before i\nleft the island. he stood on the bank with his back to me, and his\ncarbine on his shoulder. i looked about for a stone to beat out his\nbrains with, but none could i see.\n\"then a queer thought came into my head and showed me where i could\nlay my hand on a weapon. i sat down in the darkness and unstrapped my\nwooden leg. with three long hops i was on him. he put his carbine to\nhis shoulder, but i struck him full, and knocked the whole front of\nhis skull in. you can see the split in the wood now where i hit him.\nwe both went down together, for i could not keep my balance, but when\ni got up i found him still lying quiet enough. i made for the boat,\nand in an hour we were well out at sea. tonga had brought all his\nearthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. among other\nthings, he had a long bamboo spear, and some andaman cocoa-nut\nmatting, with which i made a sort of sail. for ten days we were\nbeating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were picked\nup by a trader which was going from singapore to jiddah with a cargo\nof malay pilgrims. they were a rum crowd, and tonga and i soon\nmanaged to settle down among them. they had one very good quality:\nthey let you alone and asked no questions.\n\"well, if i were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum\nand i went through, you would not thank me, for i would have you here\nuntil the sun was shining. here and there we drifted about the world,\nsomething always turning up to keep us from london. all the time,\nhowever, i never lost sight of my purpose. i would dream of sholto at\nnight. a hundred times i have killed him in my sleep. at last,\nhowever, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in england.\ni had no great difficulty in finding where sholto lived, and i set to\nwork to discover whether he had realized the treasure, or if he still\nhad it. i made friends with someone who could help me,--i name no\nnames, for i don't want to get any one else in a hole,--and i soon\nfound that he still had the jewels. then i tried to get at him in\nmany ways; but he was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters,\nbesides his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over him.\n\"one day, however, i got word that he was dying. i hurried at once to\nthe garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that,\nand, looking through the window, i saw him lying in his bed, with his\nsons on each side of him. i'd have come through and taken my chance\nwith the three of them, only even as i looked at him his jaw dropped,\nand i knew that he was gone. i got into his room that same night,\nthough, and i searched his papers to see if there was any record of\nwhere he had hidden our jewels. there was not a line, however: so i\ncame away, bitter and savage as a man could be. before i left i\nbethought me that if i ever met my sikh friends again it would be a\nsatisfaction to know that i had left some mark of our hatred: so i\nscrawled down the sign of the four of us, as it had been on the\nchart, and i pinned it on his bosom. it was too much that he should\nbe taken to the grave without some token from the men whom he had\nrobbed and befooled.\n\"we earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor tonga at fairs\nand other such places as the black cannibal. he would eat raw meat\nand dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a\nday's work. i still heard all the news from pondicherry lodge, and\nfor some years there was no news to hear, except that they were\nhunting for the treasure. at last, however, came what we had waited\nfor so long. the treasure had been found. it was up at the top of the\nhouse, in mr. bartholomew sholto's chemical laboratory. i came at\nonce and had a look at the place, but i could not see how with my\nwooden leg i was to make my way up to it. i learned, however, about a\ntrap-door in the roof, and also about mr. sholto's supper-hour. it\nseemed to me that i could manage the thing easily through tonga. i\nbrought him out with me with a long rope wound round his waist. he\ncould climb like a cat, and he soon made his way through the roof,\nbut, as ill luck would have it, bartholomew sholto was still in the\nroom, to his cost. tonga thought he had done something very clever in\nkilling him, for when i came up by the rope i found him strutting\nabout as proud as a peacock. very much surprised was he when i made\nat him with the rope's end and cursed him for a little blood-thirsty\nimp. i took the treasure-box and let it down, and then slid down\nmyself, having first left the sign of the four upon the table, to\nshow that the jewels had come back at last to those who had most\nright to them. tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the window, and\nmade off the way that he had come.\n\"i don't know that i have anything else to tell you. i had heard a\nwaterman speak of the speed of smith's launch, the aurora, so i\nthought she would be a handy craft for our escape. i engaged with old\nsmith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship.\nhe knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was not in\nour secrets. all this is the truth, and if i tell it to you,\ngentlemen, it is not to amuse you,--for you have not done me a very\ngood turn,--but it is because i believe the best defence i can make\nis just to hold back nothing, but let all the world know how badly i\nhave myself been served by major sholto, and how innocent i am of the\ndeath of his son.\"\n\"a very remarkable account,\" said sherlock holmes. \"a fitting wind-up\nto an extremely interesting case. there is nothing at all new to me\nin the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your\nown rope. that i did not know. by the way, i had hoped that tonga had\nlost all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.\"\n\"he had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe\nat the time.\"\n\"ah, of course,\" said holmes. \"i had not thought of that.\"\n\"is there any other point which you would like to ask about?\" asked\nthe convict, affably.\n\"i think not, thank you,\" my companion answered.\n\"well, holmes,\" said athelney jones, \"you are a man to be humored,\nand we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is\nduty, and i have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend\nasked me. i shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller\nhere safe under lock and key. the cab still waits, and there are two\ninspectors down-stairs. i am much obliged to you both for your\nassistance. of course you will be wanted at the trial. good-night to\nyou.\"\n\"good-night, gentlemen both,\" said jonathan small.\n\"you first, small,\" remarked the wary jones as they left the room.\n\"i'll take particular care that you don't club me with your wooden\nleg, whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the andaman\nisles.\"\n\"well, and there is the end of our little drama,\" i remarked, after\nwe had set some time smoking in silence. \"i fear that it may be the\nlast investigation in which i shall have the chance of studying your\nmethods. miss morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband\nin prospective.\"\nhe gave a most dismal groan. \"i feared as much,\" said he. \"i really\ncannot congratulate you.\"\ni was a little hurt. \"have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my\nchoice?\" i asked.\n\"not at all. i think she is one of the most charming young ladies i\never met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have\nbeen doing. she had a decided genius that way: witness the way in\nwhich she preserved that agra plan from all the other papers of her\nfather. but love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is\nopposed to that true cold reason which i place above all things. i\nshould never marry myself, lest i bias my judgment.\"\n\"i trust,\" said i, laughing, \"that my judgment may survive the\nordeal. but you look weary.\"\n\"yes, the reaction is already upon me. i shall be as limp as a rag\nfor a week.\"\n\"strange,\" said i, \"how terms of what in another man i should call\nlaziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor.\"\n\"yes,\" he answered, \"there are in me the makings of a very fine\nloafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. i often think of\nthose lines of old goethe,--\nschade, da die natur nur einen mensch aus dir schuf,\ndenn zum wrdigen mann war und zum schelmen der stoff.\n\"by the way, a propos of this norwood business, you see that they\nhad, as i surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none\nother than lal rao, the butler: so jones actually has the undivided\nhonor of having caught one fish in his great haul.\"\n\"the division seems rather unfair,\" i remarked. \"you have done all\nthe work in this business. i get a wife out of it, jones gets the\ncredit, pray what remains for you?\"\n\"for me,\" said sherlock holmes, \"there still remains the\ncocaine-bottle.\" and he stretched his long white hand up for it.\nthe adventures of sherlock holmes\na scandal in bohemia\ntable of contents\nchapter 1\nchapter 2\nchapter 3\nchapter i\nto sherlock holmes she is always the woman. i have seldom heard him\nmention her under any other name. in his eyes she eclipses and\npredominates the whole of her sex. it was not that he felt any\nemotion akin to love for irene adler. all emotions, and that one\nparticularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably\nbalanced mind. he was, i take it, the most perfect reasoning and\nobserving machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would\nhave placed himself in a false position. he never spoke of the softer\npassions, save with a gibe and a sneer. they were admirable things\nfor the observer--excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives\nand actions. but for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions\ninto his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to\nintroduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his\nmental results. grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of\nhis own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong\nemotion in a nature such as his. and yet there was but one woman to\nhim, and that woman was the late irene adler, of dubious and\nquestionable memory.\ni had seen little of holmes lately. my marriage had drifted us away\nfrom each other. my own complete happiness, and the home-centred\ninterests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master\nof his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention,\nwhile holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole\nbohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in baker street, buried among\nhis old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and\nambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his\nown keen nature. he was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study\nof crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers\nof observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those\nmysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official\npolice. from time to time i heard some vague account of his doings:\nof his summons to odessa in the case of the trepoff murder, of his\nclearing up of the singular tragedy of the atkinson brothers at\ntrincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so\ndelicately and successfully for the reigning family of holland.\nbeyond these signs of his activity, however, which i merely shared\nwith all the readers of the daily press, i knew little of my former\nfriend and companion.\none night--it was on the twentieth of march, 1888--i was returning\nfrom a journey to a patient (for i had now returned to civil\npractice), when my way led me through baker street. as i passed the\nwell-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with\nmy wooing, and with the dark incidents of the study in scarlet, i was\nseized with a keen desire to see holmes again, and to know how he was\nemploying his extraordinary powers. his rooms were brilliantly lit,\nand, even as i looked up, i saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in\na dark silhouette against the blind. he was pacing the room swiftly,\neagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped\nbehind him. to me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude\nand manner told their own story. he was at work again. he had risen\nout of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new\nproblem. i rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had\nformerly been in part my own.\nhis manner was not effusive. it seldom was; but he was glad, i think,\nto see me. with hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved\nme to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a\nspirit case and a gasogene in the corner. then he stood before the\nfire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.\n\"wedlock suits you,\" he remarked. \"i think, watson, that you have put\non seven and a half pounds since i saw you.\"\n\"seven!\" i answered.\n\"indeed, i should have thought a little more. just a trifle more, i\nfancy, watson. and in practice again, i observe. you did not tell me\nthat you intended to go into harness.\"\n\"then, how do you know?\"\n\"i see it, i deduce it. how do i know that you have been getting\nyourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and\ncareless servant girl?\"\n\"my dear holmes,\" said i, \"this is too much. you would certainly have\nbeen burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. it is true that i had\na country walk on thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as i\nhave changed my clothes i can't imagine how you deduce it. as to mary\njane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but\nthere, again, i fail to see how you work it out.\"\nhe chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.\n\"it is simplicity itself,\" said he; \"my eyes tell me that on the\ninside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the\nleather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. obviously they have\nbeen caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the\nedges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. hence, you\nsee, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and\nthat you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the\nlondon slavey. as to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my\nrooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver\nupon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his\ntop-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, i must be\ndull, indeed, if i do not pronounce him to be an active member of the\nmedical profession.\"\ni could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his\nprocess of deduction. \"when i hear you give your reasons,\" i\nremarked, \"the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously\nsimple that i could easily do it myself, though at each successive\ninstance of your reasoning i am baffled until you explain your\nprocess. and yet i believe that my eyes are as good as yours.\"\n\"quite so,\" he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself\ndown into an armchair. \"you see, but you do not observe. the\ndistinction is clear. for example, you have frequently seen the steps\nwhich lead up from the hall to this room.\"\n\"frequently.\"\n\"how often?\"\n\"well, some hundreds of times.\"\n\"then how many are there?\"\n\"how many? i don't know.\"\n\"quite so! you have not observed. and yet you have seen. that is just\nmy point. now, i know that there are seventeen steps, because i have\nboth seen and observed. by-the-way, since you are interested in these\nlittle problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or\ntwo of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this.\" he\nthrew over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been\nlying open upon the table. \"it came by the last post,\" said he. \"read\nit aloud.\"\nthe note was undated, and without either signature or address.\n\"there will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o'clock,\"\nit said, \"a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the\nvery deepest moment. your recent services to one of the royal houses\nof europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with\nmatters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated.\nthis account of you we have from all quarters received. be in your\nchamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor\nwear a mask.\"\n\"this is indeed a mystery,\" i remarked. \"what do you imagine that it\nmeans?\"\n\"i have no data yet. it is a capital mistake to theorize before one\nhas data. insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories,\ninstead of theories to suit facts. but the note itself. what do you\ndeduce from it?\"\ni carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was\nwritten.\n\"the man who wrote it was presumably well to do,\" i remarked,\nendeavouring to imitate my companion's processes. \"such paper could\nnot be bought under half a crown a packet. it is peculiarly strong\nand stiff.\"\n\"peculiar--that is the very word,\" said holmes. \"it is not an english\npaper at all. hold it up to the light.\"\ni did so, and saw a large \"e\" with a small \"g,\" a \"p,\" and a large\n\"g\" with a small \"t\" woven into the texture of the paper.\n\"what do you make of that?\" asked holmes.\n\"the name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.\"\n\"not at all. the 'g' with the small 't' stands for 'gesellschaft,'\nwhich is the german for 'company.' it is a customary contraction like\nour 'co.' 'p,' of course, stands for 'papier.' now for the 'eg.' let\nus glance at our continental gazetteer.\" he took down a heavy brown\nvolume from his shelves. \"eglow, eglonitz--here we are, egria. it is\nin a german-speaking country--in bohemia, not far from carlsbad.\n'remarkable as being the scene of the death of wallenstein, and for\nits numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.' ha, ha, my boy, what\ndo you make of that?\" his eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue\ntriumphant cloud from his cigarette.\n\"the paper was made in bohemia,\" i said.\n\"precisely. and the man who wrote the note is a german. do you note\nthe peculiar construction of the sentence--'this account of you we\nhave from all quarters received.' a frenchman or russian could not\nhave written that. it is the german who is so uncourteous to his\nverbs. it only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this\ngerman who writes upon bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to\nshowing his face. and here he comes, if i am not mistaken, to resolve\nall our doubts.\"\nas he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and grating\nwheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. holmes\nwhistled.\n\"a pair, by the sound,\" said he. \"yes,\" he continued, glancing out of\nthe window. \"a nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. a hundred\nand fifty guineas apiece. there's money in this case, watson, if\nthere is nothing else.\"\n\"i think that i had better go, holmes.\"\n\"not a bit, doctor. stay where you are. i am lost without my boswell.\nand this promises to be interesting. it would be a pity to miss it.\"\n\"but your client--\"\n\"never mind him. i may want your help, and so may he. here he comes.\nsit down in that armchair, doctor, and give us your best attention.\"\na slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in\nthe passage, paused immediately outside the door. then there was a\nloud and authoritative tap.\n\"come in!\" said holmes.\na man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six\ninches in height, with the chest and limbs of a hercules. his dress\nwas rich with a richness which would, in england, be looked upon as\nakin to bad taste. heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the\nsleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue\ncloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with\nflame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which\nconsisted of a single flaming beryl. boots which extended halfway up\nhis calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur,\ncompleted the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by\nhis whole appearance. he carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand,\nwhile he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past\nthe cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted\nthat very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.\nfrom the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong\ncharacter, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin\nsuggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.\n\"you had my note?\" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly\nmarked german accent. \"i told you that i would call.\" he looked from\none to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.\n\"pray take a seat,\" said holmes. \"this is my friend and colleague,\ndr. watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases.\nwhom have i the honour to address?\"\n\"you may address me as the count von kramm, a bohemian nobleman. i\nunderstand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and\ndiscretion, whom i may trust with a matter of the most extreme\nimportance. if not, i should much prefer to communicate with you\nalone.\"\ni rose to go, but holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back\ninto my chair. \"it is both, or none,\" said he. \"you may say before\nthis gentleman anything which you may say to me.\"\nthe count shrugged his broad shoulders. \"then i must begin,\" said he,\n\"by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of\nthat time the matter will be of no importance. at present it is not\ntoo much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence\nupon european history.\"\n\"i promise,\" said holmes.\n\"and i.\"\n\"you will excuse this mask,\" continued our strange visitor. \"the\naugust person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you,\nand i may confess at once that the title by which i have just called\nmyself is not exactly my own.\"\n\"i was aware of it,\" said holmes dryly.\n\"the circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to\nbe taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and\nseriously compromise one of the reigning families of europe. to speak\nplainly, the matter implicates the great house of ormstein,\nhereditary kings of bohemia.\"\n\"i was also aware of that,\" murmured holmes, settling himself down in\nhis armchair and closing his eyes.\nour visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid,\nlounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as\nthe most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in europe. holmes\nslowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic\nclient.\n\"if your majesty would condescend to state your case,\" he remarked,\n\"i should be better able to advise you.\"\nthe man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in\nuncontrollable agitation. then, with a gesture of desperation, he\ntore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. \"you are\nright,\" he cried; \"i am the king. why should i attempt to conceal\nit?\"\n\"why, indeed?\" murmured holmes. \"your majesty had not spoken before i\nwas aware that i was addressing wilhelm gottsreich sigismond von\normstein, grand duke of cassel-felstein, and hereditary king of\nbohemia.\"\n\"but you can understand,\" said our strange visitor, sitting down once\nmore and passing his hand over his high white forehead, \"you can\nunderstand that i am not accustomed to doing such business in my own\nperson. yet the matter was so delicate that i could not confide it to\nan agent without putting myself in his power. i have come incognito\nfrom prague for the purpose of consulting you.\"\n\"then, pray consult,\" said holmes, shutting his eyes once more.\n\"the facts are briefly these: some five years ago, during a lengthy\nvisit to warsaw, i made the acquaintance of the well-known\nadventuress, irene adler. the name is no doubt familiar to you.\"\n\"kindly look her up in my index, doctor,\" murmured holmes without\nopening his eyes. for many years he had adopted a system of docketing\nall paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to\nname a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish\ninformation. in this case i found her biography sandwiched in between\nthat of a hebrew rabbi and that of a staff-commander who had written\na monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.\n\"let me see!\" said holmes. \"hum! born in new jersey in the year 1858.\ncontralto--hum! la scala, hum! prima donna imperial opera of\nwarsaw--yes! retired from operatic stage--ha! living in london--quite\nso! your majesty, as i understand, became entangled with this young\nperson, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of\ngetting those letters back.\"\n\"precisely so. but how--\"\n\"was there a secret marriage?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"no legal papers or certificates?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"then i fail to follow your majesty. if this young person should\nproduce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to\nprove their authenticity?\"\n\"there is the writing.\"\n\"pooh, pooh! forgery.\"\n\"my private note-paper.\"\n\"stolen.\"\n\"my own seal.\"\n\"imitated.\"\n\"my photograph.\"\n\"bought.\"\n\"we were both in the photograph.\"\n\"oh, dear! that is very bad! your majesty has indeed committed an\nindiscretion.\"\n\"i was mad--insane.\"\n\"you have compromised yourself seriously.\"\n\"i was only crown prince then. i was young. i am but thirty now.\"\n\"it must be recovered.\"\n\"we have tried and failed.\"\n\"your majesty must pay. it must be bought.\"\n\"she will not sell.\"\n\"stolen, then.\"\n\"five attempts have been made. twice burglars in my pay ransacked her\nhouse. once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. twice she has\nbeen waylaid. there has been no result.\"\n\"no sign of it?\"\n\"absolutely none.\"\nholmes laughed. \"it is quite a pretty little problem,\" said he.\n\"but a very serious one to me,\" returned the king reproachfully.\n\"very, indeed. and what does she propose to do with the photograph?\"\n\"to ruin me.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"i am about to be married.\"\n\"so i have heard.\"\n\"to clotilde lothman von saxe-meningen, second daughter of the king\nof scandinavia. you may know the strict principles of her family. she\nis herself the very soul of delicacy. a shadow of a doubt as to my\nconduct would bring the matter to an end.\"\n\"and irene adler?\"\n\"threatens to send them the photograph. and she will do it. i know\nthat she will do it. you do not know her, but she has a soul of\nsteel. she has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind\nof the most resolute of men. rather than i should marry another\nwoman, there are no lengths to which she would not go--none.\"\n\"you are sure that she has not sent it yet?\"\n\"i am sure.\"\n\"and why?\"\n\"because she has said that she would send it on the day when the\nbetrothal was publicly proclaimed. that will be next monday.\"\n\"oh, then we have three days yet,\" said holmes with a yawn. \"that is\nvery fortunate, as i have one or two matters of importance to look\ninto just at present. your majesty will, of course, stay in london\nfor the present?\"\n\"certainly. you will find me at the langham under the name of the\ncount von kramm.\"\n\"then i shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress.\"\n\"pray do so. i shall be all anxiety.\"\n\"then, as to money?\"\n\"you have carte blanche.\"\n\"absolutely?\"\n\"i tell you that i would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to\nhave that photograph.\"\n\"and for present expenses?\"\nthe king took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and\nlaid it on the table.\n\"there are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,\"\nhe said.\nholmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and handed\nit to him.\n\"and mademoiselle's address?\" he asked.\n\"is briony lodge, serpentine avenue, st. john's wood.\"\nholmes took a note of it. \"one other question,\" said he. \"was the\nphotograph a cabinet?\"\n\"it was.\"\n\"then, good-night, your majesty, and i trust that we shall soon have\nsome good news for you. and good-night, watson,\" he added, as the\nwheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. \"if you will be\ngood enough to call to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock i should\nlike to chat this little matter over with you.\"\nchapter ii\nat three o'clock precisely i was at baker street, but holmes had not\nyet returned. the landlady informed me that he had left the house\nshortly after eight o'clock in the morning. i sat down beside the\nfire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he\nmight be. i was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though\nit was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were\nassociated with the two crimes which i have already recorded, still,\nthe nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it\na character of its own. indeed, apart from the nature of the\ninvestigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his\nmasterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning,\nwhich made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to\nfollow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most\ninextricable mysteries. so accustomed was i to his invariable success\nthat the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my\nhead.\nit was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking\ngroom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and\ndisreputable clothes, walked into the room. accustomed as i was to my\nfriend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, i had to look three\ntimes before i was certain that it was indeed he. with a nod he\nvanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes\ntweed-suited and respectable, as of old. putting his hands into his\npockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed\nheartily for some minutes.\n\"well, really!\" he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until\nhe was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.\n\"what is it?\"\n\"it's quite too funny. i am sure you could never guess how i employed\nmy morning, or what i ended by doing.\"\n\"i can't imagine. i suppose that you have been watching the habits,\nand perhaps the house, of miss irene adler.\"\n\"quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. i will tell you,\nhowever. i left the house a little after eight o'clock this morning\nin the character of a groom out of work. there is a wonderful\nsympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. be one of them, and you\nwill know all that there is to know. i soon found briony lodge. it is\na bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front\nright up to the road, two stories. chubb lock to the door. large\nsitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows\nalmost to the floor, and those preposterous english window fasteners\nwhich a child could open. behind there was nothing remarkable, save\nthat the passage window could be reached from the top of the\ncoach-house. i walked round it and examined it closely from every\npoint of view, but without noting anything else of interest.\n\"i then lounged down the street and found, as i expected, that there\nwas a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. i\nlent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and received in\nexchange twopence, a glass of half and half, two fills of shag\ntobacco, and as much information as i could desire about miss adler,\nto say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in\nwhom i was not in the least interested, but whose biographies i was\ncompelled to listen to.\"\n\"and what of irene adler?\" i asked.\n\"oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. she is the\ndaintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. so say the\nserpentine-mews, to a man. she lives quietly, sings at concerts,\ndrives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner.\nseldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. has only one\nmale visitor, but a good deal of him. he is dark, handsome, and\ndashing, never calls less than once a day, and often twice. he is a\nmr. godfrey norton, of the inner temple. see the advantages of a\ncabman as a confidant. they had driven him home a dozen times from\nserpentine-mews, and knew all about him. when i had listened to all\nthey had to tell, i began to walk up and down near briony lodge once\nmore, and to think over my plan of campaign.\n\"this godfrey norton was evidently an important factor in the matter.\nhe was a lawyer. that sounded ominous. what was the relation between\nthem, and what the object of his repeated visits? was she his client,\nhis friend, or his mistress? if the former, she had probably\ntransferred the photograph to his keeping. if the latter, it was less\nlikely. on the issue of this question depended whether i should\ncontinue my work at briony lodge, or turn my attention to the\ngentleman's chambers in the temple. it was a delicate point, and it\nwidened the field of my inquiry. i fear that i bore you with these\ndetails, but i have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are\nto understand the situation.\"\n\"i am following you closely,\" i answered.\n\"i was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove\nup to briony lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. he was a remarkably\nhandsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached--evidently the man of\nwhom i had heard. he appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the\ncabman to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the door with\nthe air of a man who was thoroughly at home.\n\"he was in the house about half an hour, and i could catch glimpses\nof him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and down,\ntalking excitedly, and waving his arms. of her i could see nothing.\npresently he emerged, looking even more flurried than before. as he\nstepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and\nlooked at it earnestly, 'drive like the devil,' he shouted, 'first to\ngross & hankey's in regent street, and then to the church of st.\nmonica in the edgeware road. half a guinea if you do it in twenty\nminutes!'\n\"away they went, and i was just wondering whether i should not do\nwell to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau, the\ncoachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under his ear,\nwhile all the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles.\nit hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it.\ni only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely\nwoman, with a face that a man might die for.\n\"'the church of st. monica, john,' she cried, 'and half a sovereign\nif you reach it in twenty minutes.'\n\"this was quite too good to lose, watson. i was just balancing\nwhether i should run for it, or whether i should perch behind her\nlandau when a cab came through the street. the driver looked twice at\nsuch a shabby fare, but i jumped in before he could object. 'the\nchurch of st. monica,' said i, 'and half a sovereign if you reach it\nin twenty minutes.' it was twenty-five minutes to twelve, and of\ncourse it was clear enough what was in the wind.\n\"my cabby drove fast. i don't think i ever drove faster, but the\nothers were there before us. the cab and the landau with their\nsteaming horses were in front of the door when i arrived. i paid the\nman and hurried into the church. there was not a soul there save the\ntwo whom i had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be\nexpostulating with them. they were all three standing in a knot in\nfront of the altar. i lounged up the side aisle like any other idler\nwho has dropped into a church. suddenly, to my surprise, the three at\nthe altar faced round to me, and godfrey norton came running as hard\nas he could towards me.\n\"'thank god,' he cried. 'you'll do. come! come!'\n\"'what then?' i asked.\n\"'come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won't be legal.'\n\"i was half-dragged up to the altar, and before i knew where i was i\nfound myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and\nvouching for things of which i knew nothing, and generally assisting\nin the secure tying up of irene adler, spinster, to godfrey norton,\nbachelor. it was all done in an instant, and there was the gentleman\nthanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the\nclergyman beamed on me in front. it was the most preposterous\nposition in which i ever found myself in my life, and it was the\nthought of it that started me laughing just now. it seems that there\nhad been some informality about their license, that the clergyman\nabsolutely refused to marry them without a witness of some sort, and\nthat my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally\nout into the streets in search of a best man. the bride gave me a\nsovereign, and i mean to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of the\noccasion.\"\n\"this is a very unexpected turn of affairs,\" said i; \"and what then?\"\n\"well, i found my plans very seriously menaced. it looked as if the\npair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very\nprompt and energetic measures on my part. at the church door,\nhowever, they separated, he driving back to the temple, and she to\nher own house. 'i shall drive out in the park at five as usual,' she\nsaid as she left him. i heard no more. they drove away in different\ndirections, and i went off to make my own arrangements.\"\n\"which are?\"\n\"some cold beef and a glass of beer,\" he answered, ringing the bell.\n\"i have been too busy to think of food, and i am likely to be busier\nstill this evening. by the way, doctor, i shall want your\nco-operation.\"\n\"i shall be delighted.\"\n\"you don't mind breaking the law?\"\n\"not in the least.\"\n\"nor running a chance of arrest?\"\n\"not in a good cause.\"\n\"oh, the cause is excellent!\"\n\"then i am your man.\"\n\"i was sure that i might rely on you.\"\n\"but what is it you wish?\"\n\"when mrs. turner has brought in the tray i will make it clear to\nyou. now,\" he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our\nlandlady had provided, \"i must discuss it while i eat, for i have not\nmuch time. it is nearly five now. in two hours we must be on the\nscene of action. miss irene, or madame, rather, returns from her\ndrive at seven. we must be at briony lodge to meet her.\"\n\"and what then?\"\n\"you must leave that to me. i have already arranged what is to occur.\nthere is only one point on which i must insist. you must not\ninterfere, come what may. you understand?\"\n\"i am to be neutral?\"\n\"to do nothing whatever. there will probably be some small\nunpleasantness. do not join in it. it will end in my being conveyed\ninto the house. four or five minutes afterwards the sitting-room\nwindow will open. you are to station yourself close to that open\nwindow.\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"you are to watch me, for i will be visible to you.\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"and when i raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what i\ngive you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire.\nyou quite follow me?\"\n\"entirely.\"\n\"it is nothing very formidable,\" he said, taking a long cigar-shaped\nroll from his pocket. \"it is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket,\nfitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. your task\nis confined to that. when you raise your cry of fire, it will be\ntaken up by quite a number of people. you may then walk to the end of\nthe street, and i will rejoin you in ten minutes. i hope that i have\nmade myself clear?\"\n\"i am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at\nthe signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire,\nand to wait you at the corner of the street.\"\n\"precisely.\"\n\"then you may entirely rely on me.\"\n\"that is excellent. i think, perhaps, it is almost time that i\nprepare for the new role i have to play.\"\nhe disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the\ncharacter of an amiable and simple-minded nonconformist clergyman.\nhis broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his\nsympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent\ncuriosity were such as mr. john hare alone could have equalled. it\nwas not merely that holmes changed his costume. his expression, his\nmanner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he\nassumed. the stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute\nreasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.\nit was a quarter past six when we left baker street, and it still\nwanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in serpentine\navenue. it was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as\nwe paced up and down in front of briony lodge, waiting for the coming\nof its occupant. the house was just such as i had pictured it from\nsherlock holmes' succinct description, but the locality appeared to\nbe less private than i expected. on the contrary, for a small street\nin a quiet neighbourhood, it was remarkably animated. there was a\ngroup of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a\nscissors-grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with\na nurse-girl, and several well-dressed young men who were lounging up\nand down with cigars in their mouths.\n\"you see,\" remarked holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the\nhouse, \"this marriage rather simplifies matters. the photograph\nbecomes a double-edged weapon now. the chances are that she would be\nas averse to its being seen by mr. godfrey norton, as our client is\nto its coming to the eyes of his princess. now the question is--where\nare we to find the photograph?\"\n\"where, indeed?\"\n\"it is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. it is\ncabinet size. too large for easy concealment about a woman's dress.\nshe knows that the king is capable of having her waylaid and\nsearched. two attempts of the sort have already been made. we may\ntake it, then, that she does not carry it about with her.\"\n\"where, then?\"\n\"her banker or her lawyer. there is that double possibility. but i am\ninclined to think neither. women are naturally secretive, and they\nlike to do their own secreting. why should she hand it over to anyone\nelse? she could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell\nwhat indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a\nbusiness man. besides, remember that she had resolved to use it\nwithin a few days. it must be where she can lay her hands upon it. it\nmust be in her own house.\"\n\"but it has twice been burgled.\"\n\"pshaw! they did not know how to look.\"\n\"but how will you look?\"\n\"i will not look.\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"i will get her to show me.\"\n\"but she will refuse.\"\n\"she will not be able to. but i hear the rumble of wheels. it is her\ncarriage. now carry out my orders to the letter.\"\nas he spoke the gleam of the side-lights of a carriage came round the\ncurve of the avenue. it was a smart little landau which rattled up to\nthe door of briony lodge. as it pulled up, one of the loafing men at\nthe corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a\ncopper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up\nwith the same intention. a fierce quarrel broke out, which was\nincreased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the\nloungers, and by the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the\nother side. a blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had\nstepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed\nand struggling men, who struck savagely at each other with their\nfists and sticks. holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady;\nbut just as he reached her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground,\nwith the blood running freely down his face. at his fall the\nguardsmen took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in\nthe other, while a number of better-dressed people, who had watched\nthe scuffle without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady\nand to attend to the injured man. irene adler, as i will still call\nher, had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her\nsuperb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back\ninto the street.\n\"is the poor gentleman much hurt?\" she asked.\n\"he is dead,\" cried several voices.\n\"no, no, there's life in him!\" shouted another. \"but he'll be gone\nbefore you can get him to hospital.\"\n\"he's a brave fellow,\" said a woman. \"they would have had the lady's\npurse and watch if it hadn't been for him. they were a gang, and a\nrough one, too. ah, he's breathing now.\"\n\"he can't lie in the street. may we bring him in, marm?\"\n\"surely. bring him into the sitting-room. there is a comfortable\nsofa. this way, please!\"\nslowly and solemnly he was borne into briony lodge and laid out in\nthe principal room, while i still observed the proceedings from my\npost by the window. the lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not\nbeen drawn, so that i could see holmes as he lay upon the couch. i do\nnot know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for\nthe part he was playing, but i know that i never felt more heartily\nashamed of myself in my life than when i saw the beautiful creature\nagainst whom i was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which\nshe waited upon the injured man. and yet it would be the blackest\ntreachery to holmes to draw back now from the part which he had\nintrusted to me. i hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from\nunder my ulster. after all, i thought, we are not injuring her. we\nare but preventing her from injuring another.\nholmes had sat up upon the couch, and i saw him motion like a man who\nis in need of air. a maid rushed across and threw open the window. at\nthe same instant i saw him raise his hand and at the signal i tossed\nmy rocket into the room with a cry of \"fire!\" the word was no sooner\nout of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and\nill--gentlemen, ostlers, and servant-maids--joined in a general\nshriek of \"fire!\" thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and\nout at the open window. i caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a\nmoment later the voice of holmes from within assuring them that it\nwas a false alarm. slipping through the shouting crowd i made my way\nto the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find\nmy friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. he\nwalked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we had\nturned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the edgeware\nroad.\n\"you did it very nicely, doctor,\" he remarked. \"nothing could have\nbeen better. it is all right.\"\n\"you have the photograph?\"\n\"i know where it is.\"\n\"and how did you find out?\"\n\"she showed me, as i told you she would.\"\n\"i am still in the dark.\"\n\"i do not wish to make a mystery,\" said he, laughing. \"the matter was\nperfectly simple. you, of course, saw that everyone in the street was\nan accomplice. they were all engaged for the evening.\"\n\"i guessed as much.\"\n\"then, when the row broke out, i had a little moist red paint in the\npalm of my hand. i rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my\nface, and became a piteous spectacle. it is an old trick.\"\n\"that also i could fathom.\"\n\"then they carried me in. she was bound to have me in. what else\ncould she do? and into her sitting-room, which was the very room\nwhich i suspected. it lay between that and her bedroom, and i was\ndetermined to see which. they laid me on a couch, i motioned for air,\nthey were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance.\"\n\"how did that help you?\"\n\"it was all-important. when a woman thinks that her house is on fire,\nher instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most.\nit is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and i have more than once\ntaken advantage of it. in the case of the darlington substitution\nscandal it was of use to me, and also in the arnsworth castle\nbusiness. a married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches\nfor her jewel-box. now it was clear to me that our lady of to-day had\nnothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest\nof. she would rush to secure it. the alarm of fire was admirably\ndone. the smoke and shouting were enough to shake nerves of steel.\nshe responded beautifully. the photograph is in a recess behind a\nsliding panel just above the right bell-pull. she was there in an\ninstant, and i caught a glimpse of it as she half-drew it out. when i\ncried out that it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the\nrocket, rushed from the room, and i have not seen her since. i rose,\nand, making my excuses, escaped from the house. i hesitated whether\nto attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had\ncome in, and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to wait.\na little over-precipitance may ruin all.\"\n\"and now?\" i asked.\n\"our quest is practically finished. i shall call with the king\nto-morrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. we will be\nshown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is probable\nthat when she comes she may find neither us nor the photograph. it\nmight be a satisfaction to his majesty to regain it with his own\nhands.\"\n\"and when will you call?\"\n\"at eight in the morning. she will not be up, so that we shall have a\nclear field. besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage may mean a\ncomplete change in her life and habits. i must wire to the king\nwithout delay.\"\nwe had reached baker street and had stopped at the door. he was\nsearching his pockets for the key when someone passing said:\n\"good-night, mister sherlock holmes.\"\nthere were several people on the pavement at the time, but the\ngreeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had\nhurried by.\n\"i've heard that voice before,\" said holmes, staring down the dimly\nlit street. \"now, i wonder who the deuce that could have been.\"\nchapter iii\ni slept at baker street that night, and we were engaged upon our\ntoast and coffee in the morning when the king of bohemia rushed into\nthe room.\n\"you have really got it!\" he cried, grasping sherlock holmes by\neither shoulder and looking eagerly into his face.\n\"not yet.\"\n\"but you have hopes?\"\n\"i have hopes.\"\n\"then, come. i am all impatience to be gone.\"\n\"we must have a cab.\"\n\"no, my brougham is waiting.\"\n\"then that will simplify matters.\" we descended and started off once\nmore for briony lodge.\n\"irene adler is married,\" remarked holmes.\n\"married! when?\"\n\"yesterday.\"\n\"but to whom?\"\n\"to an english lawyer named norton.\"\n\"but she could not love him.\"\n\"i am in hopes that she does.\"\n\"and why in hopes?\"\n\"because it would spare your majesty all fear of future annoyance. if\nthe lady loves her husband, she does not love your majesty. if she\ndoes not love your majesty, there is no reason why she should\ninterfere with your majesty's plan.\"\n\"it is true. and yet--well! i wish she had been of my own station!\nwhat a queen she would have made!\" he relapsed into a moody silence,\nwhich was not broken until we drew up in serpentine avenue.\nthe door of briony lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon\nthe steps. she watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the\nbrougham.\n\"mr. sherlock holmes, i believe?\" said she.\n\"i am mr. holmes,\" answered my companion, looking at her with a\nquestioning and rather startled gaze.\n\"indeed! my mistress told me that you were likely to call. she left\nthis morning with her husband by the 5.15 train from charing cross\nfor the continent.\"\n\"what!\" sherlock holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and\nsurprise. \"do you mean that she has left england?\"\n\"never to return.\"\n\"and the papers?\" asked the king hoarsely. \"all is lost.\"\n\"we shall see.\" he pushed past the servant and rushed into the\ndrawing-room, followed by the king and myself. the furniture was\nscattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open\ndrawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her\nflight. holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding\nshutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a\nletter. the photograph was of irene adler herself in evening dress,\nthe letter was superscribed to \"sherlock holmes, esq. to be left till\ncalled for.\" my friend tore it open and we all three read it\ntogether. it was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in\nthis way:\n\"my dear mr. sherlock holmes:\n\"you really did it very well. you took me in completely. until after\nthe alarm of fire, i had not a suspicion. but then, when i found how\ni had betrayed myself, i began to think. i had been warned against\nyou months ago. i had been told that if the king employed an agent it\nwould certainly be you. and your address had been given me. yet, with\nall this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. even after i\nbecame suspicious, i found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind\nold clergyman. but, you know, i have been trained as an actress\nmyself. male costume is nothing new to me. i often take advantage of\nthe freedom which it gives. i sent john, the coachman, to watch you,\nran up stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as i call them, and came\ndown just as you departed.\n\"well, i followed you to your door, and so made sure that i was\nreally an object of interest to the celebrated mr. sherlock holmes.\nthen i, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and started for\nthe temple to see my husband.\n\"we both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so\nformidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you\ncall to-morrow. as to the photograph, your client may rest in peace.\ni love and am loved by a better man than he. the king may do what he\nwill without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. i keep\nit only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will\nalways secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. i\nleave a photograph which he might care to possess; and i remain, dear\nmr. sherlock holmes,\n\"very truly yours,\n\"irene norton, ne adler.\"\n\"what a woman--oh, what a woman!\" cried the king of bohemia, when we\nhad all three read this epistle. \"did i not tell you how quick and\nresolute she was? would she not have made an admirable queen? is it\nnot a pity that she was not on my level?\"\n\"from what i have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very\ndifferent level to your majesty,\" said holmes coldly. \"i am sorry\nthat i have not been able to bring your majesty's business to a more\nsuccessful conclusion.\"\n\"on the contrary, my dear sir,\" cried the king; \"nothing could be\nmore successful. i know that her word is inviolate. the photograph is\nnow as safe as if it were in the fire.\"\n\"i am glad to hear your majesty say so.\"\n\"i am immensely indebted to you. pray tell me in what way i can\nreward you. this ring--\" he slipped an emerald snake ring from his\nfinger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.\n\"your majesty has something which i should value even more highly,\"\nsaid holmes.\n\"you have but to name it.\"\n\"this photograph!\"\nthe king stared at him in amazement.\n\"irene's photograph!\" he cried. \"certainly, if you wish it.\"\n\"i thank your majesty. then there is no more to be done in the\nmatter. i have the honour to wish you a very good-morning.\" he bowed,\nand, turning away without observing the hand which the king had\nstretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.\nand that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of\nbohemia, and how the best plans of mr. sherlock holmes were beaten by\na woman's wit. he used to make merry over the cleverness of women,\nbut i have not heard him do it of late. and when he speaks of irene\nadler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the\nhonourable title of the woman.\nthe red-headed league\ni had called upon my friend, mr. sherlock holmes, one day in the\nautumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very\nstout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. with an\napology for my intrusion, i was about to withdraw when holmes pulled\nme abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.\n\"you could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear watson,\"\nhe said cordially.\n\"i was afraid that you were engaged.\"\n\"so i am. very much so.\"\n\"then i can wait in the next room.\"\n\"not at all. this gentleman, mr. wilson, has been my partner and\nhelper in many of my most successful cases, and i have no doubt that\nhe will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.\"\nthe stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of\ngreeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small\nfat-encircled eyes.\n\"try the settee,\" said holmes, relapsing into his armchair and\nputting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial\nmoods. \"i know, my dear watson, that you share my love of all that is\nbizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday\nlife. you have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has\nprompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so,\nsomewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.\"\n\"your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,\" i\nobserved.\n\"you will remember that i remarked the other day, just before we went\ninto the very simple problem presented by miss mary sutherland, that\nfor strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life\nitself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the\nimagination.\"\n\"a proposition which i took the liberty of doubting.\"\n\"you did, doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view,\nfor otherwise i shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your\nreason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. now,\nmr. jabez wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this\nmorning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the\nmost singular which i have listened to for some time. you have heard\nme remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often\nconnected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and\noccasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any\npositive crime has been committed. as far as i have heard it is\nimpossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of\ncrime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most\nsingular that i have ever listened to. perhaps, mr. wilson, you would\nhave the great kindness to recommence your narrative. i ask you not\nmerely because my friend dr. watson has not heard the opening part\nbut also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to\nhave every possible detail from your lips. as a rule, when i have\nheard some slight indication of the course of events, i am able to\nguide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to\nmy memory. in the present instance i am forced to admit that the\nfacts are, to the best of my belief, unique.\"\nthe portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some\nlittle pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the\ninside pocket of his greatcoat. as he glanced down the advertisement\ncolumn, with his head thrust forward and the paper flattened out upon\nhis knee, i took a good look at the man and endeavoured, after the\nfashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be\npresented by his dress or appearance.\ni did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. our visitor bore\nevery mark of being an average commonplace british tradesman, obese,\npompous, and slow. he wore rather baggy grey shepherd's check\ntrousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front,\nand a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy albert chain, and a square\npierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. a frayed top-hat\nand a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a\nchair beside him. altogether, look as i would, there was nothing\nremarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the\nexpression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.\nsherlock holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his\nhead with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. \"beyond the\nobvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he\ntakes snuff, that he is a freemason, that he has been in china, and\nthat he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, i can\ndeduce nothing else.\"\nmr. jabez wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon\nthe paper, but his eyes upon my companion.\n\"how, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, mr.\nholmes?\" he asked. \"how did you know, for example, that i did manual\nlabour. it's as true as gospel, for i began as a ship's carpenter.\"\n\"your hands, my dear sir. your right hand is quite a size larger than\nyour left. you have worked with it, and the muscles are more\ndeveloped.\"\n\"well, the snuff, then, and the freemasonry?\"\n\"i won't insult your intelligence by telling you how i read that,\nespecially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use\nan arc-and-compass breastpin.\"\n\"ah, of course, i forgot that. but the writing?\"\n\"what else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five\ninches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where\nyou rest it upon the desk?\"\n\"well, but china?\"\n\"the fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist\ncould only have been done in china. i have made a small study of\ntattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the\nsubject. that trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink\nis quite peculiar to china. when, in addition, i see a chinese coin\nhanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.\"\nmr. jabez wilson laughed heavily. \"well, i never!\" said he. \"i\nthought at first that you had done something clever, but i see that\nthere was nothing in it, after all.\"\n\"i begin to think, watson,\" said holmes, \"that i make a mistake in\nexplaining. 'omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor\nlittle reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if i am so\ncandid. can you not find the advertisement, mr. wilson?\"\n\"yes, i have got it now,\" he answered with his thick red finger\nplanted halfway down the column. \"here it is. this is what began it\nall. you just read it for yourself, sir.\"\ni took the paper from him and read as follows:\n\"to the red-headed league: on account of the bequest of the late\nezekiah hopkins, of lebanon, pennsylvania, u. s. a., there is now\nanother vacancy open which entitles a member of the league to a\nsalary of 4 a week for purely nominal services. all red-headed men\nwho are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years,\nare eligible. apply in person on monday, at eleven o'clock, to duncan\nross, at the offices of the league, 7 pope's court, fleet street.\"\n\"what on earth does this mean?\" i ejaculated after i had twice read\nover the extraordinary announcement.\nholmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in\nhigh spirits. \"it is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?\" said\nhe. \"and now, mr. wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us all about\nyourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had\nupon your fortunes. you will first make a note, doctor, of the paper\nand the date.\"\n\"it is the morning chronicle of april 27, 1890. just two months ago.\"\n\"very good. now, mr. wilson?\"\n\"well, it is just as i have been telling you, mr. sherlock holmes,\"\nsaid jabez wilson, mopping his forehead; \"i have a small pawnbroker's\nbusiness at coburg square, near the city. it's not a very large\naffair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a\nliving. i used to be able to keep two assistants, but now i only keep\none; and i would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come\nfor half wages so as to learn the business.\"\n\"what is the name of this obliging youth?\" asked sherlock holmes.\n\"his name is vincent spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either.\nit's hard to say his age. i should not wish a smarter assistant, mr.\nholmes; and i know very well that he could better himself and earn\ntwice what i am able to give him. but, after all, if he is satisfied,\nwhy should i put ideas in his head?\"\n\"why, indeed? you seem most fortunate in having an employee who comes\nunder the full market price. it is not a common experience among\nemployers in this age. i don't know that your assistant is not as\nremarkable as your advertisement.\"\n\"oh, he has his faults, too,\" said mr. wilson. \"never was such a\nfellow for photography. snapping away with a camera when he ought to\nbe improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a\nrabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. that is his main fault,\nbut on the whole he's a good worker. there's no vice in him.\"\n\"he is still with you, i presume?\"\n\"yes, sir. he and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple\ncooking and keeps the place clean--that's all i have in the house,\nfor i am a widower and never had any family. we live very quietly,\nsir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads and pay our\ndebts, if we do nothing more.\n\"the first thing that put us out was that advertisement. spaulding,\nhe came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this\nvery paper in his hand, and he says:\n\"'i wish to the lord, mr. wilson, that i was a red-headed man.'\n\"'why that?' i asks.\n\"'why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the league of the\nred-headed men. it's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets\nit, and i understand that there are more vacancies than there are\nmen, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the\nmoney. if my hair would only change colour, here's a nice little crib\nall ready for me to step into.'\n\"'why, what is it, then?' i asked. you see, mr. holmes, i am a very\nstay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having\nto go to it, i was often weeks on end without putting my foot over\nthe door-mat. in that way i didn't know much of what was going on\noutside, and i was always glad of a bit of news.\n\"'have you never heard of the league of the red-headed men?' he asked\nwith his eyes open.\n\"'never.'\n\"'why, i wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the\nvacancies.'\n\"'and what are they worth?' i asked.\n\"'oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and\nit need not interfere very much with one's other occupations.'\n\"well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for\nthe business has not been over-good for some years, and an extra\ncouple of hundred would have been very handy.\n\"'tell me all about it,' said i.\n\"'well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for\nyourself that the league has a vacancy, and there is the address\nwhere you should apply for particulars. as far as i can make out, the\nleague was founded by an american millionaire, ezekiah hopkins, who\nwas very peculiar in his ways. he was himself red-headed, and he had\na great sympathy for all red-headed men; so when he died it was found\nthat he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with\ninstructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to\nmen whose hair is of that colour. from all i hear it is splendid pay\nand very little to do.'\n\"'but,' said i, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who would\napply.'\n\"'not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'you see it is really\nconfined to londoners, and to grown men. this american had started\nfrom london when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a\ngood turn. then, again, i have heard it is no use your applying if\nyour hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright,\nblazing, fiery red. now, if you cared to apply, mr. wilson, you would\njust walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put\nyourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.'\n\"now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my\nhair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if\nthere was to be any competition in the matter i stood as good a\nchance as any man that i had ever met. vincent spaulding seemed to\nknow so much about it that i thought he might prove useful, so i just\nordered him to put up the shutters for the day and to come right away\nwith me. he was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the\nbusiness up and started off for the address that was given us in the\nadvertisement.\n\"i never hope to see such a sight as that again, mr. holmes. from\nnorth, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his\nhair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. fleet\nstreet was choked with red-headed folk, and pope's court looked like\na coster's orange barrow. i should not have thought there were so\nmany in the whole country as were brought together by that single\nadvertisement. every shade of colour they were--straw, lemon, orange,\nbrick, irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as spaulding said, there were\nnot many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. when i saw how\nmany were waiting, i would have given it up in despair; but spaulding\nwould not hear of it. how he did it i could not imagine, but he\npushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and\nright up to the steps which led to the office. there was a double\nstream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back\ndejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found\nourselves in the office.\"\n\"your experience has been a most entertaining one,\" remarked holmes\nas his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of\nsnuff. \"pray continue your very interesting statement.\"\n\"there was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a\ndeal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that was even\nredder than mine. he said a few words to each candidate as he came\nup, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would\ndisqualify them. getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very\neasy matter, after all. however, when our turn came the little man\nwas much more favourable to me than to any of the others, and he\nclosed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word\nwith us.\n\"'this is mr. jabez wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to\nfill a vacancy in the league.'\n\"'and he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'he has\nevery requirement. i cannot recall when i have seen anything so\nfine.' he took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and\ngazed at my hair until i felt quite bashful. then suddenly he plunged\nforward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.\n\"'it would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'you will, however, i\nam sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' with that he\nseized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until i yelled with the\npain. 'there is water in your eyes,' said he as he released me. 'i\nperceive that all is as it should be. but we have to be careful, for\nwe have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. i could tell\nyou tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust you with human\nnature.' he stepped over to the window and shouted through it at the\ntop of his voice that the vacancy was filled. a groan of\ndisappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in\ndifferent directions until there was not a red-head to be seen except\nmy own and that of the manager.\n\"'my name,' said he, 'is mr. duncan ross, and i am myself one of the\npensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. are you a\nmarried man, mr. wilson? have you a family?'\n\"i answered that i had not.\n\"his face fell immediately.\n\"'dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! i am sorry\nto hear you say that. the fund was, of course, for the propagation\nand spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance. it is\nexceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.'\n\"my face lengthened at this, mr. holmes, for i thought that i was not\nto have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for a few\nminutes he said that it would be all right.\n\"'in the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal,\nbut we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of\nhair as yours. when shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'\n\"'well, it is a little awkward, for i have a business already,' said\ni.\n\"'oh, never mind about that, mr. wilson!' said vincent spaulding. 'i\nshould be able to look after that for you.'\n\"'what would be the hours?' i asked.\n\"'ten to two.'\n\"now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, mr.\nholmes, especially thursday and friday evening, which is just before\npay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the\nmornings. besides, i knew that my assistant was a good man, and that\nhe would see to anything that turned up.\n\"'that would suit me very well,' said i. 'and the pay?'\n\"'is 4 a week.'\n\"'and the work?'\n\"'is purely nominal.'\n\"'what do you call purely nominal?'\n\"'well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building,\nthe whole time. if you leave, you forfeit your whole position\nforever. the will is very clear upon that point. you don't comply\nwith the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.'\n\"'it's only four hours a day, and i should not think of leaving,'\nsaid i.\n\"'no excuse will avail,' said mr. duncan ross; 'neither sickness nor\nbusiness nor anything else. there you must stay, or you lose your\nbillet.'\n\"'and the work?'\n\"'is to copy out the \"encyclopaedia britannica.\" there is the first\nvolume of it in that press. you must find your own ink, pens, and\nblotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. will you be\nready to-morrow?'\n\"'certainly,' i answered.\n\"'then, good-bye, mr. jabez wilson, and let me congratulate you once\nmore on the important position which you have been fortunate enough\nto gain.' he bowed me out of the room and i went home with my\nassistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, i was so pleased at my\nown good fortune.\n\"well, i thought over the matter all day, and by evening i was in low\nspirits again; for i had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair\nmust be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be i\ncould not imagine. it seemed altogether past belief that anyone could\nmake such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing\nanything so simple as copying out the 'encyclopaedia britannica.'\nvincent spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime i\nhad reasoned myself out of the whole thing. however, in the morning i\ndetermined to have a look at it anyhow, so i bought a penny bottle of\nink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, i\nstarted off for pope's court.\n\"well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as\npossible. the table was set out ready for me, and mr. duncan ross was\nthere to see that i got fairly to work. he started me off upon the\nletter a, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time\nto see that all was right with me. at two o'clock he bade me\ngood-day, complimented me upon the amount that i had written, and\nlocked the door of the office after me.\n\"this went on day after day, mr. holmes, and on saturday the manager\ncame in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work.\nit was the same next week, and the same the week after. every morning\ni was there at ten, and every afternoon i left at two. by degrees mr.\nduncan ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after\na time, he did not come in at all. still, of course, i never dared to\nleave the room for an instant, for i was not sure when he might come,\nand the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that i\nwould not risk the loss of it.\n\"eight weeks passed away like this, and i had written about abbots\nand archery and armour and architecture and attica, and hoped with\ndiligence that i might get on to the b's before very long. it cost me\nsomething in foolscap, and i had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my\nwritings. and then suddenly the whole business came to an end.\"\n\"to an end?\"\n\"yes, sir. and no later than this morning. i went to my work as usual\nat ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little\nsquare of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a\ntack. here it is, and you can read for yourself.\"\nhe held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of\nnote-paper. it read in this fashion:\nthe red-headed league\nis\ndissolved\noctober 9, 1890.\nsherlock holmes and i surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful\nface behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely\novertopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a\nroar of laughter.\n\"i cannot see that there is anything very funny,\" cried our client,\nflushing up to the roots of his flaming head. \"if you can do nothing\nbetter than laugh at me, i can go elsewhere.\"\n\"no, no,\" cried holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he\nhad half risen. \"i really wouldn't miss your case for the world. it\nis most refreshingly unusual. but there is, if you will excuse my\nsaying so, something just a little funny about it. pray what steps\ndid you take when you found the card upon the door?\"\n\"i was staggered, sir. i did not know what to do. then i called at\nthe offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.\nfinally, i went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the\nground-floor, and i asked him if he could tell me what had become of\nthe red-headed league. he said that he had never heard of any such\nbody. then i asked him who mr. duncan ross was. he answered that the\nname was new to him.\n\"'well,' said i, 'the gentleman at no. 4.'\n\"'what, the red-headed man?'\n\"'yes.'\n\"'oh,' said he, 'his name was william morris. he was a solicitor and\nwas using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises\nwere ready. he moved out yesterday.'\n\"'where could i find him?'\n\"'oh, at his new offices. he did tell me the address. yes, 17 king\nedward street, near st. paul's.'\n\"i started off, mr. holmes, but when i got to that address it was a\nmanufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard\nof either mr. william morris or mr. duncan ross.\"\n\"and what did you do then?\" asked holmes.\n\"i went home to saxe-coburg square, and i took the advice of my\nassistant. but he could not help me in any way. he could only say\nthat if i waited i should hear by post. but that was not quite good\nenough, mr. holmes. i did not wish to lose such a place without a\nstruggle, so, as i had heard that you were good enough to give advice\nto poor folk who were in need of it, i came right away to you.\"\n\"and you did very wisely,\" said holmes. \"your case is an exceedingly\nremarkable one, and i shall be happy to look into it. from what you\nhave told me i think that it is possible that graver issues hang from\nit than might at first sight appear.\"\n\"grave enough!\" said mr. jabez wilson. \"why, i have lost four pound a\nweek.\"\n\"as far as you are personally concerned,\" remarked holmes, \"i do not\nsee that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. on\nthe contrary, you are, as i understand, richer by some 30, to say\nnothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every\nsubject which comes under the letter a. you have lost nothing by\nthem.\"\n\"no, sir. but i want to find out about them, and who they are, and\nwhat their object was in playing this prank--if it was a prank--upon\nme. it was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and\nthirty pounds.\"\n\"we shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. and, first, one\nor two questions, mr. wilson. this assistant of yours who first\ncalled your attention to the advertisement--how long had he been with\nyou?\"\n\"about a month then.\"\n\"how did he come?\"\n\"in answer to an advertisement.\"\n\"was he the only applicant?\"\n\"no, i had a dozen.\"\n\"why did you pick him?\"\n\"because he was handy and would come cheap.\"\n\"at half-wages, in fact.\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"what is he like, this vincent spaulding?\"\n\"small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,\nthough he's not short of thirty. has a white splash of acid upon his\nforehead.\"\nholmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. \"i thought as\nmuch,\" said he. \"have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for\nearrings?\"\n\"yes, sir. he told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a\nlad.\"\n\"hum!\" said holmes, sinking back in deep thought. \"he is still with\nyou?\"\n\"oh, yes, sir; i have only just left him.\"\n\"and has your business been attended to in your absence?\"\n\"nothing to complain of, sir. there's never very much to do of a\nmorning.\"\n\"that will do, mr. wilson. i shall be happy to give you an opinion\nupon the subject in the course of a day or two. to-day is saturday,\nand i hope that by monday we may come to a conclusion.\"\n\"well, watson,\" said holmes when our visitor had left us, \"what do\nyou make of it all?\"\n\"i make nothing of it,\" i answered frankly. \"it is a most mysterious\nbusiness.\"\n\"as a rule,\" said holmes, \"the more bizarre a thing is the less\nmysterious it proves to be. it is your commonplace, featureless\ncrimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the\nmost difficult to identify. but i must be prompt over this matter.\"\n\"what are you going to do, then?\" i asked.\n\"to smoke,\" he answered. \"it is quite a three pipe problem, and i beg\nthat you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.\" he curled himself up\nin his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and\nthere he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting\nout like the bill of some strange bird. i had come to the conclusion\nthat he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he\nsuddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has\nmade up his mind and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.\n\"sarasate plays at the st. james's hall this afternoon,\" he remarked.\n\"what do you think, watson? could your patients spare you for a few\nhours?\"\n\"i have nothing to do to-day. my practice is never very absorbing.\"\n\"then put on your hat and come. i am going through the city first,\nand we can have some lunch on the way. i observe that there is a good\ndeal of german music on the programme, which is rather more to my\ntaste than italian or french. it is introspective, and i want to\nintrospect. come along!\"\nwe travelled by the underground as far as aldersgate; and a short\nwalk took us to saxe-coburg square, the scene of the singular story\nwhich we had listened to in the morning. it was a poky, little,\nshabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick\nhouses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of\nweedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight\nagainst a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. three gilt balls\nand a brown board with \"jabez wilson\" in white letters, upon a corner\nhouse, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his\nbusiness. sherlock holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one\nside and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between\npuckered lids. then he walked slowly up the street, and then down\nagain to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. finally he\nreturned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously upon the\npavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door\nand knocked. it was instantly opened by a bright-looking,\nclean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.\n\"thank you,\" said holmes, \"i only wished to ask you how you would go\nfrom here to the strand.\"\n\"third right, fourth left,\" answered the assistant promptly, closing\nthe door.\n\"smart fellow, that,\" observed holmes as we walked away. \"he is, in\nmy judgment, the fourth smartest man in london, and for daring i am\nnot sure that he has not a claim to be third. i have known something\nof him before.\"\n\"evidently,\" said i, \"mr. wilson's assistant counts for a good deal\nin this mystery of the red-headed league. i am sure that you inquired\nyour way merely in order that you might see him.\"\n\"not him.\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"the knees of his trousers.\"\n\"and what did you see?\"\n\"what i expected to see.\"\n\"why did you beat the pavement?\"\n\"my dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. we are\nspies in an enemy's country. we know something of saxe-coburg square.\nlet us now explore the parts which lie behind it.\"\nthe road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner\nfrom the retired saxe-coburg square presented as great a contrast to\nit as the front of a picture does to the back. it was one of the main\narteries which conveyed the traffic of the city to the north and\nwest. the roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce\nflowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were\nblack with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. it was difficult to\nrealise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business\npremises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded\nand stagnant square which we had just quitted.\n\"let me see,\" said holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along\nthe line, \"i should like just to remember the order of the houses\nhere. it is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of london.\nthere is mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the\ncoburg branch of the city and suburban bank, the vegetarian\nrestaurant, and mcfarlane's carriage-building depot. that carries us\nright on to the other block. and now, doctor, we've done our work, so\nit's time we had some play. a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then\noff to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony,\nand there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.\"\nmy friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very\ncapable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. all the\nafternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness,\ngently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his\ngently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those\nof holmes the sleuth-hound, holmes the relentless, keen-witted,\nready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. in his\nsingular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and\nhis extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as i have often\nthought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which\noccasionally predominated in him. the swing of his nature took him\nfrom extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as i knew well, he was\nnever so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been\nlounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter\neditions. then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come\nupon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the\nlevel of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his\nmethods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not\nthat of other mortals. when i saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in\nthe music at st. james's hall i felt that an evil time might be\ncoming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.\n\"you want to go home, no doubt, doctor,\" he remarked as we emerged.\n\"yes, it would be as well.\"\n\"and i have some business to do which will take some hours. this\nbusiness at coburg square is serious.\"\n\"why serious?\"\n\"a considerable crime is in contemplation. i have every reason to\nbelieve that we shall be in time to stop it. but to-day being\nsaturday rather complicates matters. i shall want your help\nto-night.\"\n\"at what time?\"\n\"ten will be early enough.\"\n\"i shall be at baker street at ten.\"\n\"very well. and, i say, doctor, there may be some little danger, so\nkindly put your army revolver in your pocket.\" he waved his hand,\nturned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.\ni trust that i am not more dense than my neighbours, but i was always\noppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with\nsherlock holmes. here i had heard what he had heard, i had seen what\nhe had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw\nclearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen,\nwhile to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. as i\ndrove home to my house in kensington i thought over it all, from the\nextraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the \"encyclopaedia\"\ndown to the visit to saxe-coburg square, and the ominous words with\nwhich he had parted from me. what was this nocturnal expedition, and\nwhy should i go armed?  where were we going, and what were we to do?\ni had the hint from holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's\nassistant was a formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. i\ntried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter\naside until night should bring an explanation.\nit was a quarter-past nine when i started from home and made my way\nacross the park, and so through oxford street to baker street. two\nhansoms were standing at the door, and as i entered the passage i\nheard the sound of voices from above. on entering his room i found\nholmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom i\nrecognised as peter jones, the official police agent, while the other\nwas a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and\noppressively respectable frock-coat.\n\"ha! our party is complete,\" said holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket\nand taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. \"watson, i think you\nknow mr. jones, of scotland yard? let me introduce you to mr.\nmerryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night's adventure.\"\n\"we're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see,\" said jones in his\nconsequential way. \"our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a\nchase. all he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running\ndown.\"\n\"i hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,\"\nobserved mr. merryweather gloomily.\n\"you may place considerable confidence in mr. holmes, sir,\" said the\npolice agent loftily. \"he has his own little methods, which are, if\nhe won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and\nfantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. it is not\ntoo much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the sholto\nmurder and the agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than\nthe official force.\"\n\"oh, if you say so, mr. jones, it is all right,\" said the stranger\nwith deference. \"still, i confess that i miss my rubber. it is the\nfirst saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that i have not had\nmy rubber.\"\n\"i think you will find,\" said sherlock holmes, \"that you will play\nfor a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the\nplay will be more exciting. for you, mr. merryweather, the stake will\nbe some 30,000; and for you, jones, it will be the man upon whom you\nwish to lay your hands.\"\n\"john clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. he's a young\nman, mr. merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and i\nwould rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in london.\nhe's a remarkable man, is young john clay. his grandfather was a\nroyal duke, and he himself has been to eton and oxford. his brain is\nas cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every\nturn, we never know where to find the man himself. he'll crack a crib\nin scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in\ncornwall the next. i've been on his track for years and have never\nset eyes on him yet.\"\n\"i hope that i may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night.\ni've had one or two little turns also with mr. john clay, and i agree\nwith you that he is at the head of his profession. it is past ten,\nhowever, and quite time that we started. if you two will take the\nfirst hansom, watson and i will follow in the second.\"\nsherlock holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and\nlay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the\nafternoon. we rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets\nuntil we emerged into farrington street.\n\"we are close there now,\" my friend remarked. \"this fellow\nmerryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the\nmatter. i thought it as well to have jones with us also. he is not a\nbad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. he has one\npositive virtue. he is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a\nlobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. here we are, and they are\nwaiting for us.\"\nwe had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found\nourselves in the morning. our cabs were dismissed, and, following the\nguidance of mr. merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and\nthrough a side door, which he opened for us. within there was a small\ncorridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. this also was\nopened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which\nterminated at another formidable gate. mr. merryweather stopped to\nlight a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling\npassage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or\ncellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.\n\"you are not very vulnerable from above,\" holmes remarked as he held\nup the lantern and gazed about him.\n\"nor from below,\" said mr. merryweather, striking his stick upon the\nflags which lined the floor. \"why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!\"\nhe remarked, looking up in surprise.\n\"i must really ask you to be a little more quiet!\" said holmes\nseverely. \"you have already imperilled the whole success of our\nexpedition. might i beg that you would have the goodness to sit down\nupon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?\"\nthe solemn mr. merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very\ninjured expression upon his face, while holmes fell upon his knees\nupon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to\nexamine minutely the cracks between the stones. a few seconds\nsufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and put his\nglass in his pocket.\n\"we have at least an hour before us,\" he remarked, \"for they can\nhardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.\nthen they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work\nthe longer time they will have for their escape. we are at present,\ndoctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar of the city\nbranch of one of the principal london banks. mr. merryweather is the\nchairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are\nreasons why the more daring criminals of london should take a\nconsiderable interest in this cellar at present.\"\n\"it is our french gold,\" whispered the director. \"we have had several\nwarnings that an attempt might be made upon it.\"\n\"your french gold?\"\n\"yes. we had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and\nborrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the bank of france.\nit has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the\nmoney, and that it is still lying in our cellar. the crate upon which\ni sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil.\nour reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept\nin a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon\nthe subject.\"\n\"which were very well justified,\" observed holmes. \"and now it is\ntime that we arranged our little plans. i expect that within an hour\nmatters will come to a head. in the meantime mr. merryweather, we\nmust put the screen over that dark lantern.\"\n\"and sit in the dark?\"\n\"i am afraid so. i had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and i\nthought that, as we were a partie carre, you might have your rubber\nafter all. but i see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far\nthat we cannot risk the presence of a light. and, first of all, we\nmust choose our positions. these are daring men, and though we shall\ntake them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are\ncareful. i shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal\nyourselves behind those. then, when i flash a light upon them, close\nin swiftly. if they fire, watson, have no compunction about shooting\nthem down.\"\ni placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind\nwhich i crouched. holmes shot the slide across the front of his\nlantern and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute darkness as i\nhave never before experienced. the smell of hot metal remained to\nassure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a\nmoment's notice. to me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of\nexpectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden\ngloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.\n\"they have but one retreat,\" whispered holmes. \"that is back through\nthe house into saxe-coburg square. i hope that you have done what i\nasked you, jones?\"\n\"i have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.\"\n\"then we have stopped all the holes. and now we must be silent and\nwait.\"\nwhat a time it seemed! from comparing notes afterwards it was but an\nhour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have\nalmost gone and the dawn be breaking above us. my limbs were weary\nand stiff, for i feared to change my position; yet my nerves were\nworked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so\nacute that i could not only hear the gentle breathing of my\ncompanions, but i could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of\nthe bulky jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.\nfrom my position i could look over the case in the direction of the\nfloor. suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.\nat first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. then it\nlengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any\nwarning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white,\nalmost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little\narea of light. for a minute or more the hand, with its writhing\nfingers, protruded out of the floor. then it was withdrawn as\nsuddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid\nspark which marked a chink between the stones.\nits disappearance, however, was but momentary. with a rending,\ntearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its\nside and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light\nof a lantern. over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face,\nwhich looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of\nthe aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one\nknee rested upon the edge. in another instant he stood at the side of\nthe hole and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like\nhimself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.\n\"it's all clear,\" he whispered. \"have you the chisel and the bags?\ngreat scott! jump, archie, jump, and i'll swing for it!\"\nsherlock holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.\nthe other dived down the hole, and i heard the sound of rending cloth\nas jones clutched at his skirts. the light flashed upon the barrel of\na revolver, but holmes' hunting crop came down on the man's wrist,\nand the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.\n\"it's no use, john clay,\" said holmes blandly. \"you have no chance at\nall.\"\n\"so i see,\" the other answered with the utmost coolness. \"i fancy\nthat my pal is all right, though i see you have got his coat-tails.\"\n\"there are three men waiting for him at the door,\" said holmes.\n\"oh, indeed! you seem to have done the thing very completely. i must\ncompliment you.\"\n\"and i you,\" holmes answered. \"your red-headed idea was very new and\neffective.\"\n\"you'll see your pal again presently,\" said jones. \"he's quicker at\nclimbing down holes than i am. just hold out while i fix the\nderbies.\"\n\"i beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,\" remarked\nour prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. \"you may not\nbe aware that i have royal blood in my veins. have the goodness,\nalso, when you address me always to say 'sir' and 'please.'\"\n\"all right,\" said jones with a stare and a snigger. \"well, would you\nplease, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your\nhighness to the police-station?\"\n\"that is better,\" said john clay serenely. he made a sweeping bow to\nthe three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the\ndetective.\n\"really, mr. holmes,\" said mr. merryweather as we followed them from\nthe cellar, \"i do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.\nthere is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most\ncomplete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery\nthat have ever come within my experience.\"\n\"i have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with mr.\njohn clay,\" said holmes. \"i have been at some small expense over this\nmatter, which i shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that i am\namply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways\nunique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the\nred-headed league.\"\n\"you see, watson,\" he explained in the early hours of the morning as\nwe sat over a glass of whisky and soda in baker street, \"it was\nperfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of\nthis rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the league,\nand the copying of the 'encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not\nover-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every\nday. it was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be\ndifficult to suggest a better. the method was no doubt suggested to\nclay's ingenious mind by the colour of his accomplice's hair. the 4\na week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who\nwere playing for thousands? they put in the advertisement, one rogue\nhas the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply\nfor it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning\nin the week. from the time that i heard of the assistant having come\nfor half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive\nfor securing the situation.\"\n\"but how could you guess what the motive was?\"\n\"had there been women in the house, i should have suspected a mere\nvulgar intrigue. that, however, was out of the question. the man's\nbusiness was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which\ncould account for such elaborate preparations, and such an\nexpenditure as they were at. it must, then, be something out of the\nhouse. what could it be? i thought of the assistant's fondness for\nphotography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. the cellar!\nthere was the end of this tangled clue. then i made inquiries as to\nthis mysterious assistant and found that i had to deal with one of\nthe coolest and most daring criminals in london. he was doing\nsomething in the cellar--something which took many hours a day for\nmonths on end. what could it be, once more? i could think of nothing\nsave that he was running a tunnel to some other building.\n\"so far i had got when we went to visit the scene of action. i\nsurprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. i was\nascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. it\nwas not in front. then i rang the bell, and, as i hoped, the\nassistant answered it. we have had some skirmishes, but we had never\nset eyes upon each other before. i hardly looked at his face. his\nknees were what i wished to see. you must yourself have remarked how\nworn, wrinkled, and stained they were. they spoke of those hours of\nburrowing. the only remaining point was what they were burrowing for.\ni walked round the corner, saw the city and suburban bank abutted on\nour friend's premises, and felt that i had solved my problem. when\nyou drove home after the concert i called upon scotland yard and upon\nthe chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you have\nseen.\"\n\"and how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?\"\ni asked.\n\"well, when they closed their league offices that was a sign that\nthey cared no longer about mr. jabez wilson's presence--in other\nwords, that they had completed their tunnel. but it was essential\nthat they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the\nbullion might be removed. saturday would suit them better than any\nother day, as it would give them two days for their escape. for all\nthese reasons i expected them to come to-night.\"\n\"you reasoned it out beautifully,\" i exclaimed in unfeigned\nadmiration. \"it is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.\"\n\"it saved me from ennui,\" he answered, yawning. \"alas! i already feel\nit closing in upon me. my life is spent in one long effort to escape\nfrom the commonplaces of existence. these little problems help me to\ndo so.\"\n\"and you are a benefactor of the race,\" said i.\nhe shrugged his shoulders. \"well, perhaps, after all, it is of some\nlittle use,\" he remarked. \"'l'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre c'est tout,'\nas gustave flaubert wrote to george sand.\"\na case of identity\n\"my dear fellow,\" said sherlock holmes as we sat on either side of\nthe fire in his lodgings at baker street, \"life is infinitely\nstranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. we would\nnot dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of\nexistence. if we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover\nover this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the\nqueer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the\nplannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events,\nworking through generations, and leading to the most outr results,\nit would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen\nconclusions most stale and unprofitable.\"\n\"and yet i am not convinced of it,\" i answered. \"the cases which come\nto light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar\nenough. we have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme\nlimits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither\nfascinating nor artistic.\"\n\"a certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a\nrealistic effect,\" remarked holmes. \"this is wanting in the police\nreport, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of\nthe magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain\nthe vital essence of the whole matter. depend upon it, there is\nnothing so unnatural as the commonplace.\"\ni smiled and shook my head. \"i can quite understand your thinking\nso.\" i said. \"of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and\nhelper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three\ncontinents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange and\nbizarre. but here\"--i picked up the morning paper from the\nground--\"let us put it to a practical test. here is the first heading\nupon which i come. 'a husband's cruelty to his wife.' there is half a\ncolumn of print, but i know without reading it that it is all\nperfectly familiar to me. there is, of course, the other woman, the\ndrink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or\nlandlady. the crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude.\"\n\"indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,\" said\nholmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. \"this is the\ndundas separation case, and, as it happens, i was engaged in clearing\nup some small points in connection with it. the husband was a\nteetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of\nwas that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by\ntaking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you\nwill allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of\nthe average story-teller. take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and\nacknowledge that i have scored over you in your example.\"\nhe held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the\ncentre of the lid. its splendour was in such contrast to his homely\nways and simple life that i could not help commenting upon it.\n\"ah,\" said he, \"i forgot that i had not seen you for some weeks. it\nis a little souvenir from the king of bohemia in return for my\nassistance in the case of the irene adler papers.\"\n\"and the ring?\" i asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which\nsparkled upon his finger.\n\"it was from the reigning family of holland, though the matter in\nwhich i served them was of such delicacy that i cannot confide it\neven to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my\nlittle problems.\"\n\"and have you any on hand just now?\" i asked with interest.\n\"some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest.\nthey are important, you understand, without being interesting.\nindeed, i have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that\nthere is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of\ncause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. the\nlarger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the\nmore obvious, as a rule, is the motive. in these cases, save for one\nrather intricate matter which has been referred to me from\nmarseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest.\nit is possible, however, that i may have something better before very\nmany minutes are over, for this is one of my clients, or i am much\nmistaken.\"\nhe had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted\nblinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted london street.\nlooking over his shoulder, i saw that on the pavement opposite there\nstood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large\ncurling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a\ncoquettish duchess of devonshire fashion over her ear. from under\nthis great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at\nour windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her\nfingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. suddenly, with a plunge, as\nof the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and\nwe heard the sharp clang of the bell.\n\"i have seen those symptoms before,\" said holmes, throwing his\ncigarette into the fire. \"oscillation upon the pavement always means\nan affaire de coeur. she would like advice, but is not sure that the\nmatter is not too delicate for communication. and yet even here we\nmay discriminate. when a woman has been seriously wronged by a man\nshe no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell\nwire. here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the\nmaiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. but here she\ncomes in person to resolve our doubts.\"\nas he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons\nentered to announce miss mary sutherland, while the lady herself\nloomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man\nbehind a tiny pilot boat. sherlock holmes welcomed her with the easy\ncourtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and\nbowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet\nabstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.\n\"do you not find,\" he said, \"that with your short sight it is a\nlittle trying to do so much typewriting?\"\n\"i did at first,\" she answered, \"but now i know where the letters are\nwithout looking.\" then, suddenly realising the full purport of his\nwords, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and\nastonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. \"you've heard about\nme, mr. holmes,\" she cried, \"else how could you know all that?\"\n\"never mind,\" said holmes, laughing; \"it is my business to know\nthings. perhaps i have trained myself to see what others overlook. if\nnot, why should you come to consult me?\"\n\"i came to you, sir, because i heard of you from mrs. etherege, whose\nhusband you found so easy when the police and everyone had given him\nup for dead. oh, mr. holmes, i wish you would do as much for me. i'm\nnot rich, but still i have a hundred a year in my own right, besides\nthe little that i make by the machine, and i would give it all to\nknow what has become of mr. hosmer angel.\"\n\"why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?\" asked sherlock\nholmes, with his finger-tips together and his eyes to the ceiling.\nagain a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of miss\nmary sutherland. \"yes, i did bang out of the house,\" she said, \"for\nit made me angry to see the easy way in which mr. windibank--that is,\nmy father--took it all. he would not go to the police, and he would\nnot go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing and kept on\nsaying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and i just on\nwith my things and came right away to you.\"\n\"your father,\" said holmes, \"your stepfather, surely, since the name\nis different.\"\n\"yes, my stepfather. i call him father, though it sounds funny, too,\nfor he is only five years and two months older than myself.\"\n\"and your mother is alive?\"\n\"oh, yes, mother is alive and well. i wasn't best pleased, mr.\nholmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and a\nman who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. father was a\nplumber in the tottenham court road, and he left a tidy business\nbehind him, which mother carried on with mr. hardy, the foreman; but\nwhen mr. windibank came he made her sell the business, for he was\nvery superior, being a traveller in wines. they got 4700 for the\ngoodwill and interest, which wasn't near as much as father could have\ngot if he had been alive.\"\ni had expected to see sherlock holmes impatient under this rambling\nand inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened\nwith the greatest concentration of attention.\n\"your own little income,\" he asked, \"does it come out of the\nbusiness?\"\n\"oh, no, sir. it is quite separate and was left me by my uncle ned in\nauckland. it is in new zealand stock, paying 4 per cent. two\nthousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but i can only touch the\ninterest.\"\n\"you interest me extremely,\" said holmes. \"and since you draw so\nlarge a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain,\nyou no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way. i\nbelieve that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of\nabout 60.\"\n\"i could do with much less than that, mr. holmes, but you understand\nthat as long as i live at home i don't wish to be a burden to them,\nand so they have the use of the money just while i am staying with\nthem. of course, that is only just for the time. mr. windibank draws\nmy interest every quarter and pays it over to mother, and i find that\ni can do pretty well with what i earn at typewriting. it brings me\ntwopence a sheet, and i can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in\na day.\"\n\"you have made your position very clear to me,\" said holmes. \"this is\nmy friend, dr. watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before\nmyself. kindly tell us now all about your connection with mr. hosmer\nangel.\"\na flush stole over miss sutherland's face, and she picked nervously\nat the fringe of her jacket. \"i met him first at the gasfitters'\nball,\" she said. \"they used to send father tickets when he was alive,\nand then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. mr.\nwindibank did not wish us to go. he never did wish us to go anywhere.\nhe would get quite mad if i wanted so much as to join a sunday-school\ntreat. but this time i was set on going, and i would go; for what\nright had he to prevent? he said the folk were not fit for us to\nknow, when all father's friends were to be there. and he said that i\nhad nothing fit to wear, when i had my purple plush that i had never\nso much as taken out of the drawer. at last, when nothing else would\ndo, he went off to france upon the business of the firm, but we went,\nmother and i, with mr. hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was\nthere i met mr. hosmer angel.\"\n\"i suppose,\" said holmes, \"that when mr. windibank came back from\nfrance he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.\"\n\"oh, well, he was very good about it. he laughed, i remember, and\nshrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to\na woman, for she would have her way.\"\n\"i see. then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as i understand, a\ngentleman called mr. hosmer angel.\"\n\"yes, sir. i met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we\nhad got home all safe, and after that we met him--that is to say, mr.\nholmes, i met him twice for walks, but after that father came back\nagain, and mr. hosmer angel could not come to the house any more.\"\n\"no?\"\n\"well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. he wouldn't\nhave any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a\nwoman should be happy in her own family circle. but then, as i used\nto say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and i\nhad not got mine yet.\"\n\"but how about mr. hosmer angel? did he make no attempt to see you?\"\n\"well, father was going off to france again in a week, and hosmer\nwrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each\nother until he had gone. we could write in the meantime, and he used\nto write every day. i took the letters in in the morning, so there\nwas no need for father to know.\"\n\"were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?\"\n\"oh, yes, mr. holmes. we were engaged after the first walk that we\ntook. hosmer--mr. angel--was a cashier in an office in leadenhall\nstreet--and--\"\n\"what office?\"\n\"that's the worst of it, mr. holmes, i don't know.\"\n\"where did he live, then?\"\n\"he slept on the premises.\"\n\"and you don't know his address?\"\n\"no--except that it was leadenhall street.\"\n\"where did you address your letters, then?\"\n\"to the leadenhall street post office, to be left till called for. he\nsaid that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all\nthe other clerks about having letters from a lady, so i offered to\ntypewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't have that, for he\nsaid that when i wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when\nthey were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come\nbetween us. that will just show you how fond he was of me, mr.\nholmes, and the little things that he would think of.\"\n\"it was most suggestive,\" said holmes. \"it has long been an axiom of\nmine that the little things are infinitely the most important.  can\nyou remember any other little things about mr. hosmer angel?\"\n\"he was a very shy man, mr. holmes. he would rather walk with me in\nthe evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be\nconspicuous. very retiring and gentlemanly he was. even his voice was\ngentle. he'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he\ntold me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,\nwhispering fashion of speech. he was always well dressed, very neat\nand plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore\ntinted glasses against the glare.\"\n\"well, and what happened when mr. windibank, your stepfather,\nreturned to france?\"\n\"mr. hosmer angel came to the house again and proposed that we should\nmarry before father came back. he was in dreadful earnest and made me\nswear, with my hands on the testament, that whatever happened i would\nalways be true to him. mother said he was quite right to make me\nswear, and that it was a sign of his passion. mother was all in his\nfavour from the first and was even fonder of him than i was. then,\nwhen they talked of marrying within the week, i began to ask about\nfather; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to\ntell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with\nhim. i didn't quite like that, mr. holmes. it seemed funny that i\nshould ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but i\ndidn't want to do anything on the sly, so i wrote to father at\nbordeaux, where the company has its french offices, but the letter\ncame back to me on the very morning of the wedding.\"\n\"it missed him, then?\"\n\"yes, sir; for he had started to england just before it arrived.\"\n\"ha! that was unfortunate. your wedding was arranged, then, for the\nfriday. was it to be in church?\"\n\"yes, sir, but very quietly. it was to be at st. saviour's, near\nking's cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the st.\npancras hotel. hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two\nof us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a four-wheeler,\nwhich happened to be the only other cab in the street. we got to the\nchurch first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to\nstep out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box\nand looked there was no one there! the cabman said that he could not\nimagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his\nown eyes. that was last friday, mr. holmes, and i have never seen or\nheard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of\nhim.\"\n\"it seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated,\" said\nholmes.\n\"oh, no, sir! he was too good and kind to leave me so. why, all the\nmorning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, i was to be\ntrue; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to\nseparate us, i was always to remember that i was pledged to him, and\nthat he would claim his pledge sooner or later. it seemed strange\ntalk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a\nmeaning to it.\"\n\"most certainly it does. your own opinion is, then, that some\nunforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?\"\n\"yes, sir. i believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would\nnot have talked so. and then i think that what he foresaw happened.\"\n\"but you have no notion as to what it could have been?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"one more question. how did your mother take the matter?\"\n\"she was angry, and said that i was never to speak of the matter\nagain.\"\n\"and your father? did you tell him?\"\n\"yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened,\nand that i should hear of hosmer again. as he said, what interest\ncould anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then\nleaving me? now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me\nand got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but\nhosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a\nshilling of mine. and yet, what could have happened? and why could he\nnot write? oh, it drives me half-mad to think of it, and i can't\nsleep a wink at night.\" she pulled a little handkerchief out of her\nmuff and began to sob heavily into it.\n\"i shall glance into the case for you,\" said holmes, rising, \"and i\nhave no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. let the\nweight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell\nupon it further. above all, try to let mr. hosmer angel vanish from\nyour memory, as he has done from your life.\"\n\"then you don't think i'll see him again?\"\n\"i fear not.\"\n\"then what has happened to him?\"\n\"you will leave that question in my hands. i should like an accurate\ndescription of him and any letters of his which you can spare.\"\n\"i advertised for him in last saturday's chronicle,\" said she. \"here\nis the slip and here are four letters from him.\"\n\"thank you. and your address?\"\n\"no. 31 lyon place, camberwell.\"\n\"mr. angel's address you never had, i understand. where is your\nfather's place of business?\"\n\"he travels for westhouse & marbank, the great claret importers of\nfenchurch street.\"\n\"thank you. you have made your statement very clearly. you will leave\nthe papers here, and remember the advice which i have given you. let\nthe whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect\nyour life.\"\n\"you are very kind, mr. holmes, but i cannot do that. i shall be true\nto hosmer. he shall find me ready when he comes back.\"\nfor all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was\nsomething noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled\nour respect. she laid her little bundle of papers upon the table and\nwent her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be\nsummoned.\nsherlock holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips\nstill pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and\nhis gaze directed upward to the ceiling. then he took down from the\nrack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor,\nand, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue\ncloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in\nhis face.\n\"quite an interesting study, that maiden,\" he observed. \"i found her\nmore interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is\nrather a trite one. you will find parallel cases, if you consult my\nindex, in andover in '77, and there was something of the sort at the\nhague last year. old as is the idea, however, there were one or two\ndetails which were new to me. but the maiden herself was most\ninstructive.\"\n\"you appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible\nto me,\" i remarked.\n\"not invisible but unnoticed, watson. you did not know where to look,\nand so you missed all that was important. i can never bring you to\nrealise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails,\nor the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. now, what did you\ngather from that woman's appearance? describe it.\"\n\"well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a\nfeather of a brickish red. her jacket was black, with black beads\nsewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. her dress\nwas brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple\nplush at the neck and sleeves. her gloves were greyish and were worn\nthrough at the right forefinger. her boots i didn't observe. she had\nsmall round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly\nwell-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.\"\nsherlock holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.\n\"'pon my word, watson, you are coming along wonderfully. you have\nreally done very well indeed. it is true that you have missed\neverything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you\nhave a quick eye for colour. never trust to general impressions, my\nboy, but concentrate yourself upon details. my first glance is always\nat a woman's sleeve. in a man it is perhaps better first to take the\nknee of the trouser. as you observe, this woman had plush upon her\nsleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. the\ndouble line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses\nagainst the table, was beautifully defined. the sewing-machine, of\nthe hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and\non the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right\nacross the broadest part, as this was. i then glanced at her face,\nand, observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, i\nventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to\nsurprise her.\"\n\"it surprised me.\"\n\"but, surely, it was obvious. i was then much surprised and\ninterested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which\nshe was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd\nones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a\nplain one. one was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of\nfive, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. now, when you see\nthat a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home\nwith odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that\nshe came away in a hurry.\"\n\"and what else?\" i asked, keenly interested, as i always was, by my\nfriend's incisive reasoning.\n\"i noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home\nbut after being fully dressed. you observed that her right glove was\ntorn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both\nglove and finger were stained with violet ink. she had written in a\nhurry and dipped her pen too deep. it must have been this morning, or\nthe mark would not remain clear upon the finger. all this is amusing,\nthough rather elementary, but i must go back to business, watson.\nwould you mind reading me the advertised description of mr. hosmer\nangel?\"\ni held the little printed slip to the light.\n\"missing,\" it said, \"on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman\nnamed hosmer angel. about five ft. seven in. in height; strongly\nbuilt, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre,\nbushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight\ninfirmity of speech. was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat\nfaced with silk, black waistcoat, gold albert chain, and grey harris\ntweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. known to\nhave been employed in an office in leadenhall street. anybody\nbringing--\"\n\"that will do,\" said holmes. \"as to the letters,\" he continued,\nglancing over them, \"they are very commonplace. absolutely no clue in\nthem to mr. angel, save that he quotes balzac once. there is one\nremarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you.\"\n\"they are typewritten,\" i remarked.\n\"not only that, but the signature is typewritten. look at the neat\nlittle 'hosmer angel' at the bottom. there is a date, you see, but no\nsuperscription except leadenhall street, which is rather vague. the\npoint about the signature is very suggestive--in fact, we may call it\nconclusive.\"\n\"of what?\"\n\"my dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears\nupon the case?\"\n\"i cannot say that i do unless it were that he wished to be able to\ndeny his signature if an action for breach of promise were\ninstituted.\"\n\"no, that was not the point. however, i shall write two letters,\nwhich should settle the matter. one is to a firm in the city, the\nother is to the young lady's stepfather, mr. windibank, asking him\nwhether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow evening. it is\njust as well that we should do business with the male relatives. and\nnow, doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters\ncome, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the\ninterim.\"\ni had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of\nreasoning and extraordinary energy in action that i felt that he must\nhave some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which\nhe treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to\nfathom. once only had i known him to fail, in the case of the king of\nbohemia and of the irene adler photograph; but when i looked back to\nthe weird business of the sign of four, and the extraordinary\ncircumstances connected with the study in scarlet, i felt that it\nwould be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.\ni left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the\nconviction that when i came again on the next evening i would find\nthat he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the\nidentity of the disappearing bridegroom of miss mary sutherland.\na professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at\nthe time, and the whole of next day i was busy at the bedside of the\nsufferer. it was not until close upon six o'clock that i found myself\nfree and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to baker street,\nhalf afraid that i might be too late to assist at the dnouement of\nthe little mystery. i found sherlock holmes alone, however, half\nasleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his\narmchair. a formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the\npungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent\nhis day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.\n\"well, have you solved it?\" i asked as i entered.\n\"yes. it was the bisulphate of baryta.\"\n\"no, no, the mystery!\" i cried.\n\"oh, that! i thought of the salt that i have been working upon. there\nwas never any mystery in the matter, though, as i said yesterday,\nsome of the details are of interest. the only drawback is that there\nis no law, i fear, that can touch the scoundrel.\"\n\"who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting miss\nsutherland?\"\nthe question was hardly out of my mouth, and holmes had not yet\nopened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the\npassage and a tap at the door.\n\"this is the girl's stepfather, mr. james windibank,\" said holmes.\n\"he has written to me to say that he would be here at six. come in!\"\nthe man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty\nyears of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland,\ninsinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating\ngrey eyes. he shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his\nshiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down\ninto the nearest chair.\n\"good-evening, mr. james windibank,\" said holmes. \"i think that this\ntypewritten letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with\nme for six o'clock?\"\n\"yes, sir. i am afraid that i am a little late, but i am not quite my\nown master, you know. i am sorry that miss sutherland has troubled\nyou about this little matter, for i think it is far better not to\nwash linen of the sort in public. it was quite against my wishes that\nshe came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may\nhave noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up\nher mind on a point. of course, i did not mind you so much, as you\nare not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to\nhave a family misfortune like this noised abroad. besides, it is a\nuseless expense, for how could you possibly find this hosmer angel?\"\n\"on the contrary,\" said holmes quietly; \"i have every reason to\nbelieve that i will succeed in discovering mr. hosmer angel.\"\nmr. windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. \"i am\ndelighted to hear it,\" he said.\n\"it is a curious thing,\" remarked holmes, \"that a typewriter has\nreally quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. unless\nthey are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. some letters\nget more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. now, you\nremark in this note of yours, mr. windibank, that in every case there\nis some little slurring over of the 'e,' and a slight defect in the\ntail of the 'r.' there are fourteen other characteristics, but those\nare the more obvious.\"\n\"we do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no\ndoubt it is a little worn,\" our visitor answered, glancing keenly at\nholmes with his bright little eyes.\n\"and now i will show you what is really a very interesting study, mr.\nwindibank,\" holmes continued. \"i think of writing another little\nmonograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to\ncrime. it is a subject to which i have devoted some little attention.\ni have here four letters which purport to come from the missing man.\nthey are all typewritten. in each case, not only are the 'e's'\nslurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will observe, if you care to\nuse my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to\nwhich i have alluded are there as well.\"\nmr. windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. \"i\ncannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, mr. holmes,\" he\nsaid. \"if you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know when you\nhave done it.\"\n\"certainly,\" said holmes, stepping over and turning the key in the\ndoor. \"i let you know, then, that i have caught him!\"\n\"what! where?\" shouted mr. windibank, turning white to his lips and\nglancing about him like a rat in a trap.\n\"oh, it won't do--really it won't,\" said holmes suavely. \"there is no\npossible getting out of it, mr. windibank. it is quite too\ntransparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it\nwas impossible for me to solve so simple a question. that's right!\nsit down and let us talk it over.\"\nour visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter\nof moisture on his brow. \"it--it's not actionable,\" he stammered.\n\"i am very much afraid that it is not. but between ourselves,\nwindibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a\npetty way as ever came before me. now, let me just run over the\ncourse of events, and you will contradict me if i go wrong.\"\nthe man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his\nbreast, like one who is utterly crushed. holmes stuck his feet up on\nthe corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands in his\npockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.\n\"the man married a woman very much older than himself for her money,\"\nsaid he, \"and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long\nas she lived with them. it was a considerable sum, for people in\ntheir position, and the loss of it would have made a serious\ndifference. it was worth an effort to preserve it. the daughter was\nof a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in\nher ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal\nadvantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain\nsingle long. now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a\nhundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent it? he\ntakes the obvious course of keeping her at home and forbidding her to\nseek the company of people of her own age. but soon he found that\nthat would not answer forever. she became restive, insisted upon her\nrights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a\ncertain ball. what does her clever stepfather do then? he conceives\nan idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. with the\nconnivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered\nthose keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a moustache\nand a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an\ninsinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl's short\nsight, he appears as mr. hosmer angel, and keeps off other lovers by\nmaking love himself.\"\n\"it was only a joke at first,\" groaned our visitor. \"we never thought\nthat she would have been so carried away.\"\n\"very likely not. however that may be, the young lady was very\ndecidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her\nstepfather was in france, the suspicion of treachery never for an\ninstant entered her mind. she was flattered by the gentleman's\nattentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed\nadmiration of her mother. then mr. angel began to call, for it was\nobvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go if a\nreal effect were to be produced. there were meetings, and an\nengagement, which would finally secure the girl's affections from\nturning towards anyone else. but the deception could not be kept up\nforever. these pretended journeys to france were rather cumbrous. the\nthing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a\ndramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the\nyoung lady's mind and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor\nfor some time to come. hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a\ntestament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something\nhappening on the very morning of the wedding. james windibank wished\nmiss sutherland to be so bound to hosmer angel, and so uncertain as\nto his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not\nlisten to another man. as far as the church door he brought her, and\nthen, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the\nold trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the\nother. i think that was the chain of events, mr. windibank!\"\nour visitor had recovered something of his assurance while holmes had\nbeen talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon\nhis pale face.\n\"it may be so, or it may not, mr. holmes,\" said he, \"but if you are\nso very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who\nare breaking the law now, and not me. i have done nothing actionable\nfrom the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay\nyourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint.\"\n\"the law cannot, as you say, touch you,\" said holmes, unlocking and\nthrowing open the door, \"yet there never was a man who deserved\npunishment more. if the young lady has a brother or a friend, he\nought to lay a whip across your shoulders. by jove!\" he continued,\nflushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man's face, \"it\nis not part of my duties to my client, but here's a hunting crop\nhandy, and i think i shall just treat myself to--\" he took two swift\nsteps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild\nclatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and\nfrom the window we could see mr. james windibank running at the top\nof his speed down the road.\n\"there's a cold-blooded scoundrel!\" said holmes, laughing, as he\nthrew himself down into his chair once more. \"that fellow will rise\nfrom crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a\ngallows. the case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of\ninterest.\"\n\"i cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,\" i\nremarked.\n\"well, of course it was obvious from the first that this mr. hosmer\nangel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it\nwas equally clear that the only man who really profited by the\nincident, as far as we could see, was the stepfather. then the fact\nthat the two men were never together, but that the one always\nappeared when the other was away, was suggestive. so were the tinted\nspectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as\ndid the bushy whiskers. my suspicions were all confirmed by his\npeculiar action in typewriting his signature, which, of course,\ninferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would\nrecognise even the smallest sample of it. you see all these isolated\nfacts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same\ndirection.\"\n\"and how did you verify them?\"\n\"having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. i knew\nthe firm for which this man worked. having taken the printed\ndescription, i eliminated everything from it which could be the\nresult of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and i\nsent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether\nit answered to the description of any of their travellers. i had\nalready noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and i wrote to\nthe man himself at his business address asking him if he would come\nhere. as i expected, his reply was typewritten and revealed the same\ntrivial but characteristic defects. the same post brought me a letter\nfrom westhouse & marbank, of fenchurch street, to say that the\ndescription tallied in every respect with that of their employee,\njames windibank. voil tout!\"\n\"and miss sutherland?\"\n\"if i tell her she will not believe me. you may remember the old\npersian saying, 'there is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub,\nand danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.' there is\nas much sense in hafiz as in horace, and as much knowledge of the\nworld.\"\nthe boscombe valley mystery\nwe were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and i, when the maid\nbrought in a telegram. it was from sherlock holmes and ran in this\nway:\n\"have you a couple of days to spare? have just been wired for from\nthe west of england in connection with boscombe valley tragedy. shall\nbe glad if you will come with me. air and scenery perfect. leave\npaddington by the 11.15.\"\n\"what do you say, dear?\" said my wife, looking across at me. \"will\nyou go?\"\n\"i really don't know what to say. i have a fairly long list at\npresent.\"\n\"oh, anstruther would do your work for you. you have been looking a\nlittle pale lately. i think that the change would do you good, and\nyou are always so interested in mr. sherlock holmes' cases.\"\n\"i should be ungrateful if i were not, seeing what i gained through\none of them,\" i answered. \"but if i am to go, i must pack at once,\nfor i have only half an hour.\"\nmy experience of camp life in afghanistan had at least had the effect\nof making me a prompt and ready traveller. my wants were few and\nsimple, so that in less than the time stated i was in a cab with my\nvalise, rattling away to paddington station. sherlock holmes was\npacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even\ngaunter and taller by his long grey travelling-cloak and\nclose-fitting cloth cap.\n\"it is really very good of you to come, watson,\" said he. \"it makes a\nconsiderable difference to me, having someone with me on whom i can\nthoroughly rely. local aid is always either worthless or else\nbiassed. if you will keep the two corner seats i shall get the\ntickets.\"\nwe had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers\nwhich holmes had brought with him. among these he rummaged and read,\nwith intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past\nreading. then he suddenly rolled them all into a gigantic ball and\ntossed them up onto the rack.\n\"have you heard anything of the case?\" he asked.\n\"not a word. i have not seen a paper for some days.\"\n\"the london press has not had very full accounts. i have just been\nlooking through all the recent papers in order to master the\nparticulars. it seems, from what i gather, to be one of those simple\ncases which are so extremely difficult.\"\n\"that sounds a little paradoxical.\"\n\"but it is profoundly true. singularity is almost invariably a clue.\nthe more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult\nit is to bring it home. in this case, however, they have established\na very serious case against the son of the murdered man.\"\n\"it is a murder, then?\"\n\"well, it is conjectured to be so. i shall take nothing for granted\nuntil i have the opportunity of looking personally into it. i will\nexplain the state of things to you, as far as i have been able to\nunderstand it, in a very few words.\n\"boscombe valley is a country district not very far from ross, in\nherefordshire. the largest landed proprietor in that part is a mr.\njohn turner, who made his money in australia and returned some years\nago to the old country. one of the farms which he held, that of\nhatherley, was let to mr. charles mccarthy, who was also an\nex-australian. the men had known each other in the colonies, so that\nit was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should\ndo so as near each other as possible. turner was apparently the\nricher man, so mccarthy became his tenant but still remained, it\nseems, upon terms of perfect equality, as they were frequently\ntogether. mccarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen, and turner had an\nonly daughter of the same age, but neither of them had wives living.\nthey appear to have avoided the society of the neighbouring english\nfamilies and to have led retired lives, though both the mccarthys\nwere fond of sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of\nthe neighbourhood. mccarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl.\nturner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the least.\nthat is as much as i have been able to gather about the families. now\nfor the facts.\n\"on june 3rd, that is, on monday last, mccarthy left his house at\nhatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the\nboscombe pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of\nthe stream which runs down the boscombe valley. he had been out with\nhis serving-man in the morning at ross, and he had told the man that\nhe must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at\nthree. from that appointment he never came back alive.\n\"from hatherley farm-house to the boscombe pool is a quarter of a\nmile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. one was\nan old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was william\ncrowder, a game-keeper in the employ of mr. turner. both these\nwitnesses depose that mr. mccarthy was walking alone. the game-keeper\nadds that within a few minutes of his seeing mr. mccarthy pass he had\nseen his son, mr. james mccarthy, going the same way with a gun under\nhis arm. to the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight\nat the time, and the son was following him. he thought no more of the\nmatter until he heard in the evening of the tragedy that had\noccurred.\n\"the two mccarthys were seen after the time when william crowder, the\ngame-keeper, lost sight of them. the boscombe pool is thickly wooded\nround, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. a\ngirl of fourteen, patience moran, who is the daughter of the\nlodge-keeper of the boscombe valley estate, was in one of the woods\npicking flowers. she states that while she was there she saw, at the\nborder of the wood and close by the lake, mr. mccarthy and his son,\nand that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. she heard mr.\nmccarthy the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw\nthe latter raise up his hand as if to strike his father. she was so\nfrightened by their violence that she ran away and told her mother\nwhen she reached home that she had left the two mccarthys quarrelling\nnear boscombe pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to\nfight. she had hardly said the words when young mr. mccarthy came\nrunning up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in\nthe wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. he was much\nexcited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and\nsleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. on following him\nthey found the dead body stretched out upon the grass beside the\npool. the head had been beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and\nblunt weapon. the injuries were such as might very well have been\ninflicted by the butt-end of his son's gun, which was found lying on\nthe grass within a few paces of the body. under these circumstances\nthe young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful\nmurder' having been returned at the inquest on tuesday, he was on\nwednesday brought before the magistrates at ross, who have referred\nthe case to the next assizes. those are the main facts of the case as\nthey came out before the coroner and the police-court.\"\n\"i could hardly imagine a more damning case,\" i remarked. \"if ever\ncircumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here.\"\n\"circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,\" answered holmes\nthoughtfully. \"it may seem to point very straight to one thing, but\nif you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it\npointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely\ndifferent. it must be confessed, however, that the case looks\nexceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that\nhe is indeed the culprit. there are several people in the\nneighbourhood, however, and among them miss turner, the daughter of\nthe neighbouring landowner, who believe in his innocence, and who\nhave retained lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with the\nstudy in scarlet, to work out the case in his interest. lestrade,\nbeing rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is\nthat two middle-aged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an\nhour instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home.\"\n\"i am afraid,\" said i, \"that the facts are so obvious that you will\nfind little credit to be gained out of this case.\"\n\"there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,\" he answered,\nlaughing. \"besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious\nfacts which may have been by no means obvious to mr. lestrade. you\nknow me too well to think that i am boasting when i say that i shall\neither confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite\nincapable of employing, or even of understanding. to take the first\nexample to hand, i very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the\nwindow is upon the right-hand side, and yet i question whether mr.\nlestrade would have noted even so self-evident a thing as that.\"\n\"how on earth--\"\n\"my dear fellow, i know you well. i know the military neatness which\ncharacterises you. you shave every morning, and in this season you\nshave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less\ncomplete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes\npositively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is\nsurely very clear that that side is less illuminated than the other.\ni could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an\nequal light and being satisfied with such a result. i only quote this\nas a trivial example of observation and inference. therein lies my\nmtier, and it is just possible that it may be of some service in the\ninvestigation which lies before us. there are one or two minor points\nwhich were brought out in the inquest, and which are worth\nconsidering.\"\n\"what are they?\"\n\"it appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after the\nreturn to hatherley farm. on the inspector of constabulary informing\nhim that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to\nhear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. this observation\nof his had the natural effect of removing any traces of doubt which\nmight have remained in the minds of the coroner's jury.\"\n\"it was a confession,\" i ejaculated.\n\"no, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence.\"\n\"coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at\nleast a most suspicious remark.\"\n\"on the contrary,\" said holmes, \"it is the brightest rift which i can\nat present see in the clouds. however innocent he might be, he could\nnot be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances\nwere very black against him. had he appeared surprised at his own\narrest, or feigned indignation at it, i should have looked upon it as\nhighly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be\nnatural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best\npolicy to a scheming man. his frank acceptance of the situation marks\nhim as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable\nself-restraint and firmness. as to his remark about his deserts, it\nwas also not unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead\nbody of his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very\nday so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and\neven, according to the little girl whose evidence is so important, to\nraise his hand as if to strike him. the self-reproach and contrition\nwhich are displayed in his remark appear to me to be the signs of a\nhealthy mind rather than of a guilty one.\"\ni shook my head. \"many men have been hanged on far slighter\nevidence,\" i remarked.\n\"so they have. and many men have been wrongfully hanged.\"\n\"what is the young man's own account of the matter?\"\n\"it is, i am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though\nthere are one or two points in it which are suggestive. you will find\nit here, and may read it for yourself.\"\nhe picked out from his bundle a copy of the local herefordshire\npaper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the paragraph\nin which the unfortunate young man had given his own statement of\nwhat had occurred. i settled myself down in the corner of the\ncarriage and read it very carefully. it ran in this way:\n\"mr. james mccarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called\nand gave evidence as follows: 'i had been away from home for three\ndays at bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last\nmonday, the 3rd. my father was absent from home at the time of my\narrival, and i was informed by the maid that he had driven over to\nross with john cobb, the groom. shortly after my return i heard the\nwheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, i saw\nhim get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though i was not aware\nin which direction he was going. i then took my gun and strolled out\nin the direction of the boscombe pool, with the intention of visiting\nthe rabbit warren which is upon the other side. on my way i saw\nwilliam crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence;\nbut he is mistaken in thinking that i was following my father. i had\nno idea that he was in front of me. when about a hundred yards from\nthe pool i heard a cry of \"cooee!\" which was a usual signal between\nmy father and myself. i then hurried forward, and found him standing\nby the pool. he appeared to be much surprised at seeing me and asked\nme rather roughly what i was doing there. a conversation ensued which\nled to high words and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a\nvery violent temper. seeing that his passion was becoming\nungovernable, i left him and returned towards hatherley farm. i had\nnot gone more than 150 yards, however, when i heard a hideous outcry\nbehind me, which caused me to run back again. i found my father\nexpiring upon the ground, with his head terribly injured. i dropped\nmy gun and held him in my arms, but he almost instantly expired. i\nknelt beside him for some minutes, and then made my way to mr.\nturner's lodge-keeper, his house being the nearest, to ask for\nassistance. i saw no one near my father when i returned, and i have\nno idea how he came by his injuries. he was not a popular man, being\nsomewhat cold and forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as i\nknow, no active enemies. i know nothing further of the matter.'\n\"the coroner: did your father make any statement to you before he\ndied?\n\"witness: he mumbled a few words, but i could only catch some\nallusion to a rat.\n\"the coroner: what did you understand by that?\n\"witness: it conveyed no meaning to me. i thought that he was\ndelirious.\n\"the coroner: what was the point upon which you and your father had\nthis final quarrel?\n\"witness: i should prefer not to answer.\n\"the coroner: i am afraid that i must press it.\n\"witness: it is really impossible for me to tell you. i can assure\nyou that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed.\n\"the coroner: that is for the court to decide. i need not point out\nto you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case\nconsiderably in any future proceedings which may arise.\n\"witness: i must still refuse.\n\"the coroner: i understand that the cry of 'cooee' was a common\nsignal between you and your father?\n\"witness: it was.\n\"the coroner: how was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you,\nand before he even knew that you had returned from bristol?\n\"witness (with considerable confusion): i do not know.\n\"a juryman: did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when\nyou returned on hearing the cry and found your father fatally\ninjured?\n\"witness: nothing definite.\n\"the coroner: what do you mean?\n\"witness: i was so disturbed and excited as i rushed out into the\nopen, that i could think of nothing except of my father. yet i have a\nvague impression that as i ran forward something lay upon the ground\nto the left of me. it seemed to me to be something grey in colour, a\ncoat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. when i rose from my father i\nlooked round for it, but it was gone.\n\"'do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?'\n\"'yes, it was gone.'\n\"'you cannot say what it was?'\n\"'no, i had a feeling something was there.'\n\"'how far from the body?'\n\"'a dozen yards or so.'\n\"'and how far from the edge of the wood?'\n\"'about the same.'\n\"'then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards\nof it?'\n\"'yes, but with my back towards it.'\n\"this concluded the examination of the witness.\"\n\"i see,\" said i as i glanced down the column, \"that the coroner in\nhis concluding remarks was rather severe upon young mccarthy. he\ncalls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father\nhaving signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to\ngive details of his conversation with his father, and his singular\naccount of his father's dying words. they are all, as he remarks,\nvery much against the son.\"\nholmes laughed softly to himself and stretched himself out upon the\ncushioned seat. \"both you and the coroner have been at some pains,\"\nsaid he, \"to single out the very strongest points in the young man's\nfavour. don't you see that you alternately give him credit for having\ntoo much imagination and too little? too little, if he could not\ninvent a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the\njury; too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness\nanything so outr as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of\nthe vanishing cloth. no, sir, i shall approach this case from the\npoint of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see\nwhither that hypothesis will lead us. and now here is my pocket\npetrarch, and not another word shall i say of this case until we are\non the scene of action. we lunch at swindon, and i see that we shall\nbe there in twenty minutes.\"\nit was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through the\nbeautiful stroud valley, and over the broad gleaming severn, found\nourselves at the pretty little country-town of ross. a lean,\nferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the\nplatform. in spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings\nwhich he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, i had no\ndifficulty in recognising lestrade, of scotland yard. with him we\ndrove to the hereford arms where a room had already been engaged for\nus.\n\"i have ordered a carriage,\" said lestrade as we sat over a cup of\ntea. \"i knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy\nuntil you had been on the scene of the crime.\"\n\"it was very nice and complimentary of you,\" holmes answered. \"it is\nentirely a question of barometric pressure.\"\nlestrade looked startled. \"i do not quite follow,\" he said.\n\"how is the glass? twenty-nine, i see. no wind, and not a cloud in\nthe sky. i have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and\nthe sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel\nabomination. i do not think that it is probable that i shall use the\ncarriage to-night.\"\nlestrade laughed indulgently. \"you have, no doubt, already formed\nyour conclusions from the newspapers,\" he said. \"the case is as plain\nas a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes.\nstill, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a very positive\none, too. she has heard of you, and would have your opinion, though i\nrepeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which i\nhad not already done. why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the\ndoor.\"\nhe had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the\nmost lovely young women that i have ever seen in my life. her violet\neyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all\nthought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement\nand concern.\n\"oh, mr. sherlock holmes!\" she cried, glancing from one to the other\nof us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, fastening upon my\ncompanion, \"i am so glad that you have come. i have driven down to\ntell you so. i know that james didn't do it. i know it, and i want\nyou to start upon your work knowing it, too. never let yourself doubt\nupon that point. we have known each other since we were little\nchildren, and i know his faults as no one else does; but he is too\ntender-hearted to hurt a fly. such a charge is absurd to anyone who\nreally knows him.\"\n\"i hope we may clear him, miss turner,\" said sherlock holmes.  \"you\nmay rely upon my doing all that i can.\"\n\"but you have read the evidence. you have formed some conclusion? do\nyou not see some loophole, some flaw? do you not yourself think that\nhe is innocent?\"\n\"i think that it is very probable.\"\n\"there, now!\" she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly\nat lestrade. \"you hear! he gives me hopes.\"\nlestrade shrugged his shoulders. \"i am afraid that my colleague has\nbeen a little quick in forming his conclusions,\" he said.\n\"but he is right. oh! i know that he is right. james never did it.\nand about his quarrel with his father, i am sure that the reason why\nhe would not speak about it to the coroner was because i was\nconcerned in it.\"\n\"in what way?\" asked holmes.\n\"it is no time for me to hide anything. james and his father had many\ndisagreements about me. mr. mccarthy was very anxious that there\nshould be a marriage between us. james and i have always loved each\nother as brother and sister; but of course he is young and has seen\nvery little of life yet, and--and--well, he naturally did not wish to\ndo anything like that yet. so there were quarrels, and this, i am\nsure, was one of them.\"\n\"and your father?\" asked holmes. \"was he in favour of such a union?\"\n\"no, he was averse to it also. no one but mr. mccarthy was in favour\nof it.\" a quick blush passed over her fresh young face as holmes shot\none of his keen, questioning glances at her.\n\"thank you for this information,\" said he. \"may i see your father if\ni call to-morrow?\"\n\"i am afraid the doctor won't allow it.\"\n\"the doctor?\"\n\"yes, have you not heard? poor father has never been strong for years\nback, but this has broken him down completely. he has taken to his\nbed, and dr. willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous\nsystem is shattered. mr. mccarthy was the only man alive who had\nknown dad in the old days in victoria.\"\n\"ha! in victoria! that is important.\"\n\"yes, at the mines.\"\n\"quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as i understand, mr. turner made\nhis money.\"\n\"yes, certainly.\"\n\"thank you, miss turner. you have been of material assistance to me.\"\n\"you will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. no doubt you will\ngo to the prison to see james. oh, if you do, mr. holmes, do tell him\nthat i know him to be innocent.\"\n\"i will, miss turner.\"\n\"i must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if i\nleave him. good-bye, and god help you in your undertaking.\" she\nhurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard\nthe wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.\n\"i am ashamed of you, holmes,\" said lestrade with dignity after a few\nminutes' silence. \"why should you raise up hopes which you are bound\nto disappoint? i am not over-tender of heart, but i call it cruel.\"\n\"i think that i see my way to clearing james mccarthy,\" said holmes.\n\"have you an order to see him in prison?\"\n\"yes, but only for you and me.\"\n\"then i shall reconsider my resolution about going out. we have still\ntime to take a train to hereford and see him to-night?\"\n\"ample.\"\n\"then let us do so. watson, i fear that you will find it very slow,\nbut i shall only be away a couple of hours.\"\ni walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the\nstreets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where i\nlay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed\nnovel. the puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared\nto the deep mystery through which we were groping, and i found my\nattention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that i\nat last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a\nconsideration of the events of the day. supposing that this unhappy\nyoung man's story were absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what\nabsolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred\nbetween the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when,\ndrawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? it was something\nterrible and deadly. what could it be? might not the nature of the\ninjuries reveal something to my medical instincts? i rang the bell\nand called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim\naccount of the inquest. in the surgeon's deposition it was stated\nthat the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half\nof the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt\nweapon. i marked the spot upon my own head. clearly such a blow must\nhave been struck from behind. that was to some extent in favour of\nthe accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his\nfather. still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might\nhave turned his back before the blow fell. still, it might be worth\nwhile to call holmes' attention to it. then there was the peculiar\ndying reference to a rat. what could that mean? it could not be\ndelirium. a man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become\ndelirious. no, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he\nmet his fate. but what could it indicate? i cudgelled my brains to\nfind some possible explanation. and then the incident of the grey\ncloth seen by young mccarthy. if that were true the murderer must\nhave dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his\nflight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it\naway at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned\nnot a dozen paces off. what a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities\nthe whole thing was! i did not wonder at lestrade's opinion, and yet\ni had so much faith in sherlock holmes' insight that i could not lose\nhope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction\nof young mccarthy's innocence.\nit was late before sherlock holmes returned. he came back alone, for\nlestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.\n\"the glass still keeps very high,\" he remarked as he sat down. \"it is\nof importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over\nthe ground. on the other hand, a man should be at his very best and\nkeenest for such nice work as that, and i did not wish to do it when\nfagged by a long journey. i have seen young mccarthy.\"\n\"and what did you learn from him?\"\n\"nothing.\"\n\"could he throw no light?\"\n\"none at all. i was inclined to think at one time that he knew who\nhad done it and was screening him or her, but i am convinced now that\nhe is as puzzled as everyone else. he is not a very quick-witted\nyouth, though comely to look at and, i should think, sound at heart.\"\n\"i cannot admire his taste,\" i remarked, \"if it is indeed a fact that\nhe was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this\nmiss turner.\"\n\"ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. this fellow is madly,\ninsanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only\na lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five\nyears at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the\nclutches of a barmaid in bristol and marry her at a registry office?\nno one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening\nit must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give\nhis very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible.\nit was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up\ninto the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading\nhim on to propose to miss turner. on the other hand, he had no means\nof supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very\nhard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.\nit was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in\nbristol, and his father did not know where he was. mark that point.\nit is of importance. good has come out of evil, however, for the\nbarmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and\nlikely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to\nhim to say that she has a husband already in the bermuda dockyard, so\nthat there is really no tie between them. i think that that bit of\nnews has consoled young mccarthy for all that he has suffered.\"\n\"but if he is innocent, who has done it?\"\n\"ah! who? i would call your attention very particularly to two\npoints. one is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone\nat the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for\nhis son was away, and he did not know when he would return. the\nsecond is that the murdered man was heard to cry 'cooee!' before he\nknew that his son had returned. those are the crucial points upon\nwhich the case depends. and now let us talk about george meredith, if\nyou please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow.\"\nthere was no rain, as holmes had foretold, and the morning broke\nbright and cloudless. at nine o'clock lestrade called for us with the\ncarriage, and we set off for hatherley farm and the boscombe pool.\n\"there is serious news this morning,\" lestrade observed. \"it is said\nthat mr. turner, of the hall, is so ill that his life is despaired\nof.\"\n\"an elderly man, i presume?\" said holmes.\n\"about sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life\nabroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. this\nbusiness has had a very bad effect upon him. he was an old friend of\nmccarthy's, and, i may add, a great benefactor to him, for i have\nlearned that he gave him hatherley farm rent free.\"\n\"indeed! that is interesting,\" said holmes.\n\"oh, yes! in a hundred other ways he has helped him. everybody about\nhere speaks of his kindness to him.\"\n\"really! does it not strike you as a little singular that this\nmccarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been\nunder such obligations to turner, should still talk of marrying his\nson to turner's daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate,\nand that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case\nof a proposal and all else would follow? it is the more strange,\nsince we know that turner himself was averse to the idea. the\ndaughter told us as much. do you not deduce something from that?\"\n\"we have got to the deductions and the inferences,\" said lestrade,\nwinking at me. \"i find it hard enough to tackle facts, holmes,\nwithout flying away after theories and fancies.\"\n\"you are right,\" said holmes demurely; \"you do find it very hard to\ntackle the facts.\"\n\"anyhow, i have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult\nto get hold of,\" replied lestrade with some warmth.\n\"and that is--\"\n\"that mccarthy senior met his death from mccarthy junior and that all\ntheories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.\"\n\"well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,\" said holmes,\nlaughing. \"but i am very much mistaken if this is not hatherley farm\nupon the left.\"\n\"yes, that is it.\" it was a widespread, comfortable-looking building,\ntwo-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon\nthe grey walls. the drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however,\ngave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still\nlay heavy upon it. we called at the door, when the maid, at holmes'\nrequest, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his\ndeath, and also a pair of the son's, though not the pair which he had\nthen had. having measured these very carefully from seven or eight\ndifferent points, holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from\nwhich we all followed the winding track which led to boscombe pool.\nsherlock holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as\nthis. men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of baker\nstreet would have failed to recognise him. his face flushed and\ndarkened. his brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his\neyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. his face was\nbent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the\nveins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. his nostrils\nseemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his\nmind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a\nquestion or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only\nprovoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply. swiftly and silently he\nmade his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by\nway of the woods to the boscombe pool. it was damp, marshy ground, as\nis all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon\nthe path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side.\nsometimes holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he\nmade quite a little detour into the meadow. lestrade and i walked\nbehind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while i\nwatched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction\nthat every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.\nthe boscombe pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some\nfifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the hatherley\nfarm and the private park of the wealthy mr. turner. above the woods\nwhich lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting\npinnacles which marked the site of the rich landowner's dwelling. on\nthe hatherley side of the pool the woods grew very thick, and there\nwas a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the\nedge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. lestrade showed\nus the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so\nmoist was the ground, that i could plainly see the traces which had\nbeen left by the fall of the stricken man. to holmes, as i could see\nby his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be\nread upon the trampled grass. he ran round, like a dog who is picking\nup a scent, and then turned upon my companion.\n\"what did you go into the pool for?\" he asked.\n\"i fished about with a rake. i thought there might be some weapon or\nother trace. but how on earth--\"\n\"oh, tut, tut! i have no time! that left foot of yours with its\ninward twist is all over the place. a mole could trace it, and there\nit vanishes among the reeds. oh, how simple it would all have been\nhad i been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed\nall over it. here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and\nthey have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body.\nbut here are three separate tracks of the same feet.\" he drew out a\nlens and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking\nall the time rather to himself than to us. \"these are young\nmccarthy's feet. twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so\nthat the soles are deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. that\nbears out his story. he ran when he saw his father on the ground.\nthen here are the father's feet as he paced up and down. what is\nthis, then? it is the butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening.\nand this? ha, ha! what have we here? tiptoes! tiptoes! square, too,\nquite unusual boots! they come, they go, they come again--of course\nthat was for the cloak. now where did they come from?\" he ran up and\ndown, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we were\nwell within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a great\nbeech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. holmes traced his way\nto the farther side of this and lay down once more upon his face with\na little cry of satisfaction. for a long time he remained there,\nturning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to\nme to be dust into an envelope and examining with his lens not only\nthe ground but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach. a\njagged stone was lying among the moss, and this also he carefully\nexamined and retained. then he followed a pathway through the wood\nuntil he came to the highroad, where all traces were lost.\n\"it has been a case of considerable interest,\" he remarked, returning\nto his natural manner. \"i fancy that this grey house on the right\nmust be the lodge. i think that i will go in and have a word with\nmoran, and perhaps write a little note. having done that, we may\ndrive back to our luncheon. you may walk to the cab, and i shall be\nwith you presently.\"\nit was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove back\ninto ross, holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had\npicked up in the wood.\n\"this may interest you, lestrade,\" he remarked, holding it out.  \"the\nmurder was done with it.\"\n\"i see no marks.\"\n\"there are none.\"\n\"how do you know, then?\"\n\"the grass was growing under it. it had only lain there a few days.\nthere was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. it corresponds\nwith the injuries. there is no sign of any other weapon.\"\n\"and the murderer?\"\n\"is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears\nthick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes indian cigars,\nuses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket.\nthere are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid\nus in our search.\"\nlestrade laughed. \"i am afraid that i am still a sceptic,\" he said.\n\"theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hard-headed\nbritish jury.\"\n\"nous verrons,\" answered holmes calmly. \"you work your own method,\nand i shall work mine. i shall be busy this afternoon, and shall\nprobably return to london by the evening train.\"\n\"and leave your case unfinished?\"\n\"no, finished.\"\n\"but the mystery?\"\n\"it is solved.\"\n\"who was the criminal, then?\"\n\"the gentleman i describe.\"\n\"but who is he?\"\n\"surely it would not be difficult to find out. this is not such a\npopulous neighbourhood.\"\nlestrade shrugged his shoulders. \"i am a practical man,\" he said,\n\"and i really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a\nleft-handed gentleman with a game leg. i should become the\nlaughing-stock of scotland yard.\"\n\"all right,\" said holmes quietly. \"i have given you the chance. here\nare your lodgings. good-bye. i shall drop you a line before i leave.\"\nhaving left lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we\nfound lunch upon the table. holmes was silent and buried in thought\nwith a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a\nperplexing position.\n\"look here, watson,\" he said when the cloth was cleared \"just sit\ndown in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. i don't\nknow quite what to do, and i should value your advice. light a cigar\nand let me expound.\"\n\"pray do so.\"\n\"well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young\nmccarthy's narrative which struck us both instantly, although they\nimpressed me in his favour and you against him. one was the fact that\nhis father should, according to his account, cry 'cooee!' before\nseeing him. the other was his singular dying reference to a rat. he\nmumbled several words, you understand, but that was all that caught\nthe son's ear. now from this double point our research must commence,\nand we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is\nabsolutely true.\"\n\"what of this 'cooee!' then?\"\n\"well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. the son,\nas far as he knew, was in bristol. it was mere chance that he was\nwithin earshot. the 'cooee!' was meant to attract the attention of\nwhoever it was that he had the appointment with. but 'cooee' is a\ndistinctly australian cry, and one which is used between australians.\nthere is a strong presumption that the person whom mccarthy expected\nto meet him at boscombe pool was someone who had been in australia.\"\n\"what of the rat, then?\"\nsherlock holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it\nout on the table. \"this is a map of the colony of victoria,\" he said.\n\"i wired to bristol for it last night.\" he put his hand over part of\nthe map. \"what do you read?\"\n\"arat,\" i read.\n\"and now?\" he raised his hand.\n\"ballarat.\"\n\"quite so. that was the word the man uttered, and of which his son\nonly caught the last two syllables. he was trying to utter the name\nof his murderer. so and so, of ballarat.\"\n\"it is wonderful!\" i exclaimed.\n\"it is obvious. and now, you see, i had narrowed the field down\nconsiderably. the possession of a grey garment was a third point\nwhich, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a certainty.\nwe have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of\nan australian from ballarat with a grey cloak.\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"and one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only be\napproached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly\nwander.\"\n\"quite so.\"\n\"then comes our expedition of to-day. by an examination of the ground\ni gained the trifling details which i gave to that imbecile lestrade,\nas to the personality of the criminal.\"\n\"but how did you gain them?\"\n\"you know my method. it is founded upon the observation of trifles.\"\n\"his height i know that you might roughly judge from the length of\nhis stride. his boots, too, might be told from their traces.\"\n\"yes, they were peculiar boots.\"\n\"but his lameness?\"\n\"the impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his\nleft. he put less weight upon it. why? because he limped--he was\nlame.\"\n\"but his left-handedness.\"\n\"you were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by\nthe surgeon at the inquest. the blow was struck from immediately\nbehind, and yet was upon the left side. now, how can that be unless\nit were by a left-handed man? he had stood behind that tree during\nthe interview between the father and son. he had even smoked there. i\nfound the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes\nenables me to pronounce as an indian cigar. i have, as you know,\ndevoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the\nashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette\ntobacco. having found the ash, i then looked round and discovered the\nstump among the moss where he had tossed it. it was an indian cigar,\nof the variety which are rolled in rotterdam.\"\n\"and the cigar-holder?\"\n\"i could see that the end had not been in his mouth. therefore he\nused a holder. the tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut\nwas not a clean one, so i deduced a blunt pen-knife.\"\n\"holmes,\" i said, \"you have drawn a net round this man from which he\ncannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as\nif you had cut the cord which was hanging him. i see the direction in\nwhich all this points. the culprit is--\"\n\"mr. john turner,\" cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our\nsitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.\nthe man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. his slow,\nlimping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude,\nand yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs\nshowed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of\ncharacter. his tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding,\ndrooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his\nappearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and\nthe corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. it was\nclear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and\nchronic disease.\n\"pray sit down on the sofa,\" said holmes gently. \"you had my note?\"\n\"yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. you said that you wished to see\nme here to avoid scandal.\"\n\"i thought people would talk if i went to the hall.\"\n\"and why did you wish to see me?\" he looked across at my companion\nwith despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already\nanswered.\n\"yes,\" said holmes, answering the look rather than the words. \"it is\nso. i know all about mccarthy.\"\nthe old man sank his face in his hands. \"god help me!\" he cried. \"but\ni would not have let the young man come to harm. i give you my word\nthat i would have spoken out if it went against him at the assizes.\"\n\"i am glad to hear you say so,\" said holmes gravely.\n\"i would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. it would\nbreak her heart--it will break her heart when she hears that i am\narrested.\"\n\"it may not come to that,\" said holmes.\n\"what?\"\n\"i am no official agent. i understand that it was your daughter who\nrequired my presence here, and i am acting in her interests. young\nmccarthy must be got off, however.\"\n\"i am a dying man,\" said old turner. \"i have had diabetes for years.\nmy doctor says it is a question whether i shall live a month. yet i\nwould rather die under my own roof than in a jail.\"\nholmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a\nbundle of paper before him. \"just tell us the truth,\" he said. \"i\nshall jot down the facts. you will sign it, and watson here can\nwitness it. then i could produce your confession at the last\nextremity to save young mccarthy. i promise you that i shall not use\nit unless it is absolutely needed.\"\n\"it's as well,\" said the old man; \"it's a question whether i shall\nlive to the assizes, so it matters little to me, but i should wish to\nspare alice the shock. and now i will make the thing clear to you; it\nhas been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to\ntell.\n\"you didn't know this dead man, mccarthy. he was a devil incarnate. i\ntell you that. god keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he.\nhis grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my\nlife. i'll tell you first how i came to be in his power.\n\"it was in the early '60's at the diggings. i was a young chap then,\nhot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; i got\namong bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took\nto the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a\nhighway robber. there were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of\nit, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons\non the road to the diggings. black jack of ballarat was the name i\nwent under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the\nballarat gang.\n\"one day a gold convoy came down from ballarat to melbourne, and we\nlay in wait for it and attacked it. there were six troopers and six\nof us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles\nat the first volley. three of our boys were killed, however, before\nwe got the swag. i put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who\nwas this very man mccarthy. i wish to the lord that i had shot him\nthen, but i spared him, though i saw his wicked little eyes fixed on\nmy face, as though to remember every feature. we got away with the\ngold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to england without\nbeing suspected. there i parted from my old pals and determined to\nsettle down to a quiet and respectable life. i bought this estate,\nwhich chanced to be in the market, and i set myself to do a little\ngood with my money, to make up for the way in which i had earned it.\ni married, too, and though my wife died young she left me my dear\nlittle alice. even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to\nlead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done. in a word,\ni turned over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. all\nwas going well when mccarthy laid his grip upon me.\n\"i had gone up to town about an investment, and i met him in regent\nstreet with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.\n\"'here we are, jack,' says he, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be as\ngood as a family to you. there's two of us, me and my son, and you\ncan have the keeping of us. if you don't--it's a fine, law-abiding\ncountry is england, and there's always a policeman within hail.'\n\"well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them\noff, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since.\nthere was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where i\nwould, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. it grew\nworse as alice grew up, for he soon saw i was more afraid of her\nknowing my past than of the police. whatever he wanted he must have,\nand whatever it was i gave him without question, land, money, houses,\nuntil at last he asked a thing which i could not give. he asked for\nalice.\n\"his son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as i was\nknown to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his\nlad should step into the whole property. but there i was firm. i\nwould not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that i had any\ndislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. i\nstood firm. mccarthy threatened. i braved him to do his worst. we\nwere to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over.\n\"when i went down there i found him talking with his son, so i smoked\na cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. but as i\nlistened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to\ncome uppermost. he was urging his son to marry my daughter with as\nlittle regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off\nthe streets. it drove me mad to think that i and all that i held most\ndear should be in the power of such a man as this. could i not snap\nthe bond? i was already a dying and a desperate man. though clear of\nmind and fairly strong of limb, i knew that my own fate was sealed.\nbut my memory and my girl! both could be saved if i could but silence\nthat foul tongue. i did it, mr. holmes. i would do it again. deeply\nas i have sinned, i have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. but\nthat my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was\nmore than i could suffer. i struck him down with no more compunction\nthan if he had been some foul and venomous beast. his cry brought\nback his son; but i had gained the cover of the wood, though i was\nforced to go back to fetch the cloak which i had dropped in my\nflight. that is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred.\"\n\"well, it is not for me to judge you,\" said holmes as the old man\nsigned the statement which had been drawn out. \"i pray that we may\nnever be exposed to such a temptation.\"\n\"i pray not, sir. and what do you intend to do?\"\n\"in view of your health, nothing. you are yourself aware that you\nwill soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the\nassizes. i will keep your confession, and if mccarthy is condemned i\nshall be forced to use it. if not, it shall never be seen by mortal\neye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe\nwith us.\"\n\"farewell, then,\" said the old man solemnly. \"your own deathbeds,\nwhen they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which\nyou have given to mine.\" tottering and shaking in all his giant\nframe, he stumbled slowly from the room.\n\"god help us!\" said holmes after a long silence. \"why does fate play\nsuch tricks with poor, helpless worms? i never hear of such a case as\nthis that i do not think of baxter's words, and say, 'there, but for\nthe grace of god, goes sherlock holmes.'\"\njames mccarthy was acquitted at the assizes on the strength of a\nnumber of objections which had been drawn out by holmes and submitted\nto the defending counsel. old turner lived for seven months after our\ninterview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the\nson and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of\nthe black cloud which rests upon their past.\nthe five orange pips\nwhen i glance over my notes and records of the sherlock holmes cases\nbetween the years '82 and '90, i am faced by so many which present\nstrange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know\nwhich to choose and which to leave. some, however, have already\ngained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a\nfield for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so\nhigh a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to\nillustrate. some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would\nbe, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have\nbeen but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded\nrather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical\nproof which was so dear to him. there is, however, one of these last\nwhich was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its\nresults that i am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the\nfact that there are points in connection with it which never have\nbeen, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.\nthe year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or\nless interest, of which i retain the records. among my headings under\nthis one twelve months i find an account of the adventure of the\nparadol chamber, of the amateur mendicant society, who held a\nluxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the\nfacts connected with the loss of the british barque \"sophy anderson\",\nof the singular adventures of the grice patersons in the island of\nuffa, and finally of the camberwell poisoning case. in the latter, as\nmay be remembered, sherlock holmes was able, by winding up the dead\nman's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and\nthat therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a\ndeduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the\ncase. all these i may sketch out at some future date, but none of\nthem present such singular features as the strange train of\ncircumstances which i have now taken up my pen to describe.\nit was in the latter days of september, and the equinoctial gales had\nset in with exceptional violence. all day the wind had screamed and\nthe rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the\nheart of great, hand-made london we were forced to raise our minds\nfor the instant from the routine of life and to recognise the\npresence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind\nthrough the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage.\nas evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind\ncried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. sherlock holmes sat\nmoodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of\ncrime, while i at the other was deep in one of clark russell's fine\nsea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend\nwith the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the\nlong swash of the sea waves. my wife was on a visit to her mother's,\nand for a few days i was a dweller once more in my old quarters at\nbaker street.\n\"why,\" said i, glancing up at my companion, \"that was surely the\nbell. who could come to-night? some friend of yours, perhaps?\"\n\"except yourself i have none,\" he answered. \"i do not encourage\nvisitors.\"\n\"a client, then?\"\n\"if so, it is a serious case. nothing less would bring a man out on\nsuch a day and at such an hour. but i take it that it is more likely\nto be some crony of the landlady's.\"\nsherlock holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came\na step in the passage and a tapping at the door. he stretched out his\nlong arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant\nchair upon which a newcomer must sit.\n\"come in!\" said he.\nthe man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,\nwell-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and\ndelicacy in his bearing. the streaming umbrella which he held in his\nhand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather\nthrough which he had come. he looked about him anxiously in the glare\nof the lamp, and i could see that his face was pale and his eyes\nheavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great\nanxiety.\n\"i owe you an apology,\" he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his\neyes. \"i trust that i am not intruding. i fear that i have brought\nsome traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.\"\n\"give me your coat and umbrella,\" said holmes. \"they may rest here on\nthe hook and will be dry presently. you have come up from the\nsouth-west, i see.\"\n\"yes, from horsham.\"\n\"that clay and chalk mixture which i see upon your toe caps is quite\ndistinctive.\"\n\"i have come for advice.\"\n\"that is easily got.\"\n\"and help.\"\n\"that is not always so easy.\"\n\"i have heard of you, mr. holmes. i heard from major prendergast how\nyou saved him in the tankerville club scandal.\"\n\"ah, of course. he was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.\"\n\"he said that you could solve anything.\"\n\"he said too much.\"\n\"that you are never beaten.\"\n\"i have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a\nwoman.\"\n\"but what is that compared with the number of your successes?\"\n\"it is true that i have been generally successful.\"\n\"then you may be so with me.\"\n\"i beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me\nwith some details as to your case.\"\n\"it is no ordinary one.\"\n\"none of those which come to me are. i am the last court of appeal.\"\n\"and yet i question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have\never listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events\nthan those which have happened in my own family.\"\n\"you fill me with interest,\" said holmes. \"pray give us the essential\nfacts from the commencement, and i can afterwards question you as to\nthose details which seem to me to be most important.\"\nthe young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards\nthe blaze.\n\"my name,\" said he, \"is john openshaw, but my own affairs have, as\nfar as i can understand, little to do with this awful business. it is\na hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, i\nmust go back to the commencement of the affair.\n\"you must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle elias and\nmy father joseph. my father had a small factory at coventry, which he\nenlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. he was a patentee\nof the openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such\nsuccess that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome\ncompetence.\n\"my uncle elias emigrated to america when he was a young man and\nbecame a planter in florida, where he was reported to have done very\nwell. at the time of the war he fought in jackson's army, and\nafterwards under hood, where he rose to be a colonel. when lee laid\ndown his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained\nfor three or four years. about 1869 or 1870 he came back to europe\nand took a small estate in sussex, near horsham. he had made a very\nconsiderable fortune in the states, and his reason for leaving them\nwas his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the republican\npolicy in extending the franchise to them. he was a singular man,\nfierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and\nof a most retiring disposition. during all the years that he lived at\nhorsham, i doubt if ever he set foot in the town. he had a garden and\ntwo or three fields round his house, and there he would take his\nexercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his\nroom. he drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he\nwould see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own\nbrother.\n\"he didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time\nwhen he saw me first i was a youngster of twelve or so. this would be\nin the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in england.\nhe begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to\nme in his way. when he was sober he used to be fond of playing\nbackgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his\nrepresentative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so\nthat by the time that i was sixteen i was quite master of the house.\ni kept all the keys and could go where i liked and do what i liked,\nso long as i did not disturb him in his privacy. there was one\nsingular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room\nup among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would\nnever permit either me or anyone else to enter. with a boy's\ncuriosity i have peeped through the keyhole, but i was never able to\nsee more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be\nexpected in such a room.\n\"one day--it was in march, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp lay\nupon the table in front of the colonel's plate. it was not a common\nthing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in\nready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'from india!' said he\nas he took it up, 'pondicherry postmark! what can this be?' opening\nit hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which\npattered down upon his plate. i began to laugh at this, but the laugh\nwas struck from my lips at the sight of his face. his lip had fallen,\nhis eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared\nat the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand, 'k. k.\nk.!' he shrieked, and then, 'my god, my god, my sins have overtaken\nme!'\n\"'what is it, uncle?' i cried.\n\"'death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room,\nleaving me palpitating with horror. i took up the envelope and saw\nscrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the\nletter k three times repeated. there was nothing else save the five\ndried pips. what could be the reason of his overpowering terror? i\nleft the breakfast-table, and as i ascended the stair i met him\ncoming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the\nattic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the\nother.\n\"'they may do what they like, but i'll checkmate them still,' said he\nwith an oath. 'tell mary that i shall want a fire in my room to-day,\nand send down to fordham, the horsham lawyer.'\n\"i did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived i was asked to step\nup to the room. the fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there\nwas a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the\nbrass box stood open and empty beside it. as i glanced at the box i\nnoticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble k\nwhich i had read in the morning upon the envelope.\n\"'i wish you, john,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. i leave my\nestate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my\nbrother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. if\nyou can enjoy it in peace, well and good! if you find you cannot,\ntake my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. i am\nsorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but i can't say what turn\nthings are going to take. kindly sign the paper where mr. fordham\nshows you.'\n\"i signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with\nhim. the singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest\nimpression upon me, and i pondered over it and turned it every way in\nmy mind without being able to make anything of it. yet i could not\nshake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the\nsensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to\ndisturb the usual routine of our lives. i could see a change in my\nuncle, however. he drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for\nany sort of society. most of his time he would spend in his room,\nwith the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge\nin a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear\nabout the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he\nwas afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a\nsheep in a pen, by man or devil. when these hot fits were over,\nhowever, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar\nit behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the\nterror which lies at the roots of his soul. at such times i have seen\nhis face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it\nwere new raised from a basin.\n\"well, to come to an end of the matter, mr. holmes, and not to abuse\nyour patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken\nsallies from which he never came back. we found him, when we went to\nsearch for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which\nlay at the foot of the garden. there was no sign of any violence, and\nthe water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to\nhis known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' but i, who\nknew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to\npersuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. the\nmatter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the\nestate, and of some 14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.\"\n\"one moment,\" holmes interposed, \"your statement is, i foresee, one\nof the most remarkable to which i have ever listened. let me have the\ndate of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of\nhis supposed suicide.\"\n\"the letter arrived on march 10, 1883. his death was seven weeks\nlater, upon the night of may 2nd.\"\n\"thank you. pray proceed.\"\n\"when my father took over the horsham property, he, at my request,\nmade a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked\nup. we found the brass box there, although its contents had been\ndestroyed. on the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the\ninitials of k. k. k. repeated upon it, and 'letters, memoranda,\nreceipts, and a register' written beneath. these, we presume,\nindicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by\ncolonel openshaw. for the rest, there was nothing of much importance\nin the attic save a great many scattered papers and note-books\nbearing upon my uncle's life in america. some of them were of the war\ntime and showed that he had done his duty well and had borne the\nrepute of a brave soldier. others were of a date during the\nreconstruction of the southern states, and were mostly concerned with\npolitics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the\ncarpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the north.\n\"well, it was the beginning of '84 when my father came to live at\nhorsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the january\nof '85. on the fourth day after the new year i heard my father give a\nsharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table.\nthere he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and\nfive dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. he\nhad always laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the\ncolonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same\nthing had come upon himself.\n\"'why, what on earth does this mean, john?' he stammered.\n\"my heart had turned to lead. 'it is k. k. k.,' said i.\n\"he looked inside the envelope. 'so it is,' he cried. 'here are the\nvery letters. but what is this written above them?'\n\"'put the papers on the sundial,' i read, peeping over his shoulder.\n\"'what papers? what sundial?' he asked.\n\"'the sundial in the garden. there is no other,' said i; 'but the\npapers must be those that are destroyed.'\n\"'pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'we are in a\ncivilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. where\ndoes the thing come from?'\n\"'from dundee,' i answered, glancing at the postmark.\n\"'some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'what have i to do with\nsundials and papers? i shall take no notice of such nonsense.'\n\"'i should certainly speak to the police,' i said.\n\"'and be laughed at for my pains. nothing of the sort.'\n\"'then let me do so?'\n\"'no, i forbid you. i won't have a fuss made about such nonsense.'\n\"it was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. i\nwent about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.\n\"on the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from\nhome to visit an old friend of his, major freebody, who is in command\nof one of the forts upon portsdown hill. i was glad that he should\ngo, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was\naway from home. in that, however, i was in error. upon the second day\nof his absence i received a telegram from the major, imploring me to\ncome at once. my father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits\nwhich abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a\nshattered skull. i hurried to him, but he passed away without having\never recovered his consciousness. he had, as it appears, been\nreturning from fareham in the twilight, and as the country was\nunknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no\nhesitation in bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental\ncauses.' carefully as i examined every fact connected with his death,\ni was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder.\nthere were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record\nof strangers having been seen upon the roads. and yet i need not tell\nyou that my mind was far from at ease, and that i was well-nigh\ncertain that some foul plot had been woven round him.\n\"in this sinister way i came into my inheritance. you will ask me why\ni did not dispose of it? i answer, because i was well convinced that\nour troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my\nuncle's life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house\nas in another.\n\"it was in january, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two\nyears and eight months have elapsed since then. during that time i\nhave lived happily at horsham, and i had begun to hope that this\ncurse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the\nlast generation. i had begun to take comfort too soon, however;\nyesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had\ncome upon my father.\"\nthe young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and\nturning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange\npips.\n\"this is the envelope,\" he continued. \"the postmark is\nlondon--eastern division. within are the very words which were upon\nmy father's last message: 'k. k. k.'; and then 'put the papers on the\nsundial.'\"\n\"what have you done?\" asked holmes.\n\"nothing.\"\n\"nothing?\"\n\"to tell the truth\"--he sank his face into his thin, white hands--\"i\nhave felt helpless. i have felt like one of those poor rabbits when\nthe snake is writhing towards it. i seem to be in the grasp of some\nresistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions\ncan guard against.\"\n\"tut! tut!\" cried sherlock holmes. \"you must act, man, or you are\nlost. nothing but energy can save you. this is no time for despair.\"\n\"i have seen the police.\"\n\"ah!\"\n\"but they listened to my story with a smile. i am convinced that the\ninspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical\njokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as\nthe jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.\"\nholmes shook his clenched hands in the air. \"incredible imbecility!\"\nhe cried.\n\"they have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the\nhouse with me.\"\n\"has he come with you to-night?\"\n\"no. his orders were to stay in the house.\"\nagain holmes raved in the air.\n\"why did you come to me,\" he cried, \"and, above all, why did you not\ncome at once?\"\n\"i did not know. it was only to-day that i spoke to major prendergast\nabout my troubles and was advised by him to come to you.\"\n\"it is really two days since you had the letter. we should have acted\nbefore this. you have no further evidence, i suppose, than that which\nyou have placed before us--no suggestive detail which might help us?\"\n\"there is one thing,\" said john openshaw. he rummaged in his coat\npocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper,\nhe laid it out upon the table. \"i have some remembrance,\" said he,\n\"that on the day when my uncle burned the papers i observed that the\nsmall, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this\nparticular colour. i found this single sheet upon the floor of his\nroom, and i am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers\nwhich has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that\nway has escaped destruction. beyond the mention of pips, i do not see\nthat it helps us much. i think myself that it is a page from some\nprivate diary. the writing is undoubtedly my uncle's.\"\nholmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,\nwhich showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a\nbook. it was headed, \"march, 1869,\" and beneath were the following\nenigmatical notices:\n4th. hudson came. same old platform.\n7th. set the pips on mccauley, paramore, and john swain, of st.\naugustine.\n9th. mccauley cleared.\n10th. john swain cleared.\n12th. visited paramore. all well.\n\"thank you!\" said holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to\nour visitor. \"and now you must on no account lose another instant. we\ncannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. you must get\nhome instantly and act.\"\n\"what shall i do?\"\n\"there is but one thing to do. it must be done at once. you must put\nthis piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which\nyou have described. you must also put in a note to say that all the\nother papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one\nwhich remains. you must assert that in such words as will carry\nconviction with them. having done this, you must at once put the box\nout upon the sundial, as directed. do you understand?\"\n\"entirely.\"\n\"do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. i\nthink that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web\nto weave, while theirs is already woven. the first consideration is\nto remove the pressing danger which threatens you. the second is to\nclear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.\"\n\"i thank you,\" said the young man, rising and pulling on his\novercoat. \"you have given me fresh life and hope. i shall certainly\ndo as you advise.\"\n\"do not lose an instant. and, above all, take care of yourself in the\nmeanwhile, for i do not think that there can be a doubt that you are\nthreatened by a very real and imminent danger. how do you go back?\"\n\"by train from waterloo.\"\n\"it is not yet nine. the streets will be crowded, so i trust that you\nmay be in safety. and yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.\"\n\"i am armed.\"\n\"that is well. to-morrow i shall set to work upon your case.\"\n\"i shall see you at horsham, then?\"\n\"no, your secret lies in london. it is there that i shall seek it.\"\n\"then i shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to\nthe box and the papers. i shall take your advice in every\nparticular.\" he shook hands with us and took his leave. outside the\nwind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the\nwindows. this strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid\nthe mad elements--blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a\ngale--and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.\nsherlock holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk\nforward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. then he lit\nhis pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue\nsmoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.\n\"i think, watson,\" he remarked at last, \"that of all our cases we\nhave had none more fantastic than this.\"\n\"save, perhaps, the sign of four.\"\n\"well, yes. save, perhaps, that. and yet this john openshaw seems to\nme to be walking amid even greater perils than did the sholtos.\"\n\"but have you,\" i asked, \"formed any definite conception as to what\nthese perils are?\"\n\"there can be no question as to their nature,\" he answered.\n\"then what are they? who is this k. k. k., and why does he pursue\nthis unhappy family?\"\nsherlock holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms\nof his chair, with his finger-tips together. \"the ideal reasoner,\" he\nremarked, \"would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all\nits bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which\nled up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. as\ncuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation\nof a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one\nlink in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all\nthe other ones, both before and after. we have not yet grasped the\nresults which the reason alone can attain to. problems may be solved\nin the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution\nby the aid of their senses. to carry the art, however, to its highest\npitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilise\nall the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself\nimplies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge,\nwhich, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a\nsomewhat rare accomplishment. it is not so impossible, however, that\na man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to\nhim in his work, and this i have endeavoured in my case to do. if i\nremember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our\nfriendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion.\"\n\"yes,\" i answered, laughing. \"it was a singular document. philosophy,\nastronomy, and politics were marked at zero, i remember. botany\nvariable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region\nwithin fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy\nunsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique,\nviolin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine\nand tobacco. those, i think, were the main points of my analysis.\"\nholmes grinned at the last item. \"well,\" he said, \"i say now, as i\nsaid then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with\nall the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put\naway in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he\nwants it. now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to\nus to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources. kindly\nhand me down the letter k of the 'american encyclopaedia' which\nstands upon the shelf beside you. thank you. now let us consider the\nsituation and see what may be deduced from it. in the first place, we\nmay start with a strong presumption that colonel openshaw had some\nvery strong reason for leaving america. men at his time of life do\nnot change all their habits and exchange willingly the charming\nclimate of florida for the lonely life of an english provincial town.\nhis extreme love of solitude in england suggests the idea that he was\nin fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a working\nhypothesis that it was fear of someone or something which drove him\nfrom america. as to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by\nconsidering the formidable letters which were received by himself and\nhis successors. did you remark the postmarks of those letters?\"\n\"the first was from pondicherry, the second from dundee, and the\nthird from london.\"\n\"from east london. what do you deduce from that?\"\n\"they are all seaports. that the writer was on board of a ship.\"\n\"excellent. we have already a clue. there can be no doubt that the\nprobability--the strong probability--is that the writer was on board\nof a ship. and now let us consider another point. in the case of\npondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its\nfulfilment, in dundee it was only some three or four days. does that\nsuggest anything?\"\n\"a greater distance to travel.\"\n\"but the letter had also a greater distance to come.\"\n\"then i do not see the point.\"\n\"there is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or\nmen are is a sailing-ship. it looks as if they always send their\nsingular warning or token before them when starting upon their\nmission. you see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came\nfrom dundee. if they had come from pondicherry in a steamer they\nwould have arrived almost as soon as their letter. but, as a matter\nof fact, seven weeks elapsed. i think that those seven weeks\nrepresented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the\nletter and the sailing vessel which brought the writer.\"\n\"it is possible.\"\n\"more than that. it is probable. and now you see the deadly urgency\nof this new case, and why i urged young openshaw to caution. the blow\nhas always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the\nsenders to travel the distance. but this one comes from london, and\ntherefore we cannot count upon delay.\"\n\"good god!\" i cried. \"what can it mean, this relentless persecution?\"\n\"the papers which openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance\nto the person or persons in the sailing-ship. i think that it is\nquite clear that there must be more than one of them. a single man\ncould not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a\ncoroner's jury. there must have been several in it, and they must\nhave been men of resource and determination. their papers they mean\nto have, be the holder of them who it may. in this way you see k. k.\nk. ceases to be the initials of an individual and becomes the badge\nof a society.\"\n\"but of what society?\"\n\"have you never--\" said sherlock holmes, bending forward and sinking\nhis voice--\"have you never heard of the ku klux klan?\"\n\"i never have.\"\nholmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. \"here it\nis,\" said he presently:\n\"'ku klux klan. a name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the\nsound produced by cocking a rifle. this terrible secret society was\nformed by some ex-confederate soldiers in the southern states after\nthe civil war, and it rapidly formed local branches in different\nparts of the country, notably in tennessee, louisiana, the carolinas,\ngeorgia, and florida. its power was used for political purposes,\nprincipally for the terrorising of the negro voters and the murdering\nand driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views.\nits outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked\nman in some fantastic but generally recognised shape--a sprig of\noak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. on\nreceiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways,\nor might fly from the country. if he braved the matter out, death\nwould unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and\nunforeseen manner. so perfect was the organisation of the society,\nand so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon\nrecord where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in\nwhich any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators. for\nsome years the organisation flourished in spite of the efforts of the\nunited states government and of the better classes of the community\nin the south. eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather\nsuddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of\nthe same sort since that date.'\n\"you will observe,\" said holmes, laying down the volume, \"that the\nsudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the\ndisappearance of openshaw from america with their papers. it may well\nhave been cause and effect. it is no wonder that he and his family\nhave some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. you can\nunderstand that this register and diary may implicate some of the\nfirst men in the south, and that there may be many who will not sleep\neasy at night until it is recovered.\"\n\"then the page we have seen--\"\n\"is such as we might expect. it ran, if i remember right, 'sent the\npips to a, b, and c'--that is, sent the society's warning to them.\nthen there are successive entries that a and b cleared, or left the\ncountry, and finally that c was visited, with, i fear, a sinister\nresult for c. well, i think, doctor, that we may let some light into\nthis dark place, and i believe that the only chance young openshaw\nhas in the meantime is to do what i have told him. there is nothing\nmore to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and\nlet us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the\nstill more miserable ways of our fellow-men.\"\nit had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued\nbrightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.\nsherlock holmes was already at breakfast when i came down.\n\"you will excuse me for not waiting for you,\" said he; \"i have, i\nforesee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young\nopenshaw's.\"\n\"what steps will you take?\" i asked.\n\"it will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. i\nmay have to go down to horsham, after all.\"\n\"you will not go there first?\"\n\"no, i shall commence with the city. just ring the bell and the maid\nwill bring up your coffee.\"\nas i waited, i lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and\nglanced my eye over it. it rested upon a heading which sent a chill\nto my heart.\n\"holmes,\" i cried, \"you are too late.\"\n\"ah!\" said he, laying down his cup, \"i feared as much. how was it\ndone?\" he spoke calmly, but i could see that he was deeply moved.\n\"my eye caught the name of openshaw, and the heading 'tragedy near\nwaterloo bridge.' here is the account:\n\"between nine and ten last night police-constable cook, of the h\ndivision, on duty near waterloo bridge, heard a cry for help and a\nsplash in the water. the night, however, was extremely dark and\nstormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was\nquite impossible to effect a rescue. the alarm, however, was given,\nand, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually\nrecovered. it proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as\nit appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was john\nopenshaw, and whose residence is near horsham. it is conjectured that\nhe may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from waterloo\nstation, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his\npath and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for\nriver steamboats. the body exhibited no traces of violence, and there\ncan be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an\nunfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the\nattention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside\nlanding-stages.\"\nwe sat in silence for some minutes, holmes more depressed and shaken\nthan i had ever seen him.\n\"that hurts my pride, watson,\" he said at last. \"it is a petty\nfeeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. it becomes a personal\nmatter with me now, and, if god sends me health, i shall set my hand\nupon this gang. that he should come to me for help, and that i should\nsend him away to his death--!\" he sprang from his chair and paced\nabout the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his\nsallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin\nhands.\n\"they must be cunning devils,\" he exclaimed at last. \"how could they\nhave decoyed him down there? the embankment is not on the direct line\nto the station. the bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a\nnight, for their purpose. well, watson, we shall see who will win in\nthe long run. i am going out now!\"\n\"to the police?\"\n\"no; i shall be my own police. when i have spun the web they may take\nthe flies, but not before.\"\nall day i was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the\nevening before i returned to baker street. sherlock holmes had not\ncome back yet. it was nearly ten o'clock before he entered, looking\npale and worn. he walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece\nfrom the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long\ndraught of water.\n\"you are hungry,\" i remarked.\n\"starving. it had escaped my memory. i have had nothing since\nbreakfast.\"\n\"nothing?\"\n\"not a bite. i had no time to think of it.\"\n\"and how have you succeeded?\"\n\"well.\"\n\"you have a clue?\"\n\"i have them in the hollow of my hand. young openshaw shall not long\nremain unavenged. why, watson, let us put their own devilish\ntrade-mark upon them. it is well thought of!\"\n\"what do you mean?\"\nhe took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he\nsqueezed out the pips upon the table. of these he took five and\nthrust them into an envelope. on the inside of the flap he wrote \"s.\nh. for j. o.\" then he sealed it and addressed it to \"captain james\ncalhoun, barque lone star, savannah, georgia.\"\n\"that will await him when he enters port,\" said he, chuckling. \"it\nmay give him a sleepless night. he will find it as sure a precursor\nof his fate as openshaw did before him.\"\n\"and who is this captain calhoun?\"\n\"the leader of the gang. i shall have the others, but he first.\"\n\"how did you trace it, then?\"\nhe took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with\ndates and names.\n\"i have spent the whole day,\" said he, \"over lloyd's registers and\nfiles of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel\nwhich touched at pondicherry in january and february in '83. there\nwere thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there\nduring those months. of these, one, the lone star, instantly\nattracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having\ncleared from london, the name is that which is given to one of the\nstates of the union.\"\n\"texas, i think.\"\n\"i was not and am not sure which; but i knew that the ship must have\nan american origin.\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"i searched the dundee records, and when i found that the barque lone\nstar was there in january, '85, my suspicion became a certainty. i\nthen inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of\nlondon.\"\n\"yes?\"\n\"the lone star had arrived here last week. i went down to the albert\ndock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early\ntide this morning, homeward bound to savannah. i wired to gravesend\nand learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is\neasterly i have no doubt that she is now past the goodwins and not\nvery far from the isle of wight.\"\n\"what will you do, then?\"\n\"oh, i have my hand upon him. he and the two mates, are as i learn,\nthe only native-born americans in the ship. the others are finns and\ngermans. i know, also, that they were all three away from the ship\nlast night. i had it from the stevedore who has been loading their\ncargo. by the time that their sailing-ship reaches savannah the\nmail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have\ninformed the police of savannah that these three gentlemen are badly\nwanted here upon a charge of murder.\"\nthere is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and\nthe murderers of john openshaw were never to receive the orange pips\nwhich would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as\nthemselves, was upon their track. very long and very severe were the\nequinoctial gales that year. we waited long for news of the lone star\nof savannah, but none ever reached us. we did at last hear that\nsomewhere far out in the atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat\nwas seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters \"l. s.\"\ncarved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate\nof the lone star.\nthe man with the twisted lip\nisa whitney, brother of the late elias whitney, d.d., principal of\nthe theological college of st. george's, was much addicted to opium.\nthe habit grew upon him, as i understand, from some foolish freak\nwhen he was at college; for having read de quincey's description of\nhis dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum\nin an attempt to produce the same effects. he found, as so many more\nhave done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of,\nand for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object\nof mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. i can see\nhim now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point\npupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.\none night--it was in june, '89--there came a ring to my bell, about\nthe hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. i\nsat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap\nand made a little face of disappointment.\n\"a patient!\" said she. \"you'll have to go out.\"\ni groaned, for i was newly come back from a weary day.\nwe heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps\nupon the linoleum. our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some\ndark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.\n\"you will excuse my calling so late,\" she began, and then, suddenly\nlosing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my\nwife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. \"oh, i'm in such trouble!\"\nshe cried; \"i do so want a little help.\"\n\"why,\" said my wife, pulling up her veil, \"it is kate whitney.  how\nyou startled me, kate! i had not an idea who you were when you came\nin.\"\n\"i didn't know what to do, so i came straight to you.\" that was\nalways the way. folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to\na light-house.\n\"it was very sweet of you to come. now, you must have some wine and\nwater, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. or should\nyou rather that i sent james off to bed?\"\n\"oh, no, no! i want the doctor's advice and help, too. it's about\nisa. he has not been home for two days. i am so frightened about\nhim!\"\nit was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband's\ntrouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school\ncompanion. we soothed and comforted her by such words as we could\nfind. did she know where her husband was? was it possible that we\ncould bring him back to her?\nit seems that it was. she had the surest information that of late he\nhad, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the\nfarthest east of the city. hitherto his orgies had always been\nconfined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered,\nin the evening. but now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty\nhours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks,\nbreathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. there he was to\nbe found, she was sure of it, at the bar of gold, in upper swandam\nlane. but what was she to do? how could she, a young and timid woman,\nmake her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among\nthe ruffians who surrounded him?\nthere was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it.\nmight i not escort her to this place? and then, as a second thought,\nwhy should she come at all? i was isa whitney's medical adviser, and\nas such i had influence over him. i could manage it better if i were\nalone. i promised her on my word that i would send him home in a cab\nwithin two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given\nme. and so in ten minutes i had left my armchair and cheery\nsitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a\nstrange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future\nonly could show how strange it was to be.\nbut there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure.\nupper swandam lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves\nwhich line the north side of the river to the east of london bridge.\nbetween a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of\nsteps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, i found\nthe den of which i was in search. ordering my cab to wait, i passed\ndown the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of\ndrunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the\ndoor i found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick\nand heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden\nberths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.\nthrough the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in\nstrange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown\nback, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark,\nlack-lustre eye turned upon the newcomer. out of the black shadows\nthere glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint,\nas the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes.\nthe most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others\ntalked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their\nconversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into\nsilence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to\nthe words of his neighbour. at the farther end was a small brazier of\nburning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there\nsat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists,\nand his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.\nas i entered, a sallow malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for\nme and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.\n\"thank you. i have not come to stay,\" said i. \"there is a friend of\nmine here, mr. isa whitney, and i wish to speak with him.\"\nthere was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering\nthrough the gloom, i saw whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring\nout at me.\n\"my god! it's watson,\" said he. he was in a pitiable state of\nreaction, with every nerve in a twitter. \"i say, watson, what o'clock\nis it?\"\n\"nearly eleven.\"\n\"of what day?\"\n\"of friday, june 19th.\"\n\"good heavens! i thought it was wednesday. it is wednesday. what\nd'you want to frighten a chap for?\" he sank his face onto his arms\nand began to sob in a high treble key.\n\"i tell you that it is friday, man. your wife has been waiting this\ntwo days for you. you should be ashamed of yourself!\"\n\"so i am. but you've got mixed, watson, for i have only been here a\nfew hours, three pipes, four pipes--i forget how many. but i'll go\nhome with you. i wouldn't frighten kate--poor little kate. give me\nyour hand! have you a cab?\"\n\"yes, i have one waiting.\"\n\"then i shall go in it. but i must owe something. find what i owe,\nwatson. i am all off colour. i can do nothing for myself.\"\ni walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers,\nholding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug,\nand looking about for the manager. as i passed the tall man who sat\nby the brazier i felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice\nwhispered, \"walk past me, and then look back at me.\" the words fell\nquite distinctly upon my ear. i glanced down. they could only have\ncome from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as\never, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling\ndown from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer\nlassitude from his fingers. i took two steps forward and looked back.\nit took all my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a\ncry of astonishment. he had turned his back so that none could see\nhim but i. his form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull\neyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and\ngrinning at my surprise, was none other than sherlock holmes. he made\na slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned\nhis face half round to the company once more, subsided into a\ndoddering, loose-lipped senility.\n\"holmes!\" i whispered, \"what on earth are you doing in this den?\"\n\"as low as you can,\" he answered; \"i have excellent ears. if you\nwould have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of\nyours i should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.\"\n\"i have a cab outside.\"\n\"then pray send him home in it. you may safely trust him, for he\nappears to be too limp to get into any mischief. i should recommend\nyou also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you\nhave thrown in your lot with me. if you will wait outside, i shall be\nwith you in five minutes.\"\nit was difficult to refuse any of sherlock holmes' requests,\nfor they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with\nsuch a quiet air of mastery. i felt, however, that when whitney was\nonce confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished; and\nfor the rest, i could not wish anything better than to be associated\nwith my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the\nnormal condition of his existence. in a few minutes i had written my\nnote, paid whitney's bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him\ndriven through the darkness. in a very short time a decrepit figure\nhad emerged from the opium den, and i was walking down the street\nwith sherlock holmes. for two streets he shuffled along with a bent\nback and an uncertain foot. then, glancing quickly round, he\nstraightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.\n\"i suppose, watson,\" said he, \"that you imagine that i have added\nopium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little\nweaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views.\"\n\"i was certainly surprised to find you there.\"\n\"but not more so than i to find you.\"\n\"i came to find a friend.\"\n\"and i to find an enemy.\"\n\"an enemy?\"\n\"yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall i say, my natural prey.\nbriefly, watson, i am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and\ni have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these\nsots, as i have done before now. had i been recognised in that den my\nlife would not have been worth an hour's purchase; for i have used it\nbefore now for my own purposes, and the rascally lascar who runs it\nhas sworn to have vengeance upon me. there is a trap-door at the back\nof that building, near the corner of paul's wharf, which could tell\nsome strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless\nnights.\"\n\"what! you do not mean bodies?\"\n\"ay, bodies, watson. we should be rich men if we had 1000 for every\npoor devil who has been done to death in that den. it is the vilest\nmurder-trap on the whole riverside, and i fear that neville st. clair\nhas entered it never to leave it more. but our trap should be here.\"\nhe put his two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrilly--a\nsignal which was answered by a similar whistle from the distance,\nfollowed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses'\nhoofs.\n\"now, watson,\" said holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the\ngloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side\nlanterns. \"you'll come with me, won't you?\"\n\"if i can be of use.\"\n\"oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more\nso. my room at the cedars is a double-bedded one.\"\n\"the cedars?\"\n\"yes; that is mr. st. clair's house. i am staying there while i\nconduct the inquiry.\"\n\"where is it, then?\"\n\"near lee, in kent. we have a seven-mile drive before us.\"\n\"but i am all in the dark.\"\n\"of course you are. you'll know all about it presently. jump up here.\nall right, john; we shall not need you. here's half a crown. look out\nfor me to-morrow, about eleven. give her her head. so long, then!\"\nhe flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the\nendless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened\ngradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge,\nwith the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us. beyond lay\nanother dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only\nby the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and\nshouts of some belated party of revellers. a dull wrack was drifting\nslowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and\nthere through the rifts of the clouds. holmes drove in silence, with\nhis head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in\nthought, while i sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest\nmight be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to\nbreak in upon the current of his thoughts. we had driven several\nmiles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of\nsuburban villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and\nlit up his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that\nhe is acting for the best.\n\"you have a grand gift of silence, watson,\" said he. \"it makes you\nquite invaluable as a companion. 'pon my word, it is a great thing\nfor me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not\nover-pleasant. i was wondering what i should say to this dear little\nwoman to-night when she meets me at the door.\"\n\"you forget that i know nothing about it.\"\n\"i shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we\nget to lee. it seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow i can get\nnothing to go upon. there's plenty of thread, no doubt, but i can't\nget the end of it into my hand. now, i'll state the case clearly and\nconcisely to you, watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is\ndark to me.\"\n\"proceed, then.\"\n\"some years ago--to be definite, in may, 1884--there came to lee a\ngentleman, neville st. clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of\nmoney. he took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and\nlived generally in good style. by degrees he made friends in the\nneighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter of a local brewer,\nby whom he now has two children. he had no occupation, but was\ninterested in several companies and went into town as a rule in the\nmorning, returning by the 5.14 from cannon street every night. mr.\nst. clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate\nhabits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is\npopular with all who know him. i may add that his whole debts at the\npresent moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to\n88 10s., while he has 220 standing to his credit in the capital and\ncounties bank. there is no reason, therefore, to think that money\ntroubles have been weighing upon his mind.\n\"last monday mr. neville st. clair went into town rather earlier than\nusual, remarking before he started that he had two important\ncommissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a\nbox of bricks. now, by the merest chance, his wife received a\ntelegram upon this same monday, very shortly after his departure, to\nthe effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she had\nbeen expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the aberdeen\nshipping company. now, if you are well up in your london, you will\nknow that the office of the company is in fresno street, which\nbranches out of upper swandam lane, where you found me to-night. mrs.\nst. clair had her lunch, started for the city, did some shopping,\nproceeded to the company's office, got her packet, and found herself\nat exactly 4.35 walking through swandam lane on her way back to the\nstation. have you followed me so far?\"\n\"it is very clear.\"\n\"if you remember, monday was an exceedingly hot day, and mrs. st.\nclair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as\nshe did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself. while\nshe was walking in this way down swandam lane, she suddenly heard an\nejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking\ndown at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a\nsecond-floor window. the window was open, and she distinctly saw his\nface, which she describes as being terribly agitated. he waved his\nhands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so\nsuddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some\nirresistible force from behind. one singular point which struck her\nquick feminine eye was that although he wore some dark coat, such as\nhe had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.\n\"convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the\nsteps--for the house was none other than the opium den in which you\nfound me to-night--and running through the front room she attempted\nto ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. at the foot of the\nstairs, however, she met this lascar scoundrel of whom i have spoken,\nwho thrust her back and, aided by a dane, who acts as assistant\nthere, pushed her out into the street. filled with the most maddening\ndoubts and fears, she rushed down the lane and, by rare good-fortune,\nmet in fresno street a number of constables with an inspector, all on\ntheir way to their beat. the inspector and two men accompanied her\nback, and in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor,\nthey made their way to the room in which mr. st. clair had last been\nseen. there was no sign of him there. in fact, in the whole of that\nfloor there was no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous\naspect, who, it seems, made his home there. both he and the lascar\nstoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the\nafternoon. so determined was their denial that the inspector was\nstaggered, and had almost come to believe that mrs. st. clair had\nbeen deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which\nlay upon the table and tore the lid from it. out there fell a cascade\nof children's bricks. it was the toy which he had promised to bring\nhome.\n\"this discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed,\nmade the inspector realise that the matter was serious. the rooms\nwere carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable\ncrime. the front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led\ninto a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the\nwharves. between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip,\nwhich is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide with at least\nfour and a half feet of water. the bedroom window was a broad one and\nopened from below. on examination traces of blood were to be seen\nupon the windowsill, and several scattered drops were visible upon\nthe wooden floor of the bedroom. thrust away behind a curtain in the\nfront room were all the clothes of mr. neville st. clair, with the\nexception of his coat. his boots, his socks, his hat, and his\nwatch--all were there. there were no signs of violence upon any of\nthese garments, and there were no other traces of mr. neville st.\nclair. out of the window he must apparently have gone for no other\nexit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill\ngave little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the\ntide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy.\n\"and now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated\nin the matter. the lascar was known to be a man of the vilest\nantecedents, but as, by mrs. st. clair's story, he was known to have\nbeen at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her\nhusband's appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more\nthan an accessory to the crime. his defence was one of absolute\nignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings\nof hugh boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way\nfor the presence of the missing gentleman's clothes.\n\"so much for the lascar manager. now for the sinister cripple who\nlives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly\nthe last human being whose eyes rested upon neville st. clair. his\nname is hugh boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to\nevery man who goes much to the city. he is a professional beggar,\nthough in order to avoid the police regulations he pretends to a\nsmall trade in wax vestas. some little distance down threadneedle\nstreet, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked,\na small angle in the wall. here it is that this creature takes his\ndaily seat, cross-legged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap,\nand as he is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends\ninto the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him.\ni have watched the fellow more than once before ever i thought of\nmaking his professional acquaintance, and i have been surprised at\nthe harvest which he has reaped in a short time. his appearance, you\nsee, is so remarkable that no one can pass him without observing him.\na shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar,\nwhich, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper\nlip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which\npresent a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him\nout from amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his\nwit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which\nmay be thrown at him by the passers-by. this is the man whom we now\nlearn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the\nlast man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest.\"\n\"but a cripple!\" said i. \"what could he have done single-handed\nagainst a man in the prime of life?\"\n\"he is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other\nrespects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man. surely\nyour medical experience would tell you, watson, that weakness in one\nlimb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others.\"\n\"pray continue your narrative.\"\n\"mrs. st. clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the\nwindow, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her\npresence could be of no help to them in their investigations.\ninspector barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful\nexamination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw\nany light upon the matter. one mistake had been made in not arresting\nboone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he\nmight have communicated with his friend the lascar, but this fault\nwas soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything\nbeing found which could incriminate him. there were, it is true, some\nblood-stains upon his right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his\nring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the\nbleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not\nlong before, and that the stains which had been observed there came\ndoubtless from the same source. he denied strenuously having ever\nseen mr. neville st. clair and swore that the presence of the clothes\nin his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. as to mrs.\nst. clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the\nwindow, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming.\nhe was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the\ninspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide\nmight afford some fresh clue.\n\"and it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had\nfeared to find. it was neville st. clair's coat, and not neville st.\nclair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. and what do you think\nthey found in the pockets?\"\n\"i cannot imagine.\"\n\"no, i don't think you would guess. every pocket stuffed with pennies\nand half-pennies--421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. it was no wonder\nthat it had not been swept away by the tide. but a human body is a\ndifferent matter. there is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the\nhouse. it seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained\nwhen the stripped body had been sucked away into the river.\"\n\"but i understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.\nwould the body be dressed in a coat alone?\"\n\"no, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. suppose that\nthis man boone had thrust neville st. clair through the window, there\nis no human eye which could have seen the deed. what would he do\nthen? it would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of\nthe tell-tale garments. he would seize the coat, then, and be in the\nact of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim\nand not sink. he has little time, for he has heard the scuffle\ndownstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he\nhas already heard from his lascar confederate that the police are\nhurrying up the street. there is not an instant to be lost. he rushes\nto some secret hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his\nbeggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands\ninto the pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. he throws it\nout, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he\nheard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the\nwindow when the police appeared.\"\n\"it certainly sounds feasible.\"\n\"well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.\nboone, as i have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but\nit could not be shown that there had ever before been anything\nagainst him. he had for years been known as a professional beggar,\nbut his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one.\nthere the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to\nbe solved--what neville st. clair was doing in the opium den, what\nhappened to him when there, where is he now, and what hugh boone had\nto do with his disappearance--are all as far from a solution as ever.\ni confess that i cannot recall any case within my experience which\nlooked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such\ndifficulties.\"\nwhile sherlock holmes had been detailing this singular series of\nevents, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town\nuntil the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled\nalong with a country hedge upon either side of us. just as he\nfinished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a\nfew lights still glimmered in the windows.\n\"we are on the outskirts of lee,\" said my companion. \"we have touched\non three english counties in our short drive, starting in middlesex,\npassing over an angle of surrey, and ending in kent. see that light\namong the trees? that is the cedars, and beside that lamp sits a\nwoman whose anxious ears have already, i have little doubt, caught\nthe clink of our horse's feet.\"\n\"but why are you not conducting the case from baker street?\" i asked.\n\"because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. mrs.\nst. clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may\nrest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend\nand colleague. i hate to meet her, watson, when i have no news of her\nhusband. here we are. whoa, there, whoa!\"\nwe had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own\ngrounds. a stable-boy had run out to the horse's head, and springing\ndown, i followed holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led\nto the house. as we approached, the door flew open, and a little\nblonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light\nmousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck\nand wrists. she stood with her figure outlined against the flood of\nlight, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her\nbody slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and\nparted lips, a standing question.\n\"well?\" she cried, \"well?\" and then, seeing that there were two of\nus, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my\ncompanion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.\n\"no good news?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"no bad?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"thank god for that. but come in. you must be weary, for you have had\na long day.\"\n\"this is my friend, dr. watson. he has been of most vital use to me\nin several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for\nme to bring him out and associate him with this investigation.\"\n\"i am delighted to see you,\" said she, pressing my hand warmly. \"you\nwill, i am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our\narrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly\nupon us.\"\n\"my dear madam,\" said i, \"i am an old campaigner, and if i were not i\ncan very well see that no apology is needed. if i can be of any\nassistance, either to you or to my friend here, i shall be indeed\nhappy.\"\n\"now, mr. sherlock holmes,\" said the lady as we entered a well-lit\ndining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out,\n\"i should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to\nwhich i beg that you will give a plain answer.\"\n\"certainly, madam.\"\n\"do not trouble about my feelings. i am not hysterical, nor given to\nfainting. i simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.\"\n\"upon what point?\"\n\"in your heart of hearts, do you think that neville is alive?\"\nsherlock holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. \"frankly,\nnow!\" she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at\nhim as he leaned back in a basket-chair.\n\"frankly, then, madam, i do not.\"\n\"you think that he is dead?\"\n\"i do.\"\n\"murdered?\"\n\"i don't say that. perhaps.\"\n\"and on what day did he meet his death?\"\n\"on monday.\"\n\"then perhaps, mr. holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it\nis that i have received a letter from him to-day.\"\nsherlock holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanised.\n\"what!\" he roared.\n\"yes, to-day.\" she stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper\nin the air.\n\"may i see it?\"\n\"certainly.\"\nhe snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon\nthe table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. i had left\nmy chair and was gazing at it over his shoulder. the envelope was a\nvery coarse one and was stamped with the gravesend postmark and with\nthe date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was\nconsiderably after midnight.\n\"coarse writing,\" murmured holmes. \"surely this is not your husband's\nwriting, madam.\"\n\"no, but the enclosure is.\"\n\"i perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and\ninquire as to the address.\"\n\"how can you tell that?\"\n\"the name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried\nitself. the rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that\nblotting-paper has been used. if it had been written straight off,\nand then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. this man has\nwritten the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the\naddress, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it. it is,\nof course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.\nlet us now see the letter. ha!  there has been an enclosure here!\"\n\"yes, there was a ring. his signet-ring.\"\n\"and you are sure that this is your husband's hand?\"\n\"one of his hands.\"\n\"one?\"\n\"his hand when he wrote hurriedly. it is very unlike his usual\nwriting, and yet i know it well.\"\n\"dearest do not be frightened. all will come well. there is a huge\nerror which it may take some little time to rectify. wait in\npatience.\n\"neville.\nwritten in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no\nwater-mark. hum! posted to-day in gravesend by a man with a dirty\nthumb. ha! and the flap has been gummed, if i am not very much in\nerror, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. and you have no\ndoubt that it is your husband's hand, madam?\"\n\"none. neville wrote those words.\"\n\"and they were posted to-day at gravesend. well, mrs. st. clair, the\nclouds lighten, though i should not venture to say that the danger is\nover.\"\n\"but he must be alive, mr. holmes.\"\n\"unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. the\nring, after all, proves nothing. it may have been taken from him.\"\n\"no, no; it is, it is his very own writing!\"\n\"very well. it may, however, have been written on monday and only\nposted to-day.\"\n\"that is possible.\"\n\"if so, much may have happened between.\"\n\"oh, you must not discourage me, mr. holmes. i know that all is well\nwith him. there is so keen a sympathy between us that i should know\nif evil came upon him. on the very day that i saw him last he cut\nhimself in the bedroom, and yet i in the dining-room rushed upstairs\ninstantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened. do\nyou think that i would respond to such a trifle and yet be ignorant\nof his death?\"\n\"i have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may\nbe more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. and\nin this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to\ncorroborate your view. but if your husband is alive and able to write\nletters, why should he remain away from you?\"\n\"i cannot imagine. it is unthinkable.\"\n\"and on monday he made no remarks before leaving you?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"and you were surprised to see him in swandam lane?\"\n\"very much so.\"\n\"was the window open?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"then he might have called to you?\"\n\"he might.\"\n\"he only, as i understand, gave an inarticulate cry?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"a call for help, you thought?\"\n\"yes. he waved his hands.\"\n\"but it might have been a cry of surprise. astonishment at the\nunexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?\"\n\"it is possible.\"\n\"and you thought he was pulled back?\"\n\"he disappeared so suddenly.\"\n\"he might have leaped back. you did not see anyone else in the room?\"\n\"no, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the\nlascar was at the foot of the stairs.\"\n\"quite so. your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary\nclothes on?\"\n\"but without his collar or tie. i distinctly saw his bare throat.\"\n\"had he ever spoken of swandam lane?\"\n\"never.\"\n\"had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?\"\n\"never.\"\n\"thank you, mrs. st. clair. those are the principal points about\nwhich i wished to be absolutely clear. we shall now have a little\nsupper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow.\"\na large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our\ndisposal, and i was quickly between the sheets, for i was weary after\nmy night of adventure. sherlock holmes was a man, however, who, when\nhe had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even\nfor a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts,\nlooking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed\nit or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. it was soon\nevident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. he\ntook off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,\nand then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and\ncushions from the sofa and armchairs. with these he constructed a\nsort of eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged,\nwith an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front\nof him. in the dim light of the lamp i saw him sitting there, an old\nbriar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner\nof the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent,\nmotionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline\nfeatures. so he sat as i dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a\nsudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and i found the summer sun\nshining into the apartment. the pipe was still between his lips, the\nsmoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco\nhaze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which i had seen upon\nthe previous night.\n\"awake, watson?\" he asked.\n\"yes.\"\n\"game for a morning drive?\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"then dress. no one is stirring yet, but i know where the stable-boy\nsleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out.\" he chuckled to himself\nas he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the\nsombre thinker of the previous night.\nas i dressed i glanced at my watch. it was no wonder that no one was\nstirring. it was twenty-five minutes past four. i had hardly finished\nwhen holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the\nhorse.\n\"i want to test a little theory of mine,\" said he, pulling on his\nboots. \"i think, watson, that you are now standing in the presence of\none of the most absolute fools in europe. i deserve to be kicked from\nhere to charing cross. but i think i have the key of the affair now.\"\n\"and where is it?\" i asked, smiling.\n\"in the bathroom,\" he answered. \"oh, yes, i am not joking,\" he\ncontinued, seeing my look of incredulity. \"i have just been there,\nand i have taken it out, and i have got it in this gladstone bag.\ncome on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock.\"\nwe made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the\nbright morning sunshine. in the road stood our horse and trap, with\nthe half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. we both sprang in, and\naway we dashed down the london road. a few country carts were\nstirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of\nvillas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a\ndream.\n\"it has been in some points a singular case,\" said holmes, flicking\nthe horse on into a gallop. \"i confess that i have been as blind as a\nmole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at\nall.\"\nin town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from\ntheir windows as we drove through the streets of the surrey side.\npassing down the waterloo bridge road we crossed over the river, and\ndashing up wellington street wheeled sharply to the right and found\nourselves in bow street. sherlock holmes was well known to the force,\nand the two constables at the door saluted him. one of them held the\nhorse's head while the other led us in.\n\"who is on duty?\" asked holmes.\n\"inspector bradstreet, sir.\"\n\"ah, bradstreet, how are you?\" a tall, stout official had come down\nthe stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. \"i\nwish to have a quiet word with you, bradstreet.\" \"certainly, mr.\nholmes. step into my room here.\" it was a small, office-like room,\nwith a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from\nthe wall. the inspector sat down at his desk.\n\"what can i do for you, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i called about that beggarman, boone--the one who was charged with\nbeing concerned in the disappearance of mr. neville st. clair, of\nlee.\"\n\"yes. he was brought up and remanded for further inquiries.\"\n\"so i heard. you have him here?\"\n\"in the cells.\"\n\"is he quiet?\"\n\"oh, he gives no trouble. but he is a dirty scoundrel.\"\n\"dirty?\"\n\"yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is\nas black as a tinker's. well, when once his case has been settled, he\nwill have a regular prison bath; and i think, if you saw him, you\nwould agree with me that he needed it.\"\n\"i should like to see him very much.\"\n\"would you? that is easily done. come this way. you can leave your\nbag.\"\n\"no, i think that i'll take it.\"\n\"very good. come this way, if you please.\" he led us down a passage,\nopened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to\na whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.\n\"the third on the right is his,\" said the inspector. \"here it is!\" he\nquietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced\nthrough.\n\"he is asleep,\" said he. \"you can see him very well.\"\nwe both put our eyes to the grating. the prisoner lay with his face\ntowards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily. he\nwas a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a\ncoloured shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat. he\nwas, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which\ncovered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness. a broad\nwheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by\nits contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that\nthree teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl. a shock of very bright\nred hair grew low over his eyes and forehead.\n\"he's a beauty, isn't he?\" said the inspector.\n\"he certainly needs a wash,\" remarked holmes. \"i had an idea that he\nmight, and i took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.\" he\nopened the gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my\nastonishment, a very large bath-sponge.\n\"he! he! you are a funny one,\" chuckled the inspector.\n\"now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very\nquietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.\"\n\"well, i don't know why not,\" said the inspector. \"he doesn't look a\ncredit to the bow street cells, does he?\" he slipped his key into the\nlock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. the sleeper half\nturned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. holmes\nstooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it\ntwice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face.\n\"let me introduce you,\" he shouted, \"to mr. neville st. clair, of\nlee, in the county of kent.\"\nnever in my life have i seen such a sight. the man's face peeled off\nunder the sponge like the bark from a tree. gone was the coarse brown\ntint! gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and\nthe twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! a\ntwitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in\nhis bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and\nsmooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy\nbewilderment. then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a\nscream and threw himself down with his face to the pillow.\n\"great heavens!\" cried the inspector, \"it is, indeed, the missing\nman. i know him from the photograph.\"\nthe prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons\nhimself to his destiny. \"be it so,\" said he. \"and pray what am i\ncharged with?\"\n\"with making away with mr. neville st.--oh, come, you can't be\ncharged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of\nit,\" said the inspector with a grin. \"well, i have been twenty-seven\nyears in the force, but this really takes the cake.\"\n\"if i am mr. neville st. clair, then it is obvious that no crime has\nbeen committed, and that, therefore, i am illegally detained.\"\n\"no crime, but a very great error has been committed,\" said holmes.\n\"you would have done better to have trusted your wife.\"\n\"it was not the wife; it was the children,\" groaned the prisoner.\n\"god help me, i would not have them ashamed of their father. my god!\nwhat an exposure! what can i do?\"\nsherlock holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him\nkindly on the shoulder.\n\"if you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,\" said he,\n\"of course you can hardly avoid publicity. on the other hand, if you\nconvince the police authorities that there is no possible case\nagainst you, i do not know that there is any reason that the details\nshould find their way into the papers. inspector bradstreet would, i\nam sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us and submit\nit to the proper authorities. the case would then never go into court\nat all.\"\n\"god bless you!\" cried the prisoner passionately. \"i would have\nendured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my\nmiserable secret as a family blot to my children.\n\"you are the first who have ever heard my story. my father was a\nschoolmaster in chesterfield, where i received an excellent\neducation. i travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally\nbecame a reporter on an evening paper in london. one day my editor\nwished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis,\nand i volunteered to supply them. there was the point from which all\nmy adventures started. it was only by trying begging as an amateur\nthat i could get the facts upon which to base my articles. when an\nactor i had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had\nbeen famous in the green-room for my skill. i took advantage now of\nmy attainments. i painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as\npossible i made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist\nby the aid of a small slip of flesh-coloured plaster. then with a red\nhead of hair, and an appropriate dress, i took my station in the\nbusiness part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as\na beggar. for seven hours i plied my trade, and when i returned home\nin the evening i found to my surprise that i had received no less\nthan 26s. 4d.\n\"i wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until,\nsome time later, i backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served\nupon me for 25. i was at my wit's end where to get the money, but a\nsudden idea came to me. i begged a fortnight's grace from the\ncreditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time\nin begging in the city under my disguise. in ten days i had the money\nand had paid the debt.\n\"well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work\nat 2 a week when i knew that i could earn as much in a day by\nsmearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground,\nand sitting still. it was a long fight between my pride and the\nmoney, but the dollars won at last, and i threw up reporting and sat\nday after day in the corner which i had first chosen, inspiring pity\nby my ghastly face and filling my pockets with coppers. only one man\nknew my secret. he was the keeper of a low den in which i used to\nlodge in swandam lane, where i could every morning emerge as a\nsqualid beggar and in the evenings transform myself into a\nwell-dressed man about town. this fellow, a lascar, was well paid by\nme for his rooms, so that i knew that my secret was safe in his\npossession.\n\"well, very soon i found that i was saving considerable sums of\nmoney. i do not mean that any beggar in the streets of london could\nearn 700 a year--which is less than my average takings--but i had\nexceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a\nfacility of repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a\nrecognised character in the city. all day a stream of pennies, varied\nby silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which i\nfailed to take 2.\n\"as i grew richer i grew more ambitious, took a house in the country,\nand eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my\nreal occupation. my dear wife knew that i had business in the city.\nshe little knew what.\n\"last monday i had finished for the day and was dressing in my room\nabove the opium den when i looked out of my window and saw, to my\nhorror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street,\nwith her eyes fixed full upon me. i gave a cry of surprise, threw up\nmy arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the lascar,\nentreated him to prevent anyone from coming up to me. i heard her\nvoice downstairs, but i knew that she could not ascend. swiftly i\nthrew off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my\npigments and wig. even a wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a\ndisguise. but then it occurred to me that there might be a search in\nthe room, and that the clothes might betray me. i threw open the\nwindow, reopening by my violence a small cut which i had inflicted\nupon myself in the bedroom that morning. then i seized my coat, which\nwas weighted by the coppers which i had just transferred to it from\nthe leather bag in which i carried my takings. i hurled it out of the\nwindow, and it disappeared into the thames. the other clothes would\nhave followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up\nthe stair, and a few minutes after i found, rather, i confess, to my\nrelief, that instead of being identified as mr. neville st. clair, i\nwas arrested as his murderer.\n\"i do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. i was\ndetermined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my\npreference for a dirty face. knowing that my wife would be terribly\nanxious, i slipped off my ring and confided it to the lascar at a\nmoment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried\nscrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.\"\n\"that note only reached her yesterday,\" said holmes.\n\"good god! what a week she must have spent!\"\n\"the police have watched this lascar,\" said inspector bradstreet,\n\"and i can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a\nletter unobserved. probably he handed it to some sailor customer of\nhis, who forgot all about it for some days.\"\n\"that was it,\" said holmes, nodding approvingly; \"i have no doubt of\nit. but have you never been prosecuted for begging?\"\n\"many times; but what was a fine to me?\"\n\"it must stop here, however,\" said bradstreet. \"if the police are to\nhush this thing up, there must be no more of hugh boone.\"\n\"i have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.\"\n\"in that case i think that it is probable that no further steps may\nbe taken. but if you are found again, then all must come out. i am\nsure, mr. holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having\ncleared the matter up. i wish i knew how you reach your results.\"\n\"i reached this one,\" said my friend, \"by sitting upon five pillows\nand consuming an ounce of shag. i think, watson, that if we drive to\nbaker street we shall just be in time for breakfast.\"\nthe adventure of the blue carbuncle\ni had called upon my friend sherlock holmes upon the second morning\nafter christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of\nthe season. he was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown,\na pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled\nmorning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. beside the\ncouch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very\nseedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and\ncracked in several places. a lens and a forceps lying upon the seat\nof the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner\nfor the purpose of examination.\n\"you are engaged,\" said i; \"perhaps i interrupt you.\"\n\"not at all. i am glad to have a friend with whom i can discuss my\nresults. the matter is a perfectly trivial one\"--he jerked his thumb\nin the direction of the old hat--\"but there are points in connection\nwith it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of\ninstruction.\"\ni seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his\ncrackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were\nthick with the ice crystals. \"i suppose,\" i remarked, \"that, homely\nas it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it--that\nit is the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery\nand the punishment of some crime.\"\n\"no, no. no crime,\" said sherlock holmes, laughing. \"only one of\nthose whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four\nmillion human beings all jostling each other within the space of a\nfew square miles. amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of\nhumanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to\ntake place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be\nstriking and bizarre without being criminal. we have already had\nexperience of such.\"\n\"so much so,\" i remarked, \"that of the last six cases which i have\nadded to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.\"\n\"precisely. you allude to my attempt to recover the irene adler\npapers, to the singular case of miss mary sutherland, and to the\nadventure of the man with the twisted lip. well, i have no doubt that\nthis small matter will fall into the same innocent category. you know\npeterson, the commissionaire?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"it is to him that this trophy belongs.\"\n\"it is his hat.\"\n\"no, no, he found it. its owner is unknown. i beg that you will look\nupon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem.\nand, first, as to how it came here. it arrived upon christmas\nmorning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, i have no doubt,\nroasting at this moment in front of peterson's fire. the facts are\nthese: about four o'clock on christmas morning, peterson, who, as you\nknow, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small\njollification and was making his way homeward down tottenham court\nroad. in front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking\nwith a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his\nshoulder. as he reached the corner of goodge street, a row broke out\nbetween this stranger and a little knot of roughs. one of the latter\nknocked off the man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend\nhimself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window\nbehind him. peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from\nhis assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and\nseeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him,\ndropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth\nof small streets which lie at the back of tottenham court road. the\nroughs had also fled at the appearance of peterson, so that he was\nleft in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of\nvictory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable\nchristmas goose.\"\n\"which surely he restored to their owner?\"\n\"my dear fellow, there lies the problem. it is true that 'for mrs.\nhenry baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to the\nbird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'h. b.' are\nlegible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are some thousands\nof bakers, and some hundreds of henry bakers in this city of ours, it\nis not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.\"\n\"what, then, did peterson do?\"\n\"he brought round both hat and goose to me on christmas morning,\nknowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. the\ngoose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in\nspite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten\nwithout unnecessary delay. its finder has carried it off, therefore,\nto fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while i continue to retain\nthe hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his christmas dinner.\"\n\"did he not advertise?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"then, what clue could you have as to his identity?\"\n\"only as much as we can deduce.\"\n\"from his hat?\"\n\"precisely.\"\n\"but you are joking. what can you gather from this old battered\nfelt?\"\n\"here is my lens. you know my methods. what can you gather yourself\nas to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?\"\ni took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather\nruefully. it was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape,\nhard and much the worse for wear. the lining had been of red silk,\nbut was a good deal discoloured. there was no maker's name; but, as\nholmes had remarked, the initials \"h. b.\" were scrawled upon one\nside. it was pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the elastic\nwas missing. for the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and\nspotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some\nattempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.\n\"i can see nothing,\" said i, handing it back to my friend.\n\"on the contrary, watson, you can see everything. you fail, however,\nto reason from what you see. you are too timid in drawing your\ninferences.\"\n\"then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?\"\nhe picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion\nwhich was characteristic of him. \"it is perhaps less suggestive than\nit might have been,\" he remarked, \"and yet there are a few inferences\nwhich are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a\nstrong balance of probability. that the man was highly intellectual\nis of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly\nwell-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen\nupon evil days. he had foresight, but has less now than formerly,\npointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline\nof his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably\ndrink, at work upon him. this may account also for the obvious fact\nthat his wife has ceased to love him.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"he has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,\" he\ncontinued, disregarding my remonstrance. \"he is a man who leads a\nsedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is\nmiddle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last\nfew days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. these are the more\npatent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. also, by the way,\nthat it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his\nhouse.\"\n\"you are certainly joking, holmes.\"\n\"not in the least. is it possible that even now, when i give you\nthese results, you are unable to see how they are attained?\"\n\"i have no doubt that i am very stupid, but i must confess that i am\nunable to follow you. for example, how did you deduce that this man\nwas intellectual?\"\nfor answer holmes clapped the hat upon his head. it came right over\nthe forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. \"it is a\nquestion of cubic capacity,\" said he; \"a man with so large a brain\nmust have something in it.\"\n\"the decline of his fortunes, then?\"\n\"this hat is three years old. these flat brims curled at the edge\ncame in then. it is a hat of the very best quality. look at the band\nof ribbed silk and the excellent lining. if this man could afford to\nbuy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since,\nthen he has assuredly gone down in the world.\"\n\"well, that is clear enough, certainly. but how about the foresight\nand the moral retrogression?\"\nsherlock holmes laughed. \"here is the foresight,\" said he putting his\nfinger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer.  \"they are\nnever sold upon hats. if this man ordered one, it is a sign of a\ncertain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take\nthis precaution against the wind. but since we see that he has broken\nthe elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he\nhas less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a\nweakening nature. on the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal\nsome of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is\na sign that he has not entirely lost his self-respect.\"\n\"your reasoning is certainly plausible.\"\n\"the further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is\ngrizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream,\nare all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of\nthe lining. the lens discloses a large number of hair-ends, clean cut\nby the scissors of the barber. they all appear to be adhesive, and\nthere is a distinct odour of lime-cream. this dust, you will observe,\nis not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust\nof the house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the\ntime, while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive\nthat the wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be\nin the best of training.\"\n\"but his wife--you said that she had ceased to love him.\"\n\"this hat has not been brushed for weeks. when i see you, my dear\nwatson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when\nyour wife allows you to go out in such a state, i shall fear that you\nalso have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection.\"\n\"but he might be a bachelor.\"\n\"nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.\nremember the card upon the bird's leg.\"\n\"you have an answer to everything. but how on earth do you deduce\nthat the gas is not laid on in his house?\"\n\"one tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when i see\nno less than five, i think that there can be little doubt that the\nindividual must be brought into frequent contact with burning\ntallow--walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and\na guttering candle in the other. anyhow, he never got tallow-stains\nfrom a gas-jet. are you satisfied?\"\n\"well, it is very ingenious,\" said i, laughing; \"but since, as you\nsaid just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done\nsave the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of\nenergy.\"\nsherlock holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew\nopen, and peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment\nwith flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with\nastonishment.\n\"the goose, mr. holmes! the goose, sir!\" he gasped.\n\"eh? what of it, then? has it returned to life and flapped off\nthrough the kitchen window?\" holmes twisted himself round upon the\nsofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face.\n\"see here, sir! see what my wife found in its crop!\" he held out his\nhand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly\nscintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of\nsuch purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in\nthe dark hollow of his hand.\nsherlock holmes sat up with a whistle. \"by jove, peterson!\" said he,\n\"this is treasure trove indeed. i suppose you know what you have\ngot?\"\n\"a diamond, sir? a precious stone. it cuts into glass as though it\nwere putty.\"\n\"it's more than a precious stone. it is the precious stone.\"\n\"not the countess of morcar's blue carbuncle!\" i ejaculated.\n\"precisely so. i ought to know its size and shape, seeing that i have\nread the advertisement about it in the times every day lately. it is\nabsolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the\nreward offered of 1000 is certainly not within a twentieth part of\nthe market price.\"\n\"a thousand pounds! great lord of mercy!\" the commissionaire plumped\ndown into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.\n\"that is the reward, and i have reason to know that there are\nsentimental considerations in the background which would induce the\ncountess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the\ngem.\"\n\"it was lost, if i remember aright, at the hotel cosmopolitan,\" i\nremarked.\n\"precisely so, on december 22nd, just five days ago. john horner, a\nplumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's\njewel-case. the evidence against him was so strong that the case has\nbeen referred to the assizes. i have some account of the matter here,\ni believe.\" he rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates,\nuntil at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the\nfollowing paragraph:\n\"hotel cosmopolitan jewel robbery. john horner, 26, plumber, was\nbrought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst. abstracted\nfrom the jewel-case of the countess of morcar the valuable gem known\nas the blue carbuncle. james ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel,\ngave his evidence to the effect that he had shown horner up to the\ndressing-room of the countess of morcar upon the day of the robbery\nin order that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which was\nloose. he had remained with horner some little time, but had finally\nbeen called away. on returning, he found that horner had disappeared,\nthat the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco\ncasket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the countess was\naccustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the\ndressing-table. ryder instantly gave the alarm, and horner was\narrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found either\nupon his person or in his rooms. catherine cusack, maid to the\ncountess, deposed to having heard ryder's cry of dismay on\ndiscovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room, where\nshe found matters as described by the last witness. inspector\nbradstreet, b division, gave evidence as to the arrest of horner, who\nstruggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest\nterms. evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been\ngiven against the prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily\nwith the offence, but referred it to the assizes. horner, who had\nshown signs of intense emotion during the proceedings, fainted away\nat the conclusion and was carried out of court.\"\n\"hum! so much for the police-court,\" said holmes thoughtfully,\ntossing aside the paper. \"the question for us now to solve is the\nsequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the\ncrop of a goose in tottenham court road at the other. you see,\nwatson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more\nimportant and less innocent aspect. here is the stone; the stone came\nfrom the goose, and the goose came from mr. henry baker, the\ngentleman with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with\nwhich i have bored you. so now we must set ourselves very seriously\nto finding this gentleman and ascertaining what part he has played in\nthis little mystery. to do this, we must try the simplest means\nfirst, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the\nevening papers. if this fail, i shall have recourse to other\nmethods.\"\n\"what will you say?\"\n\"give me a pencil and that slip of paper. now, then: 'found at the\ncorner of goodge street, a goose and a black felt hat. mr. henry\nbaker can have the same by applying at 6.30 this evening at 221b,\nbaker street.' that is clear and concise.\"\n\"very. but will he see it?\"\n\"well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man,\nthe loss was a heavy one. he was clearly so scared by his mischance\nin breaking the window and by the approach of peterson that he\nthought of nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly\nregretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird. then, again,\nthe introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone\nwho knows him will direct his attention to it. here you are,\npeterson, run down to the advertising agency and have this put in the\nevening papers.\"\n\"in which, sir?\"\n\"oh, in the globe, star, pall mall, st. james's, evening news,\nstandard, echo, and any others that occur to you.\"\n\"very well, sir. and this stone?\"\n\"ah, yes, i shall keep the stone. thank you. and, i say, peterson,\njust buy a goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we\nmust have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which\nyour family is now devouring.\"\nwhen the commissionaire had gone, holmes took up the stone and held\nit against the light. \"it's a bonny thing,\" said he. \"just see how it\nglints and sparkles. of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime.\nevery good stone is. they are the devil's pet baits. in the larger\nand older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. this stone\nis not yet twenty years old. it was found in the banks of the amoy\nriver in southern china and is remarkable in having every\ncharacteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade\ninstead of ruby red. in spite of its youth, it has already a sinister\nhistory. there have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide,\nand several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain\nweight of crystallised charcoal. who would think that so pretty a toy\nwould be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? i'll lock it up in\nmy strong box now and drop a line to the countess to say that we have\nit.\"\n\"do you think that this man horner is innocent?\"\n\"i cannot tell.\"\n\"well, then, do you imagine that this other one, henry baker, had\nanything to do with the matter?\"\n\"it is, i think, much more likely that henry baker is an absolutely\ninnocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was\nof considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold. that,\nhowever, i shall determine by a very simple test if we have an answer\nto our advertisement.\"\n\"and you can do nothing until then?\"\n\"nothing.\"\n\"in that case i shall continue my professional round. but i shall\ncome back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for i should\nlike to see the solution of so tangled a business.\"\n\"very glad to see you. i dine at seven. there is a woodcock, i\nbelieve. by the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps i ought\nto ask mrs. hudson to examine its crop.\"\ni had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past six\nwhen i found myself in baker street once more. as i approached the\nhouse i saw a tall man in a scotch bonnet with a coat which was\nbuttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the bright semicircle\nwhich was thrown from the fanlight. just as i arrived the door was\nopened, and we were shown up together to holmes' room.\n\"mr. henry baker, i believe,\" said he, rising from his armchair and\ngreeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so\nreadily assume. \"pray take this chair by the fire, mr. baker. it is a\ncold night, and i observe that your circulation is more adapted for\nsummer than for winter. ah, watson, you have just come at the right\ntime. is that your hat, mr. baker?\"\n\"yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat.\"\nhe was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a\nbroad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled\nbrown. a touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his\nextended hand, recalled holmes' surmise as to his habits. his rusty\nblack frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar\nturned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a\nsign of cuff or shirt. he spoke in a slow staccato fashion, choosing\nhis words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of\nlearning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.\n\"we have retained these things for some days,\" said holmes, \"because\nwe expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address. i\nam at a loss to know now why you did not advertise.\"\nour visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. \"shillings have not been\nso plentiful with me as they once were,\" he remarked. \"i had no doubt\nthat the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off both my hat\nand the bird. i did not care to spend more money in a hopeless\nattempt at recovering them.\"\n\"very naturally. by the way, about the bird, we were compelled to eat\nit.\"\n\"to eat it!\" our visitor half rose from his chair in his excitement.\n\"yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. but\ni presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about\nthe same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally\nwell?\"\n\"oh, certainly, certainly,\" answered mr. baker with a sigh of relief.\n\"of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your\nown bird, so if you wish--\"\nthe man burst into a hearty laugh. \"they might be useful to me as\nrelics of my adventure,\" said he, \"but beyond that i can hardly see\nwhat use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are going to be\nto me. no, sir, i think that, with your permission, i will confine my\nattentions to the excellent bird which i perceive upon the\nsideboard.\"\nsherlock holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug of\nhis shoulders.\n\"there is your hat, then, and there your bird,\" said he. \"by the way,\nwould it bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? i am\nsomewhat of a fowl fancier, and i have seldom seen a better grown\ngoose.\"\n\"certainly, sir,\" said baker, who had risen and tucked his newly\ngained property under his arm. \"there are a few of us who frequent\nthe alpha inn, near the museum--we are to be found in the museum\nitself during the day, you understand. this year our good host,\nwindigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, on\nconsideration of some few pence every week, we were each to receive a\nbird at christmas. my pence were duly paid, and the rest is familiar\nto you. i am much indebted to you, sir, for a scotch bonnet is fitted\nneither to my years nor my gravity.\" with a comical pomposity of\nmanner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way.\n\"so much for mr. henry baker,\" said holmes when he had closed the\ndoor behind him. \"it is quite certain that he knows nothing whatever\nabout the matter. are you hungry, watson?\"\n\"not particularly.\"\n\"then i suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow up\nthis clue while it is still hot.\"\n\"by all means.\"\nit was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped cravats\nabout our throats. outside, the stars were shining coldly in a\ncloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out into smoke\nlike so many pistol shots. our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly\nas we swung through the doctors' quarter, wimpole street, harley\nstreet, and so through wigmore street into oxford street. in a\nquarter of an hour we were in bloomsbury at the alpha inn, which is a\nsmall public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs\ndown into holborn. holmes pushed open the door of the private bar and\nordered two glasses of beer from the ruddy-faced, white-aproned\nlandlord.\n\"your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,\" said\nhe.\n\"my geese!\" the man seemed surprised.\n\"yes. i was speaking only half an hour ago to mr. henry baker, who\nwas a member of your goose club.\"\n\"ah! yes, i see. but you see, sir, them's not our geese.\"\n\"indeed! whose, then?\"\n\"well, i got the two dozen from a salesman in covent garden.\"\n\"indeed? i know some of them. which was it?\"\n\"breckinridge is his name.\"\n\"ah! i don't know him. well, here's your good health landlord, and\nprosperity to your house. good-night.\"\n\"now for mr. breckinridge,\" he continued, buttoning up his coat as we\ncame out into the frosty air. \"remember, watson that though we have\nso homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the\nother a man who will certainly get seven years' penal servitude\nunless we can establish his innocence. it is possible that our\ninquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we have a line\nof investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a\nsingular chance has placed in our hands. let us follow it out to the\nbitter end. faces to the south, then, and quick march!\"\nwe passed across holborn, down endell street, and so through a zigzag\nof slums to covent garden market. one of the largest stalls bore the\nname of breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor a horsey-looking\nman, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers was helping a boy to\nput up the shutters.\n\"good-evening. it's a cold night,\" said holmes.\nthe salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my companion.\n\"sold out of geese, i see,\" continued holmes, pointing at the bare\nslabs of marble.\n\"let you have five hundred to-morrow morning.\"\n\"that's no good.\"\n\"well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare.\"\n\"ah, but i was recommended to you.\"\n\"who by?\"\n\"the landlord of the alpha.\"\n\"oh, yes; i sent him a couple of dozen.\"\n\"fine birds they were, too. now where did you get them from?\"\nto my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the\nsalesman.\n\"now, then, mister,\" said he, with his head cocked and his arms\nakimbo, \"what are you driving at? let's have it straight, now.\"\n\"it is straight enough. i should like to know who sold you the geese\nwhich you supplied to the alpha.\"\n\"well then, i shan't tell you. so now!\"\n\"oh, it is a matter of no importance; but i don't know why you should\nbe so warm over such a trifle.\"\n\"warm! you'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as i am. when\ni pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the\nbusiness; but it's 'where are the geese?' and 'who did you sell the\ngeese to?' and 'what will you take for the geese?' one would think\nthey were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made\nover them.\"\n\"well, i have no connection with any other people who have been\nmaking inquiries,\" said holmes carelessly. \"if you won't tell us the\nbet is off, that is all. but i'm always ready to back my opinion on a\nmatter of fowls, and i have a fiver on it that the bird i ate is\ncountry bred.\"\n\"well, then, you've lost your fiver, for it's town bred,\" snapped the\nsalesman.\n\"it's nothing of the kind.\"\n\"i say it is.\"\n\"i don't believe it.\"\n\"d'you think you know more about fowls than i, who have handled them\never since i was a nipper? i tell you, all those birds that went to\nthe alpha were town bred.\"\n\"you'll never persuade me to believe that.\"\n\"will you bet, then?\"\n\"it's merely taking your money, for i know that i am right. but i'll\nhave a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate.\"\nthe salesman chuckled grimly. \"bring me the books, bill,\" said he.\nthe small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great\ngreasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.\n\"now then, mr. cocksure,\" said the salesman, \"i thought that i was\nout of geese, but before i finish you'll find that there is still one\nleft in my shop. you see this little book?\"\n\"well?\"\n\"that's the list of the folk from whom i buy. d'you see? well, then,\nhere on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their\nnames are where their accounts are in the big ledger. now, then! you\nsee this other page in red ink? well, that is a list of my town\nsuppliers. now, look at that third name. just read it out to me.\"\n\"mrs. oakshott, 117, brixton road--249,\" read holmes.\n\"quite so. now turn that up in the ledger.\"\nholmes turned to the page indicated. \"here you are, 'mrs. oakshott,\n117, brixton road, egg and poultry supplier.'\"\n\"now, then, what's the last entry?\"\n\"'december 22nd. twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.'\"\n\"quite so. there you are. and underneath?\"\n\"'sold to mr. windigate of the alpha, at 12s.'\"\n\"what have you to say now?\"\nsherlock holmes looked deeply chagrined. he drew a sovereign from his\npocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of\na man whose disgust is too deep for words. a few yards off he stopped\nunder a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which\nwas peculiar to him.\n\"when you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'pink 'un'\nprotruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,\" said\nhe. \"i daresay that if i had put 100 down in front of him, that man\nwould not have given me such complete information as was drawn from\nhim by the idea that he was doing me on a wager. well, watson, we\nare, i fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which\nremains to be determined is whether we should go on to this mrs.\noakshott to-night, or whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. it\nis clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others\nbesides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and i should--\"\nhis remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out\nfrom the stall which we had just left. turning round we saw a little\nrat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light\nwhich was thrown by the swinging lamp, while breckinridge, the\nsalesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists\nfiercely at the cringing figure.\n\"i've had enough of you and your geese,\" he shouted. \"i wish you were\nall at the devil together. if you come pestering me any more with\nyour silly talk i'll set the dog at you. you bring mrs. oakshott here\nand i'll answer her, but what have you to do with it? did i buy the\ngeese off you?\"\n\"no; but one of them was mine all the same,\" whined the little man.\n\"well, then, ask mrs. oakshott for it.\"\n\"she told me to ask you.\"\n\"well, you can ask the king of proosia, for all i care. i've had\nenough of it. get out of this!\" he rushed fiercely forward, and the\ninquirer flitted away into the darkness.\n\"ha! this may save us a visit to brixton road,\" whispered holmes.\n\"come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow.\"\nstriding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the\nflaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and\ntouched him upon the shoulder. he sprang round, and i could see in\nthe gas-light that every vestige of colour had been driven from his\nface.\n\"who are you, then? what do you want?\" he asked in a quavering voice.\n\"you will excuse me,\" said holmes blandly, \"but i could not help\noverhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. i\nthink that i could be of assistance to you.\"\n\"you? who are you? how could you know anything of the matter?\"\n\"my name is sherlock holmes. it is my business to know what other\npeople don't know.\"\n\"but you can know nothing of this?\"\n\"excuse me, i know everything of it. you are endeavouring to trace\nsome geese which were sold by mrs. oakshott, of brixton road, to a\nsalesman named breckinridge, by him in turn to mr. windigate, of the\nalpha, and by him to his club, of which mr. henry baker is a member.\"\n\"oh, sir, you are the very man whom i have longed to meet,\" cried the\nlittle fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. \"i can\nhardly explain to you how interested i am in this matter.\"\nsherlock holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. \"in that\ncase we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this\nwind-swept market-place,\" said he. \"but pray tell me, before we go\nfarther, who it is that i have the pleasure of assisting.\"\nthe man hesitated for an instant. \"my name is john robinson,\" he\nanswered with a sidelong glance.\n\"no, no; the real name,\" said holmes sweetly. \"it is always awkward\ndoing business with an alias.\"\na flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. \"well then,\" said\nhe, \"my real name is james ryder.\"\n\"precisely so. head attendant at the hotel cosmopolitan. pray step\ninto the cab, and i shall soon be able to tell you everything which\nyou would wish to know.\"\nthe little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with\nhalf-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he\nis on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. then he stepped\ninto the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sitting-room at\nbaker street. nothing had been said during our drive, but the high,\nthin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and\nunclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.\n\"here we are!\" said holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. \"the\nfire looks very seasonable in this weather. you look cold, mr. ryder.\npray take the basket-chair. i will just put on my slippers before we\nsettle this little matter of yours. now, then! you want to know what\nbecame of those geese?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"or rather, i fancy, of that goose. it was one bird, i imagine in\nwhich you were interested--white, with a black bar across the tail.\"\nryder quivered with emotion. \"oh, sir,\" he cried, \"can you tell me\nwhere it went to?\"\n\"it came here.\"\n\"here?\"\n\"yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. i don't wonder that you\nshould take an interest in it. it laid an egg after it was dead--the\nbonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. i have it\nhere in my museum.\"\nour visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with\nhis right hand. holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up the blue\ncarbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant,\nmany-pointed radiance. ryder stood glaring with a drawn face,\nuncertain whether to claim or to disown it.\n\"the game's up, ryder,\" said holmes quietly. \"hold up, man, or you'll\nbe into the fire! give him an arm back into his chair, watson. he's\nnot got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity. give him a\ndash of brandy. so! now he looks a little more human. what a shrimp\nit is, to be sure!\"\nfor a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy\nbrought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with\nfrightened eyes at his accuser.\n\"i have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which i\ncould possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me.\nstill, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case\ncomplete. you had heard, ryder, of this blue stone of the countess of\nmorcar's?\"\n\"it was catherine cusack who told me of it,\" said he in a crackling\nvoice.\n\"i see--her ladyship's waiting-maid. well, the temptation of sudden\nwealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for\nbetter men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in the means\nyou used. it seems to me, ryder, that there is the making of a very\npretty villain in you. you knew that this man horner, the plumber,\nhad been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion\nwould rest the more readily upon him. what did you do, then? you made\nsome small job in my lady's room--you and your confederate\ncusack--and you managed that he should be the man sent for. then,\nwhen he had left, you rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and\nhad this unfortunate man arrested. you then--\"\nryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my\ncompanion's knees. \"for god's sake, have mercy!\" he shrieked. \"think\nof my father! of my mother! it would break their hearts. i never went\nwrong before! i never will again. i swear it. i'll swear it on a\nbible. oh, don't bring it into court! for christ's sake, don't!\"\n\"get back into your chair!\" said holmes sternly. \"it is very well to\ncringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor\nhorner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.\"\n\"i will fly, mr. holmes. i will leave the country, sir. then the\ncharge against him will break down.\"\n\"hum! we will talk about that. and now let us hear a true account of\nthe next act. how came the stone into the goose, and how came the\ngoose into the open market? tell us the truth, for there lies your\nonly hope of safety.\"\nryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. \"i will tell you it\njust as it happened, sir,\" said he. \"when horner had been arrested,\nit seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the\nstone at once, for i did not know at what moment the police might not\ntake it into their heads to search me and my room. there was no place\nabout the hotel where it would be safe. i went out, as if on some\ncommission, and i made for my sister's house. she had married a man\nnamed oakshott, and lived in brixton road, where she fattened fowls\nfor the market. all the way there every man i met seemed to me to be\na policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night,\nthe sweat was pouring down my face before i came to the brixton road.\nmy sister asked me what was the matter, and why i was so pale; but i\ntold her that i had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel.\nthen i went into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it\nwould be best to do.\n\"i had a friend once called maudsley, who went to the bad, and has\njust been serving his time in pentonville. one day he had met me, and\nfell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid\nof what they stole. i knew that he would be true to me, for i knew\none or two things about him; so i made up my mind to go right on to\nkilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. he would\nshow me how to turn the stone into money. but how to get to him in\nsafety? i thought of the agonies i had gone through in coming from\nthe hotel. i might at any moment be seized and searched, and there\nwould be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. i was leaning against the\nwall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about\nround my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me\nhow i could beat the best detective that ever lived.\n\"my sister had told me some weeks before that i might have the pick\nof her geese for a christmas present, and i knew that she was always\nas good as her word. i would take my goose now, and in it i would\ncarry my stone to kilburn. there was a little shed in the yard, and\nbehind this i drove one of the birds--a fine big one, white, with a\nbarred tail. i caught it, and prying its bill open, i thrust the\nstone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. the bird gave\na gulp, and i felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its\ncrop. but the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister\nto know what was the matter. as i turned to speak to her the brute\nbroke loose and fluttered off among the others.\n\"'whatever were you doing with that bird, jem?' says she.\n\"'well,' said i, 'you said you'd give me one for christmas, and i was\nfeeling which was the fattest.'\n\"'oh,' says she, 'we've set yours aside for you--jem's bird, we call\nit. it's the big white one over yonder. there's twenty-six of them,\nwhich makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the\nmarket.'\n\"'thank you, maggie,' says i; 'but if it is all the same to you, i'd\nrather have that one i was handling just now.'\n\"'the other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we\nfattened it expressly for you.'\n\"'never mind. i'll have the other, and i'll take it now,' said i.\n\"'oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'which is it you\nwant, then?'\n\"'that white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the\nflock.'\n\"'oh, very well. kill it and take it with you.'\n\"well, i did what she said, mr. holmes, and i carried the bird all\nthe way to kilburn. i told my pal what i had done, for he was a man\nthat it was easy to tell a thing like that to. he laughed until he\nchoked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. my heart turned to\nwater, for there was no sign of the stone, and i knew that some\nterrible mistake had occurred. i left the bird, rushed back to my\nsister's, and hurried into the back yard. there was not a bird to be\nseen there.\n\"'where are they all, maggie?' i cried.\n\"'gone to the dealer's, jem.'\n\"'which dealer's?'\n\"'breckinridge, of covent garden.'\n\"'but was there another with a barred tail?' i asked, 'the same as\nthe one i chose?'\n\"'yes, jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and i could never tell\nthem apart.'\n\"well, then, of course i saw it all, and i ran off as hard as my feet\nwould carry me to this man breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at\nonce, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone.\nyou heard him yourselves to-night. well, he has always answered me\nlike that. my sister thinks that i am going mad. sometimes i think\nthat i am myself. and now--and now i am myself a branded thief,\nwithout ever having touched the wealth for which i sold my character.\ngod help me! god help me!\" he burst into convulsive sobbing, with his\nface buried in his hands.\nthere was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and by\nthe measured tapping of sherlock holmes' finger-tips upon the edge of\nthe table. then my friend rose and threw open the door.\n\"get out!\" said he.\n\"what, sir! oh, heaven bless you!\"\n\"no more words. get out!\"\nand no more words were needed. there was a rush, a clatter upon the\nstairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls\nfrom the street.\n\"after all, watson,\" said holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay\npipe, \"i am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.\nif horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow\nwill not appear against him, and the case must collapse. i suppose\nthat i am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that i am\nsaving a soul. this fellow will not go wrong again; he is too\nterribly frightened. send him to jail now, and you make him a\njail-bird for life. besides, it is the season of forgiveness. chance\nhas put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its\nsolution is its own reward. if you will have the goodness to touch\nthe bell, doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also\na bird will be the chief feature.\"\nthe adventure of the speckled band\non glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which i have\nduring the last eight years studied the methods of my friend sherlock\nholmes, i find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely\nstrange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the\nlove of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to\nassociate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards\nthe unusual, and even the fantastic. of all these varied cases,\nhowever, i cannot recall any which presented more singular features\nthan that which was associated with the well-known surrey family of\nthe roylotts of stoke moran. the events in question occurred in the\nearly days of my association with holmes, when we were sharing rooms\nas bachelors in baker street. it is possible that i might have placed\nthem upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the\ntime, from which i have only been freed during the last month by the\nuntimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. it is\nperhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for i have\nreasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of\ndr. grimesby roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible\nthan the truth.\nit was early in april in the year '83 that i woke one morning to find\nsherlock holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. he\nwas a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece\nshowed me that it was only a quarter-past seven, i blinked up at him\nin some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for i was\nmyself regular in my habits.\n\"very sorry to knock you up, watson,\" said he, \"but it's the common\nlot this morning. mrs. hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon\nme, and i on you.\"\n\"what is it, then--a fire?\"\n\"no; a client. it seems that a young lady has arrived in a\nconsiderable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. she is\nwaiting now in the sitting-room. now, when young ladies wander about\nthe metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people\nup out of their beds, i presume that it is something very pressing\nwhich they have to communicate. should it prove to be an interesting\ncase, you would, i am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. i\nthought, at any rate, that i should call you and give you the\nchance.\"\n\"my dear fellow, i would not miss it for anything.\"\ni had no keener pleasure than in following holmes in his professional\ninvestigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as\nintuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he\nunravelled the problems which were submitted to him. i rapidly threw\non my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend\ndown to the sitting-room. a lady dressed in black and heavily veiled,\nwho had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.\n\"good-morning, madam,\" said holmes cheerily. \"my name is sherlock\nholmes. this is my intimate friend and associate, dr. watson, before\nwhom you can speak as freely as before myself. ha! i am glad to see\nthat mrs. hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. pray draw\nup to it, and i shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for i observe\nthat you are shivering.\"\n\"it is not cold which makes me shiver,\" said the woman in a low\nvoice, changing her seat as requested.\n\"what, then?\"\n\"it is fear, mr. holmes. it is terror.\" she raised her veil as she\nspoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of\nagitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened\neyes, like those of some hunted animal. her features and figure were\nthose of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature\ngrey, and her expression was weary and haggard. sherlock holmes ran\nher over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.\n\"you must not fear,\" said he soothingly, bending forward and patting\nher forearm. \"we shall soon set matters right, i have no doubt. you\nhave come in by train this morning, i see.\"\n\"you know me, then?\"\n\"no, but i observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of\nyour left glove. you must have started early, and yet you had a good\ndrive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the\nstation.\"\nthe lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my\ncompanion.\n\"there is no mystery, my dear madam,\" said he, smiling. \"the left arm\nof your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places.\nthe marks are perfectly fresh. there is no vehicle save a dog-cart\nwhich throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the\nleft-hand side of the driver.\"\n\"whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct,\" said she.\n\"i started from home before six, reached leatherhead at twenty past,\nand came in by the first train to waterloo. sir, i can stand this\nstrain no longer; i shall go mad if it continues. i have no one to\nturn to--none, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow,\ncan be of little aid. i have heard of you, mr. holmes; i have heard\nof you from mrs. farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore\nneed. it was from her that i had your address. oh, sir, do you not\nthink that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light\nthrough the dense darkness which surrounds me? at present it is out\nof my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six\nweeks i shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then\nat least you shall not find me ungrateful.\"\nholmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small\ncase-book, which he consulted.\n\"farintosh,\" said he. \"ah yes, i recall the case; it was concerned\nwith an opal tiara. i think it was before your time, watson. i can\nonly say, madam, that i shall be happy to devote the same care to\nyour case as i did to that of your friend. as to reward, my\nprofession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray\nwhatever expenses i may be put to, at the time which suits you best.\nand now i beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us\nin forming an opinion upon the matter.\"\n\"alas!\" replied our visitor, \"the very horror of my situation lies in\nthe fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so\nentirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that\neven he to whom of all others i have a right to look for help and\nadvice looks upon all that i tell him about it as the fancies of a\nnervous woman. he does not say so, but i can read it from his\nsoothing answers and averted eyes. but i have heard, mr. holmes, that\nyou can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.\nyou may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.\"\n\"i am all attention, madam.\"\n\"my name is helen stoner, and i am living with my stepfather, who is\nthe last survivor of one of the oldest saxon families in england, the\nroylotts of stoke moran, on the western border of surrey.\"\nholmes nodded his head. \"the name is familiar to me,\" said he.\n\"the family was at one time among the richest in england, and the\nestates extended over the borders into berkshire in the north, and\nhampshire in the west. in the last century, however, four successive\nheirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family\nruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the\nregency. nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the\ntwo-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy\nmortgage. the last squire dragged out his existence there, living the\nhorrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my\nstepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions,\nobtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a\nmedical degree and went out to calcutta, where, by his professional\nskill and his force of character, he established a large practice. in\na fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been\nperpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death and\nnarrowly escaped a capital sentence. as it was, he suffered a long\nterm of imprisonment and afterwards returned to england a morose and\ndisappointed man.\n\"when dr. roylott was in india he married my mother, mrs. stoner, the\nyoung widow of major-general stoner, of the bengal artillery. my\nsister julia and i were twins, and we were only two years old at the\ntime of my mother's re-marriage. she had a considerable sum of\nmoney--not less than 1000 a year--and this she bequeathed to dr.\nroylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a\ncertain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of\nour marriage. shortly after our return to england my mother died--she\nwas killed eight years ago in a railway accident near crewe. dr.\nroylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice\nin london and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at\nstoke moran. the money which my mother had left was enough for all\nour wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.\n\"but a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time.\ninstead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours,\nwho had at first been overjoyed to see a roylott of stoke moran back\nin the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house and seldom\ncame out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might\ncross his path. violence of temper approaching to mania has been\nhereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it\nhad, i believe, been intensified by his long residence in the\ntropics. a series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which\nended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the\nvillage, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of\nimmense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.\n\"last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a\nstream, and it was only by paying over all the money which i could\ngather together that i was able to avert another public exposure. he\nhad no friends at all save the wandering gypsies, and he would give\nthese vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered\nland which represent the family estate, and would accept in return\nthe hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes\nfor weeks on end. he has a passion also for indian animals, which are\nsent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a\ncheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are\nfeared by the villagers almost as much as their master.\n\"you can imagine from what i say that my poor sister julia and i had\nno great pleasure in our lives. no servant would stay with us, and\nfor a long time we did all the work of the house. she was but thirty\nat the time of her death, and yet her hair had already begun to\nwhiten, even as mine has.\"\n\"your sister is dead, then?\"\n\"she died just two years ago, and it is of her death that i wish to\nspeak to you. you can understand that, living the life which i have\ndescribed, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and\nposition. we had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden sister, miss\nhonoria westphail, who lives near harrow, and we were occasionally\nallowed to pay short visits at this lady's house. julia went there at\nchristmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines,\nto whom she became engaged. my stepfather learned of the engagement\nwhen my sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but\nwithin a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding,\nthe terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only\ncompanion.\"\nsherlock holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes\nclosed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids\nnow and glanced across at his visitor.\n\"pray be precise as to details,\" said he.\n\"it is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is\nseared into my memory. the manor-house is, as i have already said,\nvery old, and only one wing is now inhabited. the bedrooms in this\nwing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central\nblock of the buildings. of these bedrooms the first is dr. roylott's,\nthe second my sister's, and the third my own. there is no\ncommunication between them, but they all open out into the same\ncorridor. do i make myself plain?\"\n\"perfectly so.\"\n\"the windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. that fatal\nnight dr. roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he\nhad not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of\nthe strong indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. she left\nher room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time,\nchatting about her approaching wedding. at eleven o'clock she rose to\nleave me, but she paused at the door and looked back.\n\"'tell me, helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle in\nthe dead of the night?'\n\"'never,' said i.\n\"'i suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your\nsleep?'\n\"'certainly not. but why?'\n\"'because during the last few nights i have always, about three in\nthe morning, heard a low, clear whistle. i am a light sleeper, and it\nhas awakened me. i cannot tell where it came from--perhaps from the\nnext room, perhaps from the lawn. i thought that i would just ask you\nwhether you had heard it.'\n\"'no, i have not. it must be those wretched gipsies in the\nplantation.'\n\"'very likely. and yet if it were on the lawn, i wonder that you did\nnot hear it also.'\n\"'ah, but i sleep more heavily than you.'\n\"'well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' she smiled back\nat me, closed my door, and a few moments later i heard her key turn\nin the lock.\"\n\"indeed,\" said holmes. \"was it your custom always to lock yourselves\nin at night?\"\n\"always.\"\n\"and why?\"\n\"i think that i mentioned to you that the doctor kept a cheetah and a\nbaboon. we had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked.\"\n\"quite so. pray proceed with your statement.\"\n\"i could not sleep that night. a vague feeling of impending\nmisfortune impressed me. my sister and i, you will recollect, were\ntwins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls\nwhich are so closely allied. it was a wild night. the wind was\nhowling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the\nwindows. suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth\nthe wild scream of a terrified woman. i knew that it was my sister's\nvoice. i sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed\ninto the corridor. as i opened my door i seemed to hear a low\nwhistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a\nclanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen. as i ran down the\npassage, my sister's door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its\nhinges. i stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to\nissue from it. by the light of the corridor-lamp i saw my sister\nappear at the opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands\ngroping for help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a\ndrunkard. i ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that\nmoment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground.  she\nwrithed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully\nconvulsed. at first i thought that she had not recognised me, but as\ni bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which i shall\nnever forget, 'oh, my god! helen! it was the band! the speckled\nband!' there was something else which she would fain have said, and\nshe stabbed with her finger into the air in the direction of the\ndoctor's room, but a fresh convulsion seized her and choked her\nwords. i rushed out, calling loudly for my stepfather, and i met him\nhastening from his room in his dressing-gown. when he reached my\nsister's side she was unconscious, and though he poured brandy down\nher throat and sent for medical aid from the village, all efforts\nwere in vain, for she slowly sank and died without having recovered\nher consciousness. such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister.\"\n\"one moment,\" said holmes, \"are you sure about this whistle and\nmetallic sound? could you swear to it?\"\n\"that was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. it is my\nstrong impression that i heard it, and yet, among the crash of the\ngale and the creaking of an old house, i may possibly have been\ndeceived.\"\n\"was your sister dressed?\"\n\"no, she was in her night-dress. in her right hand was found the\ncharred stump of a match, and in her left a match-box.\"\n\"showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the\nalarm took place. that is important. and what conclusions did the\ncoroner come to?\"\n\"he investigated the case with great care, for dr. roylott's conduct\nhad long been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any\nsatisfactory cause of death. my evidence showed that the door had\nbeen fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by\nold-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every\nnight. the walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite\nsolid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with\nthe same result. the chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large\nstaples. it is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone\nwhen she met her end. besides, there were no marks of any violence\nupon her.\"\n\"how about poison?\"\n\"the doctors examined her for it, but without success.\"\n\"what do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?\"\n\"it is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though\nwhat it was that frightened her i cannot imagine.\"\n\"were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?\"\n\"yes, there are nearly always some there.\"\n\"ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band--a speckled\nband?\"\n\"sometimes i have thought that it was merely the wild talk of\ndelirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people,\nperhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. i do not know\nwhether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over\ntheir heads might have suggested the strange adjective which she\nused.\"\nholmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.\n\"these are very deep waters,\" said he; \"pray go on with your\nnarrative.\"\n\"two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately\nlonelier than ever. a month ago, however, a dear friend, whom i have\nknown for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in\nmarriage. his name is armitage--percy armitage--the second son of mr.\narmitage, of crane water, near reading. my stepfather has offered no\nopposition to the match, and we are to be married in the course of\nthe spring. two days ago some repairs were started in the west wing\nof the building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that i have\nhad to move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in\nthe very bed in which she slept. imagine, then, my thrill of terror\nwhen last night, as i lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, i\nsuddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which had\nbeen the herald of her own death. i sprang up and lit the lamp, but\nnothing was to be seen in the room. i was too shaken to go to bed\nagain, however, so i dressed, and as soon as it was daylight i\nslipped down, got a dog-cart at the crown inn, which is opposite, and\ndrove to leatherhead, from whence i have come on this morning with\nthe one object of seeing you and asking your advice.\"\n\"you have done wisely,\" said my friend. \"but have you told me all?\"\n\"yes, all.\"\n\"miss roylott, you have not. you are screening your stepfather.\"\n\"why, what do you mean?\"\nfor answer holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed\nthe hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. five little livid spots,\nthe marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white\nwrist.\n\"you have been cruelly used,\" said holmes.\nthe lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. \"he is a\nhard man,\" she said, \"and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength.\"\nthere was a long silence, during which holmes leaned his chin upon\nhis hands and stared into the crackling fire.\n\"this is a very deep business,\" he said at last. \"there are a\nthousand details which i should desire to know before i decide upon\nour course of action. yet we have not a moment to lose. if we were to\ncome to stoke moran to-day, would it be possible for us to see over\nthese rooms without the knowledge of your stepfather?\"\n\"as it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most\nimportant business. it is probable that he will be away all day, and\nthat there would be nothing to disturb you. we have a housekeeper\nnow, but she is old and foolish, and i could easily get her out of\nthe way.\"\n\"excellent. you are not averse to this trip, watson?\"\n\"by no means.\"\n\"then we shall both come. what are you going to do yourself?\"\n\"i have one or two things which i would wish to do now that i am in\ntown. but i shall return by the twelve o'clock train, so as to be\nthere in time for your coming.\"\n\"and you may expect us early in the afternoon. i have myself some\nsmall business matters to attend to. will you not wait and\nbreakfast?\"\n\"no, i must go. my heart is lightened already since i have confided\nmy trouble to you. i shall look forward to seeing you again this\nafternoon.\" she dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided\nfrom the room.\n\"and what do you think of it all, watson?\" asked sherlock holmes,\nleaning back in his chair.\n\"it seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.\"\n\"dark enough and sinister enough.\"\n\"yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are\nsound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then\nher sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her\nmysterious end.\"\n\"what becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the\nvery peculiar words of the dying woman?\"\n\"i cannot think.\"\n\"when you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a\nband of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the\nfact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an\ninterest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying\nallusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that miss helen stoner\nheard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those\nmetal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its place, i\nthink that there is good ground to think that the mystery may be\ncleared along those lines.\"\n\"but what, then, did the gipsies do?\"\n\"i cannot imagine.\"\n\"i see many objections to any such theory.\"\n\"and so do i. it is precisely for that reason that we are going to\nstoke moran this day. i want to see whether the objections are fatal,\nor if they may be explained away. but what in the name of the devil!\"\nthe ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our\ndoor had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed\nhimself in the aperture. his costume was a peculiar mixture of the\nprofessional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long\nfrock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging\nin his hand. so tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross\nbar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from\nside to side. a large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned\nyellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned\nfrom one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and\nhis high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to\na fierce old bird of prey.\n\"which of you is holmes?\" asked this apparition.\n\"my name, sir; but you have the advantage of me,\" said my companion\nquietly.\n\"i am dr. grimesby roylott, of stoke moran.\"\n\"indeed, doctor,\" said holmes blandly. \"pray take a seat.\"\n\"i will do nothing of the kind. my stepdaughter has been here. i have\ntraced her. what has she been saying to you?\"\n\"it is a little cold for the time of the year,\" said holmes.\n\"what has she been saying to you?\" screamed the old man furiously.\n\"but i have heard that the crocuses promise well,\" continued my\ncompanion imperturbably.\n\"ha! you put me off, do you?\" said our new visitor, taking a step\nforward and shaking his hunting-crop. \"i know you, you scoundrel!  i\nhave heard of you before. you are holmes, the meddler.\"\nmy friend smiled.\n\"holmes, the busybody!\"\nhis smile broadened.\n\"holmes, the scotland yard jack-in-office!\"\nholmes chuckled heartily. \"your conversation is most entertaining,\"\nsaid he. \"when you go out close the door, for there is a decided\ndraught.\"\n\"i will go when i have said my say. don't you dare to meddle with my\naffairs. i know that miss stoner has been here. i traced her! i am a\ndangerous man to fall foul of! see here.\" he stepped swiftly forward,\nseized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.\n\"see that you keep yourself out of my grip,\" he snarled, and hurling\nthe twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the room.\n\"he seems a very amiable person,\" said holmes, laughing. \"i am not\nquite so bulky, but if he had remained i might have shown him that my\ngrip was not much more feeble than his own.\" as he spoke he picked up\nthe steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again.\n\"fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official\ndetective force! this incident gives zest to our investigation,\nhowever, and i only trust that our little friend will not suffer from\nher imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. and now, watson,\nwe shall order breakfast, and afterwards i shall walk down to\ndoctors' commons, where i hope to get some data which may help us in\nthis matter.\"\nit was nearly one o'clock when sherlock holmes returned from his\nexcursion. he held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled over\nwith notes and figures.\n\"i have seen the will of the deceased wife,\" said he. \"to determine\nits exact meaning i have been obliged to work out the present prices\nof the investments with which it is concerned. the total income,\nwhich at the time of the wife's death was little short of 1100, is\nnow, through the fall in agricultural prices, not more than 750.\neach daughter can claim an income of 250, in case of marriage. it is\nevident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would\nhave had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to\na very serious extent. my morning's work has not been wasted, since\nit has proved that he has the very strongest motives for standing in\nthe way of anything of the sort. and now, watson, this is too serious\nfor dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are\ninteresting ourselves in his affairs; so if you are ready, we shall\ncall a cab and drive to waterloo. i should be very much obliged if\nyou would slip your revolver into your pocket. an eley's no. 2 is an\nexcellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into\nknots. that and a tooth-brush are, i think, all that we need.\"\nat waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for leatherhead,\nwhere we hired a trap at the station inn and drove for four or five\nmiles through the lovely surrey lanes. it was a perfect day, with a\nbright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the heavens. the trees and\nwayside hedges were just throwing out their first green shoots, and\nthe air was full of the pleasant smell of the moist earth. to me at\nleast there was a strange contrast between the sweet promise of the\nspring and this sinister quest upon which we were engaged. my\ncompanion sat in the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat\npulled down over his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried\nin the deepest thought. suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on\nthe shoulder, and pointed over the meadows.\n\"look there!\" said he.\na heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening\ninto a grove at the highest point. from amid the branches there\njutted out the grey gables and high roof-tree of a very old mansion.\n\"stoke moran?\" said he.\n\"yes, sir, that be the house of dr. grimesby roylott,\" remarked the\ndriver.\n\"there is some building going on there,\" said holmes; \"that is where\nwe are going.\"\n\"there's the village,\" said the driver, pointing to a cluster of\nroofs some distance to the left; \"but if you want to get to the\nhouse, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the\nfoot-path over the fields. there it is, where the lady is walking.\"\n\"and the lady, i fancy, is miss stoner,\" observed holmes, shading his\neyes. \"yes, i think we had better do as you suggest.\"\nwe got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way to\nleatherhead.\n\"i thought it as well,\" said holmes as we climbed the stile, \"that\nthis fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some\ndefinite business. it may stop his gossip. good-afternoon, miss\nstoner. you see that we have been as good as our word.\"\nour client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a face\nwhich spoke her joy. \"i have been waiting so eagerly for you,\" she\ncried, shaking hands with us warmly. \"all has turned out splendidly.\ndr. roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely that he will be back\nbefore evening.\"\n\"we have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance,\" said\nholmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred. miss\nstoner turned white to the lips as she listened.\n\"good heavens!\" she cried, \"he has followed me, then.\"\n\"so it appears.\"\n\"he is so cunning that i never know when i am safe from him. what\nwill he say when he returns?\"\n\"he must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more\ncunning than himself upon his track. you must lock yourself up from\nhim to-night. if he is violent, we shall take you away to your aunt's\nat harrow. now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take\nus at once to the rooms which we are to examine.\"\nthe building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central\nportion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out\non each side. in one of these wings the windows were broken and\nblocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a\npicture of ruin. the central portion was in little better repair, but\nthe right-hand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the\nwindows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed\nthat this was where the family resided. some scaffolding had been\nerected against the end wall, and the stone-work had been broken\ninto, but there were no signs of any workmen at the moment of our\nvisit. holmes walked slowly up and down the ill-trimmed lawn and\nexamined with deep attention the outsides of the windows.\n\"this, i take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, the\ncentre one to your sister's, and the one next to the main building to\ndr. roylott's chamber?\"\n\"exactly so. but i am now sleeping in the middle one.\"\n\"pending the alterations, as i understand. by the way, there does not\nseem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end wall.\"\n\"there were none. i believe that it was an excuse to move me from my\nroom.\"\n\"ah! that is suggestive. now, on the other side of this narrow wing\nruns the corridor from which these three rooms open. there are\nwindows in it, of course?\"\n\"yes, but very small ones. too narrow for anyone to pass through.\"\n\"as you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were\nunapproachable from that side. now, would you have the kindness to go\ninto your room and bar your shutters?\"\nmiss stoner did so, and holmes, after a careful examination through\nthe open window, endeavoured in every way to force the shutter open,\nbut without success. there was no slit through which a knife could be\npassed to raise the bar. then with his lens he tested the hinges, but\nthey were of solid iron, built firmly into the massive masonry.\n\"hum!\" said he, scratching his chin in some perplexity, \"my theory\ncertainly presents some difficulties. no one could pass these\nshutters if they were bolted. well, we shall see if the inside throws\nany light upon the matter.\"\na small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which the\nthree bedrooms opened. holmes refused to examine the third chamber,\nso we passed at once to the second, that in which miss stoner was now\nsleeping, and in which her sister had met with her fate. it was a\nhomely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after\nthe fashion of old country-houses. a brown chest of drawers stood in\none corner, a narrow white-counterpaned bed in another, and a\ndressing-table on the left-hand side of the window. these articles,\nwith two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the\nroom save for a square of wilton carpet in the centre. the boards\nround and the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak,\nso old and discoloured that it may have dated from the original\nbuilding of the house. holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner\nand sat silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and\ndown, taking in every detail of the apartment.\n\"where does that bell communicate with?\" he asked at last pointing to\na thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually\nlying upon the pillow.\n\"it goes to the housekeeper's room.\"\n\"it looks newer than the other things?\"\n\"yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago.\"\n\"your sister asked for it, i suppose?\"\n\"no, i never heard of her using it. we used always to get what we\nwanted for ourselves.\"\n\"indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. you\nwill excuse me for a few minutes while i satisfy myself as to this\nfloor.\" he threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand\nand crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the\ncracks between the boards. then he did the same with the wood-work\nwith which the chamber was panelled. finally he walked over to the\nbed and spent some time in staring at it and in running his eye up\nand down the wall. finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave\nit a brisk tug.\n\"why, it's a dummy,\" said he.\n\"won't it ring?\"\n\"no, it is not even attached to a wire. this is very interesting. you\ncan see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little\nopening for the ventilator is.\"\n\"how very absurd! i never noticed that before.\"\n\"very strange!\" muttered holmes, pulling at the rope. \"there are one\nor two very singular points about this room. for example, what a fool\na builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with\nthe same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!\"\n\"that is also quite modern,\" said the lady.\n\"done about the same time as the bell-rope?\" remarked holmes.\n\"yes, there were several little changes carried out about that time.\"\n\"they seem to have been of a most interesting character--dummy\nbell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. with your\npermission, miss stoner, we shall now carry our researches into the\ninner apartment.\"\ndr. grimesby roylott's chamber was larger than that of his\nstep-daughter, but was as plainly furnished. a camp-bed, a small\nwooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an\narmchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a\nround table, and a large iron safe were the principal things which\nmet the eye. holmes walked slowly round and examined each and all of\nthem with the keenest interest.\n\"what's in here?\" he asked, tapping the safe.\n\"my stepfather's business papers.\"\n\"oh! you have seen inside, then?\"\n\"only once, some years ago. i remember that it was full of papers.\"\n\"there isn't a cat in it, for example?\"\n\"no. what a strange idea!\"\n\"well, look at this!\" he took up a small saucer of milk which stood\non the top of it.\n\"no; we don't keep a cat. but there is a cheetah and a baboon.\"\n\"ah, yes, of course! well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a\nsaucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, i\ndaresay. there is one point which i should wish to determine.\" he\nsquatted down in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat of\nit with the greatest attention.\n\"thank you. that is quite settled,\" said he, rising and putting his\nlens in his pocket. \"hullo! here is something interesting!\"\nthe object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on one\ncorner of the bed. the lash, however, was curled upon itself and tied\nso as to make a loop of whipcord.\n\"what do you make of that, watson?\"\n\"it's a common enough lash. but i don't know why it should be tied.\"\n\"that is not quite so common, is it? ah, me! it's a wicked world, and\nwhen a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all. i\nthink that i have seen enough now, miss stoner, and with your\npermission we shall walk out upon the lawn.\"\ni had never seen my friend's face so grim or his brow so dark as it\nwas when we turned from the scene of this investigation. we had\nwalked several times up and down the lawn, neither miss stoner nor\nmyself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he roused himself\nfrom his reverie.\n\"it is very essential, miss stoner,\" said he, \"that you should\nabsolutely follow my advice in every respect.\"\n\"i shall most certainly do so.\"\n\"the matter is too serious for any hesitation. your life may depend\nupon your compliance.\"\n\"i assure you that i am in your hands.\"\n\"in the first place, both my friend and i must spend the night in\nyour room.\"\nboth miss stoner and i gazed at him in astonishment.\n\"yes, it must be so. let me explain. i believe that that is the\nvillage inn over there?\"\n\"yes, that is the crown.\"\n\"very good. your windows would be visible from there?\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"you must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a headache,\nwhen your stepfather comes back. then when you hear him retire for\nthe night, you must open the shutters of your window, undo the hasp,\nput your lamp there as a signal to us, and then withdraw quietly with\neverything which you are likely to want into the room which you used\nto occupy. i have no doubt that, in spite of the repairs, you could\nmanage there for one night.\"\n\"oh, yes, easily.\"\n\"the rest you will leave in our hands.\"\n\"but what will you do?\"\n\"we shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate the\ncause of this noise which has disturbed you.\"\n\"i believe, mr. holmes, that you have already made up your mind,\"\nsaid miss stoner, laying her hand upon my companion's sleeve.\n\"perhaps i have.\"\n\"then, for pity's sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister's\ndeath.\"\n\"i should prefer to have clearer proofs before i speak.\"\n\"you can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and if\nshe died from some sudden fright.\"\n\"no, i do not think so. i think that there was probably some more\ntangible cause. and now, miss stoner, we must leave you for if dr.\nroylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain.  good-bye,\nand be brave, for if you will do what i have told you, you may rest\nassured that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you.\"\nsherlock holmes and i had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and\nsitting-room at the crown inn. they were on the upper floor, and from\nour window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and of the\ninhabited wing of stoke moran manor house. at dusk we saw dr.\ngrimesby roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside the\nlittle figure of the lad who drove him. the boy had some slight\ndifficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard the hoarse\nroar of the doctor's voice and saw the fury with which he shook his\nclinched fists at him. the trap drove on, and a few minutes later we\nsaw a sudden light spring up among the trees as the lamp was lit in\none of the sitting-rooms.\n\"do you know, watson,\" said holmes as we sat together in the\ngathering darkness, \"i have really some scruples as to taking you\nto-night. there is a distinct element of danger.\"\n\"can i be of assistance?\"\n\"your presence might be invaluable.\"\n\"then i shall certainly come.\"\n\"it is very kind of you.\"\n\"you speak of danger. you have evidently seen more in these rooms\nthan was visible to me.\"\n\"no, but i fancy that i may have deduced a little more. i imagine\nthat you saw all that i did.\"\n\"i saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose that\ncould answer i confess is more than i can imagine.\"\n\"you saw the ventilator, too?\"\n\"yes, but i do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to have\na small opening between two rooms. it was so small that a rat could\nhardly pass through.\"\n\"i knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to stoke\nmoran.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"oh, yes, i did. you remember in her statement she said that her\nsister could smell dr. roylott's cigar. now, of course that suggested\nat once that there must be a communication between the two rooms. it\ncould only be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the\ncoroner's inquiry. i deduced a ventilator.\"\n\"but what harm can there be in that?\"\n\"well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. a ventilator\nis made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. does\nnot that strike you?\"\n\"i cannot as yet see any connection.\"\n\"did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"it was clamped to the floor. did you ever see a bed fastened like\nthat before?\"\n\"i cannot say that i have.\"\n\"the lady could not move her bed. it must always be in the same\nrelative position to the ventilator and to the rope--or so we may\ncall it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull.\"\n\"holmes,\" i cried, \"i seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. we\nare only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime.\"\n\"subtle enough and horrible enough. when a doctor does go wrong he is\nthe first of criminals. he has nerve and he has knowledge. palmer and\npritchard were among the heads of their profession. this man strikes\neven deeper, but i think, watson, that we shall be able to strike\ndeeper still. but we shall have horrors enough before the night is\nover; for goodness' sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds\nfor a few hours to something more cheerful.\"\nabout nine o'clock the light among the trees was extinguished, and\nall was dark in the direction of the manor house. two hours passed\nslowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of eleven, a\nsingle bright light shone out right in front of us.\n\"that is our signal,\" said holmes, springing to his feet; \"it comes\nfrom the middle window.\"\nas we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord,\nexplaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, and\nthat it was possible that we might spend the night there. a moment\nlater we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our\nfaces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us through the\ngloom to guide us on our sombre errand.\nthere was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired\nbreaches gaped in the old park wall. making our way among the trees,\nwe reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the\nwindow when out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what\nseemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the\ngrass with writhing limbs and then ran swiftly across the lawn into\nthe darkness.\n\"my god!\" i whispered; \"did you see it?\"\nholmes was for the moment as startled as i. his hand closed like a\nvice upon my wrist in his agitation. then he broke into a low laugh\nand put his lips to my ear.\n\"it is a nice household,\" he murmured. \"that is the baboon.\"\ni had forgotten the strange pets which the doctor affected. there was\na cheetah, too; perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders at any\nmoment. i confess that i felt easier in my mind when, after following\nholmes' example and slipping off my shoes, i found myself inside the\nbedroom. my companion noiselessly closed the shutters, moved the lamp\nonto the table, and cast his eyes round the room. all was as we had\nseen it in the daytime. then creeping up to me and making a trumpet\nof his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all\nthat i could do to distinguish the words:\n\"the least sound would be fatal to our plans.\"\ni nodded to show that i had heard.\n\"we must sit without light. he would see it through the ventilator.\"\ni nodded again.\n\"do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. have your\npistol ready in case we should need it. i will sit on the side of the\nbed, and you in that chair.\"\ni took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table.\nholmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon the\nbed beside him. by it he laid the box of matches and the stump of a\ncandle. then he turned down the lamp, and we were left in darkness.\nhow shall i ever forget that dreadful vigil? i could not hear a\nsound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet i knew that my\ncompanion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state\nof nervous tension in which i was myself. the shutters cut off the\nleast ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness.\nfrom outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at our\nvery window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that the\ncheetah was indeed at liberty. far away we could hear the deep tones\nof the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. how\nlong they seemed, those quarters! twelve struck, and one and two and\nthree, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.\nsuddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction\nof the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a\nstrong smell of burning oil and heated metal. someone in the next\nroom had lit a dark-lantern. i heard a gentle sound of movement, and\nthen all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. for\nhalf an hour i sat with straining ears. then suddenly another sound\nbecame audible--a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small\njet of steam escaping continually from a kettle. the instant that we\nheard it, holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed\nfuriously with his cane at the bell-pull.\n\"you see it, watson?\" he yelled. \"you see it?\"\nbut i saw nothing. at the moment when holmes struck the light i heard\na low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary\neyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend\nlashed so savagely. i could, however, see that his face was deadly\npale and filled with horror and loathing. he had ceased to strike and\nwas gazing up at the ventilator when suddenly there broke from the\nsilence of the night the most horrible cry to which i have ever\nlistened. it swelled up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and\nfear and anger all mingled in the one dreadful shriek. they say that\naway down in the village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry\nraised the sleepers from their beds. it struck cold to our hearts,\nand i stood gazing at holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of\nit had died away into the silence from which it rose.\n\"what can it mean?\" i gasped.\n\"it means that it is all over,\" holmes answered. \"and perhaps, after\nall, it is for the best. take your pistol, and we will enter dr.\nroylott's room.\"\nwith a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the corridor.\ntwice he struck at the chamber door without any reply from within.\nthen he turned the handle and entered, i at his heels, with the\ncocked pistol in my hand.\nit was a singular sight which met our eyes. on the table stood a\ndark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of\nlight upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. beside this\ntable, on the wooden chair, sat dr. grimesby roylott clad in a long\ngrey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet\nthrust into red heelless turkish slippers. across his lap lay the\nshort stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day.\nhis chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful,\nrigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. round his brow he had a\npeculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be\nbound tightly round his head. as we entered he made neither sound nor\nmotion.\n\"the band! the speckled band!\" whispered holmes.\ni took a step forward. in an instant his strange headgear began to\nmove, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat\ndiamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.\n\"it is a swamp adder!\" cried holmes; \"the deadliest snake in india.\nhe has died within ten seconds of being bitten. violence does, in\ntruth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit\nwhich he digs for another. let us thrust this creature back into its\nden, and we can then remove miss stoner to some place of shelter and\nlet the county police know what has happened.\"\nas he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man's lap, and\nthrowing the noose round the reptile's neck he drew it from its\nhorrid perch and, carrying it at arm's length, threw it into the iron\nsafe, which he closed upon it.\nsuch are the true facts of the death of dr. grimesby roylott, of\nstoke moran. it is not necessary that i should prolong a narrative\nwhich has already run to too great a length by telling how we broke\nthe sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the\nmorning train to the care of her good aunt at harrow, of how the slow\nprocess of official inquiry came to the conclusion that the doctor\nmet his fate while indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet. the\nlittle which i had yet to learn of the case was told me by sherlock\nholmes as we travelled back next day.\n\"i had,\" said he, \"come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which\nshows, my dear watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from\ninsufficient data. the presence of the gipsies, and the use of the\nword 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain\nthe appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light\nof her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent.\ni can only claim the merit that i instantly reconsidered my position\nwhen, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened\nan occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the\ndoor. my attention was speedily drawn, as i have already remarked to\nyou, to this ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the\nbed. the discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was\nclamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the\nrope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and\ncoming to the bed. the idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and\nwhen i coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was furnished\nwith a supply of creatures from india, i felt that i was probably on\nthe right track. the idea of using a form of poison which could not\npossibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as\nwould occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an eastern\ntraining. the rapidity with which such a poison would take effect\nwould also, from his point of view, be an advantage. it would be a\nsharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark\npunctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their\nwork. then i thought of the whistle. of course he must recall the\nsnake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. he had\ntrained it, probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return\nto him when summoned. he would put it through this ventilator at the\nhour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl\ndown the rope and land on the bed. it might or might not bite the\noccupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner\nor later she must fall a victim.\n\"i had come to these conclusions before ever i had entered his room.\nan inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of\nstanding on it, which of course would be necessary in order that he\nshould reach the ventilator. the sight of the safe, the saucer of\nmilk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any\ndoubts which may have remained. the metallic clang heard by miss\nstoner was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the\ndoor of his safe upon its terrible occupant. having once made up my\nmind, you know the steps which i took in order to put the matter to\nthe proof. i heard the creature hiss as i have no doubt that you did\nalso, and i instantly lit the light and attacked it.\"\n\"with the result of driving it through the ventilator.\"\n\"and also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master at\nthe other side. some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its\nsnakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. in this\nway i am no doubt indirectly responsible for dr. grimesby roylott's\ndeath, and i cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon\nmy conscience.\"\nthe adventure of the engineer's thumb\nof all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, mr.\nsherlock holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there\nwere only two which i was the means of introducing to his\nnotice--that of mr. hatherley's thumb, and that of colonel\nwarburton's madness. of these the latter may have afforded a finer\nfield for an acute and original observer, but the other was so\nstrange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may\nbe the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my\nfriend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by\nwhich he achieved such remarkable results. the story has, i believe,\nbeen told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such\nnarratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en bloc\nin a single half-column of print than when the facts slowly evolve\nbefore your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each\nnew discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth.\nat the time the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the\nlapse of two years has hardly served to weaken the effect.\nit was in the summer of '89, not long after my marriage, that the\nevents occurred which i am now about to summarise. i had returned to\ncivil practice and had finally abandoned holmes in his baker street\nrooms, although i continually visited him and occasionally even\npersuaded him to forgo his bohemian habits so far as to come and\nvisit us. my practice had steadily increased, and as i happened to\nlive at no very great distance from paddington station, i got a few\npatients from among the officials. one of these, whom i had cured of\na painful and lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my\nvirtues and of endeavouring to send me on every sufferer over whom he\nmight have any influence.\none morning, at a little before seven o'clock, i was awakened by the\nmaid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come from\npaddington and were waiting in the consulting-room. i dressed\nhurriedly, for i knew by experience that railway cases were seldom\ntrivial, and hastened downstairs. as i descended, my old ally, the\nguard, came out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him.\n\"i've got him here,\" he whispered, jerking his thumb over his\nshoulder; \"he's all right.\"\n\"what is it, then?\" i asked, for his manner suggested that it was\nsome strange creature which he had caged up in my room.\n\"it's a new patient,\" he whispered. \"i thought i'd bring him round\nmyself; then he couldn't slip away. there he is, all safe and sound.\ni must go now, doctor; i have my dooties, just the same as you.\" and\noff he went, this trusty tout, without even giving me time to thank\nhim.\ni entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the\ntable. he was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a soft\ncloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. round one of his\nhands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with\nbloodstains. he was young, not more than five-and-twenty, i should\nsay, with a strong, masculine face; but he was exceedingly pale and\ngave me the impression of a man who was suffering from some strong\nagitation, which it took all his strength of mind to control.\n\"i am sorry to knock you up so early, doctor,\" said he, \"but i have\nhad a very serious accident during the night. i came in by train this\nmorning, and on inquiring at paddington as to where i might find a\ndoctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here. i gave the maid\na card, but i see that she has left it upon the side-table.\"\ni took it up and glanced at it. \"mr. victor hatherley, hydraulic\nengineer, 16a, victoria street (3rd floor).\" that was the name,\nstyle, and abode of my morning visitor. \"i regret that i have kept\nyou waiting,\" said i, sitting down in my library-chair. \"you are\nfresh from a night journey, i understand, which is in itself a\nmonotonous occupation.\"\n\"oh, my night could not be called monotonous,\" said he, and laughed.\nhe laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in\nhis chair and shaking his sides. all my medical instincts rose up\nagainst that laugh.\n\"stop it!\" i cried; \"pull yourself together!\" and i poured out some\nwater from a caraffe.\nit was useless, however. he was off in one of those hysterical\noutbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is\nover and gone. presently he came to himself once more, very weary and\npale-looking.\n\"i have been making a fool of myself,\" he gasped.\n\"not at all. drink this.\" i dashed some brandy into the water, and\nthe colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.\n\"that's better!\" said he. \"and now, doctor, perhaps you would kindly\nattend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to\nbe.\"\nhe unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. it gave even my\nhardened nerves a shudder to look at it. there were four protruding\nfingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have\nbeen. it had been hacked or torn right out from the roots.\n\"good heavens!\" i cried, \"this is a terrible injury. it must have\nbled considerably.\"\n\"yes, it did. i fainted when it was done, and i think that i must\nhave been senseless for a long time. when i came to i found that it\nwas still bleeding, so i tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly\nround the wrist and braced it up with a twig.\"\n\"excellent! you should have been a surgeon.\"\n\"it is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own\nprovince.\"\n\"this has been done,\" said i, examining the wound, \"by a very heavy\nand sharp instrument.\"\n\"a thing like a cleaver,\" said he.\n\"an accident, i presume?\"\n\"by no means.\"\n\"what! a murderous attack?\"\n\"very murderous indeed.\"\n\"you horrify me.\"\ni sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it\nover with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. he lay back without\nwincing, though he bit his lip from time to time.\n\"how is that?\" i asked when i had finished.\n\"capital! between your brandy and your bandage, i feel a new man. i\nwas very weak, but i have had a good deal to go through.\"\n\"perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. it is evidently\ntrying to your nerves.\"\n\"oh, no, not now. i shall have to tell my tale to the police; but,\nbetween ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this\nwound of mine, i should be surprised if they believed my statement,\nfor it is a very extraordinary one, and i have not much in the way of\nproof with which to back it up; and, even if they believe me, the\nclues which i can give them are so vague that it is a question\nwhether justice will be done.\"\n\"ha!\" cried i, \"if it is anything in the nature of a problem which\nyou desire to see solved, i should strongly recommend you to come to\nmy friend, mr. sherlock holmes, before you go to the official\npolice.\"\n\"oh, i have heard of that fellow,\" answered my visitor, \"and i should\nbe very glad if he would take the matter up, though of course i must\nuse the official police as well. would you give me an introduction to\nhim?\"\n\"i'll do better. i'll take you round to him myself.\"\n\"i should be immensely obliged to you.\"\n\"we'll call a cab and go together. we shall just be in time to have a\nlittle breakfast with him. do you feel equal to it?\"\n\"yes; i shall not feel easy until i have told my story.\"\n\"then my servant will call a cab, and i shall be with you in an\ninstant.\" i rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my wife,\nand in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my new\nacquaintance to baker street.\nsherlock holmes was, as i expected, lounging about his sitting-room\nin his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of the times and\nsmoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the\nplugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day before, all\ncarefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece. he\nreceived us in his quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and\neggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. when it was concluded he\nsettled our new acquaintance upon the sofa, placed a pillow beneath\nhis head, and laid a glass of brandy and water within his reach.\n\"it is easy to see that your experience has been no common one, mr.\nhatherley,\" said he. \"pray, lie down there and make yourself\nabsolutely at home. tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired\nand keep up your strength with a little stimulant.\"\n\"thank you,\" said my patient. \"but i have felt another man since the\ndoctor bandaged me, and i think that your breakfast has completed the\ncure. i shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so\ni shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences.\"\nholmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded\nexpression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while i sat\nopposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story\nwhich our visitor detailed to us.\n\"you must know,\" said he, \"that i am an orphan and a bachelor,\nresiding alone in lodgings in london. by profession i am a hydraulic\nengineer, and i have had considerable experience of my work during\nthe seven years that i was apprenticed to venner & matheson, the\nwell-known firm, of greenwich. two years ago, having served my time,\nand having also come into a fair sum of money through my poor\nfather's death, i determined to start in business for myself and took\nprofessional chambers in victoria street.\n\"i suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in\nbusiness a dreary experience. to me it has been exceptionally so.\nduring two years i have had three consultations and one small job,\nand that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me. my\ngross takings amount to 27 10s. every day, from nine in the morning\nuntil four in the afternoon, i waited in my little den, until at last\nmy heart began to sink, and i came to believe that i should never\nhave any practice at all.\n\"yesterday, however, just as i was thinking of leaving the office, my\nclerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see\nme upon business. he brought up a card, too, with the name of\n'colonel lysander stark' engraved upon it. close at his heels came\nthe colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an\nexceeding thinness. i do not think that i have ever seen so thin a\nman. his whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin\nof his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. yet\nthis emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no\ndisease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing\nassured. he was plainly but neatly dressed, and his age, i should\njudge, would be nearer forty than thirty.\n\"'mr. hatherley?' said he, with something of a german accent. 'you\nhave been recommended to me, mr. hatherley, as being a man who is not\nonly proficient in his profession but is also discreet and capable of\npreserving a secret.'\n\"i bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an\naddress. 'may i ask who it was who gave me so good a character?'\n\"'well, perhaps it is better that i should not tell you that just at\nthis moment. i have it from the same source that you are both an\norphan and a bachelor and are residing alone in london.'\n\"'that is quite correct,' i answered; 'but you will excuse me if i\nsay that i cannot see how all this bears upon my professional\nqualifications. i understand that it was on a professional matter\nthat you wished to speak to me?'\n\"'undoubtedly so. but you will find that all i say is really to the\npoint. i have a professional commission for you, but absolute secrecy\nis quite essential--absolute secrecy, you understand, and of course\nwe may expect that more from a man who is alone than from one who\nlives in the bosom of his family.'\n\"'if i promise to keep a secret,' said i, 'you may absolutely depend\nupon my doing so.'\n\"he looked very hard at me as i spoke, and it seemed to me that i had\nnever seen so suspicious and questioning an eye.\n\"'do you promise, then?' said he at last.\n\"'yes, i promise.'\n\"'absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? no\nreference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?'\n\"'i have already given you my word.'\n\"'very good.' he suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning\nacross the room he flung open the door. the passage outside was\nempty.\n\"'that's all right,' said he, coming back. 'i know that clerks are\nsometimes curious as to their master's affairs. now we can talk in\nsafety.' he drew up his chair very close to mine and began to stare\nat me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look.\n\"a feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun to\nrise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. even my\ndread of losing a client could not restrain me from showing my\nimpatience.\n\"'i beg that you will state your business, sir,' said i; 'my time is\nof value.' heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the words\ncame to my lips.\n\"'how would fifty guineas for a night's work suit you?' he asked.\n\"'most admirably.'\n\"'i say a night's work, but an hour's would be nearer the mark. i\nsimply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which has\ngot out of gear. if you show us what is wrong we shall soon set it\nright ourselves. what do you think of such a commission as that?'\n\"'the work appears to be light and the pay munificent.'\n\"'precisely so. we shall want you to come to-night by the last\ntrain.'\n\"'where to?'\n\"'to eyford, in berkshire. it is a little place near the borders of\noxfordshire, and within seven miles of reading. there is a train from\npaddington which would bring you there at about 11.15.'\n\"'very good.'\n\"'i shall come down in a carriage to meet you.'\n\"'there is a drive, then?'\n\"'yes, our little place is quite out in the country. it is a good\nseven miles from eyford station.'\n\"'then we can hardly get there before midnight. i suppose there would\nbe no chance of a train back. i should be compelled to stop the\nnight.'\n\"'yes, we could easily give you a shake-down.'\n\"'that is very awkward. could i not come at some more convenient\nhour?'\n\"'we have judged it best that you should come late. it is to\nrecompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a\nyoung and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very\nheads of your profession. still, of course, if you would like to draw\nout of the business, there is plenty of time to do so.'\n\"i thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they would be\nto me. 'not at all,' said i, 'i shall be very happy to accommodate\nmyself to your wishes. i should like, however, to understand a little\nmore clearly what it is that you wish me to do.'\n\"'quite so. it is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which we\nhave exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. i have no\nwish to commit you to anything without your having it all laid before\nyou. i suppose that we are absolutely safe from eavesdroppers?'\n\"'entirely.'\n\"'then the matter stands thus. you are probably aware that\nfuller's-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found in\none or two places in england?'\n\"'i have heard so.'\n\"'some little time ago i bought a small place--a very small\nplace--within ten miles of reading. i was fortunate enough to\ndiscover that there was a deposit of fuller's-earth in one of my\nfields. on examining it, however, i found that this deposit was a\ncomparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two very\nmuch larger ones upon the right and left--both of them, however, in\nthe grounds of my neighbours. these good people were absolutely\nignorant that their land contained that which was quite as valuable\nas a gold-mine. naturally, it was to my interest to buy their land\nbefore they discovered its true value, but unfortunately i had no\ncapital by which i could do this. i took a few of my friends into the\nsecret, however, and they suggested that we should quietly and\nsecretly work our own little deposit and that in this way we should\nearn the money which would enable us to buy the neighbouring fields.\nthis we have now been doing for some time, and in order to help us in\nour operations we erected a hydraulic press. this press, as i have\nalready explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon\nthe subject. we guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it\nonce became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our\nlittle house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts\ncame out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these fields\nand carrying out our plans. that is why i have made you promise me\nthat you will not tell a human being that you are going to eyford\nto-night. i hope that i make it all plain?'\n\"'i quite follow you,' said i. 'the only point which i could not\nquite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press in\nexcavating fuller's-earth, which, as i understand, is dug out like\ngravel from a pit.'\n\"'ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. we compress the\nearth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing what they\nare. but that is a mere detail. i have taken you fully into my\nconfidence now, mr. hatherley, and i have shown you how i trust you.'\nhe rose as he spoke. 'i shall expect you, then, at eyford at 11.15.'\n\"'i shall certainly be there.'\n\"'and not a word to a soul.' he looked at me with a last long,\nquestioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp,\nhe hurried from the room.\n\"well, when i came to think it all over in cool blood i was very much\nastonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission which\nhad been intrusted to me. on the one hand, of course, i was glad, for\nthe fee was at least tenfold what i should have asked had i set a\nprice upon my own services, and it was possible that this order might\nlead to other ones. on the other hand, the face and manner of my\npatron had made an unpleasant impression upon me, and i could not\nthink that his explanation of the fuller's-earth was sufficient to\nexplain the necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme\nanxiety lest i should tell anyone of my errand. however, i threw all\nfears to the winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to paddington, and\nstarted off, having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding\nmy tongue.\n\"at reading i had to change not only my carriage but my station.\nhowever, i was in time for the last train to eyford, and i reached\nthe little dim-lit station after eleven o'clock. i was the only\npassenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform\nsave a single sleepy porter with a lantern. as i passed out through\nthe wicket gate, however, i found my acquaintance of the morning\nwaiting in the shadow upon the other side. without a word he grasped\nmy arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door of which was standing\nopen. he drew up the windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work,\nand away we went as fast as the horse could go.\"\n\"one horse?\" interjected holmes.\n\"yes, only one.\"\n\"did you observe the colour?\"\n\"yes, i saw it by the side-lights when i was stepping into the\ncarriage. it was a chestnut.\"\n\"tired-looking or fresh?\"\n\"oh, fresh and glossy.\"\n\"thank you. i am sorry to have interrupted you. pray continue your\nmost interesting statement.\"\n\"away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. colonel\nlysander stark had said that it was only seven miles, but i should\nthink, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the time that we\ntook, that it must have been nearer twelve. he sat at my side in\nsilence all the time, and i was aware, more than once when i glanced\nin his direction, that he was looking at me with great intensity. the\ncountry roads seem to be not very good in that part of the world, for\nwe lurched and jolted terribly. i tried to look out of the windows to\nsee something of where we were, but they were made of frosted glass,\nand i could make out nothing save the occasional bright blur of a\npassing light. now and then i hazarded some remark to break the\nmonotony of the journey, but the colonel answered only in\nmonosyllables, and the conversation soon flagged. at last, however,\nthe bumping of the road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a\ngravel-drive, and the carriage came to a stand. colonel lysander\nstark sprang out, and, as i followed after him, pulled me swiftly\ninto a porch which gaped in front of us. we stepped, as it were,\nright out of the carriage and into the hall, so that i failed to\ncatch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house. the instant\nthat i had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us,\nand i heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage drove\naway.\n\"it was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled about\nlooking for matches and muttering under his breath. suddenly a door\nopened at the other end of the passage, and a long, golden bar of\nlight shot out in our direction. it grew broader, and a woman\nappeared with a lamp in her hand, which she held above her head,\npushing her face forward and peering at us. i could see that she was\npretty, and from the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark\ndress i knew that it was a rich material. she spoke a few words in a\nforeign tongue in a tone as though asking a question, and when my\ncompanion answered in a gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that\nthe lamp nearly fell from her hand. colonel stark went up to her,\nwhispered something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the\nroom from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the\nlamp in his hand.\n\"'perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a few\nminutes,' said he, throwing open another door. it was a quiet,\nlittle, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on\nwhich several german books were scattered. colonel stark laid down\nthe lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the door. 'i shall not keep\nyou waiting an instant,' said he, and vanished into the darkness.\n\"i glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance\nof german i could see that two of them were treatises on science, the\nothers being volumes of poetry. then i walked across to the window,\nhoping that i might catch some glimpse of the country-side, but an\noak shutter, heavily barred, was folded across it. it was a\nwonderfully silent house. there was an old clock ticking loudly\nsomewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still.\na vague feeling of uneasiness began to steal over me. who were these\ngerman people, and what were they doing living in this strange,\nout-of-the-way place? and where was the place? i was ten miles or so\nfrom eyford, that was all i knew, but whether north, south, east, or\nwest i had no idea. for that matter, reading, and possibly other\nlarge towns, were within that radius, so the place might not be so\nsecluded, after all. yet it was quite certain, from the absolute\nstillness, that we were in the country. i paced up and down the room,\nhumming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling that\ni was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee.\n\"suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter\nstillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. the woman was\nstanding in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the\nyellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and beautiful face.\ni could see at a glance that she was sick with fear, and the sight\nsent a chill to my own heart. she held up one shaking finger to warn\nme to be silent, and she shot a few whispered words of broken english\nat me, her eyes glancing back, like those of a frightened horse, into\nthe gloom behind her.\n\"'i would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to speak\ncalmly; 'i would go. i should not stay here. there is no good for you\nto do.'\n\"'but, madam,' said i, 'i have not yet done what i came for. i cannot\npossibly leave until i have seen the machine.'\n\"'it is not worth your while to wait,' she went on. 'you can pass\nthrough the door; no one hinders.' and then, seeing that i smiled and\nshook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and made a\nstep forward, with her hands wrung together. 'for the love of\nheaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too late!'\n\"but i am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to engage\nin an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. i thought of my\nfifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant\nnight which seemed to be before me. was it all to go for nothing? why\nshould i slink away without having carried out my commission, and\nwithout the payment which was my due? this woman might, for all i\nknew, be a monomaniac. with a stout bearing, therefore, though her\nmanner had shaken me more than i cared to confess, i still shook my\nhead and declared my intention of remaining where i was. she was\nabout to renew her entreaties when a door slammed overhead, and the\nsound of several footsteps was heard upon the stairs. she listened\nfor an instant, threw up her hands with a despairing gesture, and\nvanished as suddenly and as noiselessly as she had come.\n\"the newcomers were colonel lysander stark and a short thick man with\na chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double chin, who\nwas introduced to me as mr. ferguson.\n\"'this is my secretary and manager,' said the colonel. 'by the way, i\nwas under the impression that i left this door shut just now. i fear\nthat you have felt the draught.'\n\"'on the contrary,' said i, 'i opened the door myself because i felt\nthe room to be a little close.'\n\"he shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'perhaps we had better\nproceed to business, then,' said he. 'mr. ferguson and i will take\nyou up to see the machine.'\n\"'i had better put my hat on, i suppose.'\n\"'oh, no, it is in the house.'\n\"'what, you dig fuller's-earth in the house?'\n\"'no, no. this is only where we compress it. but never mind that. all\nwe wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us know what\nis wrong with it.'\n\"we went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the fat\nmanager and i behind him. it was a labyrinth of an old house, with\ncorridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors,\nthe thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had\ncrossed them. there were no carpets and no signs of any furniture\nabove the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls,\nand the damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches. i\ntried to put on as unconcerned an air as possible, but i had not\nforgotten the warnings of the lady, even though i disregarded them,\nand i kept a keen eye upon my two companions. ferguson appeared to be\na morose and silent man, but i could see from the little that he said\nthat he was at least a fellow-countryman.\n\"colonel lysander stark stopped at last before a low door, which he\nunlocked. within was a small, square room, in which the three of us\ncould hardly get at one time. ferguson remained outside, and the\ncolonel ushered me in.\n\"'we are now,' said he, 'actually within the hydraulic press, and it\nwould be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were to\nturn it on. the ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of\nthe descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons\nupon this metal floor. there are small lateral columns of water\noutside which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it\nin the manner which is familiar to you. the machine goes readily\nenough, but there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has\nlost a little of its force. perhaps you will have the goodness to\nlook it over and to show us how we can set it right.'\n\"i took the lamp from him, and i examined the machine very\nthoroughly. it was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of exercising\nenormous pressure. when i passed outside, however, and pressed down\nthe levers which controlled it, i knew at once by the whishing sound\nthat there was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of\nwater through one of the side cylinders. an examination showed that\none of the india-rubber bands which was round the head of a\ndriving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to fill the socket along which\nit worked. this was clearly the cause of the loss of power, and i\npointed it out to my companions, who followed my remarks very\ncarefully and asked several practical questions as to how they should\nproceed to set it right. when i had made it clear to them, i returned\nto the main chamber of the machine and took a good look at it to\nsatisfy my own curiosity. it was obvious at a glance that the story\nof the fuller's-earth was the merest fabrication, for it would be\nabsurd to suppose that so powerful an engine could be designed for so\ninadequate a purpose. the walls were of wood, but the floor consisted\nof a large iron trough, and when i came to examine it i could see a\ncrust of metallic deposit all over it. i had stooped and was scraping\nat this to see exactly what it was when i heard a muttered\nexclamation in german and saw the cadaverous face of the colonel\nlooking down at me.\n\"'what are you doing there?' he asked.\n\"i felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as that\nwhich he had told me. 'i was admiring your fuller's-earth,' said i;\n'i think that i should be better able to advise you as to your\nmachine if i knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.'\n\"the instant that i uttered the words i regretted the rashness of my\nspeech. his face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in his grey\neyes.\n\"'very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' he\ntook a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key in\nthe lock. i rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was\nquite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves.\n'hullo!' i yelled. 'hullo! colonel! let me out!'\n\"and then suddenly in the silence i heard a sound which sent my heart\ninto my mouth. it was the clank of the levers and the swish of the\nleaking cylinder. he had set the engine at work. the lamp still stood\nupon the floor where i had placed it when examining the trough. by\nits light i saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me,\nslowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force\nwhich must within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp. i threw\nmyself, screaming, against the door, and dragged with my nails at the\nlock. i implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless\nclanking of the levers drowned my cries. the ceiling was only a foot\nor two above my head, and with my hand upraised i could feel its\nhard, rough surface. then it flashed through my mind that the pain of\nmy death would depend very much upon the position in which i met it.\nif i lay on my face the weight would come upon my spine, and i\nshuddered to think of that dreadful snap. easier the other way,\nperhaps; and yet, had i the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly\nblack shadow wavering down upon me? already i was unable to stand\nerect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope back\nto my heart.\n\"i have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the\nwalls were of wood. as i gave a last hurried glance around, i saw a\nthin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened\nand broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. for an instant i\ncould hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from\ndeath. the next instant i threw myself through, and lay half-fainting\nupon the other side. the panel had closed again behind me, but the\ncrash of the lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two\nslabs of metal, told me how narrow had been my escape.\n\"i was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and i\nfound myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a\nwoman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she\nheld a candle in her right. it was the same good friend whose warning\ni had so foolishly rejected.\n\"'come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'they will be here in a\nmoment. they will see that you are not there. oh, do not waste the\nso-precious time, but come!'\n\"this time, at least, i did not scorn her advice. i staggered to my\nfeet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair.\nthe latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we\nheard the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one\nanswering the other from the floor on which  we were and from the one\nbeneath. my guide stopped and looked about her like one  who is at\nher wit's end. then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom,\nthrough the window of which the moon was shining brightly.\n\"'it is your only chance,' said she. 'it is high, but it may be that\nyou can jump it.'\n\"as she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the\npassage, and i saw the lean figure of colonel lysander stark rushing\nforward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher's\ncleaver in the other. i rushed across the bedroom, flung open the\nwindow, and looked out. how quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden\nlooked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet\ndown. i clambered out upon the sill, but i hesitated to jump until i\nshould have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who\npursued me. if she were ill-used, then at any risks i was determined\nto go back to her assistance. the thought had hardly flashed through\nmy mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she\nthrew her arms round him and tried to hold him back.\n\"'fritz! fritz!' she cried in english, 'remember your promise after\nthe last time. you said it should not be again. he will be silent!\noh, he will be silent!'\n\"'you are mad, elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from her.\n'you will be the ruin of us. he has seen too much. let me pass, i\nsay!' he dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at\nme with his heavy weapon. i had let myself go, and was hanging by the\nhands to the sill, when his blow fell. i was conscious of a dull\npain, my grip loosened, and i fell into the garden below.\n\"i was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so i picked myself up and\nrushed off among the bushes as hard as i could run, for i understood\nthat i was far from being out of danger yet. suddenly, however, as i\nran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. i glanced down at\nmy hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time,\nsaw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring\nfrom my wound. i endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but\nthere came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment i fell in a\ndead faint among the rose-bushes.\n\"how long i remained unconscious i cannot tell. it must have been a\nvery long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was\nbreaking when i came to myself. my clothes were all sodden with dew,\nand my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. the\nsmarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my\nnight's adventure, and i sprang to my feet with the feeling that i\nmight hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. but to my astonishment,\nwhen i came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be\nseen. i had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the\nhighroad, and just a little lower down was a long building, which\nproved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which i had\narrived upon the previous night. were it not for the ugly wound upon\nmy hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have\nbeen an evil dream.\n\"half dazed, i went into the station and asked about the morning\ntrain. there would be one to reading in less than an hour. the same\nporter was on duty, i found, as had been there when i arrived. i\ninquired of him whether he had ever heard of colonel lysander stark.\nthe name was strange to him. had he observed a carriage the night\nbefore waiting for me? no, he had not. was there a police-station\nanywhere near? there was one about three miles off.\n\"it was too far for me to go, weak and ill as i was. i determined to\nwait until i got back to town before telling my story to the police.\nit was a little past six when i arrived, so i went first to have my\nwound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along\nhere. i put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you\nadvise.\"\nwe both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this\nextraordinary narrative. then sherlock holmes pulled down from the\nshelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his\ncuttings.\n\"here is an advertisement which will interest you,\" said he. \"it\nappeared in all the papers about a year ago. listen to this:\n\"'lost, on the 9th inst., mr. jeremiah hayling, aged twenty-six, a\nhydraulic engineer. left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and\nhas not been heard of since. was dressed in--'\netc., etc. ha! that represents the last time that the colonel needed\nto have his machine overhauled, i fancy.\"\n\"good heavens!\" cried my patient. \"then that explains what the girl\nsaid.\"\n\"undoubtedly. it is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and\ndesperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should\nstand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates\nwho will leave no survivor from a captured ship. well, every moment\nnow is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to\nscotland yard at once as a preliminary to starting for eyford.\"\nsome three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,\nbound from reading to the little berkshire village. there were\nsherlock holmes, the hydraulic engineer, inspector bradstreet, of\nscotland yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. bradstreet had spread\nan ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his\ncompasses drawing a circle with eyford for its centre.\n\"there you are,\" said he. \"that circle is drawn at a radius of ten\nmiles from the village. the place we want must be somewhere near that\nline. you said ten miles, i think, sir.\"\n\"it was an hour's good drive.\"\n\"and you think that they brought you back all that way when you were\nunconscious?\"\n\"they must have done so. i have a confused memory, too, of having\nbeen lifted and conveyed somewhere.\"\n\"what i cannot understand,\" said i, \"is why they should have spared\nyou when they found you lying fainting in the garden. perhaps the\nvillain was softened by the woman's entreaties.\"\n\"i hardly think that likely. i never saw a more inexorable face in my\nlife.\"\n\"oh, we shall soon clear up all that,\" said bradstreet. \"well, i have\ndrawn my circle, and i only wish i knew at what point upon it the\nfolk that we are in search of are to be found.\"\n\"i think i could lay my finger on it,\" said holmes quietly.\n\"really, now!\" cried the inspector, \"you have formed your opinion!\ncome, now, we shall see who agrees with you. i say it is south, for\nthe country is more deserted there.\"\n\"and i say east,\" said my patient.\n\"i am for west,\" remarked the plain-clothes man. \"there are several\nquiet little villages up there.\"\n\"and i am for north,\" said i, \"because there are no hills there, and\nour friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.\"\n\"come,\" cried the inspector, laughing; \"it's a very pretty diversity\nof opinion. we have boxed the compass among us. who do you give your\ncasting vote to?\"\n\"you are all wrong.\"\n\"but we can't all be.\"\n\"oh, yes, you can. this is my point.\" he placed his finger in the\ncentre of the circle. \"this is where we shall find them.\"\n\"but the twelve-mile drive?\" gasped hatherley.\n\"six out and six back. nothing simpler. you say yourself that the\nhorse was fresh and glossy when you got in. how could it be that if\nit had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?\"\n\"indeed, it is a likely ruse enough,\" observed bradstreet\nthoughtfully. \"of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of\nthis gang.\"\n\"none at all,\" said holmes. \"they are coiners on a large scale, and\nhave used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place\nof silver.\"\n\"we have known for some time that a clever gang was at work,\" said\nthe inspector. \"they have been turning out half-crowns by the\nthousand. we even traced them as far as reading, but could get no\nfarther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that\nthey were very old hands. but now, thanks to this lucky chance, i\nthink that we have got them right enough.\"\nbut the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined\nto fall into the hands of justice. as we rolled into eyford station\nwe saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a\nsmall clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense\nostrich feather over the landscape.\n\"a house on fire?\" asked bradstreet as the train steamed off again on\nits way.\n\"yes, sir!\" said the station-master.\n\"when did it break out?\"\n\"i hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and\nthe whole place is in a blaze.\"\n\"whose house is it?\"\n\"dr. becher's.\"\n\"tell me,\" broke in the engineer, \"is dr. becher a german, very thin,\nwith a long, sharp nose?\"\nthe station-master laughed heartily. \"no, sir, dr. becher is an\nenglishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a\nbetter-lined waistcoat. but he has a gentleman staying with him, a\npatient, as i understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a\nlittle good berkshire beef would do him no harm.\"\nthe station-master had not finished his speech before we were all\nhastening in the direction of the fire. the road topped a low hill,\nand there was a great widespread whitewashed building in front of us,\nspouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front\nthree fire-engines were vainly striving to keep the flames under.\n\"that's it!\" cried hatherley, in intense excitement. \"there is the\ngravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where i lay. that second\nwindow is the one that i jumped from.\"\n\"well, at least,\" said holmes, \"you have had your revenge upon them.\nthere can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was\ncrushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt\nthey were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the\ntime. now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last\nnight, though i very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off\nby now.\"\nand holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no\nword has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister\ngerman, or the morose englishman. early that morning a peasant had\nmet a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes\ndriving rapidly in the direction of reading, but there all traces of\nthe fugitives disappeared, and even holmes' ingenuity failed ever to\ndiscover the least clue as to their whereabouts.\nthe firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which\nthey had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly\nsevered human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor. about\nsunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and they\nsubdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the\nwhole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some\ntwisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of the\nmachinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so dearly.\nlarge masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored in an\nout-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have explained\nthe presence of those bulky boxes which have been already referred\nto.\nhow our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the\nspot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a\nmystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain\ntale. he had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom\nhad remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. on the\nwhole, it was most probable that the silent englishman, being less\nbold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to\nbear the unconscious man out of the way of danger.\n\"well,\" said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return\nonce more to london, \"it has been a pretty business for me! i have\nlost my thumb and i have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have i\ngained?\"\n\"experience,\" said holmes, laughing. \"indirectly it may be of value,\nyou know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation\nof being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.\"\nthe adventure of the noble bachelor\nthe lord st. simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long\nceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which\nthe unfortunate bridegroom moves. fresh scandals have eclipsed it,\nand their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this\nfour-year-old drama. as i have reason to believe, however, that the\nfull facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my\nfriend sherlock holmes had a considerable share in clearing the\nmatter up, i feel that no memoir of him would be complete without\nsome little sketch of this remarkable episode.\nit was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when i was\nstill sharing rooms with holmes in baker street, that he came home\nfrom an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for\nhim. i had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a\nsudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the jezail bullet\nwhich i had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my afghan\ncampaign throbbed with dull persistence. with my body in one\neasy-chair and my legs upon another, i had surrounded myself with a\ncloud of newspapers until at last, saturated with the news of the\nday, i tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge\ncrest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering\nlazily who my friend's noble correspondent could be.\n\"here is a very fashionable epistle,\" i remarked as he entered. \"your\nmorning letters, if i remember right, were from a fish-monger and a\ntide-waiter.\"\n\"yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety,\" he\nanswered, smiling, \"and the humbler are usually the more interesting.\nthis looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call\nupon a man either to be bored or to lie.\"\nhe broke the seal and glanced over the contents.\n\"oh, come, it may prove to be something of interest, after all.\"\n\"not social, then?\"\n\"no, distinctly professional.\"\n\"and from a noble client?\"\n\"one of the highest in england.\"\n\"my dear fellow, i congratulate you.\"\n\"i assure you, watson, without affectation, that the status of my\nclient is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his\ncase. it is just possible, however, that that also may not be wanting\nin this new investigation. you have been reading the papers\ndiligently of late, have you not?\"\n\"it looks like it,\" said i ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in the\ncorner. \"i have had nothing else to do.\"\n\"it is fortunate, for you will perhaps be able to post me up. i read\nnothing except the criminal news and the agony column. the latter is\nalways instructive. but if you have followed recent events so closely\nyou must have read about lord st. simon and his wedding?\"\n\"oh, yes, with the deepest interest.\"\n\"that is well. the letter which i hold in my hand is from lord st.\nsimon. i will read it to you, and in return you must turn over these\npapers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter. this is what\nhe says:\n\"'my dear mr. sherlock holmes:\n\"'lord backwater tells me that i may place implicit reliance upon\nyour judgment and discretion. i have determined, therefore, to call\nupon you and to consult you in reference to the very painful event\nwhich has occurred in connection with my wedding. mr. lestrade, of\nscotland yard, is acting already in the matter, but he assures me\nthat he sees no objection to your co-operation, and that he even\nthinks that it might be of some assistance. i will call at four\no'clock in the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement\nat that time, i hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is of\nparamount importance.\n\"'yours faithfully,\n\"'st. simon.'\n\"it is dated from grosvenor mansions, written with a quill pen, and\nthe noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink upon the\nouter side of his right little finger,\" remarked holmes as he folded\nup the epistle.\n\"he says four o'clock. it is three now. he will be here in an hour.\"\n\"then i have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon the\nsubject. turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in their\norder of time, while i take a glance as to who our client is.\" he\npicked a red-covered volume from a line of books of reference beside\nthe mantelpiece. \"here he is,\" said he, sitting down and flattening\nit out upon his knee. \"'lord robert walsingham de vere st. simon,\nsecond son of the duke of balmoral.' hum! 'arms: azure, three\ncaltrops in chief over a fess sable. born in 1846.' he's forty-one\nyears of age, which is mature for marriage. was under-secretary for\nthe colonies in a late administration. the duke, his father, was at\none time secretary for foreign affairs. they inherit plantagenet\nblood by direct descent, and tudor on the distaff side. ha! well,\nthere is nothing very instructive in all this. i think that i must\nturn to you watson, for something more solid.\"\n\"i have very little difficulty in finding what i want,\" said i, \"for\nthe facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as remarkable. i\nfeared to refer them to you, however, as i knew that you had an\ninquiry on hand and that you disliked the intrusion of other\nmatters.\"\n\"oh, you mean the little problem of the grosvenor square furniture\nvan. that is quite cleared up now--though, indeed, it was obvious\nfrom the first. pray give me the results of your newspaper\nselections.\"\n\"here is the first notice which i can find. it is in the personal\ncolumn of the morning post, and dates, as you see, some weeks back:\n\"'a marriage has been arranged [it says] and will, if rumour is\ncorrect, very shortly take place, between lord robert st. simon,\nsecond son of the duke of balmoral, and miss hatty doran, the only\ndaughter of aloysius doran. esq., of san francisco, cal., u.s.a.'\nthat is all.\"\n\"terse and to the point,\" remarked holmes, stretching his long, thin\nlegs towards the fire.\n\"there was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society papers\nof the same week. ah, here it is:\n\"'there will soon be a call for protection in the marriage market,\nfor the present free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against\nour home product. one by one the management of the noble houses of\ngreat britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from\nacross the atlantic. an important addition has been made during the\nlast week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by\nthese charming invaders. lord st. simon, who has shown himself for\nover twenty years proof against the little god's arrows, has now\ndefinitely announced his approaching marriage with miss hatty doran,\nthe fascinating daughter of a california millionaire. miss doran,\nwhose graceful figure and striking face attracted much attention at\nthe westbury house festivities, is an only child, and it is currently\nreported that her dowry will run to considerably over the six\nfigures, with expectancies for the future. as it is an open secret\nthat the duke of balmoral has been compelled to sell his pictures\nwithin the last few years, and as lord st. simon has no property of\nhis own save the small estate of birchmoor, it is obvious that the\ncalifornian heiress is not the only gainer by an alliance which will\nenable her to make the easy and common transition from a republican\nlady to a british peeress.'\"\n\"anything else?\" asked holmes, yawning.\n\"oh, yes; plenty. then there is another note in the morning post to\nsay that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it would\nbe at st. george's, hanover square, that only half a dozen intimate\nfriends would be invited, and that the party would return to the\nfurnished house at lancaster gate which has been taken by mr.\naloysius doran. two days later--that is, on wednesday last--there is\na curt announcement that the wedding had taken place, and that the\nhoneymoon would be passed at lord backwater's place, near\npetersfield. those are all the notices which appeared before the\ndisappearance of the bride.\"\n\"before the what?\" asked holmes with a start.\n\"the vanishing of the lady.\"\n\"when did she vanish, then?\"\n\"at the wedding breakfast.\"\n\"indeed. this is more interesting than it promised to be; quite\ndramatic, in fact.\"\n\"yes; it struck me as being a little out of the common.\"\n\"they often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during the\nhoneymoon; but i cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as\nthis. pray let me have the details.\"\n\"i warn you that they are very incomplete.\"\n\"perhaps we may make them less so.\"\n\"such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a\nmorning paper of yesterday, which i will read to you. it is headed,\n'singular occurrence at a fashionable wedding':\n\"'the family of lord robert st. simon has been thrown into the\ngreatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which have\ntaken place in connection with his wedding. the ceremony, as shortly\nannounced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the previous\nmorning; but it is only now that it has been possible to confirm the\nstrange rumours which have been so persistently floating about. in\nspite of the attempts of the friends to hush the matter up, so much\npublic attention has now been drawn to it that no good purpose can be\nserved by affecting to disregard what is a common subject for\nconversation.\n\"'the ceremony, which was performed at st. george's, hanover square,\nwas a very quiet one, no one being present save the father of the\nbride, mr. aloysius doran, the duchess of balmoral, lord backwater,\nlord eustace and lady clara st. simon (the younger brother and sister\nof the bridegroom), and lady alicia whittington. the whole party\nproceeded afterwards to the house of mr. aloysius doran, at lancaster\ngate, where breakfast had been prepared. it appears that some little\ntrouble was caused by a woman, whose name has not been ascertained,\nwho endeavoured to force her way into the house after the bridal\nparty, alleging that she had some claim upon lord st. simon. it was\nonly after a painful and prolonged scene that she was ejected by the\nbutler and the footman. the bride, who had fortunately entered the\nhouse before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast\nwith the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition and\nretired to her room. her prolonged absence having caused some\ncomment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that she\nhad only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an ulster\nand bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. one of the footmen\ndeclared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus apparelled, but\nhad refused to credit that it was his mistress, believing her to be\nwith the company. on ascertaining that his daughter had disappeared,\nmr. aloysius doran, in conjunction with the bridegroom, instantly put\nthemselves in communication with the police, and very energetic\ninquiries are being made, which will probably result in a speedy\nclearing up of this very singular business. up to a late hour last\nnight, however, nothing had transpired as to the whereabouts of the\nmissing lady. there are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is\nsaid that the police have caused the arrest of the woman who had\ncaused the original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or\nsome other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange\ndisappearance of the bride.'\"\n\"and is that all?\"\n\"only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is a\nsuggestive one.\"\n\"and it is--\"\n\"that miss flora millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance, has\nactually been arrested. it appears that she was formerly a danseuse\nat the allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom for some years.\nthere are no further particulars, and the whole case is in your hands\nnow--so far as it has been set forth in the public press.\"\n\"and an exceedingly interesting case it appears to be. i would not\nhave missed it for worlds. but there is a ring at the bell, watson,\nand as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, i have no doubt\nthat this will prove to be our noble client. do not dream of going,\nwatson, for i very much prefer having a witness, if only as a check\nto my own memory.\"\n\"lord robert st. simon,\" announced our page-boy, throwing open the\ndoor. a gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed\nand pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and\nwith the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had\never been to command and to be obeyed. his manner was brisk, and yet\nhis general appearance gave an undue impression of age, for he had a\nslight forward stoop and a little bend of the knees as he walked. his\nhair, too, as he swept off his very curly-brimmed hat, was grizzled\nround the edges and thin upon the top. as to his dress, it was\ncareful to the verge of foppishness, with high collar, black\nfrock-coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and\nlight-coloured gaiters. he advanced slowly into the room, turning his\nhead from left to right, and swinging in his right hand the cord\nwhich held his golden eyeglasses.\n\"good-day, lord st. simon,\" said holmes, rising and bowing. \"pray\ntake the basket-chair. this is my friend and colleague, dr. watson.\ndraw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this matter over.\"\n\"a most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine, mr.\nholmes. i have been cut to the quick. i understand that you have\nalready managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, though i\npresume that they were hardly from the same class of society.\"\n\"no, i am descending.\"\n\"i beg pardon.\"\n\"my last client of the sort was a king.\"\n\"oh, really! i had no idea. and which king?\"\n\"the king of scandinavia.\"\n\"what! had he lost his wife?\"\n\"you can understand,\" said holmes suavely, \"that i extend to the\naffairs of my other clients the same secrecy which i promise to you\nin yours.\"\n\"of course! very right! very right! i'm sure i beg pardon. as to my\nown case, i am ready to give you any information which may assist you\nin forming an opinion.\"\n\"thank you. i have already learned all that is in the public prints,\nnothing more. i presume that i may take it as correct--this article,\nfor example, as to the disappearance of the bride.\"\nlord st. simon glanced over it. \"yes, it is correct, as far as it\ngoes.\"\n\"but it needs a great deal of supplementing before anyone could offer\nan opinion. i think that i may arrive at my facts most directly by\nquestioning you.\"\n\"pray do so.\"\n\"when did you first meet miss hatty doran?\"\n\"in san francisco, a year ago.\"\n\"you were travelling in the states?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"did you become engaged then?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"but you were on a friendly footing?\"\n\"i was amused by her society, and she could see that i was amused.\"\n\"her father is very rich?\"\n\"he is said to be the richest man on the pacific slope.\"\n\"and how did he make his money?\"\n\"in mining. he had nothing a few years ago. then he struck gold,\ninvested it, and came up by leaps and bounds.\"\n\"now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your wife's\ncharacter?\"\nthe nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down into\nthe fire. \"you see, mr. holmes,\" said he, \"my wife was twenty before\nher father became a rich man. during that time she ran free in a\nmining camp and wandered through woods or mountains, so that her\neducation has come from nature rather than from the schoolmaster. she\nis what we call in england a tomboy, with a strong nature, wild and\nfree, unfettered by any sort of traditions. she is\nimpetuous--volcanic, i was about to say. she is swift in making up\nher mind and fearless in carrying out her resolutions. on the other\nhand, i would not have given her the name which i have the honour to\nbear\"--he gave a little stately cough--\"had not i thought her to be\nat bottom a noble woman. i believe that she is capable of heroic\nself-sacrifice and that anything dishonourable would be repugnant to\nher.\"\n\"have you her photograph?\"\n\"i brought this with me.\" he opened a locket and showed us the full\nface of a very lovely woman. it was not a photograph but an ivory\nminiature, and the artist had brought out the full effect of the\nlustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the exquisite mouth.\nholmes gazed long and earnestly at it. then he closed the locket and\nhanded it back to lord st. simon.\n\"the young lady came to london, then, and you renewed your\nacquaintance?\"\n\"yes, her father brought her over for this last london season. i met\nher several times, became engaged to her, and have now married her.\"\n\"she brought, i understand, a considerable dowry?\"\n\"a fair dowry. not more than is usual in my family.\"\n\"and this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a fait\naccompli?\"\n\"i really have made no inquiries on the subject.\"\n\"very naturally not. did you see miss doran on the day before the\nwedding?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"was she in good spirits?\"\n\"never better. she kept talking of what we should do in our future\nlives.\"\n\"indeed! that is very interesting. and on the morning of the\nwedding?\"\n\"she was as bright as possible--at least until after the ceremony.\"\n\"and did you observe any change in her then?\"\n\"well, to tell the truth, i saw then the first signs that i had ever\nseen that her temper was just a little sharp. the incident however,\nwas too trivial to relate and can have no possible bearing upon the\ncase.\"\n\"pray let us have it, for all that.\"\n\"oh, it is childish. she dropped her bouquet as we went towards the\nvestry. she was passing the front pew at the time, and it fell over\ninto the pew. there was a moment's delay, but the gentleman in the\npew handed it up to her again, and it did not appear to be the worse\nfor the fall. yet when i spoke to her of the matter, she answered me\nabruptly; and in the carriage, on our way home, she seemed absurdly\nagitated over this trifling cause.\"\n\"indeed! you say that there was a gentleman in the pew. some of the\ngeneral public were present, then?\"\n\"oh, yes. it is impossible to exclude them when the church is open.\"\n\"this gentleman was not one of your wife's friends?\"\n\"no, no; i call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a\ncommon-looking person. i hardly noticed his appearance. but really i\nthink that we are wandering rather far from the point.\"\n\"lady st. simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less cheerful\nframe of mind than she had gone to it. what did she do on re-entering\nher father's house?\"\n\"i saw her in conversation with her maid.\"\n\"and who is her maid?\"\n\"alice is her name. she is an american and came from california with\nher.\"\n\"a confidential servant?\"\n\"a little too much so. it seemed to me that her mistress allowed her\nto take great liberties. still, of course, in america they look upon\nthese things in a different way.\"\n\"how long did she speak to this alice?\"\n\"oh, a few minutes. i had something else to think of.\"\n\"you did not overhear what they said?\"\n\"lady st. simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' she was\naccustomed to use slang of the kind. i have no idea what she meant.\"\n\"american slang is very expressive sometimes. and what did your wife\ndo when she finished speaking to her maid?\"\n\"she walked into the breakfast-room.\"\n\"on your arm?\"\n\"no, alone. she was very independent in little matters like that.\nthen, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose\nhurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. she\nnever came back.\"\n\"but this maid, alice, as i understand, deposes that she went to her\nroom, covered her bride's dress with a long ulster, put on a bonnet,\nand went out.\"\n\"quite so. and she was afterwards seen walking into hyde park in\ncompany with flora millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who had\nalready made a disturbance at mr. doran's house that morning.\"\n\"ah, yes. i should like a few particulars as to this young lady, and\nyour relations to her.\"\nlord st. simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. \"we\nhave been on a friendly footing for some years--i may say on a very\nfriendly footing. she used to be at the allegro. i have not treated\nher ungenerously, and she had no just cause of complaint against me,\nbut you know what women are, mr. holmes. flora was a dear little\nthing, but exceedingly hot-headed and devotedly attached to me. she\nwrote me dreadful letters when she heard that i was about to be\nmarried, and, to tell the truth, the reason why i had the marriage\ncelebrated so quietly was that i feared lest there might be a scandal\nin the church. she came to mr. doran's door just after we returned,\nand she endeavoured to push her way in, uttering very abusive\nexpressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but i had\nforeseen the possibility of something of the sort, and i had two\npolice fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out\nagain. she was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a\nrow.\"\n\"did your wife hear all this?\"\n\"no, thank goodness, she did not.\"\n\"and she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?\"\n\"yes. that is what mr. lestrade, of scotland yard, looks upon as so\nserious. it is thought that flora decoyed my wife out and laid some\nterrible trap for her.\"\n\"well, it is a possible supposition.\"\n\"you think so, too?\"\n\"i did not say a probable one. but you do not yourself look upon this\nas likely?\"\n\"i do not think flora would hurt a fly.\"\n\"still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. pray what is\nyour own theory as to what took place?\"\n\"well, really, i came to seek a theory, not to propound one. i have\ngiven you all the facts. since you ask me, however, i may say that it\nhas occurred to me as possible that the excitement of this affair,\nthe consciousness that she had made so immense a social stride, had\nthe effect of causing some little nervous disturbance in my wife.\"\n\"in short, that she had become suddenly deranged?\"\n\"well, really, when i consider that she has turned her back--i will\nnot say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without\nsuccess--i can hardly explain it in any other fashion.\"\n\"well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis,\" said holmes,\nsmiling. \"and now, lord st. simon, i think that i have nearly all my\ndata. may i ask whether you were seated at the breakfast-table so\nthat you could see out of the window?\"\n\"we could see the other side of the road and the park.\"\n\"quite so. then i do not think that i need to detain you longer. i\nshall communicate with you.\"\n\"should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem,\" said our\nclient, rising.\n\"i have solved it.\"\n\"eh? what was that?\"\n\"i say that i have solved it.\"\n\"where, then, is my wife?\"\n\"that is a detail which i shall speedily supply.\"\nlord st. simon shook his head. \"i am afraid that it will take wiser\nheads than yours or mine,\" he remarked, and bowing in a stately,\nold-fashioned manner he departed.\n\"it is very good of lord st. simon to honour my head by putting it on\na level with his own,\" said sherlock holmes, laughing. \"i think that\ni shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all this\ncross-questioning. i had formed my conclusions as to the case before\nour client came into the room.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"i have notes of several similar cases, though none, as i remarked\nbefore, which were quite as prompt. my whole examination served to\nturn my conjecture into a certainty. circumstantial evidence is\noccasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk,\nto quote thoreau's example.\"\n\"but i have heard all that you have heard.\"\n\"without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which serves\nme so well. there was a parallel instance in aberdeen some years\nback, and something on very much the same lines at munich the year\nafter the franco-prussian war. it is one of these cases--but, hullo,\nhere is lestrade! good-afternoon, lestrade! you will find an extra\ntumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box.\"\nthe official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which\ngave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black\ncanvas bag in his hand. with a short greeting he seated himself and\nlit the cigar which had been offered to him.\n\"what's up, then?\" asked holmes with a twinkle in his eye. \"you look\ndissatisfied.\"\n\"and i feel dissatisfied. it is this infernal st. simon marriage\ncase. i can make neither head nor tail of the business.\"\n\"really! you surprise me.\"\n\"who ever heard of such a mixed affair? every clue seems to slip\nthrough my fingers. i have been at work upon it all day.\"\n\"and very wet it seems to have made you,\" said holmes laying his hand\nupon the arm of the pea-jacket.\n\"yes, i have been dragging the serpentine.\"\n\"in heaven's name, what for?\"\n\"in search of the body of lady st. simon.\"\nsherlock holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.\n\"have you dragged the basin of trafalgar square fountain?\" he asked.\n\"why? what do you mean?\"\n\"because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the\none as in the other.\"\nlestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. \"i suppose you know\nall about it,\" he snarled.\n\"well, i have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up.\"\n\"oh, indeed! then you think that the serpentine plays no part in the\nmatter?\"\n\"i think it very unlikely.\"\n\"then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found this in\nit?\" he opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the floor a\nwedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin shoes and a\nbride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked in water.\n\"there,\" said he, putting a new wedding-ring upon the top of the\npile. \"there is a little nut for you to crack, master holmes.\"\n\"oh, indeed!\" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air.  \"you\ndragged them from the serpentine?\"\n\"no. they were found floating near the margin by a park-keeper. they\nhave been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me that if the\nclothes were there the body would not be far off.\"\n\"by the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found in\nthe neighbourhood of his wardrobe. and pray what did you hope to\narrive at through this?\"\n\"at some evidence implicating flora millar in the disappearance.\"\n\"i am afraid that you will find it difficult.\"\n\"are you, indeed, now?\" cried lestrade with some bitterness. \"i am\nafraid, holmes, that you are not very practical with your deductions\nand your inferences. you have made two blunders in as many minutes.\nthis dress does implicate miss flora millar.\"\n\"and how?\"\n\"in the dress is a pocket. in the pocket is a card-case. in the\ncard-case is a note. and here is the very note.\" he slapped it down\nupon the table in front of him. \"listen to this:\n\"'you will see me when all is ready. come at once.\n\"'f.h.m.'\nnow my theory all along has been that lady st. simon was decoyed away\nby flora millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was\nresponsible for her disappearance. here, signed with her initials, is\nthe very note which was no doubt quietly slipped into her hand at the\ndoor and which lured her within their reach.\"\n\"very good, lestrade,\" said holmes, laughing. \"you really are very\nfine indeed. let me see it.\" he took up the paper in a listless way,\nbut his attention instantly became riveted, and he gave a little cry\nof satisfaction. \"this is indeed important,\" said he.\n\"ha! you find it so?\"\n\"extremely so. i congratulate you warmly.\"\nlestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. \"why,\" he\nshrieked, \"you're looking at the wrong side!\"\n\"on the contrary, this is the right side.\"\n\"the right side? you're mad! here is the note written in pencil over\nhere.\"\n\"and over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel bill,\nwhich interests me deeply.\"\n\"there's nothing in it. i looked at it before,\" said lestrade.\n\"'oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s.\n6d., glass sherry, 8d.' i see nothing in that.\"\n\"very likely not. it is most important, all the same. as to the note,\nit is important also, or at least the initials are, so i congratulate\nyou again.\"\n\"i've wasted time enough,\" said lestrade, rising. \"i believe in hard\nwork and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories. good-day,\nmr. holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom of the matter\nfirst.\" he gathered up the garments, thrust them into the bag, and\nmade for the door.\n\"just one hint to you, lestrade,\" drawled holmes before his rival\nvanished; \"i will tell you the true solution of the matter. lady st.\nsimon is a myth. there is not, and there never has been, any such\nperson.\"\nlestrade looked sadly at my companion. then he turned to me, tapped\nhis forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and hurried away.\nhe had hardly shut the door behind him when holmes rose to put on his\novercoat. \"there is something in what the fellow says about outdoor\nwork,\" he remarked, \"so i think, watson, that i must leave you to\nyour papers for a little.\"\nit was after five o'clock when sherlock holmes left me, but i had no\ntime to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner's\nman with a very large flat box. this he unpacked with the help of a\nyouth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great\nastonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid\nout upon our humble lodging-house mahogany. there were a couple of\nbrace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pt de foie gras pie with a\ngroup of ancient and cobwebby bottles. having laid out all these\nluxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the\narabian nights, with no explanation save that the things had been\npaid for and were ordered to this address.\njust before nine o'clock sherlock holmes stepped briskly into the\nroom. his features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye\nwhich made me think that he had not been disappointed in his\nconclusions.\n\"they have laid the supper, then,\" he said, rubbing his hands.\n\"you seem to expect company. they have laid for five.\"\n\"yes, i fancy we may have some company dropping in,\" said he. \"i am\nsurprised that lord st. simon has not already arrived. ha! i fancy\nthat i hear his step now upon the stairs.\"\nit was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in,\ndangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very\nperturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.\n\"my messenger reached you, then?\" asked holmes.\n\"yes, and i confess that the contents startled me beyond measure.\nhave you good authority for what you say?\"\n\"the best possible.\"\nlord st. simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his\nforehead.\n\"what will the duke say,\" he murmured, \"when he hears that one of the\nfamily has been subjected to such humiliation?\"\n\"it is the purest accident. i cannot allow that there is any\nhumiliation.\"\n\"ah, you look on these things from another standpoint.\"\n\"i fail to see that anyone is to blame. i can hardly see how the lady\ncould have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was\nundoubtedly to be regretted. having no mother, she had no one to\nadvise her at such a crisis.\"\n\"it was a slight, sir, a public slight,\" said lord st. simon, tapping\nhis fingers upon the table.\n\"you must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so\nunprecedented a position.\"\n\"i will make no allowance. i am very angry indeed, and i have been\nshamefully used.\"\n\"i think that i heard a ring,\" said holmes. \"yes, there are steps on\nthe landing. if i cannot persuade you to take a lenient view of the\nmatter, lord st. simon, i have brought an advocate here who may be\nmore successful.\" he opened the door and ushered in a lady and\ngentleman. \"lord st. simon,\" said he \"allow me to introduce you to\nmr. and mrs. francis hay moulton. the lady, i think, you have already\nmet.\"\nat the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his seat\nand stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand thrust\ninto the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended dignity. the\nlady had taken a quick step forward and had held out her hand to him,\nbut he still refused to raise his eyes. it was as well for his\nresolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was one which it was hard\nto resist.\n\"you're angry, robert,\" said she. \"well, i guess you have every cause\nto be.\"\n\"pray make no apology to me,\" said lord st. simon bitterly.\n\"oh, yes, i know that i have treated you real bad and that i should\nhave spoken to you before i went; but i was kind of rattled, and from\nthe time when i saw frank here again i just didn't know what i was\ndoing or saying. i only wonder i didn't fall down and do a faint\nright there before the altar.\"\n\"perhaps, mrs. moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the\nroom while you explain this matter?\"\n\"if i may give an opinion,\" remarked the strange gentleman, \"we've\nhad just a little too much secrecy over this business already. for my\npart, i should like all europe and america to hear the rights of it.\"\nhe was a small, wiry, sunburnt man, clean-shaven, with a sharp face\nand alert manner.\n\"then i'll tell our story right away,\" said the lady. \"frank here and\ni met in '84, in mcquire's camp, near the rockies, where pa was\nworking a claim. we were engaged to each other, frank and i; but then\none day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor frank\nhere had a claim that petered out and came to nothing. the richer pa\ngrew the poorer was frank; so at last pa wouldn't hear of our\nengagement lasting any longer, and he took me away to 'frisco. frank\nwouldn't throw up his hand, though; so he followed me there, and he\nsaw me without pa knowing anything about it. it would only have made\nhim mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves. frank said\nthat he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim\nme until he had as much as pa. so then i promised to wait for him to\nthe end of time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he\nlived. 'why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and\nthen i will feel sure of you; and i won't claim to be your husband\nuntil i come back?' well, we talked it over, and he had fixed it all\nup so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did\nit right there; and then frank went off to seek his fortune, and i\nwent back to pa.\n\"the next i heard of frank was that he was in montana, and then he\nwent prospecting in arizona, and then i heard of him from new mexico.\nafter that came a long newspaper story about how a miners' camp had\nbeen attacked by apache indians, and there was my frank's name among\nthe killed. i fainted dead away, and i was very sick for months\nafter. pa thought i had a decline and took me to half the doctors in\n'frisco. not a word of news came for a year and more, so that i never\ndoubted that frank was really dead. then lord st. simon came to\n'frisco, and we came to london, and a marriage was arranged, and pa\nwas very pleased, but i felt all the time that no man on this earth\nwould ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor\nfrank.\n\"still, if i had married lord st. simon, of course i'd have done my\nduty by him. we can't command our love, but we can our actions. i\nwent to the altar with him with the intention to make him just as\ngood a wife as it was in me to be. but you may imagine what i felt\nwhen, just as i came to the altar rails, i glanced back and saw frank\nstanding and looking at me out of the first pew. i thought it was his\nghost at first; but when i looked again there he was still, with a\nkind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether i were glad or\nsorry to see him. i wonder i didn't drop. i know that everything was\nturning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz\nof a bee in my ear. i didn't know what to do. should i stop the\nservice and make a scene in the church? i glanced at him again, and\nhe seemed to know what i was thinking, for he raised his finger to\nhis lips to tell me to be still. then i saw him scribble on a piece\nof paper, and i knew that he was writing me a note. as i passed his\npew on the way out i dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped\nthe note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. it was only a\nline asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so. of\ncourse i never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to\nhim, and i determined to do just whatever he might direct.\n\"when i got back i told my maid, who had known him in california, and\nhad always been his friend. i ordered her to say nothing, but to get\na few things packed and my ulster ready. i know i ought to have\nspoken to lord st. simon, but it was dreadful hard before his mother\nand all those great people. i just made up my mind to run away and\nexplain afterwards. i hadn't been at the table ten minutes before i\nsaw frank out of the window at the other side of the road. he\nbeckoned to me and then began walking into the park. i slipped out,\nput on my things, and followed him. some woman came talking something\nor other about lord st. simon to me--seemed to me from the little i\nheard as if he had a little secret of his own before marriage\nalso--but i managed to get away from her and soon overtook frank. we\ngot into a cab together, and away we drove to some lodgings he had\ntaken in gordon square, and that was my true wedding after all those\nyears of waiting. frank had been a prisoner among the apaches, had\nescaped, came on to 'frisco, found that i had given him up for dead\nand had gone to england, followed me there, and had come upon me at\nlast on the very morning of my second wedding.\"\n\"i saw it in a paper,\" explained the american. \"it gave the name and\nthe church but not where the lady lived.\"\n\"then we had a talk as to what we should do, and frank was all for\nopenness, but i was so ashamed of it all that i felt as if i should\nlike to vanish away and never see any of them again--just sending a\nline to pa, perhaps, to show him that i was alive. it was awful to me\nto think of all those lords and ladies sitting round that\nbreakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. so frank took my\nwedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that i\nshould not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one\ncould find them. it is likely that we should have gone on to paris\nto-morrow, only that this good gentleman, mr. holmes, came round to\nus this evening, though how he found us is more than i can think, and\nhe showed us very clearly and kindly that i was wrong and that frank\nwas right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we\nwere so secret. then he offered to give us a chance of talking to\nlord st. simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at\nonce. now, robert, you have heard it all, and i am very sorry if i\nhave given you pain, and i hope that you do not think very meanly of\nme.\"\nlord st. simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but had\nlistened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this long\nnarrative.\n\"excuse me,\" he said, \"but it is not my custom to discuss my most\nintimate personal affairs in this public manner.\"\n\"then you won't forgive me? you won't shake hands before i go?\"\n\"oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure.\" he put out his\nhand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him.\n\"i had hoped,\" suggested holmes, \"that you would have joined us in a\nfriendly supper.\"\n\"i think that there you ask a little too much,\" responded his\nlordship. \"i may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments,\nbut i can hardly be expected to make merry over them. i think that\nwith your permission i will now wish you all a very good-night.\" he\nincluded us all in a sweeping bow and stalked out of the room.\n\"then i trust that you at least will honour me with your company,\"\nsaid sherlock holmes. \"it is always a joy to meet an american, mr.\nmoulton, for i am one of those who believe that the folly of a\nmonarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not\nprevent our children from being some day citizens of the same\nworld-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the\nunion jack with the stars and stripes.\"\n\"the case has been an interesting one,\" remarked holmes when our\nvisitors had left us, \"because it serves to show very clearly how\nsimple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems\nto be almost inexplicable. nothing could be more natural than the\nsequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger\nthan the result when viewed, for instance, by mr. lestrade of\nscotland yard.\"\n\"you were not yourself at fault at all, then?\"\n\"from the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the\nlady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the\nother that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning\nhome. obviously something had occurred during the morning, then, to\ncause her to change her mind. what could that something be? she could\nnot have spoken to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the\ncompany of the bridegroom. had she seen someone, then? if she had, it\nmust be someone from america because she had spent so short a time in\nthis country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so\ndeep an influence over her that the mere sight of him would induce\nher to change her plans so completely. you see we have already\narrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have\nseen an american. then who could this american be, and why should he\npossess so much influence over her? it might be a lover; it might be\na husband. her young womanhood had, i knew, been spent in rough\nscenes and under strange conditions. so far i had got before i ever\nheard lord st. simon's narrative. when he told us of a man in a pew,\nof the change in the bride's manner, of so transparent a device for\nobtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her\nconfidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to\nclaim-jumping--which in miners' parlance means taking possession of\nthat which another person has a prior claim to--the whole situation\nbecame absolutely clear. she had gone off with a man, and the man was\neither a lover or was a previous husband--the chances being in favour\nof the latter.\"\n\"and how in the world did you find them?\"\n\"it might have been difficult, but friend lestrade held information\nin his hands the value of which he did not himself know. the initials\nwere, of course, of the highest importance, but more valuable still\nwas it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at one of\nthe most select london hotels.\"\n\"how did you deduce the select?\"\n\"by the select prices. eight shillings for a bed and eightpence for a\nglass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. there\nare not many in london which charge at that rate. in the second one\nwhich i visited in northumberland avenue, i learned by an inspection\nof the book that francis h. moulton, an american gentleman, had left\nonly the day before, and on looking over the entries against him, i\ncame upon the very items which i had seen in the duplicate bill. his\nletters were to be forwarded to 226 gordon square; so thither i\ntravelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at\nhome, i ventured to give them some paternal advice and to point out\nto them that it would be better in every way that they should make\ntheir position a little clearer both to the general public and to\nlord st. simon in particular. i invited them to meet him here, and,\nas you see, i made him keep the appointment.\"\n\"but with no very good result,\" i remarked. \"his conduct was\ncertainly not very gracious.\"\n\"ah, watson,\" said holmes, smiling, \"perhaps you would not be very\ngracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you\nfound yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune. i think\nthat we may judge lord st. simon very mercifully and thank our stars\nthat we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position. draw\nyour chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have\nstill to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.\"\nthe adventure of the beryl coronet\n\"holmes,\" said i as i stood one morning in our bow-window looking\ndown the street, \"here is a madman coming along. it seems rather sad\nthat his relatives should allow him to come out alone.\"\nmy friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands in\nthe pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. it was a\nbright, crisp february morning, and the snow of the day before still\nlay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. down\nthe centre of baker street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly\nband by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of\nthe foot-paths it still lay as white as when it fell. the grey\npavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously\nslippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. indeed,\nfrom the direction of the metropolitan station no one was coming save\nthe single gentleman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.\nhe was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a\nmassive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. he was dressed\nin a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat\nbrown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. yet his actions were\nin absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he\nwas running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man\ngives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs. as he\nran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed\nhis face into the most extraordinary contortions.\n\"what on earth can be the matter with him?\" i asked. \"he is looking\nup at the numbers of the houses.\"\n\"i believe that he is coming here,\" said holmes, rubbing his hands.\n\"here?\"\n\"yes; i rather think he is coming to consult me professionally. i\nthink that i recognise the symptoms. ha! did i not tell you?\" as he\nspoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at\nour bell until the whole house resounded with the clanging.\na few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still\ngesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his\neyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity.\nfor a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and\nplucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme\nlimits of his reason. then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat\nhis head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon\nhim and tore him away to the centre of the room. sherlock holmes\npushed him down into the easy-chair and, sitting beside him, patted\nhis hand and chatted with him in the easy, soothing tones which he\nknew so well how to employ.\n\"you have come to me to tell your story, have you not?\" said he. \"you\nare fatigued with your haste. pray wait until you have recovered\nyourself, and then i shall be most happy to look into any little\nproblem which you may submit to me.\"\nthe man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting\nagainst his emotion. then he passed his handkerchief over his brow,\nset his lips tight, and turned his face towards us.\n\"no doubt you think me mad?\" said he.\n\"i see that you have had some great trouble,\" responded holmes.\n\"god knows i have!--a trouble which is enough to unseat my reason, so\nsudden and so terrible is it. public disgrace i might have faced,\nalthough i am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain.\nprivate affliction also is the lot of every man; but the two coming\ntogether, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my\nvery soul. besides, it is not i alone. the very noblest in the land\nmay suffer unless some way be found out of this horrible affair.\"\n\"pray compose yourself, sir,\" said holmes, \"and let me have a clear\naccount of who you are and what it is that has befallen you.\"\n\"my name,\" answered our visitor, \"is probably familiar to your ears.\ni am alexander holder, of the banking firm of holder & stevenson, of\nthreadneedle street.\"\nthe name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior\npartner in the second largest private banking concern in the city of\nlondon. what could have happened, then, to bring one of the foremost\ncitizens of london to this most pitiable pass? we waited, all\ncuriosity, until with another effort he braced himself to tell his\nstory.\n\"i feel that time is of value,\" said he; \"that is why i hastened here\nwhen the police inspector suggested that i should secure your\nco-operation. i came to baker street by the underground and hurried\nfrom there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow. that is\nwhy i was so out of breath, for i am a man who takes very little\nexercise. i feel better now, and i will put the facts before you as\nshortly and yet as clearly as i can.\n\"it is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking\nbusiness as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative\ninvestments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection and\nthe number of our depositors. one of our most lucrative means of\nlaying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security is\nunimpeachable. we have done a good deal in this direction during the\nlast few years, and there are many noble families to whom we have\nadvanced large sums upon the security of their pictures, libraries,\nor plate.\n\"yesterday morning i was seated in my office at the bank when a card\nwas brought in to me by one of the clerks. i started when i saw the\nname, for it was that of none other than--well, perhaps even to you i\nhad better say no more than that it was a name which is a household\nword all over the earth--one of the highest, noblest, most exalted\nnames in england. i was overwhelmed by the honour and attempted, when\nhe entered, to say so, but he plunged at once into business with the\nair of a man who wishes to hurry quickly through a disagreeable task.\n\"'mr. holder,' said he, 'i have been informed that you are in the\nhabit of advancing money.'\n\"'the firm does so when the security is good.' i answered.\n\"'it is absolutely essential to me,' said he, 'that i should have\n50,000 at once. i could, of course, borrow so trifling a sum ten\ntimes over from my friends, but i much prefer to make it a matter of\nbusiness and to carry out that business myself. in my position you\ncan readily understand that it is unwise to place one's self under\nobligations.'\n\"'for how long, may i ask, do you want this sum?' i asked.\n\"'next monday i have a large sum due to me, and i shall then most\ncertainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it\nright to charge. but it is very essential to me that the money should\nbe paid at once.'\n\"'i should be happy to advance it without further parley from my own\nprivate purse,' said i, 'were it not that the strain would be rather\nmore than it could bear. if, on the other hand, i am to do it in the\nname of the firm, then in justice to my partner i must insist that,\neven in your case, every businesslike precaution should be taken.'\n\"'i should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a square,\nblack morocco case which he had laid beside his chair.  'you have\ndoubtless heard of the beryl coronet?'\n\"'one of the most precious public possessions of the empire,' said i.\n\"'precisely.' he opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft,\nflesh-coloured velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewellery which\nhe had named. 'there are thirty-nine enormous beryls,' said he, 'and\nthe price of the gold chasing is incalculable. the lowest estimate\nwould put the worth of the coronet at double the sum which i have\nasked. i am prepared to leave it with you as my security.'\n\"i took the precious case into my hands and looked in some perplexity\nfrom it to my illustrious client.\n\"'you doubt its value?' he asked.\n\"'not at all. i only doubt--'\n\"'the propriety of my leaving it. you may set your mind at rest about\nthat. i should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain\nthat i should be able in four days to reclaim it. it is a pure matter\nof form. is the security sufficient?'\n\"'ample.'\n\"'you understand, mr. holder, that i am giving you a strong proof of\nthe confidence which i have in you, founded upon all that i have\nheard of you. i rely upon you not only to be discreet and to refrain\nfrom all gossip upon the matter but, above all, to preserve this\ncoronet with every possible precaution because i need not say that a\ngreat public scandal would be caused if any harm were to befall it.\nany injury to it would be almost as serious as its complete loss, for\nthere are no beryls in the world to match these, and it would be\nimpossible to replace them. i leave it with you, however, with every\nconfidence, and i shall call for it in person on monday morning.'\n\"seeing that my client was anxious to leave, i said no more but,\ncalling for my cashier, i ordered him to pay over fifty 1000 notes.\nwhen i was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying\nupon the table in front of me, i could not but think with some\nmisgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me.\nthere could be no doubt that, as it was a national possession, a\nhorrible scandal would ensue if any misfortune should occur to it. i\nalready regretted having ever consented to take charge of it.\nhowever, it was too late to alter the matter now, so i locked it up\nin my private safe and turned once more to my work.\n\"when evening came i felt that it would be an imprudence to leave so\nprecious a thing in the office behind me. bankers' safes had been\nforced before now, and why should not mine be? if so, how terrible\nwould be the position in which i should find myself! i determined,\ntherefore, that for the next few days i would always carry the case\nbackward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of\nmy reach. with this intention, i called a cab and drove out to my\nhouse at streatham, carrying the jewel with me. i did not breathe\nfreely until i had taken it upstairs and locked it in the bureau of\nmy dressing-room.\n\"and now a word as to my household, mr. holmes, for i wish you to\nthoroughly understand the situation. my groom and my page sleep out\nof the house, and may be set aside altogether. i have three\nmaid-servants who have been with me a number of years and whose\nabsolute reliability is quite above suspicion. another, lucy parr,\nthe second waiting-maid, has only been in my service a few months.\nshe came with an excellent character, however, and has always given\nme satisfaction. she is a very pretty girl and has attracted admirers\nwho have occasionally hung about the place. that is the only drawback\nwhich we have found to her, but we believe her to be a thoroughly\ngood girl in every way.\n\"so much for the servants. my family itself is so small that it will\nnot take me long to describe it. i am a widower and have an only son,\narthur. he has been a disappointment to me, mr. holmes--a grievous\ndisappointment. i have no doubt that i am myself to blame. people\ntell me that i have spoiled him. very likely i have. when my dear\nwife died i felt that he was all i had to love. i could not bear to\nsee the smile fade even for a moment from his face. i have never\ndenied him a wish. perhaps it would have been better for both of us\nhad i been sterner, but i meant it for the best.\n\"it was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my\nbusiness, but he was not of a business turn. he was wild, wayward,\nand, to speak the truth, i could not trust him in the handling of\nlarge sums of money. when he was young he became a member of an\naristocratic club, and there, having charming manners, he was soon\nthe intimate of a number of men with long purses and expensive\nhabits. he learned to play heavily at cards and to squander money on\nthe turf, until he had again and again to come to me and implore me\nto give him an advance upon his allowance, that he might settle his\ndebts of honour. he tried more than once to break away from the\ndangerous company which he was keeping, but each time the influence\nof his friend, sir george burnwell, was enough to draw him back\nagain.\n\"and, indeed, i could not wonder that such a man as sir george\nburnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently\nbrought him to my house, and i have found myself that i could hardly\nresist the fascination of his manner. he is older than arthur, a man\nof the world to his finger-tips, one who had been everywhere, seen\neverything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty.\nyet when i think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of\nhis presence, i am convinced from his cynical speech and the look\nwhich i have caught in his eyes that he is one who should be deeply\ndistrusted. so i think, and so, too, thinks my little mary, who has a\nwoman's quick insight into character.\n\"and now there is only she to be described. she is my niece; but when\nmy brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world i\nadopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter. she\nis a sunbeam in my house--sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful\nmanager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a\nwoman could be. she is my right hand. i do not know what i could do\nwithout her. in only one matter has she ever gone against my wishes.\ntwice my boy has asked her to marry him, for he loves her devotedly,\nbut each time she has refused him. i think that if anyone could have\ndrawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his\nmarriage might have changed his whole life; but now, alas! it is too\nlate--forever too late!\n\"now, mr. holmes, you know the people who live under my roof, and i\nshall continue with my miserable story.\n\"when we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after\ndinner, i told arthur and mary my experience, and of the precious\ntreasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my\nclient. lucy parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, i am sure,\nleft the room; but i cannot swear that the door was closed. mary and\narthur were much interested and wished to see the famous coronet, but\ni thought it better not to disturb it.\n\"'where have you put it?' asked arthur.\n\"'in my own bureau.'\n\"'well, i hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the\nnight.' said he.\n\"'it is locked up,' i answered.\n\"'oh, any old key will fit that bureau. when i was a youngster i have\nopened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.'\n\"he often had a wild way of talking, so that i thought little of what\nhe said. he followed me to my room, however, that night with a very\ngrave face.\n\"'look here, dad,' said he with his eyes cast down, 'can you let me\nhave 200?'\n\"'no, i cannot!' i answered sharply. 'i have been far too generous\nwith you in money matters.'\n\"'you have been very kind,' said he, 'but i must have this money, or\nelse i can never show my face inside the club again.'\n\"'and a very good thing, too!' i cried.\n\"'yes, but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man,' said\nhe. 'i could not bear the disgrace. i must raise the money in some\nway, and if you will not let me have it, then i must try other\nmeans.'\n\"i was very angry, for this was the third demand during the month.\n'you shall not have a farthing from me,' i cried, on which he bowed\nand left the room without another word.\n\"when he was gone i unlocked my bureau, made sure that my treasure\nwas safe, and locked it again. then i started to go round the house\nto see that all was secure--a duty which i usually leave to mary but\nwhich i thought it well to perform myself that night. as i came down\nthe stairs i saw mary herself at the side window of the hall, which\nshe closed and fastened as i approached.\n\"'tell me, dad,' said she, looking, i thought, a little disturbed,\n'did you give lucy, the maid, leave to go out to-night?'\n\"'certainly not.'\n\"'she came in just now by the back door. i have no doubt that she has\nonly been to the side gate to see someone, but i think that it is\nhardly safe and should be stopped.'\n\"'you must speak to her in the morning, or i will if you prefer it.\nare you sure that everything is fastened?'\n\"'quite sure, dad.'\n\"'then, good-night.' i kissed her and went up to my bedroom again,\nwhere i was soon asleep.\n\"i am endeavouring to tell you everything, mr. holmes, which may have\nany bearing upon the case, but i beg that you will question me upon\nany point which i do not make clear.\"\n\"on the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid.\"\n\"i come to a part of my story now in which i should wish to be\nparticularly so. i am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety in my\nmind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual. about two\nin the morning, then, i was awakened by some sound in the house. it\nhad ceased ere i was wide awake, but it had left an impression behind\nit as though a window had gently closed somewhere. i lay listening\nwith all my ears. suddenly, to my horror, there was a distinct sound\nof footsteps moving softly in the next room. i slipped out of bed,\nall palpitating with fear, and peeped round the corner of my\ndressing-room door.\n\"'arthur!' i screamed, 'you villain! you thief! how dare you touch\nthat coronet?'\n\"the gas was half up, as i had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed\nonly in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light,\nholding the coronet in his hands. he appeared to be wrenching at it,\nor bending it with all his strength. at my cry he dropped it from his\ngrasp and turned as pale as death. i snatched it up and examined it.\none of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing.\n\"'you blackguard!' i shouted, beside myself with rage. 'you have\ndestroyed it! you have dishonoured me forever! where are the jewels\nwhich you have stolen?'\n\"'stolen!' he cried.\n\"'yes, thief!' i roared, shaking him by the shoulder.\n\"'there are none missing. there cannot be any missing,' said he.\n\"'there are three missing. and you know where they are. must i call\nyou a liar as well as a thief? did i not see you trying to tear off\nanother piece?'\n\"'you have called me names enough,' said he, 'i will not stand it any\nlonger. i shall not say another word about this business, since you\nhave chosen to insult me. i will leave your house in the morning and\nmake my own way in the world.'\n\"'you shall leave it in the hands of the police!' i cried half-mad\nwith grief and rage. 'i shall have this matter probed to the bottom.'\n\"'you shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such as i\nshould not have thought was in his nature. 'if you choose to call the\npolice, let the police find what they can.'\n\"by this time the whole house was astir, for i had raised my voice in\nmy anger. mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight\nof the coronet and of arthur's face, she read the whole story and,\nwith a scream, fell down senseless on the ground. i sent the\nhouse-maid for the police and put the investigation into their hands\nat once. when the inspector and a constable entered the house,\narthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether\nit was my intention to charge him with theft. i answered that it had\nceased to be a private matter, but had become a public one, since the\nruined coronet was national property. i was determined that the law\nshould have its way in everything.\n\"'at least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. it\nwould be to your advantage as well as mine if i might leave the house\nfor five minutes.'\n\"'that you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you\nhave stolen,' said i. and then, realising the dreadful position in\nwhich i was placed, i implored him to remember that not only my\nhonour but that of one who was far greater than i was at stake; and\nthat he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the\nnation. he might avert it all if he would but tell me what he had\ndone with the three missing stones.\n\"'you may as well face the matter,' said i; 'you have been caught in\nthe act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. if you\nbut make such reparation as is in your power, by telling us where the\nberyls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.'\n\"'keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered,\nturning away from me with a sneer. i saw that he was too hardened for\nany words of mine to influence him. there was but one way for it. i\ncalled in the inspector and gave him into custody. a search was made\nat once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion\nof the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no\ntrace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his\nmouth for all our persuasions and our threats. this morning he was\nremoved to a cell, and i, after going through all the police\nformalities, have hurried round to you to implore you to use your\nskill in unravelling the matter. the police have openly confessed\nthat they can at present make nothing of it. you may go to any\nexpense which you think necessary. i have already offered a reward of\n1000. my god, what shall i do! i have lost my honour, my gems, and\nmy son in one night. oh, what shall i do!\"\nhe put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to and\nfro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got beyond\nwords.\nsherlock holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows\nknitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire.\n\"do you receive much company?\" he asked.\n\"none save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of\narthur's. sir george burnwell has been several times lately. no one\nelse, i think.\"\n\"do you go out much in society?\"\n\"arthur does. mary and i stay at home. we neither of us care for it.\"\n\"that is unusual in a young girl.\"\n\"she is of a quiet nature. besides, she is not so very young. she is\nfour-and-twenty.\"\n\"this matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to her\nalso.\"\n\"terrible! she is even more affected than i.\"\n\"you have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt?\"\n\"how can we have when i saw him with my own eyes with the coronet in\nhis hands.\"\n\"i hardly consider that a conclusive proof. was the remainder of the\ncoronet at all injured?\"\n\"yes, it was twisted.\"\n\"do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to straighten\nit?\"\n\"god bless you! you are doing what you can for him and for me. but it\nis too heavy a task. what was he doing there at all? if his purpose\nwere innocent, why did he not say so?\"\n\"precisely. and if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? his\nsilence appears to me to cut both ways. there are several singular\npoints about the case. what did the police think of the noise which\nawoke you from your sleep?\"\n\"they considered that it might be caused by arthur's closing his\nbedroom door.\"\n\"a likely story! as if a man bent on felony would slam his door so as\nto wake a household. what did they say, then, of the disappearance of\nthese gems?\"\n\"they are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in\nthe hope of finding them.\"\n\"have they thought of looking outside the house?\"\n\"yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. the whole garden has\nalready been minutely examined.\"\n\"now, my dear sir,\" said holmes. \"is it not obvious to you now that\nthis matter really strikes very much deeper than either you or the\npolice were at first inclined to think? it appeared to you to be a\nsimple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex. consider what is\ninvolved by your theory. you suppose that your son came down from his\nbed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau,\ntook out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it,\nwent off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the\nthirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then\nreturned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed\nhimself to the greatest danger of being discovered. i ask you now, is\nsuch a theory tenable?\"\n\"but what other is there?\" cried the banker with a gesture of\ndespair. \"if his motives were innocent, why does he not explain\nthem?\"\n\"it is our task to find that out,\" replied holmes; \"so now, if you\nplease, mr. holder, we will set off for streatham together, and\ndevote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details.\"\nmy friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition,\nwhich i was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy were\ndeeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. i confess that\nthe guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be as obvious as it\ndid to his unhappy father, but still i had such faith in holmes'\njudgment that i felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long\nas he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. he hardly spoke\na word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his\nchin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the\ndeepest thought. our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the\nlittle glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even\nbroke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. a\nshort railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to fairbank, the\nmodest residence of the great financier.\nfairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back\na little from the road. a double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad\nlawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed\nthe entrance. on the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led\ninto a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road\nto the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. on the\nleft ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within\nthe grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare.\nholmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the\nhouse, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by\nthe garden behind into the stable lane. so long was he that mr.\nholder and i went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until\nhe should return. we were sitting there in silence when the door\nopened and a young lady came in. she was rather above the middle\nheight, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker\nagainst the absolute pallor of her skin. i do not think that i have\never seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. her lips, too, were\nbloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. as she swept\nsilently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief\nthan the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking\nin her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense\ncapacity for self-restraint. disregarding my presence, she went\nstraight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet\nwomanly caress.\n\"you have given orders that arthur should be liberated, have you not,\ndad?\" she asked.\n\"no, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom.\"\n\"but i am so sure that he is innocent. you know what woman's\ninstincts are. i know that he has done no harm and that you will be\nsorry for having acted so harshly.\"\n\"why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?\"\n\"who knows? perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect\nhim.\"\n\"how could i help suspecting him, when i actually saw him with the\ncoronet in his hand?\"\n\"oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. oh, do, do take my\nword for it that he is innocent. let the matter drop and say no more.\nit is so dreadful to think of our dear arthur in a prison!\"\n\"i shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, mary!\nyour affection for arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to\nme. far from hushing the thing up, i have brought a gentleman down\nfrom london to inquire more deeply into it.\"\n\"this gentleman?\" she asked, facing round to me.\n\"no, his friend. he wished us to leave him alone. he is round in the\nstable lane now.\"\n\"the stable lane?\" she raised her dark eyebrows. \"what can he hope to\nfind there? ah! this, i suppose, is he. i trust, sir, that you will\nsucceed in proving, what i feel sure is the truth, that my cousin\narthur is innocent of this crime.\"\n\"i fully share your opinion, and i trust, with you, that we may prove\nit,\" returned holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from\nhis shoes. \"i believe i have the honour of addressing miss mary\nholder. might i ask you a question or two?\"\n\"pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up.\"\n\"you heard nothing yourself last night?\"\n\"nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. i heard that,\nand i came down.\"\n\"you shut up the windows and doors the night before. did you fasten\nall the windows?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"were they all fastened this morning?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"you have a maid who has a sweetheart? i think that you remarked to\nyour uncle last night that she had been out to see him?\"\n\"yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and who\nmay have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet.\"\n\"i see. you infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart,\nand that the two may have planned the robbery.\"\n\"but what is the good of all these vague theories,\" cried the banker\nimpatiently, \"when i have told you that i saw arthur with the coronet\nin his hands?\"\n\"wait a little, mr. holder. we must come back to that. about this\ngirl, miss holder. you saw her return by the kitchen door, i\npresume?\"\n\"yes; when i went to see if the door was fastened for the night i met\nher slipping in. i saw the man, too, in the gloom.\"\n\"do you know him?\"\n\"oh, yes! he is the green-grocer who brings our vegetables round.\nhis name is francis prosper.\"\n\"he stood,\" said holmes, \"to the left of the door--that is to say,\nfarther up the path than is necessary to reach the door?\"\n\"yes, he did.\"\n\"and he is a man with a wooden leg?\"\nsomething like fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive black\neyes. \"why, you are like a magician,\" said she. \"how do you know\nthat?\" she smiled, but there was no answering smile in holmes' thin,\neager face.\n\"i should be very glad now to go upstairs,\" said he. \"i shall\nprobably wish to go over the outside of the house again. perhaps i\nhad better take a look at the lower windows before i go up.\"\nhe walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at the\nlarge one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane. this he\nopened and made a very careful examination of the sill with his\npowerful magnifying lens. \"now we shall go upstairs,\" said he at\nlast.\nthe banker's dressing-room was a plainly furnished little chamber,\nwith a grey carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror. holmes went to\nthe bureau first and looked hard at the lock.\n\"which key was used to open it?\" he asked.\n\"that which my son himself indicated--that of the cupboard of the\nlumber-room.\"\n\"have you it here?\"\n\"that is it on the dressing-table.\"\nsherlock holmes took it up and opened the bureau.\n\"it is a noiseless lock,\" said he. \"it is no wonder that it did not\nwake you. this case, i presume, contains the coronet. we must have a\nlook at it.\" he opened the case, and taking out the diadem he laid it\nupon the table. it was a magnificent specimen of the jeweller's art,\nand the thirty-six stones were the finest that i have ever seen. at\none side of the coronet was a cracked edge, where a corner holding\nthree gems had been torn away.\n\"now, mr. holder,\" said holmes, \"here is the corner which corresponds\nto that which has been so unfortunately lost. might i beg that you\nwill break it off.\"\nthe banker recoiled in horror. \"i should not dream of trying,\" said\nhe.\n\"then i will.\" holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but without\nresult. \"i feel it give a little,\" said he; \"but, though i am\nexceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my time to\nbreak it. an ordinary man could not do it. now, what do you think\nwould happen if i did break it, mr. holder? there would be a noise\nlike a pistol shot. do you tell me that all this happened within a\nfew yards of your bed and that you heard nothing of it?\"\n\"i do not know what to think. it is all dark to me.\"\n\"but perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. what do you think, miss\nholder?\"\n\"i confess that i still share my uncle's perplexity.\"\n\"your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him?\"\n\"he had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt.\"\n\"thank you. we have certainly been favoured with extraordinary luck\nduring this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault if we do\nnot succeed in clearing the matter up. with your permission, mr.\nholder, i shall now continue my investigations outside.\"\nhe went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any\nunnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. for an hour\nor more he was at work, returning at last with his feet heavy with\nsnow and his features as inscrutable as ever.\n\"i think that i have seen now all that there is to see, mr. holder,\"\nsaid he; \"i can serve you best by returning to my rooms.\"\n\"but the gems, mr. holmes. where are they?\"\n\"i cannot tell.\"\nthe banker wrung his hands. \"i shall never see them again!\" he cried.\n\"and my son? you give me hopes?\"\n\"my opinion is in no way altered.\"\n\"then, for god's sake, what was this dark business which was acted in\nmy house last night?\"\n\"if you can call upon me at my baker street rooms to-morrow morning\nbetween nine and ten i shall be happy to do what i can to make it\nclearer. i understand that you give me carte blanche to act for you,\nprovided only that i get back the gems, and that you place no limit\non the sum i may draw.\"\n\"i would give my fortune to have them back.\"\n\"very good. i shall look into the matter between this and then.\ngood-bye; it is just possible that i may have to come over here again\nbefore evening.\"\nit was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up about\nthe case, although what his conclusions were was more than i could\neven dimly imagine. several times during our homeward journey i\nendeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to\nsome other topic, until at last i gave it over in despair. it was not\nyet three when we found ourselves in our rooms once more. he hurried\nto his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a\ncommon loafer. with his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his\nred cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.\n\"i think that this should do,\" said he, glancing into the glass above\nthe fireplace. \"i only wish that you could come with me, watson, but\ni fear that it won't do. i may be on the trail in this matter, or i\nmay be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but i shall soon know which it\nis. i hope that i may be back in a few hours.\" he cut a slice of beef\nfrom the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds\nof bread, and thrusting this rude meal into his pocket he started off\nupon his expedition.\ni had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in excellent\nspirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his hand. he chucked\nit down into a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea.\n\"i only looked in as i passed,\" said he. \"i am going right on.\"\n\"where to?\"\n\"oh, to the other side of the west end. it may be some time before i\nget back. don't wait up for me in case i should be late.\"\n\"how are you getting on?\"\n\"oh, so so. nothing to complain of. i have been out to streatham\nsince i saw you last, but i did not call at the house. it is a very\nsweet little problem, and i would not have missed it for a good deal.\nhowever, i must not sit gossiping here, but must get these\ndisreputable clothes off and return to my highly respectable self.\"\ni could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for\nsatisfaction than his words alone would imply. his eyes twinkled, and\nthere was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. he hastened\nupstairs, and a few minutes later i heard the slam of the hall door,\nwhich told me that he was off once more upon his congenial hunt.\ni waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so i\nretired to my room. it was no uncommon thing for him to be away for\ndays and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his\nlateness caused me no surprise. i do not know at what hour he came\nin, but when i came down to breakfast in the morning there he was\nwith a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the other, as fresh\nand trim as possible.\n\"you will excuse my beginning without you, watson,\" said he, \"but you\nremember that our client has rather an early appointment this\nmorning.\"\n\"why, it is after nine now,\" i answered. \"i should not be surprised\nif that were he. i thought i heard a ring.\"\nit was, indeed, our friend the financier. i was shocked by the change\nwhich had come over him, for his face which was naturally of a broad\nand massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair\nseemed to me at least a shade whiter. he entered with a weariness and\nlethargy which was even more painful than his violence of the morning\nbefore, and he dropped heavily into the armchair which i pushed\nforward for him.\n\"i do not know what i have done to be so severely tried,\" said he.\n\"only two days ago i was a happy and prosperous man, without a care\nin the world. now i am left to a lonely and dishonoured age. one\nsorrow comes close upon the heels of another. my niece, mary, has\ndeserted me.\"\n\"deserted you?\"\n\"yes. her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was empty,\nand a note for me lay upon the hall table. i had said to her last\nnight, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had married my boy all\nmight have been well with him. perhaps it was thoughtless of me to\nsay so. it is to that remark that she refers in this note:\n\"'my dearest uncle:\n\"'i feel that i have brought trouble upon you, and that if i had\nacted differently this terrible misfortune might never have occurred.\ni cannot, with this thought in my mind, ever again be happy under\nyour roof, and i feel that i must leave you forever. do not worry\nabout my future, for that is provided for; and, above all, do not\nsearch for me, for it will be fruitless labour and an ill-service to\nme. in life or in death, i am ever\n\"'your loving\n\"'mary.'\n\"what could she mean by that note, mr. holmes? do you think it points\nto suicide?\"\n\"no, no, nothing of the kind. it is perhaps the best possible\nsolution. i trust, mr. holder, that you are nearing the end of your\ntroubles.\"\n\"ha! you say so! you have heard something, mr. holmes; you have\nlearned something! where are the gems?\"\n\"you would not think 1000 pounds apiece an excessive sum for them?\"\n\"i would pay ten.\"\n\"that would be unnecessary. three thousand will cover the matter. and\nthere is a little reward, i fancy. have you your check-book?  here is\na pen. better make it out for 4000.\"\nwith a dazed face the banker made out the required check. holmes\nwalked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of gold\nwith three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table.\nwith a shriek of joy our client clutched it up.\n\"you have it!\" he gasped. \"i am saved! i am saved!\"\nthe reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and he\nhugged his recovered gems to his bosom.\n\"there is one other thing you owe, mr. holder,\" said sherlock holmes\nrather sternly.\n\"owe!\" he caught up a pen. \"name the sum, and i will pay it.\"\n\"no, the debt is not to me. you owe a very humble apology to that\nnoble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as i\nshould be proud to see my own son do, should i ever chance to have\none.\"\n\"then it was not arthur who took them?\"\n\"i told you yesterday, and i repeat to-day, that it was not.\"\n\"you are sure of it! then let us hurry to him at once to let him know\nthat the truth is known.\"\n\"he knows it already. when i had cleared it all up i had an interview\nwith him, and finding that he would not tell me the story, i told it\nto him, on which he had to confess that i was right and to add the\nvery few details which were not yet quite clear to me. your news of\nthis morning, however, may open his lips.\"\n\"for heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary\nmystery!\"\n\"i will do so, and i will show you the steps by which i reached it.\nand let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me to say\nand for you to hear: there has been an understanding between sir\ngeorge burnwell and your niece mary. they have now fled together.\"\n\"my mary? impossible!\"\n\"it is unfortunately more than possible; it is certain. neither you\nnor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted\nhim into your family circle. he is one of the most dangerous men in\nengland--a ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain, a man\nwithout heart or conscience. your niece knew nothing of such men.\nwhen he breathed his vows to her, as he had done to a hundred before\nher, she flattered herself that she alone had touched his heart. the\ndevil knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool and\nwas in the habit of seeing him nearly every evening.\"\n\"i cannot, and i will not, believe it!\" cried the banker with an\nashen face.\n\"i will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night. your\nniece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down\nand talked to her lover through the window which leads into the\nstable lane. his footmarks had pressed right through the snow, so\nlong had he stood there. she told him of the coronet. his wicked lust\nfor gold kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will. i have no\ndoubt that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a\nlover extinguishes all other loves, and i think that she must have\nbeen one. she had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw\nyou coming downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and\ntold you about one of the servants' escapade with her wooden-legged\nlover, which was all perfectly true.\n\"your boy, arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but he\nslept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. in the\nmiddle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so he rose\nand, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking very\nstealthily along the passage until she disappeared into your\ndressing-room. petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some\nclothes and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this\nstrange affair. presently she emerged from the room again, and in the\nlight of the passage-lamp your son saw that she carried the precious\ncoronet in her hands. she passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling\nwith horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door,\nwhence he could see what passed in the hall beneath. he saw her\nstealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to someone in the\ngloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing\nquite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain.\n\"as long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without\na horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. but the instant that\nshe was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune this would be for\nyou, and how all-important it was to set it right. he rushed down,\njust as he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into\nthe snow, and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in\nthe moonlight. sir george burnwell tried to get away, but arthur\ncaught him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging\nat one side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other. in the\nscuffle, your son struck sir george and cut him over the eye. then\nsomething suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the\ncoronet in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to\nyour room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in\nthe struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you appeared\nupon the scene.\"\n\"is it possible?\" gasped the banker.\n\"you then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when he\nfelt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. he could not explain\nthe true state of affairs without betraying one who certainly\ndeserved little enough consideration at his hands. he took the more\nchivalrous view, however, and preserved her secret.\"\n\"and that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the coronet,\"\ncried mr. holder. \"oh, my god! what a blind fool i have been! and his\nasking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! the dear fellow\nwanted to see if the missing piece were at the scene of the struggle.\nhow cruelly i have misjudged him!\"\n\"when i arrived at the house,\" continued holmes, \"i at once went very\ncarefully round it to observe if there were any traces in the snow\nwhich might help me. i knew that none had fallen since the evening\nbefore, and also that there had been a strong frost to preserve\nimpressions. i passed along the tradesmen's path, but found it all\ntrampled down and indistinguishable. just beyond it, however, at the\nfar side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood and talked with a\nman, whose round impressions on one side showed that he had a wooden\nleg. i could even tell that they had been disturbed, for the woman\nhad run back swiftly to the door, as was shown by the deep toe and\nlight heel marks, while wooden-leg had waited a little, and then had\ngone away. i thought at the time that this might be the maid and her\nsweetheart, of whom you had already spoken to me, and inquiry showed\nit was so. i passed round the garden without seeing anything more\nthan random tracks, which i took to be the police; but when i got\ninto the stable lane a very long and complex story was written in the\nsnow in front of me.\n\"there was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second\ndouble line which i saw with delight belonged to a man with naked\nfeet. i was at once convinced from what you had told me that the\nlatter was your son. the first had walked both ways, but the other\nhad run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over the\ndepression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed after the\nother. i followed them up and found they led to the hall window,\nwhere boots had worn all the snow away while waiting. then i walked\nto the other end, which was a hundred yards or more down the lane. i\nsaw where boots had faced round, where the snow was cut up as though\nthere had been a struggle, and, finally, where a few drops of blood\nhad fallen, to show me that i was not mistaken. boots had then run\ndown the lane, and another little smudge of blood showed that it was\nhe who had been hurt. when he came to the highroad at the other end,\ni found that the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to\nthat clue.\n\"on entering the house, however, i examined, as you remember, the\nsill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and i could at\nonce see that someone had passed out. i could distinguish the outline\nof an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming in. i was\nthen beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what had occurred.\na man had waited outside the window; someone had brought the gems;\nthe deed had been overseen by your son; he had pursued the thief; had\nstruggled with him; they had each tugged at the coronet, their united\nstrength causing injuries which neither alone could have effected. he\nhad returned with the prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of\nhis opponent. so far i was clear. the question now was, who was the\nman and who was it brought him the coronet?\n\"it is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the\nimpossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.\nnow, i knew that it was not you who had brought it down, so there\nonly remained your niece and the maids. but if it were the maids, why\nshould your son allow himself to be accused in their place? there\ncould be no possible reason. as he loved his cousin, however, there\nwas an excellent explanation why he should retain her secret--the\nmore so as the secret was a disgraceful one. when i remembered that\nyou had seen her at that window, and how she had fainted on seeing\nthe coronet again, my conjecture became a certainty.\n\"and who could it be who was her confederate? a lover evidently, for\nwho else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must feel to\nyou? i knew that you went out little, and that your circle of friends\nwas a very limited one. but among them was sir george burnwell. i had\nheard of him before as being a man of evil reputation among women. it\nmust have been he who wore those boots and retained the missing gems.\neven though he knew that arthur had discovered him, he might still\nflatter himself that he was safe, for the lad could not say a word\nwithout compromising his own family.\n\"well, your own good sense will suggest what measures i took next. i\nwent in the shape of a loafer to sir george's house, managed to pick\nup an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut\nhis head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six\nshillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes. with\nthese i journeyed down to streatham and saw that they exactly fitted\nthe tracks.\"\n\"i saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening,\" said\nmr. holder.\n\"precisely. it was i. i found that i had my man, so i came home and\nchanged my clothes. it was a delicate part which i had to play then,\nfor i saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and i\nknew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in\nthe matter. i went and saw him. at first, of course, he denied\neverything. but when i gave him every particular that had occurred,\nhe tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall. i\nknew my man, however, and i clapped a pistol to his head before he\ncould strike. then he became a little more reasonable. i told him\nthat we would give him a price for the stones he held--1000 apiece.\nthat brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'why,\ndash it all!' said he, 'i've let them go at six hundred for the\nthree!' i soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had\nthem, on promising him that there would be no prosecution. off i set\nto him, and after much chaffering i got our stones at 1000 pounds\napiece. then i looked in upon your son, told him that all was right,\nand eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after what i may call\na really hard day's work.\"\n\"a day which has saved england from a great public scandal,\" said the\nbanker, rising. \"sir, i cannot find words to thank you, but you shall\nnot find me ungrateful for what you have done. your skill has indeed\nexceeded all that i have heard of it. and now i must fly to my dear\nboy to apologise to him for the wrong which i have done him. as to\nwhat you tell me of poor mary, it goes to my very heart. not even\nyour skill can inform me where she is now.\"\n\"i think that we may safely say,\" returned holmes, \"that she is\nwherever sir george burnwell is. it is equally certain, too, that\nwhatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient\npunishment.\"\nthe adventure of the copper beeches\n\"to the man who loves art for its own sake,\" remarked sherlock\nholmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the daily telegraph,\n\"it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations\nthat the keenest pleasure is to be derived. it is pleasant to me to\nobserve, watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in\nthese little records of our cases which you have been good enough to\ndraw up, and, i am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have\ngiven prominence not so much to the many causes clbres and\nsensational trials in which i have figured but rather to those\nincidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have\ngiven room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis\nwhich i have made my special province.\"\n\"and yet,\" said i, smiling, \"i cannot quite hold myself absolved from\nthe charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my\nrecords.\"\n\"you have erred, perhaps,\" he observed, taking up a glowing cinder\nwith the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which\nwas wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather\nthan a meditative mood--\"you have erred perhaps in attempting to put\ncolour and life into each of your statements instead of confining\nyourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning\nfrom cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about\nthe thing.\"\n\"it seems to me that i have done you full justice in the matter,\" i\nremarked with some coldness, for i was repelled by the egotism which\ni had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's\nsingular character.\n\"no, it is not selfishness or conceit,\" said he, answering, as was\nhis wont, my thoughts rather than my words. \"if i claim full justice\nfor my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing--a thing beyond\nmyself. crime is common. logic is rare. therefore it is upon the\nlogic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. you have\ndegraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of\ntales.\"\nit was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast\non either side of a cheery fire in the old room at baker street. a\nthick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-coloured houses, and\nthe opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the\nheavy yellow wreaths. our gas was lit and shone on the white cloth\nand glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared\nyet. sherlock holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping\ncontinuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers\nuntil at last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged\nin no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.\n\"at the same time,\" he remarked after a pause, during which he had\nsat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, \"you can\nhardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases\nwhich you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair\nproportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. the\nsmall matter in which i endeavoured to help the king of bohemia, the\nsingular experience of miss mary sutherland, the problem connected\nwith the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble\nbachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. but\nin avoiding the sensational, i fear that you may have bordered on the\ntrivial.\"\n\"the end may have been so,\" i answered, \"but the methods i hold to\nhave been novel and of interest.\"\n\"pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant\npublic, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor\nby his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and\ndeduction! but, indeed, if you are trivial, i cannot blame you, for\nthe days of the great cases are past. man, or at least criminal man,\nhas lost all enterprise and originality. as to my own little\npractice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering\nlost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from\nboarding-schools. i think that i have touched bottom at last,\nhowever. this note i had this morning marks my zero-point, i fancy.\nread it!\" he tossed a crumpled letter across to me.\nit was dated from montague place upon the preceding evening, and ran\nthus:\ndear mr. holmes:\ni am very anxious to consult you as to whether i should or should not\naccept a situation which has been offered to me as governess. i shall\ncall at half-past ten to-morrow if i do not inconvenience you.\nyours faithfully,\nviolet hunter.\n\"do you know the young lady?\" i asked.\n\"not i.\"\n\"it is half-past ten now.\"\n\"yes, and i have no doubt that is her ring.\"\n\"it may turn out to be of more interest than you think. you remember\nthat the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to be a mere\nwhim at first, developed into a serious investigation. it may be so\nin this case, also.\"\n\"well, let us hope so. but our doubts will very soon be solved, for\nhere, unless i am much mistaken, is the person in question.\"\nas he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. she\nwas plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled\nlike a plover's egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had\nher own way to make in the world.\n\"you will excuse my troubling you, i am sure,\" said she, as my\ncompanion rose to greet her, \"but i have had a very strange\nexperience, and as i have no parents or relations of any sort from\nwhom i could ask advice, i thought that perhaps you would be kind\nenough to tell me what i should do.\"\n\"pray take a seat, miss hunter. i shall be happy to do anything that\ni can to serve you.\"\ni could see that holmes was favourably impressed by the manner and\nspeech of his new client. he looked her over in his searching\nfashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his\nfinger-tips together, to listen to her story.\n\"i have been a governess for five years,\" said she, \"in the family of\ncolonel spence munro, but two months ago the colonel received an\nappointment at halifax, in nova scotia, and took his children over to\namerica with him, so that i found myself without a situation. i\nadvertised, and i answered advertisements, but without success. at\nlast the little money which i had saved began to run short, and i was\nat my wit's end as to what i should do.\n\"there is a well-known agency for governesses in the west end called\nwestaway's, and there i used to call about once a week in order to\nsee whether anything had turned up which might suit me. westaway was\nthe name of the founder of the business, but it is really managed by\nmiss stoper. she sits in her own little office, and the ladies who\nare seeking employment wait in an anteroom, and are then shown in one\nby one, when she consults her ledgers and sees whether she has\nanything which would suit them.\n\"well, when i called last week i was shown into the little office as\nusual, but i found that miss stoper was not alone. a prodigiously\nstout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy chin which\nrolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at her elbow with a\npair of glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who\nentered. as i came in he gave quite a jump in his chair and turned\nquickly to miss stoper.\n\"'that will do,' said he; 'i could not ask for anything better.\ncapital! capital!' he seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his hands\ntogether in the most genial fashion. he was such a\ncomfortable-looking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at him.\n\"'you are looking for a situation, miss?' he asked.\n\"'yes, sir.'\n\"'as governess?'\n\"'yes, sir.'\n\"'and what salary do you ask?'\n\"'i had 4 a month in my last place with colonel spence munro.'\n\"'oh, tut, tut! sweating--rank sweating!' he cried, throwing his fat\nhands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling passion. 'how\ncould anyone offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with such attractions\nand accomplishments?'\n\"'my accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,' said i. 'a\nlittle french, a little german, music, and drawing--'\n\"'tut, tut!' he cried. 'this is all quite beside the question. the\npoint is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment of a\nlady? there it is in a nutshell. if you have not, you are not fitted\nfor the rearing of a child who may some day play a considerable part\nin the history of the country. but if you have why, then, how could\nany gentleman ask you to condescend to accept anything under the\nthree figures? your salary with me, madam, would commence at 100 a\nyear.'\n\"you may imagine, mr. holmes, that to me, destitute as i was, such an\noffer seemed almost too good to be true. the gentleman, however,\nseeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face, opened a\npocket-book and took out a note.\n\"'it is also my custom,' said he, smiling in the most pleasant\nfashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid the\nwhite creases of his face, 'to advance to my young ladies half their\nsalary beforehand, so that they may meet any little expenses of their\njourney and their wardrobe.'\n\"it seemed to me that i had never met so fascinating and so\nthoughtful a man. as i was already in debt to my tradesmen, the\nadvance was a great convenience, and yet there was something\nunnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know a\nlittle more before i quite committed myself.\n\"'may i ask where you live, sir?' said i.\n\"'hampshire. charming rural place. the copper beeches, five miles on\nthe far side of winchester. it is the most lovely country, my dear\nyoung lady, and the dearest old country-house.'\n\"'and my duties, sir? i should be glad to know what they would be.'\n\"'one child--one dear little romper just six years old. oh, if you\ncould see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! smack! smack!\nsmack! three gone before you could wink!' he leaned back in his chair\nand laughed his eyes into his head again.\n\"i was a little startled at the nature of the child's amusement, but\nthe father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was joking.\n\"'my sole duties, then,' i asked, 'are to take charge of a single\nchild?'\n\"'no, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,' he cried.\n'your duty would be, as i am sure your good sense would suggest, to\nobey any little commands my wife might give, provided always that\nthey were such commands as a lady might with propriety obey. you see\nno difficulty, heh?'\n\"'i should be happy to make myself useful.'\n\"'quite so. in dress now, for example. we are faddy people, you\nknow--faddy but kind-hearted. if you were asked to wear any dress\nwhich we might give you, you would not object to our little whim.\nheh?'\n\"'no,' said i, considerably astonished at his words.\n\"'or to sit here, or sit there, that would not be offensive to you?'\n\"'oh, no.'\n\"'or to cut your hair quite short before you come to us?'\n\"i could hardly believe my ears. as you may observe, mr. holmes, my\nhair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of\nchestnut. it has been considered artistic. i could not dream of\nsacrificing it in this offhand fashion.\n\"'i am afraid that that is quite impossible,' said i. he had been\nwatching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and i could see a shadow\npass over his face as i spoke.\n\"'i am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'it is a little\nfancy of my wife's, and ladies' fancies, you know, madam, ladies'\nfancies must be consulted. and so you won't cut your hair?'\n\"'no, sir, i really could not,' i answered firmly.\n\"'ah, very well; then that quite settles the matter. it is a pity,\nbecause in other respects you would really have done very nicely. in\nthat case, miss stoper, i had best inspect a few more of your young\nladies.'\n\"the manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers without a\nword to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so much\nannoyance upon her face that i could not help suspecting that she had\nlost a handsome commission through my refusal.\n\"'do you desire your name to be kept upon the books?' she asked.\n\"'if you please, miss stoper.'\n\"'well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the most\nexcellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'you can hardly\nexpect us to exert ourselves to find another such opening for you.\ngood-day to you, miss hunter.' she struck a gong upon the table, and\ni was shown out by the page.\n\"well, mr. holmes, when i got back to my lodgings and found little\nenough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the table. i\nbegan to ask myself whether i had not done a very foolish thing.\nafter all, if these people had strange fads and expected obedience on\nthe most extraordinary matters, they were at least ready to pay for\ntheir eccentricity. very few governesses in england are getting 100\na year. besides, what use was my hair to me? many people are improved\nby wearing it short and perhaps i should be among the number. next\nday i was inclined to think that i had made a mistake, and by the day\nafter i was sure of it. i had almost overcome my pride so far as to\ngo back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open\nwhen i received this letter from the gentleman himself. i have it\nhere and i will read it to you:\n\"'the copper beeches, near winchester.\n\"'dear miss hunter:\n\"'miss stoper has very kindly given me your address, and i write from\nhere to ask you whether you have reconsidered your decision. my wife\nis very anxious that you should come, for she has been much attracted\nby my description of you. we are willing to give 30 a quarter, or\n120 a year, so as to recompense you for any little inconvenience\nwhich our fads may cause you. they are not very exacting, after all.\nmy wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would like\nyou to wear such a dress indoors in the morning. you need not,\nhowever, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one\nbelonging to my dear daughter alice (now in philadelphia), which\nwould, i should think, fit you very well. then, as to sitting here or\nthere, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that need cause\nyou no inconvenience. as regards your hair, it is no doubt a pity,\nespecially as i could not help remarking its beauty during our short\ninterview, but i am afraid that i must remain firm upon this point,\nand i only hope that the increased salary may recompense you for the\nloss. your duties, as far as the child is concerned, are very light.\nnow do try to come, and i shall meet you with the dog-cart at\nwinchester. let me know your train.\n\"'yours faithfully,\n\"'jephro rucastle.'\n\"that is the letter which i have just received, mr. holmes, and my\nmind is made up that i will accept it. i thought, however, that\nbefore taking the final step i should like to submit the whole matter\nto your consideration.\"\n\"well, miss hunter, if your mind is made up, that settles the\nquestion,\" said holmes, smiling.\n\"but you would not advise me to refuse?\"\n\"i confess that it is not the situation which i should like to see a\nsister of mine apply for.\"\n\"what is the meaning of it all, mr. holmes?\"\n\"ah, i have no data. i cannot tell. perhaps you have yourself formed\nsome opinion?\"\n\"well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. mr.\nrucastle seemed to be a very kind, good-natured man. is it not\npossible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the\nmatter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that he\nhumours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an outbreak?\"\n\"that is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is the\nmost probable one. but in any case it does not seem to be a nice\nhousehold for a young lady.\"\n\"but the money, mr. holmes, the money!\"\n\"well, yes, of course the pay is good--too good. that is what makes\nme uneasy. why should they give you 120 a year, when they could have\ntheir pick for 40? there must be some strong reason behind.\"\n\"i thought that if i told you the circumstances you would understand\nafterwards if i wanted your help. i should feel so much stronger if i\nfelt that you were at the back of me.\"\n\"oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. i assure you that your\nlittle problem promises to be the most interesting which has come my\nway for some months. there is something distinctly novel about some\nof the features. if you should find yourself in doubt or in danger--\"\n\"danger! what danger do you foresee?\"\nholmes shook his head gravely. \"it would cease to be a danger if we\ncould define it,\" said he. \"but at any time, day or night, a telegram\nwould bring me down to your help.\"\n\"that is enough.\" she rose briskly from her chair with the anxiety\nall swept from her face. \"i shall go down to hampshire quite easy in\nmy mind now. i shall write to mr. rucastle at once, sacrifice my poor\nhair to-night, and start for winchester to-morrow.\" with a few\ngrateful words to holmes she bade us both good-night and bustled off\nupon her way.\n\"at least,\" said i as we heard her quick, firm steps descending the\nstairs, \"she seems to be a young lady who is very well able to take\ncare of herself.\"\n\"and she would need to be,\" said holmes gravely. \"i am much mistaken\nif we do not hear from her before many days are past.\"\nit was not very long before my friend's prediction was fulfilled. a\nfortnight went by, during which i frequently found my thoughts\nturning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alley of\nhuman experience this lonely woman had strayed into. the unusual\nsalary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to\nsomething abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether the\nman were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my powers\nto determine. as to holmes, i observed that he sat frequently for\nhalf an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he\nswept the matter away with a wave of his hand when i mentioned it.\n\"data! data! data!\" he cried impatiently. \"i can't make bricks\nwithout clay.\" and yet he would always wind up by muttering that no\nsister of his should ever have accepted such a situation.\nthe telegram which we eventually received came late one night just as\ni was thinking of turning in and holmes was settling down to one of\nthose all-night chemical researches which he frequently indulged in,\nwhen i would leave him stooping over a retort and a test-tube at\nnight and find him in the same position when i came down to breakfast\nin the morning. he opened the yellow envelope, and then, glancing at\nthe message, threw it across to me.\n\"just look up the trains in bradshaw,\" said he, and turned back to\nhis chemical studies.\nthe summons was a brief and urgent one.\nplease be at the black swan hotel at winchester at midday to-morrow\n[it said]. do come! i am at my wit's end.\nhunter.\n\"will you come with me?\" asked holmes, glancing up.\n\"i should wish to.\"\n\"just look it up, then.\"\n\"there is a train at half-past nine,\" said i, glancing over my\nbradshaw. \"it is due at winchester at 11.30.\"\n\"that will do very nicely. then perhaps i had better postpone my\nanalysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the\nmorning.\"\nby eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old\nenglish capital. holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the\nway down, but after we had passed the hampshire border he threw them\ndown and began to admire the scenery. it was an ideal spring day, a\nlight blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting\nacross from west to east. the sun was shining very brightly, and yet\nthere was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a\nman's energy. all over the countryside, away to the rolling hills\naround aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings\npeeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.\n\"are they not fresh and beautiful?\" i cried with all the enthusiasm\nof a man fresh from the fogs of baker street.\nbut holmes shook his head gravely.\n\"do you know, watson,\" said he, \"that it is one of the curses of a\nmind with a turn like mine that i must look at everything with\nreference to my own special subject. you look at these scattered\nhouses, and you are impressed by their beauty. i look at them, and\nthe only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation\nand of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.\"\n\"good heavens!\" i cried. \"who would associate crime with these dear\nold homesteads?\"\n\"they always fill me with a certain horror. it is my belief, watson,\nfounded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in\nlondon do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the\nsmiling and beautiful countryside.\"\n\"you horrify me!\"\n\"but the reason is very obvious. the pressure of public opinion can\ndo in the town what the law cannot accomplish. there is no lane so\nvile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's\nblow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours,\nand then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word\nof complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the\ncrime and the dock. but look at these lonely houses, each in its own\nfields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know\nlittle of the law. think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden\nwickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and\nnone the wiser. had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live\nin winchester, i should never have had a fear for her. it is the five\nmiles of country which makes the danger. still, it is clear that she\nis not personally threatened.\"\n\"no. if she can come to winchester to meet us she can get away.\"\n\"quite so. she has her freedom.\"\n\"what can be the matter, then? can you suggest no explanation?\"\n\"i have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would\ncover the facts as far as we know them. but which of these is correct\ncan only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no\ndoubt find waiting for us. well, there is the tower of the cathedral,\nand we shall soon learn all that miss hunter has to tell.\"\nthe black swan is an inn of repute in the high street, at no distance\nfrom the station, and there we found the young lady waiting for us.\nshe had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch awaited us upon the\ntable.\n\"i am so delighted that you have come,\" she said earnestly. \"it is so\nvery kind of you both; but indeed i do not know what i should do.\nyour advice will be altogether invaluable to me.\"\n\"pray tell us what has happened to you.\"\n\"i will do so, and i must be quick, for i have promised mr. rucastle\nto be back before three. i got his leave to come into town this\nmorning, though he little knew for what purpose.\"\n\"let us have everything in its due order.\" holmes thrust his long\nthin legs out towards the fire and composed himself to listen.\n\"in the first place, i may say that i have met, on the whole, with no\nactual ill-treatment from mr. and mrs. rucastle. it is only fair to\nthem to say that. but i cannot understand them, and i am not easy in\nmy mind about them.\"\n\"what can you not understand?\"\n\"their reasons for their conduct. but you shall have it all just as\nit occurred. when i came down, mr. rucastle met me here and drove me\nin his dog-cart to the copper beeches. it is, as he said, beautifully\nsituated, but it is not beautiful in itself, for it is a large square\nblock of a house, whitewashed, but all stained and streaked with damp\nand bad weather. there are grounds round it, woods on three sides,\nand on the fourth a field which slopes down to the southampton\nhighroad, which curves past about a hundred yards from the front\ndoor. this ground in front belongs to the house, but the woods all\nround are part of lord southerton's preserves. a clump of copper\nbeeches immediately in front of the hall door has given its name to\nthe place.\n\"i was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever, and\nwas introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child. there\nwas no truth, mr. holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to us to be\nprobable in your rooms at baker street. mrs. rucastle is not mad. i\nfound her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much younger than her\nhusband, not more than thirty, i should think, while he can hardly be\nless than forty-five. from their conversation i have gathered that\nthey have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and\nthat his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone\nto philadelphia. mr. rucastle told me in private that the reason why\nshe had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her\nstepmother. as the daughter could not have been less than twenty, i\ncan quite imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with\nher father's young wife.\n\"mrs. rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as in\nfeature. she impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse. she was\na nonentity. it was easy to see that she was passionately devoted\nboth to her husband and to her little son. her light grey eyes\nwandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want\nand forestalling it if possible. he was kind to her also in his\nbluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they seemed to be a happy\ncouple. and yet she had some secret sorrow, this woman. she would\noften be lost in deep thought, with the saddest look upon her face.\nmore than once i have surprised her in tears. i have thought\nsometimes that it was the disposition of her child which weighed upon\nher mind, for i have never met so utterly spoiled and so ill-natured\na little creature. he is small for his age, with a head which is\nquite disproportionately large. his whole life appears to be spent in\nan alternation between savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of\nsulking. giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be\nhis one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in\nplanning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects. but i would\nrather not talk about the creature, mr. holmes, and, indeed, he has\nlittle to do with my story.\"\n\"i am glad of all details,\" remarked my friend, \"whether they seem to\nyou to be relevant or not.\"\n\"i shall try not to miss anything of importance. the one unpleasant\nthing about the house, which struck me at once, was the appearance\nand conduct of the servants. there are only two, a man and his wife.\ntoller, for that is his name, is a rough, uncouth man, with grizzled\nhair and whiskers, and a perpetual smell of drink. twice since i have\nbeen with them he has been quite drunk, and yet mr. rucastle seemed\nto take no notice of it. his wife is a very tall and strong woman\nwith a sour face, as silent as mrs. rucastle and much less amiable.\nthey are a most unpleasant couple, but fortunately i spend most of my\ntime in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in\none corner of the building.\n\"for two days after my arrival at the copper beeches my life was very\nquiet; on the third, mrs. rucastle came down just after breakfast and\nwhispered something to her husband.\n\"'oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to you,\nmiss hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your\nhair. i assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from\nyour appearance. we shall now see how the electric-blue dress will\nbecome you. you will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and\nif you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely\nobliged.'\n\"the dress which i found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of\nblue. it was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore\nunmistakable signs of having been worn before. it could not have been\na better fit if i had been measured for it. both mr. and mrs.\nrucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite\nexaggerated in its vehemence. they were waiting for me in the\ndrawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire\nfront of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the\nfloor. a chair had been placed close to the central window, with its\nback turned towards it. in this i was asked to sit, and then mr.\nrucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to\ntell me a series of the funniest stories that i have ever listened\nto. you cannot imagine how comical he was, and i laughed until i was\nquite weary. mrs. rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of\nhumour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap,\nand a sad, anxious look upon her face. after an hour or so, mr.\nrucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of\nthe day, and that i might change my dress and go to little edward in\nthe nursery.\n\"two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly\nsimilar circumstances. again i changed my dress, again i sat in the\nwindow, and again i laughed very heartily at the funny stories of\nwhich my employer had an immense rpertoire, and which he told\ninimitably. then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and moving my\nchair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the\npage, he begged me to read aloud to him. i read for about ten\nminutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in\nthe middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my\ndress.\n\"you can easily imagine, mr. holmes, how curious i became as to what\nthe meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be. they\nwere always very careful, i observed, to turn my face away from the\nwindow, so that i became consumed with the desire to see what was\ngoing on behind my back. at first it seemed to be impossible, but i\nsoon devised a means. my hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy\nthought seized me, and i concealed a piece of the glass in my\nhandkerchief. on the next occasion, in the midst of my laughter, i\nput my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able with a little\nmanagement to see all that there was behind me. i confess that i was\ndisappointed. there was nothing. at least that was my first\nimpression. at the second glance, however, i perceived that there was\na man standing in the southampton road, a small bearded man in a grey\nsuit, who seemed to be looking in my direction. the road is an\nimportant highway, and there are usually people there. this man,\nhowever, was leaning against the railings which bordered our field\nand was looking earnestly up. i lowered my handkerchief and glanced\nat mrs. rucastle to find her eyes fixed upon me with a most searching\ngaze. she said nothing, but i am convinced that she had divined that\ni had a mirror in my hand and had seen what was behind me. she rose\nat once.\n\"'jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the road\nthere who stares up at miss hunter.'\n\"'no friend of yours, miss hunter?' he asked.\n\"'no, i know no one in these parts.'\n\"'dear me! how very impertinent! kindly turn round and motion to him\nto go away.'\n\"'surely it would be better to take no notice.'\n\"'no, no, we should have him loitering here always. kindly turn round\nand wave him away like that.'\n\"i did as i was told, and at the same instant mrs. rucastle drew down\nthe blind. that was a week ago, and from that time i have not sat\nagain in the window, nor have i worn the blue dress, nor seen the man\nin the road.\"\n\"pray continue,\" said holmes. \"your narrative promises to be a most\ninteresting one.\"\n\"you will find it rather disconnected, i fear, and there may prove to\nbe little relation between the different incidents of which i speak.\non the very first day that i was at the copper beeches, mr. rucastle\ntook me to a small outhouse which stands near the kitchen door. as we\napproached it i heard the sharp rattling of a chain, and the sound as\nof a large animal moving about.\n\"'look in here!' said mr. rucastle, showing me a slit between two\nplanks. 'is he not a beauty?'\n\"i looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a\nvague figure huddled up in the darkness.\n\"'don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start which\ni had given. 'it's only carlo, my mastiff. i call him mine, but\nreally old toller, my groom, is the only man who can do anything with\nhim. we feed him once a day, and not too much then, so that he is\nalways as keen as mustard. toller lets him loose every night, and god\nhelp the trespasser whom he lays his fangs upon. for goodness' sake\ndon't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at\nnight, for it's as much as your life is worth.'\n\"the warning was no idle one, for two nights later i happened to look\nout of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning. it was a\nbeautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the house was\nsilvered over and almost as bright as day. i was standing, rapt in\nthe peaceful beauty of the scene, when i was aware that something was\nmoving under the shadow of the copper beeches. as it emerged into the\nmoonshine i saw what it was. it was a giant dog, as large as a calf,\ntawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting\nbones. it walked slowly across the lawn and vanished into the shadow\nupon the other side. that dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart\nwhich i do not think that any burglar could have done.\n\"and now i have a very strange experience to tell you. i had, as you\nknow, cut off my hair in london, and i had placed it in a great coil\nat the bottom of my trunk. one evening, after the child was in bed, i\nbegan to amuse myself by examining the furniture of my room and by\nrearranging my own little things. there was an old chest of drawers\nin the room, the two upper ones empty and open, the lower one locked.\ni had filled the first two with my linen, and as i had still much to\npack away i was naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third\ndrawer. it struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere\noversight, so i took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. the\nvery first key fitted to perfection, and i drew the drawer open.\nthere was only one thing in it, but i am sure that you would never\nguess what it was. it was my coil of hair.\n\"i took it up and examined it. it was of the same peculiar tint, and\nthe same thickness. but then the impossibility of the thing obtruded\nitself upon me. how could my hair have been locked in the drawer?\nwith trembling hands i undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and\ndrew from the bottom my own hair. i laid the two tresses together,\nand i assure you that they were identical. was it not extraordinary?\npuzzle as i would, i could make nothing at all of what it meant. i\nreturned the strange hair to the drawer, and i said nothing of the\nmatter to the rucastles as i felt that i had put myself in the wrong\nby opening a drawer which they had locked.\n\"i am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, mr. holmes, and\ni soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. there\nwas one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. a\ndoor which faced that which led into the quarters of the tollers\nopened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. one day,\nhowever, as i ascended the stair, i met mr. rucastle coming out\nthrough this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which\nmade him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom i\nwas accustomed. his cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with\nanger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. he locked\nthe door and hurried past me without a word or a look.\n\"this aroused my curiosity, so when i went out for a walk in the\ngrounds with my charge, i strolled round to the side from which i\ncould see the windows of this part of the house. there were four of\nthem in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was\nshuttered up. they were evidently all deserted. as i strolled up and\ndown, glancing at them occasionally, mr. rucastle came out to me,\nlooking as merry and jovial as ever.\n\"'ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if i passed you without a\nword, my dear young lady. i was preoccupied with business matters.'\n\"i assured him that i was not offended. 'by the way,' said i, 'you\nseem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them\nhas the shutters up.'\n\"he looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my\nremark.\n\"'photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'i have made my dark\nroom up there. but, dear me! what an observant young lady we have\ncome upon. who would have believed it? who would have ever believed\nit?' he spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as\nhe looked at me. i read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest.\n\"well, mr. holmes, from the moment that i understood that there was\nsomething about that suite of rooms which i was not to know, i was\nall on fire to go over them. it was not mere curiosity, though i have\nmy share of that. it was more a feeling of duty--a feeling that some\ngood might come from my penetrating to this place. they talk of\nwoman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's instinct which gave me that\nfeeling. at any rate, it was there, and i was keenly on the lookout\nfor any chance to pass the forbidden door.\n\"it was only yesterday that the chance came. i may tell you that,\nbesides mr. rucastle, both toller and his wife find something to do\nin these deserted rooms, and i once saw him carrying a large black\nlinen bag with him through the door. recently he has been drinking\nhard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and when i came\nupstairs there was the key in the door. i have no doubt at all that\nhe had left it there. mr. and mrs. rucastle were both downstairs, and\nthe child was with them, so that i had an admirable opportunity. i\nturned the key gently in the lock, opened the door, and slipped\nthrough.\n\"there was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted,\nwhich turned at a right angle at the farther end. round this corner\nwere three doors in a line, the first and third of which were open.\nthey each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two\nwindows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the\nevening light glimmered dimly through them. the centre door was\nclosed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the\nbroad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the\nwall, and fastened at the other with stout cord. the door itself was\nlocked as well, and the key was not there. this barricaded door\ncorresponded clearly with the shuttered window outside, and yet i\ncould see by the glimmer from beneath it that the room was not in\ndarkness. evidently there was a skylight which let in light from\nabove. as i stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door and\nwondering what secret it might veil, i suddenly heard the sound of\nsteps within the room and saw a shadow pass backward and forward\nagainst the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the\ndoor. a mad, unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, mr.\nholmes. my overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and i turned and\nran--ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the\nskirt of my dress. i rushed down the passage, through the door, and\nstraight into the arms of mr. rucastle, who was waiting outside.\n\"'so,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. i thought that it must be\nwhen i saw the door open.'\n\"'oh, i am so frightened!' i panted.\n\"'my dear young lady! my dear young lady!'--you cannot think how\ncaressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened you,\nmy dear young lady?'\n\"but his voice was just a little too coaxing. he overdid it. i was\nkeenly on my guard against him.\n\"'i was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' i answered. 'but\nit is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that i was frightened and\nran out again. oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!'\n\"'only that?' said he, looking at me keenly.\n\"'why, what did you think?' i asked.\n\"'why do you think that i lock this door?'\n\"'i am sure that i do not know.'\n\"'it is to keep people out who have no business there. do you see?'\nhe was still smiling in the most amiable manner.\n\"'i am sure if i had known--'\n\"'well, then, you know now. and if you ever put your foot over that\nthreshold again'--here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin\nof rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon--'i'll\nthrow you to the mastiff.'\n\"i was so terrified that i do not know what i did. i suppose that i\nmust have rushed past him into my room. i remember nothing until i\nfound myself lying on my bed trembling all over. then i thought of\nyou, mr. holmes. i could not live there longer without some advice. i\nwas frightened of the house, of the man, of the woman, of the\nservants, even of the child. they were all horrible to me. if i could\nonly bring you down all would be well. of course i might have fled\nfrom the house, but my curiosity was almost as strong as my fears. my\nmind was soon made up. i would send you a wire. i put on my hat and\ncloak, went down to the office, which is about half a mile from the\nhouse, and then returned, feeling very much easier. a horrible doubt\ncame into my mind as i approached the door lest the dog might be\nloose, but i remembered that toller had drunk himself into a state of\ninsensibility that evening, and i knew that he was the only one in\nthe household who had any influence with the savage creature, or who\nwould venture to set him free. i slipped in in safety and lay awake\nhalf the night in my joy at the thought of seeing you. i had no\ndifficulty in getting leave to come into winchester this morning, but\ni must be back before three o'clock, for mr. and mrs. rucastle are\ngoing on a visit, and will be away all the evening, so that i must\nlook after the child. now i have told you all my adventures, mr.\nholmes, and i should be very glad if you could tell me what it all\nmeans, and, above all, what i should do.\"\nholmes and i had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. my\nfriend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his\npockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon his\nface.\n\"is toller still drunk?\" he asked.\n\"yes. i heard his wife tell mrs. rucastle that she could do nothing\nwith him.\"\n\"that is well. and the rucastles go out to-night?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"is there a cellar with a good strong lock?\"\n\"yes, the wine-cellar.\"\n\"you seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very\nbrave and sensible girl, miss hunter. do you think that you could\nperform one more feat? i should not ask it of you if i did not think\nyou a quite exceptional woman.\"\n\"i will try. what is it?\"\n\"we shall be at the copper beeches by seven o'clock, my friend and i.\nthe rucastles will be gone by that time, and toller will, we hope, be\nincapable. there only remains mrs. toller, who might give the alarm.\nif you could send her into the cellar on some errand, and then turn\nthe key upon her, you would facilitate matters immensely.\"\n\"i will do it.\"\n\"excellent! we shall then look thoroughly into the affair. of course\nthere is only one feasible explanation. you have been brought there\nto personate someone, and the real person is imprisoned in this\nchamber. that is obvious. as to who this prisoner is, i have no doubt\nthat it is the daughter, miss alice rucastle, if i remember right,\nwho was said to have gone to america. you were chosen, doubtless, as\nresembling her in height, figure, and the colour of your hair. hers\nhad been cut off, very possibly in some illness through which she has\npassed, and so, of course, yours had to be sacrificed also. by a\ncurious chance you came upon her tresses. the man in the road was\nundoubtedly some friend of hers--possibly her fianc--and no doubt,\nas you wore the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced\nfrom your laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your\ngesture, that miss rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no\nlonger desired his attentions. the dog is let loose at night to\nprevent him from endeavouring to communicate with her. so much is\nfairly clear. the most serious point in the case is the disposition\nof the child.\"\n\"what on earth has that to do with it?\" i ejaculated.\n\"my dear watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light\nas to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. don't\nyou see that the converse is equally valid. i have frequently gained\nmy first real insight into the character of parents by studying their\nchildren. this child's disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for\ncruelty's sake, and whether he derives this from his smiling father,\nas i should suspect, or from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor\ngirl who is in their power.\"\n\"i am sure that you are right, mr. holmes,\" cried our client. \"a\nthousand things come back to me which make me certain that you have\nhit it. oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to this poor\ncreature.\"\n\"we must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning man.\nwe can do nothing until seven o'clock. at that hour we shall be with\nyou, and it will not be long before we solve the mystery.\"\nwe were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we reached\nthe copper beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside public-house.\nthe group of trees, with their dark leaves shining like burnished\nmetal in the light of the setting sun, were sufficient to mark the\nhouse even had miss hunter not been standing smiling on the\ndoor-step.\n\"have you managed it?\" asked holmes.\na loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. \"that is mrs.\ntoller in the cellar,\" said she. \"her husband lies snoring on the\nkitchen rug. here are his keys, which are the duplicates of mr.\nrucastle's.\"\n\"you have done well indeed!\" cried holmes with enthusiasm. \"now lead\nthe way, and we shall soon see the end of this black business.\"\nwe passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a\npassage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which miss\nhunter had described. holmes cut the cord and removed the transverse\nbar. then he tried the various keys in the lock, but without success.\nno sound came from within, and at the silence holmes' face clouded\nover.\n\"i trust that we are not too late,\" said he. \"i think, miss hunter,\nthat we had better go in without you. now, watson, put your shoulder\nto it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our way in.\"\nit was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united\nstrength. together we rushed into the room. it was empty. there was\nno furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a basketful\nof linen. the skylight above was open, and the prisoner gone.\n\"there has been some villainy here,\" said holmes; \"this beauty has\nguessed miss hunter's intentions and has carried his victim off.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"through the skylight. we shall soon see how he managed it.\" he swung\nhimself up onto the roof. \"ah, yes,\" he cried, \"here's the end of a\nlong light ladder against the eaves. that is how he did it.\"\n\"but it is impossible,\" said miss hunter; \"the ladder was not there\nwhen the rucastles went away.\"\n\"he has come back and done it. i tell you that he is a clever and\ndangerous man. i should not be very much surprised if this were he\nwhose step i hear now upon the stair. i think, watson, that it would\nbe as well for you to have your pistol ready.\"\nthe words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at the\ndoor of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy stick in his\nhand. miss hunter screamed and shrunk against the wall at the sight\nof him, but sherlock holmes sprang forward and confronted him.\n\"you villain!\" said he, \"where's your daughter?\"\nthe fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open skylight.\n\"it is for me to ask you that,\" he shrieked, \"you thieves! spies and\nthieves! i have caught you, have i? you are in my power. i'll serve\nyou!\" he turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he could go.\n\"he's gone for the dog!\" cried miss hunter.\n\"i have my revolver,\" said i.\n\"better close the front door,\" cried holmes, and we all rushed down\nthe stairs together. we had hardly reached the hall when we heard the\nbaying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a horrible\nworrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. an elderly man\nwith a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out at a side door.\n\"my god!\" he cried. \"someone has loosed the dog. it's not been fed\nfor two days. quick, quick, or it'll be too late!\"\nholmes and i rushed out and round the angle of the house, with toller\nhurrying behind us. there was the huge famished brute, its black\nmuzzle buried in rucastle's throat, while he writhed and screamed\nupon the ground. running up, i blew its brains out, and it fell over\nwith its keen white teeth still meeting in the great creases of his\nneck. with much labour we separated them and carried him, living but\nhorribly mangled, into the house. we laid him upon the drawing-room\nsofa, and having dispatched the sobered toller to bear the news to\nhis wife, i did what i could to relieve his pain. we were all\nassembled round him when the door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman\nentered the room.\n\"mrs. toller!\" cried miss hunter.\n\"yes, miss. mr. rucastle let me out when he came back before he went\nup to you. ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know what you\nwere planning, for i would have told you that your pains were\nwasted.\"\n\"ha!\" said holmes, looking keenly at her. \"it is clear that mrs.\ntoller knows more about this matter than anyone else.\"\n\"yes, sir, i do, and i am ready enough to tell what i know.\"\n\"then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several\npoints on which i must confess that i am still in the dark.\"\n\"i will soon make it clear to you,\" said she; \"and i'd have done so\nbefore now if i could ha' got out from the cellar. if there's\npolice-court business over this, you'll remember that i was the one\nthat stood your friend, and that i was miss alice's friend too.\n\"she was never happy at home, miss alice wasn't, from the time that\nher father married again. she was slighted like and had no say in\nanything, but it never really became bad for her until after she met\nmr. fowler at a friend's house. as well as i could learn, miss alice\nhad rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet and patient, she\nwas, that she never said a word about them but just left everything\nin mr. rucastle's hands. he knew he was safe with her; but when there\nwas a chance of a husband coming forward, who would ask for all that\nthe law would give him, then her father thought it time to put a stop\non it. he wanted her to sign a paper, so that whether she married or\nnot, he could use her money. when she wouldn't do it, he kept on\nworrying her until she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at\ndeath's door. then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and\nwith her beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in\nher young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be.\"\n\"ah,\" said holmes, \"i think that what you have been good enough to\ntell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that i can deduce all that\nremains. mr. rucastle then, i presume, took to this system of\nimprisonment?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and brought miss hunter down from london in order to get rid of the\ndisagreeable persistence of mr. fowler.\"\n\"that was it, sir.\"\n\"but mr. fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be,\nblockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain\narguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your\ninterests were the same as his.\"\n\"mr. fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,\" said mrs.\ntoller serenely.\n\"and in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of\ndrink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your\nmaster had gone out.\"\n\"you have it, sir, just as it happened.\"\n\"i am sure we owe you an apology, mrs. toller,\" said holmes, \"for you\nhave certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. and here comes\nthe country surgeon and mrs. rucastle, so i think, watson, that we\nhad best escort miss hunter back to winchester, as it seems to me\nthat our locus standi now is rather a questionable one.\"\nand thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper\nbeeches in front of the door. mr. rucastle survived, but was always a\nbroken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife.\nthey still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of\nrucastle's past life that he finds it difficult to part from them.\nmr. fowler and miss rucastle were married, by special license, in\nsouthampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a\ngovernment appointment in the island of mauritius. as to miss violet\nhunter, my friend holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no\nfurther interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of\none of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at\nwalsall, where i believe that she has met with considerable success.\nthe memoirs of sherlock holmes\nsilver blaze\n\"i am afraid, watson, that i shall have to go,\" said holmes, as we\nsat down together to our breakfast one morning.\n\"go! where to?\"\n\"to dartmoor; to king's pyland.\"\ni was not surprised. indeed, my only wonder was that he had not\nalready been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one\ntopic of conversation through the length and breadth of england. for\na whole day my companion had rambled about the room with his chin\nupon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and recharging his\npipe with the strongest black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of\nmy questions or remarks. fresh editions of every paper had been sent\nup by our news agent, only to be glanced over and tossed down into a\ncorner. yet, silent as he was, i knew perfectly well what it was over\nwhich he was brooding.  there was but one problem before the public\nwhich could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the\nsingular disappearance of the favorite for the wessex cup, and the\ntragic murder of its trainer. when, therefore, he suddenly announced\nhis intention of setting out for the scene of the drama it was only\nwhat i had both expected and hoped for.\n\"i should be most happy to go down with you if i should not be in the\nway,\" said i.\n\"my dear watson, you would confer a great favour upon me by coming.\nand i think that your time will not be misspent, for there are points\nabout the case which promise to make it an absolutely unique one. we\nhave, i think, just time to catch our train at paddington, and i will\ngo further into the matter upon our journey. you would oblige me by\nbringing with you your very excellent field-glass.\"\nand so it happened that an hour or so later i found myself in the\ncorner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for exeter,\nwhile sherlock holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his\near-flapped travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh\npapers which he had procured at paddington. we had left reading far\nbehind us before he thrust the last one of them under the seat, and\noffered me his cigar-case.\n\"we are going well,\" said he, looking out the window and glancing at\nhis watch. \"our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an\nhour.\"\n\"i have not observed the quarter-mile posts,\" said i.\n\"nor have i. but the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards\napart, and the calculation is a simple one. i presume that you have\nlooked into this matter of the murder of john straker and the\ndisappearance of silver blaze?\"\n\"i have seen what the telegraph and the chronicle have to say.\"\n\"it is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be\nused rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of\nfresh evidence. the tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of\nsuch personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering\nfrom a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. the\ndifficulty is to detach the framework of fact--of absolute undeniable\nfact--from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. then,\nhaving established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to\nsee what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon\nwhich the whole mystery turns. on tuesday evening i received\ntelegrams from both colonel ross, the owner of the horse, and from\ninspector gregory, who is looking after the case, inviting my\ncooperation.\n\"tuesday evening!\" i exclaimed. \"and this is thursday morning. why\ndidn't you go down yesterday?\"\n\"because i made a blunder, my dear watson--which is, i am afraid, a\nmore common occurrence than any one would think who only knew me\nthrough your memoirs. the fact is that i could not believe it\npossible that the most remarkable horse in england could long remain\nconcealed, especially in so sparsely inhabited a place as the north\nof dartmoor. from hour to hour yesterday i expected to hear that he\nhad been found, and that his abductor was the murderer of john\nstraker. when, however, another morning had come, and i found that\nbeyond the arrest of young fitzroy simpson nothing had been done, i\nfelt that it was time for me to take action. yet in some ways i feel\nthat yesterday has not been wasted.\"\n\"you have formed a theory, then?\"\n\"at least i have got a grip of the essential facts of the case. i\nshall enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as\nstating it to another person, and i can hardly expect your\nco-operation if i do not show you the position from which we start.\"\ni lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while holmes,\nleaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the\npoints upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events\nwhich had led to our journey.\n\"silver blaze,\" said he, \"is from the somomy stock, and holds as\nbrilliant a record as his famous ancestor. he is now in his fifth\nyear, and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to\ncolonel ross, his fortunate owner. up to the time of the catastrophe\nhe was the first favorite for the wessex cup, the betting being three\nto one on him. he has always, however, been a prime favorite with the\nracing public, and has never yet disappointed them, so that even at\nthose odds enormous sums of money have been laid upon him. it is\nobvious, therefore, that there were many people who had the strongest\ninterest in preventing silver blaze from being there at the fall of\nthe flag next tuesday.\n\"the fact was, of course, appreciated at king's pyland, where the\ncolonel's training-stable is situated. every precaution was taken to\nguard the favorite. the trainer, john straker, is a retired jockey\nwho rode in colonel ross's colors before he became too heavy for the\nweighing-chair. he has served the colonel for five years as jockey\nand for seven as trainer, and has always shown himself to be a\nzealous and honest servant. under him were three lads; for the\nestablishment was a small one, containing only four horses in all.\none of these lads sat up each night in the stable, while the others\nslept in the loft. all three bore excellent characters. john straker,\nwho is a married man, lived in a small villa about two hundred yards\nfrom the stables. he has no children, keeps one maid-servant, and is\ncomfortably off. the country round is very lonely, but about half a\nmile to the north there is a small cluster of villas which have been\nbuilt by a tavistock contractor for the use of invalids and others\nwho may wish to enjoy the pure dartmoor air. tavistock itself lies\ntwo miles to the west, while across the moor, also about two miles\ndistant, is the larger training establishment of mapleton, which\nbelongs to lord backwater, and is managed by silas brown. in every\nother direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by\na few roaming gypsies. such was the general situation last monday\nnight when the catastrophe occurred.\n\"on that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual,\nand the stables were locked up at nine o'clock. two of the lads\nwalked up to the trainer's house, where they had supper in the\nkitchen, while the third, ned hunter, remained on guard. at a few\nminutes after nine the maid, edith baxter, carried down to the\nstables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried mutton. she\ntook no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the stables, and it was\nthe rule that the lad on duty should drink nothing else. the maid\ncarried a lantern with her, as it was very dark and the path ran\nacross the open moor.\n\"edith baxter was within thirty yards of the stables, when a man\nappeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. as he stepped\ninto the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she saw that he\nwas a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a gray suit of\ntweeds, with a cloth cap. he wore gaiters, and carried a heavy stick\nwith a knob to it. she was most impressed, however, by the extreme\npallor of his face and by the nervousness of his manner. his age, she\nthought, would be rather over thirty than under it.\n\"'can you tell me where i am?' he asked. 'i had almost made up my\nmind to sleep on the moor, when i saw the light of your lantern.'\n\"'you are close to the king's pyland training-stables,' said she.\n\"'oh, indeed! what a stroke of luck!' he cried. 'i understand that a\nstable-boy sleeps there alone every night. perhaps that is his supper\nwhich you are carrying to him. now i am sure that you would not be\ntoo proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?' he took a\npiece of white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. 'see that\nthe boy has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock\nthat money can buy.'\n\"she was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran past\nhim to the window through which she was accustomed to hand the meals.\nit was already opened, and hunter was seated at the small table\ninside. she had begun to tell him of what had happened, when the\nstranger came up again.\n\"'good-evening,' said he, looking through the window. 'i wanted to\nhave a word with you.' the girl has sworn that as he spoke she\nnoticed the corner of the little paper packet protruding from his\nclosed hand.\n\"'what business have you here?' asked the lad.\n\"'it's business that may put something into your pocket,' said the\nother. 'you've two horses in for the wessex cup--silver blaze and\nbayard. let me have the straight tip and you won't be a loser. is it\na fact that at the weights bayard could give the other a hundred\nyards in five furlongs, and that the stable have put their money on\nhim?'\n\"'so, you're one of those damned touts!' cried the lad. 'i'll show\nyou how we serve them in king's pyland.' he sprang up and rushed\nacross the stable to unloose the dog. the girl fled away to the\nhouse, but as she ran she looked back and saw that the stranger was\nleaning through the window. a minute later, however, when hunter\nrushed out with the hound he was gone, and though he ran all round\nthe buildings he failed to find any trace of him.\"\n\"one moment,\" i asked. \"did the stable-boy, when he ran out with the\ndog, leave the door unlocked behind him?\"\n\"excellent, watson, excellent!\" murmured my companion. \"the\nimportance of the point struck me so forcibly that i sent a special\nwire to dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. the boy locked the\ndoor before he left it. the window, i may add, was not large enough\nfor a man to get through.\n\"hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned, when he sent a\nmessage to the trainer and told him what had occurred. straker was\nexcited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to have\nquite realized its true significance. it left him, however, vaguely\nuneasy, and mrs. straker, waking at one in the morning, found that he\nwas dressing. in reply to her inquiries, he said that he could not\nsleep on account of his anxiety about the horses, and that he\nintended to walk down to the stables to see that all was well. she\nbegged him to remain at home, as she could hear the rain pattering\nagainst the window, but in spite of her entreaties he pulled on his\nlarge mackintosh and left the house.\n\"mrs. straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her husband\nhad not yet returned. she dressed herself hastily, called the maid,\nand set off for the stables. the door was open; inside, huddled\ntogether upon a chair, hunter was sunk in a state of absolute stupor,\nthe favorite's stall was empty, and there were no signs of his\ntrainer.\n\"the two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the\nharness-room were quickly aroused. they had heard nothing during the\nnight, for they are both sound sleepers. hunter was obviously under\nthe influence of some powerful drug, and as no sense could be got out\nof him, he was left to sleep it off while the two lads and the two\nwomen ran out in search of the absentees. they still had hopes that\nthe trainer had for some reason taken out the horse for early\nexercise, but on ascending the knoll near the house, from which all\nthe neighboring moors were visible, they not only could see no signs\nof the missing favorite, but they perceived something which warned\nthem that they were in the presence of a tragedy.\n\"about a quarter of a mile from the stables john straker's overcoat\nwas flapping from a furze-bush. immediately beyond there was a\nbowl-shaped depression in the moor, and at the bottom of this was\nfound the dead body of the unfortunate trainer. his head had been\nshattered by a savage blow from some heavy weapon, and he was wounded\non the thigh, where there was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently\nby some very sharp instrument. it was clear, however, that straker\nhad defended himself vigorously against his assailants, for in his\nright hand he held a small knife, which was clotted with blood up to\nthe handle, while in his left he clasped a red and black silk cravat,\nwhich was recognized by the maid as having been worn on the preceding\nevening by the stranger who had visited the stables. hunter, on\nrecovering from his stupor, was also quite positive as to the\nownership of the cravat. he was equally certain that the same\nstranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his curried\nmutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman. as to the\nmissing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the\nbottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at the time of the\nstruggle. but from that morning he has disappeared, and although a\nlarge reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of dartmoor are on\nthe alert, no news has come of him. finally, an analysis has shown\nthat the remains of his supper left by the stable-lad contain an\nappreciable quantity of powdered opium, while the people at the house\npartook of the same dish on the same night without any ill effect.\n\"those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise, and\nstated as baldly as possible. i shall now recapitulate what the\npolice have done in the matter.\n\"inspector gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an\nextremely competent officer. were he but gifted with imagination he\nmight rise to great heights in his profession. on his arrival he\npromptly found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally\nrested. there was little difficulty in finding him, for he inhabited\none of those villas which i have mentioned. his name, it appears, was\nfitzroy simpson. he was a man of excellent birth and education, who\nhad squandered a fortune upon the turf, and who lived now by doing a\nlittle quiet and genteel book-making in the sporting clubs of london.\nan examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the amount of\nfive thousand pounds had been registered by him against the favorite.\non being arrested he volunteered the statement that he had come down\nto dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about the king's\npyland horses, and also about desborough, the second favorite, which\nwas in charge of silas brown at the mapleton stables. he did not\nattempt to deny that he had acted as described upon the evening\nbefore, but declared that he had no sinister designs, and had simply\nwished to obtain first-hand information. when confronted with his\ncravat, he turned very pale, and was utterly unable to account for\nits presence in the hand of the murdered man. his wet clothing showed\nthat he had been out in the storm of the night before, and his stick,\nwhich was a penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just such a weapon\nas might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible injuries to\nwhich the trainer had succumbed. on the other hand, there was no\nwound upon his person, while the state of straker's knife would show\nthat one at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him.\nthere you have it all in a nutshell, watson, and if you can give me\nany light i shall be infinitely obliged to you.\"\ni had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which\nholmes, with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. though\nmost of the facts were familiar to me, i had not sufficiently\nappreciated their relative importance, nor their connection to each\nother.\n\"is in not possible,\" i suggested, \"that the incised wound upon\nstraker may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive\nstruggles which follow any brain injury?\"\n\"it is more than possible; it is probable,\" said holmes. \"in that\ncase one of the main points in favor of the accused disappears.\"\n\"and yet,\" said i, \"even now i fail to understand what the theory of\nthe police can be.\"\n\"i am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections\nto it,\" returned my companion. \"the police imagine, i take it, that\nthis fitzroy simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way\nobtained a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the\nhorse, with the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether.\nhis bridle is missing, so that simpson must have put this on. then,\nhaving left the door open behind him, he was leading the horse away\nover the moor, when he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. a\nrow naturally ensued. simpson beat out the trainer's brains with his\nheavy stick without receiving any injury from the small knife which\nstraker used in self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse\non to some secret hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the\nstruggle, and be now wandering out on the moors. that is the case as\nit appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other\nexplanations are more improbable still. however, i shall very quickly\ntest the matter when i am once upon the spot, and until then i cannot\nreally see how we can get much further than our present position.\"\nit was evening before we reached the little town of tavistock, which\nlies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of\ndartmoor. two gentlemen were awaiting us in the station--the one a\ntall, fair man with lion-like hair and beard and curiously\npenetrating light blue eyes; the other a small, alert person, very\nneat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little\nside-whiskers and an eye-glass. the latter was colonel ross, the\nwell-known sportsman; the other, inspector gregory, a man who was\nrapidly making his name in the english detective service.\n\"i am delighted that you have come down, mr. holmes,\" said the\ncolonel. \"the inspector here has done all that could possibly be\nsuggested, but i wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge\npoor straker and in recovering my horse.\"\n\"have there been any fresh developments?\" asked holmes.\n\"i am sorry to say that we have made very little progress,\" said the\ninspector. \"we have an open carriage outside, and as you would no\ndoubt like to see the place before the light fails, we might talk it\nover as we drive.\"\na minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau, and were\nrattling through the quaint old devonshire city. inspector gregory\nwas full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks, while\nholmes threw in an occasional question or interjection. colonel ross\nleaned back with his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes,\nwhile i listened with interest to the dialogue of the two detectives.\ngregory was formulating his theory, which was almost exactly what\nholmes had foretold in the train.\n\"the net is drawn pretty close round fitzroy simpson,\" he remarked,\n\"and i believe myself that he is our man. at the same time i\nrecognize that the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some\nnew development may upset it.\"\n\"how about straker's knife?\"\n\"we have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in his\nfall.\"\n\"my friend dr. watson made that suggestion to me as we came down. if\nso, it would tell against this man simpson.\"\n\"undoubtedly. he has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. the\nevidence against him is certainly very strong. he had a great\ninterest in the disappearance of the favorite. he lies under\nsuspicion of having poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly out\nin the storm, he was armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat was\nfound in the dead man's hand. i really think we have enough to go\nbefore a jury.\"\nholmes shook his head. \"a clever counsel would tear it all to rags,\"\nsaid he. \"why should he take the horse out of the stable? if he\nwished to injure it why could he not do it there? has a duplicate key\nbeen found in his possession? what chemist sold him the powdered\nopium? above all, where could he, a stranger to the district, hide a\nhorse, and such a horse as this? what is his own explanation as to\nthe paper which he wished the maid to give to the stable-boy?\"\n\"he says that it was a ten-pound note. one was found in his purse.\nbut your other difficulties are not so formidable as they seem. he is\nnot a stranger to the district. he has twice lodged at tavistock in\nthe summer. the opium was probably brought from london. the key,\nhaving served its purpose, would be hurled away. the horse may be at\nthe bottom of one of the pits or old mines upon the moor.\"\n\"what does he say about the cravat?\"\n\"he acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost it.\nbut a new element has been introduced into the case which may account\nfor his leading the horse from the stable.\"\nholmes pricked up his ears.\n\"we have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped on\nmonday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took place.\non tuesday they were gone. now, presuming that there was some\nunderstanding between simpson and these gypsies, might he not have\nbeen leading the horse to them when he was overtaken, and may they\nnot have him now?\"\n\"it is certainly possible.\"\n\"the moor is being scoured for these gypsies. i have also examined\nevery stable and out-house in tavistock, and for a radius of ten\nmiles.\"\n\"there is another training-stable quite close, i understand?\"\n\"yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect. as\ndesborough, their horse, was second in the betting, they had an\ninterest in the disappearance of the favorite. silas brown, the\ntrainer, is known to have had large bets upon the event, and he was\nno friend to poor straker. we have, however, examined the stables,\nand there is nothing to connect him with the affair.\"\n\"and nothing to connect this man simpson with the interests of the\nmapleton stables?\"\n\"nothing at all.\"\nholmes leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased. a\nfew minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick\nvilla with overhanging eaves which stood by the road. some distance\noff, across a paddock, lay a long gray-tiled out-building. in every\nother direction the low curves of the moor, bronze-colored from the\nfading ferns, stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the\nsteeples of tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the\nwestward which marked the mapleton stables. we all sprang out with\nthe exception of holmes, who continued to lean back with his eyes\nfixed upon the sky in front of him, entirely absorbed in his own\nthoughts. it was only when i touched his arm that he roused himself\nwith a violent start and stepped out of the carriage.\n\"excuse me,\" said he, turning to colonel ross, who had looked at him\nin some surprise. \"i was day-dreaming.\" there was a gleam in his eyes\nand a suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as\ni was to his ways, that his hand was upon a clue, though i could not\nimagine where he had found it.\n\"perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the crime,\nmr. holmes?\" said gregory.\n\"i think that i should prefer to stay here a little and go into one\nor two questions of detail. straker was brought back here, i\npresume?\"\n\"yes; he lies upstairs. the inquest is to-morrow.\"\n\"he has been in your service some years, colonel ross?\"\n\"i have always found him an excellent servant.\"\n\"i presume that you made an inventory of what he had in this pockets\nat the time of his death, inspector?\"\n\"i have the things themselves in the sitting-room, if you would care\nto see them.\"\n\"i should be very glad.\" we all filed into the front room and sat\nround the central table while the inspector unlocked a square tin box\nand laid a small heap of things before us. there was a box of vestas,\ntwo inches of tallow candle, an a d p brier-root pipe, a pouch of\nseal-skin with half an ounce of long-cut cavendish, a silver watch\nwith a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an aluminum pencil-case,\na few papers, and an ivory-handled knife with a very delicate,\ninflexible blade marked weiss & co., london.\n\"this is a very singular knife,\" said holmes, lifting it up and\nexamining it minutely. \"i presume, as i see blood-stains upon it,\nthat it is the one which was found in the dead man's grasp. watson,\nthis knife is surely in your line?\"\n\"it is what we call a cataract knife,\" said i.\n\"i thought so. a very delicate blade devised for very delicate work.\na strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough expedition,\nespecially as it would not shut in his pocket.\"\n\"the tip was guarded by a disk of cork which we found beside his\nbody,\" said the inspector. \"his wife tells us that the knife had lain\nupon the dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he left the\nroom. it was a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he could lay\nhis hands on at the moment.\"\n\"very possible. how about these papers?\"\n\"three of them are receipted hay-dealers' accounts. one of them is a\nletter of instructions from colonel ross. this other is a milliner's\naccount for thirty-seven pounds fifteen made out by madame lesurier,\nof bond street, to william derbyshire. mrs. straker tells us that\nderbyshire was a friend of her husband's and that occasionally his\nletters were addressed here.\"\n\"madam derbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes,\" remarked holmes,\nglancing down the account. \"twenty-two guineas is rather heavy for a\nsingle costume. however there appears to be nothing more to learn,\nand we may now go down to the scene of the crime.\"\nas we emerged from the sitting-room a woman, who had been waiting in\nthe passage, took a step forward and laid her hand upon the\ninspector's sleeve. her face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped\nwith the print of a recent horror.\n\"have you got them? have you found them?\" she panted.\n\"no, mrs. straker. but mr. holmes here has come from london to help\nus, and we shall do all that is possible.\"\n\"surely i met you in plymouth at a garden-party some little time ago,\nmrs. straker?\" said holmes.\n\"no, sir; you are mistaken.\"\n\"dear me! why, i could have sworn to it. you wore a costume of\ndove-colored silk with ostrich-feather trimming.\"\n\"i never had such a dress, sir,\" answered the lady.\n\"ah, that quite settles it,\" said holmes. and with an apology he\nfollowed the inspector outside. a short walk across the moor took us\nto the hollow in which the body had been found. at the brink of it\nwas the furze-bush upon which the coat had been hung.\n\"there was no wind that night, i understand,\" said holmes.\n\"none; but very heavy rain.\"\n\"in that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze-bush, but\nplaced there.\"\n\"yes, it was laid across the bush.\"\n\"you fill me with interest, i perceive that the ground has been\ntrampled up a good deal. no doubt many feet have been here since\nmonday night.\"\n\"a piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have all\nstood upon that.\"\n\"excellent.\"\n\"in this bag i have one of the boots which straker wore, one of\nfitzroy simpson's shoes, and a cast horseshoe of silver blaze.\"\n\"my dear inspector, you surpass yourself!\" holmes took the bag, and,\ndescending into the hollow, he pushed the matting into a more central\nposition. then stretching himself upon his face and leaning his chin\nupon his hands, he made a careful study of the trampled mud in front\nof him. \"hullo!\" said he, suddenly. \"what's this?\" it was a wax vesta\nhalf burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first\nlike a little chip of wood.\n\"i cannot think how i came to overlook it,\" said the inspector, with\nan expression of annoyance.\n\"it was invisible, buried in the mud. i only saw it because i was\nlooking for it.\"\n\"what! you expected to find it?\"\n\"i thought it not unlikely.\"\nhe took the boots from the bag, and compared the impressions of each\nof them with marks upon the ground. then he clambered up to the rim\nof the hollow, and crawled about among the ferns and bushes.\n\"i am afraid that there are no more tracks,\" said the inspector. \"i\nhave examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in each\ndirection.\"\n\"indeed!\" said holmes, rising. \"i should not have the impertinence to\ndo it again after what you say. but i should like to take a little\nwalk over the moor before it grows dark, that i may know my ground\nto-morrow, and i think that i shall put this horseshoe into my pocket\nfor luck.\"\ncolonel ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my\ncompanion's quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his\nwatch. \"i wish you would come back with me, inspector,\" said he.\n\"there are several points on which i should like your advice, and\nespecially as to whether we do not owe it to the public to remove our\nhorse's name from the entries for the cup.\"\n\"certainly not,\" cried holmes, with decision. \"i should let the name\nstand.\"\nthe colonel bowed. \"i am very glad to have had your opinion, sir,\"\nsaid he. \"you will find us at poor straker's house when you have\nfinished your walk, and we can drive together into tavistock.\"\nhe turned back with the inspector, while holmes and i walked slowly\nacross the moor. the sun was beginning to sink behind the stables of\nmapleton, and the long, sloping plain in front of us was tinged with\ngold, deepening into rich, ruddy browns where the faded ferns and\nbrambles caught the evening light. but the glories of the landscape\nwere all wasted upon my companion, who was sunk in the deepest\nthought.\n\"it's this way, watson,\" said he at last. \"we may leave the question\nof who killed john straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to\nfinding out what has become of the horse. now, supposing that he\nbroke away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to?\nthe horse is a very gregarious creature. if left to himself his\ninstincts would have been either to return to king's pyland or go\nover to mapleton. why should he run wild upon the moor? he would\nsurely have been seen by now. and why should gypsies kidnap him?\nthese people always clear out when they hear of trouble, for they do\nnot wish to be pestered by the police. they could not hope to sell\nsuch a horse. they would run a great risk and gain nothing by taking\nhim. surely that is clear.\"\n\"where is he, then?\"\n\"i have already said that he must have gone to king's pyland or to\nmapleton. he is not at king's pyland. therefore he is at mapleton.\nlet us take that as a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to.\nthis part of the moor, as the inspector remarked, is very hard and\ndry. but it falls away towards mapleton, and you can see from here\nthat there is a long hollow over yonder, which must have been very\nwet on monday night. if our supposition is correct, then the horse\nmust have crossed that, and there is the point where we should look\nfor his tracks.\"\nwe had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few more\nminutes brought us to the hollow in question. at holmes' request i\nwalked down the bank to the right, and he to the left, but i had not\ntaken fifty paces before i heard him give a shout, and saw him waving\nhis hand to me. the track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft\nearth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket\nexactly fitted the impression.\n\"see the value of imagination,\" said holmes. \"it is the one quality\nwhich gregory lacks. we imagined what might have happened, acted upon\nthe supposition, and find ourselves justified. let us proceed.\"\nwe crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of\ndry, hard turf. again the ground sloped, and again we came on the\ntracks. then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up\nonce more quite close to mapleton. it was holmes who saw them first,\nand he stood pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. a man's\ntrack was visible beside the horse's.\n\"the horse was alone before,\" i cried.\n\"quite so. it was alone before. hullo, what is this?\"\nthe double track turned sharp off and took the direction of king's\npyland. holmes whistled, and we both followed along after it. his\neyes were on the trail, but i happened to look a little to one side,\nand saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back again in the\nopposite direction.\n\"one for you, watson,\" said holmes, when i pointed it out. \"you have\nsaved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on our own\ntraces. let us follow the return track.\"\nwe had not to go far. it ended at the paving of asphalt which led up\nto the gates of the mapleton stables. as we approached, a groom ran\nout from them.\n\"we don't want any loiterers about here,\" said he.\n\"i only wished to ask a question,\" said holmes, with his finger and\nthumb in his waistcoat pocket. \"should i be too early to see your\nmaster, mr. silas brown, if i were to call at five o'clock to-morrow\nmorning?\"\n\"bless you, sir, if any one is about he will be, for he is always the\nfirst stirring. but here he is, sir, to answer your questions for\nhimself. no, sir, no; it is as much as my place is worth to let him\nsee me touch your money. afterwards, if you like.\"\nas sherlock holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn from\nhis pocket, a fierce-looking elderly man strode out from the gate\nwith a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.\n\"what's this, dawson!\" he cried. \"no gossiping! go about your\nbusiness! and you, what the devil do you want here?\"\n\"ten minutes' talk with you, my good sir,\" said holmes in the\nsweetest of voices.\n\"i've no time to talk to every gadabout. we want no stranger here. be\noff, or you may find a dog at your heels.\"\nholmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer's ear.\nhe started violently and flushed to the temples.\n\"it's a lie!\" he shouted, \"an infernal lie!\"\n\"very good. shall we argue about it here in public or talk it over in\nyour parlor?\"\n\"oh, come in if you wish to.\"\nholmes smiled. \"i shall not keep you more than a few minutes,\nwatson,\" said he. \"now, mr. brown, i am quite at your disposal.\"\nit was twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into grays before\nholmes and the trainer reappeared. never have i seen such a change as\nhad been brought about in silas brown in that short time. his face\nwas ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon his brow, and his\nhands shook until the hunting-crop wagged like a branch in the wind.\nhis bullying, overbearing manner was all gone too, and he cringed\nalong at my companion's side like a dog with its master.\n\"your instructions will be done. it shall all be done,\" said he.\n\"there must be no mistake,\" said holmes, looking round at him. the\nother winced as he read the menace in his eyes.\n\"oh no, there shall be no mistake. it shall be there. should i change\nit first or not?\"\nholmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. \"no, don't,\"\nsaid he; \"i shall write to you about it. no tricks, now, or--\"\n\"oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!\"\n\"yes, i think i can. well, you shall hear from me to-morrow.\" he\nturned upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other\nheld out to him, and we set off for king's pyland.\n\"a more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than master\nsilas brown i have seldom met with,\" remarked holmes as we trudged\nalong together.\n\"he has the horse, then?\"\n\"he tried to bluster out of it, but i described to him so exactly\nwhat his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that\ni was watching him. of course you observed the peculiarly square toes\nin the impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to\nthem. again, of course no subordinate would have dared to do such a\nthing. i described to him how, when according to his custom he was\nthe first down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor.\nhow he went out to it, and his astonishment at recognizing, from the\nwhite forehead which has given the favorite its name, that chance had\nput in his power the only horse which could beat the one upon which\nhe had put his money. then i described how his first impulse had been\nto lead him back to king's pyland, and how the devil had shown him\nhow he could hide the horse until the race was over, and how he had\nled it back and concealed it at mapleton. when i told him every\ndetail he gave it up and thought only of saving his own skin.\"\n\"but his stables had been searched?\"\n\"oh, and old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.\"\n\"but are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he\nhas every interest in injuring it?\"\n\"my dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. he knows\nthat his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.\"\n\"colonel ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show\nmuch mercy in any case.\"\n\"the matter does not rest with colonel ross. i follow my own methods,\nand tell as much or as little as i choose. that is the advantage of\nbeing unofficial. i don't know whether you observed it, watson, but\nthe colonel's manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. i am\ninclined now to have a little amusement at his expense. say nothing\nto him about the horse.\"\n\"certainly not without your permission.\"\n\"and of course this is all quite a minor point compared to the\nquestion of who killed john straker.\"\n\"and you will devote yourself to that?\"\n\"on the contrary, we both go back to london by the night train.\"\ni was thunderstruck by my friend's words. we had only been a few\nhours in devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation\nwhich he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me.\nnot a word more could i draw from him until we were back at the\ntrainer's house. the colonel and the inspector were awaiting us in\nthe parlor.\n\"my friend and i return to town by the night-express,\" said holmes.\n\"we have had a charming little breath of your beautiful dartmoor\nair.\"\nthe inspector opened his eyes, and the colonel's lip curled in a\nsneer.\n\"so you despair of arresting the murderer of poor straker,\" said he.\nholmes shrugged his shoulders. \"there are certainly grave\ndifficulties in the way,\" said he. \"i have every hope, however, that\nyour horse will start upon tuesday, and i beg that you will have your\njockey in readiness. might i ask for a photograph of mr. john\nstraker?\"\nthe inspector took one from an envelope and handed it to him.\n\"my dear gregory, you anticipate all my wants. if i might ask you to\nwait here for an instant, i have a question which i should like to\nput to the maid.\"\n\"i must say that i am rather disappointed in our london consultant,\"\nsaid colonel ross, bluntly, as my friend left the room. \"i do not see\nthat we are any further than when he came.\"\n\"at least you have his assurance that your horse will run,\" said i.\n\"yes, i have his assurance,\" said the colonel, with a shrug of his\nshoulders. \"i should prefer to have the horse.\"\ni was about to make some reply in defence of my friend when he\nentered the room again.\n\"now, gentlemen,\" said he, \"i am quite ready for tavistock.\"\nas we stepped into the carriage one of the stable-lads held the door\nopen for us. a sudden idea seemed to occur to holmes, for he leaned\nforward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.\n\"you have a few sheep in the paddock,\" he said. \"who attends to\nthem?\"\n\"i do, sir.\"\n\"have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?\"\n\"well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame,\nsir.\"\ni could see that holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and\nrubbed his hands together.\n\"a long shot, watson; a very long shot,\" said he, pinching my arm.\n\"gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic\namong the sheep. drive on, coachman!\"\ncolonel ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion\nwhich he had formed of my companion's ability, but i saw by the\ninspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.\n\"you consider that to be important?\" he asked.\n\"exceedingly so.\"\n\"is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?\"\n\"to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.\"\n\"the dog did nothing in the night-time.\"\n\"that was the curious incident,\" remarked sherlock holmes.\nfour days later holmes and i were again in the train, bound for\nwinchester to see the race for the wessex cup. colonel ross met us by\nappointment outside the station, and we drove in his drag to the\ncourse beyond the town. his face was grave, and his manner was cold\nin the extreme.\n\"i have seen nothing of my horse,\" said he.\n\"i suppose that you would know him when you saw him?\" asked holmes.\nthe colonel was very angry. \"i have been on the turf for twenty\nyears, and never was asked such a question as that before,\" said he.\n\"a child would know silver blaze, with his white forehead and his\nmottled off-foreleg.\"\n\"how is the betting?\"\n\"well, that is the curious part of it. you could have got fifteen to\none yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter, until\nyou can hardly get three to one now.\"\n\"hum!\" said holmes. \"somebody knows something, that is clear.\"\nas the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grand stand i glanced\nat the card to see the entries.\nwessex plate [it ran] 50 sovs. each h ft with 1000 sovs. added, for\nfour and five year olds. second, 300. third, 200. new course (one\nmile and five furlongs).\n1. mr. heath newton's the negro. red cap. cinnamon jacket.\n2. colonel wardlaw's pugilist. pink cap. blue and black jacket.\n3. lord backwater's desborough. yellow cap and sleeves.\n4. colonel ross's silver blaze. black cap. red jacket.\n5. duke of balmoral's iris. yellow and black stripes.\n6. lord singleford's rasper. purple cap. black sleeves.\n\"we scratched our other one, and put all hopes on your word,\" said\nthe colonel. \"why, what is that? silver blaze favorite?\"\n\"five to four against silver blaze!\" roared the ring. \"five to four\nagainst silver blaze! five to fifteen against desborough! five to\nfour on the field!\"\n\"there are the numbers up,\" i cried. \"they are all six there.\"\n\"all six there? then my horse is running,\" cried the colonel in great\nagitation. \"but i don't see him. my colors have not passed.\"\n\"only five have passed. this must be he.\"\nas i spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighting\nenclosure and cantered past us, bearing on its back the well-known\nblack and red of the colonel.\n\"that's not my horse,\" cried the owner. \"that beast has not a white\nhair upon its body. what is this that you have done, mr. holmes?\"\n\"well, well, let us see how he gets on,\" said my friend,\nimperturbably. for a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass.\n\"capital! an excellent start!\" he cried suddenly. \"there they are,\ncoming round the curve!\"\nfrom our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. the\nsix horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered\nthem, but half way up the yellow of the mapleton stable showed to the\nfront. before they reached us, however, desborough's bolt was shot,\nand the colonel's horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a\ngood six lengths before its rival, the duke of balmoral's iris making\na bad third.\n\"it's my race, anyhow,\" gasped the colonel, passing his hand over his\neyes. \"i confess that i can make neither head nor tail of it. don't\nyou think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, mr.\nholmes?\"\n\"certainly, colonel, you shall know everything. let us all go round\nand have a look at the horse together. here he is,\" he continued, as\nwe made our way into the weighing enclosure, where only owners and\ntheir friends find admittance. \"you have only to wash his face and\nhis leg in spirits of wine, and you will find that he is the same old\nsilver blaze as ever.\"\n\"you take my breath away!\"\n\"i found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of running\nhim just as he was sent over.\"\n\"my dear sir, you have done wonders. the horse looks very fit and\nwell. it never went better in its life. i owe you a thousand\napologies for having doubted your ability. you have done me a great\nservice by recovering my horse. you would do me a greater still if\nyou could lay your hands on the murderer of john straker.\"\n\"i have done so,\" said holmes quietly.\nthe colonel and i stared at him in amazement. \"you have got him!\nwhere is he, then?\"\n\"he is here.\"\n\"here! where?\"\n\"in my company at the present moment.\"\nthe colonel flushed angrily. \"i quite recognize that i am under\nobligations to you, mr. holmes,\" said he, \"but i must regard what you\nhave just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.\"\nsherlock holmes laughed. \"i assure you that i have not associated you\nwith the crime, colonel,\" said he. \"the real murderer is standing\nimmediately behind you.\" he stepped past and laid his hand upon the\nglossy neck of the thoroughbred.\n\"the horse!\" cried both the colonel and myself.\n\"yes, the horse. and it may lessen his guilt if i say that it was\ndone in self-defence, and that john straker was a man who was\nentirely unworthy of your confidence. but there goes the bell, and as\ni stand to win a little on this next race, i shall defer a lengthy\nexplanation until a more fitting time.\"\nwe had the corner of a pullman car to ourselves that evening as we\nwhirled back to london, and i fancy that the journey was a short one\nto colonel ross as well as to myself, as we listened to our\ncompanion's narrative of the events which had occurred at the\ndartmoor training-stables upon the monday night, and the means by\nwhich he had unravelled them.\n\"i confess,\" said he, \"that any theories which i had formed from the\nnewspaper reports were entirely erroneous. and yet there were\nindications there, had they not been overlaid by other details which\nconcealed their true import. i went to devonshire with the conviction\nthat fitzroy simpson was the true culprit, although, of course, i saw\nthat the evidence against him was by no means complete. it was while\ni was in the carriage, just as we reached the trainer's house, that\nthe immense significance of the curried mutton occurred to me. you\nmay remember that i was distrait, and remained sitting after you had\nall alighted. i was marvelling in my own mind how i could possibly\nhave overlooked so obvious a clue.\"\n\"i confess,\" said the colonel, \"that even now i cannot see how it\nhelps us.\"\n\"it was the first link in my chain of reasoning. powdered opium is by\nno means tasteless. the flavor is not disagreeable, but it is\nperceptible. were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater would\nundoubtedly detect it, and would probably eat no more. a curry was\nexactly the medium which would disguise this taste. by no possible\nsupposition could this stranger, fitzroy simpson, have caused curry\nto be served in the trainer's family that night, and it is surely too\nmonstrous a coincidence to suppose that he happened to come along\nwith powdered opium upon the very night when a dish happened to be\nserved which would disguise the flavor. that is unthinkable.\ntherefore simpson becomes eliminated from the case, and our attention\ncenters upon straker and his wife, the only two people who could have\nchosen curried mutton for supper that night. the opium was added\nafter the dish was set aside for the stable-boy, for the others had\nthe same for supper with no ill effects. which of them, then, had\naccess to that dish without the maid seeing them?\n\"before deciding that question i had grasped the significance of the\nsilence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests\nothers. the simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the\nstables, and yet, though some one had been in and had fetched out a\nhorse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft.\nobviously the midnight visitor was some one whom the dog knew well.\n\"i was already convinced, or almost convinced, that john straker went\ndown to the stables in the dead of the night and took out silver\nblaze. for what purpose? for a dishonest one, obviously, or why\nshould he drug his own stable-boy? and yet i was at a loss to know\nwhy. there have been cases before now where trainers have made sure\nof great sums of money by laying against their own horses, through\nagents, and then preventing them from winning by fraud. sometimes it\nis a pulling jockey. sometimes it is some surer and subtler means.\nwhat was it here? i hoped that the contents of his pockets might help\nme to form a conclusion.\n\"and they did so. you cannot have forgotten the singular knife which\nwas found in the dead man's hand, a knife which certainly no sane man\nwould choose for a weapon. it was, as dr. watson told us, a form of\nknife which is used for the most delicate operations known in\nsurgery. and it was to be used for a delicate operation that night.\nyou must know, with your wide experience of turf matters, colonel\nross, that it is possible to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a\nhorse's ham, and to do it subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely\nno trace. a horse so treated would develop a slight lameness, which\nwould be put down to a strain in exercise or a touch of rheumatism,\nbut never to foul play.\"\n\"villain! scoundrel!\" cried the colonel.\n\"we have here the explanation of why john straker wished to take the\nhorse out on to the moor. so spirited a creature would have certainly\nroused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife.\nit was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air.\"\n\"i have been blind!\" cried the colonel. \"of course that was why he\nneeded the candle, and struck the match.\"\n\"undoubtedly. but in examining his belongings i was fortunate enough\nto discover not only the method of the crime, but even its motives.\nas a man of the world, colonel, you know that men do not carry other\npeople's bills about in their pockets. we have most of us quite\nenough to do to settle our own. i at once concluded that straker was\nleading a double life, and keeping a second establishment. the nature\nof the bill showed that there was a lady in the case, and one who had\nexpensive tastes. liberal as you are with your servants, one can\nhardly expect that they can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for\ntheir ladies. i questioned mrs. straker as to the dress without her\nknowing it, and having satisfied myself that it had never reached\nher, i made a note of the milliner's address, and felt that by\ncalling there with straker's photograph i could easily dispose of the\nmythical derbyshire.\n\"from that time on all was plain. straker had led out the horse to a\nhollow where his light would be invisible. simpson in his flight had\ndropped his cravat, and straker had picked it up--with some idea,\nperhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse's leg. once in\nthe hollow, he had got behind the horse and had struck a light; but\nthe creature frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange\ninstinct of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had\nlashed out, and the steel shoe had struck straker full on the\nforehead. he had already, in spite of the rain, taken off his\novercoat in order to do his delicate task, and so, as he fell, his\nknife gashed his thigh. do i make it clear?\"\n\"wonderful!\" cried the colonel. \"wonderful! you might have been\nthere!\"\n\"my final shot was, i confess a very long one. it struck me that so\nastute a man as straker would not undertake this delicate\ntendon-nicking without a little practice. what could he practice on?\nmy eyes fell upon the sheep, and i asked a question which, rather to\nmy surprise, showed that my surmise was correct.\n\"when i returned to london i called upon the milliner, who had\nrecognized straker as an excellent customer of the name of\nderbyshire, who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality for\nexpensive dresses. i have no doubt that this woman had plunged him\nover head and ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot.\"\n\"you have explained all but one thing,\" cried the colonel. \"where was\nthe horse?\"\n\"ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. we must\nhave an amnesty in that direction, i think. this is clapham junction,\nif i am not mistaken, and we shall be in victoria in less than ten\nminutes. if you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms, colonel, i shall\nbe happy to give you any other details which might interest you.\"\nthe yellow face\n[in publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in\nwhich my companion's singular gifts have made us the listeners to,\nand eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural\nthat i should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures.\nand this not so much for the sake of his reputations--for, indeed, it\nwas when he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility\nwere most admirable--but because where he failed it happened too\noften that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever\nwithout a conclusion. now and again, however, it chanced that even\nwhen he erred, the truth was still discovered. i have noted of some\nhalf-dozen cases of the kind of which \"the adventure of the musgrave\nritual\" and that which i am about to recount are the two which\npresent the strongest features of interest.]\nsherlock holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's\nsake. few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was\nundoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that i have ever\nseen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of\nenergy, and he seldom bestirred himself save when there was some\nprofessional object to be served. then he was absolutely untiring and\nindefatigable. that he should have kept himself in training under\nsuch circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was usually of the\nsparest, and his habits were simple to the verge of austerity. save\nfor the occasional use of cocaine, he had no vices, and he only\nturned to the drug as a protest against the monotony of existence\nwhen cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting.\none day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk\nwith me in the park, where the first faint shoots of green were\nbreaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the\nchestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves.\nfor two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most\npart, as befits two men who know each other intimately. it was nearly\nfive before we were back in baker street once more.\n\"beg pardon, sir,\" said our page-boy, as he opened the door. \"there's\nbeen a gentleman here asking for you, sir.\"\nholmes glanced reproachfully at me. \"so much for afternoon walks!\"\nsaid he. \"has this gentleman gone, then?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"didn't you ask him in?\"\n\"yes, sir; he came in.\"\n\"how long did he wait?\"\n\"half an hour, sir. he was a very restless gentleman, sir, a-walkin'\nand a-stampin' all the time he was here. i was waitin' outside the\ndoor, sir, and i could hear him. at last he outs into the passage,\nand he cries, 'is that man never goin' to come?' those were his very\nwords, sir. 'you'll only need to wait a little longer,' says i. 'then\ni'll wait in the open air, for i feel half choked,' says he. 'i'll be\nback before long.' and with that he ups and he outs, and all i could\nsay wouldn't hold him back.\"\n\"well, well, you did your best,\" said holmes, as we walked into our\nroom. \"it's very annoying, though, watson. i was badly in need of a\ncase, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of\nimportance. hullo! that's not your pipe on the table. he must have\nleft his behind him. a nice old brier with a good long stem of what\nthe tobacconists call amber. i wonder how many real amber mouthpieces\nthere are in london? some people think that a fly in it is a sign.\nwell, he must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind\nhim which he evidently values highly.\"\n\"how do you know that he values it highly?\" i asked.\n\"well, i should put the original cost of the pipe at seven and\nsixpence. now it has, you see, been twice mended, once in the wooden\nstem and once in the amber. each of these mends, done, as you\nobserve, with silver bands, must have cost more than the pipe did\noriginally. the man must value the pipe highly when he prefers to\npatch it up rather than buy a new one with the same money.\"\n\"anything else?\" i asked, for holmes was turning the pipe about in\nhis hand, and staring at it in his peculiar pensive way.\nhe held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger, as a\nprofessor might who was lecturing on a bone.\n\"pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,\" said he. \"nothing\nhas more individuality, save perhaps watches and bootlaces. the\nindications here, however, are neither very marked nor very\nimportant. the owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with\nan excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need\nto practise economy.\"\nmy friend threw out the information in a very offhand way, but i saw\nthat he cocked his eye at me to see if i had followed his reasoning.\n\"you think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling\npipe,\" said i.\n\"this is grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce,\" holmes answered,\nknocking a little out on his palm. \"as he might get an excellent\nsmoke for half the price, he has no need to practise economy.\"\n\"and the other points?\"\n\"he has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets.\nyou can see that it is quite charred all down one side. of course a\nmatch could not have done that. why should a man hold a match to the\nside of his pipe? but you cannot light it at a lamp without getting\nthe bowl charred. and it is all on the right side of the pipe. from\nthat i gather that he is a left-handed man. you hold your own pipe to\nthe lamp, and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the\nleft side to the flame. you might do it once the other way, but not\nas a constancy. this has always been held so. then he has bitten\nthrough his amber. it takes a muscular, energetic fellow, and one\nwith a good set of teeth, to do that. but if i am not mistaken i hear\nhim upon the stair, so we shall have something more interesting than\nhis pipe to study.\"\nan instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the\nroom. he was well but quietly dressed in a dark-gray suit, and\ncarried a brown wide-awake in his hand. i should have put him at\nabout thirty, though he was really some years older.\n\"i beg your pardon,\" said he, with some embarrassment; \"i suppose i\nshould have knocked. yes, of course i should have knocked. the fact\nis that i am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that.\"\nhe passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed,\nand then fell rather than sat down upon a chair.\n\"i can see that you have not slept for a night or two,\" said holmes,\nin his easy, genial way. \"that tries a man's nerves more than work,\nand more even than pleasure. may i ask how i can help you?\"\n\"i wanted your advice, sir. i don't know what to do and my whole life\nseems to have gone to pieces.\"\n\"you wish to employ me as a consulting detective?\"\n\"not that only. i want your opinion as a judicious man--as a man of\nthe world. i want to know what i ought to do next. i hope to god\nyou'll be able to tell me.\"\nhe spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that\nto speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all\nthrough was overriding his inclinations.\n\"it's a very delicate thing,\" said he. \"one does not like to speak of\none's domestic affairs to strangers. it seems dreadful to discuss the\nconduct of one's wife with two men whom i have never seen before.\nit's horrible to have to do it. but i've got to the end of my tether,\nand i must have advice.\"\n\"my dear mr. grant munro--\" began holmes.\nour visitor sprang from his chair. \"what!\" he cried, \"you know my\nname?\"\n\"if you wish to preserve your incognito,\" said holmes, smiling, \"i\nwould suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of\nyour hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you\nare addressing. i was about to say that my friend and i have listened\nto a good many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the\ngood fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. i trust that we\nmay do as much for you. might i beg you, as time may prove to be of\nimportance, to furnish me with the facts of your case without further\ndelay?\"\nour visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he found\nit bitterly hard. from every gesture and expression i could see that\nhe was a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his\nnature, more likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. then\nsuddenly, with a fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who\nthrows reserve to the winds, he began.\n\"the facts are these, mr. holmes,\" said he. \"i am a married man, and\nhave been so for three years. during that time my wife and i have\nloved each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two that ever\nwere joined. we have not had a difference, not one, in thought or\nword or deed. and now, since last monday, there has suddenly sprung\nup a barrier between us, and i find that there is something in her\nlife and in her thought of which i know as little as if she were the\nwoman who brushes by me in the street. we are estranged, and i want\nto know why.\n\"now there is one thing that i want to impress upon you before i go\nany further, mr. holmes. effie loves me. don't let there be any\nmistake about that. she loves me with her whole heart and soul, and\nnever more than now. i know it. i feel it. i don't want to argue\nabout that. a man can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. but\nthere's this secret between us, and we can never be the same until it\nis cleared.\"\n\"kindly let me have the facts, mr. munro,\" said holmes, with some\nimpatience.\n\"i'll tell you what i know about effie's history. she was a widow\nwhen i met her first, though quite young--only twenty-five. her name\nthen was mrs. hebron. she went out to america when she was young, and\nlived in the town of atlanta, where she married this hebron, who was\na lawyer with a good practice. they had one child, but the yellow\nfever broke out badly in the place, and both husband and child died\nof it. i have seen his death certificate. this sickened her of\namerica, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt at pinner, in\nmiddlesex. i may mention that her husband had left her comfortably\noff, and that she had a capital of about four thousand five hundred\npounds, which had been so well invested by him that it returned an\naverage of seven per cent. she had only been six months at pinner\nwhen i met her; we fell in love with each other, and we married a few\nweeks afterwards.\n\"i am a hop merchant myself, and as i have an income of seven or\neight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice\neighty-pound-a-year villa at norbury. our little place was very\ncountrified, considering that it is so close to town. we had an inn\nand two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other\nside of the field which faces us, and except those there were no\nhouses until you got half way to the station. my business took me\ninto town at certain seasons, but in summer i had less to do, and\nthen in our country home my wife and i were just as happy as could be\nwished. i tell you that there never was a shadow between us until\nthis accursed affair began.\n\"there's one thing i ought to tell you before i go further. when we\nmarried, my wife made over all her property to me--rather against my\nwill, for i saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went\nwrong. however, she would have it so, and it was done. well, about\nsix weeks ago she came to me.\n\"'jack,' said she, 'when you took my money you said that if ever i\nwanted any i was to ask you for it.'\n\"'certainly,' said i. 'it's all your own.'\n\"'well,' said she, 'i want a hundred pounds.'\n\"i was a bit staggered at this, for i had imagined it was simply a\nnew dress or something of the kind that she was after.\n\"'what on earth for?' i asked.\n\"'oh,' said she, in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my\nbanker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'\n\"'if you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said i.\n\"'oh, yes, i really mean it.'\n\"'and you won't tell me what you want it for?'\n\"'some day, perhaps, but not just at present, jack.'\n\"so i had to be content with that, though it was the first time that\nthere had ever been any secret between us. i gave her a check, and i\nnever thought any more of the matter. it may have nothing to do with\nwhat came afterwards, but i thought it only right to mention it.\n\"well, i told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our\nhouse. there is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to\ngo along the road and then turn down a lane. just beyond it is a nice\nlittle grove of scotch firs, and i used to be very fond of strolling\ndown there, for trees are always a neighborly kind of things. the\ncottage had been standing empty this eight months, and it was a pity,\nfor it was a pretty two storied place, with an old-fashioned porch\nand honeysuckle about it. i have stood many a time and thought what a\nneat little homestead it would make.\n\"well, last monday evening i was taking a stroll down that way, when\ni met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and\nthings lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. it was clear\nthat the cottage had at last been let. i walked past it, and wondered\nwhat sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. and as i\nlooked i suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one\nof the upper windows.\n\"i don't know what there was about that face, mr. holmes, but it\nseemed to send a chill right down my back. i was some little way off,\nso that i could not make out the features, but there was something\nunnatural and inhuman about the face. that was the impression that i\nhad, and i moved quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person\nwho was watching me. but as i did so the face suddenly disappeared,\nso suddenly that it seemed to have been plucked away into the\ndarkness of the room. i stood for five minutes thinking the business\nover, and trying to analyze my impressions. i could not tell if the\nface were that of a man or a woman. it had been too far from me for\nthat. but its color was what had impressed me most. it was of a livid\nchalky white, and with something set and rigid about it which was\nshockingly unnatural. so disturbed was i that i determined to see a\nlittle more of the new inmates of the cottage. i approached and\nknocked at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt\nwoman with a harsh, forbidding face.\n\"'what may you be wantin'?' she asked, in a northern accent.\n\"'i am your neighbor over yonder,' said i, nodding towards my house.\n'i see that you have only just moved in, so i thought that if i could\nbe of any help to you in any--'\n\"'ay, we'll just ask ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door\nin my face. annoyed at the churlish rebuff, i turned my back and\nwalked home. all evening, though i tried to think of other things, my\nmind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the\nrudeness of the woman. i determined to say nothing about the former\nto my wife, for she is a nervous, highly strung woman, and i had no\nwish that she would share the unpleasant impression which had been\nproduced upon myself. i remarked to her, however, before i fell\nasleep, that the cottage was now occupied, to which she returned no\nreply.\n\"i am usually an extremely sound sleeper. it has been a standing jest\nin the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night. and\nyet somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the\nslight excitement produced by my little adventure or not i know not,\nbut i slept much more lightly than usual. half in my dreams i was\ndimly conscious that something was going on in the room, and\ngradually became aware that my wife had dressed herself and was\nslipping on her mantle and her bonnet. my lips were parted to murmur\nout some sleepy words of surprise or remonstrance at this untimely\npreparation, when suddenly my half-opened eyes fell upon her face,\nilluminated by the candle-light, and astonishment held me dumb. she\nwore an expression such as i had never seen before--such as i should\nhave thought her incapable of assuming. she was deadly pale and\nbreathing fast, glancing furtively towards the bed as she fastened\nher mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. then, thinking that i was\nstill asleep, she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant\nlater i heard a sharp creaking which could only come from the hinges\nof the front door. i sat up in bed and rapped my knuckles against the\nrail to make certain that i was truly awake. then i took my watch\nfrom under the pillow. it was three in the morning. what on this\nearth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in the\nmorning?\n\"i had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind\nand trying to find some possible explanation. the more i thought, the\nmore extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. i was still\npuzzling over it when i heard the door gently close again, and her\nfootsteps coming up the stairs.\n\"'where in the world have you been, effie?' i asked as she entered.\n\"she gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when i spoke, and\nthat cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was\nsomething indescribably guilty about them. my wife had always been a\nwoman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her\nslinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own\nhusband spoke to her.\n\"'you awake, jack!' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'why, i thought\nthat nothing could awake you.'\n\"'where have you been?' i asked, more sternly.\n\"'i don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and i could see\nthat her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her\nmantle. 'why, i never remember having done such a thing in my life\nbefore. the fact is that i felt as though i were choking, and had a\nperfect longing for a breath of fresh air. i really think that i\nshould have fainted if i had not gone out. i stood at the door for a\nfew minutes, and now i am quite myself again.'\n\"all the time that she was telling me this story she never once\nlooked in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual\ntones. it was evident to me that she was saying what was false. i\nsaid nothing in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart,\nwith my mind filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions.\nwhat was it that my wife was concealing from me? where had she been\nduring that strange expedition? i felt that i should have no peace\nuntil i knew, and yet i shrank from asking her again after once she\nhad told me what was false. all the rest of the night i tossed and\ntumbled, framing theory after theory, each more unlikely than the\nlast.\n\"i should have gone to the city that day, but i was too disturbed in\nmy mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. my wife\nseemed to be as upset as myself, and i could see from the little\nquestioning glances which she kept shooting at me that she understood\nthat i disbelieved her statement, and that she was at her wits' end\nwhat to do. we hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and\nimmediately afterwards i went out for a walk, that i might think the\nmatter out in the fresh morning air.\n\"i went as far as the crystal palace, spent an hour in the grounds,\nand was back in norbury by one o'clock. it happened that my way took\nme past the cottage, and i stopped for an instant to look at the\nwindows, and to see if i could catch a glimpse of the strange face\nwhich had looked out at me on the day before. as i stood there,\nimagine my surprise, mr. holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my\nwife walked out.\n\"i was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her; but my\nemotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face\nwhen our eyes met. she seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back\ninside the house again; and then, seeing how useless all concealment\nmust be, she came forward, with a very white face and frightened eyes\nwhich belied the smile upon her lips.\n\"'ah, jack,' she said, 'i have just been in to see if i can be of any\nassistance to our new neighbors. why do you look at me like that,\njack? you are not angry with me?'\n\"'so,' said i, 'this is where you went during the night.'\n\"'what do you mean?' she cried.\n\"'you came here. i am sure of it. who are these people, that you\nshould visit them at such an hour?'\n\"'i have not been here before.'\n\"'how can you tell me what you know is false?' i cried. 'your very\nvoice changes as you speak. when have i ever had a secret from you? i\nshall enter that cottage, and i shall probe the matter to the\nbottom.'\n\"'no, no, jack, for god's sake!' she gasped, in uncontrollable\nemotion. then, as i approached the door, she seized my sleeve and\npulled me back with convulsive strength.\n\"'i implore you not to do this, jack,' she cried. 'i swear that i\nwill tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of\nit if you enter that cottage.' then, as i tried to shake her off, she\nclung to me in a frenzy of entreaty.\n\"'trust me, jack!' she cried. 'trust me only this once. you will\nnever have cause to regret it. you know that i would not have a\nsecret from you if it were not for your own sake. our whole lives are\nat stake in this. if you come home with me, all will be well. if you\nforce your way into that cottage, all is over between us.'\n\"there was such earnestness, such despair, in her manner that her\nwords arrested me, and i stood irresolute before the door.\n\"'i will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said\ni at last. 'it is that this mystery comes to an end from now. you are\nat liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that\nthere shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept\nfrom my knowledge. i am willing to forget those which are passed if\nyou will promise that there shall be no more in the future.'\n\"'i was sure that you would trust me,' she cried, with a great sigh\nof relief. 'it shall be just as you wish. come away--oh, come away up\nto the house.'\n\"still pulling at my sleeve, she led me away from the cottage. as we\nwent i glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us\nout of the upper window. what link could there be between that\ncreature and my wife? or how could the coarse, rough woman whom i had\nseen the day before be connected with her? it was a strange puzzle,\nand yet i knew that my mind could never know ease again until i had\nsolved it.\n\"for two days after this i stayed at home, and my wife appeared to\nabide loyally by our engagement, for, as far as i know, she never\nstirred out of the house. on the third day, however, i had ample\nevidence that her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from\nthis secret influence which drew her away from her husband and her\nduty.\n\"i had gone into town on that day, but i returned by the 2.40 instead\nof the 3.36, which is my usual train. as i entered the house the maid\nran into the hall with a startled face.\n\"'where is your mistress?' i asked.\n\"'i think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.\n\"my mind was instantly filled with suspicion. i rushed upstairs to\nmake sure that she was not in the house. as i did so i happened to\nglance out of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom i\nhad just been speaking running across the field in the direction of\nthe cottage. then of course i saw exactly what it all meant. my wife\nhad gone over there, and had asked the servant to call her if i\nshould return. tingling with anger, i rushed down and hurried across,\ndetermined to end the matter once and forever. i saw my wife and the\nmaid hurrying back along the lane, but i did not stop to speak with\nthem. in the cottage lay the secret which was casting a shadow over\nmy life. i vowed that, come what might, it should be a secret no\nlonger. i did not even knock when i reached it, but turned the handle\nand rushed into the passage.\n\"it was all still and quiet upon the ground floor. in the kitchen a\nkettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up\nin the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom i had seen\nbefore. i ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. then\ni rushed up the stairs, only to find two other rooms empty and\ndeserted at the top. there was no one at all in the whole house. the\nfurniture and pictures were of the most common and vulgar\ndescription, save in the one chamber at the window of which i had\nseen the strange face. that was comfortable and elegant, and all my\nsuspicions rose into a fierce bitter flame when i saw that on the\nmantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph of my wife,\nwhich had been taken at my request only three months ago.\n\"i stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely\nempty. then i left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as i had\nnever had before. my wife came out into the hall as i entered my\nhouse; but i was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing\npast her, i made my way into my study. she followed me, however,\nbefore i could close the door.\n\"'i am sorry that i broke my promise, jack,' said she; 'but if you\nknew all the circumstances i am sure that you would forgive me.'\n\"'tell me everything, then,' said i.\n\"'i cannot, jack, i cannot,' she cried.\n\"'until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage,\nand who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never\nbe any confidence between us,' said i, and breaking away from her, i\nleft the house. that was yesterday, mr. holmes, and i have not seen\nher since, nor do i know anything more about this strange business.\nit is the first shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken\nme that i do not know what i should do for the best. suddenly this\nmorning it occurred to me that you were the man to advise me, so i\nhave hurried to you now, and i place myself unreservedly in your\nhands. if there is any point which i have not made clear, pray\nquestion me about it. but, above all, tell me quickly what i am to\ndo, for this misery is more than i can bear.\"\nholmes and i had listened with the utmost interest to this\nextraordinary statement, which had been delivered in the jerky,\nbroken fashion of a man who is under the influence of extreme\nemotions. my companion sat silent for some time, with his chin upon\nhis hand, lost in thought.\n\"tell me,\" said he at last, \"could you swear that this was a man's\nface which you saw at the window?\"\n\"each time that i saw it i was some distance away from it, so that it\nis impossible for me to say.\"\n\"you appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it.\"\n\"it seemed to be of an unnatural color, and to have a strange\nrigidity about the features. when i approached, it vanished with a\njerk.\"\n\"how long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?\"\n\"nearly two months.\"\n\"have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?\"\n\"no; there was a great fire at atlanta very shortly after his death,\nand all her papers were destroyed.\"\n\"and yet she had a certificate of death. you say that you saw it.\"\n\"yes; she got a duplicate after the fire.\"\n\"did you ever meet any one who knew her in america?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"did she ever talk of revisiting the place?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"or get letters from it?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"thank you. i should like to think over the matter a little now. if\nthe cottage is now permanently deserted we may have some difficulty.\nif, on the other hand, as i fancy is more likely, the inmates were\nwarned of your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then\nthey may be back now, and we should clear it all up easily. let me\nadvise you, then, to return to norbury, and to examine the windows of\nthe cottage again. if you have reason to believe that is inhabited,\ndo not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. we\nshall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then\nvery soon get to the bottom of the business.\"\n\"and if it is still empty?\"\n\"in that case i shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you.\ngood-bye, and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really\nhave a cause for it.\"\n\"i am afraid that this is a bad business, watson,\" said my companion,\nas he returned after accompanying mr. grant munro to the door. \"what\ndo you make of it?\"\n\"it had an ugly sound,\" i answered.\n\"yes. there's blackmail in it, or i am much mistaken.\"\n\"and who is the blackmailer?\"\n\"well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room\nin the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. upon my\nword, watson, there is something very attractive about that livid\nface at the window, and i would not have missed the case for worlds.\"\n\"you have a theory?\"\n\"yes, a provisional one. but i shall be surprised if it does not turn\nout to be correct. this woman's first husband is in that cottage.\"\n\"why do you think so?\"\n\"how else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one\nshould not enter it? the facts, as i read them, are something like\nthis: this woman was married in america. her husband developed some\nhateful qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome\ndisease, and became a leper or an imbecile? she flies from him at\nlast, returns to england, changes her name, and starts her life, as\nshe thinks, afresh. she has been married three years, and believes\nthat her position is quite secure, having shown her husband the death\ncertificate of some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her\nwhereabouts is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose,\nby some unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid.\nthey write to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. she asks\nfor a hundred pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. they come in\nspite of it, and when the husband mentions casually to the wife that\nthere are new-comers in the cottage, she knows in some way that they\nare her pursuers. she waits until her husband is asleep, and then she\nrushes down to endeavor to persuade them to leave her in peace.\nhaving no success, she goes again next morning, and her husband meets\nher, as he has told us, as she comes out. she promises him then not\nto go there again, but two days afterwards the hope of getting rid of\nthose dreadful neighbors was too strong for her, and she made another\nattempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been\ndemanded from her. in the midst of this interview the maid rushed in\nto say that the master had come home, on which the wife, knowing that\nhe would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out\nat the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which was\nmentioned as standing near. in this way he found the place deserted.\ni shall be very much surprised, however, if it still so when he\nreconnoitres it this evening. what do you think of my theory?\"\n\"it is all surmise.\"\n\"but at least it covers all the facts. when new facts come to our\nknowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to\nreconsider it. we can do nothing more until we have a message from\nour friend at norbury.\"\nbut we had not a very long time to wait for that. it came just as we\nhad finished our tea.\n\"the cottage is still tenanted,\" it said. \"have seen the face again\nat the window. will meet the seven o'clock train, and will take no\nsteps until you arrive.\"\nhe was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see\nin the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and\nquivering with agitation.\n\"they are still there, mr. holmes,\" said he, laying his hand hard\nupon my friend's sleeve. \"i saw lights in the cottage as i came down.\nwe shall settle it now once and for all.\"\n\"what is your plan, then?\" asked holmes, as he walked down the dark\ntree-lined road.\n\"i am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the\nhouse. i wish you both to be there as witnesses.\"\n\"you are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife's warning\nthat it is better that you should not solve the mystery?\"\n\"yes, i am determined.\"\n\"well, i think that you are in the right. any truth is better than\nindefinite doubt. we had better go up at once. of course, legally, we\nare putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong; but i think that it is\nworth it.\"\nit was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned\nfrom the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on\neither side. mr. grant munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and\nwe stumbled after him as best we could.\n\"there are the lights of my house,\" he murmured, pointing to a\nglimmer among the trees. \"and here is the cottage which i am going to\nenter.\"\nwe turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the\nbuilding close beside us. a yellow bar falling across the black\nforeground showed that the door was not quite closed, and one window\nin the upper story was brightly illuminated. as we looked, we saw a\ndark blur moving across the blind.\n\"there is that creature!\" cried grant munro. \"you can see for\nyourselves that some one is there. now follow me, and we shall soon\nknow all.\"\nwe approached the door; but suddenly a woman appeared out of the\nshadow and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. i could not\nsee her face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an\nattitude of entreaty.\n\"for god's sake, don't jack!\" she cried. \"i had a presentiment that\nyou would come this evening. think better of it, dear! trust me\nagain, and you will never have cause to regret it.\"\n\"i have trusted you too long, effie,\" he cried, sternly. \"leave go of\nme! i must pass you. my friends and i are going to settle this matter\nonce and forever!\" he pushed her to one side, and we followed closely\nafter him. as he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of\nhim and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an\ninstant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. grant munro rushed\ninto the lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.\nit was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning\nupon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. in the corner, stooping\nover a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. her face\nwas turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed\nin a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. as she whisked\nround to us, i gave a cry of surprise and horror. the face which she\nturned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features\nwere absolutely devoid of any expression. an instant later the\nmystery was explained. holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind\nthe child's ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, an there was\na little coal black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in\namusement at our amazed faces. i burst out laughing, out of sympathy\nwith her merriment; but grant munro stood staring, with his hand\nclutching his throat.\n\"my god!\" he cried. \"what can be the meaning of this?\"\n\"i will tell you the meaning of it,\" cried the lady, sweeping into\nthe room with a proud, set face. \"you have forced me, against my own\njudgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. my\nhusband died at atlanta. my child survived.\"\n\"your child?\"\nshe drew a large silver locket from her bosom. \"you have never seen\nthis open.\"\n\"i understood that it did not open.\"\nshe touched a spring, and the front hinged back. there was a portrait\nwithin of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but\nbearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his african descent.\n\"that is john hebron, of atlanta,\" said the lady, \"and a nobler man\nnever walked the earth. i cut myself off from my race in order to wed\nhim, but never once while he lived did i for an instant regret it. it\nwas our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather\nthan mine. it is often so in such matches, and little lucy is darker\nfar than ever her father was. but dark or fair, she is my own dear\nlittle girlie, and her mother's pet.\" the little creature ran across\nat the words and nestled up against the lady's dress. \"when i left\nher in america,\" she continued, \"it was only because her health was\nweak, and the change might have done her harm. she was given to the\ncare of a faithful scotch woman who had once been our servant. never\nfor an instant did i dream of disowning her as my child. but when\nchance threw you in my way, jack, and i learned to love you, i feared\nto tell you about my child. god forgive me, i feared that i should\nlose you, and i had not the courage to tell you. i had to choose\nbetween you, and in my weakness i turned away from my own little\ngirl. for three years i have kept her existence a secret from you,\nbut i heard from the nurse, and i knew that all was well with her. at\nlast, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child\nonce more. i struggled against it, but in vain. though i knew the\ndanger, i determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few\nweeks. i sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and i gave her\ninstructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a\nneighbor, without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. i\npushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the\nhouse during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands\nso that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip\nabout there being a black child in the neighborhood. if i had been\nless cautious i might have been more wise, but i was half crazy with\nfear that you should learn the truth.\n\"it was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. i should\nhave waited for the morning, but i could not sleep for excitement,\nand so at last i slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake\nyou. but you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles.\nnext day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained\nfrom pursuing your advantage. three days later, however, the nurse\nand child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at\nthe front one. and now to-night you at last know all, and i ask you\nwhat is to become of us, my child and me?\" she clasped her hands and\nwaited for an answer.\nit was a long ten minutes before grant munro broke the silence, and\nwhen his answer came it was one of which i love to think. he lifted\nthe little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held\nhis other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.\n\"we can talk it over more comfortably at home,\" said he. \"i am not a\nvery good man, effie, but i think that i am a better one than you\nhave given me credit for being.\"\nholmes and i followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my\nsleeve as we came out.\n\"i think,\" said he, \"that we shall be of more use in london than in\nnorbury.\"\nnot another word did he say of the case until late that night, when\nhe was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.\n\"watson,\" said he, \"if it should ever strike you that i am getting a\nlittle over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case\nthan it deserves, kindly whisper 'norbury' in my ear, and i shall be\ninfinitely obliged to you.\"\nthe stock-broker's clerk\nshortly after my marriage i had bought a connection in the paddington\ndistrict. old mr. farquhar, from whom i purchased it, had at one time\nan excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the\nnature of st. vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much\nthinned it. the public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he\nwho would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the\ncurative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his\ndrugs. thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until\nwhen i purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to\nlittle more than three hundred a year. i had confidence, however, in\nmy own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years\nthe concern would be as flourishing as ever.\nfor three months after taking over the practice i was kept very\nclosely at work, and saw little of my friend sherlock holmes, for i\nwas too busy to visit baker street, and he seldom went anywhere\nhimself save upon professional business. i was surprised, therefore,\nwhen, one morning in june, as i sat reading the british medical\njournal after breakfast, i heard a ring at the bell, followed by the\nhigh, somewhat strident tones of my old companion's voice.\n\"ah, my dear watson,\" said he, striding into the room, \"i am very\ndelighted to see you! i trust that mrs. watson has entirely recovered\nfrom all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the\nsign of four.\"\n\"thank you, we are both very well,\" said i, shaking him warmly by the\nhand.\n\"and i hope, also,\" he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair,\n\"that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the\ninterest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.\"\n\"on the contrary,\" i answered, \"it was only last night that i was\nlooking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results.\"\n\"i trust that you don't consider your collection closed.\"\n\"not at all. i should wish nothing better than to have some more of\nsuch experiences.\"\n\"to-day, for example?\"\n\"yes, to-day, if you like.\"\n\"and as far off as birmingham?\"\n\"certainly, if you wish it.\"\n\"and the practice?\"\n\"i do my neighbor's when he goes. he is always ready to work off the\ndebt.\"\n\"ha! nothing could be better,\" said holmes, leaning back in his chair\nand looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. \"i perceive\nthat you have been unwell lately. summer colds are always a little\ntrying.\"\n\"i was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last\nweek. i thought, however, that i had cast off every trace of it.\"\n\"so you have. you look remarkably robust.\"\n\"how, then, did you know of it?\"\n\"my dear fellow, you know my methods.\"\n\"you deduced it, then?\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"and from what?\"\n\"from your slippers.\"\ni glanced down at the new patent leathers which i was wearing. \"how\non earth--\" i began, but holmes answered my question before it was\nasked.\n\"your slippers are new,\" he said. \"you could not have had them more\nthan a few weeks. the soles which you are at this moment presenting\nto me are slightly scorched. for a moment i thought they might have\ngot wet and been burned in the drying. but near the instep there is a\nsmall circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon\nit. damp would of course have removed this. you had, then, been\nsitting with our feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would\nhardly do even in so wet a june as this if he were in his full\nhealth.\"\nlike all holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when\nit was once explained. he read the thought upon my features, and his\nsmile had a tinge of bitterness.\n\"i am afraid that i rather give myself away when i explain,\" said he.\n\"results without causes are much more impressive. you are ready to\ncome to birmingham, then?\"\n\"certainly. what is the case?\"\n\"you shall hear it all in the train. my client is outside in a\nfour-wheeler. can you come at once?\"\n\"in an instant.\" i scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs\nto explain the matter to my wife, and joined holmes upon the\ndoor-step.\n\"your neighbor is a doctor,\" said he, nodding at the brass plate.\n\"yes; he bought a practice as i did.\"\n\"an old-established one?\"\n\"just the same as mine. both have been ever since the houses were\nbuilt.\"\n\"ah! then you got hold of the best of the two.\"\n\"i think i did. but how do you know?\"\n\"by the steps, my boy. yours are worn three inches deeper than his.\nbut this gentleman in the cab is my client, mr. hall pycroft. allow\nme to introduce you to him. whip your horse up, cabby, for we have\nonly just time to catch our train.\"\nthe man whom i found myself facing was a well built,\nfresh-complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a\nslight, crisp, yellow mustache. he wore a very shiny top hat and a\nneat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was--a smart\nyoung city man, of the class who have been labeled cockneys, but who\ngive us our crack volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine\nathletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. his\nround, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners\nof his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical\ndistress. it was not, however, until we were all in a first-class\ncarriage and well started upon our journey to birmingham that i was\nable to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to sherlock\nholmes.\n\"we have a clear run here of seventy minutes,\" holmes remarked. \"i\nwant you, mr. hall pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting\nexperience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if\npossible. it will be of use to me to hear the succession of events\nagain. it is a case, watson, which may prove to have something in it,\nor may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those\nunusual and outr features which are as dear to you as they are to\nme. now, mr. pycroft, i shall not interrupt you again.\"\nour young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.\n\"the worst of the story is,\" said he, \"that i show myself up as such\na confounded fool. of course it may work out all right, and i don't\nsee that i could have done otherwise; but if i have lost my crib and\nget nothing in exchange i shall feel what a soft johnnie i have been.\ni'm not very good at telling a story, dr. watson, but it is like this\nwith me:\n\"i used to have a billet at coxon & woodhouse's, of draper's gardens,\nbut they were let in early in the spring through the venezuelan loan,\nas no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. i had been with\nthem five years, and old coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial\nwhen the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift,\nthe twenty-seven of us. i tried here and tried there, but there were\nlots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect\nfrost for a long time. i had been taking three pounds a week at\ncoxon's, and i had saved about seventy of them, but i soon worked my\nway through that and out at the other end. i was fairly at the end of\nmy tether at last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the\nadvertisements or the envelopes to stick them to. i had worn out my\nboots paddling up office stairs, and i seemed just as far from\ngetting a billet as ever.\n\"at last i saw a vacancy at mawson & williams's, the great\nstock-broking firm in lombard street. i dare say e. c. is not much in\nyour line, but i can tell you that this is about the richest house in\nlondon. the advertisement was to be answered by letter only. i sent\nin my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of\ngetting it. back came an answer by return, saying that if i would\nappear next monday i might take over my new duties at once, provided\nthat my appearance was satisfactory. no one knows how these things\nare worked. some people say that the manager just plunges his hand\ninto the heap and takes the first that comes. anyhow it was my\ninnings that time, and i don't ever wish to feel better pleased. the\nscrew was a pound a week rise, and the duties just about the same as\nat coxon's.\n\"and now i come to the queer part of the business. i was in diggings\nout hampstead way, 17 potter's terrace. well, i was sitting doing a\nsmoke that very evening after i had been promised the appointment,\nwhen up came my landlady with a card which had \"arthur pinner,\nfinancial agent,\" printed upon it. i had never heard the name before\nand could not imagine what he wanted with me; but, of course, i asked\nher to show him up. in he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired,\ndark-eyed, black-bearded man, with a touch of the sheeny about his\nnose. he had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a\nman who knew the value of time.\n\"'mr. hall pycroft, i believe?' said he.\n\"'yes, sir,' i answered, pushing a chair towards him.\n\"'lately engaged at coxon & woodhouse's?'\n\"'yes, sir.'\n\"'and now on the staff of mawson's.'\n\"'quite so.'\n\"'well,' said he, 'the fact is that i have heard some really\nextraordinary stories about your financial ability. you remember\nparker, who used to be coxon's manager? he can never say enough about\nit.'\n\"of course i was pleased to hear this. i had always been pretty sharp\nin the office, but i had never dreamed that i was talked about in the\ncity in this fashion.\n\"'you have a good memory?' said he.\n\"'pretty fair,' i answered, modestly.\n\"'have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of\nwork?' he asked.\n\"'yes. i read the stock exchange list every morning.'\n\"'now that shows real application!' he cried. 'that is the way to\nprosper! you won't mind my testing you, will you? let me see. how are\nayrshires?'\n\"'a hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and\nseven-eighths.'\n\"'and new zealand consolidated?'\n\"'a hundred and four.'\n\"'and british broken hills?'\n\"'seven to seven-and-six.'\n\"'wonderful!' he cried, with his hands up. 'this quite fits in with\nall that i had heard. my boy, my boy, you are very much too good to\nbe a clerk at mawson's!'\n\"this outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. 'well,' said\ni, 'other people don't think quite so much of me as you seem to do,\nmr. pinner. i had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and i am\nvery glad to have it.'\n\"'pooh, man; you should soar above it. you are not in your true\nsphere. now, i'll tell you how it stands with me. what i have to\noffer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when\ncompared with mawson's, it's light to dark. let me see. when do you\ngo to mawson's?'\n\"'on monday.'\n\"'ha, ha! i think i would risk a little sporting flutter that you\ndon't go there at all.'\n\"'not go to mawson's?'\n\"'no, sir. by that day you will be the business manager of the\nfranco-midland hardware company, limited, with a hundred and\nthirty-four branches in the towns and villages of france, not\ncounting one in brussels and one in san remo.'\n\"this took my breath away. 'i never heard of it,' said i.\n\"'very likely not. it has been kept very quiet, for the capital was\nall privately subscribed, and it's too good a thing to let the public\ninto. my brother, harry pinner, is promoter, and joins the board\nafter allotment as managing director. he knew i was in the swim down\nhere, and asked me to pick up a good man cheap. a young, pushing man\nwith plenty of snap about him. parker spoke of you, and that brought\nme here tonight. we can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to\nstart with.'\n\"'five hundred a year!' i shouted.\n\"'only that at the beginning; but you are to have an overriding\ncommission of one per cent on all business done by your agents, and\nyou may take my word for it that this will come to more than your\nsalary.'\n\"'but i know nothing about hardware.'\n\"'tut, my boy; you know about figures.'\n\"my head buzzed, and i could hardly sit still in my chair. but\nsuddenly a little chill of doubt came upon me.\n\"'i must be frank with you,' said i. 'mawson only gives me two\nhundred, but mawson is safe. now, really, i know so little about your\ncompany that--'\n\"'ah, smart, smart!' he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. 'you\nare the very man for us. you are not to be talked over, and quite\nright, too. now, here's a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think\nthat we can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an\nadvance upon your salary.'\n\"'that is very handsome,' said i. 'when should i take over my new\nduties?'\n\"'be in birmingham to-morrow at one,' said he. 'i have a note in my\npocket here which you will take to my brother. you will find him at\n126b corporation street, where the temporary offices of the company\nare situated. of course he must confirm your engagement, but between\nourselves it will be all right.'\n\"'really, i hardly know how to express my gratitude, mr. pinner,'\nsaid i.\n\"'not at all, my boy. you have only got your desserts. there are one\nor two small things--mere formalities--which i must arrange with you.\nyou have a bit of paper beside you there. kindly write upon it \"i am\nperfectly willing to act as business manager to the franco-midland\nhardware company, limited, at a minimum salary of 500.\"'\n\"i did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket.\n\"'there is one other detail,' said he. 'what do you intend to do\nabout mawson's?'\n\"i had forgotten all about mawson's in my joy. 'i'll write and\nresign,' said i.\n\"'precisely what i don't want you to do. i had a row over you with\nmawson's manager. i had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very\noffensive; accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the\nfirm, and that sort of thing. at last i fairly lost my temper. \"if\nyou want good men you should pay them a good price,\" said i.\n\"'\"he would rather have our small price than your big one,\" said he.\n\"'\"i'll lay you a fiver,\" said i, \"that when he has my offer you'll\nnever so much as hear from him again.\"\n\"'\"done!\" said he. \"we picked him out of the gutter, and he won't\nleave us so easily.\" those were his very words.'\n\"'the impudent scoundrel!' i cried. 'i've never so much as seen him\nin my life. why should i consider him in any way? i shall certainly\nnot write if you would rather i didn't.'\n\"'good! that's a promise,' said he, rising from his chair. 'well, i'm\ndelighted to have got so good a man for my brother. here's your\nadvance of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. make a note of\nthe address, 126b corporation street, and remember that one o'clock\nto-morrow is your appointment. good-night; and may you have all the\nfortune that you deserve!'\n\"that's just about all that passed between us, as near as i can\nremember. you can imagine, dr. watson, how pleased i was at such an\nextraordinary bit of good fortune. i sat up half the night hugging\nmyself over it, and next day i was off to birmingham in a train that\nwould take me in plenty time for my appointment. i took my things to\na hotel in new street, and then i made my way to the address which\nhad been given me.\n\"it was a quarter of an hour before my time, but i thought that would\nmake no difference. 126b was a passage between two large shops, which\nled to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let\nas offices to companies or professional men. the names of the\noccupants were painted at the bottom on the wall, but there was no\nsuch name as the franco-midland hardware company, limited. i stood\nfor a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the\nwhole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and\naddressed me. he was very like the chap i had seen the night before,\nthe same figure and voice, but he was clean shaven and his hair was\nlighter.\n\"'are you mr. hall pycroft?' he asked.\n\"'yes,' said i.\n\"'oh! i was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. i\nhad a note from my brother this morning in which he sang your praises\nvery loudly.'\n\"'i was just looking for the offices when you came.'\n\"'we have not got our name up yet, for we only secured these\ntemporary premises last week. come up with me, and we will talk the\nmatter over.'\n\"i followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there, right\nunder the slates, were a couple of empty, dusty little rooms,\nuncarpeted and uncurtained, into which he led me. i had thought of a\ngreat office with shining tables and rows of clerks, such as i was\nused to, and i dare say i stared rather straight at the two deal\nchairs and one little table, which, with a ledger and a waste paper\nbasket, made up the whole furniture.\n\"'don't be disheartened, mr. pycroft,' said my new acquaintance,\nseeing the length of my face. 'rome was not built in a day, and we\nhave lots of money at our backs, though we don't cut much dash yet in\noffices. pray sit down, and let me have your letter.'\n\"i gave it to him, and her read it over very carefully.\n\"'you seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother arthur,'\nsaid he; 'and i know that he is a pretty shrewd judge. he swears by\nlondon, you know; and i by birmingham; but this time i shall follow\nhis advice. pray consider yourself definitely engaged.'\n\"'what are my duties?' i asked.\n\"'you will eventually manage the great depot in paris, which will\npour a flood of english crockery into the shops of a hundred and\nthirty-four agents in france. the purchase will be completed in a\nweek, and meanwhile you will remain in birmingham and make yourself\nuseful.'\n\"'how?'\n\"for answer, he took a big red book out of a drawer.\n\"'this is a directory of paris,' said he, 'with the trades after the\nnames of the people. i want you to take it home with you, and to mark\noff all the hardware sellers, with their addresses. it would be of\nthe greatest use to me to have them.'\n\"'surely there are classified lists?' i suggested.\n\"'not reliable ones. their system is different from ours. stick at\nit, and let me have the lists by monday, at twelve. good-day, mr.\npycroft. if you continue to show zeal and intelligence you will find\nthe company a good master.'\n\"i went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with\nvery conflicting feelings in my breast. on the one hand, i was\ndefinitely engaged and had a hundred pounds in my pocket; on the\nother, the look of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and\nother of the points which would strike a business man had left a bad\nimpression as to the position of my employers. however, come what\nmight, i had my money, so i settled down to my task. all sunday i was\nkept hard at work, and yet by monday i had only got as far as h. i\nwent round to my employer, found him in the same dismantled kind of\nroom, and was told to keep at it until wednesday, and then come\nagain. on wednesday it was still unfinished, so i hammered away until\nfriday--that is, yesterday. then i brought it round to mr. harry\npinner.\n\"'thank you very much,' said he; 'i fear that i underrated the\ndifficulty of the task. this list will be of very material assistance\nto me.'\n\"'it took some time,' said i.\n\"'and now,' said he, 'i want you to make a list of the furniture\nshops, for they all sell crockery.'\n\"'very good.'\n\"'and you can come up to-morrow evening, at seven, and let me know\nhow you are getting on. don't overwork yourself. a couple of hours at\nday's music hall in the evening would do you no harm after your\nlabors.' he laughed as he spoke, and i saw with a thrill that his\nsecond tooth upon the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with\ngold.\"\nsherlock holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and i stared with\nastonishment at our client.\n\"you may well look surprised, dr. watson; but it is this way,\" said\nhe: \"when i was speaking to the other chap in london, at the time\nthat he laughed at my not going to mawson's, i happened to notice\nthat his tooth was stuffed in this very identical fashion. the glint\nof the gold in each case caught my eye, you see. when i put that with\nthe voice and figure being the same, and only those things altered\nwhich might be changed by a razor or a wig, i could not doubt that it\nwas the same man. of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but\nnot that they should have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. he\nbowed me out, and i found myself in the street, hardly knowing\nwhether i was on my head or my heels. back i went to my hotel, put my\nhead in a basin of cold water, and tried to think it out. why had he\nsent me from london to birmingham? why had he got there before me?\nand why had he written a letter from himself to himself? it was\naltogether too much for me, and i could make no sense of it. and then\nsuddenly it struck me that what was dark to me might be very light to\nmr. sherlock holmes. i had just time to get up to town by the night\ntrain to see him this morning, and to bring you both back with me to\nbirmingham.\"\nthere was a pause after the stock-broker's clerk had concluded his\nsurprising experience. then sherlock holmes cocked his eye at me,\nleaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face,\nlike a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet\nvintage.\n\"rather fine, watson, is it not?\" said he. \"there are points in it\nwhich please me. i think that you will agree with me that an\ninterview with mr. arthur harry pinner in the temporary offices of\nthe franco-midland hardware company, limited, would be a rather\ninteresting experience for both of us.\"\n\"but how can we do it?\" i asked.\n\"oh, easily enough,\" said hall pycroft, cheerily. \"you are two\nfriends of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more\nnatural than that i should bring you both round to the managing\ndirector?\"\n\"quite so, of course,\" said holmes. \"i should like to have a look at\nthe gentleman, and see if i can make anything of his little game.\nwhat qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so\nvaluable? or is it possible that--\" he began biting his nails and\nstaring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word\nfrom him until we were in new street.\nat seven o'clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down\ncorporation street to the company's offices.\n\"it is no use our being at all before our time,\" said our client. \"he\nonly comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up\nto the very hour he names.\"\n\"that is suggestive,\" remarked holmes.\n\"by jove, i told you so!\" cried the clerk. \"that's he walking ahead\nof us there.\"\nhe pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling\nalong the other side of the road. as we watched him he looked across\nat a boy who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper,\nand running over among the cabs and busses, he bought one from him.\nthen, clutching it in his hand, he vanished through a door-way.\n\"there he goes!\" cried hall pycroft. \"these are the company's offices\ninto which he has gone. come with me, and i'll fix it up as easily as\npossible.\"\nfollowing his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found\nourselves outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. a\nvoice within bade us enter, and we entered a bare, unfurnished room\nsuch as hall pycroft had described. at the single table sat the man\nwhom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in\nfront of him, and as he looked up at us it seemed to me that i had\nnever looked upon a face which bore such marks of grief, and of\nsomething beyond grief--of a horror such as comes to few men in a\nlifetime. his brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of\nthe dull, dead white of a fish's belly, and his eyes were wild and\nstaring. he looked at his clerk as though he failed to recognize him,\nand i could see by the astonishment depicted upon our conductor's\nface that this was by no means the usual appearance of his employer.\n\"you look ill, mr. pinner!\" he exclaimed.\n\"yes, i am not very well,\" answered the other, making obvious efforts\nto pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke.\n\"who are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?\"\n\"one is mr. harris, of bermondsey, and the other is mr. price, of\nthis town,\" said our clerk, glibly. \"they are friends of mine and\ngentlemen of experience, but they have been out of a place for some\nlittle time, and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening\nfor them in the company's employment.\"\n\"very possibly! very possibly!\" cried mr. pinner with a ghastly\nsmile. \"yes, i have no doubt that we shall be able to do something\nfor you. what is your particular line, mr. harris?\"\n\"i am an accountant,\" said holmes.\n\"ah yes, we shall want something of the sort. and you, mr. price?\"\n\"a clerk,\" said i.\n\"i have every hope that the company may accommodate you. i will let\nyou know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. and now i beg\nthat you will go. for god's sake leave me to myself!\"\nthese last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which\nhe was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst\nasunder. holmes and i glanced at each other, and hall pycroft took a\nstep towards the table.\n\"you forget, mr. pinner, that i am here by appointment to receive\nsome directions from you,\" said he.\n\"certainly, mr. pycroft, certainly,\" the other resumed in a calmer\ntone. \"you may wait here a moment; and there is no reason why your\nfriends should not wait with you. i will be entirely at your service\nin three minutes, if i might trespass upon your patience so far.\" he\nrose with a very courteous air, and, bowing to us, he passed out\nthrough a door at the farther end of the room, which he closed behind\nhim.\n\"what now?\" whispered holmes. \"is he giving us the slip?\"\n\"impossible,\" answered pycroft.\n\"why so?\"\n\"that door leads into an inner room.\"\n\"there is no exit?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"is it furnished?\"\n\"it was empty yesterday.\"\n\"then what on earth can he be doing? there is something which i don't\nunderstand in his manner. if ever a man was three parts mad with\nterror, that man's name is pinner. what can have put the shivers on\nhim?\"\n\"he suspects that we are detectives,\" i suggested.\n\"that's it,\" cried pycroft.\nholmes shook his head. \"he did not turn pale. he was pale when we\nentered the room,\" said he. \"it is just possible that--\"\nhis words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of\nthe inner door.\n\"what the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?\" cried the clerk.\nagain and much louder cam the rat-tat-tat. we all gazed expectantly\nat the closed door. glancing at holmes, i saw his face turn rigid,\nand he leaned forward in intense excitement. then suddenly came a low\nguggling, gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. holmes\nsprang frantically across the room and pushed at the door. it was\nfastened on the inner side. following his example, we threw ourselves\nupon it with all our weight. one hinge snapped, then the other, and\ndown came the door with a crash. rushing over it, we found ourselves\nin the inner room. it was empty.\nbut it was only for a moment that we were at fault. at one corner,\nthe corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second\ndoor. holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. a coat and waistcoat\nwere lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his\nown braces round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the\nfranco-midland hardware company. his knees were drawn up, his head\nhung at a dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels\nagainst the door made the noise which had broken in upon our\nconversation. in an instant i had caught him round the waist, and\nheld him up while holmes and pycroft untied the elastic bands which\nhad disappeared between the livid creases of skin. then we carried\nhim into the other room, where he lay with a clay-colored face,\npuffing his purple lips in and out with every breath--a dreadful\nwreck of all that he had been but five minutes before.\n\"what do you think of him, watson?\" asked holmes.\ni stooped over him and examined him. his pulse was feeble and\nintermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little\nshivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball\nbeneath.\n\"it has been touch and go with him,\" said i, \"but he'll live now.\njust open that window, and hand me the water carafe.\" i undid his\ncollar, poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his\narms until he drew a long, natural breath. \"it's only a question of\ntime now,\" said i, as i turned away from him.\nholmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his trouser's\npockets and his chin upon his breast.\n\"i suppose we ought to call the police in now,\" said he. \"and yet i\nconfess that i'd like to give them a complete case when they come.\"\n\"it's a blessed mystery to me,\" cried pycroft, scratching his head.\n\"whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and\nthen--\"\n\"pooh! all that is clear enough,\" said holmes impatiently. \"it is\nthis last sudden move.\"\n\"you understand the rest, then?\"\n\"i think that it is fairly obvious. what do you say, watson?\"\ni shrugged my shoulders. \"i must confess that i am out of my depths,\"\nsaid i.\n\"oh surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to\none conclusion.\"\n\"what do you make of them?\"\n\"well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. the first is the\nmaking of pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service\nof this preposterous company. do you not see how very suggestive that\nis?\"\n\"i am afraid i miss the point.\"\n\"well, why did they want him to do it? not as a business matter, for\nthese arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly\nbusiness reason why this should be an exception. don't you see, my\nyoung friend, that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of\nyour handwriting, and had no other way of doing it?\"\n\"and why?\"\n\"quite so. why? when we answer that we have made some progress with\nour little problem. why? there can be only one adequate reason.\nsomeone wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a\nspecimen of it first. and now if we pass on to the second point we\nfind that each throws light upon the other. that point is the request\nmade by pinner that you should not resign your place, but should\nleave the manager of this important business in the full expectation\nthat a mr. hall pycroft, whom he had never seen, was about to enter\nthe office upon the monday morning.\"\n\"my god!\" cried our client, \"what a blind beetle i have been!\"\n\"now you see the point about the handwriting. suppose that some one\nturned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from\nthat in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game\nwould have been up. but in the interval the rogue had learned to\nimitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as i presume that\nnobody in the office had ever set eyes upon you.\"\n\"not a soul,\" groaned hall pycroft.\n\"very good. of course it was of the utmost importance to prevent you\nfrom thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into\ncontact with any one who might tell you that your double was at work\nin mawson's office. therefore they gave you a handsome advance on\nyour salary, and ran you off to the midlands, where they gave you\nenough work to do to prevent your going to london, where you might\nhave burst their little game up. that is all plain enough.\"\n\"but why should this man pretend to be his own brother?\"\n\"well, that is pretty clear also. there are evidently only two of\nthem in it. the other is impersonating you at the office. this one\nacted as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an\nemployer without admitting a third person into his plot. that he was\nmost unwilling to do. he changed his appearance as far as he could,\nand trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe,\nwould be put down to a family resemblance. but for the happy chance\nof the gold stuffing, your suspicions would probably never have been\naroused.\"\nhall pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air. \"good lord!\" he\ncried, \"while i have been fooled in this way, what has this other\nhall pycroft been doing at mawson's? what should we do, mr. holmes?\ntell me what to do.\"\n\"we must wire to mawson's.\"\n\"they shut at twelve on saturdays.\"\n\"never mind. there may be some door-keeper or attendant--\"\n\"ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of\nthe securities that they hold. i remember hearing it talked of in the\ncity.\"\n\"very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a\nclerk of your name is working there. that is clear enough; but what\nis not so clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should\ninstantly walk out of the room and hang himself.\"\n\"the paper!\" croaked a voice behind us. the man was sitting up,\nblanched and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands\nwhich rubbed nervously at the broad red band which still encircled\nhis throat.\n\"the paper! of course!\" yelled holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement.\n\"idiot that i was! i thought so must of our visit that the paper\nnever entered my head for an instant. to be sure, the secret must be\nthere.\" he flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph\nburst from his lips. \"look at this, watson,\" he cried. \"it is a\nlondon paper, an early edition of the evening standard. here is what\nwe want. look at the headlines: 'crime in the city. murder at mawson\n& williams's. gigantic attempted robbery. capture of the criminal.'\nhere, watson, we are all equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read\nit aloud to us.\"\nit appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event\nof importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:\n\"a desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man\nand the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the city.\nfor some time back mawson & williams, the famous financial house,\nhave been the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate\nto a sum of considerably over a million sterling. so conscious was\nthe manager of the responsibility which devolved upon him in\nconsequence of the great interests at stake that safes of the very\nlatest construction have been employed, and an armed watchman has\nbeen left day and night in the building. it appears that last week a\nnew clerk named hall pycroft was engaged by the firm. this person\nappears to have been none other that beddington, the famous forger\nand cracksman, who, with his brother, had only recently emerged from\na five years' spell of penal servitude. by some means, which are not\nyet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a false name, this official\nposition in the office, which he utilized in order to obtain moulding\nof various locks, and a thorough knowledge of the position of the\nstrong room and the safes.\n\"it is customary at mawson's for the clerks to leave at midday on\nsaturday. sergeant tuson, of the city police, was somewhat surprised,\ntherefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at\ntwenty minutes past one. his suspicions being aroused, the sergeant\nfollowed the man, and with the aid of constable pollack succeeded,\nafter a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. it was at once\nclear that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. nearly a\nhundred thousand pounds' worth of american railway bonds, with a\nlarge amount of scrip in mines and other companies, was discovered in\nthe bag. on examining the premises the body of the unfortunate\nwatchman was found doubled up and thrust into the largest of the\nsafes, where it would not have been discovered until monday morning\nhad it not been for the prompt action of sergeant tuson. the man's\nskull had been shattered by a blow from a poker delivered from\nbehind. there could be no doubt that beddington had obtained entrance\nby pretending that he had left something behind him, and having\nmurdered the watchman, rapidly rifled the large safe, and then made\noff with his booty. his brother, who usually works with him, has not\nappeared in this job as far as can at present be ascertained,\nalthough the police are making energetic inquiries as to his\nwhereabouts.\"\n\"well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,\"\nsaid holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window.\n\"human nature is a strange mixture, watson. you see that even a\nvillain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother\nturns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. however,\nwe have no choice as to our action. the doctor and i will remain on\nguard, mr. pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the\npolice.\"\nthe \"gloria scott\"\n\"i have some papers here,\" said my friend sherlock holmes, as we sat\none winter's night on either side of the fire, \"which i really think,\nwatson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. these are\nthe documents in the extraordinary case of the gloria scott, and this\nis the message which struck justice of the peace trevor dead with\nhorror when he read it.\"\nhe had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing\nthe tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of\nslate gray-paper.\n\"the supply of game for london is going steadily up,\" it ran.\n\"head-keeper hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all\norders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's\nlife.\"\nas i glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, i saw holmes\nchuckling at the expression upon my face.\n\"you look a little bewildered,\" said he.\n\"i cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. it\nseems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise.\"\n\"very likely. yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,\nrobust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the\nbutt end of a pistol.\"\n\"you arouse my curiosity,\" said i. \"but why did you say just now that\nthere were very particular reasons why i should study this case?\"\n\"because it was the first in which i was ever engaged.\"\ni had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first\nturned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never\ncaught him before in a communicative humor. now he sat forward in his\narm-chair and spread out the documents upon his knees. then he lit\nhis pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.\n\"you never heard me talk of victor trevor?\" he asked. \"he was the\nonly friend i made during the two years i was at college. i was never\na very sociable fellow, watson, always rather fond of moping in my\nrooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that i\nnever mixed much with the men of my year. bar fencing and boxing i\nhad few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct\nfrom that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact\nat all. trevor was the only man i knew, and that only through the\naccident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as i\nwent down to chapel.\n\"it was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.\ni was laid by the heels for ten days, but trevor used to come in to\ninquire after me. at first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his\nvisits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close\nfriends. he was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and\nenergy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some\nsubjects in common, and it was a bond of union when i found that he\nwas as friendless as i. finally, he invited me down to his father's\nplace at donnithorpe, in norfolk, and i accepted his hospitality for\na month of the long vacation.\n\"old trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a\nj.p., and a landed proprietor. donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to\nthe north of langmere, in the country of the broads. the house was an\nold-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine\nlime-lined avenue leading up to it. there was excellent wild-duck\nshooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select\nlibrary, taken over, as i understood, from a former occupant, and a\ntolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could not\nput in a pleasant month there.\n\"trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.\n\"there had been a daughter, i heard, but she had died of diphtheria\nwhile on a visit to birmingham. the father interested me extremely.\nhe was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of\nrude strength, both physically and mentally. he knew hardly any\nbooks, but he had traveled far, had seen much of the world. and had\nremembered all that he had learned. in person he was a thick-set,\nburly man with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten\nface, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of fierceness. yet\nhe had a reputation for kindness and charity on the country-side, and\nwas noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.\n\"one evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass\nof port after dinner, when young trevor began to talk about those\nhabits of observation and inference which i had already formed into a\nsystem, although i had not yet appreciated the part which they were\nto play in my life. the old man evidently thought that his son was\nexaggerating in his description of one or two trivial feats which i\nhad performed.\n\"'come, now, mr. holmes,' said he, laughing good-humoredly. 'i'm an\nexcellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'\n\"'i fear there is not very much,' i answered; 'i might suggest that\nyou have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last\ntwelve months.'\n\"the laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great\nsurprise.\n\"'well, that's true enough,' said he. 'you know, victor,' turning to\nhis son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us,\nand sir edward holly has actually been attacked. i've always been on\nmy guard since then, though i have no idea how you know it.'\n\"'you have a very handsome stick,' i answered. 'by the inscription i\nobserved that you had not had it more than a year. but you have taken\nsome pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole\nso as to make it a formidable weapon. i argued that you would not\ntake such precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'\n\"'anything else?' he asked, smiling.\n\"'you have boxed a good deal in your youth.'\n\"'right again. how did you know it?  is my nose knocked a little out\nof the straight?'\n\"'no,' said i. 'it is your ears. they have the peculiar flattening\nand thickening which marks the boxing man.'\n\"'anything else?'\n\"'you have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'\n\"'made all my money at the gold fields.'\n\"'you have been in new zealand.'\n\"'right again.'\n\"'you have visited japan.'\n\"'quite true.'\n\"'and you have been most intimately associated with some one whose\ninitials were j. a., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely\nforget.'\n\"mr. trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a\nstrange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the\nnutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.\n\"you can imagine, watson, how shocked both his son and i were. his\nattack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar, and\nsprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he\ngave a gasp or two and sat up.\n\"'ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'i hope i haven't frightened\nyou. strong as i look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does\nnot take much to knock me over. i don't know how you manage this, mr.\nholmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of\nfancy would be children in your hands. that's your line of life, sir,\nand you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the\nworld.'\n\"and that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability\nwith which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, watson, the\nvery first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be\nmade out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. at the\nmoment, however, i was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my\nhost to think of anything else.\n\"'i hope that i have said nothing to pain you?' said i.\n\"'well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. might i ask\nhow you know, and how much you know?' he spoke now in a half-jesting\nfashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.\n\"'it is simplicity itself,' said i. 'when you bared your arm to draw\nthat fish into the boat i saw that j. a. had been tattooed in the\nbend of the elbow. the letters were still legible, but it was\nperfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining\nof the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate\nthem. it was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very\nfamiliar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.'\n\"'what an eye you have!' he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'it is just\nas you say. but we won't talk of it. of all ghosts the ghosts of our\nold lovers are the worst. come into the billiard-room and have a\nquiet cigar.'\n\"from that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of\nsuspicion in mr. trevor's manner towards me. even his son remarked\nit. 'you've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll\nnever be sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' he did\nnot mean to show it, i am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind\nthat it peeped out at every action. at last i became so convinced\nthat i was causing him uneasiness that i drew my visit to a close. on\nthe very day, however, before i left, an incident occurred which\nproved in the sequel to be of importance.\n\"we were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,\nbasking in the sun and admiring the view across the broads, when a\nmaid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to\nsee mr. trevor.\n\"'what is his name?' asked my host.\n\"'he would not give any.'\n\"'what does he want, then?'\n\"'he says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's\nconversation.'\n\"'show him round here.' an instant afterwards there appeared a little\nwizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of\nwalking. he wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve,\na red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly\nworn. his face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile\nupon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his\ncrinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of\nsailors. as he came slouching across the lawn i heard mr. trevor make\na sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his\nchair, he ran into the house. he was back in a moment, and i smelt a\nstrong reek of brandy as he passed me.\n\"'well, my man,' said he. 'what can i do for you?'\n\"the sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the\nsame loose-lipped smile upon his face.\n\"'you don't know me?' he asked.\n\"'why, dear me, it is surely hudson,' said mr. trevor in a tone of\nsurprise.\n\"'hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'why, it's thirty year and\nmore since i saw you last. here you are in your house, and me still\npicking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'\n\"'tut, you will find that i have not forgotten old times,' cried mr.\ntrevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low\nvoice. 'go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will\nget food and drink. i have no doubt that i shall find you a\nsituation.'\n\"'thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his fore-lock. 'i'm just\noff a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and i\nwants a rest. i thought i'd get it either with mr. beddoes or with\nyou.'\n\"'ah!' cried trevor. 'you know where mr. beddoes is?'\n\"'bless you, sir, i know where all my old friends are,' said the\nfellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to\nthe kitchen. mr. trevor mumbled something to us about having been\nshipmate with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and\nthen, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. an hour later, when we\nentered the house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the\ndining-room sofa. the whole incident left a most ugly impression upon\nmy mind, and i was not sorry next day to leave donnithorpe behind me,\nfor i felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my\nfriend.\n\"all this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. i\nwent up to my london rooms, where i spent seven weeks working out a\nfew experiments in organic chemistry. one day, however, when the\nautumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, i\nreceived a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to\ndonnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and\nassistance. of course i dropped everything and set out for the north\nonce more.\n\"he met me with the dog-cart at the station, and i saw at a glance\nthat the last two months had been very trying ones for him. he had\ngrown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for\nwhich he had been remarkable.\n\"'the governor is dying,' were the first words he said.\n\"'impossible!' i cried. 'what is the matter?'\n\"'apoplexy. nervous shock, he's been on the verge all day. i doubt if\nwe shall find him alive.'\n\"i was, as you may think, watson, horrified at this unexpected news.\n\"'what has caused it?' i asked.\n\"'ah, that is the point. jump in and we can talk it over while we\ndrive. you remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you\nleft us?'\n\"'perfectly.'\n\"'do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'\n\"'i have no idea.'\n\"'it was the devil, holmes,' he cried.\n\"i stared at him in astonishment.\n\"'yes, it was the devil himself. we have not had a peaceful hour\nsince--not one. the governor has never held up his head from that\nevening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart\nbroken, all through this accursed hudson.'\n\"'what power had he, then?'\n\"'ah, that is what i would give so much to know. the kindly,\ncharitable, good old governor--how could he have fallen into the\nclutches of such a ruffian! but i am so glad that you have come,\nholmes. i trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and i know\nthat you will advise me for the best.'\n\"we were dashing along the smooth white country road, with the long\nstretch of the broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of\nthe setting sun. from a grove upon our left i could already see the\nhigh chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's dwelling.\n\"'my father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then,\nas that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. the house\nseemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he\nchose in it. the maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile\nlanguage. the dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for\nthe annoyance. the fellow would take the boat and my father's best\ngun and treat himself to little shooting trips. and all this with\nsuch a sneering, leering, insolent face that i would have knocked him\ndown twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. i tell\nyou, holmes, i have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this\ntime; and now i am asking myself whether, if i had let myself go a\nlittle more, i might not have been a wiser man.\n\"'well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal\nhudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some\ninsolent reply to my father in my presence one day, i took him by the\nshoulders and turned him out of the room. he slunk away with a livid\nface and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue\ncould do. i don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after\nthat, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether i would\nmind apologizing to hudson. i refused, as you can imagine, and asked\nmy father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties\nwith himself and his household.\n\"'\"ah, my boy,\" said he, \"it is all very well to talk, but you don't\nknow how i am placed. but you shall know, victor. i'll see that you\nshall know, come what may. you wouldn't believe harm of your poor old\nfather, would you, lad?\" he was very much moved, and shut himself up\nin the study all day, where i could see through the window that he\nwas writing busily.\n\"'that evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release,\nfor hudson told us that he was going to leave us. he walked into the\ndining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in\nthe thick voice of a half-drunken man.\n\"'\"i've had enough of norfolk,\" said he. \"i'll run down to mr.\nbeddoes in hampshire. he'll be as glad to see me as you were, i dare\nsay.\"\n\"'\"you're not going away in any kind of spirit, hudson, i hope,\" said\nmy father, with a tameness which mad my blood boil.\n\"'\"i've not had my 'pology,\" said he sulkily, glancing in my\ndirection.\n\"'\"victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow\nrather roughly,\" said the dad, turning to me.\n\"'\"on the contrary, i think that we have both shown extraordinary\npatience towards him,\" i answered.\n\"'\"oh, you do, do you?\" he snarls. \"very good, mate. we'll see about\nthat!\"\n\"'he slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the\nhouse, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. night\nafter night i heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was\nrecovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.'\n\"'and how?' i asked eagerly.\n\"'in a most extraordinary fashion. a letter arrived for my father\nyesterday evening, bearing the fordingbridge post-mark. my father\nread it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round\nthe room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his\nsenses. when i at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and\neyelids were all puckered on one side, and i saw that he had a\nstroke. dr. fordham came over at once. we put him to bed; but the\nparalysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning\nconsciousness, and i think that we shall hardly find him alive.'\n\"'you horrify me, trevor!' i cried. 'what then could have been in\nthis letter to cause so dreadful a result?'\n\"'nothing. there lies the inexplicable part of it. the message was\nabsurd and trivial. ah, my god, it is as i feared!'\n\"as he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the\nfading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. as we\ndashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a\ngentleman in black emerged from it.\n\"'when did it happen, doctor?' asked trevor.\n\"'almost immediately after you left.'\n\"'did he recover consciousness?'\n\"'for an instant before the end.'\n\"'any message for me?'\n\"'only that the papers were in the back drawer of the japanese\ncabinet.'\n\"my friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while i\nremained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my\nhead, and feeling as sombre as ever i had done in my life. what was\nthe past of this trevor, pugilist, traveler, and gold-digger, and how\nhad he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman?  why,\ntoo, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon\nhis arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from fordingham?\nthen i remembered that fordingham was in hampshire, and that this mr.\nbeddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to\nblackmail, had also been mentioned as living in hampshire. the\nletter, then, might either come from hudson, the seaman, saying that\nhe had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it\nmight come from beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a\nbetrayal was imminent. so far it seemed clear enough. but then how\ncould this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the son?\nhe must have misread it. if so, it must have been one of those\ningenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean\nanother. i must see this letter. if there were a hidden meaning in\nit, i was confident that i could pluck it forth. for an hour i sat\npondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought\nin a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend trevor, pale but\ncomposed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his\ngrasp. he sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the\ntable, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a\nsingle sheet of gray paper. 'the supply of game for london is going\nsteadily up,' it ran. 'head-keeper hudson, we believe, has been now\ntold to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your\nhen-pheasant's life.'\n\"i dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when\nfirst i read this message. then i reread it very carefully. it was\nevidently as i had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried\nin this strange combination of words. or could it be that there was a\nprearranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and\n'hen-pheasant'?  such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be\ndeduced in any way. and yet i was loath to believe that this was the\ncase, and the presence of the word hudson seemed to show that the\nsubject of the message was as i had guessed, and that it was from\nbeddoes rather than the sailor. i tried it backwards, but the\ncombination 'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging. then i tried\nalternate words, but neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game london'\npromised to throw any light upon it.\n\"and then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and i\nsaw that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a\nmessage which might well drive old trevor to despair.\n\"it was short and terse, the warning, as i now read it to my\ncompanion:\n\"'the game is up. hudson has told all. fly for your life.'\n\"victor trevor sank his face into his shaking hands, 'it must be\nthat, i suppose,' said he. \"this is worse than death, for it means\ndisgrace as well. but what is the meaning of these \"head-keepers\" and\n\"hen-pheasants\"?\n\"'it means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to\nus if we had no other means of discovering the sender. you see that\nhe has begun by writing \"the ... game ... is,\" and so on. afterwards\nhe had, to fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words\nin each space. he would naturally use the first words which came to\nhis mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among\nthem, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or\ninterested in breeding. do you know anything of this beddoes?'\n\"'why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'i remember that my poor\nfather used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his\npreserves every autumn.'\n\"'then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said i. 'it\nonly remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor\nhudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and\nrespected men.'\n\"'alas, holmes, i fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried my\nfriend. 'but from you i shall have no secrets. here is the statement\nwhich was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from\nhudson had become imminent. i found it in the japanese cabinet, as he\ntold the doctor. take it and read it to me, for i have neither the\nstrength nor the courage to do it myself.'\n\"these are the very papers, watson, which he handed to me, and i will\nread them to you, as i read them in the old study that night to him.\nthey are endorsed outside, as you see, 'some particulars of the\nvoyage of the bark gloria scott, from her leaving falmouth on the 8th\noctober, 1855, to her destruction in n. lat. 15 20', w. long. 25\n14' on nov. 6th.' it is in the form of a letter, and runs in this\nway:\n\"'my dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken\nthe closing years of my life, i can write with all truth and honesty\nthat it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my\nposition in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have\nknown me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you\nshould come to blush for me--you who love me and who have seldom, i\nhope, had reason to do other than respect me. but if the blow falls\nwhich is forever hanging over me, then i should wish you to read\nthis, that you may know straight from me how far i have been to\nblame. on the other hand, if all should go well (which may kind god\nalmighty grant!), then if by any chance this paper should be still\nundestroyed and should fall into your hands, i conjure you, by all\nyou hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother, and by the love\nwhich had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give\none thought to it again.\n\"'if then your eye goes onto read this line, i know that i shall\nalready have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is more\nlikely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue\nsealed forever in death. in either case the time for suppression is\npast, and every word which i tell you is the naked truth, and this i\nswear as i hope for mercy.\n\"'my name, dear lad, is not trevor. i was james armitage in my\nyounger days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me\na few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which\nseemed to imply that he had surprised my secret. as armitage it was\nthat i entered a london banking-house, and as armitage i was\nconvicted of breaking my country's laws, and was sentenced to\ntransportation. do not think very harshly of me, laddie. it was a\ndebt of honor, so called, which i had to pay, and i used money which\nwas not my own to do it, in the certainty that i could replace it\nbefore there could be any possibility of its being missed. but the\nmost dreadful ill-luck pursued me. the money which i had reckoned\nupon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts\nexposed my deficit. the case might have been dealt leniently with,\nbut the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than\nnow, and on my twenty-third birthday i found myself chained as a\nfelon with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark\ngloria scott, bound for australia.\n\"'it was the year '55 when the crimean war was at its height, and the\nold convict ships had been largely used as transports in the black\nsea. the government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less\nsuitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. the gloria scott\nhad been in the chinese tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,\nheavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her\nout. she was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight\njail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a\ncaptain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. nearly\na hundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from\nfalmouth.\n\"'the partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being\nof thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin and\nfrail. the man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom i had\nparticularly noticed when we were led down the quay. he was a young\nman with a clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather\nnut-cracker jaws. he carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a\nswaggering style of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for\nhis extraordinary height. i don't think any of our heads would have\ncome up to his shoulder, and i am sure that he could not have\nmeasured less than six and a half feet. it was strange among so many\nsad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy and\nresolution. the sight of it was to me like a fire in a snow-storm. i\nwas glad, then, to find that he was my neighbor, and gladder still\nwhen, in the dead of the night, i heard a whisper close to my ear,\nand found that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which\nseparated us.\n\"'\"hullo, chummy!\" said he, \"what's your name, and what are you here\nfor?\"\n\"'i answered him, and asked in turn who i was talking with.\n\"'\"i'm jack prendergast,\" said he, \"and by god! you'll learn to bless\nmy name before you've done with me.\"\n\"'i remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an\nimmense sensation throughout the country some time before my own\narrest. he was a man of good family and of great ability, but of\nincurably vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of fraud,\nobtained huge sums of money from the leading london merchants.\n\"'\"ha, ha! you remember my case!\" said he proudly.\n\"'\"very well, indeed.\"\n\"'\"then maybe you remember something queer about it?\"\n\"'\"what was that, then?\"\n\"'\"i'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't i?\"\n\"'\"so it was said.\"\n\"'\"but none was recovered, eh?\"\n\"'\"no.\"\n\"'\"well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?\" he asked.\n\"'\"i have no idea,\" said i.\n\"'\"right between my finger and thumb,\" he cried. \"by god! i've got\nmore pounds to my name than you've hairs on your head. and if you've\nmoney, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do\nanything. now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do\nanything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking\nhold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a chin\nchina coaster. no, sir, such a man will look after himself and will\nlook after his chums. you may lay to that! you hold on to him, and\nyou may kiss the book that he'll haul you through.\"\n\"'that was his style of talk, and at first i thought it meant\nnothing; but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in\nwith all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really\nwas a plot to gain command of the vessel. a dozen of the prisoners\nhad hatched it before they came aboard, prendergast was the leader,\nand his money was the motive power.\n\"'\"i'd a partner,\" said he, \"a rare good man, as true as a stock to a\nbarrel. he's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at\nthis moment?  why, he's the chaplain of this ship--the chaplain, no\nless! he came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and\nmoney enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to\nmain-truck. the crew are his, body and soul. he could buy 'em at so\nmuch a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they\nsigned on. he's got two of the warders and mercer, the second mate,\nand he'd get the captain himself, if he thought him worth it.\"\n\"'\"what are we to do, then?\" i asked.\n\"'\"what do you think?\" said he. \"we'll make the coats of some of\nthese soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.\"\n\"'\"but they are armed,\" said i.\n\"'\"and so shall we be, my boy. there's a brace of pistols for every\nmother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship, with the crew at\nour back, it's time we were all sent to a young misses'\nboarding-school. you speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and\nsee if he is to be trusted.\"\n\"'i did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much\nthe same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. his name\nwas evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and he is now a\nrich and prosperous man in the south of england. he was ready enough\nto join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and\nbefore we had crossed the bay there were only two of the prisoners\nwho were not in the secret. one of these was of weak mind, and we did\nnot dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice, and\ncould not be of any use to us.\n\"'from the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from\ntaking possession of the ship. the crew were a set of ruffians,\nspecially picked for the job. the sham chaplain came into our cells\nto exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts,\nand so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed\naway at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of\npowder, and twenty slugs. two of the warders were agents of\nprendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. the captain,\nthe two mates, two warders lieutenant martin, his eighteen soldiers,\nand the doctor were all that we had against us. yet, safe as it was,\nwe determined to neglect no precaution, and to make our attack\nsuddenly by night. it came, however, more quickly than we expected,\nand in this way.\n\"'one evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had\ncome down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his\nhand down on the bottom of his bunk he felt the outline of the\npistols. if he had been silent he might have blown the whole thing,\nbut he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and\nturned so pale that the man knew what was up in an instant and seized\nhim. he was gagged before he could give the alarm, and tied down upon\nthe bed. he had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we were\nthrough it in a rush. the two sentries were shot down, and so was a\ncorporal who came running to see what was the matter. there were two\nmore soldiers at the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed\nnot to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot\nwhile trying to fix their bayonets. then we rushed on into the\ncaptain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an\nexplosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared over\nthe chart of the atlantic which was pinned upon the table, while the\nchaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow. the\ntwo mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole business\nseemed to be settled.\n\"'the state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and\nflopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just\nmad with the feeling that we were free once more. there were lockers\nall round, and wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in, and\npulled out a dozen of brown sherry. we cracked off the necks of the\nbottles, poured the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing\nthem off, when in an instant without warning there came the roar of\nmuskets in our ears, and the saloon was so full of smoke that we\ncould not see across the table. when it cleared again the place was a\nshambles. wilson and eight others were wriggling on the top of each\nother on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table\nturn me sick now when i think of it. we were so cowed by the sight\nthat i think we should have given the job up if had not been for\nprendergast. he bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all\nthat were left alive at his heels. out we ran, and there on the poop\nwere the lieutenent and ten of his men. the swing skylights above the\nsaloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through\nthe slit.  we got on them before they could load, and they stood to\nit like men; but we had the upper hand of them, and in five minutes\nit was all over. my god! was there ever a slaughter-house like that\nship! predergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the soldiers\nup as if they had been children and threw them overboard alive or\ndead. there was one sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept\non swimming for a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out\nhis brains. when the fighting was over there was no one left of our\nenemies except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.\n\"'it was over them that the great quarrel arose. there were many of\nus who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no\nwish to have murder on our souls. it was one thing to knock the\nsoldiers over with their muskets in their hands, and it was another\nto stand by while men were being killed in cold blood. eight of us,\nfive convicts and three sailors, said that we would not see it done.\nbut there was no moving predergast and those who were with him. our\nonly chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and\nhe would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. it\nnearly came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he\nsaid that if we wished we might take a boat and go. we jumped at the\noffer, for we were already sick of these blookthirsty doings, and we\nsaw that there would be worse before it was done. we were given a\nsuit of sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of junk\nand one of biscuits, and a compass. prendergast threw us over a\nchart, told us that we were shipwrecked mariners whose ship had\nfoundered in lat. 15 and long. 25 west, and then cut the painter\nand let us go.\n\"'and now i come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear\nson. the seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during the rising, but\nnow as we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a\nlight wind from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away\nfrom us. our boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth\nrollers, and evans and i, who were the most educated of the party,\nwere sitting in the sheets working out our position and planning what\ncoast we should make for. it was a nice question, for the cape de\nverds were about five hundred miles to the north of us, and the\nafrican coast about seven hundred to the east. on the whole, as the\nwind was coming round to the north, we thought that sierra leone\nmight be best, and turned our head in that direction, the bark being\nat that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. suddenly as\nwe looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up from\nher, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky line. a few\nseconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ears, and as the\nsmoke thinned away there was no sign left of the gloria scott. in an\ninstant we swept the boat's head round again and pulled with all our\nstrength for the place where the haze still trailing over the water\nmarked the scene of this catastrophe.\n\"'it was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared\nthat we had come too late to save any one. a splintered boat and a\nnumber of crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the\nwaves showed us where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign\nof life, and we had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for\nhelp, and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying\nstretched across it. when we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to\nbe a young seaman of the name of hudson, who was so burned and\nexhausted that he could give us no account of what had happened until\nthe following morning.\n\"'it seemed that after we had left, prendergast and his gang had\nproceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. the two\nwarders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had the third\nmate. prendergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and with his\nown hands cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. there only\nremained the first mate, who was a bold and active man. when he saw\nthe convict approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he\nkicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and\nrushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold. a dozen\nconvicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found\nhim with a match-box in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel,\nwhich was one of a hundred carried on board, and swearing that he\nwould blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. an instant\nlater the explosion occurred, though hudson thought it was caused by\nthe misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the mate's\nmatch. be the cause what i may, it was the end of the gloria scott\nand of the rabble who held command of her.\n\"'such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible\nbusiness in which i was involved. next day we were picked up by the\nbrig hotspur, bound for australia, whose captain found no difficulty\nin believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had\nfoundered. the transport ship gloria scott was set down by the\nadmiralty as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to\nher true fate. after an excellent voyage the hotspur landed us at\nsydney, where evans and i changed our names and made our way to the\ndiggings, where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations,\nwe had no difficulty in losing our former identities. the rest i need\nnot relate. we prospered, we traveled, we came back as rich colonials\nto england, and we bought country estates. for more than twenty years\nwe have led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was\nforever buried. imagine, then, my feelings when in the seaman who\ncame to us i recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the\nwreck. he had tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live\nupon our fears. you will understand now how it was that i strove to\nkeep the peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize with\nme in the fears which fill me, now that he has gone from me to his\nother victim with threats upon his tongue.'\n\"underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible,\n'beddoes writes in cipher to say h. has told all. sweet lord, have\nmercy on our souls!'\n\"that was the narrative which i read that night to young trevor, and\ni think, watson, that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one.\nthe good fellow was heart-broken at it, and went out to the terai tea\nplanting, where i hear that he is doing well. as to the sailor and\nbeddoes, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on\nwhich the letter of warning was written. they both disappeared\nutterly and completely. no complaint had been lodged with the police,\nso that beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. hudson had been\nseen lurking about, and it was believed by the police that he had\ndone away with beddoes and had fled. for myself i believe that the\ntruth was exactly the opposite. i think that it is most probable that\nbeddoes, pushed to desperation and believing himself to have been\nalready betrayed, had revenged himself upon hudson, and had fled from\nthe country with as much money as he could lay his hands on. those\nare the facts of the case, doctor, and if they are of any use to your\ncollection, i am sure that they are very heartily at your service.\"\nthe musgrave ritual\nan anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend\nsherlock holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was\nthe neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he\naffected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in\nhis personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a\nfellow-lodger to distraction. not that i am in the least conventional\nin that respect myself. the rough-and-tumble work in afghanistan,\ncoming on the top of a natural bohemianism of disposition, has made\nme rather more lax than befits a medical man. but with me there is a\nlimit, and when i find a man who keeps his cigars in the\ncoal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a persian slipper, and\nhis unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the\nvery centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then i begin to give myself\nvirtuous airs. i have always held, too, that pistol practice should\nbe distinctly an open-air pastime; and when holmes, in one of his\nqueer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a\nhundred boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with\na patriotic v. r. done in bullet-pocks, i felt strongly that neither\nthe atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.\nour chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics\nwhich had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning\nup in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. but his\npapers were my great crux. he had a horror of destroying documents,\nespecially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it\nwas only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to\ndocket and arrange them; for, as i have mentioned somewhere in these\nincoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he\nperformed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were\nfollowed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about\nwith his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to\nthe table. thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every\ncorner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were\non no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by\ntheir owner. one winter's night, as we sat together by the fire, i\nventured to suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts\ninto his common-place book, he might employ the next two hours in\nmaking our room a little more habitable. he could not deny the\njustice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to\nhis bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box\nbehind him. this he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting\ndown upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. i could see\nthat it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red\ntape into separate packages.\n\"there are cases enough here, watson,\" said he, looking at me with\nmischievous eyes. \"i think that if you knew all that i had in this\nbox you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.\"\n\"these are the records of your early work, then?\" i asked. \"i have\noften wished that i had notes of those cases.\"\n\"yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer\nhad come to glorify me.\" he lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,\ncaressing sort of way. \"they are not all successes, watson,\" said he.\n\"but there are some pretty little problems among them. here's the\nrecord of the tarleton murders, and the case of vamberry, the wine\nmerchant, and the adventure of the old russian woman, and the\nsingular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of\nricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife. and here--ah,\nnow, this really is something a little recherch.\"\nhe dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a\nsmall wooden box with a sliding lid, such as children's toys are kept\nin. from within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an\nold-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached\nto it, and three rusty old disks of metal.\n\"well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?\" he asked, smiling at my\nexpression.\n\"it is a curious collection.\"\n\"very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as\nbeing more curious still.\"\n\"these relics have a history then?\"\n\"so much so that they are history.\"\n\"what do you mean by that?\"\nsherlock holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the\nedge of the table. then he reseated himself in his chair and looked\nthem over with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.\n\"these,\" said he, \"are all that i have left to remind me of the\nadventure of the musgrave ritual.\"\ni had heard him mention the case more than once, though i had never\nbeen able to gather the details. \"i should be so glad,\" said i, \"if\nyou would give me an account of it.\"\n\"and leave the litter as it is?\" he cried, mischievously. \"your\ntidiness won't bear much strain after all, watson. but i should be\nglad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are\npoints in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of\nthis or, i believe, of any other country. a collection of my trifling\nachievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account\nof this very singular business.\n\"you may remember how the affair of the gloria scott, and my\nconversation with the unhappy man whose fate i told you of, first\nturned my attention in the direction of the profession which has\nbecome my life's work. you see me now when my name has become known\nfar and wide, and when i am generally recognized both by the public\nand by the official force as being a final court of appeal in\ndoubtful cases. even when you knew me first, at the time of the\naffair which you have commemorated in 'a study in scarlet,' i had\nalready established a considerable, though not a very lucrative,\nconnection. you can hardly realize, then, how difficult i found it at\nfirst, and how long i had to wait before i succeeded in making any\nheadway.\n\"when i first came up to london i had rooms in montague street, just\nround the corner from the british museum, and there i waited, filling\nin my too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of\nscience which might make me more efficient. now and again cases came\nin my way, principally through the introduction of old\nfellow-students, for during my last years at the university there was\na good deal of talk there about myself and my methods. the third of\nthese cases was that of the musgrave ritual, and it is to the\ninterest which was aroused by that singular chain of events, and the\nlarge issues which proved to be at stake, that i trace my first\nstride towards the position which i now hold.\n\"reginald musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and i had\nsome slight acquaintance with him. he was not generally popular among\nthe undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set\ndown as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural\ndiffidence. in appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic\ntype, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly\nmanners. he was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in\nthe kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one which had separated\nfrom the northern musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and\nhad established itself in western sussex, where the manor house of\nhurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county.\nsomething of his birth place seemed to cling to the man, and i never\nlooked at his pale, keen face or the poise of his head without\nassociating him with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the\nvenerable wreckage of a feudal keep. once or twice we drifted into\ntalk, and i can remember that more than once he expressed a keen\ninterest in my methods of observation and inference.\n\"for four years i had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked\ninto my room in montague street. he had changed little, was dressed\nlike a young man of fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and\npreserved the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly\ndistinguished him.\n\"'how has all gone with you musgrave?' i asked, after we had\ncordially shaken hands.\n\"'you probably heard of my poor father's death,' said he; 'he was\ncarried off about two years ago. since then i have of course had the\nhurlstone estates to manage, and as i am member for my district as\nwell, my life has been a busy one. but i understand, holmes, that you\nare turning to practical ends those powers with which you used to\namaze us?'\n\"'yes,' said i, 'i have taken to living by my wits.'\n\"'i am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be\nexceedingly valuable to me. we have had some very strange doings at\nhurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the\nmatter. it is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable\nbusiness.'\n\"you can imagine with what eagerness i listened to him, watson, for\nthe very chance for which i had been panting during all those months\nof inaction seemed to have come within my reach. in my inmost heart i\nbelieved that i could succeed where others failed, and now i had the\nopportunity to test myself.\n\"'pray, let me have the details,' i cried.\n\"reginald musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit the cigarette\nwhich i had pushed towards him.\n\"'you must know,' said he, 'that though i am a bachelor, i have to\nkeep up a considerable staff of servants at hurlstone, for it is a\nrambling old place, and takes a good deal of looking after. i\npreserve, too, and in the pheasant months i usually have a\nhouse-party, so that it would not do to be short-handed. altogether\nthere are eight maids, the cook, the butler, two footmen, and a boy.\nthe garden and the stables of course have a separate staff.\n\"'of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was\nbrunton the butler. he was a young school-master out of place when he\nwas first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and\ncharacter, and he soon became quite invaluable in the household. he\nwas a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though\nhe has been with us for twenty years he cannot be more than forty\nnow. with his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts--for he\ncan speak several languages and play nearly every musical\ninstrument--it is wonderful that he should have been satisfied so\nlong in such a position, but i suppose that he was comfortable, and\nlacked energy to make any change. the butler of hurlstone is always a\nthing that is remembered by all who visit us.\n\"'but this paragon has one fault. he is a bit of a don juan, and you\ncan imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part\nto play in a quiet country district. when he was married it was all\nright, but since he has been a widower we have had no end of trouble\nwith him. a few months ago we were in hopes that he was about to\nsettle down again for he became engaged to rachel howells, our second\nhouse-maid; but he has thrown her over since then and taken up with\njanet tregellis, the daughter of the head game-keeper. rachel--who is\na very good girl, but of an excitable welsh temperament--had a sharp\ntouch of brain-fever, and goes about the house now--or did until\nyesterday--like a black-eyed shadow of her former self. that was our\nfirst drama at hurlstone; but a second one came to drive it from our\nminds, and it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of butler\nbrunton.\n\"'this was how it came about. i have said that the man was\nintelligent, and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it\nseems to have led to an insatiable curiosity about things which did\nnot in the least concern him. i had no idea of the lengths to which\nthis would carry him, until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.\n\"'i have said that the house is a rambling one. one day last week--on\nthursday night, to be more exact--i found that i could not sleep,\nhaving foolishly taken a cup of strong caf noir after my dinner.\nafter struggling against it until two in the morning, i felt that it\nwas quite hopeless, so i rose and lit the candle with the intention\nof continuing a novel which i was reading. the book, however, had\nbeen left in the billiard-room, so i pulled on my dressing-gown and\nstarted off to get it.\n\"'in order to reach the billiard-room i had to descend a flight of\nstairs and then to cross the head of a passage which led to the\nlibrary and the gun-room. you can imagine my surprise when, as i\nlooked down this corridor, i saw a glimmer of light coming from the\nopen door of the library. i had myself extinguished the lamp and\nclosed the door before coming to bed. naturally my first thought was\nof burglars. the corridors at hurlstone have their walls largely\ndecorated with trophies of old weapons. from one of these i picked a\nbattle-axe, and then, leaving my candle behind me, i crept on tiptoe\ndown the passage and peeped in at the open door.\n\"'brunton, the butler, was in the library. he was sitting, fully\ndressed, in an easy-chair, with a slip of paper which looked like a\nmap upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in\ndeep thought. i stood dumb with astonishment, watching him from the\ndarkness. a small taper on the edge of the table shed a feeble light\nwhich sufficed to show me that he was fully dressed. suddenly, as i\nlooked, he rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at the\nside, he unlocked it and drew out one of the drawers. from this he\ntook a paper, and returning to his seat he flattened it out beside\nthe taper on the edge of the table, and began to study it with minute\nattention. my indignation at this calm examination of our family\ndocuments overcame me so far that i took a step forward, and brunton,\nlooking up, saw me standing in the doorway. he sprang to his feet,\nhis face turned livid with fear, and he thrust into his breast the\nchart-like paper which he had been originally studying.\n\"'\"so!\" said i. \"this is how you repay the trust which we have\nreposed in you. you will leave my service to-morrow.\"\n\"'he bowed with the look of a man who is utterly crushed, and slunk\npast me without a word. the taper was still on the table, and by its\nlight i glanced to see what the paper was which brunton had taken\nfrom the bureau. to my surprise it was nothing of any importance at\nall, but simply a copy of the questions and answers in the singular\nold observance called the musgrave ritual. it is a sort of ceremony\npeculiar to our family, which each musgrave for centuries past has\ngone through on his coming of age--a thing of private interest, and\nperhaps of some little importance to the archaeologist, like our own\nblazonings and charges, but of no practical use whatever.'\n\"'we had better come back to the paper afterwards,' said i.\n\"'if you think it really necessary,' he answered, with some\nhesitation. 'to continue my statement, however: i relocked the\nbureau, using the key which brunton had left, and i had turned to go\nwhen i was surprised to find that the butler had returned, and was\nstanding before me.\n\"'\"mr. musgrave, sir,\" he cried, in a voice which was hoarse with\nemotion, \"i can't bear disgrace, sir. i've always been proud above my\nstation in life, and disgrace would kill me. my blood will be on your\nhead, sir--it will, indeed--if you drive me to despair. if you cannot\nkeep me after what has passed, then for god's sake let me give you\nnotice and leave in a month, as if of my own free will. i could stand\nthat, mr. musgrave, but not to be cast out before all the folk that i\nknow so well.\"\n\"'\"you don't deserve much consideration, brunton,\" i answered. \"your\nconduct has been most infamous. however, as you have been a long time\nin the family, i have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. a\nmonth, however is too long. take yourself away in a week, and give\nwhat reason you like for going.\"\n\"'\"only a week, sir?\" he cried, in a despairing voice. \"a\nfortnight--say at least a fortnight!\"\n\"'\"a week,\" i repeated, \"and you may consider yourself to have been\nvery leniently dealt with.\"\n\"'he crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a broken man,\nwhile i put out the light and returned to my room.\n\"'for two days after this brunton was most assiduous in his attention\nto his duties. i made no allusion to what had passed, and waited with\nsome curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace. on the third\nmorning, however he did not appear, as was his custom, after\nbreakfast to receive my instructions for the day. as i left the\ndining-room i happened to meet rachel howells, the maid. i have told\nyou that she had only recently recovered from an illness, and was\nlooking so wretchedly pale and wan that i remonstrated with her for\nbeing at work.\n\"'\"you should be in bed,\" i said. \"come back to your duties when you\nare stronger.\"\n\"'she looked at me with so strange an expression that i began to\nsuspect that her brain was affected.\n\"'\"i am strong enough, mr. musgrave,\" said she.\n\"'\"we will see what the doctor says,\" i answered. \"you must stop work\nnow, and when you go downstairs just say that i wish to see brunton.\"\n\"'\"the butler is gone,\" said she.\n\"'\"gone! gone where?\"\n\"'\"he is gone. no one has seen him. he is not in his room. oh, yes,\nhe is gone, he is gone!\" she fell back against the wall with shriek\nafter shriek of laughter, while i, horrified at this sudden\nhysterical attack, rushed to the bell to summon help. the girl was\ntaken to her room, still screaming and sobbing, while i made\ninquiries about brunton. there was no doubt about it that he had\ndisappeared. his bed had not been slept in, he had been seen by no\none since he had retired to his room the night before, and yet it was\ndifficult to see how he could have left the house, as both windows\nand doors were found to be fastened in the morning. his clothes, his\nwatch, and even his money were in his room, but the black suit which\nhe usually wore was missing. his slippers, too, were gone, but his\nboots were left behind. where then could butler brunton have gone in\nthe night, and what could have become of him now?\n\"'of course we searched the house from cellar to garret, but there\nwas no trace of him. it is, as i have said, a labyrinth of an old\nhouse, especially the original wing, which is now practically\nuninhabited; but we ransacked every room and cellar without\ndiscovering the least sign of the missing man. it was incredible to\nme that he could have gone away leaving all his property behind him,\nand yet where could he be? i called in the local police, but without\nsuccess. rain had fallen on the night before and we examined the lawn\nand the paths all round the house, but in vain. matters were in this\nstate, when a new development quite drew our attention away from the\noriginal mystery.\n\"'for two days rachel howells had been so ill, sometimes delirious,\nsometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit up with\nher at night. on the third night after brunton's disappearance, the\nnurse, finding her patient sleeping nicely, had dropped into a nap in\nthe arm-chair, when she woke in the early morning to find the bed\nempty, the window open, and no signs of the invalid. i was instantly\naroused, and, with the two footmen, started off at once in search of\nthe missing girl. it was not difficult to tell the direction which\nshe had taken, for, starting from under her window, we could follow\nher footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where\nthey vanished close to the gravel path which leads out of the\ngrounds. the lake there is eight feet deep, and you can imagine our\nfeelings when we saw that the trail of the poor demented girl came to\nan end at the edge of it.\n\"'of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work to recover the\nremains, but no trace of the body could we find. on the other hand,\nwe brought to the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. it was\na linen bag which contained within it a mass of old rusted and\ndiscolored metal and several dull-colored pieces of pebble or glass.\nthis strange find was all that we could get from the mere, and,\nalthough we made every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know\nnothing of the fate either of rachel howells or of richard brunton.\nthe county police are at their wits' end, and i have come up to you\nas a last resource.'\n\"you can imagine, watson, with what eagerness i listened to this\nextraordinary sequence of events, and endeavored to piece them\ntogether, and to devise some common thread upon which they might all\nhang. the butler was gone. the maid was gone. the maid had loved the\nbutler, but had afterwards had cause to hate him. she was of welsh\nblood, fiery and passionate. she had been terribly excited\nimmediately after his disappearance. she had flung into the lake a\nbag containing some curious contents. these were all factors which\nhad to be taken into consideration, and yet none of them got quite to\nthe heart of the matter. what was the starting-point of this chain of\nevents? there lay the end of this tangled line.\n\"'i must see that paper, musgrave,' said i, 'which this butler of\nyour thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the\nloss of his place.'\n\"'it is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,' he answered.\n'but it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. i\nhave a copy of the questions and answers here if you care to run your\neye over them.'\n\"he handed me the very paper which i have here, watson, and this is\nthe strange catechism to which each musgrave had to submit when he\ncame to man's estate. i will read you the questions and answers as\nthey stand.\n\"'whose was it?'\n\"'his who is gone.'\n\"'who shall have it?'\n\"'he who will come.'\n\"'what was the month?'\n\"'the sixth from the first.'\n\"'where was the sun?'\n\"'over the oak.'\n\"'where was the shadow?'\n\"'under the elm.'\n\"'how was it stepped?'\n\"'north by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and\nby two, west by one and by one, and so under.'\n\"'what shall we give for it?'\n\"'all that is ours.'\n\"'why should we give it?'\n\"'for the sake of the trust.'\n\"'the original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of\nthe seventeenth century,' remarked musgrave. 'i am afraid, however,\nthat it can be of little help to you in solving this mystery.'\n\"'at least,' said i, 'it gives us another mystery, and one which is\neven more interesting than the first. it may be that the solution of\nthe one may prove to be the solution of the other. you will excuse\nme, musgrave, if i say that your butler appears to me to have been a\nvery clever man, and to have had a clearer insight that ten\ngenerations of his masters.'\n\"'i hardly follow you,' said musgrave. 'the paper seems to me to be\nof no practical importance.'\n\"'but to me it seems immensely practical, and i fancy that brunton\ntook the same view. he had probably seen it before that night on\nwhich you caught him.'\n\"'it is very possible. we took no pains to hide it.'\n\"'he simply wished, i should imagine, to refresh his memory upon that\nlast occasion. he had, as i understand, some sort of map or chart\nwhich he was comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust into\nhis pocket when you appeared.'\n\"'that is true. but what could he have to do with this old family\ncustom of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?'\n\"'i don't think that we should have much difficulty in determining\nthat,' said i; 'with your permission we will take the first train\ndown to sussex, and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the\nspot.'\n\"the same afternoon saw us both at hurlstone. possibly you have seen\npictures and read descriptions of the famous old building, so i will\nconfine my account of it to saying that it is built in the shape of\nan l, the long arm being the more modern portion, and the shorter the\nancient nucleus, from which the other had developed. over the low,\nheavily-lintelled door, in the centre of this old part, is chiseled\nthe date, 1607, but experts are agreed that the beams and stone-work\nare really much older than this. the enormously thick walls and tiny\nwindows of this part had in the last century driven the family into\nbuilding the new wing, and the old one was used now as a store-house\nand a cellar, when it was used at all. a splendid park with fine old\ntimber surrounds the house, and the lake, to which my client had\nreferred, lay close to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the\nbuilding.\n\"i was already firmly convinced, watson, that there were not three\nseparate mysteries here, but one only, and that if i could read the\nmusgrave ritual aright i should hold in my hand the clue which would\nlead me to the truth concerning both the butler brunton and the maid\nhowells. to that then i turned all my energies. why should this\nservant be so anxious to master this old formula? evidently because\nhe saw something in it which had escaped all those generations of\ncountry squires, and from which he expected some personal advantage.\nwhat was it then, and how had it affected his fate?\n\"it was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the ritual, that the\nmeasurements must refer to some spot to which the rest of the\ndocument alluded, and that if we could find that spot, we should be\nin a fair way towards finding what the secret was which the old\nmusgraves had thought it necessary to embalm in so curious a fashion.\nthere were two guides given us to start with, an oak and an elm. as\nto the oak there could be no question at all. right in front of the\nhouse, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch\namong oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that i have ever seen.\n\"'that was there when your ritual was drawn up,' said i, as we drove\npast it.\n\"'it was there at the norman conquest in all probability,' he\nanswered. 'it has a girth of twenty-three feet.'\n\"here was one of my fixed points secured.\n\"'have you any old elms?' i asked.\n\"'there used to be a very old one over yonder but it was struck by\nlightning ten years ago, and we cut down the stump,'\n\"'you can see where it used to be?'\n\"'oh, yes.'\n\"'there are no other elms?'\n\"'no old ones, but plenty of beeches.'\n\"'i should like to see where it grew.'\n\"we had driven up in a dogcart, and my client led me away at once,\nwithout our entering the house, to the scar on the lawn where the elm\nhad stood. it was nearly midway between the oak and the house. my\ninvestigation seemed to be progressing.\n\"'i suppose it is impossible to find out how high the elm was?' i\nasked.\n\"'i can give you it at once. it was sixty-four feet.'\n\"'how do you come to know it?' i asked, in surprise.\n\"'when my old tutor used to give me an exercise in trigonometry, it\nalways took the shape of measuring heights. when i was a lad i worked\nout every tree and building in the estate.'\n\"this was an unexpected piece of luck. my data were coming more\nquickly than i could have reasonably hoped.\n\"'tell me,' i asked, 'did your butler ever ask you such a question?'\n\"reginald musgrave looked at me in astonishment. 'now that you call\nit to my mind,' he answered, 'brunton did ask me about the height of\nthe tree some months ago, in connection with some little argument\nwith the groom.'\n\"this was excellent news, watson, for it showed me that i was on the\nright road. i looked up at the sun. it was low in the heavens, and i\ncalculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the\ntopmost branches of the old oak. one condition mentioned in the\nritual would then be fulfilled. and the shadow of the elm must mean\nthe farther end of the shadow, otherwise the trunk would have been\nchosen as the guide. i had, then, to find where the far end of the\nshadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the oak.\"\n\"that must have been difficult, holmes, when the elm was no longer\nthere.\"\n\"well, at least i knew that if brunton could do it, i could also.\nbesides, there was no real difficulty. i went with musgrave to his\nstudy and whittled myself this peg, to which i tied this long string\nwith a knot at each yard. then i took two lengths of a fishing-rod,\nwhich came to just six feet, and i went back with my client to where\nthe elm had been. the sun was just grazing the top of the oak. i\nfastened the rod on end, marked out the direction of the shadow, and\nmeasured it. it was nine feet in length.\n\"of course the calculation now was a simple one. if a rod of six feet\nthrew a shadow of nine, a tree of sixty-four feet would throw one of\nninety-six, and the line of the one would of course be the line of\nthe other. i measured out the distance, which brought me almost to\nthe wall of the house, and i thrust a peg into the spot. you can\nimagine my exultation, watson, when within two inches of my peg i saw\na conical depression in the ground. i knew that it was the mark made\nby brunton in his measurements, and that i was still upon his trail.\n\"from this starting-point i proceeded to step, having first taken the\ncardinal points by my pocket-compass. ten steps with each foot took\nme along parallel with the wall of the house, and again i marked my\nspot with a peg. then i carefully paced off five to the east and two\nto the south. it brought me to the very threshold of the old door.\ntwo steps to the west meant now that i was to go two paces down the\nstone-flagged passage, and this was the place indicated by the\nritual.\n\"never have i felt such a cold chill of disappointment, watson. for a\nmoment it seemed to me that there must be some radical mistake in my\ncalculations. the setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and\ni could see that the old, foot-worn gray stones with which it was\npaved were firmly cemented together, and had certainly not been moved\nfor many a long year. brunton had not been at work here. i tapped\nupon the floor, but it sounded the same all over, and there was no\nsign of any crack or crevice. but fortunately, musgrave, who had\nbegun to appreciate the meaning of my proceedings, and who was now as\nexcited as myself, took out his manuscript to check my calculation.\n\"'and under,' he cried. 'you have omitted the \"and under.\"'\n\"i had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but now, of course,\ni saw at once that i was wrong. 'there is a cellar under this then?'\ni cried.\n\"'yes, and as old as the house. down here, through this door.'\n\"we went down a winding stone stair, and my companion, striking a\nmatch, lit a large lantern which stood on a barrel in the corner. in\nan instant it was obvious that we had at last come upon the true\nplace, and that we had not been the only people to visit the spot\nrecently.\n\"it had been used for the storage of wood, but the billets, which had\nevidently been littered over the floor, were now piled at the sides,\nso as to leave a clear space in the middle. in this space lay a large\nand heavy flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the centre to which a\nthick shepherd's-check muffler was attached.\n\"'by jove!' cried my client. 'that's brunton's muffler. i have seen\nit on him, and could swear to it. what has the villain been doing\nhere?'\n\"at my suggestion a couple of the county police were summoned to be\npresent, and i then endeavored to raise the stone by pulling on the\ncravat. i could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one\nof the constables that i succeeded at last in carrying it to one\nside. a black hole yawned beneath into which we all peered, while\nmusgrave, kneeling at the side, pushed down the lantern.\n\"a small chamber about seven feet deep and four feet square lay open\nto us. at one side of this was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the\nlid of which was hinged upwards, with this curious old-fashioned key\nprojecting from the lock. it was furred outside by a thick layer of\ndust, and damp and worms had eaten through the wood, so that a crop\nof livid fungi was growing on the inside of it. several discs of\nmetal, old coins apparently, such as i hold here, were scattered over\nthe bottom of the box, but it contained nothing else.\n\"at the moment, however, we had no thought for the old chest, for our\neyes were riveted upon that which crouched beside it. it was the\nfigure of a man, clad in a suit of black, who squatted down upon his\nhams with his forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and his two arms\nthrown out on each side of it. the attitude had drawn all the\nstagnant blood to the face, and no man could have recognized that\ndistorted liver-colored countenance; but his height, his dress, and\nhis hair were all sufficient to show my client, when we had drawn the\nbody up, that it was indeed his missing butler. he had been dead some\ndays, but there was no wound or bruise upon his person to show how he\nhad met his dreadful end. when his body had been carried from the\ncellar we found ourselves still confronted with a problem which was\nalmost as formidable as that with which we had started.\n\"i confess that so far, watson, i had been disappointed in my\ninvestigation. i had reckoned upon solving the matter when once i had\nfound the place referred to in the ritual; but now i was there, and\nwas apparently as far as ever from knowing what it was which the\nfamily had concealed with such elaborate precautions. it is true that\ni had thrown a light upon the fate of brunton, but now i had to\nascertain how that fate had come upon him, and what part had been\nplayed in the matter by the woman who had disappeared. i sat down\nupon a keg in the corner and thought the whole matter carefully over.\n\"you know my methods in such cases, watson. i put myself in the man's\nplace and, having first gauged his intelligence, i try to imagine how\ni should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. in this\ncase the matter was simplified by brunton's intelligence being quite\nfirst-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the\npersonal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. he knew that\nsomething valuable was concealed. he had spotted the place. he found\nthat the stone which covered it was just too heavy for a man to move\nunaided. what would he do next? he could not get help from outside,\neven if he had some one whom he could trust, without the unbarring of\ndoors and considerable risk of detection. it was better, if he could,\nto have his helpmate inside the house. but whom could he ask? this\ngirl had been devoted to him. a man always finds it hard to realize\nthat he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may\nhave treated her. he would try by a few attentions to make his peace\nwith the girl howells, and then would engage her as his accomplice.\ntogether they would come at night to the cellar, and their united\nforce would suffice to raise the stone. so far i could follow their\nactions as if i had actually seen them.\n\"but for two of them, and one a woman, it must have been heavy work\nthe raising of that stone. a burly sussex policeman and i had found\nit no light job. what would they do to assist them? probably what i\nshould have done myself. i rose and examined carefully the different\nbillets of wood which were scattered round the floor. almost at once\ni came upon what i expected. one piece, about three feet in length,\nhad a very marked indentation at one end, while several were\nflattened at the sides as if they had been compressed by some\nconsiderable weight. evidently, as they had dragged the stone up they\nhad thrust the chunks of wood into the chink, until at last, when the\nopening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by\na billet placed lengthwise, which might very well become indented at\nthe lower end, since the whole weight of the stone would press it\ndown on to the edge of this other slab. so far i was still on safe\nground.\n\"and now how was i to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama?\nclearly, only one could fit into the hole, and that one was brunton.\nthe girl must have waited above. brunton then unlocked the box,\nhanded up the contents presumably--since they were not to be\nfound--and then--and then what happened?\n\"what smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in\nthis passionate celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had\nwronged her--wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected--in her\npower? was it a chance that the wood had slipped, and that the stone\nhad shut brunton into what had become his sepulchre? had she only\nbeen guilty of silence as to his fate? or had some sudden blow from\nher hand dashed the support away and sent the slab crashing down into\nits place? be that as it might, i seemed to see that woman's figure\nstill clutching at her treasure trove and flying wildly up the\nwinding stair, with her ears ringing perhaps with the muffled screams\nfrom behind her and with the drumming of frenzied hands against the\nslab of stone which was choking her faithless lover's life out.\n\"here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her\npeals of hysterical laughter on the next morning. but what had been\nin the box? what had she done with that? of course, it must have been\nthe old metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere.\nshe had thrown them in there at the first opportunity to remove the\nlast trace of her crime.\n\"for twenty minutes i had sat motionless, thinking the matter out.\nmusgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his lantern and\npeering down into the hole.\n\"'these are coins of charles the first,' said he, holding out the few\nwhich had been in the box; 'you see we were right in fixing our date\nfor the ritual.'\n\"'we may find something else of charles the first,' i cried, as the\nprobable meaning of the first two question of the ritual broke\nsuddenly upon me. 'let me see the contents of the bag which you\nfished from the mere.'\n\"we ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me. i could\nunderstand his regarding it as of small importance when i looked at\nit, for the metal was almost black and the stones lustreless and\ndull. i rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed\nafterwards like a spark in the dark hollow of my hand. the metal work\nwas in the form of a double ring, but it had been bent and twisted\nout of its original shape.\n\"'you must bear in mind,' said i, 'that the royal party made head in\nengland even after the death of the king, and that when they at last\nfled they probably left many of their most precious possessions\nburied behind them, with the intention of returning for them in more\npeaceful times.'\n\"'my ancestor, sir ralph musgrave, was a prominent cavalier and the\nright-hand man of charles the second in his wanderings,' said my\nfriend.\n\"'ah, indeed!' i answered. 'well now, i think that really should give\nus the last link that we wanted. i must congratulate you on coming\ninto the possession, though in rather a tragic manner, of a relic\nwhich is of great intrinsic value, but of even greater importance as\nan historical curiosity.'\n\"'what is it, then?' he gasped in astonishment.\n\"'it is nothing less than the ancient crown of the kings of england.'\n\"'the crown!'\n\"'precisely. consider what the ritual says: how does it run? \"whose\nwas it?\" \"his who is gone.\" that was after the execution of charles.\nthen, \"who shall have it?\" \"he who will come.\" that was charles the\nsecond, whose advent was already foreseen. there can, i think, be no\ndoubt that this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the\nbrows of the royal stuarts.'\n\"'and how came it in the pond?'\n\"'ah, that is a question that will take some time to answer.' and\nwith that i sketched out to him the whole long chain of surmise and\nof proof which i had constructed. the twilight had closed in and the\nmoon was shining brightly in the sky before my narrative was\nfinished.\n\"'and how was it then that charles did not get his crown when he\nreturned?' asked musgrave, pushing back the relic into its linen bag.\n\"'ah, there you lay your finger upon the one point which we shall\nprobably never be able to clear up. it is likely that the musgrave\nwho held the secret died in the interval, and by some oversight left\nthis guide to his descendant without explaining the meaning of it.\nfrom that day to this it has been handed down from father to son,\nuntil at last it came within reach of a man who tore its secret out\nof it and lost his life in the venture.'\n\"and that's the story of the musgrave ritual, watson. they have the\ncrown down at hurlstone--though they had some legal bother and a\nconsiderable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. i am\nsure that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to\nyou. of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that\nshe got away out of england and carried herself and the memory of her\ncrime to some land beyond the seas.\"\nthe reigate squires\nit was some time before the health of my friend mr. sherlock holmes\nrecovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the\nspring of '87. the whole question of the netherland-sumatra company\nand of the colossal schemes of baron maupertuis are too recent in the\nminds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics\nand finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches. they\nled, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex\nproblem which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the\nvalue of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his\nlife-long battle against crime.\non referring to my notes i see that it was upon the 14th of april\nthat i received a telegram from lyons which informed me that holmes\nwas lying ill in the hotel dulong. within twenty-four hours i was in\nhis sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was nothing\nformidable in his symptoms. even his iron constitution, however, had\nbroken down under the strain of an investigation which had extended\nover two months, during which period he had never worked less than\nfifteen hours a day, and had more than once, as he assured me, kept\nto his task for five days at a stretch. even the triumphant issue of\nhis labors could not save him from reaction after so terrible an\nexertion, and at a time when europe was ringing with his name and\nwhen his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams\ni found him a prey to the blackest depression. even the knowledge\nthat he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed,\nand that he had outmanoeuvred at every point the most accomplished\nswindler in europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous\nprostration.\nthree days later we were back in baker street together; but it was\nevident that my friend would be much the better for a change, and the\nthought of a week of spring time in the country was full of\nattractions to me also. my old friend, colonel hayter, who had come\nunder my professional care in afghanistan, had now taken a house near\nreigate in surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to him\nupon a visit. on the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend\nwould only come with me he would be glad to extend his hospitality to\nhim also. a little diplomacy was needed, but when holmes understood\nthat the establishment was a bachelor one, and that he would be\nallowed the fullest freedom, he fell in with my plans and a week\nafter our return from lyons we were under the colonel's roof. hayter\nwas a fine old soldier who had seen much of the world, and he soon\nfound, as i had expected, that holmes and he had much in common.\non the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the colonel's\ngun-room after dinner, holmes stretched upon the sofa, while hayter\nand i looked over his little armory of eastern weapons.\n\"by the way,\" said he suddenly, \"i think i'll take one of these\npistols upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.\"\n\"an alarm!\" said i.\n\"yes, we've had a scare in this part lately. old acton, who is one of\nour county magnates, had his house broken into last monday. no great\ndamage done, but the fellows are still at large.\"\n\"no clue?\" asked holmes, cocking his eye at the colonel.\n\"none as yet. but the affair is a pretty one, one of our little\ncountry crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, mr.\nholmes, after this great international affair.\"\nholmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it had\npleased him.\n\"was there any feature of interest?\"\n\"i fancy not. the thieves ransacked the library and got very little\nfor their pains. the whole place was turned upside down, drawers\nburst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume\nof pope's homer, two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a\nsmall oak barometer, and a ball of twine are all that have vanished.\"\n\"what an extraordinary assortment!\" i exclaimed.\n\"oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything they could\nget.\"\nholmes grunted from the sofa.\n\"the county police ought to make something of that,\" said he; \"why,\nit is surely obvious that--\"\nbut i held up a warning finger.\n\"you are here for a rest, my dear fellow. for heaven's sake don't get\nstarted on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation\ntowards the colonel, and the talk drifted away into less dangerous\nchannels.\nit was destined, however, that all my professional caution should be\nwasted, for next morning the problem obtruded itself upon us in such\na way that it was impossible to ignore it, and our country visit took\na turn which neither of us could have anticipated. we were at\nbreakfast when the colonel's butler rushed in with all his propriety\nshaken out of him.\n\"have you heard the news, sir?\" he gasped. \"at the cunningham's sir!\"\n\"burglary!\" cried the colonel, with his coffee-cup in mid-air.\n\"murder!\"\nthe colonel whistled. \"by jove!\" said he. \"who's killed, then? the\nj.p. or his son?\"\n\"neither, sir. it was william the coachman. shot through the heart,\nsir, and never spoke again.\"\n\"who shot him, then?\"\n\"the burglar, sir. he was off like a shot and got clean away. he'd\njust broke in at the pantry window when william came on him and met\nhis end in saving his master's property.\"\n\"what time?\"\n\"it was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.\"\n\"ah, then, we'll step over afterwards,\" said the colonel, coolly\nsettling down to his breakfast again. \"it's a baddish business,\" he\nadded when the butler had gone; \"he's our leading man about here, is\nold cunningham, and a very decent fellow too. he'll be cut up over\nthis, for the man has been in his service for years and was a good\nservant. it's evidently the same villains who broke into acton's.\"\n\"and stole that very singular collection,\" said holmes, thoughtfully.\n\"precisely.\"\n\"hum! it may prove the simplest matter in the world, but all the same\nat first glance this is just a little curious, is it not? a gang of\nburglars acting in the country might be expected to vary the scene of\ntheir operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same district\nwithin a few days. when you spoke last night of taking precautions i\nremember that it passed through my mind that this was probably the\nlast parish in england to which the thief or thieves would be likely\nto turn their attention--which shows that i have still much to\nlearn.\"\n\"i fancy it's some local practitioner,\" said the colonel. \"in that\ncase, of course, acton's and cunningham's are just the places he\nwould go for, since they are far the largest about here.\"\n\"and richest?\"\n\"well, they ought to be, but they've had a lawsuit for some years\nwhich has sucked the blood out of both of them, i fancy. old acton\nhas some claim on half cunningham's estate, and the lawyers have been\nat it with both hands.\"\n\"if it's a local villain there should not be much difficulty in\nrunning him down,\" said holmes with a yawn. \"all right, watson, i\ndon't intend to meddle.\"\n\"inspector forrester, sir,\" said the butler, throwing open the door.\nthe official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow, stepped into the\nroom. \"good-morning, colonel,\" said he; \"i hope i don't intrude, but\nwe hear that mr. holmes of baker street is here.\"\nthe colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the inspector\nbowed.\n\"we thought that perhaps you would care to step across, mr. holmes.\"\n\"the fates are against you, watson,\" said he, laughing. \"we were\nchatting about the matter when you came in, inspector. perhaps you\ncan let us have a few details.\" as he leaned back in his chair in the\nfamiliar attitude i knew that the case was hopeless.\n\"we had no clue in the acton affair. but here we have plenty to go\non, and there's no doubt it is the same party in each case. the man\nwas seen.\"\n\"ah!\"\n\"yes, sir. but he was off like a deer after the shot that killed poor\nwilliam kirwan was fired. mr. cunningham saw him from the bedroom\nwindow, and mr. alec cunningham saw him from the back passage. it was\nquarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. mr. cunningham had just\ngot into bed, and mr. alec was smoking a pipe in his dressing-gown.\nthey both heard william the coachman calling for help, and mr. alec\nran down to see what was the matter. the back door was open, and as\nhe came to the foot of the stairs he saw two men wrestling together\noutside. one of them fired a shot, the other dropped, and the\nmurderer rushed across the garden and over the hedge. mr. cunningham,\nlooking out of his bedroom, saw the fellow as he gained the road, but\nlost sight of him at once. mr. alec stopped to see if he could help\nthe dying man, and so the villain got clean away. beyond the fact\nthat he was a middle-sized man and dressed in some dark stuff, we\nhave no personal clue; but we are making energetic inquiries, and if\nhe is a stranger we shall soon find him out.\"\n\"what was this william doing there? did he say anything before he\ndied?\"\n\"not a word. he lives at the lodge with his mother, and as he was a\nvery faithful fellow we imagine that he walked up to the house with\nthe intention of seeing that all was right there. of course this\nacton business has put every one on their guard. the robber must have\njust burst open the door--the lock has been forced--when william came\nupon him.\"\n\"did william say anything to his mother before going out?\"\n\"she is very old and deaf, and we can get no information from her.\nthe shock has made her half-witted, but i understand that she was\nnever very bright. there is one very important circumstance, however.\nlook at this!\"\nhe took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book and spread it\nout upon his knee.\n\"this was found between the finger and thumb of the dead man. it\nappears to be a fragment torn from a larger sheet. you will observe\nthat the hour mentioned upon it is the very time at which the poor\nfellow met his fate. you see that his murderer might have torn the\nrest of the sheet from him or he might have taken this fragment from\nthe murderer. it reads almost as though it were an appointment.\"\nholmes took up the scrap of paper, a facsimile of which is here\nreproduced.\n[ picture: scrap showing the words: at quarter to twelve, learn what,\nmay be ]\n\"presuming that it is an appointment,\" continued the inspector, \"it\nis of course a conceivable theory that this william kirwan--though he\nhad the reputation of being an honest man, may have been in league\nwith the thief. he may have met him there, may even have helped him\nto break in the door, and then they may have fallen out between\nthemselves.\"\n\"this writing is of extraordinary interest,\" said holmes, who had\nbeen examining it with intense concentration. \"these are much deeper\nwaters than i had thought.\" he sank his head upon his hands, while\nthe inspector smiled at the effect which his case had had upon the\nfamous london specialist.\n\"your last remark,\" said holmes, presently, \"as to the possibility of\nthere being an understanding between the burglar and the servant, and\nthis being a note of appointment from one to the other, is an\ningenious and not entirely impossible supposition. but this writing\nopens up--\" he sank his head into his hands again and remained for\nsome minutes in the deepest thought. when he raised his face again, i\nwas surprised to see that his cheek was tinged with color, and his\neyes as bright as before his illness. he sprang to his feet with all\nhis old energy.\n\"i'll tell you what,\" said he, \"i should like to have a quiet little\nglance into the details of this case. there is something in it which\nfascinates me extremely. if you will permit me, colonel, i will leave\nmy friend watson and you, and i will step round with the inspector to\ntest the truth of one or two little fancies of mine. i will be with\nyou again in half an hour.\"\nan hour and half had elapsed before the inspector returned alone.\n\"mr. holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,\" said he.\n\"he wants us all four to go up to the house together.\"\n\"to mr. cunningham's?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"what for?\"\nthe inspector shrugged his shoulders. \"i don't quite know, sir.\nbetween ourselves, i think mr. holmes had not quite got over his\nillness yet. he's been behaving very queerly, and he is very much\nexcited.\"\n\"i don't think you need alarm yourself,\" said i. \"i have usually\nfound that there was method in his madness.\"\n\"some folks might say there was madness in his method,\" muttered the\ninspector. \"but he's all on fire to start, colonel, so we had best go\nout if you are ready.\"\nwe found holmes pacing up and down in the field, his chin sunk upon\nhis breast, and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.\n\"the matter grows in interest,\" said he. \"watson, your country-trip\nhas been a distinct success. i have had a charming morning.\"\n\"you have been up to the scene of the crime, i understand,\" said the\ncolonel.\n\"yes; the inspector and i have made quite a little reconnaissance\ntogether.\"\n\"any success?\"\n\"well, we have seen some very interesting things. i'll tell you what\nwe did as we walk. first of all, we saw the body of this unfortunate\nman. he certainly died from a revolver wound as reported.\"\n\"had you doubted it, then?\"\n\"oh, it is as well to test everything. our inspection was not wasted.\nwe then had an interview with mr. cunningham and his son, who were\nable to point out the exact spot where the murderer had broken\nthrough the garden-hedge in his flight. that was of great interest.\"\n\"naturally.\"\n\"then we had a look at this poor fellow's mother. we could get no\ninformation from her, however, as she is very old and feeble.\"\n\"and what is the result of your investigations?\"\n\"the conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one. perhaps our\nvisit now may do something to make it less obscure. i think that we\nare both agreed, inspector, that the fragment of paper in the dead\nman's hand, bearing, as it does, the very hour of his death written\nupon it, is of extreme importance.\"\n\"it should give a clue, mr. holmes.\"\n\"it does give a clue. whoever wrote that note was the man who brought\nwilliam kirwan out of his bed at that hour. but where is the rest of\nthat sheet of paper?\"\n\"i examined the ground carefully in the hope of finding it,\" said the\ninspector.\n\"it was torn out of the dead man's hand. why was some one so anxious\nto get possession of it? because it incriminated him. and what would\nhe do with it? thrust it into his pocket, most likely, never noticing\nthat a corner of it had been left in the grip of the corpse. if we\ncould get the rest of that sheet it is obvious that we should have\ngone a long way towards solving the mystery.\"\n\"yes, but how can we get at the criminal's pocket before we catch the\ncriminal?\"\n\"well, well, it was worth thinking over. then there is another\nobvious point. the note was sent to william. the man who wrote it\ncould not have taken it; otherwise, of course, he might have\ndelivered his own message by word of mouth. who brought the note,\nthen? or did it come through the post?\"\n\"i have made inquiries,\" said the inspector. \"william received a\nletter by the afternoon post yesterday. the envelope was destroyed by\nhim.\"\n\"excellent!\" cried holmes, clapping the inspector on the back.\n\"you've seen the postman. it is a pleasure to work with you. well,\nhere is the lodge, and if you will come up, colonel, i will show you\nthe scene of the crime.\"\nwe passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived, and\nwalked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old queen anne house, which\nbears the date of malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. holmes and\nthe inspector led us round it until we came to the side gate, which\nis separated by a stretch of garden from the hedge which lines the\nroad. a constable was standing at the kitchen door.\n\"throw the door open, officer,\" said holmes. \"now, it was on those\nstairs that young mr. cunningham stood and saw the two men struggling\njust where we are. old mr. cunningham was at that window--the second\non the left--and he saw the fellow get away just to the left of that\nbush. so did the son. they are both sure of it on account of the\nbush. then mr. alec ran out and knelt beside the wounded man. the\nground is very hard, you see, and there are no marks to guide us.\" as\nhe spoke two men came down the garden path, from round the angle of\nthe house. the one was an elderly man, with a strong, deep-lined,\nheavy-eyed face; the other a dashing young fellow, whose bright,\nsmiling expression and showy dress were in strange contrast with the\nbusiness which had brought us there.\n\"still at it, then?\" said he to holmes. \"i thought you londoners were\nnever at fault. you don't seem to be so very quick, after all.\"\n\"ah, you must give us a little time,\" said holmes good-humoredly.\n\"you'll want it,\" said young alec cunningham. \"why, i don't see that\nwe have any clue at all.\"\n\"there's only one,\" answered the inspector. \"we thought that if we\ncould only find--good heavens, mr. holmes! what is the matter?\"\nmy poor friend's face had suddenly assumed the most dreadful\nexpression. his eyes rolled upwards, his features writhed in agony,\nand with a suppressed groan he dropped on his face upon the ground.\nhorrified at the suddenness and severity of the attack, we carried\nhim into the kitchen, where he lay back in a large chair, and\nbreathed heavily for some minutes. finally, with a shamefaced apology\nfor his weakness, he rose once more.\n\"watson would tell you that i have only just recovered from a severe\nillness,\" he explained. \"i am liable to these sudden nervous\nattacks.\"\n\"shall i send you home in my trap?\" asked old cunningham.\n\"well, since i am here, there is one point on which i should like to\nfeel sure. we can very easily verify it.\"\n\"what was it?\"\n\"well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival of\nthis poor fellow william was not before, but after, the entrance of\nthe burglary into the house. you appear to take it for granted that,\nalthough the door was forced, the robber never got in.\"\n\"i fancy that is quite obvious,\" said mr. cunningham, gravely. \"why,\nmy son alec had not yet gone to bed, and he would certainly have\nheard any one moving about.\"\n\"where was he sitting?\"\n\"i was smoking in my dressing-room.\"\n\"which window is that?\"\n\"the last on the left next my father's.\"\n\"both of your lamps were lit, of course?\"\n\"undoubtedly.\"\n\"there are some very singular points here,\" said holmes, smiling. \"is\nit not extraordinary that a burglary--and a burglar who had had some\nprevious experience--should deliberately break into a house at a time\nwhen he could see from the lights that two of the family were still\nafoot?\"\n\"he must have been a cool hand.\"\n\"well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not have\nbeen driven to ask you for an explanation,\" said young mr. alec. \"but\nas to your ideas that the man had robbed the house before william\ntackled him, i think it a most absurd notion. wouldn't we have found\nthe place disarranged, and missed the things which he had taken?\"\n\"it depends on what the things were,\" said holmes. \"you must remember\nthat we are dealing with a burglar who is a very peculiar fellow, and\nwho appears to work on lines of his own. look, for example, at the\nqueer lot of things which he took from acton's--what was it?--a ball\nof string, a letter-weight, and i don't know what other odds and\nends.\"\n\"well, we are quite in your hands, mr. holmes,\" said old cunningham.\n\"anything which you or the inspector may suggest will most certainly\nbe done.\"\n\"in the first place,\" said holmes, \"i should like you to offer a\nreward--coming from yourself, for the officials may take a little\ntime before they would agree upon the sum, and these things cannot be\ndone too promptly. i have jotted down the form here, if you would not\nmind signing it. fifty pound was quite enough, i thought.\"\n\"i would willingly give five hundred,\" said the j.p., taking the slip\nof paper and the pencil which holmes handed to him. \"this is not\nquite correct, however,\" he added, glancing over the document.\n\"i wrote it rather hurriedly.\"\n\"you see you begin, 'whereas, at about a quarter to one on tuesday\nmorning an attempt was made,' and so on. it was at a quarter to\ntwelve, as a matter of fact.\"\ni was pained at the mistake, for i knew how keenly holmes would feel\nany slip of the kind. it was his specialty to be accurate as to fact,\nbut his recent illness had shaken him, and this one little incident\nwas enough to show me that he was still far from being himself. he\nwas obviously embarrassed for an instant, while the inspector raised\nhis eyebrows, and alec cunningham burst into a laugh. the old\ngentleman corrected the mistake, however, and handed the paper back\nto holmes.\n\"get it printed as soon as possible,\" he said; \"i think your idea is\nan excellent one.\"\nholmes put the slip of paper carefully away into his pocket-book.\n\"and now,\" said he, \"it really would be a good thing that we should\nall go over the house together and make certain that this rather\nerratic burglar did not, after all, carry anything away with him.\"\nbefore entering, holmes made an examination of the door which had\nbeen forced. it was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been\nthrust in, and the lock forced back with it. we could see the marks\nin the wood where it had been pushed in.\n\"you don't use bars, then?\" he asked.\n\"we have never found it necessary.\"\n\"you don't keep a dog?\"\n\"yes, but he is chained on the other side of the house.\"\n\"when do the servants go to bed?\"\n\"about ten.\"\n\"i understand that william was usually in bed also at that hour.\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"it is singular that on this particular night he should have been up.\nnow, i should be very glad if you would have the kindness to show us\nover the house, mr. cunningham.\"\na stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it,\nled by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house.\nit came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental\nstair which came up from the front hall. out of this landing opened\nthe drawing-room and several bedrooms, including those of mr.\ncunningham and his son. holmes walked slowly, taking keen note of the\narchitecture of the house. i could tell from his expression that he\nwas on a hot scent, and yet i could not in the least imagine in what\ndirection his inferences were leading him.\n\"my good sir,\" said mr. cunningham with some impatience, \"this is\nsurely very unnecessary. that is my room at the end of the stairs,\nand my son's is the one beyond it. i leave it to your judgment\nwhether it was possible for the thief to have come up here without\ndisturbing us.\"\n\"you must try round and get on a fresh scent, i fancy,\" said the son\nwith a rather malicious smile.\n\"still, i must ask you to humor me a little further. i should like,\nfor example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms command the\nfront. this, i understand is your son's room\"--he pushed open the\ndoor--\"and that, i presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat\nsmoking when the alarm was given. where does the window of that look\nout to?\" he stepped across the bedroom, pushed open the door, and\nglanced round the other chamber.\n\"i hope that you are satisfied now?\" said mr. cunningham, tartly.\n\"thank you, i think i have seen all that i wished.\"\n\"then if it is really necessary we can go into my room.\"\n\"if it is not too much trouble.\"\nthe j.p. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own\nchamber, which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. as we\nmoved across it in the direction of the window, holmes fell back\nuntil he and i were the last of the group. near the foot of the bed\nstood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. as we passed it\nholmes, to my unutterable astonishment, leaned over in front of me\nand deliberately knocked the whole thing over. the glass smashed into\na thousand pieces and the fruit rolled about into every corner of the\nroom.\n\"you've done it now, watson,\" said he, coolly. \"a pretty mess you've\nmade of the carpet.\"\ni stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit,\nunderstanding for some reason my companion desired me to take the\nblame upon myself. the others did the same, and set the table on its\nlegs again.\n\"hullo!\" cried the inspector, \"where's he got to?\"\nholmes had disappeared.\n\"wait here an instant,\" said young alec cunningham. \"the fellow is\noff his head, in my opinion. come with me, father, and see where he\nhas got to!\"\nthey rushed out of the room, leaving the inspector, the colonel, and\nme staring at each other.\n\"'pon my word, i am inclined to agree with master alec,\" said the\nofficial. \"it may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to me\nthat--\"\nhis words were cut short by a sudden scream of \"help! help! murder!\"\nwith a thrill i recognised the voice as that of my friend. i rushed\nmadly from the room on to the landing. the cries, which had sunk down\ninto a hoarse, inarticulate shouting, came from the room which we had\nfirst visited. i dashed in, and on into the dressing-room beyond. the\ntwo cunninghams were bending over the prostrate figure of sherlock\nholmes, the younger clutching his throat with both hands, while the\nelder seemed to be twisting one of his wrists. in an instant the\nthree of us had torn them away from him, and holmes staggered to his\nfeet, very pale and evidently greatly exhausted.\n\"arrest these men, inspector,\" he gasped.\n\"on what charge?\"\n\"that of murdering their coachman, william kirwan.\"\nthe inspector stared about him in bewilderment. \"oh, come now, mr.\nholmes,\" said he at last, \"i'm sure you don't really mean to--\"\n\"tut, man, look at their faces!\" cried holmes, curtly.\nnever, certainly, have i seen a plainer confession of guilt upon\nhuman countenances. the older man seemed numbed and dazed with a\nheavy, sullen expression upon his strongly-marked face. the son, on\nthe other hand, had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style which had\ncharacterized him, and the ferocity of a dangerous wild beast gleamed\nin his dark eyes and distorted his handsome features. the inspector\nsaid nothing, but, stepping to the door, he blew his whistle. two of\nhis constables came at the call.\n\"i have no alternative, mr. cunningham,\" said he. \"i trust that this\nmay all prove to be an absurd mistake, but you can see that--ah,\nwould you? drop it!\" he struck out with his hand, and a revolver\nwhich the younger man was in the act of cocking clattered down upon\nthe floor.\n\"keep that,\" said holmes, quietly putting his foot upon it; \"you will\nfind it useful at the trial. but this is what we really wanted.\" he\nheld up a little crumpled piece of paper.\n\"the remainder of the sheet!\" cried the inspector.\n\"precisely.\"\n\"and where was it?\"\n\"where i was sure it must be. i'll make the whole matter clear to you\npresently. i think, colonel, that you and watson might return now,\nand i will be with you again in an hour at the furthest. the\ninspector and i must have a word with the prisoners, but you will\ncertainly see me back at luncheon time.\"\nsherlock holmes was as good as his word, for about one o'clock he\nrejoined us in the colonel's smoking-room. he was accompanied by a\nlittle elderly gentleman, who was introduced to me as the mr. acton\nwhose house had been the scene of the original burglary.\n\"i wished mr. acton to be present while i demonstrated this small\nmatter to you,\" said holmes, \"for it is natural that he should take a\nkeen interest in the details. i am afraid, my dear colonel, that you\nmust regret the hour that you took in such a stormy petrel as i am.\"\n\"on the contrary,\" answered the colonel, warmly, \"i consider it the\ngreatest privilege to have been permitted to study your methods of\nworking. i confess that they quite surpass my expectations, and that\ni am utterly unable to account for your result. i have not yet seen\nthe vestige of a clue.\"\n\"i am afraid that my explanation may disillusion you but it has\nalways been my habit to hide none of my methods, either from my\nfriend watson or from any one who might take an intelligent interest\nin them. but, first, as i am rather shaken by the knocking about\nwhich i had in the dressing-room, i think that i shall help myself to\na dash of your brandy, colonel. my strength had been rather tried of\nlate.\"\n\"i trust that you had no more of those nervous attacks.\"\nsherlock holmes laughed heartily. \"we will come to that in its turn,\"\nsaid he. \"i will lay an account of the case before you in its due\norder, showing you the various points which guided me in my decision.\npray interrupt me if there is any inference which is not perfectly\nclear to you.\n\"it is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able\nto recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and\nwhich vital. otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated\ninstead of being concentrated. now, in this case there was not the\nslightest doubt in my mind from the first that the key of the whole\nmatter must be looked for in the scrap of paper in the dead man's\nhand.\n\"before going into this, i would draw your attention to the fact\nthat, if alec cunningham's narrative was correct, and if the\nassailant, after shooting william kirwan, had instantly fled, then it\nobviously could not be he who tore the paper from the dead man's\nhand. but if it was not he, it must have been alec cunningham\nhimself, for by the time that the old man had descended several\nservants were upon the scene. the point is a simple one, but the\ninspector had overlooked it because he had started with the\nsupposition that these county magnates had had nothing to do with the\nmatter. now, i make a point of never having any prejudices, and of\nfollowing docilely wherever fact may lead me, and so, in the very\nfirst stage of the investigation, i found myself looking a little\naskance at the part which had been played by mr. alec cunningham.\n\"and now i made a very careful examination of the corner of paper\nwhich the inspector had submitted to us. it was at once clear to me\nthat it formed part of a very remarkable document. here it is. do you\nnot now observed something very suggestive about it?\"\n\"it has a very irregular look,\" said the colonel.\n\"my dear sir,\" cried holmes, \"there cannot be the least doubt in the\nworld that it has been written by two persons doing alternate words.\nwhen i draw your attention to the strong t's of 'at' and 'to', and\nask you to compare them with the weak ones of 'quarter' and 'twelve,'\nyou will instantly recognize the fact. a very brief analysis of these\nfour words would enable you to say with the utmost confidence that\nthe 'learn' and the 'maybe' are written in the stronger hand, and the\n'what' in the weaker.\"\n\"by jove, it's as clear as day!\" cried the colonel. \"why on earth\nshould two men write a letter in such a fashion?\"\n\"obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the men who\ndistrusted the other was determined that, whatever was done, each\nshould have an equal hand in it. now, of the two men, it is clear\nthat the one who wrote the 'at' and 'to' was the ringleader.\"\n\"how do you get at that?\"\n\"we might deduce it from the mere character of the one hand as\ncompared with the other. but we have more assured reasons than that\nfor supposing it. if you examine this scrap with attention you will\ncome to the conclusion that the man with the stronger hand wrote all\nhis words first, leaving blanks for the other to fill up. these\nblanks were not always sufficient, and you can see that the second\nman had a squeeze to fit his 'quarter' in between the 'at' and the\n'to,' showing that the latter were already written. the man who wrote\nall his words first is undoubtedly the man who planned the affair.\"\n\"excellent!\" cried mr. acton.\n\"but very superficial,\" said holmes. \"we come now, however, to a\npoint which is of importance. you may not be aware that the deduction\nof a man's age from his writing is one which has been brought to\nconsiderable accuracy by experts. in normal cases one can place a man\nin his true decade with tolerable confidence. i say normal cases,\nbecause ill-health and physical weakness reproduce the signs of old\nage, even when the invalid is a youth. in this case, looking at the\nbold, strong hand of the one, and the rather broken-backed appearance\nof the other, which still retains its legibility although the t's\nhave begun to lose their crossing, we can say that the one was a\nyoung man and the other was advanced in years without being\npositively decrepit.\"\n\"excellent!\" cried mr. acton again.\n\"there is a further point, however, which is subtler and of greater\ninterest. there is something in common between these hands. they\nbelong to men who are blood-relatives. it may be most obvious to you\nin the greek e's, but to me there are many small points which\nindicate the same thing. i have no doubt at all that a family\nmannerism can be traced in these two specimens of writing. i am only,\nof course, giving you the leading results now of my examination of\nthe paper. there were twenty-three other deductions which would be of\nmore interest to experts than to you. they all tended to deepen the\nimpression upon my mind that the cunninghams, father and son, had\nwritten this letter.\n\"having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into the\ndetails of the crime, and to see how far they would help us. i went\nup to the house with the inspector, and saw all that was to be seen.\nthe wound upon the dead man was, as i was able to determine with\nabsolute confidence, fired from a revolver at the distance of\nsomething over four yards. there was no powder-blackening on the\nclothes. evidently, therefore, alec cunningham had lied when he said\nthat the two men were struggling when the shot was fired. again, both\nfather and son agreed as to the place where the man escaped into the\nroad. at that point, however, as it happens, there is a broadish\nditch, moist at the bottom. as there were no indications of bootmarks\nabout this ditch, i was absolutely sure not only that the cunninghams\nhad again lied, but that there had never been any unknown man upon\nthe scene at all.\n\"and now i have to consider the motive of this singular crime. to get\nat this, i endeavored first of all to solve the reason of the\noriginal burglary at mr. acton's. i understood, from something which\nthe colonel told us, that a lawsuit had been going on between you,\nmr. acton, and the cunninghams. of course, it instantly occurred to\nme that they had broken into your library with the intention of\ngetting at some document which might be of importance in the case.\"\n\"precisely so,\" said mr. acton. \"there can be no possible doubt as to\ntheir intentions. i have the clearest claim upon half of their\npresent estate, and if they could have found a single paper--which,\nfortunately, was in the strong-box of my solicitors--they would\nundoubtedly have crippled our case.\"\n\"there you are,\" said holmes, smiling. \"it was a dangerous, reckless\nattempt, in which i seem to trace the influence of young alec. having\nfound nothing they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to\nbe an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they\ncould lay their hands upon. that is all clear enough, but there was\nmuch that was still obscure. what i wanted above all was to get the\nmissing part of that note. i was certain that alec had torn it out of\nthe dead man's hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it\ninto the pocket of his dressing-gown. where else could he have put\nit? the only question was whether it was still there. it was worth an\neffort to find out, and for that object we all went up to the house.\n\"the cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the\nkitchen door. it was, of course, of the very first importance that\nthey should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise\nthey would naturally destroy it without delay. the inspector was\nabout to tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by\nthe luckiest chance in the world, i tumbled down in a sort of fit and\nso changed the conversation.\"\n\"good heavens!\" cried the colonel, laughing, \"do you mean to say all\nour sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?\"\n\"speaking professionally, it was admirably done,\" cried i, looking in\namazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new\nphase of his astuteness.\n\"it is an art which is often useful,\" said he. \"when i recovered i\nmanaged, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of\ningenuity, to get old cunningham to write the word 'twelve,' so that\ni might compare it with the 'twelve' upon the paper.\"\n\"oh, what an ass i have been!\" i exclaimed.\n\"i could see that you were commiserating with me over my weakness,\"\nsaid holmes, laughing. \"i was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain\nwhich i know that you felt. we then went upstairs together, and\nhaving entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind\nthe door, i contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage their\nattention for the moment, and slipped back to examine the pockets. i\nhad hardly got the paper, however--which was, as i had expected, in\none of them--when the two cunninghams were on me, and would, i verily\nbelieve, have murdered me then and there but for your prompt and\nfriendly aid. as it is, i feel that young man's grip on my throat\nnow, and the father has twisted my wrist round in the effort to get\nthe paper out of my hand. they saw that i must know all about it, you\nsee, and the sudden change from absolute security to complete despair\nmade them perfectly desperate.\n\"i had a little talk with old cunningham afterwards as to the motive\nof the crime. he was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect\ndemon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else's brains if he could\nhave got to his revolver. when cunningham saw that the case against\nhim was so strong he lost all heart and made a clean breast of\neverything. it seems that william had secretly followed his two\nmasters on the night when they made their raid upon mr. acton's, and\nhaving thus got them into his power, proceeded, under threats of\nexposure, to levy black-mail upon them. mr. alec, however, was a\ndangerous man to play games of that sort with. it was a stroke of\npositive genius on his part to see in the burglary scare which was\nconvulsing the country side an opportunity of plausibly getting rid\nof the man whom he feared. william was decoyed up and shot, and had\nthey only got the whole of the note and paid a little more attention\nto detail in the accessories, it is very possible that suspicion\nmight never have been aroused.\"\n\"and the note?\" i asked.\nsherlock holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.\n[ picture: paper which reads: if you will only come around at quarter\nto twelve to the east gate you will learn what will very much\nsurprise you and may be of the greatest service to you and also to\nannie morrison. but say nothing to anyone upon the matter ]\n\"it is very much the sort of thing that i expected,\" said he. \"of\ncourse, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between\nalec cunningham, william kirwan, and annie morrison. the results\nshows that the trap was skillfully baited. i am sure that you cannot\nfail to be delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p's and\nin the tails of the g's. the absence of the i-dots in the old man's\nwriting is also most characteristic. watson, i think our quiet rest\nin the country has been a distinct success, and i shall certainly\nreturn much invigorated to baker street to-morrow.\"\nthe crooked man\none summer night, a few months after my marriage, i was seated by my\nown hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day's\nwork had been an exhausting one.  my wife had already gone upstairs,\nand the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told\nme that the servants had also retired.  i had risen from my seat and\nwas knocking out the ashes of my pipe when i suddenly heard the clang\nof the bell.\ni looked at the clock.  it was a quarter to twelve.  this could not\nbe a visitor at so late an hour.  a patient, evidently, and possibly\nan all-night sitting.  with a wry face i went out into the hall and\nopened the door.  to my astonishment it was sherlock holmes who stood\nupon my step.\n\"ah, watson,\" said he, \"i hoped that i might not be too late to catch\nyou.\"\n\"my dear fellow, pray come in.\"\n\"you look surprised, and no wonder!  relieved, too, i fancy!  hum!\nyou still smoke the arcadia mixture of your bachelor days then!\nthere's no mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat.  it's easy to\ntell that you have been accustomed to wear a uniform, watson.  you'll\nnever pass as a pure-bred civilian as long as you keep that habit of\ncarrying your handkerchief in your sleeve.  could you put me up\ntonight?\"\n\"with pleasure.\"\n\"you told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and i see that\nyou have no gentleman visitor at present.  your hat-stand proclaims\nas much.\"\n\"i shall be delighted if you will stay.\"\n\"thank you.  i'll fill the vacant peg then.  sorry to see that you've\nhad the british workman in the house.  he's a token of evil.  not the\ndrains, i hope?\"\n\"no, the gas.\"\n\"ah!  he has left two nail-marks from his boot upon your linoleum\njust where the light strikes it.  no, thank you, i had some supper at\nwaterloo, but i'll smoke a pipe with you with pleasure.\"\ni handed him my pouch, and he seated himself opposite to me and\nsmoked for some time in silence.  i was well aware that nothing but\nbusiness of importance would have brought him to me at such an hour,\nso i waited patiently until he should come round to it.\n\"i see that you are professionally rather busy just now,\" said he,\nglancing very keenly across at me.\n\"yes, i've had a busy day,\" i answered.  \"it may seem very foolish in\nyour eyes,\" i added, \"but really i don't know how you deduced it.\"\nholmes chuckled to himself.\n\"i have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear watson,\" said\nhe.  \"when your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long\none you use a hansom.  as i perceive that your boots, although used,\nare by no means dirty, i cannot doubt that you are at present busy\nenough to justify the hansom.\"\n\"excellent!\" i cried.\n\"elementary,\" said he.  \"it is one of those instances where the\nreasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his\nneighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is\nthe basis of the deduction.  the same may be said, my dear fellow,\nfor the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is\nentirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in\nyour own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted\nto the reader.  now, at present i am in the position of these same\nreaders, for i hold in this hand several threads of one of the\nstrangest cases which ever perplexed a man's brain, and yet i lack\nthe one or two which are needful to complete my theory.  but i'll\nhave them, watson, i'll have them!\"  his eyes kindled and a slight\nflush sprang into his thin cheeks. for an instant the veil had lifted\nupon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. when i\nglanced again his face had resumed that red-indian composure which\nhad made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.\n\"the problem presents features of interest,\" said he.  \"i may even\nsay exceptional features of interest.  i have already looked into the\nmatter, and have come, as i think, within sight of my solution.  if\nyou could accompany me in that last step you might be of considerable\nservice to me.\"\n\"i should be delighted.\"\n\"could you go as far as aldershot to-morrow?\"\n\"i have no doubt jackson would take my practice.\"\n\"very good.  i want to start by the 11.10 from waterloo.\"\n\"that would give me time.\"\n\"then, if you are not too sleepy, i will give you a sketch of what\nhas happened, and of what remains to be done.\"\n\"i was sleepy before you came.  i am quite wakeful now.\"\n\"i will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting\nanything vital to the case.  it is conceivable that you may even have\nread some account of the matter.  it is the supposed murder of\ncolonel barclay, of the royal munsters, at aldershot, which i am\ninvestigating.\"\n\"i have heard nothing of it.\"\n\"it has not excited much attention yet, except locally.  the facts\nare only two days old.  briefly they are these:\n\"the royal munsters is, as you know, one of the most famous irish\nregiments in the british army.  it did wonders both in the crimea and\nthe mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every\npossible occasion.  it was commanded up to monday night by james\nbarclay, a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised\nto commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the mutiny, and\nso lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a\nmusket.\n\"colonel barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and\nhis wife, whose maiden name was miss nancy devoy, was the daughter of\na former color-sergeant in the same corps.  there was, therefore, as\ncan be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple\n(for they were still young) found themselves in their new\nsurroundings.  they appear, however, to have quickly adapted\nthemselves, and mrs. barclay has always, i understand, been as\npopular with the ladies of the regiment as her husband was with his\nbrother officers.  i may add that she was a woman of great beauty,\nand that even now, when she has been married for upwards of thirty\nyears, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.\n\"colonel barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy\none.  major murphy, to whom i owe most of my facts, assures me that\nhe has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair.  on the\nwhole, he thinks that barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than\nhis wife's to barclay.  he was acutely uneasy if he were absent from\nher for a day.  she, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful,\nwas less obtrusively affectionate.  but they were regarded in the\nregiment as the very model of a middle-aged couple.  there was\nabsolutely nothing in their mutual relations to prepare people for\nthe tragedy which was to follow.\n\"colonel barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in\nhis character.  he was a dashing, jovial old solder in his usual\nmood, but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself\ncapable of considerable violence and vindictiveness.  this side of\nhis nature, however, appears never to have been turned towards his\nwife.  another fact, which had struck major murphy and three out of\nfive of the other officers with whom i conversed, was the singular\nsort of depression which came upon him at times.  as the major\nexpressed it, the smile had often been struck from his mouth, as if\nby some invisible hand, when he has been joining the gaieties and\nchaff of the mess-table.  for days on end, when the mood was on him,\nhe has been sunk in the deepest gloom.  this and a certain tinge of\nsuperstition were the only unusual traits in his character which his\nbrother officers had observed.  the latter peculiarity took the form\nof a dislike to being left alone, especially after dark.  this\npuerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously manly had often\ngiven rise to comment and conjecture.\n\"the first battalion of the royal munsters (which is the old 117th)\nhas been stationed at aldershot for some years.  the married officers\nlive out of barracks, and the colonel has during all this time\noccupied a villa called lachine, about half a mile from the north\ncamp.  the house stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it\nis not more than thirty yards from the high-road.  a coachman and two\nmaids form the staff of servants.  these with their master and\nmistress were the sole occupants of lachine, for the barclays had no\nchildren, nor was it usual for them to have resident visitors.\n\"now for the events at lachine between nine and ten on the evening of\nlast monday.\n\"mrs. barclay was, it appears, a member of the roman catholic church,\nand had interested herself very much in the establishment of the\nguild of st. george, which was formed in connection with the watt\nstreet chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off\nclothing.  a meeting of the guild had been held that evening at\neight, and mrs. barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be\npresent at it.  when leaving the house she was heard by the coachman\nto make some commonplace remark to her husband, and to assure him\nthat she would be back before very long. she then called for miss\nmorrison, a young lady who lives in the next villa, and the two went\noff together to their meeting.  it lasted forty minutes, and at a\nquarter-past nine mrs. barclay returned home, having left miss\nmorrison at her door as she passed.\n\"there is a room which is used as a morning-room at lachine.  this\nfaces the road and opens by a large glass folding-door on to the\nlawn.  the lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided from the\nhighway by a low wall with an iron rail above it.  it was into this\nroom that mrs. barclay went upon her return.  the blinds were not\ndown, for the room was seldom used in the evening, but mrs. barclay\nherself lit the lamp and then rang the bell, asking jane stewart, the\nhouse-maid, to bring her a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to\nher usual habits.  the colonel had been sitting in the dining-room,\nbut hearing that his wife had returned he joined her in the\nmorning-room.  the coachman saw him cross the hall and enter it.  he\nwas never seen again alive.\n\"the tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten\nminutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to\nhear the voices of her master and mistress in furious altercation.\nshe knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned the handle,\nbut only to find that the door was locked upon the inside.  naturally\nenough she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the\ncoachman came up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was\nstill raging.  they all agreed that only two voices were to be heard,\nthose of barclay and of his wife.  barclay's remarks were subdued and\nabrupt, so that none of them were audible to the listeners.  the\nlady's, on the other hand, were most bitter, and when she raised her\nvoice could be plainly heard.  'you coward!' she repeated over and\nover again.  'what can be done now?  what can be done now?  give me\nback my life.  i will never so much as breathe the same air with you\nagain!  you coward!  you coward!'  those were scraps of her\nconversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man's voice,\nwith a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman.  convinced that\nsome tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and strove\nto force it, while scream after scream issued from within.  he was\nunable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too\ndistracted with fear to be of any assistance to him.  a sudden\nthought struck him, however, and he ran through the hall door and\nround to the lawn upon which the long french windows open.  one side\nof the window was open, which i understand was quite usual in the\nsummer-time, and he passed without difficulty into the room.  his\nmistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible upon a\ncouch, while with his feet tilted over the side of an arm-chair, and\nhis head upon the ground near the corner of the fender, was lying the\nunfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood.\n\"naturally, the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do\nnothing for his master, was to open the door.  but here an unexpected\nand singular difficulty presented itself.  the key was not in the\ninner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the room.\nhe went out again, therefore, through the window, and having obtained\nthe help of a policeman and of a medical man, he returned.  the lady,\nagainst whom naturally the strongest suspicion rested, was removed to\nher room, still in a state of insensibility.  the colonel's body was\nthen placed upon the sofa, and a careful examination made of the\nscene of the tragedy.\n\"the injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was\nfound to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the back part of his\nhead, which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt\nweapon.  nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have\nbeen.  upon the floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club\nof hard carved wood with a bone handle.  the colonel possessed a\nvaried collection of weapons brought from the different countries in\nwhich he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police that his\nclub was among his trophies.  the servants deny having seen it\nbefore, but among the numerous curiosities in the house it is\npossible that it may have been overlooked.  nothing else of\nimportance was discovered in the room by the police, save the\ninexplicable fact that neither upon mrs. barclay's person nor upon\nthat of the victim nor in any part of the room was the missing key to\nbe found.  the door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from\naldershot.\n\"that was the state of things, watson, when upon the tuesday morning\ni, at the request of major murphy, went down to aldershot to\nsupplement the efforts of the police.  i think that you will\nacknowledge that the problem was already one of interest, but my\nobservations soon made me realize that it was in truth much more\nextraordinary than would at first sight appear.\n\"before examining the room i cross-questioned the servants, but only\nsucceeded in eliciting the facts which i have already stated.  one\nother detail of interest was remembered by jane stewart, the\nhousemaid.  you will remember that on hearing the sound of the\nquarrel she descended and returned with the other servants.  on that\nfirst occasion, when she was alone, she says that the voices of her\nmaster and mistress were sunk so low that she could hear hardly\nanything, and judged by their tones rather than their words that they\nhad fallen out.  on my pressing her, however, she remembered that she\nheard the word david uttered twice by the lady.  the point is of the\nutmost importance as guiding us towards the reason of the sudden\nquarrel.  the colonel's name, you remember, was james.\n\"there was one thing in the case which had made the deepest\nimpression both upon the servants and the police.  this was the\ncontortion of the colonel's face.  it had set, according to their\naccount, into the most dreadful expression of fear and horror which a\nhuman countenance is capable of assuming.  more than one person\nfainted at the mere sight of him, so terrible was the effect.  it was\nquite certain that he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused\nhim the utmost horror.  this, of course, fitted in well enough with\nthe police theory, if the colonel could have seen his wife making a\nmurderous attack upon him.  nor was the fact of the wound being on\nthe back of his head a fatal objection to this, as he might have\nturned to avoid the blow.  no information could be got from the lady\nherself, who was temporarily insane from an acute attack of\nbrain-fever.\n\"from the police i learned that miss morrison, who you remember went\nout that evening with mrs. barclay, denied having any knowledge of\nwhat it was which had caused the ill-humor in which her companion had\nreturned.\n\"having gathered these facts, watson, i smoked several pipes over\nthem, trying to separate those which were crucial from others which\nwere merely incidental.  there could be no question that the most\ndistinctive and suggestive point in the case was the singular\ndisappearance of the door-key.  a most careful search had failed to\ndiscover it in the room.  therefore it must have been taken from it.\nbut neither the colonel nor the colonel's wife could have taken it.\nthat was perfectly clear.  therefore a third person must have entered\nthe room.  and that third person could only have come in through the\nwindow.  it seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and\nthe lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious\nindividual.  you know my methods, watson.  there was not one of them\nwhich i did not apply to the inquiry.  and it ended by my discovering\ntraces, but very different ones from those which i had expected.\nthere had been a man in the room, and he had crossed the lawn coming\nfrom the road.  i was able to obtain five very clear impressions of\nhis foot-marks:  one in the roadway itself, at the point where he had\nclimbed the low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones upon\nthe stained boards near the window where he had entered.  he had\napparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe-marks were much deeper\nthan his heels.  but it was not the man who surprised me.  it was his\ncompanion.\"\n\"his companion!\"\nholmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocket and\ncarefully unfolded it upon his knee.\n\"what do you make of that?\" he asked.\nthe paper was covered with the tracings of the foot-marks of some\nsmall animal.  it had five well-marked foot-pads, an indication of\nlong nails, and the whole print might be nearly as large as  a\ndessert-spoon.\n\"it's a dog,\" said i.\n\"did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain?  i found distinct\ntraces that this creature had done so.\"\n\"a monkey, then?\"\n\"but it is not the print of a monkey.\"\n\"what can it be, then?\"\n\"neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar\nwith.  i have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements.  here\nare four prints where the beast has been standing motionless.  you\nsee that it is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind.\nadd to that the length of neck and head, and you get a creature not\nmuch less than two feet long--probably more if there is any tail.\nbut now observe this other measurement.  the animal has been moving,\nand we have the length of its stride.  in each case it is only about\nthree inches.  you have an indication, you see, of a long body with\nvery short legs attached to it.  it has not been considerate enough\nto leave any of its hair behind it.  but its general shape must be\nwhat i have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is\ncarnivorous.\"\n\"how do you deduce that?\"\n\"because it ran up the curtain.  a canary's cage was hanging in the\nwindow, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.\"\n\"then what was the beast?\"\n\"ah, if i could give it a name it might go a long way towards solving\nthe case.  on the whole, it was probably some creature of the weasel\nand stoat tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that i have\nseen.\"\n\"but what had it to do with the crime?\"\n\"that, also, is still obscure.  but we have learned a good deal, you\nperceive.  we know that a man stood in the road looking at the\nquarrel between the barclays--the blinds were up and the room\nlighted.  we know, also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the\nroom, accompanied by a strange animal, and that he either struck the\ncolonel or, as is equally possible, that the colonel fell down from\nsheer fright at the sight of him, and cut his head on the corner of\nthe fender.  finally, we have the curious fact that the intruder\ncarried away the key with him when he left.\"\n\"your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure that it\nwas before,\" said i.\n\"quite so.  they undoubtedly showed that the affair was much deeper\nthan was at first conjectured.  i thought the matter over, and i came\nto the conclusion that i must approach the case from another aspect.\nbut really, watson, i am keeping you up, and i might just as well\ntell you all this on our way to aldershot to-morrow.\"\n\"thank you, you have gone rather too far to stop.\"\n\"it is quite certain that when mrs. barclay left the house at\nhalf-past seven she was on good terms with her husband.  she was\nnever, as i think i have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she\nwas heard by the coachman chatting with the colonel in a friendly\nfashion.  now, it was equally certain that, immediately on her\nreturn, she had gone to the room in which she was least likely to see\nher husband, had flown to tea as an agitated woman will, and finally,\non his coming in to her, had broken into violent recriminations.\ntherefore something had occurred between seven-thirty and nine\no'clock which had completely altered her feelings towards him.  but\nmiss morrison had been with her during the whole of that hour and a\nhalf.  it was absolutely certain, therefore, in spite of her denial,\nthat she must know something of the matter.\n\"my first conjecture was, that possibly there had been some passages\nbetween this young lady and the old soldier, which the former had now\nconfessed to the wife.  that would account for the angry return, and\nalso for the girl's denial that anything had occurred.  nor would it\nbe entirely incompatible with most of the words overhead.  but there\nwas the reference to david, and there was the known affection of the\ncolonel for his wife, to weigh against it, to say nothing of the\ntragic intrusion of this other man, which might, of course, be\nentirely disconnected with what had gone before.  it was not easy to\npick one's steps, but, on the whole, i was inclined to dismiss the\nidea that there had been anything between the colonel and miss\nmorrison, but more than ever convinced that the young lady held the\nclue as to what it was which had turned mrs. barclay to hatred of her\nhusband.  i took the obvious course, therefore, of calling upon miss\nm., of explaining to her that i was perfectly certain that she held\nthe facts in her possession, and of assuring her that her friend,\nmrs. barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a capital charge\nunless the matter were cleared up.\n\"miss morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes\nand blond hair, but i found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and\ncommon-sense.  she sat thinking for some time after i had spoken, and\nthen, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a\nremarkable statement which i will condense for your benefit.\n\"'i promised my friend that i would say nothing of the matter, and a\npromise is a promise,' said she; 'but if i can really help her when\nso serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor\ndarling, is closed by illness, then i think i am absolved from my\npromise.  i will tell you exactly what happened upon monday evening.\n\"'we were returning from the watt street mission about a quarter to\nnine o'clock.  on our way we had to pass through hudson street, which\nis a very quiet thoroughfare.  there is only one lamp in it, upon the\nleft-hand side, and as we approached this lamp i saw a man coming\ntowards us with is back very bent, and something like a box slung\nover one of his shoulders.  he appeared to be deformed, for he\ncarried his head low and walked with his knees bent.  we were passing\nhim when he raised his face to look at us in the circle of light\nthrown by the lamp, and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a\ndreadful voice, \"my god, it's nancy!\"  mrs. barclay turned as white\nas death, and would have fallen down had the dreadful-looking\ncreature not caught hold of her.  i was going to call for the police,\nbut she, to my surprise, spoke quite civilly to the fellow.\n\"'\"i thought you had been dead this thirty years, henry,\" said she,\nin a shaking voice.\n\"'\"so i have,\" said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he\nsaid it in.  he had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his\neyes that comes back to me in my dreams.  his hair and whiskers were\nshot with gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a\nwithered apple.\n\"'\"just walk on a little way, dear,\" said mrs. barclay; \"i want to\nhave a word with this man.  there is nothing to be afraid of.\"  she\ntried to speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly\nget her words out for the trembling of her lips.\n\"'i did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.\nthen she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and i saw the\ncrippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched\nfists in the air as if he were mad with rage.  she never said a word\nuntil we were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and\nbegged me to tell no one what had happened.\n\"'\"it's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,\"\nsaid she.  when i promised her i would say nothing she kissed me, and\ni have never seen her since.  i have told you now the whole truth,\nand if i withheld it from the police it is because i did not realize\nthen the danger in which my dear friend stood.  i know that it can\nonly be to her advantage that everything should be known.'\n\"there was her statement, watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it\nwas like a light on a dark night.  everything which had been\ndisconnected before began at once to assume its true place, and i had\na shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events.  my next step\nobviously was to find the man who had produced such a remarkable\nimpression upon mrs. barclay.  if he were still in aldershot it\nshould not be a very difficult matter.  there are not such a very\ngreat number of civilians, and a deformed man was sure to have\nattracted attention.  i spent a day in the search, and by\nevening--this very evening, watson--i had run him down.  the man's\nname is henry wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same street in\nwhich the ladies met him.  he has only been five days in the place.\nin the character of a registration-agent i had a most interesting\ngossip with his landlady.  the man is by trade a conjurer and\nperformer, going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a\nlittle entertainment at each.  he carries some creature about with\nhim in that box; about which the landlady seemed to be in\nconsiderable trepidation, for she had never seen an animal like it.\nhe uses it in some of his tricks according to her account.  so much\nthe woman was able to tell me, and also that it was a wonder the man\nlived, seeing how twisted he was, and that he spoke in a strange\ntongue sometimes, and that for the last two nights she had heard him\ngroaning and weeping in his bedroom.  he was all right, as far as\nmoney went, but in his deposit he had given her what looked like a\nbad florin.  she showed it to me, watson, and it was an indian rupee.\n\"so now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is i\nwant you.  it is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from\nthis man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel\nbetween husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and\nthat the creature which he carried in his box got loose.  that is all\nvery certain.  but he is the only person in this world who can tell\nus exactly what happened in that room.\"\n\"and you intend to ask him?\"\n\"most certainly--but in the presence of a witness.\"\n\"and i am the witness?\"\n\"if you will be so good.  if he can clear the matter up, well and\ngood.  if he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a\nwarrant.\"\n\"but how do you know he'll be there when we return?\"\n\"you may be sure that i took some precautions.  i have one of my\nbaker street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like\na burr, go where he might.  we shall find him in hudson street\nto-morrow, watson, and meanwhile i should be the criminal myself if i\nkept you out of bed any longer.\"\nit was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy,\nand, under my companion's guidance, we made our way at once to hudson\nstreet.  in spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, i\ncould easily see that holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement,\nwhile i was myself tingling with that half-sporting,\nhalf-intellectual pleasure which i invariably experienced when i\nassociated myself with him in his investigations.\n\"this is the street,\" said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare\nlined with plain two-storied brick houses.  \"ah, here is simpson to\nreport.\"\n\"he's in all right, mr. holmes,\" cried a small street arab, running\nup to us.\n\"good, simpson!\" said holmes, patting him on the head.  \"come along,\nwatson.  this is the house.\"  he sent in his card with a message that\nhe had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to\nface with the man whom we had come to see.  in spite of the warm\nweather he was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an\noven.  the man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way\nwhich gave an indescribably impression of deformity; but the face\nwhich he turned towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some\ntime have been remarkable for its beauty.  he looked suspiciously at\nus now out of yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or\nrising, he waved towards two chairs.\n\"mr. henry wood, late of india, i believe,\" said holmes, affably.\n\"i've come over this little matter of colonel barclay's death.\"\n\"what should i know about that?\"\n\"that's what i want to ascertain.  you know, i suppose, that unless\nthe matter is cleared up, mrs. barclay, who is an old friend of\nyours, will in all probability be tried for murder.\"\nthe man gave a violent start.\n\"i don't know who you are,\" he cried, \"nor how you come to know what\nyou do know, but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?\"\n\"why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest\nher.\"\n\"my god!  are you in the police yourself?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"what business is it of yours, then?\"\n\"it's every man's business to see justice done.\"\n\"you can take my word that she is innocent.\"\n\"then you are guilty.\"\n\"no, i am not.\"\n\"who killed colonel james barclay, then?\"\n\"it was a just providence that killed him.  but, mind you this, that\nif i had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he\nwould have had no more than his due from my hands.  if his own guilty\nconscience had not struck him down it is likely enough that i might\nhave had his blood upon my soul.  you want me to tell the story.\nwell, i don't know why i shouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be\nashamed of it.\n\"it was in this way, sir.  you see me now with my back like a camel\nand by ribs all awry, but there was a time when corporal henry wood\nwas the smartest man in the 117th foot.  we were in india then, in\ncantonments, at a place we'll call bhurtee.  barclay, who died the\nother day, was sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle\nof the regiment, ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of\nlife between her lips, was nancy devoy, the daughter of the\ncolor-sergeant.  there were two men that loved her, and one that she\nloved, and you'll smile when you look at this poor thing huddled\nbefore the fire, and hear me say that it was for my good looks that\nshe loved me.\n\"well, though i had her heart, her father was set upon her marrying\nbarclay.  i was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an\neducation, and was already marked for the sword-belt.  but the girl\nheld true to me, and it seemed that i would have had her when the\nmutiny broke out, and all hell was loose in the country.\n\"we were shut up in bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery\nof artillery, a company of sikhs, and a lot of civilians and\nwomen-folk.  there were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were\nas keen as a set of terriers round a rat-cage.  about the second week\nof it our water gave out, and it was a question whether we could\ncommunicate with general neill's column, which was moving up country.\nit was our only chance, for we could not hope to fight our way out\nwith all the women and children, so i volunteered to go out and to\nwarn general neill of our danger.  my offer was accepted, and i\ntalked it over with sergeant barclay, who was supposed to know the\nground better than any other man, and who drew up a route by which i\nmight get through the rebel lines.  at ten o'clock the same night i\nstarted off upon my journey.  there were a thousand lives to save,\nbut it was of only one that i was thinking when i dropped over the\nwall that night.\n\"my way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen\nme from the enemy's sentries; but as i crept round the corner of it i\nwalked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark\nwaiting for me.  in an instant i was stunned with a blow and bound\nhand and foot.  but the real blow was to my heart and not to my head,\nfor as i came to and listened to as much as i could understand of\ntheir talk, i heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man\nwho had arranged the way that i was to take, had betrayed me by means\nof a native servant into the hands of the enemy.\n\"well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it.  you know\nnow what james barclay was capable of.  bhurtee was relieved by neill\nnext day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and\nit was many a long year before ever i saw a white face again.  i was\ntortured and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again.\nyou can see for yourselves the state in which i was left.  some of\nthem that fled into nepal took me with them, and then afterwards i\nwas up past darjeeling.  the hill-folk up there murdered the rebels\nwho had me, and i became their slave for a time until i escaped; but\ninstead of going south i had to go north, until i found myself among\nthe afghans.  there i wandered about for many a year, and at last\ncame back to the punjaub, where i lived mostly among the natives and\npicked up a living by the conjuring tricks that i had learned.  what\nuse was it for me, a wretched cripple, to go back to england or to\nmake myself known to my old comrades?  even my wish for revenge would\nnot make me do that.  i had rather that nancy and my old pals should\nthink of harry wood as having died with a straight back, than see him\nliving and crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee.  they never\ndoubted that i was dead, and i meant that they never should.  i heard\nthat barclay had married nancy, and that he was rising rapidly in the\nregiment, but even that did not make me speak.\n\"but when one gets old one has a longing for home.  for years i've\nbeen dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of england.\nat last i determined to see them before i died.  i saved enough to\nbring me across, and then i came here where the soldiers are, for i\nknow their ways and how to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me.\"\n\"your narrative is most interesting,\" said sherlock holmes.  \"i have\nalready heard of your meeting with mrs. barclay, and your mutual\nrecognition.  you then, as i understand, followed her home and saw\nthrough the window an altercation between her husband and her, in\nwhich she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth.  your own\nfeelings overcame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon\nthem.\"\n\"i did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as i have never seen a\nman look before, and over he went with his head on the fender.  but\nhe was dead before he fell.  i read death on his face as plain as i\ncan read that text over the fire.  the bare sight of me was like a\nbullet through his guilty heart.\"\n\"and then?\"\n\"then nancy fainted, and i caught up the key of the door from her\nhand, intending to unlock it and get help.  but as i was doing it it\nseemed to me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing\nmight look black against me, and any way my secret would be out if i\nwere taken.  in my haste i thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped\nmy stick while i was chasing teddy, who had run up the curtain.  when\ni got him into his box, from which he had slipped, i was off as fast\nas i could run.\"\n\"who's teddy?\" asked holmes.\nthe man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in the\ncorner.  in an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown\ncreature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin\nnose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever i saw in an\nanimal's head.\n\"it's a mongoose,\" i cried.\n\"well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,\" said the\nman.  \"snake-catcher is what i call them, and teddy is amazing quick\non cobras.  i have one here without the fangs, and teddy catches it\nevery night to please the folk in the canteen.\n\"any other point, sir?\"\n\"well, we may have to apply to you again if mrs. barclay should prove\nto be in serious trouble.\"\n\"in that case, of course, i'd come forward.\"\n\"but if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a\ndead man, foully as he has acted.  you have at least the satisfaction\nof knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly\nreproached him for this wicked deed.  ah, there goes major murphy on\nthe other side of the street.  good-bye, wood.  i want to learn if\nanything has happened since yesterday.\"\nwe were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.\n\"ah, holmes,\" he said:  \"i suppose you have heard that all this fuss\nhas come to nothing?\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"the inquest is just over.  the medical evidence showed conclusively\nthat death was due to apoplexy.  you see it was quite a simple case\nafter all.\"\n\"oh, remarkably superficial,\" said holmes, smiling.  \"come, watson, i\ndon't think we shall be wanted in aldershot any more.\"\n\"there's one thing,\" said i, as we walked down to the station.  \"if\nthe husband's name was james, and the other was henry, what was this\ntalk about david?\"\n\"that one word, my dear watson, should have told me the whole story\nhad i been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting.  it\nwas evidently a term of reproach.\"\n\"of reproach?\"\n\"yes; david strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one\noccasion in the same direction as sergeant james barclay.  you\nremember the small affair of uriah and bathsheba?  my biblical\nknowledge is a trifle rusty, i fear, but you will find the story in\nthe first or second of samuel.\"\nthe resident patient\nglancing over the somewhat incoherent series of memoirs with which i\nhave endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my\nfriend mr. sherlock holmes, i have been struck by the difficulty\nwhich i have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every\nway answer my purpose. for in those cases in which holmes has\nperformed some tour de force of analytical reasoning, and has\ndemonstrated the value of his peculiar methods of investigation, the\nfacts themselves have often been so slight or so commonplace that i\ncould not feel justified in laying them before the public. on the\nother hand, it has frequently happened that he has been concerned in\nsome research where the facts have been of the most remarkable and\ndramatic character, but where the share which he has himself taken in\ndetermining their causes has been less pronounced than i, as his\nbiographer, could wish. the small matter which i have chronicled\nunder the heading of \"a study in scarlet,\" and that other later one\nconnected with the loss of the gloria scott, may serve as examples of\nthis scylla and charybdis which are forever threatening the\nhistorian. it may be that in the business of which i am now about to\nwrite the part which my friend played is not sufficiently\naccentuated; and yet the whole train of circumstances is so\nremarkable that i cannot bring myself to omit it entirely from this\nseries.\nit had been a close, rainy day in october. our blinds were\nhalf-drawn, and holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and\nre-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post. for\nmyself, my term of service in india had trained me to stand heat\nbetter than cold, and a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. but the\npaper was uninteresting. parliament had risen. everybody was out of\ntown, and i yearned for the glades of the new forest or the shingle\nof southsea. a depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my\nholiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea\npresented the slightest attraction to him. he loved to lie in the\nvery centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching\nout and running through them, responsive to every little rumor or\nsuspicion of unsolved crime. appreciation of nature found no place\namong his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind\nfrom the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the\ncountry.\ni cannot be sure of the exact date, for some of my memoranda upon the\nmatter have been mislaid, but it must have been towards the end of\nthe first year during which holmes and i shared chambers in baker\nstreet. it was boisterous october weather, and we had both remained\nindoors all day, i because i feared with my shaken health to face the\nkeen autumn wind, while he was deep in some of those abstruse\nchemical investigations which absorbed him utterly as long as he was\nengaged upon them. towards evening, however, the breaking of a\ntest-tube brought his research to a premature ending, and he sprang\nup from his chair with an exclamation of impatience and a clouded\nbrow.\n\"a day's work ruined, watson,\" said he, striding across to the\nwindow. \"ha! the stars are out and he wind has fallen. what do you\nsay to a ramble through london?\"\ni was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. for\nthree hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing\nkaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through fleet street and\nthe strand. his characteristic talk, with its keen observance of\ndetail and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled.\nit was ten o'clock before we reached baker street again. a brougham\nwas waiting at our door.\n\"hum! a doctor's--general practitioner, i perceive,\" said holmes.\n\"not been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. come to\nconsult us, i fancy! lucky we came back!\"\ni was sufficiently conversant with holmes's methods to be able to\nfollow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the\nvarious medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the\nlamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift\ndeduction. the light in our window above showed that this late visit\nwas indeed intended for us. with some curiosity as to what could have\nsent a brother medico to us at such an hour, i followed holmes into\nour sanctum.\na pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by\nthe fire as we entered. his age may not have been more than three or\nfour and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of\na life which has sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. his\nmanner was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and\nthe thin white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was\nthat of an artist rather than of a surgeon. his dress was quiet and\nsombre--a black frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of color about\nhis necktie.\n\"good-evening, doctor,\" said holmes, cheerily. \"i am glad to see that\nyou have only been waiting a very few minutes.\"\n\"you spoke to my coachman, then?\"\n\"no, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. pray resume\nyour seat and let me know how i can serve you.\"\n\"my name is doctor percy trevelyan,\" said our visitor, \"and i live at\n403 brook street.\"\n\"are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous lesions?\"\ni asked.\nhis pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work was\nknown to me.\n\"i so seldom hear of the work that i thought it was quite dead,\" said\nhe. \"my publishers gave me a most discouraging account of its sale.\nyou are yourself, i presume, a medical man?\"\n\"a retired army surgeon.\"\n\"my own hobby has always been nervous disease. i should wish to make\nit an absolute specialty, but, of course, a man must take what he can\nget at first. this, however, is beside the question, mr. sherlock\nholmes, and i quite appreciate how valuable your time is. the fact is\nthat a very singular train of events has occurred recently at my\nhouse in brook street, and to-night they came to such a head that i\nfelt it was quite impossible for me to wait another hour before\nasking for your advice and assistance.\"\nsherlock holmes sat down and lit his pipe. \"you are very welcome to\nboth,\" said he. \"pray let me have a detailed account of what the\ncircumstances are which have disturbed you.\"\n\"one or two of them are so trivial,\" said dr. trevelyan, \"that really\ni am almost ashamed to mention them. but the matter is so\ninexplicable, and the recent turn which it has taken is so elaborate,\nthat i shall lay it all before you, and you shall judge what is\nessential and what is not.\n\"i am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own college\ncareer. i am a london university man, you know, and i am sure that\nyou will not think that i am unduly singing my own praises if i say\nthat my student career was considered by my professors to be a very\npromising one. after i had graduated i continued to devote myself to\nresearch, occupying a minor position in king's college hospital, and\ni was fortunate enough to excite considerable interest by my research\ninto the pathology of catalepsy, and finally to win the bruce\npinkerton prize and medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to\nwhich your friend has just alluded. i should not go too far if i were\nto say that there was a general impression at that time that a\ndistinguished career lay before me.\n\"but the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. as you\nwill readily understand, a specialist who aims high is compelled to\nstart in one of a dozen streets in the cavendish square quarter, all\nof which entail enormous rents and furnishing expenses. besides this\npreliminary outlay, he must be prepared to keep himself for some\nyears, and to hire a presentable carriage and horse. to do this was\nquite beyond my power, and i could only hope that by economy i might\nin ten years' time save enough to enable me to put up my plate.\nsuddenly, however, an unexpected incident opened up quite a new\nprospect to me.\n\"this was a visit from a gentleman of the name of blessington, who\nwas a complete stranger to me. he came up to my room one morning, and\nplunged into business in an instant.\n\"'you are the same percy trevelyan who has had so distinguished a\ncareer and won a great prize lately?' said he.\n\"i bowed.\n\"'answer me frankly,' he continued, 'for you will find it to your\ninterest to do so. you have all the cleverness which makes a\nsuccessful man. have you the tact?'\n\"i could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.\n\"'i trust that i have my share,' i said.\n\"'any bad habits? not drawn towards drink, eh?'\n\"'really, sir!' i cried.\n\"'quite right! that's all right! but i was bound to ask. with all\nthese qualities, why are you not in practice?'\n\"i shrugged my shoulders.\n\"'come, come!' said he, in his bustling way. 'it's the old story.\nmore in your brains than in your pocket, eh? what would you say if i\nwere to start you in brook street?'\n\"i stared at him in astonishment.\n\"'oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,' he cried.  'i'll be perfectly\nfrank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. i have\na few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and i think i'll sink them in\nyou.'\n\"'but why?' i gasped.\n\"'well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'\n\"'what am i to do, then?'\n\"'i'll tell you. i'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and\nrun the whole place. all you have to do is just to wear out your\nchair in the consulting-room. i'll let you have pocket-money and\neverything. then you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn,\nand you keep the other quarter for yourself.'\n\"this was the strange proposal, mr. holmes, with which the man\nblessington approached me. i won't weary you with the account of how\nwe bargained and negotiated. it ended in my moving into the house\nnext lady day, and starting in practice on very much the same\nconditions as he had suggested. he came himself to live with me in\nthe character of a resident patient. his heart was weak, it appears,\nand he needed constant medical supervision. he turned the two best\nrooms of the first floor into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself.\nhe was a man of singular habits, shunning company and very seldom\ngoing out. his life was irregular, but in one respect he was\nregularity itself. every evening, at the same hour, he walked into\nthe consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and\nthree-pence for every guinea that i had earned, and carried the rest\noff to the strong-box in his own room.\n\"i may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his\nspeculation. from the first it was a success. a few good cases and\nthe reputation which i had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to\nthe front, and during the last few years i have made him a rich man.\n\"so much, mr. holmes, for my past history and my relations with mr.\nblessington. it only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred\nto bring me here to-night.\n\"some weeks ago mr. blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to\nme, a state of considerable agitation. he spoke of some burglary\nwhich, he said, had been committed in the west end, and he appeared,\ni remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring\nthat a day should not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our\nwindows and doors. for a week he continued to be in a peculiar state\nof restlessness, peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing\nto take the short walk which had usually been the prelude to his\ndinner. from his manner it struck me that he was in mortal dread of\nsomething or somebody, but when i questioned him upon the point he\nbecame so offensive that i was compelled to drop the subject.\ngradually, as time passed, his fears appeared to die away, and he had\nrenewed his former habits, when a fresh event reduced him to the\npitiable state of prostration in which he now lies.\n\"what happened was this. two days ago i received the letter which i\nnow read to you. neither address nor date is attached to it.\n\"'a russian nobleman who is now resident in england,' it runs, 'would\nbe glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of dr. percy\ntrevelyan. he has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks,\non which, as is well known, dr. trevelyan is an authority. he\nproposes to call at about quarter past six to-morrow evening, if dr.\ntrevelyan will make it convenient to be at home.'\n\"this letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in\nthe study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. you may\nbelieve, than, that i was in my consulting-room when, at the\nappointed hour, the page showed in the patient.\nhe was an elderly man, thin, demure, and common-place--by no means\nthe conception one forms of a russian nobleman. i was much more\nstruck by the appearance of his companion. this was a tall young man,\nsurprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and\nchest of a hercules. he had his hand under the other's arm as they\nentered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would\nhardly have expected from his appearance.\n\"'you will excuse my coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking\nenglish with a slight lisp. 'this is my father, and his health is a\nmatter of the most overwhelming importance to me.'\n\"i was touched by this filial anxiety. 'you would, perhaps, care to\nremain during the consultation?' said i.\n\"'not for the world,' he cried with a gesture of horror. 'it is more\npainful to me than i can express. if i were to see my father in one\nof these dreadful seizures i am convinced that i should never survive\nit. my own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. with\nyour permission, i will remain in the waiting-room while you go into\nmy father's case.'\n\"to this, of course, i assented, and the young man withdrew. the\npatient and i then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which i\ntook exhaustive notes. he was not remarkable for intelligence, and\nhis answers were frequently obscure, which i attributed to his\nlimited acquaintance with our language. suddenly, however, as i sat\nwriting, he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on\nmy turning towards him i was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt\nupright in his chair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid\nface. he was again in the grip of his mysterious malady.\n\"my first feeling, as i have just said, was one of pity and horror.\nmy second, i fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. i\nmade notes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity\nof his muscles, and examined his reflexes. there was nothing markedly\nabnormal in any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former\nexperiences. i had obtained good results in such cases by the\ninhalation of nitrite of amyl, and the present seemed an admirable\nopportunity of testing its virtues. the bottle was downstairs in my\nlaboratory, so leaving my patient seated in his chair, i ran down to\nget it. there was some little delay in finding it--five minutes, let\nus say--and then i returned. imagine my amazement to find the room\nempty and the patient gone.\n\"of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. the son\nhad gone also. the hall door had been closed, but not shut. my page\nwho admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick. he waits\ndownstairs, and runs up to show patients out when i ring the\nconsulting-room bell. he had heard nothing, and the affair remained a\ncomplete mystery. mr. blessington came in from his walk shortly\nafterwards, but i did not say anything to him upon the subject, for,\nto tell the truth, i have got in the way of late of holding as little\ncommunication with him as possible.\n\"well, i never thought that i should see anything more of the russian\nand his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the very same\nhour this evening, they both came marching into my consulting-room,\njust as they had done before.\n\"'i feel that i owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt\ndeparture yesterday, doctor,' said my patient.\n\"'i confess that i was very much surprised at it,' said i.\n\"'well, the fact is,' he remarked, 'that when i recover from these\nattacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone\nbefore. i woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my\nway out into the street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.'\n\"'and i,' said the son, 'seeing my father pass the door of the\nwaiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to an\nend. it was not until we had reached home that i began to realize the\ntrue state of affairs.'\n\"'well,' said i, laughing, 'there is no harm done except that you\npuzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the\nwaiting-room i shall be happy to continue our consultation which was\nbrought to so abrupt an ending.'\n\"for half an hour or so i discussed that old gentleman's symptoms\nwith him, and then, having prescribed for him, i saw him go off upon\nthe arm of his son.\n\"i have told you that mr. blessington generally chose this hour of\nthe day for his exercise. he came in shortly afterwards and passed\nupstairs. an instant later i heard him running down, and he burst\ninto my consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.\n\"'who has been in my room?' he cried.\n\"'no one,' said i.\n\"'it's a lie!' he yelled. 'come up and look!'\n\"i passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out\nof his mind with fear. when i went upstairs with him he pointed to\nseveral footprints upon the light carpet.\n\"'d'you mean to say those are mine?' he cried.\n\"they were certainly very much larger than any which he could have\nmade, and were evidently quite fresh. it rained hard this afternoon,\nas you know, and my patients were the only people who called. it must\nhave been the case, then, that the man in the waiting-room had, for\nsome unknown reason, while i was busy with the other, ascended to the\nroom of my resident patient. nothing has been touched or taken, but\nthere were the footprints to prove that the intrusion was an\nundoubted fact.\n\"mr. blessington seemed more excited over the matter than i should\nhave thought possible, though of course it was enough to disturb\nanybody's peace of mind. he actually sat crying in an arm-chair, and\ni could hardly get him to speak coherently. it was his suggestion\nthat i should come round to you, and of course i at once saw the\npropriety of it, for certainly the incident is a very singular one,\nthough he appears to completely overrate its importance. if you would\nonly come back with me in my brougham, you would at least be able to\nsoothe him, though i can hardly hope that you will be able to explain\nthis remarkable occurrence.\"\nsherlock holmes had listened to this long narrative with an\nintentness which showed me that his interest was keenly aroused. his\nface was as impassive as ever, but his lids had drooped more heavily\nover his eyes, and his smoke had curled up more thickly from his pipe\nto emphasize each curious episode in the doctor's tale. as our\nvisitor concluded, holmes sprang up without a word, handed me my hat,\npicked his own from the table, and followed dr. trevelyan to the\ndoor. within a quarter of an hour we had been dropped at the door of\nthe physician's residence in brook street, one of those sombre,\nflat-faced houses which one associates with a west-end practice. a\nsmall page admitted us, and we began at once to ascend the broad,\nwell-carpeted stair.\nbut a singular interruption brought us to a standstill. the light at\nthe top was suddenly whisked out, and from the darkness came a reedy,\nquivering voice.\n\"i have a pistol,\" it cried. \"i give you my word that i'll fire if\nyou come any nearer.\"\n\"this really grows outrageous, mr. blessington,\" cried dr. trevelyan.\n\"oh, then it is you, doctor,\" said the voice, with a great heave of\nrelief. \"but those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to\nbe?\"\nwe were conscious of a long scrutiny out of the darkness.\n\"yes, yes, it's all right,\" said the voice at last. \"you can come up,\nand i am sorry if my precautions have annoyed you.\"\nhe relit the stair gas as he spoke, and we saw before us a\nsingular-looking man, whose appearance, as well as his voice,\ntestified to his jangled nerves. he was very fat, but had apparently\nat some time been much fatter, so that the skin hung about his face\nin loose pouches, like the cheeks of a blood-hound. he was of a\nsickly color, and his thin, sandy hair seemed to bristle up with the\nintensity of his emotion. in his hand he held a pistol, but he thrust\nit into his pocket as we advanced.\n\"good-evening, mr. holmes,\" said he. \"i am sure i am very much\nobliged to you for coming round. no one ever needed your advice more\nthan i do. i suppose that dr. trevelyan has told you of this most\nunwarrantable intrusion into my rooms.\"\n\"quite so,\" said holmes. \"who are these two men mr. blessington, and\nwhy do they wish to molest you?\"\n\"well, well,\" said the resident patient, in a nervous fashion, \"of\ncourse it is hard to say that. you can hardly expect me to answer\nthat, mr. holmes.\"\n\"do you mean that you don't know?\"\n\"come in here, if you please. just have the kindness to step in\nhere.\"\nhe led the way into his bedroom, which was large and comfortably\nfurnished.\n\"you see that,\" said he, pointing to a big black box at the end of\nhis bed. \"i have never been a very rich man, mr. holmes--never made\nbut one investment in my life, as dr. trevelyan would tell you. but i\ndon't believe in bankers. i would never trust a banker, mr. holmes.\nbetween ourselves, what little i have is in that box, so you can\nunderstand what it means to me when unknown people force themselves\ninto my rooms.\"\nholmes looked at blessington in his questioning way and shook his\nhead.\n\"i cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive me,\" said he.\n\"but i have told you everything.\"\nholmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust. \"good-night, dr.\ntrevelyan,\" said he.\n\"and no advice for me?\" cried blessington, in a breaking voice.\n\"my advice to your, sir, is to speak the truth.\"\na minute later we were in the street and walking for home. we had\ncrossed oxford street and were half way down harley street before i\ncould get a word from my companion.\n\"sorry to bring you out on such a fool's errand, watson,\" he said at\nlast. \"it is an interesting case, too, at the bottom of it.\"\n\"i can make little of it,\" i confessed.\n\"well, it is quite evident that there are two men--more, perhaps, but\nat least two--who are determined for some reason to get at this\nfellow blessington. i have no doubt in my mind that both on the first\nand on the second occasion that young man penetrated to blessington's\nroom, while his confederate, by an ingenious device, kept the doctor\nfrom interfering.\"\n\"and the catalepsy?\"\n\"a fraudulent imitation, watson, though i should hardly dare to hint\nas much to our specialist. it is a very easy complaint to imitate. i\nhave done it myself.\"\n\"and then?\"\n\"by the purest chance blessington was out on each occasion. their\nreason for choosing so unusual an hour for a consultation was\nobviously to insure that there should be no other patient in the\nwaiting-room. it just happened, however, that this hour coincided\nwith blessington's constitutional, which seems to show that they were\nnot very well acquainted with his daily routine. of course, if they\nhad been merely after plunder they would at least have made some\nattempt to search for it. besides, i can read in a man's eye when it\nis his own skin that he is frightened for. it is inconceivable that\nthis fellow could have made two such vindictive enemies as these\nappear to be without knowing of it. i hold it, therefore, to be\ncertain that he does know who these men are, and that for reasons of\nhis own he suppresses it. it is just possible that to-morrow may find\nhim in a more communicative mood.\"\n\"is there not one alternative,\" i suggested, \"grotesquely improbably,\nno doubt, but still just conceivable? might the whole story of the\ncataleptic russian and his son be a concoction of dr. trevelyan's,\nwho has, for his own purposes, been in blessington's rooms?\"\ni saw in the gaslight that holmes wore an amused smile at this\nbrilliant departure of mine.\n\"my dear fellow,\" said he, \"it was one of the first solutions which\noccurred to me, but i was soon able to corroborate the doctor's tale.\nthis young man has left prints upon the stair-carpet which made it\nquite superfluous for me to ask to see those which he had made in the\nroom. when i tell you that his shoes were square-toed instead of\nbeing pointed like blessington's, and were quite an inch and a third\nlonger than the doctor's, you will acknowledge that there can be no\ndoubt as to his individuality. but we may sleep on it now, for i\nshall be surprised if we do not hear something further from brook\nstreet in the morning.\"\nsherlock holmes's prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic\nfashion. at half-past seven next morning, in the first glimmer of\ndaylight, i found him standing by my bedside in his dressing-gown.\n\"there's a brougham waiting for us, watson,\" said he.\n\"what's the matter, then?\"\n\"the brook street business.\"\n\"any fresh news?\"\n\"tragic, but ambiguous,\" said he, pulling up the blind.  \"look at\nthis--a sheet from a note-book, with 'for god's sake come at once--p.\nt.,' scrawled upon it in pencil. our friend, the doctor, was hard put\nto it when he wrote this. come along, my dear fellow, for it's an\nurgent call.\"\nin a quarter of an hour or so we were back at the physician's house.\nhe came running out to meet us with a face of horror.\n\"oh, such a business!\" he cried, with his hands to his temples.\n\"what then?\"\n\"blessington has committed suicide!\"\nholmes whistled.\n\"yes, he hanged himself during the night.\"\nwe had entered, and the doctor had preceded us into what was\nevidently his waiting-room.\n\"i really hardly know what i am doing,\" he cried. \"the police are\nalready upstairs. it has shaken me most dreadfully.\"\n\"when did you find it out?\"\n\"he has a cup of tea taken in to him early every morning. when the\nmaid entered, about seven, there the unfortunate fellow was hanging\nin the middle of the room. he had tied his cord to the hook on which\nthe heavy lamp used to hang, and he had jumped off from the top of\nthe very box that he showed us yesterday.\"\nholmes stood for a moment in deep thought.\n\"with your permission,\" said he at last, \"i should like to go\nupstairs and look into the matter.\"\nwe both ascended, followed by the doctor.\nit was a dreadful sight which met us as we entered the bedroom door.\ni have spoken of the impression of flabbiness which this man\nblessington conveyed. as he dangled from the hook it was exaggerated\nand intensified until he was scarce human in his appearance. the neck\nwas drawn out like a plucked chicken's, making the rest of him seem\nthe more obese and unnatural by the contrast. he was clad only in his\nlong night-dress, and his swollen ankles and ungainly feet protruded\nstarkly from beneath it. beside him stood a smart-looking\npolice-inspector, who was taking notes in a pocket-book.\n\"ah, mr. holmes,\" said he, heartily, as my friend entered, \"i am\ndelighted to see you.\"\n\"good-morning, lanner,\" answered holmes; \"you won't think me an\nintruder, i am sure. have you heard of the events which led up to\nthis affair?\"\n\"yes, i heard something of them.\"\n\"have you formed any opinion?\"\n\"as far as i can see, the man has been driven out of his senses by\nfright. the bed has been well slept in, you see. there's his\nimpression deep enough. it's about five in the morning, you know,\nthat suicides are most common. that would be about his time for\nhanging himself. it seems to have been a very deliberate affair.\"\n\"i should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by the\nrigidity of the muscles,\" said i.\n\"noticed anything peculiar about the room?\" asked holmes.\n\"found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand. seems\nto have smoked heavily during the night, too. here are four\ncigar-ends that i picked out of the fireplace.\"\n\"hum!\" said holmes, \"have you got his cigar-holder?\"\n\"no, i have seen none.\"\n\"his cigar-case, then?\"\n\"yes, it was in his coat-pocket.\"\nholmes opened it and smelled the single cigar which it contained.\n\"oh, this is an havana, and these others are cigars of the peculiar\nsort which are imported by the dutch from their east indian colonies.\nthey are usually wrapped in straw, you know, and are thinner for\ntheir length than any other brand.\" he picked up the four ends and\nexamined them with his pocket-lens.\n\"two of these have been smoked from a holder and two without,\" said\nhe. \"two have been cut by a not very sharp knife, and two have had\nthe ends bitten off by a set of excellent teeth. this is no suicide,\nmr. lanner. it is a very deeply planned and cold-blooded murder.\"\n\"impossible!\" cried the inspector.\n\"and why?\"\n\"why should any one murder a man in so clumsy a fashion as by hanging\nhim?\"\n\"that is what we have to find out.\"\n\"how could they get in?\"\n\"through the front door.\"\n\"it was barred in the morning.\"\n\"then it was barred after them.\"\n\"how do you know?\"\n\"i saw their traces. excuse me a moment, and i may be able to give\nyou some further information about it.\"\nhe went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in his\nmethodical way. then he took out the key, which was on the inside,\nand inspected that also. the bed, the carpet, the chairs the\nmantelpiece, the dead body, and the rope were each in turn examined,\nuntil at last he professed himself satisfied, and with my aid and\nthat of the inspector cut down the wretched object and laid it\nreverently under a sheet.\n\"how about this rope?\" he asked.\n\"it is cut off this,\" said dr. trevelyan, drawing a large coil from\nunder the bed. \"he was morbidly nervous of fire, and always kept this\nbeside him, so that he might escape by the window in case the stairs\nwere burning.\"\n\"that must have saved them trouble,\" said holmes, thoughtfully. \"yes,\nthe actual facts are very plain, and i shall be surprised if by the\nafternoon i cannot give you the reasons for them as well. i will take\nthis photograph of blessington, which i see upon the mantelpiece, as\nit may help me in my inquiries.\"\n\"but you have told us nothing!\" cried the doctor.\n\"oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of events,\" said\nholmes. \"there were three of them in it: the young man, the old man,\nand a third, to whose identity i have no clue. the first two, i need\nhardly remark, are the same who masqueraded as the russian count and\nhis son, so we can give a very full description of them. they were\nadmitted by a confederate inside the house. if i might offer you a\nword of advice, inspector, it would be to arrest the page, who, as i\nunderstand, has only recently come into your service, doctor.\"\n\"the young imp cannot be found,\" said dr. trevelyan; \"the maid and\nthe cook have just been searching for him.\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"he has played a not unimportant part in this drama,\" said he. \"the\nthree men having ascended the stairs, which they did on tiptoe, the\nelder man first, the younger man second, and the unknown man in the\nrear--\"\n\"my dear holmes!\" i ejaculated.\n\"oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of the\nfootmarks. i had the advantage of learning which was which last\nnight. they ascended, then, to mr. blessington's room, the door of\nwhich they found to be locked. with the help of a wire, however, they\nforced round the key. even without the lens you will perceive, by the\nscratches on this ward, where the pressure was applied.\n\"on entering the room their first proceeding must have been to gag\nmr. blessington. he may have been asleep, or he may have been so\nparalyzed with terror as to have been unable to cry out. these walls\nare thick, and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time to\nutter one, was unheard.\n\"having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of some\nsort was held. probably it was something in the nature of a judicial\nproceeding. it must have lasted for some time, for it was then that\nthese cigars were smoked. the older man sat in that wicker chair; it\nwas he who used the cigar-holder. the younger man sat over yonder; he\nknocked his ash off against the chest of drawers. the third fellow\npaced up and down. blessington, i think, sat upright in the bed, but\nof that i cannot be absolutely certain.\n\"well, it ended by their taking blessington and hanging him. the\nmatter was so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought with\nthem some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows.\nthat screw-driver and those screws were, as i conceive, for fixing it\nup. seeing the hook, however they naturally saved themselves the\ntrouble. having finished their work they made off, and the door was\nbarred behind them by their confederate.\"\nwe had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of the\nnight's doings, which holmes had deduced from signs so subtle and\nminute that, even when he had pointed them out to us, we could\nscarcely follow him in his reasoning. the inspector hurried away on\nthe instant to make inquiries about the page, while holmes and i\nreturned to baker street for breakfast.\n\"i'll be back by three,\" said he, when we had finished our meal.\n\"both the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour,\nand i hope by that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which\nthe case may still present.\"\nour visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter to\nfour before my friend put in an appearance. from his expression as he\nentered, however, i could see that all had gone well with him.\n\"any news, inspector?\"\n\"we have got the boy, sir.\"\n\"excellent, and i have got the men.\"\n\"you have got them!\" we cried, all three.\n\"well, at least i have got their identity. this so-called blessington\nis, as i expected, well known at headquarters, and so are his\nassailants. their names are biddle, hayward, and moffat.\"\n\"the worthingdon bank gang,\" cried the inspector.\n\"precisely,\" said holmes.\n\"then blessington must have been sutton.\"\n\"exactly,\" said holmes.\n\"why, that makes it as clear as crystal,\" said the inspector.\nbut trevelyan and i looked at each other in bewilderment.\n\"you must surely remember the great worthingdon bank business,\" said\nholmes. \"five men were in it--these four and a fifth called\ncartwright. tobin, the care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got\naway with seven thousand pounds. this was in 1875. they were all five\narrested, but the evidence against them was by no means conclusive.\nthis blessington or sutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned\ninformer. on his evidence cartwright was hanged and the other three\ngot fifteen years apiece. when they got out the other day, which was\nsome years before their full term, they set themselves, as you\nperceive, to hunt down the traitor and to avenge the death of their\ncomrade upon him. twice they tried to get at him and failed; a third\ntime, you see, it came off. is there anything further which i can\nexplain, dr. trevelyan?\"\n\"i think you have made it all remarkable clear,\" said the doctor. \"no\ndoubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen\nof their release in the newspapers.\"\n\"quite so. his talk about a burglary was the merest blind.\"\n\"but why could he not tell you this?\"\n\"well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his old\nassociates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody as\nlong as he could. his secret was a shameful one, and he could not\nbring himself to divulge it. however, wretch as he was, he was still\nliving under the shield of british law, and i have no doubt,\ninspector, that you will see that, though that shield may fail to\nguard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge.\"\nsuch were the singular circumstances in connection with the resident\npatient and the brook street doctor. from that night nothing has been\nseen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surmised at\nscotland yard that they were among the passengers of the ill-fated\nsteamer norah creina, which was lost some years ago with all hands\nupon the portuguese coast, some leagues to the north of oporto. the\nproceedings against the page broke down for want of evidence, and the\nbrook street mystery, as it was called, has never until now been\nfully dealt with in any public print.\nthe greek interpreter\nduring my long and intimate acquaintance with mr. sherlock holmes i\nhad never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his\nown early life.  this reticence upon his part had increased the\nsomewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes i\nfound myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without\na heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in\nintelligence.  his aversion to women and his disinclination to form\nnew friendships were both typical of his unemotional character, but\nnot more so than his complete suppression of every reference to his\nown people.  i had come to believe that he was an orphan with no\nrelatives living, but one day, to my very great surprise, he began to\ntalk to me about his brother.\nit was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had\nroamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the\ncauses of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at\nlast to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes.  the point\nunder discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was\ndue to his ancestry and how far to his own early training.\n\"in your own case,\" said i, \"from all that you have told me, it seems\nobvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility\nfor deduction are due to your own systematic training.\"\n\"to some extent,\" he answered, thoughtfully.  \"my ancestors were\ncountry squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is\nnatural to their class.  but, none the less, my turn that way is in\nmy veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister\nof vernet, the french artist.  art in the blood is liable to take the\nstrangest forms.\"\n\"but how do you know that it is hereditary?\"\n\"because my brother mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than i\ndo.\"\nthis was news to me indeed.  if there were another man with such\nsingular powers in england, how was it that neither police nor public\nhad heard of him?  i put the question, with a hint that it was my\ncompanion's modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his\nsuperior.  holmes laughed at my suggestion.\n\"my dear watson,\" said he, \"i cannot agree with those who rank\nmodesty among the virtues.  to the logician all things should be seen\nexactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a\ndeparture from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.  when i say,\ntherefore, that mycroft has better powers of observation than i, you\nmay take it that i am speaking the exact and literal truth.\"\n\"is he your junior?\"\n\"seven years my senior.\"\n\"how comes it that he is unknown?\"\n\"oh, he is very well known in his own circle.\"\n\"where, then?\"\n\"well, in the diogenes club, for example.\"\ni had never heard of the institution, and my face must have\nproclaimed as much, for sherlock holmes pulled out his watch.\n\"the diogenes club is the queerest club in london, and mycroft one of\nthe queerest men.  he's always there from quarter to five to twenty\nto eight.  it's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful\nevening i shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities.\"\nfive minutes later we were in the street, walking towards regent's\ncircus.\n\"you wonder,\" said my companion, \"why it is that mycroft does not use\nhis powers for detective work.  he is incapable of it.\"\n\"but i thought you said--\"\n\"i said that he was my superior in observation and deduction.  if the\nart of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair,\nmy brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.  but\nhe has no ambition and no energy.  he will not even go out of his way\nto verify his own solution, and would rather be considered wrong than\ntake the trouble to prove himself right.  again and again i have\ntaken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has\nafterwards proved to be the correct one.  and yet he was absolutely\nincapable of working out the practical points which must be gone into\nbefore a case could be laid before a judge or jury.\"\n\"it is not his profession, then?\"\n\"by no means.  what is to me a means of livelihood is to him the\nmerest hobby of a dilettante.  he has an extraordinary faculty for\nfigures, and audits the books in some of the government departments.\nmycroft lodges in pall mall, and he walks round the corner into\nwhitehall every morning and back every evening.  from year's end to\nyear's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else,\nexcept only in the diogenes club, which is just opposite his rooms.\"\n\"i cannot recall the name.\"\n\"very likely not.  there are many men in london, you know, who, some\nfrom shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of\ntheir fellows.  yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the\nlatest periodicals.  it is for the convenience of these that the\ndiogenes club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable\nand unclubable men in town.  no member is permitted to take the least\nnotice of any other one.  save in the stranger's room, no talking is,\nunder any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to\nthe notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion.\nmy brother was one of the founders, and i have myself found it a very\nsoothing atmosphere.\"\nwe had reached pall mall as we talked, and were walking down it from\nthe st. james's end.  sherlock holmes stopped at a door some little\ndistance from the carlton, and, cautioning me not to speak, he led\nthe way into the hall.  through the glass paneling i caught a glimpse\nof a large and luxurious room, in which a considerable number of men\nwere sitting about and reading papers, each in his own little nook.\nholmes showed me into a small chamber which looked out into pall\nmall, and then, leaving me for a minute, he came back with a\ncompanion whom i knew could only be his brother.\nmycroft holmes was a much larger and stouter man than sherlock.  his\nbody was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had\npreserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so\nremarkable in that of his brother.  his eyes, which were of a\npeculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain that far-away,\nintrospective look which i had only observed in sherlock's when he\nwas exerting his full powers.\n\"i am glad to meet you, sir,\" said he, putting out a broad, fat hand\nlike the flipper of a seal.  \"i hear of sherlock everywhere since you\nbecame his chronicler.  by the way, sherlock, i expected to see you\nround last week, to consult me over that manor house case.  i thought\nyou might be a little out of your depth.\"\n\"no, i solved it,\" said my friend, smiling.\n\"it was adams, of course.\"\n\"yes, it was adams.\"\n\"i was sure of it from the first.\"  the two sat down together in the\nbow-window of the club.  \"to any one who wishes to study mankind this\nis the spot,\" said mycroft.  \"look at the magnificent types!  look at\nthese two men who are coming towards us, for example.\"\n\"the billiard-marker and the other?\"\n\"precisely.  what do you make of the other?\"\nthe two men had stopped opposite the window.  some chalk marks over\nthe waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which i could\nsee in one of them.  the other was a very small, dark fellow, with\nhis hat pushed back and several packages under his arm.\n\"an old soldier, i perceive,\" said sherlock.\n\"and very recently discharged,\" remarked the brother.\n\"served in india, i see.\"\n\"and a non-commissioned officer.\"\n\"royal artillery, i fancy,\" said sherlock.\n\"and a widower.\"\n\"but with a child.\"\n\"children, my dear boy, children.\"\n\"come,\" said i, laughing, \"this is a little too much.\"\n\"surely,\" answered holmes, \"it is not hard to say that a man with\nthat bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a\nsoldier, is more than a private, and is not long from india.\"\n\"that he has not left the service long is shown by his still wearing\nhis 'ammunition boots', as they are called,\" observed mycroft.\n\"he had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as\nis shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow.  his weight is\nagainst his being a sapper.  he is in the artillery.\"\n\"then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some\none very dear.  the fact that he is doing his own shopping looks as\nthough it were his wife.  he has been buying things for children, you\nperceive.  there is a rattle, which shows that one of them is very\nyoung.  the wife probably died in childbed.  the fact that he has a\npicture-book under his arm shows that there is another child to be\nthought of.\"\ni began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his\nbrother possessed even keener faculties that he did himself.  he\nglanced across at me and smiled.  mycroft took snuff from a\ntortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from his\ncoat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.\n\"by the way, sherlock,\" said he, \"i have had something quite after\nyour own heart--a most singular problem--submitted to my judgment.  i\nreally had not the energy to follow it up save in a very incomplete\nfashion, but it gave me a basis for some pleasing speculation.  if\nyou would care to hear the facts--\"\n\"my dear mycroft, i should be delighted.\"\nthe brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,\nringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.\n\"i have asked mr. melas to step across,\" said he.  \"he lodges on the\nfloor above me, and i have some slight acquaintance with him, which\nled him to come to me in his perplexity.  mr. melas is a greek by\nextraction, as i understand, and he is a remarkable linguist.  he\nearns his living partly as interpreter in the law courts and partly\nby acting as guide to any wealthy orientals who may visit the\nnorthumberland avenue hotels.  i think i will leave him to tell his\nvery remarkable experience in his own fashion.\"\na few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose olive\nface and coal-black hair proclaimed his southern origin, though his\nspeech was that of an educated englishman.  he shook hands eagerly\nwith sherlock holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when\nhe understood that the specialist was anxious to hear his story.\n\"i do not believe that the police credit me--on my word, i do not,\"\nsaid he in a wailing voice.  \"just because they have never heard of\nit before, they think that such a thing cannot be.  but i know that i\nshall never be easy in my mind until i know what has become of my\npoor man with the sticking-plaster upon his face.\"\n\"i am all attention,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"this is wednesday evening,\" said mr. melas.  \"well then, it was\nmonday night--only two days ago, you understand--that all this\nhappened.  i am an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbor there has told\nyou.  i interpret all languages--or nearly all--but as i am a greek\nby birth and with a grecian name, it is with that particular tongue\nthat i am principally associated.  for many years i have been the\nchief greek interpreter in london, and my name is very well known in\nthe hotels.\nit happens not unfrequently that i am sent for at strange hours by\nforeigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who arrive late\nand wish my services.  i was not surprised, therefore, on monday\nnight when a mr. latimer, a very fashionably dressed young man, came\nup to my rooms and asked me to accompany him in a cab which was\nwaiting at the door.  a greek friend had come to see him upon\nbusiness, he said, and as he could speak nothing but his own tongue,\nthe services of an interpreter were indispensable.  he gave me to\nunderstand that his house was some little distance off, in\nkensington, and he seemed to be in a great hurry, bustling me rapidly\ninto the cab when we had descended to the street.\n\"i say into the cab, but i soon became doubtful as to whether it was\nnot a carriage in which i found myself.  it was certainly more roomy\nthan the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to london, and the fittings,\nthough frayed, were of rich quality.  mr. latimer seated himself\nopposite to me and we started off through charing cross and up the\nshaftesbury avenue.  we had come out upon oxford street and i had\nventured some remark as to this being a roundabout way to kensington,\nwhen my words were arrested by the extraordinary conduct of my\ncompanion.\n\"he began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded with\nlead from his pocket, and switching it backward and forward several\ntimes, as if to test its weight and strength.  then he placed it\nwithout a word upon the seat beside him.  having done this, he drew\nup the windows on each side, and i found to my astonishment that they\nwere covered with paper so as to prevent my seeing through them.\n\"'i am sorry to cut off your view, mr. melas,' said he.  'the fact is\nthat i have no intention that you should see what the place is to\nwhich we are driving.  it might possibly be inconvenient to me if you\ncould find your way there again.'\n\"as you can imagine, i was utterly taken aback by such an address.\nmy companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young fellow, and,\napart from the weapon, i should not have had the slightest chance in\na struggle with him.\n\"'this is very extraordinary conduct, mr. latimer,' i stammered.\n'you must be aware that what you are doing is quite illegal.'\n\"'it is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,' said he, 'but we'll make it\nup to you.  i must warn you, however, mr. melas, that if at any time\nto-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything which is\nagainst my interests, you will find it a very serious thing.  i beg\nyou to remember that no one knows where you are, and that, whether\nyou are in this carriage or in my house, you are equally in my\npower.'\n\"his words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them which\nwas very menacing.  i sat in silence wondering what on earth could be\nhis reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion.  whatever\nit might be, it was perfectly clear that there was no possible use in\nmy resisting, and that i could only wait to see what might befall.\n\"for nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to\nwhere we were going.  sometimes the rattle of the stones told of a\npaved causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course suggested\nasphalt; but, save by this variation in sound, there was nothing at\nall which could in the remotest way help me to form a guess as to\nwhere we were.  the paper over each window was impenetrable to light,\nand a blue curtain was drawn across the glass work in front.  it was\na quarter-past seven when we left pall mall, and my watch showed me\nthat it was ten minutes to nine when we at last came to a standstill.\nmy companion let down the window, and i caught a glimpse of a low,\narched doorway with a lamp burning above it.  as i was hurried from\nthe carriage it swung open, and i found myself inside the house, with\na vague impression of a lawn and trees on each side of me as i\nentered.  whether these were private grounds, however, or bona-fide\ncountry was more than i could possibly venture to say.\n\"there was a colored gas-lamp inside which was turned so low that i\ncould see little save that the hall was of some size and hung with\npictures.  in the dim light i could make out that the person who had\nopened the door was a small, mean-looking, middle-aged man with\nrounded shoulders.  as he turned towards us the glint of the light\nshowed me that he was wearing glasses.\n\"'is this mr. melas, harold?' said he.\n\"'yes.'\n\"'well done, well done!  no ill-will, mr. melas, i hope, but we could\nnot get on without you.  if you deal fair with us you'll not regret\nit, but if you try any tricks, god help you!'  he spoke in a nervous,\njerky fashion, and with little giggling laughs in between, but\nsomehow he impressed me with fear more than the other.\n\"'what do you want with me?' i asked.\n\"'only to ask a few questions of a greek gentleman who is visiting\nus, and to let us have the answers.  but say no more than you are\ntold to say, or--' here came the nervous giggle again--'you had\nbetter never have been born.'\n\"as he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which\nappeared to be very richly furnished, but again the only light was\nafforded by a single lamp half-turned down.  the chamber was\ncertainly large, and the way in which my feet sank into the carpet as\ni stepped across it told me of its richness.  i caught glimpses of\nvelvet chairs, a high white marble mantel-piece, and what seemed to\nbe a suit of japanese armor at one side of it.  there was a chair\njust under the lamp, and the elderly man motioned that i should sit\nin it.  the younger had left us, but he suddenly returned through\nanother door, leading with him a gentleman clad in some sort of loose\ndressing-gown who moved slowly towards us.  as he came into the\ncircle of dim light which enabled me to see him more clearly i was\nthrilled with horror at his appearance.  he was deadly pale and\nterribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant eyes of a man\nwhose spirit was greater than his strength.  but what shocked me more\nthan any signs of physical weakness was that his face was grotesquely\ncriss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large pad of it was\nfastened over his mouth.\n\"'have you the slate, harold?' cried the older man, as this strange\nbeing fell rather than sat down into a chair.  'are his hands loose?\nnow, then, give him the pencil.  you are to ask the questions, mr.\nmelas, and he will write the answers.  ask him first of all whether\nhe is prepared to sign the papers?'\n\"the man's eyes flashed fire.\n\"'never!' he wrote in greek upon the slate.\n\"'on no condition?' i asked, at the bidding of our tyrant.\n\"'only if i see her married in my presence by a greek priest whom i\nknow.'\n\"the man giggled in his venomous way.\n\"'you know what awaits you, then?'\n\"'i care nothing for myself.'\n\"these are samples of the questions and answers which made up our\nstrange half-spoken, half-written conversation.  again and again i\nhad to ask him whether he would give in and sign the documents.\nagain and again i had the same indignant reply.  but soon a happy\nthought came to me.  i took to adding on little sentences of my own\nto each question, innocent ones at first, to test whether either of\nour companions knew anything of the matter, and then, as i found that\nthey showed no signs i played a more dangerous game.  our\nconversation ran something like this:\n\"'you can do no good by this obstinacy. who are you?'\n\"'i care not. i am a stranger in london.'\n\"'your fate will be upon your own head. how long have you been here?'\n\"'let it be so. three weeks.'\n\"'the property can never be yours. what ails you?'\n\"'it shall not go to villains. they are starving me.'\n\"'you shall go free if you sign. what house is this?'\n\"'i will never sign. i do not know.'\n\"'you are not doing her any service. what is your name?'\n\"'let me hear her say so. kratides.'\n\"'you shall see her if you sign. where are you from?'\n\"'then i shall never see her. athens.'\n\"another five minutes, mr. holmes, and i should have wormed out the\nwhole story under their very noses.  my very next question might have\ncleared the matter up, but at that instant the door opened and a\nwoman stepped into the room.  i could not see her clearly enough to\nknow more than that she was tall and graceful, with black hair, and\nclad in some sort of loose white gown.\n\"'harold,' said she, speaking english with a broken accent.  'i could\nnot stay away longer.  it is so lonely up there with only--oh, my\ngod, it is paul!'\n\"these last words were in greek, and at the same instant the man with\na convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out\n'sophy!  sophy!' rushed into the woman's arms.  their embrace was but\nfor an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and\npushed her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his\nemaciated victim, and dragged him away through the other door.  for a\nmoment i was left alone in the room, and i sprang to my feet with\nsome vague idea that i might in some way get a clue to what this\nhouse was in which i found myself.  fortunately, however, i took no\nsteps, for looking up i saw that the older man was standing in the\ndoor-way with his eyes fixed upon me.\n\"'that will do, mr. melas,' said he.  'you perceive that we have\ntaken you into our confidence over some very private business.  we\nshould not have troubled you, only that our friend who speaks greek\nand who began these negotiations has been forced to return to the\neast.  it was quite necessary for us to find some one to take his\nplace, and we were fortunate in hearing of your powers.'\n\"i bowed.\n\"'there are five sovereigns here,' said he, walking up to me, 'which\nwill, i hope, be a sufficient fee.  but remember,' he added, tapping\nme lightly on the chest and giggling, 'if you speak to a human soul\nabout this--one human soul, mind--well, may god have mercy upon your\nsoul!'\n\"i cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this\ninsignificant-looking man inspired me.  i could see him better now as\nthe lamp-light shone upon him.  his features were peaky and sallow,\nand his little pointed beard was thready and ill-nourished.  he\npushed his face forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were\ncontinually twitching like a man with st. vitus's dance.  i could not\nhelp thinking that his strange, catchy little laugh was also a\nsymptom of some nervous malady.  the terror of his face lay in his\neyes, however, steel gray, and glistening coldly with a malignant,\ninexorable cruelty in their depths.\n\"'we shall know if you speak of this,' said he.  'we have our own\nmeans of information.  now you will find the carriage waiting, and my\nfriend will see you on your way.'\n\"i was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again obtaining\nthat momentary glimpse of trees and a garden.  mr. latimer followed\nclosely at my heels, and took his place opposite to me without a\nword.  in silence we again drove for an interminable distance with\nthe windows raised, until at last, just after midnight, the carriage\npulled up.\n\"'you will get down here, mr. melas,' said my companion.  'i am sorry\nto leave you so far from your house, but there is no alternative.\nany attempt upon your part to follow the carriage can only end in\ninjury to yourself.'\n\"he opened the door as he spoke, and i had hardly time to spring out\nwhen the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage rattled away.  i\nlooked around me in astonishment.  i was on some sort of a heathy\ncommon mottled over with dark clumps of furze-bushes.  far away\nstretched a line of houses, with a light here and there in the upper\nwindows.  on the other side i saw the red signal-lamps of a railway.\n\"the carriage which had brought me was already out of sight.  i stood\ngazing round and wondering where on earth i might be, when i saw some\none coming towards me in the darkness.  as he came up to me i made\nout that he was a railway porter.\n\"'can you tell me what place this is?' i asked.\n\"'wandsworth common,' said he.\n\"'can i get a train into town?'\n\"'if you walk on a mile or so to clapham junction,' said he, 'you'll\njust be in time for the last to victoria.'\n\"so that was the end of my adventure, mr. holmes.  i do not know\nwhere i was, nor whom i spoke with, nor anything save what i have\ntold you.  but i know that there is foul play going on, and i want to\nhelp that unhappy man if i can.  i told the whole story to mr.\nmycroft holmes next morning, and subsequently to the police.\"\nwe all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this\nextraordinary narrative.  then sherlock looked across at his brother.\n\"any steps?\" he asked.\nmycroft picked up the daily news, which was lying on the side-table.\n\"anybody supplying any information as to the whereabouts of a greek\ngentleman named paul kratides, from athens, who is unable to speak\nenglish, will be rewarded.  a similar reward paid to any one giving\ninformation about a greek lady whose first name is sophy. x 2473.\n\"that was in all the dailies.  no answer.\"\n\"how about the greek legation?\"\n\"i have inquired.  they know nothing.\"\n\"a wire to the head of the athens police, then?\"\n\"sherlock has all the energy of the family,\" said mycroft, turning to\nme.  \"well, you take the case up by all means, and let me know if you\ndo any good.\"\n\"certainly,\" answered my friend, rising from his chair.  \"i'll let\nyou know, and mr. melas also.  in the meantime, mr. melas, i should\ncertainly be on my guard, if i were you, for of course they must know\nthrough these advertisements that you have betrayed them.\"\nas we walked home together, holmes stopped at a telegraph office and\nsent off several wires.\n\"you see, watson,\" he remarked, \"our evening has been by no means\nwasted.  some of my most interesting cases have come to me in this\nway through mycroft.  the problem which we have just listened to,\nalthough it can admit of but one explanation, has still some\ndistinguishing features.\"\n\"you have hopes of solving it?\"\n\"well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed if we\nfail to discover the rest.  you must yourself have formed some theory\nwhich will explain the facts to which we have listened.\"\n\"in a vague way, yes.\"\n\"what was your idea, then?\"\n\"it seemed to me to be obvious that this greek girl had been carried\noff by the young englishman named harold latimer.\"\n\"carried off from where?\"\n\"athens, perhaps.\"\nsherlock holmes shook his head.  \"this young man could not talk a\nword of greek.  the lady could talk english fairly well.\ninference--that she had been in england some little time, but he had\nnot been in greece.\"\n\"well, then, we will presume that she had come on a visit to england,\nand that this harold had persuaded her to fly with him.\"\n\"that is more probable.\"\n\"then the brother--for that, i fancy, must be the relationship--comes\nover from greece to interfere.  he imprudently puts himself into the\npower of the young man and his older associate.  they seize him and\nuse violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to\nmake over the girl's fortune--of which he may be trustee--to them.\nthis he refuses to do.  in order to negotiate with him they have to\nget an interpreter, and they pitch upon this mr. melas, having used\nsome other one before.  the girl is not told of the arrival of her\nbrother, and finds it out by the merest accident.\"\n\"excellent, watson!\" cried holmes.  \"i really fancy that you are not\nfar from the truth.  you see that we hold all the cards, and we have\nonly to fear some sudden act of violence on their part.  if they give\nus time we must have them.\"\n\"but how can we find where this house lies?\"\n\"well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl's name is or was\nsophy kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her.  that\nmust be our main hope, for the brother is, of course, a complete\nstranger.  it is clear that some time has elapsed since this harold\nestablished these relations with the girl--some weeks, at any\nrate--since the brother in greece has had time to hear of it and come\nacross.  if they have been living in the same place during this time,\nit is probable that we shall have some answer to mycroft's\nadvertisement.\"\nwe had reached our house in baker street while we had been talking.\nholmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the door of our\nroom he gave a start of surprise.  looking over his shoulder, i was\nequally astonished.  his brother mycroft was sitting smoking in the\narm-chair.\n\"come in, sherlock!  come in, sir,\" said he blandly, smiling at our\nsurprised faces.  \"you don't expect such energy from me, do you,\nsherlock?  but somehow this case attracts me.\"\n\"how did you get here?\"\n\"i passed you in a hansom.\"\n\"there has been some new development?\"\n\"i had an answer to my advertisement.\"\n\"ah!\"\n\"yes, it came within a few minutes of your leaving.\"\n\"and to what effect?\"\nmycroft holmes took out a sheet of paper.\n\"here it is,\" said he, \"written with a j pen on royal cream paper by\na middle-aged man with a weak constitution.\n\"sir [he says]:\n\"in answer to your advertisement of to-day's date, i beg to inform\nyou that i know the young lady in question very well.  if you should\ncare to call upon me i could give you some particulars as to her\npainful history.  she is living at present at the myrtles, beckenham.\n\"yours faithfully,\n\"j. davenport.\n\"he writes from lower brixton,\" said mycroft holmes.  \"do you not\nthink that we might drive to him now, sherlock, and learn these\nparticulars?\"\n\"my dear mycroft, the brother's life is more valuable than the\nsister's story.  i think we should call at scotland yard for\ninspector gregson, and go straight out to beckenham.  we know that a\nman is being done to death, and every hour may be vital.\"\n\"better pick up mr. melas on our way,\" i suggested.  \"we may need an\ninterpreter.\"\n\"excellent,\" said sherlock holmes.  \"send the boy for a four-wheeler,\nand we shall be off at once.\"  he opened the table-drawer as he\nspoke, and i noticed that he slipped his revolver into his pocket.\n\"yes,\" said he, in answer to my glance; \"i should say from what we\nhave heard, that we are dealing with a particularly dangerous gang.\"\nit was almost dark before we found ourselves in pall mall, at the\nrooms of mr. melas.  a gentleman had just called for him, and he was\ngone.\n\"can you tell me where?\" asked mycroft holmes.\n\"i don't know, sir,\" answered the woman who had opened the door; \"i\nonly know that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage.\"\n\"did the gentleman give a name?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"he wasn't a tall, handsome, dark young man?\"\n\"oh, no, sir.  he was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the\nface, but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time\nthat he was talking.\"\n\"come along!\" cried sherlock holmes, abruptly.  \"this grows serious,\"\nhe observed, as we drove to scotland yard.  \"these men have got hold\nof melas again.  he is a man of no physical courage, as they are well\naware from their experience the other night.  this villain was able\nto terrorize him the instant that he got into his presence.  no doubt\nthey want his professional services, but, having used him, they may\nbe inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his\ntreachery.\"\nour hope was that, by taking train, we might get to beckenham as soon\nor sooner than the carriage.  on reaching scotland yard, however, it\nwas more than an hour before we could get inspector gregson and\ncomply with the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the\nhouse.  it was a quarter to ten before we reached london bridge, and\nhalf past before the four of us alighted on the beckenham platform.\na drive of half a mile brought us to the myrtles--a large, dark house\nstanding back from the road in its own grounds.  here we dismissed\nour cab, and made our way up the drive together.\n\"the windows are all dark,\" remarked the inspector.  \"the house seems\ndeserted.\"\n\"our birds are flown and the nest empty,\" said holmes.\n\"why do you say so?\"\n\"a carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the\nlast hour.\"\nthe inspector laughed.  \"i saw the wheel-tracks in the light of the\ngate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?\"\n\"you may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way.\nbut the outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we\ncan say for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on\nthe carriage.\"\n\"you get a trifle beyond me there,\" said the inspector, shrugging his\nshoulder.  \"it will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if\nwe cannot make some one hear us.\"\nhe hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but without\nany success.  holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few\nminutes.\n\"i have a window open,\" said he.\n\"it is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not against\nit, mr. holmes,\" remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way\nin which my friend had forced back the catch.  \"well, i think that\nunder the circumstances we may enter without an invitation.\"\none after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which was\nevidently that in which mr. melas had found himself.  the inspector\nhad lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, the\ncurtain, the lamp, and the suit of japanese mail as he had described\nthem.  on the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and the\nremains of a meal.\n\"what is that?\" asked holmes, suddenly.\nwe all stood still and listened.  a low moaning sound was coming from\nsomewhere over our heads.  holmes rushed to the door and out into the\nhall.  the dismal noise came from upstairs.  he dashed up, the\ninspector and i at his heels, while his brother mycroft followed as\nquickly as his great bulk would permit.\nthree doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the\ncentral of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking\nsometimes into a dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine.\nit was locked, but the key had been left on the outside.  holmes\nflung open the door and rushed in, but he was out again in an\ninstant, with his hand to his throat.\n\"it's charcoal,\" he cried.  \"give it time.  it will clear.\"\npeering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from a\ndull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod in the\ncentre.  it threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in\nthe shadows beyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which\ncrouched against the wall.  from the open door there reeked a\nhorrible poisonous exhalation which set us gasping and coughing.\nholmes rushed to the top of the stairs to draw in the fresh air, and\nthen, dashing into the room, he threw up the window and hurled the\nbrazen tripod out into the garden.\n\"we can enter in a minute,\" he gasped, darting out again.  \"where is\na candle?  i doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere.\nhold the light at the door and we shall get them out, mycroft. now!\"\nwith a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into the\nwell-lit hall.  both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, with\nswollen, congested faces and protruding eyes.  indeed, so distorted\nwere their features that, save for his black beard and stout figure,\nwe might have failed to recognize in one of them the greek\ninterpreter who had parted from us only a few hours before at the\ndiogenes club.  his hands and feet were securely strapped together,\nand he bore over one eye the marks of a violent blow.  the other, who\nwas secured in a similar fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of\nemaciation, with several strips of sticking-plaster arranged in a\ngrotesque pattern over his face.  he had ceased to moan as we laid\nhim down, and a glance showed me that for him at least our aid had\ncome too late.  mr. melas, however, still lived, and in less than an\nhour, with the aid of ammonia and brandy i had the satisfaction of\nseeing him open his eyes, and of knowing that my hand had drawn him\nback from that dark valley in which all paths meet.\nit was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did but\nconfirm our own deductions.  his visitor, on entering his rooms, had\ndrawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him with\nthe fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him\nfor the second time.  indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect\nwhich this giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate\nlinguist, for he could not speak of him save with trembling hands and\na blanched cheek.  he had been taken swiftly to beckenham, and had\nacted as interpreter in a second interview, even more dramatic than\nthe first, in which the two englishmen had menaced their prisoner\nwith instant death if he did not comply with their demands.  finally,\nfinding him proof against every threat, they had hurled him back into\nhis prison, and after reproaching melas with his treachery, which\nappeared from the newspaper advertisement, they had stunned him with\na blow from a stick, and he remembered nothing more until he found us\nbending over him.\nand this was the singular case of the grecian interpreter, the\nexplanation of which is still involved in some mystery.  we were able\nto find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the\nadvertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy\ngrecian family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in\nengland.  while there she had met a young man named harold latimer,\nwho had acquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded\nher to fly with him.  her friends, shocked at the event, had\ncontented themselves with informing her brother at athens, and had\nthen washed their hands of the matter.  the brother, on his arrival\nin england, had imprudently placed himself in the power of latimer\nand of his associate, whose name was wilson kemp--a man of the\nfoulest antecedents. these two, finding that  through his ignorance\nof the language he was helpless in their hands, had kept him a\nprisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty and starvation to make him\nsign away his own and his sister's property.  they had kept him in\nthe house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster over the face\nhad been for the purpose of making recognition difficult in case she\nshould ever catch a glimpse of him.  her feminine perception,\nhowever, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the\noccasion of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first\ntime.  the poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was\nno one about the house except the man who acted as coachman, and his\nwife, both of whom were tools of the conspirators.  finding that\ntheir secret was out, and that their prisoner was not to be coerced,\nthe two villains with the girl had fled away at a few hours' notice\nfrom the furnished house which they had hired, having first, as they\nthought, taken vengeance both upon the man who had defied and the one\nwho had betrayed them.\nmonths afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us from\nbuda-pesth.  it told how two englishmen who had been traveling with a\nwoman had met with a tragic end.  they had each been stabbed, it\nseems, and the hungarian police were of opinion that they had\nquarreled and had inflicted mortal injuries upon each other.  holmes,\nhowever, is, i fancy, of a different way of thinking, and holds to\nthis day that, if one could find the grecian girl, one might learn\nhow the wrongs of herself and her brother came to be avenged.\nthe naval treaty\nthe july which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable\nby three cases of interest, in which i had the privilege of being\nassociated with sherlock holmes and of studying his methods. i find\nthem recorded in my notes under the headings of \"the adventure of the\nsecond stain,\" \"the adventure of the naval treaty,\" and \"the\nadventure of the tired captain.\" the first of these, however, deals\nwith interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first\nfamilies in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to\nmake it public. no case, however, in which holmes was engaged has\never illustrated the value of his analytical methods so clearly or\nhas impressed those who were associated with him so deeply. i still\nretain an almost verbatim report of the interview in which he\ndemonstrated the true facts of the case to monsieur dubugue of the\nparis police, and fritz von waldbaum, the well-known specialist of\ndantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to\nbe side-issues. the new century will have come, however, before the\nstory can be safely told. meanwhile i pass on to the second on my\nlist, which promised also at one time to be of national importance,\nand was marked by several incidents which give it a quite unique\ncharacter.\nduring my school-days i had been intimately associated with a lad\nnamed percy phelps, who was of much the same age as myself, though he\nwas two classes ahead of me. he was a very brilliant boy, and carried\naway every prize which the school had to offer, finishing his\nexploits by winning a scholarship which sent him on to continue his\ntriumphant career at cambridge. he was, i remember, extremely well\nconnected, and even when we were all little boys together we knew\nthat his mother's brother was lord holdhurst, the great conservative\npolitician. this gaudy relationship did him little good at school. on\nthe contrary, it seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him\nabout the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket. but it\nwas another thing when he came out into the world. i heard vaguely\nthat his abilities and the influences which he commanded had won him\na good position at the foreign office, and then he passed completely\nout of my mind until the following letter recalled his existence:\nbriarbrae, woking.\nmy dear watson:\ni have no doubt that you can remember \"tadpole\" phelps, who was in\nthe fifth form when you were in the third. it is possible even that\nyou may have heard that through my uncle's influence i obtained a\ngood appointment at the foreign office, and that i was in a situation\nof trust and honor until a horrible misfortune came suddenly to blast\nmy career.\nthere is no use writing of the details of that dreadful event. in the\nevent of your acceding to my request it is probable that i shall have\nto narrate them to you. i have only just recovered from nine weeks of\nbrain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. do you think that you\ncould bring your friend mr. holmes down to see me? i should like to\nhave his opinion of the case, though the authorities assure me that\nnothing more can be done. do try to bring him down, and as soon as\npossible. every minute seems an hour while i live in this state of\nhorrible suspense. assure him that if i have not asked his advice\nsooner it was not because i did not appreciate his talents, but\nbecause i have been off my head ever since the blow fell. now i am\nclear again, though i dare not think of it too much for fear of a\nrelapse. i am still so weak that i have to write, as you see, by\ndictating. do try to bring him.\nyour old school-fellow,\npercy phelps.\nthere was something that touched me as i read this letter, something\npitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring holmes. so moved was i\nthat even had it been a difficult matter i should have tried it, but\nof course i knew well that holmes loved his art, so that he was ever\nas ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it. my\nwife agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the\nmatter before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time i found\nmyself back once more in the old rooms in baker street.\nholmes was seated at his side-table clad in his dressing-gown, and\nworking hard over a chemical investigation. a large curved retort was\nboiling furiously in the bluish flame of a bunsen burner, and the\ndistilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. my friend\nhardly glanced up as i entered, and i, seeing that his investigation\nmust be of importance, seated myself in an arm-chair and waited. he\ndipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few drops of each with\nhis glass pipette, and finally brought a test-tube containing a\nsolution over to the table. in his right hand he held a slip of\nlitmus-paper.\n\"you come at a crisis, watson,\" said he. \"if this paper remains blue,\nall is well. if it turns red, it means a man's life.\" he dipped it\ninto the test-tube and it flushed at once into a dull, dirty crimson.\n\"hum! i thought as much!\" he cried. \"i will be at your service in an\ninstant, watson. you will find tobacco in the persian slipper.\" he\nturned to his desk and scribbled off several telegrams, which were\nhanded over to the page-boy. then he threw himself down into the\nchair opposite, and drew up his knees until his fingers clasped round\nhis long, thin shins.\n\"a very commonplace little murder,\" said he. \"you've got something\nbetter, i fancy. you are the stormy petrel of crime, watson. what is\nit?\"\ni handed him the letter, which he read with the most concentrated\nattention.\n\"it does not tell us very much, does it?\" he remarked, as he handed\nit back to me.\n\"hardly anything.\"\n\"and yet the writing is of interest.\"\n\"but the writing is not his own.\"\n\"precisely. it is a woman's.\"\n\"a man's surely,\" i cried.\n\"no, a woman's, and a woman of rare character. you see, at the\ncommencement of an investigation it is something to know that your\nclient is in close contact with some one who, for good or evil, has\nan exceptional nature. my interest is already awakened in the case.\nif you are ready we will start at once for woking, and see this\ndiplomatist who is in such evil case, and the lady to whom he\ndictates his letters.\"\nwe were fortunate enough to catch an early train at waterloo, and in\na little under an hour we found ourselves among the fir-woods and the\nheather of woking. briarbrae proved to be a large detached house\nstanding in extensive grounds within a few minutes' walk of the\nstation. on sending in our cards we were shown into an elegantly\nappointed drawing-room, where we were joined in a few minutes by a\nrather stout man who received us with much hospitality. his age may\nhave been nearer forty than thirty, but his cheeks were so ruddy and\nhis eyes so merry that he still conveyed the impression of a plump\nand mischievous boy.\n\"i am so glad that you have come,\" said he, shaking our hands with\neffusion. \"percy has been inquiring for you all morning. ah, poor old\nchap, he clings to any straw! his father and his mother asked me to\nsee you, for the mere mention of the subject is very painful to\nthem.\"\n\"we have had no details yet,\" observed holmes. \"i perceive that you\nare not yourself a member of the family.\"\nour acquaintance looked surprised, and then, glancing down, he began\nto laugh.\n\"of course you saw the j h monogram on my locket,\" said he. \"for a\nmoment i thought you had done something clever. joseph harrison is my\nname, and as percy is to marry my sister annie i shall at least be a\nrelation by marriage. you will find my sister in his room, for she\nhas nursed him hand-and-foot this two months back. perhaps we'd\nbetter go in at once, for i know how impatient he is.\"\nthe chamber in which we were shown was on the same floor as the\ndrawing-room. it was furnished partly as a sitting and partly as a\nbedroom, with flowers arranged daintily in every nook and corner. a\nyoung man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open\nwindow, through which came the rich scent of the garden and the balmy\nsummer air. a woman was sitting beside him, who rose as we entered.\n\"shall i leave, percy?\" she asked.\nhe clutched her hand to detain her. \"how are you, watson?\" said he,\ncordially. \"i should never have known you under that moustache, and i\ndare say you would not be prepared to swear to me. this i presume is\nyour celebrated friend, mr. sherlock holmes?\"\ni introduced him in a few words, and we both sat down. the stout\nyoung man had left us, but his sister still remained with her hand in\nthat of the invalid. she was a striking-looking woman, a little short\nand thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large,\ndark, italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. her rich tints\nmade the white face of her companion the more worn and haggard by the\ncontrast.\n\"i won't waste your time,\" said he, raising himself upon the sofa.\n\"i'll plunge into the matter without further preamble. i was a happy\nand successful man, mr. holmes, and on the eve of being married, when\na sudden and dreadful misfortune wrecked all my prospects in life.\n\"i was, as watson may have told you, in the foreign office, and\nthrough the influences of my uncle, lord holdhurst, i rose rapidly to\na responsible position. when my uncle became foreign minister in this\nadministration he gave me several missions of trust, and as i always\nbrought them to a successful conclusion, he came at last to have the\nutmost confidence in my ability and tact.\n\"nearly ten weeks ago--to be more accurate, on the twenty-third of\nmay--he called me into his private room, and, after complimenting me\non the good work which i had done, he informed me that he had a new\ncommission of trust for me to execute.\n\"'this,' said he, taking a gray roll of paper from his bureau, 'is\nthe original of that secret treaty between england and italy of\nwhich, i regret to say, some rumors have already got into the public\npress. it is of enormous importance that nothing further should leak\nout. the french or the russian embassy would pay an immense sum to\nlearn the contents of these papers. they should not leave my bureau\nwere it not that it is absolutely necessary to have them copied. you\nhave a desk in your office?'\n\"'yes, sir.'\n\"'then take the treaty and lock it up there. i shall give directions\nthat you may remain behind when the others go, so that you may copy\nit at your leisure without fear of being overlooked. when you have\nfinished, relock both the original and the draft in the desk, and\nhand them over to me personally to-morrow morning.'\n\"i took the papers and--\"\n\"excuse me an instant,\" said holmes. \"were you alone during this\nconversation?\"\n\"absolutely.\"\n\"in a large room?\"\n\"thirty feet each way.\"\n\"in the centre?\"\n\"yes, about it.\"\n\"and speaking low?\"\n\"my uncle's voice is always remarkably low. i hardly spoke at all.\"\n\"thank you,\" said holmes, shutting his eyes; \"pray go on.\"\n\"i did exactly what he indicated, and waited until the other clerks\nhad departed. one of them in my room, charles gorot, had some arrears\nof work to make up, so i left him there and went out to dine. when i\nreturned he was gone. i was anxious to hurry my work, for i knew that\njoseph--the mr. harrison whom you saw just now--was in town, and that\nhe would travel down to woking by the eleven-o'clock train, and i\nwanted if possible to catch it.\n\"when i came to examine the treaty i saw at once that it was of such\nimportance that my uncle had been guilty of no exaggeration in what\nhe had said. without going into details, i may say that it defined\nthe position of great britain towards the triple alliance, and\nfore-shadowed the policy which this country would pursue in the event\nof the french fleet gaining a complete ascendancy over that of italy\nin the mediterranean. the questions treated in it were purely naval.\nat the end were the signatures of the high dignitaries who had signed\nit. i glanced my eyes over it, and then settled down to my task of\ncopying.\n\"it was a long document, written in the french language, and\ncontaining twenty-six separate articles. i copied as quickly as i\ncould, but at nine o'clock i had only done nine articles, and it\nseemed hopeless for me to attempt to catch my train. i was feeling\ndrowsy and stupid, partly from my dinner and also from the effects of\na long day's work. a cup of coffee would clear my brain. a\ncommissionaire remains all night in a little lodge at the foot of the\nstairs, and is in the habit of making coffee at his spirit-lamp for\nany of the officials who may be working over time. i rang the bell,\ntherefore, to summon him.\n\"to my surprise, it was a woman who answered the summons, a large,\ncoarse-faced, elderly woman, in an apron. she explained that she was\nthe commissionaire's wife, who did the charing, and i gave her the\norder for the coffee.\n\"i wrote two more articles and then, feeling more drowsy than ever, i\nrose and walked up and down the room to stretch my legs. my coffee\nhad not yet come, and i wondered what was the cause of the delay\ncould be. opening the door, i started down the corridor to find out.\nthere was a straight passage, dimly lighted, which led from the room\nin which i had been working, and was the only exit from it. it ended\nin a curving staircase, with the commissionaire's lodge in the\npassage at the bottom. half way down this staircase is a small\nlanding, with another passage running into it at right angles. this\nsecond one leads by means of a second small stair to a side door,\nused by servants, and also as a short cut by clerks when coming from\ncharles street. here is a rough chart of the place.\"\n\"thank you. i think that i quite follow you,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"it is of the utmost importance that you should notice this point. i\nwent down the stairs and into the hall, where i found the\ncommissionaire fast asleep in his box, with the kettle boiling\nfuriously upon the spirit-lamp. i took off the kettle and blew out\nthe lamp, for the water was spurting over the floor. then i put out\nmy hand and was about to shake the man, who was still sleeping\nsoundly, when a bell over his head rang loudly, and he woke with a\nstart.\n\"'mr. phelps, sir!' said he, looking at me in bewilderment.\n\"'i came down to see if my coffee was ready.'\n\"'i was boiling the kettle when i fell asleep, sir.' he looked at me\nand then up at the still quivering bell with an ever-growing\nastonishment upon his face.\n\"'if you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?' he asked.\n\"'the bell!' i cried. 'what bell is it?'\n\"'it's the bell of the room you were working in.'\n\"a cold hand seemed to close round my heart. some one, then, was in\nthat room where my precious treaty lay upon the table. i ran\nfrantically up the stair and along the passage. there was no one in\nthe corridors, mr. holmes. there was no one in the room. all was\nexactly as i left it, save only that the papers which had been\ncommitted to my care had been taken from the desk on which they lay.\nthe copy was there, and the original was gone.\"\nholmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. i could see that the\nproblem was entirely to his heart. \"pray, what did you do then?\" he\nmurmured.\n\"i recognized in an instant that the thief must have come up the\nstairs from the side door. of course i must have met him if he had\ncome the other way.\"\n\"you were satisfied that he could not have been concealed in the room\nall the time, or in the corridor which you have just described as\ndimly lighted?\"\n\"it is absolutely impossible. a rat could not conceal himself either\nin the room or the corridor. there is no cover at all.\"\n\"thank you. pray proceed.\"\n\"the commissionaire, seeing by my pale face that something was to be\nfeared, had followed me upstairs. now we both rushed along the\ncorridor and down the steep steps which led to charles street. the\ndoor at the bottom was closed, but unlocked. we flung it open and\nrushed out. i can distinctly remember that as we did so there came\nthree chimes from a neighboring clock. it was quarter to ten.\"\n\"that is of enormous importance,\" said holmes, making a note upon his\nshirt-cuff.\n\"the night was very dark, and a thin, warm rain was falling. there\nwas no one in charles street, but a great traffic was going on, as\nusual, in whitehall, at the extremity. we rushed along the pavement,\nbare-headed as we were, and at the far corner we found a policeman\nstanding.\n\"'a robbery has been committed,' i gasped. 'a document of immense\nvalue has been stolen from the foreign office. has any one passed\nthis way?'\n\"'i have been standing here for a quarter of an hour, sir,' said he;\n'only one person has passed during that time--a woman, tall and\nelderly, with a paisley shawl.'\n\"'ah, that is only my wife,' cried the commissionaire; 'has no one\nelse passed?'\n\"'no one.'\n\"'then it must be the other way that the thief took,' cried the\nfellow, tugging at my sleeve.\n\"but i was not satisfied, and the attempts which he made to draw me\naway increased my suspicions.\n\"'which way did the woman go?' i cried.\n\"'i don't know, sir. i noticed her pass, but i had no special reason\nfor watching her. she seemed to be in a hurry.'\n\"'how long ago was it?'\n\"'oh, not very many minutes.'\n\"'within the last five?'\n\"'well, it could not be more than five.'\n\"'you're only wasting your time, sir, and every minute now is of\nimportance,' cried the commissionaire; 'take my word for it that my\nold woman has nothing to do with it, and come down to the other end\nof the street. well, if you won't, i will.' and with that he rushed\noff in the other direction.\n\"but i was after him in an instant and caught him by the sleeve.\n\"'where do you live?' said i.\n\"'16 ivy lane, brixton,' he answered. 'but don't let yourself be\ndrawn away upon a false scent, mr. phelps. come to the other end of\nthe street and let us see if we can hear of anything.'\n\"nothing was to be lost by following his advice. with the policeman\nwe both hurried down, but only to find the street full of traffic,\nmany people coming and going, but all only too eager to get to a\nplace of safety upon so wet a night. there was no lounger who could\ntell us who had passed.\n\"then we returned to the office, and searched the stairs and the\npassage without result. the corridor which led to the room was laid\ndown with a kind of creamy linoleum which shows an impression very\neasily. we examined it very carefully, but found no outline of any\nfootmark.\"\n\"had it been raining all evening?\"\n\"since about seven.\"\n\"how is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine\nleft no traces with her muddy boots?\"\n\"i am glad you raised the point. it occurred to me at the time. the\ncharwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the\ncommissionaire's office, and putting on list slippers.\"\n\"that is very clear. there were no marks, then, though the night was\na wet one? the chain of events is certainly one of extraordinary\ninterest. what did you do next?\"\n\"we examined the room also. there is no possibility of a secret door,\nand the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. both of them\nwere fastened on the inside. the carpet prevents any possibility of a\ntrap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. i\nwill pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come\nthrough the door.\"\n\"how about the fireplace?\"\n\"they use none. there is a stove. the bell-rope hangs from the wire\njust to the right of my desk. whoever rang it must have come right up\nto the desk to do it. but why should any criminal wish to ring the\nbell? it is a most insoluble mystery.\"\n\"certainly the incident was unusual. what were your next steps? you\nexamined the room, i presume, to see if the intruder had left any\ntraces--any cigar-end or dropped glove or hairpin or other trifle?\"\n\"there was nothing of the sort.\"\n\"no smell?\"\n\"well, we never thought of that.\"\n\"ah, a scent of tobacco would have been worth a great deal to us in\nsuch an investigation.\"\n\"i never smoke myself, so i think i should have observed it if there\nhad been any smell of tobacco. there was absolutely no clue of any\nkind. the only tangible fact was that the commissionaire's wife--mrs.\ntangey was the name--had hurried out of the place. he could give no\nexplanation save that it was about the time when the woman always\nwent home. the policeman and i agreed that our best plan would be to\nseize the woman before she could get rid of the papers, presuming\nthat she had them.\n\"the alarm had reached scotland yard by this time, and mr. forbes,\nthe detective, came round at once and took up the case with a great\ndeal of energy. we hired a hansom, and in half an hour we were at the\naddress which had been given to us. a young woman opened the door,\nwho proved to be mrs. tangey's eldest daughter. her mother had not\ncome back yet, and we were shown into the front room to wait.\n\"about ten minutes later a knock came at the door, and here we made\nthe one serious mistake for which i blame myself. instead of opening\nthe door ourselves, we allowed the girl to do so. we heard her say,\n'mother, there are two men in the house waiting to see you,' and an\ninstant afterwards we heard the patter of feet rushing down the\npassage. forbes flung open the door, and we both ran into the back\nroom or kitchen, but the woman had got there before us. she stared at\nus with defiant eyes, and then, suddenly recognizing me, an\nexpression of absolute astonishment came over her face.\n\"'why, if it isn't mr. phelps, of the office!' she cried.\n\"'come, come, who did you think we were when you ran away from us?'\nasked my companion.\n\"'i thought you were the brokers,' said she, 'we have had some\ntrouble with a tradesman.'\n\"'that's not quite good enough,' answered forbes. 'we have reason to\nbelieve that you have taken a paper of importance from the foreign\noffice, and that you ran in here to dispose of it. you must come back\nwith us to scotland yard to be searched.'\n\"it was in vain that she protested and resisted. a four-wheeler was\nbrought, and we all three drove back in it. we had first made an\nexamination of the kitchen, and especially of the kitchen fire, to\nsee whether she might have made away with the papers during the\ninstant that she was alone. there were no signs, however, of any\nashes or scraps. when we reached scotland yard she was handed over at\nonce to the female searcher. i waited in an agony of suspense until\nshe came back with her report. there were no signs of the papers.\n\"then for the first time the horror of my situation came in its full\nforce. hitherto i had been acting, and action had numbed thought. i\nhad been so confident of regaining the treaty at once that i had not\ndared to think of what would be the consequence if i failed to do so.\nbut now there was nothing more to be done, and i had leisure to\nrealize my position. it was horrible. watson there would tell you\nthat i was a nervous, sensitive boy at school. it is my nature. i\nthought of my uncle and of his colleagues in the cabinet, of the\nshame which i had brought upon him, upon myself, upon every one\nconnected with me. what though i was the victim of an extraordinary\naccident? no allowance is made for accidents where diplomatic\ninterests are at stake. i was ruined, shamefully, hopelessly ruined.\ni don't know what i did. i fancy i must have made a scene. i have a\ndim recollection of a group of officials who crowded round me,\nendeavoring to soothe me. one of them drove down with me to waterloo,\nand saw me into the woking train. i believe that he would have come\nall the way had it not been that dr. ferrier, who lives near me, was\ngoing down by that very train. the doctor most kindly took charge of\nme, and it was well he did so, for i had a fit in the station, and\nbefore we reached home i was practically a raving maniac.\n\"you can imagine the state of things here when they were roused from\ntheir beds by the doctor's ringing and found me in this condition.\npoor annie here and my mother were broken-hearted. dr. ferrier had\njust heard enough from the detective at the station to be able to\ngive an idea of what had happened, and his story did not mend\nmatters. it was evident to all that i was in for a long illness, so\njoseph was bundled out of this cheery bedroom, and it was turned into\na sick-room for me. here i have lain, mr. holmes, for over nine\nweeks, unconscious, and raving with brain-fever. if it had not been\nfor miss harrison here and for the doctor's care i should not be\nspeaking to you now. she has nursed me by day and a hired nurse has\nlooked after me by night, for in my mad fits i was capable of\nanything. slowly my reason has cleared, but it is only during the\nlast three days that my memory has quite returned. sometimes i wish\nthat it never had. the first thing that i did was to wire to mr.\nforbes, who had the case in hand. he came out, and assures me that,\nthough everything has been done, no trace of a clue has been\ndiscovered. the commissionaire and his wife have been examined in\nevery way without any light being thrown upon the matter. the\nsuspicions of the police then rested upon young gorot, who, as you\nmay remember, stayed over time in the office that night. his\nremaining behind and his french name were really the only two points\nwhich could suggest suspicion; but, as a matter of fact, i did not\nbegin work until he had gone, and his people are of huguenot\nextraction, but as english in sympathy and tradition as you and i\nare. nothing was found to implicate him in any way, and there the\nmatter dropped. i turn to you, mr. holmes, as absolutely my last\nhope. if you fail me, then my honor as well as my position are\nforever forfeited.\"\nthe invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long\nrecital, while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating\nmedicine. holmes sat silently, with his head thrown back and his eyes\nclosed, in an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but\nwhich i knew betokened the most intense self-absorption.\n\"you statement has been so explicit,\" said he at last, \"that you have\nreally left me very few questions to ask. there is one of the very\nutmost importance, however. did you tell any one that you had this\nspecial task to perform?\"\n\"no one.\"\n\"not miss harrison here, for example?\"\n\"no. i had not been back to woking between getting the order and\nexecuting the commission.\"\n\"and none of your people had by chance been to see you?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"did any of them know their way about in the office?\"\n\"oh, yes, all of them had been shown over it.\"\n\"still, of course, if you said nothing to any one about the treaty\nthese inquiries are irrelevant.\"\n\"i said nothing.\"\n\"do you know anything of the commissionaire?\"\n\"nothing except that he is an old soldier.\"\n\"what regiment?\"\n\"oh, i have heard--coldstream guards.\"\n\"thank you. i have no doubt i can get details from forbes. the\nauthorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not\nalways use them to advantage. what a lovely thing a rose is!\"\nhe walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping\nstalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and\ngreen. it was a new phase of his character to me, for i had never\nbefore seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.\n\"there is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,\"\nsaid he, leaning with his back against the shutters. \"it can be built\nup as an exact science by the reasoner. our highest assurance of the\ngoodness of providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. all other\nthings, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary\nfor our existence in the first instance. but this rose is an extra.\nits smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition\nof it. it is only goodness which gives extras, and so i say again\nthat we have much to hope from the flowers.\"\npercy phelps and his nurse looked at holmes during this demonstration\nwith surprise and a good deal of disappointment written upon their\nfaces. he had fallen into a reverie, with the moss-rose between his\nfingers. it had lasted some minutes before the young lady broke in\nupon it.\n\"do you see any prospect of solving this mystery, mr. holmes?\" she\nasked, with a touch of asperity in her voice.\n\"oh, the mystery!\" he answered, coming back with a start to the\nrealities of life. \"well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is\na very abstruse and complicated one, but i can promise you that i\nwill look into the matter and let you know any points which may\nstrike me.\"\n\"do you see any clue?\"\n\"you have furnished me with seven, but, of course, i must test them\nbefore i can pronounce upon their value.\"\n\"you suspect some one?\"\n\"i suspect myself.\"\n\"what!\"\n\"of coming to conclusions too rapidly.\"\n\"then go to london and test your conclusions.\"\n\"your advice is very excellent, miss harrison,\" said holmes, rising.\n\"i think, watson, we cannot do better. do not allow yourself to\nindulge in false hopes, mr. phelps. the affair is a very tangled\none.\"\n\"i shall be in a fever until i see you again,\" cried the diplomatist.\n\"well, i'll come out by the same train to-morrow, though it's more\nthan likely that my report will be a negative one.\"\n\"god bless you for promising to come,\" cried our client. \"it gives me\nfresh life to know that something is being done. by the way, i have\nhad a letter from lord holdhurst.\"\n\"ha! what did he say?\"\n\"he was cold, but not harsh. i dare say my severe illness prevented\nhim from being that. he repeated that the matter was of the utmost\nimportance, and added that no steps would be taken about my\nfuture--by which he means, of course, my dismissal--until my health\nwas restored and i had an opportunity of repairing my misfortune.\"\n\"well, that was reasonable and considerate,\" said holmes. \"come,\nwatson, for we have a good day's work before us in town.\"\nmr. joseph harrison drove us down to the station, and we were soon\nwhirling up in a portsmouth train. holmes was sunk in profound\nthought, and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed clapham\njunction.\n\"it's a very cheery thing to come into london by any of these lines\nwhich run high, and allow you to look down upon the houses like\nthis.\"\ni thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon\nexplained himself.\n\"look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the\nslates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea.\"\n\"the board-schools.\"\n\"light-houses, my boy! beacons of the future! capsules with hundreds\nof bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise,\nbetter england of the future. i suppose that man phelps does not\ndrink?\"\n\"i should not think so.\"\n\"nor should i, but we are bound to take every possibility into\naccount. the poor devil has certainly got himself into very deep\nwater, and it's a question whether we shall ever be able to get him\nashore. what did you think of miss harrison?\"\n\"a girl of strong character.\"\n\"yes, but she is a good sort, or i am mistaken. she and her brother\nare the only children of an iron-master somewhere up northumberland\nway. he got engaged to her when traveling last winter, and she came\ndown to be introduced to his people, with her brother as escort. then\ncame the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother\njoseph, finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too. i've been making\na few independent inquiries, you see. but to-day must be a day of\ninquiries.\"\n\"my practice--\" i began.\n\"oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine--\" said\nholmes, with some asperity.\n\"i was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a\nday or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.\"\n\"excellent,\" said he, recovering his good-humor. \"then we'll look\ninto this matter together. i think that we should begin by seeing\nforbes. he can probably tell us all the details we want until we know\nfrom what side the case is to be approached.\"\n\"you said you had a clue?\"\n\"well, we have several, but we can only test their value by further\ninquiry. the most difficult crime to track is the one which is\npurposeless. now this is not purposeless. who is it who profits by\nit? there is the french ambassador, there is the russian, there is\nwho-ever might sell it to either of these, and there is lord\nholdhurst.\"\n\"lord holdhurst!\"\n\"well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in\na position where he was not sorry to have such a document\naccidentally destroyed.\"\n\"not a statesman with the honorable record of lord holdhurst?\"\n\"it is a possibility and we cannot afford to disregard it. we shall\nsee the noble lord to-day and find out if he can tell us anything.\nmeanwhile i have already set inquiries on foot.\"\n\"already?\"\n\"yes, i sent wires from woking station to every evening paper in\nlondon. this advertisement will appear in each of them.\"\nhe handed over a sheet torn from a note-book. on it was scribbled in\npencil:\n\"10 reward. the number of the cab which dropped a fare at or about\nthe door of the foreign office in charles street at quarter to ten in\nthe evening of may 23d. apply 221b, baker street.\"\n\"you are confident that the thief came in a cab?\"\n\"if not, there is no harm done. but if mr. phelps is correct in\nstating that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the\ncorridors, then the person must have come from outside. if he came\nfrom outside on so wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon\nthe linoleum, which was examined within a few minutes of his passing,\nthen it is exceeding probably that he came in a cab. yes, i think\nthat we may safely deduce a cab.\"\n\"it sounds plausible.\"\n\"that is one of the clues of which i spoke. it may lead us to\nsomething. and then, of course, there is the bell--which is the most\ndistinctive feature of the case. why should the bell ring? was it the\nthief who did it out of bravado? or was it some one who was with the\nthief who did it in order to prevent the crime? or was it an\naccident? or was it--?\" he sank back into the state of intense and\nsilent thought from which he had emerged; but it seemed to me,\naccustomed as i was to his every mood, that some new possibility had\ndawned suddenly upon him.\nit was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after a\nhasty luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to scotland yard.\nholmes had already wired to forbes, and we found him waiting to\nreceive us--a small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable\nexpression. he was decidedly frigid in his manner to us, especially\nwhen he heard the errand upon which we had come.\n\"i've heard of your methods before now, mr. holmes,\" said he, tartly.\n\"you are ready enough to use all the information that the police can\nlay at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself\nand bring discredit on them.\"\n\"on the contrary,\" said holmes, \"out of my last fifty-three cases my\nname has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the\ncredit in forty-nine. i don't blame you for not knowing this, for you\nare young and inexperienced, but if you wish to get on in your new\nduties you will work with me and not against me.\"\n\"i'd be very glad of a hint or two,\" said the detective, changing his\nmanner. \"i've certainly had no credit from the case so far.\"\n\"what steps have you taken?\"\n\"tangey, the commissionaire, has been shadowed. he left the guards\nwith a good character and we can find nothing against him. his wife\nis a bad lot, though. i fancy she knows more about this than\nappears.\"\n\"have you shadowed her?\"\n\"we have set one of our women on to her. mrs. tangey drinks, and our\nwoman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get\nnothing out of her.\"\n\"i understand that they have had brokers in the house?\"\n\"yes, but they were paid off.\"\n\"where did the money come from?\"\n\"that was all right. his pension was due. they have not shown any\nsign of being in funds.\"\n\"what explanation did she give of having answered the bell when mr.\nphelps rang for the coffee?\"\n\"she said that he husband was very tired and she wished to relieve\nhim.\"\n\"well, certainly that would agree with his being found a little later\nasleep in his chair. there is nothing against them then but the\nwoman's character. did you ask her why she hurried away that night?\nher haste attracted the attention of the police constable.\"\n\"she was later than usual and wanted to get home.\"\n\"did you point out to her that you and mr. phelps, who started at\nleast twenty minutes after he, got home before her?\"\n\"she explains that by the difference between a 'bus and a hansom.\"\n\"did she make it clear why, on reaching her house, she ran into the\nback kitchen?\"\n\"because she had the money there with which to pay off the brokers.\"\n\"she has at least an answer for everything. did you ask her whether\nin leaving she met any one or saw any one loitering about charles\nstreet?\"\n\"she saw no one but the constable.\"\n\"well, you seem to have cross-examined her pretty thoroughly. what\nelse have you done?\"\n\"the clerk gorot has been shadowed all these nine weeks, but without\nresult. we can show nothing against him.\"\n\"anything else?\"\n\"well, we have nothing else to go upon--no evidence of any kind.\"\n\"have you formed a theory about how that bell rang?\"\n\"well, i must confess that it beats me. it was a cool hand, whoever\nit was, to go and give the alarm like that.\"\n\"yes, it was a queer thing to do. many thanks to you for what you\nhave told me. if i can put the man into your hands you shall hear\nfrom me. come along, watson.\"\n\"where are we going to now?\" i asked, as we left the office.\n\"we are now going to interview lord holdhurst, the cabinet minister\nand future premier of england.\"\nwe were fortunate in finding that lord holdhurst was still in his\nchambers in downing street, and on holmes sending in his card we were\ninstantly shown up. the statesman received us with that old-fashioned\ncourtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two\nluxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. standing on the\nrug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features,\nthoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he\nseemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in\ntruth noble.\n\"your name is very familiar to me, mr. holmes,\" said he, smiling.\n\"and, of course, i cannot pretend to be ignorant of the object of\nyour visit. there has only been one occurrence in these offices which\ncould call for your attention. in whose interest are you acting, may\ni ask?\"\n\"in that of mr. percy phelps,\" answered holmes.\n\"ah, my unfortunate nephew! you can understand that our kinship makes\nit the more impossible for me to screen him in any way. i fear that\nthe incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.\"\n\"but if the document is found?\"\n\"ah, that, of course, would be different.\"\n\"i had one or two questions which i wished to ask you, lord\nholdhurst.\"\n\"i shall be happy to give you any information in my power.\"\n\"was it in this room that you gave your instructions as to the\ncopying of the document?\"\n\"it was.\"\n\"then you could hardly have been overheard?\"\n\"it is out of the question.\"\n\"did you ever mention to any one that it was your intention to give\nany one the treaty to be copied?\"\n\"never.\"\n\"you are certain of that?\"\n\"absolutely.\"\n\"well, since you never said so, and mr. phelps never said so, and\nnobody else knew anything of the matter, then the thief's presence in\nthe room was purely accidental. he saw his chance and he took it.\"\nthe statesman smiled. \"you take me out of my province there,\" said\nhe.\nholmes considered for a moment. \"there is another very important\npoint which i wish to discuss with you,\" said he. \"you feared, as i\nunderstand, that very grave results might follow from the details of\nthis treaty becoming known.\"\na shadow passed over the expressive face of the statesman. \"very\ngrave results indeed.\"\n\"and have they occurred?\"\n\"not yet.\"\n\"if the treaty had reached, let us say, the french or russian foreign\noffice, you would expect to hear of it?\"\n\"i should,\" said lord holdhurst, with a wry face.\n\"since nearly ten weeks have elapsed, then, and nothing has been\nheard, it is not unfair to suppose that for some reason the treaty\nhas not reached them.\"\nlord holdhurst shrugged his shoulders.\n\"we can hardly suppose, mr. holmes, that the thief took the treaty in\norder to frame it and hang it up.\"\n\"perhaps he is waiting for a better price.\"\n\"if he waits a little longer he will get no price at all. the treaty\nwill cease to be secret in a few months.\"\n\"that is most important,\" said holmes. \"of course, it is a possible\nsupposition that the thief has had a sudden illness--\"\n\"an attack of brain-fever, for example?\" asked the statesman,\nflashing a swift glance at him.\n\"i did not say so,\" said holmes, imperturbably. \"and now, lord\nholdhurst, we have already taken up too much of your valuable time,\nand we shall wish you good-day.\"\n\"every success to your investigation, be the criminal who it may,\"\nanswered the nobleman, as he bowed us out the door.\n\"he's a fine fellow,\" said holmes, as we came out into whitehall.\n\"but he has a struggle to keep up his position. he is far from rich\nand has many calls. you noticed, of course, that his boots had been\nre-soled? now, watson, i won't detain you from your legitimate work\nany longer. i shall do nothing more to-day, unless i have an answer\nto my cab advertisement. but i should be extremely obliged to you if\nyou would come down with me to woking to-morrow, by the same train\nwhich we took yesterday.\"\ni met him accordingly next morning and we traveled down to woking\ntogether. he had had no answer to his advertisement, he said, and no\nfresh light had been thrown upon the case. he had, when he so willed\nit, the utter immobility of countenance of a red indian, and i could\nnot gather from his appearance whether he was satisfied or not with\nthe position of the case. his conversation, i remember, was about the\nbertillon system of measurements, and he expressed his enthusiastic\nadmiration of the french savant.\nwe found our client still under the charge of his devoted nurse, but\nlooking considerably better than before. he rose from the sofa and\ngreeted us without difficulty when we entered.\n\"any news?\" he asked, eagerly.\n\"my report, as i expected, is a negative one,\" said holmes. \"i have\nseen forbes, and i have seen your uncle, and i have set one or two\ntrains of inquiry upon foot which may lead to something.\"\n\"you have not lost heart, then?\"\n\"by no means.\"\n\"god bless you for saying that!\" cried miss harrison. \"if we keep our\ncourage and our patience the truth must come out.\"\n\"we have more to tell you than you have for us,\" said phelps,\nreseating himself upon the couch.\n\"i hoped you might have something.\"\n\"yes, we have had an adventure during the night, and one which might\nhave proved to be a serious one.\" his expression grew very grave as\nhe spoke, and a look of something akin to fear sprang up in his eyes.\n\"do you know,\" said he, \"that i begin to believe that i am the\nunconscious centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is\naimed at as well as my honor?\"\n\"ah!\" cried holmes.\n\"it sounds incredible, for i have not, as far as i know, an enemy in\nthe world. yet from last night's experience i can come to no other\nconclusion.\"\n\"pray let me hear it.\"\n\"you must know that last night was the very first night that i have\never slept without a nurse in the room. i was so much better that i\nthought i could dispense with one. i had a night-light burning,\nhowever. well, about two in the morning i had sunk into a light sleep\nwhen i was suddenly aroused by a slight noise. it was like the sound\nwhich a mouse makes when it is gnawing a plank, and i lay listening\nto it for some time under the impression that it must come from that\ncause. then it grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a\nsharp metallic snick. i sat up in amazement. there could be no doubt\nwhat the sounds were now. the first ones had been caused by some one\nforcing an instrument through the slit between the sashes, and the\nsecond by the catch being pressed back.\n\"there was a pause then for about ten minutes, as if the person were\nwaiting to see whether the noise had awakened me. then i heard a\ngentle creaking as the window was very slowly opened. i could stand\nit no longer, for my nerves are not what they used to be. i sprang\nout of bed and flung open the shutters. a man was crouching at the\nwindow. i could see little of him, for he was gone like a flash. he\nwas wrapped in some sort of cloak which came across the lower part of\nhis face. one thing only i am sure of, and that is that he had some\nweapon in his hand. it looked to me like a long knife. i distinctly\nsaw the gleam of it as he turned to run.\"\n\"this is most interesting,\" said holmes. \"pray what did you do then?\"\n\"i should have followed him through the open window if i had been\nstronger. as it was, i rang the bell and roused the house. it took me\nsome little time, for the bell rings in the kitchen and the servants\nall sleep upstairs. i shouted, however, and that brought joseph down,\nand he roused the others. joseph and the groom found marks on the bed\noutside the window, but the weather has been so dry lately that they\nfound it hopeless to follow the trail across the grass. there's a\nplace, however, on the wooden fence which skirts the road which shows\nsigns, they tell me, as if some one had got over, and had snapped the\ntop of the rail in doing so. i have said nothing to the local police\nyet, for i thought i had best have your opinion first.\"\nthis tale of our client's appeared to have an extraordinary effect\nupon sherlock holmes. he rose from his chair and paced about the room\nin uncontrollable excitement.\n\"misfortunes never come single,\" said phelps, smiling, though it was\nevident that his adventure had somewhat shaken him.\n\"you have certainly had your share,\" said holmes. \"do you think you\ncould walk round the house with me?\"\n\"oh, yes, i should like a little sunshine. joseph will come, too.\"\n\"and i also,\" said miss harrison.\n\"i am afraid not,\" said holmes, shaking his head. \"i think i must ask\nyou to remain sitting exactly where you are.\"\nthe young lady resumed her seat with an air of displeasure. her\nbrother, however, had joined us and we set off all four together. we\npassed round the lawn to the outside of the young diplomatist's\nwindow. there were, as he had said, marks upon the bed, but they were\nhopelessly blurred and vague. holmes stopped over them for an\ninstant, and then rose shrugging his shoulders.\n\"i don't think any one could make much of this,\" said he. \"let us go\nround the house and see why this particular room was chose by the\nburglar. i should have thought those larger windows of the\ndrawing-room and dining-room would have had more attractions for\nhim.\"\n\"they are more visible from the road,\" suggested mr. joseph harrison.\n\"ah, yes, of course. there is a door here which he might have\nattempted. what is it for?\"\n\"it is the side entrance for trades-people. of course it is locked at\nnight.\"\n\"have you ever had an alarm like this before?\"\n\"never,\" said our client.\n\"do you keep plate in the house, or anything to attract burglars?\"\n\"nothing of value.\"\nholmes strolled round the house with his hands in his pockets and a\nnegligent air which was unusual with him.\n\"by the way,\" said he to joseph harrison, \"you found some place, i\nunderstand, where the fellow scaled the fence. let us have a look at\nthat!\"\nthe plump young man led us to a spot where the top of one of the\nwooden rails had been cracked. a small fragment of the wood was\nhanging down. holmes pulled it off and examined it critically.\n\"do you think that was done last night? it looks rather old, does it\nnot?\"\n\"well, possibly so.\"\n\"there are no marks of any one jumping down upon the other side. no,\ni fancy we shall get no help here. let us go back to the bedroom and\ntalk the matter over.\"\npercy phelps was walking very slowly, leaning upon the arm of his\nfuture brother-in-law. holmes walked swiftly across the lawn, and we\nwere at the open window of the bedroom long before the others came\nup.\n\"miss harrison,\" said holmes, speaking with the utmost intensity of\nmanner, \"you must stay where you are all day. let nothing prevent you\nfrom staying where you are all day. it is of the utmost importance.\"\n\"certainly, if you wish it, mr. holmes,\" said the girl in\nastonishment.\n\"when you go to bed lock the door of this room on the outside and\nkeep the key. promise to do this.\"\n\"but percy?\"\n\"he will come to london with us.\"\n\"and am i to remain here?\"\n\"it is for his sake. you can serve him. quick! promise!\"\nshe gave a quick nod of assent just as the other two came up.\n\"why do you sit moping there, annie?\" cried her brother. \"come out\ninto the sunshine!\"\n\"no, thank you, joseph. i have a slight headache and this room is\ndeliciously cool and soothing.\"\n\"what do you propose now, mr. holmes?\" asked our client.\n\"well, in investigating this minor affair we must not lose sight of\nour main inquiry. it would be a very great help to me if you would\ncome up to london with us.\"\n\"at once?\"\n\"well, as soon as you conveniently can. say in an hour.\"\n\"i feel quite strong enough, if i can really be of any help.\"\n\"the greatest possible.\"\n\"perhaps you would like me to stay there to-night?\"\n\"i was just going to propose it.\"\n\"then, if my friend of the night comes to revisit me, he will find\nthe bird flown. we are all in your hands, mr. holmes, and you must\ntell us exactly what you would like done. perhaps you would prefer\nthat joseph came with us so as to look after me?\"\n\"oh, no; my friend watson is a medical man, you know, and he'll look\nafter you. we'll have our lunch here, if you will permit us, and then\nwe shall all three set off for town together.\"\nit was arranged as he suggested, though miss harrison excused herself\nfrom leaving the bedroom, in accordance with holmes's suggestion.\nwhat the object of my friend's manoeuvres was i could not conceive,\nunless it were to keep the lady away from phelps, who, rejoiced by\nhis returning health and by the prospect of action, lunched with us\nin the dining-room. holmes had still more startling surprise for us,\nhowever, for, after accompanying us down to the station and seeing us\ninto our carriage, he calmly announced that he had no intention of\nleaving woking.\n\"there are one or two small points which i should desire to clear up\nbefore i go,\" said he. \"your absence, mr. phelps, will in some ways\nrather assist me. watson, when you reach london you would oblige me\nby driving at once to baker street with our friend here, and\nremaining with him until i see you again. it is fortunate that you\nare old school-fellows, as you must have much to talk over. mr.\nphelps can have the spare bedroom to-night, and i will be with you in\ntime for breakfast, for there is a train which will take me into\nwaterloo at eight.\"\n\"but how about our investigation in london?\" asked phelps, ruefully.\n\"we can do that to-morrow. i think that just at present i can be of\nmore immediate use here.\"\n\"you might tell them at briarbrae that i hope to be back to-morrow\nnight,\" cried phelps, as we began to move from the platform.\n\"i hardly expect to go back to briarbrae,\" answered holmes, and waved\nhis hand to us cheerily as we shot out from the station.\nphelps and i talked it over on our journey, but neither of us could\ndevise a satisfactory reason for this new development.\n\"i suppose he wants to find out some clue as to the burglary last\nnight, if a burglar it was. for myself, i don't believe it was an\nordinary thief.\"\n\"what is your own idea, then?\"\n\"upon my word, you may put it down to my weak nerves or not, but i\nbelieve there is some deep political intrigue going on around me, and\nthat for some reason that passes my understanding my life is aimed at\nby the conspirators. it sounds high-flown and absurd, but consider\nthe facts! why should a thief try to break in at a bedroom window,\nwhere there could be no hope of any plunder, and why should he come\nwith a long knife in his hand?\"\n\"you are sure it was not a house-breaker's jimmy?\"\n\"oh, no, it was a knife. i saw the flash of the blade quite\ndistinctly.\"\n\"but why on earth should you be pursued with such animosity?\"\n\"ah, that is the question.\"\n\"well, if holmes takes the same view, that would account for his\naction, would it not? presuming that your theory is correct, if he\ncan lay his hands upon the man who threatened you last night he will\nhave gone a long way towards finding who took the naval treaty. it is\nabsurd to suppose that you have two enemies, one of whom robs you,\nwhile the other threatens your life.\"\n\"but holmes said that he was not going to briarbrae.\"\n\"i have known him for some time,\" said i, \"but i never knew him do\nanything yet without a very good reason,\" and with that our\nconversation drifted off on to other topics.\nbut it was a weary day for me. phelps was still weak after his long\nillness, and his misfortune made him querulous and nervous. in vain i\nendeavored to interest him in afghanistan, in india, in social\nquestions, in anything which might take his mind out of the groove.\nhe would always come back to his lost treaty, wondering, guessing,\nspeculating, as to what holmes was doing, what steps lord holdhurst\nwas taking, what news we should have in the morning. as the evening\nwore on his excitement became quite painful.\n\"you have implicit faith in holmes?\" he asked.\n\"i have seen him do some remarkable things.\"\n\"but he never brought light into anything quite so dark as this?\"\n\"oh, yes, i have known him solve questions which presented fewer\nclues than yours.\"\n\"but not where such large interests are at stake?\"\n\"i don't know that. to my certain knowledge he has acted on behalf of\nthree of the reigning houses of europe in very vital matters.\"\n\"but you know him well, watson. he is such an inscrutable fellow that\ni never quite know what to make of him. do you think he is hopeful?\ndo you think he expects to make a success of it?\"\n\"he has said nothing.\"\n\"that is a bad sign.\"\n\"on the contrary, i have noticed that when he is off the trail he\ngenerally says so. it is when he is on a scent and is not quite\nabsolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most\ntaciturn. now, my dear fellow, we can't help matters by making\nourselves nervous about them, so let me implore you to go to bed and\nso be fresh for whatever may await us to-morrow.\"\ni was able at last to persuade my companion to take my advice, though\ni knew from his excited manner that there was not much hope of sleep\nfor him. indeed, his mood was infectious, for i lay tossing half the\nnight myself, brooding over this strange problem, and inventing a\nhundred theories, each of which was more impossible than the last.\nwhy had holmes remained at woking? why had he asked miss harrison to\nremain in the sick-room all day? why had he been so careful not to\ninform the people at briarbrae that he intended to remain near them?\ni cudgelled my brains until i fell asleep in the endeavor to find\nsome explanation which would cover all these facts.\nit was seven o'clock when i awoke, and i set off at once for phelps's\nroom, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. his\nfirst question was whether holmes had arrived yet.\n\"he'll be here when he promised,\" said i, \"and not an instant sooner\nor later.\"\nand my words were true, for shortly after eight a hansom dashed up to\nthe door and our friend got out of it. standing in the window we saw\nthat his left hand was swathed in a bandage and that his face was\nvery grim and pale. he entered the house, but it was some little time\nbefore he came upstairs.\n\"he looks like a beaten man,\" cried phelps.\ni was forced to confess that he was right. \"after all,\" said i, \"the\nclue of the matter lies probably here in town.\"\nphelps gave a groan.\n\"i don't know how it is,\" said he, \"but i had hoped for so much from\nhis return. but surely his hand was not tied up like that yesterday.\nwhat can be the matter?\"\n\"you are not wounded, holmes?\" i asked, as my friend entered the\nroom.\n\"tut, it is only a scratch through my own clumsiness,\" he answered,\nnodding his good-mornings to us. \"this case of yours, mr. phelps, is\ncertainly one of the darkest which i have ever investigated.\"\n\"i feared that you would find it beyond you.\"\n\"it has been a most remarkable experience.\"\n\"that bandage tells of adventures,\" said i. \"won't you tell us what\nhas happened?\"\n\"after breakfast, my dear watson. remember that i have breathed\nthirty miles of surrey air this morning. i suppose that there has\nbeen no answer from my cabman advertisement? well, well, we cannot\nexpect to score every time.\"\nthe table was all laid, and just as i was about to ring mrs. hudson\nentered with the tea and coffee. a few minutes later she brought in\nthree covers, and we all drew up to the table, holmes ravenous, i\ncurious, and phelps in the gloomiest state of depression.\n\"mrs. hudson has risen to the occasion,\" said holmes, uncovering a\ndish of curried chicken. \"her cuisine is a little limited, but she\nhas as good an idea of breakfast as a scotch-woman. what have you\nhere, watson?\"\n\"ham and eggs,\" i answered.\n\"good! what are you going to take, mr. phelps--curried fowl or eggs,\nor will you help yourself?\"\n\"thank you. i can eat nothing,\" said phelps.\n\"oh, come! try the dish before you.\"\n\"thank you, i would really rather not.\"\n\"well, then,\" said holmes, with a mischievous twinkle, \"i suppose\nthat you have no objection to helping me?\"\nphelps raised the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and\nsat there staring with a face as white as the plate upon which he\nlooked. across the centre of it was lying a little cylinder of\nblue-gray paper. he caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then\ndanced madly about the room, passing it to his bosom and shrieking\nout in his delight. then he fell back into an arm-chair so limp and\nexhausted with his own emotions that we had to pour brandy down his\nthroat to keep him from fainting.\n\"there! there!\" said holmes, soothing, patting him upon the shoulder.\n\"it was too bad to spring it on you like this, but watson here will\ntell you that i never can resist a touch of the dramatic.\"\nphelps seized his hand and kissed it. \"god bless you!\" he cried. \"you\nhave saved my honor.\"\n\"well, my own was at stake, you know,\" said holmes. \"i assure you it\nis just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to\nblunder over a commission.\"\nphelps thrust away the precious document into the innermost pocket of\nhis coat.\n\"i have not the heart to interrupt your breakfast any further, and\nyet i am dying to know how you got it and where it was.\"\nsherlock holmes swallowed a cup of coffee, and turned his attention\nto the ham and eggs. then he rose, lit his pipe, and settled himself\ndown into his chair.\n\"i'll tell you what i did first, and how i came to do it afterwards,\"\nsaid he. \"after leaving you at the station i went for a charming walk\nthrough some admirable surrey scenery to a pretty little village\ncalled ripley, where i had my tea at an inn, and took the precaution\nof filling my flask and of putting a paper of sandwiches in my\npocket. there i remained until evening, when i set off for woking\nagain, and found myself in the high-road outside briarbrae just after\nsunset.\n\"well, i waited until the road was clear--it is never a very\nfrequented one at any time, i fancy--and then i clambered over the\nfence into the grounds.\"\n\"surely the gate was open!\" ejaculated phelps.\n\"yes, but i have a peculiar taste in these matters. i chose the place\nwhere the three fir-trees stand, and behind their screen i got over\nwithout the least chance of any one in the house being able to see\nme. i crouched down among the bushes on the other side, and crawled\nfrom one to the other--witness the disreputable state of my trouser\nknees--until i had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite\nto your bedroom window. there i squatted down and awaited\ndevelopments.\n\"the blind was not down in your room, and i could see miss harrison\nsitting there reading by the table. it was quarter-past ten when she\nclosed her book, fastened the shutters, and retired.\n\"i heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turned\nthe key in the lock.\"\n\"the key!\" ejaculated phelps.\n\"yes, i had given miss harrison instructions to lock the door on the\noutside and take the key with her when she went to bed. she carried\nout every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without\nher cooperation you would not have that paper in you coat-pocket. she\ndeparted then and the lights went out, and i was left squatting in\nthe rhododendron-bush.\n\"the night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. of course\nit has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when\nhe lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. it was\nvery long, though--almost as long, watson, as when you and i waited\nin that deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the\nspeckled band. there was a church-clock down at woking which struck\nthe quarters, and i thought more than once that it had stopped. at\nlast however about two in the morning, i suddenly heard the gentle\nsound of a bolt being pushed back and the creaking of a key. a moment\nlater the servant's door was opened, and mr. joseph harrison stepped\nout into the moonlight.\"\n\"joseph!\" ejaculated phelps.\n\"he was bare-headed, but he had a black coat thrown over his shoulder\nso that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any\nalarm. he walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he\nreached the window he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and\npushed back the catch. then he flung open the window, and putting his\nknife through the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and\nswung them open.\n\"from where i lay i had a perfect view of the inside of the room and\nof every one of his movements. he lit the two candles which stood\nupon the mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner\nof the carpet in the neighborhood of the door. presently he stopped\nand picked out a square piece of board, such as is usually left to\nenable plumbers to get at the joints of the gas-pipes. this one\ncovered, as a matter of fact, the t joint which gives off the pipe\nwhich supplies the kitchen underneath. out of this hiding-place he\ndrew that little cylinder of paper, pushed down the board, rearranged\nthe carpet, blew out the candles, and walked straight into my arms as\ni stood waiting for him outside the window.\n\"well, he has rather more viciousness than i gave him credit for, has\nmaster joseph. he flew at me with his knife, and i had to grasp him\ntwice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before i had the upper hand\nof him. he looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when\nwe had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers.\nhaving got them i let my man go, but i wired full particulars to\nforbes this morning. if he is quick enough to catch his bird, well\nand good. but if, as i shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty\nbefore he gets there, why, all the better for the government. i fancy\nthat lord holdhurst for one, and mr. percy phelps for another, would\nvery much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court.\n\"my god!\" gasped our client. \"do you tell me that during these long\nten weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with\nme all the time?\"\n\"so it was.\"\n\"and joseph! joseph a villain and a thief!\"\n\"hum! i am afraid joseph's character is a rather deeper and more\ndangerous one than one might judge from his appearance. from what i\nhave heard from him this morning, i gather that he has lost heavily\nin dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth\nto better his fortunes. being an absolutely selfish man, when a\nchance presented itself he did not allow either his sister's\nhappiness or your reputation to hold his hand.\"\npercy phelps sank back in his chair. \"my head whirls,\" said he. \"your\nwords have dazed me.\"\n\"the principal difficulty in your case,\" remarked holmes, in his\ndidactic fashion, \"lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.\nwhat was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant. of all\nthe facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which\nwe deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their\norder, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. i\nhad already begun to suspect joseph, from the fact that you had\nintended to travel home with him that night, and that therefore it\nwas a likely enough thing that he should call for you, knowing the\nforeign office well, upon his way. when i heard that some one had\nbeen so anxious to get into the bedroom, in which no one but joseph\ncould have concealed anything--you told us in your narrative how you\nhad turned joseph out when you arrived with the doctor--my suspicions\nall changed to certainties, especially as the attempt was made on the\nfirst night upon which the nurse was absent, showing that the\nintruder was well acquainted with the ways of the house.\"\n\"how blind i have been!\"\n\"the facts of the case, as far as i have worked them out, are these:\nthis joseph harrison entered the office through the charles street\ndoor, and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the\ninstant after you left it. finding no one there he promptly rang the\nbell, and at the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper\nupon the table. a glance showed him that chance had put in his way a\nstate document of immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it\ninto his pocket and was gone. a few minutes elapsed, as you remember,\nbefore the sleepy commissionaire drew your attention to the bell, and\nthose were just enough to give the thief time to make his escape.\n\"he made his way to woking by the first train, and having examined\nhis booty and assured himself that it really was of immense value, he\nhad concealed it in what he thought was a very safe place, with the\nintention of taking it out again in a day or two, and carrying it to\nthe french embassy, or wherever he thought that a long price was to\nbe had. then came your sudden return. he, without a moment's warning,\nwas bundled out of his room, and from that time onward there were\nalways at least two of you there to prevent him from regaining his\ntreasure. the situation to him must have been a maddening one. but at\nlast he thought he saw his chance. he tried to steal in, but was\nbaffled by your wakefulness. you remember that you did not take your\nusual draught that night.\"\n\"i remember.\"\n\"i fancy that he had taken steps to make that draught efficacious,\nand that he quite relied upon your being unconscious. of course, i\nunderstood that he would repeat the attempt whenever it could be done\nwith safety. your leaving the room gave him the chance he wanted. i\nkept miss harrison in it all day so that he might not anticipate us.\nthen, having given him the idea that the coast was clear, i kept\nguard as i have described. i already knew that the papers were\nprobably in the room, but i had no desire to rip up all the planking\nand skirting in search of them. i let him take them, therefore, from\nthe hiding-place, and so saved myself an infinity of trouble. is\nthere any other point which i can make clear?\"\n\"why did he try the window on the first occasion,\" i asked, \"when he\nmight have entered by the door?\"\n\"in reaching the door he would have to pass seven bedrooms. on the\nother hand, he could get out on to the lawn with ease. anything\nelse?\"\n\"you do not think,\" asked phelps, \"that he had any murderous\nintention? the knife was only meant as a tool.\"\n\"it may be so,\" answered holmes, shrugging his shoulders. \"i can only\nsay for certain that mr. joseph harrison is a gentleman to whose\nmercy i should be extremely unwilling to trust.\"\nthe final problem\nit is with a heavy heart that i take up my pen to write these the\nlast words in which i shall ever record the singular gifts by which\nmy friend mr. sherlock holmes was distinguished.  in an incoherent\nand, as i deeply feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, i have\nendeavored to give some account of my strange experiences in his\ncompany from the chance which first brought us together at the period\nof the \"study in scarlet,\" up to the time of his interference in the\nmatter of the \"naval treaty\"--an interference which had the\nunquestionable effect of preventing a serious international\ncomplication.  it was my intention to have stopped there, and to have\nsaid nothing of that event which has created a void in my life which\nthe lapse of two years has done little to fill.  my hand has been\nforced, however, by the recent letters in which colonel james\nmoriarty defends the memory of his brother, and i have no choice but\nto lay the facts before the public exactly as they occurred.  i alone\nknow the absolute truth of the matter, and i am satisfied that the\ntime has come when no good purpose is to be served by its\nsuppression.  as far as i know, there have been only three accounts\nin the public press:  that in the journal de genve on may 6th, 1891,\nthe reuter's despatch in the english papers on may 7th, and finally\nthe recent letters to which i have alluded.  of these the first and\nsecond were extremely condensed, while the last is, as i shall now\nshow, an absolute perversion of the facts.  it lies with me to tell\nfor the first time what really took place between professor moriarty\nand mr. sherlock holmes.\nit may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start\nin private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed\nbetween holmes and myself became to some extent modified.  he still\ncame to me from time to time when he desired a companion in his\ninvestigation, but these occasions grew more and more seldom, until i\nfind that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which i\nretain any record.  during the winter of that year and the early\nspring of 1891, i saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the\nfrench government upon a matter of supreme importance, and i received\ntwo notes from holmes, dated from narbonne and from nimes, from which\ni gathered that his stay in france was likely to be a long one.  it\nwas with some surprise, therefore, that i saw him walk into my\nconsulting-room upon the evening of april 24th.  it struck me that he\nwas looking even paler and thinner than usual.\n\"yes, i have been using myself up rather too freely,\" he remarked, in\nanswer to my look rather than to my words; \"i have been a little\npressed of late.  have you any objection to my closing your\nshutters?\"\nthe only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which\ni had been reading.  holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging\nthe shutters together, he bolted them securely.\n\"you are afraid of something?\" i asked.\n\"well, i am.\"\n\"of what?\"\n\"of air-guns.\"\n\"my dear holmes, what do you mean?\"\n\"i think that you know me well enough, watson, to understand that i\nam by no means a nervous man.  at the same time, it is stupidity\nrather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close\nupon you.  might i trouble you for a match?\"  he drew in the smoke of\nhis cigarette as if the soothing influence was grateful to him.\n\"i must apologize for calling so late,\" said he, \"and i must further\nbeg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house\npresently by scrambling over your back garden wall.\"\n\"but what does it all mean?\" i asked.\nhe held out his hand, and i saw in the light of the lamp that two of\nhis knuckles were burst and bleeding.\n\"it is not an airy nothing, you see,\" said he, smiling.  \"on the\ncontrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over.  is\nmrs. watson in?\"\n\"she is away upon a visit.\"\n\"indeed!  you are alone?\"\n\"quite.\"\n\"then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come\naway with me for a week to the continent.\"\n\"where?\"\n\"oh, anywhere.  it's all the same to me.\"\nthere was something very strange in all this.  it was not holmes's\nnature to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn\nface told me that his nerves were at their highest tension.  he saw\nthe question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and\nhis elbows upon his knees, he explained the situation.\n\"you have probably never heard of professor moriarty?\" said he.\n\"never.\"\n\"aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!\" he cried.\n\"the man pervades london, and no one has heard of him.  that's what\nputs him on a pinnacle in the records of crime.  i tell you, watson,\nin all seriousness, that if i could beat that man, if i could free\nsociety of him, i should feel that my own career had reached its\nsummit, and i should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in\nlife.  between ourselves, the recent cases in which i have been of\nassistance to the royal family of scandinavia, and to the french\nrepublic, have left me in such a position that i could continue to\nlive in the quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to\nconcentrate my attention upon my chemical researches.  but i could\nnot rest, watson, i could not sit quiet in my chair, if i thought\nthat such a man as professor moriarty were walking the streets of\nlondon unchallenged.\"\n\"what has he done, then?\"\n\"his career has been an extraordinary one.  he is a man of good birth\nand excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal\nmathematical faculty.  at the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise\nupon the binomial theorem, which has had a european vogue.  on the\nstrength of it he won the mathematical chair at one of our smaller\nuniversities, and had, to all appearance, a most brilliant career\nbefore him.  but the man had hereditary tendencies of the most\ndiabolical kind.  a criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead\nof being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more\ndangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.  dark rumors gathered\nround him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to\nresign his chair and to come down to london, where he set up as an\narmy coach.  so much is known to the world, but what i am telling you\nnow is what i have myself discovered.\n\"as you are aware, watson, there is no one who knows the higher\ncriminal world of london so well as i do.  for years past i have\ncontinually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some\ndeep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and\nthrows its shield over the wrong-doer.  again and again in cases of\nthe most varying sorts--forgery cases, robberies, murders--i have\nfelt the presence of this force, and i have deduced its action in\nmany of those undiscovered crimes in which i have not been personally\nconsulted.  for years i have endeavored to break through the veil\nwhich shrouded it, and at last the time came when i seized my thread\nand followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings,\nto ex-professor moriarty of mathematical celebrity.\n\"he is the napoleon of crime, watson.  he is the organizer of half\nthat is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.\nhe is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker.  he has a brain\nof the first order.  he sits motionless, like a spider in the center\nof its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well\nevery quiver of each of them.  he does little himself.  he only\nplans.  but his agents are numerous and splendidly organized.  is\nthere a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a\nhouse to be rifled, a man to be removed--the word is passed to the\nprofessor, the matter is organized and carried out.  the agent may be\ncaught.  in that case money is found for his bail or his defence.\nbut the central power which uses the agent is never caught--never so\nmuch as suspected.  this was the organization which i deduced,\nwatson, and which i devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking\nup.\n\"but the professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly\ndevised that, do what i would, it seemed impossible to get evidence\nwhich would convict in a court of law.  you know my powers, my dear\nwatson, and yet at the end of three months i was forced to confess\nthat i had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal.\nmy horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill.  but\nat last he made a trip--only a little, little trip--but it was more\nthan he could afford when i was so close upon him.  i had my chance,\nand, starting from that point, i have woven my net round him until\nnow it is all ready to close.  in three days--that is to say, on\nmonday next--matters will be ripe, and the professor, with all the\nprincipal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police.\nthen will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the\nclearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them;\nbut if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out\nof our hands even at the last moment.\n\"now, if i could have done this without the knowledge of professor\nmoriarty, all would have been well.  but he was too wily for that.\nhe saw every step which i took to draw my toils round him.  again and\nagain he strove to break away, but i as often headed him off.  i tell\nyou, my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest\ncould be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit\nof thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection.  never have i\nrisen to such a height, and never have i been so hard pressed by an\nopponent.  he cut deep, and yet i just undercut him.  this morning\nthe last steps were taken, and three days only were wanted to\ncomplete the business.  i was sitting in my room thinking the matter\nover, when the door opened and professor moriarty stood before me.\n\"my nerves are fairly proof, watson, but i must confess to a start\nwhen i saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing\nthere on my threshold.  his appearance was quite familiar to me.  he\nis extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve,\nand his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head.  he is clean-shaven,\npale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in\nhis features.  his shoulders are rounded from much study, and his\nface protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side\nto side in a curiously reptilian fashion.  he peered at me with great\ncuriosity in his puckered eyes.\n\"'you have less frontal development that i should have expected,'\nsaid he, at last.  'it is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms\nin the pocket of one's dressing-gown.'\n\"the fact is that upon his entrance i had instantly recognized the\nextreme personal danger in which i lay.  the only conceivable escape\nfor him lay in silencing my tongue.  in an instant i had slipped the\nrevolver from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through\nthe cloth.  at his remark i drew the weapon out and laid it cocked\nupon the table.  he still smiled and blinked, but there was something\nabout his eyes which made me feel very glad that i had it there.\n\"'you evidently don't know me,' said he.\n\"'on the contrary,' i answered, 'i think it is fairly evident that i\ndo.  pray take a chair.  i can spare you five minutes if you have\nanything to say.'\n\"'all that i have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.\n\"'then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' i replied.\n\"'you stand fast?'\n\"'absolutely.'\n\"he clapped his hand into his pocket, and i raised the pistol from\nthe table.  but he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had\nscribbled some dates.\n\"'you crossed my path on the 4th of january,' said he.  'on the 23d\nyou incommoded me; by the middle of february i was seriously\ninconvenienced by you; at the end of march i was absolutely hampered\nin my plans; and now, at the close of april, i find myself placed in\nsuch a position through your continual persecution that i am in\npositive danger of losing my liberty.  the situation is becoming an\nimpossible one.'\n\"'have you any suggestion to make?' i asked.\n\"'you must drop it, mr. holmes,' said he, swaying his face about.\n'you really must, you know.'\n\"'after monday,' said i.\n\"'tut, tut,' said he.  'i am quite sure that a man of your\nintelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this\naffair.  it is necessary that you should withdraw.  you have worked\nthings in such a fashion that we have only one resource left.  it has\nbeen an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have\ngrappled with this affair, and i say, unaffectedly, that it would be\na grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure.  you smile,\nsir, but i assure you that it really would.'\n\"'danger is part of my trade,' i remarked.\n\"'that is not danger,' said he.  'it is inevitable destruction.  you\nstand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty\norganization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness,\nhave been unable to realize.  you must stand clear, mr. holmes, or be\ntrodden under foot.'\n\"'i am afraid,' said i, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this\nconversation i am neglecting business of importance which awaits me\nelsewhere.'\n\"he rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.\n\"'well, well,' said he, at last.  'it seems a pity, but i have done\nwhat i could.  i know every move of your game.  you can do nothing\nbefore monday.  it has been a duel between you and me, mr. holmes.\nyou hope to place me in the dock.  i tell you that i will never stand\nin the dock.  you hope to beat me.  i tell you that you will never\nbeat me.  if you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest\nassured that i shall do as much to you.'\n\"'you have paid me several compliments, mr. moriarty,' said i.  'let\nme pay you one in return when i say that if i were assured of the\nformer eventuality i would, in the interests of the public,\ncheerfully accept the latter.'\n\"'i can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so\nturned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of\nthe room.\n\"that was my singular interview with professor moriarty.  i confess\nthat it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind.  his soft, precise\nfashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully\ncould not produce.  of course, you will say:  'why not take police\nprecautions against him?'  the reason is that i am well convinced\nthat it is from his agents the blow would fall.  i have the best\nproofs that it would be so.\"\n\"you have already been assaulted?\"\n\"my dear watson, professor moriarty is not a man who lets the grass\ngrow under his feet.  i went out about mid-day to transact some\nbusiness in oxford street.  as i passed the corner which leads from\nbentinck street on to the welbeck street crossing a two-horse van\nfuriously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash.  i sprang\nfor the foot-path and saved myself by the fraction of a second.  the\nvan dashed round by marylebone lane and was gone in an instant.  i\nkept to the pavement after that, watson, but as i walked down vere\nstreet a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was\nshattered to fragments at my feet.  i called the police and had the\nplace examined.  there were slates and bricks piled up on the roof\npreparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the\nwind had toppled over one of these.  of course i knew better, but i\ncould prove nothing.  i took a cab after that and reached my\nbrother's rooms in pall mall, where i spent the day.  now i have come\nround to you, and on my way i was attacked by a rough with a\nbludgeon.  i knocked him down, and the police have him in custody;\nbut i can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible\nconnection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front\nteeth i have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach,\nwho is, i dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles\naway.  you will not wonder, watson, that my first act on entering\nyour rooms was to close your shutters, and that i have been compelled\nto ask your permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous\nexit than the front door.\"\ni had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now, as\nhe sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have\ncombined to make up a day of horror.\n\"you will spend the night here?\" i said.\n\"no, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest.  i have my plans\nlaid, and all will be well.  matters have gone so far now that they\ncan move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my\npresence is necessary for a conviction.  it is obvious, therefore,\nthat i cannot do better than get away for the few days which remain\nbefore the police are at liberty to act.  it would be a great\npleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the continent with\nme.\"\n\"the practice is quiet,\" said i, \"and i have an accommodating\nneighbor.  i should be glad to come.\"\n\"and to start to-morrow morning?\"\n\"if necessary.\"\n\"oh yes, it is most necessary.  then these are your instructions, and\ni beg, my dear watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you\nare now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest\nrogue and the most powerful syndicate of criminals in europe.  now\nlisten!  you will dispatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a\ntrusty messenger unaddressed to victoria to-night.  in the morning\nyou will send for a hansom, desiring your man to take neither the\nfirst nor the second which may present itself.  into this hansom you\nwill jump, and you will drive to the strand end of the lowther\narcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with\na request that he will not throw it away.  have your fare ready, and\nthe instant that your cab stops, dash through the arcade, timing\nyourself to reach the other side at a quarter-past nine.  you will\nfind a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow\nwith a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red.  into this\nyou will step, and you will reach victoria in time for the\ncontinental express.\"\n\"where shall i meet you?\"\n\"at the station.  the second first-class carriage from the front will\nbe reserved for us.\"\n\"the carriage is our rendezvous, then?\"\n\"yes.\"\nit was in vain that i asked holmes to remain for the evening.  it was\nevident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he\nwas under, and that that was the motive which impelled him to go.\nwith a few hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and\ncame out with me into the garden, clambering over the wall which\nleads into mortimer street, and immediately whistling for a hansom,\nin which i heard him drive away.\nin the morning i obeyed holmes's injunctions to the letter.  a hansom\nwas procured with such precaution as would prevent its being one\nwhich was placed ready for us, and i drove immediately after\nbreakfast to the lowther arcade, through which i hurried at the top\nof my speed.  a brougham was waiting with a very massive driver\nwrapped in a dark cloak, who, the instant that i had stepped in,\nwhipped up the horse and rattled off to victoria station.  on my\nalighting there he turned the carriage, and dashed away again without\nso much as a look in my direction.\nso far all had gone admirably.  my luggage was waiting for me, and i\nhad no difficulty in finding the carriage which holmes had indicated,\nthe less so as it was the only one in the train which was marked\n\"engaged.\"  my only source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of\nholmes.  the station clock marked only seven minutes from the time\nwhen we were due to start.  in vain i searched among the groups of\ntravellers and leave-takers for the lithe figure of my friend.  there\nwas no sign of him.  i spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable\nitalian priest, who was endeavoring to make a porter understand, in\nhis broken english, that his luggage was to be booked through to\nparis.  then, having taken another look round, i returned to my\ncarriage, where i found that the porter, in spite of the ticket, had\ngiven me my decrepit italian friend as a traveling companion.  it was\nuseless for me to explain to him that his presence was an intrusion,\nfor my italian was even more limited than his english, so i shrugged\nmy shoulders resignedly, and continued to look out anxiously for my\nfriend.  a chill of fear had come over me, as i thought that his\nabsence might mean that some blow had fallen during the night.\nalready the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when--\n\"my dear watson,\" said a voice, \"you have not even condescended to\nsay good-morning.\"\ni turned in uncontrollable astonishment.  the aged ecclesiastic had\nturned his face towards me.  for an instant the wrinkles were\nsmoothed away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased\nto protrude and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their\nfire, the drooping figure expanded.  the next the whole frame\ncollapsed again, and holmes had gone as quickly as he had come.\n\"good heavens!\" i cried; \"how you startled me!\"\n\"every precaution is still necessary,\" he whispered.  \"i have reason\nto think that they are hot upon our trail.  ah, there is moriarty\nhimself.\"\nthe train had already begun to move as holmes spoke.  glancing back,\ni saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and\nwaving his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped.  it was\ntoo late, however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an\ninstant later had shot clear of the station.\n\"with all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine,\"\nsaid holmes, laughing.  he rose, and throwing off the black cassock\nand hat which had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a\nhand-bag.\n\"have you seen the morning paper, watson?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"you haven't seen about baker street, then?\"\n\"baker street?\"\n\"they set fire to our rooms last night.  no great harm was done.\"\n\"good heavens, holmes, this is intolerable!\"\n\"they must have lost my track completely after their bludgeon-man was\narrested.  otherwise they could not have imagined that i had returned\nto my rooms.  they have evidently taken the precaution of watching\nyou, however, and that is what has brought moriarty to victoria.  you\ncould not have made any slip in coming?\"\n\"i did exactly what you advised.\"\n\"did you find your brougham?\"\n\"yes, it was waiting.\"\n\"did you recognize your coachman?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"it was my brother mycroft.  it is an advantage to get about in such\na case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.  but we must\nplan what we are to do about moriarty now.\"\n\"as this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, i\nshould think we have shaken him off very effectively.\"\n\"my dear watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning when i said\nthat this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual\nplane as myself.  you do not imagine that if i were the pursuer i\nshould allow myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle.  why,\nthen, should you think so meanly of him?\"\n\"what will he do?\"\n\"what i should do.\"\n\"what would you do, then?\"\n\"engage a special.\"\n\"but it must be late.\"\n\"by no means.  this train stops at canterbury; and there is always at\nleast a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat.  he will catch us\nthere.\"\n\"one would think that we were the criminals.  let us have him\narrested on his arrival.\"\n\"it would be to ruin the work of three months.  we should get the big\nfish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net.  on\nmonday we should have them all.  no, an arrest is inadmissible.\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"we shall get out at canterbury.\"\n\"and then?\"\n\"well, then we must make a cross-country journey to newhaven, and so\nover to dieppe.  moriarty will again do what i should do.  he will\nget on to paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the\ndepot.  in the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple of\ncarpet-bags, encourage the manufactures of the countries through\nwhich we travel, and make our way at our leisure into switzerland,\nvia luxembourg and basle.\"\nat canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should\nhave to wait an hour before we could get a train to newhaven.\ni was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing\nluggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when holmes pulled my sleeve\nand pointed up the line.\n\"already, you see,\" said he.\nfar away, from among the kentish woods there rose a thin spray of\nsmoke.  a minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying\nalong the open curve which leads to the station.  we had hardly time\nto take our place behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a\nrattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into our faces.\n\"there he goes,\" said holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and\nrock over the point. \"there are limits, you see, to our friend's\nintelligence.  it would have been a coup-de-matre had he deduced\nwhat i would deduce and acted accordingly.\"\n\"and what would he have done had he overtaken us?\"\n\"there cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous\nattack upon me.  it is, however, a game at which two may play.  the\nquestion now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run\nour chance of starving before we reach the buffet at newhaven.\"\nwe made our way to brussels that night and spent two days there,\nmoving on upon the third day as far as strasburg.  on the monday\nmorning holmes had telegraphed to the london police, and in the\nevening we found a reply waiting for us at our hotel.  holmes tore it\nopen, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate.\n\"i might have known it!\" he groaned.  \"he has escaped!\"\n\"moriarty?\"\n\"they have secured the whole gang with the exception of him.  he has\ngiven them the slip.  of course, when i had left the country there\nwas no one to cope with him.  but i did think that i had put the game\nin their hands.  i think that you had better return to england,\nwatson.\"\n\"why?\"\n\"because you will find me a dangerous companion now.  this man's\noccupation is gone.  he is lost if he returns to london.  if i read\nhis character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging\nhimself upon me.  he said as much in our short interview, and i fancy\nthat he meant it.  i should certainly recommend you to return to your\npractice.\"\nit was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an old\ncampaigner as well as an old friend.  we sat in the strasbourg\nsalle--manger arguing the question for half an hour, but the same\nnight we had resumed our journey and were well on our way to geneva.\nfor a charming week we wandered up the valley of the rhone, and then,\nbranching off at leuk, we made our way over the gemmi pass, still\ndeep in snow, and so, by way of interlaken, to meiringen.  it was a\nlovely trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white\nof the winter above; but it was clear to me that never for one\ninstant did holmes forget the shadow which lay across him.  in the\nhomely alpine villages or in the lonely mountain passes, i could tell\nby his quick glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that\npassed us, that he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we\ncould not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our\nfootsteps.\nonce, i remember, as we passed over the gemmi, and walked along the\nborder of the melancholy daubensee, a large rock which had been\ndislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared\ninto the lake behind us.  in an instant holmes had raced up on to the\nridge, and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every\ndirection.  it was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of\nstones was a common chance in the spring-time at that spot.  he said\nnothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the\nfulfillment of that which he had expected.\nand yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed.  on the\ncontrary, i can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant\nspirits.  again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could be\nassured that society was freed from professor moriarty he would\ncheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.\n\"i think that i may go so far as to say, watson, that i have not\nlived wholly in vain,\" he remarked.  \"if my record were closed\nto-night i could still survey it with equanimity.  the air of london\nis the sweeter for my presence.  in over a thousand cases i am not\naware that i have ever used my powers upon the wrong side.  of late i\nhave been tempted to look into the problems furnished by nature\nrather than those more superficial ones for which our artificial\nstate of society is responsible.  your memoirs will draw to an end,\nwatson, upon the day that i crown my career by the capture or\nextinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in europe.\"\ni shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me\nto tell.  it is not a subject on which i would willingly dwell, and\nyet i am conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.\nit was on the third of may that we reached the little village of\nmeiringen, where we put up at the englischer hof, then kept by peter\nsteiler the elder.  our landlord was an intelligent  man, and spoke\nexcellent english, having served for three years as waiter at the\ngrosvenor hotel in london.  at his advice, on the afternoon of the\nfourth we set off together, with the intention of crossing the hills\nand spending the night at the hamlet of rosenlaui.  we had strict\ninjunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of reichenbach,\nwhich are about half-way up the hill, without making a small detour\nto see them.\nit is, indeed, a fearful place.  the torrent, swollen by the melting\nsnow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up\nlike the smoke from a burning house.  the shaft into which the river\nhurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black\nrock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable\ndepth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged\nlip.  the long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the\nthick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man\ngiddy with their constant whirl and clamor.  we stood near the edge\npeering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against\nthe black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came\nbooming up with the spray out of the abyss.\nthe path has been cut half-way round the fall to afford a complete\nview, but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he\ncame.  we had turned to do so, when we saw a swiss lad come running\nalong it with a letter in his hand.  it bore the mark of the hotel\nwhich we had just left, and was addressed to me by the landlord.  it\nappeared that within a very few minutes of our leaving, an english\nlady had arrived who was in the last stage of consumption.  she had\nwintered at davos platz, and was journeying now to join her friends\nat lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage had overtaken her.  it was\nthought that she could hardly live a few hours, but it would be a\ngreat consolation to her to see an english doctor, and, if i would\nonly return, etc.  the good steiler assured me in a postscript that\nhe would himself look upon my compliance as a very great favor, since\nthe lady absolutely refused to see a swiss physician, and he could\nnot but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.\nthe appeal was one which could not be ignored.  it was impossible to\nrefuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land.\nyet i had my scruples about leaving holmes.  it was finally agreed,\nhowever, that he should retain the young swiss messenger with him as\nguide and companion while i returned to meiringen.  my friend would\nstay some little time at the fall, he said, and would then walk\nslowly over the hill to rosenlaui, where i was to rejoin him in the\nevening.  as i turned away i saw holmes, with his back against a rock\nand his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters.  it was\nthe last that i was ever destined to see of him in this world.\nwhen i was near the bottom of the descent i looked back.  it was\nimpossible, from that position, to see the fall, but i could see the\ncurving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill and leads to\nit.  along this a man was, i remember, walking very rapidly.\ni could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green\nbehind him.  i noted him, and the energy with which he walked but he\npassed from my mind again as i hurried on upon my errand.\nit may have been a little over an hour before i reached meiringen.\nold steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.\n\"well,\" said i, as i came hurrying up, \"i trust that she is no\nworse?\"\na look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver of\nhis eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.\n\"you did not write this?\" i said, pulling the letter from my pocket.\n\"there is no sick englishwoman in the hotel?\"\n\"certainly not!\" he cried.  \"but it has the hotel mark upon it!  ha,\nit must have been written by that tall englishman who came in after\nyou had gone.  he said--\"\nbut i waited for none of the landlord's explanations.  in a tingle of\nfear i was already running down the village street, and making for\nthe path which i had so lately descended.  it had taken me an hour to\ncome down.  for all my efforts two more had passed before i found\nmyself at the fall of reichenbach once more.  there was holmes's\nalpine-stock still leaning against the rock by which i had left him.\nbut there was no sign of him, and it was in vain that i shouted.  my\nonly answer was my own voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the\ncliffs around me.\nit was the sight of that alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick.\nhe had not gone to rosenlaui, then.  he had remained on that\nthree-foot path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the\nother, until his enemy had overtaken him.  the young swiss had gone\ntoo.  he had probably been in the pay of moriarty, and had left the\ntwo men together.  and then what had happened?  who was to tell us\nwhat had happened then?\ni stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for i was dazed with\nthe horror of the thing.  then i began to think of holmes's own\nmethods and to try to practise them in reading this tragedy.  it was,\nalas, only too easy to do.  during our conversation we had not gone\nto the end of the path, and the alpine-stock marked the place where\nwe had stood.  the blackish soil is kept forever soft by the\nincessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread upon it.\ntwo lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the farther end of\nthe path, both leading away from me.  there were none returning.  a\nfew yards from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of\nmud, and the branches and ferns which fringed the chasm were torn and\nbedraggled.  i lay upon my face and peered over with the spray\nspouting up all around me.  it had darkened since i left, and now i\ncould only see here and there the glistening of moisture upon the\nblack walls, and far away down at the end of the shaft the gleam of\nthe broken water.  i shouted; but only the same half-human cry of the\nfall was borne back to my ears.\nbut it was destined that i should after all have a last word of\ngreeting from my friend and comrade.  i have said that his\nalpine-stock had been left leaning against a rock which jutted on to\nthe path.  from the top of this boulder the gleam of something bright\ncaught my eye, and, raising my hand, i found that it came from the\nsilver cigarette-case which he used to carry.  as i took it up a\nsmall square of paper upon which it had lain fluttered down on to the\nground.  unfolding it, i found that it consisted of three pages torn\nfrom his note-book and addressed to me.  it was characteristic of the\nman that the direction was as precise, and the writing as firm and\nclear, as though it had been written in his study.\nmy dear watson [it said]:\ni write these few lines through the courtesy of mr. moriarty, who\nawaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions\nwhich lie between us.  he has been giving me a sketch of the methods\nby which he avoided the english police and kept himself informed of\nour movements.  they certainly confirm the very high opinion which i\nhad formed of his abilities.  i am pleased to think that i shall be\nable to free society from any further effects of his presence, though\ni fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and\nespecially, my dear watson, to you.  i have already explained to you,\nhowever, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that\nno possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.\nindeed, if i may make a full confession to you, i was quite\nconvinced that the letter from meiringen was a hoax, and i allowed\nyou to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some\ndevelopment of this sort would follow.  tell inspector patterson that\nthe papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole m.,\ndone up in a blue envelope and inscribed \"moriarty.\"  i made every\ndisposition of my property before leaving england, and handed it to\nmy brother mycroft.  pray give my greetings to mrs. watson, and\nbelieve me to be, my dear fellow,\nvery sincerely yours,\nsherlock holmes\na few words may suffice to tell the little that remains.  an\nexamination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest\nbetween the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a\nsituation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms.  any\nattempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there,\ndeep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething\nfoam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the\nforemost champion of the law of their generation.  the swiss youth\nwas never found again, and there can be no doubt that he was one of\nthe numerous agents whom moriarty kept in his employ.  as to the\ngang, it will be within the memory of the public how completely the\nevidence which holmes had accumulated exposed their organization, and\nhow heavily the hand of the dead man weighed upon them.  of their\nterrible chief few details came out during the proceedings, and if i\nhave now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career it is\ndue to those injudicious champions who have endeavored to clear his\nmemory by attacks upon him whom i shall ever regard as the best and\nthe wisest man whom i have ever known.\nthe return of sherlock holmes\nthe adventure of the empty house\nit was in the spring of the year 1894 that all london was interested,\nand the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the honourable\nronald adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. the\npublic has already learned those particulars of the crime which came\nout in the police investigation; but a good deal was suppressed upon\nthat occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so\noverwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all\nthe facts. only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am i allowed to\nsupply those missing links which make up the whole of that remarkable\nchain. the crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as\nnothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me\nthe greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.\neven now, after this long interval, i find myself thrilling as i\nthink of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy,\namazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind. let me\nsay to that public which has shown some interest in those glimpses\nwhich i have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions of a\nvery remarkable man that they are not to blame me if i have not\nshared my knowledge with them, for i should have considered it my\nfirst duty to have done so had i not been barred by a positive\nprohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawn upon the\nthird of last month.\nit can be imagined that my close intimacy with sherlock holmes had\ninterested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance i\nnever failed to read with care the various problems which came before\nthe public, and i even attempted more than once for my own private\nsatisfaction to employ his methods in their solution, though with\nindifferent success. there was none, however, which appealed to me\nlike this tragedy of ronald adair. as i read the evidence at the\ninquest, which led up to a verdict of wilful murder against some\nperson or persons unknown, i realized more clearly than i had ever\ndone the loss which the community had sustained by the death of\nsherlock holmes. there were points about this strange business which\nwould, i was sure, have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of\nthe police would have been supplemented, or more probably\nanticipated, by the trained observation and the alert mind of the\nfirst criminal agent in europe. all day as i drove upon my round i\nturned over the case in my mind, and found no explanation which\nappeared to me to be adequate. at the risk of telling a twice-told\ntale i will recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public\nat the conclusion of the inquest.\nthe honourable ronald adair was the second son of the earl of\nmaynooth, at that time governor of one of the australian colonies.\nadair's mother had returned from australia to undergo the operation\nfor cataract, and she, her son ronald, and her daughter hilda were\nliving together at 427, park lane. the youth moved in the best\nsociety, had, so far as was known, no enemies, and no particular\nvices. he had been engaged to miss edith woodley, of carstairs, but\nthe engagement had been broken off by mutual consent some months\nbefore, and there was no sign that it had left any very profound\nfeeling behind it. for the rest the man's life moved in a narrow and\nconventional circle, for his habits were quiet and his nature\nunemotional. yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat that\ndeath came in most strange and unexpected form between the hours of\nten and eleven-twenty on the night of march 30, 1894.\nronald adair was fond of cards, playing continually, but never for\nsuch stakes as would hurt him. he was a member of the baldwin, the\ncavendish, and the bagatelle card clubs. it was shown that after\ndinner on the day of his death he had played a rubber of whist at the\nlatter club. he had also played there in the afternoon. the evidence\nof those who had played with him--mr. murray, sir john hardy, and\ncolonel moran--showed that the game was whist, and that there was a\nfairly equal fall of the cards. adair might have lost five pounds,\nbut not more. his fortune was a considerable one, and such a loss\ncould not in any way affect him. he had played nearly every day at\none club or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a\nwinner. it came out in evidence that in partnership with colonel\nmoran he had actually won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds\nin a sitting some weeks before from godfrey milner and lord balmoral.\nso much for his recent history, as it came out at the inquest.\non the evening of the crime he returned from the club exactly at ten.\nhis mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation.\nthe servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the\nsecond floor, generally used as his sitting-room. she had lit a fire\nthere, and as it smoked she had opened the window. no sound was heard\nfrom the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of lady\nmaynooth and her daughter. desiring to say good-night, she had\nattempted to enter her son's room. the door was locked on the inside,\nand no answer could be got to their cries and knocking. help was\nobtained and the door forced. the unfortunate young man was found\nlying near the table. his head had been horribly mutilated by an\nexpanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found\nin the room. on the table lay two bank-notes for ten pounds each and\nseventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little\npiles of varying amount. there were some figures also upon a sheet of\npaper with the names of some club friends opposite to them, from\nwhich it was conjectured that before his death he was endeavouring to\nmake out his losses or winnings at cards.\na minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the\ncase more complex. in the first place, no reason could be given why\nthe young man should have fastened the door upon the inside. there\nwas the possibility that the murderer had done this and had\nafterwards escaped by the window. the drop was at least twenty feet,\nhowever, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. neither the\nflowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been disturbed, nor\nwere there any marks upon the narrow strip of grass which separated\nthe house from the road. apparently, therefore, it was the young man\nhimself who had fastened the door. but how did he come by his death?\nno one could have climbed up to the window without leaving traces.\nsuppose a man had fired through the window, it would indeed be a\nremarkable shot who could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound.\nagain, park lane is a frequented thoroughfare, and there is a\ncab-stand within a hundred yards of the house. no one had heard a\nshot. and yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet,\nwhich had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so\ninflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous death. such\nwere the circumstances of the park lane mystery, which were further\ncomplicated by entire absence of motive, since, as i have said, young\nadair was not known to have any enemy, and no attempt had been made\nto remove the money or valuables in the room.\nall day i turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit\nupon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that\nline of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the\nstarting-point of every investigation. i confess that i made little\nprogress. in the evening i strolled across the park, and found myself\nabout six o'clock at the oxford street end of park lane. a group of\nloafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,\ndirected me to the house which i had come to see. a tall, thin man\nwith coloured glasses, whom i strongly suspected of being a\nplain-clothes detective, was pointing out some theory of his own,\nwhile the others crowded round to listen to what he said. i got as\nnear him as i could, but his observations seemed to me to be absurd,\nso i withdrew again in some disgust. as i did so i struck against an\nelderly deformed man, who had been behind me, and i knocked down\nseveral books which he was carrying. i remember that as i picked them\nup i observed the title of one of them, the origin of tree worship,\nand it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile who,\neither as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.\ni endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was evident that\nthese books which i had so unfortunately maltreated were very\nprecious objects in the eyes of their owner. with a snarl of contempt\nhe turned upon his heel, and i saw his curved back and white\nside-whiskers disappear among the throng.\nmy observations of no. 427, park lane did little to clear up the\nproblem in which i was interested. the house was separated from the\nstreet by a low wall and railing, the whole not more than five feet\nhigh. it was perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to get into the\ngarden, but the window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no\nwater-pipe or anything which could help the most active man to climb\nit. more puzzled than ever i retraced my steps to kensington. i had\nnot been in my study five minutes when the maid entered to say that a\nperson desired to see me. to my astonishment it was none other than\nmy strange old book-collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out\nfrom a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them\nat least, wedged under his right arm.\n\"you're surprised to see me, sir,\" said he, in a strange, croaking\nvoice.\ni acknowledged that i was.\n\"well, i've a conscience, sir, and when i chanced to see you go into\nthis house, as i came hobbling after you, i thought to myself, i'll\njust step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if i was\na bit gruff in my manner there was not any harm meant, and that i am\nmuch obliged to him for picking up my books.\"\n\"you make too much of a trifle,\" said i. \"may i ask how you knew who\ni was?\"\n\"well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, i am a neighbour of\nyours, for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of church\nstreet, and very happy to see you, i am sure. maybe you collect\nyourself, sir; here's british birds, and catullus, and the holy\nwar--a bargain every one of them. with five volumes you could just\nfill that gap on that second shelf. it looks untidy, does it not,\nsir?\"\ni moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. when i turned again\nsherlock holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. i\nrose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement,\nand then it appears that i must have fainted for the first and the\nlast time in my life. certainly a grey mist swirled before my eyes,\nand when it cleared i found my collar-ends undone and the tingling\nafter-taste of brandy upon my lips. holmes was bending over my chair,\nhis flask in his hand.\n\"my dear watson,\" said the well-remembered voice, \"i owe you a\nthousand apologies. i had no idea that you would be so affected.\"\ni gripped him by the arm.\n\"holmes!\" i cried. \"is it really you? can it indeed be that you are\nalive? is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that\nawful abyss?\"\n\"wait a moment,\" said he. \"are you sure that you are really fit to\ndiscuss things? i have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily\ndramatic reappearance.\"\n\"i am all right, but indeed, holmes, i can hardly believe my eyes.\ngood heavens, to think that you--you of all men--should be standing\nin my study!\" again i gripped him by the sleeve and felt the thin,\nsinewy arm beneath it. \"well, you're not a spirit, anyhow,\" said i.\n\"my dear chap, i am overjoyed to see you. sit down and tell me how\nyou came alive out of that dreadful chasm.\"\nhe sat opposite to me and lit a cigarette in his old nonchalant\nmanner. he was dressed in the seedy frock-coat of the book merchant,\nbut the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old\nbooks upon the table. holmes looked even thinner and keener than of\nold, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told\nme that his life recently had not been a healthy one.\n\"i am glad to stretch myself, watson,\" said he. \"it is no joke when a\ntall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.\nnow, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations we have, if\ni may ask for your co-operation, a hard and dangerous night's work in\nfront of us. perhaps it would be better if i gave you an account of\nthe whole situation when that work is finished.\"\n\"i am full of curiosity. i should much prefer to hear now.\"\n\"you'll come with me to-night?\"\n\"when you like and where you like.\"\n\"this is indeed like the old days. we shall have time for a mouthful\nof dinner before we need go. well, then, about that chasm. i had no\nserious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason\nthat i never was in it.\"\n\"you never were in it?\"\n\"no, watson, i never was in it. my note to you was absolutely\ngenuine. i had little doubt that i had come to the end of my career\nwhen i perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late professor\nmoriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. i read\nan inexorable purpose in his grey eyes. i exchanged some remarks with\nhim, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the\nshort note which you afterwards received. i left it with my\ncigarette-box and my stick and i walked along the pathway, moriarty\nstill at my heels. when i reached the end i stood at bay. he drew no\nweapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. he\nknew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge\nhimself upon me. we tottered together upon the brink of the fall. i\nhave some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the japanese system of\nwrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. i slipped\nthrough his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a\nfew seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. but for all his\nefforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. with my face\nover the brink i saw him fall for a long way. then he struck a rock,\nbounded off, and splashed into the water.\"\ni listened with amazement to this explanation, which holmes delivered\nbetween the puffs of his cigarette.\n\"but the tracks!\" i cried. \"i saw with my own eyes that two went down\nthe path and none returned.\"\n\"it came about in this way. the instant that the professor had\ndisappeared it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance\nfate had placed in my way. i knew that moriarty was not the only man\nwho had sworn my death. there were at least three others whose desire\nfor vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their\nleader. they were all most dangerous men. one or other would\ncertainly get me. on the other hand, if all the world was convinced\nthat i was dead they would take liberties, these men, they would lay\nthemselves open, and sooner or later i could destroy them. then it\nwould be time for me to announce that i was still in the land of the\nliving. so rapidly does the brain act that i believe i had thought\nthis all out before professor moriarty had reached the bottom of the\nreichenbach fall.\n\"i stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. in your\npicturesque account of the matter, which i read with great interest\nsome months later, you assert that the wall was sheer. this was not\nliterally true. a few small footholds presented themselves, and there\nwas some indication of a ledge. the cliff is so high that to climb it\nall was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to\nmake my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks. i might,\nit is true, have reversed my boots, as i have done on similar\noccasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction\nwould certainly have suggested a deception. on the whole, then, it\nwas best that i should risk the climb. it was not a pleasant\nbusiness, watson. the fall roared beneath me. i am not a fanciful\nperson, but i give you my word that i seemed to hear moriarty's voice\nscreaming at me out of the abyss. a mistake would have been fatal.\nmore than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot\nslipped in the wet notches of the rock, i thought that i was gone.\nbut i struggled upwards, and at last i reached a ledge several feet\ndeep and covered with soft green moss, where i could lie unseen in\nthe most perfect comfort. there i was stretched when you, my dear\nwatson, and all your following were investigating in the most\nsympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.\n\"at last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally\nerroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel and i was left\nalone. i had imagined that i had reached the end of my adventures,\nbut a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises\nstill in store for me. a huge rock, falling from above, boomed past\nme, struck the path, and bounded over into the chasm. for an instant\ni thought that it was an accident; but a moment later, looking up, i\nsaw a man's head against the darkening sky, and another stone struck\nthe very ledge upon which i was stretched, within a foot of my head.\nof course, the meaning of this was obvious. moriarty had not been\nalone. a confederate--and even that one glance had told me how\ndangerous a man that confederate was--had kept guard while the\nprofessor had attacked me. from a distance, unseen by me, he had been\na witness of his friend's death and of my escape. he had waited, and\nthen, making his way round to the top of the cliff, he had\nendeavoured to succeed where his comrade had failed.\n\"i did not take long to think about it, watson. again i saw that grim\nface look over the cliff, and i knew that it was the precursor of\nanother stone. i scrambled down on to the path. i don't think i could\nhave done it in cold blood. it was a hundred times more difficult\nthan getting up. but i had no time to think of the danger, for\nanother stone sang past me as i hung by my hands from the edge of the\nledge. halfway down i slipped, but by the blessing of god i landed,\ntorn and bleeding, upon the path. i took to my heels, did ten miles\nover the mountains in the darkness, and a week later i found myself\nin florence with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had\nbecome of me.\n\"i had only one confidant--my brother mycroft. i owe you many\napologies, my dear watson, but it was all-important that it should be\nthought i was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have\nwritten so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not\nyourself thought that it was true. several times during the last\nthree years i have taken up my pen to write to you, but always i\nfeared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some\nindiscretion which would betray my secret. for that reason i turned\naway from you this evening when you upset my books, for i was in\ndanger at the time, and any show of surprise and emotion upon your\npart might have drawn attention to my identity and led to the most\ndeplorable and irreparable results. as to mycroft, i had to confide\nin him in order to obtain the money which i needed. the course of\nevents in london did not run so well as i had hoped, for the trial of\nthe moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous members, my own most\nvindictive enemies, at liberty. i travelled for two years in tibet,\ntherefore, and amused myself by visiting lhassa and spending some\ndays with the head llama. you may have read of the remarkable\nexplorations of a norwegian named sigerson, but i am sure that it\nnever occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend. i\nthen passed through persia, looked in at mecca, and paid a short but\ninteresting visit to the khalifa at khartoum, the results of which i\nhave communicated to the foreign office. returning to france i spent\nsome months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which i\nconducted in a laboratory at montpelier, in the south of france.\nhaving concluded this to my satisfaction, and learning that only one\nof my enemies was now left in london, i was about to return when my\nmovements were hastened by the news of this very remarkable park lane\nmystery, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which\nseemed to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities. i came\nover at once to london, called in my own person at baker street,\nthrew mrs. hudson into violent hysterics, and found that mycroft had\npreserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been. so\nit was, my dear watson, that at two o'clock to-day i found myself in\nmy old arm-chair in my own old room, and only wishing that i could\nhave seen my old friend watson in the other chair which he has so\noften adorned.\"\nsuch was the remarkable narrative to which i listened on that april\nevening--a narrative which would have been utterly incredible to me\nhad it not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare\nfigure and the keen, eager face, which i had never thought to see\nagain. in some manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and\nhis sympathy was shown in his manner rather than in his words. \"work\nis the best antidote to sorrow, my dear watson,\" said he, \"and i have\na piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a\nsuccessful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's life on this\nplanet.\" in vain i begged him to tell me more. \"you will hear and see\nenough before morning,\" he answered. \"we have three years of the past\nto discuss. let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon\nthe notable adventure of the empty house.\"\nit was indeed like old times when, at that hour, i found myself\nseated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket and the\nthrill of adventure in my heart. holmes was cold and stern and\nsilent. as the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere\nfeatures i saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin\nlips compressed. i knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt\ndown in the dark jungle of criminal london, but i was well assured\nfrom the bearing of this master huntsman that the adventure was a\nmost grave one, while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke\nthrough his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our\nquest.\ni had imagined that we were bound for baker street, but holmes\nstopped the cab at the corner of cavendish square. i observed that as\nhe stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and\nat every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure\nthat he was not followed. our route was certainly a singular one.\nholmes's knowledge of the byways of london was extraordinary, and on\nthis occasion he passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a\nnetwork of mews and stables the very existence of which i had never\nknown. we emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy\nhouses, which led us into manchester street, and so to blandford\nstreet. here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through\na wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the\nback door of a house. we entered together and he closed it behind us.\nthe place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it was an\nempty house. our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking,\nand my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was\nhanging in ribbons. holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist\nand led me forwards down a long hall, until i dimly saw the murky\nfanlight over the door. here holmes turned suddenly to the right, and\nwe found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed\nin the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the\nstreet beyond. there was no lamp near and the window was thick with\ndust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within.\nmy companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my\near.\n\"do you know where we are?\" he whispered.\n\"surely that is baker street,\" i answered, staring through the dim\nwindow.\n\"exactly. we are in camden house, which stands opposite to our own\nold quarters.\"\n\"but why are we here?\"\n\"because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.\nmight i trouble you, my dear watson, to draw a little nearer to the\nwindow, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to\nlook up at our old rooms--the starting-point of so many of our little\nadventures? we will see if my three years of absence have entirely\ntaken away my power to surprise you.\"\ni crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. as my eyes\nfell upon it i gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. the blind was down\nand a strong light was burning in the room. the shadow of a man who\nwas seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon\nthe luminous screen of the window. there was no mistaking the poise\nof the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the\nfeatures. the face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of\none of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame.\nit was a perfect reproduction of holmes. so amazed was i that i threw\nout my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.\nhe was quivering with silent laughter.\n\"well?\" said he.\n\"good heavens!\" i cried. \"it is marvellous.\"\n\"i trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite\nvariety,'\" said he, and i recognised in his voice the joy and pride\nwhich the artist takes in his own creation. \"it really is rather like\nme, is it not?\"\n\"i should be prepared to swear that it was you.\"\n\"the credit of the execution is due to monsieur oscar meunier, of\ngrenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. it is a bust in\nwax. the rest i arranged myself during my visit to baker street this\nafternoon.\"\n\"but why?\"\n\"because, my dear watson, i had the strongest possible reason for\nwishing certain people to think that i was there when i was really\nelsewhere.\"\n\"and you thought the rooms were watched?\"\n\"i knew that they were watched.\"\n\"by whom?\"\n\"by my old enemies, watson. by the charming society whose leader lies\nin the reichenbach fall. you must remember that they knew, and only\nthey knew, that i was still alive. sooner or later they believed that\ni should come back to my rooms. they watched them continuously, and\nthis morning they saw me arrive.\"\n\"how do you know?\"\n\"because i recognised their sentinel when i glanced out of my window.\nhe is a harmless enough fellow, parker by name, a garroter by trade,\nand a remarkable performer upon the jew's harp. i cared nothing for\nhim. but i cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who\nwas behind him, the bosom friend of moriarty, the man who dropped the\nrocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in\nlondon. that is the man who is after me to-night, watson, and that is\nthe man who is quite unaware that we are after him.\"\nmy friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves. from this\nconvenient retreat the watchers were being watched and the trackers\ntracked. that angular shadow up yonder was the bait and we were the\nhunters. in silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the\nhurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. holmes was\nsilent and motionless; but i could tell that he was keenly alert, and\nthat his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. it\nwas a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down\nthe long street. many people were moving to and fro, most of them\nmuffled in their coats and cravats. once or twice it seemed to me\nthat i had seen the same figure before, and i especially noticed two\nmen who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the\ndoorway of a house some distance up the street. i tried to draw my\ncompanion's attention to them, but he gave a little ejaculation of\nimpatience and continued to stare into the street. more than once he\nfidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the\nwall. it was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy and that his\nplans were not working out altogether as he had hoped. at last, as\nmidnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and\ndown the room in uncontrollable agitation. i was about to make some\nremark to him when i raised my eyes to the lighted window and again\nexperienced almost as great a surprise as before. i clutched holmes's\narm and pointed upwards.\n\"the shadow has moved!\" i cried.\nit was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned\ntowards us.\nthree years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper\nor his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.\n\"of course it has moved,\" said he. \"am i such a farcical bungler,\nwatson, that i should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of\nthe sharpest men in europe would be deceived by it? we have been in\nthis room two hours, and mrs. hudson has made some change in that\nfigure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. she works it\nfrom the front so that her shadow may never be seen. ah!\" he drew in\nhis breath with a shrill, excited intake. in the dim light i saw his\nhead thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention.\noutside, the street was absolutely deserted. those two men might\nstill be crouching in the doorway, but i could no longer see them.\nall was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in\nfront of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. again in\nthe utter silence i heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of\nintense suppressed excitement. an instant later he pulled me back\ninto the blackest corner of the room, and i felt his warning hand\nupon my lips. the fingers which clutched me were quivering. never had\ni known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched\nlonely and motionless before us.\nbut suddenly i was aware of that which his keener senses had already\ndistinguished. a low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the\ndirection of baker street, but from the back of the very house in\nwhich we lay concealed. a door opened and shut. an instant later\nsteps crept down the passage--steps which were meant to be silent,\nbut which reverberated harshly through the empty house. holmes\ncrouched back against the wall and i did the same, my hand closing\nupon the handle of my revolver. peering through the gloom, i saw the\nvague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the\nopen door. he stood for an instant, and then he crept forward,\ncrouching, menacing, into the room. he was within three yards of us,\nthis sinister figure, and i had braced myself to meet his spring,\nbefore i realized that he had no idea of our presence. he passed\nclose beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and\nnoiselessly raised it for half a foot. as he sank to the level of\nthis opening the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty\nglass, fell full upon his face. the man seemed to be beside himself\nwith excitement. his two eyes shone like stars and his features were\nworking convulsively. he was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting\nnose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. an\nopera-hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress\nshirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. his face was gaunt\nand swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. in his hand he carried\nwhat appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it\ngave a metallic clang. then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a\nbulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a\nloud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place.\nstill kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his\nweight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came\na long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful\nclick. he straightened himself then, and i saw that what he held in\nhis hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. he\nopened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the\nbreech-block. then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel\nupon the ledge of the open window, and i saw his long moustache droop\nover the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. i\nheard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his\nshoulder, and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow\nground, standing clear at the end of his fore sight. for an instant\nhe was rigid and motionless. then his finger tightened on the\ntrigger. there was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of\nbroken glass. at that instant holmes sprang like a tiger on to the\nmarksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. he was up again in\na moment, and with convulsive strength he seized holmes by the\nthroat; but i struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver and\nhe dropped again upon the floor. i fell upon him, and as i held him\nmy comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. there was the clatter\nof running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with\none plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and\ninto the room.\n\"that you, lestrade?\" said holmes.\n\"yes, mr. holmes. i took the job myself. it's good to see you back in\nlondon, sir.\"\n\"i think you want a little unofficial help. three undetected murders\nin one year won't do, lestrade. but you handled the molesey mystery\nwith less than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly\nwell.\"\nwe had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a\nstalwart constable on each side of him. already a few loiterers had\nbegun to collect in the street. holmes stepped up to the window,\nclosed it, and dropped the blinds. lestrade had produced two candles\nand the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. i was able at last to\nhave a good look at our prisoner.\nit was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned\ntowards us. with the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a\nsensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for\ngood or for evil. but one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes,\nwith their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive\nnose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading nature's\nplainest danger-signals. he took no heed of any of us, but his eyes\nwere fixed upon holmes's face with an expression in which hatred and\namazement were equally blended. \"you fiend!\" he kept on muttering.\n\"you clever, clever fiend!\"\n\"ah, colonel!\" said holmes, arranging his rumpled collar; \"'journeys\nend in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. i don't think i have\nhad the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those\nattentions as i lay on the ledge above the reichenbach fall.\"\nthe colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. \"you\ncunning, cunning fiend!\" was all that he could say.\n\"i have not introduced you yet,\" said holmes. \"this, gentlemen, is\ncolonel sebastian moran, once of her majesty's indian army, and the\nbest heavy game shot that our eastern empire has ever produced. i\nbelieve i am correct, colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers\nstill remains unrivalled?\"\nthe fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion;\nwith his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like\na tiger himself.\n\"i wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a\nshikari,\" said holmes. \"it must be very familiar to you. have you not\ntethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and\nwaited for the bait to bring up your tiger? this empty house is my\ntree and you are my tiger. you have possibly had other guns in\nreserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely\nsupposition of your own aim failing you. these,\" he pointed around,\n\"are my other guns. the parallel is exact.\"\ncolonel moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the\nconstables dragged him back. the fury upon his face was terrible to\nlook at.\n\"i confess that you had one small surprise for me,\" said holmes. \"i\ndid not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty\nhouse and this convenient front window. i had imagined you as\noperating from the street, where my friend lestrade and his merry men\nwere awaiting you. with that exception all has gone as i expected.\"\ncolonel moran turned to the official detective.\n\"you may or may not have just cause for arresting me,\" said he, \"but\nat least there can be no reason why i should submit to the gibes of\nthis person. if i am in the hands of the law let things be done in a\nlegal way.\"\n\"well, that's reasonable enough,\" said lestrade. \"nothing further you\nhave to say, mr. holmes, before we go?\"\nholmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor and was\nexamining its mechanism.\n\"an admirable and unique weapon,\" said he, \"noiseless and of\ntremendous power. i knew von herder, the blind german mechanic, who\nconstructed it to the order of the late professor moriarty. for years\ni have been aware of its existence, though i have never before had\nthe opportunity of handling it. i commend it very specially to your\nattention, lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it.\"\n\"you can trust us to look after that, mr. holmes,\" said lestrade, as\nthe whole party moved towards the door. \"anything further to say?\"\n\"only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?\"\n\"what charge, sir? why, of course, the attempted murder of mr.\nsherlock holmes.\"\n\"not so, lestrade. i do not propose to appear in the matter at all.\nto you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest\nwhich you have effected. yes, lestrade, i congratulate you! with your\nusual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him.\"\n\"got him! got whom, mr. holmes?\"\n\"the man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--colonel\nsebastian moran, who shot the honourable ronald adair with an\nexpanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the\nsecond-floor front of no. 427, park lane, upon the 30th of last\nmonth. that's the charge, lestrade. and now, watson, if you can\nendure the draught from a broken window, i think that half an hour in\nmy study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.\"\nour old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of\nmycroft holmes and the immediate care of mrs. hudson. as i entered i\nsaw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all\nin their place. there were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,\ndeal-topped table. there upon a shelf was the row of formidable\nscrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens\nwould have been so glad to burn. the diagrams, the violin-case, and\nthe pipe-rack--even the persian slipper which contained the\ntobacco--all met my eyes as i glanced round me. there were two\noccupants of the room--one mrs. hudson, who beamed upon us both as we\nentered; the other the strange dummy which had played so important a\npart in the evening's adventures. it was a wax-coloured model of my\nfriend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. it stood\non a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of holmes's so\ndraped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely\nperfect.\n\"i hope you preserved all precautions, mrs. hudson?\" said holmes.\n\"i went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.\"\n\"excellent. you carried the thing out very well. did you observe\nwhere the bullet went?\"\n\"yes, sir. i'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it\npassed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. i\npicked it up from the carpet. here it is!\"\nholmes held it out to me. \"a soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,\nwatson. there's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a\nthing fired from an air-gun. all right, mrs. hudson, i am much\nobliged for your assistance. and now, watson, let me see you in your\nold seat once more, for there are several points which i should like\nto discuss with you.\"\nhe had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the holmes of\nold in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his\neffigy.\n\"the old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes\ntheir keenness,\" said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered\nforehead of his bust.\n\"plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the\nbrain. he was the best shot in india, and i expect that there are few\nbetter in london. have you heard the name?\"\n\"no, i have not.\"\n\"well, well, such is fame! but, then, if i remember aright, you had\nnot heard the name of professor james moriarty, who had one of the\ngreat brains of the century. just give me down my index of\nbiographies from the shelf.\"\nhe turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and\nblowing great clouds from his cigar.\n\"my collection of m's is a fine one,\" said he. \"moriarty himself is\nenough to make any letter illustrious, and here is morgan the\npoisoner, and merridew of abominable memory, and mathews, who knocked\nout my left canine in the waiting-room at charing cross, and,\nfinally, here is our friend of to-night.\"\nhe handed over the book, and i read:\nmoran, sebastian, colonel. unemployed. formerly 1st bengalore\npioneers. born london, 1840. son of sir augustus moran, c.b., once\nbritish minister to persia. educated eton and oxford. served in\njowaki campaign, afghan campaign, charasiab (despatches), sherpur,\nand cabul. author of heavy game of the western himalayas, 1881; three\nmonths in the jungle, 1884. address: conduit street. clubs: the\nanglo-indian, the tankerville, the bagatelle card club.\non the margin was written, in holmes's precise hand:\nthe second most dangerous man in london.\n\"this is astonishing,\" said i, as i handed back the volume. \"the\nman's career is that of an honourable soldier.\"\n\"it is true,\" holmes answered. \"up to a certain point he did well. he\nwas always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in india\nhow he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. there\nare some trees, watson, which grow to a certain height and then\nsuddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. you will see it often\nin humans. i have a theory that the individual represents in his\ndevelopment the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a\nsudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which\ncame into the line of his pedigree. the person becomes, as it were,\nthe epitome of the history of his own family.\"\n\"it is surely rather fanciful.\"\n\"well, i don't insist upon it. whatever the cause, colonel moran\nbegan to go wrong. without any open scandal he still made india too\nhot to hold him. he retired, came to london, and again acquired an\nevil name. it was at this time that he was sought out by professor\nmoriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. moriarty\nsupplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two\nvery high-class jobs which no ordinary criminal could have\nundertaken. you may have some recollection of the death of mrs.\nstewart, of lauder, in 1887. not? well, i am sure moran was at the\nbottom of it; but nothing could be proved. so cleverly was the\ncolonel concealed that even when the moriarty gang was broken up we\ncould not incriminate him. you remember at that date, when i called\nupon you in your rooms, how i put up the shutters for fear of\nair-guns? no doubt you thought me fanciful. i knew exactly what i was\ndoing, for i knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and i knew\nalso that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. when\nwe were in switzerland he followed us with moriarty, and it was\nundoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the reichenbach\nledge.\n\"you may think that i read the papers with some attention during my\nsojourn in france, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by\nthe heels. so long as he was free in london my life would really not\nhave been worth living. night and day the shadow would have been over\nme, and sooner or later his chance must have come. what could i do? i\ncould not shoot him at sight, or i should myself be in the dock.\nthere was no use appealing to a magistrate. they cannot interfere on\nthe strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. so\ni could do nothing. but i watched the criminal news, knowing that\nsooner or later i should get him. then came the death of this ronald\nadair. my chance had come at last! knowing what i did, was it not\ncertain that colonel moran had done it? he had played cards with the\nlad; he had followed him home from the club; he had shot him through\nthe open window. there was not a doubt of it. the bullets alone are\nenough to put his head in a noose. i came over at once. i was seen by\nthe sentinel, who would, i knew, direct the colonel's attention to my\npresence. he could not fail to connect my sudden return with his\ncrime and to be terribly alarmed. i was sure that he would make an\nattempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his\nmurderous weapon for that purpose. i left him an excellent mark in\nthe window, and, having warned the police that they might be\nneeded--by the way, watson, you spotted their presence in that\ndoorway with unerring accuracy--i took up what seemed to me to be a\njudicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose\nthe same spot for his attack. now, my dear watson, does anything\nremain for me to explain?\"\n\"yes,\" said i. \"you have not made it clear what was colonel moran's\nmotive in murdering the honourable ronald adair.\"\n\"ah! my dear watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture\nwhere the most logical mind may be at fault. each may form his own\nhypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be\ncorrect as mine.\"\n\"you have formed one, then?\"\n\"i think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. it came out\nin evidence that colonel moran and young adair had between them won a\nconsiderable amount of money. now, moran undoubtedly played foul--of\nthat i have long been aware. i believe that on the day of the murder\nadair had discovered that moran was cheating. very likely he had\nspoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he\nvoluntarily resigned his membership of the club and promised not to\nplay cards again. it is unlikely that a youngster like adair would at\nonce make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much\nolder than himself. probably he acted as i suggest. the exclusion\nfrom his clubs would mean ruin to moran, who lived by his ill-gotten\ncard gains. he therefore murdered adair, who at the time was\nendeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return,\nsince he could not profit by his partner's foul play. he locked the\ndoor lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what\nhe was doing with these names and coins. will it pass?\"\n\"i have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.\"\n\"it will be verified or disproved at the trial. meanwhile, come what\nmay, colonel moran will trouble us no more, the famous air-gun of von\nherder will embellish the scotland yard museum, and once again mr.\nsherlock holmes is free to devote his life to examining those\ninteresting little problems which the complex life of london so\nplentifully presents.\"\nthe adventure of the norwood builder\n\"from the point of view of the criminal expert,\" said mr. sherlock\nholmes, \"london has become a singularly uninteresting city since the\ndeath of the late lamented professor moriarty.\"\n\"i can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree\nwith you,\" i answered.\n\"well, well, i must not be selfish,\" said he, with a smile, as he\npushed back his chair from the breakfast-table. \"the community is\ncertainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work\nspecialist, whose occupation has gone. with that man in the field\none's morning paper presented infinite possibilities. often it was\nonly the smallest trace, watson, the faintest indication, and yet it\nwas enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as\nthe gentlest tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul\nspider which lurks in the centre. petty thefts, wanton assaults,\npurposeless outrage--to the man who held the clue all could be worked\ninto one connected whole. to the scientific student of the higher\ncriminal world no capital in europe offered the advantages which\nlondon then possessed. but now--\" he shrugged his shoulders in\nhumorous deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done\nso much to produce.\nat the time of which i speak holmes had been back for some months,\nand i, at his request, had sold my practice and returned to share the\nold quarters in baker street. a young doctor, named verner, had\npurchased my small kensington practice, and given with astonishingly\nlittle demur the highest price that i ventured to ask--an incident\nwhich only explained itself some years later when i found that verner\nwas a distant relation of holmes's, and that it was my friend who had\nreally found the money.\nour months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had\nstated, for i find, on looking over my notes, that this period\nincludes the case of the papers of ex-president murillo, and also the\nshocking affair of the dutch steamship friesland, which so nearly\ncost us both our lives. his cold and proud nature was always averse,\nhowever, to anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me\nin the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his\nmethods, or his successes--a prohibition which, as i have explained,\nhas only now been removed.\nmr. sherlock holmes was leaning back in his chair after his whimsical\nprotest, and was unfolding his morning paper in a leisurely fashion,\nwhen our attention was arrested by a tremendous ring at the bell,\nfollowed immediately by a hollow drumming sound, as if someone were\nbeating on the outer door with his fist. as it opened there came a\ntumultuous rush into the hall, rapid feet clattered up the stair, and\nan instant later a wild-eyed and frantic young man, pale,\ndishevelled, and palpitating, burst into the room. he looked from one\nto the other of us, and under our gaze of inquiry he became conscious\nthat some apology was needed for this unceremonious entry.\n\"i'm sorry, mr. holmes,\" he cried. \"you mustn't blame me. i am nearly\nmad. mr. holmes, i am the unhappy john hector mcfarlane.\"\nhe made the announcement as if the name alone would explain both his\nvisit and its manner; but i could see by my companion's unresponsive\nface that it meant no more to him than to me.\n\"have a cigarette, mr. mcfarlane,\" said he, pushing his case across.\n\"i am sure that with your symptoms my friend dr. watson here would\nprescribe a sedative. the weather has been so very warm these last\nfew days. now, if you feel a little more composed, i should be glad\nif you would sit down in that chair and tell us very slowly and\nquietly who you are and what it is that you want. you mentioned your\nname as if i should recognise it, but i assure you that, beyond the\nobvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and\nan asthmatic, i know nothing whatever about you.\"\nfamiliar as i was with my friend's methods, it was not difficult for\nme to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire,\nthe sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which\nhad prompted them. our client, however, stared in amazement.\n\"yes, i am all that, mr. holmes, and in addition i am the most\nunfortunate man at this moment in london. for heaven's sake don't\nabandon me, mr. holmes! if they come to arrest me before i have\nfinished my story, make them give me time so that i may tell you the\nwhole truth. i could go to jail happy if i knew that you were working\nfor me outside.\"\n\"arrest you!\" said holmes. \"this is really most grati--most\ninteresting. on what charge do you expect to be arrested?\"\n\"upon the charge of murdering mr. jonas oldacre, of lower norwood.\"\nmy companion's expressive face showed a sympathy which was not, i am\nafraid, entirely unmixed with satisfaction.\n\"dear me,\" said he; \"it was only this moment at breakfast that i was\nsaying to my friend, dr. watson, that sensational cases had\ndisappeared out of our papers.\"\nour visitor stretched forward a quivering hand and picked up the\ndaily telegraph, which still lay upon holmes's knee.\n\"if you had looked at it, sir, you would have seen at a glance what\nthe errand is on which i have come to you this morning. i feel as if\nmy name and my misfortune must be in every man's mouth.\" he turned it\nover to expose the central page. \"here it is, and with your\npermission i will read it to you. listen to this, mr. holmes. the\nhead-lines are: 'mysterious affair at lower norwood. disappearance of\na well-known builder. suspicion of murder and arson. a clue to the\ncriminal.' that is the clue which they are already following, mr.\nholmes, and i know that it leads infallibly to me. i have been\nfollowed from london bridge station, and i am sure that they are only\nwaiting for the warrant to arrest me. it will break my mother's\nheart--it will break her heart!\" he wrung his hands in an agony of\napprehension, and swayed backwards and forwards in his chair.\ni looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being the\nperpetrator of a crime of violence. he was flaxen-haired and handsome\nin a washed-out negative fashion, with frightened blue eyes and a\nclean-shaven face, with a weak, sensitive mouth. his age may have\nbeen about twenty-seven; his dress and bearing that of a gentleman.\nfrom the pocket of his light summer overcoat protruded the bundle of\nendorsed papers which proclaimed his profession.\n\"we must use what time we have,\" said holmes. \"watson, would you have\nthe kindness to take the paper and to read me the paragraph in\nquestion?\"\nunderneath the vigorous head-lines which our client had quoted i read\nthe following suggestive narrative:--\n\"late last night, or early this morning, an incident occurred at\nlower norwood which points, it is feared, to a serious crime. mr.\njonas oldacre is a well-known resident of that suburb, where he has\ncarried on his business as a builder for many years. mr. oldacre is a\nbachelor, fifty-two years of age, and lives in deep dene house, at\nthe sydenham end of the road of that name. he has had the reputation\nof being a man of eccentric habits, secretive and retiring. for some\nyears he has practically withdrawn from the business, in which he is\nsaid to have amassed considerable wealth. a small timber-yard still\nexists, however, at the back of the house, and last night, about\ntwelve o'clock, an alarm was given that one of the stacks was on\nfire. the engines were soon upon the spot, but the dry wood burned\nwith great fury, and it was impossible to arrest the conflagration\nuntil the stack had been entirely consumed. up to this point the\nincident bore the appearance of an ordinary accident, but fresh\nindications seem to point to serious crime. surprise was expressed at\nthe absence of the master of the establishment from the scene of the\nfire, and an inquiry followed, which showed that he had disappeared\nfrom the house. an examination of his room revealed that the bed had\nnot been slept in, that a safe which stood in it was open, that a\nnumber of important papers were scattered about the room, and,\nfinally, that there were signs of a murderous struggle, slight traces\nof blood being found within the room, and an oaken walking-stick,\nwhich also showed stains of blood upon the handle. it is known that\nmr. jonas oldacre had received a late visitor in his bedroom upon\nthat night, and the stick found has been identified as the property\nof this person, who is a young london solicitor named john hector\nmcfarlane, junior partner of graham and mcfarlane, of 426, gresham\nbuildings, e.c. the police believe that they have evidence in their\npossession which supplies a very convincing motive for the crime, and\naltogether it cannot be doubted that sensational developments will\nfollow.\n\"later.--it is rumoured as we go to press that mr. john hector\nmcfarlane has actually been arrested on the charge of the murder of\nmr. jonas oldacre. it is at least certain that a warrant has been\nissued. there have been further and sinister developments in the\ninvestigation at norwood. besides the signs of a struggle in the room\nof the unfortunate builder it is now known that the french windows of\nhis bedroom (which is on the ground floor) were found to be open,\nthat there were marks as if some bulky object had been dragged across\nto the wood-pile, and, finally, it is asserted that charred remains\nhave been found among the charcoal ashes of the fire. the police\ntheory is that a most sensational crime has been committed, that the\nvictim was clubbed to death in his own bedroom, his papers rifled,\nand his dead body dragged across to the wood-stack, which was then\nignited so as to hide all traces of the crime. the conduct of the\ncriminal investigation has been left in the experienced hands of\ninspector lestrade, of scotland yard, who is following up the clues\nwith his accustomed energy and sagacity.\"\nsherlock holmes listened with closed eyes and finger-tips together to\nthis remarkable account.\n\"the case has certainly some points of interest,\" said he, in his\nlanguid fashion. \"may i ask, in the first place, mr. mcfarlane, how\nit is that you are still at liberty, since there appears to be enough\nevidence to justify your arrest?\"\n\"i live at torrington lodge, blackheath, with my parents, mr. holmes;\nbut last night, having to do business very late with mr. jonas\noldacre, i stayed at an hotel in norwood, and came to my business\nfrom there. i knew nothing of this affair until i was in the train,\nwhen i read what you have just heard. i at once saw the horrible\ndanger of my position, and i hurried to put the case into your hands.\ni have no doubt that i should have been arrested either at my city\noffice or at my home. a man followed me from london bridge station,\nand i have no doubt--great heaven, what is that?\"\nit was a clang of the bell, followed instantly by heavy steps upon\nthe stair. a moment later our old friend lestrade appeared in the\ndoorway. over his shoulder i caught a glimpse of one or two uniformed\npolicemen outside.\n\"mr. john hector mcfarlane?\" said lestrade.\nour unfortunate client rose with a ghastly face.\n\"i arrest you for the wilful murder of mr. jonas oldacre, of lower\nnorwood.\"\nmcfarlane turned to us with a gesture of despair, and sank into his\nchair once more like one who is crushed.\n\"one moment, lestrade,\" said holmes. \"half an hour more or less can\nmake no difference to you, and the gentleman was about to give us an\naccount of this very interesting affair, which might aid us in\nclearing it up.\"\n\"i think there will be no difficulty in clearing it up,\" said\nlestrade, grimly.\n\"none the less, with your permission, i should be much interested to\nhear his account.\"\n\"well, mr. holmes, it is difficult for me to refuse you anything, for\nyou have been of use to the force once or twice in the past, and we\nowe you a good turn at scotland yard,\" said lestrade. \"at the same\ntime i must remain with my prisoner, and i am bound to warn him that\nanything he may say will appear in evidence against him.\"\n\"i wish nothing better,\" said our client. \"all i ask is that you\nshould hear and recognise the absolute truth.\"\nlestrade looked at his watch. \"i'll give you half an hour,\" said he.\n\"i must explain first,\" said mcfarlane, \"that i knew nothing of mr.\njonas oldacre. his name was familiar to me, for many years ago my\nparents were acquainted with him, but they drifted apart. i was very\nmuch surprised, therefore, when yesterday, about three o'clock in the\nafternoon, he walked into my office in the city. but i was still more\nastonished when he told me the object of his visit. he had in his\nhand several sheets of a note-book, covered with scribbled\nwriting--here they are--and he laid them on my table.\n\"'here is my will,' said he. 'i want you, mr. mcfarlane, to cast it\ninto proper legal shape. i will sit here while you do so.'\n\"i set myself to copy it, and you can imagine my astonishment when i\nfound that, with some reservations, he had left all his property to\nme. he was a strange little, ferret-like man, with white eyelashes,\nand when i looked up at him i found his keen grey eyes fixed upon me\nwith an amused expression. i could hardly believe my own senses as i\nread the terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor\nwith hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his\nyouth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young\nman, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. of\ncourse, i could only stammer out my thanks. the will was duly\nfinished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. this is it on the blue\npaper, and these slips, as i have explained, are the rough draft. mr.\njonas oldacre then informed me that there were a number of\ndocuments--building leases, title-deeds, mortgages, scrip, and so\nforth--which it was necessary that i should see and understand. he\nsaid that his mind would not be easy until the whole thing was\nsettled, and he begged me to come out to his house at norwood that\nnight, bringing the will with me, and to arrange matters. 'remember,\nmy boy, not one word to your parents about the affair until\neverything is settled. we will keep it as a little surprise for\nthem.' he was very insistent upon this point, and made me promise it\nfaithfully.\n\"you can imagine, mr. holmes, that i was not in a humour to refuse\nhim anything that he might ask. he was my benefactor, and all my\ndesire was to carry out his wishes in every particular. i sent a\ntelegram home, therefore, to say that i had important business on\nhand, and that it was impossible for me to say how late i might be.\nmr. oldacre had told me that he would like me to have supper with him\nat nine, as he might not be home before that hour. i had some\ndifficulty in finding his house, however, and it was nearly half-past\nbefore i reached it. i found him--\"\n\"one moment!\" said holmes. \"who opened the door?\"\n\"a middle-aged woman, who was, i suppose, his housekeeper.\"\n\"and it was she, i presume, who mentioned your name?\"\n\"exactly,\" said mcfarlane.\n\"pray proceed.\"\nmcfarlane wiped his damp brow and then continued his narrative:--\n\"i was shown by this woman into a sitting-room, where a frugal supper\nwas laid out. afterwards mr. jonas oldacre led me into his bedroom,\nin which there stood a heavy safe. this he opened and took out a mass\nof documents, which we went over together. it was between eleven and\ntwelve when we finished. he remarked that we must not disturb the\nhousekeeper. he showed me out through his own french window, which\nhad been open all this time.\"\n\"was the blind down?\" asked holmes.\n\"i will not be sure, but i believe that it was only half down. yes, i\nremember how he pulled it up in order to swing open the window. i\ncould not find my stick, and he said, 'never mind, my boy; i shall\nsee a good deal of you now, i hope, and i will keep your stick until\nyou come back to claim it.' i left him there, the safe open, and the\npapers made up in packets upon the table. it was so late that i could\nnot get back to blackheath, so i spent the night at the anerley arms,\nand i knew nothing more until i read of this horrible affair in the\nmorning.\"\n\"anything more that you would like to ask, mr. holmes?\" said\nlestrade, whose eyebrows had gone up once or twice during this\nremarkable explanation.\n\"not until i have been to blackheath.\"\n\"you mean to norwood,\" said lestrade.\n\"oh, yes; no doubt that is what i must have meant,\" said holmes, with\nhis enigmatical smile. lestrade had learned by more experiences than\nhe would care to acknowledge that that razor-like brain could cut\nthrough that which was impenetrable to him. i saw him look curiously\nat my companion.\n\"i think i should like to have a word with you presently, mr.\nsherlock holmes,\" said he. \"now, mr. mcfarlane, two of my constables\nare at the door and there is a four-wheeler waiting.\" the wretched\nyoung man arose, and with a last beseeching glance at us walked from\nthe room. the officers conducted him to the cab, but lestrade\nremained.\nholmes had picked up the pages which formed the rough draft of the\nwill, and was looking at them with the keenest interest upon his\nface.\n\"there are some points about that document, lestrade, are there not?\"\nsaid he, pushing them over.\nthe official looked at them with a puzzled expression.\n\"i can read the first few lines, and these in the middle of the\nsecond page, and one or two at the end. those are as clear as print,\"\nsaid he; \"but the writing in between is very bad, and there are three\nplaces where i cannot read it at all.\"\n\"what do you make of that?\" said holmes.\n\"well, what do you make of it?\"\n\"that it was written in a train; the good writing represents\nstations, the bad writing movement, and the very bad writing passing\nover points. a scientific expert would pronounce at once that this\nwas drawn up on a suburban line, since nowhere save in the immediate\nvicinity of a great city could there be so quick a succession of\npoints. granting that his whole journey was occupied in drawing up\nthe will, then the train was an express, only stopping once between\nnorwood and london bridge.\"\nlestrade began to laugh.\n\"you are too many for me when you begin to get on your theories, mr.\nholmes,\" said he. \"how does this bear on the case?\"\n\"well, it corroborates the young man's story to the extent that the\nwill was drawn up by jonas oldacre in his journey yesterday. it is\ncurious--is it not?--that a man should draw up so important a\ndocument in so haphazard a fashion. it suggests that he did not think\nit was going to be of much practical importance. if a man drew up a\nwill which he did not intend ever to be effective he might do it so.\"\n\"well, he drew up his own death-warrant at the same time,\" said\nlestrade.\n\"oh, you think so?\"\n\"don't you?\"\n\"well, it is quite possible; but the case is not clear to me yet.\"\n\"not clear? well, if that isn't clear, what could be clear? here is a\nyoung man who learns suddenly that if a certain older man dies he\nwill succeed to a fortune. what does he do? he says nothing to\nanyone, but he arranges that he shall go out on some pretext to see\nhis client that night; he waits until the only other person in the\nhouse is in bed, and then in the solitude of a man's room he murders\nhim, burns his body in the wood-pile, and departs to a neighbouring\nhotel. the blood-stains in the room and also on the stick are very\nslight. it is probable that he imagined his crime to be a bloodless\none, and hoped that if the body were consumed it would hide all\ntraces of the method of his death--traces which for some reason must\nhave pointed to him. is all this not obvious?\"\n\"it strikes me, my good lestrade, as being just a trifle too\nobvious,\" said holmes. \"you do not add imagination to your other\ngreat qualities; but if you could for one moment put yourself in the\nplace of this young man, would you choose the very night after the\nwill had been made to commit your crime? would it not seem dangerous\nto you to make so very close a relation between the two incidents?\nagain, would you choose an occasion when you are known to be in the\nhouse, when a servant has let you in? and, finally, would you take\nthe great pains to conceal the body and yet leave your own stick as a\nsign that you were the criminal? confess, lestrade, that all this is\nvery unlikely.\"\n\"as to the stick, mr. holmes, you know as well as i do that a\ncriminal is often flurried and does things which a cool man would\navoid. he was very likely afraid to go back to the room. give me\nanother theory that would fit the facts.\"\n\"i could very easily give you half-a-dozen,\" said holmes. \"here, for\nexample, is a very possible and even probable one. i make you a free\npresent of it. the older man is showing documents which are of\nevident value. a passing tramp sees them through the window, the\nblind of which is only half down. exit the solicitor. enter the\ntramp! he seizes a stick, which he observes there, kills oldacre, and\ndeparts after burning the body.\"\n\"why should the tramp burn the body?\"\n\"for the matter of that why should mcfarlane?\"\n\"to hide some evidence.\"\n\"possibly the tramp wanted to hide that any murder at all had been\ncommitted.\"\n\"and why did the tramp take nothing?\"\n\"because they were papers that he could not negotiate.\"\nlestrade shook his head, though it seemed to me that his manner was\nless absolutely assured than before.\n\"well, mr. sherlock holmes, you may look for your tramp, and while\nyou are finding him we will hold on to our man. the future will show\nwhich is right. just notice this point, mr. holmes: that so far as we\nknow none of the papers were removed, and that the prisoner is the\none man in the world who had no reason for removing them, since he\nwas heir-at-law and would come into them in any case.\"\nmy friend seemed struck by this remark.\n\"i don't mean to deny that the evidence is in some ways very strongly\nin favour of your theory,\" said he. \"i only wish to point out that\nthere are other theories possible. as you say, the future will\ndecide. good morning! i dare say that in the course of the day i\nshall drop in at norwood and see how you are getting on.\"\nwhen the detective departed my friend rose and made his preparations\nfor the day's work with the alert air of a man who has a congenial\ntask before him.\n\"my first movement, watson,\" said he, as he bustled into his\nfrock-coat, \"must, as i said, be in the direction of blackheath.\"\n\"and why not norwood?\"\n\"because we have in this case one singular incident coming close to\nthe heels of another singular incident. the police are making the\nmistake of concentrating their attention upon the second, because it\nhappens to be the one which is actually criminal. but it is evident\nto me that the logical way to approach the case is to begin by trying\nto throw some light upon the first incident--the curious will, so\nsuddenly made, and to so unexpected an heir. it may do something to\nsimplify what followed. no, my dear fellow, i don't think you can\nhelp me. there is no prospect of danger, or i should not dream of\nstirring out without you. i trust that when i see you in the evening\ni will be able to report that i have been able to do something for\nthis unfortunate youngster who has thrown himself upon my\nprotection.\"\nit was late when my friend returned, and i could see by a glance at\nhis haggard and anxious face that the high hopes with which he had\nstarted had not been fulfilled. for an hour he droned away upon his\nviolin, endeavouring to soothe his own ruffled spirits. at last he\nflung down the instrument and plunged into a detailed account of his\nmisadventures.\n\"it's all going wrong, watson--all as wrong as it can go. i kept a\nbold face before lestrade, but, upon my soul, i believe that for once\nthe fellow is on the right track and we are on the wrong. all my\ninstincts are one way and all the facts are the other, and i much\nfear that british juries have not yet attained that pitch of\nintelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over\nlestrade's facts.\"\n\"did you go to blackheath?\"\n\"yes, watson, i went there, and i found very quickly that the late\nlamented oldacre was a pretty considerable black-guard. the father\nwas away in search of his son. the mother was at home--a little,\nfluffy, blue-eyed person, in a tremor of fear and indignation. of\ncourse, she would not admit even the possibility of his guilt. but\nshe would not express either surprise or regret over the fate of\noldacre. on the contrary, she spoke of him with such bitterness that\nshe was unconsciously considerably strengthening the case of the\npolice, for, of course, if her son had heard her speak of the man in\nthis fashion it would predispose him towards hatred and violence. 'he\nwas more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being,' said\nshe, 'and he always was, ever since he was a young man.'\n\"'you knew him at that time?' said i.\n\"'yes, i knew him well; in fact, he was an old suitor of mine. thank\nheaven that i had the sense to turn away from him and to marry a\nbetter, if a poorer, man. i was engaged to him, mr. holmes, when i\nheard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary,\nand i was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that i would have\nnothing more to do with him.' she rummaged in a bureau, and presently\nshe produced a photograph of a woman, shamefully defaced and\nmutilated with a knife. 'that is my own photograph,' she said. 'he\nsent it to me in that state, with his curse, upon my wedding\nmorning.'\n\"'well,' said i, 'at least he has forgiven you now, since he has left\nall his property to your son.'\n\"'neither my son nor i want anything from jonas oldacre, dead or\nalive,' she cried, with a proper spirit. 'there is a god in heaven,\nmr. holmes, and that same god who has punished that wicked man will\nshow in his own good time that my son's hands are guiltless of his\nblood.'\n\"well, i tried one or two leads, but could get at nothing which would\nhelp our hypothesis, and several points which would make against it.\ni gave it up at last and off i went to norwood.\n\"this place, deep dene house, is a big modern villa of staring brick,\nstanding back in its own grounds, with a laurel-clumped lawn in front\nof it. to the right and some distance back from the road was the\ntimber-yard which had been the scene of the fire. here's a rough plan\non a leaf of my note-book. this window on the left is the one which\nopens into oldacre's room. you can look into it from the road, you\nsee. that is about the only bit of consolation i have had to-day.\nlestrade was not there, but his head constable did the honours. they\nhad just made a great treasure-trove. they had spent the morning\nraking among the ashes of the burned wood-pile, and besides the\ncharred organic remains they had secured several discoloured metal\ndiscs. i examined them with care, and there was no doubt that they\nwere trouser buttons. i even distinguished that one of them was\nmarked with the name of 'hyams,' who was oldacre's tailor. i then\nworked the lawn very carefully for signs and traces, but this drought\nhas made everything as hard as iron. nothing was to be seen save that\nsome body or bundle had been dragged through a low privet hedge which\nis in a line with the wood-pile. all that, of course, fits in with\nthe official theory. i crawled about the lawn with an august sun on\nmy back, but i got up at the end of an hour no wiser than before.\n\"well, after this fiasco i went into the bedroom and examined that\nalso. the blood-stains were very slight, mere smears and\ndiscolorations, but undoubtedly fresh. the stick had been removed,\nbut there also the marks were slight. there is no doubt about the\nstick belonging to our client. he admits it. footmarks of both men\ncould be made out on the carpet, but none of any third person, which\nagain is a trick for the other side. they were piling up their score\nall the time and we were at a standstill.\n\"only one little gleam of hope did i get--and yet it amounted to\nnothing. i examined the contents of the safe, most of which had been\ntaken out and left on the table. the papers had been made up into\nsealed envelopes, one or two of which had been opened by the police.\nthey were not, so far as i could judge, of any great value, nor did\nthe bank-book show that mr. oldacre was in such very affluent\ncircumstances. but it seemed to me that all the papers were not\nthere. there were allusions to some deeds--possibly the more\nvaluable--which i could not find. this, of course, if we could\ndefinitely prove it, would turn lestrade's argument against himself,\nfor who would steal a thing if he knew that he would shortly inherit\nit?\n\"finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent, i\ntried my luck with the housekeeper. mrs. lexington is her name, a\nlittle, dark, silent person, with suspicious and sidelong eyes. she\ncould tell us something if she would--i am convinced of it. but she\nwas as close as wax. yes, she had let mr. mcfarlane in at half-past\nnine. she wished her hand had withered before she had done so. she\nhad gone to bed at half-past ten. her room was at the other end of\nthe house, and she could hear nothing of what passed. mr. mcfarlane\nhad left his hat, and to the best of her belief his stick, in the\nhall. she had been awakened by the alarm of fire. her poor, dear\nmaster had certainly been murdered. had he any enemies? well, every\nman had enemies, but mr. oldacre kept himself very much to himself,\nand only met people in the way of business. she had seen the buttons,\nand was sure that they belonged to the clothes which he had worn last\nnight. the wood-pile was very dry, for it had not rained for a month.\nit burned like tinder, and by the time she reached the spot nothing\ncould be seen but flames. she and all the firemen smelled the burned\nflesh from inside it. she knew nothing of the papers, nor of mr.\noldacre's private affairs.\n\"so, my dear watson, there's my report of a failure. and yet--and\nyet--\"--he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction--\"i\nknow it's all wrong. i feel it in my bones. there is something that\nhas not come out, and that housekeeper knows it. there was a sort of\nsulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge.\nhowever, there's no good talking any more about it, watson; but\nunless some lucky chance comes our way i fear that the norwood\ndisappearance case will not figure in that chronicle of our successes\nwhich i foresee that a patient public will sooner or later have to\nendure.\"\n\"surely,\" said i, \"the man's appearance would go far with any jury?\"\n\"that is a dangerous argument, my dear watson. you remember that\nterrible murderer, bert stevens, who wanted us to get him off in '87?\nwas there ever a more mild-mannered, sunday-school young man?\"\n\"it is true.\"\n\"unless we succeed in establishing an alternative theory this man is\nlost. you can hardly find a flaw in the case which can now be\npresented against him, and all further investigation has served to\nstrengthen it. by the way, there is one curious little point about\nthose papers which may serve us as the starting-point for an inquiry.\non looking over the bank-book i found that the low state of the\nbalance was principally due to large cheques which have been made out\nduring the last year to mr. cornelius. i confess that i should be\ninterested to know who this mr. cornelius may be with whom a retired\nbuilder has such very large transactions. is it possible that he has\nhad a hand in the affair? cornelius might be a broker, but we have\nfound no scrip to correspond with these large payments. failing any\nother indication my researches must now take the direction of an\ninquiry at the bank for the gentleman who has cashed these cheques.\nbut i fear, my dear fellow, that our case will end ingloriously by\nlestrade hanging our client, which will certainly be a triumph for\nscotland yard.\"\ni do not know how far sherlock holmes took any sleep that night, but\nwhen i came down to breakfast i found him pale and harassed, his\nbright eyes the brighter for the dark shadows round them. the carpet\nround his chair was littered with cigarette-ends and with the early\neditions of the morning papers. an open telegram lay upon the table.\n\"what do you think of this, watson?\" he asked, tossing it across.\nit was from norwood, and ran as follows:\n\"important fresh evidence to hand. mcfarlane's guilt definitely\nestablished. advise you to abandon case.\nlestrade.\n\"this sounds serious,\" said i.\n\"it is lestrade's little cock-a-doodle of victory,\" holmes answered,\nwith a bitter smile. \"and yet it may be premature to abandon the\ncase. after all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and\nmay possibly cut in a very different direction to that which lestrade\nimagines. take your breakfast, watson, and we will go out together\nand see what we can do. i feel as if i shall need your company and\nyour moral support to-day.\"\nmy friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his\npeculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit\nhimself no food, and i have known him presume upon his iron strength\nuntil he has fainted from pure inanition. \"at present i cannot spare\nenergy and nerve force for digestion,\" he would say in answer to my\nmedical remonstrances. i was not surprised, therefore, when this\nmorning he left his untouched meal behind him and started with me for\nnorwood. a crowd of morbid sightseers were still gathered round deep\ndene house, which was just such a suburban villa as i had pictured.\nwithin the gates lestrade met us, his face flushed with victory, his\nmanner grossly triumphant.\n\"well, mr. holmes, have you proved us to be wrong yet? have you found\nyour tramp?\" he cried.\n\"i have formed no conclusion whatever,\" my companion answered.\n\"but we formed ours yesterday, and now it proves to be correct; so\nyou must acknowledge that we have been a little in front of you this\ntime, mr. holmes.\"\n\"you certainly have the air of something unusual having occurred,\"\nsaid holmes.\nlestrade laughed loudly.\n\"you don't like being beaten any more than the rest of us do,\" said\nhe. \"a man can't expect always to have it his own way, can he, dr.\nwatson? step this way, if you please, gentlemen, and i think i can\nconvince you once for all that it was john mcfarlane who did this\ncrime.\"\nhe led us through the passage and out into a dark hall beyond.\n\"this is where young mcfarlane must have come out to get his hat\nafter the crime was done,\" said he. \"now, look at this.\" with\ndramatic suddenness he struck a match and by its light exposed a\nstain of blood upon the whitewashed wall. as he held the match nearer\ni saw that it was more than a stain. it was the well-marked print of\na thumb.\n\"look at that with your magnifying glass, mr. holmes.\"\n\"yes, i am doing so.\"\n\"you are aware that no two thumb marks are alike?\"\n\"i have heard something of the kind.\"\n\"well, then, will you please compare that print with this wax\nimpression of young mcfarlane's right thumb, taken by my orders this\nmorning?\"\nas he held the waxen print close to the blood-stain it did not take a\nmagnifying glass to see that the two were undoubtedly from the same\nthumb. it was evident to me that our unfortunate client was lost.\n\"that is final,\" said lestrade.\n\"yes, that is final,\" i involuntarily echoed.\n\"it is final,\" said holmes.\nsomething in his tone caught my ear, and i turned to look at him. an\nextraordinary change had come over his face. it was writhing with\ninward merriment. his two eyes were shining like stars. it seemed to\nme that he was making desperate efforts to restrain a convulsive\nattack of laughter.\n\"dear me! dear me!\" he said at last. \"well, now, who would have\nthought it? and how deceptive appearances may be, to be sure! such a\nnice young man to look at! it is a lesson to us not to trust our own\njudgment, is it not, lestrade?\"\n\"yes, some of us are a little too much inclined to be cocksure, mr.\nholmes,\" said lestrade. the man's insolence was maddening, but we\ncould not resent it.\n\"what a providential thing that this young man should press his right\nthumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! such a very\nnatural action, too, if you come to think of it.\" holmes was\noutwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed\nexcitement as he spoke. \"by the way, lestrade, who made this\nremarkable discovery?\"\n\"it was the housekeeper, mrs. lexington, who drew the night\nconstable's attention to it.\"\n\"where was the night constable?\"\n\"he remained on guard in the bedroom where the crime was committed,\nso as to see that nothing was touched.\"\n\"but why didn't the police see this mark yesterday?\"\n\"well, we had no particular reason to make a careful examination of\nthe hall. besides, it's not in a very prominent place, as you see.\"\n\"no, no, of course not. i suppose there is no doubt that the mark was\nthere yesterday?\"\nlestrade looked at holmes as if he thought he was going out of his\nmind. i confess that i was myself surprised both at his hilarious\nmanner and at his rather wild observation.\n\"i don't know whether you think that mcfarlane came out of jail in\nthe dead of the night in order to strengthen the evidence against\nhimself,\" said lestrade. \"i leave it to any expert in the world\nwhether that is not the mark of his thumb.\"\n\"it is unquestionably the mark of his thumb.\"\n\"there, that's enough,\" said lestrade. \"i am a practical man, mr.\nholmes, and when i have got my evidence i come to my conclusions. if\nyou have anything to say you will find me writing my report in the\nsitting-room.\"\nholmes had recovered his equanimity, though i still seemed to detect\ngleams of amusement in his expression.\n\"dear me, this is a very sad development, watson, is it not?\" said\nhe. \"and yet there are singular points about it which hold out some\nhopes for our client.\"\n\"i am delighted to hear it,\" said i, heartily. \"i was afraid it was\nall up with him.\"\n\"i would hardly go so far as to say that, my dear watson. the fact is\nthat there is one really serious flaw in this evidence to which our\nfriend attaches so much importance.\"\n\"indeed, holmes! what is it?\"\n\"only this: that i know that that mark was not there when i examined\nthe hall yesterday. and now, watson, let us have a little stroll\nround in the sunshine.\"\nwith a confused brain, but with a heart into which some warmth of\nhope was returning, i accompanied my friend in a walk round the\ngarden. holmes took each face of the house in turn and examined it\nwith great interest. he then led the way inside and went over the\nwhole building from basement to attics. most of the rooms were\nunfurnished, but none the less holmes inspected them all minutely.\nfinally, on the top corridor, which ran outside three untenanted\nbedrooms, he again was seized with a spasm of merriment.\n\"there are really some very unique features about this case, watson,\"\nsaid he. \"i think it is time now that we took our friend lestrade\ninto our confidence. he has had his little smile at our expense, and\nperhaps we may do as much by him if my reading of this problem proves\nto be correct. yes, yes; i think i see how we should approach it.\"\nthe scotland yard inspector was still writing in the parlour when\nholmes interrupted him.\n\"i understood that you were writing a report of this case,\" said he.\n\"so i am.\"\n\"don't you think it may be a little premature? i can't help thinking\nthat your evidence is not complete.\"\nlestrade knew my friend too well to disregard his words. he laid down\nhis pen and looked curiously at him.\n\"what do you mean, mr. holmes?\"\n\"only that there is an important witness whom you have not seen.\"\n\"can you produce him?\"\n\"i think i can.\"\n\"then do so.\"\n\"i will do my best. how many constables have you?\"\n\"there are three within call.\"\n\"excellent!\" said holmes. \"may i ask if they are all large,\nable-bodied men with powerful voices?\"\n\"i have no doubt they are, though i fail to see what their voices\nhave to do with it.\"\n\"perhaps i can help you to see that and one or two other things as\nwell,\" said holmes. \"kindly summon your men, and i will try.\"\nfive minutes later three policemen had assembled in the hall.\n\"in the outhouse you will find a considerable quantity of straw,\"\nsaid holmes. \"i will ask you to carry in two bundles of it. i think\nit will be of the greatest assistance in producing the witness whom i\nrequire. thank you very much. i believe you have some matches in your\npocket, watson. now, mr. lestrade, i will ask you all to accompany me\nto the top landing.\"\nas i have said, there was a broad corridor there, which ran outside\nthree empty bedrooms. at one end of the corridor we were all\nmarshalled by sherlock holmes, the constables grinning and lestrade\nstaring at my friend with amazement, expectation, and derision\nchasing each other across his features. holmes stood before us with\nthe air of a conjurer who is performing a trick.\n\"would you kindly send one of your constables for two buckets of\nwater? put the straw on the floor here, free from the wall on either\nside. now i think that we are all ready.\"\nlestrade's face had begun to grow red and angry.\n\"i don't know whether you are playing a game with us, mr. sherlock\nholmes,\" said he. \"if you know anything, you can surely say it\nwithout all this tomfoolery.\"\n\"i assure you, my good lestrade, that i have an excellent reason for\neverything that i do. you may possibly remember that you chaffed me a\nlittle some hours ago, when the sun seemed on your side of the hedge,\nso you must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony now. might i ask\nyou, watson, to open that window, and then to put a match to the edge\nof the straw?\"\ni did so, and, driven by the draught, a coil of grey smoke swirled\ndown the corridor, while the dry straw crackled and flamed.\n\"now we must see if we can find this witness for you, lestrade. might\ni ask you all to join in the cry of 'fire!'? now, then; one, two,\nthree--\"\n\"fire!\" we all yelled.\n\"thank you. i will trouble you once again.\"\n\"fire!\"\n\"just once more, gentlemen, and all together.\"\n\"fire!\" the shout must have rung over norwood.\nit had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened. a door\nsuddenly flew open out of what appeared to be solid wall at the end\nof the corridor, and a little, wizened man darted out of it, like a\nrabbit out of its burrow.\n\"capital!\" said holmes, calmly. \"watson, a bucket of water over the\nstraw. that will do! lestrade, allow me to present you with your\nprincipal missing witness, mr. jonas oldacre.\"\nthe detective stared at the new-comer with blank amazement. the\nlatter was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, and peering\nat us and at the smouldering fire. it was an odious face--crafty,\nvicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.\n\"what's this, then?\" said lestrade at last. \"what have you been doing\nall this time, eh?\"\noldacre gave an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furious red\nface of the angry detective.\n\"i have done no harm.\"\n\"no harm? you have done your best to get an innocent man hanged. if\nit wasn't for this gentleman here, i am not sure that you would not\nhave succeeded.\"\nthe wretched creature began to whimper.\n\"i am sure, sir, it was only my practical joke.\"\n\"oh! a joke, was it? you won't find the laugh on your side, i promise\nyou. take him down and keep him in the sitting-room until i come. mr.\nholmes,\" he continued, when they had gone, \"i could not speak before\nthe constables, but i don't mind saying, in the presence of dr.\nwatson, that this is the brightest thing that you have done yet,\nthough it is a mystery to me how you did it. you have saved an\ninnocent man's life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal,\nwhich would have ruined my reputation in the force.\"\nholmes smiled and clapped lestrade upon the shoulder.\n\"instead of being ruined, my good sir, you will find that your\nreputation has been enormously enhanced. just make a few alterations\nin that report which you were writing, and they will understand how\nhard it is to throw dust in the eyes of inspector lestrade.\"\n\"and you don't want your name to appear?\"\n\"not at all. the work is its own reward. perhaps i shall get the\ncredit also at some distant day when i permit my zealous historian to\nlay out his foolscap once more--eh, watson? well, now, let us see\nwhere this rat has been lurking.\"\na lath-and-plaster partition had been run across the passage six feet\nfrom the end, with a door cunningly concealed in it. it was lit\nwithin by slits under the eaves. a few articles of furniture and a\nsupply of food and water were within, together with a number of books\nand papers.\n\"there's the advantage of being a builder,\" said holmes, as we came\nout. \"he was able to fix up his own little hiding-place without any\nconfederate--save, of course, that precious housekeeper of his, whom\ni should lose no time in adding to your bag, lestrade.\"\n\"i'll take your advice. but how did you know of this place, mr.\nholmes?\"\n\"i made up my mind that the fellow was in hiding in the house. when i\npaced one corridor and found it six feet shorter than the\ncorresponding one below, it was pretty clear where he was. i thought\nhe had not the nerve to lie quiet before an alarm of fire. we could,\nof course, have gone in and taken him, but it amused me to make him\nreveal himself; besides, i owed you a little mystification, lestrade,\nfor your chaff in the morning.\"\n\"well, sir, you certainly got equal with me on that. but how in the\nworld did you know that he was in the house at all?\"\n\"the thumb-mark, lestrade. you said it was final; and so it was, in a\nvery different sense. i knew it had not been there the day before. i\npay a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as you may have\nobserved, and i had examined the hall and was sure that the wall was\nclear. therefore, it had been put on during the night.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"very simply. when those packets were sealed up, jonas oldacre got\nmcfarlane to secure one of the seals by putting his thumb upon the\nsoft wax. it would be done so quickly and so naturally that i dare\nsay the young man himself has no recollection of it. very likely it\njust so happened, and oldacre had himself no notion of the use he\nwould put it to. brooding over the case in that den of his, it\nsuddenly struck him what absolutely damning evidence he could make\nagainst mcfarlane by using that thumb-mark. it was the simplest thing\nin the world for him to take a wax impression from the seal, to\nmoisten it in as much blood as he could get from a pin-prick, and to\nput the mark upon the wall during the night, either with his own hand\nor with that of his housekeeper. if you examine among those documents\nwhich he took with him into his retreat i will lay you a wager that\nyou find the seal with the thumb-mark upon it.\"\n\"wonderful!\" said lestrade. \"wonderful! it's all as clear as crystal,\nas you put it. but what is the object of this deep deception, mr.\nholmes?\"\nit was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner\nhad changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its\nteacher.\n\"well, i don't think that is very hard to explain. a very deep,\nmalicious, vindictive person is the gentleman who is now awaiting us\ndownstairs. you know that he was once refused by mcfarlane's mother?\nyou don't! i told you that you should go to blackheath first and\nnorwood afterwards. well, this injury, as he would consider it, has\nrankled in his wicked, scheming brain, and all his life he has longed\nfor vengeance, but never seen his chance. during the last year or two\nthings have gone against him--secret speculation, i think--and he\nfinds himself in a bad way. he determines to swindle his creditors,\nand for this purpose he pays large cheques to a certain mr.\ncornelius, who is, i imagine, himself under another name. i have not\ntraced these cheques yet, but i have no doubt that they were banked\nunder that name at some provincial town where oldacre from time to\ntime led a double existence. he intended to change his name\naltogether, draw this money, and vanish, starting life again\nelsewhere.\"\n\"well, that's likely enough.\"\n\"it would strike him that in disappearing he might throw all pursuit\noff his track, and at the same time have an ample and crushing\nrevenge upon his old sweetheart, if he could give the impression that\nhe had been murdered by her only child. it was a masterpiece of\nvillainy, and he carried it out like a master. the idea of the will,\nwhich would give an obvious motive for the crime, the secret visit\nunknown to his own parents, the retention of the stick, the blood,\nand the animal remains and buttons in the wood-pile, all were\nadmirable. it was a net from which it seemed to me a few hours ago\nthat there was no possible escape. but he had not that supreme gift\nof the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. he wished to improve\nthat which was already perfect--to draw the rope tighter yet round\nthe neck of his unfortunate victim--and so he ruined all. let us\ndescend, lestrade. there are just one or two questions that i would\nask him.\"\nthe malignant creature was seated in his own parlour with a policeman\nupon each side of him.\n\"it was a joke, my good sir, a practical joke, nothing more,\" he\nwhined incessantly. \"i assure you, sir, that i simply concealed\nmyself in order to see the effect of my disappearance, and i am sure\nthat you would not be so unjust as to imagine that i would have\nallowed any harm to befall poor young mr. mcfarlane.\"\n\"that's for a jury to decide,\" said lestrade. \"anyhow, we shall have\nyou on a charge of conspiracy, if not for attempted murder.\"\n\"and you'll probably find that your creditors will impound the\nbanking account of mr. cornelius,\" said holmes.\nthe little man started and turned his malignant eyes upon my friend.\n\"i have to thank you for a good deal,\" said he. \"perhaps i'll pay my\ndebt some day.\"\nholmes smiled indulgently.\n\"i fancy that for some few years you will find your time very fully\noccupied,\" said he. \"by the way, what was it you put into the\nwood-pile besides your old trousers? a dead dog, or rabbits, or what?\nyou won't tell? dear me, how very unkind of you! well, well, i dare\nsay that a couple of rabbits would account both for the blood and for\nthe charred ashes. if ever you write an account, watson, you can make\nrabbits serve your turn.\"\nthe adventure of the dancing men\nholmes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long, thin\nback curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a\nparticularly malodorous product. his head was sunk upon his breast,\nand he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with\ndull grey plumage and a black top-knot.\n\"so, watson,\" said he, suddenly, \"you do not propose to invest in\nsouth african securities?\"\ni gave a start of astonishment. accustomed as i was to holmes's\ncurious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate\nthoughts was utterly inexplicable.\n\"how on earth do you know that?\" i asked.\nhe wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his\nhand and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.\n\"now, watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,\" said he.\n\"i am.\"\n\"i ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.\"\n\"why?\"\n\"because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly\nsimple.\"\n\"i am sure that i shall say nothing of the kind.\"\n\"you see, my dear watson\"--he propped his test-tube in the rack and\nbegan to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his\nclass--\"it is not really difficult to construct a series of\ninferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in\nitself. if, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central\ninferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and\nthe conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a\nmeretricious, effect. now, it was not really difficult, by an\ninspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to\nfeel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in\nthe goldfields.\"\n\"i see no connection.\"\n\"very likely not; but i can quickly show you a close connection. here\nare the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. you had chalk\nbetween your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club\nlast night. 2. you put chalk there when you play billiards to steady\nthe cue. 3. you never play billiards except with thurston. 4. you\ntold me four weeks ago that thurston had an option on some south\nafrican property which would expire in a month, and which he desired\nyou to share with him. 5. your cheque-book is locked in my drawer,\nand you have not asked for the key. 6. you do not propose to invest\nyour money in this manner.\"\n\"how absurdly simple!\" i cried.\n\"quite so!\" said he, a little nettled. \"every problem becomes very\nchildish when once it is explained to you. here is an unexplained\none. see what you can make of that, friend watson.\" he tossed a sheet\nof paper upon the table and turned once more to his chemical\nanalysis.\ni looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper.\n\"why, holmes, it is a child's drawing,\" i cried.\n\"oh, that's your idea!\"\n\"what else should it be?\"\n\"that is what mr. hilton cubitt, of ridling thorpe manor, norfolk, is\nvery anxious to know. this little conundrum came by the first post,\nand he was to follow by the next train. there's a ring at the bell,\nwatson. i should not be very much surprised if this were he.\"\na heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there\nentered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and\nflorid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of baker street.\nhe seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast\nair with him as he entered. having shaken hands with each of us, he\nwas about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the\ncurious markings, which i had just examined and left upon the table.\n\"well, mr. holmes, what do you make of these?\" he cried. \"they told\nme that you were fond of queer mysteries, and i don't think you can\nfind a queerer one than that. i sent the paper on ahead so that you\nmight have time to study it before i came.\"\n\"it is certainly rather a curious production,\" said holmes. \"at first\nsight it would appear to be some childish prank. it consists of a\nnumber of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which\nthey are drawn. why should you attribute any importance to so\ngrotesque an object?\"\n\"i never should, mr. holmes. but my wife does. it is frightening her\nto death. she says nothing, but i can see terror in her eyes. that's\nwhy i want to sift the matter to the bottom.\"\nholmes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it. it\nwas a page torn from a note-book. the markings were done in pencil,\nand ran in this way:--\n[ picture: picture of several figures of dancing men, some holding\nflags ]\nholmes examined it for some time, and then, folding it carefully up,\nhe placed it in his pocket-book.\n\"this promises to be a most interesting and unusual case,\" said he.\n\"you gave me a few particulars in your letter, mr. hilton cubitt, but\ni should be very much obliged if you would kindly go over it all\nagain for the benefit of my friend, dr. watson.\"\n\"i'm not much of a story-teller,\" said our visitor, nervously\nclasping and unclasping his great, strong hands. \"you'll just ask me\nanything that i don't make clear. i'll begin at the time of my\nmarriage last year; but i want to say first of all that, though i'm\nnot a rich man, my people have been at ridling thorpe for a matter of\nfive centuries, and there is no better known family in the county of\nnorfolk. last year i came up to london for the jubilee, and i stopped\nat a boarding-house in russell square, because parker, the vicar of\nour parish, was staying in it. there was an american young lady\nthere--patrick was the name--elsie patrick. in some way we became\nfriends, until before my month was up i was as much in love as a man\ncould be. we were quietly married at a registry office, and we\nreturned to norfolk a wedded couple. you'll think it very mad, mr.\nholmes, that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this\nfashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people; but if you saw\nher and knew her it would help you to understand.\n\"she was very straight about it, was elsie. i can't say that she did\nnot give me every chance of getting out of it if i wished to do so.\n'i have had some very disagreeable associations in my life,' said\nshe; 'i wish to forget all about them. i would rather never allude to\nthe past, for it is very painful to me. if you take me, hilton, you\nwill take a woman who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed\nof; but you will have to be content with my word for it, and to allow\nme to be silent as to all that passed up to the time when i became\nyours. if these conditions are too hard, then go back to norfolk and\nleave me to the lonely life in which you found me.' it was only the\nday before our wedding that she said those very words to me. i told\nher that i was content to take her on her own terms, and i have been\nas good as my word.\n\"well, we have been married now for a year, and very happy we have\nbeen. but about a month ago, at the end of june, i saw for the first\ntime signs of trouble. one day my wife received a letter from\namerica. i saw the american stamp. she turned deadly white, read the\nletter, and threw it into the fire. she made no allusion to it\nafterwards, and i made none, for a promise is a promise; but she has\nnever known an easy hour from that moment. there is always a look of\nfear upon her face--a look as if she were waiting and expecting. she\nwould do better to trust me. she would find that i was her best\nfriend. but until she speaks i can say nothing. mind you, she is a\ntruthful woman, mr. holmes, and whatever trouble there may have been\nin her past life it has been no fault of hers. i am only a simple\nnorfolk squire, but there is not a man in england who ranks his\nfamily honour more highly than i do. she knows it well, and she knew\nit well before she married me. she would never bring any stain upon\nit--of that i am sure.\n\"well, now i come to the queer part of my story. about a week ago--it\nwas the tuesday of last week--i found on one of the window-sills a\nnumber of absurd little dancing figures, like these upon the paper.\nthey were scrawled with chalk. i thought that it was the stable-boy\nwho had drawn them, but the lad swore he knew nothing about it.\nanyhow, they had come there during the night. i had them washed out,\nand i only mentioned the matter to my wife afterwards. to my surprise\nshe took it very seriously, and begged me if any more came to let her\nsee them. none did come for a week, and then yesterday morning i\nfound this paper lying on the sun-dial in the garden. i showed it to\nelsie, and down she dropped in a dead faint. since then she has\nlooked like a woman in a dream, half dazed, and with terror always\nlurking in her eyes. it was then that i wrote and sent the paper to\nyou, mr. holmes. it was not a thing that i could take to the police,\nfor they would have laughed at me, but you will tell me what to do. i\nam not a rich man; but if there is any danger threatening my little\nwoman i would spend my last copper to shield her.\"\nhe was a fine creature, this man of the old english soil, simple,\nstraight, and gentle, with his great, earnest blue eyes and broad,\ncomely face. his love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his\nfeatures. holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention,\nand now he sat for some time in silent thought.\n\"don't you think, mr. cubitt,\" said he, at last, \"that your best plan\nwould be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to\nshare her secret with you?\"\nhilton cubitt shook his massive head.\n\"a promise is a promise, mr. holmes. if elsie wished to tell me she\nwould. if not, it is not for me to force her confidence. but i am\njustified in taking my own line--and i will.\"\n\"then i will help you with all my heart. in the first place, have you\nheard of any strangers being seen in your neighbourhood?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"i presume that it is a very quiet place. any fresh face would cause\ncomment?\"\n\"in the immediate neighbourhood, yes. but we have several small\nwatering-places not very far away. and the farmers take in lodgers.\"\n\"these hieroglyphics have evidently a meaning. if it is a purely\narbitrary one it may be impossible for us to solve it. if, on the\nother hand, it is systematic, i have no doubt that we shall get to\nthe bottom of it. but this particular sample is so short that i can\ndo nothing, and the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite\nthat we have no basis for an investigation. i would suggest that you\nreturn to norfolk, that you keep a keen look-out, and that you take\nan exact copy of any fresh dancing men which may appear. it is a\nthousand pities that we have not a reproduction of those which were\ndone in chalk upon the window-sill. make a discreet inquiry also as\nto any strangers in the neighbourhood. when you have collected some\nfresh evidence come to me again. that is the best advice which i can\ngive you, mr. hilton cubitt. if there are any pressing fresh\ndevelopments i shall be always ready to run down and see you in your\nnorfolk home.\"\nthe interview left sherlock holmes very thoughtful, and several times\nin the next few days i saw him take his slip of paper from his\nnote-book and look long and earnestly at the curious figures\ninscribed upon it. he made no allusion to the affair, however, until\none afternoon a fortnight or so later. i was going out when he called\nme back.\n\"you had better stay here, watson.\"\n\"why?\"\n\"because i had a wire from hilton cubitt this morning--you remember\nhilton cubitt, of the dancing men? he was to reach liverpool street\nat one-twenty. he may be here at any moment. i gather from his wire\nthat there have been some new incidents of importance.\"\nwe had not long to wait, for our norfolk squire came straight from\nthe station as fast as a hansom could bring him. he was looking\nworried and depressed, with tired eyes and a lined forehead.\n\"it's getting on my nerves, this business, mr. holmes,\" said he, as\nhe sank, like a wearied man, into an arm-chair. \"it's bad enough to\nfeel that you are surrounded by unseen, unknown folk, who have some\nkind of design upon you; but when, in addition to that, you know that\nit is just killing your wife by inches, then it becomes as much as\nflesh and blood can endure. she's wearing away under it--just wearing\naway before my eyes.\"\n\"has she said anything yet?\"\n\"no, mr. holmes, she has not. and yet there have been times when the\npoor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite bring herself\nto take the plunge. i have tried to help her; but i dare say i did it\nclumsily, and scared her off from it. she has spoken about my old\nfamily, and our reputation in the county, and our pride in our\nunsullied honour, and i always felt it was leading to the point; but\nsomehow it turned off before we got there.\"\n\"but you have found out something for yourself?\"\n\"a good deal, mr. holmes. i have several fresh dancing men pictures\nfor you to examine, and, what is more important, i have seen the\nfellow.\"\n\"what, the man who draws them?\"\n\"yes, i saw him at his work. but i will tell you everything in order.\nwhen i got back after my visit to you, the very first thing i saw\nnext morning was a fresh crop of dancing men. they had been drawn in\nchalk upon the black wooden door of the tool-house, which stands\nbeside the lawn in full view of the front windows. i took an exact\ncopy, and here it is.\" he unfolded a paper and laid it upon the\ntable. here is a copy of the hieroglyphics:--\n[ picture: picture of a few dancing men ]\n\"excellent!\" said holmes. \"excellent! pray continue.\"\n\"when i had taken the copy i rubbed out the marks; but two mornings\nlater a fresh inscription had appeared. i have a copy of it here\":--\n[ picture: picture of some more dancing man figures ]\nholmes rubbed his hands and chuckled with delight.\n\"our material is rapidly accumulating,\" said he.\n\"three days later a message was left scrawled upon paper, and placed\nunder a pebble upon the sun-dial. here it is. the characters are, as\nyou see, exactly the same as the last one. after that i determined to\nlie in wait; so i got out my revolver and i sat up in my study, which\noverlooks the lawn and garden. about two in the morning i was seated\nby the window, all being dark save for the moonlight outside, when i\nheard steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing-gown.\nshe implored me to come to bed. i told her frankly that i wished to\nsee who it was who played such absurd tricks upon us. she answered\nthat it was some senseless practical joke, and that i should not take\nany notice of it.\n\"'if it really annoys you, hilton, we might go and travel, you and i,\nand so avoid this nuisance.'\n\"'what, be driven out of our own house by a practical joker?' said i.\n'why, we should have the whole county laughing at us.'\n\"'well, come to bed,' said she, 'and we can discuss it in the\nmorning.'\n\"suddenly, as she spoke, i saw her white face grow whiter yet in the\nmoonlight, and her hand tightened upon my shoulder. something was\nmoving in the shadow of the tool-house. i saw a dark, creeping figure\nwhich crawled round the corner and squatted in front of the door.\nseizing my pistol i was rushing out, when my wife threw her arms\nround me and held me with convulsive strength. i tried to throw her\noff, but she clung to me most desperately. at last i got clear, but\nby the time i had opened the door and reached the house the creature\nwas gone. he had left a trace of his presence, however, for there on\nthe door was the very same arrangement of dancing men which had\nalready twice appeared, and which i have copied on that paper. there\nwas no other sign of the fellow anywhere, though i ran all over the\ngrounds. and yet the amazing thing is that he must have been there\nall the time, for when i examined the door again in the morning he\nhad scrawled some more of his pictures under the line which i had\nalready seen.\"\n\"have you that fresh drawing?\"\n\"yes; it is very short, but i made a copy of it, and here it is.\"\nagain he produced a paper. the new dance was in this form:--\n[ picture: picture of five dancing men figures ]\n\"tell me,\" said holmes--and i could see by his eyes that he was much\nexcited--\"was this a mere addition to the first, or did it appear to\nbe entirely separate?\"\n\"it was on a different panel of the door.\"\n\"excellent! this is far the most important of all for our purpose. it\nfills me with hopes. now, mr. hilton cubitt, please continue your\nmost interesting statement.\"\n\"i have nothing more to say, mr. holmes, except that i was angry with\nmy wife that night for having held me back when i might have caught\nthe skulking rascal. she said that she feared that i might come to\nharm. for an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she\nreally feared was that he might come to harm, for i could not doubt\nthat she knew who this man was and what he meant by these strange\nsignals. but there is a tone in my wife's voice, mr. holmes, and a\nlook in her eyes which forbid doubt, and i am sure that it was indeed\nmy own safety that was in her mind. there's the whole case, and now i\nwant your advice as to what i ought to do. my own inclination is to\nput half-a-dozen of my farm lads in the shrubbery, and when this\nfellow comes again to give him such a hiding that he will leave us in\npeace for the future.\"\n\"i fear it is too deep a case for such simple remedies,\" said holmes.\n\"how long can you stay in london?\"\n\"i must go back to-day. i would not leave my wife alone all night for\nanything. she is very nervous and begged me to come back.\"\n\"i dare say you are right. but if you could have stopped i might\npossibly have been able to return with you in a day or two. meanwhile\nyou will leave me these papers, and i think that it is very likely\nthat i shall be able to pay you a visit shortly and to throw some\nlight upon your case.\"\nsherlock holmes preserved his calm professional manner until our\nvisitor had left us, although it was easy for me, who knew him so\nwell, to see that he was profoundly excited. the moment that hilton\ncubitt's broad back had disappeared through the door my comrade\nrushed to the table, laid out all the slips of paper containing\ndancing men in front of him, and threw himself into an intricate and\nelaborate calculation. for two hours i watched him as he covered\nsheet after sheet of paper with figures and letters, so completely\nabsorbed in his task that he had evidently forgotten my presence.\nsometimes he was making progress and whistled and sang at his work;\nsometimes he was puzzled, and would sit for long spells with a\nfurrowed brow and a vacant eye. finally he sprang from his chair with\na cry of satisfaction, and walked up and down the room rubbing his\nhands together. then he wrote a long telegram upon a cable form. \"if\nmy answer to this is as i hope, you will have a very pretty case to\nadd to your collection, watson,\" said he. \"i expect that we shall be\nable to go down to norfolk to-morrow, and to take our friend some\nvery definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.\"\ni confess that i was filled with curiosity, but i was aware that\nholmes liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own\nway; so i waited until it should suit him to take me into his\nconfidence.\nbut there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of\nimpatience followed, during which holmes pricked up his ears at every\nring of the bell. on the evening of the second there came a letter\nfrom hilton cubitt. all was quiet with him, save that a long\ninscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the\nsun-dial. he inclosed a copy of it, which is here reproduced:--\n[ picture: picture of many dancing men figures ]\nholmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, and then\nsuddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and\ndismay. his face was haggard with anxiety.\n\"we have let this affair go far enough,\" said he. \"is there a train\nto north walsham to-night?\"\ni turned up the time-table. the last had just gone.\n\"then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the\nmorning,\" said holmes. \"our presence is most urgently needed. ah!\nhere is our expected cablegram. one moment, mrs. hudson; there may be\nan answer. no, that is quite as i expected. this message makes it\neven more essential that we should not lose an hour in letting hilton\ncubitt know how matters stand, for it is a singular and a dangerous\nweb in which our simple norfolk squire is entangled.\"\nso, indeed, it proved, and as i come to the dark conclusion of a\nstory which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre i\nexperience once again the dismay and horror with which i was filled.\nwould that i had some brighter ending to communicate to my readers,\nbut these are the chronicles of fact, and i must follow to their dark\ncrisis the strange chain of events which for some days made ridling\nthorpe manor a household word through the length and breadth of\nengland.\nwe had hardly alighted at north walsham, and mentioned the name of\nour destination, when the station-master hurried towards us. \"i\nsuppose that you are the detectives from london?\" said he.\na look of annoyance passed over holmes's face.\n\"what makes you think such a thing?\"\n\"because inspector martin from norwich has just passed through. but\nmaybe you are the surgeons. she's not dead--or wasn't by last\naccounts. you may be in time to save her yet--though it be for the\ngallows.\"\nholmes's brow was dark with anxiety.\n\"we are going to ridling thorpe manor,\" said he, \"but we have heard\nnothing of what has passed there.\"\n\"it's a terrible business,\" said the station-master. \"they are shot,\nboth mr. hilton cubitt and his wife. she shot him and then\nherself--so the servants say. he's dead and her life is despaired of.\ndear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of norfolk, and\none of the most honoured.\"\nwithout a word holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long\nseven miles' drive he never opened his mouth. seldom have i seen him\nso utterly despondent. he had been uneasy during all our journey from\ntown, and i had observed that he had turned over the morning papers\nwith anxious attention; but now this sudden realization of his worst\nfears left him in a blank melancholy. he leaned back in his seat,\nlost in gloomy speculation. yet there was much around to interest us,\nfor we were passing through as singular a country-side as any in\nengland, where a few scattered cottages represented the population of\nto-day, while on every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled\nup from the flat, green landscape and told of the glory and\nprosperity of old east anglia. at last the violet rim of the german\nocean appeared over the green edge of the norfolk coast, and the\ndriver pointed with his whip to two old brick and timber gables which\nprojected from a grove of trees. \"that's ridling thorpe manor,\" said\nhe.\nas we drove up to the porticoed front door i observed in front of it,\nbeside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled\nsun-dial with which we had such strange associations. a dapper little\nman, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just\ndescended from a high dog-cart. he introduced himself as inspector\nmartin, of the norfolk constabulary, and he was considerably\nastonished when he heard the name of my companion.\n\"why, mr. holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.\nhow could you hear of it in london and get to the spot as soon as i?\"\n\"i anticipated it. i came in the hope of preventing it.\"\n\"then you must have important evidence of which we are ignorant, for\nthey were said to be a most united couple.\"\n\"i have only the evidence of the dancing men,\" said holmes. \"i will\nexplain the matter to you later. meanwhile, since it is too late to\nprevent this tragedy, i am very anxious that i should use the\nknowledge which i possess in order to ensure that justice be done.\nwill you associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer that\ni should act independently?\"\n\"i should be proud to feel that we were acting together, mr. holmes,\"\nsaid the inspector, earnestly.\n\"in that case i should be glad to hear the evidence and to examine\nthe premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.\"\ninspector martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do things\nin his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully noting the\nresults. the local surgeon, an old, white-haired man, had just come\ndown from mrs. hilton cubitt's room, and he reported that her\ninjuries were serious, but not necessarily fatal. the bullet had\npassed through the front of her brain, and it would probably be some\ntime before she could regain consciousness. on the question of\nwhether she had been shot or had shot herself he would not venture to\nexpress any decided opinion. certainly the bullet had been discharged\nat very close quarters. there was only the one pistol found in the\nroom, two barrels of which had been emptied. mr. hilton cubitt had\nbeen shot through the heart. it was equally conceivable that he had\nshot her and then himself, or that she had been the criminal, for the\nrevolver lay upon the floor midway between them.\n\"has he been moved?\" asked holmes.\n\"we have moved nothing except the lady. we could not leave her lying\nwounded upon the floor.\"\n\"how long have you been here, doctor?\"\n\"since four o'clock.\"\n\"anyone else?\"\n\"yes, the constable here.\"\n\"and you have touched nothing?\"\n\"nothing.\"\n\"you have acted with great discretion. who sent for you?\"\n\"the housemaid, saunders.\"\n\"was it she who gave the alarm?\"\n\"she and mrs. king, the cook.\"\n\"where are they now?\"\n\"in the kitchen, i believe.\"\n\"then i think we had better hear their story at once.\"\nthe old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned into a\ncourt of investigation. holmes sat in a great, old-fashioned chair,\nhis inexorable eyes gleaming out of his haggard face. i could read in\nthem a set purpose to devote his life to this quest until the client\nwhom he had failed to save should at last be avenged. the trim\ninspector martin, the old, grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a\nstolid village policeman made up the rest of that strange company.\nthe two women told their story clearly enough. they had been aroused\nfrom their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been\nfollowed a minute later by a second one. they slept in adjoining\nrooms, and mrs. king had rushed in to saunders. together they had\ndescended the stairs. the door of the study was open and a candle was\nburning upon the table. their master lay upon his face in the centre\nof the room. he was quite dead. near the window his wife was\ncrouching, her head leaning against the wall. she was horribly\nwounded, and the side of her face was red with blood. she breathed\nheavily, but was incapable of saying anything. the passage, as well\nas the room, was full of smoke and the smell of powder. the window\nwas certainly shut and fastened upon the inside. both women were\npositive upon the point. they had at once sent for the doctor and for\nthe constable. then, with the aid of the groom and the stable-boy,\nthey had conveyed their injured mistress to her room. both she and\nher husband had occupied the bed. she was clad in her dress--he in\nhis dressing-gown, over his night clothes. nothing had been moved in\nthe study. so far as they knew there had never been any quarrel\nbetween husband and wife. they had always looked upon them as a very\nunited couple.\nthese were the main points of the servants' evidence. in answer to\ninspector martin they were clear that every door was fastened upon\nthe inside, and that no one could have escaped from the house. in\nanswer to holmes they both remembered that they were conscious of the\nsmell of powder from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon\nthe top floor. \"i commend that fact very carefully to your\nattention,\" said holmes to his professional colleague. \"and now i\nthink that we are in a position to undertake a thorough examination\nof the room.\"\nthe study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with\nbooks, and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which\nlooked out upon the garden. our first attention was given to the body\nof the unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the\nroom. his disordered dress showed that he had been hastily aroused\nfrom sleep. the bullet had been fired at him from the front, and had\nremained in his body after penetrating the heart. his death had\ncertainly been instantaneous and painless. there was no\npowder-marking either upon his dressing-gown or on his hands.\naccording to the country surgeon the lady had stains upon her face,\nbut none upon her hand.\n\"the absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may\nmean everything,\" said holmes. \"unless the powder from a\nbadly-fitting cartridge happens to spurt backwards, one may fire many\nshots without leaving a sign. i would suggest that mr. cubitt's body\nmay now be removed. i suppose, doctor, you have not recovered the\nbullet which wounded the lady?\"\n\"a serious operation will be necessary before that can be done. but\nthere are still four cartridges in the revolver. two have been fired\nand two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for.\"\n\"so it would seem,\" said holmes. \"perhaps you can account also for\nthe bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window?\"\nhe had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a\nhole which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash about\nan inch above the bottom.\n\"by george!\" cried the inspector. \"how ever did you see that?\"\n\"because i looked for it.\"\n\"wonderful!\" said the country doctor. \"you are certainly right, sir.\nthen a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must\nhave been present. but who could that have been and how could he have\ngot away?\"\n\"that is the problem which we are now about to solve,\" said sherlock\nholmes. \"you remember, inspector martin, when the servants said that\non leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of\npowder i remarked that the point was an extremely important one?\"\n\"yes, sir; but i confess i did not quite follow you.\"\n\"it suggested that at the time of the firing the window as well as\nthe door of the room had been open. otherwise the fumes of powder\ncould not have been blown so rapidly through the house. a draught in\nthe room was necessary for that. both door and window were only open\nfor a very short time, however.\"\n\"how do you prove that?\"\n\"because the candle has not guttered.\"\n\"capital!\" cried the inspector. \"capital!\"\n\"feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the\ntragedy i conceived that there might have been a third person in the\naffair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it. any shot\ndirected at this person might hit the sash. i looked, and there, sure\nenough, was the bullet mark!\"\n\"but how came the window to be shut and fastened?\"\n\"the woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten the window.\nbut, halloa! what is this?\"\nit was a lady's hand-bag which stood upon the study table--a trim\nlittle hand-bag of crocodile-skin and silver. holmes opened it and\nturned the contents out. there were twenty fifty-pound notes of the\nbank of england, held together by an india-rubber band--nothing else.\n\"this must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial,\" said\nholmes, as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector. \"it\nis now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this\nthird bullet, which has clearly, from the splintering of the wood,\nbeen fired from inside the room. i should like to see mrs. king, the\ncook, again. you said, mrs. king, that you were awakened by a loud\nexplosion. when you said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to\nbe louder than the second one?\"\n\"well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, and so it is hard to judge.\nbut it did seem very loud.\"\n\"you don't think that it might have been two shots fired almost at\nthe same instant?\"\n\"i am sure i couldn't say, sir.\"\n\"i believe that it was undoubtedly so. i rather think, inspector\nmartin, that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach us.\nif you will kindly step round with me, we shall see what fresh\nevidence the garden has to offer.\"\na flower-bed extended up to the study window, and we all broke into\nan exclamation as we approached it. the flowers were trampled down,\nand the soft soil was imprinted all over with footmarks. large,\nmasculine feet they were, with peculiarly long, sharp toes. holmes\nhunted about among the grass and leaves like a retriever after a\nwounded bird. then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and\npicked up a little brazen cylinder.\n\"i thought so,\" said he; \"the revolver had an ejector, and here is\nthe third cartridge. i really think, inspector martin, that our case\nis almost complete.\"\nthe country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the\nrapid and masterful progress of holmes's investigation. at first he\nhad shown some disposition to assert his own position; but now he was\novercome with admiration and ready to follow without question\nwherever holmes led.\n\"whom do you suspect?\" he asked.\n\"i'll go into that later. there are several points in this problem\nwhich i have not been able to explain to you yet. now that i have got\nso far i had best proceed on my own lines, and then clear the whole\nmatter up once and for all.\"\n\"just as you wish, mr. holmes, so long as we get our man.\"\n\"i have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the\nmoment of action to enter into long and complex explanations. i have\nthe threads of this affair all in my hand. even if this lady should\nnever recover consciousness we can still reconstruct the events of\nlast night and ensure that justice be done. first of all i wish to\nknow whether there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as\n'elrige's'?\"\nthe servants were cross-questioned, but none of them had heard of\nsuch a place. the stable-boy threw a light upon the matter by\nremembering that a farmer of that name lived some miles off in the\ndirection of east ruston.\n\"is it a lonely farm?\"\n\"very lonely, sir.\"\n\"perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during the\nnight?\"\n\"maybe not, sir.\"\nholmes thought for a little and then a curious smile played over his\nface.\n\"saddle a horse, my lad,\" said he. \"i shall wish you to take a note\nto elrige's farm.\"\nhe took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing men. with\nthese in front of him he worked for some time at the study-table.\nfinally he handed a note to the boy, with directions to put it into\nthe hands of the person to whom it was addressed, and especially to\nanswer no questions of any sort which might be put to him. i saw the\noutside of the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters,\nvery unlike holmes's usual precise hand. it was consigned to mr. abe\nslaney, elrige's farm, east ruston, norfolk.\n\"i think, inspector,\" holmes remarked, \"that you would do well to\ntelegraph for an escort, as, if my calculations prove to be correct,\nyou may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey to the\ncounty jail. the boy who takes this note could no doubt forward your\ntelegram. if there is an afternoon train to town, watson, i think we\nshould do well to take it, as i have a chemical analysis of some\ninterest to finish, and this investigation draws rapidly to a close.\"\nwhen the youth had been dispatched with the note, sherlock holmes\ngave his instructions to the servants. if any visitor were to call\nasking for mrs. hilton cubitt no information should be given as to\nher condition, but he was to be shown at once into the drawing-room.\nhe impressed these points upon them with the utmost earnestness.\nfinally he led the way into the drawing-room with the remark that the\nbusiness was now out of our hands, and that we must while away the\ntime as best we might until we could see what was in store for us.\nthe doctor had departed to his patients, and only the inspector and\nmyself remained.\n\"i think that i can help you to pass an hour in an interesting and\nprofitable manner,\" said holmes, drawing his chair up to the table\nand spreading out in front of him the various papers upon which were\nrecorded the antics of the dancing men. \"as to you, friend watson, i\nowe you every atonement for having allowed your natural curiosity to\nremain so long unsatisfied. to you, inspector, the whole incident may\nappeal as a remarkable professional study. i must tell you first of\nall the interesting circumstances connected with the previous\nconsultations which mr. hilton cubitt has had with me in baker\nstreet.\" he then shortly recapitulated the facts which have already\nbeen recorded. \"i have here in front of me these singular\nproductions, at which one might smile had they not proved themselves\nto be the fore-runners of so terrible a tragedy. i am fairly familiar\nwith all forms of secret writings, and am myself the author of a\ntrifling monograph upon the subject, in which i analyze one hundred\nand sixty separate ciphers; but i confess that this is entirely new\nto me. the object of those who invented the system has apparently\nbeen to conceal that these characters convey a message, and to give\nthe idea that they are the mere random sketches of children.\n\"having once recognised, however, that the symbols stood for letters,\nand having applied the rules which guide us in all forms of secret\nwritings, the solution was easy enough. the first message submitted\nto me was so short that it was impossible for me to do more than to\nsay with some confidence that the symbol\n[ picture: picture of a single dancing man ]\nstood for e. as you are aware, e is the most common letter in the\nenglish alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that\neven in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often. out\nof fifteen symbols in the first message four were the same, so it was\nreasonable to set this down as e. it is true that in some cases the\nfigure was bearing a flag and in some cases not, but it was probable\nfrom the way in which the flags were distributed that they were used\nto break the sentence up into words. i accepted this as a hypothesis,\nand noted that e was represented by\n[ picture: picture of a single dancing man ]\n\"but now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. the order of the\nenglish letters after e is by no means well marked, and any\npreponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet may\nbe reversed in a single short sentence. speaking roughly, t, a, o, i,\nn, s, h, r, d, and l are the numerical order in which letters occur;\nbut t, a, o, and i are very nearly abreast of each other, and it\nwould be an endless task to try each combination until a meaning was\narrived at. i, therefore, waited for fresh material. in my second\ninterview with mr. hilton cubitt he was able to give me two other\nshort sentences and one message, which appeared--since there was no\nflag--to be a single word. here are the symbols. now, in the single\nword i have already got the two e's coming second and fourth in a\nword of five letters. it might be 'sever,' or 'lever,' or 'never.'\nthere can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is\nfar the most probable, and the circumstances pointed to its being a\nreply written by the lady. accepting it as correct, we are now able\nto say that the symbols\n[ picture: picture of three dancing men ]\nstand respectively for n, v, and r.\n\"even now i was in considerable difficulty, but a happy thought put\nme in possession of several other letters. it occurred to me that if\nthese appeals came, as i expected, from someone who had been intimate\nwith the lady in her early life, a combination which contained two\ne's with three letters between might very well stand for the name\n'elsie.' on examination i found that such a combination formed the\ntermination of the message which was three times repeated. it was\ncertainly some appeal to 'elsie.' in this way i had got my l, s, and\ni. but what appeal could it be? there were only four letters in the\nword which preceded 'elsie,' and it ended in e. surely the word must\nbe 'come.' i tried all other four letters ending in e, but could find\nnone to fit the case. so now i was in possession of c, o, and m, and\ni was in a position to attack the first message once more, dividing\nit into words and putting dots for each symbol which was still\nunknown. so treated it worked out in this fashion:\n.m  .ere  ..e  sl.ne.\n\"now the first letter can only be a, which is a most useful\ndiscovery, since it occurs no fewer than three times in this short\nsentence, and the h is also apparent in the second word. now it\nbecomes:--\nam  here  a.e  slane.\nor, filling in the obvious vacancies in the name:--\nam  here  abe  slaney.\ni had so many letters now that i could proceed with considerable\nconfidence to the second message, which worked out in this fashion:--\na. elri.es.\nhere i could only make sense by putting t and g for the missing\nletters, and supposing that the name was that of some house or inn at\nwhich the writer was staying.\"\ninspector martin and i had listened with the utmost interest to the\nfull and clear account of how my friend had produced results which\nhad led to so complete a command over our difficulties.\n\"what did you do then, sir?\" asked the inspector.\n\"i had every reason to suppose that this abe slaney was an american,\nsince abe is an american contraction, and since a letter from america\nhad been the starting-point of all the trouble. i had also every\ncause to think that there was some criminal secret in the matter. the\nlady's allusions to her past and her refusal to take her husband into\nher confidence both pointed in that direction. i therefore cabled to\nmy friend, wilson hargreave, of the new york police bureau, who has\nmore than once made use of my knowledge of london crime. i asked him\nwhether the name of abe slaney was known to him. here is his reply:\n'the most dangerous crook in chicago.' on the very evening upon which\ni had his answer hilton cubitt sent me the last message from slaney.\nworking with known letters it took this form:--\nelsie  .re.are  to  meet  thy  go.\nthe addition of a p and a d completed a message which showed me that\nthe rascal was proceeding from persuasion to threats, and my\nknowledge of the crooks of chicago prepared me to find that he might\nvery rapidly put his words into action. i at once came to norfolk\nwith my friend and colleague, dr. watson, but, unhappily, only in\ntime to find that the worst had already occurred.\"\n\"it is a privilege to be associated with you in the handling of a\ncase,\" said the inspector, warmly. \"you will excuse me, however, if i\nspeak frankly to you. you are only answerable to yourself, but i have\nto answer to my superiors. if this abe slaney, living at elrige's, is\nindeed the murderer, and if he has made his escape while i am seated\nhere, i should certainly get into serious trouble.\"\n\"you need not be uneasy. he will not try to escape.\"\n\"how do you know?\"\n\"to fly would be a confession of guilt.\"\n\"then let us go to arrest him.\"\n\"i expect him here every instant.\"\n\"but why should he come?\"\n\"because i have written and asked him.\"\n\"but this is incredible, mr. holmes! why should he come because you\nhave asked him? would not such a request rather rouse his suspicions\nand cause him to fly?\"\n\"i think i have known how to frame the letter,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"in fact, if i am not very much mistaken, here is the gentleman\nhimself coming up the drive.\"\na man was striding up the path which led to the door. he was a tall,\nhandsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel, with a\npanama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked\nnose, and flourishing a cane as he walked. he swaggered up the path\nas if the place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident\npeal at the bell.\n\"i think, gentlemen,\" said holmes, quietly, \"that we had best take up\nour position behind the door. every precaution is necessary when\ndealing with such a fellow. you will need your handcuffs, inspector.\nyou can leave the talking to me.\"\nwe waited in silence for a minute--one of those minutes which one can\nnever forget. then the door opened and the man stepped in. in an\ninstant holmes clapped a pistol to his head and martin slipped the\nhandcuffs over his wrists. it was all done so swiftly and deftly that\nthe fellow was helpless before he knew that he was attacked. he\nglared from one to the other of us with a pair of blazing black eyes.\nthen he burst into a bitter laugh.\n\"well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. i seem to have\nknocked up against something hard. but i came here in answer to a\nletter from mrs. hilton cubitt. don't tell me that she is in this?\ndon't tell me that she helped to set a trap for me?\"\n\"mrs. hilton cubitt was seriously injured and is at death's door.\"\nthe man gave a hoarse cry of grief which rang through the house.\n\"you're crazy!\" he cried, fiercely. \"it was he that was hurt, not\nshe. who would have hurt little elsie? i may have threatened her, god\nforgive me, but i would not have touched a hair of her pretty head.\ntake it back--you! say that she is not hurt!\"\n\"she was found badly wounded by the side of her dead husband.\"\nhe sank with a deep groan on to the settee and buried his face in his\nmanacled hands. for five minutes he was silent. then he raised his\nface once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.\n\"i have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen,\" said he. \"if i shot the\nman he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that. but if you\nthink i could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or\nher. i tell you there was never a man in this world loved a woman\nmore than i loved her. i had a right to her. she was pledged to me\nyears ago. who was this englishman that he should come between us? i\ntell you that i had the first right to her, and that i was only\nclaiming my own.\"\n\"she broke away from your influence when she found the man that you\nare,\" said holmes, sternly. \"she fled from america to avoid you, and\nshe married an honourable gentleman in england. you dogged her and\nfollowed her and made her life a misery to her in order to induce her\nto abandon the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly\nwith you, whom she feared and hated. you have ended by bringing about\nthe death of a noble man and driving his wife to suicide. that is\nyour record in this business, mr. abe slaney, and you will answer for\nit to the law.\"\n\"if elsie dies i care nothing what becomes of me,\" said the american.\nhe opened one of his hands and looked at a note crumpled up in his\npalm. \"see here, mister,\" he cried, with a gleam of suspicion in his\neyes, \"you're not trying to scare me over this, are you? if the lady\nis hurt as bad as you say, who was it that wrote this note?\" he\ntossed it forwards on to the table.\n\"i wrote it to bring you here.\"\n\"you wrote it? there was no one on earth outside the joint who knew\nthe secret of the dancing men. how came you to write it?\"\n\"what one man can invent another can discover,\" said holmes. \"there\nis a cab coming to convey you to norwich, mr. slaney. but, meanwhile,\nyou have time to make some small reparation for the injury you have\nwrought. are you aware that mrs. hilton cubitt has herself lain under\ngrave suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was only my\npresence here and the knowledge which i happened to possess which has\nsaved her from the accusation? the least that you owe her is to make\nit clear to the whole world that she was in no way, directly or\nindirectly, responsible for his tragic end.\"\n\"i ask nothing better,\" said the american. \"i guess the very best\ncase i can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.\"\n\"it is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,\" cried\nthe inspector, with the magnificent fair-play of the british criminal\nlaw.\nslaney shrugged his shoulders.\n\"i'll chance that,\" said he. \"first of all, i want you gentlemen to\nunderstand that i have known this lady since she was a child. there\nwere seven of us in a gang in chicago, and elsie's father was the\nboss of the joint. he was a clever man, was old patrick. it was he\nwho invented that writing, which would pass as a child's scrawl\nunless you just happened to have the key to it. well, elsie learned\nsome of our ways; but she couldn't stand the business, and she had a\nbit of honest money of her own, so she gave us all the slip and got\naway to london. she had been engaged to me, and she would have\nmarried me, i believe, if i had taken over another profession; but\nshe would have nothing to do with anything on the cross. it was only\nafter her marriage to this englishman that i was able to find out\nwhere she was. i wrote to her, but got no answer. after that i came\nover, and, as letters were no use, i put my messages where she could\nread them.\n\"well, i have been here a month now. i lived in that farm, where i\nhad a room down below, and could get in and out every night, and no\none the wiser. i tried all i could to coax elsie away. i knew that\nshe read the messages, for once she wrote an answer under one of\nthem. then my temper got the better of me, and i began to threaten\nher. she sent me a letter then, imploring me to go away and saying\nthat it would break her heart if any scandal should come upon her\nhusband. she said that she would come down when her husband was\nasleep at three in the morning, and speak with me through the end\nwindow, if i would go away afterwards and leave her in peace. she\ncame down and brought money with her, trying to bribe me to go. this\nmade me mad, and i caught her arm and tried to pull her through the\nwindow. at that moment in rushed the husband with his revolver in his\nhand. elsie had sunk down upon the floor, and we were face to face. i\nwas heeled also, and i held up my gun to scare him off and let me get\naway. he fired and missed me. i pulled off almost at the same\ninstant, and down he dropped. i made away across the garden, and as i\nwent i heard the window shut behind me. that's god's truth,\ngentlemen, every word of it, and i heard no more about it until that\nlad came riding up with a note which made me walk in here, like a\njay, and give myself into your hands.\"\na cab had driven up whilst the american had been talking. two\nuniformed policemen sat inside. inspector martin rose and touched his\nprisoner on the shoulder.\n\"it is time for us to go.\"\n\"can i see her first?\"\n\"no, she is not conscious. mr. sherlock holmes, i only hope that if\never again i have an important case i shall have the good fortune to\nhave you by my side.\"\nwe stood at the window and watched the cab drive away. as i turned\nback my eye caught the pellet of paper which the prisoner had tossed\nupon the table. it was the note with which holmes had decoyed him.\n\"see if you can read it, watson,\" said he, with a smile.\nit contained no word, but this little line of dancing men:--\n[ picture: picture of various dancing men ]\n\"if you use the code which i have explained,\" said holmes, \"you will\nfind that it simply means 'come here at once.' i was convinced that\nit was an invitation which he would not refuse, since he could never\nimagine that it could come from anyone but the lady. and so, my dear\nwatson, we have ended by turning the dancing men to good when they\nhave so often been the agents of evil, and i think that i have\nfulfilled my promise of giving you something unusual for your\nnote-book. three-forty is our train, and i fancy we should be back in\nbaker street for dinner.\"\nonly one word of epilogue. the american, abe slaney, was condemned to\ndeath at the winter assizes at norwich; but his penalty was changed\nto penal servitude in consideration of mitigating circumstances, and\nthe certainty that hilton cubitt had fired the first shot. of mrs.\nhilton cubitt i only know that i have heard she recovered entirely,\nand that she still remains a widow, devoting her whole life to the\ncare of the poor and to the administration of her husband's estate.\nthe adventure of the solitary cyclist\nfrom the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive mr. sherlock holmes was a very\nbusy man. it is safe to say that there was no public case of any\ndifficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years,\nand there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most\nintricate and extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent\npart. many startling successes and a few unavoidable failures were\nthe outcome of this long period of continuous work. as i have\npreserved very full notes of all these cases, and was myself\npersonally engaged in many of them, it may be imagined that it is no\neasy task to know which i should select to lay before the public. i\nshall, however, preserve my former rule, and give the preference to\nthose cases which derive their interest not so much from the\nbrutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of\nthe solution. for this reason i will now lay before the reader the\nfacts connected with miss violet smith, the solitary cyclist of\ncharlington, and the curious sequel of our investigation, which\nculminated in unexpected tragedy. it is true that the circumstances\ndid not admit of any striking illustration of those powers for which\nmy friend was famous, but there were some points about the case which\nmade it stand out in those long records of crime from which i gather\nthe material for these little narratives.\non referring to my note-book for the year 1895 i find that it was\nupon saturday, the 23rd of april, that we first heard of miss violet\nsmith. her visit was, i remember, extremely unwelcome to holmes, for\nhe was immersed at the moment in a very abstruse and complicated\nproblem concerning the peculiar persecution to which john vincent\nharden, the well-known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected. my\nfriend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of\nthought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the\nmatter in hand. and yet without a harshness which was foreign to his\nnature it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the\nyoung and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented\nherself at baker street late in the evening and implored his\nassistance and advice. it was vain to urge that his time was already\nfully occupied, for the young lady had come with the determination to\ntell her story, and it was evident that nothing short of force could\nget her out of the room until she had done so. with a resigned air\nand a somewhat weary smile, holmes begged the beautiful intruder to\ntake a seat and to inform us what it was that was troubling her.\n\"at least it cannot be your health,\" said he, as his keen eyes darted\nover her; \"so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy.\"\nshe glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and i observed the\nslight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of\nthe edge of the pedal.\n\"yes, i bicycle a good deal, mr. holmes, and that has something to do\nwith my visit to you to-day.\"\nmy friend took the lady's ungloved hand and examined it with as close\nan attention and as little sentiment as a scientist would show to a\nspecimen.\n\"you will excuse me, i am sure. it is my business,\" said he, as he\ndropped it. \"i nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were\ntypewriting. of course, it is obvious that it is music. you observe\nthe spatulate finger-end, watson, which is common to both\nprofessions? there is a spirituality about the face, however\"--he\ngently turned it towards the light--\"which the typewriter does not\ngenerate. this lady is a musician.\"\n\"yes, mr. holmes, i teach music.\"\n\"in the country, i presume, from your complexion.\"\n\"yes, sir; near farnham, on the borders of surrey.\"\n\"a beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting\nassociations. you remember, watson, that it was near there that we\ntook archie stamford, the forger. now, miss violet, what has happened\nto you near farnham, on the borders of surrey?\"\nthe young lady, with great clearness and composure, made the\nfollowing curious statement:--\n\"my father is dead, mr. holmes. he was james smith, who conducted the\norchestra at the old imperial theatre. my mother and i were left\nwithout a relation in the world except one uncle, ralph smith, who\nwent to africa twenty-five years ago, and we have never had a word\nfrom him since. when father died we were left very poor, but one day\nwe were told that there was an advertisement in the times inquiring\nfor our whereabouts. you can imagine how excited we were, for we\nthought that someone had left us a fortune. we went at once to the\nlawyer whose name was given in the paper. there we met two gentlemen,\nmr. carruthers and mr. woodley, who were home on a visit from south\nafrica. they said that my uncle was a friend of theirs, that he died\nsome months before in great poverty in johannesburg, and that he had\nasked them with his last breath to hunt up his relations and see that\nthey were in no want. it seemed strange to us that uncle ralph, who\ntook no notice of us when he was alive, should be so careful to look\nafter us when he was dead; but mr. carruthers explained that the\nreason was that my uncle had just heard of the death of his brother,\nand so felt responsible for our fate.\"\n\"excuse me,\" said holmes; \"when was this interview?\"\n\"last december--four months ago.\"\n\"pray proceed.\"\n\"mr. woodley seemed to me to be a most odious person. he was for ever\nmaking eyes at me--a coarse, puffy-faced, red-moustached young man,\nwith his hair plastered down on each side of his forehead. i thought\nthat he was perfectly hateful--and i was sure that cyril would not\nwish me to know such a person.\"\n\"oh, cyril is his name!\" said holmes, smiling.\nthe young lady blushed and laughed.\n\"yes, mr. holmes; cyril morton, an electrical engineer, and we hope\nto be married at the end of the summer. dear me, how did i get\ntalking about him? what i wished to say was that mr. woodley was\nperfectly odious, but that mr. carruthers, who was a much older man,\nwas more agreeable. he was a dark, sallow, clean-shaven, silent\nperson; but he had polite manners and a pleasant smile. he inquired\nhow we were left, and on finding that we were very poor he suggested\nthat i should come and teach music to his only daughter, aged ten. i\nsaid that i did not like to leave my mother, on which he suggested\nthat i should go home to her every week-end, and he offered me a\nhundred a year, which was certainly splendid pay. so it ended by my\naccepting, and i went down to chiltern grange, about six miles from\nfarnham. mr. carruthers was a widower, but he had engaged a\nlady-housekeeper, a very respectable, elderly person, called mrs.\ndixon, to look after his establishment. the child was a dear, and\neverything promised well. mr. carruthers was very kind and very\nmusical, and we had most pleasant evenings together. every week-end i\nwent home to my mother in town.\n\"the first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the red-moustached\nmr. woodley. he came for a visit of a week, and oh, it seemed three\nmonths to me! he was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but\nto me something infinitely worse. he made odious love to me, boasted\nof his wealth, said that if i married him i would have the finest\ndiamonds in london, and finally, when i would have nothing to do with\nhim, he seized me in his arms one day after dinner--he was hideously\nstrong--and he swore that he would not let me go until i had kissed\nhim. mr. carruthers came in and tore him off from me, on which he\nturned upon his own host, knocking him down and cutting his face\nopen. that was the end of his visit, as you can imagine. mr.\ncarruthers apologized to me next day, and assured me that i should\nnever be exposed to such an insult again. i have not seen mr. woodley\nsince.\n\"and now, mr. holmes, i come at last to the special thing which has\ncaused me to ask your advice to-day. you must know that every\nsaturday forenoon i ride on my bicycle to farnham station in order to\nget the 12.22 to town. the road from chiltern grange is a lonely one,\nand at one spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile\nbetween charlington heath upon one side and the woods which lie round\ncharlington hall upon the other. you could not find a more lonely\ntract of road anywhere, and it is quite rare to meet so much as a\ncart, or a peasant, until you reach the high road near crooksbury\nhill. two weeks ago i was passing this place when i chanced to look\nback over my shoulder, and about two hundred yards behind me i saw a\nman, also on a bicycle. he seemed to be a middle-aged man, with a\nshort, dark beard. i looked back before i reached farnham, but the\nman was gone, so i thought no more about it. but you can imagine how\nsurprised i was, mr. holmes, when on my return on the monday i saw\nthe same man on the same stretch of road. my astonishment was\nincreased when the incident occurred again, exactly as before, on the\nfollowing saturday and monday. he always kept his distance and did\nnot molest me in any way, but still it certainly was very odd. i\nmentioned it to mr. carruthers, who seemed interested in what i said,\nand told me that he had ordered a horse and trap, so that in future i\nshould not pass over these lonely roads without some companion.\n\"the horse and trap were to have come this week, but for some reason\nthey were not delivered, and again i had to cycle to the station.\nthat was this morning. you can think that i looked out when i came to\ncharlington heath, and there, sure enough, was the man, exactly as he\nhad been the two weeks before. he always kept so far from me that i\ncould not clearly see his face, but it was certainly someone whom i\ndid not know. he was dressed in a dark suit with a cloth cap. the\nonly thing about his face that i could clearly see was his dark\nbeard. to-day i was not alarmed, but i was filled with curiosity, and\ni determined to find out who he was and what he wanted. i slowed down\nmy machine, but he slowed down his. then i stopped altogether, but he\nstopped also. then i laid a trap for him. there is a sharp turning of\nthe road, and i pedalled very quickly round this, and then i stopped\nand waited. i expected him to shoot round and pass me before he could\nstop. but he never appeared. then i went back and looked round the\ncorner. i could see a mile of road, but he was not on it. to make it\nthe more extraordinary, there was no side road at this point down\nwhich he could have gone.\"\nholmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. \"this case certainly presents\nsome features of its own,\" said he. \"how much time elapsed between\nyour turning the corner and your discovery that the road was clear?\"\n\"two or three minutes.\"\n\"then he could not have retreated down the road, and you say that\nthere are no side roads?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"then he certainly took a footpath on one side or the other.\"\n\"it could not have been on the side of the heath or i should have\nseen him.\"\n\"so by the process of exclusion we arrive at the fact that he made\nhis way towards charlington hall, which, as i understand, is situated\nin its own grounds on one side of the road. anything else?\"\n\"nothing, mr. holmes, save that i was so perplexed that i felt i\nshould not be happy until i had seen you and had your advice.\"\nholmes sat in silence for some little time.\n\"where is the gentleman to whom you are engaged?\" he asked, at last.\n\"he is in the midland electrical company, at coventry.\"\n\"he would not pay you a surprise visit?\"\n\"oh, mr. holmes! as if i should not know him!\"\n\"have you had any other admirers?\"\n\"several before i knew cyril.\"\n\"and since?\"\n\"there was this dreadful man, woodley, if you can call him an\nadmirer.\"\n\"no one else?\"\nour fair client seemed a little confused.\n\"who was he?\" asked holmes.\n\"oh, it may be a mere fancy of mine; but it has seemed to me\nsometimes that my employer, mr. carruthers, takes a great deal of\ninterest in me. we are thrown rather together. i play his\naccompaniments in the evening. he has never said anything. he is a\nperfect gentleman. but a girl always knows.\"\n\"ha!\" holmes looked grave. \"what does he do for a living?\"\n\"he is a rich man.\"\n\"no carriages or horses?\"\n\"well, at least he is fairly well-to-do. but he goes into the city\ntwo or three times a week. he is deeply interested in south african\ngold shares.\"\n\"you will let me know any fresh development, miss smith. i am very\nbusy just now, but i will find time to make some inquiries into your\ncase. in the meantime take no step without letting me know. good-bye,\nand i trust that we shall have nothing but good news from you.\"\n\"it is part of the settled order of nature that such a girl should\nhave followers,\" said holmes, as he pulled at his meditative pipe,\n\"but for choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads. some\nsecretive lover, beyond all doubt. but there are curious and\nsuggestive details about the case, watson.\"\n\"that he should appear only at that point?\"\n\"exactly. our first effort must be to find who are the tenants of\ncharlington hall. then, again, how about the connection between\ncarruthers and woodley, since they appear to be men of such a\ndifferent type? how came they both to be so keen upon looking up\nralph smith's relations? one more point. what sort of a menage is it\nwhich pays double the market price for a governess, but does not keep\na horse although six miles from the station? odd, watson--very odd!\"\n\"you will go down?\"\n\"no, my dear fellow, you will go down. this may be some trifling\nintrigue, and i cannot break my other important research for the sake\nof it. on monday you will arrive early at farnham; you will conceal\nyourself near charlington heath; you will observe these facts for\nyourself, and act as your own judgment advises. then, having inquired\nas to the occupants of the hall, you will come back to me and report.\nand now, watson, not another word of the matter until we have a few\nsolid stepping-stones on which we may hope to get across to our\nsolution.\"\nwe had ascertained from the lady that she went down upon the monday\nby the train which leaves waterloo at 9.50, so i started early and\ncaught the 9.13. at farnham station i had no difficulty in being\ndirected to charlington heath. it was impossible to mistake the scene\nof the young lady's adventure, for the road runs between the open\nheath on one side and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a\npark which is studded with magnificent trees. there was a main\ngateway of lichen-studded stone, each side pillar surmounted by\nmouldering heraldic emblems; but besides this central carriage drive\ni observed several points where there were gaps in the hedge and\npaths leading through them. the house was invisible from the road,\nbut the surroundings all spoke of gloom and decay.\nthe heath was covered with golden patches of flowering gorse,\ngleaming magnificently in the light of the bright spring sunshine.\nbehind one of these clumps i took up my position, so as to command\nboth the gateway of the hall and a long stretch of the road upon\neither side. it had been deserted when i left it, but now i saw a\ncyclist riding down it from the opposite direction to that in which i\nhad come. he was clad in a dark suit, and i saw that he had a black\nbeard. on reaching the end of the charlington grounds he sprang from\nhis machine and led it through a gap in the hedge, disappearing from\nmy view.\na quarter of an hour passed and then a second cyclist appeared. this\ntime it was the young lady coming from the station. i saw her look\nabout her as she came to the charlington hedge. an instant later the\nman emerged from his hiding-place, sprang upon his cycle, and\nfollowed her. in all the broad landscape those were the only moving\nfigures, the graceful girl sitting very straight upon her machine,\nand the man behind her bending low over his handle-bar, with a\ncuriously furtive suggestion in every movement. she looked back at\nhim and slowed her pace. he slowed also. she stopped. he at once\nstopped too, keeping two hundred yards behind her. her next movement\nwas as unexpected as it was spirited. she suddenly whisked her wheels\nround and dashed straight at him! he was as quick as she, however,\nand darted off in desperate flight. presently she came back up the\nroad again, her head haughtily in the air, not deigning to take any\nfurther notice of her silent attendant. he had turned also, and still\nkept his distance until the curve of the road hid them from my sight.\ni remained in my hiding-place, and it was well that i did so, for\npresently the man reappeared cycling slowly back. he turned in at the\nhall gates and dismounted from his machine. for some few minutes i\ncould see him standing among the trees. his hands were raised and he\nseemed to be settling his necktie. then he mounted his cycle and rode\naway from me down the drive towards the hall. i ran across the heath\nand peered through the trees. far away i could catch glimpses of the\nold grey building with its bristling tudor chimneys, but the drive\nran through a dense shrubbery, and i saw no more of my man.\nhowever, it seemed to me that i had done a fairly good morning's\nwork, and i walked back in high spirits to farnham. the local\nhouse-agent could tell me nothing about charlington hall, and\nreferred me to a well-known firm in pall mall. there i halted on my\nway home, and met with courtesy from the representative. no, i could\nnot have charlington hall for the summer. i was just too late. it had\nbeen let about a month ago. mr. williamson was the name of the\ntenant. he was a respectable elderly gentleman. the polite agent was\nafraid he could say no more, as the affairs of his clients were not\nmatters which he could discuss.\nmr. sherlock holmes listened with attention to the long report which\ni was able to present to him that evening, but it did not elicit that\nword of curt praise which i had hoped for and should have valued. on\nthe contrary, his austere face was even more severe than usual as he\ncommented upon the things that i had done and the things that i had\nnot.\n\"your hiding-place, my dear watson, was very faulty. you should have\nbeen behind the hedge; then you would have had a close view of this\ninteresting person. as it is you were some hundreds of yards away,\nand can tell me even less than miss smith. she thinks she does not\nknow the man; i am convinced she does. why, otherwise, should he be\nso desperately anxious that she should not get so near him as to see\nhis features? you describe him as bending over the handle-bar.\nconcealment again, you see. you really have done remarkably badly. he\nreturns to the house and you want to find out who he is. you come to\na london house-agent!\"\n\"what should i have done?\" i cried, with some heat.\n\"gone to the nearest public-house. that is the centre of country\ngossip. they would have told you every name, from the master to the\nscullery-maid. williamson! it conveys nothing to my mind. if he is an\nelderly man he is not this active cyclist who sprints away from that\nathletic young lady's pursuit. what have we gained by your\nexpedition? the knowledge that the girl's story is true. i never\ndoubted it. that there is a connection between the cyclist and the\nhall. i never doubted that either. that the hall is tenanted by\nwilliamson. who's the better for that? well, well, my dear sir, don't\nlook so depressed. we can do little more until next saturday, and in\nthe meantime i may make one or two inquiries myself.\"\nnext morning we had a note from miss smith, recounting shortly and\naccurately the very incidents which i had seen, but the pith of the\nletter lay in the postscript:\n\"i am sure that you will respect my confidence, mr. holmes, when i\ntell you that my place here has become difficult owing to the fact\nthat my employer has proposed marriage to me. i am convinced that his\nfeelings are most deep and most honourable. at the same time my\npromise is, of course, given. he took my refusal very seriously, but\nalso very gently. you can understand, however, that the situation is\na little strained.\"\n\"our young friend seems to be getting into deep waters,\" said holmes,\nthoughtfully, as he finished the letter. \"the case certainly presents\nmore features of interest and more possibility of development than i\nhad originally thought. i should be none the worse for a quiet,\npeaceful day in the country, and i am inclined to run down this\nafternoon and test one or two theories which i have formed.\"\nholmes's quiet day in the country had a singular termination, for he\narrived at baker street late in the evening with a cut lip and a\ndiscoloured lump upon his forehead, besides a general air of\ndissipation which would have made his own person the fitting object\nof a scotland yard investigation. he was immensely tickled by his own\nadventures, and laughed heartily as he recounted them.\n\"i get so little active exercise that it is always a treat,\" said he.\n\"you are aware that i have some proficiency in the good old british\nsport of boxing. occasionally it is of service. to-day, for example,\ni should have come to very ignominious grief without it.\"\ni begged him to tell me what had occurred.\n\"i found that country pub which i had already recommended to your\nnotice, and there i made my discreet inquiries. i was in the bar, and\na garrulous landlord was giving me all that i wanted. williamson is a\nwhite-bearded man, and he lives alone with a small staff of servants\nat the hall. there is some rumour that he is or has been a clergyman;\nbut one or two incidents of his short residence at the hall struck me\nas peculiarly unecclesiastical. i have already made some inquiries at\na clerical agency, and they tell me that there was a man of that name\nin orders whose career has been a singularly dark one. the landlord\nfurther informed me that there are usually week-end visitors--'a warm\nlot, sir'--at the hall, and especially one gentleman with a red\nmoustache, mr. woodley by name, who was always there. we had got as\nfar as this when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who\nhad been drinking his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole\nconversation. who was i? what did i want? what did i mean by asking\nquestions? he had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were\nvery vigorous. he ended a string of abuse by a vicious back-hander\nwhich i failed to entirely avoid. the next few minutes were\ndelicious. it was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. i\nemerged as you see me. mr. woodley went home in a cart. so ended my\ncountry trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my\nday on the surrey border has not been much more profitable than your\nown.\"\nthe thursday brought us another letter from our client.\nyou will not be surprised, mr. holmes [said she] to hear that i am\nleaving mr. carruthers's employment. even the high pay cannot\nreconcile me to the discomforts of my situation. on saturday i come\nup to town and i do not intend to return. mr. carruthers has got a\ntrap, and so the dangers of the lonely road, if there ever were any\ndangers, are now over.\nas to the special cause of my leaving, it is not merely the strained\nsituation with mr. carruthers, but it is the reappearance of that\nodious man, mr. woodley. he was always hideous, but he looks more\nawful than ever now, for he appears to have had an accident and he is\nmuch disfigured. i saw him out of the window, but i am glad to say i\ndid not meet him. he had a long talk with mr. carruthers, who seemed\nmuch excited afterwards. woodley must be staying in the\nneighbourhood, for he did not sleep here, and yet i caught a glimpse\nof him again this morning slinking about in the shrubbery. i would\nsooner have a savage wild animal loose about the place. i loathe and\nfear him more than i can say. how can mr. carruthers endure such a\ncreature for a moment? however, all my troubles will be over on\nsaturday.\n\"so i trust, watson; so i trust,\" said holmes, gravely. \"there is\nsome deep intrigue going on round that little woman, and it is our\nduty to see that no one molests her upon that last journey. i think,\nwatson, that we must spare time to run down together on saturday\nmorning, and make sure that this curious and inconclusive\ninvestigation has no untoward ending.\"\ni confess that i had not up to now taken a very serious view of the\ncase, which had seemed to me rather grotesque and bizarre than\ndangerous. that a man should lie in wait for and follow a very\nhandsome woman is no unheard-of thing, and if he had so little\naudacity that he not only dared not address her, but even fled from\nher approach, he was not a very formidable assailant. the ruffian\nwoodley was a very different person, but, except on one occasion, he\nhad not molested our client, and now he visited the house of\ncarruthers without intruding upon her presence. the man on the\nbicycle was doubtless a member of those week-end parties at the hall\nof which the publican had spoken; but who he was or what he wanted\nwas as obscure as ever. it was the severity of holmes's manner and\nthe fact that he slipped a revolver into his pocket before leaving\nour rooms which impressed me with the feeling that tragedy might\nprove to lurk behind this curious train of events.\na rainy night had been followed by a glorious morning, and the\nheath-covered country-side with the glowing clumps of flowering gorse\nseemed all the more beautiful to eyes which were weary of the duns\nand drabs and slate-greys of london. holmes and i walked along the\nbroad, sandy road inhaling the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in\nthe music of the birds and the fresh breath of the spring. from a\nrise of the road on the shoulder of crooksbury hill we could see the\ngrim hall bristling out from amidst the ancient oaks, which, old as\nthey were, were still younger than the building which they\nsurrounded. holmes pointed down the long tract of road which wound, a\nreddish yellow band, between the brown of the heath and the budding\ngreen of the woods. far away, a black dot, we could see a vehicle\nmoving in our direction. holmes gave an exclamation of impatience.\n\"i had given a margin of half an hour,\" said he. \"if that is her trap\nshe must be making for the earlier train. i fear, watson, that she\nwill be past charlington before we can possibly meet her.\"\nfrom the instant that we passed the rise we could no longer see the\nvehicle, but we hastened onwards at such a pace that my sedentary\nlife began to tell upon me, and i was compelled to fall behind.\nholmes, however, was always in training, for he had inexhaustible\nstores of nervous energy upon which to draw. his springy step never\nslowed until suddenly, when he was a hundred yards in front of me, he\nhalted, and i saw him throw up his hand with a gesture of grief and\ndespair. at the same instant an empty dog-cart, the horse cantering,\nthe reins trailing, appeared round the curve of the road and rattled\nswiftly towards us.\n\"too late, watson; too late!\" cried holmes, as i ran panting to his\nside. \"fool that i was not to allow for that earlier train! it's\nabduction, watson--abduction! murder! heaven knows what! block the\nroad! stop the horse! that's right. now, jump in, and let us see if i\ncan repair the consequences of my own blunder.\"\nwe had sprung into the dog-cart, and holmes, after turning the horse,\ngave it a sharp cut with the whip, and we flew back along the road.\nas we turned the curve the whole stretch of road between the hall and\nthe heath was opened up. i grasped holmes's arm.\n\"that's the man!\" i gasped.\na solitary cyclist was coming towards us. his head was down and his\nshoulders rounded as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed\non to the pedals. he was flying like a racer. suddenly he raised his\nbearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his\nmachine. that coal-black beard was in singular contrast to the pallor\nof his face, and his eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. he\nstared at us and at the dog-cart. then a look of amazement came over\nhis face.\n\"halloa! stop there!\" he shouted, holding his bicycle to block our\nroad. \"where did you get that dog-cart? pull up, man!\" he yelled,\ndrawing a pistol from his side pocket. \"pull up, i say, or, by\ngeorge, i'll put a bullet into your horse.\"\nholmes threw the reins into my lap and sprang down from the cart.\n\"you're the man we want to see. where is miss violet smith?\" he said,\nin his quick, clear way.\n\"that's what i am asking you. you're in her dog-cart. you ought to\nknow where she is.\"\n\"we met the dog-cart on the road. there was no one in it. we drove\nback to help the young lady.\"\n\"good lord! good lord! what shall i do?\" cried the stranger, in an\necstasy of despair. \"they've got her, that hellhound woodley and the\nblackguard parson. come, man, come, if you really are her friend.\nstand by me and we'll save her, if i have to leave my carcass in\ncharlington wood.\"\nhe ran distractedly, his pistol in his hand, towards a gap in the\nhedge. holmes followed him, and i, leaving the horse grazing beside\nthe road, followed holmes.\n\"this is where they came through,\" said he, pointing to the marks of\nseveral feet upon the muddy path. \"halloa! stop a minute! who's this\nin the bush?\"\nit was a young fellow about seventeen, dressed like an ostler, with\nleather cords and gaiters. he lay upon his back, his knees drawn up,\na terrible cut upon his head. he was insensible, but alive. a glance\nat his wound told me that it had not penetrated the bone.\n\"that's peter, the groom,\" cried the stranger. \"he drove her. the\nbeasts have pulled him off and clubbed him. let him lie; we can't do\nhim any good, but we may save her from the worst fate that can befall\na woman.\"\nwe ran frantically down the path, which wound among the trees. we had\nreached the shrubbery which surrounded the house when holmes pulled\nup.\n\"they didn't go to the house. here are their marks on the left--here,\nbeside the laurel bushes! ah, i said so!\"\nas he spoke a woman's shrill scream--a scream which vibrated with a\nfrenzy of horror--burst from the thick green clump of bushes in front\nof us. it ended suddenly on its highest note with a choke and a\ngurgle.\n\"this way! this way! they are in the bowling alley,\" cried the\nstranger, darting through the bushes. \"ah, the cowardly dogs! follow\nme, gentlemen! too late! too late! by the living jingo!\"\nwe had broken suddenly into a lovely glade of greensward surrounded\nby ancient trees. on the farther side of it, under the shadow of a\nmighty oak, there stood a singular group of three people. one was a\nwoman, our client, drooping and faint, a handkerchief round her\nmouth. opposite her stood a brutal, heavy-faced, red-moustached young\nman, his gaitered legs parted wide, one arm akimbo, the other waving\na riding-crop, his whole attitude suggestive of triumphant bravado.\nbetween them an elderly, grey-bearded man, wearing a short surplice\nover a light tweed suit, had evidently just completed the wedding\nservice, for he pocketed his prayer-book as we appeared and slapped\nthe sinister bridegroom upon the back in jovial congratulation.\n\"they're married!\" i gasped.\n\"come on!\" cried our guide; \"come on!\" he rushed across the glade,\nholmes and i at his heels. as we approached, the lady staggered\nagainst the trunk of the tree for support. williamson, the\nex-clergyman, bowed to us with mock politeness, and the bully woodley\nadvanced with a shout of brutal and exultant laughter.\n\"you can take your beard off, bob,\" said he. \"i know you right\nenough. well, you and your pals have just come in time for me to be\nable to introduce you to mrs. woodley.\"\nour guide's answer was a singular one. he snatched off the dark beard\nwhich had disguised him and threw it on the ground, disclosing a\nlong, sallow, clean-shaven face below it. then he raised his revolver\nand covered the young ruffian, who was advancing upon him with his\ndangerous riding-crop swinging in his hand.\n\"yes,\" said our ally, \"i am bob carruthers, and i'll see this woman\nrighted if i have to swing for it. i told you what i'd do if you\nmolested her, and, by the lord, i'll be as good as my word!\"\n\"you're too late. she's my wife!\"\n\"no, she's your widow.\"\nhis revolver cracked, and i saw the blood spurt from the front of\nwoodley's waistcoat. he spun round with a scream and fell upon his\nback, his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled\npallor. the old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a\nstring of foul oaths as i have never heard, and pulled out a revolver\nof his own, but before he could raise it he was looking down the\nbarrel of holmes's weapon.\n\"enough of this,\" said my friend, coldly. \"drop that pistol! watson,\npick it up! hold it to his head! thank you. you, carruthers, give me\nthat revolver. we'll have no more violence. come, hand it over!\"\n\"who are you, then?\"\n\"my name is sherlock holmes.\"\n\"good lord!\"\n\"you have heard of me, i see. i will represent the official police\nuntil their arrival. here, you!\" he shouted to a frightened groom who\nhad appeared at the edge of the glade. \"come here. take this note as\nhard as you can ride to farnham.\" he scribbled a few words upon a\nleaf from his note-book. \"give it to the superintendent at the\npolice-station. until he comes i must detain you all under my\npersonal custody.\"\nthe strong, masterful personality of holmes dominated the tragic\nscene, and all were equally puppets in his hands. williamson and\ncarruthers found themselves carrying the wounded woodley into the\nhouse, and i gave my arm to the frightened girl. the injured man was\nlaid on his bed, and at holmes's request i examined him. i carried my\nreport to where he sat in the old tapestry-hung dining-room with his\ntwo prisoners before him.\n\"he will live,\" said i.\n\"what!\" cried carruthers, springing out of his chair. \"i'll go\nupstairs and finish him first. do you tell me that that girl, that\nangel, is to be tied to roaring jack woodley for life?\"\n\"you need not concern yourself about that,\" said holmes. \"there are\ntwo very good reasons why she should under no circumstances be his\nwife. in the first place, we are very safe in questioning mr.\nwilliamson's right to solemnize a marriage.\"\n\"i have been ordained,\" cried the old rascal.\n\"and also unfrocked.\"\n\"once a clergyman, always a clergyman.\"\n\"i think not. how about the license?\"\n\"we had a license for the marriage. i have it here in my pocket.\"\n\"then you got it by a trick. but in any case a forced marriage is no\nmarriage, but it is a very serious felony, as you will discover\nbefore you have finished. you'll have time to think the point out\nduring the next ten years or so, unless i am mistaken. as to you,\ncarruthers, you would have done better to keep your pistol in your\npocket.\"\n\"i begin to think so, mr. holmes; but when i thought of all the\nprecaution i had taken to shield this girl--for i loved her, mr.\nholmes, and it is the only time that ever i knew what love was--it\nfairly drove me mad to think that she was in the power of the\ngreatest brute and bully in south africa, a man whose name is a holy\nterror from kimberley to johannesburg. why, mr. holmes, you'll hardly\nbelieve it, but ever since that girl has been in my employment i\nnever once let her go past this house, where i knew these rascals\nwere lurking, without following her on my bicycle just to see that\nshe came to no harm. i kept my distance from her, and i wore a beard\nso that she should not recognise me, for she is a good and\nhigh-spirited girl, and she wouldn't have stayed in my employment\nlong if she had thought that i was following her about the country\nroads.\"\n\"why didn't you tell her of her danger?\"\n\"because then, again, she would have left me, and i couldn't bear to\nface that. even if she couldn't love me it was a great deal to me\njust to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of\nher voice.\"\n\"well,\" said i, \"you call that love, mr. carruthers, but i should\ncall it selfishness.\"\n\"maybe the two things go together. anyhow, i couldn't let her go.\nbesides, with this crowd about, it was well that she should have\nsomeone near to look after her. then when the cable came i knew they\nwere bound to make a move.\"\n\"what cable?\"\ncarruthers took a telegram from his pocket.\n\"that's it,\" said he.\nit was short and concise:\nthe old man is dead.\n\"hum!\" said holmes. \"i think i see how things worked, and i can\nunderstand how this message would, as you say, bring them to a head.\nbut while we wait you might tell me what you can.\"\nthe old reprobate with the surplice burst into a volley of bad\nlanguage.\n\"by heaven,\" said he, \"if you squeal on us, bob carruthers, i'll\nserve you as you served jack woodley. you can bleat about the girl to\nyour heart's content, for that's your own affair, but if you round on\nyour pals to this plain-clothes copper it will be the worst day's\nwork that ever you did.\"\n\"your reverence need not be excited,\" said holmes, lighting a\ncigarette. \"the case is clear enough against you, and all i ask is a\nfew details for my private curiosity. however, if there's any\ndifficulty in your telling me i'll do the talking, and then you will\nsee how far you have a chance of holding back your secrets. in the\nfirst place, three of you came from south africa on this game--you\nwilliamson, you carruthers, and woodley.\"\n\"lie number one,\" said the old man; \"i never saw either of them until\ntwo months ago, and i have never been in africa in my life, so you\ncan put that in your pipe and smoke it, mr. busybody holmes!\"\n\"what he says is true,\" said carruthers.\n\"well, well, two of you came over. his reverence is our own home-made\narticle. you had known ralph smith in south africa. you had reason to\nbelieve he would not live long. you found out that his niece would\ninherit his fortune. how's that--eh?\"\ncarruthers nodded and williamson swore.\n\"she was next-of-kin, no doubt, and you were aware that the old\nfellow would make no will.\"\n\"couldn't read or write,\" said carruthers.\n\"so you came over, the two of you, and hunted up the girl. the idea\nwas that one of you was to marry her and the other have a share of\nthe plunder. for some reason woodley was chosen as the husband. why\nwas that?\"\n\"we played cards for her on the voyage. he won.\"\n\"i see. you got the young lady into your service, and there woodley\nwas to do the courting. she recognised the drunken brute that he was,\nand would have nothing to do with him. meanwhile, your arrangement\nwas rather upset by the fact that you had yourself fallen in love\nwith the lady. you could no longer bear the idea of this ruffian\nowning her.\"\n\"no, by george, i couldn't!\"\n\"there was a quarrel between you. he left you in a rage, and began to\nmake his own plans independently of you.\"\n\"it strikes me, williamson, there isn't very much that we can tell\nthis gentleman,\" cried carruthers, with a bitter laugh. \"yes, we\nquarreled, and he knocked me down. i am level with him on that,\nanyhow. then i lost sight of him. that was when he picked up with\nthis cast padre here. i found that they had set up house-keeping\ntogether at this place on the line that she had to pass for the\nstation. i kept my eye on her after that, for i knew there was some\ndevilry in the wind. i saw them from time to time, for i was anxious\nto know what they were after. two days ago woodley came up to my\nhouse with this cable, which showed that ralph smith was dead. he\nasked me if i would stand by the bargain. i said i would not. he\nasked me if i would marry the girl myself and give him a share. i\nsaid i would willingly do so, but that she would not have me. he\nsaid, 'let us get her married first, and after a week or two she may\nsee things a bit different.' i said i would have nothing to do with\nviolence. so he went off cursing, like the foul-mouthed blackguard\nthat he was, and swearing that he would have her yet. she was leaving\nme this week-end, and i had got a trap to take her to the station,\nbut i was so uneasy in my mind that i followed her on my bicycle. she\nhad got a start, however, and before i could catch her the mischief\nwas done. the first thing i knew about it was when i saw you two\ngentlemen driving back in her dog-cart.\"\nholmes rose and tossed the end of his cigarette into the grate. \"i\nhave been very obtuse, watson,\" said he. \"when in your report you\nsaid that you had seen the cyclist as you thought arrange his necktie\nin the shrubbery, that alone should have told me all. however, we may\ncongratulate ourselves upon a curious and in some respects a unique\ncase. i perceive three of the county constabulary in the drive, and i\nam glad to see that the little ostler is able to keep pace with them;\nso it is likely that neither he nor the interesting bridegroom will\nbe permanently damaged by their morning's adventures. i think,\nwatson, that in your medical capacity you might wait upon miss smith\nand tell her that if she is sufficiently recovered we shall be happy\nto escort her to her mother's home. if she is not quite convalescent\nyou will find that a hint that we were about to telegraph to a young\nelectrician in the midlands would probably complete the cure. as to\nyou, mr. carruthers, i think that you have done what you could to\nmake amends for your share in an evil plot. there is my card, sir,\nand if my evidence can be of help to you in your trial it shall be at\nyour disposal.\"\nin the whirl of our incessant activity it has often been difficult\nfor me, as the reader has probably observed, to round off my\nnarratives, and to give those final details which the curious might\nexpect. each case has been the prelude to another, and the crisis\nonce over the actors have passed for ever out of our busy lives. i\nfind, however, a short note at the end of my manuscripts dealing with\nthis case, in which i have put it upon record that miss violet smith\ndid indeed inherit a large fortune, and that she is now the wife of\ncyril morton, the senior partner of morton & kennedy, the famous\nwestminster electricians. williamson and woodley were both tried for\nabduction and assault, the former getting seven years and the latter\nten. of the fate of carruthers i have no record, but i am sure that\nhis assault was not viewed very gravely by the court, since woodley\nhad the reputation of being a most dangerous ruffian, and i think\nthat a few months were sufficient to satisfy the demands of justice.\nthe adventure of the priory school\nwe have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at\nbaker street, but i cannot recollect anything more sudden and\nstartling than the first appearance of thorneycroft huxtable, m.a.,\nph.d., etc. his card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of\nhis academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he\nentered himself--so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was\nthe very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. and yet his\nfirst action when the door had closed behind him was to stagger\nagainst the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there\nwas that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin\nhearthrug.\nwe had sprung to our feet, and for a few moments we stared in silent\namazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told of some\nsudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life. then holmes\nhurried with a cushion for his head and i with brandy for his lips.\nthe heavy white face was seamed with lines of trouble, the hanging\npouches under the closed eyes were leaden in colour, the loose mouth\ndrooped dolorously at the corners, the rolling chins were unshaven.\ncollar and shirt bore the grime of a long journey, and the hair\nbristled unkempt from the well-shaped head. it was a sorely-stricken\nman who lay before us.\n\"what is it, watson?\" asked holmes.\n\"absolute exhaustion--possibly mere hunger and fatigue,\" said i, with\nmy finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life trickled\nthin and small.\n\"return ticket from mackleton, in the north of england,\" said holmes,\ndrawing it from the watch-pocket. \"it is not twelve o'clock yet. he\nhas certainly been an early starter.\"\nthe puckered eyelids had begun to quiver, and now a pair of vacant,\ngrey eyes looked up at us. an instant later the man had scrambled on\nto his feet, his face crimson with shame.\n\"forgive this weakness, mr. holmes; i have been a little overwrought.\nthank you, if i might have a glass of milk and a biscuit i have no\ndoubt that i should be better. i came personally, mr. holmes, in\norder to ensure that you would return with me. i feared that no\ntelegram would convince you of the absolute urgency of the case.\"\n\"when you are quite restored--\n\"i am quite well again. i cannot imagine how i came to be so weak. i\nwish you, mr. holmes, to come to mackleton with me by the next\ntrain.\"\nmy friend shook his head.\n\"my colleague, dr. watson, could tell you that we are very busy at\npresent. i am retained in this case of the ferrers documents, and the\nabergavenny murder is coming up for trial. only a very important\nissue could call me from london at present.\"\n\"important!\" our visitor threw up his hands. \"have you heard nothing\nof the abduction of the only son of the duke of holdernesse?\"\n\"what! the late cabinet minister?\"\n\"exactly. we had tried to keep it out of the papers, but there was\nsome rumour in the globe last night. i thought it might have reached\nyour ears.\"\nholmes shot out his long, thin arm and picked out volume \"h\" in his\nencyclopaedia of reference.\n\"'holdernesse, 6th duke, k.g., p.c.'--half the alphabet! 'baron\nbeverley, earl of carston'--dear me, what a list! 'lord lieutenant of\nhallamshire since 1900. married edith, daughter of sir charles\nappledore, 1888. heir and only child, lord saltire. owns about two\nhundred and fifty thousand acres. minerals in lancashire and wales.\naddress: carlton house terrace; holdernesse hall, hallamshire;\ncarston castle, bangor, wales. lord of the admiralty, 1872; chief\nsecretary of state for--' well, well, this man is certainly one of\nthe greatest subjects of the crown!\"\n\"the greatest and perhaps the wealthiest. i am aware, mr. holmes,\nthat you take a very high line in professional matters, and that you\nare prepared to work for the work's sake. i may tell you, however,\nthat his grace has already intimated that a cheque for five thousand\npounds will be handed over to the person who can tell him where his\nson is, and another thousand to him who can name the man, or men, who\nhave taken him.\"\n\"it is a princely offer,\" said holmes. \"watson, i think that we shall\naccompany dr. huxtable back to the north of england. and now, dr.\nhuxtable, when you have consumed that milk you will kindly tell me\nwhat has happened, when it happened, how it happened, and, finally,\nwhat dr. thorneycroft huxtable, of the priory school, near mackleton,\nhas to do with the matter, and why he comes three days after an\nevent--the state of your chin gives the date--to ask for my humble\nservices.\"\nour visitor had consumed his milk and biscuits. the light had come\nback to his eyes and the colour to his cheeks as he set himself with\ngreat vigour and lucidity to explain the situation.\n\"i must inform you, gentlemen, that the priory is a preparatory\nschool, of which i am the founder and principal. 'huxtable's\nsidelights on horace' may possibly recall my name to your memories.\nthe priory is, without exception, the best and most select\npreparatory school in england. lord leverstoke, the earl of\nblackwater, sir cathcart soames--they all have entrusted their sons\nto me. but i felt that my school had reached its zenith when, three\nweeks ago, the duke of holdernesse sent mr. james wilder, his\nsecretary, with the intimation that young lord saltire, ten years\nold, his only son and heir, was about to be committed to my charge.\nlittle did i think that this would be the prelude to the most\ncrushing misfortune of my life.\n\"on may 1st the boy arrived, that being the beginning of the summer\nterm. he was a charming youth, and he soon fell into our ways. i may\ntell you--i trust that i am not indiscreet, but half-confidences are\nabsurd in such a case--that he was not entirely happy at home. it is\nan open secret that the duke's married life had not been a peaceful\none, and the matter had ended in a separation by mutual consent, the\nduchess taking up her residence in the south of france. this had\noccurred very shortly before, and the boy's sympathies are known to\nhave been strongly with his mother. he moped after her departure from\nholdernesse hall, and it was for this reason that the duke desired to\nsend him to my establishment. in a fortnight the boy was quite at\nhome with us, and was apparently absolutely happy.\n\"he was last seen on the night of may 13th--that is, the night of\nlast monday. his room was on the second floor, and was approached\nthrough another larger room in which two boys were sleeping. these\nboys saw and heard nothing, so that it is certain that young saltire\ndid not pass out that way. his window was open, and there is a stout\nivy plant leading to the ground. we could trace no footmarks below,\nbut it is sure that this is the only possible exit.\n\"his absence was discovered at seven o'clock on tuesday morning. his\nbed had been slept in. he had dressed himself fully before going off\nin his usual school suit of black eton jacket and dark grey trousers.\nthere were no signs that anyone had entered the room, and it is quite\ncertain that anything in the nature of cries, or a struggle, would\nhave been heard, since caunter, the elder boy in the inner room, is a\nvery light sleeper.\n\"when lord saltire's disappearance was discovered i at once called a\nroll of the whole establishment, boys, masters, and servants. it was\nthen that we ascertained that lord saltire had not been alone in his\nflight. heidegger, the german master, was missing. his room was on\nthe second floor, at the farther end of the building, facing the same\nway as lord saltire's. his bed had also been slept in; but he had\napparently gone away partly dressed, since his shirt and socks were\nlying on the floor. he had undoubtedly let himself down by the ivy,\nfor we could see the marks of his feet where he had landed on the\nlawn. his bicycle was kept in a small shed beside this lawn, and it\nalso was gone.\n\"he had been with me for two years, and came with the best\nreferences; but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular either\nwith masters or boys. no trace could be found of the fugitives, and\nnow on thursday morning we are as ignorant as we were on tuesday.\ninquiry was, of course, made at once at holdernesse hall. it is only\na few miles away, and we imagined that in some sudden attack of\nhome-sickness he had gone back to his father; but nothing had been\nheard of him. the duke is greatly agitated--and as to me, you have\nseen yourselves the state of nervous prostration to which the\nsuspense and the responsibility have reduced me. mr. holmes, if ever\nyou put forward your full powers, i implore you to do so now, for\nnever in your life could you have a case which is more worthy of\nthem.\"\nsherlock holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the\nstatement of the unhappy schoolmaster. his drawn brows and the deep\nfurrow between them showed that he needed no exhortation to\nconcentrate all his attention upon a problem which, apart from the\ntremendous interests involved, must appeal so directly to his love of\nthe complex and the unusual. he now drew out his note-book and jotted\ndown one or two memoranda.\n\"you have been very remiss in not coming to me sooner,\" said he,\nseverely. \"you start me on my investigation with a very serious\nhandicap. it is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and this\nlawn would have yielded nothing to an expert observer.\"\n\"i am not to blame, mr. holmes. his grace was extremely desirous to\navoid all public scandal. he was afraid of his family unhappiness\nbeing dragged before the world. he has a deep horror of anything of\nthe kind.\"\n\"but there has been some official investigation?\"\n\"yes, sir, and it has proved most disappointing. an apparent clue was\nat once obtained, since a boy and a young man were reported to have\nbeen seen leaving a neighbouring station by an early train. only last\nnight we had news that the couple had been hunted down in liverpool,\nand they prove to have no connection whatever with the matter in\nhand. then it was that in my despair and disappointment, after a\nsleepless night, i came straight to you by the early train.\"\n\"i suppose the local investigation was relaxed while this false clue\nwas being followed up?\"\n\"it was entirely dropped.\"\n\"so that three days have been wasted. the affair has been most\ndeplorably handled.\"\n\"i feel it, and admit it.\"\n\"and yet the problem should be capable of ultimate solution. i shall\nbe very happy to look into it. have you been able to trace any\nconnection between the missing boy and this german master?\"\n\"none at all.\"\n\"was he in the master's class?\"\n\"no; he never exchanged a word with him so far as i know.\"\n\"that is certainly very singular. had the boy a bicycle?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"was any other bicycle missing?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"is that certain?\"\n\"quite.\"\n\"well, now, you do not mean to seriously suggest that this german\nrode off upon a bicycle in the dead of the night bearing the boy in\nhis arms?\"\n\"certainly not.\"\n\"then what is the theory in your mind?\"\n\"the bicycle may have been a blind. it may have been hidden somewhere\nand the pair gone off on foot.\"\n\"quite so; but it seems rather an absurd blind, does it not? were\nthere other bicycles in this shed?\"\n\"several.\"\n\"would he not have hidden a couple he desired to give the idea that\nthey had gone off upon them?\"\n\"i suppose he would.\"\n\"of course he would. the blind theory won't do. but the incident is\nan admirable starting-point for an investigation. after all, a\nbicycle is not an easy thing to conceal or to destroy. one other\nquestion. did anyone call to see the boy on the day before he\ndisappeared?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"did he get any letters?\"\n\"yes; one letter.\"\n\"from whom?\"\n\"from his father.\"\n\"do you open the boys' letters?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"how do you know it was from the father?\"\n\"the coat of arms was on the envelope, and it was addressed in the\nduke's peculiar stiff hand. besides, the duke remembers having\nwritten.\"\n\"when had he a letter before that?\"\n\"not for several days.\"\n\"had he ever one from france?\"\n\"no; never.\"\n\"you see the point of my questions, of course. either the boy was\ncarried off by force or he went of his own free will. in the latter\ncase you would expect that some prompting from outside would be\nneeded to make so young a lad do such a thing. if he has had no\nvisitors, that prompting must have come in letters. hence i try to\nfind out who were his correspondents.\"\n\"i fear i cannot help you much. his only correspondent, so far as i\nknow, was his own father.\"\n\"who wrote to him on the very day of his disappearance. were the\nrelations between father and son very friendly?\"\n\"his grace is never very friendly with anyone. he is completely\nimmersed in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to all\nordinary emotions. but he was always kind to the boy in his own way.\"\n\"but the sympathies of the latter were with the mother?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"did he say so?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"the duke, then?\"\n\"good heavens, no!\"\n\"then how could you know?\"\n\"i have had some confidential talks with mr. james wilder, his\ngrace's secretary. it was he who gave me the information about lord\nsaltire's feelings.\"\n\"i see. by the way, that last letter of the duke's--was it found in\nthe boy's room after he was gone?\"\n\"no; he had taken it with him. i think, mr. holmes, it is time that\nwe were leaving for euston.\"\n\"i will order a four-wheeler. in a quarter of an hour we shall be at\nyour service. if you are telegraphing home, mr. huxtable, it would be\nwell to allow the people in your neighbourhood to imagine that the\ninquiry is still going on in liverpool, or wherever else that red\nherring led your pack. in the meantime i will do a little quiet work\nat your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two\nold hounds like watson and myself may get a sniff of it.\"\nthat evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the peak\ncountry, in which dr. huxtable's famous school is situated. it was\nalready dark when we reached it. a card was lying on the hall table,\nand the butler whispered something to his master, who turned to us\nwith agitation in every heavy feature.\n\"the duke is here,\" said he. \"the duke and mr. wilder are in the\nstudy. come, gentlemen, and i will introduce you.\"\ni was, of course, familiar with the pictures of the famous statesman,\nbut the man himself was very different from his representation. he\nwas a tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn,\nthin face, and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. his\ncomplexion was of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast\nwith a long, dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his\nwhite waistcoat, with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe.\nsuch was the stately presence who looked stonily at us from the\ncentre of dr. huxtable's hearthrug. beside him stood a very young\nman, whom i understood to be wilder, the private secretary. he was\nsmall, nervous, alert, with intelligent, light-blue eyes and mobile\nfeatures. it was he who at once, in an incisive and positive tone,\nopened the conversation.\n\"i called this morning, dr. huxtable, too late to prevent you from\nstarting for london. i learned that your object was to invite mr.\nsherlock holmes to undertake the conduct of this case. his grace is\nsurprised, dr. huxtable, that you should have taken such a step\nwithout consulting him.\"\n\"when i learned that the police had failed--\"\n\"his grace is by no means convinced that the police have failed.\"\n\"but surely, mr. wilder--\"\n\"you are well aware, dr. huxtable, that his grace is particularly\nanxious to avoid all public scandal. he prefers to take as few people\nas possible into his confidence.\"\n\"the matter can be easily remedied,\" said the brow-beaten doctor;\n\"mr. sherlock holmes can return to london by the morning train.\"\n\"hardly that, doctor, hardly that,\" said holmes, in his blandest\nvoice. \"this northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so i propose\nto spend a few days upon your moors, and to occupy my mind as best i\nmay. whether i have the shelter of your roof or of the village inn\nis, of course, for you to decide.\"\ni could see that the unfortunate doctor was in the last stage of\nindecision, from which he was rescued by the deep, sonorous voice of\nthe red-bearded duke, which boomed out like a dinner-gong.\n\"i agree with mr. wilder, dr. huxtable, that you would have done\nwisely to consult me. but since mr. holmes has already been taken\ninto your confidence, it would indeed be absurd that we should not\navail ourselves of his services. far from going to the inn, mr.\nholmes, i should be pleased if you would come and stay with me at\nholdernesse hall.\"\n\"i thank your grace. for the purposes of my investigation i think\nthat it would be wiser for me to remain at the scene of the mystery.\"\n\"just as you like, mr. holmes. any information which mr. wilder or i\ncan give you is, of course, at your disposal.\"\n\"it will probably be necessary for me to see you at the hall,\" said\nholmes. \"i would only ask you now, sir, whether you have formed any\nexplanation in your own mind as to the mysterious disappearance of\nyour son?\"\n\"no, sir, i have not.\"\n\"excuse me if i allude to that which is painful to you, but i have no\nalternative. do you think that the duchess had anything to do with\nthe matter?\"\nthe great minister showed perceptible hesitation.\n\"i do not think so,\" he said, at last.\n\"the other most obvious explanation is that the child has been\nkidnapped for the purpose of levying ransom. you have not had any\ndemand of the sort?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"one more question, your grace. i understand that you wrote to your\nson upon the day when this incident occurred.\"\n\"no; i wrote upon the day before.\"\n\"exactly. but he received it on that day?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"was there anything in your letter which might have unbalanced him or\ninduced him to take such a step?\"\n\"no, sir, certainly not.\"\n\"did you post that letter yourself?\"\nthe nobleman's reply was interrupted by his secretary, who broke in\nwith some heat.\n\"his grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself,\" said he.\n\"this letter was laid with others upon the study table, and i myself\nput them in the post-bag.\"\n\"you are sure this one was among them?\"\n\"yes; i observed it.\"\n\"how many letters did your grace write that day?\"\n\"twenty or thirty. i have a large correspondence. but surely this is\nsomewhat irrelevant?\"\n\"not entirely,\" said holmes.\n\"for my own part,\" the duke continued, \"i have advised the police to\nturn their attention to the south of france. i have already said that\ni do not believe that the duchess would encourage so monstrous an\naction, but the lad had the most wrong-headed opinions, and it is\npossible that he may have fled to her, aided and abetted by this\ngerman. i think, dr. huxtable, that we will now return to the hall.\"\ni could see that there were other questions which holmes would have\nwished to put; but the nobleman's abrupt manner showed that the\ninterview was at an end. it was evident that to his intensely\naristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs\nwith a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every\nfresh question would throw a fiercer light into the discreetly\nshadowed corners of his ducal history.\nwhen the nobleman and his secretary had left, my friend flung himself\nat once with characteristic eagerness into the investigation.\nthe boy's chamber was carefully examined, and yielded nothing save\nthe absolute conviction that it was only through the window that he\ncould have escaped. the german master's room and effects gave no\nfurther clue. in his case a trailer of ivy had given way under his\nweight, and we saw by the light of a lantern the mark on the lawn\nwhere his heels had come down. that one dint in the short green grass\nwas the only material witness left of this inexplicable nocturnal\nflight.\nsherlock holmes left the house alone, and only returned after eleven.\nhe had obtained a large ordnance map of the neighbourhood, and this\nhe brought into my room, where he laid it out on the bed, and, having\nbalanced the lamp in the middle of it, he began to smoke over it, and\noccasionally to point out objects of interest with the reeking amber\nof his pipe.\n\"this case grows upon me, watson,\" said he. \"there are decidedly some\npoints of interest in connection with it. in this early stage i want\nyou to realize those geographical features which may have a good deal\nto do with our investigation.\n\"look at this map. this dark square is the priory school. i'll put a\npin in it. now, this line is the main road. you see that it runs east\nand west past the school, and you see also that there is no side road\nfor a mile either way. if these two folk passed away by road it was\nthis road.\"\n[ picture: chart of the surrounding area ]\n\"exactly.\"\n\"by a singular and happy chance we are able to some extent to check\nwhat passed along this road during the night in question. at this\npoint, where my pipe is now resting, a country constable was on duty\nfrom twelve to six. it is, as you perceive, the first cross road on\nthe east side. this man declares that he was not absent from his post\nfor an instant, and he is positive that neither boy nor man could\nhave gone that way unseen. i have spoken with this policeman\nto-night, and he appears to me to be a perfectly reliable person.\nthat blocks this end. we have now to deal with the other. there is an\ninn here, the red bull, the landlady of which was ill. she had sent\nto mackleton for a doctor, but he did not arrive until morning, being\nabsent at another case. the people at the inn were alert all night,\nawaiting his coming, and one or other of them seems to have\ncontinually had an eye upon the road. they declare that no one\npassed. if their evidence is good, then we are fortunate enough to be\nable to block the west, and also to be able to say that the fugitives\ndid not use the road at all.\"\n\"but the bicycle?\" i objected.\n\"quite so. we will come to the bicycle presently. to continue our\nreasoning: if these people did not go by the road, they must have\ntraversed the country to the north of the house or to the south of\nthe house. that is certain. let us weigh the one against the other.\non the south of the house is, as you perceive, a large district of\narable land, cut up into small fields, with stone walls between them.\nthere, i admit that a bicycle is impossible. we can dismiss the idea.\nwe turn to the country on the north. here there lies a grove of\ntrees, marked as the 'ragged shaw,' and on the farther side stretches\na great rolling moor, lower gill moor, extending for ten miles and\nsloping gradually upwards. here, at one side of this wilderness, is\nholdernesse hall, ten miles by road, but only six across the moor. it\nis a peculiarly desolate plain. a few moor farmers have small\nholdings, where they rear sheep and cattle. except these, the plover\nand the curlew are the only inhabitants until you come to the\nchesterfield high road. there is a church there, you see, a few\ncottages, and an inn. beyond that the hills become precipitous.\nsurely it is here to the north that our quest must lie.\"\n\"but the bicycle?\" i persisted.\n\"well, well!\" said holmes, impatiently. \"a good cyclist does not need\na high road. the moor is intersected with paths and the moon was at\nthe full. halloa! what is this?\"\nthere was an agitated knock at the door, and an instant afterwards\ndr. huxtable was in the room. in his hand he held a blue cricket-cap,\nwith a white chevron on the peak.\n\"at last we have a clue!\" he cried. \"thank heaven! at last we are on\nthe dear boy's track! it is his cap.\"\n\"where was it found?\"\n\"in the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor. they left on\ntuesday. to-day the police traced them down and examined their\ncaravan. this was found.\"\n\"how do they account for it?\"\n\"they shuffled and lied--said that they found it on the moor on\ntuesday morning. they know where he is, the rascals! thank goodness,\nthey are all safe under lock and key. either the fear of the law or\nthe duke's purse will certainly get out of them all that they know.\"\n\"so far, so good,\" said holmes, when the doctor had at last left the\nroom. \"it at least bears out the theory that it is on the side of the\nlower gill moor that we must hope for results. the police have really\ndone nothing locally, save the arrest of these gipsies. look here,\nwatson! there is a watercourse across the moor. you see it marked\nhere in the map. in some parts it widens into a morass. this is\nparticularly so in the region between holdernesse hall and the\nschool. it is vain to look elsewhere for tracks in this dry weather;\nbut at that point there is certainly a chance of some record being\nleft. i will call you early to-morrow morning, and you and i will try\nif we can throw some little light upon the mystery.\"\nthe day was just breaking when i woke to find the long, thin form of\nholmes by my bedside. he was fully dressed, and had apparently\nalready been out.\n\"i have done the lawn and the bicycle shed,\" said he. \"i have also\nhad a ramble through the ragged shaw. now, watson, there is cocoa\nready in the next room. i must beg you to hurry, for we have a great\nday before us.\"\nhis eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of\nthe master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. a very\ndifferent holmes, this active, alert man, from the introspective and\npallid dreamer of baker street. i felt, as i looked upon that supple\nfigure, alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day\nthat awaited us.\nand yet it opened in the blackest disappointment. with high hopes we\nstruck across the peaty, russet moor, intersected with a thousand\nsheep paths, until we came to the broad, light-green belt which\nmarked the morass between us and holdernesse. certainly, if the lad\nhad gone homewards, he must have passed this, and he could not pass\nit without leaving his traces. but no sign of him or the german could\nbe seen. with a darkening face my friend strode along the margin,\neagerly observant of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface.\nsheep-marks there were in profusion, and at one place, some miles\ndown, cows had left their tracks. nothing more.\n\"check number one,\" said holmes, looking gloomily over the rolling\nexpanse of the moor. \"there is another morass down yonder and a\nnarrow neck between. halloa! halloa! halloa! what have we here?\"\nwe had come on a small black ribbon of pathway. in the middle of it,\nclearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a bicycle.\n\"hurrah!\" i cried. \"we have it.\"\nbut holmes was shaking his head, and his face was puzzled and\nexpectant rather than joyous.\n\"a bicycle, certainly, but not the bicycle,\" said he. \"i am familiar\nwith forty-two different impressions left by tyres. this, as you\nperceive, is a dunlop, with a patch upon the outer cover. heidegger's\ntyres were palmer's, leaving longitudinal stripes. aveling, the\nmathematical master, was sure upon the point. therefore, it is not\nheidegger's track.\"\n\"the boy's, then?\"\n\"possibly, if we could prove a bicycle to have been in his\npossession. but this we have utterly failed to do. this track, as you\nperceive, was made by a rider who was going from the direction of the\nschool.\"\n\"or towards it?\"\n\"no, no, my dear watson. the more deeply sunk impression is, of\ncourse, the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. you perceive\nseveral places where it has passed across and obliterated the more\nshallow mark of the front one. it was undoubtedly heading away from\nthe school. it may or may not be connected with our inquiry, but we\nwill follow it backwards before we go any farther.\"\nwe did so, and at the end of a few hundred yards lost the tracks as\nwe emerged from the boggy portion of the moor. following the path\nbackwards, we picked out another spot, where a spring trickled across\nit. here, once again, was the mark of the bicycle, though nearly\nobliterated by the hoofs of cows. after that there was no sign, but\nthe path ran right on into ragged shaw, the wood which backed on to\nthe school. from this wood the cycle must have emerged. holmes sat\ndown on a boulder and rested his chin in his hands. i had smoked two\ncigarettes before he moved.\n\"well, well,\" said he, at last. \"it is, of course, possible that a\ncunning man might change the tyre of his bicycle in order to leave\nunfamiliar tracks. a criminal who was capable of such a thought is a\nman whom i should be proud to do business with. we will leave this\nquestion undecided and hark back to our morass again, for we have\nleft a good deal unexplored.\"\nwe continued our systematic survey of the edge of the sodden portion\nof the moor, and soon our perseverance was gloriously rewarded. right\nacross the lower part of the bog lay a miry path. holmes gave a cry\nof delight as he approached it. an impression like a fine bundle of\ntelegraph wires ran down the centre of it. it was the palmer tyre.\n\"here is herr heidegger, sure enough!\" cried holmes, exultantly. \"my\nreasoning seems to have been pretty sound, watson.\"\n\"i congratulate you.\"\n\"but we have a long way still to go. kindly walk clear of the path.\nnow let us follow the trail. i fear that it will not lead very far.\"\nwe found, however, as we advanced that this portion of the moor is\nintersected with soft patches, and, though we frequently lost sight\nof the track, we always succeeded in picking it up once more.\n\"do you observe,\" said holmes, \"that the rider is now undoubtedly\nforcing the pace? there can be no doubt of it. look at this\nimpression, where you get both tyres clear. the one is as deep as the\nother. that can only mean that the rider is throwing his weight on to\nthe handle-bar, as a man does when he is sprinting. by jove! he has\nhad a fall.\"\nthere was a broad, irregular smudge covering some yards of the track.\nthen there were a few footmarks, and the tyre reappeared once more.\n\"a side-slip,\" i suggested.\nholmes held up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. to my horror i\nperceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson. on\nthe path, too, and among the heather were dark stains of clotted\nblood.\n\"bad!\" said holmes. \"bad! stand clear, watson! not an unnecessary\nfootstep! what do i read here? he fell wounded, he stood up, he\nremounted, he proceeded. but there is no other track. cattle on this\nside path. he was surely not gored by a bull? impossible! but i see\nno traces of anyone else. we must push on, watson. surely with stains\nas well as the track to guide us he cannot escape us now.\"\nour search was not a very long one. the tracks of the tyre began to\ncurve fantastically upon the wet and shining path. suddenly, as i\nlooked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the thick\ngorse bushes. out of them we dragged a bicycle, palmer-tyred, one\npedal bent, and the whole front of it horribly smeared and slobbered\nwith blood. on the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting. we\nran round, and there lay the unfortunate rider. he was a tall man,\nfull bearded, with spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked\nout. the cause of his death was a frightful blow upon the head, which\nhad crushed in part of his skull. that he could have gone on after\nreceiving such an injury said much for the vitality and courage of\nthe man. he wore shoes, but no socks, and his open coat disclosed a\nnight-shirt beneath it. it was undoubtedly the german master.\nholmes turned the body over reverently, and examined it with great\nattention. he then sat in deep thought for a time, and i could see by\nhis ruffled brow that this grim discovery had not, in his opinion,\nadvanced us much in our inquiry.\n\"it is a little difficult to know what to do, watson,\" said he, at\nlast. \"my own inclinations are to push this inquiry on, for we have\nalready lost so much time that we cannot afford to waste another\nhour. on the other hand, we are bound to inform the police of the\ndiscovery, and to see that this poor fellow's body is looked after.\"\n\"i could take a note back.\"\n\"but i need your company and assistance. wait a bit! there is a\nfellow cutting peat up yonder. bring him over here, and he will guide\nthe police.\"\ni brought the peasant across, and holmes dispatched the frightened\nman with a note to dr. huxtable.\n\"now, watson,\" said he, \"we have picked up two clues this morning.\none is the bicycle with the palmer tyre, and we see what that has led\nto. the other is the bicycle with the patched dunlop. before we start\nto investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know so as to\nmake the most of it, and to separate the essential from the\naccidental.\"\n\"first of all i wish to impress upon you that the boy certainly left\nof his own free will. he got down from his window and he went off,\neither alone or with someone. that is sure.\"\ni assented.\n\"well, now, let us turn to this unfortunate german master. the boy\nwas fully dressed when he fled. therefore, he foresaw what he would\ndo. but the german went without his socks. he certainly acted on very\nshort notice.\"\n\"undoubtedly.\"\n\"why did he go? because, from his bedroom window, he saw the flight\nof the boy. because he wished to overtake him and bring him back. he\nseized his bicycle, pursued the lad, and in pursuing him met his\ndeath.\"\n\"so it would seem.\"\n\"now i come to the critical part of my argument. the natural action\nof a man in pursuing a little boy would be to run after him. he would\nknow that he could overtake him. but the german does not do so. he\nturns to his bicycle. i am told that he was an excellent cyclist. he\nwould not do this if he did not see that the boy had some swift means\nof escape.\"\n\"the other bicycle.\"\n\"let us continue our reconstruction. he meets his death five miles\nfrom the school--not by a bullet, mark you, which even a lad might\nconceivably discharge, but by a savage blow dealt by a vigorous arm.\nthe lad, then, had a companion in his flight. and the flight was a\nswift one, since it took five miles before an expert cyclist could\novertake them. yet we survey the ground round the scene of the\ntragedy. what do we find? a few cattle tracks, nothing more. i took a\nwide sweep round, and there is no path within fifty yards. another\ncyclist could have had nothing to do with the actual murder. nor were\nthere any human footmarks.\"\n\"holmes,\" i cried, \"this is impossible.\"\n\"admirable!\" he said. \"a most illuminating remark. it is impossible\nas i state it, and therefore i must in some respect have stated it\nwrong. yet you saw for yourself. can you suggest any fallacy?\"\n\"he could not have fractured his skull in a fall?\"\n\"in a morass, watson?\"\n\"i am at my wit's end.\"\n\"tut, tut; we have solved some worse problems. at least we have\nplenty of material, if we can only use it. come, then, and, having\nexhausted the palmer, let us see what the dunlop with the patched\ncover has to offer us.\"\nwe picked up the track and followed it onwards for some distance; but\nsoon the moor rose into a long, heather-tufted curve, and we left the\nwatercourse behind us. no further help from tracks could be hoped\nfor. at the spot where we saw the last of the dunlop tyre it might\nequally have led to holdernesse hall, the stately towers of which\nrose some miles to our left, or to a low, grey village which lay in\nfront of us, and marked the position of the chesterfield high road.\nas we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of a\ngame-cock above the door, holmes gave a sudden groan and clutched me\nby the shoulder to save himself from falling. he had had one of those\nviolent strains of the ankle which leave a man helpless. with\ndifficulty he limped up to the door, where a squat, dark, elderly man\nwas smoking a black clay pipe.\n\"how are you, mr. reuben hayes?\" said holmes.\n\"who are you, and how do you get my name so pat?\" the countryman\nanswered, with a suspicious flash of a pair of cunning eyes.\n\"well, it's printed on the board above your head. it's easy to see a\nman who is master of his own house. i suppose you haven't such a\nthing as a carriage in your stables?\"\n\"no; i have not.\"\n\"i can hardly put my foot to the ground.\"\n\"don't put it to the ground.\"\n\"but i can't walk.\"\n\"well, then, hop.\"\nmr. reuben hayes's manner was far from gracious, but holmes took it\nwith admirable good-humour.\n\"look here, my man,\" said he. \"this is really rather an awkward fix\nfor me. i don't mind how i get on.\"\n\"neither do i,\" said the morose landlord.\n\"the matter is very important. i would offer you a sovereign for the\nuse of a bicycle.\"\nthe landlord pricked up his ears.\n\"where do you want to go?\"\n\"to holdernesse hall.\"\n\"pals of the dook, i suppose?\" said the landlord, surveying our\nmud-stained garments with ironical eyes.\nholmes laughed good-naturedly.\n\"he'll be glad to see us, anyhow.\"\n\"why?\"\n\"because we bring him news of his lost son.\"\nthe landlord gave a very visible start.\n\"what, you're on his track?\"\n\"he has been heard of in liverpool. they expect to get him every\nhour.\"\nagain a swift change passed over the heavy, unshaven face. his manner\nwas suddenly genial.\n\"i've less reason to wish the dook well than most men,\" said he, \"for\ni was his head coachman once, and cruel bad he treated me. it was him\nthat sacked me without a character on the word of a lying\ncorn-chandler. but i'm glad to hear that the young lord was heard of\nin liverpool, and i'll help you to take the news to the hall.\"\n\"thank you,\" said holmes. \"we'll have some food first. then you can\nbring round the bicycle.\"\n\"i haven't got a bicycle.\"\nholmes held up a sovereign.\n\"i tell you, man, that i haven't got one. i'll let you have two\nhorses as far as the hall.\"\n\"well, well,\" said holmes, \"we'll talk about it when we've had\nsomething to eat.\"\nwhen we were left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen it was\nastonishing how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. it was nearly\nnightfall, and we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we\nspent some time over our meal. holmes was lost in thought, and once\nor twice he walked over to the window and stared earnestly out. it\nopened on to a squalid courtyard. in the far corner was a smithy,\nwhere a grimy lad was at work. on the other side were the stables.\nholmes had sat down again after one of these excursions, when he\nsuddenly sprang out of his chair with a loud exclamation.\n\"by heaven, watson, i believe that i've got it!\" he cried. \"yes, yes,\nit must be so. watson, do you remember seeing any cow-tracks to-day?\"\n\"yes, several.\"\n\"where?\"\n\"well, everywhere. they were at the morass, and again on the path,\nand again near where poor heidegger met his death.\"\n\"exactly. well, now, watson, how many cows did you see on the moor?\"\n\"i don't remember seeing any.\"\n\"strange, watson, that we should see tracks all along our line, but\nnever a cow on the whole moor; very strange, watson, eh?\"\n\"yes, it is strange.\"\n\"now, watson, make an effort; throw your mind back! can you see those\ntracks upon the path?\"\n\"yes, i can.\"\n\"can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, watson\"--he\narranged a number of bread-crumbs in this fashion--: : : : :--\"and\nsometimes like this\"--: ` : ` : ` : `--\"and occasionally like\nthis\"--. ` . ` . ` . \"can you remember that?\"\n\"no, i cannot.\"\n\"but i can. i could swear to it. however, we will go back at our\nleisure and verify it. what a blind beetle i have been not to draw my\nconclusion!\"\n\"and what is your conclusion?\"\n\"only that it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops.\nby george, watson, it was no brain of a country publican that thought\nout such a blind as that! the coast seems to be clear, save for that\nlad in the smithy. let us slip out and see what we can see.\"\nthere were two rough-haired, unkempt horses in the tumble-down\nstable. holmes raised the hind leg of one of them and laughed aloud.\n\"old shoes, but newly shod--old shoes, but new nails. this case\ndeserves to be a classic. let us go across to the smithy.\"\nthe lad continued his work without regarding us. i saw holmes's eye\ndarting to right and left among the litter of iron and wood which was\nscattered about the floor. suddenly, however, we heard a step behind\nus, and there was the landlord, his heavy eyebrows drawn over his\nsavage eyes, his swarthy features convulsed with passion. he held a\nshort, metal-headed stick in his hand, and he advanced in so menacing\na fashion that i was right glad to feel the revolver in my pocket.\n\"you infernal spies!\" the man cried. \"what are you doing there?\"\n\"why, mr. reuben hayes,\" said holmes, coolly, \"one might think that\nyou were afraid of our finding something out.\"\nthe man mastered himself with a violent effort, and his grim mouth\nloosened into a false laugh, which was more menacing than his frown.\n\"you're welcome to all you can find out in my smithy,\" said he. \"but\nlook here, mister, i don't care for folk poking about my place\nwithout my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of\nthis the better i shall be pleased.\"\n\"all right, mr. hayes--no harm meant,\" said holmes. \"we have been\nhaving a look at your horses, but i think i'll walk after all. it's\nnot far, i believe.\"\n\"not more than two miles to the hall gates. that's the road to the\nleft.\" he watched us with sullen eyes until we had left his premises.\nwe did not go very far along the road, for holmes stopped the instant\nthat the curve hid us from the landlord's view.\n\"we were warm, as the children say, at that inn,\" said he. \"i seem to\ngrow colder every step that i take away from it. no, no; i can't\npossibly leave it.\"\n\"i am convinced,\" said i, \"that this reuben hayes knows all about it.\na more self-evident villain i never saw.\"\n\"oh! he impressed you in that way, did he? there are the horses,\nthere is the smithy. yes, it is an interesting place, this fighting\ncock. i think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive\nway.\"\na long, sloping hillside, dotted with grey limestone boulders,\nstretched behind us. we had turned off the road, and were making our\nway up the hill, when, looking in the direction of holdernesse hall,\ni saw a cyclist coming swiftly along.\n\"get down, watson!\" cried holmes, with a heavy hand upon my shoulder.\nwe had hardly sunk from view when the man flew past us on the road.\namid a rolling cloud of dust i caught a glimpse of a pale, agitated\nface--a face with horror in every lineament, the mouth open, the eyes\nstaring wildly in front. it was like some strange caricature of the\ndapper james wilder whom we had seen the night before.\n\"the duke's secretary!\" cried holmes. \"come, watson, let us see what\nhe does.\"\nwe scrambled from rock to rock until in a few moments we had made our\nway to a point from which we could see the front door of the inn.\nwilder's bicycle was leaning against the wall beside it. no one was\nmoving about the house, nor could we catch a glimpse of any faces at\nthe windows. slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind\nthe high towers of holdernesse hall. then in the gloom we saw the two\nside-lamps of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn, and\nshortly afterwards heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out into\nthe road and tore off at a furious pace in the direction of\nchesterfield.\n\"what do you make of that, watson?\" holmes whispered.\n\"it looks like a flight.\"\n\"a single man in a dog-cart, so far as i could see. well, it\ncertainly was not mr. james wilder, for there he is at the door.\"\na red square of light had sprung out of the darkness. in the middle\nof it was the black figure of the secretary, his head advanced,\npeering out into the night. it was evident that he was expecting\nsomeone. then at last there were steps in the road, a second figure\nwas visible for an instant against the light, the door shut, and all\nwas black once more. five minutes later a lamp was lit in a room upon\nthe first floor.\n\"it seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the\nfighting cock,\" said holmes.\n\"the bar is on the other side.\"\n\"quite so. these are what one may call the private guests. now, what\nin the world is mr. james wilder doing in that den at this hour of\nnight, and who is the companion who comes to meet him there? come,\nwatson, we must really take a risk and try to investigate this a\nlittle more closely.\"\ntogether we stole down to the road and crept across to the door of\nthe inn. the bicycle still leaned against the wall. holmes struck a\nmatch and held it to the back wheel, and i heard him chuckle as the\nlight fell upon a patched dunlop tyre. up above us was the lighted\nwindow.\n\"i must have a peep through that, watson. if you bend your back and\nsupport yourself upon the wall, i think that i can manage.\"\nan instant later his feet were on my shoulders. but he was hardly up\nbefore he was down again.\n\"come, my friend,\" said he, \"our day's work has been quite long\nenough. i think that we have gathered all that we can. it's a long\nwalk to the school, and the sooner we get started the better.\"\nhe hardly opened his lips during that weary trudge across the moor,\nnor would he enter the school when he reached it, but went on to\nmackleton station, whence he could send some telegrams. late at night\ni heard him consoling dr. huxtable, prostrated by the tragedy of his\nmaster's death, and later still he entered my room as alert and\nvigorous as he had been when he started in the morning. \"all goes\nwell, my friend,\" said he. \"i promise that before to-morrow evening\nwe shall have reached the solution of the mystery.\"\nat eleven o'clock next morning my friend and i were walking up the\nfamous yew avenue of holdernesse hall. we were ushered through the\nmagnificent elizabethan doorway and into his grace's study. there we\nfound mr. james wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of\nthat wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive\neyes and in his twitching features.\n\"you have come to see his grace? i am sorry; but the fact is that the\nduke is far from well. he has been very much upset by the tragic\nnews. we received a telegram from dr. huxtable yesterday afternoon,\nwhich told us of your discovery.\"\n\"i must see the duke, mr. wilder.\"\n\"but he is in his room.\"\n\"then i must go to his room.\"\n\"i believe he is in his bed.\"\n\"i will see him there.\"\nholmes's cold and inexorable manner showed the secretary that it was\nuseless to argue with him.\n\"very good, mr. holmes; i will tell him that you are here.\"\nafter half an hour's delay the great nobleman appeared. his face was\nmore cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he seemed\nto me to be an altogether older man than he had been the morning\nbefore. he greeted us with a stately courtesy and seated himself at\nhis desk, his red beard streaming down on to the table.\n\"well, mr. holmes?\" said he.\nbut my friend's eyes were fixed upon the secretary, who stood by his\nmaster's chair.\n\"i think, your grace, that i could speak more freely in mr. wilder's\nabsence.\"\nthe man turned a shade paler and cast a malignant glance at holmes.\n\"if your grace wishes--\"\n\"yes, yes; you had better go. now, mr. holmes, what have you to say?\"\nmy friend waited until the door had closed behind the retreating\nsecretary.\n\"the fact is, your grace,\" said he, \"that my colleague, dr. watson,\nand myself had an assurance from dr. huxtable that a reward had been\noffered in this case. i should like to have this confirmed from your\nown lips.\"\n\"certainly, mr. holmes.\"\n\"it amounted, if i am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds to\nanyone who will tell you where your son is?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"and another thousand to the man who will name the person or persons\nwho keep him in custody?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those who\nmay have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep him in\nhis present position?\"\n\"yes, yes,\" cried the duke, impatiently. \"if you do your work well,\nmr. sherlock holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly\ntreatment.\"\nmy friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of\navidity which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes.\n\"i fancy that i see your grace's cheque-book upon the table,\" said\nhe. \"i should be glad if you would make me out a cheque for six\nthousand pounds. it would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross it.\nthe capital and counties bank, oxford street branch, are my agents.\"\nhis grace sat very stern and upright in his chair, and looked stonily\nat my friend.\n\"is this a joke, mr. holmes? it is hardly a subject for pleasantry.\"\n\"not at all, your grace. i was never more earnest in my life.\"\n\"what do you mean, then?\"\n\"i mean that i have earned the reward. i know where your son is, and\ni know some, at least, of those who are holding him.\"\nthe duke's beard had turned more aggressively red than ever against\nhis ghastly white face.\n\"where is he?\" he gasped.\n\"he is, or was last night, at the fighting cock inn, about two miles\nfrom your park gate.\"\nthe duke fell back in his chair.\n\"and whom do you accuse?\"\nsherlock holmes's answer was an astounding one. he stepped swiftly\nforward and touched the duke upon the shoulder.\n\"i accuse you,\" said he. \"and now, your grace, i'll trouble you for\nthat cheque.\"\nnever shall i forget the duke's appearance as he sprang up and clawed\nwith his hands like one who is sinking into an abyss. then, with an\nextraordinary effort of aristocratic self-command, he sat down and\nsank his face in his hands. it was some minutes before he spoke.\n\"how much do you know?\" he asked at last, without raising his head.\n\"i saw you together last night.\"\n\"does anyone else besides your friend know?\"\n\"i have spoken to no one.\"\nthe duke took a pen in his quivering fingers and opened his\ncheque-book.\n\"i shall be as good as my word, mr. holmes. i am about to write your\ncheque, however unwelcome the information which you have gained may\nbe to me. when the offer was first made i little thought the turn\nwhich events might take. but you and your friend are men of\ndiscretion, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i hardly understand your grace.\"\n\"i must put it plainly, mr. holmes. if only you two know of this\nincident, there is no reason why it should go any farther. i think\ntwelve thousand pounds is the sum that i owe you, is it not?\"\nbut holmes smiled and shook his head.\n\"i fear, your grace, that matters can hardly be arranged so easily.\nthere is the death of this schoolmaster to be accounted for.\"\n\"but james knew nothing of that. you cannot hold him responsible for\nthat. it was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the\nmisfortune to employ.\"\n\"i must take the view, your grace, that when a man embarks upon a\ncrime he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from\nit.\"\n\"morally, mr. holmes. no doubt you are right. but surely not in the\neyes of the law. a man cannot be condemned for a murder at which he\nwas not present, and which he loathes and abhors as much as you do.\nthe instant that he heard of it he made a complete confession to me,\nso filled was he with horror and remorse. he lost not an hour in\nbreaking entirely with the murderer. oh, mr. holmes, you must save\nhim--you must save him! i tell you that you must save him!\" the duke\nhad dropped the last attempt at self-command, and was pacing the room\nwith a convulsed face and with his clenched hands raving in the air.\nat last he mastered himself and sat down once more at his desk. \"i\nappreciate your conduct in coming here before you spoke to anyone\nelse,\" said he. \"at least, we may take counsel how far we can\nminimize this hideous scandal.\"\n\"exactly,\" said holmes. \"i think, your grace, that this can only be\ndone by absolute and complete frankness between us. i am disposed to\nhelp your grace to the best of my ability; but in order to do so i\nmust understand to the last detail how the matter stands. i realize\nthat your words applied to mr. james wilder, and that he is not the\nmurderer.\"\n\"no; the murderer has escaped.\"\nsherlock holmes smiled demurely.\n\"your grace can hardly have heard of any small reputation which i\npossess, or you would not imagine that it is so easy to escape me.\nmr. reuben hayes was arrested at chesterfield on my information at\neleven o'clock last night. i had a telegram from the head of the\nlocal police before i left the school this morning.\"\nthe duke leaned back in his chair and stared with amazement at my\nfriend.\n\"you seem to have powers that are hardly human,\" said he. \"so reuben\nhayes is taken? i am right glad to hear it, if it will not react upon\nthe fate of james.\"\n\"your secretary?\"\n\"no, sir; my son.\"\nit was holmes's turn to look astonished.\n\"i confess that this is entirely new to me, your grace. i must beg\nyou to be more explicit.\"\n\"i will conceal nothing from you. i agree with you that complete\nfrankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in\nthis desperate situation to which james's folly and jealousy have\nreduced us. when i was a very young man, mr. holmes, i loved with\nsuch a love as comes only once in a lifetime. i offered the lady\nmarriage, but she refused it on the grounds that such a match might\nmar my career. had she lived i would certainly never have married\nanyone else. she died, and left this one child, whom for her sake i\nhave cherished and cared for. i could not acknowledge the paternity\nto the world; but i gave him the best of educations, and since he\ncame to manhood i have kept him near my person. he surprised my\nsecret, and has presumed ever since upon the claim which he has upon\nme and upon his power of provoking a scandal, which would be\nabhorrent to me. his presence had something to do with the unhappy\nissue of my marriage. above all, he hated my young legitimate heir\nfrom the first with a persistent hatred. you may well ask me why,\nunder these circumstances, i still kept james under my roof. i answer\nthat it was because i could see his mother's face in his, and that\nfor her dear sake there was no end to my long-suffering. all her\npretty ways, too--there was not one of them which he could not\nsuggest and bring back to my memory. i could not send him away. but i\nfeared so much lest he should do arthur--that is, lord saltire--a\nmischief that i dispatched him for safety to dr. huxtable's school.\n\"james came into contact with this fellow hayes because the man was a\ntenant of mine, and james acted as agent. the fellow was a rascal\nfrom the beginning; but in some extraordinary way james became\nintimate with him. he had always a taste for low company. when james\ndetermined to kidnap lord saltire it was of this man's service that\nhe availed himself. you remember that i wrote to arthur upon that\nlast day. well, james opened the letter and inserted a note asking\narthur to meet him in a little wood called the ragged shaw, which is\nnear to the school. he used the duchess's name, and in that way got\nthe boy to come. that evening james bicycled over--i am telling you\nwhat he has himself confessed to me--and he told arthur, whom he met\nin the wood, that his mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting\nhim on the moor, and that if he would come back into the wood at\nmidnight he would find a man with a horse, who would take him to her.\npoor arthur fell into the trap. he came to the appointment and found\nthis fellow hayes with a led pony. arthur mounted, and they set off\ntogether. it appears--though this james only heard yesterday--that\nthey were pursued, that hayes struck the pursuer with his stick, and\nthat the man died of his injuries. hayes brought arthur to his\npublic-house, the fighting cock, where he was confined in an upper\nroom, under the care of mrs. hayes, who is a kindly woman, but\nentirely under the control of her brutal husband.\n\"well, mr. holmes, that was the state of affairs when i first saw you\ntwo days ago. i had no more idea of the truth than you. you will ask\nme what was james's motive in doing such a deed. i answer that there\nwas a great deal which was unreasoning and fanatical in the hatred\nwhich he bore my heir. in his view he should himself have been heir\nof all my estates, and he deeply resented those social laws which\nmade it impossible. at the same time he had a definite motive also.\nhe was eager that i should break the entail, and he was of opinion\nthat it lay in my power to do so. he intended to make a bargain with\nme--to restore arthur if i would break the entail, and so make it\npossible for the estate to be left to him by will. he knew well that\ni should never willingly invoke the aid of the police against him. i\nsay that he would have proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not\nactually do so, for events moved too quickly for him, and he had not\ntime to put his plans into practice.\n\"what brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery of\nthis man heidegger's dead body. james was seized with horror at the\nnews. it came to us yesterday as we sat together in this study. dr.\nhuxtable had sent a telegram. james was so overwhelmed with grief and\nagitation that my suspicions, which had never been entirely absent,\nrose instantly to a certainty, and i taxed him with the deed. he made\na complete voluntary confession. then he implored me to keep his\nsecret for three days longer, so as to give his wretched accomplice a\nchance of saving his guilty life. i yielded--as i have always\nyielded--to his prayers, and instantly james hurried off to the\nfighting cock to warn hayes and give him the means of flight. i could\nnot go there by daylight without provoking comment, but as soon as\nnight fell i hurried off to see my dear arthur. i found him safe and\nwell, but horrified beyond expression by the dreadful deed he had\nwitnessed. in deference to my promise, and much against my will, i\nconsented to leave him there for three days under the charge of mrs.\nhayes, since it was evident that it was impossible to inform the\npolice where he was without telling them also who was the murderer,\nand i could not see how that murderer could be punished without ruin\nto my unfortunate james. you asked for frankness, mr. holmes, and i\nhave taken you at your word, for i have now told you everything\nwithout an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. do you in turn\nbe as frank with me.\"\n\"i will,\" said holmes. \"in the first place, your grace, i am bound to\ntell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious position in\nthe eyes of the law. you have condoned a felony and you have aided\nthe escape of a murderer; for i cannot doubt that any money which was\ntaken by james wilder to aid his accomplice in his flight came from\nyour grace's purse.\"\nthe duke bowed his assent.\n\"this is indeed a most serious matter. even more culpable in my\nopinion, your grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. you\nleave him in this den for three days.\"\n\"under solemn promises--\"\n\"what are promises to such people as these? you have no guarantee\nthat he will not be spirited away again. to humour your guilty elder\nson you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and\nunnecessary danger. it was a most unjustifiable action.\"\nthe proud lord of holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated in\nhis own ducal hall. the blood flushed into his high forehead, but his\nconscience held him dumb.\n\"i will help you, but on one condition only. it is that you ring for\nthe footman and let me give such orders as i like.\"\nwithout a word the duke pressed the electric bell. a servant entered.\n\"you will be glad to hear,\" said holmes, \"that your young master is\nfound. it is the duke's desire that the carriage shall go at once to\nthe fighting cock inn to bring lord saltire home.\n\"now,\" said holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared,\n\"having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the\npast. i am not in an official position, and there is no reason, so\nlong as the ends of justice are served, why i should disclose all\nthat i know. as to hayes i say nothing. the gallows awaits him, and i\nwould do nothing to save him from it. what he will divulge i cannot\ntell, but i have no doubt that your grace could make him understand\nthat it is to his interest to be silent. from the police point of\nview he will have kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom. if\nthey do not themselves find it out i see no reason why i should\nprompt them to take a broader point of view. i would warn your grace,\nhowever, that the continued presence of mr. james wilder in your\nhousehold can only lead to misfortune.\"\n\"i understand that, mr. holmes, and it is already settled that he\nshall leave me for ever and go to seek his fortune in australia.\"\n\"in that case, your grace, since you have yourself stated that any\nunhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, i would\nsuggest that you make such amends as you can to the duchess, and that\nyou try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily\ninterrupted.\"\n\"that also i have arranged, mr. holmes. i wrote to the duchess this\nmorning.\"\n\"in that case,\" said holmes, rising, \"i think that my friend and i\ncan congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our\nlittle visit to the north. there is one other small point upon which\ni desire some light. this fellow hayes had shod his horses with shoes\nwhich counterfeited the tracks of cows. was it from mr. wilder that\nhe learned so extraordinary a device?\"\nthe duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense\nsurprise on his face. then he opened a door and showed us into a\nlarge room furnished as a museum. he led the way to a glass case in a\ncorner, and pointed to the inscription.\n\"these shoes,\" it ran, \"were dug up in the moat of holdernesse hall.\nthey are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a\ncloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. they are\nsupposed to have belonged to some of the marauding barons of\nholdernesse in the middle ages.\"\nholmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along\nthe shoe. a thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.\n\"thank you,\" said he, as he replaced the glass. \"it is the second\nmost interesting object that i have seen in the north.\"\n\"and the first?\"\nholmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his note-book.\n\"i am a poor man,\" said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust\nit into the depths of his inner pocket.\nthe adventure of black peter\ni have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and\nphysical, than in the year '95. his increasing fame had brought with\nit an immense practice, and i should be guilty of an indiscretion if\ni were even to hint at the identity of some of the illustrious\nclients who crossed our humble threshold in baker street. holmes,\nhowever, like all great artists, lived for his art's sake, and, save\nin the case of the duke of holdernesse, i have seldom known him claim\nany large reward for his inestimable services. so unworldly was\nhe--or so capricious--that he frequently refused his help to the\npowerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his\nsympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application\nto the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those\nstrange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and\nchallenged his ingenuity.\nin this memorable year '95 a curious and incongruous succession of\ncases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous\ninvestigation of the sudden death of cardinal tosca--an inquiry which\nwas carried out by him at the express desire of his holiness the\npope--down to his arrest of wilson, the notorious canary-trainer,\nwhich removed a plague-spot from the east-end of london. close on the\nheels of these two famous cases came the tragedy of woodman's lee,\nand the very obscure circumstances which surrounded the death of\ncaptain peter carey. no record of the doings of mr. sherlock holmes\nwould be complete which did not include some account of this very\nunusual affair.\nduring the first week of july my friend had been absent so often and\nso long from our lodgings that i knew he had something on hand. the\nfact that several rough-looking men called during that time and\ninquired for captain basil made me understand that holmes was working\nsomewhere under one of the numerous disguises and names with which he\nconcealed his own formidable identity. he had at least five small\nrefuges in different parts of london in which he was able to change\nhis personality. he said nothing of his business to me, and it was\nnot my habit to force a confidence. the first positive sign which he\ngave me of the direction which his investigation was taking was an\nextraordinary one. he had gone out before breakfast, and i had sat\ndown to mine, when he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and\na huge barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm.\n\"good gracious, holmes!\" i cried. \"you don't mean to say that you\nhave been walking about london with that thing?\"\n\"i drove to the butcher's and back.\"\n\"the butcher's?\"\n\"and i return with an excellent appetite. there can be no question,\nmy dear watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. but i am\nprepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has\ntaken.\"\n\"i will not attempt it.\"\nhe chuckled as he poured out the coffee.\n\"if you could have looked into allardyce's back shop you would have\nseen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in\nhis shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. i was\nthat energetic person, and i have satisfied myself that by no\nexertion of my strength can i transfix the pig with a single blow.\nperhaps you would care to try?\"\n\"not for worlds. but why were you doing this?\"\n\"because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the mystery\nof woodman's lee. ah, hopkins, i got your wire last night, and i have\nbeen expecting you. come and join us.\"\nour visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age,\ndressed in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of one\nwho was accustomed to official uniform. i recognised him at once as\nstanley hopkins, a young police inspector for whose future holmes had\nhigh hopes, while he in turn professed the admiration and respect of\na pupil for the scientific methods of the famous amateur. hopkins's\nbrow was clouded, and he sat down with an air of deep dejection.\n\"no, thank you, sir. i breakfasted before i came round. i spent the\nnight in town, for i came up yesterday to report.\"\n\"and what had you to report?\"\n\"failure, sir; absolute failure.\"\n\"you have made no progress?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"dear me! i must have a look at the matter.\"\n\"i wish to heavens that you would, mr. holmes. it's my first big\nchance, and i am at my wit's end. for goodness' sake come down and\nlend me a hand.\"\n\"well, well, it just happens that i have already read all the\navailable evidence, including the report of the inquest, with some\ncare. by the way, what do you make of that tobacco-pouch found on the\nscene of the crime? is there no clue there?\"\nhopkins looked surprised.\n\"it was the man's own pouch, sir. his initials were inside it. and it\nwas of seal-skin--and he an old sealer.\"\n\"but he had no pipe.\"\n\"no, sir, we could find no pipe; indeed, he smoked very little. and\nyet he might have kept some tobacco for his friends.\"\n\"no doubt. i only mention it because if i had been handling the case\ni should have been inclined to make that the starting-point of my\ninvestigation. however, my friend dr. watson knows nothing of this\nmatter, and i should be none the worse for hearing the sequence of\nevents once more. just give us some short sketch of the essentials.\"\nstanley hopkins drew a slip of paper from his pocket.\n\"i have a few dates here which will give you the career of the dead\nman, captain peter carey. he was born in '45--fifty years of age. he\nwas a most daring and successful seal and whale fisher. in 1883 he\ncommanded the steam sealer sea unicorn, of dundee. he had then had\nseveral successful voyages in succession, and in the following year,\n1884, he retired. after that he travelled for some years, and finally\nhe bought a small place called woodman's lee, near forest row, in\nsussex. there he has lived for six years, and there he died just a\nweek ago to-day.\n\"there were some most singular points about the man. in ordinary life\nhe was a strict puritan--a silent, gloomy fellow. his household\nconsisted of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and two female\nservants. these last were continually changing, for it was never a\nvery cheery situation, and sometimes it became past all bearing. the\nman was an intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him he\nwas a perfect fiend. he has been known to drive his wife and his\ndaughter out of doors in the middle of the night, and flog them\nthrough the park until the whole village outside the gates was\naroused by their screams.\n\"he was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, who\nhad called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. in\nshort, mr. holmes, you would go far before you found a more dangerous\nman than peter carey, and i have heard that he bore the same\ncharacter when he commanded his ship. he was known in the trade as\nblack peter, and the name was given him, not only on account of his\nswarthy features and the colour of his huge beard, but for the\nhumours which were the terror of all around him. i need not say that\nhe was loathed and avoided by every one of his neighbours, and that i\nhave not heard one single word of sorrow about his terrible end.\n\"you must have read in the account of the inquest about the man's\ncabin, mr. holmes; but perhaps your friend here has not heard of it.\nhe had built himself a wooden outhouse--he always called it 'the\ncabin'--a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he\nslept every night. it was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet\nby ten. he kept the key in his pocket, made his own bed, cleaned it\nhimself, and allowed no other foot to cross the threshold. there are\nsmall windows on each side, which were covered by curtains and never\nopened. one of these windows was turned towards the high road, and\nwhen the light burned in it at night the folk used to point it out to\neach other and wonder what black peter was doing in there. that's the\nwindow, mr. holmes, which gave us one of the few bits of positive\nevidence that came out at the inquest.\n\"you remember that a stonemason, named slater, walking from forest\nrow about one o'clock in the morning--two days before the\nmurder--stopped as he passed the grounds and looked at the square of\nlight still shining among the trees. he swears that the shadow of a\nman's head turned sideways was clearly visible on the blind, and that\nthis shadow was certainly not that of peter carey, whom he knew well.\nit was that of a bearded man, but the beard was short and bristled\nforwards in a way very different from that of the captain. so he\nsays, but he had been two hours in the public-house, and it is some\ndistance from the road to the window. besides, this refers to the\nmonday, and the crime was done upon the wednesday.\n\"on the tuesday peter carey was in one of his blackest moods, flushed\nwith drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast. he roamed about\nthe house, and the women ran for it when they heard him coming. late\nin the evening he went down to his own hut. about two o'clock the\nfollowing morning his daughter, who slept with her window open, heard\na most fearful yell from that direction, but it was no unusual thing\nfor him to bawl and shout when he was in drink, so no notice was\ntaken. on rising at seven one of the maids noticed that the door of\nthe hut was open, but so great was the terror which the man caused\nthat it was midday before anyone would venture down to see what had\nbecome of him. peeping into the open door they saw a sight which sent\nthem flying with white faces into the village. within an hour i was\non the spot and had taken over the case.\n\"well, i have fairly steady nerves, as you know, mr. holmes, but i\ngive you my word that i got a shake when i put my head into that\nlittle house. it was droning like a harmonium with the flies and\nbluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a slaughter-house. he\nhad called it a cabin, and a cabin it was sure enough, for you would\nhave thought that you were in a ship. there was a bunk at one end, a\nsea-chest, maps and charts, a picture of the sea unicorn, a line of\nlog-books on a shelf, all exactly as one would expect to find it in a\ncaptain's room. and there in the middle of it was the man himself,\nhis face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled\nbeard stuck upwards in his agony. right through his broad breast a\nsteel harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of\nthe wall behind him. he was pinned like a beetle on a card. of\ncourse, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that he\nhad uttered that last yell of agony.\n\"i know your methods, sir, and i applied them. before i permitted\nanything to be moved i examined most carefully the ground outside,\nand also the floor of the room. there were no footmarks.\"\n\"meaning that you saw none?\"\n\"i assure you, sir, that there were none.\"\n\"my good hopkins, i have investigated many crimes, but i have never\nyet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. as long as the\ncriminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some\nindentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be\ndetected by the scientific searcher. it is incredible that this\nblood-bespattered room contained no trace which could have aided us.\ni understand, however, from the inquest that there were some objects\nwhich you failed to overlook?\"\nthe young inspector winced at my companion's ironical comments.\n\"i was a fool not to call you in at the time, mr. holmes. however,\nthat's past praying for now. yes, there were several objects in the\nroom which called for special attention. one was the harpoon with\nwhich the deed was committed. it had been snatched down from a rack\non the wall. two others remained there, and there was a vacant place\nfor the third. on the stock was engraved 's.s.. sea unicorn, dundee.'\nthis seemed to establish that the crime had been done in a moment of\nfury, and that the murderer had seized the first weapon which came in\nhis way. the fact that the crime was committed at two in the morning,\nand yet peter carey was fully dressed, suggested that he had an\nappointment with the murderer, which is borne out by the fact that a\nbottle of rum and two dirty glasses stood upon the table.\"\n\"yes,\" said holmes; \"i think that both inferences are permissible.\nwas there any other spirit but rum in the room?\"\n\"yes; there was a tantalus containing brandy and whisky on the\nsea-chest. it is of no importance to us, however, since the decanters\nwere full, and it had therefore not been used.\"\n\"for all that its presence has some significance,\" said holmes.\n\"however, let us hear some more about the objects which do seem to\nyou to bear upon the case.\"\n\"there was this tobacco-pouch upon the table.\"\n\"what part of the table?\"\n\"it lay in the middle. it was of coarse seal-skin--the\nstraight-haired skin, with a leather thong to bind it. inside was\n'p.c.' on the flap. there was half an ounce of strong ship's tobacco\nin it.\"\n\"excellent! what more?\"\nstanley hopkins drew from his pocket a drab-covered note-book. the\noutside was rough and worn, the leaves discoloured. on the first page\nwere written the initials \"j.h.n.\" and the date \"1883.\" holmes laid\nit on the table and examined it in his minute way, while hopkins and\ni gazed over each shoulder. on the second page were the printed\nletters \"c.p.r.,\" and then came several sheets of numbers. another\nheading was argentine, another costa rica, and another san paulo,\neach with pages of signs and figures after it.\n\"what do you make of these?\" asked holmes.\n\"they appear to be lists of stock exchange securities. i thought that\n'j.h.n.' were the initials of a broker, and that 'c.p.r.' may have\nbeen his client.\"\n\"try canadian pacific railway,\" said holmes.\nstanley hopkins swore between his teeth and struck his thigh with his\nclenched hand.\n\"what a fool i have been!\" he cried. \"of course, it is as you say.\nthen 'j.h.n.' are the only initials we have to solve. i have already\nexamined the old stock exchange lists, and i can find no one in 1883\neither in the house or among the outside brokers whose initials\ncorrespond with these. yet i feel that the clue is the most important\none that i hold. you will admit, mr. holmes, that there is a\npossibility that these initials are those of the second person who\nwas present--in other words, of the murderer. i would also urge that\nthe introduction into the case of a document relating to large masses\nof valuable securities gives us for the first time some indication of\na motive for the crime.\"\nsherlock holmes's face showed that he was thoroughly taken aback by\nthis new development.\n\"i must admit both your points,\" said he. \"i confess that this\nnote-book, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views\nwhich i may have formed. i had come to a theory of the crime in which\ni can find no place for this. have you endeavoured to trace any of\nthe securities here mentioned?\"\n\"inquiries are now being made at the offices, but i fear that the\ncomplete register of the stockholders of these south american\nconcerns is in south america, and that some weeks must elapse before\nwe can trace the shares.\"\nholmes had been examining the cover of the note-book with his\nmagnifying lens.\n\"surely there is some discolouration here,\" said he.\n\"yes, sir, it is a blood-stain. i told you that i picked the book off\nthe floor.\"\n\"was the blood-stain above or below?\"\n\"on the side next the boards.\"\n\"which proves, of course, that the book was dropped after the crime\nwas committed.\"\n\"exactly, mr. holmes. i appreciated that point, and i conjectured\nthat it was dropped by the murderer in his hurried flight. it lay\nnear the door.\"\n\"i suppose that none of these securities have been found among the\nproperty of the dead man?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"have you any reason to suspect robbery?\"\n\"no, sir. nothing seemed to have been touched.\"\n\"dear me, it is certainly a very interesting case. then there was a\nknife, was there not?\"\n\"a sheath-knife, still in its sheath. it lay at the feet of the dead\nman. mrs. carey has identified it as being her husband's property.\"\nholmes was lost in thought for some time.\n\"well,\" said he, at last, \"i suppose i shall have to come out and\nhave a look at it.\"\nstanley hopkins gave a cry of joy.\n\"thank you, sir. that will indeed be a weight off my mind.\"\nholmes shook his finger at the inspector.\n\"it would have been an easier task a week ago,\" said he. \"but even\nnow my visit may not be entirely fruitless. watson, if you can spare\nthe time i should be very glad of your company. if you will call a\nfour-wheeler, hopkins, we shall be ready to start for forest row in a\nquarter of an hour.\"\nalighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles\nthrough the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that\ngreat forest which for so long held the saxon invaders at bay--the\nimpenetrable \"weald,\" for sixty years the bulwark of britain. vast\nsections of it have been cleared, for this is the seat of the first\niron-works of the country, and the trees have been felled to smelt\nthe ore. now the richer fields of the north have absorbed the trade,\nand nothing save these ravaged groves and great scars in the earth\nshow the work of the past. here in a clearing upon the green slope of\na hill stood a long, low stone house, approached by a curving drive\nrunning through the fields. nearer the road, and surrounded on three\nsides by bushes, was a small outhouse, one window and the door facing\nin our direction. it was the scene of the murder.\nstanley hopkins led us first to the house, where he introduced us to\na haggard, grey-haired woman, the widow of the murdered man, whose\ngaunt and deep-lined face, with the furtive look of terror in the\ndepths of her red-rimmed eyes, told of the years of hardship and\nill-usage which she had endured. with her was her daughter, a pale,\nfair-haired girl, whose eyes blazed defiantly at us as she told us\nthat she was glad that her father was dead, and that she blessed the\nhand which had struck him down. it was a terrible household that\nblack peter carey had made for himself, and it was with a sense of\nrelief that we found ourselves in the sunlight again and making our\nway along a path which had been worn across the fields by the feet of\nthe dead man.\nthe outhouse was the simplest of dwellings, wooden-walled,\nshingle-roofed, one window beside the door and one on the farther\nside. stanley hopkins drew the key from his pocket, and had stooped\nto the lock, when he paused with a look of attention and surprise\nupon his face.\n\"someone has been tampering with it,\" he said.\nthere could be no doubt of the fact. the woodwork was cut and the\nscratches showed white through the paint, as if they had been that\ninstant done. holmes had been examining the window.\n\"someone has tried to force this also. whoever it was has failed to\nmake his way in. he must have been a very poor burglar.\"\n\"this is a most extraordinary thing,\" said the inspector; \"i could\nswear that these marks were not here yesterday evening.\"\n\"some curious person from the village, perhaps,\" i suggested.\n\"very unlikely. few of them would dare to set foot in the grounds,\nfar less try to force their way into the cabin. what do you think of\nit, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i think that fortune is very kind to us.\"\n\"you mean that the person will come again?\"\n\"it is very probable. he came expecting to find the door open. he\ntried to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. he could not\nmanage it. what would he do?\"\n\"come again next night with a more useful tool.\"\n\"so i should say. it will be our fault if we are not there to receive\nhim. meanwhile, let me see the inside of the cabin.\"\nthe traces of the tragedy had been removed, but the furniture within\nthe little room still stood as it had been on the night of the crime.\nfor two hours, with most intense concentration, holmes examined every\nobject in turn, but his face showed that his quest was not a\nsuccessful one. once only he paused in his patient investigation.\n\"have you taken anything off this shelf, hopkins?\"\n\"no; i have moved nothing.\"\n\"something has been taken. there is less dust in this corner of the\nshelf than elsewhere. it may have been a book lying on its side. it\nmay have been a box. well, well, i can do nothing more. let us walk\nin these beautiful woods, watson, and give a few hours to the birds\nand the flowers. we shall meet you here later, hopkins, and see if we\ncan come to closer quarters with the gentleman who has paid this\nvisit in the night.\"\nit was past eleven o'clock when we formed our little ambuscade.\nhopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but holmes was of\nthe opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. the\nlock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed\nto push it back. holmes also suggested that we should wait, not\ninside the hut, but outside it among the bushes which grew round the\nfarther window. in this way we should be able to watch our man if he\nstruck a light, and see what his object was in this stealthy\nnocturnal visit.\nit was a long and melancholy vigil, and yet brought with it something\nof the thrill which the hunter feels when he lies beside the water\npool and waits for the coming of the thirsty beast of prey. what\nsavage creature was it which might steal upon us out of the darkness?\nwas it a fierce tiger of crime, which could only be taken fighting\nhard with flashing fang and claw, or would it prove to be some\nskulking jackal, dangerous only to the weak and unguarded?\nin absolute silence we crouched amongst the bushes, waiting for\nwhatever might come. at first the steps of a few belated villagers,\nor the sound of voices from the village, lightened our vigil; but one\nby one these interruptions died away and an absolute stillness fell\nupon us, save for the chimes of the distant church, which told us of\nthe progress of the night, and for the rustle and whisper of a fine\nrain falling amid the foliage which roofed us in.\nhalf-past two had chimed, and it was the darkest hour which precedes\nthe dawn, when we all started as a low but sharp click came from the\ndirection of the gate. someone had entered the drive. again there was\na long silence, and i had begun to fear that it was a false alarm,\nwhen a stealthy step was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a\nmoment later a metallic scraping and clinking. the man was trying to\nforce the lock! this time his skill was greater or his tool was\nbetter, for there was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. then\na match was struck, and next instant the steady light from a candle\nfilled the interior of the hut. through the gauze curtain our eyes\nwere all riveted upon the scene within.\nthe nocturnal visitor was a young man, frail and thin, with a black\nmoustache which intensified the deadly pallor of his face. he could\nnot have been much above twenty years of age. i have never seen any\nhuman being who appeared to be in such a pitiable fright, for his\nteeth were visibly chattering and he was shaking in every limb. he\nwas dressed like a gentleman, in norfolk jacket and knickerbockers,\nwith a cloth cap upon his head. we watched him staring round with\nfrightened eyes. then he laid the candle-end upon the table and\ndisappeared from our view into one of the corners. he returned with a\nlarge book, one of the log-books which formed a line upon the\nshelves. leaning on the table he rapidly turned over the leaves of\nthis volume until he came to the entry which he sought. then, with an\nangry gesture of his clenched hand, he closed the book, replaced it\nin the corner, and put out the light. he had hardly turned to leave\nthe hut when hopkins's hand was on the fellow's collar, and i heard\nhis loud gasp of terror as he understood that he was taken. the\ncandle was re-lit, and there was our wretched captive shivering and\ncowering in the grasp of the detective. he sank down upon the\nsea-chest, and looked helplessly from one of us to the other.\n\"now, my fine fellow,\" said stanley hopkins, \"who are you, and what\ndo you want here?\"\nthe man pulled himself together and faced us with an effort at\nself-composure.\n\"you are detectives, i suppose?\" said he. \"you imagine i am connected\nwith the death of captain peter carey. i assure you that i am\ninnocent.\"\n\"we'll see about that,\" said hopkins. \"first of all, what is your\nname?\"\n\"it is john hopley neligan.\"\ni saw holmes and hopkins exchange a quick glance.\n\"what are you doing here?\"\n\"can i speak confidentially?\"\n\"no, certainly not.\"\n\"why should i tell you?\"\n\"if you have no answer it may go badly with you at the trial.\"\nthe young man winced.\n\"well, i will tell you,\" he said. \"why should i not? and yet i hate\nto think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. did you\never hear of dawson and neligan?\"\ni could see from hopkins's face that he never had; but holmes was\nkeenly interested.\n\"you mean the west-country bankers,\" said he. \"they failed for a\nmillion, ruined half the county families of cornwall, and neligan\ndisappeared.\"\n\"exactly. neligan was my father.\"\nat last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed a long\ngap between an absconding banker and captain peter carey pinned\nagainst the wall with one of his own harpoons. we all listened\nintently to the young man's words.\n\"it was my father who was really concerned. dawson had retired. i was\nonly ten years of age at the time, but i was old enough to feel the\nshame and horror of it all. it has always been said that my father\nstole all the securities and fled. it is not true. it was his belief\nthat if he were given time in which to realize them all would be well\nand every creditor paid in full. he started in his little yacht for\nnorway just before the warrant was issued for his arrest. i can\nremember that last night when he bade farewell to my mother. he left\nus a list of the securities he was taking, and he swore that he would\ncome back with his honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him\nwould suffer. well, no word was ever heard from him again. both the\nyacht and he vanished utterly. we believed, my mother and i, that he\nand it, with the securities that he had taken with him, were at the\nbottom of the sea. we had a faithful friend, however, who is a\nbusiness man, and it was he who discovered some time ago that some of\nthe securities which my father had with him have reappeared on the\nlondon market. you can imagine our amazement. i spent months in\ntrying to trace them, and at last, after many doublings and\ndifficulties, i discovered that the original seller had been captain\npeter carey, the owner of this hut.\n\"naturally, i made some inquiries about the man. i found that he had\nbeen in command of a whaler which was due to return from the arctic\nseas at the very time when my father was crossing to norway. the\nautumn of that year was a stormy one, and there was a long succession\nof southerly gales. my father's yacht may well have been blown to the\nnorth, and there met by captain peter carey's ship. if that were so,\nwhat had become of my father? in any case, if i could prove from\npeter carey's evidence how these securities came on the market it\nwould be a proof that my father had not sold them, and that he had no\nview to personal profit when he took them.\n\"i came down to sussex with the intention of seeing the captain, but\nit was at this moment that his terrible death occurred. i read at the\ninquest a description of his cabin, in which it stated that the old\nlog-books of his vessel were preserved in it. it struck me that if i\ncould see what occurred in the month of august, 1883, on board the\nsea unicorn, i might settle the mystery of my father's fate. i tried\nlast night to get at these log-books, but was unable to open the\ndoor. to-night i tried again, and succeeded; but i find that the\npages which deal with that month have been torn from the book. it was\nat that moment i found myself a prisoner in your hands.\"\n\"is that all?\" asked hopkins.\n\"yes, that is all.\" his eyes shifted as he said it.\n\"you have nothing else to tell us?\"\nhe hesitated.\n\"no; there is nothing.\"\n\"you have not been here before last night?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"then how do you account for that?\" cried hopkins, as he held up the\ndamning note-book, with the initials of our prisoner on the first\nleaf and the blood-stain on the cover.\nthe wretched man collapsed. he sank his face in his hands and\ntrembled all over.\n\"where did you get it?\" he groaned. \"i did not know. i thought i had\nlost it at the hotel.\"\n\"that is enough,\" said hopkins, sternly. \"whatever else you have to\nsay you must say in court. you will walk down with me now to the\npolice-station. well, mr. holmes, i am very much obliged to you and\nto your friend for coming down to help me. as it turns out your\npresence was unnecessary, and i would have brought the case to this\nsuccessful issue without you; but none the less i am very grateful.\nrooms have been reserved for you at the brambletye hotel, so we can\nall walk down to the village together.\"\n\"well, watson, what do you think of it?\" asked holmes, as we\ntravelled back next morning.\n\"i can see that you are not satisfied.\"\n\"oh, yes, my dear watson, i am perfectly satisfied. at the same time\nstanley hopkins's methods do not commend themselves to me. i am\ndisappointed in stanley hopkins. i had hoped for better things from\nhim. one should always look for a possible alternative and provide\nagainst it. it is the first rule of criminal investigation.\"\n\"what, then, is the alternative?\"\n\"the line of investigation which i have myself been pursuing. it may\ngive us nothing. i cannot tell. but at least i shall follow it to the\nend.\"\nseveral letters were waiting for holmes at baker street. he snatched\none of them up, opened it, and burst out into a triumphant chuckle of\nlaughter.\n\"excellent, watson. the alternative develops. have you telegraph\nforms? just write a couple of messages for me: 'sumner, shipping\nagent, ratcliff highway. send three men on, to arrive ten to-morrow\nmorning.--basil.' that's my name in those parts. the other is:\n'inspector stanley hopkins, 46, lord street, brixton. come breakfast\nto-morrow at nine-thirty. important. wire if unable to\ncome.--sherlock holmes.' there, watson, this infernal case has\nhaunted me for ten days. i hereby banish it completely from my\npresence. to-morrow i trust that we shall hear the last of it for\never.\"\nsharp at the hour named inspector stanley hopkins appeared, and we\nsat down together to the excellent breakfast which mrs. hudson had\nprepared. the young detective was in high spirits at his success.\n\"you really think that your solution must be correct?\" asked holmes.\n\"i could not imagine a more complete case.\"\n\"it did not seem to me conclusive.\"\n\"you astonish me, mr. holmes. what more could one ask for?\"\n\"does your explanation cover every point?\"\n\"undoubtedly. i find that young neligan arrived at the brambletye\nhotel on the very day of the crime. he came on the pretence of\nplaying golf. his room was on the ground-floor, and he could get out\nwhen he liked. that very night he went down to woodman's lee, saw\npeter carey at the hut, quarrelled with him, and killed him with the\nharpoon. then, horrified by what he had done, he fled out of the hut,\ndropping the note-book which he had brought with him in order to\nquestion peter carey about these different securities. you may have\nobserved that some of them were marked with ticks, and the\nothers--the great majority--were not. those which are ticked have\nbeen traced on the london market; but the others presumably were\nstill in the possession of carey, and young neligan, according to his\nown account, was anxious to recover them in order to do the right\nthing by his father's creditors. after his flight he did not dare to\napproach the hut again for some time; but at last he forced himself\nto do so in order to obtain the information which he needed. surely\nthat is all simple and obvious?\"\nholmes smiled and shook his head.\n\"it seems to me to have only one drawback, hopkins, and that is that\nit is intrinsically impossible. have you tried to drive a harpoon\nthrough a body? no? tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay\nattention to these details. my friend watson could tell you that i\nspent a whole morning in that exercise. it is no easy matter, and\nrequires a strong and practised arm. but this blow was delivered with\nsuch violence that the head of the weapon sank deep into the wall. do\nyou imagine that this anaemic youth was capable of so frightful an\nassault? is he the man who hobnobbed in rum and water with black\npeter in the dead of the night? was it his profile that was seen on\nthe blind two nights before? no, no, hopkins; it is another and a\nmore formidable person for whom we must seek.\"\nthe detective's face had grown longer and longer during holmes's\nspeech. his hopes and his ambitions were all crumbling about him. but\nhe would not abandon his position without a struggle.\n\"you can't deny that neligan was present that night, mr. holmes. the\nbook will prove that. i fancy that i have evidence enough to satisfy\na jury, even if you are able to pick a hole in it. besides, mr.\nholmes, i have laid my hand upon my man. as to this terrible person\nof yours, where is he?\"\n\"i rather fancy that he is on the stair,\" said holmes, serenely. \"i\nthink, watson, that you would do well to put that revolver where you\ncan reach it.\" he rose, and laid a written paper upon a side-table.\n\"now we are ready,\" said he.\nthere had been some talking in gruff voices outside, and now mrs.\nhudson opened the door to say that there were three men inquiring for\ncaptain basil.\n\"show them in one by one,\" said holmes.\nthe first who entered was a little ribston-pippin of a man, with\nruddy cheeks and fluffy white side-whiskers. holmes had drawn a\nletter from his pocket.\n\"what name?\" he asked.\n\"james lancaster.\"\n\"i am sorry, lancaster, but the berth is full. here is half a\nsovereign for your trouble. just step into this room and wait there\nfor a few minutes.\"\nthe second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and\nsallow cheeks. his name was hugh pattins. he also received his\ndismissal, his half-sovereign, and the order to wait.\nthe third applicant was a man of remarkable appearance. a fierce\nbull-dog face was framed in a tangle of hair and beard, and two bold\ndark eyes gleamed behind the cover of thick, tufted, overhung\neyebrows. he saluted and stood sailor-fashion, turning his cap round\nin his hands.\n\"your name?\" asked holmes.\n\"patrick cairns.\"\n\"harpooner?\"\n\"yes, sir. twenty-six voyages.\"\n\"dundee, i suppose?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and ready to start with an exploring ship?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"what wages?\"\n\"eight pounds a month.\"\n\"could you start at once?\"\n\"as soon as i get my kit.\"\n\"have you your papers?\"\n\"yes, sir.\" he took a sheaf of worn and greasy forms from his pocket.\nholmes glanced over them and returned them.\n\"you are just the man i want,\" said he. \"here's the agreement on the\nside-table. if you sign it the whole matter will be settled.\"\nthe seaman lurched across the room and took up the pen.\n\"shall i sign here?\" he asked, stooping over the table.\nholmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his neck.\n\"this will do,\" said he.\ni heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. the next\ninstant holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. he\nwas a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs\nwhich holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have\nvery quickly overpowered my friend had hopkins and i not rushed to\nhis rescue. only when i pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to\nhis temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain. we\nlashed his ankles with cord and rose breathless from the struggle.\n\"i must really apologize, hopkins,\" said sherlock holmes; \"i fear\nthat the scrambled eggs are cold. however, you will enjoy the rest of\nyour breakfast all the better, will you not, for the thought that you\nhave brought your case to a triumphant conclusion.\"\nstanley hopkins was speechless with amazement.\n\"i don't know what to say, mr. holmes,\" he blurted out at last, with\na very red face. \"it seems to me that i have been making a fool of\nmyself from the beginning. i understand now, what i should never have\nforgotten, that i am the pupil and you are the master. even now i see\nwhat you have done, but i don't know how you did it, or what it\nsignifies.\"\n\"well, well,\" said holmes, good-humouredly. \"we all learn by\nexperience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose\nsight of the alternative. you were so absorbed in young neligan that\nyou could not spare a thought to patrick cairns, the true murderer of\npeter carey.\"\nthe hoarse voice of the seaman broke in on our conversation.\n\"see here, mister,\" said he, \"i make no complaint of being\nman-handled in this fashion, but i would have you call things by\ntheir right names. you say i murdered peter carey; i say i killed\npeter carey, and there's all the difference. maybe you don't believe\nwhat i say. maybe you think i am just slinging you a yarn.\"\n\"not at all,\" said holmes. \"let us hear what you have to say.\"\n\"it's soon told, and, by the lord, every word of it is truth. i knew\nblack peter, and when he pulled out his knife i whipped a harpoon\nthrough him sharp, for i knew that it was him or me. that's how he\ndied. you can call it murder. anyhow, i'd as soon die with a rope\nround my neck as with black peter's knife in my heart.\"\n\"how came you there?\" asked holmes.\n\"i'll tell it you from the beginning. just sit me up a little so as i\ncan speak easy. it was in '83 that it happened--august of that year.\npeter carey was master of the sea unicorn, and i was spare harpooner.\nwe were coming out of the ice-pack on our way home, with head winds\nand a week's southerly gale, when we picked up a little craft that\nhad been blown north. there was one man on her--a landsman. the crew\nhad thought she would founder, and had made for the norwegian coast\nin the dinghy. i guess they were all drowned. well, we took him on\nboard, this man, and he and the skipper had some long talks in the\ncabin. all the baggage we took off with him was one tin box. so far\nas i know, the man's name was never mentioned, and on the second\nnight he disappeared as if he had never been. it was given out that\nhe had either thrown himself overboard or fallen overboard in the\nheavy weather that we were having. only one man knew what had\nhappened to him, and that was me, for with my own eyes i saw the\nskipper tip up his heels and put him over the rail in the middle\nwatch of a dark night, two days before we sighted the shetland\nlights.\n\"well, i kept my knowledge to myself and waited to see what would\ncome of it. when we got back to scotland it was easily hushed up, and\nnobody asked any questions. a stranger died by an accident, and it\nwas nobody's business to inquire. shortly after peter carey gave up\nthe sea, and it was long years before i could find where he was. i\nguessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was in that\ntin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for keeping my\nmouth shut.\n\"i found out where he was through a sailor man that had met him in\nlondon, and down i went to squeeze him. the first night he was\nreasonable enough, and was ready to give me what would make me free\nof the sea for life. we were to fix it all two nights later. when i\ncame i found him three parts drunk and in a vile temper. we sat down\nand we drank and we yarned about old times, but the more he drank the\nless i liked the look on his face. i spotted that harpoon upon the\nwall, and i thought i might need it before i was through. then at\nlast he broke out at me, spitting and cursing, with murder in his\neyes and a great clasp-knife in his hand. he had not time to get it\nfrom the sheath before i had the harpoon through him. heavens! what a\nyell he gave; and his face gets between me and my sleep! i stood\nthere, with his blood splashing round me, and i waited for a bit; but\nall was quiet, so i took heart once more. i looked round, and there\nwas the tin box on a shelf. i had as much right to it as peter carey,\nanyhow, so i took it with me and left the hut. like a fool i left my\nbaccy-pouch upon the table.\n\"now i'll tell you the queerest part of the whole story. i had hardly\ngot outside the hut when i heard someone coming, and i hid among the\nbushes. a man came slinking along, went into the hut, gave a cry as\nif he had seen a ghost, and legged it as hard as he could run until\nhe was out of sight. who he was or what he wanted is more than i can\ntell. for my part i walked ten miles, got a train at tunbridge wells,\nand so reached london, and no one the wiser.\n\"well, when i came to examine the box i found there was no money in\nit, and nothing but papers that i would not dare to sell. i had lost\nmy hold on black peter, and was stranded in london without a\nshilling. there was only my trade left. i saw these advertisements\nabout harpooners and high wages, so i went to the shipping agents,\nand they sent me here. that's all i know, and i say again that if i\nkilled black peter the law should give me thanks, for i saved them\nthe price of a hempen rope.\"\n\"a very clear statement,\" said holmes, rising and lighting his pipe.\n\"i think, hopkins, that you should lose no time in conveying your\nprisoner to a place of safety. this room is not well adapted for a\ncell, and mr. patrick cairns occupies too large a proportion of our\ncarpet.\"\n\"mr. holmes,\" said hopkins, \"i do not know how to express my\ngratitude. even now i do not understand how you attained this\nresult.\"\n\"simply by having the good fortune to get the right clue from the\nbeginning. it is very possible if i had known about this note-book it\nmight have led away my thoughts, as it did yours. but all i heard\npointed in the one direction. the amazing strength, the skill in the\nuse of the harpoon, the rum and water, the seal-skin tobacco-pouch,\nwith the coarse tobacco--all these pointed to a seaman, and one who\nhad been a whaler. i was convinced that the initials 'p.c.' upon the\npouch were a coincidence, and not those of peter carey, since he\nseldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin. you remember that\ni asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. you said they\nwere. how many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could\nget these other spirits? yes, i was certain it was a seaman.\"\n\"and how did you find him?\"\n\"my dear sir, the problem had become a very simple one. if it were a\nseaman, it could only be a seaman who had been with him on the sea\nunicorn. so far as i could learn he had sailed in no other ship. i\nspent three days in wiring to dundee, and at the end of that time i\nhad ascertained the names of the crew of the sea unicorn in 1883.\nwhen i found patrick cairns among the harpooners my research was\nnearing its end. i argued that the man was probably in london, and\nthat he would desire to leave the country for a time. i therefore\nspent some days in the east-end, devised an arctic expedition, put\nforth tempting terms for harpooners who would serve under captain\nbasil--and behold the result!\"\n\"wonderful!\" cried hopkins. \"wonderful!\"\n\"you must obtain the release of young neligan as soon as possible,\"\nsaid holmes. \"i confess that i think you owe him some apology. the\ntin box must be returned to him, but, of course, the securities which\npeter carey has sold are lost for ever. there's the cab, hopkins, and\nyou can remove your man. if you want me for the trial, my address and\nthat of watson will be somewhere in norway--i'll send particulars\nlater.\"\nthe adventure of charles augustus milverton\nit is years since the incidents of which i speak took place, and yet\nit is with diffidence that i allude to them. for a long time, even\nwith the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been\nimpossible to make the facts public; but now the principal person\nconcerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due suppression\nthe story may be told in such fashion as to injure no one. it records\nan absolutely unique experience in the career both of mr. sherlock\nholmes and of myself. the reader will excuse me if i conceal the date\nor any other fact by which he might trace the actual occurrence.\nwe had been out for one of our evening rambles, holmes and i, and had\nreturned about six o'clock on a cold, frosty winter's evening. as\nholmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. he\nglanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on\nthe floor. i picked it up and read:--\ncharles augustus milverton,\nappledore towers,\nhampstead.\nagent.\n\"who is he?\" i asked.\n\"the worst man in london,\" holmes answered, as he sat down and\nstretched his legs before the fire. \"is anything on the back of the\ncard?\"\ni turned it over.\n\"will call at 6.30--c.a.m.,\" i read.\n\"hum! he's about due. do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation,\nwatson, when you stand before the serpents in the zoo and see the\nslithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and\nwicked, flattened faces? well, that's how milverton impresses me.\ni've had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of\nthem never gave me the repulsion which i have for this fellow. and\nyet i can't get out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at\nmy invitation.\"\n\"but who is he?\"\n\"i'll tell you, watson. he is the king of all the blackmailers.\nheaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and\nreputation come into the power of milverton. with a smiling face and\na heart of marble he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained\nthem dry. the fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his\nmark in some more savoury trade. his method is as follows: he allows\nit to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters\nwhich compromise people of wealth or position. he receives these\nwares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from\ngenteel ruffians who have gained the confidence and affection of\ntrusting women. he deals with no niggard hand. i happen to know that\nhe paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in\nlength, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result.\neverything which is in the market goes to milverton, and there are\nhundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. no one knows\nwhere his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning\nto work from hand to mouth. he will hold a card back for years in\norder to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning.\ni have said that he is the worst man in london, and i would ask you\nhow could one compare the ruffian who in hot blood bludgeons his mate\nwith this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul\nand wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen\nmoney-bags?\"\ni had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.\n\"but surely,\" said i, \"the fellow must be within the grasp of the\nlaw?\"\n\"technically, no doubt, but practically not. what would it profit a\nwoman, for example, to get him a few months' imprisonment if her own\nruin must immediately follow? his victims dare not hit back. if ever\nhe blackmailed an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him;\nbut he is as cunning as the evil one. no, no; we must find other ways\nto fight him.\"\n\"and why is he here?\"\n\"because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my\nhands. it is the lady eva brackwell, the most beautiful debutante of\nlast season. she is to be married in a fortnight to the earl of\ndovercourt. this fiend has several imprudent letters--imprudent,\nwatson, nothing worse--which were written to an impecunious young\nsquire in the country. they would suffice to break off the match.\nmilverton will send the letters to the earl unless a large sum of\nmoney is paid him. i have been commissioned to meet him, and--to make\nthe best terms i can.\"\nat that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street below.\nlooking down i saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps\ngleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts. a footman\nopened the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrachan\novercoat descended. a minute later he was in the room.\ncharles augustus milverton was a man of fifty, with a large,\nintellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen\nsmile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind\nbroad, golden-rimmed glasses. there was something of mr. pickwick's\nbenevolence in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the\nfixed smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating\neyes. his voice was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he\nadvanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring his regret for\nhaving missed us at his first visit. holmes disregarded the\noutstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite.\nmilverton's smile broadened; he shrugged his shoulders, removed his\novercoat, folded it with great deliberation over the back of a chair,\nand then took a seat.\n\"this gentleman?\" said he, with a wave in my direction. \"is it\ndiscreet? is it right?\"\n\"dr. watson is my friend and partner.\"\n\"very good, mr. holmes. it is only in your client's interests that i\nprotested. the matter is so very delicate--\"\n\"dr. watson has already heard of it.\"\n\"then we can proceed to business. you say that you are acting for\nlady eva. has she empowered you to accept my terms?\"\n\"what are your terms?\"\n\"seven thousand pounds.\"\n\"and the alternative?\"\n\"my dear sir, it is painful for me to discuss it; but if the money is\nnot paid on the 14th there certainly will be no marriage on the\n18th.\" his insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.\nholmes thought for a little.\n\"you appear to me,\" he said, at last, \"to be taking matters too much\nfor granted. i am, of course, familiar with the contents of these\nletters. my client will certainly do what i may advise. i shall\ncounsel her to tell her future husband the whole story and to trust\nto his generosity.\"\nmilverton chuckled.\n\"you evidently do not know the earl,\" said he.\nfrom the baffled look upon holmes's face i could see clearly that he\ndid.\n\"what harm is there in the letters?\" he asked.\n\"they are sprightly--very sprightly,\" milverton answered. \"the lady\nwas a charming correspondent. but i can assure you that the earl of\ndovercourt would fail to appreciate them. however, since you think\notherwise, we will let it rest at that. it is purely a matter of\nbusiness. if you think that it is in the best interests of your\nclient that these letters should be placed in the hands of the earl,\nthen you would indeed be foolish to pay so large a sum of money to\nregain them.\" he rose and seized his astrachan coat.\nholmes was grey with anger and mortification.\n\"wait a little,\" he said. \"you go too fast. we would certainly make\nevery effort to avoid scandal in so delicate a matter.\"\nmilverton relapsed into his chair.\n\"i was sure that you would see it in that light,\" he purred.\n\"at the same time,\" holmes continued, \"lady eva is not a wealthy\nwoman. i assure you that two thousand pounds would be a drain upon\nher resources, and that the sum you name is utterly beyond her power.\ni beg, therefore, that you will moderate your demands, and that you\nwill return the letters at the price i indicate, which is, i assure\nyou, the highest that you can get.\"\nmilverton's smile broadened and his eyes twinkled humorously.\n\"i am aware that what you say is true about the lady's resources,\"\nsaid he. \"at the same time, you must admit that the occasion of a\nlady's marriage is a very suitable time for her friends and relatives\nto make some little effort upon her behalf. they may hesitate as to\nan acceptable wedding present. let me assure them that this little\nbundle of letters would give more joy than all the candelabra and\nbutter-dishes in london.\"\n\"it is impossible,\" said holmes.\n\"dear me, dear me, how unfortunate!\" cried milverton, taking out a\nbulky pocket-book. \"i cannot help thinking that ladies are\nill-advised in not making an effort. look at this!\" he held up a\nlittle note with a coat-of-arms upon the envelope. \"that belongs\nto--well, perhaps it is hardly fair to tell the name until to-morrow\nmorning. but at that time it will be in the hands of the lady's\nhusband. and all because she will not find a beggarly sum which she\ncould get by turning her diamonds into paste. it is such a pity. now,\nyou remember the sudden end of the engagement between the honourable\nmiss miles and colonel dorking? only two days before the wedding\nthere was a paragraph in the morning post to say that it was all off.\nand why? it is almost incredible, but the absurd sum of twelve\nhundred pounds would have settled the whole question. is it not\npitiful? and here i find you, a man of sense, boggling about terms\nwhen your client's future and honour are at stake. you surprise me,\nmr. holmes.\"\n\"what i say is true,\" holmes answered. \"the money cannot be found.\nsurely it is better for you to take the substantial sum which i offer\nthan to ruin this woman's career, which can profit you in no way?\"\n\"there you make a mistake, mr. holmes. an exposure would profit me\nindirectly to a considerable extent. i have eight or ten similar\ncases maturing. if it was circulated among them that i had made a\nsevere example of the lady eva i should find all of them much more\nopen to reason. you see my point?\"\nholmes sprang from his chair.\n\"get behind him, watson! don't let him out! now, sir, let us see the\ncontents of that note-book.\"\nmilverton had glided as quick as a rat to the side of the room, and\nstood with his back against the wall.\n\"mr. holmes, mr. holmes,\" he said, turning the front of his coat and\nexhibiting the butt of a large revolver, which projected from the\ninside pocket. \"i have been expecting you to do something original.\nthis has been done so often, and what good has ever come from it? i\nassure you that i am armed to the teeth, and i am perfectly prepared\nto use my weapons, knowing that the law will support me. besides,\nyour supposition that i would bring the letters here in a note-book\nis entirely mistaken. i would do nothing so foolish. and now,\ngentlemen, i have one or two little interviews this evening, and it\nis a long drive to hampstead.\" he stepped forward, took up his coat,\nlaid his hand on his revolver, and turned to the door. i picked up a\nchair, but holmes shook his head and i laid it down again. with bow,\na smile, and a twinkle milverton was out of the room, and a few\nmoments after we heard the slam of the carriage door and the rattle\nof the wheels as he drove away.\nholmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his\ntrouser pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon\nthe glowing embers. for half an hour he was silent and still. then,\nwith the gesture of a man who has taken his decision, he sprang to\nhis feet and passed into his bedroom. a little later a rakish young\nworkman with a goatee beard and a swagger lit his clay pipe at the\nlamp before descending into the street. \"i'll be back some time,\nwatson,\" said he, and vanished into the night. i understood that he\nhad opened his campaign against charles augustus milverton; but i\nlittle dreamed the strange shape which that campaign was destined to\ntake.\nfor some days holmes came and went at all hours in this attire, but\nbeyond a remark that his time was spent at hampstead, and that it was\nnot wasted, i knew nothing of what he was doing. at last, however, on\na wild, tempestuous evening, when the wind screamed and rattled\nagainst the windows, he returned from his last expedition, and having\nremoved his disguise he sat before the fire and laughed heartily in\nhis silent inward fashion.\n\"you would not call me a marrying man, watson?\"\n\"no, indeed!\"\n\"you'll be interested to hear that i am engaged.\"\n\"my dear fellow! i congrat--\"\n\"to milverton's housemaid.\"\n\"good heavens, holmes!\"\n\"i wanted information, watson.\"\n\"surely you have gone too far?\"\n\"it was a most necessary step. i am a plumber with a rising business,\nescott by name. i have walked out with her each evening, and i have\ntalked with her. good heavens, those talks! however, i have got all i\nwanted. i know milverton's house as i know the palm of my hand.\"\n\"but the girl, holmes?\"\nhe shrugged his shoulders.\n\"you can't help it, my dear watson. you must play your cards as best\nyou can when such a stake is on the table. however, i rejoice to say\nthat i have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant\nthat my back is turned. what a splendid night it is!\"\n\"you like this weather?\"\n\"it suits my purpose. watson, i mean to burgle milverton's house\nto-night.\"\ni had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words,\nwhich were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. as a\nflash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail\nof a wide landscape, so at one glance i seemed to see every possible\nresult of such an action--the detection, the capture, the honoured\ncareer ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself\nlying at the mercy of the odious milverton.\n\"for heaven's sake, holmes, think what you are doing,\" i cried.\n\"my dear fellow, i have given it every consideration. i am never\nprecipitate in my actions, nor would i adopt so energetic and indeed\nso dangerous a course if any other were possible. let us look at the\nmatter clearly and fairly. i suppose that you will admit that the\naction is morally justifiable, though technically criminal. to burgle\nhis house is no more than to forcibly take his pocket-book--an action\nin which you were prepared to aid me.\"\ni turned it over in my mind.\n\"yes,\" i said; \"it is morally justifiable so long as our object is to\ntake no articles save those which are used for an illegal purpose.\"\n\"exactly. since it is morally justifiable i have only to consider the\nquestion of personal risk. surely a gentleman should not lay much\nstress upon this when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?\"\n\"you will be in such a false position.\"\n\"well, that is part of the risk. there is no other possible way of\nregaining these letters. the unfortunate lady has not the money, and\nthere are none of her people in whom she could confide. to-morrow is\nthe last day of grace, and unless we can get the letters to-night\nthis villain will be as good as his word and will bring about her\nruin. i must, therefore, abandon my client to her fate or i must play\nthis last card. between ourselves, watson, it's a sporting duel\nbetween this fellow milverton and me. he had, as you saw, the best of\nthe first exchanges; but my self-respect and my reputation are\nconcerned to fight it to a finish.\"\n\"well, i don't like it; but i suppose it must be,\" said i. \"when do\nwe start?\"\n\"you are not coming.\"\n\"then you are not going,\" said i. \"i give you my word of honour--and\ni never broke it in my life--that i will take a cab straight to the\npolice-station and give you away unless you let me share this\nadventure with you.\"\n\"you can't help me.\"\n\"how do you know that? you can't tell what may happen. anyway, my\nresolution is taken. other people beside you have self-respect and\neven reputations.\"\nholmes had looked annoyed, but his brow cleared, and he clapped me on\nthe shoulder.\n\"well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. we have shared the same room\nfor some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the\nsame cell. you know, watson, i don't mind confessing to you that i\nhave always had an idea that i would have made a highly efficient\ncriminal. this is the chance of my lifetime in that direction. see\nhere!\" he took a neat little leather case out of a drawer, and\nopening it he exhibited a number of shining instruments. \"this is a\nfirst-class, up-to-date burgling kit, with nickel-plated jemmy,\ndiamond-tipped glass-cutter, adaptable keys, and every modern\nimprovement which the march of civilization demands. here, too, is my\ndark lantern. everything is in order. have you a pair of silent\nshoes?\"\n\"i have rubber-soled tennis shoes.\"\n\"excellent. and a mask?\"\n\"i can make a couple out of black silk.\"\n\"i can see that you have a strong natural turn for this sort of\nthing. very good; do you make the masks. we shall have some cold\nsupper before we start. it is now nine-thirty. at eleven we shall\ndrive as far as church row. it is a quarter of an hour's walk from\nthere to appledore towers. we shall be at work before midnight.\nmilverton is a heavy sleeper and retires punctually at ten-thirty.\nwith any luck we should be back here by two, with the lady eva's\nletters in my pocket.\"\nholmes and i put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to be\ntwo theatre-goers homeward bound. in oxford street we picked up a\nhansom and drove to an address in hampstead. here we paid off our\ncab, and with our great-coats buttoned up, for it was bitterly cold\nand the wind seemed to blow through us, we walked along the edge of\nthe heath.\n\"it's a business that needs delicate treatment,\" said holmes. \"these\ndocuments are contained in a safe in the fellow's study, and the\nstudy is the ante-room of his bed-chamber. on the other hand, like\nall these stout, little men who do themselves well, he is a plethoric\nsleeper. agatha--that's my fiancee--says it is a joke in the\nservants' hall that it's impossible to wake the master. he has a\nsecretary who is devoted to his interests and never budges from the\nstudy all day. that's why we are going at night. then he has a beast\nof a dog which roams the garden. i met agatha late the last two\nevenings, and she locks the brute up so as to give me a clear run.\nthis is the house, this big one in its own grounds. through the\ngate--now to the right among the laurels. we might put on our masks\nhere, i think. you see, there is not a glimmer of light in any of the\nwindows, and everything is working splendidly.\"\nwith our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the\nmost truculent figures in london, we stole up to the silent, gloomy\nhouse. a sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of it, lined\nby several windows and two doors.\n\"that's his bedroom,\" holmes whispered. \"this door opens straight\ninto the study. it would suit us best, but it is bolted as well as\nlocked, and we should make too much noise getting in. come round\nhere. there's a greenhouse which opens into the drawing-room.\"\nthe place was locked, but holmes removed a circle of glass and turned\nthe key from the inside. an instant afterwards he had closed the door\nbehind us, and we had become felons in the eyes of the law. the\nthick, warm air of the conservatory and the rich, choking fragrance\nof exotic plants took us by the throat. he seized my hand in the\ndarkness and led me swiftly past banks of shrubs which brushed\nagainst our faces. holmes had remarkable powers, carefully\ncultivated, of seeing in the dark. still holding my hand in one of\nhis he opened a door, and i was vaguely conscious that we had entered\na large room in which a cigar had been smoked not long before. he\nfelt his way among the furniture, opened another door, and closed it\nbehind us. putting out my hand i felt several coats hanging from the\nwall, and i understood that i was in a passage. we passed along it,\nand holmes very gently opened a door upon the right-hand side.\nsomething rushed out at us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but i\ncould have laughed when i realized that it was the cat. a fire was\nburning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with tobacco\nsmoke. holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and then\nvery gently closed the door. we were in milverton's study, and a\nportiere at the farther side showed the entrance to his bedroom.\nit was a good fire, and the room was illuminated by it. near the door\ni saw the gleam of an electric switch, but it was unnecessary, even\nif it had been safe, to turn it on. at one side of the fireplace was\na heavy curtain, which covered the bay window we had seen from\noutside. on the other side was the door which communicated with the\nveranda. a desk stood in the centre, with a turning chair of shining\nred leather. opposite was a large bookcase, with a marble bust of\nathene on the top. in the corner between the bookcase and the wall\nthere stood a tall green safe, the firelight flashing back from the\npolished brass knobs upon its face. holmes stole across and looked at\nit. then he crept to the door of the bedroom, and stood with slanting\nhead listening intently. no sound came from within. meanwhile it had\nstruck me that it would be wise to secure our retreat through the\nouter door, so i examined it. to my amazement it was neither locked\nnor bolted! i touched holmes on the arm, and he turned his masked\nface in that direction. i saw him start, and he was evidently as\nsurprised as i.\n\"i don't like it,\" he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear. \"i\ncan't quite make it out. anyhow, we have no time to lose.\"\n\"can i do anything?\"\n\"yes; stand by the door. if you hear anyone come, bolt it on the\ninside, and we can get away as we came. if they come the other way,\nwe can get through the door if our job is done, or hide behind these\nwindow curtains if it is not. do you understand?\"\ni nodded and stood by the door. my first feeling of fear had passed\naway, and i thrilled now with a keener zest than i had ever enjoyed\nwhen we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. the\nhigh object of our mission, the consciousness that it was unselfish\nand chivalrous, the villainous character of our opponent, all added\nto the sporting interest of the adventure. far from feeling guilty, i\nrejoiced and exulted in our dangers. with a glow of admiration i\nwatched holmes unrolling his case of instruments and choosing his\ntool with the calm, scientific accuracy of a surgeon who performs a\ndelicate operation. i knew that the opening of safes was a particular\nhobby with him, and i understood the joy which it gave him to be\nconfronted with this green and gold monster, the dragon which held in\nits maw the reputations of many fair ladies. turning up the cuffs of\nhis dress-coat--he had placed his overcoat on a chair--holmes laid\nout two drills, a jemmy, and several skeleton keys. i stood at the\ncentre door with my eyes glancing at each of the others, ready for\nany emergency; though, indeed, my plans were somewhat vague as to\nwhat i should do if we were interrupted. for half an hour holmes\nworked with concentrated energy, laying down one tool, picking up\nanother, handling each with the strength and delicacy of the trained\nmechanic. finally i heard a click, the broad green door swung open,\nand inside i had a glimpse of a number of paper packets, each tied,\nsealed, and inscribed. holmes picked one out, but it was hard to read\nby the flickering fire, and he drew out his little dark lantern, for\nit was too dangerous, with milverton in the next room, to switch on\nthe electric light. suddenly i saw him halt, listen intently, and\nthen in an instant he had swung the door of the safe to, picked up\nhis coat, stuffed his tools into the pockets, and darted behind the\nwindow curtain, motioning me to do the same.\nit was only when i had joined him there that i heard what had alarmed\nhis quicker senses. there was a noise somewhere within the house. a\ndoor slammed in the distance. then a confused, dull murmur broke\nitself into the measured thud of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching.\nthey were in the passage outside the room. they paused at the door.\nthe door opened. there was a sharp snick as the electric light was\nturned on. the door closed once more, and the pungent reek of a\nstrong cigar was borne to our nostrils. then the footsteps continued\nbackwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, within a few yards of\nus. finally, there was a creak from a chair, and the footsteps\nceased. then a key clicked in a lock and i heard the rustle of\npapers.\nso far i had not dared to look out, but now i gently parted the\ndivision of the curtains in front of me and peeped through. from the\npressure of holmes's shoulder against mine i knew that he was sharing\nmy observations. right in front of us, and almost within our reach,\nwas the broad, rounded back of milverton. it was evident that we had\nentirely miscalculated his movements, that he had never been to his\nbedroom, but that he had been sitting up in some smoking or billiard\nroom in the farther wing of the house, the windows of which we had\nnot seen. his broad, grizzled head, with its shining patch of\nbaldness, was in the immediate foreground of our vision. he was\nleaning far back in the red leather chair, his legs outstretched, a\nlong black cigar projecting at an angle from his mouth. he wore a\nsemi-military smoking jacket, claret-coloured, with a black velvet\ncollar. in his hand he held a long legal document, which he was\nreading in an indolent fashion, blowing rings of tobacco smoke from\nhis lips as he did so. there was no promise of a speedy departure in\nhis composed bearing and his comfortable attitude.\ni felt holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake,\nas if to say that the situation was within his powers and that he was\neasy in his mind. i was not sure whether he had seen what was only\ntoo obvious from my position, that the door of the safe was\nimperfectly closed, and that milverton might at any moment observe\nit. in my own mind i had determined that if i were sure, from the\nrigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his eye, i would at once\nspring out, throw my great-coat over his head, pinion him, and leave\nthe rest to holmes. but milverton never looked up. he was languidly\ninterested by the papers in his hand, and page after page was turned\nas he followed the argument of the lawyer. at least, i thought, when\nhe has finished the document and the cigar he will go to his room;\nbut before he had reached the end of either there came a remarkable\ndevelopment which turned our thoughts into quite another channel.\nseveral times i had observed that milverton looked at his watch, and\nonce he had risen and sat down again, with a gesture of impatience.\nthe idea, however, that he might have an appointment at so strange an\nhour never occurred to me until a faint sound reached my ears from\nthe veranda outside. milverton dropped his papers and sat rigid in\nhis chair. the sound was repeated, and then there came a gentle tap\nat the door. milverton rose and opened it.\n\"well,\" said he, curtly, \"you are nearly half an hour late.\"\nso this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the nocturnal\nvigil of milverton. there was the gentle rustle of a woman's dress. i\nhad closed the slit between the curtains as milverton's face had\nturned in our direction, but now i ventured very carefully to open it\nonce more. he had resumed his seat, the cigar still projecting at an\ninsolent angle from the corner of his mouth. in front of him, in the\nfull glare of the electric light, there stood a tall, slim, dark\nwoman, a veil over her face, a mantle drawn round her chin. her\nbreath came quick and fast, and every inch of the lithe figure was\nquivering with strong emotion.\n\"well,\" said milverton, \"you've made me lose a good night's rest, my\ndear. i hope you'll prove worth it. you couldn't come any other\ntime--eh?\"\nthe woman shook her head.\n\"well, if you couldn't you couldn't. if the countess is a hard\nmistress you have your chance to get level with her now. bless the\ngirl, what are you shivering about? that's right! pull yourself\ntogether! now, let us get down to business.\" he took a note from the\ndrawer of his desk. \"you say that you have five letters which\ncompromise the countess d'albert. you want to sell them. i want to\nbuy them. so far so good. it only remains to fix a price. i should\nwant to inspect the letters, of course. if they are really good\nspecimens--great heavens, is it you?\"\nthe woman without a word had raised her veil and dropped the mantle\nfrom her chin. it was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face which\nconfronted milverton, a face with a curved nose, strong, dark\neyebrows shading hard, glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped\nmouth set in a dangerous smile.\n\"it is i,\" she said; \"the woman whose life you have ruined.\"\nmilverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. \"you were so very\nobstinate,\" said he. \"why did you drive me to such extremities? i\nassure you i wouldn't hurt a fly of my own accord, but every man has\nhis business, and what was i to do? i put the price well within your\nmeans. you would not pay.\"\n\"so you sent the letters to my husband, and he--the noblest gentleman\nthat ever lived, a man whose boots i was never worthy to lace--he\nbroke his gallant heart and died. you remember that last night when i\ncame through that door i begged and prayed you for mercy, and you\nlaughed in my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward\nheart cannot keep your lips from twitching? yes, you never thought to\nsee me here again, but it was that night which taught me how i could\nmeet you face to face, and alone. well, charles milverton, what have\nyou to say?\"\n\"don't imagine that you can bully me,\" said he, rising to his feet.\n\"i have only to raise my voice, and i could call my servants and have\nyou arrested. but i will make allowance for your natural anger. leave\nthe room at once as you came, and i will say no more.\"\nthe woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same\ndeadly smile on her thin lips.\n\"you will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. you will wring no\nmore hearts as you wrung mine. i will free the world of a poisonous\nthing. take that, you hound, and that!--and that!--and that!\"\nshe had drawn a little, gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after\nbarrel into milverton's body, the muzzle within two feet of his shirt\nfront. he shrank away and then fell forward upon the table, coughing\nfuriously and clawing among the papers. then he staggered to his\nfeet, received another shot, and rolled upon the floor. \"you've done\nme,\" he cried, and lay still. the woman looked at him intently and\nground her heel into his upturned face. she looked again, but there\nwas no sound or movement. i heard a sharp rustle, the night air blew\ninto the heated room, and the avenger was gone.\nno interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate;\nbut as the woman poured bullet after bullet into milverton's\nshrinking body i was about to spring out, when i felt holmes's cold,\nstrong grasp upon my wrist. i understood the whole argument of that\nfirm, restraining grip--that it was no affair of ours; that justice\nhad overtaken a villain; that we had our own duties and our own\nobjects which were not to be lost sight of. but hardly had the woman\nrushed from the room when holmes, with swift, silent steps, was over\nat the other door. he turned the key in the lock. at the same instant\nwe heard voices in the house and the sound of hurrying feet. the\nrevolver shots had roused the household. with perfect coolness holmes\nslipped across to the safe, filled his two arms with bundles of\nletters, and poured them all into the fire. again and again he did\nit, until the safe was empty. someone turned the handle and beat upon\nthe outside of the door. holmes looked swiftly round. the letter\nwhich had been the messenger of death for milverton lay, all mottled\nwith his blood, upon the table. holmes tossed it in among the blazing\npapers. then he drew the key from the outer door, passed through\nafter me, and locked it on the outside. \"this way, watson,\" said he;\n\"we can scale the garden wall in this direction.\"\ni could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so swiftly.\nlooking back, the huge house was one blaze of light. the front door\nwas open, and figures were rushing down the drive. the whole garden\nwas alive with people, and one fellow raised a view-halloa as we\nemerged from the veranda and followed hard at our heels. holmes\nseemed to know the ground perfectly, and he threaded his way swiftly\namong a plantation of small trees, i close at his heels, and our\nforemost pursuer panting behind us. it was a six-foot wall which\nbarred our path, but he sprang to the top and over. as i did the same\ni felt the hand of the man behind me grab at my ankle; but i kicked\nmyself free and scrambled over a glass-strewn coping. i fell upon my\nface among some bushes; but holmes had me on my feet in an instant,\nand together we dashed away across the huge expanse of hampstead\nheath. we had run two miles, i suppose, before holmes at last halted\nand listened intently. all was absolute silence behind us. we had\nshaken off our pursuers and were safe.\nwe had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe on the day after\nthe remarkable experience which i have recorded when mr. lestrade, of\nscotland yard, very solemn and impressive, was ushered into our\nmodest sitting-room.\n\"good morning, mr. holmes,\" said he; \"good morning. may i ask if you\nare very busy just now?\"\n\"not too busy to listen to you.\"\n\"i thought that, perhaps, if you had nothing particular on hand, you\nmight care to assist us in a most remarkable case which occurred only\nlast night at hampstead.\"\n\"dear me!\" said holmes. \"what was that?\"\n\"a murder--a most dramatic and remarkable murder. i know how keen you\nare upon these things, and i would take it as a great favour if you\nwould step down to appledore towers and give us the benefit of your\nadvice. it is no ordinary crime. we have had our eyes upon this mr.\nmilverton for some time, and, between ourselves, he was a bit of a\nvillain. he is known to have held papers which he used for\nblackmailing purposes. these papers have all been burned by the\nmurderers. no article of value was taken, as it is probable that the\ncriminals were men of good position, whose sole object was to prevent\nsocial exposure.\"\n\"criminals!\" said holmes. \"plural!\"\n\"yes, there were two of them. they were, as nearly as possible,\ncaptured red-handed. we have their foot-marks, we have their\ndescription; it's ten to one that we trace them. the first fellow was\na bit too active, but the second was caught by the under-gardener and\nonly got away after a struggle. he was a middle-sized, strongly-built\nman--square jaw, thick neck, moustache, a mask over his eyes.\"\n\"that's rather vague,\" said sherlock holmes. \"why, it might be a\ndescription of watson!\"\n\"it's true,\" said the inspector, with much amusement. \"it might be a\ndescription of watson.\"\n\"well, i am afraid i can't help you, lestrade,\" said holmes. \"the\nfact is that i knew this fellow milverton, that i considered him one\nof the most dangerous men in london, and that i think there are\ncertain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to\nsome extent, justify private revenge. no, it's no use arguing. i have\nmade up my mind. my sympathies are with the criminals rather than\nwith the victim, and i will not handle this case.\"\nholmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had\nwitnessed, but i observed all the morning that he was in his most\nthoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant eyes\nand his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to recall\nsomething to his memory. we were in the middle of our lunch when he\nsuddenly sprang to his feet. \"by jove, watson; i've got it!\" he\ncried. \"take your hat! come with me!\" he hurried at his top speed\ndown baker street and along oxford street, until we had almost\nreached regent circus. here on the left hand there stands a shop\nwindow filled with photographs of the celebrities and beauties of the\nday. holmes's eyes fixed themselves upon one of them, and following\nhis gaze i saw the picture of a regal and stately lady in court\ndress, with a high diamond tiara upon her noble head. i looked at\nthat delicately-curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight\nmouth, and the strong little chin beneath it. then i caught my breath\nas i read the time-honoured title of the great nobleman and statesman\nwhose wife she had been. my eyes met those of holmes, and he put his\nfinger to his lips as we turned away from the window.\nthe adventure of the six napoleons\nit was no very unusual thing for mr. lestrade, of scotland yard, to\nlook in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to\nsherlock holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that\nwas going on at the police head-quarters. in return for the news\nwhich lestrade would bring, holmes was always ready to listen with\nattention to the details of any case upon which the detective was\nengaged, and was able occasionally, without any active interference,\nto give some hint or suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and\nexperience.\non this particular evening lestrade had spoken of the weather and the\nnewspapers. then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his\ncigar. holmes looked keenly at him.\n\"anything remarkable on hand?\" he asked.\n\"oh, no, mr. holmes, nothing very particular.\"\n\"then tell me about it.\"\nlestrade laughed.\n\"well, mr. holmes, there is no use denying that there is something on\nmy mind. and yet it is such an absurd business that i hesitated to\nbother you about it. on the other hand, although it is trivial, it is\nundoubtedly queer, and i know that you have a taste for all that is\nout of the common. but in my opinion it comes more in dr. watson's\nline than ours.\"\n\"disease?\" said i.\n\"madness, anyhow. and a queer madness too! you wouldn't think there\nwas anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of\nnapoleon the first that he would break any image of him that he could\nsee.\"\nholmes sank back in his chair.\n\"that's no business of mine,\" said he.\n\"exactly. that's what i said. but then, when the man commits burglary\nin order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away\nfrom the doctor and on to the policeman.\"\nholmes sat up again.\n\"burglary! this is more interesting. let me hear the details.\"\nlestrade took out his official note-book and refreshed his memory\nfrom its pages.\n\"the first case reported was four days ago,\" said he. \"it was at the\nshop of morse hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and\nstatues in the kennington road. the assistant had left the front shop\nfor an instant when he heard a crash, and hurrying in he found a\nplaster bust of napoleon, which stood with several other works of art\nupon the counter, lying shivered into fragments. he rushed out into\nthe road, but, although several passers-by declared that they had\nnoticed a man run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor\ncould he find any means of identifying the rascal. it seemed to be\none of those senseless acts of hooliganism which occur from time to\ntime, and it was reported to the constable on the beat as such. the\nplaster cast was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole\naffair appeared to be too childish for any particular investigation.\n\"the second case, however, was more serious and also more singular.\nit occurred only last night.\n\"in kennington road, and within a few hundred yards of morse hudson's\nshop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner, named dr.\nbarnicot, who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of\nthe thames. his residence and principal consulting-room is at\nkennington road, but he has a branch surgery and dispensary at lower\nbrixton road, two miles away. this dr. barnicot is an enthusiastic\nadmirer of napoleon, and his house is full of books, pictures, and\nrelics of the french emperor. some little time ago he purchased from\nmorse hudson two duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of\nnapoleon by the french sculptor, devine. one of these he placed in\nhis hall in the house at kennington road, and the other on the\nmantelpiece of the surgery at lower brixton. well, when dr. barnicot\ncame down this morning he was astonished to find that his house had\nbeen burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save\nthe plaster head from the hall. it had been carried out and had been\ndashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its splintered\nfragments were discovered.\"\nholmes rubbed his hands.\n\"this is certainly very novel,\" said he.\n\"i thought it would please you. but i have not got to the end yet.\ndr. barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o'clock, and you can\nimagine his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the\nwindow had been opened in the night, and that the broken pieces of\nhis second bust were strewn all over the room. it had been smashed to\natoms where it stood. in neither case were there any signs which\ncould give us a clue as to the criminal or lunatic who had done the\nmischief. now, mr. holmes, you have got the facts.\"\n\"they are singular, not to say grotesque,\" said holmes. \"may i ask\nwhether the two busts smashed in dr. barnicot's rooms were the exact\nduplicates of the one which was destroyed in morse hudson's shop?\"\n\"they were taken from the same mould.\"\n\"such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks\nthem is influenced by any general hatred of napoleon. considering how\nmany hundreds of statues of the great emperor must exist in london,\nit is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous\niconoclast should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same\nbust.\"\n\"well, i thought as you do,\" said lestrade. \"on the other hand, this\nmorse hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of london, and\nthese three were the only ones which had been in his shop for years.\nso, although, as you say, there are many hundreds of statues in\nlondon, it is very probable that these three were the only ones in\nthat district. therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them. what\ndo you think, dr. watson?\"\n\"there are no limits to the possibilities of monomania,\" i answered.\n\"there is the condition which the modern french psychologists have\ncalled the 'ide fixe,' which may be trifling in character, and\naccompanied by complete sanity in every other way. a man who had read\ndeeply about napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary\nfamily injury through the great war, might conceivably form such an\nide fixe and under its influence be capable of any fantastic\noutrage.\"\n\"that won't do, my dear watson,\" said holmes, shaking his head; \"for\nno amount of ide fixe would enable your interesting monomaniac to\nfind out where these busts were situated.\"\n\"well, how do you explain it?\"\n\"i don't attempt to do so. i would only observe that there is a\ncertain method in the gentleman's eccentric proceedings. for example,\nin dr. barnicot's hall, where a sound might arouse the family, the\nbust was taken outside before being broken, whereas in the surgery,\nwhere there was less danger of an alarm, it was smashed where it\nstood. the affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet i dare call\nnothing trivial when i reflect that some of my most classic cases\nhave had the least promising commencement. you will remember, watson,\nhow the dreadful business of the abernetty family was first brought\nto my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter\nupon a hot day. i can't afford, therefore, to smile at your three\nbroken busts, lestrade, and i shall be very much obliged to you if\nyou will let me hear of any fresh developments of so singular a chain\nof events.\"\nthe development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker and\nan infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined. i was\nstill dressing in my bedroom next morning when there was a tap at the\ndoor and holmes entered, a telegram in his hand. he read it aloud:\n\"come instantly, 131, pitt street, kensington.\n\"lestrade.\"\n\"what is it, then?\" i asked.\n\"don't know--may be anything. but i suspect it is the sequel of the\nstory of the statues. in that case our friend, the image-breaker, has\nbegun operations in another quarter of london. there's coffee on the\ntable, watson, and i have a cab at the door.\"\nin half an hour we had reached pitt street, a quiet little backwater\njust beside one of the briskest currents of london life. no. 131 was\none of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, and most unromantic\ndwellings. as we drove up we found the railings in front of the house\nlined by a curious crowd. holmes whistled.\n\"by george! it's attempted murder at the least. nothing less will\nhold the london message-boy. there's a deed of violence indicated in\nthat fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck. what's this,\nwatson? the top steps swilled down and the other ones dry. footsteps\nenough, anyhow! well, well, there's lestrade at the front window, and\nwe shall soon know all about it.\"\nthe official received us with a very grave face and showed us into a\nsitting-room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated elderly man,\nclad in a flannel dressing-gown, was pacing up and down. he was\nintroduced to us as the owner of the house--mr. horace harker, of the\ncentral press syndicate.\n\"it's the napoleon bust business again,\" said lestrade. \"you seemed\ninterested last night, mr. holmes, so i thought perhaps you would be\nglad to be present now that the affair has taken a very much graver\nturn.\"\n\"what has it turned to, then?\"\n\"to murder. mr. harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what\nhas occurred?\"\nthe man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy\nface.\n\"it's an extraordinary thing,\" said he, \"that all my life i have been\ncollecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has\ncome my own way i am so confused and bothered that i can't put two\nwords together. if i had come in here as a journalist i should have\ninterviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper. as it\nis i am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over\nto a string of different people, and i can make no use of it myself.\nhowever, i've heard your name, mr. sherlock holmes, and if you'll\nonly explain this queer business i shall be paid for my trouble in\ntelling you the story.\"\nholmes sat down and listened.\n\"it all seems to centre round that bust of napoleon which i bought\nfor this very room about four months ago. i picked it up cheap from\nharding brothers, two doors from the high street station. a great\ndeal of my journalistic work is done at night, and i often write\nuntil the early morning. so it was to-day. i was sitting in my den,\nwhich is at the back of the top of the house, about three o'clock,\nwhen i was convinced that i heard some sounds downstairs. i listened,\nbut they were not repeated, and i concluded that they came from\noutside. then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most\nhorrible yell--the most dreadful sound, mr. holmes, that ever i\nheard. it will ring in my ears as long as i live. i sat frozen with\nhorror for a minute or two. then i seized the poker and went\ndownstairs. when i entered this room i found the window wide open,\nand i at once observed that the bust was gone from the mantelpiece.\nwhy any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for\nit was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever.\n\"you can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open\nwindow could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. this\nwas clearly what the burglar had done, so i went round and opened the\ndoor. stepping out into the dark i nearly fell over a dead man who\nwas lying there. i ran back for a light, and there was the poor\nfellow, a great gash in his throat and the whole place swimming in\nblood. he lay on his back, his knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly\nopen. i shall see him in my dreams. i had just time to blow on my\npolice-whistle, and then i must have fainted, for i knew nothing more\nuntil i found the policeman standing over me in the hall.\"\n\"well, who was the murdered man?\" asked holmes.\n\"there's nothing to show who he was,\" said lestrade. \"you shall see\nthe body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now.\nhe is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. he\nis poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. a\nhorn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him.\nwhether it was the weapon which did the deed, or whether it belonged\nto the dead man, i do not know. there was no name on his clothing,\nand nothing in his pockets save an apple, some string, a shilling map\nof london, and a photograph. here it is.\"\nit was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera. it\nrepresented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows,\nand a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the\nmuzzle of a baboon.\n\"and what became of the bust?\" asked holmes, after a careful study of\nthis picture.\n\"we had news of it just before you came. it has been found in the\nfront garden of an empty house in campden house road. it was broken\ninto fragments. i am going round now to see it. will you come?\"\n\"certainly. i must just take one look round.\" he examined the carpet\nand the window. \"the fellow had either very long legs or was a most\nactive man,\" said he. \"with an area beneath, it was no mean feat to\nreach that window-ledge and open that window. getting back was\ncomparatively simple. are you coming with us to see the remains of\nyour bust, mr. harker?\"\nthe disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.\n\"i must try and make something of it,\" said he, \"though i have no\ndoubt that the first editions of the evening papers are out already\nwith full details. it's like my luck! you remember when the stand\nfell at doncaster? well, i was the only journalist in the stand, and\nmy journal the only one that had no account of it, for i was too\nshaken to write it. and now i'll be too late with a murder done on my\nown doorstep.\"\nas we left the room we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the\nfoolscap.\nthe spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a\nfew hundred yards away. for the first time our eyes rested upon this\npresentment of the great emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic\nand destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown. it lay scattered\nin splintered shards upon the grass. holmes picked up several of them\nand examined them carefully. i was convinced from his intent face and\nhis purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.\n\"well?\" asked lestrade.\nholmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"we have a long way to go yet,\" said he. \"and yet--and yet--well, we\nhave some suggestive facts to act upon. the possession of this\ntrifling bust was worth more in the eyes of this strange criminal\nthan a human life. that is one point. then there is the singular fact\nthat he did not break it in the house, or immediately outside the\nhouse, if to break it was his sole object.\"\n\"he was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. he hardly\nknew what he was doing.\"\n\"well, that's likely enough. but i wish to call your attention very\nparticularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the\nbust was destroyed.\"\nlestrade looked about him.\n\"it was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed\nin the garden.\"\n\"yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he\nmust have passed before he came to this one. why did he not break it\nthere, since it is evident that every yard that he carried it\nincreased the risk of someone meeting him?\"\n\"i give it up,\" said lestrade.\nholmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.\n\"he could see what he was doing here and he could not there. that was\nhis reason.\"\n\"by jove! that's true,\" said the detective. \"now that i come to think\nof it, dr. barnicot's bust was broken not far from his red lamp.\nwell, mr. holmes, what are we to do with that fact?\"\n\"to remember it--to docket it. we may come on something later which\nwill bear upon it. what steps do you propose to take now, lestrade?\"\n\"the most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to\nidentify the dead man. there should be no difficulty about that. when\nwe have found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a\ngood start in learning what he was doing in pitt street last night,\nand who it was who met him and killed him on the doorstep of mr.\nhorace harker. don't you think so?\"\n\"no doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which i should approach\nthe case.\"\n\"what would you do, then?\"\n\"oh, you must not let me influence you in any way! i suggest that you\ngo on your line and i on mine. we can compare notes afterwards, and\neach will supplement the other.\"\n\"very good,\" said lestrade.\n\"if you are going back to pitt street you might see mr. horace\nharker. tell him from me that i have quite made up my mind, and that\nit is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with napoleonic\ndelusions was in his house last night. it will be useful for his\narticle.\"\nlestrade stared.\n\"you don't seriously believe that?\"\nholmes smiled.\n\"don't i? well, perhaps i don't. but i am sure that it will interest\nmr. horace harker and the subscribers of the central press syndicate.\nnow, watson, i think that we shall find that we have a long and\nrather complex day's work before us. i should be glad, lestrade, if\nyou could make it convenient to meet us at baker street at six\no'clock this evening. until then i should like to keep this\nphotograph found in the dead man's pocket. it is possible that i may\nhave to ask your company and assistance upon a small expedition which\nwill have be undertaken to-night, if my chain of reasoning should\nprove to be correct. until then, good-bye and good luck!\"\nsherlock holmes and i walked together to the high street, where he\nstopped at the shop of harding brothers, whence the bust had been\npurchased. a young assistant informed us that mr. harding would be\nabsent until after noon, and that he was himself a newcomer who could\ngive us no information. holmes's face showed his disappointment and\nannoyance.\n\"well, well, we can't expect to have it all our own way, watson,\" he\nsaid, at last. \"we must come back in the afternoon if mr. harding\nwill not be here until then. i am, as you have no doubt surmised,\nendeavouring to trace these busts to their source, in order to find\nif there is not something peculiar which may account for their\nremarkable fate. let us make for mr. morse hudson, of the kennington\nroad, and see if he can throw any light upon the problem.\"\na drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer's establishment.\nhe was a small, stout man with a red face and a peppery manner.\n\"yes, sir. on my very counter, sir,\" said he. \"what we pay rates and\ntaxes for i don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's\ngoods. yes, sir, it was i who sold dr. barnicot his two statues.\ndisgraceful, sir! a nihilist plot, that's what i make it. no one but\nan anarchist would go about breaking statues. red republicans, that's\nwhat i call 'em. who did i get the statues from? i don't see what\nthat has to do with it. well, if you really want to know, i got them\nfrom gelder & co., in church street, stepney. they are a well-known\nhouse in the trade, and have been this twenty years. how many had i?\nthree--two and one are three--two of dr. barnicot's and one smashed\nin broad daylight on my own counter. do i know that photograph? no, i\ndon't. yes, i do, though. why, it's beppo. he was a kind of italian\npiece-work man, who made himself useful in the shop. he could carve a\nbit and gild and frame, and do odd jobs. the fellow left me last\nweek, and i've heard nothing of him since. no, i don't know where he\ncame from nor where he went to. i have nothing against him while he\nwas here. he was gone two days before the bust was smashed.\"\n\"well, that's all we could reasonably expect to get from morse\nhudson,\" said holmes, as we emerged from the shop. \"we have this\nbeppo as a common factor, both in kennington and in kensington, so\nthat is worth a ten-mile drive. now, watson, let us make for gelder &\nco., of stepney, the source and origin of busts. i shall be surprised\nif we don't get some help down there.\"\nin rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable\nlondon, hotel london, theatrical london, literary london, commercial\nlondon, and, finally, maritime london, till we came to a riverside\ncity of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter\nand reek with the outcasts of europe. here, in a broad thoroughfare,\nonce the abode of wealthy city merchants, we found the sculpture\nworks for which we searched. outside was a considerable yard full of\nmonumental masonry. inside was a large room in which fifty workers\nwere carving or moulding. the manager, a big blond german, received\nus civilly, and gave a clear answer to all holmes's questions. a\nreference to his books showed that hundreds of casts had been taken\nfrom a marble copy of devine's head of napoleon, but that the three\nwhich had been sent to morse hudson a year or so before had been half\nof a batch of six, the other three being sent to harding brothers, of\nkensington. there was no reason why those six should be different to\nany of the other casts. he could suggest no possible cause why anyone\nshould wish to destroy them--in fact, he laughed at the idea. their\nwholesale price was six shillings, but the retailer would get twelve\nor more. the cast was taken in two moulds from each side of the face,\nand then these two profiles of plaster of paris were joined together\nto make the complete bust. the work was usually done by italians in\nthe room we were in. when finished the busts were put on a table in\nthe passage to dry, and afterwards stored. that was all he could tell\nus.\nbut the production of the photograph had a remarkable effect upon the\nmanager. his face flushed with anger, and his brows knotted over his\nblue teutonic eyes.\n\"ah, the rascal!\" he cried. \"yes, indeed, i know him very well. this\nhas always been a respectable establishment, and the only time that\nwe have ever had the police in it was over this very fellow. it was\nmore than a year ago now. he knifed another italian in the street,\nand then he came to the works with the police on his heels, and he\nwas taken here. beppo was his name--his second name i never knew.\nserve me right for engaging a man with such a face. but he was a good\nworkman, one of the best.\"\n\"what did he get?\"\n\"the man lived and he got off with a year. i have no doubt he is out\nnow; but he has not dared to show his nose here. we have a cousin of\nhis here, and i dare say he could tell you where he is.\"\n\"no, no,\" cried holmes, \"not a word to the cousin--not a word, i beg\nyou. the matter is very important, and the farther i go with it the\nmore important it seems to grow. when you referred in your ledger to\nthe sale of those casts i observed that the date was june 3rd of last\nyear. could you give me the date when beppo was arrested?\"\n\"i could tell you roughly by the pay-list,\" the manager answered.\n\"yes,\" he continued, after some turning over of pages, \"he was paid\nlast on may 20th.\"\n\"thank you,\" said holmes. \"i don't think that i need intrude upon\nyour time and patience any more.\" with a last word of caution that he\nshould say nothing as to our researches we turned our faces westward\nonce more.\nthe afternoon was far advanced before we were able to snatch a hasty\nluncheon at a restaurant. a news-bill at the entrance announced\n\"kensington outrage. murder by a madman,\" and the contents of the\npaper showed that mr. horace harker had got his account into print\nafter all. two columns were occupied with a highly sensational and\nflowery rendering of the whole incident. holmes propped it against\nthe cruet-stand and read it while he ate. once or twice he chuckled.\n\"this is all right, watson,\" said he. \"listen to this:\n\"it is satisfactory to know that there can be no difference of\nopinion upon this case, since mr. lestrade, one of the most\nexperienced members of the official force, and mr. sherlock holmes,\nthe well-known consulting expert, have each come to the conclusion\nthat the grotesque series of incidents, which have ended in so tragic\na fashion, arise from lunacy rather than from deliberate crime. no\nexplanation save mental aberration can cover the facts.\n\"the press, watson, is a most valuable institution if you only know\nhow to use it. and now, if you have quite finished, we will hark back\nto kensington and see what the manager of harding brothers has to say\nto the matter.\"\nthe founder of that great emporium proved to be a brisk, crisp little\nperson, very dapper and quick, with a clear head and a ready tongue.\n\"yes, sir, i have already read the account in the evening papers. mr.\nhorace harker is a customer of ours. we supplied him with the bust\nsome months ago. we ordered three busts of that sort from gelder &\nco., of stepney. they are all sold now. to whom? oh, i dare say by\nconsulting our sales book we could very easily tell you. yes, we have\nthe entries here. one to mr. harker, you see, and one to mr. josiah\nbrown, of laburnum lodge, laburnum vale, chiswick, and one to mr.\nsandeford, of lower grove road, reading. no, i have never seen this\nface which you show me in the photograph. you would hardly forget it,\nwould you, sir, for i've seldom seen an uglier. have we any italians\non the staff? yes, sir, we have several among our workpeople and\ncleaners. i dare say they might get a peep at that sales book if they\nwanted to. there is no particular reason for keeping a watch upon\nthat book. well, well, it's a very strange business, and i hope that\nyou'll let me know if anything comes of your inquiries.\"\nholmes had taken several notes during mr. harding's evidence, and i\ncould see that he was thoroughly satisfied by the turn which affairs\nwere taking. he made no remark, however, save that, unless we\nhurried, we should be late for our appointment with lestrade. sure\nenough, when we reached baker street the detective was already there,\nand we found him pacing up and down in a fever of impatience. his\nlook of importance showed that his day's work had not been in vain.\n\"well?\" he asked. \"what luck, mr. holmes?\"\n\"we have had a very busy day, and not entirely a wasted one,\" my\nfriend explained. \"we have seen both the retailers and also the\nwholesale manufacturers. i can trace each of the busts now from the\nbeginning.\"\n\"the busts!\" cried lestrade. \"well, well, you have your own methods,\nmr. sherlock holmes, and it is not for me to say a word against them,\nbut i think i have done a better day's work than you. i have\nidentified the dead man.\"\n\"you don't say so?\"\n\"and found a cause for the crime.\"\n\"splendid!\"\n\"we have an inspector who makes a specialty of saffron hill and the\nitalian quarter. well, this dead man had some catholic emblem round\nhis neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he was from\nthe south. inspector hill knew him the moment he caught sight of him.\nhis name is pietro venucci, from naples, and he is one of the\ngreatest cut-throats in london. he is connected with the mafia,\nwhich, as you know, is a secret political society, enforcing its\ndecrees by murder. now you see how the affair begins to clear up. the\nother fellow is probably an italian also, and a member of the mafia.\nhe has broken the rules in some fashion. pietro is set upon his\ntrack. probably the photograph we found in his pocket is the man\nhimself, so that he may not knife the wrong person. he dogs the\nfellow, he sees him enter a house, he waits outside for him, and in\nthe scuffle he receives his own death-wound. how is that, mr.\nsherlock holmes?\"\nholmes clapped his hands approvingly.\n\"excellent, lestrade, excellent!\" he cried. \"but i didn't quite\nfollow your explanation of the destruction of the busts.\"\n\"the busts! you never can get those busts out of your head. after\nall, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. it is\nthe murder that we are really investigating, and i tell you that i am\ngathering all the threads into my hands.\"\n\"and the next stage?\"\n\"is a very simple one. i shall go down with hill to the italian\nquarter, find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest him on\nthe charge of murder. will you come with us?\"\n\"i think not. i fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. i can't\nsay for certain, because it all depends--well, it all depends upon a\nfactor which is completely outside our control. but i have great\nhopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will\ncome with us to-night i shall be able to help you to lay him by the\nheels.\"\n\"in the italian quarter?\"\n\"no; i fancy chiswick is an address which is more likely to find him.\nif you will come with me to chiswick to-night, lestrade, i'll promise\nto go to the italian quarter with you to-morrow, and no harm will be\ndone by the delay. and now i think that a few hours' sleep would do\nus all good, for i do not propose to leave before eleven o'clock, and\nit is unlikely that we shall be back before morning. you'll dine with\nus, lestrade, and then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time\nfor us to start. in the meantime, watson, i should be glad if you\nwould ring for an express messenger, for i have a letter to send, and\nit is important that it should go at once.\"\nholmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old\ndaily papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. when at\nlast he descended it was with triumph in his eyes, but he said\nnothing to either of us as to the result of his researches. for my\nown part, i had followed step by step the methods by which he had\ntraced the various windings of this complex case, and, though i could\nnot yet perceive the goal which we would reach, i understood clearly\nthat holmes expected this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon\nthe two remaining busts, one of which, i remembered, was at chiswick.\nno doubt the object of our journey was to catch him in the very act,\nand i could not but admire the cunning with which my friend had\ninserted a wrong clue in the evening paper, so as to give the fellow\nthe idea that he could continue his scheme with impunity. i was not\nsurprised when holmes suggested that i should take my revolver with\nme. he had himself picked up the loaded hunting-crop which was his\nfavourite weapon.\na four-wheeler was at the door at eleven, and in it we drove to a\nspot at the other side of hammersmith bridge. here the cabman was\ndirected to wait. a short walk brought us to a secluded road fringed\nwith pleasant houses, each standing in its own grounds. in the light\nof a street lamp we read \"laburnum villa\" upon the gate-post of one\nof them. the occupants had evidently retired to rest, for all was\ndark save for a fanlight over the hall door, which shed a single\nblurred circle on to the garden path. the wooden fence which\nseparated the grounds from the road threw a dense black shadow upon\nthe inner side, and here it was that we crouched.\n\"i fear that you'll have a long wait,\" holmes whispered. \"we may\nthank our stars that it is not raining. i don't think we can even\nventure to smoke to pass the time. however, it's a two to one chance\nthat we get something to pay us for our trouble.\"\nit proved, however, that our vigil was not to be so long as holmes\nhad led us to fear, and it ended in a very sudden and singular\nfashion. in an instant, without the least sound to warn us of his\ncoming, the garden gate swung open, and a lithe, dark figure, as\nswift and active as an ape, rushed up the garden path. we saw it\nwhisk past the light thrown from over the door and disappear against\nthe black shadow of the house. there was a long pause, during which\nwe held our breath, and then a very gentle creaking sound came to our\nears. the window was being opened. the noise ceased, and again there\nwas a long silence. the fellow was making his way into the house. we\nsaw the sudden flash of a dark lantern inside the room. what he\nsought was evidently not there, for again we saw the flash through\nanother blind, and then through another.\n\"let us get to the open window. we will nab him as he climbs out,\"\nlestrade whispered.\nbut before we could move the man had emerged again. as he came out\ninto the glimmering patch of light we saw that he carried something\nwhite under his arm. he looked stealthily all round him. the silence\nof the deserted street reassured him. turning his back upon us he\nlaid down his burden, and the next instant there was the sound of a\nsharp tap, followed by a clatter and rattle. the man was so intent\nupon what he was doing that he never heard our steps as we stole\nacross the grass plot. with the bound of a tiger holmes was on his\nback, and an instant later lestrade and i had him by either wrist and\nthe handcuffs had been fastened. as we turned him over i saw a\nhideous, sallow face, with writhing, furious features, glaring up at\nus, and i knew that it was indeed the man of the photograph whom we\nhad secured.\nbut it was not our prisoner to whom holmes was giving his attention.\nsquatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most carefully examining\nthat which the man had brought from the house. it was a bust of\nnapoleon like the one which we had seen that morning, and it had been\nbroken into similar fragments. carefully holmes held each separate\nshard to the light, but in no way did it differ from any other\nshattered piece of plaster. he had just completed his examination\nwhen the hall lights flew up, the door opened, and the owner of the\nhouse, a jovial, rotund figure in shirt and trousers, presented\nhimself.\n\"mr. josiah brown, i suppose?\" said holmes.\n\"yes, sir; and you, no doubt, are mr. sherlock holmes? i had the note\nwhich you sent by the express messenger, and i did exactly what you\ntold me. we locked every door on the inside and awaited developments.\nwell, i'm very glad to see that you have got the rascal. i hope,\ngentlemen, that you will come in and have some refreshment.\"\nhowever, lestrade was anxious to get his man into safe quarters, so\nwithin a few minutes our cab had been summoned and we were all four\nupon our way to london. not a word would our captive say; but he\nglared at us from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, when my\nhand seemed within his reach, he snapped at it like a hungry wolf. we\nstayed long enough at the police-station to learn that a search of\nhis clothing revealed nothing save a few shillings and a long sheath\nknife, the handle of which bore copious traces of recent blood.\n\"that's all right,\" said lestrade, as we parted. \"hill knows all\nthese gentry, and he will give a name to him. you'll find that my\ntheory of the mafia will work out all right. but i'm sure i am\nexceedingly obliged to you, mr. holmes, for the workmanlike way in\nwhich you laid hands upon him. i don't quite understand it all yet.\"\n\"i fear it is rather too late an hour for explanations,\" said holmes.\n\"besides, there are one or two details which are not finished off,\nand it is one of those cases which are worth working out to the very\nend. if you will come round once more to my rooms at six o'clock\nto-morrow i think i shall be able to show you that even now you have\nnot grasped the entire meaning of this business, which presents some\nfeatures which make it absolutely original in the history of crime.\nif ever i permit you to chronicle any more of my little problems,\nwatson, i foresee that you will enliven your pages by an account of\nthe singular adventure of the napoleonic busts.\"\nwhen we met again next evening lestrade was furnished with much\ninformation concerning our prisoner. his name, it appeared, was\nbeppo, second name unknown. he was a well-known ne'er-do-well among\nthe italian colony. he had once been a skilful sculptor and had\nearned an honest living, but he had taken to evil courses and had\ntwice already been in jail--once for a petty theft and once, as we\nhad already heard, for stabbing a fellow-countryman. he could talk\nenglish perfectly well. his reasons for destroying the busts were\nstill unknown, and he refused to answer any questions upon the\nsubject; but the police had discovered that these same busts might\nvery well have been made by his own hands, since he was engaged in\nthis class of work at the establishment of gelder & co. to all this\ninformation, much of which we already knew, holmes listened with\npolite attention; but i, who knew him so well, could clearly see that\nhis thoughts were elsewhere, and i detected a mixture of mingled\nuneasiness and expectation beneath that mask which he was wont to\nassume. at last he started in his chair and his eyes brightened.\nthere had been a ring at the bell. a minute later we heard steps upon\nthe stairs, and an elderly, red-faced man with grizzled side-whiskers\nwas ushered in. in his right hand he carried an old-fashioned\ncarpet-bag, which he placed upon the table.\n\"is mr. sherlock holmes here?\"\nmy friend bowed and smiled. \"mr. sandeford, of reading, i suppose?\"\nsaid he.\n\"yes, sir, i fear that i am a little late; but the trains were\nawkward. you wrote to me about a bust that is in my possession.\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"i have your letter here. you said, 'i desire to possess a copy of\ndevine's napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds for the one\nwhich is in your possession.' is that right?\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"i was very much surprised at your letter, for i could not imagine\nhow you knew that i owned such a thing.\"\n\"of course you must have been surprised, but the explanation is very\nsimple. mr. harding, of harding brothers, said that they had sold you\ntheir last copy, and he gave me your address.\"\n\"oh, that was it, was it? did he tell you what i paid for it?\"\n\"no, he did not.\"\n\"well, i am an honest man, though not a very rich one. i only gave\nfifteen shillings for the bust, and i think you ought to know that\nbefore i take ten pounds from you.\"\n\"i am sure the scruple does you honour, mr. sandeford. but i have\nnamed that price, so i intend to stick to it.\"\n\"well, it is very handsome of you, mr. holmes. i brought the bust up\nwith me, as you asked me to do. here it is!\" he opened his bag, and\nat last we saw placed upon our table a complete specimen of that bust\nwhich we had already seen more than once in fragments.\nholmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound note upon\nthe table.\n\"you will kindly sign that paper, mr. sandeford, in the presence of\nthese witnesses. it is simply to say that you transfer every possible\nright that you ever had in the bust to me. i am a methodical man, you\nsee, and you never know what turn events might take afterwards. thank\nyou, mr. sandeford; here is your money, and i wish you a very good\nevening.\"\nwhen our visitor had disappeared sherlock holmes's movements were\nsuch as to rivet our attention. he began by taking a clean white\ncloth from a drawer and laying it over the table. then he placed his\nnewly-acquired bust in the centre of the cloth. finally, he picked up\nhis hunting-crop and struck napoleon a sharp blow on the top of the\nhead. the figure broke into fragments, and holmes bent eagerly over\nthe shattered remains. next instant, with a loud shout of triumph, he\nheld up one splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like a\nplum in a pudding.\n\"gentlemen,\" he cried, \"let me introduce you to the famous black\npearl of the borgias.\"\nlestrade and i sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous\nimpulse, we both broke out clapping as at the well-wrought crisis of\na play. a flush of colour sprang to holmes's pale cheeks, and he\nbowed to us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his\naudience. it was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be\na reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and\napplause. the same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned\naway with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved\nto its depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.\n\"yes, gentlemen,\" said he, \"it is the most famous pearl now existing\nin the world, and it has been my good fortune, by a connected chain\nof inductive reasoning, to trace it from the prince of colonna's\nbedroom at the dacre hotel, where it was lost, to the interior of\nthis, the last of the six busts of napoleon which were manufactured\nby gelder & co., of stepney. you will remember, lestrade, the\nsensation caused by the disappearance of this valuable jewel, and the\nvain efforts of the london police to recover it. i was myself\nconsulted upon the case; but i was unable to throw any light upon it.\nsuspicion fell upon the maid of the princess, who was an italian, and\nit was proved that she had a brother in london, but we failed to\ntrace any connection between them. the maid's name was lucretia\nvenucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that this pietro who was\nmurdered two nights ago was the brother. i have been looking up the\ndates in the old files of the paper, and i find that the\ndisappearance of the pearl was exactly two days before the arrest of\nbeppo for some crime of violence, an event which took place in the\nfactory of gelder & co., at the very moment when these busts were\nbeing made. now you clearly see the sequence of events, though you\nsee them, of course, in the inverse order to the way in which they\npresented themselves to me. beppo had the pearl in his possession. he\nmay have stolen it from pietro, he may have been pietro's\nconfederate, he may have been the go-between of pietro and his\nsister. it is of no consequence to us which is the correct solution.\n\"the main fact is that he had the pearl, and at that moment, when it\nwas on his person, he was pursued by the police. he made for the\nfactory in which he worked, and he knew that he had only a few\nminutes in which to conceal this enormously valuable prize, which\nwould otherwise be found on him when he was searched. six plaster\ncasts of napoleon were drying in the passage. one of them was still\nsoft. in an instant beppo, a skilful workman, made a small hole in\nthe wet plaster, dropped in the pearl, and with a few touches covered\nover the aperture once more. it was an admirable hiding-place. no one\ncould possibly find it. but beppo was condemned to a year's\nimprisonment, and in the meanwhile his six busts were scattered over\nlondon. he could not tell which contained his treasure. only by\nbreaking them could he see. even shaking would tell him nothing, for\nas the plaster was wet it was probable that the pearl would adhere to\nit--as, in fact, it has done. beppo did not despair, and he conducted\nhis search with considerable ingenuity and perseverance. through a\ncousin who works with gelder he found out the retail firms who had\nbought the busts. he managed to find employment with morse hudson,\nand in that way tracked down three of them. the pearl was not there.\nthen, with the help of some italian employe, he succeeded in finding\nout where the other three busts had gone. the first was at harker's.\nthere he was dogged by his confederate, who held beppo responsible\nfor the loss of the pearl, and he stabbed him in the scuffle which\nfollowed.\"\n\"if he was his confederate why should he carry his photograph?\" i\nasked.\n\"as a means of tracing him if he wished to inquire about him from any\nthird person. that was the obvious reason. well, after the murder i\ncalculated that beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his\nmovements. he would fear that the police would read his secret, and\nso he hastened on before they should get ahead of him. of course, i\ncould not say that he had not found the pearl in harker's bust. i had\nnot even concluded for certain that it was the pearl; but it was\nevident to me that he was looking for something, since he carried the\nbust past the other houses in order to break it in the garden which\nhad a lamp overlooking it. since harker's bust was one in three the\nchances were exactly as i told you, two to one against the pearl\nbeing inside it. there remained two busts, and it was obvious that he\nwould go for the london one first. i warned the inmates of the house,\nso as to avoid a second tragedy, and we went down with the happiest\nresults. by that time, of course, i knew for certain that it was the\nborgia pearl that we were after. the name of the murdered man linked\nthe one event with the other. there only remained a single bust--the\nreading one--and the pearl must be there. i bought it in your\npresence from the owner--and there it lies.\"\nwe sat in silence for a moment.\n\"well,\" said lestrade, \"i've seen you handle a good many cases, mr.\nholmes, but i don't know that i ever knew a more workmanlike one than\nthat. we're not jealous of you at scotland yard. no, sir, we are very\nproud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from\nthe oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad\nto shake you by the hand.\"\n\"thank you!\" said holmes. \"thank you!\" and as he turned away it\nseemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human\nemotions than i had ever seen him. a moment later he was the cold and\npractical thinker once more. \"put the pearl in the safe, watson,\"\nsaid he, \"and get out the papers of the conk-singleton forgery case.\ngood-bye, lestrade. if any little problem comes your way i shall be\nhappy, if i can, to give you a hint or two as to its solution.\"\nthe adventure of the three students\nit was in the year '95 that a combination of events, into which i\nneed not enter, caused mr. sherlock holmes and myself to spend some\nweeks in one of our great university towns, and it was during this\ntime that the small but instructive adventure which i am about to\nrelate befell us. it will be obvious that any details which would\nhelp the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would\nbe injudicious and offensive. so painful a scandal may well be\nallowed to die out. with due discretion the incident itself may,\nhowever, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those\nqualities for which my friend was remarkable. i will endeavour in my\nstatement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to\nany particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.\nwe were residing at the time in furnished lodgings close to a library\nwhere sherlock holmes was pursuing some laborious researches in early\nenglish charters--researches which led to results so striking that\nthey may be the subject of one of my future narratives. here it was\nthat one evening we received a visit from an acquaintance, mr. hilton\nsoames, tutor and lecturer at the college of st. luke's. mr. soames\nwas a tall, spare man, of a nervous and excitable temperament. i had\nalways known him to be restless in his manner, but on this particular\noccasion he was in such a state of uncontrollable agitation that it\nwas clear something very unusual had occurred.\n\"i trust, mr. holmes, that you can spare me a few hours of your\nvaluable time. we have had a very painful incident at st. luke's, and\nreally, but for the happy chance of your being in the town, i should\nhave been at a loss what to do.\"\n\"i am very busy just now, and i desire no distractions,\" my friend\nanswered. \"i should much prefer that you called in the aid of the\npolice.\"\n\"no, no, my dear sir; such a course is utterly impossible. when once\nthe law is evoked it cannot be stayed again, and this is just one of\nthose cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most\nessential to avoid scandal. your discretion is as well known as your\npowers, and you are the one man in the world who can help me. i beg\nyou, mr. holmes, to do what you can.\"\nmy friend's temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the\ncongenial surroundings of baker street. without his scrap-books, his\nchemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man. he\nshrugged his shoulders in ungracious acquiescence, while our visitor\nin hurried words and with much excitable gesticulation poured forth\nhis story.\n\"i must explain to you, mr. holmes, that to-morrow is the first day\nof the examination for the fortescue scholarship. i am one of the\nexaminers. my subject is greek, and the first of the papers consists\nof a large passage of greek translation which the candidate has not\nseen. this passage is printed on the examination paper, and it would\nnaturally be an immense advantage if the candidate could prepare it\nin advance. for this reason great care is taken to keep the paper\nsecret.\n\"to-day about three o'clock the proofs of this paper arrived from the\nprinters. the exercise consists of half a chapter of thucydides. i\nhad to read it over carefully, as the text must be absolutely\ncorrect. at four-thirty my task was not yet completed. i had,\nhowever, promised to take tea in a friend's rooms, so i left the\nproof upon my desk. i was absent rather more than an hour.\n\"you are aware, mr. holmes, that our college doors are double--a\ngreen baize one within and a heavy oak one without. as i approached\nmy outer door i was amazed to see a key in it. for an instant i\nimagined that i had left my own there, but on feeling in my pocket i\nfound that it was all right. the only duplicate which existed, so far\nas i knew, was that which belonged to my servant, bannister, a man\nwho has looked after my room for ten years, and whose honesty is\nabsolutely above suspicion. i found that the key was indeed his, that\nhe had entered my room to know if i wanted tea, and that he had very\ncarelessly left the key in the door when he came out. his visit to my\nroom must have been within a very few minutes of my leaving it. his\nforgetfulness about the key would have mattered little upon any other\noccasion, but on this one day it has produced the most deplorable\nconsequences.\n\"the moment i looked at my table i was aware that someone had\nrummaged among my papers. the proof was in three long slips. i had\nleft them all together. now, i found that one of them was lying on\nthe floor, one was on the side table near the window, and the third\nwas where i had left it.\"\nholmes stirred for the first time.\n\"the first page on the floor, the second in the window, the third\nwhere you left it,\" said he.\n\"exactly, mr. holmes. you amaze me. how could you possibly know\nthat?\"\n\"pray continue your very interesting statement.\"\n\"for an instant i imagined that bannister had taken the unpardonable\nliberty of examining my papers. he denied it, however, with the\nutmost earnestness, and i am convinced that he was speaking the\ntruth. the alternative was that someone passing had observed the key\nin the door, had known that i was out, and had entered to look at the\npapers. a large sum of money is at stake, for the scholarship is a\nvery valuable one, and an unscrupulous man might very well run a risk\nin order to gain an advantage over his fellows.\n\"bannister was very much upset by the incident. he had nearly fainted\nwhen we found that the papers had undoubtedly been tampered with. i\ngave him a little brandy and left him collapsed in a chair while i\nmade a most careful examination of the room. i soon saw that the\nintruder had left other traces of his presence besides the rumpled\npapers. on the table in the window were several shreds from a pencil\nwhich had been sharpened. a broken tip of lead was lying there also.\nevidently the rascal had copied the paper in a great hurry, had\nbroken his pencil, and had been compelled to put a fresh point to\nit.\"\n\"excellent!\" said holmes, who was recovering his good-humour as his\nattention became more engrossed by the case. \"fortune has been your\nfriend.\"\n\"this was not all. i have a new writing-table with a fine surface of\nred leather. i am prepared to swear, and so is bannister, that it was\nsmooth and unstained. now i found a clean cut in it about three\ninches long--not a mere scratch, but a positive cut. not only this,\nbut on the table i found a small ball of black dough, or clay, with\nspecks of something which looks like sawdust in it. i am convinced\nthat these marks were left by the man who rifled the papers. there\nwere no footmarks and no other evidence as to his identity. i was at\nmy wits' ends, when suddenly the happy thought occurred to me that\nyou were in the town, and i came straight round to put the matter\ninto your hands. do help me, mr. holmes! you see my dilemma. either i\nmust find the man or else the examination must be postponed until\nfresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without\nexplanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a\ncloud not only on the college, but on the university. above all\nthings i desire to settle the matter quietly and discreetly.\"\n\"i shall be happy to look into it and to give you such advice as i\ncan,\" said holmes, rising and putting on his overcoat. \"the case is\nnot entirely devoid of interest. had anyone visited you in your room\nafter the papers came to you?\"\n\"yes; young daulat ras, an indian student who lives on the same\nstair, came in to ask me some particulars about the examination.\"\n\"for which he was entered?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"and the papers were on your table?\"\n\"to the best of my belief they were rolled up.\"\n\"but might be recognised as proofs?\"\n\"possibly.\"\n\"no one else in your room?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"did anyone know that these proofs would be there?\"\n\"no one save the printer.\"\n\"did this man bannister know?\"\n\"no, certainly not. no one knew.\"\n\"where is bannister now?\"\n\"he was very ill, poor fellow. i left him collapsed in the chair. i\nwas in such a hurry to come to you.\"\n\"you left your door open?\"\n\"i locked up the papers first.\"\n\"then it amounts to this, mr. soames, that unless the indian student\nrecognised the roll as being proofs, the man who tampered with them\ncame upon them accidentally without knowing that they were there.\"\n\"so it seems to me.\"\nholmes gave an enigmatic smile.\n\"well,\" said he, \"let us go round. not one of your cases,\nwatson--mental, not physical. all right; come if you want to. now,\nmr. soames--at your disposal!\"\nthe sitting-room of our client opened by a long, low, latticed\nwindow on to the ancient lichen-tinted court of the old college. a\ngothic arched door led to a worn stone staircase. on the ground floor\nwas the tutor's room. above were three students, one on each story.\nit was already twilight when we reached the scene of our problem.\nholmes halted and looked earnestly at the window. then he approached\nit, and, standing on tiptoe with his neck craned, he looked into the\nroom.\n\"he must have entered through the door. there is no opening except\nthe one pane,\" said our learned guide.\n\"dear me!\" said holmes, and he smiled in a singular way as he glanced\nat our companion. \"well, if there is nothing to be learned here we\nhad best go inside.\"\nthe lecturer unlocked the outer door and ushered us into his room. we\nstood at the entrance while holmes made an examination of the carpet.\n\"i am afraid there are no signs here,\" said he. \"one could hardly\nhope for any upon so dry a day. your servant seems to have quite\nrecovered. you left him in a chair, you say; which chair?\"\n\"by the window there.\"\n\"i see. near this little table. you can come in now. i have finished\nwith the carpet. let us take the little table first. of course, what\nhas happened is very clear. the man entered and took the papers,\nsheet by sheet, from the central table. he carried them over to the\nwindow table, because from there he could see if you came across the\ncourtyard, and so could effect an escape.\"\n\"as a matter of fact he could not,\" said soames, \"for i entered by\nthe side door.\"\n\"ah, that's good! well, anyhow, that was in his mind. let me see the\nthree strips. no finger impressions--no! well, he carried over this\none first and he copied it. how long would it take him to do that,\nusing every possible contraction? a quarter of an hour, not less.\nthen he tossed it down and seized the next. he was in the midst of\nthat when your return caused him to make a very hurried retreat--very\nhurried, since he had not time to replace the papers which would tell\nyou that he had been there. you were not aware of any hurrying feet\non the stair as you entered the outer door?\"\n\"no, i can't say i was.\"\n\"well, he wrote so furiously that he broke his pencil, and had, as\nyou observe, to sharpen it again. this is of interest, watson. the\npencil was not an ordinary one. it was above the usual size, with a\nsoft lead; the outer colour was dark blue, the maker's name was\nprinted in silver lettering, and the piece remaining is only about an\ninch and a half long. look for such a pencil, mr. soames, and you\nhave got your man. when i add that he possesses a large and very\nblunt knife, you have an additional aid.\"\nmr. soames was somewhat overwhelmed by this flood of information. \"i\ncan follow the other points,\" said he, \"but really, in this matter of\nthe length--\"\nholmes held out a small chip with the letters nn and a space of clear\nwood after them.\n\"you see?\"\n\"no, i fear that even now--\"\n\"watson, i have always done you an injustice. there are others. what\ncould this nn be? it is at the end of a word. you are aware that\njohann faber is the most common maker's name. is it not clear that\nthere is just as much of the pencil left as usually follows the\njohann?\" he held the small table sideways to the electric light. \"i\nwas hoping that if the paper on which he wrote was thin some trace of\nit might come through upon this polished surface. no, i see nothing.\ni don't think there is anything more to be learned here. now for the\ncentral table. this small pellet is, i presume, the black, doughy\nmass you spoke of. roughly pyramidal in shape and hollowed out, i\nperceive. as you say, there appear to be grains of sawdust in it.\ndear me, this is very interesting. and the cut--a positive tear, i\nsee. it began with a thin scratch and ended in a jagged hole. i am\nmuch indebted to you for directing my attention to this case, mr.\nsoames. where does that door lead to?\"\n\"to my bedroom.\"\n\"have you been in it since your adventure?\"\n\"no; i came straight away for you.\"\n\"i should like to have a glance round. what a charming, old-fashioned\nroom! perhaps you will kindly wait a minute until i have examined the\nfloor. no, i see nothing. what about this curtain? you hang your\nclothes behind it. if anyone were forced to conceal himself in this\nroom he must do it there, since the bed is too low and the wardrobe\ntoo shallow. no one there, i suppose?\"\nas holmes drew the curtain i was aware, from some little rigidity and\nalertness of his attitude, that he was prepared for an emergency. as\na matter of fact the drawn curtain disclosed nothing but three or\nfour suits of clothes hanging from a line of pegs. holmes turned away\nand stooped suddenly to the floor.\n\"halloa! what's this?\" said he.\nit was a small pyramid of black, putty-like stuff, exactly like the\none upon the table of the study. holmes held it out on his open palm\nin the glare of the electric light.\n\"your visitor seems to have left traces in your bedroom as well as in\nyour sitting-room, mr. soames.\"\n\"what could he have wanted there?\"\n\"i think it is clear enough. you came back by an unexpected way, and\nso he had no warning until you were at the very door. what could he\ndo? he caught up everything which would betray him and he rushed into\nyour bedroom to conceal himself.\"\n\"good gracious, mr. holmes, do you mean to tell me that all the time\ni was talking to bannister in this room we had the man prisoner if we\nhad only known it?\"\n\"so i read it.\"\n\"surely there is another alternative, mr. holmes. i don't know\nwhether you observed my bedroom window?\"\n\"lattice-paned, lead framework, three separate windows, one swinging\non hinge and large enough to admit a man.\"\n\"exactly. and it looks out on an angle of the courtyard so as to be\npartly invisible. the man might have effected his entrance there,\nleft traces as he passed through the bedroom, and, finally, finding\nthe door open have escaped that way.\"\nholmes shook his head impatiently.\n\"let us be practical,\" said he. \"i understand you to say that there\nare three students who use this stair and are in the habit of passing\nyour door?\"\n\"yes, there are.\"\n\"and they are all in for this examination?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"have you any reason to suspect any one of them more than the\nothers?\"\nsoames hesitated.\n\"it is a very delicate question,\" said he. \"one hardly likes to throw\nsuspicion where there are no proofs.\"\n\"let us hear the suspicions. i will look after the proofs.\"\n\"i will tell you, then, in a few words the character of the three men\nwho inhabit these rooms. the lower of the three is gilchrist, a fine\nscholar and athlete; plays in the rugby team and the cricket team for\nthe college, and got his blue for the hurdles and the long jump. he\nis a fine, manly fellow. his father was the notorious sir jabez\ngilchrist, who ruined himself on the turf. my scholar has been left\nvery poor, but he is hard-working and industrious. he will do well.\n\"the second floor is inhabited by daulat ras, the indian. he is a\nquiet, inscrutable fellow, as most of those indians are. he is well\nup in his work, though his greek is his weak subject. he is steady\nand methodical.\n\"the top floor belongs to miles mclaren. he is a brilliant fellow\nwhen he chooses to work--one of the brightest intellects of the\nuniversity, but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. he was\nnearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. he has been\nidling all this term, and he must look forward with dread to the\nexamination.\"\n\"then it is he whom you suspect?\"\n\"i dare not go so far as that. but of the three he is perhaps the\nleast unlikely.\"\n\"exactly. now, mr. soames, let us have a look at your servant,\nbannister.\"\nhe was a little, white-faced, clean-shaven, grizzly-haired fellow of\nfifty. he was still suffering from this sudden disturbance of the\nquiet routine of his life. his plump face was twitching with his\nnervousness, and his fingers could not keep still.\n\"we are investigating this unhappy business, bannister,\" said his\nmaster.\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"i understand,\" said holmes, \"that you left your key in the door?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"was it not very extraordinary that you should do this on the very\nday when there were these papers inside?\"\n\"it was most unfortunate, sir. but i have occasionally done the same\nthing at other times.\"\n\"when did you enter the room?\"\n\"it was about half-past four. that is mr. soames's tea time.\"\n\"how long did you stay?\"\n\"when i saw that he was absent i withdrew at once.\"\n\"did you look at these papers on the table?\"\n\"no, sir; certainly not.\"\n\"how came you to leave the key in the door?\"\n\"i had the tea-tray in my hand. i thought i would come back for the\nkey. then i forgot.\"\n\"has the outer door a spring lock?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"then it was open all the time?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"anyone in the room could get out?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"when mr. soames returned and called for you, you were very much\ndisturbed?\"\n\"yes, sir. such a thing has never happened during the many years that\ni have been here. i nearly fainted, sir.\"\n\"so i understand. where were you when you began to feel bad?\"\n\"where was i, sir? why, here, near the door.\"\n\"that is singular, because you sat down in that chair over yonder\nnear the corner. why did you pass these other chairs?\"\n\"i don't know, sir. it didn't matter to me where i sat.\"\n\"i really don't think he knew much about it, mr. holmes. he was\nlooking very bad--quite ghastly.\"\n\"you stayed here when your master left?\"\n\"only for a minute or so. then i locked the door and went to my\nroom.\"\n\"whom do you suspect?\"\n\"oh, i would not venture to say, sir. i don't believe there is any\ngentleman in this university who is capable of profiting by such an\naction. no, sir, i'll not believe it.\"\n\"thank you; that will do,\" said holmes. \"oh, one more word. you have\nnot mentioned to any of the three gentlemen whom you attend that\nanything is amiss?\"\n\"no, sir; not a word.\"\n\"you haven't seen any of them?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"very good. now, mr. soames, we will take a walk in the quadrangle,\nif you please.\"\nthree yellow squares of light shone above us in the gathering gloom.\n\"your three birds are all in their nests,\" said holmes, looking up.\n\"halloa! what's that? one of them seems restless enough.\"\nit was the indian, whose dark silhouette appeared suddenly upon his\nblind. he was pacing swiftly up and down his room.\n\"i should like to have a peep at each of them,\" said holmes. \"is it\npossible?\"\n\"no difficulty in the world,\" soames answered. \"this set of rooms is\nquite the oldest in the college, and it is not unusual for visitors\nto go over them. come along, and i will personally conduct you.\"\n\"no names, please!\" said holmes, as we knocked at gilchrist's door. a\ntall, flaxen-haired, slim young fellow opened it, and made us welcome\nwhen he understood our errand. there were some really curious pieces\nof mediaeval domestic architecture within. holmes was so charmed with\none of them that he insisted on drawing it on his note-book, broke\nhis pencil, had to borrow one from our host, and finally borrowed a\nknife to sharpen his own. the same curious accident happened to him\nin the rooms of the indian--a silent, little, hook-nosed fellow, who\neyed us askance and was obviously glad when holmes's architectural\nstudies had come to an end. i could not see that in either case\nholmes had come upon the clue for which he was searching. only at the\nthird did our visit prove abortive. the outer door would not open to\nour knock, and nothing more substantial than a torrent of bad\nlanguage came from behind it. \"i don't care who you are. you can go\nto blazes!\" roared the angry voice. \"to-morrow's the exam, and i\nwon't be drawn by anyone.\"\n\"a rude fellow,\" said our guide, flushing with anger as we withdrew\ndown the stair. \"of course, he did not realize that it was i who was\nknocking, but none the less his conduct was very uncourteous, and,\nindeed, under the circumstances rather suspicious.\"\nholmes's response was a curious one.\n\"can you tell me his exact height?\" he asked.\n\"really, mr. holmes, i cannot undertake to say. he is taller than the\nindian, not so tall as gilchrist. i suppose five foot six would be\nabout it.\"\n\"that is very important,\" said holmes. \"and now, mr. soames, i wish\nyou good-night.\"\nour guide cried aloud in his astonishment and dismay. \"good gracious,\nmr. holmes, you are surely not going to leave me in this abrupt\nfashion! you don't seem to realize the position. to-morrow is the\nexamination. i must take some definite action to-night. i cannot\nallow the examination to be held if one of the papers has been\ntampered with. the situation must be faced.\"\n\"you must leave it as it is. i shall drop round early to-morrow\nmorning and chat the matter over. it is possible that i may be in a\nposition then to indicate some course of action. meanwhile you change\nnothing--nothing at all.\"\n\"very good, mr. holmes.\"\n\"you can be perfectly easy in your mind. we shall certainly find some\nway out of your difficulties. i will take the black clay with me,\nalso the pencil cuttings. good-bye.\"\nwhen we were out in the darkness of the quadrangle we again looked up\nat the windows. the indian still paced his room. the others were\ninvisible.\n\"well, watson, what do you think of it?\" holmes asked, as we came out\ninto the main street. \"quite a little parlour game--sort of\nthree-card trick, is it not? there are your three men. it must be one\nof them. you take your choice. which is yours?\"\n\"the foul-mouthed fellow at the top. he is the one with the worst\nrecord. and yet that indian was a sly fellow also. why should he be\npacing his room all the time?\"\n\"there is nothing in that. many men do it when they are trying to\nlearn anything by heart.\"\n\"he looked at us in a queer way.\"\n\"so would you if a flock of strangers came in on you when you were\npreparing for an examination next day, and every moment was of value.\nno, i see nothing in that. pencils, too, and knives--all was\nsatisfactory. but that fellow does puzzle me.\"\n\"who?\"\n\"why, bannister, the servant. what's his game in the matter?\"\n\"he impressed me as being a perfectly honest man.\"\n\"so he did me. that's the puzzling part. why should a perfectly\nhonest man--well, well, here's a large stationer's. we shall begin\nour researches here.\"\nthere were only four stationers of any consequence in the town, and\nat each holmes produced his pencil chips and bid high for a\nduplicate. all were agreed that one could be ordered, but that it was\nnot a usual size of pencil and that it was seldom kept in stock. my\nfriend did not appear to be depressed by his failure, but shrugged\nhis shoulders in half-humorous resignation.\n\"no good, my dear watson. this, the best and only final clue, has run\nto nothing. but, indeed, i have little doubt that we can build up a\nsufficient case without it. by jove! my dear fellow, it is nearly\nnine, and the landlady babbled of green peas at seven-thirty. what\nwith your eternal tobacco, watson, and your irregularity at meals, i\nexpect that you will get notice to quit and that i shall share your\ndownfall--not, however, before we have solved the problem of the\nnervous tutor, the careless servant, and the three enterprising\nstudents.\"\nholmes made no further allusion to the matter that day, though he\nsat lost in thought for a long time after our belated dinner. at\neight in the morning he came into my room just as i finished my\ntoilet.\n\"well, watson,\" said he, \"it is time we went down to st. luke's. can\nyou do without breakfast?\"\n\"certainly.\"\n\"soames will be in a dreadful fidget until we are able to tell him\nsomething positive.\"\n\"have you anything positive to tell him?\"\n\"i think so.\"\n\"you have formed a conclusion?\"\n\"yes, my dear watson; i have solved the mystery.\"\n\"but what fresh evidence could you have got?\"\n\"aha! it is not for nothing that i have turned myself out of bed at\nthe untimely hour of six. i have put in two hours' hard work and\ncovered at least five miles, with something to show for it. look at\nthat!\"\nhe held out his hand. on the palm were three little pyramids of\nblack, doughy clay.\n\"why, holmes, you had only two yesterday!\"\n\"and one more this morning. it is a fair argument that wherever no. 3\ncame from is also the source of nos. 1 and 2. eh, watson? well, come\nalong and put friend soames out of his pain.\"\nthe unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation\nwhen we found him in his chambers. in a few hours the examination\nwould commence, and he was still in the dilemma between making the\nfacts public and allowing the culprit to compete for the valuable\nscholarship. he could hardly stand still, so great was his mental\nagitation, and he ran towards holmes with two eager hands\noutstretched.\n\"thank heaven that you have come! i feared that you had given it up\nin despair. what am i to do? shall the examination proceed?\"\n\"yes; let it proceed by all means.\"\n\"but this rascal--?\"\n\"he shall not compete.\"\n\"you know him?\"\n\"i think so. if this matter is not to become public we must give\nourselves certain powers, and resolve ourselves into a small private\ncourt-martial. you there, if you please, soames! watson, you here!\ni'll take the arm-chair in the middle. i think that we are now\nsufficiently imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast. kindly\nring the bell!\"\nbannister entered, and shrunk back in evident surprise and fear at\nour judicial appearance.\n\"you will kindly close the door,\" said holmes. \"now, bannister, will\nyou please tell us the truth about yesterday's incident?\"\nthe man turned white to the roots of his hair.\n\"i have told you everything, sir.\"\n\"nothing to add?\"\n\"nothing at all, sir.\"\n\"well, then, i must make some suggestions to you. when you sat down\non that chair yesterday, did you do so in order to conceal some\nobject which would have shown who had been in the room?\"\nbannister's face was ghastly.\n\"no, sir; certainly not.\"\n\"it is only a suggestion,\" said holmes, suavely. \"i frankly admit\nthat i am unable to prove it. but it seems probable enough, since the\nmoment that mr. soames's back was turned you released the man who was\nhiding in that bedroom.\"\nbannister licked his dry lips.\n\"there was no man, sir.\"\n\"ah, that's a pity, bannister. up to now you may have spoken the\ntruth, but now i know that you have lied.\"\nthe man's face set in sullen defiance.\n\"there was no man, sir.\"\n\"come, come, bannister!\"\n\"no, sir; there was no one.\"\n\"in that case you can give us no further information. would you\nplease remain in the room? stand over there near the bedroom door.\nnow, soames, i am going to ask you to have the great kindness to go\nup to the room of young gilchrist, and to ask him to step down into\nyours.\"\nan instant later the tutor returned, bringing with him the student.\nhe was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy\nstep and a pleasant, open face. his troubled blue eyes glanced at\neach of us, and finally rested with an expression of blank dismay\nupon bannister in the farther corner.\n\"just close the door,\" said holmes. \"now, mr. gilchrist, we are all\nquite alone here, and no one need ever know one word of what passes\nbetween us. we can be perfectly frank with each other. we want to\nknow, mr. gilchrist, how you, an honourable man, ever came to commit\nsuch an action as that of yesterday?\"\nthe unfortunate young man staggered back and cast a look full of\nhorror and reproach at bannister.\n\"no, no, mr. gilchrist, sir; i never said a word--never one word!\"\ncried the servant.\n\"no, but you have now,\" said holmes. \"now, sir, you must see that\nafter bannister's words your position is hopeless, and that your only\nchance lies in a frank confession.\"\nfor a moment gilchrist, with upraised hand, tried to control his\nwrithing features. the next he had thrown himself on his knees beside\nthe table and, burying his face in his hands, he had burst into a\nstorm of passionate sobbing.\n\"come, come,\" said holmes, kindly; \"it is human to err, and at least\nno one can accuse you of being a callous criminal. perhaps it would\nbe easier for you if i were to tell mr. soames what occurred, and you\ncan check me where i am wrong. shall i do so? well, well, don't\ntrouble to answer. listen, and see that i do you no injustice.\n\"from the moment, mr. soames, that you said to me that no one, not\neven bannister, could have told that the papers were in your room,\nthe case began to take a definite shape in my mind. the printer one\ncould, of course, dismiss. he could examine the papers in his own\noffice. the indian i also thought nothing of. if the proofs were in a\nroll he could not possibly know what they were. on the other hand, it\nseemed an unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the\nroom, and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the\ntable. i dismissed that. the man who entered knew that the papers\nwere there. how did he know?\n\"when i approached your room i examined the window. you amused me by\nsupposing that i was contemplating the possibility of someone having\nin broad daylight, under the eyes of all these opposite rooms, forced\nhimself through it. such an idea was absurd. i was measuring how tall\na man would need to be in order to see as he passed what papers were\non the central table. i am six feet high, and i could do it with an\neffort. no one less than that would have a chance. already you see i\nhad reason to think that if one of your three students was a man of\nunusual height he was the most worth watching of the three.\n\"i entered and i took you into my confidence as to the suggestions of\nthe side table. of the centre table i could make nothing, until in\nyour description of gilchrist you mentioned that he was a\nlong-distance jumper. then the whole thing came to me in an instant,\nand i only needed certain corroborative proofs, which i speedily\nobtained.\n\"what happened was this. this young fellow had employed his afternoon\nat the athletic grounds, where he had been practising the jump. he\nreturned carrying his jumping shoes, which are provided, as you are\naware, with several sharp spikes. as he passed your window he saw, by\nmeans of his great height, these proofs upon your table, and\nconjectured what they were. no harm would have been done had it not\nbeen that as he passed your door he perceived the key which had been\nleft by the carelessness of your servant. a sudden impulse came over\nhim to enter and see if they were indeed the proofs. it was not a\ndangerous exploit, for he could always pretend that he had simply\nlooked in to ask a question.\n\"well, when he saw that they were indeed the proofs, it was then that\nhe yielded to temptation. he put his shoes on the table. what was it\nyou put on that chair near the window?\"\n\"gloves,\" said the young man.\nholmes looked triumphantly at bannister. \"he put his gloves on the\nchair, and he took the proofs, sheet by sheet, to copy them. he\nthought the tutor must return by the main gate, and that he would see\nhim. as we know, he came back by the side gate. suddenly he heard him\nat the very door. there was no possible escape. he forgot his gloves,\nbut he caught up his shoes and darted into the bedroom. you observe\nthat the scratch on that table is slight at one side, but deepens in\nthe direction of the bedroom door. that in itself is enough to show\nus that the shoe had been drawn in that direction and that the\nculprit had taken refuge there. the earth round the spike had been\nleft on the table, and a second sample was loosened and fell in the\nbedroom. i may add that i walked out to the athletic grounds this\nmorning, saw that tenacious black clay is used in the jumping-pit,\nand carried away a specimen of it, together with some of the fine tan\nor sawdust which is strewn over it to prevent the athlete from\nslipping. have i told the truth, mr. gilchrist?\"\nthe student had drawn himself erect.\n\"yes, sir, it is true,\" said he.\n\"good heavens, have you nothing to add?\" cried soames.\n\"yes, sir, i have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has\nbewildered me. i have a letter here, mr. soames, which i wrote to you\nearly this morning in the middle of a restless night. it was before i\nknew that my sin had found me out. here it is, sir. you will see that\ni have said, 'i have determined not to go in for the examination. i\nhave been offered a commission in the rhodesian police, and i am\ngoing out to south africa at once.'\"\n\"i am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profit by\nyour unfair advantage,\" said soames. \"but why did you change your\npurpose?\"\ngilchrist pointed to bannister.\n\"there is the man who set me in the right path,\" said he.\n\"come now, bannister,\" said holmes. \"it will be clear to you from\nwhat i have said that only you could have let this young man out,\nsince you were left in the room, and must have locked the door when\nyou went out. as to his escaping by that window, it was incredible.\ncan you not clear up the last point in this mystery, and tell us the\nreasons for your action?\"\n\"it was simple enough, sir, if you only had known; but with all your\ncleverness it was impossible that you could know. time was, sir, when\ni was butler to old sir jabez gilchrist, this young gentleman's\nfather. when he was ruined i came to the college as servant, but i\nnever forgot my old employer because he was down in the world. i\nwatched his son all i could for the sake of the old days. well, sir,\nwhen i came into this room yesterday when the alarm was given, the\nvery first thing i saw was mr. gilchrist's tan gloves a-lying in that\nchair. i knew those gloves well, and i understood their message. if\nmr. soames saw them the game was up. i flopped down into that chair,\nand nothing would budge me until mr. soames he went for you. then out\ncame my poor young master, whom i had dandled on my knee, and\nconfessed it all to me. wasn't it natural, sir, that i should save\nhim, and wasn't it natural also that i should try to speak to him as\nhis dead father would have done, and make him understand that he\ncould not profit by such a deed? could you blame me, sir?\"\n\"no, indeed,\" said holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. \"well,\nsoames, i think we have cleared your little problem up, and our\nbreakfast awaits us at home. come, watson! as to you, sir, i trust\nthat a bright future awaits you in rhodesia. for once you have fallen\nlow. let us see in the future how high you can rise.\"\nthe adventure of the golden pince-nez\nwhen i look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our\nwork for the year 1894 i confess that it is very difficult for me,\nout of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most\ninteresting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a\ndisplay of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. as i\nturn over the pages i see my notes upon the repulsive story of the\nred leech and the terrible death of crosby the banker. here also i\nfind an account of the addleton tragedy and the singular contents of\nthe ancient british barrow. the famous smith-mortimer succession case\ncomes also within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of\nhuret, the boulevard assassin--an exploit which won for holmes an\nautograph letter of thanks from the french president and the order of\nthe legion of honour. each of these would furnish a narrative, but on\nthe whole i am of opinion that none of them unite so many singular\npoints of interest as the episode of yoxley old place, which includes\nnot only the lamentable death of young willoughby smith, but also\nthose subsequent developments which threw so curious a light upon the\ncauses of the crime.\nit was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of november.\nholmes and i sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with\na powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription\nupon a palimpsest, i deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. outside\nthe wind howled down baker street, while the rain beat fiercely\nagainst the windows. it was strange there in the very depths of the\ntown, with ten miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel\nthe iron grip of nature, and to be conscious that to the huge\nelemental forces all london was no more than the molehills that dot\nthe fields. i walked to the window and looked out on the deserted\nstreet. the occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and\nshining pavement. a single cab was splashing its way from the oxford\nstreet end.\n\"well, watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night,\" said\nholmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest. \"i've\ndone enough for one sitting. it is trying work for the eyes. so far\nas i can make out it is nothing more exciting than an abbey's\naccounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.\nhalloa! halloa! halloa! what's this?\"\namid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of a horse's\nhoofs and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against the kerb.\nthe cab which i had seen had pulled up at our door.\n\"what can he want?\" i ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.\n\"want! he wants us. and we, my poor watson, want overcoats and\ncravats and galoshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight\nthe weather. wait a bit, though! there's the cab off again! there's\nhope yet. he'd have kept it if he had wanted us to come. run down, my\ndear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous folk have been long\nin bed.\"\nwhen the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor i had\nno difficulty in recognising him. it was young stanley hopkins, a\npromising detective, in whose career holmes had several times shown a\nvery practical interest.\n\"is he in?\" he asked, eagerly.\n\"come up, my dear sir,\" said holmes's voice from above. \"i hope you\nhave no designs upon us on such a night as this.\"\nthe detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon his\nshining waterproof. i helped him out of it while holmes knocked a\nblaze out of the logs in the grate.\n\"now, my dear hopkins, draw up and warm your toes,\" said he. \"here's\na cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a\nlemon which is good medicine on a night like this. it must be\nsomething important which has brought you out in such a gale.\"\n\"it is indeed, mr. holmes. i've had a bustling afternoon, i promise\nyou. did you see anything of the yoxley case in the latest editions?\"\n\"i've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day.\"\n\"well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you have\nnot missed anything. i haven't let the grass grow under my feet. it's\ndown in kent, seven miles from chatham and three from the railway\nline. i was wired for at three-fifteen, reached yoxley old place at\nfive, conducted my investigation, was back at charing cross by the\nlast train, and straight to you by cab.\"\n\"which means, i suppose, that you are not quite clear about your\ncase?\"\n\"it means that i can make neither head nor tail of it. so far as i\ncan see it is just as tangled a business as ever i handled, and yet\nat first it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong. there's no\nmotive, mr. holmes. that's what bothers me--i can't put my hand on a\nmotive. here's a man dead--there's no denying that--but, so far as i\ncan see, no reason on earth why anyone should wish him harm.\"\nholmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.\n\"let us hear about it,\" said he.\n\"i've got my facts pretty clear,\" said stanley hopkins. \"all i want\nnow is to know what they all mean. the story, so far as i can make it\nout, is like this. some years ago this country house, yoxley old\nplace, was taken by an elderly man, who gave the name of professor\ncoram. he was an invalid, keeping his bed half the time, and the\nother half hobbling round the house with a stick or being pushed\nabout the grounds by the gardener in a bath-chair. he was well liked\nby the few neighbours who called upon him, and he has the reputation\ndown there of being a very learned man. his household used to consist\nof an elderly housekeeper, mrs. marker, and of a maid, susan tarlton.\nthese have both been with him since his arrival, and they seem to be\nwomen of excellent character. the professor is writing a learned\nbook, and he found it necessary about a year ago to engage a\nsecretary. the first two that he tried were not successes; but the\nthird, mr. willoughby smith, a very young man straight from the\nuniversity, seems to have been just what his employer wanted. his\nwork consisted in writing all the morning to the professor's\ndictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references\nand passages which bore upon the next day's work. this willoughby\nsmith has nothing against him either as a boy at uppingham or as a\nyoung man at cambridge. i have seen his testimonials, and from the\nfirst he was a decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot\nin him at all. and yet this is the lad who has met his death this\nmorning in the professor's study under circumstances which can point\nonly to murder.\"\nthe wind howled and screamed at the windows. holmes and i drew closer\nto the fire while the young inspector slowly and point by point\ndeveloped his singular narrative.\n\"if you were to search all england,\" said he, \"i don't suppose you\ncould find a household more self-contained or free from outside\ninfluences. whole weeks would pass and not one of them go past the\ngarden gate. the professor was buried in his work and existed for\nnothing else. young smith knew nobody in the neighbourhood, and lived\nvery much as his employer did. the two women had nothing to take them\nfrom the house. mortimer the gardener, who wheels the bath-chair, is\nan army pensioner--an old crimean man of excellent character. he does\nnot live in the house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end\nof the garden. those are the only people that you would find within\nthe grounds of yoxley old place. at the same time, the gate of the\ngarden is a hundred yards from the main london to chatham road. it\nopens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from\nwalking in.\n\"now i will give you the evidence of susan tarlton, who is the only\nperson who can say anything positive about the matter. it was in the\nforenoon, between eleven and twelve. she was engaged at the moment in\nhanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. professor coram\nwas still in bed, for when the weather is bad he seldom rises before\nmidday. the housekeeper was busied with some work in the back of the\nhouse. willoughby smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a\nsitting-room; but the maid heard him at that moment pass along the\npassage and descend to the study immediately below her. she did not\nsee him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in his quick,\nfirm tread. she did not hear the study door close, but a minute or so\nlater there was a dreadful cry in the room below. it was a wild,\nhoarse scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come\neither from a man or a woman. at the same instant there was a heavy\nthud, which shook the old house, and then all was silence. the maid\nstood petrified for a moment, and then, recovering her courage, she\nran downstairs. the study door was shut, and she opened it. inside\nyoung mr. willoughby smith was stretched upon the floor. at first she\ncould see no injury, but as she tried to raise him she saw that blood\nwas pouring from the underside of his neck. it was pierced by a very\nsmall but very deep wound, which had divided the carotid artery. the\ninstrument with which the injury had been inflicted lay upon the\ncarpet beside him. it was one of those small sealing-wax knives to be\nfound on old-fashioned writing-tables, with an ivory handle and a\nstiff blade. it was part of the fittings of the professor's own desk.\n\"at first the maid thought that young smith was already dead, but on\npouring some water from the carafe over his forehead he opened his\neyes for an instant. 'the professor,' he murmured--'it was she.' the\nmaid is prepared to swear that those were the exact words. he tried\ndesperately to say something else, and he held his right hand up in\nthe air. then he fell back dead.\n\"in the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the scene, but\nshe was just too late to catch the young man's dying words. leaving\nsusan with the body, she hurried to the professor's room. he was\nsitting up in bed horribly agitated, for he had heard enough to\nconvince him that something terrible had occurred. mrs. marker is\nprepared to swear that the professor was still in his night-clothes,\nand, indeed, it was impossible for him to dress without the help of\nmortimer, whose orders were to come at twelve o'clock. the professor\ndeclares that he heard the distant cry, but that he knows nothing\nmore. he can give no explanation of the young man's last words, 'the\nprofessor--it was she,' but imagines that they were the outcome of\ndelirium. he believes that willoughby smith had not an enemy in the\nworld, and can give no reason for the crime. his first action was to\nsend mortimer the gardener for the local police. a little later the\nchief constable sent for me. nothing was moved before i got there,\nand strict orders were given that no one should walk upon the paths\nleading to the house. it was a splendid chance of putting your\ntheories into practice, mr. sherlock holmes. there was really nothing\nwanting.\"\n\"except mr. sherlock holmes,\" said my companion, with a somewhat\nbitter smile. \"well, let us hear about it. what sort of job did you\nmake of it?\"\n\"i must ask you first, mr. holmes, to glance at this rough plan,\nwhich will give you a general idea of the position of the professor's\nstudy and the various points of the case. it will help you in\nfollowing my investigation.\"\nhe unfolded the rough chart, which i here reproduce, and he laid it\nacross holmes's knee. i rose, and, standing behind holmes, i studied\nit over his shoulder.\n[ picture: sketch of the building's room and corridors ]\n\"it is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points which\nseem to me to be essential. all the rest you will see later for\nyourself. now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered the\nhouse, how did he or she come in? undoubtedly by the garden path and\nthe back door, from which there is direct access to the study. any\nother way would have been exceedingly complicated. the escape must\nhave also been made along that line, for of the two other exits from\nthe room one was blocked by susan as she ran downstairs and the other\nleads straight to the professor's bedroom. i therefore directed my\nattention at once to the garden path, which was saturated with recent\nrain and would certainly show any footmarks.\n\"my examination showed me that i was dealing with a cautious and\nexpert criminal. no footmarks were to be found on the path. there\ncould be no question, however, that someone had passed along the\ngrass border which lines the path, and that he had done so in order\nto avoid leaving a track. i could not find anything in the nature of\na distinct impression, but the grass was trodden down and someone had\nundoubtedly passed. it could only have been the murderer, since\nneither the gardener nor anyone else had been there that morning and\nthe rain had only begun during the night.\"\n\"one moment,\" said holmes. \"where does this path lead to?\"\n\"to the road.\"\n\"how long is it?\"\n\"a hundred yards or so.\"\n\"at the point where the path passes through the gate you could surely\npick up the tracks?\"\n\"unfortunately, the path was tiled at that point.\"\n\"well, on the road itself?\"\n\"no; it was all trodden into mire.\"\n\"tut-tut! well, then, these tracks upon the grass, were they coming\nor going?\"\n\"it was impossible to say. there was never any outline.\"\n\"a large foot or a small?\"\n\"you could not distinguish.\"\nholmes gave an ejaculation of impatience.\n\"it has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since,\" said\nhe. \"it will be harder to read now than that palimpsest. well, well,\nit can't be helped. what did you do, hopkins, after you had made\ncertain that you had made certain of nothing?\"\n\"i think i made certain of a good deal, mr. holmes. i knew that\nsomeone had entered the house cautiously from without. i next\nexamined the corridor. it is lined with cocoanut matting and had\ntaken no impression of any kind. this brought me into the study\nitself. it is a scantily-furnished room. the main article is a large\nwriting-table with a fixed bureau. this bureau consists of a double\ncolumn of drawers with a central small cupboard between them. the\ndrawers were open, the cupboard locked. the drawers, it seems, were\nalways open, and nothing of value was kept in them. there were some\npapers of importance in the cupboard, but there were no signs that\nthis had been tampered with, and the professor assures me that\nnothing was missing. it is certain that no robbery has been\ncommitted.\n\"i come now to the body of the young man. it was found near the\nbureau, and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart. the\nstab was on the right side of the neck and from behind forwards, so\nthat it is almost impossible that it could have been self-inflicted.\"\n\"unless he fell upon the knife,\" said holmes.\n\"exactly. the idea crossed my mind. but we found the knife some feet\naway from the body, so that seems impossible. then, of course, there\nare the man's own dying words. and, finally, there was this very\nimportant piece of evidence which was found clasped in the dead man's\nright hand.\"\nfrom his pocket stanley hopkins drew a small paper packet. he\nunfolded it and disclosed a golden pince-nez, with two broken ends of\nblack silk cord dangling from the end of it. \"willoughby smith had\nexcellent sight,\" he added. \"there can be no question that this was\nsnatched from the face or the person of the assassin.\"\nsherlock holmes took the glasses into his hand and examined them with\nthe utmost attention and interest. he held them on his nose,\nendeavoured to read through them, went to the window and stared up\nthe street with them, looked at them most minutely in the full light\nof the lamp, and finally, with a chuckle, seated himself at the table\nand wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper, which he tossed across\nto stanley hopkins.\n\"that's the best i can do for you,\" said he. \"it may prove to be of\nsome use.\"\nthe astonished detective read the note aloud. it ran as follows:\n\"wanted, a woman of good address, attired like a lady. she has a\nremarkably thick nose, with eyes which are set close upon either side\nof it. she has a puckered forehead, a peering expression, and\nprobably rounded shoulders. there are indications that she has had\nrecourse to an optician at least twice during the last few months. as\nher glasses are of remarkable strength and as opticians are not very\nnumerous, there should be no difficulty in tracing her.\"\nholmes smiled at the astonishment of hopkins, which must have been\nreflected upon my features.\n\"surely my deductions are simplicity itself,\" said he. \"it would be\ndifficult to name any articles which afford a finer field for\ninference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as\nthese. that they belong to a woman i infer from their delicacy, and\nalso, of course, from the last words of the dying man. as to her\nbeing a person of refinement and well dressed, they are, as you\nperceive, handsomely mounted in solid gold, and it is inconceivable\nthat anyone who wore such glasses could be slatternly in other\nrespects. you will find that the clips are too wide for your nose,\nshowing that the lady's nose was very broad at the base. this sort of\nnose is usually a short and coarse one, but there are a sufficient\nnumber of exceptions to prevent me from being dogmatic or from\ninsisting upon this point in my description. my own face is a narrow\none, and yet i find that i cannot get my eyes into the centre, or\nnear the centre, of these glasses. therefore the lady's eyes are set\nvery near to the sides of the nose. you will perceive, watson, that\nthe glasses are concave and of unusual strength. a lady whose vision\nhas been so extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the\nphysical characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the\nforehead, the eyelids, and the shoulders.\"\n\"yes,\" i said, \"i can follow each of your arguments. i confess,\nhowever, that i am unable to understand how you arrive at the double\nvisit to the optician.\"\nholmes took the glasses in his hand.\n\"you will perceive,\" he said, \"that the clips are lined with tiny\nbands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. one of these is\ndiscoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new.\nevidently one has fallen off and been replaced. i should judge that\nthe older of them has not been there more than a few months. they\nexactly correspond, so i gather that the lady went back to the same\nestablishment for the second.\"\n\"by george, it's marvellous!\" cried hopkins, in an ecstasy of\nadmiration. \"to think that i had all that evidence in my hand and\nnever knew it! i had intended, however, to go the round of the london\nopticians.\"\n\"of course you would. meanwhile, have you anything more to tell us\nabout the case?\"\n\"nothing, mr. holmes. i think that you know as much as i do\nnow--probably more. we have had inquiries made as to any stranger\nseen on the country roads or at the railway station. we have heard of\nnone. what beats me is the utter want of all object in the crime. not\na ghost of a motive can anyone suggest.\"\n\"ah! there i am not in a position to help you. but i suppose you want\nus to come out to-morrow?\"\n\"if it is not asking too much, mr. holmes. there's a train from\ncharing cross to chatham at six in the morning, and we should be at\nyoxley old place between eight and nine.\"\n\"then we shall take it. your case has certainly some features of\ngreat interest, and i shall be delighted to look into it. well, it's\nnearly one, and we had best get a few hours' sleep. i dare say you\ncan manage all right on the sofa in front of the fire. i'll light my\nspirit-lamp and give you a cup of coffee before we start.\"\nthe gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter morning\nwhen we started upon our journey. we saw the cold winter sun rise\nover the dreary marshes of the thames and the long, sullen reaches of\nthe river, which i shall ever associate with our pursuit of the\nandaman islander in the earlier days of our career. after a long and\nweary journey we alighted at a small station some miles from chatham.\nwhile a horse was being put into a trap at the local inn we snatched\na hurried breakfast, and so we were all ready for business when we at\nlast arrived at yoxley old place. a constable met us at the garden\ngate.\n\"well, wilson, any news?\"\n\"no, sir, nothing.\"\n\"no reports of any stranger seen?\"\n\"no, sir. down at the station they are certain that no stranger\neither came or went yesterday.\"\n\"have you had inquiries made at inns and lodgings?\"\n\"yes, sir; there is no one that we cannot account for.\"\n\"well, it's only a reasonable walk to chatham. anyone might stay\nthere, or take a train without being observed. this is the garden\npath of which i spoke, mr. holmes. i'll pledge my word there was no\nmark on it yesterday.\"\n\"on which side were the marks on the grass?\"\n\"this side, sir. this narrow margin of grass between the path and the\nflower-bed. i can't see the traces now, but they were clear to me\nthen.\"\n\"yes, yes; someone has passed along,\" said holmes, stooping over the\ngrass border. \"our lady must have picked her steps carefully, must\nshe not, since on the one side she would leave a track on the path,\nand on the other an even clearer one on the soft bed?\"\n\"yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand.\"\ni saw an intent look pass over holmes's face.\n\"you say that she must have come back this way?\"\n\"yes, sir; there is no other.\"\n\"on this strip of grass?\"\n\"certainly, mr. holmes.\"\n\"hum! it was a very remarkable performance--very remarkable. well, i\nthink we have exhausted the path. let us go farther. this garden door\nis usually kept open, i suppose? then this visitor had nothing to do\nbut to walk in. the idea of murder was not in her mind, or she would\nhave provided herself with some sort of weapon, instead of having to\npick this knife off the writing-table. she advanced along this\ncorridor, leaving no traces upon the cocoanut matting. then she found\nherself in this study. how long was she there? we have no means of\njudging.\"\n\"not more than a few minutes, sir. i forgot to tell you that mrs.\nmarker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not very long\nbefore--about a quarter of an hour, she says.\"\n\"well, that gives us a limit. our lady enters this room and what does\nshe do? she goes over to the writing-table. what for? not for\nanything in the drawers. if there had been anything worth her taking\nit would surely have been locked up. no; it was for something in that\nwooden bureau. halloa! what is that scratch upon the face of it? just\nhold a match, watson. why did you not tell me of this, hopkins?\"\nthe mark which he was examining began upon the brass work on the\nright-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four inches,\nwhere it had scratched the varnish from the surface.\n\"i noticed it, mr. holmes. but you'll always find scratches round a\nkeyhole.\"\n\"this is recent, quite recent. see how the brass shines where it is\ncut. an old scratch would be the same colour as the surface. look at\nit through my lens. there's the varnish, too, like earth on each side\nof a furrow. is mrs. marker there?\"\na sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.\n\"did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"did you notice this scratch?\"\n\"no, sir, i did not.\"\n\"i am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away these\nshreds of varnish. who has the key of this bureau?\"\n\"the professor keeps it on his watch-chain.\"\n\"is it a simple key?\"\n\"no, sir; it is a chubb's key.\"\n\"very good. mrs. marker, you can go. now we are making a little\nprogress. our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and\neither opens it or tries to do so. while she is thus engaged young\nwilloughby smith enters the room. in her hurry to withdraw the key\nshe makes this scratch upon the door. he seizes her, and she,\nsnatching up the nearest object, which happens to be this knife,\nstrikes at him in order to make him let go his hold. the blow is a\nfatal one. he falls and she escapes, either with or without the\nobject for which she has come. is susan the maid there? could anyone\nhave got away through that door after the time that you heard the\ncry, susan?\"\n\"no sir; it is impossible. before i got down the stair i'd have seen\nanyone in the passage. besides, the door never opened, for i would\nhave heard it.\"\n\"that settles this exit. then no doubt the lady went out the way she\ncame. i understand that this other passage leads only to the\nprofessor's room. there is no exit that way?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"we shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the professor.\nhalloa, hopkins! this is very important, very important indeed. the\nprofessor's corridor is also lined with cocoanut matting.\"\n\"well, sir, what of that?\"\n\"don't you see any bearing upon the case? well, well, i don't insist\nupon it. no doubt i am wrong. and yet it seems to me to be\nsuggestive. come with me and introduce me.\"\nwe passed down the passage, which was of the same length as that\nwhich led to the garden. at the end was a short flight of steps\nending in a door. our guide knocked, and then ushered us into the\nprofessor's bedroom.\nit was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes, which\nhad overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners, or\nwere stacked all round at the base of the cases. the bed was in the\ncentre of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner\nof the house. i have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person. it\nwas a gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing\ndark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted\nbrows. his hair and beard were white, save that the latter was\ncuriously stained with yellow around his mouth. a cigarette glowed\namid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with\nstale tobacco-smoke. as he held out his hand to holmes i perceived\nthat it also was stained yellow with nicotine.\n\"a smoker, mr. holmes?\" said he, speaking well-chosen english with a\ncurious little mincing accent. \"pray take a cigarette. and you, sir?\ni can recommend them, for i have them especially prepared by ionides\nof alexandria. he sends me a thousand at a time, and i grieve to say\nthat i have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight. bad, sir,\nvery bad, but an old man has few pleasures. tobacco and my work--that\nis all that is left to me.\"\nholmes had lit a cigarette, and was shooting little darting glances\nall over the room.\n\"tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco,\" the old man exclaimed.\n\"alas! what a fatal interruption! who could have foreseen such a\nterrible catastrophe? so estimable a young man! i assure you that\nafter a few months' training he was an admirable assistant. what do\nyou think of the matter, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i have not yet made up my mind.\"\n\"i shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all\nis so dark to us. to a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a\nblow is paralyzing. i seem to have lost the faculty of thought. but\nyou are a man of action--you are a man of affairs. it is part of the\neveryday routine of your life. you can preserve your balance in every\nemergency. we are fortunate indeed in having you at our side.\"\nholmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old\nprofessor was talking. i observed that he was smoking with\nextraordinary rapidity. it was evident that he shared our host's\nliking for the fresh alexandrian cigarettes.\n\"yes, sir, it is a crushing blow,\" said the old man. \"that is my\nmagnum opus--the pile of papers on the side table yonder. it is my\nanalysis of the documents found in the coptic monasteries of syria\nand egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundations of\nrevealed religion. with my enfeebled health i do not know whether i\nshall ever be able to complete it now that my assistant has been\ntaken from me. dear me, mr. holmes; why, you are even a quicker\nsmoker than i am myself.\"\nholmes smiled.\n\"i am a connoisseur,\" said he, taking another cigarette from the\nbox--his fourth--and lighting it from the stub of that which he had\nfinished. \"i will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination,\nprofessor coram, since i gather that you were in bed at the time of\nthe crime and could know nothing about it. i would only ask this.\nwhat do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words:\n'the professor--it was she'?\"\nthe professor shook his head.\n\"susan is a country girl,\" said he, \"and you know the incredible\nstupidity of that class. i fancy that the poor fellow murmured some\nincoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into this\nmeaningless message.\"\n\"i see. you have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?\"\n\"possibly an accident; possibly--i only breathe it among ourselves--a\nsuicide. young men have their hidden troubles--some affair of the\nheart, perhaps, which we have never known. it is a more probable\nsupposition than murder.\"\n\"but the eye-glasses?\"\n\"ah! i am only a student--a man of dreams. i cannot explain the\npractical things of life. but still, we are aware, my friend, that\nlove-gages may take strange shapes. by all means take another\ncigarette. it is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them so. a fan,\na glove, glasses--who knows what article may be carried as a token or\ntreasured when a man puts an end to his life? this gentleman speaks\nof footsteps in the grass; but, after all, it is easy to be mistaken\non such a point. as to the knife, it might well be thrown far from\nthe unfortunate man as he fell. it is possible that i speak as a\nchild, but to me it seems that willoughby smith has met his fate by\nhis own hand.\"\nholmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he continued\nto walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and consuming\ncigarette after cigarette.\n\"tell me, professor coram,\" he said, at last, \"what is in that\ncupboard in the bureau?\"\n\"nothing that would help a thief. family papers, letters from my poor\nwife, diplomas of universities which have done me honour. here is the\nkey. you can look for yourself.\"\nholmes picked up the key and looked at it for an instant; then he\nhanded it back.\n\"no; i hardly think that it would help me,\" said he. \"i should prefer\nto go quietly down to your garden and turn the whole matter over in\nmy head. there is something to be said for the theory of suicide\nwhich you have put forward. we must apologize for having intruded\nupon you, professor coram, and i promise that we won't disturb you\nuntil after lunch. at two o'clock we will come again and report to\nyou anything which may have happened in the interval.\"\nholmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down the garden\npath for some time in silence.\n\"have you a clue?\" i asked, at last.\n\"it depends upon those cigarettes that i smoked,\" said he. \"it is\npossible that i am utterly mistaken. the cigarettes will show me.\"\n\"my dear holmes,\" i exclaimed, \"how on earth--\"\n\"well, well, you may see for yourself. if not, there's no harm done.\nof course, we always have the optician clue to fall back upon, but i\ntake a short cut when i can get it. ah, here is the good mrs. marker!\nlet us enjoy five minutes of instructive conversation with her.\"\ni may have remarked before that holmes had, when he liked, a\npeculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily\nestablished terms of confidence with them. in half the time which he\nhad named he had captured the housekeeper's goodwill, and was\nchatting with her as if he had known her for years.\n\"yes, mr. holmes, it is as you say, sir. he does smoke something\nterrible. all day and sometimes all night, sir. i've seen that room\nof a morning--well, sir, you'd have thought it was a london fog. poor\nyoung mr. smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad as the\nprofessor. his health--well, i don't know that it's better nor worse\nfor the smoking.\"\n\"ah!\" said holmes, \"but it kills the appetite.\"\n\"well, i don't know about that, sir.\"\n\"i suppose the professor eats hardly anything?\"\n\"well, he is variable. i'll say that for him.\"\n\"i'll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won't face his\nlunch after all the cigarettes i saw him consume.\"\n\"well, you're out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a remarkable\nbig breakfast this morning. i don't know when i've known him make a\nbetter one, and he's ordered a good dish of cutlets for his lunch.\ni'm surprised myself, for since i came into that room yesterday and\nsaw young mr. smith lying there on the floor i couldn't bear to look\nat food. well, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the professor\nhasn't let it take his appetite away.\"\nwe loitered the morning away in the garden. stanley hopkins had gone\ndown to the village to look into some rumours of a strange woman who\nhad been seen by some children on the chatham road the previous\nmorning. as to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to have\ndeserted him. i had never known him handle a case in such a\nhalf-hearted fashion. even the news brought back by hopkins that he\nhad found the children and that they had undoubtedly seen a woman\nexactly corresponding with holmes's description, and wearing either\nspectacles or eye-glasses, failed to rouse any sign of keen interest.\nhe was more attentive when susan, who waited upon us at lunch,\nvolunteered the information that she believed mr. smith had been out\nfor a walk yesterday morning, and that he had only returned half an\nhour before the tragedy occurred. i could not myself see the bearing\nof this incident, but i clearly perceived that holmes was weaving it\ninto the general scheme which he had formed in his brain. suddenly he\nsprang from his chair and glanced at his watch. \"two o'clock,\ngentlemen,\" said he. \"we must go up and have it out with our friend\nthe professor.\"\nthe old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly his empty dish\nbore evidence to the good appetite with which his housekeeper had\ncredited him. he was, indeed, a weird figure as he turned his white\nmane and his glowing eyes towards us. the eternal cigarette\nsmouldered in his mouth. he had been dressed and was seated in an\narm-chair by the fire.\n\"well, mr. holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?\" he shoved the\nlarge tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him towards my\ncompanion. holmes stretched out his hand at the same moment, and\nbetween them they tipped the box over the edge. for a minute or two\nwe were all on our knees retrieving stray cigarettes from impossible\nplaces. when we rose again i observed that holmes's eyes were shining\nand his cheeks tinged with colour. only at a crisis have i seen those\nbattle-signals flying.\n\"yes,\" said he, \"i have solved it.\"\nstanley hopkins and i stared in amazement. something like a sneer\nquivered over the gaunt features of the old professor.\n\"indeed! in the garden?\"\n\"no, here.\"\n\"here! when?\"\n\"this instant.\"\n\"you are surely joking, mr. sherlock holmes. you compel me to tell\nyou that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such a\nfashion.\"\n\"i have forged and tested every link of my chain, professor coram,\nand i am sure that it is sound. what your motives are or what exact\npart you play in this strange business i am not yet able to say. in a\nfew minutes i shall probably hear it from your own lips. meanwhile i\nwill reconstruct what is past for your benefit, so that you may know\nthe information which i still require.\n\"a lady yesterday entered your study. she came with the intention of\npossessing herself of certain documents which were in your bureau.\nshe had a key of her own. i have had an opportunity of examining\nyours, and i do not find that slight discolouration which the scratch\nmade upon the varnish would have produced. you were not an accessory,\ntherefore, and she came, so far as i can read the evidence, without\nyour knowledge to rob you.\"\nthe professor blew a cloud from his lips. \"this is most interesting\nand instructive,\" said he. \"have you no more to add? surely, having\ntraced this lady so far, you can also say what has become of her.\"\n\"i will endeavour to do so. in the first place she was seized by your\nsecretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. this catastrophe i am\ninclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for i am convinced that\nthe lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous an injury. an\nassassin does not come unarmed. horrified by what she had done she\nrushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy. unfortunately for\nher she had lost her glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely\nshort-sighted she was really helpless without them. she ran down a\ncorridor, which she imagined to be that by which she had come--both\nwere lined with cocoanut matting--and it was only when it was too\nlate that she understood that she had taken the wrong passage and\nthat her retreat was cut off behind her. what was she to do? she\ncould not go back. she could not remain where she was. she must go\non. she went on. she mounted a stair, pushed open a door, and found\nherself in your room.\"\nthe old man sat with his mouth open staring wildly at holmes.\namazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features. now,\nwith an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst into insincere\nlaughter.\n\"all very fine, mr. holmes,\" said he. \"but there is one little flaw\nin your splendid theory. i was myself in my room, and i never left it\nduring the day.\"\n\"i am aware of that, professor coram.\"\n\"and you mean to say that i could lie upon that bed and not be aware\nthat a woman had entered my room?\"\n\"i never said so. you were aware of it. you spoke with her. you\nrecognised her. you aided her to escape.\"\nagain the professor burst into high-keyed laughter. he had risen to\nhis feet and his eyes glowed like embers.\n\"you are mad!\" he cried. \"you are talking insanely. i helped her to\nescape? where is she now?\"\n\"she is there,\" said holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcase in the\ncorner of the room.\ni saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed\nover his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. at the same\ninstant the bookcase at which holmes pointed swung round upon a\nhinge, and a woman rushed out into the room. \"you are right!\" she\ncried, in a strange foreign voice. \"you are right! i am here.\"\nshe was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had\ncome from the walls of her hiding-place. her face, too, was streaked\nwith grime, and at the best she could never have been handsome, for\nshe had the exact physical characteristics which holmes had divined,\nwith, in addition, a long and obstinate chin. what with her natural\nblindness, and what with the change from dark to light, she stood as\none dazed, blinking about her to see where and who we were. and yet,\nin spite of all these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in\nthe woman's bearing, a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the\nupraised head, which compelled something of respect and admiration.\nstanley hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed her as his\nprisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with an\novermastering dignity which compelled obedience. the old man lay back\nin his chair, with a twitching face, and stared at her with brooding\neyes.\n\"yes, sir, i am your prisoner,\" she said. \"from where i stood i could\nhear everything, and i know that you have learned the truth. i\nconfess it all. it was i who killed the young man. but you are right,\nyou who say it was an accident. i did not even know that it was a\nknife which i held in my hand, for in my despair i snatched anything\nfrom the table and struck at him to make him let me go. it is the\ntruth that i tell.\"\n\"madam,\" said holmes, \"i am sure that it is the truth. i fear that\nyou are far from well.\"\nshe had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under the dark\ndust-streaks upon her face. she seated herself on the side of the\nbed; then she resumed.\n\"i have only a little time here,\" she said, \"but i would have you to\nknow the whole truth. i am this man's wife. he is not an englishman.\nhe is a russian. his name i will not tell.\"\nfor the first time the old man stirred. \"god bless you, anna!\" he\ncried. \"god bless you!\"\nshe cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. \"why should\nyou cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, sergius?\" said she.\n\"it has done harm to many and good to none--not even to yourself.\nhowever, it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped\nbefore god's time. i have enough already upon my soul since i crossed\nthe threshold of this cursed house. but i must speak or i shall be\ntoo late.\n\"i have said, gentlemen, that i am this man's wife. he was fifty and\ni a foolish girl of twenty when we married. it was in a city of\nrussia, a university--i will not name the place.\"\n\"god bless you, anna!\" murmured the old man again.\n\"we were reformers--revolutionists--nihilists, you understand. he and\ni and many more. then there came a time of trouble, a police officer\nwas killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to\nsave his own life and to earn a great reward my husband betrayed his\nown wife and his companions. yes, we were all arrested upon his\nconfession. some of us found our way to the gallows and some to\nsiberia. i was among these last, but my term was not for life. my\nhusband came to england with his ill-gotten gains, and has lived in\nquiet ever since, knowing well that if the brotherhood knew where he\nwas not a week would pass before justice would be done.\"\nthe old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a\ncigarette. \"i am in your hands, anna,\" said he. \"you were always good\nto me.\"\n\"i have not yet told you the height of his villainy,\" said she.\n\"among our comrades of the order there was one who was the friend of\nmy heart. he was noble, unselfish, loving--all that my husband was\nnot. he hated violence. we were all guilty--if that is guilt--but he\nwas not. he wrote for ever dissuading us from such a course. these\nletters would have saved him. so would my diary, in which from day to\nday i had entered both my feelings towards him and the view which\neach of us had taken. my husband found and kept both diary and\nletters. he hid them, and he tried hard to swear away the young man's\nlife. in this he failed, but alexis was sent a convict to siberia,\nwhere now, at this moment, he works in a salt mine. think of that,\nyou villain, you villain; now, now, at this very moment, alexis, a\nman whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a\nslave, and yet i have your life in my hands and i let you go.\"\n\"you were always a noble woman, anna,\" said the old man, puffing at\nhis cigarette.\nshe had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.\n\"i must finish,\" she said. \"when my term was over i set myself to get\nthe diary and letters which, if sent to the russian government, would\nprocure my friend's release. i knew that my husband had come to\nengland. after months of searching i discovered where he was. i knew\nthat he still had the diary, for when i was in siberia i had a letter\nfrom him once reproaching me and quoting some passages from its\npages. yet i was sure that with his revengeful nature he would never\ngive it to me of his own free will. i must get it for myself. with\nthis object i engaged an agent from a private detective firm, who\nentered my husband's house as secretary--it was your second\nsecretary, sergius, the one who left you so hurriedly. he found that\npapers were kept in the cupboard, and he got an impression of the\nkey. he would not go farther. he furnished me with a plan of the\nhouse, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was always\nempty, as the secretary was employed up here. so at last i took my\ncourage in both hands and i came down to get the papers for myself. i\nsucceeded, but at what a cost!\n\"i had just taken the papers and was locking the cupboard when the\nyoung man seized me. i had seen him already that morning. he had met\nme in the road and i had asked him to tell me where professor coram\nlived, not knowing that he was in his employ.\"\n\"exactly! exactly!\" said holmes. \"the secretary came back and told\nhis employer of the woman he had met. then in his last breath he\ntried to send a message that it was she--the she whom he had just\ndiscussed with him.\"\n\"you must let me speak,\" said the woman, in an imperative voice, and\nher face contracted as if in pain. \"when he had fallen i rushed from\nthe room, chose the wrong door, and found myself in my husband's\nroom. he spoke of giving me up. i showed him that if he did so his\nlife was in my hands. if he gave me to the law i could give him to\nthe brotherhood. it was not that i wished to live for my own sake,\nbut it was that i desired to accomplish my purpose. he knew that i\nwould do what i said--that his own fate was involved in mine. for\nthat reason and for no other he shielded me. he thrust me into that\ndark hiding-place, a relic of old days, known only to himself. he\ntook his meals in his own room, and so was able to give me part of\nhis food. it was agreed that when the police left the house i should\nslip away by night and come back no more. but in some way you have\nread our plans.\" she tore from the bosom of her dress a small packet.\n\"these are my last words,\" said she; \"here is the packet which will\nsave alexis. i confide it to your honour and to your love of justice.\ntake it! you will deliver it at the russian embassy. now i have done\nmy duty, and--\"\n\"stop her!\" cried holmes. he had bounded across the room and had\nwrenched a small phial from her hand.\n\"too late!\" she said, sinking back on the bed. \"too late! i took the\npoison before i left my hiding-place. my head swims! i am going! i\ncharge you, sir, to remember the packet.\"\n\"a simple case, and yet in some ways an instructive one,\" holmes\nremarked, as we travelled back to town. \"it hinged from the outset\nupon the pince-nez. but for the fortunate chance of the dying man\nhaving seized these i am not sure that we could ever have reached our\nsolution. it was clear to me from the strength of the glasses that\nthe wearer must have been very blind and helpless when deprived of\nthem. when you asked me to believe that she walked along a narrow\nstrip of grass without once making a false step i remarked, as you\nmay remember, that it was a noteworthy performance. in my mind i set\nit down as an impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that\nshe had a second pair of glasses. i was forced, therefore, to\nseriously consider the hypothesis that she had remained within the\nhouse. on perceiving the similarity of the two corridors it became\nclear that she might very easily have made such a mistake, and in\nthat case it was evident that she must have entered the professor's\nroom. i was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would bear\nout this supposition, and i examined the room narrowly for anything\nin the shape of a hiding-place. the carpet seemed continuous and\nfirmly nailed, so i dismissed the idea of a trap-door. there might\nwell be a recess behind the books. as you are aware, such devices are\ncommon in old libraries. i observed that books were piled on the\nfloor at all other points, but that one bookcase was left clear.\nthis, then, might be the door. i could see no marks to guide me, but\nthe carpet was of a dun colour, which lends itself very well to\nexamination. i therefore smoked a great number of those excellent\ncigarettes, and i dropped the ash all over the space in front of the\nsuspected bookcase. it was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective.\ni then went downstairs and i ascertained, in your presence, watson,\nwithout your perceiving the drift of my remarks, that professor\ncoram's consumption of food had increased--as one would expect when\nhe is supplying a second person. we then ascended to the room again,\nwhen, by upsetting the cigarette-box, i obtained a very excellent\nview of the floor, and was able to see quite clearly, from the traces\nupon the cigarette ash, that the prisoner had, in our absence, come\nout from her retreat. well, hopkins, here we are at charing cross,\nand i congratulate you on having brought your case to a successful\nconclusion. you are going to head-quarters, no doubt. i think,\nwatson, you and i will drive together to the russian embassy.\"\nthe adventure of the missing three-quarter\nwe were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at baker street,\nbut i have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a\ngloomy february morning some seven or eight years ago and gave mr.\nsherlock holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. it was addressed to\nhim, and ran thus:\n\"please await me. terrible misfortune. right wing three-quarter\nmissing; indispensable to-morrow.\noverton.\"\n\"strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six,\" said holmes,\nreading it over and over. \"mr. overton was evidently considerably\nexcited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence.\nwell, well, he will be here, i dare say, by the time i have looked\nthrough the times, and then we shall know all about it. even the most\ninsignificant problem would be welcome in these stagnant days.\"\nthings had indeed been very slow with us, and i had learned to dread\nsuch periods of inaction, for i knew by experience that my\ncompanion's brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to\nleave it without material upon which to work. for years i had\ngradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once\nto check his remarkable career. now i knew that under ordinary\nconditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but i\nwas well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping; and i have\nknown that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in\nperiods of idleness i have seen the drawn look upon holmes's ascetic\nface, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes.\ntherefore i blessed this mr. overton, whoever he might be, since he\nhad come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm\nwhich brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his\ntempestuous life.\nas we had expected, the telegram was soon followed by its sender, and\nthe card of mr. cyril overton, of trinity college, cambridge,\nannounced the arrival of an enormous young man, sixteen stone of\nsolid bone and muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad\nshoulders and looked from one of us to the other with a comely face\nwhich was haggard with anxiety.\n\"mr. sherlock holmes?\"\nmy companion bowed.\n\"i've been down to scotland yard, mr. holmes. i saw inspector stanley\nhopkins. he advised me to come to you. he said the case, so far as he\ncould see, was more in your line than in that of the regular police.\"\n\"pray sit down and tell me what is the matter.\"\n\"it's awful, mr. holmes, simply awful! i wonder my hair isn't grey.\ngodfrey staunton--you've heard of him, of course? he's simply the\nhinge that the whole team turns on. i'd rather spare two from the\npack and have godfrey for my three-quarter line. whether it's\npassing, or tackling, or dribbling, there's no one to touch him; and\nthen, he's got the head and can hold us all together. what am i to\ndo? that's what i ask you, mr. holmes. there's moorhouse, first\nreserve, but he is trained as a half, and he always edges right in on\nto the scrum instead of keeping out on the touch-line. he's a fine\nplace-kick, it's true, but, then, he has no judgment, and he can't\nsprint for nuts. why, morton or johnson, the oxford fliers, could\nromp round him. stevenson is fast enough, but he couldn't drop from\nthe twenty-five line, and a three-quarter who can't either punt or\ndrop isn't worth a place for pace alone. no, mr. holmes, we are done\nunless you can help me to find godfrey staunton.\"\nmy friend had listened with amused surprise to this long speech,\nwhich was poured forth with extraordinary vigour and earnestness,\nevery point being driven home by the slapping of a brawny hand upon\nthe speaker's knee. when our visitor was silent holmes stretched out\nhis hand and took down letter \"s\" of his commonplace book. for once\nhe dug in vain into that mine of varied information.\n\"there is arthur h. staunton, the rising young forger,\" said he, \"and\nthere was henry staunton, whom i helped to hang, but godfrey staunton\nis a new name to me.\"\nit was our visitor's turn to look surprised.\n\"why, mr. holmes, i thought you knew things,\" said he. \"i suppose,\nthen, if you have never heard of godfrey staunton you don't know\ncyril overton either?\"\nholmes shook his head good-humouredly.\n\"great scot!\" cried the athlete. \"why, i was first reserve for\nengland against wales, and i've skippered the 'varsity all this year.\nbut that's nothing! i didn't think there was a soul in england who\ndidn't know godfrey staunton, the crack three-quarter, cambridge,\nblackheath, and five internationals. good lord! mr. holmes, where\nhave you lived?\"\nholmes laughed at the young giant's naive astonishment.\n\"you live in a different world to me, mr. overton, a sweeter and\nhealthier one. my ramifications stretch out into many sections of\nsociety, but never, i am happy to say, into amateur sport, which is\nthe best and soundest thing in england. however, your unexpected\nvisit this morning shows me that even in that world of fresh air and\nfair play there may be work for me to do; so now, my good sir, i beg\nyou to sit down and to tell me slowly and quietly exactly what it is\nthat has occurred, and how you desire that i should help you.\"\nyoung overton's face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more\naccustomed to using his muscles than his wits; but by degrees, with\nmany repetitions and obscurities which i may omit from his narrative,\nhe laid his strange story before us.\n\"it's this way, mr. holmes. as i have said, i am the skipper of the\nrugger team of cambridge 'varsity, and godfrey staunton is my best\nman. to-morrow we play oxford. yesterday we all came up and we\nsettled at bentley's private hotel. at ten o'clock i went round and\nsaw that all the fellows had gone to roost, for i believe in strict\ntraining and plenty of sleep to keep a team fit. i had a word or two\nwith godfrey before he turned in. he seemed to me to be pale and\nbothered. i asked him what was the matter. he said he was all\nright--just a touch of headache. i bade him good-night and left him.\nhalf an hour later the porter tells me that a rough-looking man with\na beard called with a note for godfrey. he had not gone to bed and\nthe note was taken to his room. godfrey read it and fell back in a\nchair as if he had been pole-axed. the porter was so scared that he\nwas going to fetch me, but godfrey stopped him, had a drink of water,\nand pulled himself together. then he went downstairs, said a few\nwords to the man who was waiting in the hall, and the two of them\nwent off together. the last that the porter saw of them, they were\nalmost running down the street in the direction of the strand. this\nmorning godfrey's room was empty, his bed had never been slept in,\nand his things were all just as i had seen them the night before. he\nhad gone off at a moment's notice with this stranger, and no word has\ncome from him since. i don't believe he will ever come back. he was a\nsportsman, was godfrey, down to his marrow, and he wouldn't have\nstopped his training and let in his skipper if it were not for some\ncause that was too strong for him. no; i feel as if he were gone for\ngood and we should never see him again.\"\nsherlock holmes listened with the deepest attention to this singular\nnarrative.\n\"what did you do?\" he asked.\n\"i wired to cambridge to learn if anything had been heard of him\nthere. i have had an answer. no one has seen him.\"\n\"could he have got back to cambridge?\"\n\"yes, there is a late train--quarter-past eleven.\"\n\"but so far as you can ascertain he did not take it?\"\n\"no, he has not been seen.\"\n\"what did you do next?\"\n\"i wired to lord mount-james.\"\n\"why to lord mount-james?\"\n\"godfrey is an orphan, and lord mount-james is his nearest\nrelative--his uncle, i believe.\"\n\"indeed. this throws new light upon the matter. lord mount-james is\none of the richest men in england.\"\n\"so i've heard godfrey say.\"\n\"and your friend was closely related?\"\n\"yes, he was his heir, and the old boy is nearly eighty--cram full of\ngout, too. they say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his\nknuckles. he never allowed godfrey a shilling in his life, for he is\nan absolute miser, but it will all come to him right enough.\"\n\"have you heard from lord mount-james?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"what motive could your friend have in going to lord mount-james?\"\n\"well, something was worrying him the night before, and if it was to\ndo with money it is possible that he would make for his nearest\nrelative who had so much of it, though from all i have heard he would\nnot have much chance of getting it. godfrey was not fond of the old\nman. he would not go if he could help it.\"\n\"well, we can soon determine that. if your friend was going to his\nrelative, lord mount-james, you have then to explain the visit of\nthis rough-looking fellow at so late an hour, and the agitation that\nwas caused by his coming.\"\ncyril overton pressed his hands to his head. \"i can make nothing of\nit,\" said he.\n\"well, well, i have a clear day, and i shall be happy to look into\nthe matter,\" said holmes. \"i should strongly recommend you to make\nyour preparations for your match without reference to this young\ngentleman. it must, as you say, have been an overpowering necessity\nwhich tore him away in such a fashion, and the same necessity is\nlikely to hold him away. let us step round together to this hotel,\nand see if the porter can throw any fresh light upon the matter.\"\nsherlock holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble\nwitness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of godfrey\nstaunton's abandoned room, he had extracted all that the porter had\nto tell. the visitor of the night before was not a gentleman, neither\nwas he a working man. he was simply what the porter described as a\n\"medium-looking chap\"; a man of fifty, beard grizzled, pale face,\nquietly dressed. he seemed himself to be agitated. the porter had\nobserved his hand trembling when he had held out the note. godfrey\nstaunton had crammed the note into his pocket. staunton had not\nshaken hands with the man in the hall. they had exchanged a few\nsentences, of which the porter had only distinguished the one word\n\"time.\" then they had hurried off in the manner described. it was\njust half-past ten by the hall clock.\n\"let me see,\" said holmes, seating himself on staunton's bed. \"you\nare the day porter, are you not?\"\n\"yes, sir; i go off duty at eleven.\"\n\"the night porter saw nothing, i suppose?\"\n\"no, sir; one theatre party came in late. no one else.\"\n\"were you on duty all day yesterday?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"did you take any messages to mr. staunton?\"\n\"yes, sir; one telegram.\"\n\"ah! that's interesting. what o'clock was this?\"\n\"about six.\"\n\"where was mr. staunton when he received it?\"\n\"here in his room.\"\n\"were you present when he opened it?\"\n\"yes, sir; i waited to see if there was an answer.\"\n\"well, was there?\"\n\"yes, sir. he wrote an answer.\"\n\"did you take it?\"\n\"no; he took it himself.\"\n\"but he wrote it in your presence?\"\n\"yes, sir. i was standing by the door, and he with his back turned at\nthat table. when he had written it he said, 'all right, porter, i\nwill take this myself.'\"\n\"what did he write it with?\"\n\"a pen, sir.\"\n\"was the telegraphic form one of these on the table?\"\n\"yes, sir; it was the top one.\"\nholmes rose. taking the forms he carried them over to the window and\ncarefully examined that which was uppermost.\n\"it is a pity he did not write in pencil,\" said he, throwing them\ndown again with a shrug of disappointment. \"as you have no doubt\nfrequently observed, watson, the impression usually goes through--a\nfact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. however, i can find\nno trace here. i rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with a\nbroad-pointed quill pen, and i can hardly doubt that we will find\nsome impression upon this blotting-pad. ah, yes, surely this is the\nvery thing!\"\nhe tore off a strip of the blotting-paper and turned towards us the\nfollowing hieroglyphic:\n[ picture: several unreadable scrawls on paper ]\ncyril overton was much excited. \"hold it to the glass!\" he cried.\n\"that is unnecessary,\" said holmes. \"the paper is thin, and the\nreverse will give the message. here it is.\" he turned it over and we\nread:\n[ picture: stand by us for gods sake! ]\n\"so that is the tail end of the telegram which godfrey staunton\ndispatched within a few hours of his disappearance. there are at\nleast six words of the message which have escaped us; but what\nremains--'stand by us for god's sake!'--proves that this young man\nsaw a formidable danger which approached him, and from which someone\nelse could protect him. 'us,' mark you! another person was involved.\nwho should it be but the pale-faced, bearded man, who seemed himself\nin so nervous a state? what, then, is the connection between godfrey\nstaunton and the bearded man? and what is the third source from which\neach of them sought for help against pressing danger? our inquiry has\nalready narrowed down to that.\"\n\"we have only to find to whom that telegram is addressed,\" i\nsuggested.\n\"exactly, my dear watson. your reflection, though profound, had\nalready crossed my mind. but i dare say it may have come to your\nnotice that if you walk into a post-office and demand to see the\ncounterfoil of another man's message there may be some disinclination\non the part of the officials to oblige you. there is so much red tape\nin these matters! however, i have no doubt that with a little\ndelicacy and finesse the end may be attained. meanwhile, i should\nlike in your presence, mr. overton, to go through these papers which\nhave been left upon the table.\"\nthere were a number of letters, bills, and note-books, which holmes\nturned over and examined with quick, nervous fingers and darting,\npenetrating eyes. \"nothing here,\" he said, at last. \"by the way, i\nsuppose your friend was a healthy young fellow--nothing amiss with\nhim?\"\n\"sound as a bell.\"\n\"have you ever known him ill?\"\n\"not a day. he has been laid up with a hack, and once he slipped his\nknee-cap, but that was nothing.\"\n\"perhaps he was not so strong as you suppose. i should think he may\nhave had some secret trouble. with your assent i will put one or two\nof these papers in my pocket, in case they should bear upon our\nfuture inquiry.\"\n\"one moment! one moment!\" cried a querulous voice, and we looked up\nto find a queer little old man, jerking and twitching in the doorway.\nhe was dressed in rusty black, with a very broad brimmed top-hat and\na loose white necktie--the whole effect being that of a very rustic\nparson or of an undertaker's mute. yet, in spite of his shabby and\neven absurd appearance, his voice had a sharp crackle, and his manner\na quick intensity which commanded attention.\n\"who are you, sir, and by what right do you touch this gentleman's\npapers?\" he asked.\n\"i am a private detective, and i am endeavouring to explain his\ndisappearance.\"\n\"oh, you are, are you? and who instructed you, eh?\"\n\"this gentleman, mr. staunton's friend, was referred to me by\nscotland yard.\"\n\"who are you, sir?\"\n\"i am cyril overton.\"\n\"then it is you who sent me a telegram. my name is lord mount-james.\ni came round as quickly as the bayswater 'bus would bring me. so you\nhave instructed a detective?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and are you prepared to meet the cost?\"\n\"i have no doubt, sir, that my friend godfrey, when we find him, will\nbe prepared to do that.\"\n\"but if he is never found, eh? answer me that!\"\n\"in that case no doubt his family--\"\n\"nothing of the sort, sir!\" screamed the little man. \"don't look to\nme for a penny--not a penny! you understand that, mr. detective! i am\nall the family that this young man has got, and i tell you that i am\nnot responsible. if he has any expectations it is due to the fact\nthat i have never wasted money, and i do not propose to begin to do\nso now. as to those papers with which you are making so free, i may\ntell you that in case there should be anything of any value among\nthem you will be held strictly to account for what you do with them.\"\n\"very good, sir,\" said sherlock holmes. \"may i ask in the meanwhile\nwhether you have yourself any theory to account for this young man's\ndisappearance?\"\n\"no, sir, i have not. he is big enough and old enough to look after\nhimself, and if he is so foolish as to lose himself i entirely refuse\nto accept the responsibility of hunting for him.\"\n\"i quite understand your position,\" said holmes, with a mischievous\ntwinkle in his eyes. \"perhaps you don't quite understand mine.\ngodfrey staunton appears to have been a poor man. if he has been\nkidnapped it could not have been for anything which he himself\npossesses. the fame of your wealth has gone abroad, lord mount-james,\nand it is entirely possible that a gang of thieves have secured your\nnephew in order to gain from him some information as to your house,\nyour habits, and your treasure.\"\nthe face of our unpleasant little visitor turned as white as his\nneckcloth.\n\"heavens, sir, what an idea! i never thought of such villainy! what\ninhuman rogues there are in the world! but godfrey is a fine lad--a\nstaunch lad. nothing would induce him to give his old uncle away.\ni'll have the plate moved over to the bank this evening. in the\nmeantime spare no pains, mr. detective! i beg you to leave no stone\nunturned to bring him safely back. as to money, well, so far as a\nfiver, or even a tenner, goes, you can always look to me.\"\neven in his chastened frame of mind the noble miser could give us no\ninformation which could help us, for he knew little of the private\nlife of his nephew. our only clue lay in the truncated telegram, and\nwith a copy of this in his hand holmes set forth to find a second\nlink for his chain. we had shaken off lord mount-james, and overton\nhad gone to consult with the other members of his team over the\nmisfortune which had befallen them.\nthere was a telegraph-office at a short distance from the hotel. we\nhalted outside it.\n\"it's worth trying, watson,\" said holmes. \"of course, with a warrant\nwe could demand to see the counterfoils, but we have not reached that\nstage yet. i don't suppose they remember faces in so busy a place.\nlet us venture it.\"\n\"i am sorry to trouble you,\" said he, in his blandest manner, to the\nyoung woman behind the grating; \"there is some small mistake about a\ntelegram i sent yesterday. i have had no answer, and i very much fear\nthat i must have omitted to put my name at the end. could you tell me\nif this was so?\"\nthe young woman turned over a sheaf of counterfoils.\n\"what o'clock was it?\" she asked.\n\"a little after six.\"\n\"whom was it to?\"\nholmes put his finger to his lips and glanced at me. \"the last words\nin it were 'for god's sake,'\" he whispered, confidentially; \"i am\nvery anxious at getting no answer.\"\nthe young woman separated one of the forms.\n\"this is it. there is no name,\" said she, smoothing it out upon the\ncounter.\n\"then that, of course, accounts for my getting no answer,\" said\nholmes. \"dear me, how very stupid of me, to be sure! good morning,\nmiss, and many thanks for having relieved my mind.\" he chuckled and\nrubbed his hands when we found ourselves in the street once more.\n\"well?\" i asked.\n\"we progress, my dear watson, we progress. i had seven different\nschemes for getting a glimpse of that telegram, but i could hardly\nhope to succeed the very first time.\"\n\"and what have you gained?\"\n\"a starting-point for our investigation.\" he hailed a cab. \"king's\ncross station,\" said he.\n\"we have a journey, then?\"\n\"yes; i think we must run down to cambridge together. all the\nindications seem to me to point in that direction.\"\n\"tell me,\" i asked, as we rattled up gray's inn road, \"have you any\nsuspicion yet as to the cause of the disappearance? i don't think\nthat among all our cases i have known one where the motives are more\nobscure. surely you don't really imagine that he may be kidnapped in\norder to give information against his wealthy uncle?\"\n\"i confess, my dear watson, that that does not appeal to me as a very\nprobable explanation. it struck me, however, as being the one which\nwas most likely to interest that exceedingly unpleasant old person.\"\n\"it certainly did that. but what are your alternatives?\"\n\"i could mention several. you must admit that it is curious and\nsuggestive that this incident should occur on the eve of this\nimportant match, and should involve the only man whose presence seems\nessential to the success of the side. it may, of course, be\ncoincidence, but it is interesting. amateur sport is free from\nbetting, but a good deal of outside betting goes on among the public,\nand it is possible that it might be worth someone's while to get at a\nplayer as the ruffians of the turf get at a race-horse. there is one\nexplanation. a second very obvious one is that this young man really\nis the heir of a great property, however modest his means may at\npresent be, and it is not impossible that a plot to hold him for\nransom might be concocted.\"\n\"these theories take no account of the telegram.\"\n\"quite true, watson. the telegram still remains the only solid thing\nwith which we have to deal, and we must not permit our attention to\nwander away from it. it is to gain light upon the purpose of this\ntelegram that we are now upon our way to cambridge. the path of our\ninvestigation is at present obscure, but i shall be very much\nsurprised if before evening we have not cleared it up or made a\nconsiderable advance along it.\"\nit was already dark when we reached the old university city. holmes\ntook a cab at the station, and ordered the man to drive to the house\nof dr. leslie armstrong. a few minutes later we had stopped at a\nlarge mansion in the busiest thoroughfare. we were shown in, and\nafter a long wait were at last admitted into the consulting-room,\nwhere we found the doctor seated behind his table.\nit argues the degree in which i had lost touch with my profession\nthat the name of leslie armstrong was unknown to me. now i am aware\nthat he is not only one of the heads of the medical school of the\nuniversity, but a thinker of european reputation in more than one\nbranch of science. yet even without knowing his brilliant record one\ncould not fail to be impressed by a mere glance at the man, the\nsquare, massive face, the brooding eyes under the thatched brows, and\nthe granite moulding of the inflexible jaw. a man of deep character,\na man with an alert mind, grim, ascetic, self-contained,\nformidable--so i read dr. leslie armstrong. he held my friend's card\nin his hand, and he looked up with no very pleased expression upon\nhis dour features.\n\"i have heard your name, mr. sherlock holmes, and i am aware of your\nprofession, one of which i by no means approve.\"\n\"in that, doctor, you will find yourself in agreement with every\ncriminal in the country,\" said my friend, quietly.\n\"so far as your efforts are directed towards the suppression of\ncrime, sir, they must have the support of every reasonable member of\nthe community, though i cannot doubt that the official machinery is\namply sufficient for the purpose. where your calling is more open to\ncriticism is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals,\nwhen you rake up family matters which are better hidden, and when you\nincidentally waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself.\nat the present moment, for example, i should be writing a treatise\ninstead of conversing with you.\"\n\"no doubt, doctor; and yet the conversation may prove more important\nthan the treatise. incidentally i may tell you that we are doing the\nreverse of what you very justly blame, and that we are endeavouring\nto prevent anything like public exposure of private matters which\nmust necessarily follow when once the case is fairly in the hands of\nthe official police. you may look upon me simply as an irregular\npioneer who goes in front of the regular forces of the country. i\nhave come to ask you about mr. godfrey staunton.\"\n\"what about him?\"\n\"you know him, do you not?\"\n\"he is an intimate friend of mine.\"\n\"you are aware that he has disappeared?\"\n\"ah, indeed!\" there was no change of expression in the rugged\nfeatures of the doctor.\n\"he left his hotel last night. he has not been heard of.\"\n\"no doubt he will return.\"\n\"to-morrow is the 'varsity football match.\"\n\"i have no sympathy with these childish games. the young man's fate\ninterests me deeply, since i know him and like him. the football\nmatch does not come within my horizon at all.\"\n\"i claim your sympathy, then, in my investigation of mr. staunton's\nfate. do you know where he is?\"\n\"certainly not.\"\n\"you have not seen him since yesterday?\"\n\"no, i have not.\"\n\"was mr. staunton a healthy man?\"\n\"absolutely.\"\n\"did you ever know him ill?\"\n\"never.\"\nholmes popped a sheet of paper before the doctor's eyes. \"then\nperhaps you will explain this receipted bill for thirteen guineas,\npaid by mr. godfrey staunton last month to dr. leslie armstrong of\ncambridge. i picked it out from among the papers upon his desk.\"\nthe doctor flushed with anger.\n\"i do not feel that there is any reason why i should render an\nexplanation to you, mr. holmes.\"\nholmes replaced the bill in his note-book. \"if you prefer a public\nexplanation it must come sooner or later,\" said he. \"i have already\ntold you that i can hush up that which others will be bound to\npublish, and you would really be wiser to take me into your complete\nconfidence.\"\n\"i know nothing about it.\"\n\"did you hear from mr. staunton in london?\"\n\"certainly not.\"\n\"dear me, dear me; the post-office again!\" holmes sighed, wearily. \"a\nmost urgent telegram was dispatched to you from london by godfrey\nstaunton at six-fifteen yesterday evening--a telegram which is\nundoubtedly associated with his disappearance--and yet you have not\nhad it. it is most culpable. i shall certainly go down to the office\nhere and register a complaint.\"\ndr. leslie armstrong sprang up from behind his desk, and his dark\nface was crimson with fury.\n\"i'll trouble you to walk out of my house, sir,\" said he. \"you can\ntell your employer, lord mount-james, that i do not wish to have\nanything to do either with him or with his agents. no, sir, not\nanother word!\" he rang the bell furiously. \"john, show these\ngentlemen out!\" a pompous butler ushered us severely to the door, and\nwe found ourselves in the street. holmes burst out laughing.\n\"dr. leslie armstrong is certainly a man of energy and character,\"\nsaid he. \"i have not seen a man who, if he turned his talents that\nway, was more calculated to fill the gap left by the illustrious\nmoriarty. and now, my poor watson, here we are, stranded and\nfriendless in this inhospitable town, which we cannot leave without\nabandoning our case. this little inn just opposite armstrong's house\nis singularly adapted to our needs. if you would engage a front room\nand purchase the necessaries for the night, i may have time to make a\nfew inquiries.\"\nthese few inquiries proved, however, to be a more lengthy proceeding\nthan holmes had imagined, for he did not return to the inn until\nnearly nine o'clock. he was pale and dejected, stained with dust, and\nexhausted with hunger and fatigue. a cold supper was ready upon the\ntable, and when his needs were satisfied and his pipe alight he was\nready to take that half comic and wholly philosophic view which was\nnatural to him when his affairs were going awry. the sound of\ncarriage wheels caused him to rise and glance out of the window. a\nbrougham and pair of greys under the glare of a gas-lamp stood before\nthe doctor's door.\n\"it's been out three hours,\" said holmes; \"started at half-past six,\nand here it is back again. that gives a radius of ten or twelve\nmiles, and he does it once, or sometimes twice, a day.\"\n\"no unusual thing for a doctor in practice.\"\n\"but armstrong is not really a doctor in practice. he is a lecturer\nand a consultant, but he does not care for general practice, which\ndistracts him from his literary work. why, then, does he make these\nlong journeys, which must be exceedingly irksome to him, and who is\nit that he visits?\"\n\"his coachman--\"\n\"my dear watson, can you doubt that it was to him that i first\napplied? i do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity\nor from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a\ndog at me. neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however,\nand the matter fell through. relations were strained after that, and\nfurther inquiries out of the question. all that i have learned i got\nfrom a friendly native in the yard of our own inn. it was he who told\nme of the doctor's habits and of his daily journey. at that instant,\nto give point to his words, the carriage came round to the door.\"\n\"could you not follow it?\"\n\"excellent, watson! you are scintillating this evening. the idea did\ncross my mind. there is, as you may have observed, a bicycle shop\nnext to our inn. into this i rushed, engaged a bicycle, and was able\nto get started before the carriage was quite out of sight. i rapidly\novertook it, and then, keeping at a discreet distance of a hundred\nyards or so, i followed its lights until we were clear of the town.\nwe had got well out on the country road when a somewhat mortifying\nincident occurred. the carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked\nswiftly back to where i had also halted, and told me in an excellent\nsardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he\nhoped his carriage did not impede the passage of my bicycle. nothing\ncould have been more admirable than his way of putting it. i at once\nrode past the carriage, and, keeping to the main road, i went on for\na few miles, and then halted in a convenient place to see if the\ncarriage passed. there was no sign of it, however, and so it became\nevident that it had turned down one of several side roads which i had\nobserved. i rode back, but again saw nothing of the carriage, and\nnow, as you perceive, it has returned after me. of course, i had at\nthe outset no particular reason to connect these journeys with the\ndisappearance of godfrey staunton, and was only inclined to\ninvestigate them on the general grounds that everything which\nconcerns dr. armstrong is at present of interest to us; but, now that\ni find he keeps so keen a look-out upon anyone who may follow him on\nthese excursions, the affair appears more important, and i shall not\nbe satisfied until i have made the matter clear.\"\n\"we can follow him to-morrow.\"\n\"can we? it is not so easy as you seem to think. you are not familiar\nwith cambridgeshire scenery, are you? it does not lend itself to\nconcealment. all this country that i passed over to-night is as flat\nand clean as the palm of your hand, and the man we are following is\nno fool, as he very clearly showed to-night. i have wired to overton\nto let us know any fresh london developments at this address, and in\nthe meantime we can only concentrate our attention upon dr.\narmstrong, whose name the obliging young lady at the office allowed\nme to read upon the counterfoil of staunton's urgent message. he\nknows where the young man is--to that i'll swear--and if he knows,\nthen it must be our own fault if we cannot manage to know also. at\npresent it must be admitted that the odd trick is in his possession,\nand, as you are aware, watson, it is not my habit to leave the game\nin that condition.\"\nand yet the next day brought us no nearer to the solution of the\nmystery. a note was handed in after breakfast, which holmes passed\nacross to me with a smile.\nsir [it ran]:\ni can assure you that you are wasting your time in dogging my\nmovements. i have, as you discovered last night, a window at the back\nof my brougham, and if you desire a twenty-mile ride which will lead\nyou to the spot from which you started, you have only to follow me.\nmeanwhile, i can inform you that no spying upon me can in any way\nhelp mr. godfrey staunton, and i am convinced that the best service\nyou can do to that gentleman is to return at once to london and to\nreport to your employer that you are unable to trace him. your time\nin cambridge will certainly be wasted.\nyours faithfully,\nleslie armstrong.\n\"an outspoken, honest antagonist is the doctor,\" said holmes. \"well,\nwell, he excites my curiosity, and i must really know more before i\nleave him.\"\n\"his carriage is at his door now,\" said i. \"there he is stepping into\nit. i saw him glance up at our window as he did so. suppose i try my\nluck upon the bicycle?\"\n\"no, no, my dear watson! with all respect for your natural acumen i\ndo not think that you are quite a match for the worthy doctor. i\nthink that possibly i can attain our end by some independent\nexplorations of my own. i am afraid that i must leave you to your own\ndevices, as the appearance of two inquiring strangers upon a sleepy\ncountryside might excite more gossip than i care for. no doubt you\nwill find some sights to amuse you in this venerable city, and i hope\nto bring back a more favourable report to you before evening.\"\nonce more, however, my friend was destined to be disappointed. he\ncame back at night weary and unsuccessful.\n\"i have had a blank day, watson. having got the doctor's general\ndirection, i spent the day in visiting all the villages upon that\nside of cambridge, and comparing notes with publicans and other local\nnews agencies. i have covered some ground: chesterton, histon,\nwaterbeach, and oakington have each been explored and have each\nproved disappointing. the daily appearance of a brougham and pair\ncould hardly have been overlooked in such sleepy hollows. the doctor\nhas scored once more. is there a telegram for me?\"\n\"yes; i opened it. here it is:\n\"'ask for pompey from jeremy dixon, trinity college.'\n\"i don't understand it.\"\n\"oh, it is clear enough. it is from our friend overton, and is in\nanswer to a question from me. i'll just send round a note to mr.\njeremy dixon, and then i have no doubt that our luck will turn. by\nthe way, is there any news of the match?\"\n\"yes, the local evening paper has an excellent account in its last\nedition. oxford won by a goal and two tries. the last sentences of\nthe description say:\n\"'the defeat of the light blues may be entirely attributed to the\nunfortunate absence of the crack international, godfrey staunton,\nwhose want was felt at every instant of the game. the lack of\ncombination in the three-quarter line and their weakness both in\nattack and defence more than neutralized the efforts of a heavy and\nhard-working pack.'\"\n\"then our friend overton's forebodings have been justified,\" said\nholmes. \"personally i am in agreement with dr. armstrong, and\nfootball does not come within my horizon. early to bed to-night,\nwatson, for i foresee that to-morrow may be an eventful day.\"\ni was horrified by my first glimpse of holmes next morning, for he\nsat by the fire holding his tiny hypodermic syringe. i associated\nthat instrument with the single weakness of his nature, and i feared\nthe worst when i saw it glittering in his hand. he laughed at my\nexpression of dismay, and laid it upon the table.\n\"no, no, my dear fellow, there is no cause for alarm. it is not upon\nthis occasion the instrument of evil, but it will rather prove to be\nthe key which will unlock our mystery. on this syringe i base all my\nhopes. i have just returned from a small scouting expedition and\neverything is favourable. eat a good breakfast, watson, for i propose\nto get upon dr. armstrong's trail to-day, and once on it i will not\nstop for rest or food until i run him to his burrow.\"\n\"in that case,\" said i, \"we had best carry our breakfast with us, for\nhe is making an early start. his carriage is at the door.\"\n\"never mind. let him go. he will be clever if he can drive where i\ncannot follow him. when you have finished come downstairs with me,\nand i will introduce you to a detective who is a very eminent\nspecialist in the work that lies before us.\"\nwhen we descended i followed holmes into the stable yard, where he\nopened the door of a loose-box and led out a squat, lop-eared,\nwhite-and-tan dog, something between a beagle and a foxhound.\n\"let me introduce you to pompey,\" said he. \"pompey is the pride of\nthe local draghounds, no very great flier, as his build will show,\nbut a staunch hound on a scent. well, pompey, you may not be fast,\nbut i expect you will be too fast for a couple of middle-aged london\ngentlemen, so i will take the liberty of fastening this leather leash\nto your collar. now, boy, come along, and show what you can do.\" he\nled him across to the doctor's door. the dog sniffed round for an\ninstant, and then with a shrill whine of excitement started off down\nthe street, tugging at his leash in his efforts to go faster. in half\nan hour, we were clear of the town and hastening down a country road.\n\"what have you done, holmes?\" i asked.\n\"a threadbare and venerable device, but useful upon occasion. i\nwalked into the doctor's yard this morning and shot my syringe full\nof aniseed over the hind wheel. a draghound will follow aniseed from\nhere to john o' groat's, and our friend armstrong would have to drive\nthrough the cam before he would shake pompey off his trail. oh, the\ncunning rascal! this is how he gave me the slip the other night.\"\nthe dog had suddenly turned out of the main road into a grass-grown\nlane. half a mile farther this opened into another broad road, and\nthe trail turned hard to the right in the direction of the town,\nwhich we had just quitted. the road took a sweep to the south of the\ntown and continued in the opposite direction to that in which we\nstarted.\n\"this dtour has been entirely for our benefit, then?\" said holmes.\n\"no wonder that my inquiries among those villages led to nothing. the\ndoctor has certainly played the game for all it is worth, and one\nwould like to know the reason for such elaborate deception. this\nshould be the village of trumpington to the right of us. and, by\njove! here is the brougham coming round the corner. quick, watson,\nquick, or we are done!\"\nhe sprang through a gate into a field, dragging the reluctant pompey\nafter him. we had hardly got under the shelter of the hedge when the\ncarriage rattled past. i caught a glimpse of dr. armstrong within,\nhis shoulders bowed, his head sunk on his hands, the very image of\ndistress. i could tell by my companion's graver face that he also had\nseen.\n\"i fear there is some dark ending to our quest,\" said he. \"it cannot\nbe long before we know it. come, pompey! ah, it is the cottage in the\nfield!\"\nthere could be no doubt that we had reached the end of our journey.\npompey ran about and whined eagerly outside the gate where the marks\nof the brougham's wheels were still to be seen. a footpath led across\nto the lonely cottage. holmes tied the dog to the hedge, and we\nhastened onwards. my friend knocked at the little rustic door, and\nknocked again without response. and yet the cottage was not deserted,\nfor a low sound came to our ears--a kind of drone of misery and\ndespair, which was indescribably melancholy. holmes paused\nirresolute, and then he glanced back at the road which we had just\ntraversed. a brougham was coming down it, and there could be no\nmistaking those grey horses.\n\"by jove, the doctor is coming back!\" cried holmes. \"that settles it.\nwe are bound to see what it means before he comes.\"\nhe opened the door and we stepped into the hall. the droning sound\nswelled louder upon our ears until it became one long, deep wail of\ndistress. it came from upstairs. holmes darted up and i followed him.\nhe pushed open a half-closed door and we both stood appalled at the\nsight before us.\na woman, young and beautiful, was lying dead upon the bed. her calm,\npale face, with dim, wide-opened blue eyes, looked upward from amid a\ngreat tangle of golden hair. at the foot of the bed, half sitting,\nhalf kneeling, his face buried in the clothes, was a young man, whose\nframe was racked by his sobs. so absorbed was he by his bitter grief\nthat he never looked up until holmes's hand was on his shoulder.\n\"are you mr. godfrey staunton?\"\n\"yes, yes; i am--but you are too late. she is dead.\"\nthe man was so dazed that he could not be made to understand that we\nwere anything but doctors who had been sent to his assistance. holmes\nwas endeavouring to utter a few words of consolation, and to explain\nthe alarm which had been caused to his friends by his sudden\ndisappearance, when there was a step upon the stairs, and there was\nthe heavy, stern, questioning face of dr. armstrong at the door.\n\"so, gentlemen,\" said he, \"you have attained your end, and have\ncertainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. i\nwould not brawl in the presence of death, but i can assure you that\nif i were a younger man your monstrous conduct would not pass with\nimpunity.\"\n\"excuse me, dr. armstrong, i think we are a little at\ncross-purposes,\" said my friend, with dignity. \"if you could step\ndownstairs with us we may each be able to give some light to the\nother upon this miserable affair.\"\na minute later the grim doctor and ourselves were in the sitting-room\nbelow.\n\"well, sir?\" said he.\n\"i wish you to understand, in the first place, that i am not employed\nby lord mount-james, and that my sympathies in this matter are\nentirely against that nobleman. when a man is lost it is my duty to\nascertain his fate, but having done so the matter ends so far as i am\nconcerned; and so long as there is nothing criminal, i am much more\nanxious to hush up private scandals than to give them publicity. if,\nas i imagine, there is no breach of the law in this matter, you can\nabsolutely depend upon my discretion and my co-operation in keeping\nthe facts out of the papers.\"\ndr. armstrong took a quick step forward and wrung holmes by the hand.\n\"you are a good fellow,\" said he. \"i had misjudged you. i thank\nheaven that my compunction at leaving poor staunton all alone in this\nplight caused me to turn my carriage back, and so to make your\nacquaintance. knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily\nexplained. a year ago godfrey staunton lodged in london for a time,\nand became passionately attached to his landlady's daughter, whom he\nmarried. she was as good as she was beautiful, and as intelligent as\nshe was good. no man need be ashamed of such a wife. but godfrey was\nthe heir to this crabbed old nobleman, and it was quite certain that\nthe news of his marriage would have been the end of his inheritance.\ni knew the lad well, and i loved him for his many excellent\nqualities. i did all i could to help him to keep things straight. we\ndid our very best to keep the thing from everyone, for when once such\na whisper gets about it is not long before everyone has heard it.\nthanks to this lonely cottage and his own discretion, godfrey has up\nto now succeeded. their secret was known to no one save to me and to\none excellent servant who has at present gone for assistance to\ntrumpington. but at last there came a terrible blow in the shape of\ndangerous illness to his wife. it was consumption of the most\nvirulent kind. the poor boy was half crazed with grief, and yet he\nhad to go to london to play this match, for he could not get out of\nit without explanations which would expose his secret. i tried to\ncheer him up by a wire, and he sent me one in reply imploring me to\ndo all i could. this was the telegram which you appear in some\ninexplicable way to have seen. i did not tell him how urgent the\ndanger was, for i knew that he could do no good here, but i sent the\ntruth to the girl's father, and he very injudiciously communicated it\nto godfrey. the result was that he came straight away in a state\nbordering on frenzy, and has remained in the same state, kneeling at\nthe end of her bed, until this morning death put an end to her\nsufferings. that is all, mr. holmes, and i am sure that i can rely\nupon your discretion and that of your friend.\"\nholmes grasped the doctor's hand.\n\"come, watson,\" said he, and we passed from that house of grief into\nthe pale sunlight of the winter day.\nthe adventure of the abbey grange\nit was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning during the winter of '97\nthat i was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. it was holmes. the\ncandle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face and told me at\na glance that something was amiss.\n\"come, watson, come!\" he cried. \"the game is afoot. not a word! into\nyour clothes and come!\"\nten minutes later we were both in a cab and rattling through the\nsilent streets on our way to charing cross station. the first faint\nwinter's dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the\noccasional figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and\nindistinct in the opalescent london reek. holmes nestled in silence\ninto his heavy coat, and i was glad to do the same, for the air was\nmost bitter and neither of us had broken our fast. it was not until\nwe had consumed some hot tea at the station, and taken our places in\nthe kentish train, that we were sufficiently thawed, he to speak and\ni to listen. holmes drew a note from his pocket and read it aloud:\n\"abbey grange, marsham, kent,\n\"3.30 a.m.\n\"my dear mr. holmes:\n\"i should be very glad of your immediate assistance in what promises\nto be a most remarkable case. it is something quite in your line.\nexcept for releasing the lady i will see that everything is kept\nexactly as i have found it, but i beg you not to lose an instant, as\nit is difficult to leave sir eustace there.\n\"yours faithfully,\n\"stanley hopkins.\"\n\"hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion his\nsummons has been entirely justified,\" said holmes. \"i fancy that\nevery one of his cases has found its way into your collection, and i\nmust admit, watson, that you have some power of selection which\natones for much which i deplore in your narratives. your fatal habit\nof looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of\nas a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an\ninstructive and even classical series of demonstrations. you slur\nover work of the utmost finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon\nsensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct,\nthe reader.\"\n\"why do you not write them yourself?\" i said, with some bitterness.\n\"i will, my dear watson, i will. at present i am, as you know, fairly\nbusy, but i propose to devote my declining years to the composition\nof a text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one\nvolume. our present research appears to be a case of murder.\"\n\"you think this sir eustace is dead, then?\"\n\"i should say so. hopkins's writing shows considerable agitation, and\nhe is not an emotional man. yes, i gather there has been violence,\nand that the body is left for our inspection. a mere suicide would\nnot have caused him to send for me. as to the release of the lady, it\nwould appear that she has been locked in her room during the tragedy.\nwe are moving in high life, watson; crackling paper, 'e.b.' monogram,\ncoat-of-arms, picturesque address. i think that friend hopkins will\nlive up to his reputation and that we shall have an interesting\nmorning. the crime was committed before twelve last night.\"\n\"how can you possibly tell?\"\n\"by an inspection of the trains and by reckoning the time. the local\npolice had to be called in, they had to communicate with scotland\nyard, hopkins had to go out, and he in turn had to send for me. all\nthat makes a fair night's work. well, here we are at chislehurst\nstation, and we shall soon set our doubts at rest.\"\na drive of a couple of miles through narrow country lanes brought us\nto a park gate, which was opened for us by an old lodge-keeper, whose\nhaggard face bore the reflection of some great disaster. the avenue\nran through a noble park, between lines of ancient elms, and ended in\na low, widespread house, pillared in front after the fashion of\npalladio. the central part was evidently of a great age and shrouded\nin ivy, but the large windows showed that modern changes had been\ncarried out, and one wing of the house appeared to be entirely new.\nthe youthful figure and alert, eager face of inspector stanley\nhopkins confronted us in the open doorway.\n\"i'm very glad you have come, mr. holmes. and you too, dr. watson!\nbut, indeed, if i had my time over again i should not have troubled\nyou, for since the lady has come to herself she has given so clear an\naccount of the affair that there is not much left for us to do. you\nremember that lewisham gang of burglars?\"\n\"what, the three randalls?\"\n\"exactly; the father and two sons. it's their work. i have not a\ndoubt of it. they did a job at sydenham a fortnight ago, and were\nseen and described. rather cool to do another so soon and so near,\nbut it is they, beyond all doubt. it's a hanging matter this time.\"\n\"sir eustace is dead, then?\"\n\"yes; his head was knocked in with his own poker.\"\n\"sir eustace brackenstall, the driver tells me.\"\n\"exactly--one of the richest men in kent. lady brackenstall is in the\nmorning-room. poor lady, she has had a most dreadful experience. she\nseemed half dead when i saw her first. i think you had best see her\nand hear her account of the facts. then we will examine the\ndining-room together.\"\nlady brackenstall was no ordinary person. seldom have i seen so\ngraceful a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face.\nshe was a blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and would, no doubt, have\nhad the perfect complexion which goes with such colouring had not her\nrecent experience left her drawn and haggard. her sufferings were\nphysical as well as mental, for over one eye rose a hideous,\nplum-coloured swelling, which her maid, a tall, austere woman, was\nbathing assiduously with vinegar and water. the lady lay back\nexhausted upon a couch, but her quick, observant gaze as we entered\nthe room, and the alert expression of her beautiful features, showed\nthat neither her wits nor her courage had been shaken by her terrible\nexperience. she was enveloped in a loose dressing-gown of blue and\nsilver, but a black sequin-covered dinner-dress was hung upon the\ncouch beside her.\n\"i have told you all that happened, mr. hopkins,\" she said, wearily;\n\"could you not repeat it for me? well, if you think it necessary, i\nwill tell these gentlemen what occurred. have they been in the\ndining-room yet?\"\n\"i thought they had better hear your ladyship's story first.\"\n\"i shall be glad when you can arrange matters. it is horrible to me\nto think of him still lying there.\" she shuddered and buried her face\nin her hands. as she did so the loose gown fell back from her\nforearms. holmes uttered an exclamation.\n\"you have other injuries, madam! what is this?\" two vivid red spots\nstood out on one of the white, round limbs. she hastily covered it.\n\"it is nothing. it has no connection with the hideous business of\nlast night. if you and your friend will sit down i will tell you all\ni can.\n\"i am the wife of sir eustace brackenstall. i have been married about\na year. i suppose that it is no use my attempting to conceal that our\nmarriage has not been a happy one. i fear that all our neighbours\nwould tell you that, even if i were to attempt to deny it. perhaps\nthe fault may be partly mine. i was brought up in the freer, less\nconventional atmosphere of south australia, and this english life,\nwith its proprieties and its primness, is not congenial to me. but\nthe main reason lies in the one fact which is notorious to everyone,\nand that is that sir eustace was a confirmed drunkard. to be with\nsuch a man for an hour is unpleasant. can you imagine what it means\nfor a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and\nnight? it is a sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a\nmarriage is binding. i say that these monstrous laws of yours will\nbring a curse upon the land--heaven will not let such wickedness\nendure.\" for an instant she sat up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes\nblazing from under the terrible mark upon her brow. then the strong,\nsoothing hand of the austere maid drew her head down on to the\ncushion, and the wild anger died away into passionate sobbing. at\nlast she continued:--\n\"i will tell you about last night. you are aware, perhaps, that in\nthis house all servants sleep in the modern wing. this central block\nis made up of the dwelling-rooms, with the kitchen behind and our\nbedroom above. my maid theresa sleeps above my room. there is no one\nelse, and no sound could alarm those who are in the farther wing.\nthis must have been well known to the robbers, or they would not have\nacted as they did.\n\"sir eustace retired about half-past ten. the servants had already\ngone to their quarters. only my maid was up, and she had remained in\nher room at the top of the house until i needed her services. i sat\nuntil after eleven in this room, absorbed in a book. then i walked\nround to see that all was right before i went upstairs. it was my\ncustom to do this myself, for, as i have explained, sir eustace was\nnot always to be trusted. i went into the kitchen, the butler's\npantry, the gun-room, the billiard-room, the drawing-room, and\nfinally the dining-room. as i approached the window, which is covered\nwith thick curtains, i suddenly felt the wind blow upon my face and\nrealized that it was open. i flung the curtain aside and found myself\nface to face with a broad-shouldered, elderly man who had just\nstepped into the room. the window is a long french one, which really\nforms a door leading to the lawn. i held my bedroom candle lit in my\nhand, and, by its light, behind the first man i saw two others, who\nwere in the act of entering. i stepped back, but the fellow was on me\nin an instant. he caught me first by the wrist and then by the\nthroat. i opened my mouth to scream, but he struck me a savage blow\nwith his fist over the eye, and felled me to the ground. i must have\nbeen unconscious for a few minutes, for when i came to myself i found\nthat they had torn down the bell-rope and had secured me tightly to\nthe oaken chair which stands at the head of the dining-room table. i\nwas so firmly bound that i could not move, and a handkerchief round\nmy mouth prevented me from uttering any sound. it was at this instant\nthat my unfortunate husband entered the room. he had evidently heard\nsome suspicious sounds, and he came prepared for such a scene as he\nfound. he was dressed in his shirt and trousers, with his favourite\nblackthorn cudgel in his hand. he rushed at one of the burglars, but\nanother--it was the elderly man--stooped, picked the poker out of the\ngrate, and struck him a horrible blow as he passed. he fell without a\ngroan, and never moved again. i fainted once more, but again it could\nonly have been a very few minutes during which i was insensible. when\ni opened my eyes i found that they had collected the silver from the\nsideboard, and they had drawn a bottle of wine which stood there.\neach of them had a glass in his hand. i have already told you, have i\nnot, that one was elderly, with a beard, and the others young,\nhairless lads. they might have been a father with his two sons. they\ntalked together in whispers. then they came over and made sure that i\nwas still securely bound. finally they withdrew, closing the window\nafter them. it was quite a quarter of an hour before i got my mouth\nfree. when i did so my screams brought the maid to my assistance. the\nother servants were soon alarmed, and we sent for the local police,\nwho instantly communicated with london. that is really all that i can\ntell you, gentlemen, and i trust that it will not be necessary for me\nto go over so painful a story again.\"\n\"any questions, mr. holmes?\" asked hopkins.\n\"i will not impose any further tax upon lady brackenstall's patience\nand time,\" said holmes. \"before i go into the dining-room i should\nlike to hear your experience.\" he looked at the maid.\n\"i saw the men before ever they came into the house,\" said she. \"as i\nsat by my bedroom window i saw three men in the moonlight down by the\nlodge gate yonder, but i thought nothing of it at the time. it was\nmore than an hour after that i heard my mistress scream, and down i\nran, to find her, poor lamb, just as she says, and him on the floor\nwith his blood and brains over the room. it was enough to drive a\nwoman out of her wits, tied there, and her very dress spotted with\nhim; but she never wanted courage, did miss mary fraser of adelaide,\nand lady brackenstall of abbey grange hasn't learned new ways. you've\nquestioned her long enough, you gentlemen, and now she is coming to\nher own room, just with her old theresa, to get the rest that she\nbadly needs.\"\nwith a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her\nmistress and led her from the room.\n\"she has been with her all her life,\" said hopkins. \"nursed her as a\nbaby, and came with her to england when they first left australia\neighteen months ago. theresa wright is her name, and the kind of maid\nyou don't pick up nowadays. this way, mr. holmes, if you please!\"\nthe keen interest had passed out of holmes's expressive face, and i\nknew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed.\nthere still remained an arrest to be effected, but what were these\ncommonplace rogues that he should soil his hands with them? an\nabstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has been called in\nfor a case of measles would experience something of the annoyance\nwhich i read in my friend's eyes. yet the scene in the dining-room of\nthe abbey grange was sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and\nto recall his waning interest.\nit was a very large and high chamber, with carved oak ceiling, oaken\npanelling, and a fine array of deer's heads and ancient weapons\naround the walls. at the farther end from the door was the high\nfrench window of which we had heard. three smaller windows on the\nright-hand side filled the apartment with cold winter sunshine. on\nthe left was a large, deep fireplace, with a massive, over-hanging\noak mantelpiece. beside the fireplace was a heavy oaken chair with\narms and cross-bars at the bottom. in and out through the open\nwoodwork was woven a crimson cord, which was secured at each side to\nthe crosspiece below. in releasing the lady the cord had been slipped\noff her, but the knots with which it had been secured still remained.\nthese details only struck our attention afterwards, for our thoughts\nwere entirely absorbed by the terrible object which lay upon the\ntiger-skin hearthrug in front of the fire.\nit was the body of a tall, well-made man, about forty years of age.\nhe lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth\ngrinning through his short black beard. his two clenched hands were\nraised above his head, and a heavy blackthorn stick lay across them.\nhis dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of\nvindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish\nexpression. he had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had\nbroken out, for he wore a foppish embroidered night-shirt, and his\nbare feet projected from his trousers. his head was horribly injured,\nand the whole room bore witness to the savage ferocity of the blow\nwhich had struck him down. beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into\na curve by the concussion. holmes examined both it and the\nindescribable wreck which it had wrought.\n\"he must be a powerful man, this elder randall,\" he remarked.\n\"yes,\" said hopkins. \"i have some record of the fellow, and he is a\nrough customer.\"\n\"you should have no difficulty in getting him.\"\n\"not the slightest. we have been on the look-out for him, and there\nwas some idea that he had got away to america. now that we know the\ngang are here i don't see how they can escape. we have the news at\nevery seaport already, and a reward will be offered before evening.\nwhat beats me is how they could have done so mad a thing, knowing\nthat the lady could describe them, and that we could not fail to\nrecognise the description.\"\n\"exactly. one would have expected that they would have silenced lady\nbrackenstall as well.\"\n\"they may not have realized,\" i suggested, \"that she had recovered\nfrom her faint.\"\n\"that is likely enough. if she seemed to be senseless they would not\ntake her life. what about this poor fellow, hopkins? i seem to have\nheard some queer stories about him.\"\n\"he was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend\nwhen he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom\nreally went the whole way. the devil seemed to be in him at such\ntimes, and he was capable of anything. from what i hear, in spite of\nall his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or\ntwice. there was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum\nand setting it on fire--her ladyship's dog, to make the matter\nworse--and that was only hushed up with difficulty. then he threw a\ndecanter at that maid, theresa wright; there was trouble about that.\non the whole, and between ourselves, it will be a brighter house\nwithout him. what are you looking at now?\"\nholmes was down on his knees examining with great attention the knots\nupon the red cord with which the lady had been secured. then he\ncarefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped\noff when the burglar had dragged it down.\n\"when this was pulled down the bell in the kitchen must have rung\nloudly,\" he remarked.\n\"no one could hear it. the kitchen stands right at the back of the\nhouse.\"\n\"how did the burglar know no one would hear it? how dared he pull at\na bell-rope in that reckless fashion?\"\n\"exactly, mr. holmes, exactly. you put the very question which i have\nasked myself again and again. there can be no doubt that this fellow\nmust have known the house and its habits. he must have perfectly\nunderstood that the servants would all be in bed at that\ncomparatively early hour, and that no one could possibly hear a bell\nring in the kitchen. therefore he must have been in close league with\none of the servants. surely that is evident. but there are eight\nservants, and all of good character.\"\n\"other things being equal,\" said holmes, \"one would suspect the one\nat whose head the master threw a decanter. and yet that would involve\ntreachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems devoted.\nwell, well, the point is a minor one, and when you have randall you\nwill probably find no difficulty in securing his accomplice. the\nlady's story certainly seems to be corroborated, if it needed\ncorroboration, by every detail which we see before us.\" he walked to\nthe french window and threw it open. \"there are no signs here, but\nthe ground is iron hard, and one would not expect them. i see that\nthese candles on the mantelpiece have been lighted.\"\n\"yes; it was by their light and that of the lady's bedroom candle\nthat the burglars saw their way about.\"\n\"and what did they take?\"\n\"well, they did not take much--only half-a-dozen articles of plate\noff the sideboard. lady brackenstall thinks that they were themselves\nso disturbed by the death of sir eustace that they did not ransack\nthe house as they would otherwise have done.\"\n\"no doubt that is true. and yet they drank some wine, i understand.\"\n\"to steady their own nerves.\"\n\"exactly. these three glasses upon the sideboard have been untouched,\ni suppose?\"\n\"yes; and the bottle stands as they left it.\"\n\"let us look at it. halloa! halloa! what is this?\"\nthe three glasses were grouped together, all of them tinged with\nwine, and one of them containing some dregs of bees-wing. the bottle\nstood near them, two-thirds full, and beside it lay a long,\ndeeply-stained cork. its appearance and the dust upon the bottle\nshowed that it was no common vintage which the murderers had enjoyed.\na change had come over holmes's manner. he had lost his listless\nexpression, and again i saw an alert light of interest in his keen,\ndeep-set eyes. he raised the cork and examined it minutely.\n\"how did they draw it?\" he asked.\nhopkins pointed to a half-opened drawer. in it lay some table linen\nand a large cork-screw.\n\"did lady brackenstall say that screw was used?\"\n\"no; you remember that she was senseless at the moment when the\nbottle was opened.\"\n\"quite so. as a matter of fact that screw was not used. this bottle\nwas opened by a pocket-screw, probably contained in a knife, and not\nmore than an inch and a half long. if you examine the top of the cork\nyou will observe that the screw was driven in three times before the\ncork was extracted. it has never been transfixed. this long screw\nwould have transfixed it and drawn it with a single pull. when you\ncatch this fellow you will find that he has one of these multiplex\nknives in his possession.\"\n\"excellent!\" said hopkins.\n\"but these glasses do puzzle me, i confess. lady brackenstall\nactually saw the three men drinking, did she not?\"\n\"yes; she was clear about that.\"\n\"then there is an end of it. what more is to be said? and yet you\nmust admit that the three glasses are very remarkable, hopkins. what,\nyou see nothing remarkable! well, well, let it pass. perhaps when a\nman has special knowledge and special powers like my own it rather\nencourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at\nhand. of course, it must be a mere chance about the glasses. well,\ngood morning, hopkins. i don't see that i can be of any use to you,\nand you appear to have your case very clear. you will let me know\nwhen randall is arrested, and any further developments which may\noccur. i trust that i shall soon have to congratulate you upon a\nsuccessful conclusion. come, watson, i fancy that we may employ\nourselves more profitably at home.\"\nduring our return journey i could see by holmes's face that he was\nmuch puzzled by something which he had observed. every now and then,\nby an effort, he would throw off the impression and talk as if the\nmatter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him\nagain, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his\nthoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the\nabbey grange in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted. at\nlast, by a sudden impulse, just as our train was crawling out of a\nsuburban station, he sprang on to the platform and pulled me out\nafter him.\n\"excuse me, my dear fellow,\" said he, as we watched the rear\ncarriages of our train disappearing round a curve; \"i am sorry to\nmake you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life,\nwatson, i simply can't leave that case in this condition. every\ninstinct that i possess cries out against it. it's wrong--it's all\nwrong--i'll swear that it's wrong. and yet the lady's story was\ncomplete, the maid's corroboration was sufficient, the detail was\nfairly exact. what have i to put against that? three wine-glasses,\nthat is all. but if i had not taken things for granted, if i had\nexamined everything with care which i would have shown had we\napproached the case de novo and had no cut-and-dried story to warp my\nmind, would i not then have found something more definite to go upon?\nof course i should. sit down on this bench, watson, until a train for\nchislehurst arrives, and allow me to lay the evidence before you,\nimploring you in the first instance to dismiss from your mind the\nidea that anything which the maid or her mistress may have said must\nnecessarily be true. the lady's charming personality must not be\npermitted to warp our judgment.\n\"surely there are details in her story which, if we looked at it in\ncold blood, would excite our suspicion. these burglars made a\nconsiderable haul at sydenham a fortnight ago. some account of them\nand of their appearance was in the papers, and would naturally occur\nto anyone who wished to invent a story in which imaginary robbers\nshould play a part. as a matter of fact, burglars who have done a\ngood stroke of business are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the\nproceeds in peace and quiet without embarking on another perilous\nundertaking. again, it is unusual for burglars to operate at so early\nan hour; it is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her\nscreaming, since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her\nscream; it is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers\nare sufficient to overpower one man; it is unusual for them to be\ncontent with a limited plunder when there is much more within their\nreach; and finally i should say that it was very unusual for such men\nto leave a bottle half empty. how do all these unusuals strike you,\nwatson?\"\n\"their cumulative effect is certainly considerable, and yet each of\nthem is quite possible in itself. the most unusual thing of all, as\nit seems to me, is that the lady should be tied to the chair.\"\n\"well, i am not so clear about that, watson; for it is evident that\nthey must either kill her or else secure her in such a way that she\ncould not give immediate notice of their escape. but at any rate i\nhave shown, have i not, that there is a certain element of\nimprobability about the lady's story? and now on the top of this\ncomes the incident of the wine-glasses.\"\n\"what about the wine-glasses?\"\n\"can you see them in your mind's eye?\"\n\"i see them clearly.\"\n\"we are told that three men drank from them. does that strike you as\nlikely?\"\n\"why not? there was wine in each glass.\"\n\"exactly; but there was bees-wing only in one glass. you must have\nnoticed that fact. what does that suggest to your mind?\"\n\"the last glass filled would be most likely to contain bees-wing.\"\n\"not at all. the bottle was full of it, and it is inconceivable that\nthe first two glasses were clear and the third heavily charged with\nit. there are two possible explanations, and only two. one is that\nafter the second glass was filled the bottle was violently agitated,\nand so the third glass received the bees-wing. that does not appear\nprobable. no, no; i am sure that i am right.\"\n\"what, then, do you suppose?\"\n\"that only two glasses were used, and that the dregs of both were\npoured into a third glass, so as to give the false impression that\nthree people had been here. in that way all the bees-wing would be in\nthe last glass, would it not? yes, i am convinced that this is so.\nbut if i have hit upon the true explanation of this one small\nphenomenon, then in an instant the case rises from the commonplace to\nthe exceedingly remarkable, for it can only mean that lady\nbrackenstall and her maid have deliberately lied to us, that not one\nword of their story is to be believed, that they have some very\nstrong reason for covering the real criminal, and that we must\nconstruct our case for ourselves without any help from them. that is\nthe mission which now lies before us, and here, watson, is the\nchislehurst train.\"\nthe household of the abbey grange were much surprised at our return,\nbut sherlock holmes, finding that stanley hopkins had gone off to\nreport to head-quarters, took possession of the dining-room, locked\nthe door upon the inside, and devoted himself for two hours to one of\nthose minute and laborious investigations which formed the solid\nbasis on which his brilliant edifices of deduction were reared.\nseated in a corner like an interested student who observes the\ndemonstration of his professor, i followed every step of that\nremarkable research. the window, the curtains, the carpet, the chair,\nthe rope--each in turn was minutely examined and duly pondered. the\nbody of the unfortunate baronet had been removed, but all else\nremained as we had seen it in the morning. then, to my astonishment,\nholmes climbed up on to the massive mantelpiece. far above his head\nhung the few inches of red cord which were still attached to the\nwire. for a long time he gazed upward at it, and then in an attempt\nto get nearer to it he rested his knee upon a wooden bracket on the\nwall. this brought his hand within a few inches of the broken end of\nthe rope, but it was not this so much as the bracket itself which\nseemed to engage his attention. finally he sprang down with an\nejaculation of satisfaction.\n\"it's all right, watson,\" said he. \"we have got our case--one of the\nmost remarkable in our collection. but, dear me, how slow-witted i\nhave been, and how nearly i have committed the blunder of my\nlifetime! now, i think that with a few missing links my chain is\nalmost complete.\"\n\"you have got your men?\"\n\"man, watson, man. only one, but a very formidable person. strong as\na lion--witness the blow that bent that poker. six foot three in\nheight, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers; finally,\nremarkably quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his\nconcoction. yes, watson, we have come upon the handiwork of a very\nremarkable individual. and yet in that bell-rope he has given us a\nclue which should not have left us a doubt.\"\n\"where was the clue?\"\n\"well, if you were to pull down a bell-rope, watson, where would you\nexpect it to break? surely at the spot where it is attached to the\nwire. why should it break three inches from the top as this one has\ndone?\"\n\"because it is frayed there?\"\n\"exactly. this end, which we can examine, is frayed. he was cunning\nenough to do that with his knife. but the other end is not frayed.\nyou could not observe that from here, but if you were on the\nmantelpiece you would see that it is cut clean off without any mark\nof fraying whatever. you can reconstruct what occurred. the man\nneeded the rope. he would not tear it down for fear of giving the\nalarm by ringing the bell. what did he do? he sprang up on the\nmantelpiece, could not quite reach it, put his knee on the\nbracket--you will see the impression in the dust--and so got his\nknife to bear upon the cord. i could not reach the place by at least\nthree inches, from which i infer that he is at least three inches a\nbigger man than i. look at that mark upon the seat of the oaken\nchair! what is it?\"\n\"blood.\"\n\"undoubtedly it is blood. this alone puts the lady's story out of\ncourt. if she were seated on the chair when the crime was done, how\ncomes that mark? no, no; she was placed in the chair after the death\nof her husband. i'll wager that the black dress shows a corresponding\nmark to this. we have not yet met our waterloo, watson, but this is\nour marengo, for it begins in defeat and ends in victory. i should\nlike now to have a few words with the nurse theresa. we must be wary\nfor awhile, if we are to get the information which we want.\"\nshe was an interesting person, this stern australian nurse. taciturn,\nsuspicious, ungracious, it took some time before holmes's pleasant\nmanner and frank acceptance of all that she said thawed her into a\ncorresponding amiability. she did not attempt to conceal her hatred\nfor her late employer.\n\"yes, sir, it is true that he threw the decanter at me. i heard him\ncall my mistress a name, and i told him that he would not dare to\nspeak so if her brother had been there. then it was that he threw it\nat me. he might have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird\nalone. he was for ever illtreating her, and she too proud to\ncomplain. she will not even tell me all that he has done to her. she\nnever told me of those marks on her arm that you saw this morning,\nbut i know very well that they come from a stab with a hat-pin. the\nsly fiend--heaven forgive me that i should speak of him so, now that\nhe is dead, but a fiend he was if ever one walked the earth. he was\nall honey when first we met him, only eighteen months ago, and we\nboth feel as if it were eighteen years. she had only just arrived in\nlondon. yes, it was her first voyage--she had never been from home\nbefore. he won her with his title and his money and his false london\nways. if she made a mistake she has paid for it, if ever a woman did.\nwhat month did we meet him? well, i tell you it was just after we\narrived. we arrived in june, and it was july. they were married in\njanuary of last year. yes, she is down in the morning-room again, and\ni have no doubt she will see you, but you must not ask too much of\nher, for she has gone through all that flesh and blood will stand.\"\nlady brackenstall was reclining on the same couch, but looked\nbrighter than before. the maid had entered with us, and began once\nmore to foment the bruise upon her mistress's brow.\n\"i hope,\" said the lady, \"that you have not come to cross-examine me\nagain?\"\n\"no,\" holmes answered, in his gentlest voice, \"i will not cause you\nany unnecessary trouble, lady brackenstall, and my whole desire is to\nmake things easy for you, for i am convinced that you are a\nmuch-tried woman. if you will treat me as a friend and trust me you\nmay find that i will justify your trust.\"\n\"what do you want me to do?\"\n\"to tell me the truth.\"\n\"mr. holmes!\"\n\"no, no, lady brackenstall, it is no use. you may have heard of any\nlittle reputation which i possess. i will stake it all on the fact\nthat your story is an absolute fabrication.\"\nmistress and maid were both staring at holmes with pale faces and\nfrightened eyes.\n\"you are an impudent fellow!\" cried theresa. \"do you mean to say that\nmy mistress has told a lie?\"\nholmes rose from his chair.\n\"have you nothing to tell me?\"\n\"i have told you everything.\"\n\"think once more, lady brackenstall. would it not be better to be\nfrank?\"\nfor an instant there was hesitation in her beautiful face. then some\nnew strong thought caused it to set like a mask.\n\"i have told you all i know.\"\nholmes took his hat and shrugged his shoulders. \"i am sorry,\" he\nsaid, and without another word we left the room and the house. there\nwas a pond in the park, and to this my friend led the way. it was\nfrozen over, but a single hole was left for the convenience of a\nsolitary swan. holmes gazed at it and then passed on to the lodge\ngate. there he scribbled a short note for stanley hopkins and left it\nwith the lodge-keeper.\n\"it may be a hit or it may be a miss, but we are bound to do\nsomething for friend hopkins, just to justify this second visit,\"\nsaid he. \"i will not quite take him into my confidence yet. i think\nour next scene of operations must be the shipping office of the\nadelaide-southampton line, which stands at the end of pall mall, if i\nremember right. there is a second line of steamers which connect\nsouth australia with england, but we will draw the larger cover\nfirst.\"\nholmes's card sent in to the manager ensured instant attention, and\nhe was not long in acquiring all the information which he needed. in\njune of '95 only one of their line had reached a home port. it was\nthe rock of gibraltar, their largest and best boat. a reference to\nthe passenger list showed that miss fraser of adelaide, with her\nmaid, had made the voyage in her. the boat was now on her way to\naustralia, somewhere to the south of the suez canal. her officers\nwere the same as in '95, with one exception. the first officer, mr.\njack croker, had been made a captain and was to take charge of their\nnew ship, the bass rock, sailing in two days' time from southampton.\nhe lived at sydenham, but he was likely to be in that morning for\ninstructions, if we cared to wait for him.\nno; mr. holmes had no desire to see him, but would be glad to know\nmore about his record and character.\nhis record was magnificent. there was not an officer in the fleet to\ntouch him. as to his character, he was reliable on duty, but a wild,\ndesperate fellow off the deck of his ship, hot-headed, excitable, but\nloyal, honest, and kind-hearted. that was the pith of the information\nwith which holmes left the office of the adelaide-southampton\ncompany. thence he drove to scotland yard, but instead of entering he\nsat in his cab with his brows drawn down, lost in profound thought.\nfinally he drove round to the charing cross telegraph office, sent\noff a message, and then, at last, we made for baker street once more.\n\"no, i couldn't do it, watson,\" said he, as we re-entered our room.\n\"once that warrant was made out nothing on earth would save him. once\nor twice in my career i feel that i have done more real harm by my\ndiscovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. i have\nlearned caution now, and i had rather play tricks with the law of\nengland than with my own conscience. let us know a little more before\nwe act.\"\nbefore evening we had a visit from inspector stanley hopkins. things\nwere not going very well with him.\n\"i believe that you are a wizard, mr. holmes. i really do sometimes\nthink that you have powers that are not human. now, how on earth\ncould you know that the stolen silver was at the bottom of that\npond?\"\n\"i didn't know it.\"\n\"but you told me to examine it.\"\n\"you got it, then?\"\n\"yes, i got it.\"\n\"i am very glad if i have helped you.\"\n\"but you haven't helped me. you have made the affair far more\ndifficult. what sort of burglars are they who steal silver and then\nthrow it into the nearest pond?\"\n\"it was certainly rather eccentric behaviour. i was merely going on\nthe idea that if the silver had been taken by persons who did not\nwant it, who merely took it for a blind as it were, then they would\nnaturally be anxious to get rid of it.\"\n\"but why should such an idea cross your mind?\"\n\"well, i thought it was possible. when they came out through the\nfrench window there was the pond, with one tempting little hole in\nthe ice, right in front of their noses. could there be a better\nhiding-place?\"\n\"ah, a hiding-place--that is better!\" cried stanley hopkins. \"yes,\nyes, i see it all now! it was early, there were folk upon the roads,\nthey were afraid of being seen with the silver, so they sank it in\nthe pond, intending to return for it when the coast was clear.\nexcellent, mr. holmes--that is better than your idea of a blind.\"\n\"quite so; you have got an admirable theory. i have no doubt that my\nown ideas were quite wild, but you must admit that they have ended in\ndiscovering the silver.\"\n\"yes, sir, yes. it was all your doing. but i have had a bad\nset-back.\"\n\"a set-back?\"\n\"yes, mr. holmes. the randall gang were arrested in new york this\nmorning.\"\n\"dear me, hopkins! that is certainly rather against your theory that\nthey committed a murder in kent last night.\"\n\"it is fatal, mr. holmes, absolutely fatal. still, there are other\ngangs of three besides the randalls, or it may be some new gang of\nwhich the police have never heard.\"\n\"quite so; it is perfectly possible. what, are you off?\"\n\"yes, mr. holmes; there is no rest for me until i have got to the\nbottom of the business. i suppose you have no hint to give me?\"\n\"i have given you one.\"\n\"which?\"\n\"well, i suggested a blind.\"\n\"but why, mr. holmes, why?\"\n\"ah, that's the question, of course. but i commend the idea to your\nmind. you might possibly find that there was something in it. you\nwon't stop for dinner? well, good-bye, and let us know how you get\non.\"\ndinner was over and the table cleared before holmes alluded to the\nmatter again. he had lit his pipe and held his slippered feet to the\ncheerful blaze of the fire. suddenly he looked at his watch.\n\"i expect developments, watson.\"\n\"when?\"\n\"now--within a few minutes. i dare say you thought i acted rather\nbadly to stanley hopkins just now?\"\n\"i trust your judgment.\"\n\"a very sensible reply, watson. you must look at it this way: what i\nknow is unofficial; what he knows is official. i have the right to\nprivate judgment, but he has none. he must disclose all, or he is a\ntraitor to his service. in a doubtful case i would not put him in so\npainful a position, and so i reserve my information until my own mind\nis clear upon the matter.\"\n\"but when will that be?\"\n\"the time has come. you will now be present at the last scene of a\nremarkable little drama.\"\nthere was a sound upon the stairs, and our door was opened to admit\nas fine a specimen of manhood as ever passed through it. he was a\nvery tall young man, golden-moustached, blue-eyed, with a skin which\nhad been burned by tropical suns, and a springy step which showed\nthat the huge frame was as active as it was strong. he closed the\ndoor behind him, and then he stood with clenched hands and heaving\nbreast, choking down some overmastering emotion.\n\"sit down, captain croker. you got my telegram?\"\nour visitor sank into an arm-chair and looked from one to the other\nof us with questioning eyes.\n\"i got your telegram, and i came at the hour you said. i heard that\nyou had been down to the office. there was no getting away from you.\nlet's hear the worst. what are you going to do with me? arrest me?\nspeak out, man! you can't sit there and play with me like a cat with\na mouse.\"\n\"give him a cigar,\" said holmes. \"bite on that, captain croker, and\ndon't let your nerves run away with you. i should not sit here\nsmoking with you if i thought that you were a common criminal, you\nmay be sure of that. be frank with me, and we may do some good. play\ntricks with me, and i'll crush you.\"\n\"what do you wish me to do?\"\n\"to give me a true account of all that happened at the abbey grange\nlast night--a true account, mind you, with nothing added and nothing\ntaken off. i know so much already that if you go one inch off the\nstraight i'll blow this police whistle from my window and the affair\ngoes out of my hands for ever.\"\nthe sailor thought for a little. then he struck his leg with his\ngreat, sun-burned hand.\n\"i'll chance it,\" he cried. \"i believe you are a man of your word,\nand a white man, and i'll tell you the whole story. but one thing i\nwill say first. so far as i am concerned i regret nothing and i fear\nnothing, and i would do it all again and be proud of the job. curse\nthe beast, if he had as many lives as a cat he would owe them all to\nme! but it's the lady, mary--mary fraser--for never will i call her\nby that accursed name. when i think of getting her into trouble, i\nwho would give my life just to bring one smile to her dear face, it's\nthat that turns my soul into water. and yet--and yet--what less could\ni do? i'll tell you my story, gentlemen, and then i'll ask you as man\nto man what less could i do.\n\"i must go back a bit. you seem to know everything, so i expect that\nyou know that i met her when she was a passenger and i was first\nofficer of the rock of gibraltar. from the first day i met her she\nwas the only woman to me. every day of that voyage i loved her more,\nand many a time since have i kneeled down in the darkness of the\nnight watch and kissed the deck of that ship because i knew her dear\nfeet had trod it. she was never engaged to me. she treated me as\nfairly as ever a woman treated a man. i have no complaint to make. it\nwas all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on\nhers. when we parted she was a free woman, but i could never again be\na free man.\n\"next time i came back from sea i heard of her marriage. well, why\nshouldn't she marry whom she liked? title and money--who could carry\nthem better than she? she was born for all that is beautiful and\ndainty. i didn't grieve over her marriage. i was not such a selfish\nhound as that. i just rejoiced that good luck had come her way, and\nthat she had not thrown herself away on a penniless sailor. that's\nhow i loved mary fraser.\n\"well, i never thought to see her again; but last voyage i was\npromoted, and the new boat was not yet launched, so i had to wait for\na couple of months with my people at sydenham. one day out in a\ncountry lane i met theresa wright, her old maid. she told me about\nher, about him, about everything. i tell you, gentlemen, it nearly\ndrove me mad. this drunken hound, that he should dare to raise his\nhand to her whose boots he was not worthy to lick! i met theresa\nagain. then i met mary herself--and met her again. then she would\nmeet me no more. but the other day i had a notice that i was to start\non my voyage within a week, and i determined that i would see her\nonce before i left. theresa was always my friend, for she loved mary\nand hated this villain almost as much as i did. from her i learned\nthe ways of the house. mary used to sit up reading in her own little\nroom downstairs. i crept round there last night and scratched at the\nwindow. at first she would not open to me, but in her heart i know\nthat now she loves me, and she could not leave me in the frosty\nnight. she whispered to me to come round to the big front window, and\ni found it open before me so as to let me into the dining-room. again\ni heard from her own lips things that made my blood boil, and again i\ncursed this brute who mishandled the woman that i loved. well,\ngentlemen, i was standing with her just inside the window, in all\ninnocence, as heaven is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into\nthe room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman,\nand welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand. i\nhad sprung for the poker, and it was a fair fight between us. see\nhere on my arm where his first blow fell. then it was my turn, and i\nwent through him as if he had been a rotten pumpkin. do you think i\nwas sorry? not i! it was his life or mine, but far more than that it\nwas his life or hers, for how could i leave her in the power of this\nmadman? that was how i killed him. was i wrong? well, then, what\nwould either of you gentlemen have done if you had been in my\nposition?\n\"she had screamed when he struck her, and that brought old theresa\ndown from the room above. there was a bottle of wine on the\nsideboard, and i opened it and poured a little between mary's lips,\nfor she was half dead with the shock. then i took a drop myself.\ntheresa was as cool as ice, and it was her plot as much as mine. we\nmust make it appear that burglars had done the thing. theresa kept on\nrepeating our story to her mistress, while i swarmed up and cut the\nrope of the bell. then i lashed her in her chair, and frayed out the\nend of the rope to make it look natural, else they would wonder how\nin the world a burglar could have got up there to cut it. then i\ngathered up a few plates and pots of silver, to carry out the idea of\na robbery, and there i left them with orders to give the alarm when i\nhad a quarter of an hour's start. i dropped the silver into the pond\nand made off for sydenham, feeling that for once in my life i had\ndone a real good night's work. and that's the truth and the whole\ntruth, mr. holmes, if it costs me my neck.\"\nholmes smoked for some time in silence. then he crossed the room and\nshook our visitor by the hand.\n\"that's what i think,\" said he. \"i know that every word is true, for\nyou have hardly said a word which i did not know. no one but an\nacrobat or a sailor could have got up to that bell-rope from the\nbracket, and no one but a sailor could have made the knots with which\nthe cord was fastened to the chair. only once had this lady been\nbrought into contact with sailors, and that was on her voyage, and it\nwas someone of her own class of life, since she was trying hard to\nshield him and so showing that she loved him. you see how easy it was\nfor me to lay my hands upon you when once i had started upon the\nright trail.\"\n\"i thought the police never could have seen through our dodge.\"\n\"and the police haven't; nor will they, to the best of my belief.\nnow, look here, captain croker, this is a very serious matter, though\ni am willing to admit that you acted under the most extreme\nprovocation to which any man could be subjected. i am not sure that\nin defence of your own life your action will not be pronounced\nlegitimate. however, that is for a british jury to decide. meanwhile\ni have so much sympathy for you that if you choose to disappear in\nthe next twenty-four hours i will promise you that no one will hinder\nyou.\"\n\"and then it will all come out?\"\n\"certainly it will come out.\"\nthe sailor flushed with anger.\n\"what sort of proposal is that to make a man? i know enough of law to\nunderstand that mary would be had as accomplice. do you think i would\nleave her alone to face the music while i slunk away? no, sir; let\nthem do their worst upon me, but for heaven's sake, mr. holmes, find\nsome way of keeping my poor mary out of the courts.\"\nholmes for a second time held out his hand to the sailor.\n\"i was only testing you, and you ring true every time. well, it is a\ngreat responsibility that i take upon myself, but i have given\nhopkins an excellent hint, and if he can't avail himself of it i can\ndo no more. see here, captain croker, we'll do this in due form of\nlaw. you are the prisoner. watson, you are a british jury, and i\nnever met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. i am\nthe judge. now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence.\ndo you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?\"\n\"not guilty, my lord,\" said i.\n\"vox populi, vox dei. you are acquitted, captain croker. so long as\nthe law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. come\nback to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us\nin the judgment which we have pronounced this night.\"\nthe adventure of the second stain\ni had intended \"the adventure of the abbey grange\" to be the last of\nthose exploits of my friend, mr. sherlock holmes, which i should ever\ncommunicate to the public. this resolution of mine was not due to any\nlack of material, since i have notes of many hundreds of cases to\nwhich i have never alluded, nor was it caused by any waning interest\non the part of my readers in the singular personality and unique\nmethods of this remarkable man. the real reason lay in the reluctance\nwhich mr. holmes has shown to the continued publication of his\nexperiences. so long as he was in actual professional practice the\nrecords of his successes were of some practical value to him; but\nsince he has definitely retired from london and betaken himself to\nstudy and bee-farming on the sussex downs, notoriety has become\nhateful to him, and he has peremptorily requested that his wishes in\nthis matter should be strictly observed. it was only upon my\nrepresenting to him that i had given a promise that \"the adventure of\nthe second stain\" should be published when the times were ripe, and\npointing out to him that it is only appropriate that this long series\nof episodes should culminate in the most important international case\nwhich he has ever been called upon to handle, that i at last\nsucceeded in obtaining his consent that a carefully-guarded account\nof the incident should at last be laid before the public. if in\ntelling the story i seem to be somewhat vague in certain details the\npublic will readily understand that there is an excellent reason for\nmy reticence.\nit was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be\nnameless, that upon one tuesday morning in autumn we found two\nvisitors of european fame within the walls of our humble room in\nbaker street. the one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant,\nwas none other than the illustrious lord bellinger, twice premier of\nbritain. the other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of\nmiddle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was\nthe right honourable trelawney hope, secretary for european affairs,\nand the most rising statesman in the country. they sat side by side\nupon our paper-littered settee, and it was easy to see from their\nworn and anxious faces that it was business of the most pressing\nimportance which had brought them. the premier's thin, blue-veined\nhands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and\nhis gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from holmes to me. the\neuropean secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted\nwith the seals of his watch-chain.\n\"when i discovered my loss, mr. holmes, which was at eight o'clock\nthis morning, i at once informed the prime minister. it was at his\nsuggestion that we have both come to you.\"\n\"have you informed the police?\"\n\"no, sir,\" said the prime minister, with the quick, decisive manner\nfor which he was famous. \"we have not done so, nor is it possible\nthat we should do so. to inform the police must, in the long run,\nmean to inform the public. this is what we particularly desire to\navoid.\"\n\"and why, sir?\"\n\"because the document in question is of such immense importance that\nits publication might very easily--i might almost say probably--lead\nto european complications of the utmost moment. it is not too much to\nsay that peace or war may hang upon the issue. unless its recovery\ncan be attended with the utmost secrecy, then it may as well not be\nrecovered at all, for all that is aimed at by those who have taken it\nis that its contents should be generally known.\"\n\"i understand. now, mr. trelawney hope, i should be much obliged if\nyou would tell me exactly the circumstances under which this document\ndisappeared.\"\n\"that can be done in a very few words, mr. holmes. the letter--for it\nwas a letter from a foreign potentate--was received six days ago. it\nwas of such importance that i have never left it in my safe, but i\nhave taken it across each evening to my house in whitehall terrace,\nand kept it in my bedroom in a locked despatch-box. it was there last\nnight. of that i am certain. i actually opened the box while i was\ndressing for dinner, and saw the document inside. this morning it was\ngone. the despatch-box had stood beside the glass upon my\ndressing-table all night. i am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. we\nare both prepared to swear that no one could have entered the room\nduring the night. and yet i repeat that the paper is gone.\"\n\"what time did you dine?\"\n\"half-past seven.\"\n\"how long was it before you went to bed?\"\n\"my wife had gone to the theatre. i waited up for her. it was\nhalf-past eleven before we went to our room.\"\n\"then for four hours the despatch-box had lain unguarded?\"\n\"no one is ever permitted to enter that room save the housemaid in\nthe morning, and my valet, or my wife's maid, during the rest of the\nday. they are both trusty servants who have been with us for some\ntime. besides, neither of them could possibly have known that there\nwas anything more valuable than the ordinary departmental papers in\nmy despatch-box.\"\n\"who did know of the existence of that letter?\"\n\"no one in the house.\"\n\"surely your wife knew?\"\n\"no, sir; i had said nothing to my wife until i missed the paper this\nmorning.\"\nthe premier nodded approvingly.\n\"i have long known, sir, how high is your sense of public duty,\" said\nhe. \"i am convinced that in the case of a secret of this importance\nit would rise superior to the most intimate domestic ties.\"\nthe european secretary bowed.\n\"you do me no more than justice, sir. until this morning i have never\nbreathed one word to my wife upon this matter.\"\n\"could she have guessed?\"\n\"no, mr. holmes, she could not have guessed--nor could anyone have\nguessed.\"\n\"have you lost any documents before?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"who is there in england who did know of the existence of this\nletter?\"\n\"each member of the cabinet was informed of it yesterday; but the\npledge of secrecy which attends every cabinet meeting was increased\nby the solemn warning which was given by the prime minister. good\nheavens, to think that within a few hours i should myself have lost\nit!\" his handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair, and his\nhands tore at his hair. for a moment we caught a glimpse of the\nnatural man, impulsive, ardent, keenly sensitive. the next the\naristocratic mask was replaced, and the gentle voice had returned.\n\"besides the members of the cabinet there are two, or possibly three,\ndepartmental officials who know of the letter. no one else in\nengland, mr. holmes, i assure you.\"\n\"but abroad?\"\n\"i believe that no one abroad has seen it save the man who wrote it.\ni am well convinced that his ministers--that the usual official\nchannels have not been employed.\"\nholmes considered for some little time.\n\"now, sir, i must ask you more particularly what this document is,\nand why its disappearance should have such momentous consequences?\"\nthe two statesmen exchanged a quick glance and the premier's shaggy\neyebrows gathered in a frown.\n\"mr. holmes, the envelope is a long, thin one of pale blue colour.\nthere is a seal of red wax stamped with a crouching lion. it is\naddressed in large, bold handwriting to--\"\n\"i fear, sir,\" said holmes, \"that, interesting and indeed essential\nas these details are, my inquiries must go more to the root of\nthings. what was the letter?\"\n\"that is a state secret of the utmost importance, and i fear that i\ncannot tell you, nor do i see that it is necessary. if by the aid of\nthe powers which you are said to possess you can find such an\nenvelope as i describe with its enclosure, you will have deserved\nwell of your country, and earned any reward which it lies in our\npower to bestow.\"\nsherlock holmes rose with a smile.\n\"you are two of the most busy men in the country,\" said he, \"and in\nmy own small way i have also a good many calls upon me. i regret\nexceedingly that i cannot help you in this matter, and any\ncontinuation of this interview would be a waste of time.\"\nthe premier sprang to his feet with that quick, fierce gleam of his\ndeep-set eyes before which a cabinet has cowered. \"i am not\naccustomed, sir--\" he began, but mastered his anger and resumed his\nseat. for a minute or more we all sat in silence. then the old\nstatesman shrugged his shoulders.\n\"we must accept your terms, mr. holmes. no doubt you are right, and\nit is unreasonable for us to expect you to act unless we give you our\nentire confidence.\"\n\"i agree with you, sir,\" said the younger statesman.\n\"then i will tell you, relying entirely upon your honour and that of\nyour colleague, dr. watson. i may appeal to your patriotism also, for\ni could not imagine a greater misfortune for the country than that\nthis affair should come out.\"\n\"you may safely trust us.\"\n\"the letter, then, is from a certain foreign potentate who has been\nruffled by some recent colonial developments of this country. it has\nbeen written hurriedly and upon his own responsibility entirely.\ninquiries have shown that his ministers know nothing of the matter.\nat the same time it is couched in so unfortunate a manner, and\ncertain phrases in it are of so provocative a character, that its\npublication would undoubtedly lead to a most dangerous state of\nfeeling in this country. there would be such a ferment, sir, that i\ndo not hesitate to say that within a week of the publication of that\nletter this country would be involved in a great war.\"\nholmes wrote a name upon a slip of paper and handed it to the\npremier.\n\"exactly. it was he. and it is this letter--this letter which may\nwell mean the expenditure of a thousand millions and the lives of a\nhundred thousand men--which has become lost in this unaccountable\nfashion.\"\n\"have you informed the sender?\"\n\"yes, sir, a cipher telegram has been despatched.\"\n\"perhaps he desires the publication of the letter.\"\n\"no, sir, we have strong reason to believe that he already\nunderstands that he has acted in an indiscreet and hot-headed manner.\nit would be a greater blow to him and to his country than to us if\nthis letter were to come out.\"\n\"if this is so, whose interest is it that the letter should come out?\nwhy should anyone desire to steal it or to publish it?\"\n\"there, mr. holmes, you take me into regions of high international\npolitics. but if you consider the european situation you will have no\ndifficulty in perceiving the motive. the whole of europe is an armed\ncamp. there is a double league which makes a fair balance of military\npower. great britain holds the scales. if britain were driven into\nwar with one confederacy, it would assure the supremacy of the other\nconfederacy, whether they joined in the war or not. do you follow?\"\n\"very clearly. it is then the interest of the enemies of this\npotentate to secure and publish this letter, so as to make a breach\nbetween his country and ours?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and to whom would this document be sent if it fell into the hands of\nan enemy?\"\n\"to any of the great chancelleries of europe. it is probably speeding\non its way thither at the present instant as fast as steam can take\nit.\"\nmr. trelawney hope dropped his head on his chest and groaned aloud.\nthe premier placed his hand kindly upon his shoulder.\n\"it is your misfortune, my dear fellow. no one can blame you. there\nis no precaution which you have neglected. now, mr. holmes, you are\nin full possession of the facts. what course do you recommend?\"\nholmes shook his head mournfully.\n\"you think, sir, that unless this document is recovered there will be\nwar?\"\n\"i think it is very probable.\"\n\"then, sir, prepare for war.\"\n\"that is a hard saying, mr. holmes.\"\n\"consider the facts, sir. it is inconceivable that it was taken after\neleven-thirty at night, since i understand that mr. hope and his wife\nwere both in the room from that hour until the loss was found out. it\nwas taken, then, yesterday evening between seven-thirty and\neleven-thirty, probably near the earlier hour, since whoever took it\nevidently knew that it was there and would naturally secure it as\nearly as possible. now, sir, if a document of this importance were\ntaken at that hour, where can it be now? no one has any reason to\nretain it. it has been passed rapidly on to those who need it. what\nchance have we now to overtake or even to trace it? it is beyond our\nreach.\"\nthe prime minister rose from the settee.\n\"what you say is perfectly logical, mr. holmes. i feel that the\nmatter is indeed out of our hands.\"\n\"let us presume, for argument's sake, that the document was taken by\nthe maid or by the valet--\"\n\"they are both old and tried servants.\"\n\"i understand you to say that your room is on the second floor, that\nthere is no entrance from without, and that from within no one could\ngo up unobserved. it must, then, be somebody in the house who has\ntaken it. to whom would the thief take it? to one of several\ninternational spies and secret agents, whose names are tolerably\nfamiliar to me. there are three who may be said to be the heads of\ntheir profession. i will begin my research by going round and finding\nif each of them is at his post. if one is missing--especially if he\nhas disappeared since last night--we will have some indication as to\nwhere the document has gone.\"\n\"why should he be missing?\" asked the european secretary. \"he would\ntake the letter to an embassy in london, as likely as not.\"\n\"i fancy not. these agents work independently, and their relations\nwith the embassies are often strained.\"\nthe prime minister nodded his acquiescence.\n\"i believe you are right, mr. holmes. he would take so valuable a\nprize to head-quarters with his own hands. i think that your course\nof action is an excellent one. meanwhile, hope, we cannot neglect all\nour other duties on account of this one misfortune. should there be\nany fresh developments during the day we shall communicate with you,\nand you will no doubt let us know the results of your own inquiries.\"\nthe two statesmen bowed and walked gravely from the room.\nwhen our illustrious visitors had departed holmes lit his pipe in\nsilence, and sat for some time lost in the deepest thought. i had\nopened the morning paper and was immersed in a sensational crime\nwhich had occurred in london the night before, when my friend gave an\nexclamation, sprang to his feet, and laid his pipe down upon the\nmantelpiece.\n\"yes,\" said he, \"there is no better way of approaching it. the\nsituation is desperate, but not hopeless. even now, if we could be\nsure which of them has taken it, it is just possible that it has not\nyet passed out of his hands. after all, it is a question of money\nwith these fellows, and i have the british treasury behind me. if\nit's on the market i'll buy it--if it means another penny on the\nincome-tax. it is conceivable that the fellow might hold it back to\nsee what bids come from this side before he tries his luck on the\nother. there are only those three capable of playing so bold a game;\nthere are oberstein, la rothiere, and eduardo lucas. i will see each\nof them.\"\ni glanced at my morning paper.\n\"is that eduardo lucas of godolphin street?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"you will not see him.\"\n\"why not?\"\n\"he was murdered in his house last night.\"\nmy friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures\nthat it was with a sense of exultation that i realized how completely\ni had astonished him. he stared in amazement, and then snatched the\npaper from my hands. this was the paragraph which i had been engaged\nin reading when he rose from his chair:\nmurder in westminster\na crime of mysterious character was committed last night at 16,\ngodolphin street, one of the old-fashioned and secluded rows of\neighteenth-century houses which lie between the river and the abbey,\nalmost in the shadow of the great tower of the houses of parliament.\nthis small but select mansion has been inhabited for some years by\nmr. eduardo lucas, well known in society circles both on account of\nhis charming personality and because he has the well-deserved\nreputation of being one of the best amateur tenors in the country.\nmr. lucas is an unmarried man, thirty-four years of age, and his\nestablishment consists of mrs. pringle, an elderly housekeeper, and\nof mitton, his valet. the former retires early and sleeps at the top\nof the house. the valet was out for the evening, visiting a friend at\nhammersmith. from ten o'clock onwards mr. lucas had the house to\nhimself. what occurred during that time has not yet transpired, but\nat a quarter to twelve police-constable barrett, passing along\ngodolphin street, observed that the door of no. 16 was ajar. he\nknocked, but received no answer. perceiving a light in the front room\nhe advanced into the passage and again knocked, but without reply. he\nthen pushed open the door and entered. the room was in a state of\nwild disorder, the furniture being all swept to one side, and one\nchair lying on its back in the centre. beside this chair, and still\ngrasping one of its legs, lay the unfortunate tenant of the house. he\nhad been stabbed to the heart and must have died instantly. the knife\nwith which the crime had been committed was a curved indian dagger,\nplucked down from a trophy of oriental arms which adorned one of the\nwalls. robbery does not appear to have been the motive of the crime,\nfor there had been no attempt to remove the valuable contents of the\nroom. mr. eduardo lucas was so well known and popular that his\nviolent and mysterious fate will arouse painful interest and intense\nsympathy in a wide-spread circle of friends.\n\"well, watson, what do you make of this?\" asked holmes, after a long\npause.\n\"it is an amazing coincidence.\"\n\"a coincidence! here is one of the three men whom we had named as\npossible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during\nthe very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. the\nodds are enormous against its being coincidence. no figures could\nexpress them. no, my dear watson, the two events are connected--must\nbe connected. it is for us to find the connection.\"\n\"but now the official police must know all.\"\n\"not at all. they know all they see at godolphin street. they\nknow--and shall know--nothing of whitehall terrace. only we know of\nboth events, and can trace the relation between them. there is one\nobvious point which would, in any case, have turned my suspicions\nagainst lucas. godolphin street, westminster, is only a few minutes'\nwalk from whitehall terrace. the other secret agents whom i have\nnamed live in the extreme west-end. it was easier, therefore, for\nlucas than for the others to establish a connection or receive a\nmessage from the european secretary's household--a small thing, and\nyet where events are compressed into a few hours it may prove\nessential. halloa! what have we here?\"\nmrs. hudson had appeared with a lady's card upon her salver. holmes\nglanced at it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it over to me.\n\"ask lady hilda trelawney hope if she will be kind enough to step\nup,\" said he.\na moment later our modest apartment, already so distinguished that\nmorning, was further honoured by the entrance of the most lovely\nwoman in london. i had often heard of the beauty of the youngest\ndaughter of the duke of belminster, but no description of it, and no\ncontemplation of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the\nsubtle, delicate charm and the beautiful colouring of that exquisite\nhead. and yet as we saw it that autumn morning, it was not its beauty\nwhich would be the first thing to impress the observer. the cheek was\nlovely, but it was paled with emotion; the eyes were bright, but it\nwas the brightness of fever; the sensitive mouth was tight and drawn\nin an effort after self-command. terror--not beauty--was what sprang\nfirst to the eye as our fair visitor stood framed for an instant in\nthe open door.\n\"has my husband been here, mr. holmes?\"\n\"yes, madam, he has been here.\"\n\"mr. holmes, i implore you not to tell him that i came here.\" holmes\nbowed coldly, and motioned the lady to a chair.\n\"your ladyship places me in a very delicate position. i beg that you\nwill sit down and tell me what you desire; but i fear that i cannot\nmake any unconditional promise.\"\nshe swept across the room and seated herself with her back to the\nwindow. it was a queenly presence--tall, graceful, and intensely\nwomanly.\n\"mr. holmes,\" she said, and her white-gloved hands clasped and\nunclasped as she spoke--\"i will speak frankly to you in the hope that\nit may induce you to speak frankly in return. there is complete\nconfidence between my husband and me on all matters save one. that\none is politics. on this his lips are sealed. he tells me nothing.\nnow, i am aware that there was a most deplorable occurrence in our\nhouse last night. i know that a paper has disappeared. but because\nthe matter is political my husband refuses to take me into his\ncomplete confidence. now it is essential--essential, i say--that i\nshould thoroughly understand it. you are the only other person, save\nonly these politicians, who knows the true facts. i beg you, then,\nmr. holmes, to tell me exactly what has happened and what it will\nlead to. tell me all, mr. holmes. let no regard for your client's\ninterests keep you silent, for i assure you that his interests, if he\nwould only see it, would be best served by taking me into his\ncomplete confidence. what was this paper which was stolen?\"\n\"madam, what you ask me is really impossible.\"\nshe groaned and sank her face in her hands.\n\"you must see that this is so, madam. if your husband thinks fit to\nkeep you in the dark over this matter, is it for me, who has only\nlearned the true facts under the pledge of professional secrecy, to\ntell what he has withheld? it is not fair to ask it. it is him whom\nyou must ask.\"\n\"i have asked him. i come to you as a last resource. but without your\ntelling me anything definite, mr. holmes, you may do a great service\nif you would enlighten me on one point.\"\n\"what is it, madam?\"\n\"is my husband's political career likely to suffer through this\nincident?\"\n\"well, madam, unless it is set right it may certainly have a very\nunfortunate effect.\"\n\"ah!\" she drew in her breath sharply as one whose doubts are\nresolved.\n\"one more question, mr. holmes. from an expression which my husband\ndropped in the first shock of this disaster i understood that\nterrible public consequences might arise from the loss of this\ndocument.\"\n\"if he said so, i certainly cannot deny it.\"\n\"of what nature are they?\"\n\"nay, madam, there again you ask me more than i can possibly answer.\"\n\"then i will take up no more of your time. i cannot blame you, mr.\nholmes, for having refused to speak more freely, and you on your side\nwill not, i am sure, think the worse of me because i desire, even\nagainst his will, to share my husband's anxieties. once more i beg\nthat you will say nothing of my visit.\" she looked back at us from\nthe door, and i had a last impression of that beautiful haunted face,\nthe startled eyes, and the drawn mouth. then she was gone.\n\"now, watson, the fair sex is your department,\" said holmes, with a\nsmile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts had ended in the slam\nof the front door. \"what was the fair lady's game? what did she\nreally want?\"\n\"surely her own statement is clear and her anxiety very natural.\"\n\"hum! think of her appearance, watson--her manner, her suppressed\nexcitement, her restlessness, her tenacity in asking questions.\nremember that she comes of a caste who do not lightly show emotion.\"\n\"she was certainly much moved.\"\n\"remember also the curious earnestness with which she assured us that\nit was best for her husband that she should know all. what did she\nmean by that? and you must have observed, watson, how she manoeuvred\nto have the light at her back. she did not wish us to read her\nexpression.\"\n\"yes; she chose the one chair in the room.\"\n\"and yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. you remember the\nwoman at margate whom i suspected for the same reason. no powder on\nher nose--that proved to be the correct solution. how can you build\non such a quicksand? their most trivial action may mean volumes, or\ntheir most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a\ncurling-tongs. good morning, watson.\"\n\"you are off?\"\n\"yes; i will wile away the morning at godolphin street with our\nfriends of the regular establishment. with eduardo lucas lies the\nsolution of our problem, though i must admit that i have not an\ninkling as to what form it may take. it is a capital mistake to\ntheorize in advance of the facts. do you stay on guard, my good\nwatson, and receive any fresh visitors. i'll join you at lunch if i\nam able.\"\nall that day and the next and the next holmes was in a mood which his\nfriends would call taciturn, and others morose. he ran out and ran\nin, smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into\nreveries, devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered\nthe casual questions which i put to him. it was evident to me that\nthings were not going well with him or his quest. he would say\nnothing of the case, and it was from the papers that i learned the\nparticulars of the inquest, and the arrest with the subsequent\nrelease of john mitton, the valet of the deceased. the coroner's jury\nbrought in the obvious \"wilful murder,\" but the parties remained as\nunknown as ever. no motive was suggested. the room was full of\narticles of value, but none had been taken. the dead man's papers had\nnot been tampered with. they were carefully examined, and showed that\nhe was a keen student of international politics, an indefatigable\ngossip, a remarkable linguist, and an untiring letter-writer. he had\nbeen on intimate terms with the leading politicians of several\ncountries. but nothing sensational was discovered among the documents\nwhich filled his drawers. as to his relations with women, they\nappeared to have been promiscuous but superficial. he had many\nacquaintances among them, but few friends, and no one whom he loved.\nhis habits were regular, his conduct inoffensive. his death was an\nabsolute mystery, and likely to remain so.\nas to the arrest of john mitton, the valet, it was a counsel of\ndespair as an alternative to absolute inaction. but no case could be\nsustained against him. he had visited friends in hammersmith that\nnight. the alibi was complete. it is true that he started home at an\nhour which should have brought him to westminster before the time\nwhen the crime was discovered, but his own explanation that he had\nwalked part of the way seemed probable enough in view of the fineness\nof the night. he had actually arrived at twelve o'clock, and appeared\nto be overwhelmed by the unexpected tragedy. he had always been on\ngood terms with his master. several of the dead man's\npossessions--notably a small case of razors--had been found in the\nvalet's boxes, but he explained that they had been presents from the\ndeceased, and the housekeeper was able to corroborate the story.\nmitton had been in lucas's employment for three years. it was\nnoticeable that lucas did not take mitton on the continent with him.\nsometimes he visited paris for three months on end, but mitton was\nleft in charge of the godolphin street house. as to the housekeeper,\nshe had heard nothing on the night of the crime. if her master had a\nvisitor he had himself admitted him.\nso for three mornings the mystery remained, so far as i could follow\nit in the papers. if holmes knew more he kept his own counsel, but,\nas he told me that inspector lestrade had taken him into his\nconfidence in the case, i knew that he was in close touch with every\ndevelopment. upon the fourth day there appeared a long telegram from\nparis which seemed to solve the whole question.\na discovery has just been made by the parisian police [said the daily\ntelegraph] which raises the veil which hung round the tragic fate of\nmr. eduardo lucas, who met his death by violence last monday night at\ngodolphin street, westminster. our readers will remember that the\ndeceased gentleman was found stabbed in his room, and that some\nsuspicion attached to his valet, but that the case broke down on an\nalibi. yesterday a lady, who has been known as mme. henri fournaye,\noccupying a small villa in the rue austerlitz, was reported to the\nauthorities by her servants as being insane. an examination showed\nthat she had indeed developed mania of a dangerous and permanent\nform. on inquiry the police have discovered that mme. henri fournaye\nonly returned from a journey to london on tuesday last, and there is\nevidence to connect her with the crime at westminster. a comparison\nof photographs has proved conclusively that m. henri fournaye and\neduardo lucas were really one and the same person, and that the\ndeceased had for some reason lived a double life in london and paris.\nmme. fournaye, who is of creole origin, is of an extremely excitable\nnature, and has suffered in the past from attacks of jealousy which\nhave amounted to frenzy. it is conjectured that it was in one of\nthese that she committed the terrible crime which has caused such a\nsensation in london. her movements upon the monday night have not yet\nbeen traced, but it is undoubted that a woman answering to her\ndescription attracted much attention at charing cross station on\ntuesday morning by the wildness of her appearance and the violence of\nher gestures. it is probable, therefore, that the crime was either\ncommitted when insane, or that its immediate effect was to drive the\nunhappy woman out of her mind. at present she is unable to give any\ncoherent account of the past, and the doctors hold out no hopes of\nthe re-establishment of her reason. there is evidence that a woman,\nwho might have been mme. fournaye, was seen for some hours on monday\nnight watching the house in godolphin street.\n\"what do you think of that, holmes?\" i had read the account aloud to\nhim, while he finished his breakfast.\n\"my dear watson,\" said he, as he rose from the table and paced up and\ndown the room, \"you are most long-suffering, but if i have told you\nnothing in the last three days it is because there is nothing to\ntell. even now this report from paris does not help us much.\"\n\"surely it is final as regards the man's death.\"\n\"the man's death is a mere incident--a trivial episode--in comparison\nwith our real task, which is to trace this document and save a\neuropean catastrophe. only one important thing has happened in the\nlast three days, and that is that nothing has happened. i get reports\nalmost hourly from the government, and it is certain that nowhere in\neurope is there any sign of trouble. now, if this letter were\nloose--no, it can't be loose--but if it isn't loose, where can it be?\nwho has it? why is it held back? that's the question that beats in my\nbrain like a hammer. was it, indeed, a coincidence that lucas should\nmeet his death on the night when the letter disappeared? did the\nletter ever reach him? if so, why is it not among his papers? did\nthis mad wife of his carry it off with her? if so, is it in her house\nin paris? how could i search for it without the french police having\ntheir suspicions aroused? it is a case, my dear watson, where the law\nis as dangerous to us as the criminals are. every man's hand is\nagainst us, and yet the interests at stake are colossal. should i\nbring it to a successful conclusion it will certainly represent the\ncrowning glory of my career. ah, here is my latest from the front!\"\nhe glanced hurriedly at the note which had been handed in. \"halloa!\nlestrade seems to have observed something of interest. put on your\nhat, watson, and we will stroll down together to westminster.\"\nit was my first visit to the scene of the crime--a high, dingy,\nnarrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which\ngave it birth. lestrade's bulldog features gazed out at us from the\nfront window, and he greeted us warmly when a big constable had\nopened the door and let us in. the room into which we were shown was\nthat in which the crime had been committed, but no trace of it now\nremained, save an ugly, irregular stain upon the carpet. this carpet\nwas a small square drugget in the centre of the room, surrounded by a\nbroad expanse of beautiful, old-fashioned wood-flooring in square\nblocks highly polished. over the fireplace was a magnificent trophy\nof weapons, one of which had been used on that tragic night. in the\nwindow was a sumptuous writing-desk, and every detail of the\napartment, the pictures, the rugs, and the hangings, all pointed to a\ntaste which was luxurious to the verge of effeminacy.\n\"seen the paris news?\" asked lestrade.\nholmes nodded.\n\"our french friends seem to have touched the spot this time. no doubt\nit's just as they say. she knocked at the door--surprise visit, i\nguess, for he kept his life in water-tight compartments. he let her\nin--couldn't keep her in the street. she told him how she had traced\nhim, reproached him, one thing led to another, and then with that\ndagger so handy the end soon came. it wasn't all done in an instant,\nthough, for these chairs were all swept over yonder, and he had one\nin his hand as if he had tried to hold her off with it. we've got it\nall clear as if we had seen it.\"\nholmes raised his eyebrows.\n\"and yet you have sent for me?\"\n\"ah, yes, that's another matter--a mere trifle, but the sort of thing\nyou take an interest in--queer, you know, and what you might call\nfreakish. it has nothing to do with the main fact--can't have, on the\nface of it.\"\n\"what is it, then?\"\n\"well, you know, after a crime of this sort we are very careful to\nkeep things in their position. nothing has been moved. officer in\ncharge here day and night. this morning, as the man was buried and\nthe investigation over--so far as this room is concerned--we thought\nwe could tidy up a bit. this carpet. you see, it is not fastened\ndown; only just laid there. we had occasion to raise it. we found--\"\n\"yes? you found--\"\nholmes's face grew tense with anxiety.\n\"well, i'm sure you would never guess in a hundred years what we did\nfind. you see that stain on the carpet? well, a great deal must have\nsoaked through, must it not?\"\n\"undoubtedly it must.\"\n\"well, you will be surprised to hear that there is no stain on the\nwhite woodwork to correspond.\"\n\"no stain! but there must--\"\n\"yes; so you would say. but the fact remains that there isn't.\"\nhe took the corner of the carpet in his hand and, turning it over, he\nshowed that it was indeed as he said.\n\"but the underside is as stained as the upper. it must have left a\nmark.\"\nlestrade chuckled with delight at having puzzled the famous expert.\n\"now i'll show you the explanation. there is a second stain, but it\ndoes not correspond with the other. see for yourself.\" as he spoke he\nturned over another portion of the carpet, and there, sure enough,\nwas a great crimson spill upon the square white facing of the\nold-fashioned floor. \"what do you make of that, mr. holmes?\"\n\"why, it is simple enough. the two stains did correspond, but the\ncarpet has been turned round. as it was square and unfastened it was\neasily done.\"\n\"the official police don't need you, mr. holmes, to tell them that\nthe carpet must have been turned round. that's clear enough, for the\nstains lie above each other--if you lay it over this way. but what i\nwant to know is, who shifted the carpet, and why?\"\ni could see from holmes's rigid face that he was vibrating with\ninward excitement.\n\"look here, lestrade,\" said he, \"has that constable in the passage\nbeen in charge of the place all the time?\"\n\"yes, he has.\"\n\"well, take my advice. examine him carefully. don't do it before us.\nwe'll wait here. you take him into the back room. you'll be more\nlikely to get a confession out of him alone. ask him how he dared to\nadmit people and leave them alone in this room. don't ask him if he\nhas done it. take it for granted. tell him you know someone has been\nhere. press him. tell him that a full confession is his only chance\nof forgiveness. do exactly what i tell you!\"\n\"by george, if he knows i'll have it out of him!\" cried lestrade. he\ndarted into the hall, and a few moments later his bullying voice\nsounded from the back room.\n\"now, watson, now!\" cried holmes, with frenzied eagerness. all the\ndemoniacal force of the man masked behind that listless manner burst\nout in a paroxysm of energy. he tore the drugget from the floor, and\nin an instant was down on his hands and knees clawing at each of the\nsquares of wood beneath it. one turned sideways as he dug his nails\ninto the edge of it. it hinged back like the lid of a box. a small\nblack cavity opened beneath it. holmes plunged his eager hand into\nit, and drew it out with a bitter snarl of anger and disappointment.\nit was empty.\n\"quick, watson, quick! get it back again!\" the wooden lid was\nreplaced, and the drugget had only just been drawn straight when\nlestrade's voice was heard in the passage. he found holmes leaning\nlanguidly against the mantelpiece, resigned and patient, endeavouring\nto conceal his irrepressible yawns.\n\"sorry to keep you waiting, mr. holmes. i can see that you are bored\nto death with the whole affair. well, he has confessed, all right.\ncome in here, macpherson. let these gentlemen hear of your most\ninexcusable conduct.\"\nthe big constable, very hot and penitent, sidled into the room.\n\"i meant no harm, sir, i'm sure. the young woman came to the door\nlast evening--mistook the house, she did. and then we got talking.\nit's lonesome, when you're on duty here all day.\"\n\"well, what happened then?\"\n\"she wanted to see where the crime was done--had read about it in the\npapers, she said. she was a very respectable, well-spoken young\nwoman, sir, and i saw no harm in letting her have a peep. when she\nsaw that mark on the carpet, down she dropped on the floor, and lay\nas if she were dead. i ran to the back and got some water, but i\ncould not bring her to. then i went round the corner to the ivy plant\nfor some brandy, and by the time i had brought it back the young\nwoman had recovered and was off--ashamed of herself, i dare say, and\ndared not face me.\"\n\"how about moving that drugget?\"\n\"well, sir, it was a bit rumpled, certainly, when i came back. you\nsee, she fell on it, and it lies on a polished floor with nothing to\nkeep it in place. i straightened it out afterwards.\"\n\"it's a lesson to you that you can't deceive me, constable\nmacpherson,\" said lestrade, with dignity. \"no doubt you thought that\nyour breach of duty could never be discovered, and yet a mere glance\nat that drugget was enough to convince me that someone had been\nadmitted to the room. it's lucky for you, my man, that nothing is\nmissing, or you would find yourself in queer street. i'm sorry to\nhave called you down over such a petty business, mr. holmes, but i\nthought the point of the second stain not corresponding with the\nfirst would interest you.\"\n\"certainly, it was most interesting. has this woman only been here\nonce, constable?\"\n\"yes, sir, only once.\"\n\"who was she?\"\n\"don't know the name, sir. was answering an advertisement about\ntype-writing, and came to the wrong number--very pleasant, genteel\nyoung woman, sir.\"\n\"tall? handsome?\"\n\"yes, sir; she was a well-grown young woman. i suppose you might say\nshe was handsome. perhaps some would say she was very handsome. 'oh,\nofficer, do let me have a peep!' says she. she had pretty, coaxing\nways, as you might say, and i thought there was no harm in letting\nher just put her head through the door.\"\n\"how was she dressed?\"\n\"quiet, sir--a long mantle down to her feet.\"\n\"what time was it?\"\n\"it was just growing dusk at the time. they were lighting the lamps\nas i came back with the brandy.\"\n\"very good,\" said holmes. \"come, watson, i think that we have more\nimportant work elsewhere.\"\nas we left the house lestrade remained in the front room, while the\nrepentant constable opened the door to let us out. holmes turned on\nthe step and held up something in his hand. the constable stared\nintently.\n\"good lord, sir!\" he cried, with amazement on his face. holmes put\nhis finger on his lips, replaced his hand in his breast-pocket, and\nburst out laughing as we turned down the street. \"excellent!\" said\nhe. \"come, friend watson, the curtain rings up for the last act. you\nwill be relieved to hear that there will be no war, that the right\nhonourable trelawney hope will suffer no set-back in his brilliant\ncareer, that the indiscreet sovereign will receive no punishment for\nhis indiscretion, that the prime minister will have no european\ncomplication to deal with, and that with a little tact and management\nupon our part nobody will be a penny the worse for what might have\nbeen a very ugly incident.\"\nmy mind filled with admiration for this extraordinary man.\n\"you have solved it!\" i cried.\n\"hardly that, watson. there are some points which are as dark as\never. but we have so much that it will be our own fault if we cannot\nget the rest. we will go straight to whitehall terrace and bring the\nmatter to a head.\"\nwhen we arrived at the residence of the european secretary it was for\nlady hilda trelawney hope that sherlock holmes inquired. we were\nshown into the morning-room.\n\"mr. holmes!\" said the lady, and her face was pink with her\nindignation, \"this is surely most unfair and ungenerous upon your\npart. i desired, as i have explained, to keep my visit to you a\nsecret, lest my husband should think that i was intruding into his\naffairs. and yet you compromise me by coming here and so showing that\nthere are business relations between us.\"\n\"unfortunately, madam, i had no possible alternative. i have been\ncommissioned to recover this immensely important paper. i must\ntherefore ask you, madam, to be kind enough to place it in my hands.\"\nthe lady sprang to her feet, with the colour all dashed in an instant\nfrom her beautiful face. her eyes glazed--she tottered--i thought\nthat she would faint. then with a grand effort she rallied from the\nshock, and a supreme astonishment and indignation chased every other\nexpression from her features.\n\"you--you insult me, mr. holmes.\"\n\"come, come, madam, it is useless. give up the letter.\"\nshe darted to the bell.\n\"the butler shall show you out.\"\n\"do not ring, lady hilda. if you do, then all my earnest efforts to\navoid a scandal will be frustrated. give up the letter and all will\nbe set right. if you will work with me i can arrange everything. if\nyou work against me i must expose you.\"\nshe stood grandly defiant, a queenly figure, her eyes fixed upon his\nas if she would read his very soul. her hand was on the bell, but she\nhad forborne to ring it.\n\"you are trying to frighten me. it is not a very manly thing, mr.\nholmes, to come here and browbeat a woman. you say that you know\nsomething. what is it that you know?\"\n\"pray sit down, madam. you will hurt yourself there if you fall. i\nwill not speak until you sit down. thank you.\"\n\"i give you five minutes, mr. holmes.\"\n\"one is enough, lady hilda. i know of your visit to eduardo lucas, of\nyour giving him this document, of your ingenious return to the room\nlast night, and of the manner in which you took the letter from the\nhiding-place under the carpet.\"\nshe stared at him with an ashen face and gulped twice before she\ncould speak.\n\"you are mad, mr. holmes--you are mad!\" she cried, at last.\nhe drew a small piece of cardboard from his pocket. it was the face\nof a woman cut out of a portrait.\n\"i have carried this because i thought it might be useful,\" said he.\n\"the policeman has recognised it.\"\nshe gave a gasp and her head dropped back in the chair.\n\"come, lady hilda. you have the letter. the matter may still be\nadjusted. i have no desire to bring trouble to you. my duty ends when\ni have returned the lost letter to your husband. take my advice and\nbe frank with me; it is your only chance.\"\nher courage was admirable. even now she would not own defeat.\n\"i tell you again, mr. holmes, that you are under some absurd\nillusion.\"\nholmes rose from his chair.\n\"i am sorry for you, lady hilda. i have done my best for you; i can\nsee that it is all in vain.\"\nhe rang the bell. the butler entered.\n\"is mr. trelawney hope at home?\"\n\"he will be home, sir, at a quarter to one.\"\nholmes glanced at his watch.\n\"still a quarter of an hour,\" said he. \"very good, i shall wait.\"\nthe butler had hardly closed the door behind him when lady hilda was\ndown on her knees at holmes's feet, her hands out-stretched, her\nbeautiful face upturned and wet with her tears.\n\"oh, spare me, mr. holmes! spare me!\" she pleaded, in a frenzy of\nsupplication. \"for heaven's sake, don't tell him! i love him so! i\nwould not bring one shadow on his life, and this i know would break\nhis noble heart.\"\nholmes raised the lady. \"i am thankful, madam, that you have come to\nyour senses even at this last moment! there is not an instant to\nlose. where is the letter?\"\nshe darted across to a writing-desk, unlocked it, and drew out a long\nblue envelope.\n\"here it is, mr. holmes. would to heaven i had never seen it!\"\n\"how can we return it?\" holmes muttered. \"quick, quick, we must think\nof some way! where is the despatch-box?\"\n\"still in his bedroom.\"\n\"what a stroke of luck! quick, madam, bring it here!\"\na moment later she had appeared with a red flat box in her hand.\n\"how did you open it before? you have a duplicate key? yes, of course\nyou have. open it!\"\nfrom out of her bosom lady hilda had drawn a small key. the box flew\nopen. it was stuffed with papers. holmes thrust the blue envelope\ndeep down into the heart of them, between the leaves of some other\ndocument. the box was shut, locked, and returned to the bedroom.\n\"now we are ready for him,\" said holmes; \"we have still ten minutes.\ni am going far to screen you, lady hilda. in return you will spend\nthe time in telling me frankly the real meaning of this extraordinary\naffair.\"\n\"mr. holmes, i will tell you everything,\" cried the lady. \"oh, mr.\nholmes, i would cut off my right hand before i gave him a moment of\nsorrow! there is no woman in all london who loves her husband as i\ndo, and yet if he knew how i have acted--how i have been compelled to\nact--he would never forgive me. for his own honour stands so high\nthat he could not forget or pardon a lapse in another. help me, mr.\nholmes! my happiness, his happiness, our very lives are at stake!\"\n\"quick, madam, the time grows short!\"\n\"it was a letter of mine, mr. holmes, an indiscreet letter written\nbefore my marriage--a foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive,\nloving girl. i meant no harm, and yet he would have thought it\ncriminal. had he read that letter his confidence would have been for\never destroyed. it is years since i wrote it. i had thought that the\nwhole matter was forgotten. then at last i heard from this man,\nlucas, that it had passed into his hands, and that he would lay it\nbefore my husband. i implored his mercy. he said that he would return\nmy letter if i would bring him a certain document which he described\nin my husband's despatch-box. he had some spy in the office who had\ntold him of its existence. he assured me that no harm could come to\nmy husband. put yourself in my position, mr. holmes! what was i to\ndo?\"\n\"take your husband into your confidence.\"\n\"i could not, mr. holmes, i could not! on the one side seemed certain\nruin; on the other, terrible as it seemed to take my husband's paper,\nstill in a matter of politics i could not understand the\nconsequences, while in a matter of love and trust they were only too\nclear to me. i did it, mr. holmes! i took an impression of his key;\nthis man lucas furnished a duplicate. i opened his despatch-box, took\nthe paper, and conveyed it to godolphin street.\"\n\"what happened there, madam?\"\n\"i tapped at the door as agreed. lucas opened it. i followed him into\nhis room, leaving the hall door ajar behind me, for i feared to be\nalone with the man. i remember that there was a woman outside as i\nentered. our business was soon done. he had my letter on his desk; i\nhanded him the document. he gave me the letter. at this instant there\nwas a sound at the door. there were steps in the passage. lucas\nquickly turned back the drugget, thrust the document into some\nhiding-place there, and covered it over.\n\"what happened after that is like some fearful dream. i have a vision\nof a dark, frantic face, of a woman's voice, which screamed in\nfrench, 'my waiting is not in vain. at last, at last i have found you\nwith her!' there was a savage struggle. i saw him with a chair in his\nhand, a knife gleamed in hers. i rushed from the horrible scene, ran\nfrom the house, and only next morning in the paper did i learn the\ndreadful result. that night i was happy, for i had my letter, and i\nhad not seen yet what the future would bring.\n\"it was the next morning that i realized that i had only exchanged\none trouble for another. my husband's anguish at the loss of his\npaper went to my heart. i could hardly prevent myself from there and\nthen kneeling down at his feet and telling him what i had done. but\nthat again would mean a confession of the past. i came to you that\nmorning in order to understand the full enormity of my offence. from\nthe instant that i grasped it my whole mind was turned to the one\nthought of getting back my husband's paper. it must still be where\nlucas had placed it, for it was concealed before this dreadful woman\nentered the room. if it had not been for her coming, i should not\nhave known where his hiding-place was. how was i to get into the\nroom? for two days i watched the place, but the door was never left\nopen. last night i made a last attempt. what i did and how i\nsucceeded, you have already learned. i brought the paper back with\nme, and thought of destroying it since i could see no way of\nreturning it, without confessing my guilt to my husband. heavens, i\nhear his step upon the stair!\"\nthe european secretary burst excitedly into the room.\n\"any news, mr. holmes, any news?\" he cried.\n\"i have some hopes.\"\n\"ah, thank heaven!\" his face became radiant. \"the prime minister is\nlunching with me. may he share your hopes? he has nerves of steel,\nand yet i know that he has hardly slept since this terrible event.\njacobs, will you ask the prime minister to come up? as to you, dear,\ni fear that this is a matter of politics. we will join you in a few\nminutes in the dining-room.\"\nthe prime minister's manner was subdued, but i could see by the gleam\nof his eyes and the twitchings of his bony hands that he shared the\nexcitement of his young colleague.\n\"i understand that you have something to report, mr. holmes?\"\n\"purely negative as yet,\" my friend answered. \"i have inquired at\nevery point where it might be, and i am sure that there is no danger\nto be apprehended.\"\n\"but that is not enough, mr. holmes. we cannot live for ever on such\na volcano. we must have something definite.\"\n\"i am in hopes of getting it. that is why i am here. the more i think\nof the matter the more convinced i am that the letter has never left\nthis house.\"\n\"mr. holmes!\"\n\"if it had it would certainly have been public by now.\"\n\"but why should anyone take it in order to keep it in his house?\"\n\"i am not convinced that anyone did take it.\"\n\"then how could it leave the despatch-box?\"\n\"i am not convinced that it ever did leave the despatch-box.\"\n\"mr. holmes, this joking is very ill-timed. you have my assurance\nthat it left the box.\"\n\"have you examined the box since tuesday morning?\"\n\"no; it was not necessary.\"\n\"you may conceivably have overlooked it.\"\n\"impossible, i say.\"\n\"but i am not convinced of it; i have known such things to happen. i\npresume there are other papers there. well, it may have got mixed\nwith them.\"\n\"it was on the top.\"\n\"someone may have shaken the box and displaced it.\"\n\"no, no; i had everything out.\"\n\"surely it is easily decided, hope,\" said the premier. \"let us have\nthe despatch-box brought in.\"\nthe secretary rang the bell.\n\"jacobs, bring down my despatch-box. this is a farcical waste of\ntime, but still, if nothing else will satisfy you, it shall be done.\nthank you, jacobs; put it here. i have always had the key on my\nwatch-chain. here are the papers, you see. letter from lord merrow,\nreport from sir charles hardy, memorandum from belgrade, note on the\nrusso-german grain taxes, letter from madrid, note from lord\nflowers--good heavens! what is this? lord bellinger! lord bellinger!\"\nthe premier snatched the blue envelope from his hand.\n\"yes, it is it--and the letter is intact. hope, i congratulate you.\"\n\"thank you! thank you! what a weight from my heart. but this is\ninconceivable--impossible. mr. holmes, you are a wizard, a sorcerer!\nhow did you know it was there?\"\n\"because i knew it was nowhere else.\"\n\"i cannot believe my eyes!\" he ran wildly to the door. \"where is my\nwife? i must tell her that all is well. hilda! hilda!\" we heard his\nvoice on the stairs.\nthe premier looked at holmes with twinkling eyes.\n\"come, sir,\" said he. \"there is more in this than meets the eye. how\ncame the letter back in the box?\"\nholmes turned away smiling from the keen scrutiny of those wonderful\neyes.\n\"we also have our diplomatic secrets,\" said he, and picking up his\nhat he turned to the door.\nthe hound of the baskervilles\ntable of contents\nmr. sherlock holmes\nthe curse of the baskervilles\nthe problem\nsir henry baskerville\nthree broken threads\nbaskerville hall\nthe stapletons of merripit house\nfirst report of dr. watson\nsecond report of dr. watson\nextract from the diary of dr. watson\nthe man on the tor\ndeath on the moor\nfixing the nets\nthe hound of the baskervilles\na retrospection\nchapter i\nmr. sherlock holmes\nmr. sherlock holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save\nupon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was\nseated at the breakfast table. i stood upon the hearth-rug and picked\nup the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before.\nit was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which\nis known as a \"penang lawyer.\" just under the head was a broad silver\nband nearly an inch across. \"to james mortimer, m.r.c.s., from his\nfriends of the c.c.h.,\" was engraved upon it, with the date \"1884.\"\nit was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner\nused to carry--dignified, solid, and reassuring.\n\"well, watson, what do you make of it?\"\nholmes was sitting with his back to me, and i had given him no sign\nof my occupation.\n\"how did you know what i was doing? i believe you have eyes in the\nback of your head.\"\n\"i have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front\nof me,\" said he. \"but, tell me, watson, what do you make of our\nvisitor's stick? since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and\nhave no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of\nimportance. let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of\nit.\"\n\"i think,\" said i, following as far as i could the methods of my\ncompanion, \"that dr. mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man,\nwell-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their\nappreciation.\"\n\"good!\" said holmes. \"excellent!\"\n\"i think also that the probability is in favour of his being a\ncountry practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.\"\n\"why so?\"\n\"because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been\nso knocked about that i can hardly imagine a town practitioner\ncarrying it. the thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident\nthat he has done a great amount of walking with it.\"\n\"perfectly sound!\" said holmes.\n\"and then again, there is the 'friends of the c.c.h.' i should guess\nthat to be the something hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has\npossibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a\nsmall presentation in return.\"\n\"really, watson, you excel yourself,\" said holmes, pushing back his\nchair and lighting a cigarette. \"i am bound to say that in all the\naccounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small\nachievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. it\nmay be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of\nlight. some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power\nof stimulating it. i confess, my dear fellow, that i am very much in\nyour debt.\"\nhe had never said as much before, and i must admit that his words\ngave me keen pleasure, for i had often been piqued by his\nindifference to my admiration and to the attempts which i had made to\ngive publicity to his methods. i was proud, too, to think that i had\nso far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his\napproval. he now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a\nfew minutes with his naked eyes. then with an expression of interest\nhe laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he\nlooked over it again with a convex lens.\n\"interesting, though elementary,\" said he as he returned to his\nfavourite corner of the settee. \"there are certainly one or two\nindications upon the stick. it gives us the basis for several\ndeductions.\"\n\"has anything escaped me?\" i asked with some self-importance. \"i\ntrust that there is nothing of consequence which i have overlooked?\"\n\"i am afraid, my dear watson, that most of your conclusions were\nerroneous. when i said that you stimulated me i meant, to be frank,\nthat in noting your fallacies i was occasionally guided towards the\ntruth. not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. the man is\ncertainly a country practitioner. and he walks a good deal.\"\n\"then i was right.\"\n\"to that extent.\"\n\"but that was all.\"\n\"no, no, my dear watson, not all--by no means all. i would suggest,\nfor example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come\nfrom a hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials 'c.c.'\nare placed before that hospital the words 'charing cross' very\nnaturally suggest themselves.\"\n\"you may be right.\"\n\"the probability lies in that direction. and if we take this as a\nworking hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our\nconstruction of this unknown visitor.\"\n\"well, then, supposing that 'c.c.h.' does stand for 'charing cross\nhospital,' what further inferences may we draw?\"\n\"do none suggest themselves? you know my methods. apply them!\"\n\"i can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has\npractised in town before going to the country.\"\n\"i think that we might venture a little farther than this. look at it\nin this light. on what occasion would it be most probable that such a\npresentation would be made? when would his friends unite to give him\na pledge of their good will? obviously at the moment when dr.\nmortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start\nin practice for himself. we know there has been a presentation. we\nbelieve there has been a change from a town hospital to a country\npractice. is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that\nthe presentation was on the occasion of the change?\"\n\"it certainly seems probable.\"\n\"now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of\nthe hospital, since only a man well-established in a london practice\ncould hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the\ncountry. what was he, then? if he was in the hospital and yet not on\nthe staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a\nhouse-physician--little more than a senior student. and he left five\nyears ago--the date is on the stick. so your grave, middle-aged\nfamily practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear watson, and there\nemerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious,\nabsent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which i should\ndescribe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a\nmastiff.\"\ni laughed incredulously as sherlock holmes leaned back in his settee\nand blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.\n\"as to the latter part, i have no means of checking you,\" said i,\n\"but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about\nthe man's age and professional career.\" from my small medical shelf i\ntook down the medical directory and turned up the name. there were\nseveral mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. i read his\nrecord aloud.\n\"mortimer, james, m.r.c.s., 1882, grimpen, dartmoor, devon.\nhouse-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at charing cross hospital. winner\nof the jackson prize for comparative pathology, with essay entitled\n'is disease a reversion?' corresponding member of the swedish\npathological society. author of 'some freaks of atavism' (lancet\n1882). 'do we progress?' (journal of psychology, march, 1883).\nmedical officer for the parishes of grimpen, thorsley, and high\nbarrow.\"\n\"no mention of that local hunt, watson,\" said holmes with a\nmischievous smile, \"but a country doctor, as you very astutely\nobserved. i think that i am fairly justified in my inferences. as to\nthe adjectives, i said, if i remember right, amiable, unambitious,\nand absent-minded. it is my experience that it is only an amiable man\nin this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who\nabandons a london career for the country, and only an absent-minded\none who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an\nhour in your room.\"\n\"and the dog?\"\n\"has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master.\nbeing a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and\nthe marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. the dog's jaw, as\nshown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion\nfor a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. it may have\nbeen--yes, by jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.\"\nhe had risen and paced the room as he spoke. now he halted in the\nrecess of the window. there was such a ring of conviction in his\nvoice that i glanced up in surprise.\n\"my dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?\"\n\"for the very simple reason that i see the dog himself on our very\ndoor-step, and there is the ring of its owner. don't move, i beg you,\nwatson. he is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may\nbe of assistance to me. now is the dramatic moment of fate, watson,\nwhen you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life,\nand you know not whether for good or ill. what does dr. james\nmortimer, the man of science, ask of sherlock holmes, the specialist\nin crime? come in!\"\nthe appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since i had\nexpected a typical country practitioner. he was a very tall, thin\nman, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen,\ngray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a\npair of gold-rimmed glasses. he was clad in a professional but rather\nslovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers\nfrayed. though young, his long back was already bowed, and he walked\nwith a forward thrust of his head and a general air of peering\nbenevolence. as he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in holmes's\nhand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. \"i am so very\nglad,\" said he. \"i was not sure whether i had left it here or in the\nshipping office. i would not lose that stick for the world.\"\n\"a presentation, i see,\" said holmes.\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"from charing cross hospital?\"\n\"from one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.\"\n\"dear, dear, that's bad!\" said holmes, shaking his head.\ndr. mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment.\n\"why was it bad?\"\n\"only that you have disarranged our little deductions. your marriage,\nyou say?\"\n\"yes, sir. i married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes\nof a consulting practice. it was necessary to make a home of my own.\"\n\"come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,\" said holmes. \"and\nnow, dr. james mortimer--\"\n\"mister, sir, mister--a humble m.r.c.s.\"\n\"and a man of precise mind, evidently.\"\n\"a dabbler in science, mr. holmes, a picker up of shells on the\nshores of the great unknown ocean. i presume that it is mr. sherlock\nholmes whom i am addressing and not--\"\n\"no, this is my friend dr. watson.\"\n\"glad to meet you, sir. i have heard your name mentioned in\nconnection with that of your friend. you interest me very much, mr.\nholmes. i had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such\nwell-marked supra-orbital development. would you have any objection\nto my running my finger along your parietal fissure? a cast of your\nskull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to\nany anthropological museum. it is not my intention to be fulsome, but\ni confess that i covet your skull.\"\nsherlock holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. \"you are an\nenthusiast in your line of thought, i perceive, sir, as i am in\nmine,\" said he. \"i observe from your forefinger that you make your\nown cigarettes. have no hesitation in lighting one.\"\nthe man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the\nother with surprising dexterity. he had long, quivering fingers as\nagile and restless as the antennae of an insect.\nholmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the\ninterest which he took in our curious companion.\n\"i presume, sir,\" said he at last, \"that it was not merely for the\npurpose of examining my skull that you have done me the honour to\ncall here last night and again to-day?\"\n\"no, sir, no; though i am happy to have had the opportunity of doing\nthat as well. i came to you, mr. holmes, because i recognized that i\nam myself an unpractical man and because i am suddenly confronted\nwith a most serious and extraordinary problem. recognizing, as i do,\nthat you are the second highest expert in europe--\"\n\"indeed, sir! may i inquire who has the honour to be the first?\"\nasked holmes with some asperity.\n\"to the man of precisely scientific mind the work of monsieur\nbertillon must always appeal strongly.\"\n\"then had you not better consult him?\"\n\"i said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. but as a practical\nman of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. i trust, sir,\nthat i have not inadvertently--\"\n\"just a little,\" said holmes. \"i think, dr. mortimer, you would do\nwisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the\nexact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance.\"\nchapter ii\nthe curse of the baskervilles\n\"i have in my pocket a manuscript,\" said dr. james mortimer.\n\"i observed it as you entered the room,\" said holmes.\n\"it is an old manuscript.\"\n\"early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.\"\n\"how can you say that, sir?\"\n\"you have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the\ntime that you have been talking. it would be a poor expert who could\nnot give the date of a document within a decade or so. you may\npossibly have read my little monograph upon the subject. i put that\nat 1730.\"\n\"the exact date is 1742.\" dr. mortimer drew it from his\nbreast-pocket. \"this family paper was committed to my care by sir\ncharles baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three months\nago created so much excitement in devonshire. i may say that i was\nhis personal friend as well as his medical attendant. he was a\nstrong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as i\nam myself. yet he took this document very seriously, and his mind was\nprepared for just such an end as did eventually overtake him.\"\nholmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it\nupon his knee.\n\"you will observe, watson, the alternative use of the long s and the\nshort. it is one of several indications which enabled me to fix the\ndate.\"\ni looked over his shoulder at the yellow paper and the faded script.\nat the head was written: \"baskerville hall,\" and below in large,\nscrawling figures: \"1742.\"\n\"it appears to be a statement of some sort.\"\n\"yes, it is a statement of a certain legend which runs in the\nbaskerville family.\"\n\"but i understand that it is something more modern and practical upon\nwhich you wish to consult me?\"\n\"most modern. a most practical, pressing matter, which must be\ndecided within twenty-four hours. but the manuscript is short and is\nintimately connected with the affair. with your permission i will\nread it to you.\"\nholmes leaned back in his chair, placed his finger-tips together, and\nclosed his eyes, with an air of resignation. dr. mortimer turned the\nmanuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking voice the\nfollowing curious, old-world narrative:--\n\"of the origin of the hound of the baskervilles there have been many\nstatements, yet as i come in a direct line from hugo baskerville, and\nas i had the story from my father, who also had it from his, i have\nset it down with all belief that it occurred even as is here set\nforth. and i would have you believe, my sons, that the same justice\nwhich punishes sin may also most graciously forgive it, and that no\nban is so heavy but that by prayer and repentance it may be removed.\nlearn then from this story not to fear the fruits of the past, but\nrather to be circumspect in the future, that those foul passions\nwhereby our family has suffered so grievously may not again be loosed\nto our undoing.\n\"know then that in the time of the great rebellion (the history of\nwhich by the learned lord clarendon i most earnestly commend to your\nattention) this manor of baskerville was held by hugo of that name,\nnor can it be gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and godless\nman. this, in truth, his neighbours might have pardoned, seeing that\nsaints have never flourished in those parts, but there was in him a\ncertain wanton and cruel humour which made his name a byword through\nthe west. it chanced that this hugo came to love (if, indeed, so dark\na passion may be known under so bright a name) the daughter of a\nyeoman who held lands near the baskerville estate. but the young\nmaiden, being discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for\nshe feared his evil name. so it came to pass that one michaelmas this\nhugo, with five or six of his idle and wicked companions, stole down\nupon the farm and carried off the maiden, her father and brothers\nbeing from home, as he well knew. when they had brought her to the\nhall the maiden was placed in an upper chamber, while hugo and his\nfriends sat down to a long carouse, as was their nightly custom. now,\nthe poor lass upstairs was like to have her wits turned at the\nsinging and shouting and terrible oaths which came up to her from\nbelow, for they say that the words used by hugo baskerville, when he\nwas in wine, were such as might blast the man who said them. at last\nin the stress of her fear she did that which might have daunted the\nbravest or most active man, for by the aid of the growth of ivy which\ncovered (and still covers) the south wall she came down from under\nthe eaves, and so homeward across the moor, there being three leagues\nbetwixt the hall and her father's farm.\n\"it chanced that some little time later hugo left his guests to carry\nfood and drink--with other worse things, perchance--to his captive,\nand so found the cage empty and the bird escaped. then, as it would\nseem, he became as one that hath a devil, for, rushing down the\nstairs into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table, flagons\nand trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before all the\ncompany that he would that very night render his body and soul to the\npowers of evil if he might but overtake the wench. and while the\nrevellers stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or, it\nmay be, more drunken than the rest, cried out that they should put\nthe hounds upon her. whereat hugo ran from the house, crying to his\ngrooms that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and\ngiving the hounds a kerchief of the maid's, he swung them to the\nline, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor.\n\"now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to understand\nall that had been done in such haste. but anon their bemused wits\nawoke to the nature of the deed which was like to be done upon the\nmoorlands. everything was now in an uproar, some calling for their\npistols, some for their horses, and some for another flask of wine.\nbut at length some sense came back to their crazed minds, and the\nwhole of them, thirteen in number, took horse and started in pursuit.\nthe moon shone clear above them, and they rode swiftly abreast,\ntaking that course which the maid must needs have taken if she were\nto reach her own home.\n\"they had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the night\nshepherds upon the moorlands, and they cried to him to know if he had\nseen the hunt. and the man, as the story goes, was so crazed with\nfear that he could scarce speak, but at last he said that he had\nindeed seen the unhappy maiden, with the hounds upon her track. 'but\ni have seen more than that,' said he, 'for hugo baskerville passed me\nupon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of\nhell as god forbid should ever be at my heels.' so the drunken\nsquires cursed the shepherd and rode onward. but soon their skins\nturned cold, for there came a galloping across the moor, and the\nblack mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing bridle\nand empty saddle. then the revellers rode close together, for a great\nfear was on them, but they still followed over the moor, though each,\nhad he been alone, would have been right glad to have turned his\nhorse's head. riding slowly in this fashion they came at last upon\nthe hounds. these, though known for their valour and their breed,\nwere whimpering in a cluster at the head of a deep dip or goyal, as\nwe call it, upon the moor, some slinking away and some, with starting\nhackles and staring eyes, gazing down the narrow valley before them.\n\"the company had come to a halt, more sober men, as you may guess,\nthan when they started. the most of them would by no means advance,\nbut three of them, the boldest, or it may be the most drunken, rode\nforward down the goyal. now, it opened into a broad space in which\nstood two of those great stones, still to be seen there, which were\nset by certain forgotten peoples in the days of old. the moon was\nshining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the\nunhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue. but\nit was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of\nhugo baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads\nof these three daredevil roysterers, but it was that, standing over\nhugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great,\nblack beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever\nmortal eye has rested upon. and even as they looked the thing tore\nthe throat out of hugo baskerville, on which, as it turned its\nblazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with\nfear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor. one,\nit is said, died that very night of what he had seen, and the other\ntwain were but broken men for the rest of their days.\n\"such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound which is said\nto have plagued the family so sorely ever since. if i have set it\ndown it is because that which is clearly known hath less terror than\nthat which is but hinted at and guessed. nor can it be denied that\nmany of the family have been unhappy in their deaths, which have been\nsudden, bloody, and mysterious. yet may we shelter ourselves in the\ninfinite goodness of providence, which would not forever punish the\ninnocent beyond that third or fourth generation which is threatened\nin holy writ. to that providence, my sons, i hereby commend you, and\ni counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in\nthose dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.\n\"[this from hugo baskerville to his sons rodger and john, with\ninstructions that they say nothing thereof to their sister\nelizabeth.]\"\nwhen dr. mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he\npushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at mr.\nsherlock holmes. the latter yawned and tossed the end of his\ncigarette into the fire.\n\"well?\" said he.\n\"do you not find it interesting?\"\n\"to a collector of fairy tales.\"\ndr. mortimer drew a folded newspaper out of his pocket.\n\"now, mr. holmes, we will give you something a little more recent.\nthis is the devon county chronicle of may 14th of this year. it is a\nshort account of the facts elicited at the death of sir charles\nbaskerville which occurred a few days before that date.\"\nmy friend leaned a little forward and his expression became intent.\nour visitor readjusted his glasses and began:--\n\"the recent sudden death of sir charles baskerville, whose name has\nbeen mentioned as the probable liberal candidate for mid-devon at the\nnext election, has cast a gloom over the county. though sir charles\nhad resided at baskerville hall for a comparatively short period his\namiability of character and extreme generosity had won the affection\nand respect of all who had been brought into contact with him. in\nthese days of nouveaux riches it is refreshing to find a case where\nthe scion of an old county family which has fallen upon evil days is\nable to make his own fortune and to bring it back with him to restore\nthe fallen grandeur of his line. sir charles, as is well known, made\nlarge sums of money in south african speculation. more wise than\nthose who go on until the wheel turns against them, he realized his\ngains and returned to england with them. it is only two years since\nhe took up his residence at baskerville hall, and it is common talk\nhow large were those schemes of reconstruction and improvement which\nhave been interrupted by his death. being himself childless, it was\nhis openly expressed desire that the whole country-side should,\nwithin his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune, and many will\nhave personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end. his generous\ndonations to local and county charities have been frequently\nchronicled in these columns.\n\"the circumstances connected with the death of sir charles cannot be\nsaid to have been entirely cleared up by the inquest, but at least\nenough has been done to dispose of those rumours to which local\nsuperstition has given rise. there is no reason whatever to suspect\nfoul play, or to imagine that death could be from any but natural\ncauses. sir charles was a widower, and a man who may be said to have\nbeen in some ways of an eccentric habit of mind. in spite of his\nconsiderable wealth he was simple in his personal tastes, and his\nindoor servants at baskerville hall consisted of a married couple\nnamed barrymore, the husband acting as butler and the wife as\nhousekeeper. their evidence, corroborated by that of several friends,\ntends to show that sir charles's health has for some time been\nimpaired, and points especially to some affection of the heart,\nmanifesting itself in changes of colour, breathlessness, and acute\nattacks of nervous depression. dr. james mortimer, the friend and\nmedical attendant of the deceased, has given evidence to the same\neffect.\n\"the facts of the case are simple. sir charles baskerville was in the\nhabit every night before going to bed of walking down the famous yew\nalley of baskerville hall. the evidence of the barrymores shows that\nthis had been his custom. on the 4th of may sir charles had declared\nhis intention of starting next day for london, and had ordered\nbarrymore to prepare his luggage. that night he went out as usual for\nhis nocturnal walk, in the course of which he was in the habit of\nsmoking a cigar. he never returned. at twelve o'clock barrymore,\nfinding the hall door still open, became alarmed, and, lighting a\nlantern, went in search of his master. the day had been wet, and sir\ncharles's footmarks were easily traced down the alley. half-way down\nthis walk there is a gate which leads out on to the moor. there were\nindications that sir charles had stood for some little time here. he\nthen proceeded down the alley, and it was at the far end of it that\nhis body was discovered. one fact which has not been explained is the\nstatement of barrymore that his master's footprints altered their\ncharacter from the time that he passed the moor-gate, and that he\nappeared from thence onward to have been walking upon his toes. one\nmurphy, a gipsy horse-dealer, was on the moor at no great distance at\nthe time, but he appears by his own confession to have been the worse\nfor drink. he declares that he heard cries, but is unable to state\nfrom what direction they came. no signs of violence were to be\ndiscovered upon sir charles's person, and though the doctor's\nevidence pointed to an almost incredible facial distortion--so great\nthat dr. mortimer refused at first to believe that it was indeed his\nfriend and patient who lay before him--it was explained that that is\na symptom which is not unusual in cases of dyspnoea and death from\ncardiac exhaustion. this explanation was borne out by the post-mortem\nexamination, which showed long-standing organic disease, and the\ncoroner's jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical\nevidence. it is well that this is so, for it is obviously of the\nutmost importance that sir charles's heir should settle at the hall\nand continue the good work which has been so sadly interrupted. had\nthe prosaic finding of the coroner not finally put an end to the\nromantic stories which have been whispered in connection with the\naffair, it might have been difficult to find a tenant for baskerville\nhall. it is understood that the next of kin is mr. henry baskerville,\nif he be still alive, the son of sir charles baskerville's younger\nbrother. the young man when last heard of was in america, and\ninquiries are being instituted with a view to informing him of his\ngood fortune.\"\ndr. mortimer refolded his paper and replaced it in his pocket.\n\"those are the public facts, mr. holmes, in connection with the death\nof sir charles baskerville.\"\n\"i must thank you,\" said sherlock holmes, \"for calling my attention\nto a case which certainly presents some features of interest. i had\nobserved some newspaper comment at the time, but i was exceedingly\npreoccupied by that little affair of the vatican cameos, and in my\nanxiety to oblige the pope i lost touch with several interesting\nenglish cases. this article, you say, contains all the public facts?\"\n\"it does.\"\n\"then let me have the private ones.\" he leaned back, put his\nfinger-tips together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial\nexpression.\n\"in doing so,\" said dr. mortimer, who had begun to show signs of some\nstrong emotion, \"i am telling that which i have not confided to\nanyone. my motive for withholding it from the coroner's inquiry is\nthat a man of science shrinks from placing himself in the public\nposition of seeming to indorse a popular superstition. i had the\nfurther motive that baskerville hall, as the paper says, would\ncertainly remain untenanted if anything were done to increase its\nalready rather grim reputation. for both these reasons i thought that\ni was justified in telling rather less than i knew, since no\npractical good could result from it, but with you there is no reason\nwhy i should not be perfectly frank.\n\"the moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each\nother are thrown very much together. for this reason i saw a good\ndeal of sir charles baskerville. with the exception of mr. frankland,\nof lafter hall, and mr. stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other\nmen of education within many miles. sir charles was a retiring man,\nbut the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of\ninterests in science kept us so. he had brought back much scientific\ninformation from south africa, and many a charming evening we have\nspent together discussing the comparative anatomy of the bushman and\nthe hottentot.\n\"within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me that\nsir charles's nervous system was strained to the breaking point. he\nhad taken this legend which i have read you exceedingly to heart--so\nmuch so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing\nwould induce him to go out upon the moor at night. incredible as it\nmay appear to you, mr. holmes, he was honestly convinced that a\ndreadful fate overhung his family, and certainly the records which he\nwas able to give of his ancestors were not encouraging. the idea of\nsome ghastly presence constantly haunted him, and on more than one\noccasion he has asked me whether i had on my medical journeys at\nnight ever seen any strange creature or heard the baying of a hound.\nthe latter question he put to me several times, and always with a\nvoice which vibrated with excitement.\n\"i can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some\nthree weeks before the fatal event. he chanced to be at his hall\ndoor. i had descended from my gig and was standing in front of him,\nwhen i saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder, and stare past\nme with an expression of the most dreadful horror. i whisked round\nand had just time to catch a glimpse of something which i took to be\na large black calf passing at the head of the drive. so excited and\nalarmed was he that i was compelled to go down to the spot where the\nanimal had been and look around for it. it was gone, however, and the\nincident appeared to make the worst impression upon his mind. i\nstayed with him all the evening, and it was on that occasion, to\nexplain the emotion which he had shown, that he confided to my\nkeeping that narrative which i read to you when first i came. i\nmention this small episode because it assumes some importance in view\nof the tragedy which followed, but i was convinced at the time that\nthe matter was entirely trivial and that his excitement had no\njustification.\n\"it was at my advice that sir charles was about to go to london. his\nheart was, i knew, affected, and the constant anxiety in which he\nlived, however chimerical the cause of it might be, was evidently\nhaving a serious effect upon his health. i thought that a few months\namong the distractions of town would send him back a new man. mr.\nstapleton, a mutual friend who was much concerned at his state of\nhealth, was of the same opinion. at the last instant came this\nterrible catastrophe.\n\"on the night of sir charles's death barrymore the butler, who made\nthe discovery, sent perkins the groom on horseback to me, and as i\nwas sitting up late i was able to reach baskerville hall within an\nhour of the event. i checked and corroborated all the facts which\nwere mentioned at the inquest. i followed the footsteps down the yew\nalley, i saw the spot at the moor-gate where he seemed to have\nwaited, i remarked the change in the shape of the prints after that\npoint, i noted that there were no other footsteps save those of\nbarrymore on the soft gravel, and finally i carefully examined the\nbody, which had not been touched until my arrival. sir charles lay on\nhis face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the ground, and his\nfeatures convulsed with some strong emotion to such an extent that i\ncould hardly have sworn to his identity. there was certainly no\nphysical injury of any kind. but one false statement was made by\nbarrymore at the inquest. he said that there were no traces upon the\nground round the body. he did not observe any. but i did--some little\ndistance off, but fresh and clear.\"\n\"footprints?\"\n\"footprints.\"\n\"a man's or a woman's?\"\ndr. mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice\nsank almost to a whisper as he answered:--\n\"mr. holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!\"\nchapter iii\nthe problem\ni confess at these words a shudder passed through me. there was a\nthrill in the doctor's voice which showed that he was himself deeply\nmoved by that which he told us. holmes leaned forward in his\nexcitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from\nthem when he was keenly interested.\n\"you saw this?\"\n\"as clearly as i see you.\"\n\"and you said nothing?\"\n\"what was the use?\"\n\"how was it that no one else saw it?\"\n\"the marks were some twenty yards from the body and no one gave them\na thought. i don't suppose i should have done so had i not known this\nlegend.\"\n\"there are many sheep-dogs on the moor?\"\n\"no doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.\"\n\"you say it was large?\"\n\"enormous.\"\n\"but it had not approached the body?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"what sort of night was it?\"\n\"damp and raw.\"\n\"but not actually raining?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"what is the alley like?\"\n\"there are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and\nimpenetrable. the walk in the centre is about eight feet across.\"\n\"is there anything between the hedges and the walk?\"\n\"yes, there is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either side.\"\n\"i understand that the yew hedge is penetrated at one point by a\ngate?\"\n\"yes, the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor.\"\n\"is there any other opening?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"so that to reach the yew alley one either has to come down it from\nthe house or else to enter it by the moor-gate?\"\n\"there is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.\"\n\"had sir charles reached this?\"\n\"no; he lay about fifty yards from it.\"\n\"now, tell me, dr. mortimer--and this is important--the marks which\nyou saw were on the path and not on the grass?\"\n\"no marks could show on the grass.\"\n\"were they on the same side of the path as the moor-gate?\"\n\"yes; they were on the edge of the path on the same side as the\nmoor-gate.\"\n\"you interest me exceedingly. another point. was the wicket-gate\nclosed?\"\n\"closed and padlocked.\"\n\"how high was it?\"\n\"about four feet high.\"\n\"then anyone could have got over it?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"and what marks did you see by the wicket-gate?\"\n\"none in particular.\"\n\"good heaven! did no one examine?\"\n\"yes, i examined myself.\"\n\"and found nothing?\"\n\"it was all very confused. sir charles had evidently stood there for\nfive or ten minutes.\"\n\"how do you know that?\"\n\"because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.\"\n\"excellent! this is a colleague, watson, after our own heart. but the\nmarks?\"\n\"he had left his own marks all over that small patch of gravel. i\ncould discern no others.\"\nsherlock holmes struck his hand against his knee with an impatient\ngesture.\n\"if i had only been there!\" he cried. \"it is evidently a case of\nextraordinary interest, and one which presented immense opportunities\nto the scientific expert. that gravel page upon which i might have\nread so much has been long ere this smudged by the rain and defaced\nby the clogs of curious peasants. oh, dr. mortimer, dr. mortimer, to\nthink that you should not have called me in! you have indeed much to\nanswer for.\"\n\"i could not call you in, mr. holmes, without disclosing these facts\nto the world, and i have already given my reasons for not wishing to\ndo so. besides, besides--\"\n\"why do you hesitate?\"\n\"there is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of\ndetectives is helpless.\"\n\"you mean that the thing is supernatural?\"\n\"i did not positively say so.\"\n\"no, but you evidently think it.\"\n\"since the tragedy, mr. holmes, there have come to my ears several\nincidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of\nnature.\"\n\"for example?\"\n\"i find that before the terrible event occurred several people had\nseen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this baskerville\ndemon, and which could not possibly be any animal known to science.\nthey all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and\nspectral. i have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed\ncountryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell\nthe same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to\nthe hell-hound of the legend. i assure you that there is a reign of\nterror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the\nmoor at night.\"\n\"and you, a trained man of science, believe it to be supernatural?\"\n\"i do not know what to believe.\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"i have hitherto confined my investigations to this world,\" said he.\n\"in a modest way i have combated evil, but to take on the father of\nevil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task. yet you must\nadmit that the footmark is material.\"\n\"the original hound was material enough to tug a man's throat out,\nand yet he was diabolical as well.\"\n\"i see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. but\nnow, dr. mortimer, tell me this. if you hold these views, why have\nyou come to consult me at all? you tell me in the same breath that it\nis useless to investigate sir charles's death, and that you desire me\nto do it.\"\n\"i did not say that i desired you to do it.\"\n\"then, how can i assist you?\"\n\"by advising me as to what i should do with sir henry baskerville,\nwho arrives at waterloo station\"--dr. mortimer looked at his\nwatch--\"in exactly one hour and a quarter.\"\n\"he being the heir?\"\n\"yes. on the death of sir charles we inquired for this young\ngentleman and found that he had been farming in canada. from the\naccounts which have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every\nway. i speak not as a medical man but as a trustee and executor of\nsir charles's will.\"\n\"there is no other claimant, i presume?\"\n\"none. the only other kinsman whom we have been able to trace was\nrodger baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor sir\ncharles was the elder. the second brother, who died young, is the\nfather of this lad henry. the third, rodger, was the black sheep of\nthe family. he came of the old masterful baskerville strain, and was\nthe very image, they tell me, of the family picture of old hugo. he\nmade england too hot to hold him, fled to central america, and died\nthere in 1876 of yellow fever. henry is the last of the baskervilles.\nin one hour and five minutes i meet him at waterloo station. i have\nhad a wire that he arrived at southampton this morning. now, mr.\nholmes, what would you advise me to do with him?\"\n\"why should he not go to the home of his fathers?\"\n\"it seems natural, does it not? and yet, consider that every\nbaskerville who goes there meets with an evil fate. i feel sure that\nif sir charles could have spoken with me before his death he would\nhave warned me against bringing this, the last of the old race, and\nthe heir to great wealth, to that deadly place. and yet it cannot be\ndenied that the prosperity of the whole poor, bleak country-side\ndepends upon his presence. all the good work which has been done by\nsir charles will crash to the ground if there is no tenant of the\nhall. i fear lest i should be swayed too much by my own obvious\ninterest in the matter, and that is why i bring the case before you\nand ask for your advice.\"\nholmes considered for a little time.\n\"put into plain words, the matter is this,\" said he. \"in your opinion\nthere is a diabolical agency which makes dartmoor an unsafe abode for\na baskerville--that is your opinion?\"\n\"at least i might go the length of saying that there is some evidence\nthat this may be so.\"\n\"exactly. but surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it\ncould work the young man evil in london as easily as in devonshire. a\ndevil with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too\ninconceivable a thing.\"\n\"you put the matter more flippantly, mr. holmes, than you would\nprobably do if you were brought into personal contact with these\nthings. your advice, then, as i understand it, is that the young man\nwill be as safe in devonshire as in london. he comes in fifty\nminutes. what would you recommend?\"\n\"i recommend, sir, that you take a cab, call off your spaniel who is\nscratching at my front door, and proceed to waterloo to meet sir\nhenry baskerville.\"\n\"and then?\"\n\"and then you will say nothing to him at all until i have made up my\nmind about the matter.\"\n\"how long will it take you to make up your mind?\"\n\"twenty-four hours. at ten o'clock to-morrow, dr. mortimer, i will be\nmuch obliged to you if you will call upon me here, and it will be of\nhelp to me in my plans for the future if you will bring sir henry\nbaskerville with you.\"\n\"i will do so, mr. holmes.\" he scribbled the appointment on his\nshirtcuff and hurried off in his strange, peering, absent-minded\nfashion. holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.\n\"only one more question, dr. mortimer. you say that before sir\ncharles baskerville's death several people saw this apparition upon\nthe moor?\"\n\"three people did.\"\n\"did any see it after?\"\n\"i have not heard of any.\"\n\"thank you. good morning.\"\nholmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward\nsatisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task before him.\n\"going out, watson?\"\n\"unless i can help you.\"\n\"no, my dear fellow, it is at the hour of action that i turn to you\nfor aid. but this is splendid, really unique from some points of\nview. when you pass bradley's, would you ask him to send up a pound\nof the strongest shag tobacco? thank you. it would be as well if you\ncould make it convenient not to return before evening. then i should\nbe very glad to compare impressions as to this most interesting\nproblem which has been submitted to us this morning.\"\ni knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my friend\nin those hours of intense mental concentration during which he\nweighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories,\nbalanced one against the other, and made up his mind as to which\npoints were essential and which immaterial. i therefore spent the day\nat my club and did not return to baker street until evening. it was\nnearly nine o'clock when i found myself in the sitting-room once\nmore.\nmy first impression as i opened the door was that a fire had broken\nout, for the room was so filled with smoke that the light of the lamp\nupon the table was blurred by it. as i entered, however, my fears\nwere set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco\nwhich took me by the throat and set me coughing. through the haze i\nhad a vague vision of holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an\narmchair with his black clay pipe between his lips. several rolls of\npaper lay around him.\n\"caught cold, watson?\" said he.\n\"no, it's this poisonous atmosphere.\"\n\"i suppose it is pretty thick, now that you mention it.\"\n\"thick! it is intolerable.\"\n\"open the window, then! you have been at your club all day, i\nperceive.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"am i right?\"\n\"certainly, but how?\"\nhe laughed at my bewildered expression.\n\"there is a delightful freshness about you, watson, which makes it a\npleasure to exercise any small powers which i possess at your\nexpense. a gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. he returns\nimmaculate in the evening with the gloss still on his hat and his\nboots. he has been a fixture therefore all day. he is not a man with\nintimate friends. where, then, could he have been? is it not\nobvious?\"\n\"well, it is rather obvious.\"\n\"the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever\nobserves. where do you think that i have been?\"\n\"a fixture also.\"\n\"on the contrary, i have been to devonshire.\"\n\"in spirit?\"\n\"exactly. my body has remained in this arm-chair and has, i regret to\nobserve, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an\nincredible amount of tobacco. after you left i sent down to\nstamford's for the ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my\nspirit has hovered over it all day. i flatter myself that i could\nfind my way about.\"\n\"a large scale map, i presume?\"\n\"very large.\" he unrolled one section and held it over his knee.\n\"here you have the particular district which concerns us. that is\nbaskerville hall in the middle.\"\n\"with a wood round it?\"\n\"exactly. i fancy the yew alley, though not marked under that name,\nmust stretch along this line, with the moor, as you perceive, upon\nthe right of it. this small clump of buildings here is the hamlet of\ngrimpen, where our friend dr. mortimer has his headquarters. within a\nradius of five miles there are, as you see, only a very few scattered\ndwellings. here is lafter hall, which was mentioned in the narrative.\nthere is a house indicated here which may be the residence of the\nnaturalist--stapleton, if i remember right, was his name. here are\ntwo moorland farm-houses, high tor and foulmire. then fourteen miles\naway the great convict prison of princetown. between and around these\nscattered points extends the desolate, lifeless moor. this, then, is\nthe stage upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we may\nhelp to play it again.\"\n\"it must be a wild place.\"\n\"yes, the setting is a worthy one. if the devil did desire to have a\nhand in the affairs of men--\"\n\"then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.\"\n\"the devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? there\nare two questions waiting for us at the outset. the one is whether\nany crime has been committed at all; the second is, what is the crime\nand how was it committed? of course, if dr. mortimer's surmise should\nbe correct, and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws\nof nature, there is an end of our investigation. but we are bound to\nexhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one. i\nthink we'll shut that window again, if you don't mind. it is a\nsingular thing, but i find that a concentrated atmosphere helps a\nconcentration of thought. i have not pushed it to the length of\ngetting into a box to think, but that is the logical outcome of my\nconvictions. have you turned the case over in your mind?\"\n\"yes, i have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day.\"\n\"what do you make of it?\"\n\"it is very bewildering.\"\n\"it has certainly a character of its own. there are points of\ndistinction about it. that change in the footprints, for example.\nwhat do you make of that?\"\n\"mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that portion of\nthe alley.\"\n\"he only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest. why should\na man walk on tiptoe down the alley?\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"he was running, watson--running desperately, running for his life,\nrunning until he burst his heart and fell dead upon his face.\"\n\"running from what?\"\n\"there lies our problem. there are indications that the man was\ncrazed with fear before ever he began to run.\"\n\"how can you say that?\"\n\"i am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across the\nmoor. if that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man who had\nlost his wits would have run from the house instead of towards it. if\nthe gipsy's evidence may be taken as true, he ran with cries for help\nin the direction where help was least likely to be. then, again, whom\nwas he waiting for that night, and why was he waiting for him in the\nyew alley rather than in his own house?\"\n\"you think that he was waiting for someone?\"\n\"the man was elderly and infirm. we can understand his taking an\nevening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement. is\nit natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as dr.\nmortimer, with more practical sense than i should have given him\ncredit for, deduced from the cigar ash?\"\n\"but he went out every evening.\"\n\"i think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening.\non the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor. that night\nhe waited there. it was the night before he made his departure for\nlondon. the thing takes shape, watson. it becomes coherent. might i\nask you to hand me my violin, and we will postpone all further\nthought upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting\ndr. mortimer and sir henry baskerville in the morning.\"\nchapter iv\nsir henry baskerville\nour breakfast-table was cleared early, and holmes waited in his\ndressing-gown for the promised interview. our clients were punctual\nto their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when dr.\nmortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. the latter was\na small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very\nsturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious\nface. he wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten\nappearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and\nyet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of\nhis bearing which indicated the gentleman.\n\"this is sir henry baskerville,\" said dr. mortimer.\n\"why, yes,\" said he, \"and the strange thing is, mr. sherlock holmes,\nthat if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this\nmorning i should have come on my own account. i understand that you\nthink out little puzzles, and i've had one this morning which wants\nmore thinking out than i am able to give it.\"\n\"pray take a seat, sir henry. do i understand you to say that you\nhave yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in\nlondon?\"\n\"nothing of much importance, mr. holmes. only a joke, as like as not.\nit was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which reached me\nthis morning.\"\nhe laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. it was\nof common quality, grayish in colour. the address, \"sir henry\nbaskerville, northumberland hotel,\" was printed in rough characters;\nthe postmark \"charing cross,\" and the date of posting the preceding\nevening.\n\"who knew that you were going to the northumberland hotel?\" asked\nholmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor.\n\"no one could have known. we only decided after i met dr. mortimer.\"\n\"but dr. mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?\"\n\"no, i had been staying with a friend,\" said the doctor. \"there was\nno possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel.\"\n\"hum! someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements.\"\nout of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap paper folded\ninto four. this he opened and spread flat upon the table. across the\nmiddle of it a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of\npasting printed words upon it. it ran:\nas you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.\nthe word \"moor\" only was printed in ink.\n\"now,\" said sir henry baskerville, \"perhaps you will tell me, mr.\nholmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is that\ntakes so much interest in my affairs?\"\n\"what do you make of it, dr. mortimer? you must allow that there is\nnothing supernatural about this, at any rate?\"\n\"no, sir, but it might very well come from someone who was convinced\nthat the business is supernatural.\"\n\"what business?\" asked sir henry sharply. \"it seems to me that all\nyou gentlemen know a great deal more than i do about my own affairs.\"\n\"you shall share our knowledge before you leave this room, sir henry.\ni promise you that,\" said sherlock holmes. \"we will confine ourselves\nfor the present with your permission to this very interesting\ndocument, which must have been put together and posted yesterday\nevening. have you yesterday's times, watson?\"\n\"it is here in the corner.\"\n\"might i trouble you for it--the inside page, please, with the\nleading articles?\" he glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes up\nand down the columns. \"capital article this on free trade. permit me\nto give you an extract from it.\n\"'you may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or\nyour own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it\nstands to reason that such legislation must in the long run keep away\nwealth from the country, diminish the value of our imports, and lower\nthe general conditions of life in this island.'\n\"what do you think of that, watson?\" cried holmes in high glee,\nrubbing his hands together with satisfaction. \"don't you think that\nis an admirable sentiment?\"\ndr. mortimer looked at holmes with an air of professional interest,\nand sir henry baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me.\n\"i don't know much about the tariff and things of that kind,\" said\nhe; \"but it seems to me we've got a bit off the trail so far as that\nnote is concerned.\"\n\"on the contrary, i think we are particularly hot upon the trail, sir\nhenry. watson here knows more about my methods than you do, but i\nfear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this\nsentence.\"\n\"no, i confess that i see no connection.\"\n\"and yet, my dear watson, there is so very close a connection that\nthe one is extracted out of the other. 'you,' 'your,' 'your,' 'life,'\n'reason,' 'value,' 'keep away,' 'from the.' don't you see now whence\nthese words have been taken?\"\n\"by thunder, you're right! well, if that isn't smart!\" cried sir\nhenry.\n\"if any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that 'keep\naway' and 'from the' are cut out in one piece.\"\n\"well, now--so it is!\"\n\"really, mr. holmes, this exceeds anything which i could have\nimagined,\" said dr. mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement. \"i\ncould understand anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper;\nbut that you should name which, and add that it came from the leading\narticle, is really one of the most remarkable things which i have\never known. how did you do it?\"\n\"i presume, doctor, that you could tell the skull of a negro from\nthat of an esquimau?\"\n\"most certainly.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"because that is my special hobby. the differences are obvious. the\nsupra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the maxillary curve, the--\"\n\"but this is my special hobby, and the differences are equally\nobvious. there is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded\nbourgeois type of a times article and the slovenly print of an\nevening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and\nyour esquimau. the detection of types is one of the most elementary\nbranches of knowledge to the special expert in crime, though i\nconfess that once when i was very young i confused the leeds mercury\nwith the western morning news. but a times leader is entirely\ndistinctive, and these words could have been taken from nothing else.\nas it was done yesterday the strong probability was that we should\nfind the words in yesterday's issue.\"\n\"so far as i can follow you, then, mr. holmes,\" said sir henry\nbaskerville, \"someone cut out this message with a scissors--\"\n\"nail-scissors,\" said holmes. \"you can see that it was a very\nshort-bladed scissors, since the cutter had to take two snips over\n'keep away.'\"\n\"that is so. someone, then, cut out the message with a pair of\nshort-bladed scissors, pasted it with paste--\"\n\"gum,\" said holmes.\n\"with gum on to the paper. but i want to know why the word 'moor'\nshould have been written?\"\n\"because he could not find it in print. the other words were all\nsimple and might be found in any issue, but 'moor' would be less\ncommon.\"\n\"why, of course, that would explain it. have you read anything else\nin this message, mr. holmes?\"\n\"there are one or two indications, and yet the utmost pains have been\ntaken to remove all clues. the address, you observe is printed in\nrough characters. but the times is a paper which is seldom found in\nany hands but those of the highly educated. we may take it,\ntherefore, that the letter was composed by an educated man who wished\nto pose as an uneducated one, and his effort to conceal his own\nwriting suggests that that writing might be known, or come to be\nknown, by you. again, you will observe that the words are not gummed\non in an accurate line, but that some are much higher than others.\n'life,' for example is quite out of its proper place. that may point\nto carelessness or it may point to agitation and hurry upon the part\nof the cutter. on the whole i incline to the latter view, since the\nmatter was evidently important, and it is unlikely that the composer\nof such a letter would be careless. if he were in a hurry it opens up\nthe interesting question why he should be in a hurry, since any\nletter posted up to early morning would reach sir henry before he\nwould leave his hotel. did the composer fear an interruption--and\nfrom whom?\"\n\"we are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,\" said dr.\nmortimer.\n\"say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and\nchoose the most likely. it is the scientific use of the imagination,\nbut we have always some material basis on which to start our\nspeculation. now, you would call it a guess, no doubt, but i am\nalmost certain that this address has been written in a hotel.\"\n\"how in the world can you say that?\"\n\"if you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the\nink have given the writer trouble. the pen has spluttered twice in a\nsingle word, and has run dry three times in a short address, showing\nthat there was very little ink in the bottle. now, a private pen or\nink-bottle is seldom allowed to be in such a state, and the\ncombination of the two must be quite rare. but you know the hotel ink\nand the hotel pen, where it is rare to get anything else. yes, i have\nvery little hesitation in saying that could we examine the\nwaste-paper baskets of the hotels around charing cross until we found\nthe remains of the mutilated times leader we could lay our hands\nstraight upon the person who sent this singular message. halloa!\nhalloa! what's this?\"\nhe was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words were\npasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.\n\"well?\"\n\"nothing,\" said he, throwing it down. \"it is a blank half-sheet of\npaper, without even a water-mark upon it. i think we have drawn as\nmuch as we can from this curious letter; and now, sir henry, has\nanything else of interest happened to you since you have been in\nlondon?\"\n\"why, no, mr. holmes. i think not.\"\n\"you have not observed anyone follow or watch you?\"\n\"i seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel,\" said\nour visitor. \"why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me?\"\n\"we are coming to that. you have nothing else to report to us before\nwe go into this matter?\"\n\"well, it depends upon what you think worth reporting.\"\n\"i think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth\nreporting.\"\nsir henry smiled.\n\"i don't know much of british life yet, for i have spent nearly all\nmy time in the states and in canada. but i hope that to lose one of\nyour boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over here.\"\n\"you have lost one of your boots?\"\n\"my dear sir,\" cried dr. mortimer, \"it is only mislaid. you will find\nit when you return to the hotel. what is the use of troubling mr.\nholmes with trifles of this kind?\"\n\"well, he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine.\"\n\"exactly,\" said holmes, \"however foolish the incident may seem. you\nhave lost one of your boots, you say?\"\n\"well, mislaid it, anyhow. i put them both outside my door last\nnight, and there was only one in the morning. i could get no sense\nout of the chap who cleans them. the worst of it is that i only\nbought the pair last night in the strand, and i have never had them\non.\"\n\"if you have never worn them, why did you put them out to be\ncleaned?\"\n\"they were tan boots and had never been varnished. that was why i put\nthem out.\"\n\"then i understand that on your arrival in london yesterday you went\nout at once and bought a pair of boots?\"\n\"i did a good deal of shopping. dr. mortimer here went round with me.\nyou see, if i am to be squire down there i must dress the part, and\nit may be that i have got a little careless in my ways out west.\namong other things i bought these brown boots--gave six dollars for\nthem--and had one stolen before ever i had them on my feet.\"\n\"it seems a singularly useless thing to steal,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"i confess that i share dr. mortimer's belief that it will not be\nlong before the missing boot is found.\"\n\"and, now, gentlemen,\" said the baronet with decision, \"it seems to\nme that i have spoken quite enough about the little that i know. it\nis time that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what\nwe are all driving at.\"\n\"your request is a very reasonable one,\" holmes answered. \"dr.\nmortimer, i think you could not do better than to tell your story as\nyou told it to us.\"\nthus encouraged, our scientific friend drew his papers from his\npocket, and presented the whole case as he had done upon the morning\nbefore. sir henry baskerville listened with the deepest attention,\nand with an occasional exclamation of surprise.\n\"well, i seem to have come into an inheritance with a vengeance,\"\nsaid he when the long narrative was finished. \"of course, i've heard\nof the hound ever since i was in the nursery. it's the pet story of\nthe family, though i never thought of taking it seriously before. but\nas to my uncle's death--well, it all seems boiling up in my head, and\ni can't get it clear yet. you don't seem quite to have made up your\nmind whether it's a case for a policeman or a clergyman.\"\n\"precisely.\"\n\"and now there's this affair of the letter to me at the hotel. i\nsuppose that fits into its place.\"\n\"it seems to show that someone knows more than we do about what goes\non upon the moor,\" said dr. mortimer.\n\"and also,\" said holmes, \"that someone is not ill-disposed towards\nyou, since they warn you of danger.\"\n\"or it may be that they wish, for their own purposes, to scare me\naway.\"\n\"well, of course, that is possible also. i am very much indebted to\nyou, dr. mortimer, for introducing me to a problem which presents\nseveral interesting alternatives. but the practical point which we\nnow have to decide, sir henry, is whether it is or is not advisable\nfor you to go to baskerville hall.\"\n\"why should i not go?\"\n\"there seems to be danger.\"\n\"do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger from\nhuman beings?\"\n\"well, that is what we have to find out.\"\n\"whichever it is, my answer is fixed. there is no devil in hell, mr.\nholmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going\nto the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final\nanswer.\" his dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red\nas he spoke. it was evident that the fiery temper of the baskervilles\nwas not extinct in this their last representative. \"meanwhile,\" said\nhe, \"i have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me.\nit's a big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one\nsitting. i should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my\nmind. now, look here, mr. holmes, it's half-past eleven now and i am\ngoing back right away to my hotel. suppose you and your friend, dr.\nwatson, come round and lunch with us at two. i'll be able to tell you\nmore clearly then how this thing strikes me.\"\n\"is that convenient to you, watson?\"\n\"perfectly.\"\n\"then you may expect us. shall i have a cab called?\"\n\"i'd prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.\"\n\"i'll join you in a walk, with pleasure,\" said his companion.\n\"then we meet again at two o'clock. au revoir, and good-morning!\"\nwe heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of\nthe front door. in an instant holmes had changed from the languid\ndreamer to the man of action.\n\"your hat and boots, watson, quick! not a moment to lose!\" he rushed\ninto his room in his dressing-gown and was back again in a few\nseconds in a frock-coat. we hurried together down the stairs and into\nthe street. dr. mortimer and baskerville were still visible about two\nhundred yards ahead of us in the direction of oxford street.\n\"shall i run on and stop them?\"\n\"not for the world, my dear watson. i am perfectly satisfied with\nyour company if you will tolerate mine. our friends are wise, for it\nis certainly a very fine morning for a walk.\"\nhe quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which\ndivided us by about half. then, still keeping a hundred yards behind,\nwe followed into oxford street and so down regent street. once our\nfriends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which holmes did\nthe same. an instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction,\nand, following the direction of his eager eyes, i saw that a hansom\ncab with a man inside which had halted on the other side of the\nstreet was now proceeding slowly onward again.\n\"there's our man, watson! come along! we'll have a good look at him,\nif we can do no more.\"\nat that instant i was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of\npiercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab.\ninstantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed to\nthe driver, and the cab flew madly off down regent street. holmes\nlooked eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in sight. then\nhe dashed in wild pursuit amid the stream of the traffic, but the\nstart was too great, and already the cab was out of sight.\n\"there now!\" said holmes bitterly as he emerged panting and white\nwith vexation from the tide of vehicles. \"was ever such bad luck and\nsuch bad management, too? watson, watson, if you are an honest man\nyou will record this also and set it against my successes!\"\n\"who was the man?\"\n\"i have not an idea.\"\n\"a spy?\"\n\"well, it was evident from what we have heard that baskerville has\nbeen very closely shadowed by someone since he has been in town. how\nelse could it be known so quickly that it was the northumberland\nhotel which he had chosen? if they had followed him the first day i\nargued that they would follow him also the second. you may have\nobserved that i twice strolled over to the window while dr. mortimer\nwas reading his legend.\"\n\"yes, i remember.\"\n\"i was looking out for loiterers in the street, but i saw none. we\nare dealing with a clever man, watson. this matter cuts very deep,\nand though i have not finally made up my mind whether it is a\nbenevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, i am\nconscious always of power and design. when our friends left i at once\nfollowed them in the hopes of marking down their invisible attendant.\nso wily was he that he had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had\navailed himself of a cab so that he could loiter behind or dash past\nthem and so escape their notice. his method had the additional\nadvantage that if they were to take a cab he was all ready to follow\nthem. it has, however, one obvious disadvantage.\"\n\"it puts him in the power of the cabman.\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"what a pity we did not get the number!\"\n\"my dear watson, clumsy as i have been, you surely do not seriously\nimagine that i neglected to get the number? no. 2704 is our man. but\nthat is no use to us for the moment.\"\n\"i fail to see how you could have done more.\"\n\"on observing the cab i should have instantly turned and walked in\nthe other direction. i should then at my leisure have hired a second\ncab and followed the first at a respectful distance, or, better\nstill, have driven to the northumberland hotel and waited there. when\nour unknown had followed baskerville home we should have had the\nopportunity of playing his own game upon himself and seeing where he\nmade for. as it is, by an indiscreet eagerness, which was taken\nadvantage of with extraordinary quickness and energy by our opponent,\nwe have betrayed ourselves and lost our man.\"\nwe had been sauntering slowly down regent street during this\nconversation, and dr. mortimer, with his companion, had long vanished\nin front of us.\n\"there is no object in our following them,\" said holmes. \"the shadow\nhas departed and will not return. we must see what further cards we\nhave in our hands and play them with decision. could you swear to\nthat man's face within the cab?\"\n\"i could swear only to the beard.\"\n\"and so could i--from which i gather that in all probability it was a\nfalse one. a clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a\nbeard save to conceal his features. come in here, watson!\"\nhe turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he was\nwarmly greeted by the manager.\n\"ah, wilson, i see you have not forgotten the little case in which i\nhad the good fortune to help you?\"\n\"no, sir, indeed i have not. you saved my good name, and perhaps my\nlife.\"\n\"my dear fellow, you exaggerate. i have some recollection, wilson,\nthat you had among your boys a lad named cartwright, who showed some\nability during the investigation.\"\n\"yes, sir, he is still with us.\"\n\"could you ring him up?--thank you! and i should be glad to have\nchange of this five-pound note.\"\na lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen face, had obeyed the summons\nof the manager. he stood now gazing with great reverence at the\nfamous detective.\n\"let me have the hotel directory,\" said holmes. \"thank you! now,\ncartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all in\nthe immediate neighbourhood of charing cross. do you see?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"you will visit each of these in turn.\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"you will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one\nshilling. here are twenty-three shillings.\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"you will tell him that you want to see the waste-paper of yesterday.\nyou will say that an important telegram has miscarried and that you\nare looking for it. you understand?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"but what you are really looking for is the centre page of the times\nwith some holes cut in it with scissors. here is a copy of the times.\nit is this page. you could easily recognize it, could you not?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"in each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter, to\nwhom also you will give a shilling. here are twenty-three shillings.\nyou will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three\nthat the waste of the day before has been burned or removed. in the\nthree other cases you will be shown a heap of paper and you will look\nfor this page of the times among it. the odds are enormously against\nyour finding it. there are ten shillings over in case of emergencies.\nlet me have a report by wire at baker street before evening. and now,\nwatson, it only remains for us to find out by wire the identity of\nthe cabman, no. 2704, and then we will drop into one of the bond\nstreet picture galleries and fill in the time until we are due at the\nhotel.\"\nchapter v\nthree broken threads\nsherlock holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of\ndetaching his mind at will. for two hours the strange business in\nwhich we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was\nentirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern belgian masters. he\nwould talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas,\nfrom our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at the\nnorthumberland hotel.\n\"sir henry baskerville is upstairs expecting you,\" said the clerk.\n\"he asked me to show you up at once when you came.\"\n\"have you any objection to my looking at your register?\" said holmes.\n\"not in the least.\"\nthe book showed that two names had been added after that of\nbaskerville. one was theophilus johnson and family, of newcastle; the\nother mrs. oldmore and maid, of high lodge, alton.\n\"surely that must be the same johnson whom i used to know,\" said\nholmes to the porter. \"a lawyer, is he not, gray-headed, and walks\nwith a limp?\"\n\"no, sir; this is mr. johnson, the coal-owner, a very active\ngentleman, not older than yourself.\"\n\"surely you are mistaken about his trade?\"\n\"no, sir! he has used this hotel for many years, and he is very well\nknown to us.\"\n\"ah, that settles it. mrs. oldmore, too; i seem to remember the name.\nexcuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend one finds\nanother.\"\n\"she is an invalid lady, sir. her husband was once mayor of\ngloucester. she always comes to us when she is in town.\"\n\"thank you; i am afraid i cannot claim her acquaintance. we have\nestablished a most important fact by these questions, watson,\" he\ncontinued in a low voice as we went upstairs together. \"we know now\nthat the people who are so interested in our friend have not settled\ndown in his own hotel. that means that while they are, as we have\nseen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious that he\nshould not see them. now, this is a most suggestive fact.\"\n\"what does it suggest?\"\n\"it suggests--halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the matter?\"\nas we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against sir\nhenry baskerville himself. his face was flushed with anger, and he\nheld an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. so furious was he\nthat he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in a much\nbroader and more western dialect than any which we had heard from him\nin the morning.\n\"seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel,\" he\ncried. \"they'll find they've started in to monkey with the wrong man\nunless they are careful. by thunder, if that chap can't find my\nmissing boot there will be trouble. i can take a joke with the best,\nmr. holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time.\"\n\"still looking for your boot?\"\n\"yes, sir, and mean to find it.\"\n\"but, surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?\"\n\"so it was, sir. and now it's an old black one.\"\n\"what! you don't mean to say--?\"\n\"that's just what i do mean to say. i only had three pairs in the\nworld--the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers, which i\nam wearing. last night they took one of my brown ones, and to-day\nthey have sneaked one of the black. well, have you got it? speak out,\nman, and don't stand staring!\"\nan agitated german waiter had appeared upon the scene.\n\"no, sir; i have made inquiry all over the hotel, but i can hear no\nword of it.\"\n\"well, either that boot comes back before sundown or i'll see the\nmanager and tell him that i go right straight out of this hotel.\"\n\"it shall be found, sir--i promise you that if you will have a little\npatience it will be found.\"\n\"mind it is, for it's the last thing of mine that i'll lose in this\nden of thieves. well, well, mr. holmes, you'll excuse my troubling\nyou about such a trifle--\"\n\"i think it's well worth troubling about.\"\n\"why, you look very serious over it.\"\n\"how do you explain it?\"\n\"i just don't attempt to explain it. it seems the very maddest,\nqueerest thing that ever happened to me.\"\n\"the queerest perhaps--\" said holmes, thoughtfully.\n\"what do you make of it yourself?\"\n\"well, i don't profess to understand it yet. this case of yours is\nvery complex, sir henry. when taken in conjunction with your uncle's\ndeath i am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of capital\nimportance which i have handled there is one which cuts so deep. but\nwe hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or\nother of them guides us to the truth. we may waste time in following\nthe wrong one, but sooner or later we must come upon the right.\"\nwe had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the business\nwhich had brought us together. it was in the private sitting-room to\nwhich we afterwards repaired that holmes asked baskerville what were\nhis intentions.\n\"to go to baskerville hall.\"\n\"and when?\"\n\"at the end of the week.\"\n\"on the whole,\" said holmes, \"i think that your decision is a wise\none. i have ample evidence that you are being dogged in london, and\namid the millions of this great city it is difficult to discover who\nthese people are or what their object can be. if their intentions are\nevil they might do you a mischief, and we should be powerless to\nprevent it. you did not know, dr. mortimer, that you were followed\nthis morning from my house?\"\ndr. mortimer started violently.\n\"followed! by whom?\"\n\"that, unfortunately, is what i cannot tell you. have you among your\nneighbours or acquaintances on dartmoor any man with a black, full\nbeard?\"\n\"no--or, let me see--why, yes. barrymore, sir charles's butler, is a\nman with a full, black beard.\"\n\"ha! where is barrymore?\"\n\"he is in charge of the hall.\"\n\"we had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any\npossibility he might be in london.\"\n\"how can you do that?\"\n\"give me a telegraph form. 'is all ready for sir henry?' that will\ndo. address to mr. barrymore, baskerville hall. what is the nearest\ntelegraph-office? grimpen. very good, we will send a second wire to\nthe postmaster, grimpen: 'telegram to mr. barrymore to be delivered\ninto his own hand. if absent, please return wire to sir henry\nbaskerville, northumberland hotel.' that should let us know before\nevening whether barrymore is at his post in devonshire or not.\"\n\"that's so,\" said baskerville. \"by the way, dr. mortimer, who is this\nbarrymore, anyhow?\"\n\"he is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. they have looked\nafter the hall for four generations now. so far as i know, he and his\nwife are as respectable a couple as any in the county.\"\n\"at the same time,\" said baskerville, \"it's clear enough that so long\nas there are none of the family at the hall these people have a\nmighty fine home and nothing to do.\"\n\"that is true.\"\n\"did barrymore profit at all by sir charles's will?\" asked holmes.\n\"he and his wife had five hundred pounds each.\"\n\"ha! did they know that they would receive this?\"\n\"yes; sir charles was very fond of talking about the provisions of\nhis will.\"\n\"that is very interesting.\"\n\"i hope,\" said dr. mortimer, \"that you do not look with suspicious\neyes upon everyone who received a legacy from sir charles, for i also\nhad a thousand pounds left to me.\"\n\"indeed! and anyone else?\"\n\"there were many insignificant sums to individuals, and a large\nnumber of public charities. the residue all went to sir henry.\"\n\"and how much was the residue?\"\n\"seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.\"\nholmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. \"i had no idea that so\ngigantic a sum was involved,\" said he.\n\"sir charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not know\nhow very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. the\ntotal value of the estate was close on to a million.\"\n\"dear me! it is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate\ngame. and one more question, dr. mortimer. supposing that anything\nhappened to our young friend here--you will forgive the unpleasant\nhypothesis!--who would inherit the estate?\"\n\"since rodger baskerville, sir charles's younger brother died\nunmarried, the estate would descend to the desmonds, who are distant\ncousins. james desmond is an elderly clergyman in westmoreland.\"\n\"thank you. these details are all of great interest. have you met mr.\njames desmond?\"\n\"yes; he once came down to visit sir charles. he is a man of\nvenerable appearance and of saintly life. i remember that he refused\nto accept any settlement from sir charles, though he pressed it upon\nhim.\"\n\"and this man of simple tastes would be the heir to sir charles's\nthousands.\"\n\"he would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. he\nwould also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise\nby the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it.\"\n\"and have you made your will, sir henry?\"\n\"no, mr. holmes, i have not. i've had no time, for it was only\nyesterday that i learned how matters stood. but in any case i feel\nthat the money should go with the title and estate. that was my poor\nuncle's idea. how is the owner going to restore the glories of the\nbaskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property?\nhouse, land, and dollars must go together.\"\n\"quite so. well, sir henry, i am of one mind with you as to the\nadvisability of your going down to devonshire without delay. there is\nonly one provision which i must make. you certainly must not go\nalone.\"\n\"dr. mortimer returns with me.\"\n\"but dr. mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is\nmiles away from yours. with all the good will in the world he may be\nunable to help you. no, sir henry, you must take with you someone, a\ntrusty man, who will be always by your side.\"\n\"is it possible that you could come yourself, mr. holmes?\"\n\"if matters came to a crisis i should endeavour to be present in\nperson; but you can understand that, with my extensive consulting\npractice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many\nquarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from london for an\nindefinite time. at the present instant one of the most revered names\nin england is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only i can stop\na disastrous scandal. you will see how impossible it is for me to go\nto dartmoor.\"\n\"whom would you recommend, then?\"\nholmes laid his hand upon my arm.\n\"if my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth\nhaving at your side when you are in a tight place. no one can say so\nmore confidently than i.\"\nthe proposition took me completely by surprise, but before i had time\nto answer, baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily.\n\"well, now, that is real kind of you, dr. watson,\" said he. \"you see\nhow it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter as i\ndo. if you will come down to baskerville hall and see me through i'll\nnever forget it.\"\nthe promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and i was\ncomplimented by the words of holmes and by the eagerness with which\nthe baronet hailed me as a companion.\n\"i will come, with pleasure,\" said i. \"i do not know how i could\nemploy my time better.\"\n\"and you will report very carefully to me,\" said holmes. \"when a\ncrisis comes, as it will do, i will direct how you shall act. i\nsuppose that by saturday all might be ready?\"\n\"would that suit dr. watson?\"\n\"perfectly.\"\n\"then on saturday, unless you hear to the contrary, we shall meet at\nthe 10.30 train from paddington.\"\nwe had risen to depart when baskerville gave a cry, of triumph, and\ndiving into one of the corners of the room he drew a brown boot from\nunder a cabinet.\n\"my missing boot!\" he cried.\n\"may all our difficulties vanish as easily!\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"but it is a very singular thing,\" dr. mortimer remarked. \"i searched\nthis room carefully before lunch.\"\n\"and so did i,\" said baskerville. \"every inch of it.\"\n\"there was certainly no boot in it then.\"\n\"in that case the waiter must have placed it there while we were\nlunching.\"\nthe german was sent for but professed to know nothing of the matter,\nnor could any inquiry clear it up. another item had been added to\nthat constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries\nwhich had succeeded each other so rapidly. setting aside the whole\ngrim story of sir charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable\nincidents all within the limits of two days, which included the\nreceipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom,\nthe loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and\nnow the return of the new brown boot. holmes sat in silence in the\ncab as we drove back to baker street, and i knew from his drawn brows\nand keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to\nframe some scheme into which all these strange and apparently\ndisconnected episodes could be fitted. all afternoon and late into\nthe evening he sat lost in tobacco and thought.\njust before dinner two telegrams were handed in. the first ran:\nhave just heard that barrymore is at the hall.\nbaskerville.\nthe second:\nvisited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry to report unable\nto trace cut sheet of times.\ncartwright.\n\"there go two of my threads, watson. there is nothing more\nstimulating than a case where everything goes against you. we must\ncast round for another scent.\"\n\"we have still the cabman who drove the spy.\"\n\"exactly. i have wired to get his name and address from the official\nregistry. i should not be surprised if this were an answer to my\nquestion.\"\nthe ring at the bell proved to be something even more satisfactory\nthan an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking\nfellow entered who was evidently the man himself.\n\"i got a message from the head office that a gent at this address had\nbeen inquiring for 2704,\" said he. \"i've driven my cab this seven\nyears and never a word of complaint. i came here straight from the\nyard to ask you to your face what you had against me.\"\n\"i have nothing in the world against you, my good man,\" said holmes.\n\"on the contrary, i have half a sovereign for you if you will give me\na clear answer to my questions.\"\n\"well, i've had a good day and no mistake,\" said the cabman, with a\ngrin. \"what was it you wanted to ask, sir?\"\n\"first of all your name and address, in case i want you again.\"\n\"john clayton, 3 turpey street, the borough. my cab is out of\nshipley's yard, near waterloo station.\"\nsherlock holmes made a note of it.\n\"now, clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched this\nhouse at ten o'clock this morning and afterwards followed the two\ngentlemen down regent street.\"\nthe man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. \"why, there's no\ngood my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as i do\nalready,\" said he. \"the truth is that the gentleman told me that he\nwas a detective and that i was to say nothing about him to anyone.\"\n\"my good fellow, this is a very serious business, and you may find\nyourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide anything from\nme. you say that your fare told you that he was a detective?\"\n\"yes, he did.\"\n\"when did he say this?\"\n\"when he left me.\"\n\"did he say anything more?\"\n\"he mentioned his name.\"\nholmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. \"oh, he mentioned his\nname, did he? that was imprudent. what was the name that he\nmentioned?\"\n\"his name,\" said the cabman, \"was mr. sherlock holmes.\"\nnever have i seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the\ncabman's reply. for an instant he sat in silent amazement. then he\nburst into a hearty laugh.\n\"a touch, watson--an undeniable touch!\" said he. \"i feel a foil as\nquick and supple as my own. he got home upon me very prettily that\ntime. so his name was sherlock holmes, was it?\"\n\"yes, sir, that was the gentleman's name.\"\n\"excellent! tell me where you picked him up and all that occurred.\"\n\"he hailed me at half-past nine in trafalgar square. he said that he\nwas a detective, and he offered me two guineas if i would do exactly\nwhat he wanted all day and ask no questions. i was glad enough to\nagree. first we drove down to the northumberland hotel and waited\nthere until two gentlemen came out and took a cab from the rank. we\nfollowed their cab until it pulled up somewhere near here.\"\n\"this very door,\" said holmes.\n\"well, i couldn't be sure of that, but i dare say my fare knew all\nabout it. we pulled up half-way down the street and waited an hour\nand a half. then the two gentlemen passed us, walking, and we\nfollowed down baker street and along--\"\n\"i know,\" said holmes.\n\"until we got three-quarters down regent street. then my gentleman\nthrew up the trap, and he cried that i should drive right away to\nwaterloo station as hard as i could go. i whipped up the mare and we\nwere there under the ten minutes. then he paid up his two guineas,\nlike a good one, and away he went into the station. only just as he\nwas leaving he turned round and he said: 'it might interest you to\nknow that you have been driving mr. sherlock holmes.' that's how i\ncome to know the name.\"\n\"i see. and you saw no more of him?\"\n\"not after he went into the station.\"\n\"and how would you describe mr. sherlock holmes?\"\nthe cabman scratched his head. \"well, he wasn't altogether such an\neasy gentleman to describe. i'd put him at forty years of age, and he\nwas of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. he\nwas dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at the\nend, and a pale face. i don't know as i could say more than that.\"\n\"colour of his eyes?\"\n\"no, i can't say that.\"\n\"nothing more that you can remember?\"\n\"no, sir; nothing.\"\n\"well, then, here is your half-sovereign. there's another one waiting\nfor you if you can bring any more information. good night!\"\n\"good night, sir, and thank you!\"\njohn clayton departed chuckling, and holmes turned to me with a shrug\nof his shoulders and a rueful smile.\n\"snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began,\" said he.\n\"the cunning rascal! he knew our number, knew that sir henry\nbaskerville had consulted me, spotted who i was in regent street,\nconjectured that i had got the number of the cab and would lay my\nhands on the driver, and so sent back this audacious message. i tell\nyou, watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our\nsteel. i've been checkmated in london. i can only wish you better\nluck in devonshire. but i'm not easy in my mind about it.\"\n\"about what?\"\n\"about sending you. it's an ugly business, watson, an ugly dangerous\nbusiness, and the more i see of it the less i like it. yes, my dear\nfellow, you may laugh, but i give you my word that i shall be very\nglad to have you back safe and sound in baker street once more.\"\nchapter vi\nbaskerville hall\nsir henry baskerville and dr. mortimer were ready upon the appointed\nday, and we started as arranged for devonshire. mr. sherlock holmes\ndrove with me to the station and gave me his last parting injunctions\nand advice.\n\"i will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions,\nwatson,\" said he; \"i wish you simply to report facts in the fullest\npossible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the theorizing.\"\n\"what sort of facts?\" i asked.\n\"anything which may seem to have a bearing however indirect upon the\ncase, and especially the relations between young baskerville and his\nneighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death of sir\ncharles. i have made some inquiries myself in the last few days, but\nthe results have, i fear, been negative. one thing only appears to be\ncertain, and that is that mr. james desmond, who is the next heir, is\nan elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this\npersecution does not arise from him. i really think that we may\neliminate him entirely from our calculations. there remain the people\nwho will actually surround sir henry baskerville upon the moor.\"\n\"would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this barrymore\ncouple?\"\n\"by no means. you could not make a greater mistake. if they are\ninnocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we\nshould be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. no, no,\nwe will preserve them upon our list of suspects. then there is a\ngroom at the hall, if i remember right. there are two moorland\nfarmers. there is our friend dr. mortimer, whom i believe to be\nentirely honest, and there is his wife, of whom we know nothing.\nthere is this naturalist, stapleton, and there is his sister, who is\nsaid to be a young lady of attractions. there is mr. frankland, of\nlafter hall, who is also an unknown factor, and there are one or two\nother neighbours. these are the folk who must be your very special\nstudy.\"\n\"i will do my best.\"\n\"you have arms, i suppose?\"\n\"yes, i thought it as well to take them.\"\n\"most certainly. keep your revolver near you night and day, and never\nrelax your precautions.\"\nour friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were\nwaiting for us upon the platform.\n\"no, we have no news of any kind,\" said dr. mortimer in answer to my\nfriend's questions. \"i can swear to one thing, and that is that we\nhave not been shadowed during the last two days. we have never gone\nout without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could have escaped our\nnotice.\"\n\"you have always kept together, i presume?\"\n\"except yesterday afternoon. i usually give up one day to pure\namusement when i come to town, so i spent it at the museum of the\ncollege of surgeons.\"\n\"and i went to look at the folk in the park,\" said baskerville. \"but\nwe had no trouble of any kind.\"\n\"it was imprudent, all the same,\" said holmes, shaking his head and\nlooking very grave. \"i beg, sir henry, that you will not go about\nalone. some great misfortune will befall you if you do. did you get\nyour other boot?\"\n\"no, sir, it is gone forever.\"\n\"indeed. that is very interesting. well, good-bye,\" he added as the\ntrain began to glide down the platform. \"bear in mind, sir henry, one\nof the phrases in that queer old legend which dr. mortimer has read\nto us, and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers\nof evil are exalted.\"\ni looked back at the platform when we had left it far behind, and saw\nthe tall, austere figure of holmes standing motionless and gazing\nafter us.\nthe journey was a swift and pleasant one, and i spent it in making\nthe more intimate acquaintance of my two companions and in playing\nwith dr. mortimer's spaniel. in a very few hours the brown earth had\nbecome ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed\nin well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant\nvegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate. young baskerville\nstared eagerly out of the window, and cried aloud with delight as he\nrecognized the familiar features of the devon scenery.\n\"i've been over a good part of the world since i left it, dr.\nwatson,\" said he; \"but i have never seen a place to compare with it.\"\n\"i never saw a devonshire man who did not swear by his county,\" i\nremarked.\n\"it depends upon the breed of men quite as much as on the county,\"\nsaid dr. mortimer. \"a glance at our friend here reveals the rounded\nhead of the celt, which carries inside it the celtic enthusiasm and\npower of attachment. poor sir charles's head was of a very rare type,\nhalf gaelic, half ivernian in its characteristics. but you were very\nyoung when you last saw baskerville hall, were you not?\"\n\"i was a boy in my 'teens at the time of my father's death, and had\nnever seen the hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the south\ncoast. thence i went straight to a friend in america. i tell you it\nis all as new to me as it is to dr. watson, and i'm as keen as\npossible to see the moor.\"\n\"are you? then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first\nsight of the moor,\" said dr. mortimer, pointing out of the carriage\nwindow.\nover the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood\nthere rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange\njagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic\nlandscape in a dream. baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed\nupon it, and i read upon his eager face how much it meant to him,\nthis first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had\nheld sway so long and left their mark so deep. there he sat, with his\ntweed suit and his american accent, in the corner of a prosaic\nrailway-carriage, and yet as i looked at his dark and expressive face\ni felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line\nof high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. there were pride, valour,\nand strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his\nlarge hazel eyes. if on that forbidding moor a difficult and\ndangerous quest should lie before us, this was at least a comrade for\nwhom one might venture to take a risk with the certainty that he\nwould bravely share it.\nthe train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all descended.\noutside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs\nwas waiting. our coming was evidently a great event, for\nstation-master and porters clustered round us to carry out our\nluggage. it was a sweet, simple country spot, but i was surprised to\nobserve that by the gate there stood two soldierly men in dark\nuniforms, who leaned upon their short rifles and glanced keenly at us\nas we passed. the coachman, a hard-faced, gnarled little fellow,\nsaluted sir henry baskerville, and in a few minutes we were flying\nswiftly down the broad, white road. rolling pasture lands curved\nupward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from\namid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit\ncountry-side there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long,\ngloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills.\nthe wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward\nthrough deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either\nside, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns.\nbronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the\nsinking sun. still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite\nbridge, and skirted a noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming\nand roaring amid the gray boulders. both road and stream wound up\nthrough a valley dense with scrub oak and fir. at every turn\nbaskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him\nand asking countless questions. to his eyes all seemed beautiful, but\nto me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the country-side, which bore so\nclearly the mark of the waning year. yellow leaves carpeted the lanes\nand fluttered down upon us as we passed. the rattle of our wheels\ndied away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad\ngifts, as it seemed to me, for nature to throw before the carriage of\nthe returning heir of the baskervilles.\n\"halloa!\" cried dr. mortimer, \"what is this?\"\na steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay\nin front of us. on the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian\nstatue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his\nrifle poised ready over his forearm. he was watching the road along\nwhich we travelled.\n\"what is this, perkins?\" asked dr. mortimer.\nour driver half turned in his seat.\n\"there's a convict escaped from princetown, sir. he's been out three\ndays now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but\nthey've had no sight of him yet. the farmers about here don't like\nit, sir, and that's a fact.\"\n\"well, i understand that they get five pounds if they can give\ninformation.\"\n\"yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared\nto the chance of having your throat cut. you see, it isn't like any\nordinary convict. this is a man that would stick at nothing.\"\n\"who is he, then?\"\n\"it is selden, the notting hill murderer.\"\ni remembered the case well, for it was one in which holmes had taken\nan interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the\nwanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin.\nthe commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as\nto his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. our wagonette\nhad topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the\nmoor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. a cold wind\nswept down from it and set us shivering. somewhere there, on that\ndesolate plain, was lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow\nlike a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against the whole\nrace which had cast him out. it needed but this to complete the grim\nsuggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the\ndarkling sky. even baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat\nmore closely around him.\nwe had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. we looked back\non it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to\nthreads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough\nand the broad tangle of the woodlands. the road in front of us grew\nbleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with\ngiant boulders. now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and\nroofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline.\nsuddenly we looked down into a cup-like depression, patched with\nstunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of\nyears of storm. two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. the\ndriver pointed with his whip.\n\"baskerville hall,\" said he.\nits master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining\neyes. a few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze of\nfantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten pillars on\neither side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars'\nheads of the baskervilles. the lodge was a ruin of black granite and\nbared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half\nconstructed, the first fruit of sir charles's south african gold.\nthrough the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were\nagain hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches\nin a sombre tunnel over our heads. baskerville shuddered as he looked\nup the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at\nthe farther end.\n\"was it here?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\"no, no, the yew alley is on the other side.\"\nthe young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.\n\"it's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in\nsuch a place as this,\" said he. \"it's enough to scare any man. i'll\nhave a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you\nwon't know it again, with a thousand candle-power swan and edison\nright here in front of the hall door.\"\nthe avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay\nbefore us. in the fading light i could see that the centre was a\nheavy block of building from which a porch projected. the whole front\nwas draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a\nwindow or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil. from this\ncentral block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced\nwith many loopholes. to right and left of the turrets were more\nmodern wings of black granite. a dull light shone through heavy\nmullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the\nsteep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.\n\"welcome, sir henry! welcome to baskerville hall!\"\na tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door\nof the wagonette. the figure of a woman was silhouetted against the\nyellow light of the hall. she came out and helped the man to hand\ndown our bags.\n\"you don't mind my driving straight home, sir henry?\" said dr.\nmortimer. \"my wife is expecting me.\"\n\"surely you will stay and have some dinner?\"\n\"no, i must go. i shall probably find some work awaiting me. i would\nstay to show you over the house, but barrymore will be a better guide\nthan i. good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to send for me if i\ncan be of service.\"\nthe wheels died away down the drive while sir henry and i turned into\nthe hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us. it was a fine\napartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily\nraftered with huge balks of age-blackened oak. in the great\nold-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled\nand snapped. sir henry and i held out our hands to it, for we were\nnumb from our long drive. then we gazed round us at the high, thin\nwindow of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stags' heads, the\ncoats-of-arms upon the walls, all dim and sombre in the subdued light\nof the central lamp.\n\"it's just as i imagined it,\" said sir henry. \"is it not the very\npicture of an old family home? to think that this should be the same\nhall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. it strikes\nme solemn to think of it.\"\ni saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed about\nhim. the light beat upon him where he stood, but long shadows trailed\ndown the walls and hung like a black canopy above him. barrymore had\nreturned from taking our luggage to our rooms. he stood in front of\nus now with the subdued manner of a well-trained servant. he was a\nremarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and\npale, distinguished features.\n\"would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?\"\n\"is it ready?\"\n\"in a very few minutes, sir. you will find hot water in your rooms.\nmy wife and i will be happy, sir henry, to stay with you until you\nhave made your fresh arrangements, but you will understand that under\nthe new conditions this house will require a considerable staff.\"\n\"what new conditions?\"\n\"i only meant, sir, that sir charles led a very retired life, and we\nwere able to look after his wants. you would, naturally, wish to have\nmore company, and so you will need changes in your household.\"\n\"do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?\"\n\"only when it is quite convenient to you, sir.\"\n\"but your family have been with us for several generations, have they\nnot? i should be sorry to begin my life here by breaking an old\nfamily connection.\"\ni seemed to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler's white\nface.\n\"i feel that also, sir, and so does my wife. but to tell the truth,\nsir, we were both very much attached to sir charles, and his death\ngave us a shock and made these surroundings very painful to us. i\nfear that we shall never again be easy in our minds at baskerville\nhall.\"\n\"but what do you intend to do?\"\n\"i have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing\nourselves in some business. sir charles's generosity has given us the\nmeans to do so. and now, sir, perhaps i had best show you to your\nrooms.\"\na square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall,\napproached by a double stair. from this central point two long\ncorridors extended the whole length of the building, from which all\nthe bedrooms opened. my own was in the same wing as baskerville's and\nalmost next door to it. these rooms appeared to be much more modern\nthan the central part of the house, and the bright paper and numerous\ncandles did something to remove the sombre impression which our\narrival had left upon my mind.\nbut the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of\nshadow and gloom. it was a long chamber with a step separating the\ndais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their\ndependents. at one end a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. black\nbeams shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling\nbeyond them. with rows of flaring torches to light it up, and the\ncolour and rude hilarity of an old-time banquet, it might have\nsoftened; but now, when two black-clothed gentlemen sat in the little\ncircle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one's voice became hushed\nand one's spirit subdued. a dim line of ancestors, in every variety\nof dress, from the elizabethan knight to the buck of the regency,\nstared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. we talked\nlittle, and i for one was glad when the meal was over and we were\nable to retire into the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.\n\"my word, it isn't a very cheerful place,\" said sir henry. \"i suppose\none can tone down to it, but i feel a bit out of the picture at\npresent. i don't wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived\nall alone in such a house as this. however, if it suits you, we will\nretire early to-night, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in\nthe morning.\"\ni drew aside my curtains before i went to bed and looked out from my\nwindow. it opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the\nhall door. beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising\nwind. a half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. in its\ncold light i saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the\nlong, low curve of the melancholy moor. i closed the curtain, feeling\nthat my last impression was in keeping with the rest.\nand yet it was not quite the last. i found myself weary and yet\nwakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep\nwhich would not come. far away a chiming clock struck out the\nquarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the\nold house. and then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there\ncame a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. it was\nthe sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn\nby an uncontrollable sorrow. i sat up in bed and listened intently.\nthe noise could not have been far away and was certainly in the\nhouse. for half an hour i waited with every nerve on the alert, but\nthere came no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of\nthe ivy on the wall.\nchapter vii\nthe stapletons of merripit house\nthe fresh beauty of the following morning did something to efface\nfrom our minds the grim and gray impression which had been left upon\nboth of us by our first experience of baskerville hall. as sir henry\nand i sat at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through the high\nmullioned windows, throwing watery patches of colour from the coats\nof arms which covered them. the dark panelling glowed like bronze in\nthe golden rays, and it was hard to realize that this was indeed the\nchamber which had struck such a gloom into our souls upon the evening\nbefore.\n\"i guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to blame!\"\nsaid the baronet. \"we were tired with our journey and chilled by our\ndrive, so we took a gray view of the place. now we are fresh and\nwell, so it is all cheerful once more.\"\n\"and yet it was not entirely a question of imagination,\" i answered.\n\"did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a woman i think,\nsobbing in the night?\"\n\"that is curious, for i did when i was half asleep fancy that i heard\nsomething of the sort. i waited quite a time, but there was no more\nof it, so i concluded that it was all a dream.\"\n\"i heard it distinctly, and i am sure that it was really the sob of a\nwoman.\"\n\"we must ask about this right away.\" he rang the bell and asked\nbarrymore whether he could account for our experience. it seemed to\nme that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler still\nas he listened to his master's question.\n\"there are only two women in the house, sir henry,\" he answered. \"one\nis the scullery-maid, who sleeps in the other wing. the other is my\nwife, and i can answer for it that the sound could not have come from\nher.\"\nand yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after breakfast i\nmet mrs. barrymore in the long corridor with the sun full upon her\nface. she was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a stern\nset expression of mouth. but her tell-tale eyes were red and glanced\nat me from between swollen lids. it was she, then, who wept in the\nnight, and if she did so her husband must know it. yet he had taken\nthe obvious risk of discovery in declaring that it was not so. why\nhad he done this? and why did she weep so bitterly? already round\nthis pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an\natmosphere of mystery and of gloom. it was he who had been the first\nto discover the body of sir charles, and we had only his word for all\nthe circumstances which led up to the old man's death. was it\npossible that it was barrymore after all whom we had seen in the cab\nin regent street? the beard might well have been the same. the cabman\nhad described a somewhat shorter man, but such an impression might\neasily have been erroneous. how could i settle the point forever?\nobviously the first thing to do was to see the grimpen postmaster,\nand find whether the test telegram had really been placed in\nbarrymore's own hands. be the answer what it might, i should at least\nhave something to report to sherlock holmes.\nsir henry had numerous papers to examine after breakfast, so that the\ntime was propitious for my excursion. it was a pleasant walk of four\nmiles along the edge of the moor, leading me at last to a small gray\nhamlet, in which two larger buildings, which proved to be the inn and\nthe house of dr. mortimer, stood high above the rest. the postmaster,\nwho was also the village grocer, had a clear recollection of the\ntelegram.\n\"certainly, sir,\" said he, \"i had the telegram delivered to mr.\nbarrymore exactly as directed.\"\n\"who delivered it?\"\n\"my boy here. james, you delivered that telegram to mr. barrymore at\nthe hall last week, did you not?\"\n\"yes, father, i delivered it.\"\n\"into his own hands?\" i asked.\n\"well, he was up in the loft at the time, so that i could not put it\ninto his own hands, but i gave it into mrs. barrymore's hands, and\nshe promised to deliver it at once.\"\n\"did you see mr. barrymore?\"\n\"no, sir; i tell you he was in the loft.\"\n\"if you didn't see him, how do you know he was in the loft?\"\n\"well, surely his own wife ought to know where he is,\" said the\npostmaster testily. \"didn't he get the telegram? if there is any\nmistake it is for mr. barrymore himself to complain.\"\nit seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry any farther, but it was\nclear that in spite of holmes's ruse we had no proof that barrymore\nhad not been in london all the time. suppose that it were so--suppose\nthat the same man had been the last who had seen sir charles alive,\nand the first to dog the new heir when he returned to england. what\nthen? was he the agent of others or had he some sinister design of\nhis own? what interest could he have in persecuting the baskerville\nfamily? i thought of the strange warning clipped out of the leading\narticle of the times. was that his work or was it possibly the doing\nof someone who was bent upon counteracting his schemes? the only\nconceivable motive was that which had been suggested by sir henry,\nthat if the family could be scared away a comfortable and permanent\nhome would be secured for the barrymores. but surely such an\nexplanation as that would be quite inadequate to account for the deep\nand subtle scheming which seemed to be weaving an invisible net round\nthe young baronet. holmes himself had said that no more complex case\nhad come to him in all the long series of his sensational\ninvestigations. i prayed, as i walked back along the gray, lonely\nroad, that my friend might soon be freed from his preoccupations and\nable to come down to take this heavy burden of responsibility from my\nshoulders.\nsuddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running feet\nbehind me and by a voice which called me by name. i turned, expecting\nto see dr. mortimer, but to my surprise it was a stranger who was\npursuing me. he was a small, slim, clean-shaven, prim-faced man,\nflaxen-haired and lean-jawed, between thirty and forty years of age,\ndressed in a gray suit and wearing a straw hat. a tin box for\nbotanical specimens hung over his shoulder and he carried a green\nbutterfly-net in one of his hands.\n\"you will, i am sure, excuse my presumption, dr. watson,\" said he, as\nhe came panting up to where i stood. \"here on the moor we are homely\nfolk and do not wait for formal introductions. you may possibly have\nheard my name from our mutual friend, mortimer. i am stapleton, of\nmerripit house.\"\n\"your net and box would have told me as much,\" said i, \"for i knew\nthat mr. stapleton was a naturalist. but how did you know me?\"\n\"i have been calling on mortimer, and he pointed you out to me from\nthe window of his surgery as you passed. as our road lay the same way\ni thought that i would overtake you and introduce myself. i trust\nthat sir henry is none the worse for his journey?\"\n\"he is very well, thank you.\"\n\"we were all rather afraid that after the sad death of sir charles\nthe new baronet might refuse to live here. it is asking much of a\nwealthy man to come down and bury himself in a place of this kind,\nbut i need not tell you that it means a very great deal to the\ncountry-side. sir henry has, i suppose, no superstitious fears in the\nmatter?\"\n\"i do not think that it is likely.\"\n\"of course you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the\nfamily?\"\n\"i have heard it.\"\n\"it is extraordinary how credulous the peasants are about here! any\nnumber of them are ready to swear that they have seen such a creature\nupon the moor.\" he spoke with a smile, but i seemed to read in his\neyes that he took the matter more seriously. \"the story took a great\nhold upon the imagination of sir charles, and i have no doubt that it\nled to his tragic end.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"his nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might\nhave had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. i fancy that he\nreally did see something of the kind upon that last night in the yew\nalley. i feared that some disaster might occur, for i was very fond\nof the old man, and i knew that his heart was weak.\"\n\"how did you know that?\"\n\"my friend mortimer told me.\"\n\"you think, then, that some dog pursued sir charles, and that he died\nof fright in consequence?\"\n\"have you any better explanation?\"\n\"i have not come to any conclusion.\"\n\"has mr. sherlock holmes?\"\nthe words took away my breath for an instant, but a glance at the\nplacid face and steadfast eyes of my companion showed that no\nsurprise was intended.\n\"it is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, dr.\nwatson,\" said he. \"the records of your detective have reached us\nhere, and you could not celebrate him without being known yourself.\nwhen mortimer told me your name he could not deny your identity. if\nyou are here, then it follows that mr. sherlock holmes is interesting\nhimself in the matter, and i am naturally curious to know what view\nhe may take.\"\n\"i am afraid that i cannot answer that question.\"\n\"may i ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself?\"\n\"he cannot leave town at present. he has other cases which engage his\nattention.\"\n\"what a pity! he might throw some light on that which is so dark to\nus. but as to your own researches, if there is any possible way in\nwhich i can be of service to you i trust that you will command me. if\ni had any indication of the nature of your suspicions or how you\npropose to investigate the case, i might perhaps even now give you\nsome aid or advice.\"\n\"i assure you that i am simply here upon a visit to my friend, sir\nhenry, and that i need no help of any kind.\"\n\"excellent!\" said stapleton. \"you are perfectly right to be wary and\ndiscreet. i am justly reproved for what i feel was an unjustifiable\nintrusion, and i promise you that i will not mention the matter\nagain.\"\nwe had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from the\nroad and wound away across the moor. a steep, boulder-sprinkled hill\nlay upon the right which had in bygone days been cut into a granite\nquarry. the face which was turned towards us formed a dark cliff,\nwith ferns and brambles growing in its niches. from over a distant\nrise there floated a gray plume of smoke.\n\"a moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to merripit house,\"\nsaid he. \"perhaps you will spare an hour that i may have the pleasure\nof introducing you to my sister.\"\nmy first thought was that i should be by sir henry's side. but then i\nremembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table\nwas littered. it was certain that i could not help with those. and\nholmes had expressly said that i should study the neighbours upon the\nmoor. i accepted stapleton's invitation, and we turned together down\nthe path.\n\"it is a wonderful place, the moor,\" said he, looking round over the\nundulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite\nfoaming up into fantastic surges. \"you never tire of the moor. you\ncannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. it is so vast,\nand so barren, and so mysterious.\"\n\"you know it well, then?\"\n\"i have only been here two years. the residents would call me a\nnewcomer. we came shortly after sir charles settled. but my tastes\nled me to explore every part of the country round, and i should think\nthat there are few men who know it better than i do.\"\n\"is it hard to know?\"\n\"very hard. you see, for example, this great plain to the north here\nwith the queer hills breaking out of it. do you observe anything\nremarkable about that?\"\n\"it would be a rare place for a gallop.\"\n\"you would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their\nlives before now. you notice those bright green spots scattered\nthickly over it?\"\n\"yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.\"\nstapleton laughed.\n\"that is the great grimpen mire,\" said he. \"a false step yonder means\ndeath to man or beast. only yesterday i saw one of the moor ponies\nwander into it. he never came out. i saw his head for quite a long\ntime craning out of the bog-hole, but it sucked him down at last.\neven in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these\nautumn rains it is an awful place. and yet i can find my way to the\nvery heart of it and return alive. by george, there is another of\nthose miserable ponies!\"\nsomething brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. then\na long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful cry echoed\nover the moor. it turned me cold with horror, but my companion's\nnerves seemed to be stronger than mine.\n\"it's gone!\" said he. \"the mire has him. two in two days, and many\nmore, perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the dry\nweather, and never know the difference until the mire has them in its\nclutches. it's a bad place, the great grimpen mire.\"\n\"and you say you can penetrate it?\"\n\"yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take. i\nhave found them out.\"\n\"but why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?\"\n\"well, you see the hills beyond? they are really islands cut off on\nall sides by the impassable mire, which has crawled round them in the\ncourse of years. that is where the rare plants and the butterflies\nare, if you have the wit to reach them.\"\n\"i shall try my luck some day.\"\nhe looked at me with a surprised face.\n\"for god's sake put such an idea out of your mind,\" said he. \"your\nblood would be upon my head. i assure you that there would not be the\nleast chance of your coming back alive. it is only by remembering\ncertain complex landmarks that i am able to do it.\"\n\"halloa!\" i cried. \"what is that?\"\na long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. it filled\nthe whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. from\na dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a\nmelancholy, throbbing murmur once again. stapleton looked at me with\na curious expression in his face.\n\"queer place, the moor!\" said he.\n\"but what is it?\"\n\"the peasants say it is the hound of the baskervilles calling for its\nprey. i've heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.\"\ni looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge\nswelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. nothing\nstirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked\nloudly from a tor behind us.\n\"you are an educated man. you don't believe such nonsense as that?\"\nsaid i. \"what do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?\"\n\"bogs make queer noises sometimes. it's the mud settling, or the\nwater rising, or something.\"\n\"no, no, that was a living voice.\"\n\"well, perhaps it was. did you ever hear a bittern booming?\"\n\"no, i never did.\"\n\"it's a very rare bird--practically extinct--in england now, but all\nthings are possible upon the moor. yes, i should not be surprised to\nlearn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the\nbitterns.\"\n\"it's the weirdest, strangest thing that ever i heard in my life.\"\n\"yes, it's rather an uncanny place altogether. look at the hill-side\nyonder. what do you make of those?\"\nthe whole steep slope was covered with gray circular rings of stone,\na score of them at least.\n\"what are they? sheep-pens?\"\n\"no, they are the homes of our worthy ancestors. prehistoric man\nlived thickly on the moor, and as no one in particular has lived\nthere since, we find all his little arrangements exactly as he left\nthem. these are his wigwams with the roofs off. you can even see his\nhearth and his couch if you have the curiosity to go inside.\"\n\"but it is quite a town. when was it inhabited?\"\n\"neolithic man--no date.\"\n\"what did he do?\"\n\"he grazed his cattle on these slopes, and he learned to dig for tin\nwhen the bronze sword began to supersede the stone axe. look at the\ngreat trench in the opposite hill. that is his mark. yes, you will\nfind some very singular points about the moor, dr. watson. oh, excuse\nme an instant! it is surely cyclopides.\"\na small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an instant\nstapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit\nof it. to my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire,\nand my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft\nto tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. his gray clothes\nand jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge\nmoth himself. i was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of\nadmiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should\nlose his footing in the treacherous mire, when i heard the sound of\nsteps, and turning round found a woman near me upon the path. she had\ncome from the direction in which the plume of smoke indicated the\nposition of merripit house, but the dip of the moor had hid her until\nshe was quite close.\ni could not doubt that this was the miss stapleton of whom i had been\ntold, since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor, and i\nremembered that i had heard someone describe her as being a beauty.\nthe woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most\nuncommon type. there could not have been a greater contrast between\nbrother and sister, for stapleton was neutral tinted, with light hair\nand gray eyes, while she was darker than any brunette whom i have\nseen in england--slim, elegant, and tall. she had a proud, finely cut\nface, so regular that it might have seemed impassive were it not for\nthe sensitive mouth and the beautiful dark, eager eyes. with her\nperfect figure and elegant dress she was, indeed, a strange\napparition upon a lonely moorland path. her eyes were on her brother\nas i turned, and then she quickened her pace towards me. i had raised\nmy hat and was about to make some explanatory remark, when her own\nwords turned all my thoughts into a new channel.\n\"go back!\" she said. \"go straight back to london, instantly.\"\ni could only stare at her in stupid surprise. her eyes blazed at me,\nand she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.\n\"why should i go back?\" i asked.\n\"i cannot explain.\" she spoke in a low, eager voice, with a curious\nlisp in her utterance. \"but for god's sake do what i ask you. go back\nand never set foot upon the moor again.\"\n\"but i have only just come.\"\n\"man, man!\" she cried. \"can you not tell when a warning is for your\nown good? go back to london! start to-night! get away from this place\nat all costs! hush, my brother is coming! not a word of what i have\nsaid. would you mind getting that orchid for me among the mares-tails\nyonder? we are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course,\nyou are rather late to see the beauties of the place.\"\nstapleton had abandoned the chase and came back to us breathing hard\nand flushed with his exertions.\n\"halloa, beryl!\" said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of his\ngreeting was not altogether a cordial one.\n\"well, jack, you are very hot.\"\n\"yes, i was chasing a cyclopides. he is very rare and seldom found in\nthe late autumn. what a pity that i should have missed him!\" he spoke\nunconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced incessantly from the\ngirl to me.\n\"you have introduced yourselves, i can see.\"\n\"yes. i was telling sir henry that it was rather late for him to see\nthe true beauties of the moor.\"\n\"why, who do you think this is?\"\n\"i imagine that it must be sir henry baskerville.\"\n\"no, no,\" said i. \"only a humble commoner, but his friend. my name is\ndr. watson.\"\na flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. \"we have been\ntalking at cross purposes,\" said she.\n\"why, you had not very much time for talk,\" her brother remarked with\nthe same questioning eyes.\n\"i talked as if dr. watson were a resident instead of being merely a\nvisitor,\" said she. \"it cannot much matter to him whether it is early\nor late for the orchids. but you will come on, will you not, and see\nmerripit house?\"\na short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the farm\nof some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into repair\nand turned into a modern dwelling. an orchard surrounded it, but the\ntrees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and nipped, and the\neffect of the whole place was mean and melancholy. we were admitted\nby a strange, wizened, rusty-coated old manservant, who seemed in\nkeeping with the house. inside, however, there were large rooms\nfurnished with an elegance in which i seemed to recognize the taste\nof the lady. as i looked from their windows at the interminable\ngranite-flecked moor rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon i could\nnot but marvel at what could have brought this highly educated man\nand this beautiful woman to live in such a place.\n\"queer spot to choose, is it not?\" said he as if in answer to my\nthought. \"and yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we\nnot, beryl?\"\n\"quite happy,\" said she, but there was no ring of conviction in her\nwords.\n\"i had a school,\" said stapleton. \"it was in the north country. the\nwork to a man of my temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but\nthe privilege of living with youth, of helping to mould those young\nminds, and of impressing them with one's own character and ideals,\nwas very dear to me. however, the fates were against us. a serious\nepidemic broke out in the school and three of the boys died. it never\nrecovered from the blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably\nswallowed up. and yet, if it were not for the loss of the charming\ncompanionship of the boys, i could rejoice over my own misfortune,\nfor, with my strong tastes for botany and zoology, i find an\nunlimited field of work here, and my sister is as devoted to nature\nas i am. all this, dr. watson, has been brought upon your head by\nyour expression as you surveyed the moor out of our window.\"\n\"it certainly did cross my mind that it might be a little dull--less\nfor you, perhaps, than for your sister.\"\n\"no, no, i am never dull,\" said she, quickly.\n\"we have books, we have our studies, and we have interesting\nneighbours. dr. mortimer is a most learned man in his own line. poor\nsir charles was also an admirable companion. we knew him well, and\nmiss him more than i can tell. do you think that i should intrude if\ni were to call this afternoon and make the acquaintance of sir\nhenry?\"\n\"i am sure that he would be delighted.\"\n\"then perhaps you would mention that i propose to do so. we may in\nour humble way do something to make things more easy for him until he\nbecomes accustomed to his new surroundings. will you come upstairs,\ndr. watson, and inspect my collection of lepidoptera? i think it is\nthe most complete one in the south-west of england. by the time that\nyou have looked through them lunch will be almost ready.\"\nbut i was eager to get back to my charge. the melancholy of the moor,\nthe death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which had been\nassociated with the grim legend of the baskervilles, all these things\ntinged my thoughts with sadness. then on the top of these more or\nless vague impressions there had come the definite and distinct\nwarning of miss stapleton, delivered with such intense earnestness\nthat i could not doubt that some grave and deep reason lay behind it.\ni resisted all pressure to stay for lunch, and i set off at once upon\nmy return journey, taking the grass-grown path by which we had come.\nit seems, however, that there must have been some short cut for those\nwho knew it, for before i had reached the road i was astounded to see\nmiss stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side of the track. her face\nwas beautifully flushed with her exertions, and she held her hand to\nher side.\n\"i have run all the way in order to cut you off, dr. watson,\" said\nshe. \"i had not even time to put on my hat. i must not stop, or my\nbrother may miss me. i wanted to say to you how sorry i am about the\nstupid mistake i made in thinking that you were sir henry. please\nforget the words i said, which have no application whatever to you.\"\n\"but i can't forget them, miss stapleton,\" said i. \"i am sir henry's\nfriend, and his welfare is a very close concern of mine. tell me why\nit was that you were so eager that sir henry should return to\nlondon.\"\n\"a woman's whim, dr. watson. when you know me better you will\nunderstand that i cannot always give reasons for what i say or do.\"\n\"no, no. i remember the thrill in your voice. i remember the look in\nyour eyes. please, please, be frank with me, miss stapleton, for ever\nsince i have been here i have been conscious of shadows all round me.\nlife has become like that great grimpen mire, with little green\npatches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point\nthe track. tell me then what it was that you meant, and i will\npromise to convey your warning to sir henry.\"\nan expression of irresolution passed for an instant over her face,\nbut her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.\n\"you make too much of it, dr. watson,\" said she. \"my brother and i\nwere very much shocked by the death of sir charles. we knew him very\nintimately, for his favourite walk was over the moor to our house. he\nwas deeply impressed with the curse which hung over the family, and\nwhen this tragedy came i naturally felt that there must be some\ngrounds for the fears which he had expressed. i was distressed\ntherefore when another member of the family came down to live here,\nand i felt that he should be warned of the danger which he will run.\nthat was all which i intended to convey.\n\"but what is the danger?\"\n\"you know the story of the hound?\"\n\"i do not believe in such nonsense.\"\n\"but i do. if you have any influence with sir henry, take him away\nfrom a place which has always been fatal to his family. the world is\nwide. why should he wish to live at the place of danger?\"\n\"because it is the place of danger. that is sir henry's nature. i\nfear that unless you can give me some more definite information than\nthis it would be impossible to get him to move.\"\n\"i cannot say anything definite, for i do not know anything\ndefinite.\"\n\"i would ask you one more question, miss stapleton. if you meant no\nmore than this when you first spoke to me, why should you not wish\nyour brother to overhear what you said? there is nothing to which he,\nor anyone else, could object.\"\n\"my brother is very anxious to have the hall inhabited, for he thinks\nit is for the good of the poor folk upon the moor. he would be very\nangry if he knew that i have said anything which might induce sir\nhenry to go away. but i have done my duty now and i will say no more.\ni must get back, or he will miss me and suspect that i have seen you.\ngood-bye!\" she turned and had disappeared in a few minutes among the\nscattered boulders, while i, with my soul full of vague fears,\npursued my way to baskerville hall.\nchapter viii\nfirst report of dr. watson\nfrom this point onward i will follow the course of events by\ntranscribing my own letters to mr. sherlock holmes which lie before\nme on the table. one page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly\nas written and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more\naccurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events,\ncan possibly do.\nbaskerville hall, october 13th.\nmy dear holmes:\nmy previous letters and telegrams have kept you pretty well up to\ndate as to all that has occurred in this most god-forsaken corner of\nthe world. the longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the\nmoor sink into one's soul, its vastness, and also its grim charm.\nwhen you are once out upon its bosom you have left all traces of\nmodern england behind you, but on the other hand you are conscious\neverywhere of the homes and the work of the prehistoric people. on\nall sides of you as you walk are the houses of these forgotten folk,\nwith their graves and the huge monoliths which are supposed to have\nmarked their temples. as you look at their gray stone huts against\nthe scarred hill-sides you leave your own age behind you, and if you\nwere to see a skin-clad, hairy man crawl out from the low door\nfitting a flint-tipped arrow on to the string of his bow, you would\nfeel that his presence there was more natural than your own. the\nstrange thing is that they should have lived so thickly on what must\nalways have been most unfruitful soil. i am no antiquarian, but i\ncould imagine that they were some unwarlike and harried race who were\nforced to accept that which none other would occupy.\nall this, however, is foreign to the mission on which you sent me and\nwill probably be very uninteresting to your severely practical mind.\ni can still remember your complete indifference as to whether the sun\nmoved round the earth or the earth round the sun. let me, therefore,\nreturn to the facts concerning sir henry baskerville.\nif you have not had any report within the last few days it is because\nup to to-day there was nothing of importance to relate. then a very\nsurprising circumstance occurred, which i shall tell you in due\ncourse. but, first of all, i must keep you in touch with some of the\nother factors in the situation.\none of these, concerning which i have said little, is the escaped\nconvict upon the moor. there is strong reason now to believe that he\nhas got right away, which is a considerable relief to the lonely\nhouseholders of this district. a fortnight has passed since his\nflight, during which he has not been seen and nothing has been heard\nof him. it is surely inconceivable that he could have held out upon\nthe moor during all that time. of course, so far as his concealment\ngoes there is no difficulty at all. any one of these stone huts would\ngive him a hiding-place. but there is nothing to eat unless he were\nto catch and slaughter one of the moor sheep. we think, therefore,\nthat he has gone, and the outlying farmers sleep the better in\nconsequence.\nwe are four able-bodied men in this household, so that we could take\ngood care of ourselves, but i confess that i have had uneasy moments\nwhen i have thought of the stapletons. they live miles from any help.\nthere are one maid, an old manservant, the sister, and the brother,\nthe latter not a very strong man. they would be helpless in the hands\nof a desperate fellow like this notting hill criminal, if he could\nonce effect an entrance. both sir henry and i were concerned at their\nsituation, and it was suggested that perkins the groom should go over\nto sleep there, but stapleton would not hear of it.\nthe fact is that our friend, the baronet, begins to display a\nconsiderable interest in our fair neighbour. it is not to be wondered\nat, for time hangs heavily in this lonely spot to an active man like\nhim, and she is a very fascinating and beautiful woman. there is\nsomething tropical and exotic about her which forms a singular\ncontrast to her cool and unemotional brother. yet he also gives the\nidea of hidden fires. he has certainly a very marked influence over\nher, for i have seen her continually glance at him as she talked as\nif seeking approbation for what she said. i trust that he is kind to\nher. there is a dry glitter in his eyes, and a firm set of his thin\nlips, which goes with a positive and possibly a harsh nature. you\nwould find him an interesting study.\nhe came over to call upon baskerville on that first day, and the very\nnext morning he took us both to show us the spot where the legend of\nthe wicked hugo is supposed to have had its origin. it was an\nexcursion of some miles across the moor to a place which is so dismal\nthat it might have suggested the story. we found a short valley\nbetween rugged tors which led to an open, grassy space flecked over\nwith the white cotton grass. in the middle of it rose two great\nstones, worn and sharpened at the upper end, until they looked like\nthe huge corroding fangs of some monstrous beast. in every way it\ncorresponded with the scene of the old tragedy. sir henry was much\ninterested and asked stapleton more than once whether he did really\nbelieve in the possibility of the interference of the supernatural in\nthe affairs of men. he spoke lightly, but it was evident that he was\nvery much in earnest. stapleton was guarded in his replies, but it\nwas easy to see that he said less than he might, and that he would\nnot express his whole opinion out of consideration for the feelings\nof the baronet. he told us of similar cases, where families had\nsuffered from some evil influence, and he left us with the impression\nthat he shared the popular view upon the matter.\non our way back we stayed for lunch at merripit house, and it was\nthere that sir henry made the acquaintance of miss stapleton. from\nthe first moment that he saw her he appeared to be strongly attracted\nby her, and i am much mistaken if the feeling was not mutual. he\nreferred to her again and again on our walk home, and since then\nhardly a day has passed that we have not seen something of the\nbrother and sister. they dine here to-night, and there is some talk\nof our going to them next week. one would imagine that such a match\nwould be very welcome to stapleton, and yet i have more than once\ncaught a look of the strongest disapprobation in his face when sir\nhenry has been paying some attention to his sister. he is much\nattached to her, no doubt, and would lead a lonely life without her,\nbut it would seem the height of selfishness if he were to stand in\nthe way of her making so brilliant a marriage. yet i am certain that\nhe does not wish their intimacy to ripen into love, and i have\nseveral times observed that he has taken pains to prevent them from\nbeing tte--tte. by the way, your instructions to me never to allow\nsir henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a\nlove affair were to be added to our other difficulties. my popularity\nwould soon suffer if i were to carry out your orders to the letter.\nthe other day--thursday, to be more exact--dr. mortimer lunched with\nus. he has been excavating a barrow at long down, and has got a\nprehistoric skull which fills him with great joy. never was there\nsuch a single-minded enthusiast as he! the stapletons came in\nafterwards, and the good doctor took us all to the yew alley, at sir\nhenry's request, to show us exactly how everything occurred upon that\nfatal night. it is a long, dismal walk, the yew alley, between two\nhigh walls of clipped hedge, with a narrow band of grass upon either\nside. at the far end is an old tumble-down summer-house. half-way\ndown is the moor-gate, where the old gentleman left his cigar-ash. it\nis a white wooden gate with a latch. beyond it lies the wide moor. i\nremembered your theory of the affair and tried to picture all that\nhad occurred. as the old man stood there he saw something coming\nacross the moor, something which terrified him so that he lost his\nwits, and ran and ran until he died of sheer horror and exhaustion.\nthere was the long, gloomy tunnel down which he fled. and from what?\na sheep-dog of the moor? or a spectral hound, black, silent, and\nmonstrous? was there a human agency in the matter? did the pale,\nwatchful barrymore know more than he cared to say? it was all dim and\nvague, but always there is the dark shadow of crime behind it.\none other neighbour i have met since i wrote last. this is mr.\nfrankland, of lafter hall, who lives some four miles to the south of\nus. he is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and choleric. his\npassion is for the british law, and he has spent a large fortune in\nlitigation. he fights for the mere pleasure of fighting and is\nequally ready to take up either side of a question, so that it is no\nwonder that he has found it a costly amusement. sometimes he will\nshut up a right of way and defy the parish to make him open it. at\nothers he will with his own hands tear down some other man's gate and\ndeclare that a path has existed there from time immemorial, defying\nthe owner to prosecute him for trespass. he is learned in old\nmanorial and communal rights, and he applies his knowledge sometimes\nin favour of the villagers of fernworthy and sometimes against them,\nso that he is periodically either carried in triumph down the village\nstreet or else burned in effigy, according to his latest exploit. he\nis said to have about seven lawsuits upon his hands at present, which\nwill probably swallow up the remainder of his fortune and so draw his\nsting and leave him harmless for the future. apart from the law he\nseems a kindly, good-natured person, and i only mention him because\nyou were particular that i should send some description of the people\nwho surround us. he is curiously employed at present, for, being an\namateur astronomer, he has an excellent telescope, with which he lies\nupon the roof of his own house and sweeps the moor all day in the\nhope of catching a glimpse of the escaped convict. if he would\nconfine his energies to this all would be well, but there are rumours\nthat he intends to prosecute dr. mortimer for opening a grave without\nthe consent of the next-of-kin, because he dug up the neolithic skull\nin the barrow on long down. he helps to keep our lives from being\nmonotonous and gives a little comic relief where it is badly needed.\nand now, having brought you up to date in the escaped convict, the\nstapletons, dr. mortimer, and frankland, of lafter hall, let me end\non that which is most important and tell you more about the\nbarrymores, and especially about the surprising development of last\nnight.\nfirst of all about the test telegram, which you sent from london in\norder to make sure that barrymore was really here. i have already\nexplained that the testimony of the postmaster shows that the test\nwas worthless and that we have no proof one way or the other. i told\nsir henry how the matter stood, and he at once, in his downright\nfashion, had barrymore up and asked him whether he had received the\ntelegram himself. barrymore said that he had.\n\"did the boy deliver it into your own hands?\" asked sir henry.\nbarrymore looked surprised, and considered for a little time.\n\"no,\" said he, \"i was in the box-room at the time, and my wife\nbrought it up to me.\"\n\"did you answer it yourself?\"\n\"no; i told my wife what to answer and she went down to write it.\"\nin the evening he recurred to the subject of his own accord.\n\"i could not quite understand the object of your questions this\nmorning, sir henry,\" said he. \"i trust that they do not mean that i\nhave done anything to forfeit your confidence?\"\nsir henry had to assure him that it was not so and pacify him by\ngiving him a considerable part of his old wardrobe, the london outfit\nhaving now all arrived.\nmrs. barrymore is of interest to me. she is a heavy, solid person,\nvery limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be puritanical.\nyou could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. yet i have told\nyou how, on the first night here, i heard her sobbing bitterly, and\nsince then i have more than once observed traces of tears upon her\nface. some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. sometimes i wonder if\nshe has a guilty memory which haunts her, and sometimes i suspect\nbarrymore of being a domestic tyrant. i have always felt that there\nwas something singular and questionable in this man's character, but\nthe adventure of last night brings all my suspicions to a head.\nand yet it may seem a small matter in itself. you are aware that i am\nnot a very sound sleeper, and since i have been on guard in this\nhouse my slumbers have been lighter than ever. last night, about two\nin the morning, i was aroused by a stealthy step passing my room. i\nrose, opened my door, and peeped out. a long black shadow was\ntrailing down the corridor. it was thrown by a man who walked softly\ndown the passage with a candle held in his hand. he was in shirt and\ntrousers, with no covering to his feet. i could merely see the\noutline, but his height told me that it was barrymore. he walked very\nslowly and circumspectly, and there was something indescribably\nguilty and furtive in his whole appearance.\ni have told you that the corridor is broken by the balcony which runs\nround the hall, but that it is resumed upon the farther side. i\nwaited until he had passed out of sight and then i followed him. when\ni came round the balcony he had reached the end of the farther\ncorridor, and i could see from the glimmer of light through an open\ndoor that he had entered one of the rooms. now, all these rooms are\nunfurnished and unoccupied, so that his expedition became more\nmysterious than ever. the light shone steadily as if he were standing\nmotionless. i crept down the passage as noiselessly as i could and\npeeped round the corner of the door.\nbarrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held against\nthe glass. his profile was half turned towards me, and his face\nseemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out into the\nblackness of the moor. for some minutes he stood watching intently.\nthen he gave a deep groan and with an impatient gesture he put out\nthe light. instantly i made my way back to my room, and very shortly\ncame the stealthy steps passing once more upon their return journey.\nlong afterwards when i had fallen into a light sleep i heard a key\nturn somewhere in a lock, but i could not tell whence the sound came.\nwhat it all means i cannot guess, but there is some secret business\ngoing on in this house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to\nthe bottom of. i do not trouble you with my theories, for you asked\nme to furnish you only with facts. i have had a long talk with sir\nhenry this morning, and we have made a plan of campaign founded upon\nmy observations of last night. i will not speak about it just now,\nbut it should make my next report interesting reading.\nchapter ix\nsecond report of dr. watson\nthe light upon the moor\nbaskerville hall, oct. 15th.\nmy dear holmes:\nif i was compelled to leave you without much news during the early\ndays of my mission you must acknowledge that i am making up for lost\ntime, and that events are now crowding thick and fast upon us. in my\nlast report i ended upon my top note with barrymore at the window,\nand now i have quite a budget already which will, unless i am much\nmistaken, considerably surprise you. things have taken a turn which i\ncould not have anticipated. in some ways they have within the last\nforty-eight hours become much clearer and in some ways they have\nbecome more complicated. but i will tell you all and you shall judge\nfor yourself.\nbefore breakfast on the morning following my adventure i went down\nthe corridor and examined the room in which barrymore had been on the\nnight before. the western window through which he had stared so\nintently has, i noticed, one peculiarity above all other windows in\nthe house--it commands the nearest outlook on the moor. there is an\nopening between two trees which enables one from this point of view\nto look right down upon it, while from all the other windows it is\nonly a distant glimpse which can be obtained. it follows, therefore,\nthat barrymore, since only this window would serve the purpose, must\nhave been looking out for something or somebody upon the moor. the\nnight was very dark, so that i can hardly imagine how he could have\nhoped to see anyone. it had struck me that it was possible that some\nlove intrigue was on foot. that would have accounted for his stealthy\nmovements and also for the uneasiness of his wife. the man is a\nstriking-looking fellow, very well equipped to steal the heart of a\ncountry girl, so that this theory seemed to have something to support\nit. that opening of the door which i had heard after i had returned\nto my room might mean that he had gone out to keep some clandestine\nappointment. so i reasoned with myself in the morning, and i tell you\nthe direction of my suspicions, however much the result may have\nshown that they were unfounded.\nbut whatever the true explanation of barrymore's movements might be,\ni felt that the responsibility of keeping them to myself until i\ncould explain them was more than i could bear. i had an interview\nwith the baronet in his study after breakfast, and i told him all\nthat i had seen. he was less surprised than i had expected.\n\"i knew that barrymore walked about nights, and i had a mind to speak\nto him about it,\" said he. \"two or three times i have heard his steps\nin the passage, coming and going, just about the hour you name.\"\n\"perhaps then he pays a visit every night to that particular window,\"\ni suggested.\n\"perhaps he does. if so, we should be able to shadow him, and see\nwhat it is that he is after. i wonder what your friend holmes would\ndo, if he were here.\"\n\"i believe that he would do exactly what you now suggest,\" said i.\n\"he would follow barrymore and see what he did.\"\n\"then we shall do it together.\"\n\"but surely he would hear us.\"\n\"the man is rather deaf, and in any case we must take our chance of\nthat. we'll sit up in my room to-night and wait until he passes.\" sir\nhenry rubbed his hands with pleasure, and it was evident that he\nhailed the adventure as a relief to his somewhat quiet life upon the\nmoor.\nthe baronet has been in communication with the architect who prepared\nthe plans for sir charles, and with a contractor from london, so that\nwe may expect great changes to begin here soon. there have been\ndecorators and furnishers up from plymouth, and it is evident that\nour friend has large ideas, and means to spare no pains or expense to\nrestore the grandeur of his family. when the house is renovated and\nrefurnished, all that he will need will be a wife to make it\ncomplete. between ourselves there are pretty clear signs that this\nwill not be wanting if the lady is willing, for i have seldom seen a\nman more infatuated with a woman than he is with our beautiful\nneighbour, miss stapleton. and yet the course of true love does not\nrun quite as smoothly as one would under the circumstances expect.\nto-day, for example, its surface was broken by a very unexpected\nripple, which has caused our friend considerable perplexity and\nannoyance.\nafter the conversation which i have quoted about barrymore, sir henry\nput on his hat and prepared to go out. as a matter of course i did\nthe same.\n\"what, are you coming, watson?\" he asked, looking at me in a curious\nway.\n\"that depends on whether you are going on the moor,\" said i.\n\"yes, i am.\"\n\"well, you know what my instructions are. i am sorry to intrude, but\nyou heard how earnestly holmes insisted that i should not leave you,\nand especially that you should not go alone upon the moor.\"\nsir henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile.\n\"my dear fellow,\" said he, \"holmes, with all his wisdom, did not\nforesee some things which have happened since i have been on the\nmoor. you understand me? i am sure that you are the last man in the\nworld who would wish to be a spoil-sport. i must go out alone.\"\nit put me in a most awkward position. i was at a loss what to say or\nwhat to do, and before i had made up my mind he picked up his cane\nand was gone.\nbut when i came to think the matter over my conscience reproached me\nbitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my sight.\ni imagined what my feelings would be if i had to return to you and to\nconfess that some misfortune had occurred through my disregard for\nyour instructions. i assure you my cheeks flushed at the very\nthought. it might not even now be too late to overtake him, so i set\noff at once in the direction of merripit house.\ni hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing\nanything of sir henry, until i came to the point where the moor path\nbranches off. there, fearing that perhaps i had come in the wrong\ndirection after all, i mounted a hill from which i could command a\nview--the same hill which is cut into the dark quarry. thence i saw\nhim at once. he was on the moor path, about a quarter of a mile off,\nand a lady was by his side who could only be miss stapleton. it was\nclear that there was already an understanding between them and that\nthey had met by appointment. they were walking slowly along in deep\nconversation, and i saw her making quick little movements of her\nhands as if she were very earnest in what she was saying, while he\nlistened intently, and once or twice shook his head in strong\ndissent. i stood among the rocks watching them, very much puzzled as\nto what i should do next. to follow them and break into their\nintimate conversation seemed to be an outrage, and yet my clear duty\nwas never for an instant to let him out of my sight. to act the spy\nupon a friend was a hateful task. still, i could see no better course\nthan to observe him from the hill, and to clear my conscience by\nconfessing to him afterwards what i had done. it is true that if any\nsudden danger had threatened him i was too far away to be of use, and\nyet i am sure that you will agree with me that the position was very\ndifficult, and that there was nothing more which i could do.\nour friend, sir henry, and the lady had halted on the path and were\nstanding deeply absorbed in their conversation, when i was suddenly\naware that i was not the only witness of their interview. a wisp of\ngreen floating in the air caught my eye, and another glance showed me\nthat it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the\nbroken ground. it was stapleton with his butterfly-net. he was very\nmuch closer to the pair than i was, and he appeared to be moving in\ntheir direction. at this instant sir henry suddenly drew miss\nstapleton to his side. his arm was round her, but it seemed to me\nthat she was straining away from him with her face averted. he\nstooped his head to hers, and she raised one hand as if in protest.\nnext moment i saw them spring apart and turn hurriedly round.\nstapleton was the cause of the interruption. he was running wildly\ntowards them, his absurd net dangling behind him. he gesticulated and\nalmost danced with excitement in front of the lovers. what the scene\nmeant i could not imagine, but it seemed to me that stapleton was\nabusing sir henry, who offered explanations, which became more angry\nas the other refused to accept them. the lady stood by in haughty\nsilence. finally stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in a\nperemptory way to his sister, who, after an irresolute glance at sir\nhenry, walked off by the side of her brother. the naturalist's angry\ngestures showed that the lady was included in his displeasure. the\nbaronet stood for a minute looking after them, and then he walked\nslowly back the way that he had come, his head hanging, the very\npicture of dejection.\nwhat all this meant i could not imagine, but i was deeply ashamed to\nhave witnessed so intimate a scene without my friend's knowledge. i\nran down the hill therefore and met the baronet at the bottom. his\nface was flushed with anger and his brows were wrinkled, like one who\nis at his wit's ends what to do.\n\"halloa, watson! where have you dropped from?\" said he. \"you don't\nmean to say that you came after me in spite of all?\"\ni explained everything to him: how i had found it impossible to\nremain behind, how i had followed him, and how i had witnessed all\nthat had occurred. for an instant his eyes blazed at me, but my\nfrankness disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a rather\nrueful laugh.\n\"you would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe\nplace for a man to be private,\" said he, \"but, by thunder, the whole\ncountry-side seems to have been out to see me do my wooing--and a\nmighty poor wooing at that! where had you engaged a seat?\"\n\"i was on that hill.\"\n\"quite in the back row, eh? but her brother was well up to the front.\ndid you see him come out on us?\"\n\"yes, i did.\"\n\"did he ever strike you as being crazy--this brother of hers?\"\n\"i can't say that he ever did.\"\n\"i dare say not. i always thought him sane enough until to-day, but\nyou can take it from me that either he or i ought to be in a\nstrait-jacket. what's the matter with me, anyhow? you've lived near\nme for some weeks, watson. tell me straight, now! is there anything\nthat would prevent me from making a good husband to a woman that i\nloved?\"\n\"i should say not.\"\n\"he can't object to my worldly position, so it must be myself that he\nhas this down on. what has he against me? i never hurt man or woman\nin my life that i know of. and yet he would not so much as let me\ntouch the tips of her fingers.\"\n\"did he say so?\"\n\"that, and a deal more. i tell you, watson, i've only known her these\nfew weeks, but from the first i just felt that she was made for me,\nand she, too--she was happy when she was with me, and that i'll\nswear. there's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than\nwords. but he has never let us get together, and it was only to-day\nfor the first time that i saw a chance of having a few words with her\nalone. she was glad to meet me, but when she did it was not love that\nshe would talk about, and she wouldn't have let me talk about it\neither if she could have stopped it. she kept coming back to it that\nthis was a place of danger, and that she would never be happy until i\nhad left it. i told her that since i had seen her i was in no hurry\nto leave it, and that if she really wanted me to go, the only way to\nwork it was for her to arrange to go with me. with that i offered in\nas many words to marry her, but before she could answer, down came\nthis brother of hers, running at us with a face on him like a madman.\nhe was just white with rage, and those light eyes of his were blazing\nwith fury. what was i doing with the lady? how dared i offer her\nattentions which were distasteful to her? did i think that because i\nwas a baronet i could do what i liked? if he had not been her brother\ni should have known better how to answer him. as it was i told him\nthat my feelings towards his sister were such as i was not ashamed\nof, and that i hoped that she might honour me by becoming my wife.\nthat seemed to make the matter no better, so then i lost my temper\ntoo, and i answered him rather more hotly than i should perhaps,\nconsidering that she was standing by. so it ended by his going off\nwith her, as you saw, and here am i as badly puzzled a man as any in\nthis county. just tell me what it all means, watson, and i'll owe you\nmore than ever i can hope to pay.\"\ni tried one or two explanations, but, indeed, i was completely\npuzzled myself. our friend's title, his fortune, his age, his\ncharacter, and his appearance are all in his favour, and i know\nnothing against him unless it be this dark fate which runs in his\nfamily. that his advances should be rejected so brusquely without any\nreference to the lady's own wishes, and that the lady should accept\nthe situation without protest, is very amazing. however, our\nconjectures were set at rest by a visit from stapleton himself that\nvery afternoon. he had come to offer apologies for his rudeness of\nthe morning, and after a long private interview with sir henry in his\nstudy, the upshot of their conversation was that the breach is quite\nhealed, and that we are to dine at merripit house next friday as a\nsign of it.\n\"i don't say now that he isn't a crazy man,\" said sir henry; \"i can't\nforget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning, but i\nmust allow that no man could make a more handsome apology than he has\ndone.\"\n\"did he give any explanation of his conduct?\"\n\"his sister is everything in his life, he says. that is natural\nenough, and i am glad that he should understand her value. they have\nalways been together, and according to his account he has been a very\nlonely man with only her as a companion, so that the thought of\nlosing her was really terrible to him. he had not understood, he\nsaid, that i was becoming attached to her, but when he saw with his\nown eyes that it was really so, and that she might be taken away from\nhim, it gave him such a shock that for a time he was not responsible\nfor what he said or did. he was very sorry for all that had passed,\nand he recognized how foolish and how selfish it was that he should\nimagine that he could hold a beautiful woman like his sister to\nhimself for her whole life. if she had to leave him he had rather it\nwas to a neighbour like myself than to anyone else. but in any case\nit was a blow to him, and it would take him some time before he could\nprepare himself to meet it. he would withdraw all opposition upon his\npart if i would promise for three months to let the matter rest and\nto be content with cultivating the lady's friendship during that time\nwithout claiming her love. this i promised, and so the matter rests.\"\nso there is one of our small mysteries cleared up. it is something to\nhave touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we are floundering.\nwe know now why stapleton looked with disfavour upon his sister's\nsuitor--even when that suitor was so eligible a one as sir henry. and\nnow i pass on to another thread which i have extricated out of the\ntangled skein, the mystery of the sobs in the night, of the\ntear-stained face of mrs. barrymore, of the secret journey of the\nbutler to the western lattice window. congratulate me, my dear\nholmes, and tell me that i have not disappointed you as an\nagent--that you do not regret the confidence which you showed in me\nwhen you sent me down. all these things have by one night's work been\nthoroughly cleared.\ni have said \"by one night's work,\" but, in truth, it was by two\nnights' work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. i sat up with\nsir henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock in the morning, but\nno sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the\nstairs. it was a most melancholy vigil, and ended by each of us\nfalling asleep in our chairs. fortunately we were not discouraged,\nand we determined to try again. the next night we lowered the lamp,\nand sat smoking cigarettes without making the least sound. it was\nincredible how slowly the hours crawled by, and yet we were helped\nthrough it by the same sort of patient interest which the hunter must\nfeel as he watches the trap into which he hopes the game may wander.\none struck, and two, and we had almost for the second time given it\nup in despair, when in an instant we both sat bolt upright in our\nchairs, with all our weary senses keenly on the alert once more. we\nhad heard the creak of a step in the passage.\nvery stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the\ndistance. then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out in\npursuit. already our man had gone round the gallery, and the corridor\nwas all in darkness. softly we stole along until we had come into the\nother wing. we were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall,\nblack-bearded figure, his shoulders rounded, as he tip-toed down the\npassage. then he passed through the same door as before, and the\nlight of the candle framed it in the darkness and shot one single\nyellow beam across the gloom of the corridor. we shuffled cautiously\ntowards it, trying every plank before we dared to put our whole\nweight upon it. we had taken the precaution of leaving our boots\nbehind us, but, even so, the old boards snapped and creaked beneath\nour tread. sometimes it seemed impossible that he should fail to hear\nour approach. however, the man is fortunately rather deaf, and he was\nentirely preoccupied in that which he was doing. when at last we\nreached the door and peeped through we found him crouching at the\nwindow, candle in hand, his white, intent face pressed against the\npane, exactly as i had seen him two nights before.\nwe had arranged no plan of campaign, but the baronet is a man to whom\nthe most direct way is always the most natural. he walked into the\nroom, and as he did so barrymore sprang up from the window with a\nsharp hiss of his breath and stood, livid and trembling, before us.\nhis dark eyes, glaring out of the white mask of his face, were full\nof horror and astonishment as he gazed from sir henry to me.\n\"what are you doing here, barrymore?\"\n\"nothing, sir.\" his agitation was so great that he could hardly\nspeak, and the shadows sprang up and down from the shaking of his\ncandle. \"it was the window, sir. i go round at night to see that they\nare fastened.\"\n\"on the second floor?\"\n\"yes, sir, all the windows.\"\n\"look here, barrymore,\" said sir henry, sternly; \"we have made up our\nminds to have the truth out of you, so it will save you trouble to\ntell it sooner rather than later. come, now! no lies! what were you\ndoing at that window?\"\nthe fellow looked at us in a helpless way, and he wrung his hands\ntogether like one who is in the last extremity of doubt and misery.\n\"i was doing no harm, sir. i was holding a candle to the window.\"\n\"and why were you holding a candle to the window?\"\n\"don't ask me, sir henry--don't ask me! i give you my word, sir, that\nit is not my secret, and that i cannot tell it. if it concerned no\none but myself i would not try to keep it from you.\"\na sudden idea occurred to me, and i took the candle from the\ntrembling hand of the butler.\n\"he must have been holding it as a signal,\" said i. \"let us see if\nthere is any answer.\" i held it as he had done, and stared out into\nthe darkness of the night. vaguely i could discern the black bank of\nthe trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for the moon was\nbehind the clouds. and then i gave a cry of exultation, for a tiny\npin-point of yellow light had suddenly transfixed the dark veil, and\nglowed steadily in the centre of the black square framed by the\nwindow.\n\"there it is!\" i cried.\n\"no, no, sir, it is nothing--nothing at all!\" the butler broke in; \"i\nassure you, sir--\"\n\"move your light across the window, watson!\" cried the baronet. \"see,\nthe other moves also! now, you rascal, do you deny that it is a\nsignal? come, speak up! who is your confederate out yonder, and what\nis this conspiracy that is going on?\"\nthe man's face became openly defiant.\n\"it is my business, and not yours. i will not tell.\"\n\"then you leave my employment right away.\"\n\"very good, sir. if i must i must.\"\n\"and you go in disgrace. by thunder, you may well be ashamed of\nyourself. your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years\nunder this roof, and here i find you deep in some dark plot against\nme.\"\n\"no, no, sir; no, not against you!\" it was a woman's voice, and mrs.\nbarrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband, was\nstanding at the door. her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might\nhave been comic were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her\nface.\n\"we have to go, eliza. this is the end of it. you can pack our\nthings,\" said the butler.\n\"oh, john, john, have i brought you to this? it is my doing, sir\nhenry--all mine. he has done nothing except for my sake and because i\nasked him.\"\n\"speak out, then! what does it mean?\"\n\"my unhappy brother is starving on the moor. we cannot let him perish\nat our very gates. the light is a signal to him that food is ready\nfor him, and his light out yonder is to show the spot to which to\nbring it.\"\n\"then your brother is--\"\n\"the escaped convict, sir--selden, the criminal.\"\n\"that's the truth, sir,\" said barrymore. \"i said that it was not my\nsecret and that i could not tell it to you. but now you have heard\nit, and you will see that if there was a plot it was not against\nyou.\"\nthis, then, was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at night\nand the light at the window. sir henry and i both stared at the woman\nin amazement. was it possible that this stolidly respectable person\nwas of the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the\ncountry?\n\"yes, sir, my name was selden, and he is my younger brother. we\nhumoured him too much when he was a lad, and gave him his own way in\neverything until he came to think that the world was made for his\npleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it. then as he grew\nolder he met wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until\nhe broke my mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt. from\ncrime to crime he sank lower and lower, until it is only the mercy of\ngod which has snatched him from the scaffold; but to me, sir, he was\nalways the little curly-headed boy that i had nursed and played with,\nas an elder sister would. that was why he broke prison, sir. he knew\nthat i was here and that we could not refuse to help him. when he\ndragged himself here one night, weary and starving, with the warders\nhard at his heels, what could we do? we took him in and fed him and\ncared for him. then you returned, sir, and my brother thought he\nwould be safer on the moor than anywhere else until the hue and cry\nwas over, so he lay in hiding there. but every second night we made\nsure if he was still there by putting a light in the window, and if\nthere was an answer my husband took out some bread and meat to him.\nevery day we hoped that he was gone, but as long as he was there we\ncould not desert him. that is the whole truth, as i am an honest\nchristian woman, and you will see that if there is blame in the\nmatter it does not lie with my husband, but with me, for whose sake\nhe has done all that he has.\"\nthe woman's words came with an intense earnestness which carried\nconviction with them.\n\"is this true, barrymore?\"\n\"yes, sir henry. every word of it.\"\n\"well, i cannot blame you for standing by your own wife. forget what\ni have said. go to your room, you two, and we shall talk further\nabout this matter in the morning.\"\nwhen they were gone we looked out of the window again. sir henry had\nflung it open, and the cold night wind beat in upon our faces. far\naway in the black distance there still glowed that one tiny point of\nyellow light.\n\"i wonder he dares,\" said sir henry.\n\"it may be so placed as to be only visible from here.\"\n\"very likely. how far do you think it is?\"\n\"out by the cleft tor, i think.\"\n\"not more than a mile or two off.\"\n\"hardly that.\"\n\"well, it cannot be far if barrymore had to carry out the food to it.\nand he is waiting, this villain, beside that candle. by thunder,\nwatson, i am going out to take that man!\"\nthe same thought had crossed my own mind. it was not as if the\nbarrymores had taken us into their confidence. their secret had been\nforced from them. the man was a danger to the community, an\nunmitigated scoundrel for whom there was neither pity nor excuse. we\nwere only doing our duty in taking this chance of putting him back\nwhere he could do no harm. with his brutal and violent nature, others\nwould have to pay the price if we held our hands. any night, for\nexample, our neighbours the stapletons might be attacked by him, and\nit may have been the thought of this which made sir henry so keen\nupon the adventure.\n\"i will come,\" said i.\n\"then get your revolver and put on your boots. the sooner we start\nthe better, as the fellow may put out his light and be off.\"\nin five minutes we were outside the door, starting upon our\nexpedition. we hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull\nmoaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. the\nnight air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. now and again\nthe moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the\nface of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain\nbegan to fall. the light still burned steadily in front.\n\"are you armed?\" i asked.\n\"i have a hunting-crop.\"\n\"we must close in on him rapidly, for he is said to be a desperate\nfellow. we shall take him by surprise and have him at our mercy\nbefore he can resist.\"\n\"i say, watson,\" said the baronet, \"what would holmes say to this?\nhow about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is\nexalted?\"\nas if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast\ngloom of the moor that strange cry which i had already heard upon the\nborders of the great grimpen mire. it came with the wind through the\nsilence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and\nthen the sad moan in which it died away. again and again it sounded,\nthe whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing. the\nbaronet caught my sleeve and his face glimmered white through the\ndarkness.\n\"my god, what's that, watson?\"\n\"i don't know. it's a sound they have on the moor. i heard it once\nbefore.\"\nit died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. we stood\nstraining our ears, but nothing came.\n\"watson,\" said the baronet, \"it was the cry of a hound.\"\nmy blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice\nwhich told of the sudden horror which had seized him.\n\"what do they call this sound?\" he asked.\n\"who?\"\n\"the folk on the country-side.\"\n\"oh, they are ignorant people. why should you mind what they call\nit?\"\n\"tell me, watson. what do they say of it?\"\ni hesitated but could not escape the question.\n\"they say it is the cry of the hound of the baskervilles.\"\nhe groaned and was silent for a few moments.\n\"a hound it was,\" he said, at last, \"but it seemed to come from miles\naway, over yonder, i think.\"\n\"it was hard to say whence it came.\"\n\"it rose and fell with the wind. isn't that the direction of the\ngreat grimpen mire?\"\n\"yes, it is.\"\n\"well, it was up there. come now, watson, didn't you think yourself\nthat it was the cry of a hound? i am not a child. you need not fear\nto speak the truth.\"\n\"stapleton was with me when i heard it last. he said that it might be\nthe calling of a strange bird.\"\n\"no, no, it was a hound. my god, can there be some truth in all these\nstories? is it possible that i am really in danger from so dark a\ncause? you don't believe it, do you, watson?\"\n\"no, no.\"\n\"and yet it was one thing to laugh about it in london, and it is\nanother to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear\nsuch a cry as that. and my uncle! there was the footprint of the\nhound beside him as he lay. it all fits together. i don't think that\ni am a coward, watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood.\nfeel my hand!\"\nit was as cold as a block of marble.\n\"you'll be all right to-morrow.\"\n\"i don't think i'll get that cry out of my head. what do you advise\nthat we do now?\"\n\"shall we turn back?\"\n\"no, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do it.\nwe after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as not, after us.\ncome on! we'll see it through if all the fiends of the pit were loose\nupon the moor.\"\nwe stumbled slowly along in the darkness, with the black loom of the\ncraggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of light burning\nsteadily in front. there is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a\nlight upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be\nfar away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a\nfew yards of us. but at last we could see whence it came, and then we\nknew that we were indeed very close. a guttering candle was stuck in\na crevice of the rocks which flanked it on each side so as to keep\nthe wind from it and also to prevent it from being visible, save in\nthe direction of baskerville hall. a boulder of granite concealed our\napproach, and crouching behind it we gazed over it at the signal\nlight. it was strange to see this single candle burning there in the\nmiddle of the moor, with no sign of life near it--just the one\nstraight yellow flame and the gleam of the rock on each side of it.\n\"what shall we do now?\" whispered sir henry.\n\"wait here. he must be near his light. let us see if we can get a\nglimpse of him.\"\nthe words were hardly out of my mouth when we both saw him. over the\nrocks, in the crevice of which the candle burned, there was thrust\nout an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed and\nscored with vile passions. foul with mire, with a bristling beard,\nand hung with matted hair, it might well have belonged to one of\nthose old savages who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides. the\nlight beneath him was reflected in his small, cunning eyes which\npeered fiercely to right and left through the darkness, like a crafty\nand savage animal who has heard the steps of the hunters.\nsomething had evidently aroused his suspicions. it may have been that\nbarrymore had some private signal which we had neglected to give, or\nthe fellow may have had some other reason for thinking that all was\nnot well, but i could read his fears upon his wicked face. any\ninstant he might dash out the light and vanish in the darkness. i\nsprang forward therefore, and sir henry did the same. at the same\nmoment the convict screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which\nsplintered up against the boulder which had sheltered us. i caught\none glimpse of his short, squat, strongly-built figure as he sprang\nto his feet and turned to run. at the same moment by a lucky chance\nthe moon broke through the clouds. we rushed over the brow of the\nhill, and there was our man running with great speed down the other\nside, springing over the stones in his way with the activity of a\nmountain goat. a lucky long shot of my revolver might have crippled\nhim, but i had brought it only to defend myself if attacked, and not\nto shoot an unarmed man who was running away.\nwe were both swift runners and in fairly good training, but we soon\nfound that we had no chance of overtaking him. we saw him for a long\ntime in the moonlight until he was only a small speck moving swiftly\namong the boulders upon the side of a distant hill. we ran and ran\nuntil we were completely blown, but the space between us grew ever\nwider. finally we stopped and sat panting on two rocks, while we\nwatched him disappearing in the distance.\nand it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and\nunexpected thing. we had risen from our rocks and were turning to go\nhome, having abandoned the hopeless chase. the moon was low upon the\nright, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the\nlower curve of its silver disc. there, outlined as black as an ebony\nstatue on that shining back-ground, i saw the figure of a man upon\nthe tor. do not think that it was a delusion, holmes. i assure you\nthat i have never in my life seen anything more clearly. as far as i\ncould judge, the figure was that of a tall, thin man. he stood with\nhis legs a little separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if\nhe were brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite\nwhich lay before him. he might have been the very spirit of that\nterrible place. it was not the convict. this man was far from the\nplace where the latter had disappeared. besides, he was a much taller\nman. with a cry of surprise i pointed him out to the baronet, but in\nthe instant during which i had turned to grasp his arm the man was\ngone. there was the sharp pinnacle of granite still cutting the lower\nedge of the moon, but its peak bore no trace of that silent and\nmotionless figure.\ni wished to go in that direction and to search the tor, but it was\nsome distance away. the baronet's nerves were still quivering from\nthat cry, which recalled the dark story of his family, and he was not\nin the mood for fresh adventures. he had not seen this lonely man\nupon the tor and could not feel the thrill which his strange presence\nand his commanding attitude had given to me. \"a warder, no doubt,\"\nsaid he. \"the moor has been thick with them since this fellow\nescaped.\" well, perhaps his explanation may be the right one, but i\nshould like to have some further proof of it. to-day we mean to\ncommunicate to the princetown people where they should look for their\nmissing man, but it is hard lines that we have not actually had the\ntriumph of bringing him back as our own prisoner. such are the\nadventures of last night, and you must acknowledge, my dear holmes,\nthat i have done you very well in the matter of a report. much of\nwhat i tell you is no doubt quite irrelevant, but still i feel that\nit is best that i should let you have all the facts and leave you to\nselect for yourself those which will be of most service to you in\nhelping you to your conclusions. we are certainly making some\nprogress. so far as the barrymores go we have found the motive of\ntheir actions, and that has cleared up the situation very much. but\nthe moor with its mysteries and its strange inhabitants remains as\ninscrutable as ever. perhaps in my next i may be able to throw some\nlight upon this also. best of all would it be if you could come down\nto us. in any case you will hear from me again in the course of the\nnext few days.\nchapter x\nextract from the diary of dr. watson\nso far i have been able to quote from the reports which i have\nforwarded during these early days to sherlock holmes. now, however, i\nhave arrived at a point in my narrative where i am compelled to\nabandon this method and to trust once more to my recollections, aided\nby the diary which i kept at the time. a few extracts from the latter\nwill carry me on to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every\ndetail upon my memory. i proceed, then, from the morning which\nfollowed our abortive chase of the convict and our other strange\nexperiences upon the moor.\noctober 16th.--a dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. the house\nis banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the\ndreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of\nthe hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes\nupon their wet faces. it is melancholy outside and in. the baronet is\nin a black reaction after the excitements of the night. i am\nconscious myself of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending\ndanger--ever present danger, which is the more terrible because i am\nunable to define it.\nand have i not cause for such a feeling? consider the long sequence\nof incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which\nis at work around us. there is the death of the last occupant of the\nhall, fulfilling so exactly the conditions of the family legend, and\nthere are the repeated reports from peasants of the appearance of a\nstrange creature upon the moor. twice i have with my own ears heard\nthe sound which resembled the distant baying of a hound. it is\nincredible, impossible, that it should really be outside the ordinary\nlaws of nature. a spectral hound which leaves material footmarks and\nfills the air with its howling is surely not to be thought of.\nstapleton may fall in with such a superstition, and mortimer also;\nbut if i have one quality upon earth it is common-sense, and nothing\nwill persuade me to believe in such a thing. to do so would be to\ndescend to the level of these poor peasants, who are not content with\na mere fiend dog but must needs describe him with hell-fire shooting\nfrom his mouth and eyes. holmes would not listen to such fancies, and\ni am his agent. but facts are facts, and i have twice heard this\ncrying upon the moor. suppose that there were really some huge hound\nloose upon it; that would go far to explain everything. but where\ncould such a hound lie concealed, where did it get its food, where\ndid it come from, how was it that no one saw it by day? it must be\nconfessed that the natural explanation offers almost as many\ndifficulties as the other. and always, apart from the hound, there is\nthe fact of the human agency in london, the man in the cab, and the\nletter which warned sir henry against the moor. this at least was\nreal, but it might have been the work of a protecting friend as\neasily as of an enemy. where is that friend or enemy now? has he\nremained in london, or has he followed us down here? could he--could\nhe be the stranger whom i saw upon the tor?\nit is true that i have had only the one glance at him, and yet there\nare some things to which i am ready to swear. he is no one whom i\nhave seen down here, and i have now met all the neighbours. the\nfigure was far taller than that of stapleton, far thinner than that\nof frankland. barrymore it might possibly have been, but we had left\nhim behind us, and i am certain that he could not have followed us. a\nstranger then is still dogging us, just as a stranger dogged us in\nlondon. we have never shaken him off. if i could lay my hands upon\nthat man, then at last we might find ourselves at the end of all our\ndifficulties. to this one purpose i must now devote all my energies.\nmy first impulse was to tell sir henry all my plans. my second and\nwisest one is to play my own game and speak as little as possible to\nanyone. he is silent and distrait. his nerves have been strangely\nshaken by that sound upon the moor. i will say nothing to add to his\nanxieties, but i will take my own steps to attain my own end.\nwe had a small scene this morning after breakfast. barrymore asked\nleave to speak with sir henry, and they were closeted in his study\nsome little time. sitting in the billiard-room i more than once heard\nthe sound of voices raised, and i had a pretty good idea what the\npoint was which was under discussion. after a time the baronet opened\nhis door and called for me.\n\"barrymore considers that he has a grievance,\" he said. \"he thinks\nthat it was unfair on our part to hunt his brother-in-law down when\nhe, of his own free will, had told us the secret.\"\nthe butler was standing very pale but very collected before us.\n\"i may have spoken too warmly, sir,\" said he, \"and if i have, i am\nsure that i beg your pardon. at the same time, i was very much\nsurprised when i heard you two gentlemen come back this morning and\nlearned that you had been chasing selden. the poor fellow has enough\nto fight against without my putting more upon his track.\"\n\"if you had told us of your own free will it would have been a\ndifferent thing,\" said the baronet, \"you only told us, or rather your\nwife only told us, when it was forced from you and you could not help\nyourself.\"\n\"i didn't think you would have taken advantage of it, sir\nhenry--indeed i didn't.\"\n\"the man is a public danger. there are lonely houses scattered over\nthe moor, and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing. you only\nwant to get a glimpse of his face to see that. look at mr.\nstapleton's house, for example, with no one but himself to defend it.\nthere's no safety for anyone until he is under lock and key.\"\n\"he'll break into no house, sir. i give you my solemn word upon that.\nbut he will never trouble anyone in this country again. i assure you,\nsir henry, that in a very few days the necessary arrangements will\nhave been made and he will be on his way to south america. for god's\nsake, sir, i beg of you not to let the police know that he is still\non the moor. they have given up the chase there, and he can lie quiet\nuntil the ship is ready for him. you can't tell on him without\ngetting my wife and me into trouble. i beg you, sir, to say nothing\nto the police.\"\n\"what do you say, watson?\"\ni shrugged my shoulders. \"if he were safely out of the country it\nwould relieve the tax-payer of a burden.\"\n\"but how about the chance of his holding someone up before he goes?\"\n\"he would not do anything so mad, sir. we have provided him with all\nthat he can want. to commit a crime would be to show where he was\nhiding.\"\n\"that is true,\" said sir henry. \"well, barrymore--\"\n\"god bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! it would have\nkilled my poor wife had he been taken again.\"\n\"i guess we are aiding and abetting a felony, watson? but, after what\nwe have heard i don't feel as if i could give the man up, so there is\nan end of it. all right, barrymore, you can go.\"\nwith a few broken words of gratitude the man turned, but he hesitated\nand then came back.\n\"you've been so kind to us, sir, that i should like to do the best i\ncan for you in return. i know something, sir henry, and perhaps i\nshould have said it before, but it was long after the inquest that i\nfound it out. i've never breathed a word about it yet to mortal man.\nit's about poor sir charles's death.\"\nthe baronet and i were both upon our feet. \"do you know how he died?\"\n\"no, sir, i don't know that.\"\n\"what then?\"\n\"i know why he was at the gate at that hour. it was to meet a woman.\"\n\"to meet a woman! he?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and the woman's name?\"\n\"i can't give you the name, sir, but i can give you the initials. her\ninitials were l. l.\"\n\"how do you know this, barrymore?\"\n\"well, sir henry, your uncle had a letter that morning. he had\nusually a great many letters, for he was a public man and well known\nfor his kind heart, so that everyone who was in trouble was glad to\nturn to him. but that morning, as it chanced, there was only this one\nletter, so i took the more notice of it. it was from coombe tracey,\nand it was addressed in a woman's hand.\"\n\"well?\"\n\"well, sir, i thought no more of the matter, and never would have\ndone had it not been for my wife. only a few weeks ago she was\ncleaning out sir charles's study--it had never been touched since his\ndeath--and she found the ashes of a burned letter in the back of the\ngrate. the greater part of it was charred to pieces, but one little\nslip, the end of a page, hung together, and the writing could still\nbe read, though it was gray on a black ground. it seemed to us to be\na postscript at the end of the letter, and it said: 'please, please,\nas you are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten\no'clock'. beneath it were signed the initials l. l.\"\n\"have you got that slip?\"\n\"no, sir, it crumbled all to bits after we moved it.\"\n\"had sir charles received any other letters in the same writing?\"\n\"well, sir, i took no particular notice of his letters. i should not\nhave noticed this one, only it happened to come alone.\"\n\"and you have no idea who l. l. is?\"\n\"no, sir. no more than you have. but i expect if we could lay our\nhands upon that lady we should know more about sir charles's death.\"\n\"i cannot understand, barrymore, how you came to conceal this\nimportant information.\"\n\"well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to us.\nand then again, sir, we were both of us very fond of sir charles, as\nwe well might be considering all that he has done for us. to rake\nthis up couldn't help our poor master, and it's well to go carefully\nwhen there's a lady in the case. even the best of us--\"\n\"you thought it might injure his reputation?\"\n\"well, sir, i thought no good could come of it. but now you have been\nkind to us, and i feel as if it would be treating you unfairly not to\ntell you all that i know about the matter.\"\n\"very good, barrymore; you can go.\" when the butler had left us sir\nhenry turned to me. \"well, watson, what do you think of this new\nlight?\"\n\"it seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.\"\n\"so i think. but if we can only trace l. l. it should clear up the\nwhole business. we have gained that much. we know that there is\nsomeone who has the facts if we can only find her. what do you think\nwe should do?\"\n\"let holmes know all about it at once. it will give him the clue for\nwhich he has been seeking. i am much mistaken if it does not bring\nhim down.\"\ni went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning's\nconversation for holmes. it was evident to me that he had been very\nbusy of late, for the notes which i had from baker street were few\nand short, with no comments upon the information which i had supplied\nand hardly any reference to my mission. no doubt his blackmailing\ncase is absorbing all his faculties. and yet this new factor must\nsurely arrest his attention and renew his interest. i wish that he\nwere here.\noctober 17th.--all day to-day the rain poured down, rustling on the\nivy and dripping from the eaves. i thought of the convict out upon\nthe bleak, cold, shelterless moor. poor devil! whatever his crimes,\nhe has suffered something to atone for them. and then i thought of\nthat other one--the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. was\nhe also out in that deluged--the unseen watcher, the man of darkness?\nin the evening i put on my waterproof and i walked far upon the\nsodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face\nand the wind whistling about my ears. god help those who wander into\nthe great mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a morass.\ni found the black tor upon which i had seen the solitary watcher, and\nfrom its craggy summit i looked out myself across the melancholy\ndowns. rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy,\nslate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray\nwreaths down the sides of the fantastic hills. in the distant hollow\non the left, half hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of\nbaskerville hall rose above the trees. they were the only signs of\nhuman life which i could see, save only those prehistoric huts which\nlay thickly upon the slopes of the hills. nowhere was there any trace\nof that lonely man whom i had seen on the same spot two nights\nbefore.\nas i walked back i was overtaken by dr. mortimer driving in his\ndog-cart over a rough moorland track which led from the outlying\nfarmhouse of foulmire. he has been very attentive to us, and hardly a\nday has passed that he has not called at the hall to see how we were\ngetting on. he insisted upon my climbing into his dog-cart, and he\ngave me a lift homeward. i found him much troubled over the\ndisappearance of his little spaniel. it had wandered on to the moor\nand had never come back. i gave him such consolation as i might, but\ni thought of the pony on the grimpen mire, and i do not fancy that he\nwill see his little dog again.\n\"by the way, mortimer,\" said i as we jolted along the rough road, \"i\nsuppose there are few people living within driving distance of this\nwhom you do not know?\"\n\"hardly any, i think.\"\n\"can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are l.\nl.?\"\nhe thought for a few minutes.\n\"no,\" said he. \"there are a few gipsies and labouring folk for whom i\ncan't answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no one whose\ninitials are those. wait a bit though,\" he added after a pause.\n\"there is laura lyons--her initials are l. l.--but she lives in\ncoombe tracey.\"\n\"who is she?\" i asked.\n\"she is frankland's daughter.\"\n\"what! old frankland the crank?\"\n\"exactly. she married an artist named lyons, who came sketching on\nthe moor. he proved to be a blackguard and deserted her. the fault\nfrom what i hear may not have been entirely on one side. her father\nrefused to have anything to do with her because she had married\nwithout his consent, and perhaps for one or two other reasons as\nwell. so, between the old sinner and the young one the girl has had a\npretty bad time.\"\n\"how does she live?\"\n\"i fancy old frankland allows her a pittance, but it cannot be more,\nfor his own affairs are considerably involved. whatever she may have\ndeserved one could not allow her to go hopelessly to the bad. her\nstory got about, and several of the people here did something to\nenable her to earn an honest living. stapleton did for one, and sir\ncharles for another. i gave a trifle myself. it was to set her up in\na typewriting business.\"\nhe wanted to know the object of my inquiries, but i managed to\nsatisfy his curiosity without telling him too much, for there is no\nreason why we should take anyone into our confidence. to-morrow\nmorning i shall find my way to coombe tracey, and if i can see this\nmrs. laura lyons, of equivocal reputation, a long step will have been\nmade towards clearing one incident in this chain of mysteries. i am\ncertainly developing the wisdom of the serpent, for when mortimer\npressed his questions to an inconvenient extent i asked him casually\nto what type frankland's skull belonged, and so heard nothing but\ncraniology for the rest of our drive. i have not lived for years with\nsherlock holmes for nothing.\ni have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous and\nmelancholy day. this was my conversation with barrymore just now,\nwhich gives me one more strong card which i can play in due time.\nmortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played cart\nafterwards. the butler brought me my coffee into the library, and i\ntook the chance to ask him a few questions.\n\"well,\" said i, \"has this precious relation of yours departed, or is\nhe still lurking out yonder?\"\n\"i don't know, sir. i hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has\nbrought nothing but trouble here! i've not heard of him since i left\nout food for him last, and that was three days ago.\"\n\"did you see him then?\"\n\"no, sir, but the food was gone when next i went that way.\"\n\"then he was certainly there?\"\n\"so you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it.\"\ni sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at barrymore.\n\"you know that there is another man then?\"\n\"yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor.\"\n\"have you seen him?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"how do you know of him then?\"\n\"selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. he's in hiding, too,\nbut he's not a convict as far as i can make out. i don't like it, dr.\nwatson--i tell you straight, sir, that i don't like it.\" he spoke\nwith a sudden passion of earnestness.\n\"now, listen to me, barrymore! i have no interest in this matter but\nthat of your master. i have come here with no object except to help\nhim. tell me, frankly, what it is that you don't like.\"\nbarrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst, or\nfound it difficult to express his own feelings in words.\n\"it's all these goings-on, sir,\" he cried at last, waving his hand\ntowards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor. \"there's foul\nplay somewhere, and there's black villainy brewing, to that i'll\nswear! very glad i should be, sir, to see sir henry on his way back\nto london again!\"\n\"but what is it that alarms you?\"\n\"look at sir charles's death! that was bad enough, for all that the\ncoroner said. look at the noises on the moor at night. there's not a\nman would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it. look at this\nstranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! what's he\nwaiting for? what does it mean? it means no good to anyone of the\nname of baskerville, and very glad i shall be to be quit of it all on\nthe day that sir henry's new servants are ready to take over the\nhall.\"\n\"but about this stranger,\" said i. \"can you tell me anything about\nhim? what did selden say? did he find out where he hid, or what he\nwas doing?\"\n\"he saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one, and gives nothing\naway. at first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found\nthat he had some lay of his own. a kind of gentleman he was, as far\nas he could see, but what he was doing he could not make out.\"\n\"and where did he say that he lived?\"\n\"among the old houses on the hillside--the stone huts where the old\nfolk used to live.\"\n\"but how about his food?\"\n\"selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings\nhim all he needs. i dare say he goes to coombe tracey for what he\nwants.\"\n\"very good, barrymore. we may talk further of this some other time.\"\nwhen the butler had gone i walked over to the black window, and i\nlooked through a blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the\ntossing outline of the wind-swept trees. it is a wild night indoors,\nand what must it be in a stone hut upon the moor. what passion of\nhatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a\ntime! and what deep and earnest purpose can he have which calls for\nsuch a trial! there, in that hut upon the moor, seems to lie the very\ncentre of that problem which has vexed me so sorely. i swear that\nanother day shall not have passed before i have done all that man can\ndo to reach the heart of the mystery.\nchapter xi\nthe man on the tor\nthe extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has\nbrought my narrative up to the 18th of october, a time when these\nstrange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible\nconclusion. the incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven\nupon my recollection, and i can tell them without reference to the\nnotes made at the time. i start then from the day which succeeded\nthat upon which i had established two facts of great importance, the\none that mrs. laura lyons of coombe tracey had written to sir charles\nbaskerville and made an appointment with him at the very place and\nhour that he met his death, the other that the lurking man upon the\nmoor was to be found among the stone huts upon the hill-side. with\nthese two facts in my possession i felt that either my intelligence\nor my courage must be deficient if i could not throw some further\nlight upon these dark places.\ni had no opportunity to tell the baronet what i had learned about\nmrs. lyons upon the evening before, for dr. mortimer remained with\nhim at cards until it was very late. at breakfast, however, i\ninformed him about my discovery, and asked him whether he would care\nto accompany me to coombe tracey. at first he was very eager to come,\nbut on second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if i went alone\nthe results might be better. the more formal we made the visit the\nless information we might obtain. i left sir henry behind, therefore,\nnot without some prickings of conscience, and drove off upon my new\nquest.\nwhen i reached coombe tracey i told perkins to put up the horses, and\ni made inquiries for the lady whom i had come to interrogate. i had\nno difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well\nappointed. a maid showed me in without ceremony, and as i entered the\nsitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a remington typewriter,\nsprang up with a pleasant smile of welcome. her face fell, however,\nwhen she saw that i was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked\nme the object of my visit.\nthe first impression left by mrs. lyons was one of extreme beauty.\nher eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks,\nthough considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom\nof the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the\nsulphur rose. admiration was, i repeat, the first impression. but the\nsecond was criticism. there was something subtly wrong with the face,\nsome coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some\nlooseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty. but these, of\ncourse, are after-thoughts. at the moment i was simply conscious that\ni was in the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was\nasking me the reasons for my visit. i had not quite understood until\nthat instant how delicate my mission was.\n\"i have the pleasure,\" said i, \"of knowing your father.\" it was a\nclumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it.\n\"there is nothing in common between my father and me,\" she said. \"i\nowe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. if it were not for the\nlate sir charles baskerville and some other kind hearts i might have\nstarved for all that my father cared.\"\n\"it was about the late sir charles baskerville that i have come here\nto see you.\"\nthe freckles started out on the lady's face.\n\"what can i tell you about him?\" she asked, and her fingers played\nnervously over the stops of her typewriter.\n\"you knew him, did you not?\"\n\"i have already said that i owe a great deal to his kindness. if i am\nable to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he\ntook in my unhappy situation.\"\n\"did you correspond with him?\"\nthe lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.\n\"what is the object of these questions?\" she asked sharply.\n\"the object is to avoid a public scandal. it is better that i should\nask them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.\"\nshe was silent and her face was still very pale. at last she looked\nup with something reckless and defiant in her manner.\n\"well, i'll answer,\" she said. \"what are your questions?\"\n\"did you correspond with sir charles?\"\n\"i certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy\nand his generosity.\"\n\"have you the dates of those letters?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"have you ever met him?\"\n\"yes, once or twice, when he came into coombe tracey. he was a very\nretiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.\"\n\"but if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know\nenough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he\nhas done?\"\nshe met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.\n\"there were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to\nhelp me. one was mr. stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of\nsir charles's. he was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that\nsir charles learned about my affairs.\"\ni knew already that sir charles baskerville had made stapleton his\nalmoner upon several occasions, so the lady's statement bore the\nimpress of truth upon it.\n\"did you ever write to sir charles asking him to meet you?\" i\ncontinued.\nmrs. lyons flushed with anger again.\n\"really, sir, this is a very extraordinary question.\"\n\"i am sorry, madam, but i must repeat it.\"\n\"then i answer, certainly not.\"\n\"not on the very day of sir charles's death?\"\nthe flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me.\nher dry lips could not speak the \"no\" which i saw rather than heard.\n\"surely your memory deceives you,\" said i. \"i could even quote a\npassage of your letter. it ran 'please, please, as you are a\ngentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o'clock.'\"\ni thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a\nsupreme effort.\n\"is there no such thing as a gentleman?\" she gasped.\n\"you do sir charles an injustice. he did burn the letter. but\nsometimes a letter may be legible even when burned. you acknowledge\nnow that you wrote it?\"\n\"yes, i did write it,\" she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent\nof words. \"i did write it. why should i deny it? i have no reason to\nbe ashamed of it. i wished him to help me. i believed that if i had\nan interview i could gain his help, so i asked him to meet me.\"\n\"but why at such an hour?\"\n\"because i had only just learned that he was going to london next day\nand might be away for months. there were reasons why i could not get\nthere earlier.\"\n\"but why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?\"\n\"do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor's\nhouse?\"\n\"well, what happened when you did get there?\"\n\"i never went.\"\n\"mrs. lyons!\"\n\"no, i swear it to you on all i hold sacred. i never went. something\nintervened to prevent my going.\"\n\"what was that?\"\n\"that is a private matter. i cannot tell it.\"\n\"you acknowledge then that you made an appointment with sir charles\nat the very hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny\nthat you kept the appointment.\"\n\"that is the truth.\"\nagain and again i cross-questioned her, but i could never get past\nthat point.\n\"mrs. lyons,\" said i, as i rose from this long and inconclusive\ninterview, \"you are taking a very great responsibility and putting\nyourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean\nbreast of all that you know. if i have to call in the aid of the\npolice you will find how seriously you are compromised. if your\nposition is innocent, why did you in the first instance deny having\nwritten to sir charles upon that date?\"\n\"because i feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it\nand that i might find myself involved in a scandal.\"\n\"and why were you so pressing that sir charles should destroy your\nletter?\"\n\"if you have read the letter you will know.\"\n\"i did not say that i had read all the letter.\"\n\"you quoted some of it.\"\n\"i quoted the postscript. the letter had, as i said, been burned and\nit was not all legible. i ask you once again why it was that you were\nso pressing that sir charles should destroy this letter which he\nreceived on the day of his death.\"\n\"the matter is a very private one.\"\n\"the more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.\"\n\"i will tell you, then. if you have heard anything of my unhappy\nhistory you will know that i made a rash marriage and had reason to\nregret it.\"\n\"i have heard so much.\"\n\"my life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom i\nabhor. the law is upon his side, and every day i am faced by the\npossibility that he may force me to live with him. at the time that i\nwrote this letter to sir charles i had learned that there was a\nprospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met.\nit meant everything to me--peace of mind, happiness,\nself-respect--everything. i knew sir charles's generosity, and i\nthought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help\nme.\"\n\"then how is it that you did not go?\"\n\"because i received help in the interval from another source.\"\n\"why then, did you not write to sir charles and explain this?\"\n\"so i should have done had i not seen his death in the paper next\nmorning.\"\nthe woman's story hung coherently together, and all my questions were\nunable to shake it. i could only check it by finding if she had,\nindeed, instituted divorce proceedings against her husband at or\nabout the time of the tragedy.\nit was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to\nbaskerville hall if she really had been, for a trap would be\nnecessary to take her there, and could not have returned to coombe\ntracey until the early hours of the morning. such an excursion could\nnot be kept secret. the probability was, therefore, that she was\ntelling the truth, or, at least, a part of the truth. i came away\nbaffled and disheartened. once again i had reached that dead wall\nwhich seemed to be built across every path by which i tried to get at\nthe object of my mission. and yet the more i thought of the lady's\nface and of her manner the more i felt that something was being held\nback from me. why should she turn so pale? why should she fight\nagainst every admission until it was forced from her? why should she\nhave been so reticent at the time of the tragedy? surely the\nexplanation of all this could not be as innocent as she would have me\nbelieve. for the moment i could proceed no farther in that direction,\nbut must turn back to that other clue which was to be sought for\namong the stone huts upon the moor.\nand that was a most vague direction. i realized it as i drove back\nand noted how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient people.\nbarrymore's only indication had been that the stranger lived in one\nof these abandoned huts, and many hundreds of them are scattered\nthroughout the length and breadth of the moor. but i had my own\nexperience for a guide since it had shown me the man himself standing\nupon the summit of the black tor. that then should be the centre of\nmy search. from there i should explore every hut upon the moor until\ni lighted upon the right one. if this man were inside it i should\nfind out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary,\nwho he was and why he had dogged us so long. he might slip away from\nus in the crowd of regent street, but it would puzzle him to do so\nupon the lonely moor. on the other hand, if i should find the hut and\nits tenant should not be within it i must remain there, however long\nthe vigil, until he returned. holmes had missed him in london. it\nwould indeed be a triumph for me if i could run him to earth, where\nmy master had failed.\nluck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now at\nlast it came to my aid. and the messenger of good fortune was none\nother than mr. frankland, who was standing, gray-whiskered and\nred-faced, outside the gate of his garden, which opened on to the\nhigh road along which i travelled.\n\"good-day, dr. watson,\" cried he with unwonted good humour, \"you must\nreally give your horses a rest, and come in to have a glass of wine\nand to congratulate me.\"\nmy feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after what\ni had heard of his treatment of his daughter, but i was anxious to\nsend perkins and the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a good\none. i alighted and sent a message to sir henry that i should walk\nover in time for dinner. then i followed frankland into his\ndining-room.\n\"it is a great day for me, sir--one of the red-letter days of my\nlife,\" he cried with many chuckles. \"i have brought off a double\nevent. i mean to teach them in these parts that law is law, and that\nthere is a man here who does not fear to invoke it. i have\nestablished a right of way through the centre of old middleton's\npark, slap across it, sir, within a hundred yards of his own front\ndoor. what do you think of that? we'll teach these magnates that they\ncannot ride roughshod over the rights of the commoners, confound\nthem! and i've closed the wood where the fernworthy folk used to\npicnic. these infernal people seem to think that there are no rights\nof property, and that they can swarm where they like with their\npapers and their bottles. both cases decided, dr. watson, and both in\nmy favour. i haven't had such a day since i had sir john morland for\ntrespass, because he shot in his own warren.\"\n\"how on earth did you do that?\"\n\"look it up in the books, sir. it will repay reading--frankland v.\nmorland, court of queen's bench. it cost me 200 pounds, but i got my\nverdict.\"\n\"did it do you any good?\"\n\"none, sir, none. i am proud to say that i had no interest in the\nmatter. i act entirely from a sense of public duty. i have no doubt,\nfor example, that the fernworthy people will burn me in effigy\nto-night. i told the police last time they did it that they should\nstop these disgraceful exhibitions. the county constabulary is in a\nscandalous state, sir, and it has not afforded me the protection to\nwhich i am entitled. the case of frankland v. regina will bring the\nmatter before the attention of the public. i told them that they\nwould have occasion to regret their treatment of me, and already my\nwords have come true.\"\n\"how so?\" i asked.\nthe old man put on a very knowing expression.\n\"because i could tell them what they are dying to know; but nothing\nwould induce me to help the rascals in any way.\"\ni had been casting round for some excuse by which i could get away\nfrom his gossip, but now i began to wish to hear more of it. i had\nseen enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand\nthat any strong sign of interest would be the surest way to stop his\nconfidences.\n\"some poaching case, no doubt?\" said i, with an indifferent manner.\n\"ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that! what\nabout the convict on the moor?\"\ni started. \"you don't mean that you know where he is?\" said i.\n\"i may not know exactly where he is, but i am quite sure that i could\nhelp the police to lay their hands on him. has it never struck you\nthat the way to catch that man was to find out where he got his food,\nand so trace it to him?\"\nhe certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth. \"no\ndoubt,\" said i; \"but how do you know that he is anywhere upon the\nmoor?\"\n\"i know it because i have seen with my own eyes the messenger who\ntakes him his food.\"\nmy heart sank for barrymore. it was a serious thing to be in the\npower of this spiteful old busybody. but his next remark took a\nweight from my mind.\n\"you'll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a\nchild. i see him every day through my telescope upon the roof. he\npasses along the same path at the same hour, and to whom should he be\ngoing except to the convict?\"\nhere was luck indeed! and yet i suppressed all appearance of\ninterest. a child! barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied\nby a boy. it was on his track, and not upon the convict's, that\nfrankland had stumbled. if i could get his knowledge it might save me\na long and weary hunt. but incredulity and indifference were\nevidently my strongest cards.\n\"i should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one\nof the moorland shepherds taking out his father's dinner.\"\nthe least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old\nautocrat. his eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray whiskers\nbristled like those of an angry cat.\n\"indeed, sir!\" said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching moor.\n\"do you see that black tor over yonder? well, do you see the low hill\nbeyond with the thornbush upon it? it is the stoniest part of the\nwhole moor. is that a place where a shepherd would be likely to take\nhis station? your suggestion, sir, is a most absurd one.\"\ni meekly answered that i had spoken without knowing all the facts. my\nsubmission pleased him and led him to further confidences.\n\"you may be sure, sir, that i have very good grounds before i come to\nan opinion. i have seen the boy again and again with his bundle.\nevery day, and sometimes twice a day, i have been able--but wait a\nmoment, dr. watson. do my eyes deceive me, or is there at the present\nmoment something moving upon that hill-side?\"\nit was several miles off, but i could distinctly see a small dark dot\nagainst the dull green and gray.\n\"come, sir, come!\" cried frankland, rushing upstairs. \"you will see\nwith your own eyes and judge for yourself.\"\nthe telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod, stood\nupon the flat leads of the house. frankland clapped his eye to it and\ngave a cry of satisfaction.\n\"quick, dr. watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!\"\nthere he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle upon\nhis shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. when he reached the crest i\nsaw the ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant against the\ncold blue sky. he looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air,\nas one who dreads pursuit. then he vanished over the hill.\n\"well! am i right?\"\n\"certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.\"\n\"and what the errand is even a county constable could guess. but not\none word shall they have from me, and i bind you to secrecy also, dr.\nwatson. not a word! you understand!\"\n\"just as you wish.\"\n\"they have treated me shamefully--shamefully. when the facts come out\nin frankland v. regina i venture to think that a thrill of\nindignation will run through the country. nothing would induce me to\nhelp the police in any way. for all they cared it might have been me,\ninstead of my effigy, which these rascals burned at the stake. surely\nyou are not going! you will help me to empty the decanter in honour\nof this great occasion!\"\nbut i resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading him\nfrom his announced intention of walking home with me. i kept the road\nas long as his eye was on me, and then i struck off across the moor\nand made for the stony hill over which the boy had disappeared.\neverything was working in my favour, and i swore that it should not\nbe through lack of energy or perseverance that i should miss the\nchance which fortune had thrown in my way.\nthe sun was already sinking when i reached the summit of the hill,\nand the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and\ngray shadow on the other. a haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line,\nout of which jutted the fantastic shapes of belliver and vixen tor.\nover the wide expanse there was no sound and no movement. one great\ngray bird, a gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. he and\ni seemed to be the only living things between the huge arch of the\nsky and the desert beneath it. the barren scene, the sense of\nloneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my task all struck a chill\ninto my heart. the boy was nowhere to be seen. but down beneath me in\na cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in\nthe middle of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to\nact as a screen against the weather. my heart leaped within me as i\nsaw it. this must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. at last my\nfoot was on the threshold of his hiding place--his secret was within\nmy grasp.\nas i approached the hut, walking as warily as stapleton would do when\nwith poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, i satisfied\nmyself that the place had indeed been used as a habitation. a vague\npathway among the boulders led to the dilapidated opening which\nserved as a door. all was silent within. the unknown might be lurking\nthere, or he might be prowling on the moor. my nerves tingled with\nthe sense of adventure. throwing aside my cigarette, i closed my hand\nupon the butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, i\nlooked in. the place was empty.\nbut there were ample signs that i had not come upon a false scent.\nthis was certainly where the man lived. some blankets rolled in a\nwaterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which neolithic man had\nonce slumbered. the ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate.\nbeside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water.\na litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for\nsome time, and i saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered\nlight, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the\ncorner. in the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a\ntable, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle--the same, no doubt,\nwhich i had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy.\nit contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of\npreserved peaches. as i set it down again, after having examined it,\nmy heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay a sheet of paper\nwith writing upon it. i raised it, and this was what i read, roughly\nscrawled in pencil:--\ndr. watson has gone to coombe tracey.\nfor a minute i stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out\nthe meaning of this curt message. it was i, then, and not sir henry,\nwho was being dogged by this secret man. he had not followed me\nhimself, but he had set an agent--the boy, perhaps--upon my track,\nand this was his report. possibly i had taken no step since i had\nbeen upon the moor which had not been observed and reported. always\nthere was this feeling of an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us\nwith infinite skill and delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was\nonly at some supreme moment that one realized that one was indeed\nentangled in its meshes.\nif there was one report there might be others, so i looked round the\nhut in search of them. there was no trace, however, of anything of\nthe kind, nor could i discover any sign which might indicate the\ncharacter or intentions of the man who lived in this singular place,\nsave that he must be of spartan habits and cared little for the\ncomforts of life. when i thought of the heavy rains and looked at the\ngaping roof i understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose\nwhich had kept him in that inhospitable abode. was he our malignant\nenemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel? i swore that i would\nnot leave the hut until i knew.\noutside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet\nand gold. its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the\ndistant pools which lay amid the great grimpen mire. there were the\ntwo towers of baskerville hall, and there a distant blur of smoke\nwhich marked the village of grimpen. between the two, behind the\nhill, was the house of the stapletons. all was sweet and mellow and\npeaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as i looked at them my\nsoul shared none of the peace of nature but quivered at the vagueness\nand the terror of that interview which every instant was bringing\nnearer. with tingling nerves, but a fixed purpose, i sat in the dark\nrecess of the hut and waited with sombre patience for the coming of\nits tenant.\nand then at last i heard him. far away came the sharp clink of a boot\nstriking upon a stone. then another and yet another, coming nearer\nand nearer. i shrank back into the darkest corner, and cocked the\npistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until i had an\nopportunity of seeing something of the stranger. there was a long\npause which showed that he had stopped. then once more the footsteps\napproached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut.\n\"it is a lovely evening, my dear watson,\" said a well-known voice. \"i\nreally think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.\"\nchapter xii\ndeath on the moor\nfor a moment or two i sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears.\nthen my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight\nof responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul.\nthat cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in\nall the world.\n\"holmes!\" i cried--\"holmes!\"\n\"come out,\" said he, \"and please be careful with the revolver.\"\ni stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone\noutside, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my\nastonished features. he was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his\nkeen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. in his tweed\nsuit and cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor,\nand he had contrived, with that cat-like love of personal cleanliness\nwhich was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as\nsmooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in baker street.\n\"i never was more glad to see anyone in my life,\" said i, as i wrung\nhim by the hand.\n\"or more astonished, eh?\"\n\"well, i must confess to it.\"\n\"the surprise was not all on one side, i assure you. i had no idea\nthat you had found my occasional retreat, still less that you were\ninside it, until i was within twenty paces of the door.\"\n\"my footprint, i presume?\"\n\"no, watson; i fear that i could not undertake to recognize your\nfootprint amid all the footprints of the world. if you seriously\ndesire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when i see\nthe stub of a cigarette marked bradley, oxford street, i know that my\nfriend watson is in the neighbourhood. you will see it there beside\nthe path. you threw it down, no doubt, at that supreme moment when\nyou charged into the empty hut.\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"i thought as much--and knowing your admirable tenacity i was\nconvinced that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach,\nwaiting for the tenant to return. so you actually thought that i was\nthe criminal?\"\n\"i did not know who you were, but i was determined to find out.\"\n\"excellent, watson! and how did you localize me? you saw me, perhaps,\non the night of the convict hunt, when i was so imprudent as to allow\nthe moon to rise behind me?\"\n\"yes, i saw you then.\"\n\"and have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this one?\"\n\"no, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to\nlook.\"\n\"the old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt. i could not make it\nout when first i saw the light flashing upon the lens.\" he rose and\npeeped into the hut. \"ha, i see that cartwright has brought up some\nsupplies. what's this paper? so you have been to coombe tracey, have\nyou?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"to see mrs. laura lyons?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"well done! our researches have evidently been running on parallel\nlines, and when we unite our results i expect we shall have a fairly\nfull knowledge of the case.\"\n\"well, i am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the\nresponsibility and the mystery were both becoming too much for my\nnerves. but how in the name of wonder did you come here, and what\nhave you been doing? i thought that you were in baker street working\nout that case of blackmailing.\"\n\"that was what i wished you to think.\"\n\"then you use me, and yet do not trust me!\" i cried with some\nbitterness. \"i think that i have deserved better at your hands,\nholmes.\"\n\"my dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in many\nother cases, and i beg that you will forgive me if i have seemed to\nplay a trick upon you. in truth, it was partly for your own sake that\ni did it, and it was my appreciation of the danger which you ran\nwhich led me to come down and examine the matter for myself. had i\nbeen with sir henry and you it is confident that my point of view\nwould have been the same as yours, and my presence would have warned\nour very formidable opponents to be on their guard. as it is, i have\nbeen able to get about as i could not possibly have done had i been\nliving in the hall, and i remain an unknown factor in the business,\nready to throw in all my weight at a critical moment.\"\n\"but why keep me in the dark?\"\n\"for you to know could not have helped us, and might possibly have\nled to my discovery. you would have wished to tell me something, or\nin your kindness you would have brought me out some comfort or other,\nand so an unnecessary risk would be run. i brought cartwright down\nwith me--you remember the little chap at the express office--and he\nhas seen after my simple wants: a loaf of bread and a clean collar.\nwhat does man want more? he has given me an extra pair of eyes upon a\nvery active pair of feet, and both have been invaluable.\"\n\"then my reports have all been wasted!\"--my voice trembled as i\nrecalled the pains and the pride with which i had composed them.\nholmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.\n\"here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, i\nassure you. i made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed\none day upon their way. i must compliment you exceedingly upon the\nzeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an\nextraordinarily difficult case.\"\ni was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised\nupon me, but the warmth of holmes's praise drove my anger from my\nmind. i felt also in my heart that he was right in what he said and\nthat it was really best for our purpose that i should not have known\nthat he was upon the moor.\n\"that's better,\" said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face. \"and\nnow tell me the result of your visit to mrs. laura lyons--it was not\ndifficult for me to guess that it was to see her that you had gone,\nfor i am already aware that she is the one person in coombe tracey\nwho might be of service to us in the matter. in fact, if you had not\ngone to-day it is exceedingly probable that i should have gone\nto-morrow.\"\nthe sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. the air had\nturned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. there, sitting\ntogether in the twilight, i told holmes of my conversation with the\nlady. so interested was he that i had to repeat some of it twice\nbefore he was satisfied.\n\"this is most important,\" said he when i had concluded. \"it fills up\na gap which i had been unable to bridge, in this most complex affair.\nyou are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this\nlady and the man stapleton?\"\n\"i did not know of a close intimacy.\"\n\"there can be no doubt about the matter. they meet, they write, there\nis a complete understanding between them. now, this puts a very\npowerful weapon into our hands. if i could only use it to detach his\nwife--\"\n\"his wife?\"\n\"i am giving you some information now, in return for all that you\nhave given me. the lady who has passed here as miss stapleton is in\nreality his wife.\"\n\"good heavens, holmes! are you sure of what you say? how could he\nhave permitted sir henry to fall in love with her?\"\n\"sir henry's falling in love could do no harm to anyone except sir\nhenry. he took particular care that sir henry did not make love to\nher, as you have yourself observed. i repeat that the lady is his\nwife and not his sister.\"\n\"but why this elaborate deception?\"\n\"because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in\nthe character of a free woman.\"\nall my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape\nand centred upon the naturalist. in that impassive, colourless man,\nwith his straw hat and his butterfly-net, i seemed to see something\nterrible--a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling\nface and a murderous heart.\n\"it is he, then, who is our enemy--it is he who dogged us in london?\"\n\"so i read the riddle.\"\n\"and the warning--it must have come from her!\"\n\"exactly.\"\nthe shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed\nthrough the darkness which had girt me so long.\n\"but are you sure of this, holmes? how do you know that the woman is\nhis wife?\"\n\"because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of\nautobiography upon the occasion when he first met you, and i dare say\nhe has many a time regretted it since. he was once a schoolmaster in\nthe north of england. now, there is no one more easy to trace than a\nschoolmaster. there are scholastic agencies by which one may identify\nany man who has been in the profession. a little investigation showed\nme that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and\nthat the man who had owned it--the name was different--had\ndisappeared with his wife. the descriptions agreed. when i learned\nthat the missing man was devoted to entomology the identification was\ncomplete.\"\nthe darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.\n\"if this woman is in truth his wife, where does mrs. laura lyons come\nin?\" i asked.\n\"that is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a\nlight. your interview with the lady has cleared the situation very\nmuch. i did not know about a projected divorce between herself and\nher husband. in that case, regarding stapleton as an unmarried man,\nshe counted no doubt upon becoming his wife.\"\n\"and when she is undeceived?\"\n\"why, then we may find the lady of service. it must be our first duty\nto see her--both of us--to-morrow. don't you think, watson, that you\nare away from your charge rather long? your place should be at\nbaskerville hall.\"\nthe last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled\nupon the moor. a few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.\n\"one last question, holmes,\" i said, as i rose. \"surely there is no\nneed of secrecy between you and me. what is the meaning of it all?\nwhat is he after?\"\nholmes's voice sank as he answered:--\n\"it is murder, watson--refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder. do\nnot ask me for particulars. my nets are closing upon him, even as his\nare upon sir henry, and with your help he is already almost at my\nmercy. there is but one danger which can threaten us. it is that he\nshould strike before we are ready to do so. another day--two at the\nmost--and i have my case complete, but until then guard your charge\nas closely as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child. your\nmission to-day has justified itself, and yet i could almost wish that\nyou had not left his side. hark!\"\na terrible scream--a prolonged yell of horror and anguish--burst out\nof the silence of the moor. that frightful cry turned the blood to\nice in my veins.\n\"oh, my god!\" i gasped. \"what is it? what does it mean?\"\nholmes had sprung to his feet, and i saw his dark, athletic outline\nat the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head thrust\nforward, his face peering into the darkness.\n\"hush!\" he whispered. \"hush!\"\nthe cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had pealed\nout from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain. now it burst upon\nour ears, nearer, louder, more urgent than before.\n\"where is it?\" holmes whispered; and i knew from the thrill of his\nvoice that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul. \"where is it,\nwatson?\"\n\"there, i think.\" i pointed into the darkness.\n\"no, there!\"\nagain the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and\nmuch nearer than ever. and a new sound mingled with it, a deep,\nmuttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like\nthe low, constant murmur of the sea.\n\"the hound!\" cried holmes. \"come, watson, come! great heavens, if we\nare too late!\"\nhe had started running swiftly over the moor, and i had followed at\nhis heels. but now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately\nin front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull,\nheavy thud. we halted and listened. not another sound broke the heavy\nsilence of the windless night.\ni saw holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. he\nstamped his feet upon the ground.\n\"he has beaten us, watson. we are too late.\"\n\"no, no, surely not!\"\n\"fool that i was to hold my hand. and you, watson, see what comes of\nabandoning your charge! but, by heaven, if the worst has happened,\nwe'll avenge him!\"\nblindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders,\nforcing our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing\ndown slopes, heading always in the direction whence those dreadful\nsounds had come. at every rise holmes looked eagerly round him, but\nthe shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its\ndreary face.\n\"can you see anything?\"\n\"nothing.\"\n\"but, hark, what is that?\"\na low moan had fallen upon our ears. there it was again upon our\nleft! on that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which\noverlooked a stone-strewn slope. on its jagged face was spread-eagled\nsome dark, irregular object. as we ran towards it the vague outline\nhardened into a definite shape. it was a prostrate man face downward\nupon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the\nshoulders rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of\nthrowing a somersault. so grotesque was the attitude that i could not\nfor the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his\nsoul. not a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over\nwhich we stooped. holmes laid his hand upon him, and held it up\nagain, with an exclamation of horror. the gleam of the match which he\nstruck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which\nwidened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. and it shone\nupon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint within\nus--the body of sir henry baskerville!\nthere was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy\ntweed suit--the very one which he had worn on the first morning that\nwe had seen him in baker street. we caught the one clear glimpse of\nit, and then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had\ngone out of our souls. holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white\nthrough the darkness.\n\"the brute! the brute!\" i cried with clenched hands. \"oh holmes, i\nshall never forgive myself for having left him to his fate.\"\n\"i am more to blame than you, watson. in order to have my case well\nrounded and complete, i have thrown away the life of my client. it is\nthe greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. but how could i\nknow--how could l know--that he would risk his life alone upon the\nmoor in the face of all my warnings?\"\n\"that we should have heard his screams--my god, those screams!--and\nyet have been unable to save him! where is this brute of a hound\nwhich drove him to his death? it may be lurking among these rocks at\nthis instant. and stapleton, where is he? he shall answer for this\ndeed.\"\n\"he shall. i will see to that. uncle and nephew have been\nmurdered--the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast\nwhich he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in\nhis wild flight to escape from it. but now we have to prove the\nconnection between the man and the beast. save from what we heard, we\ncannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since sir henry has\nevidently died from the fall. but, by heavens, cunning as he is, the\nfellow shall be in my power before another day is past!\"\nwe stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body,\noverwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought\nall our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. then, as the\nmoon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor\nfriend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy\nmoor, half silver and half gloom. far away, miles off, in the\ndirection of grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining. it\ncould only come from the lonely abode of the stapletons. with a\nbitter curse i shook my fist at it as i gazed.\n\"why should we not seize him at once?\"\n\"our case is not complete. the fellow is wary and cunning to the last\ndegree. it is not what we know, but what we can prove. if we make one\nfalse move the villain may escape us yet.\"\n\"what can we do?\"\n\"there will be plenty for us to do to-morrow. to-night we can only\nperform the last offices to our poor friend.\"\ntogether we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached\nthe body, black and clear against the silvered stones. the agony of\nthose contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my\neyes with tears.\n\"we must send for help, holmes! we cannot carry him all the way to\nthe hall. good heavens, are you mad?\"\nhe had uttered a cry and bent over the body. now he was dancing and\nlaughing and wringing my hand. could this be my stern, self-contained\nfriend? these were hidden fires, indeed!\n\"a beard! a beard! the man has a beard!\"\n\"a beard?\"\n\"it is not the baronet--it is--why, it is my neighbour, the convict!\"\nwith feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping\nbeard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. there could be no\ndoubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. it was\nindeed the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the\ncandle from over the rock--the face of selden, the criminal.\nthen in an instant it was all clear to me. i remembered how the\nbaronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to barrymore.\nbarrymore had passed it on in order to help selden in his escape.\nboots, shirt, cap--it was all sir henry's. the tragedy was still\nblack enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of\nhis country. i told holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling\nover with thankfulness and joy.\n\"then the clothes have been the poor devil's death,\" said he. \"it is\nclear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of sir\nhenry's--the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all\nprobability--and so ran this man down. there is one very singular\nthing, however: how came selden, in the darkness, to know that the\nhound was on his trail?\"\n\"he heard him.\"\n\"to hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this\nconvict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture\nby screaming wildly for help. by his cries he must have run a long\nway after he knew the animal was on his track. how did he know?\"\n\"a greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our\nconjectures are correct--\"\n\"i presume nothing.\"\n\"well, then, why this hound should be loose to-night. i suppose that\nit does not always run loose upon the moor. stapleton would not let\nit go unless he had reason to think that sir henry would be there.\"\n\"my difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for i think that we\nshall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain\nforever a mystery. the question now is, what shall we do with this\npoor wretch's body? we cannot leave it here to the foxes and the\nravens.\"\n\"i suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate\nwith the police.\"\n\"exactly. i have no doubt that you and i could carry it so far.\nhalloa, watson, what's this? it's the man himself, by all that's\nwonderful and audacious! not a word to show your suspicions--not a\nword, or my plans crumble to the ground.\"\na figure was approaching us over the moor, and i saw the dull red\nglow of a cigar. the moon shone upon him, and i could distinguish the\ndapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. he stopped when he\nsaw us, and then came on again.\n\"why, dr. watson, that's not you, is it? you are the last man that i\nshould have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night.\nbut, dear me, what's this? somebody hurt? not--don't tell me that it\nis our friend sir henry!\" he hurried past me and stooped over the\ndead man. i heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell\nfrom his fingers.\n\"who--who's this?\" he stammered.\n\"it is selden, the man who escaped from princetown.\"\nstapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he\nhad overcome his amazement and his disappointment. he looked sharply\nfrom holmes to me.\n\"dear me! what a very shocking affair! how did he die?\"\n\"he appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks. my\nfriend and i were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.\"\n\"i heard a cry also. that was what brought me out. i was uneasy about\nsir henry.\"\n\"why about sir henry in particular?\" i could not help asking.\n\"because i had suggested that he should come over. when he did not\ncome i was surprised, and i naturally became alarmed for his safety\nwhen i heard cries upon the moor. by the way\"--his eyes darted again\nfrom my face to holmes's--\"did you hear anything else besides a cry?\"\n\"no,\" said holmes; \"did you?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"what do you mean, then?\"\n\"oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom\nhound, and so on. it is said to be heard at night upon the moor. i\nwas wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound to-night.\"\n\"we heard nothing of the kind,\" said i.\n\"and what is your theory of this poor fellow's death?\"\n\"i have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off his\nhead. he has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and eventually\nfallen over here and broken his neck.\"\n\"that seems the most reasonable theory,\" said stapleton, and he gave\na sigh which i took to indicate his relief. \"what do you think about\nit, mr. sherlock holmes?\"\nmy friend bowed his compliments.\n\"you are quick at identification,\" said he.\n\"we have been expecting you in these parts since dr. watson came\ndown. you are in time to see a tragedy.\"\n\"yes, indeed. i have no doubt that my friend's explanation will cover\nthe facts. i will take an unpleasant remembrance back to london with\nme to-morrow.\"\n\"oh, you return to-morrow?\"\n\"that is my intention.\"\n\"i hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences which\nhave puzzled us?\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"one cannot always have the success for which one hopes. an\ninvestigator needs facts, and not legends or rumours. it has not been\na satisfactory case.\"\nmy friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.\nstapleton still looked hard at him. then he turned to me.\n\"i would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it would\ngive my sister such a fright that i do not feel justified in doing\nit. i think that if we put something over his face he will be safe\nuntil morning.\"\nand so it was arranged. resisting stapleton's offer of hospitality,\nholmes and i set off to baskerville hall, leaving the naturalist to\nreturn alone. looking back we saw the figure moving slowly away over\nthe broad moor, and behind him that one black smudge on the silvered\nslope which showed where the man was lying who had come so horribly\nto his end.\nchapter xiii\nfixing the nets\n\"we're at close grips at last,\" said holmes as we walked together\nacross the moor. \"what a nerve the fellow has! how he pulled himself\ntogether in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when\nhe found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. i told\nyou in london, watson, and i tell you now again, that we have never\nhad a foeman more worthy of our steel.\"\n\"i am sorry that he has seen you.\"\n\"and so was i at first. but there was no getting out of it.\"\n\"what effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he\nknows you are here?\"\n\"it may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to\ndesperate measures at once. like most clever criminals, he may be too\nconfident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has completely\ndeceived us.\"\n\"why should we not arrest him at once?\"\n\"my dear watson, you were born to be a man of action. your instinct\nis always to do something energetic. but supposing, for argument's\nsake, that we had him arrested to-night, what on earth the better off\nshould we be for that? we could prove nothing against him. there's\nthe devilish cunning of it! if he were acting through a human agent\nwe could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to\nthe light of day it would not help us in putting a rope round the\nneck of its master.\"\n\"surely we have a case.\"\n\"not a shadow of one--only surmise and conjecture. we should be\nlaughed out of court if we came with such a story and such evidence.\"\n\"there is sir charles's death.\"\n\"found dead without a mark upon him. you and i know that he died of\nsheer fright, and we know also what frightened him; but how are we to\nget twelve stolid jurymen to know it? what signs are there of a\nhound? where are the marks of its fangs? of course we know that a\nhound does not bite a dead body and that sir charles was dead before\never the brute overtook him. but we have to prove all this, and we\nare not in a position to do it.\"\n\"well, then, to-night?\"\n\"we are not much better off to-night. again, there was no direct\nconnection between the hound and the man's death. we never saw the\nhound. we heard it; but we could not prove that it was running upon\nthis man's trail. there is a complete absence of motive. no, my dear\nfellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case\nat present, and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order\nto establish one.\"\n\"and how do you propose to do so?\"\n\"i have great hopes of what mrs. laura lyons may do for us when the\nposition of affairs is made clear to her. and i have my own plan as\nwell. sufficient for to-morrow is the evil thereof; but i hope before\nthe day is past to have the upper hand at last.\"\ni could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in\nthought, as far as the baskerville gates.\n\"are you coming up?\"\n\"yes; i see no reason for further concealment. but one last word,\nwatson. say nothing of the hound to sir henry. let him think that\nselden's death was as stapleton would have us believe. he will have a\nbetter nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo to-morrow,\nwhen he is engaged, if i remember your report aright, to dine with\nthese people.\"\n\"and so am i.\"\n\"then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone. that will be\neasily arranged. and now, if we are too late for dinner, i think that\nwe are both ready for our suppers.\"\nsir henry was more pleased than surprised to see sherlock holmes, for\nhe had for some days been expecting that recent events would bring\nhim down from london. he did raise his eyebrows, however, when he\nfound that my friend had neither any luggage nor any explanations for\nits absence. between us we soon supplied his wants, and then over a\nbelated supper we explained to the baronet as much of our experience\nas it seemed desirable that he should know. but first i had the\nunpleasant duty of breaking the news to barrymore and his wife. to\nhim it may have been an unmitigated relief, but she wept bitterly in\nher apron. to all the world he was the man of violence, half animal\nand half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy\nof her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. evil indeed\nis the man who has not one woman to mourn him.\n\"i've been moping in the house all day since watson went off in the\nmorning,\" said the baronet. \"i guess i should have some credit, for i\nhave kept my promise. if i hadn't sworn not to go about alone i might\nhave had a more lively evening, for i had a message from stapleton\nasking me over there.\"\n\"i have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,\" said\nholmes drily. \"by the way, i don't suppose you appreciate that we\nhave been mourning over you as having broken your neck?\"\nsir henry opened his eyes. \"how was that?\"\n\"this poor wretch was dressed in your clothes. i fear your servant\nwho gave them to him may get into trouble with the police.\"\n\"that is unlikely. there was no mark on any of them, as far as i\nknow.\"\n\"that's lucky for him--in fact, it's lucky for all of you, since you\nare all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. i am not sure\nthat as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the\nwhole household. watson's reports are most incriminating documents.\"\n\"but how about the case?\" asked the baronet. \"have you made anything\nout of the tangle? i don't know that watson and i are much the wiser\nsince we came down.\"\n\"i think that i shall be in a position to make the situation rather\nmore clear to you before long. it has been an exceedingly difficult\nand most complicated business. there are several points upon which we\nstill want light--but it is coming all the same.\"\n\"we've had one experience, as watson has no doubt told you. we heard\nthe hound on the moor, so i can swear that it is not all empty\nsuperstition. i had something to do with dogs when i was out west,\nand i know one when i hear one. if you can muzzle that one and put\nhim on a chain i'll be ready to swear you are the greatest detective\nof all time.\"\n\"i think i will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will give\nme your help.\"\n\"whatever you tell me to do i will do.\"\n\"very good; and i will ask you also to do it blindly, without always\nasking the reason.\"\n\"just as you like.\"\n\"if you will do this i think the chances are that our little problem\nwill soon be solved. i have no doubt--\"\nhe stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air.\nthe lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so still that\nit might have been that of a clear-cut classical statue, a\npersonification of alertness and expectation.\n\"what is it?\" we both cried.\ni could see as he looked down that he was repressing some internal\nemotion. his features were still composed, but his eyes shone with\namused exultation.\n\"excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,\" said he as he waved his\nhand towards the line of portraits which covered the opposite wall.\n\"watson won't allow that i know anything of art, but that is mere\njealousy, because our views upon the subject differ. now, these are a\nreally very fine series of portraits.\"\n\"well, i'm glad to hear you say so,\" said sir henry, glancing with\nsome surprise at my friend. \"i don't pretend to know much about these\nthings, and i'd be a better judge of a horse or a steer than of a\npicture. i didn't know that you found time for such things.\"\n\"i know what is good when i see it, and i see it now. that's a\nkneller, i'll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the\nstout gentleman with the wig ought to be a reynolds. they are all\nfamily portraits, i presume?\"\n\"every one.\"\n\"do you know the names?\"\n\"barrymore has been coaching me in them, and i think i can say my\nlessons fairly well.\"\n\"who is the gentleman with the telescope?\"\n\"that is rear-admiral baskerville, who served under rodney in the\nwest indies. the man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is sir\nwilliam baskerville, who was chairman of committees of the house of\ncommons under pitt.\"\n\"and this cavalier opposite to me--the one with the black velvet and\nthe lace?\"\n\"ah, you have a right to know about him. that is the cause of all the\nmischief, the wicked hugo, who started the hound of the baskervilles.\nwe're not likely to forget him.\"\ni gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.\n\"dear me!\" said holmes, \"he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man enough,\nbut i dare say that there was a lurking devil in his eyes. i had\npictured him as a more robust and ruffianly person.\"\n\"there's no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the date,\n1647, are on the back of the canvas.\"\nholmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer seemed\nto have a fascination for him, and his eyes were continually fixed\nupon it during supper. it was not until later, when sir henry had\ngone to his room, that i was able to follow the trend of his\nthoughts. he led me back into the banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle\nin his hand, and he held it up against the time-stained portrait on\nthe wall.\n\"do you see anything there?\"\ni looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the white\nlace collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed between\nthem. it was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim, hard, and\nstern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant\neye.\n\"is it like anyone you know?\"\n\"there is something of sir henry about the jaw.\"\n\"just a suggestion, perhaps. but wait an instant!\" he stood upon a\nchair, and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved his\nright arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.\n\"good heavens!\" i cried, in amazement.\nthe face of stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.\n\"ha, you see it now. my eyes have been trained to examine faces and\nnot their trimmings. it is the first quality of a criminal\ninvestigator that he should see through a disguise.\"\n\"but this is marvellous. it might be his portrait.\"\n\"yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to\nbe both physical and spiritual. a study of family portraits is enough\nto convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. the fellow is a\nbaskerville--that is evident.\"\n\"with designs upon the succession.\"\n\"exactly. this chance of the picture has supplied us with one of our\nmost obvious missing links. we have him, watson, we have him, and i\ndare swear that before to-morrow night he will be fluttering in our\nnet as helpless as one of his own butterflies. a pin, a cork, and a\ncard, and we add him to the baker street collection!\" he burst into\none of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture.\ni have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to\nsomebody.\ni was up betimes in the morning, but holmes was afoot earlier still,\nfor i saw him as i dressed, coming up the drive.\n\"yes, we should have a full day to-day,\" he remarked, and he rubbed\nhis hands with the joy of action. \"the nets are all in place, and the\ndrag is about to begin. we'll know before the day is out whether we\nhave caught our big, lean-jawed pike, or whether he has got through\nthe meshes.\"\n\"have you been on the moor already?\"\n\"i have sent a report from grimpen to princetown as to the death of\nselden. i think i can promise that none of you will be troubled in\nthe matter. and i have also communicated with my faithful cartwright,\nwho would certainly have pined away at the door of my hut, as a dog\ndoes at his master's grave, if i had not set his mind at rest about\nmy safety.\"\n\"what is the next move?\"\n\"to see sir henry. ah, here he is!\"\n\"good morning, holmes,\" said the baronet. \"you look like a general\nwho is planning a battle with his chief of the staff.\"\n\"that is the exact situation. watson was asking for orders.\"\n\"and so do i.\"\n\"very good. you are engaged, as i understand, to dine with our\nfriends the stapletons to-night.\"\n\"i hope that you will come also. they are very hospitable people, and\ni am sure that they would be very glad to see you.\"\n\"i fear that watson and i must go to london.\"\n\"to london?\"\n\"yes, i think that we should be more useful there at the present\njuncture.\"\nthe baronet's face perceptibly lengthened.\n\"i hoped that you were going to see me through this business. the\nhall and the moor are not very pleasant places when one is alone.\"\n\"my dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what i\ntell you. you can tell your friends that we should have been happy to\nhave come with you, but that urgent business required us to be in\ntown. we hope very soon to return to devonshire. will you remember to\ngive them that message?\"\n\"if you insist upon it.\"\n\"there is no alternative, i assure you.\"\ni saw by the baronet's clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by what\nhe regarded as our desertion.\n\"when do you desire to go?\" he asked coldly.\n\"immediately after breakfast. we will drive in to coombe tracey, but\nwatson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come back to\nyou. watson, you will send a note to stapleton to tell him that you\nregret that you cannot come.\"\n\"i have a good mind to go to london with you,\" said the baronet. \"why\nshould i stay here alone?\"\n\"because it is your post of duty. because you gave me your word that\nyou would do as you were told, and i tell you to stay.\"\n\"all right, then, i'll stay.\"\n\"one more direction! i wish you to drive to merripit house. send back\nyour trap, however, and let them know that you intend to walk home.\"\n\"to walk across the moor?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"but that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me not\nto do.\"\n\"this time you may do it with safety. if i had not every confidence\nin your nerve and courage i would not suggest it, but it is essential\nthat you should do it.\"\n\"then i will do it.\"\n\"and as you value your life do not go across the moor in any\ndirection save along the straight path which leads from merripit\nhouse to the grimpen road, and is your natural way home.\"\n\"i will do just what you say.\"\n\"very good. i should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast as\npossible, so as to reach london in the afternoon.\"\ni was much astounded by this programme, though i remembered that\nholmes had said to stapleton on the night before that his visit would\nterminate next day. it had not crossed my mind, however, that he\nwould wish me to go with him, nor could i understand how we could\nboth be absent at a moment which he himself declared to be critical.\nthere was nothing for it, however, but implicit obedience; so we bade\ngood-bye to our rueful friend, and a couple of hours afterwards we\nwere at the station of coombe tracey and had dispatched the trap upon\nits return journey. a small boy was waiting upon the platform.\n\"any orders, sir?\"\n\"you will take this train to town, cartwright. the moment you arrive\nyou will send a wire to sir henry baskerville, in my name, to say\nthat if he finds the pocket-book which i have dropped he is to send\nit by registered post to baker street.\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"and ask at the station office if there is a message for me.\"\nthe boy returned with a telegram, which holmes handed to me. it ran:\nwire received. coming down with unsigned warrant. arrive five-forty.\nlestrade.\n\"that is in answer to mine of this morning. he is the best of the\nprofessionals, i think, and we may need his assistance. now, watson,\ni think that we cannot employ our time better than by calling upon\nyour acquaintance, mrs. laura lyons.\"\nhis plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. he would use the\nbaronet in order to convince the stapletons that we were really gone,\nwhile we should actually return at the instant when we were likely to\nbe needed. that telegram from london, if mentioned by sir henry to\nthe stapletons, must remove the last suspicions from their minds.\nalready i seemed to see our nets drawing closer around that\nlean-jawed pike.\nmrs. laura lyons was in her office, and sherlock holmes opened his\ninterview with a frankness and directness which considerably amazed\nher.\n\"i am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the\nlate sir charles baskerville,\" said he. \"my friend here, dr. watson,\nhas informed me of what you have communicated, and also of what you\nhave withheld in connection with that matter.\"\n\"what have i withheld?\" she asked defiantly.\n\"you have confessed that you asked sir charles to be at the gate at\nten o'clock. we know that that was the place and hour of his death.\nyou have withheld what the connection is between these events.\"\n\"there is no connection.\"\n\"in that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one.\nbut i think that we shall succeed in establishing a connection after\nall. i wish to be perfectly frank with you, mrs. lyons. we regard\nthis case as one of murder, and the evidence may implicate not only\nyour friend mr. stapleton, but his wife as well.\"\nthe lady sprang from her chair.\n\"his wife!\" she cried.\n\"the fact is no longer a secret. the person who has passed for his\nsister is really his wife.\"\nmrs. lyons had resumed her seat. her hands were grasping the arms of\nher chair, and i saw that the pink nails had turned white with the\npressure of her grip.\n\"his wife!\" she said again. \"his wife! he is not a married man.\"\nsherlock holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"prove it to me! prove it to me! and if you can do so--!\" the fierce\nflash of her eyes said more than any words.\n\"i have come prepared to do so,\" said holmes, drawing several papers\nfrom his pocket. \"here is a photograph of the couple taken in york\nfour years ago. it is indorsed 'mr. and mrs. vandeleur,' but you will\nhave no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her\nby sight. here are three written descriptions by trustworthy\nwitnesses of mr. and mrs. vandeleur, who at that time kept st.\noliver's private school. read them and see if you can doubt the\nidentity of these people.\"\nshe glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid\nface of a desperate woman.\n\"mr. holmes,\" she said, \"this man had offered me marriage on\ncondition that i could get a divorce from my husband. he has lied to\nme, the villain, in every conceivable way. not one word of truth has\nhe ever told me. and why--why? i imagined that all was for my own\nsake. but now i see that i was never anything but a tool in his\nhands. why should i preserve faith with him who never kept any with\nme? why should i try to shield him from the consequences of his own\nwicked acts? ask me what you like, and there is nothing which i shall\nhold back. one thing i swear to you, and that is that when i wrote\nthe letter i never dreamed of any harm to the old gentleman, who had\nbeen my kindest friend.\"\n\"i entirely believe you, madam,\" said sherlock holmes. \"the recital\nof these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make\nit easier if i tell you what occurred, and you can check me if i make\nany material mistake. the sending of this letter was suggested to you\nby stapleton?\"\n\"he dictated it.\"\n\"i presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help\nfrom sir charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"and then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping\nthe appointment?\"\n\"he told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man\nshould find the money for such an object, and that though he was a\npoor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the\nobstacles which divided us.\"\n\"he appears to be a very consistent character. and then you heard\nnothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"and he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with sir\ncharles?\"\n\"he did. he said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that i\nshould certainly be suspected if the facts came out. he frightened me\ninto remaining silent.\"\n\"quite so. but you had your suspicions?\"\nshe hesitated and looked down.\n\"i knew him,\" she said. \"but if he had kept faith with me i should\nalways have done so with him.\"\n\"i think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,\" said\nsherlock holmes. \"you have had him in your power and he knew it, and\nyet you are alive. you have been walking for some months very near to\nthe edge of a precipice. we must wish you good-morning now, mrs.\nlyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us\nagain.\"\n\"our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins\naway in front of us,\" said holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival\nof the express from town. \"i shall soon be in the position of being\nable to put into a single connected narrative one of the most\nsingular and sensational crimes of modern times. students of\ncriminology will remember the analogous incidents in godno, in little\nrussia, in the year '66, and of course there are the anderson murders\nin north carolina, but this case possesses some features which are\nentirely its own. even now we have no clear case against this very\nwily man. but i shall be very much surprised if it is not clear\nenough before we go to bed this night.\"\nthe london express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry\nbulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. we all three\nshook hands, and i saw at once from the reverential way in which\nlestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since\nthe days when they had first worked together. i could well remember\nthe scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in\nthe practical man.\n\"anything good?\" he asked.\n\"the biggest thing for years,\" said holmes. \"we have two hours before\nwe need think of starting. i think we might employ it in getting some\ndinner and then, lestrade, we will take the london fog out of your\nthroat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of dartmoor.\nnever been there? ah, well, i don't suppose you will forget your\nfirst visit.\"\nchapter xiv\nthe hound of the baskervilles\none of sherlock holmes's defects--if, indeed, one may call it a\ndefect--was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full\nplans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment.\npartly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to\ndominate and surprise those who were around him. partly also from his\nprofessional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. the\nresult, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his\nagents and assistants. i had often suffered under it, but never more\nso than during that long drive in the darkness. the great ordeal was\nin front of us; at last we were about to make our final effort, and\nyet holmes had said nothing, and i could only surmise what his course\nof action would be. my nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last\nthe cold wind upon our faces and the dark, void spaces on either side\nof the narrow road told me that we were back upon the moor once\nagain. every stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was\ntaking us nearer to our supreme adventure.\nour conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of the\nhired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial matters\nwhen our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation. it was a\nrelief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we at last passed\nfrankland's house and knew that we were drawing near to the hall and\nto the scene of action. we did not drive up to the door but got down\nnear the gate of the avenue. the wagonette was paid off and ordered\nto return to coombe tracey forthwith, while we started to walk to\nmerripit house.\n\"are you armed, lestrade?\"\nthe little detective smiled.\n\"as long as i have my trousers i have a hip-pocket, and as long as i\nhave my hip-pocket i have something in it.\"\n\"good! my friend and i are also ready for emergencies.\"\n\"you're mighty close about this affair, mr. holmes. what's the game\nnow?\"\n\"a waiting game.\"\n\"my word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,\" said the detective\nwith a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes of the hill\nand at the huge lake of fog which lay over the grimpen mire. \"i see\nthe lights of a house ahead of us.\"\n\"that is merripit house and the end of our journey. i must request\nyou to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.\"\nwe moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the\nhouse, but holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards from\nit.\n\"this will do,\" said he. \"these rocks upon the right make an\nadmirable screen.\"\n\"we are to wait here?\"\n\"yes, we shall make our little ambush here. get into this hollow,\nlestrade. you have been inside the house, have you not, watson? can\nyou tell the position of the rooms? what are those latticed windows\nat this end?\"\n\"i think they are the kitchen windows.\"\n\"and the one beyond, which shines so brightly?\"\n\"that is certainly the dining-room.\"\n\"the blinds are up. you know the lie of the land best. creep forward\nquietly and see what they are doing--but for heaven's sake don't let\nthem know that they are watched!\"\ni tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which\nsurrounded the stunted orchard. creeping in its shadow i reached a\npoint whence i could look straight through the uncurtained window.\nthere were only two men in the room, sir henry and stapleton. they\nsat with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table.\nboth of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in front\nof them. stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronet looked\npale and distrait. perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the\nill-omened moor was weighing heavily upon his mind.\nas i watched them stapleton rose and left the room, while sir henry\nfilled his glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his\ncigar. i heard the creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon\ngravel. the steps passed along the path on the other side of the wall\nunder which i crouched. looking over, i saw the naturalist pause at\nthe door of an out-house in the corner of the orchard. a key turned\nin a lock, and as he passed in there was a curious scuffling noise\nfrom within. he was only a minute or so inside, and then i heard the\nkey turn once more and he passed me and re-entered the house. i saw\nhim rejoin his guest, and i crept quietly back to where my companions\nwere waiting to tell them what i had seen.\n\"you say, watson, that the lady is not there?\" holmes asked, when i\nhad finished my report.\n\"no.\"\n\"where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other room\nexcept the kitchen?\"\n\"i cannot think where she is.\"\ni have said that over the great grimpen mire there hung a dense,\nwhite fog. it was drifting slowly in our direction, and banked itself\nup like a wall on that side of us, low, but thick and well defined.\nthe moon shone on it, and it looked like a great shimmering\nice-field, with the heads of the distant tors as rocks borne upon its\nsurface. holmes's face was turned towards it, and he muttered\nimpatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.\n\"it's moving towards us, watson.\"\n\"is that serious?\"\n\"very serious, indeed--the one thing upon earth which could have\ndisarranged my plans. he can't be very long, now. it is already ten\no'clock. our success and even his life may depend upon his coming out\nbefore the fog is over the path.\"\nthe night was clear and fine above us. the stars shone cold and\nbright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain\nlight. before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof\nand bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky.\nbroad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across\nthe orchard and the moor. one of them was suddenly shut off. the\nservants had left the kitchen. there only remained the lamp in the\ndining-room where the two men, the murderous host and the unconscious\nguest, still chatted over their cigars.\nevery minute that white woolly plain which covered one half of the\nmoor was drifting closer and closer to the house. already the first\nthin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted\nwindow. the farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and\nthe trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapour. as we watched\nit the fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and\nrolled slowly into one dense bank, on which the upper floor and the\nroof floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea. holmes struck\nhis hand passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped his\nfeet in his impatience.\n\"if he isn't out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered. in\nhalf an hour we won't be able to see our hands in front of us.\"\n\"shall we move farther back upon higher ground?\"\n\"yes, i think it would be as well.\"\nso as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we were\nhalf a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea, with the\nmoon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably on.\n\"we are going too far,\" said holmes. \"we dare not take the chance of\nhis being overtaken before he can reach us. at all costs we must hold\nour ground where we are.\" he dropped on his knees and clapped his ear\nto the ground. \"thank god, i think that i hear him coming.\"\na sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor. crouching among\nthe stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in front of\nus. the steps grew louder, and through the fog, as through a curtain,\nthere stepped the man whom we were awaiting. he looked round him in\nsurprise as he emerged into the clear, starlit night. then he came\nswiftly along the path, passed close to where we lay, and went on up\nthe long slope behind us. as he walked he glanced continually over\neither shoulder, like a man who is ill at ease.\n\"hist!\" cried holmes, and i heard the sharp click of a cocking\npistol. \"look out! it's coming!\"\nthere was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the\nheart of that crawling bank. the cloud was within fifty yards of\nwhere we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror\nwas about to break from the heart of it. i was at holmes's elbow, and\ni glanced for an instant at his face. it was pale and exultant, his\neyes shining brightly in the moonlight. but suddenly they started\nforward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement. at\nthe same instant lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself\nface downward upon the ground. i sprang to my feet, my inert hand\ngrasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had\nsprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. a hound it was, an\nenormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have\never seen. fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a\nsmouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in\nflickering flame. never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain\ncould anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived\nthan that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the\nwall of fog.\nwith long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the track,\nfollowing hard upon the footsteps of our friend. so paralyzed were we\nby the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered\nour nerve. then holmes and i both fired together, and the creature\ngave a hideous howl, which showed that one at least had hit him. he\ndid not pause, however, but bounded onward. far away on the path we\nsaw sir henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his\nhands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing\nwhich was hunting him down.\nbut that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the\nwinds. if he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him\nwe could kill him. never have i seen a man run as holmes ran that\nnight. i am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as i\noutpaced the little professional. in front of us as we flew up the\ntrack we heard scream after scream from sir henry and the deep roar\nof the hound. i was in time to see the beast spring upon its victim,\nhurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat. but the next instant\nholmes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's\nflank. with a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it\nrolled upon its back, four feet pawing furiously, and then fell limp\nupon its side. i stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol to the\ndreadful, shimmering head, but it was useless to press the trigger.\nthe giant hound was dead.\nsir henry lay insensible where he had fallen. we tore away his\ncollar, and holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw that\nthere was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time.\nalready our friend's eyelids shivered and he made a feeble effort to\nmove. lestrade thrust his brandy-flask between the baronet's teeth,\nand two frightened eyes were looking up at us.\n\"my god!\" he whispered. \"what was it? what, in heaven's name, was\nit?\"\n\"it's dead, whatever it is,\" said holmes. \"we've laid the family\nghost once and forever.\"\nin mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying\nstretched before us. it was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a\npure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of the two--gaunt,\nsavage, and as large as a small lioness. even now, in the stillness\nof death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and\nthe small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. i placed my\nhand upon the glowing muzzle, and as i held them up my own fingers\nsmouldered and gleamed in the darkness.\n\"phosphorus,\" i said.\n\"a cunning preparation of it,\" said holmes, sniffing at the dead\nanimal. \"there is no smell which might have interfered with his power\nof scent. we owe you a deep apology, sir henry, for having exposed\nyou to this fright. i was prepared for a hound, but not for such a\ncreature as this. and the fog gave us little time to receive him.\"\n\"you have saved my life.\"\n\"having first endangered it. are you strong enough to stand?\"\n\"give me another mouthful of that brandy and i shall be ready for\nanything. so! now, if you will help me up. what do you propose to\ndo?\"\n\"to leave you here. you are not fit for further adventures to-night.\nif you will wait, one or other of us will go back with you to the\nhall.\"\nhe tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale and\ntrembling in every limb. we helped him to a rock, where he sat\nshivering with his face buried in his hands.\n\"we must leave you now,\" said holmes. \"the rest of our work must be\ndone, and every moment is of importance. we have our case, and now we\nonly want our man.\n\"it's a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,\" he\ncontinued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. \"those\nshots must have told him that the game was up.\"\n\"we were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.\"\n\"he followed the hound to call him off--of that you may be certain.\nno, no, he's gone by this time! but we'll search the house and make\nsure.\"\nthe front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to\nroom to the amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us in\nthe passage. there was no light save in the dining-room, but holmes\ncaught up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. no\nsign could we see of the man whom we were chasing. on the upper\nfloor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked.\n\"there's someone in here,\" cried lestrade. \"i can hear a movement.\nopen this door!\"\na faint moaning and rustling came from within. holmes struck the door\njust over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew open. pistol\nin hand, we all three rushed into the room.\nbut there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain\nwhom we expected to see. instead we were faced by an object so\nstrange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in\namazement.\nthe room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls were\nlined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that collection of\nbutterflies and moths the formation of which had been the relaxation\nof this complex and dangerous man. in the centre of this room there\nwas an upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a\nsupport for the old worm-eaten baulk of timber which spanned the\nroof. to this post a figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in the\nsheets which had been used to secure it that one could not for the\nmoment tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. one towel passed\nround the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar. another\ncovered the lower part of the face, and over it two dark eyes--eyes\nfull of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning--stared back at\nus. in a minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and\nmrs. stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. as her beautiful\nhead fell upon her chest i saw the clear red weal of a whiplash\nacross her neck.\n\"the brute!\" cried holmes. \"here, lestrade, your brandy-bottle! put\nher in the chair! she has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.\"\nshe opened her eyes again.\n\"is he safe?\" she asked. \"has he escaped?\"\n\"he cannot escape us, madam.\"\n\"no, no, i did not mean my husband. sir henry? is he safe?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"and the hound?\"\n\"it is dead.\"\nshe gave a long sigh of satisfaction.\n\"thank god! thank god! oh, this villain! see how he has treated me!\"\nshe shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with horror that\nthey were all mottled with bruises. \"but this is nothing--nothing! it\nis my mind and soul that he has tortured and defiled. i could endure\nit all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception, everything, as long\nas i could still cling to the hope that i had his love, but now i\nknow that in this also i have been his dupe and his tool.\" she broke\ninto passionate sobbing as she spoke.\n\"you bear him no good will, madam,\" said holmes. \"tell us then where\nwe shall find him. if you have ever aided him in evil, help us now\nand so atone.\"\n\"there is but one place where he can have fled,\" she answered. \"there\nis an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. it was\nthere that he kept his hound and there also he had made preparations\nso that he might have a refuge. that is where he would fly.\"\nthe fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. holmes held the\nlamp towards it.\n\"see,\" said he. \"no one could find his way into the grimpen mire\nto-night.\"\nshe laughed and clapped her hands. her eyes and teeth gleamed with\nfierce merriment.\n\"he may find his way in, but never out,\" she cried. \"how can he see\nthe guiding wands to-night? we planted them together, he and i, to\nmark the pathway through the mire. oh, if i could only have plucked\nthem out to-day. then indeed you would have had him at your mercy!\"\nit was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had\nlifted. meanwhile we left lestrade in possession of the house while\nholmes and i went back with the baronet to baskerville hall. the\nstory of the stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he\ntook the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom\nhe had loved. but the shock of the night's adventures had shattered\nhis nerves, and before morning he lay delirious in a high fever,\nunder the care of dr. mortimer. the two of them were destined to\ntravel together round the world before sir henry had become once more\nthe hale, hearty man that he had been before he became master of that\nill-omened estate.\nand now i come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative,\nin which i have tried to make the reader share those dark fears and\nvague surmises which clouded our lives so long and ended in so tragic\na manner. on the morning after the death of the hound the fog had\nlifted and we were guided by mrs. stapleton to the point where they\nhad found a pathway through the bog. it helped us to realize the\nhorror of this woman's life when we saw the eagerness and joy with\nwhich she laid us on her husband's track. we left her standing upon\nthe thin peninsula of firm, peaty soil which tapered out into the\nwidespread bog. from the end of it a small wand planted here and\nthere showed where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes\namong those green-scummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the\nway to the stranger. rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an\nodour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a\nfalse step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark,\nquivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our\nfeet. its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when\nwe sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down\ninto those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in\nwhich it held us. once only we saw a trace that someone had passed\nthat perilous way before us. from amid a tuft of cotton grass which\nbore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. holmes\nsank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it, and had we\nnot been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot upon\nfirm land again. he held an old black boot in the air. \"meyers,\ntoronto,\" was printed on the leather inside.\n\"it is worth a mud bath,\" said he. \"it is our friend sir henry's\nmissing boot.\"\n\"thrown there by stapleton in his flight.\"\n\"exactly. he retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound\nupon the track. he fled when he knew the game was up, still clutching\nit. and he hurled it away at this point of his flight. we know at\nleast that he came so far in safety.\"\nbut more than that we were never destined to know, though there was\nmuch which we might surmise. there was no chance of finding footsteps\nin the mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them, but as we\nat last reached firmer ground beyond the morass we all looked eagerly\nfor them. but no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes. if the\nearth told a true story, then stapleton never reached that island of\nrefuge towards which he struggled through the fog upon that last\nnight. somewhere in the heart of the great grimpen mire, down in the\nfoul slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and\ncruel-hearted man is forever buried.\nmany traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had hid\nhis savage ally. a huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled with\nrubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. beside it were the\ncrumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt\nby the foul reek of the surrounding swamp. in one of these a staple\nand chain with a quantity of gnawed bones showed where the animal had\nbeen confined. a skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it\nlay among the debris.\n\"a dog!\" said holmes. \"by jove, a curly-haired spaniel. poor mortimer\nwill never see his pet again. well, i do not know that this place\ncontains any secret which we have not already fathomed. he could hide\nhis hound, but he could not hush its voice, and hence came those\ncries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear. on an\nemergency he could keep the hound in the out-house at merripit, but\nit was always a risk, and it was only on the supreme day, which he\nregarded as the end of all his efforts, that he dared do it. this\npaste in the tin is no doubt the luminous mixture with which the\ncreature was daubed. it was suggested, of course, by the story of the\nfamily hell-hound, and by the desire to frighten old sir charles to\ndeath. no wonder the poor devil of a convict ran and screamed, even\nas our friend did, and as we ourselves might have done, when he saw\nsuch a creature bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his\ntrack. it was a cunning device, for, apart from the chance of driving\nyour victim to his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too\nclosely into such a creature should he get sight of it, as many have\ndone, upon the moor? i said it in london, watson, and i say it again\nnow, that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more dangerous man\nthan he who is lying yonder\"--he swept his long arm towards the huge\nmottled expanse of green-splotched bog which stretched away until it\nmerged into the russet slopes of the moor.\nchapter xv\na retrospection\nit was the end of november and holmes and i sat, upon a raw and foggy\nnight, on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting-room in baker\nstreet. since the tragic upshot of our visit to devonshire he had\nbeen engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of\nwhich he had exposed the atrocious conduct of colonel upwood in\nconnection with the famous card scandal of the nonpareil club, while\nin the second he had defended the unfortunate mme. montpensier from\nthe charge of murder which hung over her in connection with the death\nof her step-daughter, mlle. carere, the young lady who, as it will be\nremembered, was found six months later alive and married in new york.\nmy friend was in excellent spirits over the success which had\nattended a succession of difficult and important cases, so that i was\nable to induce him to discuss the details of the baskerville mystery.\ni had waited patiently for the opportunity, for i was aware that he\nwould never permit cases to overlap, and that his clear and logical\nmind would not be drawn from its present work to dwell upon memories\nof the past. sir henry and dr. mortimer were, however, in london, on\ntheir way to that long voyage which had been recommended for the\nrestoration of his shattered nerves. they had called upon us that\nvery afternoon, so that it was natural that the subject should come\nup for discussion.\n\"the whole course of events,\" said holmes, \"from the point of view of\nthe man who called himself stapleton was simple and direct, although\nto us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of\nhis actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared\nexceedingly complex. i have had the advantage of two conversations\nwith mrs. stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up\nthat i am not aware that there is anything which has remained a\nsecret to us. you will find a few notes upon the matter under the\nheading b in my indexed list of cases.\"\n\"perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of events\nfrom memory.\"\n\"certainly, though i cannot guarantee that i carry all the facts in\nmy mind. intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting\nout what has passed. the barrister who has his case at his fingers'\nends, and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject finds\nthat a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head\nonce more. so each of my cases displaces the last, and mlle. carere\nhas blurred my recollection of baskerville hall. to-morrow some other\nlittle problem may be submitted to my notice which will in turn\ndispossess the fair french lady and the infamous upwood. so far as\nthe case of the hound goes, however, i will give you the course of\nevents as nearly as i can, and you will suggest anything which i may\nhave forgotten.\n\"my inquiries show beyond all question that the family portrait did\nnot lie, and that this fellow was indeed a baskerville. he was a son\nof that rodger baskerville, the younger brother of sir charles, who\nfled with a sinister reputation to south america, where he was said\nto have died unmarried. he did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had\none child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's.\nhe married beryl garcia, one of the beauties of costa rica, and,\nhaving purloined a considerable sum of public money, he changed his\nname to vandeleur and fled to england, where he established a school\nin the east of yorkshire. his reason for attempting this special line\nof business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a\nconsumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this\nman's ability to make the undertaking a success. fraser, the tutor,\ndied however, and the school which had begun well sank from disrepute\ninto infamy. the vandeleurs found it convenient to change their name\nto stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes\nfor the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of england.\ni learned at the british museum that he was a recognized authority\nupon the subject, and that the name of vandeleur has been permanently\nattached to a certain moth which he had, in his yorkshire days, been\nthe first to describe.\n\"we now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be of\nsuch intense interest to us. the fellow had evidently made inquiry\nand found that only two lives intervened between him and a valuable\nestate. when he went to devonshire his plans were, i believe,\nexceedingly hazy, but that he meant mischief from the first is\nevident from the way in which he took his wife with him in the\ncharacter of his sister. the idea of using her as a decoy was clearly\nalready in his mind, though he may not have been certain how the\ndetails of his plot were to be arranged. he meant in the end to have\nthe estate, and he was ready to use any tool or run any risk for that\nend. his first act was to establish himself as near to his ancestral\nhome as he could, and his second was to cultivate a friendship with\nsir charles baskerville and with the neighbours.\n\"the baronet himself told him about the family hound, and so prepared\nthe way for his own death. stapleton, as i will continue to call him,\nknew that the old man's heart was weak and that a shock would kill\nhim. so much he had learned from dr. mortimer. he had heard also that\nsir charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very\nseriously. his ingenious mind instantly suggested a way by which the\nbaronet could be done to death, and yet it would be hardly possible\nto bring home the guilt to the real murderer.\n\"having conceived the idea he proceeded to carry it out with\nconsiderable finesse. an ordinary schemer would have been content to\nwork with a savage hound. the use of artificial means to make the\ncreature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. the dog he\nbought in london from ross and mangles, the dealers in fulham road.\nit was the strongest and most savage in their possession. he brought\nit down by the north devon line and walked a great distance over the\nmoor so as to get it home without exciting any remarks. he had\nalready on his insect hunts learned to penetrate the grimpen mire,\nand so had found a safe hiding-place for the creature. here he\nkennelled it and waited his chance.\n\"but it was some time coming. the old gentleman could not be decoyed\noutside of his grounds at night. several times stapleton lurked about\nwith his hound, but without avail. it was during these fruitless\nquests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that\nthe legend of the demon dog received a new confirmation. he had hoped\nthat his wife might lure sir charles to his ruin, but here she proved\nunexpectedly independent. she would not endeavour to entangle the old\ngentleman in a sentimental attachment which might deliver him over to\nhis enemy. threats and even, i am sorry to say, blows refused to move\nher. she would have nothing to do with it, and for a time stapleton\nwas at a deadlock.\n\"he found a way out of his difficulties through the chance that sir\ncharles, who had conceived a friendship for him, made him the\nminister of his charity in the case of this unfortunate woman, mrs.\nlaura lyons. by representing himself as a single man he acquired\ncomplete influence over her, and he gave her to understand that in\nthe event of her obtaining a divorce from her husband he would marry\nher. his plans were suddenly brought to a head by his knowledge that\nsir charles was about to leave the hall on the advice of dr.\nmortimer, with whose opinion he himself pretended to coincide. he\nmust act at once, or his victim might get beyond his power. he\ntherefore put pressure upon mrs. lyons to write this letter,\nimploring the old man to give her an interview on the evening before\nhis departure for london. he then, by a specious argument, prevented\nher from going, and so had the chance for which he had waited.\n\"driving back in the evening from coombe tracey he was in time to get\nhis hound, to treat it with his infernal paint, and to bring the\nbeast round to the gate at which he had reason to expect that he\nwould find the old gentleman waiting. the dog, incited by its master,\nsprang over the wicket-gate and pursued the unfortunate baronet, who\nfled screaming down the yew alley. in that gloomy tunnel it must\nindeed have been a dreadful sight to see that huge black creature,\nwith its flaming jaws and blazing eyes, bounding after its victim. he\nfell dead at the end of the alley from heart disease and terror. the\nhound had kept upon the grassy border while the baronet had run down\nthe path, so that no track but the man's was visible. on seeing him\nlying still the creature had probably approached to sniff at him, but\nfinding him dead had turned away again. it was then that it left the\nprint which was actually observed by dr. mortimer. the hound was\ncalled off and hurried away to its lair in the grimpen mire, and a\nmystery was left which puzzled the authorities, alarmed the\ncountry-side, and finally brought the case within the scope of our\nobservation.\n\"so much for the death of sir charles baskerville. you perceive the\ndevilish cunning of it, for really it would be almost impossible to\nmake a case against the real murderer. his only accomplice was one\nwho could never give him away, and the grotesque, inconceivable\nnature of the device only served to make it more effective. both of\nthe women concerned in the case, mrs. stapleton and mrs. laura lyons,\nwere left with a strong suspicion against stapleton. mrs. stapleton\nknew that he had designs upon the old man, and also of the existence\nof the hound. mrs. lyons knew neither of these things, but had been\nimpressed by the death occurring at the time of an uncancelled\nappointment which was only known to him. however, both of them were\nunder his influence, and he had nothing to fear from them. the first\nhalf of his task was successfully accomplished but the more difficult\nstill remained.\n\"it is possible that stapleton did not know of the existence of an\nheir in canada. in any case he would very soon learn it from his\nfriend dr. mortimer, and he was told by the latter all details about\nthe arrival of henry baskerville. stapleton's first idea was that\nthis young stranger from canada might possibly be done to death in\nlondon without coming down to devonshire at all. he distrusted his\nwife ever since she had refused to help him in laying a trap for the\nold man, and he dared not leave her long out of his sight for fear he\nshould lose his influence over her. it was for this reason that he\ntook her to london with him. they lodged, i find, at the mexborough\nprivate hotel, in craven street, which was actually one of those\ncalled upon by my agent in search of evidence. here he kept his wife\nimprisoned in her room while he, disguised in a beard, followed dr.\nmortimer to baker street and afterwards to the station and to the\nnorthumberland hotel. his wife had some inkling of his plans; but she\nhad such a fear of her husband--a fear founded upon brutal\nill-treatment--that she dare not write to warn the man whom she knew\nto be in danger. if the letter should fall into stapleton's hands her\nown life would not be safe. eventually, as we know, she adopted the\nexpedient of cutting out the words which would form the message, and\naddressing the letter in a disguised hand. it reached the baronet,\nand gave him the first warning of his danger.\n\"it was very essential for stapleton to get some article of sir\nhenry's attire so that, in case he was driven to use the dog, he\nmight always have the means of setting him upon his track. with\ncharacteristic promptness and audacity he set about this at once, and\nwe cannot doubt that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel was well\nbribed to help him in his design. by chance, however, the first boot\nwhich was procured for him was a new one and, therefore, useless for\nhis purpose. he then had it returned and obtained another--a most\ninstructive incident, since it proved conclusively to my mind that we\nwere dealing with a real hound, as no other supposition could explain\nthis anxiety to obtain an old boot and this indifference to a new\none. the more outr and grotesque an incident is the more carefully\nit deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to\ncomplicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically\nhandled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.\n\"then we had the visit from our friends next morning, shadowed always\nby stapleton in the cab. from his knowledge of our rooms and of my\nappearance, as well as from his general conduct, i am inclined to\nthink that stapleton's career of crime has been by no means limited\nto this single baskerville affair. it is suggestive that during the\nlast three years there have been four considerable burglaries in the\nwest country, for none of which was any criminal ever arrested. the\nlast of these, at folkestone court, in may, was remarkable for the\ncold-blooded pistoling of the page, who surprised the masked and\nsolitary burglar. i cannot doubt that stapleton recruited his waning\nresources in this fashion, and that for years he has been a desperate\nand dangerous man.\n\"we had an example of his readiness of resource that morning when he\ngot away from us so successfully, and also of his audacity in sending\nback my own name to me through the cabman. from that moment he\nunderstood that i had taken over the case in london, and that\ntherefore there was no chance for him there. he returned to dartmoor\nand awaited the arrival of the baronet.\"\n\"one moment!\" said i. \"you have, no doubt, described the sequence of\nevents correctly, but there is one point which you have left\nunexplained. what became of the hound when its master was in london?\"\n\"i have given some attention to this matter and it is undoubtedly of\nimportance. there can be no question that stapleton had a confidant,\nthough it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in his power by\nsharing all his plans with him. there was an old manservant at\nmerripit house, whose name was anthony. his connection with the\nstapletons can be traced for several years, as far back as the\nschoolmastering days, so that he must have been aware that his master\nand mistress were really husband and wife. this man has disappeared\nand has escaped from the country. it is suggestive that anthony is\nnot a common name in england, while antonio is so in all spanish or\nspanish-american countries. the man, like mrs. stapleton herself,\nspoke good english, but with a curious lisping accent. i have myself\nseen this old man cross the grimpen mire by the path which stapleton\nhad marked out. it is very probable, therefore, that in the absence\nof his master it was he who cared for the hound, though he may never\nhave known the purpose for which the beast was used.\n\"the stapletons then went down to devonshire, whither they were soon\nfollowed by sir henry and you. one word now as to how i stood myself\nat that time. it may possibly recur to your memory that when i\nexamined the paper upon which the printed words were fastened i made\na close inspection for the water-mark. in doing so i held it within a\nfew inches of my eyes, and was conscious of a faint smell of the\nscent known as white jessamine. there are seventy-five perfumes,\nwhich it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to\ndistinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my\nown experience depended upon their prompt recognition. the scent\nsuggested the presence of a lady, and already my thoughts began to\nturn towards the stapletons. thus i had made certain of the hound,\nand had guessed at the criminal before ever we went to the west\ncountry.\n\"it was my game to watch stapleton. it was evident, however, that i\ncould not do this if i were with you, since he would be keenly on his\nguard. i deceived everybody, therefore, yourself included, and i came\ndown secretly when i was supposed to be in london. my hardships were\nnot so great as you imagined, though such trifling details must never\ninterfere with the investigation of a case. i stayed for the most\npart at coombe tracey, and only used the hut upon the moor when it\nwas necessary to be near the scene of action. cartwright had come\ndown with me, and in his disguise as a country boy he was of great\nassistance to me. i was dependent upon him for food and clean linen.\nwhen i was watching stapleton, cartwright was frequently watching\nyou, so that i was able to keep my hand upon all the strings.\n\"i have already told you that your reports reached me rapidly, being\nforwarded instantly from baker street to coombe tracey. they were of\ngreat service to me, and especially that one incidentally truthful\npiece of biography of stapleton's. i was able to establish the\nidentity of the man and the woman and knew at last exactly how i\nstood. the case had been considerably complicated through the\nincident of the escaped convict and the relations between him and the\nbarrymores. this also you cleared up in a very effective way, though\ni had already come to the same conclusions from my own observations.\n\"by the time that you discovered me upon the moor i had a complete\nknowledge of the whole business, but i had not a case which could go\nto a jury. even stapleton's attempt upon sir henry that night which\nended in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much in\nproving murder against our man. there seemed to be no alternative but\nto catch him red-handed, and to do so we had to use sir henry, alone\nand apparently unprotected, as a bait. we did so, and at the cost of\na severe shock to our client we succeeded in completing our case and\ndriving stapleton to his destruction. that sir henry should have been\nexposed to this is, i must confess, a reproach to my management of\nthe case, but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and\nparalyzing spectacle which the beast presented, nor could we predict\nthe fog which enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice. we\nsucceeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and dr.\nmortimer assure me will be a temporary one. a long journey may enable\nour friend to recover not only from his shattered nerves but also\nfrom his wounded feelings. his love for the lady was deep and\nsincere, and to him the saddest part of all this black business was\nthat he should have been deceived by her.\n\"it only remains to indicate the part which she had played\nthroughout. there can be no doubt that stapleton exercised an\ninfluence over her which may have been love or may have been fear, or\nvery possibly both, since they are by no means incompatible emotions.\nit was, at least, absolutely effective. at his command she consented\nto pass as his sister, though he found the limits of his power over\nher when he endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder.\nshe was ready to warn sir henry so far as she could without\nimplicating her husband, and again and again she tried to do so.\nstapleton himself seems to have been capable of jealousy, and when he\nsaw the baronet paying court to the lady, even though it was part of\nhis own plan, still he could not help interrupting with a passionate\noutburst which revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained\nmanner so cleverly concealed. by encouraging the intimacy he made it\ncertain that sir henry would frequently come to merripit house and\nthat he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he desired.\non the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned suddenly against\nhim. she had learned something of the death of the convict, and she\nknew that the hound was being kept in the out-house on the evening\nthat sir henry was coming to dinner. she taxed her husband with his\nintended crime, and a furious scene followed, in which he showed her\nfor the first time that she had a rival in his love. her fidelity\nturned in an instant to bitter hatred and he saw that she would\nbetray him. he tied her up, therefore, that she might have no chance\nof warning sir henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole\ncountry-side put down the baronet's death to the curse of his family,\nas they certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an\naccomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. in this i\nfancy that in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had\nnot been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. a\nwoman of spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly.\nand now, my dear watson, without referring to my notes, i cannot give\nyou a more detailed account of this curious case. i do not know that\nanything essential has been left unexplained.\"\n\"he could not hope to frighten sir henry to death as he had done the\nold uncle with his bogie hound.\"\n\"the beast was savage and half-starved. if its appearance did not\nfrighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the\nresistance which might be offered.\"\n\"no doubt. there only remains one difficulty. if stapleton came into\nthe succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had\nbeen living unannounced under another name so close to the property?\nhow could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry?\"\n\"it is a formidable difficulty, and i fear that you ask too much when\nyou expect me to solve it. the past and the present are within the\nfield of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard\nquestion to answer. mrs. stapleton has heard her husband discuss the\nproblem on several occasions. there were three possible courses. he\nmight claim the property from south america, establish his identity\nbefore the british authorities there and so obtain the fortune\nwithout ever coming to england at all; or he might adopt an elaborate\ndisguise during the short time that he need be in london; or, again,\nhe might furnish an accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting\nhim in as heir, and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his\nincome. we cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have\nfound some way out of the difficulty. and now, my dear watson, we\nhave had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, i think, we\nmay turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. i have a box for\n'les huguenots.' have you heard the de reszkes? might i trouble you\nthen to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at marcini's for a\nlittle dinner on the way?\"\nthe valley of fear\ntable of contents\npart i\nthe warning\nsherlock holmes discourses\nthe tragedy of birlstone\ndarkness\nthe people of the drama\na dawning light\nthe solution\npart ii\nthe man\nthe bodymaster\nlodge 341, vermissa\nthe valley of fear\nthe darkest hour\ndanger\nthe trapping of birdy edwards\nepilogue\npart i\nthe tragedy of birlstone\nchapter i\nthe warning\n\"i am inclined to think--\" said i.\n\"i should do so,\" sherlock holmes remarked impatiently.\ni believe that i am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but\ni'll admit that i was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.\n\"really, holmes,\" said i severely, \"you are a little trying at\ntimes.\"\nhe was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate\nanswer to my remonstrance. he leaned upon his hand, with his untasted\nbreakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had\njust drawn from its envelope. then he took the envelope itself, held\nit up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and\nthe flap.\n\"it is porlock's writing,\" said he thoughtfully. \"i can hardly doubt\nthat it is porlock's writing, though i have seen it only twice\nbefore. the greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive.\nbut if it is porlock, then it must be something of the very first\nimportance.\"\nhe was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation\ndisappeared in the interest which the words awakened.\n\"who then is porlock?\" i asked.\n\"porlock, watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but\nbehind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. in a former letter\nhe frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me\never to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city.\nporlock is important, not for himself, but for the great man with\nwhom he is in touch. picture to yourself the pilot fish with the\nshark, the jackal with the lion--anything that is insignificant in\ncompanionship with what is formidable: not only formidable, watson,\nbut sinister--in the highest degree sinister. that is where he comes\nwithin my purview. you have heard me speak of professor moriarty?\"\n\"the famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--\"\n\"my blushes, watson!\" holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.\n\"i was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.\"\n\"a touch! a distinct touch!\" cried holmes. \"you are developing a\ncertain unexpected vein of pawky humour, watson, against which i must\nlearn to guard myself. but in calling moriarty a criminal you are\nuttering libel in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and\nthe wonder of it! the greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of\nevery deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain\nwhich might have made or marred the destiny of nations--that's the\nman! but so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from\ncriticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that\nfor those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a\ncourt and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his\nwounded character. is he not the celebrated author of the dynamics of\nan asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure\nmathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific\npress capable of criticizing it? is this a man to traduce?\nfoul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be your\nrespective roles! that's genius, watson. but if i am spared by lesser\nmen, our day will surely come.\"\n\"may i be there to see!\" i exclaimed devoutly. \"but you were speaking\nof this man porlock.\"\n\"ah, yes--the so-called porlock is a link in the chain some little\nway from its great attachment. porlock is not quite a sound\nlink--between ourselves. he is the only flaw in that chain so far as\ni have been able to test it.\"\n\"but no chain is stronger than its weakest link.\"\n\"exactly, my dear watson! hence the extreme importance of porlock.\nled on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged\nby the judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to\nhim by devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance\ninformation which has been of value--that highest value which\nanticipates and prevents rather than avenges crime. i cannot doubt\nthat, if we had the cipher, we should find that this communication is\nof the nature that i indicate.\"\nagain holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. i rose\nand, leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which\nran as follows:\n534 c2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41\ndouglas 109 293 5 37 birlstone\n26 birlstone 9 47 171\n\"what do you make of it, holmes?\"\n\"it is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.\"\n\"but what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?\"\n\"in this instance, none at all.\"\n\"why do you say 'in this instance'?\"\n\"because there are many ciphers which i would read as easily as i do\nthe apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the\nintelligence without fatiguing it. but this is different. it is\nclearly a reference to the words in a page of some book. until i am\ntold which page and which book i am powerless.\"\n\"but why 'douglas' and 'birlstone'?\"\n\"clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page\nin question.\"\n\"then why has he not indicated the book?\"\n\"your native shrewdness, my dear watson, that innate cunning which is\nthe delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing\ncipher and message in the same envelope. should it miscarry, you are\nundone. as it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from\nit. our second post is now overdue, and i shall be surprised if it\ndoes not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is\nmore probable, the very volume to which these figures refer.\"\nholmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the\nappearance of billy, the page, with the very letter which we were\nexpecting.\n\"the same writing,\" remarked holmes, as he opened the envelope, \"and\nactually signed,\" he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the\nepistle. \"come, we are getting on, watson.\" his brow clouded,\nhowever, as he glanced over the contents.\n\"dear me, this is very disappointing! i fear, watson, that all our\nexpectations come to nothing. i trust that the man porlock will come\nto no harm.\n\"dear mr. holmes [he says]:\n\"i will go no further in this matter. it is too dangerous--he\nsuspects me. i can see that he suspects me. he came to me quite\nunexpectedly after i had actually addressed this envelope with the\nintention of sending you the key to the cipher. i was able to cover\nit up. if he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. but i read\nsuspicion in his eyes. please burn the cipher message, which can now\nbe of no use to you.\n\"fred porlock.\"\nholmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his\nfingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.\n\"after all,\" he said at last, \"there may be nothing in it. it may be\nonly his guilty conscience. knowing himself to be a traitor, he may\nhave read the accusation in the other's eyes.\"\n\"the other being, i presume, professor moriarty.\"\n\"no less! when any of that party talk about 'he' you know whom they\nmean. there is one predominant 'he' for all of them.\"\n\"but what can he do?\"\n\"hum! that's a large question. when you have one of the first brains\nof europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back,\nthere are infinite possibilities. anyhow, friend porlock is evidently\nscared out of his senses--kindly compare the writing in the note to\nthat upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this\nill-omened visit. the one is clear and firm. the other hardly\nlegible.\"\n\"why did he write at all? why did he not simply drop it?\"\n\"because he feared i would make some inquiry after him in that case,\nand possibly bring trouble on him.\"\n\"no doubt,\" said i. \"of course.\" i had picked up the original cipher\nmessage and was bending my brows over it. \"it's pretty maddening to\nthink that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper,\nand that it is beyond human power to penetrate it.\"\nsherlock holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the\nunsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations. \"i\nwonder!\" said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. \"perhaps\nthere are points which have escaped your machiavellian intellect. let\nus consider the problem in the light of pure reason. this man's\nreference is to a book. that is our point of departure.\"\n\"a somewhat vague one.\"\n\"let us see then if we can narrow it down. as i focus my mind upon\nit, it seems rather less impenetrable. what indications have we as to\nthis book?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. the cipher\nmessage begins with a large 534, does it not? we may take it as a\nworking hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the\ncipher refers. so our book has already become a large book which is\nsurely something gained. what other indications have we as to the\nnature of this large book? the next sign is c2. what do you make of\nthat, watson?\"\n\"chapter the second, no doubt.\"\n\"hardly that, watson. you will, i am sure, agree with me that if the\npage be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. also that if\npage 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first\none must have been really intolerable.\"\n\"column!\" i cried.\n\"brilliant, watson. you are scintillating this morning. if it is not\ncolumn, then i am very much deceived. so now, you see, we begin to\nvisualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a\nconsiderable length, since one of the words is numbered in the\ndocument as the two hundred and ninety-third. have we reached the\nlimits of what reason can supply?\"\n\"i fear that we have.\"\n\"surely you do yourself an injustice. one more coruscation, my dear\nwatson--yet another brain-wave! had the volume been an unusual one,\nhe would have sent it to me. instead of that, he had intended, before\nhis plans were nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope. he says\nso in his note. this would seem to indicate that the book is one\nwhich he thought i would have no difficulty in finding for myself. he\nhad it--and he imagined that i would have it, too. in short, watson,\nit is a very common book.\"\n\"what you say certainly sounds plausible.\"\n\"so we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed\nin double columns and in common use.\"\n\"the bible!\" i cried triumphantly.\n\"good, watson, good! but not, if i may say so, quite good enough!\neven if i accepted the compliment for myself i could hardly name any\nvolume which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of\nmoriarty's associates. besides, the editions of holy writ are so\nnumerous that he could hardly suppose that two copies would have the\nsame pagination. this is clearly a book which is standardized. he\nknows for certain that his page 534 will exactly agree with my page\n534.\"\n\"but very few books would correspond with that.\"\n\"exactly. therein lies our salvation. our search is narrowed down to\nstandardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess.\"\n\"bradshaw!\"\n\"there are difficulties, watson. the vocabulary of bradshaw is\nnervous and terse, but limited. the selection of words would hardly\nlend itself to the sending of general messages. we will eliminate\nbradshaw. the dictionary is, i fear, inadmissible for the same\nreason. what then is left?\"\n\"an almanac!\"\n\"excellent, watson! i am very much mistaken if you have not touched\nthe spot. an almanac! let us consider the claims of whitaker's\nalmanac. it is in common use. it has the requisite number of pages.\nit is in double column. though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it\nbecomes, if i remember right, quite garrulous towards the end.\" he\npicked the volume from his desk. \"here is page 534, column two, a\nsubstantial block of print dealing, i perceive, with the trade and\nresources of british india. jot down the words, watson! number\nthirteen is 'mahratta.' not, i fear, a very auspicious beginning.\nnumber one hundred and twenty-seven is 'government'; which at least\nmakes sense, though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and professor\nmoriarty. now let us try again. what does the mahratta government do?\nalas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' we are undone, my good\nwatson! it is finished!\"\nhe had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy\neyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. i sat helpless\nand unhappy, staring into the fire. a long silence was broken by a\nsudden exclamation from holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which\nhe emerged with a second yellow-covered volume in his hand.\n\"we pay the price, watson, for being too up-to-date!\" he cried. \"we\nare before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. being the\nseventh of january, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. it\nis more than likely that porlock took his message from the old one.\nno doubt he would have told us so had his letter of explanation been\nwritten. now let us see what page 534 has in store for us. number\nthirteen is 'there,' which is much more promising. number one hundred\nand twenty-seven is 'is'--'there is'\"--holmes's eyes were gleaming\nwith excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted\nthe words--\"'danger.' ha! ha! capital! put that down, watson. 'there\nis danger-- may-- come-- very-- soon-- one.' then we have the name\n'douglas' --'rich-- country-- now-- at-- birlstone-- house--\nbirlstone-- confidence-- is-- pressing.' there, watson! what do you\nthink of pure reason and its fruit? if the greengrocer had such a\nthing as a laurel wreath, i should send billy round for it.\"\ni was staring at the strange message which i had scrawled, as he\ndeciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.\n\"what a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!\" said i.\n\"on the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well,\" said holmes.\n\"when you search a single column for words with which to express your\nmeaning, you can hardly expect to get everything you want. you are\nbound to leave something to the intelligence of your correspondent.\nthe purport is perfectly clear. some deviltry is intended against one\ndouglas, whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country\ngentleman. he is sure--'confidence' was as near as he could get to\n'confident'--that it is pressing. there is our result--and a very\nworkmanlike little bit of analysis it was!\"\nholmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work,\neven as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which\nhe aspired. he was still chuckling over his success when billy swung\nopen the door and inspector macdonald of scotland yard was ushered\ninto the room.\nthose were the early days at the end of the '80's, when alec\nmacdonald was far from having attained the national fame which he has\nnow achieved. he was a young but trusted member of the detective\nforce, who had distinguished himself in several cases which had been\nentrusted to him. his tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional\nphysical strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous\neyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled\nout from behind his bushy eyebrows. he was a silent, precise man with\na dour nature and a hard aberdonian accent.\ntwice already in his career had holmes helped him to attain success,\nhis own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. for\nthis reason the affection and respect of the scotchman for his\namateur colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness\nwith which he consulted holmes in every difficulty. mediocrity knows\nnothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius,\nand macdonald had talent enough for his profession to enable him to\nperceive that there was no humiliation in seeking the assistance of\none who already stood alone in europe, both in his gifts and in his\nexperience. holmes was not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant\nof the big scotchman, and smiled at the sight of him.\n\"you are an early bird, mr. mac,\" said he. \"i wish you luck with your\nworm. i fear this means that there is some mischief afoot.\"\n\"if you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the truth,\ni'm thinking, mr. holmes,\" the inspector answered, with a knowing\ngrin. \"well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill.\nno, i won't smoke, i thank you. i'll have to be pushing on my way;\nfor the early hours of a case are the precious ones, as no man knows\nbetter than your own self. but--but--\"\nthe inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of\nabsolute amazement at a paper upon the table. it was the sheet upon\nwhich i had scrawled the enigmatic message.\n\"douglas!\" he stammered. \"birlstone! what's this, mr. holmes? man,\nit's witchcraft! where in the name of all that is wonderful did you\nget those names?\"\n\"it is a cipher that dr. watson and i have had occasion to solve. but\nwhy--what's amiss with the names?\"\nthe inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed\nastonishment. \"just this,\" said he, \"that mr. douglas of birlstone\nmanor house was horribly murdered last night!\"\nchapter ii\nsherlock holmes discourses\nit was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. it\nwould be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited\nby the amazing announcement. without having a tinge of cruelty in his\nsingular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long\nover-stimulation. yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual\nperceptions were exceedingly active. there was no trace then of the\nhorror which i had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face\nshowed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who\nsees the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated\nsolution.\n\"remarkable!\" said he. \"remarkable!\"\n\"you don't seem surprised.\"\n\"interested, mr. mac, but hardly surprised. why should i be\nsurprised? i receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which\ni know to be important, warning me that danger threatens a certain\nperson. within an hour i learn that this danger has actually\nmaterialized and that the person is dead. i am interested; but, as\nyou observe, i am not surprised.\"\nin a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts\nabout the letter and the cipher. macdonald sat with his chin on his\nhands and his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.\n\"i was going down to birlstone this morning,\" said he. \"i had come to\nask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here. but\nfrom what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in london.\"\n\"i rather think not,\" said holmes.\n\"hang it all, mr. holmes!\" cried the inspector. \"the papers will be\nfull of the birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the\nmystery if there is a man in london who prophesied the crime before\never it occurred? we have only to lay our hands on that man, and the\nrest will follow.\"\n\"no doubt, mr. mac. but how do you propose to lay your hands on the\nso-called porlock?\"\nmacdonald turned over the letter which holmes had handed him. \"posted\nin camberwell--that doesn't help us much. name, you say, is assumed.\nnot much to go on, certainly. didn't you say that you have sent him\nmoney?\"\n\"twice.\"\n\"and how?\"\n\"in notes to camberwell post-office.\"\n\"did you ever trouble to see who called for them?\"\n\"no.\"\nthe inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. \"why not?\"\n\"because i always keep faith. i had promised when he first wrote that\ni would not try to trace him.\"\n\"you think there is someone behind him?\"\n\"i know there is.\"\n\"this professor that i've heard you mention?\"\n\"exactly!\"\ninspector macdonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced\ntowards me. \"i won't conceal from you, mr. holmes, that we think in\nthe c. i. d. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over\nthis professor. i made some inquiries myself about the matter. he\nseems to be a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man.\"\n\"i'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent.\"\n\"man, you can't but recognize it! after i heard your view i made it\nmy business to see him. i had a chat with him on eclipses. how the\ntalk got that way i canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern\nand a globe, and made it all clear in a minute. he lent me a book;\nbut i don't mind saying that it was a bit above my head, though i had\na good aberdeen upbringing. he'd have made a grand meenister with his\nthin face and gray hair and solemn-like way of talking. when he put\nhis hand on my shoulder as we were parting, it was like a father's\nblessing before you go out into the cold, cruel world.\"\nholmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. \"great!\" he said. \"great! tell\nme, friend macdonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, i\nsuppose, in the professor's study?\"\n\"that's so.\"\n\"a fine room, is it not?\"\n\"very fine--very handsome indeed, mr. holmes.\"\n\"you sat in front of his writing desk?\"\n\"just so.\"\n\"sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?\"\n\"well, it was evening; but i mind that the lamp was turned on my\nface.\"\n\"it would be. did you happen to observe a picture over the\nprofessor's head?\"\n\"i don't miss much, mr. holmes. maybe i learned that from you. yes, i\nsaw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at\nyou sideways.\"\n\"that painting was by jean baptiste greuze.\"\nthe inspector endeavoured to look interested.\n\"jean baptiste greuze,\" holmes continued, joining his finger tips and\nleaning well back in his chair, \"was a french artist who flourished\nbetween the years 1750 and 1800. i allude, of course to his working\ncareer. modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion\nformed of him by his contemporaries.\"\nthe inspector's eyes grew abstracted. \"hadn't we better--\" he said.\n\"we are doing so,\" holmes interrupted. \"all that i am saying has a\nvery direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the birlstone\nmystery. in fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it.\"\nmacdonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. \"your thoughts\nmove a bit too quick for me, mr. holmes. you leave out a link or two,\nand i can't get over the gap. what in the whole wide world can be the\nconnection between this dead painting man and the affair at\nbirlstone?\"\n\"all knowledge comes useful to the detective,\" remarked holmes. \"even\nthe trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by greuze entitled\nla jeune fille a l'agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand\nfrancs--more than forty thousand pounds--at the portalis sale may\nstart a train of reflection in your mind.\"\nit was clear that it did. the inspector looked honestly interested.\n\"i may remind you,\" holmes continued, \"that the professor's salary\ncan be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. it is\nseven hundred a year.\"\n\"then how could he buy--\"\n\"quite so! how could he?\"\n\"ay, that's remarkable,\" said the inspector thoughtfully. \"talk away,\nmr. holmes. i'm just loving it. it's fine!\"\nholmes smiled. he was always warmed by genuine admiration--the\ncharacteristic of the real artist. \"what about birlstone?\" he asked.\n\"we've time yet,\" said the inspector, glancing at his watch. \"i've a\ncab at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to victoria. but\nabout this picture: i thought you told me once, mr. holmes, that you\nhad never met professor moriarty.\"\n\"no, i never have.\"\n\"then how do you know about his rooms?\"\n\"ah, that's another matter. i have been three times in his rooms,\ntwice waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he\ncame. once--well, i can hardly tell about the once to an official\ndetective. it was on the last occasion that i took the liberty of\nrunning over his papers--with the most unexpected results.\"\n\"you found something compromising?\"\n\"absolutely nothing. that was what amazed me. however, you have now\nseen the point of the picture. it shows him to be a very wealthy man.\nhow did he acquire wealth? he is unmarried. his younger brother is a\nstation master in the west of england. his chair is worth seven\nhundred a year. and he owns a greuze.\"\n\"well?\"\n\"surely the inference is plain.\"\n\"you mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an\nillegal fashion?\"\n\"exactly. of course i have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of\nexiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web\nwhere the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. i only mention\nthe greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own\nobservation.\"\n\"well, mr. holmes, i admit that what you say is interesting: it's\nmore than interesting--it's just wonderful. but let us have it a\nlittle clearer if you can. is it forgery, coining, burglary--where\ndoes the money come from?\"\n\"have you ever read of jonathan wild?\"\n\"well, the name has a familiar sound. someone in a novel, was he not?\ni don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things\nand never let you see how they do them. that's just inspiration: not\nbusiness.\"\n\"jonathan wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. he was a\nmaster criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts.\"\n\"then he's no use to me. i'm a practical man.\"\n\"mr. mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life\nwould be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a\nday at the annals of crime. everything comes in circles--even\nprofessor moriarty. jonathan wild was the hidden force of the london\ncriminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a\nfifteen per cent commission. the old wheel turns, and the same spoke\ncomes up. it's all been done before, and will be again. i'll tell you\none or two things about moriarty which may interest you.\"\n\"you'll interest me, right enough.\"\n\"i happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with\nthis napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting\nmen, pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with\nevery sort of crime in between. his chief of staff is colonel\nsebastian moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as\nhimself. what do you think he pays him?\"\n\"i'd like to hear.\"\n\"six thousand a year. that's paying for brains, you see--the american\nbusiness principle. i learned that detail quite by chance. it's more\nthan the prime minister gets. that gives you an idea of moriarty's\ngains and of the scale on which he works. another point: i made it my\nbusiness to hunt down some of moriarty's checks lately--just common\ninnocent checks that he pays his household bills with. they were\ndrawn on six different banks. does that make any impression on your\nmind?\"\n\"queer, certainly! but what do you gather from it?\"\n\"that he wanted no gossip about his wealth. no single man should know\nwhat he had. i have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the\nbulk of his fortune abroad in the deutsche bank or the credit\nlyonnais as likely as not. sometime when you have a year or two to\nspare i commend to you the study of professor moriarty.\"\ninspector macdonald had grown steadily more impressed as the\nconversation proceeded. he had lost himself in his interest. now his\npractical scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the\nmatter in hand.\n\"he can keep, anyhow,\" said he. \"you've got us side-tracked with your\ninteresting anecdotes, mr. holmes. what really counts is your remark\nthat there is some connection between the professor and the crime.\nthat you get from the warning received through the man porlock. can\nwe for our present practical needs get any further than that?\"\n\"we may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. it is,\nas i gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least\nan unexplained, murder. now, presuming that the source of the crime\nis as we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. in\nthe first place, i may tell you that moriarty rules with a rod of\niron over his people. his discipline is tremendous. there is only one\npunishment in his code. it is death. now we might suppose that this\nmurdered man--this douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of\nthe arch-criminal's subordinates--had in some way betrayed the chief.\nhis punishment followed, and would be known to all--if only to put\nthe fear of death into them.\"\n\"well, that is one suggestion, mr. holmes.\"\n\"the other is that it has been engineered by moriarty in the ordinary\ncourse of business. was there any robbery?\"\n\"i have not heard.\"\n\"if so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in\nfavour of the second. moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it\non a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to\nmanage it. either is possible. but whichever it may be, or if it is\nsome third combination, it is down at birlstone that we must seek the\nsolution. i know our man too well to suppose that he has left\nanything up here which may lead us to him.\"\n\"then to birlstone we must go!\" cried macdonald, jumping from his\nchair. \"my word! it's later than i thought. i can give you,\ngentlemen, five minutes for preparation, and that is all.\"\n\"and ample for us both,\" said holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to\nchange from his dressing gown to his coat. \"while we are on our way,\nmr. mac, i will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it.\"\n\"all about it\" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was\nenough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of\nthe expert's closest attention. he brightened and rubbed his thin\nhands together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. a\nlong series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there\nwas a fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all\nspecial gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in\nuse. that razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.\nsherlock holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue,\nand his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for\nwork reached him. leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to\nmacdonald's short sketch of the problem which awaited us in sussex.\nthe inspector was himself dependent, as he explained to us, upon a\nscribbled account forwarded to him by the milk train in the early\nhours of the morning. white mason, the local officer, was a personal\nfriend, and hence macdonald had been notified much more promptly than\nis usual at scotland yard when provincials need their assistance. it\nis a very cold scent upon which the metropolitan expert is generally\nasked to run.\n\"dear inspector macdonald [said the letter which he read to us]:\n\"official requisition for your services is in separate envelope. this\nis for your private eye. wire me what train in the morning you can\nget for birlstone, and i will meet it--or have it met if i am too\noccupied. this case is a snorter. don't waste a moment in getting\nstarted. if you can bring mr. holmes, please do so; for he will find\nsomething after his own heart. we would think the whole thing had\nbeen fixed up for theatrical effect if there wasn't a dead man in the\nmiddle of it. my word! it is a snorter.\"\n\"your friend seems to be no fool,\" remarked holmes.\n\"no, sir, white mason is a very live man, if i am any judge.\"\n\"well, have you anything more?\"\n\"only that he will give us every detail when we meet.\"\n\"then how did you get at mr. douglas and the fact that he had been\nhorribly murdered?\"\n\"that was in the enclosed official report. it didn't say 'horrible':\nthat's not a recognized official term. it gave the name john douglas.\nit mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the\ndischarge of a shotgun. it also mentioned the hour of the alarm,\nwhich was close on to midnight last night. it added that the case was\nundoubtedly one of murder, but that no arrest had been made, and that\nthe case was one which presented some very perplexing and\nextraordinary features. that's absolutely all we have at present, mr.\nholmes.\"\n\"then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, mr. mac. the\ntemptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the\nbane of our profession. i can see only two things for certain at\npresent--a great brain in london, and a dead man in sussex. it's the\nchain between that we are going to trace.\"\nchapter iii\nthe tragedy of birlstone\nnow for a moment i will ask leave to remove my own insignificant\npersonality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived\nupon the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards.\nonly in this way can i make the reader appreciate the people\nconcerned and the strange setting in which their fate was cast.\nthe village of birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of\nhalf-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of\nsussex. for centuries it had remained unchanged; but within the last\nfew years its picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a\nnumber of well-to-do residents, whose villas peep out from the woods\naround. these woods are locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of\nthe great weald forest, which thins away until it reaches the\nnorthern chalk downs. a number of small shops have come into being to\nmeet the wants of the increased population; so there seems some\nprospect that birlstone may soon grow from an ancient village into a\nmodern town. it is the centre for a considerable area of country,\nsince tunbridge wells, the nearest place of importance, is ten or\ntwelve miles to the eastward, over the borders of kent.\nabout half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for\nits huge beech trees, is the ancient manor house of birlstone. part\nof this venerable building dates back to the time of the first\ncrusade, when hugo de capus built a fortalice in the centre of the\nestate, which had been granted to him by the red king. this was\ndestroyed by fire in 1543, and some of its smoke-blackened corner\nstones were used when, in jacobean times, a brick country house rose\nupon the ruins of the feudal castle.\nthe manor house, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned\nwindows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early\nseventeenth century. of the double moats which had guarded its more\nwarlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served\nthe humble function of a kitchen garden. the inner one was still\nthere, and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in\ndepth, round the whole house. a small stream fed it and continued\nbeyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never\nditch-like or unhealthy. the ground floor windows were within a foot\nof the surface of the water.\nthe only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and\nwindlass of which had long been rusted and broken. the latest tenants\nof the manor house had, however, with characteristic energy, set this\nright, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but\nactually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. by thus\nrenewing the custom of the old feudal days the manor house was\nconverted into an island during the night--a fact which had a very\ndirect bearing upon the mystery which was soon to engage the\nattention of all england.\nthe house had been untenanted for some years and was threatening to\nmoulder into a picturesque decay when the douglases took possession\nof it. this family consisted of only two individuals--john douglas\nand his wife. douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in\nperson. in age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed,\nrugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a\nwiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and\nactivity of youth. he was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat\noffhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life\nin social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society of\nsussex.\nyet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more\ncultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the\nvillagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending\ntheir smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a\nremarkably rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an\nexcellent song. he appeared to have plenty of money, which was said\nto have been gained in the california gold fields, and it was clear\nfrom his own talk and that of his wife that he had spent a part of\nhis life in america.\nthe good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by\nhis democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter\nindifference to danger. though a wretched rider, he turned out at\nevery meet, and took the most amazing falls in his determination to\nhold his own with the best. when the vicarage caught fire he\ndistinguished himself also by the fearlessness with which he\nreentered the building to save property, after the local fire brigade\nhad given it up as impossible. thus it came about that john douglas\nof the manor house had within five years won himself quite a\nreputation in birlstone.\nhis wife, too, was popular with those who had made her acquaintance;\nthough, after the english fashion, the callers upon a stranger who\nsettled in the county without introductions were few and far between.\nthis mattered the less to her, as she was retiring by disposition,\nand very much absorbed, to all appearance, in her husband and her\ndomestic duties. it was known that she was an english lady who had\nmet mr. douglas in london, he being at that time a widower. she was a\nbeautiful woman, tall, dark, and slender, some twenty years younger\nthan her husband, a disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the\ncontentment of their family life.\nit was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that\nthe confidence between the two did not appear to be complete, since\nthe wife was either very reticent about her husband's past life, or\nelse, as seemed more likely, was imperfectly informed about it. it\nhad also been noted and commented upon by a few observant people that\nthere were signs sometimes of some nerve-strain upon the part of mrs.\ndouglas, and that she would display acute uneasiness if her absent\nhusband should ever be particularly late in his return. on a quiet\ncountryside, where all gossip is welcome, this weakness of the lady\nof the manor house did not pass without remark, and it bulked larger\nupon people's memory when the events arose which gave it a very\nspecial significance.\nthere was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was,\nit is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time\nof the strange happenings which will now be narrated brought his name\nprominently before the public. this was cecil james barker, of hales\nlodge, hampstead.\ncecil barker's tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the\nmain street of birlstone village; for he was a frequent and welcome\nvisitor at the manor house. he was the more noticed as being the only\nfriend of the past unknown life of mr. douglas who was ever seen in\nhis new english surroundings. barker was himself an undoubted\nenglishman; but by his remarks it was clear that he had first known\ndouglas in america and had there lived on intimate terms with him. he\nappeared to be a man of considerable wealth, and was reputed to be a\nbachelor.\nin age he was rather younger than douglas--forty-five at the most--a\ntall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved,\nprize-fighter face, thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of\nmasterful black eyes which might, even without the aid of his very\ncapable hands, clear a way for him through a hostile crowd. he\nneither rode nor shot, but spent his days in wandering round the old\nvillage with his pipe in his mouth, or in driving with his host, or\nin his absence with his hostess, over the beautiful countryside. \"an\neasy-going, free-handed gentleman,\" said ames, the butler. \"but, my\nword! i had rather not be the man that crossed him!\" he was cordial\nand intimate with douglas, and he was no less friendly with his\nwife--a friendship which more than once seemed to cause some\nirritation to the husband, so that even the servants were able to\nperceive his annoyance. such was the third person who was one of the\nfamily when the catastrophe occurred.\nas to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of\na large household to mention the prim, respectable, and capable ames,\nand mrs. allen, a buxom and cheerful person, who relieved the lady of\nsome of her household cares. the other six servants in the house bear\nno relation to the events of the night of january 6th.\nit was at eleven forty-five that the first alarm reached the small\nlocal police station, in charge of sergeant wilson of the sussex\nconstabulary. cecil barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door\nand pealed furiously upon the bell. a terrible tragedy had occurred\nat the manor house, and john douglas had been murdered. that was the\nbreathless burden of his message. he had hurried back to the house,\nfollowed within a few minutes by the police sergeant, who arrived at\nthe scene of the crime a little after twelve o'clock, after taking\nprompt steps to warn the county authorities that something serious\nwas afoot.\non reaching the manor house, the sergeant had found the drawbridge\ndown, the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of\nwild confusion and alarm. the white-faced servants were huddling\ntogether in the hall, with the frightened butler wringing his hands\nin the doorway. only cecil barker seemed to be master of himself and\nhis emotions; he had opened the door which was nearest to the\nentrance and he had beckoned to the sergeant to follow him. at that\nmoment there arrived dr. wood, a brisk and capable general\npractitioner from the village. the three men entered the fatal room\ntogether, while the horror-stricken butler followed at their heels,\nclosing the door behind him to shut out the terrible scene from the\nmaid servants.\nthe dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in\nthe centre of the room. he was clad only in a pink dressing gown,\nwhich covered his night clothes. there were carpet slippers on his\nbare feet. the doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp\nwhich had stood on the table. one glance at the victim was enough to\nshow the healer that his presence could be dispensed with. the man\nhad been horribly injured. lying across his chest was a curious\nweapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the\ntriggers. it was clear that this had been fired at close range and\nthat he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head\nalmost to pieces. the triggers had been wired together, so as to make\nthe simultaneous discharge more destructive.\nthe country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous\nresponsibility which had come so suddenly upon him. \"we will touch\nnothing until my superiors arrive,\" he said in a hushed voice,\nstaring in horror at the dreadful head.\n\"nothing has been touched up to now,\" said cecil barker. \"i'll answer\nfor that. you see it all exactly as i found it.\"\n\"when was that?\" the sergeant had drawn out his notebook.\n\"it was just half-past eleven. i had not begun to undress, and i was\nsitting by the fire in my bedroom when i heard the report. it was not\nvery loud--it seemed to be muffled. i rushed down--i don't suppose it\nwas thirty seconds before i was in the room.\"\n\"was the door open?\"\n\"yes, it was open. poor douglas was lying as you see him. his bedroom\ncandle was burning on the table. it was i who lit the lamp some\nminutes afterward.\"\n\"did you see no one?\"\n\"no. i heard mrs. douglas coming down the stair behind me, and i\nrushed out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. mrs.\nallen, the housekeeper, came and took her away. ames had arrived, and\nwe ran back into the room once more.\"\n\"but surely i have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.\"\n\"yes, it was up until i lowered it.\"\n\"then how could any murderer have got away? it is out of the\nquestion! mr. douglas must have shot himself.\"\n\"that was our first idea. but see!\" barker drew aside the curtain,\nand showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full\nextent. \"and look at this!\" he held the lamp down and illuminated a\nsmudge of blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill.\n\"someone has stood there in getting out.\"\n\"you mean that someone waded across the moat?\"\n\"exactly!\"\n\"then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he\nmust have been in the water at that very moment.\"\n\"i have not a doubt of it. i wish to heaven that i had rushed to the\nwindow! but the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never\noccurred to me. then i heard the step of mrs. douglas, and i could\nnot let her enter the room. it would have been too horrible.\"\n\"horrible enough!\" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and\nthe terrible marks which surrounded it. \"i've never seen such\ninjuries since the birlstone railway smash.\"\n\"but, i say,\" remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic\ncommon sense was still pondering the open window. \"it's all very well\nyour saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what i ask\nyou is, how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was\nup?\"\n\"ah, that's the question,\" said barker.\n\"at what o'clock was it raised?\"\n\"it was nearly six o'clock,\" said ames, the butler.\n\"i've heard,\" said the sergeant, \"that it was usually raised at\nsunset. that would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of\nyear.\"\n\"mrs. douglas had visitors to tea,\" said ames. \"i couldn't raise it\nuntil they went. then i wound it up myself.\"\n\"then it comes to this,\" said the sergeant: \"if anyone came from\noutside--if they did--they must have got in across the bridge before\nsix and been in hiding ever since, until mr. douglas came into the\nroom after eleven.\"\n\"that is so! mr. douglas went round the house every night the last\nthing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. that\nbrought him in here. the man was waiting and shot him. then he got\naway through the window and left his gun behind him. that's how i\nread it; for nothing else will fit the facts.\"\nthe sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the\nfloor. the initials v. v. and under them the number 341 were rudely\nscrawled in ink upon it.\n\"what's this?\" he asked, holding it up.\nbarker looked at it with curiosity. \"i never noticed it before,\" he\nsaid. \"the murderer must have left it behind him.\"\n\"v. v.--341. i can make no sense of that.\"\nthe sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. \"what's v. v.?\nsomebody's initials, maybe. what have you got there, dr. wood?\"\nit was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front\nof the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. cecil barker\npointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.\n\"mr. douglas was altering the pictures yesterday,\" he said. \"i saw\nhim myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above\nit. that accounts for the hammer.\"\n\"we'd best put it back on the rug where we found it,\" said the\nsergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. \"it will\nwant the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing.\nit will be a london job before it is finished.\" he raised the hand\nlamp and walked slowly round the room. \"hullo!\" he cried, excitedly,\ndrawing the window curtain to one side. \"what o'clock were those\ncurtains drawn?\"\n\"when the lamps were lit,\" said the butler. \"it would be shortly\nafter four.\"\n\"someone had been hiding here, sure enough.\" he held down the light,\nand the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. \"i'm\nbound to say this bears out your theory, mr. barker. it looks as if\nthe man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn\nand before six when the bridge was raised. he slipped into this room,\nbecause it was the first that he saw. there was no other place where\nhe could hide, so he popped in behind this curtain. that all seems\nclear enough. it is likely that his main idea was to burgle the\nhouse; but mr. douglas chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him\nand escaped.\"\n\"that's how i read it,\" said barker. \"but, i say, aren't we wasting\nprecious time? couldn't we start out and scour the country before the\nfellow gets away?\"\nthe sergeant considered for a moment.\n\"there are no trains before six in the morning; so he can't get away\nby rail. if he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds\nthat someone will notice him. anyhow, i can't leave here myself until\ni am relieved. but i think none of you should go until we see more\nclearly how we all stand.\"\nthe doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.\n\"what's this mark?\" he asked. \"could this have any connection with\nthe crime?\"\nthe dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and\nexposed as high as the elbow. about halfway up the forearm was a\ncurious brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in\nvivid relief upon the lard-coloured skin.\n\"it's not tattooed,\" said the doctor, peering through his glasses. \"i\nnever saw anything like it. the man has been branded at some time as\nthey brand cattle. what is the meaning of this?\"\n\"i don't profess to know the meaning of it,\" said cecil barker; \"but\ni have seen the mark on douglas many times this last ten years.\"\n\"and so have i,\" said the butler. \"many a time when the master has\nrolled up his sleeves i have noticed that very mark. i've often\nwondered what it could be.\"\n\"then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow,\" said the\nsergeant. \"but it's a rum thing all the same. everything about this\ncase is rum. well, what is it now?\"\nthe butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing\nat the dead man's outstretched hand.\n\"they've taken his wedding ring!\" he gasped.\n\"what!\"\n\"yes, indeed. master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the\nlittle finger of his left hand. that ring with the rough nugget on it\nwas above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger. there's\nthe nugget and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone.\"\n\"he's right,\" said barker.\n\"do you tell me,\" said the sergeant, \"that the wedding ring was below\nthe other?\"\n\"always!\"\n\"then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you\ncall the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the\nnugget ring back again.\"\n\"that is so!\"\nthe worthy country policeman shook his head. \"seems to me the sooner\nwe get london on to this case the better,\" said he. \"white mason is a\nsmart man. no local job has ever been too much for white mason. it\nwon't be long now before he is here to help us. but i expect we'll\nhave to look to london before we are through. anyhow, i'm not ashamed\nto say that it is a deal too thick for the likes of me.\"\nchapter iv\ndarkness\nat three in the morning the chief sussex detective, obeying the\nurgent call from sergeant wilson of birlstone, arrived from\nheadquarters in a light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter. by the\nfive-forty train in the morning he had sent his message to scotland\nyard, and he was at the birlstone station at twelve o'clock to\nwelcome us. white mason was a quiet, comfortable-looking person in a\nloose tweed suit, with a clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body,\nand powerful bandy legs adorned with gaiters, looking like a small\nfarmer, a retired gamekeeper, or anything upon earth except a very\nfavourable specimen of the provincial criminal officer.\n\"a real downright snorter, mr. macdonald!\" he kept repeating. \"we'll\nhave the pressmen down like flies when they understand it. i'm hoping\nwe will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it\nand messing up all the trails. there has been nothing like this that\ni can remember. there are some bits that will come home to you, mr.\nholmes, or i am mistaken. and you also, dr. watson; for the medicos\nwill have a word to say before we finish. your room is at the\nwestville arms. there's no other place; but i hear that it is clean\nand good. the man will carry your bags. this way, gentlemen, if you\nplease.\"\nhe was a very bustling and genial person, this sussex detective. in\nten minutes we had all found our quarters. in ten more we were seated\nin the parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of\nthose events which have been outlined in the previous chapter.\nmacdonald made an occasional note, while holmes sat absorbed, with\nthe expression of surprised and reverent admiration with which the\nbotanist surveys the rare and precious bloom.\n\"remarkable!\" he said, when the story was unfolded, \"most remarkable!\ni can hardly recall any case where the features have been more\npeculiar.\"\n\"i thought you would say so, mr. holmes,\" said white mason in great\ndelight. \"we're well up with the times in sussex. i've told you now\nhow matters were, up to the time when i took over from sergeant\nwilson between three and four this morning. my word! i made the old\nmare go! but i need not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out;\nfor there was nothing immediate that i could do. sergeant wilson had\nall the facts. i checked them and considered them and maybe added a\nfew of my own.\"\n\"what were they?\" asked holmes eagerly.\n\"well, i first had the hammer examined. there was dr. wood there to\nhelp me. we found no signs of violence upon it. i was hoping that if\nmr. douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his\nmark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. but there was\nno stain.\"\n\"that, of course, proves nothing at all,\" remarked inspector\nmacdonald. \"there has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the\nhammer.\"\n\"quite so. it doesn't prove it wasn't used. but there might have been\nstains, and that would have helped us. as a matter of fact there were\nnone. then i examined the gun. they were buckshot cartridges, and, as\nsergeant wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so\nthat, if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged.\nwhoever fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take\nno chances of missing his man. the sawed gun was not more than two\nfoot long--one could carry it easily under one's coat. there was no\ncomplete maker's name; but the printed letters p-e-n were on the\nfluting between the barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut\noff by the saw.\"\n\"a big p with a flourish above it, e and n smaller?\" asked holmes.\n\"exactly.\"\n\"pennsylvania small arms company--well-known american firm,\" said\nholmes.\nwhite mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner\nlooks at the harley street specialist who by a word can solve the\ndifficulties that perplex him.\n\"that is very helpful, mr. holmes. no doubt you are right. wonderful!\nwonderful! do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world\nin your memory?\"\nholmes dismissed the subject with a wave.\n\"no doubt it is an american shotgun,\" white mason continued. \"i seem\nto have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts\nof america. apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had\noccurred to me. there is some evidence then, that this man who\nentered the house and killed its master was an american.\"\nmacdonald shook his head. \"man, you are surely travelling overfast,\"\nsaid he. \"i have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in\nthe house at all.\"\n\"the open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of\nboots in the corner, the gun!\"\n\"nothing there that could not have been arranged. mr. douglas was an\namerican, or had lived long in america. so had mr. barker. you don't\nneed to import an american from outside in order to account for\namerican doings.\"\n\"ames, the butler--\"\n\"what about him? is he reliable?\"\n\"ten years with sir charles chandos--as solid as a rock. he has been\nwith douglas ever since he took the manor house five years ago. he\nhas never seen a gun of this sort in the house.\"\n\"the gun was made to conceal. that's why the barrels were sawed. it\nwould fit into any box. how could he swear there was no such gun in\nthe house?\"\n\"well, anyhow, he had never seen one.\"\nmacdonald shook his obstinate scotch head. \"i'm not convinced yet\nthat there was ever anyone in the house,\" said he. \"i'm asking you to\nconseedar\" (his accent became more aberdonian as he lost himself in\nhis argument) \"i'm asking you to conseedar what it involves if you\nsuppose that this gun was ever brought into the house, and that all\nthese strange things were done by a person from outside. oh, man,\nit's just inconceivable! it's clean against common sense! i put it to\nyou, mr. holmes, judging it by what we have heard.\"\n\"well, state your case, mr. mac,\" said holmes in his most judicial\nstyle.\n\"the man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed. the ring\nbusiness and the card point to premeditated murder for some private\nreason. very good. here is a man who slips into a house with the\ndeliberate intention of committing murder. he knows, if he knows\nanything, that he will have a deeficulty in making his escape, as the\nhouse is surrounded with water. what weapon would he choose? you\nwould say the most silent in the world. then he could hope when the\ndeed was done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and\nto get away at his leisure. that's understandable. but is it\nunderstandable that he should go out of his way to bring with him the\nmost noisy weapon he could select, knowing well that it will fetch\nevery human being in the house to the spot as quick as they can run,\nand that it is all odds that he will be seen before he can get across\nthe moat? is that credible, mr. holmes?\"\n\"well, you put the case strongly,\" my friend replied thoughtfully.\n\"it certainly needs a good deal of justification. may i ask, mr.\nwhite mason, whether you examined the farther side of the moat at\nonce to see if there were any signs of the man having climbed out\nfrom the water?\"\n\"there were no signs, mr. holmes. but it is a stone ledge, and one\ncould hardly expect them.\"\n\"no tracks or marks?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"ha! would there be any objection, mr. white mason, to our going down\nto the house at once? there may possibly be some small point which\nmight be suggestive.\"\n\"i was going to propose it, mr. holmes; but i thought it well to put\nyou in touch with all the facts before we go. i suppose if anything\nshould strike you--\" white mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.\n\"i have worked with mr. holmes before,\" said inspector macdonald. \"he\nplays the game.\"\n\"my own idea of the game, at any rate,\" said holmes, with a smile. \"i\ngo into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the\npolice. if i have ever separated myself from the official force, it\nis because they have first separated themselves from me. i have no\nwish ever to score at their expense. at the same time, mr. white\nmason, i claim the right to work in my own way and give my results at\nmy own time--complete rather than in stages.\"\n\"i am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we\nknow,\" said white mason cordially. \"come along, dr. watson, and when\nthe time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book.\"\nwe walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms\non each side of it. just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,\nweather-stained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a\nshapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of capus of\nbirlstone. a short walk along the winding drive with such sward and\noaks around it as one only sees in rural england, then a sudden turn,\nand the long, low jacobean house of dingy, liver-coloured brick lay\nbefore us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of\nit. as we approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and the\nbeautiful broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the\ncold, winter sunshine.\nthree centuries had flowed past the old manor house, centuries of\nbirths and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of\nfox hunters. strange that now in its old age this dark business\nshould have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! and yet those\nstrange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting\ncovering to grim and terrible intrigue. as i looked at the deep-set\nwindows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front,\ni felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.\n\"that's the window,\" said white mason, \"that one on the immediate\nright of the drawbridge. it's open just as it was found last night.\"\n\"it looks rather narrow for a man to pass.\"\n\"well, it wasn't a fat man, anyhow. we don't need your deductions,\nmr. holmes, to tell us that. but you or i could squeeze through all\nright.\"\nholmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. then he\nexamined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.\n\"i've had a good look, mr. holmes,\" said white mason. \"there is\nnothing there, no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he\nleave any sign?\"\n\"exactly. why should he? is the water always turbid?\"\n\"generally about this colour. the stream brings down the clay.\"\n\"how deep is it?\"\n\"about two feet at each side and three in the middle.\"\n\"so we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in\ncrossing.\"\n\"no, a child could not be drowned in it.\"\nwe walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint,\ngnarled, dried-up person, who was the butler, ames. the poor old\nfellow was white and quivering from the shock. the village sergeant,\na tall, formal, melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of\nfate. the doctor had departed.\n\"anything fresh, sergeant wilson?\" asked white mason.\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"then you can go home. you've had enough. we can send for you if we\nwant you. the butler had better wait outside. tell him to warn mr.\ncecil barker, mrs. douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a\nword with them presently. now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me\nto give you the views i have formed first, and then you will be able\nto arrive at your own.\"\nhe impressed me, this country specialist. he had a solid grip of fact\nand a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way\nin his profession. holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of\nthat impatience which the official exponent too often produced.\n\"is it suicide, or is it murder--that's our first question,\ngentlemen, is it not? if it were suicide, then we have to believe\nthat this man began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it;\nthat he then came down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a\ncorner behind the curtain in order to give the idea someone had\nwaited for him, opened the window, put blood on the--\"\n\"we can surely dismiss that,\" said macdonald.\n\"so i think. suicide is out of the question. then a murder has been\ndone. what we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone\noutside or inside the house.\"\n\"well, let's hear the argument.\"\n\"there are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the\nother it must be. we will suppose first that some person or persons\ninside the house did the crime. they got this man down here at a time\nwhen everything was still and yet no one was asleep. they then did\nthe deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world so as to\ntell everyone what had happened--a weapon that was never seen in the\nhouse before. that does not seem a very likely start, does it?\"\n\"no, it does not.\"\n\"well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a\nminute at the most had passed before the whole household--not mr.\ncecil barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but ames\nand all of them were on the spot. do you tell me that in that time\nthe guilty person managed to make footmarks in the corner, open the\nwindow, mark the sill with blood, take the wedding ring off the dead\nman's finger, and all the rest of it? it's impossible!\"\n\"you put it very clearly,\" said holmes. \"i am inclined to agree with\nyou.\"\n\"well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by\nsomeone from outside. we are still faced with some big difficulties;\nbut anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. the man got into\nthe house between four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk\nand the time when the bridge was raised. there had been some\nvisitors, and the door was open; so there was nothing to prevent him.\nhe may have been a common burglar, or he may have had some private\ngrudge against mr. douglas. since mr. douglas has spent most of his\nlife in america, and this shotgun seems to be an american weapon, it\nwould seem that the private grudge is the more likely theory. he\nslipped into this room because it was the first he came to, and he\nhid behind the curtain. there he remained until past eleven at night.\nat that time mr. douglas entered the room. it was a short interview,\nif there were any interview at all; for mrs. douglas declares that\nher husband had not left her more than a few minutes when she heard\nthe shot.\"\n\"the candle shows that,\" said holmes.\n\"exactly. the candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than\nhalf an inch. he must have placed it on the table before he was\nattacked; otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell.\nthis shows that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the\nroom. when mr. barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was\nout.\"\n\"that's all clear enough.\"\n\"well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. mr. douglas\nenters the room. he puts down the candle. a man appears from behind\nthe curtain. he is armed with this gun. he demands the wedding\nring--heaven only knows why, but so it must have been. mr. douglas\ngave it up. then either in cold blood or in the course of a\nstruggle--douglas may have gripped the hammer that was found upon the\nmat--he shot douglas in this horrible way. he dropped his gun and\nalso it would seem this queer card--v. v. 341, whatever that may\nmean--and he made his escape through the window and across the moat\nat the very moment when cecil barker was discovering the crime. how's\nthat, mr. holmes?\"\n\"very interesting, but just a little unconvincing.\"\n\"man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else\nis even worse!\" cried macdonald. \"somebody killed the man, and\nwhoever it was i could clearly prove to you that he should have done\nit some other way. what does he mean by allowing his retreat to be\ncut off like that? what does he mean by using a shotgun when silence\nwas his one chance of escape? come, mr. holmes, it's up to you to\ngive us a lead, since you say mr. white mason's theory is\nunconvincing.\"\nholmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion,\nmissing no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right\nand to left, and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.\n\"i should like a few more facts before i get so far as a theory, mr.\nmac,\" said he, kneeling down beside the body. \"dear me! these\ninjuries are really appalling. can we have the butler in for a\nmoment? ... ames, i understand that you have often seen this very\nunusual mark--a branded triangle inside a circle--upon mr. douglas's\nforearm?\"\n\"frequently, sir.\"\n\"you never heard any speculation as to what it meant?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"it must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. it is\nundoubtedly a burn. now, i observe, ames, that there is a small piece\nof plaster at the angle of mr. douglas's jaw. did you observe that in\nlife?\"\n\"yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning.\"\n\"did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?\"\n\"not for a very long time, sir.\"\n\"suggestive!\" said holmes. \"it may, of course, be a mere coincidence,\nor it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had\nreason to apprehend danger. had you noticed anything unusual in his\nconduct, yesterday, ames?\"\n\"it struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir.\"\n\"ha! the attack may not have been entirely unexpected. we do seem to\nmake a little progress, do we not? perhaps you would rather do the\nquestioning, mr. mac?\"\n\"no, mr. holmes, it's in better hands than mine.\"\n\"well, then, we will pass to this card--v. v. 341. it is rough\ncardboard. have you any of the sort in the house?\"\n\"i don't think so.\"\nholmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each\nbottle on to the blotting paper. \"it was not printed in this room,\"\nhe said; \"this is black ink and the other purplish. it was done by a\nthick pen, and these are fine. no, it was done elsewhere, i should\nsay. can you make anything of the inscription, ames?\"\n\"no, sir, nothing.\"\n\"what do you think, mr. mac?\"\n\"it gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the\nsame with his badge upon the forearm.\"\n\"that's my idea, too,\" said white mason.\n\"well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far\nour difficulties disappear. an agent from such a society makes his\nway into the house, waits for mr. douglas, blows his head nearly off\nwith this weapon, and escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a\ncard beside the dead man, which will when mentioned in the papers,\ntell other members of the society that vengeance has been done. that\nall hangs together. but why this gun, of all weapons?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"and why the missing ring?\"\n\"quite so.\"\n\"and why no arrest? it's past two now. i take it for granted that\nsince dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out\nfor a wet stranger?\"\n\"that is so, mr. holmes.\"\n\"well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready,\nthey can hardly miss him. and yet they have missed him up to now!\"\nholmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the\nblood mark on the sill. \"it is clearly the tread of a shoe. it is\nremarkably broad; a splay-foot, one would say. curious, because, so\nfar as one can trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one\nwould say it was a more shapely sole. however, they are certainly\nvery indistinct. what's this under the side table?\"\n\"mr. douglas's dumb-bells,\" said ames.\n\"dumb-bell--there's only one. where's the other?\"\n\"i don't know, mr. holmes. there may have been only one. i have not\nnoticed them for months.\"\n\"one dumb-bell--\" holmes said seriously; but his remarks were\ninterrupted by a sharp knock at the door.\na tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us.\ni had no difficulty in guessing that it was the cecil barker of whom\ni had heard. his masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning\nglance from face to face.\n\"sorry to interrupt your consultation,\" said he, \"but you should hear\nthe latest news.\"\n\"an arrest?\"\n\"no such luck. but they've found his bicycle. the fellow left his\nbicycle behind him. come and have a look. it is within a hundred\nyards of the hall door.\"\nwe found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive\ninspecting a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of\nevergreens in which it had been concealed. it was a well used\nrudge-whitworth, splashed as from a considerable journey. there was a\nsaddlebag with spanner and oilcan, but no clue as to the owner.\n\"it would be a grand help to the police,\" said the inspector, \"if\nthese things were numbered and registered. but we must be thankful\nfor what we've got. if we can't find where he went to, at least we\nare likely to get where he came from. but what in the name of all\nthat is wonderful made the fellow leave it behind? and how in the\nworld has he got away without it? we don't seem to get a gleam of\nlight in the case, mr. holmes.\"\n\"don't we?\" my friend answered thoughtfully. \"i wonder!\"\nchapter v\nthe people of the drama\n\"have you seen all you want of the study?\" asked white mason as we\nreentered the house.\n\"for the time,\" said the inspector, and holmes nodded.\n\"then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of some of the\npeople in the house. we could use the dining-room, ames. please come\nyourself first and tell us what you know.\"\nthe butler's account was a simple and a clear one, and he gave a\nconvincing impression of sincerity. he had been engaged five years\nbefore, when douglas first came to birlstone. he understood that mr.\ndouglas was a rich gentleman who had made his money in america. he\nhad been a kind and considerate employer--not quite what ames was\nused to, perhaps; but one can't have everything. he never saw any\nsigns of apprehension in mr. douglas: on the contrary, he was the\nmost fearless man he had ever known. he ordered the drawbridge to be\npulled up every night because it was the ancient custom of the old\nhouse, and he liked to keep the old ways up.\nmr. douglas seldom went to london or left the village; but on the day\nbefore the crime he had been shopping at tunbridge wells. he (ames)\nhad observed some restlessness and excitement on the part of mr.\ndouglas that day; for he had seemed impatient and irritable, which\nwas unusual with him. he had not gone to bed that night; but was in\nthe pantry at the back of the house, putting away the silver, when he\nheard the bell ring violently. he heard no shot; but it was hardly\npossible he would, as the pantry and kitchens were at the very back\nof the house and there were several closed doors and a long passage\nbetween. the housekeeper had come out of her room, attracted by the\nviolent ringing of the bell. they had gone to the front of the house\ntogether.\nas they reached the bottom of the stair he had seen mrs. douglas\ncoming down it. no, she was not hurrying; it did not seem to him that\nshe was particularly agitated. just as she reached the bottom of the\nstair mr. barker had rushed out of the study. he had stopped mrs.\ndouglas and begged her to go back.\n\"for god's sake, go back to your room!\" he cried. \"poor jack is dead!\nyou can do nothing. for god's sake, go back!\"\nafter some persuasion upon the stairs mrs. douglas had gone back. she\ndid not scream. she made no outcry whatever. mrs. allen, the\nhousekeeper, had taken her upstairs and stayed with her in the\nbedroom. ames and mr. barker had then returned to the study, where\nthey had found everything exactly as the police had seen it. the\ncandle was not lit at that time; but the lamp was burning. they had\nlooked out of the window; but the night was very dark and nothing\ncould be seen or heard. they had then rushed out into the hall, where\names had turned the windlass which lowered the drawbridge. mr. barker\nhad then hurried off to get the police.\nsuch, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.\nthe account of mrs. allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it went, a\ncorroboration of that of her fellow servant. the housekeeper's room\nwas rather nearer to the front of the house than the pantry in which\names had been working. she was preparing to go to bed when the loud\nringing of the bell had attracted her attention. she was a little\nhard of hearing. perhaps that was why she had not heard the shot; but\nin any case the study was a long way off. she remembered hearing some\nsound which she imagined to be the slamming of a door. that was a\ngood deal earlier--half an hour at least before the ringing of the\nbell. when mr. ames ran to the front she went with him. she saw mr.\nbarker, very pale and excited, come out of the study. he intercepted\nmrs. douglas, who was coming down the stairs. he entreated her to go\nback, and she answered him, but what she said could not be heard.\n\"take her up! stay with her!\" he had said to mrs. allen.\nshe had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to soothe\nher. she was greatly excited, trembling all over, but made no other\nattempt to go downstairs. she just sat in her dressing gown by her\nbedroom fire, with her head sunk in her hands. mrs. allen stayed with\nher most of the night. as to the other servants, they had all gone to\nbed, and the alarm did not reach them until just before the police\narrived. they slept at the extreme back of the house, and could not\npossibly have heard anything.\nso far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination save\nlamentations and expressions of amazement.\ncecil barker succeeded mrs. allen as a witness. as to the occurrences\nof the night before, he had very little to add to what he had already\ntold the police. personally, he was convinced that the murderer had\nescaped by the window. the bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion,\non that point. besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other\npossible way of escaping. he could not explain what had become of the\nassassin or why he had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his.\nhe could not possibly have been drowned in the moat, which was at no\nplace more than three feet deep.\nin his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder.\ndouglas was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life\nof which he never spoke. he had emigrated to america when he was a\nvery young man. he had prospered well, and barker had first met him\nin california, where they had become partners in a successful mining\nclaim at a place called benito canyon. they had done very well; but\ndouglas had suddenly sold out and started for england. he was a\nwidower at that time. barker had afterwards realized his money and\ncome to live in london. thus they had renewed their friendship.\ndouglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging\nover his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure\nfrom california, and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in\nengland, as being connected with this peril. he imagined that some\nsecret society, some implacable organization, was on douglas's track,\nwhich would never rest until it killed him. some remarks of his had\ngiven him this idea; though he had never told him what the society\nwas, nor how he had come to offend it. he could only suppose that the\nlegend upon the placard had some reference to this secret society.\n\"how long were you with douglas in california?\" asked inspector\nmacdonald.\n\"five years altogether.\"\n\"he was a bachelor, you say?\"\n\"a widower.\"\n\"have you ever heard where his first wife came from?\"\n\"no, i remember his saying that she was of german extraction, and i\nhave seen her portrait. she was a very beautiful woman. she died of\ntyphoid the year before i met him.\"\n\"you don't associate his past with any particular part of america?\"\n\"i have heard him talk of chicago. he knew that city well and had\nworked there. i have heard him talk of the coal and iron districts.\nhe had travelled a good deal in his time.\"\n\"was he a politician? had this secret society to do with politics?\"\n\"no, he cared nothing about politics.\"\n\"you have no reason to think it was criminal?\"\n\"on the contrary, i never met a straighter man in my life.\"\n\"was there anything curious about his life in california?\"\n\"he liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the mountains. he\nwould never go where other men were if he could help it. that's why i\nfirst thought that someone was after him. then when he left so\nsuddenly for europe i made sure that it was so. i believe that he had\na warning of some sort. within a week of his leaving half a dozen men\nwere inquiring for him.\"\n\"what sort of men?\"\n\"well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd. they came up to the\nclaim and wanted to know where he was. i told them that he was gone\nto europe and that i did not know where to find him. they meant him\nno good--it was easy to see that.\"\n\"were these men americans--californians?\"\n\"well, i don't know about californians. they were americans, all\nright. but they were not miners. i don't know what they were, and was\nvery glad to see their backs.\"\n\"that was six years ago?\"\n\"nearer seven.\"\n\"and then you were together five years in california, so that this\nbusiness dates back not less than eleven years at the least?\"\n\"that is so.\"\n\"it must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with such\nearnestness for as long as that. it would be no light thing that\nwould give rise to it.\"\n\"i think it shadowed his whole life. it was never quite out of his\nmind.\"\n\"but if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what it was,\ndon't you think he would turn to the police for protection?\"\n\"maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected against.\nthere's one thing you should know. he always went about armed. his\nrevolver was never out of his pocket. but, by bad luck, he was in his\ndressing gown and had left it in the bedroom last night. once the\nbridge was up, i guess he thought he was safe.\"\n\"i should like these dates a little clearer,\" said macdonald. \"it is\nquite six years since douglas left california. you followed him next\nyear, did you not?\"\n\"that is so.\"\n\"and he had been married five years. you must have returned about the\ntime of his marriage.\"\n\"about a month before. i was his best man.\"\n\"did you know mrs. douglas before her marriage?\"\n\"no, i did not. i had been away from england for ten years.\"\n\"but you have seen a good deal of her since.\"\nbarker looked sternly at the detective. \"i have seen a good deal of\nhim since,\" he answered. \"if i have seen her, it is because you\ncannot visit a man without knowing his wife. if you imagine there is\nany connection--\"\n\"i imagine nothing, mr. barker. i am bound to make every inquiry\nwhich can bear upon the case. but i mean no offense.\"\n\"some inquiries are offensive,\" barker answered angrily.\n\"it's only the facts that we want. it is in your interest and\neveryone's interest that they should be cleared up. did mr. douglas\nentirely approve your friendship with his wife?\"\nbarker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped\nconvulsively together. \"you have no right to ask such questions!\" he\ncried. \"what has this to do with the matter you are investigating?\"\n\"i must repeat the question.\"\n\"well, i refuse to answer.\"\n\"you can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is\nin itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not\nsomething to conceal.\"\nbarker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong\nblack eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. then he looked up with a\nsmile. \"well, i guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty\nafter all, and i have no right to stand in the way of it. i'd only\nask you not to worry mrs. douglas over this matter; for she has\nenough upon her just now. i may tell you that poor douglas had just\none fault in the world, and that was his jealousy. he was fond of\nme--no man could be fonder of a friend. and he was devoted to his\nwife. he loved me to come here, and was forever sending for me. and\nyet if his wife and i talked together or there seemed any sympathy\nbetween us, a kind of wave of jealousy would pass over him, and he\nwould be off the handle and saying the wildest things in a moment.\nmore than once i've sworn off coming for that reason, and then he\nwould write me such penitent, imploring letters that i just had to.\nbut you can take it from me, gentlemen, if it was my last word, that\nno man ever had a more loving, faithful wife--and i can say also no\nfriend could be more loyal than i!\"\nit was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet inspector macdonald\ncould not dismiss the subject.\n\"you are aware,\" said he, \"that the dead man's wedding ring has been\ntaken from his finger?\"\n\"so it appears,\" said barker.\n\"what do you mean by 'appears'? you know it as a fact.\"\nthe man seemed confused and undecided. \"when i said 'appears' i meant\nthat it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring.\"\n\"the mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have\nremoved it, would suggest to anyone's mind, would it not, that the\nmarriage and the tragedy were connected?\"\nbarker shrugged his broad shoulders. \"i can't profess to say what it\nmeans.\" he answered. \"but if you mean to hint that it could reflect\nin any way upon this lady's honour\"--his eyes blazed for an instant,\nand then with an evident effort he got a grip upon his own\nemotions--\"well, you are on the wrong track, that's all.\"\n\"i don't know that i've anything else to ask you at present,\" said\nmacdonald, coldly.\n\"there was one small point,\" remarked sherlock holmes. \"when you\nentered the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was\nthere not?\"\n\"yes, that was so.\"\n\"by its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"you at once rang for help?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"and it arrived very speedily?\"\n\"within a minute or so.\"\n\"and yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and\nthat the lamp had been lighted. that seems very remarkable.\"\nagain barker showed some signs of indecision. \"i don't see that it\nwas remarkable, mr. holmes,\" he answered after a pause. \"the candle\nthrew a very bad light. my first thought was to get a better one. the\nlamp was on the table; so i lit it.\"\n\"and blew out the candle?\"\n\"exactly.\"\nholmes asked no further question, and barker, with a deliberate look\nfrom one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something\nof defiance in it, turned and left the room.\ninspector macdonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would\nwait upon mrs. douglas in her room; but she had replied that she\nwould meet us in the dining room. she entered now, a tall and\nbeautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a\nremarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted\nfigure i had pictured. it is true that her face was pale and drawn,\nlike that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner was\ncomposed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested upon the edge\nof the table was as steady as my own. her sad, appealing eyes\ntravelled from one to the other of us with a curiously inquisitive\nexpression. that questioning gaze transformed itself suddenly into\nabrupt speech.\n\"have you found anything out yet?\" she asked.\nwas it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than\nof hope in the question?\n\"we have taken every possible step, mrs. douglas,\" said the\ninspector. \"you may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.\"\n\"spare no money,\" she said in a dead, even tone. \"it is my desire\nthat every possible effort should be made.\"\n\"perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon\nthe matter.\"\n\"i fear not; but all i know is at your service.\"\n\"we have heard from mr. cecil barker that you did not actually\nsee--that you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?\"\n\"no, he turned me back upon the stairs. he begged me to return to my\nroom.\"\n\"quite so. you had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.\"\n\"i put on my dressing gown and then came down.\"\n\"how long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the\nstair by mr. barker?\"\n\"it may have been a couple of minutes. it is so hard to reckon time\nat such a moment. he implored me not to go on. he assured me that i\ncould do nothing. then mrs. allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs\nagain. it was all like some dreadful dream.\"\n\"can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs\nbefore you heard the shot?\"\n\"no, i cannot say. he went from his dressing room, and i did not hear\nhim go. he did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous\nof fire. it is the only thing that i have ever known him nervous of.\"\n\"that is just the point which i want to come to, mrs. douglas. you\nhave known your husband only in england, have you not?\"\n\"yes, we have been married five years.\"\n\"have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in america and\nmight bring some danger upon him?\"\nmrs. douglas thought earnestly before she answered. \"yes.\" she said\nat last, \"i have always felt that there was a danger hanging over\nhim. he refused to discuss it with me. it was not from want of\nconfidence in me--there was the most complete love and confidence\nbetween us--but it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from\nme. he thought i should brood over it if i knew all, and so he was\nsilent.\"\n\"how did you know it, then?\"\nmrs. douglas's face lit with a quick smile. \"can a husband ever carry\nabout a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no\nsuspicion of it? i knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes\nin his american life. i knew it by certain precautions he took. i\nknew it by certain words he let fall. i knew it by the way he looked\nat unexpected strangers. i was perfectly certain that he had some\npowerful enemies, that he believed they were on his track, and that\nhe was always on his guard against them. i was so sure of it that for\nyears i have been terrified if ever he came home later than was\nexpected.\"\n\"might i ask,\" asked holmes, \"what the words were which attracted\nyour attention?\"\n\"the valley of fear,\" the lady answered. \"that was an expression he\nhas used when i questioned him. 'i have been in the valley of fear. i\nam not out of it yet.'--'are we never to get out of the valley of\nfear?' i have asked him when i have seen him more serious than usual.\n'sometimes i think that we never shall,' he has answered.\"\n\"surely you asked him what he meant by the valley of fear?\"\n\"i did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his\nhead. 'it is bad enough that one of us should have been in its\nshadow,' he said. 'please god it shall never fall upon you!' it was\nsome real valley in which he had lived and in which something\nterrible had occurred to him, of that i am certain; but i can tell\nyou no more.\"\n\"and he never mentioned any names?\"\n\"yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting\naccident three years ago. then i remember that there was a name that\ncame continually to his lips. he spoke it with anger and a sort of\nhorror. mcginty was the name--bodymaster mcginty. i asked him when he\nrecovered who bodymaster mcginty was, and whose body he was master\nof. 'never of mine, thank god!' he answered with a laugh, and that\nwas all i could get from him. but there is a connection between\nbodymaster mcginty and the valley of fear.\"\n\"there is one other point,\" said inspector macdonald. \"you met mr.\ndouglas in a boarding house in london, did you not, and became\nengaged to him there? was there any romance, anything secret or\nmysterious, about the wedding?\"\n\"there was romance. there is always romance. there was nothing\nmysterious.\"\n\"he had no rival?\"\n\"no, i was quite free.\"\n\"you have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken. does\nthat suggest anything to you? suppose that some enemy of his old life\nhad tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason\ncould he have for taking his wedding ring?\"\nfor an instant i could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile\nflickered over the woman's lips.\n\"i really cannot tell,\" she answered. \"it is certainly a most\nextraordinary thing.\"\n\"well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have\nput you to this trouble at such a time,\" said the inspector. \"there\nare some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they\narise.\"\nshe rose, and i was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance\nwith which she had just surveyed us. \"what impression has my evidence\nmade upon you?\" the question might as well have been spoken. then,\nwith a bow, she swept from the room.\n\"she's a beautiful woman--a very beautiful woman,\" said macdonald\nthoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. \"this man barker\nhas certainly been down here a good deal. he is a man who might be\nattractive to a woman. he admits that the dead man was jealous, and\nmaybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. then\nthere's that wedding ring. you can't get past that. the man who tears\na wedding ring off a dead man's--what do you say to it, mr. holmes?\"\nmy friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest\nthought. now he rose and rang the bell. \"ames,\" he said, when the\nbutler entered, \"where is mr. cecil barker now?\"\n\"i'll see, sir.\"\nhe came back in a moment to say that barker was in the garden.\n\"can you remember, ames, what mr. barker had on his feet last night\nwhen you joined him in the study?\"\n\"yes, mr. holmes. he had a pair of bedroom slippers. i brought him\nhis boots when he went for the police.\"\n\"where are the slippers now?\"\n\"they are still under the chair in the hall.\"\n\"very good, ames. it is, of course, important for us to know which\ntracks may be mr. barker's and which from outside.\"\n\"yes, sir. i may say that i noticed that the slippers were stained\nwith blood--so indeed were my own.\"\n\"that is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. very\ngood, ames. we will ring if we want you.\"\na few minutes later we were in the study. holmes had brought with him\nthe carpet slippers from the hall. as ames had observed, the soles of\nboth were dark with blood.\n\"strange!\" murmured holmes, as he stood in the light of the window\nand examined them minutely. \"very strange indeed!\"\nstooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper\nupon the blood mark on the sill. it exactly corresponded. he smiled\nin silence at his colleagues.\nthe inspector was transfigured with excitement. his native accent\nrattled like a stick upon railings.\n\"man,\" he cried, \"there's not a doubt of it! barker has just marked\nthe window himself. it's a good deal broader than any bootmark. i\nmind that you said it was a splay-foot, and here's the explanation.\nbut what's the game, mr. holmes--what's the game?\"\n\"ay, what's the game?\" my friend repeated thoughtfully.\nwhite mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his\nprofessional satisfaction. \"i said it was a snorter!\" he cried. \"and\na real snorter it is!\"\nchapter vi\na dawning light\nthe three detectives had many matters of detail into which to\ninquire; so i returned alone to our modest quarters at the village\ninn. but before doing so i took a stroll in the curious old-world\ngarden which flanked the house. rows of very ancient yew trees cut\ninto strange designs girded it round. inside was a beautiful stretch\nof lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so\nsoothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled\nnerves.\nin that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only\nas some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling,\nbloodstained figure on the floor. and yet, as i strolled round it and\ntried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident\noccurred, which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister\nimpression in my mind.\ni have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. at the\nend farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge.\non the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone\napproaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat.\nas i approached the spot i was aware of voices, some remark in the\ndeep tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine\nlaughter.\nan instant later i had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes\nlit upon mrs. douglas and the man barker before they were aware of my\npresence. her appearance gave me a shock. in the dining-room she had\nbeen demure and discreet. now all pretense of grief had passed away\nfrom her. her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still\nquivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. he sat\nforward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an\nanswering smile upon his bold, handsome face. in an instant--but it\nwas just one instant too late--they resumed their solemn masks as my\nfigure came into view. a hurried word or two passed between them, and\nthen barker rose and came towards me.\n\"excuse me, sir,\" said he, \"but am i addressing dr. watson?\"\ni bowed with a coldness which showed, i dare say, very plainly the\nimpression which had been produced upon my mind.\n\"we thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with mr.\nsherlock holmes is so well known. would you mind coming over and\nspeaking to mrs. douglas for one instant?\"\ni followed him with a dour face. very clearly i could see in my\nmind's eye that shattered figure on the floor. here within a few\nhours of the tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing\ntogether behind a bush in the garden which had been his. i greeted\nthe lady with reserve. i had grieved with her grief in the\ndining-room. now i met her appealing gaze with an unresponsive eye.\n\"i fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted,\" said she.\ni shrugged my shoulders. \"it is no business of mine,\" said i.\n\"perhaps some day you will do me justice. if you only realized--\"\n\"there is no need why dr. watson should realize,\" said barker\nquickly. \"as he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.\"\n\"exactly,\" said i, \"and so i will beg leave to resume my walk.\"\n\"one moment, dr. watson,\" cried the woman in a pleading voice. \"there\nis one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone\nelse in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. you\nknow mr. holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone\nelse can. supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his\nknowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to\nthe detectives?\"\n\"yes, that's it,\" said barker eagerly. \"is he on his own or is he\nentirely in with them?\"\n\"i really don't know that i should be justified in discussing such a\npoint.\"\n\"i beg--i implore that you will, dr. watson! i assure you that you\nwill be helping us--helping me greatly if you will guide us on that\npoint.\"\nthere was such a ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the\ninstant i forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her\nwill.\n\"mr. holmes is an independent investigator,\" i said. \"he is his own\nmaster, and would act as his own judgment directed. at the same time,\nhe would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were\nworking on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything\nwhich would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. beyond this\ni can say nothing, and i would refer you to mr. holmes himself if you\nwanted fuller information.\"\nso saying i raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still\nseated behind that concealing hedge. i looked back as i rounded the\nfar end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly\ntogether, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was\nour interview that was the subject of their debate.\n\"i wish none of their confidences,\" said holmes, when i reported to\nhim what had occurred. he had spent the whole afternoon at the manor\nhouse in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about\nfive with a ravenous appetite for a high tea which i had ordered for\nhim. \"no confidences, watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes\nto an arrest for conspiracy and murder.\"\n\"you think it will come to that?\"\nhe was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. \"my dear watson,\nwhen i have exterminated that fourth egg i shall be ready to put you\nin touch with the whole situation. i don't say that we have fathomed\nit--far from it--but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell--\"\n\"the dumb-bell!\"\n\"dear me, watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the\nfact that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell? well, well, you\nneed not be downcast; for between ourselves i don't think that either\ninspector mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the\noverwhelming importance of this incident. one dumb-bell, watson!\nconsider an athlete with one dumb-bell! picture to yourself the\nunilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.\nshocking, watson, shocking!\"\nhe sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with\nmischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. the mere sight of\nhis excellent appetite was an assurance of success, for i had very\nclear recollections of days and nights without a thought of food,\nwhen his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin,\neager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete\nmental concentration. finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the\ninglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about\nhis case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a\nconsidered statement.\n\"a lie, watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising\nlie--that's what meets us on the threshold! there is our starting\npoint. the whole story told by barker is a lie. but barker's story is\ncorroborated by mrs. douglas. therefore she is lying also. they are\nboth lying, and in a conspiracy. so now we have the clear problem.\nwhy are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so\nhard to conceal? let us try, watson, you and i, if we can get behind\nthe lie and reconstruct the truth.\n\"how do i know that they are lying? because it is a clumsy\nfabrication which simply could not be true. consider! according to\nthe story given to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the\nmurder had been committed to take that ring, which was under another\nring, from the dead man's finger, to replace the other ring--a thing\nwhich he would surely never have done--and to put that singular card\nbeside his victim. i say that this was obviously impossible.\n\"you may argue--but i have too much respect for your judgment,\nwatson, to think that you will do so--that the ring may have been\ntaken before the man was killed. the fact that the candle had been\nlit only a short time shows that there had been no lengthy interview.\nwas douglas, from what we hear of his fearless character, a man who\nwould be likely to give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or\ncould we conceive of his giving it up at all? no, no, watson, the\nassassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the lamp lit.\nof that i have no doubt at all.\n\"but the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. therefore the\nshot must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. but\nthere could be no mistake about such a matter as that. we are in the\npresence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the\ntwo people who heard the gunshot--of the man barker and of the woman\ndouglas. when on the top of this i am able to show that the blood\nmark on the windowsill was deliberately placed there by barker, in\norder to give a false clue to the police, you will admit that the\ncase grows dark against him.\n\"now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did\noccur. up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house;\nso it was certainly not before that time. at a quarter to eleven they\nhad all gone to their rooms with the exception of ames, who was in\nthe pantry. i have been trying some experiments after you left us\nthis afternoon, and i find that no noise which macdonald can make in\nthe study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all\nshut.\n\"it is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. it is not so\nfar down the corridor, and from it i could vaguely hear a voice when\nit was very loudly raised. the sound from a shotgun is to some extent\nmuffled when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly\nwas in this instance. it would not be very loud, and yet in the\nsilence of the night it should have easily penetrated to mrs. allen's\nroom. she is, as she has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less\nshe mentioned in her evidence that she did hear something like a door\nslamming half an hour before the alarm was given. half an hour before\nthe alarm was given would be a quarter to eleven. i have no doubt\nthat what she heard was the report of the gun, and that this was the\nreal instant of the murder.\n\"if this is so, we have now to determine what barker and mrs.\ndouglas, presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have\nbeen doing from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought\nthem down, until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and\nsummoned the servants. what were they doing, and why did they not\ninstantly give the alarm? that is the question which faces us, and\nwhen it has been answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve\nour problem.\"\n\"i am convinced myself,\" said i, \"that there is an understanding\nbetween those two people. she must be a heartless creature to sit\nlaughing at some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder.\"\n\"exactly. she does not shine as a wife even in her own account of\nwhat occurred. i am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you\nare aware, watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there\nare few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let\nany man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead\nbody. should i ever marry, watson, i should hope to inspire my wife\nwith some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a\nhousekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. it\nwas badly stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be\nstruck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation. if there had\nbeen nothing else, this incident alone would have suggested a\nprearranged conspiracy to my mind.\"\n\"you think then, definitely, that barker and mrs. douglas are guilty\nof the murder?\"\n\"there is an appalling directness about your questions, watson,\" said\nholmes, shaking his pipe at me. \"they come at me like bullets. if you\nput it that mrs. douglas and barker know the truth about the murder,\nand are conspiring to conceal it, then i can give you a whole-souled\nanswer. i am sure they do. but your more deadly proposition is not so\nclear. let us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in\nthe way.\n\"we will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty\nlove, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands\nbetween them. it is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among\nservants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. on the\ncontrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the douglases were\nvery attached to each other.\"\n\"that, i am sure, cannot he true.\" said i, thinking of the beautiful\nsmiling face in the garden.\n\"well at least they gave that impression. however, we will suppose\nthat they are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone\nupon this point, and conspire to murder the husband. he happens to be\na man over whose head some danger hangs--\"\n\"we have only their word for that.\"\nholmes looked thoughtful. \"i see, watson. you are sketching out a\ntheory by which everything they say from the beginning is false.\naccording to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret\nsociety, or valley of fear, or boss macsomebody, or anything else.\nwell, that is a good sweeping generalization. let us see what that\nbrings us to. they invent this theory to account for the crime. they\nthen play up to the idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proof\nof the existence of some outsider. the stain on the windowsill\nconveys the same idea. so does the card on the body, which might have\nbeen prepared in the house. that all fits into your hypothesis,\nwatson. but now we come on the nasty, angular, uncompromising bits\nwhich won't slip into their places. why a cut-off shotgun of all\nweapons--and an american one at that? how could they be so sure that\nthe sound of it would not bring someone on to them? it's a mere\nchance as it is that mrs. allen did not start out to inquire for the\nslamming door. why did your guilty couple do all this, watson?\"\n\"i confess that i can't explain it.\"\n\"then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband,\nare they going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing\nhis wedding ring after his death? does that strike you as very\nprobable, watson?\"\n\"no, it does not.\"\n\"and once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed\noutside had occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing\nwhen the dullest detective would naturally say this is an obvious\nblind, as the bicycle is the first thing which the fugitive needed in\norder to make his escape.\"\n\"i can conceive of no explanation.\"\n\"and yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit\nof man cannot conceive an explanation. simply as a mental exercise,\nwithout any assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible\nline of thought. it is, i admit, mere imagination; but how often is\nimagination the mother of truth?\n\"we will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shameful\nsecret in the life of this man douglas. this leads to his murder by\nsomeone who is, we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside.\nthis avenger, for some reason which i confess i am still at a loss to\nexplain, took the dead man's wedding ring. the vendetta might\nconceivably date back to the man's first marriage, and the ring be\ntaken for some such reason.\n\"before this avenger got away, barker and the wife had reached the\nroom. the assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him\nwould lead to the publication of some hideous scandal. they were\nconverted to this idea, and preferred to let him go. for this purpose\nthey probably lowered the bridge, which can be done quite\nnoiselessly, and then raised it again. he made his escape, and for\nsome reason thought that he could do so more safely on foot than on\nthe bicycle. he therefore left his machine where it would not be\ndiscovered until he had got safely away. so far we are within the\nbounds of possibility, are we not?\"\n\"well, it is possible, no doubt,\" said i, with some reserve.\n\"we have to remember, watson, that whatever occurred is certainly\nsomething very extraordinary. well, now, to continue our\nsupposititious case, the couple--not necessarily a guilty\ncouple--realize after the murderer is gone that they have placed\nthemselves in a position in which it may be difficult for them to\nprove that they did not themselves either do the deed or connive at\nit. they rapidly and rather clumsily met the situation. the mark was\nput by barker's bloodstained slipper upon the window-sill to suggest\nhow the fugitive got away. they obviously were the two who must have\nheard the sound of the gun; so they gave the alarm exactly as they\nwould have done, but a good half hour after the event.\"\n\"and how do you propose to prove all this?\"\n\"well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken. that\nwould be the most effective of all proofs. but if not--well, the\nresources of science are far from being exhausted. i think that an\nevening alone in that study would help me much.\"\n\"an evening alone!\"\n\"i propose to go up there presently. i have arranged it with the\nestimable ames, who is by no means whole-hearted about barker. i\nshall sit in that room and see if its atmosphere brings me\ninspiration. i'm a believer in the genius loci. you smile, friend\nwatson. well, we shall see. by the way, you have that big umbrella of\nyours, have you not?\"\n\"it is here.\"\n\"well, i'll borrow that if i may.\"\n\"certainly--but what a wretched weapon! if there is danger--\"\n\"nothing serious, my dear watson, or i should certainly ask for your\nassistance. but i'll take the umbrella. at present i am only awaiting\nthe return of our colleagues from tunbridge wells, where they are at\npresent engaged in trying for a likely owner to the bicycle.\"\nit was nightfall before inspector macdonald and white mason came back\nfrom their expedition, and they arrived exultant, reporting a great\nadvance in our investigation.\n\"man, i'll admeet that i had my doubts if there was ever an\noutsider,\" said macdonald, \"but that's all past now. we've had the\nbicycle identified, and we have a description of our man; so that's a\nlong step on our journey.\"\n\"it sounds to me like the beginning of the end,\" said holmes. \"i'm\nsure i congratulate you both with all my heart.\"\n\"well, i started from the fact that mr. douglas had seemed disturbed\nsince the day before, when he had been at tunbridge wells. it was at\ntunbridge wells then that he had become conscious of some danger. it\nwas clear, therefore, that if a man had come over with a bicycle it\nwas from tunbridge wells that he might be expected to have come. we\ntook the bicycle over with us and showed it at the hotels. it was\nidentified at once by the manager of the eagle commercial as\nbelonging to a man named hargrave, who had taken a room there two\ndays before. this bicycle and a small valise were his whole\nbelongings. he had registered his name as coming from london, but had\ngiven no address. the valise was london made, and the contents were\nbritish; but the man himself was undoubtedly an american.\"\n\"well, well,\" said holmes gleefully, \"you have indeed done some solid\nwork while i have been sitting spinning theories with my friend! it's\na lesson in being practical, mr. mac.\"\n\"ay, it's just that, mr. holmes,\" said the inspector with\nsatisfaction.\n\"but this may all fit in with your theories,\" i remarked.\n\"that may or may not be. but let us hear the end, mr. mac. was there\nnothing to identify this man?\"\n\"so little that it was evident that he had carefully guarded himself\nagainst identification. there were no papers or letters, and no\nmarking upon the clothes. a cycle map of the county lay on his\nbedroom table. he had left the hotel after breakfast yesterday\nmorning on his bicycle, and no more was heard of him until our\ninquiries.\"\n\"that's what puzzles me, mr. holmes,\" said white mason. \"if the\nfellow did not want the hue and cry raised over him, one would\nimagine that he would have returned and remained at the hotel as an\ninoffensive tourist. as it is, he must know that he will be reported\nto the police by the hotel manager and that his disappearance will be\nconnected with the murder.\"\n\"so one would imagine. still, he has been justified of his wisdom up\nto date, at any rate, since he has not been taken. but his\ndescription--what of that?\"\nmacdonald referred to his notebook. \"here we have it so far as they\ncould give it. they don't seem to have taken any very particular\nstock of him; but still the porter, the clerk, and the chambermaid\nare all agreed that this about covers the points. he was a man about\nfive foot nine in height, fifty or so years of age, his hair slightly\ngrizzled, a grayish moustache, a curved nose, and a face which all of\nthem described as fierce and forbidding.\"\n\"well, bar the expression, that might almost be a description of\ndouglas himself,\" said holmes. \"he is just over fifty, with grizzled\nhair and moustache, and about the same height. did you get anything\nelse?\"\n\"he was dressed in a heavy gray suit with a reefer jacket, and he\nwore a short yellow overcoat and a soft cap.\"\n\"what about the shotgun?\"\n\"it is less than two feet long. it could very well have fitted into\nhis valise. he could have carried it inside his overcoat without\ndifficulty.\"\n\"and how do you consider that all this bears upon the general case?\"\n\"well, mr. holmes,\" said macdonald, \"when we have got our man--and\nyou may be sure that i had his description on the wires within five\nminutes of hearing it--we shall be better able to judge. but, even as\nit stands, we have surely gone a long way. we know that an american\ncalling himself hargrave came to tunbridge wells two days ago with\nbicycle and valise. in the latter was a sawed-off shotgun; so he came\nwith the deliberate purpose of crime. yesterday morning he set off\nfor this place on his bicycle, with his gun concealed in his\novercoat. no one saw him arrive, so far as we can learn; but he need\nnot pass through the village to reach the park gates, and there are\nmany cyclists upon the road. presumably he at once concealed his\ncycle among the laurels where it was found, and possibly lurked there\nhimself, with his eye on the house, waiting for mr. douglas to come\nout. the shotgun is a strange weapon to use inside a house; but he\nhad intended to use it outside, and there it has very obvious\nadvantages, as it would be impossible to miss with it, and the sound\nof shots is so common in an english sporting neighbourhood that no\nparticular notice would be taken.\"\n\"that is all very clear,\" said holmes.\n\"well, mr. douglas did not appear. what was he to do next? he left\nhis bicycle and approached the house in the twilight. he found the\nbridge down and no one about. he took his chance, intending, no\ndoubt, to make some excuse if he met anyone. he met no one. he\nslipped into the first room that he saw, and concealed himself behind\nthe curtain. thence he could see the drawbridge go up, and he knew\nthat his only escape was through the moat. he waited until\nquarter-past eleven, when mr. douglas upon his usual nightly round\ncame into the room. he shot him and escaped, as arranged. he was\naware that the bicycle would be described by the hotel people and be\na clue against him; so he left it there and made his way by some\nother means to london or to some safe hiding place which he had\nalready arranged. how is that, mr. holmes?\"\n\"well, mr. mac, it is very good and very clear so far as it goes.\nthat is your end of the story. my end is that the crime was committed\nhalf an hour earlier than reported; that mrs. douglas and barker are\nboth in a conspiracy to conceal something; that they aided the\nmurderer's escape--or at least that they reached the room before he\nescaped--and that they fabricated evidence of his escape through the\nwindow, whereas in all probability they had themselves let him go by\nlowering the bridge. that's my reading of the first half.\"\nthe two detectives shook their heads.\n\"well, mr. holmes, if this is true, we only tumble out of one mystery\ninto another,\" said the london inspector.\n\"and in some ways a worse one,\" added white mason. \"the lady has\nnever been in america in all her life. what possible connection could\nshe have with an american assassin which would cause her to shelter\nhim?\"\n\"i freely admit the difficulties,\" said holmes. \"i propose to make a\nlittle investigation of my own to-night, and it is just possible that\nit may contribute something to the common cause.\"\n\"can we help you, mr. holmes?\"\n\"no, no! darkness and dr. watson's umbrella--my wants are simple. and\names, the faithful ames, no doubt he will stretch a point for me. all\nmy lines of thought lead me back invariably to the one basic\nquestion--why should an athletic man develop his frame upon so\nunnatural an instrument as a single dumb-bell?\"\nit was late that night when holmes returned from his solitary\nexcursion. we slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that\nthe little country inn could do for us. i was already asleep when i\nwas partly awakened by his entrance.\n\"well, holmes,\" i murmured, \"have you found anything out?\"\nhe stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. then the tall,\nlean figure inclined towards me. \"i say, watson,\" he whispered,\n\"would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man\nwith softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?\"\n\"not in the least,\" i answered in astonishment.\n\"ah, that's lucky,\" he said, and not another word would he utter that\nnight.\nchapter vii\nthe solution\nnext morning, after breakfast, we found inspector macdonald and white\nmason seated in close consultation in the small parlour of the local\npolice sergeant. on the table in front of them were piled a number of\nletters and telegrams, which they were carefully sorting and\ndocketing. three had been placed on one side.\n\"still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?\" holmes asked\ncheerfully. \"what is the latest news of the ruffian?\"\nmacdonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.\n\"he is at present reported from leicester, nottingham, southampton,\nderby, east ham, richmond, and fourteen other places. in three of\nthem--east ham, leicester, and liverpool--there is a clear case\nagainst him, and he has actually been arrested. the country seems to\nbe full of the fugitives with yellow coats.\"\n\"dear me!\" said holmes sympathetically. \"now, mr. mac and you, mr.\nwhite mason, i wish to give you a very earnest piece of advice. when\ni went into this case with you i bargained, as you will no doubt\nremember, that i should not present you with half-proved theories,\nbut that i should retain and work out my own ideas until i had\nsatisfied myself that they were correct. for this reason i am not at\nthe present moment telling you all that is in my mind. on the other\nhand, i said that i would play the game fairly by you, and i do not\nthink it is a fair game to allow you for one unnecessary moment to\nwaste your energies upon a profitless task. therefore i am here to\nadvise you this morning, and my advice to you is summed up in three\nwords--abandon the case.\"\nmacdonald and white mason stared in amazement at their celebrated\ncolleague.\n\"you consider it hopeless!\" cried the inspector.\n\"i consider your case to be hopeless. i do not consider that it is\nhopeless to arrive at the truth.\"\n\"but this cyclist. he is not an invention. we have his description,\nhis valise, his bicycle. the fellow must be somewhere. why should we\nnot get him?\"\n\"yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no doubt we shall get him;\nbut i would not have you waste your energies in east ham or\nliverpool. i am sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result.\"\n\"you are holding something back. it's hardly fair of you, mr.\nholmes.\" the inspector was annoyed.\n\"you know my methods of work, mr. mac. but i will hold it back for\nthe shortest time possible. i only wish to verify my details in one\nway, which can very readily be done, and then i make my bow and\nreturn to london, leaving my results entirely at your service. i owe\nyou too much to act otherwise; for in all my experience i cannot\nrecall any more singular and interesting study.\"\n\"this is clean beyond me, mr. holmes. we saw you when we returned\nfrom tunbridge wells last night, and you were in general agreement\nwith our results. what has happened since then to give you a\ncompletely new idea of the case?\"\n\"well, since you ask me, i spent, as i told you that i would, some\nhours last night at the manor house.\"\n\"well, what happened?\"\n\"ah, i can only give you a very general answer to that for the\nmoment. by the way, i have been reading a short but clear and\ninteresting account of the old building, purchasable at the modest\nsum of one penny from the local tobacconist.\"\nhere holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving of\nthe ancient manor house, from his waistcoat pocket.\n\"it immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear mr. mac,\nwhen one is in conscious sympathy with the historical atmosphere of\none's surroundings. don't look so impatient; for i assure you that\neven so bald an account as this raises some sort of picture of the\npast in one's mind. permit me to give you a sample. 'erected in the\nfifth year of the reign of james i, and standing upon the site of a\nmuch older building, the manor house of birlstone presents one of the\nfinest surviving examples of the moated jacobean residence--' \"\n\"you are making fools of us, mr. holmes!\"\n\"tut, tut, mr. mac!--the first sign of temper i have detected in you.\nwell, i won't read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly upon the\nsubject. but when i tell you that there is some account of the taking\nof the place by a parliamentary colonel in 1644, of the concealment\nof charles for several days in the course of the civil war, and\nfinally of a visit there by the second george, you will admit that\nthere are various associations of interest connected with this\nancient house.\"\n\"i don't doubt it, mr. holmes; but that is no business of ours.\"\n\"is it not? is it not? breadth of view, my dear mr. mac, is one of\nthe essentials of our profession. the interplay of ideas and the\noblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. you\nwill excuse these remarks from one who, though a mere connoisseur of\ncrime, is still rather older and perhaps more experienced than\nyourself.\"\n\"i'm the first to admit that,\" said the detective heartily. \"you get\nto your point, i admit; but you have such a deuced round-the-corner\nway of doing it.\"\n\"well, well, i'll drop past history and get down to present-day\nfacts. i called last night, as i have already said, at the manor\nhouse. i did not see either barker or mrs. douglas. i saw no\nnecessity to disturb them; but i was pleased to hear that the lady\nwas not visibly pining and that she had partaken of an excellent\ndinner. my visit was specially made to the good mr. ames, with whom i\nexchanged some amiabilities, which culminated in his allowing me,\nwithout reference to anyone else, to sit alone for a time in the\nstudy.\"\n\"what! with that?\" i ejaculated.\n\"no, no, everything is now in order. you gave permission for that,\nmr. mac, as i am informed. the room was in its normal state, and in\nit i passed an instructive quarter of an hour.\"\n\"what were you doing?\"\n\"well, not to make a mystery of so simple a matter, i was looking for\nthe missing dumb-bell. it has always bulked rather large in my\nestimate of the case. i ended by finding it.\"\n\"where?\"\n\"ah, there we come to the edge of the unexplored. let me go a little\nfurther, a very little further, and i will promise that you shall\nshare everything that i know.\"\n\"well, we're bound to take you on your own terms,\" said the\ninspector; \"but when it comes to telling us to abandon the case--why\nin the name of goodness should we abandon the case?\"\n\"for the simple reason, my dear mr. mac, that you have not got the\nfirst idea what it is that you are investigating.\"\n\"we are investigating the murder of mr. john douglas of birlstone\nmanor.\"\n\"yes, yes, so you are. but don't trouble to trace the mysterious\ngentleman upon the bicycle. i assure you that it won't help you.\"\n\"then what do you suggest that we do?\"\n\"i will tell you exactly what to do, if you will do it.\"\n\"well, i'm bound to say i've always found you had reason behind all\nyour queer ways. i'll do what you advise.\"\n\"and you, mr. white mason?\"\nthe country detective looked helplessly from one to the other. holmes\nand his methods were new to him. \"well, if it is good enough for the\ninspector, it is good enough for me,\" he said at last.\n\"capital!\" said holmes. \"well, then, i should recommend a nice,\ncheery country walk for both of you. they tell me that the views from\nbirlstone ridge over the weald are very remarkable. no doubt lunch\ncould be got at some suitable hostelry; though my ignorance of the\ncountry prevents me from recommending one. in the evening, tired but\nhappy--\"\n\"man, this is getting past a joke!\" cried macdonald, rising angrily\nfrom his chair.\n\"well, well, spend the day as you like,\" said holmes, patting him\ncheerfully upon the shoulder. \"do what you like and go where you\nwill, but meet me here before dusk without fail--without fail, mr.\nmac.\"\n\"that sounds more like sanity.\"\n\"all of it was excellent advice; but i don't insist, so long as you\nare here when i need you. but now, before we part, i want you to\nwrite a note to mr. barker.\"\n\"well?\"\n\"i'll dictate it, if you like. ready?\n\"dear sir:\n\"it has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in the hope\nthat we may find some--\"\n\"it's impossible,\" said the inspector. \"i've made inquiry.\"\n\"tut, tut! my dear sir, please do what i ask you.\"\n\"well, go on.\"\n\"--in the hope that we may find something which may bear upon our\ninvestigation. i have made arrangements, and the workmen will be at\nwork early to-morrow morning diverting the stream--\"\n\"impossible!\"\n\"--diverting the stream; so i thought it best to explain matters\nbeforehand.\n\"now sign that, and send it by hand about four o'clock. at that hour\nwe shall meet again in this room. until then we may each do what we\nlike; for i can assure you that this inquiry has come to a definite\npause.\"\nevening was drawing in when we reassembled. holmes was very serious\nin his manner, myself curious, and the detectives obviously critical\nand annoyed.\n\"well, gentlemen,\" said my friend gravely, \"i am asking you now to\nput everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves\nwhether the observations i have made justify the conclusions to which\ni have come. it is a chill evening, and i do not know how long our\nexpedition may last; so i beg that you will wear your warmest coats.\nit is of the first importance that we should be in our places before\nit grows dark; so with your permission we shall get started at once.\"\nwe passed along the outer bounds of the manor house park until we\ncame to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced it.\nthrough this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed\nholmes until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to\nthe main door and the drawbridge. the latter had not been raised.\nholmes crouched down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three\nfollowed his example.\n\"well, what are we to do now?\" asked macdonald with some gruffness.\n\"possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,\"\nholmes answered.\n\"what are we here for at all? i really think that you might treat us\nwith more frankness.\"\nholmes laughed. \"watson insists that i am the dramatist in real\nlife,\" said he. \"some touch of the artist wells up within me, and\ncalls insistently for a well-staged performance. surely our\nprofession, mr. mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not\nsometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. the blunt\naccusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder--what can one make of\nsuch a dnouement? but the quick inference, the subtle trap, the\nclever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold\ntheories--are these not the pride and the justification of our life's\nwork? at the present moment you thrill with the glamour of the\nsituation and the anticipation of the hunt. where would be that\nthrill if i had been as definite as a timetable? i only ask a little\npatience, mr. mac, and all will be clear to you.\"\n\"well, i hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will\ncome before we all get our death of cold,\" said the london detective\nwith comic resignation.\nwe all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil was a\nlong and bitter one. slowly the shadows darkened over the long,\nsombre face of the old house. a cold, damp reek from the moat chilled\nus to the bones and set our teeth chattering. there was a single lamp\nover the gateway and a steady globe of light in the fatal study.\neverything else was dark and still.\n\"how long is this to last?\" asked the inspector finally. \"and what is\nit we are watching for?\"\n\"i have no more notion than you how long it is to last,\" holmes\nanswered with some asperity. \"if criminals would always schedule\ntheir movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more\nconvenient for all of us. as to what it is we--well, that's what we\nare watching for!\"\nas he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured by\nsomebody passing to and fro before it. the laurels among which we lay\nwere immediately opposite the window and not more than a hundred feet\nfrom it. presently it was thrown open with a whining of hinges, and\nwe could dimly see the dark outline of a man's head and shoulders\nlooking out into the gloom. for some minutes he peered forth in\nfurtive, stealthy fashion, as one who wishes to be assured that he is\nunobserved. then he leaned forward, and in the intense silence we\nwere aware of the soft lapping of agitated water. he seemed to be\nstirring up the moat with something which he held in his hand. then\nsuddenly he hauled something in as a fisherman lands a fish--some\nlarge, round object which obscured the light as it was dragged\nthrough the open casement.\n\"now!\" cried holmes. \"now!\"\nwe were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our stiffened\nlimbs, while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang violently at\nthe bell. there was the rasping of bolts from the other side, and the\namazed ames stood in the entrance. holmes brushed him aside without a\nword and, followed by all of us, rushed into the room which had been\noccupied by the man whom we had been watching.\nthe oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had seen from\noutside. it was now in the hand of cecil barker, who held it towards\nus as we entered. its light shone upon his strong, resolute,\nclean-shaved face and his menacing eyes.\n\"what the devil is the meaning of all this?\" he cried. \"what are you\nafter, anyhow?\"\nholmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a sodden\nbundle tied together with cord which lay where it had been thrust\nunder the writing table.\n\"this is what we are after, mr. barker--this bundle, weighted with a\ndumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of the moat.\"\nbarker stared at holmes with amazement in his face. \"how in thunder\ncame you to know anything about it?\" he asked.\n\"simply that i put it there.\"\n\"you put it there! you!\"\n\"perhaps i should have said 'replaced it there,'\" said holmes. \"you\nwill remember, inspector macdonald, that i was somewhat struck by the\nabsence of a dumb-bell. i drew your attention to it; but with the\npressure of other events you had hardly the time to give it the\nconsideration which would have enabled you to draw deductions from\nit. when water is near and a weight is missing it is not a very\nfar-fetched supposition that something has been sunk in the water.\nthe idea was at least worth testing; so with the help of ames, who\nadmitted me to the room, and the crook of dr. watson's umbrella, i\nwas able last night to fish up and inspect this bundle.\n\"it was of the first importance, however, that we should be able to\nprove who placed it there. this we accomplished by the very obvious\ndevice of announcing that the moat would be dried to-morrow, which\nhad, of course, the effect that whoever had hidden the bundle would\nmost certainly withdraw it the moment that darkness enabled him to do\nso. we have no less than four witnesses as to who it was who took\nadvantage of the opportunity, and so, mr. barker, i think the word\nlies now with you.\"\nsherlock holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside the lamp\nand undid the cord which bound it. from within he extracted a\ndumb-bell, which he tossed down to its fellow in the corner. next he\ndrew forth a pair of boots. \"american, as you perceive,\" he remarked,\npointing to the toes. then he laid upon the table a long, deadly,\nsheathed knife. finally he unravelled a bundle of clothing,\ncomprising a complete set of underclothes, socks, a gray tweed suit,\nand a short yellow overcoat.\n\"the clothes are commonplace,\" remarked holmes, \"save only the\novercoat, which is full of suggestive touches.\" he held it tenderly\ntowards the light. \"here, as you perceive, is the inner pocket\nprolonged into the lining in such fashion as to give ample space for\nthe truncated fowling piece. the tailor's tab is on the neck--'neal,\noutfitter, vermissa, u. s. a.' i have spent an instructive afternoon\nin the rector's library, and have enlarged my knowledge by adding the\nfact that vermissa is a flourishing little town at the head of one of\nthe best known coal and iron valleys in the united states. i have\nsome recollection, mr. barker, that you associated the coal districts\nwith mr. douglas's first wife, and it would surely not be too\nfar-fetched an inference that the v. v. upon the card by the dead\nbody might stand for vermissa valley, or that this very valley which\nsends forth emissaries of murder may be that valley of fear of which\nwe have heard. so much is fairly clear. and now, mr. barker, i seem\nto be standing rather in the way of your explanation.\"\nit was a sight to see cecil barker's expressive face during this\nexposition of the great detective. anger, amazement, consternation,\nand indecision swept over it in turn. finally he took refuge in a\nsomewhat acrid irony.\n\"you know such a lot, mr. holmes, perhaps you had better tell us some\nmore,\" he sneered.\n\"i have no doubt that i could tell you a great deal more, mr. barker;\nbut it would come with a better grace from you.\"\n\"oh, you think so, do you? well, all i can say is that if there's any\nsecret here it is not my secret, and i am not the man to give it\naway.\"\n\"well, if you take that line, mr. barker,\" said the inspector\nquietly, \"we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant\nand can hold you.\"\n\"you can do what you damn please about that,\" said barker defiantly.\nthe proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far as he\nwas concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face to\nrealize that no peine forte et dure would ever force him to plead\nagainst his will. the deadlock was broken, however, by a woman's\nvoice. mrs. douglas had been standing listening at the half opened\ndoor, and now she entered the room.\n\"you have done enough for now, cecil,\" said she. \"whatever comes of\nit in the future, you have done enough.\"\n\"enough and more than enough,\" remarked sherlock holmes gravely. \"i\nhave every sympathy with you, madam, and should strongly urge you to\nhave some confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction and to\ntake the police voluntarily into your complete confidence. it may be\nthat i am myself at fault for not following up the hint which you\nconveyed to me through my friend, dr. watson; but, at that time i had\nevery reason to believe that you were directly concerned in the\ncrime. now i am assured that this is not so. at the same time, there\nis much that is unexplained, and i should strongly recommend that you\nask mr. douglas to tell us his own story.\"\nmrs. douglas gave a cry of astonishment at holmes's words. the\ndetectives and i must have echoed it, when we were aware of a man who\nseemed to have emerged from the wall, who advanced now from the gloom\nof the corner in which he had appeared. mrs. douglas turned, and in\nan instant her arms were round him. barker had seized his\noutstretched hand.\n\"it's best this way, jack,\" his wife repeated; \"i am sure that it is\nbest.\"\n\"indeed, yes, mr. douglas,\" said sherlock holmes, \"i am sure that you\nwill find it best.\"\nthe man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who comes\nfrom the dark into the light. it was a remarkable face, bold gray\neyes, a strong, short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a square,\nprojecting chin, and a humorous mouth. he took a good look at us all,\nand then to my amazement he advanced to me and handed me a bundle of\npaper.\n\"i've heard of you,\" said he in a voice which was not quite english\nand not quite american, but was altogether mellow and pleasing. \"you\nare the historian of this bunch. well, dr. watson, you've never had\nsuch a story as that pass through your hands before, and i'll lay my\nlast dollar on that. tell it your own way; but there are the facts,\nand you can't miss the public so long as you have those. i've been\ncooped up two days, and i've spent the daylight hours--as much\ndaylight as i could get in that rat trap--in putting the thing into\nwords. you're welcome to them--you and your public. there's the story\nof the valley of fear.\"\n\"that's the past, mr. douglas,\" said sherlock holmes quietly. \"what\nwe desire now is to hear your story of the present.\"\n\"you'll have it, sir,\" said douglas. \"may i smoke as i talk? well,\nthank you, mr. holmes. you're a smoker yourself, if i remember right,\nand you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco\nin your pocket and afraid that the smell will give you away.\" he\nleaned against the mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which holmes\nhad handed him. \"i've heard of you, mr. holmes. i never guessed that\ni should meet you. but before you are through with that,\" he nodded\nat my papers, \"you will say i've brought you something fresh.\"\ninspector macdonald had been staring at the newcomer with the\ngreatest amazement. \"well, this fairly beats me!\" he cried at last.\n\"if you are mr. john douglas of birlstone manor, then whose death\nhave we been investigating for these two days, and where in the world\nhave you sprung from now? you seemed to me to come out of the floor\nlike a jack-in-a-box.\"\n\"ah, mr. mac,\" said holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger, \"you\nwould not read that excellent local compilation which described the\nconcealment of king charles. people did not hide in those days\nwithout excellent hiding places, and the hiding place that has once\nbeen used may be again. i had persuaded myself that we should find\nmr. douglas under this roof.\"\n\"and how long have you been playing this trick upon us, mr. holmes?\"\nsaid the inspector angrily. \"how long have you allowed us to waste\nourselves upon a search that you knew to be an absurd one?\"\n\"not one instant, my dear mr. mac. only last night did i form my\nviews of the case. as they could not be put to the proof until this\nevening, i invited you and your colleague to take a holiday for the\nday. pray what more could i do? when i found the suit of clothes in\nthe moat, it at once became apparent to me that the body we had found\ncould not have been the body of mr. john douglas at all, but must be\nthat of the bicyclist from tunbridge wells. no other conclusion was\npossible. therefore i had to determine where mr. john douglas himself\ncould be, and the balance of probability was that with the connivance\nof his wife and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such\nconveniences for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could\nmake his final escape.\"\n\"well, you figured it out about right,\" said douglas approvingly. \"i\nthought i'd dodge your british law; for i was not sure how i stood\nunder it, and also i saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all\noff my track. mind you, from first to last i have done nothing to be\nashamed of, and nothing that i would not do again; but you'll judge\nthat for yourselves when i tell you my story. never mind warning me,\ninspector: i'm ready to stand pat upon the truth.\n\"i'm not going to begin at the beginning. that's all there,\" he\nindicated my bundle of papers, \"and a mighty queer yarn you'll find\nit. it all comes down to this: that there are some men that have good\ncause to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they\nhad got me. so long as i am alive and they are alive, there is no\nsafety in this world for me. they hunted me from chicago to\ncalifornia, then they chased me out of america; but when i married\nand settled down in this quiet spot i thought my last years were\ngoing to be peaceable.\n\"i never explained to my wife how things were. why should i pull her\ninto it? she would never have a quiet moment again; but would always\nbe imagining trouble. i fancy she knew something, for i may have\ndropped a word here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you\ngentlemen had seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter. she\ntold you all she knew, and so did barker here; for on the night when\nthis thing happened there was mighty little time for explanations.\nshe knows everything now, and i would have been a wiser man if i had\ntold her sooner. but it was a hard question, dear,\" he took her hand\nfor an instant in his own, \"and i acted for the best.\n\"well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings i was over in\ntunbridge wells, and i got a glimpse of a man in the street. it was\nonly a glimpse; but i have a quick eye for these things, and i never\ndoubted who it was. it was the worst enemy i had among them all--one\nwho has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these\nyears. i knew there was trouble coming, and i came home and made\nready for it. i guessed i'd fight through it all right on my own, my\nluck was a proverb in the states about '76. i never doubted that it\nwould be with me still.\n\"i was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the\npark. it's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that\nbuckshot gun of his before ever i could draw on him. after the bridge\nwas up--my mind was always more restful when that bridge was up in\nthe evenings--i put the thing clear out of my head. i never dreamed\nof his getting into the house and waiting for me. but when i made my\nround in my dressing gown, as was my habit, i had no sooner entered\nthe study than i scented danger. i guess when a man has had dangers\nin his life--and i've had more than most in my time--there is a kind\nof sixth sense that waves the red flag. i saw the signal clear\nenough, and yet i couldn't tell you why. next instant i spotted a\nboot under the window curtain, and then i saw why plain enough.\n\"i'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good\nlight from the hall lamp through the open door. i put down the candle\nand jumped for a hammer that i'd left on the mantel. at the same\nmoment he sprang at me. i saw the glint of a knife, and i lashed at\nhim with the hammer. i got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down\non the floor. he dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a\nmoment later he'd got his gun from under his coat. i heard him cock\nit; but i had got hold of it before he could fire. i had it by the\nbarrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. it\nwas death to the man that lost his grip.\n\"he never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too\nlong. maybe it was i that pulled the trigger. maybe we just jolted it\noff between us. anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there i\nwas, staring down at all that was left of ted baldwin. i'd recognized\nhim in the township, and again when he sprang for me; but his own\nmother wouldn't recognize him as i saw him then. i'm used to rough\nwork; but i fairly turned sick at the sight of him.\n\"i was hanging on the side of the table when barker came hurrying\ndown. i heard my wife coming, and i ran to the door and stopped her.\nit was no sight for a woman. i promised i'd come to her soon. i said\na word or two to barker--he took it all in at a glance--and we waited\nfor the rest to come along. but there was no sign of them. then we\nunderstood that they could hear nothing, and that all that had\nhappened was known only to ourselves.\n\"it was at that instant that the idea came to me. i was fairly\ndazzled by the brilliance of it. the man's sleeve had slipped up and\nthere was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. see here!\"\nthe man whom we had known as douglas turned up his own coat and cuff\nto show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we\nhad seen upon the dead man.\n\"it was the sight of that which started me on it. i seemed to see it\nall clear at a glance. there were his height and hair and figure,\nabout the same as my own. no one could swear to his face, poor devil!\ni brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour\nbarker and i had put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found\nhim. we tied all his things into a bundle, and i weighted them with\nthe only weight i could find and put them through the window. the\ncard he had meant to lay upon my body was lying beside his own.\n\"my rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding\nring,\" he held out his muscular hand, \"you can see for yourselves\nthat i had struck the limit. i have not moved it since the day i was\nmarried, and it would have taken a file to get it off. i don't know,\nanyhow, that i should have cared to part with it; but if i had wanted\nto i couldn't. so we just had to leave that detail to take care of\nitself. on the other hand, i brought a bit of plaster down and put it\nwhere i am wearing one myself at this instant. you slipped up there,\nmr. holmes, clever as you are; for if you had chanced to take off\nthat plaster you would have found no cut underneath it.\n\"well, that was the situation. if i could lie low for a while and\nthen get away where i could be joined by my 'widow' we should have a\nchance at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives. these\ndevils would give me no rest so long as i was above ground; but if\nthey saw in the papers that baldwin had got his man, there would be\nan end of all my troubles. i hadn't much time to make it all clear to\nbarker and to my wife; but they understood enough to be able to help\nme. i knew all about this hiding place, so did ames; but it never\nentered his head to connect it with the matter. i retired into it,\nand it was up to barker to do the rest.\n\"i guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. he opened the\nwindow and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the\nmurderer escaped. it was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up\nthere was no other way. then, when everything was fixed, he rang the\nbell for all he was worth. what happened afterward you know. and so,\ngentlemen, you can do what you please; but i've told you the truth\nand the whole truth, so help me god! what i ask you now is how do i\nstand by the english law?\"\nthere was a silence which was broken by sherlock holmes.\n\"the english law is in the main a just law. you will get no worse\nthan your deserts from that, mr. douglas. but i would ask you how did\nthis man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or\nwhere to hide to get you?\"\n\"i know nothing of this.\"\nholmes's face was very white and grave. \"the story is not over yet, i\nfear,\" said he. \"you may find worse dangers than the english law, or\neven than your enemies from america. i see trouble before you, mr.\ndouglas. you'll take my advice and still be on your guard.\"\nand now, my long-suffering readers, i will ask you to come away with\nme for a time, far from the sussex manor house of birlstone, and far\nalso from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey\nwhich ended with the strange story of the man who had been known as\njohn douglas. i wish you to journey back some twenty years in time,\nand westward some thousands of miles in space, that i may lay before\nyou a singular and terrible narrative--so singular and so terrible\nthat you may find it hard to believe that even as i tell it, even so\ndid it occur.\ndo not think that i intrude one story before another is finished. as\nyou read on you will find that this is not so. and when i have\ndetailed those distant events and you have solved this mystery of the\npast, we shall meet once more in those rooms on baker street, where\nthis, like so many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.\npart ii\nthe scowrers\nchapter i\nthe man\nit was the fourth of february in the year 1875. it had been a severe\nwinter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the gilmerton\nmountains. the steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open,\nand the evening train which connects the long line of coal-mining and\niron-working settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep\ngradients which lead from stagville on the plain to vermissa, the\ncentral township which lies at the head of vermissa valley. from this\npoint the track sweeps downward to bartons crossing, helmdale, and\nthe purely agricultural county of merton. it was a single-track\nrailroad; but at every siding--and they were numerous--long lines of\ntrucks piled with coal and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which\nhad brought a rude population and a bustling life to this most\ndesolate corner of the united states of america.\nfor desolate it was! little could the first pioneer who had traversed\nit have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush\nwater pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black\ncrag and tangled forest. above the dark and often scarcely penetrable\nwoods upon their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains,\nwhite snow, and jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long,\nwinding, tortuous valley in the centre. up this the little train was\nslowly crawling.\nthe oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,\nbare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. the\ngreater number of these were workmen returning from their day's toil\nin the lower part of the valley. at least a dozen, by their grimed\nfaces and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed\nthemselves miners. these sat smoking in a group and conversed in low\nvoices, glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the\ncar, whose uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.\nseveral women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who\nmight have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the\ncompany, with the exception of one young man in a corner by himself.\nit is with this man that we are concerned. take a good look at him,\nfor he is worth it.\nhe is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one\nwould guess, from his thirtieth year. he has large, shrewd, humorous\ngray eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks\nround through his spectacles at the people about him. it is easy to\nsee that he is of a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious\nto be friendly to all men. anyone could pick him at once as\ngregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a\nquick wit and a ready smile. and yet the man who studied him more\nclosely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness\nabout the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond,\nand that this pleasant, brown-haired young irishman might conceivably\nleave his mark for good or evil upon any society to which he was\nintroduced.\nhaving made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and\nreceiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself\nto uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the\nfading landscape.\nit was not a cheering prospect. through the growing gloom there\npulsed the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. great\nheaps of slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the\nhigh shafts of the collieries towering above them. huddled groups of\nmean, wooden houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline\nthemselves in light, were scattered here and there along the line,\nand the frequent halting places were crowded with their swarthy\ninhabitants.\nthe iron and coal valleys of the vermissa district were no resorts\nfor the leisured or the cultured. everywhere there were stern signs\nof the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the\nrude, strong workers who did it.\nthe young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of\nmingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new\nto him. at intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which\nhe referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes.\nonce from the back of his waist he produced something which one would\nhardly have expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a\nman. it was a navy revolver of the largest size. as he turned it\nslantwise to the light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells\nwithin the drum showed that it was fully loaded. he quickly restored\nit to his secret pocket, but not before it had been observed by a\nworking man who had seated himself upon the adjoining bench.\n\"hullo, mate!\" said he. \"you seem heeled and ready.\"\nthe young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.\n\"yes,\" said he, \"we need them sometimes in the place i come from.\"\n\"and where may that be?\"\n\"i'm last from chicago.\"\n\"a stranger in these parts?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"you may find you need it here,\" said the workman.\n\"ah! is that so?\" the young man seemed interested.\n\"have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?\"\n\"nothing out of the way.\"\n\"why, i thought the country was full of it. you'll hear quick enough.\nwhat made you come here?\"\n\"i heard there was always work for a willing man.\"\n\"are you a member of the union?\"\n\"sure.\"\n\"then you'll get your job, i guess. have you any friends?\"\n\"not yet; but i have the means of making them.\"\n\"how's that, then?\"\n\"i am one of the eminent order of freemen. there's no town without a\nlodge, and where there is a lodge i'll find my friends.\"\nthe remark had a singular effect upon his companion. he glanced round\nsuspiciously at the others in the car. the miners were still\nwhispering among themselves. the two police officers were dozing. he\ncame across, seated himself close to the young traveller, and held\nout his hand.\n\"put it there,\" he said.\na hand-grip passed between the two.\n\"i see you speak the truth,\" said the workman. \"but it's well to make\ncertain.\" he raised his right hand to his right eyebrow. the\ntraveller at once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.\n\"dark nights are unpleasant,\" said the workman.\n\"yes, for strangers to travel,\" the other answered.\n\"that's good enough. i'm brother scanlan, lodge 341, vermissa valley.\nglad to see you in these parts.\"\n\"thank you. i'm brother john mcmurdo, lodge 29, chicago. bodymaster\nj. h. scott. but i am in luck to meet a brother so early.\"\n\"well, there are plenty of us about. you won't find the order more\nflourishing anywhere in the states than right here in vermissa\nvalley. but we could do with some lads like you. i can't understand a\nspry man of the union finding no work to do in chicago.\"\n\"i found plenty of work to do,\" said mcmurdo.\n\"then why did you leave?\"\nmcmurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled. \"i guess those chaps\nwould be glad to know,\" he said.\nscanlan groaned sympathetically. \"in trouble?\" he asked in a whisper.\n\"deep.\"\n\"a penitentiary job?\"\n\"and the rest.\"\n\"not a killing!\"\n\"it's early days to talk of such things,\" said mcmurdo with the air\nof a man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended.\n\"i've my own good reasons for leaving chicago, and let that be enough\nfor you. who are you that you should take it on yourself to ask such\nthings?\" his gray eyes gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from\nbehind his glasses.\n\"all right, mate, no offense meant. the boys will think none the\nworse of you, whatever you may have done. where are you bound for\nnow?\"\n\"vermissa.\"\n\"that's the third halt down the line. where are you staying?\"\nmcmurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.\n\"here is the address--jacob shafter, sheridan street. it's a boarding\nhouse that was recommended by a man i knew in chicago.\"\n\"well, i don't know it; but vermissa is out of my beat. i live at\nhobson's patch, and that's here where we are drawing up. but, say,\nthere's one bit of advice i'll give you before we part: if you're in\ntrouble in vermissa, go straight to the union house and see boss\nmcginty. he is the bodymaster of vermissa lodge, and nothing can\nhappen in these parts unless black jack mcginty wants it. so long,\nmate! maybe we'll meet in lodge one of these evenings. but mind my\nwords: if you are in trouble, go to boss mcginty.\"\nscanlan descended, and mcmurdo was left once again to his thoughts.\nnight had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were\nroaring and leaping in the darkness. against their lurid background\ndark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with\nthe motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank\nand roar.\n\"i guess hell must look something like that,\" said a voice.\nmcmurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his\nseat and was staring out into the fiery waste.\n\"for that matter,\" said the other policeman, \"i allow that hell must\nbe something like that. if there are worse devils down yonder than\nsome we could name, it's more than i'd expect. i guess you are new to\nthis part, young man?\"\n\"well, what if i am?\" mcmurdo answered in a surly voice.\n\"just this, mister, that i should advise you to be careful in\nchoosing your friends. i don't think i'd begin with mike scanlan or\nhis gang if i were you.\"\n\"what the hell is it to you who are my friends?\" roared mcmurdo in a\nvoice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the\naltercation. \"did i ask you for your advice, or did you think me such\na sucker that i couldn't move without it? you speak when you are\nspoken to, and by the lord you'd have to wait a long time if it was\nme!\" he thrust out his face and grinned at the patrolmen like a\nsnarling dog.\nthe two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the\nextraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been\nrejected.\n\"no offense, stranger,\" said one. \"it was a warning for your own\ngood, seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place.\"\n\"i'm new to the place; but i'm not new to you and your kind!\" cried\nmcmurdo in cold fury. \"i guess you're the same in all places, shoving\nyour advice in when nobody asks for it.\"\n\"maybe we'll see more of you before very long,\" said one of the\npatrolmen with a grin. \"you're a real hand-picked one, if i am a\njudge.\"\n\"i was thinking the same,\" remarked the other. \"i guess we may meet\nagain.\"\n\"i'm not afraid of you, and don't you think it!\" cried mcmurdo. \"my\nname's jack mcmurdo--see? if you want me, you'll find me at jacob\nshafter's on sheridan street, vermissa; so i'm not hiding from you,\nam i? day or night i dare to look the like of you in the face--don't\nmake any mistake about that!\"\nthere was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the\ndauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged\ntheir shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.\na few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there\nwas a general clearing; for vermissa was by far the largest town on\nthe line. mcmurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to\nstart off into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.\n\"by gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops,\" he said in a voice\nof awe. \"it was grand to hear you. let me carry your grip and show\nyou the road. i'm passing shafter's on the way to my own shack.\"\nthere was a chorus of friendly \"good-nights\" from the other miners as\nthey passed from the platform. before ever he had set foot in it,\nmcmurdo the turbulent had become a character in vermissa.\nthe country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way\neven more depressing. down that long valley there was at least a\ncertain gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting\nsmoke, while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments\nin the hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous\nexcavations. but the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and\nsqualor. the broad street was churned up by the traffic into a\nhorrible rutted paste of muddy snow. the sidewalks were narrow and\nuneven. the numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a\nlong line of wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street,\nunkempt and dirty.\nas they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by\na row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and\ngaming houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but\ngenerous wages.\n\"that's the union house,\" said the guide, pointing to one saloon\nwhich rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. \"jack mcginty is\nthe boss there.\"\n\"what sort of a man is he?\" mcmurdo asked.\n\"what! have you never heard of the boss?\"\n\"how could i have heard of him when you know that i am a stranger in\nthese parts?\"\n\"well, i thought his name was known clear across the country. it's\nbeen in the papers often enough.\"\n\"what for?\"\n\"well,\" the miner lowered his voice--\"over the affairs.\"\n\"what affairs?\"\n\"good lord, mister! you are queer, if i must say it without offense.\nthere's only one set of affairs that you'll hear of in these parts,\nand that's the affairs of the scowrers.\"\n\"why, i seem to have read of the scowrers in chicago. a gang of\nmurderers, are they not?\"\n\"hush, on your life!\" cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and\ngazing in amazement at his companion. \"man, you won't live long in\nthese parts if you speak in the open street like that. many a man has\nhad the life beaten out of him for less.\"\n\"well, i know nothing about them. it's only what i have read.\"\n\"and i'm not saying that you have not read the truth.\" the man looked\nnervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he\nfeared to see some lurking danger. \"if killing is murder, then god\nknows there is murder and to spare. but don't you dare to breathe the\nname of jack mcginty in connection with it, stranger; for every\nwhisper goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it\npass. now, that's the house you're after, that one standing back from\nthe street. you'll find old jacob shafter that runs it as honest a\nman as lives in this township.\"\n\"i thank you,\" said mcmurdo, and shaking hands with his new\nacquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to\nthe dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.\nit was opened at once by someone very different from what he had\nexpected. it was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. she was of\nthe german type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of\na pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger\nwith surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of\ncolour over her pale face. framed in the bright light of the open\ndoorway, it seemed to mcmurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful\npicture; the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and\ngloomy surroundings. a lovely violet growing upon one of those black\nslag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. so\nentranced was he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she\nwho broke the silence.\n\"i thought it was father,\" said she with a pleasing little touch of a\ngerman accent. \"did you come to see him? he is downtown. i expect him\nback every minute.\"\nmcmurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes\ndropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.\n\"no, miss,\" he said at last, \"i'm in no hurry to see him. but your\nhouse was recommended to me for board. i thought it might suit\nme--and now i know it will.\"\n\"you are quick to make up your mind,\" said she with a smile.\n\"anyone but a blind man could do as much,\" the other answered.\nshe laughed at the compliment. \"come right in, sir,\" she said. \"i'm\nmiss ettie shafter, mr. shafter's daughter. my mother's dead, and i\nrun the house. you can sit down by the stove in the front room until\nfather comes along--ah, here he is! so you can fix things with him\nright away.\"\na heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path. in a few words\nmcmurdo explained his business. a man of the name of murphy had given\nhim the address in chicago. he in turn had had it from someone else.\nold shafter was quite ready. the stranger made no bones about terms,\nagreed at once to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of\nmoney. for seven dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board\nand lodging.\nso it was that mcmurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice,\ntook up his abode under the roof of the shafters, the first step\nwhich was to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a\nfar distant land.\nchapter ii\nthe bodymaster\nmcmurdo was a man who made his mark quickly. wherever he was the folk\naround soon knew it. within a week he had become infinitely the most\nimportant person at shafter's. there were ten or a dozen boarders\nthere; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the\nstores, of a very different calibre from the young irishman. of an\nevening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest,\nhis conversation the brightest, and his song the best. he was a born\nboon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all\naround him.\nand yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway\ncarriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled the\nrespect and even the fear of those who met him. for the law, too, and\nall who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which\ndelighted some and alarmed others of his fellow boarders.\nfrom the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the\ndaughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had\nset eyes upon her beauty and her grace. he was no backward suitor. on\nthe second day he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he\nrepeated the same story with an absolute disregard of what she might\nsay to discourage him.\n\"someone else?\" he would cry. \"well, the worse luck for someone else!\nlet him look out for himself! am i to lose my life's chance and all\nmy heart's desire for someone else? you can keep on saying no, ettie:\nthe day will come when you will say yes, and i'm young enough to\nwait.\"\nhe was a dangerous suitor, with his glib irish tongue, and his\npretty, coaxing ways. there was about him also that glamour of\nexperience and of mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and\nfinally her love. he could talk of the sweet valleys of county\nmonaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, the low\nhills and green meadows of which seemed the more beautiful when\nimagination viewed them from this place of grime and snow.\nthen he was versed in the life of the cities of the north, of\ndetroit, and the lumber camps of michigan, and finally of chicago,\nwhere he had worked in a planing mill. and afterwards came the hint\nof romance, the feeling that strange things had happened to him in\nthat great city, so strange and so intimate that they might not be\nspoken of. he spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old\nties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley,\nand ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with\nsympathy--those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so\nnaturally to love.\nmcmurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for he was a\nwell-educated man. this kept him out most of the day, and he had not\nfound occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the\neminent order of freemen. he was reminded of his omission, however,\nby a visit one evening from mike scanlan, the fellow member whom he\nhad met in the train. scanlan, the small, sharp-faced, nervous,\nblack-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once more. after a glass or\ntwo of whisky he broached the object of his visit.\n\"say, mcmurdo,\" said he, \"i remembered your address, so l made bold\nto call. i'm surprised that you've not reported to the bodymaster.\nwhy haven't you seen boss mcginty yet?\"\n\"well, i had to find a job. i have been busy.\"\n\"you must find time for him if you have none for anything else. good\nlord, man! you're a fool not to have been down to the union house and\nregistered your name the first morning after you came here! if you\nrun against him--well, you mustn't, that's all!\"\nmcmurdo showed mild surprise. \"i've been a member of the lodge for\nover two years, scanlan, but i never heard that duties were so\npressing as all that.\"\n\"maybe not in chicago.\"\n\"well, it's the same society here.\"\n\"is it?\"\nscanlan looked at him long and fixedly. there was something sinister\nin his eyes.\n\"isn't it?\"\n\"you'll tell me that in a month's time. i hear you had a talk with\nthe patrolmen after i left the train.\"\n\"how did you know that?\"\n\"oh, it got about--things do get about for good and for bad in this\ndistrict.\"\n\"well, yes. i told the hounds what i thought of them.\"\n\"by the lord, you'll be a man after mcginty's heart!\"\n\"what, does he hate the police too?\"\nscanlan burst out laughing. \"you go and see him, my lad,\" said he as\nhe took his leave. \"it's not the police but you that he'll hate if\nyou don't! now, take a friend's advice and go at once!\"\nit chanced that on the same evening mcmurdo had another more pressing\ninterview which urged him in the same direction. it may have been\nthat his attentions to ettie had been more evident than before, or\nthat they had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his\ngood german host; but, whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper\nbeckoned the young man into his private room and started on the\nsubject without any circumlocution.\n\"it seems to me, mister,\" said he, \"that you are gettin' set on my\nettie. ain't that so, or am i wrong?\"\n\"yes, that is so,\" the young man answered.\n\"vell, i vant to tell you right now that it ain't no manner of use.\nthere's someone slipped in afore you.\"\n\"she told me so.\"\n\"vell, you can lay that she told you truth. but did she tell you who\nit vas?\"\n\"no, i asked her; but she wouldn't tell.\"\n\"i dare say not, the leetle baggage! perhaps she did not vish to\nfrighten you avay.\"\n\"frighten!\" mcmurdo was on fire in a moment.\n\"ah, yes, my friend! you need not be ashamed to be frightened of him.\nit is teddy baldwin.\"\n\"and who the devil is he?\"\n\"he is a boss of scowrers.\"\n\"scowrers! i've heard of them before. it's scowrers here and scowrers\nthere, and always in a whisper! what are you all afraid of? who are\nthe scowrers?\"\nthe boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone\ndid who talked about that terrible society. \"the scowrers,\" said he,\n\"are the eminent order of freemen!\"\nthe young man stared. \"why, i am a member of that order myself.\"\n\"you! i vould never have had you in my house if i had known it--not\nif you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a week.\"\n\"what's wrong with the order? it's for charity and good fellowship.\nthe rules say so.\"\n\"maybe in some places. not here!\"\n\"what is it here?\"\n\"it's a murder society, that's vat it is.\"\nmcmurdo laughed incredulously. \"how can you prove that?\" he asked.\n\"prove it! are there not fifty murders to prove it? vat about milman\nand van shorst, and the nicholson family, and old mr. hyam, and\nlittle billy james, and the others? prove it! is there a man or a\nvoman in this valley vat does not know it?\"\n\"see here!\" said mcmurdo earnestly. \"i want you to take back what\nyou've said, or else make it good. one or the other you must do\nbefore i quit this room. put yourself in my place. here am i, a\nstranger in the town. i belong to a society that i know only as an\ninnocent one. you'll find it through the length and breadth of the\nstates, but always as an innocent one. now, when i am counting upon\njoining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder society\ncalled the scowrers. i guess you owe me either an apology or else an\nexplanation, mr. shafter.\"\n\"i can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. the bosses of\nthe one are the bosses of the other. if you offend the one, it is the\nother vat vill strike you. we have proved it too often.\"\n\"that's just gossip--i want proof!\" said mcmurdo.\n\"if you live here long you vill get your proof. but i forget that you\nare yourself one of them. you vill soon be as bad as the rest. but\nyou vill find other lodgings, mister. i cannot have you here. is it\nnot bad enough that one of these people come courting my ettie, and\nthat i dare not turn him down, but that i should have another for my\nboarder? yes, indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!\"\nmcmurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his\ncomfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. he found her\nalone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his\ntroubles into her ear.\n\"sure, your father is after giving me notice,\" he said. \"it's little\ni would care if it was just my room, but indeed, ettie, though it's\nonly a week that i've known you, you are the very breath of life to\nme, and i can't live without you!\"\n\"oh, hush, mr. mcmurdo, don't speak so!\" said the girl. \"i have told\nyou, have i not, that you are too late? there is another, and if i\nhave not promised to marry him at once, at least i can promise no one\nelse.\"\n\"suppose i had been first, ettie, would i have had a chance?\"\nthe girl sank her face into her hands. \"i wish to heaven that you had\nbeen first!\" she sobbed.\nmcmurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. \"for god's\nsake, ettie, let it stand at that!\" he cried. \"will you ruin your\nlife and my own for the sake of this promise? follow your heart,\nacushla! 'tis a safer guide than any promise before you knew what it\nwas that you were saying.\"\nhe had seized ettie's white hand between his own strong brown ones.\n\"say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!\"\n\"not here?\"\n\"yes, here.\"\n\"no, no, jack!\" his arms were round her now. \"it could not be here.\ncould you take me away?\"\na struggle passed for a moment over mcmurdo's face; but it ended by\nsetting like granite. \"no, here,\" he said. \"i'll hold you against the\nworld, ettie, right here where we are!\"\n\"why should we not leave together?\"\n\"no, ettie, i can't leave here.\"\n\"but why?\"\n\"i'd never hold my head up again if i felt that i had been driven\nout. besides, what is there to be afraid of? are we not free folks in\na free country? if you love me, and i you, who will dare to come\nbetween?\"\n\"you don't know, jack. you've been here too short a time. you don't\nknow this baldwin. you don't know mcginty and his scowrers.\"\n\"no, i don't know them, and i don't fear them, and i don't believe in\nthem!\" said mcmurdo. \"i've lived among rough men, my darling, and\ninstead of fearing them it has always ended that they have feared\nme--always, ettie. it's mad on the face of it! if these men, as your\nfather says, have done crime after crime in the valley, and if\neveryone knows them by name, how comes it that none are brought to\njustice? you answer me that, ettie!\"\n\"because no witness dares to appear against them. he would not live a\nmonth if he did. also because they have always their own men to swear\nthat the accused one was far from the scene of the crime. but surely,\njack, you must have read all this. i had understood that every paper\nin the united states was writing about it.\"\n\"well, i have read something, it is true; but i had thought it was a\nstory. maybe these men have some reason in what they do. maybe they\nare wronged and have no other way to help themselves.\"\n\"oh, jack, don't let me hear you speak so! that is how he speaks--the\nother one!\"\n\"baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?\"\n\"and that is why i loathe him so. oh, jack, now i can tell you the\ntruth. i loathe him with all my heart; but i fear him also. i fear\nhim for myself; but above all i fear him for father. i know that some\ngreat sorrow would come upon us if i dared to say what i really felt.\nthat is why i have put him off with half-promises. it was in real\ntruth our only hope. but if you would fly with me, jack, we could\ntake father with us and live forever far from the power of these\nwicked men.\"\nagain there was the struggle upon mcmurdo's face, and again it set\nlike granite. \"no harm shall come to you, ettie--nor to your father\neither. as to wicked men, i expect you may find that i am as bad as\nthe worst of them before we're through.\"\n\"no, no, jack! i would trust you anywhere.\"\nmcmurdo laughed bitterly. \"good lord! how little you know of me! your\ninnocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is passing in\nmine. but, hullo, who's the visitor?\"\nthe door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in\nwith the air of one who is the master. he was a handsome, dashing\nyoung man of about the same age and build as mcmurdo himself. under\nhis broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had not troubled to\nremove, a handsome face with fierce, domineering eyes and a curved\nhawk-bill of a nose looked savagely at the pair who sat by the stove.\nettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm. \"i'm glad\nto see you, mr. baldwin,\" said she. \"you're earlier than i had\nthought. come and sit down.\"\nbaldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at mcmurdo. \"who is\nthis?\" he asked curtly.\n\"it's a friend of mine, mr. baldwin, a new boarder here. mr. mcmurdo,\nmay i introduce you to mr. baldwin?\"\nthe young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.\n\"maybe miss ettie has told you how it is with us?\" said baldwin.\n\"i didn't understand that there was any relation between you.\"\n\"didn't you? well, you can understand it now. you can take it from me\nthat this young lady is mine, and you'll find it a very fine evening\nfor a walk.\"\n\"thank you, i am in no humour for a walk.\"\n\"aren't you?\" the man's savage eyes were blazing with anger. \"maybe\nyou are in a humour for a fight, mr. boarder!\"\n\"that i am!\" cried mcmurdo, springing to his feet. \"you never said a\nmore welcome word.\"\n\"for god's sake, jack! oh, for god's sake!\" cried poor, distracted\nettie. \"oh, jack, jack, he will hurt you!\"\n\"oh, it's jack, is it?\" said baldwin with an oath. \"you've come to\nthat already, have you?\"\n\"oh, ted, be reasonable--be kind! for my sake, ted, if ever you loved\nme, be big-hearted and forgiving!\"\n\"i think, ettie, that if you were to leave us alone we could get this\nthing settled,\" said mcmurdo quietly. \"or maybe, mr. baldwin, you\nwill take a turn down the street with me. it's a fine evening, and\nthere's some open ground beyond the next block.\"\n\"i'll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands,\" said his\nenemy. \"you'll wish you had never set foot in this house before i am\nthrough with you!\"\n\"no time like the present,\" cried mcmurdo.\n\"i'll choose my own time, mister. you can leave the time to me. see\nhere!\" he suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon his forearm a\npeculiar sign which appeared to have been branded there. it was a\ncircle with a triangle within it. \"d'you know what that means?\"\n\"i neither know nor care!\"\n\"well, you will know, i'll promise you that. you won't be much older,\neither. perhaps miss ettie can tell you something about it. as to\nyou, ettie, you'll come back to me on your knees--d'ye hear,\ngirl?--on your knees--and then i'll tell you what your punishment may\nbe. you've sowed--and by the lord, i'll see that you reap!\" he\nglanced at them both in fury. then he turned upon his heel, and an\ninstant later the outer door had banged behind him.\nfor a few moments mcmurdo and the girl stood in silence. then she\nthrew her arms around him.\n\"oh, jack, how brave you were! but it is no use, you must fly!\nto-night--jack--to-night! it's your only hope. he will have your\nlife. i read it in his horrible eyes. what chance have you against a\ndozen of them, with boss mcginty and all the power of the lodge\nbehind them?\"\nmcmurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushed her back\ninto a chair. \"there, acushla, there! don't be disturbed or fear for\nme. i'm a freeman myself. i'm after telling your father about it.\nmaybe i am no better than the others; so don't make a saint of me.\nperhaps you hate me too, now that i've told you as much?\"\n\"hate you, jack? while life lasts i could never do that! i've heard\nthat there is no harm in being a freeman anywhere but here; so why\nshould i think the worse of you for that? but if you are a freeman,\njack, why should you not go down and make a friend of boss mcginty?\noh, hurry, jack, hurry! get your word in first, or the hounds will be\non your trail.\"\n\"i was thinking the same thing,\" said mcmurdo. \"i'll go right now and\nfix it. you can tell your father that i'll sleep here to-night and\nfind some other quarters in the morning.\"\nthe bar of mcginty's saloon was crowded as usual, for it was the\nfavourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town. the\nman was popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition which formed\na mask, covering a great deal which lay behind it. but apart from\nthis popularity, the fear in which he was held throughout the\ntownship, and indeed down the whole thirty miles of the valley and\npast the mountains on each side of it, was enough in itself to fill\nhis bar; for none could afford to neglect his good will.\nbesides those secret powers which it was universally believed that he\nexercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high public official, a\nmunicipal councillor, and a commissioner of roads, elected to the\noffice through the votes of the ruffians who in turn expected to\nreceive favours at his hands. assessments and taxes were enormous;\nthe public works were notoriously neglected, the accounts were\nslurred over by bribed auditors, and the decent citizen was\nterrorized into paying public blackmail, and holding his tongue lest\nsome worse thing befall him.\nthus it was that, year by year, boss mcginty's diamond pins became\nmore obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous\nvest, and his saloon stretched farther and farther, until it\nthreatened to absorb one whole side of the market square.\nmcmurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloon and made his way\namid the crowd of men within, through an atmosphere blurred with\ntobacco smoke and heavy with the smell of spirits. the place was\nbrilliantly lighted, and the huge, heavily gilt mirrors upon every\nwall reflected and multiplied the garish illumination. there were\nseveral bartenders in their shirt sleeves, hard at work mixing drinks\nfor the loungers who fringed the broad, brass-trimmed counter.\nat the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigar stuck\nat an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood a tall, strong,\nheavily built man who could be none other than the famous mcginty\nhimself. he was a black-maned giant, bearded to the cheek-bones, and\nwith a shock of raven hair which fell to his collar. his complexion\nwas as swarthy as that of an italian, and his eyes were of a strange\ndead black, which, combined with a slight squint, gave them a\nparticularly sinister appearance.\nall else in the man--his noble proportions, his fine features, and\nhis frank bearing--fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner\nwhich he affected. here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow,\nwhose heart would be sound however rude his outspoken words might\nseem. it was only when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless,\nwere turned upon a man that he shrank within himself, feeling that he\nwas face to face with an infinite possibility of latent evil, with a\nstrength and courage and cunning behind it which made it a thousand\ntimes more deadly.\nhaving had a good look at his man, mcmurdo elbowed his way forward\nwith his usual careless audacity, and pushed himself through the\nlittle group of courtiers who were fawning upon the powerful boss,\nlaughing uproariously at the smallest of his jokes. the young\nstranger's bold gray eyes looked back fearlessly through their\nglasses at the deadly black ones which turned sharply upon him.\n\"well, young man, i can't call your face to mind.\"\n\"i'm new here, mr. mcginty.\"\n\"you are not so new that you can't give a gentleman his proper\ntitle.\"\n\"he's councillor mcginty, young man,\" said a voice from the group.\n\"i'm sorry, councillor. i'm strange to the ways of the place. but i\nwas advised to see you.\"\n\"well, you see me. this is all there is. what d'you think of me?\"\n\"well, it's early days. if your heart is as big as your body, and\nyour soul as fine as your face, then i'd ask for nothing better,\"\nsaid mcmurdo.\n\"by gar! you've got an irish tongue in your head anyhow,\" cried the\nsaloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious\nvisitor or to stand upon his dignity.\n\"so you are good enough to pass my appearance?\"\n\"sure,\" said mcmurdo.\n\"and you were told to see me?\"\n\"i was.\"\n\"and who told you?\"\n\"brother scanlan of lodge 341, vermissa. i drink your health\ncouncillor, and to our better acquaintance.\" he raised a glass with\nwhich he had been served to his lips and elevated his little finger\nas he drank it.\nmcginty, who had been watching him narrowly, raised his thick black\neyebrows. \"oh, it's like that, is it?\" said he. \"i'll have to look a\nbit closer into this, mister--\"\n\"mcmurdo.\"\n\"a bit closer, mr. mcmurdo; for we don't take folk on trust in these\nparts, nor believe all we're told neither. come in here for a moment,\nbehind the bar.\"\nthere was a small room there, lined with barrels. mcginty carefully\nclosed the door, and then seated himself on one of them, biting\nthoughtfully on his cigar and surveying his companion with those\ndisquieting eyes. for a couple of minutes he sat in complete silence.\nmcmurdo bore the inspection cheerfully, one hand in his coat pocket,\nthe other twisting his brown moustache. suddenly mcginty stooped and\nproduced a wicked-looking revolver.\n\"see here, my joker,\" said he, \"if i thought you were playing any\ngame on us, it would be short work for you.\"\n\"this is a strange welcome,\" mcmurdo answered with some dignity, \"for\nthe bodymaster of a lodge of freemen to give to a stranger brother.\"\n\"ay, but it's just that same that you have to prove,\" said mcginty,\n\"and god help you if you fail! where were you made?\"\n\"lodge 29, chicago.\"\n\"when?\"\n\"june 24, 1872.\"\n\"what bodymaster?\"\n\"james h. scott.\"\n\"who is your district ruler?\"\n\"bartholomew wilson.\"\n\"hum! you seem glib enough in your tests. what are you doing here?\"\n\"working, the same as you--but a poorer job.\"\n\"you have your back answer quick enough.\"\n\"yes, i was always quick of speech.\"\n\"are you quick of action?\"\n\"i have had that name among those that knew me best.\"\n\"well, we may try you sooner than you think. have you heard anything\nof the lodge in these parts?\"\n\"i've heard that it takes a man to be a brother.\"\n\"true for you, mr. mcmurdo. why did you leave chicago?\"\n\"i'm damned if i tell you that!\"\nmcginty opened his eyes. he was not used to being answered in such\nfashion, and it amused him. \"why won't you tell me?\"\n\"because no brother may tell another a lie.\"\n\"then the truth is too bad to tell?\"\n\"you can put it that way if you like.\"\n\"see here, mister, you can't expect me, as bodymaster, to pass into\nthe lodge a man for whose past he can't answer.\"\nmcmurdo looked puzzled. then he took a worn newspaper cutting from an\ninner pocket.\n\"you wouldn't squeal on a fellow?\" said he.\n\"i'll wipe my hand across your face if you say such words to me!\"\ncried mcginty hotly.\n\"you are right, councillor,\" said mcmurdo meekly. \"i should\napologize. i spoke without thought. well, i know that i am safe in\nyour hands. look at that clipping.\"\nmcginty glanced his eyes over the account of the shooting of one\njonas pinto, in the lake saloon, market street, chicago, in the new\nyear week of 1874.\n\"your work?\" he asked, as he handed back the paper.\nmcmurdo nodded.\n\"why did you shoot him?\"\n\"i was helping uncle sam to make dollars. maybe mine were not as good\ngold as his, but they looked as well and were cheaper to make. this\nman pinto helped me to shove the queer--\"\n\"to do what?\"\n\"well, it means to pass the dollars out into circulation. then he\nsaid he would split. maybe he did split. i didn't wait to see. i just\nkilled him and lighted out for the coal country.\"\n\"why the coal country?\"\n\"'cause i'd read in the papers that they weren't too particular in\nthose parts.\"\nmcginty laughed. \"you were first a coiner and then a murderer, and\nyou came to these parts because you thought you'd be welcome.\"\n\"that's about the size of it,\" mcmurdo answered.\n\"well, i guess you'll go far. say, can you make those dollars yet?\"\nmcmurdo took half a dozen from his pocket. \"those never passed the\nphiladelphia mint,\" said he.\n\"you don't say!\" mcginty held them to the light in his enormous hand,\nwhich was hairy as a gorilla's. \"i can see no difference. gar! you'll\nbe a mighty useful brother, i'm thinking! we can do with a bad man or\ntwo among us, friend mcmurdo: for there are times when we have to\ntake our own part. we'd soon be against the wall if we didn't shove\nback at those that were pushing us.\"\n\"well, i guess i'll do my share of shoving with the rest of the\nboys.\"\n\"you seem to have a good nerve. you didn't squirm when i shoved this\ngun at you.\"\n\"it was not me that was in danger.\"\n\"who then?\"\n\"it was you, councillor.\" mcmurdo drew a cocked pistol from the side\npocket of his peajacket. \"i was covering you all the time. i guess my\nshot would have been as quick as yours.\"\n\"by gar!\" mcginty flushed an angry red and then burst into a roar of\nlaughter. \"say, we've had no such holy terror come to hand this many\na year. i reckon the lodge will learn to be proud of you ... well,\nwhat the hell do you want? and can't i speak alone with a gentleman\nfor five minutes but you must butt in on us?\"\nthe bartender stood abashed. \"i'm sorry, councillor, but it's ted\nbaldwin. he says he must see you this very minute.\"\nthe message was unnecessary; for the set, cruel face of the man\nhimself was looking over the servant's shoulder. he pushed the\nbartender out and closed the door on him.\n\"so,\" said he with a furious glance at mcmurdo, \"you got here first,\ndid you? i've a word to say to you, councillor, about this man.\"\n\"then say it here and now before my face,\" cried mcmurdo.\n\"i'll say it at my own time, in my own way.\"\n\"tut! tut!\" said mcginty, getting off his barrel. \"this will never\ndo. we have a new brother here, baldwin, and it's not for us to greet\nhim in such fashion. hold out your hand, man, and make it up!\"\n\"never!\" cried baldwin in a fury.\n\"i've offered to fight him if he thinks i have wronged him,\" said\nmcmurdo. \"i'll fight him with fists, or, if that won't satisfy him,\ni'll fight him any other way he chooses. now, i'll leave it to you,\ncouncillor, to judge between us as a bodymaster should.\"\n\"what is it, then?\"\n\"a young lady. she's free to choose for herself.\"\n\"is she?\" cried baldwin.\n\"as between two brothers of the lodge i should say that she was,\"\nsaid the boss.\n\"oh, that's your ruling, is it?\"\n\"yes, it is, ted baldwin,\" said mcginty, with a wicked stare. \"is it\nyou that would dispute it?\"\n\"you would throw over one that has stood by you this five years in\nfavour of a man that you never saw before in your life? you're not\nbodymaster for life, jack mcginty, and by god! when next it comes to\na vote--\"\nthe councillor sprang at him like a tiger. his hand closed round the\nother's neck, and he hurled him back across one of the barrels. in\nhis mad fury he would have squeezed the life out of him if mcmurdo\nhad not interfered.\n\"easy, councillor! for heaven's sake, go easy!\" he cried, as he\ndragged him back.\nmcginty released his hold, and baldwin, cowed and shaken gasping for\nbreath, and shivering in every limb, as one who has looked over the\nvery edge of death, sat up on the barrel over which he had been\nhurled.\n\"you've been asking for it this many a day, ted baldwin--now you've\ngot it!\" cried mcginty, his huge chest rising and falling. \"maybe you\nthink if i was voted down from bodymaster you would find yourself in\nmy shoes. it's for the lodge to say that. but so long as i am the\nchief i'll have no man lift his voice against me or my rulings.\"\n\"i have nothing against you,\" mumbled baldwin, feeling his throat.\n\"well, then,\" cried the other, relapsing in a moment into a bluff\njoviality, \"we are all good friends again and there's an end of the\nmatter.\"\nhe took a bottle of champagne down from the shelf and twisted out the\ncork.\n\"see now,\" he continued, as he filled three high glasses. \"let us\ndrink the quarrelling toast of the lodge. after that, as you know,\nthere can be no bad blood between us. now, then the left hand on the\napple of my throat. i say to you, ted baldwin, what is the offense,\nsir?\"\n\"the clouds are heavy,\" answered baldwin.\n\"but they will forever brighten.\"\n\"and this i swear!\"\nthe men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed\nbetween baldwin and mcmurdo\n\"there!\" cried mcginty, rubbing his hands. \"that's the end of the\nblack blood. you come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and\nthat's a heavy hand in these parts, as brother baldwin knows--and as\nyou will damn soon find out, brother mcmurdo, if you ask for\ntrouble!\"\n\"faith, i'd be slow to do that,\" said mcmurdo. he held out his hand\nto baldwin. \"i'm quick to quarrel and quick to forgive. it's my hot\nirish blood, they tell me. but it's over for me, and i bear no\ngrudge.\"\nbaldwin had to take the proffered hand, for the baleful eye of the\nterrible boss was upon him. but his sullen face showed how little the\nwords of the other had moved him.\nmcginty clapped them both on the shoulders. \"tut! these girls! these\ngirls!\" he cried. \"to think that the same petticoats should come\nbetween two of my boys! it's the devil's own luck! well, it's the\ncolleen inside of them that must settle the question for it's outside\nthe jurisdiction of a bodymaster--and the lord be praised for that!\nwe have enough on us, without the women as well. you'll have to be\naffiliated to lodge 341, brother mcmurdo. we have our own ways and\nmethods, different from chicago. saturday night is our meeting, and\nif you come then, we'll make you free forever of the vermissa\nvalley.\"\nchapter iii\nlodge 341, vermissa\non the day following the evening which had contained so many exciting\nevents, mcmurdo moved his lodgings from old jacob shafter's and took\nup his quarters at the widow macnamara's on the extreme outskirts of\nthe town. scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had\noccasion shortly afterwards to move into vermissa, and the two lodged\ntogether. there was no other boarder, and the hostess was an\neasy-going old irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they\nhad a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in\ncommon.\nshafter had relented to the extent of letting mcmurdo come to his\nmeals there when he liked; so that his intercourse with ettie was by\nno means broken. on the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as\nthe weeks went by.\nin his bedroom at his new abode mcmurdo felt it safe to take out the\ncoining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of\nbrothers from the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each\ncarrying away in his pocket some examples of the false money, so\ncunningly struck that there was never the slightest difficulty or\ndanger in passing it. why, with such a wonderful art at his command,\nmcmurdo should condescend to work at all was a perpetual mystery to\nhis companions; though he made it clear to anyone who asked him that\nif he lived without any visible means it would very quickly bring the\npolice upon his track.\none policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck\nwould have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm.\nafter the first introduction there were few evenings when he did not\nfind his way to mcginty's saloon, there to make closer acquaintance\nwith \"the boys,\" which was the jovial title by which the dangerous\ngang who infested the place were known to one another. his dashing\nmanner and fearlessness of speech made him a favourite with them all;\nwhile the rapid and scientific way in which he polished off his\nantagonist in an \"all in\" bar-room scrap earned the respect of that\nrough community. another incident, however, raised him even higher in\ntheir estimation.\njust at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered\nwith the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the mine police. this\nwas a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to\nsupplement the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were\nperfectly helpless in the face of the organized ruffianism which\nterrorized the district. there was a hush as he entered, and many a\ncurious glance was cast at him; but the relations between policemen\nand criminals are peculiar in some parts of the states, and mcginty\nhimself standing behind his counter, showed no surprise when the\npoliceman enrolled himself among his customers.\n\"a straight whisky, for the night is bitter,\" said the police\nofficer. \"i don't think we have met before, councillor?\"\n\"you'll be the new captain?\" said mcginty.\n\"that's so. we're looking to you, councillor, and to the other\nleading citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this\ntownship. captain marvin is my name.\"\n\"we'd do better without you, captain marvin,\" said mcginty coldly;\n\"for we have our own police of the township, and no need for any\nimported goods. what are you but the paid tool of the capitalists,\nhired by them to club or shoot your poorer fellow citizen?\"\n\"well, well, we won't argue about that,\" said the police officer\ngood-humouredly. \"i expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but\nwe can't all see it the same.\" he had drunk off his glass and had\nturned to go, when his eyes fell upon the face of jack mcmurdo, who\nwas scowling at his elbow. \"hullo! hullo!\" he cried, looking him up\nand down. \"here's an old acquaintance!\"\nmcmurdo shrank away from him. \"i was never a friend to you nor any\nother cursed copper in my life,\" said he.\n\"an acquaintance isn't always a friend,\" said the police captain,\ngrinning. \"you're jack mcmurdo of chicago, right enough, and don't\nyou deny it!\"\nmcmurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"i'm not denying it,\" said he. \"d'ye\nthink i'm ashamed of my own name?\"\n\"you've got good cause to be, anyhow.\"\n\"what the devil d'you mean by that?\" he roared with his fists\nclenched.\n\"no, no, jack, bluster won't do with me. i was an officer in chicago\nbefore ever i came to this darned coal bunker, and i know a chicago\ncrook when i see one.\"\nmcmurdo's face fell. \"don't tell me that you're marvin of the chicago\ncentral!\" he cried.\n\"just the same old teddy marvin, at your service. we haven't\nforgotten the shooting of jonas pinto up there.\"\n\"i never shot him.\"\n\"did you not? that's good impartial evidence, ain't it? well, his\ndeath came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for\nshoving the queer. well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you\nand me--and perhaps i'm going further than my duty in saying it--they\ncould get no clear case against you, and chicago's open to you\nto-morrow.\"\n\"i'm very well where i am.\"\n\"well, i've given you the pointer, and you're a sulky dog not to\nthank me for it.\"\n\"well, i suppose you mean well, and i do thank you,\" said mcmurdo in\nno very gracious manner.\n\"it's mum with me so long as i see you living on the straight,\" said\nthe captain. \"but, by the lord! if you get off after this, it's\nanother story! so good-night to you--and goodnight, councillor.\"\nhe left the bar-room; but not before he had created a local hero.\nmcmurdo's deeds in far chicago had been whispered before. he had put\noff all questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have\ngreatness thrust upon him. but now the thing was officially\nconfirmed. the bar loafers crowded round him and shook him heartily\nby the hand. he was free of the community from that time on. he could\ndrink hard and show little trace of it; but that evening, had his\nmate scanlan not been at hand to lead him home, the feted hero would\nsurely have spent his night under the bar.\non a saturday night mcmurdo was introduced to the lodge. he had\nthought to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of chicago;\nbut there were particular rites in vermissa of which they were proud,\nand these had to be undergone by every postulant. the assembly met in\na large room reserved for such purposes at the union house. some\nsixty members assembled at vermissa; but that by no means represented\nthe full strength of the organization, for there were several other\nlodges in the valley, and others across the mountains on each side,\nwho exchanged members when any serious business was afoot, so that a\ncrime might be done by men who were strangers to the locality.\naltogether there were not less than five hundred scattered over the\ncoal district.\nin the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table.\nat the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which\nsome members of the company were already turning their eyes. mcginty\nsat at the head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of\ntangled black hair, and a coloured purple stole round his neck, so\nthat he seemed to be a priest presiding over some diabolical ritual.\nto right and left of him were the higher lodge officials, the cruel,\nhandsome face of ted baldwin among them. each of these wore some\nscarf or medallion as emblem of his office.\nthey were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the\ncompany consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the\nready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their\nseniors. among the older men were many whose features showed the\ntigerish, lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it\nwas difficult to believe that these eager and open-faced young\nfellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds\nhad suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a horrible\npride in their proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest\nrespect at the man who had the reputation of making what they called\n\"a clean job.\"\nto their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous\nthing to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured\nthem, and whom in many cases they had never seen in their lives. the\ncrime committed, they quarrelled as to who had actually struck the\nfatal blow, and amused one another and the company by describing the\ncries and contortions of the murdered man.\nat first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at\nthe time which this narrative describes their proceedings were\nextraordinarily open, for the repeated failures of the law had proved\nto them that, on the one hand, no one would dare to witness against\nthem, and on the other they had an unlimited number of stanch\nwitnesses upon whom they could call, and a well-filled treasure chest\nfrom which they could draw the funds to engage the best legal talent\nin the state. in ten long years of outrage there had been no single\nconviction, and the only danger that ever threatened the scowrers lay\nin the victim himself--who, however outnumbered and taken by\nsurprise, might and occasionally did leave his mark upon his\nassailants.\nmcmurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one\nwould tell him in what it consisted. he was led now into an outer\nroom by two solemn brothers. through the plank partition he could\nhear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. once or\ntwice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were\ndiscussing his candidacy. then there entered an inner guard with a\ngreen and gold sash across his chest.\n\"the bodymaster orders that he shall be trussed, blinded, and\nentered,\" said he.\nthe three of them removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right\narm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it\nfast. they next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the\nupper part of his face, so that he could see nothing. he was then led\ninto the assembly hall.\nit was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood. he heard the\nrustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of\nmcginty sounded dull and distant through the covering of his ears.\n\"john mcmurdo,\" said the voice, \"are you already a member of the\nancient order of freemen?\"\nhe bowed in assent.\n\"is your lodge no. 29, chicago?\"\nhe bowed again.\n\"dark nights are unpleasant,\" said the voice.\n\"yes, for strangers to travel,\" he answered.\n\"the clouds are heavy.\"\n\"yes, a storm is approaching.\"\n\"are the brethren satisfied?\" asked the bodymaster.\nthere was a general murmur of assent.\n\"we know, brother, by your sign and by your countersign that you are\nindeed one of us,\" said mcginty. \"we would have you know, however,\nthat in this county and in other counties of these parts we have\ncertain rites, and also certain duties of our own which call for good\nmen. are you ready to be tested?\"\n\"i am.\"\n\"are you of stout heart?\"\n\"i am.\"\n\"take a stride forward to prove it.\"\nas the words were said he felt two hard points in front of his eyes,\npressing upon them so that it appeared as if he could not move\nforward without a danger of losing them. none the less, he nerved\nhimself to step resolutely out, and as he did so the pressure melted\naway. there was a low murmur of applause.\n\"he is of stout heart,\" said the voice. \"can you bear pain?\"\n\"as well as another,\" he answered.\n\"test him!\"\nit was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out, for an\nagonizing pain shot through his forearm. he nearly fainted at the\nsudden shock of it; but he bit his lip and clenched his hands to hide\nhis agony.\n\"i can take more than that,\" said he.\nthis time there was loud applause. a finer first appearance had never\nbeen made in the lodge. hands clapped him on the back, and the hood\nwas plucked from his head. he stood blinking and smiling amid the\ncongratulations of the brothers.\n\"one last word, brother mcmurdo,\" said mcginty. \"you have already\nsworn the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and you are aware that the\npunishment for any breach of it is instant and inevitable death?\"\n\"i am,\" said mcmurdo.\n\"and you accept the rule of the bodymaster for the time being under\nall circumstances?\"\n\"i do.\"\n\"then in the name of lodge 341, vermissa, i welcome you to its\nprivileges and debates. you will put the liquor on the table, brother\nscanlan, and we will drink to our worthy brother.\"\nmcmurdo's coat had been brought to him; but before putting it on he\nexamined his right arm, which still smarted heavily. there on the\nflesh of the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and\nred, as the branding iron had left it. one or two of his neighbours\npulled up their sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.\n\"we've all had it,\" said one; \"but not all as brave as you over it.\"\n\"tut! it was nothing,\" said he; but it burned and ached all the same.\nwhen the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all\nbeen disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded. mcmurdo,\naccustomed only to the prosaic performances of chicago, listened with\nopen ears and more surprise than he ventured to show to what\nfollowed.\n\"the first business on the agenda paper,\" said mcginty, \"is to read\nthe following letter from division master windle of merton county\nlodge 249. he says:\n\"dear sir:\n\"there is a job to be done on andrew rae of rae & sturmash, coal\nowners near this place. you will remember that your lodge owes us a\nreturn, having had the service of two brethren in the matter of the\npatrolman last fall. you will send two good men, they will be taken\ncharge of by treasurer higgins of this lodge, whose address you know.\nhe will show them when to act and where. yours in freedom,\n\"j. w. windle d. m. a. o. f.\n\"windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the\nloan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him.\" mcginty\npaused and looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes. \"who\nwill volunteer for the job?\"\nseveral young fellows held up their hands. the bodymaster looked at\nthem with an approving smile.\n\"you'll do, tiger cormac. if you handle it as well as you did the\nlast, you won't be wrong. and you, wilson.\"\n\"i've no pistol,\" said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.\n\"it's your first, is it not? well, you have to be blooded some time.\nit will be a great start for you. as to the pistol, you'll find it\nwaiting for you, or i'm mistaken. if you report yourselves on monday,\nit will be time enough. you'll get a great welcome when you return.\"\n\"any reward this time?\" asked cormac, a thick-set, dark-faced,\nbrutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname\nof \"tiger.\"\n\"never mind the reward. you just do it for the honour of the thing.\nmaybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom\nof the box.\"\n\"what has the man done?\" asked young wilson.\n\"sure, it's not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done. he\nhas been judged over there. that's no business of ours. all we have\nto do is to carry it out for them, same as they would for us.\nspeaking of that, two brothers from the merton lodge are coming over\nto us next week to do some business in this quarter.\"\n\"who are they?\" asked someone.\n\"faith, it is wiser not to ask. if you know nothing, you can testify\nnothing, and no trouble can come of it. but they are men who will\nmake a clean job when they are about it.\"\n\"and time, too!\" cried ted baldwin. \"folk are gettin' out of hand in\nthese parts. it was only last week that three of our men were turned\noff by foreman blaker. it's been owing him a long time, and he'll get\nit full and proper.\"\n\"get what?\" mcmurdo whispered to his neighbour.\n\"the business end of a buckshot cartridge!\" cried the man with a loud\nlaugh. \"what think you of our ways, brother?\"\nmcmurdo's criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of\nthe vile association of which he was now a member. \"i like it well,\"\nsaid he. \"'tis a proper place for a lad of mettle.\"\nseveral of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.\n\"what's that?\" cried the black-maned bodymaster from the end of the\ntable.\n\"'tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste.\"\nmcmurdo rose to his feet for an instant. \"i would say, eminent\nbodymaster, that if a man should be wanted i should take it as an\nhonour to be chosen to help the lodge.\"\nthere was great applause at this. it was felt that a new sun was\npushing its rim above the horizon. to some of the elders it seemed\nthat the progress was a little too rapid.\n\"i would move,\" said the secretary, harraway, a vulture-faced old\ngraybeard who sat near the chairman, \"that brother mcmurdo should\nwait until it is the good pleasure of the lodge to employ him.\"\n\"sure, that was what i meant; i'm in your hands,\" said mcmurdo.\n\"your time will come, brother,\" said the chairman. \"we have marked\nyou down as a willing man, and we believe that you will do good work\nin these parts. there is a small matter to-night in which you may\ntake a hand if it so please you.\"\n\"i will wait for something that is worth while.\"\n\"you can come to-night, anyhow, and it will help you to know what we\nstand for in this community. i will make the announcement later.\nmeanwhile,\" he glanced at his agenda paper, \"i have one or two more\npoints to bring before the meeting. first of all, i will ask the\ntreasurer as to our bank balance. there is the pension to jim\ncarnaway's widow. he was struck down doing the work of the lodge, and\nit is for us to see that she is not the loser.\"\n\"jim was shot last month when they tried to kill chester wilcox of\nmarley creek,\" mcmurdo's neighbour informed him.\n\"the funds are good at the moment,\" said the treasurer, with the\nbankbook in front of him. \"the firms have been generous of late. max\nlinder & co. paid five hundred to be left alone. walker brothers sent\nin a hundred; but i took it on myself to return it and ask for five.\nif i do not hear by wednesday, their winding gear may get out of\norder. we had to burn their breaker last year before they became\nreasonable. then the west section coaling company has paid its annual\ncontribution. we have enough on hand to meet any obligations.\"\n\"what about archie swindon?\" asked a brother.\n\"he has sold out and left the district. the old devil left a note for\nus to say that he had rather be a free crossing sweeper in new york\nthan a large mine owner under the power of a ring of blackmailers. by\ngar! it was as well that he made a break for it before the note\nreached us! i guess he won't show his face in this valley again.\"\nan elderly, clean-shaved man with a kindly face and a good brow rose\nfrom the end of the table which faced the chairman. \"mr. treasurer,\"\nhe asked, \"may i ask who has bought the property of this man that we\nhave driven out of the district?\"\n\"yes, brother morris. it has been bought by the state & merton county\nrailroad company.\"\n\"and who bought the mines of todman and of lee that came into the\nmarket in the same way last year?\"\n\"the same company, brother morris.\"\n\"and who bought the ironworks of manson and of shuman and of van\ndeher and of atwood, which have all been given up of late?\"\n\"they were all bought by the west gilmerton general mining company.\"\n\"i don't see, brother morris,\" said the chairman, \"that it matters to\nus who buys them, since they can't carry them out of the district.\"\n\"with all respect to you, eminent bodymaster, i think it may matter\nvery much to us. this process has been going on now for ten long\nyears. we are gradually driving all the small men out of trade. what\nis the result? we find in their places great companies like the\nrailroad or the general iron, who have their directors in new york or\nphiladelphia, and care nothing for our threats. we can take it out of\ntheir local bosses, but it only means that others will be sent in\ntheir stead. and we are making it dangerous for ourselves. the small\nmen could not harm us. they had not the money nor the power. so long\nas we did not squeeze them too dry, they would stay on under our\npower. but if these big companies find that we stand between them and\ntheir profits, they will spare no pains and no expense to hunt us\ndown and bring us to court.\"\nthere was a hush at these ominous words, and every face darkened as\ngloomy looks were exchanged. so omnipotent and unchallenged had they\nbeen that the very thought that there was possible retribution in the\nbackground had been banished from their minds. and yet the idea\nstruck a chill to the most reckless of them.\n\"it is my advice,\" the speaker continued, \"that we go easier upon the\nsmall men. on the day that they have all been driven out the power of\nthis society will have been broken.\"\nunwelcome truths are not popular. there were angry cries as the\nspeaker resumed his seat. mcginty rose with gloom upon his brow.\n\"brother morris,\" said he, \"you were always a croaker. so long as the\nmembers of this lodge stand together there is no power in the united\nstates that can touch them. sure, have we not tried it often enough\nin the law courts? i expect the big companies will find it easier to\npay than to fight, same as the little companies do. and now,\nbrethren,\" mcginty took off his black velvet cap and his stole as he\nspoke, \"this lodge has finished its business for the evening, save\nfor one small matter which may be mentioned when we are parting. the\ntime has now come for fraternal refreshment and for harmony.\"\nstrange indeed is human nature. here were these men, to whom murder\nwas familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the\nfamily, some man against whom they had no personal feeling, without\none thought of compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or\nhelpless children, and yet the tender or pathetic in music could move\nthem to tears. mcmurdo had a fine tenor voice, and if he had failed\nto gain the good will of the lodge before, it could no longer have\nbeen withheld after he had thrilled them with \"i'm sitting on the\nstile, mary,\" and \"on the banks of allan water.\"\nin his very first night the new recruit had made himself one of the\nmost popular of the brethren, marked already for advancement and high\noffice. there were other qualities needed, however, besides those of\ngood fellowship, to make a worthy freeman, and of these he was given\nan example before the evening was over. the whisky bottle had passed\nround many times, and the men were flushed and ripe for mischief when\ntheir bodymaster rose once more to address them.\n\"boys,\" said he, \"there's one man in this town that wants trimming\nup, and it's for you to see that he gets it. i'm speaking of james\nstanger of the herald. you've seen how he's been opening his mouth\nagainst us again?\"\nthere was a murmur of assent, with many a muttered oath. mcginty took\na slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket.\nlaw and order!\nthat's how he heads it.\n\"reign of terror in the coal and iron district\n\"twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations which\nproved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst. from\nthat day these outrages have never ceased, until now they have\nreached a pitch which makes us the opprobrium of the civilized world.\nis it for such results as this that our great country welcomes to its\nbosom the alien who flies from the despotisms of europe? is it that\nthey shall themselves become tyrants over the very men who have given\nthem shelter, and that a state of terrorism and lawlessness should be\nestablished under the very shadow of the sacred folds of the starry\nflag of freedom which would raise horror in our minds if we read of\nit as existing under the most effete monarchy of the east? the men\nare known. the organization is patent and public. how long are we to\nendure it? can we forever live--\nsure, i've read enough of the slush!\" cried the chairman, tossing the\npaper down upon the table. \"that's what he says of us. the question\ni'm asking you is what shall we say to him?\"\n\"kill him!\" cried a dozen fierce voices.\n\"i protest against that,\" said brother morris, the man of the good\nbrow and shaved face. \"i tell you, brethren, that our hand is too\nheavy in this valley, and that there will come a point where in\nself-defense every man will unite to crush us out. james stanger is\nan old man. he is respected in the township and the district. his\npaper stands for all that is solid in the valley. if that man is\nstruck down, there will be a stir through this state that will only\nend with our destruction.\"\n\"and how would they bring about our destruction, mr. standback?\"\ncried mcginty. \"is it by the police? sure, half of them are in our\npay and half of them afraid of us. or is it by the law courts and the\njudge? haven't we tried that before now, and what ever came of it?\"\n\"there is a judge lynch that might try the case,\" said brother\nmorris.\na general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.\n\"i have but to raise my finger,\" cried mcginty, \"and i could put two\nhundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end.\"\nthen suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into\na terrible frown, \"see here, brother morris, i have my eye on you,\nand have had for some time! you've no heart yourself, and you try to\ntake the heart out of others. it will be an ill day for you, brother\nmorris, when your own name comes on our agenda paper, and i'm\nthinking that it's just there that i ought to place it.\"\nmorris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under\nhim as he fell back into his chair. he raised his glass in his\ntrembling hand and drank before he could answer. \"i apologize,\neminent bodymaster, to you and to every brother in this lodge if i\nhave said more than i should. i am a faithful member--you all know\nthat--and it is my fear lest evil come to the lodge which makes me\nspeak in anxious words. but i have greater trust in your judgment\nthan in my own, eminent bodymaster, and i promise you that i will not\noffend again.\"\nthe bodymaster's scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words.\n\"very good, brother morris. it's myself that would be sorry if it\nwere needful to give you a lesson. but so long as i am in this chair\nwe shall be a united lodge in word and in deed. and now, boys,\" he\ncontinued, looking round at the company, \"i'll say this much, that if\nstanger got his full deserts there would be more trouble than we need\nask for. these editors hang together, and every journal in the state\nwould be crying out for police and troops. but i guess you can give\nhim a pretty severe warning. will you fix it, brother baldwin?\"\n\"sure!\" said the young man eagerly.\n\"how many will you take?\"\n\"half a dozen, and two to guard the door. you'll come, gower, and\nyou, mansel, and you, scanlan, and the two willabys.\"\n\"i promised the new brother he should go,\" said the chairman.\nted baldwin looked at mcmurdo with eyes which showed that he had not\nforgotten nor forgiven. \"well, he can come if he wants,\" he said in a\nsurly voice. \"that's enough. the sooner we get to work the better.\"\nthe company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken\nsong. the bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the\nbrethren remained there. the little band who had been told off for\nduty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along\nthe sidewalk so as not to provoke attention. it was a bitterly cold\nnight, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty,\nstar-spangled sky. the men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced\na high building. the words \"vermissa herald\" were printed in gold\nlettering between the brightly lit windows. from within came the\nclanking of the printing press.\n\"here, you,\" said baldwin to mcmurdo, \"you can stand below at the\ndoor and see that the road is kept open for us. arthur willaby can\nstay with you. you others come with me. have no fears, boys; for we\nhave a dozen witnesses that we are in the union bar at this very\nmoment.\"\nit was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or\ntwo revellers upon their way home. the party crossed the road, and,\npushing open the door of the newspaper office, baldwin and his men\nrushed in and up the stair which faced them. mcmurdo and another\nremained below. from the room above came a shout, a cry for help, and\nthen the sound of trampling feet and of falling chairs. an instant\nlater a gray-haired man rushed out on the landing.\nhe was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came\ntinkling down to mcmurdo's feet. there was a thud and a groan. he was\non his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they\nfell upon him. he writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under\nthe blows. the others ceased at last; but baldwin, his cruel face set\nin an infernal smile, was hacking at the man's head, which he vainly\nendeavoured to defend with his arms. his white hair was dabbled with\npatches of blood. baldwin was still stooping over his victim, putting\nin a short, vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when\nmcmurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.\n\"you'll kill the man,\" said he. \"drop it!\"\nbaldwin looked at him in amazement. \"curse you!\" he cried. \"who are\nyou to interfere--you that are new to the lodge? stand back!\" he\nraised his stick; but mcmurdo had whipped his pistol out of his hip\npocket.\n\"stand back yourself!\" he cried. \"i'll blow your face in if you lay a\nhand on me. as to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the bodymaster\nthat the man was not to be killed--and what are you doing but killing\nhim?\"\n\"it's truth he says,\" remarked one of the men.\n\"by gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!\" cried the man below. \"the\nwindows are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole town here\ninside of five minutes.\"\nthere was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little\ngroup of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and\nnerving itself to action. leaving the limp and motionless body of the\neditor at the head of the stair, the criminals rushed down and made\ntheir way swiftly along the street. having reached the union house,\nsome of them mixed with the crowd in mcginty's saloon, whispering\nacross the bar to the boss that the job had been well carried\nthrough. others, and among them mcmurdo, broke away into side\nstreets, and so by devious paths to their own homes.\nchapter iv\nthe valley of fear\nwhen mcmurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his\ninitiation into the lodge. his head ached with the effect of the\ndrink, and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and swollen.\nhaving his own peculiar source of income, he was irregular in his\nattendance at his work; so he had a late breakfast, and remained at\nhome for the morning writing a long letter to a friend. afterwards he\nread the daily herald. in a special column put in at the last moment\nhe read:\noutrage at the herald office -- editor seriously injured\nit was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more\nfamiliar than the writer could have been. it ended with the\nstatement:\nthe matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly be\nhoped that their exertions will be attended by any better results\nthan in the past. some of the men were recognized, and there is hope\nthat a conviction may be obtained. the source of the outrage was, it\nneed hardly be said, that infamous society which has held this\ncommunity in bondage for so long a period, and against which the\nherald has taken so uncompromising a stand. mr. stanger's many\nfriends will rejoice to hear that, though he has been cruelly and\nbrutally beaten, and though he has sustained severe injuries about\nthe head, there is no immediate danger to his life.\nbelow it stated that a guard of police, armed with winchester rifles,\nhad been requisitioned for the defense of the office.\nmcmurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a\nhand which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when\nthere was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note\nwhich had just been handed in by a lad. it was unsigned, and ran\nthus:\ni should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your\nhouse. you will find me beside the flagstaff upon miller hill. if you\nwill come there now, i have something which it is important for you\nto hear and for me to say.\nmcmurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he could\nnot imagine what it meant or who was the author of it. had it been in\na feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of\none of those adventures which had been familiar enough in his past\nlife. but it was the writing of a man, and of a well educated one,\ntoo. finally, after some hesitation, he determined to see the matter\nthrough.\nmiller hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the\ntown. in summer it is a favourite resort of the people; but in winter\nit is desolate enough. from the top of it one has a view not only of\nthe whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath,\nwith its scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each\nside of it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges flanking it.\nmcmurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until\nhe reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer\ngaiety. beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his\nhat drawn down and the collar of his overcoat turned up. when he\nturned his face mcmurdo saw that it was brother morris, he who had\nincurred the anger of the bodymaster the night before. the lodge sign\nwas given and exchanged as they met.\n\"i wanted to have a word with you, mr. mcmurdo,\" said the older man,\nspeaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate\nground. \"it was kind of you to come.\"\n\"why did you not put your name to the note?\"\n\"one has to be cautious, mister. one never knows in times like these\nhow a thing may come back to one. one never knows either who to trust\nor who not to trust.\"\n\"surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.\"\n\"no, no, not always,\" cried morris with vehemence. \"whatever we say,\neven what we think, seems to go back to that man mcginty.\"\n\"look here!\" said mcmurdo sternly. \"it was only last night, as you\nknow well, that i swore good faith to our bodymaster. would you be\nasking me to break my oath?\"\n\"if that is the view you take,\" said morris sadly, \"i can only say\nthat i am sorry i gave you the trouble to come and meet me. things\nhave come to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their\nthoughts to each other.\"\nmcmurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed\nsomewhat in his bearing. \"sure i spoke for myself only,\" said he. \"i\nam a newcomer, as you know, and i am strange to it all. it is not for\nme to open my mouth, mr. morris, and if you think well to say\nanything to me i am here to hear it.\"\n\"and to take it back to boss mcginty!\" said morris bitterly.\n\"indeed, then, you do me injustice there,\" cried mcmurdo. \"for myself\ni am loyal to the lodge, and so i tell you straight; but i would be a\npoor creature if i were to repeat to any other what you might say to\nme in confidence. it will go no further than me; though i warn you\nthat you may get neither help nor sympathy.\"\n\"i have given up looking for either the one or the other,\" said\nmorris. \"i may be putting my very life in your hands by what i say;\nbut, bad as you are--and it seemed to me last night that you were\nshaping to be as bad as the worst--still you are new to it, and your\nconscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. that was why i\nthought to speak with you.\"\n\"well, what have you to say?\"\n\"if you give me away, may a curse be on you!\"\n\"sure, i said i would not.\"\n\"i would ask you, then, when you joined the freeman's society in\nchicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross\nyour mind that you might find it would lead you to crime?\"\n\"if you call it crime,\" mcmurdo answered.\n\"call it crime!\" cried morris, his voice vibrating with passion. \"you\nhave seen little of it if you can call it anything else. was it crime\nlast night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till\nthe blood dripped from his white hairs? was that crime--or what else\nwould you call it?\"\n\"there are some would say it was war,\" said mcmurdo, \"a war of two\nclasses with all in, so that each struck as best it could.\"\n\"well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the freeman's\nsociety at chicago?\"\n\"no, i'm bound to say i did not.\"\n\"nor did i when i joined it at philadelphia. it was just a benefit\nclub and a meeting place for one's fellows. then i heard of this\nplace--curse the hour that the name first fell upon my ears!--and i\ncame to better myself! my god! to better myself! my wife and three\nchildren came with me. i started a dry goods store on market square,\nand i prospered well. the word had gone round that i was a freeman,\nand i was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last night.\ni've the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse branded on\nmy heart. i found that i was under the orders of a black villain and\ncaught in a meshwork of crime. what could i do? every word i said to\nmake things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night. i\ncan't get away; for all i have in the world is in my store. if i\nleave the society, i know well that it means murder to me, and god\nknows what to my wife and children. oh, man, it is awful--awful!\" he\nput his hands to his face, and his body shook with convulsive sobs.\nmcmurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"you were too soft for the job,\" said\nhe. \"you are the wrong sort for such work.\"\n\"i had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among\nthem. i was chosen for a job. if i backed down i knew well what would\ncome to me. maybe i'm a coward. maybe it's the thought of my poor\nlittle woman and the children that makes me one. anyhow i went. i\nguess it will haunt me forever.\n\"it was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range\nyonder. i was told off for the door, same as you were last night.\nthey could not trust me with the job. the others went in. when they\ncame out their hands were crimson to the wrists. as we turned away a\nchild was screaming out of the house behind us. it was a boy of five\nwho had seen his father murdered. i nearly fainted with the horror of\nit, and yet i had to keep a bold and smiling face; for well i knew\nthat if i did not it would be out of my house that they would come\nnext with their bloody hands and it would be my little fred that\nwould be screaming for his father.\n\"but i was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in\nthis world, and lost also in the next. i am a good catholic; but the\npriest would have no word with me when he heard i was a scowrer, and\ni am excommunicated from my faith. that's how it stands with me. and\ni see you going down the same road, and i ask you what the end is to\nbe. are you ready to be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do\nanything to stop it?\"\n\"what would you do?\" asked mcmurdo abruptly. \"you would not inform?\"\n\"god forbid!\" cried morris. \"sure, the very thought would cost me my\nlife.\"\n\"that's well,\" said mcmurdo. \"i'm thinking that you are a weak man\nand that you make too much of the matter.\"\n\"too much! wait till you have lived here longer. look down the\nvalley! see the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! i\ntell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that\nover the heads of the people. it is the valley of fear, the valley of\ndeath. the terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the\ndawn. wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.\"\n\"well, i'll let you know what i think when i have seen more,\" said\nmcmurdo carelessly. \"what is very clear is that you are not the man\nfor the place, and that the sooner you sell out--if you only get a\ndime a dollar for what the business is worth--the better it will be\nfor you. what you have said is safe with me; but, by gar! if i\nthought you were an informer--\"\n\"no, no!\" cried morris piteously.\n\"well, let it rest at that. i'll bear what you have said in mind, and\nmaybe some day i'll come back to it. i expect you meant kindly by\nspeaking to me like this. now i'll be getting home.\"\n\"one word before you go,\" said morris. \"we may have been seen\ntogether. they may want to know what we have spoken about.\"\n\"ah! that's well thought of.\"\n\"i offer you a clerkship in my store.\"\n\"and i refuse it. that's our business. well, so long, brother morris,\nand may you find things go better with you in the future.\"\nthat same afternoon, as mcmurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside\nthe stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its framework\nwas filled with the huge figure of boss mcginty. he passed the sign,\nand then seating himself opposite to the young man he looked at him\nsteadily for some time, a look which was as steadily returned.\n\"i'm not much of a visitor, brother mcmurdo,\" he said at last. \"i\nguess i am too busy over the folk that visit me. but i thought i'd\nstretch a point and drop down to see you in your own house.\"\n\"i'm proud to see you here, councillor,\" mcmurdo answered heartily,\nbringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard. \"it's an honour that\ni had not expected.\"\n\"how's the arm?\" asked the boss.\nmcmurdo made a wry face. \"well, i'm not forgetting it,\" he said; \"but\nit's worth it.\"\n\"yes, it's worth it,\" the other answered, \"to those that are loyal\nand go through with it and are a help to the lodge. what were you\nspeaking to brother morris about on miller hill this morning?\"\nthe question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer\nprepared. he burst into a hearty laugh. \"morris didn't know i could\nearn a living here at home. he shan't know either; for he has got too\nmuch conscience for the likes of me. but he's a good-hearted old\nchap. it was his idea that i was at a loose end, and that he would do\nme a good turn by offering me a clerkship in a dry goods store.\"\n\"oh, that was it?\"\n\"yes, that was it.\"\n\"and you refused it?\"\n\"sure. couldn't i earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four\nhours' work?\"\n\"that's so. but i wouldn't get about too much with morris.\"\n\"why not?\"\n\"well, i guess because i tell you not. that's enough for most folk in\nthese parts.\"\n\"it may be enough for most folk; but it ain't enough for me,\ncouncillor,\" said mcmurdo boldly. \"if you are a judge of men, you'll\nknow that.\"\nthe swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an\ninstant round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head of his\ncompanion. then he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere\nfashion.\n\"you're a queer card, for sure,\" said he. \"well, if you want reasons,\ni'll give them. did morris say nothing to you against the lodge?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"nor against me?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"well, that's because he daren't trust you. but in his heart he is\nnot a loyal brother. we know that well. so we watch him and we wait\nfor the time to admonish him. i'm thinking that the time is drawing\nnear. there's no room for scabby sheep in our pen. but if you keep\ncompany with a disloyal man, we might think that you were disloyal,\ntoo. see?\"\n\"there's no chance of my keeping company with him; for i dislike the\nman,\" mcmurdo answered. \"as to being disloyal, if it was any man but\nyou he would not use the word to me twice.\"\n\"well, that's enough,\" said mcginty, draining off his glass. \"i came\ndown to give you a word in season, and you've had it.\"\n\"i'd like to know,\" said mcmurdo, \"how you ever came to learn that i\nhad spoken with morris at all?\"\nmcginty laughed. \"it's my business to know what goes on in this\ntownship,\" said he. \"i guess you'd best reckon on my hearing all that\npasses. well, time's up, and i'll just say--\"\nbut his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion. with\na sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces\nglared in at them from under the peaks of police caps. mcmurdo sprang\nto his feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as\nhe became conscious that two winchester rifles were levelled at his\nhead. a man in uniform advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his\nhand. it was captain marvin, once of chicago, and now of the mine\nconstabulary. he shook his head with a half-smile at mcmurdo.\n\"i thought you'd be getting into trouble, mr. crooked mcmurdo of\nchicago,\" said he. \"can't keep out of it, can you? take your hat and\ncome along with us.\"\n\"i guess you'll pay for this, captain marvin,\" said mcginty. \"who are\nyou, i'd like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and\nmolest honest, law-abiding men?\"\n\"you're standing out in this deal, councillor mcginty,\" said the\npolice captain. \"we are not out after you, but after this man\nmcmurdo. it is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty,\"\n\"he is a friend of mine, and i'll answer for his conduct,\" said the\nboss.\n\"by all accounts, mr. mcginty, you may have to answer for your own\nconduct some of these days,\" the captain answered. \"this man mcmurdo\nwas a crook before ever he came here, and he's a crook still. cover\nhim, patrolman, while i disarm him.\"\n\"there's my pistol,\" said mcmurdo coolly. \"maybe, captain marvin, if\nyou and i were alone and face to face you would not take me so\neasily.\"\n\"where's your warrant?\" asked mcginty. \"by gar! a man might as well\nlive in russia as in vermissa while folk like you are running the\npolice. it's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, i\nreckon.\"\n\"you do what you think is your duty the best way you can, councillor.\nwe'll look after ours.\"\n\"what am i accused of?\" asked mcmurdo.\n\"of being concerned in the beating of old editor stanger at the\nherald office. it wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder charge.\"\n\"well, if that's all you have against him,\" cried mcginty with a\nlaugh, \"you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right\nnow. this man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight,\nand i can bring a dozen to prove it.\"\n\"that's your affair, and i guess you can settle it in court\nto-morrow. meanwhile, come on, mcmurdo, and come quietly if you don't\nwant a gun across your head. you stand wide, mr. mcginty; for i warn\nyou i will stand no resistance when i am on duty!\"\nso determined was the appearance of the captain that both mcmurdo and\nhis boss were forced to accept the situation. the latter managed to\nhave a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.\n\"what about--\" he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining\nplant.\n\"all right,\" whispered mcmurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place\nunder the floor.\n\"i'll bid you good-bye,\" said the boss, shaking hands. \"i'll see\nreilly the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. take my word for\nit that they won't be able to hold you.\"\n\"i wouldn't bet on that. guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him\nif he tries any games. i'll search the house before i leave.\"\nhe did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant. when\nhe had descended he and his men escorted mcmurdo to headquarters.\ndarkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the\nstreets were nearly deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group,\nand emboldened by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.\n\"lynch the cursed scowrer!\" they cried. \"lynch him!\" they laughed and\njeered as he was pushed into the police station. after a short,\nformal examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the\ncommon cell. here he found baldwin and three other criminals of the\nnight before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial\nnext morning.\nbut even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the\nfreemen was able to extend. late at night there came a jailer with a\nstraw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles\nof whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. they spent a hilarious\nnight, without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.\nnor had they cause, as the result was to show. the magistrate could\nnot possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. on\nthe one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that\nthe light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed,\nand that it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the\nassailants; although they believed that the accused were among them.\ncross examined by the clever attorney who had been engaged by\nmcginty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.\nthe injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise\nby the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond\nthe fact that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. he added\nthat he knew them to be scowrers, since no one else in the community\ncould possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been\nthreatened on account of his outspoken editorials. on the other hand,\nit was clearly shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six\ncitizens, including that high municipal official, councillor mcginty,\nthat the men had been at a card party at the union house until an\nhour very much later than the commission of the outrage.\nneedless to say that they were discharged with something very near to\nan apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had\nbeen put, together with an implied censure of captain marvin and the\npolice for their officious zeal.\nthe verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which\nmcmurdo saw many familiar faces. brothers of the lodge smiled and\nwaved. but there were others who sat with compressed lips and\nbrooding eyes as the men filed out of the dock. one of them, a\nlittle, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put the thoughts of himself\nand comrades into words as the ex-prisoners passed him.\n\"you damned murderers!\" he said. \"we'll fix you yet!\"\nchapter v\nthe darkest hour\nif anything had been needed to give an impetus to jack mcmurdo's\npopularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and\nacquittal. that a man on the very night of joining the lodge should\nhave done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new\nrecord in the annals of the society. already he had earned the\nreputation of a good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a\nman of high temper, who would not take an insult even from the\nall-powerful boss himself. but in addition to this he impressed his\ncomrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose\nbrain was so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand\nwould be more capable of carrying it out. \"he'll be the boy for the\nclean job,\" said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time\nuntil they could set him to his work.\nmcginty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this\nwas a supremely able one. he felt like a man holding a fierce\nbloodhound in leash. there were curs to do the smaller work; but some\nday he would slip this creature upon its prey. a few members of the\nlodge, ted baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the\nstranger and hated him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was\nas ready to fight as to laugh.\nbut if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,\none which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it.\nettie shafter's father would have nothing more to do with him, nor\nwould he allow him to enter the house. ettie herself was too deeply\nin love to give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned\nher of what would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as\na criminal.\none morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,\npossibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him\nfrom those evil influences which were sucking him down. she went to\nhis house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her way into\nthe room which he used as his sitting-room. he was seated at a table,\nwith his back turned and a letter in front of him. a sudden spirit of\ngirlish mischief came over her--she was still only nineteen. he had\nnot heard her when she pushed open the door. now she tiptoed forward\nand laid her hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.\nif she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only\nin turn to be startled herself. with a tiger spring he turned on her,\nand his right hand was feeling for her throat. at the same instant\nwith the other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. for\nan instant he stood glaring. then astonishment and joy took the place\nof the ferocity which had convulsed his features--a ferocity which\nhad sent her shrinking back in horror as from something which had\nnever before intruded into her gentle life.\n\"it's you!\" said he, mopping his brow. \"and to think that you should\ncome to me, heart of my heart, and i should find nothing better to do\nthan to want to strangle you! come then, darling,\" and he held out\nhis arms, \"let me make it up to you.\"\nbut she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear\nwhich she had read in the man's face. all her woman's instinct told\nher that it was not the mere fright of a man who is startled.\nguilt--that was it--guilt and fear!\n\"what's come over you, jack?\" she cried. \"why were you so scared of\nme? oh, jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have\nlooked at me like that!\"\n\"sure, i was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so\nlightly on those fairy feet of yours--\"\n\"no, no, it was more than that, jack.\" then a sudden suspicion seized\nher. \"let me see that letter you were writing.\"\n\"ah, ettie, i couldn't do that.\"\nher suspicions became certainties. \"it's to another woman,\" she\ncried. \"i know it! why else should you hold it from me? was it to\nyour wife that you were writing? how am i to know that you are not a\nmarried man--you, a stranger, that nobody knows?\"\n\"i am not married, ettie. see now, i swear it! you're the only one\nwoman on earth to me. by the cross of christ i swear it!\"\nhe was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but\nbelieve him.\n\"well, then,\" she cried, \"why will you not show me the letter?\"\n\"i'll tell you, acushla,\" said he. \"i'm under oath not to show it,\nand just as i wouldn't break my word to you so i would keep it to\nthose who hold my promise. it's the business of the lodge, and even\nto you it's secret. and if i was scared when a hand fell on me, can't\nyou understand it when it might have been the hand of a detective?\"\nshe felt that he was telling the truth. he gathered her into his arms\nand kissed away her fears and doubts.\n\"sit here by me, then. it's a queer throne for such a queen; but it's\nthe best your poor lover can find. he'll do better for you some of\nthese days, i'm thinking. now your mind is easy once again, is it\nnot?\"\n\"how can it ever be at ease, jack, when i know that you are a\ncriminal among criminals, when i never know the day that i may hear\nyou are in court for murder? 'mcmurdo the scowrer,' that's what one\nof our boarders called you yesterday. it went through my heart like a\nknife.\"\n\"sure, hard words break no bones.\"\n\"but they were true.\"\n\"well, dear, it's not so bad as you think. we are but poor men that\nare trying in our own way to get our rights.\"\nettie threw her arms round her lover's neck. \"give it up, jack! for\nmy sake, for god's sake, give it up! it was to ask you that i came\nhere to-day. oh, jack, see--i beg it of you on my bended knees!\nkneeling here before you i implore you to give it up!\"\nhe raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.\n\"sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking. how\ncould i give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my\ncomrades? if you could see how things stand with me you could never\nask it of me. besides, if i wanted to, how could i do it? you don't\nsuppose that the lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?\"\n\"i've thought of that, jack. i've planned it all. father has saved\nsome money. he is weary of this place where the fear of these people\ndarkens our lives. he is ready to go. we would fly together to\nphiladelphia or new york, where we would be safe from them.\"\nmcmurdo laughed. \"the lodge has a long arm. do you think it could not\nstretch from here to philadelphia or new york?\"\n\"well, then, to the west, or to england, or to germany, where father\ncame from--anywhere to get away from this valley of fear!\"\nmcmurdo thought of old brother morris. \"sure, it is the second time i\nhave heard the valley so named,\" said he. \"the shadow does indeed\nseem to lie heavy on some of you.\"\n\"it darkens every moment of our lives. do you suppose that ted\nbaldwin has ever forgiven us? if it were not that he fears you, what\ndo you suppose our chances would be? if you saw the look in those\ndark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!\"\n\"by gar! i'd teach him better manners if i caught him at it! but see\nhere, little girl. i can't leave here. i can't--take that from me\nonce and for all. but if you will leave me to find my own way, i will\ntry to prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.\"\n\"there is no honour in such a matter.\"\n\"well, well, it's just how you look at it. but if you'll give me six\nmonths, i'll work it so that i can leave without being ashamed to\nlook others in the face.\"\nthe girl laughed with joy. \"six months!\" she cried. \"is it a\npromise?\"\n\"well, it may be seven or eight. but within a year at the furthest we\nwill leave the valley behind us.\"\nit was the most that ettie could obtain, and yet it was something.\nthere was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate\nfuture. she returned to her father's house more light-hearted than\nshe had ever been since jack mcmurdo had come into her life.\nit might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society\nwould be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the\norganization was wider and more complex than the simple lodge. even\nboss mcginty was ignorant as to many things; for there was an\nofficial named the county delegate, living at hobson's patch farther\ndown the line, who had power over several different lodges which he\nwielded in a sudden and arbitrary way. only once did mcmurdo see him,\na sly, little gray-haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a\nsidelong glance which was charged with malice. evans pott was his\nname, and even the great boss of vermissa felt towards him something\nof the repulsion and fear which the huge danton may have felt for the\npuny but dangerous robespierre.\none day scanlan, who was mcmurdo's fellow boarder, received a note\nfrom mcginty inclosing one from evans pott, which informed him that\nhe was sending over two good men, lawler and andrews, who had\ninstructions to act in the neighbourhood; though it was best for the\ncause that no particulars as to their objects should be given. would\nthe bodymaster see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their\nlodgings and comfort until the time for action should arrive? mcginty\nadded that it was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the union\nhouse, and that, therefore, he would be obliged if mcmurdo and\nscanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in their boarding\nhouse.\nthe same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.\nlawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad\nin an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged,\ngrizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant\npreacher. his companion andrews was little more than a boy,\nfrank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out\nfor a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it. both men were\ntotal abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary members of the\nsociety, with the one simple exception that they were assassins who\nhad often proved themselves to be most capable instruments for this\nassociation of murder. lawler had already carried out fourteen\ncommissions of the kind, and andrews three.\nthey were, as mcmurdo found, quite ready to converse about their\ndeeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride\nof men who had done good and unselfish service for the community.\nthey were reticent, however, as to the immediate job in hand.\n\"they chose us because neither i nor the boy here drink,\" lawler\nexplained. \"they can count on us saying no more than we should. you\nmust not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the county delegate\nthat we obey.\"\n\"sure, we are all in it together,\" said scanlan, mcmurdo's mate, as\nthe four sat together at supper.\n\"that's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home of the\nkilling of charlie williams or of simon bird, or any other job in the\npast. but till the work is done we say nothing.\"\n\"there are half a dozen about here that i have a word to say to,\"\nsaid mcmurdo, with an oath. \"i suppose it isn't jack knox of ironhill\nthat you are after. i'd go some way to see him get his deserts.\"\n\"no, it's not him yet.\"\n\"or herman strauss?\"\n\"no, nor him either.\"\n\"well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but i'd be glad to\nknow.\"\nlawler smiled and shook his head. he was not to be drawn.\nin spite of the reticence of their guests, scanlan and mcmurdo were\nquite determined to be present at what they called \"the fun.\" when,\ntherefore, at an early hour one morning mcmurdo heard them creeping\ndown the stairs he awakened scanlan, and the two hurried on their\nclothes. when they were dressed they found that the others had stolen\nout, leaving the door open behind them. it was not yet dawn, and by\nthe light of the lamps they could see the two men some distance down\nthe street. they followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the\ndeep snow.\nthe boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they were\nat the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. here three men were\nwaiting, with whom lawler and andrews held a short, eager\nconversation. then they all moved on together. it was clearly some\nnotable job which needed numbers. at this point there are several\ntrails which lead to various mines. the strangers took that which led\nto the crow hill, a huge business which was in strong hands which had\nbeen able, thanks to their energetic and fearless new england\nmanager, josiah h. dunn, to keep some order and discipline during the\nlong reign of terror.\nday was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making their\nway, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.\nmcmurdo and scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight of\nthe men whom they followed. a thick mist lay over them, and from the\nheart of it there came the sudden scream of a steam whistle. it was\nthe ten-minute signal before the cages descended and the day's labour\nbegan.\nwhen they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were a\nhundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their\nfingers; for it was bitterly cold. the strangers stood in a little\ngroup under the shadow of the engine house. scanlan and mcmurdo\nclimbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene lay before them.\nthey saw the mine engineer, a great bearded scotchman named menzies,\ncome out of the engine house and blow his whistle for the cages to be\nlowered.\nat the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a\nclean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. as\nhe came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless,\nunder the engine house. the men had drawn down their hats and turned\nup their collars to screen their faces. for a moment the presentiment\nof death laid its cold hand upon the manager's heart. at the next he\nhad shaken it off and saw only his duty towards intrusive strangers.\n\"who are you?\" he asked as he advanced. \"what are you loitering there\nfor?\"\nthere was no answer; but the lad andrews stepped forward and shot him\nin the stomach. the hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and\nhelpless as if they were paralyzed. the manager clapped his two hands\nto the wound and doubled himself up. then he staggered away; but\nanother of the assassins fired, and he went down sidewise, kicking\nand clawing among a heap of clinkers. menzies, the scotchman, gave a\nroar of rage at the sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the\nmurderers; but was met by two balls in the face which dropped him\ndead at their very feet.\nthere was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an inarticulate\ncry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their\nsix-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and\nscattered, some of them rushing wildly back to their homes in\nvermissa.\nwhen a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to the\nmine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning,\nwithout a single witness being able to swear to the identity of these\nmen who in front of a hundred spectators had wrought this double\ncrime.\nscanlan and mcmurdo made their way back; scanlan somewhat subdued,\nfor it was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes,\nand it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. the\nhorrible screams of the dead manager's wife pursued them as they\nhurried to the town. mcmurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed\nno sympathy for the weakening of his companion.\n\"sure, it is like a war,\" he repeated. \"what is it but a war between\nus and them, and we hit back where we best can.\"\nthere was high revel in the lodge room at the union house that night,\nnot only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the crow\nhill mine, which would bring this organization into line with the\nother blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of the district, but\nalso over a distant triumph which had been wrought by the hands of\nthe lodge itself.\nit would appear that when the county delegate had sent over five good\nmen to strike a blow in vermissa, he had demanded that in return\nthree vermissa men should be secretly selected and sent across to\nkill william hales of stake royal, one of the best known and most\npopular mine owners in the gilmerton district, a man who was believed\nnot to have an enemy in the world; for he was in all ways a model\nemployer. he had insisted, however, upon efficiency in the work, and\nhad, therefore, paid off certain drunken and idle employees who were\nmembers of the all-powerful society. coffin notices hung outside his\ndoor had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized\ncountry he found himself condemned to death.\nthe execution had now been duly carried out. ted baldwin, who\nsprawled now in the seat of honour beside the bodymaster, had been\nchief of the party. his flushed face and glazed, blood-shot eyes told\nof sleeplessness and drink. he and his two comrades had spent the\nnight before among the mountains. they were unkempt and\nweather-stained. but no heroes, returning from a forlorn hope, could\nhave had a warmer welcome from their comrades.\nthe story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of\nlaughter. they had waited for their man as he drove home at\nnightfall, taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his\nhorse must be at a walk. he was so furred to keep out the cold that\nhe could not lay his hand on his pistol. they had pulled him out and\nshot him again and again. he had screamed for mercy. the screams were\nrepeated for the amusement of the lodge.\n\"let's hear again how he squealed,\" they cried.\nnone of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing,\nand they had shown the scowrers of gilmerton that the vermissa men\nwere to be relied upon.\nthere had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up\nwhile they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body.\nit had been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were\nharmless folk who were not connected with the mines, so they were\nsternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall\nthem. and so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to\nall such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had\nhurried off into the mountains where unbroken nature comes down to\nthe very edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps. here they were,\nsafe and sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their\ncompanions in their ears.\nit had been a great day for the scowrers. the shadow had fallen even\ndarker over the valley. but as the wise general chooses the moment of\nvictory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have\nno time to steady themselves after disaster, so boss mcginty, looking\nout upon the scene of his operations with his brooding and malicious\neyes, had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. that very\nnight, as the half-drunken company broke up, he touched mcmurdo on\nthe arm and led him aside into that inner room where they had their\nfirst interview.\n\"see here, my lad,\" said he, \"i've got a job that's worthy of you at\nlast. you'll have the doing of it in your own hands.\"\n\"proud i am to hear it,\" mcmurdo answered.\n\"you can take two men with you--manders and reilly. they have been\nwarned for service. we'll never be right in this district until\nchester wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks of every\nlodge in the coal fields if you can down him.\"\n\"i'll do my best, anyhow. who is he, and where shall i find him?\"\nmcginty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the\ncorner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page\ntorn from his notebook.\n\"he's the chief foreman of the iron dike company. he's a hard\ncitizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle.\nwe've had two tries at him; but had no luck, and jim carnaway lost\nhis life over it. now it's for you to take it over. that's the\nhouse--all alone at the iron dike crossroad, same as you see here on\nthe map--without another within earshot. it's no good by day. he's\narmed and shoots quick and straight, with no questions asked. but at\nnight--well, there he is with his wife, three children, and a hired\nhelp. you can't pick or choose. it's all or none. if you could get a\nbag of blasting powder at the front door with a slow match to it--\"\n\"what's the man done?\"\n\"didn't i tell you he shot jim carnaway?\"\n\"why did he shoot him?\"\n\"what in thunder has that to do with you? carnaway was about his\nhouse at night, and he shot him. that's enough for me and you. you've\ngot to settle the thing right.\"\n\"there's these two women and the children. do they go up too?\"\n\"they have to--else how can we get him?\"\n\"it seems hard on them; for they've done nothing.\"\n\"what sort of fool's talk is this? do you back out?\"\n\"easy, councillor, easy! what have i ever said or done that you\nshould think i would be after standing back from an order of the\nbodymaster of my own lodge? if it's right or if it's wrong, it's for\nyou to decide.\"\n\"you'll do it, then?\"\n\"of course i will do it.\"\n\"when?\"\n\"well, you had best give me a night or two that i may see the house\nand make my plans. then--\"\n\"very good,\" said mcginty, shaking him by the hand. \"i leave it with\nyou. it will be a great day when you bring us the news. it's just the\nlast stroke that will bring them all to their knees.\"\nmcmurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had been so\nsuddenly placed in his hands. the isolated house in which chester\nwilcox lived was about five miles off in an adjacent valley. that\nvery night he started off all alone to prepare for the attempt. it\nwas daylight before he returned from his reconnaissance. next day he\ninterviewed his two subordinates, manders and reilly, reckless\nyoungsters who were as elated as if it were a deer-hunt.\ntwo nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and one\nof them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was used in the\nquarries. it was two in the morning before they came to the lonely\nhouse. the night was a windy one, with broken clouds drifting swiftly\nacross the face of a three-quarter moon. they had been warned to be\non their guard against bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously,\nwith their pistols cocked in their hands. but there was no sound save\nthe howling of the wind, and no movement but the swaying branches\nabove them.\nmcmurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was still\nwithin. then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a hole in it\nwith his knife, and attached the fuse. when it was well alight he and\nhis two companions took to their heels, and were some distance off,\nsafe and snug in a sheltering ditch, before the shattering roar of\nthe explosion, with the low, deep rumble of the collapsing building,\ntold them that their work was done. no cleaner job had ever been\ncarried out in the bloodstained annals of the society.\nbut alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out should\nall have gone for nothing! warned by the fate of the various victims,\nand knowing that he was marked down for destruction, chester wilcox\nhad moved himself and his family only the day before to some safer\nand less known quarters, where a guard of police should watch over\nthem. it was an empty house which had been torn down by the\ngunpowder, and the grim old colour sergeant of the war was still\nteaching discipline to the miners of iron dike.\n\"leave him to me,\" said mcmurdo. \"he's my man, and i'll get him sure\nif i have to wait a year for him.\"\na vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for\nthe time the matter ended. when a few weeks later it was reported in\nthe papers that wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an\nopen secret that mcmurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.\nsuch were the methods of the society of freemen, and such were the\ndeeds of the scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over\nthe great and rich district which was for so long a period haunted by\ntheir terrible presence. why should these pages be stained by further\ncrimes? have i not said enough to show the men and their methods?\nthese deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one\nmay read the details of them. there one may learn of the shooting of\npolicemen hunt and evans because they had ventured to arrest two\nmembers of the society--a double outrage planned at the vermissa\nlodge and carried out in cold blood upon two helpless and disarmed\nmen. there also one may read of the shooting of mrs. larbey when she\nwas nursing her husband, who had been beaten almost to death by\norders of boss mcginty. the killing of the elder jenkins, shortly\nfollowed by that of his brother, the mutilation of james murdoch, the\nblowing up of the staphouse family, and the murder of the stendals\nall followed hard upon one another in the same terrible winter.\ndarkly the shadow lay upon the valley of fear. the spring had come\nwith running brooks and blossoming trees. there was hope for all\nnature bound so long in an iron grip; but nowhere was there any hope\nfor the men and women who lived under the yoke of the terror. never\nhad the cloud above them been so dark and hopeless as in the early\nsummer of the year 1875.\nchapter vi\ndanger\nit was the height of the reign of terror. mcmurdo, who had already\nbeen appointed inner deacon, with every prospect of some day\nsucceeding mcginty as bodymaster, was now so necessary to the\ncouncils of his comrades that nothing was done without his help and\nadvice. the more popular he became, however, with the freemen, the\nblacker were the scowls which greeted him as he passed along the\nstreets of vermissa. in spite of their terror the citizens were\ntaking heart to band themselves together against their oppressors.\nrumours had reached the lodge of secret gatherings in the herald\noffice and of distribution of firearms among the law-abiding people.\nbut mcginty and his men were undisturbed by such reports. they were\nnumerous, resolute, and well armed. their opponents were scattered\nand powerless. it would all end, as it had done in the past, in\naimless talk and possibly in impotent arrests. so said mcginty,\nmcmurdo, and all the bolder spirits.\nit was a saturday evening in may. saturday was always the lodge\nnight, and mcmurdo was leaving his house to attend it when morris,\nthe weaker brother of the order, came to see him. his brow was\ncreased with care, and his kindly face was drawn and haggard.\n\"can i speak with you freely, mr. mcmurdo?\"\n\"sure.\"\n\"i can't forget that i spoke my heart to you once, and that you kept\nit to yourself, even though the boss himself came to ask you about\nit.\"\n\"what else could i do if you trusted me? it wasn't that i agreed with\nwhat you said.\"\n\"i know that well. but you are the one that i can speak to and be\nsafe. i've a secret here,\" he put his hand to his breast, \"and it is\njust burning the life out of me. i wish it had come to any one of you\nbut me. if i tell it, it will mean murder, for sure. if i don't, it\nmay bring the end of us all. god help me, but i am near out of my\nwits over it!\"\nmcmurdo looked at the man earnestly. he was trembling in every limb.\nhe poured some whisky into a glass and handed it to him. \"that's the\nphysic for the likes of you,\" said he. \"now let me hear of it.\"\nmorris drank, and his white face took a tinge of colour. \"i can tell\nit to you all in one sentence,\" said he. \"there's a detective on our\ntrail.\"\nmcmurdo stared at him in astonishment. \"why, man, you're crazy,\" he\nsaid. \"isn't the place full of police and detectives and what harm\ndid they ever do us?\"\n\"no, no, it's no man of the district. as you say, we know them, and\nit is little that they can do. but you've heard of pinkerton's?\"\n\"i've read of some folk of that name.\"\n\"well, you can take it from me you've no show when they are on your\ntrail. it's not a take-it-or-miss-it government concern. it's a dead\nearnest business proposition that's out for results and keeps out\ntill by hook or crook it gets them. if a pinkerton man is deep in\nthis business, we are all destroyed.\"\n\"we must kill him.\"\n\"ah, it's the first thought that came to you! so it will be up at the\nlodge. didn't i say to you that it would end in murder?\"\n\"sure, what is murder? isn't it common enough in these parts?\"\n\"it is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to\nbe murdered. i'd never rest easy again. and yet it's our own necks\nthat may be at stake. in god's name what shall i do?\" he rocked to\nand fro in his agony of indecision.\nbut his words had moved mcmurdo deeply. it was easy to see that he\nshared the other's opinion as to the danger, and the need for meeting\nit. he gripped morris's shoulder and shook him in his earnestness.\n\"see here, man,\" he cried, and he almost screeched the words in his\nexcitement, \"you won't gain anything by sitting keening like an old\nwife at a wake. let's have the facts. who is the fellow? where is he?\nhow did you hear of him? why did you come to me?\"\n\"i came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me. i told\nyou that i had a store in the east before i came here. i left good\nfriends behind me, and one of them is in the telegraph service.\nhere's a letter that i had from him yesterday. it's this part from\nthe top of the page. you can read it yourself.\"\nthis was what mcmurdo read:\nhow are the scowrers getting on in your parts? we read plenty of them\nin the papers. between you and me i expect to hear news from you\nbefore long. five big corporations and the two railroads have taken\nthe thing up in dead earnest. they mean it, and you can bet they'll\nget there! they are right deep down into it. pinkerton has taken hold\nunder their orders, and his best man, birdy edwards, is operating.\nthe thing has got to be stopped right now.\n\"now read the postscript.\"\nof course, what i give you is what i learned in business; so it goes\nno further. it's a queer cipher that you handle by the yard every day\nand can get no meaning from.\nmcmurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his listless\nhands. the mist had lifted for a moment, and there was the abyss\nbefore him.\n\"does anyone else know of this?\" he asked.\n\"i have told no one else.\"\n\"but this man--your friend--has he any other person that he would be\nlikely to write to?\"\n\"well, i dare say he knows one or two more.\"\n\"of the lodge?\"\n\"it's likely enough.\"\n\"i was asking because it is likely that he may have given some\ndescription of this fellow birdy edwards--then we could get on his\ntrail.\"\n\"well, it's possible. but i should not think he knew him. he is just\ntelling me the news that came to him by way of business. how would he\nknow this pinkerton man?\"\nmcmurdo gave a violent start.\n\"by gar!\" he cried, \"i've got him. what a fool i was not to know it.\nlord! but we're in luck! we will fix him before he can do any harm.\nsee here, morris, will you leave this thing in my hands?\"\n\"sure, if you will only take it off mine.\"\n\"i'll do that. you can stand right back and let me run it. even your\nname need not be mentioned. i'll take it all on myself, as if it were\nto me that this letter has come. will that content you?\"\n\"it's just what i would ask.\"\n\"then leave it at that and keep your head shut. now i'll get down to\nthe lodge, and we'll soon make old man pinkerton sorry for himself.\"\n\"you wouldn't kill this man?\"\n\"the less you know, friend morris, the easier your conscience will\nbe, and the better you will sleep. ask no questions, and let these\nthings settle themselves. i have hold of it now.\"\nmorris shook his head sadly as he left. \"i feel that his blood is on\nmy hands,\" he groaned.\n\"self-protection is no murder, anyhow,\" said mcmurdo, smiling grimly.\n\"it's him or us. i guess this man would destroy us all if we left him\nlong in the valley. why, brother morris, we'll have to elect you\nbodymaster yet; for you've surely saved the lodge.\"\nand yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more seriously\nof this new intrusion than his words would show. it may have been his\nguilty conscience, it may have been the reputation of the pinkerton\norganization, it may have been the knowledge that great, rich\ncorporations had set themselves the task of clearing out the\nscowrers; but, whatever his reason, his actions were those of a man\nwho is preparing for the worst. every paper which would incriminate\nhim was destroyed before he left the house. after that he gave a long\nsigh of satisfaction; for it seemed to him that he was safe. and yet\nthe danger must still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way\nto the lodge he stopped at old man shafter's. the house was forbidden\nhim; but when he tapped at the window ettie came out to him. the\ndancing irish deviltry had gone from her lover's eyes. she read his\ndanger in his earnest face.\n\"something has happened!\" she cried. \"oh, jack, you are in danger!\"\n\"sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart. and yet it may be wise that\nwe make a move before it is worse.\"\n\"make a move?\"\n\"i promised you once that i would go some day. i think the time is\ncoming. i had news to-night, bad news, and i see trouble coming.\"\n\"the police?\"\n\"well, a pinkerton. but, sure, you wouldn't know what that is,\nacushla, nor what it may mean to the likes of me. i'm too deep in\nthis thing, and i may have to get out of it quick. you said you would\ncome with me if i went.\"\n\"oh, jack, it would be the saving of you!\"\n\"i'm an honest man in some things, ettie. i wouldn't hurt a hair of\nyour bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever pull you\ndown one inch from the golden throne above the clouds where i always\nsee you. would you trust me?\"\nshe put her hand in his without a word. \"well, then, listen to what i\nsay, and do as i order you, for indeed it's the only way for us.\nthings are going to happen in this valley. i feel it in my bones.\nthere may be many of us that will have to look out for ourselves. i'm\none, anyhow. if i go, by day or night, it's you that must come with\nme!\"\n\"i'd come after you, jack.\"\n\"no, no, you shall come with me. if this valley is closed to me and i\ncan never come back, how can i leave you behind, and me perhaps in\nhiding from the police with never a chance of a message? it's with me\nyou must come. i know a good woman in the place i come from, and it's\nthere i'd leave you till we can get married. will you come?\"\n\"yes, jack, i will come.\"\n\"god bless you for your trust in me! it's a fiend out of hell that i\nshould be if i abused it. now, mark you, ettie, it will be just a\nword to you, and when it reaches you, you will drop everything and\ncome right down to the waiting room at the depot and stay there till\ni come for you.\"\n\"day or night, i'll come at the word, jack.\"\nsomewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for escape had\nbeen begun, mcmurdo went on to the lodge. it had already assembled,\nand only by complicated signs and counter-signs could he pass through\nthe outer guard and inner guard who close-tiled it. a buzz of\npleasure and welcome greeted him as he entered. the long room was\ncrowded, and through the haze of tobacco smoke he saw the tangled\nblack mane of the bodymaster, the cruel, unfriendly features of\nbaldwin, the vulture face of harraway, the secretary, and a dozen\nmore who were among the leaders of the lodge. he rejoiced that they\nshould all be there to take counsel over his news.\n\"indeed, it's glad we are to see you, brother!\" cried the chairman.\n\"there's business here that wants a solomon in judgment to set it\nright.\"\n\"it's lander and egan,\" explained his neighbour as he took his seat.\n\"they both claim the head money given by the lodge for the shooting\nof old man crabbe over at stylestown, and who's to say which fired\nthe bullet?\"\nmcmurdo rose in his place and raised his hand. the expression of his\nface froze the attention of the audience. there was a dead hush of\nexpectation.\n\"eminent bodymaster,\" he said, in a solemn voice, \"i claim urgency!\"\n\"brother mcmurdo claims urgency,\" said mcginty. \"it's a claim that by\nthe rules of this lodge takes precedence. now brother, we attend\nyou.\"\nmcmurdo took the letter from his pocket.\n\"eminent bodymaster and brethren,\" he said, \"i am the bearer of ill\nnews this day; but it is better that it should be known and\ndiscussed, than that a blow should fall upon us without warning which\nwould destroy us all. i have information that the most powerful and\nrichest organizations in this state have bound themselves together\nfor our destruction, and that at this very moment there is a\npinkerton detective, one birdy edwards, at work in the valley\ncollecting the evidence which may put a rope round the necks of many\nof us, and send every man in this room into a felon's cell. that is\nthe situation for the discussion of which i have made a claim of\nurgency.\"\nthere was a dead silence in the room. it was broken by the chairman.\n\"what is your evidence for this, brother mcmurdo?\" he asked.\n\"it is in this letter which has come into my hands,\" said mcmurdo. he\nread the passage aloud. \"it is a matter of honour with me that i can\ngive no further particulars about the letter, nor put it into your\nhands; but i assure you that there is nothing else in it which can\naffect the interests of the lodge. i put the case before you as it\nhas reached me.\"\n\"let me say, mr. chairman,\" said one of the older brethren, \"that i\nhave heard of birdy edwards, and that he has the name of being the\nbest man in the pinkerton service.\"\n\"does anyone know him by sight?\" asked mcginty.\n\"yes,\" said mcmurdo, \"i do.\"\nthere was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.\n\"i believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands,\" he continued with\nan exulting smile upon his face. \"if we act quickly and wisely, we\ncan cut this thing short. if i have your confidence and your help, it\nis little that we have to fear.\"\n\"what have we to fear, anyhow? what can he know of our affairs?\"\n\"you might say so if all were as stanch as you, councillor. but this\nman has all the millions of the capitalists at his back. do you think\nthere is no weaker brother among all our lodges that could not be\nbought? he will get at our secrets--maybe has got them already.\nthere's only one sure cure.\"\n\"that he never leaves the valley,\" said baldwin.\nmcmurdo nodded. \"good for you, brother baldwin,\" he said. \"you and i\nhave had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night.\"\n\"where is he, then? where shall we know him?\"\n\"eminent bodymaster,\" said mcmurdo, earnestly, \"i would put it to you\nthat this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge. god\nforbid that i should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as\na word of gossip got to the ears of this man, there would be an end\nof any chance of our getting him. i would ask the lodge to choose a\ntrusty committee, mr. chairman--yourself, if i might suggest it, and\nbrother baldwin here, and five more. then i can talk freely of what i\nknow and of what i advise should be done.\"\nthe proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen.\nbesides the chairman and baldwin there were the vulture-faced\nsecretary, harraway, tiger cormac, the brutal young assassin, carter,\nthe treasurer, and the brothers willaby, fearless and desperate men\nwho would stick at nothing.\nthe usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for there was a\ncloud upon the men's spirits, and many there for the first time began\nto see the cloud of avenging law drifting up in that serene sky under\nwhich they had dwelt so long. the horrors they had dealt out to\nothers had been so much a part of their settled lives that the\nthought of retribution had become a remote one, and so seemed the\nmore startling now that it came so closely upon them. they broke up\nearly and left their leaders to their council.\n\"now, mcmurdo!\" said mcginty when they were alone. the seven men sat\nfrozen in their seats.\n\"i said just now that i knew birdy edwards,\" mcmurdo explained. \"i\nneed not tell you that he is not here under that name. he's a brave\nman, but not a crazy one. he passes under the name of steve wilson,\nand he is lodging at hobson's patch.\"\n\"how do you know this?\"\n\"because i fell into talk with him. i thought little of it at the\ntime, nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter;\nbut now i'm sure it's the man. i met him on the cars when i went down\nthe line on wednesday--a hard case if ever there was one. he said he\nwas a reporter. i believed it for the moment. wanted to know all he\ncould about the scowrers and what he called 'the outrages' for a new\nyork paper. asked me every kind of question so as to get something.\nyou bet i was giving nothing away. 'i'd pay for it and pay well,'\nsaid he, 'if i could get some stuff that would suit my editor.' i\nsaid what i thought would please him best, and he handed me a\ntwenty-dollar bill for my information. 'there's ten times that for\nyou,' said he, 'if you can find me all that i want.'\"\n\"what did you tell him, then?\"\n\"any stuff i could make up.\"\n\"how do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?\"\n\"i'll tell you. he got out at hobson's patch, and so did i. i chanced\ninto the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.\n\"'see here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'i guess we\nshould charge double rates for this.'--'i guess you should,' said i.\nhe had filled the form with stuff that might have been chinese, for\nall we could make of it. 'he fires a sheet of this off every day,'\nsaid the clerk. 'yes,' said i; 'it's special news for his paper, and\nhe's scared that the others should tap it.' that was what the\noperator thought and what i thought at the time; but i think\ndifferently now.\"\n\"by gar! i believe you are right,\" said mcginty. \"but what do you\nallow that we should do about it?\"\n\"why not go right down now and fix him?\" someone suggested.\n\"ay, the sooner the better.\"\n\"i'd start this next minute if i knew where we could find him,\" said\nmcmurdo. \"he's in hobson's patch; but i don't know the house. i've\ngot a plan, though, if you'll only take my advice.\"\n\"well, what is it?\"\n\"i'll go to the patch to-morrow morning. i'll find him through the\noperator. he can locate him, i guess. well, then i'll tell him that\ni'm a freeman myself. i'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for\na price. you bet he'll tumble to it. i'll tell him the papers are at\nmy house, and that it's as much as my life would be worth to let him\ncome while folk were about. he'll see that that's horse sense. let\nhim come at ten o'clock at night, and he shall see everything. that\nwill fetch him sure.\"\n\"well?\"\n\"you can plan the rest for yourselves. widow macnamara's is a lonely\nhouse. she's as true as steel and as deaf as a post. there's only\nscanlan and me in the house. if i get his promise--and i'll let you\nknow if i do--i'd have the whole seven of you come to me by nine\no'clock. we'll get him in. if ever he gets out alive--well, he can\ntalk of birdy edwards's luck for the rest of his days!\"\n\"there's going to be a vacancy at pinkerton's or i'm mistaken. leave\nit at that, mcmurdo. at nine to-morrow we'll be with you. you once\nget the door shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us.\"\nchapter vii\nthe trapping of birdy edwards\nas mcmurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and\nvery well suited for such a crime as they had planned. it was on the\nextreme fringe of the town and stood well back from the road. in any\nother case the conspirators would have simply called out their man,\nas they had many a time before, and emptied their pistols into his\nbody; but in this instance it was very necessary to find out how much\nhe knew, how he knew it, and what had been passed on to his\nemployers.\nit was possible that they were already too late and that the work had\nbeen done. if that was indeed so, they could at least have their\nrevenge upon the man who had done it. but they were hopeful that\nnothing of great importance had yet come to the detective's\nknowledge, as otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to\nwrite down and forward such trivial information as mcmurdo claimed to\nhave given him. however, all this they would learn from his own lips.\nonce in their power, they would find a way to make him speak. it was\nnot the first time that they had handled an unwilling witness.\nmcmurdo went to hobson's patch as agreed. the police seemed to take\nparticular interest in him that morning, and captain marvin--he who\nhad claimed the old acquaintance with him at chicago--actually\naddressed him as he waited at the station. mcmurdo turned away and\nrefused to speak with him. he was back from his mission in the\nafternoon, and saw mcginty at the union house.\n\"he is coming,\" he said.\n\"good!\" said mcginty. the giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains\nand seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond\ntwinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard. drink and\npolitics had made the boss a very rich as well as powerful man. the\nmore terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the\ngallows which had risen before him the night before.\n\"do you reckon he knows much?\" he asked anxiously.\nmcmurdo shook his head gloomily. \"he's been here some time--six weeks\nat the least. i guess he didn't come into these parts to look at the\nprospect. if he has been working among us all that time with the\nrailroad money at his back, i should expect that he has got results,\nand that he has passed them on.\"\n\"there's not a weak man in the lodge,\" cried mcginty. \"true as steel,\nevery man of them. and yet, by the lord! there is that skunk morris.\nwhat about him? if any man gives us away, it would be he. i've a mind\nto send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a\nbeating up and see what they can get from him.\"\n\"well, there would be no harm in that,\" mcmurdo answered. \"i won't\ndeny that i have a liking for morris and would be sorry to see him\ncome to harm. he has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters,\nand though he may not see them the same as you or i, he never seemed\nthe sort that squeals. but still it is not for me to stand between\nhim and you.\"\n\"i'll fix the old devil!\" said mcginty with an oath. \"i've had my eye\non him this year past.\"\n\"well, you know best about that,\" mcmurdo answered. \"but whatever you\ndo must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the pinkerton affair\nis settled up. we can't afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of\nall days.\"\n\"true for you,\" said mcginty. \"and we'll learn from birdy edwards\nhimself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.\ndid he seem to scent a trap?\"\nmcmurdo laughed. \"i guess i took him on his weak point,\" he said. \"if\nhe could get on a good trail of the scowrers, he's ready to follow it\ninto hell. i took his money,\" mcmurdo grinned as he produced a wad of\ndollar notes, \"and as much more when he has seen all my papers.\"\n\"what papers?\"\n\"well, there are no papers. but i filled him up about constitutions\nand books of rules and forms of membership. he expects to get right\ndown to the end of everything before he leaves.\"\n\"faith, he's right there,\" said mcginty grimly. \"didn't he ask you\nwhy you didn't bring him the papers?\"\n\"as if i would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and captain\nmarvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!\"\n\"ay, i heard of that,\" said mcginty. \"i guess the heavy end of this\nbusiness is coming on to you. we could put him down an old shaft when\nwe've done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the man\nliving at hobson's patch and you being there to-day.\"\nmcmurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"if we handle it right, they can\nnever prove the killing,\" said he. \"no one can see him come to the\nhouse after dark, and i'll lay to it that no one will see him go. now\nsee here, councillor, i'll show you my plan and i'll ask you to fit\nthe others into it. you will all come in good time. very well. he\ncomes at ten. he is to tap three times, and me to open the door for\nhim. then i'll get behind him and shut it. he's our man then.\"\n\"that's all easy and plain.\"\n\"yes; but the next step wants considering. he's a hard proposition.\nhe's heavily armed. i've fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to\nbe on his guard. suppose i show him right into a room with seven men\nin it where he expected to find me alone. there is going to be\nshooting, and somebody is going to be hurt.\"\n\"that's so.\"\n\"and the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township\non top of it.\"\n\"i guess you are right.\"\n\"this is how i should work it. you will all be in the big room--same\nas you saw when you had a chat with me. i'll open the door for him,\nshow him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while\ni get the papers. that will give me the chance of telling you how\nthings are shaping. then i will go back to him with some faked\npapers. as he is reading them i will jump for him and get my grip on\nhis pistol arm. you'll hear me call and in you will rush. the quicker\nthe better; for he is as strong a man as i, and i may have more than\ni can manage. but i allow that i can hold him till you come.\"\n\"it's a good plan,\" said mcginty. \"the lodge will owe you a debt for\nthis. i guess when i move out of the chair i can put a name to the\nman that's coming after me.\"\n\"sure, councillor, i am little more than a recruit,\" said mcmurdo;\nbut his face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.\nwhen he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim\nevening in front of him. first he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his\nsmith & wesson revolver. then he surveyed the room in which the\ndetective was to be trapped. it was a large apartment, with a long\ndeal table in the centre, and the big stove at one side. at each of\nthe other sides were windows. there were no shutters on these: only\nlight curtains which drew across. mcmurdo examined these attentively.\nno doubt it must have struck him that the apartment was very exposed\nfor so secret a meeting. yet its distance from the road made it of\nless consequence. finally he discussed the matter with his fellow\nlodger. scanlan, though a scowrer, was an inoffensive little man who\nwas too weak to stand against the opinion of his comrades, but was\nsecretly horrified by the deeds of blood at which he had sometimes\nbeen forced to assist. mcmurdo told him shortly what was intended.\n\"and if i were you, mike scanlan, i would take a night off and keep\nclear of it. there will be bloody work here before morning.\"\n\"well, indeed then, mac,\" scanlan answered. \"it's not the will but\nthe nerve that is wanting in me. when i saw manager dunn go down at\nthe colliery yonder it was just more than i could stand. i'm not made\nfor it, same as you or mcginty. if the lodge will think none the\nworse of me, i'll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves\nfor the evening.\"\nthe men came in good time as arranged. they were outwardly\nrespectable citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces\nwould have read little hope for birdy edwards in those hard mouths\nand remorseless eyes. there was not a man in the room whose hands had\nnot been reddened a dozen times before. they were as hardened to\nhuman murder as a butcher to sheep.\nforemost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the\nformidable boss. harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with\na long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible\nfidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no\nnotion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. the treasurer, carter,\nwas a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression,\nand a yellow parchment skin. he was a capable organizer, and the\nactual details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting\nbrain. the two willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows\nwith determined faces, while their companion, tiger cormac, a heavy,\ndark youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of\nhis disposition. these were the men who assembled that night under\nthe roof of mcmurdo for the killing of the pinkerton detective.\ntheir host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to\nprime themselves for the work before them. baldwin and cormac were\nalready half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their\nferocity. cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant--it had\nbeen lighted, for the nights were still cold.\n\"that will do,\" said he, with an oath.\n\"ay,\" said baldwin, catching his meaning. \"if he is strapped to that,\nwe will have the truth out of him.\"\n\"we'll have the truth out of him, never fear,\" said mcmurdo. he had\nnerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair\nwas on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. the others\nmarked it and applauded.\n\"you are the one to handle him,\" said the boss approvingly. \"not a\nwarning will he get till your hand is on his throat. it's a pity\nthere are no shutters to your windows.\"\nmcmurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter.\n\"sure no one can spy upon us now. it's close upon the hour.\"\n\"maybe he won't come. maybe he'll get a sniff of danger,\" said the\nsecretary.\n\"he'll come, never fear,\" mcmurdo answered. \"he is as eager to come\nas you can be to see him. hark to that!\"\nthey all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested\nhalfway to their lips. three loud knocks had sounded at the door.\n\"hush!\" mcmurdo raised his hand in caution. an exulting glance went\nround the circle, and hands were laid upon hidden weapons.\n\"not a sound, for your lives!\" mcmurdo whispered, as he went from the\nroom, closing the door carefully behind him.\nwith strained ears the murderers waited. they counted the steps of\ntheir comrade down the passage. then they heard him open the outer\ndoor. there were a few words as of greeting. then they were aware of\na strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice. an instant later\ncame the slam of the door and the turning of the key in the lock.\ntheir prey was safe within the trap. tiger cormac laughed horribly,\nand boss mcginty clapped his great hand across his mouth.\n\"be quiet, you fool!\" he whispered. \"you'll be the undoing of us\nyet!\"\nthere was a mutter of conversation from the next room. it seemed\ninterminable. then the door opened, and mcmurdo appeared, his finger\nupon his lip.\nhe came to the end of the table and looked round at them. a subtle\nchange had come over him. his manner was as of one who has great work\nto do. his face had set into granite firmness. his eyes shone with a\nfierce excitement behind his spectacles. he had become a visible\nleader of men. they stared at him with eager interest; but he said\nnothing. still with the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.\n\"well!\" cried boss mcginty at last. \"is he here? is birdy edwards\nhere?\"\n\"yes,\" mcmurdo answered slowly. \"birdy edwards is here. i am birdy\nedwards!\"\nthere were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room\nmight have been empty, so profound was the silence. the hissing of a\nkettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. seven white\nfaces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set\nmotionless with utter terror. then, with a sudden shivering of glass,\na bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window,\nwhile the curtains were torn from their hangings.\nat the sight boss mcginty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged\nfor the half-opened door. a levelled revolver met him there with the\nstern blue eyes of captain marvin of the mine police gleaming behind\nthe sights. the boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.\n\"you're safer there, councillor,\" said the man whom they had known as\nmcmurdo. \"and you, baldwin, if you don't take your hand off your\npistol, you'll cheat the hangman yet. pull it out, or by the lord\nthat made me--there, that will do. there are forty armed men round\nthis house, and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you\nhave. take their pistols, marvin!\"\nthere was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles.\nthe men were disarmed. sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat\nround the table.\n\"i'd like to say a word to you before we separate,\" said the man who\nhad trapped them. \"i guess we may not meet again until you see me on\nthe stand in the courthouse. i'll give you something to think over\nbetween now and then. you know me now for what i am. at last i can\nput my cards on the table. i am birdy edwards of pinkerton's. i was\nchosen to break up your gang. i had a hard and dangerous game to\nplay. not a soul, not one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that\ni was playing it. only captain marvin here and my employers knew\nthat. but it's over to-night, thank god, and i am the winner!\"\nthe seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. there was unappeasable\nhatred in their eyes. he read the relentless threat.\n\"maybe you think that the game is not over yet. well, i take my\nchance of that. anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and\nthere are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this\nnight. i'll tell you this, that when i was put upon this job i never\nbelieved there was such a society as yours. i thought it was paper\ntalk, and that i would prove it so. they told me it was to do with\nthe freemen; so i went to chicago and was made one. then i was surer\nthan ever that it was just paper talk; for i found no harm in the\nsociety, but a deal of good.\n\"still, i had to carry out my job, and i came to the coal valleys.\nwhen i reached this place i learned that i was wrong and that it\nwasn't a dime novel after all. so i stayed to look after it. i never\nkilled a man in chicago. i never minted a dollar in my life. those i\ngave you were as good as any others; but i never spent money better.\nbut i knew the way into your good wishes and so i pretended to you\nthat the law was after me. it all worked just as i thought.\n\"so i joined your infernal lodge, and i took my share in your\ncouncils. maybe they will say that i was as bad as you. they can say\nwhat they like, so long as i get you. but what is the truth? the\nnight i joined you beat up old man stanger. i could not warn him, for\nthere was no time; but i held your hand, baldwin, when you would have\nkilled him. if ever i have suggested things, so as to keep my place\namong you, they were things which i knew i could prevent. i could not\nsave dunn and menzies, for i did not know enough; but i will see that\ntheir murderers are hanged. i gave chester wilcox warning, so that\nwhen i blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding. there was\nmany a crime that i could not stop; but if you look back and think\nhow often your man came home the other road, or was down in town when\nyou went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would come\nout, you'll see my work.\"\n\"you blasted traitor!\" hissed mcginty through his closed teeth.\n\"ay, john mcginty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. you\nand your like have been the enemy of god and man in these parts. it\ntook a man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women\nthat you held under your grip. there was just one way of doing it,\nand i did it. you call me a traitor; but i guess there's many a\nthousand will call me a deliverer that went down into hell to save\nthem. i've had three months of it. i wouldn't have three such months\nagain if they let me loose in the treasury at washington for it. i\nhad to stay till i had it all, every man and every secret right here\nin this hand. i'd have waited a little longer if it hadn't come to my\nknowledge that my secret was coming out. a letter had come into the\ntown that would have set you wise to it all. then i had to act and\nact quickly.\n\"i've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes i'll\ndie the easier when i think of the work i have done in this valley.\nnow, marvin, i'll keep you no more. take them in and get it over.\"\nthere is little more to tell. scanlan had been given a sealed note to\nbe left at the address of miss ettie shafter, a mission which he had\naccepted with a wink and a knowing smile. in the early hours of the\nmorning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special\ntrain which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift,\nunbroken journey out of the land of danger. it was the last time that\never either ettie or her lover set foot in the valley of fear. ten\ndays later they were married in chicago, with old jacob shafter as\nwitness of the wedding.\nthe trial of the scowrers was held far from the place where their\nadherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. in vain they\nstruggled. in vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed by\nblackmail out of the whole countryside--was spent like water in the\nattempt to save them. that cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from\none who knew every detail of their lives, their organization, and\ntheir crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. at\nlast after so many years they were broken and scattered. the cloud\nwas lifted forever from the valley.\nmcginty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the\nlast hour came. eight of his chief followers shared his fate.\nfifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. the work of birdy\nedwards was complete.\nand yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. there was\nanother hand to be played, and yet another and another. ted baldwin,\nfor one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the willabys; so had\nseveral others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. for ten years\nthey were out of the world, and then came a day when they were free\nonce more--a day which edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would\nbe an end of his life of peace. they had sworn an oath on all that\nthey thought holy to have his blood as a vengeance for their\ncomrades. and well they strove to keep their vow!\nfrom chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that\nit was sure that the third would get him. from chicago he went under\na changed name to california, and it was there that the light went\nfor a time out of his life when ettie edwards died. once again he was\nnearly killed, and once again under the name of douglas he worked in\na lonely canyon, where with an english partner named barker he\namassed a fortune. at last there came a warning to him that the\nbloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared--only just in\ntime--for england. and thence came the john douglas who for a second\ntime married a worthy mate, and lived for five years as a sussex\ncounty gentleman, a life which ended with the strange happenings of\nwhich we have heard.\nchapter viii\nepilogue\nthe police trial had passed, in which the case of john douglas was\nreferred to a higher court. so had the quarter sessions, at which he\nwas acquitted as having acted in self-defense.\n\"get him out of england at any cost,\" wrote holmes to the wife.\n\"there are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has\nescaped. there is no safety for your husband in england.\"\ntwo months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from\nour minds. then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into\nour letter box. \"dear me, mr. holmes. dear me!\" said this singular\nepistle. there was neither superscription nor signature. i laughed at\nthe quaint message; but holmes showed unwonted seriousness.\n\"deviltry, watson!\" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.\nlate last night mrs. hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that\na gentleman wished to see holmes, and that the matter was of the\nutmost importance. close at the heels of his messenger came cecil\nbarker, our friend of the moated manor house. his face was drawn and\nhaggard.\n\"i've had bad news--terrible news, mr. holmes,\" said he.\n\"i feared as much,\" said holmes.\n\"you have not had a cable, have you?\"\n\"i have had a note from someone who has.\"\n\"it's poor douglas. they tell me his name is edwards; but he will\nalways be jack douglas of benito canyon to me. i told you that they\nstarted together for south africa in the palmyra three weeks ago.\"\n\"exactly.\"\n\"the ship reached cape town last night. i received this cable from\nmrs. douglas this morning:--\n\"jack has been lost overboard in gale off st. helena. no one knows\nhow accident occurred.\n\"ivy douglas.\"\n\"ha! it came like that, did it?\" said holmes, thoughtfully. \"well,\ni've no doubt it was well stage-managed.\"\n\"you mean that you think there was no accident?\"\n\"none in the world.\"\n\"he was murdered?\"\n\"surely!\"\n\"so i think also. these infernal scowrers, this cursed vindictive\nnest of criminals--\"\n\"no, no, my good sir,\" said holmes. \"there is a master hand here. it\nis no case of sawed-off shot-guns and clumsy six-shooters. you can\ntell an old master by the sweep of his brush. i can tell a moriarty\nwhen i see one. this crime is from london, not from america.\"\n\"but for what motive?\"\n\"because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail--one whose\nwhole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must\nsucceed. a great brain and a huge organization have been turned to\nthe extinction of one man. it is crushing the nut with the hammer--an\nabsurd extravagance of energy--but the nut is very effectually\ncrushed all the same.\"\n\"how came this man to have anything to do with it?\"\n\"i can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the\nbusiness was from one of his lieutenants. these americans were well\nadvised. having an english job to do, they took into partnership, as\nany foreign criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. from\nthat moment their man was doomed. at first he would content himself\nby using his machinery in order to find their victim. then he would\nindicate how the matter might be treated. finally, when he read in\nthe reports of the failure of this agent, he would step in himself\nwith a master touch. you heard me warn this man at birlstone manor\nhouse that the coming danger was greater than the past. was i right?\"\nbarker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.\n\"do you tell me that we have to sit down under this? do you say that\nno one can ever get level with this king-devil?\"\n\"no, i don't say that,\" said holmes, and his eyes seemed to be\nlooking far into the future. \"i don't say that he can't be beat. but\nyou must give me time--you must give me time!\"\nwe all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes\nstill strained to pierce the veil.\nhis last bow\npreface\nthe friends of mr. sherlock holmes will be glad to learn that he is\nstill alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks\nof rheumatism. he has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the\ndowns five miles from eastbourne, where his time is divided between\nphilosophy and agriculture. during this period of rest he has refused\nthe most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined\nthat his retirement was a permanent one. the approach of the german\nwar caused him, however, to lay his remarkable combination of\nintellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the\ngovernment, with historical results which are recounted in his last\nbow. several previous experiences which have lain long in my\nportfolio have been added to his last bow so as to complete the\nvolume.\njohn h. watson, m. d.\nthe adventure of wisteria lodge\ntable of contents\nthe singular experience of mr. john scott eccles\nthe tiger of san pedro\nchapter i\nthe singular experience of mr. john scott eccles\ni find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day\ntowards the end of march in the year 1892.  holmes had received a\ntelegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply.  he\nmade no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood\nin front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his\npipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. suddenly he\nturned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.\n\"i suppose, watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,\" said\nhe. \"how do you define the word 'grotesque'?\"\n\"strange--remarkable,\" i suggested.\nhe shook his head at my definition.\n\"there is surely something more than that,\" said he; \"some underlying\nsuggestion of the tragic and the terrible.  if you cast your mind\nback to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a\nlong-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has\ndeepened into the criminal.  think of that little affair of the\nred-headed men.  that was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it\nended in a desperate attempt at robbery.  or, again, there was that\nmost grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to\na murderous conspiracy. the word puts me on the alert.\"\n\"have you it there?\" i asked.\nhe read the telegram aloud.\n\"have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. may i\nconsult you?\n\"scott eccles,\n\"post office, charing cross.\"\n\"man or woman?\" i asked.\n\"oh, man, of course. no woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.\nshe would have come.\"\n\"will you see him?\"\n\"my dear watson, you know how bored i have been since we locked up\ncolonel carruthers. my mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself\nto pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it\nwas built. life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and\nromance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. can you\nask me, then, whether i am ready to look into any new problem,\nhowever trivial it may prove? but here, unless i am mistaken, is our\nclient.\"\na measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a\nstout, tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was\nushered into the room.  his life history was written in his heavy\nfeatures and pompous manner.  from his spats to his gold-rimmed\nspectacles he was a conservative, a churchman, a good citizen,\northodox and conventional to the last degree. but some amazing\nexperience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in\nhis bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried,\nexcited manner. he plunged instantly into his business.\n\"i have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, mr. holmes,\"\nsaid he. \"never in my life have i been placed in such a situation. it\nis most improper--most outrageous. i must insist upon some\nexplanation.\" he swelled and puffed in his anger.\n\"pray sit down, mr. scott eccles,\" said holmes in a soothing voice.\n\"may i ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?\"\n\"well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the\npolice, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that i\ncould not leave it where it was. private detectives are a class with\nwhom i have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard\nyour name--\"\n\"quite so.  but, in the second place, why did you not come at once?\"\n\"what do you mean?\"\nholmes glanced at his watch.\n\"it is a quarter-past two,\" he said. \"your telegram was dispatched\nabout one. but no one can glance at your toilet and attire without\nseeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking.\"\nour client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven\nchin.\n\"you are right, mr. holmes. i never gave a thought to my toilet. i\nwas only too glad to get out of such a house. but i have been running\nround making inquiries before i came to you. i went to the house\nagents, you know, and they said that mr. garcia's rent was paid up\nall right and that everything was in order at wisteria lodge.\"\n\"come, come, sir,\" said holmes, laughing. \"you are like my friend,\ndr. watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end\nforemost. please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due\nsequence, exactly what those events are which have sent you out\nunbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry,\nin search of advice and assistance.\"\nour client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional\nappearance.\n\"i'm sure it must look very bad, mr. holmes, and i am not aware that\nin my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. but will tell\nyou the whole queer business, and when i have done so you will admit,\ni am sure, that there has been enough to excuse me.\"\nbut his narrative was nipped in the bud. there was a bustle outside,\nand mrs. hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and\nofficial-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as\ninspector gregson of scotland yard, an energetic, gallant, and,\nwithin his limitations, a capable officer. he shook hands with holmes\nand introduced his comrade as inspector baynes, of the surrey\nconstabulary.\n\"we are hunting together, mr. holmes, and our trail lay in this\ndirection.\" he turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. \"are you mr.\njohn scott eccles, of popham house, lee?\"\n\"i am.\"\n\"we have been following you about all the morning.\"\n\"you traced him through the telegram, no doubt,\" said holmes.\n\"exactly, mr. holmes. we picked up the scent at charing cross\npost-office and came on here.\"\n\"but why do you follow me? what do you want?\"\n\"we wish a statement, mr. scott eccles, as to the events which let up\nto the death last night of mr. aloysius garcia, of wisteria lodge,\nnear esher.\"\nour client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour\nstruck from his astonished face.\n\"dead?  did you say he was dead?\"\n\"yes, sir, he is dead.\"\n\"but how?  an accident?\"\n\"murder, if ever there was one upon earth.\"\n\"good god! this is awful! you don't mean--you don't mean that i am\nsuspected?\"\n\"a letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by\nit that you had planned to pass last night at his house.\"\n\"so i did.\"\n\"oh, you did, did you?\"\nout came the official notebook.\n\"wait a bit, gregson,\" said sherlock holmes. \"all you desire is a\nplain statement, is it not?\"\n\"and it is my duty to warn mr. scott eccles that it may be used\nagainst him.\"\n\"mr. eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room.\ni think, watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. now, sir, i\nsuggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience,\nand that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have\ndone had you never been interrupted.\"\nour visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to\nhis face.  with a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he\nplunged at once into his extraordinary statement.\n\"i am a bachelor,\" said he, \"and being of a sociable turn i cultivate\na large number of friends. among these are the family of a retired\nbrewer called melville, living at abermarle mansion, kensington. it\nwas at his table that i met some weeks ago a young fellow named\ngarcia. he was, i understood, of spanish descent and connected in\nsome way with the embassy. he spoke perfect english, was pleasing in\nhis manners, and as good-looking a man as ever i saw in my life.\n\"in some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and\ni. he seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two\ndays of our meeting he came to see me at lee. one thing led to\nanother, and it ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at\nhis house, wisteria lodge, between esher and oxshott. yesterday\nevening i went to esher to fulfil this engagement.\n\"he had described his household to me before i went there. he lived\nwith a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after\nall his needs. this fellow could speak english and did his\nhousekeeping for him. then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a\nhalf-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an\nexcellent dinner. i remember that he remarked what a queer household\nit was to find in the heart of surrey, and that i agreed with him,\nthough it has proved a good deal queerer than i thought.\n\"i drove to the place--about two miles on the south side of esher.\nthe house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a\ncurving drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs. it was an\nold, tumbledown building in a crazy state of disrepair. when the trap\npulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and\nweather-stained door, i had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man\nwhom i knew so slightly. he opened the door himself, however, and\ngreeted me with a great show of cordiality. i was handed over to the\nmanservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag\nin his hand, to my bedroom. the whole place was depressing. our\ndinner was tte--tte, and though my host did his best to be\nentertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he\ntalked so vaguely and wildly that i could hardly understand him. he\ncontinually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and\ngave other signs of nervous impatience. the dinner itself was neither\nwell served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn\nservant did not help to enliven us. i can assure you that many times\nin the course of the evening i wished that i could invent some excuse\nwhich would take me back to lee.\n\"one thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the\nbusiness that you two gentlemen are investigating. i thought nothing\nof it at the time. near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the\nservant. i noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more\ndistrait and strange than before. he gave up all pretence at\nconversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own\nthoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. about eleven i\nwas glad to go to bed. some time later garcia looked in at my\ndoor--the room was dark at the time--and asked me if i had rung. i\nsaid that i had not. he apologized for having disturbed me so late,\nsaying that it was nearly one o'clock. i dropped off after this and\nslept soundly all night.\n\"and now i come to the amazing part of my tale. when i woke it was\nbroad daylight. i glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine.\ni had particularly asked to be called at eight, so i was very much\nastonished at this forgetfulness. i sprang up and rang for the\nservant. there was no response. i rang again and again, with the same\nresult. then i came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order.\ni huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad\ntemper to order some hot water. you can imagine my surprise when i\nfound that there was no one there. i shouted in the hall. there was\nno answer. then i ran from room to room. all were deserted. my host\nhad shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so i knocked at\nthe door. no reply. i turned the handle and walked in. the room was\nempty, and the bed had never been slept in. he had gone with the\nrest. the foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all\nhad vanished in the night! that was the end of my visit to wisteria\nlodge.\"\nsherlock holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this\nbizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.\n\"your experience is, so far as i know, perfectly unique,\" said he.\n\"may i ask, sir, what you did then?\"\n\"i was furious. my first idea was that i had been the victim of some\nabsurd practical joke. i packed my things, banged the hall door\nbehind me, and set off for esher, with my bag in my hand. i called at\nallan brothers', the chief land agents in the village, and found that\nit was from this firm that the villa had been rented. it struck me\nthat the whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of making a\nfool of me, and that the main objet must be to get out of the rent.\nit is late in march, so quarter-day is at hand. but this theory would\nnot work. the agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me\nthat the rent had been paid in advance. then i made my way to town\nand called at the spanish embassy. the man was unknown there. after\nthis i went to see melville, at whose house i had first met garcia,\nbut i found that he really knew rather less about him than i did.\nfinally when i got your reply to my wire i came out to you, since i\ngather that you are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. but\nnow, mr. inspector, i understand, from what you said when you entered\nthe room, that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had\noccurred. i can assure you that every word i have said is the truth,\nand that, outside of what i have told you, i know absolutely nothing\nabout the fate of this man. my only desire is to help the law in\nevery possible way.\"\n\"i am sure of it, mr. scott eccles--i am sure of it,\" said inspector\ngregson in a very amiable tone. \"i am bound to say that everything\nwhich you have said agrees very closely with the facts as they have\ncome to our notice. for example, there was that note which arrived\nduring dinner. did you chance to observe what became of it?\"\n\"yes, i did. garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.\"\n\"what do you say to that, mr. baynes?\"\nthe country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was\nonly redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes,\nalmost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. with a slow\nsmile he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from his\npocket.\n\"it was a dog-grate, mr. holmes, and he overpitched it. i picked this\nout unburned from the back of it.\"\nholmes smiled his appreciation.\n\"you must have examined the house very carefully to find a single\npellet of paper.\"\n\"i did, mr. holmes. it's my way. shall i read it, mr. gregson?\"\nthe londoner nodded.\n\"the note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without\nwatermark. it is a quarter-sheet. the paper is cut off in two snips\nwith a short-bladed scissors. it has been folded over three times and\nsealed with purple wax, put on hurriedly and pressed down with some\nflat oval object. it is addressed to mr. garcia, wisteria lodge. it\nsays:\n\"our own colours, green and white. green open, white shut. main\nstair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. godspeed.\nd.\n\"it is a woman's writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the\naddress is either done with another pen or by someone else. it is\nthicker and bolder, as you see.\"\n\"a very remarkable note,\" said holmes, glancing it over. \"i must\ncompliment you, mr. baynes, upon your attention to detail in your\nexamination of it. a few trifling points might perhaps be added. the\noval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link--what else is of such a\nshape? the scissors were bent nail scissors. short as the two snips\nare, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each.\"\nthe country detective chuckled.\n\"i thought i had squeezed all the juice out of it, but i see there\nwas a little over,\" he said. \"i'm bound to say that i make nothing of\nthe note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman,\nas usual, was at the bottom of it.\"\nmr. scott eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.\n\"i am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,\" said\nhe. \"but i beg to point out that i have not yet heard what has\nhappened to mr. garcia, nor what has become of his household.\"\n\"as to garcia,\" said gregson, \"that is easily answered. he was found\ndead this morning upon oxshott common, nearly a mile from his home.\nhis head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some\nsuch instrument, which had crushed rather than wounded. it is a\nlonely corner, and there is no house within a quarter of a mile of\nthe spot. he had apparently been struck down first from behind, but\nhis assailant had gone on beating him long after he was dead. it was\na most furious assault. there are no footsteps nor any clue to the\ncriminals.\"\n\"robbed?\"\n\"no, there was no attempt at robbery.\"\n\"this is very painful--very painful and terrible,\" said mr. scott\neccles in a querulous voice, \"but it is really uncommonly hard on me.\ni had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion\nand meeting so sad an end. how do i come to be mixed up with the\ncase?\"\n\"very simply, sir,\" inspector baynes answered. \"the only document\nfound in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that\nyou would be with him on the night of his death. it was the envelope\nof this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address. it was\nafter nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither\nyou nor anyone else inside it. i wired to mr. gregson to run you down\nin london while i examined wisteria lodge. then i came into town,\njoined mr. gregson, and here we are.\"\n\"i think now,\" said gregson, rising, \"we had best put this matter\ninto an official shape. you will come round with us to the station,\nmr. scott eccles, and let us have your statement in writing.\"\n\"certainly, i will come at once. but i retain your services, mr.\nholmes. i desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the\ntruth.\"\nmy friend turned to the country inspector.\n\"i suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you,\nmr. baynes?\"\n\"highly honoured, sir, i am sure.\"\n\"you appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you\nhave done. was there any clue, may i ask, as to the exact hour that\nthe man met his death?\"\n\"he had been there since one o'clock. there was rain about that time,\nand his death had certainly been before the rain.\"\n\"but that is perfectly impossible, mr. baynes,\" cried our client.\n\"his voice is unmistakable. i could swear to it that it was he who\naddressed me in my bedroom at that very hour.\"\n\"remarkable, but by no means impossible,\" said holmes, smiling.\n\"you have a clue?\" asked gregson.\n\"on the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it\ncertainly presents some novel and interesting features. a further\nknowledge of facts is necessary before i would venture to give a\nfinal and definite opinion. by the way, mr. baynes, did you find\nanything remarkable besides this note in your examination of the\nhouse?\"\nthe detective looked at my friend in a singular way.\n\"there were,\" said he, \"one or two very remarkable things. perhaps\nwhen i have finished at the police-station you would care to come out\nand give me your opinion of them.\"\n\"in am entirely at your service,\" said sherlock holmes, ringing the\nbell. \"you will show these gentlemen out, mrs. hudson, and kindly\nsend the boy with this telegram. he is to pay a five-shilling reply.\"\nwe sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. holmes\nsmoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his\nhead thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.\n\"well, watson,\" he asked, turning suddenly upon me, \"what do you make\nof it?\"\n\"i can make nothing of this mystification of scott eccles.\"\n\"but the crime?\"\n\"well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, i should\nsay that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled\nfrom justice.\"\n\"that is certainly a possible point of view. on the face of it you\nmust admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants\nshould have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked\nhim on the one night when he had a guest. they had him alone at their\nmercy every other night in the week.\"\n\"then why did they fly?\"\n\"quite so. why did they fly? there is a big fact. another big fact is\nthe remarkable experience of our client, scott eccles. now, my dear\nwatson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an\nexplanation which would cover both of these big facts? if it were one\nwhich would also admit of the mysterious note with its very curious\nphraseology, why, then it would be worth accepting as a temporary\nhypothesis. if the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit\nthemselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become\na solution.\"\n\"but what is our hypothesis?\"\nholmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.\n\"you must admit, my dear watson, that the idea of a joke is\nimpossible. there were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and\nthe coaxing of scott eccles to wisteria lodge had some connection\nwith them.\"\n\"but what possible connection?\"\n\"let us take it link by link. there is, on the face of it, something\nunnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between the young\nspaniard and scott eccles. it was the former who forced the pace. he\ncalled upon eccles at the other end of london on the very day after\nhe first met him, and he kept in close touch with him until he got\nhim down to esher. now, what did he want with eccles? what could\neccles supply? i see no charm in the man. he is not particulary\nintelligent--not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted\nlatin. why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom\ngarcia met as particularly suited to his purpose? has he any one\noutstanding quality? i say that he has. he is the very type of\nconventional british respectability, and the very man as a witness to\nimpress another briton. you saw yourself how neither of the\ninspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it\nwas.\"\n\"but what was he to witness?\"\n\"nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another\nway. that is how i read the matter.\"\n\"i see, he might have proved an alibi.\"\n\"exactly, my dear watson; he might have proved an alibi. we will\nsuppose, for argument's sake, that the household of wisteria lodge\nare confederates in some design. the attempt, whatever it may be, is\nto come off, we will say, before one o'clock. by some juggling of the\nclocks it is quite possible that they may have got scott eccles to\nbed earlier than he thought, but in any case it is likely that when\ngarcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was really\nnot more than twelve. if garcia could do whatever he had to do and be\nback by the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any\naccusation. here was this irreproachable englishman ready to swear in\nany court of law that the accused was in the house all the time. it\nwas an insurance against the worst.\"\n\"yes, yes, i see that. but how about the disappearance of the\nothers?\"\n\"i have not all my facts yet, but i do not think there are any\ninsuperable difficulties. still, it is an error to argue in front of\nyour data. you find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit\nyour theories.\"\n\"and the message?\"\n\"how did it run? 'our own colours, green and white.' sounds like\nracing. 'green open, white shut.' that is clearly a signal. 'main\nstair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.' this is an\nassignation. we may find a jealous husband at the bottom of it all.\nit was clearly a dangerous quest. she would not have said 'godspeed'\nhad it not been so. 'd'--that should be a guide.\"\n\"the man was a spaniard. i suggest that 'd' stands for dolores, a\ncommon female name in spain.\"\n\"good, watson, very good--but quite inadmissable. a spaniard would\nwrite to a spaniard in spanish. the writer of this note is certainly\nenglish. well, we can only possess our soul in patience until this\nexcellent inspector come back for us. meanwhile we can thank our\nlucky fate which has rescued us for a few short hours from the\ninsufferable fatigues of idleness.\"\nan answer had arrived to holmes's telegram before our surrey officer\nhad returned. holmes read it and was about to place it in his\nnotebook when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. he tossed it\nacross with a laugh.\n\"we are moving in exalted circles,\" said he.\nthe telegram was a list of names and addresses:\nlord harringby, the dingle; sir george ffolliott, oxshott towers; mr.\nhynes hynes, j.p., purdley place; mr. james baker williams, forton\nold hall; mr. henderson, high gable; rev. joshua stone, nether\nwalsling.\n\"this is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,\"\nsaid holmes. \"no doubt baynes, with his methodical mind, has already\nadopted some similar plan.\"\n\"i don't quite understand.\"\n\"well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that\nthe massage received by garcia at dinner was an appointment or an\nassignation. now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in\norder to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seek the\nseventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the house is a\nvery large one. it is equally certain that this house cannot be more\nthan a mile or two from oxshott, since garcia was walking in that\ndirection and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back\nin wisteria lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would\nonly be valid up to one o'clock. as the number of large houses close\nto oxshott must be limited, i adopted the obvious method of sending\nto the agents mentioned by scott eccles and obtaining a list of them.\nhere they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled\nskein must lie among them.\"\nit was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty\nsurrey village of esher, with inspector baynes as our companion.\nholmes and i had taken things for the night, and found comfortable\nquarters at the bull. finally we set out in the company of the\ndetective on our visit to wisteria lodge. it was a cold, dark march\nevening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain beating upon our faces, a\nfit setting for the wild common over which our road passed and the\ntragic goal to which it led us.\nchapter ii\nthe tiger of san pedro\na cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high\nwooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. the\ncurved and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black\nagainst a slate-coloured sky. from the front window upon the left of\nthe door there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light.\n\"there's a constable in possession,\" said baynes. \"i'll knock at the\nwindow.\" he stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on\nthe pane. through the fogged glass i dimly saw a man spring up from a\nchair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry from within the room. an\ninstant later a white-faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened the\ndoor, the candle wavering in his trembling hand.\n\"what's the matter, walters?\" asked baynes sharply.\nthe man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and agave a long\nsigh of relief.\n\"i am glad you have come, sir. it has been a long evening, and i\ndon't think my nerve is as good as it was.\"\n\"your nerve, walters? i should not have thought you had a nerve in\nyour body.\"\n\"well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the\nkitchen. then when you tapped at the window i thought it had come\nagain.\"\n\"that what had come again?\"\n\"the devil, sir, for all i know. it was at the window.\"\n\"what was at the window, and when?\"\n\"it was just about two hours ago. the light was just fading. i was\nsitting reading in the chair. i don't know what made me look up, but\nthere was a face looking in at me through the lower pane. lord, sir,\nwhat a face it was! i'll see it in my dreams.\"\n\"tut, tut, walters. this is not talk for a police-constable.\"\n\"i know, sir, i know; but it shook me, sir, and there's no use to\ndeny it. it wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that\ni know but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in\nit. then there was the size of it--it was twice yours, sir. and the\nlook of it--the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of white\nteeth like a hungry beast. i tell you, sir, i couldn't move a finger,\nnor get my breath, till it whisked away and was gone. out i ran and\nthrough the shrubbery, but thank god there was no one there.\"\n\"if i didn't know you were a good man, walters, i should put a black\nmark against you for this. if it were the devil himself a constable\non duty should never thank god that he could not lay his hands upon\nhim. i suppose the whole thing is not a vision and a touch of\nnerves?\"\n\"that, at least, is very easily settled,\" said holmes, lighting his\nlittle pocket lantern. \"yes,\" he reported, after a short examination\nof the grass bed, \"a number twelve shoe, i should say. if he was all\non the same scale as his foot he must certainly have been a giant.\"\n\"what became of him?\"\n\"he seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the\nroad.\"\n\"well,\" said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, \"whoever\nhe may have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the\npresent, and we have more immediate things to attend to. now, mr.\nholmes, with your permission, i will show you round the house.\"\nthe various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a\ncareful search. apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing\nwith them, and all the furniture down to the smallest details had\nbeen taken over with the house. a good deal of clothing with the\nstamp of marx and co., high holborn, had been left behind.\ntelegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that marx\nknew nothing of his customer save that he was a good payer. odds and\nends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them in spanish, and\nold-fashioned pinfire revolver, and a guitar were among the personal\nproperty.\n\"nothing in all this,\" said baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from\nroom to room. \"but now, mr. holmes, i invite your attention to the\nkitchen.\"\nit was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a\nstraw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the\ncook. the table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates,\nthe debris of last night's dinner.\n\"look at this,\" said baynes. \"what do you make of it?\"\nhe held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at\nthe back of the dresser. it was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered\nthat it was difficult to say what it might have been. one could but\nsay that it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance\nto a dwarfish, human figure. at first, as i examined it, i thought\nthat it was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted\nand ancient monkey. finally i was left in doubt as to whether it was\nanimal or human. a double band of white shells were strung round the\ncentre of it.\n\"very interesting--very interesting, indeed!\" said holmes, peering at\nthis sinister relic. \"anything more?\"\nin silence baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his\ncandle. the limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely\nto pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all over it.\nholmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head.\n\"a white cock,\" said he. \"most interesting! it is really a very\ncurious case.\"\nbut mr. baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. from\nunder the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of\nblood. then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces\nof charred bone.\n\"something has been killed and something has been burned. we raked\nall these out of the fire. we had a doctor in this morning. he says\nthat they are not human.\"\nholmes smiled and rubbed his hands.\n\"i must congratulate you, inspector, on handling so distinctive and\ninstructive a case. your powers, if i may say so without offence,\nseem superior to your opportunities.\"\ninspector baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure.\n\"you're right, mr. holmes. we stagnate in the provinces. a case of\nthis sort gives a man a chance, and i hope that i shall take it. what\ndo you make of these bones?\"\n\"a lamb, i should say, or a kid.\"\n\"and the white cock?\"\n\"curious, mr. baynes, very curious. i should say almost unique.\"\n\"yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some\nvery strange ways in this house. one of them is dead. did his\ncompanions follow him and kill him? if they did we should have them,\nfor every port is watched. but my own views are different. yes, sir,\nmy own views are very different.\"\n\"you have a theory then?\"\n\"and i'll work it myself, mr. holmes. it's only due to my own credit\nto do so. your name is made, but i have still to make mine. i should\nbe glad to be able to say afterwards that i had solved it without\nyour help.\"\nholmes laughed good-humoredly.\n\"well, well, inspector,\" said he. \"do you follow your path and i will\nfollow mine. my results are always very much at your service if you\ncare to apply to me for them. i think that i have seen all that i\nwish in this house, and that my time may be more profitably employed\nelsewhere. au revoir and good luck!\"\ni could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost\nupon anyone but myself, that holmes was on a hot scent. as impassive\nas ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued\neagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and\nbrisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot. after his\nhabit he said nothing, and after mine i asked no questions.\nsufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the\ncapture without distracting that intent brain with needless\ninterruption. all would come round to me in due time.\ni waited, therefore--but to my ever-deepening disappointment i waited\nin vain. day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. one\nmorning he spent in town, and i learned from a casual reference that\nhe had visited the british museum. save for this one excursion, he\nspent his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with\na number of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated.\n\"i'm sure, watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,\"\nhe remarked. \"it is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon\nthe hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again. with a spud, a\ntin box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days\nto be spent.\" he prowled about with this equipment himself, but it\nwas a poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening.\noccasionally in our rambles we came across inspector baynes. his fat,\nred face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he\ngreeted my companion. he said little about the case, but from that\nlittle we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of\nevents. i must admit, however, that i was somewhat surprised when,\nsome five days after the crime, i opened my morning paper to find in\nlarge letters:\nthe oxshott mystery\na solution\narrest of supposed assassin\nholmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when i read the\nheadlines.\n\"by jove!\" he cried. \"you don't mean that baynes has got him?\"\n\"apparently,\" said i as i read the following report:\n\"great excitement was caused in esher and the neighbouring district\nwhen it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected\nin connection with the oxshott murder. it will be remembered that mr.\ngarcia, of wisteria lodge, was found dead on oxshott common, his body\nshowing signs of extreme violence, and that on the same night his\nservant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation\nin the crime. it was suggested, but never proved, that the deceased\ngentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their\nabstraction was the motive of the crime. every effort was made by\ninspector baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding\nplace of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they\nhad not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been\nalready prepared. it was certain from the first, however, that they\nwould eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of one\nor two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the\nwindow, was a man of most remarkable appearance--being a huge and\nhideous mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid\ntype. this man has been seen since the crime, for he was detected and\npursued by constable walters on the same evening, when he had the\naudacity to revisit wisteria lodge. inspector baynes, considering\nthat such a visit must have some purpose in view and was likely,\ntherefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left an ambuscade\nin the shrubbery. the man walked into the trap and was captured last\nnight after a struggle in which constable downing was badly bitten by\nthe savage. we understand that when the prison is brought before the\nmagistrates a remand will be applied for by the police, and that\ngreat developments are hoped from his capture.\"\n\"really we must see baynes at once,\" cried holmes, picking up his\nhat. \"we will just catch him before he starts.\" we hurried down the\nvillage street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was\njust leaving his lodgings.\n\"you've seen the paper, mr. holmes?\" he asked, holding one out to us.\n\"yes, baynes, i've seen it. pray don't think it a liberty if i give\nyou a word of friendly warning.\"\n\"of warning, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i have looked into this case with some care, and i am not convinced\nthat you are on the right lines. i don't want you to commit yourself\ntoo far unless you are sure.\"\n\"you're very kind, mr. holmes.\"\n\"i assure you i speak for your good.\"\nit seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant\nover one of mr. baynes's tiny eyes.\n\"we agreed to work on our own lines, mr. holmes. that's what i am\ndoing.\"\n\"oh, very good,\" said holmes. \"don't blame me.\"\n\"no, sir; i believe you mean well by me. but we all have our own\nsystems, mr. holmes. you have yours, and maybe i have mine.\"\n\"let us say no more about it.\"\n\"you're welcome always to my news. this fellow is a perfect savage,\nas strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. he chewed\ndowning's thumb nearly off before they could master him. he hardly\nspeaks a word of english, and we can get nothing out of him but\ngrunts.\"\n\"and you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?\"\n\"i didn't say so, mr. holmes; i didn't say so. we all have our little\nways. you try yours and i will try mine. that's the agreement.\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. \"i can't\nmake the man out. he seems to be riding for a fall. well, as he says,\nwe must each try our own way and see what comes of it. but there's\nsomething in inspector baynes which i can't quite understand.\"\n\"just sit down in that chair, watson,\" said sherlock holmes when we\nhad returned to our apartment at the bull. \"i want to put you in\ntouch with the situation, as i may need your help to-night. let me\nshow you the evolution of this case so far as i have been able to\nfollow it. simple as it has been in its leading features, it has none\nthe less presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest.\nthere are gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.\n\"we will go back to the note which was handed in to garcia upon the\nevening of his death. we may put aside this idea of baynes's that\ngarcia's servants were concerned in the matter. the proof of this\nlies in the fact that it was he who had arranged for the presence of\nscott eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an\nalibi. it was garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a\ncriminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met\nhis death. i say 'criminal' because only a man with a criminal\nenterprise desires to establish an alibi. who, then, is most likely\nto have taken his life? surely the person against whom the criminal\nenterprise was directed. so far it seems to me that we are on safe\nground.\n\"we can now see a reason for the disappearance of garcia's household.\nthey were all confederates in the same unknown crime. if it came off\nwhen garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by\nthe englishman's evidence, and all would be well. but the attempt was\na dangerous one, and if garcia did not return by a certain hour it\nwas probable that his own life had been sacrificed. it had been\narranged, therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to\nmake for some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation\nand be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt. that would\nfully explain the facts, would it not?\"\nthe whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. i\nwondered, as i always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.\n\"but why should one servant return?\"\n\"we can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious,\nsomething which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind.\nthat would explain his persistence, would it not?\"\n\"well, what is the next step?\"\n\"the next step is the note received by garcia at the dinner. it\nindicates a confederate at the other end. now, where was the other\nend? i have already shown you that it could only lie in some large\nhouse, and that the number of large houses is limited. my first days\nin this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the\nintervals of my botanical researches i made a reconnaissance of all\nthe large houses and an examination of the family history of the\noccupants. one house, and only one, riveted my attention. it is the\nfamous old jacobean grange of high gable, one mile on the farther\nside of oxshott, and less than half a mile from the scene of the\ntragedy. the other mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable\npeople who live far aloof from romance. but mr. henderson, of high\ngable, was by all accounts a curious man to whom curious adventures\nmight befall. i concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and\nhis household.\n\"a singular set of people, watson--the man himself the most singular\nof them all. i managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but i\nseemed to read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was\nperfectly aware of my true business. he is a man of fifty, strong,\nactive, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step\nof a deer and the air of an emperor--a fierce, masterful man, with a\nred-hot spirit behind his parchment face. he is either a foreigner or\nhas lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but\ntough as whipcord. his friend and secretary, mr. lucas, is\nundoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, suave, and catlike,\nwith a poisonous gentleness of speech. you see, watson, we have come\nalready upon two sets of foreigners--one at wisteria lodge and one at\nhigh gable--so our gaps are beginning to close.\n\"these two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the\nhousehold; but there is one other person who for our immediate\npurpose may be even more important. henderson has two children--girls\nof eleven and thirteen. their governess is a miss burnet, an\nenglishwoman of forty or thereabouts. there is also one confidential\nmanservant. this little group forms the real family, for their travel\nabout together, and henderson is a great traveller, always on the\nmove. it is only within the last weeks that he has returned, after a\nyear's absence, to high gable. i may add that he is enormously rich,\nand whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them. for\nthe rest, his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and\nthe usual overfed, underworked staff of a large english country\nhouse.\n\"so much i learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own\nobservation. there are no better instruments than discharged servants\nwith a grievance, and i was lucky enough to find one. i call it luck,\nbut it would not have come my way had i not been looking out for it.\nas baynes remarks, we all have our systems. it was my system which\nenabled me to find john warner, late gardener of high gable, sacked\nin a moment of temper by his imperious employer. he in turn had\nfriends among the indoor servants who unite in their fear and dislike\nof their master. so i had my key to the secrets of the establishment.\n\"curious people, watson! i don't pretend to understand it all yet,\nbut very curious people anyway. it's a double-winged house, and the\nservants live on one side, the family on the other. there's no link\nbetween the two save for henderson's own servant, who serves the\nfamily's meals. everything is carried to a certain door, which forms\nthe one connection. governess and children hardly go out at all,\nexcept into the garden. henderson never by any chance walks alone.\nhis dark secretary is like his shadow. the gossip among the servants\nis that their master is terribly afraid of something. 'sold his soul\nto the devil in exchange for money,' says warner, 'and expects his\ncreditor to come up and claim his own.' where they came from, or who\nthey are, nobody has an idea. they are very violent. twice henderson\nhas lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and\nheavy compensation have kept him out of the courts.\n\"well, now, watson, let us judge the situation by this new\ninformation. we may take it that the letter came out of this strange\nhousehold and was an invitation to garcia to carry out some attempt\nwhich had already been planned. who wrote the note? it was someone\nwithin the citadel, and it was a woman. who then but miss burnet, the\ngoverness? all our reasoning seems to point that way. at any rate, we\nmay take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it would\nentail. i may add that miss burnet's age and character make it\ncertain that my first idea that there might be a love interest in our\nstory is out of the question.\n\"if she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate\nof garcia. what, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of\nhis death? if he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might\nbe sealed. still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatred\nagainst those who had killed him and would presumably help so far as\nshe could to have revenge upon them. could we see her, then and try\nto use her? that was my first thought. but now we come to a sinister\nfact. miss burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night\nof the murder. from that evening she has utterly vanished. is she\nalive? has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend\nwhom she had summoned? or is she merely a prisoner? there is the\npoint which we still have to decide.\n\"you will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, watson. there\nis nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. our whole scheme\nmight seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. the woman's\ndisappearance counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary\nhousehold any member of it might be invisible for a week. and yet she\nmay at the present moment be in danger of her life. all i can do is\nto watch the house and leave my agent, warner, on guard at the gates.\nwe can't let such a situation continue. if the law can do nothing we\nmust take the risk ourselves.\"\n\"what do you suggest?\"\n\"i know which is her room.  it is accessible from the top of an\nouthouse.  my suggestion is that you and i go to-night and see if we\ncan strike at the very heart of the mystery.\"\nit was not, i must confess, a very alluring prospect. the old house\nwith its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable\ninhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that\nwe were putting ourselves legally in a false position all combined to\ndamp my ardour. but there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of\nholmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he\nmight recommend. one knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution\nbe found. i clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.\nbut it was not destined that our investigation should have so\nadventurous an ending. it was about five o'clock, and the shadows of\nthe march evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic\nrushed into our room.\n\"they've gone, mr. holmes. they went by the last train. the lady\nbroke away, and i've got her in a cab downstairs.\"\n\"excellent, warner!\" cried holmes, springing to his feet. \"watson,\nthe gaps are closing rapidly.\"\nin the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. she\nbore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent\ntragedy. her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised\nit and turned her dull eyes upon us i saw that her pupils were dark\ndots in the centre of the broad gray iris. she was drugged with\nopium.\n\"i watched at the gate, same as you advised, mr. holmes,\" said our\nemissary, the discharged gardener. \"when the carriage came out i\nfollowed it to the station. she was like one walking in her sleep,\nbut when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and\nstruggled. they pushed her into the carriage. she fought her way out\nagain. i took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. i shan't\nforget the face at the carriage window as i led her away. i'd have a\nshort life if he had his way--the black-eyed, scowling, yellow\ndevil.\"\nwe carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups\nof the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the\ndrug. baynes had been summoned by holmes, and the situation rapidly\nexplained to him.\n\"why, sir, you've got me the very evidence i want,\" said the\ninspector warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. \"i was on the same\nscent as you from the first.\"\n\"what! you were after henderson?\"\n\"why, mr. holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at high\ngable i was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down\nbelow. it was just who would get his evidence first.\"\n\"then why did you arrest the mulatto?\"\nbaynes chuckled.\n\"i was sure henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was\nsuspected, and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he\nthought he was in any danger. i arrested the wrong man to make him\nbelieve that our eyes were off him. i knew he would be likely to\nclear off then and give us a chance of getting at miss burnet.\"\nholmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.\n\"you will rise high in your profession. you have instinct and\nintuition,\" said he.\nbaynes flushed with pleasure.\n\"i've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.\nwherever the high gable folk go he will keep them in sight. but he\nmust have been hard put to it when miss burnet broke away. however,\nyour man picked her up, and it all ends well. we can't arrest without\nher evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the\nbetter.\"\n\"every minute she gets stronger,\" said holmes, glancing at the\ngoverness. \"but tell me, baynes, who is this man henderson?\"\n\"henderson,\" the inspector answered, \"is don murillo, once called the\ntiger of san pedro.\"\nthe tiger of san pedro! the whole history of the man came back to me\nin a flash. he had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty\ntyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to\ncivilization. strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient\nvirtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering\npeople for ten or twelve years. his name was a terror through all\ncentral america. at the end of that time there was a universal rising\nagainst him. but he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first\nwhisper of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures\naboard a ship which was manned by devoted adherents. it was an empty\npalace which was stormed by the insurgents next day. the dictator,\nhis two children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them.\nfrom that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had\nbeen a frequent subject for comment in the european press.\n\"yes, sir, don murillo, the tiger of san pedro,\" said baynes. \"if you\nlook it up you will find that the san pedro colours are green and\nwhite, same as in the note, mr. holmes. henderson he called himself,\nbut i traced him back, paris and rome and madrid to barcelona, where\nhis ship came in in '86. they've been looking for him all the time\nfor their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find\nhim out.\"\n\"they discovered him a year ago,\" said miss burnet, who had sat up\nand was now intently following the conversation. \"once already his\nlife has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. now,\nagain, it is the noble, chivalrous garcia who has fallen, while the\nmonster goes safe. but another will come, and yet another, until some\nday justice will be done; that is as certain as the rise of\nto-morrow's sun.\" her thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched\nwith the passion of her hatred.\n\"but how come you into this matter, miss burnet?\" asked holmes. \"how\ncan an english lady join in such a murderous affair?\"\n\"i join in it because there is no other way in the world by which\njustice can be gained. what does the law of england care for the\nrivers of blood shed years ago in san pedro, or for the shipload of\ntreasure which this man has stolen? to you they are like crimes\ncommitted in some other planet. but we know. we have learned the\ntruth in sorrow and in suffering. to us there is no fiend in hell\nlike juan murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry\nfor vengeance.\"\n\"no doubt,\" said holmes, \"he was as you say. i have heard that he was\natrocious. but how are you affected?\"\n\"i will tell you it all. this villain's policy was to murder, on one\npretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might\nin time come to be a dangerous rival. my husband--yes, my real name\nis signora victor durando--was the san pedro minister in london. he\nmet me and married me there. a nobler man never lived upon earth.\nunhappily, murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some\npretext, and had him shot. with a premonition of his fate he had\nrefused to take me with him. his estates were confiscated, and i was\nleft with a pittance and a broken heart.\n\"then came the downfall of the tyrant. he escaped as you have just\ndescribed. but the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and\ndearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let\nthe matter rest. they banded themselves into a society which should\nnever be dissolved until the work was done. it was my part after we\nhad discovered in the transformed henderson the fallen despot, to\nattach myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his\nmovements. this i was able to do by securing the position of\ngoverness in his family. he little knew that the woman who faced him\nat every meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's\nnotice into eternity. i smiled on him, did my duty to his children,\nand bided my time. an attempt was made in paris and failed. we\nzig-zagged swiftly here and there over europe to throw off the\npursuers and finally returned to this house, which he had taken upon\nhis first arrival in england.\n\"but here also the ministers of justice were waiting. knowing that he\nwould return there, garcia, who is the son of the former highest\ndignitary in san pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of\nhumble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. he\ncould do little during the day, for murillo took every precaution and\nnever went out save with his satellite lucas, or lopez as he was\nknown in the days of his greatness. at night, however, he slept\nalone, and the avenger might find him. on a certain evening, which\nhad been prearranged, i sent my friend final instructions, for the\nman was forever on the alert and continually changed his room. i was\nto see that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white\nlight in a window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was\nsafe or if the attempt had better be postponed.\n\"but everything went wrong with us. in some way i had excited the\nsuspicion of lopez, the secretary. he crept up behind me and sprang\nupon me just as i had finished the note. he and his master dragged me\nto my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress. then\nand there they would have plunged their knives into me could they\nhave seen how to escape the consequences of the deed. finally, after\nmuch debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous. but\nthey determined to get rid forever of garcia. they had gagged me, and\nmurillo twisted my arm round until i gave him the address. i swear\nthat he might have twisted it off had i understood what it would mean\nto garcia. lopez addressed the note which i had written, sealed it\nwith his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, jose.\nhow they murdered him i do not know, save that it was murillo's hand\nwho struck him down, for lopez had remained to guard me. i believe he\nmust have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds\nand struck him down as he passed. at first they were of a mind to let\nhim enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they\nargued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity\nwould at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further\nattacks. with the death of garcia, the pursuit might cease, since\nsuch a death might frighten others from the task.\n\"all would now have been well for them had it not been for my\nknowledge of what they had done. i have no doubt that there were\ntimes when my life hung in the balance. i was confined to my room,\nterrorized by the most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my\nspirit--see this stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end\nof my arms--and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion\nwhen i tried to call from the window. for five days this cruel\nimprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul\ntogether. this afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment\nafter i took it i knew that i had been drugged. in a sort of dream i\nremember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same\nstate i was conveyed to the train. only then, when the wheels were\nalmost moving, did i suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own\nhands. i sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it not been\nfor the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, i should never\nhad broken away. now, thank god, i am beyond their power forever.\"\nwe had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. it was\nholmes who broke the silence.\n\"our difficulties are not over,\" he remarked, shaking his head. \"our\npolice work ends, but our legal work begins.\"\n\"exactly,\" said i. \"a plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of\nself-defence. there may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it\nis only on this one that they can be tried.\"\n\"come, come,\" said baynes cheerily, \"i think better of the law than\nthat. self-defence is one thing. to entice a man in cold blood with\nthe object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear\nfrom him. no, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants\nof high gable at the next guildford assizes.\"\nit is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to\nelapse before the tiger of san pedro should meet with his deserts.\nwily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their\ntrack by entering a lodging-house in edmonton street and leaving by\nthe back-gate into curzon square. from that day they were seen no\nmore in england. some six months afterwards the marquess of montalva\nand signor rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at\nthe hotel escurial at madrid. the crime was ascribed to nihilism, and\nthe murderers were never arrested. inspector baynes visited us at\nbaker street with a printed description of the dark face of the\nsecretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes,\nand the tufted brows of his master. we could not doubt that justice,\nif belated, had come at last.\n\"a chaotic case, my dear watson,\" said holmes over an evening pipe.\n\"it will not be possible for you to present in that compact form\nwhich is dear to your heart. it covers two continents, concerns two\ngroups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the\nhighly respectable presence of our friend, scott eccles, whose\ninclusion shows me that the deceased garcia had a scheming mind and a\nwell-developed instinct of self-preservation. it is remarkable only\nfor the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our\nworthy collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the\nessentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. is\nthere any point which is not quite clear to you?\"\n\"the object of the mulatto cook's return?\"\n\"i think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.\nthe man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of san pedro, and\nthis was his fetish. when his companion and he had fled to some\nprearranged retreat--already occupied, no doubt by a confederate--the\ncompanion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of\nfurniture. but the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven\nback to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window, he\nfound policeman walters in possession. he waited three days longer,\nand then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more.\ninspector baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the\nincident before me, had really recognized its importance and had left\na trap into which the creature walked. any other point, watson?\"\n\"the torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery\nof that weird kitchen?\"\nholmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.\n\"i spent a morning in the british museum reading up on that and other\npoints. here is a quotation from eckermann's voodooism and the\nnegroid religions:\n\"'the true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without\ncertain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.\nin extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices\nfollowed by cannibalism. the more usual victims are a white cock,\nwhich is plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is\ncut and body burned.'\n\"so you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. it is\ngrotesque, watson,\" holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook,\n\"but, as i have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from\nthe grotesque to the horrible.\"\nthe adventure of the cardboard box\nin choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable\nmental qualities of my friend, sherlock holmes, i have endeavoured,\nas far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of\nsensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. it is,\nhowever, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the\nsensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the\ndilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to\nhis statement and so give a false impression of the problem, or he\nmust use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.\nwith this short preface i shall turn to my notes of what proved to be\na strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.\nit was a blazing hot day in august. baker street was like an oven,\nand the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house\nacross the road was painful to the eye. it was hard to believe that\nthese were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs\nof winter. our blinds were half-drawn, and holmes lay curled upon the\nsofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by the\nmorning post. for myself, my term of service in india had trained me\nto stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no\nhardship. but the morning paper was uninteresting. parliament had\nrisen. everybody was out of town, and i yearned for the glades of the\nnew forest or the shingle of southsea. a depleted bank account had\ncaused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the\ncountry nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. he\nloved to lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his\nfilaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to\nevery little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. appreciation of\nnature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was\nwhen he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down\nhis brother of the country.\nfinding that holmes was too absorbed for conversation i had tossed\nside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair i fell into a\nbrown study. suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:\n\"you are right, watson,\" said he. \"it does seem a most preposterous\nway of settling a dispute.\"\n\"most preposterous!\" i exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he\nhad echoed the inmost thought of my soul, i sat up in my chair and\nstared at him in blank amazement.\n\"what is this, holmes?\" i cried. \"this is beyond anything which i\ncould have imagined.\"\nhe laughed heartily at my perplexity.\n\"you remember,\" said he, \"that some little time ago when i read you\nthe passage in one of poe's sketches in which a close reasoner\nfollows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to\ntreat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. on my\nremarking that i was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing\nyou expressed incredulity.\"\n\"oh, no!\"\n\"perhaps not with your tongue, my dear watson, but certainly with\nyour eyebrows. so when i saw you throw down your paper and enter upon\na train of thought, i was very happy to have the opportunity of\nreading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that i\nhad been in rapport with you.\"\nbut i was still far from satisfied. \"in the example which you read to\nme,\" said i, \"the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of\nthe man whom he observed. if i remember right, he stumbled over a\nheap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. but i have been\nseated quietly in my chair, and what clues can i have given you?\"\n\"you do yourself an injustice. the features are given to man as the\nmeans by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful\nservants.\"\n\"do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my\nfeatures?\"\n\"your features and especially your eyes. perhaps you cannot yourself\nrecall how your reverie commenced?\"\n\"no, i cannot.\"\n\"then i will tell you. after throwing down your paper, which was the\naction which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with\na vacant expression. then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly\nframed picture of general gordon, and i saw by the alteration in your\nface that a train of thought had been started. but it did not lead\nvery far. your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of henry\nward beecher which stands upon the top of your books. then you\nglanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. you\nwere thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover\nthat bare space and correspond with gordon's picture there.\"\n\"you have followed me wonderfully!\" i exclaimed.\n\"so far i could hardly have gone astray. but now your thoughts went\nback to beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying\nthe character in his features. then your eyes ceased to pucker, but\nyou continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. you were\nrecalling the incidents of beecher's career. i was well aware that\nyou could not do this without thinking of the mission which he\nundertook on behalf of the north at the time of the civil war, for i\nremember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in\nwhich he was received by the more turbulent of our people. you felt\nso strongly about it that i knew you could not think of beecher\nwithout thinking of that also. when a moment later i saw your eyes\nwander away from the picture, i suspected that your mind had now\nturned to the civil war, and when i observed that your lips set, your\neyes sparkled, and your hands clenched i was positive that you were\nindeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in\nthat desperate struggle. but then, again, your face grew sadder, you\nshook your head. you were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and\nuseless waste of life. your hand stole towards your own old wound and\na smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous\nside of this method of settling international questions had forced\nitself upon your mind. at this point i agreed with you that it was\npreposterous and was glad to find that all my deductions had been\ncorrect.\"\n\"absolutely!\" said i. \"and now that you have explained it, i confess\nthat i am as amazed as before.\"\n\"it was very superficial, my dear watson, i assure you. i should not\nhave intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some\nincredulity the other day. but i have in my hands here a little\nproblem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my\nsmall essay in thought reading. have you observed in the paper a\nshort paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent\nthrough the post to miss cushing, of cross street, croydon?\"\n\"no, i saw nothing.\"\n\"ah! then you must have overlooked it. just toss it over to me. here\nit is, under the financial column. perhaps you would be good enough\nto read it aloud.\"\ni picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the\nparagraph indicated. it was headed, \"a gruesome packet.\"\n\"miss susan cushing, living at cross street, croydon, has been made\nthe victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting\npractical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be\nattached to the incident. at two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small\npacket, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. a\ncardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt. on\nemptying this, miss cushing was horrified to find two human ears,\napparently quite freshly severed. the box had been sent by parcel\npost from belfast upon the morning before. there is no indication as\nto the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as miss cushing,\nwho is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has\nso few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for\nher to receive anything through the post. some years ago, however,\nwhen she resided at penge, she let apartments in her house to three\nyoung medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account\nof their noisy and irregular habits. the police are of opinion that\nthis outrage may have been perpetrated upon miss cushing by these\nyouths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by\nsending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. some probability is\nlent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from\nthe north of ireland, and, to the best of miss cushing's belief, from\nbelfast. in the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated,\nmr. lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers,\nbeing in charge of the case.\"\n\"so much for the daily chronicle,\" said holmes as i finished reading.\n\"now for our friend lestrade. i had a note from him this morning, in\nwhich he says:\n\"i think that this case is very much in your line. we have every hope\nof clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting\nanything to work upon. we have, of course, wired to the belfast\npost-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that\nday, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of\nremembering the sender. the box is a half-pound box of honeydew\ntobacco and does not help us in any way. the medical student theory\nstill appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a\nfew hours to spare i should be very happy to see you out here. i\nshall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.\n\"what say you, watson? can you rise superior to the heat and run down\nto croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?\"\n\"i was longing for something to do.\"\n\"you shall have it then. ring for our boots and tell them to order a\ncab. i'll be back in a moment when i have changed my dressing-gown\nand filled my cigar-case.\"\na shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was\nfar less oppressive in croydon than in town. holmes had sent on a\nwire, so that lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as\never, was waiting for us at the station. a walk of five minutes took\nus to cross street, where miss cushing resided.\nit was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim,\nwith whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women\ngossiping at the doors. halfway down, lestrade stopped and tapped at\na door, which was opened by a small servant girl. miss cushing was\nsitting in the front room, into which we were ushered. she was a\nplacid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair\ncurving down over her temples on each side. a worked antimacassar lay\nupon her lap and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside\nher.\n\"they are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,\" said she as\nlestrade entered. \"i wish that you would take them away altogether.\"\n\"so i shall, miss cushing. i only kept them here until my friend, mr.\nholmes, should have seen them in your presence.\"\n\"why in my presence, sir?\"\n\"in case he wished to ask any questions.\"\n\"what is the use of asking me questions when i tell you i know\nnothing whatever about it?\"\n\"quite so, madam,\" said holmes in his soothing way. \"i have no doubt\nthat you have been annoyed more than enough already over this\nbusiness.\"\n\"indeed i have, sir. i am a quiet woman and live a retired life. it\nis something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the\npolice in my house. i won't have those things in here, mr. lestrade.\nif you wish to see them you must go to the outhouse.\"\nit was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house.\nlestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece\nof brown paper and some string. there was a bench at the end of the\npath, and we all sat down while homes examined one by one, the\narticles which lestrade had handed to him.\n\"the string is exceedingly interesting,\" he remarked, holding it up\nto the light and sniffing at it. \"what do you make of this string,\nlestrade?\"\n\"it has been tarred.\"\n\"precisely. it is a piece of tarred twine. you have also, no doubt,\nremarked that miss cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can\nbe seen by the double fray on each side. this is of importance.\"\n\"i cannot see the importance,\" said lestrade.\n\"the importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and\nthat this knot is of a peculiar character.\"\n\"it is very neatly tied. i had already made a note of that effect,\"\nsaid lestrade complacently.\n\"so much for the string, then,\" said holmes, smiling, \"now for the\nbox wrapper. brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. what, did\nyou not observe it? i think there can be no doubt of it. address\nprinted in rather straggling characters: 'miss s. cushing, cross\nstreet, croydon.' done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a j, and\nwith very inferior ink. the word 'croydon' has been originally\nspelled with an 'i', which has been changed to 'y'. the parcel was\ndirected, then, by a man--the printing is distinctly masculine--of\nlimited education and unacquainted with the town of croydon. so far,\nso good! the box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing\ndistinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. it is\nfilled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and\nother of the coarser commercial purposes. and embedded in it are\nthese very singular enclosures.\"\nhe took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his\nknee he examined them minutely, while lestrade and i, bending forward\non each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and\nat the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. finally he returned\nthem to the box once more and sat for a while in deep meditation.\n\"you have observed, of course,\" said he at last, \"that the ears are\nnot a pair.\"\n\"yes, i have noticed that. but if this were the practical joke of\nsome students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them\nto send two odd ears as a pair.\"\n\"precisely. but this is not a practical joke.\"\n\"you are sure of it?\"\n\"the presumption is strongly against it. bodies in the\ndissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. these ears\nbear no signs of this. they are fresh, too. they have been cut off\nwith a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had\ndone it. again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the\npreservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind,\ncertainly not rough salt. i repeat that there is no practical joke\nhere, but that we are investigating a serious crime.\"\na vague thrill ran through me as i listened to my companion's words\nand saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. this\nbrutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and\ninexplicable horror in the background. lestrade, however, shook his\nhead like a man who is only half convinced.\n\"there are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,\" said he, \"but\nthere are much stronger reasons against the other. we know that this\nwoman has led a most quiet and respectable life at penge and here for\nthe last twenty years. she has hardly been away from her home for a\nday during that time. why on earth, then, should any criminal send\nher the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most\nconsummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter as\nwe do?\"\n\"that is the problem which we have to solve,\" holmes answered, \"and\nfor my part i shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is\ncorrect, and that a double murder has been committed. one of these\nears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring.\nthe other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for\nan earring. these two people are presumably dead, or we should have\nheard their story before now. to-day is friday. the packet was posted\non thursday morning. the tragedy, then, occurred on wednesday or\ntuesday, or earlier. if the two people were murdered, who but their\nmurderer would have sent this sign of his work to miss cushing? we\nmay take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want.\nbut he must have some strong reason for sending miss cushing this\npacket. what reason then? it must have been to tell her that the deed\nwas done; or to pain her, perhaps. but in that case she knows who it\nis. does she know? i doubt it. if she knew, why should she call the\npolice in? she might have buried the ears, and no one would have been\nthe wiser. that is what she would have done if she had wished to\nshield the criminal. but if she does not wish to shield him she would\ngive his name. there is a tangle here which needs straightening out.\"\nhe had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over\nthe garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked\ntowards the house.\n\"i have a few questions to ask miss cushing,\" said he.\n\"in that case i may leave you here,\" said lestrade, \"for i have\nanother small business on hand. i think that i have nothing further\nto learn from miss cushing. you will find me at the police-station.\"\n\"we shall look in on our way to the train,\" answered holmes. a moment\nlater he and i were back in the front room, where the impassive lady\nwas still quietly working away at her antimacassar. she put it down\non her lap as we entered and looked at us with her frank, searching\nblue eyes.\n\"i am convinced, sir,\" she said, \"that this matter is a mistake, and\nthat the parcel was never meant for me at all. i have said this\nseveral times to the gentlemen from scotland yard, but he simply\nlaughs at me. i have not an enemy in the world, as far as i know, so\nwhy should anyone play me such a trick?\"\n\"i am coming to be of the same opinion, miss cushing,\" said holmes,\ntaking a seat beside her. \"i think that it is more than probable--\"\nhe paused, and i was surprised, on glancing round to see that he was\nstaring with singular intentness at the lady's profile. surprise and\nsatisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face,\nthough when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence he\nhad become as demure as ever. i stared hard myself at her flat,\ngrizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid\nfeatures; but i could see nothing which could account for my\ncompanion's evident excitement.\n\"there were one or two questions--\"\n\"oh, i am weary of questions!\" cried miss cushing impatiently.\n\"you have two sisters, i believe.\"\n\"how could you know that?\"\n\"i observed the very instant that i entered the room that you have a\nportrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is\nundoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you\nthat there could be no doubt of the relationship.\"\n\"yes, you are quite right. those are my sisters, sarah and mary.\"\n\"and here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at liverpool, of\nyour younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a\nsteward by his uniform. i observe that she was unmarried at the\ntime.\"\n\"you are very quick at observing.\"\n\"that is my trade.\"\n\"well, you are quite right.  but she was married to mr. browner a few\ndays afterwards. he was on the south american line when that was\ntaken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn't abide to leave her\nfor so long, and he got into the liverpool and london boats.\"\n\"ah, the conqueror, perhaps?\"\n\"no, the may day, when last i heard. jim came down here to see me\nonce. that was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would\nalways take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send\nhim stark, staring mad. ah! it was a bad day that ever he took a\nglass in his hand again. first he dropped me, then he quarrelled with\nsarah, and now that mary has stopped writing we don't know how things\nare going with them.\"\nit was evident that miss cushing had come upon a subject on which she\nfelt very deeply. like most people who lead a lonely life, she was\nshy at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. she told\nus many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then\nwandering off on the subject of her former lodgers, the medical\nstudents, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with\ntheir names and those of their hospitals. holmes listened attentively\nto everything, throwing in a question from time to time.\n\"about your second sister, sarah,\" said he. \"i wonder, since you are\nboth maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.\"\n\"ah! you don't know sarah's temper or you would wonder no more. i\ntried it when i came to croydon, and we kept on until about two\nmonths ago, when we had to part. i don't want to say a word against\nmy own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was\nsarah.\"\n\"you say that she quarrelled with your liverpool relations.\"\n\"yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. why, she went up\nthere to live in order to be near them. and now she has no word hard\nenough for jim browner. the last six months that she was here she\nwould speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. he had caught\nher meddling, i suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that\nwas the start of it.\"\n\"thank you, miss cushing,\" said holmes, rising and bowing. \"your\nsister sarah lives, i think you said, at new street, wallington?\ngood-bye, and i am very sorry that you should have been troubled over\na case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do.\"\nthere was a cab passing as we came out, and holmes hailed it.\n\"how far to wallington?\" he asked.\n\"only about a mile, sir.\"\n\"very good. jump in, watson. we must strike while the iron is hot.\nsimple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive\ndetails in connection with it. just pull up at a telegraph office as\nyou pass, cabby.\"\nholmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay back\nin the cab, with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from\nhis face. our drive pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one\nwhich we had just quitted. my companion ordered him to wait, and had\nhis hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young\ngentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on the step.\n\"is miss cushing at home?\" asked holmes.\n\"miss sarah cushing is extremely ill,\" said he. \"she has been\nsuffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. as\nher medical adviser, i cannot possibly take the responsibility of\nallowing anyone to see her. i should recommend you to call again in\nten days.\" he drew on his gloves, closed the door, and marched off\ndown the street.\n\"well, if we can't we can't,\" said holmes, cheerfully.\n\"perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.\"\n\"i did not wish her to tell me anything. i only wanted to look at\nher. however, i think that i have got all that i want. drive us to\nsome decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and\nafterwards we shall drop down upon friend lestrade at the\npolice-station.\"\nwe had a pleasant little meal together, during which holmes would\ntalk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how\nhe had purchased his own stradivarius, which was worth at least five\nhundred guineas, at a jew broker's in tottenham court road for\nfifty-five shillings. this led him to paganini, and we sat for an\nhour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote\nof that extraordinary man. the afternoon was far advanced and the hot\nglare had softened into a mellow glow before we found ourselves at\nthe police-station. lestrade was waiting for us at the door.\n\"a telegram for you, mr. holmes,\" said he.\n\"ha! it is the answer!\" he tore it open, glanced his eyes over it,\nand crumpled it into his pocket. \"that's all right,\" said he.\n\"have you found out anything?\"\n\"i have found out everything!\"\n\"what!\" lestrade stared at him in amazement. \"you are joking.\"\n\"i was never more serious in my life. a shocking crime has been\ncommitted, and i think i have now laid bare every detail of it.\"\n\"and the criminal?\"\nholmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting\ncards and threw it over to lestrade.\n\"that is the name,\" he said. \"you cannot effect an arrest until\nto-morrow night at the earliest. i should prefer that you do not\nmention my name at all in connection with the case, as i choose to be\nonly associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in\ntheir solution. come on, watson.\" we strode off together to the\nstation, leaving lestrade still staring with a delighted face at the\ncard which holmes had thrown him.\n\"the case,\" said sherlock holmes as we chatted over or cigars that\nnight in our rooms at baker street, \"is one where, as in the\ninvestigations which you have chronicled under the names of 'a study\nin scarlet' and of 'the sign of four,' we have been compelled to\nreason backward from effects to causes. i have written to lestrade\nasking him to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and\nwhich he will only get after he had secured his man. that he may be\nsafely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason,\nhe is as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has\nto do, and indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to\nthe top at scotland yard.\"\n\"your case is not complete, then?\" i asked.\n\"it is fairly complete in essentials. we know who the author of the\nrevolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us.\nof course, you have formed your own conclusions.\"\n\"i presume that this jim browner, the steward of a liverpool boat, is\nthe man whom you suspect?\"\n\"oh! it is more than a suspicion.\"\n\"and yet i cannot see anything save very vague indications.\"\n\"on the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. let me run\nover the principal steps. we approached the case, you remember, with\nan absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. we had formed\nno theories. we were simply there to observe and to draw inferences\nfrom our observations. what did we see first? a very placid and\nrespectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a\nportrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters. it\ninstantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant\nfor one of these. i set the idea aside as one which could be\ndisproved or confirmed at our leisure. then we went to the garden, as\nyou remember, and we saw the very singular contents of the little\nyellow box.\n\"the string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard\nship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our\ninvestigation. when i observed that the knot was one which is popular\nwith sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port, and that the\nmale ear was pierced for an earring which is so much more common\namong sailors than landsmen, i was quite certain that all the actors\nin the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.\n\"when i came to examine the address of the packet i observed that it\nwas to miss s. cushing. now, the oldest sister would, of course, be\nmiss cushing, and although her initial was 's' it might belong to one\nof the others as well. in that case we should have to commence our\ninvestigation from a fresh basis altogether. i therefore went into\nthe house with the intention of clearing up this point. i was about\nto assure miss cushing that i was convinced that a mistake had been\nmade when you may remember that i came suddenly to a stop. the fact\nwas that i had just seen something which filled me with surprise and\nat the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.\n\"as a medical man, you are aware, watson, that there is no part of\nthe body which varies so much as the human ear. each ear is as a rule\nquite distinctive and differs from all other ones. in last year's\nanthropological journal you will find two short monographs from my\npen upon the subject. i had, therefore, examined the ears in the box\nwith the eyes of an expert and had carefully noted their anatomical\npeculiarities. imagine my surprise, then, when on looking at miss\ncushing i perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female\near which i had just inspected. the matter was entirely beyond\ncoincidence. there was the same shortening of the pinna, the same\nbroad curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner\ncartilage. in all essentials it was the same ear.\n\"in the first place, her sister's name was sarah, and her address had\nuntil recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the\nmistake had occurred and for whom the packet was meant. then we heard\nof this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had\nat one time been so intimate with miss sarah that she had actually\ngone up to liverpool to be near the browners, but a quarrel had\nafterwards divided them. this quarrel had put a stop to all\ncommunications for some months, so that if browner had occasion to\naddress a packet to miss sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to\nher old address.\n\"and now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully.\nwe had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of\nstrong passions--you remember that he threw up what must have been a\nvery superior berth in order to be nearer to his wife--subject, too,\nto occasional fits of hard drinking. we had reason to believe that\nhis wife had been murdered, and that a man--presumably a seafaring\nman--had been murdered at the same time. jealousy, of course, at once\nsuggests itself as the motive for the crime. and why should these\nproofs of the deed be sent to miss sarah cushing? probably because\nduring her residence in liverpool she had some hand in bringing about\nthe events which led to the tragedy. you will observe that this line\nof boats call at belfast, dublin, and waterford; so that, presuming\nthat browner had committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his\nsteamer, the may day, belfast would be the first place at which he\ncould post his terrible packet.\n\"a second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although\ni thought it exceedingly unlikely, i was determined to elucidate it\nbefore going further. an unsuccessful lover might have killed mr. and\nmrs. browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband.\nthere were many grave objections to this theory, but it was\nconceivable. i therefore sent off a telegram to my friend algar, of\nthe liverpool force, and asked him to find out if mrs. browner were\nat home, and if browner had departed in the may day. then we went on\nto wallington to visit miss sarah.\n\"i was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had\nbeen reproduced in her. then, of course, she might give us very\nimportant information, but i was not sanguine that she would. she\nmust have heard of the business the day before, since all croydon was\nringing with it, and she alone could have understood for whom the\npacket was meant. if she had been willing to help justice she would\nprobably have communicated with the police already. however, it was\nclearly our duty to see her, so we went. we found that the news of\nthe arrival of the packet--for her illness dated from that time--had\nsuch an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever. it was clearer\nthan ever that she understood its full significance, but equally\nclear that we should have to wait some time for any assistance from\nher.\n\"however, we were really independent of her help. our answers were\nwaiting for us at the police-station, where i had directed algar to\nsend them. nothing could be more conclusive. mrs. browner's house had\nbeen closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of\nopinion that she had gone south to see her relatives. it had been\nascertained at the shipping offices that browner had left aboard of\nthe may day, and i calculate that she is due in the thames tomorrow\nnight. when he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute\nlestrade, and i have no doubt that we shall have all our details\nfilled in.\"\nsherlock holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. two days\nlater he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from\nthe detective, and a typewritten document, which covered several\npages of foolscap.\n\"lestrade has got him all right,\" said holmes, glancing up at me.\n\"perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says.\n\"my dear mr. holmes:\n\"in accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test\nour theories\" [\"the 'we' is rather fine, watson, is it not?\"] \"i went\ndown to the albert dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the s.s. may\nday, belonging to the liverpool, dublin, and london steam packet\ncompany. on inquiry, i found that there was a steward on board of the\nname of james browner and that he had acted during the voyage in such\nan extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to\nrelieve him of his duties. on descending to his berth, i found him\nseated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking\nhimself to and fro. he is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and\nvery swarthy--something like aldrige, who helped us in the bogus\nlaundry affair. he jumped up when he heard my business, and i had my\nwhistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round\nthe corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out\nhis hands quietly enough for the darbies. we brought him along to the\ncells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something\nincriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have,\nwe got nothing for our trouble. however, we find that we shall want\nno more evidence, for on being brought before the inspector at the\nstation he asked leave to make a statement, which was, of course,\ntaken down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. we had three\ncopies typewritten, one of which i enclose. the affair proves, as i\nalways thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but i am\nobliged to you for assisting me in my investigation. with kind\nregards,\n\"yours very truly,\n\"g. lestrade.\n\"hum! the investigation really was a very simple one,\" remarked\nholmes, \"but i don't think it struck him in that light when he first\ncalled us in. however, let us see what jim browner has to say for\nhimself. this is his statement as made before inspector montgomery at\nthe shadwell police station, and it has the advantage of being\nverbatim.\"\n\"'have i anything to say? yes, i have a deal to say. i have to make a\nclean breast of it all. you can hang me, or you can leave me alone. i\ndon't care a plug which you do. i tell you i've not shut an eye in\nsleep since i did it, and i don't believe i ever will again until i\nget past all waking. sometimes it's his face, but most generally it's\nhers. i'm never without one or the other before me. he looks frowning\nand black-like, but she has a kind o' surprise upon her face. ay, the\nwhite lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face\nthat had seldom looked anything but love upon her before.\n\"'but it was sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a\nblight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! it's not that i\nwant to clear myself. i know that i went back to drink, like the\nbeast that i was. but she would have forgiven me; she would have\nstuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never\ndarkened our door. for sarah cushing loved me--that's the root of the\nbusiness--she loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate\nwhen she knew that i thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud\nthan i did of her whole body and soul.\n\"'there were three sisters altogether. the old one was just a good\nwoman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. sarah was\nthirty-three, and mary was twenty-nine when i married. we were just\nas happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in\nall liverpool there was no better woman than my mary. and then we\nasked sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one\nthing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.\n\"'i was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money\nby, and all was as bright as a new dollar. my god, whoever would have\nthought that it could have come to this? whoever would have dreamed\nit?\n\"'i used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if\nthe ship were held back for cargo i would have a whole week at a\ntime, and in this way i saw a deal of my sister-in-law, sarah. she\nwas a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way\nof carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark from a\nflint. but when little mary was there i had never a thought of her,\nand that i swear as i hope for god's mercy.\n\"'it had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me,\nor to coax me out for a walk with her, but i had never thought\nanything of that. but one evening my eyes were opened. i had come up\nfrom the ship and found my wife out, but sarah at home. \"where's\nmary?\" i asked. \"oh, she has gone to pay some accounts.\" i was\nimpatient and paced up and down the room. \"can't you be happy for\nfive minutes without mary, jim?\" says she. \"it's a bad compliment to\nme that you can't be contented with my society for so short a time.\"\n\"that's all right, my lass,\" said i, putting out my hand towards her\nin a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they\nburned as if they were in a fever. i looked into her eyes and i read\nit all there. there was no need for her to speak, nor for me either.\ni frowned and drew my hand away. then she stood by my side in silence\nfor a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder.\n\"steady old jim!\" said she, and with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran\nout of the room.\n\"'well, from that time sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul,\nand she is a woman who can hate, too. i was a fool to let her go on\nbiding with us--a besotted fool--but i never said a word to mary, for\ni knew it would grieve her. things went on much as before, but after\na time i began to find that there was a bit of a change in mary\nherself. she had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she\nbecame queer and suspicious, wanting to know where i had been and\nwhat i had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what i had\nin my pockets, and a thousand such follies. day by day she grew\nqueerer and more irritable, and we had ceaseless rows about nothing.\ni was fairly puzzled by it all. sarah avoided me now, but she and\nmary were just inseparable. i can see now how she was plotting and\nscheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me, but i was such a\nblind beetle that i could not understand it at the time. then i broke\nmy blue ribbon and began to drink again, but i think i should not\nhave done it if mary had been the same as ever. she had some reason\nto be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider\nand wider. and then this alec fairbairn chipped in, and things became\na thousand times blacker.\n\"'it was to see sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was\nto see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends\nwherever he went. he was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and\ncurled, who had seen half the world and could talk of what he had\nseen. he was good company, i won't deny it, and he had wonderful\npolite ways with him for a sailor man, so that i think there must\nhave been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle.\nfor a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it\ncross my mind that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways. and then\nat last something made me suspect, and from that day my peace was\ngone forever.\n\"'it was only a little thing, too. i had come into the parlour\nunexpected, and as i walked in at the door i saw a light of welcome\non my wife's face. but as she saw who it was it faded again, and she\nturned away with a look of disappointment. that was enough for me.\nthere was no one but alec fairbairn whose step she could have\nmistaken for mine. if i could have seen him then i should have killed\nhim, for i have always been like a madman when my temper gets loose.\nmary saw the devil's light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her\nhands on my sleeve. \"don't, jim, don't!\" says she. \"where's sarah?\" i\nasked. \"in the kitchen,\" says she. \"sarah,\" says i as i went in,\n\"this man fairbairn is never to darken my door again.\" \"why not?\"\nsays she. \"because i order it.\" \"oh!\" says she, \"if my friends are\nnot good enough for this house, then i am not good enough for it\neither.\" \"you can do what you like,\" says i, \"but if fairbairn shows\nhis face here again i'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.\"\nshe was frightened by my face, i think, for she never answered a\nword, and the same evening she left my house.\n\"'well, i don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of\nthis woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my\nwife by encouraging her to misbehave. anyway, she took a house just\ntwo streets off and let lodgings to sailors. fairbairn used to stay\nthere, and mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him.\nhow often she went i don't know, but i followed her one day, and as i\nbroke in at the door fairbairn got away over the back garden wall,\nlike the cowardly skunk that he was. i swore to my wife that i would\nkill her if i found her in his company again, and i led her back with\nme, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. there\nwas no trace of love between us any longer. i could see that she\nhated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink,\nthen she despised me as well.\n\"'well, sarah found that she could not make a living in liverpool, so\nshe went back, as i understand, to live with her sister in croydon,\nand things jogged on much the same as ever at home. and then came\nthis week and all the misery and ruin.\n\"'it was in this way. we had gone on the may day for a round voyage\nof seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our\nplates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours. i left\nthe ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my\nwife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. the\nthought was in my head as i turned into my own street, and at that\nmoment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of\nfairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me\nas i stood watching them from the footpath.\n\"'i tell you, and i give you my word for it, that from that moment i\nwas not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when i look\nback on it. i had been drinking hard of late, and the two things\ntogether fairly turned my brain. there's something throbbing in my\nhead now, like a docker's hammer, but that morning i seemed to have\nall niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.\n\"'well, i took to my heels, and i ran after the cab. i had a heavy\noak stick in my hand, and i tell you i saw red from the first; but as\ni ran i got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without\nbeing seen. they pulled up soon at the railway station. there was a\ngood crowd round the booking-office, so i got quite close to them\nwithout being seen. they took tickets for new brighton. so did i, but\ni got in three carriages behind them. when we reached it they walked\nalong the parade, and i was never more than a hundred yards from\nthem. at last i saw them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was\na very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler\non the water.\n\"'it was just as if they had been given into my hands. there was a\nbit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. i\nhired a boat for myself, and i pulled after them. i could see the\nblur of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as i, and\nthey must have been a long mile from the shore before i caught them\nup. the haze was like a curtain all round us, and there were we three\nin the middle of it. my god, shall i ever forget their faces when\nthey saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them? she\nscreamed out. he swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar,\nfor he must have seen death in my eyes. i got past it and got one in\nwith my stick that crushed his head like an egg. i would have spared\nher, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him,\ncrying out to him, and calling him \"alec.\" i struck again, and she\nlay stretched beside him. i was like a wild beast then that had\ntasted blood. if sarah had been there, by the lord, she should have\njoined them. i pulled out my knife, and--well, there! i've said\nenough. it gave me a kind of savage joy when i thought how sarah\nwould feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had\nbrought about. then i tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank,\nand stood by until they had sunk. i knew very well that the owner\nwould think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had\ndrifted off out to sea. i cleaned myself up, got back to land, and\njoined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed.\nthat night i made up the packet for sarah cushing, and next day i\nsent it from belfast.\n\"'there you have the whole truth of it. you can hang me, or do what\nyou like with me, but you cannot punish me as i have been punished\nalready. i cannot shut my eyes but i see those two faces staring at\nme--staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze.\ni killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if i have\nanother night of it i shall be either mad or dead before morning. you\nwon't put me alone into a cell, sir?  for pity's sake don't, and may\nyou be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.'\n\"what is the meaning of it, watson?\" said holmes solemnly as he laid\ndown the paper. \"what object is served by this circle of misery and\nviolence and fear? it must tend to some end, or else our universe is\nruled by chance, which is unthinkable. but what end? there is the\ngreat standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from\nan answer as ever.\"\nthe adventure of the red circle\ntable of contents\npart one\npart two\nchapter i\npart one\n\"well, mrs. warren, i cannot see that you have any particular cause\nfor uneasiness, nor do i understand why i, whose time is of some\nvalue, should interfere in the matter. i really have other things to\nengage me.\" so spoke sherlock holmes and turned back to the great\nscrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent\nmaterial.\nbut the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex.\nshe held her ground firmly.\n\"you arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,\" she\nsaid--\"mr. fairdale hobbs.\"\n\"ah, yes--a simple matter.\"\n\"but he would never cease talking of it--your kindness, sir, and the\nway in which you brought light into the darkness. i remembered his\nwords when i was in doubt and darkness myself. i know you could if\nyou only would.\"\nholmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him\njustice, upon the side of kindliness. the two forces made him lay\ndown his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his\nchair.\n\"well, well, mrs. warren, let us hear about it, then.  you don't\nobject to tobacco, i take it? thank you, watson--the matches! you are\nuneasy, as i understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms\nand you cannot see him. why, bless you, mrs. warren, if i were your\nlodger you often would not see me for weeks on end.\"\n\"no doubt, sir; but this is different. it frightens me, mr. holmes. i\ncan't sleep for fright. to hear his quick step moving here and moving\nthere from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so\nmuch as a glimpse of him--it's more than i can stand. my husband is\nas nervous over it as i am, but he is out at his work all day, while\ni get no rest from it. what is he hiding for? what has he done?\nexcept for the girl, i am all alone in the house with him, and it's\nmore than my nerves can stand.\"\nholmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the\nwoman's shoulder. he had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he\nwished. the scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated\nfeatures smoothed into their usual commonplace. she sat down in the\nchair which he had indicated.\n\"if i take it up i must understand every detail,\" said he. \"take time\nto consider. the smallest point may be the most essential. you say\nthat the man came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board\nand lodging?\"\n\"he asked my terms, sir. i said fifty shillings a week. there is a\nsmall sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the\nhouse.\"\n\"well?\"\n\"he said, 'i'll pay you five pounds a week if i can have it on my own\nterms.' i'm a poor woman, sir, and mr. warren earns little, and the\nmoney meant much to me. he took out a ten-pound note, and he held it\nout to me then and there. 'you can have the same every fortnight for\na long time to come if you keep the terms,' he said. 'if not, i'll\nhave no more to do with you.'\n\"what were the terms?\"\n\"well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. that\nwas all right. lodgers often have them. also, that he was to be left\nentirely to himself and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.\"\n\"nothing wonderful in that, surely?\"\n\"not in reason, sir. but this is out of all reason. he has been there\nfor ten days, and neither mr. warren, nor i, nor the girl has once\nset eyes upon him. we can hear that quick step of his pacing up and\ndown, up and down, night, morning, and noon; but except on that first\nnight he had never once gone out of the house.\"\n\"oh, he went out the first night, did he?\"\n\"yes, sir, and returned very late--after we were all in bed. he told\nme after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not\nto bar the door. i heard him come up the stair after midnight.\"\n\"but his meals?\"\n\"it was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang,\nleave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. then he rings again\nwhen he has finished, and we take it down from the same chair. if he\nwants anything else he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it.\"\n\"prints it?\"\n\"yes, sir; prints it in pencil. just the word, nothing more. here's\nthe one i brought to show you--soap. here's another--match. this is\none he left the first morning--daily gazette. i leave that paper with\nhis breakfast every morning.\"\n\"dear me, watson,\" said homes, staring with great curiosity at the\nslips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, \"this is\ncertainly a little unusual. seclusion i can understand; but why\nprint? printing is a clumsy process. why not write? what would it\nsuggest, watson?\"\n\"that he desired to conceal his handwriting.\"\n\"but why? what can it matter to him that his landlady should have a\nword of his writing? still, it may be as you say. then, again, why\nsuch laconic messages?\"\n\"i cannot imagine.\"\n\"it opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. the words are\nwritten with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual\npattern. you will observe that the paper is torn away at the side\nhere after the printing was done, so that the 's' of 'soap' is partly\ngone. suggestive, watson, is it not?\"\n\"of caution?\"\n\"exactly. there was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something\nwhich might give a clue to the person's identity. now. mrs. warren,\nyou say that the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded. what age\nwould he be?\"\n\"youngish, sir--not over thirty.\"\n\"well, can you give me no further indications?\"\n\"he spoke good english, sir, and yet i thought he was a foreigner by\nhis accent.\"\n\"and he was well dressed?\"\n\"very smartly dressed, sir--quite the gentleman. dark\nclothes--nothing you would note.\"\n\"he gave no name?\"\n\"no, sir.\"\n\"and has had no letters or callers?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"but surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?\"\n\"no, sir; he looks after himself entirely.\"\n\"dear me! that is certainly remarkable. what about his luggage?\"\n\"he had one big brown bag with him--nothing else.\"\n\"well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. do you say\nnothing has come out of that room--absolutely nothing?\"\nthe landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two\nburnt matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.\n\"they were on his tray this morning. i brought them because i had\nheard that you can read great things out of small ones.\"\nholmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\"there is nothing here,\" said he. \"the matches have, of course, been\nused to light cigarettes. that is obvious from the shortness of the\nburnt end. half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar.\nbut, dear me! this cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. the\ngentleman was bearded and moustached, you say?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"i don't understand that. i should say that only a clean-shaven man\ncould have smoked this. why, watson, even your modest moustache would\nhave been singed.\"\n\"a holder?\" i suggested.\n\"no, no; the end is matted. i suppose there could not be two people\nin your rooms, mrs. warren?\"\n\"no, sir. he eats so little that i often wonder it can keep life in\none.\"\n\"well, i think we must wait for a little more material. after all,\nyou have nothing to complain of. you have received your rent, and he\nis not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one.\nhe pays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct\nbusiness of yours. we have no excuse for an intrusion upon his\nprivacy until we have some reason to think that there is a guilty\nreason for it. i've taken up the matter, and i won't lose sight of\nit. report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my\nassistance if it should be needed.\n\"there are certainly some points of interest in this case, watson,\"\nhe remarked when the landlady had left us. \"it may, of course, be\ntrivial--individual eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than\nappears on the surface. the first thing that strike one is the\nobvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely\ndifferent from the one who engaged them.\"\n\"why should you think so?\"\n\"well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the\nonly time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the\nrooms? he came back--or someone came back--when all witnesses were\nout of the way. we have no proof that the person who came back was\nthe person who went out. then, again, the man who took the rooms\nspoke english well. this other, however, prints 'match' when it\nshould have been 'matches.' i can imagine that the word was taken out\nof a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural. the\nlaconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of english.\nyes, watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a\nsubstitution of lodgers.\"\n\"but for what possible end?\"\n\"ah! there lies our problem. there is one rather obvious line of\ninvestigation.\" he took down the great book in which, day by day, he\nfiled the agony columns of the various london journals. \"dear me!\"\nsaid he, turning over the pages, \"what a chorus of groans, cries, and\nbleatings! what a rag-bag of singular happenings! but surely the most\nvaluable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the\nunusual! this person is alone and cannot be approached by letter\nwithout a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. how is\nany news or any message to reach him from without? obviously by\nadvertisement through a newspaper. there seems no other way, and\nfortunately we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. here\nare the daily gazette extracts of the last fortnight. 'lady with a\nblack boa at prince's skating club'--that we may pass. 'surely jimmy\nwill not break his mother's heart'--that appears to be irrelevant.\n'if the lady who fainted on brixton bus'--she does not interest me.\n'every day my heart longs--' bleat, watson--unmitigated bleat! ah,\nthis is a little more possible. listen to this: 'be patient. will\nfind some sure means of communications. meanwhile, this column. g.'\nthat is two days after mrs. warren's lodger arrived. it sounds\nplausible, does it not? the mysterious one could understand english,\neven if he could not print it. let us see if we can pick up the trace\nagain. yes, here we are--three days later. 'am making successful\narrangements. patience and prudence. the clouds will pass. g.'\nnothing for a week after that. then comes something much more\ndefinite: 'the path is clearing. if i find chance signal message\nremember code agreed--one a, two b, and so on. you will hear soon.\ng.' that was in yesterday's paper, and there is nothing in to-day's.\nit's all very appropriate to mrs. warren's lodger. if we wait a\nlittle, watson, i don't doubt that the affair will grow more\nintelligible.\"\nso it proved; for in the morning i found my friend standing on the\nhearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete\nsatisfaction upon his face.\n\"how's this, watson?\" he cried, picking up the paper from the table.\n\"'high red house with white stone facings. third floor. second window\nleft. after dusk. g.' that is definite enough. i think after\nbreakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of mrs. warren's\nneighbourhood. ah, mrs. warren! what news do you bring us this\nmorning?\"\nour client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy\nwhich told of some new and momentous development.\n\"it's a police matter, mr. holmes!\" she cried. \"i'll have no more of\nit! he shall pack out of there with his baggage. i would have gone\nstraight up and told him so, only i thought it was but fair to you to\ntake your opinion first. but i'm at the end of my patience, and when\nit comes to knocking my old man about--\"\n\"knocking mr. warren about?\"\n\"using him roughly, anyway.\"\n\"but who used him roughly?\"\n\"ah! that's what we want to know! it was this morning, sir. mr.\nwarren is a timekeeper at morton and waylight's, in tottenham court\nroad. he has to be out of the house before seven. well, this morning\nhe had not gone ten paces down the road when two men came up behind\nhim, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab that was\nbeside the curb. they drove him an hour, and then opened the door and\nshot him out. he lay in the roadway so shaken in his wits that he\nnever saw what became of the cab. when he picked himself up he found\nhe was on hampstead heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies\nnow on his sofa, while i came straight round to tell you what had\nhappened.\"\n\"most interesting,\" said holmes. \"did he observe the appearance of\nthese men--did he hear them talk?\"\n\"no; he is clean dazed. he just knows that he was lifted up as if by\nmagic and dropped as if by magic. two a least were in it, and maybe\nthree.\"\n\"and you connect this attack with your lodger?\"\n\"well, we've lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever\ncame before. i've had enough of him. money's not everything. i'll\nhave him out of my house before the day is done.\"\n\"wait a bit, mrs. warren. do nothing rash. i begin to think that this\naffair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight.\nit is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger. it is\nequally clear that his enemies, lying in wait for him near your door,\nmistook your husband for him in the foggy morning light. on\ndiscovering their mistake they released him. what they would have\ndone had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture.\"\n\"well, what am i to do, mr. holmes?\"\n\"i have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, mrs. warren.\"\n\"i don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door.\ni always hear him unlock it as i go down the stair after i leave the\ntray.\"\n\"he has to take the tray in. surely we could conceal ourselves and\nsee him do it.\"\nthe landlady thought for a moment.\n\"well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. i could arrange a\nlooking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door--\"\n\"excellent!\" said holmes. \"when does he lunch?\"\n\"about one, sir.\"\n\"then dr. watson and i will come round in time. for the present, mrs.\nwarren, good-bye.\"\nat half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of mrs.\nwarren's house--a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in great orme\nstreet, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the british\nmuseum. standing as it does near the corner of the street, it\ncommands a view down howe street, with its ore pretentious houses.\nholmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential\nflats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.\n\"see, watson!\" said he. \"'high red house with stone facings.' there\nis the signal station all right. we know the place, and we know the\ncode; so surely our task should be simple. there's a 'to let' card in\nthat window. it is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate\nhas access. well, mrs. warren, what now?\"\n\"i have it all ready for you. if you will both come up and leave your\nboots below on the landing, i'll put you there now.\"\nit was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. the mirror\nwas so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the\ndoor opposite. we had hardly settled down in it, and mrs. warren left\nus, when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had\nrung. presently the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down\nupon a chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily,\ndeparted. crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our\neyes fixed upon the mirror. suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps\ndied away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved,\nand two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. an\ninstant later it was hurriedly replaced, and i caught a glimpse of a\ndark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the\nbox-room. then the door crashed to, the key turned once more, and all\nwas silence. holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down\nthe stair.\n\"i will call again in the evening,\" said he to the expectant\nlandlady. \"i think, watson, we can discuss this business better in\nour own quarters.\"\n\"my surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,\" said he, speaking\nfrom the depths of his easy-chair. \"there has been a substitution of\nlodgers. what i did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and\nno ordinary woman, watson.\"\n\"she saw us.\"\n\"well, she saw something to alarm her. that is certain. the general\nsequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? a couple seek refuge\nin london from a very terrible and instant danger. the measure of\nthat danger is the rigour of their precautions. the man, who has some\nwork which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety\nwhile he does it. it is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an\noriginal fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even\nknown to the landlady who supplies her with food. the printed\nmessages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered\nby her writing. the man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide\ntheir enemies to her. since he cannot communicate with her direct, he\nhas recourse to the agony column of a paper. so far all is clear.\"\n\"but what is at the root of it?\"\n\"ah, yes, watson--severely practical, as usual! what is at the root\nof it all? mrs. warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and\nassumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. this much we can say:\nthat it is no ordinary love escapade. you saw the woman's face at the\nsign of danger. we have heard, too, of the attack upon the landlord,\nwhich was undoubtedly meant for the lodger. these alarms, and the\ndesperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one of life or\ndeath. the attack upon mr. warren further shows that the enemy,\nwhoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the\nfemale lodger for the male. it is very curious and complex, watson.\"\n\"why should you go further in it? what have you to gain from it?\"\n\"what, indeed? it is art for art's sake, watson. i suppose when you\ndoctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?\"\n\"for my education, holmes.\"\n\"education never ends, watson. it is a series of lessons with the\ngreatest for the last. this is an instructive case. there is neither\nmoney nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up. when\ndusk comes we should find ourselves one stage advanced in our\ninvestigation.\"\nwhen we returned to mrs. warren's rooms, the gloom of a london winter\nevening had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead monotone of\ncolour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and\nthe blurred haloes of the gas-lamps. as we peered from the darkened\nsitting-room of the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high\nup through the obscurity.\n\"someone is moving in that room,\" said holmes in a whisper, his gaunt\nand eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. \"yes, i can see his\nshadow. there he is again! he has a candle in his hand. now he is\npeering across. he wants to be sure that she is on the lookout. now\nhe begins to flash. take the message also, watson, that we may check\neach other. a single flash--that is a, surely. now, then. how many\ndid you make it? twenty. do did in. that should mean t. at--that's\nintelligible enough. another t. surely this is the beginning of a\nsecond word. now, then--tenta. dead stop. that can't be all, watson?\nattenta gives no sense. nor is it any better as three words at, ten,\nta, unless t. a. are a person's initials. there it goes again! what's\nthat? atte--why, it is the same message over again. curious, watson,\nvery curious. now he is off once more! at--why he is repeating it for\nthe third time. attenta three times! how often will he repeat it? no,\nthat seems to be the finish. he has withdrawn form the window. what\ndo you make of it, watson?\"\n\"a cipher message, holmes.\"\nmy companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. \"and not a very\nobscure cipher, watson,\" said he. \"why, of course, it is italian! the\na means that it is addressed to a woman. 'beware! beware! beware!'\nhow's that, watson?\n\"i believe you have hit it.\"\n\"not a doubt of it. it is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to\nmake it more so. but beware of what? wait a bit, he is coming to the\nwindow once more.\"\nagain we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of\nthe small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. they\ncame more rapidly than before--so rapid that it was hard to follow\nthem.\n\"pericolo--pericolo--eh, what's that, watson? 'danger,' isn't it?\nyes, by jove, it's a danger signal. there he goes again! peri.\nhalloa, what on earth--\"\nthe light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had\ndisappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty\nbuilding, with its tiers of shining casements. that last warning cry\nhad been suddenly cut short. how, and by whom? the same thought\noccurred on the instant to us both. holmes sprang up from where he\ncrouched by the window.\n\"this is serious, watson,\" he cried. \"there is some devilry going\nforward! why should such a message stop in such a way? i should put\nscotland yard in touch with this business--and yet, it is too\npressing for us to leave.\"\n\"shall i go for the police?\"\n\"we must define the situation a little more clearly. it may bear some\nmore innocent interpretation. come, watson, let us go across\nourselves and see what we can make of it.\"\nchapter ii\npart two\nas we walked rapidly down howe street i glanced back at the building\nwhich we had left. there, dimly outlined at the top window, i could\nsee the shadow of a head, a woman's head, gazing tensely, rigidly,\nout into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal\nof that interrupted message. at the doorway of the howe street flats\na man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the\nrailing. he started as the hall-light fell upon our faces.\n\"holmes!\" he cried.\n\"why, gregson!\" said my companion as he shook hands with the scotland\nyard detective. \"journeys end with lovers' meetings. what brings you\nhere?\"\n\"the same reasons that bring you, i expect,\" said gregson. \"how you\ngot on to it i can't imagine.\"\n\"different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. i've been\ntaking the signals.\"\n\"signals?\"\n\"yes, from that window. they broke off in the middle. we came over to\nsee the reason. but since it is safe in your hands i see no object in\ncontinuing this business.\"\n\"wait a bit!\" cried gregson eagerly. \"i'll do you this justice, mr.\nholmes, that i was never in a case yet that i didn't feel stronger\nfor having you on my side. there's only the one exit to these flats,\nso we have him safe.\"\n\"who is he?\"\n\"well, well, we score over you for once, mr. holmes. you must give us\nbest this time.\" he struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on\nwhich a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a\nfour-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street. \"may i\nintroduce you to mr. sherlock holmes?\" he said to the cabman. \"this\nis mr. leverton, of pinkerton's american agency.\"\n\"the hero of the long island cave mystery?\" said holmes. \"sir, i am\npleased to meet you.\"\nthe american, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven,\nhatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation. \"i am on the\ntrail of my life now, mr. holmes,\" said he. \"if i can get gorgiano--\"\n\"what! gorgiano of the red circle?\"\n\"oh, he has a european fame, has he? well, we've learned all about\nhim in america. we know he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet\nwe have nothing positive we can take him on. i tracked him over from\nnew york, and i've been close to him for a week in london, waiting\nsome excuse to get my hand on his collar. mr. gregson and i ran him\nto ground in that big tenement house, and there's only one door, so\nhe can't slip us. there's three folk come out since he went in, but\ni'll swear he wasn't one of them.\"\n\"mr. holmes talks of signals,\" said gregson. \"i expect, as usual, he\nknows a good deal that we don't.\"\nin a few clear words holmes explained the situation as it had\nappeared to us. the american struck his hands together with vexation.\n\"he's on to us!\" he cried.\n\"why do you think so?\"\n\"well, it figures out that way, does it not? here he is, sending out\nmessages to an accomplice--there are several of his gang in london.\nthen suddenly, just as by your own account he was telling them that\nthere was danger, he broke short off. what could it mean except that\nfrom the window he had suddenly either caught sight of us in the\nstreet, or in some way come to understand how close the danger was,\nand that he must act right away if he was to avoid it? what do you\nsuggest, mr. holmes?\"\n\"that we go up at once and see for ourselves.\"\n\"but we have no warrant for his arrest.\"\n\"he is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,\" said\ngregson. \"that is good enough for the moment. when we have him by the\nheels we can see if new york can't help us to keep him. i'll take the\nresponsibility of arresting him now.\"\nour official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence,\nbut never in that of courage. gregson climbed the stair to arrest\nthis desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and\nbusinesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official\nstaircase of scotland yard. the pinkerton man had tried to push past\nhim, but gregson had firmly elbowed him back. london dangers were the\nprivilege of the london force.\nthe door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing\najar. gregson pushed it open. within all was absolute silence and\ndarkness. i struck a match and lit the detective's lantern. as i did\nso, and as the flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of\nsurprise. on the deal boards of the carpetless floor there was\noutlined a fresh track of blood. the red steps pointed towards us and\nled away from an inner room, the door of which was closed. gregson\nflung it open and held his light full blaze in front of him, while we\nall peered eagerly over his shoulders.\nin the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure\nof an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely\nhorrible in its contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly\ncrimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white\nwoodwork. his knees were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and\nfrom the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected\nthe white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. giant as\nhe was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that\nterrific blow. beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled,\ntwo-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.\n\"by george! it's black gorgiano himself!\" cried the american\ndetective. \"someone has got ahead of us this time.\"\n\"here is the candle in the window, mr. holmes,\" said gregson. \"why,\nwhatever are you doing?\"\nholmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it\nbackward and forward across the window-panes. then he peered into the\ndarkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the floor.\n\"i rather think that will be helpful,\" said he. he came over and\nstood in deep thought while the two professionals were examining the\nbody. \"you say that three people came out form the flat while you\nwere waiting downstairs,\" said he at last. \"did you observe them\nclosely?\"\n\"yes, i did.\"\n\"was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle\nsize?\"\n\"yes; he was the last to pass me.\"\n\"that is your man, i fancy. i can give you his description, and we\nhave a very excellent outline of his footmark. that should be enough\nfor you.\"\n\"not much, mr. holmes, among the millions of london.\"\n\"perhaps not. that is why i thought it best to summon this lady to\nyour aid.\"\nwe all turned round at the words. there, framed in the doorway, was a\ntall and beautiful woman--the mysterious lodger of bloomsbury. slowly\nshe advanced, her face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension,\nher eyes fixed and staring, her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark\nfigure on the floor.\n\"you have killed him!\" she muttered. \"oh, dio mio, you have killed\nhim!\" then i heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she\nsprang into the air with a cry of joy. round and round the room she\ndanced, her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming with delighted\nwonder, and a thousand pretty italian exclamations pouring from her\nlips. it was terrible and amazing to see such a woman so convulsed\nwith joy at such a sight. suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all\nwith a questioning stare.\n\"but you! you are police, are you not? you have killed giuseppe\ngorgiano. is it not so?\"\n\"we are police, madam.\"\nshe looked round into the shadows of the room.\n\"but where, then, is gennaro?\" she asked. \"he is my husband, gennaro\nlucca. i am emilia lucca, and we are both from new york. where is\ngennaro? he called me this moment from this window, and i ran with\nall my speed.\"\n\"it was i who called,\" said holmes.\n\"you! how could you call?\"\n\"your cipher was not difficult, madam. your presence here was\ndesirable. i knew that i had only to flash 'vieni' and you would\nsurely come.\"\nthe beautiful italian looked with awe at my companion.\n\"i do not understand how you know these things,\" she said. \"giuseppe\ngorgiano--how did he--\" she paused, and then suddenly her face lit up\nwith pride and delight. \"now i see it! my gennaro! my splendid,\nbeautiful gennaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it,\nwith his own strong hand he killed the monster! oh, gennaro, how\nwonderful you are! what woman could every be worthy of such a man?\"\n\"well, mrs. lucca,\" said the prosaic gregson, laying his hand upon\nthe lady's sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a notting\nhill hooligan, \"i am not very clear yet who you are or what you are;\nbut you've said enough to make it very clear that we shall want you\nat the yard.\"\n\"one moment, gregson,\" said holmes. \"i rather fancy that this lady\nmay be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. you\nunderstand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for\nthe death of the man who lies before us? what you say may be used in\nevidence. but if you think that he has acted from motives which are\nnot criminal, and which he would wish to have known, then you cannot\nserve him better than by telling us the whole story.\"\n\"now that gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,\" said the lady. \"he was a\ndevil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would\npunish my husband for having killed him.\"\n\"in that case,\" said holmes, \"my suggestion is that we lock this\ndoor, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her room,\nand form our opinion after we have heard what it is that she has to\nsay to us.\"\nhalf an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small\nsitting-room of signora lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative\nof those sinister events, the ending of which we had chanced to\nwitness. she spoke in rapid and fluent but very unconventional\nenglish, which, for the sake of clearness, i will make grammatical.\n\"i was born in posilippo, near naples,\" said she, \"and was the\ndaughter of augusto barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the\ndeputy of that part. gennaro was in my father's employment, and i\ncame to love him, as any woman must. he had neither money nor\nposition--nothing but his beauty and strength and energy--so my\nfather forbade the match. we fled together, were married at bari, and\nsold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to america. this\nwas four years ago, and we have been in new york ever since.\n\"fortune was very good to us at first. gennaro was able to do a\nservice to an italian gentleman--he saved him from some ruffians in\nthe place called the bowery, and so made a powerful friend. his name\nwas tito castalotte, and he was the senior partner of the great firm\nof castalotte and zamba, who are the chief fruit importers of new\nyork. signor zamba is an invalid, and our new friend castalotte has\nall power within the firm, which employs more than three hundred men.\nhe took my husband into his employment, made him head of a\ndepartment, and showed his good-will towards him in every way. signor\ncastalotte was a bachelor, and i believe that he felt as if gennaro\nwas his son, and both my husband and i loved him as if he were our\nfather. we had taken and furnished a little house in brooklyn, and\nour whole future seemed assured when that black cloud appeared which\nwas soon to overspread our sky.\n\"one night, when gennaro returned from his work, he brought a\nfellow-countryman back with him. his name was gorgiano, and he had\ncome also from posilippo. he was a huge man, as you can testify, for\nyou have looked upon his corpse. not only was his body that of a\ngiant but everything about him was grotesque, gigantic, and\nterrifying. his voice was like thunder in our little house. there was\nscarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked. his\nthoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and\nmonstrous. he talked, or rather roared, with such energy that others\ncould but sit and listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words. his\neyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy. he was a terrible and\nwonderful man. i thank god that he is dead!\n\"he came again and again. yet i was aware that gennaro was no more\nhappy than i was in his presence. my poor husband would sit pale and\nlistless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon\nsocial questions which made up or visitor's conversation. gennaro\nsaid nothing, but i, who knew him so well, could read in his face\nsome emotion which i had never seen there before. at first i thought\nthat it was dislike. and then, gradually, i understood that it was\nmore than dislike. it was fear--a deep, secret, shrinking fear. that\nnight--the night that i read his terror--i put my arms round him and\ni implored him by his love for me and by all that he held dear to\nhold nothing from me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed\nhim so.\n\"he told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as i listened. my poor\ngennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed\nagainst him and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of\nlife, had joined a neapolitan society, the red circle, which was\nallied to the old carbonari. the oaths and secrets of this\nbrotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was\npossible. when we had fled to america gennaro thought that he had\ncast it all off forever. what was his horror one evening to meet in\nthe streets the very man who had initiated him in naples, the giant\ngorgiano, a man who had earned the name of 'death' in the south of\nitaly, for he was red to the elbow in murder! he had come to new york\nto avoid the italian police, and he had already planted a branch of\nthis dreadful society in his new home. all this gennaro told me and\nshowed me a summons which he had received that very day, a red circle\ndrawn upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon\na certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered.\n\"that was bad enough, but worse was to come. i had noticed for some\ntime that when gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the\nevening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to my\nhusband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always\nturned upon me. one night his secret came out. i had awakened what he\ncalled 'love' within him--the love of a brute--a savage. gennaro had\nnot yet returned when he came. he pushed his way in, seized me in his\nmighty arms, hugged me in his bear's embrace, covered me with kisses,\nand implored me to come away with him. i was struggling and screaming\nwhen gennaro entered and attacked him. he struck gennaro senseless\nand fled from the house which he was never more to enter. it was a\ndeadly enemy that we made that night.\n\"a few days later came the meeting. gennaro returned from it with a\nface which told me that something dreadful had occurred. it was worse\nthan we could have imagined possible. the funds of the society were\nraised by blackmailing rich italians and threatening them with\nviolence should they refuse the money. it seems that castalotte, our\ndear friend and benefactor, had been approached. he had refused to\nyield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. it was\nresolved now that such an example should be made of them as would\nprevent any other victim from rebelling. at the meeting it was\narranged that he and his house should be blown up with dynamite.\nthere was a drawing of lots as to who should carry out the deed.\ngennaro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his\nhand in the bag. no doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion,\nfor it was the fatal disc with the red circle upon it, the mandate\nfor murder, which lay upon his palm. he was to kill his best friend,\nor he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades.\nit was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared\nor hated by injuring not only their own persons but those whom they\nloved, and it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over\nmy poor gennaro's head and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.\n\"all that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each\nstrengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. the very next\nevening had been fixed for the attempt. by midday my husband and i\nwere on our way to london, but not before he had given our benefactor\nfull warning of this danger, and had also left such information for\nthe police as would safeguard his life for the future.\n\"the rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. we were sure that our\nenemies would be behind us like our own shadows. gorgiano had his\nprivate reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless,\ncunning, and untiring he could be. both italy and america are full of\nstories of his dreadful powers. if ever they were exerted it would be\nnow. my darling made use of the few clear days which our start had\ngiven us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no\npossible danger could reach me. for his own part, he wished to be\nfree that he might communicate both with the american and with the\nitalian police. i do not myself know where he lived, or how. all that\ni learned was through the columns of a newspaper. but once as i\nlooked through my window, i saw two italians watching the house, and\ni understood that in some way gorgiano had found our retreat. finally\ngennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signal to me from a\ncertain window, but when the signals came they were nothing but\nwarnings, which were suddenly interrupted. it is very clear to me now\nthat he knew gorgiano to be close upon him, and that, thank god! he\nwas ready for him when he came. and now, gentleman, i would ask you\nwhether we have anything to fear from the law, or whether any judge\nupon earth would condemn my gennaro for what he has done?\"\n\"well, mr. gregson,\" said the american, looking across at the\nofficial, \"i don't know what your british point of view may be, but i\nguess that in new york this lady's husband will receive a pretty\ngeneral vote of thanks.\"\n\"she will have to come with me and see the chief,\" gregson answered.\n\"if what she says is corroborated, i do not think she or her husband\nhas much to fear.  but what i can't make head or tail of, mr. holmes,\nis how on earth you got yourself mixed up in the matter.\"\n\"education, gregson, education.  still seeking knowledge at the old\nuniversity.  well, watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic\nand grotesque to add to your collection.  by the way, it is not eight\no'clock, and a wagner night at covent garden!  if we hurry, we might\nbe in time for the second act.\"\nthe adventure of the bruce-partington plans\nin the third week of november, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog\nsettled down upon london. from the monday to the thursday i doubt\nwhether it was ever possible from our windows in baker street to see\nthe loom of the opposite houses. the first day holmes had spent in\ncross-indexing his huge book of references. the second and third had\nbeen patiently occupied upon a subject which he hand recently made\nhis hobby--the music of the middle ages. but when, for the fourth\ntime, after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy,\nheavy brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops\nupon the window-panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could\nendure this drab existence no longer. he paced restlessly about our\nsitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails,\ntapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction.\n\"nothing of interest in the paper, watson?\" he said.\nin was aware that by anything of interest, holmes meant anything of\ncriminal interest. there was the news of a revolution, of a possible\nwar, and of an impending change of government; but these did not come\nwithin the horizon of my companion. i could see nothing recorded in\nthe shape of crime which was not commonplace and futile. holmes\ngroaned and resumed hs restless meanderings.\n\"the london criminal is certainly a dull fellow,\" said he in the\nquerulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him. \"look out\nthis window, watson. see how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and\nthen blend once more into the cloud-bank. the thief or the murderer\ncould roam london on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen\nuntil he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.\"\n\"there have,\" said i, \"been numerous petty thefts.\"\nholmes snorted his contempt.\n\"this great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than\nthat,\" said he. \"it is fortunate for this community that i am not a\ncriminal.\"\n\"it is, indeed!\" said i heartily.\n\"suppose that i were brooks or woodhouse, or any of the fifty men who\nhave good reason for taking my life, how long could i survive against\nmy own pursuit? a summons, a bogus appointment, and all would be\nover. it is well they don't have days of fog in the latin\ncountries--the countries of assassination. by jove! here comes\nsomething at last to break our dead monotony.\"\nit was the maid with a telegram. holmes tore it open and burst out\nlaughing.\n\"well, well! what next?\" said he. \"brother mycroft is coming round.\"\n\"why not?\" i asked.\n\"why not? it is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane.\nmycroft has his rails and he runs on them. his pall mall lodgings,\nthe diogenes club, whitehall--that is his cycle. once, and only once,\nhe has been here. what upheaval can possibly have derailed him?\"\n\"does he not explain?\"\nholmes handed me his brother's telegram.\nmust see you over cadogen west. coming at once.\nmycroft.\n\"cadogen west? i have heard the name.\"\n\"it recalls nothing to my mind. but that mycroft should break out in\nthis erratic fashion! a planet might as well leave its orbit. by the\nway, do you know what mycroft is?\"\ni had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the\nadventure of the greek interpreter.\n\"you told me that he had some small office under the british\ngovernment.\"\nholmes chuckled.\n\"i did not know you quite so well in those days. one has to be\ndiscreet when one talks of high matters of state. you are right in\nthinking that he under the british government. you would also be\nright in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the british\ngovernment.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"i thought i might surprise you. mycroft draws four hundred and fifty\npounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind,\nwill receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most\nindispensable man in the country.\"\n\"but how?\"\n\"well, his position is unique. he has made it for himself. there has\nnever been anything like it before, nor will be again. he has the\ntidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for\nstoring facts, of any man living. the same great powers which i have\nturned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular\nbusiness. the conclusions of every department are passed to him, and\nhe is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the\nbalance. all other men are specialists, but his specialism is\nomniscience. we will suppose that a minister needs information as to\na point which involves the navy, india, canada and the bimetallic\nquestion; he could get his separate advices from various departments\nupon each, but only mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how\neach factor would affect the other. they began by using him as a\nshort-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. in\nthat great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed\nout in an instant. again and again his word has decided the national\npolicy. he lives in it. he thinks of nothing else save when, as an\nintellectual exercise, he unbends if i call upon him and ask him to\nadvise me on one of my little problems. but jupiter is descending\nto-day. what on earth can it mean? who is cadogan west, and what is\nhe to mycroft?\"\n\"i have it,\" i cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon the\nsofa. \"yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! cadogen west was the young\nman who was found dead on the underground on tuesday morning.\"\nholmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.\n\"this must be serious, watson. a death which has caused my brother to\nalter his habits can be no ordinary one. what in the world can he\nhave to do with it? the case was featureless as i remember it. the\nyoung man had apparently fallen out of the train and killed himself.\nhe had not been robbed, and there was no particular reason to suspect\nviolence. is that not so?\"\n\"there has been an inquest,\" said i, \"and a good many fresh facts\nhave come out. looked at more closely, i should certainly say that it\nwas a curious case.\"\n\"judging by its effect upon my brother, i should think it must be a\nmost extraordinary one.\" he snuggled down in his armchair. \"now,\nwatson, let us have the facts.\"\n\"the man's name was arthur cadogan west. he was twenty-seven years of\nage, unmarried, and a clerk at woolwich arsenal.\"\n\"government employ. behold the link with brother mycroft!\"\n\"he left woolwich suddenly on monday night. was last seen by his\nfiancee, miss violet westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about\n7.30 that evening. there was no quarrel between them and she can give\nno motive for his action. the next thing heard of him was when his\ndead body was discovered by a plate-layer named mason, just outside\naldgate station on the underground system in london.\"\n\"when?\"\n\"the body was found at six on tuesday morning. it was lying wide of\nthe metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a\npoint close to the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in\nwhich it runs. the head was badly crushed--an injury which might well\nhave been caused by a fall from the train. the body could only have\ncome on the line in that way. had it been carried down from any\nneighbouring street, it must have passed the station barriers, where\na collector is always standing. this point seems absolutely certain.\"\n\"very good. the case is definite enough. the man, dead or alive,\neither fell or was precipitated from a train. so much is clear to me.\ncontinue.\"\n\"the trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body\nwas found are those which run from west to east, some being purely\nmetropolitan, and some from willesden and outlying junctions. it can\nbe stated for certain that this young man, when he met his death, was\ntravelling in this direction at some late hour of the night, but at\nwhat point he entered the train it is impossible to state.\"\n\"his ticket, of course, would show that.\"\n\"there was no ticket in his pockets.\"\n\"no ticket! dear me, watson, this is really very singular. according\nto my experience it is not possible to reach the platform of a\nmetropolitan train without exhibiting one's ticket. presumably, then,\nthe young man had one. was it taken from him in order to conceal the\nstation from which he came? it is possible. or did he drop it in the\ncarriage? that is also possible. but the point is of curious\ninterest. i understand that there was no sign of robbery?\"\n\"apparently not. there is a list here of his possessions. his purse\ncontained two pounds fifteen. he had also a check-book on the\nwoolwich branch of the capital and counties bank. through this his\nidentity was established. there were also two dress-circle tickets\nfor the woolwich theatre, dated for that very evening. also a small\npacket of technical papers.\"\nholmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.\n\"there we have it at last, watson! british government--woolwich.\narsenal--technical papers--brother mycroft, the chain is complete.\nbut here he comes, if i am not mistaken, to speak for himself.\"\na moment later the tall and portly form of mycroft holmes was ushered\ninto the room. heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of\nuncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame\nthere was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its\nsteel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its\nplay of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross\nbody and remembered only the dominant mind.\nat his heels came our old friend lestrade, of scotland yard--thin and\naustere. the gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest.\nthe detective shook hands without a word. mycroft holmes struggled\nout of his overcoat and subsided into an armchair.\n\"a most annoying business, sherlock,\" said he. \"i extremely dislike\naltering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. in\nthe present state of siam it is most awkward that i should be away\nfrom the office. but it is a real crisis. i have never seen the prime\nminister so upset. as to the admiralty--it is buzzing like an\noverturned bee-hive. have you read up the case?\"\n\"we have just done so. what were the technical papers?\"\n\"ah, there's the point! fortunately, it has not come out. the press\nwould be furious if it did. the papers which this wretched youth had\nin his pocket were the plans of the bruce-partington submarine.\"\nmycroft holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the\nimportance of the subject. his brother and i sat expectant.\n\"surely you have heard of it? i thought everyone had heard of it.\"\n\"only as a name.\"\n\"its importance can hardly be exaggerated. it has been the most\njealously guarded of all government secrets. you may take it from me\nthat naval warfare becomes impossible within the radius of a\nbruce-partington's operation. two years ago a very large sum was\nsmuggled through the estimates and was expended in acquiring a\nmonopoly of the invention. every effort has been made to keep the\nsecret. the plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some\nthirty separate patents, each essential to the working of the whole,\nare kept in an elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the\narsenal, with burglar-proof doors and windows. under no conceivable\ncircumstances were the plans to be taken from the office. if the\nchief constructor of the navy desired to consult them, even he was\nforced to go to the woolwich office for the purpose. and yet here we\nfind them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of\nlondon. from an official point of view it's simply awful.\"\n\"but you have recovered them?\"\n\"no, sherlock, no! that's the pinch. we have not. ten papers were\ntaken from woolwich. there were seven in the pocket of cadogan west.\nthe three most essential are gone--stolen, vanished. you must drop\neverything, sherlock. never mind your usual petty puzzles of the\npolice-court. it's a vital international problem that you have to\nsolve. why did cadogan west take the papers, where are the missing\nones, how did he die, how came his body where it was found, how can\nthe evil be set right? find an answer to all these questions, and you\nwill have done good service for your country.\"\n\"why do you not solve it yourself, mycroft? you can see as far as i.\"\n\"possibly, sherlock. but it is a question of getting details. give me\nyour details, and from an armchair i will return you an excellent\nexpert opinion. but to run here and run there, to cross-question\nrailway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to my eye--it is not\nmy mtier. no, you are the one man who can clear the matter up. if\nyou have a fancy to see your name in the next honours list--\"\nmy friend smiled and shook his head.\n\"i play the game for the game's own sake,\" said he. \"but the problem\ncertainly presents some points of interest, and i shall be very\npleased to look into it. some more facts, please.\"\n\"i have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of paper,\ntogether with a few addresses which you will find of service. the\nactual official guardian of the papers is the famous government\nexpert, sir james walter, whose decorations and sub-titles fill two\nlines of a book of reference. he has grown gray in the service, is a\ngentleman, a favoured guest in the most exalted houses, and, above\nall, a man whose patriotism is beyond suspicion. he is one of two who\nhave a key of the safe. i may add that the papers were undoubtedly in\nthe office during working hours on monday, and that sir james left\nfor london about three o'clock taking his key with him. he was at the\nhouse of admiral sinclair at barclay square during the whole of the\nevening when this incident occurred.\"\n\"has the fact been verified?\"\n\"yes; his brother, colonel valentine walter, has testified to his\ndeparture from woolwich, and admiral sinclair to his arrival in\nlondon; so sir james is no longer a direct factor in the problem.\"\n\"who was the other man with a key?\"\n\"the senior clerk and draughtsman, mr. sidney johnson. he is a man of\nforty, married, with five children. he is a silent, morose man, but\nhe has, on the whole, an excellent record in the public service. he\nis unpopular with his colleagues, but a hard worker. according to his\nown account, corroborated only by the word of his wife, he was at\nhome the whole of monday evening after office hours, and his key has\nnever left the watch-chain upon which it hangs.\"\n\"tell us about cadogan west.\"\n\"he has been ten years in the service and has done good work. he has\nthe reputation of being hot-headed and imperious, but a straight,\nhonest man. we have nothing against him. he was next sidney johnson\nin the office. his duties brought him into daily, personal contact\nwith the plans. no one else had the handling of them.\"\n\"who locked up the plans that night?\"\n\"mr. sidney johnson, the senior clerk.\"\n\"well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away. they are\nactually found upon the person of this junior clerk, cadogan west.\nthat seems final, does it not?\"\n\"it does, sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained. in the\nfirst place, why did he take them?\"\n\"i presume they were of value?\"\n\"he could have got several thousands for them very easily.\"\n\"can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to london\nexcept to sell them?\"\n\"no, i cannot.\"\n\"then we must take that as our working hypothesis. young west took\nthe papers. now this could only be done by having a false key--\"\n\"several false keys. he had to open the building and the room.\"\n\"he had, then, several false keys. he took the papers to london to\nsell the secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans themselves\nback in the safe next morning before they were missed. while in\nlondon on this treasonable mission he met his end.\"\n\"how?\"\n\"we will suppose that he was travelling back to woolwich when he was\nkilled and thrown out of the compartment.\"\n\"aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the station\nlondon bridge, which would be his route to woolwich.\"\n\"many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass\nlondon bridge. there was someone in the carriage, for example, with\nwhom he was having an absorbing interview. this interview led to a\nviolent scene in which he lost his life. possibly he tried to leave\nthe carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his end. the other\nclosed the door. there was a thick fog, and nothing could be seen.\"\n\"no better explanation can be given with our present knowledge; and\nyet consider, sherlock, how much you leave untouched. we will\nsuppose, for argument's sake, that young cadogan west had determined\nto convey these papers to london. he would naturally have made an\nappointment with the foreign agent and kept his evening clear.\ninstead of that he took two tickets for the theatre, escorted his\nfiancee halfway there, and then suddenly disappeared.\"\n\"a blind,\" said lestrade, who had sat listening with some impatience\nto the conversation.\n\"a very singular one. that is objection no. 1. objection no. 2: we\nwill suppose that he reaches london and sees the foreign agent. he\nmust bring back the papers before morning or the loss will be\ndiscovered. he took away ten. only seven were in his pocket. what had\nbecome of the other three? he certainly would not leave them of his\nown free will. then, again, where is the price of his treason? once\nwould have expected to find a large sum of money in his pocket.\"\n\"it seems to me perfectly clear,\" said lestrade. \"i have no doubt at\nall as to what occurred. he took the papers to sell them. he saw the\nagent. they could not agree as to price. he started home again, but\nthe agent went with him. in the train the agent murdered him, took\nthe more essential papers, and threw his body from the carriage. that\nwould account for everything, would it not?\"\n\"why had he no ticket?\"\n\"the ticket would have shown which station was nearest the agent's\nhouse. therefore he took it from the murdered man's pocket.\"\n\"good, lestrade, very good,\" said holmes. \"your theory holds\ntogether. but if this is true, then the case is at an end. on the one\nhand, the traitor is dead. on the other, the plans of the\nbruce-partington submarine are presumably already on the continent.\nwhat is there for us to do?\"\n\"to act, sherlock--to act!\" cried mycroft, springing to his feet.\n\"all my instincts are against this explanation. use your powers! go\nto the scene of the crime! see the people concerned! leave no stone\nunturned! in all your career you have never had so great a chance of\nserving your country.\"\n\"well, well!\" said holmes, shrugging his shoulders. \"come, watson!\nand you, lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour\nor two? we will begin our investigation by a visit to aldgate\nstation. good-bye, mycroft. i shall let you have a report before\nevening, but i warn you in advance that you have little to expect.\"\nan hour later holmes, lestrade and i stood upon the underground\nrailroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately\nbefore aldgate station. a courteous red-faced old gentleman\nrepresented the railway company.\n\"this is where the young man's body lay,\" said he, indicating a spot\nabout three feet from the metals. \"it could not have fallen from\nabove, for these, as you see, are all blank walls. therefore, it\ncould only have come from a train, and that train, so far as we can\ntrace it, must have passed about midnight on monday.\"\n\"have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?\"\n\"there are no such signs, and no ticket has been found.\"\n\"no record of a door being found open?\"\n\"none.\"\n\"we have had some fresh evidence this morning,\" said lestrade. \"a\npassenger who passed aldgate in an ordinary metropolitan train about\n11.40 on monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud, as of a\nbody striking the line, just before the train reached the station.\nthere was dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen. he made no\nreport of it at the time. why, whatever is the matter with mr.\nholmes?\"\nmy friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon\nhis face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the\ntunnel. aldgate is a junction, and there was a network of points. on\nthese his eager, questioning eyes were fixed, and i saw on his keen,\nalert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils,\nand concentration of the heavy, tufted brows which i knew so well.\n\"points,\" he muttered; \"the points.\"\n\"what of it? what do you mean?\"\n\"i suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as\nthis?\"\n\"no; they are very few.\"\n\"and a curve, too. points, and a curve. by jove! if it were only so.\"\n\"what is it, mr. holmes? have you a clue?\"\n\"an idea--an indication, no more. but the case certainly grows in\ninterest. unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? i do not see any\nindications of bleeding on the line.\"\n\"there were hardly any.\"\n\"but i understand that there was a considerable wound.\"\n\"the bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.\"\n\"and yet one would have expected some bleeding. would it be possible\nfor me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard\nthe thud of a fall in the fog?\"\n\"i fear not, mr. holmes. the train has been broken up before now, and\nthe carriages redistributed.\"\n\"i can assure you, mr. holmes,\" said lestrade, \"that every carriage\nhas been carefully examined. i saw to it myself.\"\nit was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was\nimpatient with less alert intelligences than his own.\n\"very likely,\" said he, turning away. \"as it happens, it was not the\ncarriages which i desired to examine. watson, we have done all we can\nhere. we need not trouble you any further, mr. lestrade. i think our\ninvestigations must now carry us to woolwich.\"\nat london bridge, holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he\nhanded to me before dispatching it. it ran thus:\nsee some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.\nmeanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at baker street,\na complete list of all foreign spies or international agents known to\nbe in england, with full address.\nsherlock.\n\"that should be helpful, watson,\" he remarked as we took our seats in\nthe woolwich train.  \"we certainly owe brother mycroft a debt for\nhaving introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable\ncase.\"\nhis eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung\nenergy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance\nhad opened up a stimulating line of thought. see the foxhound with\nhanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and\ncompare it with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining\nmuscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent--such was the change in\nholmes since the morning. he was a different man from the limp and\nlounging figure in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled\nso restlessly only a few hours before round the fog-girt room.\n\"there is material here. there is scope,\" said he. \"i am dull indeed\nnot to have understood its possibilities.\"\n\"even now they are dark to me.\"\n\"the end is dark to me also, but i have hold of one idea which may\nlead us far. the man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the\nroof of a carriage.\"\n\"on the roof!\"\n\"remarkable, is it not? but consider the facts. is it a coincidence\nthat it is found at the very point where the train pitches and sways\nas it comes round on the points? is not that the place where an\nobject upon the roof might be expected to fall off? the points would\naffect no object inside the train. either the body fell from the\nroof, or a very curious coincidence has occurred. but now consider\nthe question of the blood. of course, there was no bleeding on the\nline if the body had bled elsewhere. each fact is suggestive in\nitself. together they have a cumulative force.\"\n\"and the ticket, too!\" i cried.\n\"exactly.  we could not explain the absence of a ticket. this would\nexplain it. everything fits together.\"\n\"but suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from unravelling\nthe mystery of his death. indeed, it becomes not simpler but\nstranger.\"\n\"perhaps,\" said holmes, thoughtfully, \"perhaps.\" he relapsed into a\nsilent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in\nwoolwich station. there he called a cab and drew mycroft's paper from\nhis pocket.\n\"we have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make,\" said he.\n\"i think that sir james walter claims our first attention.\"\nthe house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns\nstretching down to the thames. as we reached it the fog was lifting,\nand a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. a butler answered\nour ring.\n\"sir james, sir!\" said he with solemn face. \"sir james died this\nmorning.\"\n\"good heavens!\" cried holmes in amazement. \"how did he die?\"\n\"perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, colonel\nvalentine?\"\n\"yes, we had best do so.\"\nwe were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later\nwe were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-beared man of fifty,\nthe younger brother of the dead scientist. his wild eyes, stained\ncheeks, and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden blow which had\nfallen upon the household. he was hardly articulate as he spoke of\nit.\n\"it was this horrible scandal,\" said he. \"my brother, sir james, was\na man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an\naffair. it broke his heart. he was always so proud of the efficiency\nof his department, and this was a crushing blow.\"\n\"we had hoped that he might have given us some indications which\nwould have helped us to clear the matter up.\"\n\"i assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to\nall of us. he had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of\nthe police. naturally he had no doubt that cadogan west was guilty.\nbut all the rest was inconceivable.\"\n\"you cannot throw any new light upon the affair?\"\n\"i know nothing myself save what i have read or heard. i have no\ndesire to be discourteous, but you can understand, mr. holmes, that\nwe are much disturbed at present, and i must ask you to hasten this\ninterview to an end.\"\n\"this is indeed an unexpected development,\" said my friend when we\nhad regained the cab. \"i wonder if the death was natural, or whether\nthe poor old fellow killed himself! if the latter, may it be taken as\nsome sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? we must leave that\nquestion to the future. now we shall turn to the cadogan wests.\"\na small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered\nthe bereaved mother. the old lady was too dazed with grief to be of\nany use to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady, who\nintroduced herself as miss violet westbury, the fiancee of the dead\nman, and the last to see him upon that fatal night.\n\"i cannot explain it, mr. holmes,\" she said. \"i have not shut an eye\nsince the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what\nthe true meaning of it can be. arthur was the most single-minded,\nchivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. he would have cut his right\nhand off before he would sell a state secret confided to his keeping.\nit is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.\"\n\"but the facts, miss westbury?\"\n\"yes, yes; i admit i cannot explain them.\"\n\"was he in any want of money?\"\n\"no; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. he had saved a\nfew hundreds, and we were to marry at the new year.\"\n\"no signs of any mental excitement? come, miss westbury, be\nabsolutely frank with us.\"\nthe quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner.\nshe coloured and hesitated.\n\"yes,\" she said at last, \"i had a feeling that there was something on\nhis mind.\"\n\"for long?\"\n\"only for the last week or so. he was thoughtful and worried. once i\npressed him about it. he admitted that there was something, and that\nit was concerned with his official life. 'it is too serious for me to\nspeak about, even to you,' said he. i could get nothing more.\"\nholmes looked grave.\n\"go on, miss westbury. even if it seems to tell against him, go on.\nwe cannot say what it may lead to.\"\n\"indeed, i have nothing more to tell. once or twice it seemed to me\nthat he was on the point of telling me something. he spoke one\nevening of the importance of the secret, and i have some recollection\nthat he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to\nhave it.\"\nmy friend's face grew graver still.\n\"anything else?\"\n\"he said that we were slack about such matters--that it would be easy\nfor a traitor to get the plans.\"\n\"was it only recently that he made such remarks?\"\n\"yes, quite recently.\"\n\"now tell us of that last evening.\"\n\"we were to go to the theatre. the fog was so thick that a cab was\nuseless. we walked, and our way took us close to the office. suddenly\nhe darted away into the fog.\"\n\"without a word?\"\n\"he gave an exclamation; that was all. i waited but he never\nreturned. then i walked home. next morning, after the office opened,\nthey came to inquire. about twelve o'clock we heard the terrible\nnews. oh, mr. holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! it was\nso much to him.\"\nholmes shook his head sadly.\n\"come, watson,\" said he, \"our ways lie elsewhere. our next station\nmust be the office from which the papers were taken.\n\"it was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries\nmake it blacker,\" he remarked as the cab lumbered off. \"his coming\nmarriage gives a motive for the crime. he naturally wanted money. the\nidea was in his head, since he spoke about it. he nearly made the\ngirl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. it is all\nvery bad.\"\n\"but surely, holmes, character goes for something? then, again, why\nshould he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a\nfelony?\"\n\"exactly! there are certainly objections. but it is a formidable case\nwhich they have to meet.\"\nmr. sidney johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and\nreceived us with that respect which my companion's card always\ncommanded. he was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his\ncheeks haggard, and his hands twitching from the nervous strain to\nwhich he had been subjected.\n\"it is bad, mr. holmes, very bad! have you heard of the death of the\nchief?\"\n\"we have just come from his house.\"\n\"the place is disorganized. the chief dead, cadogan west dead, our\npapers stolen. and yet, when we closed our door on monday evening, we\nwere as efficient an office as any in the government service. good\ngod, it's dreadful to think of! that west, of all men, should have\ndone such a thing!\"\n\"you are sure of his guilt, then?\"\n\"i can see no other way out of it. and yet i would have trusted him\nas i trust myself.\"\n\"at what hour was the office closed on monday?\"\n\"at five.\"\n\"did you close it?\"\n\"i am always the last man out.\"\n\"where were the plans?\"\n\"in that safe. i put them there myself.\"\n\"is there no watchman to the building?\"\n\"there is, but he has other departments to look after as well. he is\nan old soldier and a most trustworthy man. he saw nothing that\nevening. of course the fog was very thick.\"\n\"suppose that cadogan west wished to make his way into the building\nafter hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before the could\nreach the papers?\"\n\"yes, he would. the key of the outer door, the key of the office, and\nthe key of the safe.\"\n\"only sir james walter and you had those keys?\"\n\"i had no keys of the doors--only of the safe.\"\n\"was sir james a man who was orderly in his habits?\"\n\"yes, i think he was. i know that so far as those three keys are\nconcerned he kept them on the same ring. i have often seen them\nthere.\"\n\"and that ring went with him to london?\"\n\"he said so.\"\n\"and your key never left your possession?\"\n\"never.\"\n\"then west, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. and yet\nnone was found upon his body. one other point: if a clerk in this\noffice desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply to copy the\nplans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?\"\n\"it would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in\nan effective way.\"\n\"but i suppose either sir james, or you, or west has that technical\nknowledge?\"\n\"no doubt we had, but i beg you won't try to drag me into the matter,\nmr. holmes. what is the use of our speculating in this way when the\noriginal plans were actually found on west?\"\n\"well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking\noriginals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have\nequally served his turn.\"\n\"singular, no doubt--and yet he did so.\"\n\"every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. now there\nare three papers still missing. they are, as i understand, the vital\nones.\"\n\"yes, that is so.\"\n\"do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and\nwithout the seven others, could construct a bruce-partington\nsubmarine?\"\n\"i reported to that effect to the admiralty. but to-day i have been\nover the drawings again, and i am not so sure of it. the double\nvalves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of\nthe papers which have been returned. until the foreigners had\ninvented that for themselves they could not make the boat. of course\nthey might soon get over the difficulty.\"\n\"but the three missing drawings are the most important?\"\n\"undoubtedly.\"\n\"i think, with your permission, i will now take a stroll round the\npremises. i do not recall any other question which i desired to ask.\"\nhe examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally\nthe iron shutters of the window. it was only when we were on the lawn\noutside that his interest was strongly excited. there was a laurel\nbush outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of\nhaving been twisted or snapped. he examined them carefully with his\nlens, and then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath.\nfinally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he\npointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it\nwould be possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within\nthe room.\n\"the indications are ruined by three days' delay. they may mean\nsomething or nothing. well, watson, i do not think that woolwich can\nhelp us further. it is a small crop which we have gathered. let us\nsee if we can do better in london.\"\nyet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left woolwich\nstation. the clerk in the ticket office was able to say with\nconfidence that he saw cadogan west--whom he knew well by sight--upon\nthe monday night, and that he went to london by the 8.15 to london\nbridge. he was alone and took a single third-class ticket. the clerk\nwas struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. so shaky\nwas he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had\nhelped him with it. a reference to the timetable showed that the 8.15\nwas the first train which it was possible for west to take after he\nhad left the lady about 7.30.\n\"let us reconstruct, watson,\" said holmes after half an hour of\nsilence. \"i am not aware that in all our joint researches we have\never had a case which was more difficult to get at. every fresh\nadvance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. and yet we\nhave surely made some appreciable progress.\n\"the effect of our inquiries at woolwich has in the main been against\nyoung cadogan west; but the indications at the window would lend\nthemselves to a more favourable hypothesis. let us suppose, for\nexample, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. it might\nhave been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from\nspeaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the\ndirection indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. very good. we will\nnow suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he\nsuddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in\nthe direction of the office. he was an impetuous man, quick in his\ndecisions. everything gave way to his duty. he followed the man,\nreached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued\nthe thief. in this way we get over the objection that no one would\ntake originals when he could make copies. this outsider had to take\noriginals. so far it holds together.\"\n\"what is the next step?\"\n\"then we come into difficulties. one would imagine that under such\ncircumstances the first act of young cadogan west would be to seize\nthe villain and raise the alarm. why did he not do so? could it have\nbeen an official superior who took the papers? that would explain\nwest's conduct. or could the chief have given west the slip in the\nfog, and west started at once to london to head him off from his own\nrooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms were? the call must\nhave been very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog\nand made no effort to communicate with her. our scent runs cold here,\nand there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of\nwest's body, with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a\nmetropolitan train. my instinct now is to work form the other end. if\nmycroft has given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our\nman and follow two tracks instead of one.\"\nsurely enough, a note awaited us at baker street. a government\nmessenger had brought it post-haste. holmes glanced at it and threw\nit over to me.\nthere are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an\naffair. the only men worth considering are adolph mayer, of 13 great\ngeorge street, westminster; louis la rothiere, of campden mansions,\nnotting hill; and hugo oberstein, 13 caulfield gardens, kensington.\nthe latter was known to be in town on monday and is now reported as\nhaving left. glad to hear you have seen some light. the cabinet\nawaits your final report with the utmost anxiety. urgent\nrepresentations have arrived from the very highest quarter. the whole\nforce of the state is at your back if you should need it.\nmycroft.\n\"i'm afraid,\" said holmes, smiling, \"that all the queen's horses and\nall the queen's men cannot avail in this matter.\" he had spread out\nhis big map of london and leaned eagerly over it. \"well, well,\" said\nhe presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, \"things are turning\na little in our direction at last. why, watson, i do honestly believe\nthat we are going to pull it off, after all.\" he slapped me on the\nshoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. \"i am going out now. it is\nonly a reconnaissance. i will do nothing serious without my trusted\ncomrade and biographer at my elbow. do you stay here, and the odds\nare that you will see me again in an hour or two. if time hangs heavy\nget foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the\nstate.\"\ni felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for i knew well\nthat he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of demeanour\nunless there was good cause for exultation. all the long november\nevening i waited, filled with impatience for his return. at last,\nshortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a messenger with a note:\nam dining at goldini's restaurant, gloucester road, kensington.\nplease come at once and join me there. bring with you a jemmy, a dark\nlantern, a chisel, and a revolver.\ns.h.\nit was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through\nthe dim, fog-draped streets. i stowed them all discreetly away in my\novercoat and drove straight to the address given. there sat my friend\nat a little round table near the door of the garish italian\nrestaurant.\n\"have you had something to eat? then join me in a coffee and curacao.\ntry one of the proprietor's cigars. they are less poisonous than one\nwould expect. have you the tools?\"\n\"they are here, in my overcoat.\"\n\"excellent. let me give you a short sketch of what i have done, with\nsome indication of what we are about to do. now it must be evident to\nyou, watson, that this young man's body was placed on the roof of the\ntrain. that was clear from the instant that i determined the fact\nthat it was from the roof, and not from a carriage, that he had\nfallen.\"\n\"could it not have been dropped from a bridge?\"\n\"i should say it was impossible. if you examine the roofs you will\nfind that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing round\nthem. therefore, we can say for certain that young cadogan west was\nplaced on it.\"\n\"how could he be placed there?\"\n\"that was the question which we had to answer. there is only one\npossible way. you are aware that the underground runs clear of\ntunnels at some points in the west end. i had a vague memory that as\ni have travelled by it i have occasionally seen windows just above my\nhead. now, suppose that a train halted under such a window, would\nthere be any difficulty in laying a body upon the roof?\"\n\"it seems most improbable.\"\n\"we must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other\ncontingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the\ntruth. here all other contingencies have failed. when i found that\nthe leading international agent, who had just left london, lived in a\nrow of houses which abutted upon the underground, i was so pleased\nthat you were a little astonished at my sudden frivolity.\"\n\"oh, that was it, was it?\"\n\"yes, that was it. mr. hugo oberstein, of 13 caulfield gardens, had\nbecome my objective. i began my operations at gloucester road\nstation, where a very helpful official walked with me along the track\nand allowed me to satisfy myself not only that the back-stair windows\nof caulfield gardens open on the line but the even more essential\nfact that, owing to the intersection of one of the larger railways,\nthe underground trains are frequently held motionless for some\nminutes at that very spot.\"\n\"splendid, holmes! you have got it!\"\n\"so far--so far, watson. we advance, but the goal is afar. well,\nhaving seen the back of caulfield gardens, i visited the front and\nsatisfied myself that the bird was indeed flown. it is a considerable\nhouse, unfurnished, so far as i could judge, in the upper rooms.\noberstein lived there with a single valet, who was probably a\nconfederate entirely in his confidence. we must bear in mind that\noberstein has gone to the continent to dispose of his booty, but not\nwith any idea of flight; for he had no reason to fear a warrant, and\nthe idea of an amateur domiciliary visit would certainly never occur\nto him. yet that is precisely what we are about to make.\"\n\"could we not get a warrant and legalize it?\"\n\"hardly on the evidence.\"\n\"what can we hope to do?\"\n\"we cannot tell what correspondence may be there.\"\n\"i don't like it, holmes.\"\n\"my dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. i'll do the\ncriminal part. it's not a time to stick at trifles. think of\nmycroft's note, of the admiralty, the cabinet, the exalted person who\nwaits for news. we are bound to go.\"\nmy answer was to rise from the table.\n\"you are right, holmes. we are bound to go.\"\nhe sprang up and shook me by the hand.\n\"i knew you would not shrink at the last,\" said he, and for a moment\ni saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than i had\never seen. the next instant he was his masterful, practical self once\nmore.\n\"it is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. let us walk,\" said\nhe. \"don't drop the instruments, i beg. your arrest as a suspicious\ncharacter would be a most unfortunate complication.\"\ncaulfield gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced pillared, and\nporticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the middle\nvictorian epoch in the west end of london. next door there appeared\nto be a children's party, for the merry buzz of young voices and the\nclatter of a piano resounded through the night. the fog still hung\nabout and screened us with its friendly shade. holmes had lit his\nlantern and flashed it upon the massive door.\n\"this is a serious proposition,\" said he. \"it is certainly bolted as\nwell as locked. we would do better in the area. there is an excellent\narchway down yonder in case a too zealous policeman should intrude.\ngive me a hand, watson, and i'll do the same for you.\"\na minute later we were both in the area. hardly had we reached the\ndark shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in the fog\nabove. as its soft rhythm died away, holmes set to work upon the\nlower door. i saw him stoop and strain until with a sharp crash it\nflew open. we sprang through into the dark passage, closing the area\ndoor behind us. holmes let the way up the curving, uncarpeted stair.\nhis little fan of yellow light shone upon a low window.\n\"here we are, watson--this must be the one.\" he threw it open, and as\nhe did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily into a loud\nroar as a train dashed past us in the darkness. holmes swept his\nlight along the window-sill. it was thickly coated with soot from the\npassing engines, but the black surface was blurred and rubbed in\nplaces.\n\"you can see where they rested the body. halloa, watson! what is\nthis? there can be no doubt that it is a blood mark.\" he was pointing\nto faint discolourations along the woodwork of the window. \"here it\nis on the stone of the stair also. the demonstration is complete. let\nus stay here until a train stops.\"\nwe had not long to wait. the very next train roared from the tunnel\nas before, but slowed in the open, and then, with a creaking of\nbrakes, pulled up immediately beneath us. it was not four feet from\nthe window-ledge to the roof of the carriages. holmes softly closed\nthe window.\n\"so far we are justified,\" said he. \"what do you think of it,\nwatson?\"\n\"a masterpiece. you have never risen to a greater height.\"\n\"i cannot agree with you there. from the moment that i conceived the\nidea of the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a very\nabstruse one, all the rest was inevitable. if it were not for the\ngrave interests involved the affair up to this point would be\ninsignificant. our difficulties are still before us. but perhaps we\nmay find something here which may help us.\"\nwe had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms upon\nthe first floor. one was a dining-room, severely furnished and\ncontaining nothing of interest. a second was a bedroom, which also\ndrew blank. the remaining room appeared more promising, and my\ncompanion settled down to a systematic examination. it was littered\nwith books and papers, and was evidently used as a study. swiftly and\nmethodically holmes turned over the contents of drawer after drawer\nand cupboard after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten\nhis austere face. at the end of an hour he was no further than when\nhe started.\n\"the cunning dog has covered his tracks,\" said he. \"he has left\nnothing to incriminate him. his dangerous correspondence has been\ndestroyed or removed. this is our last chance.\"\nit was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk. holmes\npried it open with his chisel. several rolls of paper were within,\ncovered with figures and calculations, without any note to show to\nwhat they referred. the recurring words, \"water pressure\" and\n\"pressure to the square inch\" suggested some possible relation to a\nsubmarine. holmes tossed them all impatiently aside. there only\nremained an envelope with some small newspaper slips inside it. he\nshook them out on the table, and at once i saw by his eager face that\nhis hopes had been raised.\n\"what's this, watson? eh? what's this? record of a series of messages\nin the advertisements of a paper. daily telegraph agony column by the\nprint and paper. right-hand top corner of a page. no dates--but\nmessages arrange themselves. this must be the first:\n\"hoped to hear sooner. terms agreed to. write fully to address given\non card.\npierrot.\n\"next comes:\n\"too complex for description. must have full report, stuff awaits you\nwhen goods delivered.\npierrot.\n\"then comes:\n\"matter presses. must withdraw offer unless contract completed. make\nappointment by letter. will confirm by advertisement.\npierrot.\n\"finally:\n\"monday night after nine. two taps. only ourselves. do not be so\nsuspicious. payment in hard cash when goods delivered.\npierrot.\n\"a fairly complete record, watson! if we could only get at the man at\nthe other end!\" he sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the\ntable. finally he sprang to his feet.\n\"well, perhaps it won't be so difficult, after all. there is nothing\nmore to be done here, watson. i think we might drive round to the\noffices of the daily telegraph, and so bring a good day's work to a\nconclusion.\"\nmycroft holmes and lestrade had come round by appointment after\nbreakfast next day and sherlock holmes had recounted to them our\nproceedings of the day before. the professional shook his head over\nour confessed burglary.\n\"we can't do these things in the force, mr. holmes,\" said he. \"no\nwonder you get results that are beyond us. but some of these days\nyou'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend in\ntrouble.\"\n\"for england, home and beauty--eh, watson? martyrs on the altar of\nour country. but what do you think of it, mycroft?\"\n\"excellent, sherlock! admirable! but what use will you make of it?\"\nholmes picked up the daily telegraph which lay upon the table.\n\"have you seen pierrot's advertisement to-day?\"\n\"what? another one?\"\n\"yes, here it is:\n\"to-night. same hour. same place. two taps. most vitally important.\nyour own safety at stake.\npierrot.\n\"by george!\" cried lestrade. \"if he answers that we've got him!\"\n\"that was my idea when i put it in. i think if you could both make it\nconvenient to come with us about eight o'clock to caulfield gardens\nwe might possibly get a little nearer to a solution.\"\none of the most remarkable characteristics of sherlock holmes was his\npower of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his\nthoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that\nhe could no longer work to advantage. i remember that during the\nwhole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he\nhad undertaken upon the polyphonic motets of lassus. for my own part\ni had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence,\nappeared to be interminable. the great national importance of the\nissue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the\nexperiment which we were trying--all combined to work upon my nerve.\nit was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out\nupon our expedition. lestrade and mycroft met us by appointment at\nthe outside of gloucester road station. the area door of oberstein's\nhouse had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for\nme, as mycroft holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to climb\nthe railings, to pass in and open the hall door. by nine o'clock we\nwere all seated in the study, waiting patently for our man.\nan hour passed and yet another. when eleven struck, the measured beat\nof the great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our hopes.\nlestrade and mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and looking twice\na minute at their watches. holmes sat silent and composed, his\neyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert. he raised his head\nwith a sudden jerk.\n\"he is coming,\" said he.\nthere had been a furtive step past the door. now it returned. we\nheard a shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with the\nknocker. holmes rose, motioning us to remain seated. the gas in the\nhall was a mere point of light. he opened the outer door, and then as\na dark figure slipped past him he closed and fastened it. \"this way!\"\nwe heard him say, and a moment later our man stood before us. holmes\nhad followed him closely, and as the man turned with a cry of\nsurprise and alarm he caught him by the collar and threw him back\ninto the room. before our prisoner had recovered his balance the door\nwas shut and holmes standing with his back against it. the man glared\nround him, staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor. with the\nshock, his broad-brimmed hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped\nsown from his lips, and there were the long light beard and the soft,\nhandsome delicate features of colonel valentine walter.\nholmes gave a whistle of surprise.\n\"you can write me down an ass this time, watson,\" said he. \"this was\nnot the bird that i was looking for.\"\n\"who is he?\" asked mycroft eagerly.\n\"the younger brother of the late sir james walter, the head of the\nsubmarine department. yes, yes; i see the fall of the cards. he is\ncoming to. i think that you had best leave his examination to me.\"\nwe had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. now our prisoner sat\nup, looked round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand\nover his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own senses.\n\"what is this?\" he asked. \"i came here to visit mr. oberstein.\"\n\"everything is known, colonel walter,\" said holmes. \"how an english\ngentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my comprehension.\nbut your whole correspondence and relations with oberstein are within\nour knowledge. so also are the circumstances connected with the death\nof young cadogan west. let me advise you to gain at least the small\ncredit for repentance and confession, since there are still some\ndetails which we can only learn from your lips.\"\nthe man groaned and sank his face in his hands. we waited, but he was\nsilent.\n\"i can assure you,\" said holmes, \"that every essential is already\nknown. we know that you were pressed for money; that you took an\nimpress of the keys which your brother held; and that you entered\ninto a correspondence with oberstein, who answered your letters\nthrough the advertisement columns of the daily telegraph. we are\naware that you went down to the office in the fog on monday night,\nbut that you were seen and followed by young cadogan west, who had\nprobably some previous reason to suspect you. he saw your theft, but\ncould not give the alarm, as it was just possible that you were\ntaking the papers to your brother in london. leaving all his private\nconcerns, like the good citizen that he was, he followed you closely\nin the fog and kept at your heels until you reached this very house.\nthere he intervened, and then it was, colonel walter, that to treason\nyou added the more terrible crime of murder.\"\n\"i did not! i did not! before god i swear that i did not!\" cried our\nwretched prisoner.\n\"tell us, then, how cadogan west met his end before you laid him upon\nthe roof of a railway carriage.\"\n\"i will. i swear to you that i will. i did the rest. i confess it. it\nwas just as you say. a stock exchange debt had to be paid. i needed\nthe money badly. oberstein offered me five thousand. it was to save\nmyself from ruin. but as to murder, i am as innocent as you.\"\n\"what happened, then?\"\n\"he had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. i\nnever knew it until i was at the very door. it was thick fog, and one\ncould not see three yards. i had given two taps and oberstein had\ncome to the door. the young man rushed up and demanded to know what\nwe were about to do with the papers. oberstein had a short\nlife-preserver. he always carried it with him. as west forced his way\nafter us into the house oberstein struck him on the head. the blow\nwas a fatal one. he was dead within five minutes. there he lay in the\nhall, and we were at our wit's end what to do. then oberstein had\nthis idea about the trains which halted under his back window. but\nfirst he examined the papers which i had brought. he said that three\nof them were essential, and that he must keep them. 'you cannot keep\nthem,' said i. 'there will be a dreadful row at woolwich if they are\nnot returned.' 'i must keep them,' said he, 'for they are so\ntechnical that it is impossible in the time to make copies.' 'then\nthey must all go back together to-night,' said i. he thought for a\nlittle, and then he cried out that he had it. 'three i will keep,'\nsaid he. 'the others we will stuff into the pocket of this young man.\nwhen he is found the whole business will assuredly be put to his\naccount.' i could see no other way out of it, so we did as he\nsuggested. we waited half an hour at the window before a train\nstopped. it was so thick that nothing could be seen, and we had no\ndifficulty in lowering west's body on to the train. that was the end\nof the matter so far as i was concerned.\"\n\"and your brother?\"\n\"he said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and i\nthink that he suspected. i read in his eyes that he suspected. as you\nknow, he never held up his head again.\"\nthere was silence in the room. it was broken by mycroft holmes.\n\"can you not make reparation? it would ease your conscience, and\npossibly your punishment.\"\n\"what reparation can i make?\"\n\"where is oberstein with the papers?\"\n\"i do not know.\"\n\"did he give you no address?\"\n\"he said that letters to the htel du louvre, paris, would eventually\nreach him.\"\n\"then reparation is still within your power,\" said sherlock holmes.\n\"i will do anything i can. i owe this fellow no particular good-will.\nhe has been my ruin and my downfall.\"\n\"here are paper and pen. sit at this desk and write to my dictation.\ndirect the envelope to the address given. that is right. now the\nletter:\n\"dear sir:\n\"with regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed by\nnow that one essential detail is missing. i have a tracing which will\nmake it complete. this has involved me in extra trouble, however, and\ni must ask you for a further advance of five hundred pounds. i will\nnot trust it to the post, nor will i take anything but gold or notes.\ni would come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if i left the\ncountry at present. therefore i shall expect to meet you in the\nsmoking-room of the charing cross hotel at noon on saturday. remember\nthat only english notes, or gold, will be taken.\n\"that will do very well. i shall be very much surprised if it does\nnot fetch our man.\"\nand it did! it is a matter of history--that secret history of a\nnation which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its\npublic chronicles--that oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his\nlifetime, came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years\nin a british prison. in his trunk were found the invaluable\nbruce-partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the\nnaval centres of europe.\ncolonel walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of\nhis sentence. as to holmes, he returned refreshed to his monograph\nupon the polyphonic motets of lassus, which has since been printed\nfor private circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word\nupon the subject. some weeks afterwards i learned incidentally that\nmy friend spent a day at windsor, whence be returned with a\nremarkably fine emerald tie-pin. when i asked him if he had bought\nit, he answered that it was a present from a certain gracious lady in\nwhose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a\nsmall commission. he said no more; but i fancy that i could guess at\nthat lady's august name, and i have little doubt that the emerald pin\nwill forever recall to my friend's memory the adventure of the\nbruce-partington plans.\nthe adventure of the dying detective\nmrs. hudson, the landlady of sherlock holmes, was a long-suffering\nwoman. not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by\nthrongs of singular and often undesirable characters but her\nremarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life\nwhich must have sorely tried her patience. his incredible untidiness,\nhis addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver\npractice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific\nexperiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung\naround him made him the very worst tenant in london. on the other\nhand, his payments were princely. i have no doubt that the house\nmight have been purchased at the price which holmes paid for his\nrooms during the years that i was with him.\nthe landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to\ninterfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem.\nshe was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and\ncourtesy in his dealings with women. he disliked and distrusted the\nsex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent. knowing how genuine was\nher regard for him, i listened earnestly to her story when she came\nto my rooms in the second year of my married life and told me of the\nsad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.\n\"he's dying, dr. watson,\" said she. \"for three days he has been\nsinking, and i doubt if he will last the day. he would not let me get\na doctor. this morning when i saw his bones sticking out of his face\nand his great bright eyes looking at me i could stand no more of it.\n'with your leave or without it, mr. holmes, i am going for a doctor\nthis very hour,' said i. 'let it be watson, then,' said he. i\nwouldn't waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him\nalive.\"\ni was horrified for i had heard nothing of his illness. i need not\nsay that i rushed for my coat and my hat. as we drove back i asked\nfor the details.\n\"there is little i can tell you, sir. he has been working at a case\ndown at rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought\nthis illness back with him. he took to his bed on wednesday afternoon\nand has never moved since. for these three days neither food nor\ndrink has passed his lips.\"\n\"good god! why did you not call in a doctor?\"\n\"he wouldn't have it, sir. you know how masterful he is. i didn't\ndare to disobey him. but he's not long for this world, as you'll see\nfor yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.\"\nhe was indeed a deplorable spectacle. in the dim light of a foggy\nnovember day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt,\nwasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my\nheart. his eyes had the brightness of fever, there was a hectic flush\nupon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips; the thin hands\nupon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was croaking and\nspasmodic. he lay listlessly as i entered the room, but the sight of\nme brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.\n\"well, watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,\" said he in a\nfeeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.\n\"my dear fellow!\" i cried, approaching him.\n\"stand back! stand right back!\" said he with the sharp imperiousness\nwhich i had associated only with moments of crisis. \"if you approach\nme, watson, i shall order you out of the house.\"\n\"but why?\"\n\"because it is my desire. is that not enough?\"\nyes, mrs. hudson was right. he was more masterful than ever. it was\npitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.\n\"i only wished to help,\" i explained.\n\"exactly! you will help best by doing what you are told.\"\n\"certainly, holmes.\"\nhe relaxed the austerity of his manner.\n\"you are not angry?\" he asked, gasping for breath.\npoor devil, how could i be angry when i saw him lying in such a\nplight before me?\n\"it's for your own sake, watson,\" he croaked.\n\"for my sake?\"\n\"i know what is the matter with me. it is a coolie disease from\nsumatra--a thing that the dutch know more about than we, though they\nhave made little of it up to date. one thing only is certain. it is\ninfallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.\"\nhe spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and\njerking as he motioned me away.\n\"contagious by touch, watson--that's it, by touch. keep your distance\nand all is well.\"\n\"good heavens, holmes! do you suppose that such a consideration\nweighs with me of an instant? it would not affect me in the case of a\nstranger. do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so\nold a friend?\"\nagain i advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.\n\"if you will stand there i will talk. if you do not you must leave\nthe room.\"\ni have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of holmes\nthat i have always deferred to his wishes, even when i least\nunderstood them. but now all my professional instincts were aroused.\nlet him be my master elsewhere, i at least was his in a sick room.\n\"holmes,\" said i, \"you are not yourself. a sick man is but a child,\nand so i will treat you. whether you like it or not, i will examine\nyour symptoms and treat you for them.\"\nhe looked at me with venomous eyes.\n\"if i am to have a doctor whether i will or not, let me at least have\nsomeone in whom i have confidence,\" said he.\n\"then you have none in me?\"\n\"in your friendship, certainly. but facts are facts, watson, and,\nafter all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited\nexperience and mediocre qualifications. it is painful to have to say\nthese things, but you leave me no choice.\"\ni was bitterly hurt.\n\"such a remark is unworthy of you, holmes. it shows me very clearly\nthe state of your own nerves. but if you have no confidence in me i\nwould not intrude my services. let me bring sir jasper meek or\npenrose fisher, or any of the best men in london. but someone you\nmust have, and that is final. if you think that i am going to stand\nhere and see you die without either helping you myself or bringing\nanyone else to help you, then you have mistaken your man.\"\n\"you mean well, watson,\" said the sick man with something between a\nsob and a groan. \"shall i demonstrate your own ignorance? what do you\nknow, pray, of tapanuli fever? what do you know of the black formosa\ncorruption?\"\n\"i have never heard of either.\"\n\"there are many problems of disease, many strange pathological\npossibilities, in the east, watson.\" he paused after each sentence to\ncollect his failing strength. \"i have learned so much during some\nrecent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. it was in the\ncourse of them that i contracted this complaint. you can do nothing.\"\n\"possibly not. but i happen to know that dr. ainstree, the greatest\nliving authority upon tropical disease, is now in london. all\nremonstrance is useless, holmes, i am going this instant to fetch\nhim.\" i turned resolutely to the door.\nnever have i had such a shock! in an instant, with a tiger-spring,\nthe dying man had intercepted me. i heard the sharp snap of a twisted\nkey. the next moment he had staggered back to his bed, exhausted and\npanting after his one tremendous outflame of energy.\n\"you won't take the key from be by force, watson, i've got you, my\nfriend. here you are, and here you will stay until i will otherwise.\nbut i'll humour you.\" (all this in little gasps, with terrible\nstruggles for breath between.) \"you've only my own good at heart. of\ncourse i know that very well. you shall have your way, but give me\ntime to get my strength. not now, watson, not now. it's four o'clock.\nat six you can go.\"\n\"this is insanity, holmes.\"\n\"only two hours, watson. i promise you will go at six. are you\ncontent to wait?\"\n\"i seem to have no choice.\"\n\"none in the world, watson. thank you, i need no help in arranging\nthe clothes. you will please keep your distance. now, watson, there\nis one other condition that i would make. you will seek help, not\nfrom the man you mention, but from the one that i choose.\"\n\"by all means.\"\n\"the first three sensible words that you have uttered since you\nentered this room, watson. you will find some books over there. i am\nsomewhat exhausted; i wonder how a battery feels when it pours\nelectricity into a non-conductor? at six, watson, we resume our\nconversation.\"\nbut it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in\ncircumstances which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused by\nhis spring to the door. i had stood for some minutes looking at the\nsilent figure in the bed. his face was almost covered by the clothes\nand he appeared to be asleep. then, unable to settle down to reading,\ni walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated\ncriminals with which every wall was adorned. finally, in my aimless\nperambulation, i came to the mantelpiece. a litter of pipes,\ntobacco-pouches, syringes, penknives, revolver-cartridges, and other\ndebris was scattered over it. in the midst of these was a small black\nand white ivory box with a sliding lid. it was a neat little thing,\nand i had stretched out my hand to examine it more closely when--\nit was a dreadful cry that he gave--a yell which might have been\nheard down the street. my skin went cold and my hair bristled at that\nhorrible scream. as i turned i caught a glimpse of a convulsed face\nand frantic eyes. i stood paralyzed, with the little box in my hand.\n\"put it down! down, this instant, watson--this instant, i say!\" his\nhead sank back upon the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of relief as i\nreplaced the box upon the mantelpiece. \"i hate to have my things\ntouched, watson. you know that i hate it. you fidget me beyond\nendurance. you, a doctor--you are enough to drive a patient into an\nasylum. sit down, man, and let me have my rest!\"\nthe incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind. the\nviolent and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of\nspeech, so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me how deep was\nthe disorganization of his mind. of all ruins, that of a noble mind\nis the most deplorable. i sat in silent dejection until the\nstipulated time had passed. he seemed to have been watching the clock\nas well as i, for it was hardly six before he began to talk with the\nsame feverish animation as before.\n\"now, watson,\" said he. \"have you any change in your pocket?\"\n\"yes.\"\n\"any silver?\"\n\"a good deal.\"\n\"how many half-crowns?\"\n\"i have five.\"\n\"ah, too few! too few! how very unfortunate, watson! however, such as\nthey are you can put them in your watchpocket. and all the rest of\nyour money in your left trouser pocket. thank you. it will balance\nyou so much better like that.\"\nthis was raving insanity. he shuddered, and again made a sound\nbetween a cough and a sob.\n\"you will now light the gas, watson, but you will be very careful\nthat not for one instant shall it be more than half on. i implore you\nto be careful, watson. thank you, that is excellent. no, you need not\ndraw the blind. now you will have the kindness to place some letters\nand papers upon this table within my reach. thank you. now some of\nthat litter from the mantelpiece. excellent, watson! there is a\nsugar-tongs there. kindly raise that small ivory box with its\nassistance.  place it here among the papers. good! you can now go and\nfetch mr. culverton smith, of 13 lower burke street.\"\nto tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened,\nfor poor holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous\nto leave him. however, he was as eager now to consult the person\nnamed as he had been obstinate in refusing.\n\"i never heard the name,\" said i.\n\"possibly not, my good watson. it may surprise you to know that the\nman upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical\nman, but a planter. mr. culverton smith is a well-known resident of\nsumatra, now visiting london. an outbreak of the disease upon his\nplantation, which was distant from medical aid, caused him to study\nit himself, with some rather far-reaching consequences. he is a very\nmethodical person, and i did not desire you to start before six,\nbecause i was well aware that you would not find him in his study. if\nyou could persuade him to come here and give us the benefit of his\nunique experience of this disease, the investigation of which has\nbeen his dearest hobby, i cannot doubt that he could help me.\"\ni gave holmes's remarks as a consecutive whole and will not attempt\nto indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for breath and\nthose clutchings of his hands which indicated the pain from which he\nwas suffering. his appearance had changed for the worse during the\nfew hours that i had been with him. those hectic spots were more\npronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out of darker hollows, and a\ncold sweat glimmered upon his brow. he still retained, however, the\njaunty gallantry of his speech. to the last gasp he would always be\nthe master.\n\"you will tell him exactly how you have left me,\" said he. \"you will\nconvey the very impression which is in your own mind--a dying man--a\ndying and delirious man. indeed, i cannot think why the whole bed of\nthe ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures\nseem. ah, i am wondering! strange how the brain controls the brain!\nwhat was i saying, watson?\"\n\"my directions for mr. culverton smith.\"\n\"ah, yes, i remember. my life depends upon it. plead with him,\nwatson. there is no good feeling between us. his nephew, watson--i\nhad suspicions of foul play and i allowed him to see it. the boy died\nhorribly. he has a grudge against me. you will soften him, watson.\nbeg him, pray him, get him here by any means. he can save me--only\nhe!\"\n\"i will bring him in a cab, if i have to carry him down to it.\"\n\"you will do nothing of the sort. you will persuade him to come. and\nthen you will return in front of him. make any excuse so as not to\ncome with him. don't forget, watson. you won't fail me. you never did\nfail me. no doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase\nof the creatures. you and i, watson, we have done our part. shall the\nworld, then, be overrun by oysters? no, no; horrible! you'll convey\nall that is in your mind.\"\ni left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect babbling\nlike a foolish child. he had handed me the key, and with a happy\nthought i took it with me lest he should lock himself in. mrs. hudson\nwas waiting, trembling and weeping, in the passage. behind me as i\npassed from the flat i heard holmes's high, thin voice in some\ndelirious chant. below, as i stood whistling for a cab, a man came on\nme through the fog.\n\"how is mr. holmes, sir?\" he asked.\nit was an old acquaintance, inspector morton, of scotland yard,\ndressed in unofficial tweeds.\n\"he is very ill,\" i answered.\nhe looked at me in a most singular fashion. had it not been too\nfiendish, i could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight showed\nexultation in his face.\n\"i heard some rumour of it,\" said he.\nthe cab had driven up, and i left him.\nlower burke street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the\nvague borderland between notting hill and kensington. the particular\none at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure\nrespectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive\nfolding-door, and its shining brasswork. all was in keeping with a\nsolemn butler who appeared framed in the pink radiance of a tinted\nelectrical light behind him.\n\"yes, mr. culverton smith is in. dr. watson! very good, sir, i will\ntake up your card.\"\nmy humble name and title did not appear to impress mr. culverton\nsmith. through the half-open door i heard a high, petulant,\npenetrating voice.\n\"who is this person? what does he want? dear me, staples, how often\nhave i said that i am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?\"\nthere came a gentle flow of soothing explanation from the butler.\n\"well, i won't see him, staples. i can't have my work interrupted\nlike this. i am not at home. say so. tell him to come in the morning\nif he really must see me.\"\nagain the gentle murmur.\n\"well, well, give him that message. he can come in the morning, or he\ncan stay away. my work must not be hindered.\"\ni thought of holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting the\nminutes, perhaps, until i could bring help to him. it was not a time\nto stand upon ceremony. his life depended upon my promptness. before\nthe apologetic butler had delivered his message i had pushed past him\nand was in the room.\nwith a shrill cry of anger a man rose from a reclining chair beside\nthe fire. i saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with\nheavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing gray eyes which glared\nat me from under tufted and sandy brows. a high bald head had a small\nvelvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly upon one side of its pink\ncurve. the skull was of enormous capacity, and yet as i looked down i\nsaw to my amazement that the figure of the man was small and frail,\ntwisted in the shoulders and back like one who has suffered from\nrickets in his childhood.\n\"what's this?\" he cried in a high, screaming voice. \"what is the\nmeaning of this intrusion? didn't i send you word that i would see\nyou to-morrow morning?\"\n\"i am sorry,\" said i, \"but the matter cannot be delayed. mr. sherlock\nholmes--\"\nthe mention of my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the\nlittle man. the look of anger passed in an instant from his face. his\nfeatures became tense and alert.\n\"have you come from holmes?\" he asked.\n\"i have just left him.\"\n\"what about holmes? how is he?\"\n\"he is desperately ill. that is why i have come.\"\nthe man motioned me to a chair, and turned to resume his own. as he\ndid so i caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the\nmantelpiece. i could have sworn that it was set in a malicious and\nabominable smile. yet i persuaded myself that it must have been some\nnervous contraction which i had surprised, for he turned to me an\ninstant later with genuine concern upon his features.\n\"i am sorry to hear this,\" said he. \"i only know mr. holmes through\nsome business dealings which we have had, but i have every respect\nfor his talents and his character. he is an amateur of crime, as i am\nof disease. for him the villain, for me the microbe. there are my\nprisons,\" he continued, pointing to a row of bottles and jars which\nstood upon a side table. \"among those gelatine cultivations some of\nthe very worst offenders in the world are now doing time.\"\n\"it was on account of your special knowledge that mr. holmes desired\nto see you. he has a high opinion of you and thought that you were\nthe one man in london who could help him.\"\nthe little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the floor.\n\"why?\" he asked. \"why should mr. homes think that i could help him in\nhis trouble?\"\n\"because of your knowledge of eastern diseases.\"\n\"but why should he think that this disease which he has contracted is\neastern?\"\n\"because, in some professional inquiry, he has been working among\nchinese sailors down in the docks.\"\nmr. culverton smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-cap.\n\"oh, that's it--is it?\" said he. \"i trust the matter is not so grave\nas you suppose. how long has he been ill?\"\n\"about three days.\"\n\"is he delirious?\"\n\"occasionally.\"\n\"tut, tut! this sounds serious. it would be inhuman not to answer his\ncall. i very much resent any interruption to my work, dr. watson, but\nthis case is certainly exceptional. i will come with you at once.\"\ni remembered holmes's injunction.\n\"i have another appointment,\" said i.\n\"very good. i will go alone. i have a note of mr. holmes's address.\nyou can rely upon my being there within half an hour at most.\"\nit was with a sinking heart that i reentered holmes's bedroom. for\nall that i knew the worst might have happened in my absence. to my\nenormous relief, he had improved greatly in the interval. his\nappearance was as ghastly as ever, but all trace of delirium had left\nhim and he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but with even more\nthan his usual crispness and lucidity.\n\"well, did you see him, watson?\"\n\"yes; he is coming.\"\n\"admirable, watson! admirable! you are the best of messengers.\"\n\"he wished to return with me.\"\n\"that would never do, watson. that would be obviously impossible. did\nhe ask what ailed me?\"\n\"i told him about the chinese in the east end.\"\n\"exactly! well, watson, you have done all that a good friend could.\nyou can now disappear from the scene.\"\n\"i must wait and hear his opinion, holmes.\"\n\"of course you must. but i have reasons to suppose that this opinion\nwould be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are\nalone. there is just room behind the head of my bed, watson.\"\n\"my dear holmes!\"\n\"i fear there is no alternative, watson. the room does not lend\nitself to concealment, which is as well, as it is the less likely to\narouse suspicion. but just there, watson, i fancy that it could be\ndone.\" suddenly he sat up with a rigid intentness upon his haggard\nface. \"there are the wheels, watson. quick, man, if you love me! and\ndon't budge, whatever happens--whatever happens, do you hear? don't\nspeak! don't move! just listen with all your ears.\" then in an\ninstant his sudden access of strength departed, and his masterful,\npurposeful talk droned away into the low, vague murmurings of a\nsemi-delirious man.\nfrom the hiding-place into which i had been so swiftly hustled i\nheard the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing\nof the bedroom door. then, to my surprise, there came a long silence,\nbroken only by the heavy breathings and gaspings of the sick man. i\ncould imagine that our visitor was standing by the bedside and\nlooking down at the sufferer. at last that strange hush was broken.\n\"holmes!\" he cried. \"holmes!\" in the insistent tone of one who\nawakens a sleeper. \"can't you hear me, holmes?\" there was a rustling,\nas if he had shaken the sick man roughly by the shoulder.\n\"is that you, mr. smith?\" holmes whispered. \"i hardly dared hope that\nyou would come.\"\nthe other laughed.\n\"i should imagine not,\" he said. \"and yet, you see, i am here. coals\nof fire, holmes--coals of fire!\"\n\"it is very good of you--very noble of you. i appreciate your special\nknowledge.\"\nour visitor sniggered.\n\"you do.  you are, fortunately, the only man in london who does. do\nyou know what is the matter with you?\"\n\"the same,\" said holmes.\n\"ah! you recognize the symptoms?\"\n\"only too well.\"\n\"well, i shouldn't be surprised, holmes. i shouldn't be surprised if\nit were the same. a bad lookout for you if it is. poor victor was a\ndead man on the fourth day--a strong, hearty young fellow. it was\ncertainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have\ncontracted and out-of-the-way asiatic disease in the heart of\nlondon--a disease, too, of which i had made such a very special\nstudy. singular coincidence, holmes. very smart of you to notice it,\nbut rather uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect.\"\n\"i knew that you did it.\"\n\"oh, you did, did you? well, you couldn't prove it, anyhow. but what\ndo you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and\nthen crawling to me for help the moment you are in trouble? what sort\nof a game is that--eh?\"\ni heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. \"give me the\nwater!\" he gasped.\n\"you're precious near your end, my friend, but i don't want you to go\ntill i have had a word with you. that's why i give you water. there,\ndon't slop it about! that's right. can you understand what i say?\"\nholmes groaned.\n\"do what you can for me. let bygones be bygones,\" he whispered. \"i'll\nput the words out of my head--i swear i will. only cure me, and i'll\nforget it.\"\n\"forget what?\"\n\"well, about victor savage's death. you as good as admitted just now\nthat you had done it. i'll forget it.\"\n\"you can forget it or remember it, just as you like. i don't see you\nin the witnessbox. quite another shaped box, my good holmes, i assure\nyou. it matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew\ndied. it's not him we are talking about. it's you.\"\n\"yes, yes.\"\n\"the fellow who came for me--i've forgotten his name--said that you\ncontracted it down in the east end among the sailors.\"\n\"i could only account for it so.\"\n\"you are proud of your brains, holmes, are you not? think yourself\nsmart, don't you? you came across someone who was smarter this time.\nnow cast your mind back, holmes. can you think of no other way you\ncould have got this thing?\"\n\"i can't think. my mind is gone. for heaven's sake help me!\"\n\"yes, i will help you. i'll help you to understand just where you are\nand how you got there. i'd like you to know before you die.\"\n\"give me something to ease my pain.\"\n\"painful, is it? yes, the coolies used to do some squealing towards\nthe end. takes you as cramp, i fancy.\"\n\"yes, yes; it is cramp.\"\n\"well, you can hear what i say, anyhow. listen now! can you remember\nany unusual incident in your life just about the time your symptoms\nbegan?\"\n\"no, no; nothing.\"\n\"think again.\"\n\"i'm too ill to think.\"\n\"well, then, i'll help you.  did anything come by post?\"\n\"by post?\"\n\"a box by chance?\"\n\"i'm fainting--i'm gone!\"\n\"listen, holmes!\" there was a sound as if he was shaking the dying\nman, and it was all that i could do to hold myself quiet in my\nhiding-place. \"you must hear me. you shall hear me. do you remember a\nbox--an ivory box? it came on wednesday. you opened it--do you\nremember?\"\n\"yes, yes, i opened it. there was a sharp spring inside it. some\njoke--\"\n\"it was no joke, as you will find to your cost. you fool, you would\nhave it and you have got it. who asked you to cross my path? if you\nhad left me alone i would not have hurt you.\"\n\"i remember,\" holmes gasped. \"the spring! it drew blood. this\nbox--this on the table.\"\n\"the very one, by george! and it may as well leave the room in my\npocket. there goes your last shred of evidence. but you have the\ntruth now, holmes, and you can die with the knowledge that i killed\nyou. you knew too much of the fate of victor savage, so i have sent\nyou to share it. you are very near your end, holmes. i will sit here\nand i will watch you die.\"\nholmes's voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper.\n\"what is that?\" said smith. \"turn up the gas? ah, the shadows begin\nto fall, do they? yes, i will turn it up, that i may see you the\nbetter.\" he crossed the room and the light suddenly brightened. \"is\nthere any other little service that i can do you, my friend?\"\n\"a match and a cigarette.\"\ni nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. he was speaking in\nhis natural voice--a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice i knew.\nthere was a long pause, and i felt that culverton smith was standing\nin silent amazement looking down at his companion.\n\"what's the meaning of this?\" i heard him say at last in a dry,\nrasping tone.\n\"the best way of successfully acting a part is to be it,\" said\nholmes. \"i give you my word that for three days i have tasted neither\nfood nor drink until you were good enough to pour me out that glass\nof water. but it is the tobacco which i find most irksome. ah, here\nare some cigarettes.\" i heard the striking of a match. \"that is very\nmuch better. halloa! halloa! do i hear the step of a friend?\"\nthere were footfalls outside, the door opened, and inspector morton\nappeared.\n\"all is in order and this is your man,\" said holmes.\nthe officer gave the usual cautions.\n\"i arrest you on the charge of the murder of one victor savage,\" he\nconcluded.\n\"and you might add of the attempted murder of one sherlock holmes,\"\nremarked my friend with a chuckle. \"to save an invalid trouble,\ninspector, mr. culverton smith was good enough to give our signal by\nturning up the gas. by the way, the prisoner has a small box in the\nright-hand pocket of his coat which it would be as well to remove.\nthank you. i would handle it gingerly if i were you. put it down\nhere. it may play its part in the trial.\"\nthere was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of iron\nand a cry of pain.\n\"you'll only get yourself hurt,\" said the inspector. \"stand still,\nwill you?\" there was the click of the closing handcuffs.\n\"a nice trap!\" cried the high, snarling voice. \"it will bring you\ninto the dock, holmes, not me. he asked me to come here to cure him.\ni was sorry for him and i came. now he will pretend, no doubt, that i\nhave said anything which he may invent which will corroborate his\ninsane suspicions. you can lie as you like, holmes.  my word is\nalways as good as yours.\"\n\"good heavens!\" cried holmes. \"i had totally forgotten him. my dear\nwatson, i owe you a thousand apologies. to think that i should have\noverlooked you! i need not introduce you to mr. culverton smith,\nsince i understand that you met somewhat earlier in the evening. have\nyou the cab below? i will follow you when i am dressed, for i may be\nof some use at the station.\n\"i never needed it more,\" said holmes as he refreshed himself with a\nglass of claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his toilet.\n\"however, as you know, my habits are irregular, and such a feat means\nless to me than to most men. it was very essential that i should\nimpress mrs. hudson with the reality of my condition, since she was\nto convey it to you, and you in turn to him. you won't be offended,\nwatson? you will realize that among your many talents dissimulation\nfinds no place, and that if you had shared my secret you would never\nhave been able to impress smith with the urgent necessity of his\npresence, which was the vital point of the whole scheme. knowing his\nvindictive nature, i was perfectly certain that he would come to look\nupon his handiwork.\"\n\"but your appearance, holmes--your ghastly face?\"\n\"three days of absolute fast does not improve one's beauty, watson.\nfor the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not cure. with\nvaseline upon one's forehead, belladonna in one's eyes, rouge over\nthe cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax round one's lips, a very\nsatisfying effect can be produced. malingering is a subject upon\nwhich i have sometimes thought of writing a monograph. a little\noccasional talk about half-crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous\nsubject produces a pleasing effect of delirium.\"\n\"but why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth no\ninfection?\"\n\"can you ask, my dear watson? do you imagine that i have no respect\nfor your medical talents? could i fancy that your astute judgment\nwould pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of pulse or\ntemperature? at four yards, i could deceive you. if i failed to do\nso, who would bring my smith within my grasp? no, watson, i would not\ntouch that box. you can just see if you look at it sideways where the\nsharp spring like a viper's tooth emerges as you open it. i dare say\nit was by some such device that poor savage, who stood between this\nmonster and a reversion, was done to death. my correspondence,\nhowever, is, as you know, a varied one, and i am somewhat upon my\nguard against any packages which reach me. it was clear to me,\nhowever, that by pretending that he had really succeeded in his\ndesign i might surprise a confession. that pretence i have carried\nout with the thoroughness of the true artist. thank you, watson, you\nmust help me on with my coat. when we have finished at the\npolice-station i think that something nutritious at simpson's would\nnot be out of place.\"\nthe disappearance of lady frances carfax\n\"but why turkish?\" asked mr. sherlock holmes, gazing fixedly at my\nboots. i was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my\nprotruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention.\n\"english,\" i answered in some surprise. \"i got them at latimer's, in\noxford street.\"\nholmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.\n\"the bath!\" he said; \"the bath! why the relaxing and expensive\nturkish rather than the invigorating home-made article?\"\n\"because for the last few days i have been feeling rheumatic and old.\na turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine--a fresh\nstarting-point, a cleanser of the system.\n\"by the way, holmes,\" i added, \"i have no doubt the connection\nbetween my boots and a turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one\nto a logical mind, and yet i should be obliged to you if you would\nindicate it.\"\n\"the train of reasoning is not very obscure, watson,\" said holmes\nwith a mischievous twinkle. \"it belongs to the same elementary class\nof deduction which i should illustrate if i were to ask you who\nshared your cab in your drive this morning.\"\n\"i don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,\" said i\nwith some asperity.\n\"bravo, watson! a very dignified and logical remonstrance. let me\nsee, what were the points? take the last one first--the cab. you\nobserve that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder\nof your coat. had you sat in the centre of a hansom you would\nprobably have had no splashes, and if you had they would certainly\nhave been symmetrical. therefore it is clear that you sat at the\nside. therefore it is equally clear that you had a companion.\"\n\"that is very evident.\"\n\"absurdly commonplace, is it not?\"\n\"but the boots and the bath?\"\n\"equally childish. you are in the habit of doing up your boots in a\ncertain way. i see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate\ndouble bow, which is not your usual method of tying them. you have,\ntherefore, had them off. who has tied them? a bootmaker--or the boy\nat the bath. it is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your\nboots are nearly new. well, what remains? the bath. absurd, is it\nnot? but, for all that, the turkish bath has served a purpose.\"\n\"what is that?\"\n\"you say that you have had it because you need a change. let me\nsuggest that you take one. how would lausanne do, my dear\nwatson--first-class tickets and all expenses paid on a princely\nscale?\"\n\"splendid! but why?\"\nholmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his\npocket.\n\"one of the most dangerous classes in the world,\" said he, \"is the\ndrifting and friendless woman. she is the most harmless and often the\nmost useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in\nothers. she is helpless. she is migratory. she has sufficient means\nto take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. she is\nlost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and\nboardinghouses. she is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. when she\nis gobbled up she is hardly missed. i much fear that some evil has\ncome to the lady frances carfax.\"\ni was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to the\nparticular. holmes consulted his notes.\n\"lady frances,\" he continued, \"is the sole survivor of the direct\nfamily of the late earl of rufton. the estates went, as you may\nremember, in the male line. she was left with limited means, but with\nsome very remarkable old spanish jewellery of silver and curiously\ncut diamonds to which she was fondly attached--too attached, for she\nrefused to leave them with her banker and always carried them about\nwith her. a rather pathetic figure, the lady frances, a beautiful\nwoman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the\nlast derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.\"\n\"what has happened to her, then?\"\n\"ah, what has happened to the lady frances? is she alive or dead?\nthere is our problem. she is a lady of precise habits, and for four\nyears it has been her invariable custom to write every second week to\nmiss dobney, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in\ncamberwell. it is this miss dobney who has consulted me. nearly five\nweeks have passed without a word. the last letter was from the hotel\nnational at lausanne. lady frances seems to have left there and given\nno address. the family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly\nwealthy no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up.\"\n\"is miss dobney the only source of information? surely she had other\ncorrespondents?\"\n\"there is one correspondent who is a sure draw, watson. that is the\nbank. single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed\ndiaries. she banks at silvester's. i have glanced over her account.\nthe last check but one paid her bill at lausanne, but it was a large\none and probably left her with cash in hand. only one check has been\ndrawn since.\"\n\"to whom, and where?\"\n\"to miss marie devine. there is nothing to show where the check was\ndrawn. it was cashed at the credit lyonnais at montpellier less than\nthree weeks ago. the sum was fifty pounds.\"\n\"and who is miss marie devine?\"\n\"that also i have been able to discover. miss marie devine was the\nmaid of lady frances carfax. why she should have paid her this check\nwe have not yet determined. i have no doubt, however, that your\nresearches will soon clear the matter up.\"\n\"my researches!\"\n\"hence the health-giving expedition to lausanne. you know that i\ncannot possibly leave london while old abrahams is in such mortal\nterror of his life. besides, on general principles it is best that i\nshould not leave the country. scotland yard feels lonely without me,\nand it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. go,\nthen, my dear watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at\nso extravagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits your disposal\nnight and day at the end of the continental wire.\"\ntwo days later found me at the hotel national at lausanne, where i\nreceived every courtesy at the hands of m. moser, the well-known\nmanager. lady frances, as he informed me, had stayed there for\nseveral weeks. she had been much liked by all who met her. her age\nwas not more than forty. she was still handsome and bore every sign\nof having in her youth been a very lovely woman. m. moser knew\nnothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by the\nservants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always\nscrupulously locked. marie devine, the maid, was as popular as her\nmistress. she was actually engaged to one of the head waiters in the\nhotel, and there was no difficulty in getting her address. it was 11\nrue de trajan, montpellier. all this i jotted down and felt that\nholmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his\nfacts.\nonly one corner still remained in the shadow. no light which i\npossessed could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure.\nshe was very happy at lausanne. there was every reason to believe\nthat she intended to remain for the season in her luxurious rooms\noverlooking the lake. and yet she had left at a single day's notice,\nwhich involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent. only\njules vibart, the lover of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. he\nconnected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or\ntwo before of a tall, dark, bearded man. \"un sauvage--un vritable\nsauvage!\" cried jules vibart. the man had rooms somewhere in the\ntown. he had been seen talking earnestly to madame on the promenade\nby the lake. then he had called. she had refused to see him. he was\nenglish, but of his name there was no record. madame had left the\nplace immediately afterwards. jules vibart, and, what was of more\nimportance, jules vibart's sweetheart, thought that this call and the\ndeparture were cause and effect. only one thing jules would not\ndiscuss. that was the reason why marie had left her mistress. of that\nhe could or would say nothing. if i wished to know, i must go to\nmontpellier and ask her.\nso ended the first chapter of my inquiry. the second was devoted to\nthe place which lady frances carfax had sought when she left\nlausanne. concerning this there had been some secrecy, which\nconfirmed the idea that she had gone with the intention of throwing\nsomeone off her track. otherwise why should not her luggage have been\nopenly labelled for baden? both she and it reached the rhenish spa by\nsome circuitous route. this much i gathered from the manager of\ncook's local office. so to baden i went, after dispatching to holmes\nan account of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of\nhalf-humorous commendation.\nat baden the track was not difficult to follow. lady frances had\nstayed at the englischer hof for a fortnight. while there she had\nmade the acquaintance of a dr. shlessinger and his wife, a missionary\nfrom south america. like most lonely ladies, lady frances found her\ncomfort and occupation in religion. dr. shlessinger's remarkable\npersonality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact that he was\nrecovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic\nduties affected her deeply. she had helped mrs. shlessinger in the\nnursing of the convalescent saint. he spent his day, as the manager\ndescribed it to me, upon a lounge-chair on the veranda, with an\nattendant lady upon either side of him. he was preparing a map of the\nholy land, with special reference to the kingdom of the midianites,\nupon which he was writing a monograph. finally, having improved much\nin health, he and his wife had returned to london, and lady frances\nhad started thither in their company. this was just three weeks\nbefore, and the manager had heard nothing since. as to the maid,\nmarie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears,\nafter informing the other maids that she was leaving service forever.\ndr. shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole party before his\ndeparture.\n\"by the way,\" said the landlord in conclusion, \"you are not the only\nfriend of lady frances carfax who is inquiring after her just now.\nonly a week or so ago we had a man here upon the same errand.\"\n\"did he give a name?\" i asked.\n\"none; but he was an englishman, though of an unusual type.\"\n\"a savage?\" said i, linking my facts after the fashion of my\nillustrious friend.\n\"exactly. that describes him very well. he is a bulky, bearded,\nsunburned fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home in a\nfarmers' inn than in a fashionable hotel. a hard, fierce man, i\nshould think, and one whom i should be sorry to offend.\"\nalready the mystery began to define itself, as figures grow clearer\nwith the lifting of a fog. here was this good and pious lady pursued\nfrom place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure. she feared\nhim, or she would not have fled from lausanne. he had still followed.\nsooner or later he would overtake her. had he already overtaken her?\nwas that the secret of her continued silence? could the good people\nwho were her companions not screen her from his violence or his\nblackmail? what horrible purpose, what deep design, lay behind this\nlong pursuit? there was the problem which i had to solve.\nto holmes i wrote showing how rapidly and surely i had got down to\nthe roots of the matter. in reply i had a telegram asking for a\ndescription of dr. shlessinger's left ear. holmes's ideas of humour\nare strange and occasionally offensive, so i took no notice of his\nill-timed jest--indeed, i had already reached montpellier in my\npursuit of the maid, marie, before his message came.\ni had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all\nthat she could tell me. she was a devoted creature, who had only left\nher mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands, and\nbecause her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in\nany case. her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown\nsome irritability of temper towards her during their stay in baden,\nand had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her\nhonesty, and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise\nhave been. lady frances had given her fifty pounds as a\nwedding-present. like me, marie viewed with deep distrust the\nstranger who had driven her mistress from lausanne. with her own eyes\nshe had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the\npublic promenade by the lake. he was a fierce and terrible man. she\nbelieved that it was out of dread of him that lady frances had\naccepted the escort of the shlessingers to london. she had never\nspoken to marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the\nmaid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous\napprehension. so far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she\nsprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and\nfear. \"see!\" she cried. \"the miscreant follows still! there is the\nvery man of whom i speak.\"\nthrough the open sitting-room window i saw a huge, swarthy man with a\nbristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street\nand staring eagerly at he numbers of the houses. it was clear that,\nlike myself, he was on the track of the maid. acting upon the impulse\nof the moment, i rushed out and accosted him.\n\"you are an englishman,\" i said.\n\"what if i am?\" he asked with a most villainous scowl.\n\"may i ask what your name is?\"\n\"no, you may not,\" said he with decision.\nthe situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best.\n\"where is the lady frances carfax?\" i asked.\nhe stared at me with amazement.\n\"what have you done with her? why have you pursued her? i insist upon\nan answer!\" said i.\nthe fellow gave a below of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger. i\nhave held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron\nand the fury of a fiend. his hand was on my throat and my senses were\nnearly gone before an unshaven french ouvrier in a blue blouse darted\nout from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel in his hand, and struck my\nassailant a sharp crack over the forearm, which made him leave go his\nhold. he stood for an instant fuming with rage and uncertain whether\nhe should not renew his attack. then, with a snarl of anger, he left\nme and entered the cottage from which i had just come. i turned to\nthank my preserver, who stood beside me in the roadway.\n\"well, watson,\" said he, \"a very pretty hash you have made of it! i\nrather think you had better come back with me to london by the night\nexpress.\"\nan hour afterwards, sherlock holmes, in his usual garb and style, was\nseated in my private room at the hotel. his explanation of his sudden\nand opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he\ncould get away from london, he determined to head me off at the next\nobvious point of my travels. in the disguise of a workingman he had\nsat in the cabaret waiting for my appearance.\n\"and a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear\nwatson,\" said he. \"i cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder\nwhich you have omitted. the total effect of your proceeding has been\nto give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.\"\n\"perhaps you would have done no better,\" i answered bitterly.\n\"there is no 'perhaps' about it. i have done better. here is the hon.\nphilip green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we\nmay find him the starting-point for a more successful investigation.\"\na card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same\nbearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street. he started when he\nsaw me.\n\"what is this, mr. holmes?\" he asked. \"i had your note and i have\ncome. but what has this man to do with the matter?\"\n\"this is my old friend and associate, dr. watson, who is helping us\nin this affair.\"\nthe stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few words of\napology.\n\"i hope i didn't harm you. when you accused me of hurting her i lost\nmy grip of myself. indeed, i'm not responsible in these days. my\nnerves are like live wires. but this situation is beyond me. what i\nwant to know, in the first place, mr. holmes, is, how in the world\nyou came to hear of my existence at all.\"\n\"i am in touch with miss dobney, lady frances's governess.\"\n\"old susan dobney with the mob cap! i remember her well.\"\n\"and she remembers you. it was in the days before--before you found\nit better to go to south africa.\"\n\"ah, i see you know my whole story. i need hide nothing from you. i\nswear to you, mr. holmes, that there never was in this world a man\nwho loved a woman with a more wholehearted love than i had for\nfrances. i was a wild youngster, i know--not worse than others of my\nclass. but her mind was pure as snow. she could not bear a shadow of\ncoarseness. so, when she came to hear of things that i had done, she\nwould have no more to say to me. and yet she loved me--that is the\nwonder of it!--loved me well enough to remain single all her sainted\ndays just for my sake alone. when the years had passed and i had made\nmy money at barberton i thought perhaps i could seek her out and\nsoften her. i had heard that she was still unmarried, i found her at\nlausanne and tried all i knew. she weakened, i think, but her will\nwas strong, and when next i called she had left the town. i traced\nher to baden, and then after a time heard that her maid was here. i'm\na rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when dr. watson spoke to\nme as he did i lost hold of myself for a moment. but for god's sake\ntell me what has become of the lady frances.\"\n\"that is for us to find out,\" said sherlock holmes with peculiar\ngravity. \"what is your london address, mr. green?\"\n\"the langham hotel will find me.\"\n\"then may i recommend that you return there and be on hand in case i\nshould want you? i have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you\nmay rest assured that all that can be done will be done for the\nsafety of lady frances. i can say no more for the instant. i will\nleave you this card so that you may be able to keep in touch with us.\nnow, watson, if you will pack your bag i will cable to mrs. hudson to\nmake one of her best efforts for two hungry travellers at 7.30\nto-morrow.\"\na telegram was awaiting us when we reached our baker street rooms,\nwhich holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to\nme. \"jagged or torn,\" was the message, and the place of origin,\nbaden.\n\"what is this?\" i asked.\n\"it is everything,\" holmes answered. \"you may remember my seemingly\nirrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman's left ear. you did\nnot answer it.\"\n\"i had left baden and could not inquire.\"\n\"exactly. for this reason i sent a duplicate to the manager of the\nenglischer hof, whose answer lies here.\"\n\"what does it show?\"\n\"it shows, my dear watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally\nastute and dangerous man. the rev. dr. shlessinger, missionary from\nsouth america, is none other than holy peters, one of the most\nunscrupulous rascals that australia has ever evolved--and for a young\ncountry it has turned out some very finished types. his particular\nspecialty is the beguiling of lonely ladies by playing upon their\nreligious feelings, and his so-called wife, an englishwoman named\nfraser, is a worthy helpmate. the nature of his tactics suggested his\nidentity to me, and this physical peculiarity--he was badly bitten in\na saloon-fight at adelaide in '89--confirmed my suspicion. this poor\nlady is in the hands of a most infernal couple, who will stick at\nnothing, watson. that she is already dead is a very likely\nsupposition. if not, she is undoubtedly in some sort of confinement\nand unable to write to miss dobney or her other friends. it is always\npossible that she never reached london, or that she has passed\nthrough it, but the former is improbable, as, with their system of\nregistration, it is not easy for foreigners to play tricks with the\ncontinental police; and the latter is also unlikely, as these rouges\ncould not hope to find any other place where it would be as easy to\nkeep a person under restraint. all my instincts tell me that she is\nin london, but as we have at present no possible means of telling\nwhere, we can only take the obvious steps, eat our dinner, and\npossess our souls in patience. later in the evening i will stroll\ndown and have a word with friend lestrade at scotland yard.\"\nbut neither the official police nor holmes's own small but very\nefficient organization sufficed to clear away the mystery. amid the\ncrowded millions of london the three persons we sought were as\ncompletely obliterated as if they had never lived. advertisements\nwere tried, and failed. clues were followed, and led to nothing.\nevery criminal resort which shlessinger might frequent was drawn in\nvain. his old associates were watched, but they kept clear of him.\nand then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense there came a\nflash of light. a silver-and-brilliant pendant of old spanish design\nhad been pawned at bovington's, in westminster road. the pawner was a\nlarge, clean-shaven man of clerical appearance. his name and address\nwere demonstrably false. the ear had escaped notice, but the\ndescription was surely that of shlessinger.\nthree times had our bearded friend from the langham called for\nnews--the third time within an hour of this fresh development. his\nclothes were getting looser on his great body. he seemed to be\nwilting away in his anxiety. \"if you will only give me something to\ndo!\" was his constant wail. at last holmes could oblige him.\n\"he has begun to pawn the jewels. we should get him now.\"\n\"but does this mean that any harm has befallen the lady frances?\"\nholmes shook his head very gravely.\n\"supposing that they have held her prisoner up to now, it is clear\nthat they cannot let her loose without their own destruction. we must\nprepare for the worst.\"\n\"what can i do?\"\n\"these people do not know you by sight?\"\n\"no.\"\n\"it is possible that he will go to some other pawnbroker in the\nfuture. in that case, we must begin again. on the other hand, he has\nhad a fair price and no questions asked, so if he is in need of\nready-money he will probably come back to bovington's. i will give\nyou a note to them, and they will let you wait in the shop. if the\nfellow comes you will follow him home. but no indiscretion, and,\nabove all, no violence. i put you on your honour that you will take\nno step without my knowledge and consent.\"\nfor two days the hon. philip green (he was, i may mention, the son of\nthe famous admiral of that name who commanded the sea of azof fleet\nin the crimean war) brought us no news. on the evening of the third\nhe rushed into our sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle\nof his powerful frame quivering with excitement.\n\"we have him! we have him!\" he cried.\nhe was incoherent in his agitation. holmes soothed him with a few\nwords and thrust him into an armchair.\n\"come, now, give us the order of events,\" said he.\n\"she came only an hour ago. it was the wife, this time, but the\npendant she brought was the fellow of the other. she is a tall, pale\nwoman, with ferret eyes.\"\n\"that is the lady,\" said holmes.\n\"she left the office and i followed her. she walked up the kennington\nroad, and i kept behind her. presently she went into a shop. mr.\nholmes, it was an undertaker's.\"\nmy companion started. \"well?\" he asked in that vibrant voice which\ntold of the fiery soul behind the cold gray face.\n\"she was talking to the woman behind the counter. i entered as well.\n'it is late,' i heard her say, or words to that effect. the woman was\nexcusing herself. 'it should be there before now,' she answered. 'it\ntook longer, being out of the ordinary.' they both stopped and looked\nat me, so i asked some questions and then left the shop.\"\n\"you did excellently well. what happened next?\"\n\"the woman came out, but i had hid myself in a doorway. her\nsuspicions had been aroused, i think, for she looked round her. then\nshe called a cab and got in. i was lucky enough to get another and so\nto follow her. she got down at last at no. 36, poultney square,\nbrixton. i drove past, left my cab at the corner of the square, and\nwatched the house.\"\n\"did you see anyone?\"\n\"the windows were all in darkness save one on the lower floor. the\nblind was down, and i could not see in. i was standing there,\nwondering what i should do next, when a covered van drove up with two\nmen in it. they descended, took something out of the van, and carried\nit up the steps to the hall door. mr. holmes, it was a coffin.\"\n\"ah!\"\n\"for an instant i was on the point of rushing in. the door had been\nopened to admit the men and their burden. it was the woman who had\nopened it. but as i stood there she caught a glimpse of me, and i\nthink that she recognized me. i saw her start, and she hastily closed\nthe door. i remembered my promise to you, and here i am.\"\n\"you have done excellent work,\" said holmes, scribbling a few words\nupon a half-sheet of paper. \"we can do nothing legal without a\nwarrant, and you can serve the cause best by taking this note down to\nthe authorities and getting one. there may be some difficulty, but i\nshould think that the sale of the jewellery should be sufficient.\nlestrade will see to all details.\"\n\"but they may murder her in the meanwhile. what could the coffin\nmean, and for whom could it be but for her?\"\n\"we will do all that can be done, mr. green. not a moment will be\nlost. leave it in our hands. now watson,\" he added as our client\nhurried away, \"he will set the regular forces on the move. we are, as\nusual, the irregulars, and we must take our own line of action. the\nsituation strikes me as so desperate that the most extreme measures\nare justified. not a moment is to be lost in getting to poultney\nsquare.\n\"let us try to reconstruct the situation,\" said he as we drove\nswiftly past the houses of parliament and over westminster bridge.\n\"these villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to london, after first\nalienating her from her faithful maid. if she has written any letters\nthey have been intercepted. through some confederate they have\nengaged a furnished house. once inside it, they have made her a\nprisoner, and they have become possessed of the valuable jewellery\nwhich has been their object from the first. already they have begun\nto sell part of it, which seems safe enough to them, since they have\nno reason to think that anyone is interested in the lady's fate. when\nshe is released she will, of course, denounce them. therefore, she\nmust not be released. but they cannot keep her under lock and key\nforever. so murder is their only solution.\"\n\"that seems very clear.\"\n\"now we will take another line of reasoning. when you follow two\nseparate chains of thought, watson, you will find some point of\nintersection which should approximate to the truth. we will start\nnow, not from the lady but from the coffin and argue backward. that\nincident proves, i fear, beyond all doubt that the lady is dead. it\npoints also to an orthodox burial with proper accompaniment of\nmedical certificate and official sanction. had the lady been\nobviously murdered, they would have buried her in a hole in the back\ngarden. but here all is open and regular. what does this mean? surely\nthat they have done her to death in some way which has deceived the\ndoctor and simulated a natural end--poisoning, perhaps. and yet how\nstrange that they should ever let a doctor approach her unless he\nwere a confederate, which is hardly a credible proposition.\"\n\"could they have forged a medical certificate?\"\n\"dangerous, watson, very dangerous. no, i hardly see them doing that.\npull up, cabby! this is evidently the undertaker's, for we have just\npassed the pawnbroker's. would go in, watson? your appearance\ninspires confidence. ask what hour the poultney square funeral takes\nplace to-morrow.\"\nthe woman in the shop answered me without hesitation that it was to\nbe at eight o'clock in the morning. \"you see, watson, no mystery;\neverything above-board! in some way the legal forms have undoubtedly\nbeen complied with, and they think that they have little to fear.\nwell, there's nothing for it now but a direct frontal attack. are you\narmed?\"\n\"my stick!\"\n\"well, well, we shall be strong enough. 'thrice is he armed who hath\nhis quarrel just.' we simply can't afford to wait for the police or\nto keep within the four corners of the law. you can drive off, cabby.\nnow, watson, we'll just take our luck together, as we have\noccasionally in the past.\"\nhe had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of\npoultney square. it was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall\nwoman was outlined against the dim-lit hall.\n\"well, what do you want?\" she asked sharply, peering at us through\nthe darkness.\n\"i want to speak to dr. shlessinger,\" said holmes.\n\"there is no such person here,\" she answered, and tried to close the\ndoor, but holmes had jammed it with his foot.\n\"well, i want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call\nhimself,\" said holmes firmly.\nshe hesitated. then she threw open the door. \"well, come in!\" said\nshe. \"my husband is not afraid to face any man in the world.\" she\nclosed the door behind us and showed us into a sitting-room on the\nright side of the hall, turning up the gas as she left us. \"mr.\npeters will be with you in an instant,\" she said.\nher words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around\nthe dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before\nthe door opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped\nlightly into the room. he had a large red face, with pendulous\ncheeks, and a general air of superficial benevolence which was marred\nby a cruel, vicious mouth.\n\"there is surely some mistake here, gentlemen,\" he said in an\nunctuous, make-everything-easy voice. \"i fancy that you have been\nmisdirected. possibly if you tried farther down the street--\"\n\"that will do; we have no time to waste,\" said my companion firmly.\n\"you are henry peters, of adelaide, late the rev. dr. shlessinger, of\nbaden and south america. i am as sure of that as that my own name is\nsherlock holmes.\"\npeters, as i will now call him, started and stared hard at his\nformidable pursuer. \"i guess your name does not frighten me, mr.\nholmes,\" said he coolly. \"when a man's conscience is easy you can't\nrattle him. what is your business in my house?\"\n\"i want to know what you have done with the lady frances carfax, whom\nyou brought away with you from baden.\"\n\"i'd be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,\"\npeters answered coolly. \"i've a bill against her for a nearly a\nhundred pounds, and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery\npendants that the dealer would hardly look at. she attached herself\nto mrs. peters and me at baden--it is a fact that i was using another\nname at the time--and she stuck on to us until we came to london. i\npaid her bill and her ticket. once in london, she gave us the slip,\nand, as i say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. you\nfind her, mr. holmes, and i'm your debtor.\"\nin mean to find her,\" said sherlock holmes. \"i'm going through this\nhouse till i do find her.\"\n\"where is your warrant?\"\nholmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. \"this will have to serve\ntill a better one comes.\"\n\"why, you're a common burglar.\"\n\"so you might describe me,\" said holmes cheerfully. \"my companion is\nalso a dangerous ruffian. and together we are going through your\nhouse.\"\nour opponent opened the door.\n\"fetch a policeman, annie!\" said he. there was a whisk of feminine\nskirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.\n\"our time is limited, watson,\" said holmes. \"if you try to stop us,\npeters, you will most certainly get hurt. where is that coffin which\nwas brought into your house?\"\n\"what do you want with the coffin? it is in use. there is a body in\nit.\"\n\"i must see the body.\"\n\"never with my consent.\"\n\"then without it.\" with a quick movement holmes pushed the fellow to\none side and passed into the hall. a door half opened stood\nimmediately before us. we entered. it was the dining-room. on the\ntable, under a half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. holmes\nturned up the gas and raised the lid. deep down in the recesses of\nthe coffin lay an emaciated figure. the glare from the lights above\nbeat down upon an aged and withered face. by no possible process of\ncruelty, starvation, or disease could this wornout wreck be the still\nbeautiful lady frances. holmes's face showed his amazement, and also\nhis relief.\n\"thank god!\" he muttered. \"it's someone else.\"\n\"ah, you've blundered badly for once, mr. sherlock holmes,\" said\npeters, who had followed us into the room.\n\"who is the dead woman?\"\n\"well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife's,\nrose spender by name, whom we found in the brixton workhouse\ninfirmary. we brought her round here, called in dr. horsom, of 13\nfirbank villas--mind you take the address, mr. holmes--and had her\ncarefully tended, as christian folk should. on the third day she\ndied--certificate says senile decay--but that's only the doctor's\nopinion, and of course you know better. we ordered her funeral to be\ncarried out by stimson and co., of the kennington road, who will bury\nher at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. can you pick any hole in\nthat, mr. holmes? you've made a silly blunder, and you may as well\nown up to it. i'd give something for a photograph of your gaping,\nstaring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the lady\nfrances carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety.\"\nholmes's expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his\nantagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.\n\"i am going through your house,\" said he.\n\"are you, though!\" cried peters as a woman's voice and heavy steps\nsounded in the passage. \"we'll soon see about that. this way,\nofficers, if you please. these men have forced their way into my\nhouse, and i cannot get rid of them. help me to put them out.\"\na sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. holmes drew his card\nfrom his case.\n\"this is my name and address. this is my friend, dr. watson.\"\n\"bless you, sir, we know you very well,\" said the sergeant, \"but you\ncan't stay here without a warrant.\"\n\"of course not. i quite understand that.\"\n\"arrest him!\" cried peters.\n\"we know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted,\"\nsaid the sergeant majestically, \"but you'll have to go, mr. holmes.\"\n\"yes, watson, we shall have to go.\"\na minute later we were in the street once more. holmes was as cool as\never, but i was hot with anger and humiliation. the sergeant had\nfollowed us.\n\"sorry, mr. holmes, but that's the law.\"\n\"exactly, sergeant, you could not do otherwise.\"\n\"i expect there was good reason for your presence there. if there is\nanything i can do--\"\n\"it's a missing lady, sergeant, and we think she is in that house. i\nexpect a warrant presently.\"\n\"then i'll keep my eye on the parties, mr. holmes. if anything comes\nalong, i will surely let you know.\"\nit was only nine o'clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at\nonce. first we drove to brixton workhoused infirmary, where we found\nthat it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some\ndays before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former\nservant, and that they had obtained permission to take her away with\nthem. no surprise was expressed at the news that she had since died.\nthe doctor was our next goal. he had been called in, had found the\nwoman dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and\nhad signed the certificate in due form. \"i assure you that everything\nwas perfectly normal and there was no room for foul play in the\nmatter,\" said he. nothing in the house had struck him as suspicious\nsave that for people of their class it was remarkable that they\nshould have no servant. so far and no further went the doctor.\nfinally we found our way to scotland yard. there had been\ndifficulties of procedure in regard to the warrant. some delay was\ninevitable. the magistrate's signature might not be obtained until\nnext morning. if holmes would call about nine he could go down with\nlestrade and see it acted upon. so ended the day, save that near\nmidnight our friend, the sergeant, called to say that he had seen\nflickering lights here and there in the windows of the great dark\nhouse, but that no one had left it and none had entered. we could but\npray for patience and wait for the morrow.\nsherlock holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless\nfor sleep. i left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows\nknotted together, and his long, nervous fingers tapping upon the arms\nof his chair, as he turned over in his mind every possible solution\nof the mystery. several times in the course of the night i heard him\nprowling about the house. finally, just after i had been called in\nthe morning, he rushed into my room. he was in his dressing-gown, but\nhis pale, hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a\nsleepless one.\n\"what time was the funeral? eight, was it not?\" he asked eagerly.\n\"well, it is 7.20 now. good heavens, watson, what has become of any\nbrains that god has given me? quick, man, quick! it's life or\ndeath--a hundred chances on death to one on life. i'll never forgive\nmyself, never, if we are too late!\"\nfive minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down\nbaker street. but even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed\nbig ben, and eight struck as we tore down the brixton road. but\nothers were late as well as we. ten minutes after the hour the hearse\nwas still standing at the door of the house, and even as our foaming\nhorse came to a halt the coffin, supported by three men, appeared on\nthe threshold. holmes darted forward and barred their way.\n\"take it back!\" he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the\nforemost. \"take it back this instant!\"\n\"what the devil do you mean? once again i ask you, where is your\nwarrant?\" shouted the furious peters, his big red face glaring over\nthe farther end of the coffin.\n\"the warrant is on its way. the coffin shall remain in the house\nuntil it comes.\"\nthe authority in holmes's voice had its effect upon the bearers.\npeters had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these\nnew orders. \"quick, watson, quick! here is a screw-driver!\" he\nshouted as the coffin was replaced upon the table. \"here's one for\nyou, my man! a sovreign if the lid comes off in a minute! ask no\nquestions--work away! that's good! another! and another! now pull all\ntogether! it's giving! it's giving! ah, that does it at last.\"\nwith a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. as we did so there\ncame from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of\nchloroform. a body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool,\nwhich had been soaked in the narcotic. holmes plucked it off and\ndisclosed the statuesque face of a handsome and spiritual woman of\nmiddle age. in an instant he had passed his arm round the figure and\nraised her to a sitting position.\n\"is she gone, watson? is there a spark left? surely we are not too\nlate!\"\nfor half an hour it seemed that we were. what with actual\nsuffocation, and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the\nlady frances seemed to have passed the last point of recall. and\nthen, at last, with artificial respiration, with injected ether, and\nwith every device that science could suggest, some flutter of life,\nsome quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke of the\nslowly returning life. a cab had driven up, and holmes, parting the\nblind, looked out at it. \"here is lestrade with his warrant,\" said\nhe. \"he will find that his birds have flown. and here,\" he added as a\nheavy step hurried along the passage, \"is someone who has a better\nright to nurse this lady than we have. good morning, mr. green; i\nthink that the sooner we can move the lady frances the better.\nmeanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the poor old woman who still\nlies in that coffin may go to her last resting-place alone.\"\n\"should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear watson,\"\nsaid holmes that evening, \"it can only be as an example of that\ntemporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be\nexposed. such slips are common to all mortals, and the greatest is he\nwho can recognize and repair them. to this modified credit i may,\nperhaps, make some claim. my night was haunted by the thought that\nsomewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation, had come\nunder my notice and had been too easily dismissed. then, suddenly, in\nthe gray of the morning, the words came back to me. it was the remark\nof the undertaker's wife, as reported by philip green. she had said,\n'it should be there before now. it took longer, being out of the\nordinary.' it was the coffin of which she spoke. it had been out of\nthe ordinary. that could only mean that it had been made to some\nspecial measurement. but why? why? then in an instant i remembered\nthe deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the bottom. why so\nlarge a coffin for so small a body? to leave room for another body.\nboth would be buried under the one certificate. it had all been so\nclear, if only my own sight had not been dimmed. at eight the lady\nfrances would be buried. our one chance was to stop the coffin before\nit left the house.\n\"it was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it was a\nchance, as the result showed. these people had never, to my\nknowledge, done a murder. they might shrink from actual violence at\nthe last. the could bury her with no sign of how she met her end, and\neven if she were exhumed there was a chance for them. i hoped that\nsuch considerations might prevail with them. you can reconstruct the\nscene well enough. you saw the horrible den upstairs, where the poor\nlady had been kept so long. they rushed in and overpowered her with\ntheir chloroform, carried her down, poured more into the coffin to\ninsure against her waking, and then screwed down the lid. a clever\ndevice, watson. it is new to me in the annals of crime. if our\nex-missionary friends escape the clutches of lestrade, i shall expect\nto hear of some brilliant incidents in their future career.\"\nthe adventure of the devil's foot\nin recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and\ninteresting recollections which i associate with my long and intimate\nfriendship with mr. sherlock holmes, i have continually been faced by\ndifficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity. to his sombre\nand cynical spirit all popular applause was always abhorrent, and\nnothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand\nover the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen\nwith a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced\ncongratulation. it was indeed this attitude upon the part of my\nfriend and certainly not any lack of interesting material which has\ncaused me of late years to lay very few of my records before the\npublic. my participation in some if his adventures was always a\nprivilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me.\nit was, then, with considerable surprise that i received a telegram\nfrom homes last tuesday--he has never been known to write where a\ntelegram would serve--in the following terms:\nwhy not tell them of the cornish horror--strangest case i have\nhandled.\ni have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter\nfresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that i\nshould recount it; but i hasten, before another cancelling telegram\nmay arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details of\nthe case and to lay the narrative before my readers.\nit was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that holmes's iron\nconstitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of\nconstant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by\noccasional indiscretions of his own. in march of that year dr. moore\nagar, of harley street, whose dramatic introduction to holmes i may\nsome day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private\nagent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest\nif he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. the state of his health\nwas not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for\nhis mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on\nthe threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give\nhimself a complete change of scene and air. thus it was that in the\nearly spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small\ncottage near poldhu bay, at the further extremity of the cornish\npeninsula.\nit was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim\nhumour of my patient. from the windows of our little whitewashed\nhouse, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon\nthe whole sinister semicircle of mounts bay, that old death trap of\nsailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept\nreefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. with a\nnortherly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the\nstorm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.\nthen come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale\nfrom the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last\nbattle in the creaming breakers. the wise mariner stands far out from\nthat evil place.\non the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. it\nwas a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with an\noccasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world village.\nin every direction upon these moors there were traces of some\nvanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as it sole\nrecord strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained\nthe burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at\nprehistoric strife. the glamour and mystery of the place, with its\nsinister atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination\nof my friend, and he spent much of his time in long walks and\nsolitary meditations upon the moor. the ancient cornish language had\nalso arrested his attention, and he had, i remember, conceived the\nidea that it was akin to the chaldean, and had been largely derived\nfrom the phoenician traders in tin. he had received a consignment of\nbooks upon philology and was settling down to develop this thesis\nwhen suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found\nourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our\nvery doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely\nmore mysterious than any of those which had driven us from london.\nour simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently\ninterrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of\nevents which caused the utmost excitement not only in cornwall but\nthroughout the whole west of england. many of my readers may retain\nsome recollection of what was called at the time \"the cornish\nhorror,\" though a most imperfect account of the matter reached the\nlondon press. now, after thirteen years, i will give the true details\nof this inconceivable affair to the public.\ni have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted\nthis part of cornwall. the nearest of these was the hamlet of\ntredannick wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred\ninhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. the vicar\nof the parish, mr. roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and\nas such holmes had made his acquaintance. he was a middle-aged man,\nportly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore. at his\ninvitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know,\nalso, mr. mortimer tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased\nthe clergyman's scanty resources by taking rooms in his large,\nstraggling house. the vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to\nsuch an arrangement, though he had little in common with his lodger,\nwho was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the\nimpression of actual, physical deformity. i remember that during our\nshort visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely\nreticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes,\nbrooding apparently upon his own affairs.\nthese were the two men who entered abruptly into our little\nsitting-room on tuesday, march the 16th, shortly after our breakfast\nhour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion\nupon the moors.\n\"mr. holmes,\" said the vicar in an agitated voice, \"the most\nextraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. it is\nthe most unheard-of business. we can only regard it as a special\nprovidence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all\nengland you are the one man we need.\"\ni glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but\nholmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an\nold hound who hears the view-halloa. he waved his hand to the sofa,\nand our palpitating visitor with his agitated companion sat side by\nside upon it. mr. mortimer tregennis was more self-contained than the\nclergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands and the brightness of\nhis dark eyes showed that they shared a common emotion.\n\"shall i speak or you?\" he asked of the vicar.\n\"well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be,\nand the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do\nthe speaking,\" said holmes.\ni glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed\nlodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which\nholmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces.\n\"perhaps i had best say a few words first,\" said the vicar, \"and then\nyou can judge if you will listen to the details from mr. tregennis,\nor whether we should not hasten at once to the scene of this\nmysterious affair. i may explain, then, that our friend here spent\nlast evening in the company of his two brothers, owen and george, and\nof his sister brenda, at their house of tredannick wartha, which is\nnear the old stone cross upon the moor. he left them shortly after\nten o'clock, playing cards round the dining-room table, in excellent\nhealth and spirits. this morning, being an early riser, he walked in\nthat direction before breakfast and was overtaken by the carriage of\ndr. richards, who explained that he had just been sent for on a most\nurgent call to tredannick wartha. mr. mortimer tregennis naturally\nwent with him. when he arrived at tredannick wartha he found an\nextraordinary state of things. his two brothers and his sister were\nseated round the table exactly as he had left them, the cards still\nspread in front of them and the candles burned down to their sockets.\nthe sister lay back stone-dead in her chair, while the two brothers\nsat on each side of her laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses\nstricken clean out of them. all three of them, the dead woman and the\ntwo demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the\nutmost horror--a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look\nupon. there was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house,\nexcept mrs. porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that\nshe had slept deeply and heard no sound during the night. nothing had\nbeen stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of\nwhat the horror can be which has frightened a woman to death and two\nstrong men out of their senses. there is the situation, mr. holmes,\nin a nutshell, and if you can help us to clear it up you will have\ndone a great work.\"\ni had hoped that in some way i could coax my companion back into the\nquiet which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at his\nintense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the\nexpectation. he sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in the\nstrange drama which had broken in upon our peace.\n\"i will look into this matter,\" he said at last. \"on the face of it,\nit would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. have you\nbeen there yourself, mr. roundhay?\"\n\"no, mr. holmes. mr. tregennis brought back the account to the\nvicarage, and i at once hurried over with him to consult you.\"\n\"how far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?\"\n\"about a mile inland.\"\n\"then we shall walk over together. but before we start i must ask you\na few questions, mr. mortimer tregennis.\"\nthe other had been silent all this time, but i had observed that his\nmore controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive\nemotion of the clergyman. he sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious\ngaze fixed upon holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively\ntogether. his pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful\nexperience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to\nreflect something of the horror of the scene.\n\"ask what you like, mr. holmes,\" said he eagerly. \"it is a bad thing\nto speak of, but i will answer you the truth.\"\n\"tell me about last night.\"\n\"well, mr. holmes, i supped there, as the vicar has said, and my\nelder brother george proposed a game of whist afterwards. we sat down\nabout nine o'clock. it was a quarter-past ten when i moved to go. i\nleft them all round the table, as merry as could be.\"\n\"who let you out?\"\n\"mrs. porter had gone to bed, so i let myself out. i shut the hall\ndoor behind me. the window of the room in which they sat was closed,\nbut the blind was not drawn down. there was no change in door or\nwindow this morning, or any reason to think that any stranger had\nbeen to the house. yet there they sat, driven clean mad with terror,\nand brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over the arm\nof the chair. i'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind so\nlong as i live.\"\n\"the facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable,\" said\nholmes. \"i take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any\nway account for them?\"\n\"it's devilish, mr. holmes, devilish!\" cried mortimer tregennis. \"it\nis not of this world. something has come into that room which has\ndashed the light of reason from their minds. what human contrivance\ncould do that?\"\n\"i fear,\" said holmes, \"that if the matter is beyond humanity it is\ncertainly beyond me. yet we must exhaust all natural explanations\nbefore we fall back upon such a theory as this. as to yourself, mr.\ntregennis, i take it you were divided in some way from your family,\nsince they lived together and you had rooms apart?\"\n\"that is so, mr. holmes, though the matter is past and done with. we\nwere a family of tin-miners at redruth, but we sold our venture to a\ncompany, and so retired with enough to keep us. i won't deny that\nthere was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood\nbetween us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we\nwere the best of friends together.\"\n\"looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything\nstand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the\ntragedy? think carefully, mr. tregennis, for any clue which can help\nme.\"\n\"there is nothing at all, sir.\"\n\"your people were in their usual spirits?\"\n\"never better.\"\n\"were they nervous people? did they ever show any apprehension of\ncoming danger?\"\n\"nothing of the kind.\"\n\"you have nothing to add then, which could assist me?\"\nmortimer tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.\n\"there is one thing occurs to me,\" said he at last. \"as we sat at the\ntable my back was to the window, and my brother george, he being my\npartner at cards, was facing it. i saw him once look hard over my\nshoulder, so i turned round and looked also. the blind was up and the\nwindow shut, but i could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and it\nseemed to me for a moment that i saw something moving among them. i\ncouldn't even say if it was man or animal, but i just thought there\nwas something there. when i asked him what he was looking at, he told\nme that he had the same feeling. that is all that i can say.\"\n\"did you not investigate?\"\n\"no; the matter passed as unimportant.\"\n\"you left them, then, without any premonition of evil?\"\n\"none at all.\"\n\"i am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning.\"\n\"i am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. this\nmorning i had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook\nme. he told me that old mrs. porter had sent a boy down with an\nurgent message. i sprang in beside him and we drove on. when we got\nthere we looked into that dreadful room. the candles and the fire\nmust have burned out hours before, and they had been sitting there in\nthe dark until dawn had broken. the doctor said brenda must have been\ndead at least six hours. there were no signs of violence. she just\nlay across the arm of the chair with that look on her face. george\nand owen were singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great\napes. oh, it was awful to see! i couldn't stand it, and the doctor\nwas as white as a sheet. indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of\nfaint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well.\"\n\"remarkable--most remarkable!\" said holmes, rising and taking his\nhat. \"i think, perhaps, we had better go down to tredannick wartha\nwithout further delay. i confess that i have seldom known a case\nwhich at first sight presented a more singular problem.\"\nour proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the\ninvestigation. it was marked, however, at the outset by an incident\nwhich left the most sinister impression upon my mind. the approach to\nthe spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,\ncountry lane. while we made our way along it we heard the rattle of a\ncarriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. as it\ndrove by us i caught a glimpse through the closed window of a\nhorribly contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. those staring\neyes and gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.\n\"my brothers!\" cried mortimer tregennis, white to his lips. \"they are\ntaking them to helston.\"\nwe looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its\nway. then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which\nthey had met their strange fate.\nit was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage,\nwith a considerable garden which was already, in that cornish air,\nwell filled with spring flowers. towards this garden the window of\nthe sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to mortimer\ntregennis, must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer\nhorror in a single instant blasted their minds. holmes walked slowly\nand thoughtfully among the flower-plots and along the path before we\nentered the porch. so absorbed was he in his thoughts, i remember,\nthat he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and\ndeluged both our feet and the garden path. inside the house we were\nmet by the elderly cornish housekeeper, mrs. porter, who, with the\naid of a young girl, looked after the wants of the family. she\nreadily answered all holmes's questions. she had heard nothing in the\nnight. her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and\nshe had never known them more cheerful and prosperous. she had\nfainted with horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing\nthat dreadful company round the table. she had, when she recovered,\nthrown open the window to let the morning air in, and had run down to\nthe lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the doctor. the lady was on\nher bed upstairs if we cared to see her. it took four strong men to\nget the brothers into the asylum carriage. she would not herself stay\nin the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to\nrejoin her family at st. ives.\nwe ascended the stairs and viewed the body. miss brenda tregennis had\nbeen a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. her\ndark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still\nlingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had\nbeen her last human emotion. from her bedroom we descended to the\nsitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. the\ncharred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. on the table\nwere the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards\nscattered over its surface. the chairs had been moved back against\nthe walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. holmes\npaced with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various\nchairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. he tested\nhow much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the\nceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did i see that sudden\nbrightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have\ntold me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter darkness.\n\"why a fire?\" he asked once. \"had they always a fire in this small\nroom on a spring evening?\"\nmortimer tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. for\nthat reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. \"what are you going\nto do now, mr. holmes?\" he asked.\nmy friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. \"i think, watson,\nthat i shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have\nso often and so justly condemned,\" said he. \"with your permission,\ngentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for i am not aware that\nany new factor is likely to come to our notice here. i will turn the\nfacts over in my mid, mr, tregennis, and should anything occur to me\ni will certainly ommunicate with you and the vicar. in the meantime i\nwish you both good-morning.\"\nit was not until long after we were back in poldhu cottage that\nholmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. he sat coiled in his\narmchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue\nswirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead\ncontracted, his eyes vacant and far away. finally he laid down his\npipe and sprang to his feet.\n\"it won't do, watson!\" said he with a laugh. \"let us walk along the\ncliffs together and search for flint arrows. we are more likely to\nfind them than clues to this problem. to let the brain work without\nsufficient material is like racing an engine. it racks itself to\npieces. the sea air, sunshine, and patience, watson--all else will\ncome.\n\"now, let us calmly define our position, watson,\" he continued as we\nskirted the cliffs together. \"let us get a firm grip of the very\nlittle which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be\nready to fit them into their places. i take it, in the first place,\nthat neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into\nthe affairs of men. let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our\nminds. very good. there remain three persons who have been grievously\nstricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency. that is firm\nground. now, when did this occur? evidently, assuming his narrative\nto be true, it was immediately after mr. mortimer tregennis had left\nthe room. that is a very important point. the presumption is that it\nwas within a few minutes afterwards. the cards still lay upon the\ntable. it was already past their usual hour for bed. yet they had not\nchanged their position or pushed back their chairs. i repeat, then,\nthat the occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not\nlater than eleven o'clock last night.\n\"our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the movements\nof mortimer tregennis after he left the room. in this there is no\ndifficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion. knowing my methods\nas you do, you were, of course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy\nwater-pot expedient by which i obtained a clearer impress of his foot\nthan might otherwise have been possible. the wet, sandy path took it\nadmirably. last night was also wet, you will remember, and it was not\ndifficult--having obtained a sample print--to pick out his track\namong others and to follow his movements. he appears to have walked\naway swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.\n\"if, then, mortimer tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet\nsome outside person affected the card-players, how can we reconstruct\nthat person, and how was such an impression of horror conveyed? mrs.\nporter may be eliminated. she is evidently harmless. is there any\nevidence that someone crept up to the garden window and in some\nmanner produced so terrific an effect that he drove those who saw it\nout of their senses? the only suggestion in this direction comes from\nmortimer tregennis himself, who says that his brother spoke about\nsome movement in the garden. that is certainly remarkable, as the\nnight was rainy, cloudy, and dark. anyone who had the design to alarm\nthese people would be compelled to place his very face against the\nglass before he could be seen. there is a three-foot flower-border\noutside this window, but no indication of a footmark. it is difficult\nto imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so terrible an\nimpression upon the company, nor have we found any possible motive\nfor so strange and elaborate an attempt. you perceive our\ndifficulties, watson?\"\n\"they are only too clear,\" i answered with conviction.\n\"and yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are not\ninsurmountable,\" said holmes. \"i fancy that among your extensive\narchives, watson, you may find some which were nearly as obscure.\nmeanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more accurate data are\navailable, and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit of\nneolithic man.\"\ni may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment, but\nnever have i wondered at it more than upon that spring morning in\ncornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts, arrowheads, and\nshards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were waiting for his\nsolution. it was not until we had returned in the afternoon to our\ncottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who soon brought our\nminds back to the matter in hand. neither of us needed to be told who\nthat visitor was. the huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face\nwith the fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which\nnearly brushed our cottage ceiling, the beard--golden at the fringes\nand white near the lips, save for the nicotine stain from his\nperpetual cigar--all these were as well known in london as in africa,\nand could only be associated with the tremendous personality of dr.\nleon sterndale, the great lion-hunter and explorer.\nwe had heard of his presence in the district and had once or twice\ncaught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. he made no\nadvances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of doing so to\nhim, as it was well known that it was his love of seclusion which\ncaused him to spend the greater part of the intervals between his\njourneys in a small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of beauchamp\narriance. here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely\nlonely life, attending to his own simple wants and paying little\napparent heed to the affairs of his neighbours. it was a surprise to\nme, therefore, to hear him asking holmes in an eager voice whether he\nhad made any advance in his reconstruction of this mysterious\nepisode. \"the county police are utterly at fault,\" said he, \"but\nperhaps your wider experience has suggested some conceivable\nexplanation. my only claim to being taken into your confidence is\nthat during my many residences here i have come to know this family\nof tregennis very well--indeed, upon my cornish mother's side i could\ncall them cousins--and their strange fate has naturally been a great\nshock to me. i may tell you that i had got as far as plymouth upon my\nway to africa, but the news reached me this morning, and i came\nstraight back again to help in the inquiry.\"\nholmes raised his eyebrows.\n\"did you lose your boat through it?\"\n\"i will take the next.\"\n\"dear me! that is friendship indeed.\"\n\"i tell you they were relatives.\"\n\"quite so--cousins of your mother. was your baggage aboard the ship?\"\n\"some of it, but the main part at the hotel.\"\n\"i see. but surely this event could not have found its way into the\nplymouth morning papers.\"\n\"no, sir; i had a telegram.\"\n\"might i ask from whom?\"\na shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.\n\"you are very inquisitive, mr. holmes.\"\n\"it is my business.\"\nwith an effort dr. sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.\n\"i have no objection to telling you,\" he said. \"it was mr. roundhay,\nthe vicar, who sent me the telegram which recalled me.\"\n\"thank you,\" said holmes. \"i may say in answer to your original\nquestion that i have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject of\nthis case, but that i have every hope of reaching some conclusion. it\nwould be premature to say more.\"\n\"perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point in\nany particular direction?\"\n\"no, i can hardly answer that.\"\n\"then i have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit.\" the\nfamous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour,\nand within five minutes holmes had followed him. i saw him no more\nuntil the evening, when he returned with a slow step and haggard face\nwhich assured me that he had made no great progress with his\ninvestigation. he glanced at a telegram which awaited him and threw\nit into the grate.\n\"from the plymouth hotel, watson,\" he said. \"i learned the name of it\nfrom the vicar, and i wired to make certain that dr. leon sterndale's\naccount was true. it appears that he did indeed spend last night\nthere, and that he has actually allowed some of his baggage to go on\nto africa, while he returned to be present at this investigation.\nwhat do you make of that, watson?\"\n\"he is deeply interested.\"\n\"deeply interested--yes. there is a thread here which we had not yet\ngrasped and which might lead us through the tangle. cheer up, watson,\nfor i am very sure that our material has not yet all come to hand.\nwhen it does we may soon leave our difficulties behind us.\"\nlittle did i think how soon the words of holmes would be realized, or\nhow strange and sinister would be that new development which opened\nup an entirely fresh line of investigation. i was shaving at my\nwindow in the morning when i heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking\nup, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. it pulled up at\nour door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our\ngarden path. holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet\nhim.\nour visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but at\nlast in gasps and bursts his tragic story came out of him.\n\"we are devil-ridden, mr. holmes! my poor parish is devil-ridden!\" he\ncried. \"satan himself is loose in it! we are given over into his\nhands!\" he danced about in his agitation, a ludicrous object if it\nwere not for his ashy face and startled eyes. finally he shot out his\nterrible news.\n\"mr. mortimer tregennis died during the night, and with exactly the\nsame symptoms as the rest of his family.\"\nholmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.\n\"can you fit us both into your dog-cart?\"\n\"yes, i can.\"\n\"then, watson, we will postpone our breakfast. mr. roundhay, we are\nentirely at your disposal. hurry--hurry, before things get\ndisarranged.\"\nthe lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an angle\nby themselves, the one above the other. below was a large\nsitting-room; above, his bedroom. they looked out upon a croquet lawn\nwhich came up to the windows. we had arrived before the doctor or the\npolice, so that everything was absolutely undisturbed. let me\ndescribe exactly the scene as we saw it upon that misty march\nmorning. it has left an impression which can never be effaced from my\nmind.\nthe atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing\nstuffiness. the servant who had first entered had thrown up the\nwindow, or it would have been even more intolerable. this might\npartly be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring and smoking on\nthe centre table. beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in his\nchair, his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up on to his\nforehead, and his lean dark face turned towards the window and\ntwisted into the same distortion of terror which had marked the\nfeatures of his dead sister. his limbs were convulsed and his fingers\ncontorted as though he had died in a very paroxysm of fear. he was\nfully clothed, though there were signs that his dressing had been\ndone in a hurry. we had already learned that his bed had been slept\nin, and that the tragic end had come to him in the early morning.\none realized the red-hot energy which underlay holmes's phlegmatic\nexterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the\nmoment that he entered the fatal apartment. in an instant he was\ntense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering\nwith eager activity. he was out on the lawn, in through the window,\nround the room, and up into the bedroom, for all the world like a\ndashing foxhound drawing a cover. in the bedroom he made a rapid cast\naround and ended by throwing open the window, which appeared to give\nhim some fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with\nloud ejaculations of interest and delight. then he rushed down the\nstair, out through the open window, threw himself upon his face on\nthe lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, all with the energy\nof the hunter who is at the very heels of his quarry. the lamp, which\nwas an ordinary standard, he examined with minute care, making\ncertain measurements upon its bowl. he carefully scrutinized with his\nlens the talc shield which covered the top of the chimney and scraped\noff some ashes which adhered to its upper surface, putting some of\nthem into an envelope, which he placed in his pocketbook. finally,\njust as the doctor and the official police put in an appearance, he\nbeckoned to the vicar and we all three went out upon the lawn.\n\"i am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely\nbarren,\" he remarked. \"i cannot remain to discuss the matter with the\npolice, but i should be exceedingly obliged, mr. roundhay, if you\nwould give the inspector my compliments and direct his attention to\nthe bedroom window and to the sitting-room lamp. each is suggestive,\nand together they are almost conclusive. if the police would desire\nfurther information i shall be happy to see any of them at the\ncottage. and now, watson, i think that, perhaps, we shall be better\nemployed elsewhere.\"\nit may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur, or\nthat they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of\ninvestigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them for\nthe next two days. during this time holmes spent some of his time\nsmoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater portion in country\nwalks which he undertook alone, returning after many hours without\nremark as to where he had been. one experiment served to show me the\nline of his investigation. he had bought a lamp which was the\nduplicate of the one which had burned in the room of mortimer\ntregennis on the morning of the tragedy. this he filled with the same\noil as that used at the vicarage, and he carefully timed the period\nwhich it would take to be exhausted. another experiment which he made\nwas of a more unpleasant nature, and one which i am not likely ever\nto forget.\n\"you will remember, watson,\" he remarked one afternoon, \"that there\nis a single common point of resemblance in the varying reports which\nhave reached us. this concerns the effect of the atmosphere of the\nroom in each case upon those who had first entered it. you will\nrecollect that mortimer tregennis, in describing the episode of his\nlast visit to his brother's house, remarked that the doctor on\nentering the room fell into a chair? you had forgotten? well i can\nanswer for it that it was so. now, you will remember also that mrs.\nporter, the housekeeper, told us that she herself fainted upon\nentering the room and had afterwards opened the window. in the second\ncase--that of mortimer tregennis himself--you cannot have forgotten\nthe horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived, though the\nservant had thrown open the window. that servant, i found upon\ninquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. you will admit,\nwatson, that these facts are very suggestive. in each case there is\nevidence of a poisonous atmosphere. in each case, also, there is\ncombustion going on in the room--in the one case a fire, in the other\na lamp. the fire was needed, but the lamp was lit--as a comparison of\nthe oil consumed will show--long after it was broad daylight. why?\nsurely because there is some connection between three things--the\nburning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of\nthose unfortunate people. that is clear, is it not?\"\n\"it would appear so.\"\n\"at least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. we will suppose,\nthen, that something was burned in each case which produced an\natmosphere causing strange toxic effects. very good. in the first\ninstance--that of the tregennis family--this substance was placed in\nthe fire. now the window was shut, but the fire would naturally carry\nfumes to some extent up the chimney. hence one would expect the\neffects of the poison to be less than in the second case, where there\nwas less escape for the vapour. the result seems to indicate that it\nwas so, since in the first case only the woman, who had presumably\nthe more sensitive organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that\ntemporary or permanent lunacy which is evidently the first effect of\nthe drug. in the second case the result was complete. the facts,\ntherefore, seem to bear out the theory of a poison which worked by\ncombustion.\n\"with this train of reasoning in my head i naturally looked about in\nmortimer tregennis's room to find some remains of this substance. the\nobvious place to look was the talc shelf or smoke-guard of the lamp.\nthere, sure enough, i perceived a number of flaky ashes, and round\nthe edges a fringe of brownish powder, which had not yet been\nconsumed. half of this i took, as you saw, and i placed it in an\nenvelope.\"\n\"why half, holmes?\"\n\"it is not for me, my dear watson, to stand in the way of the\nofficial police force. i leave them all the evidence which i found.\nthe poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it.\nnow, watson, we will light our lamp; we will, however, take the\nprecaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two\ndeserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that\nopen window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine\nto have nothing to do with the affair. oh, you will see it out, will\nyou? i thought i knew my watson. this chair i will place opposite\nyours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face\nto face. the door we will leave ajar. each is now in a position to\nwatch the other and to bring the experiment to an end should the\nsymptoms seem alarming. is that all clear? well, then, i take our\npowder--or what remains of it--from the envelope, and i lay it above\nthe burning lamp. so! now, watson, let us sit down and await\ndevelopments.\"\nthey were not long in coming. i had hardly settled in my chair before\ni was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. at the\nvery first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all\ncontrol. a thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind\ntold me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out\nupon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all\nthat was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. vague\nshapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a\nwarning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller\nupon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. a freezing\nhorror took possession of me. i felt that my hair was rising, that my\neyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like\nleather. the turmoil within my brain was such that something must\nsurely snap. i tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse\ncroak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself.\nat the same moment, in some effort of escape, i broke through that\ncloud of despair and had a glimpse of holmes's face, white, rigid,\nand drawn with horror--the very look which i had seen upon the\nfeatures of the dead. it was that vision which gave me an instant of\nsanity and of strength. i dashed from my chair, threw my arms round\nholmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant\nafterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were\nlying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was\nbursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt\nus in. slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape\nuntil peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the\ngrass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at\neach other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which\nwe had undergone.\n\"upon my word, watson!\" said holmes at last with an unsteady voice,\n\"i owe you both my thanks and an apology. it was an unjustifiable\nexperiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a friend. i am\nreally very sorry.\"\n\"you know,\" i answered with some emotion, for i have never seen so\nmuch of holmes's heart before, \"that it is my greatest joy and\nprivilege to help you.\"\nhe relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which\nwas his habitual attitude to those about him. \"it would be\nsuperfluous to drive us mad, my dear watson,\" said he. \"a candid\nobserver would certainly declare that we were so already before we\nembarked upon so wild an experiment. i confess that i never imagined\nthat the effect could be so sudden and so severe.\" he dashed into the\ncottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's\nlength, he threw it among a bank of brambles. \"we must give the room\na little time to clear. i take it, watson, that you have no longer a\nshadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?\"\n\"none whatever.\"\n\"but the cause remains as obscure as before. come into the arbour\nhere and let us discuss it together. that villainous stuff seems\nstill to linger round my throat. i think we must admit that all the\nevidence points to this man, mortimer tregennis, having been the\ncriminal in the first tragedy, though he was the victim in the second\none. we must remember, in the first place, that there is some story\nof a family quarrel, followed by a reconciliation. how bitter that\nquarrel may have been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot\ntell. when i think of mortimer tregennis, with the foxy face and the\nsmall shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom\ni should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition. well,\nin the next place, you will remember that this idea of someone moving\nin the garden, which took our attention for a moment from the real\ncause of the tragedy, emanated from him. he had a motive in\nmisleading us. finally, if he did not throw the substance into the\nfire at the moment of leaving the room, who did do so? the affair\nhappened immediately after his departure. had anyone else come in,\nthe family would certainly have risen from the table. besides, in\npeaceful cornwall, visitors did not arrive after ten o'clock at\nnight. we may take it, then, that all the evidence points to mortimer\ntregennis as the culprit.\"\n\"then his own death was suicide!\"\n\"well, watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible supposition.\nthe man who had the guilt upon his soul of having brought such a fate\nupon his own family might well be driven by remorse to inflict it\nupon himself. there are, however, some cogent reasons against it.\nfortunately, there is one man in england who knows all about it, and\ni have made arrangements by which we shall hear the facts this\nafternoon from his own lips. ah! he is a little before his time.\nperhaps you would kindly step this way, dr. leon sterndale. we have\nbeen conducing a chemical experiment indoors which has left our\nlittle room hardly fit for the reception of so distinguished a\nvisitor.\"\ni had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic figure\nof the great african explorer appeared upon the path. he turned in\nsome surprise towards the rustic arbour in which we sat.\n\"you sent for me, mr. holmes. i had your note about an hour ago, and\ni have come, though i really do not know why i should obey your\nsummons.\"\n\"perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate,\" said holmes.\n\"meanwhile, i am much obliged to you for your courteous acquiescence.\nyou will excuse this informal reception in the open air, but my\nfriend watson and i have nearly furnished an additional chapter to\nwhat the papers call the cornish horror, and we prefer a clear\natmosphere for the present. perhaps, since the matters which we have\nto discuss will affect you personally in a very intimate fashion, it\nis as well that we should talk where there can be no eavesdropping.\"\nthe explorer took his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my\ncompanion.\n\"i am at a loss to know, sir,\" he said, \"what you can have to speak\nabout which affects me personally in a very intimate fashion.\"\n\"the killing of mortimer tregennis,\" said holmes.\nfor a moment i wished that i were armed. sterndale's fierce face\nturned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate\nveins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with\nclenched hands towards my companion. then he stopped, and with a\nviolent effort he resumed a cold, rigid calmness, which was, perhaps,\nmore suggestive of danger than his hot-headed outburst.\n\"i have lived so long among savages and beyond the law,\" said he,\n\"that i have got into the way of being a law to myself. you would do\nwell, mr. holmes, not to forget it, for i have no desire to do you an\ninjury.\"\n\"nor have i any desire to do you an injury, dr. sterndale. surely the\nclearest proof of it is that, knowing what i know, i have sent for\nyou and not for the police.\"\nsterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time\nin his adventurous life. there was a calm assurance of power in\nholmes's manner which could not be withstood. our visitor stammered\nfor a moment, his great hands opening and shutting in his agitation.\n\"what do you mean?\" he asked at last. \"if this is bluff upon your\npart, mr. holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. let\nus have no more beating about the bush. what do you mean?\"\n\"i will tell you,\" said holmes, \"and the reason why i tell you is\nthat i hope frankness may beget frankness. what my next step may be\nwill depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence.\"\n\"my defence?\"\n\"yes, sir.\"\n\"my defence against what?\"\n\"against the charge of killing mortimer tregennis.\"\nsterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. \"upon my word,\nyou are getting on,\" said he. \"do all your successes depend upon this\nprodigious power of bluff?\"\n\"the bluff,\" said holmes sternly, \"is upon your side, dr. leon\nsterndale, and not upon mine. as a proof i will tell you some of the\nfacts upon which my conclusions are based. of your return from\nplymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to africa, i will\nsay nothing save that it first informed me that you were one of the\nfactors which had to be taken into account in reconstructing this\ndrama--\"\n\"i came back--\"\n\"i have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and\ninadequate. we will pass that. you came down here to ask me whom i\nsuspected. i refused to answer you. you then went to the vicarage,\nwaited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your\ncottage.\"\n\"how do you know that?\"\n\"i followed you.\"\n\"i saw no one.\"\n\"that is what you may expect to see when i follow you. you spent a\nrestless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans, which\nin the early morning you proceeded to put into execution. leaving\nyour door just as day was breaking, you filled your pocket with some\nreddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your gate.\"\nsterndale gave a violent start and looked at holmes in amazement.\n\"you then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from the\nvicarage. you were wearing, i may remark, the same pair of ribbed\ntennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your feet. at the\nvicarage you passed through the orchard and the side hedge, coming\nout under the window of the lodger tregennis. it was now daylight,\nbut the household was not yet stirring. you drew some of the gravel\nfrom your pocket, and you threw it up at the window above you.\"\nsterndale sprang to his feet.\n\"i believe that you are the devil himself!\" he cried.\nholmes smiled at the compliment. \"it took two, or possibly three,\nhandfuls before the lodger came to the window. you beckoned him to\ncome down. he dressed hurriedly and descended to his sitting-room.\nyou entered by the window. there was an interview--a short\none--during which you walked up and down the room. then you passed\nout and closed the window, standing on the lawn outside smoking a\ncigar and watching what occurred. finally, after the death of\ntregennis, you withdrew as you had come. now, dr. sterndale, how do\nyou justify such conduct, and what were the motives for your actions?\nif you prevaricate or trifle with me, i give you my assurance that\nthe matter will pass out of my hands forever.\"\nour visitor's face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the words\nof his accuser. now he sat for some time in thought with his face\nsunk in his hands. then with a sudden impulsive gesture he plucked a\nphotograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on the rustic table\nbefore us.\n\"that is why i have done it,\" said he.\nit showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. holmes stooped\nover it.\n\"brenda tregennis,\" said he.\n\"yes, brenda tregennis,\" repeated our visitor. \"for years i have\nloved her. for years she has loved me. there is the secret of that\ncornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. it has brought me\nclose to the one thing on earth that was dear to me. i could not\nmarry her, for i have a wife who has left me for years and yet whom,\nby the deplorable laws of england, i could not divorce. for years\nbrenda waited. for years i waited. and this is what we have waited\nfor.\" a terrible sob shook his great frame, and he clutched his\nthroat under his brindled beard. then with an effort he mastered\nhimself and spoke on:\n\"the vicar knew. he was in our confidence. he would tell you that she\nwas an angel upon earth. that was why he telegraphed to me and i\nreturned. what was my baggage or africa to me when i learned that\nsuch a fate had come upon my darling? there you have the missing clue\nto my action, mr. holmes.\"\n\"proceed,\" said my friend.\ndr. sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it upon\nthe table. on the outside was written \"radix pedis diaboli\" with a\nred poison label beneath it. he pushed it towards me. \"i understand\nthat you are a doctor, sir. have you ever heard of this preparation?\"\n\"devil's-foot root! no, i have never heard of it.\"\n\"it is no reflection upon your professional knowledge,\" said he, \"for\ni believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at buda, there is\nno other specimen in europe. it has not yet found its way either into\nthe pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology. the root is\nshaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the fanciful\nname given by a botanical missionary. it is used as an ordeal poison\nby the medicine-men in certain districts of west africa and is kept\nas a secret among them. this particular specimen i obtained under\nvery extraordinary circumstances in the ubangi country.\" he opened\nthe paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,\nsnuff-like powder.\n\"well, sir?\" asked holmes sternly.\n\"i am about to tell you, mr. holmes, all that actually occurred, for\nyou already know so much that it is clearly to my interest that you\nshould know all. i have already explained the relationship in which i\nstood to the tregennis family. for the sake of the sister i was\nfriendly with the brothers. there was a family quarrel about money\nwhich estranged this man mortimer, but it was supposed to be made up,\nand i afterwards met him as i did the others. he was a sly, subtle,\nscheming man, and several things arose which gave me a suspicion of\nhim, but i had no cause for any positive quarrel.\n\"one day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage and\ni showed him some of my african curiosities. among other things i\nexhibited this powder, and i told him of its strange properties, how\nit stimulates those brain centres which control the emotion of fear,\nand how either madness or death is the fate of the unhappy native who\nis subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe. i told him\nalso how powerless european science would be to detect it. how he\ntook it i cannot say, for i never left the room, but there is no\ndoubt that it was then, while i was opening cabinets and stooping to\nboxes, that he managed to abstract some of the devil's-foot root. i\nwell remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and the\ntime that was needed for its effect, but i little dreamed that he\ncould have a personal reason for asking.\n\"i thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram reached\nme at plymouth. this villain had thought that i would be at sea\nbefore the news could reach me, and that i should be lost for years\nin africa. but i returned at once. of course, i could not listen to\nthe details without feeling assured that my poison had been used. i\ncame round to see you on the chance that some other explanation had\nsuggested itself to you. but there could be none. i was convinced\nthat mortimer tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money,\nand with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family\nwere all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint\nproperty, he had used the devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two\nof them out of their senses, and killed his sister brenda, the one\nhuman being whom i have ever loved or who has ever loved me. there\nwas his crime; what was to be his punishment?\n\"should i appeal to the law? where were my proofs? i knew that the\nfacts were true, but could i help to make a jury of countrymen\nbelieve so fantastic a story? i might or i might not. but i could not\nafford to fail. my soul cried out for revenge. i have said to you\nonce before, mr. holmes, that i have spent much of my life outside\nthe law, and that i have come at last to be a law to myself. so it\nwas even now. i determined that the fate which he had given to others\nshould be shared by himself. either that or i would do justice upon\nhim with my own hand. in all england there can be no man who sets\nless value upon his own life than i do at the present moment.\n\"now i have told you all. you have yourself supplied the rest. i did,\nas you say, after a restless night, set off early from my cottage. i\nforesaw the difficulty of arousing him, so i gathered some gravel\nfrom the pile which you have mentioned, and i used it to throw up to\nhis window. he came down and admitted me through the window of the\nsitting-room. i laid his offence before him. i told him that i had\ncome both as judge and executioner. the wretch sank into a chair,\nparalyzed at the sight of my revolver. i lit the lamp, put the powder\nabove it, and stood outside the window, ready to carry out my threat\nto shoot him should he try to leave the room. in five minutes he\ndied. my god! how he died! but my heart was flint, for he endured\nnothing which my innocent darling had not felt before him. there is\nmy story, mr. holmes. perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have\ndone as much yourself. at any rate, i am in your hands. you can take\nwhat steps you like. as i have already said, there is no man living\nwho can fear death less than i do.\"\nholmes sat for some little time in silence.\n\"what were your plans?\" he asked at last.\n\"i had intended to bury myself in central africa. my work there is\nbut half finished.\"\n\"go and do the other half,\" said holmes. \"i, at least, am not\nprepared to prevent you.\"\ndr. sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked from\nthe arbour. holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.\n\"some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change,\" said\nhe. \"i think you must agree, watson, that it is not a case in which\nwe are called upon to interfere. our investigation has been\nindependent, and our action shall be so also. you would not denounce\nthe man?\"\n\"certainly not,\" i answered.\n\"i have never loved, watson, but if i did and if the woman i loved\nhad met such an end, i might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has\ndone. who knows? well, watson, i will not offend your intelligence by\nexplaining what is obvious. the gravel upon the window-sill was, of\ncourse, the starting-point of my research. it was unlike anything in\nthe vicarage garden. only when my attention had been drawn to dr.\nsterndale and his cottage did i find its counterpart. the lamp\nshining in broad daylight and the remains of powder upon the shield\nwere successive links in a fairly obvious chain. and now, my dear\nwatson, i think we may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back\nwith a clear conscience to the study of those chaldean roots which\nare surely to be traced in the cornish branch of the great celtic\nspeech.\"\nhis last bow\nan epilogue of sherlock holmes\nit was nine o'clock at night upon the second of august--the most\nterrible august in the history of the world. one might have thought\nalready that god's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for\nthere was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the\nsultry and stagnant air. the sun had long set, but one blood-red gash\nlike an open wound lay low in the distant west. above, the stars were\nshining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in\nthe bay. the two famous germans stood beside the stone parapet of the\ngarden walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them,\nand they looked down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of\nthe great chalk cliff in which von bork, like some wandering eagle,\nhad perched himself four years before. they stood with their heads\nclose together, talking in low, confidential tones. from below the\ntwo glowing ends of their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes\nof some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.\na remarkable man this von bork--a man who could hardly be matched\namong all the devoted agents of the kaiser. it was his talents which\nhad first recommended him for the english mission, the most important\nmission of all, but since he had taken it over those talents had\nbecome more and more manifest to the half-dozen people in the world\nwho were really in touch with the truth. one of these was his present\ncompanion, baron von herling, the chief secretary of the legation,\nwhose huge 100-horse-power benz car was blocking the country lane as\nit waited to waft its owner back to london.\n\"so far as i can judge the trend of events, you will probably be back\nin berlin within the week,\" the secretary was saying. \"when you get\nthere, my dear von bork, i think you will be surprised at the welcome\nyou will receive. i happen to know what is thought in the highest\nquarters of your work in this country.\" he was a huge man, the\nsecretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow, heavy fashion of\nspeech which had been his main asset in his political career.\nvon bork laughed.\n\"they are not very hard to deceive,\" he remarked. \"a more docile,\nsimple folk could not be imagined.\"\n\"i don't know about that,\" said the other thoughtfully. \"they have\nstrange limits and one must learn to observe them. it is that surface\nsimplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the stranger. one's first\nimpression is that they are entirely soft. then one comes suddenly\nupon something very hard, and you know that you have reached the\nlimit and must adapt yourself to the fact. they have, for example,\ntheir insular conventions which simply must be observed.\"\n\"meaning 'good form' and that sort of thing?\" von bork sighed as one\nwho had suffered much.\n\"meaning british prejudice in all its queer manifestations. as an\nexample i may quote one of my own worst blunders--i can afford to\ntalk of my blunders, for you know my work well enough to be aware of\nmy successes. it was on my first arrival. i was invited to a week-end\ngathering at the country house of a cabinet minister. the\nconversation was amazingly indiscreet.\"\nvon bork nodded. \"i've been there,\" said he dryly.\n\"exactly. well, i naturally sent a resume of the information to\nberlin. unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in\nthese matters, and he transmitted a remark which showed that he was\naware of what had been said. this, of course, took the trail straight\nup to me. you've no idea the harm that it did me. there was nothing\nsoft about our british hosts on that occasion, i can assure you. i\nwas two years living it down. now you, with this sporting pose of\nyours--\"\n\"no, no, don't call it a pose. a pose is an artificial thing. this is\nquite natural. i am a born sportsman. i enjoy it.\"\n\"well, that makes it the more effective. you yacht against them, you\nhunt with them, you play polo, you match them in every game, your\nfour-in-hand takes the prize at olympia. i have even heard that you\ngo the length of boxing with the young officers. what is the result?\nnobody takes you seriously. you are a 'good old sport,' 'quite a\ndecent fellow for a german,' a hard-drinking, night-club,\nknock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. and all the time this\nquiet country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in\nengland, and the sporting squire the most astute secret-service man\nin europe. genius, my dear von bork--genius!\"\n\"you flatter me, baron. but certainly i may claim my four years in\nthis country have not been unproductive. i've never shown you my\nlittle store. would you mind stepping in for a moment?\"\nthe door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. von bork\npushed it back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch of the\nelectric light. he then closed the door behind the bulky form which\nfollowed him and carefully adjusted the heavy curtain over the\nlatticed window. only when all these precautions had been taken and\ntested did he turn his sunburned aquiline face to his guest.\n\"some of my papers have gone,\" said he. \"when my wife and the\nhousehold left yesterday for flushing they took the less important\nwith them. i must, of course, claim the protection of the embassy for\nthe others.\"\n\"your name has already been filed as one of the personal suite. there\nwill be no difficulties for you or your baggage. of course, it is\njust possible that we may not have to go. england may leave france to\nher fate. we are sure that there is no binding treaty between them.\"\n\"and belgium?\"\n\"yes, and belgium, too.\"\nvon bork shook his head. \"i don't see how that could be. there is a\ndefinite treaty there. she could never recover from such a\nhumiliation.\"\n\"she would at least have peace for the moment.\"\n\"but her honor?\"\n\"tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. honour is a\nmediaeval conception. besides england is not ready. it is an\ninconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty million,\nwhich one would think made our purpose as clear as if we had\nadvertised it on the front page of the times, has not roused these\npeople from their slumbers. here and there one hears a question. it\nis my business to find an answer. here and there also there is an\nirritation. it is my business to soothe it. but i can assure you that\nso far as the essentials go--the storage of munitions, the\npreparation for submarine attack, the arrangements for making high\nexplosives--nothing is prepared. how, then, can england come in,\nespecially when we have stirred her up such a devil's brew of irish\ncivil war, window-breaking furies, and god knows what to keep her\nthoughts at home.\"\n\"she must think of her future.\"\n\"ah, that is another matter. i fancy that in the future we have our\nown very definite plans about england, and that your information will\nbe very vital to us. it is to-day or to-morrow with mr. john bull. if\nhe prefers to-day we are perfectly ready. if it is to-morrow we shall\nbe more ready still. i should think they would be wiser to fight with\nallies than without them, but that is their own affair. this week is\ntheir week of destiny. but you were speaking of your papers.\" he sat\nin the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head,\nwhile he puffed sedately at his cigar.\nthe large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the\nfuture corner. when this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound\nsafe. von bork detached a small key from his watch chain, and after\nsome considerable manipulation of the lock he swung open the heavy\ndoor.\n\"look!\" said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.\nthe light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary of\nthe embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed\npigeon-holes with which it was furnished. each pigeon-hole had its\nlabel, and his eyes as he glanced along them read a long series of\nsuch titles as \"fords,\" \"harbour-defences,\" \"aeroplanes,\" \"ireland,\"\n\"egypt,\" \"portsmouth forts,\" \"the channel,\" \"rosythe,\" and a score of\nothers. each compartment was bristling with papers and plans.\n\"colossal!\" said the secretary. putting down his cigar he softly\nclapped his fat hands.\n\"and all in four years, baron. not such a bad show for the\nhard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. but the gem of my\ncollection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.\" he\npointed to a space over which \"naval signals\" was printed.\n\"but you have a good dossier there already.\"\n\"out of date and waste paper. the admiralty in some way got the alarm\nand every code has been changed. it was a blow, baron--the worst\nsetback in my whole campaign. but thanks to my check-book and the\ngood altamont all will be well to-night.\"\nthe baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of\ndisappointment.\n\"well, i really can wait no longer. you can imagine that things are\nmoving at present in carlton terrace and that we have all to be at\nour posts. i had hoped to be able to bring news of your great coup.\ndid altamont name no hour?\"\nvon bork pushed over a telegram.\nwill come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.\n--altamont.\n\"sparking plugs, eh?\"\n\"you see he poses as a motor expert and i keep a full garage. in our\ncode everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. if\nhe talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser,\nand so on. sparking plugs are naval signals.\"\n\"from portsmouth at midday,\" said the secretary, examining the\nsuperscription. \"by the way, what do you give him?\"\n\"five hundred pounds for this particular job. of course he has a\nsalary as well.\"\n\"the greedy rouge. they are useful, these traitors, but i grudge them\ntheir blood money.\"\n\"i grudge altamont nothing. he is a wonderful worker. if i pay him\nwell, at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. besides\nhe is not a traitor. i assure you that our most pan-germanic junker\nis a sucking dove in his feelings towards england as compared with a\nreal bitter irish-american.\"\n\"oh, an irish-american?\"\n\"if you heard him talk you would not doubt it. sometimes i assure you\ni can hardly understand him. he seems to have declared war on the\nking's english as well as on the english king. must you really go? he\nmay be here any moment.\"\n\"no. i'm sorry, but i have already overstayed my time. we shall\nexpect you early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book through\nthe little door on the duke of york's steps you can put a triumphant\nfinis to your record in england. what! tokay!\" he indicated a heavily\nsealed dust-covered bottle which stood with two high glasses upon a\nsalver.\n\"may i offer you a glass before your journey?\"\n\"no, thanks. but it looks like revelry.\"\n\"altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my tokay.\nhe is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. i have to\nstudy him, i assure you.\" they had strolled out on to the terrace\nagain, and along it to the further end where at a touch from the\nbaron's chauffeur the great car shivered and chuckled. \"those are the\nlights of harwich, i suppose,\" said the secretary, pulling on his\ndust coat. \"how still and peaceful it all seems. there may be other\nlights within the week, and the english coast a less tranquil place!\nthe heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that the good\nzeppelin promises us comes true. by the way, who is that?\"\nonly one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp,\nand beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in\na country cap. she was bending over her knitting and stopping\noccasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a stool beside her.\n\"that is martha, the only servant i have left.\"\nthe secretary chuckled.\n\"she might almost personify britannia,\" said he, \"with her complete\nself-absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence. well, au\nrevoir, von bork!\" with a final wave of his hand he sprang into the\ncar, and a moment later the two golden cones from the headlights shot\nthrough the darkness. the secretary lay back in the cushions of the\nluxurious limousine, with his thoughts so full of the impending\neuropean tragedy that he hardly observed that as his car swung round\nthe village street it nearly passed over a little ford coming in the\nopposite direction.\nvon bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of the\nmotor lamps had faded into the distance. as he passed he observed\nthat his old housekeeper had put out her lamp and retired. it was a\nnew experience to him, the silence and darkness of his widespread\nhouse, for his family and household had been a large one. it was a\nrelief to him, however, to think that they were all in safety and\nthat, but for that one old woman who had lingered in the kitchen, he\nhad the whole place to himself. there was a good deal of tidying up\nto do inside his study and he set himself to do it until his keen,\nhandsome face was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. a\nleather valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack\nvery neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe. he\nhad hardly got started with the work, however, when his quick ears\ncaught the sounds of a distant car. instantly he gave an exclamation\nof satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the safe, locked it,\nand hurried out on to the terrace. he was just in time to see the\nlights of a small car come to a halt at the gate. a passenger sprang\nout of it and advanced swiftly towards him, while the chauffeur, a\nheavily built, elderly man with a gray moustache, settled down like\none who resigns himself to a long vigil.\n\"well?\" asked von bork eagerly, running forward to meet his visitor.\nfor answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly\nabove his head.\n\"you can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,\" he cried. \"i'm\nbringing home the bacon at last.\"\n\"the signals?\"\n\"same as i said in my cable. every last one of them, semaphore, lamp\ncode, marconi--a copy, mind you, not the original. that was too\ndangerous. but it's the real goods, and you can lay to that.\" he\nslapped the german upon the shoulder with a rough familiarity from\nwhich the other winced.\n\"come in,\" he said. \"i'm all alone in the house. i was only waiting\nfor this. of course a copy is better than the original. if an\noriginal were missing they would change the whole thing. you think\nit's all safe about the copy?\"\nthe irish-american had entered the study and stretched his long limbs\nfrom the armchair. he was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut\nfeatures and a small goatee beard which gave him a general\nresemblance to the caricatures of uncle sam. a half-smoked, sodden\ncigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and as he sat down he struck\na match and relit it. \"making ready for a move?\" he remarked as he\nlooked round him. \"say, mister,\" he added, as his eyes fell upon the\nsafe from which the curtain was now removed, \"you don't tell me you\nkeep your papers in that?\"\n\"why not?\"\n\"gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! and they reckon you to\nbe some spy. why, a yankee crook would be into that with a\ncan-opener. if i'd known that any letter of mine was goin' to lie\nloose in a thing like that i'd have been a mug to write to you at\nall.\"\n\"it would puzzle any crook to force that safe,\" von bork answered.\n\"you won't cut that metal with any tool.\"\n\"but the lock?\"\n\"no, it's a double combination lock. you know what that is?\"\n\"search me,\" said the american.\n\"well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can get\nthe lock to work.\" he rose and showed a double-radiating disc round\nthe keyhole. \"this outer one is for the letters, the inner one for\nthe figures.\"\n\"well, well, that's fine.\"\n\"so it's not quite as simple as you thought. it was four years ago\nthat i had it made, and what do you think i chose for the word and\nfigures?\"\n\"it's beyond me.\"\n\"well, i chose august for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and\nhere we are.\"\nthe american's face showed his surprise and admiration.\n\"my, but that was smart! you had it down to a fine thing.\"\n\"yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. here it is,\nand i'm shutting down to-morrow morning.\"\n\"well, i guess you'll have to fix me up also. i'm not staying is this\ngol-darned country all on my lonesome. in a week or less, from what i\nsee, john bull will be on his hind legs and fair ramping. i'd rather\nwatch him from over the water.\"\n\"but you're an american citizen?\"\n\"well, so was jack james an american citizen, but he's doing time in\nportland all the same. it cuts no ice with a british copper to tell\nhim you're an american citizen. 'it's british law and order over\nhere,' says he. by the way, mister, talking of jack james, it seems\nto me you don't do much to cover your men.\"\n\"what do you mean?\" von bork asked sharply.\n\"well, you are their employer, ain't you? it's up to you to see that\nthey don't fall down. but they do fall down, and when did you ever\npick them up? there's james--\"\n\"it was james's own fault. you know that yourself. he was too\nself-willed for the job.\"\n\"james was a bonehead--i give you that. then there was hollis.\"\n\"the man was mad.\"\n\"well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. it's enough to make a man\nbug-house when he has to play a part from morning to night with a\nhundred guys all ready to set the coppers wise to him. but now there\nis steiner--\"\nvon bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade paler.\n\"what about steiner?\"\n\"well, they've got him, that's all. they raided his store last night,\nand he and his papers are all in portsmouth jail. you'll go off and\nhe, poor devil, will have to stand the racket, and lucky if he gets\noff with his life. that's why i want to get over the water as soon as\nyou do.\"\nvon bork was a strong, self-contained man, but it was easy to see\nthat the news had shaken him.\n\"how could they have got on to steiner?\" he muttered. \"that's the\nworst blow yet.\"\n\"well, you nearly had a worse one, for i believe they are not far off\nme.\"\n\"you don't mean that!\"\n\"sure thing. my landlady down fratton way had some inquiries, and\nwhen i heard of it i guessed it was time for me to hustle. but what i\nwant to know, mister, is how the coppers know these things? steiner\nis the fifth man you've lost since i signed on with you, and i know\nthe name of the sixth if i don't get a move on. how do you explain\nit, and ain't you ashamed to see your men go down like this?\"\nvon bork flushed crimson.\n\"how dare you speak in such a way!\"\n\"if i didn't dare things, mister, i wouldn't be in your service. but\ni'll tell you straight what is in my mind. i've heard that with you\ngerman politicians when an agent has done his work you are not sorry\nto see him put away.\"\nvon bork sprang to his feet.\n\"do you dare to suggest that i have given away my own agents!\"\n\"i don't stand for that, mister, but there's a stool pigeon or a\ncross somewhere, and it's up to you to find out where it is. anyhow i\nam taking no more chances. it's me for little holland, and the sooner\nthe better.\"\nvon bork had mastered his anger.\n\"we have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of\nvictory,\" he said. \"you've done splendid work and taken risks, and i\ncan't forget it. by all means go to holland, and you can get a boat\nfrom rotterdam to new york. no other line will be safe a week from\nnow. i'll take that book and pack it with the rest.\"\nthe american held the small parcel in his hand, but made no motion to\ngive it up.\n\"what about the dough?\" he asked.\n\"the what?\"\n\"the boodle. the reward. the 500. the gunner turned damned nasty at\nthe last, and i had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it\nwould have been nitsky for you and me. 'nothin' doin'!' says he, and\nhe meant it, too, but the last hundred did it. it's cost me two\nhundred pound from first to last, so it isn't likely i'd give it up\nwithout gettin' my wad.\"\nvon bork smiled with some bitterness. \"you don't seem to have a very\nhigh opinion of my honour,\" said he, \"you want the money before you\ngive up the book.\"\n\"well, mister, it is a business proposition.\"\n\"all right. have your way.\" he sat down at the table and scribbled a\ncheck, which he tore from the book, but he refrained from handing it\nto his companion. \"after all, since we are to be on such terms, mr.\naltamont,\" said he, \"i don't see why i should trust you any more than\nyou trust me. do you understand?\" he added, looking back over his\nshoulder at the american. \"there's the check upon the table. i claim\nthe right to examine that parcel before you pick the money up.\"\nthe american passed it over without a word. von bork undid a winding\nof string and two wrappers of paper. then he sat dazing for a moment\nin silent amazement at a small blue book which lay before him. across\nthe cover was printed in golden letters practical handbook of bee\nculture. only for one instant did the master spy glare at this\nstrangely irrelevant inscription. the next he was gripped at the back\nof his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed sponge was held in\nfront of his writhing face.\n\"another glass, watson!\" said mr. sherlock holmes as he extended the\nbottle of imperial tokay.\nthe thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table, pushed\nforward his glass with some eagerness.\n\"it is a good wine, holmes.\"\n\"a remarkable wine, watson. our friend upon the sofa has assured me\nthat it is from franz josef's special cellar at the schoenbrunn\npalace. might i trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour\ndoes not help the palate.\"\nthe safe was ajar, and holmes standing in front of it was removing\ndossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it\nneatly in von bork's valise. the german lay upon the sofa sleeping\nstertorously with a strap round his upper arms and another round his\nlegs.\n\"we need not hurry ourselves, watson. we are safe from interruption.\nwould you mind touching the bell? there is no one in the house except\nold martha, who has played her part to admiration. i got her the\nsituation here when first i took the matter up. ah, martha, you will\nbe glad to hear that all is well.\"\nthe pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. she curtseyed with\na smile to mr. holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at the\nfigure upon the sofa.\n\"it is all right, martha. he has not been hurt at all.\"\n\"i am glad of that, mr. holmes. according to his lights he has been a\nkind master. he wanted me to go with his wife to germany yesterday,\nbut that would hardly have suited your plans, would it, sir?\"\n\"no, indeed, martha. so long as you were here i was easy in my mind.\nwe waited some time for your signal to-night.\"\n\"it was the secretary, sir.\"\n\"i know. his car passed ours.\"\n\"i thought he would never go. i knew that it would not suit your\nplans, sir, to find him here.\"\n\"no, indeed. well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or so\nuntil i saw your lamp go out and knew that the coast was clear. you\ncan report to me to-morrow in london, martha, at claridge's hotel.\"\n\"very good, sir.\"\n\"i suppose you have everything ready to leave.\"\n\"yes, sir. he posted seven letters to-day. i have the addresses as\nusual.\"\n\"very good, martha. i will look into them to-morrow. good-night.\nthese papers,\" he continued as the old lady vanished, \"are not of\nvery great importance, for, of course, the information which they\nrepresent has been sent off long ago to the german government. these\nare the originals which cold not safely be got out of the country.\"\n\"then they are of no use.\"\n\"i should not go so far as to say that, watson. they will at least\nshow our people what is known and what is not. i may say that a good\nmany of these papers have come through me, and i need not add are\nthoroughly untrustworthy. it would brighten my declining years to see\na german cruiser navigating the solent according to the mine-field\nplans which i have furnished. but you, watson\"--he stopped his work\nand took his old friend by the shoulders--\"i've hardly seen you in\nthe light yet. how have the years used you? you look the same blithe\nboy as ever.\"\n\"i feel twenty years younger, holmes. i have seldom felt so happy as\nwhen i got your wire asking me to meet you at harwich with the car.\nbut you, holmes--you have changed very little--save for that horrible\ngoatee.\"\n\"these are the sacrifices one makes for one's country, watson,\" said\nholmes, pulling at his little tuft. \"to-morrow it will be but a\ndreadful memory. with my hair cut and a few other superficial changes\ni shall no doubt reappear at claridge's to-morrow as i was before\nthis american stunt--i beg your pardon, watson, my well of english\nseems to be permanently defiled--before this american job came my\nway.\"\n\"but you have retired, holmes. we heard of you as living the life of\na hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the\nsouth downs.\"\n\"exactly, watson. here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum\nopus of my latter years!\" he picked up the volume from the table and\nread out the whole title, practical handbook of bee culture, with\nsome observations upon the segregation of the queen. \"alone i did it.\nbehold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days when i watched\nthe little working gangs as once i watched the criminal world of\nlondon.\"\n\"but how did you get to work again?\"\n\"ah, i have often marvelled at it myself. the foreign minister alone\ni could have withstood, but when the premier also deigned to visit my\nhumble roof--! the fact is, watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa\nwas a bit too good for our people. he was in a class by himself.\nthings were going wrong, and no one could understand why they were\ngoing wrong. agents were suspected or even caught, but there was\nevidence of some strong and secret central force. it was absolutely\nnecessary to expose it. strong pressure was brought upon me to look\ninto the matter. it has cost me two years, watson, but they have not\nbeen devoid of excitement. when i say that i started my pilgrimage at\nchicago, graduated in an irish secret society at buffalo, gave\nserious trouble to the constabulary at skibbareen, and so eventually\ncaught the eye of a subordinate agent of von bork, who recommended me\nas a likely man, you will realize that the matter was complex. since\nthen i have been honoured by his confidence, which has not prevented\nmost of his plans going subtly wrong and five of his best agents\nbeing in prison. i watched them, watson, and i picked them as they\nripened. well, sir, i hope that you are none the worse!\"\nthe last remark was addressed to von bork himself, who after much\ngasping and blinking had lain quietly listening to holmes's\nstatement. he broke out now into a furious stream of german\ninvective, his face convulsed with passion. holmes continued his\nswift investigation of documents while his prisoner cursed and swore.\n\"though unmusical, german is the most expressive of all languages,\"\nhe observed when von bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. \"hullo!\nhullo!\" he added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before\nputting it in the box. \"this should put another bird in the cage. i\nhad no idea that the paymaster was such a rascal, though i have long\nhad an eye upon him. mister von bork, you have a great deal to answer\nfor.\"\nthe prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the sofa\nand was staring with a strange mixture of amazement and hatred at his\ncaptor.\n\"i shall get level with you, altamont,\" he said, speaking with slow\ndeliberation. \"if it takes me all my life i shall get level with\nyou!\"\n\"the old sweet song,\" said holmes. \"how often have i heard it in days\ngone by. it was a favorite ditty of the late lamented professor\nmoriarty.  colonel sebastian moran has also been known to warble it.\nand yet i live and keep bees upon the south downs.\"\n\"curse you, you double traitor!\" cried the german, straining against\nhis bonds and glaring murder from his furious eyes.\n\"no, no, it is not so bad as that,\" said holmes, smiling. \"as my\nspeech surely shows you, mr. altamont of chicago had no existence in\nfact. i used him and he is gone.\"\n\"then who are you?\"\n\"it is really immaterial who i am, but since the matter seems to\ninterest you, mr. von bork, i may say that this is not my first\nacquaintance with the members of your family. i have done a good deal\nof business in germany in the past and my name is probably familiar\nto you.\"\n\"i would wish to know it,\" said the prussian grimly.\n\"it was i who brought about the separation between irene adler and\nthe late king of bohemia when your cousin heinrich was the imperial\nenvoy. it was i also who saved from murder, by the nihilist klopman,\ncount von und zu grafenstein, who was your mother's elder brother. it\nwas i--\"\nvon bork sat up in amazement.\n\"there is only one man,\" he cried.\n\"exactly,\" said holmes.\nvon bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. \"and most of that\ninformation came through you,\" he cried. \"what is it worth? what have\ni done? it is my ruin forever!\"\n\"it is certainly a little untrustworthy,\" said holmes. \"it will\nrequire some checking and you have little time to check it. your\nadmiral may find the new guns rather larger than he expects, and the\ncruisers perhaps a trifle faster.\"\nvon bork clutched at his own throat in despair.\n\"there are a good many other points of detail which will, no doubt,\ncome to light in good time. but you have one quality which is very\nrare in a german, mr. von bork: you are a sportsman and you will bear\nme no ill-will when you realize that you, who have outwitted so many\nother people, have at last been outwitted yourself. after all, you\nhave done your best for your country, and i have done my best for\nmine, and what could be more natural? besides,\" he added, not\nunkindly, as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the prostrate man,\n\"it is better than to fall before some ignoble foe. these papers are\nnow ready, watson. if you will help me with our prisoner, i think\nthat we may get started for london at once.\"\nit was no easy task to move von bork, for he was a strong and a\ndesperate man. finally, holding either arm, the two friends walked\nhim very slowly down the garden walk which he had trod with such\nproud confidence when he received the congratulations of the famous\ndiplomatist only a few hours before. after a short, final struggle he\nwas hoisted, still bound hand and foot, into the spare seat of the\nlittle car. his precious valise was wedged in beside him.\n\"i trust that you are as comfortable as circumstances permit,\" said\nholmes when the final arrangements were made. \"should i be guilty of\na liberty if i lit a cigar and placed it between your lips?\"\nbut all amenities were wasted upon the angry german.\n\"i suppose you realize, mr. sherlock holmes,\" said he, \"that if your\ngovernment bears you out in this treatment it becomes an act of war.\"\n\"what about your government and all this treatment?\" said holmes,\ntapping the valise.\n\"you are a private individual. you have no warrant for my arrest. the\nwhole proceeding is absolutely illegal and outrageous.\"\n\"absolutely,\" said holmes.\n\"kidnapping a german subject.\"\n\"and stealing his private papers.\"\n\"well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here. if i\nwere to shout for help as we pass through the village--\"\n\"my dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably\nenlarge the two limited titles of our village inns by giving us 'the\ndangling prussian' as a signpost. the englishman is a patient\ncreature, but at present his temper is a little inflamed, and it\nwould be as well not to try him too far. no, mr. von bork, you will\ngo with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to scotland yard, whence you\ncan send for your friend, baron von herling, and see if even now you\nmay not fill that place which he has reserved for you in the\nambassadorial suite. as to you, watson, you are joining us with your\nold service, as i understand, so london won't be out of your way.\nstand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet\ntalk that we shall ever have.\"\nthe two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes,\nrecalling once again the days of the past, while their prisoner\nvainly wriggled to undo the bonds that held him. as they turned to\nthe car holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful\nhead.\n\"there's an east wind coming, watson.\"\n\"i think not, holmes. it is very warm.\"\n\"good old watson! you are the one fixed point in a changing age.\nthere's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew\non england yet. it will be cold and bitter, watson, and a good many\nof us may wither before its blast. but it's god's own wind none the\nless, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine\nwhen the storm has cleared. start her up, watson, for it's time that\nwe were on our way. i have a check for five hundred pounds which\nshould be cashed early, for the drawer is quite capable of stopping\nit if he can.\"\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/cnus.txt",
    "content": "\n\n\n\n                          THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES\n\n                               Arthur Conan Doyle\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n\n               A Study In Scarlet\n\n               The Sign of the Four\n\n                  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes\n               A Scandal in Bohemia\n               The Red-Headed League\n               A Case of Identity\n               The Boscombe Valley Mystery\n               The Five Orange Pips\n               The Man with the Twisted Lip\n               The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle\n               The Adventure of the Speckled Band\n               The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb\n               The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor\n               The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet\n               The Adventure of the Copper Beeches\n\n                  The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes\n               Silver Blaze\n               The Yellow Face\n               The Stock-Broker's Clerk\n               The \"Gloria Scott\"\n               The Musgrave Ritual\n               The Reigate Squires\n               The Crooked Man\n               The Resident Patient\n               The Greek Interpreter\n               The Naval Treaty\n               The Final Problem\n\n                  The Return of Sherlock Holmes\n               The Adventure of the Empty House\n               The Adventure of the Norwood Builder\n               The Adventure of the Dancing Men\n               The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist\n               The Adventure of the Priory School\n               The Adventure of Black Peter\n               The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton\n               The Adventure of the Six Napoleons\n               The Adventure of the Three Students\n               The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez\n               The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter\n               The Adventure of the Abbey Grange\n               The Adventure of the Second Stain\n\n               The Hound of the Baskervilles\n\n               The Valley Of Fear\n\n                  His Last Bow\n               Preface\n               The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge\n               The Adventure of the Cardboard Box\n               The Adventure of the Red Circle\n               The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans\n               The Adventure of the Dying Detective\n               The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax\n               The Adventure of the Devil's Foot\n               His Last Bow\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               A STUDY IN SCARLET\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n\n         Part I\n        Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n        The Science Of Deduction\n        The Lauriston Garden Mystery\n        What John Rance Had To Tell\n        Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor\n        Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do\n        Light In The Darkness\n\n         Part II\n        On The Great Alkali Plain\n        The Flower Of Utah\n        John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet\n        A Flight For Life\n        The Avenging Angels\n        A Continuation Of The Reminiscences Of John Watson, M.D.\n        The Conclusion\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                      PART I\n\n                   (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of\n                              John H. Watson, M.D.,\n                      late of the Army Medical Department.)\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n\n\n     In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the\n     University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the\n     course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my\n     studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland\n     Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India\n     at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had\n     broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had\n     advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's\n     country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in\n     the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in\n     safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new\n     duties.\n\n     The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had\n     nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade\n     and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal\n     battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail\n     bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I\n     should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not\n     been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who\n     threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to\n     the British lines.\n\n     Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had\n     undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to\n     the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already\n     improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to\n     bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric\n     fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was\n     despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became\n     convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board\n     determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to\n     England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and\n     landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health\n     irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government\n     to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.\n\n     I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as\n     air--or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day\n     will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally\n     gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers\n     and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for\n     some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless,\n     meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably\n     more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances\n     become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis\n     and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a\n     complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter\n     alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to\n     take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive\n     domicile.\n\n     On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at\n     the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and\n     turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser\n     under me at Bart's. The sight of a friendly face in the great\n     wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In\n     old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now\n     I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be\n     delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to\n     lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a\n     hansom.\n\n     \"Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?\" he asked in\n     undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.\n     \"You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.\"\n\n     I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded\n     it by the time that we reached our destination.\n\n     \"Poor devil!\" he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my\n     misfortunes. \"What are you up to now?\"\n\n     \"Looking for lodgings,\" I answered. \"Trying to solve the problem as\n     to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable\n     price.\"\n\n     \"That's a strange thing,\" remarked my companion; \"you are the second\n     man to-day that has used that expression to me.\"\n\n     \"And who was the first?\" I asked.\n\n     \"A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the\n     hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not\n     get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had\n     found, and which were too much for his purse.\"\n\n     \"By Jove!\" I cried, \"if he really wants someone to share the rooms\n     and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a\n     partner to being alone.\"\n\n     Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass.\n     \"You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,\" he said; \"perhaps you would not\n     care for him as a constant companion.\"\n\n     \"Why, what is there against him?\"\n\n     \"Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little\n     queer in his ideas--an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far\n     as I know he is a decent fellow enough.\"\n\n     \"A medical student, I suppose?\" said I.\n\n     \"No--I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is\n     well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I\n     know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His\n     studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of\n     out-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors.\"\n\n     \"Did you never ask him what he was going in for?\" I asked.\n\n     \"No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be\n     communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.\"\n\n     \"I should like to meet him,\" I said. \"If I am to lodge with anyone, I\n     should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong\n     enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in\n     Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How\n     could I meet this friend of yours?\"\n\n     \"He is sure to be at the laboratory,\" returned my companion. \"He\n     either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from\n     morning to night. If you like, we shall drive round together after\n     luncheon.\"\n\n     \"Certainly,\" I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other\n     channels.\n\n     As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn,\n     Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I\n     proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.\n\n     \"You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him,\" he said; \"I know\n     nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally\n     in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not\n     hold me responsible.\"\n\n     \"If we don't get on it will be easy to part company,\" I answered. \"It\n     seems to me, Stamford,\" I added, looking hard at my companion, \"that\n     you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this\n     fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealy-mouthed\n     about it.\"\n\n     \"It is not easy to express the inexpressible,\" he answered with a\n     laugh. \"Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it\n     approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a\n     little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of\n     malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in\n     order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I\n     think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He\n     appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.\"\n\n     \"Very right too.\"\n\n     \"Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the\n     subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking\n     rather a bizarre shape.\"\n\n     \"Beating the subjects!\"\n\n     \"Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw\n     him at it with my own eyes.\"\n\n     \"And yet you say he is not a medical student?\"\n\n     \"No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we\n     are, and you must form your own impressions about him.\" As he spoke,\n     we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door,\n     which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar\n     ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone\n     staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of\n     whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low\n     arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical\n     laboratory.\n\n     This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.\n     Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,\n     test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering\n     flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over\n     a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he\n     glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. \"I've\n     found it! I've found it,\" he shouted to my companion, running towards\n     us with a test-tube in his hand. \"I have found a re-agent which is\n     precipitated by hoemoglobin, and by nothing else.\" Had he discovered\n     a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.\n\n     \"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" said Stamford, introducing us.\n\n     \"How are you?\" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength\n     for which I should hardly have given him credit. \"You have been in\n     Afghanistan, I perceive.\"\n\n     \"How on earth did you know that?\" I asked in astonishment.\n\n     \"Never mind,\" said he, chuckling to himself. \"The question now is\n     about hoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this\n     discovery of mine?\"\n\n     \"It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,\" I answered, \"but\n     practically--\"\n\n     \"Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.\n     Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains.\n     Come over here now!\" He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his\n     eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been\n     working. \"Let us have some fresh blood,\" he said, digging a long\n     bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood\n     in a chemical pipette. \"Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a\n     litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the\n     appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than\n     one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to\n     obtain the characteristic reaction.\" As he spoke, he threw into the\n     vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a\n     transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany\n     colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the\n     glass jar.\n\n     \"Ha! ha!\" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a\n     child with a new toy. \"What do you think of that?\"\n\n     \"It seems to be a very delicate test,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and\n     uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles.\n     The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this\n     appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test\n     been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who\n     would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.\"\n\n     \"Indeed!\" I murmured.\n\n     \"Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is\n     suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His\n     linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon\n     them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit\n     stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many\n     an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have\n     the Sherlock Holmes' test, and there will no longer be any\n     difficulty.\"\n\n     His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his\n     heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his\n     imagination.\n\n     \"You are to be congratulated,\" I remarked, considerably surprised at\n     his enthusiasm.\n\n     \"There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would\n     certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there\n     was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of\n     Montpellier, and Samson of new Orleans. I could name a score of cases\n     in which it would have been decisive.\"\n\n     \"You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,\" said Stamford with a\n     laugh. \"You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the 'Police\n     News of the Past.'\"\n\n     \"Very interesting reading it might be made, too,\" remarked Sherlock\n     Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his\n     finger. \"I have to be careful,\" he continued, turning to me with a\n     smile, \"for I dabble with poisons a good deal.\" He held out his hand\n     as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar\n     pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.\n\n     \"We came here on business,\" said Stamford, sitting down on a high\n     three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his\n     foot. \"My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were\n     complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I\n     thought that I had better bring you together.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms\n     with me. \"I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,\" he said, \"which\n     would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong\n     tobacco, I hope?\"\n\n     \"I always smoke 'ship's' myself,\" I answered.\n\n     \"That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and\n     occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?\"\n\n     \"By no means.\"\n\n     \"Let me see--what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at\n     times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I\n     am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right.\n     What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to\n     know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.\"\n\n     I laughed at this cross-examination. \"I keep a bull pup,\" I said,\n     \"and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at\n     all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another\n     set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at\n     present.\"\n\n     \"Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?\" he asked,\n     anxiously.\n\n     \"It depends on the player,\" I answered. \"A well-played violin is a\n     treat for the gods--a badly-played one--\"\n\n     \"Oh, that's all right,\" he cried, with a merry laugh. \"I think we may\n     consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to\n     you.\"\n\n     \"When shall we see them?\"\n\n     \"Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we'll go together and settle\n     everything,\" he answered.\n\n     \"All right--noon exactly,\" said I, shaking his hand.\n\n     We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together\n     towards my hotel.\n\n     \"By the way,\" I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford,\n     \"how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?\"\n\n     My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. \"That's just his little\n     peculiarity,\" he said. \"A good many people have wanted to know how he\n     finds things out.\"\n\n     \"Oh! a mystery is it?\" I cried, rubbing my hands. \"This is very\n     piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. 'The\n     proper study of mankind is man,' you know.\"\n\n     \"You must study him, then,\" Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.\n     \"You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more\n     about you than you about him. Good-bye.\"\n\n     \"Good-bye,\" I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably\n     interested in my new acquaintance.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Science Of Deduction\n\n\n     We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No.\n     221b, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They\n     consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large\n     airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad\n     windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so\n     moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain\n     was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.\n     That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the\n     following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and\n     portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking\n     and laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we\n     gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our\n     new surroundings.\n\n     Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet\n     in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be\n     up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out\n     before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the\n     chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and\n     occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the\n     lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy when the\n     working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize\n     him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the\n     sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning\n     to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant\n     expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being\n     addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and\n     cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.\n\n     As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his\n     aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and\n     appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual\n     observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively\n     lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp\n     and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have\n     alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an\n     air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and\n     squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were\n     invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was\n     possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had\n     occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile\n     philosophical instruments.\n\n     The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how\n     much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to\n     break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned\n     himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how\n     objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my\n     attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather\n     was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me\n     and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these\n     circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around\n     my companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel\n     it.\n\n     He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question,\n     confirmed Stamford's opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear\n     to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a\n     degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him\n     an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies\n     was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so\n     extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly\n     astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise\n     information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory\n     readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No\n     man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good\n     reason for doing so.\n\n     His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary\n     literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to\n     nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest\n     way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a\n     climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of\n     the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.\n     That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not\n     be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me\n     such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.\n\n     \"You appear to be astonished,\" he said, smiling at my expression of\n     surprise. \"Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.\"\n\n     \"To forget it!\"\n\n     \"You see,\" he explained, \"I consider that a man's brain originally is\n     like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such\n     furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort\n     that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to\n     him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other\n     things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now\n     the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into\n     his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help\n     him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and\n     all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that\n     little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend\n     upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you\n     forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest\n     importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the\n     useful ones.\"\n\n     \"But the Solar System!\" I protested.\n\n     \"What the deuce is it to me?\" he interrupted impatiently; \"you say\n     that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make\n     a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.\"\n\n     I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but\n     something in his manner showed me that the question would be an\n     unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and\n     endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would\n     acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore\n     all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to\n     him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he\n     had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a\n     pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document\n     when I had completed it. It ran in this way--\n\n     Sherlock Holmes--his limits.\n     \n     1. Knowledge of Literature.--Nil.\n     2. Philosophy.--Nil.\n     3. Astronomy.--Nil.\n     4. Politics.--Feeble.\n     5. Botany.--Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons\n     generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.\n     6. Geology.--Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different\n     soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his\n     trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of\n     London he had received them.\n     7. Chemistry.--Profound.\n     8. Anatomy.--Accurate, but unsystematic.\n     9. Sensational Literature.--Immense. He appears to know every detail\n     of every horror perpetrated in the century.\n     10. Plays the violin well.\n     11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.\n     12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.\n\n     When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair.\n     \"If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all\n     these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them\n     all,\" I said to myself, \"I may as well give up the attempt at once.\"\n\n     I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These\n     were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other\n     accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I\n     knew well, because at my request he has played me some of\n     Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself,\n     however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized\n     air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his\n     eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his\n     knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally\n     they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts\n     which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or\n     whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more\n     than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these\n     exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by\n     playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a\n     slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.\n\n     During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to\n     think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself.\n     Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those\n     in the most different classes of society. There was one little sallow\n     rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade,\n     and who came three or four times in a single week. One morning a\n     young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour\n     or more. The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor,\n     looking like a Jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and\n     who was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman. On another\n     occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my\n     companion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform.\n     When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance,\n     Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I\n     would retire to my bed-room. He always apologized to me for putting\n     me to this inconvenience. \"I have to use this room as a place of\n     business,\" he said, \"and these people are my clients.\" Again I had an\n     opportunity of asking him a point blank question, and again my\n     delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I\n     imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding\n     to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject\n     of his own accord.\n\n     It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that\n     I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes\n     had not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so\n     accustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my\n     coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang\n     the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked\n     up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time\n     with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the\n     articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to\n     run my eye through it.\n\n     Its somewhat ambitious title was \"The Book of Life,\" and it attempted\n     to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and\n     systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as\n     being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The\n     reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to\n     be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary\n     expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a\n     man's inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility\n     in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His\n     conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So\n     startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they\n     learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well\n     consider him as a necromancer.\n\n     \"From a drop of water,\" said the writer, \"a logician could infer the\n     possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard\n     of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of\n     which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all\n     other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can\n     only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to\n     allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.\n     Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which\n     present the greatest difficulties, let the enquirer begin by\n     mastering more elementary problems. Let him, on meeting a\n     fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the\n     man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such\n     an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and\n     teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man's finger\n     nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the\n     callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his\n     shirt cuffs--by each of these things a man's calling is plainly\n     revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent\n     enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.\"\n\n     \"What ineffable twaddle!\" I cried, slapping the magazine down on the\n     table, \"I never read such rubbish in my life.\"\n\n     \"What is it?\" asked Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"Why, this article,\" I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I\n     sat down to my breakfast. \"I see that you have read it since you have\n     marked it. I don't deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me\n     though. It is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who\n     evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own\n     study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in\n     a third class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the\n     trades of all his fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one\n     against him.\"\n\n     \"You would lose your money,\" Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly.  \"As\n     for the article I wrote it myself.\"\n\n     \"You!\"\n\n     \"Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The\n     theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be\n     so chimerical are really extremely practical--so practical that I\n     depend upon them for my bread and cheese.\"\n\n     \"And how?\" I asked involuntarily.\n\n     \"Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the\n     world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that\n     is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of\n     private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I\n     manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence\n     before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of\n     the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family\n     resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a\n     thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the\n     thousand and first. Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got\n     himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what\n     brought him here.\"\n\n     \"And these other people?\"\n\n     \"They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all\n     people who are in trouble about something, and want a little\n     enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments,\n     and then I pocket my fee.\"\n\n     \"But do you mean to say,\" I said, \"that without leaving your room you\n     can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although\n     they have seen every detail for themselves?\"\n\n     \"Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case\n     turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about\n     and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special\n     knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters\n     wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which\n     aroused your scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work.\n     Observation with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised\n     when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from\n     Afghanistan.\"\n\n     \"You were told, no doubt.\"\n\n     \"Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long\n     habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I\n     arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate\n     steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran,\n     'Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a\n     military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the\n     tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of\n     his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and\n     sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been\n     injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the\n     tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got\n     his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.' The whole train of thought\n     did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from\n     Afghanistan, and you were astonished.\"\n\n     \"It is simple enough as you explain it,\" I said, smiling. \"You remind\n     me of Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals\n     did exist outside of stories.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. \"No doubt you think that you\n     are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,\" he observed. \"Now, in\n     my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of\n     breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a\n     quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He\n     had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a\n     phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.\"\n\n     \"Have you read Gaboriau's works?\" I asked. \"Does Lecoq come up to\n     your idea of a detective?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. \"Lecoq was a miserable\n     bungler,\" he said, in an angry voice; \"he had only one thing to\n     recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively\n     ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could\n     have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It\n     might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to\n     avoid.\"\n\n     I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired\n     treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and\n     stood looking out into the busy street. \"This fellow may be very\n     clever,\" I said to myself, \"but he is certainly very conceited.\"\n\n     \"There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,\" he said,\n     querulously. \"What is the use of having brains in our profession? I\n     know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives\n     or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of\n     natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what\n     is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some\n     bungling villany with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland\n     Yard official can see through it.\"\n\n     I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought\n     it best to change the topic.\n\n     \"I wonder what that fellow is looking for?\" I asked, pointing to a\n     stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the\n     other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a\n     large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a\n     message.\n\n     \"You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"Brag and bounce!\" thought I to myself. \"He knows that I cannot\n     verify his guess.\"\n\n     The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we\n     were watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly\n     across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and\n     heavy steps ascending the stair.\n\n     \"For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" he said, stepping into the room and\n     handing my friend the letter.\n\n     Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little\n     thought of this when he made that random shot. \"May I ask, my lad,\" I\n     said, in the blandest voice, \"what your trade may be?\"\n\n     \"Commissionaire, sir,\" he said, gruffly. \"Uniform away for repairs.\"\n\n     \"And you were?\" I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my\n     companion.\n\n     \"A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right,\n     sir.\"\n\n     He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was\n     gone.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          The Lauriston Garden Mystery\n\n\n     I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the\n     practical nature of my companion's theories. My respect for his\n     powers of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some\n     lurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a\n     pre-arranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly\n     object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension. When\n     I looked at him he had finished reading the note, and his eyes had\n     assumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression which showed mental\n     abstraction.\n\n     \"How in the world did you deduce that?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Deduce what?\" said he, petulantly.\n\n     \"Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.\"\n\n     \"I have no time for trifles,\" he answered, brusquely; then with a\n     smile, \"Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but\n     perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that\n     man was a sergeant of Marines?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed.\"\n\n     \"It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you were\n     asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some\n     difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the\n     street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the\n     fellow's hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage,\n     however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He\n     was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of\n     command. You must have observed the way in which he held his head and\n     swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the\n     face of him--all facts which led me to believe that he had been a\n     sergeant.\"\n\n     \"Wonderful!\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"Commonplace,\" said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that\n     he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. \"I said just\n     now that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong--look at\n     this!\" He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had\n     brought.\n\n     \"Why,\" I cried, as I cast my eye over it, \"this is terrible!\"\n\n     \"It does seem to be a little out of the common,\" he remarked, calmly.\n     \"Would you mind reading it to me aloud?\"\n\n     This is the letter which I read to him--\n\n     \"My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes:\n     \"There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston\n     Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there\n     about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one,\n     suspected that something was amiss. He found the door open, and in\n     the front room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a\n     gentleman, well dressed, and having cards in his pocket bearing the\n     name of 'Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.' There had been no\n     robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death.\n     There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his\n     person. We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house;\n     indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler. If you can come round to the\n     house any time before twelve, you will find me there. I have left\n     everything in statu quo until I hear from you. If you are unable to\n     come I shall give you fuller details, and would esteem it a great\n     kindness if you would favour me with your opinion.\n     \"Yours faithfully,\n     \"Tobias Gregson.\"\n\n     \"Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,\" my friend\n     remarked; \"he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both\n     quick and energetic, but conventional--shockingly so. They have their\n     knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of\n     professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they\n     are both put upon the scent.\"\n\n     I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. \"Surely there is\n     not a moment to be lost,\" I cried, \"shall I go and order you a cab?\"\n\n     \"I'm not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy\n     devil that ever stood in shoe leather--that is, when the fit is on\n     me, for I can be spry enough at times.\"\n\n     \"Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the\n     whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will\n     pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.\"\n\n     \"But he begs you to help him.\"\n\n     \"Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but\n     he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third\n     person. However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it\n     out on my own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing\n     else. Come on!\"\n\n     He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed\n     that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.\n\n     \"Get your hat,\" he said.\n\n     \"You wish me to come?\"\n\n     \"Yes, if you have nothing better to do.\" A minute later we were both\n     in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.\n\n     It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the\n     house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets\n     beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away\n     about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and\n     an Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the\n     melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.\n\n     \"You don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,\" I said\n     at last, interrupting Holmes' musical disquisition.\n\n     \"No data yet,\" he answered. \"It is a capital mistake to theorize\n     before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.\"\n\n     \"You will have your data soon,\" I remarked, pointing with my finger;\n     \"this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very\n     much mistaken.\"\n\n     \"So it is. Stop, driver, stop!\" We were still a hundred yards or so\n     from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our\n     journey upon foot.\n\n     Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It\n     was one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two\n     being occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers\n     of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that\n     here and there a \"To Let\" card had developed like a cataract upon the\n     bleared panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered\n     eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the\n     street, and was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour,\n     and consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel. The\n     whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through\n     the night. The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a\n     fringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning\n     a stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers,\n     who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of\n     catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.\n\n     I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into\n     the house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared\n     to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which,\n     under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he\n     lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground,\n     the sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. Having\n     finished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather\n     down the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes\n     riveted upon the ground. Twice he stopped, and once I saw him smile,\n     and heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction. There were many\n     marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil, but since the police had\n     been coming and going over it, I was unable to see how my companion\n     could hope to learn anything from it. Still I had had such\n     extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties,\n     that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden\n     from me.\n\n     At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,\n     flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward\n     and wrung my companion's hand with effusion. \"It is indeed kind of\n     you to come,\" he said, \"I have had everything left untouched.\"\n\n     \"Except that!\" my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. \"If a\n     herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess.\n     No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson,\n     before you permitted this.\"\n\n     \"I have had so much to do inside the house,\" the detective said\n     evasively. \"My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon\n     him to look after this.\"\n\n     Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. \"With two\n     such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be\n     much for a third party to find out,\" he said.\n\n     Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. \"I think we have\n     done all that can be done,\" he answered; \"it's a queer case though,\n     and I knew your taste for such things.\"\n\n     \"You did not come here in a cab?\" asked Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Nor Lestrade?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Then let us go and look at the room.\" With which inconsequent remark\n     he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features\n     expressed his astonishment.\n\n     A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and\n     offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One\n     of these had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged\n     to the dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious\n     affair had occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that\n     subdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires.\n\n     It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence\n     of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it\n     was blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips\n     had become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster\n     beneath. Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a\n     mantelpiece of imitation white marble. On one corner of this was\n     stuck the stump of a red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty\n     that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to\n     everything, which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which\n     coated the whole apartment.\n\n     All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was\n     centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched\n     upon the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the\n     discoloured ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or\n     forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp\n     curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a\n     heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured\n     trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed\n     and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were\n     clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were\n     interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On\n     his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed\n     to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features. This\n     malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead,\n     blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly\n     simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing,\n     unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it\n     appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy\n     apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban\n     London.\n\n     Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway,\n     and greeted my companion and myself.\n\n     \"This case will make a stir, sir,\" he remarked. \"It beats anything I\n     have seen, and I am no chicken.\"\n\n     \"There is no clue?\" said Gregson.\n\n     \"None at all,\" chimed in Lestrade.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it\n     intently. \"You are sure that there is no wound?\" he asked, pointing\n     to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.\n\n     \"Positive!\" cried both detectives.\n\n     \"Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second\n     individual--presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It\n     reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen,\n     in Utrecht, in the year '34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Read it up--you really should. There is nothing new under the sun.\n     It has all been done before.\"\n\n     As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and\n     everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes\n     wore the same far-away expression which I have already remarked upon.\n     So swiftly was the examination made, that one would hardly have\n     guessed the minuteness with which it was conducted. Finally, he\n     sniffed the dead man's lips, and then glanced at the soles of his\n     patent leather boots.\n\n     \"He has not been moved at all?\" he asked.\n\n     \"No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.\"\n\n     \"You can take him to the mortuary now,\" he said. \"There is nothing\n     more to be learned.\"\n\n     Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they\n     entered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As\n     they raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor.\n     Lestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.\n\n     \"There's been a woman here,\" he cried. \"It's a woman's wedding-ring.\"\n\n     He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all\n     gathered round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that\n     circlet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.\n\n     \"This complicates matters,\" said Gregson. \"Heaven knows, they were\n     complicated enough before.\"\n\n     \"You're sure it doesn't simplify them?\" observed Holmes. \"There's\n     nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his\n     pockets?\"\n\n     \"We have it all here,\" said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects\n     upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. \"A gold watch, No. 97163,\n     by Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold\n     ring, with masonic device. Gold pin--bull-dog's head, with rubies as\n     eyes. Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of\n     Cleveland, corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse,\n     but loose money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket\n     edition of Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' with name of Joseph Stangerson\n     upon the fly-leaf. Two letters--one addressed to E. J. Drebber and\n     one to Joseph Stangerson.\"\n\n     \"At what address?\"\n\n     \"American Exchange, Strand--to be left till called for. They are both\n     from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their\n     boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about\n     to return to New York.\"\n\n     \"Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?\"\n\n     \"I did it at once, sir,\" said Gregson. \"I have had advertisements\n     sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the\n     American Exchange, but he has not returned yet.\"\n\n     \"Have you sent to Cleveland?\"\n\n     \"We telegraphed this morning.\"\n\n     \"How did you word your inquiries?\"\n\n     \"We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be\n     glad of any information which could help us.\"\n\n     \"You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you\n     to be crucial?\"\n\n     \"I asked about Stangerson.\"\n\n     \"Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case\n     appears to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?\"\n\n     \"I have said all I have to say,\" said Gregson, in an offended voice.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make\n     some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we\n     were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the\n     scene, rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.\n\n     \"Mr. Gregson,\" he said, \"I have just made a discovery of the highest\n     importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a\n     careful examination of the walls.\"\n\n     The little man's eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in a\n     state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his\n     colleague.\n\n     \"Come here,\" he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of\n     which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. \"Now,\n     stand there!\"\n\n     He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.\n\n     \"Look at that!\" he said, triumphantly.\n\n     I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this\n     particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a\n     yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was\n     scrawled in blood-red letters a single word--\n\n                                     RACHE.\n\n     \"What do you think of that?\" cried the detective, with the air of a\n     showman exhibiting his show. \"This was overlooked because it was in\n     the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there.\n     The murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear\n     where it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of\n     suicide anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will\n     tell you. See that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time,\n     and if it was lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the\n     darkest portion of the wall.\"\n\n     \"And what does it mean now that you have found it?\" asked Gregson in\n     a depreciatory voice.\n\n     \"Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name\n     Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You\n     mark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find\n     that a woman named Rachel has something to do with it. It's all very\n     well for you to laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and\n     clever, but the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.\"\n\n     \"I really beg your pardon!\" said my companion, who had ruffled the\n     little man's temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. \"You\n     certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,\n     and, as you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the\n     other participant in last night's mystery. I have not had time to\n     examine this room yet, but with your permission I shall do so now.\"\n\n     As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying\n     glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted\n     noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally\n     kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with\n     his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for\n     he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping\n     up a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries\n     suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was\n     irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it\n     dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its\n     eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes\n     or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact\n     care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me,\n     and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally\n     incomprehensible manner. In one place he gathered up very carefully a\n     little pile of grey dust from the floor, and packed it away in an\n     envelope. Finally, he examined with his glass the word upon the wall,\n     going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness. This\n     done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he replaced his tape and his\n     glass in his pocket.\n\n     \"They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,\" he\n     remarked with a smile. \"It's a very bad definition, but it does apply\n     to detective work.\"\n\n     Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres of their amateur\n     companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They\n     evidently failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to\n     realize, that Sherlock Holmes' smallest actions were all directed\n     towards some definite and practical end.\n\n     \"What do you think of it, sir?\" they both asked.\n\n     \"It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to\n     presume to help you,\" remarked my friend. \"You are doing so well now\n     that it would be a pity for anyone to interfere.\" There was a world\n     of sarcasm in his voice as he spoke. \"If you will let me know how\n     your investigations go,\" he continued, \"I shall be happy to give you\n     any help I can. In the meantime I should like to speak to the\n     constable who found the body. Can you give me his name and address?\"\n\n     Lestrade glanced at his note-book. \"John Rance,\" he said. \"He is off\n     duty now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park\n     Gate.\"\n\n     Holmes took a note of the address.\n\n     \"Come along, Doctor,\" he said; \"we shall go and look him up. I'll\n     tell you one thing which may help you in the case,\" he continued,\n     turning to the two detectives. \"There has been murder done, and the\n     murderer was a man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime\n     of life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed\n     boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim\n     in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old\n     shoes and one new one on his off fore leg. In all probability the\n     murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand\n     were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may\n     assist you.\"\n\n     Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.\n\n     \"If this man was murdered, how was it done?\" asked the former.\n\n     \"Poison,\" said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. \"One other\n     thing, Lestrade,\" he added, turning round at the door: \"'Rache,' is\n     the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss\n     Rachel.\"\n\n     With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals\n     open-mouthed behind him. \n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          What John Rance Had To Tell\n\n\n     It was one o'clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock\n     Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a\n     long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take\n     us to the address given us by Lestrade.\n\n     \"There is nothing like first hand evidence,\" he remarked; \"as a\n     matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still\n     we may as well learn all that is to be learned.\"\n\n     \"You amaze me, Holmes,\" said I. \"Surely you are not as sure as you\n     pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.\"\n\n     \"There's no room for a mistake,\" he answered. \"The very first thing\n     which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts\n     with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had\n     no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep\n     impression must have been there during the night. There were the\n     marks of the horse's hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far\n     more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was\n     a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not\n     there at any time during the morning--I have Gregson's word for\n     that--it follows that it must have been there during the night, and,\n     therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.\"\n\n     \"That seems simple enough,\" said I; \"but how about the other man's\n     height?\"\n\n     \"Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from\n     the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though\n     there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow's\n     stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a\n     way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his\n     instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that\n     writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child's play.\"\n\n     \"And his age?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest\n     effort, he can't be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the\n     breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked\n     across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had\n     hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply\n     applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and\n     deduction which I advocated in that article. Is there anything else\n     that puzzles you?\"\n\n     \"The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,\" I suggested.\n\n     \"The writing on the wall was done with a man's forefinger dipped in\n     blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly\n     scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the\n     man's nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from\n     the floor. It was dark in colour and flakey--such an ash as is only\n     made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar\n     ashes--in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I\n     flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any\n     known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such\n     details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and\n     Lestrade type.\"\n\n     \"And the florid face?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was\n     right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.\"\n\n     I passed my hand over my brow. \"My head is in a whirl,\" I remarked;\n     \"the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came\n     these two men--if there were two men--into an empty house? What has\n     become of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another\n     to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of\n     the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman's\n     ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German\n     word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible\n     way of reconciling all these facts.\"\n\n     My companion smiled approvingly.\n\n     \"You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,\"\n     he said. \"There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite\n     made up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade's discovery it\n     was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by\n     suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a\n     German. The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German\n     fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character,\n     so that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a\n     clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert\n     inquiry into a wrong channel. I'm not going to tell you much more of\n     the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has\n     explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of\n     working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary\n     individual after all.\"\n\n     \"I shall never do that,\" I answered; \"you have brought detection as\n     near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.\"\n\n     My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest\n     way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as\n     sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of\n     her beauty.\n\n     \"I'll tell you one other thing,\" he said. \"Patent-leathers and\n     Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway\n     together as friendly as possible--arm-in-arm, in all probability.\n     When they got inside they walked up and down the room--or rather,\n     Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I\n     could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked\n     he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length\n     of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up,\n     no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I've told you all I\n     know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have\n     a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up,\n     for I want to go to Halle's concert to hear Norman Neruda this\n     afternoon.\"\n\n     This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its\n     way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In\n     the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a\n     stand. \"That's Audley Court in there,\" he said, pointing to a narrow\n     slit in the line of dead-coloured brick. \"You'll find me here when\n     you come back.\"\n\n     Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led\n     us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings.\n     We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines\n     of discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which\n     was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was\n     engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we\n     were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.\n\n     He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed\n     in his slumbers. \"I made my report at the office,\" he said.\n\n     Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it\n     pensively. \"We thought that we should like to hear it all from your\n     own lips,\" he said.\n\n     \"I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,\" the constable\n     answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.\n\n     \"Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.\"\n\n     Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though\n     determined not to omit anything in his narrative.\n\n     \"I'll tell it ye from the beginning,\" he said. \"My time is from ten\n     at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the\n     'White Hart'; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one\n     o'clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher--him who has the\n     Holland Grove beat--and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta\n     Street a-talkin'. Presently--maybe about two or a little after--I\n     thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the\n     Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet\n     all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin'\n     down, thinkin' between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot\n     would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the\n     window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in\n     Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who\n     won't have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived\n     in one of them died o' typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap\n     therefore at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as\n     something was wrong. When I got to the door--\"\n\n     \"You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,\" my companion\n     interrupted. \"What did you do that for?\"\n\n     Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the\n     utmost amazement upon his features.\n\n     \"Why, that's true, sir,\" he said; \"though how you come to know it,\n     Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still\n     and so lonesome, that I thought I'd be none the worse for some one\n     with me. I ain't afeared of anything on this side o' the grave; but I\n     thought that maybe it was him that died o' the typhoid inspecting the\n     drains what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o' turn, and I\n     walked back to the gate to see if I could see Murcher's lantern, but\n     there wasn't no sign of him nor of anyone else.\"\n\n     \"There was no one in the street?\"\n\n     \"Not a livin' soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself\n     together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet\n     inside, so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin'. There\n     was a candle flickerin' on the mantelpiece--a red wax one--and by its\n     light I saw--\"\n\n     \"Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several\n     times, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through\n     and tried the kitchen door, and then--\"\n\n     John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in\n     his eyes. \"Where was you hid to see all that?\" he cried. \"It seems to\n     me that you knows a deal more than you should.\"\n\n     Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.\n     \"Don't get arresting me for the murder,\" he said. \"I am one of the\n     hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for\n     that. Go on, though. What did you do next?\"\n\n     Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified\n     expression. \"I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That\n     brought Murcher and two more to the spot.\"\n\n     \"Was the street empty then?\"\n\n     \"Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.\"\n\n     \"What do you mean?\"\n\n     The constable's features broadened into a grin. \"I've seen many a\n     drunk chap in my time,\" he said, \"but never anyone so cryin' drunk as\n     that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin' up ag'in the\n     railings, and a-singin' at the pitch o' his lungs about Columbine's\n     New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn't stand, far less\n     help.\"\n\n     \"What sort of a man was he?\" asked Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. \"He\n     was an uncommon drunk sort o' man,\" he said. \"He'd ha' found hisself\n     in the station if we hadn't been so took up.\"\n\n     \"His face--his dress--didn't you notice them?\" Holmes broke in\n     impatiently.\n\n     \"I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him\n     up--me and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face,\n     the lower part muffled round--\"\n\n     \"That will do,\" cried Holmes. \"What became of him?\"\n\n     \"We'd enough to do without lookin' after him,\" the policeman said, in\n     an aggrieved voice. \"I'll wager he found his way home all right.\"\n\n     \"How was he dressed?\"\n\n     \"A brown overcoat.\"\n\n     \"Had he a whip in his hand?\"\n\n     \"A whip--no.\"\n\n     \"He must have left it behind,\" muttered my companion. \"You didn't\n     happen to see or hear a cab after that?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"There's a half-sovereign for you,\" my companion said, standing up\n     and taking his hat. \"I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in\n     the force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament.\n     You might have gained your sergeant's stripes last night. The man\n     whom you held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this\n     mystery, and whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it\n     now; I tell you that it is so. Come along, Doctor.\"\n\n     We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant\n     incredulous, but obviously uncomfortable.\n\n     \"The blundering fool,\" Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our\n     lodgings. \"Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of\n     good luck, and not taking advantage of it.\"\n\n     \"I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of\n     this man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery.\n     But why should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is\n     not the way of criminals.\"\n\n     \"The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have\n     no other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the\n     ring. I shall have him, Doctor--I'll lay you two to one that I have\n     him. I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you,\n     and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in\n     scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the\n     scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of\n     life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every\n     inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack\n     and her bowing are splendid. What's that little thing of Chopin's she\n     plays so magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.\"\n\n     Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a\n     lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor\n\n\n     Our morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I\n     was tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes' departure for the\n     concert, I lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of\n     hours' sleep. It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much\n     excited by all that had occurred, and the strangest fancies and\n     surmises crowded into it. Every time that I closed my eyes I saw\n     before me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the murdered man.\n     So sinister was the impression which that face had produced upon me\n     that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who\n     had removed its owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke\n     vice of the most malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch\n     J. Drebber, of Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be\n     done, and that the depravity of the victim was no condonement in the\n     eyes of the law.\n\n     The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion's\n     hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how\n     he had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected\n     something which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not\n     poison, what had caused the man's death, since there was neither\n     wound nor marks of strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood\n     was that which lay so thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of\n     a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have\n     wounded an antagonist. As long as all these questions were unsolved,\n     I felt that sleep would be no easy matter, either for Holmes or\n     myself. His quiet self-confident manner convinced me that he had\n     already formed a theory which explained all the facts, though what it\n     was I could not for an instant conjecture.\n\n     He was very late in returning--so late, that I knew that the concert\n     could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table\n     before he appeared.\n\n     \"It was magnificent,\" he said, as he took his seat. \"Do you remember\n     what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing\n     and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the\n     power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly\n     influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those\n     misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.\"\n\n     \"That's rather a broad idea,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret\n     Nature,\" he answered. \"What's the matter? You're not looking quite\n     yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.\"\n\n     \"To tell the truth, it has,\" I said. \"I ought to be more\n     case-hardened after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades\n     hacked to pieces at Maiwand without losing my nerve.\"\n\n     \"I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the\n     imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have\n     you seen the evening paper?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention\n     the fact that when the man was raised up, a woman's wedding ring fell\n     upon the floor. It is just as well it does not.\"\n\n     \"Why?\"\n\n     \"Look at this advertisement,\" he answered. \"I had one sent to every\n     paper this morning immediately after the affair.\"\n\n     He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated.\n     It was the first announcement in the \"Found\" column. \"In Brixton\n     Road, this morning,\" it ran, \"a plain gold wedding ring, found in the\n     roadway between the 'White Hart' Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr.\n     Watson, 221b, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.\"\n\n     \"Excuse my using your name,\" he said. \"If I used my own some of these\n     dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.\"\n\n     \"That is all right,\" I answered. \"But supposing anyone applies, I\n     have no ring.\"\n\n     \"Oh yes, you have,\" said he, handing me one. \"This will do very well.\n     It is almost a facsimile.\"\n\n     \"And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.\"\n\n     \"Why, the man in the brown coat--our florid friend with the square\n     toes. If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.\"\n\n     \"Would he not consider it as too dangerous?\"\n\n     \"Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every\n     reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything\n     than lose the ring. According to my notion he dropped it while\n     stooping over Drebber's body, and did not miss it at the time. After\n     leaving the house he discovered his loss and hurried back, but found\n     the police already in possession, owing to his own folly in leaving\n     the candle burning. He had to pretend to be drunk in order to allay\n     the suspicions which might have been aroused by his appearance at the\n     gate. Now put yourself in that man's place. On thinking the matter\n     over, it must have occurred to him that it was possible that he had\n     lost the ring in the road after leaving the house. What would he do,\n     then? He would eagerly look out for the evening papers in the hope of\n     seeing it among the articles found. His eye, of course, would light\n     upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should he fear a trap? There\n     would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be\n     connected with the murder. He would come. He will come. You shall see\n     him within an hour.\"\n\n     \"And then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?\"\n\n     \"I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.\"\n\n     \"You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and\n     though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for\n     anything.\"\n\n     I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with\n     the pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his\n     favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.\n\n     \"The plot thickens,\" he said, as I entered; \"I have just had an\n     answer to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct\n     one.\"\n\n     \"And that is?\" I asked eagerly.\n\n     \"My fiddle would be the better for new strings,\" he remarked. \"Put\n     your pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him in an\n     ordinary way. Leave the rest to me. Don't frighten him by looking at\n     him too hard.\"\n\n     \"It is eight o'clock now,\" I said, glancing at my watch.\n\n     \"Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door\n     slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you!\n     This is a queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday--De Jure\n     inter Gentes--published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642.\n     Charles' head was still firm on his shoulders when this little\n     brown-backed volume was struck off.\"\n\n     \"Who is the printer?\"\n\n     \"Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly-leaf, in very\n     faded ink, is written 'Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.' I wonder who\n     William Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I\n     suppose. His writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man,\n     I think.\"\n\n     As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose\n     softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the\n     servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she\n     opened it.\n\n     \"Does Dr. Watson live here?\" asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We\n     could not hear the servant's reply, but the door closed, and some one\n     began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and\n     shuffling one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my\n     companion as he listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and\n     there was a feeble tap at the door.\n\n     \"Come in,\" I cried.\n\n     At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a\n     very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared\n     to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a\n     curtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling\n     in her pocket with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion,\n     and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was\n     all I could do to keep my countenance.\n\n     The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our\n     advertisement. \"It's this as has brought me, good gentlemen,\" she\n     said, dropping another curtsey; \"a gold wedding ring in the Brixton\n     Road. It belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time\n     twelvemonth, which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and\n     what he'd say if he comes 'ome and found her without her ring is more\n     than I can think, he being short enough at the best o' times, but\n     more especially when he has the drink. If it please you, she went to\n     the circus last night along with--\"\n\n     \"Is that her ring?\" I asked.\n\n     \"The Lord be thanked!\" cried the old woman; \"Sally will be a glad\n     woman this night. That's the ring.\"\n\n     \"And what may your address be?\" I inquired, taking up a pencil.\n\n     \"13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.\"\n\n     \"The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,\"\n     said Sherlock Holmes sharply.\n\n     The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little\n     red-rimmed eyes. \"The gentleman asked me for my address,\" she said.\n     \"Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.\"\n\n     \"And your name is--?\"\n\n     \"My name is Sawyer--her's is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married\n     her--and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he's at sea, and no\n     steward in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what with\n     the women and what with liquor shops--\"\n\n     \"Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,\" I interrupted, in obedience to a\n     sign from my companion; \"it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I\n     am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.\"\n\n     With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old\n     crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs.\n     Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and\n     rushed into his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an\n     ulster and a cravat. \"I'll follow her,\" he said, hurriedly; \"she must\n     be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.\" The hall\n     door had hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had\n     descended the stair. Looking through the window I could see her\n     walking feebly along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her\n     some little distance behind. \"Either his whole theory is incorrect,\"\n     I thought to myself, \"or else he will be led now to the heart of the\n     mystery.\" There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for\n     I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his\n     adventure.\n\n     It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he\n     might be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the\n     pages of Henri Murger's Vie de Bohème. Ten o'clock passed, and I\n     heard the footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven,\n     and the more stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for\n     the same destination. It was close upon twelve before I heard the\n     sharp sound of his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by his\n     face that he had not been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to\n     be struggling for the mastery, until the former suddenly carried the\n     day, and he burst into a hearty laugh.\n\n     \"I wouldn't have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,\" he\n     cried, dropping into his chair; \"I have chaffed them so much that\n     they would never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to\n     laugh, because I know that I will be even with them in the long run.\"\n\n     \"What is it then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Oh, I don't mind telling a story against myself. That creature had\n     gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being\n     foot-sore. Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler\n     which was passing. I managed to be close to her so as to hear the\n     address, but I need not have been so anxious, for she sang it out\n     loud enough to be heard at the other side of the street, 'Drive to\n     13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch,' she cried. This begins to look\n     genuine, I thought, and having seen her safely inside, I perched\n     myself behind. That's an art which every detective should be an\n     expert at. Well, away we rattled, and never drew rein until we\n     reached the street in question. I hopped off before we came to the\n     door, and strolled down the street in an easy, lounging way. I saw\n     the cab pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw him open the door\n     and stand expectantly. Nothing came out though. When I reached him he\n     was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to\n     the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I listened to.\n     There was no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it will be\n     some time before he gets his fare. On inquiring at Number 13 we found\n     that the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named Keswick,\n     and that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Dennis had ever been\n     heard of there.\"\n\n     \"You don't mean to say,\" I cried, in amazement, \"that that tottering,\n     feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in\n     motion, without either you or the driver seeing her?\"\n\n     \"Old woman be damned!\" said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. \"We were the\n     old women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an\n     active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was\n     inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this\n     means of giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is\n     not as lonely as I imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to\n     risk something for him. Now, Doctor, you are looking done-up. Take my\n     advice and turn in.\"\n\n     I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I\n     left Holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into\n     the watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his\n     violin, and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem\n     which he had set himself to unravel.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do\n\n\n     The papers next day were full of the \"Brixton Mystery,\" as they\n     termed it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had\n     leaders upon it in addition. There was some information in them which\n     was new to me. I still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and\n     extracts bearing upon the case. Here is a condensation of a few of\n     them:--\n\n     The Daily Telegraph remarked that in the history of crime there had\n     seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German\n     name of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister\n     inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political\n     refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in\n     America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten\n     laws, and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the\n     Vehmgericht, aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers,\n     the Darwinian theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff\n     Highway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the Government\n     and advocating a closer watch over foreigners in England.\n\n     The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the\n     sort usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from\n     the unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent\n     weakening of all authority. The deceased was an American gentleman\n     who had been residing for some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed\n     at the boarding-house of Madame Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace,\n     Camberwell. He was accompanied in his travels by his private\n     secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The two bade adieu to their\n     landlady upon Tuesday, the 4th inst., and departed to Euston Station\n     with the avowed intention of catching the Liverpool express. They\n     were afterwards seen together upon the platform. Nothing more is\n     known of them until Mr. Drebber's body was, as recorded, discovered\n     in an empty house in the Brixton Road, many miles from Euston. How he\n     came there, or how he met his fate, are questions which are still\n     involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the whereabouts of\n     Stangerson. We are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and Mr. Gregson,\n     of Scotland Yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it is\n     confidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily\n     throw light upon the matter.\n\n     The Daily News observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being\n     a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which\n     animated the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to\n     our shores a number of men who might have made excellent citizens\n     were they not soured by the recollection of all that they had\n     undergone. Among these men there was a stringent code of honour, any\n     infringement of which was punished by death. Every effort should be\n     made to find the secretary, Stangerson, and to ascertain some\n     particulars of the habits of the deceased. A great step had been\n     gained by the discovery of the address of the house at which he had\n     boarded--a result which was entirely due to the acuteness and energy\n     of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast,\n     and they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.\n\n     \"I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be\n     sure to score.\"\n\n     \"That depends on how it turns out.\"\n\n     \"Oh, bless you, it doesn't matter in the least. If the man is caught,\n     it will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be\n     in spite of their exertions. It's heads I win and tails you lose.\n     Whatever they do, they will have followers. 'Un sot trouve toujours\n     un plus sot qui l'admire.'\"\n\n     \"What on earth is this?\" I cried, for at this moment there came the\n     pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by\n     audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.\n\n     \"It's the Baker Street division of the detective police force,\" said\n     my companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room\n     half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I\n     clapped eyes on.\n\n     \"'Tention!\" cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little\n     scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. \"In\n     future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you\n     must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, we hain't,\" said one of the youths.\n\n     \"I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are\n     your wages.\" He handed each of them a shilling. \"Now, off you go, and\n     come back with a better report next time.\"\n\n     He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many\n     rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.\n\n     \"There's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than\n     out of a dozen of the force,\" Holmes remarked. \"The mere sight of an\n     official-looking person seals men's lips. These youngsters, however,\n     go everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too;\n     all they want is organisation.\"\n\n     \"Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is merely a\n     matter of time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a\n     vengeance! Here is Gregson coming down the road with beatitude\n     written upon every feature of his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he\n     is stopping. There he is!\"\n\n     There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the\n     fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and\n     burst into our sitting-room.\n\n     \"My dear fellow,\" he cried, wringing Holmes' unresponsive hand,\n     \"congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.\"\n\n     A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion's expressive\n     face.\n\n     \"Do you mean that you are on the right track?\" he asked.\n\n     \"The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.\"\n\n     \"And his name is?\"\n\n     \"Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty's navy,\" cried\n     Gregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.\n\n     \"Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,\" he said. \"We are anxious\n     to know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?\"\n\n     \"I don't mind if I do,\" the detective answered. \"The tremendous\n     exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have\n     worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the\n     strain upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\n     for we are both brain-workers.\"\n\n     \"You do me too much honour,\" said Holmes, gravely. \"Let us hear how\n     you arrived at this most gratifying result.\"\n\n     The detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed\n     complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a\n     paroxysm of amusement.\n\n     \"The fun of it is,\" he cried, \"that that fool Lestrade, who thinks\n     himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is\n     after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime\n     than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this\n     time.\"\n\n     The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.\n\n     \"And how did you get your clue?\"\n\n     \"Ah, I'll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson, this is\n     strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to\n     contend with was the finding of this American's antecedents. Some\n     people would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or\n     until parties came forward and volunteered information. That is not\n     Tobias Gregson's way of going to work. You remember the hat beside\n     the dead man?\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" said Holmes; \"by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell\n     Road.\"\n\n     Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.\n\n     \"I had no idea that you noticed that,\" he said. \"Have you been\n     there?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Ha!\" cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; \"you should never neglect a\n     chance, however small it may seem.\"\n\n     \"To a great mind, nothing is little,\" remarked Holmes, sententiously.\n\n     \"Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of\n     that size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it\n     at once. He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at\n     Charpentier's Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at\n     his address.\"\n\n     \"Smart--very smart!\" murmured Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"I next called upon Madame Charpentier,\" continued the detective. \"I\n     found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room,\n     too--an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about\n     the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn't escape\n     my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes, when you come upon the right scent--a kind of thrill in your\n     nerves. 'Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder\n     Mr. Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?' I asked.\n\n     \"The mother nodded. She didn't seem able to get out a word. The\n     daughter burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people\n     knew something of the matter.\n\n     \"'At what o'clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the train?' I\n     asked.\n\n     \"'At eight o'clock,' she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her\n     agitation. 'His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that there were two\n     trains--one at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first.'\n\n     \"'And was that the last which you saw of him?'\n\n     \"A terrible change came over the woman's face as I asked the\n     question. Her features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds\n     before she could get out the single word 'Yes'--and when it did come\n     it was in a husky unnatural tone.\n\n     \"There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a\n     calm clear voice.\n\n     \"'No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,' she said. 'Let us be\n     frank with this gentleman. We did see Mr. Drebber again.'\n\n     \"'God forgive you!' cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her hands\n     and sinking back in her chair. 'You have murdered your brother.'\n\n     \"'Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,' the girl answered\n     firmly.\n\n     \"'You had best tell me all about it now,' I said. 'Half-confidences\n     are worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of\n     it.'\n\n     \"'On your head be it, Alice!' cried her mother; and then, turning to\n     me, 'I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on\n     behalf of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand\n     in this terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is,\n     however, that in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to\n     be compromised. That however is surely impossible. His high\n     character, his profession, his antecedents would all forbid it.'\n\n     \"'Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,' I answered.\n     'Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.'\n\n     \"'Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,' she said, and\n     her daughter withdrew. 'Now, sir,' she continued, 'I had no intention\n     of telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it\n     I have no alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you\n     all without omitting any particular.'\n\n     \"'It is your wisest course,' said I.\n\n     \"'Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and his\n     secretary, Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent. I\n     noticed a \"Copenhagen\" label upon each of their trunks, showing that\n     that had been their last stopping place. Stangerson was a quiet\n     reserved man, but his employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise.\n     He was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways. The very night\n     of his arrival he became very much the worse for drink, and, indeed,\n     after twelve o'clock in the day he could hardly ever be said to be\n     sober. His manners towards the maid-servants were disgustingly free\n     and familiar. Worst of all, he speedily assumed the same attitude\n     towards my daughter, Alice, and spoke to her more than once in a way\n     which, fortunately, she is too innocent to understand. On one\n     occasion he actually seized her in his arms and embraced her--an\n     outrage which caused his own secretary to reproach him for his\n     unmanly conduct.'\n\n     \"'But why did you stand all this,' I asked. 'I suppose that you can\n     get rid of your boarders when you wish.'\n\n     \"Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. 'Would to God\n     that I had given him notice on the very day that he came,' she said.\n     'But it was a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day\n     each--fourteen pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a\n     widow, and my boy in the Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the\n     money. I acted for the best. This last was too much, however, and I\n     gave him notice to leave on account of it. That was the reason of his\n     going.'\n\n     \"'Well?'\n\n     \"'My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is on leave\n     just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper\n     is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed\n     the door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas,\n     in less than an hour there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that\n     Mr. Drebber had returned. He was much excited, and evidently the\n     worse for drink. He forced his way into the room, where I was sitting\n     with my daughter, and made some incoherent remark about having missed\n     his train. He then turned to Alice, and before my very face, proposed\n     to her that she should fly with him. \"You are of age,\" he said, \"and\n     there is no law to stop you. I have money enough and to spare. Never\n     mind the old girl here, but come along with me now straight away. You\n     shall live like a princess.\" Poor Alice was so frightened that she\n     shrunk away from him, but he caught her by the wrist and endeavoured\n     to draw her towards the door. I screamed, and at that moment my son\n     Arthur came into the room. What happened then I do not know. I heard\n     oaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle. I was too terrified to\n     raise my head. When I did look up I saw Arthur standing in the\n     doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand. \"I don't think that fine\n     fellow will trouble us again,\" he said. \"I will just go after him and\n     see what he does with himself.\" With those words he took his hat and\n     started off down the street. The next morning we heard of Mr.\n     Drebber's mysterious death.'\n\n     \"This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier's lips with many gasps and\n     pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the\n     words. I made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that\n     there should be no possibility of a mistake.\"\n\n     \"It's quite exciting,\" said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. \"What\n     happened next?\"\n\n     \"When Mrs. Charpentier paused,\" the detective continued, \"I saw that\n     the whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way\n     which I always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour\n     her son returned.\n\n     \"'I do not know,' she answered.\n\n     \"'Not know?'\n\n     \"'No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.'\n\n     \"'After you went to bed?'\n\n     \"'Yes.'\n\n     \"'When did you go to bed?'\n\n     \"'About eleven.'\n\n     \"'So your son was gone at least two hours?'\n\n     \"'Yes.'\n\n     \"'Possibly four or five?'\n\n     \"'Yes.'\n\n     \"'What was he doing during that time?'\n\n     \"'I do not know,' she answered, turning white to her very lips.\n\n     \"Of course after that there was nothing more to be done. I found out\n     where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and\n     arrested him. When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to\n     come quietly with us, he answered us as bold as brass, 'I suppose you\n     are arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel\n     Drebber,' he said. We had said nothing to him about it, so that his\n     alluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.\"\n\n     \"Very,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as\n     having with him when he followed Drebber. It was a stout oak cudgel.\"\n\n     \"What is your theory, then?\"\n\n     \"Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the Brixton\n     Road. When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the\n     course of which Drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of\n     the stomach, perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The\n     night was so wet that no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the\n     body of his victim into the empty house. As to the candle, and the\n     blood, and the writing on the wall, and the ring, they may all be so\n     many tricks to throw the police on to the wrong scent.\"\n\n     \"Well done!\" said Holmes in an encouraging voice. \"Really, Gregson,\n     you are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.\"\n\n     \"I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,\" the\n     detective answered proudly. \"The young man volunteered a statement,\n     in which he said that after following Drebber some time, the latter\n     perceived him, and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his\n     way home he met an old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On\n     being asked where this old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any\n     satisfactory reply. I think the whole case fits together uncommonly\n     well. What amuses me is to think of Lestrade, who had started off\n     upon the wrong scent. I am afraid he won't make much of--Why, by\n     Jove, here's the very man himself!\"\n\n     It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were\n     talking, and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness\n     which generally marked his demeanour and dress were, however,\n     wanting. His face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were\n     disarranged and untidy. He had evidently come with the intention of\n     consulting with Sherlock Holmes, for on perceiving his colleague he\n     appeared to be embarrassed and put out. He stood in the centre of the\n     room, fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. \"This\n     is a most extraordinary case,\" he said at last--\"a most\n     incomprehensible affair.\"\n\n     \"Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!\" cried Gregson, triumphantly. \"I\n     thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find\n     the Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?\"\n\n     \"The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,\" said Lestrade gravely, \"was\n     murdered at Halliday's Private Hotel about six o'clock this morning.\"\n     \n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          Light In The Darkness\n\n\n     The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and\n     so unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumbfounded. Gregson\n     sprang out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and\n     water. I stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were\n     compressed and his brows drawn down over his eyes.\n\n     \"Stangerson too!\" he muttered. \"The plot thickens.\"\n\n     \"It was quite thick enough before,\" grumbled Lestrade, taking a\n     chair. \"I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.\"\n\n     \"Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?\" stammered\n     Gregson.\n\n     \"I have just come from his room,\" said Lestrade. \"I was the first to\n     discover what had occurred.\"\n\n     \"We have been hearing Gregson's view of the matter,\" Holmes observed.\n     \"Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?\"\n\n     \"I have no objection,\" Lestrade answered, seating himself. \"I freely\n     confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in\n     the death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was\n     completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out\n     what had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at\n     Euston Station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At\n     two in the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The\n     question which confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been\n     employed between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become\n     of him afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description\n     of the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats.\n     I then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in\n     the vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his\n     companion had become separated, the natural course for the latter\n     would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then\n     to hang about the station again next morning.\"\n\n     \"They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,\"\n     remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making\n     enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early,\n     and at eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private Hotel, in Little\n     George Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was\n     living there, they at once answered me in the affirmative.\n\n     \"'No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they said.\n     'He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'\n\n     \"'Where is he now?' I asked.\n\n     \"'He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.'\n\n     \"'I will go up and see him at once,' I said.\n\n     \"It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and\n     lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me\n     the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor\n     leading up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about\n     to go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel\n     sickish, in spite of my twenty years' experience. From under the door\n     there curled a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across\n     the passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other\n     side. I gave a cry, which brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted\n     when he saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we put our\n     shoulders to it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open,\n     and beside the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his\n     nightdress. He was quite dead, and had been for some time, for his\n     limbs were rigid and cold. When we turned him over, the Boots\n     recognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had engaged\n     the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson. The cause of death was\n     a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart.\n     And now comes the strangest part of the affair. What do you suppose\n     was above the murdered man?\"\n\n     I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,\n     even before Sherlock Holmes answered.\n\n     \"The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,\" he said.\n\n     \"That was it,\" said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all\n     silent for a while.\n\n     There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the\n     deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness\n     to his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of\n     battle tingled as I thought of it.\n\n     \"The man was seen,\" continued Lestrade. \"A milk boy, passing on his\n     way to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the\n     mews at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which\n     usually lay there, was raised against one of the windows of the\n     second floor, which was wide open. After passing, he looked back and\n     saw a man descend the ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that\n     the boy imagined him to be some carpenter or joiner at work in the\n     hotel. He took no particular notice of him, beyond thinking in his\n     own mind that it was early for him to be at work. He has an\n     impression that the man was tall, had a reddish face, and was dressed\n     in a long, brownish coat. He must have stayed in the room some little\n     time after the murder, for we found blood-stained water in the basin,\n     where he had washed his hands, and marks on the sheets where he had\n     deliberately wiped his knife.\"\n\n     I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which\n     tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of\n     exultation or satisfaction upon his face.\n\n     \"Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the\n     murderer?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber's purse in his pocket, but it seems\n     that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd\n     pounds in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of\n     these extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them.\n     There were no papers or memoranda in the murdered man's pocket,\n     except a single telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and\n     containing the words, 'J. H. is in Europe.' There was no name\n     appended to this message.\"\n\n     \"And there was nothing else?\" Holmes asked.\n\n     \"Nothing of any importance. The man's novel, with which he had read\n     himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair\n     beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the\n     window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.\n\n     \"The last link,\" he cried, exultantly. \"My case is complete.\"\n\n     The two detectives stared at him in amazement.\n\n     \"I have now in my hands,\" my companion said, confidently, \"all the\n     threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course,\n     details to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts,\n     from the time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up\n     to the discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them\n     with my own eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you\n     lay your hand upon those pills?\"\n\n     \"I have them,\" said Lestrade, producing a small white box; \"I took\n     them and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a\n     place of safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my\n     taking these pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any\n     importance to them.\"\n\n     \"Give them here,\" said Holmes. \"Now, Doctor,\" turning to me, \"are\n     those ordinary pills?\"\n\n     They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,\n     round, and almost transparent against the light. \"From their\n     lightness and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in\n     water,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"Precisely so,\" answered Holmes. \"Now would you mind going down and\n     fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so\n     long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain\n     yesterday.\"\n\n     I went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. It's\n     laboured breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from\n     its end. Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already\n     exceeded the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a\n     cushion on the rug.\n\n     \"I will now cut one of these pills in two,\" said Holmes, and drawing\n     his penknife he suited the action to the word. \"One half we return\n     into the box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this\n     wine glass, in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our\n     friend, the Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.\"\n\n     \"This may be very interesting,\" said Lestrade, in the injured tone of\n     one who suspects that he is being laughed at, \"I cannot see, however,\n     what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.\"\n\n     \"Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has\n     everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the\n     mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he\n     laps it up readily enough.\"\n\n     As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer\n     and placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry.\n     Sherlock Holmes' earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we\n     all sat in silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some\n     startling effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to\n     lie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but\n     apparently neither the better nor the worse for its draught.\n\n     Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without\n     result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment\n     appeared upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers\n     upon the table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience.\n     So great was his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while\n     the two detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this\n     check which he had met.\n\n     \"It can't be a coincidence,\" he cried, at last springing from his\n     chair and pacing wildly up and down the room; \"it is impossible that\n     it should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in\n     the case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson.\n     And yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of\n     reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible! And yet this\n     wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!\" With a\n     perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in\n     two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The\n     unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in\n     it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid\n     and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from\n     his forehead. \"I should have more faith,\" he said; \"I ought to know\n     by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train\n     of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some\n     other interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the\n     most deadly poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to\n     have known that before ever I saw the box at all.\"\n\n     This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could\n     hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead\n     dog, however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It\n     seemed to me that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing\n     away, and I began to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.\n\n     \"All this seems strange to you,\" continued Holmes, \"because you\n     failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the\n     single real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune\n     to seize upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has\n     served to confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the\n     logical sequence of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and\n     made the case more obscure, have served to enlighten me and to\n     strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake to confound strangeness\n     with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious\n     because it presents no new or special features from which deductions\n     may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult\n     to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the\n     roadway without any of those outré and sensational accompaniments\n     which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from\n     making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making\n     it less so.\"\n\n     Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable\n     impatience, could contain himself no longer. \"Look here, Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes,\" he said, \"we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a\n     smart man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want\n     something more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a\n     case of taking the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was\n     wrong. Young Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second\n     affair. Lestrade went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that\n     he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints here, and hints there,\n     and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we feel\n     that we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of the\n     business. Can you name the man who did it?\"\n\n     \"I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,\" remarked\n     Lestrade. \"We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have\n     remarked more than once since I have been in the room that you had\n     all the evidence which you require. Surely you will not withhold it\n     any longer.\"\n\n     \"Any delay in arresting the assassin,\" I observed, \"might give him\n     time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.\"\n\n     Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He\n     continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his\n     chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in\n     thought.\n\n     \"There will be no more murders,\" he said at last, stopping abruptly\n     and facing us. \"You can put that consideration out of the question.\n     You have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere\n     knowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the\n     power of laying our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do.\n     I have good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it\n     is a thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and\n     desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I have had occasion\n     to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long as this man\n     has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of\n     securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change\n     his name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants\n     of this great city. Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings,\n     I am bound to say that I consider these men to be more than a match\n     for the official force, and that is why I have not asked your\n     assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all the blame due to\n     this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am ready to\n     promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without\n     endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.\"\n\n     Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this\n     assurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police.\n     The former had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the\n     other's beady eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither\n     of them had time to speak, however, before there was a tap at the\n     door, and the spokesman of the street Arabs, young Wiggins,\n     introduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.\n\n     \"Please, sir,\" he said, touching his forelock, \"I have the cab\n     downstairs.\"\n\n     \"Good boy,\" said Holmes, blandly. \"Why don't you introduce this\n     pattern at Scotland Yard?\" he continued, taking a pair of steel\n     handcuffs from a drawer. \"See how beautifully the spring works. They\n     fasten in an instant.\"\n\n     \"The old pattern is good enough,\" remarked Lestrade, \"if we can only\n     find the man to put them on.\"\n\n     \"Very good, very good,\" said Holmes, smiling. \"The cabman may as well\n     help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.\"\n\n     I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about\n     to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about\n     it. There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out\n     and began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman\n     entered the room.\n\n     \"Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,\" he said, kneeling\n     over his task, and never turning his head.\n\n     The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put\n     down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click,\n     the jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.\n\n     \"Gentlemen,\" he cried, with flashing eyes, \"let me introduce you to\n     Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph\n     Stangerson.\"\n\n     The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time\n     to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of\n     Holmes' triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the\n     cabman's dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering\n     handcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a\n     second or two we might have been a group of statues. Then, with an\n     inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched himself free from\n     Holmes's grasp, and hurled himself through the window. Woodwork and\n     glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through, Gregson,\n     Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was\n     dragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict.\n     So powerful and so fierce was he, that the four of us were shaken off\n     again and again. He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man\n     in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by his\n     passage through the glass, but loss of blood had no effect in\n     diminishing his resistance. It was not until Lestrade succeeded in\n     getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we\n     made him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and even then\n     we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his\n     hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.\n\n     \"We have his cab,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"It will serve to take him\n     to Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,\" he continued, with a pleasant\n     smile, \"we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very\n     welcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no\n     danger that I will refuse to answer them.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                      PART II\n\n                           The Country of the Saints.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          On The Great Alkali Plain\n\n\n     In the central portion of the great North American Continent there\n     lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served\n     as a barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra\n     Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to\n     the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence.\n     Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. It\n     comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy\n     valleys. There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged\n     cañons; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with\n     snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust. They all\n     preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness,\n     inhospitality, and misery.\n\n     There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees\n     or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other\n     hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose\n     sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon\n     their prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps\n     heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through\n     the dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the\n     rocks. These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.\n\n     In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from\n     the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach\n     stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of\n     alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes.\n     On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain\n     peaks, with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great\n     stretch of country there is no sign of life, nor of anything\n     appertaining to life. There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no\n     movement upon the dull, grey earth--above all, there is absolute\n     silence. Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that\n     mighty wilderness; nothing but silence--complete and heart-subduing\n     silence.\n\n     It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad\n     plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one\n     sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is\n     lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden\n     down by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are\n     scattered white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out\n     against the dull deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They\n     are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate.\n     The former have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen\n     hundred miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these\n     scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.\n\n     Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,\n     eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His\n     appearance was such that he might have been the very genius or demon\n     of the region. An observer would have found it difficult to say\n     whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and\n     haggard, and the brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the\n     projecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and\n     dashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with\n     an unnatural lustre; while the hand which grasped his rifle was\n     hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton. As he stood, he leaned\n     upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure and the massive\n     framework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous constitution.\n     His gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so baggily over\n     his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him that\n     senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying--dying from hunger\n     and from thirst.\n\n     He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little\n     elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the\n     great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of\n     savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which\n     might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape\n     there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with\n     wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had\n     come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to\n     die. \"Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,\"\n     he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.\n\n     Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless\n     rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had\n     carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too\n     heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the\n     ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey\n     parcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small,\n     scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled,\n     dimpled fists.\n\n     \"You've hurt me!\" said a childish voice reproachfully.\n\n     \"Have I though,\" the man answered penitently, \"I didn't go for to do\n     it.\" As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty\n     little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart\n     pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care.\n     The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that\n     she had suffered less than her companion.\n\n     \"How is it now?\" he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the\n     towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.\n\n     \"Kiss it and make it well,\" she said, with perfect gravity, shoving\n     the injured part up to him. \"That's what mother used to do. Where's\n     mother?\"\n\n     \"Mother's gone. I guess you'll see her before long.\"\n\n     \"Gone, eh!\" said the little girl. \"Funny, she didn't say good-bye;\n     she 'most always did if she was just goin' over to Auntie's for tea,\n     and now she's been away three days. Say, it's awful dry, ain't it?\n     Ain't there no water, nor nothing to eat?\"\n\n     \"No, there ain't nothing, dearie. You'll just need to be patient\n     awhile, and then you'll be all right. Put your head up agin me like\n     that, and then you'll feel bullier. It ain't easy to talk when your\n     lips is like leather, but I guess I'd best let you know how the cards\n     lie. What's that you've got?\"\n\n     \"Pretty things! fine things!\" cried the little girl enthusiastically,\n     holding up two glittering fragments of mica. \"When we goes back to\n     home I'll give them to brother Bob.\"\n\n     \"You'll see prettier things than them soon,\" said the man\n     confidently. \"You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you\n     though--you remember when we left the river?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes.\"\n\n     \"Well, we reckoned we'd strike another river soon, d'ye see. But\n     there was somethin' wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin', and it\n     didn't turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the\n     likes of you and--and--\"\n\n     \"And you couldn't wash yourself,\" interrupted his companion gravely,\n     staring up at his grimy visage.\n\n     \"No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then\n     Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then,\n     dearie, your mother.\"\n\n     \"Then mother's a deader too,\" cried the little girl dropping her face\n     in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.\n\n     \"Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some\n     chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder\n     and we tramped it together. It don't seem as though we've improved\n     matters. There's an almighty small chance for us now!\"\n\n     \"Do you mean that we are going to die too?\" asked the child, checking\n     her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.\n\n     \"I guess that's about the size of it.\"\n\n     \"Why didn't you say so before?\" she said, laughing gleefully. \"You\n     gave me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we'll be\n     with mother again.\"\n\n     \"Yes, you will, dearie.\"\n\n     \"And you too. I'll tell her how awful good you've been. I'll bet she\n     meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot\n     of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me\n     was fond of. How long will it be first?\"\n\n     \"I don't know--not very long.\" The man's eyes were fixed upon the\n     northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared\n     three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly\n     did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large\n     brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and\n     then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were\n     buzzards, the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of\n     death.\n\n     \"Cocks and hens,\" cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their\n     ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. \"Say, did\n     God make this country?\"\n\n     \"Of course He did,\" said her companion, rather startled by this\n     unexpected question.\n\n     \"He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,\" the\n     little girl continued. \"I guess somebody else made the country in\n     these parts. It's not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and\n     the trees.\"\n\n     \"What would ye think of offering up prayer?\" the man asked\n     diffidently.\n\n     \"It ain't night yet,\" she answered.\n\n     \"It don't matter. It ain't quite regular, but He won't mind that, you\n     bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the\n     waggon when we was on the Plains.\"\n\n     \"Why don't you say some yourself?\" the child asked, with wondering\n     eyes.\n\n     \"I disremember them,\" he answered. \"I hain't said none since I was\n     half the height o' that gun. I guess it's never too late. You say\n     them out, and I'll stand by and come in on the choruses.\"\n\n     \"Then you'll need to kneel down, and me too,\" she said, laying the\n     shawl out for that purpose. \"You've got to put your hands up like\n     this. It makes you feel kind o' good.\"\n\n     It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to\n     see it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the\n     little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her\n     chubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to\n     the cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with\n     whom they were face to face, while the two voices--the one thin and\n     clear, the other deep and harsh--united in the entreaty for mercy and\n     forgiveness. The prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the\n     shadow of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the\n     broad breast of her protector. He watched over her slumber for some\n     time, but Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three days and\n     three nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly\n     the eyelids drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and\n     lower upon the breast, until the man's grizzled beard was mixed with\n     the gold tresses of his companion, and both slept the same deep and\n     dreamless slumber.\n\n     Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight\n     would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali\n     plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and\n     hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but\n     gradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid,\n     well-defined cloud. This cloud continued to increase in size until it\n     became evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of\n     moving creatures. In more fertile spots the observer would have come\n     to the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze\n     upon the prairie land was approaching him. This was obviously\n     impossible in these arid wilds. As the whirl of dust drew nearer to\n     the solitary bluff upon which the two castaways were reposing, the\n     canvas-covered tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen\n     began to show up through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself\n     as being a great caravan upon its journey for the West. But what a\n     caravan! When the head of it had reached the base of the mountains,\n     the rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right across the\n     enormous plain stretched the straggling array, waggons and carts, men\n     on horseback, and men on foot. Innumerable women who staggered along\n     under burdens, and children who toddled beside the waggons or peeped\n     out from under the white coverings. This was evidently no ordinary\n     party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had been\n     compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new\n     country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and\n     rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of\n     wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not\n     sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.\n\n     At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave\n     ironfaced men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with\n     rifles. On reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held a\n     short council among themselves.\n\n     \"The wells are to the right, my brothers,\" said one, a hard-lipped,\n     clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.\n\n     \"To the right of the Sierra Blanco--so we shall reach the Rio\n     Grande,\" said another.\n\n     \"Fear not for water,\" cried a third. \"He who could draw it from the\n     rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.\"\n\n     \"Amen! Amen!\" responded the whole party.\n\n     They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and\n     keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag\n     above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,\n     showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the\n     sight there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of\n     guns, while fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the\n     vanguard. The word \"Redskins\" was on every lip.\n\n     \"There can't be any number of Injuns here,\" said the elderly man who\n     appeared to be in command. \"We have passed the Pawnees, and there are\n     no other tribes until we cross the great mountains.\"\n\n     \"Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,\" asked one of the\n     band.\n\n     \"And I,\" \"and I,\" cried a dozen voices.\n\n     \"Leave your horses below and we will await you here,\" the Elder\n     answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened\n     their horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up\n     to the object which had excited their curiosity. They advanced\n     rapidly and noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of\n     practised scouts. The watchers from the plain below could see them\n     flit from rock to rock until their figures stood out against the\n     skyline. The young man who had first given the alarm was leading\n     them. Suddenly his followers saw him throw up his hands, as though\n     overcome with astonishment, and on joining him they were affected in\n     the same way by the sight which met their eyes.\n\n     On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a\n     single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,\n     long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His\n     placid face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep.\n     Beside him lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling\n     his brown sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the\n     breast of his velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing the\n     regular line of snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played\n     over her infantile features. Her plump little white legs terminating\n     in white socks and neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange\n     contrast to the long shrivelled members of her companion. On the\n     ledge of rock above this strange couple there stood three solemn\n     buzzards, who, at the sight of the new comers uttered raucous screams\n     of disappointment and flapped sullenly away.\n\n     The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about\n     them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down\n     upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken\n     him, and which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of\n     beasts. His face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed,\n     and he passed his boney hand over his eyes. \"This is what they call\n     delirium, I guess,\" he muttered. The child stood beside him, holding\n     on to the skirt of his coat, and said nothing but looked all round\n     her with the wondering questioning gaze of childhood.\n\n     The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways\n     that their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little\n     girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported\n     her gaunt companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.\n\n     \"My name is John Ferrier,\" the wanderer explained; \"me and that\n     little un are all that's left o' twenty-one people. The rest is all\n     dead o' thirst and hunger away down in the south.\"\n\n     \"Is she your child?\" asked someone.\n\n     \"I guess she is now,\" the other cried, defiantly; \"she's mine 'cause\n     I saved her. No man will take her from me. She's Lucy Ferrier from\n     this day on. Who are you, though?\" he continued, glancing with\n     curiosity at his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; \"there seems to be a\n     powerful lot of ye.\"\n\n     \"Nigh upon ten thousand,\" said one of the young men; \"we are the\n     persecuted children of God--the chosen of the Angel Merona.\"\n\n     \"I never heard tell on him,\" said the wanderer. \"He appears to have\n     chosen a fair crowd of ye.\"\n\n     \"Do not jest at that which is sacred,\" said the other sternly. \"We\n     are of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian\n     letters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy\n     Joseph Smith at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of\n     Illinois, where we had founded our temple. We have come to seek a\n     refuge from the violent man and from the godless, even though it be\n     the heart of the desert.\"\n\n     The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier.\n     \"I see,\" he said, \"you are the Mormons.\"\n\n     \"We are the Mormons,\" answered his companions with one voice.\n\n     \"And where are you going?\"\n\n     \"We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of\n     our Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be\n     done with you.\"\n\n     They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were\n     surrounded by crowds of the pilgrims--pale-faced meek-looking women,\n     strong laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the\n     cries of astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when\n     they perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution\n     of the other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on,\n     followed by a great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon,\n     which was conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and\n     smartness of its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the\n     others were furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the\n     driver there sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years\n     of age, but whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as\n     a leader. He was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd\n     approached he laid it aside, and listened attentively to an account\n     of the episode. Then he turned to the two castaways.\n\n     \"If we take you with us,\" he said, in solemn words, \"it can only be\n     as believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold.\n     Better far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that\n     you should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time\n     corrupts the whole fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?\"\n\n     \"Guess I'll come with you on any terms,\" said Ferrier, with such\n     emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader\n     alone retained his stern, impressive expression.\n\n     \"Take him, Brother Stangerson,\" he said, \"give him food and drink,\n     and the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our\n     holy creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!\"\n\n     \"On, on to Zion!\" cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled\n     down the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died\n     away in a dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips\n     and a creaking of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon\n     the whole caravan was winding along once more. The Elder to whose\n     care the two waifs had been committed, led them to his waggon, where\n     a meal was already awaiting them.\n\n     \"You shall remain here,\" he said. \"In a few days you will have\n     recovered from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and\n     forever you are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he\n     has spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of\n     God.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Flower Of Utah\n\n\n     This is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations\n     endured by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final\n     haven. From the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of\n     the Rocky Mountains they had struggled on with a constancy almost\n     unparalleled in history. The savage man, and the savage beast,\n     hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease--every impediment which Nature\n     could place in the way--had all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon\n     tenacity. Yet the long journey and the accumulated terrors had shaken\n     the hearts of the stoutest among them. There was not one who did not\n     sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad\n     valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath them, and learned from\n     the lips of their leader that this was the promised land, and that\n     these virgin acres were to be theirs for evermore.\n\n     Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well\n     as a resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which\n     the future city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned\n     and allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual. The\n     tradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the\n     town streets and squares sprang up, as if by magic. In the country\n     there was draining and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next\n     summer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop. Everything\n     prospered in the strange settlement. Above all, the great temple\n     which they had erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller and\n     larger. From the first blush of dawn until the closing of the\n     twilight, the clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never\n     absent from the monument which the immigrants erected to Him who had\n     led them safe through many dangers.\n\n     The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared\n     his fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the\n     Mormons to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was\n     borne along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson's waggon, a retreat\n     which she shared with the Mormon's three wives and with his son, a\n     headstrong forward boy of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity\n     of childhood, from the shock caused by her mother's death, she soon\n     became a pet with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life\n     in her moving canvas-covered home. In the meantime Ferrier having\n     recovered from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful\n     guide and an indefatigable hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem\n     of his new companions, that when they reached the end of their\n     wanderings, it was unanimously agreed that he should be provided with\n     as large and as fertile a tract of land as any of the settlers, with\n     the exception of Young himself, and of Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston,\n     and Drebber, who were the four principal Elders.\n\n     On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial\n     log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that\n     it grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind,\n     keen in his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron\n     constitution enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and\n     tilling his lands. Hence it came about that his farm and all that\n     belonged to him prospered exceedingly. In three years he was better\n     off than his neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was\n     rich, and in twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of\n     Salt Lake City who could compare with him. From the great inland sea\n     to the distant Wahsatch Mountains there was no name better known than\n     that of John Ferrier.\n\n     There was one way and only one in which he offended the\n     susceptibilities of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion\n     could ever induce him to set up a female establishment after the\n     manner of his companions. He never gave reasons for this persistent\n     refusal, but contented himself by resolutely and inflexibly adhering\n     to his determination. There were some who accused him of lukewarmness\n     in his adopted religion, and others who put it down to greed of\n     wealth and reluctance to incur expense. Others, again, spoke of some\n     early love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pined away on\n     the shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, Ferrier remained\n     strictly celibate. In every other respect he conformed to the\n     religion of the young settlement, and gained the name of being an\n     orthodox and straight-walking man.\n\n     Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted\n     father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the\n     balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother\n     to the young girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and\n     stronger, her cheek more rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a\n     wayfarer upon the high road which ran by Ferrier's farm felt\n     long-forgotten thoughts revive in their mind as they watched her\n     lithe girlish figure tripping through the wheatfields, or met her\n     mounted upon her father's mustang, and managing it with all the ease\n     and grace of a true child of the West. So the bud blossomed into a\n     flower, and the year which saw her father the richest of the farmers\n     left her as fair a specimen of American girlhood as could be found in\n     the whole Pacific slope.\n\n     It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child\n     had developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That\n     mysterious change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by\n     dates. Least of all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of\n     a voice or the touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her,\n     and she learns, with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a\n     larger nature has awoken within her. There are few who cannot recall\n     that day and remember the one little incident which heralded the dawn\n     of a new life. In the case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious\n     enough in itself, apart from its future influence on her destiny and\n     that of many besides.\n\n     It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as\n     the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields\n     and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the\n     dusty high roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all\n     heading to the west, for the gold fever had broken out in California,\n     and the Overland Route lay through the City of the Elect. There, too,\n     were droves of sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture\n     lands, and trains of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary\n     of their interminable journey. Through all this motley assemblage,\n     threading her way with the skill of an accomplished rider, there\n     galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair face flushed with the exercise and\n     her long chestnut hair floating out behind her. She had a commission\n     from her father in the City, and was dashing in as she had done many\n     a time before, with all the fearlessness of youth, thinking only of\n     her task and how it was to be performed. The travel-stained\n     adventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and even the unemotional\n     Indians, journeying in with their pelties, relaxed their accustomed\n     stoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.\n\n     She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road\n     blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen\n     wild-looking herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she\n     endeavoured to pass this obstacle by pushing her horse into what\n     appeared to be a gap. Scarcely had she got fairly into it, however,\n     before the beasts closed in behind her, and she found herself\n     completely imbedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed, long-horned\n     bullocks. Accustomed as she was to deal with cattle, she was not\n     alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of every opportunity to\n     urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way through the\n     cavalcade. Unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures, either by\n     accident or design, came in violent contact with the flank of the\n     mustang, and excited it to madness. In an instant it reared up upon\n     its hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way\n     that would have unseated any but a most skilful rider. The situation\n     was full of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse brought it\n     against the horns again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It was all\n     that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a slip\n     would mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and\n     terrified animals. Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began\n     to swim, and her grip upon the bridle to relax. Choked by the rising\n     cloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she\n     might have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice\n     at her elbow which assured her of assistance. At the same moment a\n     sinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and\n     forcing a way through the drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.\n\n     \"You're not hurt, I hope, miss,\" said her preserver, respectfully.\n\n     She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. \"I'm\n     awful frightened,\" she said, naively; \"whoever would have thought\n     that Poncho would have been so scared by a lot of cows?\"\n\n     \"Thank God you kept your seat,\" the other said earnestly. He was a\n     tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse,\n     and clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over\n     his shoulders. \"I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,\" he\n     remarked, \"I saw you ride down from his house. When you see him, ask\n     him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he's the\n     same Ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick.\"\n\n     \"Hadn't you better come and ask yourself?\" she asked, demurely.\n\n     The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes\n     sparkled with pleasure. \"I'll do so,\" he said, \"we've been in the\n     mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting\n     condition. He must take us as he finds us.\"\n\n     \"He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,\" she answered,\n     \"he's awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he'd have\n     never got over it.\"\n\n     \"Neither would I,\" said her companion.\n\n     \"You! Well, I don't see that it would make much matter to you,\n     anyhow. You ain't even a friend of ours.\"\n\n     The young hunter's dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that\n     Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud.\n\n     \"There, I didn't mean that,\" she said; \"of course, you are a friend\n     now. You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won't\n     trust me with his business any more. Good-bye!\"\n\n     \"Good-bye,\" he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over\n     her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with\n     her riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling\n     cloud of dust.\n\n     Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and\n     taciturn. He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting\n     for silver, and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of\n     raising capital enough to work some lodes which they had discovered.\n     He had been as keen as any of them upon the business until this\n     sudden incident had drawn his thoughts into another channel. The\n     sight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra\n     breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths.\n     When she had vanished from his sight, he realized that a crisis had\n     come in his life, and that neither silver speculations nor any other\n     questions could ever be of such importance to him as this new and\n     all-absorbing one. The love which had sprung up in his heart was not\n     the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce\n     passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper. He had been\n     accustomed to succeed in all that he undertook. He swore in his heart\n     that he would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance\n     could render him successful.\n\n     He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until his\n     face was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the\n     valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning\n     the news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this\n     Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested\n     Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and\n     could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost\n     in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper,\n     a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were\n     to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon\n     became a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his\n     virtues. On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek\n     and her bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young\n     heart was no longer her own. Her honest father may not have observed\n     these symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man\n     who had won her affections.\n\n     It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and\n     pulled up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet\n     him. He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.\n\n     \"I am off, Lucy,\" he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing\n     tenderly down into her face; \"I won't ask you to come with me now,\n     but will you be ready to come when I am here again?\"\n\n     \"And when will that be?\" she asked, blushing and laughing.\n\n     \"A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then,\n     my darling. There's no one who can stand between us.\"\n\n     \"And how about father?\" she asked.\n\n     \"He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all\n     right. I have no fear on that head.\"\n\n     \"Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there's\n     no more to be said,\" she whispered, with her cheek against his broad\n     breast.\n\n     \"Thank God!\" he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. \"It is\n     settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They\n     are waiting for me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling--good-bye.\n     In two months you shall see me.\"\n\n     He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his\n     horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though\n     afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at\n     what he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he\n     vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the\n     happiest girl in all Utah.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet\n\n\n     Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had\n     departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier's heart was sore within\n     him when he thought of the young man's return, and of the impending\n     loss of his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled\n     him to the arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had\n     always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing\n     would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a\n     marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a\n     disgrace. Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that\n     one point he was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject,\n     however, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter\n     in those days in the Land of the Saints.\n\n     Yes, a dangerous matter--so dangerous that even the most saintly\n     dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest\n     something which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring\n     down a swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had\n     now turned persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the\n     most terrible description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the\n     German Vehmgericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able\n     to put a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a\n     cloud over the State of Utah.\n\n     Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this\n     organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and\n     omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out\n     against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone\n     or what had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at\n     home, but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at\n     the hands of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was\n     followed by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be\n     of this terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that\n     men went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of\n     the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed\n     them.\n\n     At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the\n     recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished\n     afterwards to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a\n     wider range. The supply of adult women was running short, and\n     polygamy without a female population on which to draw was a barren\n     doctrine indeed. Strange rumours began to be bandied about--rumours\n     of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in regions where Indians had\n     never been seen. Fresh women appeared in the harems of the\n     Elders--women who pined and wept, and bore upon their faces the\n     traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated wanderers upon the\n     mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked, stealthy, and\n     noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These tales and\n     rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and\n     re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.\n     To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the\n     Danite Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened\n     one.\n\n     Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible\n     results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it\n     inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless\n     society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and\n     violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.\n     The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the\n     Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth\n     at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence\n     every man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which\n     were nearest his heart.\n\n     One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his\n     wheatfields, when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking\n     through the window, saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming\n     up the pathway. His heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other\n     than the great Brigham Young himself. Full of trepidation--for he\n     knew that such a visit boded him little good--Ferrier ran to the door\n     to greet the Mormon chief. The latter, however, received his\n     salutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the\n     sitting-room.\n\n     \"Brother Ferrier,\" he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer\n     keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, \"the true believers\n     have been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were\n     starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to\n     the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you\n     to wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?\"\n\n     \"It is so,\" answered John Ferrier.\n\n     \"In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that\n     you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its\n     usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says\n     truly, you have neglected.\"\n\n     \"And how have I neglected it?\" asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands\n     in expostulation. \"Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not\n     attended at the Temple? Have I not--?\"\n\n     \"Where are your wives?\" asked Young, looking round him. \"Call them\n     in, that I may greet them.\"\n\n     \"It is true that I have not married,\" Ferrier answered. \"But women\n     were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not\n     a lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.\"\n\n     \"It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,\" said the leader\n     of the Mormons. \"She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has\n     found favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.\"\n\n     John Ferrier groaned internally.\n\n     \"There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve--stories that\n     she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle\n     tongues. What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted\n     Joseph Smith? 'Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the\n     elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.' This\n     being so, it is impossible that you, who profess the holy creed,\n     should suffer your daughter to violate it.\"\n\n     John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his\n     riding-whip.\n\n     \"Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested--so it has been\n     decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we\n     would not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of\n     all choice. We Elders have many heifers*1, but our children must also\n     be provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either\n     of them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her\n     choose between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith.\n     What say you to that?\"\n\n     Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.\n\n     \"You will give us time,\" he said at last. \"My daughter is very\n     young--she is scarce of an age to marry.\"\n\n     \"She shall have a month to choose,\" said Young, rising from his seat.\n     \"At the end of that time she shall give her answer.\"\n\n     He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face\n     and flashing eyes. \"It were better for you, John Ferrier,\" he\n     thundered, \"that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon\n     the Sierra Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against\n     the orders of the Holy Four!\"\n\n     With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and\n     Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.\n\n     He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how\n     he should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid\n     upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance\n     at her pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had\n     passed.\n\n     \"I could not help it,\" she said, in answer to his look. \"His voice\n     rang through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?\"\n\n     \"Don't you scare yourself,\" he answered, drawing her to him, and\n     passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair.\n     \"We'll fix it up somehow or another. You don't find your fancy kind\n     o' lessening for this chap, do you?\"\n\n     A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.\n\n     \"No; of course not. I shouldn't care to hear you say you did. He's a\n     likely lad, and he's a Christian, which is more than these folk here,\n     in spite o' all their praying and preaching. There's a party starting\n     for Nevada to-morrow, and I'll manage to send him a message letting\n     him know the hole we are in. If I know anything o' that young man,\n     he'll be back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.\"\n\n     Lucy laughed through her tears at her father's description.\n\n     \"When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you\n     that I am frightened, dear. One hears--one hears such dreadful\n     stories about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always\n     happens to them.\"\n\n     \"But we haven't opposed him yet,\" her father answered. \"It will be\n     time to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before\n     us; at the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.\"\n\n     \"Leave Utah!\"\n\n     \"That's about the size of it.\"\n\n     \"But the farm?\"\n\n     \"We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To\n     tell the truth, Lucy, it isn't the first time I have thought of doing\n     it. I don't care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do\n     to their darned prophet. I'm a free-born American, and it's all new\n     to me. Guess I'm too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this\n     farm, he might chance to run up against a charge of buckshot\n     travelling in the opposite direction.\"\n\n     \"But they won't let us leave,\" his daughter objected.\n\n     \"Wait till Jefferson comes, and we'll soon manage that. In the\n     meantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie, and don't get your eyes\n     swelled up, else he'll be walking into me when he sees you. There's\n     nothing to be afeared about, and there's no danger at all.\"\n\n     John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident\n     tone, but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to\n     the fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned\n     and loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his\n     bedroom.\n\n     -----\n     *1: Heber C Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred\n     wives under this endearing epithet.\n     \n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          A Flight For Life\n\n\n     On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,\n     John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his\n     acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted\n     him with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man\n     of the imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it\n     was that he should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his\n     mind, and returned home with a lighter heart.\n\n     As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to\n     each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on\n     entering to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room.\n     One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair,\n     with his feet cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked\n     youth with coarse bloated features, was standing in front of the\n     window with his hands in his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both\n     of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and the one in the\n     rocking-chair commenced the conversation.\n\n     \"Maybe you don't know us,\" he said. \"This here is the son of Elder\n     Drebber, and I'm Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the\n     desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the\n     true fold.\"\n\n     \"As He will all the nations in His own good time,\" said the other in\n     a nasal voice; \"He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.\"\n\n     John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.\n\n     \"We have come,\" continued Stangerson, \"at the advice of our fathers\n     to solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem\n     good to you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber\n     here has seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.\"\n\n     \"Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,\" cried the other; \"the question is not\n     how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now\n     given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.\"\n\n     \"But my prospects are better,\" said the other, warmly. \"When the Lord\n     removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather\n     factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.\"\n\n     \"It will be for the maiden to decide,\" rejoined young Drebber,\n     smirking at his own reflection in the glass. \"We will leave it all to\n     her decision.\"\n\n     During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,\n     hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two\n     visitors.\n\n     \"Look here,\" he said at last, striding up to them, \"when my daughter\n     summons you, you can come, but until then I don't want to see your\n     faces again.\"\n\n     The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this\n     competition between them for the maiden's hand was the highest of\n     honours both to her and her father.\n\n     \"There are two ways out of the room,\" cried Ferrier; \"there is the\n     door, and there is the window. Which do you care to use?\"\n\n     His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,\n     that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat.\n     The old farmer followed them to the door.\n\n     \"Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,\" he said,\n     sardonically.\n\n     \"You shall smart for this!\" Stangerson cried, white with rage. \"You\n     have defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to\n     the end of your days.\"\n\n     \"The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,\" cried young Drebber;\n     \"He will arise and smite you!\"\n\n     \"Then I'll start the smiting,\" exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would\n     have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm\n     and restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of\n     horses' hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.\n\n     \"The young canting rascals!\" he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration\n     from his forehead; \"I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl,\n     than the wife of either of them.\"\n\n     \"And so should I, father,\" she answered, with spirit; \"but Jefferson\n     will soon be here.\"\n\n     \"Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for\n     we do not know what their next move may be.\"\n\n     It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and\n     help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted\n     daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been\n     such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If\n     minor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this\n     arch rebel. Ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no\n     avail to him. Others as well known and as rich as himself had been\n     spirited away before now, and their goods given over to the Church.\n     He was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors\n     which hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip,\n     but this suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his\n     daughter, however, and affected to make light of the whole matter,\n     though she, with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at\n     ease.\n\n     He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from\n     Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in\n     an unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his\n     surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his\n     bed just over his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling\n     letters:--\n\n     \"Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then--\"\n\n     The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How\n     this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his\n     servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been\n     secured. He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter,\n     but the incident struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days\n     were evidently the balance of the month which Young had promised.\n     What strength or courage could avail against an enemy armed with such\n     mysterious powers? The hand which fastened that pin might have struck\n     him to the heart, and he could never have known who had slain him.\n\n     Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to their\n     breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the\n     centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently,\n     the number 28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not\n     enlighten her. That night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and\n     ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27\n     had been painted upon the outside of his door.\n\n     Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his\n     unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some\n     conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the\n     month of grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls,\n     sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards\n     stuck upon the garden gate or the railings. With all his vigilance\n     John Ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings\n     proceeded. A horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at\n     the sight of them. He became haggard and restless, and his eyes had\n     the troubled look of some hunted creature. He had but one hope in\n     life now, and that was for the arrival of the young hunter from\n     Nevada.\n\n     Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no\n     news of the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still\n     there came no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the\n     road, or a driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the\n     gate thinking that help had arrived at last. At last, when he saw\n     five give way to four and that again to three, he lost heart, and\n     abandoned all hope of escape. Single-handed, and with his limited\n     knowledge of the mountains which surrounded the settlement, he knew\n     that he was powerless. The more-frequented roads were strictly\n     watched and guarded, and none could pass along them without an order\n     from the Council. Turn which way he would, there appeared to be no\n     avoiding the blow which hung over him. Yet the old man never wavered\n     in his resolution to part with life itself before he consented to\n     what he regarded as his daughter's dishonour.\n\n     He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles,\n     and searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown\n     the figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be\n     the last of the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of\n     vague and terrible fancies filled his imagination. And his\n     daughter--what was to become of her after he was gone? Was there no\n     escape from the invisible network which was drawn all round them. He\n     sank his head upon the table and sobbed at the thought of his own\n     impotence.\n\n     What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching\n     sound--low, but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from\n     the door of the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened\n     intently. There was a pause for a few moments, and then the low\n     insidious sound was repeated. Someone was evidently tapping very\n     gently upon one of the panels of the door. Was it some midnight\n     assassin who had come to carry out the murderous orders of the secret\n     tribunal? Or was it some agent who was marking up that the last day\n     of grace had arrived. John Ferrier felt that instant death would be\n     better than the suspense which shook his nerves and chilled his\n     heart. Springing forward he drew the bolt and threw the door open.\n\n     Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars\n     were twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before\n     the farmer's eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there\n     nor on the road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of\n     relief, Ferrier looked to right and to left, until happening to\n     glance straight down at his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man\n     lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with arms and legs all\n     asprawl.\n\n     So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall\n     with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out.\n     His first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some\n     wounded or dying man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the\n     ground and into the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a\n     serpent. Once within the house the man sprang to his feet, closed the\n     door, and revealed to the astonished farmer the fierce face and\n     resolute expression of Jefferson Hope.\n\n     \"Good God!\" gasped John Ferrier. \"How you scared me! Whatever made\n     you come in like that.\"\n\n     \"Give me food,\" the other said, hoarsely. \"I have had no time for\n     bite or sup for eight-and-forty hours.\" He flung himself upon the\n     cold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his\n     host's supper, and devoured it voraciously. \"Does Lucy bear up well?\"\n     he asked, when he had satisfied his hunger.\n\n     \"Yes. She does not know the danger,\" her father answered.\n\n     \"That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I\n     crawled my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they're not\n     quite sharp enough to catch a Washoe hunter.\"\n\n     John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a\n     devoted ally. He seized the young man's leathery hand and wrung it\n     cordially. \"You're a man to be proud of,\" he said. \"There are not\n     many who would come to share our danger and our troubles.\"\n\n     \"You've hit it there, pard,\" the young hunter answered. \"I have a\n     respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I'd think\n     twice before I put my head into such a hornet's nest. It's Lucy that\n     brings me here, and before harm comes on her I guess there will be\n     one less o' the Hope family in Utah.\"\n\n     \"What are we to do?\"\n\n     \"To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are\n     lost. I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How\n     much money have you?\"\n\n     \"Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.\"\n\n     \"That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for\n     Carson City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as\n     well that the servants do not sleep in the house.\"\n\n     While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching\n     journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find\n     into a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he\n     knew by experience that the mountain wells were few and far between.\n     He had hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned\n     with his daughter all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting\n     between the lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious,\n     and there was much to be done.\n\n     \"We must make our start at once,\" said Jefferson Hope, speaking in a\n     low but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the\n     peril, but has steeled his heart to meet it. \"The front and back\n     entrances are watched, but with caution we may get away through the\n     side window and across the fields. Once on the road we are only two\n     miles from the Ravine where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we\n     should be half-way through the mountains.\"\n\n     \"What if we are stopped,\" asked Ferrier.\n\n     Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his\n     tunic. \"If they are too many for us we shall take two or three of\n     them with us,\" he said with a sinister smile.\n\n     The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the\n     darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his\n     own, and which he was now about to abandon for ever. He had long\n     nerved himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the\n     honour and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his\n     ruined fortunes. All looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees\n     and the broad silent stretch of grain-land, that it was difficult to\n     realize that the spirit of murder lurked through it all. Yet the\n     white face and set expression of the young hunter showed that in his\n     approach to the house he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that\n     head.\n\n     Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the\n     scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing\n     a few of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly\n     and carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured\n     the night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden.\n     With bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and\n     gained the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came\n     to the gap which opened into the cornfields. They had just reached\n     this point when the young man seized his two companions and dragged\n     them down into the shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.\n\n     It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the\n     ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before\n     the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards\n     of them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small\n     distance. At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the\n     gap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal\n     cry again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.\n\n     \"To-morrow at midnight,\" said the first who appeared to be in\n     authority. \"When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.\"\n\n     \"It is well,\" returned the other. \"Shall I tell Brother Drebber?\"\n\n     \"Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!\"\n\n     \"Seven to five!\" repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away\n     in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been\n     some form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps\n     had died away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and\n     helping his companions through the gap, led the way across the fields\n     at the top of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when\n     her strength appeared to fail her.\n\n     \"Hurry on! hurry on!\" he gasped from time to time. \"We are through\n     the line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!\"\n\n     Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once did they\n     meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid\n     recognition. Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a\n     rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark\n     jagged peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile\n     which led between them was the Eagle Cañon in which the horses were\n     awaiting them. With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way\n     among the great boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse,\n     until he came to the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the\n     faithful animals had been picketed. The girl was placed upon the\n     mule, and old Ferrier upon one of the horses, with his money-bag,\n     while Jefferson Hope led the other along the precipitous and\n     dangerous path.\n\n     It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face\n     Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up\n     a thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long\n     basaltic columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some\n     petrified monster. On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and\n     debris made all advance impossible. Between the two ran the irregular\n     track, so narrow in places that they had to travel in Indian file,\n     and so rough that only practised riders could have traversed it at\n     all. Yet in spite of all dangers and difficulties, the hearts of the\n     fugitives were light within them, for every step increased the\n     distance between them and the terrible despotism from which they were\n     flying.\n\n     They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the\n     jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and\n     most desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry,\n     and pointed upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing\n     out dark and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel.\n     He saw them as soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge\n     of \"Who goes there?\" rang through the silent ravine.\n\n     \"Travellers for Nevada,\" said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the\n     rifle which hung by his saddle.\n\n     They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down\n     at them as if dissatisfied at their reply.\n\n     \"By whose permission?\" he asked.\n\n     \"The Holy Four,\" answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences had taught\n     him that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.\n\n     \"Nine from seven,\" cried the sentinel.\n\n     \"Seven from five,\" returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering the\n     countersign which he had heard in the garden.\n\n     \"Pass, and the Lord go with you,\" said the voice from above. Beyond\n     his post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break\n     into a trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher\n     leaning upon his gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post\n     of the chosen people, and that freedom lay before them.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          The Avenging Angels\n\n\n     All night their course lay through intricate defiles and over\n     irregular and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way,\n     but Hope's intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain\n     the track once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though\n     savage beauty lay before them. In every direction the great\n     snow-capped peaks hemmed them in, peeping over each other's shoulders\n     to the far horizon. So steep were the rocky banks on either side of\n     them, that the larch and the pine seemed to be suspended over their\n     heads, and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon\n     them. Nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the barren valley\n     was thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had fallen in a\n     similar manner. Even as they passed, a great rock came thundering\n     down with a hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges,\n     and startled the weary horses into a gallop.\n\n     As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the\n     great mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival,\n     until they were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle\n     cheered the hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy.\n     At a wild torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and\n     watered their horses, while they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy\n     and her father would fain have rested longer, but Jefferson Hope was\n     inexorable. \"They will be upon our track by this time,\" he said.\n     \"Everything depends upon our speed. Once safe in Carson we may rest\n     for the remainder of our lives.\"\n\n     During the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles,\n     and by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles\n     from their enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling\n     crag, where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind,\n     and there huddled together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours'\n     sleep. Before daybreak, however, they were up and on their way once\n     more. They had seen no signs of any pursuers, and Jefferson Hope\n     began to think that they were fairly out of the reach of the terrible\n     organization whose enmity they had incurred. He little knew how far\n     that iron grasp could reach, or how soon it was to close upon them\n     and crush them.\n\n     About the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store\n     of provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little\n     uneasiness, however, for there was game to be had among the\n     mountains, and he had frequently before had to depend upon his rifle\n     for the needs of life. Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a\n     few dried branches and made a blazing fire, at which his companions\n     might warm themselves, for they were now nearly five thousand feet\n     above the sea level, and the air was bitter and keen. Having tethered\n     the horses, and bade Lucy adieu, he threw his gun over his shoulder,\n     and set out in search of whatever chance might throw in his way.\n     Looking back he saw the old man and the young girl crouching over the\n     blazing fire, while the three animals stood motionless in the\n     back-ground. Then the intervening rocks hid them from his view.\n\n     He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another\n     without success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees,\n     and other indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in\n     the vicinity. At last, after two or three hours' fruitless search, he\n     was thinking of turning back in despair, when casting his eyes\n     upwards he saw a sight which sent a thrill of pleasure through his\n     heart. On the edge of a jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet\n     above him, there stood a creature somewhat resembling a sheep in\n     appearance, but armed with a pair of gigantic horns. The\n     big-horn--for so it is called--was acting, probably, as a guardian\n     over a flock which were invisible to the hunter; but fortunately it\n     was heading in the opposite direction, and had not perceived him.\n     Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and took a long\n     and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The animal sprang into the\n     air, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and then\n     came crashing down into the valley beneath.\n\n     The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented\n     himself with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this\n     trophy over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the\n     evening was already drawing in. He had hardly started, however,\n     before he realized the difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness\n     he had wandered far past the ravines which were known to him, and it\n     was no easy matter to pick out the path which he had taken. The\n     valley in which he found himself divided and sub-divided into many\n     gorges, which were so like each other that it was impossible to\n     distinguish one from the other. He followed one for a mile or more\n     until he came to a mountain torrent which he was sure that he had\n     never seen before. Convinced that he had taken the wrong turn, he\n     tried another, but with the same result. Night was coming on rapidly,\n     and it was almost dark before he at last found himself in a defile\n     which was familiar to him. Even then it was no easy matter to keep to\n     the right track, for the moon had not yet risen, and the high cliffs\n     on either side made the obscurity more profound. Weighed down with\n     his burden, and weary from his exertions, he stumbled along, keeping\n     up his heart by the reflection that every step brought him nearer to\n     Lucy, and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food for the\n     remainder of their journey.\n\n     He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left\n     them. Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the\n     cliffs which bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him\n     anxiously, for he had been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness\n     of his heart he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo\n     to a loud halloo as a signal that he was coming. He paused and\n     listened for an answer. None came save his own cry, which clattered\n     up the dreary silent ravines, and was borne back to his ears in\n     countless repetitions. Again he shouted, even louder than before, and\n     again no whisper came back from the friends whom he had left such a\n     short time ago. A vague, nameless dread came over him, and he hurried\n     onwards frantically, dropping the precious food in his agitation.\n\n     When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where\n     the fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes\n     there, but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The\n     same dead silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed\n     to convictions, he hurried on. There was no living creature near the\n     remains of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. It was only\n     too clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during\n     his absence--a disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left\n     no traces behind it.\n\n     Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his head\n     spin round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from\n     falling. He was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily\n     recovered from his temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece\n     of wood from the smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and\n     proceeded with its help to examine the little camp. The ground was\n     all stamped down by the feet of horses, showing that a large party of\n     mounted men had overtaken the fugitives, and the direction of their\n     tracks proved that they had afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City.\n     Had they carried back both of his companions with them? Jefferson\n     Hope had almost persuaded himself that they must have done so, when\n     his eye fell upon an object which made every nerve of his body tingle\n     within him. A little way on one side of the camp was a low-lying heap\n     of reddish soil, which had assuredly not been there before. There was\n     no mistaking it for anything but a newly-dug grave. As the young\n     hunter approached it, he perceived that a stick had been planted on\n     it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of it. The\n     inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:\n\n                                  JOHN FERRIER,\n                           Formerly of Salt Lake City,\n                             Died August 4th, 1860.\n                                        \n\n     The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was\n     gone, then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked\n     wildly round to see if there was a second grave, but there was no\n     sign of one. Lucy had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to\n     fulfil her original destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the\n     Elder's son. As the young fellow realized the certainty of her fate,\n     and his own powerlessness to prevent it, he wished that he, too, was\n     lying with the old farmer in his last silent resting-place.\n\n     Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which\n     springs from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could\n     at least devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and\n     perseverance, Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained\n     vindictiveness, which he may have learned from the Indians amongst\n     whom he had lived. As he stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the\n     only one thing which could assuage his grief would be thorough and\n     complete retribution, brought by his own hand upon his enemies. His\n     strong will and untiring energy should, he determined, be devoted to\n     that one end. With a grim, white face, he retraced his steps to where\n     he had dropped the food, and having stirred up the smouldering fire,\n     he cooked enough to last him for a few days. This he made up into a\n     bundle, and, tired as he was, he set himself to walk back through the\n     mountains upon the track of the avenging angels.\n\n     For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which\n     he had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down\n     among the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before\n     daybreak he was always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached\n     the Eagle Cañon, from which they had commenced their ill-fated\n     flight. Thence he could look down upon the home of the saints. Worn\n     and exhausted, he leaned upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand\n     fiercely at the silent widespread city beneath him. As he looked at\n     it, he observed that there were flags in some of the principal\n     streets, and other signs of festivity. He was still speculating as to\n     what this might mean when he heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and\n     saw a mounted man riding towards him. As he approached, he recognized\n     him as a Mormon named Cowper, to whom he had rendered services at\n     different times. He therefore accosted him when he got up to him,\n     with the object of finding out what Lucy Ferrier's fate had been.\n\n     \"I am Jefferson Hope,\" he said. \"You remember me.\"\n\n     The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment--indeed, it\n     was difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with\n     ghastly white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of\n     former days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his\n     identity, the man's surprise changed to consternation.\n\n     \"You are mad to come here,\" he cried. \"It is as much as my own life\n     is worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you\n     from the Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away.\"\n\n     \"I don't fear them, or their warrant,\" Hope said, earnestly. \"You\n     must know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by\n     everything you hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always\n     been friends. For God's sake, don't refuse to answer me.\"\n\n     \"What is it?\" the Mormon asked uneasily. \"Be quick. The very rocks\n     have ears and the trees eyes.\"\n\n     \"What has become of Lucy Ferrier?\"\n\n     \"She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man, hold up,\n     you have no life left in you.\"\n\n     \"Don't mind me,\" said Hope faintly. He was white to the very lips,\n     and had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning.\n     \"Married, you say?\"\n\n     \"Married yesterday--that's what those flags are for on the Endowment\n     House. There was some words between young Drebber and young\n     Stangerson as to which was to have her. They'd both been in the party\n     that followed them, and Stangerson had shot her father, which seemed\n     to give him the best claim; but when they argued it out in council,\n     Drebber's party was the stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to\n     him. No one won't have her very long though, for I saw death in her\n     face yesterday. She is more like a ghost than a woman. Are you off,\n     then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I am off,\" said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his seat.\n     His face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was\n     its expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.\n\n     \"Where are you going?\"\n\n     \"Never mind,\" he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his\n     shoulder, strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the\n     mountains to the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there\n     was none so fierce and so dangerous as himself.\n\n     The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled. Whether it\n     was the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful\n     marriage into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her\n     head again, but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish\n     husband, who had married her principally for the sake of John\n     Ferrier's property, did not affect any great grief at his\n     bereavement; but his other wives mourned over her, and sat up with\n     her the night before the burial, as is the Mormon custom. They were\n     grouped round the bier in the early hours of the morning, when, to\n     their inexpressible fear and astonishment, the door was flung open,\n     and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode\n     into the room. Without a glance or a word to the cowering women, he\n     walked up to the white silent figure which had once contained the\n     pure soul of Lucy Ferrier. Stooping over her, he pressed his lips\n     reverently to her cold forehead, and then, snatching up her hand, he\n     took the wedding-ring from her finger. \"She shall not be buried in\n     that,\" he cried with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could be\n     raised sprang down the stairs and was gone. So strange and so brief\n     was the episode, that the watchers might have found it hard to\n     believe it themselves or persuade other people of it, had it not been\n     for the undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her as\n     having been a bride had disappeared.\n\n     For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains, leading\n     a strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for\n     vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the\n     weird figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which\n     haunted the lonely mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through\n     Stangerson's window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot\n     of him. On another occasion, as Drebber passed under a cliff a great\n     boulder crashed down on him, and he only escaped a terrible death by\n     throwing himself upon his face. The two young Mormons were not long\n     in discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led\n     repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or\n     killing their enemy, but always without success. Then they adopted\n     the precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of\n     having their houses guarded. After a time they were able to relax\n     these measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their\n     opponent, and they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.\n\n     Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The hunter's\n     mind was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of\n     revenge had taken such complete possession of it that there was no\n     room for any other emotion. He was, however, above all things\n     practical. He soon realized that even his iron constitution could not\n     stand the incessant strain which he was putting upon it. Exposure and\n     want of wholesome food were wearing him out. If he died like a dog\n     among the mountains, what was to become of his revenge then? And yet\n     such a death was sure to overtake him if he persisted. He felt that\n     that was to play his enemy's game, so he reluctantly returned to the\n     old Nevada mines, there to recruit his health and to amass money\n     enough to allow him to pursue his object without privation.\n\n     His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a\n     combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the\n     mines for nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory\n     of his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on\n     that memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier's grave.\n     Disguised, and under an assumed name, he returned to Salt Lake City,\n     careless what became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he\n     knew to be justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him. There\n     had been a schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some\n     of the younger members of the Church having rebelled against the\n     authority of the Elders, and the result had been the secession of a\n     certain number of the malcontents, who had left Utah and become\n     Gentiles. Among these had been Drebber and Stangerson; and no one\n     knew whither they had gone. Rumour reported that Drebber had managed\n     to convert a large part of his property into money, and that he had\n     departed a wealthy man, while his companion, Stangerson, was\n     comparatively poor. There was no clue at all, however, as to their\n     whereabouts.\n\n     Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of\n     revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never\n     faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked\n     out by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to\n     town through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed\n     into year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on,\n     a human bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon\n     which he had devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded.\n     It was but a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told\n     him that Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit\n     of. He returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance\n     all arranged. It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his\n     window, had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder\n     in his eyes. He hurried before a justice of the peace, accompanied by\n     Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to\n     him that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and\n     hatred of an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope was taken into\n     custody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained for some\n     weeks. When at last he was liberated, it was only to find that\n     Drebber's house was deserted, and that he and his secretary had\n     departed for Europe.\n\n     Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred\n     urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and\n     for some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his\n     approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in\n     him, he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to\n     city, working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking\n     the fugitives. When he reached St. Petersburg they had departed for\n     Paris; and when he followed them there he learned that they had just\n     set off for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he was again a few days\n     late, for they had journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded\n     in running them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot do\n     better than quote the old hunter's own account, as duly recorded in\n     Dr. Watson's Journal, to which we are already under such obligations.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          A Continuation Of The Reminiscences Of John Watson, M.D.\n\n\n     Our prisoner's furious resistance did not apparently indicate any\n     ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself\n     powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes\n     that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. \"I guess you're going\n     to take me to the police-station,\" he remarked to Sherlock Holmes.\n     \"My cab's at the door. If you'll loose my legs I'll walk down to it.\n     I'm not so light to lift as I used to be.\"\n\n     Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this\n     proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner\n     at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his\n     ankles. He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself\n     that they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself,\n     as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man;\n     and his dark sunburned face bore an expression of determination and\n     energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.\n\n     \"If there's a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you\n     are the man for it,\" he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at\n     my fellow-lodger. \"The way you kept on my trail was a caution.\"\n\n     \"You had better come with me,\" said Holmes to the two detectives.\n\n     \"I can drive you,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor, you have\n     taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.\"\n\n     I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made\n     no attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been\n     his, and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the\n     horse, and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We\n     were ushered into a small chamber where a police Inspector noted down\n     our prisoner's name and the names of the men with whose murder he had\n     been charged. The official was a white-faced unemotional man, who\n     went through his duties in a dull mechanical way. \"The prisoner will\n     be put before the magistrates in the course of the week,\" he said;\n     \"in the mean time, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you\n     wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be taken down, and\n     may be used against you.\"\n\n     \"I've got a good deal to say,\" our prisoner said slowly. \"I want to\n     tell you gentlemen all about it.\"\n\n     \"Hadn't you better reserve that for your trial?\" asked the Inspector.\n\n     \"I may never be tried,\" he answered. \"You needn't look startled. It\n     isn't suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?\" He turned his\n     fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.\n\n     \"Yes; I am,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Then put your hand here,\" he said, with a smile, motioning with his\n     manacled wrists towards his chest.\n\n     I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing\n     and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest\n     seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when\n     some powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could\n     hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same\n     source.\n\n     \"Why,\" I cried, \"you have an aortic aneurism!\"\n\n     \"That's what they call it,\" he said, placidly. \"I went to a Doctor\n     last week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before\n     many days passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from\n     over-exposure and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I've\n     done my work now, and I don't care how soon I go, but I should like\n     to leave some account of the business behind me. I don't want to be\n     remembered as a common cut-throat.\"\n\n     The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to\n     the advisability of allowing him to tell his story.\n\n     \"Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?\" the former\n     asked.\n\n     \"Most certainly there is,\" I answered.\n\n     \"In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to\n     take his statement,\" said the Inspector. \"You are at liberty, sir, to\n     give your account, which I again warn you will be taken down.\"\n\n     \"I'll sit down, with your leave,\" the prisoner said, suiting the\n     action to the word. \"This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and\n     the tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I'm on the\n     brink of the grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I\n     say is the absolute truth, and how you use it is a matter of no\n     consequence to me.\"\n\n     With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began\n     the following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical\n     manner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace\n     enough. I can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I\n     have had access to Lestrade's note-book, in which the prisoner's\n     words were taken down exactly as they were uttered.\n\n     \"It don't much matter to you why I hated these men,\" he said; \"it's\n     enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings--a\n     father and a daughter--and that they had, therefore, forfeited their\n     own lives. After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime,\n     it was impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any\n     court. I knew of their guilt though, and I determined that I should\n     be judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. You'd have done\n     the same, if you have any manhood in you, if you had been in my\n     place.\n\n     \"That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago.\n     She was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke her heart\n     over it. I took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed\n     that his dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his\n     last thoughts should be of the crime for which he was punished. I\n     have carried it about with me, and have followed him and his\n     accomplice over two continents until I caught them. They thought to\n     tire me out, but they could not do it. If I die to-morrow, as is\n     likely enough, I die knowing that my work in this world is done, and\n     well done. They have perished, and by my hand. There is nothing left\n     for me to hope for, or to desire.\n\n     \"They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me\n     to follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty, and I\n     found that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving\n     and riding are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a\n     cabowner's office, and soon got employment. I was to bring a certain\n     sum a week to the owner, and whatever was over that I might keep for\n     myself. There was seldom much over, but I managed to scrape along\n     somehow. The hardest job was to learn my way about, for I reckon that\n     of all the mazes that ever were contrived, this city is the most\n     confusing. I had a map beside me though, and when once I had spotted\n     the principal hotels and stations, I got on pretty well.\n\n     \"It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were\n     living; but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across\n     them. They were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other\n     side of the river. When once I found them out I knew that I had them\n     at my mercy. I had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their\n     recognizing me. I would dog them and follow them until I saw my\n     opportunity. I was determined that they should not escape me again.\n\n     \"They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about\n     London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my\n     cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then\n     they could not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or\n     late at night that I could earn anything, so that I began to get\n     behind hand with my employer. I did not mind that, however, as long\n     as I could lay my hand upon the men I wanted.\n\n     \"They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there\n     was some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out\n     alone, and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind\n     them every day, and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was\n     drunk half the time, but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I\n     watched them late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but\n     I was not discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost\n     come. My only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a\n     little too soon and leave my work undone.\n\n     \"At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as\n     the street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive\n     up to their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a\n     time Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up\n     my horse and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for\n     I feared that they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston\n     Station they got out, and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed\n     them on to the platform. I heard them ask for the Liverpool train,\n     and the guard answer that one had just gone and there would not be\n     another for some hours. Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but\n     Drebber was rather pleased than otherwise. I got so close to them in\n     the bustle that I could hear every word that passed between them.\n     Drebber said that he had a little business of his own to do, and that\n     if the other would wait for him he would soon rejoin him. His\n     companion remonstrated with him, and reminded him that they had\n     resolved to stick together. Drebber answered that the matter was a\n     delicate one, and that he must go alone. I could not catch what\n     Stangerson said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and\n     reminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant, and that\n     he must not presume to dictate to him. On that the Secretary gave it\n     up as a bad job, and simply bargained with him that if he missed the\n     last train he should rejoin him at Halliday's Private Hotel; to which\n     Drebber answered that he would be back on the platform before eleven,\n     and made his way out of the station.\n\n     \"The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my\n     enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other, but\n     singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue\n     precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction\n     in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that\n     strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans\n     arranged by which I should have the opportunity of making the man who\n     had wronged me understand that his old sin had found him out. It\n     chanced that some days before a gentleman who had been engaged in\n     looking over some houses in the Brixton Road had dropped the key of\n     one of them in my carriage. It was claimed that same evening, and\n     returned; but in the interval I had taken a moulding of it, and had a\n     duplicate constructed. By means of this I had access to at least one\n     spot in this great city where I could rely upon being free from\n     interruption. How to get Drebber to that house was the difficult\n     problem which I had now to solve.\n\n     \"He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops,\n     staying for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out\n     he staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was\n     a hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so\n     close that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the\n     whole way. We rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of\n     streets, until, to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the\n     Terrace in which he had boarded. I could not imagine what his\n     intention was in returning there; but I went on and pulled up my cab\n     a hundred yards or so from the house. He entered it, and his hansom\n     drove away. Give me a glass of water, if you please. My mouth gets\n     dry with the talking.\"\n\n     I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.\n\n     \"That's better,\" he said. \"Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour,\n     or more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling\n     inside the house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men\n     appeared, one of whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap\n     whom I had never seen before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar,\n     and when they came to the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a\n     kick which sent him half across the road. 'You hound,' he cried,\n     shaking his stick at him; 'I'll teach you to insult an honest girl!'\n     He was so hot that I think he would have thrashed Drebber with his\n     cudgel, only that the cur staggered away down the road as fast as his\n     legs would carry him. He ran as far as the corner, and then, seeing\n     my cab, he hailed me and jumped in. 'Drive me to Halliday's Private\n     Hotel,' said he.\n\n     \"When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy\n     that I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I\n     drove along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I\n     might take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted\n     lane have my last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this,\n     when he solved the problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him\n     again, and he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in,\n     leaving word that I should wait for him. There he remained until\n     closing time, and when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the\n     game was in my own hands.\n\n     \"Don't imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would\n     only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring\n     myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for\n     his life if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets\n     which I have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once\n     janitor and sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day\n     the professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students\n     some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some\n     South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least\n     grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this\n     preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to\n     a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this\n     alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with\n     a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that\n     when I had my chance, my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one\n     of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite\n     as deadly, and a good deal less noisy than firing across a\n     handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes about with me,\n     and the time had now come when I was to use them.\n\n     \"It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard\n     and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad\n     within--so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation.\n     If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for\n     it during twenty long years, and then suddenly found it within your\n     reach, you would understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at\n     it to steady my nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples\n     throbbing with excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier\n     and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me,\n     just as plain as I see you all in this room. All the way they were\n     ahead of me, one on each side of the horse until I pulled up at the\n     house in the Brixton Road.\n\n     \"There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the\n     dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber\n     all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm,\n     'It's time to get out,' I said.\n\n     \"'All right, cabby,' said he.\n\n     \"I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,\n     for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden.\n     I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a\n     little top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him\n     into the front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father\n     and the daughter were walking in front of us.\n\n     \"'It's infernally dark,' said he, stamping about.\n\n     \"'We'll soon have a light,' I said, striking a match and putting it\n     to a wax candle which I had brought with me. 'Now, Enoch Drebber,' I\n     continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, 'who\n     am I?'\n\n     \"He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I\n     saw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features,\n     which showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face,\n     and I saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth\n     chattered in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the\n     door and laughed loud and long. I had always known that vengeance\n     would be sweet, but I had never hoped for the contentment of soul\n     which now possessed me.\n\n     \"'You dog!' I said; 'I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.\n     Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your\n     wanderings have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see\n     to-morrow's sun rise.' He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I\n     could see on his face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the\n     time. The pulses in my temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I\n     believe I would have had a fit of some sort if the blood had not\n     gushed from my nose and relieved me.\n\n     \"'What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?' I cried, locking the door,\n     and shaking the key in his face. 'Punishment has been slow in coming,\n     but it has overtaken you at last.' I saw his coward lips tremble as I\n     spoke. He would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it\n     was useless.\n\n     \"'Would you murder me?' he stammered.\n\n     \"'There is no murder,' I answered. 'Who talks of murdering a mad dog?\n     What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from\n     her slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and\n     shameless harem.'\n\n     \"'It was not I who killed her father,' he cried.\n\n     \"'But it was you who broke her innocent heart,' I shrieked, thrusting\n     the box before him. 'Let the high God judge between us. Choose and\n     eat. There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what\n     you leave. Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we\n     are ruled by chance.'\n\n     \"He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my\n     knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I\n     swallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a\n     minute or more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to\n     die. Shall I ever forget the look which came over his face when the\n     first warning pangs told him that the poison was in his system? I\n     laughed as I saw it, and held Lucy's marriage ring in front of his\n     eyes. It was but for a moment, for the action of the alkaloid is\n     rapid. A spasm of pain contorted his features; he threw his hands out\n     in front of him, staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily\n     upon the floor. I turned him over with my foot, and placed my hand\n     upon his heart. There was no movement. He was dead!\n\n     \"The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice\n     of it. I don't know what it was that put it into my head to write\n     upon the wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of\n     setting the police upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and\n     cheerful. I remembered a German being found in New York with RACHE\n     written up above him, and it was argued at the time in the newspapers\n     that the secret societies must have done it. I guessed that what\n     puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the Londoners, so I dipped my\n     finger in my own blood and printed it on a convenient place on the\n     wall. Then I walked down to my cab and found that there was nobody\n     about, and that the night was still very wild. I had driven some\n     distance when I put my hand into the pocket in which I usually kept\n     Lucy's ring, and found that it was not there. I was thunderstruck at\n     this, for it was the only memento that I had of her. Thinking that I\n     might have dropped it when I stooped over Drebber's body, I drove\n     back, and leaving my cab in a side street, I went boldly up to the\n     house--for I was ready to dare anything rather than lose the ring.\n     When I arrived there, I walked right into the arms of a\n     police-officer who was coming out, and only managed to disarm his\n     suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.\n\n     \"That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end. All I had to do then was\n     to do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John Ferrier's debt. I\n     knew that he was staying at Halliday's Private Hotel, and I hung\n     about all day, but he never came out. I fancy that he suspected\n     something when Drebber failed to put in an appearance. He was\n     cunning, was Stangerson, and always on his guard. If he thought he\n     could keep me off by staying indoors he was very much mistaken. I\n     soon found out which was the window of his bedroom, and early next\n     morning I took advantage of some ladders which were lying in the lane\n     behind the hotel, and so made my way into his room in the grey of the\n     dawn. I woke him up and told him that the hour had come when he was\n     to answer for the life he had taken so long before. I described\n     Drebber's death to him, and I gave him the same choice of the\n     poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at the chance of safety which\n     that offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my throat. In\n     self-defence I stabbed him to the heart. It would have been the same\n     in any case, for Providence would never have allowed his guilty hand\n     to pick out anything but the poison.\n\n     \"I have little more to say, and it's as well, for I am about done up.\n     I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I\n     could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the\n     yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called\n     Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at\n     221b, Baker Street. I went round, suspecting no harm, and the next\n     thing I knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and\n     as neatly snackled as ever I saw in my life. That's the whole of my\n     story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold\n     that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are.\"\n\n     So thrilling had the man's narrative been, and his manner was so\n     impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional\n     detectives, blase as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to\n     be keenly interested in the man's story. When he finished we sat for\n     some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching\n     of Lestrade's pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his\n     shorthand account.\n\n     \"There is only one point on which I should like a little more\n     information,\" Sherlock Holmes said at last. \"Who was your accomplice\n     who came for the ring which I advertised?\"\n\n     The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. \"I can tell my own\n     secrets,\" he said, \"but I don't get other people into trouble. I saw\n     your advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be\n     the ring which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think\n     you'll own he did it smartly.\"\n\n     \"Not a doubt of that,\" said Holmes heartily.\n\n     \"Now, gentlemen,\" the Inspector remarked gravely, \"the forms of the\n     law must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought\n     before the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until\n     then I will be responsible for him.\" He rang the bell as he spoke,\n     and Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my\n     friend and I made our way out of the Station and took a cab back to\n     Baker Street.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          The Conclusion\n\n\n     We had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the\n     Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our\n     testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson\n     Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would\n     be meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism\n     burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of\n     the cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been\n     able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on\n     work well done.\n\n     \"Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,\" Holmes remarked,\n     as we chatted it over next evening. \"Where will their grand\n     advertisement be now?\"\n\n     \"I don't see that they had very much to do with his capture,\" I\n     answered.\n\n     \"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,\" returned\n     my companion, bitterly. \"The question is, what can you make people\n     believe that you have done. Never mind,\" he continued, more brightly,\n     after a pause. \"I would not have missed the investigation for\n     anything. There has been no better case within my recollection.\n     Simple as it was, there were several most instructive points about\n     it.\"\n\n     \"Simple!\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,\" said\n     Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise. \"The proof of its intrinsic\n     simplicity is, that without any help save a few very ordinary\n     deductions I was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three\n     days.\"\n\n     \"That is true,\" said I.\n\n     \"I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is\n     usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this\n     sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a\n     very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not\n     practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful\n     to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are\n     fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason\n     analytically.\"\n\n     \"I confess,\" said I, \"that I do not quite follow you.\"\n\n     \"I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it\n     clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will\n     tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together\n     in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass.\n     There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would\n     be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps\n     were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I\n     talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.\"\n\n     \"I understand,\" said I.\n\n     \"Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to\n     find everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you\n     the different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I\n     approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely\n     free from all impressions. I naturally began by examining the\n     roadway, and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly\n     the marks of a cab, which, I ascertained by inquiry, must have been\n     there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not\n     a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary\n     London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman's brougham.\n\n     \"This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the\n     garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly\n     suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a\n     mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon\n     its surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science\n     which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing\n     footsteps. Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much\n     practice has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks\n     of the constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had\n     first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had\n     been before the others, because in places their marks had been\n     entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In\n     this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal\n     visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I\n     calculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably\n     dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his\n     boots.\n\n     \"On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My\n     well-booted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the\n     murder, if murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man's\n     person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he\n     had foreseen his fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart\n     disease, or any sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit\n     agitation upon their features. Having sniffed the dead man's lips I\n     detected a slightly sour smell, and I came to the conclusion that he\n     had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been\n     forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By\n     the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other\n     hypothesis would meet the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very\n     unheard of idea. The forcible administration of poison is by no means\n     a new thing in criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of\n     Leturier in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.\n\n     \"And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had\n     not been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it\n     politics, then, or was it a woman? That was the question which\n     confronted me. I was inclined from the first to the latter\n     supposition. Political assassins are only too glad to do their work\n     and to fly. This murder had, on the contrary, been done most\n     deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the\n     room, showing that he had been there all the time. It must have been\n     a private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a\n     methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the wall\n     I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thing was too\n     evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settled the\n     question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of\n     some dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregson\n     whether he had enquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any\n     particular point in Mr. Drebber's former career. He answered, you\n     remember, in the negative.\n\n     \"I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which\n     confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height, and furnished\n     me with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the\n     length of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since\n     there were no signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the\n     floor had burst from the murderer's nose in his excitement. I could\n     perceive that the track of blood coincided with the track of his\n     feet. It is seldom that any man, unless he is very full-blooded,\n     breaks out in this way through emotion, so I hazarded the opinion\n     that the criminal was probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. Events\n     proved that I had judged correctly.\n\n     \"Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected.\n     I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my\n     enquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch\n     Drebber. The answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had\n     already applied for the protection of the law against an old rival in\n     love, named Jefferson Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in\n     Europe. I knew now that I held the clue to the mystery in my hand,\n     and all that remained was to secure the murderer.\n\n     \"I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked\n     into the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had\n     driven the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had\n     wandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there been\n     anyone in charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he\n     were inside the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane\n     man would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it\n     were, of a third person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly,\n     supposing one man wished to dog another through London, what better\n     means could he adopt than to turn cabdriver. All these considerations\n     led me to the irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be\n     found among the jarveys of the Metropolis.\n\n     \"If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased\n     to be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden chance\n     would be likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for\n     a time at least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason\n     to suppose that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he\n     change his name in a country where no one knew his original one? I\n     therefore organized my Street Arab detective corps, and sent them\n     systematically to every cab proprietor in London until they ferreted\n     out the man that I wanted. How well they succeeded, and how quickly I\n     took advantage of it, are still fresh in your recollection. The\n     murder of Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected,\n     but which could hardly in any case have been prevented. Through it,\n     as you know, I came into possession of the pills, the existence of\n     which I had already surmised. You see the whole thing is a chain of\n     logical sequences without a break or flaw.\"\n\n     \"It is wonderful!\" I cried. \"Your merits should be publicly\n     recognized. You should publish an account of the case. If you won't,\n     I will for you.\"\n\n     \"You may do what you like, Doctor,\" he answered. \"See here!\" he\n     continued, handing a paper over to me, \"look at this!\"\n\n     It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed\n     was devoted to the case in question.\n\n     \"The public,\" it said, \"have lost a sensational treat through the\n     sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr.\n     Enoch Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case\n     will probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good\n     authority that the crime was the result of an old standing and\n     romantic feud, in which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that\n     both the victims belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day\n     Saints, and Hope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake\n     City. If the case has had no other effect, it, at least, brings out\n     in the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police\n     force, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do\n     wisely to settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to\n     British soil. It is an open secret that the credit of this smart\n     capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials,\n     Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was apprehended, it appears, in\n     the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an\n     amateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with such\n     instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their\n     skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be\n     presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their\n     services.\"\n\n     \"Didn't I tell you so when we started?\" cried Sherlock Holmes with a\n     laugh. \"That's the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a\n     testimonial!\"\n\n     \"Never mind,\" I answered, \"I have all the facts in my journal, and\n     the public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself\n     contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser--\n\n                      \"'Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo\n                 Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca.'\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              THE SIGN OF THE FOUR\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n        The Science of Deduction\n        The Statement of the Case\n        In Quest of a Solution\n        The Story of the Bald-Headed Man\n        The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge\n        Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration\n        The Episode of the Barrel\n        The Baker Street Irregulars\n        A Break in the Chain\n        The End of the Islander\n        The Great Agra Treasure\n        The Strange Story of Jonathan Small\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          The Science of Deduction\n\n\n     Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece\n     and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long,\n     white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled\n     back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested\n     thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred\n     with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point\n     home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the\n     velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.\n\n     Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance,\n     but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from\n     day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my\n     conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked\n     the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I\n     should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the\n     cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with\n     whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His\n     great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had\n     of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and\n     backward in crossing him.\n\n     Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken\n     with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme\n     deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no\n     longer.\n\n     \"Which is it to-day?\" I asked,--\"morphine or cocaine?\"\n\n     He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which\n     he had opened. \"It is cocaine,\" he said,--\"a seven-per-cent solution.\n     Would you care to try it?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed,\" I answered, brusquely. \"My constitution has not got\n     over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra\n     strain upon it.\"\n\n     He smiled at my vehemence. \"Perhaps you are right, Watson,\" he said.\n     \"I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it,\n     however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind\n     that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.\"\n\n     \"But consider!\" I said, earnestly. \"Count the cost! Your brain may,\n     as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and\n     morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at\n     last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction\n     comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why\n     should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great\n     powers with which you have been endowed?  Remember that I speak not\n     only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose\n     constitution he is to some extent answerable.\"\n\n     He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his fingertips\n     together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who\n     has a relish for conversation.\n\n     \"My mind,\" he said, \"rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me\n     work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate\n     analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then\n     with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of\n     existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen\n     my own particular profession,--or rather created it, for I am the\n     only one in the world.\"\n\n     \"The only unofficial detective?\" I said, raising my eyebrows.\n\n     \"The only unofficial consulting detective,\" he answered.  \"I am the\n     last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or\n     Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths--which, by the\n     way, is their normal state--the matter is laid before me. I examine\n     the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim\n     no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work\n     itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my\n     highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my\n     methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.\"\n\n     \"Yes, indeed,\" said I, cordially. \"I was never so struck by anything\n     in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat\n     fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'\"\n\n     He shook his head sadly. \"I glanced over it,\" said he.  \"Honestly, I\n     cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an\n     exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional\n     manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which\n     produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an\n     elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.\"\n\n     \"But the romance was there,\" I remonstrated. \"I could not tamper with\n     the facts.\"\n\n     \"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of\n     proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the\n     case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from\n     effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.\"\n\n     I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially\n     designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the\n     egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should\n     be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years\n     that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small\n     vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no\n     remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail\n     bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me\n     from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.\n\n     \"My practice has extended recently to the Continent,\" said Holmes,\n     after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. \"I was consulted\n     last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come\n     rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has\n     all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the\n     wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher\n     developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and\n     possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two\n     parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis\n     in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the\n     letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance.\" He\n     tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I\n     glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration,\n     with stray magnifiques, coup-de-maîtres and tours-de-force, all\n     testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.\n\n     \"He speaks as a pupil to his master,\" said I.\n\n     \"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,\" said Sherlock Holmes,\n     lightly. \"He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of\n     the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the\n     power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in\n     knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small\n     works into French.\"\n\n     \"Your works?\"\n\n     \"Oh, didn't you know?\" he cried, laughing. \"Yes, I have been guilty\n     of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here,\n     for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the\n     Various Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of\n     cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates\n     illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is\n     continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of\n     supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example,\n     that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian\n     lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye\n     there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly\n     and the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a\n     potato.\"\n\n     \"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing\n     of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as\n     a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon\n     the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes\n     of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers,\n     and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest\n     to the scientific detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed\n     bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary\n     you with my hobby.\"\n\n     \"Not at all,\" I answered, earnestly. \"It is of the greatest interest\n     to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your\n     practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation\n     and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.\"\n\n     \"Why, hardly,\" he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair,\n     and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. \"For example,\n     observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street\n     Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there\n     you dispatched a telegram.\"\n\n     \"Right!\" said I. \"Right on both points! But I confess that I don't\n     see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and\n     I have mentioned it to no one.\"\n\n     \"It is simplicity itself,\" he remarked, chuckling at my\n     surprise,--\"so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous;\n     and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of\n     deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould\n     adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they\n     have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in\n     such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering.\n     The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as\n     I know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. So much is observation. The\n     rest is deduction.\"\n\n     \"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?\"\n\n     \"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat\n     opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that\n     you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards.  What\n     could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire?\n     Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the\n     truth.\"\n\n     \"In this case it certainly is so,\" I replied, after a little thought.\n     \"The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest.  Would you\n     think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe\n     test?\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" he answered, \"it would prevent me from taking a\n     second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any\n     problem which you might submit to me.\"\n\n     \"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any\n     object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality\n     upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I\n     have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would\n     you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or\n     habits of the late owner?\"\n\n     I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in\n     my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I\n     intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he\n     occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard\n     at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his\n     naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep\n     from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case\n     to and handed it back.\n\n     \"There are hardly any data,\" he remarked. \"The watch has been\n     recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.\"\n\n     \"You are right,\" I answered. \"It was cleaned before being sent to\n     me.\" In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most\n     lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he\n     expect from an uncleaned watch?\n\n     \"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,\" he\n     observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.\n     \"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged\n     to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.\"\n\n     \"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?\"\n\n     \"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is\n     nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so\n     it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descents to the\n     eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the\n     father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years.\n     It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.\"\n\n     \"Right, so far,\" said I. \"Anything else?\"\n\n     \"He was a man of untidy habits,--very untidy and careless. He was\n     left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for\n     some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity,\n     and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.\"\n\n     I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with\n     considerable bitterness in my heart.\n\n     \"This is unworthy of you, Holmes,\" I said. \"I could not have believed\n     that you would have descended to this. You have made inquires into\n     the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this\n     knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that\n     you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to\n     speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.\"\n\n     \"My dear doctor,\" said he, kindly, \"pray accept my apologies. \n     Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how\n     personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you,\n     however, that I never even knew that you had a brother until you\n     handed me the watch.\"\n\n     \"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these\n     facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of\n     probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate.\"\n\n     \"But it was not mere guess-work?\"\n\n     \"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,--destructive to the\n     logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do\n     not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which\n     large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that\n     your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that\n     watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but\n     it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard\n     objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no\n     great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so\n     cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched\n     inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty\n     well provided for in other respects.\"\n\n     I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.\n\n     \"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a\n     watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the\n     inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no\n     risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than\n     four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.\n     Inference,--that your brother was often at low water. Secondary\n     inference,--that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could\n     not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner\n     plate, which contains the key-hole. Look at the thousands of\n     scratches all round the hole,--marks where the key has slipped. What\n     sober man's key could have scored those grooves? But you will never\n     see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at night, and he\n     leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all\n     this?\"\n\n     \"It is as clear as daylight,\" I answered. \"I regret the injustice\n     which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous\n     faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot\n     at present?\"\n\n     \"None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else\n     is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a\n     dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls\n     down the street and drifts across the duncolored houses. What could\n     be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having\n     powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime\n     is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those\n     which are commonplace have any function upon earth.\"\n\n     I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp\n     knock our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.\n\n     \"A young lady for you, sir,\" she said, addressing my companion.\n\n     \"Miss Mary Morstan,\" he read. \"Hum! I have no recollection of the\n     name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor. I\n     should prefer that you remain.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Statement of the Case\n\n\n     Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward\n     composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well\n     gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a\n     plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a\n     suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige,\n     untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull\n     hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her\n     face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but\n     her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were\n     singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which\n     extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never\n     looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and\n     sensitive nature. I could not but observe that as she took the seat\n     which Sherlock Holmes placed for her, her lip trembled, her hand\n     quivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.\n\n     \"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes,\" she said, \"because you once enabled\n     my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic\n     complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill.\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Cecil Forrester,\" he repeated thoughtfully. \"I believe that I\n     was of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I remember\n     it, was a very simple one.\"\n\n     \"She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine.\n     I can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly\n     inexplicable, than the situation in which I find myself.\"\n\n     Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in\n     his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his\n     clear-cut, hawklike features. \"State your case,\" said he, in brisk,\n     business tones.\n\n     I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. \"You will, I am\n     sure, excuse me,\" I said, rising from my chair.\n\n     To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.\n     \"If your friend,\" she said, \"would be good enough to stop, he might\n     be of inestimable service to me.\"\n\n     I relapsed into my chair.\n\n     \"Briefly,\" she continued, \"the facts are these. My father was an\n     officer in an Indian regiment who sent me home when I was quite a\n     child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was\n     placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at\n     Edinburgh, and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age.\n     In the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment,\n     obtained twelve months' leave and came home. He telegraphed to me\n     from London that he had arrived all safe, and directed me to come\n     down at once, giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His message,\n     as I remember, was full of kindness and love. On reaching London I\n     drove to the Langham, and was informed that Captain Morstan was\n     staying there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not\n     yet returned. I waited all day without news of him. That night, on\n     the advice of the manager of the hotel, I communicated with the\n     police, and next morning we advertised in all the papers. Our\n     inquiries let to no result; and from that day to this no word has\n     ever been heard of my unfortunate father. He came home with his heart\n     full of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and instead--\" She\n     put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence.\n\n     \"The date?\" asked Holmes, opening his note-book.\n\n     \"He disappeared upon the 3d of December, 1878,--nearly ten years\n     ago.\"\n\n     \"His luggage?\"\n\n     \"Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a\n     clue,--some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of\n     curiosities from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers\n     in charge of the convict-guard there.\"\n\n     \"Had he any friends in town?\"\n\n     \"Only one that we know of,--Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the\n     34th Bombay Infantry. The major had retired some little time before,\n     and lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with him, of course, but\n     he did not even know that his brother officer was in England.\"\n\n     \"A singular case,\" remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six\n     years ago--to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882--an advertisement\n     appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan and\n     stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was\n     no name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the\n     family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess. By her\n     advice I published my address in the advertisement column. The same\n     day there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed\n     to me, which I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No\n     word of writing was enclosed. Since then every year upon the same\n     date there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar\n     pearl, without any clue as to the sender. They have been pronounced\n     by an expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value. You\n     can see for yourselves that they are very handsome.\" She opened a\n     flat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I\n     had ever seen.\n\n     \"Your statement is most interesting,\" said Sherlock Holmes.  \"Has\n     anything else occurred to you?\"\n\n     \"Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you.  This\n     morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for\n     yourself.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes. \"The envelope too, please. Postmark,\n     London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man's thumb-mark on corner,--probably\n     postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet.\n     Particular man in his stationery. No address. 'Be at the third pillar\n     from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre to-night at seven o'clock.\n     If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman,\n     and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will be\n     in vain. Your unknown friend.' Well, really, this is a very pretty\n     little mystery.  What do you intend to do, Miss Morstan?\"\n\n     \"That is exactly what I want to ask you.\"\n\n     \"Then we shall most certainly go. You and I and--yes, why, Dr. \n     Watson is the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I\n     have worked together before.\"\n\n     \"But would he come?\" she asked, with something appealing in her voice\n     and expression.\n\n     \"I should be proud and happy,\" said I, fervently, \"if I can be of any\n     service.\"\n\n     \"You are both very kind,\" she answered. \"I have led a retired life,\n     and have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it\n     will do, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"You must not be later,\" said Holmes. \"There is one other point,\n     however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box\n     addresses?\"\n\n     \"I have them here,\" she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of\n     paper.\n\n     \"You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition.\n     Let us see, now.\" He spread out the papers upon the table, and gave\n     little darting glances from one to the other. \"They are disguised\n     hands, except the letter,\" he said, presently, \"but there can be no\n     question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will\n     break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by\n     the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss\n     Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of\n     your father?\"\n\n     \"Nothing could be more unlike.\"\n\n     \"I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at\n     six. Pray allow me to keep the papers. I may look into the matter\n     before then. It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then.\"\n\n     \"Au revoir,\" said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from\n     one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and\n     hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly\n     down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a\n     speck in the sombre crowd.\n\n     \"What a very attractive woman!\" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.\n\n     He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping\n     eyelids. \"Is she?\" he said, languidly. \"I did not observe.\"\n\n     \"You really are an automaton,--a calculating-machine!\" I cried.\n     \"There is something positively inhuman in you at times.\"\n\n     He smiled gently. \"It is of the first importance,\" he said, \"not to\n     allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is\n     to me a mere unit,--a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities\n     are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most\n     winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little\n     children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my\n     acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a\n     million upon the London poor.\"\n\n     \"In this case, however--\"\n\n     \"I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you\n     ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you make\n     of this fellow's scribble?\"\n\n     \"It is legible and regular,\" I answered. \"A man of business habits\n     and some force of character.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head. \"Look at his long letters,\" he said. \"They\n     hardly rise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l\n     an e. Men of character always differentiate their long letters,\n     however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k's and\n     self-esteem in his capitals. I am going out now. I have some few\n     references to make. Let me recommend this book,--one of the most\n     remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man. I\n     shall be back in an hour.\"\n\n     I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were\n     far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our\n     late visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the\n     strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the\n     time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty\n     now,--a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and\n     become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such\n     dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk\n     and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What\n     was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account,\n     that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a\n     factor,--nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely\n     to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere\n     will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          In Quest of a Solution\n\n\n     It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager,\n     and in excellent spirits,--a mood which in his case alternated with\n     fits of the blackest depression.\n\n     \"There is no great mystery in this matter,\" he said, taking the cup\n     of tea which I had poured out for him. \"The facts appear to admit of\n     only one explanation.\"\n\n     \"What! you have solved it already?\"\n\n     \"Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive\n     fact, that is all. It is, however, very suggestive. The details are\n     still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of\n     the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th\n     Bombay Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882.\"\n\n     \"I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests.\"\n\n     \"No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan\n     disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is\n     Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London.\n     Four years later Sholto dies. Within a week of his death Captain\n     Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated\n     from year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her\n     as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this\n     deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin\n     immediately after Sholto's death, unless it is that Sholto's heir\n     knows something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? Have\n     you any alternative theory which will meet the facts?\"\n\n     \"But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too,\n     should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the\n     letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is\n     too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other\n     injustice in her case that you know of.\"\n\n     \"There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties,\" said\n     Sherlock Holmes, pensively. \"But our expedition of to-night will\n     solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is\n     inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a\n     little past the hour.\"\n\n     I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes\n     took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It\n     was clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious\n     one.\n\n     Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was\n     composed, but pale. She must have been more than woman if she did not\n     feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were\n     embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered\n     the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her.\n\n     \"Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa's,\" she said. \"His\n     letters were full of allusions to the major. He and papa were in\n     command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a\n     great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's\n     desk which no one could understand. I don't suppose that it is of the\n     slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I\n     brought it with me. It is here.\"\n\n     Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his\n     knee. He then very methodically examined it all over with his double\n     lens.\n\n     \"It is paper of native Indian manufacture,\" he remarked. \"It has at\n     some time been pinned to a board. The diagram upon it appears to be a\n     plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and\n     passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it\n     is '3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing.  In the left-hand\n     corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with\n     their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse\n     characters, 'The sign of the four,--Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh,\n     Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.' No, I confess that I do not see how this\n     bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance.\n     It has been kept carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as\n     clean as the other.\"\n\n     \"It was in his pocket-book that we found it.\"\n\n     \"Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of\n     use to us. I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be\n     much deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must\n     reconsider my ideas.\" He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by\n     his drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss\n     Morstan and I chatted in an undertone about our present expedition\n     and its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his\n     impenetrable reserve until the end of our journey.\n\n     It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day\n     had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great\n     city. Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down\n     the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which\n     threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow\n     glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous\n     air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded\n     thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like\n     in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow\n     bars of light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human\n     kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into\n     the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull,\n     heavy evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged,\n     combined to make me nervous and depressed. I could see from Miss\n     Morstan's manner that she was suffering from the same feeling. Holmes\n     alone could rise superior to petty influences. He held his open\n     note-book upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted down figures\n     and memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.\n\n     At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the\n     side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and\n     four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of\n     shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly\n     reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small,\n     dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.\n\n     \"Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,\" said\n     she.\n\n     He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon\n     us. \"You will excuse me, miss,\" he said with a certain dogged manner,\n     \"but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your\n     companions is a police-officer.\"\n\n     \"I give you my word on that,\" she answered.\n\n     He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a\n     four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed us\n     mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly\n     done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away\n     at a furious pace through the foggy streets.\n\n     The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place,\n     on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was either a complete\n     hoax,--which was an inconceivable hypothesis,--or else we had good\n     reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey.\n     Miss Morstan's demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. I\n     endeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures\n     in Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited at\n     our situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories\n     were slightly involved. To this day she declares that I told her one\n     moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of\n     night, and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. At first I\n     had some idea as to the direction in which we were driving; but soon,\n     what with our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of London,\n     I lost my bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed to be going\n     a very long way. Sherlock Holmes was never at fault, however, and he\n     muttered the names as the cab rattled through squares and in and out\n     by tortuous by-streets.\n\n     \"Rochester Row,\" said he. \"Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on the\n     Vauxhall Bridge Road. We are making for the Surrey side, apparently.\n     Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the bridge. You can catch glimpses\n     of the river.\"\n\n     We did indeed bet a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames with the\n     lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on,\n     and was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other side.\n\n     \"Wordsworth Road,\" said my companion. \"Priory Road. Lark Hall Lane.\n     Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbor Lane. Our quest does not\n     appear to take us to very fashionable regions.\"\n\n     We had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbidding neighborhood.\n     Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse\n     glare and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the corner. Then came\n     rows of two-storied villas each with a fronting of miniature garden,\n     and then again interminable lines of new staring brick\n     buildings,--the monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing\n     out into the country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in a\n     new terrace. None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at\n     which we stopped was as dark as its neighbors, save for a single\n     glimmer in the kitchen window. On our knocking, however, the door was\n     instantly thrown open by a Hindoo servant clad in a yellow turban,\n     white loose-fitting clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something\n     strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the\n     commonplace door-way of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.\n\n     \"The Sahib awaits you,\" said he, and even as he spoke there came a\n     high piping voice from some inner room. \"Show them in to me,\n     khitmutgar,\" it cried. \"Show them straight in to me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          The Story of the Bald-Headed Man\n\n\n     We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill lit and\n     worse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he\n     threw open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the\n     centre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a\n     bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining\n     scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from\n     fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his\n     features were in a perpetual jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but\n     never for an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip,\n     and a too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove\n     feebly to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part\n     of his face. In spite of his obtrusive baldness, he gave the\n     impression of youth. In point of fact he had just turned his\n     thirtieth year.\n\n     \"Your servant, Miss Morstan,\" he kept repeating, in a thin, high\n     voice. \"Your servant, gentlemen. Pray step into my little sanctum. A\n     small place, miss, but furnished to my own liking.  An oasis of art\n     in the howling desert of South London.\"\n\n     We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which\n     he invited us. In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a\n     diamond of the first water in a setting of brass. The richest and\n     glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back\n     here and there to expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental\n     vase. The carpet was of amber-and-black, so soft and so thick that\n     the foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. Two great\n     tiger-skins thrown athwart it increased the suggestion of Eastern\n     luxury, as did a huge hookah which stood upon a mat in the corner. A\n     lamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost\n     invisible golden wire in the centre of the room. As it burned it\n     filled the air with a subtle and aromatic odor.\n\n     \"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,\" said the little man, still jerking and\n     smiling. \"That is my name. You are Miss Morstan, of course. And these\n     gentlemen--\"\n\n     \"This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. Watson.\"\n\n     \"A doctor, eh?\" cried he, much excited. \"Have you your stethoscope?\n     Might I ask you--would you have the kindness? I have grave doubts as\n     to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. The aortic I may\n     rely upon, but I should value your opinion upon the mitral.\"\n\n     I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find\n     anything amiss, save indeed that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for he\n     shivered from head to foot. \"It appears to be normal,\" I said. \"You\n     have no cause for uneasiness.\"\n\n     \"You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan,\" he remarked, airily.  \"I\n     am a great sufferer, and I have long had suspicions as to that valve.\n     I am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted. Had your father,\n     Miss Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he\n     might have been alive now.\"\n\n     I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this\n     callous and off-hand reference to so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan\n     sat down, and her face grew white to the lips. \"I knew in my heart\n     that he was dead,\" said she.\n\n     \"I can give you every information,\" said he, \"and, what is more, I\n     can do you justice; and I will, too, whatever Brother Bartholomew may\n     say. I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as an escort to\n     you, but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and say. The\n     three of us can show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew. But let us\n     have no outsiders,--no police or officials. We can settle everything\n     satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference. Nothing\n     would annoy Brother Bartholomew more than any publicity.\" He sat down\n     upon a low settee and blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery\n     blue eyes.\n\n     \"For my part,\" said Holmes, \"whatever you may choose to say will go\n     no further.\"\n\n     I nodded to show my agreement.\n\n     \"That is well! That is well!\" said he. \"May I offer you a glass of\n     Chianti, Miss Morstan? Or of Tokay? I keep no other wines. Shall I\n     open a flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to\n     tobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odor of the Eastern tobacco. I am\n     a little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative.\" He\n     applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily\n     through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semicircle, with our\n     heads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange,\n     jerky little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in\n     the centre.\n\n     \"When I first determined to make this communication to you,\" said he,\n     \"I might have given you my address, but I feared that you might\n     disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with you. I took the\n     liberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my\n     man Williams might be able to see you first. I have complete\n     confidence in his discretion, and he had orders, if he were\n     dissatisfied, to proceed no further in the matter. You will excuse\n     these precautions, but I am a man of somewhat retiring, and I might\n     even say refined, tastes, and there is nothing more unaesthetic than\n     a policeman. I have a natural shrinking from all forms of rough\n     materialism. I seldom come in contact with the rough crowd. I live,\n     as you see, with some little atmosphere of elegance around me. I may\n     call myself a patron of the arts. It is my weakness. The landscape is\n     a genuine Corot, and, though a connoisseur might perhaps throw a\n     doubt upon that Salvator Rosa, there cannot be the least question\n     about the Bouguereau. I am partial to the modern French school.\"\n\n     \"You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto,\" said Miss Morstan, \"but I am here\n     at your request to learn something which you desire to tell me. It is\n     very late, and I should desire the interview to be as short as\n     possible.\"\n\n     \"At the best it must take some time,\" he answered; \"for we shall\n     certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Bartholomew. We shall\n     all go and try if we can get the better of Brother Bartholomew. He is\n     very angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to\n     me. I had quite high words with him last night. You cannot imagine\n     what a terrible fellow he is when he is angry.\"\n\n     \"If we are to go to Norwood it would perhaps be as well to start at\n     once,\" I ventured to remark.\n\n     He laughed until his ears were quite red. \"That would hardly do,\" he\n     cried. \"I don't know what he would say if I brought you in that\n     sudden way. No, I must prepare you by showing you how we all stand to\n     each other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are\n     several points in the story of which I am myself ignorant. I can only\n     lay the facts before you as far as I know them myself.\n\n     \"My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once of\n     the Indian army. He retired some eleven years ago, and came to live\n     at Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He had prospered in India, and\n     brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large collection\n     of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants. With these\n     advantages he bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. My\n     twin-brother Bartholomew and I were the only children.\n\n     \"I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the\n     disappearance of Captain Morstan. We read the details in the papers,\n     and, knowing that he had been a friend of our father's, we discussed\n     the case freely in his presence. He used to join in our speculations\n     as to what could have happened. Never for an instant did we suspect\n     that he had the whole secret hidden in his own breast,--that of all\n     men he alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan.\n\n     \"We did know, however, that some mystery--some positive\n     danger--overhung our father. He was very fearful of going out alone,\n     and he always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at\n     Pondicherry Lodge. Williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them.\n     He was once light-weight champion of England. Our father would never\n     tell us what it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to\n     men with wooden legs. On one occasion he actually fired his revolver\n     at a wooden-legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman\n     canvassing for orders. We had to pay a large sum to hush the matter\n     up. My brother and I used to think this a mere whim of my father's,\n     but events have since led us to change our opinion.\n\n     \"Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a\n     great shock to him. He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he\n     opened it, and from that day he sickened to his death. What was in\n     the letter we could never discover, but I could see as he held it\n     that it was short and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered\n     for years from an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse,\n     and towards the end of April we were informed that he was beyond all\n     hope, and that he wished to make a last communication to us.\n\n     \"When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and\n     breathing heavily. He besought us to lock the door and to come upon\n     either side of the bed. Then, grasping our hands, he made a\n     remarkable statement to us, in a voice which was broken as much by\n     emotion as by pain. I shall try and give it to you in his own very\n     words.\n\n     \"'I have only one thing,' he said, 'which weighs upon my mind at this\n     supreme moment. It is my treatment of poor Morstan's orphan. The\n     cursed greed which has been my besetting sin through life has\n     withheld from her the treasure, half at least of which should have\n     been hers. And yet I have made no use of it myself,--so blind and\n     foolish a thing is avarice. The mere feeling of possession has been\n     so dear to me that I could not bear to share it with another. See\n     that chaplet dipped with pearls beside the quinine-bottle. Even that\n     I could not bear to part with, although I had got it out with the\n     design of sending it to her. You, my sons, will give her a fair share\n     of the Agra treasure. But send her nothing--not even the\n     chaplet--until I am gone. After all, men have been as bad as this and\n     have recovered.\n\n     \"'I will tell you how Morstan died,' he continued. 'He had suffered\n     for years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from every one. I\n     alone knew it. When in India, he and I, through a remarkable chain of\n     circumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure. I\n     brought it over to England, and on the night of Morstan's arrival he\n     came straight over here to claim his share. He walked over from the\n     station, and was admitted by my faithful Lal Chowdar, who is now\n     dead. Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as to the division of\n     the treasure, and we came to heated words. Morstan had sprung out of\n     his chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he suddenly pressed his hand\n     to his side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards,\n     cutting his head against the corner of the treasure-chest. When I\n     stooped over him I found, to my horror, that he was dead.\n\n     \"'For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do.\n     My first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but I could\n     not but recognize that there was every chance that I would be accused\n     of his murder. His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in\n     his head, would be black against me. Again, an official inquiry could\n     not be made without bringing out some facts about the treasure, which\n     I was particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told me that no\n     soul upon earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no\n     necessity why any soul ever should know.\n\n     \"'I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my\n     servant, Lal Chowdar, in the doorway. He stole in and bolted the door\n     behind him. \"Do not fear, Sahib,\" he said. \"No one need know that you\n     have killed him. Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?\" \"I did\n     not kill him,\" said I. Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled. \"I\n     heard it all, Sahib,\" said he. \"I heard you quarrel, and I heard the\n     blow. But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us put\n     him away together.\" That was enough to decide met. If my own servant\n     could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good\n     before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? Lal Chowdar and I\n     disposed of the body that night, and within a few days the London\n     papers were full of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan.\n     You will see from what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the\n     matter. My fault lies in the fact that we concealed not only the\n     body, but also the treasure, and that I have clung to Morstan's share\n     as well as to my own. I wish you, therefore, to make restitution. Put\n     your ears down to my mouth. The treasure is hidden in--At this\n     instant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes stared\n     wildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled, in a voice which I can never\n     forget, 'Keep him out! For Christ's sake keep him out'! We both\n     stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. A\n     face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the\n     whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was\n     a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of\n     concentrated malevolence. My brother and I rushed towards the window,\n     but the man was gone. When we returned to my father his head had\n     dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.\n\n     \"We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the\n     intruder, save that just under the window a single footmark was\n     visible in the flower-bed. But for that one trace, we might have\n     thought that our imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face.\n     We soon, however, had another and a more striking proof that there\n     were secret agencies at work all round us. The window of my father's\n     room was found open in the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been\n     rifled, and upon his chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the\n     words 'The sign of the four' scrawled across it. What the phrase\n     meant, or who our secret visitor may have been, we never knew. As far\n     as we can judge, none of my father's property had been actually\n     stolen, though everything had been turned out. My brother and I\n     naturally associated this peculiar incident with the fear which\n     haunted my father during his life; but it is still a complete mystery\n     to us.\"\n\n     The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully\n     for a few moments. We had all sat absorbed, listening to his\n     extraordinary narrative. At the short account of her father's death\n     Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that\n     she was about to faint. She rallied however, on drinking a glass of\n     water which I quietly poured out for her from a Venetian carafe upon\n     the side-table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an\n     abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering\n     eyes. As I glanced at him I could not but think how on that very day\n     he had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life. Here at\n     least was a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr.\n     Thaddeus Sholto looked from one to the other of us with an obvious\n     pride at the effect which his story had produced, and then continued\n     between the puffs of his overgrown pipe.\n\n     \"My brother and I,\" said he, \"were, as you may imagine, much excited\n     as to the treasure which my father had spoken of. For weeks and for\n     months we dug and delved in every part of the garden, without\n     discovering its whereabouts. It was maddening to think that the\n     hiding-place was on his very lips at the moment that he died. We\n     could judge the splendor of the missing riches by the chaplet which\n     he had taken out. Over this chaplet my brother Bartholomew and I had\n     some little discussion. The pearls were evidently of great value, and\n     he was averse to part with them, for, between friends, my brother was\n     himself a little inclined to my father's fault. He thought, too, that\n     if we parted with the chaplet it might give rise to gossip and\n     finally bring us into trouble. It was all that I could do to persuade\n     him to let me find out Miss Morstan's address and send her a detached\n     pearl at fixed intervals, so that at least she might never feel\n     destitute.\"\n\n     \"It was a kindly thought,\" said our companion, earnestly. \"It was\n     extremely good of you.\"\n\n     The little man waved his hand deprecatingly. \"We were your trustees,\"\n     he said. \"That was the view which I took of it, though Brother\n     Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that light. We had plenty\n     of money ourselves. I desired no more. Besides, it would have been\n     such bad taste to have treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion.\n     'Le mauvais goût mène au crime.' The French have a very neat way of\n     putting these things. Our difference of opinion on this subject went\n     so far that I thought it best to set up rooms for myself: so I left\n     Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and Williams with me.\n     Yesterday, however, I learn that an event of extreme importance has\n     occurred. The treasure has been discovered. I instantly communicated\n     with Miss Morstan, and it only remains for us to drive out to Norwood\n     and demand our share. I explained my views last night to Brother\n     Bartholomew: so we shall be expected, if not welcome, visitors.\"\n\n     Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious\n     settee. We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new\n     development which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the\n     first to spring to his feet.\n\n     \"You have done well, sir, from first to last,\" said he. \"It is\n     possible that we may be able to make you some small return by\n     throwing some light upon that which is still dark to you. But, as\n     Miss Morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the\n     matter through without delay.\"\n\n     Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his\n     hookah, and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged\n     topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up,\n     in spite of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished his\n     attire by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which\n     covered the ears, so that no part of him was visible save his mobile\n     and peaky face. \"My health is somewhat fragile,\" he remarked, as he\n     led the way down the passage. \"I am compelled to be a\n     valetudinarian.\"\n\n     Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently\n     prearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace.\n     Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose high above\n     the rattle of the wheels.\n\n     \"Bartholomew is a clever fellow,\" said he. \"How do you think he found\n     out where the treasure was? He had come to the conclusion that it was\n     somewhere indoors: so he worked out all the cubic space of the house,\n     and made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be\n     unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of the\n     building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of\n     all the separate rooms, and making every allowance for the space\n     between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the\n     total to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted\n     for. These could only be at the top of the building. He knocked a\n     hole, therefore, in the lath-and-plaster ceiling of the highest room,\n     and there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it,\n     which had been sealed up and was known to no one. In the centre stood\n     the treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters. He lowered it through\n     the hole, and there it lies. He computes the value of the jewels at\n     not less than half a million sterling.\"\n\n     At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another\n     open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change\n     from a needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it\n     was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am\n     ashamed to say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my\n     heart turned as heavy as lead within me. I stammered out some few\n     halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head\n     drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a\n     confirmed hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was\n     pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring\n     information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack\n     nostrums, some of which he bore about in a leather case in his\n     pocket. I trust that he may not remember any of the answers which I\n     gave him that night. Holmes declares that he overheard me caution him\n     against the great danger of taking more than two drops of castor oil,\n     while I recommended strychnine in large doses as a sedative. However\n     that may be, I was certainly relieved when our cab pulled up with a\n     jerk and the coachman sprang down to open the door.\n\n     \"This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge,\" said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,\n     as he handed her out.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge\n\n\n     It was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our\n     night's adventures. We had left the damp fog of the great city behind\n     us, and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the\n     westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a\n     moon peeping occasionally through the rifts. It was clear enough to\n     see for some distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the\n     side-lamps from the carriage to give us a better light upon our way.\n\n     Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a\n     very high stone wall topped with broken glass. A single narrow\n     iron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance. On this our\n     guide knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat.\n\n     \"Who is there?\" cried a gruff voice from within.\n\n     \"It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time.\"\n\n     There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. The\n     door swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in the\n     opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his\n     protruded face and twinkling distrustful eyes.\n\n     \"That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no orders\n     about them from the master.\"\n\n     \"No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that I\n     should bring some friends.\n\n     \"He ain't been out o' his room to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no\n     orders. You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can\n     let you in, but your friends must just stop where they are.\"\n\n     This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in\n     a perplexed and helpless manner. \"This is too bad of you, McMurdo!\"\n     he said. \"If I guarantee them, that is enough for you. There is the\n     young lady, too. She cannot wait on the public road at this hour.\"\n\n     \"Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus,\" said the porter, inexorably. \"Folk may be\n     friends o' yours, and yet no friends o' the master's. He pays me well\n     to do my duty, and my duty I'll do. I don't know none o' your\n     friends.\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes you do, McMurdo,\" cried Sherlock Holmes, genially. \"I don't\n     think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember the amateur who\n     fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your\n     benefit four years back?\"\n\n     \"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!\" roared the prize-fighter. \"God's truth!\n     how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet\n     you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under\n     the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that\n     has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you\n     had joined the fancy.\"\n\n     \"You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still one of the\n     scientific professions open to me,\" said Holmes, laughing. \"Our\n     friend won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure.\"\n\n     \"In you come, sir, in you come,--you and your friends,\" he answered.\n     \"Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had to be\n     certain of your friends before I let them in.\"\n\n     Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump\n     of a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a\n     moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The vast\n     size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck\n     a chill to the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and\n     the lantern quivered and rattled in his hand.\n\n     \"I cannot understand it,\" he said. \"There must be some mistake. I\n     distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is\n     no light in his window. I do not know what to make of it.\"\n\n     \"Does he always guard the premises in this way?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes; he has followed my father's custom. He was the favorite son,\n     you know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him more\n     than he ever told me. That is Bartholomew's window up there where the\n     moonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light from\n     within, I think.\"\n\n     \"None,\" said Holmes. \"But I see the glint of a light in that little\n     window beside the door.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that is the housekeeper's room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone\n     sits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind\n     waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together and\n     she has no word of our coming she may be alarmed. But hush! what is\n     that?\"\n\n     He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light\n     flickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and\n     we all stood with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the great\n     black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and\n     most pitiful of sounds,--the shrill, broken whimpering of a\n     frightened woman.\n\n     \"It is Mrs. Bernstone,\" said Sholto. \"She is the only woman in the\n     house. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment.\" He hurried for the\n     door, and knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a tall old woman\n     admit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.\n\n     \"Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you\n     have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!\" We heard her reiterated rejoicings\n     until the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled\n     monotone.\n\n     Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and\n     peered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which\n     cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand\n     was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two\n     who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word\n     or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of\n     trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have\n     marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural\n     thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me,\n     there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and\n     protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there\n     was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.\n\n     \"What a strange place!\" she said, looking round.\n\n     \"It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in\n     it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near\n     Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work.\"\n\n     \"And from the same cause,\" said Holmes. \"These are the traces of the\n     treasure-seekers. You must remember that they were six years looking\n     for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.\"\n\n     At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto\n     came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his\n     eyes.\n\n     \"There is something amiss with Bartholomew!\" he cried. \"I am\n     frightened! My nerves cannot stand it.\" He was, indeed, half\n     blubbering with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out from\n     the great Astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a\n     terrified child.\n\n     \"Come into the house,\" said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way.\n\n     \"Yes, do!\" pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. \"I really do not feel equal to\n     giving directions.\"\n\n     We all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the\n     left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down\n     with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of\n     Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.\n\n     \"God bless your sweet calm face!\" she cried, with an hysterical sob.\n     \"It does me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this\n     day!\"\n\n     Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few\n     words of kindly womanly comfort which brought the color back into the\n     others bloodless cheeks.\n\n     \"Master has locked himself in and will now answer me,\" she explained.\n     \"All day I have waited to hear from him, for he often likes to be\n     alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was amiss, so I went\n     up and peeped through the key-hole. You must go up, Mr.\n     Thaddeus,--you must go up and look for yourself. I have seen Mr.\n     Bartholomew Sholto in joy and in sorrow for ten long years, but I\n     never saw him with such a face on him as that.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto's\n     teeth were chattering in his head. So shaken was he that I had to\n     pass my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees\n     were trembling under him. Twice as we ascended Holmes whipped his\n     lens out of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to\n     me to be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoa-nut matting\n     which served as a stair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step,\n     holding the lamp, and shooting keen glances to right and left. Miss\n     Morstan had remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.\n\n     The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some\n     length, with a great picture in Indian tapestry upon the right of it\n     and three doors upon the left. Holmes advanced along it in the same\n     slow and methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our\n     long black shadows streaming backwards down the corridor. The third\n     door was that which we were seeking. Holmes knocked without receiving\n     any answer, and then tried to turn the handle and force it open. It\n     was locked on the inside, however, and by a broad and powerful bolt,\n     as we could see when we set our lamp up against it. The key being\n     turned, however, the hole was not entirely closed. Sherlock Holmes\n     bent down to it, and instantly rose again with a sharp intaking of\n     the breath.\n\n     \"There is something devilish in this, Watson,\" said he, more moved\n     than I had ever before seen him. \"What do you make of it?\"\n\n     I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. Moonlight was\n     streaming into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shifty\n     radiance. Looking straight at me, and suspended, as it were, in the\n     air, for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a face,--the very face\n     of our companion Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head, the\n     same circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance.\n     The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and\n     unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring\n     to the nerves than any scowl or contortion. So like was the face to\n     that of our little friend that I looked round at him to make sure\n     that he was indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he had\n     mentioned to us that his brother and he were twins.\n\n     \"This is terrible!\" I said to Holmes. \"What is to be done?\"\n\n     \"The door must come down,\" he answered, and, springing against it, he\n     put all his weight upon the lock. It creaked and groaned, but did not\n     yield. Together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and this time\n     it gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within\n     Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.\n\n     It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A double\n     line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite\n     the door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners,\n     test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in\n     wicker baskets. One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken,\n     for a stream of dark-colored liquid had trickled out from it, and the\n     air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor. A set of\n     steps stood at one side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath\n     and plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling large\n     enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a long\n     coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.\n\n     By the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was\n     seated all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder, and\n     that ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold,\n     and had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only\n     his features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most\n     fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar\n     instrument,--a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a\n     hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn\n     sheet of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced\n     at it, and then handed it to me.\n\n     \"You see,\" he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows.\n\n     In the light of the lantern I read, with a thrill of horror, \"The\n     sign of the four.\"\n\n     \"In God's name, what does it all mean?\" I asked.\n\n     \"It means murder,\" said he, stooping over the dead man. \"Ah, I\n     expected it. Look here!\" He pointed to what looked like a long, dark\n     thorn stuck in the skin just above the ear.\n\n     \"It looks like a thorn,\" said I.\n\n     \"It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is\n     poisoned.\"\n\n     I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin\n     so readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of\n     blood showed where the puncture had been.\n\n     \"This is all an insoluble mystery to me,\" said I. \"It grows darker\n     instead of clearer.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" he answered, \"it clears every instant. I only\n     require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case.\"\n\n     We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the\n     chamber. He was still standing in the door-way, the very picture of\n     terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly, however,\n     he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.\n\n     \"The treasure is gone!\" he said. \"They have robbed him of the\n     treasure! There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped him\n     to do it! I was the last person who saw him! I left him here last\n     night, and I heard him lock the door as I came down-stairs.\"\n\n     \"What time was that?\"\n\n     \"It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be\n     called in, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh,\n     yes, I am sure I shall. But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely you\n     don't think that it was I? Is it likely that I would have brought you\n     here if it were I? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I know that I shall go mad!\"\n     He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive\n     frenzy.\n\n     \"You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto,\" said Holmes, kindly,\n     putting his hand upon his shoulder. \"Take my advice, and drive down\n     to the station to report this matter to the police. Offer to assist\n     them in every way. We shall wait here until your return.\"\n\n     The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him\n     stumbling down the stairs in the dark.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration\n\n\n     \"Now, Watson,\" said Holmes, rubbing his hands, \"we have half an hour\n     to ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told\n     you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of\n     over-confidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something\n     deeper underlying it.\"\n\n     \"Simple!\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"Surely,\" said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor\n     expounding to his class. \"Just sit in the corner there, that your\n     footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the first\n     place, how did these folk come, and how did they go? The door has not\n     been opened since last night. How of the window?\" He carried the lamp\n     across to it, muttering his observations aloud the while, but\n     addressing them to himself rather than to me. \"Window is snibbed on\n     the inner side. Framework is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us\n     open it. No water-pipe near. Roof quite out of reach. Yet a man has\n     mounted by the window. It rained a little last night. Here is the\n     print of a foot in mould upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy\n     mark, and here again upon the floor, and here again by the table. See\n     here, Watson! This is really a very pretty demonstration.\"\n\n     I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs. \"This is not a\n     footmark,\" said I.\n\n     \"It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a\n     wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot\n     with the broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the\n     timber-toe.\"\n\n     \"It is the wooden-legged man.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. But there has been some one else,--a very able and\n     efficient ally. Could you scale that wall, doctor?\"\n\n     I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on\n     that angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground,\n     and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a\n     crevice in the brick-work.\n\n     \"It is absolutely impossible,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who\n     lowered you this good stout rope which I see in the corner, securing\n     one end of it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I think, if you\n     were an active man, you might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You would\n     depart, of course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up\n     the rope, untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the\n     inside, and get away in the way that he originally came. As a minor\n     point it may be noted,\" he continued, fingering the rope, \"that our\n     wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional\n     sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than\n     one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I\n     gather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin\n     off his hand.\"\n\n     \"This is all very well,\" said I, \"but the thing becomes more\n     unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came he\n     into the room?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the ally!\" repeated Holmes, pensively. \"There are features of\n     interest about this ally. He lifts the case from the regions of the\n     commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals\n     of crime in this country,--though parallel cases suggest themselves\n     from India, and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia.\"\n\n     \"How came he, then?\" I reiterated. \"The door is locked, the window is\n     inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?\"\n\n     \"The grate is much too small,\" he answered. \"I had already considered\n     that possibility.\"\n\n     \"How then?\" I persisted.\n\n     \"You will not apply my precept,\" he said, shaking his head. \"How\n     often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible\n     whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that\n     he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also\n     know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is\n     no concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?\"\n\n     \"He came through the hole in the roof,\" I cried.\n\n     \"Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the\n     kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches\n     to the room above,--the secret room in which the treasure was found.\"\n\n     He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he\n     swung himself up into the garret. Then, lying on his face, he reached\n     down for the lamp and held it while I followed him.\n\n     The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way\n     and six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin\n     lath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from\n     beam to beam. The roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner\n     shell of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any\n     sort, and the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.\n\n     \"Here you are, you see,\" said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand\n     against the sloping wall. \"This is a trap-door which leads out on to\n     the roof. I can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping\n     at a gentle angle. This, then, is the way by which Number One\n     entered. Let us see if we can find one other traces of his\n     individuality.\"\n\n     He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the\n     second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his face.\n     For myself, as I followed his gaze my skin was cold under my clothes.\n     The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked\n     foot,--clear, well defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the\n     size of those of an ordinary man.\n\n     \"Holmes,\" I said, in a whisper, \"a child has done the horrid thing.\"\n\n     He had recovered his self-possession in an instant. \"I was staggered\n     for the moment,\" he said, \"but the thing is quite natural. My memory\n     failed me, or I should have been able to foretell it. There is\n     nothing more to be learned here. Let us go down.\"\n\n     \"What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?\" I asked, eagerly,\n     when we had regained the lower room once more.\n\n     \"My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself,\" said he, with a\n     touch of impatience. \"You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be\n     instructive to compare results.\"\n\n     \"I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts,\" I answered.\n\n     \"It will be clear enough to you soon,\" he said, in an off-hand way.\n     \"I think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will\n     look.\" He whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about\n     the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long\n     thin nose only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes\n     gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and\n     furtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound\n     picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible\n     criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity\n     against the law, instead of exerting them in its defense. As he\n     hunted about, he kept muttering to himself, and finally he broke out\n     into a loud crow of delight.\n\n     \"We are certainly in luck,\" said he. \"We ought to have very little\n     trouble now. Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the\n     creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here\n     at the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked,\n     You see, and the stuff has leaked out.\"\n\n     \"What then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Why, we have got him, that's all,\" said he. \"I know a dog that would\n     follow that scent to the world's end. If a pack can track a trailed\n     herring across a shire, how far can a specially-trained hound follow\n     so pungent a smell as this? It sounds like a sum in the rule of\n     three. The answer should give us the--But halloo! here are the\n     accredited representatives of the law.\"\n\n     Heavy steps and the clamor of loud voices were audible from below,\n     and the hall door shut with a loud crash.\n\n     \"Before they come,\" said Holmes, \"just put your hand here on this\n     poor fellow's arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?\"\n\n     \"The muscles are as hard as a board,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding\n     the usual rigor mortis. Coupled with this distortion of the face,\n     this Hippocratic smile, or 'risus sardonicus,' as the old writers\n     called it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?\"\n\n     \"Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid,\" I answered,--\"some\n     strychnine-like substance which would produce tetanus.\"\n\n     \"That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the drawn\n     muscles of the face. On getting into the room I at once looked for\n     the means by which the poison had entered the system. As you saw, I\n     discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force\n     into the scalp. You observe that the part struck was that which would\n     be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the man were erect in\n     his chair. Now examine the thorn.\"\n\n     I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. It was\n     long, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though\n     some gummy substance had dried upon it. The blunt end had been\n     trimmed and rounded off with a knife.\n\n     \"Is that an English thorn?\" he asked.\n\n     \"No, it certainly is not.\"\n\n     \"With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference.\n     But here are the regulars: so the auxiliary forces may beat a\n     retreat.\"\n\n     As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on\n     the passage, and a very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode\n     heavily into the room. He was red-faced, burly and plethoric, with a\n     pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from\n     between swollen and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an\n     inspector in uniform, and by the still palpitating Thaddeus Sholto.\n\n     \"Here's a business!\" he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. \"Here's a\n     pretty business! But who are all these? Why, the house seems to be as\n     full as a rabbit-warren!\"\n\n     \"I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones,\" said Holmes,\n     quietly.\n\n     \"Why, of course I do!\" he wheezed. \"It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the\n     theorist. Remember you! I'll never forget how you lectured us all on\n     causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewel case. It's\n     true you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was\n     more by good luck than good guidance.\"\n\n     \"It was a piece of very simple reasoning.\"\n\n     \"Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all\n     this? Bad business! Bad business! Stern facts here,--no room for\n     theories. How lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over another\n     case! I was at the station when the message arrived. What d'you think\n     the man died of?\"\n\n     \"Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over,\" said Holmes,\n     dryly.\n\n     \"No, no. Still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head\n     sometimes. Dear me! Door locked, I understand. Jewels worth half a\n     million missing. How was the window?\"\n\n     \"Fastened; but there are steps on the sill.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do\n     with the matter. That's common sense. Man might have died in a fit;\n     but then the jewels are missing. Ha! I have a theory. These flashes\n     come upon me at times.--Just step outside, sergeant, and you, Mr.\n     Sholto. Your friend can remain.--What do you think of this, Holmes?\n     Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The\n     brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure.\n     How's that?\"\n\n     \"On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door\n     on the inside.\"\n\n     \"Hum! There's a flaw there. Let us apply common sense to the matter.\n     This Thaddeus Sholto was with his brother; there was a quarrel; so\n     much we know. The brother is dead and the jewels are gone. So much\n     also we know. No one saw the brother from the time Thaddeus left him.\n     His bed had not been slept in. Thaddeus is evidently in a most\n     disturbed state of mind. His appearance is--well, not attractive. You\n     see that I am weaving my web round Thaddeus. The net begins to close\n     upon him.\"\n\n     \"You are not quite in possession of the facts yet,\" said Holmes.\n     \"This splinter of wood, which I have every reason to believe to be\n     poisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see the mark; this\n     card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay\n     this rather curious stone-headed instrument. How does all that fit\n     into your theory?\"\n\n     \"Confirms it in every respect,\" said the fat detective, pompously.\n     \"House is full of Indian curiosities. Thaddeus brought this up, and\n     if this splinter be poisonous Thaddeus may as well have made\n     murderous use of it as any other man. The card is some\n     hocus-pocus,--a blind, as like as not. The only question is, how did\n     he depart? Ah, of course, here is a hole in the roof.\" With great\n     activity, considering his bulk, he sprang up the steps and squeezed\n     through into the garret, and immediately afterwards we heard his\n     exulting voice proclaiming that he had found the trap-door.\n\n     \"He can find something,\" remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders.\n     \"He has occasional glimmerings of reason. Il n'y a pas des sots si\n     incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!\"\n\n     \"You see!\" said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again.\n     \"Facts are better than mere theories, after all. My view of the case\n     is confirmed. There is a trap-door communicating with the roof, and\n     it is partly open.\"\n\n     \"It was I who opened it.\"\n\n     \"Oh, indeed! You did notice it, then?\" He seemed a little crestfallen\n     at the discovery. \"Well, whoever noticed it, it shows how our\n     gentleman got away. Inspector!\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir,\" from the passage.\n\n     \"Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.--Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to\n     inform you that anything which you may say will be used against you.\n     I arrest you in the Queen's name as being concerned in the death of\n     your brother.\"\n\n     \"There, now! Didn't I tell you!\" cried the poor little man, throwing\n     out his hands, and looking from one to the other of us.\n\n     \"Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto,\" said Holmes. \"I think\n     that I can engage to clear you of the charge.\"\n\n     \"Don't promise too much, Mr. Theorist,--don't promise too much!\"\n     snapped the detective. \"You may find it a harder matter than you\n     think.\"\n\n     \"Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free\n     present of the name and description of one of the two people who were\n     in this room last night. His name, I have every reason to believe, is\n     Jonathan Small. He is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his\n     right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the\n     inner side. His left boot has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an\n     iron band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man, much sunburned,\n     and has been a convict. These few indications may be of some\n     assistance to you, coupled with the fact that there is a good deal of\n     skin missing from the palm of his hand. The other man--\"\n\n     \"Ah! the other man--?\" asked Athelney Jones, in a sneering voice, but\n     impressed none the less, as I could easily see, by the precision of\n     the other's manner.\n\n     \"Is a rather curious person,\" said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his\n     heel. \"I hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the\n     pair of them. A word with you, Watson.\"\n\n     He led me out to the head of the stair. \"This unexpected occurrence,\"\n     he said, \"has caused us rather to lose sight of the original purpose\n     of our journey.\"\n\n     \"I have just been thinking so,\" I answered. \"It is not right that\n     Miss Morstan should remain in this stricken house.\"\n\n     \"No. You must escort her home. She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester,\n     in Lower Camberwell: so it is not very far. I will wait for you here\n     if you will drive out again. Or perhaps you are too tired?\"\n\n     \"By no means. I don't think I could rest until I know more of this\n     fantastic business. I have seen something of the rough side of life,\n     but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange\n     surprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like,\n     however, to see the matter through with you, now that I have got so\n     far.\"\n\n     \"Your presence will be of great service to me,\" he answered. \"We\n     shall work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to\n     exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct. When you\n     have dropped Miss Morstan I wish you to go on to No. 3 Pinchin Lane,\n     down near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the\n     right-hand side is a bird-stuffer's: Sherman is the name. You will\n     see a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window. Knock old Sherman\n     up, and tell him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once. You\n     will bring Toby back in the cab with you.\"\n\n     \"A dog, I suppose.\"\n\n     \"Yes,--a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I would\n     rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of\n     London.\"\n\n     \"I shall bring him, then,\" said I. \"It is one now. I ought to be back\n     before three, if I can get a fresh horse.\"\n\n     \"And I,\" said Holmes, \"shall see what I can learn from Mrs.\n     Bernstone, and from the Indian servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tell me,\n     sleeps in the next garret. Then I shall study the great Jones's\n     methods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms. 'Wir sind\n     gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen.' Goethe\n     is always pithy.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          The Episode of the Barrel\n\n\n     The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss\n     Morstan back to her home. After the angelic fashion of women, she had\n     borne trouble with a calm face as long as there was some one weaker\n     than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the\n     side of the frightened housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first\n     turned faint, and then burst into a passion of weeping,--so sorely\n     had she been tried by the adventures of the night. She has told me\n     since that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. She\n     little guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of\n     self-restraint which held me back. My sympathies and my love went out\n     to her, even as my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the\n     conventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave\n     nature as had this one day of strange experiences. Yet there were two\n     thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She was\n     weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a\n     disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worse still,\n     she was rich. If Holmes's researches were successful, she would be an\n     heiress. Was it fair, was it honorable, that a half-pay surgeon\n     should take such advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought\n     about? Might she not look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker? I\n     could not bear to risk that such a thought should cross her mind.\n     This Agra treasure intervened like an impassable barrier between us.\n\n     It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The\n     servants had retired hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so\n     interested by the strange message which Miss Morstan had received\n     that she had sat up in the hope of her return. She opened the door\n     herself, a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how\n     tenderly her arm stole round the other's waist and how motherly was\n     the voice in which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere paid\n     dependant, but an honored friend. I was introduced, and Mrs.\n     Forrester earnestly begged me to step in and tell her our adventures.\n     I explained, however, the importance of my errand, and promised\n     faithfully to call and report any progress which we might make with\n     the case. As we drove away I stole a glance back, and I still seem to\n     see that little group on the step, the two graceful, clinging\n     figures, the half-opened door, the hall light shining through stained\n     glass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. It was soothing to\n     catch even that passing glimpse of a tranquil English home in the\n     midst of the wild, dark business which had absorbed us.\n\n     And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it\n     grew. I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I\n     rattled on through the silent gas-lit streets. There was the original\n     problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain\n     Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the\n     letter,--we had had light upon all those events. They had only led\n     us, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The Indian\n     treasure, the curious plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange\n     scene at Major Sholto's death, the rediscovery of the treasure\n     immediately followed by the murder of the discoverer, the very\n     singular accompaniments to the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable\n     weapons, the words upon the card, corresponding with those upon\n     Captain Morstan's chart,--here was indeed a labyrinth in which a man\n     less singularly endowed than my fellow-lodger might well despair of\n     ever finding the clue.\n\n     Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-storied brick houses in the\n     lower quarter of Lambeth. I had to knock for some time at No. 3\n     before I could make my impression. At last, however, there was the\n     glint of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the\n     upper window.\n\n     \"Go on, you drunken vagabone,\" said the face. \"If you kick up any\n     more row I'll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon\n     you.\"\n\n     \"If you'll let one out it's just what I have come for,\" said I.\n\n     \"Go on!\" yelled the voice. \"So help me gracious, I have a wiper in\n     the bag, an' I'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it.\"\n\n     \"But I want a dog,\" I cried.\n\n     \"I won't be argued with!\" shouted Mr. Sherman. \"Now stand clear, for\n     when I say 'three,' down goes the wiper.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Sherlock Holmes--\" I began, but the words had a most magical\n     effect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute\n     the door was unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old\n     man, with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted\n     glasses.\n\n     \"A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome,\" said he.  \"Step in,\n     sir. Keep clear of the badger; for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty,\n     would you take a nip at the gentleman?\" This to a stoat which thrust\n     its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. \"Don't\n     mind that, sir: it's only a slow-worm. It hain't got no fangs, so I\n     gives it the run o' the room, for it keeps the bettles down. You must\n     not mind my bein' just a little short wi' you at first, for I'm guyed\n     at by the children, and there's many a one just comes down this lane\n     to knock me up. What was it that Mr. Sherlock Holmes wanted, sir?\"\n\n     \"He wanted a dog of yours.\"\n\n     \"Ah! that would be Toby.\"\n\n     \"Yes, Toby was the name.\"\n\n     \"Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here.\" He moved slowly forward with\n     his candle among the queer animal family which he had gathered round\n     him. In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see dimly that there\n     were glancing, glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny\n     and corner. Even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn\n     fowls, who lazily shifted their weight from one leg to the other as\n     our voices disturbed their slumbers.\n\n     Toby proved to an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half spaniel\n     and half lurcher, brown-and-white in color, with a very clumsy\n     waddling gait. It accepted after some hesitation a lump of sugar\n     which the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an\n     alliance, it followed me to the cab, and made no difficulties about\n     accompanying me. It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I\n     found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. The\n     ex-prize-fighter McMurdo had, I found, been arrested as an accessory,\n     and both he and Mr. Sholto had been marched off to the station. Two\n     constables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me to pass with\n     the dog on my mentioning the detective's name.\n\n     Holmes was standing on the door-step, with his hands in his pockets,\n     smoking his pipe.\n\n     \"Ah, you have him there!\" said he. \"Good dog, then! Athelney Jones\n     has gone. We have had an immense display of energy since you left. He\n     has arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the\n     housekeeper, and the Indian servant. We have the place to ourselves,\n     but for a sergeant up-stairs. Leave the dog here, and come up.\"\n\n     We tied Toby to the hall table, and reascended the stairs. The room\n     was as we had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the\n     central figure. A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the\n     corner.\n\n     \"Lend me your bull's-eye, sergeant,\" said my companion. \"Now tie this\n     bit of card round my neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank\n     you. Now I must kick off my boots and stockings.--Just you carry them\n     down with you, Watson. I am going to do a little climbing. And dip my\n     handkerchief into the creasote. That will do. Now come up into the\n     garret with me for a moment.\"\n\n     We clambered up through the hole. Holmes turned his light once more\n     upon the footsteps in the dust.\n\n     \"I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks,\" he said. \"Do you\n     observe anything noteworthy about them?\"\n\n     \"They belong,\" I said, \"to a child or a small woman.\"\n\n     \"Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing else?\"\n\n     \"They appear to be much as other footmarks.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. Look here! This is the print of a right foot in the\n     dust. Now I make one with my naked foot beside it. What is the chief\n     difference?\"\n\n     \"Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe\n     distinctly divided.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in mind. Now, would you\n     kindly step over to that flap-window and smell the edge of the\n     wood-work? I shall stay here, as I have this handkerchief in my\n     hand.\"\n\n     I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry\n     smell.\n\n     \"That is where he put his foot in getting out. If you can trace him,\n     I should think that Toby will have no difficulty. Now run\n     down-stairs, loose the dog, and look out for Blondin.\"\n\n     By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on\n     the roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling\n     very slowly along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a stack of\n     chimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more\n     upon the opposite side. When I made my way round there I found him\n     seated at one of the corner eaves.\n\n     \"That You, Watson?\" he cried.\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"This is the place. What is that black thing down there?\"\n\n     \"A water-barrel.\"\n\n     \"Top on it?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"No sign of a ladder?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Confound the fellow! It's a most break-neck place. I ought to be\n     able to come down where he could climb up. The water-pipe feels\n     pretty firm. Here goes, anyhow.\"\n\n     There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily\n     down the side of the wall. Then with a light spring he came on to the\n     barrel, and from there to the earth.\n\n     \"It was easy to follow him,\" he said, drawing on his stockings and\n     boots. \"Tiles were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he\n     had dropped this. It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express\n     it.\"\n\n     The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven\n     out of colored grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round it.\n     In shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside were\n     half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the\n     other, like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.\n\n     \"They are hellish things,\" said he. \"Look out that you don't prick\n     yourself. I'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they\n     are all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one in\n     our skin before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself.\n     Are you game for a six-mile trudge, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Certainly,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Your leg will stand it?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes.\"\n\n     \"Here you are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!\" He\n     pushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the\n     creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most\n     comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of\n     a famous vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance,\n     fastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and let him to the\n     foot of the water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a\n     succession of high, tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the\n     ground, and his tail in the air, pattered off upon the trail at a\n     pace which strained his leash and kept us at the top of our speed.\n\n     The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some\n     distance in the cold gray light. The square, massive house, with its\n     black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and\n     forlorn, behind us. Our course let right across the grounds, in and\n     out among the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and\n     intersected. The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and\n     ill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized\n     with the black tragedy which hung over it.\n\n     On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly,\n     underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a\n     young beech. Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been\n     loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the\n     lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.\n     Holmes clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over\n     upon the other side.\n\n     \"There's the print of wooden-leg's hand,\" he remarked, as I mounted\n     up beside him. \"You see the slight smudge of blood upon the white\n     plaster. What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy rain\n     since yesterday! The scent will lie upon the road in spite of their\n     eight-and-twenty hours' start.\"\n\n     I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great\n     traffic which had passed along the London road in the interval. My\n     fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated or swerved,\n     but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly, the pungent\n     smell of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.\n\n     \"Do not imagine,\" said Holmes, \"that I depend for my success in this\n     case upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his foot\n     in the chemical. I have knowledge now which would enable me to trace\n     them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest and,\n     since fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I\n     neglected it. It has, however, prevented the case from becoming the\n     pretty little intellectual problem which it at one time promised to\n     be. There might have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for\n     this too palpable clue.\"\n\n     \"There is credit, and to spare,\" said I. \"I assure you, Holmes, that\n     I marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case,\n     even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope Murder. The thing seems to\n     me to be deeper and more inexplicable. How, for example, could you\n     describe with such confidence the wooden-legged man?\"\n\n     \"Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. I don't wish to be\n     theatrical. It is all patent and above-board. Two officers who are in\n     command of a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried\n     treasure. A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan\n     Small. You remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain\n     Morstan's possession. He had signed it in behalf of himself and his\n     associates,--the sign of the four, as he somewhat dramatically called\n     it. Aided by this chart, the officers--or one of them--gets the\n     treasure and brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, some\n     condition under which he received it unfulfilled. Now, then, why did\n     not Jonathan Small get the treasure himself? The answer is obvious.\n     The chart is dated at a time when Morstan was brought into close\n     association with convicts. Jonathan Small did not get the treasure\n     because he and his associates were themselves convicts and could not\n     get away.\"\n\n     \"But that is mere speculation,\" said I.\n\n     \"It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis which covers the\n     facts. Let us see how it fits in with the sequel. Major Sholto\n     remains at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his\n     treasure. Then he receives a letter from India which gives him a\n     great fright. What was that?\"\n\n     \"A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free.\"\n\n     \"Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for he would have known\n     what their term of imprisonment was. It would not have been a\n     surprise to him. What does he do then? He guards himself against a\n     wooden-legged man,--a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white\n     tradesman for him, and actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one\n     white man's name is on the chart. The others are Hindoos or\n     Mohammedans. There is no other white man. Therefore we may say with\n     confidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan\n     Small. Does the reasoning strike yo as being faulty?\"\n\n     \"No: it is clear and concise.\"\n\n     \"Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small. Let\n     us look at it from his point of view. He comes to England with the\n     double idea of regaining what he would consider to be his rights and\n     of having his revenge upon the man who had wronged him. He found out\n     where Sholto lived, and very possibly he established communications\n     with some one inside the house. There is this butler, Lal Rao, whom\n     we have not seen. Mrs. Bernstone gives him far from a good character.\n     Small could not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no\n     one ever knew, save the major and one faithful servant who had died.\n     Suddenly Small learns that the major is on his death-bed. In a frenzy\n     lest the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs the gauntlet of\n     the guards, makes his way to the dying man's window, and is only\n     deterred from entering by the presence of his two sons. Mad with\n     hate, however, against the dead man, he enters the room that night,\n     searches his private papers in the hope of discovering some\n     memorandum relating to the treasure, and finally leaves a memento of\n     his visit in the short inscription upon the card. He had doubtless\n     planned beforehand that should he slay the major he would leave some\n     such record upon the body as a sign that it was not a common murder,\n     but, from the point of view of the four associates, something in the\n     nature of an act of justice. Whimsical and bizarre conceits of this\n     kind are common enough in the annals of crime, and usually afford\n     valuable indications as to the criminal. Do you follow all this?\"\n\n     \"Very clearly.\"\n\n     \"Now, what could Jonathan Small do? He could only continue to keep a\n     secret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he\n     leaves England and only comes back at intervals. Then comes the\n     discovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it. We again\n     trace the presence of some confederate in the household. Jonathan,\n     with his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty room of\n     Bartholomew Sholto. He takes with him, however, a rather curious\n     associate, who gets over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot\n     into creasote, whence come Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay\n     officer with a damaged tendo Achillis.\"\n\n     \"But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who committed the\n     crime.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way the\n     stamped about when he got into the room. He bore no grudge against\n     Bartholomew Sholto, and would have preferred if he could have been\n     simply bound and gagged. He did not wish to put his head in a halter.\n     There was no help for it, however: the savage instincts of his\n     companion had broken out, and the poison had done its work: so\n     Jonathan Small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the\n     ground, and followed it himself. That was the train of events as far\n     as I can decipher them. Of course as to his personal appearance he\n     must be middle-aged, and must be sunburned after serving his time in\n     such an oven as the Andamans. His height is readily calculated from\n     the length of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. His\n     hairiness was the one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus\n     Sholto when he saw him at the window. I don't know that there is\n     anything else.\"\n\n     \"The associate?\"\n\n     \"Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know all\n     about it soon enough. How sweet the morning air is! See how that one\n     little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo.\n     Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank.\n     It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a\n     stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty\n     ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces\n     of nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?\"\n\n     \"Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle.\"\n\n     \"That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one\n     curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man's real\n     greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you\n     see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a\n     proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You\n     have not a pistol, have you?\"\n\n     \"I have my stick.\"\n\n     \"It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get\n     to their lair. Jonathan I shall leave to you, but if the other turns\n     nasty I shall shoot him dead.\" He took out his revolver as he spoke,\n     and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the\n     right-hand pocket of his jacket.\n\n     We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the\n     half-rural villa-lined roads which lead to the metropolis. Now,\n     however, we were beginning to come among continuous streets, where\n     laborers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were\n     taking down shutters and brushing door-steps. At the square-topped\n     corner public houses business was just beginning, and rough-looking\n     men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after\n     their morning wet. Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly\n     at us as we passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither to the\n     right nor to the left, but trotted onwards with his nose to the\n     ground and an occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.\n\n     We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found\n     ourselves in Kennington Lane, having borne away through the\n     side-streets to the east of the Oval. The men whom we pursued seemed\n     to have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of\n     escaping observation. They had never kept to the main road if a\n     parallel side-street would serve their turn. At the foot of\n     Kennington Lane they had edged away to the left through Bond Street\n     and Miles Street. Where the latter street turns into Knight's Place,\n     Toby ceased to advance, but began to run backwards and forwards with\n     one ear cocked and the other drooping, the very picture of canine\n     indecision. Then he waddled round in circles, looking up to us from\n     time to time, as if to ask for sympathy in his embarrassment.\n\n     \"What the deuce is the matter with the dog?\" growled Holmes. \"They\n     surely would not take a cab, or go off in a balloon.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps they stood here for some time,\" I suggested.\n\n     \"Ah! it's all right. He's off again,\" said my companion, in a tone of\n     relief.\n\n     He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up\n     his mind, and darted away with an energy and determination such as he\n     had not yet shown. The scent appeared to be much hotter than before,\n     for he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his\n     leash and tried to break into a run. I cold see by the gleam in\n     Holmes's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our journey.\n\n     Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and\n     Nelson's large timber-yard, just past the White Eagle tavern. Here\n     the dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side-gate\n     into the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work. On the\n     dog raced through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a\n     passage, between two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp,\n     sprang upon a large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley on\n     which it had been brought. With lolling tongue and blinking eyes,\n     Toby stood upon the cask, looking from one to the other of us for\n     some sign of appreciation. The staves of the barrel and the wheels of\n     the trolley were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was\n     heavy with the smell of creasote.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other, and then burst\n     simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VIII\n          The Baker Street Irregulars\n\n\n     \"What now?\" I asked. \"Toby has lost his character for infallibility.\"\n\n     \"He acted according to his lights,\" said Holmes, lifting him down\n     from the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard. \"If you\n     consider how much creasote is carted about London in one day, it is\n     no great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. It is much\n     used now, especially for the seasoning of wood. Poor Toby is not to\n     blame.\"\n\n     \"We must get on the main scent again, I suppose.\"\n\n     \"Yes. And, fortunately, we have no distance to go. Evidently what\n     puzzled the dog at the corner of Knight's Place was that there were\n     two different trails running in opposite directions. We took the\n     wrong one. It only remains to follow the other.\"\n\n     There was no difficulty about this. On leading Toby to the place\n     where he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and\n     finally dashed off in a fresh direction.\n\n     \"We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where\n     the creasote-barrel came from,\" I observed.\n\n     \"I had thought of that. But you notice that he keeps on the pavement,\n     whereas the barrel passed down the roadway. No, we are on the true\n     scent now.\"\n\n     It tended down towards the river-side, running through Belmont Place\n     and Prince's Street. At the end of Broad Street it ran right down to\n     the water's edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. Toby led us\n     to the very edge of this, and there stood whining, looking out on the\n     dark current beyond.\n\n     \"We are out of luck,\" said Holmes. \"They have taken to a boat here.\"\n     Several small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and on\n     the edge of the wharf. We took Toby round to each in turn, but,\n     though he sniffed earnestly, he made no sign.\n\n     Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a\n     wooden placard slung out through the second window. \"Mordecai Smith\"\n     was printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, \"Boats to\n     hire by the hour or day.\" A second inscription above the door\n     informed us that a steam launch was kept,--a statement which was\n     confirmed by a great pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes\n     looked slowly round, and his face assumed an ominous expression.\n\n     \"This looks bad,\" said he. \"These fellows are sharper than I\n     expected. They seem to have covered their tracks. There has, I fear,\n     been preconcerted management here.\"\n\n     He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a\n     little, curly-headed lad of six came running out, followed by a\n     stoutish, red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.\n\n     \"You come back and be washed, Jack,\" she shouted. \"Come back, you\n     young imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that,\n     he'll let us hear of it.\"\n\n     \"Dear little chap!\" said Holmes, strategically. \"What a rosy-cheeked\n     young rascal! Now, Jack, is there anything you would like?\"\n\n     The youth pondered for a moment. \"I'd like a shillin',\" said he.\n\n     \"Nothing you would like better?\"\n\n     \"I'd like two shillin' better,\" the prodigy answered, after some\n     thought.\n\n     \"Here you are, then! Catch!--A fine child, Mrs. Smith!\"\n\n     \"Lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He gets a'most too\n     much for me to manage, 'specially when my man is away days at a\n     time.\"\n\n     \"Away, is he?\" said Holmes, in a disappointed voice. \"I am sorry for\n     that, for I wanted to speak to Mr. Smith.\"\n\n     \"He's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell, I\n     am beginnin' to feel frightened about him. But if it was about a\n     boat, sir, maybe I could serve as well.\"\n\n     \"I wanted to hire his steam launch.\"\n\n     \"Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone.\n     That's what puzzles me; for I know there ain't more coals in her than\n     would take her to about Woolwich and back. If he'd been away in the\n     barge I'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him as\n     far as Gravesend, and then if there was much doin' there he might ha'\n     stayed over. But what good is a steam launch without coals?\"\n\n     \"He might have bought some at a wharf down the river.\"\n\n     \"He might, sir, but it weren't his way. Many a time I've heard him\n     call out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I\n     don't like that wooden-legged man, wi' his ugly face and outlandish\n     talk. What did he want always knockin' about here for?\"\n\n     \"A wooden-legged man?\" said Holmes, with bland surprise.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once for\n     my old man. It was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what's\n     more, my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up in the launch. I\n     tell you straight, sir, I don't feel easy in my mind about it.\"\n\n     \"But, my dear Mrs. Smith,\" said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders, \"You\n     are frightening yourself about nothing. How could you possibly tell\n     that it was the wooden-legged man who came in the night? I don't\n     quite understand how you can be so sure.\"\n\n     \"His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy.\n     He tapped at the winder,--about three it would be. 'Show a leg,\n     matey,' says he: 'time to turn out guard.' My old man woke up\n     Jim,--that's my eldest,--and away they went, without so much as a\n     word to me. I could hear the wooden leg clackin' on the stones.\"\n\n     \"And was this wooden-legged man alone?\"\n\n     \"Couldn't say, I am sure, sir. I didn't hear no one else.\"\n\n     \"I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have\n     heard good reports of the--Let me see, what is her name?\"\n\n     \"The Aurora, sir.\"\n\n     \"Ah! She's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad\n     in the beam?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed. She's as trim a little thing as any on the river. She's\n     been fresh painted, black with two red streaks.\"\n\n     \"Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith. I am going\n     down the river; and if I should see anything of the Aurora I shall\n     let him know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you say?\"\n\n     \"No, sir. Black with a white band.\"\n\n     \"Ah, of course. It was the sides which were black. Good-morning, Mrs.\n     Smith.--There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take\n     it and cross the river.\n\n     \"The main thing with people of that sort,\" said Holmes, as we sat in\n     the sheets of the wherry, \"is never to let them think that their\n     information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do,\n     they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them\n     under protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.\"\n\n     \"Our course now seems pretty clear,\" said I.\n\n     \"What would you do, then?\"\n\n     \"I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the\n     Aurora.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She may have touched at\n     any wharf on either side of the stream between here and Greenwich.\n     Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for\n     miles. It would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set\n     about it alone.\"\n\n     \"Employ the police, then.\"\n\n     \"No. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He\n     is not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would\n     injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out\n     myself, now that we have gone so far.\"\n\n     \"Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?\"\n\n     \"Worse and worse! Our men would know that the chase was hot at their\n     heels, and they would be off out of the country. As it is, they are\n     likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly\n     safe they will be in no hurry. Jones's energy will be of use to us\n     there, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the daily\n     press, and the runaways will think that every one is off on the wrong\n     scent.\"\n\n     \"What are we to do, then?\" I asked, as we landed near Millbank\n     Penitentiary.\n\n     \"Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's\n     sleep. It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again.\n     Stop at a telegraph-office, cabby! We will keep Toby, for he may be\n     of use to us yet.\"\n\n     We pulled up at the Great Peter Street post-office, and Holmes\n     despatched his wire. \"Whom do you think that is to?\" he asked, as we\n     resumed our journey.\n\n     \"I am sure I don't know.\"\n\n     \"You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police force\n     whom I employed in the Jefferson Hope case?\"\n\n     \"Well,\" said I, laughing.\n\n     \"This is just the case where they might be invaluable. If they fail,\n     I have other resources; but I shall try them first. That wire was to\n     my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his\n     gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.\"\n\n     It was between eight and nine o'clock now, and I was conscious of a\n     strong reaction after the successive excitements of the night. I was\n     limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in body. I had not the\n     professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could I\n     look at the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem. As far as\n     the death of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little good of him,\n     and could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers. The treasure,\n     however, was a different matter. That, or part of it, belonged\n     rightfully to Miss Morstan. While there was a chance of recovering it\n     I was ready to devote my life to the one object. True, if I found it\n     it would probably put her forever beyond my reach. Yet it would be a\n     petty and selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as\n     that. If Holmes could work to find the criminals, I had a tenfold\n     stronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure.\n\n     A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up\n     wonderfully. When I came down to our room I found the breakfast laid\n     and Holmes pouring out the coffee.\n\n     \"Here it is,\" said he, laughing, and pointing to an open newspaper.\n     \"The energetic Jones and the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up\n     between them. But you have had enough of the case. Better have your\n     ham and eggs first.\"\n\n     I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed\n     \"Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood.\"\n\n     \"About twelve o'clock last night,\" said the Standard, \"Mr.\n     Bartholomew Sholto, of Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found\n     dead in his room under circumstances which point to foul play. As far\n     as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr.\n     Sholto's person, but a valuable collection of Indian gems which the\n     deceased gentleman had inherited from his father has been carried\n     off. The discovery was first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr.\n     Watson, who had called at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother\n     of the deceased. By a singular piece of good fortune, Mr. Athelney\n     Jones, the well-known member of the detective police force, happened\n     to be at the Norwood Police Station, and was on the ground within\n     half an hour of the first alarm. His trained and experienced\n     faculties were at once directed towards the detection of the\n     criminals, with the gratifying result that the brother, Thaddeus\n     Sholto, has already been arrested, together with the housekeeper,\n     Mrs. Bernstone, an Indian butler named Lal Rao, and a porter, or\n     gatekeeper, named McMurdo. It is quite certain that the thief or\n     thieves were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones's\n     well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation\n     have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not\n     have entered by the door or by the window, but must have made their\n     way across the roof of the building, and so through a trap-door into\n     a room which communicated with that in which the body was found. This\n     fact, which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that\n     it was no mere haphazard burglary. The prompt and energetic action of\n     the officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on\n     such occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind. We cannot but\n     think that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to see our\n     detectives more decentralized, and so brought into closer and more\n     effective touch with the cases which it is their duty to\n     investigate.\"\n\n     \"Isn't it gorgeous!\" said Holmes, grinning over his coffee-cup. \"What\n     do you think of it?\"\n\n     \"I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested\n     for the crime.\"\n\n     \"So do I. I wouldn't answer for our safety now, if he should happen\n     to have another of his attacks of energy.\"\n\n     At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear\n     Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of\n     expostulation and dismay.\n\n     \"By heaven, Holmes,\" I said, half rising, \"I believe that they are\n     really after us.\"\n\n     \"No, it's not quite so bad as that. It is the unofficial force,--the\n     Baker Street irregulars.\"\n\n     As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the\n     stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and\n     ragged little street-Arabs. There was some show of discipline among\n     them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in\n     line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number,\n     taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of\n     lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable\n     little carecrow.\n\n     \"Got your message, sir,\" said he, \"and brought 'em on sharp. Three\n     bob and a tanner for tickets.\"\n\n     \"Here you are,\" said Holmes, producing some silver. \"In future they\n     can report to you, Wiggins, and you to me. I cannot have the house\n     invaded in this way. However, it is just as well that you should all\n     hear the instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam\n     launch called the Aurora, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red\n     streaks, funnel black with a white band. She is down the river\n     somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith's landing-stage\n     opposite Millbank to say if the boat comes back. You must divide it\n     out among yourselves, and do both banks thoroughly. Let me know the\n     moment you have news. Is that all clear?\"\n\n     \"Yes, guv'nor,\" said Wiggins.\n\n     \"The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat.\n     Here's a day in advance. Now off you go!\" He handed them a shilling\n     each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them a moment\n     later streaming down the street.\n\n     \"If the launch is above water they will find her,\" said Holmes, as he\n     rose from the table and lit his pipe. \"They can go everywhere, see\n     everything, overhear every one. I expect to hear before evening that\n     they have spotted her. In the mean while, we can do nothing but await\n     results. We cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the\n     Aurora or Mr. Mordecai Smith.\"\n\n     \"Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are you going to bed,\n     Holmes?\"\n\n     \"No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember\n     feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. I am\n     going to smoke and to think over this queer business to which my fair\n     client has introduced us. If ever man had an easy task, this of ours\n     ought to be. Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other man\n     must, I should think, be absolutely unique.\"\n\n     \"That other man again!\"\n\n     \"I have no wish to make a mystery of him,--to you, anyway. But you\n     must have formed your own opinion. Now, do consider the data.\n     Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet,\n     stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. What\n     do you make of all this?\"\n\n     \"A savage!\" I exclaimed. \"Perhaps one of those Indians who were the\n     associates of Jonathan Small.\"\n\n     \"Hardly that,\" said he. \"When first I saw signs of strange weapons I\n     was inclined to think so; but the remarkable character of the\n     footmarks caused me to reconsider my views. Some of the inhabitants\n     of the Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such\n     marks as that. The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The\n     sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the\n     others, because the thong is commonly passed between. These little\n     darts, too, could only be shot in one way. They are from a blow-pipe.\n     Now, then, where are we to find our savage?\"\n\n     \"South American,\" I hazarded.\n\n     He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the\n     shelf. \"This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being\n     published. It may be looked upon as the very latest authority. What\n     have we here? 'Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the north of\n     Sumatra, in the Bay of Bengal.' Hum! hum!  What's all this? Moist\n     climate, coral reefs, sharks, Port Blair, convict-barracks, Rutland\n     Island, cottonwoods--Ah, here we are. 'The aborigines of the Andaman\n     Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race\n     upon this earth, though some anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of\n     Africa, the Digger Indians of America, and the Terra del Fuegians.\n     The average height is rather below four feet, although many\n     full-grown adults may be found who are very much smaller than this.\n     They are a fierce, morose, and intractable people, though capable of\n     forming most devoted friendships when their confidence has once been\n     gained.' Mark that, Watson. Now, then, listen to this. 'They are\n     naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes,\n     and distorted features. Their feet and hands, however, are remarkably\n     small. So intractable and fierce are they that all the efforts of the\n     British official have failed to win them over in any degree. They\n     have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the\n     survivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them with their\n     poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by a\n     cannibal feast.' Nice, amiable people, Watson! If this fellow had\n     been left to his own unaided devices this affair might have taken an\n     even more ghastly turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small\n     would give a good deal not to have employed him.\"\n\n     \"But how came he to have so singular a companion?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already\n     determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very\n     wonderful that this islander should be with him. No doubt we shall\n     know all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly\n     done. Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep.\"\n\n     He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out\n     he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,--his own, no doubt,\n     for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague\n     remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and\n     fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a\n     soft sea of sound, until I found myself in dream-land, with the sweet\n     face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IX\n          A Break in the Chain\n\n\n     It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and\n     refreshed. Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save\n     that he had laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked\n     across at me, as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and\n     troubled.\n\n     \"You have slept soundly,\" he said. \"I feared that our talk would wake\n     you.\"\n\n     \"I heard nothing,\" I answered. \"Have you had fresh news, then?\"\n\n     \"Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and disappointed. I\n     expected something definite by this time.  Wiggins has just been up\n     to report. He says that no trace can be found of the launch. It is a\n     provoking check, for every hour is of importance.\"\n\n     \"Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for\n     another night's outing.\"\n\n     \"No, we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves, the\n     message might come in our absence, and delay be caused. You can do\n     what you will, but I must remain on guard.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil\n     Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday.\"\n\n     \"On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?\" asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile\n     in his eyes.\n\n     \"Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what\n     happened.\"\n\n     \"I would not tell them too much,\" said Holmes. \"Women are never to be\n     entirely trusted,--not the best of them.\"\n\n     I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. \"I shall be\n     back in an hour or two,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you\n     may as well return Toby, for I don't think it is at all likely that\n     we shall have any use for him now.\"\n\n     I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a\n     half-sovereign, at the old naturalist's in Pinchin Lane. At\n     Camberwell I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night's\n     adventures, but very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was\n     full of curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing,\n     however, the more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I\n     spoke of Mr. Sholto's death, I said nothing of the exact manner and\n     method of it. With all my omissions, however, there was enough to\n     startle and amaze them.\n\n     \"It is a romance!\" cried Mrs. Forrester. \"An injured lady, half a\n     million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian.\n     They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.\"\n\n     \"And two knight-errants to the rescue,\" added Miss Morstan, with a\n     bright glance at me.\n\n     \"Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I\n     don't think that you are nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it\n     must be to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!\"\n\n     It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed\n     no sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss\n     of her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took\n     small interest.\n\n     \"It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,\" she said. \"Nothing\n     else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most\n     kindly and honorably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this\n     dreadful and unfounded charge.\"\n\n     It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I\n     reached home. My companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he\n     had disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but\n     there was none.\n\n     \"I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,\" I said to Mrs. \n     Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.\n\n     \"No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,\" sinking\n     her voice into an impressive whisper, \"I am afraid for his health?\"\n\n     \"Why so, Mrs. Hudson?\"\n\n     \"Well, he's that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he\n     walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound\n     of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering,\n     and every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with 'What\n     is that, Mrs. Hudson?' And now he has slammed off to his room, but I\n     can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he's not going to\n     be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling\n     medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't\n     know how ever I got out of the room.\"\n\n     \"I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson,\" I\n     answered. \"I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter\n     upon his mind which makes him restless.\" I tried to speak lightly to\n     our worthy landlady, but I was myself somewhat uneasy when through\n     the long night I still from time to time heard the dull sound of his\n     tread, and knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this\n     involuntary inaction.\n\n     At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of\n     feverish color upon either cheek.\n\n     \"You are knocking yourself up, old man,\" I remarked. \"I heard you\n     marching about in the night.\"\n\n     \"No, I could not sleep,\" he answered. \"This infernal problem is\n     consuming me. It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle,\n     when all else had been overcome. I know the men, the launch,\n     everything; and yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at\n     work, and used every means at my disposal. The whole river has been\n     searched on either side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith\n     heard of her husband. I shall come to the conclusion soon that they\n     have scuttled the craft. But there are objections to that.\"\n\n     \"Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent.\"\n\n     \"No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and there\n     is a launch of that description.\"\n\n     \"Could it have gone up the river?\"\n\n     \"I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party\n     who will work up as far as Richmond. If no news comes to-day, I shall\n     start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat.\n     But surely, surely, we shall hear something.\"\n\n     We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or\n     from the other agencies. There were articles in most of the papers\n     upon the Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be rather hostile to\n     the unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh details were to be found,\n     however, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the\n     following day. I walked over to Camberwell in the evening to report\n     our ill success to the ladies, and on my return I found Holmes\n     dejected and somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my questions,\n     and busied himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which\n     involved much heating of retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at\n     last in a smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the\n     small hours of the morning I could hear the clinking of his\n     test-tubes which told me that he was still engaged in his malodorous\n     experiment.\n\n     In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him\n     standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a\n     pea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.\n\n     \"I am off down the river, Watson,\" said he. \"I have been turning it\n     over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is worth\n     trying, at all events.\"\n\n     \"Surely I can come with you, then?\" said I.\n\n     \"No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my\n     representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that\n     some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent\n     about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and\n     to act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon\n     you?\"\n\n     \"Most certainly.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can\n     hardly tell yet where I may find myself. If I am in luck, however, I\n     may not be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort or other\n     before I get back.\"\n\n     I had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time. On opening the\n     Standard, however, I found that there was a fresh allusion to the\n     business.\n\n     \"With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy,\" it remarked, \"we have\n     reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more complex\n     and mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has shown\n     that it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have been\n     in any way concerned in the matter. He and the housekeeper, Mrs.\n     Bernstone, were both released yesterday evening. It is believed,\n     however, that the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and\n     that it is being prosecuted by Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard,\n     with all his well-known energy and sagacity. Further arrests may be\n     expected at any moment.\"\n\n     \"That is satisfactory so far as it goes,\" thought I. \"Friend Sholto\n     is safe, at any rate. I wonder what the fresh clue may be; though it\n     seems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a\n     blunder.\"\n\n     I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye\n     caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way:\n\n     \"Lost.--Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left\n     Smith's Wharf at or about three o'clock last Tuesday morning in the\n     steam launch Aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a\n     white band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can\n     give information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith's Wharf, or at 221b Baker\n     Street, as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the\n     launch Aurora.\"\n\n     This was clearly Holmes's doing. The Baker Street address was enough\n     to prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be\n     read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the\n     natural anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.\n\n     It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a\n     sharp step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either Holmes\n     returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to read, but my\n     thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the\n     ill-assorted and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there\n     be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning. Might\n     he be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible\n     that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory\n     upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong; and yet the\n     keenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I\n     thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his\n     logic,--his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a\n     plainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the\n     other hand, I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the\n     reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on the long chain of\n     curious circumstances, many of them trivial in themselves, but all\n     tending in the same direction, I could not disguise from myself that\n     even if Holmes's explanation were incorrect the true theory must be\n     equally outré and startling.\n\n     At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell,\n     an authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a\n     person than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me. Very different was\n     he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense\n     who had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His\n     expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.\n\n     \"Good-day, sir; good-day,\" said he. \"Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I\n     understand.\"\n\n     \"Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you\n     would care to wait. Take that chair and try one of these cigars.\"\n\n     \"Thank you; I don't mind if I do,\" said he, mopping his face with a\n     red bandanna handkerchief.\n\n     \"And a whiskey-and-soda?\"\n\n     \"Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year; and I have\n     had a good deal to worry and try me. You know my theory about this\n     Norwood case?\"\n\n     \"I remember that you expressed one.\"\n\n     \"Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn\n     tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in the\n     middle of it. He was able to prove an alibi which could not be\n     shaken. From the time that he left his brother's room he was never\n     out of sight of some one or other. So it could not be he who climbed\n     over roofs and through trap-doors. It's a very dark case, and my\n     professional credit is at stake. I should be very glad of a little\n     assistance.\"\n\n     \"We all need help sometimes,\" said I.\n\n     \"Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir,\" said he,\n     in a husky and confidential voice. \"He's a man who is not to be beat.\n     I have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I never\n     saw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is\n     irregular in his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at\n     theories, but, on the whole, I think he would have made a most\n     promising officer, and I don't care who knows it. I have had a wire\n     from him this morning, by which I understand that he has got some\n     clue to this Sholto business. Here is the message.\"\n\n     He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was\n     dated from Poplar at twelve o'clock. \"Go to Baker Street at once,\" it\n     said. \"If I have not returned, wait for me. I am close on the track\n     of the Sholto gang. You can come with us to-night if you want to be\n     in at the finish.\"\n\n     \"This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again,\" said\n     I.\n\n     \"Ah, then he has been at fault too,\" exclaimed Jones, with evident\n     satisfaction. \"Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. Of\n     course this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an\n     officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is some one\n     at the door. Perhaps this is he.\"\n\n     A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and\n     rattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. Once or\n     twice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at\n     last he made his way to our door and entered. His appearance\n     corresponded to the sounds which we had heard. He was an aged man,\n     clad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his\n     throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing\n     was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his\n     shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had\n     a colored scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face\n     save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and\n     long gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a\n     respectable master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.\n\n     \"What is it, my man?\" I asked.\n\n     He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.\n\n     \"Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?\" said he.\n\n     \"No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have\n     for him.\"\n\n     \"It was to him himself I was to tell it,\" said he.\n\n     \"But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai\n     Smith's boat?\"\n\n     \"Yes. I knows well where it is. An' I knows where the men he is after\n     are. An' I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it.\"\n\n     \"Then tell me, and I shall let him know.\"\n\n     \"It was to him I was to tell it,\" he repeated, with the petulant\n     obstinacy of a very old man.\n\n     \"Well, you must wait for him.\"\n\n     \"No, no; I ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr.\n     Holmes ain't here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself.\n     I don't care about the look of either of you, and I won't tell a\n     word.\"\n\n     He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.\n\n     \"Wait a bit, my friend,\" said he. \"You have important information,\n     and you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or\n     not, until our friend returns.\"\n\n     The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney\n     Jones put his broad back up against it, he recognized the uselessness\n     of resistance.\n\n     \"Pretty sort o' treatment this!\" he cried, stamping his stick. \"I\n     come here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my\n     life, seize me and treat me in this fashion!\"\n\n     \"You will be none the worse,\" I said. \"We shall recompense you for\n     the loss of your time. Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not\n     have long to wait.\"\n\n     He came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face\n     resting on his hands. Jones and I resumed our cigars and our talk.\n     Suddenly, however, Holmes's voice broke in upon us.\n\n     \"I think that you might offer me a cigar too,\" he said.\n\n     We both started in our chairs. There was Holmes sitting close to us\n     with an air of quiet amusement.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" I exclaimed. \"You here! But where is the old man?\"\n\n     \"Here is the old man,\" said he, holding out a heap of white hair.\n     \"Here he is,--wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise\n     was pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that\n     test.\"\n\n     \"Ah, you rogue!\" cried Jones, highly delighted. \"You would have made\n     an actor, and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough, and\n     those weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. I thought I knew\n     the glint of your eye, though. You didn't get away from us so easily,\n     you see.\"\n\n     \"I have been working in that get-up all day,\" said he, lighting his\n     cigar. \"You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know\n     me,--especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my\n     cases: so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise\n     like this. You got my wire?\"\n\n     \"Yes; that was what brought me here.\"\n\n     \"How has your case prospered?\"\n\n     \"It has all come to nothing. I have had to release two of my\n     prisoners, and there is no evidence against the other two.\"\n\n     \"Never mind. We shall give you two others in the place of them. But\n     you must put yourself under my orders. You are welcome to all the\n     official credit, but you must act on the line that I point out. Is\n     that agreed?\"\n\n     \"Entirely, if you will help me to the men.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat--a\n     steam launch--to be at the Westminster Stairs at seven o'clock.\"\n\n     \"That is easily managed. There is always one about there; but I can\n     step across the road and telephone to make sure.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance.\"\n\n     \"There will be two or three in the boat. What else?\"\n\n     \"When we secure the men we shall get the treasure. I think that it\n     would be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the\n     young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her be the\n     first to open it.--Eh, Watson?\"\n\n     \"It would be a great pleasure to me.\"\n\n     \"Rather an irregular proceeding,\" said Jones, shaking his head.\n     \"However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink at\n     it. The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the authorities\n     until after the official investigation.\"\n\n     \"Certainly. That is easily managed. One other point. I should much\n     like to have a few details about this matter from the lips of\n     Jonathan Small himself. You know I like to work the detail of my\n     cases out. There is no objection to my having an unofficial interview\n     with him, either here in my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is\n     efficiently guarded?\"\n\n     \"Well, you are master of the situation. I have had no proof yet of\n     the existence of this Jonathan Small. However, if you can catch him I\n     don't see how I can refuse you an interview with him.\"\n\n     \"That is understood, then?\"\n\n     \"Perfectly. Is there anything else?\"\n\n     \"Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in\n     half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a\n     little choice in white wines.--Watson, you have never yet recognized\n     my merits as a housekeeper.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER X\n          The End of the Islander\n\n\n     Our meal was a merry one. Holmes coud talk exceedingly well when he\n     chose, and that night he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of\n     nervous exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. He spoke on\n     a quick succession of subjects,--on miracle-plays, on medieval\n     pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on\n     the war-ships of the future,--handling each as though he had made a\n     special study of it. His bright humor marked the reaction from his\n     black depression of the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be a\n     sociable soul in his hours of relaxation, and face his dinner with\n     the air of a bon vivant. For myself, I felt elated at the thought\n     that we were nearing the end of our task, and I caught something of\n     Holmes's gaiety. None of us alluded during dinner to the cause which\n     had brought us together.\n\n     When the cloth was cleared, Holmes glanced at this watch, and filled\n     up three glasses with port. \"One bumper,\" said he, \"to the success of\n     our little expedition. And now it is high time we were off. Have you\n     a pistol, Watson?\"\n\n     \"I have my old service-revolver in my desk.\"\n\n     \"You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. I see that\n     the cab is at the door. I ordered it for half-past six.\"\n\n     It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf,\n     and found our launch awaiting us. Holmes eyed it critically.\n\n     \"Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?\"\n\n     \"Yes,--that green lamp at the side.\"\n\n     \"Then take it off.\"\n\n     The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were\n     cast off. Jones, Holmes, and I sat in the stern. There was one man at\n     the rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors\n     forward.\n\n     \"Where to?\" asked Jones.\n\n     \"To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite Jacobson's Yard.\"\n\n     Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We shot past the long lines\n     of loaded barges as though they were stationary. Holmes smiled with\n     satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us.\n\n     \"We ought to be able to catch anything on the river,\" he said.\n\n     \"Well, hardly that. But there are not many launches to beat us.\"\n\n     \"We shall have to catch the Aurora, and she has a name for being a\n     clipper. I will tell you how the land lies, Watson. You recollect how\n     annoyed I was at being balked by so small a thing?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical\n     analysis. One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of\n     work is the best rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in dissolving\n     the hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of\n     the Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again. My boys had been\n     up the river and down the river without result. The launch was not at\n     any landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned. Yet it could hardly\n     have been scuttled to hide their traces,--though that always remained\n     as a possible hypothesis if all else failed. I knew this man Small\n     had a certain degree of low cunning, but I did not think him capable\n     of anything in the nature of delicate finesse. That is usually a\n     product of higher education. I then reflected that since he had\n     certainly been in London some time--as we had evidence that he\n     maintained a continual watch over Pondicherry Lodge--he could hardly\n     leave at a moment's notice, but would need some little time, if it\n     were only a day, to arrange his affairs. That was the balance of\n     probability, at any rate.\"\n\n     \"It seems to me to be a little weak,\" said I. \"It is more probable\n     that he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his\n     expedition.\"\n\n     \"No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would be too valuable a\n     retreat in case of need for him to give it up until he was sure that\n     he could do without it. But a second consideration struck me.\n     Jonathan Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his\n     companion, however much he may have top-coated him, would give rise\n     to gossip, and possibly be associated with this Norwood tragedy. He\n     was quite sharp enough to see that. They had started from their\n     head-quarters under cover of darkness, and he would wish to get back\n     before it was broad light. Now, it was past three o'clock, according\n     to Mrs. Smith, when they got the boat. It would be quite bright, and\n     people would be about in an hour or so. Therefore, I argued, they did\n     not go very far. They paid Smith well to hold his tongue, reserved\n     his launch for the final escape, and hurried to their lodgings with\n     the treasure-box. In a couple of nights, when they had time to see\n     what view the papers took, and whether there was any suspicion, they\n     would make their way under cover of darkness to some ship at\n     Gravesend or in the Downs, where no doubt they had already arranged\n     for passages to America or the Colonies.\"\n\n     \"But the launch? They could not have taken that to their lodgings.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in\n     spite of its invisibility. I then put myself in the place of Small,\n     and looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He would probably\n     consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would\n     make pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. How,\n     then, could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when\n     wanted? I wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes. I\n     could only think of one way of doing it. I might land the launch over\n     to some boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a trifling\n     change in her. She would then be removed to his shed or hard, and so\n     be effectually concealed, while at the same time I could have her at\n     a few hours' notice.\"\n\n     \"That seems simple enough.\"\n\n     \"It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be\n     overlooked. However, I determined to act on the idea. I started at\n     once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all the yards down\n     the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the\n     sixteenth--Jacobson's--I learned that the Aurora had been handed over\n     to them two days ago by a wooden-legged man, with some trivial\n     directions as to her rudder. 'There ain't naught amiss with her\n     rudder,' said the foreman. 'There she lies, with the red streaks.' At\n     that moment who should come down but Mordecai Smith, the missing\n     owner? He was rather the worse for liquor. I should not, of course,\n     have known him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his\n     launch. 'I want her to-night at eight o'clock,' said he,--'eight\n     o'clock sharp, mind, for I have two gentlemen who won't be kept\n     waiting.' They had evidently paid him well, for he was very flush of\n     money, chucking shillings about to the men. I followed him some\n     distance, but he subsided into an ale-house: so I went back to the\n     yard, and, happening to pick up one of my boys on the way, I\n     stationed him as a sentry over the launch. He is to stand at water's\n     edge and wave his handkerchief to us when they start. We shall be\n     lying off in the stream, and it will be a strange thing if we do not\n     take men, treasure, and all.\"\n\n     \"You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men\n     or not,\" said Jones; \"but if the affair were in my hands I should\n     have had a body of police in Jacobson's Yard, and arrested them when\n     they came down.\"\n\n     \"Which would have been never. This man Small is a pretty shrewd\n     fellow. He would send a scout on ahead, and if anything made him\n     suspicious lie snug for another week.\"\n\n     \"But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to their\n     hiding-place,\" said I.\n\n     \"In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a\n     hundred to one against Smith knowing where they live. As long as he\n     has liquor and good pay, why should he ask questions? They send him\n     messages what to do. No, I thought over every possible course, and\n     this is the best.\"\n\n     While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the\n     long series of bridges which span the Thames. As we passed the City\n     the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of\n     St. Paul's. It was twilight before we reached the Tower.\n\n     \"That is Jacobson's Yard,\" said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of\n     masts and rigging on the Surrey side. \"Cruise gently up and down here\n     under cover of this string of lighters.\" He took a pair of\n     night-glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. \"I\n     see my sentry at his post,\" he remarked, \"but no sign of a\n     handkerchief.\"\n\n     \"Suppose we go down-stream a short way and lie in wait for them,\"\n     said Jones, eagerly. We were all eager by this time, even the\n     policemen and stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was going\n     forward.\n\n     \"We have no right to take anything for granted,\" Holmes answered. \"It\n     is certainly ten to one that they go down-stream, but we cannot be\n     certain. From this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and\n     they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of light.\n     We must stay where we are. See how the folk swarm over yonder in the\n     gaslight.\"\n\n     \"They are coming from work in the yard.\"\n\n     \"Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little\n     immortal spark concealed about him. You would not think it, to look\n     at them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma\n     is man!\"\n\n     \"Some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal,\" I suggested.\n\n     \"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject,\" said Holmes. \"He remarks\n     that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the\n     aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example,\n     never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with\n     precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but\n     percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. But do I see a\n     handkerchief? Surely there is a white flutter over yonder.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is your boy,\" I cried. \"I can see him plainly.\"\n\n     \"And there is the Aurora,\" exclaimed Holmes, \"and going like the\n     devil! Full speed ahead, engineer. Make after that launch with the\n     yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves\n     to have the heels of us!\"\n\n     She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind\n     two or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up\n     before we saw her. Now she was flying down the stream, near in to the\n     shore, going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and\n     shook his head.\n\n     \"She is very fast,\" he said. \"I doubt if we shall catch her.\"\n\n     \"We must catch her!\" cried Holmes, between his teeth. \"Heap it on,\n     stokers! Make her do all she can! If we burn the boat we must have\n     them!\"\n\n     We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the powerful\n     engines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart. Her sharp,\n     steep prow cut through the river-water and sent two rolling waves to\n     right and to left of us. With every throb of the engines we sprang\n     and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our\n     bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right\n     ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and the\n     swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was\n     going. We flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and\n     out, behind this one and round the other. Voices hailed us out of the\n     darkness, but still the Aurora thundered on, and still we followed\n     close upon her track.\n\n     \"Pile it on, men, pile it on!\" cried Holmes, looking down into the\n     engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,\n     aquiline face. \"Get every pound of steam you can.\"\n\n     \"I think we gain a little,\" said Jones, with his eyes on the Aurora.\n\n     \"I am sure of it,\" said I. \"We shall be up with her in a very few\n     minutes.\"\n\n     At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with\n     three barges in tow blundered in between us. It was only by putting\n     our helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before we could\n     round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good two\n     hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the murky\n     uncertain twilight was setting into a clear starlit night. Our\n     boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated\n     and creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us along. We had\n     shot through the Pool, past the West India Docks, down the long\n     Deptford Reach, and up again after rounding the Isle of Dogs. The\n     dull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly enough into the\n     dainty Aurora. Jones turned our search-light upon her, so that we\n     could plainly see the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the\n     stern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped.\n     Beside him lay a dark mass which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The\n     boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace I\n     could see old Smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling coals for\n     dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether we\n     were really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and\n     turning which they took there could no longer be any question about\n     it. At Greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. At\n     Blackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. I\n     have coursed many creatures in many countries during my checkered\n     career, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad,\n     flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we drew in upon them, yard\n     by yard. In the silence of the night we could hear the panting and\n     clanking of their machinery. The man in the stern still crouched upon\n     the deck, and his arms were moving as though he were busy, while\n     every now and then he would look up and measure with a glance the\n     distance which still separated us. Nearer we came and nearer. Jones\n     yelled to them to stop. We were not more than four boat's lengths\n     behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a clear\n     reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the\n     melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in\n     the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clinched fists at\n     us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a good-sized,\n     powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride I\n     could see that from the thigh downwards there was but a wooden stump\n     upon the right side. At the sound of his strident, angry cries there\n     was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened\n     itself into a little black man--the smallest I have ever seen--with a\n     great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair.\n     Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the\n     sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort\n     of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that\n     face was enough to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen\n     features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small\n     eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were\n     writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a\n     half animal fury.\n\n     \"Fire if he raises his hand,\" said Holmes, quietly. We were within a\n     boat's-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. I\n     can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his\n     legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with\n     his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the\n     light of our lantern.\n\n     It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he\n     plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood,\n     like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out\n     together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of\n     choking cough fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of\n     his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters. At\n     the same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder\n     and put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the\n     southern bank, while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a\n     few feet. We were round after her in an instant, but she was already\n     nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon\n     glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant\n     water and beds of decaying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud\n     ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush\n     with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank\n     its whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and\n     writhed. Not one step could he possibly take either forwards or\n     backwards. He yelled in impotent rage, and kicked frantically into\n     the mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden\n     pin the deeper into the sticky bank. When we brought our launch\n     alongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only by throwing the\n     end of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out,\n     and to drag him, like some evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths,\n     father and son, sat sullenly in their launch, but came aboard meekly\n     enough when commanded. The Aurora herself we hauled off and made fast\n     to our stern. A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship stood upon the\n     deck. This, there could be no question, was the same that had\n     contained the ill-omened treasure of the Sholtos. There was no key,\n     but it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to\n     our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly up-stream again, we\n     flashed our search-light in every direction, but there was no sign of\n     the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames\n     lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.\n\n     \"See here,\" said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. \"We were\n     hardly quick enough with our pistols.\" There, sure enough, just\n     behind where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts\n     which we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant\n     that we fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his\n     easy fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the\n     horrible death which had passed so close to us that night.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XI\n          The Great Agra Treasure\n\n\n     Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had\n     done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned,\n     reckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all over\n     his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was\n     a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who\n     was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been\n     fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with\n     gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy\n     brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible\n     expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands\n     upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with\n     his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his\n     ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in\n     his rigid and contained countenance. Once he looked up at me with a\n     gleam of something like humour in his eyes.\n\n     \"Well, Jonathan Small,\" said Holmes, lighting a cigar, \"I am sorry\n     that it has come to this.\"\n\n     \"And so am I, sir,\" he answered, frankly. \"I don't believe that I can\n     swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never\n     raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga\n     who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir.\n     I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the\n     little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done,\n     and I could not undo it again.\"\n\n     \"Have a cigar,\" said Holmes; \"and you had best take a pull out of my\n     flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a\n     man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while\n     you were climbing the rope?\"\n\n     \"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The\n     truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of\n     the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually\n     went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The\n     best defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had\n     been the old major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I\n     would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar.\n     But it's cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto,\n     with whom I had no quarrel whatever.\"\n\n     \"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He\n     is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true\n     account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if you\n     do I hope that I may be of use to you.  I think I can prove that the\n     poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached\n     the room.\"\n\n     \"That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw\n     him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through\n     the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half killed Tonga for\n     it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his\n     club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say\n     helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more\n     than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it. But it\n     does seem a queer thing,\" he added, with a bitter smile, \"that I who\n     have a fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money should spend\n     the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and\n     am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an\n     evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet\n     and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought anything\n     but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it brought murder,\n     to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery\n     for life.\"\n\n     At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy\n     shoulders into the tiny cabin. \"Quite a family party,\" he remarked.\n     \"I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes.  Well, I think we\n     may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't take the other alive;\n     but there was no choice. I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut\n     it rather fine. It was all we could do to overhaul her.\"\n\n     \"All is well that ends well,\" said Holmes. \"But I certainly did not\n     know that the Aurora was such a clipper.\"\n\n     \"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that\n     if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should\n     never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood\n     business.\"\n\n     \"Neither he did,\" cried our prisoner,--\"not a word. I chose his\n     launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing, but\n     we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached\n     our vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend, outward bound for the\n     Brazils.\"\n\n     \"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to\n     him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick\n     in condemning them.\" It was amusing to notice how the consequential\n     Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of\n     the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock\n     Holmes's face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon\n     him.\n\n     \"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently,\" said Jones, \"and shall\n     land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you\n     that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing\n     this. It is most irregular; but of course an agreement is an\n     agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector\n     with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no\n     doubt?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I shall drive.\"\n\n     \"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.\n     You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?\"\n\n     \"At the bottom of the river,\" said Small, shortly.\n\n     \"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have\n     had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I need not warn\n     you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker Street\n     rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station.\"\n\n     They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff,\n     genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's drive\n     brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant seemed surprised at\n     so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she\n     explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however, was in\n     the drawing-room: so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, leaving\n     the obliging inspector in the cab.\n\n     She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white\n     diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and\n     waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned\n     back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and\n     tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant\n     hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and\n     her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. At the\n     sound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright\n     flush of surprise and of pleasure colored her pale cheeks.\n\n     \"I heard a cab drive up,\" she said. \"I thought that Mrs. Forrester\n     had come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you.\n     What news have you brought me?\"\n\n     \"I have brought something better than news,\" said I, putting down the\n     box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my\n     heart was heavy within me. \"I have brought you something which is\n     worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune.\"\n\n     She glanced at iron box. \"Is that the treasure, then?\" she asked,\n     coolly enough.\n\n     \"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half\n     is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred thousand\n     each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will be\n     few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?\"\n\n     I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that\n     she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her\n     eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.\n\n     \"If I have it,\" said she, \"I owe it to you.\"\n\n     \"No, no,\" I answered, \"not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes.\n     With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue\n     which has taxed even his analytical genius.  As it was, we very\n     nearly lost it at the last moment.\"\n\n     \"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson,\" said she.\n\n     I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her\n     last,--Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora,\n     the appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and\n     the wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and\n     shining eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the\n     dart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I\n     feared that she was about to faint.\n\n     \"It is nothing,\" she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water.\n     \"I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed\n     my friends in such horrible peril.\"\n\n     \"That is all over,\" I answered. \"It was nothing. I will tell you no\n     more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the\n     treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it\n     with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see\n     it.\"\n\n     \"It would be of the greatest interest to me,\" she said. There was no\n     eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that\n     it might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize\n     which had cost so much to win.\n\n     \"What a pretty box!\" she said, stooping over it. \"This is Indian\n     work, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"Yes; it is Benares metal-work.\"\n\n     \"And so heavy!\" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. \"The box alone\n     must be of some value. Where is the key?\"\n\n     \"Small threw it into the Thames,\" I answered. \"I must borrow Mrs.\n     Forrester's poker.\" There was in the front a thick and broad hasp,\n     wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end\n     of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open\n     with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We\n     both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!\n\n     No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch\n     thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest\n     constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or\n     crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and\n     completely empty.\n\n     \"The treasure is lost,\" said Miss Morstan, calmly.\n\n     As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great\n     shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra\n     treasure had weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed.\n     It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize\n     nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us. \"Thank\n     God!\" I ejaculated from my very heart.\n\n     She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. \"Why do you say\n     that?\" she asked.\n\n     \"Because you are within my reach again,\" I said, taking her hand. She\n     did not withdraw it. \"Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a\n     man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my\n     lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is\n     why I said, 'Thank God.'\"\n\n     \"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too,\" she whispered, as I drew her to my\n     side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had\n     gained one.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XII\n          The Strange Story of Jonathan Small\n\n\n     A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary\n     time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him\n     the empty box.\n\n     \"There goes the reward!\" said he, gloomily. \"Where there is no money\n     there is no pay. This night's work would have been worth a tenner\n     each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man,\" I said. \"He will see that you\n     are rewarded, treasure or no.\"\n\n     The inspector shook his head despondently, however. \"It's a bad job,\"\n     he repeated; \"and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think.\"\n\n     His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank\n     enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They\n     had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had\n     changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon\n     the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual\n     listless expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with\n     his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty\n     box he leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.\n\n     \"This is your doing, Small,\" said Athelney Jones, angrily.\n\n     \"Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it,\" he\n     cried, exultantly. \"It is my treasure; and if I can't have the loot\n     I'll take darned good care that no one else does. I tell you that no\n     living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the\n     Andaman convict-barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have\n     the use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have acted all through\n     for them as much as for myself. It's been the sign of four with us\n     always. Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have\n     done, and throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go to\n     kith or kin of Sholto or of Morstan. It was not to make them rich\n     that we did for Achmet. You'll find the treasure where the key is,\n     and where little Tonga is. When I saw that your launch must catch us,\n     I put the loot away in a safe place. There are no rupees for you this\n     journey.\"\n\n     \"You are deceiving us, Small,\" said Athelney Jones, sternly. \"If you\n     had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames it would have been\n     easier for you to have thrown box and all.\"\n\n     \"Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover,\" he answered,\n     with a shrewd, sidelong look. \"The man that was clever enough to hunt\n     me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a\n     river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a\n     harder job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when\n     you came up with us. However, there's no good grieving over it. I've\n     had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not to cry\n     over spilled milk.\"\n\n     \"This is a very serious matter, Small,\" said the detective. \"If you\n     had helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would\n     have had a better chance at your trial.\"\n\n     \"Justice!\" snarled the ex-convict. \"A pretty justice! Whose loot is\n     this, if it is not ours? Where is the justice that I should give it\n     up to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it!\n     Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under\n     the mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts,\n     bitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed\n     black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That\n     was how I earned the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice\n     because I cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that\n     another may enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have\n     one of Tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and\n     feel that another man is at his ease in a palace with the money that\n     should be mine.\" Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this\n     came out in a wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the\n     handcuffs clanked together with the impassioned movement of his\n     hands. I could understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the\n     man, that it was no groundless or unnatural terror which had\n     possessed Major Sholto when he first learned that the injured convict\n     was upon his track.\n\n     \"You forget that we know nothing of all this,\" said Holmes quietly.\n     \"We have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may\n     originally have been on your side.\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see\n     that I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists.\n     Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If\n     you want to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say\n     to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the\n     glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.\n\n     \"I am a Worcestershire man myself,--born near Pershore. I dare say\n     you would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look.\n     I have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is\n     that I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if they\n     would be so very glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going\n     folk, small farmers, well known and respected over the country-side,\n     while I was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I was\n     about eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess\n     over a girl, and could only get out of it again by taking the queen's\n     shilling and joining the 3d Buffs, which was just starting for India.\n\n     \"I wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got\n     past the goose-step, and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool\n     enough to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for me, my company\n     sergeant, John Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was\n     one of the finest swimmers in the service. A crocodile took me, just\n     as I was half-way across, and nipped off my right leg as clean as a\n     surgeon could have done it, just above the knee. What with the shock\n     and the loss of blood, I fainted, and should have drowned if Holder\n     had not caught hold of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months\n     in hospital over it, and when at last I was able to limp out of it\n     with this timber toe strapped to my stump I found myself invalided\n     out of the army and unfitted for any active occupation.\n\n     \"I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for\n     I was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year. However,\n     my misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A man named\n     Abelwhite, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an\n     overseer to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work. He\n     happened to be a friend of our colonel's, who had taken an interest\n     in me since the accident. To make a long story short, the colonel\n     recommended me strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to\n     be done on horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough\n     knee left to keep good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was to\n     ride over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked,\n     and to report the idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable\n     quarters, and altogether I was content to spend the remainder of my\n     life in indigo-planting. Mr. Abelwhite was a kind man, and he would\n     often drop into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white\n     folk out there feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do\n     here at home.\n\n     \"Well, I was never in luck's way long. Suddenly, without a note of\n     warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as still\n     and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there\n     were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was\n     a perfect hell. Of course you know all about it, gentlemen,--a deal\n     more than I do, very like, since reading is not in my line. I only\n     know what I saw with my own eyes. Our plantation was at a place\n     called Muttra, near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Night\n     after night the whole sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and\n     day after day we had small companies of Europeans passing through our\n     estate with their wives and children, on their way to Agra, where\n     were the nearest troops. Mr. Abelwhite was an obstinate man. He had\n     it in his head that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it\n     would blow over as suddenly as it had sprung up. There he sat on his\n     veranda, drinking whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the\n     country was in a blaze about him. Of course we stuck by him, I and\n     Dawson, who, with his wife, used to do the book-work and the\n     managing. Well, one fine day the crash came. I had been away on a\n     distant plantation, and was riding slowly home in the evening, when\n     my eye fell upon something all huddled together at the bottom of a\n     steep nullah. I rode down to see what it was, and the cold struck\n     through my heart when I found it was Dawson's wife, all cut into\n     ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native dogs. A little further\n     up the road Dawson himself was lying on his face, quite dead, with an\n     empty revolver in his hand and four Sepoys lying across each other in\n     front of him. I reined up my horse, wondering which way I should\n     turn, but at that moment I saw thick smoke curling up from\n     Abelwhite's bungalow and the flames beginning to burst through the\n     roof. I knew then that I could do my employer no good, but would only\n     throw my own life away if I meddled in the matter. From where I stood\n     I could see hundreds of the black fiends, with their red coats still\n     on their backs, dancing and howling round the burning house. Some of\n     them pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head; so I\n     broke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at night\n     safe within the walls at Agra.\n\n     \"As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The\n     whole country was up like a swarm of bees. Wherever the English could\n     collect in little bands they held just the ground that their guns\n     commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. It was a\n     fight of the millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part of\n     it was that these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and\n     gunners, were our own picked troops, whom we had taught and trained,\n     handling our own weapons, and blowing our own bugle-calls. At Agra\n     there were the 3d Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops of horse,\n     and a battery of artillery. A volunteer corps of clerks and merchants\n     had been formed, and this I joined, wooden leg and all. We went out\n     to meet the rebels at Shahgunge early in July, and we beat them back\n     for a time, but our powder gave out, and we had to fall back upon the\n     city. Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side,--which\n     is not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see\n     that we were right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than\n     a hundred miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south.\n     From every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and\n     murder and outrage.\n\n     \"The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce\n     devil-worshippers of all sorts. Our handful of men were lost among\n     the narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved across the river,\n     therefore, and took up his position in the old fort at Agra. I don't\n     know if any of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that\n     old fort. It is a very queer place,--the queerest that ever I was in,\n     and I have been in some rum corners, too. First of all, it is\n     enormous in size. I should think that the enclosure must be acres and\n     acres. There is a modern part, which took all our garrison, women,\n     children, stores, and everything else, with plenty of room over. But\n     the modern part is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where\n     nobody goes, and which is given over to the scorpions and the\n     centipedes. It is all full of great deserted halls, and winding\n     passages, and long corridors twisting in and out, so that it is easy\n     enough for folk to get lost in it. For this reason it was seldom that\n     any one went into it, though now and again a party with torches might\n     go exploring.\n\n     \"The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects\n     it, but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had\n     to be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which\n     was actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly\n     men enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns.\n     It was impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at\n     every one of the innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a\n     central guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate\n     under the charge of one white man and two or three natives. I was\n     selected to take charge during certain hours of the night of a small\n     isolated door upon the southwest side of the building. Two Sikh\n     troopers were placed under my command, and I was instructed if\n     anything went wrong to fire my musket, when I might rely upon help\n     coming at once from the central guard. As the guard was a good two\n     hundred paces away, however, and as the space between was cut up into\n     a labyrinth of passages and corridors, I had great doubts as to\n     whether they could arrive in time to be of any use in case of an\n     actual attack.\n\n     \"Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me,\n     since I was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that. For two\n     nights I kept the watch with my Punjaubees. They were tall,\n     fierce-looking chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both\n     old fighting-men who had borne arms against us at Chilian-wallah.\n     They could talk English pretty well, but I could get little out of\n     them. They preferred to stand together and jabber all night in their\n     queer Sikh lingo. For myself, I used to stand outside the gate-way,\n     looking down on the broad, winding river and on the twinkling lights\n     of the great city. The beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and\n     the yells and howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang,\n     were enough to remind us all night of our dangerous neighbors across\n     the stream. Every two hours the officer of the night used to come\n     round to all the posts, to make sure that all was well.\n\n     \"The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small,\n     driving rain. It was dreary work standing in the gate-way hour after\n     hour in such weather. I tried again and again to make my Sikhs talk,\n     but without much success. At two in the morning the rounds passed,\n     and broke for a moment the weariness of the night. Finding that my\n     companions would not be led into conversation, I took out my pipe,\n     and laid down my musket to strike the match. In an instant the two\n     Sikhs were upon me. One of them snatched my firelock up and levelled\n     it at my head, while the other held a great knife to my throat and\n     swore between his teeth that he would plunge it into me if I moved a\n     step.\n\n     \"My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the\n     rebels, and that this was the beginning of an assault. If our door\n     were in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the women\n     and children be treated as they were in Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen\n     think that I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my\n     word that when I thought of that, though I felt the point of the\n     knife at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a\n     scream, if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. The\n     man who held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced\n     myself to it, he whispered, 'Don't make a noise. The fort is safe\n     enough. There are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' There was\n     the ring of truth in what he said, and I knew that if I raised my\n     voice I was a dead man. I could read it in the fellow's brown eyes. I\n     waited, therefore, in silence, to see what it was that they wanted\n     from me.\n\n     \"'Listen to me, Sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the\n     one whom they called Abdullah Khan. 'You must either be with us now\n     or you must be silenced forever. The thing is too great a one for us\n     to hesitate. Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on\n     the cross of the Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown\n     into the ditch and we shall pass over to our brothers in the rebel\n     army. There is no middle way. Which is it to be, death or life? We\n     can only give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing,\n     and all must be done before the rounds come again.'\n\n     \"'How can I decide?' said I. 'You have not told me what you want of\n     me. But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of\n     the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your\n     knife and welcome.'\n\n     \"'It is nothing against the fort,' said he. 'We only ask you to do\n     that which your countrymen come to this land for. We ask you to be\n     rich. If you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you upon\n     the naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever\n     known to break, that you shall have your fair share of the loot. A\n     quarter of the treasure shall be yours. We can say no fairer.'\n\n     \"'But what is the treasure, then?' I asked. 'I am as ready to be rich\n     as you can be, if you will but show me how it can be done.'\n\n     \"'You will swear, then,' said he, 'by the bones of your father, by\n     the honor of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no\n     hand and speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?'\n\n     \"'I will swear it,' I answered, 'provided that the fort is not\n     endangered.'\n\n     \"'Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter of\n     the treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us.'\n\n     \"'There are but three,' said I.\n\n     \"'No; Dost Akbar must have his share. We can tell the tale to you\n     while we await them. Do you stand at the gate, Mahomet Singh, and\n     give notice of their coming. The thing stands thus, Sahib, and I tell\n     it to you because I know that an oath is binding upon a Feringhee,\n     and that we may trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo, though you\n     had sworn by all the gods in their false temples, your blood would\n     have been upon the knife, and your body in the water. But the Sikh\n     knows the Englishman, and the Englishman knows the Sikh. Hearken,\n     then, to what I have to say.\n\n     \"'There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth,\n     though his lands are small. Much has come to him from his father, and\n     more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and\n     hoards his gold rather than spend it. When the troubles broke out he\n     would be friends both with the lion and the tiger,--with the Sepoy\n     and with the Company's raj. Soon, however, it seemed to him that the\n     white men's day was come, for through all the land he could hear of\n     nothing but of their death and their overthrow. Yet, being a careful\n     man, he made such plans that, come what might, half at least of his\n     treasure should be left to him. That which was in gold and silver he\n     kept by him in the vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones\n     and the choicest pearls that he had he put in an iron box, and sent\n     it by a trusty servant who, under the guise of a merchant, should\n     take it to the fort at Agra, there to lie until the land is at peace.\n     Thus, if the rebels won he would have his money, but if the Company\n     conquered his jewels would be saved to him. Having thus divided his\n     hoard, he threw himself into the cause of the Sepoys, since they were\n     strong upon his borders. By doing this, mark you, Sahib, his property\n     becomes the due of those who have been true to their salt.\n\n     \"'This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet, is\n     now in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort.\n     He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar,\n     who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him\n     to a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his\n     purpose. Here he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet\n     Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none shall\n     know of his coming. The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no\n     more, but the great treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us.\n     What say you to it, Sahib?'\n\n     \"In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred\n     thing; but it is very different when there is fire and blood all\n     round you and you have been used to meeting death at every turn.\n     Whether Achmet the merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air\n     to me, but at the talk about the treasure my heart turned to it, and\n     I thought of what I might do in the old country with it, and how my\n     folk would stare when they saw their ne'er-do-well coming back with\n     his pockets full of gold moidores. I had, therefore, already made up\n     my mind. Abdullah Khan, however, thinking that I hesitated, pressed\n     the matter more closely.\n\n     \"'Consider, Sahib,' said he, 'that if this man is taken by the\n     commandant he will be hung or shot, and his jewels taken by the\n     government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them. Now,\n     since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well?\n     The jewels will be as well with us as in the Company's coffers. There\n     will be enough to make every one of us rich men and great chiefs. No\n     one can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from all men.\n     What could be better for the purpose?  Say again, then, Sahib,\n     whether you are with us, or if we must look upon you as an enemy.'\n\n     \"'I am with you heart and soul,' said I.\n\n     \"'It is well,' he answered, handing me back my firelock. 'You see\n     that we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken. We\n     have now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.'\n\n     \"'Does your brother know, then, of what you will do?' I asked.\n\n     \"'The plan is his. He has devised it. We will go to the gate and\n     share the watch with Mahomet Singh.'\n\n     \"The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning\n     of the wet season. Brown, heavy clouds were drifting across the sky,\n     and it was hard to see more than a stone-cast. A deep moat lay in\n     front of our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up, and\n     it could easily be crossed. It was strange to me to be standing there\n     with those two wild Punjaubees waiting for the man who was coming to\n     his death.\n\n     \"Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other\n     side of the moat. It vanished among the mound-heaps, and then\n     appeared again coming slowly in our direction.\n\n     \"'Here they are!' I exclaimed.\n\n     \"'You will challenge him, Sahib, as usual,' whispered Abdullah. 'Give\n     him no cause for fear. Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest\n     while you stay here on guard. Have the lantern ready to uncover, that\n     we may be sure that it is indeed the man.'\n\n     \"The light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing,\n     until I could see two dark figures upon the other side of the moat. I\n     let them scramble down the sloping bank, splash through the mire, and\n     climb half-way up to the gate, before I challenged them.\n\n     \"'Who goes there?' said I, in a subdued voice.\n\n     \"'Friends,' came the answer. I uncovered my lantern and threw a flood\n     of light upon them. The first was an enormous Sikh, with a black\n     beard which swept nearly down to his cummerbund. Outside of a show I\n     have never seen so tall a man. The other was a little, fat, round\n     fellow, with a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up\n     in a shawl. He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands\n     twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left and\n     right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he\n     ventures out from his hole. It gave me the chills to think of killing\n     him, but I thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard as a\n     flint within me. When he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup\n     of joy and came running up towards me.\n\n     \"'Your protection, Sahib,' he panted,--'your protection for the\n     unhappy merchant Achmet. I have travelled across Rajpootana that I\n     might seek the shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed and\n     beaten and abused because I have been the friend of the Company. It\n     is a blessed night this when I am once more in safety,--I and my poor\n     possessions.'\n\n     \"'What have you in the bundle?' I asked.\n\n     \"'An iron box,' he answered, 'which contains one or two little family\n     matters which are of no value to others, but which I should be sorry\n     to lose. Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward you, young Sahib,\n     and your governor also, if he will give me the shelter I ask.'\n\n     \"I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. The more I\n     looked at his fat, frightened face, the harder did it seem that we\n     should slay him in cold blood. It was best to get it over.\n\n     \"'Take him to the main guard,' said I. The two Sikhs closed in upon\n     him on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched in\n     through the dark gate-way. Never was a man so compassed round with\n     death. I remained at the gate-way with the lantern.\n\n     \"I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through\n     the lonely corridors. Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a\n     scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later there came, to my\n     horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud\n     breathing of a running man. I turned my lantern down the long,\n     straight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind,\n     with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels,\n     bounding like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife\n     flashing in his hand. I have never seen a man run so fast as that\n     little merchant. He was gaining on the Sikh, and I could see that if\n     he once passed me and got to the open air he would save himself yet.\n     My heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure\n     turned me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his legs as he\n     raced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could\n     stagger to his feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice\n     in his side. The man never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay\n     were he had fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck\n     with the fall. You see, gentlemen, that I am keeping my promise. I am\n     telling you every work of the business just exactly as it happened,\n     whether it is in my favor or not.\"\n\n     He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whiskey-and-water\n     which Holmes had brewed for him. For myself, I confess that I had now\n     conceived the utmost horror of the man, not only for this\n     cold-blooded business in which he had been concerned, but even more\n     for the somewhat flippant and careless way in which he narrated it.\n     Whatever punishment was in store for him, I felt that he might expect\n     no sympathy from me. Sherlock Holmes and Jones sat with their hands\n     upon their knees, deeply interested in the story, but with the same\n     disgust written upon their faces.  He may have observed it, for there\n     was a touch of defiance in his voice and manner as he proceeded.\n\n     \"It was all very bad, no doubt,\" said he. \"I should like to know how\n     many fellows in my shoes would have refused a share of this loot when\n     they knew that they would have their throats cut for their pains.\n     Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort. If he\n     had got out, the whole business would come to light, and I should\n     have been court-martialled and shot as likely as not; for people were\n     not very lenient at a time like that.\"\n\n     \"Go on with your story,\" said Holmes, shortly.\n\n     \"Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I. A fine weight he\n     was, too, for all that he was so short. Mahomet Singh was left to\n     guard the door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had already\n     prepared. It was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to\n     a great empty hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to\n     pieces. The earth floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural\n     grave, so we left Achmet the merchant there, having first covered him\n     over with loose bricks. This done, we all went back to the treasure.\n\n     \"It lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. The box\n     was the same which now lies open upon your table. A key was hung by a\n     silken cord to that carved handle upon the top. We opened it, and the\n     light of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I have\n     read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. It was\n     blinding to look upon them. When we had feasted our eyes we took them\n     all out and made a list of them. There were one hundred and\n     forty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which has been\n     called, I believe, 'the Great Mogul' and is said to be the second\n     largest stone in existence. Then there were ninety-seven very fine\n     emeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, however,\n     were small. There were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten\n     sapphires, sixty-one agates, and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes,\n     cats'-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very names of which I\n     did not know at the time, though I have become more familiar with\n     them since. Besides this, there were nearly three hundred very fine\n     pearls, twelve of which were set in a gold coronet. By the way, these\n     last had been taken out of the chest and were not there when I\n     recovered it.\n\n     \"After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest\n     and carried them to the gate-way to show them to Mahomet Singh. Then\n     we solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other and be true to\n     our secret. We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the\n     country should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among\n     ourselves. There was no use dividing it at present, for if gems of\n     such value were found upon us it would cause suspicion, and there was\n     no privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them. We\n     carried the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had buried\n     the body, and there, under certain bricks in the best-preserved wall,\n     we made a hollow and put our treasure. We made careful note of the\n     place, and next day I drew four plans, one for each of us, and put\n     the sign of the four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we\n     should each always act for all, so that none might take advantage.\n     That is an oath that I can put my hand to my heart and swear that I\n     have never broken.\n\n     \"Well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the\n     Indian mutiny. After Wilson took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow\n     the back of the business was broken. Fresh troops came pouring in,\n     and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column\n     under Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies\n     away from it. Peace seemed to be settling upon the country, and we\n     four were beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we might\n     safely go off with our shares of the plunder. In a moment, however,\n     our hopes were shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of\n     Achmet.\n\n     \"It came about in this way. When the rajah put his jewels into the\n     hands of Achmet he did it because he knew that he was a trusty man.\n     They are suspicious folk in the East, however: so what does this\n     rajah do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to\n     play the spy upon the first? This second man was ordered never to let\n     Achmet out of his sight, and he followed him like his shadow. He went\n     after him that night and saw him pass through the doorway. Of course\n     he thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission\n     there himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet. This\n     seemed to him so strange that he spoke about it to a sergeant of\n     guides, who brought it to the ears of the commandant. A thorough\n     search was quickly made, and the body was discovered. Thus at the\n     very moment that we thought that all was safe we were all four seized\n     and brought to trial on a charge of murder,--three of us because we\n     had held the gate that night, and the fourth because he was known to\n     have been in the company of the murdered man. Not a word about the\n     jewels came out at the trial, for the rajah had been deposed and\n     driven out of India: so no one had any particular interest in them.\n     The murder, however, was clearly made out, and it was certain that we\n     must all have been concerned in it. The three Sikhs got penal\n     servitude for life, and I was condemned to death, though my sentence\n     was afterwards commuted into the same as the others.\n\n     \"It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then.\n     There we were all four tied by the leg and with precious little\n     chance of ever getting out again, while we each held a secret which\n     might have put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use\n     of it. It was enough to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand\n     the kick and the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have rice to\n     eat and water to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him\n     outside, just waiting to be picked up. It might have driven me mad;\n     but I was always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided\n     my time.\n\n     \"At last it seemed to me to have come. I was changed from Agra to\n     Madras, and from there to Blair Island in the Andamans. There are\n     very few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had behaved\n     well from the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person.\n     I was given a hut in Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes\n     of Mount Harriet, and I was left pretty much to myself. It is a\n     dreary, fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was\n     infested with wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a\n     poisoned dart at us if they saw a chance. There was digging, and\n     ditching, and yam-planting, and a dozen other things to be done, so\n     we were busy enough all day; though in the evening we had a little\n     time to ourselves. Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs\n     for the surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his knowledge. All the\n     time I was on the lookout for a chance of escape; but it is hundreds\n     of miles from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those\n     seas: so it was a terribly difficult job to get away.\n\n     \"The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the\n     other young officers would meet in his rooms of an evening and play\n     cards. The surgery, where I used to make up my drugs, was next to his\n     sitting-room, with a small window between us. Often, if I felt\n     lonesome, I used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then,\n     standing there, I could hear their talk and watch their play. I am\n     fond of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as having\n     one to watch the others. There was Major Sholto, Captain Morstan, and\n     Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native troops,\n     and there was the surgeon himself, and two or three prison-officials,\n     crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game. A very snug little\n     party they used to make.\n\n     \"Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was\n     that the soldiers used always to lose and the civilians to win. Mind,\n     I don't say that there was anything unfair, but so it was. These\n     prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had\n     been at the Andamans, and they knew each other's game to a point,\n     while the others just played to pass the time and threw their cards\n     down anyhow. Night after night the soldiers got up poorer men, and\n     the poorer they got the more keen they were to play. Major Sholto was\n     the hardest hit. He used to pay in notes and gold at first, but soon\n     it came to notes of hand and for big sums. He sometimes would win for\n     a few deals, just to give him heart, and then the luck would set in\n     against him worse than ever. All day he would wander about as black\n     as thunder, and he took to drinking a deal more than was good for\n     him.\n\n     \"One night he lost even more heavily than usual. I was sitting in my\n     hut when he and Captain Morstan came stumbling along on the way to\n     their quarters. They were bosom friends, those two, and never far\n     apart. The major was raving about his losses.\n\n     \"'It's all up, Morstan,' he was saying, as they passed my hut. 'I\n     shall have to send in my papers. I am a ruined man.'\n\n     \"'Nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the\n     shoulder. 'I've had a nasty facer myself, but--' That was all I could\n     hear, but it was enough to set me thinking.\n\n     A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach: so I\n     took the chance of speaking to him.\n\n     \"'I wish to have your advice, major,' said I.\n\n     \"'Well, Small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his\n     lips.\n\n     \"'I wanted to ask you, sir,' said I, 'who is the proper person to\n     whom hidden treasure should be handed over. I know where half a\n     million worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought perhaps\n     the best thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the proper\n     authorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence shortened\n     for me.'\n\n     \"'Half a million, Small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if I\n     was in earnest.\n\n     \"'Quite that, sir,--in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for\n     anyone. And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is\n     outlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first\n     comer.'\n\n     \"'To government, Small,' he stammered,--'to government.' But he said\n     it in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got him.\n\n     \"'You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the\n     Governor-General?' said I, quietly.\n\n     \"'Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might\n     repent. Let me hear all about it, Small. Give me the facts.'\n\n     \"I told him the whole story, with small changes so that he could not\n     identify the places. When I had finished he stood stock still and\n     full of thought. I could see by the twitch of his lip that there was\n     a struggle going on within him.\n\n     \"'This is a very important matter, Small,' he said, at last. 'You\n     must not say a word to any one about it, and I shall see you again\n     soon.'\n\n     \"Two nights later he and his friend Captain Morstan came to my hut in\n     the dead of the night with a lantern.\n\n     \"'I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your\n     own lips, Small,' said he.\n\n     \"I repeated it as I had told it before.\n\n     \"'It rings true, eh?' said he. 'It's good enough to act upon?'\n\n     \"Captain Morstan nodded.\n\n     \"'Look here, Small,' said the major. 'We have been talking it over,\n     my friend here and I, and we have come to the conclusion that this\n     secret of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but is a\n     private concern of your own, which of course you have the power of\n     disposing of as you think best. Now, the question is, what price\n     would you ask for it? We might be inclined to take it up, and at\n     least look into it, if we could agree as to terms.' He tried to speak\n     in a cool, careless way, but his eyes were shining with excitement\n     and greed.\n\n     \"'Why, as to that, gentlemen,' I answered, trying also to be cool,\n     but feeling as excited as he did, 'there is only one bargain which a\n     man in my position can make. I shall want you to help me to my\n     freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs.  We shall then\n     take yo into partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide\n     between you.'\n\n     \"'Hum!' said he. 'A fifth share! That is not very tempting.'\n\n     \"'It would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said I.\n\n     \"'But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you ask\n     an impossibility.'\n\n     \"'Nothing of the sort,' I answered. 'I have thought it all out to the\n     last detail. The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat\n     fit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time.\n     There are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras\n     which would serve our turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall\n     engage to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any\n     part of the Indian coast you will have done your part of the\n     bargain.'\n\n     \"'If there were only one,' he said.\n\n     \"'None or all,' I answered. 'We have sworn it. The four of us must\n     always act together.'\n\n     \"'You see, Morstan,' said he, 'Small is a man of his word. He does\n     not flinch from his friend. I think we may very well trust him.'\n\n     \"'It's a dirty business,' the other answered. 'Yet, as you say, the\n     money would save our commissions handsomely.'\n\n     \"'Well, Small,' said the major, 'we must, I suppose, try and meet\n     you. We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me\n     where the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back to\n     India in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'\n\n     \"'Not so fast,' said I, growing colder as he got hot. 'I must have\n     the consent of my three comrades. I tell you that it is four or none\n     with us.'\n\n     \"'Nonsense!' he broke in. 'What have three black fellows to do with\n     our agreement?'\n\n     \"'Black or blue,' said I, 'they are in with me, and we all go\n     together.'\n\n     \"Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh,\n     Abdullah Khan, and Dost Akbar were all present. We talked the matter\n     over again, and at last we came to an arrangement. We were to provide\n     both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort and mark\n     the place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major Sholto was to\n     go to India to test our story. If he found the box he was to leave it\n     there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was\n     to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and\n     finally to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was then to apply\n     for leave of absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we were to have a\n     final division of the treasure, he taking the major's share as well\n     as his own. All this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind\n     could think or the lips utter. I sat up all night with paper and ink,\n     and by the morning I had the two charts all ready, signed with the\n     sign of four,--that is, of Abdullah, Akbar, Mahomet, and myself.\n\n     \"Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my\n     friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. I'll\n     make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went off to India, but\n     he never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his name among a\n     list of passengers in one of the mail-boats very shortly afterwards.\n     His uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and he had left the army,\n     yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had treated us. Morstan\n     went over to Agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that\n     the treasure was indeed gone. The scoundrel had stolen it all,\n     without carrying out one of the conditions on which we had sold him\n     the secret. From that day I lived only for vengeance. I thought of it\n     by day and I nursed it by night. It became an overpowering, absorbing\n     passion with me. I cared nothing for the law,--nothing for the\n     gallows. To escape, to track down Sholto, to have my hand upon his\n     throat,--that was my one thought. Even the Agra treasure had come to\n     be a smaller thing in my mind than the slaying of Sholto.\n\n     \"Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one\n     which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before my time\n     came. I have told you that I had picked up something of medicine. One\n     day when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander\n     was picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death,\n     and had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he\n     was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got\n     him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then,\n     and would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about\n     my hut. I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him\n     all the fonder of me.\n\n     \"Tonga--for that was his name--was a fine boatman, and owned a big,\n     roomy canoe of his own. When I found that he was devoted to me and\n     would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked it\n     over with him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to\n     an old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up.\n     I gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of\n     yams, cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes.\n\n     \"He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more\n     faithful mate. At the night named he had his boat at the wharf. As it\n     chanced, however, there was one of the convict-guard down there,--a\n     vile Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring\n     me. I had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as\n     if fate had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I\n     left the island. He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his\n     carbine on his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his\n     brains with, but none could I see.\n\n     \"Then a queer thought came into my head and showed me where I could\n     lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness and unstrapped my\n     wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He put his carbine to\n     his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the whole front of\n     his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now where I hit him.\n     We both went down together, for I could not keep my balance, but when\n     I got up I found him still lying quiet enough. I made for the boat,\n     and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had brought all his\n     earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. Among other\n     things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some Andaman cocoa-nut\n     matting, with which I made a sort of sail. For ten days we were\n     beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were picked\n     up by a trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo\n     of Malay pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon\n     managed to settle down among them. They had one very good quality:\n     they let you alone and asked no questions.\n\n     \"Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum\n     and I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have you here\n     until the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about the world,\n     something always turning up to keep us from London. All the time,\n     however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at\n     night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At last,\n     however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England.\n     I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to\n     work to discover whether he had realized the treasure, or if he still\n     had it. I made friends with someone who could help me,--I name no\n     names, for I don't want to get any one else in a hole,--and I soon\n     found that he still had the jewels. Then I tried to get at him in\n     many ways; but he was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters,\n     besides his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over him.\n\n     \"One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to\n     the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that,\n     and, looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his\n     sons on each side of him. I'd have come through and taken my chance\n     with the three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped,\n     and I knew that he was gone. I got into his room that same night,\n     though, and I searched his papers to see if there was any record of\n     where he had hidden our jewels. There was not a line, however: so I\n     came away, bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I left I\n     bethought me that if I ever met my Sikh friends again it would be a\n     satisfaction to know that I had left some mark of our hatred: so I\n     scrawled down the sign of the four of us, as it had been on the\n     chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. It was too much that he should\n     be taken to the grave without some token from the men whom he had\n     robbed and befooled.\n\n     \"We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs\n     and other such places as the black cannibal. He would eat raw meat\n     and dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a\n     day's work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge, and\n     for some years there was no news to hear, except that they were\n     hunting for the treasure. At last, however, came what we had waited\n     for so long. The treasure had been found. It was up at the top of the\n     house, in Mr. Bartholomew Sholto's chemical laboratory. I came at\n     once and had a look at the place, but I could not see how with my\n     wooden leg I was to make my way up to it. I learned, however, about a\n     trap-door in the roof, and also about Mr. Sholto's supper-hour. It\n     seemed to me that I could manage the thing easily through Tonga. I\n     brought him out with me with a long rope wound round his waist. He\n     could climb like a cat, and he soon made his way through the roof,\n     but, as ill luck would have it, Bartholomew Sholto was still in the\n     room, to his cost. Tonga thought he had done something very clever in\n     killing him, for when I came up by the rope I found him strutting\n     about as proud as a peacock. Very much surprised was he when I made\n     at him with the rope's end and cursed him for a little blood-thirsty\n     imp. I took the treasure-box and let it down, and then slid down\n     myself, having first left the sign of the four upon the table, to\n     show that the jewels had come back at last to those who had most\n     right to them. Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the window, and\n     made off the way that he had come.\n\n     \"I don't know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a\n     waterman speak of the speed of Smith's launch, the Aurora, so I\n     thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged with old\n     Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship.\n     He knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was not in\n     our secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you,\n     gentlemen, it is not to amuse you,--for you have not done me a very\n     good turn,--but it is because I believe the best defence I can make\n     is just to hold back nothing, but let all the world know how badly I\n     have myself been served by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of the\n     death of his son.\"\n\n     \"A very remarkable account,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"A fitting wind-up\n     to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me\n     in the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your\n     own rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had\n     lost all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.\"\n\n     \"He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe\n     at the time.\"\n\n     \"Ah, of course,\" said Holmes. \"I had not thought of that.\"\n\n     \"Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?\" asked\n     the convict, affably.\n\n     \"I think not, thank you,\" my companion answered.\n\n     \"Well, Holmes,\" said Athelney Jones, \"You are a man to be humored,\n     and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is\n     duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend\n     asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller\n     here safe under lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two\n     inspectors down-stairs. I am much obliged to you both for your\n     assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to\n     you.\"\n\n     \"Good-night, gentlemen both,\" said Jonathan Small.\n\n     \"You first, Small,\" remarked the wary Jones as they left the room.\n     \"I'll take particular care that you don't club me with your wooden\n     leg, whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman\n     Isles.\"\n\n     \"Well, and there is the end of our little drama,\" I remarked, after\n     we had set some time smoking in silence. \"I fear that it may be the\n     last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your\n     methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband\n     in prospective.\"\n\n     He gave a most dismal groan. \"I feared as much,\" said he. \"I really\n     cannot congratulate you.\"\n\n     I was a little hurt. \"Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my\n     choice?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I\n     ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have\n     been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in\n     which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her\n     father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is\n     opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I\n     should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.\"\n\n     \"I trust,\" said I, laughing, \"that my judgment may survive the\n     ordeal. But you look weary.\"\n\n     \"Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag\n     for a week.\"\n\n     \"Strange,\" said I, \"how terms of what in another man I should call\n     laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor.\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" he answered, \"there are in me the makings of a very fine\n     loafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of\n     those lines of old Goethe,--\n\n              Schade, daß die Natur nur einen Mensch aus Dir schuf,\n             Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.\n\n     \"By the way, a propos of this Norwood business, you see that they\n     had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none\n     other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided\n     honor of having caught one fish in his great haul.\"\n\n     \"The division seems rather unfair,\" I remarked. \"You have done all\n     the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the\n     credit, pray what remains for you?\"\n\n     \"For me,\" said Sherlock Holmes, \"there still remains the\n     cocaine-bottle.\" And he stretched his long white hand up for it.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES\n\n\n\n\n\n                              A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n                                     Chapter 1\n                                     Chapter 2\n                                     Chapter 3\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n\n\n\n     To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him\n     mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and\n     predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any\n     emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one\n     particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably\n     balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and\n     observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would\n     have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer\n     passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things\n     for the observer--excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives\n     and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions\n     into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to\n     introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his\n     mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of\n     his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong\n     emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to\n     him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and\n     questionable memory.\n\n     I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away\n     from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred\n     interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master\n     of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention,\n     while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole\n     Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among\n     his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and\n     ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his\n     own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study\n     of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers\n     of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those\n     mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official\n     police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings:\n     of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his\n     clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at\n     Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so\n     delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland.\n     Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared\n     with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former\n     friend and companion.\n\n     One night--it was on the twentieth of March, 1888--I was returning\n     from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil\n     practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the\n     well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with\n     my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was\n     seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was\n     employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit,\n     and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in\n     a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly,\n     eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped\n     behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude\n     and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen\n     out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new\n     problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had\n     formerly been in part my own.\n\n     His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think,\n     to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved\n     me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a\n     spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the\n     fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.\n\n     \"Wedlock suits you,\" he remarked. \"I think, Watson, that you have put\n     on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.\"\n\n     \"Seven!\" I answered.\n\n     \"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I\n     fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me\n     that you intended to go into harness.\"\n\n     \"Then, how do you know?\"\n\n     \"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting\n     yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and\n     careless servant girl?\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes,\" said I, \"this is too much. You would certainly have\n     been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had\n     a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I\n     have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary\n     Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but\n     there, again, I fail to see how you work it out.\"\n\n     He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.\n\n     \"It is simplicity itself,\" said he; \"my eyes tell me that on the\n     inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the\n     leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have\n     been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the\n     edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you\n     see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and\n     that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the\n     London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my\n     rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver\n     upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his\n     top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be\n     dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the\n     medical profession.\"\n\n     I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his\n     process of deduction. \"When I hear you give your reasons,\" I\n     remarked, \"the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously\n     simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive\n     instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your\n     process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.\"\n\n     \"Quite so,\" he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself\n     down into an armchair. \"You see, but you do not observe. The\n     distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps\n     which lead up from the hall to this room.\"\n\n     \"Frequently.\"\n\n     \"How often?\"\n\n     \"Well, some hundreds of times.\"\n\n     \"Then how many are there?\"\n\n     \"How many? I don't know.\"\n\n     \"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just\n     my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have\n     both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are interested in these\n     little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or\n     two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this.\" He\n     threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been\n     lying open upon the table. \"It came by the last post,\" said he. \"Read\n     it aloud.\"\n\n     The note was undated, and without either signature or address.\n\n     \"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o'clock,\"\n     it said, \"a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the\n     very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses\n     of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with\n     matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated.\n     This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your\n     chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor\n     wear a mask.\"\n\n     \"This is indeed a mystery,\" I remarked. \"What do you imagine that it\n     means?\"\n\n     \"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one\n     has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories,\n     instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you\n     deduce from it?\"\n\n     I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was\n     written.\n\n     \"The man who wrote it was presumably well to do,\" I remarked,\n     endeavouring to imitate my companion's processes. \"Such paper could\n     not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong\n     and stiff.\"\n\n     \"Peculiar--that is the very word,\" said Holmes. \"It is not an English\n     paper at all. Hold it up to the light.\"\n\n     I did so, and saw a large \"E\" with a small \"g,\" a \"P,\" and a large\n     \"G\" with a small \"t\" woven into the texture of the paper.\n\n     \"What do you make of that?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for 'Gesellschaft,'\n     which is the German for 'Company.' It is a customary contraction like\n     our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for 'Papier.' Now for the 'Eg.' Let\n     us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.\" He took down a heavy brown\n     volume from his shelves. \"Eglow, Eglonitz--here we are, Egria. It is\n     in a German-speaking country--in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad.\n     'Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for\n     its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.' Ha, ha, my boy, what\n     do you make of that?\" His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue\n     triumphant cloud from his cigarette.\n\n     \"The paper was made in Bohemia,\" I said.\n\n     \"Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note\n     the peculiar construction of the sentence--'This account of you we\n     have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman or Russian could not\n     have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his\n     verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this\n     German who writes upon Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to\n     showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve\n     all our doubts.\"\n\n     As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and grating\n     wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes\n     whistled.\n\n     \"A pair, by the sound,\" said he. \"Yes,\" he continued, glancing out of\n     the window. \"A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred\n     and fifty guineas apiece. There's money in this case, Watson, if\n     there is nothing else.\"\n\n     \"I think that I had better go, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.\n     And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.\"\n\n     \"But your client--\"\n\n     \"Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes.\n     Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best attention.\"\n\n     A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in\n     the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a\n     loud and authoritative tap.\n\n     \"Come in!\" said Holmes.\n\n     A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six\n     inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress\n     was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as\n     akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the\n     sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue\n     cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with\n     flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which\n     consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up\n     his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur,\n     completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by\n     his whole appearance. He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand,\n     while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past\n     the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted\n     that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.\n     From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong\n     character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin\n     suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.\n\n     \"You had my note?\" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly\n     marked German accent. \"I told you that I would call.\" He looked from\n     one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.\n\n     \"Pray take a seat,\" said Holmes. \"This is my friend and colleague,\n     Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases.\n     Whom have I the honour to address?\"\n\n     \"You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I\n     understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and\n     discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme\n     importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you\n     alone.\"\n\n     I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back\n     into my chair. \"It is both, or none,\" said he. \"You may say before\n     this gentleman anything which you may say to me.\"\n\n     The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. \"Then I must begin,\" said he,\n     \"by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of\n     that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not\n     too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence\n     upon European history.\"\n\n     \"I promise,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"And I.\"\n\n     \"You will excuse this mask,\" continued our strange visitor. \"The\n     august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you,\n     and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called\n     myself is not exactly my own.\"\n\n     \"I was aware of it,\" said Holmes dryly.\n\n     \"The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to\n     be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and\n     seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak\n     plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein,\n     hereditary kings of Bohemia.\"\n\n     \"I was also aware of that,\" murmured Holmes, settling himself down in\n     his armchair and closing his eyes.\n\n     Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid,\n     lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as\n     the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes\n     slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic\n     client.\n\n     \"If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,\" he remarked,\n     \"I should be better able to advise you.\"\n\n     The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in\n     uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he\n     tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. \"You are\n     right,\" he cried; \"I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal\n     it?\"\n\n     \"Why, indeed?\" murmured Holmes. \"Your Majesty had not spoken before I\n     was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von\n     Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of\n     Bohemia.\"\n\n     \"But you can understand,\" said our strange visitor, sitting down once\n     more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, \"you can\n     understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own\n     person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to\n     an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come incognito\n     from Prague for the purpose of consulting you.\"\n\n     \"Then, pray consult,\" said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.\n\n     \"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy\n     visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known\n     adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.\"\n\n     \"Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor,\" murmured Holmes without\n     opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of docketing\n     all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to\n     name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish\n     information. In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between\n     that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a staff-commander who had written\n     a monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.\n\n     \"Let me see!\" said Holmes. \"Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858.\n     Contralto--hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of\n     Warsaw--yes! Retired from operatic stage--ha! Living in London--quite\n     so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young\n     person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of\n     getting those letters back.\"\n\n     \"Precisely so. But how--\"\n\n     \"Was there a secret marriage?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"No legal papers or certificates?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should\n     produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to\n     prove their authenticity?\"\n\n     \"There is the writing.\"\n\n     \"Pooh, pooh! Forgery.\"\n\n     \"My private note-paper.\"\n\n     \"Stolen.\"\n\n     \"My own seal.\"\n\n     \"Imitated.\"\n\n     \"My photograph.\"\n\n     \"Bought.\"\n\n     \"We were both in the photograph.\"\n\n     \"Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an\n     indiscretion.\"\n\n     \"I was mad--insane.\"\n\n     \"You have compromised yourself seriously.\"\n\n     \"I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now.\"\n\n     \"It must be recovered.\"\n\n     \"We have tried and failed.\"\n\n     \"Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought.\"\n\n     \"She will not sell.\"\n\n     \"Stolen, then.\"\n\n     \"Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her\n     house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has\n     been waylaid. There has been no result.\"\n\n     \"No sign of it?\"\n\n     \"Absolutely none.\"\n\n     Holmes laughed. \"It is quite a pretty little problem,\" said he.\n\n     \"But a very serious one to me,\" returned the King reproachfully.\n\n     \"Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?\"\n\n     \"To ruin me.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"I am about to be married.\"\n\n     \"So I have heard.\"\n\n     \"To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King\n     of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She\n     is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my\n     conduct would bring the matter to an end.\"\n\n     \"And Irene Adler?\"\n\n     \"Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know\n     that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of\n     steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind\n     of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry another\n     woman, there are no lengths to which she would not go--none.\"\n\n     \"You are sure that she has not sent it yet?\"\n\n     \"I am sure.\"\n\n     \"And why?\"\n\n     \"Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the\n     betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday.\"\n\n     \"Oh, then we have three days yet,\" said Holmes with a yawn. \"That is\n     very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look\n     into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London\n     for the present?\"\n\n     \"Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the\n     Count Von Kramm.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress.\"\n\n     \"Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety.\"\n\n     \"Then, as to money?\"\n\n     \"You have carte blanche.\"\n\n     \"Absolutely?\"\n\n     \"I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to\n     have that photograph.\"\n\n     \"And for present expenses?\"\n\n     The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and\n     laid it on the table.\n\n     \"There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,\"\n     he said.\n\n     Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and handed\n     it to him.\n\n     \"And Mademoiselle's address?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood.\"\n\n     Holmes took a note of it. \"One other question,\" said he. \"Was the\n     photograph a cabinet?\"\n\n     \"It was.\"\n\n     \"Then, good-night, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have\n     some good news for you. And good-night, Watson,\" he added, as the\n     wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. \"If you will be\n     good enough to call to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock I should\n     like to chat this little matter over with you.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n\n\n\n     At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not\n     yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house\n     shortly after eight o'clock in the morning. I sat down beside the\n     fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he\n     might be. I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though\n     it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were\n     associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still,\n     the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it\n     a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the\n     investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his\n     masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning,\n     which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to\n     follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most\n     inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable success\n     that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my\n     head.\n\n     It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking\n     groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and\n     disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my\n     friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three\n     times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod he\n     vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes\n     tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his\n     pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed\n     heartily for some minutes.\n\n     \"Well, really!\" he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until\n     he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.\n\n     \"What is it?\"\n\n     \"It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed\n     my morning, or what I ended by doing.\"\n\n     \"I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits,\n     and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler.\"\n\n     \"Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you,\n     however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this morning\n     in the character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful\n     sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you\n     will know all that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is\n     a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front\n     right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large\n     sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows\n     almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners\n     which a child could open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save\n     that the passage window could be reached from the top of the\n     coach-house. I walked round it and examined it closely from every\n     point of view, but without noting anything else of interest.\n\n     \"I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that there\n     was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I\n     lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and received in\n     exchange twopence, a glass of half and half, two fills of shag\n     tobacco, and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler,\n     to say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in\n     whom I was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was\n     compelled to listen to.\"\n\n     \"And what of Irene Adler?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is the\n     daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the\n     Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts,\n     drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner.\n     Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has only one\n     male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and\n     dashing, never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He is a\n     Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a\n     cabman as a confidant. They had driven him home a dozen times from\n     Serpentine-mews, and knew all about him. When I had listened to all\n     they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once\n     more, and to think over my plan of campaign.\n\n     \"This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter.\n     He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the relation between\n     them, and what the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client,\n     his friend, or his mistress? If the former, she had probably\n     transferred the photograph to his keeping. If the latter, it was less\n     likely. On the issue of this question depended whether I should\n     continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn my attention to the\n     gentleman's chambers in the Temple. It was a delicate point, and it\n     widened the field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these\n     details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are\n     to understand the situation.\"\n\n     \"I am following you closely,\" I answered.\n\n     \"I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove\n     up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably\n     handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached--evidently the man of\n     whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the\n     cabman to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the door with\n     the air of a man who was thoroughly at home.\n\n     \"He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch glimpses\n     of him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and down,\n     talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing.\n     Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than before. As he\n     stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and\n     looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he shouted, 'first to\n     Gross & Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to the Church of St.\n     Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if you do it in twenty\n     minutes!'\n\n     \"Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do\n     well to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau, the\n     coachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under his ear,\n     while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles.\n     It hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it.\n     I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely\n     woman, with a face that a man might die for.\n\n     \"'The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried, 'and half a sovereign\n     if you reach it in twenty minutes.'\n\n     \"This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing\n     whether I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her\n     landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked twice at\n     such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could object. 'The\n     Church of St. Monica,' said I, 'and half a sovereign if you reach it\n     in twenty minutes.' It was twenty-five minutes to twelve, and of\n     course it was clear enough what was in the wind.\n\n     \"My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the\n     others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their\n     steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid the\n     man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there save the\n     two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be\n     expostulating with them. They were all three standing in a knot in\n     front of the altar. I lounged up the side aisle like any other idler\n     who has dropped into a church. Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at\n     the altar faced round to me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard\n     as he could towards me.\n\n     \"'Thank God,' he cried. 'You'll do. Come! Come!'\n\n     \"'What then?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won't be legal.'\n\n     \"I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was I\n     found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and\n     vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting\n     in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton,\n     bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and there was the gentleman\n     thanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the\n     clergyman beamed on me in front. It was the most preposterous\n     position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the\n     thought of it that started me laughing just now. It seems that there\n     had been some informality about their license, that the clergyman\n     absolutely refused to marry them without a witness of some sort, and\n     that my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally\n     out into the streets in search of a best man. The bride gave me a\n     sovereign, and I mean to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of the\n     occasion.\"\n\n     \"This is a very unexpected turn of affairs,\" said I; \"and what then?\"\n\n     \"Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if the\n     pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very\n     prompt and energetic measures on my part. At the church door,\n     however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to\n     her own house. 'I shall drive out in the park at five as usual,' she\n     said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove away in different\n     directions, and I went off to make my own arrangements.\"\n\n     \"Which are?\"\n\n     \"Some cold beef and a glass of beer,\" he answered, ringing the bell.\n     \"I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier\n     still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want your\n     co-operation.\"\n\n     \"I shall be delighted.\"\n\n     \"You don't mind breaking the law?\"\n\n     \"Not in the least.\"\n\n     \"Nor running a chance of arrest?\"\n\n     \"Not in a good cause.\"\n\n     \"Oh, the cause is excellent!\"\n\n     \"Then I am your man.\"\n\n     \"I was sure that I might rely on you.\"\n\n     \"But what is it you wish?\"\n\n     \"When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to\n     you. Now,\" he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our\n     landlady had provided, \"I must discuss it while I eat, for I have not\n     much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must be on the\n     scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her\n     drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her.\"\n\n     \"And what then?\"\n\n     \"You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur.\n     There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not\n     interfere, come what may. You understand?\"\n\n     \"I am to be neutral?\"\n\n     \"To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small\n     unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed\n     into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the sitting-room\n     window will open. You are to station yourself close to that open\n     window.\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you.\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"And when I raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what I\n     give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire.\n     You quite follow me?\"\n\n     \"Entirely.\"\n\n     \"It is nothing very formidable,\" he said, taking a long cigar-shaped\n     roll from his pocket. \"It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket,\n     fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task\n     is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be\n     taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of\n     the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have\n     made myself clear?\"\n\n     \"I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at\n     the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire,\n     and to wait you at the corner of the street.\"\n\n     \"Precisely.\"\n\n     \"Then you may entirely rely on me.\"\n\n     \"That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I\n     prepare for the new role I have to play.\"\n\n     He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the\n     character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman.\n     His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his\n     sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent\n     curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have equalled. It\n     was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his\n     manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he\n     assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute\n     reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.\n\n     It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still\n     wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine\n     Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as\n     we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming\n     of its occupant. The house was just such as I had pictured it from\n     Sherlock Holmes' succinct description, but the locality appeared to\n     be less private than I expected. On the contrary, for a small street\n     in a quiet neighbourhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a\n     group of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a\n     scissors-grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with\n     a nurse-girl, and several well-dressed young men who were lounging up\n     and down with cigars in their mouths.\n\n     \"You see,\" remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the\n     house, \"this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph\n     becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are that she would be\n     as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is\n     to its coming to the eyes of his princess. Now the question is--Where\n     are we to find the photograph?\"\n\n     \"Where, indeed?\"\n\n     \"It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is\n     cabinet size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman's dress.\n     She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid and\n     searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We may\n     take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her.\"\n\n     \"Where, then?\"\n\n     \"Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But I am\n     inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they\n     like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it over to anyone\n     else? She could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell\n     what indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a\n     business man. Besides, remember that she had resolved to use it\n     within a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It\n     must be in her own house.\"\n\n     \"But it has twice been burgled.\"\n\n     \"Pshaw! They did not know how to look.\"\n\n     \"But how will you look?\"\n\n     \"I will not look.\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"I will get her to show me.\"\n\n     \"But she will refuse.\"\n\n     \"She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her\n     carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter.\"\n\n     As he spoke the gleam of the side-lights of a carriage came round the\n     curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which rattled up to\n     the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of the loafing men at\n     the corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a\n     copper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up\n     with the same intention. A fierce quarrel broke out, which was\n     increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the\n     loungers, and by the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the\n     other side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had\n     stepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed\n     and struggling men, who struck savagely at each other with their\n     fists and sticks. Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady;\n     but just as he reached her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground,\n     with the blood running freely down his face. At his fall the\n     guardsmen took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in\n     the other, while a number of better-dressed people, who had watched\n     the scuffle without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady\n     and to attend to the injured man. Irene Adler, as I will still call\n     her, had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her\n     superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back\n     into the street.\n\n     \"Is the poor gentleman much hurt?\" she asked.\n\n     \"He is dead,\" cried several voices.\n\n     \"No, no, there's life in him!\" shouted another. \"But he'll be gone\n     before you can get him to hospital.\"\n\n     \"He's a brave fellow,\" said a woman. \"They would have had the lady's\n     purse and watch if it hadn't been for him. They were a gang, and a\n     rough one, too. Ah, he's breathing now.\"\n\n     \"He can't lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?\"\n\n     \"Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable\n     sofa. This way, please!\"\n\n     Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in\n     the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my\n     post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not\n     been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do\n     not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for\n     the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily\n     ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature\n     against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which\n     she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest\n     treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had\n     intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from\n     under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We\n     are but preventing her from injuring another.\n\n     Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who\n     is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At\n     the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the signal I tossed\n     my rocket into the room with a cry of \"Fire!\" The word was no sooner\n     out of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and\n     ill--gentlemen, ostlers, and servant-maids--joined in a general\n     shriek of \"Fire!\" Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and\n     out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a\n     moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it\n     was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way\n     to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find\n     my friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He\n     walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we had\n     turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgeware\n     Road.\n\n     \"You did it very nicely, Doctor,\" he remarked. \"Nothing could have\n     been better. It is all right.\"\n\n     \"You have the photograph?\"\n\n     \"I know where it is.\"\n\n     \"And how did you find out?\"\n\n     \"She showed me, as I told you she would.\"\n\n     \"I am still in the dark.\"\n\n     \"I do not wish to make a mystery,\" said he, laughing. \"The matter was\n     perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was\n     an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening.\"\n\n     \"I guessed as much.\"\n\n     \"Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the\n     palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my\n     face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick.\"\n\n     \"That also I could fathom.\"\n\n     \"Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else\n     could she do? And into her sitting-room, which was the very room\n     which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was\n     determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for air,\n     they were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance.\"\n\n     \"How did that help you?\"\n\n     \"It was all-important. When a woman thinks that her house is on fire,\n     her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most.\n     It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once\n     taken advantage of it. In the case of the Darlington substitution\n     scandal it was of use to me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle\n     business. A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches\n     for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to me that our lady of to-day had\n     nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest\n     of. She would rush to secure it. The alarm of fire was admirably\n     done. The smoke and shouting were enough to shake nerves of steel.\n     She responded beautifully. The photograph is in a recess behind a\n     sliding panel just above the right bell-pull. She was there in an\n     instant, and I caught a glimpse of it as she half-drew it out. When I\n     cried out that it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the\n     rocket, rushed from the room, and I have not seen her since. I rose,\n     and, making my excuses, escaped from the house. I hesitated whether\n     to attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had\n     come in, and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to wait.\n     A little over-precipitance may ruin all.\"\n\n     \"And now?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King\n     to-morrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. We will be\n     shown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is probable\n     that when she comes she may find neither us nor the photograph. It\n     might be a satisfaction to his Majesty to regain it with his own\n     hands.\"\n\n     \"And when will you call?\"\n\n     \"At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall have a\n     clear field. Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage may mean a\n     complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to the King\n     without delay.\"\n\n     We had reached Baker Street and had stopped at the door. He was\n     searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said:\n\n     \"Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes.\"\n\n     There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the\n     greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had\n     hurried by.\n\n     \"I've heard that voice before,\" said Holmes, staring down the dimly\n     lit street. \"Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n\n\n\n     I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our\n     toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed into\n     the room.\n\n     \"You have really got it!\" he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by\n     either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face.\n\n     \"Not yet.\"\n\n     \"But you have hopes?\"\n\n     \"I have hopes.\"\n\n     \"Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone.\"\n\n     \"We must have a cab.\"\n\n     \"No, my brougham is waiting.\"\n\n     \"Then that will simplify matters.\" We descended and started off once\n     more for Briony Lodge.\n\n     \"Irene Adler is married,\" remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"Married! When?\"\n\n     \"Yesterday.\"\n\n     \"But to whom?\"\n\n     \"To an English lawyer named Norton.\"\n\n     \"But she could not love him.\"\n\n     \"I am in hopes that she does.\"\n\n     \"And why in hopes?\"\n\n     \"Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future annoyance. If\n     the lady loves her husband, she does not love your Majesty. If she\n     does not love your Majesty, there is no reason why she should\n     interfere with your Majesty's plan.\"\n\n     \"It is true. And yet--Well! I wish she had been of my own station!\n     What a queen she would have made!\" He relapsed into a moody silence,\n     which was not broken until we drew up in Serpentine Avenue.\n\n     The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon\n     the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the\n     brougham.\n\n     \"Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe?\" said she.\n\n     \"I am Mr. Holmes,\" answered my companion, looking at her with a\n     questioning and rather startled gaze.\n\n     \"Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left\n     this morning with her husband by the 5.15 train from Charing Cross\n     for the Continent.\"\n\n     \"What!\" Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and\n     surprise. \"Do you mean that she has left England?\"\n\n     \"Never to return.\"\n\n     \"And the papers?\" asked the King hoarsely. \"All is lost.\"\n\n     \"We shall see.\" He pushed past the servant and rushed into the\n     drawing-room, followed by the King and myself. The furniture was\n     scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open\n     drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her\n     flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding\n     shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a\n     letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress,\n     the letter was superscribed to \"Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till\n     called for.\" My friend tore it open and we all three read it\n     together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in\n     this way:\n\n     \"My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes:\n     \"You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after\n     the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how\n     I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against\n     you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it\n     would certainly be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with\n     all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I\n     became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind\n     old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress\n     myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of\n     the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you,\n     ran up stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as I call them, and came\n     down just as you departed.\n     \"Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was\n     really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes.\n     Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and started for\n     the Temple to see my husband.\n     \"We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so\n     formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you\n     call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace.\n     I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he\n     will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep\n     it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will\n     always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I\n     leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\n     \"Very truly yours,\n     \"Irene Norton, née Adler.\"\n\n     \"What a woman--oh, what a woman!\" cried the King of Bohemia, when we\n     had all three read this epistle. \"Did I not tell you how quick and\n     resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it\n     not a pity that she was not on my level?\" \n\n     \"From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very\n     different level to your Majesty,\" said Holmes coldly. \"I am sorry\n     that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business to a more\n     successful conclusion.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, my dear sir,\" cried the King; \"nothing could be\n     more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is\n     now as safe as if it were in the fire.\"\n\n     \"I am glad to hear your Majesty say so.\"\n\n     \"I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can\n     reward you. This ring--\" He slipped an emerald snake ring from his\n     finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.\n\n     \"Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,\"\n     said Holmes.\n\n     \"You have but to name it.\"\n\n     \"This photograph!\"\n\n     The King stared at him in amazement.\n\n     \"Irene's photograph!\" he cried. \"Certainly, if you wish it.\"\n\n     \"I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the\n     matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good-morning.\" He bowed,\n     and, turning away without observing the hand which the King had\n     stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.\n\n     And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of\n     Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by\n     a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women,\n     but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene\n     Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the\n     honourable title of the woman.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE\n\n     I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the\n     autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very\n     stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. With an\n     apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled\n     me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.\n\n     \"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,\"\n     he said cordially.\n\n     \"I was afraid that you were engaged.\"\n\n     \"So I am. Very much so.\"\n\n     \"Then I can wait in the next room.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and\n     helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that\n     he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.\"\n\n     The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of\n     greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small\n     fat-encircled eyes.\n\n     \"Try the settee,\" said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and\n     putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial\n     moods. \"I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is\n     bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday\n     life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has\n     prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so,\n     somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.\"\n\n     \"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,\" I\n     observed.\n\n     \"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went\n     into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that\n     for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life\n     itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the\n     imagination.\"\n\n     \"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.\"\n\n     \"You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view,\n     for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your\n     reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now,\n     Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this\n     morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the\n     most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard\n     me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often\n     connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and\n     occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any\n     positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard it is\n     impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of\n     crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most\n     singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would\n     have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you not\n     merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part\n     but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to\n     have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have\n     heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to\n     guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to\n     my memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the\n     facts are, to the best of my belief, unique.\"\n\n     The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some\n     little pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the\n     inside pocket of his greatcoat. As he glanced down the advertisement\n     column, with his head thrust forward and the paper flattened out upon\n     his knee, I took a good look at the man and endeavoured, after the\n     fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be\n     presented by his dress or appearance.\n\n     I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore\n     every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese,\n     pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey shepherd's check\n     trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front,\n     and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square\n     pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat\n     and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a\n     chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing\n     remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the\n     expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his\n     head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. \"Beyond the\n     obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he\n     takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and\n     that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can\n     deduce nothing else.\"\n\n     Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon\n     the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.\n\n     \"How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr.\n     Holmes?\" he asked. \"How did you know, for example, that I did manual\n     labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter.\"\n\n     \"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than\n     your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more\n     developed.\"\n\n     \"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?\"\n\n     \"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that,\n     especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use\n     an arc-and-compass breastpin.\"\n\n     \"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?\"\n\n     \"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five\n     inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where\n     you rest it upon the desk?\"\n\n     \"Well, but China?\"\n\n     \"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist\n     could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of\n     tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the\n     subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink\n     is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin\n     hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.\"\n\n     Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. \"Well, I never!\" said he. \"I\n     thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that\n     there was nothing in it, after all.\"\n\n     \"I begin to think, Watson,\" said Holmes, \"that I make a mistake in\n     explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor\n     little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so\n     candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I have got it now,\" he answered with his thick red finger\n     planted halfway down the column. \"Here it is. This is what began it\n     all. You just read it for yourself, sir.\"\n\n     I took the paper from him and read as follows:\n\n     \"To the Red-headed League: On account of the bequest of the late\n     Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., there is now\n     another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a\n     salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed men\n     who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years,\n     are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan\n     Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street.\"\n\n     \"What on earth does this mean?\" I ejaculated after I had twice read\n     over the extraordinary announcement.\n\n     Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in\n     high spirits. \"It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?\" said\n     he. \"And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us all about\n     yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had\n     upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, Doctor, of the paper\n     and the date.\"\n\n     \"It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\"\n     said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; \"I have a small pawnbroker's\n     business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a very large\n     affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a\n     living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep\n     one; and I would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come\n     for half wages so as to learn the business.\"\n\n     \"What is the name of this obliging youth?\" asked Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either.\n     It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr.\n     Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself and earn\n     twice what I am able to give him. But, after all, if he is satisfied,\n     why should I put ideas in his head?\"\n\n     \"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employee who comes\n     under the full market price. It is not a common experience among\n     employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is not as\n     remarkable as your advertisement.\"\n\n     \"Oh, he has his faults, too,\" said Mr. Wilson. \"Never was such a\n     fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to\n     be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a\n     rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault,\n     but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice in him.\"\n\n     \"He is still with you, I presume?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple\n     cooking and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the house,\n     for I am a widower and never had any family. We live very quietly,\n     sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads and pay our\n     debts, if we do nothing more.\n\n     \"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding,\n     he came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this\n     very paper in his hand, and he says:\n\n     \"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'\n\n     \"'Why that?' I asks.\n\n     \"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the\n     Red-headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets\n     it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are\n     men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the\n     money. If my hair would only change colour, here's a nice little crib\n     all ready for me to step into.'\n\n     \"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very\n     stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having\n     to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over\n     the door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on\n     outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.\n\n     \"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?' he asked\n     with his eyes open.\n\n     \"'Never.'\n\n     \"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the\n     vacancies.'\n\n     \"'And what are they worth?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and\n     it need not interfere very much with one's other occupations.'\n\n     \"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for\n     the business has not been over-good for some years, and an extra\n     couple of hundred would have been very handy.\n\n     \"'Tell me all about it,' said I.\n\n     \"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for\n     yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address\n     where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the\n     League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who\n     was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had\n     a great sympathy for all red-headed men; so when he died it was found\n     that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with\n     instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to\n     men whose hair is of that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay\n     and very little to do.'\n\n     \"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who would\n     apply.'\n\n     \"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is really\n     confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started\n     from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a\n     good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your applying if\n     your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright,\n     blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would\n     just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put\n     yourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.'\n\n     \"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my\n     hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if\n     there was to be any competition in the matter I stood as good a\n     chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to\n     know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just\n     ordered him to put up the shutters for the day and to come right away\n     with me. He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the\n     business up and started off for the address that was given us in the\n     advertisement.\n\n     \"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From\n     north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his\n     hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet\n     Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like\n     a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so\n     many in the whole country as were brought together by that single\n     advertisement. Every shade of colour they were--straw, lemon, orange,\n     brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were\n     not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how\n     many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding\n     would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he\n     pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and\n     right up to the steps which led to the office. There was a double\n     stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back\n     dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found\n     ourselves in the office.\"\n\n     \"Your experience has been a most entertaining one,\" remarked Holmes\n     as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of\n     snuff. \"Pray continue your very interesting statement.\"\n\n     \"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a\n     deal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that was even\n     redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came\n     up, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would\n     disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very\n     easy matter, after all. However, when our turn came the little man\n     was much more favourable to me than to any of the others, and he\n     closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word\n     with us.\n\n     \"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to\n     fill a vacancy in the League.'\n\n     \"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has\n     every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so\n     fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and\n     gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged\n     forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.\n\n     \"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however, I\n     am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' With that he\n     seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the\n     pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he as he released me. 'I\n     perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for\n     we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell\n     you tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust you with human\n     nature.' He stepped over to the window and shouted through it at the\n     top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of\n     disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in\n     different directions until there was not a red-head to be seen except\n     my own and that of the manager.\n\n     \"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the\n     pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a\n     married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'\n\n     \"I answered that I had not.\n\n     \"His face fell immediately.\n\n     \"'Dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry\n     to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation\n     and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance. It is\n     exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.'\n\n     \"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not\n     to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for a few\n     minutes he said that it would be all right.\n\n     \"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal,\n     but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of\n     hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'\n\n     \"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said\n     I.\n\n     \"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I\n     should be able to look after that for you.'\n\n     \"'What would be the hours?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Ten to two.'\n\n     \"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr.\n     Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before\n     pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the\n     mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that\n     he would see to anything that turned up.\n\n     \"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'\n\n     \"'Is £4 a week.'\n\n     \"'And the work?'\n\n     \"'Is purely nominal.'\n\n     \"'What do you call purely nominal?'\n\n     \"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building,\n     the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position\n     forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don't comply\n     with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.'\n\n     \"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,'\n     said I.\n\n     \"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness nor\n     business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your\n     billet.'\n\n     \"'And the work?'\n\n     \"'Is to copy out the \"Encyclopaedia Britannica.\" There is the first\n     volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and\n     blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be\n     ready to-morrow?'\n\n     \"'Certainly,' I answered.\n\n     \"'Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once\n     more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough\n     to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with my\n     assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my\n     own good fortune.\n\n     \"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low\n     spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair\n     must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I\n     could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could\n     make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing\n     anything so simple as copying out the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.'\n     Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I\n     had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I\n     determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of\n     ink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I\n     started off for Pope's Court.\n\n     \"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as\n     possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was\n     there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the\n     letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time\n     to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he bade me\n     good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and\n     locked the door of the office after me.\n\n     \"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager\n     came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work.\n     It was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning\n     I was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr.\n     Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after\n     a time, he did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to\n     leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come,\n     and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I\n     would not risk the loss of it.\n\n     \"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots\n     and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with\n     diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. It cost me\n     something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my\n     writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end.\"\n\n     \"To an end?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual\n     at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little\n     square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a\n     tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself.\"\n\n     He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of\n     note-paper. It read in this fashion:\n\n                              The Red-headed League\n                                       is\n                                    Dissolved\n                                October 9, 1890.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful\n     face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely\n     overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a\n     roar of laughter.\n\n     \"I cannot see that there is anything very funny,\" cried our client,\n     flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. \"If you can do nothing\n     better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere.\"\n\n     \"No, no,\" cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he\n     had half risen. \"I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It\n     is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my\n     saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps\n     did you take when you found the card upon the door?\"\n\n     \"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at\n     the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.\n     Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the\n     ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of\n     the Red-headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such\n     body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the\n     name was new to him.\n\n     \"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'\n\n     \"'What, the red-headed man?'\n\n     \"'Yes.'\n\n     \"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor and\n     was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises\n     were ready. He moved out yesterday.'\n\n     \"'Where could I find him?'\n\n     \"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King\n     Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'\n\n     \"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a\n     manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard\n     of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross.\"\n\n     \"And what did you do then?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my\n     assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say\n     that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good\n     enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a\n     struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice\n     to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you.\"\n\n     \"And you did very wisely,\" said Holmes. \"Your case is an exceedingly\n     remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you\n     have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from\n     it than might at first sight appear.\"\n\n     \"Grave enough!\" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. \"Why, I have lost four pound a\n     week.\"\n\n     \"As far as you are personally concerned,\" remarked Holmes, \"I do not\n     see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On\n     the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some £30, to say\n     nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every\n     subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by\n     them.\"\n\n     \"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and\n     what their object was in playing this prank--if it was a prank--upon\n     me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and\n     thirty pounds.\"\n\n     \"We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one\n     or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first\n     called your attention to the advertisement--how long had he been with\n     you?\"\n\n     \"About a month then.\"\n\n     \"How did he come?\"\n\n     \"In answer to an advertisement.\"\n\n     \"Was he the only applicant?\"\n\n     \"No, I had a dozen.\"\n\n     \"Why did you pick him?\"\n\n     \"Because he was handy and would come cheap.\"\n\n     \"At half-wages, in fact.\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?\"\n\n     \"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,\n     though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his\n     forehead.\"\n\n     Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. \"I thought as\n     much,\" said he. \"Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for\n     earrings?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a\n     lad.\"\n\n     \"Hum!\" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. \"He is still with\n     you?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.\"\n\n     \"And has your business been attended to in your absence?\"\n\n     \"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion\n     upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday,\n     and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion.\"\n\n     \"Well, Watson,\" said Holmes when our visitor had left us, \"what do\n     you make of it all?\"\n\n     \"I make nothing of it,\" I answered frankly. \"It is a most mysterious\n     business.\"\n\n     \"As a rule,\" said Holmes, \"the more bizarre a thing is the less\n     mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless\n     crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the\n     most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.\"\n\n     \"What are you going to do, then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"To smoke,\" he answered. \"It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg\n     that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.\" He curled himself up\n     in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and\n     there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting\n     out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion\n     that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he\n     suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has\n     made up his mind and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.\n\n     \"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon,\" he remarked.\n     \"What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few\n     hours?\"\n\n     \"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.\"\n\n     \"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first,\n     and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good\n     deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my\n     taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to\n     introspect. Come along!\"\n\n     We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short\n     walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story\n     which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little,\n     shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick\n     houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of\n     weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight\n     against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls\n     and a brown board with \"Jabez Wilson\" in white letters, upon a corner\n     house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his\n     business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one\n     side and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between\n     puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down\n     again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally he\n     returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously upon the\n     pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door\n     and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking,\n     clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes, \"I only wished to ask you how you would go\n     from here to the Strand.\"\n\n     \"Third right, fourth left,\" answered the assistant promptly, closing\n     the door.\n\n     \"Smart fellow, that,\" observed Holmes as we walked away. \"He is, in\n     my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am\n     not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something\n     of him before.\"\n\n     \"Evidently,\" said I, \"Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal\n     in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you inquired\n     your way merely in order that you might see him.\"\n\n     \"Not him.\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"The knees of his trousers.\"\n\n     \"And what did you see?\"\n\n     \"What I expected to see.\"\n\n     \"Why did you beat the pavement?\"\n\n     \"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are\n     spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square.\n     Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it.\"\n\n     The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner\n     from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to\n     it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main\n     arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and\n     west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce\n     flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were\n     black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to\n     realise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business\n     premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded\n     and stagnant square which we had just quitted.\n\n     \"Let me see,\" said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along\n     the line, \"I should like just to remember the order of the houses\n     here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London.\n     There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the\n     Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian\n     Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us\n     right on to the other block. And now, Doctor, we've done our work, so\n     it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then\n     off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony,\n     and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.\"\n\n     My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very\n     capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the\n     afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness,\n     gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his\n     gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those\n     of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted,\n     ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his\n     singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and\n     his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often\n     thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which\n     occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him\n     from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was\n     never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been\n     lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter\n     editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come\n     upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the\n     level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his\n     methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not\n     that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in\n     the music at St. James's Hall I felt that an evil time might be\n     coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.\n\n     \"You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor,\" he remarked as we emerged.\n\n     \"Yes, it would be as well.\"\n\n     \"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This\n     business at Coburg Square is serious.\"\n\n     \"Why serious?\"\n\n     \"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to\n     believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being\n     Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help\n     to-night.\"\n\n     \"At what time?\"\n\n     \"Ten will be early enough.\"\n\n     \"I shall be at Baker Street at ten.\"\n\n     \"Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, so\n     kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.\" He waved his hand,\n     turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.\n\n     I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always\n     oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with\n     Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what\n     he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw\n     clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen,\n     while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I\n     drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the\n     extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the \"Encyclopaedia\"\n     down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with\n     which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and\n     why should I go armed?  Where were we going, and what were we to do?\n     I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's\n     assistant was a formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. I\n     tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter\n     aside until night should bring an explanation.\n\n     It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my way\n     across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two\n     hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I\n     heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room I found\n     Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I\n     recognised as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other\n     was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and\n     oppressively respectable frock-coat.\n\n     \"Ha! Our party is complete,\" said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket\n     and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. \"Watson, I think you\n     know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr.\n     Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night's adventure.\"\n\n     \"We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see,\" said Jones in his\n     consequential way. \"Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a\n     chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running\n     down.\"\n\n     \"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,\"\n     observed Mr. Merryweather gloomily.\n\n     \"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,\" said the\n     police agent loftily. \"He has his own little methods, which are, if\n     he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and\n     fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not\n     too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto\n     murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than\n     the official force.\"\n\n     \"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right,\" said the stranger\n     with deference. \"Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the\n     first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had\n     my rubber.\"\n\n     \"I think you will find,\" said Sherlock Holmes, \"that you will play\n     for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the\n     play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will\n     be some £30,000; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you\n     wish to lay your hands.\"\n\n     \"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young\n     man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I\n     would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.\n     He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a\n     royal duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is\n     as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every\n     turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib\n     in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in\n     Cornwall the next. I've been on his track for years and have never\n     set eyes on him yet.\"\n\n     \"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night.\n     I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree\n     with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten,\n     however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the\n     first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and\n     lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the\n     afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets\n     until we emerged into Farrington Street.\n\n     \"We are close there now,\" my friend remarked. \"This fellow\n     Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the\n     matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a\n     bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one\n     positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a\n     lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are\n     waiting for us.\"\n\n     We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found\n     ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following the\n     guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and\n     through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a small\n     corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was\n     opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which\n     terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to\n     light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling\n     passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or\n     cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.\n\n     \"You are not very vulnerable from above,\" Holmes remarked as he held\n     up the lantern and gazed about him.\n\n     \"Nor from below,\" said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the\n     flags which lined the floor. \"Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!\"\n     he remarked, looking up in surprise.\n\n     \"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet!\" said Holmes\n     severely. \"You have already imperilled the whole success of our\n     expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down\n     upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?\"\n\n     The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very\n     injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees\n     upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to\n     examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds\n     sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and put his\n     glass in his pocket.\n\n     \"We have at least an hour before us,\" he remarked, \"for they can\n     hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.\n     Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work\n     the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,\n     Doctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar of the City\n     branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the\n     chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are\n     reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a\n     considerable interest in this cellar at present.\"\n\n     \"It is our French gold,\" whispered the director. \"We have had several\n     warnings that an attempt might be made upon it.\"\n\n     \"Your French gold?\"\n\n     \"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and\n     borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France.\n     It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the\n     money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which\n     I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil.\n     Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept\n     in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon\n     the subject.\"\n\n     \"Which were very well justified,\" observed Holmes. \"And now it is\n     time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour\n     matters will come to a head. In the meantime Mr. Merryweather, we\n     must put the screen over that dark lantern.\"\n\n     \"And sit in the dark?\"\n\n     \"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I\n     thought that, as we were a partie carrée, you might have your rubber\n     after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far\n     that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we\n     must choose our positions. These are daring men, and though we shall\n     take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are\n     careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal\n     yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon them, close\n     in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting\n     them down.\"\n\n     I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind\n     which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his\n     lantern and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute darkness as I\n     have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to\n     assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a\n     moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of\n     expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden\n     gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.\n\n     \"They have but one retreat,\" whispered Holmes. \"That is back through\n     the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I\n     asked you, Jones?\"\n\n     \"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.\"\n\n     \"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and\n     wait.\"\n\n     What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an\n     hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have\n     almost gone and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary\n     and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were\n     worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so\n     acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my\n     companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of\n     the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.\n     From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the\n     floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.\n\n     At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it\n     lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any\n     warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white,\n     almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little\n     area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing\n     fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as\n     suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid\n     spark which marked a chink between the stones.\n\n     Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending,\n     tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its\n     side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light\n     of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face,\n     which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of\n     the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one\n     knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of\n     the hole and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like\n     himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.\n\n     \"It's all clear,\" he whispered. \"Have you the chisel and the bags?\n     Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.\n     The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth\n     as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of\n     a revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came down on the man's wrist,\n     and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.\n\n     \"It's no use, John Clay,\" said Holmes blandly. \"You have no chance at\n     all.\"\n\n     \"So I see,\" the other answered with the utmost coolness. \"I fancy\n     that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.\"\n\n     \"There are three men waiting for him at the door,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must\n     compliment you.\"\n\n     \"And I you,\" Holmes answered. \"Your red-headed idea was very new and\n     effective.\"\n\n     \"You'll see your pal again presently,\" said Jones. \"He's quicker at\n     climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the\n     derbies.\"\n\n     \"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,\" remarked\n     our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. \"You may not\n     be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness,\n     also, when you address me always to say 'sir' and 'please.'\"\n\n     \"All right,\" said Jones with a stare and a snigger. \"Well, would you\n     please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your\n     Highness to the police-station?\"\n\n     \"That is better,\" said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow to\n     the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the\n     detective.\n\n     \"Really, Mr. Holmes,\" said Mr. Merryweather as we followed them from\n     the cellar, \"I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.\n     There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most\n     complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery\n     that have ever come within my experience.\"\n\n     \"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr.\n     John Clay,\" said Holmes. \"I have been at some small expense over this\n     matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am\n     amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways\n     unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the\n     Red-headed League.\"\n\n     \"You see, Watson,\" he explained in the early hours of the morning as\n     we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, \"it was\n     perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of\n     this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League,\n     and the copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not\n     over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every\n     day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be\n     difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to\n     Clay's ingenious mind by the colour of his accomplice's hair. The £4\n     a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who\n     were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue\n     has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply\n     for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning\n     in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come\n     for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive\n     for securing the situation.\"\n\n     \"But how could you guess what the motive was?\"\n\n     \"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere\n     vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's\n     business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which\n     could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an\n     expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the\n     house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for\n     photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar!\n     There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to\n     this mysterious assistant and found that I had to deal with one of\n     the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing\n     something in the cellar--something which took many hours a day for\n     months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing\n     save that he was running a tunnel to some other building.\n\n     \"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I\n     surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was\n     ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It\n     was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the\n     assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never\n     set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His\n     knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how\n     worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of\n     burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for.\n     I walked round the corner, saw the City and Suburban Bank abutted on\n     our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my problem. When\n     you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland Yard and upon\n     the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you have\n     seen.\"\n\n     \"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?\"\n     I asked.\n\n     \"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that\n     they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other\n     words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential\n     that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the\n     bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any\n     other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all\n     these reasons I expected them to come to-night.\"\n\n     \"You reasoned it out beautifully,\" I exclaimed in unfeigned\n     admiration. \"It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.\"\n\n     \"It saved me from ennui,\" he answered, yawning. \"Alas! I already feel\n     it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape\n     from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to\n     do so.\"\n\n     \"And you are a benefactor of the race,\" said I.\n\n     He shrugged his shoulders. \"Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some\n     little use,\" he remarked. \"'L'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre c'est tout,'\n     as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               A CASE OF IDENTITY\n\n     \"My dear fellow,\" said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of\n     the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, \"life is infinitely\n     stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would\n     not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of\n     existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover\n     over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the\n     queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the\n     plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events,\n     working through generations, and leading to the most outré results,\n     it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen\n     conclusions most stale and unprofitable.\"\n\n     \"And yet I am not convinced of it,\" I answered. \"The cases which come\n     to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar\n     enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme\n     limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither\n     fascinating nor artistic.\"\n\n     \"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a\n     realistic effect,\" remarked Holmes. \"This is wanting in the police\n     report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of\n     the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain\n     the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it, there is\n     nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.\"\n\n     I smiled and shook my head. \"I can quite understand your thinking\n     so.\" I said. \"Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and\n     helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three\n     continents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange and\n     bizarre. But here\"--I picked up the morning paper from the\n     ground--\"let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading\n     upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his wife.' There is half a\n     column of print, but I know without reading it that it is all\n     perfectly familiar to me. There is, of course, the other woman, the\n     drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or\n     landlady. The crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,\" said\n     Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. \"This is the\n     Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing\n     up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a\n     teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of\n     was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by\n     taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you\n     will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of\n     the average story-teller. Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and\n     acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.\"\n\n     He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the\n     centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his homely\n     ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it.\n\n     \"Ah,\" said he, \"I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It\n     is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my\n     assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers.\"\n\n     \"And the ring?\" I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which\n     sparkled upon his finger.\n\n     \"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in\n     which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it\n     even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my\n     little problems.\"\n\n     \"And have you any on hand just now?\" I asked with interest.\n\n     \"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest.\n     They are important, you understand, without being interesting.\n     Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that\n     there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of\n     cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The\n     larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the\n     more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one\n     rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from\n     Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest.\n     It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very\n     many minutes are over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much\n     mistaken.\"\n\n     He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted\n     blinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London street.\n     Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there\n     stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large\n     curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a\n     coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under\n     this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at\n     our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her\n     fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as\n     of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and\n     we heard the sharp clang of the bell.\n\n     \"I have seen those symptoms before,\" said Holmes, throwing his\n     cigarette into the fire. \"Oscillation upon the pavement always means\n     an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the\n     matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we\n     may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man\n     she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell\n     wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the\n     maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she\n     comes in person to resolve our doubts.\"\n\n     As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons\n     entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself\n     loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man\n     behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy\n     courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and\n     bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet\n     abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.\n\n     \"Do you not find,\" he said, \"that with your short sight it is a\n     little trying to do so much typewriting?\"\n\n     \"I did at first,\" she answered, \"but now I know where the letters are\n     without looking.\" Then, suddenly realising the full purport of his\n     words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and\n     astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. \"You've heard about\n     me, Mr. Holmes,\" she cried, \"else how could you know all that?\"\n\n     \"Never mind,\" said Holmes, laughing; \"it is my business to know\n     things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If\n     not, why should you come to consult me?\"\n\n     \"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose\n     husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had given him\n     up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm\n     not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides\n     the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to\n     know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel.\"\n\n     \"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?\" asked Sherlock\n     Holmes, with his finger-tips together and his eyes to the ceiling.\n\n     Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss\n     Mary Sutherland. \"Yes, I did bang out of the house,\" she said, \"for\n     it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank--that is,\n     my father--took it all. He would not go to the police, and he would\n     not go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing and kept on\n     saying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I just on\n     with my things and came right away to you.\"\n\n     \"Your father,\" said Holmes, \"your stepfather, surely, since the name\n     is different.\"\n\n     \"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too,\n     for he is only five years and two months older than myself.\"\n\n     \"And your mother is alive?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr.\n     Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and a\n     man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a\n     plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business\n     behind him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman; but\n     when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the business, for he was\n     very superior, being a traveller in wines. They got £4700 for the\n     goodwill and interest, which wasn't near as much as father could have\n     got if he had been alive.\"\n\n     I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling\n     and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened\n     with the greatest concentration of attention.\n\n     \"Your own little income,\" he asked, \"does it come out of the\n     business?\"\n\n     \"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in\n     Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4½ per cent. Two\n     thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the\n     interest.\"\n\n     \"You interest me extremely,\" said Holmes. \"And since you draw so\n     large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain,\n     you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way. I\n     believe that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of\n     about £60.\"\n\n     \"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand\n     that as long as I live at home I don't wish to be a burden to them,\n     and so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with\n     them. Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windibank draws\n     my interest every quarter and pays it over to mother, and I find that\n     I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It brings me\n     twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in\n     a day.\"\n\n     \"You have made your position very clear to me,\" said Holmes. \"This is\n     my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before\n     myself. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer\n     Angel.\"\n\n     A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously\n     at the fringe of her jacket. \"I met him first at the gasfitters'\n     ball,\" she said. \"They used to send father tickets when he was alive,\n     and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr.\n     Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere.\n     He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school\n     treat. But this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what\n     right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to\n     know, when all father's friends were to be there. And he said that I\n     had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never\n     so much as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would\n     do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went,\n     mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was\n     there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.\"\n\n     \"I suppose,\" said Holmes, \"that when Mr. Windibank came back from\n     France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.\"\n\n     \"Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and\n     shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to\n     a woman, for she would have her way.\"\n\n     \"I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a\n     gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we\n     had got home all safe, and after that we met him--that is to say, Mr.\n     Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back\n     again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.\"\n\n     \"No?\"\n\n     \"Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't\n     have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a\n     woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used\n     to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I\n     had not got mine yet.\"\n\n     \"But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?\"\n\n     \"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer\n     wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each\n     other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used\n     to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there\n     was no need for father to know.\"\n\n     \"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we\n     took. Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall\n     Street--and--\"\n\n     \"What office?\"\n\n     \"That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know.\"\n\n     \"Where did he live, then?\"\n\n     \"He slept on the premises.\"\n\n     \"And you don't know his address?\"\n\n     \"No--except that it was Leadenhall Street.\"\n\n     \"Where did you address your letters, then?\"\n\n     \"To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He\n     said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all\n     the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to\n     typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't have that, for he\n     said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when\n     they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come\n     between us. That will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr.\n     Holmes, and the little things that he would think of.\"\n\n     \"It was most suggestive,\" said Holmes. \"It has long been an axiom of\n     mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.  Can\n     you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?\"\n\n     \"He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in\n     the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be\n     conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was\n     gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he\n     told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,\n     whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat\n     and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore\n     tinted glasses against the glare.\"\n\n     \"Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather,\n     returned to France?\"\n\n     \"Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should\n     marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me\n     swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would\n     always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me\n     swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his\n     favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I was. Then,\n     when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about\n     father; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to\n     tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with\n     him. I didn't quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I\n     should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I\n     didn't want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at\n     Bordeaux, where the company has its French offices, but the letter\n     came back to me on the very morning of the wedding.\"\n\n     \"It missed him, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived.\"\n\n     \"Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the\n     Friday. Was it to be in church?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near\n     King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St.\n     Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two\n     of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a four-wheeler,\n     which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the\n     church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to\n     step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box\n     and looked there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not\n     imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his\n     own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or\n     heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of\n     him.\"\n\n     \"It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated,\" said\n     Holmes.\n\n     \"Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the\n     morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be\n     true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to\n     separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and\n     that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange\n     talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a\n     meaning to it.\"\n\n     \"Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some\n     unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would\n     not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened.\"\n\n     \"But you have no notion as to what it could have been?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"One more question. How did your mother take the matter?\"\n\n     \"She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter\n     again.\"\n\n     \"And your father? Did you tell him?\"\n\n     \"Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened,\n     and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest\n     could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then\n     leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me\n     and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but\n     Hosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a\n     shilling of mine. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he\n     not write? Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of it, and I can't\n     sleep a wink at night.\" She pulled a little handkerchief out of her\n     muff and began to sob heavily into it.\n\n     \"I shall glance into the case for you,\" said Holmes, rising, \"and I\n     have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the\n     weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell\n     upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from\n     your memory, as he has done from your life.\"\n\n     \"Then you don't think I'll see him again?\"\n\n     \"I fear not.\"\n\n     \"Then what has happened to him?\"\n\n     \"You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate\n     description of him and any letters of his which you can spare.\"\n\n     \"I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle,\" said she. \"Here\n     is the slip and here are four letters from him.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. And your address?\"\n\n     \"No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your\n     father's place of business?\"\n\n     \"He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of\n     Fenchurch Street.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave\n     the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given you. Let\n     the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect\n     your life.\"\n\n     \"You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true\n     to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back.\"\n\n     For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was\n     something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled\n     our respect. She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table and\n     went her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be\n     summoned.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips\n     still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and\n     his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the\n     rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor,\n     and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue\n     cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in\n     his face.\n\n     \"Quite an interesting study, that maiden,\" he observed. \"I found her\n     more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is\n     rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my\n     index, in Andover in '77, and there was something of the sort at The\n     Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, there were one or two\n     details which were new to me. But the maiden herself was most\n     instructive.\"\n\n     \"You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible\n     to me,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look,\n     and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to\n     realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails,\n     or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. Now, what did you\n     gather from that woman's appearance? Describe it.\"\n\n     \"Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a\n     feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads\n     sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress\n     was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple\n     plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and were worn\n     through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't observe. She had\n     small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly\n     well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.\n\n     \"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have\n     really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed\n     everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you\n     have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my\n     boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always\n     at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the\n     knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her\n     sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The\n     double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses\n     against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of\n     the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and\n     on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right\n     across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face,\n     and, observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I\n     ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to\n     surprise her.\"\n\n     \"It surprised me.\"\n\n     \"But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and\n     interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which\n     she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd\n     ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a\n     plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of\n     five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see\n     that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home\n     with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that\n     she came away in a hurry.\"\n\n     \"And what else?\" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my\n     friend's incisive reasoning.\n\n     \"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home\n     but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was\n     torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both\n     glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a\n     hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or\n     the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing,\n     though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson.\n     Would you mind reading me the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer\n     Angel?\"\n\n     I held the little printed slip to the light.\n\n     \"Missing,\" it said, \"on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman\n     named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly\n     built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre,\n     bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight\n     infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat\n     faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and grey Harris\n     tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to\n     have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody\n     bringing--\"\n\n     \"That will do,\" said Holmes. \"As to the letters,\" he continued,\n     glancing over them, \"they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clue in\n     them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one\n     remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you.\"\n\n     \"They are typewritten,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat\n     little 'Hosmer Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no\n     superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The\n     point about the signature is very suggestive--in fact, we may call it\n     conclusive.\"\n\n     \"Of what?\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears\n     upon the case?\"\n\n     \"I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished to be able to\n     deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were\n     instituted.\"\n\n     \"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters,\n     which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the\n     other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him\n     whether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow evening. It is\n     just as well that we should do business with the male relatives. And\n     now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters\n     come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the\n     interim.\"\n\n     I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of\n     reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that he must\n     have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which\n     he treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to\n     fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of\n     Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to\n     the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary\n     circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it\n     would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.\n\n     I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the\n     conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find\n     that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the\n     identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.\n\n     A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at\n     the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of the\n     sufferer. It was not until close upon six o'clock that I found myself\n     free and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street,\n     half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the dénouement of\n     the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half\n     asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his\n     armchair. A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the\n     pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent\n     his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.\n\n     \"Well, have you solved it?\" I asked as I entered.\n\n     \"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.\"\n\n     \"No, no, the mystery!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. There\n     was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday,\n     some of the details are of interest. The only drawback is that there\n     is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel.\"\n\n     \"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss\n     Sutherland?\"\n\n     The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet\n     opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the\n     passage and a tap at the door.\n\n     \"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank,\" said Holmes.\n     \"He has written to me to say that he would be here at six. Come in!\"\n\n     The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty\n     years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland,\n     insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating\n     grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his\n     shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down\n     into the nearest chair.\n\n     \"Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank,\" said Holmes. \"I think that this\n     typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with\n     me for six o'clock?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my\n     own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled\n     you about this little matter, for I think it is far better not to\n     wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite against my wishes that\n     she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may\n     have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up\n     her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you\n     are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to\n     have a family misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a\n     useless expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" said Holmes quietly; \"I have every reason to\n     believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel.\"\n\n     Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. \"I am\n     delighted to hear it,\" he said.\n\n     \"It is a curious thing,\" remarked Holmes, \"that a typewriter has\n     really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless\n     they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters\n     get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you\n     remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there\n     is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and a slight defect in the\n     tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other characteristics, but those\n     are the more obvious.\"\n\n     \"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no\n     doubt it is a little worn,\" our visitor answered, glancing keenly at\n     Holmes with his bright little eyes.\n\n     \"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr.\n     Windibank,\" Holmes continued. \"I think of writing another little\n     monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to\n     crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some little attention.\n     I have here four letters which purport to come from the missing man.\n     They are all typewritten. In each case, not only are the 'e's'\n     slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will observe, if you care to\n     use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to\n     which I have alluded are there as well.\"\n\n     Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. \"I\n     cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes,\" he\n     said. \"If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know when you\n     have done it.\"\n\n     \"Certainly,\" said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in the\n     door. \"I let you know, then, that I have caught him!\"\n\n     \"What! where?\" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips and\n     glancing about him like a rat in a trap.\n\n     \"Oh, it won't do--really it won't,\" said Holmes suavely. \"There is no\n     possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too\n     transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it\n     was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That's right!\n     Sit down and let us talk it over.\"\n\n     Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter\n     of moisture on his brow. \"It--it's not actionable,\" he stammered.\n\n     \"I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves,\n     Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a\n     petty way as ever came before me. Now, let me just run over the\n     course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong.\"\n\n     The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his\n     breast, like one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up on\n     the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands in his\n     pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.\n\n     \"The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money,\"\n     said he, \"and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long\n     as she lived with them. It was a considerable sum, for people in\n     their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious\n     difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it. The daughter was\n     of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in\n     her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal\n     advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain\n     single long. Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a\n     hundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent it? He\n     takes the obvious course of keeping her at home and forbidding her to\n     seek the company of people of her own age. But soon he found that\n     that would not answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her\n     rights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a\n     certain ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives\n     an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the\n     connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered\n     those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a moustache\n     and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an\n     insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl's short\n     sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other lovers by\n     making love himself.\"\n\n     \"It was only a joke at first,\" groaned our visitor. \"We never thought\n     that she would have been so carried away.\"\n\n     \"Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very\n     decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her\n     stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an\n     instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the gentleman's\n     attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed\n     admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was\n     obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go if a\n     real effect were to be produced. There were meetings, and an\n     engagement, which would finally secure the girl's affections from\n     turning towards anyone else. But the deception could not be kept up\n     forever. These pretended journeys to France were rather cumbrous. The\n     thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a\n     dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the\n     young lady's mind and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor\n     for some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a\n     Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something\n     happening on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished\n     Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as\n     to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not\n     listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her, and\n     then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the\n     old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the\n     other. I think that was the chain of events, Mr. Windibank!\"\n\n     Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had\n     been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon\n     his pale face.\n\n     \"It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, \"but if you are\n     so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who\n     are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing actionable\n     from the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay\n     yourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint.\"\n\n     \"The law cannot, as you say, touch you,\" said Holmes, unlocking and\n     throwing open the door, \"yet there never was a man who deserved\n     punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a friend, he\n     ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove!\" he continued,\n     flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man's face, \"it\n     is not part of my duties to my client, but here's a hunting crop\n     handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to--\" He took two swift\n     steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild\n     clatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and\n     from the window we could see Mr. James Windibank running at the top\n     of his speed down the road.\n\n     \"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!\" said Holmes, laughing, as he\n     threw himself down into his chair once more. \"That fellow will rise\n     from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a\n     gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of\n     interest.\"\n\n     \"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,\" I\n     remarked.\n\n     \"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer\n     Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it\n     was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the\n     incident, as far as we could see, was the stepfather. Then the fact\n     that the two men were never together, but that the one always\n     appeared when the other was away, was suggestive. So were the tinted\n     spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as\n     did the bushy whiskers. My suspicions were all confirmed by his\n     peculiar action in typewriting his signature, which, of course,\n     inferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would\n     recognise even the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated\n     facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same\n     direction.\"\n\n     \"And how did you verify them?\"\n\n     \"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew\n     the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed\n     description, I eliminated everything from it which could be the\n     result of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I\n     sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether\n     it answered to the description of any of their travellers. I had\n     already noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to\n     the man himself at his business address asking him if he would come\n     here. As I expected, his reply was typewritten and revealed the same\n     trivial but characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter\n     from Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the\n     description tallied in every respect with that of their employee,\n     James Windibank. Voilà tout!\"\n\n     \"And Miss Sutherland?\"\n\n     \"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old\n     Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub,\n     and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.' There is\n     as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the\n     world.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                           THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY\n\n     We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid\n     brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this\n     way:\n\n     \"Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from\n     the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall\n     be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave\n     Paddington by the 11.15.\"\n     \"What do you say, dear?\" said my wife, looking across at me. \"Will\n     you go?\" \n\n     \"I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at\n     present.\"\n\n     \"Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a\n     little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and\n     you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes' cases.\"\n\n     \"I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through\n     one of them,\" I answered. \"But if I am to go, I must pack at once,\n     for I have only half an hour.\"\n\n     My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the effect\n     of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants were few and\n     simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a cab with my\n     valise, rattling away to Paddington Station. Sherlock Holmes was\n     pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even\n     gaunter and taller by his long grey travelling-cloak and\n     close-fitting cloth cap.\n\n     \"It is really very good of you to come, Watson,\" said he. \"It makes a\n     considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can\n     thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless or else\n     biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I shall get the\n     tickets.\"\n\n     We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers\n     which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged and read,\n     with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past\n     Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a gigantic ball and\n     tossed them up onto the rack.\n\n     \"Have you heard anything of the case?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days.\"\n\n     \"The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just been\n     looking through all the recent papers in order to master the\n     particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those simple\n     cases which are so extremely difficult.\"\n\n     \"That sounds a little paradoxical.\"\n\n     \"But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a clue.\n     The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult\n     it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they have established\n     a very serious case against the son of the murdered man.\"\n\n     \"It is a murder, then?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for granted\n     until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it. I will\n     explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able to\n     understand it, in a very few words.\n\n     \"Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in\n     Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part is a Mr.\n     John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned some years\n     ago to the old country. One of the farms which he held, that of\n     Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was also an\n     ex-Australian. The men had known each other in the colonies, so that\n     it was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should\n     do so as near each other as possible. Turner was apparently the\n     richer man, so McCarthy became his tenant but still remained, it\n     seems, upon terms of perfect equality, as they were frequently\n     together. McCarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an\n     only daughter of the same age, but neither of them had wives living.\n     They appear to have avoided the society of the neighbouring English\n     families and to have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys\n     were fond of sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of\n     the neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl.\n     Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the least.\n     That is as much as I have been able to gather about the families. Now\n     for the facts.\n\n     \"On June 3rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at\n     Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the\n     Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of\n     the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been out with\n     his serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told the man that\n     he must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at\n     three. From that appointment he never came back alive.\n\n     \"From Hatherley Farm-house to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a\n     mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One was\n     an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William\n     Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner. Both these\n     witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone. The game-keeper\n     adds that within a few minutes of his seeing Mr. McCarthy pass he had\n     seen his son, Mr. James McCarthy, going the same way with a gun under\n     his arm. To the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight\n     at the time, and the son was following him. He thought no more of the\n     matter until he heard in the evening of the tragedy that had\n     occurred.\n\n     \"The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the\n     game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly wooded\n     round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A\n     girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the\n     lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods\n     picking flowers. She states that while she was there she saw, at the\n     border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son,\n     and that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr.\n     McCarthy the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw\n     the latter raise up his hand as if to strike his father. She was so\n     frightened by their violence that she ran away and told her mother\n     when she reached home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling\n     near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to\n     fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came\n     running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in\n     the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was much\n     excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and\n     sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On following him\n     they found the dead body stretched out upon the grass beside the\n     pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and\n     blunt weapon. The injuries were such as might very well have been\n     inflicted by the butt-end of his son's gun, which was found lying on\n     the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances\n     the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful\n     murder' having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on\n     Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred\n     the case to the next Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as\n     they came out before the coroner and the police-court.\"\n\n     \"I could hardly imagine a more damning case,\" I remarked. \"If ever\n     circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here.\"\n\n     \"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,\" answered Holmes\n     thoughtfully. \"It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but\n     if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it\n     pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely\n     different. It must be confessed, however, that the case looks\n     exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that\n     he is indeed the culprit. There are several people in the\n     neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of\n     the neighbouring landowner, who believe in his innocence, and who\n     have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with the\n     Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in his interest. Lestrade,\n     being rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is\n     that two middle-aged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an\n     hour instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid,\" said I, \"that the facts are so obvious that you will\n     find little credit to be gained out of this case.\"\n\n     \"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,\" he answered,\n     laughing. \"Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious\n     facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade. You\n     know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall\n     either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite\n     incapable of employing, or even of understanding. To take the first\n     example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the\n     window is upon the right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr.\n     Lestrade would have noted even so self-evident a thing as that.\"\n\n     \"How on earth--\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness which\n     characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this season you\n     shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less\n     complete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes\n     positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is\n     surely very clear that that side is less illuminated than the other.\n     I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an\n     equal light and being satisfied with such a result. I only quote this\n     as a trivial example of observation and inference. Therein lies my\n     métier, and it is just possible that it may be of some service in the\n     investigation which lies before us. There are one or two minor points\n     which were brought out in the inquest, and which are worth\n     considering.\"\n\n     \"What are they?\"\n\n     \"It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after the\n     return to Hatherley Farm. On the inspector of constabulary informing\n     him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to\n     hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. This observation\n     of his had the natural effect of removing any traces of doubt which\n     might have remained in the minds of the coroner's jury.\"\n\n     \"It was a confession,\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"No, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence.\"\n\n     \"Coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at\n     least a most suspicious remark.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" said Holmes, \"it is the brightest rift which I can\n     at present see in the clouds. However innocent he might be, he could\n     not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances\n     were very black against him. Had he appeared surprised at his own\n     arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I should have looked upon it as\n     highly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be\n     natural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best\n     policy to a scheming man. His frank acceptance of the situation marks\n     him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable\n     self-restraint and firmness. As to his remark about his deserts, it\n     was also not unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead\n     body of his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very\n     day so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and\n     even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so important, to\n     raise his hand as if to strike him. The self-reproach and contrition\n     which are displayed in his remark appear to me to be the signs of a\n     healthy mind rather than of a guilty one.\"\n\n     I shook my head. \"Many men have been hanged on far slighter\n     evidence,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged.\"\n\n     \"What is the young man's own account of the matter?\"\n\n     \"It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though\n     there are one or two points in it which are suggestive. You will find\n     it here, and may read it for yourself.\"\n\n     He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire\n     paper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the paragraph\n     in which the unfortunate young man had given his own statement of\n     what had occurred. I settled myself down in the corner of the\n     carriage and read it very carefully. It ran in this way:\n\n     \"Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called\n     and gave evidence as follows: 'I had been away from home for three\n     days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last\n     Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at the time of my\n     arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to\n     Ross with John Cobb, the groom. Shortly after my return I heard the\n     wheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw\n     him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware\n     in which direction he was going. I then took my gun and strolled out\n     in the direction of the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting\n     the rabbit warren which is upon the other side. On my way I saw\n     William Crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence;\n     but he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father. I had\n     no idea that he was in front of me. When about a hundred yards from\n     the pool I heard a cry of \"Cooee!\" which was a usual signal between\n     my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found him standing\n     by the pool. He appeared to be much surprised at seeing me and asked\n     me rather roughly what I was doing there. A conversation ensued which\n     led to high words and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a\n     very violent temper. Seeing that his passion was becoming\n     ungovernable, I left him and returned towards Hatherley Farm. I had\n     not gone more than 150 yards, however, when I heard a hideous outcry\n     behind me, which caused me to run back again. I found my father\n     expiring upon the ground, with his head terribly injured. I dropped\n     my gun and held him in my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I\n     knelt beside him for some minutes, and then made my way to Mr.\n     Turner's lodge-keeper, his house being the nearest, to ask for\n     assistance. I saw no one near my father when I returned, and I have\n     no idea how he came by his injuries. He was not a popular man, being\n     somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I\n     know, no active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.'\n     \"The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before he\n     died?\n     \"Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some\n     allusion to a rat.\n     \"The Coroner: What did you understand by that?\n     \"Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was\n     delirious.\n     \"The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father had\n     this final quarrel?\n     \"Witness: I should prefer not to answer.\n     \"The Coroner: I am afraid that I must press it.\n     \"Witness: It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can assure\n     you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed.\n     \"The Coroner: That is for the court to decide. I need not point out\n     to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case\n     considerably in any future proceedings which may arise.\n     \"Witness: I must still refuse.\n     \"The Coroner: I understand that the cry of 'Cooee' was a common\n     signal between you and your father?\n     \"Witness: It was.\n     \"The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you,\n     and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?\n     \"Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know.\n     \"A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when\n     you returned on hearing the cry and found your father fatally\n     injured?\n     \"Witness: Nothing definite.\n     \"The Coroner: What do you mean?\n     \"Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into the\n     open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet I have a\n     vague impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground\n     to the left of me. It seemed to me to be something grey in colour, a\n     coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. When I rose from my father I\n     looked round for it, but it was gone.\n     \"'Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?'\n     \"'Yes, it was gone.'\n     \"'You cannot say what it was?'\n     \"'No, I had a feeling something was there.'\n     \"'How far from the body?'\n     \"'A dozen yards or so.'\n     \"'And how far from the edge of the wood?'\n     \"'About the same.'\n     \"'Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards\n     of it?'\n     \"'Yes, but with my back towards it.'\n     \"This concluded the examination of the witness.\"\n\n     \"I see,\" said I as I glanced down the column, \"that the coroner in\n     his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy. He\n     calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father\n     having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to\n     give details of his conversation with his father, and his singular\n     account of his father's dying words. They are all, as he remarks,\n     very much against the son.\"\n\n     Holmes laughed softly to himself and stretched himself out upon the\n     cushioned seat. \"Both you and the coroner have been at some pains,\"\n     said he, \"to single out the very strongest points in the young man's\n     favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him credit for having\n     too much imagination and too little? Too little, if he could not\n     invent a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the\n     jury; too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness\n     anything so outré as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of\n     the vanishing cloth. No, sir, I shall approach this case from the\n     point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see\n     whither that hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket\n     Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are\n     on the scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall\n     be there in twenty minutes.\"\n\n     It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through the\n     beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found\n     ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A lean,\n     ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the\n     platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings\n     which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no\n     difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. With him we\n     drove to the Hereford Arms where a room had already been engaged for\n     us.\n\n     \"I have ordered a carriage,\" said Lestrade as we sat over a cup of\n     tea. \"I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy\n     until you had been on the scene of the crime.\"\n\n     \"It was very nice and complimentary of you,\" Holmes answered. \"It is\n     entirely a question of barometric pressure.\"\n\n     Lestrade looked startled. \"I do not quite follow,\" he said.\n\n     \"How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in\n     the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and\n     the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel\n     abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I shall use the\n     carriage to-night.\"\n\n     Lestrade laughed indulgently. \"You have, no doubt, already formed\n     your conclusions from the newspapers,\" he said. \"The case is as plain\n     as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes.\n     Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a very positive\n     one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I\n     repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I\n     had not already done. Why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the\n     door.\"\n\n     He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the\n     most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet\n     eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all\n     thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement\n     and concern.\n\n     \"Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!\" she cried, glancing from one to the other\n     of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, fastening upon my\n     companion, \"I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to\n     tell you so. I know that James didn't do it. I know it, and I want\n     you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt\n     upon that point. We have known each other since we were little\n     children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too\n     tender-hearted to hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to anyone who\n     really knows him.\"\n\n     \"I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,\" said Sherlock Holmes.  \"You\n     may rely upon my doing all that I can.\"\n\n     \"But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do\n     you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that\n     he is innocent?\"\n\n     \"I think that it is very probable.\"\n\n     \"There, now!\" she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly\n     at Lestrade. \"You hear! He gives me hopes.\"\n\n     Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. \"I am afraid that my colleague has\n     been a little quick in forming his conclusions,\" he said.\n\n     \"But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did it.\n     And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why\n     he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was\n     concerned in it.\"\n\n     \"In what way?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many\n     disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there\n     should be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each\n     other as brother and sister; but of course he is young and has seen\n     very little of life yet, and--and--well, he naturally did not wish to\n     do anything like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am\n     sure, was one of them.\"\n\n     \"And your father?\" asked Holmes. \"Was he in favour of such a union?\"\n\n     \"No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favour\n     of it.\" A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot\n     one of his keen, questioning glances at her.\n\n     \"Thank you for this information,\" said he. \"May I see your father if\n     I call to-morrow?\"\n\n     \"I am afraid the doctor won't allow it.\"\n\n     \"The doctor?\"\n\n     \"Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years\n     back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his\n     bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous\n     system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had\n     known dad in the old days in Victoria.\"\n\n     \"Ha! In Victoria! That is important.\"\n\n     \"Yes, at the mines.\"\n\n     \"Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner made\n     his money.\"\n\n     \"Yes, certainly.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to me.\"\n\n     \"You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you will\n     go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him\n     that I know him to be innocent.\"\n\n     \"I will, Miss Turner.\"\n\n     \"I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if I\n     leave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking.\" She\n     hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard\n     the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.\n\n     \"I am ashamed of you, Holmes,\" said Lestrade with dignity after a few\n     minutes' silence. \"Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound\n     to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel.\"\n\n     \"I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy,\" said Holmes.\n     \"Have you an order to see him in prison?\"\n\n     \"Yes, but only for you and me.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have still\n     time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?\"\n\n     \"Ample.\"\n\n     \"Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow,\n     but I shall only be away a couple of hours.\"\n\n     I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the\n     streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I\n     lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed\n     novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared\n     to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my\n     attention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that I\n     at last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a\n     consideration of the events of the day. Supposing that this unhappy\n     young man's story were absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what\n     absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred\n     between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when,\n     drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something\n     terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the\n     injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell\n     and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim\n     account of the inquest. In the surgeon's deposition it was stated\n     that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half\n     of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt\n     weapon. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must\n     have been struck from behind. That was to some extent in favour of\n     the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his\n     father. Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might\n     have turned his back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth\n     while to call Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar\n     dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be\n     delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become\n     delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he\n     met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to\n     find some possible explanation. And then the incident of the grey\n     cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the murderer must\n     have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his\n     flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it\n     away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned\n     not a dozen paces off. What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities\n     the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade's opinion, and yet\n     I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose\n     hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction\n     of young McCarthy's innocence.\n\n     It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, for\n     Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.\n\n     \"The glass still keeps very high,\" he remarked as he sat down. \"It is\n     of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over\n     the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and\n     keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when\n     fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy.\"\n\n     \"And what did you learn from him?\"\n\n     \"Nothing.\"\n\n     \"Could he throw no light?\"\n\n     \"None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who\n     had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that\n     he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very quick-witted\n     youth, though comely to look at and, I should think, sound at heart.\"\n\n     \"I cannot admire his taste,\" I remarked, \"if it is indeed a fact that\n     he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this\n     Miss Turner.\"\n\n     \"Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly,\n     insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only\n     a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five\n     years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the\n     clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office?\n     No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening\n     it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give\n     his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible.\n     It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up\n     into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading\n     him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means\n     of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very\n     hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.\n     It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in\n     Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point.\n     It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the\n     barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and\n     likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to\n     him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so\n     that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of\n     news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered.\"\n\n     \"But if he is innocent, who has done it?\"\n\n     \"Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two\n     points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone\n     at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for\n     his son was away, and he did not know when he would return. The\n     second is that the murdered man was heard to cry 'Cooee!' before he\n     knew that his son had returned. Those are the crucial points upon\n     which the case depends. And now let us talk about George Meredith, if\n     you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow.\"\n\n     There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke\n     bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with the\n     carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.\n\n     \"There is serious news this morning,\" Lestrade observed. \"It is said\n     that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired\n     of.\"\n\n     \"An elderly man, I presume?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life\n     abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This\n     business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend of\n     McCarthy's, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have\n     learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.\"\n\n     \"Indeed! That is interesting,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about\n     here speaks of his kindness to him.\"\n\n     \"Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this\n     McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been\n     under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his\n     son to Turner's daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate,\n     and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case\n     of a proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange,\n     since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The\n     daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that?\"\n\n     \"We have got to the deductions and the inferences,\" said Lestrade,\n     winking at me. \"I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes,\n     without flying away after theories and fancies.\"\n\n     \"You are right,\" said Holmes demurely; \"you do find it very hard to\n     tackle the facts.\"\n\n     \"Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult\n     to get hold of,\" replied Lestrade with some warmth.\n\n     \"And that is--\"\n\n     \"That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all\n     theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.\"\n\n     \"Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,\" said Holmes,\n     laughing. \"But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm\n     upon the left.\"\n\n     \"Yes, that is it.\" It was a widespread, comfortable-looking building,\n     two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon\n     the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however,\n     gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still\n     lay heavy upon it. We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes'\n     request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his\n     death, and also a pair of the son's, though not the pair which he had\n     then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight\n     different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from\n     which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as\n     this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker\n     Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and\n     darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his\n     eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was\n     bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the\n     veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils\n     seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his\n     mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a\n     question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only\n     provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he\n     made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by\n     way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as\n     is all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon\n     the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side.\n     Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he\n     made quite a little detour into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked\n     behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I\n     watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction\n     that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.\n\n     The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some\n     fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley\n     Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner. Above the woods\n     which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting\n     pinnacles which marked the site of the rich landowner's dwelling. On\n     the Hatherley side of the pool the woods grew very thick, and there\n     was a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the\n     edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. Lestrade showed\n     us the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so\n     moist was the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had\n     been left by the fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see\n     by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be\n     read upon the trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking\n     up a scent, and then turned upon my companion.\n\n     \"What did you go into the pool for?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon or\n     other trace. But how on earth--\"\n\n     \"Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its\n     inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and there\n     it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been\n     had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed\n     all over it. Here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and\n     they have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body.\n     But here are three separate tracks of the same feet.\" He drew out a\n     lens and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking\n     all the time rather to himself than to us. \"These are young\n     McCarthy's feet. Twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so\n     that the soles are deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That\n     bears out his story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground.\n     Then here are the father's feet as he paced up and down. What is\n     this, then? It is the butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening.\n     And this? Ha, ha! What have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too,\n     quite unusual boots! They come, they go, they come again--of course\n     that was for the cloak. Now where did they come from?\" He ran up and\n     down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we were\n     well within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a great\n     beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes traced his way\n     to the farther side of this and lay down once more upon his face with\n     a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he remained there,\n     turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to\n     me to be dust into an envelope and examining with his lens not only\n     the ground but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach. A\n     jagged stone was lying among the moss, and this also he carefully\n     examined and retained. Then he followed a pathway through the wood\n     until he came to the highroad, where all traces were lost.\n\n     \"It has been a case of considerable interest,\" he remarked, returning\n     to his natural manner. \"I fancy that this grey house on the right\n     must be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a word with\n     Moran, and perhaps write a little note. Having done that, we may\n     drive back to our luncheon. You may walk to the cab, and I shall be\n     with you presently.\"\n\n     It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove back\n     into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had\n     picked up in the wood.\n\n     \"This may interest you, Lestrade,\" he remarked, holding it out.  \"The\n     murder was done with it.\"\n\n     \"I see no marks.\"\n\n     \"There are none.\"\n\n     \"How do you know, then?\"\n\n     \"The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few days.\n     There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It corresponds\n     with the injuries. There is no sign of any other weapon.\"\n\n     \"And the murderer?\"\n\n     \"Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears\n     thick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian cigars,\n     uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket.\n     There are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid\n     us in our search.\"\n\n     Lestrade laughed. \"I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,\" he said.\n     \"Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hard-headed\n     British jury.\"\n\n     \"Nous verrons,\" answered Holmes calmly. \"You work your own method,\n     and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon, and shall\n     probably return to London by the evening train.\"\n\n     \"And leave your case unfinished?\"\n\n     \"No, finished.\"\n\n     \"But the mystery?\"\n\n     \"It is solved.\"\n\n     \"Who was the criminal, then?\"\n\n     \"The gentleman I describe.\"\n\n     \"But who is he?\"\n\n     \"Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a\n     populous neighbourhood.\"\n\n     Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. \"I am a practical man,\" he said,\n     \"and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a\n     left-handed gentleman with a game leg. I should become the\n     laughing-stock of Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     \"All right,\" said Holmes quietly. \"I have given you the chance. Here\n     are your lodgings. Good-bye. I shall drop you a line before I leave.\"\n\n     Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we\n     found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in thought\n     with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a\n     perplexing position.\n\n     \"Look here, Watson,\" he said when the cloth was cleared \"just sit\n     down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don't\n     know quite what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a cigar\n     and let me expound.\"\n\n     \"Pray do so.\"\n\n     \"Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young\n     McCarthy's narrative which struck us both instantly, although they\n     impressed me in his favour and you against him. One was the fact that\n     his father should, according to his account, cry 'Cooee!' before\n     seeing him. The other was his singular dying reference to a rat. He\n     mumbled several words, you understand, but that was all that caught\n     the son's ear. Now from this double point our research must commence,\n     and we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is\n     absolutely true.\"\n\n     \"What of this 'Cooee!' then?\"\n\n     \"Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The son,\n     as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that he was\n     within earshot. The 'Cooee!' was meant to attract the attention of\n     whoever it was that he had the appointment with. But 'Cooee' is a\n     distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians.\n     There is a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected\n     to meet him at Boscombe Pool was someone who had been in Australia.\"\n\n     \"What of the rat, then?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it\n     out on the table. \"This is a map of the Colony of Victoria,\" he said.\n     \"I wired to Bristol for it last night.\" He put his hand over part of\n     the map. \"What do you read?\"\n\n     \"ARAT,\" I read.\n\n     \"And now?\" He raised his hand.\n\n     \"BALLARAT.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son\n     only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter the name\n     of his murderer. So and so, of Ballarat.\"\n\n     \"It is wonderful!\" I exclaimed.\n\n     \"It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down\n     considerably. The possession of a grey garment was a third point\n     which, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a certainty.\n     We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of\n     an Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak.\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only be\n     approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly\n     wander.\"\n\n     \"Quite so.\"\n\n     \"Then comes our expedition of to-day. By an examination of the ground\n     I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade,\n     as to the personality of the criminal.\"\n\n     \"But how did you gain them?\"\n\n     \"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.\"\n\n     \"His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length of\n     his stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces.\"\n\n     \"Yes, they were peculiar boots.\"\n\n     \"But his lameness?\"\n\n     \"The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his\n     left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped--he was\n     lame.\"\n\n     \"But his left-handedness.\"\n\n     \"You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by\n     the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately\n     behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can that be unless\n     it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind that tree during\n     the interview between the father and son. He had even smoked there. I\n     found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes\n     enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know,\n     devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the\n     ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette\n     tobacco. Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the\n     stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar,\n     of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam.\"\n\n     \"And the cigar-holder?\"\n\n     \"I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he\n     used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut\n     was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife.\"\n\n     \"Holmes,\" I said, \"you have drawn a net round this man from which he\n     cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as\n     if you had cut the cord which was hanging him. I see the direction in\n     which all this points. The culprit is--\"\n\n     \"Mr. John Turner,\" cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our\n     sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.\n\n     The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His slow,\n     limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude,\n     and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs\n     showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of\n     character. His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding,\n     drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his\n     appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and\n     the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. It was\n     clear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and\n     chronic disease.\n\n     \"Pray sit down on the sofa,\" said Holmes gently. \"You had my note?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. You said that you wished to see\n     me here to avoid scandal.\"\n\n     \"I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall.\"\n\n     \"And why did you wish to see me?\" He looked across at my companion\n     with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already\n     answered.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. \"It is\n     so. I know all about McCarthy.\"\n\n     The old man sank his face in his hands. \"God help me!\" he cried. \"But\n     I would not have let the young man come to harm. I give you my word\n     that I would have spoken out if it went against him at the Assizes.\"\n\n     \"I am glad to hear you say so,\" said Holmes gravely.\n\n     \"I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. It would\n     break her heart--it will break her heart when she hears that I am\n     arrested.\"\n\n     \"It may not come to that,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"What?\"\n\n     \"I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter who\n     required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. Young\n     McCarthy must be got off, however.\"\n\n     \"I am a dying man,\" said old Turner. \"I have had diabetes for years.\n     My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month. Yet I\n     would rather die under my own roof than in a jail.\"\n\n     Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a\n     bundle of paper before him. \"Just tell us the truth,\" he said. \"I\n     shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson here can\n     witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the last\n     extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use\n     it unless it is absolutely needed.\"\n\n     \"It's as well,\" said the old man; \"it's a question whether I shall\n     live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I should wish to\n     spare Alice the shock. And now I will make the thing clear to you; it\n     has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to\n     tell.\n\n     \"You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I\n     tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he.\n     His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my\n     life. I'll tell you first how I came to be in his power.\n\n     \"It was in the early '60's at the diggings. I was a young chap then,\n     hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got\n     among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took\n     to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a\n     highway robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of\n     it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons\n     on the road to the diggings. Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I\n     went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the\n     Ballarat Gang.\n\n     \"One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we\n     lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers and six\n     of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles\n     at the first volley. Three of our boys were killed, however, before\n     we got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who\n     was this very man McCarthy. I wish to the Lord that I had shot him\n     then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on\n     my face, as though to remember every feature. We got away with the\n     gold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to England without\n     being suspected. There I parted from my old pals and determined to\n     settle down to a quiet and respectable life. I bought this estate,\n     which chanced to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little\n     good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had earned it.\n     I married, too, and though my wife died young she left me my dear\n     little Alice. Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to\n     lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word,\n     I turned over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All\n     was going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me.\n\n     \"I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in Regent\n     Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.\n\n     \"'Here we are, Jack,' says he, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be as\n     good as a family to you. There's two of us, me and my son, and you\n     can have the keeping of us. If you don't--it's a fine, law-abiding\n     country is England, and there's always a policeman within hail.'\n\n     \"Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them\n     off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since.\n     There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I\n     would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew\n     worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her\n     knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he wanted he must have,\n     and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses,\n     until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for\n     Alice.\n\n     \"His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was\n     known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his\n     lad should step into the whole property. But there I was firm. I\n     would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any\n     dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. I\n     stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst. We\n     were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over.\n\n     \"When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I smoked\n     a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. But as I\n     listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to\n     come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as\n     little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off\n     the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most\n     dear should be in the power of such a man as this. Could I not snap\n     the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of\n     mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed.\n     But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved if I could but silence\n     that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply\n     as I have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But\n     that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was\n     more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction\n     than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought\n     back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was\n     forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my\n     flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred.\"\n\n     \"Well, it is not for me to judge you,\" said Holmes as the old man\n     signed the statement which had been drawn out. \"I pray that we may\n     never be exposed to such a temptation.\"\n\n     \"I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do?\"\n\n     \"In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you\n     will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the\n     Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is condemned I\n     shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be seen by mortal\n     eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe\n     with us.\"\n\n     \"Farewell, then,\" said the old man solemnly. \"Your own deathbeds,\n     when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which\n     you have given to mine.\" Tottering and shaking in all his giant\n     frame, he stumbled slowly from the room.\n\n     \"God help us!\" said Holmes after a long silence. \"Why does fate play\n     such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as\n     this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for\n     the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'\"\n\n     James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a\n     number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and submitted\n     to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our\n     interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the\n     son and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of\n     the black cloud which rests upon their past.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS\n\n     When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases\n     between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present\n     strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know\n     which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already\n     gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a\n     field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so\n     high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to\n     illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would\n     be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have\n     been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded\n     rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical\n     proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of these last\n     which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its\n     results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the\n     fact that there are points in connection with it which never have\n     been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.\n\n     The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or\n     less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under\n     this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the\n     Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a\n     luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the\n     facts connected with the loss of the British barque \"Sophy Anderson\",\n     of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of\n     Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as\n     may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead\n     man's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and\n     that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a\n     deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the\n     case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of\n     them present such singular features as the strange train of\n     circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.\n\n     It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had\n     set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and\n     the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the\n     heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds\n     for the instant from the routine of life and to recognise the\n     presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind\n     through the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage.\n     As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind\n     cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat\n     moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of\n     crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine\n     sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend\n     with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the\n     long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's,\n     and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at\n     Baker Street.\n\n     \"Why,\" said I, glancing up at my companion, \"that was surely the\n     bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?\"\n\n     \"Except yourself I have none,\" he answered. \"I do not encourage\n     visitors.\"\n\n     \"A client, then?\"\n\n     \"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on\n     such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely\n     to be some crony of the landlady's.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came\n     a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his\n     long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant\n     chair upon which a newcomer must sit.\n\n     \"Come in!\" said he.\n\n     The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,\n     well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and\n     delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his\n     hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather\n     through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare\n     of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes\n     heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great\n     anxiety.\n\n     \"I owe you an apology,\" he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his\n     eyes. \"I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought\n     some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.\"\n\n     \"Give me your coat and umbrella,\" said Holmes. \"They may rest here on\n     the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the\n     south-west, I see.\"\n\n     \"Yes, from Horsham.\"\n\n     \"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite\n     distinctive.\"\n\n     \"I have come for advice.\"\n\n     \"That is easily got.\"\n\n     \"And help.\"\n\n     \"That is not always so easy.\"\n\n     \"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how\n     you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal.\"\n\n     \"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.\"\n\n     \"He said that you could solve anything.\"\n\n     \"He said too much.\"\n\n     \"That you are never beaten.\"\n\n     \"I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a\n     woman.\"\n\n     \"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?\"\n\n     \"It is true that I have been generally successful.\"\n\n     \"Then you may be so with me.\"\n\n     \"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me\n     with some details as to your case.\"\n\n     \"It is no ordinary one.\"\n\n     \"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal.\"\n\n     \"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have\n     ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events\n     than those which have happened in my own family.\"\n\n     \"You fill me with interest,\" said Holmes. \"Pray give us the essential\n     facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to\n     those details which seem to me to be most important.\"\n\n     The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards\n     the blaze.\n\n     \"My name,\" said he, \"is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as\n     far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is\n     a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I\n     must go back to the commencement of the affair.\n\n     \"You must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias and\n     my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he\n     enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee\n     of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such\n     success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome\n     competence.\n\n     \"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and\n     became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very\n     well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and\n     afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid\n     down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained\n     for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe\n     and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very\n     considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them\n     was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican\n     policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man,\n     fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and\n     of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at\n     Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and\n     two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his\n     exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his\n     room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he\n     would see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own\n     brother.\n\n     \"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time\n     when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be\n     in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England.\n     He begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to\n     me in his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing\n     backgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his\n     representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so\n     that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house.\n     I kept all the keys and could go where I liked and do what I liked,\n     so long as I did not disturb him in his privacy. There was one\n     singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room\n     up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would\n     never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's\n     curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to\n     see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be\n     expected in such a room.\n\n     \"One day--it was in March, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp lay\n     upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a common\n     thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in\n     ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From India!' said he\n     as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?' Opening\n     it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which\n     pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh\n     was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen,\n     his eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared\n     at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K.\n     K.!' he shrieked, and then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken\n     me!'\n\n     \"'What is it, uncle?' I cried.\n\n     \"'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room,\n     leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope and saw\n     scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the\n     letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five\n     dried pips. What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I\n     left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him\n     coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the\n     attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the\n     other.\n\n     \"'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' said he\n     with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day,\n     and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'\n\n     \"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step\n     up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there\n     was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the\n     brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I\n     noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble K\n     which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.\n\n     \"'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave my\n     estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my\n     brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If\n     you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot,\n     take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am\n     sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't say what turn\n     things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham\n     shows you.'\n\n     \"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with\n     him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest\n     impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every way in\n     my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not\n     shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the\n     sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to\n     disturb the usual routine of our lives. I could see a change in my\n     uncle, however. He drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for\n     any sort of society. Most of his time he would spend in his room,\n     with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge\n     in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear\n     about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he\n     was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a\n     sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot fits were over,\n     however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar\n     it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the\n     terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen\n     his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it\n     were new raised from a basin.\n\n     \"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse\n     your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken\n     sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when we went to\n     search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which\n     lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence, and\n     the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to\n     his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who\n     knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to\n     persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The\n     matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the\n     estate, and of some £14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.\"\n\n     \"One moment,\" Holmes interposed, \"your statement is, I foresee, one\n     of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me have the\n     date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of\n     his supposed suicide.\"\n\n     \"The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks\n     later, upon the night of May 2nd.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. Pray proceed.\"\n\n     \"When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request,\n     made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked\n     up. We found the brass box there, although its contents had been\n     destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the\n     initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and 'Letters, memoranda,\n     receipts, and a register' written beneath. These, we presume,\n     indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by\n     Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was nothing of much importance\n     in the attic save a great many scattered papers and note-books\n     bearing upon my uncle's life in America. Some of them were of the war\n     time and showed that he had done his duty well and had borne the\n     repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a date during the\n     reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned with\n     politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the\n     carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.\n\n     \"Well, it was the beginning of '84 when my father came to live at\n     Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January\n     of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a\n     sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table.\n     There he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and\n     five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. He\n     had always laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the\n     colonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same\n     thing had come upon himself.\n\n     \"'Why, what on earth does this mean, John?' he stammered.\n\n     \"My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I.\n\n     \"He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are the\n     very letters. But what is this written above them?'\n\n     \"'Put the papers on the sundial,' I read, peeping over his shoulder.\n\n     \"'What papers? What sundial?' he asked.\n\n     \"'The sundial in the garden. There is no other,' said I; 'but the\n     papers must be those that are destroyed.'\n\n     \"'Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a\n     civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. Where\n     does the thing come from?'\n\n     \"'From Dundee,' I answered, glancing at the postmark.\n\n     \"'Some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'What have I to do with\n     sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such nonsense.'\n\n     \"'I should certainly speak to the police,' I said.\n\n     \"'And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.'\n\n     \"'Then let me do so?'\n\n     \"'No, I forbid you. I won't have a fuss made about such nonsense.'\n\n     \"It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I\n     went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.\n\n     \"On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from\n     home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command\n     of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad that he should\n     go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was\n     away from home. In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second day\n     of his absence I received a telegram from the major, imploring me to\n     come at once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits\n     which abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a\n     shattered skull. I hurried to him, but he passed away without having\n     ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been\n     returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was\n     unknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no\n     hesitation in bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental\n     causes.' Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death,\n     I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder.\n     There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record\n     of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not tell\n     you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was well-nigh\n     certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.\n\n     \"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why\n     I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that\n     our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my\n     uncle's life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house\n     as in another.\n\n     \"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two\n     years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I\n     have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this\n     curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the\n     last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however;\n     yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had\n     come upon my father.\"\n\n     The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and\n     turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange\n     pips.\n\n     \"This is the envelope,\" he continued. \"The postmark is\n     London--eastern division. Within are the very words which were upon\n     my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put the papers on the\n     sundial.'\"\n\n     \"What have you done?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Nothing.\"\n\n     \"Nothing?\"\n\n     \"To tell the truth\"--he sank his face into his thin, white hands--\"I\n     have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when\n     the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some\n     resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions\n     can guard against.\"\n\n     \"Tut! tut!\" cried Sherlock Holmes. \"You must act, man, or you are\n     lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.\"\n\n     \"I have seen the police.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\"\n\n     \"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the\n     inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical\n     jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as\n     the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. \"Incredible imbecility!\"\n     he cried.\n\n     \"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the\n     house with me.\"\n\n     \"Has he come with you to-night?\"\n\n     \"No. His orders were to stay in the house.\"\n\n     Again Holmes raved in the air.\n\n     \"Why did you come to me,\" he cried, \"and, above all, why did you not\n     come at once?\"\n\n     \"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast\n     about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you.\"\n\n     \"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted\n     before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which\n     you have placed before us--no suggestive detail which might help us?\"\n\n     \"There is one thing,\" said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat\n     pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper,\n     he laid it out upon the table. \"I have some remembrance,\" said he,\n     \"that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the\n     small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this\n     particular colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his\n     room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers\n     which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that\n     way has escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see\n     that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some\n     private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle's.\"\n\n     Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,\n     which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a\n     book. It was headed, \"March, 1869,\" and beneath were the following\n     enigmatical notices:\n\n\n     4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.\n     7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St.\n     Augustine.\n     9th. McCauley cleared.\n     10th. John Swain cleared.\n     12th. Visited Paramore. All well.\n\n     \"Thank you!\" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to\n     our visitor. \"And now you must on no account lose another instant. We\n     cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get\n     home instantly and act.\"\n\n     \"What shall I do?\"\n\n     \"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put\n     this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which\n     you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all the\n     other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one\n     which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry\n     conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box\n     out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?\"\n\n     \"Entirely.\"\n\n     \"Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I\n     think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web\n     to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is\n     to remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to\n     clear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.\"\n\n     \"I thank you,\" said the young man, rising and pulling on his\n     overcoat. \"You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly\n     do as you advise.\"\n\n     \"Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the\n     meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are\n     threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back?\"\n\n     \"By train from Waterloo.\"\n\n     \"It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you\n     may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.\"\n\n     \"I am armed.\"\n\n     \"That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.\"\n\n     \"I shall see you at Horsham, then?\"\n\n     \"No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to\n     the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every\n     particular.\" He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside the\n     wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the\n     windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid\n     the mad elements--blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a\n     gale--and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk\n     forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit\n     his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue\n     smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.\n\n     \"I think, Watson,\" he remarked at last, \"that of all our cases we\n     have had none more fantastic than this.\"\n\n     \"Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.\"\n\n     \"Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems to\n     me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos.\"\n\n     \"But have you,\" I asked, \"formed any definite conception as to what\n     these perils are?\"\n\n     \"There can be no question as to their nature,\" he answered.\n\n     \"Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue\n     this unhappy family?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms\n     of his chair, with his finger-tips together. \"The ideal reasoner,\" he\n     remarked, \"would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all\n     its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which\n     led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As\n     Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation\n     of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one\n     link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all\n     the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the\n     results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved\n     in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution\n     by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest\n     pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilise\n     all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself\n     implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge,\n     which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a\n     somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible, however, that\n     a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to\n     him in his work, and this I have endeavoured in my case to do. If I\n     remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our\n     friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion.\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" I answered, laughing. \"It was a singular document. Philosophy,\n     astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany\n     variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region\n     within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy\n     unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique,\n     violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine\n     and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis.\"\n\n     Holmes grinned at the last item. \"Well,\" he said, \"I say now, as I\n     said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with\n     all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put\n     away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he\n     wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to\n     us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources. Kindly\n     hand me down the letter K of the 'American Encyclopaedia' which\n     stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank you. Now let us consider the\n     situation and see what may be deduced from it. In the first place, we\n     may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some\n     very strong reason for leaving America. Men at his time of life do\n     not change all their habits and exchange willingly the charming\n     climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town.\n     His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was\n     in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a working\n     hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something which drove him\n     from America. As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by\n     considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and\n     his successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those letters?\"\n\n     \"The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the\n     third from London.\"\n\n     \"From East London. What do you deduce from that?\"\n\n     \"They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship.\"\n\n     \"Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that the\n     probability--the strong probability--is that the writer was on board\n     of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the case of\n     Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its\n     fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days. Does that\n     suggest anything?\"\n\n     \"A greater distance to travel.\"\n\n     \"But the letter had also a greater distance to come.\"\n\n     \"Then I do not see the point.\"\n\n     \"There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or\n     men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always send their\n     singular warning or token before them when starting upon their\n     mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came\n     from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they\n     would have arrived almost as soon as their letter. But, as a matter\n     of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks\n     represented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the\n     letter and the sailing vessel which brought the writer.\"\n\n     \"It is possible.\"\n\n     \"More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly urgency\n     of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to caution. The blow\n     has always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the\n     senders to travel the distance. But this one comes from London, and\n     therefore we cannot count upon delay.\"\n\n     \"Good God!\" I cried. \"What can it mean, this relentless persecution?\"\n\n     \"The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance\n     to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think that it is\n     quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A single man\n     could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a\n     coroner's jury. There must have been several in it, and they must\n     have been men of resource and determination. Their papers they mean\n     to have, be the holder of them who it may. In this way you see K. K.\n     K. ceases to be the initials of an individual and becomes the badge\n     of a society.\"\n\n     \"But of what society?\"\n\n     \"Have you never--\" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking\n     his voice--\"have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?\"\n\n     \"I never have.\"\n\n     Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. \"Here it\n     is,\" said he presently:\n\n     \"'Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the\n     sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was\n     formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after\n     the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different\n     parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas,\n     Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes,\n     principally for the terrorising of the negro voters and the murdering\n     and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views.\n     Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked\n     man in some fantastic but generally recognised shape--a sprig of\n     oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On\n     receiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways,\n     or might fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death\n     would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and\n     unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organisation of the society,\n     and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon\n     record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in\n     which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators. For\n     some years the organisation flourished in spite of the efforts of the\n     United States government and of the better classes of the community\n     in the South. Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather\n     suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of\n     the same sort since that date.'\n\n     \"You will observe,\" said Holmes, laying down the volume, \"that the\n     sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the\n     disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well\n     have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his family\n     have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. You can\n     understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the\n     first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep\n     easy at night until it is recovered.\"\n\n     \"Then the page we have seen--\"\n\n     \"Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent the\n     pips to A, B, and C'--that is, sent the society's warning to them.\n     Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the\n     country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister\n     result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into\n     this dark place, and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw\n     has in the meantime is to do what I have told him. There is nothing\n     more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and\n     let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the\n     still more miserable ways of our fellow-men.\"\n\n     It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued\n     brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.\n     Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down.\n\n     \"You will excuse me for not waiting for you,\" said he; \"I have, I\n     foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young\n     Openshaw's.\"\n\n     \"What steps will you take?\" I asked.\n\n     \"It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I\n     may have to go down to Horsham, after all.\"\n\n     \"You will not go there first?\"\n\n     \"No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the maid\n     will bring up your coffee.\"\n\n     As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and\n     glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill\n     to my heart.\n\n     \"Holmes,\" I cried, \"you are too late.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\" said he, laying down his cup, \"I feared as much. How was it\n     done?\" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.\n\n     \"My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading 'Tragedy Near\n     Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account:\n\n     \"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H\n     Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a\n     splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and\n     stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was\n     quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given,\n     and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually\n     recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as\n     it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John\n     Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that\n     he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo\n     Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his\n     path and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for\n     river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there\n     can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an\n     unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the\n     attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside\n     landing-stages.\"\n\n     We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken\n     than I had ever seen him.\n\n     \"That hurts my pride, Watson,\" he said at last. \"It is a petty\n     feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal\n     matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand\n     upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that I should\n     send him away to his death--!\" He sprang from his chair and paced\n     about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his\n     sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin\n     hands.\n\n     \"They must be cunning devils,\" he exclaimed at last. \"How could they\n     have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line\n     to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a\n     night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see who will win in\n     the long run. I am going out now!\"\n\n     \"To the police?\"\n\n     \"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may take\n     the flies, but not before.\"\n\n     All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the\n     evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had not\n     come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before he entered, looking\n     pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece\n     from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long\n     draught of water.\n\n     \"You are hungry,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since\n     breakfast.\"\n\n     \"Nothing?\"\n\n     \"Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.\"\n\n     \"And how have you succeeded?\"\n\n     \"Well.\"\n\n     \"You have a clue?\"\n\n     \"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long\n     remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish\n     trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!\"\n\n     \"What do you mean?\"\n\n     He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he\n     squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and\n     thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote \"S.\n     H. for J. O.\" Then he sealed it and addressed it to \"Captain James\n     Calhoun, Barque Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.\"\n\n     \"That will await him when he enters port,\" said he, chuckling. \"It\n     may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor\n     of his fate as Openshaw did before him.\"\n\n     \"And who is this Captain Calhoun?\"\n\n     \"The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.\"\n\n     \"How did you trace it, then?\"\n\n     He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with\n     dates and names.\n\n     \"I have spent the whole day,\" said he, \"over Lloyd's registers and\n     files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel\n     which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in '83. There\n     were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there\n     during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly\n     attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having\n     cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the\n     states of the Union.\"\n\n     \"Texas, I think.\"\n\n     \"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have\n     an American origin.\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque Lone\n     Star was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a certainty. I\n     then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of\n     London.\"\n\n     \"Yes?\"\n\n     \"The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert\n     Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early\n     tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend\n     and learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is\n     easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not\n     very far from the Isle of Wight.\"\n\n     \"What will you do, then?\"\n\n     \"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn,\n     the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and\n     Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship\n     last night. I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their\n     cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the\n     mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have\n     informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly\n     wanted here upon a charge of murder.\"\n\n     There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and\n     the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips\n     which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as\n     themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the\n     equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star\n     of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that\n     somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat\n     was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters \"L. S.\"\n     carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate\n     of the Lone Star.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP\n\n     Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of\n     the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium.\n     The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak\n     when he was at college; for having read De Quincey's description of\n     his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum\n     in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more\n     have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of,\n     and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object\n     of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see\n     him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point\n     pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.\n\n     One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell, about\n     the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I\n     sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap\n     and made a little face of disappointment.\n\n     \"A patient!\" said she. \"You'll have to go out.\"\n\n     I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.\n\n     We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps\n     upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some\n     dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.\n\n     \"You will excuse my calling so late,\" she began, and then, suddenly\n     losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my\n     wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. \"Oh, I'm in such trouble!\"\n     she cried; \"I do so want a little help.\"\n\n     \"Why,\" said my wife, pulling up her veil, \"it is Kate Whitney.  How\n     you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came\n     in.\"\n\n     \"I didn't know what to do, so I came straight to you.\" That was\n     always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to\n     a light-house.\n\n     \"It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and\n     water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should\n     you rather that I sent James off to bed?\"\n\n     \"Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about\n     Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about\n     him!\"\n\n     It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband's\n     trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school\n     companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could\n     find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we\n     could bring him back to her?\n\n     It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he\n     had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the\n     farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been\n     confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered,\n     in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty\n     hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks,\n     breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to\n     be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam\n     Lane. But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman,\n     make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among\n     the ruffians who surrounded him?\n\n     There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it.\n     Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second thought,\n     why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney's medical adviser, and\n     as such I had influence over him. I could manage it better if I were\n     alone. I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab\n     within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given\n     me. And so in ten minutes I had left my armchair and cheery\n     sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a\n     strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future\n     only could show how strange it was to be.\n\n     But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure.\n     Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves\n     which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.\n     Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of\n     steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found\n     the den of which I was in search. Ordering my cab to wait, I passed\n     down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of\n     drunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the\n     door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick\n     and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden\n     berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.\n\n     Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in\n     strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown\n     back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark,\n     lack-lustre eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black shadows\n     there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint,\n     as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes.\n     The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others\n     talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their\n     conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into\n     silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to\n     the words of his neighbour. At the farther end was a small brazier of\n     burning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there\n     sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists,\n     and his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.\n\n     As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for\n     me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.\n\n     \"Thank you. I have not come to stay,\" said I. \"There is a friend of\n     mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him.\"\n\n     There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering\n     through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring\n     out at me.\n\n     \"My God! It's Watson,\" said he. He was in a pitiable state of\n     reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. \"I say, Watson, what o'clock\n     is it?\"\n\n     \"Nearly eleven.\"\n\n     \"Of what day?\"\n\n     \"Of Friday, June 19th.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What\n     d'you want to frighten a chap for?\" He sank his face onto his arms\n     and began to sob in a high treble key.\n\n     \"I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting this\n     two days for you. You should be ashamed of yourself!\"\n\n     \"So I am. But you've got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a\n     few hours, three pipes, four pipes--I forget how many. But I'll go\n     home with you. I wouldn't frighten Kate--poor little Kate. Give me\n     your hand! Have you a cab?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I have one waiting.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I owe,\n     Watson. I am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself.\"\n\n     I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers,\n     holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug,\n     and looking about for the manager. As I passed the tall man who sat\n     by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice\n     whispered, \"Walk past me, and then look back at me.\" The words fell\n     quite distinctly upon my ear. I glanced down. They could only have\n     come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as\n     ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling\n     down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer\n     lassitude from his fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back.\n     It took all my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a\n     cry of astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see\n     him but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull\n     eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and\n     grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He made\n     a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned\n     his face half round to the company once more, subsided into a\n     doddering, loose-lipped senility.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" I whispered, \"what on earth are you doing in this den?\"\n\n     \"As low as you can,\" he answered; \"I have excellent ears. If you\n     would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of\n     yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.\"\n\n     \"I have a cab outside.\"\n\n     \"Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he\n     appears to be too limp to get into any mischief. I should recommend\n     you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you\n     have thrown in your lot with me. If you will wait outside, I shall be\n     with you in five minutes.\"\n\n           It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests,\n     for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with\n     such a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney was\n     once confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished; and\n     for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated\n     with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the\n     normal condition of his existence. In a few minutes I had written my\n     note, paid Whitney's bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him\n     driven through the darkness. In a very short time a decrepit figure\n     had emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street\n     with Sherlock Holmes. For two streets he shuffled along with a bent\n     back and an uncertain foot. Then, glancing quickly round, he\n     straightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.\n\n     \"I suppose, Watson,\" said he, \"that you imagine that I have added\n     opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little\n     weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views.\"\n\n     \"I was certainly surprised to find you there.\"\n\n     \"But not more so than I to find you.\"\n\n     \"I came to find a friend.\"\n\n     \"And I to find an enemy.\"\n\n     \"An enemy?\"\n\n     \"Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey.\n     Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and\n     I have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these\n     sots, as I have done before now. Had I been recognised in that den my\n     life would not have been worth an hour's purchase; for I have used it\n     before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it\n     has sworn to have vengeance upon me. There is a trap-door at the back\n     of that building, near the corner of Paul's Wharf, which could tell\n     some strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless\n     nights.\"\n\n     \"What! You do not mean bodies?\"\n\n     \"Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had £1000 for every\n     poor devil who has been done to death in that den. It is the vilest\n     murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that Neville St. Clair\n     has entered it never to leave it more. But our trap should be here.\"\n     He put his two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrilly--a\n     signal which was answered by a similar whistle from the distance,\n     followed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses'\n     hoofs.\n\n     \"Now, Watson,\" said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the\n     gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side\n     lanterns. \"You'll come with me, won't you?\"\n\n     \"If I can be of use.\"\n\n     \"Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more\n     so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.\"\n\n     \"The Cedars?\"\n\n     \"Yes; that is Mr. St. Clair's house. I am staying there while I\n     conduct the inquiry.\"\n\n     \"Where is it, then?\"\n\n     \"Near Lee, in Kent. We have a seven-mile drive before us.\"\n\n     \"But I am all in the dark.\"\n\n     \"Of course you are. You'll know all about it presently. Jump up here.\n     All right, John; we shall not need you. Here's half a crown. Look out\n     for me to-morrow, about eleven. Give her her head. So long, then!\"\n\n     He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the\n     endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened\n     gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge,\n     with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us. Beyond lay\n     another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only\n     by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and\n     shouts of some belated party of revellers. A dull wrack was drifting\n     slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and\n     there through the rifts of the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with\n     his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in\n     thought, while I sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest\n     might be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to\n     break in upon the current of his thoughts. We had driven several\n     miles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of\n     suburban villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and\n     lit up his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that\n     he is acting for the best.\n\n     \"You have a grand gift of silence, Watson,\" said he. \"It makes you\n     quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great thing\n     for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not\n     over-pleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear little\n     woman to-night when she meets me at the door.\"\n\n     \"You forget that I know nothing about it.\"\n\n     \"I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we\n     get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can get\n     nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can't\n     get the end of it into my hand. Now, I'll state the case clearly and\n     concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is\n     dark to me.\"\n\n     \"Proceed, then.\"\n\n     \"Some years ago--to be definite, in May, 1884--there came to Lee a\n     gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of\n     money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and\n     lived generally in good style. By degrees he made friends in the\n     neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter of a local brewer,\n     by whom he now has two children. He had no occupation, but was\n     interested in several companies and went into town as a rule in the\n     morning, returning by the 5.14 from Cannon Street every night. Mr.\n     St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate\n     habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is\n     popular with all who know him. I may add that his whole debts at the\n     present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to\n     £88 10s., while he has £220 standing to his credit in the Capital and\n     Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money\n     troubles have been weighing upon his mind.\n\n     \"Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier than\n     usual, remarking before he started that he had two important\n     commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a\n     box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, his wife received a\n     telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his departure, to\n     the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she had\n     been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the Aberdeen\n     Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up in your London, you will\n     know that the office of the company is in Fresno Street, which\n     branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me to-night. Mrs.\n     St. Clair had her lunch, started for the City, did some shopping,\n     proceeded to the company's office, got her packet, and found herself\n     at exactly 4.35 walking through Swandam Lane on her way back to the\n     station. Have you followed me so far?\"\n\n     \"It is very clear.\"\n\n     \"If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St.\n     Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as\n     she did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself. While\n     she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an\n     ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking\n     down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a\n     second-floor window. The window was open, and she distinctly saw his\n     face, which she describes as being terribly agitated. He waved his\n     hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so\n     suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some\n     irresistible force from behind. One singular point which struck her\n     quick feminine eye was that although he wore some dark coat, such as\n     he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.\n\n     \"Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the\n     steps--for the house was none other than the opium den in which you\n     found me to-night--and running through the front room she attempted\n     to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. At the foot of the\n     stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken,\n     who thrust her back and, aided by a Dane, who acts as assistant\n     there, pushed her out into the street. Filled with the most maddening\n     doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane and, by rare good-fortune,\n     met in Fresno Street a number of constables with an inspector, all on\n     their way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her\n     back, and in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor,\n     they made their way to the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been\n     seen. There was no sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that\n     floor there was no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous\n     aspect, who, it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar\n     stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the\n     afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was\n     staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had\n     been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which\n     lay upon the table and tore the lid from it. Out there fell a cascade\n     of children's bricks. It was the toy which he had promised to bring\n     home.\n\n     \"This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed,\n     made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. The rooms\n     were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable\n     crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led\n     into a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the\n     wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip,\n     which is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide with at least\n     four and a half feet of water. The bedroom window was a broad one and\n     opened from below. On examination traces of blood were to be seen\n     upon the windowsill, and several scattered drops were visible upon\n     the wooden floor of the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the\n     front room were all the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the\n     exception of his coat. His boots, his socks, his hat, and his\n     watch--all were there. There were no signs of violence upon any of\n     these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St.\n     Clair. Out of the window he must apparently have gone for no other\n     exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill\n     gave little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the\n     tide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy.\n\n     \"And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated\n     in the matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the vilest\n     antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St. Clair's story, he was known to have\n     been at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her\n     husband's appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more\n     than an accessory to the crime. His defence was one of absolute\n     ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings\n     of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way\n     for the presence of the missing gentleman's clothes.\n\n     \"So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who\n     lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly\n     the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair. His\n     name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to\n     every man who goes much to the City. He is a professional beggar,\n     though in order to avoid the police regulations he pretends to a\n     small trade in wax vestas. Some little distance down Threadneedle\n     Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked,\n     a small angle in the wall. Here it is that this creature takes his\n     daily seat, cross-legged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap,\n     and as he is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends\n     into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him.\n     I have watched the fellow more than once before ever I thought of\n     making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at\n     the harvest which he has reaped in a short time. His appearance, you\n     see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him without observing him.\n     A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar,\n     which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper\n     lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which\n     present a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him\n     out from amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his\n     wit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which\n     may be thrown at him by the passers-by. This is the man whom we now\n     learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the\n     last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest.\"\n\n     \"But a cripple!\" said I. \"What could he have done single-handed\n     against a man in the prime of life?\"\n\n     \"He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other\n     respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man. Surely\n     your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one\n     limb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others.\"\n\n     \"Pray continue your narrative.\"\n\n     \"Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the\n     window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her\n     presence could be of no help to them in their investigations.\n     Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful\n     examination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw\n     any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not arresting\n     Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he\n     might have communicated with his friend the Lascar, but this fault\n     was soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything\n     being found which could incriminate him. There were, it is true, some\n     blood-stains upon his right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his\n     ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the\n     bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not\n     long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came\n     doubtless from the same source. He denied strenuously having ever\n     seen Mr. Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes\n     in his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs.\n     St. Clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the\n     window, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming.\n     He was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the\n     inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide\n     might afford some fresh clue.\n\n     \"And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had\n     feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair's coat, and not Neville St.\n     Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think\n     they found in the pockets?\"\n\n     \"I cannot imagine.\"\n\n     \"No, I don't think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with pennies\n     and half-pennies--421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It was no wonder\n     that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a\n     different matter. There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the\n     house. It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained\n     when the stripped body had been sucked away into the river.\"\n\n     \"But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.\n     Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that\n     this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there\n     is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do\n     then? It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of\n     the tell-tale garments. He would seize the coat, then, and be in the\n     act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim\n     and not sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle\n     downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he\n     has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are\n     hurrying up the street. There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes\n     to some secret hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his\n     beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands\n     into the pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. He throws it\n     out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he\n     heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the\n     window when the police appeared.\"\n\n     \"It certainly sounds feasible.\"\n\n     \"Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.\n     Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but\n     it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything\n     against him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar,\n     but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one.\n     There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to\n     be solved--what Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what\n     happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had\n     to do with his disappearance--are all as far from a solution as ever.\n     I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which\n     looked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such\n     difficulties.\"\n\n     While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of\n     events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town\n     until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled\n     along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as he\n     finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a\n     few lights still glimmered in the windows.\n\n     \"We are on the outskirts of Lee,\" said my companion. \"We have touched\n     on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex,\n     passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light\n     among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a\n     woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught\n     the clink of our horse's feet.\"\n\n     \"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs.\n     St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may\n     rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend\n     and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her\n     husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!\"\n\n     We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own\n     grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse's head, and springing\n     down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led\n     to the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little\n     blonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light\n     mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck\n     and wrists. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of\n     light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her\n     body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and\n     parted lips, a standing question.\n\n     \"Well?\" she cried, \"well?\" And then, seeing that there were two of\n     us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my\n     companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"No good news?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"No bad?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had\n     a long day.\"\n\n     \"This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to me\n     in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for\n     me to bring him out and associate him with this investigation.\"\n\n     \"I am delighted to see you,\" said she, pressing my hand warmly. \"You\n     will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our\n     arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly\n     upon us.\"\n\n     \"My dear madam,\" said I, \"I am an old campaigner, and if I were not I\n     can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any\n     assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed\n     happy.\"\n\n     \"Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" said the lady as we entered a well-lit\n     dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out,\n     \"I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to\n     which I beg that you will give a plain answer.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, madam.\"\n\n     \"Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to\n     fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.\"\n\n     \"Upon what point?\"\n\n     \"In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. \"Frankly,\n     now!\" she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at\n     him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.\n\n     \"Frankly, then, madam, I do not.\"\n\n     \"You think that he is dead?\"\n\n     \"I do.\"\n\n     \"Murdered?\"\n\n     \"I don't say that. Perhaps.\"\n\n     \"And on what day did he meet his death?\"\n\n     \"On Monday.\"\n\n     \"Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it\n     is that I have received a letter from him to-day.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanised.\n\n     \"What!\" he roared.\n\n     \"Yes, to-day.\" She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper\n     in the air.\n\n     \"May I see it?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon\n     the table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I had left\n     my chair and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The envelope was a\n     very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with\n     the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was\n     considerably after midnight.\n\n     \"Coarse writing,\" murmured Holmes. \"Surely this is not your husband's\n     writing, madam.\"\n\n     \"No, but the enclosure is.\"\n\n     \"I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and\n     inquire as to the address.\"\n\n     \"How can you tell that?\"\n\n     \"The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried\n     itself. The rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that\n     blotting-paper has been used. If it had been written straight off,\n     and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This man has\n     written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the\n     address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it. It is,\n     of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.\n     Let us now see the letter. Ha!  there has been an enclosure here!\"\n\n     \"Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring.\"\n\n     \"And you are sure that this is your husband's hand?\"\n\n     \"One of his hands.\"\n\n     \"One?\"\n\n     \"His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual\n     writing, and yet I know it well.\"\n\n     \"Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a huge\n     error which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in\n     patience.\n     \"Neville.\n\n     Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no\n     water-mark. Hum! Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man with a dirty\n     thumb. Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in\n     error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. And you have no\n     doubt that it is your husband's hand, madam?\"\n\n     \"None. Neville wrote those words.\"\n\n     \"And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the\n     clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is\n     over.\"\n\n     \"But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. The\n     ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from him.\"\n\n     \"No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!\"\n\n     \"Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only\n     posted to-day.\"\n\n     \"That is possible.\"\n\n     \"If so, much may have happened between.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is well\n     with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know\n     if evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him last he cut\n     himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed upstairs\n     instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened. Do\n     you think that I would respond to such a trifle and yet be ignorant\n     of his death?\"\n\n     \"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may\n     be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. And\n     in this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to\n     corroborate your view. But if your husband is alive and able to write\n     letters, why should he remain away from you?\"\n\n     \"I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable.\"\n\n     \"And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?\"\n\n     \"Very much so.\"\n\n     \"Was the window open?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Then he might have called to you?\"\n\n     \"He might.\"\n\n     \"He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"A call for help, you thought?\"\n\n     \"Yes. He waved his hands.\"\n\n     \"But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the\n     unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?\"\n\n     \"It is possible.\"\n\n     \"And you thought he was pulled back?\"\n\n     \"He disappeared so suddenly.\"\n\n     \"He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room?\"\n\n     \"No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the\n     Lascar was at the foot of the stairs.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary\n     clothes on?\"\n\n     \"But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat.\"\n\n     \"Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?\"\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     \"Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?\"\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about\n     which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little\n     supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow.\"\n\n     A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our\n     disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after\n     my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when\n     he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even\n     for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts,\n     looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed\n     it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon\n     evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He\n     took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,\n     and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and\n     cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a\n     sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged,\n     with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front\n     of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old\n     briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner\n     of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent,\n     motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline\n     features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a\n     sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun\n     shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the\n     smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco\n     haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon\n     the previous night.\n\n     \"Awake, Watson?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Game for a morning drive?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy\n     sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out.\" He chuckled to himself\n     as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the\n     sombre thinker of the previous night.\n\n     As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was\n     stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished\n     when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the\n     horse.\n\n     \"I want to test a little theory of mine,\" said he, pulling on his\n     boots. \"I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of\n     one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from\n     here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the key of the affair now.\"\n\n     \"And where is it?\" I asked, smiling.\n\n     \"In the bathroom,\" he answered. \"Oh, yes, I am not joking,\" he\n     continued, seeing my look of incredulity. \"I have just been there,\n     and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag.\n     Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock.\"\n\n     We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the\n     bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with\n     the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and\n     away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were\n     stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of\n     villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a\n     dream.\n\n     \"It has been in some points a singular case,\" said Holmes, flicking\n     the horse on into a gallop. \"I confess that I have been as blind as a\n     mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at\n     all.\"\n\n     In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from\n     their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side.\n     Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and\n     dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right and found\n     ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes was well known to the force,\n     and the two constables at the door saluted him. One of them held the\n     horse's head while the other led us in.\n\n     \"Who is on duty?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Inspector Bradstreet, sir.\"\n\n     \"Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?\" A tall, stout official had come down\n     the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. \"I\n     wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet.\" \"Certainly, Mr.\n     Holmes. Step into my room here.\" It was a small, office-like room,\n     with a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from\n     the wall. The inspector sat down at his desk.\n\n     \"What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I called about that beggarman, Boone--the one who was charged with\n     being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of\n     Lee.\"\n\n     \"Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries.\"\n\n     \"So I heard. You have him here?\"\n\n     \"In the cells.\"\n\n     \"Is he quiet?\"\n\n     \"Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel.\"\n\n     \"Dirty?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is\n     as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been settled, he\n     will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you\n     would agree with me that he needed it.\"\n\n     \"I should like to see him very much.\"\n\n     \"Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave your\n     bag.\"\n\n     \"No, I think that I'll take it.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Come this way, if you please.\" He led us down a passage,\n     opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to\n     a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.\n\n     \"The third on the right is his,\" said the inspector. \"Here it is!\" He\n     quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced\n     through.\n\n     \"He is asleep,\" said he. \"You can see him very well.\"\n\n     We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his face\n     towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily. He\n     was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a\n     coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat. He\n     was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which\n     covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness. A broad\n     wheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by\n     its contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that\n     three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright\n     red hair grew low over his eyes and forehead.\n\n     \"He's a beauty, isn't he?\" said the inspector.\n\n     \"He certainly needs a wash,\" remarked Holmes. \"I had an idea that he\n     might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.\" He\n     opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my\n     astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.\n\n     \"He! he! You are a funny one,\" chuckled the inspector.\n\n     \"Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very\n     quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't know why not,\" said the inspector. \"He doesn't look a\n     credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?\" He slipped his key into the\n     lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half\n     turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. Holmes\n     stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it\n     twice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face.\n\n     \"Let me introduce you,\" he shouted, \"to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of\n     Lee, in the county of Kent.\"\n\n     Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled off\n     under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown\n     tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and\n     the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A\n     twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in\n     his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and\n     smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy\n     bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a\n     scream and threw himself down with his face to the pillow.\n\n     \"Great heavens!\" cried the inspector, \"it is, indeed, the missing\n     man. I know him from the photograph.\"\n\n     The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons\n     himself to his destiny. \"Be it so,\" said he. \"And pray what am I\n     charged with?\"\n\n     \"With making away with Mr. Neville St.--Oh, come, you can't be\n     charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of\n     it,\" said the inspector with a grin. \"Well, I have been twenty-seven\n     years in the force, but this really takes the cake.\"\n\n     \"If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has\n     been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.\"\n\n     \"No crime, but a very great error has been committed,\" said Holmes.\n     \"You would have done better to have trusted your wife.\"\n\n     \"It was not the wife; it was the children,\" groaned the prisoner.\n     \"God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God!\n     What an exposure! What can I do?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him\n     kindly on the shoulder.\n\n     \"If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,\" said he,\n     \"of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you\n     convince the police authorities that there is no possible case\n     against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details\n     should find their way into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I\n     am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us and submit\n     it to the proper authorities. The case would then never go into court\n     at all.\"\n\n     \"God bless you!\" cried the prisoner passionately. \"I would have\n     endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my\n     miserable secret as a family blot to my children.\n\n     \"You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a\n     schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent\n     education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally\n     became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day my editor\n     wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis,\n     and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point from which all\n     my adventures started. It was only by trying begging as an amateur\n     that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles. When an\n     actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had\n     been famous in the green-room for my skill. I took advantage now of\n     my attainments. I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as\n     possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist\n     by the aid of a small slip of flesh-coloured plaster. Then with a red\n     head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the\n     business part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as\n     a beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home\n     in the evening I found to my surprise that I had received no less\n     than 26s. 4d.\n\n     \"I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until,\n     some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served\n     upon me for £25. I was at my wit's end where to get the money, but a\n     sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's grace from the\n     creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time\n     in begging in the City under my disguise. In ten days I had the money\n     and had paid the debt.\n\n     \"Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work\n     at £2 a week when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by\n     smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground,\n     and sitting still. It was a long fight between my pride and the\n     money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up reporting and sat\n     day after day in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring pity\n     by my ghastly face and filling my pockets with coppers. Only one man\n     knew my secret. He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to\n     lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a\n     squalid beggar and in the evenings transform myself into a\n     well-dressed man about town. This fellow, a Lascar, was well paid by\n     me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret was safe in his\n     possession.\n\n     \"Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of\n     money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could\n     earn £700 a year--which is less than my average takings--but I had\n     exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a\n     facility of repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a\n     recognised character in the City. All day a stream of pennies, varied\n     by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I\n     failed to take £2.\n\n     \"As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country,\n     and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my\n     real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had business in the City.\n     She little knew what.\n\n     \"Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my room\n     above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, to my\n     horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street,\n     with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of surprise, threw up\n     my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the Lascar,\n     entreated him to prevent anyone from coming up to me. I heard her\n     voice downstairs, but I knew that she could not ascend. Swiftly I\n     threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my\n     pigments and wig. Even a wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a\n     disguise. But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in\n     the room, and that the clothes might betray me. I threw open the\n     window, reopening by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted\n     upon myself in the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which\n     was weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from\n     the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of the\n     window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes would\n     have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up\n     the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my\n     relief, that instead of being identified as Mr. Neville St. Clair, I\n     was arrested as his murderer.\n\n     \"I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I was\n     determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my\n     preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would be terribly\n     anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the Lascar at a\n     moment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried\n     scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.\"\n\n     \"That note only reached her yesterday,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Good God! What a week she must have spent!\"\n\n     \"The police have watched this Lascar,\" said Inspector Bradstreet,\n     \"and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a\n     letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of\n     his, who forgot all about it for some days.\"\n\n     \"That was it,\" said Holmes, nodding approvingly; \"I have no doubt of\n     it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?\"\n\n     \"Many times; but what was a fine to me?\"\n\n     \"It must stop here, however,\" said Bradstreet. \"If the police are to\n     hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone.\"\n\n     \"I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.\"\n\n     \"In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may\n     be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out. I am\n     sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having\n     cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your results.\"\n\n     \"I reached this one,\" said my friend, \"by sitting upon five pillows\n     and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to\n     Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE\n\n     I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning\n     after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of\n     the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown,\n     a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled\n     morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the\n     couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very\n     seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and\n     cracked in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat\n     of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner\n     for the purpose of examination.\n\n     \"You are engaged,\" said I; \"perhaps I interrupt you.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my\n     results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one\"--he jerked his thumb\n     in the direction of the old hat--\"but there are points in connection\n     with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of\n     instruction.\"\n\n     I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his\n     crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were\n     thick with the ice crystals. \"I suppose,\" I remarked, \"that, homely\n     as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it--that\n     it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery\n     and the punishment of some crime.\"\n\n     \"No, no. No crime,\" said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. \"Only one of\n     those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four\n     million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a\n     few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of\n     humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to\n     take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be\n     striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have already had\n     experience of such.\"\n\n     \"So much so,\" I remarked, \"that of the last six cases which I have\n     added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.\"\n\n     \"Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler\n     papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the\n     adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt that\n     this small matter will fall into the same innocent category. You know\n     Peterson, the commissionaire?\" \n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"It is to him that this trophy belongs.\"\n\n     \"It is his hat.\"\n\n     \"No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look\n     upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem.\n     And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas\n     morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt,\n     roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's fire. The facts are\n     these: about four o'clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you\n     know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small\n     jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court\n     Road. In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking\n     with a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his\n     shoulder. As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out\n     between this stranger and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter\n     knocked off the man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend\n     himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window\n     behind him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from\n     his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and\n     seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him,\n     dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth\n     of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road. The\n     roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was\n     left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of\n     victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable\n     Christmas goose.\"\n\n     \"Which surely he restored to their owner?\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that 'For Mrs.\n     Henry Baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to the\n     bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H. B.' are\n     legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are some thousands\n     of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it\n     is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.\"\n\n     \"What, then, did Peterson do?\"\n\n     \"He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning,\n     knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. The\n     goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in\n     spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten\n     without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it off, therefore,\n     to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain\n     the hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.\"\n\n     \"Did he not advertise?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?\"\n\n     \"Only as much as we can deduce.\"\n\n     \"From his hat?\"\n\n     \"Precisely.\"\n\n     \"But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered\n     felt?\"\n\n     \"Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself\n     as to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?\"\n\n     I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather\n     ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape,\n     hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of red silk,\n     but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's name; but, as\n     Holmes had remarked, the initials \"H. B.\" were scrawled upon one\n     side. It was pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the elastic\n     was missing. For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and\n     spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some\n     attempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.\n\n     \"I can see nothing,\" said I, handing it back to my friend.\n\n     \"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however,\n     to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your\n     inferences.\"\n\n     \"Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?\"\n\n     He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion\n     which was characteristic of him. \"It is perhaps less suggestive than\n     it might have been,\" he remarked, \"and yet there are a few inferences\n     which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a\n     strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual\n     is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly\n     well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen\n     upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly,\n     pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline\n     of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably\n     drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact\n     that his wife has ceased to love him.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,\" he\n     continued, disregarding my remonstrance. \"He is a man who leads a\n     sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is\n     middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last\n     few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more\n     patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way,\n     that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his\n     house.\"\n\n     \"You are certainly joking, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you\n     these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am\n     unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man\n     was intellectual?\"\n\n     For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over\n     the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. \"It is a\n     question of cubic capacity,\" said he; \"a man with so large a brain\n     must have something in it.\"\n\n     \"The decline of his fortunes, then?\"\n\n     \"This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge\n     came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band\n     of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could afford to\n     buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since,\n     then he has assuredly gone down in the world.\"\n\n     \"Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight\n     and the moral retrogression?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes laughed. \"Here is the foresight,\" said he putting his\n     finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer.  \"They are\n     never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a\n     certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take\n     this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken\n     the elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he\n     has less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a\n     weakening nature. On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal\n     some of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is\n     a sign that he has not entirely lost his self-respect.\"\n\n     \"Your reasoning is certainly plausible.\"\n\n     \"The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is\n     grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream,\n     are all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of\n     the lining. The lens discloses a large number of hair-ends, clean cut\n     by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be adhesive, and\n     there is a distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you will observe,\n     is not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust\n     of the house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the\n     time, while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive\n     that the wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be\n     in the best of training.\"\n\n     \"But his wife--you said that she had ceased to love him.\"\n\n     \"This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear\n     Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when\n     your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you\n     also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection.\"\n\n     \"But he might be a bachelor.\"\n\n     \"Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.\n     Remember the card upon the bird's leg.\"\n\n     \"You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce\n     that the gas is not laid on in his house?\"\n\n     \"One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see\n     no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the\n     individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning\n     tallow--walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and\n     a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains\n     from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is very ingenious,\" said I, laughing; \"but since, as you\n     said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done\n     save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of\n     energy.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew\n     open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment\n     with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with\n     astonishment.\n\n     \"The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!\" he gasped.\n\n     \"Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off\n     through the kitchen window?\" Holmes twisted himself round upon the\n     sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face.\n\n     \"See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!\" He held out his\n     hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly\n     scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of\n     such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in\n     the dark hollow of his hand.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. \"By Jove, Peterson!\" said he,\n     \"this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you have\n     got?\"\n\n     \"A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though it\n     were putty.\"\n\n     \"It's more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone.\"\n\n     \"Not the Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle!\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have\n     read the advertisement about it in The Times every day lately. It is\n     absolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the\n     reward offered of £1000 is certainly not within a twentieth part of\n     the market price.\"\n\n     \"A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy!\" The commissionaire plumped\n     down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.\n\n     \"That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are\n     sentimental considerations in the background which would induce the\n     Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the\n     gem.\"\n\n     \"It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,\" I\n     remarked.\n\n     \"Precisely so, on December 22nd, just five days ago. John Horner, a\n     plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's\n     jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the case has\n     been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the matter here,\n     I believe.\" He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates,\n     until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the\n     following paragraph:\n\n     \"Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was\n     brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst. abstracted\n     from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known\n     as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel,\n     gave his evidence to the effect that he had shown Horner up to the\n     dressing-room of the Countess of Morcar upon the day of the robbery\n     in order that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which was\n     loose. He had remained with Horner some little time, but had finally\n     been called away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared,\n     that the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco\n     casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was\n     accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the\n     dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was\n     arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found either\n     upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to the\n     Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder's cry of dismay on\n     discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room, where\n     she found matters as described by the last witness. Inspector\n     Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who\n     struggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest\n     terms. Evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been\n     given against the prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily\n     with the offence, but referred it to the Assizes. Horner, who had\n     shown signs of intense emotion during the proceedings, fainted away\n     at the conclusion and was carried out of court.\"\n\n     \"Hum! So much for the police-court,\" said Holmes thoughtfully,\n     tossing aside the paper. \"The question for us now to solve is the\n     sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the\n     crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You see,\n     Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more\n     important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the stone came\n     from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry Baker, the\n     gentleman with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with\n     which I have bored you. So now we must set ourselves very seriously\n     to finding this gentleman and ascertaining what part he has played in\n     this little mystery. To do this, we must try the simplest means\n     first, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the\n     evening papers. If this fail, I shall have recourse to other\n     methods.\"\n\n     \"What will you say?\"\n\n     \"Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then: 'Found at the\n     corner of Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. Henry\n     Baker can have the same by applying at 6.30 this evening at 221b,\n     Baker Street.' That is clear and concise.\"\n\n     \"Very. But will he see it?\"\n\n     \"Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man,\n     the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his mischance\n     in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson that he\n     thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly\n     regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird. Then, again,\n     the introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone\n     who knows him will direct his attention to it. Here you are,\n     Peterson, run down to the advertising agency and have this put in the\n     evening papers.\"\n\n     \"In which, sir?\"\n\n     \"Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James's, Evening News,\n     Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you.\"\n\n     \"Very well, sir. And this stone?\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, Peterson,\n     just buy a goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we\n     must have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which\n     your family is now devouring.\"\n\n     When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and held\n     it against the light. \"It's a bonny thing,\" said he. \"Just see how it\n     glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime.\n     Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger\n     and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone\n     is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy\n     River in southern China and is remarkable in having every\n     characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade\n     instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister\n     history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide,\n     and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain\n     weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy\n     would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? I'll lock it up in\n     my strong box now and drop a line to the Countess to say that we have\n     it.\"\n\n     \"Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?\"\n\n     \"I cannot tell.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had\n     anything to do with the matter?\"\n\n     \"It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely\n     innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was\n     of considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold. That,\n     however, I shall determine by a very simple test if we have an answer\n     to our advertisement.\"\n\n     \"And you can do nothing until then?\"\n\n     \"Nothing.\"\n\n     \"In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall\n     come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should\n     like to see the solution of so tangled a business.\"\n\n     \"Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I\n     believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I ought\n     to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop.\"\n\n     I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past six\n     when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I approached the\n     house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was\n     buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the bright semicircle\n     which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I arrived the door was\n     opened, and we were shown up together to Holmes' room.\n\n     \"Mr. Henry Baker, I believe,\" said he, rising from his armchair and\n     greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so\n     readily assume. \"Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a\n     cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for\n     summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have just come at the right\n     time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat.\"\n\n     He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a\n     broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled\n     brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his\n     extended hand, recalled Holmes' surmise as to his habits. His rusty\n     black frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar\n     turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a\n     sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a slow staccato fashion, choosing\n     his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of\n     learning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.\n\n     \"We have retained these things for some days,\" said Holmes, \"because\n     we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address. I\n     am at a loss to know now why you did not advertise.\"\n\n     Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. \"Shillings have not been\n     so plentiful with me as they once were,\" he remarked. \"I had no doubt\n     that the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off both my hat\n     and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a hopeless\n     attempt at recovering them.\"\n\n     \"Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to eat\n     it.\"\n\n     \"To eat it!\" Our visitor half rose from his chair in his excitement.\n\n     \"Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. But\n     I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about\n     the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally\n     well?\"\n\n     \"Oh, certainly, certainly,\" answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of relief.\n\n     \"Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your\n     own bird, so if you wish--\"\n\n     The man burst into a hearty laugh. \"They might be useful to me as\n     relics of my adventure,\" said he, \"but beyond that I can hardly see\n     what use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are going to be\n     to me. No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I will confine my\n     attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive upon the\n     sideboard.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug of\n     his shoulders.\n\n     \"There is your hat, then, and there your bird,\" said he. \"By the way,\n     would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? I am\n     somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a better grown\n     goose.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, sir,\" said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly\n     gained property under his arm. \"There are a few of us who frequent\n     the Alpha Inn, near the Museum--we are to be found in the Museum\n     itself during the day, you understand. This year our good host,\n     Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, on\n     consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to receive a\n     bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the rest is familiar\n     to you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a Scotch bonnet is fitted\n     neither to my years nor my gravity.\" With a comical pomposity of\n     manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way.\n\n     \"So much for Mr. Henry Baker,\" said Holmes when he had closed the\n     door behind him. \"It is quite certain that he knows nothing whatever\n     about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Not particularly.\"\n\n     \"Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow up\n     this clue while it is still hot.\"\n\n     \"By all means.\"\n\n     It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped cravats\n     about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly in a\n     cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out into smoke\n     like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly\n     as we swung through the doctors' quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley\n     Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street. In a\n     quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a\n     small public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs\n     down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open the door of the private bar and\n     ordered two glasses of beer from the ruddy-faced, white-aproned\n     landlord.\n\n     \"Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,\" said\n     he.\n\n     \"My geese!\" The man seemed surprised.\n\n     \"Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, who\n     was a member of your goose club.\"\n\n     \"Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them's not our geese.\"\n\n     \"Indeed! Whose, then?\"\n\n     \"Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden.\"\n\n     \"Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?\"\n\n     \"Breckinridge is his name.\"\n\n     \"Ah! I don't know him. Well, here's your good health landlord, and\n     prosperity to your house. Good-night.\"\n\n     \"Now for Mr. Breckinridge,\" he continued, buttoning up his coat as we\n     came out into the frosty air. \"Remember, Watson that though we have\n     so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the\n     other a man who will certainly get seven years' penal servitude\n     unless we can establish his innocence. It is possible that our\n     inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we have a line\n     of investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a\n     singular chance has placed in our hands. Let us follow it out to the\n     bitter end. Faces to the south, then, and quick march!\"\n\n     We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag\n     of slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest stalls bore the\n     name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor a horsey-looking\n     man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers was helping a boy to\n     put up the shutters.\n\n     \"Good-evening. It's a cold night,\" said Holmes.\n\n     The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my companion.\n\n     \"Sold out of geese, I see,\" continued Holmes, pointing at the bare\n     slabs of marble.\n\n     \"Let you have five hundred to-morrow morning.\"\n\n     \"That's no good.\"\n\n     \"Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare.\"\n\n     \"Ah, but I was recommended to you.\"\n\n     \"Who by?\"\n\n     \"The landlord of the Alpha.\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen.\"\n\n     \"Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?\"\n\n     To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the\n     salesman.\n\n     \"Now, then, mister,\" said he, with his head cocked and his arms\n     akimbo, \"what are you driving at? Let's have it straight, now.\"\n\n     \"It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the geese\n     which you supplied to the Alpha.\"\n\n     \"Well then, I shan't tell you. So now!\"\n\n     \"Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don't know why you should\n     be so warm over such a trifle.\"\n\n     \"Warm! You'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. When\n     I pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the\n     business; but it's 'Where are the geese?' and 'Who did you sell the\n     geese to?' and 'What will you take for the geese?' One would think\n     they were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made\n     over them.\"\n\n     \"Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been\n     making inquiries,\" said Holmes carelessly. \"If you won't tell us the\n     bet is off, that is all. But I'm always ready to back my opinion on a\n     matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the bird I ate is\n     country bred.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, you've lost your fiver, for it's town bred,\" snapped the\n     salesman.\n\n     \"It's nothing of the kind.\"\n\n     \"I say it is.\"\n\n     \"I don't believe it.\"\n\n     \"D'you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them\n     ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to\n     the Alpha were town bred.\"\n\n     \"You'll never persuade me to believe that.\"\n\n     \"Will you bet, then?\"\n\n     \"It's merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But I'll\n     have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate.\"\n\n     The salesman chuckled grimly. \"Bring me the books, Bill,\" said he.\n\n     The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great\n     greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.\n\n     \"Now then, Mr. Cocksure,\" said the salesman, \"I thought that I was\n     out of geese, but before I finish you'll find that there is still one\n     left in my shop. You see this little book?\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"That's the list of the folk from whom I buy. D'you see? Well, then,\n     here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their\n     names are where their accounts are in the big ledger. Now, then! You\n     see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a list of my town\n     suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just read it out to me.\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road--249,\" read Holmes.\n\n     \"Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger.\"\n\n     Holmes turned to the page indicated. \"Here you are, 'Mrs. Oakshott,\n     117, Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.'\"\n\n     \"Now, then, what's the last entry?\"\n\n     \"'December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.'\"\n\n     \"Quite so. There you are. And underneath?\"\n\n     \"'Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.'\"\n\n     \"What have you to say now?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his\n     pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of\n     a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped\n     under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which\n     was peculiar to him.\n\n     \"When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink 'un'\n     protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,\" said\n     he. \"I daresay that if I had put £100 down in front of him, that man\n     would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from\n     him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager. Well, Watson, we\n     are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which\n     remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this Mrs.\n     Oakshott to-night, or whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. It\n     is clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others\n     besides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and I should--\"\n\n     His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out\n     from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a little\n     rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light\n     which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the\n     salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists\n     fiercely at the cringing figure.\n\n     \"I've had enough of you and your geese,\" he shouted. \"I wish you were\n     all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more with\n     your silly talk I'll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs. Oakshott here\n     and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with it? Did I buy the\n     geese off you?\"\n\n     \"No; but one of them was mine all the same,\" whined the little man.\n\n     \"Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it.\"\n\n     \"She told me to ask you.\"\n\n     \"Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I've had\n     enough of it. Get out of this!\" He rushed fiercely forward, and the\n     inquirer flitted away into the darkness.\n\n     \"Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road,\" whispered Holmes.\n     \"Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow.\"\n     Striding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the\n     flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and\n     touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang round, and I could see in\n     the gas-light that every vestige of colour had been driven from his\n     face.\n\n     \"Who are you, then? What do you want?\" he asked in a quavering voice.\n\n     \"You will excuse me,\" said Holmes blandly, \"but I could not help\n     overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I\n     think that I could be of assistance to you.\"\n\n     \"You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?\"\n\n     \"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other\n     people don't know.\"\n\n     \"But you can know nothing of this?\"\n\n     \"Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to trace\n     some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton Road, to a\n     salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. Windigate, of the\n     Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr. Henry Baker is a member.\"\n\n     \"Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet,\" cried the\n     little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. \"I can\n     hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. \"In that\n     case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this\n     wind-swept market-place,\" said he. \"But pray tell me, before we go\n     farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting.\"\n\n     The man hesitated for an instant. \"My name is John Robinson,\" he\n     answered with a sidelong glance.\n\n     \"No, no; the real name,\" said Holmes sweetly. \"It is always awkward\n     doing business with an alias.\"\n\n     A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. \"Well then,\" said\n     he, \"my real name is James Ryder.\"\n\n     \"Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray step\n     into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which\n     you would wish to know.\"\n\n     The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with\n     half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he\n     is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped\n     into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sitting-room at\n     Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high,\n     thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and\n     unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.\n\n     \"Here we are!\" said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. \"The\n     fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, Mr. Ryder.\n     Pray take the basket-chair. I will just put on my slippers before we\n     settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! You want to know what\n     became of those geese?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine in\n     which you were interested--white, with a black bar across the tail.\"\n\n     Ryder quivered with emotion. \"Oh, sir,\" he cried, \"can you tell me\n     where it went to?\"\n\n     \"It came here.\"\n\n     \"Here?\"\n\n     \"Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don't wonder that you\n     should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was dead--the\n     bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. I have it\n     here in my museum.\"\n\n     Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with\n     his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up the blue\n     carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant,\n     many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a drawn face,\n     uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.\n\n     \"The game's up, Ryder,\" said Holmes quietly. \"Hold up, man, or you'll\n     be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, Watson. He's\n     not got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity. Give him a\n     dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little more human. What a shrimp\n     it is, to be sure!\"\n\n     For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy\n     brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with\n     frightened eyes at his accuser.\n\n     \"I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I\n     could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me.\n     Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case\n     complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of\n     Morcar's?\"\n\n     \"It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it,\" said he in a crackling\n     voice.\n\n     \"I see--her ladyship's waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of sudden\n     wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for\n     better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in the means\n     you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the making of a very\n     pretty villain in you. You knew that this man Horner, the plumber,\n     had been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion\n     would rest the more readily upon him. What did you do, then? You made\n     some small job in my lady's room--you and your confederate\n     Cusack--and you managed that he should be the man sent for. Then,\n     when he had left, you rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and\n     had this unfortunate man arrested. You then--\"\n\n     Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my\n     companion's knees. \"For God's sake, have mercy!\" he shrieked. \"Think\n     of my father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went\n     wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll swear it on a\n     Bible. Oh, don't bring it into court! For Christ's sake, don't!\"\n\n     \"Get back into your chair!\" said Holmes sternly. \"It is very well to\n     cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor\n     Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.\"\n\n     \"I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the\n     charge against him will break down.\"\n\n     \"Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of\n     the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the\n     goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your\n     only hope of safety.\"\n\n     Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. \"I will tell you it\n     just as it happened, sir,\" said he. \"When Horner had been arrested,\n     it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the\n     stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not\n     take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place\n     about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some\n     commission, and I made for my sister's house. She had married a man\n     named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls\n     for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be\n     a policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night,\n     the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road.\n     My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I\n     told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel.\n     Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it\n     would be best to do.\n\n     \"I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has\n     just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and\n     fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid\n     of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew\n     one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to\n     Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would\n     show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in\n     safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from\n     the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there\n     would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the\n     wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about\n     round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me\n     how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.\n\n     \"My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick\n     of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always\n     as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would\n     carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and\n     behind this I drove one of the birds--a fine big one, white, with a\n     barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust the\n     stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave\n     a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its\n     crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister\n     to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute\n     broke loose and fluttered off among the others.\n\n     \"'Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says she.\n\n     \"'Well,' said I, 'you said you'd give me one for Christmas, and I was\n     feeling which was the fattest.'\n\n     \"'Oh,' says she, 'we've set yours aside for you--Jem's bird, we call\n     it. It's the big white one over yonder. There's twenty-six of them,\n     which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the\n     market.'\n\n     \"'Thank you, Maggie,' says I; 'but if it is all the same to you, I'd\n     rather have that one I was handling just now.'\n\n     \"'The other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we\n     fattened it expressly for you.'\n\n     \"'Never mind. I'll have the other, and I'll take it now,' said I.\n\n     \"'Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it you\n     want, then?'\n\n     \"'That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the\n     flock.'\n\n     \"'Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.'\n\n     \"Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all\n     the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man\n     that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he\n     choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to\n     water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some\n     terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my\n     sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be\n     seen there.\n\n     \"'Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried.\n\n     \"'Gone to the dealer's, Jem.'\n\n     \"'Which dealer's?'\n\n     \"'Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.'\n\n     \"'But was there another with a barred tail?' I asked, 'the same as\n     the one I chose?'\n\n     \"'Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell\n     them apart.'\n\n     \"Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet\n     would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at\n     once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone.\n     You heard him yourselves to-night. Well, he has always answered me\n     like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think\n     that I am myself. And now--and now I am myself a branded thief,\n     without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character.\n     God help me! God help me!\" He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his\n     face buried in his hands.\n\n     There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and by\n     the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes' finger-tips upon the edge of\n     the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.\n\n     \"Get out!\" said he.\n\n     \"What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!\"\n\n     \"No more words. Get out!\"\n\n     And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the\n     stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls\n     from the street.\n\n     \"After all, Watson,\" said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay\n     pipe, \"I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.\n     If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow\n     will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I suppose\n     that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am\n     saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too\n     terribly frightened. Send him to jail now, and you make him a\n     jail-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance\n     has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its\n     solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch\n     the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also\n     a bird will be the chief feature.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND\n\n     On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have\n     during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock\n     Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely\n     strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the\n     love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to\n     associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards\n     the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases,\n     however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features\n     than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of\n     the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the\n     early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms\n     as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed\n     them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the\n     time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the\n     untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is\n     perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have\n     reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of\n     Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible\n     than the truth.\n\n     It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to find\n     Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He\n     was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece\n     showed me that it was only a quarter-past seven, I blinked up at him\n     in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was\n     myself regular in my habits.\n\n     \"Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,\" said he, \"but it's the common\n     lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon\n     me, and I on you.\"\n\n     \"What is it, then--a fire?\"\n\n     \"No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a\n     considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is\n     waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander about\n     the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people\n     up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing\n     which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting\n     case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I\n     thought, at any rate, that I should call you and give you the\n     chance.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything.\"\n\n     I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional\n     investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as\n     intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he\n     unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw\n     on my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend\n     down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled,\n     who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.\n\n     \"Good-morning, madam,\" said Holmes cheerily. \"My name is Sherlock\n     Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before\n     whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see\n     that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw\n     up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe\n     that you are shivering.\"\n\n     \"It is not cold which makes me shiver,\" said the woman in a low\n     voice, changing her seat as requested.\n\n     \"What, then?\"\n\n     \"It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror.\" She raised her veil as she\n     spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of\n     agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened\n     eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were\n     those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature\n     grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran\n     her over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.\n\n     \"You must not fear,\" said he soothingly, bending forward and patting\n     her forearm. \"We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You\n     have come in by train this morning, I see.\"\n\n     \"You know me, then?\"\n\n     \"No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of\n     your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good\n     drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the\n     station.\"\n\n     The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my\n     companion.\n\n     \"There is no mystery, my dear madam,\" said he, smiling. \"The left arm\n     of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places.\n     The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart\n     which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the\n     left-hand side of the driver.\"\n\n     \"Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct,\" said she.\n     \"I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past,\n     and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this\n     strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to\n     turn to--none, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow,\n     can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard\n     of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore\n     need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not\n     think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light\n     through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out\n     of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six\n     weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then\n     at least you shall not find me ungrateful.\"\n\n     Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small\n     case-book, which he consulted.\n\n     \"Farintosh,\" said he. \"Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned\n     with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can\n     only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to\n     your case as I did to that of your friend. As to reward, my\n     profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray\n     whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best.\n     And now I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us\n     in forming an opinion upon the matter.\"\n\n     \"Alas!\" replied our visitor, \"the very horror of my situation lies in\n     the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so\n     entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that\n     even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and\n     advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a\n     nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his\n     soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that\n     you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.\n     You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.\"\n\n     \"I am all attention, madam.\"\n\n     \"My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is\n     the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the\n     Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey.\"\n\n     Holmes nodded his head. \"The name is familiar to me,\" said he.\n\n     \"The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the\n     estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and\n     Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive\n     heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family\n     ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the\n     Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the\n     two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy\n     mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the\n     horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my\n     stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions,\n     obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a\n     medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional\n     skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In\n     a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been\n     perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death and\n     narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long\n     term of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and\n     disappointed man.\n\n     \"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the\n     young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My\n     sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the\n     time of my mother's re-marriage. She had a considerable sum of\n     money--not less than £1000 a year--and this she bequeathed to Dr.\n     Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a\n     certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of\n     our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother died--she\n     was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr.\n     Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice\n     in London and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at\n     Stoke Moran. The money which my mother had left was enough for all\n     our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.\n\n     \"But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time.\n     Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours,\n     who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back\n     in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house and seldom\n     came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might\n     cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been\n     hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it\n     had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the\n     tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which\n     ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the\n     village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of\n     immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.\n\n     \"Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a\n     stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could\n     gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He\n     had no friends at all save the wandering gypsies, and he would give\n     these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered\n     land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return\n     the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes\n     for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are\n     sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a\n     cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are\n     feared by the villagers almost as much as their master.\n\n     \"You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I had\n     no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us, and\n     for a long time we did all the work of the house. She was but thirty\n     at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already begun to\n     whiten, even as mine has.\"\n\n     \"Your sister is dead, then?\"\n\n     \"She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish to\n     speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I have\n     described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and\n     position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden sister, Miss\n     Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally\n     allowed to pay short visits at this lady's house. Julia went there at\n     Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines,\n     to whom she became engaged. My stepfather learned of the engagement\n     when my sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but\n     within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding,\n     the terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only\n     companion.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes\n     closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids\n     now and glanced across at his visitor.\n\n     \"Pray be precise as to details,\" said he.\n\n     \"It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is\n     seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said,\n     very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this\n     wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central\n     block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr. Roylott's,\n     the second my sister's, and the third my own. There is no\n     communication between them, but they all open out into the same\n     corridor. Do I make myself plain?\"\n\n     \"Perfectly so.\"\n\n     \"The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal\n     night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he\n     had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of\n     the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. She left\n     her room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time,\n     chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven o'clock she rose to\n     leave me, but she paused at the door and looked back.\n\n     \"'Tell me, Helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle in\n     the dead of the night?'\n\n     \"'Never,' said I.\n\n     \"'I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your\n     sleep?'\n\n     \"'Certainly not. But why?'\n\n     \"'Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in\n     the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it\n     has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from--perhaps from the\n     next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you\n     whether you had heard it.'\n\n     \"'No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the\n     plantation.'\n\n     \"'Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did\n     not hear it also.'\n\n     \"'Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.'\n\n     \"'Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' She smiled back\n     at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her key turn\n     in the lock.\"\n\n     \"Indeed,\" said Holmes. \"Was it your custom always to lock yourselves\n     in at night?\"\n\n     \"Always.\"\n\n     \"And why?\"\n\n     \"I think that I mentioned to you that the doctor kept a cheetah and a\n     baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement.\"\n\n     \"I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending\n     misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, were\n     twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls\n     which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind was\n     howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the\n     windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth\n     the wild scream of a terrified woman. I knew that it was my sister's\n     voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed\n     into the corridor. As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low\n     whistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a\n     clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen. As I ran down the\n     passage, my sister's door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its\n     hinges. I stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to\n     issue from it. By the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister\n     appear at the opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands\n     groping for help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a\n     drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that\n     moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground.  She\n     writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully\n     convulsed. At first I thought that she had not recognised me, but as\n     I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall\n     never forget, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled\n     band!' There was something else which she would fain have said, and\n     she stabbed with her finger into the air in the direction of the\n     doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion seized her and choked her\n     words. I rushed out, calling loudly for my stepfather, and I met him\n     hastening from his room in his dressing-gown. When he reached my\n     sister's side she was unconscious, and though he poured brandy down\n     her throat and sent for medical aid from the village, all efforts\n     were in vain, for she slowly sank and died without having recovered\n     her consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister.\"\n\n     \"One moment,\" said Holmes, \"are you sure about this whistle and\n     metallic sound? Could you swear to it?\"\n\n     \"That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is my\n     strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of the\n     gale and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have been\n     deceived.\"\n\n     \"Was your sister dressed?\"\n\n     \"No, she was in her night-dress. In her right hand was found the\n     charred stump of a match, and in her left a match-box.\"\n\n     \"Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the\n     alarm took place. That is important. And what conclusions did the\n     coroner come to?\"\n\n     \"He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott's conduct\n     had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any\n     satisfactory cause of death. My evidence showed that the door had\n     been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by\n     old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every\n     night. The walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite\n     solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with\n     the same result. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large\n     staples. It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone\n     when she met her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence\n     upon her.\"\n\n     \"How about poison?\"\n\n     \"The doctors examined her for it, but without success.\"\n\n     \"What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?\"\n\n     \"It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though\n     what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine.\"\n\n     \"Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?\"\n\n     \"Yes, there are nearly always some there.\"\n\n     \"Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band--a speckled\n     band?\"\n\n     \"Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of\n     delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people,\n     perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not know\n     whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over\n     their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which she\n     used.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.\n\n     \"These are very deep waters,\" said he; \"pray go on with your\n     narrative.\"\n\n     \"Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately\n     lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have\n     known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in\n     marriage. His name is Armitage--Percy Armitage--the second son of Mr.\n     Armitage, of Crane Water, near Reading. My stepfather has offered no\n     opposition to the match, and we are to be married in the course of\n     the spring. Two days ago some repairs were started in the west wing\n     of the building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that I have\n     had to move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in\n     the very bed in which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror\n     when last night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I\n     suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which had\n     been the herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the lamp, but\n     nothing was to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to go to bed\n     again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I\n     slipped down, got a dog-cart at the Crown Inn, which is opposite, and\n     drove to Leatherhead, from whence I have come on this morning with\n     the one object of seeing you and asking your advice.\"\n\n     \"You have done wisely,\" said my friend. \"But have you told me all?\"\n\n     \"Yes, all.\"\n\n     \"Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather.\"\n\n     \"Why, what do you mean?\"\n\n     For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed\n     the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five little livid spots,\n     the marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white\n     wrist.\n\n     \"You have been cruelly used,\" said Holmes.\n\n     The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. \"He is a\n     hard man,\" she said, \"and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength.\"\n\n     There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon\n     his hands and stared into the crackling fire.\n\n     \"This is a very deep business,\" he said at last. \"There are a\n     thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide upon\n     our course of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If we were to\n     come to Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for us to see over\n     these rooms without the knowledge of your stepfather?\"\n\n     \"As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most\n     important business. It is probable that he will be away all day, and\n     that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a housekeeper\n     now, but she is old and foolish, and I could easily get her out of\n     the way.\"\n\n     \"Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?\"\n\n     \"By no means.\"\n\n     \"Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?\"\n\n     \"I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in\n     town. But I shall return by the twelve o'clock train, so as to be\n     there in time for your coming.\"\n\n     \"And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some\n     small business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and\n     breakfast?\"\n\n     \"No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have confided\n     my trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you again this\n     afternoon.\" She dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided\n     from the room.\n\n     \"And what do you think of it all, Watson?\" asked Sherlock Holmes,\n     leaning back in his chair.\n\n     \"It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.\"\n\n     \"Dark enough and sinister enough.\"\n\n     \"Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are\n     sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then\n     her sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her\n     mysterious end.\"\n\n     \"What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the\n     very peculiar words of the dying woman?\"\n\n     \"I cannot think.\"\n\n     \"When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a\n     band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the\n     fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an\n     interest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying\n     allusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner\n     heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those\n     metal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its place, I\n     think that there is good ground to think that the mystery may be\n     cleared along those lines.\"\n\n     \"But what, then, did the gipsies do?\"\n\n     \"I cannot imagine.\"\n\n     \"I see many objections to any such theory.\"\n\n     \"And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going to\n     Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are fatal,\n     or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of the devil!\"\n\n     The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our\n     door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed\n     himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar mixture of the\n     professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long\n     frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging\n     in his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross\n     bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from\n     side to side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned\n     yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned\n     from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and\n     his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to\n     a fierce old bird of prey.\n\n     \"Which of you is Holmes?\" asked this apparition.\n\n     \"My name, sir; but you have the advantage of me,\" said my companion\n     quietly.\n\n     \"I am Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, Doctor,\" said Holmes blandly. \"Pray take a seat.\"\n\n     \"I will do nothing of the kind. My stepdaughter has been here. I have\n     traced her. What has she been saying to you?\"\n\n     \"It is a little cold for the time of the year,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"What has she been saying to you?\" screamed the old man furiously.\n\n     \"But I have heard that the crocuses promise well,\" continued my\n     companion imperturbably.\n\n     \"Ha! You put me off, do you?\" said our new visitor, taking a step\n     forward and shaking his hunting-crop. \"I know you, you scoundrel!  I\n     have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler.\"\n\n     My friend smiled.\n\n     \"Holmes, the busybody!\"\n\n     His smile broadened.\n\n     \"Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!\"\n\n     Holmes chuckled heartily. \"Your conversation is most entertaining,\"\n     said he. \"When you go out close the door, for there is a decided\n     draught.\"\n\n     \"I will go when I have said my say. Don't you dare to meddle with my\n     affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her! I am a\n     dangerous man to fall foul of! See here.\" He stepped swiftly forward,\n     seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.\n\n     \"See that you keep yourself out of my grip,\" he snarled, and hurling\n     the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the room.\n\n     \"He seems a very amiable person,\" said Holmes, laughing. \"I am not\n     quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my\n     grip was not much more feeble than his own.\" As he spoke he picked up\n     the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again.\n\n     \"Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official\n     detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation,\n     however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer from\n     her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. And now, Watson,\n     we shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk down to\n     Doctors' Commons, where I hope to get some data which may help us in\n     this matter.\"\n\n     It was nearly one o'clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his\n     excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled over\n     with notes and figures.\n\n     \"I have seen the will of the deceased wife,\" said he. \"To determine\n     its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the present prices\n     of the investments with which it is concerned. The total income,\n     which at the time of the wife's death was little short of £1100, is\n     now, through the fall in agricultural prices, not more than £750.\n     Each daughter can claim an income of £250, in case of marriage. It is\n     evident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would\n     have had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to\n     a very serious extent. My morning's work has not been wasted, since\n     it has proved that he has the very strongest motives for standing in\n     the way of anything of the sort. And now, Watson, this is too serious\n     for dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are\n     interesting ourselves in his affairs; so if you are ready, we shall\n     call a cab and drive to Waterloo. I should be very much obliged if\n     you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an\n     excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into\n     knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need.\"\n\n     At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for Leatherhead,\n     where we hired a trap at the station inn and drove for four or five\n     miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a perfect day, with a\n     bright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the heavens. The trees and\n     wayside hedges were just throwing out their first green shoots, and\n     the air was full of the pleasant smell of the moist earth. To me at\n     least there was a strange contrast between the sweet promise of the\n     spring and this sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My\n     companion sat in the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat\n     pulled down over his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried\n     in the deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on\n     the shoulder, and pointed over the meadows.\n\n     \"Look there!\" said he.\n\n     A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening\n     into a grove at the highest point. From amid the branches there\n     jutted out the grey gables and high roof-tree of a very old mansion.\n\n     \"Stoke Moran?\" said he.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott,\" remarked the\n     driver.\n\n     \"There is some building going on there,\" said Holmes; \"that is where\n     we are going.\"\n\n     \"There's the village,\" said the driver, pointing to a cluster of\n     roofs some distance to the left; \"but if you want to get to the\n     house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the\n     foot-path over the fields. There it is, where the lady is walking.\"\n\n     \"And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner,\" observed Holmes, shading his\n     eyes. \"Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest.\"\n\n     We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way to\n     Leatherhead.\n\n     \"I thought it as well,\" said Holmes as we climbed the stile, \"that\n     this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some\n     definite business. It may stop his gossip. Good-afternoon, Miss\n     Stoner. You see that we have been as good as our word.\"\n\n     Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a face\n     which spoke her joy. \"I have been waiting so eagerly for you,\" she\n     cried, shaking hands with us warmly. \"All has turned out splendidly.\n     Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely that he will be back\n     before evening.\"\n\n     \"We have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance,\" said\n     Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred. Miss\n     Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened.\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" she cried, \"he has followed me, then.\"\n\n     \"So it appears.\"\n\n     \"He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What\n     will he say when he returns?\"\n\n     \"He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more\n     cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself up from\n     him to-night. If he is violent, we shall take you away to your aunt's\n     at Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take\n     us at once to the rooms which we are to examine.\"\n\n     The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central\n     portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out\n     on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and\n     blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a\n     picture of ruin. The central portion was in little better repair, but\n     the right-hand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the\n     windows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed\n     that this was where the family resided. Some scaffolding had been\n     erected against the end wall, and the stone-work had been broken\n     into, but there were no signs of any workmen at the moment of our\n     visit. Holmes walked slowly up and down the ill-trimmed lawn and\n     examined with deep attention the outsides of the windows.\n\n     \"This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, the\n     centre one to your sister's, and the one next to the main building to\n     Dr. Roylott's chamber?\"\n\n     \"Exactly so. But I am now sleeping in the middle one.\"\n\n     \"Pending the alterations, as I understand. By the way, there does not\n     seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end wall.\"\n\n     \"There were none. I believe that it was an excuse to move me from my\n     room.\"\n\n     \"Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow wing\n     runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There are\n     windows in it, of course?\"\n\n     \"Yes, but very small ones. Too narrow for anyone to pass through.\"\n\n     \"As you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were\n     unapproachable from that side. Now, would you have the kindness to go\n     into your room and bar your shutters?\"\n\n     Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination through\n     the open window, endeavoured in every way to force the shutter open,\n     but without success. There was no slit through which a knife could be\n     passed to raise the bar. Then with his lens he tested the hinges, but\n     they were of solid iron, built firmly into the massive masonry.\n     \"Hum!\" said he, scratching his chin in some perplexity, \"my theory\n     certainly presents some difficulties. No one could pass these\n     shutters if they were bolted. Well, we shall see if the inside throws\n     any light upon the matter.\"\n\n     A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which the\n     three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third chamber,\n     so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss Stoner was now\n     sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her fate. It was a\n     homely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after\n     the fashion of old country-houses. A brown chest of drawers stood in\n     one corner, a narrow white-counterpaned bed in another, and a\n     dressing-table on the left-hand side of the window. These articles,\n     with two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the\n     room save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards\n     round and the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak,\n     so old and discoloured that it may have dated from the original\n     building of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner\n     and sat silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and\n     down, taking in every detail of the apartment.\n\n     \"Where does that bell communicate with?\" he asked at last pointing to\n     a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually\n     lying upon the pillow.\n\n     \"It goes to the housekeeper's room.\"\n\n     \"It looks newer than the other things?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago.\"\n\n     \"Your sister asked for it, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we\n     wanted for ourselves.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. You\n     will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to this\n     floor.\" He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand\n     and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the\n     cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with the wood-work\n     with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he walked over to the\n     bed and spent some time in staring at it and in running his eye up\n     and down the wall. Finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave\n     it a brisk tug.\n\n     \"Why, it's a dummy,\" said he.\n\n     \"Won't it ring?\"\n\n     \"No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. You\n     can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little\n     opening for the ventilator is.\"\n\n     \"How very absurd! I never noticed that before.\"\n\n     \"Very strange!\" muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. \"There are one\n     or two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool\n     a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with\n     the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!\"\n\n     \"That is also quite modern,\" said the lady.\n\n     \"Done about the same time as the bell-rope?\" remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that time.\"\n\n     \"They seem to have been of a most interesting character--dummy\n     bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. With your\n     permission, Miss Stoner, we shall now carry our researches into the\n     inner apartment.\"\n\n     Dr. Grimesby Roylott's chamber was larger than that of his\n     step-daughter, but was as plainly furnished. A camp-bed, a small\n     wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an\n     armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a\n     round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things which\n     met the eye. Holmes walked slowly round and examined each and all of\n     them with the keenest interest.\n\n     \"What's in here?\" he asked, tapping the safe.\n\n     \"My stepfather's business papers.\"\n\n     \"Oh! you have seen inside, then?\"\n\n     \"Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of papers.\"\n\n     \"There isn't a cat in it, for example?\"\n\n     \"No. What a strange idea!\"\n\n     \"Well, look at this!\" He took up a small saucer of milk which stood\n     on the top of it.\n\n     \"No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon.\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a\n     saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I\n     daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine.\" He\n     squatted down in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat of\n     it with the greatest attention.\n\n     \"Thank you. That is quite settled,\" said he, rising and putting his\n     lens in his pocket. \"Hullo! Here is something interesting!\"\n\n     The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on one\n     corner of the bed. The lash, however, was curled upon itself and tied\n     so as to make a loop of whipcord.\n\n     \"What do you make of that, Watson?\"\n\n     \"It's a common enough lash. But I don't know why it should be tied.\"\n\n     \"That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it's a wicked world, and\n     when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all. I\n     think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and with your\n     permission we shall walk out upon the lawn.\"\n\n     I had never seen my friend's face so grim or his brow so dark as it\n     was when we turned from the scene of this investigation. We had\n     walked several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss Stoner nor\n     myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he roused himself\n     from his reverie.\n\n     \"It is very essential, Miss Stoner,\" said he, \"that you should\n     absolutely follow my advice in every respect.\"\n\n     \"I shall most certainly do so.\"\n\n     \"The matter is too serious for any hesitation. Your life may depend\n     upon your compliance.\"\n\n     \"I assure you that I am in your hands.\"\n\n     \"In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in\n     your room.\"\n\n     Both Miss Stoner and I gazed at him in astonishment.\n\n     \"Yes, it must be so. Let me explain. I believe that that is the\n     village inn over there?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that is the Crown.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Your windows would be visible from there?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a headache,\n     when your stepfather comes back. Then when you hear him retire for\n     the night, you must open the shutters of your window, undo the hasp,\n     put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then withdraw quietly with\n     everything which you are likely to want into the room which you used\n     to occupy. I have no doubt that, in spite of the repairs, you could\n     manage there for one night.\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, easily.\"\n\n     \"The rest you will leave in our hands.\"\n\n     \"But what will you do?\"\n\n     \"We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate the\n     cause of this noise which has disturbed you.\"\n\n     \"I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have already made up your mind,\"\n     said Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion's sleeve.\n\n     \"Perhaps I have.\"\n\n     \"Then, for pity's sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister's\n     death.\"\n\n     \"I should prefer to have clearer proofs before I speak.\"\n\n     \"You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and if\n     she died from some sudden fright.\"\n\n     \"No, I do not think so. I think that there was probably some more\n     tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if Dr.\n     Roylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain.  Good-bye,\n     and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, you may rest\n     assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and\n     sitting-room at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and from\n     our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and of the\n     inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw Dr.\n     Grimesby Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside the\n     little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some slight\n     difficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard the hoarse\n     roar of the doctor's voice and saw the fury with which he shook his\n     clinched fists at him. The trap drove on, and a few minutes later we\n     saw a sudden light spring up among the trees as the lamp was lit in\n     one of the sitting-rooms.\n\n     \"Do you know, Watson,\" said Holmes as we sat together in the\n     gathering darkness, \"I have really some scruples as to taking you\n     to-night. There is a distinct element of danger.\"\n\n     \"Can I be of assistance?\"\n\n     \"Your presence might be invaluable.\"\n\n     \"Then I shall certainly come.\"\n\n     \"It is very kind of you.\"\n\n     \"You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms\n     than was visible to me.\"\n\n     \"No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more. I imagine\n     that you saw all that I did.\"\n\n     \"I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose that\n     could answer I confess is more than I can imagine.\"\n\n     \"You saw the ventilator, too?\"\n\n     \"Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to have\n     a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a rat could\n     hardly pass through.\"\n\n     \"I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to Stoke\n     Moran.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her\n     sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that suggested\n     at once that there must be a communication between the two rooms. It\n     could only be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the\n     coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator.\"\n\n     \"But what harm can there be in that?\"\n\n     \"Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A ventilator\n     is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. Does\n     not that strike you?\"\n\n     \"I cannot as yet see any connection.\"\n\n     \"Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened like\n     that before?\"\n\n     \"I cannot say that I have.\"\n\n     \"The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same\n     relative position to the ventilator and to the rope--or so we may\n     call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull.\"\n\n     \"Holmes,\" I cried, \"I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. We\n     are only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime.\"\n\n     \"Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is\n     the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. Palmer and\n     Pritchard were among the heads of their profession. This man strikes\n     even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall be able to strike\n     deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough before the night is\n     over; for goodness' sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds\n     for a few hours to something more cheerful.\"\n\n     About nine o'clock the light among the trees was extinguished, and\n     all was dark in the direction of the Manor House. Two hours passed\n     slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of eleven, a\n     single bright light shone out right in front of us.\n\n     \"That is our signal,\" said Holmes, springing to his feet; \"it comes\n     from the middle window.\"\n\n     As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord,\n     explaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, and\n     that it was possible that we might spend the night there. A moment\n     later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our\n     faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us through the\n     gloom to guide us on our sombre errand.\n\n     There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired\n     breaches gaped in the old park wall. Making our way among the trees,\n     we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the\n     window when out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what\n     seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the\n     grass with writhing limbs and then ran swiftly across the lawn into\n     the darkness.\n\n     \"My God!\" I whispered; \"did you see it?\"\n\n     Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a\n     vice upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low laugh\n     and put his lips to my ear.\n\n     \"It is a nice household,\" he murmured. \"That is the baboon.\"\n\n     I had forgotten the strange pets which the doctor affected. There was\n     a cheetah, too; perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders at any\n     moment. I confess that I felt easier in my mind when, after following\n     Holmes' example and slipping off my shoes, I found myself inside the\n     bedroom. My companion noiselessly closed the shutters, moved the lamp\n     onto the table, and cast his eyes round the room. All was as we had\n     seen it in the daytime. Then creeping up to me and making a trumpet\n     of his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all\n     that I could do to distinguish the words:\n\n     \"The least sound would be fatal to our plans.\"\n\n     I nodded to show that I had heard.\n\n     \"We must sit without light. He would see it through the ventilator.\"\n\n     I nodded again.\n\n     \"Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your\n     pistol ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of the\n     bed, and you in that chair.\"\n\n     I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table.\n\n     Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon the\n     bed beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the stump of a\n     candle. Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left in darkness.\n\n     How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a\n     sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my\n     companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state\n     of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut off the\n     least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness.\n\n     From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at our\n     very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that the\n     cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the deep tones\n     of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How\n     long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and\n     three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.\n\n     Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction\n     of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a\n     strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. Someone in the next\n     room had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle sound of movement, and\n     then all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. For\n     half an hour I sat with straining ears. Then suddenly another sound\n     became audible--a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small\n     jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle. The instant that we\n     heard it, Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed\n     furiously with his cane at the bell-pull.\n\n     \"You see it, Watson?\" he yelled. \"You see it?\"\n\n     But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I heard\n     a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary\n     eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend\n     lashed so savagely. I could, however, see that his face was deadly\n     pale and filled with horror and loathing. He had ceased to strike and\n     was gazing up at the ventilator when suddenly there broke from the\n     silence of the night the most horrible cry to which I have ever\n     listened. It swelled up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and\n     fear and anger all mingled in the one dreadful shriek. They say that\n     away down in the village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry\n     raised the sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts,\n     and I stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of\n     it had died away into the silence from which it rose.\n\n     \"What can it mean?\" I gasped.\n\n     \"It means that it is all over,\" Holmes answered. \"And perhaps, after\n     all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will enter Dr.\n     Roylott's room.\"\n\n     With a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the corridor.\n     Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply from within.\n     Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his heels, with the\n     cocked pistol in my hand.\n\n     It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a\n     dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of\n     light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this\n     table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott clad in a long\n     grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet\n     thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the\n     short stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day.\n     His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful,\n     rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a\n     peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be\n     bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor\n     motion.\n\n     \"The band! the speckled band!\" whispered Holmes.\n\n     I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began to\n     move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat\n     diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.\n\n     \"It is a swamp adder!\" cried Holmes; \"the deadliest snake in India.\n     He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in\n     truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit\n     which he digs for another. Let us thrust this creature back into its\n     den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter and\n     let the county police know what has happened.\"\n\n     As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man's lap, and\n     throwing the noose round the reptile's neck he drew it from its\n     horrid perch and, carrying it at arm's length, threw it into the iron\n     safe, which he closed upon it.\n\n     Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of\n     Stoke Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a narrative\n     which has already run to too great a length by telling how we broke\n     the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the\n     morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow, of how the slow\n     process of official inquiry came to the conclusion that the doctor\n     met his fate while indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet. The\n     little which I had yet to learn of the case was told me by Sherlock\n     Holmes as we travelled back next day.\n\n     \"I had,\" said he, \"come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which\n     shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from\n     insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the\n     word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain\n     the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light\n     of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent.\n     I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position\n     when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened\n     an occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the\n     door. My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to\n     you, to this ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the\n     bed. The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was\n     clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the\n     rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and\n     coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and\n     when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was furnished\n     with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on\n     the right track. The idea of using a form of poison which could not\n     possibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as\n     would occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern\n     training. The rapidity with which such a poison would take effect\n     would also, from his point of view, be an advantage. It would be a\n     sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark\n     punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their\n     work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of course he must recall the\n     snake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. He had\n     trained it, probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return\n     to him when summoned. He would put it through this ventilator at the\n     hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl\n     down the rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the\n     occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner\n     or later she must fall a victim.\n\n     \"I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his room.\n     An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of\n     standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order that he\n     should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of\n     milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any\n     doubts which may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss\n     Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the\n     door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. Having once made up my\n     mind, you know the steps which I took in order to put the matter to\n     the proof. I heard the creature hiss as I have no doubt that you did\n     also, and I instantly lit the light and attacked it.\"\n\n     \"With the result of driving it through the ventilator.\"\n\n     \"And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master at\n     the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its\n     snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this\n     way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott's\n     death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon\n     my conscience.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER'S THUMB\n\n     Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there\n     were only two which I was the means of introducing to his\n     notice--that of Mr. Hatherley's thumb, and that of Colonel\n     Warburton's madness. Of these the latter may have afforded a finer\n     field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so\n     strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may\n     be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my\n     friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by\n     which he achieved such remarkable results. The story has, I believe,\n     been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such\n     narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en bloc\n     in a single half-column of print than when the facts slowly evolve\n     before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each\n     new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth.\n     At the time the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the\n     lapse of two years has hardly served to weaken the effect.\n\n     It was in the summer of '89, not long after my marriage, that the\n     events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned to\n     civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street\n     rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally even\n     persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come and\n     visit us. My practice had steadily increased, and as I happened to\n     live at no very great distance from Paddington Station, I got a few\n     patients from among the officials. One of these, whom I had cured of\n     a painful and lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my\n     virtues and of endeavouring to send me on every sufferer over whom he\n     might have any influence.\n\n     One morning, at a little before seven o'clock, I was awakened by the\n     maid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come from\n     Paddington and were waiting in the consulting-room. I dressed\n     hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases were seldom\n     trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my old ally, the\n     guard, came out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him.\n\n     \"I've got him here,\" he whispered, jerking his thumb over his\n     shoulder; \"he's all right.\"\n\n     \"What is it, then?\" I asked, for his manner suggested that it was\n     some strange creature which he had caged up in my room.\n\n     \"It's a new patient,\" he whispered. \"I thought I'd bring him round\n     myself; then he couldn't slip away. There he is, all safe and sound.\n     I must go now, Doctor; I have my dooties, just the same as you.\" And\n     off he went, this trusty tout, without even giving me time to thank\n     him.\n\n     I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the\n     table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a soft\n     cloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of his\n     hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with\n     bloodstains. He was young, not more than five-and-twenty, I should\n     say, with a strong, masculine face; but he was exceedingly pale and\n     gave me the impression of a man who was suffering from some strong\n     agitation, which it took all his strength of mind to control.\n\n     \"I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor,\" said he, \"but I have\n     had a very serious accident during the night. I came in by train this\n     morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I might find a\n     doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here. I gave the maid\n     a card, but I see that she has left it upon the side-table.\"\n\n     I took it up and glanced at it. \"Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic\n     engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor).\" That was the name,\n     style, and abode of my morning visitor. \"I regret that I have kept\n     you waiting,\" said I, sitting down in my library-chair. \"You are\n     fresh from a night journey, I understand, which is in itself a\n     monotonous occupation.\"\n\n     \"Oh, my night could not be called monotonous,\" said he, and laughed.\n     He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in\n     his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical instincts rose up\n     against that laugh.\n\n     \"Stop it!\" I cried; \"pull yourself together!\" and I poured out some\n     water from a caraffe.\n\n     It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical\n     outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is\n     over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very weary and\n     pale-looking.\n\n     \"I have been making a fool of myself,\" he gasped.\n\n     \"Not at all. Drink this.\" I dashed some brandy into the water, and\n     the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.\n\n     \"That's better!\" said he. \"And now, Doctor, perhaps you would kindly\n     attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to\n     be.\"\n\n     He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my\n     hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding\n     fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have\n     been. It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots.\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" I cried, \"this is a terrible injury. It must have\n     bled considerably.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must\n     have been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that it\n     was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly\n     round the wrist and braced it up with a twig.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! You should have been a surgeon.\"\n\n     \"It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own\n     province.\"\n\n     \"This has been done,\" said I, examining the wound, \"by a very heavy\n     and sharp instrument.\"\n\n     \"A thing like a cleaver,\" said he.\n\n     \"An accident, I presume?\"\n\n     \"By no means.\"\n\n     \"What! a murderous attack?\"\n\n     \"Very murderous indeed.\"\n\n     \"You horrify me.\"\n\n     I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it\n     over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back without\n     wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time.\n\n     \"How is that?\" I asked when I had finished.\n\n     \"Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. I\n     was very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. It is evidently\n     trying to your nerves.\"\n\n     \"Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; but,\n     between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this\n     wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement,\n     for it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of\n     proof with which to back it up; and, even if they believe me, the\n     clues which I can give them are so vague that it is a question\n     whether justice will be done.\"\n\n     \"Ha!\" cried I, \"if it is anything in the nature of a problem which\n     you desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you to come to\n     my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, before you go to the official\n     police.\"\n\n     \"Oh, I have heard of that fellow,\" answered my visitor, \"and I should\n     be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of course I must\n     use the official police as well. Would you give me an introduction to\n     him?\"\n\n     \"I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself.\"\n\n     \"I should be immensely obliged to you.\"\n\n     \"We'll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to have a\n     little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story.\"\n\n     \"Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an\n     instant.\" I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my wife,\n     and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my new\n     acquaintance to Baker Street.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sitting-room\n     in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of The Times and\n     smoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the\n     plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day before, all\n     carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece. He\n     received us in his quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and\n     eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. When it was concluded he\n     settled our new acquaintance upon the sofa, placed a pillow beneath\n     his head, and laid a glass of brandy and water within his reach.\n\n     \"It is easy to see that your experience has been no common one, Mr.\n     Hatherley,\" said he. \"Pray, lie down there and make yourself\n     absolutely at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired\n     and keep up your strength with a little stimulant.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said my patient. \"but I have felt another man since the\n     doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has completed the\n     cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so\n     I shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences.\"\n\n     Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded\n     expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat\n     opposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story\n     which our visitor detailed to us.\n\n     \"You must know,\" said he, \"that I am an orphan and a bachelor,\n     residing alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a hydraulic\n     engineer, and I have had considerable experience of my work during\n     the seven years that I was apprenticed to Venner & Matheson, the\n     well-known firm, of Greenwich. Two years ago, having served my time,\n     and having also come into a fair sum of money through my poor\n     father's death, I determined to start in business for myself and took\n     professional chambers in Victoria Street.\n\n     \"I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in\n     business a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so.\n     During two years I have had three consultations and one small job,\n     and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me. My\n     gross takings amount to £27 10s. Every day, from nine in the morning\n     until four in the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last\n     my heart began to sink, and I came to believe that I should never\n     have any practice at all.\n\n     \"Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my\n     clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see\n     me upon business. He brought up a card, too, with the name of\n     'Colonel Lysander Stark' engraved upon it. Close at his heels came\n     the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an\n     exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a\n     man. His whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin\n     of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet\n     this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no\n     disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing\n     assured. He was plainly but neatly dressed, and his age, I should\n     judge, would be nearer forty than thirty.\n\n     \"'Mr. Hatherley?' said he, with something of a German accent. 'You\n     have been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man who is not\n     only proficient in his profession but is also discreet and capable of\n     preserving a secret.'\n\n     \"I bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an\n     address. 'May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?' \n\n     \"'Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just at\n     this moment. I have it from the same source that you are both an\n     orphan and a bachelor and are residing alone in London.'\n\n     \"'That is quite correct,' I answered; 'but you will excuse me if I\n     say that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional\n     qualifications. I understand that it was on a professional matter\n     that you wished to speak to me?'\n\n     \"'Undoubtedly so. But you will find that all I say is really to the\n     point. I have a professional commission for you, but absolute secrecy\n     is quite essential--absolute secrecy, you understand, and of course\n     we may expect that more from a man who is alone than from one who\n     lives in the bosom of his family.'\n\n     \"'If I promise to keep a secret,' said I, 'you may absolutely depend\n     upon my doing so.'\n\n     \"He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I had\n     never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye.\n\n     \"'Do you promise, then?' said he at last.\n\n     \"'Yes, I promise.'\n\n     \"'Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No\n     reference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?'\n\n     \"'I have already given you my word.'\n\n     \"'Very good.' He suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning\n     across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was\n     empty.\n\n     \"'That's all right,' said he, coming back. 'I know that clerks are\n     sometimes curious as to their master's affairs. Now we can talk in\n     safety.' He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to stare\n     at me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look.\n\n     \"A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun to\n     rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. Even my\n     dread of losing a client could not restrain me from showing my\n     impatience.\n\n     \"'I beg that you will state your business, sir,' said I; 'my time is\n     of value.' Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the words\n     came to my lips.\n\n     \"'How would fifty guineas for a night's work suit you?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Most admirably.'\n\n     \"'I say a night's work, but an hour's would be nearer the mark. I\n     simply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which has\n     got out of gear. If you show us what is wrong we shall soon set it\n     right ourselves. What do you think of such a commission as that?'\n\n     \"'The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.'\n\n     \"'Precisely so. We shall want you to come to-night by the last\n     train.'\n\n     \"'Where to?'\n\n     \"'To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders of\n     Oxfordshire, and within seven miles of Reading. There is a train from\n     Paddington which would bring you there at about 11.15.'\n\n     \"'Very good.'\n\n     \"'I shall come down in a carriage to meet you.'\n\n     \"'There is a drive, then?'\n\n     \"'Yes, our little place is quite out in the country. It is a good\n     seven miles from Eyford Station.'\n\n     \"'Then we can hardly get there before midnight. I suppose there would\n     be no chance of a train back. I should be compelled to stop the\n     night.'\n\n     \"'Yes, we could easily give you a shake-down.'\n\n     \"'That is very awkward. Could I not come at some more convenient\n     hour?'\n\n     \"'We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to\n     recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a\n     young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very\n     heads of your profession. Still, of course, if you would like to draw\n     out of the business, there is plenty of time to do so.'\n\n     \"I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they would be\n     to me. 'Not at all,' said I, 'I shall be very happy to accommodate\n     myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to understand a little\n     more clearly what it is that you wish me to do.'\n\n     \"'Quite so. It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which we\n     have exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. I have no\n     wish to commit you to anything without your having it all laid before\n     you. I suppose that we are absolutely safe from eavesdroppers?'\n\n     \"'Entirely.'\n\n     \"'Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that\n     fuller's-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found in\n     one or two places in England?'\n\n     \"'I have heard so.'\n\n     \"'Some little time ago I bought a small place--a very small\n     place--within ten miles of Reading. I was fortunate enough to\n     discover that there was a deposit of fuller's-earth in one of my\n     fields. On examining it, however, I found that this deposit was a\n     comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two very\n     much larger ones upon the right and left--both of them, however, in\n     the grounds of my neighbours. These good people were absolutely\n     ignorant that their land contained that which was quite as valuable\n     as a gold-mine. Naturally, it was to my interest to buy their land\n     before they discovered its true value, but unfortunately I had no\n     capital by which I could do this. I took a few of my friends into the\n     secret, however, and they suggested that we should quietly and\n     secretly work our own little deposit and that in this way we should\n     earn the money which would enable us to buy the neighbouring fields.\n     This we have now been doing for some time, and in order to help us in\n     our operations we erected a hydraulic press. This press, as I have\n     already explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon\n     the subject. We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it\n     once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our\n     little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts\n     came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these fields\n     and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you promise me\n     that you will not tell a human being that you are going to Eyford\n     to-night. I hope that I make it all plain?'\n\n     \"'I quite follow you,' said I. 'The only point which I could not\n     quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press in\n     excavating fuller's-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out like\n     gravel from a pit.'\n\n     \"'Ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. We compress the\n     earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing what they\n     are. But that is a mere detail. I have taken you fully into my\n     confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I trust you.'\n     He rose as he spoke. 'I shall expect you, then, at Eyford at 11.15.'\n\n     \"'I shall certainly be there.'\n\n     \"'And not a word to a soul.' He looked at me with a last long,\n     questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp,\n     he hurried from the room.\n\n     \"Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very much\n     astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission which\n     had been intrusted to me. On the one hand, of course, I was glad, for\n     the fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked had I set a\n     price upon my own services, and it was possible that this order might\n     lead to other ones. On the other hand, the face and manner of my\n     patron had made an unpleasant impression upon me, and I could not\n     think that his explanation of the fuller's-earth was sufficient to\n     explain the necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme\n     anxiety lest I should tell anyone of my errand. However, I threw all\n     fears to the winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and\n     started off, having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding\n     my tongue.\n\n     \"At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station.\n     However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I reached\n     the little dim-lit station after eleven o'clock. I was the only\n     passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform\n     save a single sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed out through\n     the wicket gate, however, I found my acquaintance of the morning\n     waiting in the shadow upon the other side. Without a word he grasped\n     my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door of which was standing\n     open. He drew up the windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work,\n     and away we went as fast as the horse could go.\"\n\n     \"One horse?\" interjected Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, only one.\"\n\n     \"Did you observe the colour?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I saw it by the side-lights when I was stepping into the\n     carriage. It was a chestnut.\"\n\n     \"Tired-looking or fresh?\"\n\n     \"Oh, fresh and glossy.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your\n     most interesting statement.\"\n\n     \"Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel\n     Lysander Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I should\n     think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the time that we\n     took, that it must have been nearer twelve. He sat at my side in\n     silence all the time, and I was aware, more than once when I glanced\n     in his direction, that he was looking at me with great intensity. The\n     country roads seem to be not very good in that part of the world, for\n     we lurched and jolted terribly. I tried to look out of the windows to\n     see something of where we were, but they were made of frosted glass,\n     and I could make out nothing save the occasional bright blur of a\n     passing light. Now and then I hazarded some remark to break the\n     monotony of the journey, but the colonel answered only in\n     monosyllables, and the conversation soon flagged. At last, however,\n     the bumping of the road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a\n     gravel-drive, and the carriage came to a stand. Colonel Lysander\n     Stark sprang out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly\n     into a porch which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were,\n     right out of the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to\n     catch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant\n     that I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us,\n     and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage drove\n     away.\n\n     \"It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled about\n     looking for matches and muttering under his breath. Suddenly a door\n     opened at the other end of the passage, and a long, golden bar of\n     light shot out in our direction. It grew broader, and a woman\n     appeared with a lamp in her hand, which she held above her head,\n     pushing her face forward and peering at us. I could see that she was\n     pretty, and from the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark\n     dress I knew that it was a rich material. She spoke a few words in a\n     foreign tongue in a tone as though asking a question, and when my\n     companion answered in a gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that\n     the lamp nearly fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her,\n     whispered something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the\n     room from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the\n     lamp in his hand.\n\n     \"'Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a few\n     minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a quiet,\n     little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on\n     which several German books were scattered. Colonel Stark laid down\n     the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the door. 'I shall not keep\n     you waiting an instant,' said he, and vanished into the darkness.\n\n     \"I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance\n     of German I could see that two of them were treatises on science, the\n     others being volumes of poetry. Then I walked across to the window,\n     hoping that I might catch some glimpse of the country-side, but an\n     oak shutter, heavily barred, was folded across it. It was a\n     wonderfully silent house. There was an old clock ticking loudly\n     somewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still.\n     A vague feeling of uneasiness began to steal over me. Who were these\n     German people, and what were they doing living in this strange,\n     out-of-the-way place? And where was the place? I was ten miles or so\n     from Eyford, that was all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or\n     west I had no idea. For that matter, Reading, and possibly other\n     large towns, were within that radius, so the place might not be so\n     secluded, after all. Yet it was quite certain, from the absolute\n     stillness, that we were in the country. I paced up and down the room,\n     humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling that\n     I was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee.\n\n     \"Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter\n     stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman was\n     standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the\n     yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and beautiful face.\n     I could see at a glance that she was sick with fear, and the sight\n     sent a chill to my own heart. She held up one shaking finger to warn\n     me to be silent, and she shot a few whispered words of broken English\n     at me, her eyes glancing back, like those of a frightened horse, into\n     the gloom behind her.\n\n     \"'I would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to speak\n     calmly; 'I would go. I should not stay here. There is no good for you\n     to do.'\n\n     \"'But, madam,' said I, 'I have not yet done what I came for. I cannot\n     possibly leave until I have seen the machine.'\n\n     \"'It is not worth your while to wait,' she went on. 'You can pass\n     through the door; no one hinders.' And then, seeing that I smiled and\n     shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and made a\n     step forward, with her hands wrung together. 'For the love of\n     Heaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too late!'\n\n     \"But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to engage\n     in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I thought of my\n     fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant\n     night which seemed to be before me. Was it all to go for nothing? Why\n     should I slink away without having carried out my commission, and\n     without the payment which was my due? This woman might, for all I\n     knew, be a monomaniac. With a stout bearing, therefore, though her\n     manner had shaken me more than I cared to confess, I still shook my\n     head and declared my intention of remaining where I was. She was\n     about to renew her entreaties when a door slammed overhead, and the\n     sound of several footsteps was heard upon the stairs. She listened\n     for an instant, threw up her hands with a despairing gesture, and\n     vanished as suddenly and as noiselessly as she had come.\n\n     \"The newcomers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short thick man with\n     a chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double chin, who\n     was introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson.\n\n     \"'This is my secretary and manager,' said the colonel. 'By the way, I\n     was under the impression that I left this door shut just now. I fear\n     that you have felt the draught.'\n\n     \"'On the contrary,' said I, 'I opened the door myself because I felt\n     the room to be a little close.'\n\n     \"He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'Perhaps we had better\n     proceed to business, then,' said he. 'Mr. Ferguson and I will take\n     you up to see the machine.'\n\n     \"'I had better put my hat on, I suppose.'\n\n     \"'Oh, no, it is in the house.'\n\n     \"'What, you dig fuller's-earth in the house?'\n\n     \"'No, no. This is only where we compress it. But never mind that. All\n     we wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us know what\n     is wrong with it.'\n\n     \"We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the fat\n     manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house, with\n     corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors,\n     the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had\n     crossed them. There were no carpets and no signs of any furniture\n     above the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls,\n     and the damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches. I\n     tried to put on as unconcerned an air as possible, but I had not\n     forgotten the warnings of the lady, even though I disregarded them,\n     and I kept a keen eye upon my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be\n     a morose and silent man, but I could see from the little that he said\n     that he was at least a fellow-countryman.\n\n     \"Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which he\n     unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three of us\n     could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside, and the\n     colonel ushered me in.\n\n     \"'We are now,' said he, 'actually within the hydraulic press, and it\n     would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were to\n     turn it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of\n     the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons\n     upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns of water\n     outside which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it\n     in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine goes readily\n     enough, but there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has\n     lost a little of its force. Perhaps you will have the goodness to\n     look it over and to show us how we can set it right.'\n\n     \"I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very\n     thoroughly. It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of exercising\n     enormous pressure. When I passed outside, however, and pressed down\n     the levers which controlled it, I knew at once by the whishing sound\n     that there was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of\n     water through one of the side cylinders. An examination showed that\n     one of the india-rubber bands which was round the head of a\n     driving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to fill the socket along which\n     it worked. This was clearly the cause of the loss of power, and I\n     pointed it out to my companions, who followed my remarks very\n     carefully and asked several practical questions as to how they should\n     proceed to set it right. When I had made it clear to them, I returned\n     to the main chamber of the machine and took a good look at it to\n     satisfy my own curiosity. It was obvious at a glance that the story\n     of the fuller's-earth was the merest fabrication, for it would be\n     absurd to suppose that so powerful an engine could be designed for so\n     inadequate a purpose. The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted\n     of a large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a\n     crust of metallic deposit all over it. I had stooped and was scraping\n     at this to see exactly what it was when I heard a muttered\n     exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of the colonel\n     looking down at me.\n\n     \"'What are you doing there?' he asked.\n\n     \"I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as that\n     which he had told me. 'I was admiring your fuller's-earth,' said I;\n     'I think that I should be better able to advise you as to your\n     machine if I knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.'\n\n     \"The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of my\n     speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in his grey\n     eyes.\n\n     \"'Very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' He\n     took a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key in\n     the lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was\n     quite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves.\n     'Hullo!' I yelled. 'Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!'\n\n     \"And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my heart\n     into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish of the\n     leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp still stood\n     upon the floor where I had placed it when examining the trough. By\n     its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me,\n     slowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force\n     which must within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp. I threw\n     myself, screaming, against the door, and dragged with my nails at the\n     lock. I implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless\n     clanking of the levers drowned my cries. The ceiling was only a foot\n     or two above my head, and with my hand upraised I could feel its\n     hard, rough surface. Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of\n     my death would depend very much upon the position in which I met it.\n     If I lay on my face the weight would come upon my spine, and I\n     shuddered to think of that dreadful snap. Easier the other way,\n     perhaps; and yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly\n     black shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand\n     erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope back\n     to my heart.\n\n     \"I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the\n     walls were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a\n     thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened\n     and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For an instant I\n     could hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from\n     death. The next instant I threw myself through, and lay half-fainting\n     upon the other side. The panel had closed again behind me, but the\n     crash of the lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two\n     slabs of metal, told me how narrow had been my escape.\n\n     \"I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I\n     found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a\n     woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she\n     held a candle in her right. It was the same good friend whose warning\n     I had so foolishly rejected.\n\n     \"'Come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'They will be here in a\n     moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste the\n     so-precious time, but come!'\n\n     \"This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to my\n     feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair.\n     The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we\n     heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one\n     answering the other from the floor on which  we were and from the one\n     beneath. My guide stopped and looked about her like one  who is at\n     her wit's end. Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom,\n     through the window of which the moon was shining brightly.\n\n     \"'It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be that\n     you can jump it.'\n\n     \"As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the\n     passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing\n     forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher's\n     cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, flung open the\n     window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden\n     looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet\n     down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I\n     should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who\n     pursued me. If she were ill-used, then at any risks I was determined\n     to go back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through\n     my mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she\n     threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back.\n\n     \"'Fritz! Fritz!' she cried in English, 'remember your promise after\n     the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be silent!\n     Oh, he will be silent!'\n\n     \"'You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from her.\n     'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I\n     say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at\n     me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by the\n     hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull\n     pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the garden below.\n\n     \"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and\n     rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood\n     that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I\n     ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at\n     my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time,\n     saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring\n     from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but\n     there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a\n     dead faint among the rose-bushes.\n\n     \"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a\n     very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was\n     breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with dew,\n     and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. The\n     smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my\n     night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I\n     might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment,\n     when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be\n     seen. I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the\n     highroad, and just a little lower down was a long building, which\n     proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had\n     arrived upon the previous night. Were it not for the ugly wound upon\n     my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have\n     been an evil dream.\n\n     \"Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning\n     train. There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The same\n     porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I arrived. I\n     inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel Lysander Stark.\n     The name was strange to him. Had he observed a carriage the night\n     before waiting for me? No, he had not. Was there a police-station\n     anywhere near? There was one about three miles off.\n\n     \"It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined to\n     wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the police.\n     It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my\n     wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along\n     here. I put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you\n     advise.\"\n\n     We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this\n     extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the\n     shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his\n     cuttings.\n\n     \"Here is an advertisement which will interest you,\" said he. \"It\n     appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this:\n\n     \"'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a\n     hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and\n     has not been heard of since. Was dressed in--'\n\n     etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed\n     to have his machine overhauled, I fancy.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" cried my patient. \"Then that explains what the girl\n     said.\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and\n     desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should\n     stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates\n     who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment\n     now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to\n     Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford.\"\n\n     Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,\n     bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were\n     Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of\n     Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread\n     an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his\n     compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.\n\n     \"There you are,\" said he. \"That circle is drawn at a radius of ten\n     miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that\n     line. You said ten miles, I think, sir.\"\n\n     \"It was an hour's good drive.\"\n\n     \"And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were\n     unconscious?\"\n\n     \"They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having\n     been lifted and conveyed somewhere.\"\n\n     \"What I cannot understand,\" said I, \"is why they should have spared\n     you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the\n     villain was softened by the woman's entreaties.\"\n\n     \"I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my\n     life.\"\n\n     \"Oh, we shall soon clear up all that,\" said Bradstreet. \"Well, I have\n     drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the\n     folk that we are in search of are to be found.\"\n\n     \"I think I could lay my finger on it,\" said Holmes quietly.\n\n     \"Really, now!\" cried the inspector, \"you have formed your opinion!\n     Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for\n     the country is more deserted there.\"\n\n     \"And I say east,\" said my patient.\n\n     \"I am for west,\" remarked the plain-clothes man. \"There are several\n     quiet little villages up there.\"\n\n     \"And I am for north,\" said I, \"because there are no hills there, and\n     our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.\"\n\n     \"Come,\" cried the inspector, laughing; \"it's a very pretty diversity\n     of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your\n     casting vote to?\"\n\n     \"You are all wrong.\"\n\n     \"But we can't all be.\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, you can. This is my point.\" He placed his finger in the\n     centre of the circle. \"This is where we shall find them.\"\n\n     \"But the twelve-mile drive?\" gasped Hatherley.\n\n     \"Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the\n     horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that if\n     it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?\"\n\n     \"Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough,\" observed Bradstreet\n     thoughtfully. \"Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of\n     this gang.\"\n\n     \"None at all,\" said Holmes. \"They are coiners on a large scale, and\n     have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place\n     of silver.\"\n\n     \"We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work,\" said\n     the inspector. \"They have been turning out half-crowns by the\n     thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no\n     farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that\n     they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I\n     think that we have got them right enough.\"\n\n     But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined\n     to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station\n     we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a\n     small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense\n     ostrich feather over the landscape.\n\n     \"A house on fire?\" asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off again on\n     its way.\n\n     \"Yes, sir!\" said the station-master.\n\n     \"When did it break out?\"\n\n     \"I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and\n     the whole place is in a blaze.\"\n\n     \"Whose house is it?\"\n\n     \"Dr. Becher's.\"\n\n     \"Tell me,\" broke in the engineer, \"is Dr. Becher a German, very thin,\n     with a long, sharp nose?\"\n\n     The station-master laughed heartily. \"No, sir, Dr. Becher is an\n     Englishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a\n     better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, a\n     patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a\n     little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm.\"\n\n     The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all\n     hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low hill,\n     and there was a great widespread whitewashed building in front of us,\n     spouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front\n     three fire-engines were vainly striving to keep the flames under.\n\n     \"That's it!\" cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. \"There is the\n     gravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where I lay. That second\n     window is the one that I jumped from.\"\n\n     \"Well, at least,\" said Holmes, \"you have had your revenge upon them.\n     There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was\n     crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt\n     they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the\n     time. Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last\n     night, though I very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off\n     by now.\"\n\n     And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no\n     word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister\n     German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a peasant had\n     met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes\n     driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of\n     the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes' ingenuity failed ever to\n     discover the least clue as to their whereabouts.\n\n     The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which\n     they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly\n     severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor. About\n     sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and they\n     subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the\n     whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some\n     twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of the\n     machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so dearly.\n     Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored in an\n     out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have explained\n     the presence of those bulky boxes which have been already referred\n     to.\n\n     How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the\n     spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a\n     mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain\n     tale. He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom\n     had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. On the\n     whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less\n     bold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to\n     bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger.\n\n     \"Well,\" said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return\n     once more to London, \"it has been a pretty business for me! I have\n     lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I\n     gained?\"\n\n     \"Experience,\" said Holmes, laughing. \"Indirectly it may be of value,\n     you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation\n     of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR\n\n     The Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long\n     ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which\n     the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have eclipsed it,\n     and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this\n     four-year-old drama. As I have reason to believe, however, that the\n     full facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my\n     friend Sherlock Holmes had a considerable share in clearing the\n     matter up, I feel that no memoir of him would be complete without\n     some little sketch of this remarkable episode.\n\n     It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was\n     still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home\n     from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for\n     him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a\n     sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the Jezail bullet\n     which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan\n     campaign throbbed with dull persistence. With my body in one\n     easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had surrounded myself with a\n     cloud of newspapers until at last, saturated with the news of the\n     day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge\n     crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering\n     lazily who my friend's noble correspondent could be.\n\n     \"Here is a very fashionable epistle,\" I remarked as he entered. \"Your\n     morning letters, if I remember right, were from a fish-monger and a\n     tide-waiter.\"\n\n     \"Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety,\" he\n     answered, smiling, \"and the humbler are usually the more interesting.\n     This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call\n     upon a man either to be bored or to lie.\"\n\n     He broke the seal and glanced over the contents.\n\n     \"Oh, come, it may prove to be something of interest, after all.\"\n\n     \"Not social, then?\"\n\n     \"No, distinctly professional.\"\n\n     \"And from a noble client?\"\n\n     \"One of the highest in England.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, I congratulate you.\"\n\n     \"I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my\n     client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his\n     case. It is just possible, however, that that also may not be wanting\n     in this new investigation. You have been reading the papers\n     diligently of late, have you not?\"\n\n     \"It looks like it,\" said I ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in the\n     corner. \"I have had nothing else to do.\"\n\n     \"It is fortunate, for you will perhaps be able to post me up. I read\n     nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The latter is\n     always instructive. But if you have followed recent events so closely\n     you must have read about Lord St. Simon and his wedding?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, with the deepest interest.\"\n\n     \"That is well. The letter which I hold in my hand is from Lord St.\n     Simon. I will read it to you, and in return you must turn over these\n     papers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter. This is what\n     he says:\n\n     \"'My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes:\n     \"'Lord Backwater tells me that I may place implicit reliance upon\n     your judgment and discretion. I have determined, therefore, to call\n     upon you and to consult you in reference to the very painful event\n     which has occurred in connection with my wedding. Mr. Lestrade, of\n     Scotland Yard, is acting already in the matter, but he assures me\n     that he sees no objection to your co-operation, and that he even\n     thinks that it might be of some assistance. I will call at four\n     o'clock in the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement\n     at that time, I hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is of\n     paramount importance.\n     \"'Yours faithfully,\n     \"'St. Simon.'\n\n     \"It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen, and\n     the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink upon the\n     outer side of his right little finger,\" remarked Holmes as he folded\n     up the epistle.\n\n     \"He says four o'clock. It is three now. He will be here in an hour.\"\n\n     \"Then I have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon the\n     subject. Turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in their\n     order of time, while I take a glance as to who our client is.\" He\n     picked a red-covered volume from a line of books of reference beside\n     the mantelpiece. \"Here he is,\" said he, sitting down and flattening\n     it out upon his knee. \"'Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon,\n     second son of the Duke of Balmoral.' Hum! 'Arms: Azure, three\n     caltrops in chief over a fess sable. Born in 1846.' He's forty-one\n     years of age, which is mature for marriage. Was Under-Secretary for\n     the colonies in a late administration. The Duke, his father, was at\n     one time Secretary for Foreign Affairs. They inherit Plantagenet\n     blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side. Ha! Well,\n     there is nothing very instructive in all this. I think that I must\n     turn to you Watson, for something more solid.\"\n\n     \"I have very little difficulty in finding what I want,\" said I, \"for\n     the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as remarkable. I\n     feared to refer them to you, however, as I knew that you had an\n     inquiry on hand and that you disliked the intrusion of other\n     matters.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you mean the little problem of the Grosvenor Square furniture\n     van. That is quite cleared up now--though, indeed, it was obvious\n     from the first. Pray give me the results of your newspaper\n     selections.\"\n\n     \"Here is the first notice which I can find. It is in the personal\n     column of the Morning Post, and dates, as you see, some weeks back:\n\n     \"'A marriage has been arranged [it says] and will, if rumour is\n     correct, very shortly take place, between Lord Robert St. Simon,\n     second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty Doran, the only\n     daughter of Aloysius Doran. Esq., of San Francisco, Cal., U.S.A.'\n\n     That is all.\"\n\n     \"Terse and to the point,\" remarked Holmes, stretching his long, thin\n     legs towards the fire.\n\n     \"There was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society papers\n     of the same week. Ah, here it is:\n\n     \"'There will soon be a call for protection in the marriage market,\n     for the present free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against\n     our home product. One by one the management of the noble houses of\n     Great Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from\n     across the Atlantic. An important addition has been made during the\n     last week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by\n     these charming invaders. Lord St. Simon, who has shown himself for\n     over twenty years proof against the little god's arrows, has now\n     definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Hatty Doran,\n     the fascinating daughter of a California millionaire. Miss Doran,\n     whose graceful figure and striking face attracted much attention at\n     the Westbury House festivities, is an only child, and it is currently\n     reported that her dowry will run to considerably over the six\n     figures, with expectancies for the future. As it is an open secret\n     that the Duke of Balmoral has been compelled to sell his pictures\n     within the last few years, and as Lord St. Simon has no property of\n     his own save the small estate of Birchmoor, it is obvious that the\n     Californian heiress is not the only gainer by an alliance which will\n     enable her to make the easy and common transition from a Republican\n     lady to a British peeress.'\"\n\n     \"Anything else?\" asked Holmes, yawning.\n\n     \"Oh, yes; plenty. Then there is another note in the Morning Post to\n     say that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it would\n     be at St. George's, Hanover Square, that only half a dozen intimate\n     friends would be invited, and that the party would return to the\n     furnished house at Lancaster Gate which has been taken by Mr.\n     Aloysius Doran. Two days later--that is, on Wednesday last--there is\n     a curt announcement that the wedding had taken place, and that the\n     honeymoon would be passed at Lord Backwater's place, near\n     Petersfield. Those are all the notices which appeared before the\n     disappearance of the bride.\"\n\n     \"Before the what?\" asked Holmes with a start.\n\n     \"The vanishing of the lady.\"\n\n     \"When did she vanish, then?\"\n\n     \"At the wedding breakfast.\"\n\n     \"Indeed. This is more interesting than it promised to be; quite\n     dramatic, in fact.\"\n\n     \"Yes; it struck me as being a little out of the common.\"\n\n     \"They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during the\n     honeymoon; but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as\n     this. Pray let me have the details.\"\n\n     \"I warn you that they are very incomplete.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps we may make them less so.\"\n\n     \"Such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a\n     morning paper of yesterday, which I will read to you. It is headed,\n     'Singular Occurrence at a Fashionable Wedding':\n\n     \"'The family of Lord Robert St. Simon has been thrown into the\n     greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which have\n     taken place in connection with his wedding. The ceremony, as shortly\n     announced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the previous\n     morning; but it is only now that it has been possible to confirm the\n     strange rumours which have been so persistently floating about. In\n     spite of the attempts of the friends to hush the matter up, so much\n     public attention has now been drawn to it that no good purpose can be\n     served by affecting to disregard what is a common subject for\n     conversation.\n     \"'The ceremony, which was performed at St. George's, Hanover Square,\n     was a very quiet one, no one being present save the father of the\n     bride, Mr. Aloysius Doran, the Duchess of Balmoral, Lord Backwater,\n     Lord Eustace and Lady Clara St. Simon (the younger brother and sister\n     of the bridegroom), and Lady Alicia Whittington. The whole party\n     proceeded afterwards to the house of Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster\n     Gate, where breakfast had been prepared. It appears that some little\n     trouble was caused by a woman, whose name has not been ascertained,\n     who endeavoured to force her way into the house after the bridal\n     party, alleging that she had some claim upon Lord St. Simon. It was\n     only after a painful and prolonged scene that she was ejected by the\n     butler and the footman. The bride, who had fortunately entered the\n     house before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast\n     with the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition and\n     retired to her room. Her prolonged absence having caused some\n     comment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that she\n     had only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an ulster\n     and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. One of the footmen\n     declared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus apparelled, but\n     had refused to credit that it was his mistress, believing her to be\n     with the company. On ascertaining that his daughter had disappeared,\n     Mr. Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with the bridegroom, instantly put\n     themselves in communication with the police, and very energetic\n     inquiries are being made, which will probably result in a speedy\n     clearing up of this very singular business. Up to a late hour last\n     night, however, nothing had transpired as to the whereabouts of the\n     missing lady. There are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is\n     said that the police have caused the arrest of the woman who had\n     caused the original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or\n     some other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange\n     disappearance of the bride.'\"\n\n     \"And is that all?\"\n\n     \"Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is a\n     suggestive one.\"\n\n     \"And it is--\"\n\n     \"That Miss Flora Millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance, has\n     actually been arrested. It appears that she was formerly a danseuse\n     at the Allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom for some years.\n     There are no further particulars, and the whole case is in your hands\n     now--so far as it has been set forth in the public press.\"\n\n     \"And an exceedingly interesting case it appears to be. I would not\n     have missed it for worlds. But there is a ring at the bell, Watson,\n     and as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I have no doubt\n     that this will prove to be our noble client. Do not dream of going,\n     Watson, for I very much prefer having a witness, if only as a check\n     to my own memory.\"\n\n     \"Lord Robert St. Simon,\" announced our page-boy, throwing open the\n     door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed\n     and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and\n     with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had\n     ever been to command and to be obeyed. His manner was brisk, and yet\n     his general appearance gave an undue impression of age, for he had a\n     slight forward stoop and a little bend of the knees as he walked. His\n     hair, too, as he swept off his very curly-brimmed hat, was grizzled\n     round the edges and thin upon the top. As to his dress, it was\n     careful to the verge of foppishness, with high collar, black\n     frock-coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and\n     light-coloured gaiters. He advanced slowly into the room, turning his\n     head from left to right, and swinging in his right hand the cord\n     which held his golden eyeglasses.\n\n     \"Good-day, Lord St. Simon,\" said Holmes, rising and bowing. \"Pray\n     take the basket-chair. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.\n     Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this matter over.\"\n\n     \"A most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine, Mr.\n     Holmes. I have been cut to the quick. I understand that you have\n     already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, though I\n     presume that they were hardly from the same class of society.\"\n\n     \"No, I am descending.\"\n\n     \"I beg pardon.\"\n\n     \"My last client of the sort was a king.\"\n\n     \"Oh, really! I had no idea. And which king?\"\n\n     \"The King of Scandinavia.\"\n\n     \"What! Had he lost his wife?\"\n\n     \"You can understand,\" said Holmes suavely, \"that I extend to the\n     affairs of my other clients the same secrecy which I promise to you\n     in yours.\"\n\n     \"Of course! Very right! very right! I'm sure I beg pardon. As to my\n     own case, I am ready to give you any information which may assist you\n     in forming an opinion.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I have already learned all that is in the public prints,\n     nothing more. I presume that I may take it as correct--this article,\n     for example, as to the disappearance of the bride.\"\n\n     Lord St. Simon glanced over it. \"Yes, it is correct, as far as it\n     goes.\"\n\n     \"But it needs a great deal of supplementing before anyone could offer\n     an opinion. I think that I may arrive at my facts most directly by\n     questioning you.\"\n\n     \"Pray do so.\"\n\n     \"When did you first meet Miss Hatty Doran?\"\n\n     \"In San Francisco, a year ago.\"\n\n     \"You were travelling in the States?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Did you become engaged then?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"But you were on a friendly footing?\"\n\n     \"I was amused by her society, and she could see that I was amused.\"\n\n     \"Her father is very rich?\"\n\n     \"He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope.\"\n\n     \"And how did he make his money?\"\n\n     \"In mining. He had nothing a few years ago. Then he struck gold,\n     invested it, and came up by leaps and bounds.\"\n\n     \"Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your wife's\n     character?\"\n\n     The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down into\n     the fire. \"You see, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, \"my wife was twenty before\n     her father became a rich man. During that time she ran free in a\n     mining camp and wandered through woods or mountains, so that her\n     education has come from Nature rather than from the schoolmaster. She\n     is what we call in England a tomboy, with a strong nature, wild and\n     free, unfettered by any sort of traditions. She is\n     impetuous--volcanic, I was about to say. She is swift in making up\n     her mind and fearless in carrying out her resolutions. On the other\n     hand, I would not have given her the name which I have the honour to\n     bear\"--he gave a little stately cough--\"had not I thought her to be\n     at bottom a noble woman. I believe that she is capable of heroic\n     self-sacrifice and that anything dishonourable would be repugnant to\n     her.\"\n\n     \"Have you her photograph?\"\n\n     \"I brought this with me.\" He opened a locket and showed us the full\n     face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an ivory\n     miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect of the\n     lustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the exquisite mouth.\n     Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he closed the locket and\n     handed it back to Lord St. Simon.\n\n     \"The young lady came to London, then, and you renewed your\n     acquaintance?\"\n\n     \"Yes, her father brought her over for this last London season. I met\n     her several times, became engaged to her, and have now married her.\"\n\n     \"She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry?\"\n\n     \"A fair dowry. Not more than is usual in my family.\"\n\n     \"And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a fait\n     accompli?\"\n\n     \"I really have made no inquiries on the subject.\"\n\n     \"Very naturally not. Did you see Miss Doran on the day before the\n     wedding?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Was she in good spirits?\"\n\n     \"Never better. She kept talking of what we should do in our future\n     lives.\"\n\n     \"Indeed! That is very interesting. And on the morning of the\n     wedding?\"\n\n     \"She was as bright as possible--at least until after the ceremony.\"\n\n     \"And did you observe any change in her then?\"\n\n     \"Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had ever\n     seen that her temper was just a little sharp. The incident however,\n     was too trivial to relate and can have no possible bearing upon the\n     case.\"\n\n     \"Pray let us have it, for all that.\"\n\n     \"Oh, it is childish. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards the\n     vestry. She was passing the front pew at the time, and it fell over\n     into the pew. There was a moment's delay, but the gentleman in the\n     pew handed it up to her again, and it did not appear to be the worse\n     for the fall. Yet when I spoke to her of the matter, she answered me\n     abruptly; and in the carriage, on our way home, she seemed absurdly\n     agitated over this trifling cause.\"\n\n     \"Indeed! You say that there was a gentleman in the pew. Some of the\n     general public were present, then?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes. It is impossible to exclude them when the church is open.\"\n\n     \"This gentleman was not one of your wife's friends?\"\n\n     \"No, no; I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a\n     common-looking person. I hardly noticed his appearance. But really I\n     think that we are wandering rather far from the point.\"\n\n     \"Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less cheerful\n     frame of mind than she had gone to it. What did she do on re-entering\n     her father's house?\"\n\n     \"I saw her in conversation with her maid.\"\n\n     \"And who is her maid?\"\n\n     \"Alice is her name. She is an American and came from California with\n     her.\"\n\n     \"A confidential servant?\"\n\n     \"A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed her\n     to take great liberties. Still, of course, in America they look upon\n     these things in a different way.\"\n\n     \"How long did she speak to this Alice?\"\n\n     \"Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of.\"\n\n     \"You did not overhear what they said?\"\n\n     \"Lady St. Simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' She was\n     accustomed to use slang of the kind. I have no idea what she meant.\"\n\n     \"American slang is very expressive sometimes. And what did your wife\n     do when she finished speaking to her maid?\"\n\n     \"She walked into the breakfast-room.\"\n\n     \"On your arm?\"\n\n     \"No, alone. She was very independent in little matters like that.\n     Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose\n     hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She\n     never came back.\"\n\n     \"But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to her\n     room, covered her bride's dress with a long ulster, put on a bonnet,\n     and went out.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in\n     company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who had\n     already made a disturbance at Mr. Doran's house that morning.\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes. I should like a few particulars as to this young lady, and\n     your relations to her.\"\n\n     Lord St. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. \"We\n     have been on a friendly footing for some years--I may say on a very\n     friendly footing. She used to be at the Allegro. I have not treated\n     her ungenerously, and she had no just cause of complaint against me,\n     but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes. Flora was a dear little\n     thing, but exceedingly hot-headed and devotedly attached to me. She\n     wrote me dreadful letters when she heard that I was about to be\n     married, and, to tell the truth, the reason why I had the marriage\n     celebrated so quietly was that I feared lest there might be a scandal\n     in the church. She came to Mr. Doran's door just after we returned,\n     and she endeavoured to push her way in, uttering very abusive\n     expressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but I had\n     foreseen the possibility of something of the sort, and I had two\n     police fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out\n     again. She was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a\n     row.\"\n\n     \"Did your wife hear all this?\"\n\n     \"No, thank goodness, she did not.\"\n\n     \"And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?\"\n\n     \"Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as so\n     serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out and laid some\n     terrible trap for her.\"\n\n     \"Well, it is a possible supposition.\"\n\n     \"You think so, too?\"\n\n     \"I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon this\n     as likely?\"\n\n     \"I do not think Flora would hurt a fly.\"\n\n     \"Still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. Pray what is\n     your own theory as to what took place?\"\n\n     \"Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one. I have\n     given you all the facts. Since you ask me, however, I may say that it\n     has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of this affair,\n     the consciousness that she had made so immense a social stride, had\n     the effect of causing some little nervous disturbance in my wife.\"\n\n     \"In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?\"\n\n     \"Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back--I will\n     not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without\n     success--I can hardly explain it in any other fashion.\"\n\n     \"Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis,\" said Holmes,\n     smiling. \"And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have nearly all my\n     data. May I ask whether you were seated at the breakfast-table so\n     that you could see out of the window?\"\n\n     \"We could see the other side of the road and the Park.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Then I do not think that I need to detain you longer. I\n     shall communicate with you.\"\n\n     \"Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem,\" said our\n     client, rising.\n\n     \"I have solved it.\"\n\n     \"Eh? What was that?\"\n\n     \"I say that I have solved it.\"\n\n     \"Where, then, is my wife?\"\n\n     \"That is a detail which I shall speedily supply.\"\n\n     Lord St. Simon shook his head. \"I am afraid that it will take wiser\n     heads than yours or mine,\" he remarked, and bowing in a stately,\n     old-fashioned manner he departed.\n\n     \"It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honour my head by putting it on\n     a level with his own,\" said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. \"I think that\n     I shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all this\n     cross-questioning. I had formed my conclusions as to the case before\n     our client came into the room.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked\n     before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to\n     turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is\n     occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk,\n     to quote Thoreau's example.\"\n\n     \"But I have heard all that you have heard.\"\n\n     \"Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which serves\n     me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years\n     back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich the year\n     after the Franco-Prussian War. It is one of these cases--but, hullo,\n     here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon, Lestrade! You will find an extra\n     tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box.\"\n\n     The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which\n     gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black\n     canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated himself and\n     lit the cigar which had been offered to him.\n\n     \"What's up, then?\" asked Holmes with a twinkle in his eye. \"You look\n     dissatisfied.\"\n\n     \"And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage\n     case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business.\"\n\n     \"Really! You surprise me.\"\n\n     \"Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clue seems to slip\n     through my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day.\"\n\n     \"And very wet it seems to have made you,\" said Holmes laying his hand\n     upon the arm of the pea-jacket.\n\n     \"Yes, I have been dragging the Serpentine.\"\n\n     \"In heaven's name, what for?\"\n\n     \"In search of the body of Lady St. Simon.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.\n\n     \"Have you dragged the basin of Trafalgar Square fountain?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Why? What do you mean?\"\n\n     \"Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the\n     one as in the other.\"\n\n     Lestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. \"I suppose you know\n     all about it,\" he snarled.\n\n     \"Well, I have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up.\"\n\n     \"Oh, indeed! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in the\n     matter?\"\n\n     \"I think it very unlikely.\"\n\n     \"Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found this in\n     it?\" He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the floor a\n     wedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin shoes and a\n     bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked in water.\n     \"There,\" said he, putting a new wedding-ring upon the top of the\n     pile. \"There is a little nut for you to crack, Master Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Oh, indeed!\" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air.  \"You\n     dragged them from the Serpentine?\"\n\n     \"No. They were found floating near the margin by a park-keeper. They\n     have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me that if the\n     clothes were there the body would not be far off.\"\n\n     \"By the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found in\n     the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And pray what did you hope to\n     arrive at through this?\"\n\n     \"At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that you will find it difficult.\"\n\n     \"Are you, indeed, now?\" cried Lestrade with some bitterness. \"I am\n     afraid, Holmes, that you are not very practical with your deductions\n     and your inferences. You have made two blunders in as many minutes.\n     This dress does implicate Miss Flora Millar.\"\n\n     \"And how?\"\n\n     \"In the dress is a pocket. In the pocket is a card-case. In the\n     card-case is a note. And here is the very note.\" He slapped it down\n     upon the table in front of him. \"Listen to this:\n\n     \"'You will see me when all is ready. Come at once.\n     \"'F.H.M.'\n\n     Now my theory all along has been that Lady St. Simon was decoyed away\n     by Flora Millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was\n     responsible for her disappearance. Here, signed with her initials, is\n     the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped into her hand at the\n     door and which lured her within their reach.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Lestrade,\" said Holmes, laughing. \"You really are very\n     fine indeed. Let me see it.\" He took up the paper in a listless way,\n     but his attention instantly became riveted, and he gave a little cry\n     of satisfaction. \"This is indeed important,\" said he.\n\n     \"Ha! you find it so?\"\n\n     \"Extremely so. I congratulate you warmly.\"\n\n     Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. \"Why,\" he\n     shrieked, \"you're looking at the wrong side!\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, this is the right side.\"\n\n     \"The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil over\n     here.\"\n\n     \"And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel bill,\n     which interests me deeply.\"\n\n     \"There's nothing in it. I looked at it before,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"'Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s.\n     6d., glass sherry, 8d.' I see nothing in that.\"\n\n     \"Very likely not. It is most important, all the same. As to the note,\n     it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I congratulate\n     you again.\"\n\n     \"I've wasted time enough,\" said Lestrade, rising. \"I believe in hard\n     work and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories. Good-day,\n     Mr. Holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom of the matter\n     first.\" He gathered up the garments, thrust them into the bag, and\n     made for the door.\n\n     \"Just one hint to you, Lestrade,\" drawled Holmes before his rival\n     vanished; \"I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady St.\n     Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any such\n     person.\"\n\n     Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then he turned to me, tapped\n     his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and hurried away.\n\n     He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on his\n     overcoat. \"There is something in what the fellow says about outdoor\n     work,\" he remarked, \"so I think, Watson, that I must leave you to\n     your papers for a little.\"\n\n     It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had no\n     time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner's\n     man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked with the help of a\n     youth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great\n     astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid\n     out upon our humble lodging-house mahogany. There were a couple of\n     brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pâté de foie gras pie with a\n     group of ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these\n     luxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the\n     Arabian Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been\n     paid for and were ordered to this address.\n\n     Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the\n     room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye\n     which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his\n     conclusions.\n\n     \"They have laid the supper, then,\" he said, rubbing his hands.\n\n     \"You seem to expect company. They have laid for five.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in,\" said he. \"I am\n     surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I fancy\n     that I hear his step now upon the stairs.\"\n\n     It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in,\n     dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very\n     perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.\n\n     \"My messenger reached you, then?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure.\n     Have you good authority for what you say?\" \n\n     \"The best possible.\"\n\n     Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his\n     forehead.\n\n     \"What will the Duke say,\" he murmured, \"when he hears that one of the\n     family has been subjected to such humiliation?\"\n\n     \"It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any\n     humiliation.\"\n\n     \"Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint.\"\n\n     \"I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the lady\n     could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was\n     undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she had no one to\n     advise her at such a crisis.\"\n\n     \"It was a slight, sir, a public slight,\" said Lord St. Simon, tapping\n     his fingers upon the table.\n\n     \"You must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so\n     unprecedented a position.\"\n\n     \"I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I have been\n     shamefully used.\"\n\n     \"I think that I heard a ring,\" said Holmes. \"Yes, there are steps on\n     the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view of the\n     matter, Lord St. Simon, I have brought an advocate here who may be\n     more successful.\" He opened the door and ushered in a lady and\n     gentleman. \"Lord St. Simon,\" said he \"allow me to introduce you to\n     Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton. The lady, I think, you have already\n     met.\"\n\n     At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his seat\n     and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand thrust\n     into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended dignity. The\n     lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out her hand to him,\n     but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was as well for his\n     resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was one which it was hard\n     to resist.\n\n     \"You're angry, Robert,\" said she. \"Well, I guess you have every cause\n     to be.\"\n\n     \"Pray make no apology to me,\" said Lord St. Simon bitterly.\n\n     \"Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I should\n     have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of rattled, and from\n     the time when I saw Frank here again I just didn't know what I was\n     doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't fall down and do a faint\n     right there before the altar.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the\n     room while you explain this matter?\"\n\n     \"If I may give an opinion,\" remarked the strange gentleman, \"we've\n     had just a little too much secrecy over this business already. For my\n     part, I should like all Europe and America to hear the rights of it.\"\n     He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man, clean-shaven, with a sharp face\n     and alert manner.\n\n     \"Then I'll tell our story right away,\" said the lady. \"Frank here and\n     I met in '84, in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies, where pa was\n     working a claim. We were engaged to each other, Frank and I; but then\n     one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Frank\n     here had a claim that petered out and came to nothing. The richer pa\n     grew the poorer was Frank; so at last pa wouldn't hear of our\n     engagement lasting any longer, and he took me away to 'Frisco. Frank\n     wouldn't throw up his hand, though; so he followed me there, and he\n     saw me without pa knowing anything about it. It would only have made\n     him mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves. Frank said\n     that he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim\n     me until he had as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for him to\n     the end of time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he\n     lived. 'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and\n     then I will feel sure of you; and I won't claim to be your husband\n     until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and he had fixed it all\n     up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did\n     it right there; and then Frank went off to seek his fortune, and I\n     went back to pa.\n\n     \"The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he\n     went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New Mexico.\n     After that came a long newspaper story about how a miners' camp had\n     been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was my Frank's name among\n     the killed. I fainted dead away, and I was very sick for months\n     after. Pa thought I had a decline and took me to half the doctors in\n     'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never\n     doubted that Frank was really dead. Then Lord St. Simon came to\n     'Frisco, and we came to London, and a marriage was arranged, and pa\n     was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this earth\n     would ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor\n     Frank.\n\n     \"Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I'd have done my\n     duty by him. We can't command our love, but we can our actions. I\n     went to the altar with him with the intention to make him just as\n     good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may imagine what I felt\n     when, just as I came to the altar rails, I glanced back and saw Frank\n     standing and looking at me out of the first pew. I thought it was his\n     ghost at first; but when I looked again there he was still, with a\n     kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or\n     sorry to see him. I wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was\n     turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz\n     of a bee in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the\n     service and make a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and\n     he seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to\n     his lips to tell me to be still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece\n     of paper, and I knew that he was writing me a note. As I passed his\n     pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped\n     the note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a\n     line asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so. Of\n     course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to\n     him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct.\n\n     \"When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California, and\n     had always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but to get\n     a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to have\n     spoken to Lord St. Simon, but it was dreadful hard before his mother\n     and all those great people. I just made up my mind to run away and\n     explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten minutes before I\n     saw Frank out of the window at the other side of the road. He\n     beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. I slipped out,\n     put on my things, and followed him. Some woman came talking something\n     or other about Lord St. Simon to me--seemed to me from the little I\n     heard as if he had a little secret of his own before marriage\n     also--but I managed to get away from her and soon overtook Frank. We\n     got into a cab together, and away we drove to some lodgings he had\n     taken in Gordon Square, and that was my true wedding after all those\n     years of waiting. Frank had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had\n     escaped, came on to 'Frisco, found that I had given him up for dead\n     and had gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at\n     last on the very morning of my second wedding.\"\n\n     \"I saw it in a paper,\" explained the American. \"It gave the name and\n     the church but not where the lady lived.\"\n\n     \"Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all for\n     openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should\n     like to vanish away and never see any of them again--just sending a\n     line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It was awful to me\n     to think of all those lords and ladies sitting round that\n     breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. So Frank took my\n     wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that I\n     should not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one\n     could find them. It is likely that we should have gone on to Paris\n     to-morrow, only that this good gentleman, Mr. Holmes, came round to\n     us this evening, though how he found us is more than I can think, and\n     he showed us very clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank\n     was right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we\n     were so secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to\n     Lord St. Simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at\n     once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if I\n     have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very meanly of\n     me.\"\n\n     Lord St. Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but had\n     listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this long\n     narrative.\n\n     \"Excuse me,\" he said, \"but it is not my custom to discuss my most\n     intimate personal affairs in this public manner.\"\n\n     \"Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go?\"\n\n     \"Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure.\" He put out his\n     hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him.\n\n     \"I had hoped,\" suggested Holmes, \"that you would have joined us in a\n     friendly supper.\"\n\n     \"I think that there you ask a little too much,\" responded his\n     Lordship. \"I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments,\n     but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them. I think that\n     with your permission I will now wish you all a very good-night.\" He\n     included us all in a sweeping bow and stalked out of the room.\n\n     \"Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company,\"\n     said Sherlock Holmes. \"It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr.\n     Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a\n     monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not\n     prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same\n     world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the\n     Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.\"\n\n     \"The case has been an interesting one,\" remarked Holmes when our\n     visitors had left us, \"because it serves to show very clearly how\n     simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems\n     to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural than the\n     sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger\n     than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr. Lestrade of\n     Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     \"You were not yourself at fault at all, then?\"\n\n     \"From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the\n     lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the\n     other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning\n     home. Obviously something had occurred during the morning, then, to\n     cause her to change her mind. What could that something be? She could\n     not have spoken to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the\n     company of the bridegroom. Had she seen someone, then? If she had, it\n     must be someone from America because she had spent so short a time in\n     this country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so\n     deep an influence over her that the mere sight of him would induce\n     her to change her plans so completely. You see we have already\n     arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have\n     seen an American. Then who could this American be, and why should he\n     possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might be\n     a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in rough\n     scenes and under strange conditions. So far I had got before I ever\n     heard Lord St. Simon's narrative. When he told us of a man in a pew,\n     of the change in the bride's manner, of so transparent a device for\n     obtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her\n     confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to\n     claim-jumping--which in miners' parlance means taking possession of\n     that which another person has a prior claim to--the whole situation\n     became absolutely clear. She had gone off with a man, and the man was\n     either a lover or was a previous husband--the chances being in favour\n     of the latter.\"\n\n     \"And how in the world did you find them?\"\n\n     \"It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held information\n     in his hands the value of which he did not himself know. The initials\n     were, of course, of the highest importance, but more valuable still\n     was it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at one of\n     the most select London hotels.\"\n\n     \"How did you deduce the select?\"\n\n     \"By the select prices. Eight shillings for a bed and eightpence for a\n     glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. There\n     are not many in London which charge at that rate. In the second one\n     which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection\n     of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an American gentleman, had left\n     only the day before, and on looking over the entries against him, I\n     came upon the very items which I had seen in the duplicate bill. His\n     letters were to be forwarded to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I\n     travelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at\n     home, I ventured to give them some paternal advice and to point out\n     to them that it would be better in every way that they should make\n     their position a little clearer both to the general public and to\n     Lord St. Simon in particular. I invited them to meet him here, and,\n     as you see, I made him keep the appointment.\"\n\n     \"But with no very good result,\" I remarked. \"His conduct was\n     certainly not very gracious.\"\n\n     \"Ah, Watson,\" said Holmes, smiling, \"perhaps you would not be very\n     gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you\n     found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune. I think\n     that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully and thank our stars\n     that we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position. Draw\n     your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have\n     still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET\n\n     \"Holmes,\" said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking\n     down the street, \"here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad\n     that his relatives should allow him to come out alone.\"\n\n     My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands in\n     the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. It was a\n     bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day before still\n     lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. Down\n     the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly\n     band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of\n     the foot-paths it still lay as white as when it fell. The grey\n     pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously\n     slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. Indeed,\n     from the direction of the Metropolitan Station no one was coming save\n     the single gentleman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.\n\n     He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a\n     massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed\n     in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat\n     brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet his actions were\n     in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he\n     was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man\n     gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs. As he\n     ran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed\n     his face into the most extraordinary contortions.\n\n     \"What on earth can be the matter with him?\" I asked. \"He is looking\n     up at the numbers of the houses.\"\n\n     \"I believe that he is coming here,\" said Holmes, rubbing his hands.\n\n     \"Here?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I rather think he is coming to consult me professionally. I\n     think that I recognise the symptoms. Ha! did I not tell you?\" As he\n     spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at\n     our bell until the whole house resounded with the clanging.\n\n     A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still\n     gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his\n     eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity.\n     For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and\n     plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme\n     limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat\n     his head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon\n     him and tore him away to the centre of the room. Sherlock Holmes\n     pushed him down into the easy-chair and, sitting beside him, patted\n     his hand and chatted with him in the easy, soothing tones which he\n     knew so well how to employ.\n\n     \"You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?\" said he. \"You\n     are fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have recovered\n     yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into any little\n     problem which you may submit to me.\"\n\n     The man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting\n     against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his brow,\n     set his lips tight, and turned his face towards us.\n\n     \"No doubt you think me mad?\" said he.\n\n     \"I see that you have had some great trouble,\" responded Holmes.\n\n     \"God knows I have!--a trouble which is enough to unseat my reason, so\n     sudden and so terrible is it. Public disgrace I might have faced,\n     although I am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain.\n     Private affliction also is the lot of every man; but the two coming\n     together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my\n     very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. The very noblest in the land\n     may suffer unless some way be found out of this horrible affair.\"\n\n     \"Pray compose yourself, sir,\" said Holmes, \"and let me have a clear\n     account of who you are and what it is that has befallen you.\"\n\n     \"My name,\" answered our visitor, \"is probably familiar to your ears.\n     I am Alexander Holder, of the banking firm of Holder & Stevenson, of\n     Threadneedle Street.\"\n\n     The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior\n     partner in the second largest private banking concern in the City of\n     London. What could have happened, then, to bring one of the foremost\n     citizens of London to this most pitiable pass? We waited, all\n     curiosity, until with another effort he braced himself to tell his\n     story.\n\n     \"I feel that time is of value,\" said he; \"that is why I hastened here\n     when the police inspector suggested that I should secure your\n     co-operation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and hurried\n     from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow. That is\n     why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who takes very little\n     exercise. I feel better now, and I will put the facts before you as\n     shortly and yet as clearly as I can.\n\n     \"It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking\n     business as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative\n     investments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection and\n     the number of our depositors. One of our most lucrative means of\n     laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security is\n     unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction during the\n     last few years, and there are many noble families to whom we have\n     advanced large sums upon the security of their pictures, libraries,\n     or plate.\n\n     \"Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a card\n     was brought in to me by one of the clerks. I started when I saw the\n     name, for it was that of none other than--well, perhaps even to you I\n     had better say no more than that it was a name which is a household\n     word all over the earth--one of the highest, noblest, most exalted\n     names in England. I was overwhelmed by the honour and attempted, when\n     he entered, to say so, but he plunged at once into business with the\n     air of a man who wishes to hurry quickly through a disagreeable task.\n\n     \"'Mr. Holder,' said he, 'I have been informed that you are in the\n     habit of advancing money.'\n\n     \"'The firm does so when the security is good.' I answered.\n\n     \"'It is absolutely essential to me,' said he, 'that I should have\n     £50,000 at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a sum ten\n     times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it a matter of\n     business and to carry out that business myself. In my position you\n     can readily understand that it is unwise to place one's self under\n     obligations.'\n\n     \"'For how long, may I ask, do you want this sum?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most\n     certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it\n     right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the money should\n     be paid at once.'\n\n     \"'I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my own\n     private purse,' said I, 'were it not that the strain would be rather\n     more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do it in the\n     name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must insist that,\n     even in your case, every businesslike precaution should be taken.'\n\n     \"'I should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a square,\n     black morocco case which he had laid beside his chair.  'You have\n     doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?'\n\n     \"'One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,' said I.\n\n     \"'Precisely.' He opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft,\n     flesh-coloured velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewellery which\n     he had named. 'There are thirty-nine enormous beryls,' said he, 'and\n     the price of the gold chasing is incalculable. The lowest estimate\n     would put the worth of the coronet at double the sum which I have\n     asked. I am prepared to leave it with you as my security.'\n\n     \"I took the precious case into my hands and looked in some perplexity\n     from it to my illustrious client.\n\n     \"'You doubt its value?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Not at all. I only doubt--'\n\n     \"'The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest about\n     that. I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain\n     that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. It is a pure matter\n     of form. Is the security sufficient?'\n\n     \"'Ample.'\n\n     \"'You understand, Mr. Holder, that I am giving you a strong proof of\n     the confidence which I have in you, founded upon all that I have\n     heard of you. I rely upon you not only to be discreet and to refrain\n     from all gossip upon the matter but, above all, to preserve this\n     coronet with every possible precaution because I need not say that a\n     great public scandal would be caused if any harm were to befall it.\n     Any injury to it would be almost as serious as its complete loss, for\n     there are no beryls in the world to match these, and it would be\n     impossible to replace them. I leave it with you, however, with every\n     confidence, and I shall call for it in person on Monday morning.'\n\n     \"Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more but,\n     calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty £1000 notes.\n     When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying\n     upon the table in front of me, I could not but think with some\n     misgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me.\n     There could be no doubt that, as it was a national possession, a\n     horrible scandal would ensue if any misfortune should occur to it. I\n     already regretted having ever consented to take charge of it.\n     However, it was too late to alter the matter now, so I locked it up\n     in my private safe and turned once more to my work.\n\n     \"When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave so\n     precious a thing in the office behind me. Bankers' safes had been\n     forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how terrible\n     would be the position in which I should find myself! I determined,\n     therefore, that for the next few days I would always carry the case\n     backward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of\n     my reach. With this intention, I called a cab and drove out to my\n     house at Streatham, carrying the jewel with me. I did not breathe\n     freely until I had taken it upstairs and locked it in the bureau of\n     my dressing-room.\n\n     \"And now a word as to my household, Mr. Holmes, for I wish you to\n     thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep out\n     of the house, and may be set aside altogether. I have three\n     maid-servants who have been with me a number of years and whose\n     absolute reliability is quite above suspicion. Another, Lucy Parr,\n     the second waiting-maid, has only been in my service a few months.\n     She came with an excellent character, however, and has always given\n     me satisfaction. She is a very pretty girl and has attracted admirers\n     who have occasionally hung about the place. That is the only drawback\n     which we have found to her, but we believe her to be a thoroughly\n     good girl in every way.\n\n     \"So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it will\n     not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an only son,\n     Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr. Holmes--a grievous\n     disappointment. I have no doubt that I am myself to blame. People\n     tell me that I have spoiled him. Very likely I have. When my dear\n     wife died I felt that he was all I had to love. I could not bear to\n     see the smile fade even for a moment from his face. I have never\n     denied him a wish. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us\n     had I been sterner, but I meant it for the best.\n\n     \"It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my\n     business, but he was not of a business turn. He was wild, wayward,\n     and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the handling of\n     large sums of money. When he was young he became a member of an\n     aristocratic club, and there, having charming manners, he was soon\n     the intimate of a number of men with long purses and expensive\n     habits. He learned to play heavily at cards and to squander money on\n     the turf, until he had again and again to come to me and implore me\n     to give him an advance upon his allowance, that he might settle his\n     debts of honour. He tried more than once to break away from the\n     dangerous company which he was keeping, but each time the influence\n     of his friend, Sir George Burnwell, was enough to draw him back\n     again.\n\n     \"And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George\n     Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently\n     brought him to my house, and I have found myself that I could hardly\n     resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than Arthur, a man\n     of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been everywhere, seen\n     everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty.\n     Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of\n     his presence, I am convinced from his cynical speech and the look\n     which I have caught in his eyes that he is one who should be deeply\n     distrusted. So I think, and so, too, thinks my little Mary, who has a\n     woman's quick insight into character.\n\n     \"And now there is only she to be described. She is my niece; but when\n     my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world I\n     adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter. She\n     is a sunbeam in my house--sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful\n     manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a\n     woman could be. She is my right hand. I do not know what I could do\n     without her. In only one matter has she ever gone against my wishes.\n     Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for he loves her devotedly,\n     but each time she has refused him. I think that if anyone could have\n     drawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his\n     marriage might have changed his whole life; but now, alas! it is too\n     late--forever too late!\n\n     \"Now, Mr. Holmes, you know the people who live under my roof, and I\n     shall continue with my miserable story.\n\n     \"When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after\n     dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious\n     treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my\n     client. Lucy Parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, I am sure,\n     left the room; but I cannot swear that the door was closed. Mary and\n     Arthur were much interested and wished to see the famous coronet, but\n     I thought it better not to disturb it.\n\n     \"'Where have you put it?' asked Arthur.\n\n     \"'In my own bureau.'\n\n     \"'Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the\n     night.' said he.\n\n     \"'It is locked up,' I answered.\n\n     \"'Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I have\n     opened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.'\n\n     \"He often had a wild way of talking, so that I thought little of what\n     he said. He followed me to my room, however, that night with a very\n     grave face.\n\n     \"'Look here, dad,' said he with his eyes cast down, 'can you let me\n     have £200?'\n\n     \"'No, I cannot!' I answered sharply. 'I have been far too generous\n     with you in money matters.'\n\n     \"'You have been very kind,' said he, 'but I must have this money, or\n     else I can never show my face inside the club again.'\n\n     \"'And a very good thing, too!' I cried.\n\n     \"'Yes, but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man,' said\n     he. 'I could not bear the disgrace. I must raise the money in some\n     way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try other\n     means.'\n\n     \"I was very angry, for this was the third demand during the month.\n     'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which he bowed\n     and left the room without another word.\n\n     \"When he was gone I unlocked my bureau, made sure that my treasure\n     was safe, and locked it again. Then I started to go round the house\n     to see that all was secure--a duty which I usually leave to Mary but\n     which I thought it well to perform myself that night. As I came down\n     the stairs I saw Mary herself at the side window of the hall, which\n     she closed and fastened as I approached.\n\n     \"'Tell me, dad,' said she, looking, I thought, a little disturbed,\n     'did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out to-night?'\n\n     \"'Certainly not.'\n\n     \"'She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she has\n     only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that it is\n     hardly safe and should be stopped.'\n\n     \"'You must speak to her in the morning, or I will if you prefer it.\n     Are you sure that everything is fastened?'\n\n     \"'Quite sure, dad.'\n\n     \"'Then, good-night.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom again,\n     where I was soon asleep.\n\n     \"I am endeavouring to tell you everything, Mr. Holmes, which may have\n     any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question me upon\n     any point which I do not make clear.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid.\"\n\n     \"I come to a part of my story now in which I should wish to be\n     particularly so. I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety in my\n     mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual. About two\n     in the morning, then, I was awakened by some sound in the house. It\n     had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an impression behind\n     it as though a window had gently closed somewhere. I lay listening\n     with all my ears. Suddenly, to my horror, there was a distinct sound\n     of footsteps moving softly in the next room. I slipped out of bed,\n     all palpitating with fear, and peeped round the corner of my\n     dressing-room door.\n\n     \"'Arthur!' I screamed, 'you villain! you thief! How dare you touch\n     that coronet?'\n\n     \"The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed\n     only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light,\n     holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be wrenching at it,\n     or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his\n     grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it.\n     One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing.\n\n     \"'You blackguard!' I shouted, beside myself with rage. 'You have\n     destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the jewels\n     which you have stolen?'\n\n     \"'Stolen!' he cried.\n\n     \"'Yes, thief!' I roared, shaking him by the shoulder.\n\n     \"'There are none missing. There cannot be any missing,' said he.\n\n     \"'There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I call\n     you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to tear off\n     another piece?'\n\n     \"'You have called me names enough,' said he, 'I will not stand it any\n     longer. I shall not say another word about this business, since you\n     have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in the morning and\n     make my own way in the world.'\n\n     \"'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried half-mad\n     with grief and rage. 'I shall have this matter probed to the bottom.'\n\n     \"'You shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such as I\n     should not have thought was in his nature. 'If you choose to call the\n     police, let the police find what they can.'\n\n     \"By this time the whole house was astir, for I had raised my voice in\n     my anger. Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight\n     of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the whole story and,\n     with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground. I sent the\n     house-maid for the police and put the investigation into their hands\n     at once. When the inspector and a constable entered the house,\n     Arthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether\n     it was my intention to charge him with theft. I answered that it had\n     ceased to be a private matter, but had become a public one, since the\n     ruined coronet was national property. I was determined that the law\n     should have its way in everything.\n\n     \"'At least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. It\n     would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the house\n     for five minutes.'\n\n     \"'That you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you\n     have stolen,' said I. And then, realising the dreadful position in\n     which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only my\n     honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake; and\n     that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the\n     nation. He might avert it all if he would but tell me what he had\n     done with the three missing stones.\n\n     \"'You may as well face the matter,' said I; 'you have been caught in\n     the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. If you\n     but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling us where the\n     beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.'\n\n     \"'Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered,\n     turning away from me with a sneer. I saw that he was too hardened for\n     any words of mine to influence him. There was but one way for it. I\n     called in the inspector and gave him into custody. A search was made\n     at once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion\n     of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no\n     trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his\n     mouth for all our persuasions and our threats. This morning he was\n     removed to a cell, and I, after going through all the police\n     formalities, have hurried round to you to implore you to use your\n     skill in unravelling the matter. The police have openly confessed\n     that they can at present make nothing of it. You may go to any\n     expense which you think necessary. I have already offered a reward of\n     £1000. My God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and\n     my son in one night. Oh, what shall I do!\"\n\n     He put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to and\n     fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got beyond\n     words.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows\n     knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire.\n\n     \"Do you receive much company?\" he asked.\n\n     \"None save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of\n     Arthur's. Sir George Burnwell has been several times lately. No one\n     else, I think.\"\n\n     \"Do you go out much in society?\"\n\n     \"Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for it.\"\n\n     \"That is unusual in a young girl.\"\n\n     \"She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She is\n     four-and-twenty.\"\n\n     \"This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to her\n     also.\"\n\n     \"Terrible! She is even more affected than I.\"\n\n     \"You have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt?\"\n\n     \"How can we have when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet in\n     his hands.\"\n\n     \"I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of the\n     coronet at all injured?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was twisted.\"\n\n     \"Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to straighten\n     it?\"\n\n     \"God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me. But it\n     is too heavy a task. What was he doing there at all? If his purpose\n     were innocent, why did he not say so?\"\n\n     \"Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? His\n     silence appears to me to cut both ways. There are several singular\n     points about the case. What did the police think of the noise which\n     awoke you from your sleep?\"\n\n     \"They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his\n     bedroom door.\"\n\n     \"A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door so as\n     to wake a household. What did they say, then, of the disappearance of\n     these gems?\"\n\n     \"They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in\n     the hope of finding them.\"\n\n     \"Have they thought of looking outside the house?\"\n\n     \"Yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. The whole garden has\n     already been minutely examined.\"\n\n     \"Now, my dear sir,\" said Holmes. \"is it not obvious to you now that\n     this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you or the\n     police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you to be a\n     simple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex. Consider what is\n     involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came down from his\n     bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau,\n     took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it,\n     went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the\n     thirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then\n     returned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed\n     himself to the greatest danger of being discovered. I ask you now, is\n     such a theory tenable?\"\n\n     \"But what other is there?\" cried the banker with a gesture of\n     despair. \"If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain\n     them?\"\n\n     \"It is our task to find that out,\" replied Holmes; \"so now, if you\n     please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, and\n     devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details.\"\n\n     My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition,\n     which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy were\n     deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I confess that\n     the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be as obvious as it\n     did to his unhappy father, but still I had such faith in Holmes'\n     judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long\n     as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. He hardly spoke\n     a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his\n     chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the\n     deepest thought. Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the\n     little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even\n     broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A\n     short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the\n     modest residence of the great financier.\n\n     Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back\n     a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad\n     lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed\n     the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led\n     into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road\n     to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. On the\n     left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within\n     the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare.\n     Holmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the\n     house, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by\n     the garden behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr.\n     Holder and I went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until\n     he should return. We were sitting there in silence when the door\n     opened and a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle\n     height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker\n     against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have\n     ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were\n     bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept\n     silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief\n     than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking\n     in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense\n     capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding my presence, she went\n     straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet\n     womanly caress.\n\n     \"You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you not,\n     dad?\" she asked.\n\n     \"No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom.\"\n\n     \"But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's\n     instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be\n     sorry for having acted so harshly.\"\n\n     \"Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?\"\n\n     \"Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect\n     him.\"\n\n     \"How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the\n     coronet in his hand?\"\n\n     \"Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take my\n     word for it that he is innocent. Let the matter drop and say no more.\n     It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in a prison!\"\n\n     \"I shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, Mary!\n     Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to\n     me. Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman down\n     from London to inquire more deeply into it.\"\n\n     \"This gentleman?\" she asked, facing round to me.\n\n     \"No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in the\n     stable lane now.\"\n\n     \"The stable lane?\" She raised her dark eyebrows. \"What can he hope to\n     find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, that you will\n     succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, that my cousin\n     Arthur is innocent of this crime.\"\n\n     \"I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may prove\n     it,\" returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from\n     his shoes. \"I believe I have the honour of addressing Miss Mary\n     Holder. Might I ask you a question or two?\"\n\n     \"Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up.\"\n\n     \"You heard nothing yourself last night?\"\n\n     \"Nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. I heard that,\n     and I came down.\"\n\n     \"You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you fasten\n     all the windows?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Were they all fastened this morning?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked to\n     your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?\"\n\n     \"Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and who\n     may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet.\"\n\n     \"I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart,\n     and that the two may have planned the robbery.\"\n\n     \"But what is the good of all these vague theories,\" cried the banker\n     impatiently, \"when I have told you that I saw Arthur with the coronet\n     in his hands?\"\n\n     \"Wait a little, Mr. Holder. We must come back to that. About this\n     girl, Miss Holder. You saw her return by the kitchen door, I\n     presume?\"\n\n     \"Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I met\n     her slipping in. I saw the man, too, in the gloom.\"\n\n     \"Do you know him?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes! he is the green-grocer who brings our vegetables round. \n     His name is Francis Prosper.\"\n\n     \"He stood,\" said Holmes, \"to the left of the door--that is to say,\n     farther up the path than is necessary to reach the door?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he did.\"\n\n     \"And he is a man with a wooden leg?\"\n\n     Something like fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive black\n     eyes. \"Why, you are like a magician,\" said she. \"How do you know\n     that?\" She smiled, but there was no answering smile in Holmes' thin,\n     eager face.\n\n     \"I should be very glad now to go upstairs,\" said he. \"I shall\n     probably wish to go over the outside of the house again. Perhaps I\n     had better take a look at the lower windows before I go up.\"\n\n     He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at the\n     large one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane. This he\n     opened and made a very careful examination of the sill with his\n     powerful magnifying lens. \"Now we shall go upstairs,\" said he at\n     last.\n\n     The banker's dressing-room was a plainly furnished little chamber,\n     with a grey carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror. Holmes went to\n     the bureau first and looked hard at the lock.\n\n     \"Which key was used to open it?\" he asked.\n\n     \"That which my son himself indicated--that of the cupboard of the\n     lumber-room.\"\n\n     \"Have you it here?\"\n\n     \"That is it on the dressing-table.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes took it up and opened the bureau.\n\n     \"It is a noiseless lock,\" said he. \"It is no wonder that it did not\n     wake you. This case, I presume, contains the coronet. We must have a\n     look at it.\" He opened the case, and taking out the diadem he laid it\n     upon the table. It was a magnificent specimen of the jeweller's art,\n     and the thirty-six stones were the finest that I have ever seen. At\n     one side of the coronet was a cracked edge, where a corner holding\n     three gems had been torn away.\n\n     \"Now, Mr. Holder,\" said Holmes, \"here is the corner which corresponds\n     to that which has been so unfortunately lost. Might I beg that you\n     will break it off.\"\n\n     The banker recoiled in horror. \"I should not dream of trying,\" said\n     he.\n\n     \"Then I will.\" Holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but without\n     result. \"I feel it give a little,\" said he; \"but, though I am\n     exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my time to\n     break it. An ordinary man could not do it. Now, what do you think\n     would happen if I did break it, Mr. Holder? There would be a noise\n     like a pistol shot. Do you tell me that all this happened within a\n     few yards of your bed and that you heard nothing of it?\"\n\n     \"I do not know what to think. It is all dark to me.\"\n\n     \"But perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. What do you think, Miss\n     Holder?\"\n\n     \"I confess that I still share my uncle's perplexity.\"\n\n     \"Your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him?\"\n\n     \"He had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. We have certainly been favoured with extraordinary luck\n     during this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault if we do\n     not succeed in clearing the matter up. With your permission, Mr.\n     Holder, I shall now continue my investigations outside.\"\n\n     He went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any\n     unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an hour\n     or more he was at work, returning at last with his feet heavy with\n     snow and his features as inscrutable as ever.\n\n     \"I think that I have seen now all that there is to see, Mr. Holder,\"\n     said he; \"I can serve you best by returning to my rooms.\"\n\n     \"But the gems, Mr. Holmes. Where are they?\"\n\n     \"I cannot tell.\"\n\n     The banker wrung his hands. \"I shall never see them again!\" he cried.\n     \"And my son? You give me hopes?\"\n\n     \"My opinion is in no way altered.\"\n\n     \"Then, for God's sake, what was this dark business which was acted in\n     my house last night?\"\n\n     \"If you can call upon me at my Baker Street rooms to-morrow morning\n     between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to make it\n     clearer. I understand that you give me carte blanche to act for you,\n     provided only that I get back the gems, and that you place no limit\n     on the sum I may draw.\"\n\n     \"I would give my fortune to have them back.\"\n\n     \"Very good. I shall look into the matter between this and then. \n     Good-bye; it is just possible that I may have to come over here again\n     before evening.\"\n\n     It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up about\n     the case, although what his conclusions were was more than I could\n     even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward journey I\n     endeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to\n     some other topic, until at last I gave it over in despair. It was not\n     yet three when we found ourselves in our rooms once more. He hurried\n     to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a\n     common loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his\n     red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.\n\n     \"I think that this should do,\" said he, glancing into the glass above\n     the fireplace. \"I only wish that you could come with me, Watson, but\n     I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in this matter, or I\n     may be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but I shall soon know which it\n     is. I hope that I may be back in a few hours.\" He cut a slice of beef\n     from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds\n     of bread, and thrusting this rude meal into his pocket he started off\n     upon his expedition.\n\n     I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in excellent\n     spirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his hand. He chucked\n     it down into a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea.\n\n     \"I only looked in as I passed,\" said he. \"I am going right on.\"\n\n     \"Where to?\"\n\n     \"Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time before I\n     get back. Don't wait up for me in case I should be late.\"\n\n     \"How are you getting on?\"\n\n     \"Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham\n     since I saw you last, but I did not call at the house. It is a very\n     sweet little problem, and I would not have missed it for a good deal.\n     However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get these\n     disreputable clothes off and return to my highly respectable self.\"\n\n     I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for\n     satisfaction than his words alone would imply. His eyes twinkled, and\n     there was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. He hastened\n     upstairs, and a few minutes later I heard the slam of the hall door,\n     which told me that he was off once more upon his congenial hunt.\n\n     I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so I\n     retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away for\n     days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his\n     lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he came\n     in, but when I came down to breakfast in the morning there he was\n     with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the other, as fresh\n     and trim as possible.\n\n     \"You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson,\" said he, \"but you\n     remember that our client has rather an early appointment this\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"Why, it is after nine now,\" I answered. \"I should not be surprised\n     if that were he. I thought I heard a ring.\"\n\n     It was, indeed, our friend the financier. I was shocked by the change\n     which had come over him, for his face which was naturally of a broad\n     and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair\n     seemed to me at least a shade whiter. He entered with a weariness and\n     lethargy which was even more painful than his violence of the morning\n     before, and he dropped heavily into the armchair which I pushed\n     forward for him.\n\n     \"I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried,\" said he.\n     \"Only two days ago I was a happy and prosperous man, without a care\n     in the world. Now I am left to a lonely and dishonoured age. One\n     sorrow comes close upon the heels of another. My niece, Mary, has\n     deserted me.\"\n\n     \"Deserted you?\"\n\n     \"Yes. Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was empty,\n     and a note for me lay upon the hall table. I had said to her last\n     night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had married my boy all\n     might have been well with him. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me to\n     say so. It is to that remark that she refers in this note:\n\n     \"'My dearest Uncle:\n     \"'I feel that I have brought trouble upon you, and that if I had\n     acted differently this terrible misfortune might never have occurred.\n     I cannot, with this thought in my mind, ever again be happy under\n     your roof, and I feel that I must leave you forever. Do not worry\n     about my future, for that is provided for; and, above all, do not\n     search for me, for it will be fruitless labour and an ill-service to\n     me. In life or in death, I am ever\n     \"'Your loving\n     \"'Mary.'\n\n     \"What could she mean by that note, Mr. Holmes? Do you think it points\n     to suicide?\"\n\n     \"No, no, nothing of the kind. It is perhaps the best possible\n     solution. I trust, Mr. Holder, that you are nearing the end of your\n     troubles.\"\n\n     \"Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have\n     learned something! Where are the gems?\"\n\n     \"You would not think £1000 pounds apiece an excessive sum for them?\"\n\n     \"I would pay ten.\"\n\n     \"That would be unnecessary. Three thousand will cover the matter. And\n     there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your check-book?  Here is\n     a pen. Better make it out for £4000.\"\n\n     With a dazed face the banker made out the required check. Holmes\n     walked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of gold\n     with three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table.\n\n     With a shriek of joy our client clutched it up.\n\n     \"You have it!\" he gasped. \"I am saved! I am saved!\"\n\n     The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and he\n     hugged his recovered gems to his bosom.\n\n     \"There is one other thing you owe, Mr. Holder,\" said Sherlock Holmes\n     rather sternly.\n\n     \"Owe!\" He caught up a pen. \"Name the sum, and I will pay it.\"\n\n     \"No, the debt is not to me. You owe a very humble apology to that\n     noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I\n     should be proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to have\n     one.\"\n\n     \"Then it was not Arthur who took them?\"\n\n     \"I told you yesterday, and I repeat to-day, that it was not.\"\n\n     \"You are sure of it! Then let us hurry to him at once to let him know\n     that the truth is known.\"\n\n     \"He knows it already. When I had cleared it all up I had an interview\n     with him, and finding that he would not tell me the story, I told it\n     to him, on which he had to confess that I was right and to add the\n     very few details which were not yet quite clear to me. Your news of\n     this morning, however, may open his lips.\"\n\n     \"For heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary\n     mystery!\"\n\n     \"I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached it.\n     And let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me to say\n     and for you to hear: there has been an understanding between Sir\n     George Burnwell and your niece Mary. They have now fled together.\"\n\n     \"My Mary? Impossible!\"\n\n     \"It is unfortunately more than possible; it is certain. Neither you\n     nor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted\n     him into your family circle. He is one of the most dangerous men in\n     England--a ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain, a man\n     without heart or conscience. Your niece knew nothing of such men.\n     When he breathed his vows to her, as he had done to a hundred before\n     her, she flattered herself that she alone had touched his heart. The\n     devil knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool and\n     was in the habit of seeing him nearly every evening.\"\n\n     \"I cannot, and I will not, believe it!\" cried the banker with an\n     ashen face.\n\n     \"I will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night. Your\n     niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down\n     and talked to her lover through the window which leads into the\n     stable lane. His footmarks had pressed right through the snow, so\n     long had he stood there. She told him of the coronet. His wicked lust\n     for gold kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will. I have no\n     doubt that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a\n     lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have\n     been one. She had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw\n     you coming downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and\n     told you about one of the servants' escapade with her wooden-legged\n     lover, which was all perfectly true.\n\n     \"Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but he\n     slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. In the\n     middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so he rose\n     and, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking very\n     stealthily along the passage until she disappeared into your\n     dressing-room. Petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some\n     clothes and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this\n     strange affair. Presently she emerged from the room again, and in the\n     light of the passage-lamp your son saw that she carried the precious\n     coronet in her hands. She passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling\n     with horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door,\n     whence he could see what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her\n     stealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to someone in the\n     gloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing\n     quite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain.\n\n     \"As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without\n     a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the instant that\n     she was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune this would be for\n     you, and how all-important it was to set it right. He rushed down,\n     just as he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into\n     the snow, and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in\n     the moonlight. Sir George Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur\n     caught him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging\n     at one side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the\n     scuffle, your son struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then\n     something suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the\n     coronet in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to\n     your room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in\n     the struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you appeared\n     upon the scene.\"\n\n     \"Is it possible?\" gasped the banker.\n\n     \"You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when he\n     felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not explain\n     the true state of affairs without betraying one who certainly\n     deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He took the more\n     chivalrous view, however, and preserved her secret.\"\n\n     \"And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the coronet,\"\n     cried Mr. Holder. \"Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have been! And his\n     asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! The dear fellow\n     wanted to see if the missing piece were at the scene of the struggle.\n     How cruelly I have misjudged him!\"\n\n     \"When I arrived at the house,\" continued Holmes, \"I at once went very\n     carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in the snow\n     which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since the evening\n     before, and also that there had been a strong frost to preserve\n     impressions. I passed along the tradesmen's path, but found it all\n     trampled down and indistinguishable. Just beyond it, however, at the\n     far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood and talked with a\n     man, whose round impressions on one side showed that he had a wooden\n     leg. I could even tell that they had been disturbed, for the woman\n     had run back swiftly to the door, as was shown by the deep toe and\n     light heel marks, while Wooden-leg had waited a little, and then had\n     gone away. I thought at the time that this might be the maid and her\n     sweetheart, of whom you had already spoken to me, and inquiry showed\n     it was so. I passed round the garden without seeing anything more\n     than random tracks, which I took to be the police; but when I got\n     into the stable lane a very long and complex story was written in the\n     snow in front of me.\n\n     \"There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second\n     double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked\n     feet. I was at once convinced from what you had told me that the\n     latter was your son. The first had walked both ways, but the other\n     had run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over the\n     depression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed after the\n     other. I followed them up and found they led to the hall window,\n     where Boots had worn all the snow away while waiting. Then I walked\n     to the other end, which was a hundred yards or more down the lane. I\n     saw where Boots had faced round, where the snow was cut up as though\n     there had been a struggle, and, finally, where a few drops of blood\n     had fallen, to show me that I was not mistaken. Boots had then run\n     down the lane, and another little smudge of blood showed that it was\n     he who had been hurt. When he came to the highroad at the other end,\n     I found that the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to\n     that clue.\n\n     \"On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the\n     sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could at\n     once see that someone had passed out. I could distinguish the outline\n     of an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming in. I was\n     then beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what had occurred.\n     A man had waited outside the window; someone had brought the gems;\n     the deed had been overseen by your son; he had pursued the thief; had\n     struggled with him; they had each tugged at the coronet, their united\n     strength causing injuries which neither alone could have effected. He\n     had returned with the prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of\n     his opponent. So far I was clear. The question now was, who was the\n     man and who was it brought him the coronet?\n\n     \"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the\n     impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.\n     Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down, so there\n     only remained your niece and the maids. But if it were the maids, why\n     should your son allow himself to be accused in their place? There\n     could be no possible reason. As he loved his cousin, however, there\n     was an excellent explanation why he should retain her secret--the\n     more so as the secret was a disgraceful one. When I remembered that\n     you had seen her at that window, and how she had fainted on seeing\n     the coronet again, my conjecture became a certainty.\n\n     \"And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently, for\n     who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must feel to\n     you? I knew that you went out little, and that your circle of friends\n     was a very limited one. But among them was Sir George Burnwell. I had\n     heard of him before as being a man of evil reputation among women. It\n     must have been he who wore those boots and retained the missing gems.\n     Even though he knew that Arthur had discovered him, he might still\n     flatter himself that he was safe, for the lad could not say a word\n     without compromising his own family.\n\n     \"Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took next. I\n     went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house, managed to pick\n     up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut\n     his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six\n     shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes. With\n     these I journeyed down to Streatham and saw that they exactly fitted\n     the tracks.\"\n\n     \"I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening,\" said\n     Mr. Holder.\n\n     \"Precisely. It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home and\n     changed my clothes. It was a delicate part which I had to play then,\n     for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I\n     knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in\n     the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied\n     everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred,\n     he tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I\n     knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he\n     could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him\n     that we would give him a price for the stones he held--£1000 apiece.\n     That brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'Why,\n     dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the\n     three!' I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had\n     them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution. Off I set\n     to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at 1000 pounds\n     apiece. Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all was right,\n     and eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after what I may call\n     a really hard day's work.\"\n\n     \"A day which has saved England from a great public scandal,\" said the\n     banker, rising. \"Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but you shall\n     not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your skill has indeed\n     exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I must fly to my dear\n     boy to apologise to him for the wrong which I have done him. As to\n     what you tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my very heart. Not even\n     your skill can inform me where she is now.\"\n\n     \"I think that we may safely say,\" returned Holmes, \"that she is\n     wherever Sir George Burnwell is. It is equally certain, too, that\n     whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient\n     punishment.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES\n\n     \"To the man who loves art for its own sake,\" remarked Sherlock\n     Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph,\n     \"it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations\n     that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to\n     observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in\n     these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to\n     draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have\n     given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and\n     sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those\n     incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have\n     given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis\n     which I have made my special province.\"\n\n     \"And yet,\" said I, smiling, \"I cannot quite hold myself absolved from\n     the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my\n     records.\"\n\n     \"You have erred, perhaps,\" he observed, taking up a glowing cinder\n     with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which\n     was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather\n     than a meditative mood--\"you have erred perhaps in attempting to put\n     colour and life into each of your statements instead of confining\n     yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning\n     from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about\n     the thing.\"\n\n     \"It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter,\" I\n     remarked with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which\n     I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's\n     singular character.\n\n     \"No, it is not selfishness or conceit,\" said he, answering, as was\n     his wont, my thoughts rather than my words. \"If I claim full justice\n     for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing--a thing beyond\n     myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the\n     logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have\n     degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of\n     tales.\"\n\n     It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast\n     on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street. A\n     thick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-coloured houses, and\n     the opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the\n     heavy yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit and shone on the white cloth\n     and glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared\n     yet. Sherlock Holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping\n     continuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers\n     until at last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged\n     in no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.\n\n     \"At the same time,\" he remarked after a pause, during which he had\n     sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, \"you can\n     hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases\n     which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair\n     proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. The\n     small matter in which I endeavoured to help the King of Bohemia, the\n     singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected\n     with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble\n     bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. But\n     in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the\n     trivial.\"\n\n     \"The end may have been so,\" I answered, \"but the methods I hold to\n     have been novel and of interest.\"\n\n     \"Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant\n     public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor\n     by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and\n     deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for\n     the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man,\n     has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little\n     practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering\n     lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from\n     boarding-schools. I think that I have touched bottom at last,\n     however. This note I had this morning marks my zero-point, I fancy.\n     Read it!\" He tossed a crumpled letter across to me.\n\n     It was dated from Montague Place upon the preceding evening, and ran\n     thus:\n\n     Dear Mr. Holmes:\n     I am very anxious to consult you as to whether I should or should not\n     accept a situation which has been offered to me as governess. I shall\n     call at half-past ten to-morrow if I do not inconvenience you.\n     Yours faithfully,\n     Violet Hunter.\n\n     \"Do you know the young lady?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Not I.\"\n\n     \"It is half-past ten now.\"\n\n     \"Yes, and I have no doubt that is her ring.\"\n\n     \"It may turn out to be of more interest than you think. You remember\n     that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to be a mere\n     whim at first, developed into a serious investigation. It may be so\n     in this case, also.\"\n\n     \"Well, let us hope so. But our doubts will very soon be solved, for\n     here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question.\"\n\n     As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. She\n     was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled\n     like a plover's egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had\n     her own way to make in the world.\n\n     \"You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure,\" said she, as my\n     companion rose to greet her, \"but I have had a very strange\n     experience, and as I have no parents or relations of any sort from\n     whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be kind\n     enough to tell me what I should do.\"\n\n     \"Pray take a seat, Miss Hunter. I shall be happy to do anything that\n     I can to serve you.\"\n\n     I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner and\n     speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching\n     fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his\n     finger-tips together, to listen to her story.\n\n     \"I have been a governess for five years,\" said she, \"in the family of\n     Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel received an\n     appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his children over to\n     America with him, so that I found myself without a situation. I\n     advertised, and I answered advertisements, but without success. At\n     last the little money which I had saved began to run short, and I was\n     at my wit's end as to what I should do.\n\n     \"There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End called\n     Westaway's, and there I used to call about once a week in order to\n     see whether anything had turned up which might suit me. Westaway was\n     the name of the founder of the business, but it is really managed by\n     Miss Stoper. She sits in her own little office, and the ladies who\n     are seeking employment wait in an anteroom, and are then shown in one\n     by one, when she consults her ledgers and sees whether she has\n     anything which would suit them.\n\n     \"Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office as\n     usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone. A prodigiously\n     stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy chin which\n     rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at her elbow with a\n     pair of glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who\n     entered. As I came in he gave quite a jump in his chair and turned\n     quickly to Miss Stoper.\n\n     \"'That will do,' said he; 'I could not ask for anything better.\n     Capital! capital!' He seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his hands\n     together in the most genial fashion. He was such a\n     comfortable-looking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at him.\n\n     \"'You are looking for a situation, miss?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Yes, sir.'\n\n     \"'As governess?'\n\n     \"'Yes, sir.'\n\n     \"'And what salary do you ask?'\n\n     \"'I had £4 a month in my last place with Colonel Spence Munro.'\n\n     \"'Oh, tut, tut! sweating--rank sweating!' he cried, throwing his fat\n     hands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling passion. 'How\n     could anyone offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with such attractions\n     and accomplishments?'\n\n     \"'My accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,' said I. 'A\n     little French, a little German, music, and drawing--'\n\n     \"'Tut, tut!' he cried. 'This is all quite beside the question. The\n     point is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment of a\n     lady? There it is in a nutshell. If you have not, you are not fitted\n     for the rearing of a child who may some day play a considerable part\n     in the history of the country. But if you have why, then, how could\n     any gentleman ask you to condescend to accept anything under the\n     three figures? Your salary with me, madam, would commence at £100 a\n     year.'\n\n     \"You may imagine, Mr. Holmes, that to me, destitute as I was, such an\n     offer seemed almost too good to be true. The gentleman, however,\n     seeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face, opened a\n     pocket-book and took out a note.\n\n     \"'It is also my custom,' said he, smiling in the most pleasant\n     fashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid the\n     white creases of his face, 'to advance to my young ladies half their\n     salary beforehand, so that they may meet any little expenses of their\n     journey and their wardrobe.'\n\n     \"It seemed to me that I had never met so fascinating and so\n     thoughtful a man. As I was already in debt to my tradesmen, the\n     advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something\n     unnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know a\n     little more before I quite committed myself.\n\n     \"'May I ask where you live, sir?' said I.\n\n     \"'Hampshire. Charming rural place. The Copper Beeches, five miles on\n     the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my dear\n     young lady, and the dearest old country-house.'\n\n     \"'And my duties, sir? I should be glad to know what they would be.'\n\n     \"'One child--one dear little romper just six years old. Oh, if you\n     could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! smack!\n     smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back in his chair\n     and laughed his eyes into his head again.\n\n     \"I was a little startled at the nature of the child's amusement, but\n     the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was joking.\n\n     \"'My sole duties, then,' I asked, 'are to take charge of a single\n     child?'\n\n     \"'No, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,' he cried.\n     'Your duty would be, as I am sure your good sense would suggest, to\n     obey any little commands my wife might give, provided always that\n     they were such commands as a lady might with propriety obey. You see\n     no difficulty, heh?'\n\n     \"'I should be happy to make myself useful.'\n\n     \"'Quite so. In dress now, for example. We are faddy people, you\n     know--faddy but kind-hearted. If you were asked to wear any dress\n     which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim.\n     Heh?'\n\n     \"'No,' said I, considerably astonished at his words.\n\n     \"'Or to sit here, or sit there, that would not be offensive to you?'\n\n     \"'Oh, no.'\n\n     \"'Or to cut your hair quite short before you come to us?'\n\n     \"I could hardly believe my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, my\n     hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of\n     chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of\n     sacrificing it in this offhand fashion.\n\n     \"'I am afraid that that is quite impossible,' said I. He had been\n     watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a shadow\n     pass over his face as I spoke.\n\n     \"'I am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'It is a little\n     fancy of my wife's, and ladies' fancies, you know, madam, ladies'\n     fancies must be consulted. And so you won't cut your hair?'\n\n     \"'No, sir, I really could not,' I answered firmly.\n\n     \"'Ah, very well; then that quite settles the matter. It is a pity,\n     because in other respects you would really have done very nicely. In\n     that case, Miss Stoper, I had best inspect a few more of your young\n     ladies.'\n\n     \"The manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers without a\n     word to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so much\n     annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting that she had\n     lost a handsome commission through my refusal.\n\n     \"'Do you desire your name to be kept upon the books?' she asked.\n\n     \"'If you please, Miss Stoper.'\n\n     \"'Well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the most\n     excellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'You can hardly\n     expect us to exert ourselves to find another such opening for you.\n     Good-day to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong upon the table, and\n     I was shown out by the page.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, when I got back to my lodgings and found little\n     enough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the table. I\n     began to ask myself whether I had not done a very foolish thing.\n     After all, if these people had strange fads and expected obedience on\n     the most extraordinary matters, they were at least ready to pay for\n     their eccentricity. Very few governesses in England are getting £100\n     a year. Besides, what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved\n     by wearing it short and perhaps I should be among the number. Next\n     day I was inclined to think that I had made a mistake, and by the day\n     after I was sure of it. I had almost overcome my pride so far as to\n     go back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open\n     when I received this letter from the gentleman himself. I have it\n     here and I will read it to you:\n\n     \"'The Copper Beeches, near Winchester.\n     \"'Dear Miss Hunter:\n     \"'Miss Stoper has very kindly given me your address, and I write from\n     here to ask you whether you have reconsidered your decision. My wife\n     is very anxious that you should come, for she has been much attracted\n     by my description of you. We are willing to give £30 a quarter, or\n     £120 a year, so as to recompense you for any little inconvenience\n     which our fads may cause you. They are not very exacting, after all.\n     My wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would like\n     you to wear such a dress indoors in the morning. You need not,\n     however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one\n     belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which\n     would, I should think, fit you very well. Then, as to sitting here or\n     there, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that need cause\n     you no inconvenience. As regards your hair, it is no doubt a pity,\n     especially as I could not help remarking its beauty during our short\n     interview, but I am afraid that I must remain firm upon this point,\n     and I only hope that the increased salary may recompense you for the\n     loss. Your duties, as far as the child is concerned, are very light.\n     Now do try to come, and I shall meet you with the dog-cart at\n     Winchester. Let me know your train.\n     \"'Yours faithfully,\n     \"'Jephro Rucastle.'\n\n     \"That is the letter which I have just received, Mr. Holmes, and my\n     mind is made up that I will accept it. I thought, however, that\n     before taking the final step I should like to submit the whole matter\n     to your consideration.\"\n\n     \"Well, Miss Hunter, if your mind is made up, that settles the\n     question,\" said Holmes, smiling.\n\n     \"But you would not advise me to refuse?\"\n\n     \"I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a\n     sister of mine apply for.\"\n\n     \"What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself formed\n     some opinion?\"\n\n     \"Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr.\n     Rucastle seemed to be a very kind, good-natured man. Is it not\n     possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the\n     matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that he\n     humours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an outbreak?\"\n\n     \"That is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is the\n     most probable one. But in any case it does not seem to be a nice\n     household for a young lady.\"\n\n     \"But the money, Mr. Holmes, the money!\"\n\n     \"Well, yes, of course the pay is good--too good. That is what makes\n     me uneasy. Why should they give you £120 a year, when they could have\n     their pick for £40? There must be some strong reason behind.\"\n\n     \"I thought that if I told you the circumstances you would understand\n     afterwards if I wanted your help. I should feel so much stronger if I\n     felt that you were at the back of me.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you that your\n     little problem promises to be the most interesting which has come my\n     way for some months. There is something distinctly novel about some\n     of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt or in danger--\"\n\n     \"Danger! What danger do you foresee?\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head gravely. \"It would cease to be a danger if we\n     could define it,\" said he. \"But at any time, day or night, a telegram\n     would bring me down to your help.\"\n\n     \"That is enough.\" She rose briskly from her chair with the anxiety\n     all swept from her face. \"I shall go down to Hampshire quite easy in\n     my mind now. I shall write to Mr. Rucastle at once, sacrifice my poor\n     hair to-night, and start for Winchester to-morrow.\" With a few\n     grateful words to Holmes she bade us both good-night and bustled off\n     upon her way.\n\n     \"At least,\" said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descending the\n     stairs, \"she seems to be a young lady who is very well able to take\n     care of herself.\"\n\n     \"And she would need to be,\" said Holmes gravely. \"I am much mistaken\n     if we do not hear from her before many days are past.\"\n\n     It was not very long before my friend's prediction was fulfilled. A\n     fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughts\n     turning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alley of\n     human experience this lonely woman had strayed into. The unusual\n     salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to\n     something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether the\n     man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my powers\n     to determine. As to Holmes, I observed that he sat frequently for\n     half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he\n     swept the matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it.\n     \"Data! data! data!\" he cried impatiently. \"I can't make bricks\n     without clay.\" And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no\n     sister of his should ever have accepted such a situation.\n\n     The telegram which we eventually received came late one night just as\n     I was thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling down to one of\n     those all-night chemical researches which he frequently indulged in,\n     when I would leave him stooping over a retort and a test-tube at\n     night and find him in the same position when I came down to breakfast\n     in the morning. He opened the yellow envelope, and then, glancing at\n     the message, threw it across to me.\n\n     \"Just look up the trains in Bradshaw,\" said he, and turned back to\n     his chemical studies.\n\n     The summons was a brief and urgent one.\n\n     Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday to-morrow\n     [it said]. Do come! I am at my wit's end.\n     Hunter.\n\n     \"Will you come with me?\" asked Holmes, glancing up.\n\n     \"I should wish to.\"\n\n     \"Just look it up, then.\"\n\n     \"There is a train at half-past nine,\" said I, glancing over my\n     Bradshaw. \"It is due at Winchester at 11.30.\"\n\n     \"That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my\n     analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the\n     morning.\"\n\n     By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old\n     English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the\n     way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them\n     down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a\n     light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting\n     across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet\n     there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a\n     man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills\n     around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings\n     peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.\n\n     \"Are they not fresh and beautiful?\" I cried with all the enthusiasm\n     of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.\n\n     But Holmes shook his head gravely.\n\n     \"Do you know, Watson,\" said he, \"that it is one of the curses of a\n     mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with\n     reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered\n     houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and\n     the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation\n     and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" I cried. \"Who would associate crime with these dear\n     old homesteads?\"\n\n     \"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson,\n     founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in\n     London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the\n     smiling and beautiful countryside.\"\n\n     \"You horrify me!\"\n\n     \"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can\n     do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so\n     vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's\n     blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours,\n     and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word\n     of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the\n     crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own\n     fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know\n     little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden\n     wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and\n     none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live\n     in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five\n     miles of country which makes the danger. Still, it is clear that she\n     is not personally threatened.\"\n\n     \"No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can get away.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. She has her freedom.\"\n\n     \"What can be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?\"\n\n     \"I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would\n     cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct\n     can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no\n     doubt find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower of the cathedral,\n     and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has to tell.\"\n\n     The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no distance\n     from the station, and there we found the young lady waiting for us.\n     She had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch awaited us upon the\n     table.\n\n     \"I am so delighted that you have come,\" she said earnestly. \"It is so\n     very kind of you both; but indeed I do not know what I should do.\n     Your advice will be altogether invaluable to me.\"\n\n     \"Pray tell us what has happened to you.\"\n\n     \"I will do so, and I must be quick, for I have promised Mr. Rucastle\n     to be back before three. I got his leave to come into town this\n     morning, though he little knew for what purpose.\"\n\n     \"Let us have everything in its due order.\" Holmes thrust his long\n     thin legs out towards the fire and composed himself to listen.\n\n     \"In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole, with no\n     actual ill-treatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle. It is only fair to\n     them to say that. But I cannot understand them, and I am not easy in\n     my mind about them.\"\n\n     \"What can you not understand?\"\n\n     \"Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just as\n     it occurred. When I came down, Mr. Rucastle met me here and drove me\n     in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he said, beautifully\n     situated, but it is not beautiful in itself, for it is a large square\n     block of a house, whitewashed, but all stained and streaked with damp\n     and bad weather. There are grounds round it, woods on three sides,\n     and on the fourth a field which slopes down to the Southampton\n     highroad, which curves past about a hundred yards from the front\n     door. This ground in front belongs to the house, but the woods all\n     round are part of Lord Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper\n     beeches immediately in front of the hall door has given its name to\n     the place.\n\n     \"I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever, and\n     was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child. There\n     was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to us to be\n     probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is not mad. I\n     found her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much younger than her\n     husband, not more than thirty, I should think, while he can hardly be\n     less than forty-five. From their conversation I have gathered that\n     they have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and\n     that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone\n     to Philadelphia. Mr. Rucastle told me in private that the reason why\n     she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her\n     stepmother. As the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I\n     can quite imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with\n     her father's young wife.\n\n     \"Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as in\n     feature. She impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse. She was\n     a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately devoted\n     both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey eyes\n     wandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want\n     and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her also in his\n     bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they seemed to be a happy\n     couple. And yet she had some secret sorrow, this woman. She would\n     often be lost in deep thought, with the saddest look upon her face.\n     More than once I have surprised her in tears. I have thought\n     sometimes that it was the disposition of her child which weighed upon\n     her mind, for I have never met so utterly spoiled and so ill-natured\n     a little creature. He is small for his age, with a head which is\n     quite disproportionately large. His whole life appears to be spent in\n     an alternation between savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of\n     sulking. Giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be\n     his one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in\n     planning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects. But I would\n     rather not talk about the creature, Mr. Holmes, and, indeed, he has\n     little to do with my story.\"\n\n     \"I am glad of all details,\" remarked my friend, \"whether they seem to\n     you to be relevant or not.\"\n\n     \"I shall try not to miss anything of importance. The one unpleasant\n     thing about the house, which struck me at once, was the appearance\n     and conduct of the servants. There are only two, a man and his wife.\n     Toller, for that is his name, is a rough, uncouth man, with grizzled\n     hair and whiskers, and a perpetual smell of drink. Twice since I have\n     been with them he has been quite drunk, and yet Mr. Rucastle seemed\n     to take no notice of it. His wife is a very tall and strong woman\n     with a sour face, as silent as Mrs. Rucastle and much less amiable.\n     They are a most unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my\n     time in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in\n     one corner of the building.\n\n     \"For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was very\n     quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after breakfast and\n     whispered something to her husband.\n\n     \"'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to you,\n     Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your\n     hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from\n     your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue dress will\n     become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and\n     if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely\n     obliged.'\n\n     \"The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of\n     blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore\n     unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not have been\n     a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr. and Mrs.\n     Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite\n     exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for me in the\n     drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire\n     front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the\n     floor. A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its\n     back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr.\n     Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to\n     tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened\n     to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was\n     quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of\n     humour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap,\n     and a sad, anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr.\n     Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of\n     the day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in\n     the nursery.\n\n     \"Two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly\n     similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the\n     window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of\n     which my employer had an immense répertoire, and which he told\n     inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and moving my\n     chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the\n     page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for about ten\n     minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in\n     the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my\n     dress.\n\n     \"You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to what\n     the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be. They\n     were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the\n     window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was\n     going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be impossible, but I\n     soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy\n     thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my\n     handkerchief. On the next occasion, in the midst of my laughter, I\n     put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able with a little\n     management to see all that there was behind me. I confess that I was\n     disappointed. There was nothing. At least that was my first\n     impression. At the second glance, however, I perceived that there was\n     a man standing in the Southampton Road, a small bearded man in a grey\n     suit, who seemed to be looking in my direction. The road is an\n     important highway, and there are usually people there. This man,\n     however, was leaning against the railings which bordered our field\n     and was looking earnestly up. I lowered my handkerchief and glanced\n     at Mrs. Rucastle to find her eyes fixed upon me with a most searching\n     gaze. She said nothing, but I am convinced that she had divined that\n     I had a mirror in my hand and had seen what was behind me. She rose\n     at once.\n\n     \"'Jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the road\n     there who stares up at Miss Hunter.'\n\n     \"'No friend of yours, Miss Hunter?' he asked.\n\n     \"'No, I know no one in these parts.'\n\n     \"'Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to him\n     to go away.'\n\n     \"'Surely it would be better to take no notice.'\n\n     \"'No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn round\n     and wave him away like that.'\n\n     \"I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew down\n     the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have not sat\n     again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor seen the man\n     in the road.\"\n\n     \"Pray continue,\" said Holmes. \"Your narrative promises to be a most\n     interesting one.\"\n\n     \"You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may prove to\n     be little relation between the different incidents of which I speak.\n     On the very first day that I was at the Copper Beeches, Mr. Rucastle\n     took me to a small outhouse which stands near the kitchen door. As we\n     approached it I heard the sharp rattling of a chain, and the sound as\n     of a large animal moving about.\n\n     \"'Look in here!' said Mr. Rucastle, showing me a slit between two\n     planks. 'Is he not a beauty?'\n\n     \"I looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a\n     vague figure huddled up in the darkness.\n\n     \"'Don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start which\n     I had given. 'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine, but\n     really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do anything with\n     him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then, so that he is\n     always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose every night, and God\n     help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs upon. For goodness' sake\n     don't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at\n     night, for it's as much as your life is worth.'\n\n     \"The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to look\n     out of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning. It was a\n     beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the house was\n     silvered over and almost as bright as day. I was standing, rapt in\n     the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was aware that something was\n     moving under the shadow of the copper beeches. As it emerged into the\n     moonshine I saw what it was. It was a giant dog, as large as a calf,\n     tawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting\n     bones. It walked slowly across the lawn and vanished into the shadow\n     upon the other side. That dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart\n     which I do not think that any burglar could have done.\n\n     \"And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as you\n     know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a great coil\n     at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the child was in bed, I\n     began to amuse myself by examining the furniture of my room and by\n     rearranging my own little things. There was an old chest of drawers\n     in the room, the two upper ones empty and open, the lower one locked.\n     I had filled the first two with my linen, and as I had still much to\n     pack away I was naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third\n     drawer. It struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere\n     oversight, so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. The\n     very first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open.\n     There was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never\n     guess what it was. It was my coil of hair.\n\n     \"I took it up and examined it. It was of the same peculiar tint, and\n     the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing obtruded\n     itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in the drawer?\n     With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and\n     drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two tresses together,\n     and I assure you that they were identical. Was it not extraordinary?\n     Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at all of what it meant. I\n     returned the strange hair to the drawer, and I said nothing of the\n     matter to the Rucastles as I felt that I had put myself in the wrong\n     by opening a drawer which they had locked.\n\n     \"I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, and\n     I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. There\n     was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A\n     door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers\n     opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. One day,\n     however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle coming out\n     through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which\n     made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I\n     was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with\n     anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. He locked\n     the door and hurried past me without a word or a look.\n\n     \"This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the\n     grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I\n     could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four of\n     them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was\n     shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I strolled up and\n     down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle came out to me,\n     looking as merry and jovial as ever.\n\n     \"'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you without a\n     word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with business matters.'\n\n     \"I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I, 'you\n     seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them\n     has the shutters up.'\n\n     \"He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my\n     remark.\n\n     \"'Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my dark\n     room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we have\n     come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed\n     it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as\n     he looked at me. I read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was\n     something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was\n     all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity, though I have\n     my share of that. It was more a feeling of duty--a feeling that some\n     good might come from my penetrating to this place. They talk of\n     woman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's instinct which gave me that\n     feeling. At any rate, it was there, and I was keenly on the lookout\n     for any chance to pass the forbidden door.\n\n     \"It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that,\n     besides Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to do\n     in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large black\n     linen bag with him through the door. Recently he has been drinking\n     hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and when I came\n     upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt at all that\n     he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both downstairs, and\n     the child was with them, so that I had an admirable opportunity. I\n     turned the key gently in the lock, opened the door, and slipped\n     through.\n\n     \"There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted,\n     which turned at a right angle at the farther end. Round this corner\n     were three doors in a line, the first and third of which were open.\n     They each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two\n     windows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the\n     evening light glimmered dimly through them. The centre door was\n     closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the\n     broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the\n     wall, and fastened at the other with stout cord. The door itself was\n     locked as well, and the key was not there. This barricaded door\n     corresponded clearly with the shuttered window outside, and yet I\n     could see by the glimmer from beneath it that the room was not in\n     darkness. Evidently there was a skylight which let in light from\n     above. As I stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door and\n     wondering what secret it might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of\n     steps within the room and saw a shadow pass backward and forward\n     against the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the\n     door. A mad, unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr.\n     Holmes. My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and\n     ran--ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the\n     skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, and\n     straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting outside.\n\n     \"'So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it must be\n     when I saw the door open.'\n\n     \"'Oh, I am so frightened!' I panted.\n\n     \"'My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'--you cannot think how\n     caressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened you,\n     my dear young lady?'\n\n     \"But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was\n     keenly on my guard against him.\n\n     \"'I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' I answered. 'But\n     it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was frightened and\n     ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!'\n\n     \"'Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly.\n\n     \"'Why, what did you think?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Why do you think that I lock this door?'\n\n     \"'I am sure that I do not know.'\n\n     \"'It is to keep people out who have no business there. Do you see?'\n     He was still smiling in the most amiable manner.\n\n     \"'I am sure if I had known--'\n\n     \"'Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over that\n     threshold again'--here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin\n     of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon--'I'll\n     throw you to the mastiff.'\n\n     \"I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that I\n     must have rushed past him into my room. I remember nothing until I\n     found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I thought of\n     you, Mr. Holmes. I could not live there longer without some advice. I\n     was frightened of the house, of the man, of the woman, of the\n     servants, even of the child. They were all horrible to me. If I could\n     only bring you down all would be well. Of course I might have fled\n     from the house, but my curiosity was almost as strong as my fears. My\n     mind was soon made up. I would send you a wire. I put on my hat and\n     cloak, went down to the office, which is about half a mile from the\n     house, and then returned, feeling very much easier. A horrible doubt\n     came into my mind as I approached the door lest the dog might be\n     loose, but I remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of\n     insensibility that evening, and I knew that he was the only one in\n     the household who had any influence with the savage creature, or who\n     would venture to set him free. I slipped in in safety and lay awake\n     half the night in my joy at the thought of seeing you. I had no\n     difficulty in getting leave to come into Winchester this morning, but\n     I must be back before three o'clock, for Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle are\n     going on a visit, and will be away all the evening, so that I must\n     look after the child. Now I have told you all my adventures, Mr.\n     Holmes, and I should be very glad if you could tell me what it all\n     means, and, above all, what I should do.\"\n\n     Holmes and I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. My\n     friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his\n     pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon his\n     face.\n\n     \"Is Toller still drunk?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Yes. I heard his wife tell Mrs. Rucastle that she could do nothing\n     with him.\"\n\n     \"That is well. And the Rucastles go out to-night?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Is there a cellar with a good strong lock?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the wine-cellar.\"\n\n     \"You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very\n     brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could\n     perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not think\n     you a quite exceptional woman.\"\n\n     \"I will try. What is it?\"\n\n     \"We shall be at the Copper Beeches by seven o'clock, my friend and I.\n     The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will, we hope, be\n     incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might give the alarm.\n     If you could send her into the cellar on some errand, and then turn\n     the key upon her, you would facilitate matters immensely.\"\n\n     \"I will do it.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of course\n     there is only one feasible explanation. You have been brought there\n     to personate someone, and the real person is imprisoned in this\n     chamber. That is obvious. As to who this prisoner is, I have no doubt\n     that it is the daughter, Miss Alice Rucastle, if I remember right,\n     who was said to have gone to America. You were chosen, doubtless, as\n     resembling her in height, figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers\n     had been cut off, very possibly in some illness through which she has\n     passed, and so, of course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a\n     curious chance you came upon her tresses. The man in the road was\n     undoubtedly some friend of hers--possibly her fiancé--and no doubt,\n     as you wore the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced\n     from your laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your\n     gesture, that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no\n     longer desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to\n     prevent him from endeavouring to communicate with her. So much is\n     fairly clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition\n     of the child.\"\n\n     \"What on earth has that to do with it?\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light\n     as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't\n     you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained\n     my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their\n     children. This child's disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for\n     cruelty's sake, and whether he derives this from his smiling father,\n     as I should suspect, or from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor\n     girl who is in their power.\"\n\n     \"I am sure that you are right, Mr. Holmes,\" cried our client. \"A\n     thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you have\n     hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to this poor\n     creature.\"\n\n     \"We must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning man.\n     We can do nothing until seven o'clock. At that hour we shall be with\n     you, and it will not be long before we solve the mystery.\"\n\n     We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we reached\n     the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside public-house.\n     The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining like burnished\n     metal in the light of the setting sun, were sufficient to mark the\n     house even had Miss Hunter not been standing smiling on the\n     door-step.\n\n     \"Have you managed it?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     A loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. \"That is Mrs.\n     Toller in the cellar,\" said she. \"Her husband lies snoring on the\n     kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates of Mr.\n     Rucastle's.\"\n\n     \"You have done well indeed!\" cried Holmes with enthusiasm. \"Now lead\n     the way, and we shall soon see the end of this black business.\"\n\n     We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a\n     passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss\n     Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the transverse\n     bar. Then he tried the various keys in the lock, but without success.\n     No sound came from within, and at the silence Holmes' face clouded\n     over.\n\n     \"I trust that we are not too late,\" said he. \"I think, Miss Hunter,\n     that we had better go in without you. Now, Watson, put your shoulder\n     to it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our way in.\"\n\n     It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united\n     strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There was\n     no furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a basketful\n     of linen. The skylight above was open, and the prisoner gone.\n\n     \"There has been some villainy here,\" said Holmes; \"this beauty has\n     guessed Miss Hunter's intentions and has carried his victim off.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"Through the skylight. We shall soon see how he managed it.\" He swung\n     himself up onto the roof. \"Ah, yes,\" he cried, \"here's the end of a\n     long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did it.\"\n\n     \"But it is impossible,\" said Miss Hunter; \"the ladder was not there\n     when the Rucastles went away.\"\n\n     \"He has come back and done it. I tell you that he is a clever and\n     dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were he\n     whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it would\n     be as well for you to have your pistol ready.\"\n\n     The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at the\n     door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy stick in his\n     hand. Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the wall at the sight\n     of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and confronted him.\n\n     \"You villain!\" said he, \"where's your daughter?\"\n\n     The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open skylight.\n\n     \"It is for me to ask you that,\" he shrieked, \"you thieves! Spies and\n     thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I'll serve\n     you!\" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he could go.\n\n     \"He's gone for the dog!\" cried Miss Hunter.\n\n     \"I have my revolver,\" said I.\n\n     \"Better close the front door,\" cried Holmes, and we all rushed down\n     the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we heard the\n     baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a horrible\n     worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An elderly man\n     with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out at a side door.\n\n     \"My God!\" he cried. \"Someone has loosed the dog. It's not been fed\n     for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late!\"\n\n     Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with Toller\n     hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its black\n     muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed and screamed\n     upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and it fell over\n     with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great creases of his\n     neck. With much labour we separated them and carried him, living but\n     horribly mangled, into the house. We laid him upon the drawing-room\n     sofa, and having dispatched the sobered Toller to bear the news to\n     his wife, I did what I could to relieve his pain. We were all\n     assembled round him when the door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman\n     entered the room.\n\n     \"Mrs. Toller!\" cried Miss Hunter.\n\n     \"Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he went\n     up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know what you\n     were planning, for I would have told you that your pains were\n     wasted.\"\n\n     \"Ha!\" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. \"It is clear that Mrs.\n     Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know.\"\n\n     \"Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several\n     points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark.\"\n\n     \"I will soon make it clear to you,\" said she; \"and I'd have done so\n     before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's\n     police-court business over this, you'll remember that I was the one\n     that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend too.\n\n     \"She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time that\n     her father married again. She was slighted like and had no say in\n     anything, but it never really became bad for her until after she met\n     Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could learn, Miss Alice\n     had rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet and patient, she\n     was, that she never said a word about them but just left everything\n     in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was safe with her; but when there\n     was a chance of a husband coming forward, who would ask for all that\n     the law would give him, then her father thought it time to put a stop\n     on it. He wanted her to sign a paper, so that whether she married or\n     not, he could use her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on\n     worrying her until she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at\n     death's door. Then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and\n     with her beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in\n     her young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be.\"\n\n     \"Ah,\" said Holmes, \"I think that what you have been good enough to\n     tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that\n     remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this system of\n     imprisonment?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the\n     disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.\"\n\n     \"That was it, sir.\"\n\n     \"But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be,\n     blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain\n     arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your\n     interests were the same as his.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,\" said Mrs.\n     Toller serenely.\n\n     \"And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of\n     drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your\n     master had gone out.\"\n\n     \"You have it, sir, just as it happened.\"\n\n     \"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller,\" said Holmes, \"for you\n     have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And here comes\n     the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think, Watson, that we\n     had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me\n     that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one.\"\n\n     And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper\n     beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a\n     broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife.\n     They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of\n     Rucastle's past life that he finds it difficult to part from them.\n     Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in\n     Southampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a\n     government appointment in the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet\n     Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no\n     further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of\n     one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at\n     Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                         THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  SILVER BLAZE\n\n     \"I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,\" said Holmes, as we\n     sat down together to our breakfast one morning.\n\n     \"Go! Where to?\"\n\n     \"To Dartmoor; to King's Pyland.\"\n\n     I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not\n     already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one\n     topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England. For\n     a whole day my companion had rambled about the room with his chin\n     upon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and recharging his\n     pipe with the strongest black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of\n     my questions or remarks. Fresh editions of every paper had been sent\n     up by our news agent, only to be glanced over and tossed down into a\n     corner. Yet, silent as he was, I knew perfectly well what it was over\n     which he was brooding.  There was but one problem before the public\n     which could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the\n     singular disappearance of the favorite for the Wessex Cup, and the\n     tragic murder of its trainer. When, therefore, he suddenly announced\n     his intention of setting out for the scene of the drama it was only\n     what I had both expected and hoped for.\n\n     \"I should be most happy to go down with you if I should not be in the\n     way,\" said I.\n\n     \"My dear Watson, you would confer a great favour upon me by coming.\n     And I think that your time will not be misspent, for there are points\n     about the case which promise to make it an absolutely unique one. We\n     have, I think, just time to catch our train at Paddington, and I will\n     go further into the matter upon our journey. You would oblige me by\n     bringing with you your very excellent field-glass.\"\n\n     And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the\n     corner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for Exeter,\n     while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his\n     ear-flapped travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh\n     papers which he had procured at Paddington. We had left Reading far\n     behind us before he thrust the last one of them under the seat, and\n     offered me his cigar-case.\n\n     \"We are going well,\" said he, looking out the window and glancing at\n     his watch. \"Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an\n     hour.\"\n\n     \"I have not observed the quarter-mile posts,\" said I.\n\n     \"Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards\n     apart, and the calculation is a simple one. I presume that you have\n     looked into this matter of the murder of John Straker and the\n     disappearance of Silver Blaze?\"\n\n     \"I have seen what the Telegraph and the Chronicle have to say.\"\n\n     \"It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be\n     used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of\n     fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of\n     such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering\n     from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The\n     difficulty is to detach the framework of fact--of absolute undeniable\n     fact--from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then,\n     having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to\n     see what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon\n     which the whole mystery turns. On Tuesday evening I received\n     telegrams from both Colonel Ross, the owner of the horse, and from\n     Inspector Gregory, who is looking after the case, inviting my\n     cooperation.\n\n     \"Tuesday evening!\" I exclaimed. \"And this is Thursday morning. Why\n     didn't you go down yesterday?\"\n\n     \"Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson--which is, I am afraid, a\n     more common occurrence than any one would think who only knew me\n     through your memoirs. The fact is that I could not believe it\n     possible that the most remarkable horse in England could long remain\n     concealed, especially in so sparsely inhabited a place as the north\n     of Dartmoor. From hour to hour yesterday I expected to hear that he\n     had been found, and that his abductor was the murderer of John\n     Straker. When, however, another morning had come, and I found that\n     beyond the arrest of young Fitzroy Simpson nothing had been done, I\n     felt that it was time for me to take action. Yet in some ways I feel\n     that yesterday has not been wasted.\"\n\n     \"You have formed a theory, then?\"\n\n     \"At least I have got a grip of the essential facts of the case. I\n     shall enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as\n     stating it to another person, and I can hardly expect your\n     co-operation if I do not show you the position from which we start.\"\n\n     I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes,\n     leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the\n     points upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events\n     which had led to our journey.\n\n     \"Silver Blaze,\" said he, \"is from the Somomy stock, and holds as\n     brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth\n     year, and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to\n     Colonel Ross, his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the catastrophe\n     he was the first favorite for the Wessex Cup, the betting being three\n     to one on him. He has always, however, been a prime favorite with the\n     racing public, and has never yet disappointed them, so that even at\n     those odds enormous sums of money have been laid upon him. It is\n     obvious, therefore, that there were many people who had the strongest\n     interest in preventing Silver Blaze from being there at the fall of\n     the flag next Tuesday.\n\n     \"The fact was, of course, appreciated at King's Pyland, where the\n     Colonel's training-stable is situated. Every precaution was taken to\n     guard the favorite. The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey\n     who rode in Colonel Ross's colors before he became too heavy for the\n     weighing-chair. He has served the Colonel for five years as jockey\n     and for seven as trainer, and has always shown himself to be a\n     zealous and honest servant. Under him were three lads; for the\n     establishment was a small one, containing only four horses in all.\n     One of these lads sat up each night in the stable, while the others\n     slept in the loft. All three bore excellent characters. John Straker,\n     who is a married man, lived in a small villa about two hundred yards\n     from the stables. He has no children, keeps one maid-servant, and is\n     comfortably off. The country round is very lonely, but about half a\n     mile to the north there is a small cluster of villas which have been\n     built by a Tavistock contractor for the use of invalids and others\n     who may wish to enjoy the pure Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies\n     two miles to the west, while across the moor, also about two miles\n     distant, is the larger training establishment of Mapleton, which\n     belongs to Lord Backwater, and is managed by Silas Brown. In every\n     other direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by\n     a few roaming gypsies. Such was the general situation last Monday\n     night when the catastrophe occurred.\n\n     \"On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual,\n     and the stables were locked up at nine o'clock. Two of the lads\n     walked up to the trainer's house, where they had supper in the\n     kitchen, while the third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a few\n     minutes after nine the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the\n     stables his supper, which consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She\n     took no liquid, as there was a water-tap in the stables, and it was\n     the rule that the lad on duty should drink nothing else. The maid\n     carried a lantern with her, as it was very dark and the path ran\n     across the open moor.\n\n     \"Edith Baxter was within thirty yards of the stables, when a man\n     appeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. As he stepped\n     into the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she saw that he\n     was a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a gray suit of\n     tweeds, with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters, and carried a heavy stick\n     with a knob to it. She was most impressed, however, by the extreme\n     pallor of his face and by the nervousness of his manner. His age, she\n     thought, would be rather over thirty than under it.\n\n     \"'Can you tell me where I am?' he asked. 'I had almost made up my\n     mind to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light of your lantern.'\n\n     \"'You are close to the King's Pyland training-stables,' said she.\n\n     \"'Oh, indeed! What a stroke of luck!' he cried. 'I understand that a\n     stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is his supper\n     which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you would not be\n     too proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?' He took a\n     piece of white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. 'See that\n     the boy has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock\n     that money can buy.'\n\n     \"She was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran past\n     him to the window through which she was accustomed to hand the meals.\n     It was already opened, and Hunter was seated at the small table\n     inside. She had begun to tell him of what had happened, when the\n     stranger came up again.\n\n     \"'Good-evening,' said he, looking through the window. 'I wanted to\n     have a word with you.' The girl has sworn that as he spoke she\n     noticed the corner of the little paper packet protruding from his\n     closed hand.\n\n     \"'What business have you here?' asked the lad.\n\n     \"'It's business that may put something into your pocket,' said the\n     other. 'You've two horses in for the Wessex Cup--Silver Blaze and\n     Bayard. Let me have the straight tip and you won't be a loser. Is it\n     a fact that at the weights Bayard could give the other a hundred\n     yards in five furlongs, and that the stable have put their money on\n     him?'\n\n     \"'So, you're one of those damned touts!' cried the lad. 'I'll show\n     you how we serve them in King's Pyland.' He sprang up and rushed\n     across the stable to unloose the dog. The girl fled away to the\n     house, but as she ran she looked back and saw that the stranger was\n     leaning through the window. A minute later, however, when Hunter\n     rushed out with the hound he was gone, and though he ran all round\n     the buildings he failed to find any trace of him.\"\n\n     \"One moment,\" I asked. \"Did the stable-boy, when he ran out with the\n     dog, leave the door unlocked behind him?\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson, excellent!\" murmured my companion. \"The\n     importance of the point struck me so forcibly that I sent a special\n     wire to Dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. The boy locked the\n     door before he left it. The window, I may add, was not large enough\n     for a man to get through.\n\n     \"Hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned, when he sent a\n     message to the trainer and told him what had occurred. Straker was\n     excited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to have\n     quite realized its true significance. It left him, however, vaguely\n     uneasy, and Mrs. Straker, waking at one in the morning, found that he\n     was dressing. In reply to her inquiries, he said that he could not\n     sleep on account of his anxiety about the horses, and that he\n     intended to walk down to the stables to see that all was well. She\n     begged him to remain at home, as she could hear the rain pattering\n     against the window, but in spite of her entreaties he pulled on his\n     large mackintosh and left the house.\n\n     \"Mrs. Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her husband\n     had not yet returned. She dressed herself hastily, called the maid,\n     and set off for the stables. The door was open; inside, huddled\n     together upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of absolute stupor,\n     the favorite's stall was empty, and there were no signs of his\n     trainer.\n\n     \"The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the\n     harness-room were quickly aroused. They had heard nothing during the\n     night, for they are both sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously under\n     the influence of some powerful drug, and as no sense could be got out\n     of him, he was left to sleep it off while the two lads and the two\n     women ran out in search of the absentees. They still had hopes that\n     the trainer had for some reason taken out the horse for early\n     exercise, but on ascending the knoll near the house, from which all\n     the neighboring moors were visible, they not only could see no signs\n     of the missing favorite, but they perceived something which warned\n     them that they were in the presence of a tragedy.\n\n     \"About a quarter of a mile from the stables John Straker's overcoat\n     was flapping from a furze-bush. Immediately beyond there was a\n     bowl-shaped depression in the moor, and at the bottom of this was\n     found the dead body of the unfortunate trainer. His head had been\n     shattered by a savage blow from some heavy weapon, and he was wounded\n     on the thigh, where there was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently\n     by some very sharp instrument. It was clear, however, that Straker\n     had defended himself vigorously against his assailants, for in his\n     right hand he held a small knife, which was clotted with blood up to\n     the handle, while in his left he clasped a red and black silk cravat,\n     which was recognized by the maid as having been worn on the preceding\n     evening by the stranger who had visited the stables. Hunter, on\n     recovering from his stupor, was also quite positive as to the\n     ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain that the same\n     stranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his curried\n     mutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman. As to the\n     missing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the\n     bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at the time of the\n     struggle. But from that morning he has disappeared, and although a\n     large reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on\n     the alert, no news has come of him. Finally, an analysis has shown\n     that the remains of his supper left by the stable-lad contain an\n     appreciable quantity of powdered opium, while the people at the house\n     partook of the same dish on the same night without any ill effect.\n\n     \"Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise, and\n     stated as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what the\n     police have done in the matter.\n\n     \"Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an\n     extremely competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination he\n     might rise to great heights in his profession. On his arrival he\n     promptly found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally\n     rested. There was little difficulty in finding him, for he inhabited\n     one of those villas which I have mentioned. His name, it appears, was\n     Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man of excellent birth and education, who\n     had squandered a fortune upon the turf, and who lived now by doing a\n     little quiet and genteel book-making in the sporting clubs of London.\n     An examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the amount of\n     five thousand pounds had been registered by him against the favorite.\n     On being arrested he volunteered the statement that he had come down\n     to Dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about the King's\n     Pyland horses, and also about Desborough, the second favorite, which\n     was in charge of Silas Brown at the Mapleton stables. He did not\n     attempt to deny that he had acted as described upon the evening\n     before, but declared that he had no sinister designs, and had simply\n     wished to obtain first-hand information. When confronted with his\n     cravat, he turned very pale, and was utterly unable to account for\n     its presence in the hand of the murdered man. His wet clothing showed\n     that he had been out in the storm of the night before, and his stick,\n     which was a Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just such a weapon\n     as might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible injuries to\n     which the trainer had succumbed. On the other hand, there was no\n     wound upon his person, while the state of Straker's knife would show\n     that one at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him.\n     There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me\n     any light I shall be infinitely obliged to you.\"\n\n     I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which\n     Holmes, with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though\n     most of the facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently\n     appreciated their relative importance, nor their connection to each\n     other.\n\n     \"Is in not possible,\" I suggested, \"that the incised wound upon\n     Straker may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive\n     struggles which follow any brain injury?\"\n\n     \"It is more than possible; it is probable,\" said Holmes. \"In that\n     case one of the main points in favor of the accused disappears.\"\n\n     \"And yet,\" said I, \"even now I fail to understand what the theory of\n     the police can be.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections\n     to it,\" returned my companion. \"The police imagine, I take it, that\n     this Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way\n     obtained a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the\n     horse, with the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether.\n     His bridle is missing, so that Simpson must have put this on. Then,\n     having left the door open behind him, he was leading the horse away\n     over the moor, when he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. A\n     row naturally ensued. Simpson beat out the trainer's brains with his\n     heavy stick without receiving any injury from the small knife which\n     Straker used in self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse\n     on to some secret hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the\n     struggle, and be now wandering out on the moors. That is the case as\n     it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other\n     explanations are more improbable still. However, I shall very quickly\n     test the matter when I am once upon the spot, and until then I cannot\n     really see how we can get much further than our present position.\"\n\n     It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock, which\n     lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of\n     Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us in the station--the one a\n     tall, fair man with lion-like hair and beard and curiously\n     penetrating light blue eyes; the other a small, alert person, very\n     neat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little\n     side-whiskers and an eye-glass. The latter was Colonel Ross, the\n     well-known sportsman; the other, Inspector Gregory, a man who was\n     rapidly making his name in the English detective service.\n\n     \"I am delighted that you have come down, Mr. Holmes,\" said the\n     Colonel. \"The Inspector here has done all that could possibly be\n     suggested, but I wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge\n     poor Straker and in recovering my horse.\"\n\n     \"Have there been any fresh developments?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"I am sorry to say that we have made very little progress,\" said the\n     Inspector. \"We have an open carriage outside, and as you would no\n     doubt like to see the place before the light fails, we might talk it\n     over as we drive.\"\n\n     A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau, and were\n     rattling through the quaint old Devonshire city. Inspector Gregory\n     was full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks, while\n     Holmes threw in an occasional question or interjection. Colonel Ross\n     leaned back with his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes,\n     while I listened with interest to the dialogue of the two detectives.\n     Gregory was formulating his theory, which was almost exactly what\n     Holmes had foretold in the train.\n\n     \"The net is drawn pretty close round Fitzroy Simpson,\" he remarked,\n     \"and I believe myself that he is our man. At the same time I\n     recognize that the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some\n     new development may upset it.\"\n\n     \"How about Straker's knife?\"\n\n     \"We have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in his\n     fall.\"\n\n     \"My friend Dr. Watson made that suggestion to me as we came down. If\n     so, it would tell against this man Simpson.\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly. He has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. The\n     evidence against him is certainly very strong. He had a great\n     interest in the disappearance of the favorite. He lies under\n     suspicion of having poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly out\n     in the storm, he was armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat was\n     found in the dead man's hand. I really think we have enough to go\n     before a jury.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head. \"A clever counsel would tear it all to rags,\"\n     said he. \"Why should he take the horse out of the stable? If he\n     wished to injure it why could he not do it there? Has a duplicate key\n     been found in his possession? What chemist sold him the powdered\n     opium? Above all, where could he, a stranger to the district, hide a\n     horse, and such a horse as this? What is his own explanation as to\n     the paper which he wished the maid to give to the stable-boy?\"\n\n     \"He says that it was a ten-pound note. One was found in his purse.\n     But your other difficulties are not so formidable as they seem. He is\n     not a stranger to the district. He has twice lodged at Tavistock in\n     the summer. The opium was probably brought from London. The key,\n     having served its purpose, would be hurled away. The horse may be at\n     the bottom of one of the pits or old mines upon the moor.\"\n\n     \"What does he say about the cravat?\"\n\n     \"He acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost it.\n     But a new element has been introduced into the case which may account\n     for his leading the horse from the stable.\"\n\n     Holmes pricked up his ears.\n\n     \"We have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped on\n     Monday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took place.\n     On Tuesday they were gone. Now, presuming that there was some\n     understanding between Simpson and these gypsies, might he not have\n     been leading the horse to them when he was overtaken, and may they\n     not have him now?\"\n\n     \"It is certainly possible.\"\n\n     \"The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have also examined\n     every stable and out-house in Tavistock, and for a radius of ten\n     miles.\"\n\n     \"There is another training-stable quite close, I understand?\"\n\n     \"Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect. As\n     Desborough, their horse, was second in the betting, they had an\n     interest in the disappearance of the favorite. Silas Brown, the\n     trainer, is known to have had large bets upon the event, and he was\n     no friend to poor Straker. We have, however, examined the stables,\n     and there is nothing to connect him with the affair.\"\n\n     \"And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the interests of the\n     Mapleton stables?\"\n\n     \"Nothing at all.\"\n\n     Holmes leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased. A\n     few minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick\n     villa with overhanging eaves which stood by the road. Some distance\n     off, across a paddock, lay a long gray-tiled out-building. In every\n     other direction the low curves of the moor, bronze-colored from the\n     fading ferns, stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the\n     steeples of Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the\n     westward which marked the Mapleton stables. We all sprang out with\n     the exception of Holmes, who continued to lean back with his eyes\n     fixed upon the sky in front of him, entirely absorbed in his own\n     thoughts. It was only when I touched his arm that he roused himself\n     with a violent start and stepped out of the carriage.\n\n     \"Excuse me,\" said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who had looked at him\n     in some surprise. \"I was day-dreaming.\" There was a gleam in his eyes\n     and a suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as\n     I was to his ways, that his hand was upon a clue, though I could not\n     imagine where he had found it.\n\n     \"Perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the crime,\n     Mr. Holmes?\" said Gregory.\n\n     \"I think that I should prefer to stay here a little and go into one\n     or two questions of detail. Straker was brought back here, I\n     presume?\"\n\n     \"Yes; he lies upstairs. The inquest is to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"He has been in your service some years, Colonel Ross?\"\n\n     \"I have always found him an excellent servant.\"\n\n     \"I presume that you made an inventory of what he had in this pockets\n     at the time of his death, Inspector?\"\n\n     \"I have the things themselves in the sitting-room, if you would care\n     to see them.\"\n\n     \"I should be very glad.\" We all filed into the front room and sat\n     round the central table while the Inspector unlocked a square tin box\n     and laid a small heap of things before us. There was a box of vestas,\n     two inches of tallow candle, an A D P brier-root pipe, a pouch of\n     seal-skin with half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch\n     with a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an aluminum pencil-case,\n     a few papers, and an ivory-handled knife with a very delicate,\n     inflexible blade marked Weiss & Co., London.\n\n     \"This is a very singular knife,\" said Holmes, lifting it up and\n     examining it minutely. \"I presume, as I see blood-stains upon it,\n     that it is the one which was found in the dead man's grasp. Watson,\n     this knife is surely in your line?\"\n\n     \"It is what we call a cataract knife,\" said I.\n\n     \"I thought so. A very delicate blade devised for very delicate work.\n     A strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough expedition,\n     especially as it would not shut in his pocket.\"\n\n     \"The tip was guarded by a disk of cork which we found beside his\n     body,\" said the Inspector. \"His wife tells us that the knife had lain\n     upon the dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he left the\n     room. It was a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he could lay\n     his hands on at the moment.\"\n\n     \"Very possible. How about these papers?\"\n\n     \"Three of them are receipted hay-dealers' accounts. One of them is a\n     letter of instructions from Colonel Ross. This other is a milliner's\n     account for thirty-seven pounds fifteen made out by Madame Lesurier,\n     of Bond Street, to William Derbyshire. Mrs. Straker tells us that\n     Derbyshire was a friend of her husband's and that occasionally his\n     letters were addressed here.\"\n\n     \"Madam Derbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes,\" remarked Holmes,\n     glancing down the account. \"Twenty-two guineas is rather heavy for a\n     single costume. However there appears to be nothing more to learn,\n     and we may now go down to the scene of the crime.\"\n\n     As we emerged from the sitting-room a woman, who had been waiting in\n     the passage, took a step forward and laid her hand upon the\n     Inspector's sleeve. Her face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped\n     with the print of a recent horror.\n\n     \"Have you got them? Have you found them?\" she panted.\n\n     \"No, Mrs. Straker. But Mr. Holmes here has come from London to help\n     us, and we shall do all that is possible.\"\n\n     \"Surely I met you in Plymouth at a garden-party some little time ago,\n     Mrs. Straker?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"No, sir; you are mistaken.\"\n\n     \"Dear me! Why, I could have sworn to it. You wore a costume of\n     dove-colored silk with ostrich-feather trimming.\"\n\n     \"I never had such a dress, sir,\" answered the lady.\n\n     \"Ah, that quite settles it,\" said Holmes. And with an apology he\n     followed the Inspector outside. A short walk across the moor took us\n     to the hollow in which the body had been found. At the brink of it\n     was the furze-bush upon which the coat had been hung.\n\n     \"There was no wind that night, I understand,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"None; but very heavy rain.\"\n\n     \"In that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze-bush, but\n     placed there.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was laid across the bush.\"\n\n     \"You fill me with interest, I perceive that the ground has been\n     trampled up a good deal. No doubt many feet have been here since\n     Monday night.\"\n\n     \"A piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have all\n     stood upon that.\"\n\n     \"Excellent.\"\n\n     \"In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of\n     Fitzroy Simpson's shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze.\"\n\n     \"My dear Inspector, you surpass yourself!\" Holmes took the bag, and,\n     descending into the hollow, he pushed the matting into a more central\n     position. Then stretching himself upon his face and leaning his chin\n     upon his hands, he made a careful study of the trampled mud in front\n     of him. \"Hullo!\" said he, suddenly. \"What's this?\" It was a wax vesta\n     half burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first\n     like a little chip of wood.\n\n     \"I cannot think how I came to overlook it,\" said the Inspector, with\n     an expression of annoyance.\n\n     \"It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was\n     looking for it.\"\n\n     \"What! You expected to find it?\"\n\n     \"I thought it not unlikely.\"\n\n     He took the boots from the bag, and compared the impressions of each\n     of them with marks upon the ground. Then he clambered up to the rim\n     of the hollow, and crawled about among the ferns and bushes.\n\n     \"I am afraid that there are no more tracks,\" said the Inspector. \"I\n     have examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in each\n     direction.\"\n\n     \"Indeed!\" said Holmes, rising. \"I should not have the impertinence to\n     do it again after what you say. But I should like to take a little\n     walk over the moor before it grows dark, that I may know my ground\n     to-morrow, and I think that I shall put this horseshoe into my pocket\n     for luck.\"\n\n     Colonel Ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my\n     companion's quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his\n     watch. \"I wish you would come back with me, Inspector,\" said he.\n     \"There are several points on which I should like your advice, and\n     especially as to whether we do not owe it to the public to remove our\n     horse's name from the entries for the Cup.\"\n\n     \"Certainly not,\" cried Holmes, with decision. \"I should let the name\n     stand.\"\n\n     The Colonel bowed. \"I am very glad to have had your opinion, sir,\"\n     said he. \"You will find us at poor Straker's house when you have\n     finished your walk, and we can drive together into Tavistock.\"\n\n     He turned back with the Inspector, while Holmes and I walked slowly\n     across the moor. The sun was beginning to sink behind the stables of\n     Mapleton, and the long, sloping plain in front of us was tinged with\n     gold, deepening into rich, ruddy browns where the faded ferns and\n     brambles caught the evening light. But the glories of the landscape\n     were all wasted upon my companion, who was sunk in the deepest\n     thought.\n\n     \"It's this way, Watson,\" said he at last. \"We may leave the question\n     of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to\n     finding out what has become of the horse. Now, supposing that he\n     broke away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to?\n     The horse is a very gregarious creature. If left to himself his\n     instincts would have been either to return to King's Pyland or go\n     over to Mapleton. Why should he run wild upon the moor? He would\n     surely have been seen by now. And why should gypsies kidnap him?\n     These people always clear out when they hear of trouble, for they do\n     not wish to be pestered by the police. They could not hope to sell\n     such a horse. They would run a great risk and gain nothing by taking\n     him. Surely that is clear.\"\n\n     \"Where is he, then?\"\n\n     \"I have already said that he must have gone to King's Pyland or to\n     Mapleton. He is not at King's Pyland. Therefore he is at Mapleton.\n     Let us take that as a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to.\n     This part of the moor, as the Inspector remarked, is very hard and\n     dry. But it falls away towards Mapleton, and you can see from here\n     that there is a long hollow over yonder, which must have been very\n     wet on Monday night. If our supposition is correct, then the horse\n     must have crossed that, and there is the point where we should look\n     for his tracks.\"\n\n     We had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few more\n     minutes brought us to the hollow in question. At Holmes' request I\n     walked down the bank to the right, and he to the left, but I had not\n     taken fifty paces before I heard him give a shout, and saw him waving\n     his hand to me. The track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft\n     earth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket\n     exactly fitted the impression.\n\n     \"See the value of imagination,\" said Holmes. \"It is the one quality\n     which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon\n     the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed.\"\n\n     We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of\n     dry, hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on the\n     tracks. Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up\n     once more quite close to Mapleton. It was Holmes who saw them first,\n     and he stood pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. A man's\n     track was visible beside the horse's.\n\n     \"The horse was alone before,\" I cried.\n\n     \"Quite so. It was alone before. Hullo, what is this?\"\n\n     The double track turned sharp off and took the direction of King's\n     Pyland. Holmes whistled, and we both followed along after it. His\n     eyes were on the trail, but I happened to look a little to one side,\n     and saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back again in the\n     opposite direction.\n\n     \"One for you, Watson,\" said Holmes, when I pointed it out. \"You have\n     saved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on our own\n     traces. Let us follow the return track.\"\n\n     We had not to go far. It ended at the paving of asphalt which led up\n     to the gates of the Mapleton stables. As we approached, a groom ran\n     out from them.\n\n     \"We don't want any loiterers about here,\" said he.\n\n     \"I only wished to ask a question,\" said Holmes, with his finger and\n     thumb in his waistcoat pocket. \"Should I be too early to see your\n     master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o'clock to-morrow\n     morning?\"\n\n     \"Bless you, sir, if any one is about he will be, for he is always the\n     first stirring. But here he is, sir, to answer your questions for\n     himself. No, sir, no; it is as much as my place is worth to let him\n     see me touch your money. Afterwards, if you like.\"\n\n     As Sherlock Holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn from\n     his pocket, a fierce-looking elderly man strode out from the gate\n     with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.\n\n     \"What's this, Dawson!\" he cried. \"No gossiping! Go about your\n     business! And you, what the devil do you want here?\"\n\n     \"Ten minutes' talk with you, my good sir,\" said Holmes in the\n     sweetest of voices.\n\n     \"I've no time to talk to every gadabout. We want no stranger here. Be\n     off, or you may find a dog at your heels.\"\n\n     Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer's ear.\n     He started violently and flushed to the temples.\n\n     \"It's a lie!\" he shouted, \"an infernal lie!\"\n\n     \"Very good. Shall we argue about it here in public or talk it over in\n     your parlor?\"\n\n     \"Oh, come in if you wish to.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled. \"I shall not keep you more than a few minutes,\n     Watson,\" said he. \"Now, Mr. Brown, I am quite at your disposal.\"\n\n     It was twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into grays before\n     Holmes and the trainer reappeared. Never have I seen such a change as\n     had been brought about in Silas Brown in that short time. His face\n     was ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon his brow, and his\n     hands shook until the hunting-crop wagged like a branch in the wind.\n     His bullying, overbearing manner was all gone too, and he cringed\n     along at my companion's side like a dog with its master.\n\n     \"Your instructions will be done. It shall all be done,\" said he.\n\n     \"There must be no mistake,\" said Holmes, looking round at him. The\n     other winced as he read the menace in his eyes.\n\n     \"Oh no, there shall be no mistake. It shall be there. Should I change\n     it first or not?\"\n\n     Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. \"No, don't,\"\n     said he; \"I shall write to you about it. No tricks, now, or--\"\n\n     \"Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!\"\n\n     \"Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me to-morrow.\" He\n     turned upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other\n     held out to him, and we set off for King's Pyland.\n\n     \"A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master\n     Silas Brown I have seldom met with,\" remarked Holmes as we trudged\n     along together.\n\n     \"He has the horse, then?\"\n\n     \"He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly\n     what his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that\n     I was watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly square toes\n     in the impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to\n     them. Again, of course no subordinate would have dared to do such a\n     thing. I described to him how, when according to his custom he was\n     the first down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor.\n     How he went out to it, and his astonishment at recognizing, from the\n     white forehead which has given the favorite its name, that chance had\n     put in his power the only horse which could beat the one upon which\n     he had put his money. Then I described how his first impulse had been\n     to lead him back to King's Pyland, and how the devil had shown him\n     how he could hide the horse until the race was over, and how he had\n     led it back and concealed it at Mapleton. When I told him every\n     detail he gave it up and thought only of saving his own skin.\"\n\n     \"But his stables had been searched?\"\n\n     \"Oh, and old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.\"\n\n     \"But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he\n     has every interest in injuring it?\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He knows\n     that his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.\"\n\n     \"Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show\n     much mercy in any case.\"\n\n     \"The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods,\n     and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of\n     being unofficial. I don't know whether you observed it, Watson, but\n     the Colonel's manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am\n     inclined now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing\n     to him about the horse.\"\n\n     \"Certainly not without your permission.\"\n\n     \"And of course this is all quite a minor point compared to the\n     question of who killed John Straker.\"\n\n     \"And you will devote yourself to that?\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train.\"\n\n     I was thunderstruck by my friend's words. We had only been a few\n     hours in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation\n     which he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me.\n     Not a word more could I draw from him until we were back at the\n     trainer's house. The Colonel and the Inspector were awaiting us in\n     the parlor.\n\n     \"My friend and I return to town by the night-express,\" said Holmes.\n     \"We have had a charming little breath of your beautiful Dartmoor\n     air.\"\n\n     The Inspector opened his eyes, and the Colonel's lip curled in a\n     sneer.\n\n     \"So you despair of arresting the murderer of poor Straker,\" said he.\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders. \"There are certainly grave\n     difficulties in the way,\" said he. \"I have every hope, however, that\n     your horse will start upon Tuesday, and I beg that you will have your\n     jockey in readiness. Might I ask for a photograph of Mr. John\n     Straker?\"\n\n     The Inspector took one from an envelope and handed it to him.\n\n     \"My dear Gregory, you anticipate all my wants. If I might ask you to\n     wait here for an instant, I have a question which I should like to\n     put to the maid.\"\n\n     \"I must say that I am rather disappointed in our London consultant,\"\n     said Colonel Ross, bluntly, as my friend left the room. \"I do not see\n     that we are any further than when he came.\"\n\n     \"At least you have his assurance that your horse will run,\" said I.\n\n     \"Yes, I have his assurance,\" said the Colonel, with a shrug of his\n     shoulders. \"I should prefer to have the horse.\"\n\n     I was about to make some reply in defence of my friend when he\n     entered the room again.\n\n     \"Now, gentlemen,\" said he, \"I am quite ready for Tavistock.\"\n\n     As we stepped into the carriage one of the stable-lads held the door\n     open for us. A sudden idea seemed to occur to Holmes, for he leaned\n     forward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.\n\n     \"You have a few sheep in the paddock,\" he said. \"Who attends to\n     them?\"\n\n     \"I do, sir.\"\n\n     \"Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame,\n     sir.\"\n\n     I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and\n     rubbed his hands together.\n\n     \"A long shot, Watson; a very long shot,\" said he, pinching my arm.\n     \"Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic\n     among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!\"\n\n     Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion\n     which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the\n     Inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.\n\n     \"You consider that to be important?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Exceedingly so.\"\n\n     \"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?\"\n\n     \"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.\"\n\n     \"The dog did nothing in the night-time.\"\n\n     \"That was the curious incident,\" remarked Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     Four days later Holmes and I were again in the train, bound for\n     Winchester to see the race for the Wessex Cup. Colonel Ross met us by\n     appointment outside the station, and we drove in his drag to the\n     course beyond the town. His face was grave, and his manner was cold\n     in the extreme.\n\n     \"I have seen nothing of my horse,\" said he.\n\n     \"I suppose that you would know him when you saw him?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     The Colonel was very angry. \"I have been on the turf for twenty\n     years, and never was asked such a question as that before,\" said he.\n     \"A child would know Silver Blaze, with his white forehead and his\n     mottled off-foreleg.\"\n\n     \"How is the betting?\"\n\n     \"Well, that is the curious part of it. You could have got fifteen to\n     one yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter, until\n     you can hardly get three to one now.\"\n\n     \"Hum!\" said Holmes. \"Somebody knows something, that is clear.\"\n\n     As the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grand stand I glanced\n     at the card to see the entries.\n\n     Wessex Plate [it ran] 50 sovs. each h ft with 1000 sovs. added, for\n     four and five year olds. Second, £300. Third, £200. New course (one\n     mile and five furlongs).\n     \n     1. Mr. Heath Newton's The Negro. Red cap. Cinnamon jacket.\n     2. Colonel Wardlaw's Pugilist. Pink cap. Blue and black jacket.\n     3. Lord Backwater's Desborough. Yellow cap and sleeves.\n     4. Colonel Ross's Silver Blaze. Black cap. Red jacket.\n     5. Duke of Balmoral's Iris. Yellow and black stripes.\n     6. Lord Singleford's Rasper. Purple cap. Black sleeves.\n\n     \"We scratched our other one, and put all hopes on your word,\" said\n     the Colonel. \"Why, what is that? Silver Blaze favorite?\"\n\n     \"Five to four against Silver Blaze!\" roared the ring. \"Five to four\n     against Silver Blaze! Five to fifteen against Desborough! Five to\n     four on the field!\"\n\n     \"There are the numbers up,\" I cried. \"They are all six there.\"\n\n     \"All six there? Then my horse is running,\" cried the Colonel in great\n     agitation. \"But I don't see him. My colors have not passed.\"\n\n     \"Only five have passed. This must be he.\"\n\n     As I spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighting\n     enclosure and cantered past us, bearing on its back the well-known\n     black and red of the Colonel.\n\n     \"That's not my horse,\" cried the owner. \"That beast has not a white\n     hair upon its body. What is this that you have done, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Well, well, let us see how he gets on,\" said my friend,\n     imperturbably. For a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass.\n     \"Capital! An excellent start!\" he cried suddenly. \"There they are,\n     coming round the curve!\"\n\n     From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. The\n     six horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered\n     them, but half way up the yellow of the Mapleton stable showed to the\n     front. Before they reached us, however, Desborough's bolt was shot,\n     and the Colonel's horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a\n     good six lengths before its rival, the Duke of Balmoral's Iris making\n     a bad third.\n\n     \"It's my race, anyhow,\" gasped the Colonel, passing his hand over his\n     eyes. \"I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it. Don't\n     you think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, Mr.\n     Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Certainly, Colonel, you shall know everything. Let us all go round\n     and have a look at the horse together. Here he is,\" he continued, as\n     we made our way into the weighing enclosure, where only owners and\n     their friends find admittance. \"You have only to wash his face and\n     his leg in spirits of wine, and you will find that he is the same old\n     Silver Blaze as ever.\"\n\n     \"You take my breath away!\"\n\n     \"I found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of running\n     him just as he was sent over.\"\n\n     \"My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and\n     well. It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand\n     apologies for having doubted your ability. You have done me a great\n     service by recovering my horse. You would do me a greater still if\n     you could lay your hands on the murderer of John Straker.\"\n\n     \"I have done so,\" said Holmes quietly.\n\n     The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. \"You have got him!\n     Where is he, then?\"\n\n     \"He is here.\"\n\n     \"Here! Where?\"\n\n     \"In my company at the present moment.\"\n\n     The Colonel flushed angrily. \"I quite recognize that I am under\n     obligations to you, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, \"but I must regard what you\n     have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes laughed. \"I assure you that I have not associated you\n     with the crime, Colonel,\" said he. \"The real murderer is standing\n     immediately behind you.\" He stepped past and laid his hand upon the\n     glossy neck of the thoroughbred.\n\n     \"The horse!\" cried both the Colonel and myself.\n\n     \"Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was\n     done in self-defence, and that John Straker was a man who was\n     entirely unworthy of your confidence. But there goes the bell, and as\n     I stand to win a little on this next race, I shall defer a lengthy\n     explanation until a more fitting time.\"\n\n     We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as we\n     whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a short one\n     to Colonel Ross as well as to myself, as we listened to our\n     companion's narrative of the events which had occurred at the\n     Dartmoor training-stables upon the Monday night, and the means by\n     which he had unravelled them.\n\n     \"I confess,\" said he, \"that any theories which I had formed from the\n     newspaper reports were entirely erroneous. And yet there were\n     indications there, had they not been overlaid by other details which\n     concealed their true import. I went to Devonshire with the conviction\n     that Fitzroy Simpson was the true culprit, although, of course, I saw\n     that the evidence against him was by no means complete. It was while\n     I was in the carriage, just as we reached the trainer's house, that\n     the immense significance of the curried mutton occurred to me. You\n     may remember that I was distrait, and remained sitting after you had\n     all alighted. I was marvelling in my own mind how I could possibly\n     have overlooked so obvious a clue.\"\n\n     \"I confess,\" said the Colonel, \"that even now I cannot see how it\n     helps us.\"\n\n     \"It was the first link in my chain of reasoning. Powdered opium is by\n     no means tasteless. The flavor is not disagreeable, but it is\n     perceptible. Were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater would\n     undoubtedly detect it, and would probably eat no more. A curry was\n     exactly the medium which would disguise this taste. By no possible\n     supposition could this stranger, Fitzroy Simpson, have caused curry\n     to be served in the trainer's family that night, and it is surely too\n     monstrous a coincidence to suppose that he happened to come along\n     with powdered opium upon the very night when a dish happened to be\n     served which would disguise the flavor. That is unthinkable.\n     Therefore Simpson becomes eliminated from the case, and our attention\n     centers upon Straker and his wife, the only two people who could have\n     chosen curried mutton for supper that night. The opium was added\n     after the dish was set aside for the stable-boy, for the others had\n     the same for supper with no ill effects. Which of them, then, had\n     access to that dish without the maid seeing them?\n\n     \"Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of the\n     silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests\n     others. The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the\n     stables, and yet, though some one had been in and had fetched out a\n     horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft.\n     Obviously the midnight visitor was some one whom the dog knew well.\n\n     \"I was already convinced, or almost convinced, that John Straker went\n     down to the stables in the dead of the night and took out Silver\n     Blaze. For what purpose? For a dishonest one, obviously, or why\n     should he drug his own stable-boy? And yet I was at a loss to know\n     why. There have been cases before now where trainers have made sure\n     of great sums of money by laying against their own horses, through\n     agents, and then preventing them from winning by fraud. Sometimes it\n     is a pulling jockey. Sometimes it is some surer and subtler means.\n     What was it here? I hoped that the contents of his pockets might help\n     me to form a conclusion.\n\n     \"And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife which\n     was found in the dead man's hand, a knife which certainly no sane man\n     would choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr. Watson told us, a form of\n     knife which is used for the most delicate operations known in\n     surgery. And it was to be used for a delicate operation that night.\n     You must know, with your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel\n     Ross, that it is possible to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a\n     horse's ham, and to do it subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely\n     no trace. A horse so treated would develop a slight lameness, which\n     would be put down to a strain in exercise or a touch of rheumatism,\n     but never to foul play.\"\n\n     \"Villain! Scoundrel!\" cried the Colonel.\n\n     \"We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take the\n     horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have certainly\n     roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife.\n     It was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air.\"\n\n     \"I have been blind!\" cried the Colonel. \"Of course that was why he\n     needed the candle, and struck the match.\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings I was fortunate enough\n     to discover not only the method of the crime, but even its motives.\n     As a man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other\n     people's bills about in their pockets. We have most of us quite\n     enough to do to settle our own. I at once concluded that Straker was\n     leading a double life, and keeping a second establishment. The nature\n     of the bill showed that there was a lady in the case, and one who had\n     expensive tastes. Liberal as you are with your servants, one can\n     hardly expect that they can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for\n     their ladies. I questioned Mrs. Straker as to the dress without her\n     knowing it, and having satisfied myself that it had never reached\n     her, I made a note of the milliner's address, and felt that by\n     calling there with Straker's photograph I could easily dispose of the\n     mythical Derbyshire.\n\n     \"From that time on all was plain. Straker had led out the horse to a\n     hollow where his light would be invisible. Simpson in his flight had\n     dropped his cravat, and Straker had picked it up--with some idea,\n     perhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse's leg. Once in\n     the hollow, he had got behind the horse and had struck a light; but\n     the creature frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange\n     instinct of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had\n     lashed out, and the steel shoe had struck Straker full on the\n     forehead. He had already, in spite of the rain, taken off his\n     overcoat in order to do his delicate task, and so, as he fell, his\n     knife gashed his thigh. Do I make it clear?\"\n\n     \"Wonderful!\" cried the Colonel. \"Wonderful! You might have been\n     there!\"\n\n     \"My final shot was, I confess a very long one. It struck me that so\n     astute a man as Straker would not undertake this delicate\n     tendon-nicking without a little practice. What could he practice on?\n     My eyes fell upon the sheep, and I asked a question which, rather to\n     my surprise, showed that my surmise was correct.\n\n     \"When I returned to London I called upon the milliner, who had\n     recognized Straker as an excellent customer of the name of\n     Derbyshire, who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality for\n     expensive dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had plunged him\n     over head and ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot.\"\n\n     \"You have explained all but one thing,\" cried the Colonel. \"Where was\n     the horse?\"\n\n     \"Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. We must\n     have an amnesty in that direction, I think. This is Clapham Junction,\n     if I am not mistaken, and we shall be in Victoria in less than ten\n     minutes. If you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms, Colonel, I shall\n     be happy to give you any other details which might interest you.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 THE YELLOW FACE\n\n     [In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in\n     which my companion's singular gifts have made us the listeners to,\n     and eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural\n     that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures.\n     And this not so much for the sake of his reputations--for, indeed, it\n     was when he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility\n     were most admirable--but because where he failed it happened too\n     often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever\n     without a conclusion. Now and again, however, it chanced that even\n     when he erred, the truth was still discovered. I have noted of some\n     half-dozen cases of the kind of which \"The Adventure of the Musgrave\n     Ritual\" and that which I am about to recount are the two which\n     present the strongest features of interest.]\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's\n     sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was\n     undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever\n     seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of\n     energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save when there was some\n     professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely untiring and\n     indefatigable. That he should have kept himself in training under\n     such circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was usually of the\n     sparest, and his habits were simple to the verge of austerity. Save\n     for the occasional use of cocaine, he had no vices, and he only\n     turned to the drug as a protest against the monotony of existence\n     when cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting.\n\n     One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk\n     with me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were\n     breaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the\n     chestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves.\n     For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most\n     part, as befits two men who know each other intimately. It was nearly\n     five before we were back in Baker Street once more.\n\n     \"Beg pardon, sir,\" said our page-boy, as he opened the door. \"There's\n     been a gentleman here asking for you, sir.\"\n\n     Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. \"So much for afternoon walks!\"\n     said he. \"Has this gentleman gone, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Didn't you ask him in?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; he came in.\"\n\n     \"How long did he wait?\"\n\n     \"Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir, a-walkin'\n     and a-stampin' all the time he was here. I was waitin' outside the\n     door, sir, and I could hear him. At last he outs into the passage,\n     and he cries, 'Is that man never goin' to come?' Those were his very\n     words, sir. 'You'll only need to wait a little longer,' says I. 'Then\n     I'll wait in the open air, for I feel half choked,' says he. 'I'll be\n     back before long.' And with that he ups and he outs, and all I could\n     say wouldn't hold him back.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, you did your best,\" said Holmes, as we walked into our\n     room. \"It's very annoying, though, Watson. I was badly in need of a\n     case, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of\n     importance. Hullo! That's not your pipe on the table. He must have\n     left his behind him. A nice old brier with a good long stem of what\n     the tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouthpieces\n     there are in London? Some people think that a fly in it is a sign.\n     Well, he must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind\n     him which he evidently values highly.\"\n\n     \"How do you know that he values it highly?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven and\n     sixpence. Now it has, you see, been twice mended, once in the wooden\n     stem and once in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as you\n     observe, with silver bands, must have cost more than the pipe did\n     originally. The man must value the pipe highly when he prefers to\n     patch it up rather than buy a new one with the same money.\"\n\n     \"Anything else?\" I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about in\n     his hand, and staring at it in his peculiar pensive way.\n\n     He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger, as a\n     professor might who was lecturing on a bone.\n\n     \"Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,\" said he. \"Nothing\n     has more individuality, save perhaps watches and bootlaces. The\n     indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very\n     important. The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with\n     an excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need\n     to practise economy.\"\n\n     My friend threw out the information in a very offhand way, but I saw\n     that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.\n\n     \"You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling\n     pipe,\" said I.\n\n     \"This is Grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce,\" Holmes answered,\n     knocking a little out on his palm. \"As he might get an excellent\n     smoke for half the price, he has no need to practise economy.\"\n\n     \"And the other points?\"\n\n     \"He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets.\n     You can see that it is quite charred all down one side. Of course a\n     match could not have done that. Why should a man hold a match to the\n     side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a lamp without getting\n     the bowl charred. And it is all on the right side of the pipe. From\n     that I gather that he is a left-handed man. You hold your own pipe to\n     the lamp, and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the\n     left side to the flame. You might do it once the other way, but not\n     as a constancy. This has always been held so. Then he has bitten\n     through his amber. It takes a muscular, energetic fellow, and one\n     with a good set of teeth, to do that. But if I am not mistaken I hear\n     him upon the stair, so we shall have something more interesting than\n     his pipe to study.\"\n\n     An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the\n     room. He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-gray suit, and\n     carried a brown wide-awake in his hand. I should have put him at\n     about thirty, though he was really some years older.\n\n     \"I beg your pardon,\" said he, with some embarrassment; \"I suppose I\n     should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact\n     is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that.\"\n     He passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed,\n     and then fell rather than sat down upon a chair.\n\n     \"I can see that you have not slept for a night or two,\" said Holmes,\n     in his easy, genial way. \"That tries a man's nerves more than work,\n     and more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help you?\"\n\n     \"I wanted your advice, sir. I don't know what to do and my whole life\n     seems to have gone to pieces.\"\n\n     \"You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?\"\n\n     \"Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man--as a man of\n     the world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to God\n     you'll be able to tell me.\"\n\n     He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that\n     to speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all\n     through was overriding his inclinations.\n\n     \"It's a very delicate thing,\" said he. \"One does not like to speak of\n     one's domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful to discuss the\n     conduct of one's wife with two men whom I have never seen before.\n     It's horrible to have to do it. But I've got to the end of my tether,\n     and I must have advice.\"\n\n     \"My dear Mr. Grant Munro--\" began Holmes.\n\n     Our visitor sprang from his chair. \"What!\" he cried, \"you know my\n     name?\"\n\n     \"If you wish to preserve your incognito,\" said Holmes, smiling, \"I\n     would suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of\n     your hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you\n     are addressing. I was about to say that my friend and I have listened\n     to a good many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the\n     good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. I trust that we\n     may do as much for you. Might I beg you, as time may prove to be of\n     importance, to furnish me with the facts of your case without further\n     delay?\"\n\n     Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he found\n     it bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that\n     he was a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his\n     nature, more likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then\n     suddenly, with a fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who\n     throws reserve to the winds, he began.\n\n     \"The facts are these, Mr. Holmes,\" said he. \"I am a married man, and\n     have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have\n     loved each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two that ever\n     were joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought or\n     word or deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung\n     up a barrier between us, and I find that there is something in her\n     life and in her thought of which I know as little as if she were the\n     woman who brushes by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want\n     to know why.\n\n     \"Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I go\n     any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don't let there be any\n     mistake about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and\n     never more than now. I know it. I feel it. I don't want to argue\n     about that. A man can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But\n     there's this secret between us, and we can never be the same until it\n     is cleared.\"\n\n     \"Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro,\" said Holmes, with some\n     impatience.\n\n     \"I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. She was a widow\n     when I met her first, though quite young--only twenty-five. Her name\n     then was Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young, and\n     lived in the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was\n     a lawyer with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow\n     fever broke out badly in the place, and both husband and child died\n     of it. I have seen his death certificate. This sickened her of\n     America, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in\n     Middlesex. I may mention that her husband had left her comfortably\n     off, and that she had a capital of about four thousand five hundred\n     pounds, which had been so well invested by him that it returned an\n     average of seven per cent. She had only been six months at Pinner\n     when I met her; we fell in love with each other, and we married a few\n     weeks afterwards.\n\n     \"I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or\n     eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice\n     eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was very\n     countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an inn\n     and two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other\n     side of the field which faces us, and except those there were no\n     houses until you got half way to the station. My business took me\n     into town at certain seasons, but in summer I had less to do, and\n     then in our country home my wife and I were just as happy as could be\n     wished. I tell you that there never was a shadow between us until\n     this accursed affair began.\n\n     \"There's one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When we\n     married, my wife made over all her property to me--rather against my\n     will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went\n     wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was done. Well, about\n     six weeks ago she came to me.\n\n     \"'Jack,' said she, 'when you took my money you said that if ever I\n     wanted any I was to ask you for it.'\n\n     \"'Certainly,' said I. 'It's all your own.'\n\n     \"'Well,' said she, 'I want a hundred pounds.'\n\n     \"I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply a\n     new dress or something of the kind that she was after.\n\n     \"'What on earth for?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Oh,' said she, in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my\n     banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'\n\n     \"'If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said I.\n\n     \"'Oh, yes, I really mean it.'\n\n     \"'And you won't tell me what you want it for?'\n\n     \"'Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.'\n\n     \"So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time that\n     there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a check, and I\n     never thought any more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with\n     what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to mention it.\n\n     \"Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our\n     house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to\n     go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice\n     little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling\n     down there, for trees are always a neighborly kind of things. The\n     cottage had been standing empty this eight months, and it was a pity,\n     for it was a pretty two storied place, with an old-fashioned porch\n     and honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and thought what a\n     neat little homestead it would make.\n\n     \"Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way, when\n     I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and\n     things lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear\n     that the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, and wondered\n     what sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. And as I\n     looked I suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one\n     of the upper windows.\n\n     \"I don't know what there was about that face, Mr. Holmes, but it\n     seemed to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way off,\n     so that I could not make out the features, but there was something\n     unnatural and inhuman about the face. That was the impression that I\n     had, and I moved quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person\n     who was watching me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared,\n     so suddenly that it seemed to have been plucked away into the\n     darkness of the room. I stood for five minutes thinking the business\n     over, and trying to analyze my impressions. I could not tell if the\n     face were that of a man or a woman. It had been too far from me for\n     that. But its color was what had impressed me most. It was of a livid\n     chalky white, and with something set and rigid about it which was\n     shockingly unnatural. So disturbed was I that I determined to see a\n     little more of the new inmates of the cottage. I approached and\n     knocked at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt\n     woman with a harsh, forbidding face.\n\n     \"'What may you be wantin'?' she asked, in a Northern accent.\n\n     \"'I am your neighbor over yonder,' said I, nodding towards my house.\n     'I see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could\n     be of any help to you in any--'\n\n     \"'Ay, we'll just ask ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door\n     in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and\n     walked home. All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my\n     mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the\n     rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former\n     to my wife, for she is a nervous, highly strung woman, and I had no\n     wish that she would share the unpleasant impression which had been\n     produced upon myself. I remarked to her, however, before I fell\n     asleep, that the cottage was now occupied, to which she returned no\n     reply.\n\n     \"I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest\n     in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night. And\n     yet somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the\n     slight excitement produced by my little adventure or not I know not,\n     but I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was\n     dimly conscious that something was going on in the room, and\n     gradually became aware that my wife had dressed herself and was\n     slipping on her mantle and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur\n     out some sleepy words of surprise or remonstrance at this untimely\n     preparation, when suddenly my half-opened eyes fell upon her face,\n     illuminated by the candle-light, and astonishment held me dumb. She\n     wore an expression such as I had never seen before--such as I should\n     have thought her incapable of assuming. She was deadly pale and\n     breathing fast, glancing furtively towards the bed as she fastened\n     her mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. Then, thinking that I was\n     still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant\n     later I heard a sharp creaking which could only come from the hinges\n     of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my knuckles against the\n     rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then I took my watch\n     from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What on this\n     earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in the\n     morning?\n\n     \"I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind\n     and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the\n     more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still\n     puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close again, and her\n     footsteps coming up the stairs.\n\n     \"'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.\n\n     \"She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and\n     that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was\n     something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been a\n     woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her\n     slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own\n     husband spoke to her.\n\n     \"'You awake, Jack!' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought\n     that nothing could awake you.'\n\n     \"'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.\n\n     \"'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see\n     that her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her\n     mantle. 'Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life\n     before. The fact is that I felt as though I were choking, and had a\n     perfect longing for a breath of fresh air. I really think that I\n     should have fainted if I had not gone out. I stood at the door for a\n     few minutes, and now I am quite myself again.'\n\n     \"All the time that she was telling me this story she never once\n     looked in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual\n     tones. It was evident to me that she was saying what was false. I\n     said nothing in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart,\n     with my mind filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions.\n     What was it that my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been\n     during that strange expedition? I felt that I should have no peace\n     until I knew, and yet I shrank from asking her again after once she\n     had told me what was false. All the rest of the night I tossed and\n     tumbled, framing theory after theory, each more unlikely than the\n     last.\n\n     \"I should have gone to the City that day, but I was too disturbed in\n     my mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. My wife\n     seemed to be as upset as myself, and I could see from the little\n     questioning glances which she kept shooting at me that she understood\n     that I disbelieved her statement, and that she was at her wits' end\n     what to do. We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and\n     immediately afterwards I went out for a walk, that I might think the\n     matter out in the fresh morning air.\n\n     \"I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour in the grounds,\n     and was back in Norbury by one o'clock. It happened that my way took\n     me past the cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the\n     windows, and to see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange face\n     which had looked out at me on the day before. As I stood there,\n     imagine my surprise, Mr. Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my\n     wife walked out.\n\n     \"I was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her; but my\n     emotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face\n     when our eyes met. She seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back\n     inside the house again; and then, seeing how useless all concealment\n     must be, she came forward, with a very white face and frightened eyes\n     which belied the smile upon her lips.\n\n     \"'Ah, Jack,' she said, 'I have just been in to see if I can be of any\n     assistance to our new neighbors. Why do you look at me like that,\n     Jack? You are not angry with me?'\n\n     \"'So,' said I, 'this is where you went during the night.'\n\n     \"'What do you mean?' she cried.\n\n     \"'You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people, that you\n     should visit them at such an hour?'\n\n     \"'I have not been here before.'\n\n     \"'How can you tell me what you know is false?' I cried. 'Your very\n     voice changes as you speak. When have I ever had a secret from you? I\n     shall enter that cottage, and I shall probe the matter to the\n     bottom.'\n\n     \"'No, no, Jack, for God's sake!' she gasped, in uncontrollable\n     emotion. Then, as I approached the door, she seized my sleeve and\n     pulled me back with convulsive strength.\n\n     \"'I implore you not to do this, Jack,' she cried. 'I swear that I\n     will tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of\n     it if you enter that cottage.' Then, as I tried to shake her off, she\n     clung to me in a frenzy of entreaty.\n\n     \"'Trust me, Jack!' she cried. 'Trust me only this once. You will\n     never have cause to regret it. You know that I would not have a\n     secret from you if it were not for your own sake. Our whole lives are\n     at stake in this. If you come home with me, all will be well. If you\n     force your way into that cottage, all is over between us.'\n\n     \"There was such earnestness, such despair, in her manner that her\n     words arrested me, and I stood irresolute before the door.\n\n     \"'I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said\n     I at last. 'It is that this mystery comes to an end from now. You are\n     at liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that\n     there shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept\n     from my knowledge. I am willing to forget those which are passed if\n     you will promise that there shall be no more in the future.'\n\n     \"'I was sure that you would trust me,' she cried, with a great sigh\n     of relief. 'It shall be just as you wish. Come away--oh, come away up\n     to the house.'\n\n     \"Still pulling at my sleeve, she led me away from the cottage. As we\n     went I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us\n     out of the upper window. What link could there be between that\n     creature and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had\n     seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle,\n     and yet I knew that my mind could never know ease again until I had\n     solved it.\n\n     \"For two days after this I stayed at home, and my wife appeared to\n     abide loyally by our engagement, for, as far as I know, she never\n     stirred out of the house. On the third day, however, I had ample\n     evidence that her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from\n     this secret influence which drew her away from her husband and her\n     duty.\n\n     \"I had gone into town on that day, but I returned by the 2.40 instead\n     of the 3.36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house the maid\n     ran into the hall with a startled face.\n\n     \"'Where is your mistress?' I asked.\n\n     \"'I think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.\n\n     \"My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to\n     make sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I happened to\n     glance out of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom I\n     had just been speaking running across the field in the direction of\n     the cottage. Then of course I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife\n     had gone over there, and had asked the servant to call her if I\n     should return. Tingling with anger, I rushed down and hurried across,\n     determined to end the matter once and forever. I saw my wife and the\n     maid hurrying back along the lane, but I did not stop to speak with\n     them. In the cottage lay the secret which was casting a shadow over\n     my life. I vowed that, come what might, it should be a secret no\n     longer. I did not even knock when I reached it, but turned the handle\n     and rushed into the passage.\n\n     \"It was all still and quiet upon the ground floor. In the kitchen a\n     kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up\n     in the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen\n     before. I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then\n     I rushed up the stairs, only to find two other rooms empty and\n     deserted at the top. There was no one at all in the whole house. The\n     furniture and pictures were of the most common and vulgar\n     description, save in the one chamber at the window of which I had\n     seen the strange face. That was comfortable and elegant, and all my\n     suspicions rose into a fierce bitter flame when I saw that on the\n     mantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph of my wife,\n     which had been taken at my request only three months ago.\n\n     \"I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely\n     empty. Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had\n     never had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my\n     house; but I was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing\n     past her, I made my way into my study. She followed me, however,\n     before I could close the door.\n\n     \"'I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack,' said she; 'but if you\n     knew all the circumstances I am sure that you would forgive me.'\n\n     \"'Tell me everything, then,' said I.\n\n     \"'I cannot, Jack, I cannot,' she cried.\n\n     \"'Until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage,\n     and who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never\n     be any confidence between us,' said I, and breaking away from her, I\n     left the house. That was yesterday, Mr. Holmes, and I have not seen\n     her since, nor do I know anything more about this strange business.\n     It is the first shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken\n     me that I do not know what I should do for the best. Suddenly this\n     morning it occurred to me that you were the man to advise me, so I\n     have hurried to you now, and I place myself unreservedly in your\n     hands. If there is any point which I have not made clear, pray\n     question me about it. But, above all, tell me quickly what I am to\n     do, for this misery is more than I can bear.\"\n\n     Holmes and I had listened with the utmost interest to this\n     extraordinary statement, which had been delivered in the jerky,\n     broken fashion of a man who is under the influence of extreme\n     emotions. My companion sat silent for some time, with his chin upon\n     his hand, lost in thought.\n\n     \"Tell me,\" said he at last, \"could you swear that this was a man's\n     face which you saw at the window?\"\n\n     \"Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it, so that it\n     is impossible for me to say.\"\n\n     \"You appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it.\"\n\n     \"It seemed to be of an unnatural color, and to have a strange\n     rigidity about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a\n     jerk.\"\n\n     \"How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?\"\n\n     \"Nearly two months.\"\n\n     \"Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?\"\n\n     \"No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death,\n     and all her papers were destroyed.\"\n\n     \"And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it.\"\n\n     \"Yes; she got a duplicate after the fire.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever meet any one who knew her in America?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Or get letters from it?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If\n     the cottage is now permanently deserted we may have some difficulty.\n     If, on the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were\n     warned of your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then\n     they may be back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me\n     advise you, then, to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of\n     the cottage again. If you have reason to believe that is inhabited,\n     do not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We\n     shall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then\n     very soon get to the bottom of the business.\"\n\n     \"And if it is still empty?\"\n\n     \"In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you.\n     Good-bye, and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really\n     have a cause for it.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,\" said my companion,\n     as he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. \"What\n     do you make of it?\"\n\n     \"It had an ugly sound,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.\"\n\n     \"And who is the blackmailer?\"\n\n     \"Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room\n     in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my\n     word, Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid\n     face at the window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds.\"\n\n     \"You have a theory?\"\n\n     \"Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn\n     out to be correct. This woman's first husband is in that cottage.\"\n\n     \"Why do you think so?\"\n\n     \"How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one\n     should not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like\n     this: This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some\n     hateful qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome\n     disease, and became a leper or an imbecile? She flies from him at\n     last, returns to England, changes her name, and starts her life, as\n     she thinks, afresh. She has been married three years, and believes\n     that her position is quite secure, having shown her husband the death\n     certificate of some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her\n     whereabouts is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose,\n     by some unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid.\n     They write to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks\n     for a hundred pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. They come in\n     spite of it, and when the husband mentions casually to the wife that\n     there are new-comers in the cottage, she knows in some way that they\n     are her pursuers. She waits until her husband is asleep, and then she\n     rushes down to endeavor to persuade them to leave her in peace.\n     Having no success, she goes again next morning, and her husband meets\n     her, as he has told us, as she comes out. She promises him then not\n     to go there again, but two days afterwards the hope of getting rid of\n     those dreadful neighbors was too strong for her, and she made another\n     attempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been\n     demanded from her. In the midst of this interview the maid rushed in\n     to say that the master had come home, on which the wife, knowing that\n     he would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out\n     at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which was\n     mentioned as standing near. In this way he found the place deserted.\n     I shall be very much surprised, however, if it still so when he\n     reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think of my theory?\"\n\n     \"It is all surmise.\"\n\n     \"But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our\n     knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to\n     reconsider it. We can do nothing more until we have a message from\n     our friend at Norbury.\"\n\n     But we had not a very long time to wait for that. It came just as we\n     had finished our tea.\n\n     \"The cottage is still tenanted,\" it said. \"Have seen the face again\n     at the window. Will meet the seven o'clock train, and will take no\n     steps until you arrive.\"\n\n     He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see\n     in the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and\n     quivering with agitation.\n\n     \"They are still there, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, laying his hand hard\n     upon my friend's sleeve. \"I saw lights in the cottage as I came down.\n     We shall settle it now once and for all.\"\n\n     \"What is your plan, then?\" asked Holmes, as he walked down the dark\n     tree-lined road.\n\n     \"I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the\n     house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses.\"\n\n     \"You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife's warning\n     that it is better that you should not solve the mystery?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I am determined.\"\n\n     \"Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than\n     indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally, we\n     are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong; but I think that it is\n     worth it.\"\n\n     It was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned\n     from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on\n     either side. Mr. Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and\n     we stumbled after him as best we could.\n\n     \"There are the lights of my house,\" he murmured, pointing to a\n     glimmer among the trees. \"And here is the cottage which I am going to\n     enter.\"\n\n     We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the\n     building close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black\n     foreground showed that the door was not quite closed, and one window\n     in the upper story was brightly illuminated. As we looked, we saw a\n     dark blur moving across the blind.\n\n     \"There is that creature!\" cried Grant Munro. \"You can see for\n     yourselves that some one is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon\n     know all.\"\n\n     We approached the door; but suddenly a woman appeared out of the\n     shadow and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. I could not\n     see her face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an\n     attitude of entreaty.\n\n     \"For God's sake, don't Jack!\" she cried. \"I had a presentiment that\n     you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me\n     again, and you will never have cause to regret it.\"\n\n     \"I have trusted you too long, Effie,\" he cried, sternly. \"Leave go of\n     me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter\n     once and forever!\" He pushed her to one side, and we followed closely\n     after him. As he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of\n     him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an\n     instant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed\n     into the lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.\n\n     It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning\n     upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping\n     over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face\n     was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed\n     in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked\n     round to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she\n     turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features\n     were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the\n     mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind\n     the child's ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, an there was\n     a little coal black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in\n     amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy\n     with her merriment; but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand\n     clutching his throat.\n\n     \"My God!\" he cried. \"What can be the meaning of this?\"\n\n     \"I will tell you the meaning of it,\" cried the lady, sweeping into\n     the room with a proud, set face. \"You have forced me, against my own\n     judgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My\n     husband died at Atlanta. My child survived.\"\n\n     \"Your child?\"\n\n     She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. \"You have never seen\n     this open.\"\n\n     \"I understood that it did not open.\"\n\n     She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait\n     within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but\n     bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.\n\n     \"That is John Hebron, of Atlanta,\" said the lady, \"and a nobler man\n     never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed\n     him, but never once while he lived did I for an instant regret it. It\n     was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather\n     than mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker\n     far than ever her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear\n     little girlie, and her mother's pet.\" The little creature ran across\n     at the words and nestled up against the lady's dress. \"When I left\n     her in America,\" she continued, \"it was only because her health was\n     weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the\n     care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant. Never\n     for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when\n     chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared\n     to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should\n     lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose\n     between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little\n     girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you,\n     but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At\n     last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child\n     once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the\n     danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few\n     weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her\n     instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a\n     neighbor, without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I\n     pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the\n     house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands\n     so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip\n     about there being a black child in the neighborhood. If I had been\n     less cautious I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with\n     fear that you should learn the truth.\n\n     \"It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should\n     have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement,\n     and so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake\n     you. But you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles.\n     Next day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained\n     from pursuing your advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse\n     and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at\n     the front one. And now to-night you at last know all, and I ask you\n     what is to become of us, my child and me?\" She clasped her hands and\n     waited for an answer.\n\n     It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and\n     when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted\n     the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held\n     his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.\n\n     \"We can talk it over more comfortably at home,\" said he. \"I am not a\n     very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you\n     have given me credit for being.\"\n\n     Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my\n     sleeve as we came out.\n\n     \"I think,\" said he, \"that we shall be of more use in London than in\n     Norbury.\"\n\n     Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when\n     he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.\n\n     \"Watson,\" said he, \"if it should ever strike you that I am getting a\n     little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case\n     than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be\n     infinitely obliged to you.\" \n\n\n\n\n\n\n                            THE STOCK-BROKER'S CLERK\n\n     Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington\n     district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time\n     an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the\n     nature of St. Vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much\n     thinned it. The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he\n     who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the\n     curative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his\n     drugs. Thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until\n     when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to\n     little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in\n     my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years\n     the concern would be as flourishing as ever.\n\n     For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very\n     closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I\n     was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere\n     himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore,\n     when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical\n     Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the\n     high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion's voice.\n\n     \"Ah, my dear Watson,\" said he, striding into the room, \"I am very\n     delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered\n     from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the\n     Sign of Four.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, we are both very well,\" said I, shaking him warmly by the\n     hand.\n\n     \"And I hope, also,\" he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair,\n     \"that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the\n     interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" I answered, \"it was only last night that I was\n     looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results.\"\n\n     \"I trust that you don't consider your collection closed.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of\n     such experiences.\"\n\n     \"To-day, for example?\"\n\n     \"Yes, to-day, if you like.\"\n\n     \"And as far off as Birmingham?\"\n\n     \"Certainly, if you wish it.\"\n\n     \"And the practice?\"\n\n     \"I do my neighbor's when he goes. He is always ready to work off the\n     debt.\"\n\n     \"Ha! Nothing could be better,\" said Holmes, leaning back in his chair\n     and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. \"I perceive\n     that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little\n     trying.\"\n\n     \"I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last\n     week. I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it.\"\n\n     \"So you have. You look remarkably robust.\"\n\n     \"How, then, did you know of it?\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, you know my methods.\"\n\n     \"You deduced it, then?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"And from what?\"\n\n     \"From your slippers.\"\n\n     I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. \"How\n     on earth--\" I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was\n     asked.\n\n     \"Your slippers are new,\" he said. \"You could not have had them more\n     than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting\n     to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have\n     got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a\n     small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon\n     it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been\n     sitting with our feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would\n     hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in his full\n     health.\"\n\n     Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when\n     it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his\n     smile had a tinge of bitterness.\n\n     \"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain,\" said he.\n     \"Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to\n     come to Birmingham, then?\"\n\n     \"Certainly. What is the case?\"\n\n     \"You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a\n     four-wheeler. Can you come at once?\"\n\n     \"In an instant.\" I scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs\n     to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the\n     door-step.\n\n     \"Your neighbor is a doctor,\" said he, nodding at the brass plate.\n\n     \"Yes; he bought a practice as I did.\"\n\n     \"An old-established one?\"\n\n     \"Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were\n     built.\"\n\n     \"Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two.\"\n\n     \"I think I did. But how do you know?\"\n\n     \"By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his.\n     But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall Pycroft. Allow\n     me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have\n     only just time to catch our train.\"\n\n     The man whom I found myself facing was a well built,\n     fresh-complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a\n     slight, crisp, yellow mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a\n     neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was--a smart\n     young City man, of the class who have been labeled cockneys, but who\n     give us our crack volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine\n     athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. His\n     round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners\n     of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical\n     distress. It was not, however, until we were all in a first-class\n     carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham that I was\n     able to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock\n     Holmes.\n\n     \"We have a clear run here of seventy minutes,\" Holmes remarked. \"I\n     want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting\n     experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if\n     possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events\n     again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it,\n     or may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those\n     unusual and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to\n     me. Now, Mr. Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again.\"\n\n     Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.\n\n     \"The worst of the story is,\" said he, \"that I show myself up as such\n     a confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and I don't\n     see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and\n     get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnnie I have been.\n     I'm not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this\n     with me:\n\n     \"I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens,\n     but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan,\n     as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with\n     them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial\n     when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift,\n     the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were\n     lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect\n     frost for a long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at\n     Coxon's, and I had saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my\n     way through that and out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of\n     my tether at last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the\n     advertisements or the envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my\n     boots paddling up office stairs, and I seemed just as far from\n     getting a billet as ever.\n\n     \"At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson & Williams's, the great\n     stock-broking firm in Lombard Street. I dare say E. C. is not much in\n     your line, but I can tell you that this is about the richest house in\n     London. The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent\n     in my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of\n     getting it. Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would\n     appear next Monday I might take over my new duties at once, provided\n     that my appearance was satisfactory. No one knows how these things\n     are worked. Some people say that the manager just plunges his hand\n     into the heap and takes the first that comes. Anyhow it was my\n     innings that time, and I don't ever wish to feel better pleased. The\n     screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties just about the same as\n     at Coxon's.\n\n     \"And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings\n     out Hampstead way, 17 Potter's Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a\n     smoke that very evening after I had been promised the appointment,\n     when up came my landlady with a card which had \"Arthur Pinner,\n     Financial Agent,\" printed upon it. I had never heard the name before\n     and could not imagine what he wanted with me; but, of course, I asked\n     her to show him up. In he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired,\n     dark-eyed, black-bearded man, with a touch of the sheeny about his\n     nose. He had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a\n     man who knew the value of time.\n\n     \"'Mr. Hall Pycroft, I believe?' said he.\n\n     \"'Yes, sir,' I answered, pushing a chair towards him.\n\n     \"'Lately engaged at Coxon & Woodhouse's?'\n\n     \"'Yes, sir.'\n\n     \"'And now on the staff of Mawson's.'\n\n     \"'Quite so.'\n\n     \"'Well,' said he, 'the fact is that I have heard some really\n     extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember\n     Parker, who used to be Coxon's manager? He can never say enough about\n     it.'\n\n     \"Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty sharp\n     in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the\n     City in this fashion.\n\n     \"'You have a good memory?' said he.\n\n     \"'Pretty fair,' I answered, modestly.\n\n     \"'Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of\n     work?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Yes. I read the stock exchange list every morning.'\n\n     \"'Now that shows real application!' he cried. 'That is the way to\n     prosper! You won't mind my testing you, will you? Let me see. How are\n     Ayrshires?'\n\n     \"'A hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and\n     seven-eighths.'\n\n     \"'And New Zealand consolidated?'\n\n     \"'A hundred and four.'\n\n     \"'And British Broken Hills?'\n\n     \"'Seven to seven-and-six.'\n\n     \"'Wonderful!' he cried, with his hands up. 'This quite fits in with\n     all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to\n     be a clerk at Mawson's!'\n\n     \"This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. 'Well,' said\n     I, 'other people don't think quite so much of me as you seem to do,\n     Mr. Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am\n     very glad to have it.'\n\n     \"'Pooh, man; you should soar above it. You are not in your true\n     sphere. Now, I'll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to\n     offer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when\n     compared with Mawson's, it's light to dark. Let me see. When do you\n     go to Mawson's?'\n\n     \"'On Monday.'\n\n     \"'Ha, ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you\n     don't go there at all.'\n\n     \"'Not go to Mawson's?'\n\n     \"'No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the\n     Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with a hundred and\n     thirty-four branches in the towns and villages of France, not\n     counting one in Brussels and one in San Remo.'\n\n     \"This took my breath away. 'I never heard of it,' said I.\n\n     \"'Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was\n     all privately subscribed, and it's too good a thing to let the public\n     into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board\n     after allotment as managing director. He knew I was in the swim down\n     here, and asked me to pick up a good man cheap. A young, pushing man\n     with plenty of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought\n     me here tonight. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to\n     start with.'\n\n     \"'Five hundred a year!' I shouted.\n\n     \"'Only that at the beginning; but you are to have an overriding\n     commission of one per cent on all business done by your agents, and\n     you may take my word for it that this will come to more than your\n     salary.'\n\n     \"'But I know nothing about hardware.'\n\n     \"'Tut, my boy; you know about figures.'\n\n     \"My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in my chair. But\n     suddenly a little chill of doubt came upon me.\n\n     \"'I must be frank with you,' said I. 'Mawson only gives me two\n     hundred, but Mawson is safe. Now, really, I know so little about your\n     company that--'\n\n     \"'Ah, smart, smart!' he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. 'You\n     are the very man for us. You are not to be talked over, and quite\n     right, too. Now, here's a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think\n     that we can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an\n     advance upon your salary.'\n\n     \"'That is very handsome,' said I. 'When should I take over my new\n     duties?'\n\n     \"'Be in Birmingham to-morrow at one,' said he. 'I have a note in my\n     pocket here which you will take to my brother. You will find him at\n     126b Corporation Street, where the temporary offices of the company\n     are situated. Of course he must confirm your engagement, but between\n     ourselves it will be all right.'\n\n     \"'Really, I hardly know how to express my gratitude, Mr. Pinner,'\n     said I.\n\n     \"'Not at all, my boy. You have only got your desserts. There are one\n     or two small things--mere formalities--which I must arrange with you.\n     You have a bit of paper beside you there. Kindly write upon it \"I am\n     perfectly willing to act as business manager to the Franco-Midland\n     Hardware Company, Limited, at a minimum salary of £500.\"'\n\n     \"I did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket.\n\n     \"'There is one other detail,' said he. 'What do you intend to do\n     about Mawson's?'\n\n     \"I had forgotten all about Mawson's in my joy. 'I'll write and\n     resign,' said I.\n\n     \"'Precisely what I don't want you to do. I had a row over you with\n     Mawson's manager. I had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very\n     offensive; accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the\n     firm, and that sort of thing. At last I fairly lost my temper. \"If\n     you want good men you should pay them a good price,\" said I.\n\n     \"'\"He would rather have our small price than your big one,\" said he.\n\n     \"'\"I'll lay you a fiver,\" said I, \"that when he has my offer you'll\n     never so much as hear from him again.\"\n\n     \"'\"Done!\" said he. \"We picked him out of the gutter, and he won't\n     leave us so easily.\" Those were his very words.'\n\n     \"'The impudent scoundrel!' I cried. 'I've never so much as seen him\n     in my life. Why should I consider him in any way? I shall certainly\n     not write if you would rather I didn't.'\n\n     \"'Good! That's a promise,' said he, rising from his chair. 'Well, I'm\n     delighted to have got so good a man for my brother. Here's your\n     advance of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. Make a note of\n     the address, 126b Corporation Street, and remember that one o'clock\n     to-morrow is your appointment. Good-night; and may you have all the\n     fortune that you deserve!'\n\n     \"That's just about all that passed between us, as near as I can\n     remember. You can imagine, Dr. Watson, how pleased I was at such an\n     extraordinary bit of good fortune. I sat up half the night hugging\n     myself over it, and next day I was off to Birmingham in a train that\n     would take me in plenty time for my appointment. I took my things to\n     a hotel in New Street, and then I made my way to the address which\n     had been given me.\n\n     \"It was a quarter of an hour before my time, but I thought that would\n     make no difference. 126b was a passage between two large shops, which\n     led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let\n     as offices to companies or professional men. The names of the\n     occupants were painted at the bottom on the wall, but there was no\n     such name as the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood\n     for a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the\n     whole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and\n     addressed me. He was very like the chap I had seen the night before,\n     the same figure and voice, but he was clean shaven and his hair was\n     lighter.\n\n     \"'Are you Mr. Hall Pycroft?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Yes,' said I.\n\n     \"'Oh! I was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. I\n     had a note from my brother this morning in which he sang your praises\n     very loudly.'\n\n     \"'I was just looking for the offices when you came.'\n\n     \"'We have not got our name up yet, for we only secured these\n     temporary premises last week. Come up with me, and we will talk the\n     matter over.'\n\n     \"I followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there, right\n     under the slates, were a couple of empty, dusty little rooms,\n     uncarpeted and uncurtained, into which he led me. I had thought of a\n     great office with shining tables and rows of clerks, such as I was\n     used to, and I dare say I stared rather straight at the two deal\n     chairs and one little table, which, with a ledger and a waste paper\n     basket, made up the whole furniture.\n\n     \"'Don't be disheartened, Mr. Pycroft,' said my new acquaintance,\n     seeing the length of my face. 'Rome was not built in a day, and we\n     have lots of money at our backs, though we don't cut much dash yet in\n     offices. Pray sit down, and let me have your letter.'\n\n     \"I gave it to him, and her read it over very carefully.\n\n     \"'You seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother Arthur,'\n     said he; 'and I know that he is a pretty shrewd judge. He swears by\n     London, you know; and I by Birmingham; but this time I shall follow\n     his advice. Pray consider yourself definitely engaged.'\n\n     \"'What are my duties?' I asked.\n\n     \"'You will eventually manage the great depot in Paris, which will\n     pour a flood of English crockery into the shops of a hundred and\n     thirty-four agents in France. The purchase will be completed in a\n     week, and meanwhile you will remain in Birmingham and make yourself\n     useful.'\n\n     \"'How?'\n\n     \"For answer, he took a big red book out of a drawer.\n\n     \"'This is a directory of Paris,' said he, 'with the trades after the\n     names of the people. I want you to take it home with you, and to mark\n     off all the hardware sellers, with their addresses. It would be of\n     the greatest use to me to have them.'\n\n     \"'Surely there are classified lists?' I suggested.\n\n     \"'Not reliable ones. Their system is different from ours. Stick at\n     it, and let me have the lists by Monday, at twelve. Good-day, Mr.\n     Pycroft. If you continue to show zeal and intelligence you will find\n     the company a good master.'\n\n     \"I went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with\n     very conflicting feelings in my breast. On the one hand, I was\n     definitely engaged and had a hundred pounds in my pocket; on the\n     other, the look of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and\n     other of the points which would strike a business man had left a bad\n     impression as to the position of my employers. However, come what\n     might, I had my money, so I settled down to my task. All Sunday I was\n     kept hard at work, and yet by Monday I had only got as far as H. I\n     went round to my employer, found him in the same dismantled kind of\n     room, and was told to keep at it until Wednesday, and then come\n     again. On Wednesday it was still unfinished, so I hammered away until\n     Friday--that is, yesterday. Then I brought it round to Mr. Harry\n     Pinner.\n\n     \"'Thank you very much,' said he; 'I fear that I underrated the\n     difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance\n     to me.'\n\n     \"'It took some time,' said I.\n\n     \"'And now,' said he, 'I want you to make a list of the furniture\n     shops, for they all sell crockery.'\n\n     \"'Very good.'\n\n     \"'And you can come up to-morrow evening, at seven, and let me know\n     how you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours at\n     Day's Music Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your\n     labors.' He laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his\n     second tooth upon the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with\n     gold.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared with\n     astonishment at our client.\n\n     \"You may well look surprised, Dr. Watson; but it is this way,\" said\n     he: \"When I was speaking to the other chap in London, at the time\n     that he laughed at my not going to Mawson's, I happened to notice\n     that his tooth was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint\n     of the gold in each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with\n     the voice and figure being the same, and only those things altered\n     which might be changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it\n     was the same man. Of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but\n     not that they should have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He\n     bowed me out, and I found myself in the street, hardly knowing\n     whether I was on my head or my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my\n     head in a basin of cold water, and tried to think it out. Why had he\n     sent me from London to Birmingham? Why had he got there before me?\n     And why had he written a letter from himself to himself? It was\n     altogether too much for me, and I could make no sense of it. And then\n     suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me might be very light to\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to town by the night\n     train to see him this morning, and to bring you both back with me to\n     Birmingham.\"\n\n     There was a pause after the stock-broker's clerk had concluded his\n     surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me,\n     leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face,\n     like a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet\n     vintage.\n\n     \"Rather fine, Watson, is it not?\" said he. \"There are points in it\n     which please me. I think that you will agree with me that an\n     interview with Mr. Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of\n     the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, would be a rather\n     interesting experience for both of us.\"\n\n     \"But how can we do it?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Oh, easily enough,\" said Hall Pycroft, cheerily. \"You are two\n     friends of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more\n     natural than that I should bring you both round to the managing\n     director?\"\n\n     \"Quite so, of course,\" said Holmes. \"I should like to have a look at\n     the gentleman, and see if I can make anything of his little game.\n     What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so\n     valuable? Or is it possible that--\" He began biting his nails and\n     staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word\n     from him until we were in New Street.\n\n     At seven o'clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down\n     Corporation Street to the company's offices.\n\n     \"It is no use our being at all before our time,\" said our client. \"He\n     only comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up\n     to the very hour he names.\"\n\n     \"That is suggestive,\" remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"By Jove, I told you so!\" cried the clerk. \"That's he walking ahead\n     of us there.\"\n\n     He pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling\n     along the other side of the road. As we watched him he looked across\n     at a boy who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper,\n     and running over among the cabs and busses, he bought one from him.\n     Then, clutching it in his hand, he vanished through a door-way.\n\n     \"There he goes!\" cried Hall Pycroft. \"These are the company's offices\n     into which he has gone. Come with me, and I'll fix it up as easily as\n     possible.\"\n\n     Following his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found\n     ourselves outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. A\n     voice within bade us enter, and we entered a bare, unfurnished room\n     such as Hall Pycroft had described. At the single table sat the man\n     whom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in\n     front of him, and as he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had\n     never looked upon a face which bore such marks of grief, and of\n     something beyond grief--of a horror such as comes to few men in a\n     lifetime. His brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of\n     the dull, dead white of a fish's belly, and his eyes were wild and\n     staring. He looked at his clerk as though he failed to recognize him,\n     and I could see by the astonishment depicted upon our conductor's\n     face that this was by no means the usual appearance of his employer.\n\n     \"You look ill, Mr. Pinner!\" he exclaimed.\n\n     \"Yes, I am not very well,\" answered the other, making obvious efforts\n     to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke.\n     \"Who are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?\"\n\n     \"One is Mr. Harris, of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr. Price, of\n     this town,\" said our clerk, glibly. \"They are friends of mine and\n     gentlemen of experience, but they have been out of a place for some\n     little time, and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening\n     for them in the company's employment.\"\n\n     \"Very possibly! Very possibly!\" cried Mr. Pinner with a ghastly\n     smile. \"Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something\n     for you. What is your particular line, Mr. Harris?\"\n\n     \"I am an accountant,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Ah yes, we shall want something of the sort. And you, Mr. Price?\"\n\n     \"A clerk,\" said I.\n\n     \"I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let\n     you know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. And now I beg\n     that you will go. For God's sake leave me to myself!\"\n\n     These last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which\n     he was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst\n     asunder. Holmes and I glanced at each other, and Hall Pycroft took a\n     step towards the table.\n\n     \"You forget, Mr. Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive\n     some directions from you,\" said he.\n\n     \"Certainly, Mr. Pycroft, certainly,\" the other resumed in a calmer\n     tone. \"You may wait here a moment; and there is no reason why your\n     friends should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service\n     in three minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far.\" He\n     rose with a very courteous air, and, bowing to us, he passed out\n     through a door at the farther end of the room, which he closed behind\n     him.\n\n     \"What now?\" whispered Holmes. \"Is he giving us the slip?\"\n\n     \"Impossible,\" answered Pycroft.\n\n     \"Why so?\"\n\n     \"That door leads into an inner room.\"\n\n     \"There is no exit?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Is it furnished?\"\n\n     \"It was empty yesterday.\"\n\n     \"Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don't\n     understand in his manner. If ever a man was three parts mad with\n     terror, that man's name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on\n     him?\"\n\n     \"He suspects that we are detectives,\" I suggested.\n\n     \"That's it,\" cried Pycroft.\n\n     Holmes shook his head. \"He did not turn pale. He was pale when we\n     entered the room,\" said he. \"It is just possible that--\"\n\n     His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of\n     the inner door.\n\n     \"What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?\" cried the clerk.\n\n     Again and much louder cam the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly\n     at the closed door. Glancing at Holmes, I saw his face turn rigid,\n     and he leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low\n     guggling, gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes\n     sprang frantically across the room and pushed at the door. It was\n     fastened on the inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves\n     upon it with all our weight. One hinge snapped, then the other, and\n     down came the door with a crash. Rushing over it, we found ourselves\n     in the inner room. It was empty.\n\n     But it was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner,\n     the corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second\n     door. Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat\n     were lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his\n     own braces round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the\n     Franco-Midland Hardware Company. His knees were drawn up, his head\n     hung at a dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels\n     against the door made the noise which had broken in upon our\n     conversation. In an instant I had caught him round the waist, and\n     held him up while Holmes and Pycroft untied the elastic bands which\n     had disappeared between the livid creases of skin. Then we carried\n     him into the other room, where he lay with a clay-colored face,\n     puffing his purple lips in and out with every breath--a dreadful\n     wreck of all that he had been but five minutes before.\n\n     \"What do you think of him, Watson?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     I stooped over him and examined him. His pulse was feeble and\n     intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little\n     shivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball\n     beneath.\n\n     \"It has been touch and go with him,\" said I, \"but he'll live now.\n     Just open that window, and hand me the water carafe.\" I undid his\n     collar, poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his\n     arms until he drew a long, natural breath. \"It's only a question of\n     time now,\" said I, as I turned away from him.\n\n     Holmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his trouser's\n     pockets and his chin upon his breast.\n\n     \"I suppose we ought to call the police in now,\" said he. \"And yet I\n     confess that I'd like to give them a complete case when they come.\"\n\n     \"It's a blessed mystery to me,\" cried Pycroft, scratching his head.\n     \"Whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and\n     then--\"\n\n     \"Pooh! All that is clear enough,\" said Holmes impatiently. \"It is\n     this last sudden move.\"\n\n     \"You understand the rest, then?\"\n\n     \"I think that it is fairly obvious. What do you say, Watson?\"\n\n     I shrugged my shoulders. \"I must confess that I am out of my depths,\"\n     said I.\n\n     \"Oh surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to\n     one conclusion.\"\n\n     \"What do you make of them?\"\n\n     \"Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The first is the\n     making of Pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service\n     of this preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that\n     is?\"\n\n     \"I am afraid I miss the point.\"\n\n     \"Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a business matter, for\n     these arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly\n     business reason why this should be an exception. Don't you see, my\n     young friend, that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of\n     your handwriting, and had no other way of doing it?\"\n\n     \"And why?\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Why? When we answer that we have made some progress with\n     our little problem. Why? There can be only one adequate reason.\n     Someone wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a\n     specimen of it first. And now if we pass on to the second point we\n     find that each throws light upon the other. That point is the request\n     made by Pinner that you should not resign your place, but should\n     leave the manager of this important business in the full expectation\n     that a Mr. Hall Pycroft, whom he had never seen, was about to enter\n     the office upon the Monday morning.\"\n\n     \"My God!\" cried our client, \"what a blind beetle I have been!\"\n\n     \"Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose that some one\n     turned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from\n     that in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game\n     would have been up. But in the interval the rogue had learned to\n     imitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that\n     nobody in the office had ever set eyes upon you.\"\n\n     \"Not a soul,\" groaned Hall Pycroft.\n\n     \"Very good. Of course it was of the utmost importance to prevent you\n     from thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into\n     contact with any one who might tell you that your double was at work\n     in Mawson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome advance on\n     your salary, and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you\n     enough work to do to prevent your going to London, where you might\n     have burst their little game up. That is all plain enough.\"\n\n     \"But why should this man pretend to be his own brother?\"\n\n     \"Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of\n     them in it. The other is impersonating you at the office. This one\n     acted as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an\n     employer without admitting a third person into his plot. That he was\n     most unwilling to do. He changed his appearance as far as he could,\n     and trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe,\n     would be put down to a family resemblance. But for the happy chance\n     of the gold stuffing, your suspicions would probably never have been\n     aroused.\"\n\n     Hall Pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air. \"Good Lord!\" he\n     cried, \"while I have been fooled in this way, what has this other\n     Hall Pycroft been doing at Mawson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes?\n     Tell me what to do.\"\n\n     \"We must wire to Mawson's.\"\n\n     \"They shut at twelve on Saturdays.\"\n\n     \"Never mind. There may be some door-keeper or attendant--\"\n\n     \"Ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of\n     the securities that they hold. I remember hearing it talked of in the\n     City.\"\n\n     \"Very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a\n     clerk of your name is working there. That is clear enough; but what\n     is not so clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should\n     instantly walk out of the room and hang himself.\"\n\n     \"The paper!\" croaked a voice behind us. The man was sitting up,\n     blanched and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands\n     which rubbed nervously at the broad red band which still encircled\n     his throat.\n\n     \"The paper! Of course!\" yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement.\n     \"Idiot that I was! I thought so must of our visit that the paper\n     never entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must be\n     there.\" He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph\n     burst from his lips. \"Look at this, Watson,\" he cried. \"It is a\n     London paper, an early edition of the Evening Standard. Here is what\n     we want. Look at the headlines: 'Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson\n     & Williams's. Gigantic attempted Robbery. Capture of the Criminal.'\n     Here, Watson, we are all equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read\n     it aloud to us.\"\n\n     It appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event\n     of importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:\n\n     \"A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man\n     and the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City.\n     For some time back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house,\n     have been the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate\n     to a sum of considerably over a million sterling. So conscious was\n     the manager of the responsibility which devolved upon him in\n     consequence of the great interests at stake that safes of the very\n     latest construction have been employed, and an armed watchman has\n     been left day and night in the building. It appears that last week a\n     new clerk named Hall Pycroft was engaged by the firm. This person\n     appears to have been none other that Beddington, the famous forger\n     and cracksman, who, with his brother, had only recently emerged from\n     a five years' spell of penal servitude. By some means, which are not\n     yet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a false name, this official\n     position in the office, which he utilized in order to obtain moulding\n     of various locks, and a thorough knowledge of the position of the\n     strong room and the safes.\n     \"It is customary at Mawson's for the clerks to leave at midday on\n     Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City Police, was somewhat surprised,\n     therefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at\n     twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being aroused, the sergeant\n     followed the man, and with the aid of Constable Pollack succeeded,\n     after a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at once\n     clear that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. Nearly a\n     hundred thousand pounds' worth of American railway bonds, with a\n     large amount of scrip in mines and other companies, was discovered in\n     the bag. On examining the premises the body of the unfortunate\n     watchman was found doubled up and thrust into the largest of the\n     safes, where it would not have been discovered until Monday morning\n     had it not been for the prompt action of Sergeant Tuson. The man's\n     skull had been shattered by a blow from a poker delivered from\n     behind. There could be no doubt that Beddington had obtained entrance\n     by pretending that he had left something behind him, and having\n     murdered the watchman, rapidly rifled the large safe, and then made\n     off with his booty. His brother, who usually works with him, has not\n     appeared in this job as far as can at present be ascertained,\n     although the police are making energetic inquiries as to his\n     whereabouts.\"\n\n     \"Well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,\"\n     said Holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window.\n     \"Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a\n     villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother\n     turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. However,\n     we have no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on\n     guard, Mr. Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the\n     police.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               THE \"GLORIA SCOTT\"\n\n     \"I have some papers here,\" said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat\n     one winter's night on either side of the fire, \"which I really think,\n     Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are\n     the documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this\n     is the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with\n     horror when he read it.\"\n\n     He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing\n     the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of\n     slate gray-paper.\n\n     \"The supply of game for London is going steadily up,\" it ran.\n     \"Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all\n     orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's\n     life.\"\n\n     As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes\n     chuckling at the expression upon my face.\n\n     \"You look a little bewildered,\" said he.\n\n     \"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It\n     seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise.\"\n\n     \"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,\n     robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the\n     butt end of a pistol.\"\n\n     \"You arouse my curiosity,\" said I. \"But why did you say just now that\n     there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?\"\n\n     \"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged.\"\n\n     I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first\n     turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never\n     caught him before in a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in his\n     arm-chair and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit\n     his pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.\n\n     \"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?\" he asked. \"He was the\n     only friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never\n     a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my\n     rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I\n     never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I\n     had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct\n     from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact\n     at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the\n     accident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I\n     went down to chapel.\n\n     \"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.\n     I was laid by the heels for ten days, but Trevor used to come in to\n     inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his\n     visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close\n     friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and\n     energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some\n     subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he\n     was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's\n     place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for\n     a month of the long vacation.\n\n     \"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a\n     J.P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to\n     the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was an\n     old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine\n     lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild-duck\n     shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select\n     library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a\n     tolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could not\n     put in a pleasant month there.\n\n     \"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.\n\n     \"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria\n     while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely.\n     He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of\n     rude strength, both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any\n     books, but he had traveled far, had seen much of the world. And had\n     remembered all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set,\n     burly man with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten\n     face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet\n     he had a reputation for kindness and charity on the country-side, and\n     was noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.\n\n     \"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass\n     of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those\n     habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a\n     system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were\n     to play in my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was\n     exaggerating in his description of one or two trivial feats which I\n     had performed.\n\n     \"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humoredly. 'I'm an\n     excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'\n\n     \"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might suggest that\n     you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last\n     twelve months.'\n\n     \"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great\n     surprise.\n\n     \"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to\n     his son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us,\n     and Sir Edward Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on\n     my guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'\n\n     \"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription I\n     observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken\n     some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole\n     so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not\n     take such precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'\n\n     \"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.\n\n     \"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'\n\n     \"'Right again. How did you know it?  Is my nose knocked a little out\n     of the straight?'\n\n     \"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening\n     and thickening which marks the boxing man.'\n\n     \"'Anything else?'\n\n     \"'You have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'\n\n     \"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'\n\n     \"'You have been in New Zealand.'\n\n     \"'Right again.'\n\n     \"'You have visited Japan.'\n\n     \"'Quite true.'\n\n     \"'And you have been most intimately associated with some one whose\n     initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely\n     forget.'\n\n     \"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a\n     strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the\n     nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.\n\n     \"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His\n     attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar, and\n     sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he\n     gave a gasp or two and sat up.\n\n     \"'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't frightened\n     you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does\n     not take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.\n     Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of\n     fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir,\n     and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the\n     world.'\n\n     \"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability\n     with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the\n     very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be\n     made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the\n     moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my\n     host to think of anything else.\n\n     \"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said I.\n\n     \"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask\n     how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting\n     fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.\n\n     \"'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw\n     that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. had been tattooed in the\n     bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was\n     perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining\n     of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate\n     them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very\n     familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.'\n\n     \"'What an eye you have!' he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just\n     as you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our\n     old lovers are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a\n     quiet cigar.'\n\n     \"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of\n     suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked\n     it. 'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll\n     never be sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did\n     not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind\n     that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced\n     that I was causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On\n     the very day, however, before I left, an incident occurred which\n     proved in the sequel to be of importance.\n\n     \"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,\n     basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a\n     maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to\n     see Mr. Trevor.\n\n     \"'What is his name?' asked my host.\n\n     \"'He would not give any.'\n\n     \"'What does he want, then?'\n\n     \"'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's\n     conversation.'\n\n     \"'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little\n     wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of\n     walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve,\n     a red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly\n     worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile\n     upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his\n     crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of\n     sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make\n     a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his\n     chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a\n     strong reek of brandy as he passed me.\n\n     \"'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'\n\n     \"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the\n     same loose-lipped smile upon his face.\n\n     \"'You don't know me?' he asked.\n\n     \"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor in a tone of\n     surprise.\n\n     \"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and\n     more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still\n     picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'\n\n     \"'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr.\n     Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low\n     voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will\n     get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a\n     situation.'\n\n     \"'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his fore-lock. 'I'm just\n     off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I\n     wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with\n     you.'\n\n     \"'Ah!' cried Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'\n\n     \"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the\n     fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to\n     the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been\n     shipmate with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and\n     then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we\n     entered the house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the\n     dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon\n     my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me,\n     for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my\n     friend.\n\n     \"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I\n     went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a\n     few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the\n     autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I\n     received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to\n     Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and\n     assistance. Of course I dropped everything and set out for the North\n     once more.\n\n     \"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance\n     that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had\n     grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for\n     which he had been remarkable.\n\n     \"'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.\n\n     \"'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'\n\n     \"'Apoplexy. Nervous shock, He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if\n     we shall find him alive.'\n\n     \"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.\n\n     \"'What has caused it?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while we\n     drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you\n     left us?'\n\n     \"'Perfectly.'\n\n     \"'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'\n\n     \"'I have no idea.'\n\n     \"'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.\n\n     \"I stared at him in astonishment.\n\n     \"'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour\n     since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that\n     evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart\n     broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'\n\n     \"'What power had he, then?'\n\n     \"'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly,\n     charitable, good old governor--how could he have fallen into the\n     clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come,\n     Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know\n     that you will advise me for the best.'\n\n     \"We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with the long\n     stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of\n     the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the\n     high chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's dwelling.\n\n     \"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then,\n     as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house\n     seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he\n     chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile\n     language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for\n     the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best\n     gun and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all this with\n     such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him\n     down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell\n     you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this\n     time; and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a\n     little more, I might not have been a wiser man.\n\n     \"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal\n     Hudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some\n     insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the\n     shoulders and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid\n     face and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue\n     could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after\n     that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would\n     mind apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked\n     my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties\n     with himself and his household.\n\n     \"'\"Ah, my boy,\" said he, \"it is all very well to talk, but you don't\n     know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you\n     shall know, come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old\n     father, would you, lad?\" He was very much moved, and shut himself up\n     in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he\n     was writing busily.\n\n     \"'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release,\n     for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the\n     dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in\n     the thick voice of a half-drunken man.\n\n     \"'\"I've had enough of Norfolk,\" said he. \"I'll run down to Mr.\n     Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare\n     say.\"\n\n     \"'\"You're not going away in any kind of spirit, Hudson, I hope,\" said\n     my father, with a tameness which mad my blood boil.\n\n     \"'\"I've not had my 'pology,\" said he sulkily, glancing in my\n     direction.\n\n     \"'\"Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow\n     rather roughly,\" said the dad, turning to me.\n\n     \"'\"On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary\n     patience towards him,\" I answered.\n\n     \"'\"Oh, you do, do you?\" he snarls. \"Very good, mate. We'll see about\n     that!\"\n\n     \"'He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the\n     house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night\n     after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was\n     recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.'\n\n     \"'And how?' I asked eagerly.\n\n     \"'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father\n     yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge post-mark. My father\n     read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round\n     the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his\n     senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and\n     eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a\n     stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We put him to bed; but the\n     paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning\n     consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.'\n\n     \"'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have been in\n     this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'\n\n     \"'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was\n     absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'\n\n     \"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the\n     fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we\n     dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a\n     gentleman in black emerged from it.\n\n     \"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.\n\n     \"'Almost immediately after you left.'\n\n     \"'Did he recover consciousness?'\n\n     \"'For an instant before the end.'\n\n     \"'Any message for me?'\n\n     \"'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese\n     cabinet.'\n\n     \"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I\n     remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my\n     head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was\n     the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveler, and gold-digger, and how\n     had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman?  Why,\n     too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon\n     his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham? \n     Then I remembered that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr.\n     Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to\n     blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The\n     letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that\n     he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it\n     might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a\n     betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But then how\n     could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the son? \n     He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those\n     ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean\n     another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in\n     it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat\n     pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought\n     in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but\n     composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his\n     grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the\n     table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a\n     single sheet of gray paper. 'The supply of game for London is going\n     steadily up,' it ran. 'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now\n     told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your\n     hen-pheasant's life.'\n\n     \"I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when\n     first I read this message. Then I reread it very carefully. It was\n     evidently as I had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried\n     in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a\n     prearranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and\n     'hen-pheasant'?  Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be\n     deduced in any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was the\n     case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the\n     subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from\n     Beddoes rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the\n     combination 'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I tried\n     alternate words, but neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game London'\n     promised to throw any light upon it.\n\n     \"And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I\n     saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a\n     message which might well drive old Trevor to despair.\n\n     \"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my\n     companion:\n\n     \"'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'\n\n     \"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands, 'It must be\n     that, I suppose,' said he. \"This is worse than death, for it means\n     disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these \"head-keepers\" and\n     \"hen-pheasants\"?\n\n     \"'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to\n     us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that\n     he has begun by writing \"The ... game ... is,\" and so on. Afterwards\n     he had, to fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words\n     in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to\n     his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among\n     them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or\n     interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'\n\n     \"'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that my poor\n     father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his\n     preserves every autumn.'\n\n     \"'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said I. 'It\n     only remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor\n     Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and\n     respected men.'\n\n     \"'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried my\n     friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement\n     which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from\n     Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he\n     told the doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the\n     strength nor the courage to do it myself.'\n\n     \"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will\n     read them to you, as I read them in the old study that night to him.\n     They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the\n     voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th\n     October, 1855, to her destruction in N. Lat. 15° 20', W. Long. 25°\n     14' on Nov. 6th.' It is in the form of a letter, and runs in this\n     way:\n\n     \"'My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken\n     the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty\n     that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my\n     position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have\n     known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you\n     should come to blush for me--you who love me and who have seldom, I\n     hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls\n     which is forever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read\n     this, that you may know straight from me how far I have been to\n     blame. On the other hand, if all should go well (which may kind God\n     Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this paper should be still\n     undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I conjure you, by all\n     you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother, and by the love\n     which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give\n     one thought to it again.\n\n     \"'If then your eye goes onto read this line, I know that I shall\n     already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is more\n     likely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue\n     sealed forever in death. In either case the time for suppression is\n     past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this I\n     swear as I hope for mercy.\n\n     \"'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my\n     younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me\n     a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which\n     seemed to imply that he had surprised my secret. As Armitage it was\n     that I entered a London banking-house, and as Armitage I was\n     convicted of breaking my country's laws, and was sentenced to\n     transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a\n     debt of honor, so called, which I had to pay, and I used money which\n     was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it\n     before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the\n     most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned\n     upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts\n     exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with,\n     but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than\n     now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a\n     felon with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark\n     Gloria Scott, bound for Australia.\n\n     \"'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war was at its height, and the\n     old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black\n     Sea. The government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less\n     suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott\n     had been in the Chinese tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,\n     heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her\n     out. She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight\n     jail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a\n     captain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly\n     a hundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from\n     Falmouth.\n\n     \"'The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being\n     of thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin and\n     frail. The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had\n     particularly noticed when we were led down the quay. He was a young\n     man with a clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather\n     nut-cracker jaws. He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a\n     swaggering style of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for\n     his extraordinary height. I don't think any of our heads would have\n     come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have\n     measured less than six and a half feet. It was strange among so many\n     sad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy and\n     resolution. The sight of it was to me like a fire in a snow-storm. I\n     was glad, then, to find that he was my neighbor, and gladder still\n     when, in the dead of the night, I heard a whisper close to my ear,\n     and found that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which\n     separated us.\n\n     \"'\"Hullo, chummy!\" said he, \"what's your name, and what are you here\n     for?\"\n\n     \"'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.\n\n     \"'\"I'm Jack Prendergast,\" said he, \"and by God! You'll learn to bless\n     my name before you've done with me.\"\n\n     \"'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an\n     immense sensation throughout the country some time before my own\n     arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of\n     incurably vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of fraud,\n     obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.\n\n     \"'\"Ha, ha! You remember my case!\" said he proudly.\n\n     \"'\"Very well, indeed.\"\n\n     \"'\"Then maybe you remember something queer about it?\"\n\n     \"'\"What was that, then?\"\n\n     \"'\"I'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't I?\"\n\n     \"'\"So it was said.\"\n\n     \"'\"But none was recovered, eh?\"\n\n     \"'\"No.\"\n\n     \"'\"Well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?\" he asked.\n\n     \"'\"I have no idea,\" said I.\n\n     \"'\"Right between my finger and thumb,\" he cried. \"By God! I've got\n     more pounds to my name than you've hairs on your head. And if you've\n     money, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do\n     anything. Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do\n     anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking\n     hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a Chin\n     China coaster. No, sir, such a man will look after himself and will\n     look after his chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and\n     you may kiss the book that he'll haul you through.\"\n\n     \"'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant\n     nothing; but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in\n     with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really\n     was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners\n     had hatched it before they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader,\n     and his money was the motive power.\n\n     \"'\"I'd a partner,\" said he, \"a rare good man, as true as a stock to a\n     barrel. He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at\n     this moment?  Why, he's the chaplain of this ship--the chaplain, no\n     less! He came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and\n     money enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to\n     main-truck. The crew are his, body and soul. He could buy 'em at so\n     much a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they\n     signed on. He's got two of the warders and Mercer, the second mate,\n     and he'd get the captain himself, if he thought him worth it.\"\n\n     \"'\"What are we to do, then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"'\"What do you think?\" said he. \"We'll make the coats of some of\n     these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.\"\n\n     \"'\"But they are armed,\" said I.\n\n     \"'\"And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols for every\n     mother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship, with the crew at\n     our back, it's time we were all sent to a young misses'\n     boarding-school. You speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and\n     see if he is to be trusted.\"\n\n     \"'I did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much\n     the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name\n     was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and he is now a\n     rich and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough\n     to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and\n     before we had crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners\n     who were not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did\n     not dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice, and\n     could not be of any use to us.\n\n     \"'From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from\n     taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians,\n     specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells\n     to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts,\n     and so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed\n     away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of\n     powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of\n     Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain,\n     the two mates, two warders Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers,\n     and the doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as it was,\n     we determined to neglect no precaution, and to make our attack\n     suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly than we expected,\n     and in this way.\n\n     \"'One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had\n     come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his\n     hand down on the bottom of his bunk he felt the outline of the\n     pistols. If he had been silent he might have blown the whole thing,\n     but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and\n     turned so pale that the man knew what was up in an instant and seized\n     him. He was gagged before he could give the alarm, and tied down upon\n     the bed. He had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we were\n     through it in a rush. The two sentries were shot down, and so was a\n     corporal who came running to see what was the matter. There were two\n     more soldiers at the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed\n     not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot\n     while trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into the\n     captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an\n     explosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared over\n     the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table, while the\n     chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow. The\n     two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole business\n     seemed to be settled.\n\n     \"'The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and\n     flopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just\n     mad with the feeling that we were free once more. There were lockers\n     all round, and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in, and\n     pulled out a dozen of brown sherry. We cracked off the necks of the\n     bottles, poured the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing\n     them off, when in an instant without warning there came the roar of\n     muskets in our ears, and the saloon was so full of smoke that we\n     could not see across the table. When it cleared again the place was a\n     shambles. Wilson and eight others were wriggling on the top of each\n     other on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table\n     turn me sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight\n     that I think we should have given the job up if had not been for\n     Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all\n     that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on the poop\n     were the lieutenent and ten of his men. The swing skylights above the\n     saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through\n     the slit.  We got on them before they could load, and they stood to\n     it like men; but we had the upper hand of them, and in five minutes\n     it was all over. My God! Was there ever a slaughter-house like that\n     ship! Predergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the soldiers\n     up as if they had been children and threw them overboard alive or\n     dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept\n     on swimming for a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out\n     his brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our\n     enemies except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.\n\n     \"'It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of\n     us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no\n     wish to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the\n     soldiers over with their muskets in their hands, and it was another\n     to stand by while men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us,\n     five convicts and three sailors, said that we would not see it done.\n     But there was no moving Predergast and those who were with him. Our\n     only chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and\n     he would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It\n     nearly came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he\n     said that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the\n     offer, for we were already sick of these blookthirsty doings, and we\n     saw that there would be worse before it was done. We were given a\n     suit of sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of junk\n     and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast threw us over a\n     chart, told us that we were shipwrecked mariners whose ship had\n     foundered in Lat. 15° and Long. 25° west, and then cut the painter\n     and let us go.\n\n     \"'And now I come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear\n     son. The seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during the rising, but\n     now as we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a\n     light wind from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away\n     from us. Our boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth\n     rollers, and Evans and I, who were the most educated of the party,\n     were sitting in the sheets working out our position and planning what\n     coast we should make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de\n     Verds were about five hundred miles to the north of us, and the\n     African coast about seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the\n     wind was coming round to the north, we thought that Sierra Leone\n     might be best, and turned our head in that direction, the bark being\n     at that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as\n     we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up from\n     her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky line. A few\n     seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ears, and as the\n     smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the Gloria Scott. In an\n     instant we swept the boat's head round again and pulled with all our\n     strength for the place where the haze still trailing over the water\n     marked the scene of this catastrophe.\n\n     \"'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared\n     that we had come too late to save any one. A splintered boat and a\n     number of crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the\n     waves showed us where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign\n     of life, and we had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for\n     help, and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying\n     stretched across it. When we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to\n     be a young seaman of the name of Hudson, who was so burned and\n     exhausted that he could give us no account of what had happened until\n     the following morning.\n\n     \"'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang had\n     proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The two\n     warders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had the third\n     mate. Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and with his\n     own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. There only\n     remained the first mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw\n     the convict approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he\n     kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and\n     rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold. A dozen\n     convicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found\n     him with a match-box in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel,\n     which was one of a hundred carried on board, and swearing that he\n     would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. An instant\n     later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was caused by\n     the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the mate's\n     match. Be the cause what I may, it was the end of the Gloria Scott\n     and of the rabble who held command of her.\n\n     \"'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible\n     business in which I was involved. Next day we were picked up by the\n     brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty\n     in believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had\n     foundered. The transport ship Gloria Scott was set down by the\n     Admiralty as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to\n     her true fate. After an excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at\n     Sydney, where Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the\n     diggings, where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations,\n     we had no difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I need\n     not relate. We prospered, we traveled, we came back as rich colonials\n     to England, and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years\n     we have led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was\n     forever buried. Imagine, then, my feelings when in the seaman who\n     came to us I recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the\n     wreck. He had tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live\n     upon our fears. You will understand now how it was that I strove to\n     keep the peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize with\n     me in the fears which fill me, now that he has gone from me to his\n     other victim with threats upon his tongue.'\n\n     \"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible,\n     'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. has told all. Sweet Lord, have\n     mercy on our souls!'\n\n     \"That was the narrative which I read that night to young Trevor, and\n     I think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one.\n     The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and went out to the Terai tea\n     planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to the sailor and\n     Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on\n     which the letter of warning was written. They both disappeared\n     utterly and completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police,\n     so that Beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been\n     seen lurking about, and it was believed by the police that he had\n     done away with Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the\n     truth was exactly the opposite. I think that it is most probable that\n     Beddoes, pushed to desperation and believing himself to have been\n     already betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from\n     the country with as much money as he could lay his hands on. Those\n     are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your\n     collection, I am sure that they are very heartily at your service.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL\n\n     An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend\n     Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was\n     the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he\n     affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in\n     his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a\n     fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional\n     in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan,\n     coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made\n     me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a\n     limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the\n     coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and\n     his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the\n     very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself\n     virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should\n     be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his\n     queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a\n     hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with\n     a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither\n     the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.\n\n     Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics\n     which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning\n     up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his\n     papers were my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents,\n     especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it\n     was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to\n     docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these\n     incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he\n     performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were\n     followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about\n     with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to\n     the table. Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every\n     corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were\n     on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by\n     their owner. One winter's night, as we sat together by the fire, I\n     ventured to suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts\n     into his common-place book, he might employ the next two hours in\n     making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the\n     justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to\n     his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box\n     behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting\n     down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see\n     that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red\n     tape into separate packages.\n\n     \"There are cases enough here, Watson,\" said he, looking at me with\n     mischievous eyes. \"I think that if you knew all that I had in this\n     box you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.\"\n\n     \"These are the records of your early work, then?\" I asked. \"I have\n     often wished that I had notes of those cases.\"\n\n     \"Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer\n     had come to glorify me.\" He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,\n     caressing sort of way. \"They are not all successes, Watson,\" said he.\n     \"But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here's the\n     record of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine\n     merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the\n     singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of\n     Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife. And here--ah,\n     now, this really is something a little recherché.\"\n\n     He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a\n     small wooden box with a sliding lid, such as children's toys are kept\n     in. From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an\n     old-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached\n     to it, and three rusty old disks of metal.\n\n     \"Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?\" he asked, smiling at my\n     expression.\n\n     \"It is a curious collection.\"\n\n     \"Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as\n     being more curious still.\"\n\n     \"These relics have a history then?\"\n\n     \"So much so that they are history.\"\n\n     \"What do you mean by that?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the\n     edge of the table. Then he reseated himself in his chair and looked\n     them over with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.\n\n     \"These,\" said he, \"are all that I have left to remind me of the\n     adventure of the Musgrave Ritual.\"\n\n     I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never\n     been able to gather the details. \"I should be so glad,\" said I, \"if\n     you would give me an account of it.\"\n\n     \"And leave the litter as it is?\" he cried, mischievously. \"Your\n     tidiness won't bear much strain after all, Watson. But I should be\n     glad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are\n     points in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of\n     this or, I believe, of any other country. A collection of my trifling\n     achievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account\n     of this very singular business.\n\n     \"You may remember how the affair of the Gloria Scott, and my\n     conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first\n     turned my attention in the direction of the profession which has\n     become my life's work. You see me now when my name has become known\n     far and wide, and when I am generally recognized both by the public\n     and by the official force as being a final court of appeal in\n     doubtful cases. Even when you knew me first, at the time of the\n     affair which you have commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had\n     already established a considerable, though not a very lucrative,\n     connection. You can hardly realize, then, how difficult I found it at\n     first, and how long I had to wait before I succeeded in making any\n     headway.\n\n     \"When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just\n     round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling\n     in my too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of\n     science which might make me more efficient. Now and again cases came\n     in my way, principally through the introduction of old\n     fellow-students, for during my last years at the University there was\n     a good deal of talk there about myself and my methods. The third of\n     these cases was that of the Musgrave Ritual, and it is to the\n     interest which was aroused by that singular chain of events, and the\n     large issues which proved to be at stake, that I trace my first\n     stride towards the position which I now hold.\n\n     \"Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had\n     some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among\n     the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set\n     down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural\n     diffidence. In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic\n     type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly\n     manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in\n     the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one which had separated\n     from the northern Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and\n     had established itself in western Sussex, where the Manor House of\n     Hurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county.\n     Something of his birth place seemed to cling to the man, and I never\n     looked at his pale, keen face or the poise of his head without\n     associating him with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the\n     venerable wreckage of a feudal keep. Once or twice we drifted into\n     talk, and I can remember that more than once he expressed a keen\n     interest in my methods of observation and inference.\n\n     \"For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked\n     into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed\n     like a young man of fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and\n     preserved the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly\n     distinguished him.\n\n     \"'How has all gone with you Musgrave?' I asked, after we had\n     cordially shaken hands.\n\n     \"'You probably heard of my poor father's death,' said he; 'he was\n     carried off about two years ago. Since then I have of course had the\n     Hurlstone estates to manage, and as I am member for my district as\n     well, my life has been a busy one. But I understand, Holmes, that you\n     are turning to practical ends those powers with which you used to\n     amaze us?'\n\n     \"'Yes,' said I, 'I have taken to living by my wits.'\n\n     \"'I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be\n     exceedingly valuable to me. We have had some very strange doings at\n     Hurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the\n     matter. It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable\n     business.'\n\n     \"You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for\n     the very chance for which I had been panting during all those months\n     of inaction seemed to have come within my reach. In my inmost heart I\n     believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the\n     opportunity to test myself.\n\n     \"'Pray, let me have the details,' I cried.\n\n     \"Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit the cigarette\n     which I had pushed towards him.\n\n     \"'You must know,' said he, 'that though I am a bachelor, I have to\n     keep up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a\n     rambling old place, and takes a good deal of looking after. I\n     preserve, too, and in the pheasant months I usually have a\n     house-party, so that it would not do to be short-handed. Altogether\n     there are eight maids, the cook, the butler, two footmen, and a boy.\n     The garden and the stables of course have a separate staff.\n\n     \"'Of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was\n     Brunton the butler. He was a young school-master out of place when he\n     was first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and\n     character, and he soon became quite invaluable in the household. He\n     was a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though\n     he has been with us for twenty years he cannot be more than forty\n     now. With his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts--for he\n     can speak several languages and play nearly every musical\n     instrument--it is wonderful that he should have been satisfied so\n     long in such a position, but I suppose that he was comfortable, and\n     lacked energy to make any change. The butler of Hurlstone is always a\n     thing that is remembered by all who visit us.\n\n     \"'But this paragon has one fault. He is a bit of a Don Juan, and you\n     can imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part\n     to play in a quiet country district. When he was married it was all\n     right, but since he has been a widower we have had no end of trouble\n     with him. A few months ago we were in hopes that he was about to\n     settle down again for he became engaged to Rachel Howells, our second\n     house-maid; but he has thrown her over since then and taken up with\n     Janet Tregellis, the daughter of the head game-keeper. Rachel--who is\n     a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh temperament--had a sharp\n     touch of brain-fever, and goes about the house now--or did until\n     yesterday--like a black-eyed shadow of her former self. That was our\n     first drama at Hurlstone; but a second one came to drive it from our\n     minds, and it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of butler\n     Brunton.\n\n     \"'This was how it came about. I have said that the man was\n     intelligent, and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it\n     seems to have led to an insatiable curiosity about things which did\n     not in the least concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to which\n     this would carry him, until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.\n\n     \"'I have said that the house is a rambling one. One day last week--on\n     Thursday night, to be more exact--I found that I could not sleep,\n     having foolishly taken a cup of strong café noir after my dinner.\n     After struggling against it until two in the morning, I felt that it\n     was quite hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with the intention\n     of continuing a novel which I was reading. The book, however, had\n     been left in the billiard-room, so I pulled on my dressing-gown and\n     started off to get it.\n\n     \"'In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend a flight of\n     stairs and then to cross the head of a passage which led to the\n     library and the gun-room. You can imagine my surprise when, as I\n     looked down this corridor, I saw a glimmer of light coming from the\n     open door of the library. I had myself extinguished the lamp and\n     closed the door before coming to bed. Naturally my first thought was\n     of burglars. The corridors at Hurlstone have their walls largely\n     decorated with trophies of old weapons. From one of these I picked a\n     battle-axe, and then, leaving my candle behind me, I crept on tiptoe\n     down the passage and peeped in at the open door.\n\n     \"'Brunton, the butler, was in the library. He was sitting, fully\n     dressed, in an easy-chair, with a slip of paper which looked like a\n     map upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in\n     deep thought. I stood dumb with astonishment, watching him from the\n     darkness. A small taper on the edge of the table shed a feeble light\n     which sufficed to show me that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as I\n     looked, he rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at the\n     side, he unlocked it and drew out one of the drawers. From this he\n     took a paper, and returning to his seat he flattened it out beside\n     the taper on the edge of the table, and began to study it with minute\n     attention. My indignation at this calm examination of our family\n     documents overcame me so far that I took a step forward, and Brunton,\n     looking up, saw me standing in the doorway. He sprang to his feet,\n     his face turned livid with fear, and he thrust into his breast the\n     chart-like paper which he had been originally studying.\n\n     \"'\"So!\" said I. \"This is how you repay the trust which we have\n     reposed in you. You will leave my service to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"'He bowed with the look of a man who is utterly crushed, and slunk\n     past me without a word. The taper was still on the table, and by its\n     light I glanced to see what the paper was which Brunton had taken\n     from the bureau. To my surprise it was nothing of any importance at\n     all, but simply a copy of the questions and answers in the singular\n     old observance called the Musgrave Ritual. It is a sort of ceremony\n     peculiar to our family, which each Musgrave for centuries past has\n     gone through on his coming of age--a thing of private interest, and\n     perhaps of some little importance to the archaeologist, like our own\n     blazonings and charges, but of no practical use whatever.'\n\n     \"'We had better come back to the paper afterwards,' said I.\n\n     \"'If you think it really necessary,' he answered, with some\n     hesitation. 'To continue my statement, however: I relocked the\n     bureau, using the key which Brunton had left, and I had turned to go\n     when I was surprised to find that the butler had returned, and was\n     standing before me.\n\n     \"'\"Mr. Musgrave, sir,\" he cried, in a voice which was hoarse with\n     emotion, \"I can't bear disgrace, sir. I've always been proud above my\n     station in life, and disgrace would kill me. My blood will be on your\n     head, sir--it will, indeed--if you drive me to despair. If you cannot\n     keep me after what has passed, then for God's sake let me give you\n     notice and leave in a month, as if of my own free will. I could stand\n     that, Mr. Musgrave, but not to be cast out before all the folk that I\n     know so well.\"\n\n     \"'\"You don't deserve much consideration, Brunton,\" I answered. \"Your\n     conduct has been most infamous. However, as you have been a long time\n     in the family, I have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. A\n     month, however is too long. Take yourself away in a week, and give\n     what reason you like for going.\"\n\n     \"'\"Only a week, sir?\" he cried, in a despairing voice. \"A\n     fortnight--say at least a fortnight!\"\n\n     \"'\"A week,\" I repeated, \"and you may consider yourself to have been\n     very leniently dealt with.\"\n\n     \"'He crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a broken man,\n     while I put out the light and returned to my room.\n\n     \"'For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous in his attention\n     to his duties. I made no allusion to what had passed, and waited with\n     some curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace. On the third\n     morning, however he did not appear, as was his custom, after\n     breakfast to receive my instructions for the day. As I left the\n     dining-room I happened to meet Rachel Howells, the maid. I have told\n     you that she had only recently recovered from an illness, and was\n     looking so wretchedly pale and wan that I remonstrated with her for\n     being at work.\n\n     \"'\"You should be in bed,\" I said. \"Come back to your duties when you\n     are stronger.\"\n\n     \"'She looked at me with so strange an expression that I began to\n     suspect that her brain was affected.\n\n     \"'\"I am strong enough, Mr. Musgrave,\" said she.\n\n     \"'\"We will see what the doctor says,\" I answered. \"You must stop work\n     now, and when you go downstairs just say that I wish to see Brunton.\"\n\n     \"'\"The butler is gone,\" said she.\n\n     \"'\"Gone! Gone where?\"\n\n     \"'\"He is gone. No one has seen him. He is not in his room. Oh, yes,\n     he is gone, he is gone!\" She fell back against the wall with shriek\n     after shriek of laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden\n     hysterical attack, rushed to the bell to summon help. The girl was\n     taken to her room, still screaming and sobbing, while I made\n     inquiries about Brunton. There was no doubt about it that he had\n     disappeared. His bed had not been slept in, he had been seen by no\n     one since he had retired to his room the night before, and yet it was\n     difficult to see how he could have left the house, as both windows\n     and doors were found to be fastened in the morning. His clothes, his\n     watch, and even his money were in his room, but the black suit which\n     he usually wore was missing. His slippers, too, were gone, but his\n     boots were left behind. Where then could butler Brunton have gone in\n     the night, and what could have become of him now?\n\n     \"'Of course we searched the house from cellar to garret, but there\n     was no trace of him. It is, as I have said, a labyrinth of an old\n     house, especially the original wing, which is now practically\n     uninhabited; but we ransacked every room and cellar without\n     discovering the least sign of the missing man. It was incredible to\n     me that he could have gone away leaving all his property behind him,\n     and yet where could he be? I called in the local police, but without\n     success. Rain had fallen on the night before and we examined the lawn\n     and the paths all round the house, but in vain. Matters were in this\n     state, when a new development quite drew our attention away from the\n     original mystery.\n\n     \"'For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill, sometimes delirious,\n     sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit up with\n     her at night. On the third night after Brunton's disappearance, the\n     nurse, finding her patient sleeping nicely, had dropped into a nap in\n     the arm-chair, when she woke in the early morning to find the bed\n     empty, the window open, and no signs of the invalid. I was instantly\n     aroused, and, with the two footmen, started off at once in search of\n     the missing girl. It was not difficult to tell the direction which\n     she had taken, for, starting from under her window, we could follow\n     her footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where\n     they vanished close to the gravel path which leads out of the\n     grounds. The lake there is eight feet deep, and you can imagine our\n     feelings when we saw that the trail of the poor demented girl came to\n     an end at the edge of it.\n\n     \"'Of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work to recover the\n     remains, but no trace of the body could we find. On the other hand,\n     we brought to the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. It was\n     a linen bag which contained within it a mass of old rusted and\n     discolored metal and several dull-colored pieces of pebble or glass.\n     This strange find was all that we could get from the mere, and,\n     although we made every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know\n     nothing of the fate either of Rachel Howells or of Richard Brunton.\n     The county police are at their wits' end, and I have come up to you\n     as a last resource.'\n\n     \"You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened to this\n     extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavored to piece them\n     together, and to devise some common thread upon which they might all\n     hang. The butler was gone. The maid was gone. The maid had loved the\n     butler, but had afterwards had cause to hate him. She was of Welsh\n     blood, fiery and passionate. She had been terribly excited\n     immediately after his disappearance. She had flung into the lake a\n     bag containing some curious contents. These were all factors which\n     had to be taken into consideration, and yet none of them got quite to\n     the heart of the matter. What was the starting-point of this chain of\n     events? There lay the end of this tangled line.\n\n     \"'I must see that paper, Musgrave,' said I, 'which this butler of\n     your thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the\n     loss of his place.'\n\n     \"'It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,' he answered.\n     'But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. I\n     have a copy of the questions and answers here if you care to run your\n     eye over them.'\n\n     \"He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson, and this is\n     the strange catechism to which each Musgrave had to submit when he\n     came to man's estate. I will read you the questions and answers as\n     they stand.\n\n     \"'Whose was it?'\n\n     \"'His who is gone.'\n\n     \"'Who shall have it?'\n\n     \"'He who will come.'\n\n     \"'What was the month?'\n\n     \"'The sixth from the first.'\n\n     \"'Where was the sun?'\n\n     \"'Over the oak.'\n\n     \"'Where was the shadow?'\n\n     \"'Under the elm.'\n\n     \"'How was it stepped?'\n\n     \"'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and\n     by two, west by one and by one, and so under.'\n\n     \"'What shall we give for it?'\n\n     \"'All that is ours.'\n\n     \"'Why should we give it?'\n\n     \"'For the sake of the trust.'\n\n     \"'The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of\n     the seventeenth century,' remarked Musgrave. 'I am afraid, however,\n     that it can be of little help to you in solving this mystery.'\n\n     \"'At least,' said I, 'it gives us another mystery, and one which is\n     even more interesting than the first. It may be that the solution of\n     the one may prove to be the solution of the other. You will excuse\n     me, Musgrave, if I say that your butler appears to me to have been a\n     very clever man, and to have had a clearer insight that ten\n     generations of his masters.'\n\n     \"'I hardly follow you,' said Musgrave. 'The paper seems to me to be\n     of no practical importance.'\n\n     \"'But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy that Brunton\n     took the same view. He had probably seen it before that night on\n     which you caught him.'\n\n     \"'It is very possible. We took no pains to hide it.'\n\n     \"'He simply wished, I should imagine, to refresh his memory upon that\n     last occasion. He had, as I understand, some sort of map or chart\n     which he was comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust into\n     his pocket when you appeared.'\n\n     \"'That is true. But what could he have to do with this old family\n     custom of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?'\n\n     \"'I don't think that we should have much difficulty in determining\n     that,' said I; 'with your permission we will take the first train\n     down to Sussex, and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the\n     spot.'\n\n     \"The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone. Possibly you have seen\n     pictures and read descriptions of the famous old building, so I will\n     confine my account of it to saying that it is built in the shape of\n     an L, the long arm being the more modern portion, and the shorter the\n     ancient nucleus, from which the other had developed. Over the low,\n     heavily-lintelled door, in the centre of this old part, is chiseled\n     the date, 1607, but experts are agreed that the beams and stone-work\n     are really much older than this. The enormously thick walls and tiny\n     windows of this part had in the last century driven the family into\n     building the new wing, and the old one was used now as a store-house\n     and a cellar, when it was used at all. A splendid park with fine old\n     timber surrounds the house, and the lake, to which my client had\n     referred, lay close to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the\n     building.\n\n     \"I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there were not three\n     separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if I could read the\n     Musgrave Ritual aright I should hold in my hand the clue which would\n     lead me to the truth concerning both the butler Brunton and the maid\n     Howells. To that then I turned all my energies. Why should this\n     servant be so anxious to master this old formula? Evidently because\n     he saw something in it which had escaped all those generations of\n     country squires, and from which he expected some personal advantage.\n     What was it then, and how had it affected his fate?\n\n     \"It was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the ritual, that the\n     measurements must refer to some spot to which the rest of the\n     document alluded, and that if we could find that spot, we should be\n     in a fair way towards finding what the secret was which the old\n     Musgraves had thought it necessary to embalm in so curious a fashion.\n     There were two guides given us to start with, an oak and an elm. As\n     to the oak there could be no question at all. Right in front of the\n     house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch\n     among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen.\n\n     \"'That was there when your ritual was drawn up,' said I, as we drove\n     past it.\n\n     \"'It was there at the Norman Conquest in all probability,' he\n     answered. 'It has a girth of twenty-three feet.'\n\n     \"Here was one of my fixed points secured.\n\n     \"'Have you any old elms?' I asked.\n\n     \"'There used to be a very old one over yonder but it was struck by\n     lightning ten years ago, and we cut down the stump,'\n\n     \"'You can see where it used to be?'\n\n     \"'Oh, yes.'\n\n     \"'There are no other elms?'\n\n     \"'No old ones, but plenty of beeches.'\n\n     \"'I should like to see where it grew.'\n\n     \"We had driven up in a dogcart, and my client led me away at once,\n     without our entering the house, to the scar on the lawn where the elm\n     had stood. It was nearly midway between the oak and the house. My\n     investigation seemed to be progressing.\n\n     \"'I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the elm was?' I\n     asked.\n\n     \"'I can give you it at once. It was sixty-four feet.'\n\n     \"'How do you come to know it?' I asked, in surprise.\n\n     \"'When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in trigonometry, it\n     always took the shape of measuring heights. When I was a lad I worked\n     out every tree and building in the estate.'\n\n     \"This was an unexpected piece of luck. My data were coming more\n     quickly than I could have reasonably hoped.\n\n     \"'Tell me,' I asked, 'did your butler ever ask you such a question?'\n\n     \"Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment. 'Now that you call\n     it to my mind,' he answered, 'Brunton did ask me about the height of\n     the tree some months ago, in connection with some little argument\n     with the groom.'\n\n     \"This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me that I was on the\n     right road. I looked up at the sun. It was low in the heavens, and I\n     calculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the\n     topmost branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in the\n     Ritual would then be fulfilled. And the shadow of the elm must mean\n     the farther end of the shadow, otherwise the trunk would have been\n     chosen as the guide. I had, then, to find where the far end of the\n     shadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the oak.\"\n\n     \"That must have been difficult, Holmes, when the elm was no longer\n     there.\"\n\n     \"Well, at least I knew that if Brunton could do it, I could also.\n     Besides, there was no real difficulty. I went with Musgrave to his\n     study and whittled myself this peg, to which I tied this long string\n     with a knot at each yard. Then I took two lengths of a fishing-rod,\n     which came to just six feet, and I went back with my client to where\n     the elm had been. The sun was just grazing the top of the oak. I\n     fastened the rod on end, marked out the direction of the shadow, and\n     measured it. It was nine feet in length.\n\n     \"Of course the calculation now was a simple one. If a rod of six feet\n     threw a shadow of nine, a tree of sixty-four feet would throw one of\n     ninety-six, and the line of the one would of course be the line of\n     the other. I measured out the distance, which brought me almost to\n     the wall of the house, and I thrust a peg into the spot. You can\n     imagine my exultation, Watson, when within two inches of my peg I saw\n     a conical depression in the ground. I knew that it was the mark made\n     by Brunton in his measurements, and that I was still upon his trail.\n\n     \"From this starting-point I proceeded to step, having first taken the\n     cardinal points by my pocket-compass. Ten steps with each foot took\n     me along parallel with the wall of the house, and again I marked my\n     spot with a peg. Then I carefully paced off five to the east and two\n     to the south. It brought me to the very threshold of the old door.\n     Two steps to the west meant now that I was to go two paces down the\n     stone-flagged passage, and this was the place indicated by the\n     Ritual.\n\n     \"Never have I felt such a cold chill of disappointment, Watson. For a\n     moment it seemed to me that there must be some radical mistake in my\n     calculations. The setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and\n     I could see that the old, foot-worn gray stones with which it was\n     paved were firmly cemented together, and had certainly not been moved\n     for many a long year. Brunton had not been at work here. I tapped\n     upon the floor, but it sounded the same all over, and there was no\n     sign of any crack or crevice. But fortunately, Musgrave, who had\n     begun to appreciate the meaning of my proceedings, and who was now as\n     excited as myself, took out his manuscript to check my calculation.\n\n     \"'And under,' he cried. 'You have omitted the \"and under.\"'\n\n     \"I had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but now, of course,\n     I saw at once that I was wrong. 'There is a cellar under this then?'\n     I cried.\n\n     \"'Yes, and as old as the house. Down here, through this door.'\n\n     \"We went down a winding stone stair, and my companion, striking a\n     match, lit a large lantern which stood on a barrel in the corner. In\n     an instant it was obvious that we had at last come upon the true\n     place, and that we had not been the only people to visit the spot\n     recently.\n\n     \"It had been used for the storage of wood, but the billets, which had\n     evidently been littered over the floor, were now piled at the sides,\n     so as to leave a clear space in the middle. In this space lay a large\n     and heavy flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the centre to which a\n     thick shepherd's-check muffler was attached.\n\n     \"'By Jove!' cried my client. 'That's Brunton's muffler. I have seen\n     it on him, and could swear to it. What has the villain been doing\n     here?'\n\n     \"At my suggestion a couple of the county police were summoned to be\n     present, and I then endeavored to raise the stone by pulling on the\n     cravat. I could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one\n     of the constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to one\n     side. A black hole yawned beneath into which we all peered, while\n     Musgrave, kneeling at the side, pushed down the lantern.\n\n     \"A small chamber about seven feet deep and four feet square lay open\n     to us. At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the\n     lid of which was hinged upwards, with this curious old-fashioned key\n     projecting from the lock. It was furred outside by a thick layer of\n     dust, and damp and worms had eaten through the wood, so that a crop\n     of livid fungi was growing on the inside of it. Several discs of\n     metal, old coins apparently, such as I hold here, were scattered over\n     the bottom of the box, but it contained nothing else.\n\n     \"At the moment, however, we had no thought for the old chest, for our\n     eyes were riveted upon that which crouched beside it. It was the\n     figure of a man, clad in a suit of black, who squatted down upon his\n     hams with his forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and his two arms\n     thrown out on each side of it. The attitude had drawn all the\n     stagnant blood to the face, and no man could have recognized that\n     distorted liver-colored countenance; but his height, his dress, and\n     his hair were all sufficient to show my client, when we had drawn the\n     body up, that it was indeed his missing butler. He had been dead some\n     days, but there was no wound or bruise upon his person to show how he\n     had met his dreadful end. When his body had been carried from the\n     cellar we found ourselves still confronted with a problem which was\n     almost as formidable as that with which we had started.\n\n     \"I confess that so far, Watson, I had been disappointed in my\n     investigation. I had reckoned upon solving the matter when once I had\n     found the place referred to in the Ritual; but now I was there, and\n     was apparently as far as ever from knowing what it was which the\n     family had concealed with such elaborate precautions. It is true that\n     I had thrown a light upon the fate of Brunton, but now I had to\n     ascertain how that fate had come upon him, and what part had been\n     played in the matter by the woman who had disappeared. I sat down\n     upon a keg in the corner and thought the whole matter carefully over.\n\n     \"You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man's\n     place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how\n     I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this\n     case the matter was simplified by Brunton's intelligence being quite\n     first-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the\n     personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. He knew that\n     something valuable was concealed. He had spotted the place. He found\n     that the stone which covered it was just too heavy for a man to move\n     unaided. What would he do next? He could not get help from outside,\n     even if he had some one whom he could trust, without the unbarring of\n     doors and considerable risk of detection. It was better, if he could,\n     to have his helpmate inside the house. But whom could he ask? This\n     girl had been devoted to him. A man always finds it hard to realize\n     that he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may\n     have treated her. He would try by a few attentions to make his peace\n     with the girl Howells, and then would engage her as his accomplice.\n     Together they would come at night to the cellar, and their united\n     force would suffice to raise the stone. So far I could follow their\n     actions as if I had actually seen them.\n\n     \"But for two of them, and one a woman, it must have been heavy work\n     the raising of that stone. A burly Sussex policeman and I had found\n     it no light job. What would they do to assist them? Probably what I\n     should have done myself. I rose and examined carefully the different\n     billets of wood which were scattered round the floor. Almost at once\n     I came upon what I expected. One piece, about three feet in length,\n     had a very marked indentation at one end, while several were\n     flattened at the sides as if they had been compressed by some\n     considerable weight. Evidently, as they had dragged the stone up they\n     had thrust the chunks of wood into the chink, until at last, when the\n     opening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by\n     a billet placed lengthwise, which might very well become indented at\n     the lower end, since the whole weight of the stone would press it\n     down on to the edge of this other slab. So far I was still on safe\n     ground.\n\n     \"And now how was I to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama?\n     Clearly, only one could fit into the hole, and that one was Brunton.\n     The girl must have waited above. Brunton then unlocked the box,\n     handed up the contents presumably--since they were not to be\n     found--and then--and then what happened?\n\n     \"What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in\n     this passionate Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had\n     wronged her--wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected--in her\n     power? Was it a chance that the wood had slipped, and that the stone\n     had shut Brunton into what had become his sepulchre? Had she only\n     been guilty of silence as to his fate? Or had some sudden blow from\n     her hand dashed the support away and sent the slab crashing down into\n     its place? Be that as it might, I seemed to see that woman's figure\n     still clutching at her treasure trove and flying wildly up the\n     winding stair, with her ears ringing perhaps with the muffled screams\n     from behind her and with the drumming of frenzied hands against the\n     slab of stone which was choking her faithless lover's life out.\n\n     \"Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her\n     peals of hysterical laughter on the next morning. But what had been\n     in the box? What had she done with that? Of course, it must have been\n     the old metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere.\n     She had thrown them in there at the first opportunity to remove the\n     last trace of her crime.\n\n     \"For twenty minutes I had sat motionless, thinking the matter out.\n     Musgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his lantern and\n     peering down into the hole.\n\n     \"'These are coins of Charles the First,' said he, holding out the few\n     which had been in the box; 'you see we were right in fixing our date\n     for the Ritual.'\n\n     \"'We may find something else of Charles the First,' I cried, as the\n     probable meaning of the first two question of the Ritual broke\n     suddenly upon me. 'Let me see the contents of the bag which you\n     fished from the mere.'\n\n     \"We ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me. I could\n     understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at\n     it, for the metal was almost black and the stones lustreless and\n     dull. I rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed\n     afterwards like a spark in the dark hollow of my hand. The metal work\n     was in the form of a double ring, but it had been bent and twisted\n     out of its original shape.\n\n     \"'You must bear in mind,' said I, 'that the royal party made head in\n     England even after the death of the King, and that when they at last\n     fled they probably left many of their most precious possessions\n     buried behind them, with the intention of returning for them in more\n     peaceful times.'\n\n     \"'My ancestor, Sir Ralph Musgrave, was a prominent Cavalier and the\n     right-hand man of Charles the Second in his wanderings,' said my\n     friend.\n\n     \"'Ah, indeed!' I answered. 'Well now, I think that really should give\n     us the last link that we wanted. I must congratulate you on coming\n     into the possession, though in rather a tragic manner, of a relic\n     which is of great intrinsic value, but of even greater importance as\n     an historical curiosity.'\n\n     \"'What is it, then?' he gasped in astonishment.\n\n     \"'It is nothing less than the ancient crown of the kings of England.'\n\n     \"'The crown!'\n\n     \"'Precisely. Consider what the Ritual says: How does it run? \"Whose\n     was it?\" \"His who is gone.\" That was after the execution of Charles.\n     Then, \"Who shall have it?\" \"He who will come.\" That was Charles the\n     Second, whose advent was already foreseen. There can, I think, be no\n     doubt that this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the\n     brows of the royal Stuarts.'\n\n     \"'And how came it in the pond?'\n\n     \"'Ah, that is a question that will take some time to answer.' And\n     with that I sketched out to him the whole long chain of surmise and\n     of proof which I had constructed. The twilight had closed in and the\n     moon was shining brightly in the sky before my narrative was\n     finished.\n\n     \"'And how was it then that Charles did not get his crown when he\n     returned?' asked Musgrave, pushing back the relic into its linen bag.\n\n     \"'Ah, there you lay your finger upon the one point which we shall\n     probably never be able to clear up. It is likely that the Musgrave\n     who held the secret died in the interval, and by some oversight left\n     this guide to his descendant without explaining the meaning of it.\n     From that day to this it has been handed down from father to son,\n     until at last it came within reach of a man who tore its secret out\n     of it and lost his life in the venture.'\n\n     \"And that's the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson. They have the\n     crown down at Hurlstone--though they had some legal bother and a\n     considerable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. I am\n     sure that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to\n     you. Of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that\n     she got away out of England and carried herself and the memory of her\n     crime to some land beyond the seas.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               THE REIGATE SQUIRES\n\n     It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n     recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the\n     spring of '87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company\n     and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the\n     minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics\n     and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches. They\n     led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex\n     problem which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the\n     value of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his\n     life-long battle against crime.\n\n     On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the 14th of April\n     that I received a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes\n     was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in\n     his sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was nothing\n     formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron constitution, however, had\n     broken down under the strain of an investigation which had extended\n     over two months, during which period he had never worked less than\n     fifteen hours a day, and had more than once, as he assured me, kept\n     to his task for five days at a stretch. Even the triumphant issue of\n     his labors could not save him from reaction after so terrible an\n     exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing with his name and\n     when his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams\n     I found him a prey to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge\n     that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed,\n     and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point the most accomplished\n     swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous\n     prostration.\n\n     Three days later we were back in Baker Street together; but it was\n     evident that my friend would be much the better for a change, and the\n     thought of a week of spring time in the country was full of\n     attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had come\n     under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house near\n     Reigate in Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to him\n     upon a visit. On the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend\n     would only come with me he would be glad to extend his hospitality to\n     him also. A little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood\n     that the establishment was a bachelor one, and that he would be\n     allowed the fullest freedom, he fell in with my plans and a week\n     after our return from Lyons we were under the Colonel's roof. Hayter\n     was a fine old soldier who had seen much of the world, and he soon\n     found, as I had expected, that Holmes and he had much in common.\n\n     On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the Colonel's\n     gun-room after dinner, Holmes stretched upon the sofa, while Hayter\n     and I looked over his little armory of Eastern weapons.\n\n     \"By the way,\" said he suddenly, \"I think I'll take one of these\n     pistols upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.\"\n\n     \"An alarm!\" said I.\n\n     \"Yes, we've had a scare in this part lately. Old Acton, who is one of\n     our county magnates, had his house broken into last Monday. No great\n     damage done, but the fellows are still at large.\"\n\n     \"No clue?\" asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the Colonel.\n\n     \"None as yet. But the affair is a pretty one, one of our little\n     country crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, Mr.\n     Holmes, after this great international affair.\"\n\n     Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it had\n     pleased him.\n\n     \"Was there any feature of interest?\"\n\n     \"I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library and got very little\n     for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers\n     burst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume\n     of Pope's Homer, two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a\n     small oak barometer, and a ball of twine are all that have vanished.\"\n\n     \"What an extraordinary assortment!\" I exclaimed.\n\n     \"Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything they could\n     get.\"\n\n     Holmes grunted from the sofa.\n\n     \"The county police ought to make something of that,\" said he; \"why,\n     it is surely obvious that--\"\n\n     But I held up a warning finger.\n\n     \"You are here for a rest, my dear fellow. For Heaven's sake don't get\n     started on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation\n     towards the Colonel, and the talk drifted away into less dangerous\n     channels.\n\n     It was destined, however, that all my professional caution should be\n     wasted, for next morning the problem obtruded itself upon us in such\n     a way that it was impossible to ignore it, and our country visit took\n     a turn which neither of us could have anticipated. We were at\n     breakfast when the Colonel's butler rushed in with all his propriety\n     shaken out of him.\n\n     \"Have you heard the news, sir?\" he gasped. \"At the Cunningham's sir!\"\n\n     \"Burglary!\" cried the Colonel, with his coffee-cup in mid-air.\n\n     \"Murder!\"\n\n     The Colonel whistled. \"By Jove!\" said he. \"Who's killed, then? The\n     J.P. or his son?\"\n\n     \"Neither, sir. It was William the coachman. Shot through the heart,\n     sir, and never spoke again.\"\n\n     \"Who shot him, then?\"\n\n     \"The burglar, sir. He was off like a shot and got clean away. He'd\n     just broke in at the pantry window when William came on him and met\n     his end in saving his master's property.\"\n\n     \"What time?\"\n\n     \"It was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.\"\n\n     \"Ah, then, we'll step over afterwards,\" said the Colonel, coolly\n     settling down to his breakfast again. \"It's a baddish business,\" he\n     added when the butler had gone; \"he's our leading man about here, is\n     old Cunningham, and a very decent fellow too. He'll be cut up over\n     this, for the man has been in his service for years and was a good\n     servant. It's evidently the same villains who broke into Acton's.\"\n\n     \"And stole that very singular collection,\" said Holmes, thoughtfully.\n\n     \"Precisely.\"\n\n     \"Hum! It may prove the simplest matter in the world, but all the same\n     at first glance this is just a little curious, is it not? A gang of\n     burglars acting in the country might be expected to vary the scene of\n     their operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same district\n     within a few days. When you spoke last night of taking precautions I\n     remember that it passed through my mind that this was probably the\n     last parish in England to which the thief or thieves would be likely\n     to turn their attention--which shows that I have still much to\n     learn.\"\n\n     \"I fancy it's some local practitioner,\" said the Colonel. \"In that\n     case, of course, Acton's and Cunningham's are just the places he\n     would go for, since they are far the largest about here.\"\n\n     \"And richest?\"\n\n     \"Well, they ought to be, but they've had a lawsuit for some years\n     which has sucked the blood out of both of them, I fancy. Old Acton\n     has some claim on half Cunningham's estate, and the lawyers have been\n     at it with both hands.\"\n\n     \"If it's a local villain there should not be much difficulty in\n     running him down,\" said Holmes with a yawn. \"All right, Watson, I\n     don't intend to meddle.\"\n\n     \"Inspector Forrester, sir,\" said the butler, throwing open the door.\n\n     The official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow, stepped into the\n     room. \"Good-morning, Colonel,\" said he; \"I hope I don't intrude, but\n     we hear that Mr. Holmes of Baker Street is here.\"\n\n     The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the Inspector\n     bowed.\n\n     \"We thought that perhaps you would care to step across, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"The fates are against you, Watson,\" said he, laughing. \"We were\n     chatting about the matter when you came in, Inspector. Perhaps you\n     can let us have a few details.\" As he leaned back in his chair in the\n     familiar attitude I knew that the case was hopeless.\n\n     \"We had no clue in the Acton affair. But here we have plenty to go\n     on, and there's no doubt it is the same party in each case. The man\n     was seen.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. But he was off like a deer after the shot that killed poor\n     William Kirwan was fired. Mr. Cunningham saw him from the bedroom\n     window, and Mr. Alec Cunningham saw him from the back passage. It was\n     quarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. Mr. Cunningham had just\n     got into bed, and Mr. Alec was smoking a pipe in his dressing-gown.\n     They both heard William the coachman calling for help, and Mr. Alec\n     ran down to see what was the matter. The back door was open, and as\n     he came to the foot of the stairs he saw two men wrestling together\n     outside. One of them fired a shot, the other dropped, and the\n     murderer rushed across the garden and over the hedge. Mr. Cunningham,\n     looking out of his bedroom, saw the fellow as he gained the road, but\n     lost sight of him at once. Mr. Alec stopped to see if he could help\n     the dying man, and so the villain got clean away. Beyond the fact\n     that he was a middle-sized man and dressed in some dark stuff, we\n     have no personal clue; but we are making energetic inquiries, and if\n     he is a stranger we shall soon find him out.\"\n\n     \"What was this William doing there? Did he say anything before he\n     died?\"\n\n     \"Not a word. He lives at the lodge with his mother, and as he was a\n     very faithful fellow we imagine that he walked up to the house with\n     the intention of seeing that all was right there. Of course this\n     Acton business has put every one on their guard. The robber must have\n     just burst open the door--the lock has been forced--when William came\n     upon him.\"\n\n     \"Did William say anything to his mother before going out?\"\n\n     \"She is very old and deaf, and we can get no information from her.\n     The shock has made her half-witted, but I understand that she was\n     never very bright. There is one very important circumstance, however.\n     Look at this!\"\n\n     He took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book and spread it\n     out upon his knee.\n\n     \"This was found between the finger and thumb of the dead man. It\n     appears to be a fragment torn from a larger sheet. You will observe\n     that the hour mentioned upon it is the very time at which the poor\n     fellow met his fate. You see that his murderer might have torn the\n     rest of the sheet from him or he might have taken this fragment from\n     the murderer. It reads almost as though it were an appointment.\"\n\n     Holmes took up the scrap of paper, a facsimile of which is here\n     reproduced.\n\n     [ Picture: Scrap showing the words: At quarter to twelve, learn what,\n     may be ]\n\n     \"Presuming that it is an appointment,\" continued the Inspector, \"it\n     is of course a conceivable theory that this William Kirwan--though he\n     had the reputation of being an honest man, may have been in league\n     with the thief. He may have met him there, may even have helped him\n     to break in the door, and then they may have fallen out between\n     themselves.\"\n\n     \"This writing is of extraordinary interest,\" said Holmes, who had\n     been examining it with intense concentration. \"These are much deeper\n     waters than I had thought.\" He sank his head upon his hands, while\n     the Inspector smiled at the effect which his case had had upon the\n     famous London specialist.\n\n     \"Your last remark,\" said Holmes, presently, \"as to the possibility of\n     there being an understanding between the burglar and the servant, and\n     this being a note of appointment from one to the other, is an\n     ingenious and not entirely impossible supposition. But this writing\n     opens up--\" He sank his head into his hands again and remained for\n     some minutes in the deepest thought. When he raised his face again, I\n     was surprised to see that his cheek was tinged with color, and his\n     eyes as bright as before his illness. He sprang to his feet with all\n     his old energy.\n\n     \"I'll tell you what,\" said he, \"I should like to have a quiet little\n     glance into the details of this case. There is something in it which\n     fascinates me extremely. If you will permit me, Colonel, I will leave\n     my friend Watson and you, and I will step round with the Inspector to\n     test the truth of one or two little fancies of mine. I will be with\n     you again in half an hour.\"\n\n     An hour and half had elapsed before the Inspector returned alone.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,\" said he.\n     \"He wants us all four to go up to the house together.\"\n\n     \"To Mr. Cunningham's?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"What for?\"\n\n     The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. \"I don't quite know, sir.\n     Between ourselves, I think Mr. Holmes had not quite got over his\n     illness yet. He's been behaving very queerly, and he is very much\n     excited.\"\n\n     \"I don't think you need alarm yourself,\" said I. \"I have usually\n     found that there was method in his madness.\"\n\n     \"Some folks might say there was madness in his method,\" muttered the\n     Inspector. \"But he's all on fire to start, Colonel, so we had best go\n     out if you are ready.\"\n\n     We found Holmes pacing up and down in the field, his chin sunk upon\n     his breast, and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.\n\n     \"The matter grows in interest,\" said he. \"Watson, your country-trip\n     has been a distinct success. I have had a charming morning.\"\n\n     \"You have been up to the scene of the crime, I understand,\" said the\n     Colonel.\n\n     \"Yes; the Inspector and I have made quite a little reconnaissance\n     together.\"\n\n     \"Any success?\"\n\n     \"Well, we have seen some very interesting things. I'll tell you what\n     we did as we walk. First of all, we saw the body of this unfortunate\n     man. He certainly died from a revolver wound as reported.\"\n\n     \"Had you doubted it, then?\"\n\n     \"Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection was not wasted.\n     We then had an interview with Mr. Cunningham and his son, who were\n     able to point out the exact spot where the murderer had broken\n     through the garden-hedge in his flight. That was of great interest.\"\n\n     \"Naturally.\"\n\n     \"Then we had a look at this poor fellow's mother. We could get no\n     information from her, however, as she is very old and feeble.\"\n\n     \"And what is the result of your investigations?\"\n\n     \"The conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one. Perhaps our\n     visit now may do something to make it less obscure. I think that we\n     are both agreed, Inspector, that the fragment of paper in the dead\n     man's hand, bearing, as it does, the very hour of his death written\n     upon it, is of extreme importance.\"\n\n     \"It should give a clue, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"It does give a clue. Whoever wrote that note was the man who brought\n     William Kirwan out of his bed at that hour. But where is the rest of\n     that sheet of paper?\"\n\n     \"I examined the ground carefully in the hope of finding it,\" said the\n     Inspector.\n\n     \"It was torn out of the dead man's hand. Why was some one so anxious\n     to get possession of it? Because it incriminated him. And what would\n     he do with it? Thrust it into his pocket, most likely, never noticing\n     that a corner of it had been left in the grip of the corpse. If we\n     could get the rest of that sheet it is obvious that we should have\n     gone a long way towards solving the mystery.\"\n\n     \"Yes, but how can we get at the criminal's pocket before we catch the\n     criminal?\"\n\n     \"Well, well, it was worth thinking over. Then there is another\n     obvious point. The note was sent to William. The man who wrote it\n     could not have taken it; otherwise, of course, he might have\n     delivered his own message by word of mouth. Who brought the note,\n     then? Or did it come through the post?\"\n\n     \"I have made inquiries,\" said the Inspector. \"William received a\n     letter by the afternoon post yesterday. The envelope was destroyed by\n     him.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" cried Holmes, clapping the Inspector on the back.\n     \"You've seen the postman. It is a pleasure to work with you. Well,\n     here is the lodge, and if you will come up, Colonel, I will show you\n     the scene of the crime.\"\n\n     We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived, and\n     walked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old Queen Anne house, which\n     bears the date of Malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. Holmes and\n     the Inspector led us round it until we came to the side gate, which\n     is separated by a stretch of garden from the hedge which lines the\n     road. A constable was standing at the kitchen door.\n\n     \"Throw the door open, officer,\" said Holmes. \"Now, it was on those\n     stairs that young Mr. Cunningham stood and saw the two men struggling\n     just where we are. Old Mr. Cunningham was at that window--the second\n     on the left--and he saw the fellow get away just to the left of that\n     bush. So did the son. They are both sure of it on account of the\n     bush. Then Mr. Alec ran out and knelt beside the wounded man. The\n     ground is very hard, you see, and there are no marks to guide us.\" As\n     he spoke two men came down the garden path, from round the angle of\n     the house. The one was an elderly man, with a strong, deep-lined,\n     heavy-eyed face; the other a dashing young fellow, whose bright,\n     smiling expression and showy dress were in strange contrast with the\n     business which had brought us there.\n\n     \"Still at it, then?\" said he to Holmes. \"I thought you Londoners were\n     never at fault. You don't seem to be so very quick, after all.\"\n\n     \"Ah, you must give us a little time,\" said Holmes good-humoredly.\n\n     \"You'll want it,\" said young Alec Cunningham. \"Why, I don't see that\n     we have any clue at all.\"\n\n     \"There's only one,\" answered the Inspector. \"We thought that if we\n     could only find--Good heavens, Mr. Holmes! What is the matter?\"\n\n     My poor friend's face had suddenly assumed the most dreadful\n     expression. His eyes rolled upwards, his features writhed in agony,\n     and with a suppressed groan he dropped on his face upon the ground.\n     Horrified at the suddenness and severity of the attack, we carried\n     him into the kitchen, where he lay back in a large chair, and\n     breathed heavily for some minutes. Finally, with a shamefaced apology\n     for his weakness, he rose once more.\n\n     \"Watson would tell you that I have only just recovered from a severe\n     illness,\" he explained. \"I am liable to these sudden nervous\n     attacks.\"\n\n     \"Shall I send you home in my trap?\" asked old Cunningham.\n\n     \"Well, since I am here, there is one point on which I should like to\n     feel sure. We can very easily verify it.\"\n\n     \"What was it?\"\n\n     \"Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival of\n     this poor fellow William was not before, but after, the entrance of\n     the burglary into the house. You appear to take it for granted that,\n     although the door was forced, the robber never got in.\"\n\n     \"I fancy that is quite obvious,\" said Mr. Cunningham, gravely. \"Why,\n     my son Alec had not yet gone to bed, and he would certainly have\n     heard any one moving about.\"\n\n     \"Where was he sitting?\"\n\n     \"I was smoking in my dressing-room.\"\n\n     \"Which window is that?\"\n\n     \"The last on the left next my father's.\"\n\n     \"Both of your lamps were lit, of course?\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n     \"There are some very singular points here,\" said Holmes, smiling. \"Is\n     it not extraordinary that a burglary--and a burglar who had had some\n     previous experience--should deliberately break into a house at a time\n     when he could see from the lights that two of the family were still\n     afoot?\"\n\n     \"He must have been a cool hand.\"\n\n     \"Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not have\n     been driven to ask you for an explanation,\" said young Mr. Alec. \"But\n     as to your ideas that the man had robbed the house before William\n     tackled him, I think it a most absurd notion. Wouldn't we have found\n     the place disarranged, and missed the things which he had taken?\"\n\n     \"It depends on what the things were,\" said Holmes. \"You must remember\n     that we are dealing with a burglar who is a very peculiar fellow, and\n     who appears to work on lines of his own. Look, for example, at the\n     queer lot of things which he took from Acton's--what was it?--a ball\n     of string, a letter-weight, and I don't know what other odds and\n     ends.\"\n\n     \"Well, we are quite in your hands, Mr. Holmes,\" said old Cunningham.\n     \"Anything which you or the Inspector may suggest will most certainly\n     be done.\"\n\n     \"In the first place,\" said Holmes, \"I should like you to offer a\n     reward--coming from yourself, for the officials may take a little\n     time before they would agree upon the sum, and these things cannot be\n     done too promptly. I have jotted down the form here, if you would not\n     mind signing it. Fifty pound was quite enough, I thought.\"\n\n     \"I would willingly give five hundred,\" said the J.P., taking the slip\n     of paper and the pencil which Holmes handed to him. \"This is not\n     quite correct, however,\" he added, glancing over the document.\n\n     \"I wrote it rather hurriedly.\"\n\n     \"You see you begin, 'Whereas, at about a quarter to one on Tuesday\n     morning an attempt was made,' and so on. It was at a quarter to\n     twelve, as a matter of fact.\"\n\n     I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly Holmes would feel\n     any slip of the kind. It was his specialty to be accurate as to fact,\n     but his recent illness had shaken him, and this one little incident\n     was enough to show me that he was still far from being himself. He\n     was obviously embarrassed for an instant, while the Inspector raised\n     his eyebrows, and Alec Cunningham burst into a laugh. The old\n     gentleman corrected the mistake, however, and handed the paper back\n     to Holmes.\n\n     \"Get it printed as soon as possible,\" he said; \"I think your idea is\n     an excellent one.\"\n\n     Holmes put the slip of paper carefully away into his pocket-book.\n\n     \"And now,\" said he, \"it really would be a good thing that we should\n     all go over the house together and make certain that this rather\n     erratic burglar did not, after all, carry anything away with him.\"\n\n     Before entering, Holmes made an examination of the door which had\n     been forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been\n     thrust in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see the marks\n     in the wood where it had been pushed in.\n\n     \"You don't use bars, then?\" he asked.\n\n     \"We have never found it necessary.\"\n\n     \"You don't keep a dog?\"\n\n     \"Yes, but he is chained on the other side of the house.\"\n\n     \"When do the servants go to bed?\"\n\n     \"About ten.\"\n\n     \"I understand that William was usually in bed also at that hour.\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"It is singular that on this particular night he should have been up.\n     Now, I should be very glad if you would have the kindness to show us\n     over the house, Mr. Cunningham.\"\n\n     A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it,\n     led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house.\n     It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental\n     stair which came up from the front hall. Out of this landing opened\n     the drawing-room and several bedrooms, including those of Mr.\n     Cunningham and his son. Holmes walked slowly, taking keen note of the\n     architecture of the house. I could tell from his expression that he\n     was on a hot scent, and yet I could not in the least imagine in what\n     direction his inferences were leading him.\n\n     \"My good sir,\" said Mr. Cunningham with some impatience, \"this is\n     surely very unnecessary. That is my room at the end of the stairs,\n     and my son's is the one beyond it. I leave it to your judgment\n     whether it was possible for the thief to have come up here without\n     disturbing us.\"\n\n     \"You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I fancy,\" said the son\n     with a rather malicious smile.\n\n     \"Still, I must ask you to humor me a little further. I should like,\n     for example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms command the\n     front. This, I understand is your son's room\"--he pushed open the\n     door--\"and that, I presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat\n     smoking when the alarm was given. Where does the window of that look\n     out to?\" He stepped across the bedroom, pushed open the door, and\n     glanced round the other chamber.\n\n     \"I hope that you are satisfied now?\" said Mr. Cunningham, tartly.\n\n     \"Thank you, I think I have seen all that I wished.\"\n\n     \"Then if it is really necessary we can go into my room.\"\n\n     \"If it is not too much trouble.\"\n\n     The J.P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own\n     chamber, which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. As we\n     moved across it in the direction of the window, Holmes fell back\n     until he and I were the last of the group. Near the foot of the bed\n     stood a dish of oranges and a carafe of water. As we passed it\n     Holmes, to my unutterable astonishment, leaned over in front of me\n     and deliberately knocked the whole thing over. The glass smashed into\n     a thousand pieces and the fruit rolled about into every corner of the\n     room.\n\n     \"You've done it now, Watson,\" said he, coolly. \"A pretty mess you've\n     made of the carpet.\"\n\n     I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit,\n     understanding for some reason my companion desired me to take the\n     blame upon myself. The others did the same, and set the table on its\n     legs again.\n\n     \"Hullo!\" cried the Inspector, \"where's he got to?\"\n\n     Holmes had disappeared.\n\n     \"Wait here an instant,\" said young Alec Cunningham. \"The fellow is\n     off his head, in my opinion. Come with me, father, and see where he\n     has got to!\"\n\n     They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector, the Colonel, and\n     me staring at each other.\n\n     \"'Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Master Alec,\" said the\n     official. \"It may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to me\n     that--\"\n\n     His words were cut short by a sudden scream of \"Help! Help! Murder!\"\n     With a thrill I recognised the voice as that of my friend. I rushed\n     madly from the room on to the landing. The cries, which had sunk down\n     into a hoarse, inarticulate shouting, came from the room which we had\n     first visited. I dashed in, and on into the dressing-room beyond. The\n     two Cunninghams were bending over the prostrate figure of Sherlock\n     Holmes, the younger clutching his throat with both hands, while the\n     elder seemed to be twisting one of his wrists. In an instant the\n     three of us had torn them away from him, and Holmes staggered to his\n     feet, very pale and evidently greatly exhausted.\n\n     \"Arrest these men, Inspector,\" he gasped.\n\n     \"On what charge?\"\n\n     \"That of murdering their coachman, William Kirwan.\"\n\n     The Inspector stared about him in bewilderment. \"Oh, come now, Mr.\n     Holmes,\" said he at last, \"I'm sure you don't really mean to--\"\n\n     \"Tut, man, look at their faces!\" cried Holmes, curtly.\n\n     Never, certainly, have I seen a plainer confession of guilt upon\n     human countenances. The older man seemed numbed and dazed with a\n     heavy, sullen expression upon his strongly-marked face. The son, on\n     the other hand, had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style which had\n     characterized him, and the ferocity of a dangerous wild beast gleamed\n     in his dark eyes and distorted his handsome features. The Inspector\n     said nothing, but, stepping to the door, he blew his whistle. Two of\n     his constables came at the call.\n\n     \"I have no alternative, Mr. Cunningham,\" said he. \"I trust that this\n     may all prove to be an absurd mistake, but you can see that--Ah,\n     would you? Drop it!\" He struck out with his hand, and a revolver\n     which the younger man was in the act of cocking clattered down upon\n     the floor.\n\n     \"Keep that,\" said Holmes, quietly putting his foot upon it; \"you will\n     find it useful at the trial. But this is what we really wanted.\" He\n     held up a little crumpled piece of paper.\n\n     \"The remainder of the sheet!\" cried the Inspector.\n\n     \"Precisely.\"\n\n     \"And where was it?\"\n\n     \"Where I was sure it must be. I'll make the whole matter clear to you\n     presently. I think, Colonel, that you and Watson might return now,\n     and I will be with you again in an hour at the furthest. The\n     Inspector and I must have a word with the prisoners, but you will\n     certainly see me back at luncheon time.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was as good as his word, for about one o'clock he\n     rejoined us in the Colonel's smoking-room. He was accompanied by a\n     little elderly gentleman, who was introduced to me as the Mr. Acton\n     whose house had been the scene of the original burglary.\n\n     \"I wished Mr. Acton to be present while I demonstrated this small\n     matter to you,\" said Holmes, \"for it is natural that he should take a\n     keen interest in the details. I am afraid, my dear Colonel, that you\n     must regret the hour that you took in such a stormy petrel as I am.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" answered the Colonel, warmly, \"I consider it the\n     greatest privilege to have been permitted to study your methods of\n     working. I confess that they quite surpass my expectations, and that\n     I am utterly unable to account for your result. I have not yet seen\n     the vestige of a clue.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that my explanation may disillusion you but it has\n     always been my habit to hide none of my methods, either from my\n     friend Watson or from any one who might take an intelligent interest\n     in them. But, first, as I am rather shaken by the knocking about\n     which I had in the dressing-room, I think that I shall help myself to\n     a dash of your brandy, Colonel. My strength had been rather tried of\n     late.\"\n\n     \"I trust that you had no more of those nervous attacks.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily. \"We will come to that in its turn,\"\n     said he. \"I will lay an account of the case before you in its due\n     order, showing you the various points which guided me in my decision.\n     Pray interrupt me if there is any inference which is not perfectly\n     clear to you.\n\n     \"It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able\n     to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and\n     which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated\n     instead of being concentrated. Now, in this case there was not the\n     slightest doubt in my mind from the first that the key of the whole\n     matter must be looked for in the scrap of paper in the dead man's\n     hand.\n\n     \"Before going into this, I would draw your attention to the fact\n     that, if Alec Cunningham's narrative was correct, and if the\n     assailant, after shooting William Kirwan, had instantly fled, then it\n     obviously could not be he who tore the paper from the dead man's\n     hand. But if it was not he, it must have been Alec Cunningham\n     himself, for by the time that the old man had descended several\n     servants were upon the scene. The point is a simple one, but the\n     Inspector had overlooked it because he had started with the\n     supposition that these county magnates had had nothing to do with the\n     matter. Now, I make a point of never having any prejudices, and of\n     following docilely wherever fact may lead me, and so, in the very\n     first stage of the investigation, I found myself looking a little\n     askance at the part which had been played by Mr. Alec Cunningham.\n\n     \"And now I made a very careful examination of the corner of paper\n     which the Inspector had submitted to us. It was at once clear to me\n     that it formed part of a very remarkable document. Here it is. Do you\n     not now observed something very suggestive about it?\"\n\n     \"It has a very irregular look,\" said the Colonel.\n\n     \"My dear sir,\" cried Holmes, \"there cannot be the least doubt in the\n     world that it has been written by two persons doing alternate words.\n     When I draw your attention to the strong t's of 'at' and 'to', and\n     ask you to compare them with the weak ones of 'quarter' and 'twelve,'\n     you will instantly recognize the fact. A very brief analysis of these\n     four words would enable you to say with the utmost confidence that\n     the 'learn' and the 'maybe' are written in the stronger hand, and the\n     'what' in the weaker.\"\n\n     \"By Jove, it's as clear as day!\" cried the Colonel. \"Why on earth\n     should two men write a letter in such a fashion?\"\n\n     \"Obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the men who\n     distrusted the other was determined that, whatever was done, each\n     should have an equal hand in it. Now, of the two men, it is clear\n     that the one who wrote the 'at' and 'to' was the ringleader.\"\n\n     \"How do you get at that?\"\n\n     \"We might deduce it from the mere character of the one hand as\n     compared with the other. But we have more assured reasons than that\n     for supposing it. If you examine this scrap with attention you will\n     come to the conclusion that the man with the stronger hand wrote all\n     his words first, leaving blanks for the other to fill up. These\n     blanks were not always sufficient, and you can see that the second\n     man had a squeeze to fit his 'quarter' in between the 'at' and the\n     'to,' showing that the latter were already written. The man who wrote\n     all his words first is undoubtedly the man who planned the affair.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" cried Mr. Acton.\n\n     \"But very superficial,\" said Holmes. \"We come now, however, to a\n     point which is of importance. You may not be aware that the deduction\n     of a man's age from his writing is one which has been brought to\n     considerable accuracy by experts. In normal cases one can place a man\n     in his true decade with tolerable confidence. I say normal cases,\n     because ill-health and physical weakness reproduce the signs of old\n     age, even when the invalid is a youth. In this case, looking at the\n     bold, strong hand of the one, and the rather broken-backed appearance\n     of the other, which still retains its legibility although the t's\n     have begun to lose their crossing, we can say that the one was a\n     young man and the other was advanced in years without being\n     positively decrepit.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" cried Mr. Acton again.\n\n     \"There is a further point, however, which is subtler and of greater\n     interest. There is something in common between these hands. They\n     belong to men who are blood-relatives. It may be most obvious to you\n     in the Greek e's, but to me there are many small points which\n     indicate the same thing. I have no doubt at all that a family\n     mannerism can be traced in these two specimens of writing. I am only,\n     of course, giving you the leading results now of my examination of\n     the paper. There were twenty-three other deductions which would be of\n     more interest to experts than to you. They all tended to deepen the\n     impression upon my mind that the Cunninghams, father and son, had\n     written this letter.\n\n     \"Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into the\n     details of the crime, and to see how far they would help us. I went\n     up to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen.\n     The wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to determine with\n     absolute confidence, fired from a revolver at the distance of\n     something over four yards. There was no powder-blackening on the\n     clothes. Evidently, therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when he said\n     that the two men were struggling when the shot was fired. Again, both\n     father and son agreed as to the place where the man escaped into the\n     road. At that point, however, as it happens, there is a broadish\n     ditch, moist at the bottom. As there were no indications of bootmarks\n     about this ditch, I was absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams\n     had again lied, but that there had never been any unknown man upon\n     the scene at all.\n\n     \"And now I have to consider the motive of this singular crime. To get\n     at this, I endeavored first of all to solve the reason of the\n     original burglary at Mr. Acton's. I understood, from something which\n     the Colonel told us, that a lawsuit had been going on between you,\n     Mr. Acton, and the Cunninghams. Of course, it instantly occurred to\n     me that they had broken into your library with the intention of\n     getting at some document which might be of importance in the case.\"\n\n     \"Precisely so,\" said Mr. Acton. \"There can be no possible doubt as to\n     their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half of their\n     present estate, and if they could have found a single paper--which,\n     fortunately, was in the strong-box of my solicitors--they would\n     undoubtedly have crippled our case.\"\n\n     \"There you are,\" said Holmes, smiling. \"It was a dangerous, reckless\n     attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having\n     found nothing they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to\n     be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they\n     could lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was\n     much that was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the\n     missing part of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn it out of\n     the dead man's hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it\n     into the pocket of his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put\n     it? The only question was whether it was still there. It was worth an\n     effort to find out, and for that object we all went up to the house.\n\n     \"The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the\n     kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance that\n     they should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise\n     they would naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was\n     about to tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by\n     the luckiest chance in the world, I tumbled down in a sort of fit and\n     so changed the conversation.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" cried the Colonel, laughing, \"do you mean to say all\n     our sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?\"\n\n     \"Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,\" cried I, looking in\n     amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new\n     phase of his astuteness.\n\n     \"It is an art which is often useful,\" said he. \"When I recovered I\n     managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of\n     ingenuity, to get old Cunningham to write the word 'twelve,' so that\n     I might compare it with the 'twelve' upon the paper.\"\n\n     \"Oh, what an ass I have been!\" I exclaimed.\n\n     \"I could see that you were commiserating with me over my weakness,\"\n     said Holmes, laughing. \"I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain\n     which I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and\n     having entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind\n     the door, I contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage their\n     attention for the moment, and slipped back to examine the pockets. I\n     had hardly got the paper, however--which was, as I had expected, in\n     one of them--when the two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily\n     believe, have murdered me then and there but for your prompt and\n     friendly aid. As it is, I feel that young man's grip on my throat\n     now, and the father has twisted my wrist round in the effort to get\n     the paper out of my hand. They saw that I must know all about it, you\n     see, and the sudden change from absolute security to complete despair\n     made them perfectly desperate.\n\n     \"I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive\n     of the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect\n     demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else's brains if he could\n     have got to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against\n     him was so strong he lost all heart and made a clean breast of\n     everything. It seems that William had secretly followed his two\n     masters on the night when they made their raid upon Mr. Acton's, and\n     having thus got them into his power, proceeded, under threats of\n     exposure, to levy black-mail upon them. Mr. Alec, however, was a\n     dangerous man to play games of that sort with. It was a stroke of\n     positive genius on his part to see in the burglary scare which was\n     convulsing the country side an opportunity of plausibly getting rid\n     of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up and shot, and had\n     they only got the whole of the note and paid a little more attention\n     to detail in the accessories, it is very possible that suspicion\n     might never have been aroused.\"\n\n     \"And the note?\" I asked.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.\n\n     [ Picture: Paper which reads: If you will only come around at quarter\n     to twelve to the east gate you will learn what will very much\n     surprise you and may be of the greatest service to you and also to\n     Annie Morrison. But say nothing to anyone upon the matter ]\n\n     \"It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,\" said he. \"Of\n     course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between\n     Alec Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The results\n     shows that the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that you cannot\n     fail to be delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p's and\n     in the tails of the g's. The absence of the i-dots in the old man's\n     writing is also most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet rest\n     in the country has been a distinct success, and I shall certainly\n     return much invigorated to Baker Street to-morrow.\" \n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 THE CROOKED MAN\n\n     One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my\n     own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day's\n     work had been an exhausting one.  My wife had already gone upstairs,\n     and the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told\n     me that the servants had also retired.  I had risen from my seat and\n     was knocking out the ashes of my pipe when I suddenly heard the clang\n     of the bell.\n\n     I looked at the clock.  It was a quarter to twelve.  This could not\n     be a visitor at so late an hour.  A patient, evidently, and possibly\n     an all-night sitting.  With a wry face I went out into the hall and\n     opened the door.  To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes who stood\n     upon my step.\n\n     \"Ah, Watson,\" said he, \"I hoped that I might not be too late to catch\n     you.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, pray come in.\"\n\n     \"You look surprised, and no wonder!  Relieved, too, I fancy!  Hum! \n     You still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days then! \n     There's no mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat.  It's easy to\n     tell that you have been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson.  You'll\n     never pass as a pure-bred civilian as long as you keep that habit of\n     carrying your handkerchief in your sleeve.  Could you put me up\n     tonight?\"\n\n     \"With pleasure.\"\n\n     \"You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and I see that\n     you have no gentleman visitor at present.  Your hat-stand proclaims\n     as much.\"\n\n     \"I shall be delighted if you will stay.\"\n\n     \"Thank you.  I'll fill the vacant peg then.  Sorry to see that you've\n     had the British workman in the house.  He's a token of evil.  Not the\n     drains, I hope?\"\n\n     \"No, the gas.\"\n\n     \"Ah!  He has left two nail-marks from his boot upon your linoleum\n     just where the light strikes it.  No, thank you, I had some supper at\n     Waterloo, but I'll smoke a pipe with you with pleasure.\"\n\n     I handed him my pouch, and he seated himself opposite to me and\n     smoked for some time in silence.  I was well aware that nothing but\n     business of importance would have brought him to me at such an hour,\n     so I waited patiently until he should come round to it.\n\n     \"I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,\" said he,\n     glancing very keenly across at me.\n\n     \"Yes, I've had a busy day,\" I answered.  \"It may seem very foolish in\n     your eyes,\" I added, \"but really I don't know how you deduced it.\"\n\n     Holmes chuckled to himself.\n\n     \"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,\" said\n     he.  \"When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long\n     one you use a hansom.  As I perceive that your boots, although used,\n     are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy\n     enough to justify the hansom.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Elementary,\" said he.  \"It is one of those instances where the\n     reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his\n     neighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is\n     the basis of the deduction.  The same may be said, my dear fellow,\n     for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is\n     entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in\n     your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted\n     to the reader.  Now, at present I am in the position of these same\n     readers, for I hold in this hand several threads of one of the\n     strangest cases which ever perplexed a man's brain, and yet I lack\n     the one or two which are needful to complete my theory.  But I'll\n     have them, Watson, I'll have them!\"  His eyes kindled and a slight\n     flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant the veil had lifted\n     upon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. When I\n     glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which\n     had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.\n\n     \"The problem presents features of interest,\" said he.  \"I may even\n     say exceptional features of interest.  I have already looked into the\n     matter, and have come, as I think, within sight of my solution.  If\n     you could accompany me in that last step you might be of considerable\n     service to me.\"\n\n     \"I should be delighted.\"\n\n     \"Could you go as far as Aldershot to-morrow?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt Jackson would take my practice.\"\n\n     \"Very good.  I want to start by the 11.10 from Waterloo.\"\n\n     \"That would give me time.\"\n\n     \"Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a sketch of what\n     has happened, and of what remains to be done.\"\n\n     \"I was sleepy before you came.  I am quite wakeful now.\"\n\n     \"I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting\n     anything vital to the case.  It is conceivable that you may even have\n     read some account of the matter.  It is the supposed murder of\n     Colonel Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I am\n     investigating.\"\n\n     \"I have heard nothing of it.\"\n\n     \"It has not excited much attention yet, except locally.  The facts\n     are only two days old.  Briefly they are these:\n\n     \"The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish\n     regiments in the British army.  It did wonders both in the Crimea and\n     the Mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every\n     possible occasion.  It was commanded up to Monday night by James\n     Barclay, a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised\n     to commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and\n     so lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a\n     musket.\n\n     \"Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and\n     his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of\n     a former color-sergeant in the same corps.  There was, therefore, as\n     can be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple\n     (for they were still young) found themselves in their new\n     surroundings.  They appear, however, to have quickly adapted\n     themselves, and Mrs. Barclay has always, I understand, been as\n     popular with the ladies of the regiment as her husband was with his\n     brother officers.  I may add that she was a woman of great beauty,\n     and that even now, when she has been married for upwards of thirty\n     years, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.\n\n     \"Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy\n     one.  Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that\n     he has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair.  On the\n     whole, he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than\n     his wife's to Barclay.  He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from\n     her for a day.  She, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful,\n     was less obtrusively affectionate.  But they were regarded in the\n     regiment as the very model of a middle-aged couple.  There was\n     absolutely nothing in their mutual relations to prepare people for\n     the tragedy which was to follow.\n\n     \"Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in\n     his character.  He was a dashing, jovial old solder in his usual\n     mood, but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself\n     capable of considerable violence and vindictiveness.  This side of\n     his nature, however, appears never to have been turned towards his\n     wife.  Another fact, which had struck Major Murphy and three out of\n     five of the other officers with whom I conversed, was the singular\n     sort of depression which came upon him at times.  As the major\n     expressed it, the smile had often been struck from his mouth, as if\n     by some invisible hand, when he has been joining the gaieties and\n     chaff of the mess-table.  For days on end, when the mood was on him,\n     he has been sunk in the deepest gloom.  This and a certain tinge of\n     superstition were the only unusual traits in his character which his\n     brother officers had observed.  The latter peculiarity took the form\n     of a dislike to being left alone, especially after dark.  This\n     puerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously manly had often\n     given rise to comment and conjecture.\n\n     \"The first battalion of the Royal Munsters (which is the old 117th)\n     has been stationed at Aldershot for some years.  The married officers\n     live out of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time\n     occupied a villa called Lachine, about half a mile from the north\n     camp.  The house stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it\n     is not more than thirty yards from the high-road.  A coachman and two\n     maids form the staff of servants.  These with their master and\n     mistress were the sole occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no\n     children, nor was it usual for them to have resident visitors.\n\n     \"Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on the evening of\n     last Monday.\n\n     \"Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church,\n     and had interested herself very much in the establishment of the\n     Guild of St. George, which was formed in connection with the Watt\n     Street Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off\n     clothing.  A meeting of the Guild had been held that evening at\n     eight, and Mrs. Barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be\n     present at it.  When leaving the house she was heard by the coachman\n     to make some commonplace remark to her husband, and to assure him\n     that she would be back before very long. She then called for Miss\n     Morrison, a young lady who lives in the next villa, and the two went\n     off together to their meeting.  It lasted forty minutes, and at a\n     quarter-past nine Mrs. Barclay returned home, having left Miss\n     Morrison at her door as she passed.\n\n     \"There is a room which is used as a morning-room at Lachine.  This\n     faces the road and opens by a large glass folding-door on to the\n     lawn.  The lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided from the\n     highway by a low wall with an iron rail above it.  It was into this\n     room that Mrs. Barclay went upon her return.  The blinds were not\n     down, for the room was seldom used in the evening, but Mrs. Barclay\n     herself lit the lamp and then rang the bell, asking Jane Stewart, the\n     house-maid, to bring her a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to\n     her usual habits.  The Colonel had been sitting in the dining-room,\n     but hearing that his wife had returned he joined her in the\n     morning-room.  The coachman saw him cross the hall and enter it.  He\n     was never seen again alive.\n\n     \"The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten\n     minutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to\n     hear the voices of her master and mistress in furious altercation. \n     She knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned the handle,\n     but only to find that the door was locked upon the inside.  Naturally\n     enough she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the\n     coachman came up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was\n     still raging.  They all agreed that only two voices were to be heard,\n     those of Barclay and of his wife.  Barclay's remarks were subdued and\n     abrupt, so that none of them were audible to the listeners.  The\n     lady's, on the other hand, were most bitter, and when she raised her\n     voice could be plainly heard.  'You coward!' she repeated over and\n     over again.  'What can be done now?  What can be done now?  Give me\n     back my life.  I will never so much as breathe the same air with you\n     again!  You coward!  You Coward!'  Those were scraps of her\n     conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man's voice,\n     with a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman.  Convinced that\n     some tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and strove\n     to force it, while scream after scream issued from within.  He was\n     unable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too\n     distracted with fear to be of any assistance to him.  A sudden\n     thought struck him, however, and he ran through the hall door and\n     round to the lawn upon which the long French windows open.  One side\n     of the window was open, which I understand was quite usual in the\n     summer-time, and he passed without difficulty into the room.  His\n     mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible upon a\n     couch, while with his feet tilted over the side of an arm-chair, and\n     his head upon the ground near the corner of the fender, was lying the\n     unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood.\n\n     \"Naturally, the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do\n     nothing for his master, was to open the door.  But here an unexpected\n     and singular difficulty presented itself.  The key was not in the\n     inner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the room. \n     He went out again, therefore, through the window, and having obtained\n     the help of a policeman and of a medical man, he returned.  The lady,\n     against whom naturally the strongest suspicion rested, was removed to\n     her room, still in a state of insensibility.  The Colonel's body was\n     then placed upon the sofa, and a careful examination made of the\n     scene of the tragedy.\n\n     \"The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was\n     found to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the back part of his\n     head, which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt\n     weapon.  Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have\n     been.  Upon the floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club\n     of hard carved wood with a bone handle.  The Colonel possessed a\n     varied collection of weapons brought from the different countries in\n     which he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police that his\n     club was among his trophies.  The servants deny having seen it\n     before, but among the numerous curiosities in the house it is\n     possible that it may have been overlooked.  Nothing else of\n     importance was discovered in the room by the police, save the\n     inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs. Barclay's person nor upon\n     that of the victim nor in any part of the room was the missing key to\n     be found.  The door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from\n     Aldershot.\n\n     \"That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the Tuesday morning\n     I, at the request of Major Murphy, went down to Aldershot to\n     supplement the efforts of the police.  I think that you will\n     acknowledge that the problem was already one of interest, but my\n     observations soon made me realize that it was in truth much more\n     extraordinary than would at first sight appear.\n\n     \"Before examining the room I cross-questioned the servants, but only\n     succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have already stated.  One\n     other detail of interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the\n     housemaid.  You will remember that on hearing the sound of the\n     quarrel she descended and returned with the other servants.  On that\n     first occasion, when she was alone, she says that the voices of her\n     master and mistress were sunk so low that she could hear hardly\n     anything, and judged by their tones rather than their words that they\n     had fallen out.  On my pressing her, however, she remembered that she\n     heard the word David uttered twice by the lady.  The point is of the\n     utmost importance as guiding us towards the reason of the sudden\n     quarrel.  The Colonel's name, you remember, was James.\n\n     \"There was one thing in the case which had made the deepest\n     impression both upon the servants and the police.  This was the\n     contortion of the Colonel's face.  It had set, according to their\n     account, into the most dreadful expression of fear and horror which a\n     human countenance is capable of assuming.  More than one person\n     fainted at the mere sight of him, so terrible was the effect.  It was\n     quite certain that he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused\n     him the utmost horror.  This, of course, fitted in well enough with\n     the police theory, if the Colonel could have seen his wife making a\n     murderous attack upon him.  Nor was the fact of the wound being on\n     the back of his head a fatal objection to this, as he might have\n     turned to avoid the blow.  No information could be got from the lady\n     herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute attack of\n     brain-fever.\n\n     \"From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who you remember went\n     out that evening with Mrs. Barclay, denied having any knowledge of\n     what it was which had caused the ill-humor in which her companion had\n     returned.\n\n     \"Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over\n     them, trying to separate those which were crucial from others which\n     were merely incidental.  There could be no question that the most\n     distinctive and suggestive point in the case was the singular\n     disappearance of the door-key.  A most careful search had failed to\n     discover it in the room.  Therefore it must have been taken from it. \n     But neither the Colonel nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it. \n     That was perfectly clear.  Therefore a third person must have entered\n     the room.  And that third person could only have come in through the\n     window.  It seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and\n     the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious\n     individual.  You know my methods, Watson.  There was not one of them\n     which I did not apply to the inquiry.  And it ended by my discovering\n     traces, but very different ones from those which I had expected. \n     There had been a man in the room, and he had crossed the lawn coming\n     from the road.  I was able to obtain five very clear impressions of\n     his foot-marks:  one in the roadway itself, at the point where he had\n     climbed the low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones upon\n     the stained boards near the window where he had entered.  He had\n     apparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe-marks were much deeper\n     than his heels.  But it was not the man who surprised me.  It was his\n     companion.\"\n\n     \"His companion!\"\n\n     Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocket and\n     carefully unfolded it upon his knee.\n\n     \"What do you make of that?\" he asked.\n\n     The paper was covered with the tracings of the foot-marks of some\n     small animal.  It had five well-marked foot-pads, an indication of\n     long nails, and the whole print might be nearly as large as  a\n     dessert-spoon.\n\n     \"It's a dog,\" said I.\n\n     \"Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain?  I found distinct\n     traces that this creature had done so.\"\n\n     \"A monkey, then?\"\n\n     \"But it is not the print of a monkey.\"\n\n     \"What can it be, then?\"\n\n     \"Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar\n     with.  I have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements.  Here\n     are four prints where the beast has been standing motionless.  You\n     see that it is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind. \n     Add to that the length of neck and head, and you get a creature not\n     much less than two feet long--probably more if there is any tail. \n     But now observe this other measurement.  The animal has been moving,\n     and we have the length of its stride.  In each case it is only about\n     three inches.  You have an indication, you see, of a long body with\n     very short legs attached to it.  It has not been considerate enough\n     to leave any of its hair behind it.  But its general shape must be\n     what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is\n     carnivorous.\"\n\n     \"How do you deduce that?\"\n\n     \"Because it ran up the curtain.  A canary's cage was hanging in the\n     window, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.\"\n\n     \"Then what was the beast?\"\n\n     \"Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way towards solving\n     the case.  On the whole, it was probably some creature of the weasel\n     and stoat tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that I have\n     seen.\"\n\n     \"But what had it to do with the crime?\"\n\n     \"That, also, is still obscure.  But we have learned a good deal, you\n     perceive.  We know that a man stood in the road looking at the\n     quarrel between the Barclays--the blinds were up and the room\n     lighted.  We know, also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the\n     room, accompanied by a strange animal, and that he either struck the\n     Colonel or, as is equally possible, that the Colonel fell down from\n     sheer fright at the sight of him, and cut his head on the corner of\n     the fender.  Finally, we have the curious fact that the intruder\n     carried away the key with him when he left.\"\n\n     \"Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure that it\n     was before,\" said I.\n\n     \"Quite so.  They undoubtedly showed that the affair was much deeper\n     than was at first conjectured.  I thought the matter over, and I came\n     to the conclusion that I must approach the case from another aspect. \n     But really, Watson, I am keeping you up, and I might just as well\n     tell you all this on our way to Aldershot to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, you have gone rather too far to stop.\"\n\n     \"It is quite certain that when Mrs. Barclay left the house at\n     half-past seven she was on good terms with her husband.  She was\n     never, as I think I have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she\n     was heard by the coachman chatting with the Colonel in a friendly\n     fashion.  Now, it was equally certain that, immediately on her\n     return, she had gone to the room in which she was least likely to see\n     her husband, had flown to tea as an agitated woman will, and finally,\n     on his coming in to her, had broken into violent recriminations. \n     Therefore something had occurred between seven-thirty and nine\n     o'clock which had completely altered her feelings towards him.  But\n     Miss Morrison had been with her during the whole of that hour and a\n     half.  It was absolutely certain, therefore, in spite of her denial,\n     that she must know something of the matter.\n\n     \"My first conjecture was, that possibly there had been some passages\n     between this young lady and the old soldier, which the former had now\n     confessed to the wife.  That would account for the angry return, and\n     also for the girl's denial that anything had occurred.  Nor would it\n     be entirely incompatible with most of the words overhead.  But there\n     was the reference to David, and there was the known affection of the\n     Colonel for his wife, to weigh against it, to say nothing of the\n     tragic intrusion of this other man, which might, of course, be\n     entirely disconnected with what had gone before.  It was not easy to\n     pick one's steps, but, on the whole, I was inclined to dismiss the\n     idea that there had been anything between the Colonel and Miss\n     Morrison, but more than ever convinced that the young lady held the\n     clue as to what it was which had turned Mrs. Barclay to hatred of her\n     husband.  I took the obvious course, therefore, of calling upon Miss\n     M., of explaining to her that I was perfectly certain that she held\n     the facts in her possession, and of assuring her that her friend,\n     Mrs. Barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a capital charge\n     unless the matter were cleared up.\n\n     \"Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes\n     and blond hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and\n     common-sense.  She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and\n     then, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a\n     remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit.\n\n     \"'I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a\n     promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when\n     so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor\n     darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my\n     promise.  I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening.\n\n     \"'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to\n     nine o'clock.  On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which\n     is a very quiet thoroughfare.  There is only one lamp in it, upon the\n     left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming\n     towards us with is back very bent, and something like a box slung\n     over one of his shoulders.  He appeared to be deformed, for he\n     carried his head low and walked with his knees bent.  We were passing\n     him when he raised his face to look at us in the circle of light\n     thrown by the lamp, and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a\n     dreadful voice, \"My God, it's Nancy!\"  Mrs. Barclay turned as white\n     as death, and would have fallen down had the dreadful-looking\n     creature not caught hold of her.  I was going to call for the police,\n     but she, to my surprise, spoke quite civilly to the fellow.\n\n     \"'\"I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry,\" said she,\n     in a shaking voice.\n\n     \"'\"So I have,\" said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he\n     said it in.  He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his\n     eyes that comes back to me in my dreams.  His hair and whiskers were\n     shot with gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a\n     withered apple.\n\n     \"'\"Just walk on a little way, dear,\" said Mrs. Barclay; \"I want to\n     have a word with this man.  There is nothing to be afraid of.\"  She\n     tried to speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly\n     get her words out for the trembling of her lips.\n\n     \"'I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes. \n     Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the\n     crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched\n     fists in the air as if he were mad with rage.  She never said a word\n     until we were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and\n     begged me to tell no one what had happened.\n\n     \"'\"It's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,\"\n     said she.  When I promised her I would say nothing she kissed me, and\n     I have never seen her since.  I have told you now the whole truth,\n     and if I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize\n     then the danger in which my dear friend stood.  I know that it can\n     only be to her advantage that everything should be known.'\n\n     \"There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it\n     was like a light on a dark night.  Everything which had been\n     disconnected before began at once to assume its true place, and I had\n     a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events.  My next step\n     obviously was to find the man who had produced such a remarkable\n     impression upon Mrs. Barclay.  If he were still in Aldershot it\n     should not be a very difficult matter.  There are not such a very\n     great number of civilians, and a deformed man was sure to have\n     attracted attention.  I spent a day in the search, and by\n     evening--this very evening, Watson--I had run him down.  The man's\n     name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same street in\n     which the ladies met him.  He has only been five days in the place. \n     In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting\n     gossip with his landlady.  The man is by trade a conjurer and\n     performer, going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a\n     little entertainment at each.  He carries some creature about with\n     him in that box; about which the landlady seemed to be in\n     considerable trepidation, for she had never seen an animal like it. \n     He uses it in some of his tricks according to her account.  So much\n     the woman was able to tell me, and also that it was a wonder the man\n     lived, seeing how twisted he was, and that he spoke in a strange\n     tongue sometimes, and that for the last two nights she had heard him\n     groaning and weeping in his bedroom.  He was all right, as far as\n     money went, but in his deposit he had given her what looked like a\n     bad florin.  She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an Indian rupee.\n\n     \"So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I\n     want you.  It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from\n     this man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel\n     between husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and\n     that the creature which he carried in his box got loose.  That is all\n     very certain.  But he is the only person in this world who can tell\n     us exactly what happened in that room.\"\n\n     \"And you intend to ask him?\"\n\n     \"Most certainly--but in the presence of a witness.\"\n\n     \"And I am the witness?\"\n\n     \"If you will be so good.  If he can clear the matter up, well and\n     good.  If he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a\n     warrant.\"\n\n     \"But how do you know he'll be there when we return?\"\n\n     \"You may be sure that I took some precautions.  I have one of my\n     Baker Street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like\n     a burr, go where he might.  We shall find him in Hudson Street\n     to-morrow, Watson, and meanwhile I should be the criminal myself if I\n     kept you out of bed any longer.\"\n\n     It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy,\n     and, under my companion's guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson\n     Street.  In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I\n     could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement,\n     while I was myself tingling with that half-sporting,\n     half-intellectual pleasure which I invariably experienced when I\n     associated myself with him in his investigations.\n\n     \"This is the street,\" said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare\n     lined with plain two-storied brick houses.  \"Ah, here is Simpson to\n     report.\"\n\n     \"He's in all right, Mr. Holmes,\" cried a small street Arab, running\n     up to us.\n\n     \"Good, Simpson!\" said Holmes, patting him on the head.  \"Come along,\n     Watson.  This is the house.\"  He sent in his card with a message that\n     he had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to\n     face with the man whom we had come to see.  In spite of the warm\n     weather he was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an\n     oven.  The man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way\n     which gave an indescribably impression of deformity; but the face\n     which he turned towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some\n     time have been remarkable for its beauty.  He looked suspiciously at\n     us now out of yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or\n     rising, he waved towards two chairs.\n\n     \"Mr. Henry Wood, late of India, I believe,\" said Holmes, affably. \n     \"I've come over this little matter of Colonel Barclay's death.\"\n\n     \"What should I know about that?\"\n\n     \"That's what I want to ascertain.  You know, I suppose, that unless\n     the matter is cleared up, Mrs. Barclay, who is an old friend of\n     yours, will in all probability be tried for murder.\"\n\n     The man gave a violent start.\n\n     \"I don't know who you are,\" he cried, \"nor how you come to know what\n     you do know, but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?\"\n\n     \"Why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest\n     her.\"\n\n     \"My God!  Are you in the police yourself?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"What business is it of yours, then?\"\n\n     \"It's every man's business to see justice done.\"\n\n     \"You can take my word that she is innocent.\"\n\n     \"Then you are guilty.\"\n\n     \"No, I am not.\"\n\n     \"Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?\"\n\n     \"It was a just providence that killed him.  But, mind you this, that\n     if I had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he\n     would have had no more than his due from my hands.  If his own guilty\n     conscience had not struck him down it is likely enough that I might\n     have had his blood upon my soul.  You want me to tell the story. \n     Well, I don't know why I shouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be\n     ashamed of it.\n\n     \"It was in this way, sir.  You see me now with my back like a camel\n     and by ribs all awry, but there was a time when Corporal Henry Wood\n     was the smartest man in the 117th foot.  We were in India then, in\n     cantonments, at a place we'll call Bhurtee.  Barclay, who died the\n     other day, was sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle\n     of the regiment, ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of\n     life between her lips, was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the\n     color-sergeant.  There were two men that loved her, and one that she\n     loved, and you'll smile when you look at this poor thing huddled\n     before the fire, and hear me say that it was for my good looks that\n     she loved me.\n\n     \"Well, though I had her heart, her father was set upon her marrying\n     Barclay.  I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an\n     education, and was already marked for the sword-belt.  But the girl\n     held true to me, and it seemed that I would have had her when the\n     Mutiny broke out, and all hell was loose in the country.\n\n     \"We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery\n     of artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and\n     women-folk.  There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were\n     as keen as a set of terriers round a rat-cage.  About the second week\n     of it our water gave out, and it was a question whether we could\n     communicate with General Neill's column, which was moving up country.\n      It was our only chance, for we could not hope to fight our way out\n     with all the women and children, so I volunteered to go out and to\n     warn General Neill of our danger.  My offer was accepted, and I\n     talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who was supposed to know the\n     ground better than any other man, and who drew up a route by which I\n     might get through the rebel lines.  At ten o'clock the same night I\n     started off upon my journey.  There were a thousand lives to save,\n     but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over the\n     wall that night.\n\n     \"My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen\n     me from the enemy's sentries; but as I crept round the corner of it I\n     walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark\n     waiting for me.  In an instant I was stunned with a blow and bound\n     hand and foot.  But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head,\n     for as I came to and listened to as much as I could understand of\n     their talk, I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man\n     who had arranged the way that I was to take, had betrayed me by means\n     of a native servant into the hands of the enemy.\n\n     \"Well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it.  You know\n     now what James Barclay was capable of.  Bhurtee was relieved by Neill\n     next day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and\n     it was many a long year before ever I saw a white face again.  I was\n     tortured and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again. \n     You can see for yourselves the state in which I was left.  Some of\n     them that fled into Nepal took me with them, and then afterwards I\n     was up past Darjeeling.  The hill-folk up there murdered the rebels\n     who had me, and I became their slave for a time until I escaped; but\n     instead of going south I had to go north, until I found myself among\n     the Afghans.  There I wandered about for many a year, and at last\n     came back to the Punjaub, where I lived mostly among the natives and\n     picked up a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned.  What\n     use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to go back to England or to\n     make myself known to my old comrades?  Even my wish for revenge would\n     not make me do that.  I had rather that Nancy and my old pals should\n     think of Harry Wood as having died with a straight back, than see him\n     living and crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee.  They never\n     doubted that I was dead, and I meant that they never should.  I heard\n     that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he was rising rapidly in the\n     regiment, but even that did not make me speak.\n\n     \"But when one gets old one has a longing for home.  For years I've\n     been dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England. \n     At last I determined to see them before I died.  I saved enough to\n     bring me across, and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I\n     know their ways and how to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me.\"\n\n     \"Your narrative is most interesting,\" said Sherlock Holmes.  \"I have\n     already heard of your meeting with Mrs. Barclay, and your mutual\n     recognition.  You then, as I understand, followed her home and saw\n     through the window an altercation between her husband and her, in\n     which she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth.  Your own\n     feelings overcame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon\n     them.\"\n\n     \"I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a\n     man look before, and over he went with his head on the fender.  But\n     he was dead before he fell.  I read death on his face as plain as I\n     can read that text over the fire.  The bare sight of me was like a\n     bullet through his guilty heart.\"\n\n     \"And then?\"\n\n     \"Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her\n     hand, intending to unlock it and get help.  But as I was doing it it\n     seemed to me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing\n     might look black against me, and any way my secret would be out if I\n     were taken.  In my haste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped\n     my stick while I was chasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain.  When\n     I got him into his box, from which he had slipped, I was off as fast\n     as I could run.\"\n\n     \"Who's Teddy?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in the\n     corner.  In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown\n     creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin\n     nose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an\n     animal's head.\n\n     \"It's a mongoose,\" I cried.\n\n     \"Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,\" said the\n     man.  \"Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick\n     on cobras.  I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it\n     every night to please the folk in the canteen.\n\n     \"Any other point, sir?\"\n\n     \"Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove\n     to be in serious trouble.\"\n\n     \"In that case, of course, I'd come forward.\"\n\n     \"But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a\n     dead man, foully as he has acted.  You have at least the satisfaction\n     of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly\n     reproached him for this wicked deed.  Ah, there goes Major Murphy on\n     the other side of the street.  Good-bye, Wood.  I want to learn if\n     anything has happened since yesterday.\"\n\n     We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.\n\n     \"Ah, Holmes,\" he said:  \"I suppose you have heard that all this fuss\n     has come to nothing?\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"The inquest is just over.  The medical evidence showed conclusively\n     that death was due to apoplexy.  You see it was quite a simple case\n     after all.\"\n\n     \"Oh, remarkably superficial,\" said Holmes, smiling.  \"Come, Watson, I\n     don't think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more.\"\n\n     \"There's one thing,\" said I, as we walked down to the station.  \"If\n     the husband's name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this\n     talk about David?\"\n\n     \"That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story\n     had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting.  It\n     was evidently a term of reproach.\"\n\n     \"Of reproach?\"\n\n     \"Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one\n     occasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay.  You\n     remember the small affair of Uriah and Bathsheba?  My biblical\n     knowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will find the story in\n     the first or second of Samuel.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              THE RESIDENT PATIENT\n\n     Glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I\n     have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my\n     friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty\n     which I have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every\n     way answer my purpose. For in those cases in which Holmes has\n     performed some tour de force of analytical reasoning, and has\n     demonstrated the value of his peculiar methods of investigation, the\n     facts themselves have often been so slight or so commonplace that I\n     could not feel justified in laying them before the public. On the\n     other hand, it has frequently happened that he has been concerned in\n     some research where the facts have been of the most remarkable and\n     dramatic character, but where the share which he has himself taken in\n     determining their causes has been less pronounced than I, as his\n     biographer, could wish. The small matter which I have chronicled\n     under the heading of \"A Study in Scarlet,\" and that other later one\n     connected with the loss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as examples of\n     this Scylla and Charybdis which are forever threatening the\n     historian. It may be that in the business of which I am now about to\n     write the part which my friend played is not sufficiently\n     accentuated; and yet the whole train of circumstances is so\n     remarkable that I cannot bring myself to omit it entirely from this\n     series.\n\n     It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were\n     half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and\n     re-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For\n     myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat\n     better than cold, and a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. But the\n     paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of\n     town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle\n     of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my\n     holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea\n     presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the\n     very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching\n     out and running through them, responsive to every little rumor or\n     suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place\n     among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind\n     from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the\n     country.\n\n     I cannot be sure of the exact date, for some of my memoranda upon the\n     matter have been mislaid, but it must have been towards the end of\n     the first year during which Holmes and I shared chambers in Baker\n     Street. It was boisterous October weather, and we had both remained\n     indoors all day, I because I feared with my shaken health to face the\n     keen autumn wind, while he was deep in some of those abstruse\n     chemical investigations which absorbed him utterly as long as he was\n     engaged upon them. Towards evening, however, the breaking of a\n     test-tube brought his research to a premature ending, and he sprang\n     up from his chair with an exclamation of impatience and a clouded\n     brow.\n\n     \"A day's work ruined, Watson,\" said he, striding across to the\n     window. \"Ha! The stars are out and he wind has fallen. What do you\n     say to a ramble through London?\"\n\n     I was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. For\n     three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing\n     kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and\n     the Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of\n     detail and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled.\n     It was ten o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham\n     was waiting at our door.\n\n     \"Hum! A doctor's--general practitioner, I perceive,\" said Holmes.\n     \"Not been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come to\n     consult us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!\"\n\n     I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes's methods to be able to\n     follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the\n     various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the\n     lamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift\n     deduction. The light in our window above showed that this late visit\n     was indeed intended for us. With some curiosity as to what could have\n     sent a brother medico to us at such an hour, I followed Holmes into\n     our sanctum.\n\n     A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by\n     the fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three or\n     four and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of\n     a life which has sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His\n     manner was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and\n     the thin white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was\n     that of an artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and\n     sombre--a black frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of color about\n     his necktie.\n\n     \"Good-evening, doctor,\" said Holmes, cheerily. \"I am glad to see that\n     you have only been waiting a very few minutes.\"\n\n     \"You spoke to my coachman, then?\"\n\n     \"No, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. Pray resume\n     your seat and let me know how I can serve you.\"\n\n     \"My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan,\" said our visitor, \"and I live at\n     403 Brook Street.\"\n\n     \"Are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous lesions?\"\n     I asked.\n\n     His pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work was\n     known to me.\n\n     \"I so seldom hear of the work that I thought it was quite dead,\" said\n     he. \"My publishers gave me a most discouraging account of its sale.\n     You are yourself, I presume, a medical man?\"\n\n     \"A retired army surgeon.\"\n\n     \"My own hobby has always been nervous disease. I should wish to make\n     it an absolute specialty, but, of course, a man must take what he can\n     get at first. This, however, is beside the question, Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes, and I quite appreciate how valuable your time is. The fact is\n     that a very singular train of events has occurred recently at my\n     house in Brook Street, and to-night they came to such a head that I\n     felt it was quite impossible for me to wait another hour before\n     asking for your advice and assistance.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes sat down and lit his pipe. \"You are very welcome to\n     both,\" said he. \"Pray let me have a detailed account of what the\n     circumstances are which have disturbed you.\"\n\n     \"One or two of them are so trivial,\" said Dr. Trevelyan, \"that really\n     I am almost ashamed to mention them. But the matter is so\n     inexplicable, and the recent turn which it has taken is so elaborate,\n     that I shall lay it all before you, and you shall judge what is\n     essential and what is not.\n\n     \"I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own college\n     career. I am a London University man, you know, and I am sure that\n     you will not think that I am unduly singing my own praises if I say\n     that my student career was considered by my professors to be a very\n     promising one. After I had graduated I continued to devote myself to\n     research, occupying a minor position in King's College Hospital, and\n     I was fortunate enough to excite considerable interest by my research\n     into the pathology of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce\n     Pinkerton prize and medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to\n     which your friend has just alluded. I should not go too far if I were\n     to say that there was a general impression at that time that a\n     distinguished career lay before me.\n\n     \"But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As you\n     will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is compelled to\n     start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish Square quarter, all\n     of which entail enormous rents and furnishing expenses. Besides this\n     preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to keep himself for some\n     years, and to hire a presentable carriage and horse. To do this was\n     quite beyond my power, and I could only hope that by economy I might\n     in ten years' time save enough to enable me to put up my plate.\n     Suddenly, however, an unexpected incident opened up quite a new\n     prospect to me.\n\n     \"This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington, who\n     was a complete stranger to me. He came up to my room one morning, and\n     plunged into business in an instant.\n\n     \"'You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a\n     career and won a great prize lately?' said he.\n\n     \"I bowed.\n\n     \"'Answer me frankly,' he continued, 'for you will find it to your\n     interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a\n     successful man. Have you the tact?'\n\n     \"I could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.\n\n     \"'I trust that I have my share,' I said.\n\n     \"'Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?'\n\n     \"'Really, sir!' I cried.\n\n     \"'Quite right! That's all right! But I was bound to ask. With all\n     these qualities, why are you not in practice?'\n\n     \"I shrugged my shoulders.\n\n     \"'Come, come!' said he, in his bustling way. 'It's the old story.\n     More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I\n     were to start you in Brook Street?'\n\n     \"I stared at him in astonishment.\n\n     \"'Oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,' he cried.  'I'll be perfectly\n     frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. I have\n     a few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and I think I'll sink them in\n     you.'\n\n     \"'But why?' I gasped.\n\n     \"'Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'\n\n     \"'What am I to do, then?'\n\n     \"'I'll tell you. I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and\n     run the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your\n     chair in the consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket-money and\n     everything. Then you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn,\n     and you keep the other quarter for yourself.'\n\n     \"This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man\n     Blessington approached me. I won't weary you with the account of how\n     we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house\n     next Lady Day, and starting in practice on very much the same\n     conditions as he had suggested. He came himself to live with me in\n     the character of a resident patient. His heart was weak, it appears,\n     and he needed constant medical supervision. He turned the two best\n     rooms of the first floor into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself.\n     He was a man of singular habits, shunning company and very seldom\n     going out. His life was irregular, but in one respect he was\n     regularity itself. Every evening, at the same hour, he walked into\n     the consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and\n     three-pence for every guinea that I had earned, and carried the rest\n     off to the strong-box in his own room.\n\n     \"I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his\n     speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and\n     the reputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to\n     the front, and during the last few years I have made him a rich man.\n\n     \"So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with Mr.\n     Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred\n     to bring me here to-night.\n\n     \"Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to\n     me, a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary\n     which, he said, had been committed in the West End, and he appeared,\n     I remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring\n     that a day should not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our\n     windows and doors. For a week he continued to be in a peculiar state\n     of restlessness, peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing\n     to take the short walk which had usually been the prelude to his\n     dinner. From his manner it struck me that he was in mortal dread of\n     something or somebody, but when I questioned him upon the point he\n     became so offensive that I was compelled to drop the subject.\n     Gradually, as time passed, his fears appeared to die away, and he had\n     renewed his former habits, when a fresh event reduced him to the\n     pitiable state of prostration in which he now lies.\n\n     \"What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I\n     now read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.\n\n     \"'A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,' it runs, 'would\n     be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of Dr. Percy\n     Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks,\n     on which, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is an authority. He\n     proposes to call at about quarter past six to-morrow evening, if Dr.\n     Trevelyan will make it convenient to be at home.'\n\n     \"This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in\n     the study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may\n     believe, than, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the\n     appointed hour, the page showed in the patient.\n\n     He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and common-place--by no means\n     the conception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more\n     struck by the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man,\n     surprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and\n     chest of a Hercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they\n     entered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would\n     hardly have expected from his appearance.\n\n     \"'You will excuse my coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking\n     English with a slight lisp. 'This is my father, and his health is a\n     matter of the most overwhelming importance to me.'\n\n     \"I was touched by this filial anxiety. 'You would, perhaps, care to\n     remain during the consultation?' said I.\n\n     \"'Not for the world,' he cried with a gesture of horror. 'It is more\n     painful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father in one\n     of these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should never survive\n     it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. With\n     your permission, I will remain in the waiting-room while you go into\n     my father's case.'\n\n     \"To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The\n     patient and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which I\n     took exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for intelligence, and\n     his answers were frequently obscure, which I attributed to his\n     limited acquaintance with our language. Suddenly, however, as I sat\n     writing, he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on\n     my turning towards him I was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt\n     upright in his chair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid\n     face. He was again in the grip of his mysterious malady.\n\n     \"My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and horror.\n     My second, I fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. I\n     made notes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity\n     of his muscles, and examined his reflexes. There was nothing markedly\n     abnormal in any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former\n     experiences. I had obtained good results in such cases by the\n     inhalation of nitrite of amyl, and the present seemed an admirable\n     opportunity of testing its virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my\n     laboratory, so leaving my patient seated in his chair, I ran down to\n     get it. There was some little delay in finding it--five minutes, let\n     us say--and then I returned. Imagine my amazement to find the room\n     empty and the patient gone.\n\n     \"Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The son\n     had gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut. My page\n     who admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick. He waits\n     downstairs, and runs up to show patients out when I ring the\n     consulting-room bell. He had heard nothing, and the affair remained a\n     complete mystery. Mr. Blessington came in from his walk shortly\n     afterwards, but I did not say anything to him upon the subject, for,\n     to tell the truth, I have got in the way of late of holding as little\n     communication with him as possible.\n\n     \"Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the Russian\n     and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the very same\n     hour this evening, they both came marching into my consulting-room,\n     just as they had done before.\n\n     \"'I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt\n     departure yesterday, doctor,' said my patient.\n\n     \"'I confess that I was very much surprised at it,' said I.\n\n     \"'Well, the fact is,' he remarked, 'that when I recover from these\n     attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone\n     before. I woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my\n     way out into the street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.'\n\n     \"'And I,' said the son, 'seeing my father pass the door of the\n     waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to an\n     end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to realize the\n     true state of affairs.'\n\n     \"'Well,' said I, laughing, 'there is no harm done except that you\n     puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the\n     waiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which was\n     brought to so abrupt an ending.'\n\n     \"For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman's symptoms\n     with him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him go off upon\n     the arm of his son.\n\n     \"I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour of\n     the day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and passed\n     upstairs. An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst\n     into my consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.\n\n     \"'Who has been in my room?' he cried.\n\n     \"'No one,' said I.\n\n     \"'It's a lie!' He yelled. 'Come up and look!'\n\n     \"I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out\n     of his mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he pointed to\n     several footprints upon the light carpet.\n\n     \"'D'you mean to say those are mine?' he cried.\n\n     \"They were certainly very much larger than any which he could have\n     made, and were evidently quite fresh. It rained hard this afternoon,\n     as you know, and my patients were the only people who called. It must\n     have been the case, then, that the man in the waiting-room had, for\n     some unknown reason, while I was busy with the other, ascended to the\n     room of my resident patient. Nothing has been touched or taken, but\n     there were the footprints to prove that the intrusion was an\n     undoubted fact.\n\n     \"Mr. Blessington seemed more excited over the matter than I should\n     have thought possible, though of course it was enough to disturb\n     anybody's peace of mind. He actually sat crying in an arm-chair, and\n     I could hardly get him to speak coherently. It was his suggestion\n     that I should come round to you, and of course I at once saw the\n     propriety of it, for certainly the incident is a very singular one,\n     though he appears to completely overrate its importance. If you would\n     only come back with me in my brougham, you would at least be able to\n     soothe him, though I can hardly hope that you will be able to explain\n     this remarkable occurrence.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had listened to this long narrative with an\n     intentness which showed me that his interest was keenly aroused. His\n     face was as impassive as ever, but his lids had drooped more heavily\n     over his eyes, and his smoke had curled up more thickly from his pipe\n     to emphasize each curious episode in the doctor's tale. As our\n     visitor concluded, Holmes sprang up without a word, handed me my hat,\n     picked his own from the table, and followed Dr. Trevelyan to the\n     door. Within a quarter of an hour we had been dropped at the door of\n     the physician's residence in Brook Street, one of those sombre,\n     flat-faced houses which one associates with a West-End practice. A\n     small page admitted us, and we began at once to ascend the broad,\n     well-carpeted stair.\n\n     But a singular interruption brought us to a standstill. The light at\n     the top was suddenly whisked out, and from the darkness came a reedy,\n     quivering voice.\n\n     \"I have a pistol,\" it cried. \"I give you my word that I'll fire if\n     you come any nearer.\"\n\n     \"This really grows outrageous, Mr. Blessington,\" cried Dr. Trevelyan.\n\n     \"Oh, then it is you, doctor,\" said the voice, with a great heave of\n     relief. \"But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to\n     be?\"\n\n     We were conscious of a long scrutiny out of the darkness.\n\n     \"Yes, yes, it's all right,\" said the voice at last. \"You can come up,\n     and I am sorry if my precautions have annoyed you.\"\n\n     He relit the stair gas as he spoke, and we saw before us a\n     singular-looking man, whose appearance, as well as his voice,\n     testified to his jangled nerves. He was very fat, but had apparently\n     at some time been much fatter, so that the skin hung about his face\n     in loose pouches, like the cheeks of a blood-hound. He was of a\n     sickly color, and his thin, sandy hair seemed to bristle up with the\n     intensity of his emotion. In his hand he held a pistol, but he thrust\n     it into his pocket as we advanced.\n\n     \"Good-evening, Mr. Holmes,\" said he. \"I am sure I am very much\n     obliged to you for coming round. No one ever needed your advice more\n     than I do. I suppose that Dr. Trevelyan has told you of this most\n     unwarrantable intrusion into my rooms.\"\n\n     \"Quite so,\" said Holmes. \"Who are these two men Mr. Blessington, and\n     why do they wish to molest you?\"\n\n     \"Well, well,\" said the resident patient, in a nervous fashion, \"of\n     course it is hard to say that. You can hardly expect me to answer\n     that, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Do you mean that you don't know?\"\n\n     \"Come in here, if you please. Just have the kindness to step in\n     here.\"\n\n     He led the way into his bedroom, which was large and comfortably\n     furnished.\n\n     \"You see that,\" said he, pointing to a big black box at the end of\n     his bed. \"I have never been a very rich man, Mr. Holmes--never made\n     but one investment in my life, as Dr. Trevelyan would tell you. But I\n     don't believe in bankers. I would never trust a banker, Mr. Holmes.\n     Between ourselves, what little I have is in that box, so you can\n     understand what it means to me when unknown people force themselves\n     into my rooms.\"\n\n     Holmes looked at Blessington in his questioning way and shook his\n     head.\n\n     \"I cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive me,\" said he.\n\n     \"But I have told you everything.\"\n\n     Holmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust. \"Good-night, Dr.\n     Trevelyan,\" said he.\n\n     \"And no advice for me?\" cried Blessington, in a breaking voice.\n\n     \"My advice to your, sir, is to speak the truth.\"\n\n     A minute later we were in the street and walking for home. We had\n     crossed Oxford Street and were half way down Harley Street before I\n     could get a word from my companion.\n\n     \"Sorry to bring you out on such a fool's errand, Watson,\" he said at\n     last. \"It is an interesting case, too, at the bottom of it.\"\n\n     \"I can make little of it,\" I confessed.\n\n     \"Well, it is quite evident that there are two men--more, perhaps, but\n     at least two--who are determined for some reason to get at this\n     fellow Blessington. I have no doubt in my mind that both on the first\n     and on the second occasion that young man penetrated to Blessington's\n     room, while his confederate, by an ingenious device, kept the doctor\n     from interfering.\"\n\n     \"And the catalepsy?\"\n\n     \"A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should hardly dare to hint\n     as much to our specialist. It is a very easy complaint to imitate. I\n     have done it myself.\"\n\n     \"And then?\"\n\n     \"By the purest chance Blessington was out on each occasion. Their\n     reason for choosing so unusual an hour for a consultation was\n     obviously to insure that there should be no other patient in the\n     waiting-room. It just happened, however, that this hour coincided\n     with Blessington's constitutional, which seems to show that they were\n     not very well acquainted with his daily routine. Of course, if they\n     had been merely after plunder they would at least have made some\n     attempt to search for it. Besides, I can read in a man's eye when it\n     is his own skin that he is frightened for. It is inconceivable that\n     this fellow could have made two such vindictive enemies as these\n     appear to be without knowing of it. I hold it, therefore, to be\n     certain that he does know who these men are, and that for reasons of\n     his own he suppresses it. It is just possible that to-morrow may find\n     him in a more communicative mood.\"\n\n     \"Is there not one alternative,\" I suggested, \"grotesquely improbably,\n     no doubt, but still just conceivable? Might the whole story of the\n     cataleptic Russian and his son be a concoction of Dr. Trevelyan's,\n     who has, for his own purposes, been in Blessington's rooms?\"\n\n     I saw in the gaslight that Holmes wore an amused smile at this\n     brilliant departure of mine.\n\n     \"My dear fellow,\" said he, \"it was one of the first solutions which\n     occurred to me, but I was soon able to corroborate the doctor's tale.\n     This young man has left prints upon the stair-carpet which made it\n     quite superfluous for me to ask to see those which he had made in the\n     room. When I tell you that his shoes were square-toed instead of\n     being pointed like Blessington's, and were quite an inch and a third\n     longer than the doctor's, you will acknowledge that there can be no\n     doubt as to his individuality. But we may sleep on it now, for I\n     shall be surprised if we do not hear something further from Brook\n     Street in the morning.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes's prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic\n     fashion. At half-past seven next morning, in the first glimmer of\n     daylight, I found him standing by my bedside in his dressing-gown.\n\n     \"There's a brougham waiting for us, Watson,\" said he.\n\n     \"What's the matter, then?\"\n\n     \"The Brook Street business.\"\n\n     \"Any fresh news?\"\n\n     \"Tragic, but ambiguous,\" said he, pulling up the blind.  \"Look at\n     this--a sheet from a note-book, with 'For God's sake come at once--P.\n     T.,' scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor, was hard put\n     to it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear fellow, for it's an\n     urgent call.\"\n\n     In a quarter of an hour or so we were back at the physician's house. \n     He came running out to meet us with a face of horror.\n\n     \"Oh, such a business!\" he cried, with his hands to his temples.\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"Blessington has committed suicide!\"\n\n     Holmes whistled.\n\n     \"Yes, he hanged himself during the night.\"\n\n     We had entered, and the doctor had preceded us into what was\n     evidently his waiting-room.\n\n     \"I really hardly know what I am doing,\" he cried. \"The police are\n     already upstairs. It has shaken me most dreadfully.\"\n\n     \"When did you find it out?\"\n\n     \"He has a cup of tea taken in to him early every morning. When the\n     maid entered, about seven, there the unfortunate fellow was hanging\n     in the middle of the room. He had tied his cord to the hook on which\n     the heavy lamp used to hang, and he had jumped off from the top of\n     the very box that he showed us yesterday.\"\n\n     Holmes stood for a moment in deep thought.\n\n     \"With your permission,\" said he at last, \"I should like to go\n     upstairs and look into the matter.\"\n\n     We both ascended, followed by the doctor.\n\n     It was a dreadful sight which met us as we entered the bedroom door.\n     I have spoken of the impression of flabbiness which this man\n     Blessington conveyed. As he dangled from the hook it was exaggerated\n     and intensified until he was scarce human in his appearance. The neck\n     was drawn out like a plucked chicken's, making the rest of him seem\n     the more obese and unnatural by the contrast. He was clad only in his\n     long night-dress, and his swollen ankles and ungainly feet protruded\n     starkly from beneath it. Beside him stood a smart-looking\n     police-inspector, who was taking notes in a pocket-book.\n\n     \"Ah, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, heartily, as my friend entered, \"I am\n     delighted to see you.\"\n\n     \"Good-morning, Lanner,\" answered Holmes; \"you won't think me an\n     intruder, I am sure. Have you heard of the events which led up to\n     this affair?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I heard something of them.\"\n\n     \"Have you formed any opinion?\"\n\n     \"As far as I can see, the man has been driven out of his senses by\n     fright. The bed has been well slept in, you see. There's his\n     impression deep enough. It's about five in the morning, you know,\n     that suicides are most common. That would be about his time for\n     hanging himself. It seems to have been a very deliberate affair.\"\n\n     \"I should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by the\n     rigidity of the muscles,\" said I.\n\n     \"Noticed anything peculiar about the room?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand. Seems\n     to have smoked heavily during the night, too. Here are four\n     cigar-ends that I picked out of the fireplace.\"\n\n     \"Hum!\" said Holmes, \"have you got his cigar-holder?\"\n\n     \"No, I have seen none.\"\n\n     \"His cigar-case, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was in his coat-pocket.\"\n\n     Holmes opened it and smelled the single cigar which it contained.\n\n     \"Oh, this is an Havana, and these others are cigars of the peculiar\n     sort which are imported by the Dutch from their East Indian colonies.\n     They are usually wrapped in straw, you know, and are thinner for\n     their length than any other brand.\" He picked up the four ends and\n     examined them with his pocket-lens.\n\n     \"Two of these have been smoked from a holder and two without,\" said\n     he. \"Two have been cut by a not very sharp knife, and two have had\n     the ends bitten off by a set of excellent teeth. This is no suicide,\n     Mr. Lanner. It is a very deeply planned and cold-blooded murder.\"\n\n     \"Impossible!\" cried the inspector.\n\n     \"And why?\"\n\n     \"Why should any one murder a man in so clumsy a fashion as by hanging\n     him?\"\n\n     \"That is what we have to find out.\"\n\n     \"How could they get in?\"\n\n     \"Through the front door.\"\n\n     \"It was barred in the morning.\"\n\n     \"Then it was barred after them.\"\n\n     \"How do you know?\"\n\n     \"I saw their traces. Excuse me a moment, and I may be able to give\n     you some further information about it.\"\n\n     He went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in his\n     methodical way. Then he took out the key, which was on the inside,\n     and inspected that also. The bed, the carpet, the chairs the\n     mantelpiece, the dead body, and the rope were each in turn examined,\n     until at last he professed himself satisfied, and with my aid and\n     that of the inspector cut down the wretched object and laid it\n     reverently under a sheet.\n\n     \"How about this rope?\" he asked.\n\n     \"It is cut off this,\" said Dr. Trevelyan, drawing a large coil from\n     under the bed. \"He was morbidly nervous of fire, and always kept this\n     beside him, so that he might escape by the window in case the stairs\n     were burning.\"\n\n     \"That must have saved them trouble,\" said Holmes, thoughtfully. \"Yes,\n     the actual facts are very plain, and I shall be surprised if by the\n     afternoon I cannot give you the reasons for them as well. I will take\n     this photograph of Blessington, which I see upon the mantelpiece, as\n     it may help me in my inquiries.\"\n\n     \"But you have told us nothing!\" cried the doctor.\n\n     \"Oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of events,\" said\n     Holmes. \"There were three of them in it: the young man, the old man,\n     and a third, to whose identity I have no clue. The first two, I need\n     hardly remark, are the same who masqueraded as the Russian count and\n     his son, so we can give a very full description of them. They were\n     admitted by a confederate inside the house. If I might offer you a\n     word of advice, Inspector, it would be to arrest the page, who, as I\n     understand, has only recently come into your service, Doctor.\"\n\n     \"The young imp cannot be found,\" said Dr. Trevelyan; \"the maid and\n     the cook have just been searching for him.\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"He has played a not unimportant part in this drama,\" said he. \"The\n     three men having ascended the stairs, which they did on tiptoe, the\n     elder man first, the younger man second, and the unknown man in the\n     rear--\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"Oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of the\n     footmarks. I had the advantage of learning which was which last\n     night. They ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington's room, the door of\n     which they found to be locked. With the help of a wire, however, they\n     forced round the key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the\n     scratches on this ward, where the pressure was applied.\n\n     \"On entering the room their first proceeding must have been to gag\n     Mr. Blessington. He may have been asleep, or he may have been so\n     paralyzed with terror as to have been unable to cry out. These walls\n     are thick, and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time to\n     utter one, was unheard.\n\n     \"Having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of some\n     sort was held. Probably it was something in the nature of a judicial\n     proceeding. It must have lasted for some time, for it was then that\n     these cigars were smoked. The older man sat in that wicker chair; it\n     was he who used the cigar-holder. The younger man sat over yonder; he\n     knocked his ash off against the chest of drawers. The third fellow\n     paced up and down. Blessington, I think, sat upright in the bed, but\n     of that I cannot be absolutely certain.\n\n     \"Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and hanging him. The\n     matter was so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought with\n     them some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows.\n     That screw-driver and those screws were, as I conceive, for fixing it\n     up. Seeing the hook, however they naturally saved themselves the\n     trouble. Having finished their work they made off, and the door was\n     barred behind them by their confederate.\"\n\n     We had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of the\n     night's doings, which Holmes had deduced from signs so subtle and\n     minute that, even when he had pointed them out to us, we could\n     scarcely follow him in his reasoning. The inspector hurried away on\n     the instant to make inquiries about the page, while Holmes and I\n     returned to Baker Street for breakfast.\n\n     \"I'll be back by three,\" said he, when we had finished our meal.\n     \"Both the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour,\n     and I hope by that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which\n     the case may still present.\"\n\n     Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter to\n     four before my friend put in an appearance. From his expression as he\n     entered, however, I could see that all had gone well with him.\n\n     \"Any news, Inspector?\"\n\n     \"We have got the boy, sir.\"\n\n     \"Excellent, and I have got the men.\"\n\n     \"You have got them!\" we cried, all three.\n\n     \"Well, at least I have got their identity. This so-called Blessington\n     is, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so are his\n     assailants. Their names are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat.\"\n\n     \"The Worthingdon bank gang,\" cried the inspector.\n\n     \"Precisely,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Then Blessington must have been Sutton.\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Why, that makes it as clear as crystal,\" said the inspector.\n\n     But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderment.\n\n     \"You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank business,\" said\n     Holmes. \"Five men were in it--these four and a fifth called\n     Cartwright. Tobin, the care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got\n     away with seven thousand pounds. This was in 1875. They were all five\n     arrested, but the evidence against them was by no means conclusive.\n     This Blessington or Sutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned\n     informer. On his evidence Cartwright was hanged and the other three\n     got fifteen years apiece. When they got out the other day, which was\n     some years before their full term, they set themselves, as you\n     perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to avenge the death of their\n     comrade upon him. Twice they tried to get at him and failed; a third\n     time, you see, it came off. Is there anything further which I can\n     explain, Dr. Trevelyan?\"\n\n     \"I think you have made it all remarkable clear,\" said the doctor. \"No\n     doubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen\n     of their release in the newspapers.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. His talk about a burglary was the merest blind.\"\n\n     \"But why could he not tell you this?\"\n\n     \"Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his old\n     associates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody as\n     long as he could. His secret was a shameful one, and he could not\n     bring himself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he was still\n     living under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt,\n     Inspector, that you will see that, though that shield may fail to\n     guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge.\"\n\n     Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the Resident\n     Patient and the Brook Street Doctor. From that night nothing has been\n     seen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surmised at\n     Scotland Yard that they were among the passengers of the ill-fated\n     steamer Norah Creina, which was lost some years ago with all hands\n     upon the Portuguese coast, some leagues to the north of Oporto. The\n     proceedings against the page broke down for want of evidence, and the\n     Brook Street Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been\n     fully dealt with in any public print.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              THE GREEK INTERPRETER\n\n     During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I\n     had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his\n     own early life.  This reticence upon his part had increased the\n     somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I\n     found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without\n     a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in\n     intelligence.  His aversion to women and his disinclination to form\n     new friendships were both typical of his unemotional character, but\n     not more so than his complete suppression of every reference to his\n     own people.  I had come to believe that he was an orphan with no\n     relatives living, but one day, to my very great surprise, he began to\n     talk to me about his brother.\n\n     It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had\n     roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the\n     causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at\n     last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes.  The point\n     under discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was\n     due to his ancestry and how far to his own early training.\n\n     \"In your own case,\" said I, \"from all that you have told me, it seems\n     obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility\n     for deduction are due to your own systematic training.\"\n\n     \"To some extent,\" he answered, thoughtfully.  \"My ancestors were\n     country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is\n     natural to their class.  But, none the less, my turn that way is in\n     my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister\n     of Vernet, the French artist.  Art in the blood is liable to take the\n     strangest forms.\"\n\n     \"But how do you know that it is hereditary?\"\n\n     \"Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than I\n     do.\"\n\n     This was news to me indeed.  If there were another man with such\n     singular powers in England, how was it that neither police nor public\n     had heard of him?  I put the question, with a hint that it was my\n     companion's modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his\n     superior.  Holmes laughed at my suggestion.\n\n     \"My dear Watson,\" said he, \"I cannot agree with those who rank\n     modesty among the virtues.  To the logician all things should be seen\n     exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a\n     departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.  When I say,\n     therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you\n     may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth.\"\n\n     \"Is he your junior?\"\n\n     \"Seven years my senior.\"\n\n     \"How comes it that he is unknown?\"\n\n     \"Oh, he is very well known in his own circle.\"\n\n     \"Where, then?\"\n\n     \"Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example.\"\n\n     I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have\n     proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled out his watch.\n\n     \"The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of\n     the queerest men.  He's always there from quarter to five to twenty\n     to eight.  It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful\n     evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities.\"\n\n     Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards Regent's\n     Circus.\n\n     \"You wonder,\" said my companion, \"why it is that Mycroft does not use\n     his powers for detective work.  He is incapable of it.\"\n\n     \"But I thought you said--\"\n\n     \"I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction.  If the\n     art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair,\n     my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.  But\n     he has no ambition and no energy.  He will not even go out of his way\n     to verify his own solution, and would rather be considered wrong than\n     take the trouble to prove himself right.  Again and again I have\n     taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has\n     afterwards proved to be the correct one.  And yet he was absolutely\n     incapable of working out the practical points which must be gone into\n     before a case could be laid before a judge or jury.\"\n\n     \"It is not his profession, then?\"\n\n     \"By no means.  What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the\n     merest hobby of a dilettante.  He has an extraordinary faculty for\n     figures, and audits the books in some of the government departments. \n     Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into\n     Whitehall every morning and back every evening.  From year's end to\n     year's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else,\n     except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms.\"\n\n     \"I cannot recall the name.\"\n\n     \"Very likely not.  There are many men in London, you know, who, some\n     from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of\n     their fellows.  Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the\n     latest periodicals.  It is for the convenience of these that the\n     Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable\n     and unclubable men in town.  No member is permitted to take the least\n     notice of any other one.  Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is,\n     under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to\n     the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. \n     My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very\n     soothing atmosphere.\"\n\n     We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it from\n     the St. James's end.  Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some little\n     distance from the Carlton, and, cautioning me not to speak, he led\n     the way into the hall.  Through the glass paneling I caught a glimpse\n     of a large and luxurious room, in which a considerable number of men\n     were sitting about and reading papers, each in his own little nook. \n     Holmes showed me into a small chamber which looked out into Pall\n     Mall, and then, leaving me for a minute, he came back with a\n     companion whom I knew could only be his brother.\n\n     Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock.  His\n     body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had\n     preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so\n     remarkable in that of his brother.  His eyes, which were of a\n     peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain that far-away,\n     introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he\n     was exerting his full powers.\n\n     \"I am glad to meet you, sir,\" said he, putting out a broad, fat hand\n     like the flipper of a seal.  \"I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you\n     became his chronicler.  By the way, Sherlock, I expected to see you\n     round last week, to consult me over that Manor House case.  I thought\n     you might be a little out of your depth.\"\n\n     \"No, I solved it,\" said my friend, smiling.\n\n     \"It was Adams, of course.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was Adams.\"\n\n     \"I was sure of it from the first.\"  The two sat down together in the\n     bow-window of the club.  \"To any one who wishes to study mankind this\n     is the spot,\" said Mycroft.  \"Look at the magnificent types!  Look at\n     these two men who are coming towards us, for example.\"\n\n     \"The billiard-marker and the other?\"\n\n     \"Precisely.  What do you make of the other?\"\n\n     The two men had stopped opposite the window.  Some chalk marks over\n     the waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which I could\n     see in one of them.  The other was a very small, dark fellow, with\n     his hat pushed back and several packages under his arm.\n\n     \"An old soldier, I perceive,\" said Sherlock.\n\n     \"And very recently discharged,\" remarked the brother.\n\n     \"Served in India, I see.\"\n\n     \"And a non-commissioned officer.\"\n\n     \"Royal Artillery, I fancy,\" said Sherlock.\n\n     \"And a widower.\"\n\n     \"But with a child.\"\n\n     \"Children, my dear boy, children.\"\n\n     \"Come,\" said I, laughing, \"this is a little too much.\"\n\n     \"Surely,\" answered Holmes, \"it is not hard to say that a man with\n     that bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a\n     soldier, is more than a private, and is not long from India.\"\n\n     \"That he has not left the service long is shown by his still wearing\n     his 'ammunition boots', as they are called,\" observed Mycroft.\n\n     \"He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as\n     is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow.  His weight is\n     against his being a sapper.  He is in the artillery.\"\n\n     \"Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some\n     one very dear.  The fact that he is doing his own shopping looks as\n     though it were his wife.  He has been buying things for children, you\n     perceive.  There is a rattle, which shows that one of them is very\n     young.  The wife probably died in childbed.  The fact that he has a\n     picture-book under his arm shows that there is another child to be\n     thought of.\"\n\n     I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his\n     brother possessed even keener faculties that he did himself.  He\n     glanced across at me and smiled.  Mycroft took snuff from a\n     tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from his\n     coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.\n\n     \"By the way, Sherlock,\" said he, \"I have had something quite after\n     your own heart--a most singular problem--submitted to my judgment.  I\n     really had not the energy to follow it up save in a very incomplete\n     fashion, but it gave me a basis for some pleasing speculation.  If\n     you would care to hear the facts--\"\n\n     \"My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted.\"\n\n     The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,\n     ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.\n\n     \"I have asked Mr. Melas to step across,\" said he.  \"He lodges on the\n     floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him, which\n     led him to come to me in his perplexity.  Mr. Melas is a Greek by\n     extraction, as I understand, and he is a remarkable linguist.  He\n     earns his living partly as interpreter in the law courts and partly\n     by acting as guide to any wealthy Orientals who may visit the\n     Northumberland Avenue hotels.  I think I will leave him to tell his\n     very remarkable experience in his own fashion.\"\n\n     A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose olive\n     face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin, though his\n     speech was that of an educated Englishman.  He shook hands eagerly\n     with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when\n     he understood that the specialist was anxious to hear his story.\n\n     \"I do not believe that the police credit me--on my word, I do not,\"\n     said he in a wailing voice.  \"Just because they have never heard of\n     it before, they think that such a thing cannot be.  But I know that I\n     shall never be easy in my mind until I know what has become of my\n     poor man with the sticking-plaster upon his face.\"\n\n     \"I am all attention,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"This is Wednesday evening,\" said Mr. Melas.  \"Well then, it was\n     Monday night--only two days ago, you understand--that all this\n     happened.  I am an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbor there has told\n     you.  I interpret all languages--or nearly all--but as I am a Greek\n     by birth and with a Grecian name, it is with that particular tongue\n     that I am principally associated.  For many years I have been the\n     chief Greek interpreter in London, and my name is very well known in\n     the hotels.\n\n     It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange hours by\n     foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who arrive late\n     and wish my services.  I was not surprised, therefore, on Monday\n     night when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed young man, came\n     up to my rooms and asked me to accompany him in a cab which was\n     waiting at the door.  A Greek friend had come to see him upon\n     business, he said, and as he could speak nothing but his own tongue,\n     the services of an interpreter were indispensable.  He gave me to\n     understand that his house was some little distance off, in\n     Kensington, and he seemed to be in a great hurry, bustling me rapidly\n     into the cab when we had descended to the street.\n\n     \"I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether it was\n     not a carriage in which I found myself.  It was certainly more roomy\n     than the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London, and the fittings,\n     though frayed, were of rich quality.  Mr. Latimer seated himself\n     opposite to me and we started off through Charing Cross and up the\n     Shaftesbury Avenue.  We had come out upon Oxford Street and I had\n     ventured some remark as to this being a roundabout way to Kensington,\n     when my words were arrested by the extraordinary conduct of my\n     companion.\n\n     \"He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded with\n     lead from his pocket, and switching it backward and forward several\n     times, as if to test its weight and strength.  Then he placed it\n     without a word upon the seat beside him.  Having done this, he drew\n     up the windows on each side, and I found to my astonishment that they\n     were covered with paper so as to prevent my seeing through them.\n\n     \"'I am sorry to cut off your view, Mr. Melas,' said he.  'The fact is\n     that I have no intention that you should see what the place is to\n     which we are driving.  It might possibly be inconvenient to me if you\n     could find your way there again.'\n\n     \"As you can imagine, I was utterly taken aback by such an address. \n     My companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young fellow, and,\n     apart from the weapon, I should not have had the slightest chance in\n     a struggle with him.\n\n     \"'This is very extraordinary conduct, Mr. Latimer,' I stammered. \n     'You must be aware that what you are doing is quite illegal.'\n\n     \"'It is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,' said he, 'but we'll make it\n     up to you.  I must warn you, however, Mr. Melas, that if at any time\n     to-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything which is\n     against my interests, you will find it a very serious thing.  I beg\n     you to remember that no one knows where you are, and that, whether\n     you are in this carriage or in my house, you are equally in my\n     power.'\n\n     \"His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them which\n     was very menacing.  I sat in silence wondering what on earth could be\n     his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion.  Whatever\n     it might be, it was perfectly clear that there was no possible use in\n     my resisting, and that I could only wait to see what might befall.\n\n     \"For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to\n     where we were going.  Sometimes the rattle of the stones told of a\n     paved causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course suggested\n     asphalt; but, save by this variation in sound, there was nothing at\n     all which could in the remotest way help me to form a guess as to\n     where we were.  The paper over each window was impenetrable to light,\n     and a blue curtain was drawn across the glass work in front.  It was\n     a quarter-past seven when we left Pall Mall, and my watch showed me\n     that it was ten minutes to nine when we at last came to a standstill.\n      My companion let down the window, and I caught a glimpse of a low,\n     arched doorway with a lamp burning above it.  As I was hurried from\n     the carriage it swung open, and I found myself inside the house, with\n     a vague impression of a lawn and trees on each side of me as I\n     entered.  Whether these were private grounds, however, or bona-fide\n     country was more than I could possibly venture to say.\n\n     \"There was a colored gas-lamp inside which was turned so low that I\n     could see little save that the hall was of some size and hung with\n     pictures.  In the dim light I could make out that the person who had\n     opened the door was a small, mean-looking, middle-aged man with\n     rounded shoulders.  As he turned towards us the glint of the light\n     showed me that he was wearing glasses.\n\n     \"'Is this Mr. Melas, Harold?' said he.\n\n     \"'Yes.'\n\n     \"'Well done, well done!  No ill-will, Mr. Melas, I hope, but we could\n     not get on without you.  If you deal fair with us you'll not regret\n     it, but if you try any tricks, God help you!'  He spoke in a nervous,\n     jerky fashion, and with little giggling laughs in between, but\n     somehow he impressed me with fear more than the other.\n\n     \"'What do you want with me?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is visiting\n     us, and to let us have the answers.  But say no more than you are\n     told to say, or--' here came the nervous giggle again--'you had\n     better never have been born.'\n\n     \"As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which\n     appeared to be very richly furnished, but again the only light was\n     afforded by a single lamp half-turned down.  The chamber was\n     certainly large, and the way in which my feet sank into the carpet as\n     I stepped across it told me of its richness.  I caught glimpses of\n     velvet chairs, a high white marble mantel-piece, and what seemed to\n     be a suit of Japanese armor at one side of it.  There was a chair\n     just under the lamp, and the elderly man motioned that I should sit\n     in it.  The younger had left us, but he suddenly returned through\n     another door, leading with him a gentleman clad in some sort of loose\n     dressing-gown who moved slowly towards us.  As he came into the\n     circle of dim light which enabled me to see him more clearly I was\n     thrilled with horror at his appearance.  He was deadly pale and\n     terribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant eyes of a man\n     whose spirit was greater than his strength.  But what shocked me more\n     than any signs of physical weakness was that his face was grotesquely\n     criss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large pad of it was\n     fastened over his mouth.\n\n     \"'Have you the slate, Harold?' cried the older man, as this strange\n     being fell rather than sat down into a chair.  'Are his hands loose? \n     Now, then, give him the pencil.  You are to ask the questions, Mr.\n     Melas, and he will write the answers.  Ask him first of all whether\n     he is prepared to sign the papers?'\n\n     \"The man's eyes flashed fire.\n\n     \"'Never!' he wrote in Greek upon the slate.\n\n     \"'On no condition?' I asked, at the bidding of our tyrant.\n\n     \"'Only if I see her married in my presence by a Greek priest whom I\n     know.'\n\n     \"The man giggled in his venomous way.\n\n     \"'You know what awaits you, then?'\n\n     \"'I care nothing for myself.'\n\n     \"These are samples of the questions and answers which made up our\n     strange half-spoken, half-written conversation.  Again and again I\n     had to ask him whether he would give in and sign the documents. \n     Again and again I had the same indignant reply.  But soon a happy\n     thought came to me.  I took to adding on little sentences of my own\n     to each question, innocent ones at first, to test whether either of\n     our companions knew anything of the matter, and then, as I found that\n     they showed no signs I played a more dangerous game.  Our\n     conversation ran something like this:\n\n     \"'You can do no good by this obstinacy. Who are you?'\n\n     \"'I care not. I am a stranger in London.'\n\n     \"'Your fate will be upon your own head. How long have you been here?'\n\n     \"'Let it be so. Three weeks.'\n\n     \"'The property can never be yours. What ails you?'\n\n     \"'It shall not go to villains. They are starving me.'\n\n     \"'You shall go free if you sign. What house is this?'\n\n     \"'I will never sign. I do not know.'\n\n     \"'You are not doing her any service. What is your name?'\n\n     \"'Let me hear her say so. Kratides.'\n\n     \"'You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?'\n\n     \"'Then I shall never see her. Athens.'\n\n     \"Another five minutes, Mr. Holmes, and I should have wormed out the\n     whole story under their very noses.  My very next question might have\n     cleared the matter up, but at that instant the door opened and a\n     woman stepped into the room.  I could not see her clearly enough to\n     know more than that she was tall and graceful, with black hair, and\n     clad in some sort of loose white gown.\n\n     \"'Harold,' said she, speaking English with a broken accent.  'I could\n     not stay away longer.  It is so lonely up there with only--Oh, my\n     God, it is Paul!'\n\n     \"These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the man with\n     a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out\n     'Sophy!  Sophy!' rushed into the woman's arms.  Their embrace was but\n     for an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and\n     pushed her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his\n     emaciated victim, and dragged him away through the other door.  For a\n     moment I was left alone in the room, and I sprang to my feet with\n     some vague idea that I might in some way get a clue to what this\n     house was in which I found myself.  Fortunately, however, I took no\n     steps, for looking up I saw that the older man was standing in the\n     door-way with his eyes fixed upon me.\n\n     \"'That will do, Mr. Melas,' said he.  'You perceive that we have\n     taken you into our confidence over some very private business.  We\n     should not have troubled you, only that our friend who speaks Greek\n     and who began these negotiations has been forced to return to the\n     East.  It was quite necessary for us to find some one to take his\n     place, and we were fortunate in hearing of your powers.'\n\n     \"I bowed.\n\n     \"'There are five sovereigns here,' said he, walking up to me, 'which\n     will, I hope, be a sufficient fee.  But remember,' he added, tapping\n     me lightly on the chest and giggling, 'if you speak to a human soul\n     about this--one human soul, mind--well, may God have mercy upon your\n     soul!'\n\n     \"I cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this\n     insignificant-looking man inspired me.  I could see him better now as\n     the lamp-light shone upon him.  His features were peaky and sallow,\n     and his little pointed beard was thready and ill-nourished.  He\n     pushed his face forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were\n     continually twitching like a man with St. Vitus's dance.  I could not\n     help thinking that his strange, catchy little laugh was also a\n     symptom of some nervous malady.  The terror of his face lay in his\n     eyes, however, steel gray, and glistening coldly with a malignant,\n     inexorable cruelty in their depths.\n\n     \"'We shall know if you speak of this,' said he.  'We have our own\n     means of information.  Now you will find the carriage waiting, and my\n     friend will see you on your way.'\n\n     \"I was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again obtaining\n     that momentary glimpse of trees and a garden.  Mr. Latimer followed\n     closely at my heels, and took his place opposite to me without a\n     word.  In silence we again drove for an interminable distance with\n     the windows raised, until at last, just after midnight, the carriage\n     pulled up.\n\n     \"'You will get down here, Mr. Melas,' said my companion.  'I am sorry\n     to leave you so far from your house, but there is no alternative. \n     Any attempt upon your part to follow the carriage can only end in\n     injury to yourself.'\n\n     \"He opened the door as he spoke, and I had hardly time to spring out\n     when the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage rattled away.  I\n     looked around me in astonishment.  I was on some sort of a heathy\n     common mottled over with dark clumps of furze-bushes.  Far away\n     stretched a line of houses, with a light here and there in the upper\n     windows.  On the other side I saw the red signal-lamps of a railway.\n\n     \"The carriage which had brought me was already out of sight.  I stood\n     gazing round and wondering where on earth I might be, when I saw some\n     one coming towards me in the darkness.  As he came up to me I made\n     out that he was a railway porter.\n\n     \"'Can you tell me what place this is?' I asked.\n\n     \"'Wandsworth Common,' said he.\n\n     \"'Can I get a train into town?'\n\n     \"'If you walk on a mile or so to Clapham Junction,' said he, 'you'll\n     just be in time for the last to Victoria.'\n\n     \"So that was the end of my adventure, Mr. Holmes.  I do not know\n     where I was, nor whom I spoke with, nor anything save what I have\n     told you.  But I know that there is foul play going on, and I want to\n     help that unhappy man if I can.  I told the whole story to Mr.\n     Mycroft Holmes next morning, and subsequently to the police.\"\n\n     We all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this\n     extraordinary narrative.  Then Sherlock looked across at his brother.\n\n     \"Any steps?\" he asked.\n\n     Mycroft picked up the Daily News, which was lying on the side-table.\n\n     \"Anybody supplying any information as to the whereabouts of a Greek\n     gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak\n     English, will be rewarded.  A similar reward paid to any one giving\n     information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.\n\n     \"That was in all the dailies.  No answer.\"\n\n     \"How about the Greek Legation?\"\n\n     \"I have inquired.  They know nothing.\"\n\n     \"A wire to the head of the Athens police, then?\"\n\n     \"Sherlock has all the energy of the family,\" said Mycroft, turning to\n     me.  \"Well, you take the case up by all means, and let me know if you\n     do any good.\"\n\n     \"Certainly,\" answered my friend, rising from his chair.  \"I'll let\n     you know, and Mr. Melas also.  In the meantime, Mr. Melas, I should\n     certainly be on my guard, if I were you, for of course they must know\n     through these advertisements that you have betrayed them.\"\n\n     As we walked home together, Holmes stopped at a telegraph office and\n     sent off several wires.\n\n     \"You see, Watson,\" he remarked, \"our evening has been by no means\n     wasted.  Some of my most interesting cases have come to me in this\n     way through Mycroft.  The problem which we have just listened to,\n     although it can admit of but one explanation, has still some\n     distinguishing features.\"\n\n     \"You have hopes of solving it?\"\n\n     \"Well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed if we\n     fail to discover the rest.  You must yourself have formed some theory\n     which will explain the facts to which we have listened.\"\n\n     \"In a vague way, yes.\"\n\n     \"What was your idea, then?\"\n\n     \"It seemed to me to be obvious that this Greek girl had been carried\n     off by the young Englishman named Harold Latimer.\"\n\n     \"Carried off from where?\"\n\n     \"Athens, perhaps.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes shook his head.  \"This young man could not talk a\n     word of Greek.  The lady could talk English fairly well. \n     Inference--that she had been in England some little time, but he had\n     not been in Greece.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, we will presume that she had come on a visit to England,\n     and that this Harold had persuaded her to fly with him.\"\n\n     \"That is more probable.\"\n\n     \"Then the brother--for that, I fancy, must be the relationship--comes\n     over from Greece to interfere.  He imprudently puts himself into the\n     power of the young man and his older associate.  They seize him and\n     use violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to\n     make over the girl's fortune--of which he may be trustee--to them. \n     This he refuses to do.  In order to negotiate with him they have to\n     get an interpreter, and they pitch upon this Mr. Melas, having used\n     some other one before.  The girl is not told of the arrival of her\n     brother, and finds it out by the merest accident.\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson!\" cried Holmes.  \"I really fancy that you are not\n     far from the truth.  You see that we hold all the cards, and we have\n     only to fear some sudden act of violence on their part.  If they give\n     us time we must have them.\"\n\n     \"But how can we find where this house lies?\"\n\n     \"Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl's name is or was\n     Sophy Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her.  That\n     must be our main hope, for the brother is, of course, a complete\n     stranger.  It is clear that some time has elapsed since this Harold\n     established these relations with the girl--some weeks, at any\n     rate--since the brother in Greece has had time to hear of it and come\n     across.  If they have been living in the same place during this time,\n     it is probable that we shall have some answer to Mycroft's\n     advertisement.\"\n\n     We had reached our house in Baker Street while we had been talking. \n     Holmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the door of our\n     room he gave a start of surprise.  Looking over his shoulder, I was\n     equally astonished.  His brother Mycroft was sitting smoking in the\n     arm-chair.\n\n     \"Come in, Sherlock!  Come in, sir,\" said he blandly, smiling at our\n     surprised faces.  \"You don't expect such energy from me, do you,\n     Sherlock?  But somehow this case attracts me.\"\n\n     \"How did you get here?\"\n\n     \"I passed you in a hansom.\"\n\n     \"There has been some new development?\"\n\n     \"I had an answer to my advertisement.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\"\n\n     \"Yes, it came within a few minutes of your leaving.\"\n\n     \"And to what effect?\"\n\n     Mycroft Holmes took out a sheet of paper.\n\n     \"Here it is,\" said he, \"written with a J pen on royal cream paper by\n     a middle-aged man with a weak constitution.\n\n     \"Sir [he says]:\n     \"In answer to your advertisement of to-day's date, I beg to inform\n     you that I know the young lady in question very well.  If you should\n     care to call upon me I could give you some particulars as to her\n     painful history.  She is living at present at The Myrtles, Beckenham.\n     \"Yours faithfully,\n     \"J. Davenport.\n\n     \"He writes from Lower Brixton,\" said Mycroft Holmes.  \"Do you not\n     think that we might drive to him now, Sherlock, and learn these\n     particulars?\"\n\n     \"My dear Mycroft, the brother's life is more valuable than the\n     sister's story.  I think we should call at Scotland Yard for\n     Inspector Gregson, and go straight out to Beckenham.  We know that a\n     man is being done to death, and every hour may be vital.\"\n\n     \"Better pick up Mr. Melas on our way,\" I suggested.  \"We may need an\n     interpreter.\"\n\n     \"Excellent,\" said Sherlock Holmes.  \"Send the boy for a four-wheeler,\n     and we shall be off at once.\"  He opened the table-drawer as he\n     spoke, and I noticed that he slipped his revolver into his pocket. \n     \"Yes,\" said he, in answer to my glance; \"I should say from what we\n     have heard, that we are dealing with a particularly dangerous gang.\"\n\n     It was almost dark before we found ourselves in Pall Mall, at the\n     rooms of Mr. Melas.  A gentleman had just called for him, and he was\n     gone.\n\n     \"Can you tell me where?\" asked Mycroft Holmes.\n\n     \"I don't know, sir,\" answered the woman who had opened the door; \"I\n     only know that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage.\"\n\n     \"Did the gentleman give a name?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"He wasn't a tall, handsome, dark young man?\"\n\n     \"Oh, no, sir.  He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the\n     face, but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time\n     that he was talking.\"\n\n     \"Come along!\" cried Sherlock Holmes, abruptly.  \"This grows serious,\"\n     he observed, as we drove to Scotland Yard.  \"These men have got hold\n     of Melas again.  He is a man of no physical courage, as they are well\n     aware from their experience the other night.  This villain was able\n     to terrorize him the instant that he got into his presence.  No doubt\n     they want his professional services, but, having used him, they may\n     be inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his\n     treachery.\"\n\n     Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham as soon\n     or sooner than the carriage.  On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it\n     was more than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and\n     comply with the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the\n     house.  It was a quarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and\n     half past before the four of us alighted on the Beckenham platform. \n     A drive of half a mile brought us to The Myrtles--a large, dark house\n     standing back from the road in its own grounds.  Here we dismissed\n     our cab, and made our way up the drive together.\n\n     \"The windows are all dark,\" remarked the inspector.  \"The house seems\n     deserted.\"\n\n     \"Our birds are flown and the nest empty,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Why do you say so?\"\n\n     \"A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the\n     last hour.\"\n\n     The inspector laughed.  \"I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of the\n     gate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?\"\n\n     \"You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way. \n     But the outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we\n     can say for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on\n     the carriage.\"\n\n     \"You get a trifle beyond me there,\" said the inspector, shrugging his\n     shoulder.  \"It will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if\n     we cannot make some one hear us.\"\n\n     He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but without\n     any success.  Holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few\n     minutes.\n\n     \"I have a window open,\" said he.\n\n     \"It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not against\n     it, Mr. Holmes,\" remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way\n     in which my friend had forced back the catch.  \"Well, I think that\n     under the circumstances we may enter without an invitation.\"\n\n     One after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which was\n     evidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself.  The inspector\n     had lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, the\n     curtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as he had described\n     them.  On the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and the\n     remains of a meal.\n\n     \"What is that?\" asked Holmes, suddenly.\n\n     We all stood still and listened.  A low moaning sound was coming from\n     somewhere over our heads.  Holmes rushed to the door and out into the\n     hall.  The dismal noise came from upstairs.  He dashed up, the\n     inspector and I at his heels, while his brother Mycroft followed as\n     quickly as his great bulk would permit.\n\n     Three doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the\n     central of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking\n     sometimes into a dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine. \n     It was locked, but the key had been left on the outside.  Holmes\n     flung open the door and rushed in, but he was out again in an\n     instant, with his hand to his throat.\n\n     \"It's charcoal,\" he cried.  \"Give it time.  It will clear.\"\n\n     Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from a\n     dull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod in the\n     centre.  It threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in\n     the shadows beyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which\n     crouched against the wall.  From the open door there reeked a\n     horrible poisonous exhalation which set us gasping and coughing. \n     Holmes rushed to the top of the stairs to draw in the fresh air, and\n     then, dashing into the room, he threw up the window and hurled the\n     brazen tripod out into the garden.\n\n     \"We can enter in a minute,\" he gasped, darting out again.  \"Where is\n     a candle?  I doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere. \n     Hold the light at the door and we shall get them out, Mycroft. Now!\"\n\n     With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into the\n     well-lit hall.  Both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, with\n     swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes.  Indeed, so distorted\n     were their features that, save for his black beard and stout figure,\n     we might have failed to recognize in one of them the Greek\n     interpreter who had parted from us only a few hours before at the\n     Diogenes Club.  His hands and feet were securely strapped together,\n     and he bore over one eye the marks of a violent blow.  The other, who\n     was secured in a similar fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of\n     emaciation, with several strips of sticking-plaster arranged in a\n     grotesque pattern over his face.  He had ceased to moan as we laid\n     him down, and a glance showed me that for him at least our aid had\n     come too late.  Mr. Melas, however, still lived, and in less than an\n     hour, with the aid of ammonia and brandy I had the satisfaction of\n     seeing him open his eyes, and of knowing that my hand had drawn him\n     back from that dark valley in which all paths meet.\n\n     It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did but\n     confirm our own deductions.  His visitor, on entering his rooms, had\n     drawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him with\n     the fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him\n     for the second time.  Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect\n     which this giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate\n     linguist, for he could not speak of him save with trembling hands and\n     a blanched cheek.  He had been taken swiftly to Beckenham, and had\n     acted as interpreter in a second interview, even more dramatic than\n     the first, in which the two Englishmen had menaced their prisoner\n     with instant death if he did not comply with their demands.  Finally,\n     finding him proof against every threat, they had hurled him back into\n     his prison, and after reproaching Melas with his treachery, which\n     appeared from the newspaper advertisement, they had stunned him with\n     a blow from a stick, and he remembered nothing more until he found us\n     bending over him.\n\n     And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the\n     explanation of which is still involved in some mystery.  We were able\n     to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the\n     advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy\n     Grecian family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in\n     England.  While there she had met a young man named Harold Latimer,\n     who had acquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded\n     her to fly with him.  Her friends, shocked at the event, had\n     contented themselves with informing her brother at Athens, and had\n     then washed their hands of the matter.  The brother, on his arrival\n     in England, had imprudently placed himself in the power of Latimer\n     and of his associate, whose name was Wilson Kemp--a man of the\n     foulest antecedents. These two, finding that  through his ignorance\n     of the language he was helpless in their hands, had kept him a\n     prisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty and starvation to make him\n     sign away his own and his sister's property.  They had kept him in\n     the house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster over the face\n     had been for the purpose of making recognition difficult in case she\n     should ever catch a glimpse of him.  Her feminine perception,\n     however, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the\n     occasion of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first\n     time.  The poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was\n     no one about the house except the man who acted as coachman, and his\n     wife, both of whom were tools of the conspirators.  Finding that\n     their secret was out, and that their prisoner was not to be coerced,\n     the two villains with the girl had fled away at a few hours' notice\n     from the furnished house which they had hired, having first, as they\n     thought, taken vengeance both upon the man who had defied and the one\n     who had betrayed them.\n\n     Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us from\n     Buda-Pesth.  It told how two Englishmen who had been traveling with a\n     woman had met with a tragic end.  They had each been stabbed, it\n     seems, and the Hungarian police were of opinion that they had\n     quarreled and had inflicted mortal injuries upon each other.  Holmes,\n     however, is, I fancy, of a different way of thinking, and holds to\n     this day that, if one could find the Grecian girl, one might learn\n     how the wrongs of herself and her brother came to be avenged.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                THE NAVAL TREATY\n\n     The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable\n     by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being\n     associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find\n     them recorded in my notes under the headings of \"The Adventure of the\n     Second Stain,\" \"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,\" and \"The\n     Adventure of the Tired Captain.\" The first of these, however, deals\n     with interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first\n     families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to\n     make it public. No case, however, in which Holmes was engaged has\n     ever illustrated the value of his analytical methods so clearly or\n     has impressed those who were associated with him so deeply. I still\n     retain an almost verbatim report of the interview in which he\n     demonstrated the true facts of the case to Monsieur Dubugue of the\n     Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known specialist of\n     Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to\n     be side-issues. The new century will have come, however, before the\n     story can be safely told. Meanwhile I pass on to the second on my\n     list, which promised also at one time to be of national importance,\n     and was marked by several incidents which give it a quite unique\n     character.\n\n     During my school-days I had been intimately associated with a lad\n     named Percy Phelps, who was of much the same age as myself, though he\n     was two classes ahead of me. He was a very brilliant boy, and carried\n     away every prize which the school had to offer, finishing his\n     exploits by winning a scholarship which sent him on to continue his\n     triumphant career at Cambridge. He was, I remember, extremely well\n     connected, and even when we were all little boys together we knew\n     that his mother's brother was Lord Holdhurst, the great conservative\n     politician. This gaudy relationship did him little good at school. On\n     the contrary, it seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him\n     about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket. But it\n     was another thing when he came out into the world. I heard vaguely\n     that his abilities and the influences which he commanded had won him\n     a good position at the Foreign Office, and then he passed completely\n     out of my mind until the following letter recalled his existence:\n\n     Briarbrae, Woking.\n     My dear Watson:\n     I have no doubt that you can remember \"Tadpole\" Phelps, who was in\n     the fifth form when you were in the third. It is possible even that\n     you may have heard that through my uncle's influence I obtained a\n     good appointment at the Foreign Office, and that I was in a situation\n     of trust and honor until a horrible misfortune came suddenly to blast\n     my career.\n     There is no use writing of the details of that dreadful event. In the\n     event of your acceding to my request it is probable that I shall have\n     to narrate them to you. I have only just recovered from nine weeks of\n     brain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. Do you think that you\n     could bring your friend Mr. Holmes down to see me? I should like to\n     have his opinion of the case, though the authorities assure me that\n     nothing more can be done. Do try to bring him down, and as soon as\n     possible. Every minute seems an hour while I live in this state of\n     horrible suspense. Assure him that if I have not asked his advice\n     sooner it was not because I did not appreciate his talents, but\n     because I have been off my head ever since the blow fell. Now I am\n     clear again, though I dare not think of it too much for fear of a\n     relapse. I am still so weak that I have to write, as you see, by\n     dictating. Do try to bring him.\n     Your old school-fellow,\n     Percy Phelps.\n\n     There was something that touched me as I read this letter, something\n     pitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring Holmes. So moved was I\n     that even had it been a difficult matter I should have tried it, but\n     of course I knew well that Holmes loved his art, so that he was ever\n     as ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it. My\n     wife agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the\n     matter before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found\n     myself back once more in the old rooms in Baker Street.\n\n     Holmes was seated at his side-table clad in his dressing-gown, and\n     working hard over a chemical investigation. A large curved retort was\n     boiling furiously in the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the\n     distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. My friend\n     hardly glanced up as I entered, and I, seeing that his investigation\n     must be of importance, seated myself in an arm-chair and waited. He\n     dipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few drops of each with\n     his glass pipette, and finally brought a test-tube containing a\n     solution over to the table. In his right hand he held a slip of\n     litmus-paper.\n\n     \"You come at a crisis, Watson,\" said he. \"If this paper remains blue,\n     all is well. If it turns red, it means a man's life.\" He dipped it\n     into the test-tube and it flushed at once into a dull, dirty crimson.\n     \"Hum! I thought as much!\" he cried. \"I will be at your service in an\n     instant, Watson. You will find tobacco in the Persian slipper.\" He\n     turned to his desk and scribbled off several telegrams, which were\n     handed over to the page-boy. Then he threw himself down into the\n     chair opposite, and drew up his knees until his fingers clasped round\n     his long, thin shins.\n\n     \"A very commonplace little murder,\" said he. \"You've got something\n     better, I fancy. You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson. What is\n     it?\"\n\n     I handed him the letter, which he read with the most concentrated\n     attention.\n\n     \"It does not tell us very much, does it?\" he remarked, as he handed\n     it back to me.\n\n     \"Hardly anything.\"\n\n     \"And yet the writing is of interest.\"\n\n     \"But the writing is not his own.\"\n\n     \"Precisely. It is a woman's.\"\n\n     \"A man's surely,\" I cried.\n\n     \"No, a woman's, and a woman of rare character. You see, at the\n     commencement of an investigation it is something to know that your\n     client is in close contact with some one who, for good or evil, has\n     an exceptional nature. My interest is already awakened in the case.\n     If you are ready we will start at once for Woking, and see this\n     diplomatist who is in such evil case, and the lady to whom he\n     dictates his letters.\"\n\n     We were fortunate enough to catch an early train at Waterloo, and in\n     a little under an hour we found ourselves among the fir-woods and the\n     heather of Woking. Briarbrae proved to be a large detached house\n     standing in extensive grounds within a few minutes' walk of the\n     station. On sending in our cards we were shown into an elegantly\n     appointed drawing-room, where we were joined in a few minutes by a\n     rather stout man who received us with much hospitality. His age may\n     have been nearer forty than thirty, but his cheeks were so ruddy and\n     his eyes so merry that he still conveyed the impression of a plump\n     and mischievous boy.\n\n     \"I am so glad that you have come,\" said he, shaking our hands with\n     effusion. \"Percy has been inquiring for you all morning. Ah, poor old\n     chap, he clings to any straw! His father and his mother asked me to\n     see you, for the mere mention of the subject is very painful to\n     them.\"\n\n     \"We have had no details yet,\" observed Holmes. \"I perceive that you\n     are not yourself a member of the family.\"\n\n     Our acquaintance looked surprised, and then, glancing down, he began\n     to laugh.\n\n     \"Of course you saw the J H monogram on my locket,\" said he. \"For a\n     moment I thought you had done something clever. Joseph Harrison is my\n     name, and as Percy is to marry my sister Annie I shall at least be a\n     relation by marriage. You will find my sister in his room, for she\n     has nursed him hand-and-foot this two months back. Perhaps we'd\n     better go in at once, for I know how impatient he is.\"\n\n     The chamber in which we were shown was on the same floor as the\n     drawing-room. It was furnished partly as a sitting and partly as a\n     bedroom, with flowers arranged daintily in every nook and corner. A\n     young man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open\n     window, through which came the rich scent of the garden and the balmy\n     summer air. A woman was sitting beside him, who rose as we entered.\n\n     \"Shall I leave, Percy?\" she asked.\n\n     He clutched her hand to detain her. \"How are you, Watson?\" said he,\n     cordially. \"I should never have known you under that moustache, and I\n     dare say you would not be prepared to swear to me. This I presume is\n     your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     I introduced him in a few words, and we both sat down. The stout\n     young man had left us, but his sister still remained with her hand in\n     that of the invalid. She was a striking-looking woman, a little short\n     and thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large,\n     dark, Italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. Her rich tints\n     made the white face of her companion the more worn and haggard by the\n     contrast.\n\n     \"I won't waste your time,\" said he, raising himself upon the sofa.\n     \"I'll plunge into the matter without further preamble. I was a happy\n     and successful man, Mr. Holmes, and on the eve of being married, when\n     a sudden and dreadful misfortune wrecked all my prospects in life.\n\n     \"I was, as Watson may have told you, in the Foreign Office, and\n     through the influences of my uncle, Lord Holdhurst, I rose rapidly to\n     a responsible position. When my uncle became foreign minister in this\n     administration he gave me several missions of trust, and as I always\n     brought them to a successful conclusion, he came at last to have the\n     utmost confidence in my ability and tact.\n\n     \"Nearly ten weeks ago--to be more accurate, on the twenty-third of\n     May--he called me into his private room, and, after complimenting me\n     on the good work which I had done, he informed me that he had a new\n     commission of trust for me to execute.\n\n     \"'This,' said he, taking a gray roll of paper from his bureau, 'is\n     the original of that secret treaty between England and Italy of\n     which, I regret to say, some rumors have already got into the public\n     press. It is of enormous importance that nothing further should leak\n     out. The French or the Russian embassy would pay an immense sum to\n     learn the contents of these papers. They should not leave my bureau\n     were it not that it is absolutely necessary to have them copied. You\n     have a desk in your office?'\n\n     \"'Yes, sir.'\n\n     \"'Then take the treaty and lock it up there. I shall give directions\n     that you may remain behind when the others go, so that you may copy\n     it at your leisure without fear of being overlooked. When you have\n     finished, relock both the original and the draft in the desk, and\n     hand them over to me personally to-morrow morning.'\n\n     \"I took the papers and--\"\n\n     \"Excuse me an instant,\" said Holmes. \"Were you alone during this\n     conversation?\"\n\n     \"Absolutely.\"\n\n     \"In a large room?\"\n\n     \"Thirty feet each way.\"\n\n     \"In the centre?\"\n\n     \"Yes, about it.\"\n\n     \"And speaking low?\"\n\n     \"My uncle's voice is always remarkably low. I hardly spoke at all.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes, shutting his eyes; \"pray go on.\"\n\n     \"I did exactly what he indicated, and waited until the other clerks\n     had departed. One of them in my room, Charles Gorot, had some arrears\n     of work to make up, so I left him there and went out to dine. When I\n     returned he was gone. I was anxious to hurry my work, for I knew that\n     Joseph--the Mr. Harrison whom you saw just now--was in town, and that\n     he would travel down to Woking by the eleven-o'clock train, and I\n     wanted if possible to catch it.\n\n     \"When I came to examine the treaty I saw at once that it was of such\n     importance that my uncle had been guilty of no exaggeration in what\n     he had said. Without going into details, I may say that it defined\n     the position of Great Britain towards the Triple Alliance, and\n     fore-shadowed the policy which this country would pursue in the event\n     of the French fleet gaining a complete ascendancy over that of Italy\n     in the Mediterranean. The questions treated in it were purely naval.\n     At the end were the signatures of the high dignitaries who had signed\n     it. I glanced my eyes over it, and then settled down to my task of\n     copying.\n\n     \"It was a long document, written in the French language, and\n     containing twenty-six separate articles. I copied as quickly as I\n     could, but at nine o'clock I had only done nine articles, and it\n     seemed hopeless for me to attempt to catch my train. I was feeling\n     drowsy and stupid, partly from my dinner and also from the effects of\n     a long day's work. A cup of coffee would clear my brain. A\n     commissionaire remains all night in a little lodge at the foot of the\n     stairs, and is in the habit of making coffee at his spirit-lamp for\n     any of the officials who may be working over time. I rang the bell,\n     therefore, to summon him.\n\n     \"To my surprise, it was a woman who answered the summons, a large,\n     coarse-faced, elderly woman, in an apron. She explained that she was\n     the commissionaire's wife, who did the charing, and I gave her the\n     order for the coffee.\n\n     \"I wrote two more articles and then, feeling more drowsy than ever, I\n     rose and walked up and down the room to stretch my legs. My coffee\n     had not yet come, and I wondered what was the cause of the delay\n     could be. Opening the door, I started down the corridor to find out.\n     There was a straight passage, dimly lighted, which led from the room\n     in which I had been working, and was the only exit from it. It ended\n     in a curving staircase, with the commissionaire's lodge in the\n     passage at the bottom. Half way down this staircase is a small\n     landing, with another passage running into it at right angles. This\n     second one leads by means of a second small stair to a side door,\n     used by servants, and also as a short cut by clerks when coming from\n     Charles Street. Here is a rough chart of the place.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I think that I quite follow you,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"It is of the utmost importance that you should notice this point. I\n     went down the stairs and into the hall, where I found the\n     commissionaire fast asleep in his box, with the kettle boiling\n     furiously upon the spirit-lamp. I took off the kettle and blew out\n     the lamp, for the water was spurting over the floor. Then I put out\n     my hand and was about to shake the man, who was still sleeping\n     soundly, when a bell over his head rang loudly, and he woke with a\n     start.\n\n     \"'Mr. Phelps, sir!' said he, looking at me in bewilderment.\n\n     \"'I came down to see if my coffee was ready.'\n\n     \"'I was boiling the kettle when I fell asleep, sir.' He looked at me\n     and then up at the still quivering bell with an ever-growing\n     astonishment upon his face.\n\n     \"'If you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?' he asked.\n\n     \"'The bell!' I cried. 'What bell is it?'\n\n     \"'It's the bell of the room you were working in.'\n\n     \"A cold hand seemed to close round my heart. Some one, then, was in\n     that room where my precious treaty lay upon the table. I ran\n     frantically up the stair and along the passage. There was no one in\n     the corridors, Mr. Holmes. There was no one in the room. All was\n     exactly as I left it, save only that the papers which had been\n     committed to my care had been taken from the desk on which they lay.\n     The copy was there, and the original was gone.\"\n\n     Holmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. I could see that the\n     problem was entirely to his heart. \"Pray, what did you do then?\" he\n     murmured.\n\n     \"I recognized in an instant that the thief must have come up the\n     stairs from the side door. Of course I must have met him if he had\n     come the other way.\"\n\n     \"You were satisfied that he could not have been concealed in the room\n     all the time, or in the corridor which you have just described as\n     dimly lighted?\"\n\n     \"It is absolutely impossible. A rat could not conceal himself either\n     in the room or the corridor. There is no cover at all.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. Pray proceed.\"\n\n     \"The commissionaire, seeing by my pale face that something was to be\n     feared, had followed me upstairs. Now we both rushed along the\n     corridor and down the steep steps which led to Charles Street. The\n     door at the bottom was closed, but unlocked. We flung it open and\n     rushed out. I can distinctly remember that as we did so there came\n     three chimes from a neighboring clock. It was quarter to ten.\"\n\n     \"That is of enormous importance,\" said Holmes, making a note upon his\n     shirt-cuff.\n\n     \"The night was very dark, and a thin, warm rain was falling. There\n     was no one in Charles Street, but a great traffic was going on, as\n     usual, in Whitehall, at the extremity. We rushed along the pavement,\n     bare-headed as we were, and at the far corner we found a policeman\n     standing.\n\n     \"'A robbery has been committed,' I gasped. 'A document of immense\n     value has been stolen from the Foreign Office. Has any one passed\n     this way?'\n\n     \"'I have been standing here for a quarter of an hour, sir,' said he;\n     'only one person has passed during that time--a woman, tall and\n     elderly, with a Paisley shawl.'\n\n     \"'Ah, that is only my wife,' cried the commissionaire; 'has no one\n     else passed?'\n\n     \"'No one.'\n\n     \"'Then it must be the other way that the thief took,' cried the\n     fellow, tugging at my sleeve.\n\n     \"But I was not satisfied, and the attempts which he made to draw me\n     away increased my suspicions.\n\n     \"'Which way did the woman go?' I cried.\n\n     \"'I don't know, sir. I noticed her pass, but I had no special reason\n     for watching her. She seemed to be in a hurry.'\n\n     \"'How long ago was it?'\n\n     \"'Oh, not very many minutes.'\n\n     \"'Within the last five?'\n\n     \"'Well, it could not be more than five.'\n\n     \"'You're only wasting your time, sir, and every minute now is of\n     importance,' cried the commissionaire; 'take my word for it that my\n     old woman has nothing to do with it, and come down to the other end\n     of the street. Well, if you won't, I will.' And with that he rushed\n     off in the other direction.\n\n     \"But I was after him in an instant and caught him by the sleeve.\n\n     \"'Where do you live?' said I.\n\n     \"'16 Ivy Lane, Brixton,' he answered. 'But don't let yourself be\n     drawn away upon a false scent, Mr. Phelps. Come to the other end of\n     the street and let us see if we can hear of anything.'\n\n     \"Nothing was to be lost by following his advice. With the policeman\n     we both hurried down, but only to find the street full of traffic,\n     many people coming and going, but all only too eager to get to a\n     place of safety upon so wet a night. There was no lounger who could\n     tell us who had passed.\n\n     \"Then we returned to the office, and searched the stairs and the\n     passage without result. The corridor which led to the room was laid\n     down with a kind of creamy linoleum which shows an impression very\n     easily. We examined it very carefully, but found no outline of any\n     footmark.\"\n\n     \"Had it been raining all evening?\"\n\n     \"Since about seven.\"\n\n     \"How is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine\n     left no traces with her muddy boots?\"\n\n     \"I am glad you raised the point. It occurred to me at the time. The\n     charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the\n     commissionaire's office, and putting on list slippers.\"\n\n     \"That is very clear. There were no marks, then, though the night was\n     a wet one? The chain of events is certainly one of extraordinary\n     interest. What did you do next?\"\n\n     \"We examined the room also. There is no possibility of a secret door,\n     and the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. Both of them\n     were fastened on the inside. The carpet prevents any possibility of a\n     trap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. I\n     will pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come\n     through the door.\"\n\n     \"How about the fireplace?\"\n\n     \"They use none. There is a stove. The bell-rope hangs from the wire\n     just to the right of my desk. Whoever rang it must have come right up\n     to the desk to do it. But why should any criminal wish to ring the\n     bell? It is a most insoluble mystery.\"\n\n     \"Certainly the incident was unusual. What were your next steps? You\n     examined the room, I presume, to see if the intruder had left any\n     traces--any cigar-end or dropped glove or hairpin or other trifle?\"\n\n     \"There was nothing of the sort.\"\n\n     \"No smell?\"\n\n     \"Well, we never thought of that.\"\n\n     \"Ah, a scent of tobacco would have been worth a great deal to us in\n     such an investigation.\"\n\n     \"I never smoke myself, so I think I should have observed it if there\n     had been any smell of tobacco. There was absolutely no clue of any\n     kind. The only tangible fact was that the commissionaire's wife--Mrs.\n     Tangey was the name--had hurried out of the place. He could give no\n     explanation save that it was about the time when the woman always\n     went home. The policeman and I agreed that our best plan would be to\n     seize the woman before she could get rid of the papers, presuming\n     that she had them.\n\n     \"The alarm had reached Scotland Yard by this time, and Mr. Forbes,\n     the detective, came round at once and took up the case with a great\n     deal of energy. We hired a hansom, and in half an hour we were at the\n     address which had been given to us. A young woman opened the door,\n     who proved to be Mrs. Tangey's eldest daughter. Her mother had not\n     come back yet, and we were shown into the front room to wait.\n\n     \"About ten minutes later a knock came at the door, and here we made\n     the one serious mistake for which I blame myself. Instead of opening\n     the door ourselves, we allowed the girl to do so. We heard her say,\n     'Mother, there are two men in the house waiting to see you,' and an\n     instant afterwards we heard the patter of feet rushing down the\n     passage. Forbes flung open the door, and we both ran into the back\n     room or kitchen, but the woman had got there before us. She stared at\n     us with defiant eyes, and then, suddenly recognizing me, an\n     expression of absolute astonishment came over her face.\n\n     \"'Why, if it isn't Mr. Phelps, of the office!' she cried.\n\n     \"'Come, come, who did you think we were when you ran away from us?'\n     asked my companion.\n\n     \"'I thought you were the brokers,' said she, 'we have had some\n     trouble with a tradesman.'\n\n     \"'That's not quite good enough,' answered Forbes. 'We have reason to\n     believe that you have taken a paper of importance from the Foreign\n     Office, and that you ran in here to dispose of it. You must come back\n     with us to Scotland Yard to be searched.'\n\n     \"It was in vain that she protested and resisted. A four-wheeler was\n     brought, and we all three drove back in it. We had first made an\n     examination of the kitchen, and especially of the kitchen fire, to\n     see whether she might have made away with the papers during the\n     instant that she was alone. There were no signs, however, of any\n     ashes or scraps. When we reached Scotland Yard she was handed over at\n     once to the female searcher. I waited in an agony of suspense until\n     she came back with her report. There were no signs of the papers.\n\n     \"Then for the first time the horror of my situation came in its full\n     force. Hitherto I had been acting, and action had numbed thought. I\n     had been so confident of regaining the treaty at once that I had not\n     dared to think of what would be the consequence if I failed to do so.\n     But now there was nothing more to be done, and I had leisure to\n     realize my position. It was horrible. Watson there would tell you\n     that I was a nervous, sensitive boy at school. It is my nature. I\n     thought of my uncle and of his colleagues in the Cabinet, of the\n     shame which I had brought upon him, upon myself, upon every one\n     connected with me. What though I was the victim of an extraordinary\n     accident? No allowance is made for accidents where diplomatic\n     interests are at stake. I was ruined, shamefully, hopelessly ruined.\n     I don't know what I did. I fancy I must have made a scene. I have a\n     dim recollection of a group of officials who crowded round me,\n     endeavoring to soothe me. One of them drove down with me to Waterloo,\n     and saw me into the Woking train. I believe that he would have come\n     all the way had it not been that Dr. Ferrier, who lives near me, was\n     going down by that very train. The doctor most kindly took charge of\n     me, and it was well he did so, for I had a fit in the station, and\n     before we reached home I was practically a raving maniac.\n\n     \"You can imagine the state of things here when they were roused from\n     their beds by the doctor's ringing and found me in this condition.\n     Poor Annie here and my mother were broken-hearted. Dr. Ferrier had\n     just heard enough from the detective at the station to be able to\n     give an idea of what had happened, and his story did not mend\n     matters. It was evident to all that I was in for a long illness, so\n     Joseph was bundled out of this cheery bedroom, and it was turned into\n     a sick-room for me. Here I have lain, Mr. Holmes, for over nine\n     weeks, unconscious, and raving with brain-fever. If it had not been\n     for Miss Harrison here and for the doctor's care I should not be\n     speaking to you now. She has nursed me by day and a hired nurse has\n     looked after me by night, for in my mad fits I was capable of\n     anything. Slowly my reason has cleared, but it is only during the\n     last three days that my memory has quite returned. Sometimes I wish\n     that it never had. The first thing that I did was to wire to Mr.\n     Forbes, who had the case in hand. He came out, and assures me that,\n     though everything has been done, no trace of a clue has been\n     discovered. The commissionaire and his wife have been examined in\n     every way without any light being thrown upon the matter. The\n     suspicions of the police then rested upon young Gorot, who, as you\n     may remember, stayed over time in the office that night. His\n     remaining behind and his French name were really the only two points\n     which could suggest suspicion; but, as a matter of fact, I did not\n     begin work until he had gone, and his people are of Huguenot\n     extraction, but as English in sympathy and tradition as you and I\n     are. Nothing was found to implicate him in any way, and there the\n     matter dropped. I turn to you, Mr. Holmes, as absolutely my last\n     hope. If you fail me, then my honor as well as my position are\n     forever forfeited.\"\n\n     The invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long\n     recital, while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating\n     medicine. Holmes sat silently, with his head thrown back and his eyes\n     closed, in an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but\n     which I knew betokened the most intense self-absorption.\n\n     \"You statement has been so explicit,\" said he at last, \"that you have\n     really left me very few questions to ask. There is one of the very\n     utmost importance, however. Did you tell any one that you had this\n     special task to perform?\"\n\n     \"No one.\"\n\n     \"Not Miss Harrison here, for example?\"\n\n     \"No. I had not been back to Woking between getting the order and\n     executing the commission.\"\n\n     \"And none of your people had by chance been to see you?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Did any of them know their way about in the office?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, all of them had been shown over it.\"\n\n     \"Still, of course, if you said nothing to any one about the treaty\n     these inquiries are irrelevant.\"\n\n     \"I said nothing.\"\n\n     \"Do you know anything of the commissionaire?\"\n\n     \"Nothing except that he is an old soldier.\"\n\n     \"What regiment?\"\n\n     \"Oh, I have heard--Coldstream Guards.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I have no doubt I can get details from Forbes. The\n     authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not\n     always use them to advantage. What a lovely thing a rose is!\"\n\n     He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping\n     stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and\n     green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never\n     before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.\n\n     \"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,\"\n     said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. \"It can be built\n     up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the\n     goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other\n     things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary\n     for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra.\n     Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition\n     of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again\n     that we have much to hope from the flowers.\"\n\n     Percy Phelps and his nurse looked at Holmes during this demonstration\n     with surprise and a good deal of disappointment written upon their\n     faces. He had fallen into a reverie, with the moss-rose between his\n     fingers. It had lasted some minutes before the young lady broke in\n     upon it.\n\n     \"Do you see any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr. Holmes?\" she\n     asked, with a touch of asperity in her voice.\n\n     \"Oh, the mystery!\" he answered, coming back with a start to the\n     realities of life. \"Well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is\n     a very abstruse and complicated one, but I can promise you that I\n     will look into the matter and let you know any points which may\n     strike me.\"\n\n     \"Do you see any clue?\"\n\n     \"You have furnished me with seven, but, of course, I must test them\n     before I can pronounce upon their value.\"\n\n     \"You suspect some one?\"\n\n     \"I suspect myself.\"\n\n     \"What!\"\n\n     \"Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.\"\n\n     \"Then go to London and test your conclusions.\"\n\n     \"Your advice is very excellent, Miss Harrison,\" said Holmes, rising.\n     \"I think, Watson, we cannot do better. Do not allow yourself to\n     indulge in false hopes, Mr. Phelps. The affair is a very tangled\n     one.\"\n\n     \"I shall be in a fever until I see you again,\" cried the diplomatist.\n\n     \"Well, I'll come out by the same train to-morrow, though it's more\n     than likely that my report will be a negative one.\"\n\n     \"God bless you for promising to come,\" cried our client. \"It gives me\n     fresh life to know that something is being done. By the way, I have\n     had a letter from Lord Holdhurst.\"\n\n     \"Ha! What did he say?\"\n\n     \"He was cold, but not harsh. I dare say my severe illness prevented\n     him from being that. He repeated that the matter was of the utmost\n     importance, and added that no steps would be taken about my\n     future--by which he means, of course, my dismissal--until my health\n     was restored and I had an opportunity of repairing my misfortune.\"\n\n     \"Well, that was reasonable and considerate,\" said Holmes. \"Come,\n     Watson, for we have a good day's work before us in town.\"\n\n     Mr. Joseph Harrison drove us down to the station, and we were soon\n     whirling up in a Portsmouth train. Holmes was sunk in profound\n     thought, and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed Clapham\n     Junction.\n\n     \"It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines\n     which run high, and allow you to look down upon the houses like\n     this.\"\n\n     I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon\n     explained himself.\n\n     \"Look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the\n     slates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea.\"\n\n     \"The board-schools.\"\n\n     \"Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds\n     of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise,\n     better England of the future. I suppose that man Phelps does not\n     drink?\"\n\n     \"I should not think so.\"\n\n     \"Nor should I, but we are bound to take every possibility into\n     account. The poor devil has certainly got himself into very deep\n     water, and it's a question whether we shall ever be able to get him\n     ashore. What did you think of Miss Harrison?\"\n\n     \"A girl of strong character.\"\n\n     \"Yes, but she is a good sort, or I am mistaken. She and her brother\n     are the only children of an iron-master somewhere up Northumberland\n     way. He got engaged to her when traveling last winter, and she came\n     down to be introduced to his people, with her brother as escort. Then\n     came the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother\n     Joseph, finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too. I've been making\n     a few independent inquiries, you see. But to-day must be a day of\n     inquiries.\"\n\n     \"My practice--\" I began.\n\n     \"Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine--\" said\n     Holmes, with some asperity.\n\n     \"I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a\n     day or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.\"\n\n     \"Excellent,\" said he, recovering his good-humor. \"Then we'll look\n     into this matter together. I think that we should begin by seeing\n     Forbes. He can probably tell us all the details we want until we know\n     from what side the case is to be approached.\"\n\n     \"You said you had a clue?\"\n\n     \"Well, we have several, but we can only test their value by further\n     inquiry. The most difficult crime to track is the one which is\n     purposeless. Now this is not purposeless. Who is it who profits by\n     it? There is the French ambassador, there is the Russian, there is\n     who-ever might sell it to either of these, and there is Lord\n     Holdhurst.\"\n\n     \"Lord Holdhurst!\"\n\n     \"Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in\n     a position where he was not sorry to have such a document\n     accidentally destroyed.\"\n\n     \"Not a statesman with the honorable record of Lord Holdhurst?\"\n\n     \"It is a possibility and we cannot afford to disregard it. We shall\n     see the noble lord to-day and find out if he can tell us anything.\n     Meanwhile I have already set inquiries on foot.\"\n\n     \"Already?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I sent wires from Woking station to every evening paper in\n     London. This advertisement will appear in each of them.\"\n\n     He handed over a sheet torn from a note-book. On it was scribbled in\n     pencil:\n\n     \"£10 reward. The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or about\n     the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten in\n     the evening of May 23d. Apply 221b, Baker Street.\"\n\n     \"You are confident that the thief came in a cab?\"\n\n     \"If not, there is no harm done. But if Mr. Phelps is correct in\n     stating that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the\n     corridors, then the person must have come from outside. If he came\n     from outside on so wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon\n     the linoleum, which was examined within a few minutes of his passing,\n     then it is exceeding probably that he came in a cab. Yes, I think\n     that we may safely deduce a cab.\"\n\n     \"It sounds plausible.\"\n\n     \"That is one of the clues of which I spoke. It may lead us to\n     something. And then, of course, there is the bell--which is the most\n     distinctive feature of the case. Why should the bell ring? Was it the\n     thief who did it out of bravado? Or was it some one who was with the\n     thief who did it in order to prevent the crime? Or was it an\n     accident? Or was it--?\" He sank back into the state of intense and\n     silent thought from which he had emerged; but it seemed to me,\n     accustomed as I was to his every mood, that some new possibility had\n     dawned suddenly upon him.\n\n     It was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after a\n     hasty luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to Scotland Yard.\n     Holmes had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to\n     receive us--a small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable\n     expression. He was decidedly frigid in his manner to us, especially\n     when he heard the errand upon which we had come.\n\n     \"I've heard of your methods before now, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, tartly.\n     \"You are ready enough to use all the information that the police can\n     lay at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself\n     and bring discredit on them.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary,\" said Holmes, \"out of my last fifty-three cases my\n     name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the\n     credit in forty-nine. I don't blame you for not knowing this, for you\n     are young and inexperienced, but if you wish to get on in your new\n     duties you will work with me and not against me.\"\n\n     \"I'd be very glad of a hint or two,\" said the detective, changing his\n     manner. \"I've certainly had no credit from the case so far.\"\n\n     \"What steps have you taken?\"\n\n     \"Tangey, the commissionaire, has been shadowed. He left the Guards\n     with a good character and we can find nothing against him. His wife\n     is a bad lot, though. I fancy she knows more about this than\n     appears.\"\n\n     \"Have you shadowed her?\"\n\n     \"We have set one of our women on to her. Mrs. Tangey drinks, and our\n     woman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get\n     nothing out of her.\"\n\n     \"I understand that they have had brokers in the house?\"\n\n     \"Yes, but they were paid off.\"\n\n     \"Where did the money come from?\"\n\n     \"That was all right. His pension was due. They have not shown any\n     sign of being in funds.\"\n\n     \"What explanation did she give of having answered the bell when Mr.\n     Phelps rang for the coffee?\"\n\n     \"She said that he husband was very tired and she wished to relieve\n     him.\"\n\n     \"Well, certainly that would agree with his being found a little later\n     asleep in his chair. There is nothing against them then but the\n     woman's character. Did you ask her why she hurried away that night?\n     Her haste attracted the attention of the police constable.\"\n\n     \"She was later than usual and wanted to get home.\"\n\n     \"Did you point out to her that you and Mr. Phelps, who started at\n     least twenty minutes after he, got home before her?\"\n\n     \"She explains that by the difference between a 'bus and a hansom.\"\n\n     \"Did she make it clear why, on reaching her house, she ran into the\n     back kitchen?\"\n\n     \"Because she had the money there with which to pay off the brokers.\"\n\n     \"She has at least an answer for everything. Did you ask her whether\n     in leaving she met any one or saw any one loitering about Charles\n     Street?\"\n\n     \"She saw no one but the constable.\"\n\n     \"Well, you seem to have cross-examined her pretty thoroughly. What\n     else have you done?\"\n\n     \"The clerk Gorot has been shadowed all these nine weeks, but without\n     result. We can show nothing against him.\"\n\n     \"Anything else?\"\n\n     \"Well, we have nothing else to go upon--no evidence of any kind.\"\n\n     \"Have you formed a theory about how that bell rang?\"\n\n     \"Well, I must confess that it beats me. It was a cool hand, whoever\n     it was, to go and give the alarm like that.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was a queer thing to do. Many thanks to you for what you\n     have told me. If I can put the man into your hands you shall hear\n     from me. Come along, Watson.\"\n\n     \"Where are we going to now?\" I asked, as we left the office.\n\n     \"We are now going to interview Lord Holdhurst, the cabinet minister\n     and future premier of England.\"\n\n     We were fortunate in finding that Lord Holdhurst was still in his\n     chambers in Downing Street, and on Holmes sending in his card we were\n     instantly shown up. The statesman received us with that old-fashioned\n     courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two\n     luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the\n     rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features,\n     thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he\n     seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in\n     truth noble.\n\n     \"Your name is very familiar to me, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, smiling.\n     \"And, of course, I cannot pretend to be ignorant of the object of\n     your visit. There has only been one occurrence in these offices which\n     could call for your attention. In whose interest are you acting, may\n     I ask?\"\n\n     \"In that of Mr. Percy Phelps,\" answered Holmes.\n\n     \"Ah, my unfortunate nephew! You can understand that our kinship makes\n     it the more impossible for me to screen him in any way. I fear that\n     the incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.\"\n\n     \"But if the document is found?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that, of course, would be different.\"\n\n     \"I had one or two questions which I wished to ask you, Lord\n     Holdhurst.\"\n\n     \"I shall be happy to give you any information in my power.\"\n\n     \"Was it in this room that you gave your instructions as to the\n     copying of the document?\"\n\n     \"It was.\"\n\n     \"Then you could hardly have been overheard?\"\n\n     \"It is out of the question.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever mention to any one that it was your intention to give\n     any one the treaty to be copied?\"\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     \"You are certain of that?\"\n\n     \"Absolutely.\"\n\n     \"Well, since you never said so, and Mr. Phelps never said so, and\n     nobody else knew anything of the matter, then the thief's presence in\n     the room was purely accidental. He saw his chance and he took it.\"\n\n     The statesman smiled. \"You take me out of my province there,\" said\n     he.\n\n     Holmes considered for a moment. \"There is another very important\n     point which I wish to discuss with you,\" said he. \"You feared, as I\n     understand, that very grave results might follow from the details of\n     this treaty becoming known.\"\n\n     A shadow passed over the expressive face of the statesman. \"Very\n     grave results indeed.\"\n\n     \"And have they occurred?\"\n\n     \"Not yet.\"\n\n     \"If the treaty had reached, let us say, the French or Russian Foreign\n     Office, you would expect to hear of it?\"\n\n     \"I should,\" said Lord Holdhurst, with a wry face.\n\n     \"Since nearly ten weeks have elapsed, then, and nothing has been\n     heard, it is not unfair to suppose that for some reason the treaty\n     has not reached them.\"\n\n     Lord Holdhurst shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"We can hardly suppose, Mr. Holmes, that the thief took the treaty in\n     order to frame it and hang it up.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps he is waiting for a better price.\"\n\n     \"If he waits a little longer he will get no price at all. The treaty\n     will cease to be secret in a few months.\"\n\n     \"That is most important,\" said Holmes. \"Of course, it is a possible\n     supposition that the thief has had a sudden illness--\"\n\n     \"An attack of brain-fever, for example?\" asked the statesman,\n     flashing a swift glance at him.\n\n     \"I did not say so,\" said Holmes, imperturbably. \"And now, Lord\n     Holdhurst, we have already taken up too much of your valuable time,\n     and we shall wish you good-day.\"\n\n     \"Every success to your investigation, be the criminal who it may,\"\n     answered the nobleman, as he bowed us out the door.\n\n     \"He's a fine fellow,\" said Holmes, as we came out into Whitehall.\n     \"But he has a struggle to keep up his position. He is far from rich\n     and has many calls. You noticed, of course, that his boots had been\n     re-soled? Now, Watson, I won't detain you from your legitimate work\n     any longer. I shall do nothing more to-day, unless I have an answer\n     to my cab advertisement. But I should be extremely obliged to you if\n     you would come down with me to Woking to-morrow, by the same train\n     which we took yesterday.\"\n\n     I met him accordingly next morning and we traveled down to Woking\n     together. He had had no answer to his advertisement, he said, and no\n     fresh light had been thrown upon the case. He had, when he so willed\n     it, the utter immobility of countenance of a red Indian, and I could\n     not gather from his appearance whether he was satisfied or not with\n     the position of the case. His conversation, I remember, was about the\n     Bertillon system of measurements, and he expressed his enthusiastic\n     admiration of the French savant.\n\n     We found our client still under the charge of his devoted nurse, but\n     looking considerably better than before. He rose from the sofa and\n     greeted us without difficulty when we entered.\n\n     \"Any news?\" he asked, eagerly.\n\n     \"My report, as I expected, is a negative one,\" said Holmes. \"I have\n     seen Forbes, and I have seen your uncle, and I have set one or two\n     trains of inquiry upon foot which may lead to something.\"\n\n     \"You have not lost heart, then?\"\n\n     \"By no means.\"\n\n     \"God bless you for saying that!\" cried Miss Harrison. \"If we keep our\n     courage and our patience the truth must come out.\"\n\n     \"We have more to tell you than you have for us,\" said Phelps,\n     reseating himself upon the couch.\n\n     \"I hoped you might have something.\"\n\n     \"Yes, we have had an adventure during the night, and one which might\n     have proved to be a serious one.\" His expression grew very grave as\n     he spoke, and a look of something akin to fear sprang up in his eyes.\n     \"Do you know,\" said he, \"that I begin to believe that I am the\n     unconscious centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is\n     aimed at as well as my honor?\"\n\n     \"Ah!\" cried Holmes.\n\n     \"It sounds incredible, for I have not, as far as I know, an enemy in\n     the world. Yet from last night's experience I can come to no other\n     conclusion.\"\n\n     \"Pray let me hear it.\"\n\n     \"You must know that last night was the very first night that I have\n     ever slept without a nurse in the room. I was so much better that I\n     thought I could dispense with one. I had a night-light burning,\n     however. Well, about two in the morning I had sunk into a light sleep\n     when I was suddenly aroused by a slight noise. It was like the sound\n     which a mouse makes when it is gnawing a plank, and I lay listening\n     to it for some time under the impression that it must come from that\n     cause. Then it grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a\n     sharp metallic snick. I sat up in amazement. There could be no doubt\n     what the sounds were now. The first ones had been caused by some one\n     forcing an instrument through the slit between the sashes, and the\n     second by the catch being pressed back.\n\n     \"There was a pause then for about ten minutes, as if the person were\n     waiting to see whether the noise had awakened me. Then I heard a\n     gentle creaking as the window was very slowly opened. I could stand\n     it no longer, for my nerves are not what they used to be. I sprang\n     out of bed and flung open the shutters. A man was crouching at the\n     window. I could see little of him, for he was gone like a flash. He\n     was wrapped in some sort of cloak which came across the lower part of\n     his face. One thing only I am sure of, and that is that he had some\n     weapon in his hand. It looked to me like a long knife. I distinctly\n     saw the gleam of it as he turned to run.\"\n\n     \"This is most interesting,\" said Holmes. \"Pray what did you do then?\"\n\n     \"I should have followed him through the open window if I had been\n     stronger. As it was, I rang the bell and roused the house. It took me\n     some little time, for the bell rings in the kitchen and the servants\n     all sleep upstairs. I shouted, however, and that brought Joseph down,\n     and he roused the others. Joseph and the groom found marks on the bed\n     outside the window, but the weather has been so dry lately that they\n     found it hopeless to follow the trail across the grass. There's a\n     place, however, on the wooden fence which skirts the road which shows\n     signs, they tell me, as if some one had got over, and had snapped the\n     top of the rail in doing so. I have said nothing to the local police\n     yet, for I thought I had best have your opinion first.\"\n\n     This tale of our client's appeared to have an extraordinary effect\n     upon Sherlock Holmes. He rose from his chair and paced about the room\n     in uncontrollable excitement.\n\n     \"Misfortunes never come single,\" said Phelps, smiling, though it was\n     evident that his adventure had somewhat shaken him.\n\n     \"You have certainly had your share,\" said Holmes. \"Do you think you\n     could walk round the house with me?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, I should like a little sunshine. Joseph will come, too.\"\n\n     \"And I also,\" said Miss Harrison.\n\n     \"I am afraid not,\" said Holmes, shaking his head. \"I think I must ask\n     you to remain sitting exactly where you are.\"\n\n     The young lady resumed her seat with an air of displeasure. Her\n     brother, however, had joined us and we set off all four together. We\n     passed round the lawn to the outside of the young diplomatist's\n     window. There were, as he had said, marks upon the bed, but they were\n     hopelessly blurred and vague. Holmes stopped over them for an\n     instant, and then rose shrugging his shoulders.\n\n     \"I don't think any one could make much of this,\" said he. \"Let us go\n     round the house and see why this particular room was chose by the\n     burglar. I should have thought those larger windows of the\n     drawing-room and dining-room would have had more attractions for\n     him.\"\n\n     \"They are more visible from the road,\" suggested Mr. Joseph Harrison.\n\n     \"Ah, yes, of course. There is a door here which he might have\n     attempted. What is it for?\"\n\n     \"It is the side entrance for trades-people. Of course it is locked at\n     night.\"\n\n     \"Have you ever had an alarm like this before?\"\n\n     \"Never,\" said our client.\n\n     \"Do you keep plate in the house, or anything to attract burglars?\"\n\n     \"Nothing of value.\"\n\n     Holmes strolled round the house with his hands in his pockets and a\n     negligent air which was unusual with him.\n\n     \"By the way,\" said he to Joseph Harrison, \"you found some place, I\n     understand, where the fellow scaled the fence. Let us have a look at\n     that!\"\n\n     The plump young man led us to a spot where the top of one of the\n     wooden rails had been cracked. A small fragment of the wood was\n     hanging down. Holmes pulled it off and examined it critically.\n\n     \"Do you think that was done last night? It looks rather old, does it\n     not?\"\n\n     \"Well, possibly so.\"\n\n     \"There are no marks of any one jumping down upon the other side. No,\n     I fancy we shall get no help here. Let us go back to the bedroom and\n     talk the matter over.\"\n\n     Percy Phelps was walking very slowly, leaning upon the arm of his\n     future brother-in-law. Holmes walked swiftly across the lawn, and we\n     were at the open window of the bedroom long before the others came\n     up.\n\n     \"Miss Harrison,\" said Holmes, speaking with the utmost intensity of\n     manner, \"you must stay where you are all day. Let nothing prevent you\n     from staying where you are all day. It is of the utmost importance.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Holmes,\" said the girl in\n     astonishment.\n\n     \"When you go to bed lock the door of this room on the outside and\n     keep the key. Promise to do this.\"\n\n     \"But Percy?\"\n\n     \"He will come to London with us.\"\n\n     \"And am I to remain here?\"\n\n     \"It is for his sake. You can serve him. Quick! Promise!\"\n\n     She gave a quick nod of assent just as the other two came up.\n\n     \"Why do you sit moping there, Annie?\" cried her brother. \"Come out\n     into the sunshine!\"\n\n     \"No, thank you, Joseph. I have a slight headache and this room is\n     deliciously cool and soothing.\"\n\n     \"What do you propose now, Mr. Holmes?\" asked our client.\n\n     \"Well, in investigating this minor affair we must not lose sight of\n     our main inquiry. It would be a very great help to me if you would\n     come up to London with us.\"\n\n     \"At once?\"\n\n     \"Well, as soon as you conveniently can. Say in an hour.\"\n\n     \"I feel quite strong enough, if I can really be of any help.\"\n\n     \"The greatest possible.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you would like me to stay there to-night?\"\n\n     \"I was just going to propose it.\"\n\n     \"Then, if my friend of the night comes to revisit me, he will find\n     the bird flown. We are all in your hands, Mr. Holmes, and you must\n     tell us exactly what you would like done. Perhaps you would prefer\n     that Joseph came with us so as to look after me?\"\n\n     \"Oh, no; my friend Watson is a medical man, you know, and he'll look\n     after you. We'll have our lunch here, if you will permit us, and then\n     we shall all three set off for town together.\"\n\n     It was arranged as he suggested, though Miss Harrison excused herself\n     from leaving the bedroom, in accordance with Holmes's suggestion.\n     What the object of my friend's manoeuvres was I could not conceive,\n     unless it were to keep the lady away from Phelps, who, rejoiced by\n     his returning health and by the prospect of action, lunched with us\n     in the dining-room. Holmes had still more startling surprise for us,\n     however, for, after accompanying us down to the station and seeing us\n     into our carriage, he calmly announced that he had no intention of\n     leaving Woking.\n\n     \"There are one or two small points which I should desire to clear up\n     before I go,\" said he. \"Your absence, Mr. Phelps, will in some ways\n     rather assist me. Watson, when you reach London you would oblige me\n     by driving at once to Baker Street with our friend here, and\n     remaining with him until I see you again. It is fortunate that you\n     are old school-fellows, as you must have much to talk over. Mr.\n     Phelps can have the spare bedroom to-night, and I will be with you in\n     time for breakfast, for there is a train which will take me into\n     Waterloo at eight.\"\n\n     \"But how about our investigation in London?\" asked Phelps, ruefully.\n\n     \"We can do that to-morrow. I think that just at present I can be of\n     more immediate use here.\"\n\n     \"You might tell them at Briarbrae that I hope to be back to-morrow\n     night,\" cried Phelps, as we began to move from the platform.\n\n     \"I hardly expect to go back to Briarbrae,\" answered Holmes, and waved\n     his hand to us cheerily as we shot out from the station.\n\n     Phelps and I talked it over on our journey, but neither of us could\n     devise a satisfactory reason for this new development.\n\n     \"I suppose he wants to find out some clue as to the burglary last\n     night, if a burglar it was. For myself, I don't believe it was an\n     ordinary thief.\"\n\n     \"What is your own idea, then?\"\n\n     \"Upon my word, you may put it down to my weak nerves or not, but I\n     believe there is some deep political intrigue going on around me, and\n     that for some reason that passes my understanding my life is aimed at\n     by the conspirators. It sounds high-flown and absurd, but consider\n     the facts! Why should a thief try to break in at a bedroom window,\n     where there could be no hope of any plunder, and why should he come\n     with a long knife in his hand?\"\n\n     \"You are sure it was not a house-breaker's jimmy?\"\n\n     \"Oh, no, it was a knife. I saw the flash of the blade quite\n     distinctly.\"\n\n     \"But why on earth should you be pursued with such animosity?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that is the question.\"\n\n     \"Well, if Holmes takes the same view, that would account for his\n     action, would it not? Presuming that your theory is correct, if he\n     can lay his hands upon the man who threatened you last night he will\n     have gone a long way towards finding who took the naval treaty. It is\n     absurd to suppose that you have two enemies, one of whom robs you,\n     while the other threatens your life.\"\n\n     \"But Holmes said that he was not going to Briarbrae.\"\n\n     \"I have known him for some time,\" said I, \"but I never knew him do\n     anything yet without a very good reason,\" and with that our\n     conversation drifted off on to other topics.\n\n     But it was a weary day for me. Phelps was still weak after his long\n     illness, and his misfortune made him querulous and nervous. In vain I\n     endeavored to interest him in Afghanistan, in India, in social\n     questions, in anything which might take his mind out of the groove.\n     He would always come back to his lost treaty, wondering, guessing,\n     speculating, as to what Holmes was doing, what steps Lord Holdhurst\n     was taking, what news we should have in the morning. As the evening\n     wore on his excitement became quite painful.\n\n     \"You have implicit faith in Holmes?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I have seen him do some remarkable things.\"\n\n     \"But he never brought light into anything quite so dark as this?\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, I have known him solve questions which presented fewer\n     clues than yours.\"\n\n     \"But not where such large interests are at stake?\"\n\n     \"I don't know that. To my certain knowledge he has acted on behalf of\n     three of the reigning houses of Europe in very vital matters.\"\n\n     \"But you know him well, Watson. He is such an inscrutable fellow that\n     I never quite know what to make of him. Do you think he is hopeful?\n     Do you think he expects to make a success of it?\"\n\n     \"He has said nothing.\"\n\n     \"That is a bad sign.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, I have noticed that when he is off the trail he\n     generally says so. It is when he is on a scent and is not quite\n     absolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most\n     taciturn. Now, my dear fellow, we can't help matters by making\n     ourselves nervous about them, so let me implore you to go to bed and\n     so be fresh for whatever may await us to-morrow.\"\n\n     I was able at last to persuade my companion to take my advice, though\n     I knew from his excited manner that there was not much hope of sleep\n     for him. Indeed, his mood was infectious, for I lay tossing half the\n     night myself, brooding over this strange problem, and inventing a\n     hundred theories, each of which was more impossible than the last.\n     Why had Holmes remained at Woking? Why had he asked Miss Harrison to\n     remain in the sick-room all day? Why had he been so careful not to\n     inform the people at Briarbrae that he intended to remain near them?\n     I cudgelled my brains until I fell asleep in the endeavor to find\n     some explanation which would cover all these facts.\n\n     It was seven o'clock when I awoke, and I set off at once for Phelps's\n     room, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. His\n     first question was whether Holmes had arrived yet.\n\n     \"He'll be here when he promised,\" said I, \"and not an instant sooner\n     or later.\"\n\n     And my words were true, for shortly after eight a hansom dashed up to\n     the door and our friend got out of it. Standing in the window we saw\n     that his left hand was swathed in a bandage and that his face was\n     very grim and pale. He entered the house, but it was some little time\n     before he came upstairs.\n\n     \"He looks like a beaten man,\" cried Phelps.\n\n     I was forced to confess that he was right. \"After all,\" said I, \"the\n     clue of the matter lies probably here in town.\"\n\n     Phelps gave a groan.\n\n     \"I don't know how it is,\" said he, \"but I had hoped for so much from\n     his return. But surely his hand was not tied up like that yesterday.\n     What can be the matter?\"\n\n     \"You are not wounded, Holmes?\" I asked, as my friend entered the\n     room.\n\n     \"Tut, it is only a scratch through my own clumsiness,\" he answered,\n     nodding his good-mornings to us. \"This case of yours, Mr. Phelps, is\n     certainly one of the darkest which I have ever investigated.\"\n\n     \"I feared that you would find it beyond you.\"\n\n     \"It has been a most remarkable experience.\"\n\n     \"That bandage tells of adventures,\" said I. \"Won't you tell us what\n     has happened?\"\n\n     \"After breakfast, my dear Watson. Remember that I have breathed\n     thirty miles of Surrey air this morning. I suppose that there has\n     been no answer from my cabman advertisement? Well, well, we cannot\n     expect to score every time.\"\n\n     The table was all laid, and just as I was about to ring Mrs. Hudson\n     entered with the tea and coffee. A few minutes later she brought in\n     three covers, and we all drew up to the table, Holmes ravenous, I\n     curious, and Phelps in the gloomiest state of depression.\n\n     \"Mrs. Hudson has risen to the occasion,\" said Holmes, uncovering a\n     dish of curried chicken. \"Her cuisine is a little limited, but she\n     has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotch-woman. What have you\n     here, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Ham and eggs,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Good! What are you going to take, Mr. Phelps--curried fowl or eggs,\n     or will you help yourself?\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I can eat nothing,\" said Phelps.\n\n     \"Oh, come! Try the dish before you.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, I would really rather not.\"\n\n     \"Well, then,\" said Holmes, with a mischievous twinkle, \"I suppose\n     that you have no objection to helping me?\"\n\n     Phelps raised the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and\n     sat there staring with a face as white as the plate upon which he\n     looked. Across the centre of it was lying a little cylinder of\n     blue-gray paper. He caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then\n     danced madly about the room, passing it to his bosom and shrieking\n     out in his delight. Then he fell back into an arm-chair so limp and\n     exhausted with his own emotions that we had to pour brandy down his\n     throat to keep him from fainting.\n\n     \"There! there!\" said Holmes, soothing, patting him upon the shoulder.\n     \"It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will\n     tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.\"\n\n     Phelps seized his hand and kissed it. \"God bless you!\" he cried. \"You\n     have saved my honor.\"\n\n     \"Well, my own was at stake, you know,\" said Holmes. \"I assure you it\n     is just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to\n     blunder over a commission.\"\n\n     Phelps thrust away the precious document into the innermost pocket of\n     his coat.\n\n     \"I have not the heart to interrupt your breakfast any further, and\n     yet I am dying to know how you got it and where it was.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes swallowed a cup of coffee, and turned his attention\n     to the ham and eggs. Then he rose, lit his pipe, and settled himself\n     down into his chair.\n\n     \"I'll tell you what I did first, and how I came to do it afterwards,\"\n     said he. \"After leaving you at the station I went for a charming walk\n     through some admirable Surrey scenery to a pretty little village\n     called Ripley, where I had my tea at an inn, and took the precaution\n     of filling my flask and of putting a paper of sandwiches in my\n     pocket. There I remained until evening, when I set off for Woking\n     again, and found myself in the high-road outside Briarbrae just after\n     sunset.\n\n     \"Well, I waited until the road was clear--it is never a very\n     frequented one at any time, I fancy--and then I clambered over the\n     fence into the grounds.\"\n\n     \"Surely the gate was open!\" ejaculated Phelps.\n\n     \"Yes, but I have a peculiar taste in these matters. I chose the place\n     where the three fir-trees stand, and behind their screen I got over\n     without the least chance of any one in the house being able to see\n     me. I crouched down among the bushes on the other side, and crawled\n     from one to the other--witness the disreputable state of my trouser\n     knees--until I had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite\n     to your bedroom window. There I squatted down and awaited\n     developments.\n\n     \"The blind was not down in your room, and I could see Miss Harrison\n     sitting there reading by the table. It was quarter-past ten when she\n     closed her book, fastened the shutters, and retired.\n\n     \"I heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turned\n     the key in the lock.\"\n\n     \"The key!\" ejaculated Phelps.\n\n     \"Yes, I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the\n     outside and take the key with her when she went to bed. She carried\n     out every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without\n     her cooperation you would not have that paper in you coat-pocket. She\n     departed then and the lights went out, and I was left squatting in\n     the rhododendron-bush.\n\n     \"The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course\n     it has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when\n     he lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. It was\n     very long, though--almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited\n     in that deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the\n     Speckled Band. There was a church-clock down at Woking which struck\n     the quarters, and I thought more than once that it had stopped. At\n     last however about two in the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle\n     sound of a bolt being pushed back and the creaking of a key. A moment\n     later the servant's door was opened, and Mr. Joseph Harrison stepped\n     out into the moonlight.\"\n\n     \"Joseph!\" ejaculated Phelps.\n\n     \"He was bare-headed, but he had a black coat thrown over his shoulder\n     so that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any\n     alarm. He walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he\n     reached the window he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and\n     pushed back the catch. Then he flung open the window, and putting his\n     knife through the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and\n     swung them open.\n\n     \"From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and\n     of every one of his movements. He lit the two candles which stood\n     upon the mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner\n     of the carpet in the neighborhood of the door. Presently he stopped\n     and picked out a square piece of board, such as is usually left to\n     enable plumbers to get at the joints of the gas-pipes. This one\n     covered, as a matter of fact, the T joint which gives off the pipe\n     which supplies the kitchen underneath. Out of this hiding-place he\n     drew that little cylinder of paper, pushed down the board, rearranged\n     the carpet, blew out the candles, and walked straight into my arms as\n     I stood waiting for him outside the window.\n\n     \"Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has\n     Master Joseph. He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him\n     twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand\n     of him. He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when\n     we had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers.\n     Having got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to\n     Forbes this morning. If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well\n     and good. But if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty\n     before he gets there, why, all the better for the government. I fancy\n     that Lord Holdhurst for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would\n     very much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court.\n\n     \"My God!\" gasped our client. \"Do you tell me that during these long\n     ten weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with\n     me all the time?\"\n\n     \"So it was.\"\n\n     \"And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!\"\n\n     \"Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more\n     dangerous one than one might judge from his appearance. From what I\n     have heard from him this morning, I gather that he has lost heavily\n     in dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth\n     to better his fortunes. Being an absolutely selfish man, when a\n     chance presented itself he did not allow either his sister's\n     happiness or your reputation to hold his hand.\"\n\n     Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. \"My head whirls,\" said he. \"Your\n     words have dazed me.\"\n\n     \"The principal difficulty in your case,\" remarked Holmes, in his\n     didactic fashion, \"lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.\n     What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant. Of all\n     the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which\n     we deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their\n     order, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. I\n     had already begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had\n     intended to travel home with him that night, and that therefore it\n     was a likely enough thing that he should call for you, knowing the\n     Foreign Office well, upon his way. When I heard that some one had\n     been so anxious to get into the bedroom, in which no one but Joseph\n     could have concealed anything--you told us in your narrative how you\n     had turned Joseph out when you arrived with the doctor--my suspicions\n     all changed to certainties, especially as the attempt was made on the\n     first night upon which the nurse was absent, showing that the\n     intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the house.\"\n\n     \"How blind I have been!\"\n\n     \"The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these:\n     this Joseph Harrison entered the office through the Charles Street\n     door, and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the\n     instant after you left it. Finding no one there he promptly rang the\n     bell, and at the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper\n     upon the table. A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a\n     State document of immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it\n     into his pocket and was gone. A few minutes elapsed, as you remember,\n     before the sleepy commissionaire drew your attention to the bell, and\n     those were just enough to give the thief time to make his escape.\n\n     \"He made his way to Woking by the first train, and having examined\n     his booty and assured himself that it really was of immense value, he\n     had concealed it in what he thought was a very safe place, with the\n     intention of taking it out again in a day or two, and carrying it to\n     the French embassy, or wherever he thought that a long price was to\n     be had. Then came your sudden return. He, without a moment's warning,\n     was bundled out of his room, and from that time onward there were\n     always at least two of you there to prevent him from regaining his\n     treasure. The situation to him must have been a maddening one. But at\n     last he thought he saw his chance. He tried to steal in, but was\n     baffled by your wakefulness. You remember that you did not take your\n     usual draught that night.\"\n\n     \"I remember.\"\n\n     \"I fancy that he had taken steps to make that draught efficacious,\n     and that he quite relied upon your being unconscious. Of course, I\n     understood that he would repeat the attempt whenever it could be done\n     with safety. Your leaving the room gave him the chance he wanted. I\n     kept Miss Harrison in it all day so that he might not anticipate us.\n     Then, having given him the idea that the coast was clear, I kept\n     guard as I have described. I already knew that the papers were\n     probably in the room, but I had no desire to rip up all the planking\n     and skirting in search of them. I let him take them, therefore, from\n     the hiding-place, and so saved myself an infinity of trouble. Is\n     there any other point which I can make clear?\"\n\n     \"Why did he try the window on the first occasion,\" I asked, \"when he\n     might have entered by the door?\"\n\n     \"In reaching the door he would have to pass seven bedrooms. On the\n     other hand, he could get out on to the lawn with ease. Anything\n     else?\"\n\n     \"You do not think,\" asked Phelps, \"that he had any murderous\n     intention? The knife was only meant as a tool.\"\n\n     \"It may be so,\" answered Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. \"I can only\n     say for certain that Mr. Joseph Harrison is a gentleman to whose\n     mercy I should be extremely unwilling to trust.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                THE FINAL PROBLEM\n\n     It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the\n     last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which\n     my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.  In an incoherent\n     and, as I deeply feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, I have\n     endeavored to give some account of my strange experiences in his\n     company from the chance which first brought us together at the period\n     of the \"Study in Scarlet,\" up to the time of his interference in the\n     matter of the \"Naval Treaty\"--an interference which had the\n     unquestionable effect of preventing a serious international\n     complication.  It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have\n     said nothing of that event which has created a void in my life which\n     the lapse of two years has done little to fill.  My hand has been\n     forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel James\n     Moriarty defends the memory of his brother, and I have no choice but\n     to lay the facts before the public exactly as they occurred.  I alone\n     know the absolute truth of the matter, and I am satisfied that the\n     time has come when no good purpose is to be served by its\n     suppression.  As far as I know, there have been only three accounts\n     in the public press:  that in the Journal de Genève on May 6th, 1891,\n     the Reuter's despatch in the English papers on May 7th, and finally\n     the recent letters to which I have alluded.  Of these the first and\n     second were extremely condensed, while the last is, as I shall now\n     show, an absolute perversion of the facts.  It lies with me to tell\n     for the first time what really took place between Professor Moriarty\n     and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start\n     in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed\n     between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified.  He still\n     came to me from time to time when he desired a companion in his\n     investigation, but these occasions grew more and more seldom, until I\n     find that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which I\n     retain any record.  During the winter of that year and the early\n     spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the\n     French government upon a matter of supreme importance, and I received\n     two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which\n     I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one.  It\n     was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my\n     consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th.  It struck me that he\n     was looking even paler and thinner than usual.\n\n     \"Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely,\" he remarked, in\n     answer to my look rather than to my words; \"I have been a little\n     pressed of late.  Have you any objection to my closing your\n     shutters?\"\n\n     The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which\n     I had been reading.  Holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging\n     the shutters together, he bolted them securely.\n\n     \"You are afraid of something?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Well, I am.\"\n\n     \"Of what?\"\n\n     \"Of air-guns.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes, what do you mean?\"\n\n     \"I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I\n     am by no means a nervous man.  At the same time, it is stupidity\n     rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close\n     upon you.  Might I trouble you for a match?\"  He drew in the smoke of\n     his cigarette as if the soothing influence was grateful to him.\n\n     \"I must apologize for calling so late,\" said he, \"and I must further\n     beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house\n     presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.\"\n\n     \"But what does it all mean?\" I asked.\n\n     He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of\n     his knuckles were burst and bleeding.\n\n     \"It is not an airy nothing, you see,\" said he, smiling.  \"On the\n     contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over.  Is\n     Mrs. Watson in?\"\n\n     \"She is away upon a visit.\"\n\n     \"Indeed!  You are alone?\"\n\n     \"Quite.\"\n\n     \"Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come\n     away with me for a week to the Continent.\"\n\n     \"Where?\"\n\n     \"Oh, anywhere.  It's all the same to me.\"\n\n     There was something very strange in all this.  It was not Holmes's\n     nature to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn\n     face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension.  He saw\n     the question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and\n     his elbows upon his knees, he explained the situation.\n\n     \"You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?\" said he.\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     \"Aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!\" he cried. \n     \"The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him.  That's what\n     puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime.  I tell you, Watson,\n     in all seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I could free\n     society of him, I should feel that my own career had reached its\n     summit, and I should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in\n     life.  Between ourselves, the recent cases in which I have been of\n     assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French\n     republic, have left me in such a position that I could continue to\n     live in the quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to\n     concentrate my attention upon my chemical researches.  But I could\n     not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought\n     that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of\n     London unchallenged.\"\n\n     \"What has he done, then?\"\n\n     \"His career has been an extraordinary one.  He is a man of good birth\n     and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal\n     mathematical faculty.  At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise\n     upon the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue.  On the\n     strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller\n     universities, and had, to all appearance, a most brilliant career\n     before him.  But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most\n     diabolical kind.  A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead\n     of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more\n     dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.  Dark rumors gathered\n     round him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to\n     resign his chair and to come down to London, where he set up as an\n     army coach.  So much is known to the world, but what I am telling you\n     now is what I have myself discovered.\n\n     \"As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher\n     criminal world of London so well as I do.  For years past I have\n     continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some\n     deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and\n     throws its shield over the wrong-doer.  Again and again in cases of\n     the most varying sorts--forgery cases, robberies, murders--I have\n     felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in\n     many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally\n     consulted.  For years I have endeavored to break through the veil\n     which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread\n     and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings,\n     to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.\n\n     \"He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.  He is the organizer of half\n     that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.\n      He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker.  He has a brain\n     of the first order.  He sits motionless, like a spider in the center\n     of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well\n     every quiver of each of them.  He does little himself.  He only\n     plans.  But his agents are numerous and splendidly organized.  Is\n     there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a\n     house to be rifled, a man to be removed--the word is passed to the\n     Professor, the matter is organized and carried out.  The agent may be\n     caught.  In that case money is found for his bail or his defence. \n     But the central power which uses the agent is never caught--never so\n     much as suspected.  This was the organization which I deduced,\n     Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking\n     up.\n\n     \"But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly\n     devised that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence\n     which would convict in a court of law.  You know my powers, my dear\n     Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess\n     that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. \n     My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill.  But\n     at last he made a trip--only a little, little trip--but it was more\n     than he could afford when I was so close upon him.  I had my chance,\n     and, starting from that point, I have woven my net round him until\n     now it is all ready to close.  In three days--that is to say, on\n     Monday next--matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the\n     principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police. \n     Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the\n     clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them;\n     but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out\n     of our hands even at the last moment.\n\n     \"Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor\n     Moriarty, all would have been well.  But he was too wily for that. \n     He saw every step which I took to draw my toils round him.  Again and\n     again he strove to break away, but I as often headed him off.  I tell\n     you, my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest\n     could be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit\n     of thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection.  Never have I\n     risen to such a height, and never have I been so hard pressed by an\n     opponent.  He cut deep, and yet I just undercut him.  This morning\n     the last steps were taken, and three days only were wanted to\n     complete the business.  I was sitting in my room thinking the matter\n     over, when the door opened and Professor Moriarty stood before me.\n\n     \"My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start\n     when I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing\n     there on my threshold.  His appearance was quite familiar to me.  He\n     is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve,\n     and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head.  He is clean-shaven,\n     pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in\n     his features.  His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his\n     face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side\n     to side in a curiously reptilian fashion.  He peered at me with great\n     curiosity in his puckered eyes.\n\n     \"'You have less frontal development that I should have expected,'\n     said he, at last.  'It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms\n     in the pocket of one's dressing-gown.'\n\n     \"The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognized the\n     extreme personal danger in which I lay.  The only conceivable escape\n     for him lay in silencing my tongue.  In an instant I had slipped the\n     revolver from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through\n     the cloth.  At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked\n     upon the table.  He still smiled and blinked, but there was something\n     about his eyes which made me feel very glad that I had it there.\n\n     \"'You evidently don't know me,' said he.\n\n     \"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I think it is fairly evident that I\n     do.  Pray take a chair.  I can spare you five minutes if you have\n     anything to say.'\n\n     \"'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.\n\n     \"'Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' I replied.\n\n     \"'You stand fast?'\n\n     \"'Absolutely.'\n\n     \"He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from\n     the table.  But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had\n     scribbled some dates.\n\n     \"'You crossed my path on the 4th of January,' said he.  'On the 23d\n     you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously\n     inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered\n     in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in\n     such a position through your continual persecution that I am in\n     positive danger of losing my liberty.  The situation is becoming an\n     impossible one.'\n\n     \"'Have you any suggestion to make?' I asked.\n\n     \"'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face about. \n     'You really must, you know.'\n\n     \"'After Monday,' said I.\n\n     \"'Tut, tut,' said he.  'I am quite sure that a man of your\n     intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this\n     affair.  It is necessary that you should withdraw.  You have worked\n     things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left.  It has\n     been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have\n     grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be\n     a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure.  You smile,\n     sir, but I assure you that it really would.'\n\n     \"'Danger is part of my trade,' I remarked.\n\n     \"'That is not danger,' said he.  'It is inevitable destruction.  You\n     stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty\n     organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness,\n     have been unable to realize.  You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be\n     trodden under foot.'\n\n     \"'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this\n     conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me\n     elsewhere.'\n\n     \"He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.\n\n     \"'Well, well,' said he, at last.  'It seems a pity, but I have done\n     what I could.  I know every move of your game.  You can do nothing\n     before Monday.  It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. \n     You hope to place me in the dock.  I tell you that I will never stand\n     in the dock.  You hope to beat me.  I tell you that you will never\n     beat me.  If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest\n     assured that I shall do as much to you.'\n\n     \"'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I.  'Let\n     me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the\n     former eventuality I would, in the interests of the public,\n     cheerfully accept the latter.'\n\n     \"'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so\n     turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of\n     the room.\n\n     \"That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty.  I confess\n     that it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind.  His soft, precise\n     fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully\n     could not produce.  Of course, you will say:  'Why not take police\n     precautions against him?'  the reason is that I am well convinced\n     that it is from his agents the blow would fall.  I have the best\n     proofs that it would be so.\"\n\n     \"You have already been assaulted?\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass\n     grow under his feet.  I went out about mid-day to transact some\n     business in Oxford Street.  As I passed the corner which leads from\n     Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van\n     furiously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash.  I sprang\n     for the foot-path and saved myself by the fraction of a second.  The\n     van dashed round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant.  I\n     kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere\n     Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was\n     shattered to fragments at my feet.  I called the police and had the\n     place examined.  There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof\n     preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the\n     wind had toppled over one of these.  Of course I knew better, but I\n     could prove nothing.  I took a cab after that and reached my\n     brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day.  Now I have come\n     round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough with a\n     bludgeon.  I knocked him down, and the police have him in custody;\n     but I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible\n     connection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front\n     teeth I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach,\n     who is, I dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles\n     away.  You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering\n     your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled\n     to ask your permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous\n     exit than the front door.\"\n\n     I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now, as\n     he sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have\n     combined to make up a day of horror.\n\n     \"You will spend the night here?\" I said.\n\n     \"No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest.  I have my plans\n     laid, and all will be well.  Matters have gone so far now that they\n     can move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my\n     presence is necessary for a conviction.  It is obvious, therefore,\n     that I cannot do better than get away for the few days which remain\n     before the police are at liberty to act.  It would be a great\n     pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the Continent with\n     me.\"\n\n     \"The practice is quiet,\" said I, \"and I have an accommodating\n     neighbor.  I should be glad to come.\"\n\n     \"And to start to-morrow morning?\"\n\n     \"If necessary.\"\n\n     \"Oh yes, it is most necessary.  Then these are your instructions, and\n     I beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you\n     are now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest\n     rogue and the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe.  Now\n     listen!  You will dispatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a\n     trusty messenger unaddressed to Victoria to-night.  In the morning\n     you will send for a hansom, desiring your man to take neither the\n     first nor the second which may present itself.  Into this hansom you\n     will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther\n     Arcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with\n     a request that he will not throw it away.  Have your fare ready, and\n     the instant that your cab stops, dash through the Arcade, timing\n     yourself to reach the other side at a quarter-past nine.  You will\n     find a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow\n     with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red.  Into this\n     you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time for the\n     Continental express.\"\n\n     \"Where shall I meet you?\"\n\n     \"At the station.  The second first-class carriage from the front will\n     be reserved for us.\"\n\n     \"The carriage is our rendezvous, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening.  It was\n     evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he\n     was under, and that that was the motive which impelled him to go. \n     With a few hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and\n     came out with me into the garden, clambering over the wall which\n     leads into Mortimer Street, and immediately whistling for a hansom,\n     in which I heard him drive away.\n\n     In the morning I obeyed Holmes's injunctions to the letter.  A hansom\n     was procured with such precaution as would prevent its being one\n     which was placed ready for us, and I drove immediately after\n     breakfast to the Lowther Arcade, through which I hurried at the top\n     of my speed.  A brougham was waiting with a very massive driver\n     wrapped in a dark cloak, who, the instant that I had stepped in,\n     whipped up the horse and rattled off to Victoria Station.  On my\n     alighting there he turned the carriage, and dashed away again without\n     so much as a look in my direction.\n\n     So far all had gone admirably.  My luggage was waiting for me, and I\n     had no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes had indicated,\n     the less so as it was the only one in the train which was marked\n     \"Engaged.\"  My only source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of\n     Holmes.  The station clock marked only seven minutes from the time\n     when we were due to start.  In vain I searched among the groups of\n     travellers and leave-takers for the lithe figure of my friend.  There\n     was no sign of him.  I spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable\n     Italian priest, who was endeavoring to make a porter understand, in\n     his broken English, that his luggage was to be booked through to\n     Paris.  Then, having taken another look round, I returned to my\n     carriage, where I found that the porter, in spite of the ticket, had\n     given me my decrepit Italian friend as a traveling companion.  It was\n     useless for me to explain to him that his presence was an intrusion,\n     for my Italian was even more limited than his English, so I shrugged\n     my shoulders resignedly, and continued to look out anxiously for my\n     friend.  A chill of fear had come over me, as I thought that his\n     absence might mean that some blow had fallen during the night. \n     Already the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when--\n\n     \"My dear Watson,\" said a voice, \"you have not even condescended to\n     say good-morning.\"\n\n     I turned in uncontrollable astonishment.  The aged ecclesiastic had\n     turned his face towards me.  For an instant the wrinkles were\n     smoothed away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased\n     to protrude and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their\n     fire, the drooping figure expanded.  The next the whole frame\n     collapsed again, and Holmes had gone as quickly as he had come.\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" I cried; \"how you startled me!\"\n\n     \"Every precaution is still necessary,\" he whispered.  \"I have reason\n     to think that they are hot upon our trail.  Ah, there is Moriarty\n     himself.\"\n\n     The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke.  Glancing back,\n     I saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and\n     waving his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped.  It was\n     too late, however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an\n     instant later had shot clear of the station.\n\n     \"With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine,\"\n     said Holmes, laughing.  He rose, and throwing off the black cassock\n     and hat which had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a\n     hand-bag.\n\n     \"Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"You haven't seen about Baker Street, then?\"\n\n     \"Baker Street?\"\n\n     \"They set fire to our rooms last night.  No great harm was done.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens, Holmes, this is intolerable!\"\n\n     \"They must have lost my track completely after their bludgeon-man was\n     arrested.  Otherwise they could not have imagined that I had returned\n     to my rooms.  They have evidently taken the precaution of watching\n     you, however, and that is what has brought Moriarty to Victoria.  You\n     could not have made any slip in coming?\"\n\n     \"I did exactly what you advised.\"\n\n     \"Did you find your brougham?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was waiting.\"\n\n     \"Did you recognize your coachman?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"It was my brother Mycroft.  It is an advantage to get about in such\n     a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.  But we must\n     plan what we are to do about Moriarty now.\"\n\n     \"As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, I\n     should think we have shaken him off very effectively.\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning when I said\n     that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual\n     plane as myself.  You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I\n     should allow myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle.  Why,\n     then, should you think so meanly of him?\"\n\n     \"What will he do?\"\n\n     \"What I should do.\"\n\n     \"What would you do, then?\"\n\n     \"Engage a special.\"\n\n     \"But it must be late.\"\n\n     \"By no means.  This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at\n     least a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat.  He will catch us\n     there.\"\n\n     \"One would think that we were the criminals.  Let us have him\n     arrested on his arrival.\"\n\n     \"It would be to ruin the work of three months.  We should get the big\n     fish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net.  On\n     Monday we should have them all.  No, an arrest is inadmissible.\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"We shall get out at Canterbury.\"\n\n     \"And then?\"\n\n     \"Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to Newhaven, and so\n     over to Dieppe.  Moriarty will again do what I should do.  He will\n     get on to Paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the\n     depot.  In the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple of\n     carpet-bags, encourage the manufactures of the countries through\n     which we travel, and make our way at our leisure into Switzerland,\n     via Luxembourg and Basle.\"\n\n     At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should\n     have to wait an hour before we could get a train to Newhaven.\n\n     I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing\n     luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled my sleeve\n     and pointed up the line.\n\n     \"Already, you see,\" said he.\n\n     Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin spray of\n     smoke.  A minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying\n     along the open curve which leads to the station.  We had hardly time\n     to take our place behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a\n     rattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into our faces.\n\n     \"There he goes,\" said Holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and\n     rock over the point. \"There are limits, you see, to our friend's\n     intelligence.  It would have been a coup-de-maître had he deduced\n     what I would deduce and acted accordingly.\"\n\n     \"And what would he have done had he overtaken us?\"\n\n     \"There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous\n     attack upon me.  It is, however, a game at which two may play.  The\n     question now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run\n     our chance of starving before we reach the buffet at Newhaven.\"\n\n     We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there,\n     moving on upon the third day as far as Strasburg.  On the Monday\n     morning Holmes had telegraphed to the London police, and in the\n     evening we found a reply waiting for us at our hotel.  Holmes tore it\n     open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate.\n\n     \"I might have known it!\" he groaned.  \"He has escaped!\"\n\n     \"Moriarty?\"\n\n     \"They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him.  He has\n     given them the slip.  Of course, when I had left the country there\n     was no one to cope with him.  But I did think that I had put the game\n     in their hands.  I think that you had better return to England,\n     Watson.\"\n\n     \"Why?\"\n\n     \"Because you will find me a dangerous companion now.  This man's\n     occupation is gone.  He is lost if he returns to London.  If I read\n     his character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging\n     himself upon me.  He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy\n     that he meant it.  I should certainly recommend you to return to your\n     practice.\"\n\n     It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an old\n     campaigner as well as an old friend.  We sat in the Strasbourg\n     salle-à-manger arguing the question for half an hour, but the same\n     night we had resumed our journey and were well on our way to Geneva.\n\n     For a charming week we wandered up the Valley of the Rhone, and then,\n     branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still\n     deep in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen.  It was a\n     lovely trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white\n     of the winter above; but it was clear to me that never for one\n     instant did Holmes forget the shadow which lay across him.  In the\n     homely Alpine villages or in the lonely mountain passes, I could tell\n     by his quick glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that\n     passed us, that he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we\n     could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our\n     footsteps.\n\n     Once, I remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked along the\n     border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock which had been\n     dislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared\n     into the lake behind us.  In an instant Holmes had raced up on to the\n     ridge, and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every\n     direction.  It was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of\n     stones was a common chance in the spring-time at that spot.  He said\n     nothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the\n     fulfillment of that which he had expected.\n\n     And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed.  On the\n     contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant\n     spirits.  Again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could be\n     assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty he would\n     cheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.\n\n     \"I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not\n     lived wholly in vain,\" he remarked.  \"If my record were closed\n     to-night I could still survey it with equanimity.  The air of London\n     is the sweeter for my presence.  In over a thousand cases I am not\n     aware that I have ever used my powers upon the wrong side.  Of late I\n     have been tempted to look into the problems furnished by nature\n     rather than those more superficial ones for which our artificial\n     state of society is responsible.  Your memoirs will draw to an end,\n     Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or\n     extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe.\"\n\n     I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me\n     to tell.  It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell, and\n     yet I am conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.\n\n     It was on the third of May that we reached the little village of\n     Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter\n     Steiler the elder.  Our landlord was an intelligent  man, and spoke\n     excellent English, having served for three years as waiter at the\n     Grosvenor Hotel in London.  At his advice, on the afternoon of the\n     fourth we set off together, with the intention of crossing the hills\n     and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui.  We had strict\n     injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach,\n     which are about half-way up the hill, without making a small detour\n     to see them.\n\n     It is, indeed, a fearful place.  The torrent, swollen by the melting\n     snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up\n     like the smoke from a burning house.  The shaft into which the river\n     hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black\n     rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable\n     depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged\n     lip.  The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the\n     thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man\n     giddy with their constant whirl and clamor.  We stood near the edge\n     peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against\n     the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came\n     booming up with the spray out of the abyss.\n\n     The path has been cut half-way round the fall to afford a complete\n     view, but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he\n     came.  We had turned to do so, when we saw a Swiss lad come running\n     along it with a letter in his hand.  It bore the mark of the hotel\n     which we had just left, and was addressed to me by the landlord.  It\n     appeared that within a very few minutes of our leaving, an English\n     lady had arrived who was in the last stage of consumption.  She had\n     wintered at Davos Platz, and was journeying now to join her friends\n     at Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage had overtaken her.  It was\n     thought that she could hardly live a few hours, but it would be a\n     great consolation to her to see an English doctor, and, if I would\n     only return, etc.  The good Steiler assured me in a postscript that\n     he would himself look upon my compliance as a very great favor, since\n     the lady absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician, and he could\n     not but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.\n\n     The appeal was one which could not be ignored.  It was impossible to\n     refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land. \n     Yet I had my scruples about leaving Holmes.  It was finally agreed,\n     however, that he should retain the young Swiss messenger with him as\n     guide and companion while I returned to Meiringen.  My friend would\n     stay some little time at the fall, he said, and would then walk\n     slowly over the hill to Rosenlaui, where I was to rejoin him in the\n     evening.  As I turned away I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock\n     and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters.  It was\n     the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.\n\n     When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back.  It was\n     impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could see the\n     curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill and leads to\n     it.  Along this a man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.\n\n     I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green\n     behind him.  I noted him, and the energy with which he walked but he\n     passed from my mind again as I hurried on upon my errand.\n\n     It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen. \n     Old Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.\n\n     \"Well,\" said I, as I came hurrying up, \"I trust that she is no\n     worse?\"\n\n     A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver of\n     his eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.\n\n     \"You did not write this?\" I said, pulling the letter from my pocket. \n     \"There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?\"\n\n     \"Certainly not!\" he cried.  \"But it has the hotel mark upon it!  Ha,\n     it must have been written by that tall Englishman who came in after\n     you had gone.  He said--\"\n\n     But I waited for none of the landlord's explanations.  In a tingle of\n     fear I was already running down the village street, and making for\n     the path which I had so lately descended.  It had taken me an hour to\n     come down.  For all my efforts two more had passed before I found\n     myself at the fall of Reichenbach once more.  There was Holmes's\n     Alpine-stock still leaning against the rock by which I had left him. \n     But there was no sign of him, and it was in vain that I shouted.  My\n     only answer was my own voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the\n     cliffs around me.\n\n     It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick. \n     He had not gone to Rosenlaui, then.  He had remained on that\n     three-foot path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the\n     other, until his enemy had overtaken him.  The young Swiss had gone\n     too.  He had probably been in the pay of Moriarty, and had left the\n     two men together.  And then what had happened?  Who was to tell us\n     what had happened then?\n\n     I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with\n     the horror of the thing.  Then I began to think of Holmes's own\n     methods and to try to practise them in reading this tragedy.  It was,\n     alas, only too easy to do.  During our conversation we had not gone\n     to the end of the path, and the Alpine-stock marked the place where\n     we had stood.  The blackish soil is kept forever soft by the\n     incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread upon it. \n     Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the farther end of\n     the path, both leading away from me.  There were none returning.  A\n     few yards from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of\n     mud, and the branches and ferns which fringed the chasm were torn and\n     bedraggled.  I lay upon my face and peered over with the spray\n     spouting up all around me.  It had darkened since I left, and now I\n     could only see here and there the glistening of moisture upon the\n     black walls, and far away down at the end of the shaft the gleam of\n     the broken water.  I shouted; but only the same half-human cry of the\n     fall was borne back to my ears.\n\n     But it was destined that I should after all have a last word of\n     greeting from my friend and comrade.  I have said that his\n     Alpine-stock had been left leaning against a rock which jutted on to\n     the path.  From the top of this boulder the gleam of something bright\n     caught my eye, and, raising my hand, I found that it came from the\n     silver cigarette-case which he used to carry.  As I took it up a\n     small square of paper upon which it had lain fluttered down on to the\n     ground.  Unfolding it, I found that it consisted of three pages torn\n     from his note-book and addressed to me.  It was characteristic of the\n     man that the direction was as precise, and the writing as firm and\n     clear, as though it had been written in his study.\n\n     My dear Watson [it said]:\n     I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who\n     awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions\n     which lie between us.  He has been giving me a sketch of the methods\n     by which he avoided the English police and kept himself informed of\n     our movements.  They certainly confirm the very high opinion which I\n     had formed of his abilities.  I am pleased to think that I shall be\n     able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though\n     I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and\n     especially, my dear Watson, to you.  I have already explained to you,\n     however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that\n     no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.\n      Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite\n     convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed\n     you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some\n     development of this sort would follow.  Tell Inspector Patterson that\n     the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M.,\n     done up in a blue envelope and inscribed \"Moriarty.\"  I made every\n     disposition of my property before leaving England, and handed it to\n     my brother Mycroft.  Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and\n     believe me to be, my dear fellow,\n     Very sincerely yours,\n     Sherlock Holmes\n\n     A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains.  An\n     examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest\n     between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a\n     situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms.  Any\n     attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there,\n     deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething\n     foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the\n     foremost champion of the law of their generation.  The Swiss youth\n     was never found again, and there can be no doubt that he was one of\n     the numerous agents whom Moriarty kept in his employ.  As to the\n     gang, it will be within the memory of the public how completely the\n     evidence which Holmes had accumulated exposed their organization, and\n     how heavily the hand of the dead man weighed upon them.  Of their\n     terrible chief few details came out during the proceedings, and if I\n     have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career it is\n     due to those injudicious champions who have endeavored to clear his\n     memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and\n     the wisest man whom I have ever known.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE\n\n     It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested,\n     and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable\n     Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The\n     public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came\n     out in the police investigation; but a good deal was suppressed upon\n     that occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so\n     overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all\n     the facts. Only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I allowed to\n     supply those missing links which make up the whole of that remarkable\n     chain. The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as\n     nothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me\n     the greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.\n     Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I\n     think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy,\n     amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind. Let me\n     say to that public which has shown some interest in those glimpses\n     which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions of a\n     very remarkable man that they are not to blame me if I have not\n     shared my knowledge with them, for I should have considered it my\n     first duty to have done so had I not been barred by a positive\n     prohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawn upon the\n     third of last month.\n\n     It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes had\n     interested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I\n     never failed to read with care the various problems which came before\n     the public, and I even attempted more than once for my own private\n     satisfaction to employ his methods in their solution, though with\n     indifferent success. There was none, however, which appealed to me\n     like this tragedy of Ronald Adair. As I read the evidence at the\n     inquest, which led up to a verdict of wilful murder against some\n     person or persons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had ever\n     done the loss which the community had sustained by the death of\n     Sherlock Holmes. There were points about this strange business which\n     would, I was sure, have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of\n     the police would have been supplemented, or more probably\n     anticipated, by the trained observation and the alert mind of the\n     first criminal agent in Europe. All day as I drove upon my round I\n     turned over the case in my mind, and found no explanation which\n     appeared to me to be adequate. At the risk of telling a twice-told\n     tale I will recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public\n     at the conclusion of the inquest.\n\n     The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of\n     Maynooth, at that time Governor of one of the Australian Colonies.\n     Adair's mother had returned from Australia to undergo the operation\n     for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were\n     living together at 427, Park Lane. The youth moved in the best\n     society, had, so far as was known, no enemies, and no particular\n     vices. He had been engaged to Miss Edith Woodley, of Carstairs, but\n     the engagement had been broken off by mutual consent some months\n     before, and there was no sign that it had left any very profound\n     feeling behind it. For the rest the man's life moved in a narrow and\n     conventional circle, for his habits were quiet and his nature\n     unemotional. Yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat that\n     death came in most strange and unexpected form between the hours of\n     ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894.\n\n     Ronald Adair was fond of cards, playing continually, but never for\n     such stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin, the\n     Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that after\n     dinner on the day of his death he had played a rubber of whist at the\n     latter club. He had also played there in the afternoon. The evidence\n     of those who had played with him--Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and\n     Colonel Moran--showed that the game was whist, and that there was a\n     fairly equal fall of the cards. Adair might have lost five pounds,\n     but not more. His fortune was a considerable one, and such a loss\n     could not in any way affect him. He had played nearly every day at\n     one club or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a\n     winner. It came out in evidence that in partnership with Colonel\n     Moran he had actually won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds\n     in a sitting some weeks before from Godfrey Milner and Lord Balmoral.\n     So much for his recent history, as it came out at the inquest.\n\n     On the evening of the crime he returned from the club exactly at ten.\n     His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation.\n     The servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the\n     second floor, generally used as his sitting-room. She had lit a fire\n     there, and as it smoked she had opened the window. No sound was heard\n     from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady\n     Maynooth and her daughter. Desiring to say good-night, she had\n     attempted to enter her son's room. The door was locked on the inside,\n     and no answer could be got to their cries and knocking. Help was\n     obtained and the door forced. The unfortunate young man was found\n     lying near the table. His head had been horribly mutilated by an\n     expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found\n     in the room. On the table lay two bank-notes for ten pounds each and\n     seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little\n     piles of varying amount. There were some figures also upon a sheet of\n     paper with the names of some club friends opposite to them, from\n     which it was conjectured that before his death he was endeavouring to\n     make out his losses or winnings at cards.\n\n     A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the\n     case more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given why\n     the young man should have fastened the door upon the inside. There\n     was the possibility that the murderer had done this and had\n     afterwards escaped by the window. The drop was at least twenty feet,\n     however, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. Neither the\n     flowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been disturbed, nor\n     were there any marks upon the narrow strip of grass which separated\n     the house from the road. Apparently, therefore, it was the young man\n     himself who had fastened the door. But how did he come by his death?\n     No one could have climbed up to the window without leaving traces.\n     Suppose a man had fired through the window, it would indeed be a\n     remarkable shot who could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound.\n     Again, Park Lane is a frequented thoroughfare, and there is a\n     cab-stand within a hundred yards of the house. No one had heard a\n     shot. And yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet,\n     which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so\n     inflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous death. Such\n     were the circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery, which were further\n     complicated by entire absence of motive, since, as I have said, young\n     Adair was not known to have any enemy, and no attempt had been made\n     to remove the money or valuables in the room.\n\n     All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit\n     upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that\n     line of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the\n     starting-point of every investigation. I confess that I made little\n     progress. In the evening I strolled across the Park, and found myself\n     about six o'clock at the Oxford Street end of Park Lane. A group of\n     loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,\n     directed me to the house which I had come to see. A tall, thin man\n     with coloured glasses, whom I strongly suspected of being a\n     plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some theory of his own,\n     while the others crowded round to listen to what he said. I got as\n     near him as I could, but his observations seemed to me to be absurd,\n     so I withdrew again in some disgust. As I did so I struck against an\n     elderly deformed man, who had been behind me, and I knocked down\n     several books which he was carrying. I remember that as I picked them\n     up I observed the title of one of them, The Origin of Tree Worship,\n     and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile who,\n     either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.\n     I endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was evident that\n     these books which I had so unfortunately maltreated were very\n     precious objects in the eyes of their owner. With a snarl of contempt\n     he turned upon his heel, and I saw his curved back and white\n     side-whiskers disappear among the throng.\n\n     My observations of No. 427, Park Lane did little to clear up the\n     problem in which I was interested. The house was separated from the\n     street by a low wall and railing, the whole not more than five feet\n     high. It was perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to get into the\n     garden, but the window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no\n     water-pipe or anything which could help the most active man to climb\n     it. More puzzled than ever I retraced my steps to Kensington. I had\n     not been in my study five minutes when the maid entered to say that a\n     person desired to see me. To my astonishment it was none other than\n     my strange old book-collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out\n     from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them\n     at least, wedged under his right arm.\n\n     \"You're surprised to see me, sir,\" said he, in a strange, croaking\n     voice.\n\n     I acknowledged that I was.\n\n     \"Well, I've a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go into\n     this house, as I came hobbling after you, I thought to myself, I'll\n     just step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if I was\n     a bit gruff in my manner there was not any harm meant, and that I am\n     much obliged to him for picking up my books.\"\n\n     \"You make too much of a trifle,\" said I. \"May I ask how you knew who\n     I was?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of\n     yours, for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church\n     Street, and very happy to see you, I am sure. Maybe you collect\n     yourself, sir; here's British Birds, and Catullus, and The Holy\n     War--a bargain every one of them. With five volumes you could just\n     fill that gap on that second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not,\n     sir?\"\n\n     I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again\n     Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I\n     rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement,\n     and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the\n     last time in my life. Certainly a grey mist swirled before my eyes,\n     and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling\n     after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair,\n     his flask in his hand.\n\n     \"My dear Watson,\" said the well-remembered voice, \"I owe you a\n     thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.\"\n\n     I gripped him by the arm.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" I cried. \"Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are\n     alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that\n     awful abyss?\"\n\n     \"Wait a moment,\" said he. \"Are you sure that you are really fit to\n     discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily\n     dramatic reappearance.\"\n\n     \"I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes.\n     Good heavens, to think that you--you of all men--should be standing\n     in my study!\" Again I gripped him by the sleeve and felt the thin,\n     sinewy arm beneath it. \"Well, you're not a spirit, anyhow,\" said I.\n     \"My dear chap, I am overjoyed to see you. Sit down and tell me how\n     you came alive out of that dreadful chasm.\"\n\n     He sat opposite to me and lit a cigarette in his old nonchalant\n     manner. He was dressed in the seedy frock-coat of the book merchant,\n     but the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old\n     books upon the table. Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of\n     old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told\n     me that his life recently had not been a healthy one.\n\n     \"I am glad to stretch myself, Watson,\" said he. \"It is no joke when a\n     tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.\n     Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations we have, if\n     I may ask for your co-operation, a hard and dangerous night's work in\n     front of us. Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of\n     the whole situation when that work is finished.\"\n\n     \"I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now.\"\n\n     \"You'll come with me to-night?\"\n\n     \"When you like and where you like.\"\n\n     \"This is indeed like the old days. We shall have time for a mouthful\n     of dinner before we need go. Well, then, about that chasm. I had no\n     serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason\n     that I never was in it.\"\n\n     \"You never were in it?\"\n\n     \"No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely\n     genuine. I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career\n     when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor\n     Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read\n     an inexorable purpose in his grey eyes. I exchanged some remarks with\n     him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the\n     short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my\n     cigarette-box and my stick and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty\n     still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no\n     weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He\n     knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge\n     himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I\n     have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of\n     wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped\n     through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a\n     few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his\n     efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face\n     over the brink I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock,\n     bounded off, and splashed into the water.\"\n\n     I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes delivered\n     between the puffs of his cigarette.\n\n     \"But the tracks!\" I cried. \"I saw with my own eyes that two went down\n     the path and none returned.\"\n\n     \"It came about in this way. The instant that the Professor had\n     disappeared it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance\n     Fate had placed in my way. I knew that Moriarty was not the only man\n     who had sworn my death. There were at least three others whose desire\n     for vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their\n     leader. They were all most dangerous men. One or other would\n     certainly get me. On the other hand, if all the world was convinced\n     that I was dead they would take liberties, these men, they would lay\n     themselves open, and sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it\n     would be time for me to announce that I was still in the land of the\n     living. So rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had thought\n     this all out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom of the\n     Reichenbach Fall.\n\n     \"I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. In your\n     picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great interest\n     some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer. This was not\n     literally true. A few small footholds presented themselves, and there\n     was some indication of a ledge. The cliff is so high that to climb it\n     all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to\n     make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might,\n     it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar\n     occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction\n     would certainly have suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it\n     was best that I should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant\n     business, Watson. The fall roared beneath me. I am not a fanciful\n     person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice\n     screaming at me out of the abyss. A mistake would have been fatal.\n     More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot\n     slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone.\n     But I struggled upwards, and at last I reached a ledge several feet\n     deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen in\n     the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched when you, my dear\n     Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most\n     sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.\n\n     \"At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally\n     erroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel and I was left\n     alone. I had imagined that I had reached the end of my adventures,\n     but a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises\n     still in store for me. A huge rock, falling from above, boomed past\n     me, struck the path, and bounded over into the chasm. For an instant\n     I thought that it was an accident; but a moment later, looking up, I\n     saw a man's head against the darkening sky, and another stone struck\n     the very ledge upon which I was stretched, within a foot of my head.\n     Of course, the meaning of this was obvious. Moriarty had not been\n     alone. A confederate--and even that one glance had told me how\n     dangerous a man that confederate was--had kept guard while the\n     Professor had attacked me. From a distance, unseen by me, he had been\n     a witness of his friend's death and of my escape. He had waited, and\n     then, making his way round to the top of the cliff, he had\n     endeavoured to succeed where his comrade had failed.\n\n     \"I did not take long to think about it, Watson. Again I saw that grim\n     face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the precursor of\n     another stone. I scrambled down on to the path. I don't think I could\n     have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult\n     than getting up. But I had no time to think of the danger, for\n     another stone sang past me as I hung by my hands from the edge of the\n     ledge. Halfway down I slipped, but by the blessing of God I landed,\n     torn and bleeding, upon the path. I took to my heels, did ten miles\n     over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I found myself\n     in Florence with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had\n     become of me.\n\n     \"I had only one confidant--my brother Mycroft. I owe you many\n     apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be\n     thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have\n     written so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not\n     yourself thought that it was true. Several times during the last\n     three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I\n     feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some\n     indiscretion which would betray my secret. For that reason I turned\n     away from you this evening when you upset my books, for I was in\n     danger at the time, and any show of surprise and emotion upon your\n     part might have drawn attention to my identity and led to the most\n     deplorable and irreparable results. As to Mycroft, I had to confide\n     in him in order to obtain the money which I needed. The course of\n     events in London did not run so well as I had hoped, for the trial of\n     the Moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous members, my own most\n     vindictive enemies, at liberty. I travelled for two years in Tibet,\n     therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa and spending some\n     days with the head Llama. You may have read of the remarkable\n     explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it\n     never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend. I\n     then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but\n     interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of which I\n     have communicated to the Foreign Office. Returning to France I spent\n     some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I\n     conducted in a laboratory at Montpelier, in the South of France.\n     Having concluded this to my satisfaction, and learning that only one\n     of my enemies was now left in London, I was about to return when my\n     movements were hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane\n     Mystery, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which\n     seemed to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities. I came\n     over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street,\n     threw Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had\n     preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been. So\n     it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock to-day I found myself in\n     my old arm-chair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could\n     have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so\n     often adorned.\"\n\n     Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that April\n     evening--a narrative which would have been utterly incredible to me\n     had it not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare\n     figure and the keen, eager face, which I had never thought to see\n     again. In some manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and\n     his sympathy was shown in his manner rather than in his words. \"Work\n     is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson,\" said he, \"and I have\n     a piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a\n     successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's life on this\n     planet.\" In vain I begged him to tell me more. \"You will hear and see\n     enough before morning,\" he answered. \"We have three years of the past\n     to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon\n     the notable adventure of the empty house.\"\n\n     It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself\n     seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket and the\n     thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and\n     silent. As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere\n     features I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin\n     lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt\n     down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured\n     from the bearing of this master huntsman that the adventure was a\n     most grave one, while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke\n     through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our\n     quest.\n\n     I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes\n     stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as\n     he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and\n     at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure\n     that he was not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one.\n     Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on\n     this occasion he passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a\n     network of mews and stables the very existence of which I had never\n     known. We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy\n     houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford\n     Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through\n     a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the\n     back door of a house. We entered together and he closed it behind us.\n\n     The place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it was an\n     empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking,\n     and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was\n     hanging in ribbons. Holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist\n     and led me forwards down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky\n     fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and\n     we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed\n     in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the\n     street beyond. There was no lamp near and the window was thick with\n     dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within.\n     My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my\n     ear.\n\n     \"Do you know where we are?\" he whispered.\n\n     \"Surely that is Baker Street,\" I answered, staring through the dim\n     window.\n\n     \"Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own\n     old quarters.\"\n\n     \"But why are we here?\"\n\n     \"Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.\n     Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the\n     window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to\n     look up at our old rooms--the starting-point of so many of our little\n     adventures? We will see if my three years of absence have entirely\n     taken away my power to surprise you.\"\n\n     I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes\n     fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down\n     and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who\n     was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon\n     the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise\n     of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the\n     features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of\n     one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame.\n     It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw\n     out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.\n     He was quivering with silent laughter.\n\n     \"Well?\" said he.\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" I cried. \"It is marvellous.\"\n\n     \"I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite\n     variety,'\" said he, and I recognised in his voice the joy and pride\n     which the artist takes in his own creation. \"It really is rather like\n     me, is it not?\"\n\n     \"I should be prepared to swear that it was you.\"\n\n     \"The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of\n     Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in\n     wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this\n     afternoon.\"\n\n     \"But why?\"\n\n     \"Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for\n     wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really\n     elsewhere.\"\n\n     \"And you thought the rooms were watched?\"\n\n     \"I knew that they were watched.\"\n\n     \"By whom?\"\n\n     \"By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies\n     in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only\n     they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that\n     I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and\n     this morning they saw me arrive.\"\n\n     \"How do you know?\"\n\n     \"Because I recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of my window.\n     He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade,\n     and a remarkable performer upon the Jew's harp. I cared nothing for\n     him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who\n     was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the\n     rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in\n     London. That is the man who is after me to-night, Watson, and that is\n     the man who is quite unaware that we are after him.\"\n\n     My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this\n     convenient retreat the watchers were being watched and the trackers\n     tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait and we were the\n     hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the\n     hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was\n     silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and\n     that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It\n     was a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down\n     the long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them\n     muffled in their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me\n     that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two\n     men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the\n     doorway of a house some distance up the street. I tried to draw my\n     companion's attention to them, but he gave a little ejaculation of\n     impatience and continued to stare into the street. More than once he\n     fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the\n     wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy and that his\n     plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped. At last, as\n     midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and\n     down the room in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some\n     remark to him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window and again\n     experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes's\n     arm and pointed upwards.\n\n     \"The shadow has moved!\" I cried.\n\n     It was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned\n     towards us.\n\n     Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper\n     or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.\n\n     \"Of course it has moved,\" said he. \"Am I such a farcical bungler,\n     Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of\n     the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in\n     this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that\n     figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it\n     from the front so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!\" He drew in\n     his breath with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his\n     head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention.\n     Outside, the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might\n     still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them.\n     All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in\n     front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in\n     the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of\n     intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me back\n     into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand\n     upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had\n     I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched\n     lonely and motionless before us.\n\n     But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already\n     distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the\n     direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in\n     which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later\n     steps crept down the passage--steps which were meant to be silent,\n     but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes\n     crouched back against the wall and I did the same, my hand closing\n     upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the\n     vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the\n     open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward,\n     crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us,\n     this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring,\n     before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed\n     close beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and\n     noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of\n     this opening the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty\n     glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself\n     with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars and his features were\n     working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting\n     nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An\n     opera-hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress\n     shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt\n     and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried\n     what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it\n     gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a\n     bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a\n     loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place.\n     Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his\n     weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came\n     a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful\n     click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in\n     his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He\n     opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the\n     breech-block. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel\n     upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache droop\n     over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I\n     heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his\n     shoulder, and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow\n     ground, standing clear at the end of his fore sight. For an instant\n     he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the\n     trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of\n     broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the\n     marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in\n     a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the\n     throat; but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver and\n     he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him\n     my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter\n     of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with\n     one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and\n     into the room.\n\n     \"That you, Lestrade?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in\n     London, sir.\"\n\n     \"I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders\n     in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery\n     with less than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly\n     well.\"\n\n     We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a\n     stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had\n     begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window,\n     closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles\n     and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to\n     have a good look at our prisoner.\n\n     It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned\n     towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a\n     sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for\n     good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes,\n     with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive\n     nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature's\n     plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes\n     were fixed upon Holmes's face with an expression in which hatred and\n     amazement were equally blended. \"You fiend!\" he kept on muttering.\n     \"You clever, clever fiend!\"\n\n     \"Ah, Colonel!\" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar; \"'journeys\n     end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. I don't think I have\n     had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those\n     attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.\"\n\n     The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. \"You\n     cunning, cunning fiend!\" was all that he could say.\n\n     \"I have not introduced you yet,\" said Holmes. \"This, gentlemen, is\n     Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the\n     best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I\n     believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers\n     still remains unrivalled?\"\n\n     The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion;\n     with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like\n     a tiger himself.\n\n     \"I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a\n     shikari,\" said Holmes. \"It must be very familiar to you. Have you not\n     tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and\n     waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my\n     tree and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in\n     reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely\n     supposition of your own aim failing you. These,\" he pointed around,\n     \"are my other guns. The parallel is exact.\"\n\n     Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the\n     constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to\n     look at.\n\n     \"I confess that you had one small surprise for me,\" said Holmes. \"I\n     did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty\n     house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as\n     operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men\n     were awaiting you. With that exception all has gone as I expected.\"\n\n     Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.\n\n     \"You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,\" said he, \"but\n     at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of\n     this person. If I am in the hands of the law let things be done in a\n     legal way.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's reasonable enough,\" said Lestrade. \"Nothing further you\n     have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?\"\n\n     Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor and was\n     examining its mechanism.\n\n     \"An admirable and unique weapon,\" said he, \"noiseless and of\n     tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who\n     constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years\n     I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had\n     the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very specially to your\n     attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it.\"\n\n     \"You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,\" said Lestrade, as\n     the whole party moved towards the door. \"Anything further to say?\"\n\n     \"Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?\"\n\n     \"What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.\n     To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest\n     which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your\n     usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him.\"\n\n     \"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel\n     Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an\n     expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the\n     second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th of last\n     month. That's the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can\n     endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in\n     my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.\"\n\n     Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of\n     Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I\n     saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all\n     in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,\n     deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable\n     scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens\n     would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and\n     the pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which contained the\n     tobacco--all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two\n     occupants of the room--one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we\n     entered; the other the strange dummy which had played so important a\n     part in the evening's adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my\n     friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood\n     on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so\n     draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely\n     perfect.\n\n     \"I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.\"\n\n     \"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe\n     where the bullet went?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it\n     passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I\n     picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!\"\n\n     Holmes held it out to me. \"A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,\n     Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a\n     thing fired from an air-gun. All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much\n     obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your\n     old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like\n     to discuss with you.\"\n\n     He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the Holmes of\n     old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his\n     effigy.\n\n     \"The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes\n     their keenness,\" said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered\n     forehead of his bust.\n\n     \"Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the\n     brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few\n     better in London. Have you heard the name?\"\n\n     \"No, I have not.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember aright, you had\n     not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the\n     great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of\n     biographies from the shelf.\"\n\n     He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and\n     blowing great clouds from his cigar.\n\n     \"My collection of M's is a fine one,\" said he. \"Moriarty himself is\n     enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the\n     poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked\n     out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and,\n     finally, here is our friend of to-night.\"\n\n     He handed over the book, and I read:\n\n     Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bengalore\n     Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once\n     British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in\n     Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur,\n     and Cabul. Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, 1881; Three\n     Months in the Jungle, 1884. Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The\n     Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.\n\n     On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:\n\n     The second most dangerous man in London.\n\n     \"This is astonishing,\" said I, as I handed back the volume. \"The\n     man's career is that of an honourable soldier.\"\n\n     \"It is true,\" Holmes answered. \"Up to a certain point he did well. He\n     was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India\n     how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There\n     are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then\n     suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often\n     in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his\n     development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a\n     sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which\n     came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were,\n     the epitome of the history of his own family.\"\n\n     \"It is surely rather fanciful.\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran\n     began to go wrong. Without any open scandal he still made India too\n     hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an\n     evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor\n     Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty\n     supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two\n     very high-class jobs which no ordinary criminal could have\n     undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs.\n     Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the\n     bottom of it; but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the\n     Colonel concealed that even when the Moriarty gang was broken up we\n     could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called\n     upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of\n     air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was\n     doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew\n     also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When\n     we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was\n     undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach\n     ledge.\n\n     \"You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my\n     sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by\n     the heels. So long as he was free in London my life would really not\n     have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over\n     me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I\n     could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock.\n     There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on\n     the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So\n     I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that\n     sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald\n     Adair. My chance had come at last! Knowing what I did, was it not\n     certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the\n     lad; he had followed him home from the club; he had shot him through\n     the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are\n     enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was seen by\n     the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the Colonel's attention to my\n     presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his\n     crime and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an\n     attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his\n     murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in\n     the window, and, having warned the police that they might be\n     needed--by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that\n     doorway with unerring accuracy--I took up what seemed to me to be a\n     judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose\n     the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything\n     remain for me to explain?\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" said I. \"You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's\n     motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair.\"\n\n     \"Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture\n     where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own\n     hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be\n     correct as mine.\"\n\n     \"You have formed one, then?\"\n\n     \"I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out\n     in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had between them won a\n     considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul--of\n     that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder\n     Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had\n     spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he\n     voluntarily resigned his membership of the club and promised not to\n     play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at\n     once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much\n     older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion\n     from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten\n     card gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was\n     endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return,\n     since he could not profit by his partner's foul play. He locked the\n     door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what\n     he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.\"\n\n     \"It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what\n     may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more, the famous air-gun of Von\n     Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those\n     interesting little problems which the complex life of London so\n     plentifully presents.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER\n\n     \"From the point of view of the criminal expert,\" said Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes, \"London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the\n     death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.\"\n\n     \"I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree\n     with you,\" I answered.\n\n     \"Well, well, I must not be selfish,\" said he, with a smile, as he\n     pushed back his chair from the breakfast-table. \"The community is\n     certainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work\n     specialist, whose occupation has gone. With that man in the field\n     one's morning paper presented infinite possibilities. Often it was\n     only the smallest trace, Watson, the faintest indication, and yet it\n     was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as\n     the gentlest tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul\n     spider which lurks in the centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults,\n     purposeless outrage--to the man who held the clue all could be worked\n     into one connected whole. To the scientific student of the higher\n     criminal world no capital in Europe offered the advantages which\n     London then possessed. But now--\" He shrugged his shoulders in\n     humorous deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done\n     so much to produce.\n\n     At the time of which I speak Holmes had been back for some months,\n     and I, at his request, had sold my practice and returned to share the\n     old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had\n     purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly\n     little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask--an incident\n     which only explained itself some years later when I found that Verner\n     was a distant relation of Holmes's, and that it was my friend who had\n     really found the money.\n\n     Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had\n     stated, for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period\n     includes the case of the papers of Ex-President Murillo, and also the\n     shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which so nearly\n     cost us both our lives. His cold and proud nature was always averse,\n     however, to anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me\n     in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his\n     methods, or his successes--a prohibition which, as I have explained,\n     has only now been removed.\n\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes was leaning back in his chair after his whimsical\n     protest, and was unfolding his morning paper in a leisurely fashion,\n     when our attention was arrested by a tremendous ring at the bell,\n     followed immediately by a hollow drumming sound, as if someone were\n     beating on the outer door with his fist. As it opened there came a\n     tumultuous rush into the hall, rapid feet clattered up the stair, and\n     an instant later a wild-eyed and frantic young man, pale,\n     dishevelled, and palpitating, burst into the room. He looked from one\n     to the other of us, and under our gaze of inquiry he became conscious\n     that some apology was needed for this unceremonious entry.\n\n     \"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes,\" he cried. \"You mustn't blame me. I am nearly\n     mad. Mr. Holmes, I am the unhappy John Hector McFarlane.\"\n\n     He made the announcement as if the name alone would explain both his\n     visit and its manner; but I could see by my companion's unresponsive\n     face that it meant no more to him than to me.\n\n     \"Have a cigarette, Mr. McFarlane,\" said he, pushing his case across.\n     \"I am sure that with your symptoms my friend Dr. Watson here would\n     prescribe a sedative. The weather has been so very warm these last\n     few days. Now, if you feel a little more composed, I should be glad\n     if you would sit down in that chair and tell us very slowly and\n     quietly who you are and what it is that you want. You mentioned your\n     name as if I should recognise it, but I assure you that, beyond the\n     obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and\n     an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.\"\n\n     Familiar as I was with my friend's methods, it was not difficult for\n     me to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire,\n     the sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which\n     had prompted them. Our client, however, stared in amazement.\n\n     \"Yes, I am all that, Mr. Holmes, and in addition I am the most\n     unfortunate man at this moment in London. For Heaven's sake don't\n     abandon me, Mr. Holmes! If they come to arrest me before I have\n     finished my story, make them give me time so that I may tell you the\n     whole truth. I could go to jail happy if I knew that you were working\n     for me outside.\"\n\n     \"Arrest you!\" said Holmes. \"This is really most grati--most\n     interesting. On what charge do you expect to be arrested?\"\n\n     \"Upon the charge of murdering Mr. Jonas Oldacre, of Lower Norwood.\"\n\n     My companion's expressive face showed a sympathy which was not, I am\n     afraid, entirely unmixed with satisfaction.\n\n     \"Dear me,\" said he; \"it was only this moment at breakfast that I was\n     saying to my friend, Dr. Watson, that sensational cases had\n     disappeared out of our papers.\"\n\n     Our visitor stretched forward a quivering hand and picked up the\n     Daily Telegraph, which still lay upon Holmes's knee.\n\n     \"If you had looked at it, sir, you would have seen at a glance what\n     the errand is on which I have come to you this morning. I feel as if\n     my name and my misfortune must be in every man's mouth.\" He turned it\n     over to expose the central page. \"Here it is, and with your\n     permission I will read it to you. Listen to this, Mr. Holmes. The\n     head-lines are: 'Mysterious Affair at Lower Norwood. Disappearance of\n     a Well-known Builder. Suspicion of Murder and Arson. A Clue to the\n     Criminal.' That is the clue which they are already following, Mr.\n     Holmes, and I know that it leads infallibly to me. I have been\n     followed from London Bridge Station, and I am sure that they are only\n     waiting for the warrant to arrest me. It will break my mother's\n     heart--it will break her heart!\" He wrung his hands in an agony of\n     apprehension, and swayed backwards and forwards in his chair.\n\n     I looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being the\n     perpetrator of a crime of violence. He was flaxen-haired and handsome\n     in a washed-out negative fashion, with frightened blue eyes and a\n     clean-shaven face, with a weak, sensitive mouth. His age may have\n     been about twenty-seven; his dress and bearing that of a gentleman.\n     From the pocket of his light summer overcoat protruded the bundle of\n     endorsed papers which proclaimed his profession.\n\n     \"We must use what time we have,\" said Holmes. \"Watson, would you have\n     the kindness to take the paper and to read me the paragraph in\n     question?\"\n\n     Underneath the vigorous head-lines which our client had quoted I read\n     the following suggestive narrative:--\n\n     \"Late last night, or early this morning, an incident occurred at\n     Lower Norwood which points, it is feared, to a serious crime. Mr.\n     Jonas Oldacre is a well-known resident of that suburb, where he has\n     carried on his business as a builder for many years. Mr. Oldacre is a\n     bachelor, fifty-two years of age, and lives in Deep Dene House, at\n     the Sydenham end of the road of that name. He has had the reputation\n     of being a man of eccentric habits, secretive and retiring. For some\n     years he has practically withdrawn from the business, in which he is\n     said to have amassed considerable wealth. A small timber-yard still\n     exists, however, at the back of the house, and last night, about\n     twelve o'clock, an alarm was given that one of the stacks was on\n     fire. The engines were soon upon the spot, but the dry wood burned\n     with great fury, and it was impossible to arrest the conflagration\n     until the stack had been entirely consumed. Up to this point the\n     incident bore the appearance of an ordinary accident, but fresh\n     indications seem to point to serious crime. Surprise was expressed at\n     the absence of the master of the establishment from the scene of the\n     fire, and an inquiry followed, which showed that he had disappeared\n     from the house. An examination of his room revealed that the bed had\n     not been slept in, that a safe which stood in it was open, that a\n     number of important papers were scattered about the room, and,\n     finally, that there were signs of a murderous struggle, slight traces\n     of blood being found within the room, and an oaken walking-stick,\n     which also showed stains of blood upon the handle. It is known that\n     Mr. Jonas Oldacre had received a late visitor in his bedroom upon\n     that night, and the stick found has been identified as the property\n     of this person, who is a young London solicitor named John Hector\n     McFarlane, junior partner of Graham and McFarlane, of 426, Gresham\n     Buildings, E.C. The police believe that they have evidence in their\n     possession which supplies a very convincing motive for the crime, and\n     altogether it cannot be doubted that sensational developments will\n     follow.\n     \"Later.--It is rumoured as we go to press that Mr. John Hector\n     McFarlane has actually been arrested on the charge of the murder of\n     Mr. Jonas Oldacre. It is at least certain that a warrant has been\n     issued. There have been further and sinister developments in the\n     investigation at Norwood. Besides the signs of a struggle in the room\n     of the unfortunate builder it is now known that the French windows of\n     his bedroom (which is on the ground floor) were found to be open,\n     that there were marks as if some bulky object had been dragged across\n     to the wood-pile, and, finally, it is asserted that charred remains\n     have been found among the charcoal ashes of the fire. The police\n     theory is that a most sensational crime has been committed, that the\n     victim was clubbed to death in his own bedroom, his papers rifled,\n     and his dead body dragged across to the wood-stack, which was then\n     ignited so as to hide all traces of the crime. The conduct of the\n     criminal investigation has been left in the experienced hands of\n     Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is following up the clues\n     with his accustomed energy and sagacity.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes listened with closed eyes and finger-tips together to\n     this remarkable account.\n\n     \"The case has certainly some points of interest,\" said he, in his\n     languid fashion. \"May I ask, in the first place, Mr. McFarlane, how\n     it is that you are still at liberty, since there appears to be enough\n     evidence to justify your arrest?\"\n\n     \"I live at Torrington Lodge, Blackheath, with my parents, Mr. Holmes;\n     but last night, having to do business very late with Mr. Jonas\n     Oldacre, I stayed at an hotel in Norwood, and came to my business\n     from there. I knew nothing of this affair until I was in the train,\n     when I read what you have just heard. I at once saw the horrible\n     danger of my position, and I hurried to put the case into your hands.\n     I have no doubt that I should have been arrested either at my City\n     office or at my home. A man followed me from London Bridge Station,\n     and I have no doubt--Great Heaven, what is that?\"\n\n     It was a clang of the bell, followed instantly by heavy steps upon\n     the stair. A moment later our old friend Lestrade appeared in the\n     doorway. Over his shoulder I caught a glimpse of one or two uniformed\n     policemen outside.\n\n     \"Mr. John Hector McFarlane?\" said Lestrade.\n\n     Our unfortunate client rose with a ghastly face.\n\n     \"I arrest you for the wilful murder of Mr. Jonas Oldacre, of Lower\n     Norwood.\"\n\n     McFarlane turned to us with a gesture of despair, and sank into his\n     chair once more like one who is crushed.\n\n     \"One moment, Lestrade,\" said Holmes. \"Half an hour more or less can\n     make no difference to you, and the gentleman was about to give us an\n     account of this very interesting affair, which might aid us in\n     clearing it up.\"\n\n     \"I think there will be no difficulty in clearing it up,\" said\n     Lestrade, grimly.\n\n     \"None the less, with your permission, I should be much interested to\n     hear his account.\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, it is difficult for me to refuse you anything, for\n     you have been of use to the force once or twice in the past, and we\n     owe you a good turn at Scotland Yard,\" said Lestrade. \"At the same\n     time I must remain with my prisoner, and I am bound to warn him that\n     anything he may say will appear in evidence against him.\"\n\n     \"I wish nothing better,\" said our client. \"All I ask is that you\n     should hear and recognise the absolute truth.\"\n\n     Lestrade looked at his watch. \"I'll give you half an hour,\" said he.\n\n     \"I must explain first,\" said McFarlane, \"that I knew nothing of Mr.\n     Jonas Oldacre. His name was familiar to me, for many years ago my\n     parents were acquainted with him, but they drifted apart. I was very\n     much surprised, therefore, when yesterday, about three o'clock in the\n     afternoon, he walked into my office in the City. But I was still more\n     astonished when he told me the object of his visit. He had in his\n     hand several sheets of a note-book, covered with scribbled\n     writing--here they are--and he laid them on my table.\n\n     \"'Here is my will,' said he. 'I want you, Mr. McFarlane, to cast it\n     into proper legal shape. I will sit here while you do so.'\n\n     \"I set myself to copy it, and you can imagine my astonishment when I\n     found that, with some reservations, he had left all his property to\n     me. He was a strange little, ferret-like man, with white eyelashes,\n     and when I looked up at him I found his keen grey eyes fixed upon me\n     with an amused expression. I could hardly believe my own senses as I\n     read the terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor\n     with hardly any living relation, that he had known my parents in his\n     youth, and that he had always heard of me as a very deserving young\n     man, and was assured that his money would be in worthy hands. Of\n     course, I could only stammer out my thanks. The will was duly\n     finished, signed, and witnessed by my clerk. This is it on the blue\n     paper, and these slips, as I have explained, are the rough draft. Mr.\n     Jonas Oldacre then informed me that there were a number of\n     documents--building leases, title-deeds, mortgages, scrip, and so\n     forth--which it was necessary that I should see and understand. He\n     said that his mind would not be easy until the whole thing was\n     settled, and he begged me to come out to his house at Norwood that\n     night, bringing the will with me, and to arrange matters. 'Remember,\n     my boy, not one word to your parents about the affair until\n     everything is settled. We will keep it as a little surprise for\n     them.' He was very insistent upon this point, and made me promise it\n     faithfully.\n\n     \"You can imagine, Mr. Holmes, that I was not in a humour to refuse\n     him anything that he might ask. He was my benefactor, and all my\n     desire was to carry out his wishes in every particular. I sent a\n     telegram home, therefore, to say that I had important business on\n     hand, and that it was impossible for me to say how late I might be.\n     Mr. Oldacre had told me that he would like me to have supper with him\n     at nine, as he might not be home before that hour. I had some\n     difficulty in finding his house, however, and it was nearly half-past\n     before I reached it. I found him--\"\n\n     \"One moment!\" said Holmes. \"Who opened the door?\"\n\n     \"A middle-aged woman, who was, I suppose, his housekeeper.\"\n\n     \"And it was she, I presume, who mentioned your name?\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said McFarlane.\n\n     \"Pray proceed.\"\n\n     McFarlane wiped his damp brow and then continued his narrative:--\n\n     \"I was shown by this woman into a sitting-room, where a frugal supper\n     was laid out. Afterwards Mr. Jonas Oldacre led me into his bedroom,\n     in which there stood a heavy safe. This he opened and took out a mass\n     of documents, which we went over together. It was between eleven and\n     twelve when we finished. He remarked that we must not disturb the\n     housekeeper. He showed me out through his own French window, which\n     had been open all this time.\"\n\n     \"Was the blind down?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"I will not be sure, but I believe that it was only half down. Yes, I\n     remember how he pulled it up in order to swing open the window. I\n     could not find my stick, and he said, 'Never mind, my boy; I shall\n     see a good deal of you now, I hope, and I will keep your stick until\n     you come back to claim it.' I left him there, the safe open, and the\n     papers made up in packets upon the table. It was so late that I could\n     not get back to Blackheath, so I spent the night at the Anerley Arms,\n     and I knew nothing more until I read of this horrible affair in the\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"Anything more that you would like to ask, Mr. Holmes?\" said\n     Lestrade, whose eyebrows had gone up once or twice during this\n     remarkable explanation.\n\n     \"Not until I have been to Blackheath.\"\n\n     \"You mean to Norwood,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"Oh, yes; no doubt that is what I must have meant,\" said Holmes, with\n     his enigmatical smile. Lestrade had learned by more experiences than\n     he would care to acknowledge that that razor-like brain could cut\n     through that which was impenetrable to him. I saw him look curiously\n     at my companion.\n\n     \"I think I should like to have a word with you presently, Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes,\" said he. \"Now, Mr. McFarlane, two of my constables\n     are at the door and there is a four-wheeler waiting.\" The wretched\n     young man arose, and with a last beseeching glance at us walked from\n     the room. The officers conducted him to the cab, but Lestrade\n     remained.\n\n     Holmes had picked up the pages which formed the rough draft of the\n     will, and was looking at them with the keenest interest upon his\n     face.\n\n     \"There are some points about that document, Lestrade, are there not?\"\n     said he, pushing them over.\n\n     The official looked at them with a puzzled expression.\n\n     \"I can read the first few lines, and these in the middle of the\n     second page, and one or two at the end. Those are as clear as print,\"\n     said he; \"but the writing in between is very bad, and there are three\n     places where I cannot read it at all.\"\n\n     \"What do you make of that?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Well, what do you make of it?\"\n\n     \"That it was written in a train; the good writing represents\n     stations, the bad writing movement, and the very bad writing passing\n     over points. A scientific expert would pronounce at once that this\n     was drawn up on a suburban line, since nowhere save in the immediate\n     vicinity of a great city could there be so quick a succession of\n     points. Granting that his whole journey was occupied in drawing up\n     the will, then the train was an express, only stopping once between\n     Norwood and London Bridge.\"\n\n     Lestrade began to laugh.\n\n     \"You are too many for me when you begin to get on your theories, Mr.\n     Holmes,\" said he. \"How does this bear on the case?\"\n\n     \"Well, it corroborates the young man's story to the extent that the\n     will was drawn up by Jonas Oldacre in his journey yesterday. It is\n     curious--is it not?--that a man should draw up so important a\n     document in so haphazard a fashion. It suggests that he did not think\n     it was going to be of much practical importance. If a man drew up a\n     will which he did not intend ever to be effective he might do it so.\"\n\n     \"Well, he drew up his own death-warrant at the same time,\" said\n     Lestrade.\n\n     \"Oh, you think so?\"\n\n     \"Don't you?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is quite possible; but the case is not clear to me yet.\"\n\n     \"Not clear? Well, if that isn't clear, what could be clear? Here is a\n     young man who learns suddenly that if a certain older man dies he\n     will succeed to a fortune. What does he do? He says nothing to\n     anyone, but he arranges that he shall go out on some pretext to see\n     his client that night; he waits until the only other person in the\n     house is in bed, and then in the solitude of a man's room he murders\n     him, burns his body in the wood-pile, and departs to a neighbouring\n     hotel. The blood-stains in the room and also on the stick are very\n     slight. It is probable that he imagined his crime to be a bloodless\n     one, and hoped that if the body were consumed it would hide all\n     traces of the method of his death--traces which for some reason must\n     have pointed to him. Is all this not obvious?\"\n\n     \"It strikes me, my good Lestrade, as being just a trifle too\n     obvious,\" said Holmes. \"You do not add imagination to your other\n     great qualities; but if you could for one moment put yourself in the\n     place of this young man, would you choose the very night after the\n     will had been made to commit your crime? Would it not seem dangerous\n     to you to make so very close a relation between the two incidents?\n     Again, would you choose an occasion when you are known to be in the\n     house, when a servant has let you in? And, finally, would you take\n     the great pains to conceal the body and yet leave your own stick as a\n     sign that you were the criminal? Confess, Lestrade, that all this is\n     very unlikely.\"\n\n     \"As to the stick, Mr. Holmes, you know as well as I do that a\n     criminal is often flurried and does things which a cool man would\n     avoid. He was very likely afraid to go back to the room. Give me\n     another theory that would fit the facts.\"\n\n     \"I could very easily give you half-a-dozen,\" said Holmes. \"Here, for\n     example, is a very possible and even probable one. I make you a free\n     present of it. The older man is showing documents which are of\n     evident value. A passing tramp sees them through the window, the\n     blind of which is only half down. Exit the solicitor. Enter the\n     tramp! He seizes a stick, which he observes there, kills Oldacre, and\n     departs after burning the body.\"\n\n     \"Why should the tramp burn the body?\"\n\n     \"For the matter of that why should McFarlane?\"\n\n     \"To hide some evidence.\"\n\n     \"Possibly the tramp wanted to hide that any murder at all had been\n     committed.\"\n\n     \"And why did the tramp take nothing?\"\n\n     \"Because they were papers that he could not negotiate.\"\n\n     Lestrade shook his head, though it seemed to me that his manner was\n     less absolutely assured than before.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you may look for your tramp, and while\n     you are finding him we will hold on to our man. The future will show\n     which is right. Just notice this point, Mr. Holmes: that so far as we\n     know none of the papers were removed, and that the prisoner is the\n     one man in the world who had no reason for removing them, since he\n     was heir-at-law and would come into them in any case.\"\n\n     My friend seemed struck by this remark.\n\n     \"I don't mean to deny that the evidence is in some ways very strongly\n     in favour of your theory,\" said he. \"I only wish to point out that\n     there are other theories possible. As you say, the future will\n     decide. Good morning! I dare say that in the course of the day I\n     shall drop in at Norwood and see how you are getting on.\"\n\n     When the detective departed my friend rose and made his preparations\n     for the day's work with the alert air of a man who has a congenial\n     task before him.\n\n     \"My first movement, Watson,\" said he, as he bustled into his\n     frock-coat, \"must, as I said, be in the direction of Blackheath.\"\n\n     \"And why not Norwood?\"\n\n     \"Because we have in this case one singular incident coming close to\n     the heels of another singular incident. The police are making the\n     mistake of concentrating their attention upon the second, because it\n     happens to be the one which is actually criminal. But it is evident\n     to me that the logical way to approach the case is to begin by trying\n     to throw some light upon the first incident--the curious will, so\n     suddenly made, and to so unexpected an heir. It may do something to\n     simplify what followed. No, my dear fellow, I don't think you can\n     help me. There is no prospect of danger, or I should not dream of\n     stirring out without you. I trust that when I see you in the evening\n     I will be able to report that I have been able to do something for\n     this unfortunate youngster who has thrown himself upon my\n     protection.\"\n\n     It was late when my friend returned, and I could see by a glance at\n     his haggard and anxious face that the high hopes with which he had\n     started had not been fulfilled. For an hour he droned away upon his\n     violin, endeavouring to soothe his own ruffled spirits. At last he\n     flung down the instrument and plunged into a detailed account of his\n     misadventures.\n\n     \"It's all going wrong, Watson--all as wrong as it can go. I kept a\n     bold face before Lestrade, but, upon my soul, I believe that for once\n     the fellow is on the right track and we are on the wrong. All my\n     instincts are one way and all the facts are the other, and I much\n     fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of\n     intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over\n     Lestrade's facts.\"\n\n     \"Did you go to Blackheath?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Watson, I went there, and I found very quickly that the late\n     lamented Oldacre was a pretty considerable black-guard. The father\n     was away in search of his son. The mother was at home--a little,\n     fluffy, blue-eyed person, in a tremor of fear and indignation. Of\n     course, she would not admit even the possibility of his guilt. But\n     she would not express either surprise or regret over the fate of\n     Oldacre. On the contrary, she spoke of him with such bitterness that\n     she was unconsciously considerably strengthening the case of the\n     police, for, of course, if her son had heard her speak of the man in\n     this fashion it would predispose him towards hatred and violence. 'He\n     was more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being,' said\n     she, 'and he always was, ever since he was a young man.'\n\n     \"'You knew him at that time?' said I.\n\n     \"'Yes, I knew him well; in fact, he was an old suitor of mine. Thank\n     Heaven that I had the sense to turn away from him and to marry a\n     better, if a poorer, man. I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I\n     heard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary,\n     and I was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have\n     nothing more to do with him.' She rummaged in a bureau, and presently\n     she produced a photograph of a woman, shamefully defaced and\n     mutilated with a knife. 'That is my own photograph,' she said. 'He\n     sent it to me in that state, with his curse, upon my wedding\n     morning.'\n\n     \"'Well,' said I, 'at least he has forgiven you now, since he has left\n     all his property to your son.'\n\n     \"'Neither my son nor I want anything from Jonas Oldacre, dead or\n     alive,' she cried, with a proper spirit. 'There is a God in Heaven,\n     Mr. Holmes, and that same God who has punished that wicked man will\n     show in His own good time that my son's hands are guiltless of his\n     blood.'\n\n     \"Well, I tried one or two leads, but could get at nothing which would\n     help our hypothesis, and several points which would make against it.\n     I gave it up at last and off I went to Norwood.\n\n     \"This place, Deep Dene House, is a big modern villa of staring brick,\n     standing back in its own grounds, with a laurel-clumped lawn in front\n     of it. To the right and some distance back from the road was the\n     timber-yard which had been the scene of the fire. Here's a rough plan\n     on a leaf of my note-book. This window on the left is the one which\n     opens into Oldacre's room. You can look into it from the road, you\n     see. That is about the only bit of consolation I have had to-day.\n     Lestrade was not there, but his head constable did the honours. They\n     had just made a great treasure-trove. They had spent the morning\n     raking among the ashes of the burned wood-pile, and besides the\n     charred organic remains they had secured several discoloured metal\n     discs. I examined them with care, and there was no doubt that they\n     were trouser buttons. I even distinguished that one of them was\n     marked with the name of 'Hyams,' who was Oldacre's tailor. I then\n     worked the lawn very carefully for signs and traces, but this drought\n     has made everything as hard as iron. Nothing was to be seen save that\n     some body or bundle had been dragged through a low privet hedge which\n     is in a line with the wood-pile. All that, of course, fits in with\n     the official theory. I crawled about the lawn with an August sun on\n     my back, but I got up at the end of an hour no wiser than before.\n\n     \"Well, after this fiasco I went into the bedroom and examined that\n     also. The blood-stains were very slight, mere smears and\n     discolorations, but undoubtedly fresh. The stick had been removed,\n     but there also the marks were slight. There is no doubt about the\n     stick belonging to our client. He admits it. Footmarks of both men\n     could be made out on the carpet, but none of any third person, which\n     again is a trick for the other side. They were piling up their score\n     all the time and we were at a standstill.\n\n     \"Only one little gleam of hope did I get--and yet it amounted to\n     nothing. I examined the contents of the safe, most of which had been\n     taken out and left on the table. The papers had been made up into\n     sealed envelopes, one or two of which had been opened by the police.\n     They were not, so far as I could judge, of any great value, nor did\n     the bank-book show that Mr. Oldacre was in such very affluent\n     circumstances. But it seemed to me that all the papers were not\n     there. There were allusions to some deeds--possibly the more\n     valuable--which I could not find. This, of course, if we could\n     definitely prove it, would turn Lestrade's argument against himself,\n     for who would steal a thing if he knew that he would shortly inherit\n     it?\n\n     \"Finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent, I\n     tried my luck with the housekeeper. Mrs. Lexington is her name, a\n     little, dark, silent person, with suspicious and sidelong eyes. She\n     could tell us something if she would--I am convinced of it. But she\n     was as close as wax. Yes, she had let Mr. McFarlane in at half-past\n     nine. She wished her hand had withered before she had done so. She\n     had gone to bed at half-past ten. Her room was at the other end of\n     the house, and she could hear nothing of what passed. Mr. McFarlane\n     had left his hat, and to the best of her belief his stick, in the\n     hall. She had been awakened by the alarm of fire. Her poor, dear\n     master had certainly been murdered. Had he any enemies? Well, every\n     man had enemies, but Mr. Oldacre kept himself very much to himself,\n     and only met people in the way of business. She had seen the buttons,\n     and was sure that they belonged to the clothes which he had worn last\n     night. The wood-pile was very dry, for it had not rained for a month.\n     It burned like tinder, and by the time she reached the spot nothing\n     could be seen but flames. She and all the firemen smelled the burned\n     flesh from inside it. She knew nothing of the papers, nor of Mr.\n     Oldacre's private affairs.\n\n     \"So, my dear Watson, there's my report of a failure. And yet--and\n     yet--\"--he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction--\"I\n     know it's all wrong. I feel it in my bones. There is something that\n     has not come out, and that housekeeper knows it. There was a sort of\n     sulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge.\n     However, there's no good talking any more about it, Watson; but\n     unless some lucky chance comes our way I fear that the Norwood\n     Disappearance Case will not figure in that chronicle of our successes\n     which I foresee that a patient public will sooner or later have to\n     endure.\"\n\n     \"Surely,\" said I, \"the man's appearance would go far with any jury?\"\n\n     \"That is a dangerous argument, my dear Watson. You remember that\n     terrible murderer, Bert Stevens, who wanted us to get him off in '87?\n     Was there ever a more mild-mannered, Sunday-school young man?\"\n\n     \"It is true.\"\n\n     \"Unless we succeed in establishing an alternative theory this man is\n     lost. You can hardly find a flaw in the case which can now be\n     presented against him, and all further investigation has served to\n     strengthen it. By the way, there is one curious little point about\n     those papers which may serve us as the starting-point for an inquiry.\n     On looking over the bank-book I found that the low state of the\n     balance was principally due to large cheques which have been made out\n     during the last year to Mr. Cornelius. I confess that I should be\n     interested to know who this Mr. Cornelius may be with whom a retired\n     builder has such very large transactions. Is it possible that he has\n     had a hand in the affair? Cornelius might be a broker, but we have\n     found no scrip to correspond with these large payments. Failing any\n     other indication my researches must now take the direction of an\n     inquiry at the bank for the gentleman who has cashed these cheques.\n     But I fear, my dear fellow, that our case will end ingloriously by\n     Lestrade hanging our client, which will certainly be a triumph for\n     Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     I do not know how far Sherlock Holmes took any sleep that night, but\n     when I came down to breakfast I found him pale and harassed, his\n     bright eyes the brighter for the dark shadows round them. The carpet\n     round his chair was littered with cigarette-ends and with the early\n     editions of the morning papers. An open telegram lay upon the table.\n\n     \"What do you think of this, Watson?\" he asked, tossing it across.\n\n     It was from Norwood, and ran as follows:\n\n     \"Important fresh evidence to hand. McFarlane's guilt definitely\n     established. Advise you to abandon case.\n     Lestrade.\n\n     \"This sounds serious,\" said I.\n\n     \"It is Lestrade's little cock-a-doodle of victory,\" Holmes answered,\n     with a bitter smile. \"And yet it may be premature to abandon the\n     case. After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and\n     may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade\n     imagines. Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together\n     and see what we can do. I feel as if I shall need your company and\n     your moral support to-day.\"\n\n     My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his\n     peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit\n     himself no food, and I have known him presume upon his iron strength\n     until he has fainted from pure inanition. \"At present I cannot spare\n     energy and nerve force for digestion,\" he would say in answer to my\n     medical remonstrances. I was not surprised, therefore, when this\n     morning he left his untouched meal behind him and started with me for\n     Norwood. A crowd of morbid sightseers were still gathered round Deep\n     Dene House, which was just such a suburban villa as I had pictured.\n     Within the gates Lestrade met us, his face flushed with victory, his\n     manner grossly triumphant.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, have you proved us to be wrong yet? Have you found\n     your tramp?\" he cried.\n\n     \"I have formed no conclusion whatever,\" my companion answered.\n\n     \"But we formed ours yesterday, and now it proves to be correct; so\n     you must acknowledge that we have been a little in front of you this\n     time, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"You certainly have the air of something unusual having occurred,\"\n     said Holmes.\n\n     Lestrade laughed loudly.\n\n     \"You don't like being beaten any more than the rest of us do,\" said\n     he. \"A man can't expect always to have it his own way, can he, Dr.\n     Watson? Step this way, if you please, gentlemen, and I think I can\n     convince you once for all that it was John McFarlane who did this\n     crime.\"\n\n     He led us through the passage and out into a dark hall beyond.\n\n     \"This is where young McFarlane must have come out to get his hat\n     after the crime was done,\" said he. \"Now, look at this.\" With\n     dramatic suddenness he struck a match and by its light exposed a\n     stain of blood upon the whitewashed wall. As he held the match nearer\n     I saw that it was more than a stain. It was the well-marked print of\n     a thumb.\n\n     \"Look at that with your magnifying glass, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I am doing so.\"\n\n     \"You are aware that no two thumb marks are alike?\"\n\n     \"I have heard something of the kind.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, will you please compare that print with this wax\n     impression of young McFarlane's right thumb, taken by my orders this\n     morning?\"\n\n     As he held the waxen print close to the blood-stain it did not take a\n     magnifying glass to see that the two were undoubtedly from the same\n     thumb. It was evident to me that our unfortunate client was lost.\n\n     \"That is final,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"Yes, that is final,\" I involuntarily echoed.\n\n     \"It is final,\" said Holmes.\n\n     Something in his tone caught my ear, and I turned to look at him. An\n     extraordinary change had come over his face. It was writhing with\n     inward merriment. His two eyes were shining like stars. It seemed to\n     me that he was making desperate efforts to restrain a convulsive\n     attack of laughter.\n\n     \"Dear me! Dear me!\" he said at last. \"Well, now, who would have\n     thought it? And how deceptive appearances may be, to be sure! Such a\n     nice young man to look at! It is a lesson to us not to trust our own\n     judgment, is it not, Lestrade?\"\n\n     \"Yes, some of us are a little too much inclined to be cocksure, Mr.\n     Holmes,\" said Lestrade. The man's insolence was maddening, but we\n     could not resent it.\n\n     \"What a providential thing that this young man should press his right\n     thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very\n     natural action, too, if you come to think of it.\" Holmes was\n     outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed\n     excitement as he spoke. \"By the way, Lestrade, who made this\n     remarkable discovery?\"\n\n     \"It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Lexington, who drew the night\n     constable's attention to it.\"\n\n     \"Where was the night constable?\"\n\n     \"He remained on guard in the bedroom where the crime was committed,\n     so as to see that nothing was touched.\"\n\n     \"But why didn't the police see this mark yesterday?\"\n\n     \"Well, we had no particular reason to make a careful examination of\n     the hall. Besides, it's not in a very prominent place, as you see.\"\n\n     \"No, no, of course not. I suppose there is no doubt that the mark was\n     there yesterday?\"\n\n     Lestrade looked at Holmes as if he thought he was going out of his\n     mind. I confess that I was myself surprised both at his hilarious\n     manner and at his rather wild observation.\n\n     \"I don't know whether you think that McFarlane came out of jail in\n     the dead of the night in order to strengthen the evidence against\n     himself,\" said Lestrade. \"I leave it to any expert in the world\n     whether that is not the mark of his thumb.\"\n\n     \"It is unquestionably the mark of his thumb.\"\n\n     \"There, that's enough,\" said Lestrade. \"I am a practical man, Mr.\n     Holmes, and when I have got my evidence I come to my conclusions. If\n     you have anything to say you will find me writing my report in the\n     sitting-room.\"\n\n     Holmes had recovered his equanimity, though I still seemed to detect\n     gleams of amusement in his expression.\n\n     \"Dear me, this is a very sad development, Watson, is it not?\" said\n     he. \"And yet there are singular points about it which hold out some\n     hopes for our client.\"\n\n     \"I am delighted to hear it,\" said I, heartily. \"I was afraid it was\n     all up with him.\"\n\n     \"I would hardly go so far as to say that, my dear Watson. The fact is\n     that there is one really serious flaw in this evidence to which our\n     friend attaches so much importance.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, Holmes! What is it?\"\n\n     \"Only this: that I know that that mark was not there when I examined\n     the hall yesterday. And now, Watson, let us have a little stroll\n     round in the sunshine.\"\n\n     With a confused brain, but with a heart into which some warmth of\n     hope was returning, I accompanied my friend in a walk round the\n     garden. Holmes took each face of the house in turn and examined it\n     with great interest. He then led the way inside and went over the\n     whole building from basement to attics. Most of the rooms were\n     unfurnished, but none the less Holmes inspected them all minutely.\n     Finally, on the top corridor, which ran outside three untenanted\n     bedrooms, he again was seized with a spasm of merriment.\n\n     \"There are really some very unique features about this case, Watson,\"\n     said he. \"I think it is time now that we took our friend Lestrade\n     into our confidence. He has had his little smile at our expense, and\n     perhaps we may do as much by him if my reading of this problem proves\n     to be correct. Yes, yes; I think I see how we should approach it.\"\n\n     The Scotland Yard inspector was still writing in the parlour when\n     Holmes interrupted him.\n\n     \"I understood that you were writing a report of this case,\" said he.\n\n     \"So I am.\"\n\n     \"Don't you think it may be a little premature? I can't help thinking\n     that your evidence is not complete.\"\n\n     Lestrade knew my friend too well to disregard his words. He laid down\n     his pen and looked curiously at him.\n\n     \"What do you mean, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Only that there is an important witness whom you have not seen.\"\n\n     \"Can you produce him?\"\n\n     \"I think I can.\"\n\n     \"Then do so.\"\n\n     \"I will do my best. How many constables have you?\"\n\n     \"There are three within call.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Holmes. \"May I ask if they are all large,\n     able-bodied men with powerful voices?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt they are, though I fail to see what their voices\n     have to do with it.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps I can help you to see that and one or two other things as\n     well,\" said Holmes. \"Kindly summon your men, and I will try.\"\n\n     Five minutes later three policemen had assembled in the hall.\n\n     \"In the outhouse you will find a considerable quantity of straw,\"\n     said Holmes. \"I will ask you to carry in two bundles of it. I think\n     it will be of the greatest assistance in producing the witness whom I\n     require. Thank you very much. I believe you have some matches in your\n     pocket, Watson. Now, Mr. Lestrade, I will ask you all to accompany me\n     to the top landing.\"\n\n     As I have said, there was a broad corridor there, which ran outside\n     three empty bedrooms. At one end of the corridor we were all\n     marshalled by Sherlock Holmes, the constables grinning and Lestrade\n     staring at my friend with amazement, expectation, and derision\n     chasing each other across his features. Holmes stood before us with\n     the air of a conjurer who is performing a trick.\n\n     \"Would you kindly send one of your constables for two buckets of\n     water? Put the straw on the floor here, free from the wall on either\n     side. Now I think that we are all ready.\"\n\n     Lestrade's face had begun to grow red and angry.\n\n     \"I don't know whether you are playing a game with us, Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes,\" said he. \"If you know anything, you can surely say it\n     without all this tomfoolery.\"\n\n     \"I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reason for\n     everything that I do. You may possibly remember that you chaffed me a\n     little some hours ago, when the sun seemed on your side of the hedge,\n     so you must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony now. Might I ask\n     you, Watson, to open that window, and then to put a match to the edge\n     of the straw?\"\n\n     I did so, and, driven by the draught, a coil of grey smoke swirled\n     down the corridor, while the dry straw crackled and flamed.\n\n     \"Now we must see if we can find this witness for you, Lestrade. Might\n     I ask you all to join in the cry of 'Fire!'? Now, then; one, two,\n     three--\"\n\n     \"Fire!\" we all yelled.\n\n     \"Thank you. I will trouble you once again.\"\n\n     \"Fire!\"\n\n     \"Just once more, gentlemen, and all together.\"\n\n     \"Fire!\" The shout must have rung over Norwood.\n\n     It had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened. A door\n     suddenly flew open out of what appeared to be solid wall at the end\n     of the corridor, and a little, wizened man darted out of it, like a\n     rabbit out of its burrow.\n\n     \"Capital!\" said Holmes, calmly. \"Watson, a bucket of water over the\n     straw. That will do! Lestrade, allow me to present you with your\n     principal missing witness, Mr. Jonas Oldacre.\"\n\n     The detective stared at the new-comer with blank amazement. The\n     latter was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, and peering\n     at us and at the smouldering fire. It was an odious face--crafty,\n     vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.\n\n     \"What's this, then?\" said Lestrade at last. \"What have you been doing\n     all this time, eh?\"\n\n     Oldacre gave an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furious red\n     face of the angry detective.\n\n     \"I have done no harm.\"\n\n     \"No harm? You have done your best to get an innocent man hanged. If\n     it wasn't for this gentleman here, I am not sure that you would not\n     have succeeded.\"\n\n     The wretched creature began to whimper.\n\n     \"I am sure, sir, it was only my practical joke.\"\n\n     \"Oh! a joke, was it? You won't find the laugh on your side, I promise\n     you. Take him down and keep him in the sitting-room until I come. Mr.\n     Holmes,\" he continued, when they had gone, \"I could not speak before\n     the constables, but I don't mind saying, in the presence of Dr.\n     Watson, that this is the brightest thing that you have done yet,\n     though it is a mystery to me how you did it. You have saved an\n     innocent man's life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal,\n     which would have ruined my reputation in the Force.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder.\n\n     \"Instead of being ruined, my good sir, you will find that your\n     reputation has been enormously enhanced. Just make a few alterations\n     in that report which you were writing, and they will understand how\n     hard it is to throw dust in the eyes of Inspector Lestrade.\"\n\n     \"And you don't want your name to appear?\"\n\n     \"Not at all. The work is its own reward. Perhaps I shall get the\n     credit also at some distant day when I permit my zealous historian to\n     lay out his foolscap once more--eh, Watson? Well, now, let us see\n     where this rat has been lurking.\"\n\n     A lath-and-plaster partition had been run across the passage six feet\n     from the end, with a door cunningly concealed in it. It was lit\n     within by slits under the eaves. A few articles of furniture and a\n     supply of food and water were within, together with a number of books\n     and papers.\n\n     \"There's the advantage of being a builder,\" said Holmes, as we came\n     out. \"He was able to fix up his own little hiding-place without any\n     confederate--save, of course, that precious housekeeper of his, whom\n     I should lose no time in adding to your bag, Lestrade.\"\n\n     \"I'll take your advice. But how did you know of this place, Mr.\n     Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I made up my mind that the fellow was in hiding in the house. When I\n     paced one corridor and found it six feet shorter than the\n     corresponding one below, it was pretty clear where he was. I thought\n     he had not the nerve to lie quiet before an alarm of fire. We could,\n     of course, have gone in and taken him, but it amused me to make him\n     reveal himself; besides, I owed you a little mystification, Lestrade,\n     for your chaff in the morning.\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, you certainly got equal with me on that. But how in the\n     world did you know that he was in the house at all?\"\n\n     \"The thumb-mark, Lestrade. You said it was final; and so it was, in a\n     very different sense. I knew it had not been there the day before. I\n     pay a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as you may have\n     observed, and I had examined the hall and was sure that the wall was\n     clear. Therefore, it had been put on during the night.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"Very simply. When those packets were sealed up, Jonas Oldacre got\n     McFarlane to secure one of the seals by putting his thumb upon the\n     soft wax. It would be done so quickly and so naturally that I dare\n     say the young man himself has no recollection of it. Very likely it\n     just so happened, and Oldacre had himself no notion of the use he\n     would put it to. Brooding over the case in that den of his, it\n     suddenly struck him what absolutely damning evidence he could make\n     against McFarlane by using that thumb-mark. It was the simplest thing\n     in the world for him to take a wax impression from the seal, to\n     moisten it in as much blood as he could get from a pin-prick, and to\n     put the mark upon the wall during the night, either with his own hand\n     or with that of his housekeeper. If you examine among those documents\n     which he took with him into his retreat I will lay you a wager that\n     you find the seal with the thumb-mark upon it.\"\n\n     \"Wonderful!\" said Lestrade. \"Wonderful! It's all as clear as crystal,\n     as you put it. But what is the object of this deep deception, Mr.\n     Holmes?\"\n\n     It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner\n     had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its\n     teacher.\n\n     \"Well, I don't think that is very hard to explain. A very deep,\n     malicious, vindictive person is the gentleman who is now awaiting us\n     downstairs. You know that he was once refused by McFarlane's mother?\n     You don't! I told you that you should go to Blackheath first and\n     Norwood afterwards. Well, this injury, as he would consider it, has\n     rankled in his wicked, scheming brain, and all his life he has longed\n     for vengeance, but never seen his chance. During the last year or two\n     things have gone against him--secret speculation, I think--and he\n     finds himself in a bad way. He determines to swindle his creditors,\n     and for this purpose he pays large cheques to a certain Mr.\n     Cornelius, who is, I imagine, himself under another name. I have not\n     traced these cheques yet, but I have no doubt that they were banked\n     under that name at some provincial town where Oldacre from time to\n     time led a double existence. He intended to change his name\n     altogether, draw this money, and vanish, starting life again\n     elsewhere.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's likely enough.\"\n\n     \"It would strike him that in disappearing he might throw all pursuit\n     off his track, and at the same time have an ample and crushing\n     revenge upon his old sweetheart, if he could give the impression that\n     he had been murdered by her only child. It was a masterpiece of\n     villainy, and he carried it out like a master. The idea of the will,\n     which would give an obvious motive for the crime, the secret visit\n     unknown to his own parents, the retention of the stick, the blood,\n     and the animal remains and buttons in the wood-pile, all were\n     admirable. It was a net from which it seemed to me a few hours ago\n     that there was no possible escape. But he had not that supreme gift\n     of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. He wished to improve\n     that which was already perfect--to draw the rope tighter yet round\n     the neck of his unfortunate victim--and so he ruined all. Let us\n     descend, Lestrade. There are just one or two questions that I would\n     ask him.\"\n\n     The malignant creature was seated in his own parlour with a policeman\n     upon each side of him.\n\n     \"It was a joke, my good sir, a practical joke, nothing more,\" he\n     whined incessantly. \"I assure you, sir, that I simply concealed\n     myself in order to see the effect of my disappearance, and I am sure\n     that you would not be so unjust as to imagine that I would have\n     allowed any harm to befall poor young Mr. McFarlane.\"\n\n     \"That's for a jury to decide,\" said Lestrade. \"Anyhow, we shall have\n     you on a charge of conspiracy, if not for attempted murder.\"\n\n     \"And you'll probably find that your creditors will impound the\n     banking account of Mr. Cornelius,\" said Holmes.\n\n     The little man started and turned his malignant eyes upon my friend.\n\n     \"I have to thank you for a good deal,\" said he. \"Perhaps I'll pay my\n     debt some day.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled indulgently.\n\n     \"I fancy that for some few years you will find your time very fully\n     occupied,\" said he. \"By the way, what was it you put into the\n     wood-pile besides your old trousers? A dead dog, or rabbits, or what?\n     You won't tell? Dear me, how very unkind of you! Well, well, I dare\n     say that a couple of rabbits would account both for the blood and for\n     the charred ashes. If ever you write an account, Watson, you can make\n     rabbits serve your turn.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN\n\n     Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long, thin\n     back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a\n     particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk upon his breast,\n     and he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with\n     dull grey plumage and a black top-knot.\n\n     \"So, Watson,\" said he, suddenly, \"you do not propose to invest in\n     South African securities?\"\n\n     I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes's\n     curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate\n     thoughts was utterly inexplicable.\n\n     \"How on earth do you know that?\" I asked.\n\n     He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his\n     hand and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.\n\n     \"Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,\" said he.\n\n     \"I am.\"\n\n     \"I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.\"\n\n     \"Why?\"\n\n     \"Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly\n     simple.\"\n\n     \"I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.\"\n\n     \"You see, my dear Watson\"--he propped his test-tube in the rack and\n     began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his\n     class--\"it is not really difficult to construct a series of\n     inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in\n     itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central\n     inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and\n     the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a\n     meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an\n     inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to\n     feel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in\n     the goldfields.\"\n\n     \"I see no connection.\"\n\n     \"Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here\n     are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk\n     between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club\n     last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady\n     the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You\n     told me four weeks ago that Thurston had an option on some South\n     African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired\n     you to share with him. 5. Your cheque-book is locked in my drawer,\n     and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not propose to invest\n     your money in this manner.\"\n\n     \"How absurdly simple!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Quite so!\" said he, a little nettled. \"Every problem becomes very\n     childish when once it is explained to you. Here is an unexplained\n     one. See what you can make of that, friend Watson.\" He tossed a sheet\n     of paper upon the table and turned once more to his chemical\n     analysis.\n\n     I looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper.\n\n     \"Why, Holmes, it is a child's drawing,\" I cried.\n\n     \"Oh, that's your idea!\"\n\n     \"What else should it be?\"\n\n     \"That is what Mr. Hilton Cubitt, of Ridling Thorpe Manor, Norfolk, is\n     very anxious to know. This little conundrum came by the first post,\n     and he was to follow by the next train. There's a ring at the bell,\n     Watson. I should not be very much surprised if this were he.\"\n\n     A heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there\n     entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and\n     florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street.\n     He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast\n     air with him as he entered. Having shaken hands with each of us, he\n     was about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the\n     curious markings, which I had just examined and left upon the table.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of these?\" he cried. \"They told\n     me that you were fond of queer mysteries, and I don't think you can\n     find a queerer one than that. I sent the paper on ahead so that you\n     might have time to study it before I came.\"\n\n     \"It is certainly rather a curious production,\" said Holmes. \"At first\n     sight it would appear to be some childish prank. It consists of a\n     number of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which\n     they are drawn. Why should you attribute any importance to so\n     grotesque an object?\"\n\n     \"I never should, Mr. Holmes. But my wife does. It is frightening her\n     to death. She says nothing, but I can see terror in her eyes. That's\n     why I want to sift the matter to the bottom.\"\n\n     Holmes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it. It\n     was a page torn from a note-book. The markings were done in pencil,\n     and ran in this way:--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of several figures of dancing men, some holding\n     flags ]\n\n     Holmes examined it for some time, and then, folding it carefully up,\n     he placed it in his pocket-book.\n\n     \"This promises to be a most interesting and unusual case,\" said he.\n     \"You gave me a few particulars in your letter, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, but\n     I should be very much obliged if you would kindly go over it all\n     again for the benefit of my friend, Dr. Watson.\"\n\n     \"I'm not much of a story-teller,\" said our visitor, nervously\n     clasping and unclasping his great, strong hands. \"You'll just ask me\n     anything that I don't make clear. I'll begin at the time of my\n     marriage last year; but I want to say first of all that, though I'm\n     not a rich man, my people have been at Ridling Thorpe for a matter of\n     five centuries, and there is no better known family in the County of\n     Norfolk. Last year I came up to London for the Jubilee, and I stopped\n     at a boarding-house in Russell Square, because Parker, the vicar of\n     our parish, was staying in it. There was an American young lady\n     there--Patrick was the name--Elsie Patrick. In some way we became\n     friends, until before my month was up I was as much in love as a man\n     could be. We were quietly married at a registry office, and we\n     returned to Norfolk a wedded couple. You'll think it very mad, Mr.\n     Holmes, that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this\n     fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people; but if you saw\n     her and knew her it would help you to understand.\n\n     \"She was very straight about it, was Elsie. I can't say that she did\n     not give me every chance of getting out of it if I wished to do so.\n     'I have had some very disagreeable associations in my life,' said\n     she; 'I wish to forget all about them. I would rather never allude to\n     the past, for it is very painful to me. If you take me, Hilton, you\n     will take a woman who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed\n     of; but you will have to be content with my word for it, and to allow\n     me to be silent as to all that passed up to the time when I became\n     yours. If these conditions are too hard, then go back to Norfolk and\n     leave me to the lonely life in which you found me.' It was only the\n     day before our wedding that she said those very words to me. I told\n     her that I was content to take her on her own terms, and I have been\n     as good as my word.\n\n     \"Well, we have been married now for a year, and very happy we have\n     been. But about a month ago, at the end of June, I saw for the first\n     time signs of trouble. One day my wife received a letter from\n     America. I saw the American stamp. She turned deadly white, read the\n     letter, and threw it into the fire. She made no allusion to it\n     afterwards, and I made none, for a promise is a promise; but she has\n     never known an easy hour from that moment. There is always a look of\n     fear upon her face--a look as if she were waiting and expecting. She\n     would do better to trust me. She would find that I was her best\n     friend. But until she speaks I can say nothing. Mind you, she is a\n     truthful woman, Mr. Holmes, and whatever trouble there may have been\n     in her past life it has been no fault of hers. I am only a simple\n     Norfolk squire, but there is not a man in England who ranks his\n     family honour more highly than I do. She knows it well, and she knew\n     it well before she married me. She would never bring any stain upon\n     it--of that I am sure.\n\n     \"Well, now I come to the queer part of my story. About a week ago--it\n     was the Tuesday of last week--I found on one of the window-sills a\n     number of absurd little dancing figures, like these upon the paper.\n     They were scrawled with chalk. I thought that it was the stable-boy\n     who had drawn them, but the lad swore he knew nothing about it.\n     Anyhow, they had come there during the night. I had them washed out,\n     and I only mentioned the matter to my wife afterwards. To my surprise\n     she took it very seriously, and begged me if any more came to let her\n     see them. None did come for a week, and then yesterday morning I\n     found this paper lying on the sun-dial in the garden. I showed it to\n     Elsie, and down she dropped in a dead faint. Since then she has\n     looked like a woman in a dream, half dazed, and with terror always\n     lurking in her eyes. It was then that I wrote and sent the paper to\n     you, Mr. Holmes. It was not a thing that I could take to the police,\n     for they would have laughed at me, but you will tell me what to do. I\n     am not a rich man; but if there is any danger threatening my little\n     woman I would spend my last copper to shield her.\"\n\n     He was a fine creature, this man of the old English soil, simple,\n     straight, and gentle, with his great, earnest blue eyes and broad,\n     comely face. His love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his\n     features. Holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention,\n     and now he sat for some time in silent thought.\n\n     \"Don't you think, Mr. Cubitt,\" said he, at last, \"that your best plan\n     would be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to\n     share her secret with you?\"\n\n     Hilton Cubitt shook his massive head.\n\n     \"A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If Elsie wished to tell me she\n     would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence. But I am\n     justified in taking my own line--and I will.\"\n\n     \"Then I will help you with all my heart. In the first place, have you\n     heard of any strangers being seen in your neighbourhood?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"I presume that it is a very quiet place. Any fresh face would cause\n     comment?\"\n\n     \"In the immediate neighbourhood, yes. But we have several small\n     watering-places not very far away. And the farmers take in lodgers.\"\n\n     \"These hieroglyphics have evidently a meaning. If it is a purely\n     arbitrary one it may be impossible for us to solve it. If, on the\n     other hand, it is systematic, I have no doubt that we shall get to\n     the bottom of it. But this particular sample is so short that I can\n     do nothing, and the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite\n     that we have no basis for an investigation. I would suggest that you\n     return to Norfolk, that you keep a keen look-out, and that you take\n     an exact copy of any fresh dancing men which may appear. It is a\n     thousand pities that we have not a reproduction of those which were\n     done in chalk upon the window-sill. Make a discreet inquiry also as\n     to any strangers in the neighbourhood. When you have collected some\n     fresh evidence come to me again. That is the best advice which I can\n     give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt. If there are any pressing fresh\n     developments I shall be always ready to run down and see you in your\n     Norfolk home.\"\n\n     The interview left Sherlock Holmes very thoughtful, and several times\n     in the next few days I saw him take his slip of paper from his\n     note-book and look long and earnestly at the curious figures\n     inscribed upon it. He made no allusion to the affair, however, until\n     one afternoon a fortnight or so later. I was going out when he called\n     me back.\n\n     \"You had better stay here, Watson.\"\n\n     \"Why?\"\n\n     \"Because I had a wire from Hilton Cubitt this morning--you remember\n     Hilton Cubitt, of the dancing men? He was to reach Liverpool Street\n     at one-twenty. He may be here at any moment. I gather from his wire\n     that there have been some new incidents of importance.\"\n\n     We had not long to wait, for our Norfolk squire came straight from\n     the station as fast as a hansom could bring him. He was looking\n     worried and depressed, with tired eyes and a lined forehead.\n\n     \"It's getting on my nerves, this business, Mr. Holmes,\" said he, as\n     he sank, like a wearied man, into an arm-chair. \"It's bad enough to\n     feel that you are surrounded by unseen, unknown folk, who have some\n     kind of design upon you; but when, in addition to that, you know that\n     it is just killing your wife by inches, then it becomes as much as\n     flesh and blood can endure. She's wearing away under it--just wearing\n     away before my eyes.\"\n\n     \"Has she said anything yet?\"\n\n     \"No, Mr. Holmes, she has not. And yet there have been times when the\n     poor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite bring herself\n     to take the plunge. I have tried to help her; but I dare say I did it\n     clumsily, and scared her off from it. She has spoken about my old\n     family, and our reputation in the county, and our pride in our\n     unsullied honour, and I always felt it was leading to the point; but\n     somehow it turned off before we got there.\"\n\n     \"But you have found out something for yourself?\"\n\n     \"A good deal, Mr. Holmes. I have several fresh dancing men pictures\n     for you to examine, and, what is more important, I have seen the\n     fellow.\"\n\n     \"What, the man who draws them?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I saw him at his work. But I will tell you everything in order.\n     When I got back after my visit to you, the very first thing I saw\n     next morning was a fresh crop of dancing men. They had been drawn in\n     chalk upon the black wooden door of the tool-house, which stands\n     beside the lawn in full view of the front windows. I took an exact\n     copy, and here it is.\" He unfolded a paper and laid it upon the\n     table. Here is a copy of the hieroglyphics:--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of a few dancing men ]\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Holmes. \"Excellent! Pray continue.\"\n\n     \"When I had taken the copy I rubbed out the marks; but two mornings\n     later a fresh inscription had appeared. I have a copy of it here\":--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of some more dancing man figures ]\n\n     Holmes rubbed his hands and chuckled with delight.\n\n     \"Our material is rapidly accumulating,\" said he.\n\n     \"Three days later a message was left scrawled upon paper, and placed\n     under a pebble upon the sun-dial. Here it is. The characters are, as\n     you see, exactly the same as the last one. After that I determined to\n     lie in wait; so I got out my revolver and I sat up in my study, which\n     overlooks the lawn and garden. About two in the morning I was seated\n     by the window, all being dark save for the moonlight outside, when I\n     heard steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing-gown.\n     She implored me to come to bed. I told her frankly that I wished to\n     see who it was who played such absurd tricks upon us. She answered\n     that it was some senseless practical joke, and that I should not take\n     any notice of it.\n\n     \"'If it really annoys you, Hilton, we might go and travel, you and I,\n     and so avoid this nuisance.'\n\n     \"'What, be driven out of our own house by a practical joker?' said I.\n     'Why, we should have the whole county laughing at us.'\n\n     \"'Well, come to bed,' said she, 'and we can discuss it in the\n     morning.'\n\n     \"Suddenly, as she spoke, I saw her white face grow whiter yet in the\n     moonlight, and her hand tightened upon my shoulder. Something was\n     moving in the shadow of the tool-house. I saw a dark, creeping figure\n     which crawled round the corner and squatted in front of the door.\n     Seizing my pistol I was rushing out, when my wife threw her arms\n     round me and held me with convulsive strength. I tried to throw her\n     off, but she clung to me most desperately. At last I got clear, but\n     by the time I had opened the door and reached the house the creature\n     was gone. He had left a trace of his presence, however, for there on\n     the door was the very same arrangement of dancing men which had\n     already twice appeared, and which I have copied on that paper. There\n     was no other sign of the fellow anywhere, though I ran all over the\n     grounds. And yet the amazing thing is that he must have been there\n     all the time, for when I examined the door again in the morning he\n     had scrawled some more of his pictures under the line which I had\n     already seen.\"\n\n     \"Have you that fresh drawing?\"\n\n     \"Yes; it is very short, but I made a copy of it, and here it is.\"\n\n     Again he produced a paper. The new dance was in this form:--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of five dancing men figures ]\n\n     \"Tell me,\" said Holmes--and I could see by his eyes that he was much\n     excited--\"was this a mere addition to the first, or did it appear to\n     be entirely separate?\"\n\n     \"It was on a different panel of the door.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! This is far the most important of all for our purpose. It\n     fills me with hopes. Now, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, please continue your\n     most interesting statement.\"\n\n     \"I have nothing more to say, Mr. Holmes, except that I was angry with\n     my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught\n     the skulking rascal. She said that she feared that I might come to\n     harm. For an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she\n     really feared was that he might come to harm, for I could not doubt\n     that she knew who this man was and what he meant by these strange\n     signals. But there is a tone in my wife's voice, Mr. Holmes, and a\n     look in her eyes which forbid doubt, and I am sure that it was indeed\n     my own safety that was in her mind. There's the whole case, and now I\n     want your advice as to what I ought to do. My own inclination is to\n     put half-a-dozen of my farm lads in the shrubbery, and when this\n     fellow comes again to give him such a hiding that he will leave us in\n     peace for the future.\"\n\n     \"I fear it is too deep a case for such simple remedies,\" said Holmes.\n     \"How long can you stay in London?\"\n\n     \"I must go back to-day. I would not leave my wife alone all night for\n     anything. She is very nervous and begged me to come back.\"\n\n     \"I dare say you are right. But if you could have stopped I might\n     possibly have been able to return with you in a day or two. Meanwhile\n     you will leave me these papers, and I think that it is very likely\n     that I shall be able to pay you a visit shortly and to throw some\n     light upon your case.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes preserved his calm professional manner until our\n     visitor had left us, although it was easy for me, who knew him so\n     well, to see that he was profoundly excited. The moment that Hilton\n     Cubitt's broad back had disappeared through the door my comrade\n     rushed to the table, laid out all the slips of paper containing\n     dancing men in front of him, and threw himself into an intricate and\n     elaborate calculation. For two hours I watched him as he covered\n     sheet after sheet of paper with figures and letters, so completely\n     absorbed in his task that he had evidently forgotten my presence.\n     Sometimes he was making progress and whistled and sang at his work;\n     sometimes he was puzzled, and would sit for long spells with a\n     furrowed brow and a vacant eye. Finally he sprang from his chair with\n     a cry of satisfaction, and walked up and down the room rubbing his\n     hands together. Then he wrote a long telegram upon a cable form. \"If\n     my answer to this is as I hope, you will have a very pretty case to\n     add to your collection, Watson,\" said he. \"I expect that we shall be\n     able to go down to Norfolk to-morrow, and to take our friend some\n     very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.\"\n\n     I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that\n     Holmes liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own\n     way; so I waited until it should suit him to take me into his\n     confidence.\n\n     But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of\n     impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at every\n     ring of the bell. On the evening of the second there came a letter\n     from Hilton Cubitt. All was quiet with him, save that a long\n     inscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the\n     sun-dial. He inclosed a copy of it, which is here reproduced:--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of many dancing men figures ]\n\n     Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, and then\n     suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and\n     dismay. His face was haggard with anxiety.\n\n     \"We have let this affair go far enough,\" said he. \"Is there a train\n     to North Walsham to-night?\"\n\n     I turned up the time-table. The last had just gone.\n\n     \"Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the\n     morning,\" said Holmes. \"Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah!\n     here is our expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson; there may be\n     an answer. No, that is quite as I expected. This message makes it\n     even more essential that we should not lose an hour in letting Hilton\n     Cubitt know how matters stand, for it is a singular and a dangerous\n     web in which our simple Norfolk squire is entangled.\"\n\n     So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion of a\n     story which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre I\n     experience once again the dismay and horror with which I was filled.\n     Would that I had some brighter ending to communicate to my readers,\n     but these are the chronicles of fact, and I must follow to their dark\n     crisis the strange chain of events which for some days made Ridling\n     Thorpe Manor a household word through the length and breadth of\n     England.\n\n     We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name of\n     our destination, when the station-master hurried towards us. \"I\n     suppose that you are the detectives from London?\" said he.\n\n     A look of annoyance passed over Holmes's face.\n\n     \"What makes you think such a thing?\"\n\n     \"Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through. But\n     maybe you are the surgeons. She's not dead--or wasn't by last\n     accounts. You may be in time to save her yet--though it be for the\n     gallows.\"\n\n     Holmes's brow was dark with anxiety.\n\n     \"We are going to Ridling Thorpe Manor,\" said he, \"but we have heard\n     nothing of what has passed there.\"\n\n     \"It's a terrible business,\" said the station-master. \"They are shot,\n     both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then\n     herself--so the servants say. He's dead and her life is despaired of.\n     Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the County of Norfolk, and\n     one of the most honoured.\"\n\n     Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long\n     seven miles' drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen him\n     so utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our journey from\n     town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers\n     with anxious attention; but now this sudden realization of his worst\n     fears left him in a blank melancholy. He leaned back in his seat,\n     lost in gloomy speculation. Yet there was much around to interest us,\n     for we were passing through as singular a country-side as any in\n     England, where a few scattered cottages represented the population of\n     to-day, while on every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled\n     up from the flat, green landscape and told of the glory and\n     prosperity of old East Anglia. At last the violet rim of the German\n     Ocean appeared over the green edge of the Norfolk coast, and the\n     driver pointed with his whip to two old brick and timber gables which\n     projected from a grove of trees. \"That's Ridling Thorpe Manor,\" said\n     he.\n\n     As we drove up to the porticoed front door I observed in front of it,\n     beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled\n     sun-dial with which we had such strange associations. A dapper little\n     man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just\n     descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced himself as Inspector\n     Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he was considerably\n     astonished when he heard the name of my companion.\n\n     \"Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.\n     How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I?\"\n\n     \"I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.\"\n\n     \"Then you must have important evidence of which we are ignorant, for\n     they were said to be a most united couple.\"\n\n     \"I have only the evidence of the dancing men,\" said Holmes. \"I will\n     explain the matter to you later. Meanwhile, since it is too late to\n     prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use the\n     knowledge which I possess in order to ensure that justice be done.\n     Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer that\n     I should act independently?\"\n\n     \"I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr. Holmes,\"\n     said the inspector, earnestly.\n\n     \"In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to examine\n     the premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.\"\n\n     Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do things\n     in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully noting the\n     results. The local surgeon, an old, white-haired man, had just come\n     down from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt's room, and he reported that her\n     injuries were serious, but not necessarily fatal. The bullet had\n     passed through the front of her brain, and it would probably be some\n     time before she could regain consciousness. On the question of\n     whether she had been shot or had shot herself he would not venture to\n     express any decided opinion. Certainly the bullet had been discharged\n     at very close quarters. There was only the one pistol found in the\n     room, two barrels of which had been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had\n     been shot through the heart. It was equally conceivable that he had\n     shot her and then himself, or that she had been the criminal, for the\n     revolver lay upon the floor midway between them.\n\n     \"Has he been moved?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave her lying\n     wounded upon the floor.\"\n\n     \"How long have you been here, doctor?\"\n\n     \"Since four o'clock.\"\n\n     \"Anyone else?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the constable here.\"\n\n     \"And you have touched nothing?\"\n\n     \"Nothing.\"\n\n     \"You have acted with great discretion. Who sent for you?\"\n\n     \"The housemaid, Saunders.\"\n\n     \"Was it she who gave the alarm?\"\n\n     \"She and Mrs. King, the cook.\"\n\n     \"Where are they now?\"\n\n     \"In the kitchen, I believe.\"\n\n     \"Then I think we had better hear their story at once.\"\n\n     The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned into a\n     court of investigation. Holmes sat in a great, old-fashioned chair,\n     his inexorable eyes gleaming out of his haggard face. I could read in\n     them a set purpose to devote his life to this quest until the client\n     whom he had failed to save should at last be avenged. The trim\n     Inspector Martin, the old, grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a\n     stolid village policeman made up the rest of that strange company.\n\n     The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been aroused\n     from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been\n     followed a minute later by a second one. They slept in adjoining\n     rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in to Saunders. Together they had\n     descended the stairs. The door of the study was open and a candle was\n     burning upon the table. Their master lay upon his face in the centre\n     of the room. He was quite dead. Near the window his wife was\n     crouching, her head leaning against the wall. She was horribly\n     wounded, and the side of her face was red with blood. She breathed\n     heavily, but was incapable of saying anything. The passage, as well\n     as the room, was full of smoke and the smell of powder. The window\n     was certainly shut and fastened upon the inside. Both women were\n     positive upon the point. They had at once sent for the doctor and for\n     the constable. Then, with the aid of the groom and the stable-boy,\n     they had conveyed their injured mistress to her room. Both she and\n     her husband had occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress--he in\n     his dressing-gown, over his night clothes. Nothing had been moved in\n     the study. So far as they knew there had never been any quarrel\n     between husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a very\n     united couple.\n\n     These were the main points of the servants' evidence. In answer to\n     Inspector Martin they were clear that every door was fastened upon\n     the inside, and that no one could have escaped from the house. In\n     answer to Holmes they both remembered that they were conscious of the\n     smell of powder from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon\n     the top floor. \"I commend that fact very carefully to your\n     attention,\" said Holmes to his professional colleague. \"And now I\n     think that we are in a position to undertake a thorough examination\n     of the room.\"\n\n     The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with\n     books, and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which\n     looked out upon the garden. Our first attention was given to the body\n     of the unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the\n     room. His disordered dress showed that he had been hastily aroused\n     from sleep. The bullet had been fired at him from the front, and had\n     remained in his body after penetrating the heart. His death had\n     certainly been instantaneous and painless. There was no\n     powder-marking either upon his dressing-gown or on his hands.\n     According to the country surgeon the lady had stains upon her face,\n     but none upon her hand.\n\n     \"The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may\n     mean everything,\" said Holmes. \"Unless the powder from a\n     badly-fitting cartridge happens to spurt backwards, one may fire many\n     shots without leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt's body\n     may now be removed. I suppose, doctor, you have not recovered the\n     bullet which wounded the lady?\"\n\n     \"A serious operation will be necessary before that can be done. But\n     there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have been fired\n     and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for.\"\n\n     \"So it would seem,\" said Holmes. \"Perhaps you can account also for\n     the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window?\"\n\n     He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a\n     hole which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash about\n     an inch above the bottom.\n\n     \"By George!\" cried the inspector. \"How ever did you see that?\"\n\n     \"Because I looked for it.\"\n\n     \"Wonderful!\" said the country doctor. \"You are certainly right, sir.\n     Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must\n     have been present. But who could that have been and how could he have\n     got away?\"\n\n     \"That is the problem which we are now about to solve,\" said Sherlock\n     Holmes. \"You remember, Inspector Martin, when the servants said that\n     on leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of\n     powder I remarked that the point was an extremely important one?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you.\"\n\n     \"It suggested that at the time of the firing the window as well as\n     the door of the room had been open. Otherwise the fumes of powder\n     could not have been blown so rapidly through the house. A draught in\n     the room was necessary for that. Both door and window were only open\n     for a very short time, however.\"\n\n     \"How do you prove that?\"\n\n     \"Because the candle has not guttered.\"\n\n     \"Capital!\" cried the inspector. \"Capital!\"\n\n     \"Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the\n     tragedy I conceived that there might have been a third person in the\n     affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it. Any shot\n     directed at this person might hit the sash. I looked, and there, sure\n     enough, was the bullet mark!\"\n\n     \"But how came the window to be shut and fastened?\"\n\n     \"The woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten the window.\n     But, halloa! what is this?\"\n\n     It was a lady's hand-bag which stood upon the study table--a trim\n     little hand-bag of crocodile-skin and silver. Holmes opened it and\n     turned the contents out. There were twenty fifty-pound notes of the\n     Bank of England, held together by an india-rubber band--nothing else.\n\n     \"This must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial,\" said\n     Holmes, as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector. \"It\n     is now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this\n     third bullet, which has clearly, from the splintering of the wood,\n     been fired from inside the room. I should like to see Mrs. King, the\n     cook, again. You said, Mrs. King, that you were awakened by a loud\n     explosion. When you said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to\n     be louder than the second one?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, and so it is hard to judge.\n     But it did seem very loud.\"\n\n     \"You don't think that it might have been two shots fired almost at\n     the same instant?\"\n\n     \"I am sure I couldn't say, sir.\"\n\n     \"I believe that it was undoubtedly so. I rather think, Inspector\n     Martin, that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach us.\n     If you will kindly step round with me, we shall see what fresh\n     evidence the garden has to offer.\"\n\n     A flower-bed extended up to the study window, and we all broke into\n     an exclamation as we approached it. The flowers were trampled down,\n     and the soft soil was imprinted all over with footmarks. Large,\n     masculine feet they were, with peculiarly long, sharp toes. Holmes\n     hunted about among the grass and leaves like a retriever after a\n     wounded bird. Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and\n     picked up a little brazen cylinder.\n\n     \"I thought so,\" said he; \"the revolver had an ejector, and here is\n     the third cartridge. I really think, Inspector Martin, that our case\n     is almost complete.\"\n\n     The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the\n     rapid and masterful progress of Holmes's investigation. At first he\n     had shown some disposition to assert his own position; but now he was\n     overcome with admiration and ready to follow without question\n     wherever Holmes led.\n\n     \"Whom do you suspect?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I'll go into that later. There are several points in this problem\n     which I have not been able to explain to you yet. Now that I have got\n     so far I had best proceed on my own lines, and then clear the whole\n     matter up once and for all.\"\n\n     \"Just as you wish, Mr. Holmes, so long as we get our man.\"\n\n     \"I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the\n     moment of action to enter into long and complex explanations. I have\n     the threads of this affair all in my hand. Even if this lady should\n     never recover consciousness we can still reconstruct the events of\n     last night and ensure that justice be done. First of all I wish to\n     know whether there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as\n     'Elrige's'?\"\n\n     The servants were cross-questioned, but none of them had heard of\n     such a place. The stable-boy threw a light upon the matter by\n     remembering that a farmer of that name lived some miles off in the\n     direction of East Ruston.\n\n     \"Is it a lonely farm?\"\n\n     \"Very lonely, sir.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during the\n     night?\"\n\n     \"Maybe not, sir.\"\n\n     Holmes thought for a little and then a curious smile played over his\n     face.\n\n     \"Saddle a horse, my lad,\" said he. \"I shall wish you to take a note\n     to Elrige's Farm.\"\n\n     He took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing men. With\n     these in front of him he worked for some time at the study-table.\n     Finally he handed a note to the boy, with directions to put it into\n     the hands of the person to whom it was addressed, and especially to\n     answer no questions of any sort which might be put to him. I saw the\n     outside of the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters,\n     very unlike Holmes's usual precise hand. It was consigned to Mr. Abe\n     Slaney, Elrige's Farm, East Ruston, Norfolk.\n\n     \"I think, inspector,\" Holmes remarked, \"that you would do well to\n     telegraph for an escort, as, if my calculations prove to be correct,\n     you may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey to the\n     county jail. The boy who takes this note could no doubt forward your\n     telegram. If there is an afternoon train to town, Watson, I think we\n     should do well to take it, as I have a chemical analysis of some\n     interest to finish, and this investigation draws rapidly to a close.\"\n\n     When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock Holmes\n     gave his instructions to the servants. If any visitor were to call\n     asking for Mrs. Hilton Cubitt no information should be given as to\n     her condition, but he was to be shown at once into the drawing-room.\n     He impressed these points upon them with the utmost earnestness.\n     Finally he led the way into the drawing-room with the remark that the\n     business was now out of our hands, and that we must while away the\n     time as best we might until we could see what was in store for us.\n     The doctor had departed to his patients, and only the inspector and\n     myself remained.\n\n     \"I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an interesting and\n     profitable manner,\" said Holmes, drawing his chair up to the table\n     and spreading out in front of him the various papers upon which were\n     recorded the antics of the dancing men. \"As to you, friend Watson, I\n     owe you every atonement for having allowed your natural curiosity to\n     remain so long unsatisfied. To you, inspector, the whole incident may\n     appeal as a remarkable professional study. I must tell you first of\n     all the interesting circumstances connected with the previous\n     consultations which Mr. Hilton Cubitt has had with me in Baker\n     Street.\" He then shortly recapitulated the facts which have already\n     been recorded. \"I have here in front of me these singular\n     productions, at which one might smile had they not proved themselves\n     to be the fore-runners of so terrible a tragedy. I am fairly familiar\n     with all forms of secret writings, and am myself the author of a\n     trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyze one hundred\n     and sixty separate ciphers; but I confess that this is entirely new\n     to me. The object of those who invented the system has apparently\n     been to conceal that these characters convey a message, and to give\n     the idea that they are the mere random sketches of children.\n\n     \"Having once recognised, however, that the symbols stood for letters,\n     and having applied the rules which guide us in all forms of secret\n     writings, the solution was easy enough. The first message submitted\n     to me was so short that it was impossible for me to do more than to\n     say with some confidence that the symbol\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of a single dancing man ]\n\n     stood for E. As you are aware, E is the most common letter in the\n     English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that\n     even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often. Out\n     of fifteen symbols in the first message four were the same, so it was\n     reasonable to set this down as E. It is true that in some cases the\n     figure was bearing a flag and in some cases not, but it was probable\n     from the way in which the flags were distributed that they were used\n     to break the sentence up into words. I accepted this as a hypothesis,\n     and noted that E was represented by\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of a single dancing man ]\n\n     \"But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The order of the\n     English letters after E is by no means well marked, and any\n     preponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet may\n     be reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I,\n     N, S, H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur;\n     but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it\n     would be an endless task to try each combination until a meaning was\n     arrived at. I, therefore, waited for fresh material. In my second\n     interview with Mr. Hilton Cubitt he was able to give me two other\n     short sentences and one message, which appeared--since there was no\n     flag--to be a single word. Here are the symbols. Now, in the single\n     word I have already got the two E's coming second and fourth in a\n     word of five letters. It might be 'sever,' or 'lever,' or 'never.'\n     There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is\n     far the most probable, and the circumstances pointed to its being a\n     reply written by the lady. Accepting it as correct, we are now able\n     to say that the symbols\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of three dancing men ]\n\n     stand respectively for N, V, and R.\n\n     \"Even now I was in considerable difficulty, but a happy thought put\n     me in possession of several other letters. It occurred to me that if\n     these appeals came, as I expected, from someone who had been intimate\n     with the lady in her early life, a combination which contained two\n     E's with three letters between might very well stand for the name\n     'ELSIE.' On examination I found that such a combination formed the\n     termination of the message which was three times repeated. It was\n     certainly some appeal to 'Elsie.' In this way I had got my L, S, and\n     I. But what appeal could it be? There were only four letters in the\n     word which preceded 'Elsie,' and it ended in E. Surely the word must\n     be 'COME.' I tried all other four letters ending in E, but could find\n     none to fit the case. So now I was in possession of C, O, and M, and\n     I was in a position to attack the first message once more, dividing\n     it into words and putting dots for each symbol which was still\n     unknown. So treated it worked out in this fashion:\n\n                              .M  .ERE  ..E  SL.NE.\n\n     \"Now the first letter can only be A, which is a most useful\n     discovery, since it occurs no fewer than three times in this short\n     sentence, and the H is also apparent in the second word. Now it\n     becomes:--\n\n                              AM  HERE  A.E  SLANE.\n\n     Or, filling in the obvious vacancies in the name:--\n\n                             AM  HERE  ABE  SLANEY.\n\n     I had so many letters now that I could proceed with considerable\n     confidence to the second message, which worked out in this fashion:--\n\n                                   A. ELRI.ES.\n\n     Here I could only make sense by putting T and G for the missing\n     letters, and supposing that the name was that of some house or inn at\n     which the writer was staying.\"\n\n     Inspector Martin and I had listened with the utmost interest to the\n     full and clear account of how my friend had produced results which\n     had led to so complete a command over our difficulties.\n\n     \"What did you do then, sir?\" asked the inspector.\n\n     \"I had every reason to suppose that this Abe Slaney was an American,\n     since Abe is an American contraction, and since a letter from America\n     had been the starting-point of all the trouble. I had also every\n     cause to think that there was some criminal secret in the matter. The\n     lady's allusions to her past and her refusal to take her husband into\n     her confidence both pointed in that direction. I therefore cabled to\n     my friend, Wilson Hargreave, of the New York Police Bureau, who has\n     more than once made use of my knowledge of London crime. I asked him\n     whether the name of Abe Slaney was known to him. Here is his reply:\n     'The most dangerous crook in Chicago.' On the very evening upon which\n     I had his answer Hilton Cubitt sent me the last message from Slaney.\n     Working with known letters it took this form:--\n\n                       ELSIE  .RE.ARE  TO  MEET  THY  GO.\n\n     The addition of a P and a D completed a message which showed me that\n     the rascal was proceeding from persuasion to threats, and my\n     knowledge of the crooks of Chicago prepared me to find that he might\n     very rapidly put his words into action. I at once came to Norfolk\n     with my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, but, unhappily, only in\n     time to find that the worst had already occurred.\"\n\n     \"It is a privilege to be associated with you in the handling of a\n     case,\" said the inspector, warmly. \"You will excuse me, however, if I\n     speak frankly to you. You are only answerable to yourself, but I have\n     to answer to my superiors. If this Abe Slaney, living at Elrige's, is\n     indeed the murderer, and if he has made his escape while I am seated\n     here, I should certainly get into serious trouble.\"\n\n     \"You need not be uneasy. He will not try to escape.\"\n\n     \"How do you know?\"\n\n     \"To fly would be a confession of guilt.\"\n\n     \"Then let us go to arrest him.\"\n\n     \"I expect him here every instant.\"\n\n     \"But why should he come?\"\n\n     \"Because I have written and asked him.\"\n\n     \"But this is incredible, Mr. Holmes! Why should he come because you\n     have asked him? Would not such a request rather rouse his suspicions\n     and cause him to fly?\"\n\n     \"I think I have known how to frame the letter,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n     \"In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, here is the gentleman\n     himself coming up the drive.\"\n\n     A man was striding up the path which led to the door. He was a tall,\n     handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel, with a\n     Panama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked\n     nose, and flourishing a cane as he walked. He swaggered up the path\n     as if the place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident\n     peal at the bell.\n\n     \"I think, gentlemen,\" said Holmes, quietly, \"that we had best take up\n     our position behind the door. Every precaution is necessary when\n     dealing with such a fellow. You will need your handcuffs, inspector.\n     You can leave the talking to me.\"\n\n     We waited in silence for a minute--one of those minutes which one can\n     never forget. Then the door opened and the man stepped in. In an\n     instant Holmes clapped a pistol to his head and Martin slipped the\n     handcuffs over his wrists. It was all done so swiftly and deftly that\n     the fellow was helpless before he knew that he was attacked. He\n     glared from one to the other of us with a pair of blazing black eyes.\n     Then he burst into a bitter laugh.\n\n     \"Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I seem to have\n     knocked up against something hard. But I came here in answer to a\n     letter from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt. Don't tell me that she is in this?\n     Don't tell me that she helped to set a trap for me?\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured and is at death's door.\"\n\n     The man gave a hoarse cry of grief which rang through the house.\n\n     \"You're crazy!\" he cried, fiercely. \"It was he that was hurt, not\n     she. Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may have threatened her, God\n     forgive me, but I would not have touched a hair of her pretty head.\n     Take it back--you! Say that she is not hurt!\"\n\n     \"She was found badly wounded by the side of her dead husband.\"\n\n     He sank with a deep groan on to the settee and buried his face in his\n     manacled hands. For five minutes he was silent. Then he raised his\n     face once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.\n\n     \"I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen,\" said he. \"If I shot the\n     man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that. But if you\n     think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or\n     her. I tell you there was never a man in this world loved a woman\n     more than I loved her. I had a right to her. She was pledged to me\n     years ago. Who was this Englishman that he should come between us? I\n     tell you that I had the first right to her, and that I was only\n     claiming my own.\"\n\n     \"She broke away from your influence when she found the man that you\n     are,\" said Holmes, sternly. \"She fled from America to avoid you, and\n     she married an honourable gentleman in England. You dogged her and\n     followed her and made her life a misery to her in order to induce her\n     to abandon the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly\n     with you, whom she feared and hated. You have ended by bringing about\n     the death of a noble man and driving his wife to suicide. That is\n     your record in this business, Mr. Abe Slaney, and you will answer for\n     it to the law.\"\n\n     \"If Elsie dies I care nothing what becomes of me,\" said the American.\n     He opened one of his hands and looked at a note crumpled up in his\n     palm. \"See here, mister,\" he cried, with a gleam of suspicion in his\n     eyes, \"you're not trying to scare me over this, are you? If the lady\n     is hurt as bad as you say, who was it that wrote this note?\" He\n     tossed it forwards on to the table.\n\n     \"I wrote it to bring you here.\"\n\n     \"You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint who knew\n     the secret of the dancing men. How came you to write it?\"\n\n     \"What one man can invent another can discover,\" said Holmes. \"There\n     is a cab coming to convey you to Norwich, Mr. Slaney. But, meanwhile,\n     you have time to make some small reparation for the injury you have\n     wrought. Are you aware that Mrs. Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under\n     grave suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was only my\n     presence here and the knowledge which I happened to possess which has\n     saved her from the accusation? The least that you owe her is to make\n     it clear to the whole world that she was in no way, directly or\n     indirectly, responsible for his tragic end.\"\n\n     \"I ask nothing better,\" said the American. \"I guess the very best\n     case I can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.\"\n\n     \"It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,\" cried\n     the inspector, with the magnificent fair-play of the British criminal\n     law.\n\n     Slaney shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"I'll chance that,\" said he. \"First of all, I want you gentlemen to\n     understand that I have known this lady since she was a child. There\n     were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie's father was the\n     boss of the Joint. He was a clever man, was old Patrick. It was he\n     who invented that writing, which would pass as a child's scrawl\n     unless you just happened to have the key to it. Well, Elsie learned\n     some of our ways; but she couldn't stand the business, and she had a\n     bit of honest money of her own, so she gave us all the slip and got\n     away to London. She had been engaged to me, and she would have\n     married me, I believe, if I had taken over another profession; but\n     she would have nothing to do with anything on the cross. It was only\n     after her marriage to this Englishman that I was able to find out\n     where she was. I wrote to her, but got no answer. After that I came\n     over, and, as letters were no use, I put my messages where she could\n     read them.\n\n     \"Well, I have been here a month now. I lived in that farm, where I\n     had a room down below, and could get in and out every night, and no\n     one the wiser. I tried all I could to coax Elsie away. I knew that\n     she read the messages, for once she wrote an answer under one of\n     them. Then my temper got the better of me, and I began to threaten\n     her. She sent me a letter then, imploring me to go away and saying\n     that it would break her heart if any scandal should come upon her\n     husband. She said that she would come down when her husband was\n     asleep at three in the morning, and speak with me through the end\n     window, if I would go away afterwards and leave her in peace. She\n     came down and brought money with her, trying to bribe me to go. This\n     made me mad, and I caught her arm and tried to pull her through the\n     window. At that moment in rushed the husband with his revolver in his\n     hand. Elsie had sunk down upon the floor, and we were face to face. I\n     was heeled also, and I held up my gun to scare him off and let me get\n     away. He fired and missed me. I pulled off almost at the same\n     instant, and down he dropped. I made away across the garden, and as I\n     went I heard the window shut behind me. That's God's truth,\n     gentlemen, every word of it, and I heard no more about it until that\n     lad came riding up with a note which made me walk in here, like a\n     jay, and give myself into your hands.\"\n\n     A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking. Two\n     uniformed policemen sat inside. Inspector Martin rose and touched his\n     prisoner on the shoulder.\n\n     \"It is time for us to go.\"\n\n     \"Can I see her first?\"\n\n     \"No, she is not conscious. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I only hope that if\n     ever again I have an important case I shall have the good fortune to\n     have you by my side.\"\n\n     We stood at the window and watched the cab drive away. As I turned\n     back my eye caught the pellet of paper which the prisoner had tossed\n     upon the table. It was the note with which Holmes had decoyed him.\n\n     \"See if you can read it, Watson,\" said he, with a smile.\n\n     It contained no word, but this little line of dancing men:--\n\n     [ Picture: Picture of various dancing men ]\n\n     \"If you use the code which I have explained,\" said Holmes, \"you will\n     find that it simply means 'Come here at once.' I was convinced that\n     it was an invitation which he would not refuse, since he could never\n     imagine that it could come from anyone but the lady. And so, my dear\n     Watson, we have ended by turning the dancing men to good when they\n     have so often been the agents of evil, and I think that I have\n     fulfilled my promise of giving you something unusual for your\n     note-book. Three-forty is our train, and I fancy we should be back in\n     Baker Street for dinner.\"\n\n     Only one word of epilogue. The American, Abe Slaney, was condemned to\n     death at the winter assizes at Norwich; but his penalty was changed\n     to penal servitude in consideration of mitigating circumstances, and\n     the certainty that Hilton Cubitt had fired the first shot. Of Mrs.\n     Hilton Cubitt I only know that I have heard she recovered entirely,\n     and that she still remains a widow, devoting her whole life to the\n     care of the poor and to the administration of her husband's estate.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST\n\n     From the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very\n     busy man. It is safe to say that there was no public case of any\n     difficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years,\n     and there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most\n     intricate and extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent\n     part. Many startling successes and a few unavoidable failures were\n     the outcome of this long period of continuous work. As I have\n     preserved very full notes of all these cases, and was myself\n     personally engaged in many of them, it may be imagined that it is no\n     easy task to know which I should select to lay before the public. I\n     shall, however, preserve my former rule, and give the preference to\n     those cases which derive their interest not so much from the\n     brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of\n     the solution. For this reason I will now lay before the reader the\n     facts connected with Miss Violet Smith, the solitary cyclist of\n     Charlington, and the curious sequel of our investigation, which\n     culminated in unexpected tragedy. It is true that the circumstances\n     did not admit of any striking illustration of those powers for which\n     my friend was famous, but there were some points about the case which\n     made it stand out in those long records of crime from which I gather\n     the material for these little narratives.\n\n     On referring to my note-book for the year 1895 I find that it was\n     upon Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet\n     Smith. Her visit was, I remember, extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for\n     he was immersed at the moment in a very abstruse and complicated\n     problem concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent\n     Harden, the well-known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected. My\n     friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of\n     thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the\n     matter in hand. And yet without a harshness which was foreign to his\n     nature it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the\n     young and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented\n     herself at Baker Street late in the evening and implored his\n     assistance and advice. It was vain to urge that his time was already\n     fully occupied, for the young lady had come with the determination to\n     tell her story, and it was evident that nothing short of force could\n     get her out of the room until she had done so. With a resigned air\n     and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful intruder to\n     take a seat and to inform us what it was that was troubling her.\n\n     \"At least it cannot be your health,\" said he, as his keen eyes darted\n     over her; \"so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy.\"\n\n     She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the\n     slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of\n     the edge of the pedal.\n\n     \"Yes, I bicycle a good deal, Mr. Holmes, and that has something to do\n     with my visit to you to-day.\"\n\n     My friend took the lady's ungloved hand and examined it with as close\n     an attention and as little sentiment as a scientist would show to a\n     specimen.\n\n     \"You will excuse me, I am sure. It is my business,\" said he, as he\n     dropped it. \"I nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were\n     typewriting. Of course, it is obvious that it is music. You observe\n     the spatulate finger-end, Watson, which is common to both\n     professions? There is a spirituality about the face, however\"--he\n     gently turned it towards the light--\"which the typewriter does not\n     generate. This lady is a musician.\"\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes, I teach music.\"\n\n     \"In the country, I presume, from your complexion.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey.\"\n\n     \"A beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting\n     associations. You remember, Watson, that it was near there that we\n     took Archie Stamford, the forger. Now, Miss Violet, what has happened\n     to you near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey?\"\n\n     The young lady, with great clearness and composure, made the\n     following curious statement:--\n\n     \"My father is dead, Mr. Holmes. He was James Smith, who conducted the\n     orchestra at the old Imperial Theatre. My mother and I were left\n     without a relation in the world except one uncle, Ralph Smith, who\n     went to Africa twenty-five years ago, and we have never had a word\n     from him since. When father died we were left very poor, but one day\n     we were told that there was an advertisement in the Times inquiring\n     for our whereabouts. You can imagine how excited we were, for we\n     thought that someone had left us a fortune. We went at once to the\n     lawyer whose name was given in the paper. There we met two gentlemen,\n     Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Woodley, who were home on a visit from South\n     Africa. They said that my uncle was a friend of theirs, that he died\n     some months before in great poverty in Johannesburg, and that he had\n     asked them with his last breath to hunt up his relations and see that\n     they were in no want. It seemed strange to us that Uncle Ralph, who\n     took no notice of us when he was alive, should be so careful to look\n     after us when he was dead; but Mr. Carruthers explained that the\n     reason was that my uncle had just heard of the death of his brother,\n     and so felt responsible for our fate.\"\n\n     \"Excuse me,\" said Holmes; \"when was this interview?\"\n\n     \"Last December--four months ago.\"\n\n     \"Pray proceed.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Woodley seemed to me to be a most odious person. He was for ever\n     making eyes at me--a coarse, puffy-faced, red-moustached young man,\n     with his hair plastered down on each side of his forehead. I thought\n     that he was perfectly hateful--and I was sure that Cyril would not\n     wish me to know such a person.\"\n\n     \"Oh, Cyril is his name!\" said Holmes, smiling.\n\n     The young lady blushed and laughed.\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes; Cyril Morton, an electrical engineer, and we hope\n     to be married at the end of the summer. Dear me, how did I get\n     talking about him? What I wished to say was that Mr. Woodley was\n     perfectly odious, but that Mr. Carruthers, who was a much older man,\n     was more agreeable. He was a dark, sallow, clean-shaven, silent\n     person; but he had polite manners and a pleasant smile. He inquired\n     how we were left, and on finding that we were very poor he suggested\n     that I should come and teach music to his only daughter, aged ten. I\n     said that I did not like to leave my mother, on which he suggested\n     that I should go home to her every week-end, and he offered me a\n     hundred a year, which was certainly splendid pay. So it ended by my\n     accepting, and I went down to Chiltern Grange, about six miles from\n     Farnham. Mr. Carruthers was a widower, but he had engaged a\n     lady-housekeeper, a very respectable, elderly person, called Mrs.\n     Dixon, to look after his establishment. The child was a dear, and\n     everything promised well. Mr. Carruthers was very kind and very\n     musical, and we had most pleasant evenings together. Every week-end I\n     went home to my mother in town.\n\n     \"The first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the red-moustached\n     Mr. Woodley. He came for a visit of a week, and oh, it seemed three\n     months to me! He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but\n     to me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted\n     of his wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest\n     diamonds in London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with\n     him, he seized me in his arms one day after dinner--he was hideously\n     strong--and he swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed\n     him. Mr. Carruthers came in and tore him off from me, on which he\n     turned upon his own host, knocking him down and cutting his face\n     open. That was the end of his visit, as you can imagine. Mr.\n     Carruthers apologized to me next day, and assured me that I should\n     never be exposed to such an insult again. I have not seen Mr. Woodley\n     since.\n\n     \"And now, Mr. Holmes, I come at last to the special thing which has\n     caused me to ask your advice to-day. You must know that every\n     Saturday forenoon I ride on my bicycle to Farnham Station in order to\n     get the 12.22 to town. The road from Chiltern Grange is a lonely one,\n     and at one spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile\n     between Charlington Heath upon one side and the woods which lie round\n     Charlington Hall upon the other. You could not find a more lonely\n     tract of road anywhere, and it is quite rare to meet so much as a\n     cart, or a peasant, until you reach the high road near Crooksbury\n     Hill. Two weeks ago I was passing this place when I chanced to look\n     back over my shoulder, and about two hundred yards behind me I saw a\n     man, also on a bicycle. He seemed to be a middle-aged man, with a\n     short, dark beard. I looked back before I reached Farnham, but the\n     man was gone, so I thought no more about it. But you can imagine how\n     surprised I was, Mr. Holmes, when on my return on the Monday I saw\n     the same man on the same stretch of road. My astonishment was\n     increased when the incident occurred again, exactly as before, on the\n     following Saturday and Monday. He always kept his distance and did\n     not molest me in any way, but still it certainly was very odd. I\n     mentioned it to Mr. Carruthers, who seemed interested in what I said,\n     and told me that he had ordered a horse and trap, so that in future I\n     should not pass over these lonely roads without some companion.\n\n     \"The horse and trap were to have come this week, but for some reason\n     they were not delivered, and again I had to cycle to the station.\n     That was this morning. You can think that I looked out when I came to\n     Charlington Heath, and there, sure enough, was the man, exactly as he\n     had been the two weeks before. He always kept so far from me that I\n     could not clearly see his face, but it was certainly someone whom I\n     did not know. He was dressed in a dark suit with a cloth cap. The\n     only thing about his face that I could clearly see was his dark\n     beard. To-day I was not alarmed, but I was filled with curiosity, and\n     I determined to find out who he was and what he wanted. I slowed down\n     my machine, but he slowed down his. Then I stopped altogether, but he\n     stopped also. Then I laid a trap for him. There is a sharp turning of\n     the road, and I pedalled very quickly round this, and then I stopped\n     and waited. I expected him to shoot round and pass me before he could\n     stop. But he never appeared. Then I went back and looked round the\n     corner. I could see a mile of road, but he was not on it. To make it\n     the more extraordinary, there was no side road at this point down\n     which he could have gone.\"\n\n     Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. \"This case certainly presents\n     some features of its own,\" said he. \"How much time elapsed between\n     your turning the corner and your discovery that the road was clear?\"\n\n     \"Two or three minutes.\"\n\n     \"Then he could not have retreated down the road, and you say that\n     there are no side roads?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Then he certainly took a footpath on one side or the other.\"\n\n     \"It could not have been on the side of the heath or I should have\n     seen him.\"\n\n     \"So by the process of exclusion we arrive at the fact that he made\n     his way towards Charlington Hall, which, as I understand, is situated\n     in its own grounds on one side of the road. Anything else?\"\n\n     \"Nothing, Mr. Holmes, save that I was so perplexed that I felt I\n     should not be happy until I had seen you and had your advice.\"\n\n     Holmes sat in silence for some little time.\n\n     \"Where is the gentleman to whom you are engaged?\" he asked, at last.\n\n     \"He is in the Midland Electrical Company, at Coventry.\"\n\n     \"He would not pay you a surprise visit?\"\n\n     \"Oh, Mr. Holmes! As if I should not know him!\"\n\n     \"Have you had any other admirers?\"\n\n     \"Several before I knew Cyril.\"\n\n     \"And since?\"\n\n     \"There was this dreadful man, Woodley, if you can call him an\n     admirer.\"\n\n     \"No one else?\"\n\n     Our fair client seemed a little confused.\n\n     \"Who was he?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Oh, it may be a mere fancy of mine; but it has seemed to me\n     sometimes that my employer, Mr. Carruthers, takes a great deal of\n     interest in me. We are thrown rather together. I play his\n     accompaniments in the evening. He has never said anything. He is a\n     perfect gentleman. But a girl always knows.\"\n\n     \"Ha!\" Holmes looked grave. \"What does he do for a living?\"\n\n     \"He is a rich man.\"\n\n     \"No carriages or horses?\"\n\n     \"Well, at least he is fairly well-to-do. But he goes into the City\n     two or three times a week. He is deeply interested in South African\n     gold shares.\"\n\n     \"You will let me know any fresh development, Miss Smith. I am very\n     busy just now, but I will find time to make some inquiries into your\n     case. In the meantime take no step without letting me know. Good-bye,\n     and I trust that we shall have nothing but good news from you.\"\n\n     \"It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl should\n     have followers,\" said Holmes, as he pulled at his meditative pipe,\n     \"but for choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads. Some\n     secretive lover, beyond all doubt. But there are curious and\n     suggestive details about the case, Watson.\"\n\n     \"That he should appear only at that point?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Our first effort must be to find who are the tenants of\n     Charlington Hall. Then, again, how about the connection between\n     Carruthers and Woodley, since they appear to be men of such a\n     different type? How came they both to be so keen upon looking up\n     Ralph Smith's relations? One more point. What sort of a menage is it\n     which pays double the market price for a governess, but does not keep\n     a horse although six miles from the station? Odd, Watson--very odd!\"\n\n     \"You will go down?\"\n\n     \"No, my dear fellow, you will go down. This may be some trifling\n     intrigue, and I cannot break my other important research for the sake\n     of it. On Monday you will arrive early at Farnham; you will conceal\n     yourself near Charlington Heath; you will observe these facts for\n     yourself, and act as your own judgment advises. Then, having inquired\n     as to the occupants of the Hall, you will come back to me and report.\n     And now, Watson, not another word of the matter until we have a few\n     solid stepping-stones on which we may hope to get across to our\n     solution.\"\n\n     We had ascertained from the lady that she went down upon the Monday\n     by the train which leaves Waterloo at 9.50, so I started early and\n     caught the 9.13. At Farnham Station I had no difficulty in being\n     directed to Charlington Heath. It was impossible to mistake the scene\n     of the young lady's adventure, for the road runs between the open\n     heath on one side and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a\n     park which is studded with magnificent trees. There was a main\n     gateway of lichen-studded stone, each side pillar surmounted by\n     mouldering heraldic emblems; but besides this central carriage drive\n     I observed several points where there were gaps in the hedge and\n     paths leading through them. The house was invisible from the road,\n     but the surroundings all spoke of gloom and decay.\n\n     The heath was covered with golden patches of flowering gorse,\n     gleaming magnificently in the light of the bright spring sunshine.\n     Behind one of these clumps I took up my position, so as to command\n     both the gateway of the Hall and a long stretch of the road upon\n     either side. It had been deserted when I left it, but now I saw a\n     cyclist riding down it from the opposite direction to that in which I\n     had come. He was clad in a dark suit, and I saw that he had a black\n     beard. On reaching the end of the Charlington grounds he sprang from\n     his machine and led it through a gap in the hedge, disappearing from\n     my view.\n\n     A quarter of an hour passed and then a second cyclist appeared. This\n     time it was the young lady coming from the station. I saw her look\n     about her as she came to the Charlington hedge. An instant later the\n     man emerged from his hiding-place, sprang upon his cycle, and\n     followed her. In all the broad landscape those were the only moving\n     figures, the graceful girl sitting very straight upon her machine,\n     and the man behind her bending low over his handle-bar, with a\n     curiously furtive suggestion in every movement. She looked back at\n     him and slowed her pace. He slowed also. She stopped. He at once\n     stopped too, keeping two hundred yards behind her. Her next movement\n     was as unexpected as it was spirited. She suddenly whisked her wheels\n     round and dashed straight at him! He was as quick as she, however,\n     and darted off in desperate flight. Presently she came back up the\n     road again, her head haughtily in the air, not deigning to take any\n     further notice of her silent attendant. He had turned also, and still\n     kept his distance until the curve of the road hid them from my sight.\n\n     I remained in my hiding-place, and it was well that I did so, for\n     presently the man reappeared cycling slowly back. He turned in at the\n     Hall gates and dismounted from his machine. For some few minutes I\n     could see him standing among the trees. His hands were raised and he\n     seemed to be settling his necktie. Then he mounted his cycle and rode\n     away from me down the drive towards the Hall. I ran across the heath\n     and peered through the trees. Far away I could catch glimpses of the\n     old grey building with its bristling Tudor chimneys, but the drive\n     ran through a dense shrubbery, and I saw no more of my man.\n\n     However, it seemed to me that I had done a fairly good morning's\n     work, and I walked back in high spirits to Farnham. The local\n     house-agent could tell me nothing about Charlington Hall, and\n     referred me to a well-known firm in Pall Mall. There I halted on my\n     way home, and met with courtesy from the representative. No, I could\n     not have Charlington Hall for the summer. I was just too late. It had\n     been let about a month ago. Mr. Williamson was the name of the\n     tenant. He was a respectable elderly gentleman. The polite agent was\n     afraid he could say no more, as the affairs of his clients were not\n     matters which he could discuss.\n\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes listened with attention to the long report which\n     I was able to present to him that evening, but it did not elicit that\n     word of curt praise which I had hoped for and should have valued. On\n     the contrary, his austere face was even more severe than usual as he\n     commented upon the things that I had done and the things that I had\n     not.\n\n     \"Your hiding-place, my dear Watson, was very faulty. You should have\n     been behind the hedge; then you would have had a close view of this\n     interesting person. As it is you were some hundreds of yards away,\n     and can tell me even less than Miss Smith. She thinks she does not\n     know the man; I am convinced she does. Why, otherwise, should he be\n     so desperately anxious that she should not get so near him as to see\n     his features? You describe him as bending over the handle-bar.\n     Concealment again, you see. You really have done remarkably badly. He\n     returns to the house and you want to find out who he is. You come to\n     a London house-agent!\"\n\n     \"What should I have done?\" I cried, with some heat.\n\n     \"Gone to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country\n     gossip. They would have told you every name, from the master to the\n     scullery-maid. Williamson! It conveys nothing to my mind. If he is an\n     elderly man he is not this active cyclist who sprints away from that\n     athletic young lady's pursuit. What have we gained by your\n     expedition? The knowledge that the girl's story is true. I never\n     doubted it. That there is a connection between the cyclist and the\n     Hall. I never doubted that either. That the Hall is tenanted by\n     Williamson. Who's the better for that? Well, well, my dear sir, don't\n     look so depressed. We can do little more until next Saturday, and in\n     the meantime I may make one or two inquiries myself.\"\n\n     Next morning we had a note from Miss Smith, recounting shortly and\n     accurately the very incidents which I had seen, but the pith of the\n     letter lay in the postscript:\n\n     \"I am sure that you will respect my confidence, Mr. Holmes, when I\n     tell you that my place here has become difficult owing to the fact\n     that my employer has proposed marriage to me. I am convinced that his\n     feelings are most deep and most honourable. At the same time my\n     promise is, of course, given. He took my refusal very seriously, but\n     also very gently. You can understand, however, that the situation is\n     a little strained.\"\n\n     \"Our young friend seems to be getting into deep waters,\" said Holmes,\n     thoughtfully, as he finished the letter. \"The case certainly presents\n     more features of interest and more possibility of development than I\n     had originally thought. I should be none the worse for a quiet,\n     peaceful day in the country, and I am inclined to run down this\n     afternoon and test one or two theories which I have formed.\"\n\n     Holmes's quiet day in the country had a singular termination, for he\n     arrived at Baker Street late in the evening with a cut lip and a\n     discoloured lump upon his forehead, besides a general air of\n     dissipation which would have made his own person the fitting object\n     of a Scotland Yard investigation. He was immensely tickled by his own\n     adventures, and laughed heartily as he recounted them.\n\n     \"I get so little active exercise that it is always a treat,\" said he.\n     \"You are aware that I have some proficiency in the good old British\n     sport of boxing. Occasionally it is of service. To-day, for example,\n     I should have come to very ignominious grief without it.\"\n\n     I begged him to tell me what had occurred.\n\n     \"I found that country pub which I had already recommended to your\n     notice, and there I made my discreet inquiries. I was in the bar, and\n     a garrulous landlord was giving me all that I wanted. Williamson is a\n     white-bearded man, and he lives alone with a small staff of servants\n     at the Hall. There is some rumour that he is or has been a clergyman;\n     but one or two incidents of his short residence at the Hall struck me\n     as peculiarly unecclesiastical. I have already made some inquiries at\n     a clerical agency, and they tell me that there was a man of that name\n     in orders whose career has been a singularly dark one. The landlord\n     further informed me that there are usually week-end visitors--'a warm\n     lot, sir'--at the Hall, and especially one gentleman with a red\n     moustache, Mr. Woodley by name, who was always there. We had got as\n     far as this when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who\n     had been drinking his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole\n     conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking\n     questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were\n     very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious back-hander\n     which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were\n     delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I\n     emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my\n     country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my\n     day on the Surrey border has not been much more profitable than your\n     own.\"\n\n     The Thursday brought us another letter from our client.\n\n     You will not be surprised, Mr. Holmes [said she] to hear that I am\n     leaving Mr. Carruthers's employment. Even the high pay cannot\n     reconcile me to the discomforts of my situation. On Saturday I come\n     up to town and I do not intend to return. Mr. Carruthers has got a\n     trap, and so the dangers of the lonely road, if there ever were any\n     dangers, are now over.\n     As to the special cause of my leaving, it is not merely the strained\n     situation with Mr. Carruthers, but it is the reappearance of that\n     odious man, Mr. Woodley. He was always hideous, but he looks more\n     awful than ever now, for he appears to have had an accident and he is\n     much disfigured. I saw him out of the window, but I am glad to say I\n     did not meet him. He had a long talk with Mr. Carruthers, who seemed\n     much excited afterwards. Woodley must be staying in the\n     neighbourhood, for he did not sleep here, and yet I caught a glimpse\n     of him again this morning slinking about in the shrubbery. I would\n     sooner have a savage wild animal loose about the place. I loathe and\n     fear him more than I can say. How can Mr. Carruthers endure such a\n     creature for a moment? However, all my troubles will be over on\n     Saturday.\n\n     \"So I trust, Watson; so I trust,\" said Holmes, gravely. \"There is\n     some deep intrigue going on round that little woman, and it is our\n     duty to see that no one molests her upon that last journey. I think,\n     Watson, that we must spare time to run down together on Saturday\n     morning, and make sure that this curious and inconclusive\n     investigation has no untoward ending.\"\n\n     I confess that I had not up to now taken a very serious view of the\n     case, which had seemed to me rather grotesque and bizarre than\n     dangerous. That a man should lie in wait for and follow a very\n     handsome woman is no unheard-of thing, and if he had so little\n     audacity that he not only dared not address her, but even fled from\n     her approach, he was not a very formidable assailant. The ruffian\n     Woodley was a very different person, but, except on one occasion, he\n     had not molested our client, and now he visited the house of\n     Carruthers without intruding upon her presence. The man on the\n     bicycle was doubtless a member of those week-end parties at the Hall\n     of which the publican had spoken; but who he was or what he wanted\n     was as obscure as ever. It was the severity of Holmes's manner and\n     the fact that he slipped a revolver into his pocket before leaving\n     our rooms which impressed me with the feeling that tragedy might\n     prove to lurk behind this curious train of events.\n\n     A rainy night had been followed by a glorious morning, and the\n     heath-covered country-side with the glowing clumps of flowering gorse\n     seemed all the more beautiful to eyes which were weary of the duns\n     and drabs and slate-greys of London. Holmes and I walked along the\n     broad, sandy road inhaling the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in\n     the music of the birds and the fresh breath of the spring. From a\n     rise of the road on the shoulder of Crooksbury Hill we could see the\n     grim Hall bristling out from amidst the ancient oaks, which, old as\n     they were, were still younger than the building which they\n     surrounded. Holmes pointed down the long tract of road which wound, a\n     reddish yellow band, between the brown of the heath and the budding\n     green of the woods. Far away, a black dot, we could see a vehicle\n     moving in our direction. Holmes gave an exclamation of impatience.\n\n     \"I had given a margin of half an hour,\" said he. \"If that is her trap\n     she must be making for the earlier train. I fear, Watson, that she\n     will be past Charlington before we can possibly meet her.\"\n\n     From the instant that we passed the rise we could no longer see the\n     vehicle, but we hastened onwards at such a pace that my sedentary\n     life began to tell upon me, and I was compelled to fall behind.\n     Holmes, however, was always in training, for he had inexhaustible\n     stores of nervous energy upon which to draw. His springy step never\n     slowed until suddenly, when he was a hundred yards in front of me, he\n     halted, and I saw him throw up his hand with a gesture of grief and\n     despair. At the same instant an empty dog-cart, the horse cantering,\n     the reins trailing, appeared round the curve of the road and rattled\n     swiftly towards us.\n\n     \"Too late, Watson; too late!\" cried Holmes, as I ran panting to his\n     side. \"Fool that I was not to allow for that earlier train! It's\n     abduction, Watson--abduction! Murder! Heaven knows what! Block the\n     road! Stop the horse! That's right. Now, jump in, and let us see if I\n     can repair the consequences of my own blunder.\"\n\n     We had sprung into the dog-cart, and Holmes, after turning the horse,\n     gave it a sharp cut with the whip, and we flew back along the road.\n     As we turned the curve the whole stretch of road between the Hall and\n     the heath was opened up. I grasped Holmes's arm.\n\n     \"That's the man!\" I gasped.\n\n     A solitary cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his\n     shoulders rounded as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed\n     on to the pedals. He was flying like a racer. Suddenly he raised his\n     bearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his\n     machine. That coal-black beard was in singular contrast to the pallor\n     of his face, and his eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. He\n     stared at us and at the dog-cart. Then a look of amazement came over\n     his face.\n\n     \"Halloa! Stop there!\" he shouted, holding his bicycle to block our\n     road. \"Where did you get that dog-cart? Pull up, man!\" he yelled,\n     drawing a pistol from his side pocket. \"Pull up, I say, or, by\n     George, I'll put a bullet into your horse.\"\n\n     Holmes threw the reins into my lap and sprang down from the cart.\n\n     \"You're the man we want to see. Where is Miss Violet Smith?\" he said,\n     in his quick, clear way.\n\n     \"That's what I am asking you. You're in her dog-cart. You ought to\n     know where she is.\"\n\n     \"We met the dog-cart on the road. There was no one in it. We drove\n     back to help the young lady.\"\n\n     \"Good Lord! Good Lord! what shall I do?\" cried the stranger, in an\n     ecstasy of despair. \"They've got her, that hellhound Woodley and the\n     blackguard parson. Come, man, come, if you really are her friend.\n     Stand by me and we'll save her, if I have to leave my carcass in\n     Charlington Wood.\"\n\n     He ran distractedly, his pistol in his hand, towards a gap in the\n     hedge. Holmes followed him, and I, leaving the horse grazing beside\n     the road, followed Holmes.\n\n     \"This is where they came through,\" said he, pointing to the marks of\n     several feet upon the muddy path. \"Halloa! Stop a minute! Who's this\n     in the bush?\"\n\n     It was a young fellow about seventeen, dressed like an ostler, with\n     leather cords and gaiters. He lay upon his back, his knees drawn up,\n     a terrible cut upon his head. He was insensible, but alive. A glance\n     at his wound told me that it had not penetrated the bone.\n\n     \"That's Peter, the groom,\" cried the stranger. \"He drove her. The\n     beasts have pulled him off and clubbed him. Let him lie; we can't do\n     him any good, but we may save her from the worst fate that can befall\n     a woman.\"\n\n     We ran frantically down the path, which wound among the trees. We had\n     reached the shrubbery which surrounded the house when Holmes pulled\n     up.\n\n     \"They didn't go to the house. Here are their marks on the left--here,\n     beside the laurel bushes! Ah, I said so!\"\n\n     As he spoke a woman's shrill scream--a scream which vibrated with a\n     frenzy of horror--burst from the thick green clump of bushes in front\n     of us. It ended suddenly on its highest note with a choke and a\n     gurgle.\n\n     \"This way! This way! They are in the bowling alley,\" cried the\n     stranger, darting through the bushes. \"Ah, the cowardly dogs! Follow\n     me, gentlemen! Too late! too late! by the living Jingo!\"\n\n     We had broken suddenly into a lovely glade of greensward surrounded\n     by ancient trees. On the farther side of it, under the shadow of a\n     mighty oak, there stood a singular group of three people. One was a\n     woman, our client, drooping and faint, a handkerchief round her\n     mouth. Opposite her stood a brutal, heavy-faced, red-moustached young\n     man, his gaitered legs parted wide, one arm akimbo, the other waving\n     a riding-crop, his whole attitude suggestive of triumphant bravado.\n     Between them an elderly, grey-bearded man, wearing a short surplice\n     over a light tweed suit, had evidently just completed the wedding\n     service, for he pocketed his prayer-book as we appeared and slapped\n     the sinister bridegroom upon the back in jovial congratulation.\n\n     \"They're married!\" I gasped.\n\n     \"Come on!\" cried our guide; \"come on!\" He rushed across the glade,\n     Holmes and I at his heels. As we approached, the lady staggered\n     against the trunk of the tree for support. Williamson, the\n     ex-clergyman, bowed to us with mock politeness, and the bully Woodley\n     advanced with a shout of brutal and exultant laughter.\n\n     \"You can take your beard off, Bob,\" said he. \"I know you right\n     enough. Well, you and your pals have just come in time for me to be\n     able to introduce you to Mrs. Woodley.\"\n\n     Our guide's answer was a singular one. He snatched off the dark beard\n     which had disguised him and threw it on the ground, disclosing a\n     long, sallow, clean-shaven face below it. Then he raised his revolver\n     and covered the young ruffian, who was advancing upon him with his\n     dangerous riding-crop swinging in his hand.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said our ally, \"I am Bob Carruthers, and I'll see this woman\n     righted if I have to swing for it. I told you what I'd do if you\n     molested her, and, by the Lord, I'll be as good as my word!\"\n\n     \"You're too late. She's my wife!\"\n\n     \"No, she's your widow.\"\n\n     His revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of\n     Woodley's waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his\n     back, his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled\n     pallor. The old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a\n     string of foul oaths as I have never heard, and pulled out a revolver\n     of his own, but before he could raise it he was looking down the\n     barrel of Holmes's weapon.\n\n     \"Enough of this,\" said my friend, coldly. \"Drop that pistol! Watson,\n     pick it up! Hold it to his head! Thank you. You, Carruthers, give me\n     that revolver. We'll have no more violence. Come, hand it over!\"\n\n     \"Who are you, then?\"\n\n     \"My name is Sherlock Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Good Lord!\"\n\n     \"You have heard of me, I see. I will represent the official police\n     until their arrival. Here, you!\" he shouted to a frightened groom who\n     had appeared at the edge of the glade. \"Come here. Take this note as\n     hard as you can ride to Farnham.\" He scribbled a few words upon a\n     leaf from his note-book. \"Give it to the superintendent at the\n     police-station. Until he comes I must detain you all under my\n     personal custody.\"\n\n     The strong, masterful personality of Holmes dominated the tragic\n     scene, and all were equally puppets in his hands. Williamson and\n     Carruthers found themselves carrying the wounded Woodley into the\n     house, and I gave my arm to the frightened girl. The injured man was\n     laid on his bed, and at Holmes's request I examined him. I carried my\n     report to where he sat in the old tapestry-hung dining-room with his\n     two prisoners before him.\n\n     \"He will live,\" said I.\n\n     \"What!\" cried Carruthers, springing out of his chair. \"I'll go\n     upstairs and finish him first. Do you tell me that that girl, that\n     angel, is to be tied to Roaring Jack Woodley for life?\"\n\n     \"You need not concern yourself about that,\" said Holmes. \"There are\n     two very good reasons why she should under no circumstances be his\n     wife. In the first place, we are very safe in questioning Mr.\n     Williamson's right to solemnize a marriage.\"\n\n     \"I have been ordained,\" cried the old rascal.\n\n     \"And also unfrocked.\"\n\n     \"Once a clergyman, always a clergyman.\"\n\n     \"I think not. How about the license?\"\n\n     \"We had a license for the marriage. I have it here in my pocket.\"\n\n     \"Then you got it by a trick. But in any case a forced marriage is no\n     marriage, but it is a very serious felony, as you will discover\n     before you have finished. You'll have time to think the point out\n     during the next ten years or so, unless I am mistaken. As to you,\n     Carruthers, you would have done better to keep your pistol in your\n     pocket.\"\n\n     \"I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes; but when I thought of all the\n     precaution I had taken to shield this girl--for I loved her, Mr.\n     Holmes, and it is the only time that ever I knew what love was--it\n     fairly drove me mad to think that she was in the power of the\n     greatest brute and bully in South Africa, a man whose name is a holy\n     terror from Kimberley to Johannesburg. Why, Mr. Holmes, you'll hardly\n     believe it, but ever since that girl has been in my employment I\n     never once let her go past this house, where I knew these rascals\n     were lurking, without following her on my bicycle just to see that\n     she came to no harm. I kept my distance from her, and I wore a beard\n     so that she should not recognise me, for she is a good and\n     high-spirited girl, and she wouldn't have stayed in my employment\n     long if she had thought that I was following her about the country\n     roads.\"\n\n     \"Why didn't you tell her of her danger?\"\n\n     \"Because then, again, she would have left me, and I couldn't bear to\n     face that. Even if she couldn't love me it was a great deal to me\n     just to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of\n     her voice.\"\n\n     \"Well,\" said I, \"you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should\n     call it selfishness.\"\n\n     \"Maybe the two things go together. Anyhow, I couldn't let her go.\n     Besides, with this crowd about, it was well that she should have\n     someone near to look after her. Then when the cable came I knew they\n     were bound to make a move.\"\n\n     \"What cable?\"\n\n     Carruthers took a telegram from his pocket.\n\n     \"That's it,\" said he.\n\n     It was short and concise:\n\n     The old man is dead.\n     \"Hum!\" said Holmes. \"I think I see how things worked, and I can\n     understand how this message would, as you say, bring them to a head.\n     But while we wait you might tell me what you can.\"\n\n     The old reprobate with the surplice burst into a volley of bad\n     language.\n\n     \"By Heaven,\" said he, \"if you squeal on us, Bob Carruthers, I'll\n     serve you as you served Jack Woodley. You can bleat about the girl to\n     your heart's content, for that's your own affair, but if you round on\n     your pals to this plain-clothes copper it will be the worst day's\n     work that ever you did.\"\n\n     \"Your reverence need not be excited,\" said Holmes, lighting a\n     cigarette. \"The case is clear enough against you, and all I ask is a\n     few details for my private curiosity. However, if there's any\n     difficulty in your telling me I'll do the talking, and then you will\n     see how far you have a chance of holding back your secrets. In the\n     first place, three of you came from South Africa on this game--you\n     Williamson, you Carruthers, and Woodley.\"\n\n     \"Lie number one,\" said the old man; \"I never saw either of them until\n     two months ago, and I have never been in Africa in my life, so you\n     can put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!\"\n\n     \"What he says is true,\" said Carruthers.\n\n     \"Well, well, two of you came over. His reverence is our own home-made\n     article. You had known Ralph Smith in South Africa. You had reason to\n     believe he would not live long. You found out that his niece would\n     inherit his fortune. How's that--eh?\"\n\n     Carruthers nodded and Williamson swore.\n\n     \"She was next-of-kin, no doubt, and you were aware that the old\n     fellow would make no will.\"\n\n     \"Couldn't read or write,\" said Carruthers.\n\n     \"So you came over, the two of you, and hunted up the girl. The idea\n     was that one of you was to marry her and the other have a share of\n     the plunder. For some reason Woodley was chosen as the husband. Why\n     was that?\"\n\n     \"We played cards for her on the voyage. He won.\"\n\n     \"I see. You got the young lady into your service, and there Woodley\n     was to do the courting. She recognised the drunken brute that he was,\n     and would have nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, your arrangement\n     was rather upset by the fact that you had yourself fallen in love\n     with the lady. You could no longer bear the idea of this ruffian\n     owning her.\"\n\n     \"No, by George, I couldn't!\"\n\n     \"There was a quarrel between you. He left you in a rage, and began to\n     make his own plans independently of you.\"\n\n     \"It strikes me, Williamson, there isn't very much that we can tell\n     this gentleman,\" cried Carruthers, with a bitter laugh. \"Yes, we\n     quarreled, and he knocked me down. I am level with him on that,\n     anyhow. Then I lost sight of him. That was when he picked up with\n     this cast padre here. I found that they had set up house-keeping\n     together at this place on the line that she had to pass for the\n     station. I kept my eye on her after that, for I knew there was some\n     devilry in the wind. I saw them from time to time, for I was anxious\n     to know what they were after. Two days ago Woodley came up to my\n     house with this cable, which showed that Ralph Smith was dead. He\n     asked me if I would stand by the bargain. I said I would not. He\n     asked me if I would marry the girl myself and give him a share. I\n     said I would willingly do so, but that she would not have me. He\n     said, 'Let us get her married first, and after a week or two she may\n     see things a bit different.' I said I would have nothing to do with\n     violence. So he went off cursing, like the foul-mouthed blackguard\n     that he was, and swearing that he would have her yet. She was leaving\n     me this week-end, and I had got a trap to take her to the station,\n     but I was so uneasy in my mind that I followed her on my bicycle. She\n     had got a start, however, and before I could catch her the mischief\n     was done. The first thing I knew about it was when I saw you two\n     gentlemen driving back in her dog-cart.\"\n\n     Holmes rose and tossed the end of his cigarette into the grate. \"I\n     have been very obtuse, Watson,\" said he. \"When in your report you\n     said that you had seen the cyclist as you thought arrange his necktie\n     in the shrubbery, that alone should have told me all. However, we may\n     congratulate ourselves upon a curious and in some respects a unique\n     case. I perceive three of the county constabulary in the drive, and I\n     am glad to see that the little ostler is able to keep pace with them;\n     so it is likely that neither he nor the interesting bridegroom will\n     be permanently damaged by their morning's adventures. I think,\n     Watson, that in your medical capacity you might wait upon Miss Smith\n     and tell her that if she is sufficiently recovered we shall be happy\n     to escort her to her mother's home. If she is not quite convalescent\n     you will find that a hint that we were about to telegraph to a young\n     electrician in the Midlands would probably complete the cure. As to\n     you, Mr. Carruthers, I think that you have done what you could to\n     make amends for your share in an evil plot. There is my card, sir,\n     and if my evidence can be of help to you in your trial it shall be at\n     your disposal.\"\n\n     In the whirl of our incessant activity it has often been difficult\n     for me, as the reader has probably observed, to round off my\n     narratives, and to give those final details which the curious might\n     expect. Each case has been the prelude to another, and the crisis\n     once over the actors have passed for ever out of our busy lives. I\n     find, however, a short note at the end of my manuscripts dealing with\n     this case, in which I have put it upon record that Miss Violet Smith\n     did indeed inherit a large fortune, and that she is now the wife of\n     Cyril Morton, the senior partner of Morton & Kennedy, the famous\n     Westminster electricians. Williamson and Woodley were both tried for\n     abduction and assault, the former getting seven years and the latter\n     ten. Of the fate of Carruthers I have no record, but I am sure that\n     his assault was not viewed very gravely by the Court, since Woodley\n     had the reputation of being a most dangerous ruffian, and I think\n     that a few months were sufficient to satisfy the demands of justice.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL\n\n     We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at\n     Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more sudden and\n     startling than the first appearance of Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A.,\n     Ph.D., etc. His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of\n     his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he\n     entered himself--so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was\n     the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his\n     first action when the door had closed behind him was to stagger\n     against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there\n     was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin\n     hearthrug.\n\n     We had sprung to our feet, and for a few moments we stared in silent\n     amazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told of some\n     sudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life. Then Holmes\n     hurried with a cushion for his head and I with brandy for his lips.\n     The heavy white face was seamed with lines of trouble, the hanging\n     pouches under the closed eyes were leaden in colour, the loose mouth\n     drooped dolorously at the corners, the rolling chins were unshaven.\n     Collar and shirt bore the grime of a long journey, and the hair\n     bristled unkempt from the well-shaped head. It was a sorely-stricken\n     man who lay before us.\n\n     \"What is it, Watson?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Absolute exhaustion--possibly mere hunger and fatigue,\" said I, with\n     my finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life trickled\n     thin and small.\n\n     \"Return ticket from Mackleton, in the North of England,\" said Holmes,\n     drawing it from the watch-pocket. \"It is not twelve o'clock yet. He\n     has certainly been an early starter.\"\n\n     The puckered eyelids had begun to quiver, and now a pair of vacant,\n     grey eyes looked up at us. An instant later the man had scrambled on\n     to his feet, his face crimson with shame.\n\n     \"Forgive this weakness, Mr. Holmes; I have been a little overwrought.\n     Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a biscuit I have no\n     doubt that I should be better. I came personally, Mr. Holmes, in\n     order to ensure that you would return with me. I feared that no\n     telegram would convince you of the absolute urgency of the case.\"\n\n     \"When you are quite restored--\n\n     \"I am quite well again. I cannot imagine how I came to be so weak. I\n     wish you, Mr. Holmes, to come to Mackleton with me by the next\n     train.\"\n\n     My friend shook his head.\n\n     \"My colleague, Dr. Watson, could tell you that we are very busy at\n     present. I am retained in this case of the Ferrers Documents, and the\n     Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial. Only a very important\n     issue could call me from London at present.\"\n\n     \"Important!\" Our visitor threw up his hands. \"Have you heard nothing\n     of the abduction of the only son of the Duke of Holdernesse?\"\n\n     \"What! the late Cabinet Minister?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. We had tried to keep it out of the papers, but there was\n     some rumour in the Globe last night. I thought it might have reached\n     your ears.\"\n\n     Holmes shot out his long, thin arm and picked out Volume \"H\" in his\n     encyclopaedia of reference.\n\n     \"'Holdernesse, 6th Duke, K.G., P.C.'--half the alphabet! 'Baron\n     Beverley, Earl of Carston'--dear me, what a list! 'Lord Lieutenant of\n     Hallamshire since 1900. Married Edith, daughter of Sir Charles\n     Appledore, 1888. Heir and only child, Lord Saltire. Owns about two\n     hundred and fifty thousand acres. Minerals in Lancashire and Wales.\n     Address: Carlton House Terrace; Holdernesse Hall, Hallamshire;\n     Carston Castle, Bangor, Wales. Lord of the Admiralty, 1872; Chief\n     Secretary of State for--' Well, well, this man is certainly one of\n     the greatest subjects of the Crown!\"\n\n     \"The greatest and perhaps the wealthiest. I am aware, Mr. Holmes,\n     that you take a very high line in professional matters, and that you\n     are prepared to work for the work's sake. I may tell you, however,\n     that his Grace has already intimated that a cheque for five thousand\n     pounds will be handed over to the person who can tell him where his\n     son is, and another thousand to him who can name the man, or men, who\n     have taken him.\"\n\n     \"It is a princely offer,\" said Holmes. \"Watson, I think that we shall\n     accompany Dr. Huxtable back to the North of England. And now, Dr.\n     Huxtable, when you have consumed that milk you will kindly tell me\n     what has happened, when it happened, how it happened, and, finally,\n     what Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable, of the Priory School, near Mackleton,\n     has to do with the matter, and why he comes three days after an\n     event--the state of your chin gives the date--to ask for my humble\n     services.\"\n\n     Our visitor had consumed his milk and biscuits. The light had come\n     back to his eyes and the colour to his cheeks as he set himself with\n     great vigour and lucidity to explain the situation.\n\n     \"I must inform you, gentlemen, that the Priory is a preparatory\n     school, of which I am the founder and principal. 'Huxtable's\n     Sidelights on Horace' may possibly recall my name to your memories.\n     The Priory is, without exception, the best and most select\n     preparatory school in England. Lord Leverstoke, the Earl of\n     Blackwater, Sir Cathcart Soames--they all have entrusted their sons\n     to me. But I felt that my school had reached its zenith when, three\n     weeks ago, the Duke of Holdernesse sent Mr. James Wilder, his\n     secretary, with the intimation that young Lord Saltire, ten years\n     old, his only son and heir, was about to be committed to my charge.\n     Little did I think that this would be the prelude to the most\n     crushing misfortune of my life.\n\n     \"On May 1st the boy arrived, that being the beginning of the summer\n     term. He was a charming youth, and he soon fell into our ways. I may\n     tell you--I trust that I am not indiscreet, but half-confidences are\n     absurd in such a case--that he was not entirely happy at home. It is\n     an open secret that the Duke's married life had not been a peaceful\n     one, and the matter had ended in a separation by mutual consent, the\n     Duchess taking up her residence in the South of France. This had\n     occurred very shortly before, and the boy's sympathies are known to\n     have been strongly with his mother. He moped after her departure from\n     Holdernesse Hall, and it was for this reason that the Duke desired to\n     send him to my establishment. In a fortnight the boy was quite at\n     home with us, and was apparently absolutely happy.\n\n     \"He was last seen on the night of May 13th--that is, the night of\n     last Monday. His room was on the second floor, and was approached\n     through another larger room in which two boys were sleeping. These\n     boys saw and heard nothing, so that it is certain that young Saltire\n     did not pass out that way. His window was open, and there is a stout\n     ivy plant leading to the ground. We could trace no footmarks below,\n     but it is sure that this is the only possible exit.\n\n     \"His absence was discovered at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning. His\n     bed had been slept in. He had dressed himself fully before going off\n     in his usual school suit of black Eton jacket and dark grey trousers.\n     There were no signs that anyone had entered the room, and it is quite\n     certain that anything in the nature of cries, or a struggle, would\n     have been heard, since Caunter, the elder boy in the inner room, is a\n     very light sleeper.\n\n     \"When Lord Saltire's disappearance was discovered I at once called a\n     roll of the whole establishment, boys, masters, and servants. It was\n     then that we ascertained that Lord Saltire had not been alone in his\n     flight. Heidegger, the German master, was missing. His room was on\n     the second floor, at the farther end of the building, facing the same\n     way as Lord Saltire's. His bed had also been slept in; but he had\n     apparently gone away partly dressed, since his shirt and socks were\n     lying on the floor. He had undoubtedly let himself down by the ivy,\n     for we could see the marks of his feet where he had landed on the\n     lawn. His bicycle was kept in a small shed beside this lawn, and it\n     also was gone.\n\n     \"He had been with me for two years, and came with the best\n     references; but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular either\n     with masters or boys. No trace could be found of the fugitives, and\n     now on Thursday morning we are as ignorant as we were on Tuesday.\n     Inquiry was, of course, made at once at Holdernesse Hall. It is only\n     a few miles away, and we imagined that in some sudden attack of\n     home-sickness he had gone back to his father; but nothing had been\n     heard of him. The Duke is greatly agitated--and as to me, you have\n     seen yourselves the state of nervous prostration to which the\n     suspense and the responsibility have reduced me. Mr. Holmes, if ever\n     you put forward your full powers, I implore you to do so now, for\n     never in your life could you have a case which is more worthy of\n     them.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the\n     statement of the unhappy schoolmaster. His drawn brows and the deep\n     furrow between them showed that he needed no exhortation to\n     concentrate all his attention upon a problem which, apart from the\n     tremendous interests involved, must appeal so directly to his love of\n     the complex and the unusual. He now drew out his note-book and jotted\n     down one or two memoranda.\n\n     \"You have been very remiss in not coming to me sooner,\" said he,\n     severely. \"You start me on my investigation with a very serious\n     handicap. It is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and this\n     lawn would have yielded nothing to an expert observer.\"\n\n     \"I am not to blame, Mr. Holmes. His Grace was extremely desirous to\n     avoid all public scandal. He was afraid of his family unhappiness\n     being dragged before the world. He has a deep horror of anything of\n     the kind.\"\n\n     \"But there has been some official investigation?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, and it has proved most disappointing. An apparent clue was\n     at once obtained, since a boy and a young man were reported to have\n     been seen leaving a neighbouring station by an early train. Only last\n     night we had news that the couple had been hunted down in Liverpool,\n     and they prove to have no connection whatever with the matter in\n     hand. Then it was that in my despair and disappointment, after a\n     sleepless night, I came straight to you by the early train.\"\n\n     \"I suppose the local investigation was relaxed while this false clue\n     was being followed up?\"\n\n     \"It was entirely dropped.\"\n\n     \"So that three days have been wasted. The affair has been most\n     deplorably handled.\"\n\n     \"I feel it, and admit it.\"\n\n     \"And yet the problem should be capable of ultimate solution. I shall\n     be very happy to look into it. Have you been able to trace any\n     connection between the missing boy and this German master?\"\n\n     \"None at all.\"\n\n     \"Was he in the master's class?\"\n\n     \"No; he never exchanged a word with him so far as I know.\"\n\n     \"That is certainly very singular. Had the boy a bicycle?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Was any other bicycle missing?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Is that certain?\"\n\n     \"Quite.\"\n\n     \"Well, now, you do not mean to seriously suggest that this German\n     rode off upon a bicycle in the dead of the night bearing the boy in\n     his arms?\"\n\n     \"Certainly not.\"\n\n     \"Then what is the theory in your mind?\"\n\n     \"The bicycle may have been a blind. It may have been hidden somewhere\n     and the pair gone off on foot.\"\n\n     \"Quite so; but it seems rather an absurd blind, does it not? Were\n     there other bicycles in this shed?\"\n\n     \"Several.\"\n\n     \"Would he not have hidden a couple he desired to give the idea that\n     they had gone off upon them?\"\n\n     \"I suppose he would.\"\n\n     \"Of course he would. The blind theory won't do. But the incident is\n     an admirable starting-point for an investigation. After all, a\n     bicycle is not an easy thing to conceal or to destroy. One other\n     question. Did anyone call to see the boy on the day before he\n     disappeared?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Did he get any letters?\"\n\n     \"Yes; one letter.\"\n\n     \"From whom?\"\n\n     \"From his father.\"\n\n     \"Do you open the boys' letters?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"How do you know it was from the father?\"\n\n     \"The coat of arms was on the envelope, and it was addressed in the\n     Duke's peculiar stiff hand. Besides, the Duke remembers having\n     written.\"\n\n     \"When had he a letter before that?\"\n\n     \"Not for several days.\"\n\n     \"Had he ever one from France?\"\n\n     \"No; never.\"\n\n     \"You see the point of my questions, of course. Either the boy was\n     carried off by force or he went of his own free will. In the latter\n     case you would expect that some prompting from outside would be\n     needed to make so young a lad do such a thing. If he has had no\n     visitors, that prompting must have come in letters. Hence I try to\n     find out who were his correspondents.\"\n\n     \"I fear I cannot help you much. His only correspondent, so far as I\n     know, was his own father.\"\n\n     \"Who wrote to him on the very day of his disappearance. Were the\n     relations between father and son very friendly?\"\n\n     \"His Grace is never very friendly with anyone. He is completely\n     immersed in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to all\n     ordinary emotions. But he was always kind to the boy in his own way.\"\n\n     \"But the sympathies of the latter were with the mother?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Did he say so?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"The Duke, then?\"\n\n     \"Good heavens, no!\"\n\n     \"Then how could you know?\"\n\n     \"I have had some confidential talks with Mr. James Wilder, his\n     Grace's secretary. It was he who gave me the information about Lord\n     Saltire's feelings.\"\n\n     \"I see. By the way, that last letter of the Duke's--was it found in\n     the boy's room after he was gone?\"\n\n     \"No; he had taken it with him. I think, Mr. Holmes, it is time that\n     we were leaving for Euston.\"\n\n     \"I will order a four-wheeler. In a quarter of an hour we shall be at\n     your service. If you are telegraphing home, Mr. Huxtable, it would be\n     well to allow the people in your neighbourhood to imagine that the\n     inquiry is still going on in Liverpool, or wherever else that red\n     herring led your pack. In the meantime I will do a little quiet work\n     at your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two\n     old hounds like Watson and myself may get a sniff of it.\"\n\n     That evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak\n     country, in which Dr. Huxtable's famous school is situated. It was\n     already dark when we reached it. A card was lying on the hall table,\n     and the butler whispered something to his master, who turned to us\n     with agitation in every heavy feature.\n\n     \"The Duke is here,\" said he. \"The Duke and Mr. Wilder are in the\n     study. Come, gentlemen, and I will introduce you.\"\n\n     I was, of course, familiar with the pictures of the famous statesman,\n     but the man himself was very different from his representation. He\n     was a tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn,\n     thin face, and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. His\n     complexion was of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast\n     with a long, dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his\n     white waistcoat, with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe.\n     Such was the stately presence who looked stonily at us from the\n     centre of Dr. Huxtable's hearthrug. Beside him stood a very young\n     man, whom I understood to be Wilder, the private secretary. He was\n     small, nervous, alert, with intelligent, light-blue eyes and mobile\n     features. It was he who at once, in an incisive and positive tone,\n     opened the conversation.\n\n     \"I called this morning, Dr. Huxtable, too late to prevent you from\n     starting for London. I learned that your object was to invite Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes to undertake the conduct of this case. His Grace is\n     surprised, Dr. Huxtable, that you should have taken such a step\n     without consulting him.\"\n\n     \"When I learned that the police had failed--\"\n\n     \"His Grace is by no means convinced that the police have failed.\"\n\n     \"But surely, Mr. Wilder--\"\n\n     \"You are well aware, Dr. Huxtable, that his Grace is particularly\n     anxious to avoid all public scandal. He prefers to take as few people\n     as possible into his confidence.\"\n\n     \"The matter can be easily remedied,\" said the brow-beaten doctor;\n     \"Mr. Sherlock Holmes can return to London by the morning train.\"\n\n     \"Hardly that, Doctor, hardly that,\" said Holmes, in his blandest\n     voice. \"This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose\n     to spend a few days upon your moors, and to occupy my mind as best I\n     may. Whether I have the shelter of your roof or of the village inn\n     is, of course, for you to decide.\"\n\n     I could see that the unfortunate doctor was in the last stage of\n     indecision, from which he was rescued by the deep, sonorous voice of\n     the red-bearded Duke, which boomed out like a dinner-gong.\n\n     \"I agree with Mr. Wilder, Dr. Huxtable, that you would have done\n     wisely to consult me. But since Mr. Holmes has already been taken\n     into your confidence, it would indeed be absurd that we should not\n     avail ourselves of his services. Far from going to the inn, Mr.\n     Holmes, I should be pleased if you would come and stay with me at\n     Holdernesse Hall.\"\n\n     \"I thank your Grace. For the purposes of my investigation I think\n     that it would be wiser for me to remain at the scene of the mystery.\"\n\n     \"Just as you like, Mr. Holmes. Any information which Mr. Wilder or I\n     can give you is, of course, at your disposal.\"\n\n     \"It will probably be necessary for me to see you at the Hall,\" said\n     Holmes. \"I would only ask you now, sir, whether you have formed any\n     explanation in your own mind as to the mysterious disappearance of\n     your son?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, I have not.\"\n\n     \"Excuse me if I allude to that which is painful to you, but I have no\n     alternative. Do you think that the Duchess had anything to do with\n     the matter?\"\n\n     The great Minister showed perceptible hesitation.\n\n     \"I do not think so,\" he said, at last.\n\n     \"The other most obvious explanation is that the child has been\n     kidnapped for the purpose of levying ransom. You have not had any\n     demand of the sort?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"One more question, your Grace. I understand that you wrote to your\n     son upon the day when this incident occurred.\"\n\n     \"No; I wrote upon the day before.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. But he received it on that day?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Was there anything in your letter which might have unbalanced him or\n     induced him to take such a step?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, certainly not.\"\n\n     \"Did you post that letter yourself?\"\n\n     The nobleman's reply was interrupted by his secretary, who broke in\n     with some heat.\n\n     \"His Grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself,\" said he.\n     \"This letter was laid with others upon the study table, and I myself\n     put them in the post-bag.\"\n\n     \"You are sure this one was among them?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I observed it.\"\n\n     \"How many letters did your Grace write that day?\"\n\n     \"Twenty or thirty. I have a large correspondence. But surely this is\n     somewhat irrelevant?\"\n\n     \"Not entirely,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"For my own part,\" the Duke continued, \"I have advised the police to\n     turn their attention to the South of France. I have already said that\n     I do not believe that the Duchess would encourage so monstrous an\n     action, but the lad had the most wrong-headed opinions, and it is\n     possible that he may have fled to her, aided and abetted by this\n     German. I think, Dr. Huxtable, that we will now return to the Hall.\"\n\n     I could see that there were other questions which Holmes would have\n     wished to put; but the nobleman's abrupt manner showed that the\n     interview was at an end. It was evident that to his intensely\n     aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs\n     with a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every\n     fresh question would throw a fiercer light into the discreetly\n     shadowed corners of his ducal history.\n\n     When the nobleman and his secretary had left, my friend flung himself\n     at once with characteristic eagerness into the investigation.\n\n     The boy's chamber was carefully examined, and yielded nothing save\n     the absolute conviction that it was only through the window that he\n     could have escaped. The German master's room and effects gave no\n     further clue. In his case a trailer of ivy had given way under his\n     weight, and we saw by the light of a lantern the mark on the lawn\n     where his heels had come down. That one dint in the short green grass\n     was the only material witness left of this inexplicable nocturnal\n     flight.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes left the house alone, and only returned after eleven.\n     He had obtained a large ordnance map of the neighbourhood, and this\n     he brought into my room, where he laid it out on the bed, and, having\n     balanced the lamp in the middle of it, he began to smoke over it, and\n     occasionally to point out objects of interest with the reeking amber\n     of his pipe.\n\n     \"This case grows upon me, Watson,\" said he. \"There are decidedly some\n     points of interest in connection with it. In this early stage I want\n     you to realize those geographical features which may have a good deal\n     to do with our investigation.\n\n     \"Look at this map. This dark square is the Priory School. I'll put a\n     pin in it. Now, this line is the main road. You see that it runs east\n     and west past the school, and you see also that there is no side road\n     for a mile either way. If these two folk passed away by road it was\n     this road.\"\n\n     [ Picture: Chart of the surrounding area ]\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"By a singular and happy chance we are able to some extent to check\n     what passed along this road during the night in question. At this\n     point, where my pipe is now resting, a country constable was on duty\n     from twelve to six. It is, as you perceive, the first cross road on\n     the east side. This man declares that he was not absent from his post\n     for an instant, and he is positive that neither boy nor man could\n     have gone that way unseen. I have spoken with this policeman\n     to-night, and he appears to me to be a perfectly reliable person.\n     That blocks this end. We have now to deal with the other. There is an\n     inn here, the Red Bull, the landlady of which was ill. She had sent\n     to Mackleton for a doctor, but he did not arrive until morning, being\n     absent at another case. The people at the inn were alert all night,\n     awaiting his coming, and one or other of them seems to have\n     continually had an eye upon the road. They declare that no one\n     passed. If their evidence is good, then we are fortunate enough to be\n     able to block the west, and also to be able to say that the fugitives\n     did not use the road at all.\"\n\n     \"But the bicycle?\" I objected.\n\n     \"Quite so. We will come to the bicycle presently. To continue our\n     reasoning: if these people did not go by the road, they must have\n     traversed the country to the north of the house or to the south of\n     the house. That is certain. Let us weigh the one against the other.\n     On the south of the house is, as you perceive, a large district of\n     arable land, cut up into small fields, with stone walls between them.\n     There, I admit that a bicycle is impossible. We can dismiss the idea.\n     We turn to the country on the north. Here there lies a grove of\n     trees, marked as the 'Ragged Shaw,' and on the farther side stretches\n     a great rolling moor, Lower Gill Moor, extending for ten miles and\n     sloping gradually upwards. Here, at one side of this wilderness, is\n     Holdernesse Hall, ten miles by road, but only six across the moor. It\n     is a peculiarly desolate plain. A few moor farmers have small\n     holdings, where they rear sheep and cattle. Except these, the plover\n     and the curlew are the only inhabitants until you come to the\n     Chesterfield high road. There is a church there, you see, a few\n     cottages, and an inn. Beyond that the hills become precipitous.\n     Surely it is here to the north that our quest must lie.\"\n\n     \"But the bicycle?\" I persisted.\n\n     \"Well, well!\" said Holmes, impatiently. \"A good cyclist does not need\n     a high road. The moor is intersected with paths and the moon was at\n     the full. Halloa! what is this?\"\n\n     There was an agitated knock at the door, and an instant afterwards\n     Dr. Huxtable was in the room. In his hand he held a blue cricket-cap,\n     with a white chevron on the peak.\n\n     \"At last we have a clue!\" he cried. \"Thank Heaven! at last we are on\n     the dear boy's track! It is his cap.\"\n\n     \"Where was it found?\"\n\n     \"In the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor. They left on\n     Tuesday. To-day the police traced them down and examined their\n     caravan. This was found.\"\n\n     \"How do they account for it?\"\n\n     \"They shuffled and lied--said that they found it on the moor on\n     Tuesday morning. They know where he is, the rascals! Thank goodness,\n     they are all safe under lock and key. Either the fear of the law or\n     the Duke's purse will certainly get out of them all that they know.\"\n\n     \"So far, so good,\" said Holmes, when the doctor had at last left the\n     room. \"It at least bears out the theory that it is on the side of the\n     Lower Gill Moor that we must hope for results. The police have really\n     done nothing locally, save the arrest of these gipsies. Look here,\n     Watson! There is a watercourse across the moor. You see it marked\n     here in the map. In some parts it widens into a morass. This is\n     particularly so in the region between Holdernesse Hall and the\n     school. It is vain to look elsewhere for tracks in this dry weather;\n     but at that point there is certainly a chance of some record being\n     left. I will call you early to-morrow morning, and you and I will try\n     if we can throw some little light upon the mystery.\"\n\n     The day was just breaking when I woke to find the long, thin form of\n     Holmes by my bedside. He was fully dressed, and had apparently\n     already been out.\n\n     \"I have done the lawn and the bicycle shed,\" said he. \"I have also\n     had a ramble through the Ragged Shaw. Now, Watson, there is cocoa\n     ready in the next room. I must beg you to hurry, for we have a great\n     day before us.\"\n\n     His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of\n     the master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. A very\n     different Holmes, this active, alert man, from the introspective and\n     pallid dreamer of Baker Street. I felt, as I looked upon that supple\n     figure, alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day\n     that awaited us.\n\n     And yet it opened in the blackest disappointment. With high hopes we\n     struck across the peaty, russet moor, intersected with a thousand\n     sheep paths, until we came to the broad, light-green belt which\n     marked the morass between us and Holdernesse. Certainly, if the lad\n     had gone homewards, he must have passed this, and he could not pass\n     it without leaving his traces. But no sign of him or the German could\n     be seen. With a darkening face my friend strode along the margin,\n     eagerly observant of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface.\n     Sheep-marks there were in profusion, and at one place, some miles\n     down, cows had left their tracks. Nothing more.\n\n     \"Check number one,\" said Holmes, looking gloomily over the rolling\n     expanse of the moor. \"There is another morass down yonder and a\n     narrow neck between. Halloa! halloa! halloa! what have we here?\"\n\n     We had come on a small black ribbon of pathway. In the middle of it,\n     clearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a bicycle.\n\n     \"Hurrah!\" I cried. \"We have it.\"\n\n     But Holmes was shaking his head, and his face was puzzled and\n     expectant rather than joyous.\n\n     \"A bicycle, certainly, but not the bicycle,\" said he. \"I am familiar\n     with forty-two different impressions left by tyres. This, as you\n     perceive, is a Dunlop, with a patch upon the outer cover. Heidegger's\n     tyres were Palmer's, leaving longitudinal stripes. Aveling, the\n     mathematical master, was sure upon the point. Therefore, it is not\n     Heidegger's track.\"\n\n     \"The boy's, then?\"\n\n     \"Possibly, if we could prove a bicycle to have been in his\n     possession. But this we have utterly failed to do. This track, as you\n     perceive, was made by a rider who was going from the direction of the\n     school.\"\n\n     \"Or towards it?\"\n\n     \"No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of\n     course, the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. You perceive\n     several places where it has passed across and obliterated the more\n     shallow mark of the front one. It was undoubtedly heading away from\n     the school. It may or may not be connected with our inquiry, but we\n     will follow it backwards before we go any farther.\"\n\n     We did so, and at the end of a few hundred yards lost the tracks as\n     we emerged from the boggy portion of the moor. Following the path\n     backwards, we picked out another spot, where a spring trickled across\n     it. Here, once again, was the mark of the bicycle, though nearly\n     obliterated by the hoofs of cows. After that there was no sign, but\n     the path ran right on into Ragged Shaw, the wood which backed on to\n     the school. From this wood the cycle must have emerged. Holmes sat\n     down on a boulder and rested his chin in his hands. I had smoked two\n     cigarettes before he moved.\n\n     \"Well, well,\" said he, at last. \"It is, of course, possible that a\n     cunning man might change the tyre of his bicycle in order to leave\n     unfamiliar tracks. A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a\n     man whom I should be proud to do business with. We will leave this\n     question undecided and hark back to our morass again, for we have\n     left a good deal unexplored.\"\n\n     We continued our systematic survey of the edge of the sodden portion\n     of the moor, and soon our perseverance was gloriously rewarded. Right\n     across the lower part of the bog lay a miry path. Holmes gave a cry\n     of delight as he approached it. An impression like a fine bundle of\n     telegraph wires ran down the centre of it. It was the Palmer tyre.\n\n     \"Here is Herr Heidegger, sure enough!\" cried Holmes, exultantly. \"My\n     reasoning seems to have been pretty sound, Watson.\"\n\n     \"I congratulate you.\"\n\n     \"But we have a long way still to go. Kindly walk clear of the path.\n     Now let us follow the trail. I fear that it will not lead very far.\"\n\n     We found, however, as we advanced that this portion of the moor is\n     intersected with soft patches, and, though we frequently lost sight\n     of the track, we always succeeded in picking it up once more.\n\n     \"Do you observe,\" said Holmes, \"that the rider is now undoubtedly\n     forcing the pace? There can be no doubt of it. Look at this\n     impression, where you get both tyres clear. The one is as deep as the\n     other. That can only mean that the rider is throwing his weight on to\n     the handle-bar, as a man does when he is sprinting. By Jove! he has\n     had a fall.\"\n\n     There was a broad, irregular smudge covering some yards of the track.\n     Then there were a few footmarks, and the tyre reappeared once more.\n\n     \"A side-slip,\" I suggested.\n\n     Holmes held up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. To my horror I\n     perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson. On\n     the path, too, and among the heather were dark stains of clotted\n     blood.\n\n     \"Bad!\" said Holmes. \"Bad! Stand clear, Watson! Not an unnecessary\n     footstep! What do I read here? He fell wounded, he stood up, he\n     remounted, he proceeded. But there is no other track. Cattle on this\n     side path. He was surely not gored by a bull? Impossible! But I see\n     no traces of anyone else. We must push on, Watson. Surely with stains\n     as well as the track to guide us he cannot escape us now.\"\n\n     Our search was not a very long one. The tracks of the tyre began to\n     curve fantastically upon the wet and shining path. Suddenly, as I\n     looked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the thick\n     gorse bushes. Out of them we dragged a bicycle, Palmer-tyred, one\n     pedal bent, and the whole front of it horribly smeared and slobbered\n     with blood. On the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting. We\n     ran round, and there lay the unfortunate rider. He was a tall man,\n     full bearded, with spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked\n     out. The cause of his death was a frightful blow upon the head, which\n     had crushed in part of his skull. That he could have gone on after\n     receiving such an injury said much for the vitality and courage of\n     the man. He wore shoes, but no socks, and his open coat disclosed a\n     night-shirt beneath it. It was undoubtedly the German master.\n\n     Holmes turned the body over reverently, and examined it with great\n     attention. He then sat in deep thought for a time, and I could see by\n     his ruffled brow that this grim discovery had not, in his opinion,\n     advanced us much in our inquiry.\n\n     \"It is a little difficult to know what to do, Watson,\" said he, at\n     last. \"My own inclinations are to push this inquiry on, for we have\n     already lost so much time that we cannot afford to waste another\n     hour. On the other hand, we are bound to inform the police of the\n     discovery, and to see that this poor fellow's body is looked after.\"\n\n     \"I could take a note back.\"\n\n     \"But I need your company and assistance. Wait a bit! There is a\n     fellow cutting peat up yonder. Bring him over here, and he will guide\n     the police.\"\n\n     I brought the peasant across, and Holmes dispatched the frightened\n     man with a note to Dr. Huxtable.\n\n     \"Now, Watson,\" said he, \"we have picked up two clues this morning.\n     One is the bicycle with the Palmer tyre, and we see what that has led\n     to. The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start\n     to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know so as to\n     make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the\n     accidental.\"\n\n     \"First of all I wish to impress upon you that the boy certainly left\n     of his own free will. He got down from his window and he went off,\n     either alone or with someone. That is sure.\"\n\n     I assented.\n\n     \"Well, now, let us turn to this unfortunate German master. The boy\n     was fully dressed when he fled. Therefore, he foresaw what he would\n     do. But the German went without his socks. He certainly acted on very\n     short notice.\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n     \"Why did he go? Because, from his bedroom window, he saw the flight\n     of the boy. Because he wished to overtake him and bring him back. He\n     seized his bicycle, pursued the lad, and in pursuing him met his\n     death.\"\n\n     \"So it would seem.\"\n\n     \"Now I come to the critical part of my argument. The natural action\n     of a man in pursuing a little boy would be to run after him. He would\n     know that he could overtake him. But the German does not do so. He\n     turns to his bicycle. I am told that he was an excellent cyclist. He\n     would not do this if he did not see that the boy had some swift means\n     of escape.\"\n\n     \"The other bicycle.\"\n\n     \"Let us continue our reconstruction. He meets his death five miles\n     from the school--not by a bullet, mark you, which even a lad might\n     conceivably discharge, but by a savage blow dealt by a vigorous arm.\n     The lad, then, had a companion in his flight. And the flight was a\n     swift one, since it took five miles before an expert cyclist could\n     overtake them. Yet we survey the ground round the scene of the\n     tragedy. What do we find? A few cattle tracks, nothing more. I took a\n     wide sweep round, and there is no path within fifty yards. Another\n     cyclist could have had nothing to do with the actual murder. Nor were\n     there any human footmarks.\"\n\n     \"Holmes,\" I cried, \"this is impossible.\"\n\n     \"Admirable!\" he said. \"A most illuminating remark. It is impossible\n     as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it\n     wrong. Yet you saw for yourself. Can you suggest any fallacy?\"\n\n     \"He could not have fractured his skull in a fall?\"\n\n     \"In a morass, Watson?\"\n\n     \"I am at my wit's end.\"\n\n     \"Tut, tut; we have solved some worse problems. At least we have\n     plenty of material, if we can only use it. Come, then, and, having\n     exhausted the Palmer, let us see what the Dunlop with the patched\n     cover has to offer us.\"\n\n     We picked up the track and followed it onwards for some distance; but\n     soon the moor rose into a long, heather-tufted curve, and we left the\n     watercourse behind us. No further help from tracks could be hoped\n     for. At the spot where we saw the last of the Dunlop tyre it might\n     equally have led to Holdernesse Hall, the stately towers of which\n     rose some miles to our left, or to a low, grey village which lay in\n     front of us, and marked the position of the Chesterfield high road.\n\n     As we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of a\n     game-cock above the door, Holmes gave a sudden groan and clutched me\n     by the shoulder to save himself from falling. He had had one of those\n     violent strains of the ankle which leave a man helpless. With\n     difficulty he limped up to the door, where a squat, dark, elderly man\n     was smoking a black clay pipe.\n\n     \"How are you, Mr. Reuben Hayes?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Who are you, and how do you get my name so pat?\" the countryman\n     answered, with a suspicious flash of a pair of cunning eyes.\n\n     \"Well, it's printed on the board above your head. It's easy to see a\n     man who is master of his own house. I suppose you haven't such a\n     thing as a carriage in your stables?\"\n\n     \"No; I have not.\"\n\n     \"I can hardly put my foot to the ground.\"\n\n     \"Don't put it to the ground.\"\n\n     \"But I can't walk.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, hop.\"\n\n     Mr. Reuben Hayes's manner was far from gracious, but Holmes took it\n     with admirable good-humour.\n\n     \"Look here, my man,\" said he. \"This is really rather an awkward fix\n     for me. I don't mind how I get on.\"\n\n     \"Neither do I,\" said the morose landlord.\n\n     \"The matter is very important. I would offer you a sovereign for the\n     use of a bicycle.\"\n\n     The landlord pricked up his ears.\n\n     \"Where do you want to go?\"\n\n     \"To Holdernesse Hall.\"\n\n     \"Pals of the Dook, I suppose?\" said the landlord, surveying our\n     mud-stained garments with ironical eyes.\n\n     Holmes laughed good-naturedly.\n\n     \"He'll be glad to see us, anyhow.\"\n\n     \"Why?\"\n\n     \"Because we bring him news of his lost son.\"\n\n     The landlord gave a very visible start.\n\n     \"What, you're on his track?\"\n\n     \"He has been heard of in Liverpool. They expect to get him every\n     hour.\"\n\n     Again a swift change passed over the heavy, unshaven face. His manner\n     was suddenly genial.\n\n     \"I've less reason to wish the Dook well than most men,\" said he, \"for\n     I was his head coachman once, and cruel bad he treated me. It was him\n     that sacked me without a character on the word of a lying\n     corn-chandler. But I'm glad to hear that the young lord was heard of\n     in Liverpool, and I'll help you to take the news to the Hall.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes. \"We'll have some food first. Then you can\n     bring round the bicycle.\"\n\n     \"I haven't got a bicycle.\"\n\n     Holmes held up a sovereign.\n\n     \"I tell you, man, that I haven't got one. I'll let you have two\n     horses as far as the Hall.\"\n\n     \"Well, well,\" said Holmes, \"we'll talk about it when we've had\n     something to eat.\"\n\n     When we were left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen it was\n     astonishing how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was nearly\n     nightfall, and we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we\n     spent some time over our meal. Holmes was lost in thought, and once\n     or twice he walked over to the window and stared earnestly out. It\n     opened on to a squalid courtyard. In the far corner was a smithy,\n     where a grimy lad was at work. On the other side were the stables.\n     Holmes had sat down again after one of these excursions, when he\n     suddenly sprang out of his chair with a loud exclamation.\n\n     \"By Heaven, Watson, I believe that I've got it!\" he cried. \"Yes, yes,\n     it must be so. Watson, do you remember seeing any cow-tracks to-day?\"\n\n     \"Yes, several.\"\n\n     \"Where?\"\n\n     \"Well, everywhere. They were at the morass, and again on the path,\n     and again near where poor Heidegger met his death.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Well, now, Watson, how many cows did you see on the moor?\"\n\n     \"I don't remember seeing any.\"\n\n     \"Strange, Watson, that we should see tracks all along our line, but\n     never a cow on the whole moor; very strange, Watson, eh?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is strange.\"\n\n     \"Now, Watson, make an effort; throw your mind back! Can you see those\n     tracks upon the path?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I can.\"\n\n     \"Can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, Watson\"--he\n     arranged a number of bread-crumbs in this fashion--: : : : :--\"and\n     sometimes like this\"--: ` : ` : ` : `--\"and occasionally like\n     this\"--. ` . ` . ` . \"Can you remember that?\"\n\n     \"No, I cannot.\"\n\n     \"But I can. I could swear to it. However, we will go back at our\n     leisure and verify it. What a blind beetle I have been not to draw my\n     conclusion!\"\n\n     \"And what is your conclusion?\"\n\n     \"Only that it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops.\n     By George, Watson, it was no brain of a country publican that thought\n     out such a blind as that! The coast seems to be clear, save for that\n     lad in the smithy. Let us slip out and see what we can see.\"\n\n     There were two rough-haired, unkempt horses in the tumble-down\n     stable. Holmes raised the hind leg of one of them and laughed aloud.\n\n     \"Old shoes, but newly shod--old shoes, but new nails. This case\n     deserves to be a classic. Let us go across to the smithy.\"\n\n     The lad continued his work without regarding us. I saw Holmes's eye\n     darting to right and left among the litter of iron and wood which was\n     scattered about the floor. Suddenly, however, we heard a step behind\n     us, and there was the landlord, his heavy eyebrows drawn over his\n     savage eyes, his swarthy features convulsed with passion. He held a\n     short, metal-headed stick in his hand, and he advanced in so menacing\n     a fashion that I was right glad to feel the revolver in my pocket.\n\n     \"You infernal spies!\" the man cried. \"What are you doing there?\"\n\n     \"Why, Mr. Reuben Hayes,\" said Holmes, coolly, \"one might think that\n     you were afraid of our finding something out.\"\n\n     The man mastered himself with a violent effort, and his grim mouth\n     loosened into a false laugh, which was more menacing than his frown.\n\n     \"You're welcome to all you can find out in my smithy,\" said he. \"But\n     look here, mister, I don't care for folk poking about my place\n     without my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of\n     this the better I shall be pleased.\"\n\n     \"All right, Mr. Hayes--no harm meant,\" said Holmes. \"We have been\n     having a look at your horses, but I think I'll walk after all. It's\n     not far, I believe.\"\n\n     \"Not more than two miles to the Hall gates. That's the road to the\n     left.\" He watched us with sullen eyes until we had left his premises.\n\n     We did not go very far along the road, for Holmes stopped the instant\n     that the curve hid us from the landlord's view.\n\n     \"We were warm, as the children say, at that inn,\" said he. \"I seem to\n     grow colder every step that I take away from it. No, no; I can't\n     possibly leave it.\"\n\n     \"I am convinced,\" said I, \"that this Reuben Hayes knows all about it.\n     A more self-evident villain I never saw.\"\n\n     \"Oh! he impressed you in that way, did he? There are the horses,\n     there is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting\n     Cock. I think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive\n     way.\"\n\n     A long, sloping hillside, dotted with grey limestone boulders,\n     stretched behind us. We had turned off the road, and were making our\n     way up the hill, when, looking in the direction of Holdernesse Hall,\n     I saw a cyclist coming swiftly along.\n\n     \"Get down, Watson!\" cried Holmes, with a heavy hand upon my shoulder.\n     We had hardly sunk from view when the man flew past us on the road.\n     Amid a rolling cloud of dust I caught a glimpse of a pale, agitated\n     face--a face with horror in every lineament, the mouth open, the eyes\n     staring wildly in front. It was like some strange caricature of the\n     dapper James Wilder whom we had seen the night before.\n\n     \"The Duke's secretary!\" cried Holmes. \"Come, Watson, let us see what\n     he does.\"\n\n     We scrambled from rock to rock until in a few moments we had made our\n     way to a point from which we could see the front door of the inn.\n     Wilder's bicycle was leaning against the wall beside it. No one was\n     moving about the house, nor could we catch a glimpse of any faces at\n     the windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind\n     the high towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then in the gloom we saw the two\n     side-lamps of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn, and\n     shortly afterwards heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out into\n     the road and tore off at a furious pace in the direction of\n     Chesterfield.\n\n     \"What do you make of that, Watson?\" Holmes whispered.\n\n     \"It looks like a flight.\"\n\n     \"A single man in a dog-cart, so far as I could see. Well, it\n     certainly was not Mr. James Wilder, for there he is at the door.\"\n\n     A red square of light had sprung out of the darkness. In the middle\n     of it was the black figure of the secretary, his head advanced,\n     peering out into the night. It was evident that he was expecting\n     someone. Then at last there were steps in the road, a second figure\n     was visible for an instant against the light, the door shut, and all\n     was black once more. Five minutes later a lamp was lit in a room upon\n     the first floor.\n\n     \"It seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the\n     Fighting Cock,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"The bar is on the other side.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. These are what one may call the private guests. Now, what\n     in the world is Mr. James Wilder doing in that den at this hour of\n     night, and who is the companion who comes to meet him there? Come,\n     Watson, we must really take a risk and try to investigate this a\n     little more closely.\"\n\n     Together we stole down to the road and crept across to the door of\n     the inn. The bicycle still leaned against the wall. Holmes struck a\n     match and held it to the back wheel, and I heard him chuckle as the\n     light fell upon a patched Dunlop tyre. Up above us was the lighted\n     window.\n\n     \"I must have a peep through that, Watson. If you bend your back and\n     support yourself upon the wall, I think that I can manage.\"\n\n     An instant later his feet were on my shoulders. But he was hardly up\n     before he was down again.\n\n     \"Come, my friend,\" said he, \"our day's work has been quite long\n     enough. I think that we have gathered all that we can. It's a long\n     walk to the school, and the sooner we get started the better.\"\n\n     He hardly opened his lips during that weary trudge across the moor,\n     nor would he enter the school when he reached it, but went on to\n     Mackleton Station, whence he could send some telegrams. Late at night\n     I heard him consoling Dr. Huxtable, prostrated by the tragedy of his\n     master's death, and later still he entered my room as alert and\n     vigorous as he had been when he started in the morning. \"All goes\n     well, my friend,\" said he. \"I promise that before to-morrow evening\n     we shall have reached the solution of the mystery.\"\n\n     At eleven o'clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the\n     famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the\n     magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we\n     found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of\n     that wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive\n     eyes and in his twitching features.\n\n     \"You have come to see his Grace? I am sorry; but the fact is that the\n     Duke is far from well. He has been very much upset by the tragic\n     news. We received a telegram from Dr. Huxtable yesterday afternoon,\n     which told us of your discovery.\"\n\n     \"I must see the Duke, Mr. Wilder.\"\n\n     \"But he is in his room.\"\n\n     \"Then I must go to his room.\"\n\n     \"I believe he is in his bed.\"\n\n     \"I will see him there.\"\n\n     Holmes's cold and inexorable manner showed the secretary that it was\n     useless to argue with him.\n\n     \"Very good, Mr. Holmes; I will tell him that you are here.\"\n\n     After half an hour's delay the great nobleman appeared. His face was\n     more cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he seemed\n     to me to be an altogether older man than he had been the morning\n     before. He greeted us with a stately courtesy and seated himself at\n     his desk, his red beard streaming down on to the table.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes?\" said he.\n\n     But my friend's eyes were fixed upon the secretary, who stood by his\n     master's chair.\n\n     \"I think, your Grace, that I could speak more freely in Mr. Wilder's\n     absence.\"\n\n     The man turned a shade paler and cast a malignant glance at Holmes.\n\n     \"If your Grace wishes--\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes; you had better go. Now, Mr. Holmes, what have you to say?\"\n\n     My friend waited until the door had closed behind the retreating\n     secretary.\n\n     \"The fact is, your Grace,\" said he, \"that my colleague, Dr. Watson,\n     and myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a reward had been\n     offered in this case. I should like to have this confirmed from your\n     own lips.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"It amounted, if I am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds to\n     anyone who will tell you where your son is?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"And another thousand to the man who will name the person or persons\n     who keep him in custody?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"Under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those who\n     may have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep him in\n     his present position?\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes,\" cried the Duke, impatiently. \"If you do your work well,\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly\n     treatment.\"\n\n     My friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of\n     avidity which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes.\n\n     \"I fancy that I see your Grace's cheque-book upon the table,\" said\n     he. \"I should be glad if you would make me out a cheque for six\n     thousand pounds. It would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross it.\n     The Capital and Counties Bank, Oxford Street branch, are my agents.\"\n\n     His Grace sat very stern and upright in his chair, and looked stonily\n     at my friend.\n\n     \"Is this a joke, Mr. Holmes? It is hardly a subject for pleasantry.\"\n\n     \"Not at all, your Grace. I was never more earnest in my life.\"\n\n     \"What do you mean, then?\"\n\n     \"I mean that I have earned the reward. I know where your son is, and\n     I know some, at least, of those who are holding him.\"\n\n     The Duke's beard had turned more aggressively red than ever against\n     his ghastly white face.\n\n     \"Where is he?\" he gasped. \n\n     \"He is, or was last night, at the Fighting Cock Inn, about two miles\n     from your park gate.\"\n\n     The Duke fell back in his chair.\n\n     \"And whom do you accuse?\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes's answer was an astounding one. He stepped swiftly\n     forward and touched the Duke upon the shoulder.\n\n     \"I accuse you,\" said he. \"And now, your Grace, I'll trouble you for\n     that cheque.\"\n\n     Never shall I forget the Duke's appearance as he sprang up and clawed\n     with his hands like one who is sinking into an abyss. Then, with an\n     extraordinary effort of aristocratic self-command, he sat down and\n     sank his face in his hands. It was some minutes before he spoke.\n\n     \"How much do you know?\" he asked at last, without raising his head.\n\n     \"I saw you together last night.\"\n\n     \"Does anyone else besides your friend know?\"\n\n     \"I have spoken to no one.\"\n\n     The Duke took a pen in his quivering fingers and opened his\n     cheque-book.\n\n     \"I shall be as good as my word, Mr. Holmes. I am about to write your\n     cheque, however unwelcome the information which you have gained may\n     be to me. When the offer was first made I little thought the turn\n     which events might take. But you and your friend are men of\n     discretion, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I hardly understand your Grace.\"\n\n     \"I must put it plainly, Mr. Holmes. If only you two know of this\n     incident, there is no reason why it should go any farther. I think\n     twelve thousand pounds is the sum that I owe you, is it not?\"\n\n     But Holmes smiled and shook his head.\n\n     \"I fear, your Grace, that matters can hardly be arranged so easily.\n     There is the death of this schoolmaster to be accounted for.\"\n\n     \"But James knew nothing of that. You cannot hold him responsible for\n     that. It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the\n     misfortune to employ.\"\n\n     \"I must take the view, your Grace, that when a man embarks upon a\n     crime he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from\n     it.\"\n\n     \"Morally, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. But surely not in the\n     eyes of the law. A man cannot be condemned for a murder at which he\n     was not present, and which he loathes and abhors as much as you do.\n     The instant that he heard of it he made a complete confession to me,\n     so filled was he with horror and remorse. He lost not an hour in\n     breaking entirely with the murderer. Oh, Mr. Holmes, you must save\n     him--you must save him! I tell you that you must save him!\" The Duke\n     had dropped the last attempt at self-command, and was pacing the room\n     with a convulsed face and with his clenched hands raving in the air.\n     At last he mastered himself and sat down once more at his desk. \"I\n     appreciate your conduct in coming here before you spoke to anyone\n     else,\" said he. \"At least, we may take counsel how far we can\n     minimize this hideous scandal.\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said Holmes. \"I think, your Grace, that this can only be\n     done by absolute and complete frankness between us. I am disposed to\n     help your Grace to the best of my ability; but in order to do so I\n     must understand to the last detail how the matter stands. I realize\n     that your words applied to Mr. James Wilder, and that he is not the\n     murderer.\"\n\n     \"No; the murderer has escaped.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes smiled demurely.\n\n     \"Your Grace can hardly have heard of any small reputation which I\n     possess, or you would not imagine that it is so easy to escape me.\n     Mr. Reuben Hayes was arrested at Chesterfield on my information at\n     eleven o'clock last night. I had a telegram from the head of the\n     local police before I left the school this morning.\"\n\n     The Duke leaned back in his chair and stared with amazement at my\n     friend.\n\n     \"You seem to have powers that are hardly human,\" said he. \"So Reuben\n     Hayes is taken? I am right glad to hear it, if it will not react upon\n     the fate of James.\"\n\n     \"Your secretary?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; my son.\"\n\n     It was Holmes's turn to look astonished.\n\n     \"I confess that this is entirely new to me, your Grace. I must beg\n     you to be more explicit.\"\n\n     \"I will conceal nothing from you. I agree with you that complete\n     frankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in\n     this desperate situation to which James's folly and jealousy have\n     reduced us. When I was a very young man, Mr. Holmes, I loved with\n     such a love as comes only once in a lifetime. I offered the lady\n     marriage, but she refused it on the grounds that such a match might\n     mar my career. Had she lived I would certainly never have married\n     anyone else. She died, and left this one child, whom for her sake I\n     have cherished and cared for. I could not acknowledge the paternity\n     to the world; but I gave him the best of educations, and since he\n     came to manhood I have kept him near my person. He surprised my\n     secret, and has presumed ever since upon the claim which he has upon\n     me and upon his power of provoking a scandal, which would be\n     abhorrent to me. His presence had something to do with the unhappy\n     issue of my marriage. Above all, he hated my young legitimate heir\n     from the first with a persistent hatred. You may well ask me why,\n     under these circumstances, I still kept James under my roof. I answer\n     that it was because I could see his mother's face in his, and that\n     for her dear sake there was no end to my long-suffering. All her\n     pretty ways, too--there was not one of them which he could not\n     suggest and bring back to my memory. I could not send him away. But I\n     feared so much lest he should do Arthur--that is, Lord Saltire--a\n     mischief that I dispatched him for safety to Dr. Huxtable's school.\n\n     \"James came into contact with this fellow Hayes because the man was a\n     tenant of mine, and James acted as agent. The fellow was a rascal\n     from the beginning; but in some extraordinary way James became\n     intimate with him. He had always a taste for low company. When James\n     determined to kidnap Lord Saltire it was of this man's service that\n     he availed himself. You remember that I wrote to Arthur upon that\n     last day. Well, James opened the letter and inserted a note asking\n     Arthur to meet him in a little wood called the Ragged Shaw, which is\n     near to the school. He used the Duchess's name, and in that way got\n     the boy to come. That evening James bicycled over--I am telling you\n     what he has himself confessed to me--and he told Arthur, whom he met\n     in the wood, that his mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting\n     him on the moor, and that if he would come back into the wood at\n     midnight he would find a man with a horse, who would take him to her.\n     Poor Arthur fell into the trap. He came to the appointment and found\n     this fellow Hayes with a led pony. Arthur mounted, and they set off\n     together. It appears--though this James only heard yesterday--that\n     they were pursued, that Hayes struck the pursuer with his stick, and\n     that the man died of his injuries. Hayes brought Arthur to his\n     public-house, the Fighting Cock, where he was confined in an upper\n     room, under the care of Mrs. Hayes, who is a kindly woman, but\n     entirely under the control of her brutal husband.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw you\n     two days ago. I had no more idea of the truth than you. You will ask\n     me what was James's motive in doing such a deed. I answer that there\n     was a great deal which was unreasoning and fanatical in the hatred\n     which he bore my heir. In his view he should himself have been heir\n     of all my estates, and he deeply resented those social laws which\n     made it impossible. At the same time he had a definite motive also.\n     He was eager that I should break the entail, and he was of opinion\n     that it lay in my power to do so. He intended to make a bargain with\n     me--to restore Arthur if I would break the entail, and so make it\n     possible for the estate to be left to him by will. He knew well that\n     I should never willingly invoke the aid of the police against him. I\n     say that he would have proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not\n     actually do so, for events moved too quickly for him, and he had not\n     time to put his plans into practice.\n\n     \"What brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery of\n     this man Heidegger's dead body. James was seized with horror at the\n     news. It came to us yesterday as we sat together in this study. Dr.\n     Huxtable had sent a telegram. James was so overwhelmed with grief and\n     agitation that my suspicions, which had never been entirely absent,\n     rose instantly to a certainty, and I taxed him with the deed. He made\n     a complete voluntary confession. Then he implored me to keep his\n     secret for three days longer, so as to give his wretched accomplice a\n     chance of saving his guilty life. I yielded--as I have always\n     yielded--to his prayers, and instantly James hurried off to the\n     Fighting Cock to warn Hayes and give him the means of flight. I could\n     not go there by daylight without provoking comment, but as soon as\n     night fell I hurried off to see my dear Arthur. I found him safe and\n     well, but horrified beyond expression by the dreadful deed he had\n     witnessed. In deference to my promise, and much against my will, I\n     consented to leave him there for three days under the charge of Mrs.\n     Hayes, since it was evident that it was impossible to inform the\n     police where he was without telling them also who was the murderer,\n     and I could not see how that murderer could be punished without ruin\n     to my unfortunate James. You asked for frankness, Mr. Holmes, and I\n     have taken you at your word, for I have now told you everything\n     without an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. Do you in turn\n     be as frank with me.\"\n\n     \"I will,\" said Holmes. \"In the first place, your Grace, I am bound to\n     tell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious position in\n     the eyes of the law. You have condoned a felony and you have aided\n     the escape of a murderer; for I cannot doubt that any money which was\n     taken by James Wilder to aid his accomplice in his flight came from\n     your Grace's purse.\"\n\n     The Duke bowed his assent.\n\n     \"This is indeed a most serious matter. Even more culpable in my\n     opinion, your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. You\n     leave him in this den for three days.\"\n\n     \"Under solemn promises--\"\n\n     \"What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee\n     that he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty elder\n     son you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and\n     unnecessary danger. It was a most unjustifiable action.\"\n\n     The proud lord of Holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated in\n     his own ducal hall. The blood flushed into his high forehead, but his\n     conscience held him dumb.\n\n     \"I will help you, but on one condition only. It is that you ring for\n     the footman and let me give such orders as I like.\"\n\n     Without a word the Duke pressed the electric bell. A servant entered.\n\n     \"You will be glad to hear,\" said Holmes, \"that your young master is\n     found. It is the Duke's desire that the carriage shall go at once to\n     the Fighting Cock Inn to bring Lord Saltire home.\n\n     \"Now,\" said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared,\n     \"having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the\n     past. I am not in an official position, and there is no reason, so\n     long as the ends of justice are served, why I should disclose all\n     that I know. As to Hayes I say nothing. The gallows awaits him, and I\n     would do nothing to save him from it. What he will divulge I cannot\n     tell, but I have no doubt that your Grace could make him understand\n     that it is to his interest to be silent. From the police point of\n     view he will have kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom. If\n     they do not themselves find it out I see no reason why I should\n     prompt them to take a broader point of view. I would warn your Grace,\n     however, that the continued presence of Mr. James Wilder in your\n     household can only lead to misfortune.\"\n\n     \"I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he\n     shall leave me for ever and go to seek his fortune in Australia.\"\n\n     \"In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that any\n     unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, I would\n     suggest that you make such amends as you can to the Duchess, and that\n     you try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily\n     interrupted.\"\n\n     \"That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes. I wrote to the Duchess this\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"In that case,\" said Holmes, rising, \"I think that my friend and I\n     can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our\n     little visit to the North. There is one other small point upon which\n     I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his horses with shoes\n     which counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it from Mr. Wilder that\n     he learned so extraordinary a device?\"\n\n     The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense\n     surprise on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a\n     large room furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case in a\n     corner, and pointed to the inscription.\n\n     \"These shoes,\" it ran, \"were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall.\n     They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a\n     cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are\n     supposed to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of\n     Holdernesse in the Middle Ages.\"\n\n     Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along\n     the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said he, as he replaced the glass. \"It is the second\n     most interesting object that I have seen in the North.\"\n\n     \"And the first?\"\n\n     Holmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his note-book.\n     \"I am a poor man,\" said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust\n     it into the depths of his inner pocket.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER\n\n     I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and\n     physical, than in the year '95. His increasing fame had brought with\n     it an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an indiscretion if\n     I were even to hint at the identity of some of the illustrious\n     clients who crossed our humble threshold in Baker Street. Holmes,\n     however, like all great artists, lived for his art's sake, and, save\n     in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim\n     any large reward for his inestimable services. So unworldly was\n     he--or so capricious--that he frequently refused his help to the\n     powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his\n     sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application\n     to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those\n     strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and\n     challenged his ingenuity.\n\n     In this memorable year '95 a curious and incongruous succession of\n     cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous\n     investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca--an inquiry which\n     was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the\n     Pope--down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer,\n     which removed a plague-spot from the East-End of London. Close on the\n     heels of these two famous cases came the tragedy of Woodman's Lee,\n     and the very obscure circumstances which surrounded the death of\n     Captain Peter Carey. No record of the doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n     would be complete which did not include some account of this very\n     unusual affair.\n\n     During the first week of July my friend had been absent so often and\n     so long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on hand. The\n     fact that several rough-looking men called during that time and\n     inquired for Captain Basil made me understand that Holmes was working\n     somewhere under one of the numerous disguises and names with which he\n     concealed his own formidable identity. He had at least five small\n     refuges in different parts of London in which he was able to change\n     his personality. He said nothing of his business to me, and it was\n     not my habit to force a confidence. The first positive sign which he\n     gave me of the direction which his investigation was taking was an\n     extraordinary one. He had gone out before breakfast, and I had sat\n     down to mine, when he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and\n     a huge barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm.\n\n     \"Good gracious, Holmes!\" I cried. \"You don't mean to say that you\n     have been walking about London with that thing?\"\n\n     \"I drove to the butcher's and back.\"\n\n     \"The butcher's?\"\n\n     \"And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no question,\n     my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. But I am\n     prepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has\n     taken.\"\n\n     \"I will not attempt it.\"\n\n     He chuckled as he poured out the coffee.\n\n     \"If you could have looked into Allardyce's back shop you would have\n     seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in\n     his shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was\n     that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no\n     exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow.\n     Perhaps you would care to try?\"\n\n     \"Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?\"\n\n     \"Because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the mystery\n     of Woodman's Lee. Ah, Hopkins, I got your wire last night, and I have\n     been expecting you. Come and join us.\"\n\n     Our visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age,\n     dressed in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of one\n     who was accustomed to official uniform. I recognised him at once as\n     Stanley Hopkins, a young police inspector for whose future Holmes had\n     high hopes, while he in turn professed the admiration and respect of\n     a pupil for the scientific methods of the famous amateur. Hopkins's\n     brow was clouded, and he sat down with an air of deep dejection.\n\n     \"No, thank you, sir. I breakfasted before I came round. I spent the\n     night in town, for I came up yesterday to report.\"\n\n     \"And what had you to report?\"\n\n     \"Failure, sir; absolute failure.\"\n\n     \"You have made no progress?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Dear me! I must have a look at the matter.\"\n\n     \"I wish to heavens that you would, Mr. Holmes. It's my first big\n     chance, and I am at my wit's end. For goodness' sake come down and\n     lend me a hand.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, it just happens that I have already read all the\n     available evidence, including the report of the inquest, with some\n     care. By the way, what do you make of that tobacco-pouch found on the\n     scene of the crime? Is there no clue there?\"\n\n     Hopkins looked surprised.\n\n     \"It was the man's own pouch, sir. His initials were inside it. And it\n     was of seal-skin--and he an old sealer.\"\n\n     \"But he had no pipe.\"\n\n     \"No, sir, we could find no pipe; indeed, he smoked very little. And\n     yet he might have kept some tobacco for his friends.\"\n\n     \"No doubt. I only mention it because if I had been handling the case\n     I should have been inclined to make that the starting-point of my\n     investigation. However, my friend Dr. Watson knows nothing of this\n     matter, and I should be none the worse for hearing the sequence of\n     events once more. Just give us some short sketch of the essentials.\"\n\n     Stanley Hopkins drew a slip of paper from his pocket.\n\n     \"I have a few dates here which will give you the career of the dead\n     man, Captain Peter Carey. He was born in '45--fifty years of age. He\n     was a most daring and successful seal and whale fisher. In 1883 he\n     commanded the steam sealer Sea Unicorn, of Dundee. He had then had\n     several successful voyages in succession, and in the following year,\n     1884, he retired. After that he travelled for some years, and finally\n     he bought a small place called Woodman's Lee, near Forest Row, in\n     Sussex. There he has lived for six years, and there he died just a\n     week ago to-day.\n\n     \"There were some most singular points about the man. In ordinary life\n     he was a strict Puritan--a silent, gloomy fellow. His household\n     consisted of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and two female\n     servants. These last were continually changing, for it was never a\n     very cheery situation, and sometimes it became past all bearing. The\n     man was an intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him he\n     was a perfect fiend. He has been known to drive his wife and his\n     daughter out of doors in the middle of the night, and flog them\n     through the park until the whole village outside the gates was\n     aroused by their screams.\n\n     \"He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, who\n     had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. In\n     short, Mr. Holmes, you would go far before you found a more dangerous\n     man than Peter Carey, and I have heard that he bore the same\n     character when he commanded his ship. He was known in the trade as\n     Black Peter, and the name was given him, not only on account of his\n     swarthy features and the colour of his huge beard, but for the\n     humours which were the terror of all around him. I need not say that\n     he was loathed and avoided by every one of his neighbours, and that I\n     have not heard one single word of sorrow about his terrible end.\n\n     \"You must have read in the account of the inquest about the man's\n     cabin, Mr. Holmes; but perhaps your friend here has not heard of it.\n     He had built himself a wooden outhouse--he always called it 'the\n     cabin'--a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he\n     slept every night. It was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet\n     by ten. He kept the key in his pocket, made his own bed, cleaned it\n     himself, and allowed no other foot to cross the threshold. There are\n     small windows on each side, which were covered by curtains and never\n     opened. One of these windows was turned towards the high road, and\n     when the light burned in it at night the folk used to point it out to\n     each other and wonder what Black Peter was doing in there. That's the\n     window, Mr. Holmes, which gave us one of the few bits of positive\n     evidence that came out at the inquest.\n\n     \"You remember that a stonemason, named Slater, walking from Forest\n     Row about one o'clock in the morning--two days before the\n     murder--stopped as he passed the grounds and looked at the square of\n     light still shining among the trees. He swears that the shadow of a\n     man's head turned sideways was clearly visible on the blind, and that\n     this shadow was certainly not that of Peter Carey, whom he knew well.\n     It was that of a bearded man, but the beard was short and bristled\n     forwards in a way very different from that of the captain. So he\n     says, but he had been two hours in the public-house, and it is some\n     distance from the road to the window. Besides, this refers to the\n     Monday, and the crime was done upon the Wednesday.\n\n     \"On the Tuesday Peter Carey was in one of his blackest moods, flushed\n     with drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast. He roamed about\n     the house, and the women ran for it when they heard him coming. Late\n     in the evening he went down to his own hut. About two o'clock the\n     following morning his daughter, who slept with her window open, heard\n     a most fearful yell from that direction, but it was no unusual thing\n     for him to bawl and shout when he was in drink, so no notice was\n     taken. On rising at seven one of the maids noticed that the door of\n     the hut was open, but so great was the terror which the man caused\n     that it was midday before anyone would venture down to see what had\n     become of him. Peeping into the open door they saw a sight which sent\n     them flying with white faces into the village. Within an hour I was\n     on the spot and had taken over the case.\n\n     \"Well, I have fairly steady nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but I\n     give you my word that I got a shake when I put my head into that\n     little house. It was droning like a harmonium with the flies and\n     bluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a slaughter-house. He\n     had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was sure enough, for you would\n     have thought that you were in a ship. There was a bunk at one end, a\n     sea-chest, maps and charts, a picture of the Sea Unicorn, a line of\n     log-books on a shelf, all exactly as one would expect to find it in a\n     captain's room. And there in the middle of it was the man himself,\n     his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled\n     beard stuck upwards in his agony. Right through his broad breast a\n     steel harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of\n     the wall behind him. He was pinned like a beetle on a card. Of\n     course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that he\n     had uttered that last yell of agony.\n\n     \"I know your methods, sir, and I applied them. Before I permitted\n     anything to be moved I examined most carefully the ground outside,\n     and also the floor of the room. There were no footmarks.\"\n\n     \"Meaning that you saw none?\"\n\n     \"I assure you, sir, that there were none.\"\n\n     \"My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have never\n     yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. As long as the\n     criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some\n     indentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be\n     detected by the scientific searcher. It is incredible that this\n     blood-bespattered room contained no trace which could have aided us.\n     I understand, however, from the inquest that there were some objects\n     which you failed to overlook?\"\n\n     The young inspector winced at my companion's ironical comments.\n\n     \"I was a fool not to call you in at the time, Mr. Holmes. However,\n     that's past praying for now. Yes, there were several objects in the\n     room which called for special attention. One was the harpoon with\n     which the deed was committed. It had been snatched down from a rack\n     on the wall. Two others remained there, and there was a vacant place\n     for the third. On the stock was engraved 'S.S.. Sea Unicorn, Dundee.'\n     This seemed to establish that the crime had been done in a moment of\n     fury, and that the murderer had seized the first weapon which came in\n     his way. The fact that the crime was committed at two in the morning,\n     and yet Peter Carey was fully dressed, suggested that he had an\n     appointment with the murderer, which is borne out by the fact that a\n     bottle of rum and two dirty glasses stood upon the table.\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" said Holmes; \"I think that both inferences are permissible.\n     Was there any other spirit but rum in the room?\"\n\n     \"Yes; there was a tantalus containing brandy and whisky on the\n     sea-chest. It is of no importance to us, however, since the decanters\n     were full, and it had therefore not been used.\"\n\n     \"For all that its presence has some significance,\" said Holmes.\n     \"However, let us hear some more about the objects which do seem to\n     you to bear upon the case.\"\n\n     \"There was this tobacco-pouch upon the table.\"\n\n     \"What part of the table?\"\n\n     \"It lay in the middle. It was of coarse seal-skin--the\n     straight-haired skin, with a leather thong to bind it. Inside was\n     'P.C.' on the flap. There was half an ounce of strong ship's tobacco\n     in it.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! What more?\"\n\n     Stanley Hopkins drew from his pocket a drab-covered note-book. The\n     outside was rough and worn, the leaves discoloured. On the first page\n     were written the initials \"J.H.N.\" and the date \"1883.\" Holmes laid\n     it on the table and examined it in his minute way, while Hopkins and\n     I gazed over each shoulder. On the second page were the printed\n     letters \"C.P.R.,\" and then came several sheets of numbers. Another\n     heading was Argentine, another Costa Rica, and another San Paulo,\n     each with pages of signs and figures after it.\n\n     \"What do you make of these?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"They appear to be lists of Stock Exchange securities. I thought that\n     'J.H.N.' were the initials of a broker, and that 'C.P.R.' may have\n     been his client.\"\n\n     \"Try Canadian Pacific Railway,\" said Holmes.\n\n     Stanley Hopkins swore between his teeth and struck his thigh with his\n     clenched hand.\n\n     \"What a fool I have been!\" he cried. \"Of course, it is as you say.\n     Then 'J.H.N.' are the only initials we have to solve. I have already\n     examined the old Stock Exchange lists, and I can find no one in 1883\n     either in the House or among the outside brokers whose initials\n     correspond with these. Yet I feel that the clue is the most important\n     one that I hold. You will admit, Mr. Holmes, that there is a\n     possibility that these initials are those of the second person who\n     was present--in other words, of the murderer. I would also urge that\n     the introduction into the case of a document relating to large masses\n     of valuable securities gives us for the first time some indication of\n     a motive for the crime.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes's face showed that he was thoroughly taken aback by\n     this new development.\n\n     \"I must admit both your points,\" said he. \"I confess that this\n     note-book, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views\n     which I may have formed. I had come to a theory of the crime in which\n     I can find no place for this. Have you endeavoured to trace any of\n     the securities here mentioned?\"\n\n     \"Inquiries are now being made at the offices, but I fear that the\n     complete register of the stockholders of these South American\n     concerns is in South America, and that some weeks must elapse before\n     we can trace the shares.\"\n\n     Holmes had been examining the cover of the note-book with his\n     magnifying lens.\n\n     \"Surely there is some discolouration here,\" said he.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, it is a blood-stain. I told you that I picked the book off\n     the floor.\"\n\n     \"Was the blood-stain above or below?\"\n\n     \"On the side next the boards.\"\n\n     \"Which proves, of course, that the book was dropped after the crime\n     was committed.\"\n\n     \"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. I appreciated that point, and I conjectured\n     that it was dropped by the murderer in his hurried flight. It lay\n     near the door.\"\n\n     \"I suppose that none of these securities have been found among the\n     property of the dead man?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Have you any reason to suspect robbery?\"\n\n     \"No, sir. Nothing seemed to have been touched.\"\n\n     \"Dear me, it is certainly a very interesting case. Then there was a\n     knife, was there not?\"\n\n     \"A sheath-knife, still in its sheath. It lay at the feet of the dead\n     man. Mrs. Carey has identified it as being her husband's property.\"\n\n     Holmes was lost in thought for some time.\n\n     \"Well,\" said he, at last, \"I suppose I shall have to come out and\n     have a look at it.\"\n\n     Stanley Hopkins gave a cry of joy.\n\n     \"Thank you, sir. That will indeed be a weight off my mind.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his finger at the inspector.\n\n     \"It would have been an easier task a week ago,\" said he. \"But even\n     now my visit may not be entirely fruitless. Watson, if you can spare\n     the time I should be very glad of your company. If you will call a\n     four-wheeler, Hopkins, we shall be ready to start for Forest Row in a\n     quarter of an hour.\"\n\n     Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles\n     through the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that\n     great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at bay--the\n     impenetrable \"weald,\" for sixty years the bulwark of Britain. Vast\n     sections of it have been cleared, for this is the seat of the first\n     iron-works of the country, and the trees have been felled to smelt\n     the ore. Now the richer fields of the North have absorbed the trade,\n     and nothing save these ravaged groves and great scars in the earth\n     show the work of the past. Here in a clearing upon the green slope of\n     a hill stood a long, low stone house, approached by a curving drive\n     running through the fields. Nearer the road, and surrounded on three\n     sides by bushes, was a small outhouse, one window and the door facing\n     in our direction. It was the scene of the murder.\n\n     Stanley Hopkins led us first to the house, where he introduced us to\n     a haggard, grey-haired woman, the widow of the murdered man, whose\n     gaunt and deep-lined face, with the furtive look of terror in the\n     depths of her red-rimmed eyes, told of the years of hardship and\n     ill-usage which she had endured. With her was her daughter, a pale,\n     fair-haired girl, whose eyes blazed defiantly at us as she told us\n     that she was glad that her father was dead, and that she blessed the\n     hand which had struck him down. It was a terrible household that\n     Black Peter Carey had made for himself, and it was with a sense of\n     relief that we found ourselves in the sunlight again and making our\n     way along a path which had been worn across the fields by the feet of\n     the dead man.\n\n     The outhouse was the simplest of dwellings, wooden-walled,\n     shingle-roofed, one window beside the door and one on the farther\n     side. Stanley Hopkins drew the key from his pocket, and had stooped\n     to the lock, when he paused with a look of attention and surprise\n     upon his face.\n\n     \"Someone has been tampering with it,\" he said.\n\n     There could be no doubt of the fact. The woodwork was cut and the\n     scratches showed white through the paint, as if they had been that\n     instant done. Holmes had been examining the window.\n\n     \"Someone has tried to force this also. Whoever it was has failed to\n     make his way in. He must have been a very poor burglar.\"\n\n     \"This is a most extraordinary thing,\" said the inspector; \"I could\n     swear that these marks were not here yesterday evening.\"\n\n     \"Some curious person from the village, perhaps,\" I suggested.\n\n     \"Very unlikely. Few of them would dare to set foot in the grounds,\n     far less try to force their way into the cabin. What do you think of\n     it, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I think that fortune is very kind to us.\"\n\n     \"You mean that the person will come again?\"\n\n     \"It is very probable. He came expecting to find the door open. He\n     tried to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. He could not\n     manage it. What would he do?\"\n\n     \"Come again next night with a more useful tool.\"\n\n     \"So I should say. It will be our fault if we are not there to receive\n     him. Meanwhile, let me see the inside of the cabin.\"\n\n     The traces of the tragedy had been removed, but the furniture within\n     the little room still stood as it had been on the night of the crime.\n     For two hours, with most intense concentration, Holmes examined every\n     object in turn, but his face showed that his quest was not a\n     successful one. Once only he paused in his patient investigation.\n\n     \"Have you taken anything off this shelf, Hopkins?\"\n\n     \"No; I have moved nothing.\"\n\n     \"Something has been taken. There is less dust in this corner of the\n     shelf than elsewhere. It may have been a book lying on its side. It\n     may have been a box. Well, well, I can do nothing more. Let us walk\n     in these beautiful woods, Watson, and give a few hours to the birds\n     and the flowers. We shall meet you here later, Hopkins, and see if we\n     can come to closer quarters with the gentleman who has paid this\n     visit in the night.\"\n\n     It was past eleven o'clock when we formed our little ambuscade.\n     Hopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was of\n     the opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. The\n     lock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed\n     to push it back. Holmes also suggested that we should wait, not\n     inside the hut, but outside it among the bushes which grew round the\n     farther window. In this way we should be able to watch our man if he\n     struck a light, and see what his object was in this stealthy\n     nocturnal visit.\n\n     It was a long and melancholy vigil, and yet brought with it something\n     of the thrill which the hunter feels when he lies beside the water\n     pool and waits for the coming of the thirsty beast of prey. What\n     savage creature was it which might steal upon us out of the darkness?\n     Was it a fierce tiger of crime, which could only be taken fighting\n     hard with flashing fang and claw, or would it prove to be some\n     skulking jackal, dangerous only to the weak and unguarded?\n\n     In absolute silence we crouched amongst the bushes, waiting for\n     whatever might come. At first the steps of a few belated villagers,\n     or the sound of voices from the village, lightened our vigil; but one\n     by one these interruptions died away and an absolute stillness fell\n     upon us, save for the chimes of the distant church, which told us of\n     the progress of the night, and for the rustle and whisper of a fine\n     rain falling amid the foliage which roofed us in.\n\n     Half-past two had chimed, and it was the darkest hour which precedes\n     the dawn, when we all started as a low but sharp click came from the\n     direction of the gate. Someone had entered the drive. Again there was\n     a long silence, and I had begun to fear that it was a false alarm,\n     when a stealthy step was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a\n     moment later a metallic scraping and clinking. The man was trying to\n     force the lock! This time his skill was greater or his tool was\n     better, for there was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. Then\n     a match was struck, and next instant the steady light from a candle\n     filled the interior of the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes\n     were all riveted upon the scene within.\n\n     The nocturnal visitor was a young man, frail and thin, with a black\n     moustache which intensified the deadly pallor of his face. He could\n     not have been much above twenty years of age. I have never seen any\n     human being who appeared to be in such a pitiable fright, for his\n     teeth were visibly chattering and he was shaking in every limb. He\n     was dressed like a gentleman, in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers,\n     with a cloth cap upon his head. We watched him staring round with\n     frightened eyes. Then he laid the candle-end upon the table and\n     disappeared from our view into one of the corners. He returned with a\n     large book, one of the log-books which formed a line upon the\n     shelves. Leaning on the table he rapidly turned over the leaves of\n     this volume until he came to the entry which he sought. Then, with an\n     angry gesture of his clenched hand, he closed the book, replaced it\n     in the corner, and put out the light. He had hardly turned to leave\n     the hut when Hopkins's hand was on the fellow's collar, and I heard\n     his loud gasp of terror as he understood that he was taken. The\n     candle was re-lit, and there was our wretched captive shivering and\n     cowering in the grasp of the detective. He sank down upon the\n     sea-chest, and looked helplessly from one of us to the other.\n\n     \"Now, my fine fellow,\" said Stanley Hopkins, \"who are you, and what\n     do you want here?\"\n\n     The man pulled himself together and faced us with an effort at\n     self-composure.\n\n     \"You are detectives, I suppose?\" said he. \"You imagine I am connected\n     with the death of Captain Peter Carey. I assure you that I am\n     innocent.\"\n\n     \"We'll see about that,\" said Hopkins. \"First of all, what is your\n     name?\"\n\n     \"It is John Hopley Neligan.\"\n\n     I saw Holmes and Hopkins exchange a quick glance.\n\n     \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n     \"Can I speak confidentially?\"\n\n     \"No, certainly not.\"\n\n     \"Why should I tell you?\"\n\n     \"If you have no answer it may go badly with you at the trial.\"\n\n     The young man winced.\n\n     \"Well, I will tell you,\" he said. \"Why should I not? And yet I hate\n     to think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. Did you\n     ever hear of Dawson and Neligan?\"\n\n     I could see from Hopkins's face that he never had; but Holmes was\n     keenly interested.\n\n     \"You mean the West-country bankers,\" said he. \"They failed for a\n     million, ruined half the county families of Cornwall, and Neligan\n     disappeared.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Neligan was my father.\"\n\n     At last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed a long\n     gap between an absconding banker and Captain Peter Carey pinned\n     against the wall with one of his own harpoons. We all listened\n     intently to the young man's words.\n\n     \"It was my father who was really concerned. Dawson had retired. I was\n     only ten years of age at the time, but I was old enough to feel the\n     shame and horror of it all. It has always been said that my father\n     stole all the securities and fled. It is not true. It was his belief\n     that if he were given time in which to realize them all would be well\n     and every creditor paid in full. He started in his little yacht for\n     Norway just before the warrant was issued for his arrest. I can\n     remember that last night when he bade farewell to my mother. He left\n     us a list of the securities he was taking, and he swore that he would\n     come back with his honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him\n     would suffer. Well, no word was ever heard from him again. Both the\n     yacht and he vanished utterly. We believed, my mother and I, that he\n     and it, with the securities that he had taken with him, were at the\n     bottom of the sea. We had a faithful friend, however, who is a\n     business man, and it was he who discovered some time ago that some of\n     the securities which my father had with him have reappeared on the\n     London market. You can imagine our amazement. I spent months in\n     trying to trace them, and at last, after many doublings and\n     difficulties, I discovered that the original seller had been Captain\n     Peter Carey, the owner of this hut.\n\n     \"Naturally, I made some inquiries about the man. I found that he had\n     been in command of a whaler which was due to return from the Arctic\n     seas at the very time when my father was crossing to Norway. The\n     autumn of that year was a stormy one, and there was a long succession\n     of southerly gales. My father's yacht may well have been blown to the\n     north, and there met by Captain Peter Carey's ship. If that were so,\n     what had become of my father? In any case, if I could prove from\n     Peter Carey's evidence how these securities came on the market it\n     would be a proof that my father had not sold them, and that he had no\n     view to personal profit when he took them.\n\n     \"I came down to Sussex with the intention of seeing the captain, but\n     it was at this moment that his terrible death occurred. I read at the\n     inquest a description of his cabin, in which it stated that the old\n     log-books of his vessel were preserved in it. It struck me that if I\n     could see what occurred in the month of August, 1883, on board the\n     Sea Unicorn, I might settle the mystery of my father's fate. I tried\n     last night to get at these log-books, but was unable to open the\n     door. To-night I tried again, and succeeded; but I find that the\n     pages which deal with that month have been torn from the book. It was\n     at that moment I found myself a prisoner in your hands.\"\n\n     \"Is that all?\" asked Hopkins.\n\n     \"Yes, that is all.\" His eyes shifted as he said it.\n\n     \"You have nothing else to tell us?\"\n\n     He hesitated.\n\n     \"No; there is nothing.\"\n\n     \"You have not been here before last night?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Then how do you account for that?\" cried Hopkins, as he held up the\n     damning note-book, with the initials of our prisoner on the first\n     leaf and the blood-stain on the cover.\n\n     The wretched man collapsed. He sank his face in his hands and\n     trembled all over.\n\n     \"Where did you get it?\" he groaned. \"I did not know. I thought I had\n     lost it at the hotel.\"\n\n     \"That is enough,\" said Hopkins, sternly. \"Whatever else you have to\n     say you must say in court. You will walk down with me now to the\n     police-station. Well, Mr. Holmes, I am very much obliged to you and\n     to your friend for coming down to help me. As it turns out your\n     presence was unnecessary, and I would have brought the case to this\n     successful issue without you; but none the less I am very grateful.\n     Rooms have been reserved for you at the Brambletye Hotel, so we can\n     all walk down to the village together.\"\n\n     \"Well, Watson, what do you think of it?\" asked Holmes, as we\n     travelled back next morning.\n\n     \"I can see that you are not satisfied.\"\n\n     \"Oh, yes, my dear Watson, I am perfectly satisfied. At the same time\n     Stanley Hopkins's methods do not commend themselves to me. I am\n     disappointed in Stanley Hopkins. I had hoped for better things from\n     him. One should always look for a possible alternative and provide\n     against it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation.\"\n\n     \"What, then, is the alternative?\"\n\n     \"The line of investigation which I have myself been pursuing. It may\n     give us nothing. I cannot tell. But at least I shall follow it to the\n     end.\"\n\n     Several letters were waiting for Holmes at Baker Street. He snatched\n     one of them up, opened it, and burst out into a triumphant chuckle of\n     laughter.\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson. The alternative develops. Have you telegraph\n     forms? Just write a couple of messages for me: 'Sumner, Shipping\n     Agent, Ratcliff Highway. Send three men on, to arrive ten to-morrow\n     morning.--Basil.' That's my name in those parts. The other is:\n     'Inspector Stanley Hopkins, 46, Lord Street, Brixton. Come breakfast\n     to-morrow at nine-thirty. Important. Wire if unable to\n     come.--Sherlock Holmes.' There, Watson, this infernal case has\n     haunted me for ten days. I hereby banish it completely from my\n     presence. To-morrow I trust that we shall hear the last of it for\n     ever.\"\n\n     Sharp at the hour named Inspector Stanley Hopkins appeared, and we\n     sat down together to the excellent breakfast which Mrs. Hudson had\n     prepared. The young detective was in high spirits at his success.\n\n     \"You really think that your solution must be correct?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"I could not imagine a more complete case.\"\n\n     \"It did not seem to me conclusive.\"\n\n     \"You astonish me, Mr. Holmes. What more could one ask for?\"\n\n     \"Does your explanation cover every point?\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly. I find that young Neligan arrived at the Brambletye\n     Hotel on the very day of the crime. He came on the pretence of\n     playing golf. His room was on the ground-floor, and he could get out\n     when he liked. That very night he went down to Woodman's Lee, saw\n     Peter Carey at the hut, quarrelled with him, and killed him with the\n     harpoon. Then, horrified by what he had done, he fled out of the hut,\n     dropping the note-book which he had brought with him in order to\n     question Peter Carey about these different securities. You may have\n     observed that some of them were marked with ticks, and the\n     others--the great majority--were not. Those which are ticked have\n     been traced on the London market; but the others presumably were\n     still in the possession of Carey, and young Neligan, according to his\n     own account, was anxious to recover them in order to do the right\n     thing by his father's creditors. After his flight he did not dare to\n     approach the hut again for some time; but at last he forced himself\n     to do so in order to obtain the information which he needed. Surely\n     that is all simple and obvious?\"\n\n     Holmes smiled and shook his head.\n\n     \"It seems to me to have only one drawback, Hopkins, and that is that\n     it is intrinsically impossible. Have you tried to drive a harpoon\n     through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay\n     attention to these details. My friend Watson could tell you that I\n     spent a whole morning in that exercise. It is no easy matter, and\n     requires a strong and practised arm. But this blow was delivered with\n     such violence that the head of the weapon sank deep into the wall. Do\n     you imagine that this anaemic youth was capable of so frightful an\n     assault? Is he the man who hobnobbed in rum and water with Black\n     Peter in the dead of the night? Was it his profile that was seen on\n     the blind two nights before? No, no, Hopkins; it is another and a\n     more formidable person for whom we must seek.\"\n\n     The detective's face had grown longer and longer during Holmes's\n     speech. His hopes and his ambitions were all crumbling about him. But\n     he would not abandon his position without a struggle.\n\n     \"You can't deny that Neligan was present that night, Mr. Holmes. The\n     book will prove that. I fancy that I have evidence enough to satisfy\n     a jury, even if you are able to pick a hole in it. Besides, Mr.\n     Holmes, I have laid my hand upon my man. As to this terrible person\n     of yours, where is he?\"\n\n     \"I rather fancy that he is on the stair,\" said Holmes, serenely. \"I\n     think, Watson, that you would do well to put that revolver where you\n     can reach it.\" He rose, and laid a written paper upon a side-table.\n     \"Now we are ready,\" said he.\n\n     There had been some talking in gruff voices outside, and now Mrs.\n     Hudson opened the door to say that there were three men inquiring for\n     Captain Basil.\n\n     \"Show them in one by one,\" said Holmes.\n\n     The first who entered was a little ribston-pippin of a man, with\n     ruddy cheeks and fluffy white side-whiskers. Holmes had drawn a\n     letter from his pocket.\n\n     \"What name?\" he asked.\n\n     \"James Lancaster.\"\n\n     \"I am sorry, Lancaster, but the berth is full. Here is half a\n     sovereign for your trouble. Just step into this room and wait there\n     for a few minutes.\"\n\n     The second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and\n     sallow cheeks. His name was Hugh Pattins. He also received his\n     dismissal, his half-sovereign, and the order to wait.\n\n     The third applicant was a man of remarkable appearance. A fierce\n     bull-dog face was framed in a tangle of hair and beard, and two bold\n     dark eyes gleamed behind the cover of thick, tufted, overhung\n     eyebrows. He saluted and stood sailor-fashion, turning his cap round\n     in his hands.\n\n     \"Your name?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Patrick Cairns.\"\n\n     \"Harpooner?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. Twenty-six voyages.\"\n\n     \"Dundee, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And ready to start with an exploring ship?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"What wages?\"\n\n     \"Eight pounds a month.\"\n\n     \"Could you start at once?\"\n\n     \"As soon as I get my kit.\"\n\n     \"Have you your papers?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\" He took a sheaf of worn and greasy forms from his pocket.\n     Holmes glanced over them and returned them.\n\n     \"You are just the man I want,\" said he. \"Here's the agreement on the\n     side-table. If you sign it the whole matter will be settled.\"\n\n     The seaman lurched across the room and took up the pen.\n\n     \"Shall I sign here?\" he asked, stooping over the table.\n\n     Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his neck.\n\n     \"This will do,\" said he.\n\n     I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The next\n     instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. He\n     was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs\n     which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have\n     very quickly overpowered my friend had Hopkins and I not rushed to\n     his rescue. Only when I pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to\n     his temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain. We\n     lashed his ankles with cord and rose breathless from the struggle.\n\n     \"I must really apologize, Hopkins,\" said Sherlock Holmes; \"I fear\n     that the scrambled eggs are cold. However, you will enjoy the rest of\n     your breakfast all the better, will you not, for the thought that you\n     have brought your case to a triumphant conclusion.\"\n\n     Stanley Hopkins was speechless with amazement.\n\n     \"I don't know what to say, Mr. Holmes,\" he blurted out at last, with\n     a very red face. \"It seems to me that I have been making a fool of\n     myself from the beginning. I understand now, what I should never have\n     forgotten, that I am the pupil and you are the master. Even now I see\n     what you have done, but I don't know how you did it, or what it\n     signifies.\"\n\n     \"Well, well,\" said Holmes, good-humouredly. \"We all learn by\n     experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose\n     sight of the alternative. You were so absorbed in young Neligan that\n     you could not spare a thought to Patrick Cairns, the true murderer of\n     Peter Carey.\"\n\n     The hoarse voice of the seaman broke in on our conversation.\n\n     \"See here, mister,\" said he, \"I make no complaint of being\n     man-handled in this fashion, but I would have you call things by\n     their right names. You say I murdered Peter Carey; I say I killed\n     Peter Carey, and there's all the difference. Maybe you don't believe\n     what I say. Maybe you think I am just slinging you a yarn.\"\n\n     \"Not at all,\" said Holmes. \"Let us hear what you have to say.\"\n\n     \"It's soon told, and, by the Lord, every word of it is truth. I knew\n     Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whipped a harpoon\n     through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me. That's how he\n     died. You can call it murder. Anyhow, I'd as soon die with a rope\n     round my neck as with Black Peter's knife in my heart.\"\n\n     \"How came you there?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"I'll tell it you from the beginning. Just sit me up a little so as I\n     can speak easy. It was in '83 that it happened--August of that year.\n     Peter Carey was master of the Sea Unicorn, and I was spare harpooner.\n     We were coming out of the ice-pack on our way home, with head winds\n     and a week's southerly gale, when we picked up a little craft that\n     had been blown north. There was one man on her--a landsman. The crew\n     had thought she would founder, and had made for the Norwegian coast\n     in the dinghy. I guess they were all drowned. Well, we took him on\n     board, this man, and he and the skipper had some long talks in the\n     cabin. All the baggage we took off with him was one tin box. So far\n     as I know, the man's name was never mentioned, and on the second\n     night he disappeared as if he had never been. It was given out that\n     he had either thrown himself overboard or fallen overboard in the\n     heavy weather that we were having. Only one man knew what had\n     happened to him, and that was me, for with my own eyes I saw the\n     skipper tip up his heels and put him over the rail in the middle\n     watch of a dark night, two days before we sighted the Shetland\n     lights.\n\n     \"Well, I kept my knowledge to myself and waited to see what would\n     come of it. When we got back to Scotland it was easily hushed up, and\n     nobody asked any questions. A stranger died by an accident, and it\n     was nobody's business to inquire. Shortly after Peter Carey gave up\n     the sea, and it was long years before I could find where he was. I\n     guessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was in that\n     tin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for keeping my\n     mouth shut.\n\n     \"I found out where he was through a sailor man that had met him in\n     London, and down I went to squeeze him. The first night he was\n     reasonable enough, and was ready to give me what would make me free\n     of the sea for life. We were to fix it all two nights later. When I\n     came I found him three parts drunk and in a vile temper. We sat down\n     and we drank and we yarned about old times, but the more he drank the\n     less I liked the look on his face. I spotted that harpoon upon the\n     wall, and I thought I might need it before I was through. Then at\n     last he broke out at me, spitting and cursing, with murder in his\n     eyes and a great clasp-knife in his hand. He had not time to get it\n     from the sheath before I had the harpoon through him. Heavens! what a\n     yell he gave; and his face gets between me and my sleep! I stood\n     there, with his blood splashing round me, and I waited for a bit; but\n     all was quiet, so I took heart once more. I looked round, and there\n     was the tin box on a shelf. I had as much right to it as Peter Carey,\n     anyhow, so I took it with me and left the hut. Like a fool I left my\n     baccy-pouch upon the table.\n\n     \"Now I'll tell you the queerest part of the whole story. I had hardly\n     got outside the hut when I heard someone coming, and I hid among the\n     bushes. A man came slinking along, went into the hut, gave a cry as\n     if he had seen a ghost, and legged it as hard as he could run until\n     he was out of sight. Who he was or what he wanted is more than I can\n     tell. For my part I walked ten miles, got a train at Tunbridge Wells,\n     and so reached London, and no one the wiser.\n\n     \"Well, when I came to examine the box I found there was no money in\n     it, and nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell. I had lost\n     my hold on Black Peter, and was stranded in London without a\n     shilling. There was only my trade left. I saw these advertisements\n     about harpooners and high wages, so I went to the shipping agents,\n     and they sent me here. That's all I know, and I say again that if I\n     killed Black Peter the law should give me thanks, for I saved them\n     the price of a hempen rope.\"\n\n     \"A very clear statement,\" said Holmes, rising and lighting his pipe.\n     \"I think, Hopkins, that you should lose no time in conveying your\n     prisoner to a place of safety. This room is not well adapted for a\n     cell, and Mr. Patrick Cairns occupies too large a proportion of our\n     carpet.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes,\" said Hopkins, \"I do not know how to express my\n     gratitude. Even now I do not understand how you attained this\n     result.\"\n\n     \"Simply by having the good fortune to get the right clue from the\n     beginning. It is very possible if I had known about this note-book it\n     might have led away my thoughts, as it did yours. But all I heard\n     pointed in the one direction. The amazing strength, the skill in the\n     use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the seal-skin tobacco-pouch,\n     with the coarse tobacco--all these pointed to a seaman, and one who\n     had been a whaler. I was convinced that the initials 'P.C.' upon the\n     pouch were a coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he\n     seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin. You remember that\n     I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they\n     were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could\n     get these other spirits? Yes, I was certain it was a seaman.\"\n\n     \"And how did you find him?\"\n\n     \"My dear sir, the problem had become a very simple one. If it were a\n     seaman, it could only be a seaman who had been with him on the Sea\n     Unicorn. So far as I could learn he had sailed in no other ship. I\n     spent three days in wiring to Dundee, and at the end of that time I\n     had ascertained the names of the crew of the Sea Unicorn in 1883.\n     When I found Patrick Cairns among the harpooners my research was\n     nearing its end. I argued that the man was probably in London, and\n     that he would desire to leave the country for a time. I therefore\n     spent some days in the East-end, devised an Arctic expedition, put\n     forth tempting terms for harpooners who would serve under Captain\n     Basil--and behold the result!\"\n\n     \"Wonderful!\" cried Hopkins. \"Wonderful!\"\n\n     \"You must obtain the release of young Neligan as soon as possible,\"\n     said Holmes. \"I confess that I think you owe him some apology. The\n     tin box must be returned to him, but, of course, the securities which\n     Peter Carey has sold are lost for ever. There's the cab, Hopkins, and\n     you can remove your man. If you want me for the trial, my address and\n     that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway--I'll send particulars\n     later.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                   THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON\n\n     It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet\n     it is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even\n     with the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been\n     impossible to make the facts public; but now the principal person\n     concerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due suppression\n     the story may be told in such fashion as to injure no one. It records\n     an absolutely unique experience in the career both of Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes and of myself. The reader will excuse me if I conceal the date\n     or any other fact by which he might trace the actual occurrence.\n\n     We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had\n     returned about six o'clock on a cold, frosty winter's evening. As\n     Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He\n     glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on\n     the floor. I picked it up and read:--\n\n                                        \n                             Charles Augustus Milverton,\n                                        \n                                  Appledore Towers,\n                                        \n                                     Hampstead.\n                                        \n                                       Agent.\n                                         \n\n     \"Who is he?\" I asked.\n\n     \"The worst man in London,\" Holmes answered, as he sat down and\n     stretched his legs before the fire. \"Is anything on the back of the\n     card?\"\n\n     I turned it over.\n\n     \"Will call at 6.30--C.A.M.,\" I read.\n\n     \"Hum! He's about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation,\n     Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the\n     slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and\n     wicked, flattened faces? Well, that's how Milverton impresses me.\n     I've had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of\n     them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And\n     yet I can't get out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at\n     my invitation.\"\n\n     \"But who is he?\"\n\n     \"I'll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers.\n     Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and\n     reputation come into the power of Milverton. With a smiling face and\n     a heart of marble he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained\n     them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his\n     mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows\n     it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters\n     which compromise people of wealth or position. He receives these\n     wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from\n     genteel ruffians who have gained the confidence and affection of\n     trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that\n     he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in\n     length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result.\n     Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are\n     hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows\n     where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning\n     to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in\n     order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning.\n     I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you\n     how could one compare the ruffian who in hot blood bludgeons his mate\n     with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul\n     and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen\n     money-bags?\"\n\n     I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.\n\n     \"But surely,\" said I, \"the fellow must be within the grasp of the\n     law?\"\n\n     \"Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit a\n     woman, for example, to get him a few months' imprisonment if her own\n     ruin must immediately follow? His victims dare not hit back. If ever\n     he blackmailed an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him;\n     but he is as cunning as the Evil One. No, no; we must find other ways\n     to fight him.\"\n\n     \"And why is he here?\"\n\n     \"Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my\n     hands. It is the Lady Eva Brackwell, the most beautiful debutante of\n     last season. She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of\n     Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent letters--imprudent,\n     Watson, nothing worse--which were written to an impecunious young\n     squire in the country. They would suffice to break off the match.\n     Milverton will send the letters to the Earl unless a large sum of\n     money is paid him. I have been commissioned to meet him, and--to make\n     the best terms I can.\"\n\n     At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street below.\n     Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps\n     gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts. A footman\n     opened the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrachan\n     overcoat descended. A minute later he was in the room.\n\n     Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large,\n     intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen\n     smile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind\n     broad, golden-rimmed glasses. There was something of Mr. Pickwick's\n     benevolence in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the\n     fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating\n     eyes. His voice was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he\n     advanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring his regret for\n     having missed us at his first visit. Holmes disregarded the\n     outstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite.\n     Milverton's smile broadened; he shrugged his shoulders, removed his\n     overcoat, folded it with great deliberation over the back of a chair,\n     and then took a seat.\n\n     \"This gentleman?\" said he, with a wave in my direction. \"Is it\n     discreet? Is it right?\"\n\n     \"Dr. Watson is my friend and partner.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your client's interests that I\n     protested. The matter is so very delicate--\"\n\n     \"Dr. Watson has already heard of it.\"\n\n     \"Then we can proceed to business. You say that you are acting for\n     Lady Eva. Has she empowered you to accept my terms?\"\n\n     \"What are your terms?\"\n\n     \"Seven thousand pounds.\"\n\n     \"And the alternative?\"\n\n     \"My dear sir, it is painful for me to discuss it; but if the money is\n     not paid on the 14th there certainly will be no marriage on the\n     18th.\" His insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.\n\n     Holmes thought for a little.\n\n     \"You appear to me,\" he said, at last, \"to be taking matters too much\n     for granted. I am, of course, familiar with the contents of these\n     letters. My client will certainly do what I may advise. I shall\n     counsel her to tell her future husband the whole story and to trust\n     to his generosity.\"\n\n     Milverton chuckled.\n\n     \"You evidently do not know the Earl,\" said he.\n\n     From the baffled look upon Holmes's face I could see clearly that he\n     did.\n\n     \"What harm is there in the letters?\" he asked.\n\n     \"They are sprightly--very sprightly,\" Milverton answered. \"The lady\n     was a charming correspondent. But I can assure you that the Earl of\n     Dovercourt would fail to appreciate them. However, since you think\n     otherwise, we will let it rest at that. It is purely a matter of\n     business. If you think that it is in the best interests of your\n     client that these letters should be placed in the hands of the Earl,\n     then you would indeed be foolish to pay so large a sum of money to\n     regain them.\" He rose and seized his astrachan coat.\n\n     Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.\n\n     \"Wait a little,\" he said. \"You go too fast. We would certainly make\n     every effort to avoid scandal in so delicate a matter.\"\n\n     Milverton relapsed into his chair.\n\n     \"I was sure that you would see it in that light,\" he purred.\n\n     \"At the same time,\" Holmes continued, \"Lady Eva is not a wealthy\n     woman. I assure you that two thousand pounds would be a drain upon\n     her resources, and that the sum you name is utterly beyond her power.\n     I beg, therefore, that you will moderate your demands, and that you\n     will return the letters at the price I indicate, which is, I assure\n     you, the highest that you can get.\"\n\n     Milverton's smile broadened and his eyes twinkled humorously.\n\n     \"I am aware that what you say is true about the lady's resources,\"\n     said he. \"At the same time, you must admit that the occasion of a\n     lady's marriage is a very suitable time for her friends and relatives\n     to make some little effort upon her behalf. They may hesitate as to\n     an acceptable wedding present. Let me assure them that this little\n     bundle of letters would give more joy than all the candelabra and\n     butter-dishes in London.\"\n\n     \"It is impossible,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate!\" cried Milverton, taking out a\n     bulky pocket-book. \"I cannot help thinking that ladies are\n     ill-advised in not making an effort. Look at this!\" He held up a\n     little note with a coat-of-arms upon the envelope. \"That belongs\n     to--well, perhaps it is hardly fair to tell the name until to-morrow\n     morning. But at that time it will be in the hands of the lady's\n     husband. And all because she will not find a beggarly sum which she\n     could get by turning her diamonds into paste. It is such a pity. Now,\n     you remember the sudden end of the engagement between the Honourable\n     Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking? Only two days before the wedding\n     there was a paragraph in the Morning Post to say that it was all off.\n     And why? It is almost incredible, but the absurd sum of twelve\n     hundred pounds would have settled the whole question. Is it not\n     pitiful? And here I find you, a man of sense, boggling about terms\n     when your client's future and honour are at stake. You surprise me,\n     Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"What I say is true,\" Holmes answered. \"The money cannot be found.\n     Surely it is better for you to take the substantial sum which I offer\n     than to ruin this woman's career, which can profit you in no way?\"\n\n     \"There you make a mistake, Mr. Holmes. An exposure would profit me\n     indirectly to a considerable extent. I have eight or ten similar\n     cases maturing. If it was circulated among them that I had made a\n     severe example of the Lady Eva I should find all of them much more\n     open to reason. You see my point?\"\n\n     Holmes sprang from his chair.\n\n     \"Get behind him, Watson! Don't let him out! Now, sir, let us see the\n     contents of that note-book.\"\n\n     Milverton had glided as quick as a rat to the side of the room, and\n     stood with his back against the wall.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes,\" he said, turning the front of his coat and\n     exhibiting the butt of a large revolver, which projected from the\n     inside pocket. \"I have been expecting you to do something original.\n     This has been done so often, and what good has ever come from it? I\n     assure you that I am armed to the teeth, and I am perfectly prepared\n     to use my weapons, knowing that the law will support me. Besides,\n     your supposition that I would bring the letters here in a note-book\n     is entirely mistaken. I would do nothing so foolish. And now,\n     gentlemen, I have one or two little interviews this evening, and it\n     is a long drive to Hampstead.\" He stepped forward, took up his coat,\n     laid his hand on his revolver, and turned to the door. I picked up a\n     chair, but Holmes shook his head and I laid it down again. With bow,\n     a smile, and a twinkle Milverton was out of the room, and a few\n     moments after we heard the slam of the carriage door and the rattle\n     of the wheels as he drove away.\n\n     Holmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his\n     trouser pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon\n     the glowing embers. For half an hour he was silent and still. Then,\n     with the gesture of a man who has taken his decision, he sprang to\n     his feet and passed into his bedroom. A little later a rakish young\n     workman with a goatee beard and a swagger lit his clay pipe at the\n     lamp before descending into the street. \"I'll be back some time,\n     Watson,\" said he, and vanished into the night. I understood that he\n     had opened his campaign against Charles Augustus Milverton; but I\n     little dreamed the strange shape which that campaign was destined to\n     take.\n\n     For some days Holmes came and went at all hours in this attire, but\n     beyond a remark that his time was spent at Hampstead, and that it was\n     not wasted, I knew nothing of what he was doing. At last, however, on\n     a wild, tempestuous evening, when the wind screamed and rattled\n     against the windows, he returned from his last expedition, and having\n     removed his disguise he sat before the fire and laughed heartily in\n     his silent inward fashion.\n\n     \"You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed!\"\n\n     \"You'll be interested to hear that I am engaged.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow! I congrat--\"\n\n     \"To Milverton's housemaid.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens, Holmes!\"\n\n     \"I wanted information, Watson.\"\n\n     \"Surely you have gone too far?\"\n\n     \"It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business,\n     Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have\n     talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I\n     wanted. I know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand.\"\n\n     \"But the girl, Holmes?\"\n\n     He shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"You can't help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best\n     you can when such a stake is on the table. However, I rejoice to say\n     that I have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant\n     that my back is turned. What a splendid night it is!\"\n\n     \"You like this weather?\"\n\n     \"It suits my purpose. Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton's house\n     to-night.\"\n\n     I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words,\n     which were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a\n     flash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail\n     of a wide landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible\n     result of such an action--the detection, the capture, the honoured\n     career ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself\n     lying at the mercy of the odious Milverton.\n\n     \"For Heaven's sake, Holmes, think what you are doing,\" I cried.\n\n     \"My dear fellow, I have given it every consideration. I am never\n     precipitate in my actions, nor would I adopt so energetic and indeed\n     so dangerous a course if any other were possible. Let us look at the\n     matter clearly and fairly. I suppose that you will admit that the\n     action is morally justifiable, though technically criminal. To burgle\n     his house is no more than to forcibly take his pocket-book--an action\n     in which you were prepared to aid me.\"\n\n     I turned it over in my mind.\n\n     \"Yes,\" I said; \"it is morally justifiable so long as our object is to\n     take no articles save those which are used for an illegal purpose.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable I have only to consider the\n     question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much\n     stress upon this when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?\"\n\n     \"You will be in such a false position.\"\n\n     \"Well, that is part of the risk. There is no other possible way of\n     regaining these letters. The unfortunate lady has not the money, and\n     there are none of her people in whom she could confide. To-morrow is\n     the last day of grace, and unless we can get the letters to-night\n     this villain will be as good as his word and will bring about her\n     ruin. I must, therefore, abandon my client to her fate or I must play\n     this last card. Between ourselves, Watson, it's a sporting duel\n     between this fellow Milverton and me. He had, as you saw, the best of\n     the first exchanges; but my self-respect and my reputation are\n     concerned to fight it to a finish.\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't like it; but I suppose it must be,\" said I. \"When do\n     we start?\"\n\n     \"You are not coming.\"\n\n     \"Then you are not going,\" said I. \"I give you my word of honour--and\n     I never broke it in my life--that I will take a cab straight to the\n     police-station and give you away unless you let me share this\n     adventure with you.\"\n\n     \"You can't help me.\"\n\n     \"How do you know that? You can't tell what may happen. Anyway, my\n     resolution is taken. Other people beside you have self-respect and\n     even reputations.\"\n\n     Holmes had looked annoyed, but his brow cleared, and he clapped me on\n     the shoulder.\n\n     \"Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room\n     for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the\n     same cell. You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I\n     have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient\n     criminal. This is the chance of my lifetime in that direction. See\n     here!\" He took a neat little leather case out of a drawer, and\n     opening it he exhibited a number of shining instruments. \"This is a\n     first-class, up-to-date burgling kit, with nickel-plated jemmy,\n     diamond-tipped glass-cutter, adaptable keys, and every modern\n     improvement which the march of civilization demands. Here, too, is my\n     dark lantern. Everything is in order. Have you a pair of silent\n     shoes?\"\n\n     \"I have rubber-soled tennis shoes.\"\n\n     \"Excellent. And a mask?\"\n\n     \"I can make a couple out of black silk.\"\n\n     \"I can see that you have a strong natural turn for this sort of\n     thing. Very good; do you make the masks. We shall have some cold\n     supper before we start. It is now nine-thirty. At eleven we shall\n     drive as far as Church Row. It is a quarter of an hour's walk from\n     there to Appledore Towers. We shall be at work before midnight.\n     Milverton is a heavy sleeper and retires punctually at ten-thirty.\n     With any luck we should be back here by two, with the Lady Eva's\n     letters in my pocket.\"\n\n     Holmes and I put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to be\n     two theatre-goers homeward bound. In Oxford Street we picked up a\n     hansom and drove to an address in Hampstead. Here we paid off our\n     cab, and with our great-coats buttoned up, for it was bitterly cold\n     and the wind seemed to blow through us, we walked along the edge of\n     the Heath.\n\n     \"It's a business that needs delicate treatment,\" said Holmes. \"These\n     documents are contained in a safe in the fellow's study, and the\n     study is the ante-room of his bed-chamber. On the other hand, like\n     all these stout, little men who do themselves well, he is a plethoric\n     sleeper. Agatha--that's my fiancee--says it is a joke in the\n     servants' hall that it's impossible to wake the master. He has a\n     secretary who is devoted to his interests and never budges from the\n     study all day. That's why we are going at night. Then he has a beast\n     of a dog which roams the garden. I met Agatha late the last two\n     evenings, and she locks the brute up so as to give me a clear run.\n     This is the house, this big one in its own grounds. Through the\n     gate--now to the right among the laurels. We might put on our masks\n     here, I think. You see, there is not a glimmer of light in any of the\n     windows, and everything is working splendidly.\"\n\n     With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the\n     most truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent, gloomy\n     house. A sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of it, lined\n     by several windows and two doors.\n\n     \"That's his bedroom,\" Holmes whispered. \"This door opens straight\n     into the study. It would suit us best, but it is bolted as well as\n     locked, and we should make too much noise getting in. Come round\n     here. There's a greenhouse which opens into the drawing-room.\"\n\n     The place was locked, but Holmes removed a circle of glass and turned\n     the key from the inside. An instant afterwards he had closed the door\n     behind us, and we had become felons in the eyes of the law. The\n     thick, warm air of the conservatory and the rich, choking fragrance\n     of exotic plants took us by the throat. He seized my hand in the\n     darkness and led me swiftly past banks of shrubs which brushed\n     against our faces. Holmes had remarkable powers, carefully\n     cultivated, of seeing in the dark. Still holding my hand in one of\n     his he opened a door, and I was vaguely conscious that we had entered\n     a large room in which a cigar had been smoked not long before. He\n     felt his way among the furniture, opened another door, and closed it\n     behind us. Putting out my hand I felt several coats hanging from the\n     wall, and I understood that I was in a passage. We passed along it,\n     and Holmes very gently opened a door upon the right-hand side.\n     Something rushed out at us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I\n     could have laughed when I realized that it was the cat. A fire was\n     burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with tobacco\n     smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and then\n     very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study, and a\n     portiere at the farther side showed the entrance to his bedroom.\n\n     It was a good fire, and the room was illuminated by it. Near the door\n     I saw the gleam of an electric switch, but it was unnecessary, even\n     if it had been safe, to turn it on. At one side of the fireplace was\n     a heavy curtain, which covered the bay window we had seen from\n     outside. On the other side was the door which communicated with the\n     veranda. A desk stood in the centre, with a turning chair of shining\n     red leather. Opposite was a large bookcase, with a marble bust of\n     Athene on the top. In the corner between the bookcase and the wall\n     there stood a tall green safe, the firelight flashing back from the\n     polished brass knobs upon its face. Holmes stole across and looked at\n     it. Then he crept to the door of the bedroom, and stood with slanting\n     head listening intently. No sound came from within. Meanwhile it had\n     struck me that it would be wise to secure our retreat through the\n     outer door, so I examined it. To my amazement it was neither locked\n     nor bolted! I touched Holmes on the arm, and he turned his masked\n     face in that direction. I saw him start, and he was evidently as\n     surprised as I.\n\n     \"I don't like it,\" he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear. \"I\n     can't quite make it out. Anyhow, we have no time to lose.\"\n\n     \"Can I do anything?\"\n\n     \"Yes; stand by the door. If you hear anyone come, bolt it on the\n     inside, and we can get away as we came. If they come the other way,\n     we can get through the door if our job is done, or hide behind these\n     window curtains if it is not. Do you understand?\"\n\n     I nodded and stood by the door. My first feeling of fear had passed\n     away, and I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed\n     when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. The\n     high object of our mission, the consciousness that it was unselfish\n     and chivalrous, the villainous character of our opponent, all added\n     to the sporting interest of the adventure. Far from feeling guilty, I\n     rejoiced and exulted in our dangers. With a glow of admiration I\n     watched Holmes unrolling his case of instruments and choosing his\n     tool with the calm, scientific accuracy of a surgeon who performs a\n     delicate operation. I knew that the opening of safes was a particular\n     hobby with him, and I understood the joy which it gave him to be\n     confronted with this green and gold monster, the dragon which held in\n     its maw the reputations of many fair ladies. Turning up the cuffs of\n     his dress-coat--he had placed his overcoat on a chair--Holmes laid\n     out two drills, a jemmy, and several skeleton keys. I stood at the\n     centre door with my eyes glancing at each of the others, ready for\n     any emergency; though, indeed, my plans were somewhat vague as to\n     what I should do if we were interrupted. For half an hour Holmes\n     worked with concentrated energy, laying down one tool, picking up\n     another, handling each with the strength and delicacy of the trained\n     mechanic. Finally I heard a click, the broad green door swung open,\n     and inside I had a glimpse of a number of paper packets, each tied,\n     sealed, and inscribed. Holmes picked one out, but it was hard to read\n     by the flickering fire, and he drew out his little dark lantern, for\n     it was too dangerous, with Milverton in the next room, to switch on\n     the electric light. Suddenly I saw him halt, listen intently, and\n     then in an instant he had swung the door of the safe to, picked up\n     his coat, stuffed his tools into the pockets, and darted behind the\n     window curtain, motioning me to do the same.\n\n     It was only when I had joined him there that I heard what had alarmed\n     his quicker senses. There was a noise somewhere within the house. A\n     door slammed in the distance. Then a confused, dull murmur broke\n     itself into the measured thud of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching.\n     They were in the passage outside the room. They paused at the door.\n     The door opened. There was a sharp snick as the electric light was\n     turned on. The door closed once more, and the pungent reek of a\n     strong cigar was borne to our nostrils. Then the footsteps continued\n     backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, within a few yards of\n     us. Finally, there was a creak from a chair, and the footsteps\n     ceased. Then a key clicked in a lock and I heard the rustle of\n     papers.\n\n     So far I had not dared to look out, but now I gently parted the\n     division of the curtains in front of me and peeped through. From the\n     pressure of Holmes's shoulder against mine I knew that he was sharing\n     my observations. Right in front of us, and almost within our reach,\n     was the broad, rounded back of Milverton. It was evident that we had\n     entirely miscalculated his movements, that he had never been to his\n     bedroom, but that he had been sitting up in some smoking or billiard\n     room in the farther wing of the house, the windows of which we had\n     not seen. His broad, grizzled head, with its shining patch of\n     baldness, was in the immediate foreground of our vision. He was\n     leaning far back in the red leather chair, his legs outstretched, a\n     long black cigar projecting at an angle from his mouth. He wore a\n     semi-military smoking jacket, claret-coloured, with a black velvet\n     collar. In his hand he held a long legal document, which he was\n     reading in an indolent fashion, blowing rings of tobacco smoke from\n     his lips as he did so. There was no promise of a speedy departure in\n     his composed bearing and his comfortable attitude.\n\n     I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake,\n     as if to say that the situation was within his powers and that he was\n     easy in his mind. I was not sure whether he had seen what was only\n     too obvious from my position, that the door of the safe was\n     imperfectly closed, and that Milverton might at any moment observe\n     it. In my own mind I had determined that if I were sure, from the\n     rigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his eye, I would at once\n     spring out, throw my great-coat over his head, pinion him, and leave\n     the rest to Holmes. But Milverton never looked up. He was languidly\n     interested by the papers in his hand, and page after page was turned\n     as he followed the argument of the lawyer. At least, I thought, when\n     he has finished the document and the cigar he will go to his room;\n     but before he had reached the end of either there came a remarkable\n     development which turned our thoughts into quite another channel.\n\n     Several times I had observed that Milverton looked at his watch, and\n     once he had risen and sat down again, with a gesture of impatience.\n     The idea, however, that he might have an appointment at so strange an\n     hour never occurred to me until a faint sound reached my ears from\n     the veranda outside. Milverton dropped his papers and sat rigid in\n     his chair. The sound was repeated, and then there came a gentle tap\n     at the door. Milverton rose and opened it.\n\n     \"Well,\" said he, curtly, \"you are nearly half an hour late.\"\n\n     So this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the nocturnal\n     vigil of Milverton. There was the gentle rustle of a woman's dress. I\n     had closed the slit between the curtains as Milverton's face had\n     turned in our direction, but now I ventured very carefully to open it\n     once more. He had resumed his seat, the cigar still projecting at an\n     insolent angle from the corner of his mouth. In front of him, in the\n     full glare of the electric light, there stood a tall, slim, dark\n     woman, a veil over her face, a mantle drawn round her chin. Her\n     breath came quick and fast, and every inch of the lithe figure was\n     quivering with strong emotion.\n\n     \"Well,\" said Milverton, \"you've made me lose a good night's rest, my\n     dear. I hope you'll prove worth it. You couldn't come any other\n     time--eh?\"\n\n     The woman shook her head.\n\n     \"Well, if you couldn't you couldn't. If the Countess is a hard\n     mistress you have your chance to get level with her now. Bless the\n     girl, what are you shivering about? That's right! Pull yourself\n     together! Now, let us get down to business.\" He took a note from the\n     drawer of his desk. \"You say that you have five letters which\n     compromise the Countess d'Albert. You want to sell them. I want to\n     buy them. So far so good. It only remains to fix a price. I should\n     want to inspect the letters, of course. If they are really good\n     specimens--Great heavens, is it you?\"\n\n     The woman without a word had raised her veil and dropped the mantle\n     from her chin. It was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face which\n     confronted Milverton, a face with a curved nose, strong, dark\n     eyebrows shading hard, glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped\n     mouth set in a dangerous smile.\n\n     \"It is I,\" she said; \"the woman whose life you have ruined.\"\n\n     Milverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. \"You were so very\n     obstinate,\" said he. \"Why did you drive me to such extremities? I\n     assure you I wouldn't hurt a fly of my own accord, but every man has\n     his business, and what was I to do? I put the price well within your\n     means. You would not pay.\"\n\n     \"So you sent the letters to my husband, and he--the noblest gentleman\n     that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace--he\n     broke his gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I\n     came through that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you\n     laughed in my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward\n     heart cannot keep your lips from twitching? Yes, you never thought to\n     see me here again, but it was that night which taught me how I could\n     meet you face to face, and alone. Well, Charles Milverton, what have\n     you to say?\"\n\n     \"Don't imagine that you can bully me,\" said he, rising to his feet.\n     \"I have only to raise my voice, and I could call my servants and have\n     you arrested. But I will make allowance for your natural anger. Leave\n     the room at once as you came, and I will say no more.\"\n\n     The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same\n     deadly smile on her thin lips.\n\n     \"You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no\n     more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous\n     thing. Take that, you hound, and that!--and that!--and that!\"\n\n     She had drawn a little, gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after\n     barrel into Milverton's body, the muzzle within two feet of his shirt\n     front. He shrank away and then fell forward upon the table, coughing\n     furiously and clawing among the papers. Then he staggered to his\n     feet, received another shot, and rolled upon the floor. \"You've done\n     me,\" he cried, and lay still. The woman looked at him intently and\n     ground her heel into his upturned face. She looked again, but there\n     was no sound or movement. I heard a sharp rustle, the night air blew\n     into the heated room, and the avenger was gone.\n\n     No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate;\n     but as the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton's\n     shrinking body I was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes's cold,\n     strong grasp upon my wrist. I understood the whole argument of that\n     firm, restraining grip--that it was no affair of ours; that justice\n     had overtaken a villain; that we had our own duties and our own\n     objects which were not to be lost sight of. But hardly had the woman\n     rushed from the room when Holmes, with swift, silent steps, was over\n     at the other door. He turned the key in the lock. At the same instant\n     we heard voices in the house and the sound of hurrying feet. The\n     revolver shots had roused the household. With perfect coolness Holmes\n     slipped across to the safe, filled his two arms with bundles of\n     letters, and poured them all into the fire. Again and again he did\n     it, until the safe was empty. Someone turned the handle and beat upon\n     the outside of the door. Holmes looked swiftly round. The letter\n     which had been the messenger of death for Milverton lay, all mottled\n     with his blood, upon the table. Holmes tossed it in among the blazing\n     papers. Then he drew the key from the outer door, passed through\n     after me, and locked it on the outside. \"This way, Watson,\" said he;\n     \"we can scale the garden wall in this direction.\"\n\n     I could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so swiftly.\n     Looking back, the huge house was one blaze of light. The front door\n     was open, and figures were rushing down the drive. The whole garden\n     was alive with people, and one fellow raised a view-halloa as we\n     emerged from the veranda and followed hard at our heels. Holmes\n     seemed to know the ground perfectly, and he threaded his way swiftly\n     among a plantation of small trees, I close at his heels, and our\n     foremost pursuer panting behind us. It was a six-foot wall which\n     barred our path, but he sprang to the top and over. As I did the same\n     I felt the hand of the man behind me grab at my ankle; but I kicked\n     myself free and scrambled over a glass-strewn coping. I fell upon my\n     face among some bushes; but Holmes had me on my feet in an instant,\n     and together we dashed away across the huge expanse of Hampstead\n     Heath. We had run two miles, I suppose, before Holmes at last halted\n     and listened intently. All was absolute silence behind us. We had\n     shaken off our pursuers and were safe.\n\n     We had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe on the day after\n     the remarkable experience which I have recorded when Mr. Lestrade, of\n     Scotland Yard, very solemn and impressive, was ushered into our\n     modest sitting-room.\n\n     \"Good morning, Mr. Holmes,\" said he; \"good morning. May I ask if you\n     are very busy just now?\"\n\n     \"Not too busy to listen to you.\"\n\n     \"I thought that, perhaps, if you had nothing particular on hand, you\n     might care to assist us in a most remarkable case which occurred only\n     last night at Hampstead.\"\n\n     \"Dear me!\" said Holmes. \"What was that?\"\n\n     \"A murder--a most dramatic and remarkable murder. I know how keen you\n     are upon these things, and I would take it as a great favour if you\n     would step down to Appledore Towers and give us the benefit of your\n     advice. It is no ordinary crime. We have had our eyes upon this Mr.\n     Milverton for some time, and, between ourselves, he was a bit of a\n     villain. He is known to have held papers which he used for\n     blackmailing purposes. These papers have all been burned by the\n     murderers. No article of value was taken, as it is probable that the\n     criminals were men of good position, whose sole object was to prevent\n     social exposure.\"\n\n     \"Criminals!\" said Holmes. \"Plural!\"\n\n     \"Yes, there were two of them. They were, as nearly as possible,\n     captured red-handed. We have their foot-marks, we have their\n     description; it's ten to one that we trace them. The first fellow was\n     a bit too active, but the second was caught by the under-gardener and\n     only got away after a struggle. He was a middle-sized, strongly-built\n     man--square jaw, thick neck, moustache, a mask over his eyes.\"\n\n     \"That's rather vague,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"Why, it might be a\n     description of Watson!\"\n\n     \"It's true,\" said the inspector, with much amusement. \"It might be a\n     description of Watson.\"\n\n     \"Well, I am afraid I can't help you, Lestrade,\" said Holmes. \"The\n     fact is that I knew this fellow Milverton, that I considered him one\n     of the most dangerous men in London, and that I think there are\n     certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to\n     some extent, justify private revenge. No, it's no use arguing. I have\n     made up my mind. My sympathies are with the criminals rather than\n     with the victim, and I will not handle this case.\"\n\n     Holmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had\n     witnessed, but I observed all the morning that he was in his most\n     thoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant eyes\n     and his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to recall\n     something to his memory. We were in the middle of our lunch when he\n     suddenly sprang to his feet. \"By Jove, Watson; I've got it!\" he\n     cried. \"Take your hat! Come with me!\" He hurried at his top speed\n     down Baker Street and along Oxford Street, until we had almost\n     reached Regent Circus. Here on the left hand there stands a shop\n     window filled with photographs of the celebrities and beauties of the\n     day. Holmes's eyes fixed themselves upon one of them, and following\n     his gaze I saw the picture of a regal and stately lady in Court\n     dress, with a high diamond tiara upon her noble head. I looked at\n     that delicately-curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight\n     mouth, and the strong little chin beneath it. Then I caught my breath\n     as I read the time-honoured title of the great nobleman and statesman\n     whose wife she had been. My eyes met those of Holmes, and he put his\n     finger to his lips as we turned away from the window.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS\n\n     It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to\n     look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to\n     Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that\n     was going on at the police head-quarters. In return for the news\n     which Lestrade would bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with\n     attention to the details of any case upon which the detective was\n     engaged, and was able occasionally, without any active interference,\n     to give some hint or suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and\n     experience.\n\n     On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the\n     newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his\n     cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him.\n\n     \"Anything remarkable on hand?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Oh, no, Mr. Holmes, nothing very particular.\"\n\n     \"Then tell me about it.\"\n\n     Lestrade laughed.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, there is no use denying that there is something on\n     my mind. And yet it is such an absurd business that I hesitated to\n     bother you about it. On the other hand, although it is trivial, it is\n     undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is\n     out of the common. But in my opinion it comes more in Dr. Watson's\n     line than ours.\"\n\n     \"Disease?\" said I.\n\n     \"Madness, anyhow. And a queer madness too! You wouldn't think there\n     was anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of\n     Napoleon the First that he would break any image of him that he could\n     see.\"\n\n     Holmes sank back in his chair.\n\n     \"That's no business of mine,\" said he.\n\n     \"Exactly. That's what I said. But then, when the man commits burglary\n     in order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away\n     from the doctor and on to the policeman.\"\n\n     Holmes sat up again.\n\n     \"Burglary! This is more interesting. Let me hear the details.\"\n\n     Lestrade took out his official note-book and refreshed his memory\n     from its pages.\n\n     \"The first case reported was four days ago,\" said he. \"It was at the\n     shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and\n     statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front shop\n     for an instant when he heard a crash, and hurrying in he found a\n     plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art\n     upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments. He rushed out into\n     the road, but, although several passers-by declared that they had\n     noticed a man run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor\n     could he find any means of identifying the rascal. It seemed to be\n     one of those senseless acts of Hooliganism which occur from time to\n     time, and it was reported to the constable on the beat as such. The\n     plaster cast was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole\n     affair appeared to be too childish for any particular investigation.\n\n     \"The second case, however, was more serious and also more singular.\n     It occurred only last night.\n\n     \"In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse Hudson's\n     shop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner, named Dr.\n     Barnicot, who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of\n     the Thames. His residence and principal consulting-room is at\n     Kennington Road, but he has a branch surgery and dispensary at Lower\n     Brixton Road, two miles away. This Dr. Barnicot is an enthusiastic\n     admirer of Napoleon, and his house is full of books, pictures, and\n     relics of the French Emperor. Some little time ago he purchased from\n     Morse Hudson two duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of\n     Napoleon by the French sculptor, Devine. One of these he placed in\n     his hall in the house at Kennington Road, and the other on the\n     mantelpiece of the surgery at Lower Brixton. Well, when Dr. Barnicot\n     came down this morning he was astonished to find that his house had\n     been burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save\n     the plaster head from the hall. It had been carried out and had been\n     dashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its splintered\n     fragments were discovered.\"\n\n     Holmes rubbed his hands.\n\n     \"This is certainly very novel,\" said he.\n\n     \"I thought it would please you. But I have not got to the end yet.\n     Dr. Barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o'clock, and you can\n     imagine his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the\n     window had been opened in the night, and that the broken pieces of\n     his second bust were strewn all over the room. It had been smashed to\n     atoms where it stood. In neither case were there any signs which\n     could give us a clue as to the criminal or lunatic who had done the\n     mischief. Now, Mr. Holmes, you have got the facts.\"\n\n     \"They are singular, not to say grotesque,\" said Holmes. \"May I ask\n     whether the two busts smashed in Dr. Barnicot's rooms were the exact\n     duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse Hudson's shop?\"\n\n     \"They were taken from the same mould.\"\n\n     \"Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks\n     them is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering how\n     many hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London,\n     it is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous\n     iconoclast should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same\n     bust.\"\n\n     \"Well, I thought as you do,\" said Lestrade. \"On the other hand, this\n     Morse Hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of London, and\n     these three were the only ones which had been in his shop for years.\n     So, although, as you say, there are many hundreds of statues in\n     London, it is very probable that these three were the only ones in\n     that district. Therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them. What\n     do you think, Dr. Watson?\"\n\n     \"There are no limits to the possibilities of monomania,\" I answered.\n     \"There is the condition which the modern French psychologists have\n     called the 'idée fixe,' which may be trifling in character, and\n     accompanied by complete sanity in every other way. A man who had read\n     deeply about Napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary\n     family injury through the great war, might conceivably form such an\n     idée fixe and under its influence be capable of any fantastic\n     outrage.\"\n\n     \"That won't do, my dear Watson,\" said Holmes, shaking his head; \"for\n     no amount of idée fixe would enable your interesting monomaniac to\n     find out where these busts were situated.\"\n\n     \"Well, how do you explain it?\"\n\n     \"I don't attempt to do so. I would only observe that there is a\n     certain method in the gentleman's eccentric proceedings. For example,\n     in Dr. Barnicot's hall, where a sound might arouse the family, the\n     bust was taken outside before being broken, whereas in the surgery,\n     where there was less danger of an alarm, it was smashed where it\n     stood. The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call\n     nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases\n     have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson,\n     how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought\n     to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter\n     upon a hot day. I can't afford, therefore, to smile at your three\n     broken busts, Lestrade, and I shall be very much obliged to you if\n     you will let me hear of any fresh developments of so singular a chain\n     of events.\"\n\n     The development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker and\n     an infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined. I was\n     still dressing in my bedroom next morning when there was a tap at the\n     door and Holmes entered, a telegram in his hand. He read it aloud:\n\n     \"Come instantly, 131, Pitt Street, Kensington.\n     \"Lestrade.\"\n\n     \"What is it, then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Don't know--may be anything. But I suspect it is the sequel of the\n     story of the statues. In that case our friend, the image-breaker, has\n     begun operations in another quarter of London. There's coffee on the\n     table, Watson, and I have a cab at the door.\"\n\n     In half an hour we had reached Pitt Street, a quiet little backwater\n     just beside one of the briskest currents of London life. No. 131 was\n     one of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, and most unromantic\n     dwellings. As we drove up we found the railings in front of the house\n     lined by a curious crowd. Holmes whistled.\n\n     \"By George! it's attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will\n     hold the London message-boy. There's a deed of violence indicated in\n     that fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck. What's this,\n     Watson? The top steps swilled down and the other ones dry. Footsteps\n     enough, anyhow! Well, well, there's Lestrade at the front window, and\n     we shall soon know all about it.\"\n\n     The official received us with a very grave face and showed us into a\n     sitting-room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated elderly man,\n     clad in a flannel dressing-gown, was pacing up and down. He was\n     introduced to us as the owner of the house--Mr. Horace Harker, of the\n     Central Press Syndicate.\n\n     \"It's the Napoleon bust business again,\" said Lestrade. \"You seemed\n     interested last night, Mr. Holmes, so I thought perhaps you would be\n     glad to be present now that the affair has taken a very much graver\n     turn.\"\n\n     \"What has it turned to, then?\"\n\n     \"To murder. Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what\n     has occurred?\"\n\n     The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy\n     face.\n\n     \"It's an extraordinary thing,\" said he, \"that all my life I have been\n     collecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has\n     come my own way I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two\n     words together. If I had come in here as a journalist I should have\n     interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper. As it\n     is I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over\n     to a string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself.\n     However, I've heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and if you'll\n     only explain this queer business I shall be paid for my trouble in\n     telling you the story.\"\n\n     Holmes sat down and listened.\n\n     \"It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which I bought\n     for this very room about four months ago. I picked it up cheap from\n     Harding Brothers, two doors from the High Street Station. A great\n     deal of my journalistic work is done at night, and I often write\n     until the early morning. So it was to-day. I was sitting in my den,\n     which is at the back of the top of the house, about three o'clock,\n     when I was convinced that I heard some sounds downstairs. I listened,\n     but they were not repeated, and I concluded that they came from\n     outside. Then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most\n     horrible yell--the most dreadful sound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I\n     heard. It will ring in my ears as long as I live. I sat frozen with\n     horror for a minute or two. Then I seized the poker and went\n     downstairs. When I entered this room I found the window wide open,\n     and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the mantelpiece.\n     Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for\n     it was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever.\n\n     \"You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open\n     window could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. This\n     was clearly what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the\n     door. Stepping out into the dark I nearly fell over a dead man who\n     was lying there. I ran back for a light, and there was the poor\n     fellow, a great gash in his throat and the whole place swimming in\n     blood. He lay on his back, his knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly\n     open. I shall see him in my dreams. I had just time to blow on my\n     police-whistle, and then I must have fainted, for I knew nothing more\n     until I found the policeman standing over me in the hall.\"\n\n     \"Well, who was the murdered man?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"There's nothing to show who he was,\" said Lestrade. \"You shall see\n     the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now.\n     He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He\n     is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A\n     horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him.\n     Whether it was the weapon which did the deed, or whether it belonged\n     to the dead man, I do not know. There was no name on his clothing,\n     and nothing in his pockets save an apple, some string, a shilling map\n     of London, and a photograph. Here it is.\"\n\n     It was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera. It\n     represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows,\n     and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the\n     muzzle of a baboon.\n\n     \"And what became of the bust?\" asked Holmes, after a careful study of\n     this picture.\n\n     \"We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the\n     front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was broken\n     into fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you come?\"\n\n     \"Certainly. I must just take one look round.\" He examined the carpet\n     and the window. \"The fellow had either very long legs or was a most\n     active man,\" said he. \"With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to\n     reach that window-ledge and open that window. Getting back was\n     comparatively simple. Are you coming with us to see the remains of\n     your bust, Mr. Harker?\"\n\n     The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.\n\n     \"I must try and make something of it,\" said he, \"though I have no\n     doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are out already\n     with full details. It's like my luck! You remember when the stand\n     fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in the stand, and\n     my journal the only one that had no account of it, for I was too\n     shaken to write it. And now I'll be too late with a murder done on my\n     own doorstep.\"\n\n     As we left the room we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the\n     foolscap.\n\n     The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a\n     few hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes rested upon this\n     presentment of the great Emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic\n     and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown. It lay scattered\n     in splintered shards upon the grass. Holmes picked up several of them\n     and examined them carefully. I was convinced from his intent face and\n     his purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.\n\n     \"Well?\" asked Lestrade.\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"We have a long way to go yet,\" said he. \"And yet--and yet--well, we\n     have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this\n     trifling bust was worth more in the eyes of this strange criminal\n     than a human life. That is one point. Then there is the singular fact\n     that he did not break it in the house, or immediately outside the\n     house, if to break it was his sole object.\"\n\n     \"He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. He hardly\n     knew what he was doing.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's likely enough. But I wish to call your attention very\n     particularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the\n     bust was destroyed.\"\n\n     Lestrade looked about him.\n\n     \"It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed\n     in the garden.\"\n\n     \"Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he\n     must have passed before he came to this one. Why did he not break it\n     there, since it is evident that every yard that he carried it\n     increased the risk of someone meeting him?\"\n\n     \"I give it up,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.\n\n     \"He could see what he was doing here and he could not there. That was\n     his reason.\"\n\n     \"By Jove! that's true,\" said the detective. \"Now that I come to think\n     of it, Dr. Barnicot's bust was broken not far from his red lamp.\n     Well, Mr. Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?\"\n\n     \"To remember it--to docket it. We may come on something later which\n     will bear upon it. What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?\"\n\n     \"The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to\n     identify the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that. When\n     we have found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a\n     good start in learning what he was doing in Pitt Street last night,\n     and who it was who met him and killed him on the doorstep of Mr.\n     Horace Harker. Don't you think so?\"\n\n     \"No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I should approach\n     the case.\"\n\n     \"What would you do, then?\"\n\n     \"Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way! I suggest that you\n     go on your line and I on mine. We can compare notes afterwards, and\n     each will supplement the other.\"\n\n     \"Very good,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"If you are going back to Pitt Street you might see Mr. Horace\n     Harker. Tell him from me that I have quite made up my mind, and that\n     it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with Napoleonic\n     delusions was in his house last night. It will be useful for his\n     article.\"\n\n     Lestrade stared.\n\n     \"You don't seriously believe that?\"\n\n     Holmes smiled.\n\n     \"Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't. But I am sure that it will interest\n     Mr. Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate.\n     Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that we have a long and\n     rather complex day's work before us. I should be glad, Lestrade, if\n     you could make it convenient to meet us at Baker Street at six\n     o'clock this evening. Until then I should like to keep this\n     photograph found in the dead man's pocket. It is possible that I may\n     have to ask your company and assistance upon a small expedition which\n     will have be undertaken to-night, if my chain of reasoning should\n     prove to be correct. Until then, good-bye and good luck!\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street, where he\n     stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence the bust had been\n     purchased. A young assistant informed us that Mr. Harding would be\n     absent until after noon, and that he was himself a newcomer who could\n     give us no information. Holmes's face showed his disappointment and\n     annoyance.\n\n     \"Well, well, we can't expect to have it all our own way, Watson,\" he\n     said, at last. \"We must come back in the afternoon if Mr. Harding\n     will not be here until then. I am, as you have no doubt surmised,\n     endeavouring to trace these busts to their source, in order to find\n     if there is not something peculiar which may account for their\n     remarkable fate. Let us make for Mr. Morse Hudson, of the Kennington\n     Road, and see if he can throw any light upon the problem.\"\n\n     A drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer's establishment.\n     He was a small, stout man with a red face and a peppery manner.\n\n     \"Yes, sir. On my very counter, sir,\" said he. \"What we pay rates and\n     taxes for I don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's\n     goods. Yes, sir, it was I who sold Dr. Barnicot his two statues.\n     Disgraceful, sir! A Nihilist plot, that's what I make it. No one but\n     an Anarchist would go about breaking statues. Red republicans, that's\n     what I call 'em. Who did I get the statues from? I don't see what\n     that has to do with it. Well, if you really want to know, I got them\n     from Gelder & Co., in Church Street, Stepney. They are a well-known\n     house in the trade, and have been this twenty years. How many had I?\n     Three--two and one are three--two of Dr. Barnicot's and one smashed\n     in broad daylight on my own counter. Do I know that photograph? No, I\n     don't. Yes, I do, though. Why, it's Beppo. He was a kind of Italian\n     piece-work man, who made himself useful in the shop. He could carve a\n     bit and gild and frame, and do odd jobs. The fellow left me last\n     week, and I've heard nothing of him since. No, I don't know where he\n     came from nor where he went to. I have nothing against him while he\n     was here. He was gone two days before the bust was smashed.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's all we could reasonably expect to get from Morse\n     Hudson,\" said Holmes, as we emerged from the shop. \"We have this\n     Beppo as a common factor, both in Kennington and in Kensington, so\n     that is worth a ten-mile drive. Now, Watson, let us make for Gelder &\n     Co., of Stepney, the source and origin of busts. I shall be surprised\n     if we don't get some help down there.\"\n\n     In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable\n     London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial\n     London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside\n     city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter\n     and reek with the outcasts of Europe. Here, in a broad thoroughfare,\n     once the abode of wealthy City merchants, we found the sculpture\n     works for which we searched. Outside was a considerable yard full of\n     monumental masonry. Inside was a large room in which fifty workers\n     were carving or moulding. The manager, a big blond German, received\n     us civilly, and gave a clear answer to all Holmes's questions. A\n     reference to his books showed that hundreds of casts had been taken\n     from a marble copy of Devine's head of Napoleon, but that the three\n     which had been sent to Morse Hudson a year or so before had been half\n     of a batch of six, the other three being sent to Harding Brothers, of\n     Kensington. There was no reason why those six should be different to\n     any of the other casts. He could suggest no possible cause why anyone\n     should wish to destroy them--in fact, he laughed at the idea. Their\n     wholesale price was six shillings, but the retailer would get twelve\n     or more. The cast was taken in two moulds from each side of the face,\n     and then these two profiles of plaster of Paris were joined together\n     to make the complete bust. The work was usually done by Italians in\n     the room we were in. When finished the busts were put on a table in\n     the passage to dry, and afterwards stored. That was all he could tell\n     us.\n\n     But the production of the photograph had a remarkable effect upon the\n     manager. His face flushed with anger, and his brows knotted over his\n     blue Teutonic eyes.\n\n     \"Ah, the rascal!\" he cried. \"Yes, indeed, I know him very well. This\n     has always been a respectable establishment, and the only time that\n     we have ever had the police in it was over this very fellow. It was\n     more than a year ago now. He knifed another Italian in the street,\n     and then he came to the works with the police on his heels, and he\n     was taken here. Beppo was his name--his second name I never knew.\n     Serve me right for engaging a man with such a face. But he was a good\n     workman, one of the best.\"\n\n     \"What did he get?\"\n\n     \"The man lived and he got off with a year. I have no doubt he is out\n     now; but he has not dared to show his nose here. We have a cousin of\n     his here, and I dare say he could tell you where he is.\"\n\n     \"No, no,\" cried Holmes, \"not a word to the cousin--not a word, I beg\n     you. The matter is very important, and the farther I go with it the\n     more important it seems to grow. When you referred in your ledger to\n     the sale of those casts I observed that the date was June 3rd of last\n     year. Could you give me the date when Beppo was arrested?\"\n\n     \"I could tell you roughly by the pay-list,\" the manager answered.\n     \"Yes,\" he continued, after some turning over of pages, \"he was paid\n     last on May 20th.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes. \"I don't think that I need intrude upon\n     your time and patience any more.\" With a last word of caution that he\n     should say nothing as to our researches we turned our faces westward\n     once more.\n\n     The afternoon was far advanced before we were able to snatch a hasty\n     luncheon at a restaurant. A news-bill at the entrance announced\n     \"Kensington Outrage. Murder by a Madman,\" and the contents of the\n     paper showed that Mr. Horace Harker had got his account into print\n     after all. Two columns were occupied with a highly sensational and\n     flowery rendering of the whole incident. Holmes propped it against\n     the cruet-stand and read it while he ate. Once or twice he chuckled.\n\n     \"This is all right, Watson,\" said he. \"Listen to this:\n\n     \"It is satisfactory to know that there can be no difference of\n     opinion upon this case, since Mr. Lestrade, one of the most\n     experienced members of the official force, and Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\n     the well-known consulting expert, have each come to the conclusion\n     that the grotesque series of incidents, which have ended in so tragic\n     a fashion, arise from lunacy rather than from deliberate crime. No\n     explanation save mental aberration can cover the facts.\n\n     \"The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution if you only know\n     how to use it. And now, if you have quite finished, we will hark back\n     to Kensington and see what the manager of Harding Brothers has to say\n     to the matter.\"\n\n     The founder of that great emporium proved to be a brisk, crisp little\n     person, very dapper and quick, with a clear head and a ready tongue.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, I have already read the account in the evening papers. Mr.\n     Horace Harker is a customer of ours. We supplied him with the bust\n     some months ago. We ordered three busts of that sort from Gelder &\n     Co., of Stepney. They are all sold now. To whom? Oh, I dare say by\n     consulting our sales book we could very easily tell you. Yes, we have\n     the entries here. One to Mr. Harker, you see, and one to Mr. Josiah\n     Brown, of Laburnum Lodge, Laburnum Vale, Chiswick, and one to Mr.\n     Sandeford, of Lower Grove Road, Reading. No, I have never seen this\n     face which you show me in the photograph. You would hardly forget it,\n     would you, sir, for I've seldom seen an uglier. Have we any Italians\n     on the staff? Yes, sir, we have several among our workpeople and\n     cleaners. I dare say they might get a peep at that sales book if they\n     wanted to. There is no particular reason for keeping a watch upon\n     that book. Well, well, it's a very strange business, and I hope that\n     you'll let me know if anything comes of your inquiries.\"\n\n     Holmes had taken several notes during Mr. Harding's evidence, and I\n     could see that he was thoroughly satisfied by the turn which affairs\n     were taking. He made no remark, however, save that, unless we\n     hurried, we should be late for our appointment with Lestrade. Sure\n     enough, when we reached Baker Street the detective was already there,\n     and we found him pacing up and down in a fever of impatience. His\n     look of importance showed that his day's work had not been in vain.\n\n     \"Well?\" he asked. \"What luck, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"We have had a very busy day, and not entirely a wasted one,\" my\n     friend explained. \"We have seen both the retailers and also the\n     wholesale manufacturers. I can trace each of the busts now from the\n     beginning.\"\n\n     \"The busts!\" cried Lestrade. \"Well, well, you have your own methods,\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and it is not for me to say a word against them,\n     but I think I have done a better day's work than you. I have\n     identified the dead man.\"\n\n     \"You don't say so?\"\n\n     \"And found a cause for the crime.\"\n\n     \"Splendid!\"\n\n     \"We have an inspector who makes a specialty of Saffron Hill and the\n     Italian quarter. Well, this dead man had some Catholic emblem round\n     his neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he was from\n     the South. Inspector Hill knew him the moment he caught sight of him.\n     His name is Pietro Venucci, from Naples, and he is one of the\n     greatest cut-throats in London. He is connected with the Mafia,\n     which, as you know, is a secret political society, enforcing its\n     decrees by murder. Now you see how the affair begins to clear up. The\n     other fellow is probably an Italian also, and a member of the Mafia.\n     He has broken the rules in some fashion. Pietro is set upon his\n     track. Probably the photograph we found in his pocket is the man\n     himself, so that he may not knife the wrong person. He dogs the\n     fellow, he sees him enter a house, he waits outside for him, and in\n     the scuffle he receives his own death-wound. How is that, Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     Holmes clapped his hands approvingly.\n\n     \"Excellent, Lestrade, excellent!\" he cried. \"But I didn't quite\n     follow your explanation of the destruction of the busts.\"\n\n     \"The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After\n     all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It is\n     the murder that we are really investigating, and I tell you that I am\n     gathering all the threads into my hands.\"\n\n     \"And the next stage?\"\n\n     \"Is a very simple one. I shall go down with Hill to the Italian\n     quarter, find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest him on\n     the charge of murder. Will you come with us?\"\n\n     \"I think not. I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I can't\n     say for certain, because it all depends--well, it all depends upon a\n     factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great\n     hopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will\n     come with us to-night I shall be able to help you to lay him by the\n     heels.\"\n\n     \"In the Italian quarter?\"\n\n     \"No; I fancy Chiswick is an address which is more likely to find him.\n     If you will come with me to Chiswick to-night, Lestrade, I'll promise\n     to go to the Italian quarter with you to-morrow, and no harm will be\n     done by the delay. And now I think that a few hours' sleep would do\n     us all good, for I do not propose to leave before eleven o'clock, and\n     it is unlikely that we shall be back before morning. You'll dine with\n     us, Lestrade, and then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time\n     for us to start. In the meantime, Watson, I should be glad if you\n     would ring for an express messenger, for I have a letter to send, and\n     it is important that it should go at once.\"\n\n     Holmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old\n     daily papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. When at\n     last he descended it was with triumph in his eyes, but he said\n     nothing to either of us as to the result of his researches. For my\n     own part, I had followed step by step the methods by which he had\n     traced the various windings of this complex case, and, though I could\n     not yet perceive the goal which we would reach, I understood clearly\n     that Holmes expected this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon\n     the two remaining busts, one of which, I remembered, was at Chiswick.\n     No doubt the object of our journey was to catch him in the very act,\n     and I could not but admire the cunning with which my friend had\n     inserted a wrong clue in the evening paper, so as to give the fellow\n     the idea that he could continue his scheme with impunity. I was not\n     surprised when Holmes suggested that I should take my revolver with\n     me. He had himself picked up the loaded hunting-crop which was his\n     favourite weapon.\n\n     A four-wheeler was at the door at eleven, and in it we drove to a\n     spot at the other side of Hammersmith Bridge. Here the cabman was\n     directed to wait. A short walk brought us to a secluded road fringed\n     with pleasant houses, each standing in its own grounds. In the light\n     of a street lamp we read \"Laburnum Villa\" upon the gate-post of one\n     of them. The occupants had evidently retired to rest, for all was\n     dark save for a fanlight over the hall door, which shed a single\n     blurred circle on to the garden path. The wooden fence which\n     separated the grounds from the road threw a dense black shadow upon\n     the inner side, and here it was that we crouched.\n\n     \"I fear that you'll have a long wait,\" Holmes whispered. \"We may\n     thank our stars that it is not raining. I don't think we can even\n     venture to smoke to pass the time. However, it's a two to one chance\n     that we get something to pay us for our trouble.\"\n\n     It proved, however, that our vigil was not to be so long as Holmes\n     had led us to fear, and it ended in a very sudden and singular\n     fashion. In an instant, without the least sound to warn us of his\n     coming, the garden gate swung open, and a lithe, dark figure, as\n     swift and active as an ape, rushed up the garden path. We saw it\n     whisk past the light thrown from over the door and disappear against\n     the black shadow of the house. There was a long pause, during which\n     we held our breath, and then a very gentle creaking sound came to our\n     ears. The window was being opened. The noise ceased, and again there\n     was a long silence. The fellow was making his way into the house. We\n     saw the sudden flash of a dark lantern inside the room. What he\n     sought was evidently not there, for again we saw the flash through\n     another blind, and then through another.\n\n     \"Let us get to the open window. We will nab him as he climbs out,\"\n     Lestrade whispered.\n\n     But before we could move the man had emerged again. As he came out\n     into the glimmering patch of light we saw that he carried something\n     white under his arm. He looked stealthily all round him. The silence\n     of the deserted street reassured him. Turning his back upon us he\n     laid down his burden, and the next instant there was the sound of a\n     sharp tap, followed by a clatter and rattle. The man was so intent\n     upon what he was doing that he never heard our steps as we stole\n     across the grass plot. With the bound of a tiger Holmes was on his\n     back, and an instant later Lestrade and I had him by either wrist and\n     the handcuffs had been fastened. As we turned him over I saw a\n     hideous, sallow face, with writhing, furious features, glaring up at\n     us, and I knew that it was indeed the man of the photograph whom we\n     had secured.\n\n     But it was not our prisoner to whom Holmes was giving his attention.\n     Squatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most carefully examining\n     that which the man had brought from the house. It was a bust of\n     Napoleon like the one which we had seen that morning, and it had been\n     broken into similar fragments. Carefully Holmes held each separate\n     shard to the light, but in no way did it differ from any other\n     shattered piece of plaster. He had just completed his examination\n     when the hall lights flew up, the door opened, and the owner of the\n     house, a jovial, rotund figure in shirt and trousers, presented\n     himself.\n\n     \"Mr. Josiah Brown, I suppose?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, sir; and you, no doubt, are Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I had the note\n     which you sent by the express messenger, and I did exactly what you\n     told me. We locked every door on the inside and awaited developments.\n     Well, I'm very glad to see that you have got the rascal. I hope,\n     gentlemen, that you will come in and have some refreshment.\"\n\n     However, Lestrade was anxious to get his man into safe quarters, so\n     within a few minutes our cab had been summoned and we were all four\n     upon our way to London. Not a word would our captive say; but he\n     glared at us from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, when my\n     hand seemed within his reach, he snapped at it like a hungry wolf. We\n     stayed long enough at the police-station to learn that a search of\n     his clothing revealed nothing save a few shillings and a long sheath\n     knife, the handle of which bore copious traces of recent blood.\n\n     \"That's all right,\" said Lestrade, as we parted. \"Hill knows all\n     these gentry, and he will give a name to him. You'll find that my\n     theory of the Mafia will work out all right. But I'm sure I am\n     exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Holmes, for the workmanlike way in\n     which you laid hands upon him. I don't quite understand it all yet.\"\n\n     \"I fear it is rather too late an hour for explanations,\" said Holmes.\n     \"Besides, there are one or two details which are not finished off,\n     and it is one of those cases which are worth working out to the very\n     end. If you will come round once more to my rooms at six o'clock\n     to-morrow I think I shall be able to show you that even now you have\n     not grasped the entire meaning of this business, which presents some\n     features which make it absolutely original in the history of crime.\n     If ever I permit you to chronicle any more of my little problems,\n     Watson, I foresee that you will enliven your pages by an account of\n     the singular adventure of the Napoleonic busts.\"\n\n     When we met again next evening Lestrade was furnished with much\n     information concerning our prisoner. His name, it appeared, was\n     Beppo, second name unknown. He was a well-known ne'er-do-well among\n     the Italian colony. He had once been a skilful sculptor and had\n     earned an honest living, but he had taken to evil courses and had\n     twice already been in jail--once for a petty theft and once, as we\n     had already heard, for stabbing a fellow-countryman. He could talk\n     English perfectly well. His reasons for destroying the busts were\n     still unknown, and he refused to answer any questions upon the\n     subject; but the police had discovered that these same busts might\n     very well have been made by his own hands, since he was engaged in\n     this class of work at the establishment of Gelder & Co. To all this\n     information, much of which we already knew, Holmes listened with\n     polite attention; but I, who knew him so well, could clearly see that\n     his thoughts were elsewhere, and I detected a mixture of mingled\n     uneasiness and expectation beneath that mask which he was wont to\n     assume. At last he started in his chair and his eyes brightened.\n     There had been a ring at the bell. A minute later we heard steps upon\n     the stairs, and an elderly, red-faced man with grizzled side-whiskers\n     was ushered in. In his right hand he carried an old-fashioned\n     carpet-bag, which he placed upon the table.\n\n     \"Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?\"\n\n     My friend bowed and smiled. \"Mr. Sandeford, of Reading, I suppose?\"\n     said he.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, I fear that I am a little late; but the trains were\n     awkward. You wrote to me about a bust that is in my possession.\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"I have your letter here. You said, 'I desire to possess a copy of\n     Devine's Napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds for the one\n     which is in your possession.' Is that right?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"I was very much surprised at your letter, for I could not imagine\n     how you knew that I owned such a thing.\"\n\n     \"Of course you must have been surprised, but the explanation is very\n     simple. Mr. Harding, of Harding Brothers, said that they had sold you\n     their last copy, and he gave me your address.\"\n\n     \"Oh, that was it, was it? Did he tell you what I paid for it?\"\n\n     \"No, he did not.\"\n\n     \"Well, I am an honest man, though not a very rich one. I only gave\n     fifteen shillings for the bust, and I think you ought to know that\n     before I take ten pounds from you.\"\n\n     \"I am sure the scruple does you honour, Mr. Sandeford. But I have\n     named that price, so I intend to stick to it.\"\n\n     \"Well, it is very handsome of you, Mr. Holmes. I brought the bust up\n     with me, as you asked me to do. Here it is!\" He opened his bag, and\n     at last we saw placed upon our table a complete specimen of that bust\n     which we had already seen more than once in fragments.\n\n     Holmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound note upon\n     the table.\n\n     \"You will kindly sign that paper, Mr. Sandeford, in the presence of\n     these witnesses. It is simply to say that you transfer every possible\n     right that you ever had in the bust to me. I am a methodical man, you\n     see, and you never know what turn events might take afterwards. Thank\n     you, Mr. Sandeford; here is your money, and I wish you a very good\n     evening.\"\n\n     When our visitor had disappeared Sherlock Holmes's movements were\n     such as to rivet our attention. He began by taking a clean white\n     cloth from a drawer and laying it over the table. Then he placed his\n     newly-acquired bust in the centre of the cloth. Finally, he picked up\n     his hunting-crop and struck Napoleon a sharp blow on the top of the\n     head. The figure broke into fragments, and Holmes bent eagerly over\n     the shattered remains. Next instant, with a loud shout of triumph, he\n     held up one splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like a\n     plum in a pudding.\n\n     \"Gentlemen,\" he cried, \"let me introduce you to the famous black\n     pearl of the Borgias.\"\n\n     Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous\n     impulse, we both broke out clapping as at the well-wrought crisis of\n     a play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes's pale cheeks, and he\n     bowed to us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his\n     audience. It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be\n     a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and\n     applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned\n     away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved\n     to its depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.\n\n     \"Yes, gentlemen,\" said he, \"it is the most famous pearl now existing\n     in the world, and it has been my good fortune, by a connected chain\n     of inductive reasoning, to trace it from the Prince of Colonna's\n     bedroom at the Dacre Hotel, where it was lost, to the interior of\n     this, the last of the six busts of Napoleon which were manufactured\n     by Gelder & Co., of Stepney. You will remember, Lestrade, the\n     sensation caused by the disappearance of this valuable jewel, and the\n     vain efforts of the London police to recover it. I was myself\n     consulted upon the case; but I was unable to throw any light upon it.\n     Suspicion fell upon the maid of the Princess, who was an Italian, and\n     it was proved that she had a brother in London, but we failed to\n     trace any connection between them. The maid's name was Lucretia\n     Venucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that this Pietro who was\n     murdered two nights ago was the brother. I have been looking up the\n     dates in the old files of the paper, and I find that the\n     disappearance of the pearl was exactly two days before the arrest of\n     Beppo for some crime of violence, an event which took place in the\n     factory of Gelder & Co., at the very moment when these busts were\n     being made. Now you clearly see the sequence of events, though you\n     see them, of course, in the inverse order to the way in which they\n     presented themselves to me. Beppo had the pearl in his possession. He\n     may have stolen it from Pietro, he may have been Pietro's\n     confederate, he may have been the go-between of Pietro and his\n     sister. It is of no consequence to us which is the correct solution.\n\n     \"The main fact is that he had the pearl, and at that moment, when it\n     was on his person, he was pursued by the police. He made for the\n     factory in which he worked, and he knew that he had only a few\n     minutes in which to conceal this enormously valuable prize, which\n     would otherwise be found on him when he was searched. Six plaster\n     casts of Napoleon were drying in the passage. One of them was still\n     soft. In an instant Beppo, a skilful workman, made a small hole in\n     the wet plaster, dropped in the pearl, and with a few touches covered\n     over the aperture once more. It was an admirable hiding-place. No one\n     could possibly find it. But Beppo was condemned to a year's\n     imprisonment, and in the meanwhile his six busts were scattered over\n     London. He could not tell which contained his treasure. Only by\n     breaking them could he see. Even shaking would tell him nothing, for\n     as the plaster was wet it was probable that the pearl would adhere to\n     it--as, in fact, it has done. Beppo did not despair, and he conducted\n     his search with considerable ingenuity and perseverance. Through a\n     cousin who works with Gelder he found out the retail firms who had\n     bought the busts. He managed to find employment with Morse Hudson,\n     and in that way tracked down three of them. The pearl was not there.\n     Then, with the help of some Italian employe, he succeeded in finding\n     out where the other three busts had gone. The first was at Harker's.\n     There he was dogged by his confederate, who held Beppo responsible\n     for the loss of the pearl, and he stabbed him in the scuffle which\n     followed.\"\n\n     \"If he was his confederate why should he carry his photograph?\" I\n     asked.\n\n     \"As a means of tracing him if he wished to inquire about him from any\n     third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after the murder I\n     calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his\n     movements. He would fear that the police would read his secret, and\n     so he hastened on before they should get ahead of him. Of course, I\n     could not say that he had not found the pearl in Harker's bust. I had\n     not even concluded for certain that it was the pearl; but it was\n     evident to me that he was looking for something, since he carried the\n     bust past the other houses in order to break it in the garden which\n     had a lamp overlooking it. Since Harker's bust was one in three the\n     chances were exactly as I told you, two to one against the pearl\n     being inside it. There remained two busts, and it was obvious that he\n     would go for the London one first. I warned the inmates of the house,\n     so as to avoid a second tragedy, and we went down with the happiest\n     results. By that time, of course, I knew for certain that it was the\n     Borgia pearl that we were after. The name of the murdered man linked\n     the one event with the other. There only remained a single bust--the\n     Reading one--and the pearl must be there. I bought it in your\n     presence from the owner--and there it lies.\"\n\n     We sat in silence for a moment.\n\n     \"Well,\" said Lestrade, \"I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr.\n     Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than\n     that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very\n     proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from\n     the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad\n     to shake you by the hand.\"\n\n     \"Thank you!\" said Holmes. \"Thank you!\" and as he turned away it\n     seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human\n     emotions than I had ever seen him. A moment later he was the cold and\n     practical thinker once more. \"Put the pearl in the safe, Watson,\"\n     said he, \"and get out the papers of the Conk-Singleton forgery case.\n     Good-bye, Lestrade. If any little problem comes your way I shall be\n     happy, if I can, to give you a hint or two as to its solution.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS\n\n     It was in the year '95 that a combination of events, into which I\n     need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some\n     weeks in one of our great University towns, and it was during this\n     time that the small but instructive adventure which I am about to\n     relate befell us. It will be obvious that any details which would\n     help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would\n     be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be\n     allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may,\n     however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those\n     qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my\n     statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to\n     any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.\n\n     We were residing at the time in furnished lodgings close to a library\n     where Sherlock Holmes was pursuing some laborious researches in early\n     English charters--researches which led to results so striking that\n     they may be the subject of one of my future narratives. Here it was\n     that one evening we received a visit from an acquaintance, Mr. Hilton\n     Soames, tutor and lecturer at the College of St. Luke's. Mr. Soames\n     was a tall, spare man, of a nervous and excitable temperament. I had\n     always known him to be restless in his manner, but on this particular\n     occasion he was in such a state of uncontrollable agitation that it\n     was clear something very unusual had occurred.\n\n     \"I trust, Mr. Holmes, that you can spare me a few hours of your\n     valuable time. We have had a very painful incident at St. Luke's, and\n     really, but for the happy chance of your being in the town, I should\n     have been at a loss what to do.\"\n\n     \"I am very busy just now, and I desire no distractions,\" my friend\n     answered. \"I should much prefer that you called in the aid of the\n     police.\"\n\n     \"No, no, my dear sir; such a course is utterly impossible. When once\n     the law is evoked it cannot be stayed again, and this is just one of\n     those cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most\n     essential to avoid scandal. Your discretion is as well known as your\n     powers, and you are the one man in the world who can help me. I beg\n     you, Mr. Holmes, to do what you can.\"\n\n     My friend's temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the\n     congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his\n     chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man. He\n     shrugged his shoulders in ungracious acquiescence, while our visitor\n     in hurried words and with much excitable gesticulation poured forth\n     his story.\n\n     \"I must explain to you, Mr. Holmes, that to-morrow is the first day\n     of the examination for the Fortescue Scholarship. I am one of the\n     examiners. My subject is Greek, and the first of the papers consists\n     of a large passage of Greek translation which the candidate has not\n     seen. This passage is printed on the examination paper, and it would\n     naturally be an immense advantage if the candidate could prepare it\n     in advance. For this reason great care is taken to keep the paper\n     secret.\n\n     \"To-day about three o'clock the proofs of this paper arrived from the\n     printers. The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides. I\n     had to read it over carefully, as the text must be absolutely\n     correct. At four-thirty my task was not yet completed. I had,\n     however, promised to take tea in a friend's rooms, so I left the\n     proof upon my desk. I was absent rather more than an hour.\n\n     \"You are aware, Mr. Holmes, that our college doors are double--a\n     green baize one within and a heavy oak one without. As I approached\n     my outer door I was amazed to see a key in it. For an instant I\n     imagined that I had left my own there, but on feeling in my pocket I\n     found that it was all right. The only duplicate which existed, so far\n     as I knew, was that which belonged to my servant, Bannister, a man\n     who has looked after my room for ten years, and whose honesty is\n     absolutely above suspicion. I found that the key was indeed his, that\n     he had entered my room to know if I wanted tea, and that he had very\n     carelessly left the key in the door when he came out. His visit to my\n     room must have been within a very few minutes of my leaving it. His\n     forgetfulness about the key would have mattered little upon any other\n     occasion, but on this one day it has produced the most deplorable\n     consequences.\n\n     \"The moment I looked at my table I was aware that someone had\n     rummaged among my papers. The proof was in three long slips. I had\n     left them all together. Now, I found that one of them was lying on\n     the floor, one was on the side table near the window, and the third\n     was where I had left it.\"\n\n     Holmes stirred for the first time.\n\n     \"The first page on the floor, the second in the window, the third\n     where you left it,\" said he.\n\n     \"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. You amaze me. How could you possibly know\n     that?\"\n\n     \"Pray continue your very interesting statement.\"\n\n     \"For an instant I imagined that Bannister had taken the unpardonable\n     liberty of examining my papers. He denied it, however, with the\n     utmost earnestness, and I am convinced that he was speaking the\n     truth. The alternative was that someone passing had observed the key\n     in the door, had known that I was out, and had entered to look at the\n     papers. A large sum of money is at stake, for the scholarship is a\n     very valuable one, and an unscrupulous man might very well run a risk\n     in order to gain an advantage over his fellows.\n\n     \"Bannister was very much upset by the incident. He had nearly fainted\n     when we found that the papers had undoubtedly been tampered with. I\n     gave him a little brandy and left him collapsed in a chair while I\n     made a most careful examination of the room. I soon saw that the\n     intruder had left other traces of his presence besides the rumpled\n     papers. On the table in the window were several shreds from a pencil\n     which had been sharpened. A broken tip of lead was lying there also.\n     Evidently the rascal had copied the paper in a great hurry, had\n     broken his pencil, and had been compelled to put a fresh point to\n     it.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Holmes, who was recovering his good-humour as his\n     attention became more engrossed by the case. \"Fortune has been your\n     friend.\"\n\n     \"This was not all. I have a new writing-table with a fine surface of\n     red leather. I am prepared to swear, and so is Bannister, that it was\n     smooth and unstained. Now I found a clean cut in it about three\n     inches long--not a mere scratch, but a positive cut. Not only this,\n     but on the table I found a small ball of black dough, or clay, with\n     specks of something which looks like sawdust in it. I am convinced\n     that these marks were left by the man who rifled the papers. There\n     were no footmarks and no other evidence as to his identity. I was at\n     my wits' ends, when suddenly the happy thought occurred to me that\n     you were in the town, and I came straight round to put the matter\n     into your hands. Do help me, Mr. Holmes! You see my dilemma. Either I\n     must find the man or else the examination must be postponed until\n     fresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without\n     explanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a\n     cloud not only on the college, but on the University. Above all\n     things I desire to settle the matter quietly and discreetly.\"\n\n     \"I shall be happy to look into it and to give you such advice as I\n     can,\" said Holmes, rising and putting on his overcoat. \"The case is\n     not entirely devoid of interest. Had anyone visited you in your room\n     after the papers came to you?\"\n\n     \"Yes; young Daulat Ras, an Indian student who lives on the same\n     stair, came in to ask me some particulars about the examination.\"\n\n     \"For which he was entered?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"And the papers were on your table?\"\n\n     \"To the best of my belief they were rolled up.\"\n\n     \"But might be recognised as proofs?\"\n\n     \"Possibly.\"\n\n     \"No one else in your room?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Did anyone know that these proofs would be there?\"\n\n     \"No one save the printer.\"\n\n     \"Did this man Bannister know?\"\n\n     \"No, certainly not. No one knew.\"\n\n     \"Where is Bannister now?\"\n\n     \"He was very ill, poor fellow. I left him collapsed in the chair. I\n     was in such a hurry to come to you.\"\n\n     \"You left your door open?\"\n\n     \"I locked up the papers first.\"\n\n     \"Then it amounts to this, Mr. Soames, that unless the Indian student\n     recognised the roll as being proofs, the man who tampered with them\n     came upon them accidentally without knowing that they were there.\"\n\n     \"So it seems to me.\"\n\n     Holmes gave an enigmatic smile.\n\n     \"Well,\" said he, \"let us go round. Not one of your cases,\n     Watson--mental, not physical. All right; come if you want to. Now,\n     Mr. Soames--at your disposal!\"\n\n      The sitting-room of our client opened by a long, low, latticed\n     window on to the ancient lichen-tinted court of the old college. A\n     Gothic arched door led to a worn stone staircase. On the ground floor\n     was the tutor's room. Above were three students, one on each story.\n     It was already twilight when we reached the scene of our problem.\n     Holmes halted and looked earnestly at the window. Then he approached\n     it, and, standing on tiptoe with his neck craned, he looked into the\n     room.\n\n     \"He must have entered through the door. There is no opening except\n     the one pane,\" said our learned guide.\n\n     \"Dear me!\" said Holmes, and he smiled in a singular way as he glanced\n     at our companion. \"Well, if there is nothing to be learned here we\n     had best go inside.\"\n\n     The lecturer unlocked the outer door and ushered us into his room. We\n     stood at the entrance while Holmes made an examination of the carpet.\n\n     \"I am afraid there are no signs here,\" said he. \"One could hardly\n     hope for any upon so dry a day. Your servant seems to have quite\n     recovered. You left him in a chair, you say; which chair?\"\n\n     \"By the window there.\"\n\n     \"I see. Near this little table. You can come in now. I have finished\n     with the carpet. Let us take the little table first. Of course, what\n     has happened is very clear. The man entered and took the papers,\n     sheet by sheet, from the central table. He carried them over to the\n     window table, because from there he could see if you came across the\n     courtyard, and so could effect an escape.\"\n\n     \"As a matter of fact he could not,\" said Soames, \"for I entered by\n     the side door.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that's good! Well, anyhow, that was in his mind. Let me see the\n     three strips. No finger impressions--no! Well, he carried over this\n     one first and he copied it. How long would it take him to do that,\n     using every possible contraction? A quarter of an hour, not less.\n     Then he tossed it down and seized the next. He was in the midst of\n     that when your return caused him to make a very hurried retreat--very\n     hurried, since he had not time to replace the papers which would tell\n     you that he had been there. You were not aware of any hurrying feet\n     on the stair as you entered the outer door?\"\n\n     \"No, I can't say I was.\"\n\n     \"Well, he wrote so furiously that he broke his pencil, and had, as\n     you observe, to sharpen it again. This is of interest, Watson. The\n     pencil was not an ordinary one. It was above the usual size, with a\n     soft lead; the outer colour was dark blue, the maker's name was\n     printed in silver lettering, and the piece remaining is only about an\n     inch and a half long. Look for such a pencil, Mr. Soames, and you\n     have got your man. When I add that he possesses a large and very\n     blunt knife, you have an additional aid.\"\n\n     Mr. Soames was somewhat overwhelmed by this flood of information. \"I\n     can follow the other points,\" said he, \"but really, in this matter of\n     the length--\"\n\n     Holmes held out a small chip with the letters NN and a space of clear\n     wood after them.\n\n     \"You see?\"\n\n     \"No, I fear that even now--\"\n\n     \"Watson, I have always done you an injustice. There are others. What\n     could this NN be? It is at the end of a word. You are aware that\n     Johann Faber is the most common maker's name. Is it not clear that\n     there is just as much of the pencil left as usually follows the\n     Johann?\" He held the small table sideways to the electric light. \"I\n     was hoping that if the paper on which he wrote was thin some trace of\n     it might come through upon this polished surface. No, I see nothing.\n     I don't think there is anything more to be learned here. Now for the\n     central table. This small pellet is, I presume, the black, doughy\n     mass you spoke of. Roughly pyramidal in shape and hollowed out, I\n     perceive. As you say, there appear to be grains of sawdust in it.\n     Dear me, this is very interesting. And the cut--a positive tear, I\n     see. It began with a thin scratch and ended in a jagged hole. I am\n     much indebted to you for directing my attention to this case, Mr.\n     Soames. Where does that door lead to?\"\n\n     \"To my bedroom.\"\n\n     \"Have you been in it since your adventure?\"\n\n     \"No; I came straight away for you.\"\n\n     \"I should like to have a glance round. What a charming, old-fashioned\n     room! Perhaps you will kindly wait a minute until I have examined the\n     floor. No, I see nothing. What about this curtain? You hang your\n     clothes behind it. If anyone were forced to conceal himself in this\n     room he must do it there, since the bed is too low and the wardrobe\n     too shallow. No one there, I suppose?\"\n\n     As Holmes drew the curtain I was aware, from some little rigidity and\n     alertness of his attitude, that he was prepared for an emergency. As\n     a matter of fact the drawn curtain disclosed nothing but three or\n     four suits of clothes hanging from a line of pegs. Holmes turned away\n     and stooped suddenly to the floor.\n\n     \"Halloa! What's this?\" said he.\n\n     It was a small pyramid of black, putty-like stuff, exactly like the\n     one upon the table of the study. Holmes held it out on his open palm\n     in the glare of the electric light.\n\n     \"Your visitor seems to have left traces in your bedroom as well as in\n     your sitting-room, Mr. Soames.\"\n\n     \"What could he have wanted there?\"\n\n     \"I think it is clear enough. You came back by an unexpected way, and\n     so he had no warning until you were at the very door. What could he\n     do? He caught up everything which would betray him and he rushed into\n     your bedroom to conceal himself.\"\n\n     \"Good gracious, Mr. Holmes, do you mean to tell me that all the time\n     I was talking to Bannister in this room we had the man prisoner if we\n     had only known it?\"\n\n     \"So I read it.\"\n\n     \"Surely there is another alternative, Mr. Holmes. I don't know\n     whether you observed my bedroom window?\"\n\n     \"Lattice-paned, lead framework, three separate windows, one swinging\n     on hinge and large enough to admit a man.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. And it looks out on an angle of the courtyard so as to be\n     partly invisible. The man might have effected his entrance there,\n     left traces as he passed through the bedroom, and, finally, finding\n     the door open have escaped that way.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head impatiently.\n\n     \"Let us be practical,\" said he. \"I understand you to say that there\n     are three students who use this stair and are in the habit of passing\n     your door?\"\n\n     \"Yes, there are.\"\n\n     \"And they are all in for this examination?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Have you any reason to suspect any one of them more than the\n     others?\"\n\n     Soames hesitated.\n\n     \"It is a very delicate question,\" said he. \"One hardly likes to throw\n     suspicion where there are no proofs.\"\n\n     \"Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.\"\n\n     \"I will tell you, then, in a few words the character of the three men\n     who inhabit these rooms. The lower of the three is Gilchrist, a fine\n     scholar and athlete; plays in the Rugby team and the cricket team for\n     the college, and got his Blue for the hurdles and the long jump. He\n     is a fine, manly fellow. His father was the notorious Sir Jabez\n     Gilchrist, who ruined himself on the turf. My scholar has been left\n     very poor, but he is hard-working and industrious. He will do well.\n\n     \"The second floor is inhabited by Daulat Ras, the Indian. He is a\n     quiet, inscrutable fellow, as most of those Indians are. He is well\n     up in his work, though his Greek is his weak subject. He is steady\n     and methodical.\n\n     \"The top floor belongs to Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow\n     when he chooses to work--one of the brightest intellects of the\n     University, but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was\n     nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. He has been\n     idling all this term, and he must look forward with dread to the\n     examination.\"\n\n     \"Then it is he whom you suspect?\"\n\n     \"I dare not go so far as that. But of the three he is perhaps the\n     least unlikely.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Now, Mr. Soames, let us have a look at your servant,\n     Bannister.\"\n\n     He was a little, white-faced, clean-shaven, grizzly-haired fellow of\n     fifty. He was still suffering from this sudden disturbance of the\n     quiet routine of his life. His plump face was twitching with his\n     nervousness, and his fingers could not keep still.\n\n     \"We are investigating this unhappy business, Bannister,\" said his\n     master.\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"I understand,\" said Holmes, \"that you left your key in the door?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Was it not very extraordinary that you should do this on the very\n     day when there were these papers inside?\"\n\n     \"It was most unfortunate, sir. But I have occasionally done the same\n     thing at other times.\"\n\n     \"When did you enter the room?\"\n\n     \"It was about half-past four. That is Mr. Soames's tea time.\"\n\n     \"How long did you stay?\"\n\n     \"When I saw that he was absent I withdrew at once.\"\n\n     \"Did you look at these papers on the table?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; certainly not.\"\n\n     \"How came you to leave the key in the door?\"\n\n     \"I had the tea-tray in my hand. I thought I would come back for the\n     key. Then I forgot.\"\n\n     \"Has the outer door a spring lock?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Then it was open all the time?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Anyone in the room could get out?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"When Mr. Soames returned and called for you, you were very much\n     disturbed?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. Such a thing has never happened during the many years that\n     I have been here. I nearly fainted, sir.\"\n\n     \"So I understand. Where were you when you began to feel bad?\"\n\n     \"Where was I, sir? Why, here, near the door.\"\n\n     \"That is singular, because you sat down in that chair over yonder\n     near the corner. Why did you pass these other chairs?\"\n\n     \"I don't know, sir. It didn't matter to me where I sat.\"\n\n     \"I really don't think he knew much about it, Mr. Holmes. He was\n     looking very bad--quite ghastly.\"\n\n     \"You stayed here when your master left?\"\n\n     \"Only for a minute or so. Then I locked the door and went to my\n     room.\"\n\n     \"Whom do you suspect?\"\n\n     \"Oh, I would not venture to say, sir. I don't believe there is any\n     gentleman in this University who is capable of profiting by such an\n     action. No, sir, I'll not believe it.\"\n\n     \"Thank you; that will do,\" said Holmes. \"Oh, one more word. You have\n     not mentioned to any of the three gentlemen whom you attend that\n     anything is amiss?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; not a word.\"\n\n     \"You haven't seen any of them?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Now, Mr. Soames, we will take a walk in the quadrangle,\n     if you please.\"\n\n     Three yellow squares of light shone above us in the gathering gloom.\n\n     \"Your three birds are all in their nests,\" said Holmes, looking up.\n     \"Halloa! What's that? One of them seems restless enough.\"\n\n     It was the Indian, whose dark silhouette appeared suddenly upon his\n     blind. He was pacing swiftly up and down his room.\n\n     \"I should like to have a peep at each of them,\" said Holmes. \"Is it\n     possible?\"\n\n     \"No difficulty in the world,\" Soames answered. \"This set of rooms is\n     quite the oldest in the college, and it is not unusual for visitors\n     to go over them. Come along, and I will personally conduct you.\"\n\n     \"No names, please!\" said Holmes, as we knocked at Gilchrist's door. A\n     tall, flaxen-haired, slim young fellow opened it, and made us welcome\n     when he understood our errand. There were some really curious pieces\n     of mediaeval domestic architecture within. Holmes was so charmed with\n     one of them that he insisted on drawing it on his note-book, broke\n     his pencil, had to borrow one from our host, and finally borrowed a\n     knife to sharpen his own. The same curious accident happened to him\n     in the rooms of the Indian--a silent, little, hook-nosed fellow, who\n     eyed us askance and was obviously glad when Holmes's architectural\n     studies had come to an end. I could not see that in either case\n     Holmes had come upon the clue for which he was searching. Only at the\n     third did our visit prove abortive. The outer door would not open to\n     our knock, and nothing more substantial than a torrent of bad\n     language came from behind it. \"I don't care who you are. You can go\n     to blazes!\" roared the angry voice. \"To-morrow's the exam, and I\n     won't be drawn by anyone.\"\n\n     \"A rude fellow,\" said our guide, flushing with anger as we withdrew\n     down the stair. \"Of course, he did not realize that it was I who was\n     knocking, but none the less his conduct was very uncourteous, and,\n     indeed, under the circumstances rather suspicious.\"\n\n     Holmes's response was a curious one.\n\n     \"Can you tell me his exact height?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Really, Mr. Holmes, I cannot undertake to say. He is taller than the\n     Indian, not so tall as Gilchrist. I suppose five foot six would be\n     about it.\"\n\n     \"That is very important,\" said Holmes. \"And now, Mr. Soames, I wish\n     you good-night.\"\n\n     Our guide cried aloud in his astonishment and dismay. \"Good gracious,\n     Mr. Holmes, you are surely not going to leave me in this abrupt\n     fashion! You don't seem to realize the position. To-morrow is the\n     examination. I must take some definite action to-night. I cannot\n     allow the examination to be held if one of the papers has been\n     tampered with. The situation must be faced.\"\n\n     \"You must leave it as it is. I shall drop round early to-morrow\n     morning and chat the matter over. It is possible that I may be in a\n     position then to indicate some course of action. Meanwhile you change\n     nothing--nothing at all.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"You can be perfectly easy in your mind. We shall certainly find some\n     way out of your difficulties. I will take the black clay with me,\n     also the pencil cuttings. Good-bye.\"\n\n     When we were out in the darkness of the quadrangle we again looked up\n     at the windows. The Indian still paced his room. The others were\n     invisible.\n\n     \"Well, Watson, what do you think of it?\" Holmes asked, as we came out\n     into the main street. \"Quite a little parlour game--sort of\n     three-card trick, is it not? There are your three men. It must be one\n     of them. You take your choice. Which is yours?\"\n\n     \"The foul-mouthed fellow at the top. He is the one with the worst\n     record. And yet that Indian was a sly fellow also. Why should he be\n     pacing his room all the time?\"\n\n     \"There is nothing in that. Many men do it when they are trying to\n     learn anything by heart.\"\n\n     \"He looked at us in a queer way.\"\n\n     \"So would you if a flock of strangers came in on you when you were\n     preparing for an examination next day, and every moment was of value.\n     No, I see nothing in that. Pencils, too, and knives--all was\n     satisfactory. But that fellow does puzzle me.\"\n\n     \"Who?\"\n\n     \"Why, Bannister, the servant. What's his game in the matter?\"\n\n     \"He impressed me as being a perfectly honest man.\"\n\n     \"So he did me. That's the puzzling part. Why should a perfectly\n     honest man--well, well, here's a large stationer's. We shall begin\n     our researches here.\"\n\n     There were only four stationers of any consequence in the town, and\n     at each Holmes produced his pencil chips and bid high for a\n     duplicate. All were agreed that one could be ordered, but that it was\n     not a usual size of pencil and that it was seldom kept in stock. My\n     friend did not appear to be depressed by his failure, but shrugged\n     his shoulders in half-humorous resignation.\n\n     \"No good, my dear Watson. This, the best and only final clue, has run\n     to nothing. But, indeed, I have little doubt that we can build up a\n     sufficient case without it. By Jove! my dear fellow, it is nearly\n     nine, and the landlady babbled of green peas at seven-thirty. What\n     with your eternal tobacco, Watson, and your irregularity at meals, I\n     expect that you will get notice to quit and that I shall share your\n     downfall--not, however, before we have solved the problem of the\n     nervous tutor, the careless servant, and the three enterprising\n     students.\"\n\n      Holmes made no further allusion to the matter that day, though he\n     sat lost in thought for a long time after our belated dinner. At\n     eight in the morning he came into my room just as I finished my\n     toilet.\n\n     \"Well, Watson,\" said he, \"it is time we went down to St. Luke's. Can\n     you do without breakfast?\"\n\n     \"Certainly.\"\n\n     \"Soames will be in a dreadful fidget until we are able to tell him\n     something positive.\"\n\n     \"Have you anything positive to tell him?\"\n\n     \"I think so.\"\n\n     \"You have formed a conclusion?\"\n\n     \"Yes, my dear Watson; I have solved the mystery.\"\n\n     \"But what fresh evidence could you have got?\"\n\n     \"Aha! It is not for nothing that I have turned myself out of bed at\n     the untimely hour of six. I have put in two hours' hard work and\n     covered at least five miles, with something to show for it. Look at\n     that!\"\n\n     He held out his hand. On the palm were three little pyramids of\n     black, doughy clay.\n\n     \"Why, Holmes, you had only two yesterday!\"\n\n     \"And one more this morning. It is a fair argument that wherever No. 3\n     came from is also the source of Nos. 1 and 2. Eh, Watson? Well, come\n     along and put friend Soames out of his pain.\"\n\n      The unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation\n     when we found him in his chambers. In a few hours the examination\n     would commence, and he was still in the dilemma between making the\n     facts public and allowing the culprit to compete for the valuable\n     scholarship. He could hardly stand still, so great was his mental\n     agitation, and he ran towards Holmes with two eager hands\n     outstretched.\n\n     \"Thank Heaven that you have come! I feared that you had given it up\n     in despair. What am I to do? Shall the examination proceed?\"\n\n     \"Yes; let it proceed by all means.\"\n\n     \"But this rascal--?\"\n\n     \"He shall not compete.\"\n\n     \"You know him?\"\n\n     \"I think so. If this matter is not to become public we must give\n     ourselves certain powers, and resolve ourselves into a small private\n     court-martial. You there, if you please, Soames! Watson, you here!\n     I'll take the arm-chair in the middle. I think that we are now\n     sufficiently imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast. Kindly\n     ring the bell!\"\n\n     Bannister entered, and shrunk back in evident surprise and fear at\n     our judicial appearance.\n\n     \"You will kindly close the door,\" said Holmes. \"Now, Bannister, will\n     you please tell us the truth about yesterday's incident?\"\n\n     The man turned white to the roots of his hair.\n\n     \"I have told you everything, sir.\"\n\n     \"Nothing to add?\"\n\n     \"Nothing at all, sir.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, I must make some suggestions to you. When you sat down\n     on that chair yesterday, did you do so in order to conceal some\n     object which would have shown who had been in the room?\"\n\n     Bannister's face was ghastly.\n\n     \"No, sir; certainly not.\"\n\n     \"It is only a suggestion,\" said Holmes, suavely. \"I frankly admit\n     that I am unable to prove it. But it seems probable enough, since the\n     moment that Mr. Soames's back was turned you released the man who was\n     hiding in that bedroom.\"\n\n     Bannister licked his dry lips.\n\n     \"There was no man, sir.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that's a pity, Bannister. Up to now you may have spoken the\n     truth, but now I know that you have lied.\"\n\n     The man's face set in sullen defiance.\n\n     \"There was no man, sir.\"\n\n     \"Come, come, Bannister!\"\n\n     \"No, sir; there was no one.\"\n\n     \"In that case you can give us no further information. Would you\n     please remain in the room? Stand over there near the bedroom door.\n     Now, Soames, I am going to ask you to have the great kindness to go\n     up to the room of young Gilchrist, and to ask him to step down into\n     yours.\"\n\n     An instant later the tutor returned, bringing with him the student.\n     He was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy\n     step and a pleasant, open face. His troubled blue eyes glanced at\n     each of us, and finally rested with an expression of blank dismay\n     upon Bannister in the farther corner.\n\n     \"Just close the door,\" said Holmes. \"Now, Mr. Gilchrist, we are all\n     quite alone here, and no one need ever know one word of what passes\n     between us. We can be perfectly frank with each other. We want to\n     know, Mr. Gilchrist, how you, an honourable man, ever came to commit\n     such an action as that of yesterday?\"\n\n     The unfortunate young man staggered back and cast a look full of\n     horror and reproach at Bannister.\n\n     \"No, no, Mr. Gilchrist, sir; I never said a word--never one word!\"\n     cried the servant.\n\n     \"No, but you have now,\" said Holmes. \"Now, sir, you must see that\n     after Bannister's words your position is hopeless, and that your only\n     chance lies in a frank confession.\"\n\n     For a moment Gilchrist, with upraised hand, tried to control his\n     writhing features. The next he had thrown himself on his knees beside\n     the table and, burying his face in his hands, he had burst into a\n     storm of passionate sobbing.\n\n     \"Come, come,\" said Holmes, kindly; \"it is human to err, and at least\n     no one can accuse you of being a callous criminal. Perhaps it would\n     be easier for you if I were to tell Mr. Soames what occurred, and you\n     can check me where I am wrong. Shall I do so? Well, well, don't\n     trouble to answer. Listen, and see that I do you no injustice.\n\n     \"From the moment, Mr. Soames, that you said to me that no one, not\n     even Bannister, could have told that the papers were in your room,\n     the case began to take a definite shape in my mind. The printer one\n     could, of course, dismiss. He could examine the papers in his own\n     office. The Indian I also thought nothing of. If the proofs were in a\n     roll he could not possibly know what they were. On the other hand, it\n     seemed an unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the\n     room, and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the\n     table. I dismissed that. The man who entered knew that the papers\n     were there. How did he know?\n\n     \"When I approached your room I examined the window. You amused me by\n     supposing that I was contemplating the possibility of someone having\n     in broad daylight, under the eyes of all these opposite rooms, forced\n     himself through it. Such an idea was absurd. I was measuring how tall\n     a man would need to be in order to see as he passed what papers were\n     on the central table. I am six feet high, and I could do it with an\n     effort. No one less than that would have a chance. Already you see I\n     had reason to think that if one of your three students was a man of\n     unusual height he was the most worth watching of the three.\n\n     \"I entered and I took you into my confidence as to the suggestions of\n     the side table. Of the centre table I could make nothing, until in\n     your description of Gilchrist you mentioned that he was a\n     long-distance jumper. Then the whole thing came to me in an instant,\n     and I only needed certain corroborative proofs, which I speedily\n     obtained.\n\n     \"What happened was this. This young fellow had employed his afternoon\n     at the athletic grounds, where he had been practising the jump. He\n     returned carrying his jumping shoes, which are provided, as you are\n     aware, with several sharp spikes. As he passed your window he saw, by\n     means of his great height, these proofs upon your table, and\n     conjectured what they were. No harm would have been done had it not\n     been that as he passed your door he perceived the key which had been\n     left by the carelessness of your servant. A sudden impulse came over\n     him to enter and see if they were indeed the proofs. It was not a\n     dangerous exploit, for he could always pretend that he had simply\n     looked in to ask a question.\n\n     \"Well, when he saw that they were indeed the proofs, it was then that\n     he yielded to temptation. He put his shoes on the table. What was it\n     you put on that chair near the window?\"\n\n     \"Gloves,\" said the young man.\n\n     Holmes looked triumphantly at Bannister. \"He put his gloves on the\n     chair, and he took the proofs, sheet by sheet, to copy them. He\n     thought the tutor must return by the main gate, and that he would see\n     him. As we know, he came back by the side gate. Suddenly he heard him\n     at the very door. There was no possible escape. He forgot his gloves,\n     but he caught up his shoes and darted into the bedroom. You observe\n     that the scratch on that table is slight at one side, but deepens in\n     the direction of the bedroom door. That in itself is enough to show\n     us that the shoe had been drawn in that direction and that the\n     culprit had taken refuge there. The earth round the spike had been\n     left on the table, and a second sample was loosened and fell in the\n     bedroom. I may add that I walked out to the athletic grounds this\n     morning, saw that tenacious black clay is used in the jumping-pit,\n     and carried away a specimen of it, together with some of the fine tan\n     or sawdust which is strewn over it to prevent the athlete from\n     slipping. Have I told the truth, Mr. Gilchrist?\"\n\n     The student had drawn himself erect.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, it is true,\" said he.\n\n     \"Good heavens, have you nothing to add?\" cried Soames.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has\n     bewildered me. I have a letter here, Mr. Soames, which I wrote to you\n     early this morning in the middle of a restless night. It was before I\n     knew that my sin had found me out. Here it is, sir. You will see that\n     I have said, 'I have determined not to go in for the examination. I\n     have been offered a commission in the Rhodesian Police, and I am\n     going out to South Africa at once.'\"\n\n     \"I am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profit by\n     your unfair advantage,\" said Soames. \"But why did you change your\n     purpose?\"\n\n     Gilchrist pointed to Bannister.\n\n     \"There is the man who set me in the right path,\" said he.\n\n     \"Come now, Bannister,\" said Holmes. \"It will be clear to you from\n     what I have said that only you could have let this young man out,\n     since you were left in the room, and must have locked the door when\n     you went out. As to his escaping by that window, it was incredible.\n     Can you not clear up the last point in this mystery, and tell us the\n     reasons for your action?\"\n\n     \"It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known; but with all your\n     cleverness it was impossible that you could know. Time was, sir, when\n     I was butler to old Sir Jabez Gilchrist, this young gentleman's\n     father. When he was ruined I came to the college as servant, but I\n     never forgot my old employer because he was down in the world. I\n     watched his son all I could for the sake of the old days. Well, sir,\n     when I came into this room yesterday when the alarm was given, the\n     very first thing I saw was Mr. Gilchrist's tan gloves a-lying in that\n     chair. I knew those gloves well, and I understood their message. If\n     Mr. Soames saw them the game was up. I flopped down into that chair,\n     and nothing would budge me until Mr. Soames he went for you. Then out\n     came my poor young master, whom I had dandled on my knee, and\n     confessed it all to me. Wasn't it natural, sir, that I should save\n     him, and wasn't it natural also that I should try to speak to him as\n     his dead father would have done, and make him understand that he\n     could not profit by such a deed? Could you blame me, sir?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed,\" said Holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. \"Well,\n     Soames, I think we have cleared your little problem up, and our\n     breakfast awaits us at home. Come, Watson! As to you, sir, I trust\n     that a bright future awaits you in Rhodesia. For once you have fallen\n     low. Let us see in the future how high you can rise.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ\n\n     When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our\n     work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me,\n     out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most\n     interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a\n     display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. As I\n     turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the\n     red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I\n     find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of\n     the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case\n     comes also within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of\n     Huret, the Boulevard assassin--an exploit which won for Holmes an\n     autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of\n     the Legion of Honour. Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on\n     the whole I am of opinion that none of them unite so many singular\n     points of interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes\n     not only the lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also\n     those subsequent developments which threw so curious a light upon the\n     causes of the crime.\n\n     It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November.\n     Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with\n     a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription\n     upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside\n     the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely\n     against the windows. It was strange there in the very depths of the\n     town, with ten miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel\n     the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge\n     elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot\n     the fields. I walked to the window and looked out on the deserted\n     street. The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and\n     shining pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford\n     Street end.\n\n     \"Well, Watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night,\" said\n     Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest. \"I've\n     done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes. So far\n     as I can make out it is nothing more exciting than an Abbey's\n     accounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.\n     Halloa! halloa! halloa! What's this?\"\n\n     Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of a horse's\n     hoofs and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against the kerb.\n     The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.\n\n     \"What can he want?\" I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.\n\n     \"Want! He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and\n     cravats and galoshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight\n     the weather. Wait a bit, though! There's the cab off again! There's\n     hope yet. He'd have kept it if he had wanted us to come. Run down, my\n     dear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous folk have been long\n     in bed.\"\n\n     When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor I had\n     no difficulty in recognising him. It was young Stanley Hopkins, a\n     promising detective, in whose career Holmes had several times shown a\n     very practical interest.\n\n     \"Is he in?\" he asked, eagerly.\n\n     \"Come up, my dear sir,\" said Holmes's voice from above. \"I hope you\n     have no designs upon us on such a night as this.\"\n\n     The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon his\n     shining waterproof. I helped him out of it while Holmes knocked a\n     blaze out of the logs in the grate.\n\n     \"Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes,\" said he. \"Here's\n     a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a\n     lemon which is good medicine on a night like this. It must be\n     something important which has brought you out in such a gale.\"\n\n     \"It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise\n     you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the latest editions?\"\n\n     \"I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day.\"\n\n     \"Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you have\n     not missed anything. I haven't let the grass grow under my feet. It's\n     down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from the railway\n     line. I was wired for at three-fifteen, reached Yoxley Old Place at\n     five, conducted my investigation, was back at Charing Cross by the\n     last train, and straight to you by cab.\"\n\n     \"Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about your\n     case?\"\n\n     \"It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it. So far as I\n     can see it is just as tangled a business as ever I handled, and yet\n     at first it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong. There's no\n     motive, Mr. Holmes. That's what bothers me--I can't put my hand on a\n     motive. Here's a man dead--there's no denying that--but, so far as I\n     can see, no reason on earth why anyone should wish him harm.\"\n\n     Holmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.\n\n     \"Let us hear about it,\" said he.\n\n     \"I've got my facts pretty clear,\" said Stanley Hopkins. \"All I want\n     now is to know what they all mean. The story, so far as I can make it\n     out, is like this. Some years ago this country house, Yoxley Old\n     Place, was taken by an elderly man, who gave the name of Professor\n     Coram. He was an invalid, keeping his bed half the time, and the\n     other half hobbling round the house with a stick or being pushed\n     about the grounds by the gardener in a bath-chair. He was well liked\n     by the few neighbours who called upon him, and he has the reputation\n     down there of being a very learned man. His household used to consist\n     of an elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Tarlton.\n     These have both been with him since his arrival, and they seem to be\n     women of excellent character. The Professor is writing a learned\n     book, and he found it necessary about a year ago to engage a\n     secretary. The first two that he tried were not successes; but the\n     third, Mr. Willoughby Smith, a very young man straight from the\n     University, seems to have been just what his employer wanted. His\n     work consisted in writing all the morning to the Professor's\n     dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references\n     and passages which bore upon the next day's work. This Willoughby\n     Smith has nothing against him either as a boy at Uppingham or as a\n     young man at Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the\n     first he was a decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot\n     in him at all. And yet this is the lad who has met his death this\n     morning in the Professor's study under circumstances which can point\n     only to murder.\"\n\n     The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and I drew closer\n     to the fire while the young inspector slowly and point by point\n     developed his singular narrative.\n\n     \"If you were to search all England,\" said he, \"I don't suppose you\n     could find a household more self-contained or free from outside\n     influences. Whole weeks would pass and not one of them go past the\n     garden gate. The Professor was buried in his work and existed for\n     nothing else. Young Smith knew nobody in the neighbourhood, and lived\n     very much as his employer did. The two women had nothing to take them\n     from the house. Mortimer the gardener, who wheels the bath-chair, is\n     an Army pensioner--an old Crimean man of excellent character. He does\n     not live in the house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end\n     of the garden. Those are the only people that you would find within\n     the grounds of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the gate of the\n     garden is a hundred yards from the main London to Chatham road. It\n     opens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from\n     walking in.\n\n     \"Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Tarlton, who is the only\n     person who can say anything positive about the matter. It was in the\n     forenoon, between eleven and twelve. She was engaged at the moment in\n     hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor Coram\n     was still in bed, for when the weather is bad he seldom rises before\n     midday. The housekeeper was busied with some work in the back of the\n     house. Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a\n     sitting-room; but the maid heard him at that moment pass along the\n     passage and descend to the study immediately below her. She did not\n     see him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in his quick,\n     firm tread. She did not hear the study door close, but a minute or so\n     later there was a dreadful cry in the room below. It was a wild,\n     hoarse scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come\n     either from a man or a woman. At the same instant there was a heavy\n     thud, which shook the old house, and then all was silence. The maid\n     stood petrified for a moment, and then, recovering her courage, she\n     ran downstairs. The study door was shut, and she opened it. Inside\n     young Mr. Willoughby Smith was stretched upon the floor. At first she\n     could see no injury, but as she tried to raise him she saw that blood\n     was pouring from the underside of his neck. It was pierced by a very\n     small but very deep wound, which had divided the carotid artery. The\n     instrument with which the injury had been inflicted lay upon the\n     carpet beside him. It was one of those small sealing-wax knives to be\n     found on old-fashioned writing-tables, with an ivory handle and a\n     stiff blade. It was part of the fittings of the Professor's own desk.\n\n     \"At first the maid thought that young Smith was already dead, but on\n     pouring some water from the carafe over his forehead he opened his\n     eyes for an instant. 'The Professor,' he murmured--'it was she.' The\n     maid is prepared to swear that those were the exact words. He tried\n     desperately to say something else, and he held his right hand up in\n     the air. Then he fell back dead.\n\n     \"In the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the scene, but\n     she was just too late to catch the young man's dying words. Leaving\n     Susan with the body, she hurried to the Professor's room. He was\n     sitting up in bed horribly agitated, for he had heard enough to\n     convince him that something terrible had occurred. Mrs. Marker is\n     prepared to swear that the Professor was still in his night-clothes,\n     and, indeed, it was impossible for him to dress without the help of\n     Mortimer, whose orders were to come at twelve o'clock. The Professor\n     declares that he heard the distant cry, but that he knows nothing\n     more. He can give no explanation of the young man's last words, 'The\n     Professor--it was she,' but imagines that they were the outcome of\n     delirium. He believes that Willoughby Smith had not an enemy in the\n     world, and can give no reason for the crime. His first action was to\n     send Mortimer the gardener for the local police. A little later the\n     chief constable sent for me. Nothing was moved before I got there,\n     and strict orders were given that no one should walk upon the paths\n     leading to the house. It was a splendid chance of putting your\n     theories into practice, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There was really nothing\n     wanting.\"\n\n     \"Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" said my companion, with a somewhat\n     bitter smile. \"Well, let us hear about it. What sort of job did you\n     make of it?\"\n\n     \"I must ask you first, Mr. Holmes, to glance at this rough plan,\n     which will give you a general idea of the position of the Professor's\n     study and the various points of the case. It will help you in\n     following my investigation.\"\n\n     He unfolded the rough chart, which I here reproduce, and he laid it\n     across Holmes's knee. I rose, and, standing behind Holmes, I studied\n     it over his shoulder.\n\n     [ Picture: Sketch of the building's room and corridors ]\n\n     \"It is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points which\n     seem to me to be essential. All the rest you will see later for\n     yourself. Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered the\n     house, how did he or she come in? Undoubtedly by the garden path and\n     the back door, from which there is direct access to the study. Any\n     other way would have been exceedingly complicated. The escape must\n     have also been made along that line, for of the two other exits from\n     the room one was blocked by Susan as she ran downstairs and the other\n     leads straight to the Professor's bedroom. I therefore directed my\n     attention at once to the garden path, which was saturated with recent\n     rain and would certainly show any footmarks.\n\n     \"My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious and\n     expert criminal. No footmarks were to be found on the path. There\n     could be no question, however, that someone had passed along the\n     grass border which lines the path, and that he had done so in order\n     to avoid leaving a track. I could not find anything in the nature of\n     a distinct impression, but the grass was trodden down and someone had\n     undoubtedly passed. It could only have been the murderer, since\n     neither the gardener nor anyone else had been there that morning and\n     the rain had only begun during the night.\"\n\n     \"One moment,\" said Holmes. \"Where does this path lead to?\"\n\n     \"To the road.\"\n\n     \"How long is it?\"\n\n     \"A hundred yards or so.\"\n\n     \"At the point where the path passes through the gate you could surely\n     pick up the tracks?\"\n\n     \"Unfortunately, the path was tiled at that point.\"\n\n     \"Well, on the road itself?\"\n\n     \"No; it was all trodden into mire.\"\n\n     \"Tut-tut! Well, then, these tracks upon the grass, were they coming\n     or going?\"\n\n     \"It was impossible to say. There was never any outline.\"\n\n     \"A large foot or a small?\"\n\n     \"You could not distinguish.\"\n\n     Holmes gave an ejaculation of impatience.\n\n     \"It has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since,\" said\n     he. \"It will be harder to read now than that palimpsest. Well, well,\n     it can't be helped. What did you do, Hopkins, after you had made\n     certain that you had made certain of nothing?\"\n\n     \"I think I made certain of a good deal, Mr. Holmes. I knew that\n     someone had entered the house cautiously from without. I next\n     examined the corridor. It is lined with cocoanut matting and had\n     taken no impression of any kind. This brought me into the study\n     itself. It is a scantily-furnished room. The main article is a large\n     writing-table with a fixed bureau. This bureau consists of a double\n     column of drawers with a central small cupboard between them. The\n     drawers were open, the cupboard locked. The drawers, it seems, were\n     always open, and nothing of value was kept in them. There were some\n     papers of importance in the cupboard, but there were no signs that\n     this had been tampered with, and the Professor assures me that\n     nothing was missing. It is certain that no robbery has been\n     committed.\n\n     \"I come now to the body of the young man. It was found near the\n     bureau, and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart. The\n     stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind forwards, so\n     that it is almost impossible that it could have been self-inflicted.\"\n\n     \"Unless he fell upon the knife,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Exactly. The idea crossed my mind. But we found the knife some feet\n     away from the body, so that seems impossible. Then, of course, there\n     are the man's own dying words. And, finally, there was this very\n     important piece of evidence which was found clasped in the dead man's\n     right hand.\"\n\n     From his pocket Stanley Hopkins drew a small paper packet. He\n     unfolded it and disclosed a golden pince-nez, with two broken ends of\n     black silk cord dangling from the end of it. \"Willoughby Smith had\n     excellent sight,\" he added. \"There can be no question that this was\n     snatched from the face or the person of the assassin.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes took the glasses into his hand and examined them with\n     the utmost attention and interest. He held them on his nose,\n     endeavoured to read through them, went to the window and stared up\n     the street with them, looked at them most minutely in the full light\n     of the lamp, and finally, with a chuckle, seated himself at the table\n     and wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper, which he tossed across\n     to Stanley Hopkins.\n\n     \"That's the best I can do for you,\" said he. \"It may prove to be of\n     some use.\"\n\n     The astonished detective read the note aloud. It ran as follows:\n\n     \"Wanted, a woman of good address, attired like a lady. She has a\n     remarkably thick nose, with eyes which are set close upon either side\n     of it. She has a puckered forehead, a peering expression, and\n     probably rounded shoulders. There are indications that she has had\n     recourse to an optician at least twice during the last few months. As\n     her glasses are of remarkable strength and as opticians are not very\n     numerous, there should be no difficulty in tracing her.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled at the astonishment of Hopkins, which must have been\n     reflected upon my features.\n\n     \"Surely my deductions are simplicity itself,\" said he. \"It would be\n     difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field for\n     inference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as\n     these. That they belong to a woman I infer from their delicacy, and\n     also, of course, from the last words of the dying man. As to her\n     being a person of refinement and well dressed, they are, as you\n     perceive, handsomely mounted in solid gold, and it is inconceivable\n     that anyone who wore such glasses could be slatternly in other\n     respects. You will find that the clips are too wide for your nose,\n     showing that the lady's nose was very broad at the base. This sort of\n     nose is usually a short and coarse one, but there are a sufficient\n     number of exceptions to prevent me from being dogmatic or from\n     insisting upon this point in my description. My own face is a narrow\n     one, and yet I find that I cannot get my eyes into the centre, or\n     near the centre, of these glasses. Therefore the lady's eyes are set\n     very near to the sides of the nose. You will perceive, Watson, that\n     the glasses are concave and of unusual strength. A lady whose vision\n     has been so extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the\n     physical characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the\n     forehead, the eyelids, and the shoulders.\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" I said, \"I can follow each of your arguments. I confess,\n     however, that I am unable to understand how you arrive at the double\n     visit to the optician.\"\n\n     Holmes took the glasses in his hand.\n\n     \"You will perceive,\" he said, \"that the clips are lined with tiny\n     bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. One of these is\n     discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new.\n     Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced. I should judge that\n     the older of them has not been there more than a few months. They\n     exactly correspond, so I gather that the lady went back to the same\n     establishment for the second.\"\n\n     \"By George, it's marvellous!\" cried Hopkins, in an ecstasy of\n     admiration. \"To think that I had all that evidence in my hand and\n     never knew it! I had intended, however, to go the round of the London\n     opticians.\"\n\n     \"Of course you would. Meanwhile, have you anything more to tell us\n     about the case?\"\n\n     \"Nothing, Mr. Holmes. I think that you know as much as I do\n     now--probably more. We have had inquiries made as to any stranger\n     seen on the country roads or at the railway station. We have heard of\n     none. What beats me is the utter want of all object in the crime. Not\n     a ghost of a motive can anyone suggest.\"\n\n     \"Ah! there I am not in a position to help you. But I suppose you want\n     us to come out to-morrow?\"\n\n     \"If it is not asking too much, Mr. Holmes. There's a train from\n     Charing Cross to Chatham at six in the morning, and we should be at\n     Yoxley Old Place between eight and nine.\"\n\n     \"Then we shall take it. Your case has certainly some features of\n     great interest, and I shall be delighted to look into it. Well, it's\n     nearly one, and we had best get a few hours' sleep. I dare say you\n     can manage all right on the sofa in front of the fire. I'll light my\n     spirit-lamp and give you a cup of coffee before we start.\"\n\n     The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter morning\n     when we started upon our journey. We saw the cold winter sun rise\n     over the dreary marshes of the Thames and the long, sullen reaches of\n     the river, which I shall ever associate with our pursuit of the\n     Andaman Islander in the earlier days of our career. After a long and\n     weary journey we alighted at a small station some miles from Chatham.\n     While a horse was being put into a trap at the local inn we snatched\n     a hurried breakfast, and so we were all ready for business when we at\n     last arrived at Yoxley Old Place. A constable met us at the garden\n     gate.\n\n     \"Well, Wilson, any news?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, nothing.\"\n\n     \"No reports of any stranger seen?\"\n\n     \"No, sir. Down at the station they are certain that no stranger\n     either came or went yesterday.\"\n\n     \"Have you had inquiries made at inns and lodgings?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; there is no one that we cannot account for.\"\n\n     \"Well, it's only a reasonable walk to Chatham. Anyone might stay\n     there, or take a train without being observed. This is the garden\n     path of which I spoke, Mr. Holmes. I'll pledge my word there was no\n     mark on it yesterday.\"\n\n     \"On which side were the marks on the grass?\"\n\n     \"This side, sir. This narrow margin of grass between the path and the\n     flower-bed. I can't see the traces now, but they were clear to me\n     then.\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes; someone has passed along,\" said Holmes, stooping over the\n     grass border. \"Our lady must have picked her steps carefully, must\n     she not, since on the one side she would leave a track on the path,\n     and on the other an even clearer one on the soft bed?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand.\"\n\n     I saw an intent look pass over Holmes's face.\n\n     \"You say that she must have come back this way?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; there is no other.\"\n\n     \"On this strip of grass?\"\n\n     \"Certainly, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Hum! It was a very remarkable performance--very remarkable. Well, I\n     think we have exhausted the path. Let us go farther. This garden door\n     is usually kept open, I suppose? Then this visitor had nothing to do\n     but to walk in. The idea of murder was not in her mind, or she would\n     have provided herself with some sort of weapon, instead of having to\n     pick this knife off the writing-table. She advanced along this\n     corridor, leaving no traces upon the cocoanut matting. Then she found\n     herself in this study. How long was she there? We have no means of\n     judging.\"\n\n     \"Not more than a few minutes, sir. I forgot to tell you that Mrs.\n     Marker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not very long\n     before--about a quarter of an hour, she says.\"\n\n     \"Well, that gives us a limit. Our lady enters this room and what does\n     she do? She goes over to the writing-table. What for? Not for\n     anything in the drawers. If there had been anything worth her taking\n     it would surely have been locked up. No; it was for something in that\n     wooden bureau. Halloa! what is that scratch upon the face of it? Just\n     hold a match, Watson. Why did you not tell me of this, Hopkins?\"\n\n     The mark which he was examining began upon the brass work on the\n     right-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four inches,\n     where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.\n\n     \"I noticed it, Mr. Holmes. But you'll always find scratches round a\n     keyhole.\"\n\n     \"This is recent, quite recent. See how the brass shines where it is\n     cut. An old scratch would be the same colour as the surface. Look at\n     it through my lens. There's the varnish, too, like earth on each side\n     of a furrow. Is Mrs. Marker there?\"\n\n     A sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.\n\n     \"Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Did you notice this scratch?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, I did not.\"\n\n     \"I am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away these\n     shreds of varnish. Who has the key of this bureau?\"\n\n     \"The Professor keeps it on his watch-chain.\"\n\n     \"Is it a simple key?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; it is a Chubb's key.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Mrs. Marker, you can go. Now we are making a little\n     progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and\n     either opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged young\n     Willoughby Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key\n     she makes this scratch upon the door. He seizes her, and she,\n     snatching up the nearest object, which happens to be this knife,\n     strikes at him in order to make him let go his hold. The blow is a\n     fatal one. He falls and she escapes, either with or without the\n     object for which she has come. Is Susan the maid there? Could anyone\n     have got away through that door after the time that you heard the\n     cry, Susan?\"\n\n     \"No sir; it is impossible. Before I got down the stair I'd have seen\n     anyone in the passage. Besides, the door never opened, for I would\n     have heard it.\"\n\n     \"That settles this exit. Then no doubt the lady went out the way she\n     came. I understand that this other passage leads only to the\n     Professor's room. There is no exit that way?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the Professor.\n     Halloa, Hopkins! this is very important, very important indeed. The\n     Professor's corridor is also lined with cocoanut matting.\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, what of that?\"\n\n     \"Don't you see any bearing upon the case? Well, well, I don't insist\n     upon it. No doubt I am wrong. And yet it seems to me to be\n     suggestive. Come with me and introduce me.\"\n\n     We passed down the passage, which was of the same length as that\n     which led to the garden. At the end was a short flight of steps\n     ending in a door. Our guide knocked, and then ushered us into the\n     Professor's bedroom.\n\n     It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes, which\n     had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners, or\n     were stacked all round at the base of the cases. The bed was in the\n     centre of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner\n     of the house. I have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person. It\n     was a gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing\n     dark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted\n     brows. His hair and beard were white, save that the latter was\n     curiously stained with yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed\n     amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with\n     stale tobacco-smoke. As he held out his hand to Holmes I perceived\n     that it also was stained yellow with nicotine.\n\n     \"A smoker, Mr. Holmes?\" said he, speaking well-chosen English with a\n     curious little mincing accent. \"Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir?\n     I can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides\n     of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say\n     that I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight. Bad, sir,\n     very bad, but an old man has few pleasures. Tobacco and my work--that\n     is all that is left to me.\"\n\n     Holmes had lit a cigarette, and was shooting little darting glances\n     all over the room.\n\n     \"Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco,\" the old man exclaimed.\n     \"Alas! what a fatal interruption! Who could have foreseen such a\n     terrible catastrophe? So estimable a young man! I assure you that\n     after a few months' training he was an admirable assistant. What do\n     you think of the matter, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I have not yet made up my mind.\"\n\n     \"I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all\n     is so dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a\n     blow is paralyzing. I seem to have lost the faculty of thought. But\n     you are a man of action--you are a man of affairs. It is part of the\n     everyday routine of your life. You can preserve your balance in every\n     emergency. We are fortunate indeed in having you at our side.\"\n\n     Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old\n     Professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking with\n     extraordinary rapidity. It was evident that he shared our host's\n     liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow,\" said the old man. \"That is my\n     magnum opus--the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It is my\n     analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria\n     and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundations of\n     revealed religion. With my enfeebled health I do not know whether I\n     shall ever be able to complete it now that my assistant has been\n     taken from me. Dear me, Mr. Holmes; why, you are even a quicker\n     smoker than I am myself.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled.\n\n     \"I am a connoisseur,\" said he, taking another cigarette from the\n     box--his fourth--and lighting it from the stub of that which he had\n     finished. \"I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination,\n     Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in bed at the time of\n     the crime and could know nothing about it. I would only ask this.\n     What do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words:\n     'The Professor--it was she'?\"\n\n     The Professor shook his head.\n\n     \"Susan is a country girl,\" said he, \"and you know the incredible\n     stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow murmured some\n     incoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into this\n     meaningless message.\"\n\n     \"I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?\"\n\n     \"Possibly an accident; possibly--I only breathe it among ourselves--a\n     suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles--some affair of the\n     heart, perhaps, which we have never known. It is a more probable\n     supposition than murder.\"\n\n     \"But the eye-glasses?\"\n\n     \"Ah! I am only a student--a man of dreams. I cannot explain the\n     practical things of life. But still, we are aware, my friend, that\n     love-gages may take strange shapes. By all means take another\n     cigarette. It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them so. A fan,\n     a glove, glasses--who knows what article may be carried as a token or\n     treasured when a man puts an end to his life? This gentleman speaks\n     of footsteps in the grass; but, after all, it is easy to be mistaken\n     on such a point. As to the knife, it might well be thrown far from\n     the unfortunate man as he fell. It is possible that I speak as a\n     child, but to me it seems that Willoughby Smith has met his fate by\n     his own hand.\"\n\n     Holmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he continued\n     to walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and consuming\n     cigarette after cigarette.\n\n     \"Tell me, Professor Coram,\" he said, at last, \"what is in that\n     cupboard in the bureau?\"\n\n     \"Nothing that would help a thief. Family papers, letters from my poor\n     wife, diplomas of Universities which have done me honour. Here is the\n     key. You can look for yourself.\"\n\n     Holmes picked up the key and looked at it for an instant; then he\n     handed it back.\n\n     \"No; I hardly think that it would help me,\" said he. \"I should prefer\n     to go quietly down to your garden and turn the whole matter over in\n     my head. There is something to be said for the theory of suicide\n     which you have put forward. We must apologize for having intruded\n     upon you, Professor Coram, and I promise that we won't disturb you\n     until after lunch. At two o'clock we will come again and report to\n     you anything which may have happened in the interval.\"\n\n     Holmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down the garden\n     path for some time in silence.\n\n     \"Have you a clue?\" I asked, at last.\n\n     \"It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked,\" said he. \"It is\n     possible that I am utterly mistaken. The cigarettes will show me.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes,\" I exclaimed, \"how on earth--\"\n\n     \"Well, well, you may see for yourself. If not, there's no harm done.\n     Of course, we always have the optician clue to fall back upon, but I\n     take a short cut when I can get it. Ah, here is the good Mrs. Marker!\n     Let us enjoy five minutes of instructive conversation with her.\"\n\n     I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a\n     peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily\n     established terms of confidence with them. In half the time which he\n     had named he had captured the housekeeper's goodwill, and was\n     chatting with her as if he had known her for years.\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes, it is as you say, sir. He does smoke something\n     terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. I've seen that room\n     of a morning--well, sir, you'd have thought it was a London fog. Poor\n     young Mr. Smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad as the\n     Professor. His health--well, I don't know that it's better nor worse\n     for the smoking.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\" said Holmes, \"but it kills the appetite.\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't know about that, sir.\"\n\n     \"I suppose the Professor eats hardly anything?\"\n\n     \"Well, he is variable. I'll say that for him.\"\n\n     \"I'll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won't face his\n     lunch after all the cigarettes I saw him consume.\"\n\n     \"Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a remarkable\n     big breakfast this morning. I don't know when I've known him make a\n     better one, and he's ordered a good dish of cutlets for his lunch.\n     I'm surprised myself, for since I came into that room yesterday and\n     saw young Mr. Smith lying there on the floor I couldn't bear to look\n     at food. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the Professor\n     hasn't let it take his appetite away.\"\n\n     We loitered the morning away in the garden. Stanley Hopkins had gone\n     down to the village to look into some rumours of a strange woman who\n     had been seen by some children on the Chatham Road the previous\n     morning. As to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to have\n     deserted him. I had never known him handle a case in such a\n     half-hearted fashion. Even the news brought back by Hopkins that he\n     had found the children and that they had undoubtedly seen a woman\n     exactly corresponding with Holmes's description, and wearing either\n     spectacles or eye-glasses, failed to rouse any sign of keen interest.\n     He was more attentive when Susan, who waited upon us at lunch,\n     volunteered the information that she believed Mr. Smith had been out\n     for a walk yesterday morning, and that he had only returned half an\n     hour before the tragedy occurred. I could not myself see the bearing\n     of this incident, but I clearly perceived that Holmes was weaving it\n     into the general scheme which he had formed in his brain. Suddenly he\n     sprang from his chair and glanced at his watch. \"Two o'clock,\n     gentlemen,\" said he. \"We must go up and have it out with our friend\n     the Professor.\"\n\n     The old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly his empty dish\n     bore evidence to the good appetite with which his housekeeper had\n     credited him. He was, indeed, a weird figure as he turned his white\n     mane and his glowing eyes towards us. The eternal cigarette\n     smouldered in his mouth. He had been dressed and was seated in an\n     arm-chair by the fire.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?\" He shoved the\n     large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him towards my\n     companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at the same moment, and\n     between them they tipped the box over the edge. For a minute or two\n     we were all on our knees retrieving stray cigarettes from impossible\n     places. When we rose again I observed that Holmes's eyes were shining\n     and his cheeks tinged with colour. Only at a crisis have I seen those\n     battle-signals flying.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said he, \"I have solved it.\"\n\n     Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement. Something like a sneer\n     quivered over the gaunt features of the old Professor.\n\n     \"Indeed! In the garden?\"\n\n     \"No, here.\"\n\n     \"Here! When?\"\n\n     \"This instant.\"\n\n     \"You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You compel me to tell\n     you that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such a\n     fashion.\"\n\n     \"I have forged and tested every link of my chain, Professor Coram,\n     and I am sure that it is sound. What your motives are or what exact\n     part you play in this strange business I am not yet able to say. In a\n     few minutes I shall probably hear it from your own lips. Meanwhile I\n     will reconstruct what is past for your benefit, so that you may know\n     the information which I still require.\n\n     \"A lady yesterday entered your study. She came with the intention of\n     possessing herself of certain documents which were in your bureau.\n     She had a key of her own. I have had an opportunity of examining\n     yours, and I do not find that slight discolouration which the scratch\n     made upon the varnish would have produced. You were not an accessory,\n     therefore, and she came, so far as I can read the evidence, without\n     your knowledge to rob you.\"\n\n     The Professor blew a cloud from his lips. \"This is most interesting\n     and instructive,\" said he. \"Have you no more to add? Surely, having\n     traced this lady so far, you can also say what has become of her.\"\n\n     \"I will endeavour to do so. In the first place she was seized by your\n     secretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. This catastrophe I am\n     inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I am convinced that\n     the lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous an injury. An\n     assassin does not come unarmed. Horrified by what she had done she\n     rushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy. Unfortunately for\n     her she had lost her glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely\n     short-sighted she was really helpless without them. She ran down a\n     corridor, which she imagined to be that by which she had come--both\n     were lined with cocoanut matting--and it was only when it was too\n     late that she understood that she had taken the wrong passage and\n     that her retreat was cut off behind her. What was she to do? She\n     could not go back. She could not remain where she was. She must go\n     on. She went on. She mounted a stair, pushed open a door, and found\n     herself in your room.\"\n\n     The old man sat with his mouth open staring wildly at Holmes.\n     Amazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features. Now,\n     with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst into insincere\n     laughter.\n\n     \"All very fine, Mr. Holmes,\" said he. \"But there is one little flaw\n     in your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I never left it\n     during the day.\"\n\n     \"I am aware of that, Professor Coram.\"\n\n     \"And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not be aware\n     that a woman had entered my room?\"\n\n     \"I never said so. You were aware of it. You spoke with her. You\n     recognised her. You aided her to escape.\"\n\n     Again the Professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risen to\n     his feet and his eyes glowed like embers.\n\n     \"You are mad!\" he cried. \"You are talking insanely. I helped her to\n     escape? Where is she now?\"\n\n     \"She is there,\" said Holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcase in the\n     corner of the room.\n\n     I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed\n     over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. At the same\n     instant the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upon a\n     hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room. \"You are right!\" she\n     cried, in a strange foreign voice. \"You are right! I am here.\"\n\n     She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had\n     come from the walls of her hiding-place. Her face, too, was streaked\n     with grime, and at the best she could never have been handsome, for\n     she had the exact physical characteristics which Holmes had divined,\n     with, in addition, a long and obstinate chin. What with her natural\n     blindness, and what with the change from dark to light, she stood as\n     one dazed, blinking about her to see where and who we were. And yet,\n     in spite of all these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in\n     the woman's bearing, a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the\n     upraised head, which compelled something of respect and admiration.\n     Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed her as his\n     prisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with an\n     overmastering dignity which compelled obedience. The old man lay back\n     in his chair, with a twitching face, and stared at her with brooding\n     eyes.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, I am your prisoner,\" she said. \"From where I stood I could\n     hear everything, and I know that you have learned the truth. I\n     confess it all. It was I who killed the young man. But you are right,\n     you who say it was an accident. I did not even know that it was a\n     knife which I held in my hand, for in my despair I snatched anything\n     from the table and struck at him to make him let me go. It is the\n     truth that I tell.\"\n\n     \"Madam,\" said Holmes, \"I am sure that it is the truth. I fear that\n     you are far from well.\"\n\n     She had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under the dark\n     dust-streaks upon her face. She seated herself on the side of the\n     bed; then she resumed.\n\n     \"I have only a little time here,\" she said, \"but I would have you to\n     know the whole truth. I am this man's wife. He is not an Englishman.\n     He is a Russian. His name I will not tell.\"\n\n     For the first time the old man stirred. \"God bless you, Anna!\" he\n     cried. \"God bless you!\"\n\n     She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. \"Why should\n     you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?\" said she.\n     \"It has done harm to many and good to none--not even to yourself.\n     However, it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped\n     before God's time. I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed\n     the threshold of this cursed house. But I must speak or I shall be\n     too late.\n\n     \"I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man's wife. He was fifty and\n     I a foolish girl of twenty when we married. It was in a city of\n     Russia, a University--I will not name the place.\"\n\n     \"God bless you, Anna!\" murmured the old man again.\n\n     \"We were reformers--revolutionists--Nihilists, you understand. He and\n     I and many more. Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer\n     was killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to\n     save his own life and to earn a great reward my husband betrayed his\n     own wife and his companions. Yes, we were all arrested upon his\n     confession. Some of us found our way to the gallows and some to\n     Siberia. I was among these last, but my term was not for life. My\n     husband came to England with his ill-gotten gains, and has lived in\n     quiet ever since, knowing well that if the Brotherhood knew where he\n     was not a week would pass before justice would be done.\"\n\n     The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a\n     cigarette. \"I am in your hands, Anna,\" said he. \"You were always good\n     to me.\"\n\n     \"I have not yet told you the height of his villainy,\" said she.\n     \"Among our comrades of the Order there was one who was the friend of\n     my heart. He was noble, unselfish, loving--all that my husband was\n     not. He hated violence. We were all guilty--if that is guilt--but he\n     was not. He wrote for ever dissuading us from such a course. These\n     letters would have saved him. So would my diary, in which from day to\n     day I had entered both my feelings towards him and the view which\n     each of us had taken. My husband found and kept both diary and\n     letters. He hid them, and he tried hard to swear away the young man's\n     life. In this he failed, but Alexis was sent a convict to Siberia,\n     where now, at this moment, he works in a salt mine. Think of that,\n     you villain, you villain; now, now, at this very moment, Alexis, a\n     man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a\n     slave, and yet I have your life in my hands and I let you go.\"\n\n     \"You were always a noble woman, Anna,\" said the old man, puffing at\n     his cigarette.\n\n     She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.\n\n     \"I must finish,\" she said. \"When my term was over I set myself to get\n     the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian Government, would\n     procure my friend's release. I knew that my husband had come to\n     England. After months of searching I discovered where he was. I knew\n     that he still had the diary, for when I was in Siberia I had a letter\n     from him once reproaching me and quoting some passages from its\n     pages. Yet I was sure that with his revengeful nature he would never\n     give it to me of his own free will. I must get it for myself. With\n     this object I engaged an agent from a private detective firm, who\n     entered my husband's house as secretary--it was your second\n     secretary, Sergius, the one who left you so hurriedly. He found that\n     papers were kept in the cupboard, and he got an impression of the\n     key. He would not go farther. He furnished me with a plan of the\n     house, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was always\n     empty, as the secretary was employed up here. So at last I took my\n     courage in both hands and I came down to get the papers for myself. I\n     succeeded, but at what a cost!\n\n     \"I had just taken the papers and was locking the cupboard when the\n     young man seized me. I had seen him already that morning. He had met\n     me in the road and I had asked him to tell me where Professor Coram\n     lived, not knowing that he was in his employ.\"\n\n     \"Exactly! exactly!\" said Holmes. \"The secretary came back and told\n     his employer of the woman he had met. Then in his last breath he\n     tried to send a message that it was she--the she whom he had just\n     discussed with him.\"\n\n     \"You must let me speak,\" said the woman, in an imperative voice, and\n     her face contracted as if in pain. \"When he had fallen I rushed from\n     the room, chose the wrong door, and found myself in my husband's\n     room. He spoke of giving me up. I showed him that if he did so his\n     life was in my hands. If he gave me to the law I could give him to\n     the Brotherhood. It was not that I wished to live for my own sake,\n     but it was that I desired to accomplish my purpose. He knew that I\n     would do what I said--that his own fate was involved in mine. For\n     that reason and for no other he shielded me. He thrust me into that\n     dark hiding-place, a relic of old days, known only to himself. He\n     took his meals in his own room, and so was able to give me part of\n     his food. It was agreed that when the police left the house I should\n     slip away by night and come back no more. But in some way you have\n     read our plans.\" She tore from the bosom of her dress a small packet.\n     \"These are my last words,\" said she; \"here is the packet which will\n     save Alexis. I confide it to your honour and to your love of justice.\n     Take it! You will deliver it at the Russian Embassy. Now I have done\n     my duty, and--\"\n\n     \"Stop her!\" cried Holmes. He had bounded across the room and had\n     wrenched a small phial from her hand.\n\n     \"Too late!\" she said, sinking back on the bed. \"Too late! I took the\n     poison before I left my hiding-place. My head swims! I am going! I\n     charge you, sir, to remember the packet.\"\n\n     \"A simple case, and yet in some ways an instructive one,\" Holmes\n     remarked, as we travelled back to town. \"It hinged from the outset\n     upon the pince-nez. But for the fortunate chance of the dying man\n     having seized these I am not sure that we could ever have reached our\n     solution. It was clear to me from the strength of the glasses that\n     the wearer must have been very blind and helpless when deprived of\n     them. When you asked me to believe that she walked along a narrow\n     strip of grass without once making a false step I remarked, as you\n     may remember, that it was a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set\n     it down as an impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that\n     she had a second pair of glasses. I was forced, therefore, to\n     seriously consider the hypothesis that she had remained within the\n     house. On perceiving the similarity of the two corridors it became\n     clear that she might very easily have made such a mistake, and in\n     that case it was evident that she must have entered the Professor's\n     room. I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would bear\n     out this supposition, and I examined the room narrowly for anything\n     in the shape of a hiding-place. The carpet seemed continuous and\n     firmly nailed, so I dismissed the idea of a trap-door. There might\n     well be a recess behind the books. As you are aware, such devices are\n     common in old libraries. I observed that books were piled on the\n     floor at all other points, but that one bookcase was left clear.\n     This, then, might be the door. I could see no marks to guide me, but\n     the carpet was of a dun colour, which lends itself very well to\n     examination. I therefore smoked a great number of those excellent\n     cigarettes, and I dropped the ash all over the space in front of the\n     suspected bookcase. It was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective.\n     I then went downstairs and I ascertained, in your presence, Watson,\n     without your perceiving the drift of my remarks, that Professor\n     Coram's consumption of food had increased--as one would expect when\n     he is supplying a second person. We then ascended to the room again,\n     when, by upsetting the cigarette-box, I obtained a very excellent\n     view of the floor, and was able to see quite clearly, from the traces\n     upon the cigarette ash, that the prisoner had, in our absence, come\n     out from her retreat. Well, Hopkins, here we are at Charing Cross,\n     and I congratulate you on having brought your case to a successful\n     conclusion. You are going to head-quarters, no doubt. I think,\n     Watson, you and I will drive together to the Russian Embassy.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                   THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE-QUARTER\n\n     We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street,\n     but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a\n     gloomy February morning some seven or eight years ago and gave Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to\n     him, and ran thus:\n\n     \"Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quarter\n     missing; indispensable to-morrow.\n     Overton.\"\n\n     \"Strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six,\" said Holmes,\n     reading it over and over. \"Mr. Overton was evidently considerably\n     excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence.\n     Well, well, he will be here, I dare say, by the time I have looked\n     through the times, and then we shall know all about it. Even the most\n     insignificant problem would be welcome in these stagnant days.\"\n\n     Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread\n     such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my\n     companion's brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to\n     leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had\n     gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once\n     to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary\n     conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I\n     was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping; and I have\n     known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in\n     periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes's ascetic\n     face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes.\n     Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he\n     had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm\n     which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his\n     tempestuous life.\n\n     As we had expected, the telegram was soon followed by its sender, and\n     the card of Mr. Cyril Overton, of Trinity College, Cambridge,\n     announced the arrival of an enormous young man, sixteen stone of\n     solid bone and muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad\n     shoulders and looked from one of us to the other with a comely face\n     which was haggard with anxiety.\n\n     \"Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     My companion bowed.\n\n     \"I've been down to Scotland Yard, Mr. Holmes. I saw Inspector Stanley\n     Hopkins. He advised me to come to you. He said the case, so far as he\n     could see, was more in your line than in that of the regular police.\"\n\n     \"Pray sit down and tell me what is the matter.\"\n\n     \"It's awful, Mr. Holmes, simply awful! I wonder my hair isn't grey.\n     Godfrey Staunton--you've heard of him, of course? He's simply the\n     hinge that the whole team turns on. I'd rather spare two from the\n     pack and have Godfrey for my three-quarter line. Whether it's\n     passing, or tackling, or dribbling, there's no one to touch him; and\n     then, he's got the head and can hold us all together. What am I to\n     do? That's what I ask you, Mr. Holmes. There's Moorhouse, first\n     reserve, but he is trained as a half, and he always edges right in on\n     to the scrum instead of keeping out on the touch-line. He's a fine\n     place-kick, it's true, but, then, he has no judgment, and he can't\n     sprint for nuts. Why, Morton or Johnson, the Oxford fliers, could\n     romp round him. Stevenson is fast enough, but he couldn't drop from\n     the twenty-five line, and a three-quarter who can't either punt or\n     drop isn't worth a place for pace alone. No, Mr. Holmes, we are done\n     unless you can help me to find Godfrey Staunton.\"\n\n     My friend had listened with amused surprise to this long speech,\n     which was poured forth with extraordinary vigour and earnestness,\n     every point being driven home by the slapping of a brawny hand upon\n     the speaker's knee. When our visitor was silent Holmes stretched out\n     his hand and took down letter \"S\" of his commonplace book. For once\n     he dug in vain into that mine of varied information.\n\n     \"There is Arthur H. Staunton, the rising young forger,\" said he, \"and\n     there was Henry Staunton, whom I helped to hang, but Godfrey Staunton\n     is a new name to me.\"\n\n     It was our visitor's turn to look surprised.\n\n     \"Why, Mr. Holmes, I thought you knew things,\" said he. \"I suppose,\n     then, if you have never heard of Godfrey Staunton you don't know\n     Cyril Overton either?\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head good-humouredly.\n\n     \"Great Scot!\" cried the athlete. \"Why, I was first reserve for\n     England against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year.\n     But that's nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who\n     didn't know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge,\n     Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. Holmes, where\n     have you lived?\"\n\n     Holmes laughed at the young giant's naive astonishment.\n\n     \"You live in a different world to me, Mr. Overton, a sweeter and\n     healthier one. My ramifications stretch out into many sections of\n     society, but never, I am happy to say, into amateur sport, which is\n     the best and soundest thing in England. However, your unexpected\n     visit this morning shows me that even in that world of fresh air and\n     fair play there may be work for me to do; so now, my good sir, I beg\n     you to sit down and to tell me slowly and quietly exactly what it is\n     that has occurred, and how you desire that I should help you.\"\n\n     Young Overton's face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more\n     accustomed to using his muscles than his wits; but by degrees, with\n     many repetitions and obscurities which I may omit from his narrative,\n     he laid his strange story before us.\n\n     \"It's this way, Mr. Holmes. As I have said, I am the skipper of the\n     Rugger team of Cambridge 'Varsity, and Godfrey Staunton is my best\n     man. To-morrow we play Oxford. Yesterday we all came up and we\n     settled at Bentley's private hotel. At ten o'clock I went round and\n     saw that all the fellows had gone to roost, for I believe in strict\n     training and plenty of sleep to keep a team fit. I had a word or two\n     with Godfrey before he turned in. He seemed to me to be pale and\n     bothered. I asked him what was the matter. He said he was all\n     right--just a touch of headache. I bade him good-night and left him.\n     Half an hour later the porter tells me that a rough-looking man with\n     a beard called with a note for Godfrey. He had not gone to bed and\n     the note was taken to his room. Godfrey read it and fell back in a\n     chair as if he had been pole-axed. The porter was so scared that he\n     was going to fetch me, but Godfrey stopped him, had a drink of water,\n     and pulled himself together. Then he went downstairs, said a few\n     words to the man who was waiting in the hall, and the two of them\n     went off together. The last that the porter saw of them, they were\n     almost running down the street in the direction of the Strand. This\n     morning Godfrey's room was empty, his bed had never been slept in,\n     and his things were all just as I had seen them the night before. He\n     had gone off at a moment's notice with this stranger, and no word has\n     come from him since. I don't believe he will ever come back. He was a\n     sportsman, was Godfrey, down to his marrow, and he wouldn't have\n     stopped his training and let in his skipper if it were not for some\n     cause that was too strong for him. No; I feel as if he were gone for\n     good and we should never see him again.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes listened with the deepest attention to this singular\n     narrative.\n\n     \"What did you do?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I wired to Cambridge to learn if anything had been heard of him\n     there. I have had an answer. No one has seen him.\"\n\n     \"Could he have got back to Cambridge?\"\n\n     \"Yes, there is a late train--quarter-past eleven.\"\n\n     \"But so far as you can ascertain he did not take it?\"\n\n     \"No, he has not been seen.\"\n\n     \"What did you do next?\"\n\n     \"I wired to Lord Mount-James.\"\n\n     \"Why to Lord Mount-James?\"\n\n     \"Godfrey is an orphan, and Lord Mount-James is his nearest\n     relative--his uncle, I believe.\"\n\n     \"Indeed. This throws new light upon the matter. Lord Mount-James is\n     one of the richest men in England.\"\n\n     \"So I've heard Godfrey say.\"\n\n     \"And your friend was closely related?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he was his heir, and the old boy is nearly eighty--cram full of\n     gout, too. They say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his\n     knuckles. He never allowed Godfrey a shilling in his life, for he is\n     an absolute miser, but it will all come to him right enough.\"\n\n     \"Have you heard from Lord Mount-James?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"What motive could your friend have in going to Lord Mount-James?\"\n\n     \"Well, something was worrying him the night before, and if it was to\n     do with money it is possible that he would make for his nearest\n     relative who had so much of it, though from all I have heard he would\n     not have much chance of getting it. Godfrey was not fond of the old\n     man. He would not go if he could help it.\"\n\n     \"Well, we can soon determine that. If your friend was going to his\n     relative, Lord Mount-James, you have then to explain the visit of\n     this rough-looking fellow at so late an hour, and the agitation that\n     was caused by his coming.\"\n\n     Cyril Overton pressed his hands to his head. \"I can make nothing of\n     it,\" said he.\n\n     \"Well, well, I have a clear day, and I shall be happy to look into\n     the matter,\" said Holmes. \"I should strongly recommend you to make\n     your preparations for your match without reference to this young\n     gentleman. It must, as you say, have been an overpowering necessity\n     which tore him away in such a fashion, and the same necessity is\n     likely to hold him away. Let us step round together to this hotel,\n     and see if the porter can throw any fresh light upon the matter.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble\n     witness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of Godfrey\n     Staunton's abandoned room, he had extracted all that the porter had\n     to tell. The visitor of the night before was not a gentleman, neither\n     was he a working man. He was simply what the porter described as a\n     \"medium-looking chap\"; a man of fifty, beard grizzled, pale face,\n     quietly dressed. He seemed himself to be agitated. The porter had\n     observed his hand trembling when he had held out the note. Godfrey\n     Staunton had crammed the note into his pocket. Staunton had not\n     shaken hands with the man in the hall. They had exchanged a few\n     sentences, of which the porter had only distinguished the one word\n     \"time.\" Then they had hurried off in the manner described. It was\n     just half-past ten by the hall clock.\n\n     \"Let me see,\" said Holmes, seating himself on Staunton's bed. \"You\n     are the day porter, are you not?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; I go off duty at eleven.\"\n\n     \"The night porter saw nothing, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; one theatre party came in late. No one else.\"\n\n     \"Were you on duty all day yesterday?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"Did you take any messages to Mr. Staunton?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; one telegram.\"\n\n     \"Ah! that's interesting. What o'clock was this?\"\n\n     \"About six.\"\n\n     \"Where was Mr. Staunton when he received it?\"\n\n     \"Here in his room.\"\n\n     \"Were you present when he opened it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; I waited to see if there was an answer.\"\n\n     \"Well, was there?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. He wrote an answer.\"\n\n     \"Did you take it?\"\n\n     \"No; he took it himself.\"\n\n     \"But he wrote it in your presence?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I was standing by the door, and he with his back turned at\n     that table. When he had written it he said, 'All right, porter, I\n     will take this myself.'\"\n\n     \"What did he write it with?\"\n\n     \"A pen, sir.\"\n\n     \"Was the telegraphic form one of these on the table?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; it was the top one.\"\n\n     Holmes rose. Taking the forms he carried them over to the window and\n     carefully examined that which was uppermost.\n\n     \"It is a pity he did not write in pencil,\" said he, throwing them\n     down again with a shrug of disappointment. \"As you have no doubt\n     frequently observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through--a\n     fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. However, I can find\n     no trace here. I rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with a\n     broad-pointed quill pen, and I can hardly doubt that we will find\n     some impression upon this blotting-pad. Ah, yes, surely this is the\n     very thing!\"\n\n     He tore off a strip of the blotting-paper and turned towards us the\n     following hieroglyphic:\n\n     [ Picture: Several unreadable scrawls on paper ]\n\n     Cyril Overton was much excited. \"Hold it to the glass!\" he cried.\n\n     \"That is unnecessary,\" said Holmes. \"The paper is thin, and the\n     reverse will give the message. Here it is.\" He turned it over and we\n     read:\n\n     [ Picture: Stand by us for God’s sake! ]\n\n     \"So that is the tail end of the telegram which Godfrey Staunton\n     dispatched within a few hours of his disappearance. There are at\n     least six words of the message which have escaped us; but what\n     remains--'Stand by us for God's sake!'--proves that this young man\n     saw a formidable danger which approached him, and from which someone\n     else could protect him. 'Us,' mark you! Another person was involved.\n     Who should it be but the pale-faced, bearded man, who seemed himself\n     in so nervous a state? What, then, is the connection between Godfrey\n     Staunton and the bearded man? And what is the third source from which\n     each of them sought for help against pressing danger? Our inquiry has\n     already narrowed down to that.\"\n\n     \"We have only to find to whom that telegram is addressed,\" I\n     suggested.\n\n     \"Exactly, my dear Watson. Your reflection, though profound, had\n     already crossed my mind. But I dare say it may have come to your\n     notice that if you walk into a post-office and demand to see the\n     counterfoil of another man's message there may be some disinclination\n     on the part of the officials to oblige you. There is so much red tape\n     in these matters! However, I have no doubt that with a little\n     delicacy and finesse the end may be attained. Meanwhile, I should\n     like in your presence, Mr. Overton, to go through these papers which\n     have been left upon the table.\"\n\n     There were a number of letters, bills, and note-books, which Holmes\n     turned over and examined with quick, nervous fingers and darting,\n     penetrating eyes. \"Nothing here,\" he said, at last. \"By the way, I\n     suppose your friend was a healthy young fellow--nothing amiss with\n     him?\"\n\n     \"Sound as a bell.\"\n\n     \"Have you ever known him ill?\"\n\n     \"Not a day. He has been laid up with a hack, and once he slipped his\n     knee-cap, but that was nothing.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps he was not so strong as you suppose. I should think he may\n     have had some secret trouble. With your assent I will put one or two\n     of these papers in my pocket, in case they should bear upon our\n     future inquiry.\"\n\n     \"One moment! one moment!\" cried a querulous voice, and we looked up\n     to find a queer little old man, jerking and twitching in the doorway.\n     He was dressed in rusty black, with a very broad brimmed top-hat and\n     a loose white necktie--the whole effect being that of a very rustic\n     parson or of an undertaker's mute. Yet, in spite of his shabby and\n     even absurd appearance, his voice had a sharp crackle, and his manner\n     a quick intensity which commanded attention.\n\n     \"Who are you, sir, and by what right do you touch this gentleman's\n     papers?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I am a private detective, and I am endeavouring to explain his\n     disappearance.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you are, are you? And who instructed you, eh?\"\n\n     \"This gentleman, Mr. Staunton's friend, was referred to me by\n     Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     \"Who are you, sir?\"\n\n     \"I am Cyril Overton.\"\n\n     \"Then it is you who sent me a telegram. My name is Lord Mount-James.\n     I came round as quickly as the Bayswater 'bus would bring me. So you\n     have instructed a detective?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And are you prepared to meet the cost?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt, sir, that my friend Godfrey, when we find him, will\n     be prepared to do that.\"\n\n     \"But if he is never found, eh? Answer me that!\"\n\n     \"In that case no doubt his family--\"\n\n     \"Nothing of the sort, sir!\" screamed the little man. \"Don't look to\n     me for a penny--not a penny! You understand that, Mr. Detective! I am\n     all the family that this young man has got, and I tell you that I am\n     not responsible. If he has any expectations it is due to the fact\n     that I have never wasted money, and I do not propose to begin to do\n     so now. As to those papers with which you are making so free, I may\n     tell you that in case there should be anything of any value among\n     them you will be held strictly to account for what you do with them.\"\n\n     \"Very good, sir,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"May I ask in the meanwhile\n     whether you have yourself any theory to account for this young man's\n     disappearance?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, I have not. He is big enough and old enough to look after\n     himself, and if he is so foolish as to lose himself I entirely refuse\n     to accept the responsibility of hunting for him.\"\n\n     \"I quite understand your position,\" said Holmes, with a mischievous\n     twinkle in his eyes. \"Perhaps you don't quite understand mine.\n     Godfrey Staunton appears to have been a poor man. If he has been\n     kidnapped it could not have been for anything which he himself\n     possesses. The fame of your wealth has gone abroad, Lord Mount-James,\n     and it is entirely possible that a gang of thieves have secured your\n     nephew in order to gain from him some information as to your house,\n     your habits, and your treasure.\"\n\n     The face of our unpleasant little visitor turned as white as his\n     neckcloth.\n\n     \"Heavens, sir, what an idea! I never thought of such villainy! What\n     inhuman rogues there are in the world! But Godfrey is a fine lad--a\n     staunch lad. Nothing would induce him to give his old uncle away.\n     I'll have the plate moved over to the bank this evening. In the\n     meantime spare no pains, Mr. Detective! I beg you to leave no stone\n     unturned to bring him safely back. As to money, well, so far as a\n     fiver, or even a tenner, goes, you can always look to me.\"\n\n     Even in his chastened frame of mind the noble miser could give us no\n     information which could help us, for he knew little of the private\n     life of his nephew. Our only clue lay in the truncated telegram, and\n     with a copy of this in his hand Holmes set forth to find a second\n     link for his chain. We had shaken off Lord Mount-James, and Overton\n     had gone to consult with the other members of his team over the\n     misfortune which had befallen them.\n\n     There was a telegraph-office at a short distance from the hotel. We\n     halted outside it.\n\n     \"It's worth trying, Watson,\" said Holmes. \"Of course, with a warrant\n     we could demand to see the counterfoils, but we have not reached that\n     stage yet. I don't suppose they remember faces in so busy a place.\n     Let us venture it.\"\n\n     \"I am sorry to trouble you,\" said he, in his blandest manner, to the\n     young woman behind the grating; \"there is some small mistake about a\n     telegram I sent yesterday. I have had no answer, and I very much fear\n     that I must have omitted to put my name at the end. Could you tell me\n     if this was so?\"\n\n     The young woman turned over a sheaf of counterfoils.\n\n     \"What o'clock was it?\" she asked.\n\n     \"A little after six.\"\n\n     \"Whom was it to?\"\n\n     Holmes put his finger to his lips and glanced at me. \"The last words\n     in it were 'for God's sake,'\" he whispered, confidentially; \"I am\n     very anxious at getting no answer.\"\n\n     The young woman separated one of the forms.\n\n     \"This is it. There is no name,\" said she, smoothing it out upon the\n     counter.\n\n     \"Then that, of course, accounts for my getting no answer,\" said\n     Holmes. \"Dear me, how very stupid of me, to be sure! Good morning,\n     miss, and many thanks for having relieved my mind.\" He chuckled and\n     rubbed his hands when we found ourselves in the street once more.\n\n     \"Well?\" I asked.\n\n     \"We progress, my dear Watson, we progress. I had seven different\n     schemes for getting a glimpse of that telegram, but I could hardly\n     hope to succeed the very first time.\"\n\n     \"And what have you gained?\"\n\n     \"A starting-point for our investigation.\" He hailed a cab. \"King's\n     Cross Station,\" said he.\n\n     \"We have a journey, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I think we must run down to Cambridge together. All the\n     indications seem to me to point in that direction.\"\n\n     \"Tell me,\" I asked, as we rattled up Gray's Inn Road, \"have you any\n     suspicion yet as to the cause of the disappearance? I don't think\n     that among all our cases I have known one where the motives are more\n     obscure. Surely you don't really imagine that he may be kidnapped in\n     order to give information against his wealthy uncle?\"\n\n     \"I confess, my dear Watson, that that does not appeal to me as a very\n     probable explanation. It struck me, however, as being the one which\n     was most likely to interest that exceedingly unpleasant old person.\"\n\n     \"It certainly did that. But what are your alternatives?\"\n\n     \"I could mention several. You must admit that it is curious and\n     suggestive that this incident should occur on the eve of this\n     important match, and should involve the only man whose presence seems\n     essential to the success of the side. It may, of course, be\n     coincidence, but it is interesting. Amateur sport is free from\n     betting, but a good deal of outside betting goes on among the public,\n     and it is possible that it might be worth someone's while to get at a\n     player as the ruffians of the turf get at a race-horse. There is one\n     explanation. A second very obvious one is that this young man really\n     is the heir of a great property, however modest his means may at\n     present be, and it is not impossible that a plot to hold him for\n     ransom might be concocted.\"\n\n     \"These theories take no account of the telegram.\"\n\n     \"Quite true, Watson. The telegram still remains the only solid thing\n     with which we have to deal, and we must not permit our attention to\n     wander away from it. It is to gain light upon the purpose of this\n     telegram that we are now upon our way to Cambridge. The path of our\n     investigation is at present obscure, but I shall be very much\n     surprised if before evening we have not cleared it up or made a\n     considerable advance along it.\"\n\n     It was already dark when we reached the old University city. Holmes\n     took a cab at the station, and ordered the man to drive to the house\n     of Dr. Leslie Armstrong. A few minutes later we had stopped at a\n     large mansion in the busiest thoroughfare. We were shown in, and\n     after a long wait were at last admitted into the consulting-room,\n     where we found the doctor seated behind his table.\n\n     It argues the degree in which I had lost touch with my profession\n     that the name of Leslie Armstrong was unknown to me. Now I am aware\n     that he is not only one of the heads of the medical school of the\n     University, but a thinker of European reputation in more than one\n     branch of science. Yet even without knowing his brilliant record one\n     could not fail to be impressed by a mere glance at the man, the\n     square, massive face, the brooding eyes under the thatched brows, and\n     the granite moulding of the inflexible jaw. A man of deep character,\n     a man with an alert mind, grim, ascetic, self-contained,\n     formidable--so I read Dr. Leslie Armstrong. He held my friend's card\n     in his hand, and he looked up with no very pleased expression upon\n     his dour features.\n\n     \"I have heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I am aware of your\n     profession, one of which I by no means approve.\"\n\n     \"In that, doctor, you will find yourself in agreement with every\n     criminal in the country,\" said my friend, quietly.\n\n     \"So far as your efforts are directed towards the suppression of\n     crime, sir, they must have the support of every reasonable member of\n     the community, though I cannot doubt that the official machinery is\n     amply sufficient for the purpose. Where your calling is more open to\n     criticism is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals,\n     when you rake up family matters which are better hidden, and when you\n     incidentally waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself.\n     At the present moment, for example, I should be writing a treatise\n     instead of conversing with you.\"\n\n     \"No doubt, doctor; and yet the conversation may prove more important\n     than the treatise. Incidentally I may tell you that we are doing the\n     reverse of what you very justly blame, and that we are endeavouring\n     to prevent anything like public exposure of private matters which\n     must necessarily follow when once the case is fairly in the hands of\n     the official police. You may look upon me simply as an irregular\n     pioneer who goes in front of the regular forces of the country. I\n     have come to ask you about Mr. Godfrey Staunton.\"\n\n     \"What about him?\"\n\n     \"You know him, do you not?\"\n\n     \"He is an intimate friend of mine.\"\n\n     \"You are aware that he has disappeared?\"\n\n     \"Ah, indeed!\" There was no change of expression in the rugged\n     features of the doctor.\n\n     \"He left his hotel last night. He has not been heard of.\"\n\n     \"No doubt he will return.\"\n\n     \"To-morrow is the 'Varsity football match.\"\n\n     \"I have no sympathy with these childish games. The young man's fate\n     interests me deeply, since I know him and like him. The football\n     match does not come within my horizon at all.\"\n\n     \"I claim your sympathy, then, in my investigation of Mr. Staunton's\n     fate. Do you know where he is?\"\n\n     \"Certainly not.\"\n\n     \"You have not seen him since yesterday?\"\n\n     \"No, I have not.\"\n\n     \"Was Mr. Staunton a healthy man?\"\n\n     \"Absolutely.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever know him ill?\"\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     Holmes popped a sheet of paper before the doctor's eyes. \"Then\n     perhaps you will explain this receipted bill for thirteen guineas,\n     paid by Mr. Godfrey Staunton last month to Dr. Leslie Armstrong of\n     Cambridge. I picked it out from among the papers upon his desk.\"\n\n     The doctor flushed with anger.\n\n     \"I do not feel that there is any reason why I should render an\n     explanation to you, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     Holmes replaced the bill in his note-book. \"If you prefer a public\n     explanation it must come sooner or later,\" said he. \"I have already\n     told you that I can hush up that which others will be bound to\n     publish, and you would really be wiser to take me into your complete\n     confidence.\"\n\n     \"I know nothing about it.\"\n\n     \"Did you hear from Mr. Staunton in London?\"\n\n     \"Certainly not.\"\n\n     \"Dear me, dear me; the post-office again!\" Holmes sighed, wearily. \"A\n     most urgent telegram was dispatched to you from London by Godfrey\n     Staunton at six-fifteen yesterday evening--a telegram which is\n     undoubtedly associated with his disappearance--and yet you have not\n     had it. It is most culpable. I shall certainly go down to the office\n     here and register a complaint.\"\n\n     Dr. Leslie Armstrong sprang up from behind his desk, and his dark\n     face was crimson with fury.\n\n     \"I'll trouble you to walk out of my house, sir,\" said he. \"You can\n     tell your employer, Lord Mount-James, that I do not wish to have\n     anything to do either with him or with his agents. No, sir, not\n     another word!\" He rang the bell furiously. \"John, show these\n     gentlemen out!\" A pompous butler ushered us severely to the door, and\n     we found ourselves in the street. Holmes burst out laughing.\n\n     \"Dr. Leslie Armstrong is certainly a man of energy and character,\"\n     said he. \"I have not seen a man who, if he turned his talents that\n     way, was more calculated to fill the gap left by the illustrious\n     Moriarty. And now, my poor Watson, here we are, stranded and\n     friendless in this inhospitable town, which we cannot leave without\n     abandoning our case. This little inn just opposite Armstrong's house\n     is singularly adapted to our needs. If you would engage a front room\n     and purchase the necessaries for the night, I may have time to make a\n     few inquiries.\"\n\n     These few inquiries proved, however, to be a more lengthy proceeding\n     than Holmes had imagined, for he did not return to the inn until\n     nearly nine o'clock. He was pale and dejected, stained with dust, and\n     exhausted with hunger and fatigue. A cold supper was ready upon the\n     table, and when his needs were satisfied and his pipe alight he was\n     ready to take that half comic and wholly philosophic view which was\n     natural to him when his affairs were going awry. The sound of\n     carriage wheels caused him to rise and glance out of the window. A\n     brougham and pair of greys under the glare of a gas-lamp stood before\n     the doctor's door.\n\n     \"It's been out three hours,\" said Holmes; \"started at half-past six,\n     and here it is back again. That gives a radius of ten or twelve\n     miles, and he does it once, or sometimes twice, a day.\"\n\n     \"No unusual thing for a doctor in practice.\"\n\n     \"But Armstrong is not really a doctor in practice. He is a lecturer\n     and a consultant, but he does not care for general practice, which\n     distracts him from his literary work. Why, then, does he make these\n     long journeys, which must be exceedingly irksome to him, and who is\n     it that he visits?\"\n\n     \"His coachman--\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, can you doubt that it was to him that I first\n     applied? I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity\n     or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a\n     dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however,\n     and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that, and\n     further inquiries out of the question. All that I have learned I got\n     from a friendly native in the yard of our own inn. It was he who told\n     me of the doctor's habits and of his daily journey. At that instant,\n     to give point to his words, the carriage came round to the door.\"\n\n     \"Could you not follow it?\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson! You are scintillating this evening. The idea did\n     cross my mind. There is, as you may have observed, a bicycle shop\n     next to our inn. Into this I rushed, engaged a bicycle, and was able\n     to get started before the carriage was quite out of sight. I rapidly\n     overtook it, and then, keeping at a discreet distance of a hundred\n     yards or so, I followed its lights until we were clear of the town.\n     We had got well out on the country road when a somewhat mortifying\n     incident occurred. The carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked\n     swiftly back to where I had also halted, and told me in an excellent\n     sardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he\n     hoped his carriage did not impede the passage of my bicycle. Nothing\n     could have been more admirable than his way of putting it. I at once\n     rode past the carriage, and, keeping to the main road, I went on for\n     a few miles, and then halted in a convenient place to see if the\n     carriage passed. There was no sign of it, however, and so it became\n     evident that it had turned down one of several side roads which I had\n     observed. I rode back, but again saw nothing of the carriage, and\n     now, as you perceive, it has returned after me. Of course, I had at\n     the outset no particular reason to connect these journeys with the\n     disappearance of Godfrey Staunton, and was only inclined to\n     investigate them on the general grounds that everything which\n     concerns Dr. Armstrong is at present of interest to us; but, now that\n     I find he keeps so keen a look-out upon anyone who may follow him on\n     these excursions, the affair appears more important, and I shall not\n     be satisfied until I have made the matter clear.\"\n\n     \"We can follow him to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"Can we? It is not so easy as you seem to think. You are not familiar\n     with Cambridgeshire scenery, are you? It does not lend itself to\n     concealment. All this country that I passed over to-night is as flat\n     and clean as the palm of your hand, and the man we are following is\n     no fool, as he very clearly showed to-night. I have wired to Overton\n     to let us know any fresh London developments at this address, and in\n     the meantime we can only concentrate our attention upon Dr.\n     Armstrong, whose name the obliging young lady at the office allowed\n     me to read upon the counterfoil of Staunton's urgent message. He\n     knows where the young man is--to that I'll swear--and if he knows,\n     then it must be our own fault if we cannot manage to know also. At\n     present it must be admitted that the odd trick is in his possession,\n     and, as you are aware, Watson, it is not my habit to leave the game\n     in that condition.\"\n\n     And yet the next day brought us no nearer to the solution of the\n     mystery. A note was handed in after breakfast, which Holmes passed\n     across to me with a smile.\n\n     Sir [it ran]:\n     I can assure you that you are wasting your time in dogging my\n     movements. I have, as you discovered last night, a window at the back\n     of my brougham, and if you desire a twenty-mile ride which will lead\n     you to the spot from which you started, you have only to follow me.\n     Meanwhile, I can inform you that no spying upon me can in any way\n     help Mr. Godfrey Staunton, and I am convinced that the best service\n     you can do to that gentleman is to return at once to London and to\n     report to your employer that you are unable to trace him. Your time\n     in Cambridge will certainly be wasted.\n     Yours faithfully,\n     Leslie Armstrong.\n\n     \"An outspoken, honest antagonist is the doctor,\" said Holmes. \"Well,\n     well, he excites my curiosity, and I must really know more before I\n     leave him.\"\n\n     \"His carriage is at his door now,\" said I. \"There he is stepping into\n     it. I saw him glance up at our window as he did so. Suppose I try my\n     luck upon the bicycle?\"\n\n     \"No, no, my dear Watson! With all respect for your natural acumen I\n     do not think that you are quite a match for the worthy doctor. I\n     think that possibly I can attain our end by some independent\n     explorations of my own. I am afraid that I must leave you to your own\n     devices, as the appearance of two inquiring strangers upon a sleepy\n     countryside might excite more gossip than I care for. No doubt you\n     will find some sights to amuse you in this venerable city, and I hope\n     to bring back a more favourable report to you before evening.\"\n\n     Once more, however, my friend was destined to be disappointed. He\n     came back at night weary and unsuccessful.\n\n     \"I have had a blank day, Watson. Having got the doctor's general\n     direction, I spent the day in visiting all the villages upon that\n     side of Cambridge, and comparing notes with publicans and other local\n     news agencies. I have covered some ground: Chesterton, Histon,\n     Waterbeach, and Oakington have each been explored and have each\n     proved disappointing. The daily appearance of a brougham and pair\n     could hardly have been overlooked in such Sleepy Hollows. The doctor\n     has scored once more. Is there a telegram for me?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I opened it. Here it is:\n\n     \"'Ask for Pompey from Jeremy Dixon, Trinity College.'\n     \"I don't understand it.\"\n\n     \"Oh, it is clear enough. It is from our friend Overton, and is in\n     answer to a question from me. I'll just send round a note to Mr.\n     Jeremy Dixon, and then I have no doubt that our luck will turn. By\n     the way, is there any news of the match?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the local evening paper has an excellent account in its last\n     edition. Oxford won by a goal and two tries. The last sentences of\n     the description say:\n\n     \"'The defeat of the Light Blues may be entirely attributed to the\n     unfortunate absence of the crack International, Godfrey Staunton,\n     whose want was felt at every instant of the game. The lack of\n     combination in the three-quarter line and their weakness both in\n     attack and defence more than neutralized the efforts of a heavy and\n     hard-working pack.'\"\n\n     \"Then our friend Overton's forebodings have been justified,\" said\n     Holmes. \"Personally I am in agreement with Dr. Armstrong, and\n     football does not come within my horizon. Early to bed to-night,\n     Watson, for I foresee that to-morrow may be an eventful day.\"\n\n     I was horrified by my first glimpse of Holmes next morning, for he\n     sat by the fire holding his tiny hypodermic syringe. I associated\n     that instrument with the single weakness of his nature, and I feared\n     the worst when I saw it glittering in his hand. He laughed at my\n     expression of dismay, and laid it upon the table.\n\n     \"No, no, my dear fellow, there is no cause for alarm. It is not upon\n     this occasion the instrument of evil, but it will rather prove to be\n     the key which will unlock our mystery. On this syringe I base all my\n     hopes. I have just returned from a small scouting expedition and\n     everything is favourable. Eat a good breakfast, Watson, for I propose\n     to get upon Dr. Armstrong's trail to-day, and once on it I will not\n     stop for rest or food until I run him to his burrow.\"\n\n     \"In that case,\" said I, \"we had best carry our breakfast with us, for\n     he is making an early start. His carriage is at the door.\"\n\n     \"Never mind. Let him go. He will be clever if he can drive where I\n     cannot follow him. When you have finished come downstairs with me,\n     and I will introduce you to a detective who is a very eminent\n     specialist in the work that lies before us.\"\n\n     When we descended I followed Holmes into the stable yard, where he\n     opened the door of a loose-box and led out a squat, lop-eared,\n     white-and-tan dog, something between a beagle and a foxhound.\n\n     \"Let me introduce you to Pompey,\" said he. \"Pompey is the pride of\n     the local draghounds, no very great flier, as his build will show,\n     but a staunch hound on a scent. Well, Pompey, you may not be fast,\n     but I expect you will be too fast for a couple of middle-aged London\n     gentlemen, so I will take the liberty of fastening this leather leash\n     to your collar. Now, boy, come along, and show what you can do.\" He\n     led him across to the doctor's door. The dog sniffed round for an\n     instant, and then with a shrill whine of excitement started off down\n     the street, tugging at his leash in his efforts to go faster. In half\n     an hour, we were clear of the town and hastening down a country road.\n\n     \"What have you done, Holmes?\" I asked.\n\n     \"A threadbare and venerable device, but useful upon occasion. I\n     walked into the doctor's yard this morning and shot my syringe full\n     of aniseed over the hind wheel. A draghound will follow aniseed from\n     here to John o' Groat's, and our friend Armstrong would have to drive\n     through the Cam before he would shake Pompey off his trail. Oh, the\n     cunning rascal! This is how he gave me the slip the other night.\"\n\n     The dog had suddenly turned out of the main road into a grass-grown\n     lane. Half a mile farther this opened into another broad road, and\n     the trail turned hard to the right in the direction of the town,\n     which we had just quitted. The road took a sweep to the south of the\n     town and continued in the opposite direction to that in which we\n     started.\n\n     \"This détour has been entirely for our benefit, then?\" said Holmes.\n     \"No wonder that my inquiries among those villages led to nothing. The\n     doctor has certainly played the game for all it is worth, and one\n     would like to know the reason for such elaborate deception. This\n     should be the village of Trumpington to the right of us. And, by\n     Jove! here is the brougham coming round the corner. Quick, Watson,\n     quick, or we are done!\"\n\n     He sprang through a gate into a field, dragging the reluctant Pompey\n     after him. We had hardly got under the shelter of the hedge when the\n     carriage rattled past. I caught a glimpse of Dr. Armstrong within,\n     his shoulders bowed, his head sunk on his hands, the very image of\n     distress. I could tell by my companion's graver face that he also had\n     seen.\n\n     \"I fear there is some dark ending to our quest,\" said he. \"It cannot\n     be long before we know it. Come, Pompey! Ah, it is the cottage in the\n     field!\"\n\n     There could be no doubt that we had reached the end of our journey.\n     Pompey ran about and whined eagerly outside the gate where the marks\n     of the brougham's wheels were still to be seen. A footpath led across\n     to the lonely cottage. Holmes tied the dog to the hedge, and we\n     hastened onwards. My friend knocked at the little rustic door, and\n     knocked again without response. And yet the cottage was not deserted,\n     for a low sound came to our ears--a kind of drone of misery and\n     despair, which was indescribably melancholy. Holmes paused\n     irresolute, and then he glanced back at the road which we had just\n     traversed. A brougham was coming down it, and there could be no\n     mistaking those grey horses.\n\n     \"By Jove, the doctor is coming back!\" cried Holmes. \"That settles it.\n     We are bound to see what it means before he comes.\"\n\n     He opened the door and we stepped into the hall. The droning sound\n     swelled louder upon our ears until it became one long, deep wail of\n     distress. It came from upstairs. Holmes darted up and I followed him.\n     He pushed open a half-closed door and we both stood appalled at the\n     sight before us.\n\n     A woman, young and beautiful, was lying dead upon the bed. Her calm,\n     pale face, with dim, wide-opened blue eyes, looked upward from amid a\n     great tangle of golden hair. At the foot of the bed, half sitting,\n     half kneeling, his face buried in the clothes, was a young man, whose\n     frame was racked by his sobs. So absorbed was he by his bitter grief\n     that he never looked up until Holmes's hand was on his shoulder.\n\n     \"Are you Mr. Godfrey Staunton?\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes; I am--but you are too late. She is dead.\"\n\n     The man was so dazed that he could not be made to understand that we\n     were anything but doctors who had been sent to his assistance. Holmes\n     was endeavouring to utter a few words of consolation, and to explain\n     the alarm which had been caused to his friends by his sudden\n     disappearance, when there was a step upon the stairs, and there was\n     the heavy, stern, questioning face of Dr. Armstrong at the door.\n\n     \"So, gentlemen,\" said he, \"you have attained your end, and have\n     certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. I\n     would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can assure you that\n     if I were a younger man your monstrous conduct would not pass with\n     impunity.\"\n\n     \"Excuse me, Dr. Armstrong, I think we are a little at\n     cross-purposes,\" said my friend, with dignity. \"If you could step\n     downstairs with us we may each be able to give some light to the\n     other upon this miserable affair.\"\n\n     A minute later the grim doctor and ourselves were in the sitting-room\n     below.\n\n     \"Well, sir?\" said he.\n\n     \"I wish you to understand, in the first place, that I am not employed\n     by Lord Mount-James, and that my sympathies in this matter are\n     entirely against that nobleman. When a man is lost it is my duty to\n     ascertain his fate, but having done so the matter ends so far as I am\n     concerned; and so long as there is nothing criminal, I am much more\n     anxious to hush up private scandals than to give them publicity. If,\n     as I imagine, there is no breach of the law in this matter, you can\n     absolutely depend upon my discretion and my co-operation in keeping\n     the facts out of the papers.\"\n\n     Dr. Armstrong took a quick step forward and wrung Holmes by the hand.\n\n     \"You are a good fellow,\" said he. \"I had misjudged you. I thank\n     Heaven that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in this\n     plight caused me to turn my carriage back, and so to make your\n     acquaintance. Knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily\n     explained. A year ago Godfrey Staunton lodged in London for a time,\n     and became passionately attached to his landlady's daughter, whom he\n     married. She was as good as she was beautiful, and as intelligent as\n     she was good. No man need be ashamed of such a wife. But Godfrey was\n     the heir to this crabbed old nobleman, and it was quite certain that\n     the news of his marriage would have been the end of his inheritance.\n     I knew the lad well, and I loved him for his many excellent\n     qualities. I did all I could to help him to keep things straight. We\n     did our very best to keep the thing from everyone, for when once such\n     a whisper gets about it is not long before everyone has heard it.\n     Thanks to this lonely cottage and his own discretion, Godfrey has up\n     to now succeeded. Their secret was known to no one save to me and to\n     one excellent servant who has at present gone for assistance to\n     Trumpington. But at last there came a terrible blow in the shape of\n     dangerous illness to his wife. It was consumption of the most\n     virulent kind. The poor boy was half crazed with grief, and yet he\n     had to go to London to play this match, for he could not get out of\n     it without explanations which would expose his secret. I tried to\n     cheer him up by a wire, and he sent me one in reply imploring me to\n     do all I could. This was the telegram which you appear in some\n     inexplicable way to have seen. I did not tell him how urgent the\n     danger was, for I knew that he could do no good here, but I sent the\n     truth to the girl's father, and he very injudiciously communicated it\n     to Godfrey. The result was that he came straight away in a state\n     bordering on frenzy, and has remained in the same state, kneeling at\n     the end of her bed, until this morning death put an end to her\n     sufferings. That is all, Mr. Holmes, and I am sure that I can rely\n     upon your discretion and that of your friend.\"\n\n     Holmes grasped the doctor's hand.\n\n     \"Come, Watson,\" said he, and we passed from that house of grief into\n     the pale sunlight of the winter day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE\n\n     It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning during the winter of '97\n     that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The\n     candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face and told me at\n     a glance that something was amiss.\n\n     \"Come, Watson, come!\" he cried. \"The game is afoot. Not a word! Into\n     your clothes and come!\"\n\n     Ten minutes later we were both in a cab and rattling through the\n     silent streets on our way to Charing Cross Station. The first faint\n     winter's dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the\n     occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and\n     indistinct in the opalescent London reek. Holmes nestled in silence\n     into his heavy coat, and I was glad to do the same, for the air was\n     most bitter and neither of us had broken our fast. It was not until\n     we had consumed some hot tea at the station, and taken our places in\n     the Kentish train, that we were sufficiently thawed, he to speak and\n     I to listen. Holmes drew a note from his pocket and read it aloud:\n\n     \"Abbey Grange, Marsham, Kent,\n     \"3.30 a.m.\n     \"My dear Mr. Holmes:\n     \"I should be very glad of your immediate assistance in what promises\n     to be a most remarkable case. It is something quite in your line.\n     Except for releasing the lady I will see that everything is kept\n     exactly as I have found it, but I beg you not to lose an instant, as\n     it is difficult to leave Sir Eustace there.\n     \"Yours faithfully,\n     \"Stanley Hopkins.\"\n\n     \"Hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion his\n     summons has been entirely justified,\" said Holmes. \"I fancy that\n     every one of his cases has found its way into your collection, and I\n     must admit, Watson, that you have some power of selection which\n     atones for much which I deplore in your narratives. Your fatal habit\n     of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of\n     as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an\n     instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur\n     over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon\n     sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct,\n     the reader.\"\n\n     \"Why do you not write them yourself?\" I said, with some bitterness.\n\n     \"I will, my dear Watson, I will. At present I am, as you know, fairly\n     busy, but I propose to devote my declining years to the composition\n     of a text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one\n     volume. Our present research appears to be a case of murder.\"\n\n     \"You think this Sir Eustace is dead, then?\"\n\n     \"I should say so. Hopkins's writing shows considerable agitation, and\n     he is not an emotional man. Yes, I gather there has been violence,\n     and that the body is left for our inspection. A mere suicide would\n     not have caused him to send for me. As to the release of the lady, it\n     would appear that she has been locked in her room during the tragedy.\n     We are moving in high life, Watson; crackling paper, 'E.B.' monogram,\n     coat-of-arms, picturesque address. I think that friend Hopkins will\n     live up to his reputation and that we shall have an interesting\n     morning. The crime was committed before twelve last night.\"\n\n     \"How can you possibly tell?\"\n\n     \"By an inspection of the trains and by reckoning the time. The local\n     police had to be called in, they had to communicate with Scotland\n     Yard, Hopkins had to go out, and he in turn had to send for me. All\n     that makes a fair night's work. Well, here we are at Chislehurst\n     Station, and we shall soon set our doubts at rest.\"\n\n     A drive of a couple of miles through narrow country lanes brought us\n     to a park gate, which was opened for us by an old lodge-keeper, whose\n     haggard face bore the reflection of some great disaster. The avenue\n     ran through a noble park, between lines of ancient elms, and ended in\n     a low, widespread house, pillared in front after the fashion of\n     Palladio. The central part was evidently of a great age and shrouded\n     in ivy, but the large windows showed that modern changes had been\n     carried out, and one wing of the house appeared to be entirely new.\n     The youthful figure and alert, eager face of Inspector Stanley\n     Hopkins confronted us in the open doorway.\n\n     \"I'm very glad you have come, Mr. Holmes. And you too, Dr. Watson!\n     But, indeed, if I had my time over again I should not have troubled\n     you, for since the lady has come to herself she has given so clear an\n     account of the affair that there is not much left for us to do. You\n     remember that Lewisham gang of burglars?\"\n\n     \"What, the three Randalls?\"\n\n     \"Exactly; the father and two sons. It's their work. I have not a\n     doubt of it. They did a job at Sydenham a fortnight ago, and were\n     seen and described. Rather cool to do another so soon and so near,\n     but it is they, beyond all doubt. It's a hanging matter this time.\"\n\n     \"Sir Eustace is dead, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes; his head was knocked in with his own poker.\"\n\n     \"Sir Eustace Brackenstall, the driver tells me.\"\n\n     \"Exactly--one of the richest men in Kent. Lady Brackenstall is in the\n     morning-room. Poor lady, she has had a most dreadful experience. She\n     seemed half dead when I saw her first. I think you had best see her\n     and hear her account of the facts. Then we will examine the\n     dining-room together.\"\n\n     Lady Brackenstall was no ordinary person. Seldom have I seen so\n     graceful a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face.\n     She was a blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and would, no doubt, have\n     had the perfect complexion which goes with such colouring had not her\n     recent experience left her drawn and haggard. Her sufferings were\n     physical as well as mental, for over one eye rose a hideous,\n     plum-coloured swelling, which her maid, a tall, austere woman, was\n     bathing assiduously with vinegar and water. The lady lay back\n     exhausted upon a couch, but her quick, observant gaze as we entered\n     the room, and the alert expression of her beautiful features, showed\n     that neither her wits nor her courage had been shaken by her terrible\n     experience. She was enveloped in a loose dressing-gown of blue and\n     silver, but a black sequin-covered dinner-dress was hung upon the\n     couch beside her.\n\n     \"I have told you all that happened, Mr. Hopkins,\" she said, wearily;\n     \"could you not repeat it for me? Well, if you think it necessary, I\n     will tell these gentlemen what occurred. Have they been in the\n     dining-room yet?\"\n\n     \"I thought they had better hear your ladyship's story first.\"\n\n     \"I shall be glad when you can arrange matters. It is horrible to me\n     to think of him still lying there.\" She shuddered and buried her face\n     in her hands. As she did so the loose gown fell back from her\n     forearms. Holmes uttered an exclamation.\n\n     \"You have other injuries, madam! What is this?\" Two vivid red spots\n     stood out on one of the white, round limbs. She hastily covered it.\n\n     \"It is nothing. It has no connection with the hideous business of\n     last night. If you and your friend will sit down I will tell you all\n     I can.\n\n     \"I am the wife of Sir Eustace Brackenstall. I have been married about\n     a year. I suppose that it is no use my attempting to conceal that our\n     marriage has not been a happy one. I fear that all our neighbours\n     would tell you that, even if I were to attempt to deny it. Perhaps\n     the fault may be partly mine. I was brought up in the freer, less\n     conventional atmosphere of South Australia, and this English life,\n     with its proprieties and its primness, is not congenial to me. But\n     the main reason lies in the one fact which is notorious to everyone,\n     and that is that Sir Eustace was a confirmed drunkard. To be with\n     such a man for an hour is unpleasant. Can you imagine what it means\n     for a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and\n     night? It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a\n     marriage is binding. I say that these monstrous laws of yours will\n     bring a curse upon the land--Heaven will not let such wickedness\n     endure.\" For an instant she sat up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes\n     blazing from under the terrible mark upon her brow. Then the strong,\n     soothing hand of the austere maid drew her head down on to the\n     cushion, and the wild anger died away into passionate sobbing. At\n     last she continued:--\n\n     \"I will tell you about last night. You are aware, perhaps, that in\n     this house all servants sleep in the modern wing. This central block\n     is made up of the dwelling-rooms, with the kitchen behind and our\n     bedroom above. My maid Theresa sleeps above my room. There is no one\n     else, and no sound could alarm those who are in the farther wing.\n     This must have been well known to the robbers, or they would not have\n     acted as they did.\n\n     \"Sir Eustace retired about half-past ten. The servants had already\n     gone to their quarters. Only my maid was up, and she had remained in\n     her room at the top of the house until I needed her services. I sat\n     until after eleven in this room, absorbed in a book. Then I walked\n     round to see that all was right before I went upstairs. It was my\n     custom to do this myself, for, as I have explained, Sir Eustace was\n     not always to be trusted. I went into the kitchen, the butler's\n     pantry, the gun-room, the billiard-room, the drawing-room, and\n     finally the dining-room. As I approached the window, which is covered\n     with thick curtains, I suddenly felt the wind blow upon my face and\n     realized that it was open. I flung the curtain aside and found myself\n     face to face with a broad-shouldered, elderly man who had just\n     stepped into the room. The window is a long French one, which really\n     forms a door leading to the lawn. I held my bedroom candle lit in my\n     hand, and, by its light, behind the first man I saw two others, who\n     were in the act of entering. I stepped back, but the fellow was on me\n     in an instant. He caught me first by the wrist and then by the\n     throat. I opened my mouth to scream, but he struck me a savage blow\n     with his fist over the eye, and felled me to the ground. I must have\n     been unconscious for a few minutes, for when I came to myself I found\n     that they had torn down the bell-rope and had secured me tightly to\n     the oaken chair which stands at the head of the dining-room table. I\n     was so firmly bound that I could not move, and a handkerchief round\n     my mouth prevented me from uttering any sound. It was at this instant\n     that my unfortunate husband entered the room. He had evidently heard\n     some suspicious sounds, and he came prepared for such a scene as he\n     found. He was dressed in his shirt and trousers, with his favourite\n     blackthorn cudgel in his hand. He rushed at one of the burglars, but\n     another--it was the elderly man--stooped, picked the poker out of the\n     grate, and struck him a horrible blow as he passed. He fell without a\n     groan, and never moved again. I fainted once more, but again it could\n     only have been a very few minutes during which I was insensible. When\n     I opened my eyes I found that they had collected the silver from the\n     sideboard, and they had drawn a bottle of wine which stood there.\n     Each of them had a glass in his hand. I have already told you, have I\n     not, that one was elderly, with a beard, and the others young,\n     hairless lads. They might have been a father with his two sons. They\n     talked together in whispers. Then they came over and made sure that I\n     was still securely bound. Finally they withdrew, closing the window\n     after them. It was quite a quarter of an hour before I got my mouth\n     free. When I did so my screams brought the maid to my assistance. The\n     other servants were soon alarmed, and we sent for the local police,\n     who instantly communicated with London. That is really all that I can\n     tell you, gentlemen, and I trust that it will not be necessary for me\n     to go over so painful a story again.\"\n\n     \"Any questions, Mr. Holmes?\" asked Hopkins.\n\n     \"I will not impose any further tax upon Lady Brackenstall's patience\n     and time,\" said Holmes. \"Before I go into the dining-room I should\n     like to hear your experience.\" He looked at the maid.\n\n     \"I saw the men before ever they came into the house,\" said she. \"As I\n     sat by my bedroom window I saw three men in the moonlight down by the\n     lodge gate yonder, but I thought nothing of it at the time. It was\n     more than an hour after that I heard my mistress scream, and down I\n     ran, to find her, poor lamb, just as she says, and him on the floor\n     with his blood and brains over the room. It was enough to drive a\n     woman out of her wits, tied there, and her very dress spotted with\n     him; but she never wanted courage, did Miss Mary Fraser of Adelaide,\n     and Lady Brackenstall of Abbey Grange hasn't learned new ways. You've\n     questioned her long enough, you gentlemen, and now she is coming to\n     her own room, just with her old Theresa, to get the rest that she\n     badly needs.\"\n\n     With a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her\n     mistress and led her from the room.\n\n     \"She has been with her all her life,\" said Hopkins. \"Nursed her as a\n     baby, and came with her to England when they first left Australia\n     eighteen months ago. Theresa Wright is her name, and the kind of maid\n     you don't pick up nowadays. This way, Mr. Holmes, if you please!\"\n\n     The keen interest had passed out of Holmes's expressive face, and I\n     knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed.\n     There still remained an arrest to be effected, but what were these\n     commonplace rogues that he should soil his hands with them? An\n     abstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has been called in\n     for a case of measles would experience something of the annoyance\n     which I read in my friend's eyes. Yet the scene in the dining-room of\n     the Abbey Grange was sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and\n     to recall his waning interest.\n\n     It was a very large and high chamber, with carved oak ceiling, oaken\n     panelling, and a fine array of deer's heads and ancient weapons\n     around the walls. At the farther end from the door was the high\n     French window of which we had heard. Three smaller windows on the\n     right-hand side filled the apartment with cold winter sunshine. On\n     the left was a large, deep fireplace, with a massive, over-hanging\n     oak mantelpiece. Beside the fireplace was a heavy oaken chair with\n     arms and cross-bars at the bottom. In and out through the open\n     woodwork was woven a crimson cord, which was secured at each side to\n     the crosspiece below. In releasing the lady the cord had been slipped\n     off her, but the knots with which it had been secured still remained.\n     These details only struck our attention afterwards, for our thoughts\n     were entirely absorbed by the terrible object which lay upon the\n     tiger-skin hearthrug in front of the fire.\n\n     It was the body of a tall, well-made man, about forty years of age.\n     He lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth\n     grinning through his short black beard. His two clenched hands were\n     raised above his head, and a heavy blackthorn stick lay across them.\n     His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of\n     vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish\n     expression. He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had\n     broken out, for he wore a foppish embroidered night-shirt, and his\n     bare feet projected from his trousers. His head was horribly injured,\n     and the whole room bore witness to the savage ferocity of the blow\n     which had struck him down. Beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into\n     a curve by the concussion. Holmes examined both it and the\n     indescribable wreck which it had wrought.\n\n     \"He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall,\" he remarked.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said Hopkins. \"I have some record of the fellow, and he is a\n     rough customer.\"\n\n     \"You should have no difficulty in getting him.\"\n\n     \"Not the slightest. We have been on the look-out for him, and there\n     was some idea that he had got away to America. Now that we know the\n     gang are here I don't see how they can escape. We have the news at\n     every seaport already, and a reward will be offered before evening.\n     What beats me is how they could have done so mad a thing, knowing\n     that the lady could describe them, and that we could not fail to\n     recognise the description.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. One would have expected that they would have silenced Lady\n     Brackenstall as well.\"\n\n     \"They may not have realized,\" I suggested, \"that she had recovered\n     from her faint.\"\n\n     \"That is likely enough. If she seemed to be senseless they would not\n     take her life. What about this poor fellow, Hopkins? I seem to have\n     heard some queer stories about him.\"\n\n     \"He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend\n     when he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom\n     really went the whole way. The devil seemed to be in him at such\n     times, and he was capable of anything. From what I hear, in spite of\n     all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or\n     twice. There was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum\n     and setting it on fire--her ladyship's dog, to make the matter\n     worse--and that was only hushed up with difficulty. Then he threw a\n     decanter at that maid, Theresa Wright; there was trouble about that.\n     On the whole, and between ourselves, it will be a brighter house\n     without him. What are you looking at now?\"\n\n     Holmes was down on his knees examining with great attention the knots\n     upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured. Then he\n     carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped\n     off when the burglar had dragged it down.\n\n     \"When this was pulled down the bell in the kitchen must have rung\n     loudly,\" he remarked.\n\n     \"No one could hear it. The kitchen stands right at the back of the\n     house.\"\n\n     \"How did the burglar know no one would hear it? How dared he pull at\n     a bell-rope in that reckless fashion?\"\n\n     \"Exactly, Mr. Holmes, exactly. You put the very question which I have\n     asked myself again and again. There can be no doubt that this fellow\n     must have known the house and its habits. He must have perfectly\n     understood that the servants would all be in bed at that\n     comparatively early hour, and that no one could possibly hear a bell\n     ring in the kitchen. Therefore he must have been in close league with\n     one of the servants. Surely that is evident. But there are eight\n     servants, and all of good character.\"\n\n     \"Other things being equal,\" said Holmes, \"one would suspect the one\n     at whose head the master threw a decanter. And yet that would involve\n     treachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems devoted.\n     Well, well, the point is a minor one, and when you have Randall you\n     will probably find no difficulty in securing his accomplice. The\n     lady's story certainly seems to be corroborated, if it needed\n     corroboration, by every detail which we see before us.\" He walked to\n     the French window and threw it open. \"There are no signs here, but\n     the ground is iron hard, and one would not expect them. I see that\n     these candles on the mantelpiece have been lighted.\"\n\n     \"Yes; it was by their light and that of the lady's bedroom candle\n     that the burglars saw their way about.\"\n\n     \"And what did they take?\"\n\n     \"Well, they did not take much--only half-a-dozen articles of plate\n     off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves\n     so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack\n     the house as they would otherwise have done.\"\n\n     \"No doubt that is true. And yet they drank some wine, I understand.\"\n\n     \"To steady their own nerves.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. These three glasses upon the sideboard have been untouched,\n     I suppose?\"\n\n     \"Yes; and the bottle stands as they left it.\"\n\n     \"Let us look at it. Halloa! halloa! what is this?\"\n\n     The three glasses were grouped together, all of them tinged with\n     wine, and one of them containing some dregs of bees-wing. The bottle\n     stood near them, two-thirds full, and beside it lay a long,\n     deeply-stained cork. Its appearance and the dust upon the bottle\n     showed that it was no common vintage which the murderers had enjoyed.\n\n     A change had come over Holmes's manner. He had lost his listless\n     expression, and again I saw an alert light of interest in his keen,\n     deep-set eyes. He raised the cork and examined it minutely.\n\n     \"How did they draw it?\" he asked.\n\n     Hopkins pointed to a half-opened drawer. In it lay some table linen\n     and a large cork-screw.\n\n     \"Did Lady Brackenstall say that screw was used?\"\n\n     \"No; you remember that she was senseless at the moment when the\n     bottle was opened.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. As a matter of fact that screw was not used. This bottle\n     was opened by a pocket-screw, probably contained in a knife, and not\n     more than an inch and a half long. If you examine the top of the cork\n     you will observe that the screw was driven in three times before the\n     cork was extracted. It has never been transfixed. This long screw\n     would have transfixed it and drawn it with a single pull. When you\n     catch this fellow you will find that he has one of these multiplex\n     knives in his possession.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Hopkins.\n\n     \"But these glasses do puzzle me, I confess. Lady Brackenstall\n     actually saw the three men drinking, did she not?\"\n\n     \"Yes; she was clear about that.\"\n\n     \"Then there is an end of it. What more is to be said? And yet you\n     must admit that the three glasses are very remarkable, Hopkins. What,\n     you see nothing remarkable! Well, well, let it pass. Perhaps when a\n     man has special knowledge and special powers like my own it rather\n     encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at\n     hand. Of course, it must be a mere chance about the glasses. Well,\n     good morning, Hopkins. I don't see that I can be of any use to you,\n     and you appear to have your case very clear. You will let me know\n     when Randall is arrested, and any further developments which may\n     occur. I trust that I shall soon have to congratulate you upon a\n     successful conclusion. Come, Watson, I fancy that we may employ\n     ourselves more profitably at home.\"\n\n     During our return journey I could see by Holmes's face that he was\n     much puzzled by something which he had observed. Every now and then,\n     by an effort, he would throw off the impression and talk as if the\n     matter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him\n     again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his\n     thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the\n     Abbey Grange in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted. At\n     last, by a sudden impulse, just as our train was crawling out of a\n     suburban station, he sprang on to the platform and pulled me out\n     after him.\n\n     \"Excuse me, my dear fellow,\" said he, as we watched the rear\n     carriages of our train disappearing round a curve; \"I am sorry to\n     make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life,\n     Watson, I simply can't leave that case in this condition. Every\n     instinct that I possess cries out against it. It's wrong--it's all\n     wrong--I'll swear that it's wrong. And yet the lady's story was\n     complete, the maid's corroboration was sufficient, the detail was\n     fairly exact. What have I to put against that? Three wine-glasses,\n     that is all. But if I had not taken things for granted, if I had\n     examined everything with care which I would have shown had we\n     approached the case de novo and had no cut-and-dried story to warp my\n     mind, would I not then have found something more definite to go upon?\n     Of course I should. Sit down on this bench, Watson, until a train for\n     Chislehurst arrives, and allow me to lay the evidence before you,\n     imploring you in the first instance to dismiss from your mind the\n     idea that anything which the maid or her mistress may have said must\n     necessarily be true. The lady's charming personality must not be\n     permitted to warp our judgment.\n\n     \"Surely there are details in her story which, if we looked at it in\n     cold blood, would excite our suspicion. These burglars made a\n     considerable haul at Sydenham a fortnight ago. Some account of them\n     and of their appearance was in the papers, and would naturally occur\n     to anyone who wished to invent a story in which imaginary robbers\n     should play a part. As a matter of fact, burglars who have done a\n     good stroke of business are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the\n     proceeds in peace and quiet without embarking on another perilous\n     undertaking. Again, it is unusual for burglars to operate at so early\n     an hour; it is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her\n     screaming, since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her\n     scream; it is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers\n     are sufficient to overpower one man; it is unusual for them to be\n     content with a limited plunder when there is much more within their\n     reach; and finally I should say that it was very unusual for such men\n     to leave a bottle half empty. How do all these unusuals strike you,\n     Watson?\"\n\n     \"Their cumulative effect is certainly considerable, and yet each of\n     them is quite possible in itself. The most unusual thing of all, as\n     it seems to me, is that the lady should be tied to the chair.\"\n\n     \"Well, I am not so clear about that, Watson; for it is evident that\n     they must either kill her or else secure her in such a way that she\n     could not give immediate notice of their escape. But at any rate I\n     have shown, have I not, that there is a certain element of\n     improbability about the lady's story? And now on the top of this\n     comes the incident of the wine-glasses.\"\n\n     \"What about the wine-glasses?\"\n\n     \"Can you see them in your mind's eye?\"\n\n     \"I see them clearly.\"\n\n     \"We are told that three men drank from them. Does that strike you as\n     likely?\"\n\n     \"Why not? There was wine in each glass.\"\n\n     \"Exactly; but there was bees-wing only in one glass. You must have\n     noticed that fact. What does that suggest to your mind?\"\n\n     \"The last glass filled would be most likely to contain bees-wing.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. The bottle was full of it, and it is inconceivable that\n     the first two glasses were clear and the third heavily charged with\n     it. There are two possible explanations, and only two. One is that\n     after the second glass was filled the bottle was violently agitated,\n     and so the third glass received the bees-wing. That does not appear\n     probable. No, no; I am sure that I am right.\"\n\n     \"What, then, do you suppose?\"\n\n     \"That only two glasses were used, and that the dregs of both were\n     poured into a third glass, so as to give the false impression that\n     three people had been here. In that way all the bees-wing would be in\n     the last glass, would it not? Yes, I am convinced that this is so.\n     But if I have hit upon the true explanation of this one small\n     phenomenon, then in an instant the case rises from the commonplace to\n     the exceedingly remarkable, for it can only mean that Lady\n     Brackenstall and her maid have deliberately lied to us, that not one\n     word of their story is to be believed, that they have some very\n     strong reason for covering the real criminal, and that we must\n     construct our case for ourselves without any help from them. That is\n     the mission which now lies before us, and here, Watson, is the\n     Chislehurst train.\"\n\n     The household of the Abbey Grange were much surprised at our return,\n     but Sherlock Holmes, finding that Stanley Hopkins had gone off to\n     report to head-quarters, took possession of the dining-room, locked\n     the door upon the inside, and devoted himself for two hours to one of\n     those minute and laborious investigations which formed the solid\n     basis on which his brilliant edifices of deduction were reared.\n     Seated in a corner like an interested student who observes the\n     demonstration of his professor, I followed every step of that\n     remarkable research. The window, the curtains, the carpet, the chair,\n     the rope--each in turn was minutely examined and duly pondered. The\n     body of the unfortunate baronet had been removed, but all else\n     remained as we had seen it in the morning. Then, to my astonishment,\n     Holmes climbed up on to the massive mantelpiece. Far above his head\n     hung the few inches of red cord which were still attached to the\n     wire. For a long time he gazed upward at it, and then in an attempt\n     to get nearer to it he rested his knee upon a wooden bracket on the\n     wall. This brought his hand within a few inches of the broken end of\n     the rope, but it was not this so much as the bracket itself which\n     seemed to engage his attention. Finally he sprang down with an\n     ejaculation of satisfaction.\n\n     \"It's all right, Watson,\" said he. \"We have got our case--one of the\n     most remarkable in our collection. But, dear me, how slow-witted I\n     have been, and how nearly I have committed the blunder of my\n     lifetime! Now, I think that with a few missing links my chain is\n     almost complete.\"\n\n     \"You have got your men?\"\n\n     \"Man, Watson, man. Only one, but a very formidable person. Strong as\n     a lion--witness the blow that bent that poker. Six foot three in\n     height, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers; finally,\n     remarkably quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his\n     concoction. Yes, Watson, we have come upon the handiwork of a very\n     remarkable individual. And yet in that bell-rope he has given us a\n     clue which should not have left us a doubt.\"\n\n     \"Where was the clue?\"\n\n     \"Well, if you were to pull down a bell-rope, Watson, where would you\n     expect it to break? Surely at the spot where it is attached to the\n     wire. Why should it break three inches from the top as this one has\n     done?\"\n\n     \"Because it is frayed there?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. This end, which we can examine, is frayed. He was cunning\n     enough to do that with his knife. But the other end is not frayed.\n     You could not observe that from here, but if you were on the\n     mantelpiece you would see that it is cut clean off without any mark\n     of fraying whatever. You can reconstruct what occurred. The man\n     needed the rope. He would not tear it down for fear of giving the\n     alarm by ringing the bell. What did he do? He sprang up on the\n     mantelpiece, could not quite reach it, put his knee on the\n     bracket--you will see the impression in the dust--and so got his\n     knife to bear upon the cord. I could not reach the place by at least\n     three inches, from which I infer that he is at least three inches a\n     bigger man than I. Look at that mark upon the seat of the oaken\n     chair! What is it?\"\n\n     \"Blood.\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly it is blood. This alone puts the lady's story out of\n     court. If she were seated on the chair when the crime was done, how\n     comes that mark? No, no; she was placed in the chair after the death\n     of her husband. I'll wager that the black dress shows a corresponding\n     mark to this. We have not yet met our Waterloo, Watson, but this is\n     our Marengo, for it begins in defeat and ends in victory. I should\n     like now to have a few words with the nurse Theresa. We must be wary\n     for awhile, if we are to get the information which we want.\"\n\n     She was an interesting person, this stern Australian nurse. Taciturn,\n     suspicious, ungracious, it took some time before Holmes's pleasant\n     manner and frank acceptance of all that she said thawed her into a\n     corresponding amiability. She did not attempt to conceal her hatred\n     for her late employer.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, it is true that he threw the decanter at me. I heard him\n     call my mistress a name, and I told him that he would not dare to\n     speak so if her brother had been there. Then it was that he threw it\n     at me. He might have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird\n     alone. He was for ever illtreating her, and she too proud to\n     complain. She will not even tell me all that he has done to her. She\n     never told me of those marks on her arm that you saw this morning,\n     but I know very well that they come from a stab with a hat-pin. The\n     sly fiend--Heaven forgive me that I should speak of him so, now that\n     he is dead, but a fiend he was if ever one walked the earth. He was\n     all honey when first we met him, only eighteen months ago, and we\n     both feel as if it were eighteen years. She had only just arrived in\n     London. Yes, it was her first voyage--she had never been from home\n     before. He won her with his title and his money and his false London\n     ways. If she made a mistake she has paid for it, if ever a woman did.\n     What month did we meet him? Well, I tell you it was just after we\n     arrived. We arrived in June, and it was July. They were married in\n     January of last year. Yes, she is down in the morning-room again, and\n     I have no doubt she will see you, but you must not ask too much of\n     her, for she has gone through all that flesh and blood will stand.\"\n\n     Lady Brackenstall was reclining on the same couch, but looked\n     brighter than before. The maid had entered with us, and began once\n     more to foment the bruise upon her mistress's brow.\n\n     \"I hope,\" said the lady, \"that you have not come to cross-examine me\n     again?\"\n\n     \"No,\" Holmes answered, in his gentlest voice, \"I will not cause you\n     any unnecessary trouble, Lady Brackenstall, and my whole desire is to\n     make things easy for you, for I am convinced that you are a\n     much-tried woman. If you will treat me as a friend and trust me you\n     may find that I will justify your trust.\"\n\n     \"What do you want me to do?\"\n\n     \"To tell me the truth.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes!\"\n\n     \"No, no, Lady Brackenstall, it is no use. You may have heard of any\n     little reputation which I possess. I will stake it all on the fact\n     that your story is an absolute fabrication.\"\n\n     Mistress and maid were both staring at Holmes with pale faces and\n     frightened eyes.\n\n     \"You are an impudent fellow!\" cried Theresa. \"Do you mean to say that\n     my mistress has told a lie?\"\n\n     Holmes rose from his chair.\n\n     \"Have you nothing to tell me?\"\n\n     \"I have told you everything.\"\n\n     \"Think once more, Lady Brackenstall. Would it not be better to be\n     frank?\"\n\n     For an instant there was hesitation in her beautiful face. Then some\n     new strong thought caused it to set like a mask.\n\n     \"I have told you all I know.\"\n\n     Holmes took his hat and shrugged his shoulders. \"I am sorry,\" he\n     said, and without another word we left the room and the house. There\n     was a pond in the park, and to this my friend led the way. It was\n     frozen over, but a single hole was left for the convenience of a\n     solitary swan. Holmes gazed at it and then passed on to the lodge\n     gate. There he scribbled a short note for Stanley Hopkins and left it\n     with the lodge-keeper.\n\n     \"It may be a hit or it may be a miss, but we are bound to do\n     something for friend Hopkins, just to justify this second visit,\"\n     said he. \"I will not quite take him into my confidence yet. I think\n     our next scene of operations must be the shipping office of the\n     Adelaide-Southampton line, which stands at the end of Pall Mall, if I\n     remember right. There is a second line of steamers which connect\n     South Australia with England, but we will draw the larger cover\n     first.\"\n\n     Holmes's card sent in to the manager ensured instant attention, and\n     he was not long in acquiring all the information which he needed. In\n     June of '95 only one of their line had reached a home port. It was\n     the Rock of Gibraltar, their largest and best boat. A reference to\n     the passenger list showed that Miss Fraser of Adelaide, with her\n     maid, had made the voyage in her. The boat was now on her way to\n     Australia, somewhere to the south of the Suez Canal. Her officers\n     were the same as in '95, with one exception. The first officer, Mr.\n     Jack Croker, had been made a captain and was to take charge of their\n     new ship, the Bass Rock, sailing in two days' time from Southampton.\n     He lived at Sydenham, but he was likely to be in that morning for\n     instructions, if we cared to wait for him.\n\n     No; Mr. Holmes had no desire to see him, but would be glad to know\n     more about his record and character.\n\n     His record was magnificent. There was not an officer in the fleet to\n     touch him. As to his character, he was reliable on duty, but a wild,\n     desperate fellow off the deck of his ship, hot-headed, excitable, but\n     loyal, honest, and kind-hearted. That was the pith of the information\n     with which Holmes left the office of the Adelaide-Southampton\n     company. Thence he drove to Scotland Yard, but instead of entering he\n     sat in his cab with his brows drawn down, lost in profound thought.\n     Finally he drove round to the Charing Cross telegraph office, sent\n     off a message, and then, at last, we made for Baker Street once more.\n\n     \"No, I couldn't do it, Watson,\" said he, as we re-entered our room.\n     \"Once that warrant was made out nothing on earth would save him. Once\n     or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my\n     discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have\n     learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of\n     England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before\n     we act.\"\n\n     Before evening we had a visit from Inspector Stanley Hopkins. Things\n     were not going very well with him.\n\n     \"I believe that you are a wizard, Mr. Holmes. I really do sometimes\n     think that you have powers that are not human. Now, how on earth\n     could you know that the stolen silver was at the bottom of that\n     pond?\"\n\n     \"I didn't know it.\"\n\n     \"But you told me to examine it.\"\n\n     \"You got it, then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I got it.\"\n\n     \"I am very glad if I have helped you.\"\n\n     \"But you haven't helped me. You have made the affair far more\n     difficult. What sort of burglars are they who steal silver and then\n     throw it into the nearest pond?\"\n\n     \"It was certainly rather eccentric behaviour. I was merely going on\n     the idea that if the silver had been taken by persons who did not\n     want it, who merely took it for a blind as it were, then they would\n     naturally be anxious to get rid of it.\"\n\n     \"But why should such an idea cross your mind?\"\n\n     \"Well, I thought it was possible. When they came out through the\n     French window there was the pond, with one tempting little hole in\n     the ice, right in front of their noses. Could there be a better\n     hiding-place?\"\n\n     \"Ah, a hiding-place--that is better!\" cried Stanley Hopkins. \"Yes,\n     yes, I see it all now! It was early, there were folk upon the roads,\n     they were afraid of being seen with the silver, so they sank it in\n     the pond, intending to return for it when the coast was clear.\n     Excellent, Mr. Holmes--that is better than your idea of a blind.\"\n\n     \"Quite so; you have got an admirable theory. I have no doubt that my\n     own ideas were quite wild, but you must admit that they have ended in\n     discovering the silver.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, yes. It was all your doing. But I have had a bad\n     set-back.\"\n\n     \"A set-back?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes. The Randall gang were arrested in New York this\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"Dear me, Hopkins! That is certainly rather against your theory that\n     they committed a murder in Kent last night.\"\n\n     \"It is fatal, Mr. Holmes, absolutely fatal. Still, there are other\n     gangs of three besides the Randalls, or it may be some new gang of\n     which the police have never heard.\"\n\n     \"Quite so; it is perfectly possible. What, are you off?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes; there is no rest for me until I have got to the\n     bottom of the business. I suppose you have no hint to give me?\"\n\n     \"I have given you one.\"\n\n     \"Which?\"\n\n     \"Well, I suggested a blind.\"\n\n     \"But why, Mr. Holmes, why?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that's the question, of course. But I commend the idea to your\n     mind. You might possibly find that there was something in it. You\n     won't stop for dinner? Well, good-bye, and let us know how you get\n     on.\"\n\n     Dinner was over and the table cleared before Holmes alluded to the\n     matter again. He had lit his pipe and held his slippered feet to the\n     cheerful blaze of the fire. Suddenly he looked at his watch.\n\n     \"I expect developments, Watson.\"\n\n     \"When?\"\n\n     \"Now--within a few minutes. I dare say you thought I acted rather\n     badly to Stanley Hopkins just now?\"\n\n     \"I trust your judgment.\"\n\n     \"A very sensible reply, Watson. You must look at it this way: what I\n     know is unofficial; what he knows is official. I have the right to\n     private judgment, but he has none. He must disclose all, or he is a\n     traitor to his service. In a doubtful case I would not put him in so\n     painful a position, and so I reserve my information until my own mind\n     is clear upon the matter.\"\n\n     \"But when will that be?\"\n\n     \"The time has come. You will now be present at the last scene of a\n     remarkable little drama.\"\n\n     There was a sound upon the stairs, and our door was opened to admit\n     as fine a specimen of manhood as ever passed through it. He was a\n     very tall young man, golden-moustached, blue-eyed, with a skin which\n     had been burned by tropical suns, and a springy step which showed\n     that the huge frame was as active as it was strong. He closed the\n     door behind him, and then he stood with clenched hands and heaving\n     breast, choking down some overmastering emotion.\n\n     \"Sit down, Captain Croker. You got my telegram?\"\n\n     Our visitor sank into an arm-chair and looked from one to the other\n     of us with questioning eyes.\n\n     \"I got your telegram, and I came at the hour you said. I heard that\n     you had been down to the office. There was no getting away from you.\n     Let's hear the worst. What are you going to do with me? Arrest me?\n     Speak out, man! You can't sit there and play with me like a cat with\n     a mouse.\"\n\n     \"Give him a cigar,\" said Holmes. \"Bite on that, Captain Croker, and\n     don't let your nerves run away with you. I should not sit here\n     smoking with you if I thought that you were a common criminal, you\n     may be sure of that. Be frank with me, and we may do some good. Play\n     tricks with me, and I'll crush you.\"\n\n     \"What do you wish me to do?\"\n\n     \"To give me a true account of all that happened at the Abbey Grange\n     last night--a true account, mind you, with nothing added and nothing\n     taken off. I know so much already that if you go one inch off the\n     straight I'll blow this police whistle from my window and the affair\n     goes out of my hands for ever.\"\n\n     The sailor thought for a little. Then he struck his leg with his\n     great, sun-burned hand.\n\n     \"I'll chance it,\" he cried. \"I believe you are a man of your word,\n     and a white man, and I'll tell you the whole story. But one thing I\n     will say first. So far as I am concerned I regret nothing and I fear\n     nothing, and I would do it all again and be proud of the job. Curse\n     the beast, if he had as many lives as a cat he would owe them all to\n     me! But it's the lady, Mary--Mary Fraser--for never will I call her\n     by that accursed name. When I think of getting her into trouble, I\n     who would give my life just to bring one smile to her dear face, it's\n     that that turns my soul into water. And yet--and yet--what less could\n     I do? I'll tell you my story, gentlemen, and then I'll ask you as man\n     to man what less could I do.\n\n     \"I must go back a bit. You seem to know everything, so I expect that\n     you know that I met her when she was a passenger and I was first\n     officer of the Rock of Gibraltar. From the first day I met her she\n     was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more,\n     and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the\n     night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear\n     feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as\n     fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It\n     was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on\n     hers. When we parted she was a free woman, but I could never again be\n     a free man.\n\n     \"Next time I came back from sea I heard of her marriage. Well, why\n     shouldn't she marry whom she liked? Title and money--who could carry\n     them better than she? She was born for all that is beautiful and\n     dainty. I didn't grieve over her marriage. I was not such a selfish\n     hound as that. I just rejoiced that good luck had come her way, and\n     that she had not thrown herself away on a penniless sailor. That's\n     how I loved Mary Fraser.\n\n     \"Well, I never thought to see her again; but last voyage I was\n     promoted, and the new boat was not yet launched, so I had to wait for\n     a couple of months with my people at Sydenham. One day out in a\n     country lane I met Theresa Wright, her old maid. She told me about\n     her, about him, about everything. I tell you, gentlemen, it nearly\n     drove me mad. This drunken hound, that he should dare to raise his\n     hand to her whose boots he was not worthy to lick! I met Theresa\n     again. Then I met Mary herself--and met her again. Then she would\n     meet me no more. But the other day I had a notice that I was to start\n     on my voyage within a week, and I determined that I would see her\n     once before I left. Theresa was always my friend, for she loved Mary\n     and hated this villain almost as much as I did. From her I learned\n     the ways of the house. Mary used to sit up reading in her own little\n     room downstairs. I crept round there last night and scratched at the\n     window. At first she would not open to me, but in her heart I know\n     that now she loves me, and she could not leave me in the frosty\n     night. She whispered to me to come round to the big front window, and\n     I found it open before me so as to let me into the dining-room. Again\n     I heard from her own lips things that made my blood boil, and again I\n     cursed this brute who mishandled the woman that I loved. Well,\n     gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all\n     innocence, as Heaven is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into\n     the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman,\n     and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand. I\n     had sprung for the poker, and it was a fair fight between us. See\n     here on my arm where his first blow fell. Then it was my turn, and I\n     went through him as if he had been a rotten pumpkin. Do you think I\n     was sorry? Not I! It was his life or mine, but far more than that it\n     was his life or hers, for how could I leave her in the power of this\n     madman? That was how I killed him. Was I wrong? Well, then, what\n     would either of you gentlemen have done if you had been in my\n     position?\n\n     \"She had screamed when he struck her, and that brought old Theresa\n     down from the room above. There was a bottle of wine on the\n     sideboard, and I opened it and poured a little between Mary's lips,\n     for she was half dead with the shock. Then I took a drop myself.\n     Theresa was as cool as ice, and it was her plot as much as mine. We\n     must make it appear that burglars had done the thing. Theresa kept on\n     repeating our story to her mistress, while I swarmed up and cut the\n     rope of the bell. Then I lashed her in her chair, and frayed out the\n     end of the rope to make it look natural, else they would wonder how\n     in the world a burglar could have got up there to cut it. Then I\n     gathered up a few plates and pots of silver, to carry out the idea of\n     a robbery, and there I left them with orders to give the alarm when I\n     had a quarter of an hour's start. I dropped the silver into the pond\n     and made off for Sydenham, feeling that for once in my life I had\n     done a real good night's work. And that's the truth and the whole\n     truth, Mr. Holmes, if it costs me my neck.\"\n\n     Holmes smoked for some time in silence. Then he crossed the room and\n     shook our visitor by the hand.\n\n     \"That's what I think,\" said he. \"I know that every word is true, for\n     you have hardly said a word which I did not know. No one but an\n     acrobat or a sailor could have got up to that bell-rope from the\n     bracket, and no one but a sailor could have made the knots with which\n     the cord was fastened to the chair. Only once had this lady been\n     brought into contact with sailors, and that was on her voyage, and it\n     was someone of her own class of life, since she was trying hard to\n     shield him and so showing that she loved him. You see how easy it was\n     for me to lay my hands upon you when once I had started upon the\n     right trail.\"\n\n     \"I thought the police never could have seen through our dodge.\"\n\n     \"And the police haven't; nor will they, to the best of my belief.\n     Now, look here, Captain Croker, this is a very serious matter, though\n     I am willing to admit that you acted under the most extreme\n     provocation to which any man could be subjected. I am not sure that\n     in defence of your own life your action will not be pronounced\n     legitimate. However, that is for a British jury to decide. Meanwhile\n     I have so much sympathy for you that if you choose to disappear in\n     the next twenty-four hours I will promise you that no one will hinder\n     you.\"\n\n     \"And then it will all come out?\"\n\n     \"Certainly it will come out.\"\n\n     The sailor flushed with anger.\n\n     \"What sort of proposal is that to make a man? I know enough of law to\n     understand that Mary would be had as accomplice. Do you think I would\n     leave her alone to face the music while I slunk away? No, sir; let\n     them do their worst upon me, but for Heaven's sake, Mr. Holmes, find\n     some way of keeping my poor Mary out of the courts.\"\n\n     Holmes for a second time held out his hand to the sailor.\n\n     \"I was only testing you, and you ring true every time. Well, it is a\n     great responsibility that I take upon myself, but I have given\n     Hopkins an excellent hint, and if he can't avail himself of it I can\n     do no more. See here, Captain Croker, we'll do this in due form of\n     law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I\n     never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am\n     the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence.\n     Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?\"\n\n     \"Not guilty, my lord,\" said I.\n\n     \"Vox populi, vox Dei. You are acquitted, Captain Croker. So long as\n     the law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come\n     back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us\n     in the judgment which we have pronounced this night.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND STAIN\n\n     I had intended \"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange\" to be the last of\n     those exploits of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, which I should ever\n     communicate to the public. This resolution of mine was not due to any\n     lack of material, since I have notes of many hundreds of cases to\n     which I have never alluded, nor was it caused by any waning interest\n     on the part of my readers in the singular personality and unique\n     methods of this remarkable man. The real reason lay in the reluctance\n     which Mr. Holmes has shown to the continued publication of his\n     experiences. So long as he was in actual professional practice the\n     records of his successes were of some practical value to him; but\n     since he has definitely retired from London and betaken himself to\n     study and bee-farming on the Sussex Downs, notoriety has become\n     hateful to him, and he has peremptorily requested that his wishes in\n     this matter should be strictly observed. It was only upon my\n     representing to him that I had given a promise that \"The Adventure of\n     the Second Stain\" should be published when the times were ripe, and\n     pointing out to him that it is only appropriate that this long series\n     of episodes should culminate in the most important international case\n     which he has ever been called upon to handle, that I at last\n     succeeded in obtaining his consent that a carefully-guarded account\n     of the incident should at last be laid before the public. If in\n     telling the story I seem to be somewhat vague in certain details the\n     public will readily understand that there is an excellent reason for\n     my reticence.\n\n     It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be\n     nameless, that upon one Tuesday morning in autumn we found two\n     visitors of European fame within the walls of our humble room in\n     Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant,\n     was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of\n     Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of\n     middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was\n     the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs,\n     and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side\n     upon our paper-littered settee, and it was easy to see from their\n     worn and anxious faces that it was business of the most pressing\n     importance which had brought them. The Premier's thin, blue-veined\n     hands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and\n     his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from Holmes to me. The\n     European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted\n     with the seals of his watch-chain.\n\n     \"When I discovered my loss, Mr. Holmes, which was at eight o'clock\n     this morning, I at once informed the Prime Minister. It was at his\n     suggestion that we have both come to you.\"\n\n     \"Have you informed the police?\"\n\n     \"No, sir,\" said the Prime Minister, with the quick, decisive manner\n     for which he was famous. \"We have not done so, nor is it possible\n     that we should do so. To inform the police must, in the long run,\n     mean to inform the public. This is what we particularly desire to\n     avoid.\"\n\n     \"And why, sir?\"\n\n     \"Because the document in question is of such immense importance that\n     its publication might very easily--I might almost say probably--lead\n     to European complications of the utmost moment. It is not too much to\n     say that peace or war may hang upon the issue. Unless its recovery\n     can be attended with the utmost secrecy, then it may as well not be\n     recovered at all, for all that is aimed at by those who have taken it\n     is that its contents should be generally known.\"\n\n     \"I understand. Now, Mr. Trelawney Hope, I should be much obliged if\n     you would tell me exactly the circumstances under which this document\n     disappeared.\"\n\n     \"That can be done in a very few words, Mr. Holmes. The letter--for it\n     was a letter from a foreign potentate--was received six days ago. It\n     was of such importance that I have never left it in my safe, but I\n     have taken it across each evening to my house in Whitehall Terrace,\n     and kept it in my bedroom in a locked despatch-box. It was there last\n     night. Of that I am certain. I actually opened the box while I was\n     dressing for dinner, and saw the document inside. This morning it was\n     gone. The despatch-box had stood beside the glass upon my\n     dressing-table all night. I am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. We\n     are both prepared to swear that no one could have entered the room\n     during the night. And yet I repeat that the paper is gone.\"\n\n     \"What time did you dine?\"\n\n     \"Half-past seven.\"\n\n     \"How long was it before you went to bed?\"\n\n     \"My wife had gone to the theatre. I waited up for her. It was\n     half-past eleven before we went to our room.\"\n\n     \"Then for four hours the despatch-box had lain unguarded?\"\n\n     \"No one is ever permitted to enter that room save the housemaid in\n     the morning, and my valet, or my wife's maid, during the rest of the\n     day. They are both trusty servants who have been with us for some\n     time. Besides, neither of them could possibly have known that there\n     was anything more valuable than the ordinary departmental papers in\n     my despatch-box.\"\n\n     \"Who did know of the existence of that letter?\"\n\n     \"No one in the house.\"\n\n     \"Surely your wife knew?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; I had said nothing to my wife until I missed the paper this\n     morning.\"\n\n     The Premier nodded approvingly.\n\n     \"I have long known, sir, how high is your sense of public duty,\" said\n     he. \"I am convinced that in the case of a secret of this importance\n     it would rise superior to the most intimate domestic ties.\"\n\n     The European Secretary bowed.\n\n     \"You do me no more than justice, sir. Until this morning I have never\n     breathed one word to my wife upon this matter.\"\n\n     \"Could she have guessed?\"\n\n     \"No, Mr. Holmes, she could not have guessed--nor could anyone have\n     guessed.\"\n\n     \"Have you lost any documents before?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Who is there in England who did know of the existence of this\n     letter?\"\n\n     \"Each member of the Cabinet was informed of it yesterday; but the\n     pledge of secrecy which attends every Cabinet meeting was increased\n     by the solemn warning which was given by the Prime Minister. Good\n     heavens, to think that within a few hours I should myself have lost\n     it!\" His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair, and his\n     hands tore at his hair. For a moment we caught a glimpse of the\n     natural man, impulsive, ardent, keenly sensitive. The next the\n     aristocratic mask was replaced, and the gentle voice had returned.\n     \"Besides the members of the Cabinet there are two, or possibly three,\n     departmental officials who know of the letter. No one else in\n     England, Mr. Holmes, I assure you.\"\n\n     \"But abroad?\"\n\n     \"I believe that no one abroad has seen it save the man who wrote it.\n     I am well convinced that his Ministers--that the usual official\n     channels have not been employed.\"\n\n     Holmes considered for some little time.\n\n     \"Now, sir, I must ask you more particularly what this document is,\n     and why its disappearance should have such momentous consequences?\"\n\n     The two statesmen exchanged a quick glance and the Premier's shaggy\n     eyebrows gathered in a frown.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, the envelope is a long, thin one of pale blue colour.\n     There is a seal of red wax stamped with a crouching lion. It is\n     addressed in large, bold handwriting to--\"\n\n     \"I fear, sir,\" said Holmes, \"that, interesting and indeed essential\n     as these details are, my inquiries must go more to the root of\n     things. What was the letter?\"\n\n     \"That is a State secret of the utmost importance, and I fear that I\n     cannot tell you, nor do I see that it is necessary. If by the aid of\n     the powers which you are said to possess you can find such an\n     envelope as I describe with its enclosure, you will have deserved\n     well of your country, and earned any reward which it lies in our\n     power to bestow.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes rose with a smile.\n\n     \"You are two of the most busy men in the country,\" said he, \"and in\n     my own small way I have also a good many calls upon me. I regret\n     exceedingly that I cannot help you in this matter, and any\n     continuation of this interview would be a waste of time.\"\n\n     The Premier sprang to his feet with that quick, fierce gleam of his\n     deep-set eyes before which a Cabinet has cowered. \"I am not\n     accustomed, sir--\" he began, but mastered his anger and resumed his\n     seat. For a minute or more we all sat in silence. Then the old\n     statesman shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"We must accept your terms, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right, and\n     it is unreasonable for us to expect you to act unless we give you our\n     entire confidence.\"\n\n     \"I agree with you, sir,\" said the younger statesman.\n\n     \"Then I will tell you, relying entirely upon your honour and that of\n     your colleague, Dr. Watson. I may appeal to your patriotism also, for\n     I could not imagine a greater misfortune for the country than that\n     this affair should come out.\"\n\n     \"You may safely trust us.\"\n\n     \"The letter, then, is from a certain foreign potentate who has been\n     ruffled by some recent Colonial developments of this country. It has\n     been written hurriedly and upon his own responsibility entirely.\n     Inquiries have shown that his Ministers know nothing of the matter.\n     At the same time it is couched in so unfortunate a manner, and\n     certain phrases in it are of so provocative a character, that its\n     publication would undoubtedly lead to a most dangerous state of\n     feeling in this country. There would be such a ferment, sir, that I\n     do not hesitate to say that within a week of the publication of that\n     letter this country would be involved in a great war.\"\n\n     Holmes wrote a name upon a slip of paper and handed it to the\n     Premier.\n\n     \"Exactly. It was he. And it is this letter--this letter which may\n     well mean the expenditure of a thousand millions and the lives of a\n     hundred thousand men--which has become lost in this unaccountable\n     fashion.\"\n\n     \"Have you informed the sender?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, a cipher telegram has been despatched.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps he desires the publication of the letter.\"\n\n     \"No, sir, we have strong reason to believe that he already\n     understands that he has acted in an indiscreet and hot-headed manner.\n     It would be a greater blow to him and to his country than to us if\n     this letter were to come out.\"\n\n     \"If this is so, whose interest is it that the letter should come out?\n     Why should anyone desire to steal it or to publish it?\"\n\n     \"There, Mr. Holmes, you take me into regions of high international\n     politics. But if you consider the European situation you will have no\n     difficulty in perceiving the motive. The whole of Europe is an armed\n     camp. There is a double league which makes a fair balance of military\n     power. Great Britain holds the scales. If Britain were driven into\n     war with one confederacy, it would assure the supremacy of the other\n     confederacy, whether they joined in the war or not. Do you follow?\"\n\n     \"Very clearly. It is then the interest of the enemies of this\n     potentate to secure and publish this letter, so as to make a breach\n     between his country and ours?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And to whom would this document be sent if it fell into the hands of\n     an enemy?\"\n\n     \"To any of the great Chancelleries of Europe. It is probably speeding\n     on its way thither at the present instant as fast as steam can take\n     it.\"\n\n     Mr. Trelawney Hope dropped his head on his chest and groaned aloud.\n     The Premier placed his hand kindly upon his shoulder.\n\n     \"It is your misfortune, my dear fellow. No one can blame you. There\n     is no precaution which you have neglected. Now, Mr. Holmes, you are\n     in full possession of the facts. What course do you recommend?\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head mournfully.\n\n     \"You think, sir, that unless this document is recovered there will be\n     war?\"\n\n     \"I think it is very probable.\"\n\n     \"Then, sir, prepare for war.\"\n\n     \"That is a hard saying, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Consider the facts, sir. It is inconceivable that it was taken after\n     eleven-thirty at night, since I understand that Mr. Hope and his wife\n     were both in the room from that hour until the loss was found out. It\n     was taken, then, yesterday evening between seven-thirty and\n     eleven-thirty, probably near the earlier hour, since whoever took it\n     evidently knew that it was there and would naturally secure it as\n     early as possible. Now, sir, if a document of this importance were\n     taken at that hour, where can it be now? No one has any reason to\n     retain it. It has been passed rapidly on to those who need it. What\n     chance have we now to overtake or even to trace it? It is beyond our\n     reach.\"\n\n     The Prime Minister rose from the settee.\n\n     \"What you say is perfectly logical, Mr. Holmes. I feel that the\n     matter is indeed out of our hands.\"\n\n     \"Let us presume, for argument's sake, that the document was taken by\n     the maid or by the valet--\"\n\n     \"They are both old and tried servants.\"\n\n     \"I understand you to say that your room is on the second floor, that\n     there is no entrance from without, and that from within no one could\n     go up unobserved. It must, then, be somebody in the house who has\n     taken it. To whom would the thief take it? To one of several\n     international spies and secret agents, whose names are tolerably\n     familiar to me. There are three who may be said to be the heads of\n     their profession. I will begin my research by going round and finding\n     if each of them is at his post. If one is missing--especially if he\n     has disappeared since last night--we will have some indication as to\n     where the document has gone.\"\n\n     \"Why should he be missing?\" asked the European Secretary. \"He would\n     take the letter to an Embassy in London, as likely as not.\"\n\n     \"I fancy not. These agents work independently, and their relations\n     with the Embassies are often strained.\"\n\n     The Prime Minister nodded his acquiescence.\n\n     \"I believe you are right, Mr. Holmes. He would take so valuable a\n     prize to head-quarters with his own hands. I think that your course\n     of action is an excellent one. Meanwhile, Hope, we cannot neglect all\n     our other duties on account of this one misfortune. Should there be\n     any fresh developments during the day we shall communicate with you,\n     and you will no doubt let us know the results of your own inquiries.\"\n\n     The two statesmen bowed and walked gravely from the room.\n\n     When our illustrious visitors had departed Holmes lit his pipe in\n     silence, and sat for some time lost in the deepest thought. I had\n     opened the morning paper and was immersed in a sensational crime\n     which had occurred in London the night before, when my friend gave an\n     exclamation, sprang to his feet, and laid his pipe down upon the\n     mantelpiece.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said he, \"there is no better way of approaching it. The\n     situation is desperate, but not hopeless. Even now, if we could be\n     sure which of them has taken it, it is just possible that it has not\n     yet passed out of his hands. After all, it is a question of money\n     with these fellows, and I have the British Treasury behind me. If\n     it's on the market I'll buy it--if it means another penny on the\n     income-tax. It is conceivable that the fellow might hold it back to\n     see what bids come from this side before he tries his luck on the\n     other. There are only those three capable of playing so bold a game;\n     there are Oberstein, La Rothiere, and Eduardo Lucas. I will see each\n     of them.\"\n\n     I glanced at my morning paper.\n\n     \"Is that Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"You will not see him.\"\n\n     \"Why not?\"\n\n     \"He was murdered in his house last night.\"\n\n     My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures\n     that it was with a sense of exultation that I realized how completely\n     I had astonished him. He stared in amazement, and then snatched the\n     paper from my hands. This was the paragraph which I had been engaged\n     in reading when he rose from his chair:\n\n                              Murder in Westminster\n     A crime of mysterious character was committed last night at 16,\n     Godolphin Street, one of the old-fashioned and secluded rows of\n     eighteenth-century houses which lie between the river and the Abbey,\n     almost in the shadow of the great Tower of the Houses of Parliament.\n     This small but select mansion has been inhabited for some years by\n     Mr. Eduardo Lucas, well known in society circles both on account of\n     his charming personality and because he has the well-deserved\n     reputation of being one of the best amateur tenors in the country.\n     Mr. Lucas is an unmarried man, thirty-four years of age, and his\n     establishment consists of Mrs. Pringle, an elderly housekeeper, and\n     of Mitton, his valet. The former retires early and sleeps at the top\n     of the house. The valet was out for the evening, visiting a friend at\n     Hammersmith. From ten o'clock onwards Mr. Lucas had the house to\n     himself. What occurred during that time has not yet transpired, but\n     at a quarter to twelve Police-constable Barrett, passing along\n     Godolphin Street, observed that the door of No. 16 was ajar. He\n     knocked, but received no answer. Perceiving a light in the front room\n     he advanced into the passage and again knocked, but without reply. He\n     then pushed open the door and entered. The room was in a state of\n     wild disorder, the furniture being all swept to one side, and one\n     chair lying on its back in the centre. Beside this chair, and still\n     grasping one of its legs, lay the unfortunate tenant of the house. He\n     had been stabbed to the heart and must have died instantly. The knife\n     with which the crime had been committed was a curved Indian dagger,\n     plucked down from a trophy of Oriental arms which adorned one of the\n     walls. Robbery does not appear to have been the motive of the crime,\n     for there had been no attempt to remove the valuable contents of the\n     room. Mr. Eduardo Lucas was so well known and popular that his\n     violent and mysterious fate will arouse painful interest and intense\n     sympathy in a wide-spread circle of friends.\n\n     \"Well, Watson, what do you make of this?\" asked Holmes, after a long\n     pause.\n\n     \"It is an amazing coincidence.\"\n\n     \"A coincidence! Here is one of the three men whom we had named as\n     possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during\n     the very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. The\n     odds are enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could\n     express them. No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected--must\n     be connected. It is for us to find the connection.\"\n\n     \"But now the official police must know all.\"\n\n     \"Not at all. They know all they see at Godolphin Street. They\n     know--and shall know--nothing of Whitehall Terrace. Only we know of\n     both events, and can trace the relation between them. There is one\n     obvious point which would, in any case, have turned my suspicions\n     against Lucas. Godolphin Street, Westminster, is only a few minutes'\n     walk from Whitehall Terrace. The other secret agents whom I have\n     named live in the extreme West-end. It was easier, therefore, for\n     Lucas than for the others to establish a connection or receive a\n     message from the European Secretary's household--a small thing, and\n     yet where events are compressed into a few hours it may prove\n     essential. Halloa! what have we here?\"\n\n     Mrs. Hudson had appeared with a lady's card upon her salver. Holmes\n     glanced at it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it over to me.\n\n     \"Ask Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope if she will be kind enough to step\n     up,\" said he.\n\n     A moment later our modest apartment, already so distinguished that\n     morning, was further honoured by the entrance of the most lovely\n     woman in London. I had often heard of the beauty of the youngest\n     daughter of the Duke of Belminster, but no description of it, and no\n     contemplation of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the\n     subtle, delicate charm and the beautiful colouring of that exquisite\n     head. And yet as we saw it that autumn morning, it was not its beauty\n     which would be the first thing to impress the observer. The cheek was\n     lovely, but it was paled with emotion; the eyes were bright, but it\n     was the brightness of fever; the sensitive mouth was tight and drawn\n     in an effort after self-command. Terror--not beauty--was what sprang\n     first to the eye as our fair visitor stood framed for an instant in\n     the open door.\n\n     \"Has my husband been here, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Yes, madam, he has been here.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, I implore you not to tell him that I came here.\" Holmes\n     bowed coldly, and motioned the lady to a chair.\n\n     \"Your ladyship places me in a very delicate position. I beg that you\n     will sit down and tell me what you desire; but I fear that I cannot\n     make any unconditional promise.\"\n\n     She swept across the room and seated herself with her back to the\n     window. It was a queenly presence--tall, graceful, and intensely\n     womanly.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes,\" she said, and her white-gloved hands clasped and\n     unclasped as she spoke--\"I will speak frankly to you in the hope that\n     it may induce you to speak frankly in return. There is complete\n     confidence between my husband and me on all matters save one. That\n     one is politics. On this his lips are sealed. He tells me nothing.\n     Now, I am aware that there was a most deplorable occurrence in our\n     house last night. I know that a paper has disappeared. But because\n     the matter is political my husband refuses to take me into his\n     complete confidence. Now it is essential--essential, I say--that I\n     should thoroughly understand it. You are the only other person, save\n     only these politicians, who knows the true facts. I beg you, then,\n     Mr. Holmes, to tell me exactly what has happened and what it will\n     lead to. Tell me all, Mr. Holmes. Let no regard for your client's\n     interests keep you silent, for I assure you that his interests, if he\n     would only see it, would be best served by taking me into his\n     complete confidence. What was this paper which was stolen?\"\n\n     \"Madam, what you ask me is really impossible.\"\n\n     She groaned and sank her face in her hands.\n\n     \"You must see that this is so, madam. If your husband thinks fit to\n     keep you in the dark over this matter, is it for me, who has only\n     learned the true facts under the pledge of professional secrecy, to\n     tell what he has withheld? It is not fair to ask it. It is him whom\n     you must ask.\"\n\n     \"I have asked him. I come to you as a last resource. But without your\n     telling me anything definite, Mr. Holmes, you may do a great service\n     if you would enlighten me on one point.\"\n\n     \"What is it, madam?\"\n\n     \"Is my husband's political career likely to suffer through this\n     incident?\"\n\n     \"Well, madam, unless it is set right it may certainly have a very\n     unfortunate effect.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\" She drew in her breath sharply as one whose doubts are\n     resolved.\n\n     \"One more question, Mr. Holmes. From an expression which my husband\n     dropped in the first shock of this disaster I understood that\n     terrible public consequences might arise from the loss of this\n     document.\"\n\n     \"If he said so, I certainly cannot deny it.\"\n\n     \"Of what nature are they?\"\n\n     \"Nay, madam, there again you ask me more than I can possibly answer.\"\n\n     \"Then I will take up no more of your time. I cannot blame you, Mr.\n     Holmes, for having refused to speak more freely, and you on your side\n     will not, I am sure, think the worse of me because I desire, even\n     against his will, to share my husband's anxieties. Once more I beg\n     that you will say nothing of my visit.\" She looked back at us from\n     the door, and I had a last impression of that beautiful haunted face,\n     the startled eyes, and the drawn mouth. Then she was gone.\n\n     \"Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department,\" said Holmes, with a\n     smile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts had ended in the slam\n     of the front door. \"What was the fair lady's game? What did she\n     really want?\"\n\n     \"Surely her own statement is clear and her anxiety very natural.\"\n\n     \"Hum! Think of her appearance, Watson--her manner, her suppressed\n     excitement, her restlessness, her tenacity in asking questions.\n     Remember that she comes of a caste who do not lightly show emotion.\"\n\n     \"She was certainly much moved.\"\n\n     \"Remember also the curious earnestness with which she assured us that\n     it was best for her husband that she should know all. What did she\n     mean by that? And you must have observed, Watson, how she manoeuvred\n     to have the light at her back. She did not wish us to read her\n     expression.\"\n\n     \"Yes; she chose the one chair in the room.\"\n\n     \"And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the\n     woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on\n     her nose--that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build\n     on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or\n     their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a\n     curling-tongs. Good morning, Watson.\"\n\n     \"You are off?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I will wile away the morning at Godolphin Street with our\n     friends of the regular establishment. With Eduardo Lucas lies the\n     solution of our problem, though I must admit that I have not an\n     inkling as to what form it may take. It is a capital mistake to\n     theorize in advance of the facts. Do you stay on guard, my good\n     Watson, and receive any fresh visitors. I'll join you at lunch if I\n     am able.\"\n\n     All that day and the next and the next Holmes was in a mood which his\n     friends would call taciturn, and others morose. He ran out and ran\n     in, smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into\n     reveries, devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered\n     the casual questions which I put to him. It was evident to me that\n     things were not going well with him or his quest. He would say\n     nothing of the case, and it was from the papers that I learned the\n     particulars of the inquest, and the arrest with the subsequent\n     release of John Mitton, the valet of the deceased. The coroner's jury\n     brought in the obvious \"Wilful Murder,\" but the parties remained as\n     unknown as ever. No motive was suggested. The room was full of\n     articles of value, but none had been taken. The dead man's papers had\n     not been tampered with. They were carefully examined, and showed that\n     he was a keen student of international politics, an indefatigable\n     gossip, a remarkable linguist, and an untiring letter-writer. He had\n     been on intimate terms with the leading politicians of several\n     countries. But nothing sensational was discovered among the documents\n     which filled his drawers. As to his relations with women, they\n     appeared to have been promiscuous but superficial. He had many\n     acquaintances among them, but few friends, and no one whom he loved.\n     His habits were regular, his conduct inoffensive. His death was an\n     absolute mystery, and likely to remain so.\n\n     As to the arrest of John Mitton, the valet, it was a counsel of\n     despair as an alternative to absolute inaction. But no case could be\n     sustained against him. He had visited friends in Hammersmith that\n     night. The alibi was complete. It is true that he started home at an\n     hour which should have brought him to Westminster before the time\n     when the crime was discovered, but his own explanation that he had\n     walked part of the way seemed probable enough in view of the fineness\n     of the night. He had actually arrived at twelve o'clock, and appeared\n     to be overwhelmed by the unexpected tragedy. He had always been on\n     good terms with his master. Several of the dead man's\n     possessions--notably a small case of razors--had been found in the\n     valet's boxes, but he explained that they had been presents from the\n     deceased, and the housekeeper was able to corroborate the story.\n     Mitton had been in Lucas's employment for three years. It was\n     noticeable that Lucas did not take Mitton on the Continent with him.\n     Sometimes he visited Paris for three months on end, but Mitton was\n     left in charge of the Godolphin Street house. As to the housekeeper,\n     she had heard nothing on the night of the crime. If her master had a\n     visitor he had himself admitted him.\n\n     So for three mornings the mystery remained, so far as I could follow\n     it in the papers. If Holmes knew more he kept his own counsel, but,\n     as he told me that Inspector Lestrade had taken him into his\n     confidence in the case, I knew that he was in close touch with every\n     development. Upon the fourth day there appeared a long telegram from\n     Paris which seemed to solve the whole question.\n\n     A discovery has just been made by the Parisian police [said the Daily\n     Telegraph] which raises the veil which hung round the tragic fate of\n     Mr. Eduardo Lucas, who met his death by violence last Monday night at\n     Godolphin Street, Westminster. Our readers will remember that the\n     deceased gentleman was found stabbed in his room, and that some\n     suspicion attached to his valet, but that the case broke down on an\n     alibi. Yesterday a lady, who has been known as Mme. Henri Fournaye,\n     occupying a small villa in the Rue Austerlitz, was reported to the\n     authorities by her servants as being insane. An examination showed\n     that she had indeed developed mania of a dangerous and permanent\n     form. On inquiry the police have discovered that Mme. Henri Fournaye\n     only returned from a journey to London on Tuesday last, and there is\n     evidence to connect her with the crime at Westminster. A comparison\n     of photographs has proved conclusively that M. Henri Fournaye and\n     Eduardo Lucas were really one and the same person, and that the\n     deceased had for some reason lived a double life in London and Paris.\n     Mme. Fournaye, who is of Creole origin, is of an extremely excitable\n     nature, and has suffered in the past from attacks of jealousy which\n     have amounted to frenzy. It is conjectured that it was in one of\n     these that she committed the terrible crime which has caused such a\n     sensation in London. Her movements upon the Monday night have not yet\n     been traced, but it is undoubted that a woman answering to her\n     description attracted much attention at Charing Cross Station on\n     Tuesday morning by the wildness of her appearance and the violence of\n     her gestures. It is probable, therefore, that the crime was either\n     committed when insane, or that its immediate effect was to drive the\n     unhappy woman out of her mind. At present she is unable to give any\n     coherent account of the past, and the doctors hold out no hopes of\n     the re-establishment of her reason. There is evidence that a woman,\n     who might have been Mme. Fournaye, was seen for some hours on Monday\n     night watching the house in Godolphin Street.\n\n     \"What do you think of that, Holmes?\" I had read the account aloud to\n     him, while he finished his breakfast.\n\n     \"My dear Watson,\" said he, as he rose from the table and paced up and\n     down the room, \"you are most long-suffering, but if I have told you\n     nothing in the last three days it is because there is nothing to\n     tell. Even now this report from Paris does not help us much.\"\n\n     \"Surely it is final as regards the man's death.\"\n\n     \"The man's death is a mere incident--a trivial episode--in comparison\n     with our real task, which is to trace this document and save a\n     European catastrophe. Only one important thing has happened in the\n     last three days, and that is that nothing has happened. I get reports\n     almost hourly from the Government, and it is certain that nowhere in\n     Europe is there any sign of trouble. Now, if this letter were\n     loose--no, it can't be loose--but if it isn't loose, where can it be?\n     Who has it? Why is it held back? That's the question that beats in my\n     brain like a hammer. Was it, indeed, a coincidence that Lucas should\n     meet his death on the night when the letter disappeared? Did the\n     letter ever reach him? If so, why is it not among his papers? Did\n     this mad wife of his carry it off with her? If so, is it in her house\n     in Paris? How could I search for it without the French police having\n     their suspicions aroused? It is a case, my dear Watson, where the law\n     is as dangerous to us as the criminals are. Every man's hand is\n     against us, and yet the interests at stake are colossal. Should I\n     bring it to a successful conclusion it will certainly represent the\n     crowning glory of my career. Ah, here is my latest from the front!\"\n     He glanced hurriedly at the note which had been handed in. \"Halloa!\n     Lestrade seems to have observed something of interest. Put on your\n     hat, Watson, and we will stroll down together to Westminster.\"\n\n     It was my first visit to the scene of the crime--a high, dingy,\n     narrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which\n     gave it birth. Lestrade's bulldog features gazed out at us from the\n     front window, and he greeted us warmly when a big constable had\n     opened the door and let us in. The room into which we were shown was\n     that in which the crime had been committed, but no trace of it now\n     remained, save an ugly, irregular stain upon the carpet. This carpet\n     was a small square drugget in the centre of the room, surrounded by a\n     broad expanse of beautiful, old-fashioned wood-flooring in square\n     blocks highly polished. Over the fireplace was a magnificent trophy\n     of weapons, one of which had been used on that tragic night. In the\n     window was a sumptuous writing-desk, and every detail of the\n     apartment, the pictures, the rugs, and the hangings, all pointed to a\n     taste which was luxurious to the verge of effeminacy.\n\n     \"Seen the Paris news?\" asked Lestrade.\n\n     Holmes nodded.\n\n     \"Our French friends seem to have touched the spot this time. No doubt\n     it's just as they say. She knocked at the door--surprise visit, I\n     guess, for he kept his life in water-tight compartments. He let her\n     in--couldn't keep her in the street. She told him how she had traced\n     him, reproached him, one thing led to another, and then with that\n     dagger so handy the end soon came. It wasn't all done in an instant,\n     though, for these chairs were all swept over yonder, and he had one\n     in his hand as if he had tried to hold her off with it. We've got it\n     all clear as if we had seen it.\"\n\n     Holmes raised his eyebrows.\n\n     \"And yet you have sent for me?\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes, that's another matter--a mere trifle, but the sort of thing\n     you take an interest in--queer, you know, and what you might call\n     freakish. It has nothing to do with the main fact--can't have, on the\n     face of it.\"\n\n     \"What is it, then?\"\n\n     \"Well, you know, after a crime of this sort we are very careful to\n     keep things in their position. Nothing has been moved. Officer in\n     charge here day and night. This morning, as the man was buried and\n     the investigation over--so far as this room is concerned--we thought\n     we could tidy up a bit. This carpet. You see, it is not fastened\n     down; only just laid there. We had occasion to raise it. We found--\"\n\n     \"Yes? You found--\"\n\n     Holmes's face grew tense with anxiety.\n\n     \"Well, I'm sure you would never guess in a hundred years what we did\n     find. You see that stain on the carpet? Well, a great deal must have\n     soaked through, must it not?\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly it must.\"\n\n     \"Well, you will be surprised to hear that there is no stain on the\n     white woodwork to correspond.\"\n\n     \"No stain! But there must--\"\n\n     \"Yes; so you would say. But the fact remains that there isn't.\"\n\n     He took the corner of the carpet in his hand and, turning it over, he\n     showed that it was indeed as he said.\n\n     \"But the underside is as stained as the upper. It must have left a\n     mark.\"\n\n     Lestrade chuckled with delight at having puzzled the famous expert.\n\n     \"Now I'll show you the explanation. There is a second stain, but it\n     does not correspond with the other. See for yourself.\" As he spoke he\n     turned over another portion of the carpet, and there, sure enough,\n     was a great crimson spill upon the square white facing of the\n     old-fashioned floor. \"What do you make of that, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Why, it is simple enough. The two stains did correspond, but the\n     carpet has been turned round. As it was square and unfastened it was\n     easily done.\"\n\n     \"The official police don't need you, Mr. Holmes, to tell them that\n     the carpet must have been turned round. That's clear enough, for the\n     stains lie above each other--if you lay it over this way. But what I\n     want to know is, who shifted the carpet, and why?\"\n\n     I could see from Holmes's rigid face that he was vibrating with\n     inward excitement.\n\n     \"Look here, Lestrade,\" said he, \"has that constable in the passage\n     been in charge of the place all the time?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he has.\"\n\n     \"Well, take my advice. Examine him carefully. Don't do it before us.\n     We'll wait here. You take him into the back room. You'll be more\n     likely to get a confession out of him alone. Ask him how he dared to\n     admit people and leave them alone in this room. Don't ask him if he\n     has done it. Take it for granted. Tell him you know someone has been\n     here. Press him. Tell him that a full confession is his only chance\n     of forgiveness. Do exactly what I tell you!\"\n\n     \"By George, if he knows I'll have it out of him!\" cried Lestrade. He\n     darted into the hall, and a few moments later his bullying voice\n     sounded from the back room.\n\n     \"Now, Watson, now!\" cried Holmes, with frenzied eagerness. All the\n     demoniacal force of the man masked behind that listless manner burst\n     out in a paroxysm of energy. He tore the drugget from the floor, and\n     in an instant was down on his hands and knees clawing at each of the\n     squares of wood beneath it. One turned sideways as he dug his nails\n     into the edge of it. It hinged back like the lid of a box. A small\n     black cavity opened beneath it. Holmes plunged his eager hand into\n     it, and drew it out with a bitter snarl of anger and disappointment.\n     It was empty.\n\n     \"Quick, Watson, quick! Get it back again!\" The wooden lid was\n     replaced, and the drugget had only just been drawn straight when\n     Lestrade's voice was heard in the passage. He found Holmes leaning\n     languidly against the mantelpiece, resigned and patient, endeavouring\n     to conceal his irrepressible yawns.\n\n     \"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Holmes. I can see that you are bored\n     to death with the whole affair. Well, he has confessed, all right.\n     Come in here, MacPherson. Let these gentlemen hear of your most\n     inexcusable conduct.\"\n\n     The big constable, very hot and penitent, sidled into the room.\n\n     \"I meant no harm, sir, I'm sure. The young woman came to the door\n     last evening--mistook the house, she did. And then we got talking.\n     It's lonesome, when you're on duty here all day.\"\n\n     \"Well, what happened then?\"\n\n     \"She wanted to see where the crime was done--had read about it in the\n     papers, she said. She was a very respectable, well-spoken young\n     woman, sir, and I saw no harm in letting her have a peep. When she\n     saw that mark on the carpet, down she dropped on the floor, and lay\n     as if she were dead. I ran to the back and got some water, but I\n     could not bring her to. Then I went round the corner to the Ivy Plant\n     for some brandy, and by the time I had brought it back the young\n     woman had recovered and was off--ashamed of herself, I dare say, and\n     dared not face me.\"\n\n     \"How about moving that drugget?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, it was a bit rumpled, certainly, when I came back. You\n     see, she fell on it, and it lies on a polished floor with nothing to\n     keep it in place. I straightened it out afterwards.\"\n\n     \"It's a lesson to you that you can't deceive me, Constable\n     MacPherson,\" said Lestrade, with dignity. \"No doubt you thought that\n     your breach of duty could never be discovered, and yet a mere glance\n     at that drugget was enough to convince me that someone had been\n     admitted to the room. It's lucky for you, my man, that nothing is\n     missing, or you would find yourself in Queer Street. I'm sorry to\n     have called you down over such a petty business, Mr. Holmes, but I\n     thought the point of the second stain not corresponding with the\n     first would interest you.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, it was most interesting. Has this woman only been here\n     once, constable?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, only once.\"\n\n     \"Who was she?\"\n\n     \"Don't know the name, sir. Was answering an advertisement about\n     type-writing, and came to the wrong number--very pleasant, genteel\n     young woman, sir.\"\n\n     \"Tall? Handsome?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; she was a well-grown young woman. I suppose you might say\n     she was handsome. Perhaps some would say she was very handsome. 'Oh,\n     officer, do let me have a peep!' says she. She had pretty, coaxing\n     ways, as you might say, and I thought there was no harm in letting\n     her just put her head through the door.\"\n\n     \"How was she dressed?\"\n\n     \"Quiet, sir--a long mantle down to her feet.\"\n\n     \"What time was it?\"\n\n     \"It was just growing dusk at the time. They were lighting the lamps\n     as I came back with the brandy.\"\n\n     \"Very good,\" said Holmes. \"Come, Watson, I think that we have more\n     important work elsewhere.\"\n\n     As we left the house Lestrade remained in the front room, while the\n     repentant constable opened the door to let us out. Holmes turned on\n     the step and held up something in his hand. The constable stared\n     intently.\n\n     \"Good Lord, sir!\" he cried, with amazement on his face. Holmes put\n     his finger on his lips, replaced his hand in his breast-pocket, and\n     burst out laughing as we turned down the street. \"Excellent!\" said\n     he. \"Come, friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act. You\n     will be relieved to hear that there will be no war, that the Right\n     Honourable Trelawney Hope will suffer no set-back in his brilliant\n     career, that the indiscreet Sovereign will receive no punishment for\n     his indiscretion, that the Prime Minister will have no European\n     complication to deal with, and that with a little tact and management\n     upon our part nobody will be a penny the worse for what might have\n     been a very ugly incident.\"\n\n     My mind filled with admiration for this extraordinary man.\n\n     \"You have solved it!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Hardly that, Watson. There are some points which are as dark as\n     ever. But we have so much that it will be our own fault if we cannot\n     get the rest. We will go straight to Whitehall Terrace and bring the\n     matter to a head.\"\n\n     When we arrived at the residence of the European Secretary it was for\n     Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope that Sherlock Holmes inquired. We were\n     shown into the morning-room.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes!\" said the lady, and her face was pink with her\n     indignation, \"this is surely most unfair and ungenerous upon your\n     part. I desired, as I have explained, to keep my visit to you a\n     secret, lest my husband should think that I was intruding into his\n     affairs. And yet you compromise me by coming here and so showing that\n     there are business relations between us.\"\n\n     \"Unfortunately, madam, I had no possible alternative. I have been\n     commissioned to recover this immensely important paper. I must\n     therefore ask you, madam, to be kind enough to place it in my hands.\"\n\n     The lady sprang to her feet, with the colour all dashed in an instant\n     from her beautiful face. Her eyes glazed--she tottered--I thought\n     that she would faint. Then with a grand effort she rallied from the\n     shock, and a supreme astonishment and indignation chased every other\n     expression from her features.\n\n     \"You--you insult me, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Come, come, madam, it is useless. Give up the letter.\"\n\n     She darted to the bell.\n\n     \"The butler shall show you out.\"\n\n     \"Do not ring, Lady Hilda. If you do, then all my earnest efforts to\n     avoid a scandal will be frustrated. Give up the letter and all will\n     be set right. If you will work with me I can arrange everything. If\n     you work against me I must expose you.\"\n\n     She stood grandly defiant, a queenly figure, her eyes fixed upon his\n     as if she would read his very soul. Her hand was on the bell, but she\n     had forborne to ring it.\n\n     \"You are trying to frighten me. It is not a very manly thing, Mr.\n     Holmes, to come here and browbeat a woman. You say that you know\n     something. What is it that you know?\"\n\n     \"Pray sit down, madam. You will hurt yourself there if you fall. I\n     will not speak until you sit down. Thank you.\"\n\n     \"I give you five minutes, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"One is enough, Lady Hilda. I know of your visit to Eduardo Lucas, of\n     your giving him this document, of your ingenious return to the room\n     last night, and of the manner in which you took the letter from the\n     hiding-place under the carpet.\"\n\n     She stared at him with an ashen face and gulped twice before she\n     could speak.\n\n     \"You are mad, Mr. Holmes--you are mad!\" she cried, at last.\n\n     He drew a small piece of cardboard from his pocket. It was the face\n     of a woman cut out of a portrait.\n\n     \"I have carried this because I thought it might be useful,\" said he.\n     \"The policeman has recognised it.\"\n\n     She gave a gasp and her head dropped back in the chair.\n\n     \"Come, Lady Hilda. You have the letter. The matter may still be\n     adjusted. I have no desire to bring trouble to you. My duty ends when\n     I have returned the lost letter to your husband. Take my advice and\n     be frank with me; it is your only chance.\"\n\n     Her courage was admirable. Even now she would not own defeat.\n\n     \"I tell you again, Mr. Holmes, that you are under some absurd\n     illusion.\"\n\n     Holmes rose from his chair.\n\n     \"I am sorry for you, Lady Hilda. I have done my best for you; I can\n     see that it is all in vain.\"\n\n     He rang the bell. The butler entered.\n\n     \"Is Mr. Trelawney Hope at home?\"\n\n     \"He will be home, sir, at a quarter to one.\"\n\n     Holmes glanced at his watch.\n\n     \"Still a quarter of an hour,\" said he. \"Very good, I shall wait.\"\n\n     The butler had hardly closed the door behind him when Lady Hilda was\n     down on her knees at Holmes's feet, her hands out-stretched, her\n     beautiful face upturned and wet with her tears.\n\n     \"Oh, spare me, Mr. Holmes! Spare me!\" she pleaded, in a frenzy of\n     supplication. \"For Heaven's sake, don't tell him! I love him so! I\n     would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break\n     his noble heart.\"\n\n     Holmes raised the lady. \"I am thankful, madam, that you have come to\n     your senses even at this last moment! There is not an instant to\n     lose. Where is the letter?\"\n\n     She darted across to a writing-desk, unlocked it, and drew out a long\n     blue envelope.\n\n     \"Here it is, Mr. Holmes. Would to Heaven I had never seen it!\"\n\n     \"How can we return it?\" Holmes muttered. \"Quick, quick, we must think\n     of some way! Where is the despatch-box?\"\n\n     \"Still in his bedroom.\"\n\n     \"What a stroke of luck! Quick, madam, bring it here!\" \n\n     A moment later she had appeared with a red flat box in her hand.\n\n     \"How did you open it before? You have a duplicate key? Yes, of course\n     you have. Open it!\"\n\n     From out of her bosom Lady Hilda had drawn a small key. The box flew\n     open. It was stuffed with papers. Holmes thrust the blue envelope\n     deep down into the heart of them, between the leaves of some other\n     document. The box was shut, locked, and returned to the bedroom.\n\n     \"Now we are ready for him,\" said Holmes; \"we have still ten minutes.\n     I am going far to screen you, Lady Hilda. In return you will spend\n     the time in telling me frankly the real meaning of this extraordinary\n     affair.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, I will tell you everything,\" cried the lady. \"Oh, Mr.\n     Holmes, I would cut off my right hand before I gave him a moment of\n     sorrow! There is no woman in all London who loves her husband as I\n     do, and yet if he knew how I have acted--how I have been compelled to\n     act--he would never forgive me. For his own honour stands so high\n     that he could not forget or pardon a lapse in another. Help me, Mr.\n     Holmes! My happiness, his happiness, our very lives are at stake!\"\n\n     \"Quick, madam, the time grows short!\"\n\n     \"It was a letter of mine, Mr. Holmes, an indiscreet letter written\n     before my marriage--a foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive,\n     loving girl. I meant no harm, and yet he would have thought it\n     criminal. Had he read that letter his confidence would have been for\n     ever destroyed. It is years since I wrote it. I had thought that the\n     whole matter was forgotten. Then at last I heard from this man,\n     Lucas, that it had passed into his hands, and that he would lay it\n     before my husband. I implored his mercy. He said that he would return\n     my letter if I would bring him a certain document which he described\n     in my husband's despatch-box. He had some spy in the office who had\n     told him of its existence. He assured me that no harm could come to\n     my husband. Put yourself in my position, Mr. Holmes! What was I to\n     do?\"\n\n     \"Take your husband into your confidence.\"\n\n     \"I could not, Mr. Holmes, I could not! On the one side seemed certain\n     ruin; on the other, terrible as it seemed to take my husband's paper,\n     still in a matter of politics I could not understand the\n     consequences, while in a matter of love and trust they were only too\n     clear to me. I did it, Mr. Holmes! I took an impression of his key;\n     this man Lucas furnished a duplicate. I opened his despatch-box, took\n     the paper, and conveyed it to Godolphin Street.\"\n\n     \"What happened there, madam?\"\n\n     \"I tapped at the door as agreed. Lucas opened it. I followed him into\n     his room, leaving the hall door ajar behind me, for I feared to be\n     alone with the man. I remember that there was a woman outside as I\n     entered. Our business was soon done. He had my letter on his desk; I\n     handed him the document. He gave me the letter. At this instant there\n     was a sound at the door. There were steps in the passage. Lucas\n     quickly turned back the drugget, thrust the document into some\n     hiding-place there, and covered it over.\n\n     \"What happened after that is like some fearful dream. I have a vision\n     of a dark, frantic face, of a woman's voice, which screamed in\n     French, 'My waiting is not in vain. At last, at last I have found you\n     with her!' There was a savage struggle. I saw him with a chair in his\n     hand, a knife gleamed in hers. I rushed from the horrible scene, ran\n     from the house, and only next morning in the paper did I learn the\n     dreadful result. That night I was happy, for I had my letter, and I\n     had not seen yet what the future would bring.\n\n     \"It was the next morning that I realized that I had only exchanged\n     one trouble for another. My husband's anguish at the loss of his\n     paper went to my heart. I could hardly prevent myself from there and\n     then kneeling down at his feet and telling him what I had done. But\n     that again would mean a confession of the past. I came to you that\n     morning in order to understand the full enormity of my offence. From\n     the instant that I grasped it my whole mind was turned to the one\n     thought of getting back my husband's paper. It must still be where\n     Lucas had placed it, for it was concealed before this dreadful woman\n     entered the room. If it had not been for her coming, I should not\n     have known where his hiding-place was. How was I to get into the\n     room? For two days I watched the place, but the door was never left\n     open. Last night I made a last attempt. What I did and how I\n     succeeded, you have already learned. I brought the paper back with\n     me, and thought of destroying it since I could see no way of\n     returning it, without confessing my guilt to my husband. Heavens, I\n     hear his step upon the stair!\"\n\n     The European Secretary burst excitedly into the room.\n\n     \"Any news, Mr. Holmes, any news?\" he cried.\n\n     \"I have some hopes.\"\n\n     \"Ah, thank heaven!\" His face became radiant. \"The Prime Minister is\n     lunching with me. May he share your hopes? He has nerves of steel,\n     and yet I know that he has hardly slept since this terrible event.\n     Jacobs, will you ask the Prime Minister to come up? As to you, dear,\n     I fear that this is a matter of politics. We will join you in a few\n     minutes in the dining-room.\"\n\n     The Prime Minister's manner was subdued, but I could see by the gleam\n     of his eyes and the twitchings of his bony hands that he shared the\n     excitement of his young colleague.\n\n     \"I understand that you have something to report, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Purely negative as yet,\" my friend answered. \"I have inquired at\n     every point where it might be, and I am sure that there is no danger\n     to be apprehended.\"\n\n     \"But that is not enough, Mr. Holmes. We cannot live for ever on such\n     a volcano. We must have something definite.\"\n\n     \"I am in hopes of getting it. That is why I am here. The more I think\n     of the matter the more convinced I am that the letter has never left\n     this house.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes!\"\n\n     \"If it had it would certainly have been public by now.\"\n\n     \"But why should anyone take it in order to keep it in his house?\"\n\n     \"I am not convinced that anyone did take it.\"\n\n     \"Then how could it leave the despatch-box?\"\n\n     \"I am not convinced that it ever did leave the despatch-box.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, this joking is very ill-timed. You have my assurance\n     that it left the box.\"\n\n     \"Have you examined the box since Tuesday morning?\"\n\n     \"No; it was not necessary.\"\n\n     \"You may conceivably have overlooked it.\"\n\n     \"Impossible, I say.\"\n\n     \"But I am not convinced of it; I have known such things to happen. I\n     presume there are other papers there. Well, it may have got mixed\n     with them.\"\n\n     \"It was on the top.\"\n\n     \"Someone may have shaken the box and displaced it.\"\n\n     \"No, no; I had everything out.\"\n\n     \"Surely it is easily decided, Hope,\" said the Premier. \"Let us have\n     the despatch-box brought in.\"\n\n     The Secretary rang the bell.\n\n     \"Jacobs, bring down my despatch-box. This is a farcical waste of\n     time, but still, if nothing else will satisfy you, it shall be done.\n     Thank you, Jacobs; put it here. I have always had the key on my\n     watch-chain. Here are the papers, you see. Letter from Lord Merrow,\n     report from Sir Charles Hardy, memorandum from Belgrade, note on the\n     Russo-German grain taxes, letter from Madrid, note from Lord\n     Flowers--good heavens! what is this? Lord Bellinger! Lord Bellinger!\"\n\n     The Premier snatched the blue envelope from his hand.\n\n     \"Yes, it is it--and the letter is intact. Hope, I congratulate you.\"\n\n     \"Thank you! Thank you! What a weight from my heart. But this is\n     inconceivable--impossible. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard, a sorcerer!\n     How did you know it was there?\"\n\n     \"Because I knew it was nowhere else.\"\n\n     \"I cannot believe my eyes!\" He ran wildly to the door. \"Where is my\n     wife? I must tell her that all is well. Hilda! Hilda!\" we heard his\n     voice on the stairs.\n\n     The Premier looked at Holmes with twinkling eyes.\n\n     \"Come, sir,\" said he. \"There is more in this than meets the eye. How\n     came the letter back in the box?\"\n\n     Holmes turned away smiling from the keen scrutiny of those wonderful\n     eyes.\n\n     \"We also have our diplomatic secrets,\" said he, and picking up his\n     hat he turned to the door.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n        Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n        The Curse of the Baskervilles\n        The Problem\n        Sir Henry Baskerville\n        Three Broken Threads\n        Baskerville Hall\n        The Stapletons of Merripit House\n        First Report of Dr. Watson\n        Second Report of Dr. Watson\n        Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson\n        The Man on the Tor\n        Death on the Moor\n        Fixing the Nets\n        The Hound of the Baskervilles\n        A Retrospection\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n\n\n     Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save\n     upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was\n     seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked\n     up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before.\n     It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which\n     is known as a \"Penang lawyer.\" Just under the head was a broad silver\n     band nearly an inch across. \"To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his\n     friends of the C.C.H.,\" was engraved upon it, with the date \"1884.\"\n     It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner\n     used to carry--dignified, solid, and reassuring.\n\n     \"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?\"\n\n     Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign\n     of my occupation.\n\n     \"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the\n     back of your head.\"\n\n     \"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front\n     of me,\" said he. \"But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our\n     visitor's stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and\n     have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of\n     importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of\n     it.\"\n\n     \"I think,\" said I, following as far as I could the methods of my\n     companion, \"that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man,\n     well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their\n     appreciation.\"\n\n     \"Good!\" said Holmes. \"Excellent!\"\n\n     \"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a\n     country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.\"\n\n     \"Why so?\"\n\n     \"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been\n     so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner\n     carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident\n     that he has done a great amount of walking with it.\"\n\n     \"Perfectly sound!\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess\n     that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has\n     possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a\n     small presentation in return.\"\n\n     \"Really, Watson, you excel yourself,\" said Holmes, pushing back his\n     chair and lighting a cigarette. \"I am bound to say that in all the\n     accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small\n     achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It\n     may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of\n     light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power\n     of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in\n     your debt.\"\n\n     He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words\n     gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his\n     indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to\n     give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had\n     so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his\n     approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a\n     few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest\n     he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he\n     looked over it again with a convex lens.\n\n     \"Interesting, though elementary,\" said he as he returned to his\n     favourite corner of the settee. \"There are certainly one or two\n     indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several\n     deductions.\"\n\n     \"Has anything escaped me?\" I asked with some self-importance. \"I\n     trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?\"\n\n     \"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were\n     erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank,\n     that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the\n     truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is\n     certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.\"\n\n     \"Then I was right.\"\n\n     \"To that extent.\"\n\n     \"But that was all.\"\n\n     \"No, no, my dear Watson, not all--by no means all. I would suggest,\n     for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come\n     from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials 'C.C.'\n     are placed before that hospital the words 'Charing Cross' very\n     naturally suggest themselves.\"\n\n     \"You may be right.\"\n\n     \"The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a\n     working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our\n     construction of this unknown visitor.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.' does stand for 'Charing Cross\n     Hospital,' what further inferences may we draw?\"\n\n     \"Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!\"\n\n     \"I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has\n     practised in town before going to the country.\"\n\n     \"I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it\n     in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a\n     presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him\n     a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr.\n     Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start\n     in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We\n     believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country\n     practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that\n     the presentation was on the occasion of the change?\"\n\n     \"It certainly seems probable.\"\n\n     \"Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of\n     the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice\n     could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the\n     country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on\n     the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a\n     house-physician--little more than a senior student. And he left five\n     years ago--the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged\n     family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there\n     emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious,\n     absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should\n     describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a\n     mastiff.\"\n\n     I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee\n     and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.\n\n     \"As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,\" said I,\n     \"but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about\n     the man's age and professional career.\" From my small medical shelf I\n     took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were\n     several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his\n     record aloud.\n\n     \"Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.\n     House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner\n     of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology, with essay entitled\n     'Is Disease a Reversion?' Corresponding member of the Swedish\n     Pathological Society. Author of 'Some Freaks of Atavism' (Lancet\n     1882). 'Do We Progress?' (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883).\n     Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High\n     Barrow.\"\n\n     \"No mention of that local hunt, Watson,\" said Holmes with a\n     mischievous smile, \"but a country doctor, as you very astutely\n     observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As to\n     the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable, unambitious,\n     and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable man\n     in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who\n     abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded\n     one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an\n     hour in your room.\"\n\n     \"And the dog?\"\n\n     \"Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master.\n     Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and\n     the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog's jaw, as\n     shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion\n     for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have\n     been--yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.\"\n\n     He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the\n     recess of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his\n     voice that I glanced up in surprise.\n\n     \"My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?\"\n\n     \"For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very\n     door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don't move, I beg you,\n     Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may\n     be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson,\n     when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life,\n     and you know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James\n     Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist\n     in crime? Come in!\"\n\n     The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had\n     expected a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin\n     man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen,\n     gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a\n     pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather\n     slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers\n     frayed. Though young, his long back was already bowed, and he walked\n     with a forward thrust of his head and a general air of peering\n     benevolence. As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes's\n     hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. \"I am so very\n     glad,\" said he. \"I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the\n     Shipping Office. I would not lose that stick for the world.\"\n\n     \"A presentation, I see,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"From Charing Cross Hospital?\"\n\n     \"From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.\"\n\n     \"Dear, dear, that's bad!\" said Holmes, shaking his head.\n\n     Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment.\n\n     \"Why was it bad?\"\n\n     \"Only that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your marriage,\n     you say?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes\n     of a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home of my own.\"\n\n     \"Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,\" said Holmes. \"And\n     now, Dr. James Mortimer--\"\n\n     \"Mister, sir, Mister--a humble M.R.C.S.\"\n\n     \"And a man of precise mind, evidently.\"\n\n     \"A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the\n     shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes whom I am addressing and not--\"\n\n     \"No, this is my friend Dr. Watson.\"\n\n     \"Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in\n     connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr.\n     Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such\n     well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection\n     to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your\n     skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to\n     any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but\n     I confess that I covet your skull.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. \"You are an\n     enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in\n     mine,\" said he. \"I observe from your forefinger that you make your\n     own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one.\"\n\n     The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the\n     other with surprising dexterity. He had long, quivering fingers as\n     agile and restless as the antennae of an insect.\n\n     Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the\n     interest which he took in our curious companion.\n\n     \"I presume, sir,\" said he at last, \"that it was not merely for the\n     purpose of examining my skull that you have done me the honour to\n     call here last night and again to-day?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing\n     that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I recognized that I\n     am myself an unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted\n     with a most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognizing, as I do,\n     that you are the second highest expert in Europe--\"\n\n     \"Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?\"\n     asked Holmes with some asperity.\n\n     \"To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur\n     Bertillon must always appeal strongly.\"\n\n     \"Then had you not better consult him?\"\n\n     \"I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical\n     man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir,\n     that I have not inadvertently--\"\n\n     \"Just a little,\" said Holmes. \"I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do\n     wisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the\n     exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Curse of the Baskervilles\n\n\n     \"I have in my pocket a manuscript,\" said Dr. James Mortimer.\n\n     \"I observed it as you entered the room,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"It is an old manuscript.\"\n\n     \"Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.\"\n\n     \"How can you say that, sir?\"\n\n     \"You have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the\n     time that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert who could\n     not give the date of a document within a decade or so. You may\n     possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject. I put that\n     at 1730.\"\n\n     \"The exact date is 1742.\" Dr. Mortimer drew it from his\n     breast-pocket. \"This family paper was committed to my care by Sir\n     Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three months\n     ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was\n     his personal friend as well as his medical attendant. He was a\n     strong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I\n     am myself. Yet he took this document very seriously, and his mind was\n     prepared for just such an end as did eventually overtake him.\"\n\n     Holmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it\n     upon his knee.\n\n     \"You will observe, Watson, the alternative use of the long s and the\n     short. It is one of several indications which enabled me to fix the\n     date.\"\n\n     I looked over his shoulder at the yellow paper and the faded script.\n     At the head was written: \"Baskerville Hall,\" and below in large,\n     scrawling figures: \"1742.\"\n\n     \"It appears to be a statement of some sort.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is a statement of a certain legend which runs in the\n     Baskerville family.\"\n\n     \"But I understand that it is something more modern and practical upon\n     which you wish to consult me?\"\n\n     \"Most modern. A most practical, pressing matter, which must be\n     decided within twenty-four hours. But the manuscript is short and is\n     intimately connected with the affair. With your permission I will\n     read it to you.\"\n\n     Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed his finger-tips together, and\n     closed his eyes, with an air of resignation. Dr. Mortimer turned the\n     manuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking voice the\n     following curious, old-world narrative:--\n\n     \"Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been many\n     statements, yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo Baskerville, and\n     as I had the story from my father, who also had it from his, I have\n     set it down with all belief that it occurred even as is here set\n     forth. And I would have you believe, my sons, that the same Justice\n     which punishes sin may also most graciously forgive it, and that no\n     ban is so heavy but that by prayer and repentance it may be removed.\n     Learn then from this story not to fear the fruits of the past, but\n     rather to be circumspect in the future, that those foul passions\n     whereby our family has suffered so grievously may not again be loosed\n     to our undoing.\n\n     \"Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the history of\n     which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most earnestly commend to your\n     attention) this Manor of Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name,\n     nor can it be gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and godless\n     man. This, in truth, his neighbours might have pardoned, seeing that\n     saints have never flourished in those parts, but there was in him a\n     certain wanton and cruel humour which made his name a byword through\n     the West. It chanced that this Hugo came to love (if, indeed, so dark\n     a passion may be known under so bright a name) the daughter of a\n     yeoman who held lands near the Baskerville estate. But the young\n     maiden, being discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for\n     she feared his evil name. So it came to pass that one Michaelmas this\n     Hugo, with five or six of his idle and wicked companions, stole down\n     upon the farm and carried off the maiden, her father and brothers\n     being from home, as he well knew. When they had brought her to the\n     Hall the maiden was placed in an upper chamber, while Hugo and his\n     friends sat down to a long carouse, as was their nightly custom. Now,\n     the poor lass upstairs was like to have her wits turned at the\n     singing and shouting and terrible oaths which came up to her from\n     below, for they say that the words used by Hugo Baskerville, when he\n     was in wine, were such as might blast the man who said them. At last\n     in the stress of her fear she did that which might have daunted the\n     bravest or most active man, for by the aid of the growth of ivy which\n     covered (and still covers) the south wall she came down from under\n     the eaves, and so homeward across the moor, there being three leagues\n     betwixt the Hall and her father's farm.\n\n     \"It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his guests to carry\n     food and drink--with other worse things, perchance--to his captive,\n     and so found the cage empty and the bird escaped. Then, as it would\n     seem, he became as one that hath a devil, for, rushing down the\n     stairs into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table, flagons\n     and trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before all the\n     company that he would that very night render his body and soul to the\n     Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the wench. And while the\n     revellers stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or, it\n     may be, more drunken than the rest, cried out that they should put\n     the hounds upon her. Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his\n     grooms that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and\n     giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid's, he swung them to the\n     line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor.\n\n     \"Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to understand\n     all that had been done in such haste. But anon their bemused wits\n     awoke to the nature of the deed which was like to be done upon the\n     moorlands. Everything was now in an uproar, some calling for their\n     pistols, some for their horses, and some for another flask of wine.\n     But at length some sense came back to their crazed minds, and the\n     whole of them, thirteen in number, took horse and started in pursuit.\n     The moon shone clear above them, and they rode swiftly abreast,\n     taking that course which the maid must needs have taken if she were\n     to reach her own home.\n\n     \"They had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the night\n     shepherds upon the moorlands, and they cried to him to know if he had\n     seen the hunt. And the man, as the story goes, was so crazed with\n     fear that he could scarce speak, but at last he said that he had\n     indeed seen the unhappy maiden, with the hounds upon her track. 'But\n     I have seen more than that,' said he, 'for Hugo Baskerville passed me\n     upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of\n     hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.' So the drunken\n     squires cursed the shepherd and rode onward. But soon their skins\n     turned cold, for there came a galloping across the moor, and the\n     black mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing bridle\n     and empty saddle. Then the revellers rode close together, for a great\n     fear was on them, but they still followed over the moor, though each,\n     had he been alone, would have been right glad to have turned his\n     horse's head. Riding slowly in this fashion they came at last upon\n     the hounds. These, though known for their valour and their breed,\n     were whimpering in a cluster at the head of a deep dip or goyal, as\n     we call it, upon the moor, some slinking away and some, with starting\n     hackles and staring eyes, gazing down the narrow valley before them.\n\n     \"The company had come to a halt, more sober men, as you may guess,\n     than when they started. The most of them would by no means advance,\n     but three of them, the boldest, or it may be the most drunken, rode\n     forward down the goyal. Now, it opened into a broad space in which\n     stood two of those great stones, still to be seen there, which were\n     set by certain forgotten peoples in the days of old. The moon was\n     shining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the\n     unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue. But\n     it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of\n     Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads\n     of these three daredevil roysterers, but it was that, standing over\n     Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great,\n     black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever\n     mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore\n     the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its\n     blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with\n     fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor. One,\n     it is said, died that very night of what he had seen, and the other\n     twain were but broken men for the rest of their days.\n\n     \"Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound which is said\n     to have plagued the family so sorely ever since. If I have set it\n     down it is because that which is clearly known hath less terror than\n     that which is but hinted at and guessed. Nor can it be denied that\n     many of the family have been unhappy in their deaths, which have been\n     sudden, bloody, and mysterious. Yet may we shelter ourselves in the\n     infinite goodness of Providence, which would not forever punish the\n     innocent beyond that third or fourth generation which is threatened\n     in Holy Writ. To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and\n     I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in\n     those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.\n\n     \"[This from Hugo Baskerville to his sons Rodger and John, with\n     instructions that they say nothing thereof to their sister\n     Elizabeth.]\"\n\n     When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he\n     pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his\n     cigarette into the fire.\n\n     \"Well?\" said he.\n\n     \"Do you not find it interesting?\"\n\n     \"To a collector of fairy tales.\"\n\n     Dr. Mortimer drew a folded newspaper out of his pocket.\n\n     \"Now, Mr. Holmes, we will give you something a little more recent.\n     This is the Devon County Chronicle of May 14th of this year. It is a\n     short account of the facts elicited at the death of Sir Charles\n     Baskerville which occurred a few days before that date.\"\n\n     My friend leaned a little forward and his expression became intent.\n     Our visitor readjusted his glasses and began:--\n\n     \"The recent sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville, whose name has\n     been mentioned as the probable Liberal candidate for Mid-Devon at the\n     next election, has cast a gloom over the county. Though Sir Charles\n     had resided at Baskerville Hall for a comparatively short period his\n     amiability of character and extreme generosity had won the affection\n     and respect of all who had been brought into contact with him. In\n     these days of nouveaux riches it is refreshing to find a case where\n     the scion of an old county family which has fallen upon evil days is\n     able to make his own fortune and to bring it back with him to restore\n     the fallen grandeur of his line. Sir Charles, as is well known, made\n     large sums of money in South African speculation. More wise than\n     those who go on until the wheel turns against them, he realized his\n     gains and returned to England with them. It is only two years since\n     he took up his residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is common talk\n     how large were those schemes of reconstruction and improvement which\n     have been interrupted by his death. Being himself childless, it was\n     his openly expressed desire that the whole country-side should,\n     within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune, and many will\n     have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end. His generous\n     donations to local and county charities have been frequently\n     chronicled in these columns.\n\n     \"The circumstances connected with the death of Sir Charles cannot be\n     said to have been entirely cleared up by the inquest, but at least\n     enough has been done to dispose of those rumours to which local\n     superstition has given rise. There is no reason whatever to suspect\n     foul play, or to imagine that death could be from any but natural\n     causes. Sir Charles was a widower, and a man who may be said to have\n     been in some ways of an eccentric habit of mind. In spite of his\n     considerable wealth he was simple in his personal tastes, and his\n     indoor servants at Baskerville Hall consisted of a married couple\n     named Barrymore, the husband acting as butler and the wife as\n     housekeeper. Their evidence, corroborated by that of several friends,\n     tends to show that Sir Charles's health has for some time been\n     impaired, and points especially to some affection of the heart,\n     manifesting itself in changes of colour, breathlessness, and acute\n     attacks of nervous depression. Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and\n     medical attendant of the deceased, has given evidence to the same\n     effect.\n\n     \"The facts of the case are simple. Sir Charles Baskerville was in the\n     habit every night before going to bed of walking down the famous Yew\n     Alley of Baskerville Hall. The evidence of the Barrymores shows that\n     this had been his custom. On the 4th of May Sir Charles had declared\n     his intention of starting next day for London, and had ordered\n     Barrymore to prepare his luggage. That night he went out as usual for\n     his nocturnal walk, in the course of which he was in the habit of\n     smoking a cigar. He never returned. At twelve o'clock Barrymore,\n     finding the hall door still open, became alarmed, and, lighting a\n     lantern, went in search of his master. The day had been wet, and Sir\n     Charles's footmarks were easily traced down the Alley. Half-way down\n     this walk there is a gate which leads out on to the moor. There were\n     indications that Sir Charles had stood for some little time here. He\n     then proceeded down the Alley, and it was at the far end of it that\n     his body was discovered. One fact which has not been explained is the\n     statement of Barrymore that his master's footprints altered their\n     character from the time that he passed the moor-gate, and that he\n     appeared from thence onward to have been walking upon his toes. One\n     Murphy, a gipsy horse-dealer, was on the moor at no great distance at\n     the time, but he appears by his own confession to have been the worse\n     for drink. He declares that he heard cries, but is unable to state\n     from what direction they came. No signs of violence were to be\n     discovered upon Sir Charles's person, and though the doctor's\n     evidence pointed to an almost incredible facial distortion--so great\n     that Dr. Mortimer refused at first to believe that it was indeed his\n     friend and patient who lay before him--it was explained that that is\n     a symptom which is not unusual in cases of dyspnoea and death from\n     cardiac exhaustion. This explanation was borne out by the post-mortem\n     examination, which showed long-standing organic disease, and the\n     coroner's jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical\n     evidence. It is well that this is so, for it is obviously of the\n     utmost importance that Sir Charles's heir should settle at the Hall\n     and continue the good work which has been so sadly interrupted. Had\n     the prosaic finding of the coroner not finally put an end to the\n     romantic stories which have been whispered in connection with the\n     affair, it might have been difficult to find a tenant for Baskerville\n     Hall. It is understood that the next of kin is Mr. Henry Baskerville,\n     if he be still alive, the son of Sir Charles Baskerville's younger\n     brother. The young man when last heard of was in America, and\n     inquiries are being instituted with a view to informing him of his\n     good fortune.\"\n\n     Dr. Mortimer refolded his paper and replaced it in his pocket.\n\n     \"Those are the public facts, Mr. Holmes, in connection with the death\n     of Sir Charles Baskerville.\"\n\n     \"I must thank you,\" said Sherlock Holmes, \"for calling my attention\n     to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had\n     observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly\n     preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my\n     anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting\n     English cases. This article, you say, contains all the public facts?\"\n\n     \"It does.\"\n\n     \"Then let me have the private ones.\" He leaned back, put his\n     finger-tips together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial\n     expression.\n\n     \"In doing so,\" said Dr. Mortimer, who had begun to show signs of some\n     strong emotion, \"I am telling that which I have not confided to\n     anyone. My motive for withholding it from the coroner's inquiry is\n     that a man of science shrinks from placing himself in the public\n     position of seeming to indorse a popular superstition. I had the\n     further motive that Baskerville Hall, as the paper says, would\n     certainly remain untenanted if anything were done to increase its\n     already rather grim reputation. For both these reasons I thought that\n     I was justified in telling rather less than I knew, since no\n     practical good could result from it, but with you there is no reason\n     why I should not be perfectly frank.\n\n     \"The moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each\n     other are thrown very much together. For this reason I saw a good\n     deal of Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr. Frankland,\n     of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other\n     men of education within many miles. Sir Charles was a retiring man,\n     but the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of\n     interests in science kept us so. He had brought back much scientific\n     information from South Africa, and many a charming evening we have\n     spent together discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and\n     the Hottentot.\n\n     \"Within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me that\n     Sir Charles's nervous system was strained to the breaking point. He\n     had taken this legend which I have read you exceedingly to heart--so\n     much so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing\n     would induce him to go out upon the moor at night. Incredible as it\n     may appear to you, Mr. Holmes, he was honestly convinced that a\n     dreadful fate overhung his family, and certainly the records which he\n     was able to give of his ancestors were not encouraging. The idea of\n     some ghastly presence constantly haunted him, and on more than one\n     occasion he has asked me whether I had on my medical journeys at\n     night ever seen any strange creature or heard the baying of a hound.\n     The latter question he put to me several times, and always with a\n     voice which vibrated with excitement.\n\n     \"I can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some\n     three weeks before the fatal event. He chanced to be at his hall\n     door. I had descended from my gig and was standing in front of him,\n     when I saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder, and stare past\n     me with an expression of the most dreadful horror. I whisked round\n     and had just time to catch a glimpse of something which I took to be\n     a large black calf passing at the head of the drive. So excited and\n     alarmed was he that I was compelled to go down to the spot where the\n     animal had been and look around for it. It was gone, however, and the\n     incident appeared to make the worst impression upon his mind. I\n     stayed with him all the evening, and it was on that occasion, to\n     explain the emotion which he had shown, that he confided to my\n     keeping that narrative which I read to you when first I came. I\n     mention this small episode because it assumes some importance in view\n     of the tragedy which followed, but I was convinced at the time that\n     the matter was entirely trivial and that his excitement had no\n     justification.\n\n     \"It was at my advice that Sir Charles was about to go to London. His\n     heart was, I knew, affected, and the constant anxiety in which he\n     lived, however chimerical the cause of it might be, was evidently\n     having a serious effect upon his health. I thought that a few months\n     among the distractions of town would send him back a new man. Mr.\n     Stapleton, a mutual friend who was much concerned at his state of\n     health, was of the same opinion. At the last instant came this\n     terrible catastrophe.\n\n     \"On the night of Sir Charles's death Barrymore the butler, who made\n     the discovery, sent Perkins the groom on horseback to me, and as I\n     was sitting up late I was able to reach Baskerville Hall within an\n     hour of the event. I checked and corroborated all the facts which\n     were mentioned at the inquest. I followed the footsteps down the Yew\n     Alley, I saw the spot at the moor-gate where he seemed to have\n     waited, I remarked the change in the shape of the prints after that\n     point, I noted that there were no other footsteps save those of\n     Barrymore on the soft gravel, and finally I carefully examined the\n     body, which had not been touched until my arrival. Sir Charles lay on\n     his face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the ground, and his\n     features convulsed with some strong emotion to such an extent that I\n     could hardly have sworn to his identity. There was certainly no\n     physical injury of any kind. But one false statement was made by\n     Barrymore at the inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the\n     ground round the body. He did not observe any. But I did--some little\n     distance off, but fresh and clear.\"\n\n     \"Footprints?\"\n\n     \"Footprints.\"\n\n     \"A man's or a woman's?\"\n\n     Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice\n     sank almost to a whisper as he answered:--\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          The Problem\n\n\n     I confess at these words a shudder passed through me. There was a\n     thrill in the doctor's voice which showed that he was himself deeply\n     moved by that which he told us. Holmes leaned forward in his\n     excitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from\n     them when he was keenly interested.\n\n     \"You saw this?\"\n\n     \"As clearly as I see you.\"\n\n     \"And you said nothing?\"\n\n     \"What was the use?\"\n\n     \"How was it that no one else saw it?\"\n\n     \"The marks were some twenty yards from the body and no one gave them\n     a thought. I don't suppose I should have done so had I not known this\n     legend.\"\n\n     \"There are many sheep-dogs on the moor?\"\n\n     \"No doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.\"\n\n     \"You say it was large?\"\n\n     \"Enormous.\"\n\n     \"But it had not approached the body?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"What sort of night was it?\"\n\n     \"Damp and raw.\"\n\n     \"But not actually raining?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"What is the Alley like?\"\n\n     \"There are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and\n     impenetrable. The walk in the centre is about eight feet across.\"\n\n     \"Is there anything between the hedges and the walk?\"\n\n     \"Yes, there is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either side.\"\n\n     \"I understand that the yew hedge is penetrated at one point by a\n     gate?\"\n\n     \"Yes, the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor.\"\n\n     \"Is there any other opening?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"So that to reach the Yew Alley one either has to come down it from\n     the house or else to enter it by the moor-gate?\"\n\n     \"There is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.\"\n\n     \"Had Sir Charles reached this?\"\n\n     \"No; he lay about fifty yards from it.\"\n\n     \"Now, tell me, Dr. Mortimer--and this is important--the marks which\n     you saw were on the path and not on the grass?\"\n\n     \"No marks could show on the grass.\"\n\n     \"Were they on the same side of the path as the moor-gate?\"\n\n     \"Yes; they were on the edge of the path on the same side as the\n     moor-gate.\"\n\n     \"You interest me exceedingly. Another point. Was the wicket-gate\n     closed?\"\n\n     \"Closed and padlocked.\"\n\n     \"How high was it?\"\n\n     \"About four feet high.\"\n\n     \"Then anyone could have got over it?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"And what marks did you see by the wicket-gate?\"\n\n     \"None in particular.\"\n\n     \"Good heaven! Did no one examine?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I examined myself.\"\n\n     \"And found nothing?\"\n\n     \"It was all very confused. Sir Charles had evidently stood there for\n     five or ten minutes.\"\n\n     \"How do you know that?\"\n\n     \"Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart. But the\n     marks?\"\n\n     \"He had left his own marks all over that small patch of gravel. I\n     could discern no others.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes struck his hand against his knee with an impatient\n     gesture.\n\n     \"If I had only been there!\" he cried. \"It is evidently a case of\n     extraordinary interest, and one which presented immense opportunities\n     to the scientific expert. That gravel page upon which I might have\n     read so much has been long ere this smudged by the rain and defaced\n     by the clogs of curious peasants. Oh, Dr. Mortimer, Dr. Mortimer, to\n     think that you should not have called me in! You have indeed much to\n     answer for.\"\n\n     \"I could not call you in, Mr. Holmes, without disclosing these facts\n     to the world, and I have already given my reasons for not wishing to\n     do so. Besides, besides--\"\n\n     \"Why do you hesitate?\"\n\n     \"There is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of\n     detectives is helpless.\"\n\n     \"You mean that the thing is supernatural?\"\n\n     \"I did not positively say so.\"\n\n     \"No, but you evidently think it.\"\n\n     \"Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears several\n     incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of\n     Nature.\"\n\n     \"For example?\"\n\n     \"I find that before the terrible event occurred several people had\n     seen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this Baskerville\n     demon, and which could not possibly be any animal known to science.\n     They all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and\n     spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed\n     countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell\n     the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to\n     the hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of\n     terror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the\n     moor at night.\"\n\n     \"And you, a trained man of science, believe it to be supernatural?\"\n\n     \"I do not know what to believe.\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"I have hitherto confined my investigations to this world,\" said he.\n     \"In a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on the Father of\n     Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task. Yet you must\n     admit that the footmark is material.\"\n\n     \"The original hound was material enough to tug a man's throat out,\n     and yet he was diabolical as well.\"\n\n     \"I see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. But\n     now, Dr. Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these views, why have\n     you come to consult me at all? You tell me in the same breath that it\n     is useless to investigate Sir Charles's death, and that you desire me\n     to do it.\"\n\n     \"I did not say that I desired you to do it.\"\n\n     \"Then, how can I assist you?\"\n\n     \"By advising me as to what I should do with Sir Henry Baskerville,\n     who arrives at Waterloo Station\"--Dr. Mortimer looked at his\n     watch--\"in exactly one hour and a quarter.\"\n\n     \"He being the heir?\"\n\n     \"Yes. On the death of Sir Charles we inquired for this young\n     gentleman and found that he had been farming in Canada. From the\n     accounts which have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every\n     way. I speak not as a medical man but as a trustee and executor of\n     Sir Charles's will.\"\n\n     \"There is no other claimant, I presume?\"\n\n     \"None. The only other kinsman whom we have been able to trace was\n     Rodger Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor Sir\n     Charles was the elder. The second brother, who died young, is the\n     father of this lad Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of\n     the family. He came of the old masterful Baskerville strain, and was\n     the very image, they tell me, of the family picture of old Hugo. He\n     made England too hot to hold him, fled to Central America, and died\n     there in 1876 of yellow fever. Henry is the last of the Baskervilles.\n     In one hour and five minutes I meet him at Waterloo Station. I have\n     had a wire that he arrived at Southampton this morning. Now, Mr.\n     Holmes, what would you advise me to do with him?\"\n\n     \"Why should he not go to the home of his fathers?\"\n\n     \"It seems natural, does it not? And yet, consider that every\n     Baskerville who goes there meets with an evil fate. I feel sure that\n     if Sir Charles could have spoken with me before his death he would\n     have warned me against bringing this, the last of the old race, and\n     the heir to great wealth, to that deadly place. And yet it cannot be\n     denied that the prosperity of the whole poor, bleak country-side\n     depends upon his presence. All the good work which has been done by\n     Sir Charles will crash to the ground if there is no tenant of the\n     Hall. I fear lest I should be swayed too much by my own obvious\n     interest in the matter, and that is why I bring the case before you\n     and ask for your advice.\"\n\n     Holmes considered for a little time.\n\n     \"Put into plain words, the matter is this,\" said he. \"In your opinion\n     there is a diabolical agency which makes Dartmoor an unsafe abode for\n     a Baskerville--that is your opinion?\"\n\n     \"At least I might go the length of saying that there is some evidence\n     that this may be so.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. But surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it\n     could work the young man evil in London as easily as in Devonshire. A\n     devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too\n     inconceivable a thing.\"\n\n     \"You put the matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would\n     probably do if you were brought into personal contact with these\n     things. Your advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young man\n     will be as safe in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty\n     minutes. What would you recommend?\"\n\n     \"I recommend, sir, that you take a cab, call off your spaniel who is\n     scratching at my front door, and proceed to Waterloo to meet Sir\n     Henry Baskerville.\"\n\n     \"And then?\"\n\n     \"And then you will say nothing to him at all until I have made up my\n     mind about the matter.\"\n\n     \"How long will it take you to make up your mind?\"\n\n     \"Twenty-four hours. At ten o'clock to-morrow, Dr. Mortimer, I will be\n     much obliged to you if you will call upon me here, and it will be of\n     help to me in my plans for the future if you will bring Sir Henry\n     Baskerville with you.\"\n\n     \"I will do so, Mr. Holmes.\" He scribbled the appointment on his\n     shirtcuff and hurried off in his strange, peering, absent-minded\n     fashion. Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.\n\n     \"Only one more question, Dr. Mortimer. You say that before Sir\n     Charles Baskerville's death several people saw this apparition upon\n     the moor?\"\n\n     \"Three people did.\"\n\n     \"Did any see it after?\"\n\n     \"I have not heard of any.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. Good morning.\"\n\n     Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward\n     satisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task before him.\n\n     \"Going out, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Unless I can help you.\"\n\n     \"No, my dear fellow, it is at the hour of action that I turn to you\n     for aid. But this is splendid, really unique from some points of\n     view. When you pass Bradley's, would you ask him to send up a pound\n     of the strongest shag tobacco? Thank you. It would be as well if you\n     could make it convenient not to return before evening. Then I should\n     be very glad to compare impressions as to this most interesting\n     problem which has been submitted to us this morning.\"\n\n     I knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my friend\n     in those hours of intense mental concentration during which he\n     weighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories,\n     balanced one against the other, and made up his mind as to which\n     points were essential and which immaterial. I therefore spent the day\n     at my club and did not return to Baker Street until evening. It was\n     nearly nine o'clock when I found myself in the sitting-room once\n     more.\n\n     My first impression as I opened the door was that a fire had broken\n     out, for the room was so filled with smoke that the light of the lamp\n     upon the table was blurred by it. As I entered, however, my fears\n     were set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco\n     which took me by the throat and set me coughing. Through the haze I\n     had a vague vision of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an\n     armchair with his black clay pipe between his lips. Several rolls of\n     paper lay around him.\n\n     \"Caught cold, Watson?\" said he.\n\n     \"No, it's this poisonous atmosphere.\"\n\n     \"I suppose it is pretty thick, now that you mention it.\"\n\n     \"Thick! It is intolerable.\"\n\n     \"Open the window, then! You have been at your club all day, I\n     perceive.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"Am I right?\"\n\n     \"Certainly, but how?\"\n\n     He laughed at my bewildered expression.\n\n     \"There is a delightful freshness about you, Watson, which makes it a\n     pleasure to exercise any small powers which I possess at your\n     expense. A gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. He returns\n     immaculate in the evening with the gloss still on his hat and his\n     boots. He has been a fixture therefore all day. He is not a man with\n     intimate friends. Where, then, could he have been? Is it not\n     obvious?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is rather obvious.\"\n\n     \"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever\n     observes. Where do you think that I have been?\"\n\n     \"A fixture also.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire.\"\n\n     \"In spirit?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. My body has remained in this arm-chair and has, I regret to\n     observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an\n     incredible amount of tobacco. After you left I sent down to\n     Stamford's for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my\n     spirit has hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that I could\n     find my way about.\"\n\n     \"A large scale map, I presume?\"\n\n     \"Very large.\" He unrolled one section and held it over his knee.\n     \"Here you have the particular district which concerns us. That is\n     Baskerville Hall in the middle.\"\n\n     \"With a wood round it?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. I fancy the Yew Alley, though not marked under that name,\n     must stretch along this line, with the moor, as you perceive, upon\n     the right of it. This small clump of buildings here is the hamlet of\n     Grimpen, where our friend Dr. Mortimer has his headquarters. Within a\n     radius of five miles there are, as you see, only a very few scattered\n     dwellings. Here is Lafter Hall, which was mentioned in the narrative.\n     There is a house indicated here which may be the residence of the\n     naturalist--Stapleton, if I remember right, was his name. Here are\n     two moorland farm-houses, High Tor and Foulmire. Then fourteen miles\n     away the great convict prison of Princetown. Between and around these\n     scattered points extends the desolate, lifeless moor. This, then, is\n     the stage upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we may\n     help to play it again.\"\n\n     \"It must be a wild place.\"\n\n     \"Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a\n     hand in the affairs of men--\"\n\n     \"Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.\"\n\n     \"The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? There\n     are two questions waiting for us at the outset. The one is whether\n     any crime has been committed at all; the second is, what is the crime\n     and how was it committed? Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should\n     be correct, and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws\n     of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to\n     exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one. I\n     think we'll shut that window again, if you don't mind. It is a\n     singular thing, but I find that a concentrated atmosphere helps a\n     concentration of thought. I have not pushed it to the length of\n     getting into a box to think, but that is the logical outcome of my\n     convictions. Have you turned the case over in your mind?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day.\"\n\n     \"What do you make of it?\"\n\n     \"It is very bewildering.\"\n\n     \"It has certainly a character of its own. There are points of\n     distinction about it. That change in the footprints, for example.\n     What do you make of that?\"\n\n     \"Mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that portion of\n     the alley.\"\n\n     \"He only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest. Why should\n     a man walk on tiptoe down the alley?\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"He was running, Watson--running desperately, running for his life,\n     running until he burst his heart and fell dead upon his face.\"\n\n     \"Running from what?\"\n\n     \"There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was\n     crazed with fear before ever he began to run.\"\n\n     \"How can you say that?\"\n\n     \"I am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across the\n     moor. If that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man who had\n     lost his wits would have run from the house instead of towards it. If\n     the gipsy's evidence may be taken as true, he ran with cries for help\n     in the direction where help was least likely to be. Then, again, whom\n     was he waiting for that night, and why was he waiting for him in the\n     Yew Alley rather than in his own house?\"\n\n     \"You think that he was waiting for someone?\"\n\n     \"The man was elderly and infirm. We can understand his taking an\n     evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement. Is\n     it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as Dr.\n     Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given him\n     credit for, deduced from the cigar ash?\"\n\n     \"But he went out every evening.\"\n\n     \"I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening.\n     On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor. That night\n     he waited there. It was the night before he made his departure for\n     London. The thing takes shape, Watson. It becomes coherent. Might I\n     ask you to hand me my violin, and we will postpone all further\n     thought upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting\n     Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville in the morning.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          Sir Henry Baskerville\n\n\n     Our breakfast-table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his\n     dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were punctual\n     to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr.\n     Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was\n     a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very\n     sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious\n     face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten\n     appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and\n     yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of\n     his bearing which indicated the gentleman.\n\n     \"This is Sir Henry Baskerville,\" said Dr. Mortimer.\n\n     \"Why, yes,\" said he, \"and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\n     that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this\n     morning I should have come on my own account. I understand that you\n     think out little puzzles, and I've had one this morning which wants\n     more thinking out than I am able to give it.\"\n\n     \"Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you\n     have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in\n     London?\"\n\n     \"Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke, as like as not.\n     It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which reached me\n     this morning.\"\n\n     He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It was\n     of common quality, grayish in colour. The address, \"Sir Henry\n     Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel,\" was printed in rough characters;\n     the postmark \"Charing Cross,\" and the date of posting the preceding\n     evening.\n\n     \"Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Hotel?\" asked\n     Holmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor.\n\n     \"No one could have known. We only decided after I met Dr. Mortimer.\"\n\n     \"But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?\"\n\n     \"No, I had been staying with a friend,\" said the doctor. \"There was\n     no possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel.\"\n\n     \"Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements.\"\n     Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap paper folded\n     into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the table. Across the\n     middle of it a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of\n     pasting printed words upon it. It ran:\n\n     As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.\n\n     The word \"moor\" only was printed in ink.\n\n     \"Now,\" said Sir Henry Baskerville, \"perhaps you will tell me, Mr.\n     Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is that\n     takes so much interest in my affairs?\"\n\n     \"What do you make of it, Dr. Mortimer? You must allow that there is\n     nothing supernatural about this, at any rate?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, but it might very well come from someone who was convinced\n     that the business is supernatural.\"\n\n     \"What business?\" asked Sir Henry sharply. \"It seems to me that all\n     you gentlemen know a great deal more than I do about my own affairs.\"\n\n     \"You shall share our knowledge before you leave this room, Sir Henry.\n     I promise you that,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"We will confine ourselves\n     for the present with your permission to this very interesting\n     document, which must have been put together and posted yesterday\n     evening. Have you yesterday's Times, Watson?\"\n\n     \"It is here in the corner.\"\n\n     \"Might I trouble you for it--the inside page, please, with the\n     leading articles?\" He glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes up\n     and down the columns. \"Capital article this on free trade. Permit me\n     to give you an extract from it.\n\n     \"'You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or\n     your own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it\n     stands to reason that such legislation must in the long run keep away\n     wealth from the country, diminish the value of our imports, and lower\n     the general conditions of life in this island.'\n\n     \"What do you think of that, Watson?\" cried Holmes in high glee,\n     rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. \"Don't you think that\n     is an admirable sentiment?\"\n\n     Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional interest,\n     and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me.\n\n     \"I don't know much about the tariff and things of that kind,\" said\n     he; \"but it seems to me we've got a bit off the trail so far as that\n     note is concerned.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, I think we are particularly hot upon the trail, Sir\n     Henry. Watson here knows more about my methods than you do, but I\n     fear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this\n     sentence.\"\n\n     \"No, I confess that I see no connection.\"\n\n     \"And yet, my dear Watson, there is so very close a connection that\n     the one is extracted out of the other. 'You,' 'your,' 'your,' 'life,'\n     'reason,' 'value,' 'keep away,' 'from the.' Don't you see now whence\n     these words have been taken?\"\n\n     \"By thunder, you're right! Well, if that isn't smart!\" cried Sir\n     Henry.\n\n     \"If any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that 'keep\n     away' and 'from the' are cut out in one piece.\"\n\n     \"Well, now--so it is!\"\n\n     \"Really, Mr. Holmes, this exceeds anything which I could have\n     imagined,\" said Dr. Mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement. \"I\n     could understand anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper;\n     but that you should name which, and add that it came from the leading\n     article, is really one of the most remarkable things which I have\n     ever known. How did you do it?\"\n\n     \"I presume, Doctor, that you could tell the skull of a negro from\n     that of an Esquimau?\"\n\n     \"Most certainly.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"Because that is my special hobby. The differences are obvious. The\n     supra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the maxillary curve, the--\"\n\n     \"But this is my special hobby, and the differences are equally\n     obvious. There is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded\n     bourgeois type of a Times article and the slovenly print of an\n     evening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and\n     your Esquimau. The detection of types is one of the most elementary\n     branches of knowledge to the special expert in crime, though I\n     confess that once when I was very young I confused the Leeds Mercury\n     with the Western Morning News. But a Times leader is entirely\n     distinctive, and these words could have been taken from nothing else.\n     As it was done yesterday the strong probability was that we should\n     find the words in yesterday's issue.\"\n\n     \"So far as I can follow you, then, Mr. Holmes,\" said Sir Henry\n     Baskerville, \"someone cut out this message with a scissors--\"\n\n     \"Nail-scissors,\" said Holmes. \"You can see that it was a very\n     short-bladed scissors, since the cutter had to take two snips over\n     'keep away.'\"\n\n     \"That is so. Someone, then, cut out the message with a pair of\n     short-bladed scissors, pasted it with paste--\"\n\n     \"Gum,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"With gum on to the paper. But I want to know why the word 'moor'\n     should have been written?\"\n\n     \"Because he could not find it in print. The other words were all\n     simple and might be found in any issue, but 'moor' would be less\n     common.\"\n\n     \"Why, of course, that would explain it. Have you read anything else\n     in this message, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"There are one or two indications, and yet the utmost pains have been\n     taken to remove all clues. The address, you observe is printed in\n     rough characters. But the Times is a paper which is seldom found in\n     any hands but those of the highly educated. We may take it,\n     therefore, that the letter was composed by an educated man who wished\n     to pose as an uneducated one, and his effort to conceal his own\n     writing suggests that that writing might be known, or come to be\n     known, by you. Again, you will observe that the words are not gummed\n     on in an accurate line, but that some are much higher than others.\n     'Life,' for example is quite out of its proper place. That may point\n     to carelessness or it may point to agitation and hurry upon the part\n     of the cutter. On the whole I incline to the latter view, since the\n     matter was evidently important, and it is unlikely that the composer\n     of such a letter would be careless. If he were in a hurry it opens up\n     the interesting question why he should be in a hurry, since any\n     letter posted up to early morning would reach Sir Henry before he\n     would leave his hotel. Did the composer fear an interruption--and\n     from whom?\"\n\n     \"We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,\" said Dr.\n     Mortimer.\n\n     \"Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and\n     choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination,\n     but we have always some material basis on which to start our\n     speculation. Now, you would call it a guess, no doubt, but I am\n     almost certain that this address has been written in a hotel.\"\n\n     \"How in the world can you say that?\"\n\n     \"If you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the\n     ink have given the writer trouble. The pen has spluttered twice in a\n     single word, and has run dry three times in a short address, showing\n     that there was very little ink in the bottle. Now, a private pen or\n     ink-bottle is seldom allowed to be in such a state, and the\n     combination of the two must be quite rare. But you know the hotel ink\n     and the hotel pen, where it is rare to get anything else. Yes, I have\n     very little hesitation in saying that could we examine the\n     waste-paper baskets of the hotels around Charing Cross until we found\n     the remains of the mutilated Times leader we could lay our hands\n     straight upon the person who sent this singular message. Halloa!\n     Halloa! What's this?\"\n\n     He was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words were\n     pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"Nothing,\" said he, throwing it down. \"It is a blank half-sheet of\n     paper, without even a water-mark upon it. I think we have drawn as\n     much as we can from this curious letter; and now, Sir Henry, has\n     anything else of interest happened to you since you have been in\n     London?\"\n\n     \"Why, no, Mr. Holmes. I think not.\"\n\n     \"You have not observed anyone follow or watch you?\"\n\n     \"I seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel,\" said\n     our visitor. \"Why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me?\"\n\n     \"We are coming to that. You have nothing else to report to us before\n     we go into this matter?\"\n\n     \"Well, it depends upon what you think worth reporting.\"\n\n     \"I think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth\n     reporting.\"\n\n     Sir Henry smiled.\n\n     \"I don't know much of British life yet, for I have spent nearly all\n     my time in the States and in Canada. But I hope that to lose one of\n     your boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over here.\"\n\n     \"You have lost one of your boots?\"\n\n     \"My dear sir,\" cried Dr. Mortimer, \"it is only mislaid. You will find\n     it when you return to the hotel. What is the use of troubling Mr.\n     Holmes with trifles of this kind?\"\n\n     \"Well, he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine.\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said Holmes, \"however foolish the incident may seem. You\n     have lost one of your boots, you say?\"\n\n     \"Well, mislaid it, anyhow. I put them both outside my door last\n     night, and there was only one in the morning. I could get no sense\n     out of the chap who cleans them. The worst of it is that I only\n     bought the pair last night in the Strand, and I have never had them\n     on.\"\n\n     \"If you have never worn them, why did you put them out to be\n     cleaned?\"\n\n     \"They were tan boots and had never been varnished. That was why I put\n     them out.\"\n\n     \"Then I understand that on your arrival in London yesterday you went\n     out at once and bought a pair of boots?\"\n\n     \"I did a good deal of shopping. Dr. Mortimer here went round with me.\n     You see, if I am to be squire down there I must dress the part, and\n     it may be that I have got a little careless in my ways out West.\n     Among other things I bought these brown boots--gave six dollars for\n     them--and had one stolen before ever I had them on my feet.\"\n\n     \"It seems a singularly useless thing to steal,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n     \"I confess that I share Dr. Mortimer's belief that it will not be\n     long before the missing boot is found.\"\n\n     \"And, now, gentlemen,\" said the baronet with decision, \"it seems to\n     me that I have spoken quite enough about the little that I know. It\n     is time that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what\n     we are all driving at.\"\n\n     \"Your request is a very reasonable one,\" Holmes answered. \"Dr.\n     Mortimer, I think you could not do better than to tell your story as\n     you told it to us.\"\n\n     Thus encouraged, our scientific friend drew his papers from his\n     pocket, and presented the whole case as he had done upon the morning\n     before. Sir Henry Baskerville listened with the deepest attention,\n     and with an occasional exclamation of surprise.\n\n     \"Well, I seem to have come into an inheritance with a vengeance,\"\n     said he when the long narrative was finished. \"Of course, I've heard\n     of the hound ever since I was in the nursery. It's the pet story of\n     the family, though I never thought of taking it seriously before. But\n     as to my uncle's death--well, it all seems boiling up in my head, and\n     I can't get it clear yet. You don't seem quite to have made up your\n     mind whether it's a case for a policeman or a clergyman.\"\n\n     \"Precisely.\"\n\n     \"And now there's this affair of the letter to me at the hotel. I\n     suppose that fits into its place.\"\n\n     \"It seems to show that someone knows more than we do about what goes\n     on upon the moor,\" said Dr. Mortimer.\n\n     \"And also,\" said Holmes, \"that someone is not ill-disposed towards\n     you, since they warn you of danger.\"\n\n     \"Or it may be that they wish, for their own purposes, to scare me\n     away.\"\n\n     \"Well, of course, that is possible also. I am very much indebted to\n     you, Dr. Mortimer, for introducing me to a problem which presents\n     several interesting alternatives. But the practical point which we\n     now have to decide, Sir Henry, is whether it is or is not advisable\n     for you to go to Baskerville Hall.\"\n\n     \"Why should I not go?\"\n\n     \"There seems to be danger.\"\n\n     \"Do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger from\n     human beings?\"\n\n     \"Well, that is what we have to find out.\"\n\n     \"Whichever it is, my answer is fixed. There is no devil in hell, Mr.\n     Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going\n     to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final\n     answer.\" His dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red\n     as he spoke. It was evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles\n     was not extinct in this their last representative. \"Meanwhile,\" said\n     he, \"I have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me.\n     It's a big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one\n     sitting. I should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my\n     mind. Now, look here, Mr. Holmes, it's half-past eleven now and I am\n     going back right away to my hotel. Suppose you and your friend, Dr.\n     Watson, come round and lunch with us at two. I'll be able to tell you\n     more clearly then how this thing strikes me.\"\n\n     \"Is that convenient to you, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Perfectly.\"\n\n     \"Then you may expect us. Shall I have a cab called?\"\n\n     \"I'd prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.\"\n\n     \"I'll join you in a walk, with pleasure,\" said his companion.\n\n     \"Then we meet again at two o'clock. Au revoir, and good-morning!\"\n\n     We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of\n     the front door. In an instant Holmes had changed from the languid\n     dreamer to the man of action.\n\n     \"Your hat and boots, Watson, quick! Not a moment to lose!\" He rushed\n     into his room in his dressing-gown and was back again in a few\n     seconds in a frock-coat. We hurried together down the stairs and into\n     the street. Dr. Mortimer and Baskerville were still visible about two\n     hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of Oxford Street.\n\n     \"Shall I run on and stop them?\"\n\n     \"Not for the world, my dear Watson. I am perfectly satisfied with\n     your company if you will tolerate mine. Our friends are wise, for it\n     is certainly a very fine morning for a walk.\"\n\n     He quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which\n     divided us by about half. Then, still keeping a hundred yards behind,\n     we followed into Oxford Street and so down Regent Street. Once our\n     friends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which Holmes did\n     the same. An instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction,\n     and, following the direction of his eager eyes, I saw that a hansom\n     cab with a man inside which had halted on the other side of the\n     street was now proceeding slowly onward again.\n\n     \"There's our man, Watson! Come along! We'll have a good look at him,\n     if we can do no more.\"\n\n     At that instant I was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of\n     piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab.\n     Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed to\n     the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street. Holmes\n     looked eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in sight. Then\n     he dashed in wild pursuit amid the stream of the traffic, but the\n     start was too great, and already the cab was out of sight.\n\n     \"There now!\" said Holmes bitterly as he emerged panting and white\n     with vexation from the tide of vehicles. \"Was ever such bad luck and\n     such bad management, too? Watson, Watson, if you are an honest man\n     you will record this also and set it against my successes!\"\n\n     \"Who was the man?\"\n\n     \"I have not an idea.\"\n\n     \"A spy?\"\n\n     \"Well, it was evident from what we have heard that Baskerville has\n     been very closely shadowed by someone since he has been in town. How\n     else could it be known so quickly that it was the Northumberland\n     Hotel which he had chosen? If they had followed him the first day I\n     argued that they would follow him also the second. You may have\n     observed that I twice strolled over to the window while Dr. Mortimer\n     was reading his legend.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I remember.\"\n\n     \"I was looking out for loiterers in the street, but I saw none. We\n     are dealing with a clever man, Watson. This matter cuts very deep,\n     and though I have not finally made up my mind whether it is a\n     benevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, I am\n     conscious always of power and design. When our friends left I at once\n     followed them in the hopes of marking down their invisible attendant.\n     So wily was he that he had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had\n     availed himself of a cab so that he could loiter behind or dash past\n     them and so escape their notice. His method had the additional\n     advantage that if they were to take a cab he was all ready to follow\n     them. It has, however, one obvious disadvantage.\"\n\n     \"It puts him in the power of the cabman.\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"What a pity we did not get the number!\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, clumsy as I have been, you surely do not seriously\n     imagine that I neglected to get the number? No. 2704 is our man. But\n     that is no use to us for the moment.\"\n\n     \"I fail to see how you could have done more.\"\n\n     \"On observing the cab I should have instantly turned and walked in\n     the other direction. I should then at my leisure have hired a second\n     cab and followed the first at a respectful distance, or, better\n     still, have driven to the Northumberland Hotel and waited there. When\n     our unknown had followed Baskerville home we should have had the\n     opportunity of playing his own game upon himself and seeing where he\n     made for. As it is, by an indiscreet eagerness, which was taken\n     advantage of with extraordinary quickness and energy by our opponent,\n     we have betrayed ourselves and lost our man.\"\n\n     We had been sauntering slowly down Regent Street during this\n     conversation, and Dr. Mortimer, with his companion, had long vanished\n     in front of us.\n\n     \"There is no object in our following them,\" said Holmes. \"The shadow\n     has departed and will not return. We must see what further cards we\n     have in our hands and play them with decision. Could you swear to\n     that man's face within the cab?\"\n\n     \"I could swear only to the beard.\"\n\n     \"And so could I--from which I gather that in all probability it was a\n     false one. A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a\n     beard save to conceal his features. Come in here, Watson!\"\n\n     He turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he was\n     warmly greeted by the manager.\n\n     \"Ah, Wilson, I see you have not forgotten the little case in which I\n     had the good fortune to help you?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, indeed I have not. You saved my good name, and perhaps my\n     life.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, you exaggerate. I have some recollection, Wilson,\n     that you had among your boys a lad named Cartwright, who showed some\n     ability during the investigation.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, he is still with us.\"\n\n     \"Could you ring him up?--thank you! And I should be glad to have\n     change of this five-pound note.\"\n\n     A lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen face, had obeyed the summons\n     of the manager. He stood now gazing with great reverence at the\n     famous detective.\n\n     \"Let me have the Hotel Directory,\" said Holmes. \"Thank you! Now,\n     Cartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all in\n     the immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Do you see?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"You will visit each of these in turn.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"You will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one\n     shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"You will tell him that you want to see the waste-paper of yesterday.\n     You will say that an important telegram has miscarried and that you\n     are looking for it. You understand?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"But what you are really looking for is the centre page of the Times\n     with some holes cut in it with scissors. Here is a copy of the Times.\n     It is this page. You could easily recognize it, could you not?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"In each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter, to\n     whom also you will give a shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings.\n     You will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three\n     that the waste of the day before has been burned or removed. In the\n     three other cases you will be shown a heap of paper and you will look\n     for this page of the Times among it. The odds are enormously against\n     your finding it. There are ten shillings over in case of emergencies.\n     Let me have a report by wire at Baker Street before evening. And now,\n     Watson, it only remains for us to find out by wire the identity of\n     the cabman, No. 2704, and then we will drop into one of the Bond\n     Street picture galleries and fill in the time until we are due at the\n     hotel.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          Three Broken Threads\n\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of\n     detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in\n     which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was\n     entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He\n     would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas,\n     from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at the\n     Northumberland Hotel.\n\n     \"Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs expecting you,\" said the clerk.\n     \"He asked me to show you up at once when you came.\"\n\n     \"Have you any objection to my looking at your register?\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Not in the least.\"\n\n     The book showed that two names had been added after that of\n     Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle; the\n     other Mrs. Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.\n\n     \"Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know,\" said\n     Holmes to the porter. \"A lawyer, is he not, gray-headed, and walks\n     with a limp?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; this is Mr. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active\n     gentleman, not older than yourself.\"\n\n     \"Surely you are mistaken about his trade?\"\n\n     \"No, sir! he has used this hotel for many years, and he is very well\n     known to us.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that settles it. Mrs. Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the name.\n     Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend one finds\n     another.\"\n\n     \"She is an invalid lady, sir. Her husband was once mayor of\n     Gloucester. She always comes to us when she is in town.\"\n\n     \"Thank you; I am afraid I cannot claim her acquaintance. We have\n     established a most important fact by these questions, Watson,\" he\n     continued in a low voice as we went upstairs together. \"We know now\n     that the people who are so interested in our friend have not settled\n     down in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as we have\n     seen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious that he\n     should not see them. Now, this is a most suggestive fact.\"\n\n     \"What does it suggest?\"\n\n     \"It suggests--halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the matter?\"\n\n     As we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against Sir\n     Henry Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with anger, and he\n     held an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was he\n     that he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in a much\n     broader and more Western dialect than any which we had heard from him\n     in the morning.\n\n     \"Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel,\" he\n     cried. \"They'll find they've started in to monkey with the wrong man\n     unless they are careful. By thunder, if that chap can't find my\n     missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the best,\n     Mr. Holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time.\"\n\n     \"Still looking for your boot?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, and mean to find it.\"\n\n     \"But, surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?\"\n\n     \"So it was, sir. And now it's an old black one.\"\n\n     \"What! you don't mean to say--?\"\n\n     \"That's just what I do mean to say. I only had three pairs in the\n     world--the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers, which I\n     am wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones, and to-day\n     they have sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got it? Speak out,\n     man, and don't stand staring!\"\n\n     An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.\n\n     \"No, sir; I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but I can hear no\n     word of it.\"\n\n     \"Well, either that boot comes back before sundown or I'll see the\n     manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel.\"\n\n     \"It shall be found, sir--I promise you that if you will have a little\n     patience it will be found.\"\n\n     \"Mind it is, for it's the last thing of mine that I'll lose in this\n     den of thieves. Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you'll excuse my troubling\n     you about such a trifle--\"\n\n     \"I think it's well worth troubling about.\"\n\n     \"Why, you look very serious over it.\"\n\n     \"How do you explain it?\"\n\n     \"I just don't attempt to explain it. It seems the very maddest,\n     queerest thing that ever happened to me.\"\n\n     \"The queerest perhaps--\" said Holmes, thoughtfully.\n\n     \"What do you make of it yourself?\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't profess to understand it yet. This case of yours is\n     very complex, Sir Henry. When taken in conjunction with your uncle's\n     death I am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of capital\n     importance which I have handled there is one which cuts so deep. But\n     we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or\n     other of them guides us to the truth. We may waste time in following\n     the wrong one, but sooner or later we must come upon the right.\"\n\n     We had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the business\n     which had brought us together. It was in the private sitting-room to\n     which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked Baskerville what were\n     his intentions.\n\n     \"To go to Baskerville Hall.\"\n\n     \"And when?\"\n\n     \"At the end of the week.\"\n\n     \"On the whole,\" said Holmes, \"I think that your decision is a wise\n     one. I have ample evidence that you are being dogged in London, and\n     amid the millions of this great city it is difficult to discover who\n     these people are or what their object can be. If their intentions are\n     evil they might do you a mischief, and we should be powerless to\n     prevent it. You did not know, Dr. Mortimer, that you were followed\n     this morning from my house?\"\n\n     Dr. Mortimer started violently.\n\n     \"Followed! By whom?\"\n\n     \"That, unfortunately, is what I cannot tell you. Have you among your\n     neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a black, full\n     beard?\"\n\n     \"No--or, let me see--why, yes. Barrymore, Sir Charles's butler, is a\n     man with a full, black beard.\"\n\n     \"Ha! Where is Barrymore?\"\n\n     \"He is in charge of the Hall.\"\n\n     \"We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any\n     possibility he might be in London.\"\n\n     \"How can you do that?\"\n\n     \"Give me a telegraph form. 'Is all ready for Sir Henry?' That will\n     do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the nearest\n     telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second wire to\n     the postmaster, Grimpen: 'Telegram to Mr. Barrymore to be delivered\n     into his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry\n     Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel.' That should let us know before\n     evening whether Barrymore is at his post in Devonshire or not.\"\n\n     \"That's so,\" said Baskerville. \"By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this\n     Barrymore, anyhow?\"\n\n     \"He is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. They have looked\n     after the Hall for four generations now. So far as I know, he and his\n     wife are as respectable a couple as any in the county.\"\n\n     \"At the same time,\" said Baskerville, \"it's clear enough that so long\n     as there are none of the family at the Hall these people have a\n     mighty fine home and nothing to do.\"\n\n     \"That is true.\"\n\n     \"Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles's will?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"He and his wife had five hundred pounds each.\"\n\n     \"Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?\"\n\n     \"Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provisions of\n     his will.\"\n\n     \"That is very interesting.\"\n\n     \"I hope,\" said Dr. Mortimer, \"that you do not look with suspicious\n     eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also\n     had a thousand pounds left to me.\"\n\n     \"Indeed! And anyone else?\"\n\n     \"There were many insignificant sums to individuals, and a large\n     number of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry.\"\n\n     \"And how much was the residue?\"\n\n     \"Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.\"\n\n     Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. \"I had no idea that so\n     gigantic a sum was involved,\" said he.\n\n     \"Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not know\n     how very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. The\n     total value of the estate was close on to a million.\"\n\n     \"Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate\n     game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer. Supposing that anything\n     happened to our young friend here--you will forgive the unpleasant\n     hypothesis!--who would inherit the estate?\"\n\n     \"Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles's younger brother died\n     unmarried, the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are distant\n     cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. These details are all of great interest. Have you met Mr.\n     James Desmond?\"\n\n     \"Yes; he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of\n     venerable appearance and of saintly life. I remember that he refused\n     to accept any settlement from Sir Charles, though he pressed it upon\n     him.\"\n\n     \"And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles's\n     thousands.\"\n\n     \"He would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. He\n     would also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise\n     by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it.\"\n\n     \"And have you made your will, Sir Henry?\"\n\n     \"No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I've had no time, for it was only\n     yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I feel\n     that the money should go with the title and estate. That was my poor\n     uncle's idea. How is the owner going to restore the glories of the\n     Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property?\n     House, land, and dollars must go together.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the\n     advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay. There is\n     only one provision which I must make. You certainly must not go\n     alone.\"\n\n     \"Dr. Mortimer returns with me.\"\n\n     \"But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is\n     miles away from yours. With all the good will in the world he may be\n     unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you someone, a\n     trusty man, who will be always by your side.\"\n\n     \"Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in\n     person; but you can understand that, with my extensive consulting\n     practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many\n     quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an\n     indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered names\n     in England is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I can stop\n     a disastrous scandal. You will see how impossible it is for me to go\n     to Dartmoor.\"\n\n     \"Whom would you recommend, then?\"\n\n     Holmes laid his hand upon my arm.\n\n     \"If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth\n     having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so\n     more confidently than I.\"\n\n     The proposition took me completely by surprise, but before I had time\n     to answer, Baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily.\n\n     \"Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr. Watson,\" said he. \"You see\n     how it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter as I\n     do. If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me through I'll\n     never forget it.\"\n\n     The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and I was\n     complimented by the words of Holmes and by the eagerness with which\n     the baronet hailed me as a companion.\n\n     \"I will come, with pleasure,\" said I. \"I do not know how I could\n     employ my time better.\"\n\n     \"And you will report very carefully to me,\" said Holmes. \"When a\n     crisis comes, as it will do, I will direct how you shall act. I\n     suppose that by Saturday all might be ready?\"\n\n     \"Would that suit Dr. Watson?\"\n\n     \"Perfectly.\"\n\n     \"Then on Saturday, unless you hear to the contrary, we shall meet at\n     the 10.30 train from Paddington.\"\n\n     We had risen to depart when Baskerville gave a cry, of triumph, and\n     diving into one of the corners of the room he drew a brown boot from\n     under a cabinet.\n\n     \"My missing boot!\" he cried.\n\n     \"May all our difficulties vanish as easily!\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"But it is a very singular thing,\" Dr. Mortimer remarked. \"I searched\n     this room carefully before lunch.\"\n\n     \"And so did I,\" said Baskerville. \"Every inch of it.\"\n\n     \"There was certainly no boot in it then.\"\n\n     \"In that case the waiter must have placed it there while we were\n     lunching.\"\n\n     The German was sent for but professed to know nothing of the matter,\n     nor could any inquiry clear it up. Another item had been added to\n     that constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries\n     which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole\n     grim story of Sir Charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable\n     incidents all within the limits of two days, which included the\n     receipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom,\n     the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and\n     now the return of the new brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the\n     cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew from his drawn brows\n     and keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to\n     frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently\n     disconnected episodes could be fitted. All afternoon and late into\n     the evening he sat lost in tobacco and thought.\n\n     Just before dinner two telegrams were handed in. The first ran:\n\n     Have just heard that Barrymore is at the Hall.\n     Baskerville.\n\n     The second:\n\n     Visited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry to report unable\n     to trace cut sheet of Times.\n     Cartwright.\n\n     \"There go two of my threads, Watson. There is nothing more\n     stimulating than a case where everything goes against you. We must\n     cast round for another scent.\"\n\n     \"We have still the cabman who drove the spy.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. I have wired to get his name and address from the Official\n     Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an answer to my\n     question.\"\n\n     The ring at the bell proved to be something even more satisfactory\n     than an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking\n     fellow entered who was evidently the man himself.\n\n     \"I got a message from the head office that a gent at this address had\n     been inquiring for 2704,\" said he. \"I've driven my cab this seven\n     years and never a word of complaint. I came here straight from the\n     Yard to ask you to your face what you had against me.\"\n\n     \"I have nothing in the world against you, my good man,\" said Holmes.\n     \"On the contrary, I have half a sovereign for you if you will give me\n     a clear answer to my questions.\"\n\n     \"Well, I've had a good day and no mistake,\" said the cabman, with a\n     grin. \"What was it you wanted to ask, sir?\"\n\n     \"First of all your name and address, in case I want you again.\"\n\n     \"John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. My cab is out of\n     Shipley's Yard, near Waterloo Station.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes made a note of it.\n\n     \"Now, Clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched this\n     house at ten o'clock this morning and afterwards followed the two\n     gentlemen down Regent Street.\"\n\n     The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. \"Why, there's no\n     good my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as I do\n     already,\" said he. \"The truth is that the gentleman told me that he\n     was a detective and that I was to say nothing about him to anyone.\"\n\n     \"My good fellow, this is a very serious business, and you may find\n     yourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide anything from\n     me. You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he did.\"\n\n     \"When did he say this?\"\n\n     \"When he left me.\"\n\n     \"Did he say anything more?\"\n\n     \"He mentioned his name.\"\n\n     Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. \"Oh, he mentioned his\n     name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he\n     mentioned?\"\n\n     \"His name,\" said the cabman, \"was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.\"\n\n     Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the\n     cabman's reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement. Then he\n     burst into a hearty laugh.\n\n     \"A touch, Watson--an undeniable touch!\" said he. \"I feel a foil as\n     quick and supple as my own. He got home upon me very prettily that\n     time. So his name was Sherlock Holmes, was it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, that was the gentleman's name.\"\n\n     \"Excellent! Tell me where you picked him up and all that occurred.\"\n\n     \"He hailed me at half-past nine in Trafalgar Square. He said that he\n     was a detective, and he offered me two guineas if I would do exactly\n     what he wanted all day and ask no questions. I was glad enough to\n     agree. First we drove down to the Northumberland Hotel and waited\n     there until two gentlemen came out and took a cab from the rank. We\n     followed their cab until it pulled up somewhere near here.\"\n\n     \"This very door,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Well, I couldn't be sure of that, but I dare say my fare knew all\n     about it. We pulled up half-way down the street and waited an hour\n     and a half. Then the two gentlemen passed us, walking, and we\n     followed down Baker Street and along--\"\n\n     \"I know,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Until we got three-quarters down Regent Street. Then my gentleman\n     threw up the trap, and he cried that I should drive right away to\n     Waterloo Station as hard as I could go. I whipped up the mare and we\n     were there under the ten minutes. Then he paid up his two guineas,\n     like a good one, and away he went into the station. Only just as he\n     was leaving he turned round and he said: 'It might interest you to\n     know that you have been driving Mr. Sherlock Holmes.' That's how I\n     come to know the name.\"\n\n     \"I see. And you saw no more of him?\"\n\n     \"Not after he went into the station.\"\n\n     \"And how would you describe Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     The cabman scratched his head. \"Well, he wasn't altogether such an\n     easy gentleman to describe. I'd put him at forty years of age, and he\n     was of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. He\n     was dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at the\n     end, and a pale face. I don't know as I could say more than that.\"\n\n     \"Colour of his eyes?\"\n\n     \"No, I can't say that.\"\n\n     \"Nothing more that you can remember?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; nothing.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, here is your half-sovereign. There's another one waiting\n     for you if you can bring any more information. Good night!\"\n\n     \"Good night, sir, and thank you!\"\n\n     John Clayton departed chuckling, and Holmes turned to me with a shrug\n     of his shoulders and a rueful smile.\n\n     \"Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began,\" said he.\n     \"The cunning rascal! He knew our number, knew that Sir Henry\n     Baskerville had consulted me, spotted who I was in Regent Street,\n     conjectured that I had got the number of the cab and would lay my\n     hands on the driver, and so sent back this audacious message. I tell\n     you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our\n     steel. I've been checkmated in London. I can only wish you better\n     luck in Devonshire. But I'm not easy in my mind about it.\"\n\n     \"About what?\"\n\n     \"About sending you. It's an ugly business, Watson, an ugly dangerous\n     business, and the more I see of it the less I like it. Yes, my dear\n     fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very\n     glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          Baskerville Hall\n\n\n     Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer were ready upon the appointed\n     day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire. Mr. Sherlock Holmes\n     drove with me to the station and gave me his last parting injunctions\n     and advice.\n\n     \"I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions,\n     Watson,\" said he; \"I wish you simply to report facts in the fullest\n     possible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the theorizing.\"\n\n     \"What sort of facts?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Anything which may seem to have a bearing however indirect upon the\n     case, and especially the relations between young Baskerville and his\n     neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death of Sir\n     Charles. I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days, but\n     the results have, I fear, been negative. One thing only appears to be\n     certain, and that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is the next heir, is\n     an elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this\n     persecution does not arise from him. I really think that we may\n     eliminate him entirely from our calculations. There remain the people\n     who will actually surround Sir Henry Baskerville upon the moor.\"\n\n     \"Would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this Barrymore\n     couple?\"\n\n     \"By no means. You could not make a greater mistake. If they are\n     innocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we\n     should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No, no,\n     we will preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there is a\n     groom at the Hall, if I remember right. There are two moorland\n     farmers. There is our friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I believe to be\n     entirely honest, and there is his wife, of whom we know nothing.\n     There is this naturalist, Stapleton, and there is his sister, who is\n     said to be a young lady of attractions. There is Mr. Frankland, of\n     Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor, and there are one or two\n     other neighbours. These are the folk who must be your very special\n     study.\"\n\n     \"I will do my best.\"\n\n     \"You have arms, I suppose?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I thought it as well to take them.\"\n\n     \"Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never\n     relax your precautions.\"\n\n     Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were\n     waiting for us upon the platform.\n\n     \"No, we have no news of any kind,\" said Dr. Mortimer in answer to my\n     friend's questions. \"I can swear to one thing, and that is that we\n     have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have never gone\n     out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could have escaped our\n     notice.\"\n\n     \"You have always kept together, I presume?\"\n\n     \"Except yesterday afternoon. I usually give up one day to pure\n     amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at the Museum of the\n     College of Surgeons.\"\n\n     \"And I went to look at the folk in the park,\" said Baskerville. \"But\n     we had no trouble of any kind.\"\n\n     \"It was imprudent, all the same,\" said Holmes, shaking his head and\n     looking very grave. \"I beg, Sir Henry, that you will not go about\n     alone. Some great misfortune will befall you if you do. Did you get\n     your other boot?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, it is gone forever.\"\n\n     \"Indeed. That is very interesting. Well, good-bye,\" he added as the\n     train began to glide down the platform. \"Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one\n     of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr. Mortimer has read\n     to us, and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers\n     of evil are exalted.\"\n\n     I looked back at the platform when we had left it far behind, and saw\n     the tall, austere figure of Holmes standing motionless and gazing\n     after us.\n\n     The journey was a swift and pleasant one, and I spent it in making\n     the more intimate acquaintance of my two companions and in playing\n     with Dr. Mortimer's spaniel. In a very few hours the brown earth had\n     become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed\n     in well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant\n     vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate. Young Baskerville\n     stared eagerly out of the window, and cried aloud with delight as he\n     recognized the familiar features of the Devon scenery.\n\n     \"I've been over a good part of the world since I left it, Dr.\n     Watson,\" said he; \"but I have never seen a place to compare with it.\"\n\n     \"I never saw a Devonshire man who did not swear by his county,\" I\n     remarked.\n\n     \"It depends upon the breed of men quite as much as on the county,\"\n     said Dr. Mortimer. \"A glance at our friend here reveals the rounded\n     head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and\n     power of attachment. Poor Sir Charles's head was of a very rare type,\n     half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics. But you were very\n     young when you last saw Baskerville Hall, were you not?\"\n\n     \"I was a boy in my 'teens at the time of my father's death, and had\n     never seen the Hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the South\n     Coast. Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I tell you it\n     is all as new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I'm as keen as\n     possible to see the moor.\"\n\n     \"Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first\n     sight of the moor,\" said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage\n     window.\n\n     Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood\n     there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange\n     jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic\n     landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed\n     upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him,\n     this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had\n     held sway so long and left their mark so deep. There he sat, with his\n     tweed suit and his American accent, in the corner of a prosaic\n     railway-carriage, and yet as I looked at his dark and expressive face\n     I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line\n     of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride, valour,\n     and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his\n     large hazel eyes. If on that forbidding moor a difficult and\n     dangerous quest should lie before us, this was at least a comrade for\n     whom one might venture to take a risk with the certainty that he\n     would bravely share it.\n\n     The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all descended.\n     Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs\n     was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great event, for\n     station-master and porters clustered round us to carry out our\n     luggage. It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I was surprised to\n     observe that by the gate there stood two soldierly men in dark\n     uniforms, who leaned upon their short rifles and glanced keenly at us\n     as we passed. The coachman, a hard-faced, gnarled little fellow,\n     saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a few minutes we were flying\n     swiftly down the broad, white road. Rolling pasture lands curved\n     upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from\n     amid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit\n     country-side there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long,\n     gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills.\n\n     The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward\n     through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either\n     side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns.\n     Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the\n     sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite\n     bridge, and skirted a noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming\n     and roaring amid the gray boulders. Both road and stream wound up\n     through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir. At every turn\n     Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him\n     and asking countless questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but\n     to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the country-side, which bore so\n     clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes\n     and fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels\n     died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad\n     gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of\n     the returning heir of the Baskervilles.\n\n     \"Halloa!\" cried Dr. Mortimer, \"what is this?\"\n\n     A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay\n     in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian\n     statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his\n     rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along\n     which we travelled.\n\n     \"What is this, Perkins?\" asked Dr. Mortimer.\n\n     Our driver half turned in his seat.\n\n     \"There's a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. He's been out three\n     days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but\n     they've had no sight of him yet. The farmers about here don't like\n     it, sir, and that's a fact.\"\n\n     \"Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give\n     information.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared\n     to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it isn't like any\n     ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing.\"\n\n     \"Who is he, then?\"\n\n     \"It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.\"\n\n     I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had taken\n     an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the\n     wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin.\n     The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as\n     to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Our wagonette\n     had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the\n     moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind\n     swept down from it and set us shivering. Somewhere there, on that\n     desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow\n     like a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against the whole\n     race which had cast him out. It needed but this to complete the grim\n     suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the\n     darkling sky. Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat\n     more closely around him.\n\n     We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked back\n     on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to\n     threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough\n     and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew\n     bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with\n     giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and\n     roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline.\n     Suddenly we looked down into a cup-like depression, patched with\n     stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of\n     years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The\n     driver pointed with his whip.\n\n     \"Baskerville Hall,\" said he.\n\n     Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining\n     eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze of\n     fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten pillars on\n     either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars'\n     heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and\n     bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half\n     constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles's South African gold.\n\n     Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were\n     again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches\n     in a sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked\n     up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at\n     the farther end.\n\n     \"Was it here?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\n     \"No, no, the Yew Alley is on the other side.\"\n\n     The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.\n\n     \"It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in\n     such a place as this,\" said he. \"It's enough to scare any man. I'll\n     have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you\n     won't know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan and Edison\n     right here in front of the hall door.\"\n\n     The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay\n     before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a\n     heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front\n     was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a\n     window or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil. From this\n     central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced\n     with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more\n     modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy\n     mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the\n     steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.\n\n     \"Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!\"\n\n     A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door\n     of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouetted against the\n     yellow light of the hall. She came out and helped the man to hand\n     down our bags.\n\n     \"You don't mind my driving straight home, Sir Henry?\" said Dr.\n     Mortimer. \"My wife is expecting me.\"\n\n     \"Surely you will stay and have some dinner?\"\n\n     \"No, I must go. I shall probably find some work awaiting me. I would\n     stay to show you over the house, but Barrymore will be a better guide\n     than I. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to send for me if I\n     can be of service.\"\n\n     The wheels died away down the drive while Sir Henry and I turned into\n     the hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us. It was a fine\n     apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily\n     raftered with huge balks of age-blackened oak. In the great\n     old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled\n     and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands to it, for we were\n     numb from our long drive. Then we gazed round us at the high, thin\n     window of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stags' heads, the\n     coats-of-arms upon the walls, all dim and sombre in the subdued light\n     of the central lamp.\n\n     \"It's just as I imagined it,\" said Sir Henry. \"Is it not the very\n     picture of an old family home? To think that this should be the same\n     hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. It strikes\n     me solemn to think of it.\"\n\n     I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed about\n     him. The light beat upon him where he stood, but long shadows trailed\n     down the walls and hung like a black canopy above him. Barrymore had\n     returned from taking our luggage to our rooms. He stood in front of\n     us now with the subdued manner of a well-trained servant. He was a\n     remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and\n     pale, distinguished features.\n\n     \"Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?\"\n\n     \"Is it ready?\"\n\n     \"In a very few minutes, sir. You will find hot water in your rooms.\n     My wife and I will be happy, Sir Henry, to stay with you until you\n     have made your fresh arrangements, but you will understand that under\n     the new conditions this house will require a considerable staff.\"\n\n     \"What new conditions?\"\n\n     \"I only meant, sir, that Sir Charles led a very retired life, and we\n     were able to look after his wants. You would, naturally, wish to have\n     more company, and so you will need changes in your household.\"\n\n     \"Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?\"\n\n     \"Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir.\"\n\n     \"But your family have been with us for several generations, have they\n     not? I should be sorry to begin my life here by breaking an old\n     family connection.\"\n\n     I seemed to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler's white\n     face.\n\n     \"I feel that also, sir, and so does my wife. But to tell the truth,\n     sir, we were both very much attached to Sir Charles, and his death\n     gave us a shock and made these surroundings very painful to us. I\n     fear that we shall never again be easy in our minds at Baskerville\n     Hall.\"\n\n     \"But what do you intend to do?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing\n     ourselves in some business. Sir Charles's generosity has given us the\n     means to do so. And now, sir, perhaps I had best show you to your\n     rooms.\"\n\n     A square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall,\n     approached by a double stair. From this central point two long\n     corridors extended the whole length of the building, from which all\n     the bedrooms opened. My own was in the same wing as Baskerville's and\n     almost next door to it. These rooms appeared to be much more modern\n     than the central part of the house, and the bright paper and numerous\n     candles did something to remove the sombre impression which our\n     arrival had left upon my mind.\n\n     But the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of\n     shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step separating the\n     dais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their\n     dependents. At one end a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. Black\n     beams shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling\n     beyond them. With rows of flaring torches to light it up, and the\n     colour and rude hilarity of an old-time banquet, it might have\n     softened; but now, when two black-clothed gentlemen sat in the little\n     circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one's voice became hushed\n     and one's spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors, in every variety\n     of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the buck of the Regency,\n     stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked\n     little, and I for one was glad when the meal was over and we were\n     able to retire into the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.\n\n     \"My word, it isn't a very cheerful place,\" said Sir Henry. \"I suppose\n     one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at\n     present. I don't wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived\n     all alone in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will\n     retire early to-night, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in\n     the morning.\"\n\n     I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my\n     window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the\n     hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising\n     wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its\n     cold light I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the\n     long, low curve of the melancholy moor. I closed the curtain, feeling\n     that my last impression was in keeping with the rest.\n\n     And yet it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet\n     wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep\n     which would not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out the\n     quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the\n     old house. And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there\n     came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. It was\n     the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn\n     by an uncontrollable sorrow. I sat up in bed and listened intently.\n     The noise could not have been far away and was certainly in the\n     house. For half an hour I waited with every nerve on the alert, but\n     there came no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of\n     the ivy on the wall.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          The Stapletons of Merripit House\n\n\n     The fresh beauty of the following morning did something to efface\n     from our minds the grim and gray impression which had been left upon\n     both of us by our first experience of Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry\n     and I sat at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through the high\n     mullioned windows, throwing watery patches of colour from the coats\n     of arms which covered them. The dark panelling glowed like bronze in\n     the golden rays, and it was hard to realize that this was indeed the\n     chamber which had struck such a gloom into our souls upon the evening\n     before.\n\n     \"I guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to blame!\"\n     said the baronet. \"We were tired with our journey and chilled by our\n     drive, so we took a gray view of the place. Now we are fresh and\n     well, so it is all cheerful once more.\"\n\n     \"And yet it was not entirely a question of imagination,\" I answered.\n     \"Did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a woman I think,\n     sobbing in the night?\"\n\n     \"That is curious, for I did when I was half asleep fancy that I heard\n     something of the sort. I waited quite a time, but there was no more\n     of it, so I concluded that it was all a dream.\"\n\n     \"I heard it distinctly, and I am sure that it was really the sob of a\n     woman.\"\n\n     \"We must ask about this right away.\" He rang the bell and asked\n     Barrymore whether he could account for our experience. It seemed to\n     me that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler still\n     as he listened to his master's question.\n\n     \"There are only two women in the house, Sir Henry,\" he answered. \"One\n     is the scullery-maid, who sleeps in the other wing. The other is my\n     wife, and I can answer for it that the sound could not have come from\n     her.\"\n\n     And yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after breakfast I\n     met Mrs. Barrymore in the long corridor with the sun full upon her\n     face. She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a stern\n     set expression of mouth. But her tell-tale eyes were red and glanced\n     at me from between swollen lids. It was she, then, who wept in the\n     night, and if she did so her husband must know it. Yet he had taken\n     the obvious risk of discovery in declaring that it was not so. Why\n     had he done this? And why did she weep so bitterly? Already round\n     this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an\n     atmosphere of mystery and of gloom. It was he who had been the first\n     to discover the body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all\n     the circumstances which led up to the old man's death. Was it\n     possible that it was Barrymore after all whom we had seen in the cab\n     in Regent Street? The beard might well have been the same. The cabman\n     had described a somewhat shorter man, but such an impression might\n     easily have been erroneous. How could I settle the point forever?\n     Obviously the first thing to do was to see the Grimpen postmaster,\n     and find whether the test telegram had really been placed in\n     Barrymore's own hands. Be the answer what it might, I should at least\n     have something to report to Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     Sir Henry had numerous papers to examine after breakfast, so that the\n     time was propitious for my excursion. It was a pleasant walk of four\n     miles along the edge of the moor, leading me at last to a small gray\n     hamlet, in which two larger buildings, which proved to be the inn and\n     the house of Dr. Mortimer, stood high above the rest. The postmaster,\n     who was also the village grocer, had a clear recollection of the\n     telegram.\n\n     \"Certainly, sir,\" said he, \"I had the telegram delivered to Mr.\n     Barrymore exactly as directed.\"\n\n     \"Who delivered it?\"\n\n     \"My boy here. James, you delivered that telegram to Mr. Barrymore at\n     the Hall last week, did you not?\"\n\n     \"Yes, father, I delivered it.\"\n\n     \"Into his own hands?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Well, he was up in the loft at the time, so that I could not put it\n     into his own hands, but I gave it into Mrs. Barrymore's hands, and\n     she promised to deliver it at once.\"\n\n     \"Did you see Mr. Barrymore?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; I tell you he was in the loft.\"\n\n     \"If you didn't see him, how do you know he was in the loft?\"\n\n     \"Well, surely his own wife ought to know where he is,\" said the\n     postmaster testily. \"Didn't he get the telegram? If there is any\n     mistake it is for Mr. Barrymore himself to complain.\"\n\n     It seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry any farther, but it was\n     clear that in spite of Holmes's ruse we had no proof that Barrymore\n     had not been in London all the time. Suppose that it were so--suppose\n     that the same man had been the last who had seen Sir Charles alive,\n     and the first to dog the new heir when he returned to England. What\n     then? Was he the agent of others or had he some sinister design of\n     his own? What interest could he have in persecuting the Baskerville\n     family? I thought of the strange warning clipped out of the leading\n     article of the Times. Was that his work or was it possibly the doing\n     of someone who was bent upon counteracting his schemes? The only\n     conceivable motive was that which had been suggested by Sir Henry,\n     that if the family could be scared away a comfortable and permanent\n     home would be secured for the Barrymores. But surely such an\n     explanation as that would be quite inadequate to account for the deep\n     and subtle scheming which seemed to be weaving an invisible net round\n     the young baronet. Holmes himself had said that no more complex case\n     had come to him in all the long series of his sensational\n     investigations. I prayed, as I walked back along the gray, lonely\n     road, that my friend might soon be freed from his preoccupations and\n     able to come down to take this heavy burden of responsibility from my\n     shoulders.\n\n     Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running feet\n     behind me and by a voice which called me by name. I turned, expecting\n     to see Dr. Mortimer, but to my surprise it was a stranger who was\n     pursuing me. He was a small, slim, clean-shaven, prim-faced man,\n     flaxen-haired and lean-jawed, between thirty and forty years of age,\n     dressed in a gray suit and wearing a straw hat. A tin box for\n     botanical specimens hung over his shoulder and he carried a green\n     butterfly-net in one of his hands.\n\n     \"You will, I am sure, excuse my presumption, Dr. Watson,\" said he, as\n     he came panting up to where I stood. \"Here on the moor we are homely\n     folk and do not wait for formal introductions. You may possibly have\n     heard my name from our mutual friend, Mortimer. I am Stapleton, of\n     Merripit House.\"\n\n     \"Your net and box would have told me as much,\" said I, \"for I knew\n     that Mr. Stapleton was a naturalist. But how did you know me?\"\n\n     \"I have been calling on Mortimer, and he pointed you out to me from\n     the window of his surgery as you passed. As our road lay the same way\n     I thought that I would overtake you and introduce myself. I trust\n     that Sir Henry is none the worse for his journey?\"\n\n     \"He is very well, thank you.\"\n\n     \"We were all rather afraid that after the sad death of Sir Charles\n     the new baronet might refuse to live here. It is asking much of a\n     wealthy man to come down and bury himself in a place of this kind,\n     but I need not tell you that it means a very great deal to the\n     country-side. Sir Henry has, I suppose, no superstitious fears in the\n     matter?\"\n\n     \"I do not think that it is likely.\"\n\n     \"Of course you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the\n     family?\"\n\n     \"I have heard it.\"\n\n     \"It is extraordinary how credulous the peasants are about here! Any\n     number of them are ready to swear that they have seen such a creature\n     upon the moor.\" He spoke with a smile, but I seemed to read in his\n     eyes that he took the matter more seriously. \"The story took a great\n     hold upon the imagination of Sir Charles, and I have no doubt that it\n     led to his tragic end.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"His nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might\n     have had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. I fancy that he\n     really did see something of the kind upon that last night in the Yew\n     Alley. I feared that some disaster might occur, for I was very fond\n     of the old man, and I knew that his heart was weak.\"\n\n     \"How did you know that?\"\n\n     \"My friend Mortimer told me.\"\n\n     \"You think, then, that some dog pursued Sir Charles, and that he died\n     of fright in consequence?\"\n\n     \"Have you any better explanation?\"\n\n     \"I have not come to any conclusion.\"\n\n     \"Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     The words took away my breath for an instant, but a glance at the\n     placid face and steadfast eyes of my companion showed that no\n     surprise was intended.\n\n     \"It is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr.\n     Watson,\" said he. \"The records of your detective have reached us\n     here, and you could not celebrate him without being known yourself.\n     When Mortimer told me your name he could not deny your identity. If\n     you are here, then it follows that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is interesting\n     himself in the matter, and I am naturally curious to know what view\n     he may take.\"\n\n     \"I am afraid that I cannot answer that question.\"\n\n     \"May I ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself?\"\n\n     \"He cannot leave town at present. He has other cases which engage his\n     attention.\"\n\n     \"What a pity! He might throw some light on that which is so dark to\n     us. But as to your own researches, if there is any possible way in\n     which I can be of service to you I trust that you will command me. If\n     I had any indication of the nature of your suspicions or how you\n     propose to investigate the case, I might perhaps even now give you\n     some aid or advice.\"\n\n     \"I assure you that I am simply here upon a visit to my friend, Sir\n     Henry, and that I need no help of any kind.\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Stapleton. \"You are perfectly right to be wary and\n     discreet. I am justly reproved for what I feel was an unjustifiable\n     intrusion, and I promise you that I will not mention the matter\n     again.\"\n\n     We had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from the\n     road and wound away across the moor. A steep, boulder-sprinkled hill\n     lay upon the right which had in bygone days been cut into a granite\n     quarry. The face which was turned towards us formed a dark cliff,\n     with ferns and brambles growing in its niches. From over a distant\n     rise there floated a gray plume of smoke.\n\n     \"A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit House,\"\n     said he. \"Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have the pleasure\n     of introducing you to my sister.\"\n\n     My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry's side. But then I\n     remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table\n     was littered. It was certain that I could not help with those. And\n     Holmes had expressly said that I should study the neighbours upon the\n     moor. I accepted Stapleton's invitation, and we turned together down\n     the path.\n\n     \"It is a wonderful place, the moor,\" said he, looking round over the\n     undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite\n     foaming up into fantastic surges. \"You never tire of the moor. You\n     cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast,\n     and so barren, and so mysterious.\"\n\n     \"You know it well, then?\"\n\n     \"I have only been here two years. The residents would call me a\n     newcomer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled. But my tastes\n     led me to explore every part of the country round, and I should think\n     that there are few men who know it better than I do.\"\n\n     \"Is it hard to know?\"\n\n     \"Very hard. You see, for example, this great plain to the north here\n     with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do you observe anything\n     remarkable about that?\"\n\n     \"It would be a rare place for a gallop.\"\n\n     \"You would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their\n     lives before now. You notice those bright green spots scattered\n     thickly over it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.\"\n\n     Stapleton laughed.\n\n     \"That is the great Grimpen Mire,\" said he. \"A false step yonder means\n     death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies\n     wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite a long\n     time craning out of the bog-hole, but it sucked him down at last.\n     Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these\n     autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the\n     very heart of it and return alive. By George, there is another of\n     those miserable ponies!\"\n\n     Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. Then\n     a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful cry echoed\n     over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my companion's\n     nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.\n\n     \"It's gone!\" said he. \"The mire has him. Two in two days, and many\n     more, perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the dry\n     weather, and never know the difference until the mire has them in its\n     clutches. It's a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire.\"\n\n     \"And you say you can penetrate it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take. I\n     have found them out.\"\n\n     \"But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?\"\n\n     \"Well, you see the hills beyond? They are really islands cut off on\n     all sides by the impassable mire, which has crawled round them in the\n     course of years. That is where the rare plants and the butterflies\n     are, if you have the wit to reach them.\"\n\n     \"I shall try my luck some day.\"\n\n     He looked at me with a surprised face.\n\n     \"For God's sake put such an idea out of your mind,\" said he. \"Your\n     blood would be upon my head. I assure you that there would not be the\n     least chance of your coming back alive. It is only by remembering\n     certain complex landmarks that I am able to do it.\"\n\n     \"Halloa!\" I cried. \"What is that?\"\n\n     A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It filled\n     the whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. From\n     a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a\n     melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with\n     a curious expression in his face.\n\n     \"Queer place, the moor!\" said he.\n\n     \"But what is it?\"\n\n     \"The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its\n     prey. I've heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.\"\n\n     I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge\n     swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing\n     stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked\n     loudly from a tor behind us.\n\n     \"You are an educated man. You don't believe such nonsense as that?\"\n     said I. \"What do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?\"\n\n     \"Bogs make queer noises sometimes. It's the mud settling, or the\n     water rising, or something.\"\n\n     \"No, no, that was a living voice.\"\n\n     \"Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever hear a bittern booming?\"\n\n     \"No, I never did.\"\n\n     \"It's a very rare bird--practically extinct--in England now, but all\n     things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I should not be surprised to\n     learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the\n     bitterns.\"\n\n     \"It's the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it's rather an uncanny place altogether. Look at the hill-side\n     yonder. What do you make of those?\"\n\n     The whole steep slope was covered with gray circular rings of stone,\n     a score of them at least.\n\n     \"What are they? Sheep-pens?\"\n\n     \"No, they are the homes of our worthy ancestors. Prehistoric man\n     lived thickly on the moor, and as no one in particular has lived\n     there since, we find all his little arrangements exactly as he left\n     them. These are his wigwams with the roofs off. You can even see his\n     hearth and his couch if you have the curiosity to go inside.\"\n\n     \"But it is quite a town. When was it inhabited?\"\n\n     \"Neolithic man--no date.\"\n\n     \"What did he do?\"\n\n     \"He grazed his cattle on these slopes, and he learned to dig for tin\n     when the bronze sword began to supersede the stone axe. Look at the\n     great trench in the opposite hill. That is his mark. Yes, you will\n     find some very singular points about the moor, Dr. Watson. Oh, excuse\n     me an instant! It is surely Cyclopides.\"\n\n     A small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an instant\n     Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit\n     of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire,\n     and my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft\n     to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His gray clothes\n     and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge\n     moth himself. I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of\n     admiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should\n     lose his footing in the treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of\n     steps, and turning round found a woman near me upon the path. She had\n     come from the direction in which the plume of smoke indicated the\n     position of Merripit House, but the dip of the moor had hid her until\n     she was quite close.\n\n     I could not doubt that this was the Miss Stapleton of whom I had been\n     told, since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor, and I\n     remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a beauty.\n     The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most\n     uncommon type. There could not have been a greater contrast between\n     brother and sister, for Stapleton was neutral tinted, with light hair\n     and gray eyes, while she was darker than any brunette whom I have\n     seen in England--slim, elegant, and tall. She had a proud, finely cut\n     face, so regular that it might have seemed impassive were it not for\n     the sensitive mouth and the beautiful dark, eager eyes. With her\n     perfect figure and elegant dress she was, indeed, a strange\n     apparition upon a lonely moorland path. Her eyes were on her brother\n     as I turned, and then she quickened her pace towards me. I had raised\n     my hat and was about to make some explanatory remark, when her own\n     words turned all my thoughts into a new channel.\n\n     \"Go back!\" she said. \"Go straight back to London, instantly.\"\n\n     I could only stare at her in stupid surprise. Her eyes blazed at me,\n     and she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.\n\n     \"Why should I go back?\" I asked.\n\n     \"I cannot explain.\" She spoke in a low, eager voice, with a curious\n     lisp in her utterance. \"But for God's sake do what I ask you. Go back\n     and never set foot upon the moor again.\"\n\n     \"But I have only just come.\"\n\n     \"Man, man!\" she cried. \"Can you not tell when a warning is for your\n     own good? Go back to London! Start to-night! Get away from this place\n     at all costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not a word of what I have\n     said. Would you mind getting that orchid for me among the mares-tails\n     yonder? We are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course,\n     you are rather late to see the beauties of the place.\"\n\n     Stapleton had abandoned the chase and came back to us breathing hard\n     and flushed with his exertions.\n\n     \"Halloa, Beryl!\" said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of his\n     greeting was not altogether a cordial one.\n\n     \"Well, Jack, you are very hot.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare and seldom found in\n     the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed him!\" He spoke\n     unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced incessantly from the\n     girl to me.\n\n     \"You have introduced yourselves, I can see.\"\n\n     \"Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to see\n     the true beauties of the moor.\"\n\n     \"Why, who do you think this is?\"\n\n     \"I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville.\"\n\n     \"No, no,\" said I. \"Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My name is\n     Dr. Watson.\"\n\n     A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. \"We have been\n     talking at cross purposes,\" said she.\n\n     \"Why, you had not very much time for talk,\" her brother remarked with\n     the same questioning eyes.\n\n     \"I talked as if Dr. Watson were a resident instead of being merely a\n     visitor,\" said she. \"It cannot much matter to him whether it is early\n     or late for the orchids. But you will come on, will you not, and see\n     Merripit House?\"\n\n     A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the farm\n     of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into repair\n     and turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded it, but the\n     trees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and nipped, and the\n     effect of the whole place was mean and melancholy. We were admitted\n     by a strange, wizened, rusty-coated old manservant, who seemed in\n     keeping with the house. Inside, however, there were large rooms\n     furnished with an elegance in which I seemed to recognize the taste\n     of the lady. As I looked from their windows at the interminable\n     granite-flecked moor rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon I could\n     not but marvel at what could have brought this highly educated man\n     and this beautiful woman to live in such a place.\n\n     \"Queer spot to choose, is it not?\" said he as if in answer to my\n     thought. \"And yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we\n     not, Beryl?\"\n\n     \"Quite happy,\" said she, but there was no ring of conviction in her\n     words.\n\n     \"I had a school,\" said Stapleton. \"It was in the north country. The\n     work to a man of my temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but\n     the privilege of living with youth, of helping to mould those young\n     minds, and of impressing them with one's own character and ideals,\n     was very dear to me. However, the fates were against us. A serious\n     epidemic broke out in the school and three of the boys died. It never\n     recovered from the blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably\n     swallowed up. And yet, if it were not for the loss of the charming\n     companionship of the boys, I could rejoice over my own misfortune,\n     for, with my strong tastes for botany and zoology, I find an\n     unlimited field of work here, and my sister is as devoted to Nature\n     as I am. All this, Dr. Watson, has been brought upon your head by\n     your expression as you surveyed the moor out of our window.\"\n\n     \"It certainly did cross my mind that it might be a little dull--less\n     for you, perhaps, than for your sister.\"\n\n     \"No, no, I am never dull,\" said she, quickly.\n\n     \"We have books, we have our studies, and we have interesting\n     neighbours. Dr. Mortimer is a most learned man in his own line. Poor\n     Sir Charles was also an admirable companion. We knew him well, and\n     miss him more than I can tell. Do you think that I should intrude if\n     I were to call this afternoon and make the acquaintance of Sir\n     Henry?\"\n\n     \"I am sure that he would be delighted.\"\n\n     \"Then perhaps you would mention that I propose to do so. We may in\n     our humble way do something to make things more easy for him until he\n     becomes accustomed to his new surroundings. Will you come upstairs,\n     Dr. Watson, and inspect my collection of Lepidoptera? I think it is\n     the most complete one in the south-west of England. By the time that\n     you have looked through them lunch will be almost ready.\"\n\n     But I was eager to get back to my charge. The melancholy of the moor,\n     the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which had been\n     associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles, all these things\n     tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of these more or\n     less vague impressions there had come the definite and distinct\n     warning of Miss Stapleton, delivered with such intense earnestness\n     that I could not doubt that some grave and deep reason lay behind it.\n     I resisted all pressure to stay for lunch, and I set off at once upon\n     my return journey, taking the grass-grown path by which we had come.\n\n     It seems, however, that there must have been some short cut for those\n     who knew it, for before I had reached the road I was astounded to see\n     Miss Stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side of the track. Her face\n     was beautifully flushed with her exertions, and she held her hand to\n     her side.\n\n     \"I have run all the way in order to cut you off, Dr. Watson,\" said\n     she. \"I had not even time to put on my hat. I must not stop, or my\n     brother may miss me. I wanted to say to you how sorry I am about the\n     stupid mistake I made in thinking that you were Sir Henry. Please\n     forget the words I said, which have no application whatever to you.\"\n\n     \"But I can't forget them, Miss Stapleton,\" said I. \"I am Sir Henry's\n     friend, and his welfare is a very close concern of mine. Tell me why\n     it was that you were so eager that Sir Henry should return to\n     London.\"\n\n     \"A woman's whim, Dr. Watson. When you know me better you will\n     understand that I cannot always give reasons for what I say or do.\"\n\n     \"No, no. I remember the thrill in your voice. I remember the look in\n     your eyes. Please, please, be frank with me, Miss Stapleton, for ever\n     since I have been here I have been conscious of shadows all round me.\n     Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green\n     patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point\n     the track. Tell me then what it was that you meant, and I will\n     promise to convey your warning to Sir Henry.\"\n\n     An expression of irresolution passed for an instant over her face,\n     but her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.\n\n     \"You make too much of it, Dr. Watson,\" said she. \"My brother and I\n     were very much shocked by the death of Sir Charles. We knew him very\n     intimately, for his favourite walk was over the moor to our house. He\n     was deeply impressed with the curse which hung over the family, and\n     when this tragedy came I naturally felt that there must be some\n     grounds for the fears which he had expressed. I was distressed\n     therefore when another member of the family came down to live here,\n     and I felt that he should be warned of the danger which he will run.\n     That was all which I intended to convey.\n\n     \"But what is the danger?\"\n\n     \"You know the story of the hound?\"\n\n     \"I do not believe in such nonsense.\"\n\n     \"But I do. If you have any influence with Sir Henry, take him away\n     from a place which has always been fatal to his family. The world is\n     wide. Why should he wish to live at the place of danger?\"\n\n     \"Because it is the place of danger. That is Sir Henry's nature. I\n     fear that unless you can give me some more definite information than\n     this it would be impossible to get him to move.\"\n\n     \"I cannot say anything definite, for I do not know anything\n     definite.\"\n\n     \"I would ask you one more question, Miss Stapleton. If you meant no\n     more than this when you first spoke to me, why should you not wish\n     your brother to overhear what you said? There is nothing to which he,\n     or anyone else, could object.\"\n\n     \"My brother is very anxious to have the Hall inhabited, for he thinks\n     it is for the good of the poor folk upon the moor. He would be very\n     angry if he knew that I have said anything which might induce Sir\n     Henry to go away. But I have done my duty now and I will say no more.\n     I must get back, or he will miss me and suspect that I have seen you.\n     Good-bye!\" She turned and had disappeared in a few minutes among the\n     scattered boulders, while I, with my soul full of vague fears,\n     pursued my way to Baskerville Hall.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VIII\n          First Report of Dr. Watson\n\n\n     From this point onward I will follow the course of events by\n     transcribing my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes which lie before\n     me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly\n     as written and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more\n     accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events,\n     can possibly do.\n\n     Baskerville Hall, October 13th.\n\n     My dear Holmes:\n     My previous letters and telegrams have kept you pretty well up to\n     date as to all that has occurred in this most God-forsaken corner of\n     the world. The longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the\n     moor sink into one's soul, its vastness, and also its grim charm.\n     When you are once out upon its bosom you have left all traces of\n     modern England behind you, but on the other hand you are conscious\n     everywhere of the homes and the work of the prehistoric people. On\n     all sides of you as you walk are the houses of these forgotten folk,\n     with their graves and the huge monoliths which are supposed to have\n     marked their temples. As you look at their gray stone huts against\n     the scarred hill-sides you leave your own age behind you, and if you\n     were to see a skin-clad, hairy man crawl out from the low door\n     fitting a flint-tipped arrow on to the string of his bow, you would\n     feel that his presence there was more natural than your own. The\n     strange thing is that they should have lived so thickly on what must\n     always have been most unfruitful soil. I am no antiquarian, but I\n     could imagine that they were some unwarlike and harried race who were\n     forced to accept that which none other would occupy.\n\n     All this, however, is foreign to the mission on which you sent me and\n     will probably be very uninteresting to your severely practical mind.\n     I can still remember your complete indifference as to whether the sun\n     moved round the earth or the earth round the sun. Let me, therefore,\n     return to the facts concerning Sir Henry Baskerville.\n\n     If you have not had any report within the last few days it is because\n     up to to-day there was nothing of importance to relate. Then a very\n     surprising circumstance occurred, which I shall tell you in due\n     course. But, first of all, I must keep you in touch with some of the\n     other factors in the situation.\n\n     One of these, concerning which I have said little, is the escaped\n     convict upon the moor. There is strong reason now to believe that he\n     has got right away, which is a considerable relief to the lonely\n     householders of this district. A fortnight has passed since his\n     flight, during which he has not been seen and nothing has been heard\n     of him. It is surely inconceivable that he could have held out upon\n     the moor during all that time. Of course, so far as his concealment\n     goes there is no difficulty at all. Any one of these stone huts would\n     give him a hiding-place. But there is nothing to eat unless he were\n     to catch and slaughter one of the moor sheep. We think, therefore,\n     that he has gone, and the outlying farmers sleep the better in\n     consequence.\n\n     We are four able-bodied men in this household, so that we could take\n     good care of ourselves, but I confess that I have had uneasy moments\n     when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles from any help.\n     There are one maid, an old manservant, the sister, and the brother,\n     the latter not a very strong man. They would be helpless in the hands\n     of a desperate fellow like this Notting Hill criminal, if he could\n     once effect an entrance. Both Sir Henry and I were concerned at their\n     situation, and it was suggested that Perkins the groom should go over\n     to sleep there, but Stapleton would not hear of it.\n\n     The fact is that our friend, the baronet, begins to display a\n     considerable interest in our fair neighbour. It is not to be wondered\n     at, for time hangs heavily in this lonely spot to an active man like\n     him, and she is a very fascinating and beautiful woman. There is\n     something tropical and exotic about her which forms a singular\n     contrast to her cool and unemotional brother. Yet he also gives the\n     idea of hidden fires. He has certainly a very marked influence over\n     her, for I have seen her continually glance at him as she talked as\n     if seeking approbation for what she said. I trust that he is kind to\n     her. There is a dry glitter in his eyes, and a firm set of his thin\n     lips, which goes with a positive and possibly a harsh nature. You\n     would find him an interesting study.\n\n     He came over to call upon Baskerville on that first day, and the very\n     next morning he took us both to show us the spot where the legend of\n     the wicked Hugo is supposed to have had its origin. It was an\n     excursion of some miles across the moor to a place which is so dismal\n     that it might have suggested the story. We found a short valley\n     between rugged tors which led to an open, grassy space flecked over\n     with the white cotton grass. In the middle of it rose two great\n     stones, worn and sharpened at the upper end, until they looked like\n     the huge corroding fangs of some monstrous beast. In every way it\n     corresponded with the scene of the old tragedy. Sir Henry was much\n     interested and asked Stapleton more than once whether he did really\n     believe in the possibility of the interference of the supernatural in\n     the affairs of men. He spoke lightly, but it was evident that he was\n     very much in earnest. Stapleton was guarded in his replies, but it\n     was easy to see that he said less than he might, and that he would\n     not express his whole opinion out of consideration for the feelings\n     of the baronet. He told us of similar cases, where families had\n     suffered from some evil influence, and he left us with the impression\n     that he shared the popular view upon the matter.\n\n     On our way back we stayed for lunch at Merripit House, and it was\n     there that Sir Henry made the acquaintance of Miss Stapleton. From\n     the first moment that he saw her he appeared to be strongly attracted\n     by her, and I am much mistaken if the feeling was not mutual. He\n     referred to her again and again on our walk home, and since then\n     hardly a day has passed that we have not seen something of the\n     brother and sister. They dine here to-night, and there is some talk\n     of our going to them next week. One would imagine that such a match\n     would be very welcome to Stapleton, and yet I have more than once\n     caught a look of the strongest disapprobation in his face when Sir\n     Henry has been paying some attention to his sister. He is much\n     attached to her, no doubt, and would lead a lonely life without her,\n     but it would seem the height of selfishness if he were to stand in\n     the way of her making so brilliant a marriage. Yet I am certain that\n     he does not wish their intimacy to ripen into love, and I have\n     several times observed that he has taken pains to prevent them from\n     being tête-à-tête. By the way, your instructions to me never to allow\n     Sir Henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a\n     love affair were to be added to our other difficulties. My popularity\n     would soon suffer if I were to carry out your orders to the letter.\n\n     The other day--Thursday, to be more exact--Dr. Mortimer lunched with\n     us. He has been excavating a barrow at Long Down, and has got a\n     prehistoric skull which fills him with great joy. Never was there\n     such a single-minded enthusiast as he! The Stapletons came in\n     afterwards, and the good doctor took us all to the Yew Alley, at Sir\n     Henry's request, to show us exactly how everything occurred upon that\n     fatal night. It is a long, dismal walk, the Yew Alley, between two\n     high walls of clipped hedge, with a narrow band of grass upon either\n     side. At the far end is an old tumble-down summer-house. Half-way\n     down is the moor-gate, where the old gentleman left his cigar-ash. It\n     is a white wooden gate with a latch. Beyond it lies the wide moor. I\n     remembered your theory of the affair and tried to picture all that\n     had occurred. As the old man stood there he saw something coming\n     across the moor, something which terrified him so that he lost his\n     wits, and ran and ran until he died of sheer horror and exhaustion.\n     There was the long, gloomy tunnel down which he fled. And from what?\n     A sheep-dog of the moor? Or a spectral hound, black, silent, and\n     monstrous? Was there a human agency in the matter? Did the pale,\n     watchful Barrymore know more than he cared to say? It was all dim and\n     vague, but always there is the dark shadow of crime behind it.\n\n     One other neighbour I have met since I wrote last. This is Mr.\n     Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who lives some four miles to the south of\n     us. He is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and choleric. His\n     passion is for the British law, and he has spent a large fortune in\n     litigation. He fights for the mere pleasure of fighting and is\n     equally ready to take up either side of a question, so that it is no\n     wonder that he has found it a costly amusement. Sometimes he will\n     shut up a right of way and defy the parish to make him open it. At\n     others he will with his own hands tear down some other man's gate and\n     declare that a path has existed there from time immemorial, defying\n     the owner to prosecute him for trespass. He is learned in old\n     manorial and communal rights, and he applies his knowledge sometimes\n     in favour of the villagers of Fernworthy and sometimes against them,\n     so that he is periodically either carried in triumph down the village\n     street or else burned in effigy, according to his latest exploit. He\n     is said to have about seven lawsuits upon his hands at present, which\n     will probably swallow up the remainder of his fortune and so draw his\n     sting and leave him harmless for the future. Apart from the law he\n     seems a kindly, good-natured person, and I only mention him because\n     you were particular that I should send some description of the people\n     who surround us. He is curiously employed at present, for, being an\n     amateur astronomer, he has an excellent telescope, with which he lies\n     upon the roof of his own house and sweeps the moor all day in the\n     hope of catching a glimpse of the escaped convict. If he would\n     confine his energies to this all would be well, but there are rumours\n     that he intends to prosecute Dr. Mortimer for opening a grave without\n     the consent of the next-of-kin, because he dug up the Neolithic skull\n     in the barrow on Long Down. He helps to keep our lives from being\n     monotonous and gives a little comic relief where it is badly needed.\n\n     And now, having brought you up to date in the escaped convict, the\n     Stapletons, Dr. Mortimer, and Frankland, of Lafter Hall, let me end\n     on that which is most important and tell you more about the\n     Barrymores, and especially about the surprising development of last\n     night.\n\n     First of all about the test telegram, which you sent from London in\n     order to make sure that Barrymore was really here. I have already\n     explained that the testimony of the postmaster shows that the test\n     was worthless and that we have no proof one way or the other. I told\n     Sir Henry how the matter stood, and he at once, in his downright\n     fashion, had Barrymore up and asked him whether he had received the\n     telegram himself. Barrymore said that he had.\n\n     \"Did the boy deliver it into your own hands?\" asked Sir Henry.\n\n     Barrymore looked surprised, and considered for a little time.\n\n     \"No,\" said he, \"I was in the box-room at the time, and my wife\n     brought it up to me.\"\n\n     \"Did you answer it yourself?\"\n\n     \"No; I told my wife what to answer and she went down to write it.\"\n\n     In the evening he recurred to the subject of his own accord.\n\n     \"I could not quite understand the object of your questions this\n     morning, Sir Henry,\" said he. \"I trust that they do not mean that I\n     have done anything to forfeit your confidence?\"\n\n     Sir Henry had to assure him that it was not so and pacify him by\n     giving him a considerable part of his old wardrobe, the London outfit\n     having now all arrived.\n\n     Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She is a heavy, solid person,\n     very limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be puritanical.\n     You could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. Yet I have told\n     you how, on the first night here, I heard her sobbing bitterly, and\n     since then I have more than once observed traces of tears upon her\n     face. Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. Sometimes I wonder if\n     she has a guilty memory which haunts her, and sometimes I suspect\n     Barrymore of being a domestic tyrant. I have always felt that there\n     was something singular and questionable in this man's character, but\n     the adventure of last night brings all my suspicions to a head.\n\n     And yet it may seem a small matter in itself. You are aware that I am\n     not a very sound sleeper, and since I have been on guard in this\n     house my slumbers have been lighter than ever. Last night, about two\n     in the morning, I was aroused by a stealthy step passing my room. I\n     rose, opened my door, and peeped out. A long black shadow was\n     trailing down the corridor. It was thrown by a man who walked softly\n     down the passage with a candle held in his hand. He was in shirt and\n     trousers, with no covering to his feet. I could merely see the\n     outline, but his height told me that it was Barrymore. He walked very\n     slowly and circumspectly, and there was something indescribably\n     guilty and furtive in his whole appearance.\n\n     I have told you that the corridor is broken by the balcony which runs\n     round the hall, but that it is resumed upon the farther side. I\n     waited until he had passed out of sight and then I followed him. When\n     I came round the balcony he had reached the end of the farther\n     corridor, and I could see from the glimmer of light through an open\n     door that he had entered one of the rooms. Now, all these rooms are\n     unfurnished and unoccupied, so that his expedition became more\n     mysterious than ever. The light shone steadily as if he were standing\n     motionless. I crept down the passage as noiselessly as I could and\n     peeped round the corner of the door.\n\n     Barrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held against\n     the glass. His profile was half turned towards me, and his face\n     seemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out into the\n     blackness of the moor. For some minutes he stood watching intently.\n     Then he gave a deep groan and with an impatient gesture he put out\n     the light. Instantly I made my way back to my room, and very shortly\n     came the stealthy steps passing once more upon their return journey.\n     Long afterwards when I had fallen into a light sleep I heard a key\n     turn somewhere in a lock, but I could not tell whence the sound came.\n     What it all means I cannot guess, but there is some secret business\n     going on in this house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to\n     the bottom of. I do not trouble you with my theories, for you asked\n     me to furnish you only with facts. I have had a long talk with Sir\n     Henry this morning, and we have made a plan of campaign founded upon\n     my observations of last night. I will not speak about it just now,\n     but it should make my next report interesting reading.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IX\n          Second Report of Dr. Watson\n\n\n                             THE LIGHT UPON THE MOOR\n\n     Baskerville Hall, Oct. 15th.\n\n     My dear Holmes:\n     If I was compelled to leave you without much news during the early\n     days of my mission you must acknowledge that I am making up for lost\n     time, and that events are now crowding thick and fast upon us. In my\n     last report I ended upon my top note with Barrymore at the window,\n     and now I have quite a budget already which will, unless I am much\n     mistaken, considerably surprise you. Things have taken a turn which I\n     could not have anticipated. In some ways they have within the last\n     forty-eight hours become much clearer and in some ways they have\n     become more complicated. But I will tell you all and you shall judge\n     for yourself.\n\n     Before breakfast on the morning following my adventure I went down\n     the corridor and examined the room in which Barrymore had been on the\n     night before. The western window through which he had stared so\n     intently has, I noticed, one peculiarity above all other windows in\n     the house--it commands the nearest outlook on the moor. There is an\n     opening between two trees which enables one from this point of view\n     to look right down upon it, while from all the other windows it is\n     only a distant glimpse which can be obtained. It follows, therefore,\n     that Barrymore, since only this window would serve the purpose, must\n     have been looking out for something or somebody upon the moor. The\n     night was very dark, so that I can hardly imagine how he could have\n     hoped to see anyone. It had struck me that it was possible that some\n     love intrigue was on foot. That would have accounted for his stealthy\n     movements and also for the uneasiness of his wife. The man is a\n     striking-looking fellow, very well equipped to steal the heart of a\n     country girl, so that this theory seemed to have something to support\n     it. That opening of the door which I had heard after I had returned\n     to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep some clandestine\n     appointment. So I reasoned with myself in the morning, and I tell you\n     the direction of my suspicions, however much the result may have\n     shown that they were unfounded.\n\n     But whatever the true explanation of Barrymore's movements might be,\n     I felt that the responsibility of keeping them to myself until I\n     could explain them was more than I could bear. I had an interview\n     with the baronet in his study after breakfast, and I told him all\n     that I had seen. He was less surprised than I had expected.\n\n     \"I knew that Barrymore walked about nights, and I had a mind to speak\n     to him about it,\" said he. \"Two or three times I have heard his steps\n     in the passage, coming and going, just about the hour you name.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps then he pays a visit every night to that particular window,\"\n     I suggested.\n\n     \"Perhaps he does. If so, we should be able to shadow him, and see\n     what it is that he is after. I wonder what your friend Holmes would\n     do, if he were here.\"\n\n     \"I believe that he would do exactly what you now suggest,\" said I.\n     \"He would follow Barrymore and see what he did.\"\n\n     \"Then we shall do it together.\"\n\n     \"But surely he would hear us.\"\n\n     \"The man is rather deaf, and in any case we must take our chance of\n     that. We'll sit up in my room to-night and wait until he passes.\" Sir\n     Henry rubbed his hands with pleasure, and it was evident that he\n     hailed the adventure as a relief to his somewhat quiet life upon the\n     moor.\n\n     The baronet has been in communication with the architect who prepared\n     the plans for Sir Charles, and with a contractor from London, so that\n     we may expect great changes to begin here soon. There have been\n     decorators and furnishers up from Plymouth, and it is evident that\n     our friend has large ideas, and means to spare no pains or expense to\n     restore the grandeur of his family. When the house is renovated and\n     refurnished, all that he will need will be a wife to make it\n     complete. Between ourselves there are pretty clear signs that this\n     will not be wanting if the lady is willing, for I have seldom seen a\n     man more infatuated with a woman than he is with our beautiful\n     neighbour, Miss Stapleton. And yet the course of true love does not\n     run quite as smoothly as one would under the circumstances expect.\n     To-day, for example, its surface was broken by a very unexpected\n     ripple, which has caused our friend considerable perplexity and\n     annoyance.\n\n     After the conversation which I have quoted about Barrymore, Sir Henry\n     put on his hat and prepared to go out. As a matter of course I did\n     the same.\n\n     \"What, are you coming, Watson?\" he asked, looking at me in a curious\n     way.\n\n     \"That depends on whether you are going on the moor,\" said I.\n\n     \"Yes, I am.\"\n\n     \"Well, you know what my instructions are. I am sorry to intrude, but\n     you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I should not leave you,\n     and especially that you should not go alone upon the moor.\"\n\n     Sir Henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile.\n\n     \"My dear fellow,\" said he, \"Holmes, with all his wisdom, did not\n     foresee some things which have happened since I have been on the\n     moor. You understand me? I am sure that you are the last man in the\n     world who would wish to be a spoil-sport. I must go out alone.\"\n\n     It put me in a most awkward position. I was at a loss what to say or\n     what to do, and before I had made up my mind he picked up his cane\n     and was gone.\n\n     But when I came to think the matter over my conscience reproached me\n     bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my sight.\n     I imagined what my feelings would be if I had to return to you and to\n     confess that some misfortune had occurred through my disregard for\n     your instructions. I assure you my cheeks flushed at the very\n     thought. It might not even now be too late to overtake him, so I set\n     off at once in the direction of Merripit House.\n\n     I hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing\n     anything of Sir Henry, until I came to the point where the moor path\n     branches off. There, fearing that perhaps I had come in the wrong\n     direction after all, I mounted a hill from which I could command a\n     view--the same hill which is cut into the dark quarry. Thence I saw\n     him at once. He was on the moor path, about a quarter of a mile off,\n     and a lady was by his side who could only be Miss Stapleton. It was\n     clear that there was already an understanding between them and that\n     they had met by appointment. They were walking slowly along in deep\n     conversation, and I saw her making quick little movements of her\n     hands as if she were very earnest in what she was saying, while he\n     listened intently, and once or twice shook his head in strong\n     dissent. I stood among the rocks watching them, very much puzzled as\n     to what I should do next. To follow them and break into their\n     intimate conversation seemed to be an outrage, and yet my clear duty\n     was never for an instant to let him out of my sight. To act the spy\n     upon a friend was a hateful task. Still, I could see no better course\n     than to observe him from the hill, and to clear my conscience by\n     confessing to him afterwards what I had done. It is true that if any\n     sudden danger had threatened him I was too far away to be of use, and\n     yet I am sure that you will agree with me that the position was very\n     difficult, and that there was nothing more which I could do.\n\n     Our friend, Sir Henry, and the lady had halted on the path and were\n     standing deeply absorbed in their conversation, when I was suddenly\n     aware that I was not the only witness of their interview. A wisp of\n     green floating in the air caught my eye, and another glance showed me\n     that it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the\n     broken ground. It was Stapleton with his butterfly-net. He was very\n     much closer to the pair than I was, and he appeared to be moving in\n     their direction. At this instant Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss\n     Stapleton to his side. His arm was round her, but it seemed to me\n     that she was straining away from him with her face averted. He\n     stooped his head to hers, and she raised one hand as if in protest.\n     Next moment I saw them spring apart and turn hurriedly round.\n     Stapleton was the cause of the interruption. He was running wildly\n     towards them, his absurd net dangling behind him. He gesticulated and\n     almost danced with excitement in front of the lovers. What the scene\n     meant I could not imagine, but it seemed to me that Stapleton was\n     abusing Sir Henry, who offered explanations, which became more angry\n     as the other refused to accept them. The lady stood by in haughty\n     silence. Finally Stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in a\n     peremptory way to his sister, who, after an irresolute glance at Sir\n     Henry, walked off by the side of her brother. The naturalist's angry\n     gestures showed that the lady was included in his displeasure. The\n     baronet stood for a minute looking after them, and then he walked\n     slowly back the way that he had come, his head hanging, the very\n     picture of dejection.\n\n     What all this meant I could not imagine, but I was deeply ashamed to\n     have witnessed so intimate a scene without my friend's knowledge. I\n     ran down the hill therefore and met the baronet at the bottom. His\n     face was flushed with anger and his brows were wrinkled, like one who\n     is at his wit's ends what to do.\n\n     \"Halloa, Watson! Where have you dropped from?\" said he. \"You don't\n     mean to say that you came after me in spite of all?\"\n\n     I explained everything to him: how I had found it impossible to\n     remain behind, how I had followed him, and how I had witnessed all\n     that had occurred. For an instant his eyes blazed at me, but my\n     frankness disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a rather\n     rueful laugh.\n\n     \"You would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe\n     place for a man to be private,\" said he, \"but, by thunder, the whole\n     country-side seems to have been out to see me do my wooing--and a\n     mighty poor wooing at that! Where had you engaged a seat?\"\n\n     \"I was on that hill.\"\n\n     \"Quite in the back row, eh? But her brother was well up to the front.\n     Did you see him come out on us?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I did.\"\n\n     \"Did he ever strike you as being crazy--this brother of hers?\"\n\n     \"I can't say that he ever did.\"\n\n     \"I dare say not. I always thought him sane enough until to-day, but\n     you can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a\n     strait-jacket. What's the matter with me, anyhow? You've lived near\n     me for some weeks, Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there anything\n     that would prevent me from making a good husband to a woman that I\n     loved?\"\n\n     \"I should say not.\"\n\n     \"He can't object to my worldly position, so it must be myself that he\n     has this down on. What has he against me? I never hurt man or woman\n     in my life that I know of. And yet he would not so much as let me\n     touch the tips of her fingers.\"\n\n     \"Did he say so?\"\n\n     \"That, and a deal more. I tell you, Watson, I've only known her these\n     few weeks, but from the first I just felt that she was made for me,\n     and she, too--she was happy when she was with me, and that I'll\n     swear. There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than\n     words. But he has never let us get together, and it was only to-day\n     for the first time that I saw a chance of having a few words with her\n     alone. She was glad to meet me, but when she did it was not love that\n     she would talk about, and she wouldn't have let me talk about it\n     either if she could have stopped it. She kept coming back to it that\n     this was a place of danger, and that she would never be happy until I\n     had left it. I told her that since I had seen her I was in no hurry\n     to leave it, and that if she really wanted me to go, the only way to\n     work it was for her to arrange to go with me. With that I offered in\n     as many words to marry her, but before she could answer, down came\n     this brother of hers, running at us with a face on him like a madman.\n     He was just white with rage, and those light eyes of his were blazing\n     with fury. What was I doing with the lady? How dared I offer her\n     attentions which were distasteful to her? Did I think that because I\n     was a baronet I could do what I liked? If he had not been her brother\n     I should have known better how to answer him. As it was I told him\n     that my feelings towards his sister were such as I was not ashamed\n     of, and that I hoped that she might honour me by becoming my wife.\n     That seemed to make the matter no better, so then I lost my temper\n     too, and I answered him rather more hotly than I should perhaps,\n     considering that she was standing by. So it ended by his going off\n     with her, as you saw, and here am I as badly puzzled a man as any in\n     this county. Just tell me what it all means, Watson, and I'll owe you\n     more than ever I can hope to pay.\"\n\n     I tried one or two explanations, but, indeed, I was completely\n     puzzled myself. Our friend's title, his fortune, his age, his\n     character, and his appearance are all in his favour, and I know\n     nothing against him unless it be this dark fate which runs in his\n     family. That his advances should be rejected so brusquely without any\n     reference to the lady's own wishes, and that the lady should accept\n     the situation without protest, is very amazing. However, our\n     conjectures were set at rest by a visit from Stapleton himself that\n     very afternoon. He had come to offer apologies for his rudeness of\n     the morning, and after a long private interview with Sir Henry in his\n     study, the upshot of their conversation was that the breach is quite\n     healed, and that we are to dine at Merripit House next Friday as a\n     sign of it.\n\n     \"I don't say now that he isn't a crazy man,\" said Sir Henry; \"I can't\n     forget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning, but I\n     must allow that no man could make a more handsome apology than he has\n     done.\"\n\n     \"Did he give any explanation of his conduct?\"\n\n     \"His sister is everything in his life, he says. That is natural\n     enough, and I am glad that he should understand her value. They have\n     always been together, and according to his account he has been a very\n     lonely man with only her as a companion, so that the thought of\n     losing her was really terrible to him. He had not understood, he\n     said, that I was becoming attached to her, but when he saw with his\n     own eyes that it was really so, and that she might be taken away from\n     him, it gave him such a shock that for a time he was not responsible\n     for what he said or did. He was very sorry for all that had passed,\n     and he recognized how foolish and how selfish it was that he should\n     imagine that he could hold a beautiful woman like his sister to\n     himself for her whole life. If she had to leave him he had rather it\n     was to a neighbour like myself than to anyone else. But in any case\n     it was a blow to him, and it would take him some time before he could\n     prepare himself to meet it. He would withdraw all opposition upon his\n     part if I would promise for three months to let the matter rest and\n     to be content with cultivating the lady's friendship during that time\n     without claiming her love. This I promised, and so the matter rests.\"\n\n     So there is one of our small mysteries cleared up. It is something to\n     have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we are floundering.\n     We know now why Stapleton looked with disfavour upon his sister's\n     suitor--even when that suitor was so eligible a one as Sir Henry. And\n     now I pass on to another thread which I have extricated out of the\n     tangled skein, the mystery of the sobs in the night, of the\n     tear-stained face of Mrs. Barrymore, of the secret journey of the\n     butler to the western lattice window. Congratulate me, my dear\n     Holmes, and tell me that I have not disappointed you as an\n     agent--that you do not regret the confidence which you showed in me\n     when you sent me down. All these things have by one night's work been\n     thoroughly cleared.\n\n     I have said \"by one night's work,\" but, in truth, it was by two\n     nights' work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. I sat up with\n     Sir Henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock in the morning, but\n     no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the\n     stairs. It was a most melancholy vigil, and ended by each of us\n     falling asleep in our chairs. Fortunately we were not discouraged,\n     and we determined to try again. The next night we lowered the lamp,\n     and sat smoking cigarettes without making the least sound. It was\n     incredible how slowly the hours crawled by, and yet we were helped\n     through it by the same sort of patient interest which the hunter must\n     feel as he watches the trap into which he hopes the game may wander.\n     One struck, and two, and we had almost for the second time given it\n     up in despair, when in an instant we both sat bolt upright in our\n     chairs, with all our weary senses keenly on the alert once more. We\n     had heard the creak of a step in the passage.\n\n     Very stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the\n     distance. Then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out in\n     pursuit. Already our man had gone round the gallery, and the corridor\n     was all in darkness. Softly we stole along until we had come into the\n     other wing. We were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall,\n     black-bearded figure, his shoulders rounded, as he tip-toed down the\n     passage. Then he passed through the same door as before, and the\n     light of the candle framed it in the darkness and shot one single\n     yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor. We shuffled cautiously\n     towards it, trying every plank before we dared to put our whole\n     weight upon it. We had taken the precaution of leaving our boots\n     behind us, but, even so, the old boards snapped and creaked beneath\n     our tread. Sometimes it seemed impossible that he should fail to hear\n     our approach. However, the man is fortunately rather deaf, and he was\n     entirely preoccupied in that which he was doing. When at last we\n     reached the door and peeped through we found him crouching at the\n     window, candle in hand, his white, intent face pressed against the\n     pane, exactly as I had seen him two nights before.\n\n     We had arranged no plan of campaign, but the baronet is a man to whom\n     the most direct way is always the most natural. He walked into the\n     room, and as he did so Barrymore sprang up from the window with a\n     sharp hiss of his breath and stood, livid and trembling, before us.\n     His dark eyes, glaring out of the white mask of his face, were full\n     of horror and astonishment as he gazed from Sir Henry to me.\n\n     \"What are you doing here, Barrymore?\"\n\n     \"Nothing, sir.\" His agitation was so great that he could hardly\n     speak, and the shadows sprang up and down from the shaking of his\n     candle. \"It was the window, sir. I go round at night to see that they\n     are fastened.\"\n\n     \"On the second floor?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, all the windows.\"\n\n     \"Look here, Barrymore,\" said Sir Henry, sternly; \"we have made up our\n     minds to have the truth out of you, so it will save you trouble to\n     tell it sooner rather than later. Come, now! No lies! What were you\n     doing at that window?\"\n\n     The fellow looked at us in a helpless way, and he wrung his hands\n     together like one who is in the last extremity of doubt and misery.\n\n     \"I was doing no harm, sir. I was holding a candle to the window.\"\n\n     \"And why were you holding a candle to the window?\"\n\n     \"Don't ask me, Sir Henry--don't ask me! I give you my word, sir, that\n     it is not my secret, and that I cannot tell it. If it concerned no\n     one but myself I would not try to keep it from you.\"\n\n     A sudden idea occurred to me, and I took the candle from the\n     trembling hand of the butler.\n\n     \"He must have been holding it as a signal,\" said I. \"Let us see if\n     there is any answer.\" I held it as he had done, and stared out into\n     the darkness of the night. Vaguely I could discern the black bank of\n     the trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for the moon was\n     behind the clouds. And then I gave a cry of exultation, for a tiny\n     pin-point of yellow light had suddenly transfixed the dark veil, and\n     glowed steadily in the centre of the black square framed by the\n     window.\n\n     \"There it is!\" I cried.\n\n     \"No, no, sir, it is nothing--nothing at all!\" the butler broke in; \"I\n     assure you, sir--\"\n\n     \"Move your light across the window, Watson!\" cried the baronet. \"See,\n     the other moves also! Now, you rascal, do you deny that it is a\n     signal? Come, speak up! Who is your confederate out yonder, and what\n     is this conspiracy that is going on?\"\n\n     The man's face became openly defiant.\n\n     \"It is my business, and not yours. I will not tell.\"\n\n     \"Then you leave my employment right away.\"\n\n     \"Very good, sir. If I must I must.\"\n\n     \"And you go in disgrace. By thunder, you may well be ashamed of\n     yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years\n     under this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot against\n     me.\"\n\n     \"No, no, sir; no, not against you!\" It was a woman's voice, and Mrs.\n     Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband, was\n     standing at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might\n     have been comic were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her\n     face.\n\n     \"We have to go, Eliza. This is the end of it. You can pack our\n     things,\" said the butler.\n\n     \"Oh, John, John, have I brought you to this? It is my doing, Sir\n     Henry--all mine. He has done nothing except for my sake and because I\n     asked him.\"\n\n     \"Speak out, then! What does it mean?\"\n\n     \"My unhappy brother is starving on the moor. We cannot let him perish\n     at our very gates. The light is a signal to him that food is ready\n     for him, and his light out yonder is to show the spot to which to\n     bring it.\"\n\n     \"Then your brother is--\"\n\n     \"The escaped convict, sir--Selden, the criminal.\"\n\n     \"That's the truth, sir,\" said Barrymore. \"I said that it was not my\n     secret and that I could not tell it to you. But now you have heard\n     it, and you will see that if there was a plot it was not against\n     you.\"\n\n     This, then, was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at night\n     and the light at the window. Sir Henry and I both stared at the woman\n     in amazement. Was it possible that this stolidly respectable person\n     was of the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the\n     country?\n\n     \"Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother. We\n     humoured him too much when he was a lad, and gave him his own way in\n     everything until he came to think that the world was made for his\n     pleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it. Then as he grew\n     older he met wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until\n     he broke my mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt. From\n     crime to crime he sank lower and lower, until it is only the mercy of\n     God which has snatched him from the scaffold; but to me, sir, he was\n     always the little curly-headed boy that I had nursed and played with,\n     as an elder sister would. That was why he broke prison, sir. He knew\n     that I was here and that we could not refuse to help him. When he\n     dragged himself here one night, weary and starving, with the warders\n     hard at his heels, what could we do? We took him in and fed him and\n     cared for him. Then you returned, sir, and my brother thought he\n     would be safer on the moor than anywhere else until the hue and cry\n     was over, so he lay in hiding there. But every second night we made\n     sure if he was still there by putting a light in the window, and if\n     there was an answer my husband took out some bread and meat to him.\n     Every day we hoped that he was gone, but as long as he was there we\n     could not desert him. That is the whole truth, as I am an honest\n     Christian woman, and you will see that if there is blame in the\n     matter it does not lie with my husband, but with me, for whose sake\n     he has done all that he has.\"\n\n     The woman's words came with an intense earnestness which carried\n     conviction with them.\n\n     \"Is this true, Barrymore?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Sir Henry. Every word of it.\"\n\n     \"Well, I cannot blame you for standing by your own wife. Forget what\n     I have said. Go to your room, you two, and we shall talk further\n     about this matter in the morning.\"\n\n     When they were gone we looked out of the window again. Sir Henry had\n     flung it open, and the cold night wind beat in upon our faces. Far\n     away in the black distance there still glowed that one tiny point of\n     yellow light.\n\n     \"I wonder he dares,\" said Sir Henry.\n\n     \"It may be so placed as to be only visible from here.\"\n\n     \"Very likely. How far do you think it is?\"\n\n     \"Out by the Cleft Tor, I think.\"\n\n     \"Not more than a mile or two off.\"\n\n     \"Hardly that.\"\n\n     \"Well, it cannot be far if Barrymore had to carry out the food to it.\n     And he is waiting, this villain, beside that candle. By thunder,\n     Watson, I am going out to take that man!\"\n\n     The same thought had crossed my own mind. It was not as if the\n     Barrymores had taken us into their confidence. Their secret had been\n     forced from them. The man was a danger to the community, an\n     unmitigated scoundrel for whom there was neither pity nor excuse. We\n     were only doing our duty in taking this chance of putting him back\n     where he could do no harm. With his brutal and violent nature, others\n     would have to pay the price if we held our hands. Any night, for\n     example, our neighbours the Stapletons might be attacked by him, and\n     it may have been the thought of this which made Sir Henry so keen\n     upon the adventure.\n\n     \"I will come,\" said I.\n\n     \"Then get your revolver and put on your boots. The sooner we start\n     the better, as the fellow may put out his light and be off.\"\n\n     In five minutes we were outside the door, starting upon our\n     expedition. We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull\n     moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The\n     night air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again\n     the moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the\n     face of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain\n     began to fall. The light still burned steadily in front.\n\n     \"Are you armed?\" I asked.\n\n     \"I have a hunting-crop.\"\n\n     \"We must close in on him rapidly, for he is said to be a desperate\n     fellow. We shall take him by surprise and have him at our mercy\n     before he can resist.\"\n\n     \"I say, Watson,\" said the baronet, \"what would Holmes say to this?\n     How about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is\n     exalted?\"\n\n     As if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast\n     gloom of the moor that strange cry which I had already heard upon the\n     borders of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind through the\n     silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and\n     then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded,\n     the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing. The\n     baronet caught my sleeve and his face glimmered white through the\n     darkness.\n\n     \"My God, what's that, Watson?\"\n\n     \"I don't know. It's a sound they have on the moor. I heard it once\n     before.\"\n\n     It died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. We stood\n     straining our ears, but nothing came.\n\n     \"Watson,\" said the baronet, \"it was the cry of a hound.\"\n\n     My blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice\n     which told of the sudden horror which had seized him.\n\n     \"What do they call this sound?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Who?\"\n\n     \"The folk on the country-side.\"\n\n     \"Oh, they are ignorant people. Why should you mind what they call\n     it?\"\n\n     \"Tell me, Watson. What do they say of it?\"\n\n     I hesitated but could not escape the question.\n\n     \"They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles.\"\n\n     He groaned and was silent for a few moments.\n\n     \"A hound it was,\" he said, at last, \"but it seemed to come from miles\n     away, over yonder, I think.\"\n\n     \"It was hard to say whence it came.\"\n\n     \"It rose and fell with the wind. Isn't that the direction of the\n     great Grimpen Mire?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is.\"\n\n     \"Well, it was up there. Come now, Watson, didn't you think yourself\n     that it was the cry of a hound? I am not a child. You need not fear\n     to speak the truth.\"\n\n     \"Stapleton was with me when I heard it last. He said that it might be\n     the calling of a strange bird.\"\n\n     \"No, no, it was a hound. My God, can there be some truth in all these\n     stories? Is it possible that I am really in danger from so dark a\n     cause? You don't believe it, do you, Watson?\"\n\n     \"No, no.\"\n\n     \"And yet it was one thing to laugh about it in London, and it is\n     another to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear\n     such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the\n     hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don't think that\n     I am a coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood.\n     Feel my hand!\"\n\n     It was as cold as a block of marble.\n\n     \"You'll be all right to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"I don't think I'll get that cry out of my head. What do you advise\n     that we do now?\"\n\n     \"Shall we turn back?\"\n\n     \"No, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do it.\n     We after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as not, after us.\n     Come on! We'll see it through if all the fiends of the pit were loose\n     upon the moor.\"\n\n     We stumbled slowly along in the darkness, with the black loom of the\n     craggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of light burning\n     steadily in front. There is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a\n     light upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be\n     far away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a\n     few yards of us. But at last we could see whence it came, and then we\n     knew that we were indeed very close. A guttering candle was stuck in\n     a crevice of the rocks which flanked it on each side so as to keep\n     the wind from it and also to prevent it from being visible, save in\n     the direction of Baskerville Hall. A boulder of granite concealed our\n     approach, and crouching behind it we gazed over it at the signal\n     light. It was strange to see this single candle burning there in the\n     middle of the moor, with no sign of life near it--just the one\n     straight yellow flame and the gleam of the rock on each side of it.\n\n     \"What shall we do now?\" whispered Sir Henry.\n\n     \"Wait here. He must be near his light. Let us see if we can get a\n     glimpse of him.\"\n\n     The words were hardly out of my mouth when we both saw him. Over the\n     rocks, in the crevice of which the candle burned, there was thrust\n     out an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed and\n     scored with vile passions. Foul with mire, with a bristling beard,\n     and hung with matted hair, it might well have belonged to one of\n     those old savages who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides. The\n     light beneath him was reflected in his small, cunning eyes which\n     peered fiercely to right and left through the darkness, like a crafty\n     and savage animal who has heard the steps of the hunters.\n\n     Something had evidently aroused his suspicions. It may have been that\n     Barrymore had some private signal which we had neglected to give, or\n     the fellow may have had some other reason for thinking that all was\n     not well, but I could read his fears upon his wicked face. Any\n     instant he might dash out the light and vanish in the darkness. I\n     sprang forward therefore, and Sir Henry did the same. At the same\n     moment the convict screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which\n     splintered up against the boulder which had sheltered us. I caught\n     one glimpse of his short, squat, strongly-built figure as he sprang\n     to his feet and turned to run. At the same moment by a lucky chance\n     the moon broke through the clouds. We rushed over the brow of the\n     hill, and there was our man running with great speed down the other\n     side, springing over the stones in his way with the activity of a\n     mountain goat. A lucky long shot of my revolver might have crippled\n     him, but I had brought it only to defend myself if attacked, and not\n     to shoot an unarmed man who was running away.\n\n     We were both swift runners and in fairly good training, but we soon\n     found that we had no chance of overtaking him. We saw him for a long\n     time in the moonlight until he was only a small speck moving swiftly\n     among the boulders upon the side of a distant hill. We ran and ran\n     until we were completely blown, but the space between us grew ever\n     wider. Finally we stopped and sat panting on two rocks, while we\n     watched him disappearing in the distance.\n\n     And it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and\n     unexpected thing. We had risen from our rocks and were turning to go\n     home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low upon the\n     right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the\n     lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as black as an ebony\n     statue on that shining back-ground, I saw the figure of a man upon\n     the tor. Do not think that it was a delusion, Holmes. I assure you\n     that I have never in my life seen anything more clearly. As far as I\n     could judge, the figure was that of a tall, thin man. He stood with\n     his legs a little separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if\n     he were brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite\n     which lay before him. He might have been the very spirit of that\n     terrible place. It was not the convict. This man was far from the\n     place where the latter had disappeared. Besides, he was a much taller\n     man. With a cry of surprise I pointed him out to the baronet, but in\n     the instant during which I had turned to grasp his arm the man was\n     gone. There was the sharp pinnacle of granite still cutting the lower\n     edge of the moon, but its peak bore no trace of that silent and\n     motionless figure.\n\n     I wished to go in that direction and to search the tor, but it was\n     some distance away. The baronet's nerves were still quivering from\n     that cry, which recalled the dark story of his family, and he was not\n     in the mood for fresh adventures. He had not seen this lonely man\n     upon the tor and could not feel the thrill which his strange presence\n     and his commanding attitude had given to me. \"A warder, no doubt,\"\n     said he. \"The moor has been thick with them since this fellow\n     escaped.\" Well, perhaps his explanation may be the right one, but I\n     should like to have some further proof of it. To-day we mean to\n     communicate to the Princetown people where they should look for their\n     missing man, but it is hard lines that we have not actually had the\n     triumph of bringing him back as our own prisoner. Such are the\n     adventures of last night, and you must acknowledge, my dear Holmes,\n     that I have done you very well in the matter of a report. Much of\n     what I tell you is no doubt quite irrelevant, but still I feel that\n     it is best that I should let you have all the facts and leave you to\n     select for yourself those which will be of most service to you in\n     helping you to your conclusions. We are certainly making some\n     progress. So far as the Barrymores go we have found the motive of\n     their actions, and that has cleared up the situation very much. But\n     the moor with its mysteries and its strange inhabitants remains as\n     inscrutable as ever. Perhaps in my next I may be able to throw some\n     light upon this also. Best of all would it be if you could come down\n     to us. In any case you will hear from me again in the course of the\n     next few days.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER X\n          Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson\n\n\n     So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have\n     forwarded during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I\n     have arrived at a point in my narrative where I am compelled to\n     abandon this method and to trust once more to my recollections, aided\n     by the diary which I kept at the time. A few extracts from the latter\n     will carry me on to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every\n     detail upon my memory. I proceed, then, from the morning which\n     followed our abortive chase of the convict and our other strange\n     experiences upon the moor.\n\n     October 16th.--A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. The house\n     is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the\n     dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of\n     the hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes\n     upon their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. The baronet is\n     in a black reaction after the excitements of the night. I am\n     conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending\n     danger--ever present danger, which is the more terrible because I am\n     unable to define it.\n\n     And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long sequence\n     of incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which\n     is at work around us. There is the death of the last occupant of the\n     Hall, fulfilling so exactly the conditions of the family legend, and\n     there are the repeated reports from peasants of the appearance of a\n     strange creature upon the moor. Twice I have with my own ears heard\n     the sound which resembled the distant baying of a hound. It is\n     incredible, impossible, that it should really be outside the ordinary\n     laws of nature. A spectral hound which leaves material footmarks and\n     fills the air with its howling is surely not to be thought of.\n     Stapleton may fall in with such a superstition, and Mortimer also;\n     but if I have one quality upon earth it is common-sense, and nothing\n     will persuade me to believe in such a thing. To do so would be to\n     descend to the level of these poor peasants, who are not content with\n     a mere fiend dog but must needs describe him with hell-fire shooting\n     from his mouth and eyes. Holmes would not listen to such fancies, and\n     I am his agent. But facts are facts, and I have twice heard this\n     crying upon the moor. Suppose that there were really some huge hound\n     loose upon it; that would go far to explain everything. But where\n     could such a hound lie concealed, where did it get its food, where\n     did it come from, how was it that no one saw it by day? It must be\n     confessed that the natural explanation offers almost as many\n     difficulties as the other. And always, apart from the hound, there is\n     the fact of the human agency in London, the man in the cab, and the\n     letter which warned Sir Henry against the moor. This at least was\n     real, but it might have been the work of a protecting friend as\n     easily as of an enemy. Where is that friend or enemy now? Has he\n     remained in London, or has he followed us down here? Could he--could\n     he be the stranger whom I saw upon the tor?\n\n     It is true that I have had only the one glance at him, and yet there\n     are some things to which I am ready to swear. He is no one whom I\n     have seen down here, and I have now met all the neighbours. The\n     figure was far taller than that of Stapleton, far thinner than that\n     of Frankland. Barrymore it might possibly have been, but we had left\n     him behind us, and I am certain that he could not have followed us. A\n     stranger then is still dogging us, just as a stranger dogged us in\n     London. We have never shaken him off. If I could lay my hands upon\n     that man, then at last we might find ourselves at the end of all our\n     difficulties. To this one purpose I must now devote all my energies.\n\n     My first impulse was to tell Sir Henry all my plans. My second and\n     wisest one is to play my own game and speak as little as possible to\n     anyone. He is silent and distrait. His nerves have been strangely\n     shaken by that sound upon the moor. I will say nothing to add to his\n     anxieties, but I will take my own steps to attain my own end.\n\n     We had a small scene this morning after breakfast. Barrymore asked\n     leave to speak with Sir Henry, and they were closeted in his study\n     some little time. Sitting in the billiard-room I more than once heard\n     the sound of voices raised, and I had a pretty good idea what the\n     point was which was under discussion. After a time the baronet opened\n     his door and called for me.\n\n     \"Barrymore considers that he has a grievance,\" he said. \"He thinks\n     that it was unfair on our part to hunt his brother-in-law down when\n     he, of his own free will, had told us the secret.\"\n\n     The butler was standing very pale but very collected before us.\n\n     \"I may have spoken too warmly, sir,\" said he, \"and if I have, I am\n     sure that I beg your pardon. At the same time, I was very much\n     surprised when I heard you two gentlemen come back this morning and\n     learned that you had been chasing Selden. The poor fellow has enough\n     to fight against without my putting more upon his track.\"\n\n     \"If you had told us of your own free will it would have been a\n     different thing,\" said the baronet, \"you only told us, or rather your\n     wife only told us, when it was forced from you and you could not help\n     yourself.\"\n\n     \"I didn't think you would have taken advantage of it, Sir\n     Henry--indeed I didn't.\"\n\n     \"The man is a public danger. There are lonely houses scattered over\n     the moor, and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing. You only\n     want to get a glimpse of his face to see that. Look at Mr.\n     Stapleton's house, for example, with no one but himself to defend it.\n     There's no safety for anyone until he is under lock and key.\"\n\n     \"He'll break into no house, sir. I give you my solemn word upon that.\n     But he will never trouble anyone in this country again. I assure you,\n     Sir Henry, that in a very few days the necessary arrangements will\n     have been made and he will be on his way to South America. For God's\n     sake, sir, I beg of you not to let the police know that he is still\n     on the moor. They have given up the chase there, and he can lie quiet\n     until the ship is ready for him. You can't tell on him without\n     getting my wife and me into trouble. I beg you, sir, to say nothing\n     to the police.\"\n\n     \"What do you say, Watson?\"\n\n     I shrugged my shoulders. \"If he were safely out of the country it\n     would relieve the tax-payer of a burden.\"\n\n     \"But how about the chance of his holding someone up before he goes?\"\n\n     \"He would not do anything so mad, sir. We have provided him with all\n     that he can want. To commit a crime would be to show where he was\n     hiding.\"\n\n     \"That is true,\" said Sir Henry. \"Well, Barrymore--\"\n\n     \"God bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! It would have\n     killed my poor wife had he been taken again.\"\n\n     \"I guess we are aiding and abetting a felony, Watson? But, after what\n     we have heard I don't feel as if I could give the man up, so there is\n     an end of it. All right, Barrymore, you can go.\"\n\n     With a few broken words of gratitude the man turned, but he hesitated\n     and then came back.\n\n     \"You've been so kind to us, sir, that I should like to do the best I\n     can for you in return. I know something, Sir Henry, and perhaps I\n     should have said it before, but it was long after the inquest that I\n     found it out. I've never breathed a word about it yet to mortal man.\n     It's about poor Sir Charles's death.\"\n\n     The baronet and I were both upon our feet. \"Do you know how he died?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, I don't know that.\"\n\n     \"What then?\"\n\n     \"I know why he was at the gate at that hour. It was to meet a woman.\"\n\n     \"To meet a woman! He?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And the woman's name?\"\n\n     \"I can't give you the name, sir, but I can give you the initials. Her\n     initials were L. L.\"\n\n     \"How do you know this, Barrymore?\"\n\n     \"Well, Sir Henry, your uncle had a letter that morning. He had\n     usually a great many letters, for he was a public man and well known\n     for his kind heart, so that everyone who was in trouble was glad to\n     turn to him. But that morning, as it chanced, there was only this one\n     letter, so I took the more notice of it. It was from Coombe Tracey,\n     and it was addressed in a woman's hand.\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, I thought no more of the matter, and never would have\n     done had it not been for my wife. Only a few weeks ago she was\n     cleaning out Sir Charles's study--it had never been touched since his\n     death--and she found the ashes of a burned letter in the back of the\n     grate. The greater part of it was charred to pieces, but one little\n     slip, the end of a page, hung together, and the writing could still\n     be read, though it was gray on a black ground. It seemed to us to be\n     a postscript at the end of the letter, and it said: 'Please, please,\n     as you are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten\n     o'clock'. Beneath it were signed the initials L. L.\"\n\n     \"Have you got that slip?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, it crumbled all to bits after we moved it.\"\n\n     \"Had Sir Charles received any other letters in the same writing?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, I took no particular notice of his letters. I should not\n     have noticed this one, only it happened to come alone.\"\n\n     \"And you have no idea who L. L. is?\"\n\n     \"No, sir. No more than you have. But I expect if we could lay our\n     hands upon that lady we should know more about Sir Charles's death.\"\n\n     \"I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this\n     important information.\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to us.\n     And then again, sir, we were both of us very fond of Sir Charles, as\n     we well might be considering all that he has done for us. To rake\n     this up couldn't help our poor master, and it's well to go carefully\n     when there's a lady in the case. Even the best of us--\"\n\n     \"You thought it might injure his reputation?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, I thought no good could come of it. But now you have been\n     kind to us, and I feel as if it would be treating you unfairly not to\n     tell you all that I know about the matter.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Barrymore; you can go.\" When the butler had left us Sir\n     Henry turned to me. \"Well, Watson, what do you think of this new\n     light?\"\n\n     \"It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.\"\n\n     \"So I think. But if we can only trace L. L. it should clear up the\n     whole business. We have gained that much. We know that there is\n     someone who has the facts if we can only find her. What do you think\n     we should do?\"\n\n     \"Let Holmes know all about it at once. It will give him the clue for\n     which he has been seeking. I am much mistaken if it does not bring\n     him down.\"\n\n     I went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning's\n     conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he had been very\n     busy of late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street were few\n     and short, with no comments upon the information which I had supplied\n     and hardly any reference to my mission. No doubt his blackmailing\n     case is absorbing all his faculties. And yet this new factor must\n     surely arrest his attention and renew his interest. I wish that he\n     were here.\n\n     October 17th.--All day to-day the rain poured down, rustling on the\n     ivy and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out upon\n     the bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his crimes,\n     he has suffered something to atone for them. And then I thought of\n     that other one--the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. Was\n     he also out in that deluged--the unseen watcher, the man of darkness?\n     In the evening I put on my waterproof and I walked far upon the\n     sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face\n     and the wind whistling about my ears. God help those who wander into\n     the great mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a morass.\n     I found the black tor upon which I had seen the solitary watcher, and\n     from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy\n     downs. Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy,\n     slate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray\n     wreaths down the sides of the fantastic hills. In the distant hollow\n     on the left, half hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of\n     Baskerville Hall rose above the trees. They were the only signs of\n     human life which I could see, save only those prehistoric huts which\n     lay thickly upon the slopes of the hills. Nowhere was there any trace\n     of that lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot two nights\n     before.\n\n     As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr. Mortimer driving in his\n     dog-cart over a rough moorland track which led from the outlying\n     farmhouse of Foulmire. He has been very attentive to us, and hardly a\n     day has passed that he has not called at the Hall to see how we were\n     getting on. He insisted upon my climbing into his dog-cart, and he\n     gave me a lift homeward. I found him much troubled over the\n     disappearance of his little spaniel. It had wandered on to the moor\n     and had never come back. I gave him such consolation as I might, but\n     I thought of the pony on the Grimpen Mire, and I do not fancy that he\n     will see his little dog again.\n\n     \"By the way, Mortimer,\" said I as we jolted along the rough road, \"I\n     suppose there are few people living within driving distance of this\n     whom you do not know?\"\n\n     \"Hardly any, I think.\"\n\n     \"Can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are L.\n     L.?\"\n\n     He thought for a few minutes.\n\n     \"No,\" said he. \"There are a few gipsies and labouring folk for whom I\n     can't answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no one whose\n     initials are those. Wait a bit though,\" he added after a pause.\n     \"There is Laura Lyons--her initials are L. L.--but she lives in\n     Coombe Tracey.\"\n\n     \"Who is she?\" I asked.\n\n     \"She is Frankland's daughter.\"\n\n     \"What! Old Frankland the crank?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. She married an artist named Lyons, who came sketching on\n     the moor. He proved to be a blackguard and deserted her. The fault\n     from what I hear may not have been entirely on one side. Her father\n     refused to have anything to do with her because she had married\n     without his consent, and perhaps for one or two other reasons as\n     well. So, between the old sinner and the young one the girl has had a\n     pretty bad time.\"\n\n     \"How does she live?\"\n\n     \"I fancy old Frankland allows her a pittance, but it cannot be more,\n     for his own affairs are considerably involved. Whatever she may have\n     deserved one could not allow her to go hopelessly to the bad. Her\n     story got about, and several of the people here did something to\n     enable her to earn an honest living. Stapleton did for one, and Sir\n     Charles for another. I gave a trifle myself. It was to set her up in\n     a typewriting business.\"\n\n     He wanted to know the object of my inquiries, but I managed to\n     satisfy his curiosity without telling him too much, for there is no\n     reason why we should take anyone into our confidence. To-morrow\n     morning I shall find my way to Coombe Tracey, and if I can see this\n     Mrs. Laura Lyons, of equivocal reputation, a long step will have been\n     made towards clearing one incident in this chain of mysteries. I am\n     certainly developing the wisdom of the serpent, for when Mortimer\n     pressed his questions to an inconvenient extent I asked him casually\n     to what type Frankland's skull belonged, and so heard nothing but\n     craniology for the rest of our drive. I have not lived for years with\n     Sherlock Holmes for nothing.\n\n     I have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous and\n     melancholy day. This was my conversation with Barrymore just now,\n     which gives me one more strong card which I can play in due time.\n\n     Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played écarté\n     afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the library, and I\n     took the chance to ask him a few questions.\n\n     \"Well,\" said I, \"has this precious relation of yours departed, or is\n     he still lurking out yonder?\"\n\n     \"I don't know, sir. I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has\n     brought nothing but trouble here! I've not heard of him since I left\n     out food for him last, and that was three days ago.\"\n\n     \"Did you see him then?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way.\"\n\n     \"Then he was certainly there?\"\n\n     \"So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it.\"\n\n     I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at Barrymore.\n\n     \"You know that there is another man then?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor.\"\n\n     \"Have you seen him?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"How do you know of him then?\"\n\n     \"Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. He's in hiding, too,\n     but he's not a convict as far as I can make out. I don't like it, Dr.\n     Watson--I tell you straight, sir, that I don't like it.\" He spoke\n     with a sudden passion of earnestness.\n\n     \"Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have no interest in this matter but\n     that of your master. I have come here with no object except to help\n     him. Tell me, frankly, what it is that you don't like.\"\n\n     Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst, or\n     found it difficult to express his own feelings in words.\n\n     \"It's all these goings-on, sir,\" he cried at last, waving his hand\n     towards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor. \"There's foul\n     play somewhere, and there's black villainy brewing, to that I'll\n     swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry on his way back\n     to London again!\"\n\n     \"But what is it that alarms you?\"\n\n     \"Look at Sir Charles's death! That was bad enough, for all that the\n     coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor at night. There's not a\n     man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it. Look at this\n     stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! What's he\n     waiting for? What does it mean? It means no good to anyone of the\n     name of Baskerville, and very glad I shall be to be quit of it all on\n     the day that Sir Henry's new servants are ready to take over the\n     Hall.\"\n\n     \"But about this stranger,\" said I. \"Can you tell me anything about\n     him? What did Selden say? Did he find out where he hid, or what he\n     was doing?\"\n\n     \"He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one, and gives nothing\n     away. At first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found\n     that he had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he was, as far\n     as he could see, but what he was doing he could not make out.\"\n\n     \"And where did he say that he lived?\"\n\n     \"Among the old houses on the hillside--the stone huts where the old\n     folk used to live.\"\n\n     \"But how about his food?\"\n\n     \"Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings\n     him all he needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what he\n     wants.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Barrymore. We may talk further of this some other time.\"\n     When the butler had gone I walked over to the black window, and I\n     looked through a blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the\n     tossing outline of the wind-swept trees. It is a wild night indoors,\n     and what must it be in a stone hut upon the moor. What passion of\n     hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a\n     time! And what deep and earnest purpose can he have which calls for\n     such a trial! There, in that hut upon the moor, seems to lie the very\n     centre of that problem which has vexed me so sorely. I swear that\n     another day shall not have passed before I have done all that man can\n     do to reach the heart of the mystery.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XI\n          The Man on the Tor\n\n\n     The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has\n     brought my narrative up to the 18th of October, a time when these\n     strange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible\n     conclusion. The incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven\n     upon my recollection, and I can tell them without reference to the\n     notes made at the time. I start then from the day which succeeded\n     that upon which I had established two facts of great importance, the\n     one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of Coombe Tracey had written to Sir Charles\n     Baskerville and made an appointment with him at the very place and\n     hour that he met his death, the other that the lurking man upon the\n     moor was to be found among the stone huts upon the hill-side. With\n     these two facts in my possession I felt that either my intelligence\n     or my courage must be deficient if I could not throw some further\n     light upon these dark places.\n\n     I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about\n     Mrs. Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained with\n     him at cards until it was very late. At breakfast, however, I\n     informed him about my discovery, and asked him whether he would care\n     to accompany me to Coombe Tracey. At first he was very eager to come,\n     but on second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if I went alone\n     the results might be better. The more formal we made the visit the\n     less information we might obtain. I left Sir Henry behind, therefore,\n     not without some prickings of conscience, and drove off upon my new\n     quest.\n\n     When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses, and\n     I made inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate. I had\n     no difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well\n     appointed. A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the\n     sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter,\n     sprang up with a pleasant smile of welcome. Her face fell, however,\n     when she saw that I was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked\n     me the object of my visit.\n\n     The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty.\n     Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks,\n     though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom\n     of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the\n     sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the\n     second was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face,\n     some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some\n     looseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty. But these, of\n     course, are after-thoughts. At the moment I was simply conscious that\n     I was in the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was\n     asking me the reasons for my visit. I had not quite understood until\n     that instant how delicate my mission was.\n\n     \"I have the pleasure,\" said I, \"of knowing your father.\" It was a\n     clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it.\n\n     \"There is nothing in common between my father and me,\" she said. \"I\n     owe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. If it were not for the\n     late Sir Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I might have\n     starved for all that my father cared.\"\n\n     \"It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here\n     to see you.\"\n\n     The freckles started out on the lady's face.\n\n     \"What can I tell you about him?\" she asked, and her fingers played\n     nervously over the stops of her typewriter.\n\n     \"You knew him, did you not?\"\n\n     \"I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am\n     able to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he\n     took in my unhappy situation.\"\n\n     \"Did you correspond with him?\"\n\n     The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.\n\n     \"What is the object of these questions?\" she asked sharply.\n\n     \"The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should\n     ask them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.\"\n\n     She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked\n     up with something reckless and defiant in her manner.\n\n     \"Well, I'll answer,\" she said. \"What are your questions?\"\n\n     \"Did you correspond with Sir Charles?\"\n\n     \"I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy\n     and his generosity.\"\n\n     \"Have you the dates of those letters?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Have you ever met him?\"\n\n     \"Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey. He was a very\n     retiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.\"\n\n     \"But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know\n     enough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he\n     has done?\"\n\n     She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.\n\n     \"There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to\n     help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of\n     Sir Charles's. He was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that\n     Sir Charles learned about my affairs.\"\n\n     I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton his\n     almoner upon several occasions, so the lady's statement bore the\n     impress of truth upon it.\n\n     \"Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?\" I\n     continued.\n\n     Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again.\n\n     \"Really, sir, this is a very extraordinary question.\"\n\n     \"I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.\"\n\n     \"Then I answer, certainly not.\"\n\n     \"Not on the very day of Sir Charles's death?\"\n\n     The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me.\n     Her dry lips could not speak the \"No\" which I saw rather than heard.\n\n     \"Surely your memory deceives you,\" said I. \"I could even quote a\n     passage of your letter. It ran 'Please, please, as you are a\n     gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o'clock.'\"\n\n     I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a\n     supreme effort.\n\n     \"Is there no such thing as a gentleman?\" she gasped.\n\n     \"You do Sir Charles an injustice. He did burn the letter. But\n     sometimes a letter may be legible even when burned. You acknowledge\n     now that you wrote it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I did write it,\" she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent\n     of words. \"I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have no reason to\n     be ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I believed that if I had\n     an interview I could gain his help, so I asked him to meet me.\"\n\n     \"But why at such an hour?\"\n\n     \"Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day\n     and might be away for months. There were reasons why I could not get\n     there earlier.\"\n\n     \"But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?\"\n\n     \"Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor's\n     house?\"\n\n     \"Well, what happened when you did get there?\"\n\n     \"I never went.\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Lyons!\"\n\n     \"No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred. I never went. Something\n     intervened to prevent my going.\"\n\n     \"What was that?\"\n\n     \"That is a private matter. I cannot tell it.\"\n\n     \"You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir Charles\n     at the very hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny\n     that you kept the appointment.\"\n\n     \"That is the truth.\"\n\n     Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get past\n     that point.\n\n     \"Mrs. Lyons,\" said I, as I rose from this long and inconclusive\n     interview, \"you are taking a very great responsibility and putting\n     yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean\n     breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of the\n     police you will find how seriously you are compromised. If your\n     position is innocent, why did you in the first instance deny having\n     written to Sir Charles upon that date?\"\n\n     \"Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it\n     and that I might find myself involved in a scandal.\"\n\n     \"And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy your\n     letter?\"\n\n     \"If you have read the letter you will know.\"\n\n     \"I did not say that I had read all the letter.\"\n\n     \"You quoted some of it.\"\n\n     \"I quoted the postscript. The letter had, as I said, been burned and\n     it was not all legible. I ask you once again why it was that you were\n     so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this letter which he\n     received on the day of his death.\"\n\n     \"The matter is a very private one.\"\n\n     \"The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.\"\n\n     \"I will tell you, then. If you have heard anything of my unhappy\n     history you will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason to\n     regret it.\"\n\n     \"I have heard so much.\"\n\n     \"My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I\n     abhor. The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the\n     possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the time that I\n     wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a\n     prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met.\n     It meant everything to me--peace of mind, happiness,\n     self-respect--everything. I knew Sir Charles's generosity, and I\n     thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help\n     me.\"\n\n     \"Then how is it that you did not go?\"\n\n     \"Because I received help in the interval from another source.\"\n\n     \"Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?\"\n\n     \"So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next\n     morning.\"\n\n     The woman's story hung coherently together, and all my questions were\n     unable to shake it. I could only check it by finding if she had,\n     indeed, instituted divorce proceedings against her husband at or\n     about the time of the tragedy.\n\n     It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to\n     Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be\n     necessary to take her there, and could not have returned to Coombe\n     Tracey until the early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could\n     not be kept secret. The probability was, therefore, that she was\n     telling the truth, or, at least, a part of the truth. I came away\n     baffled and disheartened. Once again I had reached that dead wall\n     which seemed to be built across every path by which I tried to get at\n     the object of my mission. And yet the more I thought of the lady's\n     face and of her manner the more I felt that something was being held\n     back from me. Why should she turn so pale? Why should she fight\n     against every admission until it was forced from her? Why should she\n     have been so reticent at the time of the tragedy? Surely the\n     explanation of all this could not be as innocent as she would have me\n     believe. For the moment I could proceed no farther in that direction,\n     but must turn back to that other clue which was to be sought for\n     among the stone huts upon the moor.\n\n     And that was a most vague direction. I realized it as I drove back\n     and noted how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient people.\n     Barrymore's only indication had been that the stranger lived in one\n     of these abandoned huts, and many hundreds of them are scattered\n     throughout the length and breadth of the moor. But I had my own\n     experience for a guide since it had shown me the man himself standing\n     upon the summit of the Black Tor. That then should be the centre of\n     my search. From there I should explore every hut upon the moor until\n     I lighted upon the right one. If this man were inside it I should\n     find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary,\n     who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from\n     us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so\n     upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and\n     its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long\n     the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It\n     would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth, where\n     my master had failed.\n\n     Luck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now at\n     last it came to my aid. And the messenger of good fortune was none\n     other than Mr. Frankland, who was standing, gray-whiskered and\n     red-faced, outside the gate of his garden, which opened on to the\n     high road along which I travelled.\n\n     \"Good-day, Dr. Watson,\" cried he with unwonted good humour, \"you must\n     really give your horses a rest, and come in to have a glass of wine\n     and to congratulate me.\"\n\n     My feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after what\n     I had heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I was anxious to\n     send Perkins and the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a good\n     one. I alighted and sent a message to Sir Henry that I should walk\n     over in time for dinner. Then I followed Frankland into his\n     dining-room.\n\n     \"It is a great day for me, sir--one of the red-letter days of my\n     life,\" he cried with many chuckles. \"I have brought off a double\n     event. I mean to teach them in these parts that law is law, and that\n     there is a man here who does not fear to invoke it. I have\n     established a right of way through the centre of old Middleton's\n     park, slap across it, sir, within a hundred yards of his own front\n     door. What do you think of that? We'll teach these magnates that they\n     cannot ride roughshod over the rights of the commoners, confound\n     them! And I've closed the wood where the Fernworthy folk used to\n     picnic. These infernal people seem to think that there are no rights\n     of property, and that they can swarm where they like with their\n     papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and both in\n     my favour. I haven't had such a day since I had Sir John Morland for\n     trespass, because he shot in his own warren.\"\n\n     \"How on earth did you do that?\"\n\n     \"Look it up in the books, sir. It will repay reading--Frankland v.\n     Morland, Court of Queen's Bench. It cost me 200 pounds, but I got my\n     verdict.\"\n\n     \"Did it do you any good?\"\n\n     \"None, sir, none. I am proud to say that I had no interest in the\n     matter. I act entirely from a sense of public duty. I have no doubt,\n     for example, that the Fernworthy people will burn me in effigy\n     to-night. I told the police last time they did it that they should\n     stop these disgraceful exhibitions. The County Constabulary is in a\n     scandalous state, sir, and it has not afforded me the protection to\n     which I am entitled. The case of Frankland v. Regina will bring the\n     matter before the attention of the public. I told them that they\n     would have occasion to regret their treatment of me, and already my\n     words have come true.\"\n\n     \"How so?\" I asked.\n\n     The old man put on a very knowing expression.\n\n     \"Because I could tell them what they are dying to know; but nothing\n     would induce me to help the rascals in any way.\"\n\n     I had been casting round for some excuse by which I could get away\n     from his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it. I had\n     seen enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand\n     that any strong sign of interest would be the surest way to stop his\n     confidences.\n\n     \"Some poaching case, no doubt?\" said I, with an indifferent manner.\n\n     \"Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that! What\n     about the convict on the moor?\"\n\n     I started. \"You don't mean that you know where he is?\" said I.\n\n     \"I may not know exactly where he is, but I am quite sure that I could\n     help the police to lay their hands on him. Has it never struck you\n     that the way to catch that man was to find out where he got his food,\n     and so trace it to him?\"\n\n     He certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth. \"No\n     doubt,\" said I; \"but how do you know that he is anywhere upon the\n     moor?\"\n\n     \"I know it because I have seen with my own eyes the messenger who\n     takes him his food.\"\n\n     My heart sank for Barrymore. It was a serious thing to be in the\n     power of this spiteful old busybody. But his next remark took a\n     weight from my mind.\n\n     \"You'll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a\n     child. I see him every day through my telescope upon the roof. He\n     passes along the same path at the same hour, and to whom should he be\n     going except to the convict?\"\n\n     Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed all appearance of\n     interest. A child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied\n     by a boy. It was on his track, and not upon the convict's, that\n     Frankland had stumbled. If I could get his knowledge it might save me\n     a long and weary hunt. But incredulity and indifference were\n     evidently my strongest cards.\n\n     \"I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one\n     of the moorland shepherds taking out his father's dinner.\"\n\n     The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old\n     autocrat. His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray whiskers\n     bristled like those of an angry cat.\n\n     \"Indeed, sir!\" said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching moor.\n     \"Do you see that Black Tor over yonder? Well, do you see the low hill\n     beyond with the thornbush upon it? It is the stoniest part of the\n     whole moor. Is that a place where a shepherd would be likely to take\n     his station? Your suggestion, sir, is a most absurd one.\"\n\n     I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the facts. My\n     submission pleased him and led him to further confidences.\n\n     \"You may be sure, sir, that I have very good grounds before I come to\n     an opinion. I have seen the boy again and again with his bundle.\n     Every day, and sometimes twice a day, I have been able--but wait a\n     moment, Dr. Watson. Do my eyes deceive me, or is there at the present\n     moment something moving upon that hill-side?\"\n\n     It was several miles off, but I could distinctly see a small dark dot\n     against the dull green and gray.\n\n     \"Come, sir, come!\" cried Frankland, rushing upstairs. \"You will see\n     with your own eyes and judge for yourself.\"\n\n     The telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod, stood\n     upon the flat leads of the house. Frankland clapped his eye to it and\n     gave a cry of satisfaction.\n\n     \"Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!\"\n\n     There he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle upon\n     his shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. When he reached the crest I\n     saw the ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant against the\n     cold blue sky. He looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air,\n     as one who dreads pursuit. Then he vanished over the hill.\n\n     \"Well! Am I right?\"\n\n     \"Certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.\"\n\n     \"And what the errand is even a county constable could guess. But not\n     one word shall they have from me, and I bind you to secrecy also, Dr.\n     Watson. Not a word! You understand!\"\n\n     \"Just as you wish.\"\n\n     \"They have treated me shamefully--shamefully. When the facts come out\n     in Frankland v. Regina I venture to think that a thrill of\n     indignation will run through the country. Nothing would induce me to\n     help the police in any way. For all they cared it might have been me,\n     instead of my effigy, which these rascals burned at the stake. Surely\n     you are not going! You will help me to empty the decanter in honour\n     of this great occasion!\"\n\n     But I resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading him\n     from his announced intention of walking home with me. I kept the road\n     as long as his eye was on me, and then I struck off across the moor\n     and made for the stony hill over which the boy had disappeared.\n     Everything was working in my favour, and I swore that it should not\n     be through lack of energy or perseverance that I should miss the\n     chance which fortune had thrown in my way.\n\n     The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the hill,\n     and the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and\n     gray shadow on the other. A haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line,\n     out of which jutted the fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor.\n     Over the wide expanse there was no sound and no movement. One great\n     gray bird, a gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. He and\n     I seemed to be the only living things between the huge arch of the\n     sky and the desert beneath it. The barren scene, the sense of\n     loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my task all struck a chill\n     into my heart. The boy was nowhere to be seen. But down beneath me in\n     a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in\n     the middle of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to\n     act as a screen against the weather. My heart leaped within me as I\n     saw it. This must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my\n     foot was on the threshold of his hiding place--his secret was within\n     my grasp.\n\n     As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do when\n     with poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I satisfied\n     myself that the place had indeed been used as a habitation. A vague\n     pathway among the boulders led to the dilapidated opening which\n     served as a door. All was silent within. The unknown might be lurking\n     there, or he might be prowling on the moor. My nerves tingled with\n     the sense of adventure. Throwing aside my cigarette, I closed my hand\n     upon the butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, I\n     looked in. The place was empty.\n\n     But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent.\n     This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a\n     waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had\n     once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate.\n     Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water.\n     A litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for\n     some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered\n     light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the\n     corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a\n     table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle--the same, no doubt,\n     which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy.\n     It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of\n     preserved peaches. As I set it down again, after having examined it,\n     my heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay a sheet of paper\n     with writing upon it. I raised it, and this was what I read, roughly\n     scrawled in pencil:--\n\n     Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey.\n\n     For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out\n     the meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir Henry,\n     who was being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me\n     himself, but he had set an agent--the boy, perhaps--upon my track,\n     and this was his report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had\n     been upon the moor which had not been observed and reported. Always\n     there was this feeling of an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us\n     with infinite skill and delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was\n     only at some supreme moment that one realized that one was indeed\n     entangled in its meshes.\n\n     If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the\n     hut in search of them. There was no trace, however, of anything of\n     the kind, nor could I discover any sign which might indicate the\n     character or intentions of the man who lived in this singular place,\n     save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the\n     comforts of life. When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the\n     gaping roof I understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose\n     which had kept him in that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant\n     enemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would\n     not leave the hut until I knew.\n\n     Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet\n     and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the\n     distant pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were the\n     two towers of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke\n     which marked the village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the\n     hill, was the house of the Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and\n     peaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as I looked at them my\n     soul shared none of the peace of nature but quivered at the vagueness\n     and the terror of that interview which every instant was bringing\n     nearer. With tingling nerves, but a fixed purpose, I sat in the dark\n     recess of the hut and waited with sombre patience for the coming of\n     its tenant.\n\n     And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot\n     striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer\n     and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner, and cocked the\n     pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an\n     opportunity of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long\n     pause which showed that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps\n     approached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut.\n\n     \"It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,\" said a well-known voice. \"I\n     really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XII\n          Death on the Moor\n\n\n     For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears.\n     Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight\n     of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul.\n     That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in\n     all the world.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" I cried--\"Holmes!\"\n\n     \"Come out,\" said he, \"and please be careful with the revolver.\"\n\n     I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone\n     outside, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my\n     astonished features. He was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his\n     keen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. In his tweed\n     suit and cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor,\n     and he had contrived, with that cat-like love of personal cleanliness\n     which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as\n     smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.\n\n     \"I never was more glad to see anyone in my life,\" said I, as I wrung\n     him by the hand.\n\n     \"Or more astonished, eh?\"\n\n     \"Well, I must confess to it.\"\n\n     \"The surprise was not all on one side, I assure you. I had no idea\n     that you had found my occasional retreat, still less that you were\n     inside it, until I was within twenty paces of the door.\"\n\n     \"My footprint, I presume?\"\n\n     \"No, Watson; I fear that I could not undertake to recognize your\n     footprint amid all the footprints of the world. If you seriously\n     desire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I see\n     the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my\n     friend Watson is in the neighbourhood. You will see it there beside\n     the path. You threw it down, no doubt, at that supreme moment when\n     you charged into the empty hut.\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"I thought as much--and knowing your admirable tenacity I was\n     convinced that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach,\n     waiting for the tenant to return. So you actually thought that I was\n     the criminal?\"\n\n     \"I did not know who you were, but I was determined to find out.\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson! And how did you localize me? You saw me, perhaps,\n     on the night of the convict hunt, when I was so imprudent as to allow\n     the moon to rise behind me?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I saw you then.\"\n\n     \"And have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this one?\"\n\n     \"No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to\n     look.\"\n\n     \"The old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt. I could not make it\n     out when first I saw the light flashing upon the lens.\" He rose and\n     peeped into the hut. \"Ha, I see that Cartwright has brought up some\n     supplies. What's this paper? So you have been to Coombe Tracey, have\n     you?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"Well done! Our researches have evidently been running on parallel\n     lines, and when we unite our results I expect we shall have a fairly\n     full knowledge of the case.\"\n\n     \"Well, I am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the\n     responsibility and the mystery were both becoming too much for my\n     nerves. But how in the name of wonder did you come here, and what\n     have you been doing? I thought that you were in Baker Street working\n     out that case of blackmailing.\"\n\n     \"That was what I wished you to think.\"\n\n     \"Then you use me, and yet do not trust me!\" I cried with some\n     bitterness. \"I think that I have deserved better at your hands,\n     Holmes.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in many\n     other cases, and I beg that you will forgive me if I have seemed to\n     play a trick upon you. In truth, it was partly for your own sake that\n     I did it, and it was my appreciation of the danger which you ran\n     which led me to come down and examine the matter for myself. Had I\n     been with Sir Henry and you it is confident that my point of view\n     would have been the same as yours, and my presence would have warned\n     our very formidable opponents to be on their guard. As it is, I have\n     been able to get about as I could not possibly have done had I been\n     living in the Hall, and I remain an unknown factor in the business,\n     ready to throw in all my weight at a critical moment.\"\n\n     \"But why keep me in the dark?\"\n\n     \"For you to know could not have helped us, and might possibly have\n     led to my discovery. You would have wished to tell me something, or\n     in your kindness you would have brought me out some comfort or other,\n     and so an unnecessary risk would be run. I brought Cartwright down\n     with me--you remember the little chap at the express office--and he\n     has seen after my simple wants: a loaf of bread and a clean collar.\n     What does man want more? He has given me an extra pair of eyes upon a\n     very active pair of feet, and both have been invaluable.\"\n\n     \"Then my reports have all been wasted!\"--My voice trembled as I\n     recalled the pains and the pride with which I had composed them.\n\n     Holmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.\n\n     \"Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I\n     assure you. I made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed\n     one day upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly upon the\n     zeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an\n     extraordinarily difficult case.\"\n\n     I was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised\n     upon me, but the warmth of Holmes's praise drove my anger from my\n     mind. I felt also in my heart that he was right in what he said and\n     that it was really best for our purpose that I should not have known\n     that he was upon the moor.\n\n     \"That's better,\" said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face. \"And\n     now tell me the result of your visit to Mrs. Laura Lyons--it was not\n     difficult for me to guess that it was to see her that you had gone,\n     for I am already aware that she is the one person in Coombe Tracey\n     who might be of service to us in the matter. In fact, if you had not\n     gone to-day it is exceedingly probable that I should have gone\n     to-morrow.\"\n\n     The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. The air had\n     turned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. There, sitting\n     together in the twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with the\n     lady. So interested was he that I had to repeat some of it twice\n     before he was satisfied.\n\n     \"This is most important,\" said he when I had concluded. \"It fills up\n     a gap which I had been unable to bridge, in this most complex affair.\n     You are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this\n     lady and the man Stapleton?\"\n\n     \"I did not know of a close intimacy.\"\n\n     \"There can be no doubt about the matter. They meet, they write, there\n     is a complete understanding between them. Now, this puts a very\n     powerful weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to detach his\n     wife--\"\n\n     \"His wife?\"\n\n     \"I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you\n     have given me. The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is in\n     reality his wife.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could he\n     have permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?\"\n\n     \"Sir Henry's falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Sir\n     Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did not make love to\n     her, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the lady is his\n     wife and not his sister.\"\n\n     \"But why this elaborate deception?\"\n\n     \"Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in\n     the character of a free woman.\"\n\n     All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape\n     and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive, colourless man,\n     with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed to see something\n     terrible--a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling\n     face and a murderous heart.\n\n     \"It is he, then, who is our enemy--it is he who dogged us in London?\"\n\n     \"So I read the riddle.\"\n\n     \"And the warning--it must have come from her!\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed\n     through the darkness which had girt me so long.\n\n     \"But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the woman is\n     his wife?\"\n\n     \"Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of\n     autobiography upon the occasion when he first met you, and I dare say\n     he has many a time regretted it since. He was once a schoolmaster in\n     the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than a\n     schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify\n     any man who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed\n     me that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and\n     that the man who had owned it--the name was different--had\n     disappeared with his wife. The descriptions agreed. When I learned\n     that the missing man was devoted to entomology the identification was\n     complete.\"\n\n     The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.\n\n     \"If this woman is in truth his wife, where does Mrs. Laura Lyons come\n     in?\" I asked.\n\n     \"That is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a\n     light. Your interview with the lady has cleared the situation very\n     much. I did not know about a projected divorce between herself and\n     her husband. In that case, regarding Stapleton as an unmarried man,\n     she counted no doubt upon becoming his wife.\"\n\n     \"And when she is undeceived?\"\n\n     \"Why, then we may find the lady of service. It must be our first duty\n     to see her--both of us--to-morrow. Don't you think, Watson, that you\n     are away from your charge rather long? Your place should be at\n     Baskerville Hall.\"\n\n     The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled\n     upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.\n\n     \"One last question, Holmes,\" I said, as I rose. \"Surely there is no\n     need of secrecy between you and me. What is the meaning of it all?\n     What is he after?\"\n\n     Holmes's voice sank as he answered:--\n\n     \"It is murder, Watson--refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder. Do\n     not ask me for particulars. My nets are closing upon him, even as his\n     are upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is already almost at my\n     mercy. There is but one danger which can threaten us. It is that he\n     should strike before we are ready to do so. Another day--two at the\n     most--and I have my case complete, but until then guard your charge\n     as closely as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child. Your\n     mission to-day has justified itself, and yet I could almost wish that\n     you had not left his side. Hark!\"\n\n     A terrible scream--a prolonged yell of horror and anguish--burst out\n     of the silence of the moor. That frightful cry turned the blood to\n     ice in my veins.\n\n     \"Oh, my God!\" I gasped. \"What is it? What does it mean?\"\n\n     Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw his dark, athletic outline\n     at the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head thrust\n     forward, his face peering into the darkness.\n\n     \"Hush!\" he whispered. \"Hush!\"\n\n     The cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had pealed\n     out from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain. Now it burst upon\n     our ears, nearer, louder, more urgent than before.\n\n     \"Where is it?\" Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of his\n     voice that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul. \"Where is it,\n     Watson?\"\n\n     \"There, I think.\" I pointed into the darkness.\n\n     \"No, there!\"\n\n     Again the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and\n     much nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep,\n     muttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like\n     the low, constant murmur of the sea.\n\n     \"The hound!\" cried Holmes. \"Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we\n     are too late!\"\n\n     He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at\n     his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately\n     in front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull,\n     heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy\n     silence of the windless night.\n\n     I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. He\n     stamped his feet upon the ground.\n\n     \"He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late.\"\n\n     \"No, no, surely not!\"\n\n     \"Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes of\n     abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened,\n     we'll avenge him!\"\n\n     Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders,\n     forcing our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing\n     down slopes, heading always in the direction whence those dreadful\n     sounds had come. At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but\n     the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its\n     dreary face.\n\n     \"Can you see anything?\"\n\n     \"Nothing.\"\n\n     \"But, hark, what is that?\"\n\n     A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There it was again upon our\n     left! On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which\n     overlooked a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was spread-eagled\n     some dark, irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague outline\n     hardened into a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward\n     upon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the\n     shoulders rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of\n     throwing a somersault. So grotesque was the attitude that I could not\n     for the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his\n     soul. Not a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over\n     which we stooped. Holmes laid his hand upon him, and held it up\n     again, with an exclamation of horror. The gleam of the match which he\n     struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which\n     widened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. And it shone\n     upon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint within\n     us--the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!\n\n     There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy\n     tweed suit--the very one which he had worn on the first morning that\n     we had seen him in Baker Street. We caught the one clear glimpse of\n     it, and then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had\n     gone out of our souls. Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white\n     through the darkness.\n\n     \"The brute! the brute!\" I cried with clenched hands. \"Oh Holmes, I\n     shall never forgive myself for having left him to his fate.\"\n\n     \"I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case well\n     rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life of my client. It is\n     the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. But how could I\n     know--how could l know--that he would risk his life alone upon the\n     moor in the face of all my warnings?\"\n\n     \"That we should have heard his screams--my God, those screams!--and\n     yet have been unable to save him! Where is this brute of a hound\n     which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks at\n     this instant. And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for this\n     deed.\"\n\n     \"He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been\n     murdered--the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast\n     which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in\n     his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the\n     connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we\n     cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has\n     evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the\n     fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!\"\n\n     We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body,\n     overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought\n     all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then, as the\n     moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor\n     friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy\n     moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the\n     direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining. It\n     could only come from the lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a\n     bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed.\n\n     \"Why should we not seize him at once?\"\n\n     \"Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the last\n     degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we make one\n     false move the villain may escape us yet.\"\n\n     \"What can we do?\"\n\n     \"There will be plenty for us to do to-morrow. To-night we can only\n     perform the last offices to our poor friend.\"\n\n     Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached\n     the body, black and clear against the silvered stones. The agony of\n     those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my\n     eyes with tears.\n\n     \"We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to\n     the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?\"\n\n     He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing and\n     laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained\n     friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!\n\n     \"A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!\"\n\n     \"A beard?\"\n\n     \"It is not the baronet--it is--why, it is my neighbour, the convict!\"\n\n     With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping\n     beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no\n     doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was\n     indeed the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the\n     candle from over the rock--the face of Selden, the criminal.\n\n     Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the\n     baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore.\n     Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape.\n     Boots, shirt, cap--it was all Sir Henry's. The tragedy was still\n     black enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of\n     his country. I told Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling\n     over with thankfulness and joy.\n\n     \"Then the clothes have been the poor devil's death,\" said he. \"It is\n     clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of Sir\n     Henry's--the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all\n     probability--and so ran this man down. There is one very singular\n     thing, however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the\n     hound was on his trail?\"\n\n     \"He heard him.\"\n\n     \"To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this\n     convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture\n     by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have run a long\n     way after he knew the animal was on his track. How did he know?\"\n\n     \"A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our\n     conjectures are correct--\"\n\n     \"I presume nothing.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, why this hound should be loose to-night. I suppose that\n     it does not always run loose upon the moor. Stapleton would not let\n     it go unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry would be there.\"\n\n     \"My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we\n     shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain\n     forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do with this\n     poor wretch's body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the\n     ravens.\"\n\n     \"I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate\n     with the police.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far.\n     Halloa, Watson, what's this? It's the man himself, by all that's\n     wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions--not a\n     word, or my plans crumble to the ground.\"\n\n     A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red\n     glow of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish the\n     dapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped when he\n     saw us, and then came on again.\n\n     \"Why, Dr. Watson, that's not you, is it? You are the last man that I\n     should have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night.\n     But, dear me, what's this? Somebody hurt? Not--don't tell me that it\n     is our friend Sir Henry!\" He hurried past me and stooped over the\n     dead man. I heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell\n     from his fingers.\n\n     \"Who--who's this?\" he stammered.\n\n     \"It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown.\"\n\n     Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he\n     had overcome his amazement and his disappointment. He looked sharply\n     from Holmes to me.\n\n     \"Dear me! What a very shocking affair! How did he die?\"\n\n     \"He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks. My\n     friend and I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.\"\n\n     \"I heard a cry also. That was what brought me out. I was uneasy about\n     Sir Henry.\"\n\n     \"Why about Sir Henry in particular?\" I could not help asking.\n\n     \"Because I had suggested that he should come over. When he did not\n     come I was surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his safety\n     when I heard cries upon the moor. By the way\"--his eyes darted again\n     from my face to Holmes's--\"did you hear anything else besides a cry?\"\n\n     \"No,\" said Holmes; \"did you?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"What do you mean, then?\"\n\n     \"Oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom\n     hound, and so on. It is said to be heard at night upon the moor. I\n     was wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound to-night.\"\n\n     \"We heard nothing of the kind,\" said I.\n\n     \"And what is your theory of this poor fellow's death?\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off his\n     head. He has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and eventually\n     fallen over here and broken his neck.\"\n\n     \"That seems the most reasonable theory,\" said Stapleton, and he gave\n     a sigh which I took to indicate his relief. \"What do you think about\n     it, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\"\n\n     My friend bowed his compliments.\n\n     \"You are quick at identification,\" said he.\n\n     \"We have been expecting you in these parts since Dr. Watson came\n     down. You are in time to see a tragedy.\"\n\n     \"Yes, indeed. I have no doubt that my friend's explanation will cover\n     the facts. I will take an unpleasant remembrance back to London with\n     me to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you return to-morrow?\"\n\n     \"That is my intention.\"\n\n     \"I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences which\n     have puzzled us?\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"One cannot always have the success for which one hopes. An\n     investigator needs facts, and not legends or rumours. It has not been\n     a satisfactory case.\"\n\n     My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.\n     Stapleton still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.\n\n     \"I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it would\n     give my sister such a fright that I do not feel justified in doing\n     it. I think that if we put something over his face he will be safe\n     until morning.\"\n\n     And so it was arranged. Resisting Stapleton's offer of hospitality,\n     Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving the naturalist to\n     return alone. Looking back we saw the figure moving slowly away over\n     the broad moor, and behind him that one black smudge on the silvered\n     slope which showed where the man was lying who had come so horribly\n     to his end.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XIII\n          Fixing the Nets\n\n\n     \"We're at close grips at last,\" said Holmes as we walked together\n     across the moor. \"What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself\n     together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when\n     he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. I told\n     you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never\n     had a foeman more worthy of our steel.\"\n\n     \"I am sorry that he has seen you.\"\n\n     \"And so was I at first. But there was no getting out of it.\"\n\n     \"What effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he\n     knows you are here?\"\n\n     \"It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to\n     desperate measures at once. Like most clever criminals, he may be too\n     confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has completely\n     deceived us.\"\n\n     \"Why should we not arrest him at once?\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your instinct\n     is always to do something energetic. But supposing, for argument's\n     sake, that we had him arrested to-night, what on earth the better off\n     should we be for that? We could prove nothing against him. There's\n     the devilish cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent\n     we could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to\n     the light of day it would not help us in putting a rope round the\n     neck of its master.\"\n\n     \"Surely we have a case.\"\n\n     \"Not a shadow of one--only surmise and conjecture. We should be\n     laughed out of court if we came with such a story and such evidence.\"\n\n     \"There is Sir Charles's death.\"\n\n     \"Found dead without a mark upon him. You and I know that he died of\n     sheer fright, and we know also what frightened him; but how are we to\n     get twelve stolid jurymen to know it? What signs are there of a\n     hound? Where are the marks of its fangs? Of course we know that a\n     hound does not bite a dead body and that Sir Charles was dead before\n     ever the brute overtook him. But we have to prove all this, and we\n     are not in a position to do it.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, to-night?\"\n\n     \"We are not much better off to-night. Again, there was no direct\n     connection between the hound and the man's death. We never saw the\n     hound. We heard it; but we could not prove that it was running upon\n     this man's trail. There is a complete absence of motive. No, my dear\n     fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case\n     at present, and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order\n     to establish one.\"\n\n     \"And how do you propose to do so?\"\n\n     \"I have great hopes of what Mrs. Laura Lyons may do for us when the\n     position of affairs is made clear to her. And I have my own plan as\n     well. Sufficient for to-morrow is the evil thereof; but I hope before\n     the day is past to have the upper hand at last.\"\n\n     I could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in\n     thought, as far as the Baskerville gates.\n\n     \"Are you coming up?\"\n\n     \"Yes; I see no reason for further concealment. But one last word,\n     Watson. Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry. Let him think that\n     Selden's death was as Stapleton would have us believe. He will have a\n     better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo to-morrow,\n     when he is engaged, if I remember your report aright, to dine with\n     these people.\"\n\n     \"And so am I.\"\n\n     \"Then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone. That will be\n     easily arranged. And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think that\n     we are both ready for our suppers.\"\n\n     Sir Henry was more pleased than surprised to see Sherlock Holmes, for\n     he had for some days been expecting that recent events would bring\n     him down from London. He did raise his eyebrows, however, when he\n     found that my friend had neither any luggage nor any explanations for\n     its absence. Between us we soon supplied his wants, and then over a\n     belated supper we explained to the baronet as much of our experience\n     as it seemed desirable that he should know. But first I had the\n     unpleasant duty of breaking the news to Barrymore and his wife. To\n     him it may have been an unmitigated relief, but she wept bitterly in\n     her apron. To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal\n     and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy\n     of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed\n     is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.\n\n     \"I've been moping in the house all day since Watson went off in the\n     morning,\" said the baronet. \"I guess I should have some credit, for I\n     have kept my promise. If I hadn't sworn not to go about alone I might\n     have had a more lively evening, for I had a message from Stapleton\n     asking me over there.\"\n\n     \"I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,\" said\n     Holmes drily. \"By the way, I don't suppose you appreciate that we\n     have been mourning over you as having broken your neck?\"\n\n     Sir Henry opened his eyes. \"How was that?\"\n\n     \"This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes. I fear your servant\n     who gave them to him may get into trouble with the police.\"\n\n     \"That is unlikely. There was no mark on any of them, as far as I\n     know.\"\n\n     \"That's lucky for him--in fact, it's lucky for all of you, since you\n     are all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. I am not sure\n     that as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the\n     whole household. Watson's reports are most incriminating documents.\"\n\n     \"But how about the case?\" asked the baronet. \"Have you made anything\n     out of the tangle? I don't know that Watson and I are much the wiser\n     since we came down.\"\n\n     \"I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation rather\n     more clear to you before long. It has been an exceedingly difficult\n     and most complicated business. There are several points upon which we\n     still want light--but it is coming all the same.\"\n\n     \"We've had one experience, as Watson has no doubt told you. We heard\n     the hound on the moor, so I can swear that it is not all empty\n     superstition. I had something to do with dogs when I was out West,\n     and I know one when I hear one. If you can muzzle that one and put\n     him on a chain I'll be ready to swear you are the greatest detective\n     of all time.\"\n\n     \"I think I will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will give\n     me your help.\"\n\n     \"Whatever you tell me to do I will do.\"\n\n     \"Very good; and I will ask you also to do it blindly, without always\n     asking the reason.\"\n\n     \"Just as you like.\"\n\n     \"If you will do this I think the chances are that our little problem\n     will soon be solved. I have no doubt--\"\n\n     He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air.\n     The lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so still that\n     it might have been that of a clear-cut classical statue, a\n     personification of alertness and expectation.\n\n     \"What is it?\" we both cried.\n\n     I could see as he looked down that he was repressing some internal\n     emotion. His features were still composed, but his eyes shone with\n     amused exultation.\n\n     \"Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,\" said he as he waved his\n     hand towards the line of portraits which covered the opposite wall.\n     \"Watson won't allow that I know anything of art, but that is mere\n     jealousy, because our views upon the subject differ. Now, these are a\n     really very fine series of portraits.\"\n\n     \"Well, I'm glad to hear you say so,\" said Sir Henry, glancing with\n     some surprise at my friend. \"I don't pretend to know much about these\n     things, and I'd be a better judge of a horse or a steer than of a\n     picture. I didn't know that you found time for such things.\"\n\n     \"I know what is good when I see it, and I see it now. That's a\n     Kneller, I'll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the\n     stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds. They are all\n     family portraits, I presume?\"\n\n     \"Every one.\"\n\n     \"Do you know the names?\"\n\n     \"Barrymore has been coaching me in them, and I think I can say my\n     lessons fairly well.\"\n\n     \"Who is the gentleman with the telescope?\"\n\n     \"That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the\n     West Indies. The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir\n     William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the House of\n     Commons under Pitt.\"\n\n     \"And this Cavalier opposite to me--the one with the black velvet and\n     the lace?\"\n\n     \"Ah, you have a right to know about him. That is the cause of all the\n     mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the Hound of the Baskervilles.\n     We're not likely to forget him.\"\n\n     I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.\n\n     \"Dear me!\" said Holmes, \"he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man enough,\n     but I dare say that there was a lurking devil in his eyes. I had\n     pictured him as a more robust and ruffianly person.\"\n\n     \"There's no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the date,\n     1647, are on the back of the canvas.\"\n\n     Holmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer seemed\n     to have a fascination for him, and his eyes were continually fixed\n     upon it during supper. It was not until later, when Sir Henry had\n     gone to his room, that I was able to follow the trend of his\n     thoughts. He led me back into the banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle\n     in his hand, and he held it up against the time-stained portrait on\n     the wall.\n\n     \"Do you see anything there?\"\n\n     I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the white\n     lace collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed between\n     them. It was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim, hard, and\n     stern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant\n     eye.\n\n     \"Is it like anyone you know?\"\n\n     \"There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.\"\n\n     \"Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait an instant!\" He stood upon a\n     chair, and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved his\n     right arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" I cried, in amazement.\n\n     The face of Stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.\n\n     \"Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces and\n     not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal\n     investigator that he should see through a disguise.\"\n\n     \"But this is marvellous. It might be his portrait.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to\n     be both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is enough\n     to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. The fellow is a\n     Baskerville--that is evident.\"\n\n     \"With designs upon the succession.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of our\n     most obvious missing links. We have him, Watson, we have him, and I\n     dare swear that before to-morrow night he will be fluttering in our\n     net as helpless as one of his own butterflies. A pin, a cork, and a\n     card, and we add him to the Baker Street collection!\" He burst into\n     one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture.\n     I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to\n     somebody.\n\n     I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier still,\n     for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.\n\n     \"Yes, we should have a full day to-day,\" he remarked, and he rubbed\n     his hands with the joy of action. \"The nets are all in place, and the\n     drag is about to begin. We'll know before the day is out whether we\n     have caught our big, lean-jawed pike, or whether he has got through\n     the meshes.\"\n\n     \"Have you been on the moor already?\"\n\n     \"I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death of\n     Selden. I think I can promise that none of you will be troubled in\n     the matter. And I have also communicated with my faithful Cartwright,\n     who would certainly have pined away at the door of my hut, as a dog\n     does at his master's grave, if I had not set his mind at rest about\n     my safety.\"\n\n     \"What is the next move?\"\n\n     \"To see Sir Henry. Ah, here he is!\"\n\n     \"Good morning, Holmes,\" said the baronet. \"You look like a general\n     who is planning a battle with his chief of the staff.\"\n\n     \"That is the exact situation. Watson was asking for orders.\"\n\n     \"And so do I.\"\n\n     \"Very good. You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with our\n     friends the Stapletons to-night.\"\n\n     \"I hope that you will come also. They are very hospitable people, and\n     I am sure that they would be very glad to see you.\"\n\n     \"I fear that Watson and I must go to London.\"\n\n     \"To London?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I think that we should be more useful there at the present\n     juncture.\"\n\n     The baronet's face perceptibly lengthened.\n\n     \"I hoped that you were going to see me through this business. The\n     Hall and the moor are not very pleasant places when one is alone.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what I\n     tell you. You can tell your friends that we should have been happy to\n     have come with you, but that urgent business required us to be in\n     town. We hope very soon to return to Devonshire. Will you remember to\n     give them that message?\"\n\n     \"If you insist upon it.\"\n\n     \"There is no alternative, I assure you.\"\n\n     I saw by the baronet's clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by what\n     he regarded as our desertion.\n\n     \"When do you desire to go?\" he asked coldly.\n\n     \"Immediately after breakfast. We will drive in to Coombe Tracey, but\n     Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come back to\n     you. Watson, you will send a note to Stapleton to tell him that you\n     regret that you cannot come.\"\n\n     \"I have a good mind to go to London with you,\" said the baronet. \"Why\n     should I stay here alone?\"\n\n     \"Because it is your post of duty. Because you gave me your word that\n     you would do as you were told, and I tell you to stay.\"\n\n     \"All right, then, I'll stay.\"\n\n     \"One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House. Send back\n     your trap, however, and let them know that you intend to walk home.\"\n\n     \"To walk across the moor?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"But that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me not\n     to do.\"\n\n     \"This time you may do it with safety. If I had not every confidence\n     in your nerve and courage I would not suggest it, but it is essential\n     that you should do it.\"\n\n     \"Then I will do it.\"\n\n     \"And as you value your life do not go across the moor in any\n     direction save along the straight path which leads from Merripit\n     House to the Grimpen Road, and is your natural way home.\"\n\n     \"I will do just what you say.\"\n\n     \"Very good. I should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast as\n     possible, so as to reach London in the afternoon.\"\n\n     I was much astounded by this programme, though I remembered that\n     Holmes had said to Stapleton on the night before that his visit would\n     terminate next day. It had not crossed my mind, however, that he\n     would wish me to go with him, nor could I understand how we could\n     both be absent at a moment which he himself declared to be critical.\n     There was nothing for it, however, but implicit obedience; so we bade\n     good-bye to our rueful friend, and a couple of hours afterwards we\n     were at the station of Coombe Tracey and had dispatched the trap upon\n     its return journey. A small boy was waiting upon the platform.\n\n     \"Any orders, sir?\"\n\n     \"You will take this train to town, Cartwright. The moment you arrive\n     you will send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my name, to say\n     that if he finds the pocket-book which I have dropped he is to send\n     it by registered post to Baker Street.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"And ask at the station office if there is a message for me.\"\n\n     The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handed to me. It ran:\n\n     Wire received. Coming down with unsigned warrant. Arrive five-forty.\n     Lestrade.\n\n     \"That is in answer to mine of this morning. He is the best of the\n     professionals, I think, and we may need his assistance. Now, Watson,\n     I think that we cannot employ our time better than by calling upon\n     your acquaintance, Mrs. Laura Lyons.\"\n\n     His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. He would use the\n     baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we were really gone,\n     while we should actually return at the instant when we were likely to\n     be needed. That telegram from London, if mentioned by Sir Henry to\n     the Stapletons, must remove the last suspicions from their minds.\n     Already I seemed to see our nets drawing closer around that\n     lean-jawed pike.\n\n     Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened his\n     interview with a frankness and directness which considerably amazed\n     her.\n\n     \"I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the\n     late Sir Charles Baskerville,\" said he. \"My friend here, Dr. Watson,\n     has informed me of what you have communicated, and also of what you\n     have withheld in connection with that matter.\"\n\n     \"What have I withheld?\" she asked defiantly.\n\n     \"You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate at\n     ten o'clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his death.\n     You have withheld what the connection is between these events.\"\n\n     \"There is no connection.\"\n\n     \"In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one.\n     But I think that we shall succeed in establishing a connection after\n     all. I wish to be perfectly frank with you, Mrs. Lyons. We regard\n     this case as one of murder, and the evidence may implicate not only\n     your friend Mr. Stapleton, but his wife as well.\"\n\n     The lady sprang from her chair.\n\n     \"His wife!\" she cried.\n\n     \"The fact is no longer a secret. The person who has passed for his\n     sister is really his wife.\"\n\n     Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands were grasping the arms of\n     her chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with the\n     pressure of her grip.\n\n     \"His wife!\" she said again. \"His wife! He is not a married man.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so--!\" The fierce\n     flash of her eyes said more than any words.\n\n     \"I have come prepared to do so,\" said Holmes, drawing several papers\n     from his pocket. \"Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York\n     four years ago. It is indorsed 'Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,' but you will\n     have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her\n     by sight. Here are three written descriptions by trustworthy\n     witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time kept St.\n     Oliver's private school. Read them and see if you can doubt the\n     identity of these people.\"\n\n     She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid\n     face of a desperate woman.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes,\" she said, \"this man had offered me marriage on\n     condition that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied to\n     me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of truth has\n     he ever told me. And why--why? I imagined that all was for my own\n     sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a tool in his\n     hands. Why should I preserve faith with him who never kept any with\n     me? Why should I try to shield him from the consequences of his own\n     wicked acts? Ask me what you like, and there is nothing which I shall\n     hold back. One thing I swear to you, and that is that when I wrote\n     the letter I never dreamed of any harm to the old gentleman, who had\n     been my kindest friend.\"\n\n     \"I entirely believe you, madam,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"The recital\n     of these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make\n     it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can check me if I make\n     any material mistake. The sending of this letter was suggested to you\n     by Stapleton?\"\n\n     \"He dictated it.\"\n\n     \"I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help\n     from Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping\n     the appointment?\"\n\n     \"He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man\n     should find the money for such an object, and that though he was a\n     poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the\n     obstacles which divided us.\"\n\n     \"He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard\n     nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with Sir\n     Charles?\"\n\n     \"He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I\n     should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me\n     into remaining silent.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. But you had your suspicions?\"\n\n     She hesitated and looked down.\n\n     \"I knew him,\" she said. \"But if he had kept faith with me I should\n     always have done so with him.\"\n\n     \"I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,\" said\n     Sherlock Holmes. \"You have had him in your power and he knew it, and\n     yet you are alive. You have been walking for some months very near to\n     the edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning now, Mrs.\n     Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us\n     again.\"\n\n     \"Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins\n     away in front of us,\" said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival\n     of the express from town. \"I shall soon be in the position of being\n     able to put into a single connected narrative one of the most\n     singular and sensational crimes of modern times. Students of\n     criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little\n     Russia, in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders\n     in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are\n     entirely its own. Even now we have no clear case against this very\n     wily man. But I shall be very much surprised if it is not clear\n     enough before we go to bed this night.\"\n\n     The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry\n     bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We all three\n     shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which\n     Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since\n     the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember\n     the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in\n     the practical man.\n\n     \"Anything good?\" he asked.\n\n     \"The biggest thing for years,\" said Holmes. \"We have two hours before\n     we need think of starting. I think we might employ it in getting some\n     dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London fog out of your\n     throat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of Dartmoor.\n     Never been there? Ah, well, I don't suppose you will forget your\n     first visit.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XIV\n          The Hound of the Baskervilles\n\n\n     One of Sherlock Holmes's defects--if, indeed, one may call it a\n     defect--was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full\n     plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment.\n     Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to\n     dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his\n     professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The\n     result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his\n     agents and assistants. I had often suffered under it, but never more\n     so than during that long drive in the darkness. The great ordeal was\n     in front of us; at last we were about to make our final effort, and\n     yet Holmes had said nothing, and I could only surmise what his course\n     of action would be. My nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last\n     the cold wind upon our faces and the dark, void spaces on either side\n     of the narrow road told me that we were back upon the moor once\n     again. Every stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was\n     taking us nearer to our supreme adventure.\n\n     Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of the\n     hired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial matters\n     when our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation. It was a\n     relief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we at last passed\n     Frankland's house and knew that we were drawing near to the Hall and\n     to the scene of action. We did not drive up to the door but got down\n     near the gate of the avenue. The wagonette was paid off and ordered\n     to return to Coombe Tracey forthwith, while we started to walk to\n     Merripit House.\n\n     \"Are you armed, Lestrade?\"\n\n     The little detective smiled.\n\n     \"As long as I have my trousers I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I\n     have my hip-pocket I have something in it.\"\n\n     \"Good! My friend and I are also ready for emergencies.\"\n\n     \"You're mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes. What's the game\n     now?\"\n\n     \"A waiting game.\"\n\n     \"My word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,\" said the detective\n     with a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes of the hill\n     and at the huge lake of fog which lay over the Grimpen Mire. \"I see\n     the lights of a house ahead of us.\"\n\n     \"That is Merripit House and the end of our journey. I must request\n     you to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.\"\n\n     We moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the\n     house, but Holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards from\n     it.\n\n     \"This will do,\" said he. \"These rocks upon the right make an\n     admirable screen.\"\n\n     \"We are to wait here?\"\n\n     \"Yes, we shall make our little ambush here. Get into this hollow,\n     Lestrade. You have been inside the house, have you not, Watson? Can\n     you tell the position of the rooms? What are those latticed windows\n     at this end?\"\n\n     \"I think they are the kitchen windows.\"\n\n     \"And the one beyond, which shines so brightly?\"\n\n     \"That is certainly the dining-room.\"\n\n     \"The blinds are up. You know the lie of the land best. Creep forward\n     quietly and see what they are doing--but for heaven's sake don't let\n     them know that they are watched!\"\n\n     I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which\n     surrounded the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadow I reached a\n     point whence I could look straight through the uncurtained window.\n\n     There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton. They\n     sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table.\n     Both of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in front\n     of them. Stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronet looked\n     pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the\n     ill-omened moor was weighing heavily upon his mind.\n\n     As I watched them Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir Henry\n     filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his\n     cigar. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon\n     gravel. The steps passed along the path on the other side of the wall\n     under which I crouched. Looking over, I saw the naturalist pause at\n     the door of an out-house in the corner of the orchard. A key turned\n     in a lock, and as he passed in there was a curious scuffling noise\n     from within. He was only a minute or so inside, and then I heard the\n     key turn once more and he passed me and re-entered the house. I saw\n     him rejoin his guest, and I crept quietly back to where my companions\n     were waiting to tell them what I had seen.\n\n     \"You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?\" Holmes asked, when I\n     had finished my report.\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other room\n     except the kitchen?\"\n\n     \"I cannot think where she is.\"\n\n     I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense,\n     white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction, and banked itself\n     up like a wall on that side of us, low, but thick and well defined.\n     The moon shone on it, and it looked like a great shimmering\n     ice-field, with the heads of the distant tors as rocks borne upon its\n     surface. Holmes's face was turned towards it, and he muttered\n     impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.\n\n     \"It's moving towards us, Watson.\"\n\n     \"Is that serious?\"\n\n     \"Very serious, indeed--the one thing upon earth which could have\n     disarranged my plans. He can't be very long, now. It is already ten\n     o'clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his coming out\n     before the fog is over the path.\"\n\n     The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and\n     bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain\n     light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof\n     and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky.\n     Broad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across\n     the orchard and the moor. One of them was suddenly shut off. The\n     servants had left the kitchen. There only remained the lamp in the\n     dining-room where the two men, the murderous host and the unconscious\n     guest, still chatted over their cigars.\n\n     Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one half of the\n     moor was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the first\n     thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted\n     window. The farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and\n     the trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapour. As we watched\n     it the fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and\n     rolled slowly into one dense bank, on which the upper floor and the\n     roof floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck\n     his hand passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped his\n     feet in his impatience.\n\n     \"If he isn't out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered. In\n     half an hour we won't be able to see our hands in front of us.\"\n\n     \"Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I think it would be as well.\"\n\n     So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we were\n     half a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea, with the\n     moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably on.\n\n     \"We are going too far,\" said Holmes. \"We dare not take the chance of\n     his being overtaken before he can reach us. At all costs we must hold\n     our ground where we are.\" He dropped on his knees and clapped his ear\n     to the ground. \"Thank God, I think that I hear him coming.\"\n\n     A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor. Crouching among\n     the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in front of\n     us. The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as through a curtain,\n     there stepped the man whom we were awaiting. He looked round him in\n     surprise as he emerged into the clear, starlit night. Then he came\n     swiftly along the path, passed close to where we lay, and went on up\n     the long slope behind us. As he walked he glanced continually over\n     either shoulder, like a man who is ill at ease.\n\n     \"Hist!\" cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking\n     pistol. \"Look out! It's coming!\"\n\n     There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the\n     heart of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty yards of\n     where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror\n     was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes's elbow, and\n     I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his\n     eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But suddenly they started\n     forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement. At\n     the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself\n     face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my inert hand\n     grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had\n     sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an\n     enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have\n     ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a\n     smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in\n     flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain\n     could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived\n     than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the\n     wall of fog.\n\n     With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the track,\n     following hard upon the footsteps of our friend. So paralyzed were we\n     by the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered\n     our nerve. Then Holmes and I both fired together, and the creature\n     gave a hideous howl, which showed that one at least had hit him. He\n     did not pause, however, but bounded onward. Far away on the path we\n     saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his\n     hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing\n     which was hunting him down.\n\n     But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the\n     winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him\n     we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that\n     night. I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as I\n     outpaced the little professional. In front of us as we flew up the\n     track we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and the deep roar\n     of the hound. I was in time to see the beast spring upon its victim,\n     hurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat. But the next instant\n     Holmes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's\n     flank. With a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it\n     rolled upon its back, four feet pawing furiously, and then fell limp\n     upon its side. I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol to the\n     dreadful, shimmering head, but it was useless to press the trigger.\n     The giant hound was dead.\n\n     Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen. We tore away his\n     collar, and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw that\n     there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time.\n     Already our friend's eyelids shivered and he made a feeble effort to\n     move. Lestrade thrust his brandy-flask between the baronet's teeth,\n     and two frightened eyes were looking up at us.\n\n     \"My God!\" he whispered. \"What was it? What, in heaven's name, was\n     it?\"\n\n     \"It's dead, whatever it is,\" said Holmes. \"We've laid the family\n     ghost once and forever.\"\n\n     In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying\n     stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a\n     pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of the two--gaunt,\n     savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now, in the stillness\n     of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and\n     the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. I placed my\n     hand upon the glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my own fingers\n     smouldered and gleamed in the darkness.\n\n     \"Phosphorus,\" I said.\n\n     \"A cunning preparation of it,\" said Holmes, sniffing at the dead\n     animal. \"There is no smell which might have interfered with his power\n     of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having exposed\n     you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such a\n     creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to receive him.\"\n\n     \"You have saved my life.\"\n\n     \"Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?\"\n\n     \"Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for\n     anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do you propose to\n     do?\"\n\n     \"To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures to-night.\n     If you will wait, one or other of us will go back with you to the\n     Hall.\"\n\n     He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale and\n     trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock, where he sat\n     shivering with his face buried in his hands.\n\n     \"We must leave you now,\" said Holmes. \"The rest of our work must be\n     done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and now we\n     only want our man.\n\n     \"It's a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,\" he\n     continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. \"Those\n     shots must have told him that the game was up.\"\n\n     \"We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.\"\n\n     \"He followed the hound to call him off--of that you may be certain.\n     No, no, he's gone by this time! But we'll search the house and make\n     sure.\"\n\n     The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to\n     room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us in\n     the passage. There was no light save in the dining-room, but Holmes\n     caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. No\n     sign could we see of the man whom we were chasing. On the upper\n     floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked.\n\n     \"There's someone in here,\" cried Lestrade. \"I can hear a movement.\n     Open this door!\"\n\n     A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the door\n     just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew open. Pistol\n     in hand, we all three rushed into the room.\n\n     But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain\n     whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by an object so\n     strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in\n     amazement.\n\n     The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls were\n     lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that collection of\n     butterflies and moths the formation of which had been the relaxation\n     of this complex and dangerous man. In the centre of this room there\n     was an upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a\n     support for the old worm-eaten baulk of timber which spanned the\n     roof. To this post a figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in the\n     sheets which had been used to secure it that one could not for the\n     moment tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. One towel passed\n     round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar. Another\n     covered the lower part of the face, and over it two dark eyes--eyes\n     full of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning--stared back at\n     us. In a minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and\n     Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. As her beautiful\n     head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash\n     across her neck.\n\n     \"The brute!\" cried Holmes. \"Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle! Put\n     her in the chair! She has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.\"\n\n     She opened her eyes again.\n\n     \"Is he safe?\" she asked. \"Has he escaped?\"\n\n     \"He cannot escape us, madam.\"\n\n     \"No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"And the hound?\"\n\n     \"It is dead.\"\n\n     She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.\n\n     \"Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how he has treated me!\"\n     She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with horror that\n     they were all mottled with bruises. \"But this is nothing--nothing! It\n     is my mind and soul that he has tortured and defiled. I could endure\n     it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception, everything, as long\n     as I could still cling to the hope that I had his love, but now I\n     know that in this also I have been his dupe and his tool.\" She broke\n     into passionate sobbing as she spoke.\n\n     \"You bear him no good will, madam,\" said Holmes. \"Tell us then where\n     we shall find him. If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now\n     and so atone.\"\n\n     \"There is but one place where he can have fled,\" she answered. \"There\n     is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. It was\n     there that he kept his hound and there also he had made preparations\n     so that he might have a refuge. That is where he would fly.\"\n\n     The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held the\n     lamp towards it.\n\n     \"See,\" said he. \"No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire\n     to-night.\"\n\n     She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed with\n     fierce merriment.\n\n     \"He may find his way in, but never out,\" she cried. \"How can he see\n     the guiding wands to-night? We planted them together, he and I, to\n     mark the pathway through the mire. Oh, if I could only have plucked\n     them out to-day. Then indeed you would have had him at your mercy!\"\n\n     It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had\n     lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house while\n     Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville Hall. The\n     story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he\n     took the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom\n     he had loved. But the shock of the night's adventures had shattered\n     his nerves, and before morning he lay delirious in a high fever,\n     under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two of them were destined to\n     travel together round the world before Sir Henry had become once more\n     the hale, hearty man that he had been before he became master of that\n     ill-omened estate.\n\n     And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative,\n     in which I have tried to make the reader share those dark fears and\n     vague surmises which clouded our lives so long and ended in so tragic\n     a manner. On the morning after the death of the hound the fog had\n     lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they\n     had found a pathway through the bog. It helped us to realize the\n     horror of this woman's life when we saw the eagerness and joy with\n     which she laid us on her husband's track. We left her standing upon\n     the thin peninsula of firm, peaty soil which tapered out into the\n     widespread bog. From the end of it a small wand planted here and\n     there showed where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes\n     among those green-scummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the\n     way to the stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an\n     odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a\n     false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark,\n     quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our\n     feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when\n     we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down\n     into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in\n     which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed\n     that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass which\n     bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. Holmes\n     sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it, and had we\n     not been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot upon\n     firm land again. He held an old black boot in the air. \"Meyers,\n     Toronto,\" was printed on the leather inside.\n\n     \"It is worth a mud bath,\" said he. \"It is our friend Sir Henry's\n     missing boot.\"\n\n     \"Thrown there by Stapleton in his flight.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound\n     upon the track. He fled when he knew the game was up, still clutching\n     it. And he hurled it away at this point of his flight. We know at\n     least that he came so far in safety.\"\n\n     But more than that we were never destined to know, though there was\n     much which we might surmise. There was no chance of finding footsteps\n     in the mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them, but as we\n     at last reached firmer ground beyond the morass we all looked eagerly\n     for them. But no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes. If the\n     earth told a true story, then Stapleton never reached that island of\n     refuge towards which he struggled through the fog upon that last\n     night. Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down in the\n     foul slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and\n     cruel-hearted man is forever buried.\n\n     Many traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had hid\n     his savage ally. A huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled with\n     rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside it were the\n     crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt\n     by the foul reek of the surrounding swamp. In one of these a staple\n     and chain with a quantity of gnawed bones showed where the animal had\n     been confined. A skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it\n     lay among the debris.\n\n     \"A dog!\" said Holmes. \"By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel. Poor Mortimer\n     will never see his pet again. Well, I do not know that this place\n     contains any secret which we have not already fathomed. He could hide\n     his hound, but he could not hush its voice, and hence came those\n     cries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear. On an\n     emergency he could keep the hound in the out-house at Merripit, but\n     it was always a risk, and it was only on the supreme day, which he\n     regarded as the end of all his efforts, that he dared do it. This\n     paste in the tin is no doubt the luminous mixture with which the\n     creature was daubed. It was suggested, of course, by the story of the\n     family hell-hound, and by the desire to frighten old Sir Charles to\n     death. No wonder the poor devil of a convict ran and screamed, even\n     as our friend did, and as we ourselves might have done, when he saw\n     such a creature bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his\n     track. It was a cunning device, for, apart from the chance of driving\n     your victim to his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too\n     closely into such a creature should he get sight of it, as many have\n     done, upon the moor? I said it in London, Watson, and I say it again\n     now, that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more dangerous man\n     than he who is lying yonder\"--he swept his long arm towards the huge\n     mottled expanse of green-splotched bog which stretched away until it\n     merged into the russet slopes of the moor.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER XV\n          A Retrospection\n\n\n     It was the end of November and Holmes and I sat, upon a raw and foggy\n     night, on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting-room in Baker\n     Street. Since the tragic upshot of our visit to Devonshire he had\n     been engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of\n     which he had exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel Upwood in\n     connection with the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while\n     in the second he had defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from\n     the charge of murder which hung over her in connection with the death\n     of her step-daughter, Mlle. Carere, the young lady who, as it will be\n     remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York.\n     My friend was in excellent spirits over the success which had\n     attended a succession of difficult and important cases, so that I was\n     able to induce him to discuss the details of the Baskerville mystery.\n     I had waited patiently for the opportunity, for I was aware that he\n     would never permit cases to overlap, and that his clear and logical\n     mind would not be drawn from its present work to dwell upon memories\n     of the past. Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer were, however, in London, on\n     their way to that long voyage which had been recommended for the\n     restoration of his shattered nerves. They had called upon us that\n     very afternoon, so that it was natural that the subject should come\n     up for discussion.\n\n     \"The whole course of events,\" said Holmes, \"from the point of view of\n     the man who called himself Stapleton was simple and direct, although\n     to us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of\n     his actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared\n     exceedingly complex. I have had the advantage of two conversations\n     with Mrs. Stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up\n     that I am not aware that there is anything which has remained a\n     secret to us. You will find a few notes upon the matter under the\n     heading B in my indexed list of cases.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of events\n     from memory.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in\n     my mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting\n     out what has passed. The barrister who has his case at his fingers'\n     ends, and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject finds\n     that a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head\n     once more. So each of my cases displaces the last, and Mlle. Carere\n     has blurred my recollection of Baskerville Hall. To-morrow some other\n     little problem may be submitted to my notice which will in turn\n     dispossess the fair French lady and the infamous Upwood. So far as\n     the case of the Hound goes, however, I will give you the course of\n     events as nearly as I can, and you will suggest anything which I may\n     have forgotten.\n\n     \"My inquiries show beyond all question that the family portrait did\n     not lie, and that this fellow was indeed a Baskerville. He was a son\n     of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who\n     fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said\n     to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had\n     one child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's.\n     He married Beryl Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and,\n     having purloined a considerable sum of public money, he changed his\n     name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he established a school\n     in the east of Yorkshire. His reason for attempting this special line\n     of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a\n     consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this\n     man's ability to make the undertaking a success. Fraser, the tutor,\n     died however, and the school which had begun well sank from disrepute\n     into infamy. The Vandeleurs found it convenient to change their name\n     to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes\n     for the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of England.\n     I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority\n     upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently\n     attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been\n     the first to describe.\n\n     \"We now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be of\n     such intense interest to us. The fellow had evidently made inquiry\n     and found that only two lives intervened between him and a valuable\n     estate. When he went to Devonshire his plans were, I believe,\n     exceedingly hazy, but that he meant mischief from the first is\n     evident from the way in which he took his wife with him in the\n     character of his sister. The idea of using her as a decoy was clearly\n     already in his mind, though he may not have been certain how the\n     details of his plot were to be arranged. He meant in the end to have\n     the estate, and he was ready to use any tool or run any risk for that\n     end. His first act was to establish himself as near to his ancestral\n     home as he could, and his second was to cultivate a friendship with\n     Sir Charles Baskerville and with the neighbours.\n\n     \"The baronet himself told him about the family hound, and so prepared\n     the way for his own death. Stapleton, as I will continue to call him,\n     knew that the old man's heart was weak and that a shock would kill\n     him. So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer. He had heard also that\n     Sir Charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very\n     seriously. His ingenious mind instantly suggested a way by which the\n     baronet could be done to death, and yet it would be hardly possible\n     to bring home the guilt to the real murderer.\n\n     \"Having conceived the idea he proceeded to carry it out with\n     considerable finesse. An ordinary schemer would have been content to\n     work with a savage hound. The use of artificial means to make the\n     creature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. The dog he\n     bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road.\n     It was the strongest and most savage in their possession. He brought\n     it down by the North Devon line and walked a great distance over the\n     moor so as to get it home without exciting any remarks. He had\n     already on his insect hunts learned to penetrate the Grimpen Mire,\n     and so had found a safe hiding-place for the creature. Here he\n     kennelled it and waited his chance.\n\n     \"But it was some time coming. The old gentleman could not be decoyed\n     outside of his grounds at night. Several times Stapleton lurked about\n     with his hound, but without avail. It was during these fruitless\n     quests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that\n     the legend of the demon dog received a new confirmation. He had hoped\n     that his wife might lure Sir Charles to his ruin, but here she proved\n     unexpectedly independent. She would not endeavour to entangle the old\n     gentleman in a sentimental attachment which might deliver him over to\n     his enemy. Threats and even, I am sorry to say, blows refused to move\n     her. She would have nothing to do with it, and for a time Stapleton\n     was at a deadlock.\n\n     \"He found a way out of his difficulties through the chance that Sir\n     Charles, who had conceived a friendship for him, made him the\n     minister of his charity in the case of this unfortunate woman, Mrs.\n     Laura Lyons. By representing himself as a single man he acquired\n     complete influence over her, and he gave her to understand that in\n     the event of her obtaining a divorce from her husband he would marry\n     her. His plans were suddenly brought to a head by his knowledge that\n     Sir Charles was about to leave the Hall on the advice of Dr.\n     Mortimer, with whose opinion he himself pretended to coincide. He\n     must act at once, or his victim might get beyond his power. He\n     therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons to write this letter,\n     imploring the old man to give her an interview on the evening before\n     his departure for London. He then, by a specious argument, prevented\n     her from going, and so had the chance for which he had waited.\n\n     \"Driving back in the evening from Coombe Tracey he was in time to get\n     his hound, to treat it with his infernal paint, and to bring the\n     beast round to the gate at which he had reason to expect that he\n     would find the old gentleman waiting. The dog, incited by its master,\n     sprang over the wicket-gate and pursued the unfortunate baronet, who\n     fled screaming down the Yew Alley. In that gloomy tunnel it must\n     indeed have been a dreadful sight to see that huge black creature,\n     with its flaming jaws and blazing eyes, bounding after its victim. He\n     fell dead at the end of the alley from heart disease and terror. The\n     hound had kept upon the grassy border while the baronet had run down\n     the path, so that no track but the man's was visible. On seeing him\n     lying still the creature had probably approached to sniff at him, but\n     finding him dead had turned away again. It was then that it left the\n     print which was actually observed by Dr. Mortimer. The hound was\n     called off and hurried away to its lair in the Grimpen Mire, and a\n     mystery was left which puzzled the authorities, alarmed the\n     country-side, and finally brought the case within the scope of our\n     observation.\n\n     \"So much for the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. You perceive the\n     devilish cunning of it, for really it would be almost impossible to\n     make a case against the real murderer. His only accomplice was one\n     who could never give him away, and the grotesque, inconceivable\n     nature of the device only served to make it more effective. Both of\n     the women concerned in the case, Mrs. Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons,\n     were left with a strong suspicion against Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton\n     knew that he had designs upon the old man, and also of the existence\n     of the hound. Mrs. Lyons knew neither of these things, but had been\n     impressed by the death occurring at the time of an uncancelled\n     appointment which was only known to him. However, both of them were\n     under his influence, and he had nothing to fear from them. The first\n     half of his task was successfully accomplished but the more difficult\n     still remained.\n\n     \"It is possible that Stapleton did not know of the existence of an\n     heir in Canada. In any case he would very soon learn it from his\n     friend Dr. Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all details about\n     the arrival of Henry Baskerville. Stapleton's first idea was that\n     this young stranger from Canada might possibly be done to death in\n     London without coming down to Devonshire at all. He distrusted his\n     wife ever since she had refused to help him in laying a trap for the\n     old man, and he dared not leave her long out of his sight for fear he\n     should lose his influence over her. It was for this reason that he\n     took her to London with him. They lodged, I find, at the Mexborough\n     Private Hotel, in Craven Street, which was actually one of those\n     called upon by my agent in search of evidence. Here he kept his wife\n     imprisoned in her room while he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr.\n     Mortimer to Baker Street and afterwards to the station and to the\n     Northumberland Hotel. His wife had some inkling of his plans; but she\n     had such a fear of her husband--a fear founded upon brutal\n     ill-treatment--that she dare not write to warn the man whom she knew\n     to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton's hands her\n     own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we know, she adopted the\n     expedient of cutting out the words which would form the message, and\n     addressing the letter in a disguised hand. It reached the baronet,\n     and gave him the first warning of his danger.\n\n     \"It was very essential for Stapleton to get some article of Sir\n     Henry's attire so that, in case he was driven to use the dog, he\n     might always have the means of setting him upon his track. With\n     characteristic promptness and audacity he set about this at once, and\n     we cannot doubt that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel was well\n     bribed to help him in his design. By chance, however, the first boot\n     which was procured for him was a new one and, therefore, useless for\n     his purpose. He then had it returned and obtained another--a most\n     instructive incident, since it proved conclusively to my mind that we\n     were dealing with a real hound, as no other supposition could explain\n     this anxiety to obtain an old boot and this indifference to a new\n     one. The more outré and grotesque an incident is the more carefully\n     it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to\n     complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically\n     handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.\n\n     \"Then we had the visit from our friends next morning, shadowed always\n     by Stapleton in the cab. From his knowledge of our rooms and of my\n     appearance, as well as from his general conduct, I am inclined to\n     think that Stapleton's career of crime has been by no means limited\n     to this single Baskerville affair. It is suggestive that during the\n     last three years there have been four considerable burglaries in the\n     West Country, for none of which was any criminal ever arrested. The\n     last of these, at Folkestone Court, in May, was remarkable for the\n     cold-blooded pistoling of the page, who surprised the masked and\n     solitary burglar. I cannot doubt that Stapleton recruited his waning\n     resources in this fashion, and that for years he has been a desperate\n     and dangerous man.\n\n     \"We had an example of his readiness of resource that morning when he\n     got away from us so successfully, and also of his audacity in sending\n     back my own name to me through the cabman. From that moment he\n     understood that I had taken over the case in London, and that\n     therefore there was no chance for him there. He returned to Dartmoor\n     and awaited the arrival of the baronet.\"\n\n     \"One moment!\" said I. \"You have, no doubt, described the sequence of\n     events correctly, but there is one point which you have left\n     unexplained. What became of the hound when its master was in London?\"\n\n     \"I have given some attention to this matter and it is undoubtedly of\n     importance. There can be no question that Stapleton had a confidant,\n     though it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in his power by\n     sharing all his plans with him. There was an old manservant at\n     Merripit House, whose name was Anthony. His connection with the\n     Stapletons can be traced for several years, as far back as the\n     schoolmastering days, so that he must have been aware that his master\n     and mistress were really husband and wife. This man has disappeared\n     and has escaped from the country. It is suggestive that Anthony is\n     not a common name in England, while Antonio is so in all Spanish or\n     Spanish-American countries. The man, like Mrs. Stapleton herself,\n     spoke good English, but with a curious lisping accent. I have myself\n     seen this old man cross the Grimpen Mire by the path which Stapleton\n     had marked out. It is very probable, therefore, that in the absence\n     of his master it was he who cared for the hound, though he may never\n     have known the purpose for which the beast was used.\n\n     \"The Stapletons then went down to Devonshire, whither they were soon\n     followed by Sir Henry and you. One word now as to how I stood myself\n     at that time. It may possibly recur to your memory that when I\n     examined the paper upon which the printed words were fastened I made\n     a close inspection for the water-mark. In doing so I held it within a\n     few inches of my eyes, and was conscious of a faint smell of the\n     scent known as white jessamine. There are seventy-five perfumes,\n     which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to\n     distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my\n     own experience depended upon their prompt recognition. The scent\n     suggested the presence of a lady, and already my thoughts began to\n     turn towards the Stapletons. Thus I had made certain of the hound,\n     and had guessed at the criminal before ever we went to the west\n     country.\n\n     \"It was my game to watch Stapleton. It was evident, however, that I\n     could not do this if I were with you, since he would be keenly on his\n     guard. I deceived everybody, therefore, yourself included, and I came\n     down secretly when I was supposed to be in London. My hardships were\n     not so great as you imagined, though such trifling details must never\n     interfere with the investigation of a case. I stayed for the most\n     part at Coombe Tracey, and only used the hut upon the moor when it\n     was necessary to be near the scene of action. Cartwright had come\n     down with me, and in his disguise as a country boy he was of great\n     assistance to me. I was dependent upon him for food and clean linen.\n     When I was watching Stapleton, Cartwright was frequently watching\n     you, so that I was able to keep my hand upon all the strings.\n\n     \"I have already told you that your reports reached me rapidly, being\n     forwarded instantly from Baker Street to Coombe Tracey. They were of\n     great service to me, and especially that one incidentally truthful\n     piece of biography of Stapleton's. I was able to establish the\n     identity of the man and the woman and knew at last exactly how I\n     stood. The case had been considerably complicated through the\n     incident of the escaped convict and the relations between him and the\n     Barrymores. This also you cleared up in a very effective way, though\n     I had already come to the same conclusions from my own observations.\n\n     \"By the time that you discovered me upon the moor I had a complete\n     knowledge of the whole business, but I had not a case which could go\n     to a jury. Even Stapleton's attempt upon Sir Henry that night which\n     ended in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much in\n     proving murder against our man. There seemed to be no alternative but\n     to catch him red-handed, and to do so we had to use Sir Henry, alone\n     and apparently unprotected, as a bait. We did so, and at the cost of\n     a severe shock to our client we succeeded in completing our case and\n     driving Stapleton to his destruction. That Sir Henry should have been\n     exposed to this is, I must confess, a reproach to my management of\n     the case, but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and\n     paralyzing spectacle which the beast presented, nor could we predict\n     the fog which enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice. We\n     succeeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and Dr.\n     Mortimer assure me will be a temporary one. A long journey may enable\n     our friend to recover not only from his shattered nerves but also\n     from his wounded feelings. His love for the lady was deep and\n     sincere, and to him the saddest part of all this black business was\n     that he should have been deceived by her.\n\n     \"It only remains to indicate the part which she had played\n     throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised an\n     influence over her which may have been love or may have been fear, or\n     very possibly both, since they are by no means incompatible emotions.\n     It was, at least, absolutely effective. At his command she consented\n     to pass as his sister, though he found the limits of his power over\n     her when he endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder.\n     She was ready to warn Sir Henry so far as she could without\n     implicating her husband, and again and again she tried to do so.\n     Stapleton himself seems to have been capable of jealousy, and when he\n     saw the baronet paying court to the lady, even though it was part of\n     his own plan, still he could not help interrupting with a passionate\n     outburst which revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained\n     manner so cleverly concealed. By encouraging the intimacy he made it\n     certain that Sir Henry would frequently come to Merripit House and\n     that he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he desired.\n     On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned suddenly against\n     him. She had learned something of the death of the convict, and she\n     knew that the hound was being kept in the out-house on the evening\n     that Sir Henry was coming to dinner. She taxed her husband with his\n     intended crime, and a furious scene followed, in which he showed her\n     for the first time that she had a rival in his love. Her fidelity\n     turned in an instant to bitter hatred and he saw that she would\n     betray him. He tied her up, therefore, that she might have no chance\n     of warning Sir Henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole\n     country-side put down the baronet's death to the curse of his family,\n     as they certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an\n     accomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I\n     fancy that in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had\n     not been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. A\n     woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly.\n     And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes, I cannot give\n     you a more detailed account of this curious case. I do not know that\n     anything essential has been left unexplained.\"\n\n     \"He could not hope to frighten Sir Henry to death as he had done the\n     old uncle with his bogie hound.\"\n\n     \"The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not\n     frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the\n     resistance which might be offered.\"\n\n     \"No doubt. There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into\n     the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had\n     been living unannounced under another name so close to the property?\n     How could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry?\"\n\n     \"It is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much when\n     you expect me to solve it. The past and the present are within the\n     field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard\n     question to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the\n     problem on several occasions. There were three possible courses. He\n     might claim the property from South America, establish his identity\n     before the British authorities there and so obtain the fortune\n     without ever coming to England at all; or he might adopt an elaborate\n     disguise during the short time that he need be in London; or, again,\n     he might furnish an accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting\n     him in as heir, and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his\n     income. We cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have\n     found some way out of the difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we\n     have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we\n     may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for\n     'Les Huguenots.' Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I trouble you\n     then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini's for a\n     little dinner on the way?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               THE VALLEY OF FEAR\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n\n         Part I\n        The Warning\n        Sherlock Holmes Discourses\n        The Tragedy of Birlstone\n        Darkness\n        The People Of the Drama\n        A Dawning Light\n        The Solution\n\n         Part II\n        The Man\n        The Bodymaster\n        Lodge 341, Vermissa\n        The Valley of Fear\n        The Darkest Hour\n        Danger\n        The Trapping of Birdy Edwards\n        Epilogue\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                      PART I\n\n                            The Tragedy of Birlstone\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          The Warning\n\n\n     \"I am inclined to think--\" said I.\n\n     \"I should do so,\" Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.\n\n     I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but\n     I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.\n\n     \"Really, Holmes,\" said I severely, \"you are a little trying at\n     times.\"\n\n     He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate\n     answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted\n     breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had\n     just drawn from its envelope. Then he took the envelope itself, held\n     it up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and\n     the flap.\n\n     \"It is Porlock's writing,\" said he thoughtfully. \"I can hardly doubt\n     that it is Porlock's writing, though I have seen it only twice\n     before. The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive.\n     But if it is Porlock, then it must be something of the very first\n     importance.\"\n\n     He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation\n     disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.\n\n     \"Who then is Porlock?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but\n     behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter\n     he frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me\n     ever to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city.\n     Porlock is important, not for himself, but for the great man with\n     whom he is in touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the\n     shark, the jackal with the lion--anything that is insignificant in\n     companionship with what is formidable: not only formidable, Watson,\n     but sinister--in the highest degree sinister. That is where he comes\n     within my purview. You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?\"\n\n     \"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--\"\n\n     \"My blushes, Watson!\" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.\n\n     \"I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.\"\n\n     \"A touch! A distinct touch!\" cried Holmes. \"You are developing a\n     certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must\n     learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are\n     uttering libel in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and\n     the wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of\n     every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain\n     which might have made or marred the destiny of nations--that's the\n     man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from\n     criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that\n     for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a\n     court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his\n     wounded character. Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of\n     an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure\n     mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific\n     press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce?\n     Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be your\n     respective roles! That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser\n     men, our day will surely come.\"\n\n     \"May I be there to see!\" I exclaimed devoutly. \"But you were speaking\n     of this man Porlock.\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little\n     way from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound\n     link--between ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as\n     I have been able to test it.\"\n\n     \"But no chain is stronger than its weakest link.\"\n\n     \"Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock.\n     Led on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged\n     by the judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to\n     him by devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance\n     information which has been of value--that highest value which\n     anticipates and prevents rather than avenges crime. I cannot doubt\n     that, if we had the cipher, we should find that this communication is\n     of the nature that I indicate.\"\n\n     Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose\n     and, leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which\n     ran as follows:\n\n                         534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41\n                         DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE\n                              26 BIRLSTONE 9 47 171\n\n     \"What do you make of it, Holmes?\"\n\n     \"It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.\"\n\n     \"But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?\"\n\n     \"In this instance, none at all.\"\n\n     \"Why do you say 'in this instance'?\"\n\n     \"Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do\n     the apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the\n     intelligence without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is\n     clearly a reference to the words in a page of some book. Until I am\n     told which page and which book I am powerless.\"\n\n     \"But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?\"\n\n     \"Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page\n     in question.\"\n\n     \"Then why has he not indicated the book?\"\n\n     \"Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is\n     the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing\n     cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are\n     undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from\n     it. Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it\n     does not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is\n     more probable, the very volume to which these figures refer.\"\n\n     Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the\n     appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were\n     expecting.\n\n     \"The same writing,\" remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, \"and\n     actually signed,\" he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the\n     epistle. \"Come, we are getting on, Watson.\" His brow clouded,\n     however, as he glanced over the contents.\n\n     \"Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our\n     expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come\n     to no harm.\n\n     \"Dear Mr. Holmes [he says]:\n     \"I will go no further in this matter. It is too dangerous--he\n     suspects me. I can see that he suspects me. He came to me quite\n     unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this envelope with the\n     intention of sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to cover\n     it up. If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read\n     suspicion in his eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can now\n     be of no use to you.\n     \"Fred Porlock.\"\n\n     Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his\n     fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.\n\n     \"After all,\" he said at last, \"there may be nothing in it. It may be\n     only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may\n     have read the accusation in the other's eyes.\"\n\n     \"The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty.\"\n\n     \"No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they\n     mean. There is one predominant 'He' for all of them.\"\n\n     \"But what can he do?\"\n\n     \"Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the first brains\n     of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back,\n     there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently\n     scared out of his senses--kindly compare the writing in the note to\n     that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this\n     ill-omened visit. The one is clear and firm. The other hardly\n     legible.\"\n\n     \"Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?\"\n\n     \"Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case,\n     and possibly bring trouble on him.\"\n\n     \"No doubt,\" said I. \"Of course.\" I had picked up the original cipher\n     message and was bending my brows over it. \"It's pretty maddening to\n     think that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper,\n     and that it is beyond human power to penetrate it.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the\n     unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations. \"I\n     wonder!\" said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. \"Perhaps\n     there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let\n     us consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This man's\n     reference is to a book. That is our point of departure.\"\n\n     \"A somewhat vague one.\"\n\n     \"Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon\n     it, it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications have we as to\n     this book?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher\n     message begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it as a\n     working hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the\n     cipher refers. So our book has already become a large book which is\n     surely something gained. What other indications have we as to the\n     nature of this large book? The next sign is C2. What do you make of\n     that, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Chapter the second, no doubt.\"\n\n     \"Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the\n     page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if\n     page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first\n     one must have been really intolerable.\"\n\n     \"Column!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not\n     column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to\n     visualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a\n     considerable length, since one of the words is numbered in the\n     document as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the\n     limits of what reason can supply?\"\n\n     \"I fear that we have.\"\n\n     \"Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear\n     Watson--yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been an unusual one,\n     he would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he had intended, before\n     his plans were nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope. He says\n     so in his note. This would seem to indicate that the book is one\n     which he thought I would have no difficulty in finding for myself. He\n     had it--and he imagined that I would have it, too. In short, Watson,\n     it is a very common book.\"\n\n     \"What you say certainly sounds plausible.\"\n\n     \"So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed\n     in double columns and in common use.\"\n\n     \"The Bible!\" I cried triumphantly.\n\n     \"Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough!\n     Even if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any\n     volume which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of\n     Moriarty's associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so\n     numerous that he could hardly suppose that two copies would have the\n     same pagination. This is clearly a book which is standardized. He\n     knows for certain that his page 534 will exactly agree with my page\n     534.\"\n\n     \"But very few books would correspond with that.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to\n     standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess.\"\n\n     \"Bradshaw!\"\n\n     \"There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is\n     nervous and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly\n     lend itself to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate\n     Bradshaw. The dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same\n     reason. What then is left?\"\n\n     \"An almanac!\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched\n     the spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's\n     Almanac. It is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages.\n     It is in double column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it\n     becomes, if I remember right, quite garrulous towards the end.\" He\n     picked the volume from his desk. \"Here is page 534, column two, a\n     substantial block of print dealing, I perceive, with the trade and\n     resources of British India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number\n     thirteen is 'Mahratta.' Not, I fear, a very auspicious beginning.\n     Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'Government'; which at least\n     makes sense, though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor\n     Moriarty. Now let us try again. What does the Mahratta government do?\n     Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are undone, my good\n     Watson! It is finished!\"\n\n     He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy\n     eyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless\n     and unhappy, staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a\n     sudden exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which\n     he emerged with a second yellow-covered volume in his hand.\n\n     \"We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!\" he cried. \"We\n     are before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the\n     seventh of January, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It\n     is more than likely that Porlock took his message from the old one.\n     No doubt he would have told us so had his letter of explanation been\n     written. Now let us see what page 534 has in store for us. Number\n     thirteen is 'There,' which is much more promising. Number one hundred\n     and twenty-seven is 'is'--'There is'\"--Holmes's eyes were gleaming\n     with excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted\n     the words--\"'danger.' Ha! Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. 'There\n     is danger-- may-- come-- very-- soon-- one.' Then we have the name\n     'Douglas' --'rich-- country-- now-- at-- Birlstone-- House--\n     Birlstone-- confidence-- is-- pressing.' There, Watson! What do you\n     think of pure reason and its fruit? If the greengrocer had such a\n     thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it.\"\n\n     I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as he\n     deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.\n\n     \"What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!\" said I.\n\n     \"On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well,\" said Holmes.\n     \"When you search a single column for words with which to express your\n     meaning, you can hardly expect to get everything you want. You are\n     bound to leave something to the intelligence of your correspondent.\n     The purport is perfectly clear. Some deviltry is intended against one\n     Douglas, whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country\n     gentleman. He is sure--'confidence' was as near as he could get to\n     'confident'--that it is pressing. There is our result--and a very\n     workmanlike little bit of analysis it was!\"\n\n     Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work,\n     even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which\n     he aspired. He was still chuckling over his success when Billy swung\n     open the door and Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard was ushered\n     into the room.\n\n     Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec\n     MacDonald was far from having attained the national fame which he has\n     now achieved. He was a young but trusted member of the detective\n     force, who had distinguished himself in several cases which had been\n     entrusted to him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional\n     physical strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous\n     eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled\n     out from behind his bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with\n     a dour nature and a hard Aberdonian accent.\n\n     Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success,\n     his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. For\n     this reason the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his\n     amateur colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness\n     with which he consulted Holmes in every difficulty. Mediocrity knows\n     nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius,\n     and MacDonald had talent enough for his profession to enable him to\n     perceive that there was no humiliation in seeking the assistance of\n     one who already stood alone in Europe, both in his gifts and in his\n     experience. Holmes was not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant\n     of the big Scotchman, and smiled at the sight of him.\n\n     \"You are an early bird, Mr. Mac,\" said he. \"I wish you luck with your\n     worm. I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot.\"\n\n     \"If you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the truth,\n     I'm thinking, Mr. Holmes,\" the inspector answered, with a knowing\n     grin. \"Well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill.\n     No, I won't smoke, I thank you. I'll have to be pushing on my way;\n     for the early hours of a case are the precious ones, as no man knows\n     better than your own self. But--but--\"\n\n     The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of\n     absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the sheet upon\n     which I had scrawled the enigmatic message.\n\n     \"Douglas!\" he stammered. \"Birlstone! What's this, Mr. Holmes? Man,\n     it's witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you\n     get those names?\"\n\n     \"It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to solve. But\n     why--what's amiss with the names?\"\n\n     The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed\n     astonishment. \"Just this,\" said he, \"that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone\n     Manor House was horribly murdered last night!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          Sherlock Holmes Discourses\n\n\n     It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It\n     would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited\n     by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in his\n     singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long\n     over-stimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual\n     perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the\n     horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face\n     showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who\n     sees the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated\n     solution.\n\n     \"Remarkable!\" said he. \"Remarkable!\"\n\n     \"You don't seem surprised.\"\n\n     \"Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised. Why should I be\n     surprised? I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which\n     I know to be important, warning me that danger threatens a certain\n     person. Within an hour I learn that this danger has actually\n     materialized and that the person is dead. I am interested; but, as\n     you observe, I am not surprised.\"\n\n     In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts\n     about the letter and the cipher. MacDonald sat with his chin on his\n     hands and his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.\n\n     \"I was going down to Birlstone this morning,\" said he. \"I had come to\n     ask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here. But\n     from what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London.\"\n\n     \"I rather think not,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!\" cried the inspector. \"The papers will be\n     full of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the\n     mystery if there is a man in London who prophesied the crime before\n     ever it occurred? We have only to lay our hands on that man, and the\n     rest will follow.\"\n\n     \"No doubt, Mr. Mac. But how do you propose to lay your hands on the\n     so-called Porlock?\"\n\n     MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him. \"Posted\n     in Camberwell--that doesn't help us much. Name, you say, is assumed.\n     Not much to go on, certainly. Didn't you say that you have sent him\n     money?\"\n\n     \"Twice.\"\n\n     \"And how?\"\n\n     \"In notes to Camberwell post-office.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. \"Why not?\"\n\n     \"Because I always keep faith. I had promised when he first wrote that\n     I would not try to trace him.\"\n\n     \"You think there is someone behind him?\"\n\n     \"I know there is.\"\n\n     \"This professor that I've heard you mention?\"\n\n     \"Exactly!\"\n\n     Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced\n     towards me. \"I won't conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in\n     the C. I. D. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over\n     this professor. I made some inquiries myself about the matter. He\n     seems to be a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man.\"\n\n     \"I'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent.\"\n\n     \"Man, you can't but recognize it! After I heard your view I made it\n     my business to see him. I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the\n     talk got that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern\n     and a globe, and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book;\n     but I don't mind saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had\n     a good Aberdeen upbringing. He'd have made a grand meenister with his\n     thin face and gray hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put\n     his hand on my shoulder as we were parting, it was like a father's\n     blessing before you go out into the cold, cruel world.\"\n\n     Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. \"Great!\" he said. \"Great! Tell\n     me, Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I\n     suppose, in the professor's study?\"\n\n     \"That's so.\"\n\n     \"A fine room, is it not?\"\n\n     \"Very fine--very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"You sat in front of his writing desk?\"\n\n     \"Just so.\"\n\n     \"Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?\"\n\n     \"Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my\n     face.\"\n\n     \"It would be. Did you happen to observe a picture over the\n     professor's head?\"\n\n     \"I don't miss much, Mr. Holmes. Maybe I learned that from you. Yes, I\n     saw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at\n     you sideways.\"\n\n     \"That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze.\"\n\n     The inspector endeavoured to look interested.\n\n     \"Jean Baptiste Greuze,\" Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and\n     leaning well back in his chair, \"was a French artist who flourished\n     between the years 1750 and 1800. I allude, of course to his working\n     career. Modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion\n     formed of him by his contemporaries.\"\n\n     The inspector's eyes grew abstracted. \"Hadn't we better--\" he said.\n\n     \"We are doing so,\" Holmes interrupted. \"All that I am saying has a\n     very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone\n     Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it.\"\n\n     MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. \"Your thoughts\n     move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two,\n     and I can't get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the\n     connection between this dead painting man and the affair at\n     Birlstone?\"\n\n     \"All knowledge comes useful to the detective,\" remarked Holmes. \"Even\n     the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled\n     La Jeune Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand\n     francs--more than forty thousand pounds--at the Portalis sale may\n     start a train of reflection in your mind.\"\n\n     It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.\n\n     \"I may remind you,\" Holmes continued, \"that the professor's salary\n     can be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is\n     seven hundred a year.\"\n\n     \"Then how could he buy--\"\n\n     \"Quite so! How could he?\"\n\n     \"Ay, that's remarkable,\" said the inspector thoughtfully. \"Talk away,\n     Mr. Holmes. I'm just loving it. It's fine!\"\n\n     Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration--the\n     characteristic of the real artist. \"What about Birlstone?\" he asked.\n\n     \"We've time yet,\" said the inspector, glancing at his watch. \"I've a\n     cab at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But\n     about this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you\n     had never met Professor Moriarty.\"\n\n     \"No, I never have.\"\n\n     \"Then how do you know about his rooms?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that's another matter. I have been three times in his rooms,\n     twice waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he\n     came. Once--well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official\n     detective. It was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of\n     running over his papers--with the most unexpected results.\"\n\n     \"You found something compromising?\"\n\n     \"Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have now\n     seen the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy man.\n     How did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a\n     station master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven\n     hundred a year. And he owns a Greuze.\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"Surely the inference is plain.\"\n\n     \"You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an\n     illegal fashion?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of\n     exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web\n     where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention\n     the Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own\n     observation.\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's\n     more than interesting--it's just wonderful. But let us have it a\n     little clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where\n     does the money come from?\"\n\n     \"Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?\"\n\n     \"Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not?\n     I don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things\n     and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not\n     business.\"\n\n     \"Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a\n     master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts.\"\n\n     \"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life\n     would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a\n     day at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles--even\n     Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London\n     criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a\n     fifteen per cent commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke\n     comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you\n     one or two things about Moriarty which may interest you.\"\n\n     \"You'll interest me, right enough.\"\n\n     \"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with\n     this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting\n     men, pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with\n     every sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel\n     Sebastian Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as\n     himself. What do you think he pays him?\"\n\n     \"I'd like to hear.\"\n\n     \"Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see--the American\n     business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It's more\n     than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty's\n     gains and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my\n     business to hunt down some of Moriarty's checks lately--just common\n     innocent checks that he pays his household bills with. They were\n     drawn on six different banks. Does that make any impression on your\n     mind?\"\n\n     \"Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?\"\n\n     \"That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should know\n     what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the\n     bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Credit\n     Lyonnais as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to\n     spare I commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty.\"\n\n     Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the\n     conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his\n     practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the\n     matter in hand.\n\n     \"He can keep, anyhow,\" said he. \"You've got us side-tracked with your\n     interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark\n     that there is some connection between the professor and the crime.\n     That you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can\n     we for our present practical needs get any further than that?\"\n\n     \"We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is,\n     as I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least\n     an unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime\n     is as we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In\n     the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of\n     iron over his people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one\n     punishment in his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this\n     murdered man--this Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of\n     the arch-criminal's subordinates--had in some way betrayed the chief.\n     His punishment followed, and would be known to all--if only to put\n     the fear of death into them.\"\n\n     \"Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the ordinary\n     course of business. Was there any robbery?\"\n\n     \"I have not heard.\"\n\n     \"If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in\n     favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it\n     on a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to\n     manage it. Either is possible. But whichever it may be, or if it is\n     some third combination, it is down at Birlstone that we must seek the\n     solution. I know our man too well to suppose that he has left\n     anything up here which may lead us to him.\"\n\n     \"Then to Birlstone we must go!\" cried MacDonald, jumping from his\n     chair. \"My word! it's later than I thought. I can give you,\n     gentlemen, five minutes for preparation, and that is all.\"\n\n     \"And ample for us both,\" said Holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to\n     change from his dressing gown to his coat. \"While we are on our way,\n     Mr. Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it.\"\n\n     \"All about it\" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was\n     enough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of\n     the expert's closest attention. He brightened and rubbed his thin\n     hands together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. A\n     long series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there\n     was a fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all\n     special gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in\n     use. That razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue,\n     and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for\n     work reached him. Leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to\n     MacDonald's short sketch of the problem which awaited us in Sussex.\n     The inspector was himself dependent, as he explained to us, upon a\n     scribbled account forwarded to him by the milk train in the early\n     hours of the morning. White Mason, the local officer, was a personal\n     friend, and hence MacDonald had been notified much more promptly than\n     is usual at Scotland Yard when provincials need their assistance. It\n     is a very cold scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is generally\n     asked to run.\n\n     \"Dear Inspector MacDonald [said the letter which he read to us]:\n     \"Official requisition for your services is in separate envelope. This\n     is for your private eye. Wire me what train in the morning you can\n     get for Birlstone, and I will meet it--or have it met if I am too\n     occupied. This case is a snorter. Don't waste a moment in getting\n     started. If you can bring Mr. Holmes, please do so; for he will find\n     something after his own heart. We would think the whole thing had\n     been fixed up for theatrical effect if there wasn't a dead man in the\n     middle of it. My word! it is a snorter.\"\n\n      \"Your friend seems to be no fool,\" remarked Holmes.\n\n     \"No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge.\"\n\n     \"Well, have you anything more?\"\n\n     \"Only that he will give us every detail when we meet.\"\n\n     \"Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he had been\n     horribly murdered?\"\n\n     \"That was in the enclosed official report. It didn't say 'horrible':\n     that's not a recognized official term. It gave the name John Douglas.\n     It mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the\n     discharge of a shotgun. It also mentioned the hour of the alarm,\n     which was close on to midnight last night. It added that the case was\n     undoubtedly one of murder, but that no arrest had been made, and that\n     the case was one which presented some very perplexing and\n     extraordinary features. That's absolutely all we have at present, Mr.\n     Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, Mr. Mac. The\n     temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the\n     bane of our profession. I can see only two things for certain at\n     present--a great brain in London, and a dead man in Sussex. It's the\n     chain between that we are going to trace.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          The Tragedy of Birlstone\n\n\n     Now for a moment I will ask leave to remove my own insignificant\n     personality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived\n     upon the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards.\n     Only in this way can I make the reader appreciate the people\n     concerned and the strange setting in which their fate was cast.\n\n     The village of Birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of\n     half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of\n     Sussex. For centuries it had remained unchanged; but within the last\n     few years its picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a\n     number of well-to-do residents, whose villas peep out from the woods\n     around. These woods are locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of\n     the great Weald forest, which thins away until it reaches the\n     northern chalk downs. A number of small shops have come into being to\n     meet the wants of the increased population; so there seems some\n     prospect that Birlstone may soon grow from an ancient village into a\n     modern town. It is the centre for a considerable area of country,\n     since Tunbridge Wells, the nearest place of importance, is ten or\n     twelve miles to the eastward, over the borders of Kent.\n\n     About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for\n     its huge beech trees, is the ancient Manor House of Birlstone. Part\n     of this venerable building dates back to the time of the first\n     crusade, when Hugo de Capus built a fortalice in the centre of the\n     estate, which had been granted to him by the Red King. This was\n     destroyed by fire in 1543, and some of its smoke-blackened corner\n     stones were used when, in Jacobean times, a brick country house rose\n     upon the ruins of the feudal castle.\n\n     The Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned\n     windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early\n     seventeenth century. Of the double moats which had guarded its more\n     warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served\n     the humble function of a kitchen garden. The inner one was still\n     there, and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in\n     depth, round the whole house. A small stream fed it and continued\n     beyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never\n     ditch-like or unhealthy. The ground floor windows were within a foot\n     of the surface of the water.\n\n     The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and\n     windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants\n     of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this\n     right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but\n     actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. By thus\n     renewing the custom of the old feudal days the Manor House was\n     converted into an island during the night--a fact which had a very\n     direct bearing upon the mystery which was soon to engage the\n     attention of all England.\n\n     The house had been untenanted for some years and was threatening to\n     moulder into a picturesque decay when the Douglases took possession\n     of it. This family consisted of only two individuals--John Douglas\n     and his wife. Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in\n     person. In age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed,\n     rugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a\n     wiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and\n     activity of youth. He was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat\n     offhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life\n     in social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society of\n     Sussex.\n\n     Yet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more\n     cultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the\n     villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending\n     their smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a\n     remarkably rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an\n     excellent song. He appeared to have plenty of money, which was said\n     to have been gained in the California gold fields, and it was clear\n     from his own talk and that of his wife that he had spent a part of\n     his life in America.\n\n     The good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by\n     his democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter\n     indifference to danger. Though a wretched rider, he turned out at\n     every meet, and took the most amazing falls in his determination to\n     hold his own with the best. When the vicarage caught fire he\n     distinguished himself also by the fearlessness with which he\n     reentered the building to save property, after the local fire brigade\n     had given it up as impossible. Thus it came about that John Douglas\n     of the Manor House had within five years won himself quite a\n     reputation in Birlstone.\n\n     His wife, too, was popular with those who had made her acquaintance;\n     though, after the English fashion, the callers upon a stranger who\n     settled in the county without introductions were few and far between.\n     This mattered the less to her, as she was retiring by disposition,\n     and very much absorbed, to all appearance, in her husband and her\n     domestic duties. It was known that she was an English lady who had\n     met Mr. Douglas in London, he being at that time a widower. She was a\n     beautiful woman, tall, dark, and slender, some twenty years younger\n     than her husband, a disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the\n     contentment of their family life.\n\n     It was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that\n     the confidence between the two did not appear to be complete, since\n     the wife was either very reticent about her husband's past life, or\n     else, as seemed more likely, was imperfectly informed about it. It\n     had also been noted and commented upon by a few observant people that\n     there were signs sometimes of some nerve-strain upon the part of Mrs.\n     Douglas, and that she would display acute uneasiness if her absent\n     husband should ever be particularly late in his return. On a quiet\n     countryside, where all gossip is welcome, this weakness of the lady\n     of the Manor House did not pass without remark, and it bulked larger\n     upon people's memory when the events arose which gave it a very\n     special significance.\n\n     There was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was,\n     it is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time\n     of the strange happenings which will now be narrated brought his name\n     prominently before the public. This was Cecil James Barker, of Hales\n     Lodge, Hampstead.\n\n     Cecil Barker's tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the\n     main street of Birlstone village; for he was a frequent and welcome\n     visitor at the Manor House. He was the more noticed as being the only\n     friend of the past unknown life of Mr. Douglas who was ever seen in\n     his new English surroundings. Barker was himself an undoubted\n     Englishman; but by his remarks it was clear that he had first known\n     Douglas in America and had there lived on intimate terms with him. He\n     appeared to be a man of considerable wealth, and was reputed to be a\n     bachelor.\n\n     In age he was rather younger than Douglas--forty-five at the most--a\n     tall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved,\n     prize-fighter face, thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of\n     masterful black eyes which might, even without the aid of his very\n     capable hands, clear a way for him through a hostile crowd. He\n     neither rode nor shot, but spent his days in wandering round the old\n     village with his pipe in his mouth, or in driving with his host, or\n     in his absence with his hostess, over the beautiful countryside. \"An\n     easy-going, free-handed gentleman,\" said Ames, the butler. \"But, my\n     word! I had rather not be the man that crossed him!\" He was cordial\n     and intimate with Douglas, and he was no less friendly with his\n     wife--a friendship which more than once seemed to cause some\n     irritation to the husband, so that even the servants were able to\n     perceive his annoyance. Such was the third person who was one of the\n     family when the catastrophe occurred.\n\n     As to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of\n     a large household to mention the prim, respectable, and capable Ames,\n     and Mrs. Allen, a buxom and cheerful person, who relieved the lady of\n     some of her household cares. The other six servants in the house bear\n     no relation to the events of the night of January 6th.\n\n     It was at eleven forty-five that the first alarm reached the small\n     local police station, in charge of Sergeant Wilson of the Sussex\n     Constabulary. Cecil Barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door\n     and pealed furiously upon the bell. A terrible tragedy had occurred\n     at the Manor House, and John Douglas had been murdered. That was the\n     breathless burden of his message. He had hurried back to the house,\n     followed within a few minutes by the police sergeant, who arrived at\n     the scene of the crime a little after twelve o'clock, after taking\n     prompt steps to warn the county authorities that something serious\n     was afoot.\n\n     On reaching the Manor House, the sergeant had found the drawbridge\n     down, the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of\n     wild confusion and alarm. The white-faced servants were huddling\n     together in the hall, with the frightened butler wringing his hands\n     in the doorway. Only Cecil Barker seemed to be master of himself and\n     his emotions; he had opened the door which was nearest to the\n     entrance and he had beckoned to the sergeant to follow him. At that\n     moment there arrived Dr. Wood, a brisk and capable general\n     practitioner from the village. The three men entered the fatal room\n     together, while the horror-stricken butler followed at their heels,\n     closing the door behind him to shut out the terrible scene from the\n     maid servants.\n\n     The dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in\n     the centre of the room. He was clad only in a pink dressing gown,\n     which covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his\n     bare feet. The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp\n     which had stood on the table. One glance at the victim was enough to\n     show the healer that his presence could be dispensed with. The man\n     had been horribly injured. Lying across his chest was a curious\n     weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the\n     triggers. It was clear that this had been fired at close range and\n     that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head\n     almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together, so as to make\n     the simultaneous discharge more destructive.\n\n     The country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous\n     responsibility which had come so suddenly upon him. \"We will touch\n     nothing until my superiors arrive,\" he said in a hushed voice,\n     staring in horror at the dreadful head.\n\n     \"Nothing has been touched up to now,\" said Cecil Barker. \"I'll answer\n     for that. You see it all exactly as I found it.\"\n\n     \"When was that?\" The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.\n\n     \"It was just half-past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I was\n     sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was not\n     very loud--it seemed to be muffled. I rushed down--I don't suppose it\n     was thirty seconds before I was in the room.\"\n\n     \"Was the door open?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroom\n     candle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some\n     minutes afterward.\"\n\n     \"Did you see no one?\"\n\n     \"No. I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I\n     rushed out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. Mrs.\n     Allen, the housekeeper, came and took her away. Ames had arrived, and\n     we ran back into the room once more.\"\n\n     \"But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it was up until I lowered it.\"\n\n     \"Then how could any murderer have got away? It is out of the\n     question! Mr. Douglas must have shot himself.\"\n\n     \"That was our first idea. But see!\" Barker drew aside the curtain,\n     and showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full\n     extent. \"And look at this!\" He held the lamp down and illuminated a\n     smudge of blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill.\n     \"Someone has stood there in getting out.\"\n\n     \"You mean that someone waded across the moat?\"\n\n     \"Exactly!\"\n\n     \"Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he\n     must have been in the water at that very moment.\"\n\n     \"I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the\n     window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never\n     occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could\n     not let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible.\"\n\n     \"Horrible enough!\" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and\n     the terrible marks which surrounded it. \"I've never seen such\n     injuries since the Birlstone railway smash.\"\n\n     \"But, I say,\" remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic\n     common sense was still pondering the open window. \"It's all very well\n     your saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask\n     you is, how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was\n     up?\"\n\n     \"Ah, that's the question,\" said Barker.\n\n     \"At what o'clock was it raised?\"\n\n     \"It was nearly six o'clock,\" said Ames, the butler.\n\n     \"I've heard,\" said the sergeant, \"that it was usually raised at\n     sunset. That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of\n     year.\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea,\" said Ames. \"I couldn't raise it\n     until they went. Then I wound it up myself.\"\n\n     \"Then it comes to this,\" said the sergeant: \"If anyone came from\n     outside--if they did--they must have got in across the bridge before\n     six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the\n     room after eleven.\"\n\n     \"That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last\n     thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That\n     brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got\n     away through the window and left his gun behind him. That's how I\n     read it; for nothing else will fit the facts.\"\n\n     The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the\n     floor. The initials V. V. and under them the number 341 were rudely\n     scrawled in ink upon it.\n\n     \"What's this?\" he asked, holding it up.\n\n     Barker looked at it with curiosity. \"I never noticed it before,\" he\n     said. \"The murderer must have left it behind him.\"\n\n     \"V. V.--341. I can make no sense of that.\"\n\n     The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. \"What's V. V.?\n     Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?\"\n\n     It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front\n     of the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker\n     pointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.\n\n     \"Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday,\" he said. \"I saw\n     him myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above\n     it. That accounts for the hammer.\"\n\n     \"We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it,\" said the\n     sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. \"It will\n     want the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing.\n     It will be a London job before it is finished.\" He raised the hand\n     lamp and walked slowly round the room. \"Hullo!\" he cried, excitedly,\n     drawing the window curtain to one side. \"What o'clock were those\n     curtains drawn?\"\n\n     \"When the lamps were lit,\" said the butler. \"It would be shortly\n     after four.\"\n\n     \"Someone had been hiding here, sure enough.\" He held down the light,\n     and the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. \"I'm\n     bound to say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker. It looks as if\n     the man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn\n     and before six when the bridge was raised. He slipped into this room,\n     because it was the first that he saw. There was no other place where\n     he could hide, so he popped in behind this curtain. That all seems\n     clear enough. It is likely that his main idea was to burgle the\n     house; but Mr. Douglas chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him\n     and escaped.\"\n\n     \"That's how I read it,\" said Barker. \"But, I say, aren't we wasting\n     precious time? Couldn't we start out and scour the country before the\n     fellow gets away?\"\n\n     The sergeant considered for a moment.\n\n     \"There are no trains before six in the morning; so he can't get away\n     by rail. If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds\n     that someone will notice him. Anyhow, I can't leave here myself until\n     I am relieved. But I think none of you should go until we see more\n     clearly how we all stand.\"\n\n     The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.\n     \"What's this mark?\" he asked. \"Could this have any connection with\n     the crime?\"\n\n     The dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and\n     exposed as high as the elbow. About halfway up the forearm was a\n     curious brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in\n     vivid relief upon the lard-coloured skin.\n\n     \"It's not tattooed,\" said the doctor, peering through his glasses. \"I\n     never saw anything like it. The man has been branded at some time as\n     they brand cattle. What is the meaning of this?\"\n\n     \"I don't profess to know the meaning of it,\" said Cecil Barker; \"but\n     I have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years.\"\n\n     \"And so have I,\" said the butler. \"Many a time when the master has\n     rolled up his sleeves I have noticed that very mark. I've often\n     wondered what it could be.\"\n\n     \"Then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow,\" said the\n     sergeant. \"But it's a rum thing all the same. Everything about this\n     case is rum. Well, what is it now?\"\n\n     The butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing\n     at the dead man's outstretched hand.\n\n     \"They've taken his wedding ring!\" he gasped.\n\n     \"What!\"\n\n     \"Yes, indeed. Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the\n     little finger of his left hand. That ring with the rough nugget on it\n     was above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger. There's\n     the nugget and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone.\"\n\n     \"He's right,\" said Barker.\n\n     \"Do you tell me,\" said the sergeant, \"that the wedding ring was below\n     the other?\"\n\n     \"Always!\"\n\n     \"Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you\n     call the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the\n     nugget ring back again.\"\n\n     \"That is so!\"\n\n     The worthy country policeman shook his head. \"Seems to me the sooner\n     we get London on to this case the better,\" said he. \"White Mason is a\n     smart man. No local job has ever been too much for White Mason. It\n     won't be long now before he is here to help us. But I expect we'll\n     have to look to London before we are through. Anyhow, I'm not ashamed\n     to say that it is a deal too thick for the likes of me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          Darkness\n\n\n     At three in the morning the chief Sussex detective, obeying the\n     urgent call from Sergeant Wilson of Birlstone, arrived from\n     headquarters in a light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter. By the\n     five-forty train in the morning he had sent his message to Scotland\n     Yard, and he was at the Birlstone station at twelve o'clock to\n     welcome us. White Mason was a quiet, comfortable-looking person in a\n     loose tweed suit, with a clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body,\n     and powerful bandy legs adorned with gaiters, looking like a small\n     farmer, a retired gamekeeper, or anything upon earth except a very\n     favourable specimen of the provincial criminal officer.\n\n     \"A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald!\" he kept repeating. \"We'll\n     have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it. I'm hoping\n     we will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it\n     and messing up all the trails. There has been nothing like this that\n     I can remember. There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr.\n     Holmes, or I am mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos\n     will have a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the\n     Westville Arms. There's no other place; but I hear that it is clean\n     and good. The man will carry your bags. This way, gentlemen, if you\n     please.\"\n\n     He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective. In\n     ten minutes we had all found our quarters. In ten more we were seated\n     in the parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of\n     those events which have been outlined in the previous chapter.\n     MacDonald made an occasional note, while Holmes sat absorbed, with\n     the expression of surprised and reverent admiration with which the\n     botanist surveys the rare and precious bloom.\n\n     \"Remarkable!\" he said, when the story was unfolded, \"most remarkable!\n     I can hardly recall any case where the features have been more\n     peculiar.\"\n\n     \"I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes,\" said White Mason in great\n     delight. \"We're well up with the times in Sussex. I've told you now\n     how matters were, up to the time when I took over from Sergeant\n     Wilson between three and four this morning. My word! I made the old\n     mare go! But I need not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out;\n     for there was nothing immediate that I could do. Sergeant Wilson had\n     all the facts. I checked them and considered them and maybe added a\n     few of my own.\"\n\n     \"What were they?\" asked Holmes eagerly.\n\n     \"Well, I first had the hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to\n     help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if\n     Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his\n     mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. But there was\n     no stain.\"\n\n     \"That, of course, proves nothing at all,\" remarked Inspector\n     MacDonald. \"There has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the\n     hammer.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. It doesn't prove it wasn't used. But there might have been\n     stains, and that would have helped us. As a matter of fact there were\n     none. Then I examined the gun. They were buckshot cartridges, and, as\n     Sergeant Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so\n     that, if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged.\n     Whoever fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take\n     no chances of missing his man. The sawed gun was not more than two\n     foot long--one could carry it easily under one's coat. There was no\n     complete maker's name; but the printed letters P-E-N were on the\n     fluting between the barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut\n     off by the saw.\"\n\n     \"A big P with a flourish above it, E and N smaller?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"Pennsylvania Small Arms Company--well-known American firm,\" said\n     Holmes.\n\n     White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner\n     looks at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the\n     difficulties that perplex him.\n\n     \"That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. Wonderful!\n     Wonderful! Do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world\n     in your memory?\"\n\n     Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.\n\n     \"No doubt it is an American shotgun,\" White Mason continued. \"I seem\n     to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts\n     of America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had\n     occurred to me. There is some evidence then, that this man who\n     entered the house and killed its master was an American.\"\n\n     MacDonald shook his head. \"Man, you are surely travelling overfast,\"\n     said he. \"I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in\n     the house at all.\"\n\n     \"The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of\n     boots in the corner, the gun!\"\n\n     \"Nothing there that could not have been arranged. Mr. Douglas was an\n     American, or had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker. You don't\n     need to import an American from outside in order to account for\n     American doings.\"\n\n     \"Ames, the butler--\"\n\n     \"What about him? Is he reliable?\"\n\n     \"Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos--as solid as a rock. He has been\n     with Douglas ever since he took the Manor House five years ago. He\n     has never seen a gun of this sort in the house.\"\n\n     \"The gun was made to conceal. That's why the barrels were sawed. It\n     would fit into any box. How could he swear there was no such gun in\n     the house?\"\n\n     \"Well, anyhow, he had never seen one.\"\n\n     MacDonald shook his obstinate Scotch head. \"I'm not convinced yet\n     that there was ever anyone in the house,\" said he. \"I'm asking you to\n     conseedar\" (his accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in\n     his argument) \"I'm asking you to conseedar what it involves if you\n     suppose that this gun was ever brought into the house, and that all\n     these strange things were done by a person from outside. Oh, man,\n     it's just inconceivable! It's clean against common sense! I put it to\n     you, Mr. Holmes, judging it by what we have heard.\"\n\n     \"Well, state your case, Mr. Mac,\" said Holmes in his most judicial\n     style.\n\n     \"The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed. The ring\n     business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private\n     reason. Very good. Here is a man who slips into a house with the\n     deliberate intention of committing murder. He knows, if he knows\n     anything, that he will have a deeficulty in making his escape, as the\n     house is surrounded with water. What weapon would he choose? You\n     would say the most silent in the world. Then he could hope when the\n     deed was done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and\n     to get away at his leisure. That's understandable. But is it\n     understandable that he should go out of his way to bring with him the\n     most noisy weapon he could select, knowing well that it will fetch\n     every human being in the house to the spot as quick as they can run,\n     and that it is all odds that he will be seen before he can get across\n     the moat? Is that credible, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Well, you put the case strongly,\" my friend replied thoughtfully.\n     \"It certainly needs a good deal of justification. May I ask, Mr.\n     White Mason, whether you examined the farther side of the moat at\n     once to see if there were any signs of the man having climbed out\n     from the water?\"\n\n     \"There were no signs, Mr. Holmes. But it is a stone ledge, and one\n     could hardly expect them.\"\n\n     \"No tracks or marks?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"Ha! Would there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down\n     to the house at once? There may possibly be some small point which\n     might be suggestive.\"\n\n     \"I was going to propose it, Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put\n     you in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything\n     should strike you--\" White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.\n\n     \"I have worked with Mr. Holmes before,\" said Inspector MacDonald. \"He\n     plays the game.\"\n\n     \"My own idea of the game, at any rate,\" said Holmes, with a smile. \"I\n     go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the\n     police. If I have ever separated myself from the official force, it\n     is because they have first separated themselves from me. I have no\n     wish ever to score at their expense. At the same time, Mr. White\n     Mason, I claim the right to work in my own way and give my results at\n     my own time--complete rather than in stages.\"\n\n     \"I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we\n     know,\" said White Mason cordially. \"Come along, Dr. Watson, and when\n     the time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book.\"\n\n     We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms\n     on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,\n     weather-stained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a\n     shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of\n     Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and\n     oaks around it as one only sees in rural England, then a sudden turn,\n     and the long, low Jacobean house of dingy, liver-coloured brick lay\n     before us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of\n     it. As we approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and the\n     beautiful broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the\n     cold, winter sunshine.\n\n     Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of\n     births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of\n     fox hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business\n     should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those\n     strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting\n     covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set\n     windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front,\n     I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.\n\n     \"That's the window,\" said White Mason, \"that one on the immediate\n     right of the drawbridge. It's open just as it was found last night.\"\n\n     \"It looks rather narrow for a man to pass.\"\n\n     \"Well, it wasn't a fat man, anyhow. We don't need your deductions,\n     Mr. Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through all\n     right.\"\n\n     Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Then he\n     examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.\n\n     \"I've had a good look, Mr. Holmes,\" said White Mason. \"There is\n     nothing there, no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he\n     leave any sign?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?\"\n\n     \"Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay.\"\n\n     \"How deep is it?\"\n\n     \"About two feet at each side and three in the middle.\"\n\n     \"So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in\n     crossing.\"\n\n     \"No, a child could not be drowned in it.\"\n\n     We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint,\n     gnarled, dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames. The poor old\n     fellow was white and quivering from the shock. The village sergeant,\n     a tall, formal, melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of\n     Fate. The doctor had departed.\n\n     \"Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?\" asked White Mason.\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"Then you can go home. You've had enough. We can send for you if we\n     want you. The butler had better wait outside. Tell him to warn Mr.\n     Cecil Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a\n     word with them presently. Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me\n     to give you the views I have formed first, and then you will be able\n     to arrive at your own.\"\n\n     He impressed me, this country specialist. He had a solid grip of fact\n     and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way\n     in his profession. Holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of\n     that impatience which the official exponent too often produced.\n\n     \"Is it suicide, or is it murder--that's our first question,\n     gentlemen, is it not? If it were suicide, then we have to believe\n     that this man began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it;\n     that he then came down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a\n     corner behind the curtain in order to give the idea someone had\n     waited for him, opened the window, put blood on the--\"\n\n     \"We can surely dismiss that,\" said MacDonald.\n\n     \"So I think. Suicide is out of the question. Then a murder has been\n     done. What we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone\n     outside or inside the house.\"\n\n     \"Well, let's hear the argument.\"\n\n     \"There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the\n     other it must be. We will suppose first that some person or persons\n     inside the house did the crime. They got this man down here at a time\n     when everything was still and yet no one was asleep. They then did\n     the deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world so as to\n     tell everyone what had happened--a weapon that was never seen in the\n     house before. That does not seem a very likely start, does it?\"\n\n     \"No, it does not.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a\n     minute at the most had passed before the whole household--not Mr.\n     Cecil Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames\n     and all of them were on the spot. Do you tell me that in that time\n     the guilty person managed to make footmarks in the corner, open the\n     window, mark the sill with blood, take the wedding ring off the dead\n     man's finger, and all the rest of it? It's impossible!\"\n\n     \"You put it very clearly,\" said Holmes. \"I am inclined to agree with\n     you.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by\n     someone from outside. We are still faced with some big difficulties;\n     but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. The man got into\n     the house between four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk\n     and the time when the bridge was raised. There had been some\n     visitors, and the door was open; so there was nothing to prevent him.\n     He may have been a common burglar, or he may have had some private\n     grudge against Mr. Douglas. Since Mr. Douglas has spent most of his\n     life in America, and this shotgun seems to be an American weapon, it\n     would seem that the private grudge is the more likely theory. He\n     slipped into this room because it was the first he came to, and he\n     hid behind the curtain. There he remained until past eleven at night.\n     At that time Mr. Douglas entered the room. It was a short interview,\n     if there were any interview at all; for Mrs. Douglas declares that\n     her husband had not left her more than a few minutes when she heard\n     the shot.\"\n\n     \"The candle shows that,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Exactly. The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than\n     half an inch. He must have placed it on the table before he was\n     attacked; otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell.\n     This shows that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the\n     room. When Mr. Barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was\n     out.\"\n\n     \"That's all clear enough.\"\n\n     \"Well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. Mr. Douglas\n     enters the room. He puts down the candle. A man appears from behind\n     the curtain. He is armed with this gun. He demands the wedding\n     ring--Heaven only knows why, but so it must have been. Mr. Douglas\n     gave it up. Then either in cold blood or in the course of a\n     struggle--Douglas may have gripped the hammer that was found upon the\n     mat--he shot Douglas in this horrible way. He dropped his gun and\n     also it would seem this queer card--V. V. 341, whatever that may\n     mean--and he made his escape through the window and across the moat\n     at the very moment when Cecil Barker was discovering the crime. How's\n     that, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing.\"\n\n     \"Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else\n     is even worse!\" cried MacDonald. \"Somebody killed the man, and\n     whoever it was I could clearly prove to you that he should have done\n     it some other way. What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be\n     cut off like that? What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence\n     was his one chance of escape? Come, Mr. Holmes, it's up to you to\n     give us a lead, since you say Mr. White Mason's theory is\n     unconvincing.\"\n\n     Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion,\n     missing no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right\n     and to left, and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.\n\n     \"I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr.\n     Mac,\" said he, kneeling down beside the body. \"Dear me! these\n     injuries are really appalling. Can we have the butler in for a\n     moment? ... Ames, I understand that you have often seen this very\n     unusual mark--a branded triangle inside a circle--upon Mr. Douglas's\n     forearm?\"\n\n     \"Frequently, sir.\"\n\n     \"You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. It is\n     undoubtedly a burn. Now, I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece\n     of plaster at the angle of Mr. Douglas's jaw. Did you observe that in\n     life?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?\"\n\n     \"Not for a very long time, sir.\"\n\n     \"Suggestive!\" said Holmes. \"It may, of course, be a mere coincidence,\n     or it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had\n     reason to apprehend danger. Had you noticed anything unusual in his\n     conduct, yesterday, Ames?\"\n\n     \"It struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir.\"\n\n     \"Ha! The attack may not have been entirely unexpected. We do seem to\n     make a little progress, do we not? Perhaps you would rather do the\n     questioning, Mr. Mac?\"\n\n     \"No, Mr. Holmes, it's in better hands than mine.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, we will pass to this card--V. V. 341. It is rough\n     cardboard. Have you any of the sort in the house?\"\n\n     \"I don't think so.\"\n\n     Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each\n     bottle on to the blotting paper. \"It was not printed in this room,\"\n     he said; \"this is black ink and the other purplish. It was done by a\n     thick pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should\n     say. Can you make anything of the inscription, Ames?\"\n\n     \"No, sir, nothing.\"\n\n     \"What do you think, Mr. Mac?\"\n\n     \"It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the\n     same with his badge upon the forearm.\"\n\n     \"That's my idea, too,\" said White Mason.\n\n     \"Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far\n     our difficulties disappear. An agent from such a society makes his\n     way into the house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off\n     with this weapon, and escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a\n     card beside the dead man, which will when mentioned in the papers,\n     tell other members of the society that vengeance has been done. That\n     all hangs together. But why this gun, of all weapons?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"And why the missing ring?\"\n\n     \"Quite so.\"\n\n     \"And why no arrest? It's past two now. I take it for granted that\n     since dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out\n     for a wet stranger?\"\n\n     \"That is so, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready,\n     they can hardly miss him. And yet they have missed him up to now!\"\n     Holmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the\n     blood mark on the sill. \"It is clearly the tread of a shoe. It is\n     remarkably broad; a splay-foot, one would say. Curious, because, so\n     far as one can trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one\n     would say it was a more shapely sole. However, they are certainly\n     very indistinct. What's this under the side table?\"\n\n     \"Mr. Douglas's dumb-bells,\" said Ames.\n\n     \"Dumb-bell--there's only one. Where's the other?\"\n\n     \"I don't know, Mr. Holmes. There may have been only one. I have not\n     noticed them for months.\"\n\n     \"One dumb-bell--\" Holmes said seriously; but his remarks were\n     interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.\n\n     A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us.\n     I had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom\n     I had heard. His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning\n     glance from face to face.\n\n     \"Sorry to interrupt your consultation,\" said he, \"but you should hear\n     the latest news.\"\n\n     \"An arrest?\"\n\n     \"No such luck. But they've found his bicycle. The fellow left his\n     bicycle behind him. Come and have a look. It is within a hundred\n     yards of the hall door.\"\n\n     We found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive\n     inspecting a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of\n     evergreens in which it had been concealed. It was a well used\n     Rudge-Whitworth, splashed as from a considerable journey. There was a\n     saddlebag with spanner and oilcan, but no clue as to the owner.\n\n     \"It would be a grand help to the police,\" said the inspector, \"if\n     these things were numbered and registered. But we must be thankful\n     for what we've got. If we can't find where he went to, at least we\n     are likely to get where he came from. But what in the name of all\n     that is wonderful made the fellow leave it behind? And how in the\n     world has he got away without it? We don't seem to get a gleam of\n     light in the case, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Don't we?\" my friend answered thoughtfully. \"I wonder!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          The People Of the Drama\n\n\n     \"Have you seen all you want of the study?\" asked White Mason as we\n     reentered the house.\n\n     \"For the time,\" said the inspector, and Holmes nodded.\n\n     \"Then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of some of the\n     people in the house. We could use the dining-room, Ames. Please come\n     yourself first and tell us what you know.\"\n\n     The butler's account was a simple and a clear one, and he gave a\n     convincing impression of sincerity. He had been engaged five years\n     before, when Douglas first came to Birlstone. He understood that Mr.\n     Douglas was a rich gentleman who had made his money in America. He\n     had been a kind and considerate employer--not quite what Ames was\n     used to, perhaps; but one can't have everything. He never saw any\n     signs of apprehension in Mr. Douglas: on the contrary, he was the\n     most fearless man he had ever known. He ordered the drawbridge to be\n     pulled up every night because it was the ancient custom of the old\n     house, and he liked to keep the old ways up.\n\n     Mr. Douglas seldom went to London or left the village; but on the day\n     before the crime he had been shopping at Tunbridge Wells. He (Ames)\n     had observed some restlessness and excitement on the part of Mr.\n     Douglas that day; for he had seemed impatient and irritable, which\n     was unusual with him. He had not gone to bed that night; but was in\n     the pantry at the back of the house, putting away the silver, when he\n     heard the bell ring violently. He heard no shot; but it was hardly\n     possible he would, as the pantry and kitchens were at the very back\n     of the house and there were several closed doors and a long passage\n     between. The housekeeper had come out of her room, attracted by the\n     violent ringing of the bell. They had gone to the front of the house\n     together.\n\n     As they reached the bottom of the stair he had seen Mrs. Douglas\n     coming down it. No, she was not hurrying; it did not seem to him that\n     she was particularly agitated. Just as she reached the bottom of the\n     stair Mr. Barker had rushed out of the study. He had stopped Mrs.\n     Douglas and begged her to go back.\n\n     \"For God's sake, go back to your room!\" he cried. \"Poor Jack is dead!\n     You can do nothing. For God's sake, go back!\"\n\n     After some persuasion upon the stairs Mrs. Douglas had gone back. She\n     did not scream. She made no outcry whatever. Mrs. Allen, the\n     housekeeper, had taken her upstairs and stayed with her in the\n     bedroom. Ames and Mr. Barker had then returned to the study, where\n     they had found everything exactly as the police had seen it. The\n     candle was not lit at that time; but the lamp was burning. They had\n     looked out of the window; but the night was very dark and nothing\n     could be seen or heard. They had then rushed out into the hall, where\n     Ames had turned the windlass which lowered the drawbridge. Mr. Barker\n     had then hurried off to get the police.\n\n     Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.\n\n     The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it went, a\n     corroboration of that of her fellow servant. The housekeeper's room\n     was rather nearer to the front of the house than the pantry in which\n     Ames had been working. She was preparing to go to bed when the loud\n     ringing of the bell had attracted her attention. She was a little\n     hard of hearing. Perhaps that was why she had not heard the shot; but\n     in any case the study was a long way off. She remembered hearing some\n     sound which she imagined to be the slamming of a door. That was a\n     good deal earlier--half an hour at least before the ringing of the\n     bell. When Mr. Ames ran to the front she went with him. She saw Mr.\n     Barker, very pale and excited, come out of the study. He intercepted\n     Mrs. Douglas, who was coming down the stairs. He entreated her to go\n     back, and she answered him, but what she said could not be heard.\n\n     \"Take her up! Stay with her!\" he had said to Mrs. Allen.\n\n     She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to soothe\n     her. She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but made no other\n     attempt to go downstairs. She just sat in her dressing gown by her\n     bedroom fire, with her head sunk in her hands. Mrs. Allen stayed with\n     her most of the night. As to the other servants, they had all gone to\n     bed, and the alarm did not reach them until just before the police\n     arrived. They slept at the extreme back of the house, and could not\n     possibly have heard anything.\n\n     So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination save\n     lamentations and expressions of amazement.\n\n     Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness. As to the occurrences\n     of the night before, he had very little to add to what he had already\n     told the police. Personally, he was convinced that the murderer had\n     escaped by the window. The bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion,\n     on that point. Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other\n     possible way of escaping. He could not explain what had become of the\n     assassin or why he had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his.\n     He could not possibly have been drowned in the moat, which was at no\n     place more than three feet deep.\n\n     In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder.\n     Douglas was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life\n     of which he never spoke. He had emigrated to America when he was a\n     very young man. He had prospered well, and Barker had first met him\n     in California, where they had become partners in a successful mining\n     claim at a place called Benito Canyon. They had done very well; but\n     Douglas had suddenly sold out and started for England. He was a\n     widower at that time. Barker had afterwards realized his money and\n     come to live in London. Thus they had renewed their friendship.\n\n     Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging\n     over his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure\n     from California, and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in\n     England, as being connected with this peril. He imagined that some\n     secret society, some implacable organization, was on Douglas's track,\n     which would never rest until it killed him. Some remarks of his had\n     given him this idea; though he had never told him what the society\n     was, nor how he had come to offend it. He could only suppose that the\n     legend upon the placard had some reference to this secret society.\n\n     \"How long were you with Douglas in California?\" asked Inspector\n     MacDonald.\n\n     \"Five years altogether.\"\n\n     \"He was a bachelor, you say?\"\n\n     \"A widower.\"\n\n     \"Have you ever heard where his first wife came from?\"\n\n     \"No, I remember his saying that she was of German extraction, and I\n     have seen her portrait. She was a very beautiful woman. She died of\n     typhoid the year before I met him.\"\n\n     \"You don't associate his past with any particular part of America?\"\n\n     \"I have heard him talk of Chicago. He knew that city well and had\n     worked there. I have heard him talk of the coal and iron districts.\n     He had travelled a good deal in his time.\"\n\n     \"Was he a politician? Had this secret society to do with politics?\"\n\n     \"No, he cared nothing about politics.\"\n\n     \"You have no reason to think it was criminal?\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, I never met a straighter man in my life.\"\n\n     \"Was there anything curious about his life in California?\"\n\n     \"He liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the mountains. He\n     would never go where other men were if he could help it. That's why I\n     first thought that someone was after him. Then when he left so\n     suddenly for Europe I made sure that it was so. I believe that he had\n     a warning of some sort. Within a week of his leaving half a dozen men\n     were inquiring for him.\"\n\n     \"What sort of men?\"\n\n     \"Well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd. They came up to the\n     claim and wanted to know where he was. I told them that he was gone\n     to Europe and that I did not know where to find him. They meant him\n     no good--it was easy to see that.\"\n\n     \"Were these men Americans--Californians?\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't know about Californians. They were Americans, all\n     right. But they were not miners. I don't know what they were, and was\n     very glad to see their backs.\"\n\n     \"That was six years ago?\"\n\n     \"Nearer seven.\"\n\n     \"And then you were together five years in California, so that this\n     business dates back not less than eleven years at the least?\"\n\n     \"That is so.\"\n\n     \"It must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with such\n     earnestness for as long as that. It would be no light thing that\n     would give rise to it.\"\n\n     \"I think it shadowed his whole life. It was never quite out of his\n     mind.\"\n\n     \"But if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what it was,\n     don't you think he would turn to the police for protection?\"\n\n     \"Maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected against.\n     There's one thing you should know. He always went about armed. His\n     revolver was never out of his pocket. But, by bad luck, he was in his\n     dressing gown and had left it in the bedroom last night. Once the\n     bridge was up, I guess he thought he was safe.\"\n\n     \"I should like these dates a little clearer,\" said MacDonald. \"It is\n     quite six years since Douglas left California. You followed him next\n     year, did you not?\"\n\n     \"That is so.\"\n\n     \"And he had been married five years. You must have returned about the\n     time of his marriage.\"\n\n     \"About a month before. I was his best man.\"\n\n     \"Did you know Mrs. Douglas before her marriage?\"\n\n     \"No, I did not. I had been away from England for ten years.\"\n\n     \"But you have seen a good deal of her since.\"\n\n     Barker looked sternly at the detective. \"I have seen a good deal of\n     him since,\" he answered. \"If I have seen her, it is because you\n     cannot visit a man without knowing his wife. If you imagine there is\n     any connection--\"\n\n     \"I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker. I am bound to make every inquiry\n     which can bear upon the case. But I mean no offense.\"\n\n     \"Some inquiries are offensive,\" Barker answered angrily.\n\n     \"It's only the facts that we want. It is in your interest and\n     everyone's interest that they should be cleared up. Did Mr. Douglas\n     entirely approve your friendship with his wife?\"\n\n     Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped\n     convulsively together. \"You have no right to ask such questions!\" he\n     cried. \"What has this to do with the matter you are investigating?\"\n\n     \"I must repeat the question.\"\n\n     \"Well, I refuse to answer.\"\n\n     \"You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is\n     in itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not\n     something to conceal.\"\n\n     Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong\n     black eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. Then he looked up with a\n     smile. \"Well, I guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty\n     after all, and I have no right to stand in the way of it. I'd only\n     ask you not to worry Mrs. Douglas over this matter; for she has\n     enough upon her just now. I may tell you that poor Douglas had just\n     one fault in the world, and that was his jealousy. He was fond of\n     me--no man could be fonder of a friend. And he was devoted to his\n     wife. He loved me to come here, and was forever sending for me. And\n     yet if his wife and I talked together or there seemed any sympathy\n     between us, a kind of wave of jealousy would pass over him, and he\n     would be off the handle and saying the wildest things in a moment.\n     More than once I've sworn off coming for that reason, and then he\n     would write me such penitent, imploring letters that I just had to.\n     But you can take it from me, gentlemen, if it was my last word, that\n     no man ever had a more loving, faithful wife--and I can say also no\n     friend could be more loyal than I!\"\n\n     It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector MacDonald\n     could not dismiss the subject.\n\n     \"You are aware,\" said he, \"that the dead man's wedding ring has been\n     taken from his finger?\"\n\n     \"So it appears,\" said Barker.\n\n     \"What do you mean by 'appears'? You know it as a fact.\"\n\n     The man seemed confused and undecided. \"When I said 'appears' I meant\n     that it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring.\"\n\n     \"The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have\n     removed it, would suggest to anyone's mind, would it not, that the\n     marriage and the tragedy were connected?\"\n\n     Barker shrugged his broad shoulders. \"I can't profess to say what it\n     means.\" he answered. \"But if you mean to hint that it could reflect\n     in any way upon this lady's honour\"--his eyes blazed for an instant,\n     and then with an evident effort he got a grip upon his own\n     emotions--\"well, you are on the wrong track, that's all.\"\n\n     \"I don't know that I've anything else to ask you at present,\" said\n     MacDonald, coldly.\n\n     \"There was one small point,\" remarked Sherlock Holmes. \"When you\n     entered the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was\n     there not?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that was so.\"\n\n     \"By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"You at once rang for help?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"And it arrived very speedily?\"\n\n     \"Within a minute or so.\"\n\n     \"And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and\n     that the lamp had been lighted. That seems very remarkable.\"\n\n     Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. \"I don't see that it\n     was remarkable, Mr. Holmes,\" he answered after a pause. \"The candle\n     threw a very bad light. My first thought was to get a better one. The\n     lamp was on the table; so I lit it.\"\n\n     \"And blew out the candle?\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look\n     from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something\n     of defiance in it, turned and left the room.\n\n     Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would\n     wait upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied that she\n     would meet us in the dining room. She entered now, a tall and\n     beautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a\n     remarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted\n     figure I had pictured. It is true that her face was pale and drawn,\n     like that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner was\n     composed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested upon the edge\n     of the table was as steady as my own. Her sad, appealing eyes\n     travelled from one to the other of us with a curiously inquisitive\n     expression. That questioning gaze transformed itself suddenly into\n     abrupt speech.\n\n     \"Have you found anything out yet?\" she asked.\n\n     Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than\n     of hope in the question?\n\n     \"We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas,\" said the\n     inspector. \"You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.\"\n\n     \"Spare no money,\" she said in a dead, even tone. \"It is my desire\n     that every possible effort should be made.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon\n     the matter.\"\n\n     \"I fear not; but all I know is at your service.\"\n\n     \"We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually\n     see--that you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?\"\n\n     \"No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to return to my\n     room.\"\n\n     \"Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.\"\n\n     \"I put on my dressing gown and then came down.\"\n\n     \"How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the\n     stair by Mr. Barker?\"\n\n     \"It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon time\n     at such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He assured me that I\n     could do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs\n     again. It was all like some dreadful dream.\"\n\n     \"Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs\n     before you heard the shot?\"\n\n     \"No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear\n     him go. He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous\n     of fire. It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of.\"\n\n     \"That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas. You\n     have known your husband only in England, have you not?\"\n\n     \"Yes, we have been married five years.\"\n\n     \"Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and\n     might bring some danger upon him?\"\n\n     Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. \"Yes.\" she said\n     at last, \"I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over\n     him. He refused to discuss it with me. It was not from want of\n     confidence in me--there was the most complete love and confidence\n     between us--but it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from\n     me. He thought I should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was\n     silent.\"\n\n     \"How did you know it, then?\"\n\n     Mrs. Douglas's face lit with a quick smile. \"Can a husband ever carry\n     about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no\n     suspicion of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes\n     in his American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I\n     knew it by certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked\n     at unexpected strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some\n     powerful enemies, that he believed they were on his track, and that\n     he was always on his guard against them. I was so sure of it that for\n     years I have been terrified if ever he came home later than was\n     expected.\"\n\n     \"Might I ask,\" asked Holmes, \"what the words were which attracted\n     your attention?\"\n\n     \"The Valley of Fear,\" the lady answered. \"That was an expression he\n     has used when I questioned him. 'I have been in the Valley of Fear. I\n     am not out of it yet.'--'Are we never to get out of the Valley of\n     Fear?' I have asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual.\n     'Sometimes I think that we never shall,' he has answered.\"\n\n     \"Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?\"\n\n     \"I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his\n     head. 'It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its\n     shadow,' he said. 'Please God it shall never fall upon you!' It was\n     some real valley in which he had lived and in which something\n     terrible had occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell\n     you no more.\"\n\n     \"And he never mentioned any names?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting\n     accident three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that\n     came continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of\n     horror. McGinty was the name--Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he\n     recovered who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master\n     of. 'Never of mine, thank God!' he answered with a laugh, and that\n     was all I could get from him. But there is a connection between\n     Bodymaster McGinty and the Valley of Fear.\"\n\n     \"There is one other point,\" said Inspector MacDonald. \"You met Mr.\n     Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became\n     engaged to him there? Was there any romance, anything secret or\n     mysterious, about the wedding?\"\n\n     \"There was romance. There is always romance. There was nothing\n     mysterious.\"\n\n     \"He had no rival?\"\n\n     \"No, I was quite free.\"\n\n     \"You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken. Does\n     that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some enemy of his old life\n     had tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason\n     could he have for taking his wedding ring?\"\n\n     For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile\n     flickered over the woman's lips.\n\n     \"I really cannot tell,\" she answered. \"It is certainly a most\n     extraordinary thing.\"\n\n     \"Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have\n     put you to this trouble at such a time,\" said the inspector. \"There\n     are some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they\n     arise.\"\n\n     She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance\n     with which she had just surveyed us. \"What impression has my evidence\n     made upon you?\" The question might as well have been spoken. Then,\n     with a bow, she swept from the room.\n\n     \"She's a beautiful woman--a very beautiful woman,\" said MacDonald\n     thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. \"This man Barker\n     has certainly been down here a good deal. He is a man who might be\n     attractive to a woman. He admits that the dead man was jealous, and\n     maybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. Then\n     there's that wedding ring. You can't get past that. The man who tears\n     a wedding ring off a dead man's--What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest\n     thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. \"Ames,\" he said, when the\n     butler entered, \"where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?\"\n\n     \"I'll see, sir.\"\n\n     He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the garden.\n\n     \"Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night\n     when you joined him in the study?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I brought him\n     his boots when he went for the police.\"\n\n     \"Where are the slippers now?\"\n\n     \"They are still under the chair in the hall.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know which\n     tracks may be Mr. Barker's and which from outside.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained\n     with blood--so indeed were my own.\"\n\n     \"That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. Very\n     good, Ames. We will ring if we want you.\"\n\n     A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought with him\n     the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had observed, the soles of\n     both were dark with blood.\n\n     \"Strange!\" murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window\n     and examined them minutely. \"Very strange indeed!\"\n\n     Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper\n     upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled\n     in silence at his colleagues.\n\n     The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native accent\n     rattled like a stick upon railings.\n\n     \"Man,\" he cried, \"there's not a doubt of it! Barker has just marked\n     the window himself. It's a good deal broader than any bootmark. I\n     mind that you said it was a splay-foot, and here's the explanation.\n     But what's the game, Mr. Holmes--what's the game?\"\n\n     \"Ay, what's the game?\" my friend repeated thoughtfully.\n\n     White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his\n     professional satisfaction. \"I said it was a snorter!\" he cried. \"And\n     a real snorter it is!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          A Dawning Light\n\n\n     The three detectives had many matters of detail into which to\n     inquire; so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village\n     inn. But before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world\n     garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut\n     into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch\n     of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so\n     soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled\n     nerves.\n\n     In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only\n     as some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling,\n     bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and\n     tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident\n     occurred, which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister\n     impression in my mind.\n\n     I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the\n     end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge.\n     On the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone\n     approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat.\n     As I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the\n     deep tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine\n     laughter.\n\n     An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes\n     lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my\n     presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had\n     been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away\n     from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still\n     quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat\n     forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an\n     answering smile upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant--but it\n     was just one instant too late--they resumed their solemn masks as my\n     figure came into view. A hurried word or two passed between them, and\n     then Barker rose and came towards me.\n\n     \"Excuse me, sir,\" said he, \"but am I addressing Dr. Watson?\"\n\n     I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the\n     impression which had been produced upon my mind.\n\n     \"We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr.\n     Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and\n     speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?\"\n\n     I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my\n     mind's eye that shattered figure on the floor. Here within a few\n     hours of the tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing\n     together behind a bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted\n     the lady with reserve. I had grieved with her grief in the\n     dining-room. Now I met her appealing gaze with an unresponsive eye.\n\n     \"I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted,\" said she.\n\n     I shrugged my shoulders. \"It is no business of mine,\" said I.\n\n     \"Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized--\"\n\n     \"There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize,\" said Barker\n     quickly. \"As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said I, \"and so I will beg leave to resume my walk.\"\n\n     \"One moment, Dr. Watson,\" cried the woman in a pleading voice. \"There\n     is one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone\n     else in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You\n     know Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone\n     else can. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his\n     knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to\n     the detectives?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that's it,\" said Barker eagerly. \"Is he on his own or is he\n     entirely in with them?\"\n\n     \"I really don't know that I should be justified in discussing such a\n     point.\"\n\n     \"I beg--I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you\n     will be helping us--helping me greatly if you will guide us on that\n     point.\"\n\n     There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the\n     instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her\n     will.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,\" I said. \"He is his own\n     master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time,\n     he would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were\n     working on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything\n     which would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this\n     I can say nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you\n     wanted fuller information.\"\n\n     So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still\n     seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the\n     far end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly\n     together, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was\n     our interview that was the subject of their debate.\n\n     \"I wish none of their confidences,\" said Holmes, when I reported to\n     him what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor\n     House in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about\n     five with a ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for\n     him. \"No confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes\n     to an arrest for conspiracy and murder.\"\n\n     \"You think it will come to that?\"\n\n     He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. \"My dear Watson,\n     when I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you\n     in touch with the whole situation. I don't say that we have fathomed\n     it--far from it--but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell--\"\n\n     \"The dumb-bell!\"\n\n     \"Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the\n     fact that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell? Well, well, you\n     need not be downcast; for between ourselves I don't think that either\n     Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the\n     overwhelming importance of this incident. One dumb-bell, Watson!\n     Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the\n     unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.\n     Shocking, Watson, shocking!\"\n\n     He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with\n     mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. The mere sight of\n     his excellent appetite was an assurance of success, for I had very\n     clear recollections of days and nights without a thought of food,\n     when his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin,\n     eager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete\n     mental concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the\n     inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about\n     his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a\n     considered statement.\n\n     \"A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising\n     lie--that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting\n     point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker's story is\n     corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are\n     both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem.\n     Why are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so\n     hard to conceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind\n     the lie and reconstruct the truth.\n\n     \"How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy\n     fabrication which simply could not be true. Consider! According to\n     the story given to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the\n     murder had been committed to take that ring, which was under another\n     ring, from the dead man's finger, to replace the other ring--a thing\n     which he would surely never have done--and to put that singular card\n     beside his victim. I say that this was obviously impossible.\n\n     \"You may argue--but I have too much respect for your judgment,\n     Watson, to think that you will do so--that the ring may have been\n     taken before the man was killed. The fact that the candle had been\n     lit only a short time shows that there had been no lengthy interview.\n     Was Douglas, from what we hear of his fearless character, a man who\n     would be likely to give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or\n     could we conceive of his giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the\n     assassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the lamp lit.\n     Of that I have no doubt at all.\n\n     \"But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the\n     shot must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But\n     there could be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in the\n     presence, therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the\n     two people who heard the gunshot--of the man Barker and of the woman\n     Douglas. When on the top of this I am able to show that the blood\n     mark on the windowsill was deliberately placed there by Barker, in\n     order to give a false clue to the police, you will admit that the\n     case grows dark against him.\n\n     \"Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did\n     occur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house;\n     so it was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they\n     had all gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in\n     the pantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us\n     this afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in\n     the study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all\n     shut.\n\n     \"It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. It is not so\n     far down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when\n     it was very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extent\n     muffled when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly\n     was in this instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the\n     silence of the night it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's\n     room. She is, as she has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less\n     she mentioned in her evidence that she did hear something like a door\n     slamming half an hour before the alarm was given. Half an hour before\n     the alarm was given would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt\n     that what she heard was the report of the gun, and that this was the\n     real instant of the murder.\n\n     \"If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs.\n     Douglas, presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have\n     been doing from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought\n     them down, until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and\n     summoned the servants. What were they doing, and why did they not\n     instantly give the alarm? That is the question which faces us, and\n     when it has been answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve\n     our problem.\"\n\n     \"I am convinced myself,\" said I, \"that there is an understanding\n     between those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sit\n     laughing at some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of\n     what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you\n     are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there\n     are few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let\n     any man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead\n     body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife\n     with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a\n     housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It\n     was badly stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be\n     struck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation. If there had\n     been nothing else, this incident alone would have suggested a\n     prearranged conspiracy to my mind.\"\n\n     \"You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty\n     of the murder?\"\n\n     \"There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson,\" said\n     Holmes, shaking his pipe at me. \"They come at me like bullets. If you\n     put it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder,\n     and are conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souled\n     answer. I am sure they do. But your more deadly proposition is not so\n     clear. Let us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in\n     the way.\n\n     \"We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty\n     love, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands\n     between them. It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among\n     servants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. On the\n     contrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the Douglases were\n     very attached to each other.\"\n\n     \"That, I am sure, cannot he true.\" said I, thinking of the beautiful\n     smiling face in the garden.\n\n     \"Well at least they gave that impression. However, we will suppose\n     that they are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone\n     upon this point, and conspire to murder the husband. He happens to be\n     a man over whose head some danger hangs--\"\n\n     \"We have only their word for that.\"\n\n     Holmes looked thoughtful. \"I see, Watson. You are sketching out a\n     theory by which everything they say from the beginning is false.\n     According to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret\n     society, or Valley of Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else.\n     Well, that is a good sweeping generalization. Let us see what that\n     brings us to. They invent this theory to account for the crime. They\n     then play up to the idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proof\n     of the existence of some outsider. The stain on the windowsill\n     conveys the same idea. So does the card on the body, which might have\n     been prepared in the house. That all fits into your hypothesis,\n     Watson. But now we come on the nasty, angular, uncompromising bits\n     which won't slip into their places. Why a cut-off shotgun of all\n     weapons--and an American one at that? How could they be so sure that\n     the sound of it would not bring someone on to them? It's a mere\n     chance as it is that Mrs. Allen did not start out to inquire for the\n     slamming door. Why did your guilty couple do all this, Watson?\"\n\n     \"I confess that I can't explain it.\"\n\n     \"Then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband,\n     are they going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing\n     his wedding ring after his death? Does that strike you as very\n     probable, Watson?\"\n\n     \"No, it does not.\"\n\n     \"And once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed\n     outside had occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing\n     when the dullest detective would naturally say this is an obvious\n     blind, as the bicycle is the first thing which the fugitive needed in\n     order to make his escape.\"\n\n     \"I can conceive of no explanation.\"\n\n     \"And yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit\n     of man cannot conceive an explanation. Simply as a mental exercise,\n     without any assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible\n     line of thought. It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is\n     imagination the mother of truth?\n\n     \"We will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shameful\n     secret in the life of this man Douglas. This leads to his murder by\n     someone who is, we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside.\n     This avenger, for some reason which I confess I am still at a loss to\n     explain, took the dead man's wedding ring. The vendetta might\n     conceivably date back to the man's first marriage, and the ring be\n     taken for some such reason.\n\n     \"Before this avenger got away, Barker and the wife had reached the\n     room. The assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him\n     would lead to the publication of some hideous scandal. They were\n     converted to this idea, and preferred to let him go. For this purpose\n     they probably lowered the bridge, which can be done quite\n     noiselessly, and then raised it again. He made his escape, and for\n     some reason thought that he could do so more safely on foot than on\n     the bicycle. He therefore left his machine where it would not be\n     discovered until he had got safely away. So far we are within the\n     bounds of possibility, are we not?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is possible, no doubt,\" said I, with some reserve.\n\n     \"We have to remember, Watson, that whatever occurred is certainly\n     something very extraordinary. Well, now, to continue our\n     supposititious case, the couple--not necessarily a guilty\n     couple--realize after the murderer is gone that they have placed\n     themselves in a position in which it may be difficult for them to\n     prove that they did not themselves either do the deed or connive at\n     it. They rapidly and rather clumsily met the situation. The mark was\n     put by Barker's bloodstained slipper upon the window-sill to suggest\n     how the fugitive got away. They obviously were the two who must have\n     heard the sound of the gun; so they gave the alarm exactly as they\n     would have done, but a good half hour after the event.\"\n\n     \"And how do you propose to prove all this?\"\n\n     \"Well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken. That\n     would be the most effective of all proofs. But if not--well, the\n     resources of science are far from being exhausted. I think that an\n     evening alone in that study would help me much.\"\n\n     \"An evening alone!\"\n\n     \"I propose to go up there presently. I have arranged it with the\n     estimable Ames, who is by no means whole-hearted about Barker. I\n     shall sit in that room and see if its atmosphere brings me\n     inspiration. I'm a believer in the genius loci. You smile, Friend\n     Watson. Well, we shall see. By the way, you have that big umbrella of\n     yours, have you not?\"\n\n     \"It is here.\"\n\n     \"Well, I'll borrow that if I may.\"\n\n     \"Certainly--but what a wretched weapon! If there is danger--\"\n\n     \"Nothing serious, my dear Watson, or I should certainly ask for your\n     assistance. But I'll take the umbrella. At present I am only awaiting\n     the return of our colleagues from Tunbridge Wells, where they are at\n     present engaged in trying for a likely owner to the bicycle.\"\n\n     It was nightfall before Inspector MacDonald and White Mason came back\n     from their expedition, and they arrived exultant, reporting a great\n     advance in our investigation.\n\n     \"Man, I'll admeet that I had my doubts if there was ever an\n     outsider,\" said MacDonald, \"but that's all past now. We've had the\n     bicycle identified, and we have a description of our man; so that's a\n     long step on our journey.\"\n\n     \"It sounds to me like the beginning of the end,\" said Holmes. \"I'm\n     sure I congratulate you both with all my heart.\"\n\n     \"Well, I started from the fact that Mr. Douglas had seemed disturbed\n     since the day before, when he had been at Tunbridge Wells. It was at\n     Tunbridge Wells then that he had become conscious of some danger. It\n     was clear, therefore, that if a man had come over with a bicycle it\n     was from Tunbridge Wells that he might be expected to have come. We\n     took the bicycle over with us and showed it at the hotels. It was\n     identified at once by the manager of the Eagle Commercial as\n     belonging to a man named Hargrave, who had taken a room there two\n     days before. This bicycle and a small valise were his whole\n     belongings. He had registered his name as coming from London, but had\n     given no address. The valise was London made, and the contents were\n     British; but the man himself was undoubtedly an American.\"\n\n     \"Well, well,\" said Holmes gleefully, \"you have indeed done some solid\n     work while I have been sitting spinning theories with my friend! It's\n     a lesson in being practical, Mr. Mac.\"\n\n     \"Ay, it's just that, Mr. Holmes,\" said the inspector with\n     satisfaction.\n\n     \"But this may all fit in with your theories,\" I remarked.\n\n     \"That may or may not be. But let us hear the end, Mr. Mac. Was there\n     nothing to identify this man?\"\n\n     \"So little that it was evident that he had carefully guarded himself\n     against identification. There were no papers or letters, and no\n     marking upon the clothes. A cycle map of the county lay on his\n     bedroom table. He had left the hotel after breakfast yesterday\n     morning on his bicycle, and no more was heard of him until our\n     inquiries.\"\n\n     \"That's what puzzles me, Mr. Holmes,\" said White Mason. \"If the\n     fellow did not want the hue and cry raised over him, one would\n     imagine that he would have returned and remained at the hotel as an\n     inoffensive tourist. As it is, he must know that he will be reported\n     to the police by the hotel manager and that his disappearance will be\n     connected with the murder.\"\n\n     \"So one would imagine. Still, he has been justified of his wisdom up\n     to date, at any rate, since he has not been taken. But his\n     description--what of that?\"\n\n     MacDonald referred to his notebook. \"Here we have it so far as they\n     could give it. They don't seem to have taken any very particular\n     stock of him; but still the porter, the clerk, and the chambermaid\n     are all agreed that this about covers the points. He was a man about\n     five foot nine in height, fifty or so years of age, his hair slightly\n     grizzled, a grayish moustache, a curved nose, and a face which all of\n     them described as fierce and forbidding.\"\n\n     \"Well, bar the expression, that might almost be a description of\n     Douglas himself,\" said Holmes. \"He is just over fifty, with grizzled\n     hair and moustache, and about the same height. Did you get anything\n     else?\"\n\n     \"He was dressed in a heavy gray suit with a reefer jacket, and he\n     wore a short yellow overcoat and a soft cap.\"\n\n     \"What about the shotgun?\"\n\n     \"It is less than two feet long. It could very well have fitted into\n     his valise. He could have carried it inside his overcoat without\n     difficulty.\"\n\n     \"And how do you consider that all this bears upon the general case?\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes,\" said MacDonald, \"when we have got our man--and\n     you may be sure that I had his description on the wires within five\n     minutes of hearing it--we shall be better able to judge. But, even as\n     it stands, we have surely gone a long way. We know that an American\n     calling himself Hargrave came to Tunbridge Wells two days ago with\n     bicycle and valise. In the latter was a sawed-off shotgun; so he came\n     with the deliberate purpose of crime. Yesterday morning he set off\n     for this place on his bicycle, with his gun concealed in his\n     overcoat. No one saw him arrive, so far as we can learn; but he need\n     not pass through the village to reach the park gates, and there are\n     many cyclists upon the road. Presumably he at once concealed his\n     cycle among the laurels where it was found, and possibly lurked there\n     himself, with his eye on the house, waiting for Mr. Douglas to come\n     out. The shotgun is a strange weapon to use inside a house; but he\n     had intended to use it outside, and there it has very obvious\n     advantages, as it would be impossible to miss with it, and the sound\n     of shots is so common in an English sporting neighbourhood that no\n     particular notice would be taken.\"\n\n     \"That is all very clear,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Douglas did not appear. What was he to do next? He left\n     his bicycle and approached the house in the twilight. He found the\n     bridge down and no one about. He took his chance, intending, no\n     doubt, to make some excuse if he met anyone. He met no one. He\n     slipped into the first room that he saw, and concealed himself behind\n     the curtain. Thence he could see the drawbridge go up, and he knew\n     that his only escape was through the moat. He waited until\n     quarter-past eleven, when Mr. Douglas upon his usual nightly round\n     came into the room. He shot him and escaped, as arranged. He was\n     aware that the bicycle would be described by the hotel people and be\n     a clue against him; so he left it there and made his way by some\n     other means to London or to some safe hiding place which he had\n     already arranged. How is that, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Mac, it is very good and very clear so far as it goes.\n     That is your end of the story. My end is that the crime was committed\n     half an hour earlier than reported; that Mrs. Douglas and Barker are\n     both in a conspiracy to conceal something; that they aided the\n     murderer's escape--or at least that they reached the room before he\n     escaped--and that they fabricated evidence of his escape through the\n     window, whereas in all probability they had themselves let him go by\n     lowering the bridge. That's my reading of the first half.\"\n\n     The two detectives shook their heads.\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, if this is true, we only tumble out of one mystery\n     into another,\" said the London inspector.\n\n     \"And in some ways a worse one,\" added White Mason. \"The lady has\n     never been in America in all her life. What possible connection could\n     she have with an American assassin which would cause her to shelter\n     him?\"\n\n     \"I freely admit the difficulties,\" said Holmes. \"I propose to make a\n     little investigation of my own to-night, and it is just possible that\n     it may contribute something to the common cause.\"\n\n     \"Can we help you, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"No, no! Darkness and Dr. Watson's umbrella--my wants are simple. And\n     Ames, the faithful Ames, no doubt he will stretch a point for me. All\n     my lines of thought lead me back invariably to the one basic\n     question--why should an athletic man develop his frame upon so\n     unnatural an instrument as a single dumb-bell?\"\n\n     It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary\n     excursion. We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that\n     the little country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I\n     was partly awakened by his entrance.\n\n     \"Well, Holmes,\" I murmured, \"have you found anything out?\"\n\n     He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall,\n     lean figure inclined towards me. \"I say, Watson,\" he whispered,\n     \"would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man\n     with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?\"\n\n     \"Not in the least,\" I answered in astonishment.\n\n     \"Ah, that's lucky,\" he said, and not another word would he utter that\n     night.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          The Solution\n\n\n     Next morning, after breakfast, we found Inspector MacDonald and White\n     Mason seated in close consultation in the small parlour of the local\n     police sergeant. On the table in front of them were piled a number of\n     letters and telegrams, which they were carefully sorting and\n     docketing. Three had been placed on one side.\n\n     \"Still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?\" Holmes asked\n     cheerfully. \"What is the latest news of the ruffian?\"\n\n     MacDonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.\n\n     \"He is at present reported from Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton,\n     Derby, East Ham, Richmond, and fourteen other places. In three of\n     them--East Ham, Leicester, and Liverpool--there is a clear case\n     against him, and he has actually been arrested. The country seems to\n     be full of the fugitives with yellow coats.\"\n\n     \"Dear me!\" said Holmes sympathetically. \"Now, Mr. Mac and you, Mr.\n     White Mason, I wish to give you a very earnest piece of advice. When\n     I went into this case with you I bargained, as you will no doubt\n     remember, that I should not present you with half-proved theories,\n     but that I should retain and work out my own ideas until I had\n     satisfied myself that they were correct. For this reason I am not at\n     the present moment telling you all that is in my mind. On the other\n     hand, I said that I would play the game fairly by you, and I do not\n     think it is a fair game to allow you for one unnecessary moment to\n     waste your energies upon a profitless task. Therefore I am here to\n     advise you this morning, and my advice to you is summed up in three\n     words--abandon the case.\"\n\n     MacDonald and White Mason stared in amazement at their celebrated\n     colleague.\n\n     \"You consider it hopeless!\" cried the inspector.\n\n     \"I consider your case to be hopeless. I do not consider that it is\n     hopeless to arrive at the truth.\"\n\n     \"But this cyclist. He is not an invention. We have his description,\n     his valise, his bicycle. The fellow must be somewhere. Why should we\n     not get him?\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no doubt we shall get him;\n     but I would not have you waste your energies in East Ham or\n     Liverpool. I am sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result.\"\n\n     \"You are holding something back. It's hardly fair of you, Mr.\n     Holmes.\" The inspector was annoyed.\n\n     \"You know my methods of work, Mr. Mac. But I will hold it back for\n     the shortest time possible. I only wish to verify my details in one\n     way, which can very readily be done, and then I make my bow and\n     return to London, leaving my results entirely at your service. I owe\n     you too much to act otherwise; for in all my experience I cannot\n     recall any more singular and interesting study.\"\n\n     \"This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes. We saw you when we returned\n     from Tunbridge Wells last night, and you were in general agreement\n     with our results. What has happened since then to give you a\n     completely new idea of the case?\"\n\n     \"Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you that I would, some\n     hours last night at the Manor House.\"\n\n     \"Well, what happened?\"\n\n     \"Ah, I can only give you a very general answer to that for the\n     moment. By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and\n     interesting account of the old building, purchasable at the modest\n     sum of one penny from the local tobacconist.\"\n\n     Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving of\n     the ancient Manor House, from his waistcoat pocket.\n\n     \"It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear Mr. Mac,\n     when one is in conscious sympathy with the historical atmosphere of\n     one's surroundings. Don't look so impatient; for I assure you that\n     even so bald an account as this raises some sort of picture of the\n     past in one's mind. Permit me to give you a sample. 'Erected in the\n     fifth year of the reign of James I, and standing upon the site of a\n     much older building, the Manor House of Birlstone presents one of the\n     finest surviving examples of the moated Jacobean residence--' \"\n\n     \"You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!\"\n\n     \"Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!--the first sign of temper I have detected in you.\n     Well, I won't read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly upon the\n     subject. But when I tell you that there is some account of the taking\n     of the place by a parliamentary colonel in 1644, of the concealment\n     of Charles for several days in the course of the Civil War, and\n     finally of a visit there by the second George, you will admit that\n     there are various associations of interest connected with this\n     ancient house.\"\n\n     \"I don't doubt it, Mr. Holmes; but that is no business of ours.\"\n\n     \"Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of\n     the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the\n     oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. You\n     will excuse these remarks from one who, though a mere connoisseur of\n     crime, is still rather older and perhaps more experienced than\n     yourself.\"\n\n     \"I'm the first to admit that,\" said the detective heartily. \"You get\n     to your point, I admit; but you have such a deuced round-the-corner\n     way of doing it.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, I'll drop past history and get down to present-day\n     facts. I called last night, as I have already said, at the Manor\n     House. I did not see either Barker or Mrs. Douglas. I saw no\n     necessity to disturb them; but I was pleased to hear that the lady\n     was not visibly pining and that she had partaken of an excellent\n     dinner. My visit was specially made to the good Mr. Ames, with whom I\n     exchanged some amiabilities, which culminated in his allowing me,\n     without reference to anyone else, to sit alone for a time in the\n     study.\"\n\n     \"What! With that?\" I ejaculated.\n\n     \"No, no, everything is now in order. You gave permission for that,\n     Mr. Mac, as I am informed. The room was in its normal state, and in\n     it I passed an instructive quarter of an hour.\"\n\n     \"What were you doing?\"\n\n     \"Well, not to make a mystery of so simple a matter, I was looking for\n     the missing dumb-bell. It has always bulked rather large in my\n     estimate of the case. I ended by finding it.\"\n\n     \"Where?\"\n\n     \"Ah, there we come to the edge of the unexplored. Let me go a little\n     further, a very little further, and I will promise that you shall\n     share everything that I know.\"\n\n     \"Well, we're bound to take you on your own terms,\" said the\n     inspector; \"but when it comes to telling us to abandon the case--why\n     in the name of goodness should we abandon the case?\"\n\n     \"For the simple reason, my dear Mr. Mac, that you have not got the\n     first idea what it is that you are investigating.\"\n\n     \"We are investigating the murder of Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone\n     Manor.\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes, so you are. But don't trouble to trace the mysterious\n     gentleman upon the bicycle. I assure you that it won't help you.\"\n\n     \"Then what do you suggest that we do?\"\n\n     \"I will tell you exactly what to do, if you will do it.\"\n\n     \"Well, I'm bound to say I've always found you had reason behind all\n     your queer ways. I'll do what you advise.\"\n\n     \"And you, Mr. White Mason?\"\n\n     The country detective looked helplessly from one to the other. Holmes\n     and his methods were new to him. \"Well, if it is good enough for the\n     inspector, it is good enough for me,\" he said at last.\n\n     \"Capital!\" said Holmes. \"Well, then, I should recommend a nice,\n     cheery country walk for both of you. They tell me that the views from\n     Birlstone Ridge over the Weald are very remarkable. No doubt lunch\n     could be got at some suitable hostelry; though my ignorance of the\n     country prevents me from recommending one. In the evening, tired but\n     happy--\"\n\n     \"Man, this is getting past a joke!\" cried MacDonald, rising angrily\n     from his chair.\n\n     \"Well, well, spend the day as you like,\" said Holmes, patting him\n     cheerfully upon the shoulder. \"Do what you like and go where you\n     will, but meet me here before dusk without fail--without fail, Mr.\n     Mac.\"\n\n     \"That sounds more like sanity.\"\n\n     \"All of it was excellent advice; but I don't insist, so long as you\n     are here when I need you. But now, before we part, I want you to\n     write a note to Mr. Barker.\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"I'll dictate it, if you like. Ready?\n\n     \"Dear Sir:\n     \"It has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in the hope\n     that we may find some--\"\n\n     \"It's impossible,\" said the inspector. \"I've made inquiry.\"\n\n     \"Tut, tut! My dear sir, please do what I ask you.\"\n\n     \"Well, go on.\"\n\n     \"--in the hope that we may find something which may bear upon our\n     investigation. I have made arrangements, and the workmen will be at\n     work early to-morrow morning diverting the stream--\"\n\n     \"Impossible!\"\n\n     \"--diverting the stream; so I thought it best to explain matters\n     beforehand.\n\n     \"Now sign that, and send it by hand about four o'clock. At that hour\n     we shall meet again in this room. Until then we may each do what we\n     like; for I can assure you that this inquiry has come to a definite\n     pause.\"\n\n     Evening was drawing in when we reassembled. Holmes was very serious\n     in his manner, myself curious, and the detectives obviously critical\n     and annoyed.\n\n     \"Well, gentlemen,\" said my friend gravely, \"I am asking you now to\n     put everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves\n     whether the observations I have made justify the conclusions to which\n     I have come. It is a chill evening, and I do not know how long our\n     expedition may last; so I beg that you will wear your warmest coats.\n     It is of the first importance that we should be in our places before\n     it grows dark; so with your permission we shall get started at once.\"\n\n     We passed along the outer bounds of the Manor House park until we\n     came to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced it.\n     Through this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed\n     Holmes until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to\n     the main door and the drawbridge. The latter had not been raised.\n     Holmes crouched down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three\n     followed his example.\n\n     \"Well, what are we to do now?\" asked MacDonald with some gruffness.\n\n     \"Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,\"\n     Holmes answered.\n\n     \"What are we here for at all? I really think that you might treat us\n     with more frankness.\"\n\n     Holmes laughed. \"Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real\n     life,\" said he. \"Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and\n     calls insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our\n     profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not\n     sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt\n     accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder--what can one make of\n     such a dénouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the\n     clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold\n     theories--are these not the pride and the justification of our life's\n     work? At the present moment you thrill with the glamour of the\n     situation and the anticipation of the hunt. Where would be that\n     thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? I only ask a little\n     patience, Mr. Mac, and all will be clear to you.\"\n\n     \"Well, I hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will\n     come before we all get our death of cold,\" said the London detective\n     with comic resignation.\n\n     We all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil was a\n     long and bitter one. Slowly the shadows darkened over the long,\n     sombre face of the old house. A cold, damp reek from the moat chilled\n     us to the bones and set our teeth chattering. There was a single lamp\n     over the gateway and a steady globe of light in the fatal study.\n     Everything else was dark and still.\n\n     \"How long is this to last?\" asked the inspector finally. \"And what is\n     it we are watching for?\"\n\n     \"I have no more notion than you how long it is to last,\" Holmes\n     answered with some asperity. \"If criminals would always schedule\n     their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more\n     convenient for all of us. As to what it is we--Well, that's what we\n     are watching for!\"\n\n     As he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured by\n     somebody passing to and fro before it. The laurels among which we lay\n     were immediately opposite the window and not more than a hundred feet\n     from it. Presently it was thrown open with a whining of hinges, and\n     we could dimly see the dark outline of a man's head and shoulders\n     looking out into the gloom. For some minutes he peered forth in\n     furtive, stealthy fashion, as one who wishes to be assured that he is\n     unobserved. Then he leaned forward, and in the intense silence we\n     were aware of the soft lapping of agitated water. He seemed to be\n     stirring up the moat with something which he held in his hand. Then\n     suddenly he hauled something in as a fisherman lands a fish--some\n     large, round object which obscured the light as it was dragged\n     through the open casement.\n\n     \"Now!\" cried Holmes. \"Now!\"\n\n     We were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our stiffened\n     limbs, while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang violently at\n     the bell. There was the rasping of bolts from the other side, and the\n     amazed Ames stood in the entrance. Holmes brushed him aside without a\n     word and, followed by all of us, rushed into the room which had been\n     occupied by the man whom we had been watching.\n\n     The oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had seen from\n     outside. It was now in the hand of Cecil Barker, who held it towards\n     us as we entered. Its light shone upon his strong, resolute,\n     clean-shaved face and his menacing eyes.\n\n     \"What the devil is the meaning of all this?\" he cried. \"What are you\n     after, anyhow?\"\n\n     Holmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a sodden\n     bundle tied together with cord which lay where it had been thrust\n     under the writing table.\n\n     \"This is what we are after, Mr. Barker--this bundle, weighted with a\n     dumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of the moat.\"\n\n     Barker stared at Holmes with amazement in his face. \"How in thunder\n     came you to know anything about it?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Simply that I put it there.\"\n\n     \"You put it there! You!\"\n\n     \"Perhaps I should have said 'replaced it there,'\" said Holmes. \"You\n     will remember, Inspector MacDonald, that I was somewhat struck by the\n     absence of a dumb-bell. I drew your attention to it; but with the\n     pressure of other events you had hardly the time to give it the\n     consideration which would have enabled you to draw deductions from\n     it. When water is near and a weight is missing it is not a very\n     far-fetched supposition that something has been sunk in the water.\n     The idea was at least worth testing; so with the help of Ames, who\n     admitted me to the room, and the crook of Dr. Watson's umbrella, I\n     was able last night to fish up and inspect this bundle.\n\n     \"It was of the first importance, however, that we should be able to\n     prove who placed it there. This we accomplished by the very obvious\n     device of announcing that the moat would be dried to-morrow, which\n     had, of course, the effect that whoever had hidden the bundle would\n     most certainly withdraw it the moment that darkness enabled him to do\n     so. We have no less than four witnesses as to who it was who took\n     advantage of the opportunity, and so, Mr. Barker, I think the word\n     lies now with you.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside the lamp\n     and undid the cord which bound it. From within he extracted a\n     dumb-bell, which he tossed down to its fellow in the corner. Next he\n     drew forth a pair of boots. \"American, as you perceive,\" he remarked,\n     pointing to the toes. Then he laid upon the table a long, deadly,\n     sheathed knife. Finally he unravelled a bundle of clothing,\n     comprising a complete set of underclothes, socks, a gray tweed suit,\n     and a short yellow overcoat.\n\n     \"The clothes are commonplace,\" remarked Holmes, \"save only the\n     overcoat, which is full of suggestive touches.\" He held it tenderly\n     towards the light. \"Here, as you perceive, is the inner pocket\n     prolonged into the lining in such fashion as to give ample space for\n     the truncated fowling piece. The tailor's tab is on the neck--'Neal,\n     Outfitter, Vermissa, U. S. A.' I have spent an instructive afternoon\n     in the rector's library, and have enlarged my knowledge by adding the\n     fact that Vermissa is a flourishing little town at the head of one of\n     the best known coal and iron valleys in the United States. I have\n     some recollection, Mr. Barker, that you associated the coal districts\n     with Mr. Douglas's first wife, and it would surely not be too\n     far-fetched an inference that the V. V. upon the card by the dead\n     body might stand for Vermissa Valley, or that this very valley which\n     sends forth emissaries of murder may be that Valley of Fear of which\n     we have heard. So much is fairly clear. And now, Mr. Barker, I seem\n     to be standing rather in the way of your explanation.\"\n\n     It was a sight to see Cecil Barker's expressive face during this\n     exposition of the great detective. Anger, amazement, consternation,\n     and indecision swept over it in turn. Finally he took refuge in a\n     somewhat acrid irony.\n\n     \"You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you had better tell us some\n     more,\" he sneered.\n\n     \"I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr. Barker;\n     but it would come with a better grace from you.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you think so, do you? Well, all I can say is that if there's any\n     secret here it is not my secret, and I am not the man to give it\n     away.\"\n\n     \"Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker,\" said the inspector\n     quietly, \"we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant\n     and can hold you.\"\n\n     \"You can do what you damn please about that,\" said Barker defiantly.\n\n     The proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far as he\n     was concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face to\n     realize that no peine forte et dure would ever force him to plead\n     against his will. The deadlock was broken, however, by a woman's\n     voice. Mrs. Douglas had been standing listening at the half opened\n     door, and now she entered the room.\n\n     \"You have done enough for now, Cecil,\" said she. \"Whatever comes of\n     it in the future, you have done enough.\"\n\n     \"Enough and more than enough,\" remarked Sherlock Holmes gravely. \"I\n     have every sympathy with you, madam, and should strongly urge you to\n     have some confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction and to\n     take the police voluntarily into your complete confidence. It may be\n     that I am myself at fault for not following up the hint which you\n     conveyed to me through my friend, Dr. Watson; but, at that time I had\n     every reason to believe that you were directly concerned in the\n     crime. Now I am assured that this is not so. At the same time, there\n     is much that is unexplained, and I should strongly recommend that you\n     ask Mr. Douglas to tell us his own story.\"\n\n     Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes's words. The\n     detectives and I must have echoed it, when we were aware of a man who\n     seemed to have emerged from the wall, who advanced now from the gloom\n     of the corner in which he had appeared. Mrs. Douglas turned, and in\n     an instant her arms were round him. Barker had seized his\n     outstretched hand.\n\n     \"It's best this way, Jack,\" his wife repeated; \"I am sure that it is\n     best.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, yes, Mr. Douglas,\" said Sherlock Holmes, \"I am sure that you\n     will find it best.\"\n\n     The man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who comes\n     from the dark into the light. It was a remarkable face, bold gray\n     eyes, a strong, short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a square,\n     projecting chin, and a humorous mouth. He took a good look at us all,\n     and then to my amazement he advanced to me and handed me a bundle of\n     paper.\n\n     \"I've heard of you,\" said he in a voice which was not quite English\n     and not quite American, but was altogether mellow and pleasing. \"You\n     are the historian of this bunch. Well, Dr. Watson, you've never had\n     such a story as that pass through your hands before, and I'll lay my\n     last dollar on that. Tell it your own way; but there are the facts,\n     and you can't miss the public so long as you have those. I've been\n     cooped up two days, and I've spent the daylight hours--as much\n     daylight as I could get in that rat trap--in putting the thing into\n     words. You're welcome to them--you and your public. There's the story\n     of the Valley of Fear.\"\n\n     \"That's the past, Mr. Douglas,\" said Sherlock Holmes quietly. \"What\n     we desire now is to hear your story of the present.\"\n\n     \"You'll have it, sir,\" said Douglas. \"May I smoke as I talk? Well,\n     thank you, Mr. Holmes. You're a smoker yourself, if I remember right,\n     and you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco\n     in your pocket and afraid that the smell will give you away.\" He\n     leaned against the mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which Holmes\n     had handed him. \"I've heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I never guessed that\n     I should meet you. But before you are through with that,\" he nodded\n     at my papers, \"you will say I've brought you something fresh.\"\n\n     Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with the\n     greatest amazement. \"Well, this fairly beats me!\" he cried at last.\n     \"If you are Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, then whose death\n     have we been investigating for these two days, and where in the world\n     have you sprung from now? You seemed to me to come out of the floor\n     like a jack-in-a-box.\"\n\n     \"Ah, Mr. Mac,\" said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger, \"you\n     would not read that excellent local compilation which described the\n     concealment of King Charles. People did not hide in those days\n     without excellent hiding places, and the hiding place that has once\n     been used may be again. I had persuaded myself that we should find\n     Mr. Douglas under this roof.\"\n\n     \"And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr. Holmes?\"\n     said the inspector angrily. \"How long have you allowed us to waste\n     ourselves upon a search that you knew to be an absurd one?\"\n\n     \"Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac. Only last night did I form my\n     views of the case. As they could not be put to the proof until this\n     evening, I invited you and your colleague to take a holiday for the\n     day. Pray what more could I do? When I found the suit of clothes in\n     the moat, it at once became apparent to me that the body we had found\n     could not have been the body of Mr. John Douglas at all, but must be\n     that of the bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was\n     possible. Therefore I had to determine where Mr. John Douglas himself\n     could be, and the balance of probability was that with the connivance\n     of his wife and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such\n     conveniences for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could\n     make his final escape.\"\n\n     \"Well, you figured it out about right,\" said Douglas approvingly. \"I\n     thought I'd dodge your British law; for I was not sure how I stood\n     under it, and also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all\n     off my track. Mind you, from first to last I have done nothing to be\n     ashamed of, and nothing that I would not do again; but you'll judge\n     that for yourselves when I tell you my story. Never mind warning me,\n     Inspector: I'm ready to stand pat upon the truth.\n\n     \"I'm not going to begin at the beginning. That's all there,\" he\n     indicated my bundle of papers, \"and a mighty queer yarn you'll find\n     it. It all comes down to this: That there are some men that have good\n     cause to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they\n     had got me. So long as I am alive and they are alive, there is no\n     safety in this world for me. They hunted me from Chicago to\n     California, then they chased me out of America; but when I married\n     and settled down in this quiet spot I thought my last years were\n     going to be peaceable.\n\n     \"I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I pull her\n     into it? She would never have a quiet moment again; but would always\n     be imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something, for I may have\n     dropped a word here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you\n     gentlemen had seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter. She\n     told you all she knew, and so did Barker here; for on the night when\n     this thing happened there was mighty little time for explanations.\n     She knows everything now, and I would have been a wiser man if I had\n     told her sooner. But it was a hard question, dear,\" he took her hand\n     for an instant in his own, \"and I acted for the best.\n\n     \"Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over in\n     Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It was\n     only a glimpse; but I have a quick eye for these things, and I never\n     doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all--one\n     who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these\n     years. I knew there was trouble coming, and I came home and made\n     ready for it. I guessed I'd fight through it all right on my own, my\n     luck was a proverb in the States about '76. I never doubted that it\n     would be with me still.\n\n     \"I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the\n     park. It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that\n     buckshot gun of his before ever I could draw on him. After the bridge\n     was up--my mind was always more restful when that bridge was up in\n     the evenings--I put the thing clear out of my head. I never dreamed\n     of his getting into the house and waiting for me. But when I made my\n     round in my dressing gown, as was my habit, I had no sooner entered\n     the study than I scented danger. I guess when a man has had dangers\n     in his life--and I've had more than most in my time--there is a kind\n     of sixth sense that waves the red flag. I saw the signal clear\n     enough, and yet I couldn't tell you why. Next instant I spotted a\n     boot under the window curtain, and then I saw why plain enough.\n\n     \"I'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good\n     light from the hall lamp through the open door. I put down the candle\n     and jumped for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel. At the same\n     moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at\n     him with the hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down\n     on the floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a\n     moment later he'd got his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock\n     it; but I had got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the\n     barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It\n     was death to the man that lost his grip.\n\n     \"He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too\n     long. Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe we just jolted it\n     off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there I\n     was, staring down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin. I'd recognized\n     him in the township, and again when he sprang for me; but his own\n     mother wouldn't recognize him as I saw him then. I'm used to rough\n     work; but I fairly turned sick at the sight of him.\n\n     \"I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying\n     down. I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her.\n     It was no sight for a woman. I promised I'd come to her soon. I said\n     a word or two to Barker--he took it all in at a glance--and we waited\n     for the rest to come along. But there was no sign of them. Then we\n     understood that they could hear nothing, and that all that had\n     happened was known only to ourselves.\n\n     \"It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly\n     dazzled by the brilliance of it. The man's sleeve had slipped up and\n     there was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. See here!\"\n\n     The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff\n     to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we\n     had seen upon the dead man.\n\n     \"It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it\n     all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and figure,\n     about the same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil!\n     I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour\n     Barker and I had put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found\n     him. We tied all his things into a bundle, and I weighted them with\n     the only weight I could find and put them through the window. The\n     card he had meant to lay upon my body was lying beside his own.\n\n     \"My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding\n     ring,\" he held out his muscular hand, \"you can see for yourselves\n     that I had struck the limit. I have not moved it since the day I was\n     married, and it would have taken a file to get it off. I don't know,\n     anyhow, that I should have cared to part with it; but if I had wanted\n     to I couldn't. So we just had to leave that detail to take care of\n     itself. On the other hand, I brought a bit of plaster down and put it\n     where I am wearing one myself at this instant. You slipped up there,\n     Mr. Holmes, clever as you are; for if you had chanced to take off\n     that plaster you would have found no cut underneath it.\n\n     \"Well, that was the situation. If I could lie low for a while and\n     then get away where I could be joined by my 'widow' we should have a\n     chance at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives. These\n     devils would give me no rest so long as I was above ground; but if\n     they saw in the papers that Baldwin had got his man, there would be\n     an end of all my troubles. I hadn't much time to make it all clear to\n     Barker and to my wife; but they understood enough to be able to help\n     me. I knew all about this hiding place, so did Ames; but it never\n     entered his head to connect it with the matter. I retired into it,\n     and it was up to Barker to do the rest.\n\n     \"I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. He opened the\n     window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the\n     murderer escaped. It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up\n     there was no other way. Then, when everything was fixed, he rang the\n     bell for all he was worth. What happened afterward you know. And so,\n     gentlemen, you can do what you please; but I've told you the truth\n     and the whole truth, so help me God! What I ask you now is how do I\n     stand by the English law?\"\n\n     There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"The English law is in the main a just law. You will get no worse\n     than your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas. But I would ask you how did\n     this man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or\n     where to hide to get you?\"\n\n     \"I know nothing of this.\"\n\n     Holmes's face was very white and grave. \"The story is not over yet, I\n     fear,\" said he. \"You may find worse dangers than the English law, or\n     even than your enemies from America. I see trouble before you, Mr.\n     Douglas. You'll take my advice and still be on your guard.\"\n\n     And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with\n     me for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of Birlstone, and far\n     also from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey\n     which ended with the strange story of the man who had been known as\n     John Douglas. I wish you to journey back some twenty years in time,\n     and westward some thousands of miles in space, that I may lay before\n     you a singular and terrible narrative--so singular and so terrible\n     that you may find it hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so\n     did it occur.\n\n     Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished. As\n     you read on you will find that this is not so. And when I have\n     detailed those distant events and you have solved this mystery of the\n     past, we shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where\n     this, like so many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                      PART II\n\n                                  The Scowrers\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          The Man\n\n\n     It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a severe\n     winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton\n     Mountains. The steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open,\n     and the evening train which connects the long line of coal-mining and\n     iron-working settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep\n     gradients which lead from Stagville on the plain to Vermissa, the\n     central township which lies at the head of Vermissa Valley. From this\n     point the track sweeps downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and\n     the purely agricultural county of Merton. It was a single-track\n     railroad; but at every siding--and they were numerous--long lines of\n     trucks piled with coal and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which\n     had brought a rude population and a bustling life to this most\n     desolate corner of the United States of America.\n\n     For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had traversed\n     it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush\n     water pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black\n     crag and tangled forest. Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable\n     woods upon their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains,\n     white snow, and jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long,\n     winding, tortuous valley in the centre. Up this the little train was\n     slowly crawling.\n\n     The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,\n     bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. The\n     greater number of these were workmen returning from their day's toil\n     in the lower part of the valley. At least a dozen, by their grimed\n     faces and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed\n     themselves miners. These sat smoking in a group and conversed in low\n     voices, glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the\n     car, whose uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.\n\n     Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who\n     might have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the\n     company, with the exception of one young man in a corner by himself.\n     It is with this man that we are concerned. Take a good look at him,\n     for he is worth it.\n\n     He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one\n     would guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd, humorous\n     gray eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks\n     round through his spectacles at the people about him. It is easy to\n     see that he is of a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious\n     to be friendly to all men. Anyone could pick him at once as\n     gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a\n     quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man who studied him more\n     closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness\n     about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond,\n     and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably\n     leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to which he was\n     introduced.\n\n     Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and\n     receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself\n     to uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the\n     fading landscape.\n\n     It was not a cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there\n     pulsed the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great\n     heaps of slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the\n     high shafts of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of\n     mean, wooden houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline\n     themselves in light, were scattered here and there along the line,\n     and the frequent halting places were crowded with their swarthy\n     inhabitants.\n\n     The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts\n     for the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs\n     of the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the\n     rude, strong workers who did it.\n\n     The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of\n     mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new\n     to him. At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which\n     he referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes.\n     Once from the back of his waist he produced something which one would\n     hardly have expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a\n     man. It was a navy revolver of the largest size. As he turned it\n     slantwise to the light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells\n     within the drum showed that it was fully loaded. He quickly restored\n     it to his secret pocket, but not before it had been observed by a\n     working man who had seated himself upon the adjoining bench.\n\n     \"Hullo, mate!\" said he. \"You seem heeled and ready.\"\n\n     The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said he, \"we need them sometimes in the place I come from.\"\n\n     \"And where may that be?\"\n\n     \"I'm last from Chicago.\"\n\n     \"A stranger in these parts?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"You may find you need it here,\" said the workman.\n\n     \"Ah! is that so?\" The young man seemed interested.\n\n     \"Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?\"\n\n     \"Nothing out of the way.\"\n\n     \"Why, I thought the country was full of it. You'll hear quick enough.\n     What made you come here?\"\n\n     \"I heard there was always work for a willing man.\"\n\n     \"Are you a member of the union?\"\n\n     \"Sure.\"\n\n     \"Then you'll get your job, I guess. Have you any friends?\"\n\n     \"Not yet; but I have the means of making them.\"\n\n     \"How's that, then?\"\n\n     \"I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen. There's no town without a\n     lodge, and where there is a lodge I'll find my friends.\"\n\n     The remark had a singular effect upon his companion. He glanced round\n     suspiciously at the others in the car. The miners were still\n     whispering among themselves. The two police officers were dozing. He\n     came across, seated himself close to the young traveller, and held\n     out his hand.\n\n     \"Put it there,\" he said.\n\n     A hand-grip passed between the two.\n\n     \"I see you speak the truth,\" said the workman. \"But it's well to make\n     certain.\" He raised his right hand to his right eyebrow. The\n     traveller at once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.\n\n     \"Dark nights are unpleasant,\" said the workman.\n\n     \"Yes, for strangers to travel,\" the other answered.\n\n     \"That's good enough. I'm Brother Scanlan, Lodge 341, Vermissa Valley.\n     Glad to see you in these parts.\"\n\n     \"Thank you. I'm Brother John McMurdo, Lodge 29, Chicago. Bodymaster\n     J. H. Scott. But I am in luck to meet a brother so early.\"\n\n     \"Well, there are plenty of us about. You won't find the order more\n     flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa\n     Valley. But we could do with some lads like you. I can't understand a\n     spry man of the union finding no work to do in Chicago.\"\n\n     \"I found plenty of work to do,\" said McMurdo.\n\n     \"Then why did you leave?\"\n\n     McMurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled. \"I guess those chaps\n     would be glad to know,\" he said.\n\n     Scanlan groaned sympathetically. \"In trouble?\" he asked in a whisper.\n\n     \"Deep.\"\n\n     \"A penitentiary job?\"\n\n     \"And the rest.\"\n\n     \"Not a killing!\"\n\n     \"It's early days to talk of such things,\" said McMurdo with the air\n     of a man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended.\n     \"I've my own good reasons for leaving Chicago, and let that be enough\n     for you. Who are you that you should take it on yourself to ask such\n     things?\" His gray eyes gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from\n     behind his glasses.\n\n     \"All right, mate, no offense meant. The boys will think none the\n     worse of you, whatever you may have done. Where are you bound for\n     now?\"\n\n     \"Vermissa.\"\n\n     \"That's the third halt down the line. Where are you staying?\"\n\n     McMurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.\n     \"Here is the address--Jacob Shafter, Sheridan Street. It's a boarding\n     house that was recommended by a man I knew in Chicago.\"\n\n     \"Well, I don't know it; but Vermissa is out of my beat. I live at\n     Hobson's Patch, and that's here where we are drawing up. But, say,\n     there's one bit of advice I'll give you before we part: If you're in\n     trouble in Vermissa, go straight to the Union House and see Boss\n     McGinty. He is the Bodymaster of Vermissa Lodge, and nothing can\n     happen in these parts unless Black Jack McGinty wants it. So long,\n     mate! Maybe we'll meet in lodge one of these evenings. But mind my\n     words: If you are in trouble, go to Boss McGinty.\"\n\n     Scanlan descended, and McMurdo was left once again to his thoughts.\n     Night had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were\n     roaring and leaping in the darkness. Against their lurid background\n     dark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with\n     the motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank\n     and roar.\n\n     \"I guess hell must look something like that,\" said a voice.\n\n     McMurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his\n     seat and was staring out into the fiery waste.\n\n     \"For that matter,\" said the other policeman, \"I allow that hell must\n     be something like that. If there are worse devils down yonder than\n     some we could name, it's more than I'd expect. I guess you are new to\n     this part, young man?\"\n\n     \"Well, what if I am?\" McMurdo answered in a surly voice.\n\n     \"Just this, mister, that I should advise you to be careful in\n     choosing your friends. I don't think I'd begin with Mike Scanlan or\n     his gang if I were you.\"\n\n     \"What the hell is it to you who are my friends?\" roared McMurdo in a\n     voice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the\n     altercation. \"Did I ask you for your advice, or did you think me such\n     a sucker that I couldn't move without it? You speak when you are\n     spoken to, and by the Lord you'd have to wait a long time if it was\n     me!\" He thrust out his face and grinned at the patrolmen like a\n     snarling dog.\n\n     The two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the\n     extraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been\n     rejected.\n\n     \"No offense, stranger,\" said one. \"It was a warning for your own\n     good, seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place.\"\n\n     \"I'm new to the place; but I'm not new to you and your kind!\" cried\n     McMurdo in cold fury. \"I guess you're the same in all places, shoving\n     your advice in when nobody asks for it.\"\n\n     \"Maybe we'll see more of you before very long,\" said one of the\n     patrolmen with a grin. \"You're a real hand-picked one, if I am a\n     judge.\"\n\n     \"I was thinking the same,\" remarked the other. \"I guess we may meet\n     again.\"\n\n     \"I'm not afraid of you, and don't you think it!\" cried McMurdo. \"My\n     name's Jack McMurdo--see? If you want me, you'll find me at Jacob\n     Shafter's on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I'm not hiding from you,\n     am I? Day or night I dare to look the like of you in the face--don't\n     make any mistake about that!\"\n\n     There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the\n     dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged\n     their shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.\n\n     A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there\n     was a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on\n     the line. McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to\n     start off into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.\n\n     \"By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops,\" he said in a voice\n     of awe. \"It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show\n     you the road. I'm passing Shafter's on the way to my own shack.\"\n\n     There was a chorus of friendly \"Good-nights\" from the other miners as\n     they passed from the platform. Before ever he had set foot in it,\n     McMurdo the turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.\n\n     The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way\n     even more depressing. Down that long valley there was at least a\n     certain gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting\n     smoke, while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments\n     in the hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous\n     excavations. But the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and\n     squalor. The broad street was churned up by the traffic into a\n     horrible rutted paste of muddy snow. The sidewalks were narrow and\n     uneven. The numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a\n     long line of wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street,\n     unkempt and dirty.\n\n     As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by\n     a row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and\n     gaming houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but\n     generous wages.\n\n     \"That's the Union House,\" said the guide, pointing to one saloon\n     which rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. \"Jack McGinty is\n     the boss there.\"\n\n     \"What sort of a man is he?\" McMurdo asked.\n\n     \"What! have you never heard of the boss?\"\n\n     \"How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in\n     these parts?\"\n\n     \"Well, I thought his name was known clear across the country. It's\n     been in the papers often enough.\"\n\n     \"What for?\"\n\n     \"Well,\" the miner lowered his voice--\"over the affairs.\"\n\n     \"What affairs?\"\n\n     \"Good Lord, mister! you are queer, if I must say it without offense.\n     There's only one set of affairs that you'll hear of in these parts,\n     and that's the affairs of the Scowrers.\"\n\n     \"Why, I seem to have read of the Scowrers in Chicago. A gang of\n     murderers, are they not?\"\n\n     \"Hush, on your life!\" cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and\n     gazing in amazement at his companion. \"Man, you won't live long in\n     these parts if you speak in the open street like that. Many a man has\n     had the life beaten out of him for less.\"\n\n     \"Well, I know nothing about them. It's only what I have read.\"\n\n     \"And I'm not saying that you have not read the truth.\" The man looked\n     nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he\n     feared to see some lurking danger. \"If killing is murder, then God\n     knows there is murder and to spare. But don't you dare to breathe the\n     name of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every\n     whisper goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it\n     pass. Now, that's the house you're after, that one standing back from\n     the street. You'll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a\n     man as lives in this township.\"\n\n     \"I thank you,\" said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new\n     acquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to\n     the dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.\n\n     It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had\n     expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of\n     the German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of\n     a pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger\n     with surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of\n     colour over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open\n     doorway, it seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful\n     picture; the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and\n     gloomy surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black\n     slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. So\n     entranced was he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she\n     who broke the silence.\n\n     \"I thought it was father,\" said she with a pleasing little touch of a\n     German accent. \"Did you come to see him? He is downtown. I expect him\n     back every minute.\"\n\n     McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes\n     dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.\n\n     \"No, miss,\" he said at last, \"I'm in no hurry to see him. But your\n     house was recommended to me for board. I thought it might suit\n     me--and now I know it will.\"\n\n     \"You are quick to make up your mind,\" said she with a smile.\n\n     \"Anyone but a blind man could do as much,\" the other answered.\n\n     She laughed at the compliment. \"Come right in, sir,\" she said. \"I'm\n     Miss Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter's daughter. My mother's dead, and I\n     run the house. You can sit down by the stove in the front room until\n     father comes along--Ah, here he is! So you can fix things with him\n     right away.\"\n\n     A heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path. In a few words\n     McMurdo explained his business. A man of the name of Murphy had given\n     him the address in Chicago. He in turn had had it from someone else.\n     Old Shafter was quite ready. The stranger made no bones about terms,\n     agreed at once to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of\n     money. For seven dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board\n     and lodging.\n\n     So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice,\n     took up his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step\n     which was to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a\n     far distant land.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Bodymaster\n\n\n     McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly. Wherever he was the folk\n     around soon knew it. Within a week he had become infinitely the most\n     important person at Shafter's. There were ten or a dozen boarders\n     there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the\n     stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an\n     evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest,\n     his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born\n     boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all\n     around him.\n\n     And yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway\n     carriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled the\n     respect and even the fear of those who met him. For the law, too, and\n     all who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which\n     delighted some and alarmed others of his fellow boarders.\n\n     From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the\n     daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had\n     set eyes upon her beauty and her grace. He was no backward suitor. On\n     the second day he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he\n     repeated the same story with an absolute disregard of what she might\n     say to discourage him.\n\n     \"Someone else?\" he would cry. \"Well, the worse luck for someone else!\n     Let him look out for himself! Am I to lose my life's chance and all\n     my heart's desire for someone else? You can keep on saying no, Ettie:\n     the day will come when you will say yes, and I'm young enough to\n     wait.\"\n\n     He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his\n     pretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of\n     experience and of mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and\n     finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of County\n     Monaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, the low\n     hills and green meadows of which seemed the more beautiful when\n     imagination viewed them from this place of grime and snow.\n\n     Then he was versed in the life of the cities of the North, of\n     Detroit, and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of Chicago,\n     where he had worked in a planing mill. And afterwards came the hint\n     of romance, the feeling that strange things had happened to him in\n     that great city, so strange and so intimate that they might not be\n     spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old\n     ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley,\n     and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with\n     sympathy--those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so\n     naturally to love.\n\n     McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for he was a\n     well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, and he had not\n     found occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the\n     Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of his omission, however,\n     by a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, the fellow member whom he\n     had met in the train. Scanlan, the small, sharp-faced, nervous,\n     black-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once more. After a glass or\n     two of whisky he broached the object of his visit.\n\n     \"Say, McMurdo,\" said he, \"I remembered your address, so l made bold\n     to call. I'm surprised that you've not reported to the Bodymaster.\n     Why haven't you seen Boss McGinty yet?\"\n\n     \"Well, I had to find a job. I have been busy.\"\n\n     \"You must find time for him if you have none for anything else. Good\n     Lord, man! you're a fool not to have been down to the Union House and\n     registered your name the first morning after you came here! If you\n     run against him--well, you mustn't, that's all!\"\n\n     McMurdo showed mild surprise. \"I've been a member of the lodge for\n     over two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were so\n     pressing as all that.\"\n\n     \"Maybe not in Chicago.\"\n\n     \"Well, it's the same society here.\"\n\n     \"Is it?\"\n\n     Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something sinister\n     in his eyes.\n\n     \"Isn't it?\"\n\n     \"You'll tell me that in a month's time. I hear you had a talk with\n     the patrolmen after I left the train.\"\n\n     \"How did you know that?\"\n\n     \"Oh, it got about--things do get about for good and for bad in this\n     district.\"\n\n     \"Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them.\"\n\n     \"By the Lord, you'll be a man after McGinty's heart!\"\n\n     \"What, does he hate the police too?\"\n\n     Scanlan burst out laughing. \"You go and see him, my lad,\" said he as\n     he took his leave. \"It's not the police but you that he'll hate if\n     you don't! Now, take a friend's advice and go at once!\"\n\n     It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing\n     interview which urged him in the same direction. It may have been\n     that his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or\n     that they had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his\n     good German host; but, whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper\n     beckoned the young man into his private room and started on the\n     subject without any circumlocution.\n\n     \"It seems to me, mister,\" said he, \"that you are gettin' set on my\n     Ettie. Ain't that so, or am I wrong?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that is so,\" the young man answered.\n\n     \"Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain't no manner of use.\n     There's someone slipped in afore you.\"\n\n     \"She told me so.\"\n\n     \"Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you who\n     it vas?\"\n\n     \"No, I asked her; but she wouldn't tell.\"\n\n     \"I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to\n     frighten you avay.\"\n\n     \"Frighten!\" McMurdo was on fire in a moment.\n\n     \"Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him.\n     It is Teddy Baldwin.\"\n\n     \"And who the devil is he?\"\n\n     \"He is a boss of Scowrers.\"\n\n     \"Scowrers! I've heard of them before. It's Scowrers here and Scowrers\n     there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are\n     the Scowrers?\"\n\n     The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone\n     did who talked about that terrible society. \"The Scowrers,\" said he,\n     \"are the Eminent Order of Freemen!\"\n\n     The young man stared. \"Why, I am a member of that order myself.\"\n\n     \"You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it--not\n     if you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a week.\"\n\n     \"What's wrong with the order? It's for charity and good fellowship.\n     The rules say so.\"\n\n     \"Maybe in some places. Not here!\"\n\n     \"What is it here?\"\n\n     \"It's a murder society, that's vat it is.\"\n\n     McMurdo laughed incredulously. \"How can you prove that?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman\n     and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and\n     little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a\n     voman in this valley vat does not know it?\"\n\n     \"See here!\" said McMurdo earnestly. \"I want you to take back what\n     you've said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do\n     before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a\n     stranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know only as an\n     innocent one. You'll find it through the length and breadth of the\n     States, but always as an innocent one. Now, when I am counting upon\n     joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder society\n     called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me either an apology or else an\n     explanation, Mr. Shafter.\"\n\n     \"I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses of\n     the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is the\n     other vat vill strike you. We have proved it too often.\"\n\n     \"That's just gossip--I want proof!\" said McMurdo.\n\n     \"If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget that you\n     are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But\n     you vill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot have you here. Is it\n     not bad enough that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and\n     that I dare not turn him down, but that I should have another for my\n     boarder? Yes, indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!\"\n\n     McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his\n     comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found her\n     alone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his\n     troubles into her ear.\n\n     \"Sure, your father is after giving me notice,\" he said. \"It's little\n     I would care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie, though it's\n     only a week that I've known you, you are the very breath of life to\n     me, and I can't live without you!\"\n\n     \"Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don't speak so!\" said the girl. \"I have told\n     you, have I not, that you are too late? There is another, and if I\n     have not promised to marry him at once, at least I can promise no one\n     else.\"\n\n     \"Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?\"\n\n     The girl sank her face into her hands. \"I wish to heaven that you had\n     been first!\" she sobbed.\n\n     McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. \"For God's\n     sake, Ettie, let it stand at that!\" he cried. \"Will you ruin your\n     life and my own for the sake of this promise? Follow your heart,\n     acushla! 'Tis a safer guide than any promise before you knew what it\n     was that you were saying.\"\n\n     He had seized Ettie's white hand between his own strong brown ones.\n\n     \"Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!\"\n\n     \"Not here?\"\n\n     \"Yes, here.\"\n\n     \"No, no, Jack!\" His arms were round her now. \"It could not be here.\n     Could you take me away?\"\n\n     A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended by\n     setting like granite. \"No, here,\" he said. \"I'll hold you against the\n     world, Ettie, right here where we are!\"\n\n     \"Why should we not leave together?\"\n\n     \"No, Ettie, I can't leave here.\"\n\n     \"But why?\"\n\n     \"I'd never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven\n     out. Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free folks in\n     a free country? If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come\n     between?\"\n\n     \"You don't know, Jack. You've been here too short a time. You don't\n     know this Baldwin. You don't know McGinty and his Scowrers.\"\n\n     \"No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't believe in\n     them!\" said McMurdo. \"I've lived among rough men, my darling, and\n     instead of fearing them it has always ended that they have feared\n     me--always, Ettie. It's mad on the face of it! If these men, as your\n     father says, have done crime after crime in the valley, and if\n     everyone knows them by name, how comes it that none are brought to\n     justice? You answer me that, Ettie!\"\n\n     \"Because no witness dares to appear against them. He would not live a\n     month if he did. Also because they have always their own men to swear\n     that the accused one was far from the scene of the crime. But surely,\n     Jack, you must have read all this. I had understood that every paper\n     in the United States was writing about it.\"\n\n     \"Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it was a\n     story. Maybe these men have some reason in what they do. Maybe they\n     are wronged and have no other way to help themselves.\"\n\n     \"Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so! That is how he speaks--the\n     other one!\"\n\n     \"Baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?\"\n\n     \"And that is why I loathe him so. Oh, Jack, now I can tell you the\n     truth. I loathe him with all my heart; but I fear him also. I fear\n     him for myself; but above all I fear him for father. I know that some\n     great sorrow would come upon us if I dared to say what I really felt.\n     That is why I have put him off with half-promises. It was in real\n     truth our only hope. But if you would fly with me, Jack, we could\n     take father with us and live forever far from the power of these\n     wicked men.\"\n\n     Again there was the struggle upon McMurdo's face, and again it set\n     like granite. \"No harm shall come to you, Ettie--nor to your father\n     either. As to wicked men, I expect you may find that I am as bad as\n     the worst of them before we're through.\"\n\n     \"No, no, Jack! I would trust you anywhere.\"\n\n     McMurdo laughed bitterly. \"Good Lord! how little you know of me! Your\n     innocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is passing in\n     mine. But, hullo, who's the visitor?\"\n\n     The door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in\n     with the air of one who is the master. He was a handsome, dashing\n     young man of about the same age and build as McMurdo himself. Under\n     his broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had not troubled to\n     remove, a handsome face with fierce, domineering eyes and a curved\n     hawk-bill of a nose looked savagely at the pair who sat by the stove.\n\n     Ettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm. \"I'm glad\n     to see you, Mr. Baldwin,\" said she. \"You're earlier than I had\n     thought. Come and sit down.\"\n\n     Baldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at McMurdo. \"Who is\n     this?\" he asked curtly.\n\n     \"It's a friend of mine, Mr. Baldwin, a new boarder here. Mr. McMurdo,\n     may I introduce you to Mr. Baldwin?\"\n\n     The young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.\n\n     \"Maybe Miss Ettie has told you how it is with us?\" said Baldwin.\n\n     \"I didn't understand that there was any relation between you.\"\n\n     \"Didn't you? Well, you can understand it now. You can take it from me\n     that this young lady is mine, and you'll find it a very fine evening\n     for a walk.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, I am in no humour for a walk.\"\n\n     \"Aren't you?\" The man's savage eyes were blazing with anger. \"Maybe\n     you are in a humour for a fight, Mr. Boarder!\"\n\n     \"That I am!\" cried McMurdo, springing to his feet. \"You never said a\n     more welcome word.\"\n\n     \"For God's sake, Jack! Oh, for God's sake!\" cried poor, distracted\n     Ettie. \"Oh, Jack, Jack, he will hurt you!\"\n\n     \"Oh, it's Jack, is it?\" said Baldwin with an oath. \"You've come to\n     that already, have you?\"\n\n     \"Oh, Ted, be reasonable--be kind! For my sake, Ted, if ever you loved\n     me, be big-hearted and forgiving!\"\n\n     \"I think, Ettie, that if you were to leave us alone we could get this\n     thing settled,\" said McMurdo quietly. \"Or maybe, Mr. Baldwin, you\n     will take a turn down the street with me. It's a fine evening, and\n     there's some open ground beyond the next block.\"\n\n     \"I'll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands,\" said his\n     enemy. \"You'll wish you had never set foot in this house before I am\n     through with you!\"\n\n     \"No time like the present,\" cried McMurdo.\n\n     \"I'll choose my own time, mister. You can leave the time to me. See\n     here!\" He suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon his forearm a\n     peculiar sign which appeared to have been branded there. It was a\n     circle with a triangle within it. \"D'you know what that means?\"\n\n     \"I neither know nor care!\"\n\n     \"Well, you will know, I'll promise you that. You won't be much older,\n     either. Perhaps Miss Ettie can tell you something about it. As to\n     you, Ettie, you'll come back to me on your knees--d'ye hear,\n     girl?--on your knees--and then I'll tell you what your punishment may\n     be. You've sowed--and by the Lord, I'll see that you reap!\" He\n     glanced at them both in fury. Then he turned upon his heel, and an\n     instant later the outer door had banged behind him.\n\n     For a few moments McMurdo and the girl stood in silence. Then she\n     threw her arms around him.\n\n     \"Oh, Jack, how brave you were! But it is no use, you must fly!\n     To-night--Jack--to-night! It's your only hope. He will have your\n     life. I read it in his horrible eyes. What chance have you against a\n     dozen of them, with Boss McGinty and all the power of the lodge\n     behind them?\"\n\n     McMurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushed her back\n     into a chair. \"There, acushla, there! Don't be disturbed or fear for\n     me. I'm a Freeman myself. I'm after telling your father about it.\n     Maybe I am no better than the others; so don't make a saint of me.\n     Perhaps you hate me too, now that I've told you as much?\"\n\n     \"Hate you, Jack? While life lasts I could never do that! I've heard\n     that there is no harm in being a Freeman anywhere but here; so why\n     should I think the worse of you for that? But if you are a Freeman,\n     Jack, why should you not go down and make a friend of Boss McGinty?\n     Oh, hurry, Jack, hurry! Get your word in first, or the hounds will be\n     on your trail.\"\n\n     \"I was thinking the same thing,\" said McMurdo. \"I'll go right now and\n     fix it. You can tell your father that I'll sleep here to-night and\n     find some other quarters in the morning.\"\n\n     The bar of McGinty's saloon was crowded as usual, for it was the\n     favourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town. The\n     man was popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition which formed\n     a mask, covering a great deal which lay behind it. But apart from\n     this popularity, the fear in which he was held throughout the\n     township, and indeed down the whole thirty miles of the valley and\n     past the mountains on each side of it, was enough in itself to fill\n     his bar; for none could afford to neglect his good will.\n\n     Besides those secret powers which it was universally believed that he\n     exercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high public official, a\n     municipal councillor, and a commissioner of roads, elected to the\n     office through the votes of the ruffians who in turn expected to\n     receive favours at his hands. Assessments and taxes were enormous;\n     the public works were notoriously neglected, the accounts were\n     slurred over by bribed auditors, and the decent citizen was\n     terrorized into paying public blackmail, and holding his tongue lest\n     some worse thing befall him.\n\n     Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty's diamond pins became\n     more obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous\n     vest, and his saloon stretched farther and farther, until it\n     threatened to absorb one whole side of the Market Square.\n\n     McMurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloon and made his way\n     amid the crowd of men within, through an atmosphere blurred with\n     tobacco smoke and heavy with the smell of spirits. The place was\n     brilliantly lighted, and the huge, heavily gilt mirrors upon every\n     wall reflected and multiplied the garish illumination. There were\n     several bartenders in their shirt sleeves, hard at work mixing drinks\n     for the loungers who fringed the broad, brass-trimmed counter.\n\n     At the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigar stuck\n     at an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood a tall, strong,\n     heavily built man who could be none other than the famous McGinty\n     himself. He was a black-maned giant, bearded to the cheek-bones, and\n     with a shock of raven hair which fell to his collar. His complexion\n     was as swarthy as that of an Italian, and his eyes were of a strange\n     dead black, which, combined with a slight squint, gave them a\n     particularly sinister appearance.\n\n     All else in the man--his noble proportions, his fine features, and\n     his frank bearing--fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner\n     which he affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow,\n     whose heart would be sound however rude his outspoken words might\n     seem. It was only when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless,\n     were turned upon a man that he shrank within himself, feeling that he\n     was face to face with an infinite possibility of latent evil, with a\n     strength and courage and cunning behind it which made it a thousand\n     times more deadly.\n\n     Having had a good look at his man, McMurdo elbowed his way forward\n     with his usual careless audacity, and pushed himself through the\n     little group of courtiers who were fawning upon the powerful boss,\n     laughing uproariously at the smallest of his jokes. The young\n     stranger's bold gray eyes looked back fearlessly through their\n     glasses at the deadly black ones which turned sharply upon him.\n\n     \"Well, young man, I can't call your face to mind.\"\n\n     \"I'm new here, Mr. McGinty.\"\n\n     \"You are not so new that you can't give a gentleman his proper\n     title.\"\n\n     \"He's Councillor McGinty, young man,\" said a voice from the group.\n\n     \"I'm sorry, Councillor. I'm strange to the ways of the place. But I\n     was advised to see you.\"\n\n     \"Well, you see me. This is all there is. What d'you think of me?\"\n\n     \"Well, it's early days. If your heart is as big as your body, and\n     your soul as fine as your face, then I'd ask for nothing better,\"\n     said McMurdo.\n\n     \"By Gar! you've got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow,\" cried the\n     saloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious\n     visitor or to stand upon his dignity.\n\n     \"So you are good enough to pass my appearance?\"\n\n     \"Sure,\" said McMurdo.\n\n     \"And you were told to see me?\"\n\n     \"I was.\"\n\n     \"And who told you?\"\n\n     \"Brother Scanlan of Lodge 341, Vermissa. I drink your health\n     Councillor, and to our better acquaintance.\" He raised a glass with\n     which he had been served to his lips and elevated his little finger\n     as he drank it.\n\n     McGinty, who had been watching him narrowly, raised his thick black\n     eyebrows. \"Oh, it's like that, is it?\" said he. \"I'll have to look a\n     bit closer into this, Mister--\"\n\n     \"McMurdo.\"\n\n     \"A bit closer, Mr. McMurdo; for we don't take folk on trust in these\n     parts, nor believe all we're told neither. Come in here for a moment,\n     behind the bar.\"\n\n     There was a small room there, lined with barrels. McGinty carefully\n     closed the door, and then seated himself on one of them, biting\n     thoughtfully on his cigar and surveying his companion with those\n     disquieting eyes. For a couple of minutes he sat in complete silence.\n     McMurdo bore the inspection cheerfully, one hand in his coat pocket,\n     the other twisting his brown moustache. Suddenly McGinty stooped and\n     produced a wicked-looking revolver.\n\n     \"See here, my joker,\" said he, \"if I thought you were playing any\n     game on us, it would be short work for you.\"\n\n     \"This is a strange welcome,\" McMurdo answered with some dignity, \"for\n     the Bodymaster of a lodge of Freemen to give to a stranger brother.\"\n\n     \"Ay, but it's just that same that you have to prove,\" said McGinty,\n     \"and God help you if you fail! Where were you made?\"\n\n     \"Lodge 29, Chicago.\"\n\n     \"When?\"\n\n     \"June 24, 1872.\"\n\n     \"What Bodymaster?\"\n\n     \"James H. Scott.\"\n\n     \"Who is your district ruler?\"\n\n     \"Bartholomew Wilson.\"\n\n     \"Hum! You seem glib enough in your tests. What are you doing here?\"\n\n     \"Working, the same as you--but a poorer job.\"\n\n     \"You have your back answer quick enough.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I was always quick of speech.\"\n\n     \"Are you quick of action?\"\n\n     \"I have had that name among those that knew me best.\"\n\n     \"Well, we may try you sooner than you think. Have you heard anything\n     of the lodge in these parts?\"\n\n     \"I've heard that it takes a man to be a brother.\"\n\n     \"True for you, Mr. McMurdo. Why did you leave Chicago?\"\n\n     \"I'm damned if I tell you that!\"\n\n     McGinty opened his eyes. He was not used to being answered in such\n     fashion, and it amused him. \"Why won't you tell me?\"\n\n     \"Because no brother may tell another a lie.\"\n\n     \"Then the truth is too bad to tell?\"\n\n     \"You can put it that way if you like.\"\n\n     \"See here, mister, you can't expect me, as Bodymaster, to pass into\n     the lodge a man for whose past he can't answer.\"\n\n     McMurdo looked puzzled. Then he took a worn newspaper cutting from an\n     inner pocket.\n\n     \"You wouldn't squeal on a fellow?\" said he.\n\n     \"I'll wipe my hand across your face if you say such words to me!\"\n     cried McGinty hotly.\n\n     \"You are right, Councillor,\" said McMurdo meekly. \"I should\n     apologize. I spoke without thought. Well, I know that I am safe in\n     your hands. Look at that clipping.\"\n\n     McGinty glanced his eyes over the account of the shooting of one\n     Jonas Pinto, in the Lake Saloon, Market Street, Chicago, in the New\n     Year week of 1874.\n\n     \"Your work?\" he asked, as he handed back the paper.\n\n     McMurdo nodded.\n\n     \"Why did you shoot him?\"\n\n     \"I was helping Uncle Sam to make dollars. Maybe mine were not as good\n     gold as his, but they looked as well and were cheaper to make. This\n     man Pinto helped me to shove the queer--\"\n\n     \"To do what?\"\n\n     \"Well, it means to pass the dollars out into circulation. Then he\n     said he would split. Maybe he did split. I didn't wait to see. I just\n     killed him and lighted out for the coal country.\"\n\n     \"Why the coal country?\"\n\n     \"'Cause I'd read in the papers that they weren't too particular in\n     those parts.\"\n\n     McGinty laughed. \"You were first a coiner and then a murderer, and\n     you came to these parts because you thought you'd be welcome.\"\n\n     \"That's about the size of it,\" McMurdo answered.\n\n     \"Well, I guess you'll go far. Say, can you make those dollars yet?\"\n\n     McMurdo took half a dozen from his pocket. \"Those never passed the\n     Philadelphia mint,\" said he.\n\n     \"You don't say!\" McGinty held them to the light in his enormous hand,\n     which was hairy as a gorilla's. \"I can see no difference. Gar! you'll\n     be a mighty useful brother, I'm thinking! We can do with a bad man or\n     two among us, Friend McMurdo: for there are times when we have to\n     take our own part. We'd soon be against the wall if we didn't shove\n     back at those that were pushing us.\"\n\n     \"Well, I guess I'll do my share of shoving with the rest of the\n     boys.\"\n\n     \"You seem to have a good nerve. You didn't squirm when I shoved this\n     gun at you.\"\n\n     \"It was not me that was in danger.\"\n\n     \"Who then?\"\n\n     \"It was you, Councillor.\" McMurdo drew a cocked pistol from the side\n     pocket of his peajacket. \"I was covering you all the time. I guess my\n     shot would have been as quick as yours.\"\n\n     \"By Gar!\" McGinty flushed an angry red and then burst into a roar of\n     laughter. \"Say, we've had no such holy terror come to hand this many\n     a year. I reckon the lodge will learn to be proud of you ... Well,\n     what the hell do you want? And can't I speak alone with a gentleman\n     for five minutes but you must butt in on us?\"\n\n     The bartender stood abashed. \"I'm sorry, Councillor, but it's Ted\n     Baldwin. He says he must see you this very minute.\"\n\n     The message was unnecessary; for the set, cruel face of the man\n     himself was looking over the servant's shoulder. He pushed the\n     bartender out and closed the door on him.\n\n     \"So,\" said he with a furious glance at McMurdo, \"you got here first,\n     did you? I've a word to say to you, Councillor, about this man.\"\n\n     \"Then say it here and now before my face,\" cried McMurdo.\n\n     \"I'll say it at my own time, in my own way.\"\n\n     \"Tut! Tut!\" said McGinty, getting off his barrel. \"This will never\n     do. We have a new brother here, Baldwin, and it's not for us to greet\n     him in such fashion. Hold out your hand, man, and make it up!\"\n\n     \"Never!\" cried Baldwin in a fury.\n\n     \"I've offered to fight him if he thinks I have wronged him,\" said\n     McMurdo. \"I'll fight him with fists, or, if that won't satisfy him,\n     I'll fight him any other way he chooses. Now, I'll leave it to you,\n     Councillor, to judge between us as a Bodymaster should.\"\n\n     \"What is it, then?\"\n\n     \"A young lady. She's free to choose for herself.\"\n\n     \"Is she?\" cried Baldwin.\n\n     \"As between two brothers of the lodge I should say that she was,\"\n     said the Boss.\n\n     \"Oh, that's your ruling, is it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, it is, Ted Baldwin,\" said McGinty, with a wicked stare. \"Is it\n     you that would dispute it?\"\n\n     \"You would throw over one that has stood by you this five years in\n     favour of a man that you never saw before in your life? You're not\n     Bodymaster for life, Jack McGinty, and by God! when next it comes to\n     a vote--\"\n\n     The Councillor sprang at him like a tiger. His hand closed round the\n     other's neck, and he hurled him back across one of the barrels. In\n     his mad fury he would have squeezed the life out of him if McMurdo\n     had not interfered.\n\n     \"Easy, Councillor! For heaven's sake, go easy!\" he cried, as he\n     dragged him back.\n\n     McGinty released his hold, and Baldwin, cowed and shaken gasping for\n     breath, and shivering in every limb, as one who has looked over the\n     very edge of death, sat up on the barrel over which he had been\n     hurled.\n\n     \"You've been asking for it this many a day, Ted Baldwin--now you've\n     got it!\" cried McGinty, his huge chest rising and falling. \"Maybe you\n     think if I was voted down from Bodymaster you would find yourself in\n     my shoes. It's for the lodge to say that. But so long as I am the\n     chief I'll have no man lift his voice against me or my rulings.\"\n\n     \"I have nothing against you,\" mumbled Baldwin, feeling his throat.\n\n     \"Well, then,\" cried the other, relapsing in a moment into a bluff\n     joviality, \"we are all good friends again and there's an end of the\n     matter.\"\n\n     He took a bottle of champagne down from the shelf and twisted out the\n     cork.\n\n     \"See now,\" he continued, as he filled three high glasses. \"Let us\n     drink the quarrelling toast of the lodge. After that, as you know,\n     there can be no bad blood between us. Now, then the left hand on the\n     apple of my throat. I say to you, Ted Baldwin, what is the offense,\n     sir?\"\n\n     \"The clouds are heavy,\" answered Baldwin.\n\n     \"But they will forever brighten.\"\n\n     \"And this I swear!\"\n\n     The men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed\n     between Baldwin and McMurdo\n\n     \"There!\" cried McGinty, rubbing his hands. \"That's the end of the\n     black blood. You come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and\n     that's a heavy hand in these parts, as Brother Baldwin knows--and as\n     you will damn soon find out, Brother McMurdo, if you ask for\n     trouble!\"\n\n     \"Faith, I'd be slow to do that,\" said McMurdo. He held out his hand\n     to Baldwin. \"I'm quick to quarrel and quick to forgive. It's my hot\n     Irish blood, they tell me. But it's over for me, and I bear no\n     grudge.\"\n\n     Baldwin had to take the proffered hand, for the baleful eye of the\n     terrible Boss was upon him. But his sullen face showed how little the\n     words of the other had moved him.\n\n     McGinty clapped them both on the shoulders. \"Tut! These girls! These\n     girls!\" he cried. \"To think that the same petticoats should come\n     between two of my boys! It's the devil's own luck! Well, it's the\n     colleen inside of them that must settle the question for it's outside\n     the jurisdiction of a Bodymaster--and the Lord be praised for that!\n     We have enough on us, without the women as well. You'll have to be\n     affiliated to Lodge 341, Brother McMurdo. We have our own ways and\n     methods, different from Chicago. Saturday night is our meeting, and\n     if you come then, we'll make you free forever of the Vermissa\n     Valley.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER III\n          Lodge 341, Vermissa\n\n\n     On the day following the evening which had contained so many exciting\n     events, McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter's and took\n     up his quarters at the Widow MacNamara's on the extreme outskirts of\n     the town. Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had\n     occasion shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged\n     together. There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an\n     easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they\n     had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in\n     common.\n\n     Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his\n     meals there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by\n     no means broken. On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as\n     the weeks went by.\n\n     In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it safe to take out the\n     coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of\n     brothers from the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each\n     carrying away in his pocket some examples of the false money, so\n     cunningly struck that there was never the slightest difficulty or\n     danger in passing it. Why, with such a wonderful art at his command,\n     McMurdo should condescend to work at all was a perpetual mystery to\n     his companions; though he made it clear to anyone who asked him that\n     if he lived without any visible means it would very quickly bring the\n     police upon his track.\n\n     One policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck\n     would have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm.\n     After the first introduction there were few evenings when he did not\n     find his way to McGinty's saloon, there to make closer acquaintance\n     with \"the boys,\" which was the jovial title by which the dangerous\n     gang who infested the place were known to one another. His dashing\n     manner and fearlessness of speech made him a favourite with them all;\n     while the rapid and scientific way in which he polished off his\n     antagonist in an \"all in\" bar-room scrap earned the respect of that\n     rough community. Another incident, however, raised him even higher in\n     their estimation.\n\n     Just at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered\n     with the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the mine police. This\n     was a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to\n     supplement the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were\n     perfectly helpless in the face of the organized ruffianism which\n     terrorized the district. There was a hush as he entered, and many a\n     curious glance was cast at him; but the relations between policemen\n     and criminals are peculiar in some parts of the States, and McGinty\n     himself standing behind his counter, showed no surprise when the\n     policeman enrolled himself among his customers.\n\n     \"A straight whisky, for the night is bitter,\" said the police\n     officer. \"I don't think we have met before, Councillor?\"\n\n     \"You'll be the new captain?\" said McGinty.\n\n     \"That's so. We're looking to you, Councillor, and to the other\n     leading citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this\n     township. Captain Marvin is my name.\"\n\n     \"We'd do better without you, Captain Marvin,\" said McGinty coldly;\n     \"for we have our own police of the township, and no need for any\n     imported goods. What are you but the paid tool of the capitalists,\n     hired by them to club or shoot your poorer fellow citizen?\"\n\n     \"Well, well, we won't argue about that,\" said the police officer\n     good-humouredly. \"I expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but\n     we can't all see it the same.\" He had drunk off his glass and had\n     turned to go, when his eyes fell upon the face of Jack McMurdo, who\n     was scowling at his elbow. \"Hullo! Hullo!\" he cried, looking him up\n     and down. \"Here's an old acquaintance!\"\n\n     McMurdo shrank away from him. \"I was never a friend to you nor any\n     other cursed copper in my life,\" said he.\n\n     \"An acquaintance isn't always a friend,\" said the police captain,\n     grinning. \"You're Jack McMurdo of Chicago, right enough, and don't\n     you deny it!\"\n\n     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"I'm not denying it,\" said he. \"D'ye\n     think I'm ashamed of my own name?\"\n\n     \"You've got good cause to be, anyhow.\"\n\n     \"What the devil d'you mean by that?\" he roared with his fists\n     clenched.\n\n     \"No, no, Jack, bluster won't do with me. I was an officer in Chicago\n     before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago\n     crook when I see one.\"\n\n     McMurdo's face fell. \"Don't tell me that you're Marvin of the Chicago\n     Central!\" he cried.\n\n     \"Just the same old Teddy Marvin, at your service. We haven't\n     forgotten the shooting of Jonas Pinto up there.\"\n\n     \"I never shot him.\"\n\n     \"Did you not? That's good impartial evidence, ain't it? Well, his\n     death came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for\n     shoving the queer. Well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you\n     and me--and perhaps I'm going further than my duty in saying it--they\n     could get no clear case against you, and Chicago's open to you\n     to-morrow.\"\n\n     \"I'm very well where I am.\"\n\n     \"Well, I've given you the pointer, and you're a sulky dog not to\n     thank me for it.\"\n\n     \"Well, I suppose you mean well, and I do thank you,\" said McMurdo in\n     no very gracious manner.\n\n     \"It's mum with me so long as I see you living on the straight,\" said\n     the captain. \"But, by the Lord! if you get off after this, it's\n     another story! So good-night to you--and goodnight, Councillor.\"\n\n     He left the bar-room; but not before he had created a local hero.\n     McMurdo's deeds in far Chicago had been whispered before. He had put\n     off all questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have\n     greatness thrust upon him. But now the thing was officially\n     confirmed. The bar loafers crowded round him and shook him heartily\n     by the hand. He was free of the community from that time on. He could\n     drink hard and show little trace of it; but that evening, had his\n     mate Scanlan not been at hand to lead him home, the feted hero would\n     surely have spent his night under the bar.\n\n     On a Saturday night McMurdo was introduced to the lodge. He had\n     thought to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of Chicago;\n     but there were particular rites in Vermissa of which they were proud,\n     and these had to be undergone by every postulant. The assembly met in\n     a large room reserved for such purposes at the Union House. Some\n     sixty members assembled at Vermissa; but that by no means represented\n     the full strength of the organization, for there were several other\n     lodges in the valley, and others across the mountains on each side,\n     who exchanged members when any serious business was afoot, so that a\n     crime might be done by men who were strangers to the locality.\n     Altogether there were not less than five hundred scattered over the\n     coal district.\n\n     In the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table.\n     At the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which\n     some members of the company were already turning their eyes. McGinty\n     sat at the head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of\n     tangled black hair, and a coloured purple stole round his neck, so\n     that he seemed to be a priest presiding over some diabolical ritual.\n     To right and left of him were the higher lodge officials, the cruel,\n     handsome face of Ted Baldwin among them. Each of these wore some\n     scarf or medallion as emblem of his office.\n\n     They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the\n     company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the\n     ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their\n     seniors. Among the older men were many whose features showed the\n     tigerish, lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it\n     was difficult to believe that these eager and open-faced young\n     fellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds\n     had suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a horrible\n     pride in their proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest\n     respect at the man who had the reputation of making what they called\n     \"a clean job.\"\n\n     To their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous\n     thing to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured\n     them, and whom in many cases they had never seen in their lives. The\n     crime committed, they quarrelled as to who had actually struck the\n     fatal blow, and amused one another and the company by describing the\n     cries and contortions of the murdered man.\n\n     At first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at\n     the time which this narrative describes their proceedings were\n     extraordinarily open, for the repeated failures of the law had proved\n     to them that, on the one hand, no one would dare to witness against\n     them, and on the other they had an unlimited number of stanch\n     witnesses upon whom they could call, and a well-filled treasure chest\n     from which they could draw the funds to engage the best legal talent\n     in the state. In ten long years of outrage there had been no single\n     conviction, and the only danger that ever threatened the Scowrers lay\n     in the victim himself--who, however outnumbered and taken by\n     surprise, might and occasionally did leave his mark upon his\n     assailants.\n\n     McMurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one\n     would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer\n     room by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could\n     hear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or\n     twice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were\n     discussing his candidacy. Then there entered an inner guard with a\n     green and gold sash across his chest.\n\n     \"The Bodymaster orders that he shall be trussed, blinded, and\n     entered,\" said he.\n\n     The three of them removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right\n     arm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it\n     fast. They next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the\n     upper part of his face, so that he could see nothing. He was then led\n     into the assembly hall.\n\n     It was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood. He heard the\n     rustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of\n     McGinty sounded dull and distant through the covering of his ears.\n\n     \"John McMurdo,\" said the voice, \"are you already a member of the\n     Ancient Order of Freemen?\"\n\n     He bowed in assent.\n\n     \"Is your lodge No. 29, Chicago?\"\n\n     He bowed again.\n\n     \"Dark nights are unpleasant,\" said the voice.\n\n     \"Yes, for strangers to travel,\" he answered.\n\n     \"The clouds are heavy.\"\n\n     \"Yes, a storm is approaching.\"\n\n     \"Are the brethren satisfied?\" asked the Bodymaster.\n\n     There was a general murmur of assent.\n\n     \"We know, Brother, by your sign and by your countersign that you are\n     indeed one of us,\" said McGinty. \"We would have you know, however,\n     that in this county and in other counties of these parts we have\n     certain rites, and also certain duties of our own which call for good\n     men. Are you ready to be tested?\"\n\n     \"I am.\"\n\n     \"Are you of stout heart?\"\n\n     \"I am.\"\n\n     \"Take a stride forward to prove it.\"\n\n     As the words were said he felt two hard points in front of his eyes,\n     pressing upon them so that it appeared as if he could not move\n     forward without a danger of losing them. None the less, he nerved\n     himself to step resolutely out, and as he did so the pressure melted\n     away. There was a low murmur of applause.\n\n     \"He is of stout heart,\" said the voice. \"Can you bear pain?\"\n\n     \"As well as another,\" he answered.\n\n     \"Test him!\"\n\n     It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out, for an\n     agonizing pain shot through his forearm. He nearly fainted at the\n     sudden shock of it; but he bit his lip and clenched his hands to hide\n     his agony.\n\n     \"I can take more than that,\" said he.\n\n     This time there was loud applause. A finer first appearance had never\n     been made in the lodge. Hands clapped him on the back, and the hood\n     was plucked from his head. He stood blinking and smiling amid the\n     congratulations of the brothers.\n\n     \"One last word, Brother McMurdo,\" said McGinty. \"You have already\n     sworn the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and you are aware that the\n     punishment for any breach of it is instant and inevitable death?\"\n\n     \"I am,\" said McMurdo.\n\n     \"And you accept the rule of the Bodymaster for the time being under\n     all circumstances?\"\n\n     \"I do.\"\n\n     \"Then in the name of Lodge 341, Vermissa, I welcome you to its\n     privileges and debates. You will put the liquor on the table, Brother\n     Scanlan, and we will drink to our worthy brother.\"\n\n     McMurdo's coat had been brought to him; but before putting it on he\n     examined his right arm, which still smarted heavily. There on the\n     flesh of the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and\n     red, as the branding iron had left it. One or two of his neighbours\n     pulled up their sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.\n\n     \"We've all had it,\" said one; \"but not all as brave as you over it.\"\n\n     \"Tut! It was nothing,\" said he; but it burned and ached all the same.\n\n     When the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all\n     been disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded. McMurdo,\n     accustomed only to the prosaic performances of Chicago, listened with\n     open ears and more surprise than he ventured to show to what\n     followed.\n\n     \"The first business on the agenda paper,\" said McGinty, \"is to read\n     the following letter from Division Master Windle of Merton County\n     Lodge 249. He says:\n\n     \"Dear Sir:\n     \"There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae & Sturmash, coal\n     owners near this place. You will remember that your lodge owes us a\n     return, having had the service of two brethren in the matter of the\n     patrolman last fall. You will send two good men, they will be taken\n     charge of by Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address you know.\n     He will show them when to act and where. Yours in freedom,\n     \"J. W. Windle D. M. A. O. F.\n\n     \"Windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the\n     loan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him.\" McGinty\n     paused and looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes. \"Who\n     will volunteer for the job?\"\n\n     Several young fellows held up their hands. The Bodymaster looked at\n     them with an approving smile.\n\n     \"You'll do, Tiger Cormac. If you handle it as well as you did the\n     last, you won't be wrong. And you, Wilson.\"\n\n     \"I've no pistol,\" said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.\n\n     \"It's your first, is it not? Well, you have to be blooded some time.\n     It will be a great start for you. As to the pistol, you'll find it\n     waiting for you, or I'm mistaken. If you report yourselves on Monday,\n     it will be time enough. You'll get a great welcome when you return.\"\n\n     \"Any reward this time?\" asked Cormac, a thick-set, dark-faced,\n     brutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname\n     of \"Tiger.\"\n\n     \"Never mind the reward. You just do it for the honour of the thing.\n     Maybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom\n     of the box.\"\n\n     \"What has the man done?\" asked young Wilson.\n\n     \"Sure, it's not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done. He\n     has been judged over there. That's no business of ours. All we have\n     to do is to carry it out for them, same as they would for us.\n     Speaking of that, two brothers from the Merton lodge are coming over\n     to us next week to do some business in this quarter.\"\n\n     \"Who are they?\" asked someone.\n\n     \"Faith, it is wiser not to ask. If you know nothing, you can testify\n     nothing, and no trouble can come of it. But they are men who will\n     make a clean job when they are about it.\"\n\n     \"And time, too!\" cried Ted Baldwin. \"Folk are gettin' out of hand in\n     these parts. It was only last week that three of our men were turned\n     off by Foreman Blaker. It's been owing him a long time, and he'll get\n     it full and proper.\"\n\n     \"Get what?\" McMurdo whispered to his neighbour.\n\n     \"The business end of a buckshot cartridge!\" cried the man with a loud\n     laugh. \"What think you of our ways, Brother?\"\n\n     McMurdo's criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of\n     the vile association of which he was now a member. \"I like it well,\"\n     said he. \"'Tis a proper place for a lad of mettle.\"\n\n     Several of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.\n\n     \"What's that?\" cried the black-maned Bodymaster from the end of the\n     table.\n\n     \"'Tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste.\"\n\n     McMurdo rose to his feet for an instant. \"I would say, Eminent\n     Bodymaster, that if a man should be wanted I should take it as an\n     honour to be chosen to help the lodge.\"\n\n     There was great applause at this. It was felt that a new sun was\n     pushing its rim above the horizon. To some of the elders it seemed\n     that the progress was a little too rapid.\n\n     \"I would move,\" said the secretary, Harraway, a vulture-faced old\n     graybeard who sat near the chairman, \"that Brother McMurdo should\n     wait until it is the good pleasure of the lodge to employ him.\"\n\n     \"Sure, that was what I meant; I'm in your hands,\" said McMurdo.\n\n     \"Your time will come, Brother,\" said the chairman. \"We have marked\n     you down as a willing man, and we believe that you will do good work\n     in these parts. There is a small matter to-night in which you may\n     take a hand if it so please you.\"\n\n     \"I will wait for something that is worth while.\"\n\n     \"You can come to-night, anyhow, and it will help you to know what we\n     stand for in this community. I will make the announcement later.\n     Meanwhile,\" he glanced at his agenda paper, \"I have one or two more\n     points to bring before the meeting. First of all, I will ask the\n     treasurer as to our bank balance. There is the pension to Jim\n     Carnaway's widow. He was struck down doing the work of the lodge, and\n     it is for us to see that she is not the loser.\"\n\n     \"Jim was shot last month when they tried to kill Chester Wilcox of\n     Marley Creek,\" McMurdo's neighbour informed him.\n\n     \"The funds are good at the moment,\" said the treasurer, with the\n     bankbook in front of him. \"The firms have been generous of late. Max\n     Linder & Co. paid five hundred to be left alone. Walker Brothers sent\n     in a hundred; but I took it on myself to return it and ask for five.\n     If I do not hear by Wednesday, their winding gear may get out of\n     order. We had to burn their breaker last year before they became\n     reasonable. Then the West Section Coaling Company has paid its annual\n     contribution. We have enough on hand to meet any obligations.\"\n\n     \"What about Archie Swindon?\" asked a brother.\n\n     \"He has sold out and left the district. The old devil left a note for\n     us to say that he had rather be a free crossing sweeper in New York\n     than a large mine owner under the power of a ring of blackmailers. By\n     Gar! it was as well that he made a break for it before the note\n     reached us! I guess he won't show his face in this valley again.\"\n\n     An elderly, clean-shaved man with a kindly face and a good brow rose\n     from the end of the table which faced the chairman. \"Mr. Treasurer,\"\n     he asked, \"may I ask who has bought the property of this man that we\n     have driven out of the district?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Brother Morris. It has been bought by the State & Merton County\n     Railroad Company.\"\n\n     \"And who bought the mines of Todman and of Lee that came into the\n     market in the same way last year?\"\n\n     \"The same company, Brother Morris.\"\n\n     \"And who bought the ironworks of Manson and of Shuman and of Van\n     Deher and of Atwood, which have all been given up of late?\"\n\n     \"They were all bought by the West Gilmerton General Mining Company.\"\n\n     \"I don't see, Brother Morris,\" said the chairman, \"that it matters to\n     us who buys them, since they can't carry them out of the district.\"\n\n     \"With all respect to you, Eminent Bodymaster, I think it may matter\n     very much to us. This process has been going on now for ten long\n     years. We are gradually driving all the small men out of trade. What\n     is the result? We find in their places great companies like the\n     Railroad or the General Iron, who have their directors in New York or\n     Philadelphia, and care nothing for our threats. We can take it out of\n     their local bosses, but it only means that others will be sent in\n     their stead. And we are making it dangerous for ourselves. The small\n     men could not harm us. They had not the money nor the power. So long\n     as we did not squeeze them too dry, they would stay on under our\n     power. But if these big companies find that we stand between them and\n     their profits, they will spare no pains and no expense to hunt us\n     down and bring us to court.\"\n\n     There was a hush at these ominous words, and every face darkened as\n     gloomy looks were exchanged. So omnipotent and unchallenged had they\n     been that the very thought that there was possible retribution in the\n     background had been banished from their minds. And yet the idea\n     struck a chill to the most reckless of them.\n\n     \"It is my advice,\" the speaker continued, \"that we go easier upon the\n     small men. On the day that they have all been driven out the power of\n     this society will have been broken.\"\n\n     Unwelcome truths are not popular. There were angry cries as the\n     speaker resumed his seat. McGinty rose with gloom upon his brow.\n\n     \"Brother Morris,\" said he, \"you were always a croaker. So long as the\n     members of this lodge stand together there is no power in the United\n     States that can touch them. Sure, have we not tried it often enough\n     in the law courts? I expect the big companies will find it easier to\n     pay than to fight, same as the little companies do. And now,\n     Brethren,\" McGinty took off his black velvet cap and his stole as he\n     spoke, \"this lodge has finished its business for the evening, save\n     for one small matter which may be mentioned when we are parting. The\n     time has now come for fraternal refreshment and for harmony.\"\n\n     Strange indeed is human nature. Here were these men, to whom murder\n     was familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the\n     family, some man against whom they had no personal feeling, without\n     one thought of compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or\n     helpless children, and yet the tender or pathetic in music could move\n     them to tears. McMurdo had a fine tenor voice, and if he had failed\n     to gain the good will of the lodge before, it could no longer have\n     been withheld after he had thrilled them with \"I'm Sitting on the\n     Stile, Mary,\" and \"On the Banks of Allan Water.\"\n\n     In his very first night the new recruit had made himself one of the\n     most popular of the brethren, marked already for advancement and high\n     office. There were other qualities needed, however, besides those of\n     good fellowship, to make a worthy Freeman, and of these he was given\n     an example before the evening was over. The whisky bottle had passed\n     round many times, and the men were flushed and ripe for mischief when\n     their Bodymaster rose once more to address them.\n\n     \"Boys,\" said he, \"there's one man in this town that wants trimming\n     up, and it's for you to see that he gets it. I'm speaking of James\n     Stanger of the Herald. You've seen how he's been opening his mouth\n     against us again?\"\n\n     There was a murmur of assent, with many a muttered oath. McGinty took\n     a slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket.\n\n                                 Law and Order!\n\n     That's how he heads it.\n\n                 \"Reign of terror in the coal and iron district\n     \"Twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations which\n     proved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst. From\n     that day these outrages have never ceased, until now they have\n     reached a pitch which makes us the opprobrium of the civilized world.\n     Is it for such results as this that our great country welcomes to its\n     bosom the alien who flies from the despotisms of Europe? Is it that\n     they shall themselves become tyrants over the very men who have given\n     them shelter, and that a state of terrorism and lawlessness should be\n     established under the very shadow of the sacred folds of the starry\n     Flag of Freedom which would raise horror in our minds if we read of\n     it as existing under the most effete monarchy of the East? The men\n     are known. The organization is patent and public. How long are we to\n     endure it? Can we forever live--\n\n     Sure, I've read enough of the slush!\" cried the chairman, tossing the\n     paper down upon the table. \"That's what he says of us. The question\n     I'm asking you is what shall we say to him?\"\n\n     \"Kill him!\" cried a dozen fierce voices.\n\n     \"I protest against that,\" said Brother Morris, the man of the good\n     brow and shaved face. \"I tell you, Brethren, that our hand is too\n     heavy in this valley, and that there will come a point where in\n     self-defense every man will unite to crush us out. James Stanger is\n     an old man. He is respected in the township and the district. His\n     paper stands for all that is solid in the valley. If that man is\n     struck down, there will be a stir through this state that will only\n     end with our destruction.\"\n\n     \"And how would they bring about our destruction, Mr. Standback?\"\n     cried McGinty. \"Is it by the police? Sure, half of them are in our\n     pay and half of them afraid of us. Or is it by the law courts and the\n     judge? Haven't we tried that before now, and what ever came of it?\"\n\n     \"There is a Judge Lynch that might try the case,\" said Brother\n     Morris.\n\n     A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.\n\n     \"I have but to raise my finger,\" cried McGinty, \"and I could put two\n     hundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end.\"\n     Then suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into\n     a terrible frown, \"See here, Brother Morris, I have my eye on you,\n     and have had for some time! You've no heart yourself, and you try to\n     take the heart out of others. It will be an ill day for you, Brother\n     Morris, when your own name comes on our agenda paper, and I'm\n     thinking that it's just there that I ought to place it.\"\n\n     Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under\n     him as he fell back into his chair. He raised his glass in his\n     trembling hand and drank before he could answer. \"I apologize,\n     Eminent Bodymaster, to you and to every brother in this lodge if I\n     have said more than I should. I am a faithful member--you all know\n     that--and it is my fear lest evil come to the lodge which makes me\n     speak in anxious words. But I have greater trust in your judgment\n     than in my own, Eminent Bodymaster, and I promise you that I will not\n     offend again.\"\n\n     The Bodymaster's scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words.\n     \"Very good, Brother Morris. It's myself that would be sorry if it\n     were needful to give you a lesson. But so long as I am in this chair\n     we shall be a united lodge in word and in deed. And now, boys,\" he\n     continued, looking round at the company, \"I'll say this much, that if\n     Stanger got his full deserts there would be more trouble than we need\n     ask for. These editors hang together, and every journal in the state\n     would be crying out for police and troops. But I guess you can give\n     him a pretty severe warning. Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?\"\n\n     \"Sure!\" said the young man eagerly.\n\n     \"How many will you take?\"\n\n     \"Half a dozen, and two to guard the door. You'll come, Gower, and\n     you, Mansel, and you, Scanlan, and the two Willabys.\"\n\n     \"I promised the new brother he should go,\" said the chairman.\n\n     Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not\n     forgotten nor forgiven. \"Well, he can come if he wants,\" he said in a\n     surly voice. \"That's enough. The sooner we get to work the better.\"\n\n     The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken\n     song. The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the\n     brethren remained there. The little band who had been told off for\n     duty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along\n     the sidewalk so as not to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold\n     night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty,\n     star-spangled sky. The men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced\n     a high building. The words \"Vermissa Herald\" were printed in gold\n     lettering between the brightly lit windows. From within came the\n     clanking of the printing press.\n\n     \"Here, you,\" said Baldwin to McMurdo, \"you can stand below at the\n     door and see that the road is kept open for us. Arthur Willaby can\n     stay with you. You others come with me. Have no fears, boys; for we\n     have a dozen witnesses that we are in the Union Bar at this very\n     moment.\"\n\n     It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or\n     two revellers upon their way home. The party crossed the road, and,\n     pushing open the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin and his men\n     rushed in and up the stair which faced them. McMurdo and another\n     remained below. From the room above came a shout, a cry for help, and\n     then the sound of trampling feet and of falling chairs. An instant\n     later a gray-haired man rushed out on the landing.\n\n     He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came\n     tinkling down to McMurdo's feet. There was a thud and a groan. He was\n     on his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they\n     fell upon him. He writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under\n     the blows. The others ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face set\n     in an infernal smile, was hacking at the man's head, which he vainly\n     endeavoured to defend with his arms. His white hair was dabbled with\n     patches of blood. Baldwin was still stooping over his victim, putting\n     in a short, vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when\n     McMurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.\n\n     \"You'll kill the man,\" said he. \"Drop it!\"\n\n     Baldwin looked at him in amazement. \"Curse you!\" he cried. \"Who are\n     you to interfere--you that are new to the lodge? Stand back!\" He\n     raised his stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out of his hip\n     pocket.\n\n     \"Stand back yourself!\" he cried. \"I'll blow your face in if you lay a\n     hand on me. As to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the Bodymaster\n     that the man was not to be killed--and what are you doing but killing\n     him?\"\n\n     \"It's truth he says,\" remarked one of the men.\n\n     \"By Gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!\" cried the man below. \"The\n     windows are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole town here\n     inside of five minutes.\"\n\n     There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little\n     group of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and\n     nerving itself to action. Leaving the limp and motionless body of the\n     editor at the head of the stair, the criminals rushed down and made\n     their way swiftly along the street. Having reached the Union House,\n     some of them mixed with the crowd in McGinty's saloon, whispering\n     across the bar to the Boss that the job had been well carried\n     through. Others, and among them McMurdo, broke away into side\n     streets, and so by devious paths to their own homes.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER IV\n          The Valley of Fear\n\n\n     When McMurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his\n     initiation into the lodge. His head ached with the effect of the\n     drink, and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and swollen.\n     Having his own peculiar source of income, he was irregular in his\n     attendance at his work; so he had a late breakfast, and remained at\n     home for the morning writing a long letter to a friend. Afterwards he\n     read the Daily Herald. In a special column put in at the last moment\n     he read:\n\n            Outrage at the herald office -- Editor seriously injured\n\n     It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more\n     familiar than the writer could have been. It ended with the\n     statement:\n\n     The matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly be\n     hoped that their exertions will be attended by any better results\n     than in the past. Some of the men were recognized, and there is hope\n     that a conviction may be obtained. The source of the outrage was, it\n     need hardly be said, that infamous society which has held this\n     community in bondage for so long a period, and against which the\n     Herald has taken so uncompromising a stand. Mr. Stanger's many\n     friends will rejoice to hear that, though he has been cruelly and\n     brutally beaten, and though he has sustained severe injuries about\n     the head, there is no immediate danger to his life.\n\n     Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester rifles,\n     had been requisitioned for the defense of the office.\n\n     McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a\n     hand which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when\n     there was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note\n     which had just been handed in by a lad. It was unsigned, and ran\n     thus:\n\n     I should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your\n     house. You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill. If you\n     will come there now, I have something which it is important for you\n     to hear and for me to say.\n\n     McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he could\n     not imagine what it meant or who was the author of it. Had it been in\n     a feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of\n     one of those adventures which had been familiar enough in his past\n     life. But it was the writing of a man, and of a well educated one,\n     too. Finally, after some hesitation, he determined to see the matter\n     through.\n\n     Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the\n     town. In summer it is a favourite resort of the people; but in winter\n     it is desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view not only of\n     the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath,\n     with its scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each\n     side of it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges flanking it.\n\n     McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until\n     he reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer\n     gaiety. Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his\n     hat drawn down and the collar of his overcoat turned up. When he\n     turned his face McMurdo saw that it was Brother Morris, he who had\n     incurred the anger of the Bodymaster the night before. The lodge sign\n     was given and exchanged as they met.\n\n     \"I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo,\" said the older man,\n     speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate\n     ground. \"It was kind of you to come.\"\n\n     \"Why did you not put your name to the note?\"\n\n     \"One has to be cautious, mister. One never knows in times like these\n     how a thing may come back to one. One never knows either who to trust\n     or who not to trust.\"\n\n     \"Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.\"\n\n     \"No, no, not always,\" cried Morris with vehemence. \"Whatever we say,\n     even what we think, seems to go back to that man McGinty.\"\n\n     \"Look here!\" said McMurdo sternly. \"It was only last night, as you\n     know well, that I swore good faith to our Bodymaster. Would you be\n     asking me to break my oath?\"\n\n     \"If that is the view you take,\" said Morris sadly, \"I can only say\n     that I am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me. Things\n     have come to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their\n     thoughts to each other.\"\n\n     McMurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed\n     somewhat in his bearing. \"Sure I spoke for myself only,\" said he. \"I\n     am a newcomer, as you know, and I am strange to it all. It is not for\n     me to open my mouth, Mr. Morris, and if you think well to say\n     anything to me I am here to hear it.\"\n\n     \"And to take it back to Boss McGinty!\" said Morris bitterly.\n\n     \"Indeed, then, you do me injustice there,\" cried McMurdo. \"For myself\n     I am loyal to the lodge, and so I tell you straight; but I would be a\n     poor creature if I were to repeat to any other what you might say to\n     me in confidence. It will go no further than me; though I warn you\n     that you may get neither help nor sympathy.\"\n\n     \"I have given up looking for either the one or the other,\" said\n     Morris. \"I may be putting my very life in your hands by what I say;\n     but, bad as you are--and it seemed to me last night that you were\n     shaping to be as bad as the worst--still you are new to it, and your\n     conscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. That was why I\n     thought to speak with you.\"\n\n     \"Well, what have you to say?\"\n\n     \"If you give me away, may a curse be on you!\"\n\n     \"Sure, I said I would not.\"\n\n     \"I would ask you, then, when you joined the Freeman's society in\n     Chicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross\n     your mind that you might find it would lead you to crime?\"\n\n     \"If you call it crime,\" McMurdo answered.\n\n     \"Call it crime!\" cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion. \"You\n     have seen little of it if you can call it anything else. Was it crime\n     last night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till\n     the blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that crime--or what else\n     would you call it?\"\n\n     \"There are some would say it was war,\" said McMurdo, \"a war of two\n     classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could.\"\n\n     \"Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman's\n     society at Chicago?\"\n\n     \"No, I'm bound to say I did not.\"\n\n     \"Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It was just a benefit\n     club and a meeting place for one's fellows. Then I heard of this\n     place--curse the hour that the name first fell upon my ears!--and I\n     came to better myself! My God! to better myself! My wife and three\n     children came with me. I started a dry goods store on Market Square,\n     and I prospered well. The word had gone round that I was a Freeman,\n     and I was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last night.\n     I've the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse branded on\n     my heart. I found that I was under the orders of a black villain and\n     caught in a meshwork of crime. What could I do? Every word I said to\n     make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night. I\n     can't get away; for all I have in the world is in my store. If I\n     leave the society, I know well that it means murder to me, and God\n     knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man, it is awful--awful!\" He\n     put his hands to his face, and his body shook with convulsive sobs.\n\n     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"You were too soft for the job,\" said\n     he. \"You are the wrong sort for such work.\"\n\n     \"I had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among\n     them. I was chosen for a job. If I backed down I knew well what would\n     come to me. Maybe I'm a coward. Maybe it's the thought of my poor\n     little woman and the children that makes me one. Anyhow I went. I\n     guess it will haunt me forever.\n\n     \"It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range\n     yonder. I was told off for the door, same as you were last night.\n     They could not trust me with the job. The others went in. When they\n     came out their hands were crimson to the wrists. As we turned away a\n     child was screaming out of the house behind us. It was a boy of five\n     who had seen his father murdered. I nearly fainted with the horror of\n     it, and yet I had to keep a bold and smiling face; for well I knew\n     that if I did not it would be out of my house that they would come\n     next with their bloody hands and it would be my little Fred that\n     would be screaming for his father.\n\n     \"But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in\n     this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good Catholic; but the\n     priest would have no word with me when he heard I was a Scowrer, and\n     I am excommunicated from my faith. That's how it stands with me. And\n     I see you going down the same road, and I ask you what the end is to\n     be. Are you ready to be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do\n     anything to stop it?\"\n\n     \"What would you do?\" asked McMurdo abruptly. \"You would not inform?\"\n\n     \"God forbid!\" cried Morris. \"Sure, the very thought would cost me my\n     life.\"\n\n     \"That's well,\" said McMurdo. \"I'm thinking that you are a weak man\n     and that you make too much of the matter.\"\n\n     \"Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the\n     valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I\n     tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that\n     over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of\n     Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the\n     dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.\"\n\n     \"Well, I'll let you know what I think when I have seen more,\" said\n     McMurdo carelessly. \"What is very clear is that you are not the man\n     for the place, and that the sooner you sell out--if you only get a\n     dime a dollar for what the business is worth--the better it will be\n     for you. What you have said is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I\n     thought you were an informer--\"\n\n     \"No, no!\" cried Morris piteously.\n\n     \"Well, let it rest at that. I'll bear what you have said in mind, and\n     maybe some day I'll come back to it. I expect you meant kindly by\n     speaking to me like this. Now I'll be getting home.\"\n\n     \"One word before you go,\" said Morris. \"We may have been seen\n     together. They may want to know what we have spoken about.\"\n\n     \"Ah! that's well thought of.\"\n\n     \"I offer you a clerkship in my store.\"\n\n     \"And I refuse it. That's our business. Well, so long, Brother Morris,\n     and may you find things go better with you in the future.\"\n\n     That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside\n     the stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its framework\n     was filled with the huge figure of Boss McGinty. He passed the sign,\n     and then seating himself opposite to the young man he looked at him\n     steadily for some time, a look which was as steadily returned.\n\n     \"I'm not much of a visitor, Brother McMurdo,\" he said at last. \"I\n     guess I am too busy over the folk that visit me. But I thought I'd\n     stretch a point and drop down to see you in your own house.\"\n\n     \"I'm proud to see you here, Councillor,\" McMurdo answered heartily,\n     bringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard. \"It's an honour that\n     I had not expected.\"\n\n     \"How's the arm?\" asked the Boss.\n\n     McMurdo made a wry face. \"Well, I'm not forgetting it,\" he said; \"but\n     it's worth it.\"\n\n     \"Yes, it's worth it,\" the other answered, \"to those that are loyal\n     and go through with it and are a help to the lodge. What were you\n     speaking to Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this morning?\"\n\n     The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer\n     prepared. He burst into a hearty laugh. \"Morris didn't know I could\n     earn a living here at home. He shan't know either; for he has got too\n     much conscience for the likes of me. But he's a good-hearted old\n     chap. It was his idea that I was at a loose end, and that he would do\n     me a good turn by offering me a clerkship in a dry goods store.\"\n\n     \"Oh, that was it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that was it.\"\n\n     \"And you refused it?\"\n\n     \"Sure. Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four\n     hours' work?\"\n\n     \"That's so. But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris.\"\n\n     \"Why not?\"\n\n     \"Well, I guess because I tell you not. That's enough for most folk in\n     these parts.\"\n\n     \"It may be enough for most folk; but it ain't enough for me,\n     Councillor,\" said McMurdo boldly. \"If you are a judge of men, you'll\n     know that.\"\n\n     The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an\n     instant round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head of his\n     companion. Then he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere\n     fashion.\n\n     \"You're a queer card, for sure,\" said he. \"Well, if you want reasons,\n     I'll give them. Did Morris say nothing to you against the lodge?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Nor against me?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's because he daren't trust you. But in his heart he is\n     not a loyal brother. We know that well. So we watch him and we wait\n     for the time to admonish him. I'm thinking that the time is drawing\n     near. There's no room for scabby sheep in our pen. But if you keep\n     company with a disloyal man, we might think that you were disloyal,\n     too. See?\"\n\n     \"There's no chance of my keeping company with him; for I dislike the\n     man,\" McMurdo answered. \"As to being disloyal, if it was any man but\n     you he would not use the word to me twice.\"\n\n     \"Well, that's enough,\" said McGinty, draining off his glass. \"I came\n     down to give you a word in season, and you've had it.\"\n\n     \"I'd like to know,\" said McMurdo, \"how you ever came to learn that I\n     had spoken with Morris at all?\"\n\n     McGinty laughed. \"It's my business to know what goes on in this\n     township,\" said he. \"I guess you'd best reckon on my hearing all that\n     passes. Well, time's up, and I'll just say--\"\n\n     But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion. With\n     a sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces\n     glared in at them from under the peaks of police caps. McMurdo sprang\n     to his feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as\n     he became conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his\n     head. A man in uniform advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his\n     hand. It was Captain Marvin, once of Chicago, and now of the Mine\n     Constabulary. He shook his head with a half-smile at McMurdo.\n\n     \"I thought you'd be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of\n     Chicago,\" said he. \"Can't keep out of it, can you? Take your hat and\n     come along with us.\"\n\n     \"I guess you'll pay for this, Captain Marvin,\" said McGinty. \"Who are\n     you, I'd like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and\n     molest honest, law-abiding men?\"\n\n     \"You're standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty,\" said the\n     police captain. \"We are not out after you, but after this man\n     McMurdo. It is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty,\"\n\n     \"He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct,\" said the\n     Boss.\n\n     \"By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own\n     conduct some of these days,\" the captain answered. \"This man McMurdo\n     was a crook before ever he came here, and he's a crook still. Cover\n     him, Patrolman, while I disarm him.\"\n\n     \"There's my pistol,\" said McMurdo coolly. \"Maybe, Captain Marvin, if\n     you and I were alone and face to face you would not take me so\n     easily.\"\n\n     \"Where's your warrant?\" asked McGinty. \"By Gar! a man might as well\n     live in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the\n     police. It's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I\n     reckon.\"\n\n     \"You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, Councillor.\n     We'll look after ours.\"\n\n     \"What am I accused of?\" asked McMurdo.\n\n     \"Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at the\n     Herald office. It wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder charge.\"\n\n     \"Well, if that's all you have against him,\" cried McGinty with a\n     laugh, \"you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right\n     now. This man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight,\n     and I can bring a dozen to prove it.\"\n\n     \"That's your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court\n     to-morrow. Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don't\n     want a gun across your head. You stand wide, Mr. McGinty; for I warn\n     you I will stand no resistance when I am on duty!\"\n\n     So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and\n     his boss were forced to accept the situation. The latter managed to\n     have a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.\n\n     \"What about--\" he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining\n     plant.\n\n     \"All right,\" whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place\n     under the floor.\n\n     \"I'll bid you good-bye,\" said the Boss, shaking hands. \"I'll see\n     Reilly the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. Take my word for\n     it that they won't be able to hold you.\"\n\n     \"I wouldn't bet on that. Guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him\n     if he tries any games. I'll search the house before I leave.\"\n\n     He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant. When\n     he had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters.\n     Darkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the\n     streets were nearly deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group,\n     and emboldened by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.\n\n     \"Lynch the cursed Scowrer!\" they cried. \"Lynch him!\" They laughed and\n     jeered as he was pushed into the police station. After a short,\n     formal examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the\n     common cell. Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the\n     night before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial\n     next morning.\n\n     But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the\n     Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer with a\n     straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles\n     of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious\n     night, without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.\n\n     Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate could\n     not possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. On\n     the one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that\n     the light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed,\n     and that it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the\n     assailants; although they believed that the accused were among them.\n     Cross examined by the clever attorney who had been engaged by\n     McGinty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.\n\n     The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise\n     by the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond\n     the fact that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. He added\n     that he knew them to be Scowrers, since no one else in the community\n     could possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been\n     threatened on account of his outspoken editorials. On the other hand,\n     it was clearly shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six\n     citizens, including that high municipal official, Councillor McGinty,\n     that the men had been at a card party at the Union House until an\n     hour very much later than the commission of the outrage.\n\n     Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to\n     an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had\n     been put, together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the\n     police for their officious zeal.\n\n     The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which\n     McMurdo saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and\n     waved. But there were others who sat with compressed lips and\n     brooding eyes as the men filed out of the dock. One of them, a\n     little, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put the thoughts of himself\n     and comrades into words as the ex-prisoners passed him.\n\n     \"You damned murderers!\" he said. \"We'll fix you yet!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER V\n          The Darkest Hour\n\n\n     If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's\n     popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and\n     acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge should\n     have done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new\n     record in the annals of the society. Already he had earned the\n     reputation of a good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a\n     man of high temper, who would not take an insult even from the\n     all-powerful Boss himself. But in addition to this he impressed his\n     comrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose\n     brain was so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand\n     would be more capable of carrying it out. \"He'll be the boy for the\n     clean job,\" said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time\n     until they could set him to his work.\n\n     McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this\n     was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce\n     bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some\n     day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the\n     lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the\n     stranger and hated him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was\n     as ready to fight as to laugh.\n\n     But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,\n     one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it.\n     Ettie Shafter's father would have nothing more to do with him, nor\n     would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply\n     in love to give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned\n     her of what would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as\n     a criminal.\n\n     One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,\n     possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him\n     from those evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to\n     his house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her way into\n     the room which he used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table,\n     with his back turned and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of\n     girlish mischief came over her--she was still only nineteen. He had\n     not heard her when she pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward\n     and laid her hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.\n\n     If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only\n     in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned on her,\n     and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same instant\n     with the other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. For\n     an instant he stood glaring. Then astonishment and joy took the place\n     of the ferocity which had convulsed his features--a ferocity which\n     had sent her shrinking back in horror as from something which had\n     never before intruded into her gentle life.\n\n     \"It's you!\" said he, mopping his brow. \"And to think that you should\n     come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do\n     than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling,\" and he held out\n     his arms, \"let me make it up to you.\"\n\n     But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear\n     which she had read in the man's face. All her woman's instinct told\n     her that it was not the mere fright of a man who is startled.\n     Guilt--that was it--guilt and fear!\n\n     \"What's come over you, Jack?\" she cried. \"Why were you so scared of\n     me? Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have\n     looked at me like that!\"\n\n     \"Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so\n     lightly on those fairy feet of yours--\"\n\n     \"No, no, it was more than that, Jack.\" Then a sudden suspicion seized\n     her. \"Let me see that letter you were writing.\"\n\n     \"Ah, Ettie, I couldn't do that.\"\n\n     Her suspicions became certainties. \"It's to another woman,\" she\n     cried. \"I know it! Why else should you hold it from me? Was it to\n     your wife that you were writing? How am I to know that you are not a\n     married man--you, a stranger, that nobody knows?\"\n\n     \"I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You're the only one\n     woman on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!\"\n\n     He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but\n     believe him.\n\n     \"Well, then,\" she cried, \"why will you not show me the letter?\"\n\n     \"I'll tell you, acushla,\" said he. \"I'm under oath not to show it,\n     and just as I wouldn't break my word to you so I would keep it to\n     those who hold my promise. It's the business of the lodge, and even\n     to you it's secret. And if I was scared when a hand fell on me, can't\n     you understand it when it might have been the hand of a detective?\"\n\n     She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his arms\n     and kissed away her fears and doubts.\n\n     \"Sit here by me, then. It's a queer throne for such a queen; but it's\n     the best your poor lover can find. He'll do better for you some of\n     these days, I'm thinking. Now your mind is easy once again, is it\n     not?\"\n\n     \"How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a\n     criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear\n     you are in court for murder? 'McMurdo the Scowrer,' that's what one\n     of our boarders called you yesterday. It went through my heart like a\n     knife.\"\n\n     \"Sure, hard words break no bones.\"\n\n     \"But they were true.\"\n\n     \"Well, dear, it's not so bad as you think. We are but poor men that\n     are trying in our own way to get our rights.\"\n\n     Ettie threw her arms round her lover's neck. \"Give it up, Jack! For\n     my sake, for God's sake, give it up! It was to ask you that I came\n     here to-day. Oh, Jack, see--I beg it of you on my bended knees!\n     Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it up!\"\n\n     He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.\n\n     \"Sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking. How\n     could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my\n     comrades? If you could see how things stand with me you could never\n     ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don't\n     suppose that the lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?\"\n\n     \"I've thought of that, Jack. I've planned it all. Father has saved\n     some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of these people\n     darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly together to\n     Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from them.\"\n\n     McMurdo laughed. \"The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it could not\n     stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?\"\n\n     \"Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father\n     came from--anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!\"\n\n     McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. \"Sure, it is the second time I\n     have heard the valley so named,\" said he. \"The shadow does indeed\n     seem to lie heavy on some of you.\"\n\n     \"It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted\n     Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what\n     do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those\n     dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!\"\n\n     \"By Gar! I'd teach him better manners if I caught him at it! But see\n     here, little girl. I can't leave here. I can't--take that from me\n     once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will\n     try to prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.\"\n\n     \"There is no honour in such a matter.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, it's just how you look at it. But if you'll give me six\n     months, I'll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to\n     look others in the face.\"\n\n     The girl laughed with joy. \"Six months!\" she cried. \"Is it a\n     promise?\"\n\n     \"Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the furthest we\n     will leave the valley behind us.\"\n\n     It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something.\n     There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate\n     future. She returned to her father's house more light-hearted than\n     she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come into her life.\n\n     It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society\n     would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the\n     organization was wider and more complex than the simple lodge. Even\n     Boss McGinty was ignorant as to many things; for there was an\n     official named the County Delegate, living at Hobson's Patch farther\n     down the line, who had power over several different lodges which he\n     wielded in a sudden and arbitrary way. Only once did McMurdo see him,\n     a sly, little gray-haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a\n     sidelong glance which was charged with malice. Evans Pott was his\n     name, and even the great Boss of Vermissa felt towards him something\n     of the repulsion and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the\n     puny but dangerous Robespierre.\n\n     One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo's fellow boarder, received a note\n     from McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that\n     he was sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had\n     instructions to act in the neighbourhood; though it was best for the\n     cause that no particulars as to their objects should be given. Would\n     the Bodymaster see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their\n     lodgings and comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty\n     added that it was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union\n     House, and that, therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo and\n     Scanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in their boarding\n     house.\n\n     The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.\n     Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad\n     in an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged,\n     grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant\n     preacher. His companion Andrews was little more than a boy,\n     frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out\n     for a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it. Both men were\n     total abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary members of the\n     society, with the one simple exception that they were assassins who\n     had often proved themselves to be most capable instruments for this\n     association of murder. Lawler had already carried out fourteen\n     commissions of the kind, and Andrews three.\n\n     They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their\n     deeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride\n     of men who had done good and unselfish service for the community.\n     They were reticent, however, as to the immediate job in hand.\n\n     \"They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink,\" Lawler\n     explained. \"They can count on us saying no more than we should. You\n     must not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County Delegate\n     that we obey.\"\n\n     \"Sure, we are all in it together,\" said Scanlan, McMurdo's mate, as\n     the four sat together at supper.\n\n     \"That's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home of the\n     killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other job in the\n     past. But till the work is done we say nothing.\"\n\n     \"There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say to,\"\n     said McMurdo, with an oath. \"I suppose it isn't Jack Knox of Ironhill\n     that you are after. I'd go some way to see him get his deserts.\"\n\n     \"No, it's not him yet.\"\n\n     \"Or Herman Strauss?\"\n\n     \"No, nor him either.\"\n\n     \"Well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but I'd be glad to\n     know.\"\n\n     Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.\n\n     In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo were\n     quite determined to be present at what they called \"the fun.\" When,\n     therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo heard them creeping\n     down the stairs he awakened Scanlan, and the two hurried on their\n     clothes. When they were dressed they found that the others had stolen\n     out, leaving the door open behind them. It was not yet dawn, and by\n     the light of the lamps they could see the two men some distance down\n     the street. They followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the\n     deep snow.\n\n     The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they were\n     at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here three men were\n     waiting, with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short, eager\n     conversation. Then they all moved on together. It was clearly some\n     notable job which needed numbers. At this point there are several\n     trails which lead to various mines. The strangers took that which led\n     to the Crow Hill, a huge business which was in strong hands which had\n     been able, thanks to their energetic and fearless New England\n     manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to keep some order and discipline during the\n     long reign of terror.\n\n     Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making their\n     way, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.\n\n     McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight of\n     the men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over them, and from the\n     heart of it there came the sudden scream of a steam whistle. It was\n     the ten-minute signal before the cages descended and the day's labour\n     began.\n\n     When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were a\n     hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their\n     fingers; for it was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in a little\n     group under the shadow of the engine house. Scanlan and McMurdo\n     climbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene lay before them.\n     They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded Scotchman named Menzies,\n     come out of the engine house and blow his whistle for the cages to be\n     lowered.\n\n     At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a\n     clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. As\n     he came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless,\n     under the engine house. The men had drawn down their hats and turned\n     up their collars to screen their faces. For a moment the presentiment\n     of Death laid its cold hand upon the manager's heart. At the next he\n     had shaken it off and saw only his duty towards intrusive strangers.\n\n     \"Who are you?\" he asked as he advanced. \"What are you loitering there\n     for?\"\n\n     There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and shot him\n     in the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and\n     helpless as if they were paralyzed. The manager clapped his two hands\n     to the wound and doubled himself up. Then he staggered away; but\n     another of the assassins fired, and he went down sidewise, kicking\n     and clawing among a heap of clinkers. Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a\n     roar of rage at the sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the\n     murderers; but was met by two balls in the face which dropped him\n     dead at their very feet.\n\n     There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an inarticulate\n     cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their\n     six-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and\n     scattered, some of them rushing wildly back to their homes in\n     Vermissa.\n\n     When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to the\n     mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning,\n     without a single witness being able to swear to the identity of these\n     men who in front of a hundred spectators had wrought this double\n     crime.\n\n     Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat subdued,\n     for it was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes,\n     and it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The\n     horrible screams of the dead manager's wife pursued them as they\n     hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed\n     no sympathy for the weakening of his companion.\n\n     \"Sure, it is like a war,\" he repeated. \"What is it but a war between\n     us and them, and we hit back where we best can.\"\n\n     There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that night,\n     not only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the Crow\n     Hill mine, which would bring this organization into line with the\n     other blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of the district, but\n     also over a distant triumph which had been wrought by the hands of\n     the lodge itself.\n\n     It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over five good\n     men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in return\n     three Vermissa men should be secretly selected and sent across to\n     kill William Hales of Stake Royal, one of the best known and most\n     popular mine owners in the Gilmerton district, a man who was believed\n     not to have an enemy in the world; for he was in all ways a model\n     employer. He had insisted, however, upon efficiency in the work, and\n     had, therefore, paid off certain drunken and idle employees who were\n     members of the all-powerful society. Coffin notices hung outside his\n     door had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized\n     country he found himself condemned to death.\n\n     The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin, who\n     sprawled now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had been\n     chief of the party. His flushed face and glazed, blood-shot eyes told\n     of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two comrades had spent the\n     night before among the mountains. They were unkempt and\n     weather-stained. But no heroes, returning from a forlorn hope, could\n     have had a warmer welcome from their comrades.\n\n     The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of\n     laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at\n     nightfall, taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his\n     horse must be at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the cold that\n     he could not lay his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him out and\n     shot him again and again. He had screamed for mercy. The screams were\n     repeated for the amusement of the lodge.\n\n     \"Let's hear again how he squealed,\" they cried.\n\n     None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing,\n     and they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men\n     were to be relied upon.\n\n     There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up\n     while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body.\n     It had been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were\n     harmless folk who were not connected with the mines, so they were\n     sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall\n     them. And so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to\n     all such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had\n     hurried off into the mountains where unbroken nature comes down to\n     the very edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps. Here they were,\n     safe and sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their\n     companions in their ears.\n\n     It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had fallen even\n     darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the moment of\n     victory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have\n     no time to steady themselves after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking\n     out upon the scene of his operations with his brooding and malicious\n     eyes, had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. That very\n     night, as the half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on\n     the arm and led him aside into that inner room where they had their\n     first interview.\n\n     \"See here, my lad,\" said he, \"I've got a job that's worthy of you at\n     last. You'll have the doing of it in your own hands.\"\n\n     \"Proud I am to hear it,\" McMurdo answered.\n\n     \"You can take two men with you--Manders and Reilly. They have been\n     warned for service. We'll never be right in this district until\n     Chester Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks of every\n     lodge in the coal fields if you can down him.\"\n\n     \"I'll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find him?\"\n\n     McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the\n     corner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page\n     torn from his notebook.\n\n     \"He's the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company. He's a hard\n     citizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle.\n     We've had two tries at him; but had no luck, and Jim Carnaway lost\n     his life over it. Now it's for you to take it over. That's the\n     house--all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad, same as you see here on\n     the map--without another within earshot. It's no good by day. He's\n     armed and shoots quick and straight, with no questions asked. But at\n     night--well, there he is with his wife, three children, and a hired\n     help. You can't pick or choose. It's all or none. If you could get a\n     bag of blasting powder at the front door with a slow match to it--\"\n\n     \"What's the man done?\"\n\n     \"Didn't I tell you he shot Jim Carnaway?\"\n\n     \"Why did he shoot him?\"\n\n     \"What in thunder has that to do with you? Carnaway was about his\n     house at night, and he shot him. That's enough for me and you. You've\n     got to settle the thing right.\"\n\n     \"There's these two women and the children. Do they go up too?\"\n\n     \"They have to--else how can we get him?\"\n\n     \"It seems hard on them; for they've done nothing.\"\n\n     \"What sort of fool's talk is this? Do you back out?\"\n\n     \"Easy, Councillor, easy! What have I ever said or done that you\n     should think I would be after standing back from an order of the\n     Bodymaster of my own lodge? If it's right or if it's wrong, it's for\n     you to decide.\"\n\n     \"You'll do it, then?\"\n\n     \"Of course I will do it.\"\n\n     \"When?\"\n\n     \"Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the house\n     and make my plans. Then--\"\n\n     \"Very good,\" said McGinty, shaking him by the hand. \"I leave it with\n     you. It will be a great day when you bring us the news. It's just the\n     last stroke that will bring them all to their knees.\"\n\n     McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had been so\n     suddenly placed in his hands. The isolated house in which Chester\n     Wilcox lived was about five miles off in an adjacent valley. That\n     very night he started off all alone to prepare for the attempt. It\n     was daylight before he returned from his reconnaissance. Next day he\n     interviewed his two subordinates, Manders and Reilly, reckless\n     youngsters who were as elated as if it were a deer-hunt.\n\n     Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and one\n     of them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was used in the\n     quarries. It was two in the morning before they came to the lonely\n     house. The night was a windy one, with broken clouds drifting swiftly\n     across the face of a three-quarter moon. They had been warned to be\n     on their guard against bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously,\n     with their pistols cocked in their hands. But there was no sound save\n     the howling of the wind, and no movement but the swaying branches\n     above them.\n\n     McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was still\n     within. Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a hole in it\n     with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was well alight he and\n     his two companions took to their heels, and were some distance off,\n     safe and snug in a sheltering ditch, before the shattering roar of\n     the explosion, with the low, deep rumble of the collapsing building,\n     told them that their work was done. No cleaner job had ever been\n     carried out in the bloodstained annals of the society.\n\n     But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out should\n     all have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the various victims,\n     and knowing that he was marked down for destruction, Chester Wilcox\n     had moved himself and his family only the day before to some safer\n     and less known quarters, where a guard of police should watch over\n     them. It was an empty house which had been torn down by the\n     gunpowder, and the grim old colour sergeant of the war was still\n     teaching discipline to the miners of Iron Dike.\n\n     \"Leave him to me,\" said McMurdo. \"He's my man, and I'll get him sure\n     if I have to wait a year for him.\"\n\n     A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for\n     the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was reported in\n     the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an\n     open secret that McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.\n\n     Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were the\n     deeds of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over\n     the great and rich district which was for so long a period haunted by\n     their terrible presence. Why should these pages be stained by further\n     crimes? Have I not said enough to show the men and their methods?\n\n     These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one\n     may read the details of them. There one may learn of the shooting of\n     Policemen Hunt and Evans because they had ventured to arrest two\n     members of the society--a double outrage planned at the Vermissa\n     lodge and carried out in cold blood upon two helpless and disarmed\n     men. There also one may read of the shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she\n     was nursing her husband, who had been beaten almost to death by\n     orders of Boss McGinty. The killing of the elder Jenkins, shortly\n     followed by that of his brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch, the\n     blowing up of the Staphouse family, and the murder of the Stendals\n     all followed hard upon one another in the same terrible winter.\n\n     Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear. The spring had come\n     with running brooks and blossoming trees. There was hope for all\n     Nature bound so long in an iron grip; but nowhere was there any hope\n     for the men and women who lived under the yoke of the terror. Never\n     had the cloud above them been so dark and hopeless as in the early\n     summer of the year 1875.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VI\n          Danger\n\n\n     It was the height of the reign of terror. McMurdo, who had already\n     been appointed Inner Deacon, with every prospect of some day\n     succeeding McGinty as Bodymaster, was now so necessary to the\n     councils of his comrades that nothing was done without his help and\n     advice. The more popular he became, however, with the Freemen, the\n     blacker were the scowls which greeted him as he passed along the\n     streets of Vermissa. In spite of their terror the citizens were\n     taking heart to band themselves together against their oppressors.\n     Rumours had reached the lodge of secret gatherings in the Herald\n     office and of distribution of firearms among the law-abiding people.\n     But McGinty and his men were undisturbed by such reports. They were\n     numerous, resolute, and well armed. Their opponents were scattered\n     and powerless. It would all end, as it had done in the past, in\n     aimless talk and possibly in impotent arrests. So said McGinty,\n     McMurdo, and all the bolder spirits.\n\n     It was a Saturday evening in May. Saturday was always the lodge\n     night, and McMurdo was leaving his house to attend it when Morris,\n     the weaker brother of the order, came to see him. His brow was\n     creased with care, and his kindly face was drawn and haggard.\n\n     \"Can I speak with you freely, Mr. McMurdo?\"\n\n     \"Sure.\"\n\n     \"I can't forget that I spoke my heart to you once, and that you kept\n     it to yourself, even though the Boss himself came to ask you about\n     it.\"\n\n     \"What else could I do if you trusted me? It wasn't that I agreed with\n     what you said.\"\n\n     \"I know that well. But you are the one that I can speak to and be\n     safe. I've a secret here,\" he put his hand to his breast, \"and it is\n     just burning the life out of me. I wish it had come to any one of you\n     but me. If I tell it, it will mean murder, for sure. If I don't, it\n     may bring the end of us all. God help me, but I am near out of my\n     wits over it!\"\n\n     McMurdo looked at the man earnestly. He was trembling in every limb.\n     He poured some whisky into a glass and handed it to him. \"That's the\n     physic for the likes of you,\" said he. \"Now let me hear of it.\"\n\n     Morris drank, and his white face took a tinge of colour. \"I can tell\n     it to you all in one sentence,\" said he. \"There's a detective on our\n     trail.\"\n\n     McMurdo stared at him in astonishment. \"Why, man, you're crazy,\" he\n     said. \"Isn't the place full of police and detectives and what harm\n     did they ever do us?\"\n\n     \"No, no, it's no man of the district. As you say, we know them, and\n     it is little that they can do. But you've heard of Pinkerton's?\"\n\n     \"I've read of some folk of that name.\"\n\n     \"Well, you can take it from me you've no show when they are on your\n     trail. It's not a take-it-or-miss-it government concern. It's a dead\n     earnest business proposition that's out for results and keeps out\n     till by hook or crook it gets them. If a Pinkerton man is deep in\n     this business, we are all destroyed.\"\n\n     \"We must kill him.\"\n\n     \"Ah, it's the first thought that came to you! So it will be up at the\n     lodge. Didn't I say to you that it would end in murder?\"\n\n     \"Sure, what is murder? Isn't it common enough in these parts?\"\n\n     \"It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to\n     be murdered. I'd never rest easy again. And yet it's our own necks\n     that may be at stake. In God's name what shall I do?\" He rocked to\n     and fro in his agony of indecision.\n\n     But his words had moved McMurdo deeply. It was easy to see that he\n     shared the other's opinion as to the danger, and the need for meeting\n     it. He gripped Morris's shoulder and shook him in his earnestness.\n\n     \"See here, man,\" he cried, and he almost screeched the words in his\n     excitement, \"you won't gain anything by sitting keening like an old\n     wife at a wake. Let's have the facts. Who is the fellow? Where is he?\n     How did you hear of him? Why did you come to me?\"\n\n     \"I came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me. I told\n     you that I had a store in the East before I came here. I left good\n     friends behind me, and one of them is in the telegraph service.\n     Here's a letter that I had from him yesterday. It's this part from\n     the top of the page. You can read it yourself.\"\n\n     This was what McMurdo read:\n\n     How are the Scowrers getting on in your parts? We read plenty of them\n     in the papers. Between you and me I expect to hear news from you\n     before long. Five big corporations and the two railroads have taken\n     the thing up in dead earnest. They mean it, and you can bet they'll\n     get there! They are right deep down into it. Pinkerton has taken hold\n     under their orders, and his best man, Birdy Edwards, is operating.\n     The thing has got to be stopped right now.\n\n     \"Now read the postscript.\"\n\n     Of course, what I give you is what I learned in business; so it goes\n     no further. It's a queer cipher that you handle by the yard every day\n     and can get no meaning from.\n\n     McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his listless\n     hands. The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was the abyss\n     before him.\n\n     \"Does anyone else know of this?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I have told no one else.\"\n\n     \"But this man--your friend--has he any other person that he would be\n     likely to write to?\"\n\n     \"Well, I dare say he knows one or two more.\"\n\n     \"Of the lodge?\"\n\n     \"It's likely enough.\"\n\n     \"I was asking because it is likely that he may have given some\n     description of this fellow Birdy Edwards--then we could get on his\n     trail.\"\n\n     \"Well, it's possible. But I should not think he knew him. He is just\n     telling me the news that came to him by way of business. How would he\n     know this Pinkerton man?\"\n\n     McMurdo gave a violent start.\n\n     \"By Gar!\" he cried, \"I've got him. What a fool I was not to know it.\n     Lord! but we're in luck! We will fix him before he can do any harm.\n     See here, Morris, will you leave this thing in my hands?\"\n\n     \"Sure, if you will only take it off mine.\"\n\n     \"I'll do that. You can stand right back and let me run it. Even your\n     name need not be mentioned. I'll take it all on myself, as if it were\n     to me that this letter has come. Will that content you?\"\n\n     \"It's just what I would ask.\"\n\n     \"Then leave it at that and keep your head shut. Now I'll get down to\n     the lodge, and we'll soon make old man Pinkerton sorry for himself.\"\n\n     \"You wouldn't kill this man?\"\n\n     \"The less you know, Friend Morris, the easier your conscience will\n     be, and the better you will sleep. Ask no questions, and let these\n     things settle themselves. I have hold of it now.\"\n\n     Morris shook his head sadly as he left. \"I feel that his blood is on\n     my hands,\" he groaned.\n\n     \"Self-protection is no murder, anyhow,\" said McMurdo, smiling grimly.\n     \"It's him or us. I guess this man would destroy us all if we left him\n     long in the valley. Why, Brother Morris, we'll have to elect you\n     Bodymaster yet; for you've surely saved the lodge.\"\n\n     And yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more seriously\n     of this new intrusion than his words would show. It may have been his\n     guilty conscience, it may have been the reputation of the Pinkerton\n     organization, it may have been the knowledge that great, rich\n     corporations had set themselves the task of clearing out the\n     Scowrers; but, whatever his reason, his actions were those of a man\n     who is preparing for the worst. Every paper which would incriminate\n     him was destroyed before he left the house. After that he gave a long\n     sigh of satisfaction; for it seemed to him that he was safe. And yet\n     the danger must still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way\n     to the lodge he stopped at old man Shafter's. The house was forbidden\n     him; but when he tapped at the window Ettie came out to him. The\n     dancing Irish deviltry had gone from her lover's eyes. She read his\n     danger in his earnest face.\n\n     \"Something has happened!\" she cried. \"Oh, Jack, you are in danger!\"\n\n     \"Sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart. And yet it may be wise that\n     we make a move before it is worse.\"\n\n     \"Make a move?\"\n\n     \"I promised you once that I would go some day. I think the time is\n     coming. I had news to-night, bad news, and I see trouble coming.\"\n\n     \"The police?\"\n\n     \"Well, a Pinkerton. But, sure, you wouldn't know what that is,\n     acushla, nor what it may mean to the likes of me. I'm too deep in\n     this thing, and I may have to get out of it quick. You said you would\n     come with me if I went.\"\n\n     \"Oh, Jack, it would be the saving of you!\"\n\n     \"I'm an honest man in some things, Ettie. I wouldn't hurt a hair of\n     your bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever pull you\n     down one inch from the golden throne above the clouds where I always\n     see you. Would you trust me?\"\n\n     She put her hand in his without a word. \"Well, then, listen to what I\n     say, and do as I order you, for indeed it's the only way for us.\n     Things are going to happen in this valley. I feel it in my bones.\n     There may be many of us that will have to look out for ourselves. I'm\n     one, anyhow. If I go, by day or night, it's you that must come with\n     me!\"\n\n     \"I'd come after you, Jack.\"\n\n     \"No, no, you shall come with me. If this valley is closed to me and I\n     can never come back, how can I leave you behind, and me perhaps in\n     hiding from the police with never a chance of a message? It's with me\n     you must come. I know a good woman in the place I come from, and it's\n     there I'd leave you till we can get married. Will you come?\"\n\n     \"Yes, Jack, I will come.\"\n\n     \"God bless you for your trust in me! It's a fiend out of hell that I\n     should be if I abused it. Now, mark you, Ettie, it will be just a\n     word to you, and when it reaches you, you will drop everything and\n     come right down to the waiting room at the depot and stay there till\n     I come for you.\"\n\n     \"Day or night, I'll come at the word, Jack.\"\n\n     Somewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for escape had\n     been begun, McMurdo went on to the lodge. It had already assembled,\n     and only by complicated signs and counter-signs could he pass through\n     the outer guard and inner guard who close-tiled it. A buzz of\n     pleasure and welcome greeted him as he entered. The long room was\n     crowded, and through the haze of tobacco smoke he saw the tangled\n     black mane of the Bodymaster, the cruel, unfriendly features of\n     Baldwin, the vulture face of Harraway, the secretary, and a dozen\n     more who were among the leaders of the lodge. He rejoiced that they\n     should all be there to take counsel over his news.\n\n     \"Indeed, it's glad we are to see you, Brother!\" cried the chairman.\n     \"There's business here that wants a Solomon in judgment to set it\n     right.\"\n\n     \"It's Lander and Egan,\" explained his neighbour as he took his seat.\n     \"They both claim the head money given by the lodge for the shooting\n     of old man Crabbe over at Stylestown, and who's to say which fired\n     the bullet?\"\n\n     McMurdo rose in his place and raised his hand. The expression of his\n     face froze the attention of the audience. There was a dead hush of\n     expectation.\n\n     \"Eminent Bodymaster,\" he said, in a solemn voice, \"I claim urgency!\"\n\n     \"Brother McMurdo claims urgency,\" said McGinty. \"It's a claim that by\n     the rules of this lodge takes precedence. Now Brother, we attend\n     you.\"\n\n     McMurdo took the letter from his pocket.\n\n     \"Eminent Bodymaster and Brethren,\" he said, \"I am the bearer of ill\n     news this day; but it is better that it should be known and\n     discussed, than that a blow should fall upon us without warning which\n     would destroy us all. I have information that the most powerful and\n     richest organizations in this state have bound themselves together\n     for our destruction, and that at this very moment there is a\n     Pinkerton detective, one Birdy Edwards, at work in the valley\n     collecting the evidence which may put a rope round the necks of many\n     of us, and send every man in this room into a felon's cell. That is\n     the situation for the discussion of which I have made a claim of\n     urgency.\"\n\n     There was a dead silence in the room. It was broken by the chairman.\n\n     \"What is your evidence for this, Brother McMurdo?\" he asked.\n\n     \"It is in this letter which has come into my hands,\" said McMurdo. He\n     read the passage aloud. \"It is a matter of honour with me that I can\n     give no further particulars about the letter, nor put it into your\n     hands; but I assure you that there is nothing else in it which can\n     affect the interests of the lodge. I put the case before you as it\n     has reached me.\"\n\n     \"Let me say, Mr. Chairman,\" said one of the older brethren, \"that I\n     have heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name of being the\n     best man in the Pinkerton service.\"\n\n     \"Does anyone know him by sight?\" asked McGinty.\n\n     \"Yes,\" said McMurdo, \"I do.\"\n\n     There was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.\n\n     \"I believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands,\" he continued with\n     an exulting smile upon his face. \"If we act quickly and wisely, we\n     can cut this thing short. If I have your confidence and your help, it\n     is little that we have to fear.\"\n\n     \"What have we to fear, anyhow? What can he know of our affairs?\"\n\n     \"You might say so if all were as stanch as you, Councillor. But this\n     man has all the millions of the capitalists at his back. Do you think\n     there is no weaker brother among all our lodges that could not be\n     bought? He will get at our secrets--maybe has got them already.\n     There's only one sure cure.\"\n\n     \"That he never leaves the valley,\" said Baldwin.\n\n     McMurdo nodded. \"Good for you, Brother Baldwin,\" he said. \"You and I\n     have had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night.\"\n\n     \"Where is he, then? Where shall we know him?\"\n\n     \"Eminent Bodymaster,\" said McMurdo, earnestly, \"I would put it to you\n     that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge. God\n     forbid that I should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as\n     a word of gossip got to the ears of this man, there would be an end\n     of any chance of our getting him. I would ask the lodge to choose a\n     trusty committee, Mr. Chairman--yourself, if I might suggest it, and\n     Brother Baldwin here, and five more. Then I can talk freely of what I\n     know and of what I advise should be done.\"\n\n     The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen.\n     Besides the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-faced\n     secretary, Harraway, Tiger Cormac, the brutal young assassin, Carter,\n     the treasurer, and the brothers Willaby, fearless and desperate men\n     who would stick at nothing.\n\n     The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for there was a\n     cloud upon the men's spirits, and many there for the first time began\n     to see the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in that serene sky under\n     which they had dwelt so long. The horrors they had dealt out to\n     others had been so much a part of their settled lives that the\n     thought of retribution had become a remote one, and so seemed the\n     more startling now that it came so closely upon them. They broke up\n     early and left their leaders to their council.\n\n     \"Now, McMurdo!\" said McGinty when they were alone. The seven men sat\n     frozen in their seats.\n\n     \"I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards,\" McMurdo explained. \"I\n     need not tell you that he is not here under that name. He's a brave\n     man, but not a crazy one. He passes under the name of Steve Wilson,\n     and he is lodging at Hobson's Patch.\"\n\n     \"How do you know this?\"\n\n     \"Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the\n     time, nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter;\n     but now I'm sure it's the man. I met him on the cars when I went down\n     the line on Wednesday--a hard case if ever there was one. He said he\n     was a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted to know all he\n     could about the Scowrers and what he called 'the outrages' for a New\n     York paper. Asked me every kind of question so as to get something.\n     You bet I was giving nothing away. 'I'd pay for it and pay well,'\n     said he, 'if I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.' I\n     said what I thought would please him best, and he handed me a\n     twenty-dollar bill for my information. 'There's ten times that for\n     you,' said he, 'if you can find me all that I want.'\"\n\n     \"What did you tell him, then?\"\n\n     \"Any stuff I could make up.\"\n\n     \"How do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?\"\n\n     \"I'll tell you. He got out at Hobson's Patch, and so did I. I chanced\n     into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.\n\n     \"'See here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'I guess we\n     should charge double rates for this.'--'I guess you should,' said I.\n     He had filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for\n     all we could make of it. 'He fires a sheet of this off every day,'\n     said the clerk. 'Yes,' said I; 'it's special news for his paper, and\n     he's scared that the others should tap it.' That was what the\n     operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I think\n     differently now.\"\n\n     \"By Gar! I believe you are right,\" said McGinty. \"But what do you\n     allow that we should do about it?\"\n\n     \"Why not go right down now and fix him?\" someone suggested.\n\n     \"Ay, the sooner the better.\"\n\n     \"I'd start this next minute if I knew where we could find him,\" said\n     McMurdo. \"He's in Hobson's Patch; but I don't know the house. I've\n     got a plan, though, if you'll only take my advice.\"\n\n     \"Well, what is it?\"\n\n     \"I'll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I'll find him through the\n     operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I'll tell him that\n     I'm a Freeman myself. I'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for\n     a price. You bet he'll tumble to it. I'll tell him the papers are at\n     my house, and that it's as much as my life would be worth to let him\n     come while folk were about. He'll see that that's horse sense. Let\n     him come at ten o'clock at night, and he shall see everything. That\n     will fetch him sure.\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"You can plan the rest for yourselves. Widow MacNamara's is a lonely\n     house. She's as true as steel and as deaf as a post. There's only\n     Scanlan and me in the house. If I get his promise--and I'll let you\n     know if I do--I'd have the whole seven of you come to me by nine\n     o'clock. We'll get him in. If ever he gets out alive--well, he can\n     talk of Birdy Edwards's luck for the rest of his days!\"\n\n     \"There's going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton's or I'm mistaken. Leave\n     it at that, McMurdo. At nine to-morrow we'll be with you. You once\n     get the door shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VII\n          The Trapping of Birdy Edwards\n\n\n     As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and\n     very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It was on the\n     extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from the road. In any\n     other case the conspirators would have simply called out their man,\n     as they had many a time before, and emptied their pistols into his\n     body; but in this instance it was very necessary to find out how much\n     he knew, how he knew it, and what had been passed on to his\n     employers.\n\n     It was possible that they were already too late and that the work had\n     been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have their\n     revenge upon the man who had done it. But they were hopeful that\n     nothing of great importance had yet come to the detective's\n     knowledge, as otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to\n     write down and forward such trivial information as McMurdo claimed to\n     have given him. However, all this they would learn from his own lips.\n     Once in their power, they would find a way to make him speak. It was\n     not the first time that they had handled an unwilling witness.\n\n     McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed. The police seemed to take\n     particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin--he who\n     had claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago--actually\n     addressed him as he waited at the station. McMurdo turned away and\n     refused to speak with him. He was back from his mission in the\n     afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union House.\n\n     \"He is coming,\" he said.\n\n     \"Good!\" said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains\n     and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond\n     twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and\n     politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The\n     more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the\n     gallows which had risen before him the night before.\n\n     \"Do you reckon he knows much?\" he asked anxiously.\n\n     McMurdo shook his head gloomily. \"He's been here some time--six weeks\n     at the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at the\n     prospect. If he has been working among us all that time with the\n     railroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results,\n     and that he has passed them on.\"\n\n     \"There's not a weak man in the lodge,\" cried McGinty. \"True as steel,\n     every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.\n     What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I've a mind\n     to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a\n     beating up and see what they can get from him.\"\n\n     \"Well, there would be no harm in that,\" McMurdo answered. \"I won't\n     deny that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him\n     come to harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters,\n     and though he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed\n     the sort that squeals. But still it is not for me to stand between\n     him and you.\"\n\n     \"I'll fix the old devil!\" said McGinty with an oath. \"I've had my eye\n     on him this year past.\"\n\n     \"Well, you know best about that,\" McMurdo answered. \"But whatever you\n     do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair\n     is settled up. We can't afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of\n     all days.\"\n\n     \"True for you,\" said McGinty. \"And we'll learn from Birdy Edwards\n     himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.\n     Did he seem to scent a trap?\"\n\n     McMurdo laughed. \"I guess I took him on his weak point,\" he said. \"If\n     he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he's ready to follow it\n     into hell. I took his money,\" McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of\n     dollar notes, \"and as much more when he has seen all my papers.\"\n\n     \"What papers?\"\n\n     \"Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions\n     and books of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right\n     down to the end of everything before he leaves.\"\n\n     \"Faith, he's right there,\" said McGinty grimly. \"Didn't he ask you\n     why you didn't bring him the papers?\"\n\n     \"As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain\n     Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!\"\n\n     \"Ay, I heard of that,\" said McGinty. \"I guess the heavy end of this\n     business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when\n     we've done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the man\n     living at Hobson's Patch and you being there to-day.\"\n\n     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. \"If we handle it right, they can\n     never prove the killing,\" said he. \"No one can see him come to the\n     house after dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now\n     see here, Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask you to fit\n     the others into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He\n     comes at ten. He is to tap three times, and me to open the door for\n     him. Then I'll get behind him and shut it. He's our man then.\"\n\n     \"That's all easy and plain.\"\n\n     \"Yes; but the next step wants considering. He's a hard proposition.\n     He's heavily armed. I've fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to\n     be on his guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men\n     in it where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be\n     shooting, and somebody is going to be hurt.\"\n\n     \"That's so.\"\n\n     \"And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township\n     on top of it.\"\n\n     \"I guess you are right.\"\n\n     \"This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room--same\n     as you saw when you had a chat with me. I'll open the door for him,\n     show him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while\n     I get the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how\n     things are shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked\n     papers. As he is reading them I will jump for him and get my grip on\n     his pistol arm. You'll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker\n     the better; for he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than\n     I can manage. But I allow that I can hold him till you come.\"\n\n     \"It's a good plan,\" said McGinty. \"The lodge will owe you a debt for\n     this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the\n     man that's coming after me.\"\n\n     \"Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit,\" said McMurdo;\n     but his face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.\n\n     When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim\n     evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his\n     Smith & Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the\n     detective was to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long\n     deal table in the centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of\n     the other sides were windows. There were no shutters on these: only\n     light curtains which drew across. McMurdo examined these attentively.\n     No doubt it must have struck him that the apartment was very exposed\n     for so secret a meeting. Yet its distance from the road made it of\n     less consequence. Finally he discussed the matter with his fellow\n     lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer, was an inoffensive little man who\n     was too weak to stand against the opinion of his comrades, but was\n     secretly horrified by the deeds of blood at which he had sometimes\n     been forced to assist. McMurdo told him shortly what was intended.\n\n     \"And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep\n     clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning.\"\n\n     \"Well, indeed then, Mac,\" Scanlan answered. \"It's not the will but\n     the nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at\n     the colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I'm not made\n     for it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the\n     worse of me, I'll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves\n     for the evening.\"\n\n     The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly\n     respectable citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces\n     would have read little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths\n     and remorseless eyes. There was not a man in the room whose hands had\n     not been reddened a dozen times before. They were as hardened to\n     human murder as a butcher to sheep.\n\n     Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the\n     formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with\n     a long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible\n     fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no\n     notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter,\n     was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression,\n     and a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the\n     actual details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting\n     brain. The two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows\n     with determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy,\n     dark youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of\n     his disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under\n     the roof of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.\n\n     Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to\n     prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were\n     already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their\n     ferocity. Cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant--it had\n     been lighted, for the nights were still cold.\n\n     \"That will do,\" said he, with an oath.\n\n     \"Ay,\" said Baldwin, catching his meaning. \"If he is strapped to that,\n     we will have the truth out of him.\"\n\n     \"We'll have the truth out of him, never fear,\" said McMurdo. He had\n     nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair\n     was on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. The others\n     marked it and applauded.\n\n     \"You are the one to handle him,\" said the Boss approvingly. \"Not a\n     warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It's a pity\n     there are no shutters to your windows.\"\n\n     McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter.\n     \"Sure no one can spy upon us now. It's close upon the hour.\"\n\n     \"Maybe he won't come. Maybe he'll get a sniff of danger,\" said the\n     secretary.\n\n     \"He'll come, never fear,\" McMurdo answered. \"He is as eager to come\n     as you can be to see him. Hark to that!\"\n\n     They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested\n     halfway to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.\n\n     \"Hush!\" McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance went\n     round the circle, and hands were laid upon hidden weapons.\n\n     \"Not a sound, for your lives!\" McMurdo whispered, as he went from the\n     room, closing the door carefully behind him.\n\n     With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps of\n     their comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the outer\n     door. There were a few words as of greeting. Then they were aware of\n     a strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice. An instant later\n     came the slam of the door and the turning of the key in the lock.\n     Their prey was safe within the trap. Tiger Cormac laughed horribly,\n     and Boss McGinty clapped his great hand across his mouth.\n\n     \"Be quiet, you fool!\" he whispered. \"You'll be the undoing of us\n     yet!\"\n\n     There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed\n     interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger\n     upon his lip.\n\n     He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A subtle\n     change had come over him. His manner was as of one who has great work\n     to do. His face had set into granite firmness. His eyes shone with a\n     fierce excitement behind his spectacles. He had become a visible\n     leader of men. They stared at him with eager interest; but he said\n     nothing. Still with the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.\n\n     \"Well!\" cried Boss McGinty at last. \"Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards\n     here?\"\n\n     \"Yes,\" McMurdo answered slowly. \"Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy\n     Edwards!\"\n\n     There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room\n     might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a\n     kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white\n     faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set\n     motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass,\n     a bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window,\n     while the curtains were torn from their hangings.\n\n     At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged\n     for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the\n     stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind\n     the sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.\n\n     \"You're safer there, Councillor,\" said the man whom they had known as\n     McMurdo. \"And you, Baldwin, if you don't take your hand off your\n     pistol, you'll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord\n     that made me--There, that will do. There are forty armed men round\n     this house, and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you\n     have. Take their pistols, Marvin!\"\n\n     There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles.\n     The men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat\n     round the table.\n\n     \"I'd like to say a word to you before we separate,\" said the man who\n     had trapped them. \"I guess we may not meet again until you see me on\n     the stand in the courthouse. I'll give you something to think over\n     between now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can\n     put my cards on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton's. I was\n     chosen to break up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to\n     play. Not a soul, not one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that\n     I was playing it. Only Captain Marvin here and my employers knew\n     that. But it's over to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!\"\n\n     The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable\n     hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.\n\n     \"Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my\n     chance of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and\n     there are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this\n     night. I'll tell you this, that when I was put upon this job I never\n     believed there was such a society as yours. I thought it was paper\n     talk, and that I would prove it so. They told me it was to do with\n     the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and was made one. Then I was surer\n     than ever that it was just paper talk; for I found no harm in the\n     society, but a deal of good.\n\n     \"Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys.\n     When I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it\n     wasn't a dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after it. I never\n     killed a man in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my life. Those I\n     gave you were as good as any others; but I never spent money better.\n     But I knew the way into your good wishes and so I pretended to you\n     that the law was after me. It all worked just as I thought.\n\n     \"So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your\n     councils. Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can say\n     what they like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth? The\n     night I joined you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn him, for\n     there was no time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when you would have\n     killed him. If ever I have suggested things, so as to keep my place\n     among you, they were things which I knew I could prevent. I could not\n     save Dunn and Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that\n     their murderers are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that\n     when I blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding. There was\n     many a crime that I could not stop; but if you look back and think\n     how often your man came home the other road, or was down in town when\n     you went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would come\n     out, you'll see my work.\"\n\n     \"You blasted traitor!\" hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.\n\n     \"Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. You\n     and your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts. It\n     took a man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women\n     that you held under your grip. There was just one way of doing it,\n     and I did it. You call me a traitor; but I guess there's many a\n     thousand will call me a deliverer that went down into hell to save\n     them. I've had three months of it. I wouldn't have three such months\n     again if they let me loose in the treasury at Washington for it. I\n     had to stay till I had it all, every man and every secret right here\n     in this hand. I'd have waited a little longer if it hadn't come to my\n     knowledge that my secret was coming out. A letter had come into the\n     town that would have set you wise to it all. Then I had to act and\n     act quickly.\n\n     \"I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I'll\n     die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley.\n     Now, Marvin, I'll keep you no more. Take them in and get it over.\"\n\n     There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed note to\n     be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had\n     accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the early hours of the\n     morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special\n     train which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift,\n     unbroken journey out of the land of danger. It was the last time that\n     ever either Ettie or her lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten\n     days later they were married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as\n     witness of the wedding.\n\n     The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their\n     adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they\n     struggled. In vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed by\n     blackmail out of the whole countryside--was spent like water in the\n     attempt to save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from\n     one who knew every detail of their lives, their organization, and\n     their crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. At\n     last after so many years they were broken and scattered. The cloud\n     was lifted forever from the valley.\n\n     McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the\n     last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his fate.\n     Fifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. The work of Birdy\n     Edwards was complete.\n\n     And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was\n     another hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted Baldwin,\n     for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had\n     several others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten years\n     they were out of the world, and then came a day when they were free\n     once more--a day which Edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would\n     be an end of his life of peace. They had sworn an oath on all that\n     they thought holy to have his blood as a vengeance for their\n     comrades. And well they strove to keep their vow!\n\n     From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that\n     it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under\n     a changed name to California, and it was there that the light went\n     for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was\n     nearly killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in\n     a lonely canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he\n     amassed a fortune. At last there came a warning to him that the\n     bloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared--only just in\n     time--for England. And thence came the John Douglas who for a second\n     time married a worthy mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex\n     county gentleman, a life which ended with the strange happenings of\n     which we have heard.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER VIII\n          Epilogue\n\n\n     The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was\n     referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he\n     was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.\n\n     \"Get him out of England at any cost,\" wrote Holmes to the wife.\n     \"There are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has\n     escaped. There is no safety for your husband in England.\"\n\n     Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from\n     our minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into\n     our letter box. \"Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!\" said this singular\n     epistle. There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at\n     the quaint message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.\n\n     \"Deviltry, Watson!\" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.\n\n     Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that\n     a gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the matter was of the\n     utmost importance. Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil\n     Barker, our friend of the moated Manor House. His face was drawn and\n     haggard.\n\n     \"I've had bad news--terrible news, Mr. Holmes,\" said he.\n\n     \"I feared as much,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"You have not had a cable, have you?\"\n\n     \"I have had a note from someone who has.\"\n\n     \"It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will\n     always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you that they\n     started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago.\"\n\n     \"Exactly.\"\n\n     \"The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable from\n     Mrs. Douglas this morning:--\n\n     \"Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one knows\n     how accident occurred.\n     \"Ivy Douglas.\"\n\n     \"Ha! It came like that, did it?\" said Holmes, thoughtfully. \"Well,\n     I've no doubt it was well stage-managed.\"\n\n     \"You mean that you think there was no accident?\"\n\n     \"None in the world.\"\n\n     \"He was murdered?\"\n\n     \"Surely!\"\n\n     \"So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive\n     nest of criminals--\"\n\n     \"No, no, my good sir,\" said Holmes. \"There is a master hand here. It\n     is no case of sawed-off shot-guns and clumsy six-shooters. You can\n     tell an old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty\n     when I see one. This crime is from London, not from America.\"\n\n     \"But for what motive?\"\n\n     \"Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail--one whose\n     whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must\n     succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to\n     the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the hammer--an\n     absurd extravagance of energy--but the nut is very effectually\n     crushed all the same.\"\n\n     \"How came this man to have anything to do with it?\"\n\n     \"I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the\n     business was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were well\n     advised. Having an English job to do, they took into partnership, as\n     any foreign criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. From\n     that moment their man was doomed. At first he would content himself\n     by using his machinery in order to find their victim. Then he would\n     indicate how the matter might be treated. Finally, when he read in\n     the reports of the failure of this agent, he would step in himself\n     with a master touch. You heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor\n     House that the coming danger was greater than the past. Was I right?\"\n\n     Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.\n\n     \"Do you tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that\n     no one can ever get level with this king-devil?\"\n\n     \"No, I don't say that,\" said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be\n     looking far into the future. \"I don't say that he can't be beat. But\n     you must give me time--you must give me time!\"\n\n     We all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes\n     still strained to pierce the veil.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  HIS LAST BOW\n\n\n\n\n\n                                     PREFACE\n\n     The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is\n     still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks\n     of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the\n     downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between\n     philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused\n     the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined\n     that his retirement was a permanent one. The approach of the German\n     war caused him, however, to lay his remarkable combination of\n     intellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the\n     government, with historical results which are recounted in His Last\n     Bow. Several previous experiences which have lain long in my\n     portfolio have been added to His Last Bow so as to complete the\n     volume.\n\n\n             John H. Watson, M. D.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                         THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n        The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles\n        The Tiger of San Pedro\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles\n\n\n     I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day\n     towards the end of March in the year 1892.  Holmes had received a\n     telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply.  He\n     made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood\n     in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his\n     pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he\n     turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.\n\n     \"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,\" said\n     he. \"How do you define the word 'grotesque'?\"\n\n     \"Strange--remarkable,\" I suggested.\n\n     He shook his head at my definition.\n\n     \"There is surely something more than that,\" said he; \"some underlying\n     suggestion of the tragic and the terrible.  If you cast your mind\n     back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a\n     long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has\n     deepened into the criminal.  Think of that little affair of the\n     red-headed men.  That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it\n     ended in a desperate attempt at robbery.  Or, again, there was that\n     most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to\n     a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert.\"\n\n     \"Have you it there?\" I asked.\n\n     He read the telegram aloud.\n\n     \"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I\n     consult you?\n     \"Scott Eccles,\n     \"Post Office, Charing Cross.\"\n\n     \"Man or woman?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.\n     She would have come.\"\n\n     \"Will you see him?\"\n\n     \"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up\n     Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself\n     to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it\n     was built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and\n     romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you\n     ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem,\n     however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our\n     client.\"\n\n     A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a\n     stout, tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was\n     ushered into the room.  His life history was written in his heavy\n     features and pompous manner.  From his spats to his gold-rimmed\n     spectacles he was a Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen,\n     orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazing\n     experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in\n     his bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried,\n     excited manner. He plunged instantly into his business.\n\n     \"I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,\"\n     said he. \"Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It\n     is most improper--most outrageous. I must insist upon some\n     explanation.\" He swelled and puffed in his anger.\n\n     \"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles,\" said Holmes in a soothing voice.\n     \"May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the\n     police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I\n     could not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class with\n     whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard\n     your name--\"\n\n     \"Quite so.  But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?\"\n\n     \"What do you mean?\"\n\n     Holmes glanced at his watch.\n\n     \"It is a quarter-past two,\" he said. \"Your telegram was dispatched\n     about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without\n     seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking.\"\n\n     Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven\n     chin.\n\n     \"You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I\n     was only too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running\n     round making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the house\n     agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up\n     all right and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge.\"\n\n     \"Come, come, sir,\" said Holmes, laughing. \"You are like my friend,\n     Dr. Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end\n     foremost. Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due\n     sequence, exactly what those events are which have sent you out\n     unbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry,\n     in search of advice and assistance.\"\n\n     Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional\n     appearance.\n\n     \"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that\n     in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But will tell\n     you the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit,\n     I am sure, that there has been enough to excuse me.\"\n\n     But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside,\n     and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and\n     official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as\n     Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and,\n     within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes\n     and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey\n     Constabulary.\n\n     \"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this\n     direction.\" He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. \"Are you Mr.\n     John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?\"\n\n     \"I am.\"\n\n     \"We have been following you about all the morning.\"\n\n     \"You traced him through the telegram, no doubt,\" said Holmes. \n\n     \"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross\n     Post-Office and came on here.\"\n\n     \"But why do you follow me? What do you want?\"\n\n     \"We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which let up\n     to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge,\n     near Esher.\"\n\n     Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour\n     struck from his astonished face.\n\n     \"Dead?  Did you say he was dead?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, he is dead.\"\n\n     \"But how?  An accident?\"\n\n     \"Murder, if ever there was one upon earth.\"\n\n     \"Good God! This is awful! You don't mean--you don't mean that I am\n     suspected?\"\n\n     \"A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by\n     it that you had planned to pass last night at his house.\"\n\n     \"So I did.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you did, did you?\"\n\n     Out came the official notebook.\n\n     \"Wait a bit, Gregson,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"All you desire is a\n     plain statement, is it not?\"\n\n     \"And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used\n     against him.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room.\n     I think, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I\n     suggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience,\n     and that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have\n     done had you never been interrupted.\"\n\n     Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to\n     his face.  With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he\n     plunged at once into his extraordinary statement.\n\n     \"I am a bachelor,\" said he, \"and being of a sociable turn I cultivate\n     a large number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired\n     brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It\n     was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named\n     Garcia. He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in\n     some way with the embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in\n     his manners, and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.\n\n     \"In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and\n     I. He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two\n     days of our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to\n     another, and it ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at\n     his house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher and Oxshott. Yesterday\n     evening I went to Esher to fulfil this engagement.\n\n     \"He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived\n     with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after\n     all his needs. This fellow could speak English and did his\n     housekeeping for him. Then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a\n     half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an\n     excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked what a queer household\n     it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him,\n     though it has proved a good deal queerer than I thought.\n\n     \"I drove to the place--about two miles on the south side of Esher.\n     The house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a\n     curving drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an\n     old, tumbledown building in a crazy state of disrepair. When the trap\n     pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and\n     weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man\n     whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and\n     greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the\n     manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag\n     in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our\n     dinner was tête-à-tête, and though my host did his best to be\n     entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he\n     talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He\n     continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and\n     gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself was neither\n     well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn\n     servant did not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times\n     in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse\n     which would take me back to Lee.\n\n     \"One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the\n     business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing\n     of it at the time. Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the\n     servant. I noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more\n     distrait and strange than before. He gave up all pretence at\n     conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own\n     thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About eleven I\n     was glad to go to bed. Some time later Garcia looked in at my\n     door--the room was dark at the time--and asked me if I had rung. I\n     said that I had not. He apologized for having disturbed me so late,\n     saying that it was nearly one o'clock. I dropped off after this and\n     slept soundly all night.\n\n     \"And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was\n     broad daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine.\n     I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much\n     astonished at this forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the\n     servant. There was no response. I rang again and again, with the same\n     result. Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order.\n     I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad\n     temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise when I\n     found that there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was\n     no answer. Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host\n     had shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at\n     the door. No reply. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was\n     empty, and the bed had never been slept in. He had gone with the\n     rest. The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all\n     had vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to Wisteria\n     Lodge.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this\n     bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.\n\n     \"Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,\" said he.\n     \"May I ask, sir, what you did then?\"\n\n     \"I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of some\n     absurd practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall door\n     behind me, and set off for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I called at\n     Allan Brothers', the chief land agents in the village, and found that\n     it was from this firm that the villa had been rented. It struck me\n     that the whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of making a\n     fool of me, and that the main objet must be to get out of the rent.\n     It is late in March, so quarter-day is at hand. But this theory would\n     not work. The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me\n     that the rent had been paid in advance. Then I made my way to town\n     and called at the Spanish embassy. The man was unknown there. After\n     this I went to see Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia,\n     but I found that he really knew rather less about him than I did.\n     Finally when I got your reply to my wire I came out to you, since I\n     gather that you are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. But\n     now, Mr. Inspector, I understand, from what you said when you entered\n     the room, that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had\n     occurred. I can assure you that every word I have said is the truth,\n     and that, outside of what I have told you, I know absolutely nothing\n     about the fate of this man. My only desire is to help the law in\n     every possible way.\"\n\n     \"I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles--I am sure of it,\" said Inspector\n     Gregson in a very amiable tone. \"I am bound to say that everything\n     which you have said agrees very closely with the facts as they have\n     come to our notice. For example, there was that note which arrived\n     during dinner. Did you chance to observe what became of it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.\"\n\n     \"What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?\"\n\n     The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was\n     only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes,\n     almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a slow\n     smile he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from his\n     pocket.\n\n     \"It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this\n     out unburned from the back of it.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled his appreciation.\n\n     \"You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single\n     pellet of paper.\"\n\n     \"I did, Mr. Holmes. It's my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?\"\n\n     The Londoner nodded.\n\n     \"The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without\n     watermark. It is a quarter-sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips\n     with a short-bladed scissors. It has been folded over three times and\n     sealed with purple wax, put on hurriedly and pressed down with some\n     flat oval object. It is addressed to Mr. Garcia, Wisteria Lodge. It\n     says:\n\n     \"Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main\n     stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed.\n     D.\n\n     \"It is a woman's writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the\n     address is either done with another pen or by someone else. It is\n     thicker and bolder, as you see.\"\n\n     \"A very remarkable note,\" said Holmes, glancing it over. \"I must\n     compliment you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your\n     examination of it. A few trifling points might perhaps be added. The\n     oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link--what else is of such a\n     shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors. Short as the two snips\n     are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each.\"\n\n     The country detective chuckled.\n\n     \"I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there\n     was a little over,\" he said. \"I'm bound to say that I make nothing of\n     the note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman,\n     as usual, was at the bottom of it.\"\n\n     Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.\n\n     \"I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,\" said\n     he. \"But I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has\n     happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of his household.\"\n\n     \"As to Garcia,\" said Gregson, \"that is easily answered. He was found\n     dead this morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home.\n     His head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some\n     such instrument, which had crushed rather than wounded. It is a\n     lonely corner, and there is no house within a quarter of a mile of\n     the spot. He had apparently been struck down first from behind, but\n     his assailant had gone on beating him long after he was dead. It was\n     a most furious assault. There are no footsteps nor any clue to the\n     criminals.\"\n\n     \"Robbed?\"\n\n     \"No, there was no attempt at robbery.\"\n\n     \"This is very painful--very painful and terrible,\" said Mr. Scott\n     Eccles in a querulous voice, \"but it is really uncommonly hard on me.\n     I had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion\n     and meeting so sad an end. How do I come to be mixed up with the\n     case?\"\n\n     \"Very simply, sir,\" Inspector Baynes answered. \"The only document\n     found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that\n     you would be with him on the night of his death. It was the envelope\n     of this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address. It was\n     after nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither\n     you nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down\n     in London while I examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into town,\n     joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are.\"\n\n     \"I think now,\" said Gregson, rising, \"we had best put this matter\n     into an official shape. You will come round with us to the station,\n     Mr. Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in writing.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr.\n     Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the\n     truth.\"\n\n     My friend turned to the country inspector.\n\n     \"I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you,\n     Mr. Baynes?\"\n\n     \"Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.\"\n\n     \"You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you\n     have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that\n     the man met his death?\"\n\n     \"He had been there since one o'clock. There was rain about that time,\n     and his death had certainly been before the rain.\"\n\n     \"But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,\" cried our client.\n     \"His voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who\n     addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour.\"\n\n     \"Remarkable, but by no means impossible,\" said Holmes, smiling.\n\n     \"You have a clue?\" asked Gregson.\n\n     \"On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it\n     certainly presents some novel and interesting features. A further\n     knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a\n     final and definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baynes, did you find\n     anything remarkable besides this note in your examination of the\n     house?\"\n\n     The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.\n\n     \"There were,\" said he, \"one or two very remarkable things. Perhaps\n     when I have finished at the police-station you would care to come out\n     and give me your opinion of them.\"\n\n     \"In am entirely at your service,\" said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the\n     bell. \"You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly\n     send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply.\"\n\n     We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes\n     smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his\n     head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.\n\n     \"Well, Watson,\" he asked, turning suddenly upon me, \"what do you make\n     of it?\"\n\n     \"I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.\"\n\n     \"But the crime?\"\n\n     \"Well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, I should\n     say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled\n     from justice.\"\n\n     \"That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you\n     must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants\n     should have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked\n     him on the one night when he had a guest. They had him alone at their\n     mercy every other night in the week.\"\n\n     \"Then why did they fly?\"\n\n     \"Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact is\n     the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear\n     Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an\n     explanation which would cover both of these big facts? If it were one\n     which would also admit of the mysterious note with its very curious\n     phraseology, why, then it would be worth accepting as a temporary\n     hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit\n     themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become\n     a solution.\"\n\n     \"But what is our hypothesis?\"\n\n     Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.\n\n     \"You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is\n     impossible. There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and\n     the coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some connection\n     with them.\"\n\n     \"But what possible connection?\"\n\n     \"Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it, something\n     unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between the young\n     Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former who forced the pace. He\n     called upon Eccles at the other end of London on the very day after\n     he first met him, and he kept in close touch with him until he got\n     him down to Esher. Now, what did he want with Eccles? What could\n     Eccles supply? I see no charm in the man. He is not particulary\n     intelligent--not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted\n     Latin. Why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom\n     Garcia met as particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any one\n     outstanding quality? I say that he has. He is the very type of\n     conventional British respectability, and the very man as a witness to\n     impress another Briton. You saw yourself how neither of the\n     inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it\n     was.\"\n\n     \"But what was he to witness?\"\n\n     \"Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another\n     way. That is how I read the matter.\"\n\n     \"I see, he might have proved an alibi.\"\n\n     \"Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will\n     suppose, for argument's sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge\n     are confederates in some design. The attempt, whatever it may be, is\n     to come off, we will say, before one o'clock. By some juggling of the\n     clocks it is quite possible that they may have got Scott Eccles to\n     bed earlier than he thought, but in any case it is likely that when\n     Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was really\n     not more than twelve. If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be\n     back by the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any\n     accusation. Here was this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in\n     any court of law that the accused was in the house all the time. It\n     was an insurance against the worst.\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the\n     others?\"\n\n     \"I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any\n     insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of\n     your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit\n     your theories.\"\n\n     \"And the message?\"\n\n     \"How did it run? 'Our own colours, green and white.' Sounds like\n     racing. 'Green open, white shut.' That is clearly a signal. 'Main\n     stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.' This is an\n     assignation. We may find a jealous husband at the bottom of it all.\n     It was clearly a dangerous quest. She would not have said 'Godspeed'\n     had it not been so. 'D'--that should be a guide.\"\n\n     \"The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that 'D' stands for Dolores, a\n     common female name in Spain.\"\n\n     \"Good, Watson, very good--but quite inadmissable. A Spaniard would\n     write to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is certainly\n     English. Well, we can only possess our soul in patience until this\n     excellent inspector come back for us. Meanwhile we can thank our\n     lucky fate which has rescued us for a few short hours from the\n     insufferable fatigues of idleness.\"\n\n     An answer had arrived to Holmes's telegram before our Surrey officer\n     had returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in his\n     notebook when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it\n     across with a laugh.\n\n     \"We are moving in exalted circles,\" said he.\n\n     The telegram was a list of names and addresses:\n\n     Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr.\n     Hynes Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton\n     Old Hall; Mr. Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether\n     Walsling.\n     \"This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,\"\n     said Holmes. \"No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already\n     adopted some similar plan.\"\n\n     \"I don't quite understand.\"\n\n     \"Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that\n     the massage received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an\n     assignation. Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in\n     order to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seek the\n     seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the house is a\n     very large one. It is equally certain that this house cannot be more\n     than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walking in that\n     direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back\n     in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would\n     only be valid up to one o'clock. As the number of large houses close\n     to Oxshott must be limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending\n     to the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them.\n     Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled\n     skein must lie among them.\"\n\n     It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty\n     Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.\n\n     Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable\n     quarters at the Bull. Finally we set out in the company of the\n     detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, dark March\n     evening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain beating upon our faces, a\n     fit setting for the wild common over which our road passed and the\n     tragic goal to which it led us.\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          The Tiger of San Pedro\n\n\n     A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high\n     wooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The\n     curved and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black\n     against a slate-coloured sky. From the front window upon the left of\n     the door there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light.\n\n     \"There's a constable in possession,\" said Baynes. \"I'll knock at the\n     window.\" He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on\n     the pane. Through the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a\n     chair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry from within the room. An\n     instant later a white-faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened the\n     door, the candle wavering in his trembling hand.\n\n     \"What's the matter, Walters?\" asked Baynes sharply.\n\n     The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and agave a long\n     sigh of relief.\n\n     \"I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and I\n     don't think my nerve is as good as it was.\"\n\n     \"Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in\n     your body.\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the\n     kitchen. Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had come\n     again.\"\n\n     \"That what had come again?\"\n\n     \"The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window.\"\n\n     \"What was at the window, and when?\"\n\n     \"It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I was\n     sitting reading in the chair. I don't know what made me look up, but\n     there was a face looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir,\n     what a face it was! I'll see it in my dreams.\"\n\n     \"Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable.\"\n\n     \"I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there's no use to\n     deny it. It wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that\n     I know but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in\n     it. Then there was the size of it--it was twice yours, sir. And the\n     look of it--the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of white\n     teeth like a hungry beast. I tell you, sir, I couldn't move a finger,\n     nor get my breath, till it whisked away and was gone. Out I ran and\n     through the shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there.\"\n\n     \"If I didn't know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black\n     mark against you for this. If it were the devil himself a constable\n     on duty should never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon\n     him. I suppose the whole thing is not a vision and a touch of\n     nerves?\"\n\n     \"That, at least, is very easily settled,\" said Holmes, lighting his\n     little pocket lantern. \"Yes,\" he reported, after a short examination\n     of the grass bed, \"a number twelve shoe, I should say. If he was all\n     on the same scale as his foot he must certainly have been a giant.\"\n\n     \"What became of him?\"\n\n     \"He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the\n     road.\"\n\n     \"Well,\" said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, \"whoever\n     he may have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the\n     present, and we have more immediate things to attend to. Now, Mr.\n     Holmes, with your permission, I will show you round the house.\"\n\n     The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a\n     careful search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing\n     with them, and all the furniture down to the smallest details had\n     been taken over with the house. A good deal of clothing with the\n     stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been left behind.\n     Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that Marx\n     knew nothing of his customer save that he was a good payer. Odds and\n     ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them in Spanish, and\n     old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and a guitar were among the personal\n     property.\n\n     \"Nothing in all this,\" said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from\n     room to room. \"But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the\n     kitchen.\"\n\n     It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a\n     straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the\n     cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates,\n     the debris of last night's dinner.\n\n     \"Look at this,\" said Baynes. \"What do you make of it?\"\n\n     He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at\n     the back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered\n     that it was difficult to say what it might have been. One could but\n     say that it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance\n     to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I examined it, I thought\n     that it was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted\n     and ancient monkey. Finally I was left in doubt as to whether it was\n     animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung round the\n     centre of it.\n\n     \"Very interesting--very interesting, indeed!\" said Holmes, peering at\n     this sinister relic. \"Anything more?\"\n\n     In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his\n     candle. The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely\n     to pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all over it.\n     Holmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head.\n\n     \"A white cock,\" said he. \"Most interesting! It is really a very\n     curious case.\"\n\n     But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From\n     under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of\n     blood. Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces\n     of charred bone.\n\n     \"Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked\n     all these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says\n     that they are not human.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.\n\n     \"I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and\n     instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so without offence,\n     seem superior to your opportunities.\"\n\n     Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure.\n\n     \"You're right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of\n     this sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What\n     do you make of these bones?\"\n\n     \"A lamb, I should say, or a kid.\"\n\n     \"And the white cock?\"\n\n     \"Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some\n     very strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his\n     companions follow him and kill him? If they did we should have them,\n     for every port is watched. But my own views are different. Yes, sir,\n     my own views are very different.\"\n\n     \"You have a theory then?\"\n\n     \"And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It's only due to my own credit\n     to do so. Your name is made, but I have still to make mine. I should\n     be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved it without\n     your help.\"\n\n     Holmes laughed good-humoredly.\n\n     \"Well, well, Inspector,\" said he. \"Do you follow your path and I will\n     follow mine. My results are always very much at your service if you\n     care to apply to me for them. I think that I have seen all that I\n     wish in this house, and that my time may be more profitably employed\n     elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!\"\n\n     I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost\n     upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive\n     as ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued\n     eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and\n     brisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot. After his\n     habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no questions.\n     Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the\n     capture without distracting that intent brain with needless\n     interruption. All would come round to me in due time.\n\n     I waited, therefore--but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited\n     in vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. One\n     morning he spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that\n     he had visited the British Museum. Save for this one excursion, he\n     spent his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with\n     a number of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated.\n\n     \"I'm sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,\"\n     he remarked. \"It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon\n     the hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a\n     tin box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days\n     to be spent.\" He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it\n     was a poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening.\n\n     Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His fat,\n     red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he\n     greeted my companion. He said little about the case, but from that\n     little we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of\n     events. I must admit, however, that I was somewhat surprised when,\n     some five days after the crime, I opened my morning paper to find in\n     large letters:\n\n                               The Oxshott Mystery\n                                   a solution\n                           Arrest of Supposed Assassin\n\n     Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the\n     headlines.\n\n     \"By Jove!\" he cried. \"You don't mean that Baynes has got him?\"\n\n     \"Apparently,\" said I as I read the following report:\n\n     \"Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district\n     when it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected\n     in connection with the Oxshott murder. It will be remembered that Mr.\n     Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was found dead on Oxshott Common, his body\n     showing signs of extreme violence, and that on the same night his\n     servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation\n     in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved, that the deceased\n     gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their\n     abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by\n     Inspector Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding\n     place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they\n     had not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been\n     already prepared. It was certain from the first, however, that they\n     would eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of one\n     or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the\n     window, was a man of most remarkable appearance--being a huge and\n     hideous mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid\n     type. This man has been seen since the crime, for he was detected and\n     pursued by Constable Walters on the same evening, when he had the\n     audacity to revisit Wisteria Lodge. Inspector Baynes, considering\n     that such a visit must have some purpose in view and was likely,\n     therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left an ambuscade\n     in the shrubbery. The man walked into the trap and was captured last\n     night after a struggle in which Constable Downing was badly bitten by\n     the savage. We understand that when the prison is brought before the\n     magistrates a remand will be applied for by the police, and that\n     great developments are hoped from his capture.\"\n\n     \"Really we must see Baynes at once,\" cried Holmes, picking up his\n     hat. \"We will just catch him before he starts.\" We hurried down the\n     village street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was\n     just leaving his lodgings.\n\n     \"You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?\" he asked, holding one out to us.\n\n     \"Yes, Baynes, I've seen it. Pray don't think it a liberty if I give\n     you a word of friendly warning.\"\n\n     \"Of warning, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced\n     that you are on the right lines. I don't want you to commit yourself\n     too far unless you are sure.\"\n\n     \"You're very kind, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"I assure you I speak for your good.\"\n\n     It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant\n     over one of Mr. Baynes's tiny eyes.\n\n     \"We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That's what I am\n     doing.\"\n\n     \"Oh, very good,\" said Holmes. \"Don't blame me.\"\n\n     \"No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own\n     systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.\"\n\n     \"Let us say no more about it.\"\n\n     \"You're welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage,\n     as strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed\n     Downing's thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly\n     speaks a word of English, and we can get nothing out of him but\n     grunts.\"\n\n     \"And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?\"\n\n     \"I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn't say so. We all have our little\n     ways. You try yours and I will try mine. That's the agreement.\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. \"I can't\n     make the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says,\n     we must each try our own way and see what comes of it. But there's\n     something in Inspector Baynes which I can't quite understand.\"\n\n     \"Just sit down in that chair, Watson,\" said Sherlock Holmes when we\n     had returned to our apartment at the Bull. \"I want to put you in\n     touch with the situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me\n     show you the evolution of this case so far as I have been able to\n     follow it. Simple as it has been in its leading features, it has none\n     the less presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest.\n     There are gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.\n\n     \"We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the\n     evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes's that\n     Garcia's servants were concerned in the matter. The proof of this\n     lies in the fact that it was he who had arranged for the presence of\n     Scott Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an\n     alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a\n     criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met\n     his death. I say 'criminal' because only a man with a criminal\n     enterprise desires to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely\n     to have taken his life? Surely the person against whom the criminal\n     enterprise was directed. So far it seems to me that we are on safe\n     ground.\n\n     \"We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia's household.\n     They were all confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off\n     when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by\n     the Englishman's evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was\n     a dangerous one, and if Garcia did not return by a certain hour it\n     was probable that his own life had been sacrificed. It had been\n     arranged, therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to\n     make for some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation\n     and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would\n     fully explain the facts, would it not?\"\n\n     The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I\n     wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.\n\n     \"But why should one servant return?\"\n\n     \"We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious,\n     something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind.\n     That would explain his persistence, would it not?\"\n\n     \"Well, what is the next step?\"\n\n     \"The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It\n     indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other\n     end? I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large\n     house, and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days\n     in this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the\n     intervals of my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all\n     the large houses and an examination of the family history of the\n     occupants. One house, and only one, riveted my attention. It is the\n     famous old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther\n     side of Oxshott, and less than half a mile from the scene of the\n     tragedy. The other mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable\n     people who live far aloof from romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High\n     Gable, was by all accounts a curious man to whom curious adventures\n     might befall. I concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and\n     his household.\n\n     \"A singular set of people, Watson--the man himself the most singular\n     of them all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I\n     seemed to read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was\n     perfectly aware of my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong,\n     active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step\n     of a deer and the air of an emperor--a fierce, masterful man, with a\n     red-hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or\n     has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but\n     tough as whipcord. His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is\n     undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, suave, and catlike,\n     with a poisonous gentleness of speech. You see, Watson, we have come\n     already upon two sets of foreigners--one at Wisteria Lodge and one at\n     High Gable--so our gaps are beginning to close.\n\n     \"These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the\n     household; but there is one other person who for our immediate\n     purpose may be even more important. Henderson has two children--girls\n     of eleven and thirteen. Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an\n     Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts. There is also one confidential\n     manservant. This little group forms the real family, for their travel\n     about together, and Henderson is a great traveller, always on the\n     move. It is only within the last weeks that he has returned, after a\n     year's absence, to High Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich,\n     and whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them. For\n     the rest, his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and\n     the usual overfed, underworked staff of a large English country\n     house.\n\n     \"So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own\n     observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants\n     with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck,\n     but it would not have come my way had I not been looking out for it.\n     As Baynes remarks, we all have our systems. It was my system which\n     enabled me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked\n     in a moment of temper by his imperious employer. He in turn had\n     friends among the indoor servants who unite in their fear and dislike\n     of their master. So I had my key to the secrets of the establishment.\n\n     \"Curious people, Watson! I don't pretend to understand it all yet,\n     but very curious people anyway. It's a double-winged house, and the\n     servants live on one side, the family on the other. There's no link\n     between the two save for Henderson's own servant, who serves the\n     family's meals. Everything is carried to a certain door, which forms\n     the one connection. Governess and children hardly go out at all,\n     except into the garden. Henderson never by any chance walks alone.\n     His dark secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the servants\n     is that their master is terribly afraid of something. 'Sold his soul\n     to the devil in exchange for money,' says Warner, 'and expects his\n     creditor to come up and claim his own.' Where they came from, or who\n     they are, nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson\n     has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and\n     heavy compensation have kept him out of the courts.\n\n     \"Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new\n     information. We may take it that the letter came out of this strange\n     household and was an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt\n     which had already been planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone\n     within the citadel, and it was a woman. Who then but Miss Burnet, the\n     governess? All our reasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we\n     may take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it would\n     entail. I may add that Miss Burnet's age and character make it\n     certain that my first idea that there might be a love interest in our\n     story is out of the question.\n\n     \"If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate\n     of Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of\n     his death? If he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might\n     be sealed. Still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatred\n     against those who had killed him and would presumably help so far as\n     she could to have revenge upon them. Could we see her, then and try\n     to use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a sinister\n     fact. Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night\n     of the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she\n     alive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend\n     whom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the\n     point which we still have to decide.\n\n     \"You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There\n     is nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme\n     might seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman's\n     disappearance counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary\n     household any member of it might be invisible for a week. And yet she\n     may at the present moment be in danger of her life. All I can do is\n     to watch the house and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates.\n     We can't let such a situation continue. If the law can do nothing we\n     must take the risk ourselves.\"\n\n     \"What do you suggest?\"\n\n     \"I know which is her room.  It is accessible from the top of an\n     outhouse.  My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we\n     can strike at the very heart of the mystery.\"\n\n     It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house\n     with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable\n     inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that\n     we were putting ourselves legally in a false position all combined to\n     damp my ardour. But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of\n     Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he\n     might recommend. One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution\n     be found. I clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.\n\n     But it was not destined that our investigation should have so\n     adventurous an ending. It was about five o'clock, and the shadows of\n     the March evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic\n     rushed into our room.\n\n     \"They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady\n     broke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs.\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Warner!\" cried Holmes, springing to his feet. \"Watson,\n     the gaps are closing rapidly.\"\n\n     In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She\n     bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent\n     tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised\n     it and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were dark\n     dots in the centre of the broad gray iris. She was drugged with\n     opium.\n\n     \"I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,\" said our\n     emissary, the discharged gardener. \"When the carriage came out I\n     followed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep,\n     but when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and\n     struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way out\n     again. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan't\n     forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a\n     short life if he had his way--the black-eyed, scowling, yellow\n     devil.\"\n\n     We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups\n     of the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the\n     drug. Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly\n     explained to him.\n\n     \"Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want,\" said the\n     inspector warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. \"I was on the same\n     scent as you from the first.\"\n\n     \"What! You were after Henderson?\"\n\n     \"Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High\n     Gable I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down\n     below. It was just who would get his evidence first.\"\n\n     \"Then why did you arrest the mulatto?\"\n\n     Baynes chuckled.\n\n     \"I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was\n     suspected, and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he\n     thought he was in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him\n     believe that our eyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to\n     clear off then and give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet.\"\n\n     Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.\n\n     \"You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and\n     intuition,\" said he.\n\n     Baynes flushed with pleasure.\n\n     \"I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.\n     Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But he\n     must have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However,\n     your man picked her up, and it all ends well. We can't arrest without\n     her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the\n     better.\"\n\n     \"Every minute she gets stronger,\" said Holmes, glancing at the\n     governess. \"But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?\"\n\n     \"Henderson,\" the inspector answered, \"is Don Murillo, once called the\n     Tiger of San Pedro.\"\n\n     The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me\n     in a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty\n     tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to\n     civilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient\n     virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering\n     people for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all\n     Central America. At the end of that time there was a universal rising\n     against him. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first\n     whisper of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures\n     aboard a ship which was manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty\n     palace which was stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator,\n     his two children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them.\n     From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had\n     been a frequent subject for comment in the European press.\n\n     \"Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,\" said Baynes. \"If you\n     look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and\n     white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself,\n     but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where\n     his ship came in in '86. They've been looking for him all the time\n     for their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find\n     him out.\"\n\n     \"They discovered him a year ago,\" said Miss Burnet, who had sat up\n     and was now intently following the conversation. \"Once already his\n     life has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now,\n     again, it is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the\n     monster goes safe. But another will come, and yet another, until some\n     day justice will be done; that is as certain as the rise of\n     to-morrow's sun.\" Her thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched\n     with the passion of her hatred.\n\n     \"But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?\" asked Holmes. \"How\n     can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?\"\n\n     \"I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which\n     justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the\n     rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of\n     treasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimes\n     committed in some other planet. But we know. We have learned the\n     truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell\n     like Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry\n     for vengeance.\"\n\n     \"No doubt,\" said Holmes, \"he was as you say. I have heard that he was\n     atrocious. But how are you affected?\"\n\n     \"I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on one\n     pretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might\n     in time come to be a dangerous rival. My husband--yes, my real name\n     is Signora Victor Durando--was the San Pedro minister in London. He\n     met me and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth.\n     Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some\n     pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had\n     refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was\n     left with a pittance and a broken heart.\n\n     \"Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just\n     described. But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and\n     dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let\n     the matter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should\n     never be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part after we\n     had discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to\n     attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his\n     movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of\n     governess in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him\n     at every meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's\n     notice into eternity. I smiled on him, did my duty to his children,\n     and bided my time. An attempt was made in Paris and failed. We\n     zig-zagged swiftly here and there over Europe to throw off the\n     pursuers and finally returned to this house, which he had taken upon\n     his first arrival in England.\n\n     \"But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he\n     would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest\n     dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of\n     humble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He\n     could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and\n     never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was\n     known in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept\n     alone, and the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which\n     had been prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the\n     man was forever on the alert and continually changed his room. I was\n     to see that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white\n     light in a window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was\n     safe or if the attempt had better be postponed.\n\n     \"But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the\n     suspicion of Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me and sprang\n     upon me just as I had finished the note. He and his master dragged me\n     to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress. Then\n     and there they would have plunged their knives into me could they\n     have seen how to escape the consequences of the deed. Finally, after\n     much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous. But\n     they determined to get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and\n     Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear\n     that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean\n     to Garcia. Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it\n     with his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose.\n     How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Murillo's hand\n     who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he\n     must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds\n     and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let\n     him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they\n     argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity\n     would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further\n     attacks. With the death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since\n     such a death might frighten others from the task.\n\n     \"All would now have been well for them had it not been for my\n     knowledge of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were\n     times when my life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room,\n     terrorized by the most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my\n     spirit--see this stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end\n     of my arms--and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion\n     when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel\n     imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul\n     together. This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment\n     after I took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I\n     remember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same\n     state I was conveyed to the train. Only then, when the wheels were\n     almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own\n     hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it not been\n     for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should never\n     had broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power forever.\"\n\n     We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was\n     Holmes who broke the silence.\n\n     \"Our difficulties are not over,\" he remarked, shaking his head. \"Our\n     police work ends, but our legal work begins.\"\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said I. \"A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of\n     self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it\n     is only on this one that they can be tried.\"\n\n     \"Come, come,\" said Baynes cheerily, \"I think better of the law than\n     that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with\n     the object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear\n     from him. No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants\n     of High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes.\"\n\n     It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to\n     elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts.\n     Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their\n     track by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by\n     the back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day they were seen no\n     more in England. Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva\n     and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at\n     the Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and\n     the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at\n     Baker Street with a printed description of the dark face of the\n     secretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes,\n     and the tufted brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice,\n     if belated, had come at last.\n\n     \"A chaotic case, my dear Watson,\" said Holmes over an evening pipe.\n     \"It will not be possible for you to present in that compact form\n     which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two\n     groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the\n     highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose\n     inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a\n     well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only\n     for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our\n     worthy collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the\n     essentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is\n     there any point which is not quite clear to you?\"\n\n     \"The object of the mulatto cook's return?\"\n\n     \"I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.\n     The man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and\n     this was his fetish. When his companion and he had fled to some\n     prearranged retreat--already occupied, no doubt by a confederate--the\n     companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of\n     furniture. But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven\n     back to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window, he\n     found policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer,\n     and then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more.\n     Inspector Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the\n     incident before me, had really recognized its importance and had left\n     a trap into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson?\"\n\n     \"The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery\n     of that weird kitchen?\"\n\n     Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.\n\n     \"I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other\n     points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann's Voodooism and the\n     Negroid Religions:\n\n     \"'The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without\n     certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.\n     In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices\n     followed by cannibalism. The more usual victims are a white cock,\n     which is plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is\n     cut and body burned.'\n\n     \"So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is\n     grotesque, Watson,\" Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook,\n     \"but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from\n     the grotesque to the horrible.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX\n\n     In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable\n     mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured,\n     as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of\n     sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is,\n     however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the\n     sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the\n     dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to\n     his statement and so give a false impression of the problem, or he\n     must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.\n     With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be\n     a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.\n\n     It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven,\n     and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house\n     across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that\n     these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs\n     of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the\n     sofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by the\n     morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me\n     to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no\n     hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had\n     risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the\n     New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had\n     caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the\n     country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He\n     loved to lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his\n     filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to\n     every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of\n     nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was\n     when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down\n     his brother of the country.\n\n     Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed\n     side the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a\n     brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:\n\n     \"You are right, Watson,\" said he. \"It does seem a most preposterous\n     way of settling a dispute.\"\n\n     \"Most preposterous!\" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he\n     had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and\n     stared at him in blank amazement.\n\n     \"What is this, Holmes?\" I cried. \"This is beyond anything which I\n     could have imagined.\"\n\n     He laughed heartily at my perplexity.\n\n     \"You remember,\" said he, \"that some little time ago when I read you\n     the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner\n     follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to\n     treat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my\n     remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing\n     you expressed incredulity.\"\n\n     \"Oh, no!\"\n\n     \"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with\n     your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon\n     a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of\n     reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I\n     had been in rapport with you.\"\n\n     But I was still far from satisfied. \"In the example which you read to\n     me,\" said I, \"the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of\n     the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a\n     heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been\n     seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?\"\n\n     \"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the\n     means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful\n     servants.\"\n\n     \"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my\n     features?\"\n\n     \"Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself\n     recall how your reverie commenced?\"\n\n     \"No, I cannot.\"\n\n     \"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the\n     action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with\n     a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly\n     framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your\n     face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead\n     very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry\n     Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. Then you\n     glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You\n     were thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover\n     that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture there.\"\n\n     \"You have followed me wonderfully!\" I exclaimed.\n\n     \"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went\n     back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying\n     the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but\n     you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were\n     recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that\n     you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he\n     undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I\n     remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in\n     which he was received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt\n     so strongly about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher\n     without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes\n     wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now\n     turned to the Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your\n     eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched I was positive that you were\n     indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in\n     that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder, you\n     shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and\n     useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old wound and\n     a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous\n     side of this method of settling international questions had forced\n     itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you that it was\n     preposterous and was glad to find that all my deductions had been\n     correct.\"\n\n     \"Absolutely!\" said I. \"And now that you have explained it, I confess\n     that I am as amazed as before.\"\n\n     \"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not\n     have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some\n     incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little\n     problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my\n     small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a\n     short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent\n     through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?\"\n\n     \"No, I saw nothing.\"\n\n     \"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here\n     it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough\n     to read it aloud.\"\n\n     I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the\n     paragraph indicated. It was headed, \"A Gruesome Packet.\"\n\n     \"Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made\n     the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting\n     practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be\n     attached to the incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small\n     packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A\n     cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt. On\n     emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears,\n     apparently quite freshly severed. The box had been sent by parcel\n     post from Belfast upon the morning before. There is no indication as\n     to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing,\n     who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has\n     so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for\n     her to receive anything through the post. Some years ago, however,\n     when she resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three\n     young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account\n     of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion that\n     this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these\n     youths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by\n     sending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some probability is\n     lent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from\n     the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss Cushing's belief, from\n     Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated,\n     Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers,\n     being in charge of the case.\"\n\n     \"So much for the Daily Chronicle,\" said Holmes as I finished reading.\n     \"Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in\n     which he says:\n\n     \"I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope\n     of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting\n     anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast\n     post-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that\n     day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of\n     remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew\n     tobacco and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory\n     still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a\n     few hours to spare I should be very happy to see you out here. I\n     shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.\n\n     \"What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run down\n     to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?\"\n\n     \"I was longing for something to do.\"\n\n     \"You shall have it then. Ring for our boots and tell them to order a\n     cab. I'll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing-gown\n     and filled my cigar-case.\"\n\n     A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was\n     far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a\n     wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as\n     ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took\n     us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.\n\n     It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim,\n     with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women\n     gossiping at the doors. Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at\n     a door, which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss Cushing was\n     sitting in the front room, into which we were ushered. She was a\n     placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair\n     curving down over her temples on each side. A worked antimacassar lay\n     upon her lap and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside\n     her.\n\n     \"They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,\" said she as\n     Lestrade entered. \"I wish that you would take them away altogether.\"\n\n     \"So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend, Mr.\n     Holmes, should have seen them in your presence.\"\n\n     \"Why in my presence, sir?\"\n\n     \"In case he wished to ask any questions.\"\n\n     \"What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know\n     nothing whatever about it?\"\n\n     \"Quite so, madam,\" said Holmes in his soothing way. \"I have no doubt\n     that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this\n     business.\"\n\n     \"Indeed I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life. It\n     is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the\n     police in my house. I won't have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade.\n     If you wish to see them you must go to the outhouse.\"\n\n     It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house.\n     Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece\n     of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at the end of the\n     path, and we all sat down while Homes examined one by one, the\n     articles which Lestrade had handed to him.\n\n     \"The string is exceedingly interesting,\" he remarked, holding it up\n     to the light and sniffing at it. \"What do you make of this string,\n     Lestrade?\"\n\n     \"It has been tarred.\"\n\n     \"Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt,\n     remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can\n     be seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance.\"\n\n     \"I cannot see the importance,\" said Lestrade.\n\n     \"The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and\n     that this knot is of a peculiar character.\"\n\n     \"It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note of that effect,\"\n     said Lestrade complacently.\n\n     \"So much for the string, then,\" said Holmes, smiling, \"now for the\n     box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. What, did\n     you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address\n     printed in rather straggling characters: 'Miss S. Cushing, Cross\n     Street, Croydon.' Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and\n     with very inferior ink. The word 'Croydon' has been originally\n     spelled with an 'i', which has been changed to 'y'. The parcel was\n     directed, then, by a man--the printing is distinctly masculine--of\n     limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far,\n     so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing\n     distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is\n     filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and\n     other of the coarser commercial purposes. And embedded in it are\n     these very singular enclosures.\"\n\n     He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his\n     knee he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward\n     on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and\n     at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. Finally he returned\n     them to the box once more and sat for a while in deep meditation.\n\n     \"You have observed, of course,\" said he at last, \"that the ears are\n     not a pair.\"\n\n     \"Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of\n     some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them\n     to send two odd ears as a pair.\"\n\n     \"Precisely. But this is not a practical joke.\"\n\n     \"You are sure of it?\"\n\n     \"The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the\n     dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears\n     bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off\n     with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had\n     done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the\n     preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind,\n     certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke\n     here, but that we are investigating a serious crime.\"\n\n     A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words\n     and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This\n     brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and\n     inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook his\n     head like a man who is only half convinced.\n\n     \"There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,\" said he, \"but\n     there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know that this\n     woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for\n     the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a\n     day during that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send\n     her the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most\n     consummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter as\n     we do?\"\n\n     \"That is the problem which we have to solve,\" Holmes answered, \"and\n     for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is\n     correct, and that a double murder has been committed. One of these\n     ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring.\n     The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for\n     an earring. These two people are presumably dead, or we should have\n     heard their story before now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted\n     on Thursday morning. The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or\n     Tuesday, or earlier. If the two people were murdered, who but their\n     murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We\n     may take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want.\n     But he must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this\n     packet. What reason then? It must have been to tell her that the deed\n     was done; or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she knows who it\n     is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why should she call the\n     police in? She might have buried the ears, and no one would have been\n     the wiser. That is what she would have done if she had wished to\n     shield the criminal. But if she does not wish to shield him she would\n     give his name. There is a tangle here which needs straightening out.\"\n     He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over\n     the garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked\n     towards the house.\n\n     \"I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,\" said he.\n\n     \"In that case I may leave you here,\" said Lestrade, \"for I have\n     another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing further\n     to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the police-station.\"\n\n     \"We shall look in on our way to the train,\" answered Holmes. A moment\n     later he and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady\n     was still quietly working away at her antimacassar. She put it down\n     on her lap as we entered and looked at us with her frank, searching\n     blue eyes.\n\n     \"I am convinced, sir,\" she said, \"that this matter is a mistake, and\n     that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said this\n     several times to the gentlemen from Scotland Yard, but he simply\n     laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as I know, so\n     why should anyone play me such a trick?\"\n\n     \"I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,\" said Holmes,\n     taking a seat beside her. \"I think that it is more than probable--\"\n     He paused, and I was surprised, on glancing round to see that he was\n     staring with singular intentness at the lady's profile. Surprise and\n     satisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face,\n     though when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence he\n     had become as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her flat,\n     grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid\n     features; but I could see nothing which could account for my\n     companion's evident excitement.\n\n     \"There were one or two questions--\"\n\n     \"Oh, I am weary of questions!\" cried Miss Cushing impatiently.\n\n     \"You have two sisters, I believe.\"\n\n     \"How could you know that?\"\n\n     \"I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a\n     portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is\n     undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you\n     that there could be no doubt of the relationship.\"\n\n     \"Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.\"\n\n     \"And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of\n     your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a\n     steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the\n     time.\"\n\n     \"You are very quick at observing.\"\n\n     \"That is my trade.\"\n\n     \"Well, you are quite right.  But she was married to Mr. Browner a few\n     days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that was\n     taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn't abide to leave her\n     for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London boats.\"\n\n     \"Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?\"\n\n     \"No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see me\n     once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would\n     always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send\n     him stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever he took a\n     glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, then he quarrelled with\n     Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we don't know how things\n     are going with them.\"\n\n     It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she\n     felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was\n     shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. She told\n     us many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then\n     wandering off on the subject of her former lodgers, the medical\n     students, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with\n     their names and those of their hospitals. Holmes listened attentively\n     to everything, throwing in a question from time to time.\n\n     \"About your second sister, Sarah,\" said he. \"I wonder, since you are\n     both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.\"\n\n     \"Ah! you don't know Sarah's temper or you would wonder no more. I\n     tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two\n     months ago, when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against\n     my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was\n     Sarah.\"\n\n     \"You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.\"\n\n     \"Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she went up\n     there to live in order to be near them. And now she has no word hard\n     enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she\n     would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught\n     her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that\n     was the start of it.\"\n\n     \"Thank you, Miss Cushing,\" said Holmes, rising and bowing. \"Your\n     sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington?\n     Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled over\n     a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do.\"\n\n     There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.\n\n     \"How far to Wallington?\" he asked.\n\n     \"Only about a mile, sir.\"\n\n     \"Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is hot.\n     Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive\n     details in connection with it. Just pull up at a telegraph office as\n     you pass, cabby.\"\n\n     Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay back\n     in the cab, with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from\n     his face. Our drive pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one\n     which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had\n     his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young\n     gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on the step.\n\n     \"Is Miss Cushing at home?\" asked Holmes.\n\n     \"Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,\" said he. \"She has been\n     suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. As\n     her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility of\n     allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call again in\n     ten days.\" He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and marched off\n     down the street.\n\n     \"Well, if we can't we can't,\" said Holmes, cheerfully.\n\n     \"Perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.\"\n\n     \"I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at\n     her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us to\n     some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and\n     afterwards we shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the\n     police-station.\"\n\n     We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would\n     talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how\n     he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five\n     hundred guineas, at a Jew broker's in Tottenham Court Road for\n     fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an\n     hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote\n     of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far advanced and the hot\n     glare had softened into a mellow glow before we found ourselves at\n     the police-station. Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.\n\n     \"A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes,\" said he.\n\n     \"Ha! It is the answer!\" He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it,\n     and crumpled it into his pocket. \"That's all right,\" said he.\n\n     \"Have you found out anything?\"\n\n     \"I have found out everything!\"\n\n     \"What!\" Lestrade stared at him in amazement. \"You are joking.\"\n\n     \"I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been\n     committed, and I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.\"\n\n     \"And the criminal?\"\n\n     Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting\n     cards and threw it over to Lestrade.\n\n     \"That is the name,\" he said. \"You cannot effect an arrest until\n     to-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you do not\n     mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be\n     only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in\n     their solution. Come on, Watson.\" We strode off together to the\n     station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a delighted face at the\n     card which Holmes had thrown him.\n\n     \"The case,\" said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over or cigars that\n     night in our rooms at Baker Street, \"is one where, as in the\n     investigations which you have chronicled under the names of 'A Study\n     in Scarlet' and of 'The Sign of Four,' we have been compelled to\n     reason backward from effects to causes. I have written to Lestrade\n     asking him to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and\n     which he will only get after he had secured his man. That he may be\n     safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason,\n     he is as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has\n     to do, and indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to\n     the top at Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     \"Your case is not complete, then?\" I asked.\n\n     \"It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of the\n     revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us.\n     Of course, you have formed your own conclusions.\"\n\n     \"I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is\n     the man whom you suspect?\"\n\n     \"Oh! it is more than a suspicion.\"\n\n     \"And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.\"\n\n     \"On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me run\n     over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with\n     an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed\n     no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences\n     from our observations. What did we see first? A very placid and\n     respectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a\n     portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters. It\n     instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant\n     for one of these. I set the idea aside as one which could be\n     disproved or confirmed at our leisure. Then we went to the garden, as\n     you remember, and we saw the very singular contents of the little\n     yellow box.\n\n     \"The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard\n     ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our\n     investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which is popular\n     with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port, and that the\n     male ear was pierced for an earring which is so much more common\n     among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the actors\n     in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.\n\n     \"When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it\n     was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be\n     Miss Cushing, and although her initial was 'S' it might belong to one\n     of the others as well. In that case we should have to commence our\n     investigation from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went into\n     the house with the intention of clearing up this point. I was about\n     to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a mistake had been\n     made when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact\n     was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise and\n     at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.\n\n     \"As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of\n     the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a rule\n     quite distinctive and differs from all other ones. In last year's\n     Anthropological Journal you will find two short monographs from my\n     pen upon the subject. I had, therefore, examined the ears in the box\n     with the eyes of an expert and had carefully noted their anatomical\n     peculiarities. Imagine my surprise, then, when on looking at Miss\n     Cushing I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female\n     ear which I had just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond\n     coincidence. There was the same shortening of the pinna, the same\n     broad curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner\n     cartilage. In all essentials it was the same ear.\n\n     \"In the first place, her sister's name was Sarah, and her address had\n     until recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the\n     mistake had occurred and for whom the packet was meant. Then we heard\n     of this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had\n     at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually\n     gone up to Liverpool to be near the Browners, but a quarrel had\n     afterwards divided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all\n     communications for some months, so that if Browner had occasion to\n     address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to\n     her old address.\n\n     \"And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully.\n     We had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of\n     strong passions--you remember that he threw up what must have been a\n     very superior berth in order to be nearer to his wife--subject, too,\n     to occasional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to believe that\n     his wife had been murdered, and that a man--presumably a seafaring\n     man--had been murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, at once\n     suggests itself as the motive for the crime. And why should these\n     proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because\n     during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about\n     the events which led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line\n     of boats call at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming\n     that Browner had committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his\n     steamer, the May Day, Belfast would be the first place at which he\n     could post his terrible packet.\n\n     \"A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although\n     I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it\n     before going further. An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. and\n     Mrs. Browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband.\n     There were many grave objections to this theory, but it was\n     conceivable. I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend Algar, of\n     the Liverpool force, and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were\n     at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day. Then we went on\n     to Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.\n\n     \"I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had\n     been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us very\n     important information, but I was not sanguine that she would. She\n     must have heard of the business the day before, since all Croydon was\n     ringing with it, and she alone could have understood for whom the\n     packet was meant. If she had been willing to help justice she would\n     probably have communicated with the police already. However, it was\n     clearly our duty to see her, so we went. We found that the news of\n     the arrival of the packet--for her illness dated from that time--had\n     such an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer\n     than ever that she understood its full significance, but equally\n     clear that we should have to wait some time for any assistance from\n     her.\n\n     \"However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers were\n     waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to\n     send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs. Browner's house had\n     been closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of\n     opinion that she had gone south to see her relatives. It had been\n     ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner had left aboard of\n     the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames tomorrow\n     night. When he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute\n     Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details\n     filled in.\"\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two days\n     later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from\n     the detective, and a typewritten document, which covered several\n     pages of foolscap.\n\n     \"Lestrade has got him all right,\" said Holmes, glancing up at me.\n     \"Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says.\n\n     \"My dear Mr. Holmes:\n     \"In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test\n     our theories\" [\"the 'we' is rather fine, Watson, is it not?\"] \"I went\n     down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the S.S. May\n     Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet\n     Company. On inquiry, I found that there was a steward on board of the\n     name of James Browner and that he had acted during the voyage in such\n     an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to\n     relieve him of his duties. On descending to his berth, I found him\n     seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking\n     himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and\n     very swarthy--something like Aldrige, who helped us in the bogus\n     laundry affair. He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my\n     whistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round\n     the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out\n     his hands quietly enough for the darbies. We brought him along to the\n     cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something\n     incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have,\n     we got nothing for our trouble. However, we find that we shall want\n     no more evidence, for on being brought before the inspector at the\n     station he asked leave to make a statement, which was, of course,\n     taken down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. We had three\n     copies typewritten, one of which I enclose. The affair proves, as I\n     always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am\n     obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation. With kind\n     regards,\n     \"Yours very truly,\n     \"G. Lestrade.\n\n     \"Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one,\" remarked\n     Holmes, \"but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first\n     called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for\n     himself. This is his statement as made before Inspector Montgomery at\n     the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the advantage of being\n     verbatim.\"\n\n     \"'Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a\n     clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I\n     don't care a plug which you do. I tell you I've not shut an eye in\n     sleep since I did it, and I don't believe I ever will again until I\n     get past all waking. Sometimes it's his face, but most generally it's\n     hers. I'm never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning\n     and black-like, but she has a kind o' surprise upon her face. Ay, the\n     white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face\n     that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before.\n\n     \"'But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a\n     blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It's not that I\n     want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the\n     beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she would have\n     stuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never\n     darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me--that's the root of the\n     business--she loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate\n     when she knew that I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud\n     than I did of her whole body and soul.\n\n     \"'There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good\n     woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was\n     thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just\n     as happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in\n     all Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we\n     asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one\n     thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.\n\n     \"'I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money\n     by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have\n     thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed\n     it?\n\n     \"'I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if\n     the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a\n     time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She\n     was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way\n     of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark from a\n     flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought of her,\n     and that I swear as I hope for God's mercy.\n\n     \"'It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me,\n     or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought\n     anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up\n     from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. \"Where's\n     Mary?\" I asked. \"Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts.\" I was\n     impatient and paced up and down the room. \"Can't you be happy for\n     five minutes without Mary, Jim?\" says she. \"It's a bad compliment to\n     me that you can't be contented with my society for so short a time.\"\n     \"That's all right, my lass,\" said I, putting out my hand towards her\n     in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they\n     burned as if they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read\n     it all there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either.\n     I frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in silence\n     for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder.\n     \"Steady old Jim!\" said she, and with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran\n     out of the room.\n\n     \"'Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul,\n     and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on\n     biding with us--a besotted fool--but I never said a word to Mary, for\n     I knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after\n     a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary\n     herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she\n     became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and\n     what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had\n     in my pockets, and a thousand such follies. Day by day she grew\n     queerer and more irritable, and we had ceaseless rows about nothing.\n     I was fairly puzzled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and\n     Mary were just inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and\n     scheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me, but I was such a\n     blind beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke\n     my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not\n     have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some reason\n     to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider\n     and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became\n     a thousand times blacker.\n\n     \"'It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was\n     to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends\n     wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and\n     curled, who had seen half the world and could talk of what he had\n     seen. He was good company, I won't deny it, and he had wonderful\n     polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I think there must\n     have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle.\n     For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it\n     cross my mind that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways. And then\n     at last something made me suspect, and from that day my peace was\n     gone forever.\n\n     \"'It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour\n     unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome\n     on my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she\n     turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me.\n     There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have\n     mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him then I should have killed\n     him, for I have always been like a madman when my temper gets loose.\n     Mary saw the devil's light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her\n     hands on my sleeve. \"Don't, Jim, don't!\" says she. \"Where's Sarah?\" I\n     asked. \"In the kitchen,\" says she. \"Sarah,\" says I as I went in,\n     \"this man Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.\" \"Why not?\"\n     says she. \"Because I order it.\" \"Oh!\" says she, \"if my friends are\n     not good enough for this house, then I am not good enough for it\n     either.\" \"You can do what you like,\" says I, \"but if Fairbairn shows\n     his face here again I'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.\"\n     She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a\n     word, and the same evening she left my house.\n\n     \"'Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of\n     this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my\n     wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took a house just\n     two streets off and let lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn used to stay\n     there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him.\n     How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I\n     broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall,\n     like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would\n     kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with\n     me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There\n     was no trace of love between us any longer. I could see that she\n     hated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink,\n     then she despised me as well.\n\n     \"'Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so\n     she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon,\n     and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came\n     this week and all the misery and ruin.\n\n     \"'It was in this way. We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage\n     of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our\n     plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours. I left\n     the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my\n     wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. The\n     thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that\n     moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of\n     Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me\n     as I stood watching them from the footpath.\n\n     \"'I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment I\n     was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look\n     back on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things\n     together fairly turned my brain. There's something throbbing in my\n     head now, like a docker's hammer, but that morning I seemed to have\n     all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.\n\n     \"'Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy\n     oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as\n     I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without\n     being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway station. There was a\n     good crowd round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them\n     without being seen. They took tickets for New Brighton. So did I, but\n     I got in three carriages behind them. When we reached it they walked\n     along the Parade, and I was never more than a hundred yards from\n     them. At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was\n     a very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler\n     on the water.\n\n     \"'It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a\n     bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. I\n     hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I could see the\n     blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and\n     they must have been a long mile from the shore before I caught them\n     up. The haze was like a curtain all round us, and there were we three\n     in the middle of it. My God, shall I ever forget their faces when\n     they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them? She\n     screamed out. He swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar,\n     for he must have seen death in my eyes. I got past it and got one in\n     with my stick that crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared\n     her, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him,\n     crying out to him, and calling him \"Alec.\" I struck again, and she\n     lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had\n     tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should have\n     joined them. I pulled out my knife, and--well, there! I've said\n     enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah\n     would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had\n     brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank,\n     and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner\n     would think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had\n     drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and\n     joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed.\n     That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I\n     sent it from Belfast.\n\n     \"'There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what\n     you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished\n     already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at\n     me--staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze.\n     I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have\n     another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning. You\n     won't put me alone into a cell, sir?  For pity's sake don't, and may\n     you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.'\n\n     \"What is the meaning of it, Watson?\" said Holmes solemnly as he laid\n     down the paper. \"What object is served by this circle of misery and\n     violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is\n     ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the\n     great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from\n     an answer as ever.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                         THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Table of contents\n        Part One\n        Part Two\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER I\n          Part One\n\n\n     \"Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause\n     for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some\n     value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to\n     engage me.\" So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great\n     scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent\n     material.\n\n     But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex.\n      She held her ground firmly.\n\n     \"You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,\" she\n     said--\"Mr. Fairdale Hobbs.\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes--a simple matter.\"\n\n     \"But he would never cease talking of it--your kindness, sir, and the\n     way in which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered his\n     words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if\n     you only would.\"\n\n     Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him\n     justice, upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made him lay\n     down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his\n     chair.\n\n     \"Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then.  You don't\n     object to tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson--the matches! You are\n     uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms\n     and you cannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your\n     lodger you often would not see me for weeks on end.\"\n\n     \"No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. I\n     can't sleep for fright. To hear his quick step moving here and moving\n     there from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so\n     much as a glimpse of him--it's more than I can stand. My husband is\n     as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day, while\n     I get no rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has he done?\n     Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and it's\n     more than my nerves can stand.\"\n\n     Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the\n     woman's shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he\n     wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated\n     features smoothed into their usual commonplace. She sat down in the\n     chair which he had indicated.\n\n     \"If I take it up I must understand every detail,\" said he. \"Take time\n     to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential. You say\n     that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board\n     and lodging?\"\n\n     \"He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is a\n     small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the\n     house.\"\n\n     \"Well?\"\n\n     \"He said, 'I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own\n     terms.' I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the\n     money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it\n     out to me then and there. 'You can have the same every fortnight for\n     a long time to come if you keep the terms,' he said. 'If not, I'll\n     have no more to do with you.'\n\n     \"What were the terms?\"\n\n     \"Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That\n     was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to be left\n     entirely to himself and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.\"\n\n     \"Nothing wonderful in that, surely?\"\n\n     \"Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been there\n     for ten days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once\n     set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and\n     down, up and down, night, morning, and noon; but except on that first\n     night he had never once gone out of the house.\"\n\n     \"Oh, he went out the first night, did he?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir, and returned very late--after we were all in bed. He told\n     me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not\n     to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair after midnight.\"\n\n     \"But his meals?\"\n\n     \"It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang,\n     leave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he rings again\n     when he has finished, and we take it down from the same chair. If he\n     wants anything else he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it.\"\n\n     \"Prints it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here's\n     the one I brought to show you--soap. Here's another--match. This is\n     one he left the first morning--daily gazette. I leave that paper with\n     his breakfast every morning.\"\n\n     \"Dear me, Watson,\" said Homes, staring with great curiosity at the\n     slips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, \"this is\n     certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; but why\n     print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What would it\n     suggest, Watson?\"\n\n     \"That he desired to conceal his handwriting.\"\n\n     \"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a\n     word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then, again, why\n     such laconic messages?\"\n\n     \"I cannot imagine.\"\n\n     \"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words are\n     written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual\n     pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away at the side\n     here after the printing was done, so that the 's' of 'soap' is partly\n     gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?\"\n\n     \"Of caution?\"\n\n     \"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something\n     which might give a clue to the person's identity. Now. Mrs. Warren,\n     you say that the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded. What age\n     would he be?\"\n\n     \"Youngish, sir--not over thirty.\"\n\n     \"Well, can you give me no further indications?\"\n\n     \"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by\n     his accent.\"\n\n     \"And he was well dressed?\"\n\n     \"Very smartly dressed, sir--quite the gentleman. Dark\n     clothes--nothing you would note.\"\n\n     \"He gave no name?\"\n\n     \"No, sir.\"\n\n     \"And has had no letters or callers?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?\"\n\n     \"No, sir; he looks after himself entirely.\"\n\n     \"Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?\"\n\n     \"He had one big brown bag with him--nothing else.\"\n\n     \"Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you say\n     nothing has come out of that room--absolutely nothing?\"\n\n     The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two\n     burnt matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.\n\n     \"They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I had\n     heard that you can read great things out of small ones.\"\n\n     Holmes shrugged his shoulders.\n\n     \"There is nothing here,\" said he. \"The matches have, of course, been\n     used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of the\n     burnt end. Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar.\n     But, dear me! this cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. The\n     gentleman was bearded and moustached, you say?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"I don't understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven man\n     could have smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would\n     have been singed.\"\n\n     \"A holder?\" I suggested.\n\n     \"No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two people\n     in your rooms, Mrs. Warren?\"\n\n     \"No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in\n     one.\"\n\n     \"Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all,\n     you have nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, and he\n     is not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one.\n     He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct\n     business of yours. We have no excuse for an intrusion upon his\n     privacy until we have some reason to think that there is a guilty\n     reason for it. I've taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of\n     it. Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my\n     assistance if it should be needed.\n\n     \"There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson,\"\n     he remarked when the landlady had left us. \"It may, of course, be\n     trivial--individual eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than\n     appears on the surface. The first thing that strike one is the\n     obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely\n     different from the one who engaged them.\"\n\n     \"Why should you think so?\"\n\n     \"Well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the\n     only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the\n     rooms? He came back--or someone came back--when all witnesses were\n     out of the way. We have no proof that the person who came back was\n     the person who went out. Then, again, the man who took the rooms\n     spoke English well. This other, however, prints 'match' when it\n     should have been 'matches.' I can imagine that the word was taken out\n     of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural. The\n     laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English.\n     Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a\n     substitution of lodgers.\"\n\n     \"But for what possible end?\"\n\n     \"Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of\n     investigation.\" He took down the great book in which, day by day, he\n     filed the agony columns of the various London journals. \"Dear me!\"\n     said he, turning over the pages, \"what a chorus of groans, cries, and\n     bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most\n     valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the\n     unusual! This person is alone and cannot be approached by letter\n     without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. How is\n     any news or any message to reach him from without? Obviously by\n     advertisement through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and\n     fortunately we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. Here\n     are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. 'Lady with a\n     black boa at Prince's Skating Club'--that we may pass. 'Surely Jimmy\n     will not break his mother's heart'--that appears to be irrelevant.\n     'If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus'--she does not interest me.\n     'Every day my heart longs--' Bleat, Watson--unmitigated bleat! Ah,\n     this is a little more possible. Listen to this: 'Be patient. Will\n     find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.'\n     That is two days after Mrs. Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds\n     plausible, does it not? The mysterious one could understand English,\n     even if he could not print it. Let us see if we can pick up the trace\n     again. Yes, here we are--three days later. 'Am making successful\n     arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will pass. G.'\n     Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something much more\n     definite: 'The path is clearing. If I find chance signal message\n     remember code agreed--One A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon.\n     G.' That was in yesterday's paper, and there is nothing in to-day's.\n     It's all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren's lodger. If we wait a\n     little, Watson, I don't doubt that the affair will grow more\n     intelligible.\"\n\n     So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the\n     hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete\n     satisfaction upon his face.\n\n     \"How's this, Watson?\" he cried, picking up the paper from the table.\n     \"'High red house with white stone facings. Third floor. Second window\n     left. After dusk. G.' That is definite enough. I think after\n     breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren's\n     neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do you bring us this\n     morning?\"\n\n     Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy\n     which told of some new and momentous development.\n\n     \"It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes!\" she cried. \"I'll have no more of\n     it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I would have gone\n     straight up and told him so, only I thought it was but fair to you to\n     take your opinion first. But I'm at the end of my patience, and when\n     it comes to knocking my old man about--\"\n\n     \"Knocking Mr. Warren about?\"\n\n     \"Using him roughly, anyway.\"\n\n     \"But who used him roughly?\"\n\n     \"Ah! that's what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr.\n     Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight's, in Tottenham Court\n     Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well, this morning\n     he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men came up behind\n     him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab that was\n     beside the curb. They drove him an hour, and then opened the door and\n     shot him out. He lay in the roadway so shaken in his wits that he\n     never saw what became of the cab. When he picked himself up he found\n     he was on Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies\n     now on his sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had\n     happened.\"\n\n     \"Most interesting,\" said Holmes. \"Did he observe the appearance of\n     these men--did he hear them talk?\"\n\n     \"No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by\n     magic and dropped as if by magic. Two a least were in it, and maybe\n     three.\"\n\n     \"And you connect this attack with your lodger?\"\n\n     \"Well, we've lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever\n     came before. I've had enough of him. Money's not everything. I'll\n     have him out of my house before the day is done.\"\n\n     \"Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that this\n     affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight.\n     It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger. It is\n     equally clear that his enemies, lying in wait for him near your door,\n     mistook your husband for him in the foggy morning light. On\n     discovering their mistake they released him. What they would have\n     done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture.\"\n\n     \"Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.\"\n\n     \"I don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door.\n     I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the\n     tray.\"\n\n     \"He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves and\n     see him do it.\"\n\n     The landlady thought for a moment.\n\n     \"Well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. I could arrange a\n     looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door--\"\n\n     \"Excellent!\" said Holmes. \"When does he lunch?\"\n\n     \"About one, sir.\"\n\n     \"Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs.\n     Warren, good-bye.\"\n\n     At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs.\n     Warren's house--a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme\n     Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the British\n     Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the street, it\n     commands a view down Howe Street, with its ore pretentious houses.\n     Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential\n     flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.\n\n     \"See, Watson!\" said he. \"'High red house with stone facings.' There\n     is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we know the\n     code; so surely our task should be simple. There's a 'to let' card in\n     that window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate\n     has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?\"\n\n     \"I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave your\n     boots below on the landing, I'll put you there now.\"\n\n     It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror\n     was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the\n     door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left\n     us, when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had\n     rung. Presently the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down\n     upon a chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily,\n     departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our\n     eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps\n     died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved,\n     and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. An\n     instant later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a\n     dark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the\n     box-room. Then the door crashed to, the key turned once more, and all\n     was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down\n     the stair.\n\n     \"I will call again in the evening,\" said he to the expectant\n     landlady. \"I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in\n     our own quarters.\"\n\n     \"My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,\" said he, speaking\n     from the depths of his easy-chair. \"There has been a substitution of\n     lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and\n     no ordinary woman, Watson.\"\n\n     \"She saw us.\"\n\n     \"Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The general\n     sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge\n     in London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of\n     that danger is the rigour of their precautions. The man, who has some\n     work which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety\n     while he does it. It is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an\n     original fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even\n     known to the landlady who supplies her with food. The printed\n     messages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered\n     by her writing. The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide\n     their enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he\n     has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is clear.\"\n\n     \"But what is at the root of it?\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes, Watson--severely practical, as usual! What is at the root\n     of it all? Mrs. Warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and\n     assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This much we can say:\n     that it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw the woman's face at the\n     sign of danger. We have heard, too, of the attack upon the landlord,\n     which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger. These alarms, and the\n     desperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one of life or\n     death. The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy,\n     whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the\n     female lodger for the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson.\"\n\n     \"Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?\"\n\n     \"What, indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you\n     doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?\"\n\n     \"For my education, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the\n     greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There is neither\n     money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up. When\n     dusk comes we should find ourselves one stage advanced in our\n     investigation.\"\n\n     When we returned to Mrs. Warren's rooms, the gloom of a London winter\n     evening had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead monotone of\n     colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and\n     the blurred haloes of the gas-lamps. As we peered from the darkened\n     sitting-room of the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high\n     up through the obscurity.\n\n     \"Someone is moving in that room,\" said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt\n     and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. \"Yes, I can see his\n     shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his hand. Now he is\n     peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the lookout. Now\n     he begins to flash. Take the message also, Watson, that we may check\n     each other. A single flash--that is A, surely. Now, then. How many\n     did you make it? Twenty. Do did In. That should mean T. AT--that's\n     intelligible enough. Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a\n     second word. Now, then--TENTA. Dead stop. That can't be all, Watson?\n     ATTENTA gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN,\n     TA, unless T. A. are a person's initials. There it goes again! What's\n     that? ATTE--why, it is the same message over again. Curious, Watson,\n     very curious. Now he is off once more! AT--why he is repeating it for\n     the third time. ATTENTA three times! How often will he repeat it? No,\n     that seems to be the finish. He has withdrawn form the window. What\n     do you make of it, Watson?\"\n\n     \"A cipher message, Holmes.\"\n\n     My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. \"And not a very\n     obscure cipher, Watson,\" said he. \"Why, of course, it is Italian! The\n     A means that it is addressed to a woman. 'Beware! Beware! Beware!'\n     How's that, Watson?\n\n     \"I believe you have hit it.\"\n\n     \"Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to\n     make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit, he is coming to the\n     window once more.\"\n\n     Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of\n     the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. They\n     came more rapidly than before--so rapid that it was hard to follow\n     them.\n\n     \"PERICOLO--pericolo--eh, what's that, Watson? 'Danger,' isn't it?\n     Yes, by Jove, it's a danger signal. There he goes again! PERI.\n     Halloa, what on earth--\"\n\n     The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had\n     disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty\n     building, with its tiers of shining casements. That last warning cry\n     had been suddenly cut short. How, and by whom? The same thought\n     occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang up from where he\n     crouched by the window.\n\n     \"This is serious, Watson,\" he cried. \"There is some devilry going\n     forward! Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put\n     Scotland Yard in touch with this business--and yet, it is too\n     pressing for us to leave.\"\n\n     \"Shall I go for the police?\"\n\n     \"We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear some\n     more innocent interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go across\n     ourselves and see what we can make of it.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n          CHAPTER II\n          Part Two\n\n\n     As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the building\n     which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could\n     see the shadow of a head, a woman's head, gazing tensely, rigidly,\n     out into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal\n     of that interrupted message. At the doorway of the Howe Street flats\n     a man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the\n     railing. He started as the hall-light fell upon our faces.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" he cried.\n\n     \"Why, Gregson!\" said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland\n     Yard detective. \"Journeys end with lovers' meetings. What brings you\n     here?\"\n\n     \"The same reasons that bring you, I expect,\" said Gregson. \"How you\n     got on to it I can't imagine.\"\n\n     \"Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I've been\n     taking the signals.\"\n\n     \"Signals?\"\n\n     \"Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came over to\n     see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands I see no object in\n     continuing this business.\"\n\n     \"Wait a bit!\" cried Gregson eagerly. \"I'll do you this justice, Mr.\n     Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn't feel stronger\n     for having you on my side. There's only the one exit to these flats,\n     so we have him safe.\"\n\n     \"Who is he?\"\n\n     \"Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must give us\n     best this time.\" He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on\n     which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a\n     four-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street. \"May I\n     introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?\" he said to the cabman. \"This\n     is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton's American Agency.\"\n\n     \"The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?\" said Holmes. \"Sir, I am\n     pleased to meet you.\"\n\n     The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven,\n     hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation. \"I am on the\n     trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes,\" said he. \"If I can get Gorgiano--\"\n\n     \"What! Gorgiano of the Red Circle?\"\n\n     \"Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we've learned all about\n     him in America. We know he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet\n     we have nothing positive we can take him on. I tracked him over from\n     New York, and I've been close to him for a week in London, waiting\n     some excuse to get my hand on his collar. Mr. Gregson and I ran him\n     to ground in that big tenement house, and there's only one door, so\n     he can't slip us. There's three folk come out since he went in, but\n     I'll swear he wasn't one of them.\"\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes talks of signals,\" said Gregson. \"I expect, as usual, he\n     knows a good deal that we don't.\"\n\n     In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had\n     appeared to us. The American struck his hands together with vexation.\n\n     \"He's on to us!\" he cried.\n\n     \"Why do you think so?\"\n\n     \"Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending out\n     messages to an accomplice--there are several of his gang in London.\n     Then suddenly, just as by your own account he was telling them that\n     there was danger, he broke short off. What could it mean except that\n     from the window he had suddenly either caught sight of us in the\n     street, or in some way come to understand how close the danger was,\n     and that he must act right away if he was to avoid it? What do you\n     suggest, Mr. Holmes?\"\n\n     \"That we go up at once and see for ourselves.\"\n\n     \"But we have no warrant for his arrest.\"\n\n     \"He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,\" said\n     Gregson. \"That is good enough for the moment. When we have him by the\n     heels we can see if New York can't help us to keep him. I'll take the\n     responsibility of arresting him now.\"\n\n     Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence,\n     but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest\n     this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and\n     businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official\n     staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had tried to push past\n     him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. London dangers were the\n     privilege of the London force.\n\n     The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing\n     ajar. Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute silence and\n     darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective's lantern. As I did\n     so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of\n     surprise. On the deal boards of the carpetless floor there was\n     outlined a fresh track of blood. The red steps pointed towards us and\n     led away from an inner room, the door of which was closed. Gregson\n     flung it open and held his light full blaze in front of him, while we\n     all peered eagerly over his shoulders.\n\n     In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure\n     of an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely\n     horrible in its contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly\n     crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white\n     woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and\n     from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected\n     the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as\n     he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that\n     terrific blow. Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled,\n     two-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.\n\n     \"By George! it's Black Gorgiano himself!\" cried the American\n     detective. \"Someone has got ahead of us this time.\"\n\n     \"Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,\" said Gregson. \"Why,\n     whatever are you doing?\"\n\n     Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it\n     backward and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered into the\n     darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the floor.\n\n     \"I rather think that will be helpful,\" said he. He came over and\n     stood in deep thought while the two professionals were examining the\n     body. \"You say that three people came out form the flat while you\n     were waiting downstairs,\" said he at last. \"Did you observe them\n     closely?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I did.\"\n\n     \"Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle\n     size?\"\n\n     \"Yes; he was the last to pass me.\"\n\n     \"That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and we\n     have a very excellent outline of his footmark. That should be enough\n     for you.\"\n\n     \"Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to\n     your aid.\"\n\n     We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway, was a\n     tall and beautiful woman--the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury. Slowly\n     she advanced, her face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension,\n     her eyes fixed and staring, her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark\n     figure on the floor.\n\n     \"You have killed him!\" she muttered. \"Oh, Dio mio, you have killed\n     him!\" Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she\n     sprang into the air with a cry of joy. Round and round the room she\n     danced, her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming with delighted\n     wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations pouring from her\n     lips. It was terrible and amazing to see such a woman so convulsed\n     with joy at such a sight. Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all\n     with a questioning stare.\n\n     \"But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe\n     Gorgiano. Is it not so?\"\n\n     \"We are police, madam.\"\n\n     She looked round into the shadows of the room.\n\n     \"But where, then, is Gennaro?\" she asked. \"He is my husband, Gennaro\n     Lucca. I am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York. Where is\n     Gennaro? He called me this moment from this window, and I ran with\n     all my speed.\"\n\n     \"It was I who called,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"You! How could you call?\"\n\n     \"Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was\n     desirable. I knew that I had only to flash 'Vieni' and you would\n     surely come.\"\n\n     The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.\n\n     \"I do not understand how you know these things,\" she said. \"Giuseppe\n     Gorgiano--how did he--\" She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up\n     with pride and delight. \"Now I see it! My Gennaro! My splendid,\n     beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it,\n     with his own strong hand he killed the monster! Oh, Gennaro, how\n     wonderful you are! What woman could every be worthy of such a man?\"\n\n     \"Well, Mrs. Lucca,\" said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon\n     the lady's sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting\n     Hill hooligan, \"I am not very clear yet who you are or what you are;\n     but you've said enough to make it very clear that we shall want you\n     at the Yard.\"\n\n     \"One moment, Gregson,\" said Holmes. \"I rather fancy that this lady\n     may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. You\n     understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for\n     the death of the man who lies before us? What you say may be used in\n     evidence. But if you think that he has acted from motives which are\n     not criminal, and which he would wish to have known, then you cannot\n     serve him better than by telling us the whole story.\"\n\n     \"Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,\" said the lady. \"He was a\n     devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would\n     punish my husband for having killed him.\"\n\n     \"In that case,\" said Holmes, \"my suggestion is that we lock this\n     door, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her room,\n     and form our opinion after we have heard what it is that she has to\n     say to us.\"\n\n     Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small\n     sitting-room of Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative\n     of those sinister events, the ending of which we had chanced to\n     witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but very unconventional\n     English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will make grammatical.\n\n     \"I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,\" said she, \"and was the\n     daughter of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the\n     deputy of that part. Gennaro was in my father's employment, and I\n     came to love him, as any woman must. He had neither money nor\n     position--nothing but his beauty and strength and energy--so my\n     father forbade the match. We fled together, were married at Bari, and\n     sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America. This\n     was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since.\n\n     \"Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a\n     service to an Italian gentleman--he saved him from some ruffians in\n     the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend. His name\n     was Tito Castalotte, and he was the senior partner of the great firm\n     of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit importers of New\n     York. Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new friend Castalotte has\n     all power within the firm, which employs more than three hundred men.\n     He took my husband into his employment, made him head of a\n     department, and showed his good-will towards him in every way. Signor\n     Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro\n     was his son, and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our\n     father. We had taken and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and\n     our whole future seemed assured when that black cloud appeared which\n     was soon to overspread our sky.\n\n     \"One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a\n     fellow-countryman back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he had\n     come also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can testify, for\n     you have looked upon his corpse. Not only was his body that of a\n     giant but everything about him was grotesque, gigantic, and\n     terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our little house. There was\n     scarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked. His\n     thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and\n     monstrous. He talked, or rather roared, with such energy that others\n     could but sit and listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words. His\n     eyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy. He was a terrible and\n     wonderful man. I thank God that he is dead!\n\n     \"He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more\n     happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and\n     listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon\n     social questions which made up or visitor's conversation. Gennaro\n     said nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could read in his face\n     some emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought\n     that it was dislike. And then, gradually, I understood that it was\n     more than dislike. It was fear--a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That\n     night--the night that I read his terror--I put my arms round him and\n     I implored him by his love for me and by all that he held dear to\n     hold nothing from me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed\n     him so.\n\n     \"He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My poor\n     Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed\n     against him and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of\n     life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle, which was\n     allied to the old Carbonari. The oaths and secrets of this\n     brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was\n     possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had\n     cast it all off forever. What was his horror one evening to meet in\n     the streets the very man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant\n     Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name of 'Death' in the south of\n     Italy, for he was red to the elbow in murder! He had come to New York\n     to avoid the Italian police, and he had already planted a branch of\n     this dreadful society in his new home. All this Gennaro told me and\n     showed me a summons which he had received that very day, a Red Circle\n     drawn upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon\n     a certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered.\n\n     \"That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for some\n     time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the\n     evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to my\n     husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always\n     turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had awakened what he\n     called 'love' within him--the love of a brute--a savage. Gennaro had\n     not yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me in his\n     mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's embrace, covered me with kisses,\n     and implored me to come away with him. I was struggling and screaming\n     when Gennaro entered and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless\n     and fled from the house which he was never more to enter. It was a\n     deadly enemy that we made that night.\n\n     \"A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it with a\n     face which told me that something dreadful had occurred. It was worse\n     than we could have imagined possible. The funds of the society were\n     raised by blackmailing rich Italians and threatening them with\n     violence should they refuse the money. It seems that Castalotte, our\n     dear friend and benefactor, had been approached. He had refused to\n     yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. It was\n     resolved now that such an example should be made of them as would\n     prevent any other victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was\n     arranged that he and his house should be blown up with dynamite.\n     There was a drawing of lots as to who should carry out the deed.\n     Gennaro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his\n     hand in the bag. No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion,\n     for it was the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate\n     for murder, which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend,\n     or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades.\n     It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared\n     or hated by injuring not only their own persons but those whom they\n     loved, and it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over\n     my poor Gennaro's head and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.\n\n     \"All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each\n     strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very next\n     evening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my husband and I\n     were on our way to London, but not before he had given our benefactor\n     full warning of this danger, and had also left such information for\n     the police as would safeguard his life for the future.\n\n     \"The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that our\n     enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his\n     private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless,\n     cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and America are full of\n     stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they were exerted it would be\n     now. My darling made use of the few clear days which our start had\n     given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no\n     possible danger could reach me. For his own part, he wished to be\n     free that he might communicate both with the American and with the\n     Italian police. I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that\n     I learned was through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I\n     looked through my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and\n     I understood that in some way Gorgiano had found our retreat. Finally\n     Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signal to me from a\n     certain window, but when the signals came they were nothing but\n     warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is very clear to me now\n     that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he\n     was ready for him when he came. And now, gentleman, I would ask you\n     whether we have anything to fear from the law, or whether any judge\n     upon earth would condemn my Gennaro for what he has done?\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Gregson,\" said the American, looking across at the\n     official, \"I don't know what your British point of view may be, but I\n     guess that in New York this lady's husband will receive a pretty\n     general vote of thanks.\"\n\n     \"She will have to come with me and see the chief,\" Gregson answered. \n     \"If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband\n     has much to fear.  But what I can't make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes,\n     is how on earth you got yourself mixed up in the matter.\"\n\n     \"Education, Gregson, education.  Still seeking knowledge at the old\n     university.  Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic\n     and grotesque to add to your collection.  By the way, it is not eight\n     o'clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden!  If we hurry, we might\n     be in time for the second act.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                   THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS\n\n     In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog\n     settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt\n     whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see\n     the loom of the opposite houses. The first day Holmes had spent in\n     cross-indexing his huge book of references. The second and third had\n     been patiently occupied upon a subject which he hand recently made\n     his hobby--the music of the Middle Ages. But when, for the fourth\n     time, after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy,\n     heavy brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops\n     upon the window-panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could\n     endure this drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our\n     sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails,\n     tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction.\n\n     \"Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?\" he said.\n\n     In was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything of\n     criminal interest. There was the news of a revolution, of a possible\n     war, and of an impending change of government; but these did not come\n     within the horizon of my companion. I could see nothing recorded in\n     the shape of crime which was not commonplace and futile. Holmes\n     groaned and resumed hs restless meanderings.\n\n     \"The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow,\" said he in the\n     querulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him. \"Look out\n     this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and\n     then blend once more into the cloud-bank. The thief or the murderer\n     could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen\n     until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.\"\n\n     \"There have,\" said I, \"been numerous petty thefts.\"\n\n     Holmes snorted his contempt.\n\n     \"This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than\n     that,\" said he. \"It is fortunate for this community that I am not a\n     criminal.\"\n\n     \"It is, indeed!\" said I heartily.\n\n     \"Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the fifty men who\n     have good reason for taking my life, how long could I survive against\n     my own pursuit? A summons, a bogus appointment, and all would be\n     over. It is well they don't have days of fog in the Latin\n     countries--the countries of assassination. By Jove! here comes\n     something at last to break our dead monotony.\"\n\n     It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes tore it open and burst out\n     laughing.\n\n     \"Well, well! What next?\" said he. \"Brother Mycroft is coming round.\"\n\n     \"Why not?\" I asked.\n\n     \"Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane.\n     Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings,\n     the Diogenes Club, Whitehall--that is his cycle. Once, and only once,\n     he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?\"\n\n     \"Does he not explain?\"\n\n     Holmes handed me his brother's telegram.\n\n     Must see you over Cadogen West. Coming at once.\n     Mycroft.\n\n     \"Cadogen West? I have heard the name.\"\n\n     \"It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break out in\n     this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit. By the\n     way, do you know what Mycroft is?\"\n\n     I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the\n     Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.\n\n     \"You told me that he had some small office under the British\n     government.\"\n\n     Holmes chuckled.\n\n     \"I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be\n     discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in\n     thinking that he under the British government. You would also be\n     right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British\n     government.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty\n     pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind,\n     will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most\n     indispensable man in the country.\"\n\n     \"But how?\"\n\n     \"Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has\n     never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the\n     tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for\n     storing facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have\n     turned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular\n     business. The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and\n     he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the\n     balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is\n     omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to\n     a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic\n     question; he could get his separate advices from various departments\n     upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how\n     each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a\n     short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In\n     that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed\n     out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national\n     policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as an\n     intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask him to\n     advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is descending\n     to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is Cadogan West, and what is\n     he to Mycroft?\"\n\n     \"I have it,\" I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon the\n     sofa. \"Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogen West was the young\n     man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday morning.\"\n\n     Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.\n\n     \"This must be serious, Watson. A death which has caused my brother to\n     alter his habits can be no ordinary one. What in the world can he\n     have to do with it? The case was featureless as I remember it. The\n     young man had apparently fallen out of the train and killed himself.\n     He had not been robbed, and there was no particular reason to suspect\n     violence. Is that not so?\"\n\n     \"There has been an inquest,\" said I, \"and a good many fresh facts\n     have come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it\n     was a curious case.\"\n\n     \"Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a\n     most extraordinary one.\" He snuggled down in his armchair. \"Now,\n     Watson, let us have the facts.\"\n\n     \"The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven years of\n     age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal.\"\n\n     \"Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!\"\n\n     \"He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his\n     fiancee, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about\n     7.30 that evening. There was no quarrel between them and she can give\n     no motive for his action. The next thing heard of him was when his\n     dead body was discovered by a plate-layer named Mason, just outside\n     Aldgate Station on the Underground system in London.\"\n\n     \"When?\"\n\n     \"The body was found at six on Tuesday morning. It was lying wide of\n     the metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a\n     point close to the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in\n     which it runs. The head was badly crushed--an injury which might well\n     have been caused by a fall from the train. The body could only have\n     come on the line in that way. Had it been carried down from any\n     neighbouring street, it must have passed the station barriers, where\n     a collector is always standing. This point seems absolutely certain.\"\n\n     \"Very good. The case is definite enough. The man, dead or alive,\n     either fell or was precipitated from a train. So much is clear to me.\n     Continue.\"\n\n     \"The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body\n     was found are those which run from west to east, some being purely\n     Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying junctions. It can\n     be stated for certain that this young man, when he met his death, was\n     travelling in this direction at some late hour of the night, but at\n     what point he entered the train it is impossible to state.\"\n\n     \"His ticket, of course, would show that.\"\n\n     \"There was no ticket in his pockets.\"\n\n     \"No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular. According\n     to my experience it is not possible to reach the platform of a\n     Metropolitan train without exhibiting one's ticket. Presumably, then,\n     the young man had one. Was it taken from him in order to conceal the\n     station from which he came? It is possible. Or did he drop it in the\n     carriage? That is also possible. But the point is of curious\n     interest. I understand that there was no sign of robbery?\"\n\n     \"Apparently not. There is a list here of his possessions. His purse\n     contained two pounds fifteen. He had also a check-book on the\n     Woolwich branch of the Capital and Counties Bank. Through this his\n     identity was established. There were also two dress-circle tickets\n     for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very evening. Also a small\n     packet of technical papers.\"\n\n     Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.\n\n     \"There we have it at last, Watson! British government--Woolwich.\n     Arsenal--technical papers--Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete.\n     But here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for himself.\"\n\n     A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered\n     into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of\n     uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame\n     there was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its\n     steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its\n     play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross\n     body and remembered only the dominant mind.\n\n     At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard--thin and\n     austere. The gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest.\n     The detective shook hands without a word. Mycroft Holmes struggled\n     out of his overcoat and subsided into an armchair.\n\n     \"A most annoying business, Sherlock,\" said he. \"I extremely dislike\n     altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. In\n     the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I should be away\n     from the office. But it is a real crisis. I have never seen the Prime\n     Minister so upset. As to the Admiralty--it is buzzing like an\n     overturned bee-hive. Have you read up the case?\"\n\n     \"We have just done so. What were the technical papers?\"\n\n     \"Ah, there's the point! Fortunately, it has not come out. The press\n     would be furious if it did. The papers which this wretched youth had\n     in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Partington submarine.\"\n\n     Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the\n     importance of the subject. His brother and I sat expectant.\n\n     \"Surely you have heard of it? I thought everyone had heard of it.\"\n\n     \"Only as a name.\"\n\n     \"Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. It has been the most\n     jealously guarded of all government secrets. You may take it from me\n     that naval warfare becomes impossible within the radius of a\n     Bruce-Partington's operation. Two years ago a very large sum was\n     smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in acquiring a\n     monopoly of the invention. Every effort has been made to keep the\n     secret. The plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some\n     thirty separate patents, each essential to the working of the whole,\n     are kept in an elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the\n     arsenal, with burglar-proof doors and windows. Under no conceivable\n     circumstances were the plans to be taken from the office. If the\n     chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult them, even he was\n     forced to go to the Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet here we\n     find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of\n     London. From an official point of view it's simply awful.\"\n\n     \"But you have recovered them?\"\n\n     \"No, Sherlock, no! That's the pinch. We have not. Ten papers were\n     taken from Woolwich. There were seven in the pocket of Cadogan West.\n     The three most essential are gone--stolen, vanished. You must drop\n     everything, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the\n     police-court. It's a vital international problem that you have to\n     solve. Why did Cadogan West take the papers, where are the missing\n     ones, how did he die, how came his body where it was found, how can\n     the evil be set right? Find an answer to all these questions, and you\n     will have done good service for your country.\"\n\n     \"Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft? You can see as far as I.\"\n\n     \"Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of getting details. Give me\n     your details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent\n     expert opinion. But to run here and run there, to cross-question\n     railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to my eye--it is not\n     my métier. No, you are the one man who can clear the matter up. If\n     you have a fancy to see your name in the next honours list--\"\n\n     My friend smiled and shook his head.\n\n     \"I play the game for the game's own sake,\" said he. \"But the problem\n     certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall be very\n     pleased to look into it. Some more facts, please.\"\n\n     \"I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of paper,\n     together with a few addresses which you will find of service. The\n     actual official guardian of the papers is the famous government\n     expert, Sir James Walter, whose decorations and sub-titles fill two\n     lines of a book of reference. He has grown gray in the service, is a\n     gentleman, a favoured guest in the most exalted houses, and, above\n     all, a man whose patriotism is beyond suspicion. He is one of two who\n     have a key of the safe. I may add that the papers were undoubtedly in\n     the office during working hours on Monday, and that Sir James left\n     for London about three o'clock taking his key with him. He was at the\n     house of Admiral Sinclair at Barclay Square during the whole of the\n     evening when this incident occurred.\"\n\n     \"Has the fact been verified?\"\n\n     \"Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his\n     departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in\n     London; so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the problem.\"\n\n     \"Who was the other man with a key?\"\n\n     \"The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sidney Johnson. He is a man of\n     forty, married, with five children. He is a silent, morose man, but\n     he has, on the whole, an excellent record in the public service. He\n     is unpopular with his colleagues, but a hard worker. According to his\n     own account, corroborated only by the word of his wife, he was at\n     home the whole of Monday evening after office hours, and his key has\n     never left the watch-chain upon which it hangs.\"\n\n     \"Tell us about Cadogan West.\"\n\n     \"He has been ten years in the service and has done good work. He has\n     the reputation of being hot-headed and imperious, but a straight,\n     honest man. We have nothing against him. He was next Sidney Johnson\n     in the office. His duties brought him into daily, personal contact\n     with the plans. No one else had the handling of them.\"\n\n     \"Who locked up the plans that night?\"\n\n     \"Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk.\"\n\n     \"Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away. They are\n     actually found upon the person of this junior clerk, Cadogan West.\n     That seems final, does it not?\"\n\n     \"It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained. In the\n     first place, why did he take them?\"\n\n     \"I presume they were of value?\"\n\n     \"He could have got several thousands for them very easily.\"\n\n     \"Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to London\n     except to sell them?\"\n\n     \"No, I cannot.\"\n\n     \"Then we must take that as our working hypothesis. Young West took\n     the papers. Now this could only be done by having a false key--\"\n\n     \"Several false keys. He had to open the building and the room.\"\n\n     \"He had, then, several false keys. He took the papers to London to\n     sell the secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans themselves\n     back in the safe next morning before they were missed. While in\n     London on this treasonable mission he met his end.\"\n\n     \"How?\"\n\n     \"We will suppose that he was travelling back to Woolwich when he was\n     killed and thrown out of the compartment.\"\n\n     \"Aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the station\n     London Bridge, which would be his route to Woolwich.\"\n\n     \"Many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass\n     London Bridge. There was someone in the carriage, for example, with\n     whom he was having an absorbing interview. This interview led to a\n     violent scene in which he lost his life. Possibly he tried to leave\n     the carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his end. The other\n     closed the door. There was a thick fog, and nothing could be seen.\"\n\n     \"No better explanation can be given with our present knowledge; and\n     yet consider, Sherlock, how much you leave untouched. We will\n     suppose, for argument's sake, that young Cadogan West had determined\n     to convey these papers to London. He would naturally have made an\n     appointment with the foreign agent and kept his evening clear.\n     Instead of that he took two tickets for the theatre, escorted his\n     fiancee halfway there, and then suddenly disappeared.\"\n\n     \"A blind,\" said Lestrade, who had sat listening with some impatience\n     to the conversation.\n\n     \"A very singular one. That is objection No. 1. Objection No. 2: We\n     will suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign agent. He\n     must bring back the papers before morning or the loss will be\n     discovered. He took away ten. Only seven were in his pocket. What had\n     become of the other three? He certainly would not leave them of his\n     own free will. Then, again, where is the price of his treason? Once\n     would have expected to find a large sum of money in his pocket.\"\n\n     \"It seems to me perfectly clear,\" said Lestrade. \"I have no doubt at\n     all as to what occurred. He took the papers to sell them. He saw the\n     agent. They could not agree as to price. He started home again, but\n     the agent went with him. In the train the agent murdered him, took\n     the more essential papers, and threw his body from the carriage. That\n     would account for everything, would it not?\"\n\n     \"Why had he no ticket?\"\n\n     \"The ticket would have shown which station was nearest the agent's\n     house. Therefore he took it from the murdered man's pocket.\"\n\n     \"Good, Lestrade, very good,\" said Holmes. \"Your theory holds\n     together. But if this is true, then the case is at an end. On the one\n     hand, the traitor is dead. On the other, the plans of the\n     Bruce-Partington submarine are presumably already on the Continent.\n     What is there for us to do?\"\n\n     \"To act, Sherlock--to act!\" cried Mycroft, springing to his feet.\n     \"All my instincts are against this explanation. Use your powers! Go\n     to the scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone\n     unturned! In all your career you have never had so great a chance of\n     serving your country.\"\n\n     \"Well, well!\" said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. \"Come, Watson!\n     And you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour\n     or two? We will begin our investigation by a visit to Aldgate\n     Station. Good-bye, Mycroft. I shall let you have a report before\n     evening, but I warn you in advance that you have little to expect.\"\n\n     An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground\n     railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately\n     before Aldgate Station. A courteous red-faced old gentleman\n     represented the railway company.\n\n     \"This is where the young man's body lay,\" said he, indicating a spot\n     about three feet from the metals. \"It could not have fallen from\n     above, for these, as you see, are all blank walls. Therefore, it\n     could only have come from a train, and that train, so far as we can\n     trace it, must have passed about midnight on Monday.\"\n\n     \"Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?\"\n\n     \"There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found.\"\n\n     \"No record of a door being found open?\"\n\n     \"None.\"\n\n     \"We have had some fresh evidence this morning,\" said Lestrade. \"A\n     passenger who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train about\n     11.40 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud, as of a\n     body striking the line, just before the train reached the station.\n     There was dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen. He made no\n     report of it at the time. Why, whatever is the matter with Mr.\n     Holmes?\"\n\n     My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon\n     his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the\n     tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a network of points. On\n     these his eager, questioning eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen,\n     alert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils,\n     and concentration of the heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.\n\n     \"Points,\" he muttered; \"the points.\"\n\n     \"What of it? What do you mean?\"\n\n     \"I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as\n     this?\"\n\n     \"No; they are very few.\"\n\n     \"And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were only so.\"\n\n     \"What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?\"\n\n     \"An idea--an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows in\n     interest. Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see any\n     indications of bleeding on the line.\"\n\n     \"There were hardly any.\"\n\n     \"But I understand that there was a considerable wound.\"\n\n     \"The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.\"\n\n     \"And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be possible\n     for me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard\n     the thud of a fall in the fog?\"\n\n     \"I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before now, and\n     the carriages redistributed.\"\n\n     \"I can assure you, Mr. Holmes,\" said Lestrade, \"that every carriage\n     has been carefully examined. I saw to it myself.\"\n\n     It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was\n     impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.\n\n     \"Very likely,\" said he, turning away. \"As it happens, it was not the\n     carriages which I desired to examine. Watson, we have done all we can\n     here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr. Lestrade. I think our\n     investigations must now carry us to Woolwich.\"\n\n     At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he\n     handed to me before dispatching it. It ran thus:\n\n     See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.\n     Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at Baker Street,\n     a complete list of all foreign spies or international agents known to\n     be in England, with full address.\n     Sherlock.\n\n     \"That should be helpful, Watson,\" he remarked as we took our seats in\n     the Woolwich train.  \"We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a debt for\n     having introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable\n     case.\"\n\n     His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung\n     energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance\n     had opened up a stimulating line of thought. See the foxhound with\n     hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and\n     compare it with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining\n     muscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent--such was the change in\n     Holmes since the morning. He was a different man from the limp and\n     lounging figure in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled\n     so restlessly only a few hours before round the fog-girt room.\n\n     \"There is material here. There is scope,\" said he. \"I am dull indeed\n     not to have understood its possibilities.\"\n\n     \"Even now they are dark to me.\"\n\n     \"The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may\n     lead us far. The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the\n     roof of a carriage.\"\n\n     \"On the roof!\"\n\n     \"Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. Is it a coincidence\n     that it is found at the very point where the train pitches and sways\n     as it comes round on the points? Is not that the place where an\n     object upon the roof might be expected to fall off? The points would\n     affect no object inside the train. Either the body fell from the\n     roof, or a very curious coincidence has occurred. But now consider\n     the question of the blood. Of course, there was no bleeding on the\n     line if the body had bled elsewhere. Each fact is suggestive in\n     itself. Together they have a cumulative force.\"\n\n     \"And the ticket, too!\" I cried.\n\n     \"Exactly.  We could not explain the absence of a ticket. This would\n     explain it. Everything fits together.\"\n\n     \"But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from unravelling\n     the mystery of his death. Indeed, it becomes not simpler but\n     stranger.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps,\" said Holmes, thoughtfully, \"perhaps.\" He relapsed into a\n     silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in\n     Woolwich Station. There he called a cab and drew Mycroft's paper from\n     his pocket.\n\n     \"We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make,\" said he.\n     \"I think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention.\"\n\n     The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns\n     stretching down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting,\n     and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. A butler answered\n     our ring.\n\n     \"Sir James, sir!\" said he with solemn face. \"Sir James died this\n     morning.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" cried Holmes in amazement. \"How did he die?\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, Colonel\n     Valentine?\"\n\n     \"Yes, we had best do so.\"\n\n     We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later\n     we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-beared man of fifty,\n     the younger brother of the dead scientist. His wild eyes, stained\n     cheeks, and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden blow which had\n     fallen upon the household. He was hardly articulate as he spoke of\n     it.\n\n     \"It was this horrible scandal,\" said he. \"My brother, Sir James, was\n     a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an\n     affair. It broke his heart. He was always so proud of the efficiency\n     of his department, and this was a crushing blow.\"\n\n     \"We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which\n     would have helped us to clear the matter up.\"\n\n     \"I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to\n     all of us. He had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of\n     the police. Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty.\n     But all the rest was inconceivable.\"\n\n     \"You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?\"\n\n     \"I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard. I have no\n     desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that\n     we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this\n     interview to an end.\"\n\n     \"This is indeed an unexpected development,\" said my friend when we\n     had regained the cab. \"I wonder if the death was natural, or whether\n     the poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, may it be taken as\n     some sign of self-reproach for duty neglected? We must leave that\n     question to the future. Now we shall turn to the Cadogan Wests.\"\n\n     A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered\n     the bereaved mother. The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of\n     any use to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady, who\n     introduced herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the fiancee of the dead\n     man, and the last to see him upon that fatal night.\n\n     \"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes,\" she said. \"I have not shut an eye\n     since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what\n     the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most single-minded,\n     chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right\n     hand off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping.\n     It is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.\"\n\n     \"But the facts, Miss Westbury?\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them.\"\n\n     \"Was he in any want of money?\"\n\n     \"No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a\n     few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year.\"\n\n     \"No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be\n     absolutely frank with us.\"\n\n     The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner.\n     She coloured and hesitated.\n\n     \"Yes,\" she said at last, \"I had a feeling that there was something on\n     his mind.\"\n\n     \"For long?\"\n\n     \"Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I\n     pressed him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that\n     it was concerned with his official life. 'It is too serious for me to\n     speak about, even to you,' said he. I could get nothing more.\"\n\n     Holmes looked grave.\n\n     \"Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on.\n     We cannot say what it may lead to.\"\n\n     \"Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me\n     that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one\n     evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection\n     that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to\n     have it.\"\n\n     My friend's face grew graver still.\n\n     \"Anything else?\"\n\n     \"He said that we were slack about such matters--that it would be easy\n     for a traitor to get the plans.\"\n\n     \"Was it only recently that he made such remarks?\"\n\n     \"Yes, quite recently.\"\n\n     \"Now tell us of that last evening.\"\n\n     \"We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was\n     useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly\n     he darted away into the fog.\"\n\n     \"Without a word?\"\n\n     \"He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never\n     returned. Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened,\n     they came to inquire. About twelve o'clock we heard the terrible\n     news. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was\n     so much to him.\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head sadly.\n\n     \"Come, Watson,\" said he, \"our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station\n     must be the office from which the papers were taken.\n\n     \"It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries\n     make it blacker,\" he remarked as the cab lumbered off. \"His coming\n     marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The\n     idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the\n     girl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all\n     very bad.\"\n\n     \"But surely, Holmes, character goes for something? Then, again, why\n     should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a\n     felony?\"\n\n     \"Exactly! There are certainly objections. But it is a formidable case\n     which they have to meet.\"\n\n     Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and\n     received us with that respect which my companion's card always\n     commanded. He was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age, his\n     cheeks haggard, and his hands twitching from the nervous strain to\n     which he had been subjected.\n\n     \"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad! Have you heard of the death of the\n     chief?\"\n\n     \"We have just come from his house.\"\n\n     \"The place is disorganized. The chief dead, Cadogan West dead, our\n     papers stolen. And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we\n     were as efficient an office as any in the government service. Good\n     God, it's dreadful to think of! That West, of all men, should have\n     done such a thing!\"\n\n     \"You are sure of his guilt, then?\"\n\n     \"I can see no other way out of it. And yet I would have trusted him\n     as I trust myself.\"\n\n     \"At what hour was the office closed on Monday?\"\n\n     \"At five.\"\n\n     \"Did you close it?\"\n\n     \"I am always the last man out.\"\n\n     \"Where were the plans?\"\n\n     \"In that safe. I put them there myself.\"\n\n     \"Is there no watchman to the building?\"\n\n     \"There is, but he has other departments to look after as well. He is\n     an old soldier and a most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that\n     evening. Of course the fog was very thick.\"\n\n     \"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the building\n     after hours; he would need three keys, would he not, before the could\n     reach the papers?\"\n\n     \"Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and\n     the key of the safe.\"\n\n     \"Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?\"\n\n     \"I had no keys of the doors--only of the safe.\"\n\n     \"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as those three keys are\n     concerned he kept them on the same ring. I have often seen them\n     there.\"\n\n     \"And that ring went with him to London?\"\n\n     \"He said so.\"\n\n     \"And your key never left your possession?\"\n\n     \"Never.\"\n\n     \"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate. And yet\n     none was found upon his body. One other point: if a clerk in this\n     office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply to copy the\n     plans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?\"\n\n     \"It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in\n     an effective way.\"\n\n     \"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that technical\n     knowledge?\"\n\n     \"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the matter,\n     Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the\n     original plans were actually found on West?\"\n\n     \"Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking\n     originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have\n     equally served his turn.\"\n\n     \"Singular, no doubt--and yet he did so.\"\n\n     \"Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there\n     are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital\n     ones.\"\n\n     \"Yes, that is so.\"\n\n     \"Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and\n     without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington\n     submarine?\"\n\n     \"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been\n     over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double\n     valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of\n     the papers which have been returned. Until the foreigners had\n     invented that for themselves they could not make the boat. Of course\n     they might soon get over the difficulty.\"\n\n     \"But the three missing drawings are the most important?\"\n\n     \"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n     \"I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round the\n     premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask.\"\n\n     He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally\n     the iron shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the lawn\n     outside that his interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel\n     bush outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of\n     having been twisted or snapped. He examined them carefully with his\n     lens, and then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath.\n     Finally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he\n     pointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it\n     would be possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within\n     the room.\n\n     \"The indications are ruined by three days' delay. They may mean\n     something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can\n     help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us\n     see if we can do better in London.\"\n\n     Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich\n     Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with\n     confidence that he saw Cadogan West--whom he knew well by sight--upon\n     the Monday night, and that he went to London by the 8.15 to London\n     Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk\n     was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky\n     was he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had\n     helped him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the 8.15\n     was the first train which it was possible for West to take after he\n     had left the lady about 7.30.\n\n     \"Let us reconstruct, Watson,\" said Holmes after half an hour of\n     silence. \"I am not aware that in all our joint researches we have\n     ever had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every fresh\n     advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we\n     have surely made some appreciable progress.\n\n     \"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against\n     young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend\n     themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for\n     example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. It might\n     have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from\n     speaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the\n     direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. Very good. We will\n     now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he\n     suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in\n     the direction of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his\n     decisions. Everything gave way to his duty. He followed the man,\n     reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued\n     the thief. In this way we get over the objection that no one would\n     take originals when he could make copies. This outsider had to take\n     originals. So far it holds together.\"\n\n     \"What is the next step?\"\n\n     \"Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such\n     circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize\n     the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have\n     been an official superior who took the papers? That would explain\n     West's conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the\n     fog, and West started at once to London to head him off from his own\n     rooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms were? The call must\n     have been very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog\n     and made no effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here,\n     and there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of\n     West's body, with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a\n     Metropolitan train. My instinct now is to work form the other end. If\n     Mycroft has given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our\n     man and follow two tracks instead of one.\"\n\n     Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government\n     messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw\n     it over to me.\n\n     There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an\n     affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13 Great\n     George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden Mansions,\n     Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens, Kensington.\n     The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as\n     having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The Cabinet\n     awaits your final report with the utmost anxiety. Urgent\n     representations have arrived from the very highest quarter. The whole\n     force of the State is at your back if you should need it.\n     Mycroft.\n\n     \"I'm afraid,\" said Holmes, smiling, \"that all the queen's horses and\n     all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter.\" He had spread out\n     his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. \"Well, well,\" said\n     he presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, \"things are turning\n     a little in our direction at last. Why, Watson, I do honestly believe\n     that we are going to pull it off, after all.\" He slapped me on the\n     shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. \"I am going out now. It is\n     only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted\n     comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds\n     are that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy\n     get foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the\n     State.\"\n\n     I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew well\n     that he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of demeanour\n     unless there was good cause for exultation. All the long November\n     evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return. At last,\n     shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a messenger with a note:\n\n     Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington.\n     Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark\n     lantern, a chisel, and a revolver.\n     S.H.\n\n     It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through\n     the dim, fog-draped streets. I stowed them all discreetly away in my\n     overcoat and drove straight to the address given. There sat my friend\n     at a little round table near the door of the garish Italian\n     restaurant.\n\n     \"Have you had something to eat? Then join me in a coffee and curacao.\n     Try one of the proprietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than one\n     would expect. Have you the tools?\"\n\n     \"They are here, in my overcoat.\"\n\n     \"Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done, with\n     some indication of what we are about to do. Now it must be evident to\n     you, Watson, that this young man's body was placed on the roof of the\n     train. That was clear from the instant that I determined the fact\n     that it was from the roof, and not from a carriage, that he had\n     fallen.\"\n\n     \"Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?\"\n\n     \"I should say it was impossible. If you examine the roofs you will\n     find that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing round\n     them. Therefore, we can say for certain that young Cadogan West was\n     placed on it.\"\n\n     \"How could he be placed there?\"\n\n     \"That was the question which we had to answer. There is only one\n     possible way. You are aware that the Underground runs clear of\n     tunnels at some points in the West End. I had a vague memory that as\n     I have travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows just above my\n     head. Now, suppose that a train halted under such a window, would\n     there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the roof?\"\n\n     \"It seems most improbable.\"\n\n     \"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other\n     contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the\n     truth. Here all other contingencies have failed. When I found that\n     the leading international agent, who had just left London, lived in a\n     row of houses which abutted upon the Underground, I was so pleased\n     that you were a little astonished at my sudden frivolity.\"\n\n     \"Oh, that was it, was it?\"\n\n     \"Yes, that was it. Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 13 Caulfield Gardens, had\n     become my objective. I began my operations at Gloucester Road\n     Station, where a very helpful official walked with me along the track\n     and allowed me to satisfy myself not only that the back-stair windows\n     of Caulfield Gardens open on the line but the even more essential\n     fact that, owing to the intersection of one of the larger railways,\n     the Underground trains are frequently held motionless for some\n     minutes at that very spot.\"\n\n     \"Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!\"\n\n     \"So far--so far, Watson. We advance, but the goal is afar. Well,\n     having seen the back of Caulfield Gardens, I visited the front and\n     satisfied myself that the bird was indeed flown. It is a considerable\n     house, unfurnished, so far as I could judge, in the upper rooms.\n     Oberstein lived there with a single valet, who was probably a\n     confederate entirely in his confidence. We must bear in mind that\n     Oberstein has gone to the Continent to dispose of his booty, but not\n     with any idea of flight; for he had no reason to fear a warrant, and\n     the idea of an amateur domiciliary visit would certainly never occur\n     to him. Yet that is precisely what we are about to make.\"\n\n     \"Could we not get a warrant and legalize it?\"\n\n     \"Hardly on the evidence.\"\n\n     \"What can we hope to do?\"\n\n     \"We cannot tell what correspondence may be there.\"\n\n     \"I don't like it, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I'll do the\n     criminal part. It's not a time to stick at trifles. Think of\n     Mycroft's note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who\n     waits for news. We are bound to go.\"\n\n     My answer was to rise from the table.\n\n     \"You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.\"\n\n     He sprang up and shook me by the hand.\n\n     \"I knew you would not shrink at the last,\" said he, and for a moment\n     I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had\n     ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once\n     more.\n\n     \"It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk,\" said\n     he. \"Don't drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious\n     character would be a most unfortunate complication.\"\n\n     Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced pillared, and\n     porticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the middle\n     Victorian epoch in the West End of London. Next door there appeared\n     to be a children's party, for the merry buzz of young voices and the\n     clatter of a piano resounded through the night. The fog still hung\n     about and screened us with its friendly shade. Holmes had lit his\n     lantern and flashed it upon the massive door.\n\n     \"This is a serious proposition,\" said he. \"It is certainly bolted as\n     well as locked. We would do better in the area. There is an excellent\n     archway down yonder in case a too zealous policeman should intrude.\n     Give me a hand, Watson, and I'll do the same for you.\"\n\n     A minute later we were both in the area. Hardly had we reached the\n     dark shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in the fog\n     above. As its soft rhythm died away, Holmes set to work upon the\n     lower door. I saw him stoop and strain until with a sharp crash it\n     flew open. We sprang through into the dark passage, closing the area\n     door behind us. Holmes let the way up the curving, uncarpeted stair.\n     His little fan of yellow light shone upon a low window.\n\n     \"Here we are, Watson--this must be the one.\" He threw it open, and as\n     he did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily into a loud\n     roar as a train dashed past us in the darkness. Holmes swept his\n     light along the window-sill. It was thickly coated with soot from the\n     passing engines, but the black surface was blurred and rubbed in\n     places.\n\n     \"You can see where they rested the body. Halloa, Watson! what is\n     this? There can be no doubt that it is a blood mark.\" He was pointing\n     to faint discolourations along the woodwork of the window. \"Here it\n     is on the stone of the stair also. The demonstration is complete. Let\n     us stay here until a train stops.\"\n\n     We had not long to wait. The very next train roared from the tunnel\n     as before, but slowed in the open, and then, with a creaking of\n     brakes, pulled up immediately beneath us. It was not four feet from\n     the window-ledge to the roof of the carriages. Holmes softly closed\n     the window.\n\n     \"So far we are justified,\" said he. \"What do you think of it,\n     Watson?\"\n\n     \"A masterpiece. You have never risen to a greater height.\"\n\n     \"I cannot agree with you there. From the moment that I conceived the\n     idea of the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a very\n     abstruse one, all the rest was inevitable. If it were not for the\n     grave interests involved the affair up to this point would be\n     insignificant. Our difficulties are still before us. But perhaps we\n     may find something here which may help us.\"\n\n     We had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms upon\n     the first floor. One was a dining-room, severely furnished and\n     containing nothing of interest. A second was a bedroom, which also\n     drew blank. The remaining room appeared more promising, and my\n     companion settled down to a systematic examination. It was littered\n     with books and papers, and was evidently used as a study. Swiftly and\n     methodically Holmes turned over the contents of drawer after drawer\n     and cupboard after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten\n     his austere face. At the end of an hour he was no further than when\n     he started.\n\n     \"The cunning dog has covered his tracks,\" said he. \"He has left\n     nothing to incriminate him. His dangerous correspondence has been\n     destroyed or removed. This is our last chance.\"\n\n     It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk. Holmes\n     pried it open with his chisel. Several rolls of paper were within,\n     covered with figures and calculations, without any note to show to\n     what they referred. The recurring words, \"water pressure\" and\n     \"pressure to the square inch\" suggested some possible relation to a\n     submarine. Holmes tossed them all impatiently aside. There only\n     remained an envelope with some small newspaper slips inside it. He\n     shook them out on the table, and at once I saw by his eager face that\n     his hopes had been raised.\n\n     \"What's this, Watson? Eh? What's this? Record of a series of messages\n     in the advertisements of a paper. Daily Telegraph agony column by the\n     print and paper. Right-hand top corner of a page. No dates--but\n     messages arrange themselves. This must be the first:\n\n     \"Hoped to hear sooner. Terms agreed to. Write fully to address given\n     on card.\n     Pierrot.\n\n     \"Next comes:\n\n     \"Too complex for description. Must have full report, Stuff awaits you\n     when goods delivered.\n     Pierrot.\n\n     \"Then comes:\n\n     \"Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract completed. Make\n     appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.\n     Pierrot.\n\n     \"Finally:\n\n     \"Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do not be so\n     suspicious. Payment in hard cash when goods delivered.\n     Pierrot.\n\n     \"A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the man at\n     the other end!\" He sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the\n     table. Finally he sprang to his feet.\n\n     \"Well, perhaps it won't be so difficult, after all. There is nothing\n     more to be done here, Watson. I think we might drive round to the\n     offices of the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good day's work to a\n     conclusion.\"\n\n     Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after\n     breakfast next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our\n     proceedings of the day before. The professional shook his head over\n     our confessed burglary.\n\n     \"We can't do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes,\" said he. \"No\n     wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these days\n     you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend in\n     trouble.\"\n\n     \"For England, home and beauty--eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of\n     our country. But what do you think of it, Mycroft?\"\n\n     \"Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what use will you make of it?\"\n\n     Holmes picked up the Daily Telegraph which lay upon the table.\n\n     \"Have you seen Pierrot's advertisement to-day?\"\n\n     \"What? Another one?\"\n\n     \"Yes, here it is:\n\n     \"To-night. Same hour. Same place. Two taps. Most vitally important.\n     Your own safety at stake.\n     Pierrot.\n\n     \"By George!\" cried Lestrade. \"If he answers that we've got him!\"\n\n     \"That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both make it\n     convenient to come with us about eight o'clock to Caulfield Gardens\n     we might possibly get a little nearer to a solution.\"\n\n     One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his\n     power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his\n     thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that\n     he could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the\n     whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he\n     had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. For my own part\n     I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence,\n     appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the\n     issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the\n     experiment which we were trying--all combined to work upon my nerve.\n     It was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out\n     upon our expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at\n     the outside of Gloucester Road Station. The area door of Oberstein's\n     house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for\n     me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to climb\n     the railings, to pass in and open the hall door. By nine o'clock we\n     were all seated in the study, waiting patently for our man.\n\n     An hour passed and yet another. When eleven struck, the measured beat\n     of the great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our hopes.\n     Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and looking twice\n     a minute at their watches. Holmes sat silent and composed, his\n     eyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert. He raised his head\n     with a sudden jerk.\n\n     \"He is coming,\" said he.\n\n     There had been a furtive step past the door. Now it returned. We\n     heard a shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with the\n     knocker. Holmes rose, motioning us to remain seated. The gas in the\n     hall was a mere point of light. He opened the outer door, and then as\n     a dark figure slipped past him he closed and fastened it. \"This way!\"\n     we heard him say, and a moment later our man stood before us. Holmes\n     had followed him closely, and as the man turned with a cry of\n     surprise and alarm he caught him by the collar and threw him back\n     into the room. Before our prisoner had recovered his balance the door\n     was shut and Holmes standing with his back against it. The man glared\n     round him, staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor. With the\n     shock, his broad-brimmed hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped\n     sown from his lips, and there were the long light beard and the soft,\n     handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.\n\n     Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.\n\n     \"You can write me down an ass this time, Watson,\" said he. \"This was\n     not the bird that I was looking for.\"\n\n     \"Who is he?\" asked Mycroft eagerly.\n\n     \"The younger brother of the late Sir James Walter, the head of the\n     Submarine Department. Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards. He is\n     coming to. I think that you had best leave his examination to me.\"\n\n     We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. Now our prisoner sat\n     up, looked round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand\n     over his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own senses.\n\n     \"What is this?\" he asked. \"I came here to visit Mr. Oberstein.\"\n\n     \"Everything is known, Colonel Walter,\" said Holmes. \"How an English\n     gentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my comprehension.\n     But your whole correspondence and relations with Oberstein are within\n     our knowledge. So also are the circumstances connected with the death\n     of young Cadogan West. Let me advise you to gain at least the small\n     credit for repentance and confession, since there are still some\n     details which we can only learn from your lips.\"\n\n     The man groaned and sank his face in his hands. We waited, but he was\n     silent.\n\n     \"I can assure you,\" said Holmes, \"that every essential is already\n     known. We know that you were pressed for money; that you took an\n     impress of the keys which your brother held; and that you entered\n     into a correspondence with Oberstein, who answered your letters\n     through the advertisement columns of the Daily Telegraph. We are\n     aware that you went down to the office in the fog on Monday night,\n     but that you were seen and followed by young Cadogan West, who had\n     probably some previous reason to suspect you. He saw your theft, but\n     could not give the alarm, as it was just possible that you were\n     taking the papers to your brother in London. Leaving all his private\n     concerns, like the good citizen that he was, he followed you closely\n     in the fog and kept at your heels until you reached this very house.\n     There he intervened, and then it was, Colonel Walter, that to treason\n     you added the more terrible crime of murder.\"\n\n     \"I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!\" cried our\n     wretched prisoner.\n\n     \"Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him upon\n     the roof of a railway carriage.\"\n\n     \"I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the rest. I confess it. It\n     was just as you say. A Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed\n     the money badly. Oberstein offered me five thousand. It was to save\n     myself from ruin. But as to murder, I am as innocent as you.\"\n\n     \"What happened, then?\"\n\n     \"He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. I\n     never knew it until I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and one\n     could not see three yards. I had given two taps and Oberstein had\n     come to the door. The young man rushed up and demanded to know what\n     we were about to do with the papers. Oberstein had a short\n     life-preserver. He always carried it with him. As West forced his way\n     after us into the house Oberstein struck him on the head. The blow\n     was a fatal one. He was dead within five minutes. There he lay in the\n     hall, and we were at our wit's end what to do. Then Oberstein had\n     this idea about the trains which halted under his back window. But\n     first he examined the papers which I had brought. He said that three\n     of them were essential, and that he must keep them. 'You cannot keep\n     them,' said I. 'There will be a dreadful row at Woolwich if they are\n     not returned.' 'I must keep them,' said he, 'for they are so\n     technical that it is impossible in the time to make copies.' 'Then\n     they must all go back together to-night,' said I. He thought for a\n     little, and then he cried out that he had it. 'Three I will keep,'\n     said he. 'The others we will stuff into the pocket of this young man.\n     When he is found the whole business will assuredly be put to his\n     account.' I could see no other way out of it, so we did as he\n     suggested. We waited half an hour at the window before a train\n     stopped. It was so thick that nothing could be seen, and we had no\n     difficulty in lowering West's body on to the train. That was the end\n     of the matter so far as I was concerned.\"\n\n     \"And your brother?\"\n\n     \"He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I\n     think that he suspected. I read in his eyes that he suspected. As you\n     know, he never held up his head again.\"\n\n     There was silence in the room. It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.\n\n     \"Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and\n     possibly your punishment.\"\n\n     \"What reparation can I make?\"\n\n     \"Where is Oberstein with the papers?\"\n\n     \"I do not know.\"\n\n     \"Did he give you no address?\"\n\n     \"He said that letters to the Hôtel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually\n     reach him.\"\n\n     \"Then reparation is still within your power,\" said Sherlock Holmes.\n\n     \"I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow no particular good-will.\n     He has been my ruin and my downfall.\"\n\n     \"Here are paper and pen. Sit at this desk and write to my dictation.\n     Direct the envelope to the address given. That is right. Now the\n     letter:\n\n     \"Dear Sir:\n     \"With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed by\n     now that one essential detail is missing. I have a tracing which will\n     make it complete. This has involved me in extra trouble, however, and\n     I must ask you for a further advance of five hundred pounds. I will\n     not trust it to the post, nor will I take anything but gold or notes.\n     I would come to you abroad, but it would excite remark if I left the\n     country at present. Therefore I shall expect to meet you in the\n     smoking-room of the Charing Cross Hotel at noon on Saturday. Remember\n     that only English notes, or gold, will be taken.\n\n     \"That will do very well. I shall be very much surprised if it does\n     not fetch our man.\"\n\n     And it did! It is a matter of history--that secret history of a\n     nation which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its\n     public chronicles--that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his\n     lifetime, came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years\n     in a British prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable\n     Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the\n     naval centres of Europe.\n\n     Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year of\n     his sentence. As to Holmes, he returned refreshed to his monograph\n     upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since been printed\n     for private circulation, and is said by experts to be the last word\n     upon the subject. Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that\n     my friend spent a day at Windsor, whence be returned with a\n     remarkably fine emerald tie-pin. When I asked him if he had bought\n     it, he answered that it was a present from a certain gracious lady in\n     whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a\n     small commission. He said no more; but I fancy that I could guess at\n     that lady's august name, and I have little doubt that the emerald pin\n     will forever recall to my friend's memory the adventure of the\n     Bruce-Partington plans.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE\n\n     Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering\n     woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by\n     throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her\n     remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life\n     which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness,\n     his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver\n     practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific\n     experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung\n     around him made him the very worst tenant in London. On the other\n     hand, his payments were princely. I have no doubt that the house\n     might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his\n     rooms during the years that I was with him.\n\n     The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to\n     interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem.\n     She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and\n     courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the\n     sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent. Knowing how genuine was\n     her regard for him, I listened earnestly to her story when she came\n     to my rooms in the second year of my married life and told me of the\n     sad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.\n\n     \"He's dying, Dr. Watson,\" said she. \"For three days he has been\n     sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get\n     a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones sticking out of his face\n     and his great bright eyes looking at me I could stand no more of it.\n     'With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am going for a doctor\n     this very hour,' said I. 'Let it be Watson, then,' said he. I\n     wouldn't waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him\n     alive.\"\n\n     I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not\n     say that I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I asked\n     for the details.\n\n     \"There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case\n     down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought\n     this illness back with him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon\n     and has never moved since. For these three days neither food nor\n     drink has passed his lips.\"\n\n     \"Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?\"\n\n     \"He wouldn't have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I didn't\n     dare to disobey him. But he's not long for this world, as you'll see\n     for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.\"\n\n     He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy\n     November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt,\n     wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my\n     heart. His eyes had the brightness of fever, there was a hectic flush\n     upon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips; the thin hands\n     upon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was croaking and\n     spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of\n     me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.\n\n     \"Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,\" said he in a\n     feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.\n\n     \"My dear fellow!\" I cried, approaching him.\n\n     \"Stand back! Stand right back!\" said he with the sharp imperiousness\n     which I had associated only with moments of crisis. \"If you approach\n     me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house.\"\n\n     \"But why?\"\n\n     \"Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?\"\n\n     Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was\n     pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.\n\n     \"I only wished to help,\" I explained.\n\n     \"Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told.\"\n\n     \"Certainly, Holmes.\"\n\n     He relaxed the austerity of his manner.\n\n     \"You are not angry?\" he asked, gasping for breath.\n\n     Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a\n     plight before me?\n\n     \"It's for your own sake, Watson,\" he croaked.\n\n     \"For my sake?\"\n\n     \"I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from\n     Sumatra--a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they\n     have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is\n     infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.\"\n\n     He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and\n     jerking as he motioned me away.\n\n     \"Contagious by touch, Watson--that's it, by touch. Keep your distance\n     and all is well.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration\n     weighs with me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a\n     stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so\n     old a friend?\"\n\n     Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.\n\n     \"If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave\n     the room.\"\n\n     I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes\n     that I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I least\n     understood them. But now all my professional instincts were aroused.\n     Let him be my master elsewhere, I at least was his in a sick room.\n\n     \"Holmes,\" said I, \"you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child,\n     and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine\n     your symptoms and treat you for them.\"\n\n     He looked at me with venomous eyes.\n\n     \"If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least have\n     someone in whom I have confidence,\" said he.\n\n     \"Then you have none in me?\"\n\n     \"In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and,\n     after all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited\n     experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say\n     these things, but you leave me no choice.\"\n\n     I was bitterly hurt.\n\n     \"Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly\n     the state of your own nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I\n     would not intrude my services. Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek or\n     Penrose Fisher, or any of the best men in London. But someone you\n     must have, and that is final. If you think that I am going to stand\n     here and see you die without either helping you myself or bringing\n     anyone else to help you, then you have mistaken your man.\"\n\n     \"You mean well, Watson,\" said the sick man with something between a\n     sob and a groan. \"Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you\n     know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa\n     corruption?\"\n\n     \"I have never heard of either.\"\n\n     \"There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological\n     possibilities, in the East, Watson.\" He paused after each sentence to\n     collect his failing strength. \"I have learned so much during some\n     recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. It was in the\n     course of them that I contracted this complaint. You can do nothing.\"\n\n     \"Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest\n     living authority upon tropical disease, is now in London. All\n     remonstrance is useless, Holmes, I am going this instant to fetch\n     him.\" I turned resolutely to the door.\n\n     Never have I had such a shock! In an instant, with a tiger-spring,\n     the dying man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a twisted\n     key. The next moment he had staggered back to his bed, exhausted and\n     panting after his one tremendous outflame of energy.\n\n     \"You won't take the key from be by force, Watson, I've got you, my\n     friend. Here you are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise.\n     But I'll humour you.\" (All this in little gasps, with terrible\n     struggles for breath between.) \"You've only my own good at heart. Of\n     course I know that very well. You shall have your way, but give me\n     time to get my strength. Not now, Watson, not now. It's four o'clock.\n     At six you can go.\"\n\n     \"This is insanity, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Only two hours, Watson. I promise you will go at six. Are you\n     content to wait?\"\n\n     \"I seem to have no choice.\"\n\n     \"None in the world, Watson. Thank you, I need no help in arranging\n     the clothes. You will please keep your distance. Now, Watson, there\n     is one other condition that I would make. You will seek help, not\n     from the man you mention, but from the one that I choose.\"\n\n     \"By all means.\"\n\n     \"The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you\n     entered this room, Watson. You will find some books over there. I am\n     somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours\n     electricity into a non-conductor? At six, Watson, we resume our\n     conversation.\"\n\n     But it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in\n     circumstances which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused by\n     his spring to the door. I had stood for some minutes looking at the\n     silent figure in the bed. His face was almost covered by the clothes\n     and he appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to settle down to reading,\n     I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated\n     criminals with which every wall was adorned. Finally, in my aimless\n     perambulation, I came to the mantelpiece. A litter of pipes,\n     tobacco-pouches, syringes, penknives, revolver-cartridges, and other\n     debris was scattered over it. In the midst of these was a small black\n     and white ivory box with a sliding lid. It was a neat little thing,\n     and I had stretched out my hand to examine it more closely when--\n\n     It was a dreadful cry that he gave--a yell which might have been\n     heard down the street. My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that\n     horrible scream. As I turned I caught a glimpse of a convulsed face\n     and frantic eyes. I stood paralyzed, with the little box in my hand.\n\n     \"Put it down! Down, this instant, Watson--this instant, I say!\" His\n     head sank back upon the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of relief as I\n     replaced the box upon the mantelpiece. \"I hate to have my things\n     touched, Watson. You know that I hate it. You fidget me beyond\n     endurance. You, a doctor--you are enough to drive a patient into an\n     asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have my rest!\"\n\n     The incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind. The\n     violent and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of\n     speech, so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me how deep was\n     the disorganization of his mind. Of all ruins, that of a noble mind\n     is the most deplorable. I sat in silent dejection until the\n     stipulated time had passed. He seemed to have been watching the clock\n     as well as I, for it was hardly six before he began to talk with the\n     same feverish animation as before.\n\n     \"Now, Watson,\" said he. \"Have you any change in your pocket?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"Any silver?\"\n\n     \"A good deal.\"\n\n     \"How many half-crowns?\"\n\n     \"I have five.\"\n\n     \"Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However, such as\n     they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all the rest of\n     your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you. It will balance\n     you so much better like that.\"\n\n     This was raving insanity. He shuddered, and again made a sound\n     between a cough and a sob.\n\n     \"You will now light the gas, Watson, but you will be very careful\n     that not for one instant shall it be more than half on. I implore you\n     to be careful, Watson. Thank you, that is excellent. No, you need not\n     draw the blind. Now you will have the kindness to place some letters\n     and papers upon this table within my reach. Thank you. Now some of\n     that litter from the mantelpiece. Excellent, Watson! There is a\n     sugar-tongs there. Kindly raise that small ivory box with its\n     assistance.  Place it here among the papers. Good! You can now go and\n     fetch Mr. Culverton Smith, of 13 Lower Burke Street.\"\n\n     To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened,\n     for poor Holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous\n     to leave him. However, he was as eager now to consult the person\n     named as he had been obstinate in refusing.\n\n     \"I never heard the name,\" said I.\n\n     \"Possibly not, my good Watson. It may surprise you to know that the\n     man upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical\n     man, but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well-known resident of\n     Sumatra, now visiting London. An outbreak of the disease upon his\n     plantation, which was distant from medical aid, caused him to study\n     it himself, with some rather far-reaching consequences. He is a very\n     methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six,\n     because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study. If\n     you could persuade him to come here and give us the benefit of his\n     unique experience of this disease, the investigation of which has\n     been his dearest hobby, I cannot doubt that he could help me.\"\n\n     I gave Holmes's remarks as a consecutive whole and will not attempt\n     to indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for breath and\n     those clutchings of his hands which indicated the pain from which he\n     was suffering. His appearance had changed for the worse during the\n     few hours that I had been with him. Those hectic spots were more\n     pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out of darker hollows, and a\n     cold sweat glimmered upon his brow. He still retained, however, the\n     jaunty gallantry of his speech. To the last gasp he would always be\n     the master.\n\n     \"You will tell him exactly how you have left me,\" said he. \"You will\n     convey the very impression which is in your own mind--a dying man--a\n     dying and delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of\n     the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures\n     seem. Ah, I am wondering! Strange how the brain controls the brain!\n     What was I saying, Watson?\"\n\n     \"My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith.\"\n\n     \"Ah, yes, I remember. My life depends upon it. Plead with him,\n     Watson. There is no good feeling between us. His nephew, Watson--I\n     had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to see it. The boy died\n     horribly. He has a grudge against me. You will soften him, Watson.\n     Beg him, pray him, get him here by any means. He can save me--only\n     he!\"\n\n     \"I will bring him in a cab, if I have to carry him down to it.\"\n\n     \"You will do nothing of the sort. You will persuade him to come. And\n     then you will return in front of him. Make any excuse so as not to\n     come with him. Don't forget, Watson. You won't fail me. You never did\n     fail me. No doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase\n     of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the\n     world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible! You'll convey\n     all that is in your mind.\"\n\n     I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect babbling\n     like a foolish child. He had handed me the key, and with a happy\n     thought I took it with me lest he should lock himself in. Mrs. Hudson\n     was waiting, trembling and weeping, in the passage. Behind me as I\n     passed from the flat I heard Holmes's high, thin voice in some\n     delirious chant. Below, as I stood whistling for a cab, a man came on\n     me through the fog.\n\n     \"How is Mr. Holmes, sir?\" he asked.\n\n     It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton, of Scotland Yard,\n     dressed in unofficial tweeds.\n\n     \"He is very ill,\" I answered.\n\n     He looked at me in a most singular fashion. Had it not been too\n     fiendish, I could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight showed\n     exultation in his face.\n\n     \"I heard some rumour of it,\" said he.\n\n     The cab had driven up, and I left him.\n\n     Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the\n     vague borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The particular\n     one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure\n     respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive\n     folding-door, and its shining brasswork. All was in keeping with a\n     solemn butler who appeared framed in the pink radiance of a tinted\n     electrical light behind him.\n\n     \"Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in. Dr. Watson! Very good, sir, I will\n     take up your card.\"\n\n     My humble name and title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton\n     Smith. Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant,\n     penetrating voice.\n\n     \"Who is this person? What does he want? Dear me, Staples, how often\n     have I said that I am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?\"\n\n     There came a gentle flow of soothing explanation from the butler.\n\n     \"Well, I won't see him, Staples. I can't have my work interrupted\n     like this. I am not at home. Say so. Tell him to come in the morning\n     if he really must see me.\"\n\n     Again the gentle murmur.\n\n     \"Well, well, give him that message. He can come in the morning, or he\n     can stay away. My work must not be hindered.\"\n\n     I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting the\n     minutes, perhaps, until I could bring help to him. It was not a time\n     to stand upon ceremony. His life depended upon my promptness. Before\n     the apologetic butler had delivered his message I had pushed past him\n     and was in the room.\n\n     With a shrill cry of anger a man rose from a reclining chair beside\n     the fire. I saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with\n     heavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing gray eyes which glared\n     at me from under tufted and sandy brows. A high bald head had a small\n     velvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly upon one side of its pink\n     curve. The skull was of enormous capacity, and yet as I looked down I\n     saw to my amazement that the figure of the man was small and frail,\n     twisted in the shoulders and back like one who has suffered from\n     rickets in his childhood.\n\n     \"What's this?\" he cried in a high, screaming voice. \"What is the\n     meaning of this intrusion? Didn't I send you word that I would see\n     you to-morrow morning?\"\n\n     \"I am sorry,\" said I, \"but the matter cannot be delayed. Mr. Sherlock\n     Holmes--\"\n\n     The mention of my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the\n     little man. The look of anger passed in an instant from his face. His\n     features became tense and alert.\n\n     \"Have you come from Holmes?\" he asked.\n\n     \"I have just left him.\"\n\n     \"What about Holmes? How is he?\"\n\n     \"He is desperately ill. That is why I have come.\"\n\n     The man motioned me to a chair, and turned to resume his own. As he\n     did so I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the\n     mantelpiece. I could have sworn that it was set in a malicious and\n     abominable smile. Yet I persuaded myself that it must have been some\n     nervous contraction which I had surprised, for he turned to me an\n     instant later with genuine concern upon his features.\n\n     \"I am sorry to hear this,\" said he. \"I only know Mr. Holmes through\n     some business dealings which we have had, but I have every respect\n     for his talents and his character. He is an amateur of crime, as I am\n     of disease. For him the villain, for me the microbe. There are my\n     prisons,\" he continued, pointing to a row of bottles and jars which\n     stood upon a side table. \"Among those gelatine cultivations some of\n     the very worst offenders in the world are now doing time.\"\n\n     \"It was on account of your special knowledge that Mr. Holmes desired\n     to see you. He has a high opinion of you and thought that you were\n     the one man in London who could help him.\"\n\n     The little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the floor.\n\n     \"Why?\" he asked. \"Why should Mr. Homes think that I could help him in\n     his trouble?\"\n\n     \"Because of your knowledge of Eastern diseases.\"\n\n     \"But why should he think that this disease which he has contracted is\n     Eastern?\"\n\n     \"Because, in some professional inquiry, he has been working among\n     Chinese sailors down in the docks.\"\n\n     Mr. Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-cap.\n\n     \"Oh, that's it--is it?\" said he. \"I trust the matter is not so grave\n     as you suppose. How long has he been ill?\"\n\n     \"About three days.\"\n\n     \"Is he delirious?\"\n\n     \"Occasionally.\"\n\n     \"Tut, tut! This sounds serious. It would be inhuman not to answer his\n     call. I very much resent any interruption to my work, Dr. Watson, but\n     this case is certainly exceptional. I will come with you at once.\"\n\n     I remembered Holmes's injunction.\n\n     \"I have another appointment,\" said I.\n\n     \"Very good. I will go alone. I have a note of Mr. Holmes's address.\n     You can rely upon my being there within half an hour at most.\"\n\n     It was with a sinking heart that I reentered Holmes's bedroom. For\n     all that I knew the worst might have happened in my absence. To my\n     enormous relief, he had improved greatly in the interval. His\n     appearance was as ghastly as ever, but all trace of delirium had left\n     him and he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but with even more\n     than his usual crispness and lucidity.\n\n     \"Well, did you see him, Watson?\"\n\n     \"Yes; he is coming.\"\n\n     \"Admirable, Watson! Admirable! You are the best of messengers.\"\n\n     \"He wished to return with me.\"\n\n     \"That would never do, Watson. That would be obviously impossible. Did\n     he ask what ailed me?\"\n\n     \"I told him about the Chinese in the East End.\"\n\n     \"Exactly! Well, Watson, you have done all that a good friend could.\n     You can now disappear from the scene.\"\n\n     \"I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Of course you must. But I have reasons to suppose that this opinion\n     would be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are\n     alone. There is just room behind the head of my bed, Watson.\"\n\n     \"My dear Holmes!\"\n\n     \"I fear there is no alternative, Watson. The room does not lend\n     itself to concealment, which is as well, as it is the less likely to\n     arouse suspicion. But just there, Watson, I fancy that it could be\n     done.\" Suddenly he sat up with a rigid intentness upon his haggard\n     face. \"There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if you love me! And\n     don't budge, whatever happens--whatever happens, do you hear? Don't\n     speak! Don't move! Just listen with all your ears.\" Then in an\n     instant his sudden access of strength departed, and his masterful,\n     purposeful talk droned away into the low, vague murmurings of a\n     semi-delirious man.\n\n     From the hiding-place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I\n     heard the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing\n     of the bedroom door. Then, to my surprise, there came a long silence,\n     broken only by the heavy breathings and gaspings of the sick man. I\n     could imagine that our visitor was standing by the bedside and\n     looking down at the sufferer. At last that strange hush was broken.\n\n     \"Holmes!\" he cried. \"Holmes!\" in the insistent tone of one who\n     awakens a sleeper. \"Can't you hear me, Holmes?\" There was a rustling,\n     as if he had shaken the sick man roughly by the shoulder.\n\n     \"Is that you, Mr. Smith?\" Holmes whispered. \"I hardly dared hope that\n     you would come.\"\n\n     The other laughed.\n\n     \"I should imagine not,\" he said. \"And yet, you see, I am here. Coals\n     of fire, Holmes--coals of fire!\"\n\n     \"It is very good of you--very noble of you. I appreciate your special\n     knowledge.\"\n\n     Our visitor sniggered.\n\n     \"You do.  You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does. Do\n     you know what is the matter with you?\"\n\n     \"The same,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Ah! You recognize the symptoms?\"\n\n     \"Only too well.\"\n\n     \"Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn't be surprised if\n     it were the same. A bad lookout for you if it is. Poor Victor was a\n     dead man on the fourth day--a strong, hearty young fellow. It was\n     certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have\n     contracted and out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of\n     London--a disease, too, of which I had made such a very special\n     study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it,\n     but rather uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect.\"\n\n     \"I knew that you did it.\"\n\n     \"Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn't prove it, anyhow. But what\n     do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and\n     then crawling to me for help the moment you are in trouble? What sort\n     of a game is that--eh?\"\n\n     I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. \"Give me the\n     water!\" he gasped.\n\n     \"You're precious near your end, my friend, but I don't want you to go\n     till I have had a word with you. That's why I give you water. There,\n     don't slop it about! That's right. Can you understand what I say?\"\n\n     Holmes groaned.\n\n     \"Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones,\" he whispered. \"I'll\n     put the words out of my head--I swear I will. Only cure me, and I'll\n     forget it.\"\n\n     \"Forget what?\"\n\n     \"Well, about Victor Savage's death. You as good as admitted just now\n     that you had done it. I'll forget it.\"\n\n     \"You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don't see you\n     in the witnessbox. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I assure\n     you. It matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew\n     died. It's not him we are talking about. It's you.\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes.\"\n\n     \"The fellow who came for me--I've forgotten his name--said that you\n     contracted it down in the East End among the sailors.\"\n\n     \"I could only account for it so.\"\n\n     \"You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think yourself\n     smart, don't you? You came across someone who was smarter this time.\n     Now cast your mind back, Holmes. Can you think of no other way you\n     could have got this thing?\"\n\n     \"I can't think. My mind is gone. For heaven's sake help me!\"\n\n     \"Yes, I will help you. I'll help you to understand just where you are\n     and how you got there. I'd like you to know before you die.\"\n\n     \"Give me something to ease my pain.\"\n\n     \"Painful, is it? Yes, the coolies used to do some squealing towards\n     the end. Takes you as cramp, I fancy.\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes; it is cramp.\"\n\n     \"Well, you can hear what I say, anyhow. Listen now! Can you remember\n     any unusual incident in your life just about the time your symptoms\n     began?\"\n\n     \"No, no; nothing.\"\n\n     \"Think again.\"\n\n     \"I'm too ill to think.\"\n\n     \"Well, then, I'll help you.  Did anything come by post?\"\n\n     \"By post?\"\n\n     \"A box by chance?\"\n\n     \"I'm fainting--I'm gone!\"\n\n     \"Listen, Holmes!\" There was a sound as if he was shaking the dying\n     man, and it was all that I could do to hold myself quiet in my\n     hiding-place. \"You must hear me. You shall hear me. Do you remember a\n     box--an ivory box? It came on Wednesday. You opened it--do you\n     remember?\"\n\n     \"Yes, yes, I opened it. There was a sharp spring inside it. Some\n     joke--\"\n\n     \"It was no joke, as you will find to your cost. You fool, you would\n     have it and you have got it. Who asked you to cross my path? If you\n     had left me alone I would not have hurt you.\"\n\n     \"I remember,\" Holmes gasped. \"The spring! It drew blood. This\n     box--this on the table.\"\n\n     \"The very one, by George! And it may as well leave the room in my\n     pocket. There goes your last shred of evidence. But you have the\n     truth now, Holmes, and you can die with the knowledge that I killed\n     you. You knew too much of the fate of Victor Savage, so I have sent\n     you to share it. You are very near your end, Holmes. I will sit here\n     and I will watch you die.\"\n\n     Holmes's voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper.\n\n     \"What is that?\" said Smith. \"Turn up the gas? Ah, the shadows begin\n     to fall, do they? Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see you the\n     better.\" He crossed the room and the light suddenly brightened. \"Is\n     there any other little service that I can do you, my friend?\"\n\n     \"A match and a cigarette.\"\n\n     I nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. He was speaking in\n     his natural voice--a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice I knew.\n     There was a long pause, and I felt that Culverton Smith was standing\n     in silent amazement looking down at his companion.\n\n     \"What's the meaning of this?\" I heard him say at last in a dry,\n     rasping tone.\n\n     \"The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it,\" said\n     Holmes. \"I give you my word that for three days I have tasted neither\n     food nor drink until you were good enough to pour me out that glass\n     of water. But it is the tobacco which I find most irksome. Ah, here\n     are some cigarettes.\" I heard the striking of a match. \"That is very\n     much better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear the step of a friend?\"\n\n     There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector Morton\n     appeared.\n\n     \"All is in order and this is your man,\" said Holmes.\n\n     The officer gave the usual cautions.\n\n     \"I arrest you on the charge of the murder of one Victor Savage,\" he\n     concluded.\n\n     \"And you might add of the attempted murder of one Sherlock Holmes,\"\n     remarked my friend with a chuckle. \"To save an invalid trouble,\n     Inspector, Mr. Culverton Smith was good enough to give our signal by\n     turning up the gas. By the way, the prisoner has a small box in the\n     right-hand pocket of his coat which it would be as well to remove.\n     Thank you. I would handle it gingerly if I were you. Put it down\n     here. It may play its part in the trial.\"\n\n     There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of iron\n     and a cry of pain.\n\n     \"You'll only get yourself hurt,\" said the inspector. \"Stand still,\n     will you?\" There was the click of the closing handcuffs.\n\n     \"A nice trap!\" cried the high, snarling voice. \"It will bring you\n     into the dock, Holmes, not me. He asked me to come here to cure him.\n     I was sorry for him and I came. Now he will pretend, no doubt, that I\n     have said anything which he may invent which will corroborate his\n     insane suspicions. You can lie as you like, Holmes.  My word is\n     always as good as yours.\"\n\n     \"Good heavens!\" cried Holmes. \"I had totally forgotten him. My dear\n     Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. To think that I should have\n     overlooked you! I need not introduce you to Mr. Culverton Smith,\n     since I understand that you met somewhat earlier in the evening. Have\n     you the cab below? I will follow you when I am dressed, for I may be\n     of some use at the station.\n\n     \"I never needed it more,\" said Holmes as he refreshed himself with a\n     glass of claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his toilet.\n     \"However, as you know, my habits are irregular, and such a feat means\n     less to me than to most men. It was very essential that I should\n     impress Mrs. Hudson with the reality of my condition, since she was\n     to convey it to you, and you in turn to him. You won't be offended,\n     Watson? You will realize that among your many talents dissimulation\n     finds no place, and that if you had shared my secret you would never\n     have been able to impress Smith with the urgent necessity of his\n     presence, which was the vital point of the whole scheme. Knowing his\n     vindictive nature, I was perfectly certain that he would come to look\n     upon his handiwork.\"\n\n     \"But your appearance, Holmes--your ghastly face?\"\n\n     \"Three days of absolute fast does not improve one's beauty, Watson.\n     For the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not cure. With\n     vaseline upon one's forehead, belladonna in one's eyes, rouge over\n     the cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax round one's lips, a very\n     satisfying effect can be produced. Malingering is a subject upon\n     which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph. A little\n     occasional talk about half-crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous\n     subject produces a pleasing effect of delirium.\"\n\n     \"But why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth no\n     infection?\"\n\n     \"Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no respect\n     for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute judgment\n     would pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of pulse or\n     temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you. If I failed to do\n     so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp? No, Watson, I would not\n     touch that box. You can just see if you look at it sideways where the\n     sharp spring like a viper's tooth emerges as you open it. I dare say\n     it was by some such device that poor Savage, who stood between this\n     monster and a reversion, was done to death. My correspondence,\n     however, is, as you know, a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my\n     guard against any packages which reach me. It was clear to me,\n     however, that by pretending that he had really succeeded in his\n     design I might surprise a confession. That pretence I have carried\n     out with the thoroughness of the true artist. Thank you, Watson, you\n     must help me on with my coat. When we have finished at the\n     police-station I think that something nutritious at Simpson's would\n     not be out of place.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                    THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX\n\n     \"But why Turkish?\" asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my\n     boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my\n     protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention.\n\n     \"English,\" I answered in some surprise. \"I got them at Latimer's, in\n     Oxford Street.\"\n\n     Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.\n\n     \"The bath!\" he said; \"the bath! Why the relaxing and expensive\n     Turkish rather than the invigorating home-made article?\"\n\n     \"Because for the last few days I have been feeling rheumatic and old.\n     A Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine--a fresh\n     starting-point, a cleanser of the system.\n\n     \"By the way, Holmes,\" I added, \"I have no doubt the connection\n     between my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one\n     to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if you would\n     indicate it.\"\n\n     \"The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson,\" said Holmes\n     with a mischievous twinkle. \"It belongs to the same elementary class\n     of deduction which I should illustrate if I were to ask you who\n     shared your cab in your drive this morning.\"\n\n     \"I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,\" said I\n     with some asperity.\n\n     \"Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Let me\n     see, what were the points? Take the last one first--the cab. You\n     observe that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder\n     of your coat. Had you sat in the centre of a hansom you would\n     probably have had no splashes, and if you had they would certainly\n     have been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you sat at the\n     side. Therefore it is equally clear that you had a companion.\"\n\n     \"That is very evident.\"\n\n     \"Absurdly commonplace, is it not?\"\n\n     \"But the boots and the bath?\"\n\n     \"Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your boots in a\n     certain way. I see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate\n     double bow, which is not your usual method of tying them. You have,\n     therefore, had them off. Who has tied them? A bootmaker--or the boy\n     at the bath. It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your\n     boots are nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath. Absurd, is it\n     not? But, for all that, the Turkish bath has served a purpose.\"\n\n     \"What is that?\"\n\n     \"You say that you have had it because you need a change. Let me\n     suggest that you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dear\n     Watson--first-class tickets and all expenses paid on a princely\n     scale?\"\n\n     \"Splendid! But why?\"\n\n     Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his\n     pocket.\n\n     \"One of the most dangerous classes in the world,\" said he, \"is the\n     drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the\n     most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in\n     others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means\n     to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is\n     lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and\n     boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she\n     is gobbled up she is hardly missed. I much fear that some evil has\n     come to the Lady Frances Carfax.\"\n\n     I was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to the\n     particular. Holmes consulted his notes.\n\n     \"Lady Frances,\" he continued, \"is the sole survivor of the direct\n     family of the late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you may\n     remember, in the male line. She was left with limited means, but with\n     some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery of silver and curiously\n     cut diamonds to which she was fondly attached--too attached, for she\n     refused to leave them with her banker and always carried them about\n     with her. A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful\n     woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the\n     last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.\"\n\n     \"What has happened to her, then?\"\n\n     \"Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances? Is she alive or dead?\n     There is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and for four\n     years it has been her invariable custom to write every second week to\n     Miss Dobney, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in\n     Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney who has consulted me. Nearly five\n     weeks have passed without a word. The last letter was from the Hotel\n     National at Lausanne. Lady Frances seems to have left there and given\n     no address. The family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly\n     wealthy no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up.\"\n\n     \"Is Miss Dobney the only source of information? Surely she had other\n     correspondents?\"\n\n     \"There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson. That is the\n     bank. Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed\n     diaries. She banks at Silvester's. I have glanced over her account.\n     The last check but one paid her bill at Lausanne, but it was a large\n     one and probably left her with cash in hand. Only one check has been\n     drawn since.\"\n\n     \"To whom, and where?\"\n\n     \"To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the check was\n     drawn. It was cashed at the Credit Lyonnais at Montpellier less than\n     three weeks ago. The sum was fifty pounds.\"\n\n     \"And who is Miss Marie Devine?\"\n\n     \"That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine was the\n     maid of Lady Frances Carfax. Why she should have paid her this check\n     we have not yet determined. I have no doubt, however, that your\n     researches will soon clear the matter up.\"\n\n     \"My researches!\"\n\n     \"Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that I\n     cannot possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortal\n     terror of his life. Besides, on general principles it is best that I\n     should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me,\n     and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. Go,\n     then, my dear Watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at\n     so extravagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits your disposal\n     night and day at the end of the Continental wire.\"\n\n     Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Lausanne, where I\n     received every courtesy at the hands of M. Moser, the well-known\n     manager. Lady Frances, as he informed me, had stayed there for\n     several weeks. She had been much liked by all who met her. Her age\n     was not more than forty. She was still handsome and bore every sign\n     of having in her youth been a very lovely woman. M. Moser knew\n     nothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by the\n     servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always\n     scrupulously locked. Marie Devine, the maid, was as popular as her\n     mistress. She was actually engaged to one of the head waiters in the\n     hotel, and there was no difficulty in getting her address. It was 11\n     Rue de Trajan, Montpellier. All this I jotted down and felt that\n     Holmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his\n     facts.\n\n     Only one corner still remained in the shadow. No light which I\n     possessed could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure.\n     She was very happy at Lausanne. There was every reason to believe\n     that she intended to remain for the season in her luxurious rooms\n     overlooking the lake. And yet she had left at a single day's notice,\n     which involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent. Only\n     Jules Vibart, the lover of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. He\n     connected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or\n     two before of a tall, dark, bearded man. \"Un sauvage--un véritable\n     sauvage!\" cried Jules Vibart. The man had rooms somewhere in the\n     town. He had been seen talking earnestly to Madame on the promenade\n     by the lake. Then he had called. She had refused to see him. He was\n     English, but of his name there was no record. Madame had left the\n     place immediately afterwards. Jules Vibart, and, what was of more\n     importance, Jules Vibart's sweetheart, thought that this call and the\n     departure were cause and effect. Only one thing Jules would not\n     discuss. That was the reason why Marie had left her mistress. Of that\n     he could or would say nothing. If I wished to know, I must go to\n     Montpellier and ask her.\n\n     So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The second was devoted to\n     the place which Lady Frances Carfax had sought when she left\n     Lausanne. Concerning this there had been some secrecy, which\n     confirmed the idea that she had gone with the intention of throwing\n     someone off her track. Otherwise why should not her luggage have been\n     openly labelled for Baden? Both she and it reached the Rhenish spa by\n     some circuitous route. This much I gathered from the manager of\n     Cook's local office. So to Baden I went, after dispatching to Holmes\n     an account of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of\n     half-humorous commendation.\n\n     At Baden the track was not difficult to follow. Lady Frances had\n     stayed at the Englischer Hof for a fortnight. While there she had\n     made the acquaintance of a Dr. Shlessinger and his wife, a missionary\n     from South America. Like most lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her\n     comfort and occupation in religion. Dr. Shlessinger's remarkable\n     personality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact that he was\n     recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic\n     duties affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. Shlessinger in the\n     nursing of the convalescent saint. He spent his day, as the manager\n     described it to me, upon a lounge-chair on the veranda, with an\n     attendant lady upon either side of him. He was preparing a map of the\n     Holy Land, with special reference to the kingdom of the Midianites,\n     upon which he was writing a monograph. Finally, having improved much\n     in health, he and his wife had returned to London, and Lady Frances\n     had started thither in their company. This was just three weeks\n     before, and the manager had heard nothing since. As to the maid,\n     Marie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears,\n     after informing the other maids that she was leaving service forever.\n     Dr. Shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole party before his\n     departure.\n\n     \"By the way,\" said the landlord in conclusion, \"you are not the only\n     friend of Lady Frances Carfax who is inquiring after her just now.\n     Only a week or so ago we had a man here upon the same errand.\"\n\n     \"Did he give a name?\" I asked.\n\n     \"None; but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type.\"\n\n     \"A savage?\" said I, linking my facts after the fashion of my\n     illustrious friend.\n\n     \"Exactly. That describes him very well. He is a bulky, bearded,\n     sunburned fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home in a\n     farmers' inn than in a fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, I\n     should think, and one whom I should be sorry to offend.\"\n\n     Already the mystery began to define itself, as figures grow clearer\n     with the lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious lady pursued\n     from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure. She feared\n     him, or she would not have fled from Lausanne. He had still followed.\n     Sooner or later he would overtake her. Had he already overtaken her?\n     Was that the secret of her continued silence? Could the good people\n     who were her companions not screen her from his violence or his\n     blackmail? What horrible purpose, what deep design, lay behind this\n     long pursuit? There was the problem which I had to solve.\n\n     To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to\n     the roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram asking for a\n     description of Dr. Shlessinger's left ear. Holmes's ideas of humour\n     are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no notice of his\n     ill-timed jest--indeed, I had already reached Montpellier in my\n     pursuit of the maid, Marie, before his message came.\n\n     I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all\n     that she could tell me. She was a devoted creature, who had only left\n     her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands, and\n     because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in\n     any case. Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown\n     some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Baden,\n     and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her\n     honesty, and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise\n     have been. Lady Frances had given her fifty pounds as a\n     wedding-present. Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the\n     stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne. With her own eyes\n     she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the\n     public promenade by the lake. He was a fierce and terrible man. She\n     believed that it was out of dread of him that Lady Frances had\n     accepted the escort of the Shlessingers to London. She had never\n     spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the\n     maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous\n     apprehension. So far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she\n     sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and\n     fear. \"See!\" she cried. \"The miscreant follows still! There is the\n     very man of whom I speak.\"\n\n     Through the open sitting-room window I saw a huge, swarthy man with a\n     bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street\n     and staring eagerly at he numbers of the houses. It was clear that,\n     like myself, he was on the track of the maid. Acting upon the impulse\n     of the moment, I rushed out and accosted him.\n\n     \"You are an Englishman,\" I said.\n\n     \"What if I am?\" he asked with a most villainous scowl.\n\n     \"May I ask what your name is?\"\n\n     \"No, you may not,\" said he with decision.\n\n     The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best.\n\n     \"Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?\" I asked.\n\n     He stared at me with amazement.\n\n     \"What have you done with her? Why have you pursued her? I insist upon\n     an answer!\" said I.\n\n     The fellow gave a below of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger. I\n     have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron\n     and the fury of a fiend. His hand was on my throat and my senses were\n     nearly gone before an unshaven French ouvrier in a blue blouse darted\n     out from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel in his hand, and struck my\n     assailant a sharp crack over the forearm, which made him leave go his\n     hold. He stood for an instant fuming with rage and uncertain whether\n     he should not renew his attack. Then, with a snarl of anger, he left\n     me and entered the cottage from which I had just come. I turned to\n     thank my preserver, who stood beside me in the roadway.\n\n     \"Well, Watson,\" said he, \"a very pretty hash you have made of it! I\n     rather think you had better come back with me to London by the night\n     express.\"\n\n     An hour afterwards, Sherlock Holmes, in his usual garb and style, was\n     seated in my private room at the hotel. His explanation of his sudden\n     and opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he\n     could get away from London, he determined to head me off at the next\n     obvious point of my travels. In the disguise of a workingman he had\n     sat in the cabaret waiting for my appearance.\n\n     \"And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear\n     Watson,\" said he. \"I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder\n     which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been\n     to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you would have done no better,\" I answered bitterly.\n\n     \"There is no 'perhaps' about it. I have done better. Here is the Hon.\n     Philip Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we\n     may find him the starting-point for a more successful investigation.\"\n\n     A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same\n     bearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street. He started when he\n     saw me.\n\n     \"What is this, Mr. Holmes?\" he asked. \"I had your note and I have\n     come. But what has this man to do with the matter?\"\n\n     \"This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who is helping us\n     in this affair.\"\n\n     The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few words of\n     apology.\n\n     \"I hope I didn't harm you. When you accused me of hurting her I lost\n     my grip of myself. Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days. My\n     nerves are like live wires. But this situation is beyond me. What I\n     want to know, in the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how in the world\n     you came to hear of my existence at all.\"\n\n     \"I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Frances's governess.\"\n\n     \"Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap! I remember her well.\"\n\n     \"And she remembers you. It was in the days before--before you found\n     it better to go to South Africa.\"\n\n     \"Ah, I see you know my whole story. I need hide nothing from you. I\n     swear to you, Mr. Holmes, that there never was in this world a man\n     who loved a woman with a more wholehearted love than I had for\n     Frances. I was a wild youngster, I know--not worse than others of my\n     class. But her mind was pure as snow. She could not bear a shadow of\n     coarseness. So, when she came to hear of things that I had done, she\n     would have no more to say to me. And yet she loved me--that is the\n     wonder of it!--loved me well enough to remain single all her sainted\n     days just for my sake alone. When the years had passed and I had made\n     my money at Barberton I thought perhaps I could seek her out and\n     soften her. I had heard that she was still unmarried, I found her at\n     Lausanne and tried all I knew. She weakened, I think, but her will\n     was strong, and when next I called she had left the town. I traced\n     her to Baden, and then after a time heard that her maid was here. I'm\n     a rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when Dr. Watson spoke to\n     me as he did I lost hold of myself for a moment. But for God's sake\n     tell me what has become of the Lady Frances.\"\n\n     \"That is for us to find out,\" said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar\n     gravity. \"What is your London address, Mr. Green?\"\n\n     \"The Langham Hotel will find me.\"\n\n     \"Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I\n     should want you? I have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you\n     may rest assured that all that can be done will be done for the\n     safety of Lady Frances. I can say no more for the instant. I will\n     leave you this card so that you may be able to keep in touch with us.\n     Now, Watson, if you will pack your bag I will cable to Mrs. Hudson to\n     make one of her best efforts for two hungry travellers at 7.30\n     to-morrow.\"\n\n     A telegram was awaiting us when we reached our Baker Street rooms,\n     which Holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to\n     me. \"Jagged or torn,\" was the message, and the place of origin,\n     Baden.\n\n     \"What is this?\" I asked.\n\n     \"It is everything,\" Holmes answered. \"You may remember my seemingly\n     irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman's left ear. You did\n     not answer it.\"\n\n     \"I had left Baden and could not inquire.\"\n\n     \"Exactly. For this reason I sent a duplicate to the manager of the\n     Englischer Hof, whose answer lies here.\"\n\n     \"What does it show?\"\n\n     \"It shows, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally\n     astute and dangerous man. The Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, missionary from\n     South America, is none other than Holy Peters, one of the most\n     unscrupulous rascals that Australia has ever evolved--and for a young\n     country it has turned out some very finished types. His particular\n     specialty is the beguiling of lonely ladies by playing upon their\n     religious feelings, and his so-called wife, an Englishwoman named\n     Fraser, is a worthy helpmate. The nature of his tactics suggested his\n     identity to me, and this physical peculiarity--he was badly bitten in\n     a saloon-fight at Adelaide in '89--confirmed my suspicion. This poor\n     lady is in the hands of a most infernal couple, who will stick at\n     nothing, Watson. That she is already dead is a very likely\n     supposition. If not, she is undoubtedly in some sort of confinement\n     and unable to write to Miss Dobney or her other friends. It is always\n     possible that she never reached London, or that she has passed\n     through it, but the former is improbable, as, with their system of\n     registration, it is not easy for foreigners to play tricks with the\n     Continental police; and the latter is also unlikely, as these rouges\n     could not hope to find any other place where it would be as easy to\n     keep a person under restraint. All my instincts tell me that she is\n     in London, but as we have at present no possible means of telling\n     where, we can only take the obvious steps, eat our dinner, and\n     possess our souls in patience. Later in the evening I will stroll\n     down and have a word with friend Lestrade at Scotland Yard.\"\n\n     But neither the official police nor Holmes's own small but very\n     efficient organization sufficed to clear away the mystery. Amid the\n     crowded millions of London the three persons we sought were as\n     completely obliterated as if they had never lived. Advertisements\n     were tried, and failed. Clues were followed, and led to nothing.\n     Every criminal resort which Shlessinger might frequent was drawn in\n     vain. His old associates were watched, but they kept clear of him.\n     And then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense there came a\n     flash of light. A silver-and-brilliant pendant of old Spanish design\n     had been pawned at Bovington's, in Westminster Road. The pawner was a\n     large, clean-shaven man of clerical appearance. His name and address\n     were demonstrably false. The ear had escaped notice, but the\n     description was surely that of Shlessinger.\n\n     Three times had our bearded friend from the Langham called for\n     news--the third time within an hour of this fresh development. His\n     clothes were getting looser on his great body. He seemed to be\n     wilting away in his anxiety. \"If you will only give me something to\n     do!\" was his constant wail. At last Holmes could oblige him.\n\n     \"He has begun to pawn the jewels. We should get him now.\"\n\n     \"But does this mean that any harm has befallen the Lady Frances?\"\n\n     Holmes shook his head very gravely.\n\n     \"Supposing that they have held her prisoner up to now, it is clear\n     that they cannot let her loose without their own destruction. We must\n     prepare for the worst.\"\n\n     \"What can I do?\"\n\n     \"These people do not know you by sight?\"\n\n     \"No.\"\n\n     \"It is possible that he will go to some other pawnbroker in the\n     future. in that case, we must begin again. On the other hand, he has\n     had a fair price and no questions asked, so if he is in need of\n     ready-money he will probably come back to Bovington's. I will give\n     you a note to them, and they will let you wait in the shop. If the\n     fellow comes you will follow him home. But no indiscretion, and,\n     above all, no violence. I put you on your honour that you will take\n     no step without my knowledge and consent.\"\n\n     For two days the Hon. Philip Green (he was, I may mention, the son of\n     the famous admiral of that name who commanded the Sea of Azof fleet\n     in the Crimean War) brought us no news. On the evening of the third\n     he rushed into our sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle\n     of his powerful frame quivering with excitement.\n\n     \"We have him! We have him!\" he cried.\n\n     He was incoherent in his agitation. Holmes soothed him with a few\n     words and thrust him into an armchair.\n\n     \"Come, now, give us the order of events,\" said he.\n\n     \"She came only an hour ago. It was the wife, this time, but the\n     pendant she brought was the fellow of the other. She is a tall, pale\n     woman, with ferret eyes.\"\n\n     \"That is the lady,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"She left the office and I followed her. She walked up the Kennington\n     Road, and I kept behind her. Presently she went into a shop. Mr.\n     Holmes, it was an undertaker's.\"\n\n     My companion started. \"Well?\" he asked in that vibrant voice which\n     told of the fiery soul behind the cold gray face.\n\n     \"She was talking to the woman behind the counter. I entered as well.\n     'It is late,' I heard her say, or words to that effect. The woman was\n     excusing herself. 'It should be there before now,' she answered. 'It\n     took longer, being out of the ordinary.' They both stopped and looked\n     at me, so I asked some questions and then left the shop.\"\n\n     \"You did excellently well. What happened next?\"\n\n     \"The woman came out, but I had hid myself in a doorway. Her\n     suspicions had been aroused, I think, for she looked round her. Then\n     she called a cab and got in. I was lucky enough to get another and so\n     to follow her. She got down at last at No. 36, Poultney Square,\n     Brixton. I drove past, left my cab at the corner of the square, and\n     watched the house.\"\n\n     \"Did you see anyone?\"\n\n     \"The windows were all in darkness save one on the lower floor. The\n     blind was down, and I could not see in. I was standing there,\n     wondering what I should do next, when a covered van drove up with two\n     men in it. They descended, took something out of the van, and carried\n     it up the steps to the hall door. Mr. Holmes, it was a coffin.\"\n\n     \"Ah!\"\n\n     \"For an instant I was on the point of rushing in. The door had been\n     opened to admit the men and their burden. It was the woman who had\n     opened it. But as I stood there she caught a glimpse of me, and I\n     think that she recognized me. I saw her start, and she hastily closed\n     the door. I remembered my promise to you, and here I am.\"\n\n     \"You have done excellent work,\" said Holmes, scribbling a few words\n     upon a half-sheet of paper. \"We can do nothing legal without a\n     warrant, and you can serve the cause best by taking this note down to\n     the authorities and getting one. There may be some difficulty, but I\n     should think that the sale of the jewellery should be sufficient.\n     Lestrade will see to all details.\"\n\n     \"But they may murder her in the meanwhile. What could the coffin\n     mean, and for whom could it be but for her?\"\n\n     \"We will do all that can be done, Mr. Green. Not a moment will be\n     lost. Leave it in our hands. Now Watson,\" he added as our client\n     hurried away, \"he will set the regular forces on the move. We are, as\n     usual, the irregulars, and we must take our own line of action. The\n     situation strikes me as so desperate that the most extreme measures\n     are justified. Not a moment is to be lost in getting to Poultney\n     Square.\n\n     \"Let us try to reconstruct the situation,\" said he as we drove\n     swiftly past the Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge.\n     \"These villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to London, after first\n     alienating her from her faithful maid. If she has written any letters\n     they have been intercepted. Through some confederate they have\n     engaged a furnished house. Once inside it, they have made her a\n     prisoner, and they have become possessed of the valuable jewellery\n     which has been their object from the first. Already they have begun\n     to sell part of it, which seems safe enough to them, since they have\n     no reason to think that anyone is interested in the lady's fate. When\n     she is released she will, of course, denounce them. Therefore, she\n     must not be released. But they cannot keep her under lock and key\n     forever. So murder is their only solution.\"\n\n     \"That seems very clear.\"\n\n     \"Now we will take another line of reasoning. When you follow two\n     separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of\n     intersection which should approximate to the truth. We will start\n     now, not from the lady but from the coffin and argue backward. That\n     incident proves, I fear, beyond all doubt that the lady is dead. It\n     points also to an orthodox burial with proper accompaniment of\n     medical certificate and official sanction. Had the lady been\n     obviously murdered, they would have buried her in a hole in the back\n     garden. But here all is open and regular. What does this mean? Surely\n     that they have done her to death in some way which has deceived the\n     doctor and simulated a natural end--poisoning, perhaps. And yet how\n     strange that they should ever let a doctor approach her unless he\n     were a confederate, which is hardly a credible proposition.\"\n\n     \"Could they have forged a medical certificate?\"\n\n     \"Dangerous, Watson, very dangerous. No, I hardly see them doing that.\n     Pull up, cabby! This is evidently the undertaker's, for we have just\n     passed the pawnbroker's. Would go in, Watson? Your appearance\n     inspires confidence. Ask what hour the Poultney Square funeral takes\n     place to-morrow.\"\n\n     The woman in the shop answered me without hesitation that it was to\n     be at eight o'clock in the morning. \"You see, Watson, no mystery;\n     everything above-board! In some way the legal forms have undoubtedly\n     been complied with, and they think that they have little to fear.\n     Well, there's nothing for it now but a direct frontal attack. Are you\n     armed?\"\n\n     \"My stick!\"\n\n     \"Well, well, we shall be strong enough. 'Thrice is he armed who hath\n     his quarrel just.' We simply can't afford to wait for the police or\n     to keep within the four corners of the law. You can drive off, cabby.\n     Now, Watson, we'll just take our luck together, as we have\n     occasionally in the past.\"\n\n     He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of\n     Poultney Square. It was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall\n     woman was outlined against the dim-lit hall.\n\n     \"Well, what do you want?\" she asked sharply, peering at us through\n     the darkness.\n\n     \"I want to speak to Dr. Shlessinger,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"There is no such person here,\" she answered, and tried to close the\n     door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.\n\n     \"Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call\n     himself,\" said Holmes firmly.\n\n     She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. \"Well, come in!\" said\n     she. \"My husband is not afraid to face any man in the world.\" She\n     closed the door behind us and showed us into a sitting-room on the\n     right side of the hall, turning up the gas as she left us. \"Mr.\n     Peters will be with you in an instant,\" she said.\n\n     Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around\n     the dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before\n     the door opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped\n     lightly into the room. He had a large red face, with pendulous\n     cheeks, and a general air of superficial benevolence which was marred\n     by a cruel, vicious mouth.\n\n     \"There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen,\" he said in an\n     unctuous, make-everything-easy voice. \"I fancy that you have been\n     misdirected. Possibly if you tried farther down the street--\"\n\n     \"That will do; we have no time to waste,\" said my companion firmly.\n     \"You are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of\n     Baden and South America. I am as sure of that as that my own name is\n     Sherlock Holmes.\"\n\n     Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his\n     formidable pursuer. \"I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr.\n     Holmes,\" said he coolly. \"When a man's conscience is easy you can't\n     rattle him. What is your business in my house?\"\n\n     \"I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom\n     you brought away with you from Baden.\"\n\n     \"I'd be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,\"\n     Peters answered coolly. \"I've a bill against her for a nearly a\n     hundred pounds, and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery\n     pendants that the dealer would hardly look at. She attached herself\n     to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden--it is a fact that I was using another\n     name at the time--and she stuck on to us until we came to London. I\n     paid her bill and her ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip,\n     and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You\n     find her, Mr. Holmes, and I'm your debtor.\"\n\n     In mean to find her,\" said Sherlock Holmes. \"I'm going through this\n     house till I do find her.\"\n\n     \"Where is your warrant?\"\n\n     Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. \"This will have to serve\n     till a better one comes.\"\n\n     \"Why, you're a common burglar.\"\n\n     \"So you might describe me,\" said Holmes cheerfully. \"My companion is\n     also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your\n     house.\"\n\n     Our opponent opened the door.\n\n     \"Fetch a policeman, Annie!\" said he. There was a whisk of feminine\n     skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.\n\n     \"Our time is limited, Watson,\" said Holmes. \"If you try to stop us,\n     Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which\n     was brought into your house?\"\n\n     \"What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in\n     it.\"\n\n     \"I must see the body.\"\n\n     \"Never with my consent.\"\n\n     \"Then without it.\" With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to\n     one side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood\n     immediately before us. We entered. It was the dining-room. On the\n     table, under a half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. Holmes\n     turned up the gas and raised the lid. Deep down in the recesses of\n     the coffin lay an emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above\n     beat down upon an aged and withered face. By no possible process of\n     cruelty, starvation, or disease could this wornout wreck be the still\n     beautiful Lady Frances. Holmes's face showed his amazement, and also\n     his relief.\n\n     \"Thank God!\" he muttered. \"It's someone else.\"\n\n     \"Ah, you've blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" said\n     Peters, who had followed us into the room.\n\n     \"Who is the dead woman?\"\n\n     \"Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife's,\n     Rose Spender by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse\n     Infirmary. We brought her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13\n     Firbank Villas--mind you take the address, Mr. Holmes--and had her\n     carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On the third day she\n     died--certificate says senile decay--but that's only the doctor's\n     opinion, and of course you know better. We ordered her funeral to be\n     carried out by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury\n     her at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Can you pick any hole in\n     that, Mr. Holmes? You've made a silly blunder, and you may as well\n     own up to it. I'd give something for a photograph of your gaping,\n     staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the Lady\n     Frances Carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety.\"\n\n     Holmes's expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his\n     antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.\n\n     \"I am going through your house,\" said he.\n\n     \"Are you, though!\" cried Peters as a woman's voice and heavy steps\n     sounded in the passage. \"We'll soon see about that. This way,\n     officers, if you please. These men have forced their way into my\n     house, and I cannot get rid of them. Help me to put them out.\"\n\n     A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. Holmes drew his card\n     from his case.\n\n     \"This is my name and address. This is my friend, Dr. Watson.\"\n\n     \"Bless you, sir, we know you very well,\" said the sergeant, \"but you\n     can't stay here without a warrant.\"\n\n     \"Of course not. I quite understand that.\"\n\n     \"Arrest him!\" cried Peters.\n\n     \"We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted,\"\n     said the sergeant majestically, \"but you'll have to go, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Yes, Watson, we shall have to go.\"\n\n     A minute later we were in the street once more. Holmes was as cool as\n     ever, but I was hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant had\n     followed us.\n\n     \"Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that's the law.\"\n\n     \"Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise.\"\n\n     \"I expect there was good reason for your presence there. If there is\n     anything I can do--\"\n\n     \"It's a missing lady, Sergeant, and we think she is in that house. I\n     expect a warrant presently.\"\n\n     \"Then I'll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. Holmes. If anything comes\n     along, I will surely let you know.\"\n\n     It was only nine o'clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at\n     once. First we drove to Brixton Workhoused Infirmary, where we found\n     that it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some\n     days before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former\n     servant, and that they had obtained permission to take her away with\n     them. No surprise was expressed at the news that she had since died.\n\n     The doctor was our next goal. He had been called in, had found the\n     woman dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and\n     had signed the certificate in due form. \"I assure you that everything\n     was perfectly normal and there was no room for foul play in the\n     matter,\" said he. Nothing in the house had struck him as suspicious\n     save that for people of their class it was remarkable that they\n     should have no servant. So far and no further went the doctor.\n\n     Finally we found our way to Scotland Yard. There had been\n     difficulties of procedure in regard to the warrant. Some delay was\n     inevitable. The magistrate's signature might not be obtained until\n     next morning. If Holmes would call about nine he could go down with\n     Lestrade and see it acted upon. So ended the day, save that near\n     midnight our friend, the sergeant, called to say that he had seen\n     flickering lights here and there in the windows of the great dark\n     house, but that no one had left it and none had entered. We could but\n     pray for patience and wait for the morrow.\n\n     Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless\n     for sleep. I left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows\n     knotted together, and his long, nervous fingers tapping upon the arms\n     of his chair, as he turned over in his mind every possible solution\n     of the mystery. Several times in the course of the night I heard him\n     prowling about the house. Finally, just after I had been called in\n     the morning, he rushed into my room. He was in his dressing-gown, but\n     his pale, hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a\n     sleepless one.\n\n     \"What time was the funeral? Eight, was it not?\" he asked eagerly.\n     \"Well, it is 7.20 now. Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any\n     brains that God has given me? Quick, man, quick! It's life or\n     death--a hundred chances on death to one on life. I'll never forgive\n     myself, never, if we are too late!\"\n\n     Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down\n     Baker Street. But even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed\n     Big Ben, and eight struck as we tore down the Brixton Road. But\n     others were late as well as we. Ten minutes after the hour the hearse\n     was still standing at the door of the house, and even as our foaming\n     horse came to a halt the coffin, supported by three men, appeared on\n     the threshold. Holmes darted forward and barred their way.\n\n     \"Take it back!\" he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the\n     foremost. \"Take it back this instant!\"\n\n     \"What the devil do you mean? Once again I ask you, where is your\n     warrant?\" shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaring over\n     the farther end of the coffin.\n\n     \"The warrant is on its way. The coffin shall remain in the house\n     until it comes.\"\n\n     The authority in Holmes's voice had its effect upon the bearers.\n     Peters had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these\n     new orders. \"Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a screw-driver!\" he\n     shouted as the coffin was replaced upon the table. \"Here's one for\n     you, my man! A sovreign if the lid comes off in a minute! Ask no\n     questions--work away! That's good! Another! And another! Now pull all\n     together! It's giving! It's giving! Ah, that does it at last.\"\n\n     With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. As we did so there\n     came from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of\n     chloroform. A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool,\n     which had been soaked in the narcotic. Holmes plucked it off and\n     disclosed the statuesque face of a handsome and spiritual woman of\n     middle age. In an instant he had passed his arm round the figure and\n     raised her to a sitting position.\n\n     \"Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not too\n     late!\"\n\n     For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actual\n     suffocation, and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the\n     Lady Frances seemed to have passed the last point of recall. And\n     then, at last, with artificial respiration, with injected ether, and\n     with every device that science could suggest, some flutter of life,\n     some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke of the\n     slowly returning life. A cab had driven up, and Holmes, parting the\n     blind, looked out at it. \"Here is Lestrade with his warrant,\" said\n     he. \"He will find that his birds have flown. And here,\" he added as a\n     heavy step hurried along the passage, \"is someone who has a better\n     right to nurse this lady than we have. Good morning, Mr. Green; I\n     think that the sooner we can move the Lady Frances the better.\n     Meanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the poor old woman who still\n     lies in that coffin may go to her last resting-place alone.\"\n\n     \"Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson,\"\n     said Holmes that evening, \"it can only be as an example of that\n     temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be\n     exposed. Such slips are common to all mortals, and the greatest is he\n     who can recognize and repair them. To this modified credit I may,\n     perhaps, make some claim. My night was haunted by the thought that\n     somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation, had come\n     under my notice and had been too easily dismissed. Then, suddenly, in\n     the gray of the morning, the words came back to me. It was the remark\n     of the undertaker's wife, as reported by Philip Green. She had said,\n     'It should be there before now. It took longer, being out of the\n     ordinary.' It was the coffin of which she spoke. It had been out of\n     the ordinary. That could only mean that it had been made to some\n     special measurement. But why? Why? Then in an instant I remembered\n     the deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so\n     large a coffin for so small a body? To leave room for another body.\n     Both would be buried under the one certificate. It had all been so\n     clear, if only my own sight had not been dimmed. At eight the Lady\n     Frances would be buried. Our one chance was to stop the coffin before\n     it left the house.\n\n     \"It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it was a\n     chance, as the result showed. These people had never, to my\n     knowledge, done a murder. They might shrink from actual violence at\n     the last. The could bury her with no sign of how she met her end, and\n     even if she were exhumed there was a chance for them. I hoped that\n     such considerations might prevail with them. You can reconstruct the\n     scene well enough. You saw the horrible den upstairs, where the poor\n     lady had been kept so long. They rushed in and overpowered her with\n     their chloroform, carried her down, poured more into the coffin to\n     insure against her waking, and then screwed down the lid. A clever\n     device, Watson. It is new to me in the annals of crime. If our\n     ex-missionary friends escape the clutches of Lestrade, I shall expect\n     to hear of some brilliant incidents in their future career.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S FOOT\n\n     In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and\n     interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate\n     friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by\n     difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity. To his sombre\n     and cynical spirit all popular applause was always abhorrent, and\n     nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand\n     over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen\n     with a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced\n     congratulation. It was indeed this attitude upon the part of my\n     friend and certainly not any lack of interesting material which has\n     caused me of late years to lay very few of my records before the\n     public. My participation in some if his adventures was always a\n     privilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me.\n\n     It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram\n     from Homes last Tuesday--he has never been known to write where a\n     telegram would serve--in the following terms:\n\n     Why not tell them of the Cornish horror--strangest case I have\n     handled.\n     I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter\n     fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I\n     should recount it; but I hasten, before another cancelling telegram\n     may arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details of\n     the case and to lay the narrative before my readers.\n\n     It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron\n     constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of\n     constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by\n     occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore\n     Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may\n     some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private\n     agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest\n     if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his health\n     was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for\n     his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on\n     the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give\n     himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the\n     early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small\n     cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish\n     peninsula.\n\n     It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim\n     humour of my patient. From the windows of our little whitewashed\n     house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon\n     the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of\n     sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept\n     reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a\n     northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the\n     storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.\n\n     Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale\n     from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last\n     battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from\n     that evil place.\n\n     On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. It\n     was a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with an\n     occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world village.\n     In every direction upon these moors there were traces of some\n     vanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as it sole\n     record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained\n     the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at\n     prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery of the place, with its\n     sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination\n     of my friend, and he spent much of his time in long walks and\n     solitary meditations upon the moor. The ancient Cornish language had\n     also arrested his attention, and he had, I remember, conceived the\n     idea that it was akin to the Chaldean, and had been largely derived\n     from the Phoenician traders in tin. He had received a consignment of\n     books upon philology and was settling down to develop this thesis\n     when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found\n     ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our\n     very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely\n     more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London.\n     Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently\n     interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of\n     events which caused the utmost excitement not only in Cornwall but\n     throughout the whole west of England. Many of my readers may retain\n     some recollection of what was called at the time \"The Cornish\n     Horror,\" though a most imperfect account of the matter reached the\n     London press. Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true details\n     of this inconceivable affair to the public.\n\n     I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted\n     this part of Cornwall. The nearest of these was the hamlet of\n     Tredannick Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred\n     inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. The vicar\n     of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and\n     as such Holmes had made his acquaintance. He was a middle-aged man,\n     portly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore. At his\n     invitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know,\n     also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased\n     the clergyman's scanty resources by taking rooms in his large,\n     straggling house. The vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to\n     such an arrangement, though he had little in common with his lodger,\n     who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the\n     impression of actual, physical deformity. I remember that during our\n     short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely\n     reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes,\n     brooding apparently upon his own affairs.\n\n     These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little\n     sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast\n     hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion\n     upon the moors.\n\n     \"Mr. Holmes,\" said the vicar in an agitated voice, \"the most\n     extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is\n     the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a special\n     Providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all\n     England you are the one man we need.\"\n\n     I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but\n     Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an\n     old hound who hears the view-halloa. He waved his hand to the sofa,\n     and our palpitating visitor with his agitated companion sat side by\n     side upon it. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was more self-contained than the\n     clergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands and the brightness of\n     his dark eyes showed that they shared a common emotion.\n\n     \"Shall I speak or you?\" he asked of the vicar.\n\n     \"Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be,\n     and the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do\n     the speaking,\" said Holmes.\n\n     I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed\n     lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which\n     Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces.\n\n     \"Perhaps I had best say a few words first,\" said the vicar, \"and then\n     you can judge if you will listen to the details from Mr. Tregennis,\n     or whether we should not hasten at once to the scene of this\n     mysterious affair. I may explain, then, that our friend here spent\n     last evening in the company of his two brothers, Owen and George, and\n     of his sister Brenda, at their house of Tredannick Wartha, which is\n     near the old stone cross upon the moor. He left them shortly after\n     ten o'clock, playing cards round the dining-room table, in excellent\n     health and spirits. This morning, being an early riser, he walked in\n     that direction before breakfast and was overtaken by the carriage of\n     Dr. Richards, who explained that he had just been sent for on a most\n     urgent call to Tredannick Wartha. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis naturally\n     went with him. When he arrived at Tredannick Wartha he found an\n     extraordinary state of things. His two brothers and his sister were\n     seated round the table exactly as he had left them, the cards still\n     spread in front of them and the candles burned down to their sockets.\n     The sister lay back stone-dead in her chair, while the two brothers\n     sat on each side of her laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses\n     stricken clean out of them. All three of them, the dead woman and the\n     two demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the\n     utmost horror--a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look\n     upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house,\n     except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that\n     she had slept deeply and heard no sound during the night. Nothing had\n     been stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of\n     what the horror can be which has frightened a woman to death and two\n     strong men out of their senses. There is the situation, Mr. Holmes,\n     in a nutshell, and if you can help us to clear it up you will have\n     done a great work.\"\n\n     I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into the\n     quiet which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at his\n     intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the\n     expectation. He sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in the\n     strange drama which had broken in upon our peace.\n\n     \"I will look into this matter,\" he said at last. \"On the face of it,\n     it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. Have you\n     been there yourself, Mr. Roundhay?\"\n\n     \"No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the\n     vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you.\"\n\n     \"How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?\"\n\n     \"About a mile inland.\"\n\n     \"Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must ask you\n     a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis.\"\n\n     The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his\n     more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive\n     emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious\n     gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively\n     together. His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful\n     experience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to\n     reflect something of the horror of the scene.\n\n     \"Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes,\" said he eagerly. \"It is a bad thing\n     to speak of, but I will answer you the truth.\"\n\n     \"Tell me about last night.\"\n\n     \"Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my\n     elder brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat down\n     about nine o'clock. It was a quarter-past ten when I moved to go. I\n     left them all round the table, as merry as could be.\"\n\n     \"Who let you out?\"\n\n     \"Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out. I shut the hall\n     door behind me. The window of the room in which they sat was closed,\n     but the blind was not drawn down. There was no change in door or\n     window this morning, or any reason to think that any stranger had\n     been to the house. Yet there they sat, driven clean mad with terror,\n     and Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over the arm\n     of the chair. I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind so\n     long as I live.\"\n\n     \"The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable,\" said\n     Holmes. \"I take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any\n     way account for them?\"\n\n     \"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!\" cried Mortimer Tregennis. \"It\n     is not of this world. Something has come into that room which has\n     dashed the light of reason from their minds. What human contrivance\n     could do that?\"\n\n     \"I fear,\" said Holmes, \"that if the matter is beyond humanity it is\n     certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations\n     before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr.\n     Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some way from your family,\n     since they lived together and you had rooms apart?\"\n\n     \"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We\n     were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a\n     company, and so retired with enough to keep us. I won't deny that\n     there was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood\n     between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we\n     were the best of friends together.\"\n\n     \"Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything\n     stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the\n     tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help\n     me.\"\n\n     \"There is nothing at all, sir.\"\n\n     \"Your people were in their usual spirits?\"\n\n     \"Never better.\"\n\n     \"Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of\n     coming danger?\"\n\n     \"Nothing of the kind.\"\n\n     \"You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?\"\n\n     Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.\n\n     \"There is one thing occurs to me,\" said he at last. \"As we sat at the\n     table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my\n     partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my\n     shoulder, so I turned round and looked also. The blind was up and the\n     window shut, but I could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and it\n     seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them. I\n     couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just thought there\n     was something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he told\n     me that he had the same feeling. That is all that I can say.\"\n\n     \"Did you not investigate?\"\n\n     \"No; the matter passed as unimportant.\"\n\n     \"You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?\"\n\n     \"None at all.\"\n\n     \"I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning.\"\n\n     \"I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This\n     morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook\n     me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an\n     urgent message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When we got\n     there we looked into that dreadful room. The candles and the fire\n     must have burned out hours before, and they had been sitting there in\n     the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must have been\n     dead at least six hours. There were no signs of violence. She just\n     lay across the arm of the chair with that look on her face. George\n     and Owen were singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great\n     apes. Oh, it was awful to see! I couldn't stand it, and the doctor\n     was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of\n     faint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well.\"\n\n     \"Remarkable--most remarkable!\" said Holmes, rising and taking his\n     hat. \"I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha\n     without further delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case\n     which at first sight presented a more singular problem.\"\n\n     Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the\n     investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident\n     which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach to\n     the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,\n     country lane. While we made our way along it we heard the rattle of a\n     carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. As it\n     drove by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a\n     horribly contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring\n     eyes and gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.\n\n     \"My brothers!\" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. \"They are\n     taking them to Helston.\"\n\n     We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its\n     way. Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which\n     they had met their strange fate.\n\n     It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage,\n     with a considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air,\n     well filled with spring flowers. Towards this garden the window of\n     the sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer\n     Tregennis, must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer\n     horror in a single instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly\n     and thoughtfully among the flower-plots and along the path before we\n     entered the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember,\n     that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and\n     deluged both our feet and the garden path. Inside the house we were\n     met by the elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the\n     aid of a young girl, looked after the wants of the family. She\n     readily answered all Holmes's questions. She had heard nothing in the\n     night. Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and\n     she had never known them more cheerful and prosperous. She had\n     fainted with horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing\n     that dreadful company round the table. She had, when she recovered,\n     thrown open the window to let the morning air in, and had run down to\n     the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the doctor. The lady was on\n     her bed upstairs if we cared to see her. It took four strong men to\n     get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself stay\n     in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to\n     rejoin her family at St. Ives.\n\n     We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis had\n     been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her\n     dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still\n     lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had\n     been her last human emotion. From her bedroom we descended to the\n     sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. The\n     charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table\n     were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards\n     scattered over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against\n     the walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes\n     paced with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various\n     chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He tested\n     how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the\n     ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden\n     brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have\n     told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter darkness.\n\n     \"Why a fire?\" he asked once. \"Had they always a fire in this small\n     room on a spring evening?\"\n\n     Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For\n     that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. \"What are you going\n     to do now, Mr. Holmes?\" he asked.\n\n     My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. \"I think, Watson,\n     that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have\n     so often and so justly condemned,\" said he. \"With your permission,\n     gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that\n     any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the\n     facts over in my mid, Mr, Tregennis, and should anything occur to me\n     I will certainly ommunicate with you and the vicar. In the meantime I\n     wish you both good-morning.\"\n\n     It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that\n     Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his\n     armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue\n     swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead\n     contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he laid down his\n     pipe and sprang to his feet.\n\n     \"It won't do, Watson!\" said he with a laugh. \"Let us walk along the\n     cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to\n     find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without\n     sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to\n     pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson--all else will\n     come.\n\n     \"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,\" he continued as we\n     skirted the cliffs together. \"Let us get a firm grip of the very\n     little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be\n     ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the first place,\n     that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into\n     the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our\n     minds. Very good. There remain three persons who have been grievously\n     stricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency. That is firm\n     ground. Now, when did this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative\n     to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left\n     the room. That is a very important point. The presumption is that it\n     was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the\n     table. It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not\n     changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat, then,\n     that the occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not\n     later than eleven o'clock last night.\n\n     \"Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the movements\n     of Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room. In this there is no\n     difficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion. Knowing my methods\n     as you do, you were, of course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy\n     water-pot expedient by which I obtained a clearer impress of his foot\n     than might otherwise have been possible. The wet, sandy path took it\n     admirably. Last night was also wet, you will remember, and it was not\n     difficult--having obtained a sample print--to pick out his track\n     among others and to follow his movements. He appears to have walked\n     away swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.\n\n     \"If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet\n     some outside person affected the card-players, how can we reconstruct\n     that person, and how was such an impression of horror conveyed? Mrs.\n     Porter may be eliminated. She is evidently harmless. Is there any\n     evidence that someone crept up to the garden window and in some\n     manner produced so terrific an effect that he drove those who saw it\n     out of their senses? The only suggestion in this direction comes from\n     Mortimer Tregennis himself, who says that his brother spoke about\n     some movement in the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the\n     night was rainy, cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm\n     these people would be compelled to place his very face against the\n     glass before he could be seen. There is a three-foot flower-border\n     outside this window, but no indication of a footmark. It is difficult\n     to imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so terrible an\n     impression upon the company, nor have we found any possible motive\n     for so strange and elaborate an attempt. You perceive our\n     difficulties, Watson?\"\n\n     \"They are only too clear,\" I answered with conviction.\n\n     \"And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are not\n     insurmountable,\" said Holmes. \"I fancy that among your extensive\n     archives, Watson, you may find some which were nearly as obscure.\n     Meanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more accurate data are\n     available, and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit of\n     neolithic man.\"\n\n     I may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment, but\n     never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring morning in\n     Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts, arrowheads, and\n     shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were waiting for his\n     solution. It was not until we had returned in the afternoon to our\n     cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who soon brought our\n     minds back to the matter in hand. Neither of us needed to be told who\n     that visitor was. The huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face\n     with the fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which\n     nearly brushed our cottage ceiling, the beard--golden at the fringes\n     and white near the lips, save for the nicotine stain from his\n     perpetual cigar--all these were as well known in London as in Africa,\n     and could only be associated with the tremendous personality of Dr.\n     Leon Sterndale, the great lion-hunter and explorer.\n\n     We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or twice\n     caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. He made no\n     advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of doing so to\n     him, as it was well known that it was his love of seclusion which\n     caused him to spend the greater part of the intervals between his\n     journeys in a small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of Beauchamp\n     Arriance. Here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely\n     lonely life, attending to his own simple wants and paying little\n     apparent heed to the affairs of his neighbours. It was a surprise to\n     me, therefore, to hear him asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he\n     had made any advance in his reconstruction of this mysterious\n     episode. \"The county police are utterly at fault,\" said he, \"but\n     perhaps your wider experience has suggested some conceivable\n     explanation. My only claim to being taken into your confidence is\n     that during my many residences here I have come to know this family\n     of Tregennis very well--indeed, upon my Cornish mother's side I could\n     call them cousins--and their strange fate has naturally been a great\n     shock to me. I may tell you that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my\n     way to Africa, but the news reached me this morning, and I came\n     straight back again to help in the inquiry.\"\n\n     Holmes raised his eyebrows.\n\n     \"Did you lose your boat through it?\"\n\n     \"I will take the next.\"\n\n     \"Dear me! that is friendship indeed.\"\n\n     \"I tell you they were relatives.\"\n\n     \"Quite so--cousins of your mother. Was your baggage aboard the ship?\"\n\n     \"Some of it, but the main part at the hotel.\"\n\n     \"I see. But surely this event could not have found its way into the\n     Plymouth morning papers.\"\n\n     \"No, sir; I had a telegram.\"\n\n     \"Might I ask from whom?\"\n\n     A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.\n\n     \"You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"It is my business.\"\n\n     With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.\n\n     \"I have no objection to telling you,\" he said. \"It was Mr. Roundhay,\n     the vicar, who sent me the telegram which recalled me.\"\n\n     \"Thank you,\" said Holmes. \"I may say in answer to your original\n     question that I have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject of\n     this case, but that I have every hope of reaching some conclusion. It\n     would be premature to say more.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point in\n     any particular direction?\"\n\n     \"No, I can hardly answer that.\"\n\n     \"Then I have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit.\" The\n     famous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour,\n     and within five minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw him no more\n     until the evening, when he returned with a slow step and haggard face\n     which assured me that he had made no great progress with his\n     investigation. He glanced at a telegram which awaited him and threw\n     it into the grate.\n\n     \"From the Plymouth hotel, Watson,\" he said. \"I learned the name of it\n     from the vicar, and I wired to make certain that Dr. Leon Sterndale's\n     account was true. It appears that he did indeed spend last night\n     there, and that he has actually allowed some of his baggage to go on\n     to Africa, while he returned to be present at this investigation.\n     What do you make of that, Watson?\"\n\n     \"He is deeply interested.\"\n\n     \"Deeply interested--yes. There is a thread here which we had not yet\n     grasped and which might lead us through the tangle. Cheer up, Watson,\n     for I am very sure that our material has not yet all come to hand.\n     When it does we may soon leave our difficulties behind us.\"\n\n     Little did I think how soon the words of Holmes would be realized, or\n     how strange and sinister would be that new development which opened\n     up an entirely fresh line of investigation. I was shaving at my\n     window in the morning when I heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking\n     up, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at\n     our door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our\n     garden path. Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet\n     him.\n\n     Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but at\n     last in gasps and bursts his tragic story came out of him.\n\n     \"We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-ridden!\" he\n     cried. \"Satan himself is loose in it! We are given over into his\n     hands!\" He danced about in his agitation, a ludicrous object if it\n     were not for his ashy face and startled eyes. Finally he shot out his\n     terrible news.\n\n     \"Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly the\n     same symptoms as the rest of his family.\"\n\n     Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.\n\n     \"Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?\"\n\n     \"Yes, I can.\"\n\n     \"Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we are\n     entirely at your disposal. Hurry--hurry, before things get\n     disarranged.\"\n\n     The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an angle\n     by themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large\n     sitting-room; above, his bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet lawn\n     which came up to the windows. We had arrived before the doctor or the\n     police, so that everything was absolutely undisturbed. Let me\n     describe exactly the scene as we saw it upon that misty March\n     morning. It has left an impression which can never be effaced from my\n     mind.\n\n     The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing\n     stuffiness. The servant who had first entered had thrown up the\n     window, or it would have been even more intolerable. This might\n     partly be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring and smoking on\n     the centre table. Beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in his\n     chair, his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up on to his\n     forehead, and his lean dark face turned towards the window and\n     twisted into the same distortion of terror which had marked the\n     features of his dead sister. His limbs were convulsed and his fingers\n     contorted as though he had died in a very paroxysm of fear. He was\n     fully clothed, though there were signs that his dressing had been\n     done in a hurry. We had already learned that his bed had been slept\n     in, and that the tragic end had come to him in the early morning.\n\n     One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic\n     exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the\n     moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was\n     tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering\n     with eager activity. He was out on the lawn, in through the window,\n     round the room, and up into the bedroom, for all the world like a\n     dashing foxhound drawing a cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast\n     around and ended by throwing open the window, which appeared to give\n     him some fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with\n     loud ejaculations of interest and delight. Then he rushed down the\n     stair, out through the open window, threw himself upon his face on\n     the lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, all with the energy\n     of the hunter who is at the very heels of his quarry. The lamp, which\n     was an ordinary standard, he examined with minute care, making\n     certain measurements upon its bowl. He carefully scrutinized with his\n     lens the talc shield which covered the top of the chimney and scraped\n     off some ashes which adhered to its upper surface, putting some of\n     them into an envelope, which he placed in his pocketbook. Finally,\n     just as the doctor and the official police put in an appearance, he\n     beckoned to the vicar and we all three went out upon the lawn.\n\n     \"I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely\n     barren,\" he remarked. \"I cannot remain to discuss the matter with the\n     police, but I should be exceedingly obliged, Mr. Roundhay, if you\n     would give the inspector my compliments and direct his attention to\n     the bedroom window and to the sitting-room lamp. Each is suggestive,\n     and together they are almost conclusive. If the police would desire\n     further information I shall be happy to see any of them at the\n     cottage. And now, Watson, I think that, perhaps, we shall be better\n     employed elsewhere.\"\n\n     It may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur, or\n     that they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of\n     investigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them for\n     the next two days. During this time Holmes spent some of his time\n     smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater portion in country\n     walks which he undertook alone, returning after many hours without\n     remark as to where he had been. One experiment served to show me the\n     line of his investigation. He had bought a lamp which was the\n     duplicate of the one which had burned in the room of Mortimer\n     Tregennis on the morning of the tragedy. This he filled with the same\n     oil as that used at the vicarage, and he carefully timed the period\n     which it would take to be exhausted. Another experiment which he made\n     was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am not likely ever\n     to forget.\n\n     \"You will remember, Watson,\" he remarked one afternoon, \"that there\n     is a single common point of resemblance in the varying reports which\n     have reached us. This concerns the effect of the atmosphere of the\n     room in each case upon those who had first entered it. You will\n     recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in describing the episode of his\n     last visit to his brother's house, remarked that the doctor on\n     entering the room fell into a chair? You had forgotten? Well I can\n     answer for it that it was so. Now, you will remember also that Mrs.\n     Porter, the housekeeper, told us that she herself fainted upon\n     entering the room and had afterwards opened the window. In the second\n     case--that of Mortimer Tregennis himself--you cannot have forgotten\n     the horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived, though the\n     servant had thrown open the window. That servant, I found upon\n     inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. You will admit,\n     Watson, that these facts are very suggestive. In each case there is\n     evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. In each case, also, there is\n     combustion going on in the room--in the one case a fire, in the other\n     a lamp. The fire was needed, but the lamp was lit--as a comparison of\n     the oil consumed will show--long after it was broad daylight. Why?\n     Surely because there is some connection between three things--the\n     burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of\n     those unfortunate people. That is clear, is it not?\"\n\n     \"It would appear so.\"\n\n     \"At least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. We will suppose,\n     then, that something was burned in each case which produced an\n     atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. Very good. In the first\n     instance--that of the Tregennis family--this substance was placed in\n     the fire. Now the window was shut, but the fire would naturally carry\n     fumes to some extent up the chimney. Hence one would expect the\n     effects of the poison to be less than in the second case, where there\n     was less escape for the vapour. The result seems to indicate that it\n     was so, since in the first case only the woman, who had presumably\n     the more sensitive organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that\n     temporary or permanent lunacy which is evidently the first effect of\n     the drug. In the second case the result was complete. The facts,\n     therefore, seem to bear out the theory of a poison which worked by\n     combustion.\n\n     \"With this train of reasoning in my head I naturally looked about in\n     Mortimer Tregennis's room to find some remains of this substance. The\n     obvious place to look was the talc shelf or smoke-guard of the lamp.\n     There, sure enough, I perceived a number of flaky ashes, and round\n     the edges a fringe of brownish powder, which had not yet been\n     consumed. Half of this I took, as you saw, and I placed it in an\n     envelope.\"\n\n     \"Why half, Holmes?\"\n\n     \"It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the\n     official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I found.\n     The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it.\n     Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will, however, take the\n     precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two\n     deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that\n     open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine\n     to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will\n     you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite\n     yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face\n     to face. The door we will leave ajar. Each is now in a position to\n     watch the other and to bring the experiment to an end should the\n     symptoms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our\n     powder--or what remains of it--from the envelope, and I lay it above\n     the burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await\n     developments.\"\n\n     They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before\n     I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the\n     very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all\n     control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind\n     told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out\n     upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all\n     that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague\n     shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a\n     warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller\n     upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing\n     horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my\n     eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like\n     leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must\n     surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse\n     croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself.\n     At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that\n     cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid,\n     and drawn with horror--the very look which I had seen upon the\n     features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of\n     sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round\n     Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant\n     afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were\n     lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was\n     bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt\n     us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape\n     until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the\n     grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at\n     each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which\n     we had undergone.\n\n     \"Upon my word, Watson!\" said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice,\n     \"I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable\n     experiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am\n     really very sorry.\"\n\n     \"You know,\" I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so\n     much of Holmes's heart before, \"that it is my greatest joy and\n     privilege to help you.\"\n\n     He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which\n     was his habitual attitude to those about him. \"It would be\n     superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson,\" said he. \"A candid\n     observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we\n     embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never imagined\n     that the effect could be so sudden and so severe.\" He dashed into the\n     cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's\n     length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. \"We must give the room\n     a little time to clear. I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a\n     shadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?\"\n\n     \"None whatever.\"\n\n     \"But the cause remains as obscure as before. Come into the arbour\n     here and let us discuss it together. That villainous stuff seems\n     still to linger round my throat. I think we must admit that all the\n     evidence points to this man, Mortimer Tregennis, having been the\n     criminal in the first tragedy, though he was the victim in the second\n     one. We must remember, in the first place, that there is some story\n     of a family quarrel, followed by a reconciliation. How bitter that\n     quarrel may have been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot\n     tell. When I think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the\n     small shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom\n     I should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition. Well,\n     in the next place, you will remember that this idea of someone moving\n     in the garden, which took our attention for a moment from the real\n     cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. He had a motive in\n     misleading us. Finally, if he did not throw the substance into the\n     fire at the moment of leaving the room, who did do so? The affair\n     happened immediately after his departure. Had anyone else come in,\n     the family would certainly have risen from the table. Besides, in\n     peaceful Cornwall, visitors did not arrive after ten o'clock at\n     night. We may take it, then, that all the evidence points to Mortimer\n     Tregennis as the culprit.\"\n\n     \"Then his own death was suicide!\"\n\n     \"Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible supposition.\n     The man who had the guilt upon his soul of having brought such a fate\n     upon his own family might well be driven by remorse to inflict it\n     upon himself. There are, however, some cogent reasons against it.\n     Fortunately, there is one man in England who knows all about it, and\n     I have made arrangements by which we shall hear the facts this\n     afternoon from his own lips. Ah! he is a little before his time.\n     Perhaps you would kindly step this way, Dr. Leon Sterndale. We have\n     been conducing a chemical experiment indoors which has left our\n     little room hardly fit for the reception of so distinguished a\n     visitor.\"\n\n     I had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic figure\n     of the great African explorer appeared upon the path. He turned in\n     some surprise towards the rustic arbour in which we sat.\n\n     \"You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your note about an hour ago, and\n     I have come, though I really do not know why I should obey your\n     summons.\"\n\n     \"Perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate,\" said Holmes.\n     \"Meanwhile, I am much obliged to you for your courteous acquiescence.\n     You will excuse this informal reception in the open air, but my\n     friend Watson and I have nearly furnished an additional chapter to\n     what the papers call the Cornish Horror, and we prefer a clear\n     atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, since the matters which we have\n     to discuss will affect you personally in a very intimate fashion, it\n     is as well that we should talk where there can be no eavesdropping.\"\n\n     The explorer took his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my\n     companion.\n\n     \"I am at a loss to know, sir,\" he said, \"what you can have to speak\n     about which affects me personally in a very intimate fashion.\"\n\n     \"The killing of Mortimer Tregennis,\" said Holmes.\n\n     For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale's fierce face\n     turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate\n     veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with\n     clenched hands towards my companion. Then he stopped, and with a\n     violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid calmness, which was, perhaps,\n     more suggestive of danger than his hot-headed outburst.\n\n     \"I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law,\" said he,\n     \"that I have got into the way of being a law to myself. You would do\n     well, Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no desire to do you an\n     injury.\"\n\n     \"Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, Dr. Sterndale. Surely the\n     clearest proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I have sent for\n     you and not for the police.\"\n\n     Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time\n     in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in\n     Holmes's manner which could not be withstood. Our visitor stammered\n     for a moment, his great hands opening and shutting in his agitation.\n\n     \"What do you mean?\" he asked at last. \"If this is bluff upon your\n     part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let\n     us have no more beating about the bush. What do you mean?\"\n\n     \"I will tell you,\" said Holmes, \"and the reason why I tell you is\n     that I hope frankness may beget frankness. What my next step may be\n     will depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence.\"\n\n     \"My defence?\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n     \"My defence against what?\"\n\n     \"Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis.\"\n\n     Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. \"Upon my word,\n     you are getting on,\" said he. \"Do all your successes depend upon this\n     prodigious power of bluff?\"\n\n     \"The bluff,\" said Holmes sternly, \"is upon your side, Dr. Leon\n     Sterndale, and not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of the\n     facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of your return from\n     Plymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to Africa, I will\n     say nothing save that it first informed me that you were one of the\n     factors which had to be taken into account in reconstructing this\n     drama--\"\n\n     \"I came back--\"\n\n     \"I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and\n     inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask me whom I\n     suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to the vicarage,\n     waited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your\n     cottage.\"\n\n     \"How do you know that?\"\n\n     \"I followed you.\"\n\n     \"I saw no one.\"\n\n     \"That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent a\n     restless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans, which\n     in the early morning you proceeded to put into execution. Leaving\n     your door just as day was breaking, you filled your pocket with some\n     reddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your gate.\"\n\n     Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes in amazement.\n\n     \"You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from the\n     vicarage. You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of ribbed\n     tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your feet. At the\n     vicarage you passed through the orchard and the side hedge, coming\n     out under the window of the lodger Tregennis. It was now daylight,\n     but the household was not yet stirring. You drew some of the gravel\n     from your pocket, and you threw it up at the window above you.\"\n\n     Sterndale sprang to his feet.\n\n     \"I believe that you are the devil himself!\" he cried.\n\n     Holmes smiled at the compliment. \"It took two, or possibly three,\n     handfuls before the lodger came to the window. You beckoned him to\n     come down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to his sitting-room.\n     You entered by the window. There was an interview--a short\n     one--during which you walked up and down the room. Then you passed\n     out and closed the window, standing on the lawn outside smoking a\n     cigar and watching what occurred. Finally, after the death of\n     Tregennis, you withdrew as you had come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do\n     you justify such conduct, and what were the motives for your actions?\n     If you prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my assurance that\n     the matter will pass out of my hands forever.\"\n\n     Our visitor's face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the words\n     of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with his face\n     sunk in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture he plucked a\n     photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on the rustic table\n     before us.\n\n     \"That is why I have done it,\" said he.\n\n     It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes stooped\n     over it.\n\n     \"Brenda Tregennis,\" said he.\n\n     \"Yes, Brenda Tregennis,\" repeated our visitor. \"For years I have\n     loved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of that\n     Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has brought me\n     close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me. I could not\n     marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for years and yet whom,\n     by the deplorable laws of England, I could not divorce. For years\n     Brenda waited. For years I waited. And this is what we have waited\n     for.\" A terrible sob shook his great frame, and he clutched his\n     throat under his brindled beard. Then with an effort he mastered\n     himself and spoke on:\n\n     \"The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you that she\n     was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to me and I\n     returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me when I learned that\n     such a fate had come upon my darling? There you have the missing clue\n     to my action, Mr. Holmes.\"\n\n     \"Proceed,\" said my friend.\n\n     Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it upon\n     the table. On the outside was written \"Radix pedis diaboli\" with a\n     red poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. \"I understand\n     that you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of this preparation?\"\n\n     \"Devil's-foot root! No, I have never heard of it.\"\n\n     \"It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge,\" said he, \"for\n     I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda, there is\n     no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its way either into\n     the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology. The root is\n     shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the fanciful\n     name given by a botanical missionary. It is used as an ordeal poison\n     by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and is kept\n     as a secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained under\n     very extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country.\" He opened\n     the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,\n     snuff-like powder.\n\n     \"Well, sir?\" asked Holmes sternly.\n\n     \"I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred, for\n     you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest that you\n     should know all. I have already explained the relationship in which I\n     stood to the Tregennis family. For the sake of the sister I was\n     friendly with the brothers. There was a family quarrel about money\n     which estranged this man Mortimer, but it was supposed to be made up,\n     and I afterwards met him as I did the others. He was a sly, subtle,\n     scheming man, and several things arose which gave me a suspicion of\n     him, but I had no cause for any positive quarrel.\n\n     \"One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage and\n     I showed him some of my African curiosities. Among other things I\n     exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties, how\n     it stimulates those brain centres which control the emotion of fear,\n     and how either madness or death is the fate of the unhappy native who\n     is subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe. I told him\n     also how powerless European science would be to detect it. How he\n     took it I cannot say, for I never left the room, but there is no\n     doubt that it was then, while I was opening cabinets and stooping to\n     boxes, that he managed to abstract some of the devil's-foot root. I\n     well remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and the\n     time that was needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he\n     could have a personal reason for asking.\n\n     \"I thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram reached\n     me at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be at sea\n     before the news could reach me, and that I should be lost for years\n     in Africa. But I returned at once. Of course, I could not listen to\n     the details without feeling assured that my poison had been used. I\n     came round to see you on the chance that some other explanation had\n     suggested itself to you. But there could be none. I was convinced\n     that Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money,\n     and with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family\n     were all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint\n     property, he had used the devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two\n     of them out of their senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one\n     human being whom I have ever loved or who has ever loved me. There\n     was his crime; what was to be his punishment?\n\n     \"Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the\n     facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen\n     believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not\n     afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you\n     once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside\n     the law, and that I have come at last to be a law to myself. So it\n     was even now. I determined that the fate which he had given to others\n     should be shared by himself. Either that or I would do justice upon\n     him with my own hand. In all England there can be no man who sets\n     less value upon his own life than I do at the present moment.\n\n     \"Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest. I did,\n     as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my cottage. I\n     foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered some gravel\n     from the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it to throw up to\n     his window. He came down and admitted me through the window of the\n     sitting-room. I laid his offence before him. I told him that I had\n     come both as judge and executioner. The wretch sank into a chair,\n     paralyzed at the sight of my revolver. I lit the lamp, put the powder\n     above it, and stood outside the window, ready to carry out my threat\n     to shoot him should he try to leave the room. In five minutes he\n     died. My God! how he died! But my heart was flint, for he endured\n     nothing which my innocent darling had not felt before him. There is\n     my story, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have\n     done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take\n     what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living\n     who can fear death less than I do.\"\n\n     Holmes sat for some little time in silence.\n\n     \"What were your plans?\" he asked at last.\n\n     \"I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there is\n     but half finished.\"\n\n     \"Go and do the other half,\" said Holmes. \"I, at least, am not\n     prepared to prevent you.\"\n\n     Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked from\n     the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.\n\n     \"Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change,\" said\n     he. \"I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case in which\n     we are called upon to interfere. Our investigation has been\n     independent, and our action shall be so also. You would not denounce\n     the man?\"\n\n     \"Certainly not,\" I answered.\n\n     \"I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved\n     had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has\n     done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not offend your intelligence by\n     explaining what is obvious. The gravel upon the window-sill was, of\n     course, the starting-point of my research. It was unlike anything in\n     the vicarage garden. Only when my attention had been drawn to Dr.\n     Sterndale and his cottage did I find its counterpart. The lamp\n     shining in broad daylight and the remains of powder upon the shield\n     were successive links in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear\n     Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back\n     with a clear conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which\n     are surely to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic\n     speech.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  HIS LAST BOW\n                         An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes\n\n     It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most\n     terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought\n     already that God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for\n     there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the\n     sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set, but one blood-red gash\n     like an open wound lay low in the distant west. Above, the stars were\n     shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in\n     the bay. The two famous Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the\n     garden walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them,\n     and they looked down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of\n     the great chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle,\n     had perched himself four years before. They stood with their heads\n     close together, talking in low, confidential tones. From below the\n     two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes\n     of some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.\n\n     A remarkable man this Von Bork--a man who could hardly be matched\n     among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents which\n     had first recommended him for the English mission, the most important\n     mission of all, but since he had taken it over those talents had\n     become more and more manifest to the half-dozen people in the world\n     who were really in touch with the truth. One of these was his present\n     companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief secretary of the legation,\n     whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car was blocking the country lane as\n     it waited to waft its owner back to London.\n\n     \"So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be back\n     in Berlin within the week,\" the secretary was saying. \"When you get\n     there, my dear Von Bork, I think you will be surprised at the welcome\n     you will receive. I happen to know what is thought in the highest\n     quarters of your work in this country.\" He was a huge man, the\n     secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow, heavy fashion of\n     speech which had been his main asset in his political career.\n\n     Von Bork laughed.\n\n     \"They are not very hard to deceive,\" he remarked. \"A more docile,\n     simple folk could not be imagined.\"\n\n     \"I don't know about that,\" said the other thoughtfully. \"They have\n     strange limits and one must learn to observe them. It is that surface\n     simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the stranger. One's first\n     impression is that they are entirely soft. Then one comes suddenly\n     upon something very hard, and you know that you have reached the\n     limit and must adapt yourself to the fact. They have, for example,\n     their insular conventions which simply must be observed.\"\n\n     \"Meaning 'good form' and that sort of thing?\" Von Bork sighed as one\n     who had suffered much.\n\n     \"Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As an\n     example I may quote one of my own worst blunders--I can afford to\n     talk of my blunders, for you know my work well enough to be aware of\n     my successes. It was on my first arrival. I was invited to a week-end\n     gathering at the country house of a cabinet minister. The\n     conversation was amazingly indiscreet.\"\n\n     Von Bork nodded. \"I've been there,\" said he dryly.\n\n     \"Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to\n     Berlin. Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in\n     these matters, and he transmitted a remark which showed that he was\n     aware of what had been said. This, of course, took the trail straight\n     up to me. You've no idea the harm that it did me. There was nothing\n     soft about our British hosts on that occasion, I can assure you. I\n     was two years living it down. Now you, with this sporting pose of\n     yours--\"\n\n     \"No, no, don't call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing. This is\n     quite natural. I am a born sportsman. I enjoy it.\"\n\n     \"Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them, you\n     hunt with them, you play polo, you match them in every game, your\n     four-in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard that you\n     go the length of boxing with the young officers. What is the result?\n     Nobody takes you seriously. You are a 'good old sport,' 'quite a\n     decent fellow for a German,' a hard-drinking, night-club,\n     knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. And all the time this\n     quiet country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in\n     England, and the sporting squire the most astute secret-service man\n     in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork--genius!\"\n\n     \"You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may claim my four years in\n     this country have not been unproductive. I've never shown you my\n     little store. Would you mind stepping in for a moment?\"\n\n     The door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. Von Bork\n     pushed it back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch of the\n     electric light. He then closed the door behind the bulky form which\n     followed him and carefully adjusted the heavy curtain over the\n     latticed window. Only when all these precautions had been taken and\n     tested did he turn his sunburned aquiline face to his guest.\n\n     \"Some of my papers have gone,\" said he. \"When my wife and the\n     household left yesterday for Flushing they took the less important\n     with them. I must, of course, claim the protection of the embassy for\n     the others.\"\n\n     \"Your name has already been filed as one of the personal suite. There\n     will be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of course, it is\n     just possible that we may not have to go. England may leave France to\n     her fate. We are sure that there is no binding treaty between them.\"\n\n     \"And Belgium?\"\n\n     \"Yes, and Belgium, too.\"\n\n     Von Bork shook his head. \"I don't see how that could be. There is a\n     definite treaty there. She could never recover from such a\n     humiliation.\"\n\n     \"She would at least have peace for the moment.\"\n\n     \"But her honor?\"\n\n     \"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a\n     mediaeval conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an\n     inconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty million,\n     which one would think made our purpose as clear as if we had\n     advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused these\n     people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a question. It\n     is my business to find an answer. Here and there also there is an\n     irritation. It is my business to soothe it. But I can assure you that\n     so far as the essentials go--the storage of munitions, the\n     preparation for submarine attack, the arrangements for making high\n     explosives--nothing is prepared. How, then, can England come in,\n     especially when we have stirred her up such a devil's brew of Irish\n     civil war, window-breaking Furies, and God knows what to keep her\n     thoughts at home.\"\n\n     \"She must think of her future.\"\n\n     \"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our\n     own very definite plans about England, and that your information will\n     be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If\n     he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall\n     be more ready still. I should think they would be wiser to fight with\n     allies than without them, but that is their own affair. This week is\n     their week of destiny. But you were speaking of your papers.\" He sat\n     in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head,\n     while he puffed sedately at his cigar.\n\n     The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the\n     future corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound\n     safe. Von Bork detached a small key from his watch chain, and after\n     some considerable manipulation of the lock he swung open the heavy\n     door.\n\n     \"Look!\" said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.\n\n     The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary of\n     the embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed\n     pigeon-holes with which it was furnished. Each pigeon-hole had its\n     label, and his eyes as he glanced along them read a long series of\n     such titles as \"Fords,\" \"Harbour-defences,\" \"Aeroplanes,\" \"Ireland,\"\n     \"Egypt,\" \"Portsmouth forts,\" \"The Channel,\" \"Rosythe,\" and a score of\n     others. Each compartment was bristling with papers and plans.\n\n     \"Colossal!\" said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly\n     clapped his fat hands.\n\n     \"And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the\n     hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my\n     collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.\" He\n     pointed to a space over which \"Naval Signals\" was printed.\n\n     \"But you have a good dossier there already.\"\n\n     \"Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm\n     and every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron--the worst\n     setback in my whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book and the\n     good Altamont all will be well to-night.\"\n\n     The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of\n     disappointment.\n\n     \"Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things are\n     moving at present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to be at\n     our posts. I had hoped to be able to bring news of your great coup.\n     Did Altamont name no hour?\"\n\n     Von Bork pushed over a telegram.\n\n     Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.\n     --Altamont.\n\n     \"Sparking plugs, eh?\"\n\n     \"You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our\n     code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If\n     he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser,\n     and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.\"\n\n     \"From Portsmouth at midday,\" said the secretary, examining the\n     superscription. \"By the way, what do you give him?\"\n\n     \"Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a\n     salary as well.\"\n\n     \"The greedy rouge. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge them\n     their blood money.\"\n\n     \"I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay him\n     well, at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. Besides\n     he is not a traitor. I assure you that our most pan-Germanic Junker\n     is a sucking dove in his feelings towards England as compared with a\n     real bitter Irish-American.\"\n\n     \"Oh, an Irish-American?\"\n\n     \"If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I assure you\n     I can hardly understand him. He seems to have declared war on the\n     King's English as well as on the English king. Must you really go? He\n     may be here any moment.\"\n\n     \"No. I'm sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall\n     expect you early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book through\n     the little door on the Duke of York's steps you can put a triumphant\n     finis to your record in England. What! Tokay!\" He indicated a heavily\n     sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with two high glasses upon a\n     salver.\n\n     \"May I offer you a glass before your journey?\"\n\n     \"No, thanks. But it looks like revelry.\"\n\n     \"Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay.\n     He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to\n     study him, I assure you.\" They had strolled out on to the terrace\n     again, and along it to the further end where at a touch from the\n     Baron's chauffeur the great car shivered and chuckled. \"Those are the\n     lights of Harwich, I suppose,\" said the secretary, pulling on his\n     dust coat. \"How still and peaceful it all seems. There may be other\n     lights within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place!\n     The heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that the good\n     Zeppelin promises us comes true. By the way, who is that?\"\n\n     Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp,\n     and beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in\n     a country cap. She was bending over her knitting and stopping\n     occasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a stool beside her.\n\n     \"That is Martha, the only servant I have left.\"\n\n     The secretary chuckled.\n\n     \"She might almost personify Britannia,\" said he, \"with her complete\n     self-absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence. Well, au\n     revoir, Von Bork!\" With a final wave of his hand he sprang into the\n     car, and a moment later the two golden cones from the headlights shot\n     through the darkness. The secretary lay back in the cushions of the\n     luxurious limousine, with his thoughts so full of the impending\n     European tragedy that he hardly observed that as his car swung round\n     the village street it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the\n     opposite direction.\n\n     Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of the\n     motor lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he observed\n     that his old housekeeper had put out her lamp and retired. It was a\n     new experience to him, the silence and darkness of his widespread\n     house, for his family and household had been a large one. It was a\n     relief to him, however, to think that they were all in safety and\n     that, but for that one old woman who had lingered in the kitchen, he\n     had the whole place to himself. There was a good deal of tidying up\n     to do inside his study and he set himself to do it until his keen,\n     handsome face was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A\n     leather valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack\n     very neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe. He\n     had hardly got started with the work, however, when his quick ears\n     caught the sounds of a distant car. Instantly he gave an exclamation\n     of satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the safe, locked it,\n     and hurried out on to the terrace. He was just in time to see the\n     lights of a small car come to a halt at the gate. A passenger sprang\n     out of it and advanced swiftly towards him, while the chauffeur, a\n     heavily built, elderly man with a gray moustache, settled down like\n     one who resigns himself to a long vigil.\n\n     \"Well?\" asked Von Bork eagerly, running forward to meet his visitor.\n\n     For answer the man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly\n     above his head.\n\n     \"You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,\" he cried. \"I'm\n     bringing home the bacon at last.\"\n\n     \"The signals?\"\n\n     \"Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp\n     code, Marconi--a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too\n     dangerous. But it's the real goods, and you can lay to that.\" He\n     slapped the German upon the shoulder with a rough familiarity from\n     which the other winced.\n\n     \"Come in,\" he said. \"I'm all alone in the house. I was only waiting\n     for this. Of course a copy is better than the original. If an\n     original were missing they would change the whole thing. You think\n     it's all safe about the copy?\"\n\n     The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long limbs\n     from the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut\n     features and a small goatee beard which gave him a general\n     resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam. A half-smoked, sodden\n     cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and as he sat down he struck\n     a match and relit it. \"Making ready for a move?\" he remarked as he\n     looked round him. \"Say, mister,\" he added, as his eyes fell upon the\n     safe from which the curtain was now removed, \"you don't tell me you\n     keep your papers in that?\"\n\n     \"Why not?\"\n\n     \"Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you to\n     be some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a\n     can-opener. If I'd known that any letter of mine was goin' to lie\n     loose in a thing like that I'd have been a mug to write to you at\n     all.\"\n\n     \"It would puzzle any crook to force that safe,\" Von Bork answered.\n     \"You won't cut that metal with any tool.\"\n\n     \"But the lock?\"\n\n     \"No, it's a double combination lock. You know what that is?\"\n\n     \"Search me,\" said the American.\n\n     \"Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can get\n     the lock to work.\" He rose and showed a double-radiating disc round\n     the keyhole. \"This outer one is for the letters, the inner one for\n     the figures.\"\n\n     \"Well, well, that's fine.\"\n\n     \"So it's not quite as simple as you thought. It was four years ago\n     that I had it made, and what do you think I chose for the word and\n     figures?\"\n\n     \"It's beyond me.\"\n\n     \"Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and\n     here we are.\"\n\n     The American's face showed his surprise and admiration.\n\n     \"My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing.\"\n\n     \"Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it is,\n     and I'm shutting down to-morrow morning.\"\n\n     \"Well, I guess you'll have to fix me up also. I'm not staying is this\n     gol-darned country all on my lonesome. In a week or less, from what I\n     see, John Bull will be on his hind legs and fair ramping. I'd rather\n     watch him from over the water.\"\n\n     \"But you're an American citizen?\"\n\n     \"Well, so was Jack James an American citizen, but he's doing time in\n     Portland all the same. It cuts no ice with a British copper to tell\n     him you're an American citizen. 'It's British law and order over\n     here,' says he. By the way, mister, talking of Jack James, it seems\n     to me you don't do much to cover your men.\"\n\n     \"What do you mean?\" Von Bork asked sharply.\n\n     \"Well, you are their employer, ain't you? It's up to you to see that\n     they don't fall down. But they do fall down, and when did you ever\n     pick them up? There's James--\"\n\n     \"It was James's own fault. You know that yourself. He was too\n     self-willed for the job.\"\n\n     \"James was a bonehead--I give you that. Then there was Hollis.\"\n\n     \"The man was mad.\"\n\n     \"Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. It's enough to make a man\n     bug-house when he has to play a part from morning to night with a\n     hundred guys all ready to set the coppers wise to him. But now there\n     is Steiner--\"\n\n     Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade paler.\n\n     \"What about Steiner?\"\n\n     \"Well, they've got him, that's all. They raided his store last night,\n     and he and his papers are all in Portsmouth jail. You'll go off and\n     he, poor devil, will have to stand the racket, and lucky if he gets\n     off with his life. That's why I want to get over the water as soon as\n     you do.\"\n\n     Von Bork was a strong, self-contained man, but it was easy to see\n     that the news had shaken him.\n\n     \"How could they have got on to Steiner?\" he muttered. \"That's the\n     worst blow yet.\"\n\n     \"Well, you nearly had a worse one, for I believe they are not far off\n     me.\"\n\n     \"You don't mean that!\"\n\n     \"Sure thing. My landlady down Fratton way had some inquiries, and\n     when I heard of it I guessed it was time for me to hustle. But what I\n     want to know, mister, is how the coppers know these things? Steiner\n     is the fifth man you've lost since I signed on with you, and I know\n     the name of the sixth if I don't get a move on. How do you explain\n     it, and ain't you ashamed to see your men go down like this?\"\n\n     Von Bork flushed crimson.\n\n     \"How dare you speak in such a way!\"\n\n     \"If I didn't dare things, mister, I wouldn't be in your service. But\n     I'll tell you straight what is in my mind. I've heard that with you\n     German politicians when an agent has done his work you are not sorry\n     to see him put away.\"\n\n     Von Bork sprang to his feet.\n\n     \"Do you dare to suggest that I have given away my own agents!\"\n\n     \"I don't stand for that, mister, but there's a stool pigeon or a\n     cross somewhere, and it's up to you to find out where it is. Anyhow I\n     am taking no more chances. It's me for little Holland, and the sooner\n     the better.\"\n\n     Von Bork had mastered his anger.\n\n     \"We have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of\n     victory,\" he said. \"You've done splendid work and taken risks, and I\n     can't forget it. By all means go to Holland, and you can get a boat\n     from Rotterdam to New York. No other line will be safe a week from\n     now. I'll take that book and pack it with the rest.\"\n\n     The American held the small parcel in his hand, but made no motion to\n     give it up.\n\n     \"What about the dough?\" he asked.\n\n     \"The what?\"\n\n     \"The boodle. The reward. The £500. The gunner turned damned nasty at\n     the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it\n     would have been nitsky for you and me. 'Nothin' doin'!' says he, and\n     he meant it, too, but the last hundred did it. It's cost me two\n     hundred pound from first to last, so it isn't likely I'd give it up\n     without gettin' my wad.\"\n\n     Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. \"You don't seem to have a very\n     high opinion of my honour,\" said he, \"you want the money before you\n     give up the book.\"\n\n     \"Well, mister, it is a business proposition.\"\n\n     \"All right. Have your way.\" He sat down at the table and scribbled a\n     check, which he tore from the book, but he refrained from handing it\n     to his companion. \"After all, since we are to be on such terms, Mr.\n     Altamont,\" said he, \"I don't see why I should trust you any more than\n     you trust me. Do you understand?\" he added, looking back over his\n     shoulder at the American. \"There's the check upon the table. I claim\n     the right to examine that parcel before you pick the money up.\"\n\n     The American passed it over without a word. Von Bork undid a winding\n     of string and two wrappers of paper. Then he sat dazing for a moment\n     in silent amazement at a small blue book which lay before him. Across\n     the cover was printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of Bee\n     Culture. Only for one instant did the master spy glare at this\n     strangely irrelevant inscription. The next he was gripped at the back\n     of his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed sponge was held in\n     front of his writhing face.\n\n     \"Another glass, Watson!\" said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended the\n     bottle of Imperial Tokay.\n\n     The thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table, pushed\n     forward his glass with some eagerness.\n\n     \"It is a good wine, Holmes.\"\n\n     \"A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend upon the sofa has assured me\n     that it is from Franz Josef's special cellar at the Schoenbrunn\n     Palace. Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour\n     does not help the palate.\"\n\n     The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was removing\n     dossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it\n     neatly in Von Bork's valise. The German lay upon the sofa sleeping\n     stertorously with a strap round his upper arms and another round his\n     legs.\n\n     \"We need not hurry ourselves, Watson. We are safe from interruption.\n     Would you mind touching the bell? There is no one in the house except\n     old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got her the\n     situation here when first I took the matter up. Ah, Martha, you will\n     be glad to hear that all is well.\"\n\n     The pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. She curtseyed with\n     a smile to Mr. Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at the\n     figure upon the sofa.\n\n     \"It is all right, Martha. He has not been hurt at all.\"\n\n     \"I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to his lights he has been a\n     kind master. He wanted me to go with his wife to Germany yesterday,\n     but that would hardly have suited your plans, would it, sir?\"\n\n     \"No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were here I was easy in my mind.\n     We waited some time for your signal to-night.\"\n\n     \"It was the secretary, sir.\"\n\n     \"I know. His car passed ours.\"\n\n     \"I thought he would never go. I knew that it would not suit your\n     plans, sir, to find him here.\"\n\n     \"No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or so\n     until I saw your lamp go out and knew that the coast was clear. You\n     can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge's Hotel.\"\n\n     \"Very good, sir.\"\n\n     \"I suppose you have everything ready to leave.\"\n\n     \"Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. I have the addresses as\n     usual.\"\n\n     \"Very good, Martha. I will look into them to-morrow. Good-night.\n     These papers,\" he continued as the old lady vanished, \"are not of\n     very great importance, for, of course, the information which they\n     represent has been sent off long ago to the German government. These\n     are the originals which cold not safely be got out of the country.\"\n\n     \"Then they are of no use.\"\n\n     \"I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. They will at least\n     show our people what is known and what is not. I may say that a good\n     many of these papers have come through me, and I need not add are\n     thoroughly untrustworthy. It would brighten my declining years to see\n     a German cruiser navigating the Solent according to the mine-field\n     plans which I have furnished. But you, Watson\"--he stopped his work\n     and took his old friend by the shoulders--\"I've hardly seen you in\n     the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the same blithe\n     boy as ever.\"\n\n     \"I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so happy as\n     when I got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the car.\n     But you, Holmes--you have changed very little--save for that horrible\n     goatee.\"\n\n     \"These are the sacrifices one makes for one's country, Watson,\" said\n     Holmes, pulling at his little tuft. \"To-morrow it will be but a\n     dreadful memory. With my hair cut and a few other superficial changes\n     I shall no doubt reappear at Claridge's to-morrow as I was before\n     this American stunt--I beg your pardon, Watson, my well of English\n     seems to be permanently defiled--before this American job came my\n     way.\"\n\n     \"But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the life of\n     a hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the\n     South Downs.\"\n\n     \"Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum\n     opus of my latter years!\" He picked up the volume from the table and\n     read out the whole title, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with\n     Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. \"Alone I did it.\n     Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days when I watched\n     the little working gangs as once I watched the criminal world of\n     London.\"\n\n     \"But how did you get to work again?\"\n\n     \"Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone\n     I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my\n     humble roof--! The fact is, Watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa\n     was a bit too good for our people. He was in a class by himself.\n     Things were going wrong, and no one could understand why they were\n     going wrong. Agents were suspected or even caught, but there was\n     evidence of some strong and secret central force. It was absolutely\n     necessary to expose it. Strong pressure was brought upon me to look\n     into the matter. It has cost me two years, Watson, but they have not\n     been devoid of excitement. When I say that I started my pilgrimage at\n     Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave\n     serious trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen, and so eventually\n     caught the eye of a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who recommended me\n     as a likely man, you will realize that the matter was complex. Since\n     then I have been honoured by his confidence, which has not prevented\n     most of his plans going subtly wrong and five of his best agents\n     being in prison. I watched them, Watson, and I picked them as they\n     ripened. Well, sir, I hope that you are none the worse!\"\n\n     The last remark was addressed to Von Bork himself, who after much\n     gasping and blinking had lain quietly listening to Holmes's\n     statement. He broke out now into a furious stream of German\n     invective, his face convulsed with passion. Holmes continued his\n     swift investigation of documents while his prisoner cursed and swore.\n\n     \"Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages,\"\n     he observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. \"Hullo!\n     Hullo!\" he added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before\n     putting it in the box. \"This should put another bird in the cage. I\n     had no idea that the paymaster was such a rascal, though I have long\n     had an eye upon him. Mister Von Bork, you have a great deal to answer\n     for.\"\n\n     The prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the sofa\n     and was staring with a strange mixture of amazement and hatred at his\n     captor.\n\n     \"I shall get level with you, Altamont,\" he said, speaking with slow\n     deliberation. \"If it takes me all my life I shall get level with\n     you!\"\n\n     \"The old sweet song,\" said Holmes. \"How often have I heard it in days\n     gone by. It was a favorite ditty of the late lamented Professor\n     Moriarty.  Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it.\n     And yet I live and keep bees upon the South Downs.\"\n\n     \"Curse you, you double traitor!\" cried the German, straining against\n     his bonds and glaring murder from his furious eyes.\n\n     \"No, no, it is not so bad as that,\" said Holmes, smiling. \"As my\n     speech surely shows you, Mr. Altamont of Chicago had no existence in\n     fact. I used him and he is gone.\"\n\n     \"Then who are you?\"\n\n     \"It is really immaterial who I am, but since the matter seems to\n     interest you, Mr. Von Bork, I may say that this is not my first\n     acquaintance with the members of your family. I have done a good deal\n     of business in Germany in the past and my name is probably familiar\n     to you.\"\n\n     \"I would wish to know it,\" said the Prussian grimly.\n\n     \"It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and\n     the late King of Bohemia when your cousin Heinrich was the Imperial\n     Envoy. It was I also who saved from murder, by the Nihilist Klopman,\n     Count Von und Zu Grafenstein, who was your mother's elder brother. It\n     was I--\"\n\n     Von Bork sat up in amazement.\n\n     \"There is only one man,\" he cried.\n\n     \"Exactly,\" said Holmes.\n\n     Von Bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. \"And most of that\n     information came through you,\" he cried. \"What is it worth? What have\n     I done? It is my ruin forever!\"\n\n     \"It is certainly a little untrustworthy,\" said Holmes. \"It will\n     require some checking and you have little time to check it. Your\n     admiral may find the new guns rather larger than he expects, and the\n     cruisers perhaps a trifle faster.\"\n\n     Von Bork clutched at his own throat in despair.\n\n     \"There are a good many other points of detail which will, no doubt,\n     come to light in good time. But you have one quality which is very\n     rare in a German, Mr. Von Bork: you are a sportsman and you will bear\n     me no ill-will when you realize that you, who have outwitted so many\n     other people, have at last been outwitted yourself. After all, you\n     have done your best for your country, and I have done my best for\n     mine, and what could be more natural? Besides,\" he added, not\n     unkindly, as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the prostrate man,\n     \"it is better than to fall before some ignoble foe. These papers are\n     now ready, Watson. If you will help me with our prisoner, I think\n     that we may get started for London at once.\"\n\n     It was no easy task to move Von Bork, for he was a strong and a\n     desperate man. Finally, holding either arm, the two friends walked\n     him very slowly down the garden walk which he had trod with such\n     proud confidence when he received the congratulations of the famous\n     diplomatist only a few hours before. After a short, final struggle he\n     was hoisted, still bound hand and foot, into the spare seat of the\n     little car. His precious valise was wedged in beside him.\n\n     \"I trust that you are as comfortable as circumstances permit,\" said\n     Holmes when the final arrangements were made. \"Should I be guilty of\n     a liberty if I lit a cigar and placed it between your lips?\"\n\n     But all amenities were wasted upon the angry German.\n\n     \"I suppose you realize, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,\" said he, \"that if your\n     government bears you out in this treatment it becomes an act of war.\"\n\n     \"What about your government and all this treatment?\" said Holmes,\n     tapping the valise.\n\n     \"You are a private individual. You have no warrant for my arrest. The\n     whole proceeding is absolutely illegal and outrageous.\"\n\n     \"Absolutely,\" said Holmes.\n\n     \"Kidnapping a German subject.\"\n\n     \"And stealing his private papers.\"\n\n     \"Well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here. If I\n     were to shout for help as we pass through the village--\"\n\n     \"My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably\n     enlarge the two limited titles of our village inns by giving us 'The\n     Dangling Prussian' as a signpost. The Englishman is a patient\n     creature, but at present his temper is a little inflamed, and it\n     would be as well not to try him too far. No, Mr. Von Bork, you will\n     go with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to Scotland Yard, whence you\n     can send for your friend, Baron Von Herling, and see if even now you\n     may not fill that place which he has reserved for you in the\n     ambassadorial suite. As to you, Watson, you are joining us with your\n     old service, as I understand, so London won't be out of your way.\n     Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet\n     talk that we shall ever have.\"\n\n     The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes,\n     recalling once again the days of the past, while their prisoner\n     vainly wriggled to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned to\n     the car Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful\n     head.\n\n     \"There's an east wind coming, Watson.\"\n\n     \"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.\"\n\n     \"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.\n     There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew\n     on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many\n     of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the\n     less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine\n     when the storm has cleared. Start her up, Watson, for it's time that\n     we were on our way. I have a check for five hundred pounds which\n     should be cashed early, for the drawer is quite capable of stopping\n     it if he can.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/input.txt",
    "content": "First Citizen:\nBefore we proceed any further, hear me speak.\n\nAll:\nSpeak, speak.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYou are all resolved rather to die than to famish?\n\nAll:\nResolved. resolved.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFirst, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.\n\nAll:\nWe know't, we know't.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nLet us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.\nIs't a verdict?\n\nAll:\nNo more talking on't; let it be done: away, away!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nOne word, good citizens.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.\nWhat authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they\nwould yield us but the superfluity, while it were\nwholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely;\nbut they think we are too dear: the leanness that\nafflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an\ninventory to particularise their abundance; our\nsufferance is a gain to them Let us revenge this with\nour pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I\nspeak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWould you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?\n\nAll:\nAgainst him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nConsider you what services he has done for his country?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nVery well; and could be content to give him good\nreport fort, but that he pays himself with being proud.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNay, but speak not maliciously.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did\nit to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be\ncontent to say it was for his country he did it to\nplease his mother and to be partly proud; which he\nis, even till the altitude of his virtue.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhat he cannot help in his nature, you account a\nvice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIf I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;\nhe hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.\nWhat shouts are these? The other side o' the city\nis risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!\n\nAll:\nCome, come.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSoft! who comes here?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWorthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved\nthe people.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe's one honest enough: would all the rest were so!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you\nWith bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOur business is not unknown to the senate; they have\nhad inkling this fortnight what we intend to do,\nwhich now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor\nsuitors have strong breaths: they shall know we\nhave strong arms too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,\nWill you undo yourselves?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe cannot, sir, we are undone already.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell you, friends, most charitable care\nHave the patricians of you. For your wants,\nYour suffering in this dearth, you may as well\nStrike at the heaven with your staves as lift them\nAgainst the Roman state, whose course will on\nThe way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs\nOf more strong link asunder than can ever\nAppear in your impediment. For the dearth,\nThe gods, not the patricians, make it, and\nYour knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,\nYou are transported by calamity\nThither where more attends you, and you slander\nThe helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,\nWhen you curse them as enemies.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCare for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us\nyet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses\ncrammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to\nsupport usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act\nestablished against the rich, and provide more\npiercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain\nthe poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and\nthere's all the love they bear us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nEither you must\nConfess yourselves wondrous malicious,\nOr be accused of folly. I shall tell you\nA pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;\nBut, since it serves my purpose, I will venture\nTo stale 't a little more.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to\nfob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please\nyou, deliver.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere was a time when all the body's members\nRebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:\nThat only like a gulf it did remain\nI' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,\nStill cupboarding the viand, never bearing\nLike labour with the rest, where the other instruments\nDid see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,\nAnd, mutually participate, did minister\nUnto the appetite and affection common\nOf the whole body. The belly answer'd--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, sir, what answer made the belly?\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,\nWhich ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--\nFor, look you, I may make the belly smile\nAs well as speak--it tauntingly replied\nTo the discontented members, the mutinous parts\nThat envied his receipt; even so most fitly\nAs you malign our senators for that\nThey are not such as you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYour belly's answer? What!\nThe kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,\nThe counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,\nOur steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.\nWith other muniments and petty helps\nIn this our fabric, if that they--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat then?\n'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nShould by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,\nWho is the sink o' the body,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe former agents, if they did complain,\nWhat could the belly answer?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will tell you\nIf you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--\nPatience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYe're long about it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNote me this, good friend;\nYour most grave belly was deliberate,\nNot rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:\n'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,\n'That I receive the general food at first,\nWhich you do live upon; and fit it is,\nBecause I am the store-house and the shop\nOf the whole body: but, if you do remember,\nI send it through the rivers of your blood,\nEven to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;\nAnd, through the cranks and offices of man,\nThe strongest nerves and small inferior veins\nFrom me receive that natural competency\nWhereby they live: and though that all at once,\nYou, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, sir; well, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Though all at once cannot\nSee what I do deliver out to each,\nYet I can make my audit up, that all\nFrom me do back receive the flour of all,\nAnd leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIt was an answer: how apply you this?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senators of Rome are this good belly,\nAnd you the mutinous members; for examine\nTheir counsels and their cares, digest things rightly\nTouching the weal o' the common, you shall find\nNo public benefit which you receive\nBut it proceeds or comes from them to you\nAnd no way from yourselves. What do you think,\nYou, the great toe of this assembly?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI the great toe! why the great toe?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,\nOf this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost:\nThou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,\nLead'st first to win some vantage.\nBut make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:\nRome and her rats are at the point of battle;\nThe one side must have bale.\nHail, noble Marcius!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,\nThat, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,\nMake yourselves scabs?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe have ever your good word.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHe that will give good words to thee will flatter\nBeneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,\nThat like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,\nThe other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,\nWhere he should find you lions, finds you hares;\nWhere foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,\nThan is the coal of fire upon the ice,\nOr hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is\nTo make him worthy whose offence subdues him\nAnd curse that justice did it.\nWho deserves greatness\nDeserves your hate; and your affections are\nA sick man's appetite, who desires most that\nWhich would increase his evil. He that depends\nUpon your favours swims with fins of lead\nAnd hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?\nWith every minute you do change a mind,\nAnd call him noble that was now your hate,\nHim vile that was your garland. What's the matter,\nThat in these several places of the city\nYou cry against the noble senate, who,\nUnder the gods, keep you in awe, which else\nWould feed on one another? What's their seeking?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,\nThe city is well stored.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHang 'em! They say!\nThey'll sit by the fire, and presume to know\nWhat's done i' the Capitol; who's like to rise,\nWho thrives and who declines; side factions\nand give out\nConjectural marriages; making parties strong\nAnd feebling such as stand not in their liking\nBelow their cobbled shoes. They say there's\ngrain enough!\nWould the nobility lay aside their ruth,\nAnd let me use my sword, I'll make a quarry\nWith thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high\nAs I could pick my lance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;\nFor though abundantly they lack discretion,\nYet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,\nWhat says the other troop?\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey are dissolved: hang 'em!\nThey said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,\nThat hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,\nThat meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not\nCorn for the rich men only: with these shreds\nThey vented their complainings; which being answer'd,\nAnd a petition granted them, a strange one--\nTo break the heart of generosity,\nAnd make bold power look pale--they threw their caps\nAs they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,\nShouting their emulation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is granted them?\n\nMARCIUS:\nFive tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,\nOf their own choice: one's Junius Brutus,\nSicinius Velutus, and I know not--'Sdeath!\nThe rabble should have first unroof'd the city,\nEre so prevail'd with me: it will in time\nWin upon power and throw forth greater themes\nFor insurrection's arguing.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange.\n\nMARCIUS:\nGo, get you home, you fragments!\n\nMessenger:\nWhere's Caius Marcius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nHere: what's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nThe news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI am glad on 't: then we shall ha' means to vent\nOur musty superfluity. See, our best elders.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMarcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us;\nThe Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey have a leader,\nTullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't.\nI sin in envying his nobility,\nAnd were I any thing but what I am,\nI would wish me only he.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have fought together.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWere half to half the world by the ears and he.\nUpon my party, I'ld revolt to make\nOnly my wars with him: he is a lion\nThat I am proud to hunt.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen, worthy Marcius,\nAttend upon Cominius to these wars.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIt is your former promise.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, it is;\nAnd I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou\nShalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.\nWhat, art thou stiff? stand'st out?\n\nTITUS:\nNo, Caius Marcius;\nI'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other,\nEre stay behind this business.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, true-bred!\n\nFirst Senator:\nYour company to the Capitol; where, I know,\nOur greatest friends attend us.\n\nTITUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNoble Marcius!\n\nFirst Senator:\n\nMARCIUS:\nNay, let them follow:\nThe Volsces have much corn; take these rats thither\nTo gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutiners,\nYour valour puts well forth: pray, follow.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWas ever man so proud as is this Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe has no equal.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhen we were chosen tribunes for the people,--\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark'd you his lip and eyes?\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay. but his taunts.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBeing moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBe-mock the modest moon.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe present wars devour him: he is grown\nToo proud to be so valiant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSuch a nature,\nTickled with good success, disdains the shadow\nWhich he treads on at noon: but I do wonder\nHis insolence can brook to be commanded\nUnder Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nFame, at the which he aims,\nIn whom already he's well graced, can not\nBetter be held nor more attain'd than by\nA place below the first: for what miscarries\nShall be the general's fault, though he perform\nTo the utmost of a man, and giddy censure\nWill then cry out of Marcius 'O if he\nHad borne the business!'\n\nSICINIUS:\nBesides, if things go well,\nOpinion that so sticks on Marcius shall\nOf his demerits rob Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome:\nHalf all Cominius' honours are to Marcius.\nThough Marcius earned them not, and all his faults\nTo Marcius shall be honours, though indeed\nIn aught he merit not.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's hence, and hear\nHow the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,\nMore than his singularity, he goes\nUpon this present action.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLets along.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSo, your opinion is, Aufidius,\nThat they of Rome are entered in our counsels\nAnd know how we proceed.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIs it not yours?\nWhat ever have been thought on in this state,\nThat could be brought to bodily act ere Rome\nHad circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone\nSince I heard thence; these are the words: I think\nI have the letter here; yes, here it is.\n'They have press'd a power, but it is not known\nWhether for east or west: the dearth is great;\nThe people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,\nCominius, Marcius your old enemy,\nWho is of Rome worse hated than of you,\nAnd Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,\nThese three lead on this preparation\nWhither 'tis bent: most likely 'tis for you:\nConsider of it.'\n\nFirst Senator:\nOur army's in the field\nWe never yet made doubt but Rome was ready\nTo answer us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNor did you think it folly\nTo keep your great pretences veil'd till when\nThey needs must show themselves; which\nin the hatching,\nIt seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery.\nWe shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was\nTo take in many towns ere almost Rome\nShould know we were afoot.\n\nSecond Senator:\nNoble Aufidius,\nTake your commission; hie you to your bands:\nLet us alone to guard Corioli:\nIf they set down before 's, for the remove\nBring your army; but, I think, you'll find\nThey've not prepared for us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO, doubt not that;\nI speak from certainties. Nay, more,\nSome parcels of their power are forth already,\nAnd only hitherward. I leave your honours.\nIf we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,\n'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike\nTill one can do no more.\n\nAll:\nThe gods assist you!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAnd keep your honours safe!\n\nFirst Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nSecond Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nAll:\nFarewell.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a\nmore comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I\nshould freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he\nwon honour than in the embracements of his bed where\nhe would show most love. When yet he was but\ntender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when\nyouth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when\nfor a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not\nsell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering\nhow honour would become such a person. that it was\nno better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if\nrenown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek\ndanger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel\nwar I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows\nbound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not\nmore in joy at first hearing he was a man-child\nthan now in first seeing he had proved himself a\nman.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBut had he died in the business, madam; how then?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThen his good report should have been my son; I\ntherein would have found issue. Hear me profess\nsincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love\nalike and none less dear than thine and my good\nMarcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their\ncountry than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.\n\nGentlewoman:\nMadam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBeseech you, give me leave to retire myself.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIndeed, you shall not.\nMethinks I hear hither your husband's drum,\nSee him pluck Aufidius down by the hair,\nAs children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:\nMethinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:\n'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,\nThough you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow\nWith his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,\nLike to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow\nOr all or lose his hire.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHis bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAway, you fool! it more becomes a man\nThan gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,\nWhen she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier\nThan Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood\nAt Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria,\nWe are fit to bid her welcome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHeavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe'll beat Aufidius 'head below his knee\nAnd tread upon his neck.\n\nVALERIA:\nMy ladies both, good day to you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nSweet madam.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI am glad to see your ladyship.\n\nVALERIA:\nHow do you both? you are manifest house-keepers.\nWhat are you sewing here? A fine spot, in good\nfaith. How does your little son?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI thank your ladyship; well, good madam.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, than\nlook upon his school-master.\n\nVALERIA:\nO' my word, the father's son: I'll swear,'tis a\nvery pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o'\nWednesday half an hour together: has such a\nconfirmed countenance. I saw him run after a gilded\nbutterfly: and when he caught it, he let it go\nagain; and after it again; and over and over he\ncomes, and again; catched it again; or whether his\nfall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his\nteeth and tear it; O, I warrant it, how he mammocked\nit!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOne on 's father's moods.\n\nVALERIA:\nIndeed, la, 'tis a noble child.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nA crack, madam.\n\nVALERIA:\nCome, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play\nthe idle husewife with me this afternoon.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam; I will not out of doors.\n\nVALERIA:\nNot out of doors!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShe shall, she shall.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the\nthreshold till my lord return from the wars.\n\nVALERIA:\nFie, you confine yourself most unreasonably: come,\nyou must go visit the good lady that lies in.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with\nmy prayers; but I cannot go thither.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nWhy, I pray you?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.\n\nVALERIA:\nYou would be another Penelope: yet, they say, all\nthe yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill\nIthaca full of moths. Come; I would your cambric\nwere sensible as your finger, that you might leave\npricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will not forth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you\nexcellent news of your husband.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, good madam, there can be none yet.\n\nVALERIA:\nVerily, I do not jest with you; there came news from\nhim last night.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, madam?\n\nVALERIA:\nIn earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it.\nThus it is: the Volsces have an army forth; against\nwhom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of\nour Roman power: your lord and Titus Lartius are set\ndown before their city Corioli; they nothing doubt\nprevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,\non mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nGive me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in every\nthing hereafter.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLet her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but\ndisease our better mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then.\nCome, good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy\nsolemness out o' door. and go along with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, at a word, madam; indeed, I must not. I wish\nyou much mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nWell, then, farewell.\n\nMARCIUS:\nYonder comes news. A wager they have met.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMy horse to yours, no.\n\nMARCIUS:\n'Tis done.\n\nLARTIUS:\nAgreed.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSay, has our general met the enemy?\n\nMessenger:\nThey lie in view; but have not spoke as yet.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, the good horse is mine.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll buy him of you.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNo, I'll nor sell nor give him: lend you him I will\nFor half a hundred years. Summon the town.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow far off lie these armies?\n\nMessenger:\nWithin this mile and half.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThen shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.\nNow, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,\nThat we with smoking swords may march from hence,\nTo help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.\nTutus Aufidius, is he within your walls?\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo, nor a man that fears you less than he,\nThat's lesser than a little.\nHark! our drums\nAre bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls,\nRather than they shall pound us up: our gates,\nWhich yet seem shut, we, have but pinn'd with rushes;\nThey'll open of themselves.\nHark you. far off!\nThere is Aufidius; list, what work he makes\nAmongst your cloven army.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, they are at it!\n\nLARTIUS:\nTheir noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey fear us not, but issue forth their city.\nNow put your shields before your hearts, and fight\nWith hearts more proof than shields. Advance,\nbrave Titus:\nThey do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,\nWhich makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:\nHe that retires I'll take him for a Volsce,\nAnd he shall feel mine edge.\n\nMARCIUS:\nAll the contagion of the south light on you,\nYou shames of Rome! you herd of--Boils and plagues\nPlaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd\nFurther than seen and one infect another\nAgainst the wind a mile! You souls of geese,\nThat bear the shapes of men, how have you run\nFrom slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!\nAll hurt behind; backs red, and faces pale\nWith flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,\nOr, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe\nAnd make my wars on you: look to't: come on;\nIf you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives,\nAs they us to our trenches followed.\nSo, now the gates are ope: now prove good seconds:\n'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,\nNot for the fliers: mark me, and do the like.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFool-hardiness; not I.\n\nSecond Soldier:\nNor I.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nSee, they have shut him in.\n\nAll:\nTo the pot, I warrant him.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWhat is become of Marcius?\n\nAll:\nSlain, sir, doubtless.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFollowing the fliers at the very heels,\nWith them he enters; who, upon the sudden,\nClapp'd to their gates: he is himself alone,\nTo answer all the city.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO noble fellow!\nWho sensibly outdares his senseless sword,\nAnd, when it bows, stands up. Thou art left, Marcius:\nA carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,\nWere not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier\nEven to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible\nOnly in strokes; but, with thy grim looks and\nThe thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,\nThou madst thine enemies shake, as if the world\nWere feverous and did tremble.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nLook, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO,'tis Marcius!\nLet's fetch him off, or make remain alike.\n\nFirst Roman:\nThis will I carry to Rome.\n\nSecond Roman:\nAnd I this.\n\nThird Roman:\nA murrain on't! I took this for silver.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSee here these movers that do prize their hours\nAt a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons,\nIrons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would\nBury with those that wore them, these base slaves,\nEre yet the fight be done, pack up: down with them!\nAnd hark, what noise the general makes! To him!\nThere is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,\nPiercing our Romans: then, valiant Titus, take\nConvenient numbers to make good the city;\nWhilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste\nTo help Cominius.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWorthy sir, thou bleed'st;\nThy exercise hath been too violent for\nA second course of fight.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, praise me not;\nMy work hath yet not warm'd me: fare you well:\nThe blood I drop is rather physical\nThan dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus\nI will appear, and fight.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNow the fair goddess, Fortune,\nFall deep in love with thee; and her great charms\nMisguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,\nProsperity be thy page!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThy friend no less\nThan those she placeth highest! So, farewell.\n\nLARTIUS:\nThou worthiest Marcius!\nGo, sound thy trumpet in the market-place;\nCall thither all the officers o' the town,\nWhere they shall know our mind: away!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBreathe you, my friends: well fought;\nwe are come off\nLike Romans, neither foolish in our stands,\nNor cowardly in retire: believe me, sirs,\nWe shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,\nBy interims and conveying gusts we have heard\nThe charges of our friends. Ye Roman gods!\nLead their successes as we wish our own,\nThat both our powers, with smiling\nfronts encountering,\nMay give you thankful sacrifice.\nThy news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe citizens of Corioli have issued,\nAnd given to Lartius and to Marcius battle:\nI saw our party to their trenches driven,\nAnd then I came away.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough thou speak'st truth,\nMethinks thou speak'st not well.\nHow long is't since?\n\nMessenger:\nAbove an hour, my lord.\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums:\nHow couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,\nAnd bring thy news so late?\n\nMessenger:\nSpies of the Volsces\nHeld me in chase, that I was forced to wheel\nThree or four miles about, else had I, sir,\nHalf an hour since brought my report.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho's yonder,\nThat does appear as he were flay'd? O gods\nHe has the stamp of Marcius; and I have\nBefore-time seen him thus.\n\nMARCIUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour\nMore than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue\nFrom every meaner man.\n\nMARCIUS:\nCome I too late?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy, if you come not in the blood of others,\nBut mantled in your own.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, let me clip ye\nIn arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart\nAs merry as when our nuptial day was done,\nAnd tapers burn'd to bedward!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nFlower of warriors,\nHow is it with Titus Lartius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nAs with a man busied about decrees:\nCondemning some to death, and some to exile;\nRansoming him, or pitying, threatening the other;\nHolding Corioli in the name of Rome,\nEven like a fawning greyhound in the leash,\nTo let him slip at will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWhere is that slave\nWhich told me they had beat you to your trenches?\nWhere is he? call him hither.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet him alone;\nHe did inform the truth: but for our gentlemen,\nThe common file--a plague! tribunes for them!--\nThe mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge\nFrom rascals worse than they.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut how prevail'd you?\n\nMARCIUS:\nWill the time serve to tell? I do not think.\nWhere is the enemy? are you lords o' the field?\nIf not, why cease you till you are so?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarcius,\nWe have at disadvantage fought and did\nRetire to win our purpose.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow lies their battle? know you on which side\nThey have placed their men of trust?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAs I guess, Marcius,\nTheir bands i' the vaward are the Antiates,\nOf their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,\nTheir very heart of hope.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI do beseech you,\nBy all the battles wherein we have fought,\nBy the blood we have shed together, by the vows\nWe have made to endure friends, that you directly\nSet me against Aufidius and his Antiates;\nAnd that you not delay the present, but,\nFilling the air with swords advanced and darts,\nWe prove this very hour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough I could wish\nYou were conducted to a gentle bath\nAnd balms applied to, you, yet dare I never\nDeny your asking: take your choice of those\nThat best can aid your action.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThose are they\nThat most are willing. If any such be here--\nAs it were sin to doubt--that love this painting\nWherein you see me smear'd; if any fear\nLesser his person than an ill report;\nIf any think brave death outweighs bad life\nAnd that his country's dearer than himself;\nLet him alone, or so many so minded,\nWave thus, to express his disposition,\nAnd follow Marcius.\nO, me alone! make you a sword of me?\nIf these shows be not outward, which of you\nBut is four Volsces? none of you but is\nAble to bear against the great Aufidius\nA shield as hard as his. A certain number,\nThough thanks to all, must I select\nfrom all: the rest\nShall bear the business in some other fight,\nAs cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;\nAnd four shall quickly draw out my command,\nWhich men are best inclined.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarch on, my fellows:\nMake good this ostentation, and you shall\nDivide in all with us.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, let the ports be guarded: keep your duties,\nAs I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch\nThose centuries to our aid: the rest will serve\nFor a short holding: if we lose the field,\nWe cannot keep the town.\n\nLieutenant:\nFear not our care, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nHence, and shut your gates upon's.\nOur guider, come; to the Roman camp conduct us.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee\nWorse than a promise-breaker.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWe hate alike:\nNot Afric owns a serpent I abhor\nMore than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet the first budger die the other's slave,\nAnd the gods doom him after!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIf I fly, Marcius,\nHolloa me like a hare.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWithin these three hours, Tullus,\nAlone I fought in your Corioli walls,\nAnd made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood\nWherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge\nWrench up thy power to the highest.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWert thou the Hector\nThat was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,\nThou shouldst not scape me here.\nOfficious, and not valiant, you have shamed me\nIn your condemned seconds.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,\nThou'ldst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it\nWhere senators shall mingle tears with smiles,\nWhere great patricians shall attend and shrug,\nI' the end admire, where ladies shall be frighted,\nAnd, gladly quaked, hear more; where the\ndull tribunes,\nThat, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours,\nShall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods\nOur Rome hath such a soldier.'\nYet camest thou to a morsel of this feast,\nHaving fully dined before.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO general,\nHere is the steed, we the caparison:\nHadst thou beheld--\n\nMARCIUS:\nPray now, no more: my mother,\nWho has a charter to extol her blood,\nWhen she does praise me grieves me. I have done\nAs you have done; that's what I can; induced\nAs you have been; that's for my country:\nHe that has but effected his good will\nHath overta'en mine act.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou shall not be\nThe grave of your deserving; Rome must know\nThe value of her own: 'twere a concealment\nWorse than a theft, no less than a traducement,\nTo hide your doings; and to silence that,\nWhich, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,\nWould seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you\nIn sign of what you are, not to reward\nWhat you have done--before our army hear me.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI have some wounds upon me, and they smart\nTo hear themselves remember'd.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nShould they not,\nWell might they fester 'gainst ingratitude,\nAnd tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,\nWhereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all\nThe treasure in this field achieved and city,\nWe render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth,\nBefore the common distribution, at\nYour only choice.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI thank you, general;\nBut cannot make my heart consent to take\nA bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;\nAnd stand upon my common part with those\nThat have beheld the doing.\n\nMARCIUS:\nMay these same instruments, which you profane,\nNever sound more! when drums and trumpets shall\nI' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be\nMade all of false-faced soothing!\nWhen steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,\nLet him be made a coverture for the wars!\nNo more, I say! For that I have not wash'd\nMy nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch.--\nWhich, without note, here's many else have done,--\nYou shout me forth\nIn acclamations hyperbolical;\nAs if I loved my little should be dieted\nIn praises sauced with lies.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nToo modest are you;\nMore cruel to your good report than grateful\nTo us that give you truly: by your patience,\nIf 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you,\nLike one that means his proper harm, in manacles,\nThen reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known,\nAs to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius\nWears this war's garland: in token of the which,\nMy noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,\nWith all his trim belonging; and from this time,\nFor what he did before Corioli, call him,\nWith all the applause and clamour of the host,\nCAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear\nThe addition nobly ever!\n\nAll:\nCaius Marcius Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will go wash;\nAnd when my face is fair, you shall perceive\nWhether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.\nI mean to stride your steed, and at all times\nTo undercrest your good addition\nTo the fairness of my power.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nSo, to our tent;\nWhere, ere we do repose us, we will write\nTo Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,\nMust to Corioli back: send us to Rome\nThe best, with whom we may articulate,\nFor their own good and ours.\n\nLARTIUS:\nI shall, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe gods begin to mock me. I, that now\nRefused most princely gifts, am bound to beg\nOf my lord general.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nTake't; 'tis yours. What is't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI sometime lay here in Corioli\nAt a poor man's house; he used me kindly:\nHe cried to me; I saw him prisoner;\nBut then Aufidius was within my view,\nAnd wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you\nTo give my poor host freedom.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, well begg'd!\nWere he the butcher of my son, he should\nBe free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMarcius, his name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBy Jupiter! forgot.\nI am weary; yea, my memory is tired.\nHave we no wine here?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nGo we to our tent:\nThe blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time\nIt should be look'd to: come.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThe town is ta'en!\n\nFirst Soldier:\n'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nCondition!\nI would I were a Roman; for I cannot,\nBeing a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!\nWhat good condition can a treaty find\nI' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,\nI have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,\nAnd wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter\nAs often as we eat. By the elements,\nIf e'er again I meet him beard to beard,\nHe's mine, or I am his: mine emulation\nHath not that honour in't it had; for where\nI thought to crush him in an equal force,\nTrue sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way\nOr wrath or craft may get him.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nHe's the devil.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nBolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd\nWith only suffering stain by him; for him\nShall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,\nBeing naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,\nThe prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,\nEmbarquements all of fury, shall lift up\nTheir rotten privilege and custom 'gainst\nMy hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it\nAt home, upon my brother's guard, even there,\nAgainst the hospitable canon, would I\nWash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to the city;\nLearn how 'tis held; and what they are that must\nBe hostages for Rome.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nWill not you go?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you--\n'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither\nHow the world goes, that to the pace of it\nI may spur on my journey.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nI shall, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGood or bad?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot according to the prayer of the people, for they\nlove not Marcius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNature teaches beasts to know their friends.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, who does the wolf love?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe lamb.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the\nnoble Marcius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two\nare old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.\n\nBoth:\nWell, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIn what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two\nhave not in abundance?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.\n\nSICINIUS:\nEspecially in pride.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd topping all others in boasting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange now: do you two know how you are\ncensured here in the city, I mean of us o' the\nright-hand file? do you?\n\nBoth:\nWhy, how are we censured?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBecause you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry?\n\nBoth:\nWell, well, sir, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of\noccasion will rob you of a great deal of patience:\ngive your dispositions the reins, and be angry at\nyour pleasures; at the least if you take it as a\npleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for\nbeing proud?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe do it not alone, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI know you can do very little alone; for your helps\nare many, or else your actions would grow wondrous\nsingle: your abilities are too infant-like for\ndoing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you\ncould turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,\nand make but an interior survey of your good selves!\nO that you could!\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat then, sir?\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,\nproud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as\nany in Rome.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMenenius, you are known well enough too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that\nloves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying\nTiber in't; said to be something imperfect in\nfavouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like\nupon too trivial motion; one that converses more\nwith the buttock of the night than with the forehead\nof the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my\nmalice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as\nyou are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink\nyou give me touch my palate adversely, I make a\ncrooked face at it. I can't say your worships have\ndelivered the matter well, when I find the ass in\ncompound with the major part of your syllables: and\nthough I must be content to bear with those that say\nyou are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that\ntell you you have good faces. If you see this in\nthe map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known\nwell enough too? what barm can your bisson\nconspectuities glean out of this character, if I be\nknown well enough too?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, sir, come, we know you well enough.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You\nare ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you\nwear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a\ncause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;\nand then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a\nsecond day of audience. When you are hearing a\nmatter between party and party, if you chance to be\npinched with the colic, you make faces like\nmummers; set up the bloody flag against all\npatience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,\ndismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled\nby your hearing: all the peace you make in their\ncause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are\na pair of strange ones.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, come, you are well understood to be a\nperfecter giber for the table than a necessary\nbencher in the Capitol.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOur very priests must become mockers, if they shall\nencounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When\nyou speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the\nwagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not\nso honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's\ncushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-\nsaddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud;\nwho in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors\nsince Deucalion, though peradventure some of the\nbest of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to\nyour worships: more of your conversation would\ninfect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly\nplebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you.\nHow now, my as fair as noble ladies,--and the moon,\nwere she earthly, no nobler,--whither do you follow\nyour eyes so fast?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHonourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for\nthe love of Juno, let's go.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHa! Marcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous\napprobation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTake my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!\nMarcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay,'tis true.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLook, here's a letter from him: the state hath\nanother, his wife another; and, I think, there's one\nat home for you.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for\nme!\n\nVIRGILIA:\nYes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven\nyears' health; in which time I will make a lip at\nthe physician: the most sovereign prescription in\nGalen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative,\nof no better report than a horse-drench. Is he\nnot wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, no, no, no.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, he is wounded; I thank the gods for't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo do I too, if it be not too much: brings a'\nvictory in his pocket? the wounds become him.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOn's brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home\nwith the oaken garland.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he disciplined Aufidius soundly?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTitus Lartius writes, they fought together, but\nAufidius got off.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that:\nan he had stayed by him, I would not have been so\nfidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold\nthat's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nGood ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate\nhas letters from the general, wherein he gives my\nson the whole name of the war: he hath in this\naction outdone his former deeds doubly\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his\ntrue purchasing.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe gods grant them true!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTrue! pow, wow.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTrue! I'll be sworn they are true.\nWhere is he wounded?\nGod save your good worships! Marcius is coming\nhome: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI' the shoulder and i' the left arm there will be\nlarge cicatrices to show the people, when he shall\nstand for his place. He received in the repulse of\nTarquin seven hurts i' the body.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,--there's\nnine that I know.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had, before this last expedition, twenty-five\nwounds upon him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave.\nHark! the trumpets.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThese are the ushers of Marcius: before him he\ncarries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:\nDeath, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie;\nWhich, being advanced, declines, and then men die.\n\nHerald:\nKnow, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight\nWithin Corioli gates: where he hath won,\nWith fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these\nIn honour follows Coriolanus.\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nAll:\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo more of this; it does offend my heart:\nPray now, no more.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLook, sir, your mother!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO,\nYou have, I know, petition'd all the gods\nFor my prosperity!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, my good soldier, up;\nMy gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and\nBy deed-achieving honour newly named,--\nWhat is it?--Coriolanus must I call thee?--\nBut O, thy wife!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy gracious silence, hail!\nWouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,\nThat weep'st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,\nSuch eyes the widows in Corioli wear,\nAnd mothers that lack sons.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, the gods crown thee!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAnd live you yet?\nO my sweet lady, pardon.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI know not where to turn: O, welcome home:\nAnd welcome, general: and ye're welcome all.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep\nAnd I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome.\nA curse begin at very root on's heart,\nThat is not glad to see thee! You are three\nThat Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men,\nWe have some old crab-trees here\nat home that will not\nBe grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors:\nWe call a nettle but a nettle and\nThe faults of fools but folly.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nEver right.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMenenius ever, ever.\n\nHerald:\nGive way there, and go on!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI have lived\nTo see inherited my very wishes\nAnd the buildings of my fancy: only\nThere's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but\nOur Rome will cast upon thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKnow, good mother,\nI had rather be their servant in my way,\nThan sway with them in theirs.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOn, to the Capitol!\n\nBRUTUS:\nAll tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights\nAre spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse\nInto a rapture lets her baby cry\nWhile she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins\nHer richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,\nClambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,\nAre smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed\nWith variable complexions, all agreeing\nIn earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens\nDo press among the popular throngs and puff\nTo win a vulgar station: or veil'd dames\nCommit the war of white and damask in\nTheir nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil\nOf Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother\nAs if that whatsoever god who leads him\nWere slily crept into his human powers\nAnd gave him graceful posture.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOn the sudden,\nI warrant him consul.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThen our office may,\nDuring his power, go sleep.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe cannot temperately transport his honours\nFrom where he should begin and end, but will\nLose those he hath won.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn that there's comfort.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDoubt not\nThe commoners, for whom we stand, but they\nUpon their ancient malice will forget\nWith the least cause these his new honours, which\nThat he will give them make I as little question\nAs he is proud to do't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI heard him swear,\nWere he to stand for consul, never would he\nAppear i' the market-place nor on him put\nThe napless vesture of humility;\nNor showing, as the manner is, his wounds\nTo the people, beg their stinking breaths.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis right.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt was his word: O, he would miss it rather\nThan carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him,\nAnd the desire of the nobles.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI wish no better\nThan have him hold that purpose and to put it\nIn execution.\n\nBRUTUS:\n'Tis most like he will.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt shall be to him then as our good wills,\nA sure destruction.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSo it must fall out\nTo him or our authorities. For an end,\nWe must suggest the people in what hatred\nHe still hath held them; that to's power he would\nHave made them mules, silenced their pleaders and\nDispropertied their freedoms, holding them,\nIn human action and capacity,\nOf no more soul nor fitness for the world\nThan camels in the war, who have their provand\nOnly for bearing burdens, and sore blows\nFor sinking under them.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis, as you say, suggested\nAt some time when his soaring insolence\nShall touch the people--which time shall not want,\nIf he be put upon 't; and that's as easy\nAs to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire\nTo kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze\nShall darken him for ever.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nYou are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought\nThat Marcius shall be consul:\nI have seen the dumb men throng to see him and\nThe blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves,\nLadies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\nUpon him as he pass'd: the nobles bended,\nAs to Jove's statue, and the commons made\nA shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:\nI never saw the like.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol;\nAnd carry with us ears and eyes for the time,\nBut hearts for the event.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave with you.\n\nFirst Officer:\nCome, come, they are almost here. How many stand\nfor consulships?\n\nSecond Officer:\nThree, they say: but 'tis thought of every one\nCoriolanus will carry it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nThat's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and\nloves not the common people.\n\nSecond Officer:\nFaith, there had been many great men that have\nflattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there\nbe many that they have loved, they know not\nwherefore: so that, if they love they know not why,\nthey hate upon no better a ground: therefore, for\nCoriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate\nhim manifests the true knowledge he has in their\ndisposition; and out of his noble carelessness lets\nthem plainly see't.\n\nFirst Officer:\nIf he did not care whether he had their love or no,\nhe waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither\ngood nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater\ndevotion than can render it him; and leaves\nnothing undone that may fully discover him their\nopposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and\ndispleasure of the people is as bad as that which he\ndislikes, to flatter them for their love.\n\nSecond Officer:\nHe hath deserved worthily of his country: and his\nascent is not by such easy degrees as those who,\nhaving been supple and courteous to the people,\nbonneted, without any further deed to have them at\nan into their estimation and report: but he hath so\nplanted his honours in their eyes, and his actions\nin their hearts, that for their tongues to be\nsilent, and not confess so much, were a kind of\ningrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a\nmalice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck\nreproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nNo more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they\nare coming.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHaving determined of the Volsces and\nTo send for Titus Lartius, it remains,\nAs the main point of this our after-meeting,\nTo gratify his noble service that\nHath thus stood for his country: therefore,\nplease you,\nMost reverend and grave elders, to desire\nThe present consul, and last general\nIn our well-found successes, to report\nA little of that worthy work perform'd\nBy Caius Marcius Coriolanus, whom\nWe met here both to thank and to remember\nWith honours like himself.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSpeak, good Cominius:\nLeave nothing out for length, and make us think\nRather our state's defective for requital\nThan we to stretch it out.\nMasters o' the people,\nWe do request your kindest ears, and after,\nYour loving motion toward the common body,\nTo yield what passes here.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe are convented\nUpon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts\nInclinable to honour and advance\nThe theme of our assembly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhich the rather\nWe shall be blest to do, if he remember\nA kinder value of the people than\nHe hath hereto prized them at.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's off, that's off;\nI would you rather had been silent. Please you\nTo hear Cominius speak?\n\nBRUTUS:\nMost willingly;\nBut yet my caution was more pertinent\nThan the rebuke you give it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe loves your people\nBut tie him not to be their bedfellow.\nWorthy Cominius, speak.\nNay, keep your place.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear\nWhat you have nobly done.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour horror's pardon:\nI had rather have my wounds to heal again\nThan hear say how I got them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, I hope\nMy words disbench'd you not.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir: yet oft,\nWhen blows have made me stay, I fled from words.\nYou soothed not, therefore hurt not: but\nyour people,\nI love them as they weigh.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, sit down.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun\nWhen the alarum were struck than idly sit\nTo hear my nothings monster'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nMasters of the people,\nYour multiplying spawn how can he flatter--\nThat's thousand to one good one--when you now see\nHe had rather venture all his limbs for honour\nThan one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus\nShould not be utter'd feebly. It is held\nThat valour is the chiefest virtue, and\nMost dignifies the haver: if it be,\nThe man I speak of cannot in the world\nBe singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,\nWhen Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought\nBeyond the mark of others: our then dictator,\nWhom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,\nWhen with his Amazonian chin he drove\nThe bristled lips before him: be bestrid\nAn o'er-press'd Roman and i' the consul's view\nSlew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,\nAnd struck him on his knee: in that day's feats,\nWhen he might act the woman in the scene,\nHe proved best man i' the field, and for his meed\nWas brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age\nMan-enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea,\nAnd in the brunt of seventeen battles since\nHe lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,\nBefore and in Corioli, let me say,\nI cannot speak him home: he stopp'd the fliers;\nAnd by his rare example made the coward\nTurn terror into sport: as weeds before\nA vessel under sail, so men obey'd\nAnd fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp,\nWhere it did mark, it took; from face to foot\nHe was a thing of blood, whose every motion\nWas timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd\nThe mortal gate of the city, which he painted\nWith shunless destiny; aidless came off,\nAnd with a sudden reinforcement struck\nCorioli like a planet: now all's his:\nWhen, by and by, the din of war gan pierce\nHis ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit\nRe-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,\nAnd to the battle came he; where he did\nRun reeking o'er the lives of men, as if\n'Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd\nBoth field and city ours, he never stood\nTo ease his breast with panting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWorthy man!\n\nFirst Senator:\nHe cannot but with measure fit the honours\nWhich we devise him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOur spoils he kick'd at,\nAnd look'd upon things precious as they were\nThe common muck of the world: he covets less\nThan misery itself would give; rewards\nHis deeds with doing them, and is content\nTo spend the time to end it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's right noble:\nLet him be call'd for.\n\nFirst Senator:\nCall Coriolanus.\n\nOfficer:\nHe doth appear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased\nTo make thee consul.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do owe them still\nMy life and services.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIt then remains\nThat you do speak to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do beseech you,\nLet me o'erleap that custom, for I cannot\nPut on the gown, stand naked and entreat them,\nFor my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you\nThat I may pass this doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, the people\nMust have their voices; neither will they bate\nOne jot of ceremony.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPut them not to't:\nPray you, go fit you to the custom and\nTake to you, as your predecessors have,\nYour honour with your form.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is apart\nThat I shall blush in acting, and might well\nBe taken from the people.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark you that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTo brag unto them, thus I did, and thus;\nShow them the unaching scars which I should hide,\nAs if I had received them for the hire\nOf their breath only!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not stand upon't.\nWe recommend to you, tribunes of the people,\nOur purpose to them: and to our noble consul\nWish we all joy and honour.\n\nSenators:\nTo Coriolanus come all joy and honour!\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou see how he intends to use the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMay they perceive's intent! He will require them,\nAs if he did contemn what he requested\nShould be in them to give.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, we'll inform them\nOf our proceedings here: on the marketplace,\nI know, they do attend us.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOnce, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWe may, sir, if we will.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a\npower that we have no power to do; for if he show us\nhis wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our\ntongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if\nhe tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him\nour noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is\nmonstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,\nwere to make a monster of the multitude: of the\nwhich we being members, should bring ourselves to be\nmonstrous members.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAnd to make us no better thought of, a little help\nwill serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he\nhimself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have been called so of many; not that our heads\nare some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,\nbut that our wits are so diversely coloured: and\ntruly I think if all our wits were to issue out of\none skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,\nand their consent of one direct way should be at\nonce to all the points o' the compass.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nThink you so? Which way do you judge my wit would\nfly?\n\nThird Citizen:\nNay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's\nwill;'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but\nif it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhy that way?\n\nThird Citizen:\nTo lose itself in a fog, where being three parts\nmelted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return\nfor conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou are never without your tricks: you may, you may.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAre you all resolved to give your voices? But\nthat's no matter, the greater part carries it. I\nsay, if he would incline to the people, there was\nnever a worthier man.\nHere he comes, and in the gown of humility: mark his\nbehavior. We are not to stay all together, but to\ncome by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and\nby threes. He's to make his requests by\nparticulars; wherein every one of us has a single\nhonour, in giving him our own voices with our own\ntongues: therefore follow me, and I direct you how\nyou shall go by him.\n\nAll:\nContent, content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO sir, you are not right: have you not known\nThe worthiest men have done't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I say?\n'I Pray, sir'--Plague upon't! I cannot bring\nMy tongue to such a pace:--'Look, sir, my wounds!\nI got them in my country's service, when\nSome certain of your brethren roar'd and ran\nFrom the noise of our own drums.'\n\nMENENIUS:\nO me, the gods!\nYou must not speak of that: you must desire them\nTo think upon you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThink upon me! hang 'em!\nI would they would forget me, like the virtues\nWhich our divines lose by 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou'll mar all:\nI'll leave you: pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you,\nIn wholesome manner.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBid them wash their faces\nAnd keep their teeth clean.\nSo, here comes a brace.\nYou know the cause, air, of my standing here.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMine own desert.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYour own desert!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, but not mine own desire.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHow not your own desire?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir,'twas never my desire yet to trouble the\npoor with begging.\n\nThird Citizen:\nYou must think, if we give you any thing, we hope to\ngain by you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell then, I pray, your price o' the consulship?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe price is to ask it kindly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKindly! Sir, I pray, let me ha't: I have wounds to\nshow you, which shall be yours in private. Your\ngood voice, sir; what say you?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou shall ha' it, worthy sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices\nbegged. I have your alms: adieu.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBut this is something odd.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAn 'twere to give again,--but 'tis no matter.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your\nvoices that I may be consul, I have here the\ncustomary gown.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have deserved nobly of your country, and you\nhave not deserved nobly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour enigma?\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have been a scourge to her enemies, you have\nbeen a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved\nthe common people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou should account me the more virtuous that I have\nnot been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my\nsworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer\nestimation of them; 'tis a condition they account\ngentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is\nrather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise\nthe insinuating nod and be off to them most\ncounterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the\nbewitchment of some popular man and give it\nbountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you,\nI may be consul.\n\nFifth Citizen:\nWe hope to find you our friend; and therefore give\nyou our voices heartily.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have received many wounds for your country.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I\nwill make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.\n\nBoth Citizens:\nThe gods give you joy, sir, heartily!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMost sweet voices!\nBetter it is to die, better to starve,\nThan crave the hire which first we do deserve.\nWhy in this woolvish toge should I stand here,\nTo beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear,\nTheir needless vouches? Custom calls me to't:\nWhat custom wills, in all things should we do't,\nThe dust on antique time would lie unswept,\nAnd mountainous error be too highly heapt\nFor truth to o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so,\nLet the high office and the honour go\nTo one that would do thus. I am half through;\nThe one part suffer'd, the other will I do.\nHere come more voices.\nYour voices: for your voices I have fought;\nWatch'd for your voices; for Your voices bear\nOf wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six\nI have seen and heard of; for your voices have\nDone many things, some less, some more your voices:\nIndeed I would be consul.\n\nSixth Citizen:\nHe has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest\nman's voice.\n\nSeventh Citizen:\nTherefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy,\nand make him good friend to the people!\n\nAll Citizens:\nAmen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWorthy voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have stood your limitation; and the tribunes\nEndue you with the people's voice: remains\nThat, in the official marks invested, you\nAnon do meet the senate.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIs this done?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe custom of request you have discharged:\nThe people do admit you, and are summon'd\nTo meet anon, upon your approbation.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhere? at the senate-house?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThere, Coriolanus.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMay I change these garments?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou may, sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat I'll straight do; and, knowing myself again,\nRepair to the senate-house.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll keep you company. Will you along?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stay here for the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFare you well.\nHe has it now, and by his looks methink\n'Tis warm at 's heart.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWith a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.\nwill you dismiss the people?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHow now, my masters! have you chose this man?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe has our voices, sir.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe pray the gods he may deserve your loves.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAmen, sir: to my poor unworthy notice,\nHe mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nCertainly\nHe flouted us downright.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo,'tis his kind of speech: he did not mock us.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNot one amongst us, save yourself, but says\nHe used us scornfully: he should have show'd us\nHis marks of merit, wounds received for's country.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, so he did, I am sure.\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no; no man saw 'em.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe said he had wounds, which he could show\nin private;\nAnd with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,\n'I would be consul,' says he: 'aged custom,\nBut by your voices, will not so permit me;\nYour voices therefore.' When we granted that,\nHere was 'I thank you for your voices: thank you:\nYour most sweet voices: now you have left\nyour voices,\nI have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy either were you ignorant to see't,\nOr, seeing it, of such childish friendliness\nTo yield your voices?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCould you not have told him\nAs you were lesson'd, when he had no power,\nBut was a petty servant to the state,\nHe was your enemy, ever spake against\nYour liberties and the charters that you bear\nI' the body of the weal; and now, arriving\nA place of potency and sway o' the state,\nIf he should still malignantly remain\nFast foe to the plebeii, your voices might\nBe curses to yourselves? You should have said\nThat as his worthy deeds did claim no less\nThan what he stood for, so his gracious nature\nWould think upon you for your voices and\nTranslate his malice towards you into love,\nStanding your friendly lord.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThus to have said,\nAs you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit\nAnd tried his inclination; from him pluck'd\nEither his gracious promise, which you might,\nAs cause had call'd you up, have held him to\nOr else it would have gall'd his surly nature,\nWhich easily endures not article\nTying him to aught; so putting him to rage,\nYou should have ta'en the advantage of his choler\nAnd pass'd him unelected.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDid you perceive\nHe did solicit you in free contempt\nWhen he did need your loves, and do you think\nThat his contempt shall not be bruising to you,\nWhen he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies\nNo heart among you? or had you tongues to cry\nAgainst the rectorship of judgment?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you\nEre now denied the asker? and now again\nOf him that did not ask, but mock, bestow\nYour sued-for tongues?\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd will deny him:\nI'll have five hundred voices of that sound.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI twice five hundred and their friends to piece 'em.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGet you hence instantly, and tell those friends,\nThey have chose a consul that will from them take\nTheir liberties; make them of no more voice\nThan dogs that are as often beat for barking\nAs therefore kept to do so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet them assemble,\nAnd on a safer judgment all revoke\nYour ignorant election; enforce his pride,\nAnd his old hate unto you; besides, forget not\nWith what contempt he wore the humble weed,\nHow in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,\nThinking upon his services, took from you\nThe apprehension of his present portance,\nWhich most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion\nAfter the inveterate hate he bears you.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay\nA fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,\nNo impediment between, but that you must\nCast your election on him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSay, you chose him\nMore after our commandment than as guided\nBy your own true affections, and that your minds,\nPreoccupied with what you rather must do\nThan what you should, made you against the grain\nTo voice him consul: lay the fault on us.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAy, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.\nHow youngly he began to serve his country,\nHow long continued, and what stock he springs of,\nThe noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came\nThat Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,\nWho, after great Hostilius, here was king;\nOf the same house Publius and Quintus were,\nThat our beat water brought by conduits hither;\nAnd  \nTwice being  \nWas his great ancestor.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOne thus descended,\nThat hath beside well in his person wrought\nTo be set high in place, we did commend\nTo your remembrances: but you have found,\nScaling his present bearing with his past,\nThat he's your fixed enemy, and revoke\nYour sudden approbation.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSay, you ne'er had done't--\nHarp on that still--but by our putting on;\nAnd presently, when you have drawn your number,\nRepair to the Capitol.\n\nAll:\nWe will so: almost all\nRepent in their election.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet them go on;\nThis mutiny were better put in hazard,\nThan stay, past doubt, for greater:\nIf, as his nature is, he fall in rage\nWith their refusal, both observe and answer\nThe vantage of his anger.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTo the Capitol, come:\nWe will be there before the stream o' the people;\nAnd this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,\nWhich we have goaded onward.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTullus Aufidius then had made new head?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe had, my lord; and that it was which caused\nOur swifter composition.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSo then the Volsces stand but as at first,\nReady, when time shall prompt them, to make road.\nUpon's again.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThey are worn, lord consul, so,\nThat we shall hardly in our ages see\nTheir banners wave again.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSaw you Aufidius?\n\nLARTIUS:\nOn safe-guard he came to me; and did curse\nAgainst the Volsces, for they had so vilely\nYielded the town: he is retired to Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSpoke he of me?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe did, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow? what?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHow often he had met you, sword to sword;\nThat of all things upon the earth he hated\nYour person most, that he would pawn his fortunes\nTo hopeless restitution, so he might\nBe call'd your vanquisher.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAt Antium lives he?\n\nLARTIUS:\nAt Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI wish I had a cause to seek him there,\nTo oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.\nBehold, these are the tribunes of the people,\nThe tongues o' the common mouth: I do despise them;\nFor they do prank them in authority,\nAgainst all noble sufferance.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPass no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa! what is that?\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt will be dangerous to go on: no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat makes this change?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe matter?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHath he not pass'd the noble and the common?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCominius, no.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave I had children's voices?\n\nFirst Senator:\nTribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe people are incensed against him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nStop,\nOr all will fall in broil.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAre these your herd?\nMust these have voices, that can yield them now\nAnd straight disclaim their tongues? What are\nyour offices?\nYou being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?\nHave you not set them on?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe calm, be calm.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,\nTo curb the will of the nobility:\nSuffer't, and live with such as cannot rule\nNor ever will be ruled.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCall't not a plot:\nThe people cry you mock'd them, and of late,\nWhen corn was given them gratis, you repined;\nScandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them\nTime-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy, this was known before.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot to them all.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave you inform'd them sithence?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow! I inform them!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou are like to do such business.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot unlike,\nEach way, to better yours.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy then should I be consul? By yond clouds,\nLet me deserve so ill as you, and make me\nYour fellow tribune.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou show too much of that\nFor which the people stir: if you will pass\nTo where you are bound, you must inquire your way,\nWhich you are out of, with a gentler spirit,\nOr never be so noble as a consul,\nNor yoke with him for tribune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLet's be calm.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe people are abused; set on. This paltering\nBecomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus\nDeserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely\nI' the plain way of his merit.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTell me of corn!\nThis was my speech, and I will speak't again--\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot now, not now.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNot in this heat, sir, now.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,\nI crave their pardons:\nFor the mutable, rank-scented many, let them\nRegard me as I do not flatter, and\nTherein behold themselves: I say again,\nIn soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate\nThe cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,\nWhich we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,\nand scatter'd,\nBy mingling them with us, the honour'd number,\nWho lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that\nWhich they have given to beggars.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, no more.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo more words, we beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! no more!\nAs for my country I have shed my blood,\nNot fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\nCoin words till their decay against those measles,\nWhich we disdain should tatter us, yet sought\nThe very way to catch them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou speak o' the people,\nAs if you were a god to punish, not\nA man of their infirmity.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Twere well\nWe let the people know't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat, what? his choler?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCholer!\nWere I as patient as the midnight sleep,\nBy Jove, 'twould be my mind!\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt is a mind\nThat shall remain a poison where it is,\nNot poison any further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall remain!\nHear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you\nHis absolute 'shall'?\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Twas from the canon.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n'Shall'!\nO good but most unwise patricians! why,\nYou grave but reckless senators, have you thus\nGiven Hydra here to choose an officer,\nThat with his peremptory 'shall,' being but\nThe horn and noise o' the monster's, wants not spirit\nTo say he'll turn your current in a ditch,\nAnd make your channel his? If he have power\nThen vail your ignorance; if none, awake\nYour dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,\nBe not as common fools; if you are not,\nLet them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,\nIf they be senators: and they are no less,\nWhen, both your voices blended, the great'st taste\nMost palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,\nAnd such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'\nHis popular 'shall' against a graver bench\nThan ever frown in Greece. By Jove himself!\nIt makes the consuls base: and my soul aches\nTo know, when two authorities are up,\nNeither supreme, how soon confusion\nMay enter 'twixt the gap of both and take\nThe one by the other.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, on to the market-place.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhoever gave that counsel, to give forth\nThe corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used\nSometime in Greece,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, well, no more of that.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThough there the people had more absolute power,\nI say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed\nThe ruin of the state.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy, shall the people give\nOne that speaks thus their voice?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI'll give my reasons,\nMore worthier than their voices. They know the corn\nWas not our recompense, resting well assured\nThat ne'er did service for't: being press'd to the war,\nEven when the navel of the state was touch'd,\nThey would not thread the gates. This kind of service\nDid not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war\nTheir mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd\nMost valour, spoke not for them: the accusation\nWhich they have often made against the senate,\nAll cause unborn, could never be the motive\nOf our so frank donation. Well, what then?\nHow shall this bisson multitude digest\nThe senate's courtesy? Let deeds express\nWhat's like to be their words: 'we did request it;\nWe are the greater poll, and in true fear\nThey gave us our demands.' Thus we debase\nThe nature of our seats and make the rabble\nCall our cares fears; which will in time\nBreak ope the locks o' the senate and bring in\nThe crows to peck the eagles.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, enough.\n\nBRUTUS:\nEnough, with over-measure.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, take more:\nWhat may be sworn by, both divine and human,\nSeal what I end withal! This double worship,\nWhere one part does disdain with cause, the other\nInsult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,\nCannot conclude but by the yea and no\nOf general ignorance,--it must omit\nReal necessities, and give way the while\nTo unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd,\nit follows,\nNothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,--\nYou that will be less fearful than discreet,\nThat love the fundamental part of state\nMore than you doubt the change on't, that prefer\nA noble life before a long, and wish\nTo jump a body with a dangerous physic\nThat's sure of death without it, at once pluck out\nThe multitudinous tongue; let them not lick\nThe sweet which is their poison: your dishonour\nMangles true judgment and bereaves the state\nOf that integrity which should become't,\nNot having the power to do the good it would,\nFor the in which doth control't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHas said enough.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHas spoken like a traitor, and shall answer\nAs traitors do.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!\nWhat should the people do with these bald tribunes?\nOn whom depending, their obedience fails\nTo the greater bench: in a rebellion,\nWhen what's not meet, but what must be, was law,\nThen were they chosen: in a better hour,\nLet what is meet be said it must be meet,\nAnd throw their power i' the dust.\n\nBRUTUS:\nManifest treason!\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis a consul? no.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe aediles, ho!\nLet him be apprehended.\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, call the people:\nin whose name myself\nAttach thee as a traitorous innovator,\nA foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee,\nAnd follow to thine answer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, old goat!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWe'll surety him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAged sir, hands off.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones\nOut of thy garments.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHelp, ye citizens!\n\nMENENIUS:\nOn both sides more respect.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHere's he that would take from you all your power.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSeize him, AEdiles!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him! down with him!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWeapons, weapons, weapons!\n'Tribunes!' 'Patricians!' 'Citizens!' 'What, ho!'\n'Sicinius!' 'Brutus!' 'Coriolanus!' 'Citizens!'\n'Peace, peace, peace!' 'Stay, hold, peace!'\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is about to be? I am out of breath;\nConfusion's near; I cannot speak. You, tribunes\nTo the people! Coriolanus, patience!\nSpeak, good Sicinius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHear me, people; peace!\n\nCitizens:\nLet's hear our tribune: peace Speak, speak, speak.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou are at point to lose your liberties:\nMarcius would have all from you; Marcius,\nWhom late you have named for consul.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\nThis is the way to kindle, not to quench.\n\nFirst Senator:\nTo unbuild the city and to lay all flat.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat is the city but the people?\n\nCitizens:\nTrue,\nThe people are the city.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBy the consent of all, we were establish'd\nThe people's magistrates.\n\nCitizens:\nYou so remain.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd so are like to do.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThat is the way to lay the city flat;\nTo bring the roof to the foundation,\nAnd bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,\nIn heaps and piles of ruin.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis deserves death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nOr let us stand to our authority,\nOr let us lose it. We do here pronounce,\nUpon the part o' the people, in whose power\nWe were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy\nOf present death.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTherefore lay hold of him;\nBear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence\nInto destruction cast him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAEdiles, seize him!\n\nCitizens:\nYield, Marcius, yield!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me one word;\nBeseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.\n\nAEdile:\nPeace, peace!\n\nMENENIUS:\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, those cold ways,\nThat seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous\nWhere the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,\nAnd bear him to the rock.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I'll die here.\nThere's some among you have beheld me fighting:\nCome, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDown with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay hands upon him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHelp Marcius, help,\nYou that be noble; help him, young and old!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him, down with him!\n\nMENENIUS:\nGo, get you to your house; be gone, away!\nAll will be naught else.\n\nSecond Senator:\nGet you gone.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nStand fast;\nWe have as many friends as enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSham it be put to that?\n\nFirst Senator:\nThe gods forbid!\nI prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;\nLeave us to cure this cause.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor 'tis a sore upon us,\nYou cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, sir, along with us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI would they were barbarians--as they are,\nThough in Rome litter'd--not Romans--as they are not,\nThough calved i' the porch o' the Capitol--\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe gone;\nPut not your worthy rage into your tongue;\nOne time will owe another.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nOn fair ground\nI could beat forty of them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI could myself\nTake up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the\ntwo tribunes:\nBut now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic;\nAnd manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands\nAgainst a falling fabric. Will you hence,\nBefore the tag return? whose rage doth rend\nLike interrupted waters and o'erbear\nWhat they are used to bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, be gone:\nI'll try whether my old wit be in request\nWith those that have but little: this must be patch'd\nWith cloth of any colour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNay, come away.\n\nA Patrician:\nThis man has marr'd his fortune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHis nature is too noble for the world:\nHe would not flatter Neptune for his trident,\nOr Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:\nWhat his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;\nAnd, being angry, does forget that ever\nHe heard the name of death.\nHere's goodly work!\n\nSecond Patrician:\nI would they were abed!\n\nMENENIUS:\nI would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!\nCould he not speak 'em fair?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is this viper\nThat would depopulate the city and\nBe every man himself?\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou worthy tribunes,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock\nWith rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,\nAnd therefore law shall scorn him further trial\nThan the severity of the public power\nWhich he so sets at nought.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe shall well know\nThe noble tribunes are the people's mouths,\nAnd we their hands.\n\nCitizens:\nHe shall, sure on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, sir,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\nWith modest warrant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, how comes't that you\nHave holp to make this rescue?\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me speak:\nAs I do know the consul's worthiness,\nSo can I name his faults,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nConsul! what consul?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe consul Coriolanus.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe consul!\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no, no, no, no.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,\nI may be heard, I would crave a word or two;\nThe which shall turn you to no further harm\nThan so much loss of time.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSpeak briefly then;\nFor we are peremptory to dispatch\nThis viperous traitor: to eject him hence\nWere but one danger, and to keep him here\nOur certain death: therefore it is decreed\nHe dies to-night.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow the good gods forbid\nThat our renowned Rome, whose gratitude\nTowards her deserved children is enroll'd\nIn Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam\nShould now eat up her own!\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's a disease that must be cut away.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, he's a limb that has but a disease;\nMortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.\nWhat has he done to Rome that's worthy death?\nKilling our enemies, the blood he hath lost--\nWhich, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,\nBy many an ounce--he dropp'd it for his country;\nAnd what is left, to lose it by his country,\nWere to us all, that do't and suffer it,\nA brand to the end o' the world.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is clean kam.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMerely awry: when he did love his country,\nIt honour'd him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe service of the foot\nBeing once gangrened, is not then respected\nFor what before it was.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe'll hear no more.\nPursue him to his house, and pluck him thence:\nLest his infection, being of catching nature,\nSpread further.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne word more, one word.\nThis tiger-footed rage, when it shall find\nThe harm of unscann'd swiftness, will too late\nTie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process;\nLest parties, as he is beloved, break out,\nAnd sack great Rome with Romans.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIf it were so,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat do ye talk?\nHave we not had a taste of his obedience?\nOur aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider this: he has been bred i' the wars\nSince he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd\nIn bolted language; meal and bran together\nHe throws without distinction. Give me leave,\nI'll go to him, and undertake to bring him\nWhere he shall answer, by a lawful form,\nIn peace, to his utmost peril.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNoble tribunes,\nIt is the humane way: the other course\nWill prove too bloody, and the end of it\nUnknown to the beginning.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNoble Menenius,\nBe you then as the people's officer.\nMasters, lay down your weapons.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo not home.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMeet on the market-place. We'll attend you there:\nWhere, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed\nIn our first way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll bring him to you.\nLet me desire your company: he must come,\nOr what is worst will follow.\n\nFirst Senator:\nPray you, let's to him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them puff all about mine ears, present me\nDeath on the wheel or at wild horses' heels,\nOr pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,\nThat the precipitation might down stretch\nBelow the beam of sight, yet will I still\nBe thus to them.\n\nA Patrician:\nYou do the nobler.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI muse my mother\nDoes not approve me further, who was wont\nTo call them woollen vassals, things created\nTo buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads\nIn congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,\nWhen one but of my ordinance stood up\nTo speak of peace or war.\nI talk of you:\nWhy did you wish me milder? would you have me\nFalse to my nature? Rather say I play\nThe man I am.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, sir, sir, sir,\nI would have had you put your power well on,\nBefore you had worn it out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou might have been enough the man you are,\nWith striving less to be so; lesser had been\nThe thwartings of your dispositions, if\nYou had not show'd them how ye were disposed\nEre they lack'd power to cross you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them hang.\n\nA Patrician:\nAy, and burn too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, you have been too rough, something\ntoo rough;\nYou must return and mend it.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThere's no remedy;\nUnless, by not so doing, our good city\nCleave in the midst, and perish.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPray, be counsell'd:\nI have a heart as little apt as yours,\nBut yet a brain that leads my use of anger\nTo better vantage.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell said, noble woman?\nBefore he should thus stoop to the herd, but that\nThe violent fit o' the time craves it as physic\nFor the whole state, I would put mine armour on,\nWhich I can scarcely bear.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I do?\n\nMENENIUS:\nReturn to the tribunes.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, what then? what then?\n\nMENENIUS:\nRepent what you have spoke.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFor them! I cannot do it to the gods;\nMust I then do't to them?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou are too absolute;\nThough therein you can never be too noble,\nBut when extremities speak. I have heard you say,\nHonour and policy, like unsever'd friends,\nI' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,\nIn peace what each of them by the other lose,\nThat they combine not there.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTush, tush!\n\nMENENIUS:\nA good demand.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf it be honour in your wars to seem\nThe same you are not, which, for your best ends,\nYou adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,\nThat it shall hold companionship in peace\nWith honour, as in war, since that to both\nIt stands in like request?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy force you this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBecause that now it lies you on to speak\nTo the people; not by your own instruction,\nNor by the matter which your heart prompts you,\nBut with such words that are but rooted in\nYour tongue, though but bastards and syllables\nOf no allowance to your bosom's truth.\nNow, this no more dishonours you at all\nThan to take in a town with gentle words,\nWhich else would put you to your fortune and\nThe hazard of much blood.\nI would dissemble with my nature where\nMy fortunes and my friends at stake required\nI should do so in honour: I am in this,\nYour wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;\nAnd you will rather show our general louts\nHow you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em,\nFor the inheritance of their loves and safeguard\nOf what that want might ruin.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNoble lady!\nCome, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,\nNot what is dangerous present, but the loss\nOf what is past.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, my son,\nGo to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;\nAnd thus far having stretch'd it--here be with them--\nThy knee bussing the stones--for in such business\nAction is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant\nMore learned than the ears--waving thy head,\nWhich often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,\nNow humble as the ripest mulberry\nThat will not hold the handling: or say to them,\nThou art their soldier, and being bred in broils\nHast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,\nWere fit for thee to use as they to claim,\nIn asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame\nThyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far\nAs thou hast power and person.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis but done,\nEven as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;\nFor they have pardons, being ask'd, as free\nAs words to little purpose.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPrithee now,\nGo, and be ruled: although I know thou hadst rather\nFollow thine enemy in a fiery gulf\nThan flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI have been i' the market-place; and, sir,'tis fit\nYou make strong party, or defend yourself\nBy calmness or by absence: all's in anger.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOnly fair speech.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI think 'twill serve, if he\nCan thereto frame his spirit.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe must, and will\nPrithee now, say you will, and go about it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMust I go show them my unbarbed sconce?\nMust I with base tongue give my noble heart\nA lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't:\nYet, were there but this single plot to lose,\nThis mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it\nAnd throw't against the wind. To the market-place!\nYou have put me now to such a part which never\nI shall discharge to the life.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, come, we'll prompt you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said\nMy praises made thee first a soldier, so,\nTo have my praise for this, perform a part\nThou hast not done before.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, I must do't:\nAway, my disposition, and possess me\nSome harlot's spirit! my throat of war be turn'd,\nWhich quired with my drum, into a pipe\nSmall as an eunuch, or the virgin voice\nThat babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves\nTent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up\nThe glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue\nMake motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,\nWho bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his\nThat hath received an alms! I will not do't,\nLest I surcease to honour mine own truth\nAnd by my body's action teach my mind\nA most inherent baseness.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAt thy choice, then:\nTo beg of thee, it is my more dishonour\nThan thou of them. Come all to ruin; let\nThy mother rather feel thy pride than fear\nThy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death\nWith as big heart as thou. Do as thou list\nThy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me,\nBut owe thy pride thyself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray, be content:\nMother, I am going to the market-place;\nChide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,\nCog their hearts from them, and come home beloved\nOf all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going:\nCommend me to my wife. I'll return consul;\nOr never trust to what my tongue can do\nI' the way of flattery further.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nDo your will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAway! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself\nTo answer mildly; for they are prepared\nWith accusations, as I hear, more strong\nThan are upon you yet.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe word is 'mildly.' Pray you, let us go:\nLet them accuse me by invention, I\nWill answer in mine honour.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, but mildly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, mildly be it then. Mildly!\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn this point charge him home, that he affects\nTyrannical power: if he evade us there,\nEnforce him with his envy to the people,\nAnd that the spoil got on the Antiates\nWas ne'er distributed.\nWhat, will he come?\n\nAEdile:\nHe's coming.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow accompanied?\n\nAEdile:\nWith old Menenius, and those senators\nThat always favour'd him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you a catalogue\nOf all the voices that we have procured\nSet down by the poll?\n\nAEdile:\nI have; 'tis ready.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you collected them by tribes?\n\nAEdile:\nI have.\n\nSICINIUS:\nAssemble presently the people hither;\nAnd when they bear me say 'It shall be so\nI' the right and strength o' the commons,' be it either\nFor death, for fine, or banishment, then let them\nIf I say fine, cry 'Fine;' if death, cry 'Death.'\nInsisting on the old prerogative\nAnd power i' the truth o' the cause.\n\nAEdile:\nI shall inform them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd when such time they have begun to cry,\nLet them not cease, but with a din confused\nEnforce the present execution\nOf what we chance to sentence.\n\nAEdile:\nVery well.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMake them be strong and ready for this hint,\nWhen we shall hap to give 't them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo about it.\nPut him to choler straight: he hath been used\nEver to conquer, and to have his worth\nOf contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot\nBe rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks\nWhat's in his heart; and that is there which looks\nWith us to break his neck.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWell, here he comes.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCalmly, I do beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece\nWill bear the knave by the volume. The honour'd gods\nKeep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice\nSupplied with worthy men! plant love among 's!\nThrong our large temples with the shows of peace,\nAnd not our streets with war!\n\nFirst Senator:\nAmen, amen.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA noble wish.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDraw near, ye people.\n\nAEdile:\nList to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFirst, hear me speak.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nWell, say. Peace, ho!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall I be charged no further than this present?\nMust all determine here?\n\nSICINIUS:\nI do demand,\nIf you submit you to the people's voices,\nAllow their officers and are content\nTo suffer lawful censure for such faults\nAs shall be proved upon you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI am content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLo, citizens, he says he is content:\nThe warlike service he has done, consider; think\nUpon the wounds his body bears, which show\nLike graves i' the holy churchyard.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nScratches with briers,\nScars to move laughter only.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider further,\nThat when he speaks not like a citizen,\nYou find him like a soldier: do not take\nHis rougher accents for malicious sounds,\nBut, as I say, such as become a soldier,\nRather than envy you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, well, no more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is the matter\nThat being pass'd for consul with full voice,\nI am so dishonour'd that the very hour\nYou take it off again?\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnswer to us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSay, then: 'tis true, I ought so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe charge you, that you have contrived to take\nFrom Rome all season'd office and to wind\nYourself into a power tyrannical;\nFor which you are a traitor to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! traitor!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, temperately; your promise.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people!\nCall me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!\nWithin thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,\nIn thy hand clutch'd as many millions, in\nThy lying tongue both numbers, I would say\n'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free\nAs I do pray the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMark you this, people?\n\nCitizens:\nTo the rock, to the rock with him!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\nWe need not put new matter to his charge:\nWhat you have seen him do and heard him speak,\nBeating your officers, cursing yourselves,\nOpposing laws with strokes and here defying\nThose whose great power must try him; even this,\nSo criminal and in such capital kind,\nDeserves the extremest death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut since he hath\nServed well for Rome,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat do you prate of service?\n\nBRUTUS:\nI talk of that, that know it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIs this the promise that you made your mother?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nKnow, I pray you,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI know no further:\nLet them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,\nVagabond exile, raying, pent to linger\nBut with a grain a day, I would not buy\nTheir mercy at the price of one fair word;\nNor cheque my courage for what they can give,\nTo have't with saying 'Good morrow.'\n\nSICINIUS:\nFor that he has,\nAs much as in him lies, from time to time\nEnvied against the people, seeking means\nTo pluck away their power, as now at last\nGiven hostile strokes, and that not in the presence\nOf dreaded justice, but on the ministers\nThat do distribute it; in the name o' the people\nAnd in the power of us the tribunes, we,\nEven from this instant, banish him our city,\nIn peril of precipitation\nFrom off the rock Tarpeian never more\nTo enter our Rome gates: i' the people's name,\nI say it shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so; let him away:\nHe's banish'd, and it shall be so.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHear me, my masters, and my common friends,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's sentenced; no more hearing.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLet me speak:\nI have been consul, and can show for Rome\nHer enemies' marks upon me. I do love\nMy country's good with a respect more tender,\nMore holy and profound, than mine own life,\nMy dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,\nAnd treasure of my loins; then if I would\nSpeak that,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe know your drift: speak what?\n\nBRUTUS:\nThere's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,\nAs enemy to the people and his country:\nIt shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou common cry of curs! whose breath I hate\nAs reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize\nAs the dead carcasses of unburied men\nThat do corrupt my air, I banish you;\nAnd here remain with your uncertainty!\nLet every feeble rumour shake your hearts!\nYour enemies, with nodding of their plumes,\nFan you into despair! Have the power still\nTo banish your defenders; till at length\nYour ignorance, which finds not till it feels,\nMaking not reservation of yourselves,\nStill your own foes, deliver you as most\nAbated captives to some nation\nThat won you without blows! Despising,\nFor you, the city, thus I turn my back:\nThere is a world elsewhere.\n\nAEdile:\nThe people's enemy is gone, is gone!\n\nCitizens:\nOur enemy is banish'd! he is gone! Hoo! hoo!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, see him out at gates, and follow him,\nAs he hath followed you, with all despite;\nGive him deserved vexation. Let a guard\nAttend us through the city.\n\nCitizens:\nCome, come; let's see him out at gates; come.\nThe gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCome, leave your tears: a brief farewell: the beast\nWith many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,\nWhere is your ancient courage? you were used\nTo say extremity was the trier of spirits;\nThat common chances common men could bear;\nThat when the sea was calm all boats alike\nShow'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,\nWhen most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves\nA noble cunning: you were used to load me\nWith precepts that would make invincible\nThe heart that conn'd them.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO heavens! O heavens!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNay! prithee, woman,--\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\nAnd occupations perish!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat, what, what!\nI shall be loved when I am lack'd. Nay, mother.\nResume that spirit, when you were wont to say,\nIf you had been the wife of Hercules,\nSix of his labours you'ld have done, and saved\nYour husband so much sweat. Cominius,\nDroop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:\nI'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,\nThy tears are salter than a younger man's,\nAnd venomous to thine eyes. My sometime general,\nI have seen thee stem, and thou hast oft beheld\nHeart-hardening spectacles; tell these sad women\n'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,\nAs 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well\nMy hazards still have been your solace: and\nBelieve't not lightly--though I go alone,\nLike to a lonely dragon, that his fen\nMakes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen--your son\nWill or exceed the common or be caught\nWith cautelous baits and practise.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMy first son.\nWhither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius\nWith thee awhile: determine on some course,\nMore than a wild exposture to each chance\nThat starts i' the way before thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO the gods!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI'll follow thee a month, devise with thee\nWhere thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us\nAnd we of thee: so if the time thrust forth\nA cause for thy repeal, we shall not send\nO'er the vast world to seek a single man,\nAnd lose advantage, which doth ever cool\nI' the absence of the needer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFare ye well:\nThou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full\nOf the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one\nThat's yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.\nCome, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and\nMy friends of noble touch, when I am forth,\nBid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.\nWhile I remain above the ground, you shall\nHear from me still, and never of me aught\nBut what is like me formerly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's worthily\nAs any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.\nIf I could shake off but one seven years\nFrom these old arms and legs, by the good gods,\nI'ld with thee every foot.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nGive me thy hand: Come.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.\nThe nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided\nIn his behalf.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNow we have shown our power,\nLet us seem humbler after it is done\nThan when it was a-doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them home:\nSay their great enemy is gone, and they\nStand in their ancient strength.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDismiss them home.\nHere comes his mother.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's not meet her.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey say she's mad.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThey have ta'en note of us: keep on your way.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the gods\nRequite your love!\n\nMENENIUS:\nPeace, peace; be not so loud.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf that I could for weeping, you should hear,--\nNay, and you shall hear some.\nWill you be gone?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n\nSICINIUS:\nAre you mankind?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, fool; is that a shame? Note but this fool.\nWas not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship\nTo banish him that struck more blows for Rome\nThan thou hast spoken words?\n\nSICINIUS:\nO blessed heavens!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMore noble blows than ever thou wise words;\nAnd for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what; yet go:\nNay, but thou shalt stay too: I would my son\nWere in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,\nHis good sword in his hand.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat then?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nWhat then!\nHe'ld make an end of thy posterity.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBastards and all.\nGood man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, peace.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI would he had continued to his country\nAs he began, and not unknit himself\nThe noble knot he made.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI would he had.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\n'I would he had'! 'Twas you incensed the rabble:\nCats, that can judge as fitly of his worth\nAs I can of those mysteries which heaven\nWill not have earth to know.\n\nBRUTUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow, pray, sir, get you gone:\nYou have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:--\nAs far as doth the Capitol exceed\nThe meanest house in Rome, so far my son--\nThis lady's husband here, this, do you see--\nWhom you have banish'd, does exceed you all.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWell, well, we'll leave you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy stay we to be baited\nWith one that wants her wits?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTake my prayers with you.\nI would the gods had nothing else to do\nBut to confirm my curses! Could I meet 'em\nBut once a-day, it would unclog my heart\nOf what lies heavy to't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have told them home;\nAnd, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAnger's my meat; I sup upon myself,\nAnd so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go:\nLeave this faint puling and lament as I do,\nIn anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\n\nRoman:\nI know you well, sir, and you know\nme: your name, I think, is Adrian.\n\nVolsce:\nIt is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.\n\nRoman:\nI am a Roman; and my services are,\nas you are, against 'em: know you me yet?\n\nVolsce:\nNicanor? no.\n\nRoman:\nThe same, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou had more beard when I last saw you; but your\nfavour is well approved by your tongue. What's the\nnews in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state,\nto find you out there: you have well saved me a\nday's journey.\n\nRoman:\nThere hath been in Rome strange insurrections; the\npeople against the senators, patricians, and nobles.\n\nVolsce:\nHath been! is it ended, then? Our state thinks not\nso: they are in a most warlike preparation, and\nhope to come upon them in the heat of their division.\n\nRoman:\nThe main blaze of it is past, but a small thing\nwould make it flame again: for the nobles receive\nso to heart the banishment of that worthy\nCoriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take\nall power from the people and to pluck from them\ntheir tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can\ntell you, and is almost mature for the violent\nbreaking out.\n\nVolsce:\nCoriolanus banished!\n\nRoman:\nBanished, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.\n\nRoman:\nThe day serves well for them now. I have heard it\nsaid, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is\nwhen she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble\nTullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his\ngreat opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request\nof his country.\n\nVolsce:\nHe cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus\naccidentally to encounter you: you have ended my\nbusiness, and I will merrily accompany you home.\n\nRoman:\nI shall, between this and supper, tell you most\nstrange things from Rome; all tending to the good of\ntheir adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?\n\nVolsce:\nA most royal one; the centurions and their charges,\ndistinctly billeted, already in the entertainment,\nand to be on foot at an hour's warning.\n\nRoman:\nI am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the\nman, I think, that shall set them in present action.\nSo, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.\n\nVolsce:\nYou take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause\nto be glad of yours.\n\nRoman:\nWell, let us go together.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly city is this Antium. City,\n'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir\nOf these fair edifices 'fore my wars\nHave I heard groan and drop: then know me not,\nLest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones\nIn puny battle slay me.\nSave you, sir.\n\nCitizen:\nAnd you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nDirect me, if it be your will,\nWhere great Aufidius lies: is he in Antium?\n\nCitizen:\nHe is, and feasts the nobles of the state\nAt his house this night.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhich is his house, beseech you?\n\nCitizen:\nThis, here before you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThank you, sir: farewell.\nO world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,\nWhose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,\nWhose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,\nAre still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love\nUnseparable, shall within this hour,\nOn a dissension of a doit, break out\nTo bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,\nWhose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep,\nTo take the one the other, by some chance,\nSome trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends\nAnd interjoin their issues. So with me:\nMy birth-place hate I, and my love's upon\nThis enemy town. I'll enter: if he slay me,\nHe does fair justice; if he give me way,\nI'll do his country service.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWine, wine, wine! What service\nis here! I think our fellows are asleep.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhere's Cotus? my master calls\nfor him. Cotus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly house: the feast smells well; but I\nAppear not like a guest.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat would you have, friend? whence are you?\nHere's no place for you: pray, go to the door.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI have deserved no better entertainment,\nIn being Coriolanus.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his\nhead; that he gives entrance to such companions?\nPray, get you out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAway! get you away.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow thou'rt troublesome.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAre you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat fellow's this?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nA strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him\nout of the house: prithee, call my master to him.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid\nthe house.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat are you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA gentleman.\n\nThird Servingman:\nA marvellous poor one.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTrue, so I am.\n\nThird Servingman:\nPray you, poor gentleman, take up some other\nstation; here's no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFollow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a\nstrange guest he has here.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd I shall.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere dwellest thou?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nUnder the canopy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nUnder the canopy!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere's that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI' the city of kites and crows.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!\nThen thou dwellest with daws too?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I serve not thy master.\n\nThird Servingman:\nHow, sir! do you meddle with my master?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy\nmistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy\ntrencher, hence!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhere is this fellow?\n\nSecond Servingman:\nHere, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for\ndisturbing the lords within.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?\nWhy speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIf, Tullus,\nNot yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not\nThink me for the man I am, necessity\nCommands me name myself.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhat is thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,\nAnd harsh in sound to thine.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay, what's thy name?\nThou hast a grim appearance, and thy face\nBears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.\nThou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPrepare thy brow to frown: know'st\nthou me yet?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know thee not: thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy name is Caius Marcius, who hath done\nTo thee particularly and to all the Volsces\nGreat hurt and mischief; thereto witness may\nMy surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,\nThe extreme dangers and the drops of blood\nShed for my thankless country are requited\nBut with that surname; a good memory,\nAnd witness of the malice and displeasure\nWhich thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;\nThe cruelty and envy of the people,\nPermitted by our dastard nobles, who\nHave all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;\nAnd suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be\nWhoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity\nHath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--\nMistake me not--to save my life, for if\nI had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world\nI would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,\nTo be full quit of those my banishers,\nStand I before thee here. Then if thou hast\nA heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge\nThine own particular wrongs and stop those maims\nOf shame seen through thy country, speed\nthee straight,\nAnd make my misery serve thy turn: so use it\nThat my revengeful services may prove\nAs benefits to thee, for I will fight\nAgainst my canker'd country with the spleen\nOf all the under fiends. But if so be\nThou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes\nThou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am\nLonger to live most weary, and present\nMy throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;\nWhich not to cut would show thee but a fool,\nSince I have ever follow'd thee with hate,\nDrawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,\nAnd cannot live but to thy shame, unless\nIt be to do thee service.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO Marcius, Marcius!\nEach word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart\nA root of ancient envy. If Jupiter\nShould from yond cloud speak divine things,\nAnd say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more\nThan thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine\nMine arms about that body, where against\nMy grained ash an hundred times hath broke\nAnd scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip\nThe anvil of my sword, and do contest\nAs hotly and as nobly with thy love\nAs ever in ambitious strength I did\nContend against thy valour. Know thou first,\nI loved the maid I married; never man\nSigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\nThou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart\nThan when I first my wedded mistress saw\nBestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,\nWe have a power on foot; and I had purpose\nOnce more to hew thy target from thy brawn,\nOr lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out\nTwelve several times, and I have nightly since\nDreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;\nWe have been down together in my sleep,\nUnbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,\nAnd waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,\nHad we no quarrel else to Rome, but that\nThou art thence banish'd, we would muster all\nFrom twelve to seventy, and pouring war\nInto the bowels of ungrateful Rome,\nLike a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,\nAnd take our friendly senators by the hands;\nWho now are here, taking their leaves of me,\nWho am prepared against your territories,\nThough not for Rome itself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou bless me, gods!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nTherefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have\nThe leading of thine own revenges, take\nThe one half of my commission; and set down--\nAs best thou art experienced, since thou know'st\nThy country's strength and weakness,--thine own ways;\nWhether to knock against the gates of Rome,\nOr rudely visit them in parts remote,\nTo fright them, ere destroy. But come in:\nLet me commend thee first to those that shall\nSay yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!\nAnd more a friend than e'er an enemy;\nYet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHere's a strange alteration!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nBy my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with\na cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a\nfalse report of him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat an arm he has! he turned me about with his\nfinger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nNay, I knew by his face that there was something in\nhim: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought,--I\ncannot tell how to term it.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged,\nbut I thought there was more in him than I could think.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nSo did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest\nman i' the world.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nI think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWho, my master?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, it's no matter for that.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWorth six on him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, not so neither: but I take him to be the\ngreater soldier.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nFaith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:\nfor the defence of a town, our general is excellent.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and for an assault too.\n\nThird Servingman:\nO slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat, what, what? let's partake.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as\nlieve be a condemned man.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWherefore? wherefore?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,\nCaius Marcius.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhy do you say 'thwack our general '?\n\nThird Servingman:\nI do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always\ngood enough for him.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nCome, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too\nhard for him; I have heard him say so himself.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe was too hard for him directly, to say the troth\non't: before Corioli he scotched him and notched\nhim like a carbon ado.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAn he had been cannibally given, he might have\nbroiled and eaten him too.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut, more of thy news?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, he is so made on here within, as if he were son\nand heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no\nquestion asked him by any of the senators, but they\nstand bald before him: our general himself makes a\nmistress of him: sanctifies himself with's hand and\nturns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But\nthe bottom of the news is that our general is cut i'\nthe middle and but one half of what he was\nyesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty\nand grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,\nand sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he\nwill mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.\n\nThird Servingman:\nDo't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as\nmany friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it\nwere, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as\nwe term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nDirectitude! what's that?\n\nThird Servingman:\nBut when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,\nand the man in blood, they will out of their\nburrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with\nhim.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut when goes this forward?\n\nThird Servingman:\nTo-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the\ndrum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a\nparcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they\nwipe their lips.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhy, then we shall have a stirring world again.\nThis peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase\ntailors, and breed ballad-makers.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nLet me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as\nday does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and\nfull of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;\nmulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more\nbastard children than war's a destroyer of men.\n\nSecond Servingman:\n'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to\nbe a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a\ngreat maker of cuckolds.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and it makes men hate one another.\n\nThird Servingman:\nReason; because they then less need one another.\nThe wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap\nas Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.\n\nAll:\nIn, in, in, in!\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe hear not of him, neither need we fear him;\nHis remedies are tame i' the present peace\nAnd quietness of the people, which before\nWere in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends\nBlush that the world goes well, who rather had,\nThough they themselves did suffer by't, behold\nDissentious numbers pestering streets than see\nOur tradesmen with in their shops and going\nAbout their functions friendly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stood to't in good time.\nIs this Menenius?\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nHail sir!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHail to you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nYour Coriolanus\nIs not much miss'd, but with his friends:\nThe commonwealth doth stand, and so would do,\nWere he more angry at it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAll's well; and might have been much better, if\nHe could have temporized.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is he, hear you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, I hear nothing: his mother and his wife\nHear nothing from him.\n\nCitizens:\nThe gods preserve you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGod-den, our neighbours.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGod-den to you all, god-den to you all.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOurselves, our wives, and children, on our knees,\nAre bound to pray for you both.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLive, and thrive!\n\nBRUTUS:\nFarewell, kind neighbours: we wish'd Coriolanus\nHad loved you as we did.\n\nCitizens:\nNow the gods keep you!\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nFarewell, farewell.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is a happier and more comely time\nThan when these fellows ran about the streets,\nCrying confusion.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCaius Marcius was\nA worthy officer i' the war; but insolent,\nO'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,\nSelf-loving,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnd affecting one sole throne,\nWithout assistance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI think not so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe should by this, to all our lamentation,\nIf he had gone forth consul, found it so.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe gods have well prevented it, and Rome\nSits safe and still without him.\n\nAEdile:\nWorthy tribunes,\nThere is a slave, whom we have put in prison,\nReports, the Volsces with two several powers\nAre enter'd in the Roman territories,\nAnd with the deepest malice of the war\nDestroy what lies before 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis Aufidius,\nWho, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,\nThrusts forth his horns again into the world;\nWhich were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,\nAnd durst not once peep out.\n\nSICINIUS:\nCome, what talk you\nOf Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be\nThe Volsces dare break with us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCannot be!\nWe have record that very well it can,\nAnd three examples of the like have been\nWithin my age. But reason with the fellow,\nBefore you punish him, where he heard this,\nLest you shall chance to whip your information\nAnd beat the messenger who bids beware\nOf what is to be dreaded.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTell not me:\nI know this cannot be.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot possible.\n\nMessenger:\nThe nobles in great earnestness are going\nAll to the senate-house: some news is come\nThat turns their countenances.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis this slave;--\nGo whip him, 'fore the people's eyes:--his raising;\nNothing but his report.\n\nMessenger:\nYes, worthy sir,\nThe slave's report is seconded; and more,\nMore fearful, is deliver'd.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat more fearful?\n\nMessenger:\nIt is spoke freely out of many mouths--\nHow probable I do not know--that Marcius,\nJoin'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,\nAnd vows revenge as spacious as between\nThe young'st and oldest thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is most likely!\n\nBRUTUS:\nRaised only, that the weaker sort may wish\nGood Marcius home again.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe very trick on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is unlikely:\nHe and Aufidius can no more atone\nThan violentest contrariety.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nYou are sent for to the senate:\nA fearful army, led by Caius Marcius\nAssociated with Aufidius, rages\nUpon our territories; and have already\nO'erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took\nWhat lay before them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, you have made good work!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat news? what news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have holp to ravish your own daughters and\nTo melt the city leads upon your pates,\nTo see your wives dishonour'd to your noses,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat's the news? what's the news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYour temples burned in their cement, and\nYour franchises, whereon you stood, confined\nInto an auger's bore.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, your news?\nYou have made fair work, I fear me.--Pray, your news?--\nIf Marcius should be join'd with Volscians,--\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf!\nHe is their god: he leads them like a thing\nMade by some other deity than nature,\nThat shapes man better; and they follow him,\nAgainst us brats, with no less confidence\nThan boys pursuing summer butterflies,\nOr butchers killing flies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made good work,\nYou and your apron-men; you that stood so up much\non the voice of occupation and\nThe breath of garlic-eaters!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe will shake\nYour Rome about your ears.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAs Hercules\nDid shake down mellow fruit.\nYou have made fair work!\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut is this true, sir?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy; and you'll look pale\nBefore you find it other. All the regions\nDo smilingly revolt; and who resist\nAre mock'd for valiant ignorance,\nAnd perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?\nYour enemies and his find something in him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWe are all undone, unless\nThe noble man have mercy.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho shall ask it?\nThe tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people\nDeserve such pity of him as the wolf\nDoes of the shepherds: for his best friends, if they\nShould say 'Be good to Rome,' they charged him even\nAs those should do that had deserved his hate,\nAnd therein show'd like enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis true:\nIf he were putting to my house the brand\nThat should consume it, I have not the face\nTo say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,\nYou and your crafts! you have crafted fair!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have brought\nA trembling upon Rome, such as was never\nSo incapable of help.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nSay not we brought it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts\nAnd cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,\nWho did hoot him out o' the city.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut I fear\nThey'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,\nThe second name of men, obeys his points\nAs if he were his officer: desperation\nIs all the policy, strength and defence,\nThat Rome can make against them.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHere come the clusters.\nAnd is Aufidius with him? You are they\nThat made the air unwholesome, when you cast\nYour stinking greasy caps in hooting at\nCoriolanus' exile. Now he's coming;\nAnd not a hair upon a soldier's head\nWhich will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs\nAs you threw caps up will he tumble down,\nAnd pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;\nif he could burn us all into one coal,\nWe have deserved it.\n\nCitizens:\nFaith, we hear fearful news.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFor mine own part,\nWhen I said, banish him, I said 'twas pity.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd so did I.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very\nmany of us: that we did, we did for the best; and\nthough we willingly consented to his banishment, yet\nit was against our will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYe re goodly things, you voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made\nGood work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, ay, what else?\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, masters, get you home; be not dismay'd:\nThese are a side that would be glad to have\nThis true which they so seem to fear. Go home,\nAnd show no sign of fear.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home.\nI ever said we were i' the wrong when we banished\nhim.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nSo did we all. But, come, let's home.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI do not like this news.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNor I.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth\nWould buy this for a lie!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nDo they still fly to the Roman?\n\nLieutenant:\nI do not know what witchcraft's in him, but\nYour soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,\nTheir talk at table, and their thanks at end;\nAnd you are darken'd in this action, sir,\nEven by your own.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI cannot help it now,\nUnless, by using means, I lame the foot\nOf our design. He bears himself more proudlier,\nEven to my person, than I thought he would\nWhen first I did embrace him: yet his nature\nIn that's no changeling; and I must excuse\nWhat cannot be amended.\n\nLieutenant:\nYet I wish, sir,--\nI mean for your particular,--you had not\nJoin'd in commission with him; but either\nHad borne the action of yourself, or else\nTo him had left it solely.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI understand thee well; and be thou sure,\nwhen he shall come to his account, he knows not\nWhat I can urge against him. Although it seems,\nAnd so he thinks, and is no less apparent\nTo the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly.\nAnd shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,\nFights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon\nAs draw his sword; yet he hath left undone\nThat which shall break his neck or hazard mine,\nWhene'er we come to our account.\n\nLieutenant:\nSir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAll places yield to him ere he sits down;\nAnd the nobility of Rome are his:\nThe senators and patricians love him too:\nThe tribunes are no soldiers; and their people\nWill be as rash in the repeal, as hasty\nTo expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome\nAs is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\nBy sovereignty of nature. First he was\nA noble servant to them; but he could not\nCarry his honours even: whether 'twas pride,\nWhich out of daily fortune ever taints\nThe happy man; whether defect of judgment,\nTo fail in the disposing of those chances\nWhich he was lord of; or whether nature,\nNot to be other than one thing, not moving\nFrom the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace\nEven with the same austerity and garb\nAs he controll'd the war; but one of these--\nAs he hath spices of them all, not all,\nFor I dare so far free him--made him fear'd,\nSo hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit,\nTo choke it in the utterance. So our virtues\nLie in the interpretation of the time:\nAnd power, unto itself most commendable,\nHath not a tomb so evident as a chair\nTo extol what it hath done.\nOne fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;\nRights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.\nCome, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,\nThou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said\nWhich was sometime his general; who loved him\nIn a most dear particular. He call'd me father:\nBut what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him;\nA mile before his tent fall down, and knee\nThe way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd\nTo hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe would not seem to know me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo you hear?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYet one time he did call me by my name:\nI urged our old acquaintance, and the drops\nThat we have bled together. Coriolanus\nHe would not answer to: forbad all names;\nHe was a kind of nothing, titleless,\nTill he had forged himself a name o' the fire\nOf burning Rome.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, so: you have made good work!\nA pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome,\nTo make coals cheap,--a noble memory!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI minded him how royal 'twas to pardon\nWhen it was less expected: he replied,\nIt was a bare petition of a state\nTo one whom they had punish'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nVery well:\nCould he say less?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI offer'd to awaken his regard\nFor's private friends: his answer to me was,\nHe could not stay to pick them in a pile\nOf noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly,\nFor one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,\nAnd still to nose the offence.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor one poor grain or two!\nI am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,\nAnd this brave fellow too, we are the grains:\nYou are the musty chaff; and you are smelt\nAbove the moon: we must be burnt for you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid\nIn this so never-needed help, yet do not\nUpbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you\nWould be your country's pleader, your good tongue,\nMore than the instant army we can make,\nMight stop our countryman.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not meddle.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray you, go to him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat should I do?\n\nBRUTUS:\nOnly make trial what your love can do\nFor Rome, towards Marcius.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, and say that Marcius\nReturn me, as Cominius is return'd,\nUnheard; what then?\nBut as a discontented friend, grief-shot\nWith his unkindness? say't be so?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYet your good will\nmust have that thanks from Rome, after the measure\nAs you intended well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll undertake 't:\nI think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip\nAnd hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.\nHe was not taken well; he had not dined:\nThe veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then\nWe pout upon the morning, are unapt\nTo give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd\nThese and these conveyances of our blood\nWith wine and feeding, we have suppler souls\nThan in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him\nTill he be dieted to my request,\nAnd then I'll set upon him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou know the very road into his kindness,\nAnd cannot lose your way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood faith, I'll prove him,\nSpeed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge\nOf my success.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe'll never hear him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNot?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye\nRed as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury\nThe gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;\n'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise;' dismiss'd me\nThus, with his speechless hand: what he would do,\nHe sent in writing after me; what he would not,\nBound with an oath to yield to his conditions:\nSo that all hope is vain.\nUnless his noble mother, and his wife;\nWho, as I hear, mean to solicit him\nFor mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence,\nAnd with our fair entreaties haste them on.\n\nFirst Senator:\nStay: whence are you?\n\nSecond Senator:\nStand, and go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou guard like men; 'tis well: but, by your leave,\nI am an officer of state, and come\nTo speak with Coriolanus.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFrom whence?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFrom Rome.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou may not pass, you must return: our general\nWill no more hear from thence.\n\nSecond Senator:\nYou'll see your Rome embraced with fire before\nYou'll speak with Coriolanus.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood my friends,\nIf you have heard your general talk of Rome,\nAnd of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,\nMy name hath touch'd your ears it is Menenius.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBe it so; go back: the virtue of your name\nIs not here passable.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell thee, fellow,\nThe general is my lover: I have been\nThe book of his good acts, whence men have read\nHis name unparallel'd, haply amplified;\nFor I have ever verified my friends,\nOf whom he's chief, with all the size that verity\nWould without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,\nLike to a bowl upon a subtle ground,\nI have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise\nHave almost stamp'd the leasing: therefore, fellow,\nI must have leave to pass.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFaith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his\nbehalf as you have uttered words in your own, you\nshould not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous\nto lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPrithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,\nalways factionary on the party of your general.\n\nSecond Senator:\nHowsoever you have been his liar, as you say you\nhave, I am one that, telling true under him, must\nsay, you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not\nspeak with him till after dinner.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou are a Roman, are you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am, as thy general is.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you,\nwhen you have pushed out your gates the very\ndefender of them, and, in a violent popular\nignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to\nfront his revenges with the easy groans of old\nwomen, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with\nthe palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as\nyou seem to be? Can you think to blow out the\nintended fire your city is ready to flame in, with\nsuch weak breath as this? No, you are deceived;\ntherefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your\nexecution: you are condemned, our general has sworn\nyou out of reprieve and pardon.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would\nuse me with estimation.\n\nSecond Senator:\nCome, my captain knows you not.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI mean, thy general.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMy general cares not for you. Back, I say, go; lest\nI let forth your half-pint of blood; back,--that's\nthe utmost of your having: back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, but, fellow, fellow,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, you companion, I'll say an errand for you:\nYou shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall\nperceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from\nmy son Coriolanus: guess, but by my entertainment\nwith him, if thou standest not i' the state of\nhanging, or of some death more long in\nspectatorship, and crueller in suffering; behold now\npresently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee.\nThe glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy\nparticular prosperity, and love thee no worse than\nthy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son!\nthou art preparing fire for us; look thee, here's\nwater to quench it. I was hardly moved to come to\nthee; but being assured none but myself could move\nthee, I have been blown out of your gates with\nsighs; and conjure thee to pardon Rome, and thy\npetitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy\nwrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet\nhere,--this, who, like a block, hath denied my\naccess to thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! away!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs\nAre servanted to others: though I owe\nMy revenge properly, my remission lies\nIn Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,\nIngrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather\nThan pity note how much. Therefore, be gone.\nMine ears against your suits are stronger than\nYour gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,\nTake this along; I writ it for thy sake\nAnd would have rent it. Another word, Menenius,\nI will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,\nWas my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold'st!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nYou keep a constant temper.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNow, sir, is your name Menenius?\n\nSecond Senator:\n'Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the\nway home again.\n\nFirst Senator:\nDo you hear how we are shent for keeping your\ngreatness back?\n\nSecond Senator:\nWhat cause, do you think, I have to swoon?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI neither care for the world nor your general: for\nsuch things as you, I can scarce think there's any,\nye're so slight. He that hath a will to die by\nhimself fears it not from another: let your general\ndo his worst. For you, be that you are, long; and\nyour misery increase with your age! I say to you,\nas I was said to, Away!\n\nFirst Senator:\nA noble fellow, I warrant him.\n\nSecond Senator:\nThe worthy fellow is our general: he's the rock, the\noak not to be wind-shaken.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWe will before the walls of Rome tomorrow\nSet down our host. My partner in this action,\nYou must report to the Volscian lords, how plainly\nI have borne this business.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nOnly their ends\nYou have respected; stopp'd your ears against\nThe general suit of Rome; never admitted\nA private whisper, no, not with such friends\nThat thought them sure of you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThis last old man,\nWhom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,\nLoved me above the measure of a father;\nNay, godded me, indeed. Their latest refuge\nWas to send him; for whose old love I have,\nThough I show'd sourly to him, once more offer'd\nThe first conditions, which they did refuse\nAnd cannot now accept; to grace him only\nThat thought he could do more, a very little\nI have yielded to: fresh embassies and suits,\nNor from the state nor private friends, hereafter\nWill I lend ear to. Ha! what shout is this?\nShall I be tempted to infringe my vow\nIn the same time 'tis made? I will not.\nMy wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould\nWherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand\nThe grandchild to her blood. But, out, affection!\nAll bond and privilege of nature, break!\nLet it be virtuous to be obstinate.\nWhat is that curt'sy worth? or those doves' eyes,\nWhich can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not\nOf stronger earth than others. My mother bows;\nAs if Olympus to a molehill should\nIn supplication nod: and my young boy\nHath an aspect of intercession, which\nGreat nature cries 'Deny not.' let the Volsces\nPlough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never\nBe such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,\nAs if a man were author of himself\nAnd knew no other kin.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nMy lord and husband!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThese eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe sorrow that delivers us thus changed\nMakes you think so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLike a dull actor now,\nI have forgot my part, and I am out,\nEven to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,\nForgive my tyranny; but do not say\nFor that 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss\nLong as my exile, sweet as my revenge!\nNow, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss\nI carried from thee, dear; and my true lip\nHath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,\nAnd the most noble mother of the world\nLeave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i' the earth;\nOf thy deep duty more impression show\nThan that of common sons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, stand up blest!\nWhilst, with no softer cushion than the flint,\nI kneel before thee; and unproperly\nShow duty, as mistaken all this while\nBetween the child and parent.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is this?\nYour knees to me? to your corrected son?\nThen let the pebbles on the hungry beach\nFillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds\nStrike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun;\nMurdering impossibility, to make\nWhat cannot be, slight work.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThou art my warrior;\nI holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe noble sister of Publicola,\nThe moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle\nThat's curdied by the frost from purest snow\nAnd hangs on Dian's temple: dear Valeria!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThis is a poor epitome of yours,\nWhich by the interpretation of full time\nMay show like all yourself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe god of soldiers,\nWith the consent of supreme Jove, inform\nThy thoughts with nobleness; that thou mayst prove\nTo shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars\nLike a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,\nAnd saving those that eye thee!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYour knee, sirrah.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat's my brave boy!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nEven he, your wife, this lady, and myself,\nAre suitors to you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI beseech you, peace:\nOr, if you'ld ask, remember this before:\nThe thing I have forsworn to grant may never\nBe held by you denials. Do not bid me\nDismiss my soldiers, or capitulate\nAgain with Rome's mechanics: tell me not\nWherein I seem unnatural: desire not\nTo ally my rages and revenges with\nYour colder reasons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, no more, no more!\nYou have said you will not grant us any thing;\nFor we have nothing else to ask, but that\nWhich you deny already: yet we will ask;\nThat, if you fail in our request, the blame\nMay hang upon your hardness: therefore hear us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll\nHear nought from Rome in private. Your request?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShould we be silent and not speak, our raiment\nAnd state of bodies would bewray what life\nWe have led since thy exile. Think with thyself\nHow more unfortunate than all living women\nAre we come hither: since that thy sight,\nwhich should\nMake our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance\nwith comforts,\nConstrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow;\nMaking the mother, wife and child to see\nThe son, the husband and the father tearing\nHis country's bowels out. And to poor we\nThine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us\nOur prayers to the gods, which is a comfort\nThat all but we enjoy; for how can we,\nAlas, how can we for our country pray.\nWhereto we are bound, together with thy victory,\nWhereto we are bound? alack, or we must lose\nThe country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,\nOur comfort in the country. We must find\nAn evident calamity, though we had\nOur wish, which side should win: for either thou\nMust, as a foreign recreant, be led\nWith manacles thorough our streets, or else\ntriumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,\nAnd bear the palm for having bravely shed\nThy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,\nI purpose not to wait on fortune till\nThese wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee\nRather to show a noble grace to both parts\nThan seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner\nMarch to assault thy country than to tread--\nTrust to't, thou shalt not--on thy mother's womb,\nThat brought thee to this world.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nAy, and mine,\nThat brought you forth this boy, to keep your name\nLiving to time.\n\nYoung MARCIUS:\nA' shall not tread on me;\nI'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNot of a woman's tenderness to be,\nRequires nor child nor woman's face to see.\nI have sat too long.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, go not from us thus.\nIf it were so that our request did tend\nTo save the Romans, thereby to destroy\nThe Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us,\nAs poisonous of your honour: no; our suit\nIs that you reconcile them: while the Volsces\nMay say 'This mercy we have show'd;' the Romans,\n'This we received;' and each in either side\nGive the all-hail to thee and cry 'Be blest\nFor making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,\nThe end of war's uncertain, but this certain,\nThat, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit\nWhich thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,\nWhose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;\nWhose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,\nBut with his last attempt he wiped it out;\nDestroy'd his country, and his name remains\nTo the ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son:\nThou hast affected the fine strains of honour,\nTo imitate the graces of the gods;\nTo tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,\nAnd yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt\nThat should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?\nThink'st thou it honourable for a noble man\nStill to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:\nHe cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:\nPerhaps thy childishness will move him more\nThan can our reasons. There's no man in the world\nMore bound to 's mother; yet here he lets me prate\nLike one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life\nShow'd thy dear mother any courtesy,\nWhen she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,\nHas cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home,\nLoaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,\nAnd spurn me back: but if it be not so,\nThou art not honest; and the gods will plague thee,\nThat thou restrain'st from me the duty which\nTo a mother's part belongs. He turns away:\nDown, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.\nTo his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride\nThan pity to our prayers. Down: an end;\nThis is the last: so we will home to Rome,\nAnd die among our neighbours. Nay, behold 's:\nThis boy, that cannot tell what he would have\nBut kneels and holds up bands for fellowship,\nDoes reason our petition with more strength\nThan thou hast to deny 't. Come, let us go:\nThis fellow had a Volscian to his mother;\nHis wife is in Corioli and his child\nLike him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:\nI am hush'd until our city be a-fire,\nAnd then I'll speak a little.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO mother, mother!\nWhat have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,\nThe gods look down, and this unnatural scene\nThey laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!\nYou have won a happy victory to Rome;\nBut, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,\nMost dangerously you have with him prevail'd,\nIf not most mortal to him. But, let it come.\nAufidius, though I cannot make true wars,\nI'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,\nWere you in my stead, would you have heard\nA mother less? or granted less, Aufidius?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI was moved withal.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI dare be sworn you were:\nAnd, sir, it is no little thing to make\nMine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,\nWhat peace you'll make, advise me: for my part,\nI'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you,\nStand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, by and by;\nBut we will drink together; and you shall bear\nA better witness back than words, which we,\nOn like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.\nCome, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve\nTo have a temple built you: all the swords\nIn Italy, and her confederate arms,\nCould not have made this peace.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSee you yond coign o' the Capitol, yond\ncorner-stone?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, what of that?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf it be possible for you to displace it with your\nlittle finger, there is some hope the ladies of\nRome, especially his mother, may prevail with him.\nBut I say there is no hope in't: our throats are\nsentenced and stay upon execution.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIs't possible that so short a time can alter the\ncondition of a man!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere is differency between a grub and a butterfly;\nyet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown\nfrom man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a\ncreeping thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe loved his mother dearly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo did he me: and he no more remembers his mother\nnow than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness\nof his face sours ripe grapes: when he walks, he\nmoves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before\nhis treading: he is able to pierce a corslet with\nhis eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a\nbattery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for\nAlexander. What he bids be done is finished with\nhis bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity\nand a heaven to throne in.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYes, mercy, if you report him truly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his\nmother shall bring from him: there is no more mercy\nin him than there is milk in a male tiger; that\nshall our poor city find: and all this is long of\nyou.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe gods be good unto us!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, in such a case the gods will not be good unto\nus. When we banished him, we respected not them;\nand, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.\n\nMessenger:\nSir, if you'ld save your life, fly to your house:\nThe plebeians have got your fellow-tribune\nAnd hale him up and down, all swearing, if\nThe Roman ladies bring not comfort home,\nThey'll give him death by inches.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat's the news?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nGood news, good news; the ladies have prevail'd,\nThe Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone:\nA merrier day did never yet greet Rome,\nNo, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFriend,\nArt thou certain this is true? is it most certain?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAs certain as I know the sun is fire:\nWhere have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?\nNe'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide,\nAs the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!\nThe trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,\nTabours and cymbals and the shouting Romans,\nMake the sun dance. Hark you!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is good news:\nI will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia\nIs worth of consuls, senators, patricians,\nA city full; of tribunes, such as you,\nA sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:\nThis morning for ten thousand of your throats\nI'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!\n\nSICINIUS:\nFirst, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,\nAccept my thankfulness.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nSir, we have all\nGreat cause to give great thanks.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey are near the city?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAlmost at point to enter.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe will meet them,\nAnd help the joy.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBehold our patroness, the life of Rome!\nCall all your tribes together, praise the gods,\nAnd make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them:\nUnshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,\nRepeal him with the welcome of his mother;\nCry 'Welcome, ladies, welcome!'\n\nAll:\nWelcome, ladies, Welcome!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nGo tell the lords o' the city I am here:\nDeliver them this paper: having read it,\nBid them repair to the market place; where I,\nEven in theirs and in the commons' ears,\nWill vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse\nThe city ports by this hath enter'd and\nIntends to appear before the people, hoping\nTo purge herself with words: dispatch.\nMost welcome!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nHow is it with our general?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nEven so\nAs with a man by his own alms empoison'd,\nAnd with his charity slain.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nMost noble sir,\nIf you do hold the same intent wherein\nYou wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you\nOf your great danger.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSir, I cannot tell:\nWe must proceed as we do find the people.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nThe people will remain uncertain whilst\n'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either\nMakes the survivor heir of all.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know it;\nAnd my pretext to strike at him admits\nA good construction. I raised him, and I pawn'd\nMine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd,\nHe water'd his new plants with dews of flattery,\nSeducing so my friends; and, to this end,\nHe bow'd his nature, never known before\nBut to be rough, unswayable and free.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nSir, his stoutness\nWhen he did stand for consul, which he lost\nBy lack of stooping,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThat I would have spoke of:\nBeing banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth;\nPresented to my knife his throat: I took him;\nMade him joint-servant with me; gave him way\nIn all his own desires; nay, let him choose\nOut of my files, his projects to accomplish,\nMy best and freshest men; served his designments\nIn mine own person; holp to reap the fame\nWhich he did end all his; and took some pride\nTo do myself this wrong: till, at the last,\nI seem'd his follower, not partner, and\nHe waged me with his countenance, as if\nI had been mercenary.\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nSo he did, my lord:\nThe army marvell'd at it, and, in the last,\nWhen he had carried Rome and that we look'd\nFor no less spoil than glory,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThere was it:\nFor which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.\nAt a few drops of women's rheum, which are\nAs cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour\nOf our great action: therefore shall he die,\nAnd I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nYour native town you enter'd like a post,\nAnd had no welcomes home: but he returns,\nSplitting the air with noise.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nAnd patient fools,\nWhose children he hath slain, their base throats tear\nWith giving him glory.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nTherefore, at your vantage,\nEre he express himself, or move the people\nWith what he would say, let him feel your sword,\nWhich we will second. When he lies along,\nAfter your way his tale pronounced shall bury\nHis reasons with his body.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay no more:\nHere come the lords.\n\nAll The Lords:\nYou are most welcome home.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI have not deserved it.\nBut, worthy lords, have you with heed perused\nWhat I have written to you?\n\nLords:\nWe have.\n\nFirst Lord:\nAnd grieve to hear't.\nWhat faults he made before the last, I think\nMight have found easy fines: but there to end\nWhere he was to begin and give away\nThe benefit of our levies, answering us\nWith our own charge, making a treaty where\nThere was a yielding,--this admits no excuse.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nHe approaches: you shall hear him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHail, lords! I am return'd your soldier,\nNo more infected with my country's love\nThan when I parted hence, but still subsisting\nUnder your great command. You are to know\nThat prosperously I have attempted and\nWith bloody passage led your wars even to\nThe gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home\nDo more than counterpoise a full third part\nThe charges of the action. We have made peace\nWith no less honour to the Antiates\nThan shame to the Romans: and we here deliver,\nSubscribed by the consuls and patricians,\nTogether with the seal o' the senate, what\nWe have compounded on.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nRead it not, noble lords;\nBut tell the traitor, in the high'st degree\nHe hath abused your powers.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTraitor! how now!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, traitor, Marcius!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMarcius!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think\nI'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name\nCoriolanus in Corioli?\nYou lords and heads o' the state, perfidiously\nHe has betray'd your business, and given up,\nFor certain drops of salt, your city Rome,\nI say 'your city,' to his wife and mother;\nBreaking his oath and resolution like\nA twist of rotten silk, never admitting\nCounsel o' the war, but at his nurse's tears\nHe whined and roar'd away your victory,\nThat pages blush'd at him and men of heart\nLook'd wondering each at other.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHear'st thou, Mars?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nName not the god, thou boy of tears!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNo more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMeasureless liar, thou hast made my heart\nToo great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!\nPardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever\nI was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,\nMust give this cur the lie: and his own notion--\nWho wears my stripes impress'd upon him; that\nMust bear my beating to his grave--shall join\nTo thrust the lie unto him.\n\nFirst Lord:\nPeace, both, and hear me speak.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,\nStain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!\nIf you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,\nThat, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I\nFlutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:\nAlone I did it. Boy!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhy, noble lords,\nWill you be put in mind of his blind fortune,\nWhich was your shame, by this unholy braggart,\n'Fore your own eyes and ears?\n\nAll Conspirators:\nLet him die for't.\n\nAll The People:\n'Tear him to pieces.' 'Do it presently.' 'He kill'd\nmy son.' 'My daughter.' 'He killed my cousin\nMarcus.' 'He killed my father.'\n\nSecond Lord:\nPeace, ho! no outrage: peace!\nThe man is noble and his fame folds-in\nThis orb o' the earth. His last offences to us\nShall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,\nAnd trouble not the peace.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO that I had him,\nWith six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,\nTo use my lawful sword!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nInsolent villain!\n\nAll Conspirators:\nKill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!\n\nLords:\nHold, hold, hold, hold!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy noble masters, hear me speak.\n\nFirst Lord:\nO Tullus,--\n\nSecond Lord:\nThou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.\n\nThird Lord:\nTread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;\nPut up your swords.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy lords, when you shall know--as in this rage,\nProvoked by him, you cannot--the great danger\nWhich this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice\nThat he is thus cut off. Please it your honours\nTo call me to your senate, I'll deliver\nMyself your loyal servant, or endure\nYour heaviest censure.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBear from hence his body;\nAnd mourn you for him: let him be regarded\nAs the most noble corse that ever herald\nDid follow to his urn.\n\nSecond Lord:\nHis own impatience\nTakes from Aufidius a great part of blame.\nLet's make the best of it.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy rage is gone;\nAnd I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.\nHelp, three o' the chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.\nBeat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:\nTrail your steel pikes. Though in this city he\nHath widow'd and unchilded many a one,\nWhich to this hour bewail the injury,\nYet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow is the winter of our discontent\nMade glorious summer by this sun of York;\nAnd all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\nIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\nNow are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\nOur bruised arms hung up for monuments;\nOur stern alarums changed to merry meetings,\nOur dreadful marches to delightful measures.\nGrim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;\nAnd now, instead of mounting barded steeds\nTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\nHe capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\nTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\nBut I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,\nNor made to court an amorous looking-glass;\nI, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;\nI, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,\nDeformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;\nWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\nHave no delight to pass away the time,\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,\nI am determined to prove a villain\nAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.\nPlots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\nBy drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,\nTo set my brother Clarence and the king\nIn deadly hate the one against the other:\nAnd if King Edward be as true and just\nAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,\nThis day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,\nAbout a prophecy, which says that 'G'\nOf Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\nDive, thoughts, down to my soul: here\nClarence comes.\nBrother, good day; what means this armed guard\nThat waits upon your grace?\n\nCLARENCE:\nHis majesty\nTendering my person's safety, hath appointed\nThis conduct to convey me to the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUpon what cause?\n\nCLARENCE:\nBecause my name is George.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;\nHe should, for that, commit your godfathers:\nO, belike his majesty hath some intent\nThat you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.\nBut what's the matter, Clarence?  may I know?\n\nCLARENCE:\nYea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\nAs yet I do not: but, as I can learn,\nHe hearkens after prophecies and dreams;\nAnd from the cross-row plucks the letter G.\nAnd says a wizard told him that by G\nHis issue disinherited should be;\nAnd, for my name of George begins with G,\nIt follows in his thought that I am he.\nThese, as I learn, and such like toys as these\nHave moved his highness to commit me now.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, this it is, when men are ruled by women:\n'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:\nMy Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\nThat tempers him to this extremity.\nWas it not she and that good man of worship,\nAnthony Woodville, her brother there,\nThat made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\nFrom whence this present day he is deliver'd?\nWe are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I think there's no man is secure\nBut the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds\nThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.\nHeard ye not what an humble suppliant\nLord hastings was to her for his delivery?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHumbly complaining to her deity\nGot my lord chamberlain his liberty.\nI'll tell you what; I think it is our way,\nIf we will keep in favour with the king,\nTo be her men and wear her livery:\nThe jealous o'erworn widow and herself,\nSince that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen.\nAre mighty gossips in this monarchy.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your graces both to pardon me;\nHis majesty hath straitly given in charge\nThat no man shall have private conference,\nOf what degree soever, with his brother.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\nYou may partake of any thing we say:\nWe speak no treason, man: we say the king\nIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\nWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\nWe say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\nA cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\nAnd that the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:\nHow say you sir? Can you deny all this?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWith this, my lord, myself have nought to do.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNaught to do with mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow,\nHe that doth naught with her, excepting one,\nWere best he do it secretly, alone.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat one, my lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHer husband, knave: wouldst thou betray me?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal\nForbear your conference with the noble duke.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWe know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWe are the queen's abjects, and must obey.\nBrother, farewell: I will unto the king;\nAnd whatsoever you will employ me in,\nWere it to call King Edward's widow sister,\nI will perform it to enfranchise you.\nMeantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\nTouches me deeper than you can imagine.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell, your imprisonment shall not be long;\nMeantime, have patience.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI must perforce. Farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\nSimple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,\nThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\nIf heaven will take the present at our hands.\nBut who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings?\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood time of day unto my gracious lord!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAs much unto my good lord chamberlain!\nWell are you welcome to the open air.\nHow hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n\nHASTINGS:\nWith patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:\nBut I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\nThat were the cause of my imprisonment.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\nFor they that were your enemies are his,\nAnd have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMore pity that the eagle should be mew'd,\nWhile kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat news abroad?\n\nHASTINGS:\nNo news so bad abroad as this at home;\nThe King is sickly, weak and melancholy,\nAnd his physicians fear him mightily.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.\nO, he hath kept an evil diet long,\nAnd overmuch consumed his royal person:\n'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\nWhat, is he in his bed?\n\nHASTINGS:\nHe is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo you before, and I will follow you.\nHe cannot live, I hope; and must not die\nTill George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.\nI'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,\nWith lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\nAnd, if I fall not in my deep intent,\nClarence hath not another day to live:\nWhich done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\nAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!\nFor then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\nWhat though I kill'd her husband and her father?\nThe readiest way to make the wench amends\nIs to become her husband and her father:\nThe which will I; not all so much for love\nAs for another secret close intent,\nBy marrying her which I must reach unto.\nBut yet I run before my horse to market:\nClarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:\nWhen they are gone, then must I count my gains.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSet down, set down your honourable load,\nIf honour may be shrouded in a hearse,\nWhilst I awhile obsequiously lament\nThe untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\nPoor key-cold figure of a holy king!\nPale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\nThou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\nBe it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,\nTo hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,\nWife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,\nStabb'd by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!\nLo, in these windows that let forth thy life,\nI pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\nCursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!\nCursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!\nCursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\nMore direful hap betide that hated wretch,\nThat makes us wretched by the death of thee,\nThan I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\nOr any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\nIf ever he have child, abortive be it,\nProdigious, and untimely brought to light,\nWhose ugly and unnatural aspect\nMay fright the hopeful mother at the view;\nAnd that be heir to his unhappiness!\nIf ever he have wife, let her he made\nA miserable by the death of him\nAs I am made by my poor lord and thee!\nCome, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\nTaken from Paul's to be interred there;\nAnd still, as you are weary of the weight,\nRest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nStay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat black magician conjures up this fiend,\nTo stop devoted charitable deeds?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVillains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\nI'll make a corse of him that disobeys.\n\nGentleman:\nMy lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUnmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:\nAdvance thy halbert higher than my breast,\nOr, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,\nAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat, do you tremble? are you all afraid?\nAlas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,\nAnd mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\nAvaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\nThou hadst but power over his mortal body,\nHis soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFoul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;\nFor thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,\nFill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\nIf thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\nBehold this pattern of thy butcheries.\nO, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\nOpen their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!\nBlush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\nFor 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\nFrom cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\nThy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\nProvokes this deluge most unnatural.\nO God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!\nO earth, which this blood drink'st revenge his death!\nEither heaven with lightning strike the\nmurderer dead,\nOr earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\nAs thou dost swallow up this good king's blood\nWhich his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLady, you know no rules of charity,\nWhich renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVillain, thou know'st no law of God nor man:\nNo beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nO wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMore wonderful, when angels are so angry.\nVouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\nOf these supposed-evils, to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, but to acquit myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVouchsafe, defused infection of a man,\nFor these known evils, but to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\nSome patient leisure to excuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\nNo excuse current, but to hang thyself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy such despair, I should accuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;\nFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,\nWhich didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay that I slew them not?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then they are not dead:\nBut dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI did not kill your husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then he is alive.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNay, he is dead; and slain by Edward's hand.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIn thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\nThy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;\nThe which thou once didst bend against her breast,\nBut that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI was provoked by her slanderous tongue,\nwhich laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.\nWhich never dreamt on aught but butcheries:\nDidst thou not kill this king?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI grant ye.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too\nThou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\nO, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHe is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLet him thank me, that holp to send him thither;\nFor he was fitter for that place than earth.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd thou unfit for any place but hell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSome dungeon.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour bed-chamber.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI'll rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo will it, madam till I lie with you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI hope so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\nTo leave this keen encounter of our wits,\nAnd fall somewhat into a slower method,\nIs not the causer of the timeless deaths\nOf these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\nAs blameful as the executioner?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou art the cause, and most accursed effect.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour beauty was the cause of that effect;\nYour beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep\nTo undertake the death of all the world,\nSo I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIf I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\nThese nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThese eyes could never endure sweet beauty's wreck;\nYou should not blemish it, if I stood by:\nAs all the world is cheered by the sun,\nSo I by that; it is my day, my life.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nBlack night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCurse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I were, to be revenged on thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is a quarrel most unnatural,\nTo be revenged on him that loveth you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIt is a quarrel just and reasonable,\nTo be revenged on him that slew my husband.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,\nDid it to help thee to a better husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHis better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe lives that loves thee better than he could.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nName him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPlantagenet.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, that was he.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe selfsame name, but one of better nature.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhere is he?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHere.\nWhy dost thou spit at me?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNever came poison from so sweet a place.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNever hung poison on a fouler toad.\nOut of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI would they were, that I might die at once;\nFor now they kill me with a living death.\nThose eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\nShamed their aspect with store of childish drops:\nThese eyes that never shed remorseful tear,\nNo, when my father York and Edward wept,\nTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\nWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;\nNor when thy warlike father, like a child,\nTold the sad story of my father's death,\nAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,\nThat all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\nLike trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time\nMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\nAnd what these sorrows could not thence exhale,\nThy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\nI never sued to friend nor enemy;\nMy tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\nBut now thy beauty is proposed my fee,\nMy proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\nTeach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made\nFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\nIf thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\nLo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\nWhich if thou please to hide in this true bosom.\nAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\nI lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\nAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.\nNay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,\nBut 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\nNay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,\nBut 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\nTake up the sword again, or take up me.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nArise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,\nI will not be the executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen bid me kill myself, and I will do it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI have already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTush, that was in thy rage:\nSpeak it again, and, even with the word,\nThat hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,\nShall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;\nTo both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I knew thy heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis figured in my tongue.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI fear me both are false.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen never man was true.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWell, well, put up your sword.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay, then, my peace is made.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThat shall you know hereafter.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut shall I live in hope?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAll men, I hope, live so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVouchsafe to wear this ring.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTo take is not to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook, how this ring encompasseth finger.\nEven so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\nWear both of them, for both of them are thine.\nAnd if thy poor devoted suppliant may\nBut beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\nThou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat is it?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat it would please thee leave these sad designs\nTo him that hath more cause to be a mourner,\nAnd presently repair to Crosby Place;\nWhere, after I have solemnly interr'd\nAt Chertsey monastery this noble king,\nAnd wet his grave with my repentant tears,\nI will with all expedient duty see you:\nFor divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,\nGrant me this boon.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWith all my heart; and much it joys me too,\nTo see you are become so penitent.\nTressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBid me farewell.\n\nLADY ANNE:\n'Tis more than you deserve;\nBut since you teach me how to flatter you,\nImagine I have said farewell already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirs, take up the corse.\n\nGENTLEMEN:\nTowards Chertsey, noble lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.\nWas ever woman in this humour woo'd?\nWas ever woman in this humour won?\nI'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\nWhat! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,\nTo take her in her heart's extremest hate,\nWith curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\nThe bleeding witness of her hatred by;\nHaving God, her conscience, and these bars\nagainst me,\nAnd I nothing to back my suit at all,\nBut the plain devil and dissembling looks,\nAnd yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\nHa!\nHath she forgot already that brave prince,\nEdward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\nStabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\nA sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,\nFramed in the prodigality of nature,\nYoung, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,\nThe spacious world cannot again afford\nAnd will she yet debase her eyes on me,\nThat cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,\nAnd made her widow to a woful bed?\nOn me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\nOn me, that halt and am unshapen thus?\nMy dukedom to a beggarly denier,\nI do mistake my person all this while:\nUpon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\nMyself to be a marvellous proper man.\nI'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\nAnd entertain some score or two of tailors,\nTo study fashions to adorn my body:\nSince I am crept in favour with myself,\nWill maintain it with some little cost.\nBut first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;\nAnd then return lamenting to my love.\nShine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\nThat I may see my shadow as I pass.\n\nRIVERS:\nHave patience, madam: there's no doubt his majesty\nWill soon recover his accustom'd health.\n\nGREY:\nIn that you brook it in, it makes him worse:\nTherefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\nAnd cheer his grace with quick and merry words.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIf he were dead, what would betide of me?\n\nRIVERS:\nNo other harm but loss of such a lord.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe loss of such a lord includes all harm.\n\nGREY:\nThe heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son,\nTo be your comforter when he is gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, he is young and his minority\nIs put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\nA man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n\nRIVERS:\nIs it concluded that he shall be protector?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIt is determined, not concluded yet:\nBut so it must be, if the king miscarry.\n\nGREY:\nHere come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood time of day unto your royal grace!\n\nDERBY:\nGod make your majesty joyful as you have been!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.\nTo your good prayers will scarcely say amen.\nYet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,\nAnd loves not me, be you, good lord, assured\nI hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n\nDERBY:\nI do beseech you, either not believe\nThe envious slanders of her false accusers;\nOr, if she be accused in true report,\nBear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds\nFrom wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.\n\nRIVERS:\nSaw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?\n\nDERBY:\nBut now the Duke of Buckingham and I\nAre come from visiting his majesty.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat likelihood of his amendment, lords?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod grant him health! Did you confer with him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, we did: he desires to make atonement\nBetwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\nAnd betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;\nAnd sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWould all were well! but that will never be\nI fear our happiness is at the highest.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThey do me wrong, and I will not endure it:\nWho are they that complain unto the king,\nThat I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?\nBy holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly\nThat fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\nBecause I cannot flatter and speak fair,\nSmile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,\nDuck with French nods and apish courtesy,\nI must be held a rancorous enemy.\nCannot a plain man live and think no harm,\nBut thus his simple truth must be abused\nBy silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n\nRIVERS:\nTo whom in all this presence speaks your grace?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\nWhen have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?\nOr thee? or thee? or any of your faction?\nA plague upon you all! His royal person,--\nWhom God preserve better than you would wish!--\nCannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,\nBut you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBrother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.\nThe king, of his own royal disposition,\nAnd not provoked by any suitor else;\nAiming, belike, at your interior hatred,\nWhich in your outward actions shows itself\nAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,\nMakes him to send; that thereby he may gather\nThe ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,\nThat wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:\nSince every Jack became a gentleman\nThere's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, we know your meaning, brother\nGloucester;\nYou envy my advancement and my friends':\nGod grant we never may have need of you!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMeantime, God grants that we have need of you:\nYour brother is imprison'd by your means,\nMyself disgraced, and the nobility\nHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotions\nAre daily given to ennoble those\nThat scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy Him that raised me to this careful height\nFrom that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\nI never did incense his majesty\nAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have been\nAn earnest advocate to plead for him.\nMy lord, you do me shameful injury,\nFalsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYou may deny that you were not the cause\nOf my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n\nRIVERS:\nShe may, my lord, for--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShe may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?\nShe may do more, sir, than denying that:\nShe may help you to many fair preferments,\nAnd then deny her aiding hand therein,\nAnd lay those honours on your high deserts.\nWhat may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat, marry, may she?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, marry, may she! marry with a king,\nA bachelor, a handsome stripling too:\nI wis your grandam had a worser match.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne\nYour blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:\nBy heaven, I will acquaint his majesty\nWith those gross taunts I often have endured.\nI had rather be a country servant-maid\nThan a great queen, with this condition,\nTo be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:\nSmall joy have I in being England's queen.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!\nThy honour, state and seat is due to me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat! threat you me with telling of the king?\nTell him, and spare not: look, what I have said\nI will avouch in presence of the king:\nI dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.\n'Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOut, devil! I remember them too well:\nThou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,\nAnd Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEre you were queen, yea, or your husband king,\nI was a pack-horse in his great affairs;\nA weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\nA liberal rewarder of his friends:\nTo royalize his blood I spilt mine own.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYea, and much better blood than his or thine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn all which time you and your husband Grey\nWere factious for the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\nIn Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?\nLet me put in your minds, if you forget,\nWhat you have been ere now, and what you are;\nWithal, what I have been, and what I am.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA murderous villain, and so still thou art.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPoor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;\nYea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhich God revenge!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo fight on Edward's party for the crown;\nAnd for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.\nI would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's;\nOr Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine\nI am too childish-foolish for this world.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,\nThou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.\n\nRIVERS:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\nWhich here you urge to prove us enemies,\nWe follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:\nSo should we you, if you should be our king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:\nFar be it from my heart, the thought of it!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs little joy, my lord, as you suppose\nYou should enjoy, were you this country's king,\nAs little joy may you suppose in me.\nThat I enjoy, being the queen thereof.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA little joy enjoys the queen thereof;\nFor I am she, and altogether joyless.\nI can no longer hold me patient.\nHear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\nIn sharing that which you have pill'd from me!\nWhich of you trembles not that looks on me?\nIf not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,\nYet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?\nO gentle villain, do not turn away!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFoul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut repetition of what thou hast marr'd;\nThat will I make before I let thee go.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWert thou not banished on pain of death?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI was; but I do find more pain in banishment\nThan death can yield me here by my abode.\nA husband and a son thou owest to me;\nAnd thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:\nThe sorrow that I have, by right is yours,\nAnd all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe curse my noble father laid on thee,\nWhen thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\nAnd with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\nAnd then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout\nSteep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland--\nHis curses, then from bitterness of soul\nDenounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;\nAnd God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo just is God, to right the innocent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\nAnd the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n\nRIVERS:\nTyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n\nDORSET:\nNo man but prophesied revenge for it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNorthumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat were you snarling all before I came,\nReady to catch each other by the throat,\nAnd turn you all your hatred now on me?\nDid York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven?\nThat Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\nTheir kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,\nCould all but answer for that peevish brat?\nCan curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\nWhy, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\nIf not by war, by surfeit die your king,\nAs ours by murder, to make him a king!\nEdward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,\nFor Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,\nDie in his youth by like untimely violence!\nThyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\nOutlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\nLong mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss;\nAnd see another, as I see thee now,\nDeck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\nLong die thy happy days before thy death;\nAnd, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,\nDie neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!\nRivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\nAnd so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\nWas stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,\nThat none of you may live your natural age,\nBut by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHave done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.\nIf heaven have any grievous plague in store\nExceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\nO, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\nAnd then hurl down their indignation\nOn thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\nThe worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!\nThy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,\nAnd take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\nNo sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\nUnless it be whilst some tormenting dream\nAffrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\nThou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\nThou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\nThe slave of nature and the son of hell!\nThou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!\nThou loathed issue of thy father's loins!\nThou rag of honour! thou detested--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMargaret.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRichard!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHa!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call thee not.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cry thee mercy then, for I had thought\nThat thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, so I did; but look'd for no reply.\nO, let me make the period to my curse!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThus have you breathed your curse against yourself.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPoor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\nWhy strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\nWhose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\nFool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\nThe time will come when thou shalt wish for me\nTo help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.\n\nHASTINGS:\nFalse-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\nLest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFoul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.\n\nRIVERS:\nWere you well served, you would be taught your duty.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTo serve me well, you all should do me duty,\nTeach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:\nO, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n\nDORSET:\nDispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, master marquess, you are malapert:\nYour fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\nO, that your young nobility could judge\nWhat 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!\nThey that stand high have many blasts to shake them;\nAnd if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nIt toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYea, and much more: but I was born so high,\nOur aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\nAnd dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!\nWitness my son, now in the shade of death;\nWhose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\nHath in eternal darkness folded up.\nYour aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\nO God, that seest it, do not suffer it!\nAs it was won with blood, lost be it so!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done! for shame, if not for charity.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nUrge neither charity nor shame to me:\nUncharitably with me have you dealt,\nAnd shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.\nMy charity is outrage, life my shame\nAnd in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done, have done.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,\nIn sign of league and amity with thee:\nNow fair befal thee and thy noble house!\nThy garments are not spotted with our blood,\nNor thou within the compass of my curse.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNor no one here; for curses never pass\nThe lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI'll not believe but they ascend the sky,\nAnd there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\nO Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\nLook, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\nHis venom tooth will rankle to the death:\nHave not to do with him, beware of him;\nSin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,\nAnd all their ministers attend on him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?\nAnd soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\nO, but remember this another day,\nWhen he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\nAnd say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\nLive each of you the subjects to his hate,\nAnd he to yours, and all of you to God's!\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,\nShe hath had too much wrong; and I repent\nMy part thereof that I have done to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI never did her any, to my knowledge.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut you have all the vantage of her wrong.\nI was too hot to do somebody good,\nThat is too cold in thinking of it now.\nMarry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,\nHe is frank'd up to fatting for his pains\nGod pardon them that are the cause of it!\n\nRIVERS:\nA virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\nTo pray for them that have done scathe to us.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo do I ever:\nbeing well-advised.\nFor had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.\n\nCATESBY:\nMadam, his majesty doth call for you,\nAnd for your grace; and you, my noble lords.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCatesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, we will attend your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\nThe secret mischiefs that I set abroach\nI lay unto the grievous charge of others.\nClarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,\nI do beweep to many simple gulls\nNamely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;\nAnd say it is the queen and her allies\nThat stir the king against the duke my brother.\nNow, they believe it; and withal whet me\nTo be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:\nBut then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,\nTell them that God bids us do good for evil:\nAnd thus I clothe my naked villany\nWith old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;\nAnd seem a saint, when most I play the devil.\nBut, soft! here come my executioners.\nHow now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!\nAre you now going to dispatch this deed?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe are, my lord; and come to have the warrant\nThat we may be admitted where he is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell thought upon; I have it here about me.\nWhen you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\nBut, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\nWithal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\nFor Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\nMay move your hearts to pity if you mark him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTush!\nFear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;\nTalkers are no good doers: be assured\nWe come to use our hands and not our tongues.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:\nI like you, lads; about your business straight;\nGo, go, dispatch.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe will, my noble lord.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhy looks your grace so heavily today?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, I have pass'd a miserable night,\nSo full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,\nThat, as I am a Christian faithful man,\nI would not spend another such a night,\nThough 'twere to buy a world of happy days,\nSo full of dismal terror was the time!\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethoughts that I had broken from the Tower,\nAnd was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\nAnd, in my company, my brother Gloucester;\nWho from my cabin tempted me to walk\nUpon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,\nAnd cited up a thousand fearful times,\nDuring the wars of York and Lancaster\nThat had befall'n us. As we paced along\nUpon the giddy footing of the hatches,\nMethought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,\nStruck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,\nInto the tumbling billows of the main.\nLord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!\nWhat dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!\nWhat ugly sights of death within mine eyes!\nMethought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;\nTen thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;\nWedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\nInestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\nAll scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:\nSome lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes\nWhere eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,\nAs 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\nWhich woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,\nAnd mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nHad you such leisure in the time of death\nTo gaze upon the secrets of the deep?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethought I had; and often did I strive\nTo yield the ghost: but still the envious flood\nKept in my soul, and would not let it forth\nTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;\nBut smother'd it within my panting bulk,\nWhich almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nAwaked you not with this sore agony?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;\nO, then began the tempest to my soul,\nWho pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,\nWith that grim ferryman which poets write of,\nUnto the kingdom of perpetual night.\nThe first that there did greet my stranger soul,\nWas my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;\nWho cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury\nCan this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\nAnd so he vanish'd: then came wandering by\nA shadow like an angel, with bright hair\nDabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,\n'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,\nThat stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;\nSeize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'\nWith that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\nEnviron'd me about, and howled in mine ears\nSuch hideous cries, that with the very noise\nI trembling waked, and for a season after\nCould not believe but that I was in hell,\nSuch terrible impression made the dream.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;\nI promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO Brakenbury, I have done those things,\nWhich now bear evidence against my soul,\nFor Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!\nO God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,\nBut thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,\nYet execute thy wrath in me alone,\nO, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\nI pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;\nMy soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!\nSorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\nMakes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.\nPrinces have but their tides for their glories,\nAn outward honour for an inward toil;\nAnd, for unfelt imagination,\nThey often feel a world of restless cares:\nSo that, betwixt their tides and low names,\nThere's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHo! who's here?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nIn God's name what are you, and how came you hither?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nYea, are you so brief?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show\nhim our commission; talk no more.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI am, in this, commanded to deliver\nThe noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:\nI will not reason what is meant hereby,\nBecause I will be guiltless of the meaning.\nHere are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:\nI'll to the king; and signify to him\nThat thus I have resign'd my charge to you.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nDo so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat, shall we stab him as he sleeps?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nNo; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhen he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till\nthe judgment-day.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhy, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nThe urging of that word 'judgment' hath bred a kind\nof remorse in me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat, art thou afraid?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNot to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be\ndamned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI thought thou hadst been resolute.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSo I am, to let him live.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nBack to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour\nwill change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one\nwould tell twenty.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow dost thou feel thyself now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet\nwithin me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRemember our reward, when the deed is done.\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhere is thy conscience now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nIn the Duke of Gloucester's purse.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo when he opens his purse to give us our reward,\nthy conscience flies out.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLet it go; there's few or none will entertain it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow if it come to thee again?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it\nmakes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it\naccuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;\nhe cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it\ndetects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that\nmutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of\nobstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\nthat I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it\nis turned out of all towns and cities for a\ndangerous thing; and every man that means to live\nwell endeavours to trust to himself and to live\nwithout it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\n'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me\nnot to kill the duke.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nTake the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he\nwould insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me,\nI warrant thee.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSpoke like a tail fellow that respects his\nreputation. Come, shall we to this gear?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake him over the costard with the hilts of thy\nsword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt\nin the next room.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO excellent devise! make a sop of him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHark! he stirs: shall I strike?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNo, first let's reason with him.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhere art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.\n\nSecond murderer:\nYou shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn God's name, what art thou?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA man, as you are.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBut not, as I am, royal.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNor you, as we are, loyal.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nMy voice is now the king's, my looks mine own.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHow darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\nYour eyes do menace me: why look you pale?\nWho sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n\nBoth:\nTo, to, to--\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo murder me?\n\nBoth:\nAy, ay.\n\nCLARENCE:\nYou scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\nAnd therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\nWherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nOffended us you have not, but the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI shall be reconciled to him again.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNever, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAre you call'd forth from out a world of men\nTo slay the innocent? What is my offence?\nWhere are the evidence that do accuse me?\nWhat lawful quest have given their verdict up\nUnto the frowning judge? or who pronounced\nThe bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\nBefore I be convict by course of law,\nTo threaten me with death is most unlawful.\nI charge you, as you hope to have redemption\nBy Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\nThat you depart and lay no hands on me\nThe deed you undertake is damnable.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat we will do, we do upon command.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd he that hath commanded is the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nErroneous vassal! the great King of kings\nHath in the tables of his law commanded\nThat thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,\nSpurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\nTake heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,\nTo hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,\nFor false forswearing and for murder too:\nThou didst receive the holy sacrament,\nTo fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAnd, like a traitor to the name of God,\nDidst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\nUnrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us,\nWhen thou hast broke it in so dear degree?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\nFor Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,\nHe sends ye not to murder me for this\nFor in this sin he is as deep as I.\nIf God will be revenged for this deed.\nO, know you yet, he doth it publicly,\nTake not the quarrel from his powerful arm;\nHe needs no indirect nor lawless course\nTo cut off those that have offended him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWho made thee, then, a bloody minister,\nWhen gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\nThat princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMy brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nThy brother's love, our duty, and thy fault,\nProvoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOh, if you love my brother, hate not me;\nI am his brother, and I love him well.\nIf you be hired for meed, go back again,\nAnd I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\nWho shall reward you better for my life\nThan Edward will for tidings of my death.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nYou are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:\nGo you to him from me.\n\nBoth:\nAy, so we will.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTell him, when that our princely father York\nBless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,\nAnd charged us from his soul to love each other,\nHe little thought of this divided friendship:\nBid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAy, millstones; as be lesson'd us to weep.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRight,\nAs snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:\n'Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt cannot be; for when I parted with him,\nHe hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,\nThat he would labour my delivery.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhy, so he doth, now he delivers thee\nFrom this world's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nMake peace with God, for you must die, my lord.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,\nTo counsel me to make my peace with God,\nAnd art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,\nThat thou wilt war with God by murdering me?\nAh, sirs, consider, he that set you on\nTo do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat shall we do?\n\nCLARENCE:\nRelent, and save your souls.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRelent! 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNot to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\nWhich of you, if you were a prince's son,\nBeing pent from liberty, as I am now,\nif two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\nWould not entreat for life?\nMy friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:\nO, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\nCome thou on my side, and entreat for me,\nAs you would beg, were you in my distress\nA begging prince what beggar pities not?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLook behind you, my lord.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake that, and that: if all this will not do,\nI'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA bloody deed, and desperately dispatch'd!\nHow fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\nOf this most grievous guilty murder done!\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow now! what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not?\nBy heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI would he knew that I had saved his brother!\nTake thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\nFor I repent me that the duke is slain.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo do not I: go, coward as thou art.\nNow must I hide his body in some hole,\nUntil the duke take order for his burial:\nAnd when I have my meed, I must away;\nFor this will out, and here I must not stay.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so: now have I done a good day's work:\nYou peers, continue this united league:\nI every day expect an embassage\nFrom my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\nAnd now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,\nSince I have set my friends at peace on earth.\nRivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;\nDissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n\nRIVERS:\nBy heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:\nAnd with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake heed you dally not before your king;\nLest he that is the supreme King of kings\nConfound your hidden falsehood, and award\nEither of you to be the other's end.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMadam, yourself are not exempt in this,\nNor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;\nYou have been factious one against the other,\nWife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\nAnd what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHere, Hastings; I will never more remember\nOur former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nDorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nThis interchange of love, I here protest,\nUpon my part shall be unviolable.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so swear I, my lord\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league\nWith thy embracements to my wife's allies,\nAnd make me happy in your unity.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhenever Buckingham doth turn his hate\nOn you or yours,\nbut with all duteous love\nDoth cherish you and yours, God punish me\nWith hate in those where I expect most love!\nWhen I have most need to employ a friend,\nAnd most assured that he is a friend\nDeep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\nBe he unto me! this do I beg of God,\nWhen I am cold in zeal to yours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nA pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\nis this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\nThere wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,\nTo make the perfect period of this peace.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the noble duke.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood morrow to my sovereign king and queen:\nAnd, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHappy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\nBrother, we done deeds of charity;\nMade peace enmity, fair love of hate,\nBetween these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:\nAmongst this princely heap, if any here,\nBy false intelligence, or wrong surmise,\nHold me a foe;\nIf I unwittingly, or in my rage,\nHave aught committed that is hardly borne\nBy any in this presence, I desire\nTo reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\nI hate it, and desire all good men's love.\nFirst, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\nWhich I will purchase with my duteous service;\nOf you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\nIf ever any grudge were lodged between us;\nOf you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;\nThat without desert have frown'd on me;\nDukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.\nI do not know that Englishman alive\nWith whom my soul is any jot at odds\nMore than the infant that is born to-night\nI thank my God for my humility.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA holy day shall this be kept hereafter:\nI would to God all strifes were well compounded.\nMy sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty\nTo take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, madam, have I offer'd love for this\nTo be so bouted in this royal presence?\nWho knows not that the noble duke is dead?\nYou do him injury to scorn his corse.\n\nRIVERS:\nWho knows not he is dead! who knows he is?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAll seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLook I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n\nDORSET:\nAy, my good lord; and no one in this presence\nBut his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Clarence dead? the order was reversed.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut he, poor soul, by your first order died,\nAnd that a winged Mercury did bear:\nSome tardy cripple bore the countermand,\nThat came too lag to see him buried.\nGod grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\nNearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,\nDeserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\nAnd yet go current from suspicion!\n\nDORSET:\nA boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.\n\nDORSET:\nI will not rise, unless your highness grant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen speak at once what is it thou demand'st.\n\nDORSET:\nThe forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\nWho slew to-day a righteous gentleman\nLately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHave a tongue to doom my brother's death,\nAnd shall the same give pardon to a slave?\nMy brother slew no man; his fault was thought,\nAnd yet his punishment was cruel death.\nWho sued to me for him? who, in my rage,\nKneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advised\nWho spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?\nWho told me how the poor soul did forsake\nThe mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?\nWho told me, in the field by Tewksbury\nWhen Oxford had me down, he rescued me,\nAnd said, 'Dear brother, live, and be a king'?\nWho told me, when we both lay in the field\nFrozen almost to death, how he did lap me\nEven in his own garments, and gave himself,\nAll thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\nAll this from my remembrance brutish wrath\nSinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\nHad so much grace to put it in my mind.\nBut when your carters or your waiting-vassals\nHave done a drunken slaughter, and defaced\nThe precious image of our dear Redeemer,\nYou straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\nAnd I unjustly too, must grant it you\nBut for my brother not a man would speak,\nNor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\nFor him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\nHave been beholding to him in his life;\nYet none of you would once plead for his life.\nO God, I fear thy justice will take hold\nOn me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!\nCome, Hastings, help me to my closet.\nOh, poor Clarence!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThis is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not\nHow that the guilty kindred of the queen\nLook'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\nO, they did urge it still unto the king!\nGod will revenge it. But come, let us in,\nTo comfort Edward with our company.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWe wait upon your grace.\n\nBoy:\nTell me, good grandam, is our father dead?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, boy.\n\nBoy:\nWhy do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,\nAnd cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'\n\nGirl:\nWhy do you look on us, and shake your head,\nAnd call us wretches, orphans, castaways\nIf that our noble father be alive?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy pretty cousins, you mistake me much;\nI do lament the sickness of the king.\nAs loath to lose him, not your father's death;\nIt were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n\nBoy:\nThen, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.\nThe king my uncle is to blame for this:\nGod will revenge it; whom I will importune\nWith daily prayers all to that effect.\n\nGirl:\nAnd so will I.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPeace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:\nIncapable and shallow innocents,\nYou cannot guess who caused your father's death.\n\nBoy:\nGrandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\nTold me, the king, provoked by the queen,\nDevised impeachments to imprison him :\nAnd when my uncle told me so, he wept,\nAnd hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\nBade me rely on him as on my father,\nAnd he would love me dearly as his child.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nOh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,\nAnd with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!\nHe is my son; yea, and therein my shame;\nYet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n\nBoy:\nThink you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAy, boy.\n\nBoy:\nI cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,\nTo chide my fortune, and torment myself?\nI'll join with black despair against my soul,\nAnd to myself become an enemy.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat means this scene of rude impatience?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo make an act of tragic violence:\nEdward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.\nWhy grow the branches now the root is wither'd?\nWhy wither not the leaves the sap being gone?\nIf you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\nThat our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;\nOr, like obedient subjects, follow him\nTo his new kingdom of perpetual rest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAh, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\nAs I had title in thy noble husband!\nI have bewept a worthy husband's death,\nAnd lived by looking on his images:\nBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance\nAre crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\nAnd I for comfort have but one false glass,\nWhich grieves me when I see my shame in him.\nThou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,\nAnd hast the comfort of thy children left thee:\nBut death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,\nAnd pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,\nEdward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,\nThine being but a moiety of my grief,\nTo overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!\n\nBoy:\nGood aunt, you wept not for our father's death;\nHow can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n\nGirl:\nOur fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\nYour widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGive me no help in lamentation;\nI am not barren to bring forth complaints\nAll springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,\nThat I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\nMay send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\nOh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!\n\nChildren:\nOh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.\n\nChildren:\nWhat stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWas never widow had so dear a loss!\n\nChildren:\nWere never orphans had so dear a loss!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWas never mother had so dear a loss!\nAlas, I am the mother of these moans!\nTheir woes are parcell'd, mine are general.\nShe for an Edward weeps, and so do I;\nI for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:\nThese babes for Clarence weep and so do I;\nI for an Edward weep, so do not they:\nAlas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,\nPour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\nAnd I will pamper it with lamentations.\n\nDORSET:\nComfort, dear mother: God is much displeased\nThat you take with unthankfulness, his doing:\nIn common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,\nWith dull unwilligness to repay a debt\nWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\nMuch more to be thus opposite with heaven,\nFor it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\nOf the young prince your son: send straight for him\nLet him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:\nDrown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\nAnd plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMadam, have comfort: all of us have cause\nTo wail the dimming of our shining star;\nBut none can cure their harms by wailing them.\nMadam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\nI did not see your grace: humbly on my knee\nI crave your blessing.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGod bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,\nLove, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,\nThat bear this mutual heavy load of moan,\nNow cheer each other in each other's love\nThough we have spent our harvest of this king,\nWe are to reap the harvest of his son.\nThe broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,\nBut lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\nMust gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:\nMe seemeth good, that, with some little train,\nForthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd\nHither to London, to be crown'd our king.\n\nRIVERS:\nWhy with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMarry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,\nThe new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\nWhich would be so much the more dangerous\nBy how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:\nWhere every horse bears his commanding rein,\nAnd may direct his course as please himself,\nAs well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,\nIn my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI hope the king made peace with all of us\nAnd the compact is firm and true in me.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so in me; and so, I think, in all:\nYet, since it is but green, it should be put\nTo no apparent likelihood of breach,\nWhich haply by much company might be urged:\nTherefore I say with noble Buckingham,\nThat it is meet so few should fetch the prince.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so say I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be it so; and go we to determine\nWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\nMadam, and you, my mother, will you go\nTo give your censures in this weighty business?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWith all our harts.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\nFor God's sake, let not us two be behind;\nFor, by the way, I'll sort occasion,\nAs index to the story we late talk'd of,\nTo part the queen's proud kindred from the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy other self, my counsel's consistory,\nMy oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,\nI, like a child, will go by thy direction.\nTowards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNeighbour, well met: whither away so fast?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nI promise you, I scarcely know myself:\nHear you the news abroad?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, that the king is dead.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nBad news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better:\nI fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world.\n\nThird Citizen:\nNeighbours, God speed!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nGive you good morrow, sir.\n\nThird Citizen:\nDoth this news hold of good King Edward's death?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAy, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n\nThird Citizen:\nThen, masters, look to see a troublous world.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo, no; by God's good grace his son shall reign.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWoe to the land that's govern'd by a child!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nIn him there is a hope of government,\nThat in his nonage council under him,\nAnd in his full and ripen'd years himself,\nNo doubt, shall then and till then govern well.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSo stood the state when Henry the Sixth\nWas crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n\nThird Citizen:\nStood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;\nFor then this land was famously enrich'd\nWith politic grave counsel; then the king\nHad virtuous uncles to protect his grace.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhy, so hath this, both by the father and mother.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBetter it were they all came by the father,\nOr by the father there were none at all;\nFor emulation now, who shall be nearest,\nWill touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\nO, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\nAnd the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud:\nAnd were they to be ruled, and not to rule,\nThis sickly land might solace as before.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCome, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWhen clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;\nWhen great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;\nWhen the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\nUntimely storms make men expect a dearth.\nAll may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nTruly, the souls of men are full of dread:\nYe cannot reason almost with a man\nThat looks not heavily and full of fear.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBefore the times of change, still is it so:\nBy a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\nEnsuing dangers; as by proof, we see\nThe waters swell before a boisterous storm.\nBut leave it all to God. whither away?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nMarry, we were sent for to the justices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so was I: I'll bear you company.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nLast night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;\nAt Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:\nTo-morrow, or next day, they will be here.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI long with all my heart to see the prince:\nI hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut I hear, no; they say my son of York\nHath almost overta'en him in his growth.\n\nYORK:\nAy, mother; but I would not have it so.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, my young cousin, it is good to grow.\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,\nMy uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\nMore than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle\nGloucester,\n'Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:'\nAnd since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\nBecause sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGood faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\nIn him that did object the same to thee;\nHe was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\nSo long a-growing and so leisurely,\nThat, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nWhy, madam, so, no doubt, he is.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n\nYORK:\nNow, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,\nI could have given my uncle's grace a flout,\nTo touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHow, my pretty York? I pray thee, let me hear it.\n\nYORK:\nMarry, they say my uncle grew so fast\nThat he could gnaw a crust at two hours old\n'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\nGrandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, his nurse.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHis nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wert born.\n\nYORK:\nIf 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA parlous boy: go to, you are too shrewd.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nGood madam, be not angry with the child.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPitchers have ears.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nHere comes a messenger. What news?\n\nMessenger:\nSuch news, my lord, as grieves me to unfold.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow fares the prince?\n\nMessenger:\nWell, madam, and in health.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is thy news then?\n\nMessenger:\nLord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,\nWith them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho hath committed them?\n\nMessenger:\nThe mighty dukes\nGloucester and Buckingham.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFor what offence?\n\nMessenger:\nThe sum of all I can, I have disclosed;\nWhy or for what these nobles were committed\nIs all unknown to me, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy me, I see the downfall of our house!\nThe tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;\nInsulting tyranny begins to jet\nUpon the innocent and aweless throne:\nWelcome, destruction, death, and massacre!\nI see, as in a map, the end of all.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAccursed and unquiet wrangling days,\nHow many of you have mine eyes beheld!\nMy husband lost his life to get the crown;\nAnd often up and down my sons were toss'd,\nFor me to joy and weep their gain and loss:\nAnd being seated, and domestic broils\nClean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.\nMake war upon themselves; blood against blood,\nSelf against self: O, preposterous\nAnd frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;\nOr let me die, to look on death no more!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.\nMadam, farewell.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI'll go along with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nYou have no cause.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nMy gracious lady, go;\nAnd thither bear your treasure and your goods.\nFor my part, I'll resign unto your grace\nThe seal I keep: and so betide to me\nAs well I tender you and all of yours!\nCome, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWelcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign\nThe weary way hath made you melancholy.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNo, uncle; but our crosses on the way\nHave made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy\nI want more uncles here to welcome me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years\nHath not yet dived into the world's deceit\nNor more can you distinguish of a man\nThan of his outward show; which, God he knows,\nSeldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\nThose uncles which you want were dangerous;\nYour grace attended to their sugar'd words,\nBut look'd not on the poison of their hearts :\nGod keep you from them, and from such false friends!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGod keep me from false friends! but they were none.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace with health and happy days!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.\nI thought my mother, and my brother York,\nWould long ere this have met us on the way\nFie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\nTo tell us whether they will come or no!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWelcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?\n\nHASTINGS:\nOn what occasion, God he knows, not I,\nThe queen your mother, and your brother York,\nHave taken sanctuary: the tender prince\nWould fain have come with me to meet your grace,\nBut by his mother was perforce withheld.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFie, what an indirect and peevish course\nIs this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace\nPersuade the queen to send the Duke of York\nUnto his princely brother presently?\nIf she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,\nAnd from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\nCan from his mother win the Duke of York,\nAnon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\nTo mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\nWe should infringe the holy privilege\nOf blessed sanctuary! not for all this land\nWould I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou are too senseless--obstinate, my lord,\nToo ceremonious and traditional\nWeigh it but with the grossness of this age,\nYou break not sanctuary in seizing him.\nThe benefit thereof is always granted\nTo those whose dealings have deserved the place,\nAnd those who have the wit to claim the place:\nThis prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserved it;\nAnd therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:\nThen, taking him from thence that is not there,\nYou break no privilege nor charter there.\nOft have I heard of sanctuary men;\nBut sanctuary children ne'er till now.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for once.\nCome on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n\nHASTINGS:\nI go, my lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGood lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\nSay, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\nWhere shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhere it seems best unto your royal self.\nIf I may counsel you, some day or two\nYour highness shall repose you at the Tower:\nThen where you please, and shall be thought most fit\nFor your best health and recreation.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI do not like the Tower, of any place.\nDid Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHe did, my gracious lord, begin that place;\nWhich, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIs it upon record, or else reported\nSuccessively from age to age, he built it?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon record, my gracious lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nBut say, my lord, it were not register'd,\nMethinks the truth should live from age to age,\nAs 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\nEven to the general all-ending day.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhat say you, uncle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI say, without characters, fame lives long.\nThus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\nI moralize two meanings in one word.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nThat Julius Caesar was a famous man;\nWith what his valour did enrich his wit,\nHis wit set down to make his valour live\nDeath makes no conquest of this conqueror;\nFor now he lives in fame, though not in life.\nI'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, my gracious lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if I live until I be a man,\nI'll win our ancient right in France again,\nOr die a soldier, as I lived a king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nRichard of York! how fares our loving brother?\n\nYORK:\nWell, my dread lord; so must I call you now.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAy, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:\nToo late he died that might have kept that title,\nWhich by his death hath lost much majesty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n\nYORK:\nI thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\nYou said that idle weeds are fast in growth\nThe prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe hath, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAnd therefore is he idle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n\nYORK:\nThen is he more beholding to you than I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe may command me as my sovereign;\nBut you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n\nYORK:\nI pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy dagger, little cousin? with all my heart.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nA beggar, brother?\n\nYORK:\nOf my kind uncle, that I know will give;\nAnd being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n\nYORK:\nA greater gift! O, that's the sword to it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n\nYORK:\nO, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;\nIn weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is too heavy for your grace to wear.\n\nYORK:\nI weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, would you have my weapon, little lord?\n\nYORK:\nI would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow?\n\nYORK:\nLittle.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy Lord of York will still be cross in talk:\nUncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.\n\nYORK:\nYou mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:\nUncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\nBecause that I am little, like an ape,\nHe thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWith what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\nTo mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,\nHe prettily and aptly taunts himself:\nSo cunning and so young is wonderful.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, will't please you pass along?\nMyself and my good cousin Buckingham\nWill to your mother, to entreat of her\nTo meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy lord protector needs will have it so.\n\nYORK:\nI shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what should you fear?\n\nYORK:\nMarry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost:\nMy grandam told me he was murdered there.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI fear no uncles dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNor none that live, I hope.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if they live, I hope I need not fear.\nBut come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\nThinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThink you, my lord, this little prating York\nWas not incensed by his subtle mother\nTo taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; O, 'tis a parlous boy;\nBold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable\nHe is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\nThou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\nAs closely to conceal what we impart:\nThou know'st our reasons urged upon the way;\nWhat think'st thou? is it not an easy matter\nTo make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\nFor the instalment of this noble duke\nIn the seat royal of this famous isle?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe for his father's sake so loves the prince,\nThat he will not be won to aught against him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat think'st thou, then, of Stanley? what will he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,\nAnd, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,\nHow doth he stand affected to our purpose;\nAnd summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\nTo sit about the coronation.\nIf thou dost find him tractable to us,\nEncourage him, and show him all our reasons:\nIf he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,\nBe thou so too; and so break off your talk,\nAnd give us notice of his inclination:\nFor we to-morrow hold divided councils,\nWherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCommend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,\nHis ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\nTo-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;\nAnd bid my friend, for joy of this good news,\nGive mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood Catesby, go, effect this business soundly.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy good lords both, with all the heed I may.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n\nCATESBY:\nYou shall, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAt Crosby Place, there shall you find us both.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive\nLord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nChop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:\nAnd, look, when I am king, claim thou of me\nThe earldom of Hereford, and the moveables\nWhereof the king my brother stood possess'd.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI'll claim that promise at your grace's hands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd look to have it yielded with all willingness.\nCome, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\nWe may digest our complots in some form.\n\nMessenger:\nWhat, ho! my lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\n\nMessenger:\nA messenger from the Lord Stanley.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nMessenger:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCannot thy master sleep these tedious nights?\n\nMessenger:\nSo it should seem by that I have to say.\nFirst, he commends him to your noble lordship.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd then?\n\nMessenger:\nAnd then he sends you word\nHe dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:\nBesides, he says there are two councils held;\nAnd that may be determined at the one\nwhich may make you and him to rue at the other.\nTherefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure,\nIf presently you will take horse with him,\nAnd with all speed post with him toward the north,\nTo shun the danger that his soul divines.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\nBid him not fear the separated councils\nHis honour and myself are at the one,\nAnd at the other is my servant Catesby\nWhere nothing can proceed that toucheth us\nWhereof I shall not have intelligence.\nTell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:\nAnd for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond\nTo trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers\nTo fly the boar before the boar pursues,\nWere to incense the boar to follow us\nAnd make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\nGo, bid thy master rise and come to me\nAnd we will both together to the Tower,\nWhere, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious lord, I'll tell him what you say.\n\nCATESBY:\nMany good morrows to my noble lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring\nWhat news, what news, in this our tottering state?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;\nAnd I believe twill never stand upright\nTim Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHow! wear the garland! dost thou mean the crown?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders\nEre I will see the crown so foul misplaced.\nBut canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, on my life; and hopes to find forward\nUpon his party for the gain thereof:\nAnd thereupon he sends you this good news,\nThat this same very day your enemies,\nThe kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIndeed, I am no mourner for that news,\nBecause they have been still mine enemies:\nBut, that I'll give my voice on Richard's side,\nTo bar my master's heirs in true descent,\nGod knows I will not do it, to the death.\n\nCATESBY:\nGod keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n\nHASTINGS:\nBut I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,\nThat they who brought me in my master's hate\nI live to look upon their tragedy.\nI tell thee, Catesby--\n\nCATESBY:\nWhat, my lord?\n\nHASTINGS:\nEre a fortnight make me elder,\nI'll send some packing that yet think not on it.\n\nCATESBY:\n'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\nWhen men are unprepared and look not for it.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out\nWith Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so 'twill do\nWith some men else, who think themselves as safe\nAs thou and I; who, as thou know'st, are dear\nTo princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nThe princes both make high account of you;\nFor they account his head upon the bridge.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI know they do; and I have well deserved it.\nCome on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\nFear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:\nYou may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\nI do not like these several councils, I.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lord,\nI hold my life as dear as you do yours;\nAnd never in my life, I do protest,\nWas it more precious to me than 'tis now:\nThink you, but that I know our state secure,\nI would be so triumphant as I am?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThe lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\nWere jocund, and supposed their state was sure,\nAnd they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\nBut yet, you see how soon the day o'ercast.\nThis sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:\nPray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!\nWhat, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCome, come, have with you. Wot you what, my lord?\nTo-day the lords you talk of are beheaded.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nThey, for their truth, might better wear their heads\nThan some that have accused them wear their hats.\nBut come, my lord, let us away.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\nHow now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?\n\nPursuivant:\nThe better that your lordship please to ask.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\nThan when I met thee last where now we meet:\nThen was I going prisoner to the Tower,\nBy the suggestion of the queen's allies;\nBut now, I tell thee--keep it to thyself--\nThis day those enemies are put to death,\nAnd I in better state than e'er I was.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod hold it, to your honour's good content!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGramercy, fellow: there, drink that for me.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod save your lordship!\n\nPriest:\nWell met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\nI am in your debt for your last exercise;\nCome the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?\nYour friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;\nYour honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood faith, and when I met this holy man,\nThose men you talk of came into my mind.\nWhat, go you toward the Tower?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI do, my lord; but long I shall not stay\nI shall return before your lordship thence.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll wait upon your lordship.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nCome, bring forth the prisoners.\n\nRIVERS:\nSir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\nTo-day shalt thou behold a subject die\nFor truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n\nGREY:\nGod keep the prince from all the pack of you!\nA knot you are of damned blood-suckers!\n\nVAUGHAN:\nYou live that shall cry woe for this after.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n\nRIVERS:\nO Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\nFatal and ominous to noble peers!\nWithin the guilty closure of thy walls\nRichard the second here was hack'd to death;\nAnd, for more slander to thy dismal seat,\nWe give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.\n\nGREY:\nNow Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\nFor standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,\nThen cursed she Richard. O, remember, God\nTo hear her prayers for them, as now for us\nAnd for my sister and her princely sons,\nBe satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\nWhich, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMake haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n\nRIVERS:\nCome, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:\nAnd take our leave, until we meet in heaven.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lords, at once: the cause why we are met\nIs, to determine of the coronation.\nIn God's name, speak: when is the royal day?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAre all things fitting for that royal time?\n\nDERBY:\nIt is, and wants but nomination.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nTo-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho knows the lord protector's mind herein?\nWho is most inward with the royal duke?\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nYour grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho, I, my lord I we know each other's faces,\nBut for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,\nThan I of yours;\nNor I no more of his, than you of mine.\nLord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank his grace, I know he loves me well;\nBut, for his purpose in the coronation.\nI have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\nHis gracious pleasure any way therein:\nBut you, my noble lords, may name the time;\nAnd in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\nWhich, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nNow in good time, here comes the duke himself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.\nI have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,\nMy absence doth neglect no great designs,\nWhich by my presence might have been concluded.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHad not you come upon your cue, my lord\nWilliam Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,--\nI mean, your voice,--for crowning of the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThan my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;\nHis lordship knows me well, and loves me well.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord of Ely!\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMy lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhen I was last in Holborn,\nI saw good strawberries in your garden there\nI do beseech you send for some of them.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMarry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\nCatesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\nAnd finds the testy gentleman so hot,\nAs he will lose his head ere give consent\nHis master's son, as worshipful as he terms it,\nShall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWithdraw you hence, my lord, I'll follow you.\n\nDERBY:\nWe have not yet set down this day of triumph.\nTo-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;\nFor I myself am not so well provided\nAs else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nWhere is my lord protector? I have sent for these\nstrawberries.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHis grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;\nThere's some conceit or other likes him well,\nWhen he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.\nI think there's never a man in Christendom\nThat can less hide his love or hate than he;\nFor by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat of his heart perceive you in his face\nBy any likelihood he show'd to-day?\n\nHASTINGS:\nMarry, that with no man here he is offended;\nFor, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\nDERBY:\nI pray God he be not, I say.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI pray you all, tell me what they deserve\nThat do conspire my death with devilish plots\nOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\nUpon my body with their hellish charms?\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe tender love I bear your grace, my lord,\nMakes me most forward in this noble presence\nTo doom the offenders, whatsoever they be\nI say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be your eyes the witness of this ill:\nSee how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\nIs, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\nAnd this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\nConsorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\nThat by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIf they have done this thing, my gracious lord--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I thou protector of this damned strumpet--\nTellest thou me of 'ifs'?  Thou art a traitor:\nOff with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,\nI will not dine until I see the same.\nLovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:\nThe rest, that love me, rise and follow me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWoe, woe for England! not a whit for me;\nFor I, too fond, might have prevented this.\nStanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;\nBut I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly:\nThree times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\nAnd startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,\nAs loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\nO, now I want the priest that spake to me:\nI now repent I told the pursuivant\nAs 'twere triumphing at mine enemies,\nHow they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\nAnd I myself secure in grace and favour.\nO Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\nIs lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:\nMake a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO momentary grace of mortal men,\nWhich we more hunt for than the grace of God!\nWho builds his hopes in air of your good looks,\nLives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\nReady, with every nod, to tumble down\nInto the fatal bowels of the deep.\n\nLOVEL:\nCome, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO bloody Richard! miserable England!\nI prophesy the fearful'st time to thee\nThat ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\nCome, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\nThey smile at me that shortly shall be dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,\nMurder thy breath in the middle of a word,\nAnd then begin again, and stop again,\nAs if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\nSpeak and look back, and pry on every side,\nTremble and start at wagging of a straw,\nIntending deep suspicion: ghastly looks\nAre at my service, like enforced smiles;\nAnd both are ready in their offices,\nAt any time, to grace my stratagems.\nBut what, is Catesby gone?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor,--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook to the drawbridge there!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHark! a drum.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCatesby, o'erlook the walls.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor, the reason we have sent--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook back, defend thee, here are enemies.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGod and our innocency defend and guard us!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBe patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.\n\nLOVEL:\nHere is the head of that ignoble traitor,\nThe dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo dear I loved the man, that I must weep.\nI took him for the plainest harmless creature\nThat breathed upon this earth a Christian;\nMade him my book wherein my soul recorded\nThe history of all her secret thoughts:\nSo smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,\nThat, his apparent open guilt omitted,\nI mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,\nHe lived from all attainder of suspect.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor\nThat ever lived.\nWould you imagine, or almost believe,\nWere't not that, by great preservation,\nWe live to tell it you, the subtle traitor\nThis day had plotted, in the council-house\nTo murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?\n\nLord Mayor:\nWhat, had he so?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, think You we are Turks or infidels?\nOr that we would, against the form of law,\nProceed thus rashly to the villain's death,\nBut that the extreme peril of the case,\nThe peace of England and our persons' safety,\nEnforced us to this execution?\n\nLord Mayor:\nNow, fair befall you! he deserved his death;\nAnd you my good lords, both have well proceeded,\nTo warn false traitors from the like attempts.\nI never look'd for better at his hands,\nAfter he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYet had not we determined he should die,\nUntil your lordship came to see his death;\nWhich now the loving haste of these our friends,\nSomewhat against our meaning, have prevented:\nBecause, my lord, we would have had you heard\nThe traitor speak, and timorously confess\nThe manner and the purpose of his treason;\nThat you might well have signified the same\nUnto the citizens, who haply may\nMisconstrue us in him and wail his death.\n\nLord Mayor:\nBut, my good lord, your grace's word shall serve,\nAs well as I had seen and heard him speak\nAnd doubt you not, right noble princes both,\nBut I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\nWith all your just proceedings in this cause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd to that end we wish'd your lord-ship here,\nTo avoid the carping censures of the world.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nBut since you come too late of our intents,\nYet witness what you hear we did intend:\nAnd so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\nThe mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:\nThere, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\nInfer the bastardy of Edward's children:\nTell them how Edward put to death a citizen,\nOnly for saying he would make his son\nHeir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,\nWhich, by the sign thereof was termed so.\nMoreover, urge his hateful luxury\nAnd bestial appetite in change of lust;\nWhich stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,\nEven where his lustful eye or savage heart,\nWithout control, listed to make his prey.\nNay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\nTell them, when that my mother went with child\nOf that unsatiate Edward, noble York\nMy princely father then had wars in France\nAnd, by just computation of the time,\nFound that the issue was not his begot;\nWhich well appeared in his lineaments,\nBeing nothing like the noble duke my father:\nBut touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off,\nBecause you know, my lord, my mother lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFear not, my lord, I'll play the orator\nAs if the golden fee for which I plead\nWere for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's Castle;\nWhere you shall find me well accompanied\nWith reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI go: and towards three or four o'clock\nLook for the news that the Guildhall affords.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;\nGo thou to Friar Penker; bid them both\nMeet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\nNow will I in, to take some privy order,\nTo draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;\nAnd to give notice, that no manner of person\nAt any time have recourse unto the princes.\n\nScrivener:\nThis is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\nWhich in a set hand fairly is engross'd,\nThat it may be this day read over in Paul's.\nAnd mark how well the sequel hangs together:\nEleven hours I spent to write it over,\nFor yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;\nThe precedent was full as long a-doing:\nAnd yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,\nUntainted, unexamined, free, at liberty\nHere's a good world the while! Why who's so gross,\nThat seeth not this palpable device?\nYet who's so blind, but says he sees it not?\nBad is the world; and all will come to nought,\nWhen such bad dealings must be seen in thought.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow now, my lord, what say the citizens?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, by the holy mother of our Lord,\nThe citizens are mum and speak not a word.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTouch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\nAnd his contract by deputy in France;\nThe insatiate greediness of his desires,\nAnd his enforcement of the city wives;\nHis tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\nAs being got, your father then in France,\nHis resemblance, being not like the duke;\nWithal I did infer your lineaments,\nBeing the right idea of your father,\nBoth in your form and nobleness of mind;\nLaid open all your victories in Scotland,\nYour dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,\nYour bounty, virtue, fair humility:\nIndeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose\nUntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse\nAnd when mine oratory grew to an end\nI bid them that did love their country's good\nCry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAh! and did they so?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, so God help me, they spake not a word;\nBut, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\nGazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\nWhich when I saw, I reprehended them;\nAnd ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:\nHis answer was, the people were not wont\nTo be spoke to but by the recorder.\nThen he was urged to tell my tale again,\n'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'\nBut nothing spake in warrant from himself.\nWhen he had done, some followers of mine own,\nAt the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,\nAnd some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\nAnd thus I took the vantage of those few,\n'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;\n'This general applause and loving shout\nArgues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'\nAnd even here brake off, and came away.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, by my troth, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWill not the mayor then and his brethren come?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThe mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;\nBe not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:\nAnd look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\nAnd stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;\nFor on that ground I'll build a holy descant:\nAnd be not easily won to our request:\nPlay the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI go; and if you plead as well for them\nAs I can say nay to thee for myself,\nNo doubt well bring it to a happy issue.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGo, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.\nWelcome my lord; I dance attendance here;\nI think the duke will not be spoke withal.\nHere comes his servant: how now, Catesby,\nWhat says he?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord: he doth entreat your grace;\nTo visit him to-morrow or next day:\nHe is within, with two right reverend fathers,\nDivinely bent to meditation;\nAnd no worldly suit would he be moved,\nTo draw him from his holy exercise.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nReturn, good Catesby, to thy lord again;\nTell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,\nIn deep designs and matters of great moment,\nNo less importing than our general good,\nAre come to have some conference with his grace.\n\nCATESBY:\nI'll tell him what you say, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAh, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\nHe is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,\nBut on his knees at meditation;\nNot dallying with a brace of courtezans,\nBut meditating with two deep divines;\nNot sleeping, to engross his idle body,\nBut praying, to enrich his watchful soul:\nHappy were England, would this gracious prince\nTake on himself the sovereignty thereof:\nBut, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.\n\nLord Mayor:\nMarry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI fear he will.\nHow now, Catesby, what says your lord?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord,\nHe wonders to what end you have assembled\nSuch troops of citizens to speak with him,\nHis grace not being warn'd thereof before:\nMy lord, he fears you mean no good to him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSorry I am my noble cousin should\nSuspect me, that I mean no good to him:\nBy heaven, I come in perfect love to him;\nAnd so once more return and tell his grace.\nWhen holy and devout religious men\nAre at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,\nSo sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\nLord Mayor:\nSee, where he stands between two clergymen!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTwo props of virtue for a Christian prince,\nTo stay him from the fall of vanity:\nAnd, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\nTrue ornaments to know a holy man.\nFamous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,\nLend favourable ears to our request;\nAnd pardon us the interruption\nOf thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, there needs no such apology:\nI rather do beseech you pardon me,\nWho, earnest in the service of my God,\nNeglect the visitation of my friends.\nBut, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nEven that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\nAnd all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do suspect I have done some offence\nThat seems disgracious in the city's eyes,\nAnd that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou have, my lord: would it might please your grace,\nAt our entreaties, to amend that fault!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nElse wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen know, it is your fault that you resign\nThe supreme seat, the throne majestical,\nThe scepter'd office of your ancestors,\nYour state of fortune and your due of birth,\nThe lineal glory of your royal house,\nTo the corruption of a blemished stock:\nWhilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\nWhich here we waken to our country's good,\nThis noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\nHer face defaced with scars of infamy,\nHer royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\nAnd almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf\nOf blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.\nWhich to recure, we heartily solicit\nYour gracious self to take on you the charge\nAnd kingly government of this your land,\nNot as protector, steward, substitute,\nOr lowly factor for another's gain;\nBut as successively from blood to blood,\nYour right of birth, your empery, your own.\nFor this, consorted with the citizens,\nYour very worshipful and loving friends,\nAnd by their vehement instigation,\nIn this just suit come I to move your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know not whether to depart in silence,\nOr bitterly to speak in your reproof.\nBest fitteth my degree or your condition\nIf not to answer, you might haply think\nTongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\nTo bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\nWhich fondly you would here impose on me;\nIf to reprove you for this suit of yours,\nSo season'd with your faithful love to me.\nThen, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.\nTherefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,\nAnd then, in speaking, not to incur the last,\nDefinitively thus I answer you.\nYour love deserves my thanks; but my desert\nUnmeritable shuns your high request.\nFirst if all obstacles were cut away,\nAnd that my path were even to the crown,\nAs my ripe revenue and due by birth\nYet so much is my poverty of spirit,\nSo mighty and so many my defects,\nAs I had rather hide me from my greatness,\nBeing a bark to brook no mighty sea,\nThan in my greatness covet to be hid,\nAnd in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\nBut, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,\nAnd much I need to help you, if need were;\nThe royal tree hath left us royal fruit,\nWhich, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\nWill well become the seat of majesty,\nAnd make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\nOn him I lay what you would lay on me,\nThe right and fortune of his happy stars;\nWhich God defend that I should wring from him!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, this argues conscience in your grace;\nBut the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\nAll circumstances well considered.\nYou say that Edward is your brother's son:\nSo say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\nFor first he was contract to Lady Lucy--\nYour mother lives a witness to that vow--\nAnd afterward by substitute betroth'd\nTo Bona, sister to the King of France.\nThese both put by a poor petitioner,\nA care-crazed mother of a many children,\nA beauty-waning and distressed widow,\nEven in the afternoon of her best days,\nMade prize and purchase of his lustful eye,\nSeduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts\nTo base declension and loathed bigamy\nBy her, in his unlawful bed, he got\nThis Edward, whom our manners term the prince.\nMore bitterly could I expostulate,\nSave that, for reverence to some alive,\nI give a sparing limit to my tongue.\nThen, good my lord, take to your royal self\nThis proffer'd benefit of dignity;\nIf non to bless us and the land withal,\nYet to draw forth your noble ancestry\nFrom the corruption of abusing times,\nUnto a lineal true-derived course.\n\nLord Mayor:\nDo, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nRefuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n\nCATESBY:\nO, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, why would you heap these cares on me?\nI am unfit for state and majesty;\nI do beseech you, take it not amiss;\nI cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIf you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,\nLoath to depose the child, Your brother's son;\nAs well we know your tenderness of heart\nAnd gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\nWhich we have noted in you to your kin,\nAnd egally indeed to all estates,--\nYet whether you accept our suit or no,\nYour brother's son shall never reign our king;\nBut we will plant some other in the throne,\nTo the disgrace and downfall of your house:\nAnd in this resolution here we leave you.--\nCome, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nCall them again, my lord, and accept their suit.\n\nANOTHER:\nDo, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWould you enforce me to a world of care?\nWell, call them again. I am not made of stone,\nBut penetrable to your. kind entreats,\nAlbeit against my conscience and my soul.\nCousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,\nSince you will buckle fortune on my back,\nTo bear her burthen, whether I will or no,\nI must have patience to endure the load:\nBut if black scandal or foul-faced reproach\nAttend the sequel of your imposition,\nYour mere enforcement shall acquittance me\nFrom all the impure blots and stains thereof;\nFor God he knows, and you may partly see,\nHow far I am from the desire thereof.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen I salute you with this kingly title:\nLong live Richard, England's royal king!\n\nLord Mayor:\nAmen.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow will it please you to be crown'd?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven when you please, since you will have it so.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:\nAnd so most joyfully we take our leave.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, let us to our holy task again.\nFarewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho meets us here?  my niece Plantagenet\nLed in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\nNow, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,\nOn pure heart's love to greet the tender princes.\nDaughter, well met.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nGod give your graces both\nA happy and a joyful time of day!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs much to you, good sister! Whither away?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\nUpon the like devotion as yourselves,\nTo gratulate the gentle princes there.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nKind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.\nAnd, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\nMaster lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\nHow doth the prince, and my young son of York?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nRight well, dear madam. By your patience,\nI may not suffer you to visit them;\nThe king hath straitly charged the contrary.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe king! why, who's that?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Lord protect him from that kingly title!\nHath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?\nI am their mother; who should keep me from them?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI am their fathers mother; I will see them.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTheir aunt I am in law, in love their mother:\nThen bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame\nAnd take thy office from thee, on my peril.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo, madam, no; I may not leave it so:\nI am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nLet me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\nAnd I'll salute your grace of York as mother,\nAnd reverend looker on, of two fair queens.\nCome, madam, you must straight to Westminster,\nThere to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart\nMay have some scope to beat, or else I swoon\nWith this dead-killing news!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDespiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n\nDORSET:\nBe of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!\nDeath and destruction dog thee at the heels;\nThy mother's name is ominous to children.\nIf thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\nAnd live with Richmond, from the reach of hell\nGo, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\nLest thou increase the number of the dead;\nAnd make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\nNor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nFull of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\nTake all the swift advantage of the hours;\nYou shall have letters from me to my son\nTo meet you on the way, and welcome you.\nBe not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO ill-dispersing wind of misery!\nO my accursed womb, the bed of death!\nA cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\nWhose unavoided eye is murderous.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nCome, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd I in all unwillingness will go.\nI would to God that the inclusive verge\nOf golden metal that must round my brow\nWere red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\nAnointed let me be with deadly venom,\nAnd die, ere men can say, God save the queen!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGo, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory\nTo feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo! why?  When he that is my husband now\nCame to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse,\nWhen scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\nWhich issued from my other angel husband\nAnd that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd;\nO, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\nThis was my wish: 'Be thou,' quoth I, ' accursed,\nFor making me, so young, so old a widow!\nAnd, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\nAnd be thy wife--if any be so mad--\nAs miserable by the life of thee\nAs thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!\nLo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\nEven in so short a space, my woman's heart\nGrossly grew captive to his honey words\nAnd proved the subject of my own soul's curse,\nWhich ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;\nFor never yet one hour in his bed\nHave I enjoy'd the golden dew of sleep,\nBut have been waked by his timorous dreams.\nBesides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\nAnd will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPoor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo more than from my soul I mourn for yours.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFarewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAdieu, poor soul, that takest thy leave of it!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nStay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.\nPity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\nWhom envy hath immured within your walls!\nRough cradle for such little pretty ones!\nRude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\nFor tender princes, use my babies well!\nSo foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStand all apart Cousin of Buckingham!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy gracious sovereign?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me thy hand.\nThus high, by thy advice\nAnd thy assistance, is King Richard seated;\nBut shall we wear these honours for a day?\nOr shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nStill live they and for ever may they last!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\nTo try if thou be current gold indeed\nYoung Edward lives: think now what I would say.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSay on, my loving lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, Buckingham, I say, I would be king,\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, so you are, my thrice renowned liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHa! am I king? 'tis so: but Edward lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTrue, noble prince.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO bitter consequence,\nThat Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'\nCousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:\nShall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;\nAnd I would have it suddenly perform'd.\nWhat sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYour grace may do your pleasure.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:\nSay, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGive me some breath, some little pause, my lord\nBefore I positively herein:\nI will resolve your grace immediately.\n\nCATESBY:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will converse with iron-witted fools\nAnd unrespective boys: none are for me\nThat look into me with considerate eyes:\nHigh-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\nBoy!\n\nPage:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKnow'st thou not any whom corrupting gold\nWould tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, I know a discontented gentleman,\nWhose humble means match not his haughty mind:\nGold were as good as twenty orators,\nAnd will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is his name?\n\nPage:\nHis name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI partly know the man: go, call him hither.\nThe deep-revolving witty Buckingham\nNo more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:\nHath he so long held out with me untired,\nAnd stops he now for breath?\nHow now! what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled\nTo Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea\nWhere he abides.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRumour it abroad\nThat Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:\nI will take order for her keeping close.\nInquire me out some mean-born gentleman,\nWhom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:\nThe boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\nLook, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\nThat Anne my wife is sick and like to die:\nAbout it; for it stands me much upon,\nTo stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\nI must be married to my brother's daughter,\nOr else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\nMurder her brothers, and then marry her!\nUncertain way of gain! But I am in\nSo far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:\nTear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\nIs thy name Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nJames Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nArt thou, indeed?\n\nTYRREL:\nProve me, my gracious sovereign.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDarest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n\nTYRREL:\nAy, my lord;\nBut I had rather kill two enemies.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,\nFoes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers\nAre they that I would have thee deal upon:\nTyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n\nTYRREL:\nLet me have open means to come to them,\nAnd soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel\nGo, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:\nThere is no more but so: say it is done,\nAnd I will love thee, and prefer thee too.\n\nTYRREL:\n'Tis done, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nShall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?\n\nTYRREL:\nYe shall, my Lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord, I have consider'd in my mind\nThe late demand that you did sound me in.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let that pass. Dorset is fled to Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI hear that news, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, he is your wife's son well, look to it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,\nFor which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;\nThe earldom of Hereford and the moveables\nThe which you promised I should possess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, look to your wife; if she convey\nLetters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat says your highness to my just demand?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I remember, Henry the Sixth\nDid prophesy that Richmond should be king,\nWhen Richmond was a little peevish boy.\nA king, perhaps, perhaps,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHow chance the prophet could not at that time\nHave told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, your promise for the earldom,--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRichmond! When last I was at Exeter,\nThe mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,\nAnd call'd it Rougemont: at which name I started,\nBecause a bard of Ireland told me once\nI should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI am thus bold to put your grace in mind\nOf what you promised me.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, but what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon the stroke of ten.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let it strike.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy let it strike?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBecause that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke\nBetwixt thy begging and my meditation.\nI am not in the giving vein to-day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then resolve me whether you will or no.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut,\nThou troublest me; am not in the vein.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIs it even so? rewards he my true service\nWith such deep contempt made I him king for this?\nO, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\nTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!\n\nTYRREL:\nThe tyrannous and bloody deed is done.\nThe most arch of piteous massacre\nThat ever yet this land was guilty of.\nDighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn\nTo do this ruthless piece of butchery,\nAlthough they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\nMelting with tenderness and kind compassion\nWept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.\n'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'\n'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another\nWithin their innocent alabaster arms:\nTheir lips were four red roses on a stalk,\nWhich in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\nA book of prayers on their pillow lay;\nWhich once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;\nBut O! the devil'--there the villain stopp'd\nWhilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\nThe most replenished sweet work of nature,\nThat from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\nThus both are gone with conscience and remorse;\nThey could not speak; and so I left them both,\nTo bring this tidings to the bloody king.\nAnd here he comes.\nAll hail, my sovereign liege!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n\nTYRREL:\nIf to have done the thing you gave in charge\nBeget your happiness, be happy then,\nFor it is done, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut didst thou see them dead?\n\nTYRREL:\nI did, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nThe chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\nBut how or in what place I do not know.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\nAnd thou shalt tell the process of their death.\nMeantime, but think how I may do thee good,\nAnd be inheritor of thy desire.\nFarewell till soon.\nThe son of Clarence have I pent up close;\nHis daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\nThe sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\nAnd Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.\nNow, for I know the Breton Richmond aims\nAt young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\nAnd, by that knot, looks proudly o'er the crown,\nTo her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood news or bad, that thou comest in so bluntly?\n\nCATESBY:\nBad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;\nAnd Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\nIs in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEly with Richmond troubles me more near\nThan Buckingham and his rash-levied army.\nCome, I have heard that fearful commenting\nIs leaden servitor to dull delay;\nDelay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary\nThen fiery expedition be my wing,\nJove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\nCome, muster men: my counsel is my shield;\nWe must be brief when traitors brave the field.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo, now prosperity begins to mellow\nAnd drop into the rotten mouth of death.\nHere in these confines slily have I lurk'd,\nTo watch the waning of mine adversaries.\nA dire induction am I witness to,\nAnd will to France, hoping the consequence\nWill prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\nWithdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAh, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!\nMy unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\nIf yet your gentle souls fly in the air\nAnd be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\nHover about me with your airy wings\nAnd hear your mother's lamentation!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHover about her; say, that right for right\nHath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSo many miseries have crazed my voice,\nThat my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,\nEdward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPlantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.\nEdward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,\nAnd throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\nWhen didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhen holy Harry died, and my sweet son.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nBlind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,\nWoe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\nBrief abstract and record of tedious days,\nRest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,\nUnlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave\nAs thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\nThen would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\nO, who hath any cause to mourn but I?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nIf ancient sorrow be most reverend,\nGive mine the benefit of seniory,\nAnd let my woes frown on the upper hand.\nIf sorrow can admit society,\nTell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:\nI had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nI had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:\nThou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nThou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\nI had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.\nFrom forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\nA hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:\nThat dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,\nTo worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\nThat foul defacer of God's handiwork,\nThat excellent grand tyrant of the earth,\nThat reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\nThy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.\nO upright, just, and true-disposing God,\nHow do I thank thee, that this carnal cur\nPreys on the issue of his mother's body,\nAnd makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\nGod witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\nAnd now I cloy me with beholding it.\nThy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:\nThy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\nYoung York he is but boot, because both they\nMatch not the high perfection of my loss:\nThy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;\nAnd the beholders of this tragic play,\nThe adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\nUntimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\nRichard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,\nOnly reserved their factor, to buy souls\nAnd send them thither: but at hand, at hand,\nEnsues his piteous and unpitied end:\nEarth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.\nTo have him suddenly convey'd away.\nCancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,\nThat I may live to say, The dog is dead!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, thou didst prophesy the time would come\nThat I should wish for thee to help me curse\nThat bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;\nI call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;\nThe presentation of but what I was;\nThe flattering index of a direful pageant;\nOne heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;\nA mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;\nA dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,\nA sign of dignity, a garish flag,\nTo be the aim of every dangerous shot,\nA queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\nWhere is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?\nWhere are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?\nWho sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?\nWhere be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?\nWhere be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?\nDecline all this, and see what now thou art:\nFor happy wife, a most distressed widow;\nFor joyful mother, one that wails the name;\nFor queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\nFor one being sued to, one that humbly sues;\nFor one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\nFor one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\nFor one commanding all, obey'd of none.\nThus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,\nAnd left thee but a very prey to time;\nHaving no more but thought of what thou wert,\nTo torture thee the more, being what thou art.\nThou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\nUsurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\nNow thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;\nFrom which even here I slip my weary neck,\nAnd leave the burthen of it all on thee.\nFarewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:\nThese English woes will make me smile in France.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,\nAnd teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nForbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;\nCompare dead happiness with living woe;\nThink that thy babes were fairer than they were,\nAnd he that slew them fouler than he is:\nBettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:\nRevolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy should calamity be full of words?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWindy attorneys to their client woes,\nAiry succeeders of intestate joys,\nPoor breathing orators of miseries!\nLet them have scope: though what they do impart\nHelp not all, yet do they ease the heart.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nIf so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.\nAnd in the breath of bitter words let's smother\nMy damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother'd.\nI hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWho intercepts my expedition?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, she that might have intercepted thee,\nBy strangling thee in her accursed womb\nFrom all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,\nWhere should be graven, if that right were right,\nThe slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,\nAnd the dire death of my two sons and brothers?\nTell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?\nAnd little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhere is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!\nLet not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\nRail on the Lord's enointed: strike, I say!\nEither be patient, and entreat me fair,\nOr with the clamorous report of war\nThus will I drown your exclamations.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou my son?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThen patiently hear my impatience.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, I have a touch of your condition,\nWhich cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, let me speak!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDo then: but I'll not hear.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will be mild and gentle in my speech.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\nGod knows, in anguish, pain and agony.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd came I not at last to comfort you?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,\nThou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.\nA grievous burthen was thy birth to me;\nTetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\nThy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,\nThy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,\nThy age confirm'd, proud, subdued, bloody,\ntreacherous,\nMore mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:\nWhat comfortable hour canst thou name,\nThat ever graced me in thy company?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFaith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\nyour grace\nTo breakfast once forth of my company.\nIf I be so disgracious in your sight,\nLet me march on, and not offend your grace.\nStrike the drum.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI prithee, hear me speak.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak too bitterly.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHear me a word;\nFor I shall never speak to thee again.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nEither thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,\nEre from this war thou turn a conqueror,\nOr I with grief and extreme age shall perish\nAnd never look upon thy face again.\nTherefore take with thee my most heavy curse;\nWhich, in the day of battle, tire thee more\nThan all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\nMy prayers on the adverse party fight;\nAnd there the little souls of Edward's children\nWhisper the spirits of thine enemies\nAnd promise them success and victory.\nBloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;\nShame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThough far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse\nAbides in me; I say amen to all.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStay, madam; I must speak a word with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI have no more sons of the royal blood\nFor thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,\nThey shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\nAnd therefore level not to hit their lives.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou have a daughter call'd Elizabeth,\nVirtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd must she die for this? O, let her live,\nAnd I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;\nSlander myself as false to Edward's bed;\nThrow over her the veil of infamy:\nSo she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\nI will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo save her life, I'll say she is not so.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHer life is only safest in her birth.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd only in that safety died her brothers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLo, at their births good stars were opposite.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, to their lives bad friends were contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAll unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTrue, when avoided grace makes destiny:\nMy babes were destined to a fairer death,\nIf grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd\nOf comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\nWhose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,\nThy head, all indirectly, gave direction:\nNo doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt\nTill it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,\nTo revel in the entrails of my lambs.\nBut that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,\nMy tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\nTill that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\nAnd I, in such a desperate bay of death,\nLike a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\nRush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, so thrive I in my enterprise\nAnd dangerous success of bloody wars,\nAs I intend more good to you and yours,\nThan ever you or yours were by me wrong'd!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat good is cover'd with the face of heaven,\nTo be discover'd, that can do me good?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe advancement of your children, gentle lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nUp to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNo, to the dignity and height of honour\nThe high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFlatter my sorrows with report of it;\nTell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\nCanst thou demise to any child of mine?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven all I have; yea, and myself and all,\nWill I withal endow a child of thine;\nSo in the Lethe of thy angry soul\nThou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\nWhich thou supposest I have done to thee.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBe brief, lest that be process of thy kindness\nLast longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat do you think?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:\nSo from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers;\nAnd from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe not so hasty to confound my meaning:\nI mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,\nAnd mean to make her queen of England.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSay then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven he that makes her queen who should be else?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat, thou?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI, even I: what think you of it, madam?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow canst thou woo her?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThat would I learn of you,\nAs one that are best acquainted with her humour.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd wilt thou learn of me?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, with all my heart.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSend to her, by the man that slew her brothers,\nA pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave\nEdward and York; then haply she will weep:\nTherefore present to her--as sometime Margaret\nDid to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--\nA handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\nThe purple sap from her sweet brother's body\nAnd bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.\nIf this inducement force her not to love,\nSend her a story of thy noble acts;\nTell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,\nHer uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,\nMadest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, come, you mock me; this is not the way\nTo win our daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThere is no other way\nUnless thou couldst put on some other shape,\nAnd not be Richard that hath done all this.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that I did all this for love of her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,\nHaving bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLook, what is done cannot be now amended:\nMen shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\nWhich after hours give leisure to repent.\nIf I did take the kingdom from your sons,\nTo make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.\nIf I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\nTo quicken your increase, I will beget\nMine issue of your blood upon your daughter\nA grandam's name is little less in love\nThan is the doting title of a mother;\nThey are as children but one step below,\nEven of your mettle, of your very blood;\nOf an one pain, save for a night of groans\nEndured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\nYour children were vexation to your youth,\nBut mine shall be a comfort to your age.\nThe loss you have is but a son being king,\nAnd by that loss your daughter is made queen.\nI cannot make you what amends I would,\nTherefore accept such kindness as I can.\nDorset your son, that with a fearful soul\nLeads discontented steps in foreign soil,\nThis fair alliance quickly shall call home\nTo high promotions and great dignity:\nThe king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.\nFamiliarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\nAgain shall you be mother to a king,\nAnd all the ruins of distressful times\nRepair'd with double riches of content.\nWhat! we have many goodly days to see:\nThe liquid drops of tears that you have shed\nShall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\nAdvantaging their loan with interest\nOf ten times double gain of happiness.\nGo, then my mother, to thy daughter go\nMake bold her bashful years with your experience;\nPrepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale\nPut in her tender heart the aspiring flame\nOf golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess\nWith the sweet silent hours of marriage joys\nAnd when this arm of mine hath chastised\nThe petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\nBound with triumphant garlands will I come\nAnd lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\nTo whom I will retail my conquest won,\nAnd she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat were I best to say? her father's brother\nWould be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?\nOr, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\nUnder what title shall I woo for thee,\nThat God, the law, my honour and her love,\nCan make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nInfer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhich she shall purchase with still lasting war.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that the king, which may command, entreats.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat at her hands which the king's King forbids.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo wail the tide, as her mother doth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I will love her everlastingly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long fairly shall her sweet lie last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I, her sovereign, am her subject love.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe eloquent in my behalf to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAn honest tale speeds best being plainly told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen in plain terms tell her my loving tale.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPlain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYour reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO no, my reasons are too deep and dead;\nToo deep and dead, poor infants, in their grave.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHarp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHarp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by my George, my garter, and my crown,--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nProfaned, dishonour'd, and the third usurp'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI swear--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy nothing; for this is no oath:\nThe George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;\nThe garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\nThe crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory.\nif something thou wilt swear to be believed,\nSwear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by the world--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\n'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy father's death--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThy life hath that dishonour'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen, by myself--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThyself thyself misusest.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy then, by God--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod's wrong is most of all.\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe unity the king thy brother made\nHad not been broken, nor my brother slain:\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe imperial metal, circling now thy brow,\nHad graced the tender temples of my child,\nAnd both the princes had been breathing here,\nWhich now, two tender playfellows to dust,\nThy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.\nWhat canst thou swear by now?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe time to come.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou hast wronged in the time o'erpast;\nFor I myself have many tears to wash\nHereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\nThe children live, whose parents thou hast\nslaughter'd,\nUngovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\nThe parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd,\nOld wither'd plants, to wail it with their age.\nSwear not by time to come; for that thou hast\nMisused ere used, by time misused o'erpast.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I intend to prosper and repent,\nSo thrive I in my dangerous attempt\nOf hostile arms! myself myself confound!\nHeaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\nDay, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\nBe opposite all planets of good luck\nTo my proceedings, if, with pure heart's love,\nImmaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\nI tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!\nIn her consists my happiness and thine;\nWithout her, follows to this land and me,\nTo thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,\nDeath, desolation, ruin and decay:\nIt cannot be avoided but by this;\nIt will not be avoided but by this.\nTherefore, good mother,--I must can you so--\nBe the attorney of my love to her:\nPlead what I will be, not what I have been;\nNot my deserts, but what I will deserve:\nUrge the necessity and state of times,\nAnd be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if the devil tempt thee to do good.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I forget myself to be myself?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if yourself's remembrance wrong yourself.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut thou didst kill my children.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut in your daughter's womb I bury them:\nWhere in that nest of spicery they shall breed\nSelves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd be a happy mother by the deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI go. Write to me very shortly.\nAnd you shall understand from me her mind.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\nRelenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\nHow now! what news?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy gracious sovereign, on the western coast\nRideth a puissant navy; to the shore\nThrong many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\nUnarm'd, and unresolved to beat them back:\n'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\nAnd there they hull, expecting but the aid\nOf Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSome light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:\nRatcliff, thyself, or Catesby; where is he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHere, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFly to the duke:\nPost thou to Salisbury\nWhen thou comest thither--\nDull, unmindful villain,\nWhy stand'st thou still, and go'st not to the duke?\n\nCATESBY:\nFirst, mighty sovereign, let me know your mind,\nWhat from your grace I shall deliver to him.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight\nThe greatest strength and power he can make,\nAnd meet me presently at Salisbury.\n\nCATESBY:\nI go.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nWhat is't your highness' pleasure I shall do at\nSalisbury?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, what wouldst thou do there before I go?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nYour highness told me I should post before.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy mind is changed, sir, my mind is changed.\nHow now, what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nNone good, my lord, to please you with the hearing;\nNor none so bad, but it may well be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\nWhy dost thou run so many mile about,\nWhen thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?\nOnce more, what news?\n\nSTANLEY:\nRichmond is on the seas.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThere let him sink, and be the seas on him!\nWhite-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n\nSTANLEY:\nI know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, sir, as you guess, as you guess?\n\nSTANLEY:\nStirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely,\nHe makes for England, there to claim the crown.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nIs the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd?\nIs the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?\nWhat heir of York is there alive but we?\nAnd who is England's king but great York's heir?\nThen, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?\n\nSTANLEY:\nUnless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUnless for that he comes to be your liege,\nYou cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\nThou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, mighty liege; therefore mistrust me not.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhere is thy power, then, to beat him back?\nWhere are thy tenants and thy followers?\nAre they not now upon the western shore.\nSafe-conducting the rebels from their ships!\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,\nWhen they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThey have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:\nPlease it your majesty to give me leave,\nI'll muster up my friends, and meet your grace\nWhere and what time your majesty shall please.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, ay. thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond:\nI will not trust you, sir.\n\nSTANLEY:\nMost mighty sovereign,\nYou have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:\nI never was nor never will be false.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell,\nGo muster men; but, hear you, leave behind\nYour son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.\nOr else his head's assurance is but frail.\n\nSTANLEY:\nSo deal with him as I prove true to you.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\nAs I by friends am well advertised,\nSir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate\nBishop of Exeter, his brother there,\nWith many more confederates, are in arms.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nMy liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;\nAnd every hour more competitors\nFlock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.\n\nThird Messenger:\nMy lord, the army of the Duke of Buckingham--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOut on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?\nTake that, until thou bring me better news.\n\nThird Messenger:\nThe news I have to tell your majesty\nIs, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,\nBuckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd;\nAnd he himself wander'd away alone,\nNo man knows whither.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI cry thee mercy:\nThere is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\nHath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\nReward to him that brings the traitor in?\n\nThird Messenger:\nSuch proclamation hath been made, my liege.\n\nFourth Messenger:\nSir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,\n'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\nYet this good comfort bring I to your grace,\nThe Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:\nRichmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat\nUnto the shore, to ask those on the banks\nIf they were his assistants, yea or no;\nWho answer'd him, they came from Buckingham.\nUpon his party: he, mistrusting them,\nHoisted sail and made away for Brittany.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMarch on, march on, since we are up in arms;\nIf not to fight with foreign enemies,\nYet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;\nThat is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond\nIs with a mighty power landed at Milford,\nIs colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAway towards Salisbury! while we reason here,\nA royal battle might be won and lost\nSome one take order Buckingham be brought\nTo Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n\nDERBY:\nSir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\nThat in the sty of this most bloody boar\nMy son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold:\nIf I revolt, off goes young George's head;\nThe fear of that withholds my present aid.\nBut, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nAt Pembroke, or at Harford-west, in Wales.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat men of name resort to him?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nSir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\nSir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;\nOxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\nAnd Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;\nAnd many more of noble fame and worth:\nAnd towards London they do bend their course,\nIf by the way they be not fought withal.\n\nDERBY:\nReturn unto thy lord; commend me to him:\nTell him the queen hath heartily consented\nHe shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\nThese letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWill not King Richard let me speak with him?\n\nSheriff:\nNo, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,\nHoly King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\nVaughan, and all that have miscarried\nBy underhand corrupted foul injustice,\nIf that your moody discontented souls\nDo through the clouds behold this present hour,\nEven for revenge mock my destruction!\nThis is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?\n\nSheriff:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\nThis is the day that, in King Edward's time,\nI wish't might fall on me, when I was found\nFalse to his children or his wife's allies\nThis is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\nBy the false faith of him I trusted most;\nThis, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\nIs the determined respite of my wrongs:\nThat high All-Seer that I dallied with\nHath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\nAnd given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\nThus doth he force the swords of wicked men\nTo turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:\nNow Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;\n'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\nRemember Margaret was a prophetess.'\nCome, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;\nWrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\n\nRICHMOND:\nFellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\nBruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,\nThus far into the bowels of the land\nHave we march'd on without impediment;\nAnd here receive we from our father Stanley\nLines of fair comfort and encouragement.\nThe wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\nThat spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\nSwills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\nIn your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine\nLies now even in the centre of this isle,\nNear to the town of Leicester, as we learn\nFrom Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\nIn God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,\nTo reap the harvest of perpetual peace\nBy this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n\nOXFORD:\nEvery man's conscience is a thousand swords,\nTo fight against that bloody homicide.\n\nHERBERT:\nI doubt not but his friends will fly to us.\n\nBLUNT:\nHe hath no friends but who are friends for fear.\nWhich in his greatest need will shrink from him.\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll for our vantage. Then, in God's name, march:\nTrue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:\nKings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHere pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.\nMy Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n\nSURREY:\nMy heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy Lord of Norfolk,--\n\nNORFOLK:\nHere, most gracious liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNorfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not?\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe must both give and take, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUp with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;\nBut where to-morrow?  Well, all's one for that.\nWho hath descried the number of the foe?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSix or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, our battalion trebles that account:\nBesides, the king's name is a tower of strength,\nWhich they upon the adverse party want.\nUp with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,\nLet us survey the vantage of the field\nCall for some men of sound direction\nLet's want no discipline, make no delay,\nFor, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe weary sun hath made a golden set,\nAnd by the bright track of his fiery car,\nGives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.\nSir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\nGive me some ink and paper in my tent\nI'll draw the form and model of our battle,\nLimit each leader to his several charge,\nAnd part in just proportion our small strength.\nMy Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,\nAnd you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.\nThe Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him\nAnd by the second hour in the morning\nDesire the earl to see me in my tent:\nYet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go'st,\nWhere is Lord Stanley quarter'd, dost thou know?\n\nBLUNT:\nUnless I have mista'en his colours much,\nWhich well I am assured I have not done,\nHis regiment lies half a mile at least\nSouth from the mighty power of the king.\n\nRICHMOND:\nIf without peril it be possible,\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,\nAnd give him from me this most needful scroll.\n\nBLUNT:\nUpon my life, my lord, I'll under-take it;\nAnd so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,\nLet us consult upon to-morrow's business\nIn to our tent; the air is raw and cold.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt's supper-time, my lord;\nIt's nine o'clock.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will not sup to-night.\nGive me some ink and paper.\nWhat, is my beaver easier than it was?\nAnd all my armour laid into my tent?\n\nCATESBY:\nIf is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\nUse careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI go, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI warrant you, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSend out a pursuivant at arms\nTo Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\nBefore sunrising, lest his son George fall\nInto the blind cave of eternal night.\nFill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\nSaddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\nLook that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\nRatcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSaw'st thou the melancholy Lord Northumberland?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\nMuch about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\nWent through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:\nI have not that alacrity of spirit,\nNor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.\nSet it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBid my guard watch; leave me.\nRatcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent\nAnd help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n\nDERBY:\nFortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll comfort that the dark night can afford\nBe to thy person, noble father-in-law!\nTell me, how fares our loving mother?\n\nDERBY:\nI, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother\nWho prays continually for Richmond's good:\nSo much for that. The silent hours steal on,\nAnd flaky darkness breaks within the east.\nIn brief,--for so the season bids us be,--\nPrepare thy battle early in the morning,\nAnd put thy fortune to the arbitrement\nOf bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\nI, as I may--that which I would I cannot,--\nWith best advantage will deceive the time,\nAnd aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:\nBut on thy side I may not be too forward\nLest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\nBe executed in his father's sight.\nFarewell: the leisure and the fearful time\nCuts off the ceremonious vows of love\nAnd ample interchange of sweet discourse,\nWhich so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon:\nGod give us leisure for these rites of love!\nOnce more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood lords, conduct him to his regiment:\nI'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,\nLest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,\nWhen I should mount with wings of victory:\nOnce more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\nO Thou, whose captain I account myself,\nLook on my forces with a gracious eye;\nPut in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,\nThat they may crush down with a heavy fall\nThe usurping helmets of our adversaries!\nMake us thy ministers of chastisement,\nThat we may praise thee in the victory!\nTo thee I do commend my watchful soul,\nEre I let fall the windows of mine eyes:\nSleeping and waking, O, defend me still!\n\nGhost of Prince Edward:\n\nGhost of King Henry VI:\n\nGhost of CLARENCE:\n\nGhost of RIVERS:\n\nGhost of GREY:\n\nGhost of VAUGHAN:\n\nAll:\n\nGhost of HASTINGS:\n\nGhosts of young Princes:\n\nGhost of LADY ANNE:\n\nGhost of BUCKINGHAM:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me another horse: bind up my wounds.\nHave mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.\nO coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\nThe lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\nCold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\nWhat do I fear?  myself?  there's none else by:\nRichard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\nIs there a murderer here?  No. Yes, I am:\nThen fly. What, from myself?   Great reason why:\nLest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?\nAlack. I love myself. Wherefore?  for any good\nThat I myself have done unto myself?\nO, no! alas, I rather hate myself\nFor hateful deeds committed by myself!\nI am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.\nFool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.\nMy conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\nAnd every tongue brings in a several tale,\nAnd every tale condemns me for a villain.\nPerjury, perjury, in the high'st degree\nMurder, stem murder, in the direst degree;\nAll several sins, all used in each degree,\nThrong to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!\nI shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\nAnd if I die, no soul shall pity me:\nNay, wherefore should they, since that I myself\nFind in myself no pity to myself?\nMethought the souls of all that I had murder'd\nCame to my tent; and every one did threat\nTo-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n'Zounds! who is there?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nRatcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\nHath twice done salutation to the morn;\nYour friends are up, and buckle on their armour.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\nWhat thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNo doubt, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,--\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBy the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\nHave struck more terror to the soul of Richard\nThan can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\nArmed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.\nIt is not yet near day. Come, go with me;\nUnder our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\nTo see if any mean to shrink from me.\n\nLORDS:\nGood morrow, Richmond!\n\nRICHMOND:\nCry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\nThat you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n\nLORDS:\nHow have you slept, my lord?\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams\nThat ever enter'd in a drowsy head,\nHave I since your departure had, my lords.\nMethought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd,\nCame to my tent, and cried on victory:\nI promise you, my soul is very jocund\nIn the remembrance of so fair a dream.\nHow far into the morning is it, lords?\n\nLORDS:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhy, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\nMore than I have said, loving countrymen,\nThe leisure and enforcement of the time\nForbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,\nGod and our good cause fight upon our side;\nThe prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\nLike high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\nRichard except, those whom we fight against\nHad rather have us win than him they follow:\nFor what is he they follow?  truly, gentlemen,\nA bloody tyrant and a homicide;\nOne raised in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\nOne that made means to come by what he hath,\nAnd slaughter'd those that were the means to help him;\nAbase foul stone, made precious by the foil\nOf England's chair, where he is falsely set;\nOne that hath ever been God's enemy:\nThen, if you fight against God's enemy,\nGod will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\nIf you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\nYou sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\nIf you do fight against your country's foes,\nYour country's fat shall pay your pains the hire;\nIf you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\nYour wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\nIf you do free your children from the sword,\nYour children's children quit it in your age.\nThen, in the name of God and all these rights,\nAdvance your standards, draw your willing swords.\nFor me, the ransom of my bold attempt\nShall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\nBut if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\nThe least of you shall share his part thereof.\nSound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\nGod and Saint George! Richmond and victory!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat said Northumberland as touching Richmond?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThat he was never trained up in arms.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe said the truth: and what said Surrey then?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nHe smiled and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe was in the right; and so indeed it is.\nTen the clock there. Give me a calendar.\nWho saw the sun to-day?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNot I, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen he disdains to shine; for by the book\nHe should have braved the east an hour ago\nA black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe sun will not be seen to-day;\nThe sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\nI would these dewy tears were from the ground.\nNot shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\nMore than to Richmond?  for the selfsame heaven\nThat frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\nNORFOLK:\nArm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.\nCall up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:\nI will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\nAnd thus my battle shall be ordered:\nMy foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\nConsisting equally of horse and foot;\nOur archers shall be placed in the midst\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\nShall have the leading of this foot and horse.\nThey thus directed, we will follow\nIn the main battle, whose puissance on either side\nShall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\nThis, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk?\n\nNORFOLK:\nA good direction, warlike sovereign.\nThis found I on my tent this morning.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n\nMessenger:\nMy lord, he doth deny to come.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOff with his son George's head!\n\nNORFOLK:\nMy lord, the enemy is past the marsh\nAfter the battle let George Stanley die.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA thousand hearts are great within my bosom:\nAdvance our standards, set upon our foes\nOur ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\nInspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\nUpon them! victory sits on our helms.\n\nCATESBY:\nRescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\nThe king enacts more wonders than a man,\nDaring an opposite to every danger:\nHis horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\nSeeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\nRescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nCATESBY:\nWithdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSlave, I have set my life upon a cast,\nAnd I will stand the hazard of the die:\nI think there be six Richmonds in the field;\nFive have I slain to-day instead of him.\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGod and your arms be praised, victorious friends,\nThe day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n\nDERBY:\nCourageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.\nLo, here, this long-usurped royalty\nFrom the dead temples of this bloody wretch\nHave I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal:\nWear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n\nRICHMOND:\nGreat God of heaven, say Amen to all!\nBut, tell me, is young George Stanley living?\n\nDERBY:\nHe is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;\nWhither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhat men of name are slain on either side?\n\nDERBY:\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\nSir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n\nRICHMOND:\nInter their bodies as becomes their births:\nProclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\nThat in submission will return to us:\nAnd then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\nWe will unite the white rose and the red:\nSmile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\nThat long have frown'd upon their enmity!\nWhat traitor hears me, and says not amen?\nEngland hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\nThe brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\nThe father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\nThe son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:\nAll this divided York and Lancaster,\nDivided in their dire division,\nO, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,\nThe true succeeders of each royal house,\nBy God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\nAnd let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.\nEnrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,\nWith smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!\nAbate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\nThat would reduce these bloody days again,\nAnd make poor England weep in streams of blood!\nLet them not live to taste this land's increase\nThat would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\nNow civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:\nThat she may long live here, God say amen!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nOld John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,\nHast thou, according to thy oath and band,\nBrought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,\nHere to make good the boisterous late appeal,\nWhich then our leisure would not let us hear,\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI have, my liege.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,\nIf he appeal the duke on ancient malice;\nOr worthily, as a good subject should,\nOn some known ground of treachery in him?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAs near as I could sift him on that argument,\nOn some apparent danger seen in him\nAim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen call them to our presence; face to face,\nAnd frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\nThe accuser and the accused freely speak:\nHigh-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,\nIn rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMany years of happy days befal\nMy gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nEach day still better other's happiness;\nUntil the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\nAdd an immortal title to your crown!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe thank you both: yet one but flatters us,\nAs well appeareth by the cause you come;\nNamely to appeal each other of high treason.\nCousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFirst, heaven be the record to my speech!\nIn the devotion of a subject's love,\nTendering the precious safety of my prince,\nAnd free from other misbegotten hate,\nCome I appellant to this princely presence.\nNow, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\nAnd mark my greeting well; for what I speak\nMy body shall make good upon this earth,\nOr my divine soul answer it in heaven.\nThou art a traitor and a miscreant,\nToo good to be so and too bad to live,\nSince the more fair and crystal is the sky,\nThe uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\nOnce more, the more to aggravate the note,\nWith a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\nAnd wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,\nWhat my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nLet not my cold words here accuse my zeal:\n'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\nThe bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\nCan arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\nThe blood is hot that must be cool'd for this:\nYet can I not of such tame patience boast\nAs to be hush'd and nought at all to say:\nFirst, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me\nFrom giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\nWhich else would post until it had return'd\nThese terms of treason doubled down his throat.\nSetting aside his high blood's royalty,\nAnd let him be no kinsman to my liege,\nI do defy him, and I spit at him;\nCall him a slanderous coward and a villain:\nWhich to maintain I would allow him odds,\nAnd meet him, were I tied to run afoot\nEven to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\nOr any other ground inhabitable,\nWhere ever Englishman durst set his foot.\nMean time let this defend my loyalty,\nBy all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\nDisclaiming here the kindred of the king,\nAnd lay aside my high blood's royalty,\nWhich fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\nIf guilty dread have left thee so much strength\nAs to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:\nBy that and all the rites of knighthood else,\nWill I make good against thee, arm to arm,\nWhat I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nI take it up; and by that sword I swear\nWhich gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,\nI'll answer thee in any fair degree,\nOr chivalrous design of knightly trial:\nAnd when I mount, alive may I not light,\nIf I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\nIt must be great that can inherit us\nSo much as of a thought of ill in him.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLook, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;\nThat Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles\nIn name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,\nThe which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,\nLike a false traitor and injurious villain.\nBesides I say and will in battle prove,\nOr here or elsewhere to the furthest verge\nThat ever was survey'd by English eye,\nThat all the treasons for these eighteen years\nComplotted and contrived in this land\nFetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\nFurther I say and further will maintain\nUpon his bad life to make all this good,\nThat he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\nSuggest his soon-believing adversaries,\nAnd consequently, like a traitor coward,\nSluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:\nWhich blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\nEven from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\nTo me for justice and rough chastisement;\nAnd, by the glorious worth of my descent,\nThis arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow high a pitch his resolution soars!\nThomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nO, let my sovereign turn away his face\nAnd bid his ears a little while be deaf,\nTill I have told this slander of his blood,\nHow God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:\nWere he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\nAs he is but my father's brother's son,\nNow, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,\nSuch neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\nShould nothing privilege him, nor partialize\nThe unstooping firmness of my upright soul:\nHe is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\nFree speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\nThrough the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\nThree parts of that receipt I had for Calais\nDisbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;\nThe other part reserved I by consent,\nFor that my sovereign liege was in my debt\nUpon remainder of a dear account,\nSince last I went to France to fetch his queen:\nNow swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,\nI slew him not; but to my own disgrace\nNeglected my sworn duty in that case.\nFor you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\nThe honourable father to my foe\nOnce did I lay an ambush for your life,\nA trespass that doth vex my grieved soul\nBut ere I last received the sacrament\nI did confess it, and exactly begg'd\nYour grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.\nThis is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,\nIt issues from the rancour of a villain,\nA recreant and most degenerate traitor\nWhich in myself I boldly will defend;\nAnd interchangeably hurl down my gage\nUpon this overweening traitor's foot,\nTo prove myself a loyal gentleman\nEven in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\nIn haste whereof, most heartily I pray\nYour highness to assign our trial day.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;\nLet's purge this choler without letting blood:\nThis we prescribe, though no physician;\nDeep malice makes too deep incision;\nForget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;\nOur doctors say this is no month to bleed.\nGood uncle, let this end where it begun;\nWe'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo be a make-peace shall become my age:\nThrow down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd, Norfolk, throw down his.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhen, Harry, when?\nObedience bids I should not bid again.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMyself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.\nMy life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\nThe one my duty owes; but my fair name,\nDespite of death that lives upon my grave,\nTo dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\nI am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,\nPierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\nThe which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\nWhich breathed this poison.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRage must be withstood:\nGive me his gage: lions make leopards tame.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nYea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.\nAnd I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\nThe purest treasure mortal times afford\nIs spotless reputation: that away,\nMen are but gilded loam or painted clay.\nA jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest\nIs a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\nMine honour is my life; both grow in one:\nTake honour from me, and my life is done:\nThen, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\nIn that I live and for that will I die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\nShall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?\nOr with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\nBefore this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue\nShall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,\nOr sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\nThe slavish motive of recanting fear,\nAnd spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\nWhere shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe were not born to sue, but to command;\nWhich since we cannot do to make you friends,\nBe ready, as your lives shall answer it,\nAt Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:\nThere shall your swords and lances arbitrate\nThe swelling difference of your settled hate:\nSince we can not atone you, we shall see\nJustice design the victor's chivalry.\nLord marshal, command our officers at arms\nBe ready to direct these home alarms.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAlas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\nDoth more solicit me than your exclaims,\nTo stir against the butchers of his life!\nBut since correction lieth in those hands\nWhich made the fault that we cannot correct,\nPut we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\nWho, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\nWill rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n\nDUCHESS:\nFinds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\nHath love in thy old blood no living fire?\nEdward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\nWere as seven vials of his sacred blood,\nOr seven fair branches springing from one root:\nSome of those seven are dried by nature's course,\nSome of those branches by the Destinies cut;\nBut Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\nOne vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\nOne flourishing branch of his most royal root,\nIs crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,\nIs hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\nBy envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\nAh, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,\nThat metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee\nMade him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\nYet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent\nIn some large measure to thy father's death,\nIn that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\nWho was the model of thy father's life.\nCall it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:\nIn suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,\nThou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\nTeaching stern murder how to butcher thee:\nThat which in mean men we intitle patience\nIs pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\nWhat shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,\nThe best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\nHis deputy anointed in His sight,\nHath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,\nLet heaven revenge; for I may never lift\nAn angry arm against His minister.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhere then, alas, may I complain myself?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo God, the widow's champion and defence.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhy, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\nThou goest to Coventry, there to behold\nOur cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:\nO, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\nThat it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\nOr, if misfortune miss the first career,\nBe Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,\nThey may break his foaming courser's back,\nAnd throw the rider headlong in the lists,\nA caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\nFarewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife\nWith her companion grief must end her life.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nSister, farewell; I must to Coventry:\nAs much good stay with thee as go with me!\n\nDUCHESS:\nYet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,\nNot with the empty hollowness, but weight:\nI take my leave before I have begun,\nFor sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\nCommend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\nLo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so;\nThough this be all, do not so quickly go;\nI shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?--\nWith all good speed at Plashy visit me.\nAlack, and what shall good old York there see\nBut empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\nUnpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\nAnd what hear there for welcome but my groans?\nTherefore commend me; let him not come there,\nTo seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\nDesolate, desolate, will I hence and die:\nThe last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,\nStays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhy, then, the champions are prepared, and stay\nFor nothing but his majesty's approach.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, demand of yonder champion\nThe cause of his arrival here in arms:\nAsk him his name and orderly proceed\nTo swear him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nIn God's name and the king's, say who thou art\nAnd why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,\nAgainst what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:\nSpeak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;\nAs so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMy name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\nWho hither come engaged by my oath--\nWhich God defend a knight should violate!--\nBoth to defend my loyalty and truth\nTo God, my king and my succeeding issue,\nAgainst the Duke of Hereford that appeals me\nAnd, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\nTo prove him, in defending of myself,\nA traitor to my God, my king, and me:\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\nBoth who he is and why he cometh hither\nThus plated in habiliments of war,\nAnd formally, according to our law,\nDepose him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nWhat is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,\nBefore King Richard in his royal lists?\nAgainst whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\nSpeak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby\nAm I; who ready here do stand in arms,\nTo prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\nIn lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nThat he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\nTo God of heaven, King Richard and to me;\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nLord Marshal:\nOn pain of death, no person be so bold\nOr daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\nExcept the marshal and such officers\nAppointed to direct these fair designs.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\nAnd bow my knee before his majesty:\nFor Mowbray and myself are like two men\nThat vow a long and weary pilgrimage;\nThen let us take a ceremonious leave\nAnd loving farewell of our several friends.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe appellant in all duty greets your highness,\nAnd craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will descend and fold him in our arms.\nCousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\nSo be thy fortune in this royal fight!\nFarewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\nLament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO let no noble eye profane a tear\nFor me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:\nAs confident as is the falcon's flight\nAgainst a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\nMy loving lord, I take my leave of you;\nOf you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\nNot sick, although I have to do with death,\nBut lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\nLo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\nThe daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:\nO thou, the earthly author of my blood,\nWhose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\nDoth with a twofold vigour lift me up\nTo reach at victory above my head,\nAdd proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;\nAnd with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\nThat it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,\nAnd furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,\nEven in the lusty havior of his son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\nBe swift like lightning in the execution;\nAnd let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\nFall like amazing thunder on the casque\nOf thy adverse pernicious enemy:\nRouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMine innocency and Saint George to thrive!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nHowever God or fortune cast my lot,\nThere lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\nA loyal, just and upright gentleman:\nNever did captive with a freer heart\nCast off his chains of bondage and embrace\nHis golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\nMore than my dancing soul doth celebrate\nThis feast of battle with mine adversary.\nMost mighty liege, and my companion peers,\nTake from my mouth the wish of happy years:\nAs gentle and as jocund as to jest\nGo I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFarewell, my lord: securely I espy\nVirtue with valour couched in thine eye.\nOrder the trial, marshal, and begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nReceive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStrong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n\nLord Marshal:\nGo bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.\n\nFirst Herald:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nStands here for God, his sovereign and himself,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nTo prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\nA traitor to his God, his king and him;\nAnd dares him to set forward to the fight.\n\nSecond Herald:\nHere standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nBoth to defend himself and to approve\nHenry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\nTo God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;\nCourageously and with a free desire\nAttending but the signal to begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nSound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\nStay, the king hath thrown his warder down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nLet them lay by their helmets and their spears,\nAnd both return back to their chairs again:\nWithdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound\nWhile we return these dukes what we decree.\nDraw near,\nAnd list what with our council we have done.\nFor that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\nWith that dear blood which it hath fostered;\nAnd for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\nOf civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\nAnd for we think the eagle-winged pride\nOf sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\nWith rival-hating envy, set on you\nTo wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\nDraws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\nWhich so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,\nWith harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\nAnd grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\nMight from our quiet confines fright fair peace\nAnd make us wade even in our kindred's blood,\nTherefore, we banish you our territories:\nYou, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\nTill twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\nShall not regreet our fair dominions,\nBut tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYour will be done: this must my comfort be,\nSun that warms you here shall shine on me;\nAnd those his golden beams to you here lent\nShall point on me and gild my banishment.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\nWhich I with some unwillingness pronounce:\nThe sly slow hours shall not determinate\nThe dateless limit of thy dear exile;\nThe hopeless word of 'never to return'\nBreathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nA heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\nAnd all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:\nA dearer merit, not so deep a maim\nAs to be cast forth in the common air,\nHave I deserved at your highness' hands.\nThe language I have learn'd these forty years,\nMy native English, now I must forego:\nAnd now my tongue's use is to me no more\nThan an unstringed viol or a harp,\nOr like a cunning instrument cased up,\nOr, being open, put into his hands\nThat knows no touch to tune the harmony:\nWithin my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\nDoubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\nAnd dull unfeeling barren ignorance\nIs made my gaoler to attend on me.\nI am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\nToo far in years to be a pupil now:\nWhat is thy sentence then but speechless death,\nWhich robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIt boots thee not to be compassionate:\nAfter our sentence plaining comes too late.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen thus I turn me from my country's light,\nTo dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nReturn again, and take an oath with thee.\nLay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\nSwear by the duty that you owe to God--\nOur part therein we banish with yourselves--\nTo keep the oath that we administer:\nYou never shall, so help you truth and God!\nEmbrace each other's love in banishment;\nNor never look upon each other's face;\nNor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\nThis louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\nNor never by advised purpose meet\nTo plot, contrive, or complot any ill\n'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI swear.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nAnd I, to keep all this.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNorfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--\nBy this time, had the king permitted us,\nOne of our souls had wander'd in the air.\nBanish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\nAs now our flesh is banish'd from this land:\nConfess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\nSince thou hast far to go, bear not along\nThe clogging burthen of a guilty soul.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nNo, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,\nMy name be blotted from the book of life,\nAnd I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\nBut what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;\nAnd all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.\nFarewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;\nSave back to England, all the world's my way.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nUncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\nI see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect\nHath from the number of his banish'd years\nPluck'd four away.\nSix frozen winter spent,\nReturn with welcome home from banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow long a time lies in one little word!\nFour lagging winters and four wanton springs\nEnd in a word: such is the breath of kings.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI thank my liege, that in regard of me\nHe shortens four years of my son's exile:\nBut little vantage shall I reap thereby;\nFor, ere the six years that he hath to spend\nCan change their moons and bring their times about\nMy oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\nShall be extinct with age and endless night;\nMy inch of taper will be burnt and done,\nAnd blindfold death not let me see my son.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nBut not a minute, king, that thou canst give:\nShorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,\nAnd pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\nThou canst help time to furrow me with age,\nBut stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\nThy word is current with him for my death,\nBut dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThy son is banish'd upon good advice,\nWhereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:\nWhy at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThings sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\nYou urged me as a judge; but I had rather\nYou would have bid me argue like a father.\nO, had it been a stranger, not my child,\nTo smooth his fault I should have been more mild:\nA partial slander sought I to avoid,\nAnd in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\nAlas, I look'd when some of you should say,\nI was too strict to make mine own away;\nBut you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\nAgainst my will to do myself this wrong.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:\nSix years we banish him, and he shall go.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nCousin, farewell: what presence must not know,\nFrom where you do remain let paper show.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,\nAs far as land will let me, by your side.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\nThat thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI have too few to take my leave of you,\nWhen the tongue's office should be prodigal\nTo breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nJoy absent, grief is present for that time.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhat is six winters? they are quickly gone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nTo men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCall it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\nWhich finds it an inforced pilgrimage.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThe sullen passage of thy weary steps\nEsteem as foil wherein thou art to set\nThe precious jewel of thy home return.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNay, rather, every tedious stride I make\nWill but remember me what a deal of world\nI wander from the jewels that I love.\nMust I not serve a long apprenticehood\nTo foreign passages, and in the end,\nHaving my freedom, boast of nothing else\nBut that I was a journeyman to grief?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAll places that the eye of heaven visits\nAre to a wise man ports and happy havens.\nTeach thy necessity to reason thus;\nThere is no virtue like necessity.\nThink not the king did banish thee,\nBut thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,\nWhere it perceives it is but faintly borne.\nGo, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour\nAnd not the king exiled thee; or suppose\nDevouring pestilence hangs in our air\nAnd thou art flying to a fresher clime:\nLook, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\nTo lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:\nSuppose the singing birds musicians,\nThe grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\nThe flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\nThan a delightful measure or a dance;\nFor gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\nThe man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, who can hold a fire in his hand\nBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\nOr cloy the hungry edge of appetite\nBy bare imagination of a feast?\nOr wallow naked in December snow\nBy thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\nO, no! the apprehension of the good\nGives but the greater feeling to the worse:\nFell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\nThan when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCome, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:\nHad I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThen, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\nMy mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\nWhere'er I wander, boast of this I can,\nThough banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\nHow far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\nBut to the next highway, and there I left him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFaith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\nWhich then blew bitterly against our faces,\nAwaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\nDid grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat said our cousin when you parted with him?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\n'Farewell:'\nAnd, for my heart disdained that my tongue\nShould so profane the word, that taught me craft\nTo counterfeit oppression of such grief\nThat words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\nMarry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours\nAnd added years to his short banishment,\nHe should have had a volume of farewells;\nBut since it would not, he had none of me.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\nWhen time shall call him home from banishment,\nWhether our kinsman come to see his friends.\nOurself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green\nObserved his courtship to the common people;\nHow he did seem to dive into their hearts\nWith humble and familiar courtesy,\nWhat reverence he did throw away on slaves,\nWooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\nAnd patient underbearing of his fortune,\nAs 'twere to banish their affects with him.\nOff goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\nA brace of draymen bid God speed him well\nAnd had the tribute of his supple knee,\nWith 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'\nAs were our England in reversion his,\nAnd he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.\nNow for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\nExpedient manage must be made, my liege,\nEre further leisure yield them further means\nFor their advantage and your highness' loss.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will ourself in person to this war:\nAnd, for our coffers, with too great a court\nAnd liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\nWe are inforced to farm our royal realm;\nThe revenue whereof shall furnish us\nFor our affairs in hand: if that come short,\nOur substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\nWhereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\nThey shall subscribe them for large sums of gold\nAnd send them after to supply our wants;\nFor we will make for Ireland presently.\nBushy, what news?\n\nBUSHY:\nOld John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\nSuddenly taken; and hath sent post haste\nTo entreat your majesty to visit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhere lies he?\n\nBUSHY:\nAt Ely House.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNow put it, God, in the physician's mind\nTo help him to his grave immediately!\nThe lining of his coffers shall make coats\nTo deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\nCome, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:\nPray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n\nAll:\nAmen.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWill the king come, that I may breathe my last\nIn wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nVex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\nFor all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, but they say the tongues of dying men\nEnforce attention like deep harmony:\nWhere words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,\nFor they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.\nHe that no more must say is listen'd more\nThan they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\nMore are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:\nThe setting sun, and music at the close,\nAs the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\nWrit in remembrance more than things long past:\nThough Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\nMy death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\nAs praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\nLascivious metres, to whose venom sound\nThe open ear of youth doth always listen;\nReport of fashions in proud Italy,\nWhose manners still our tardy apish nation\nLimps after in base imitation.\nWhere doth the world thrust forth a vanity--\nSo it be new, there's no respect how vile--\nThat is not quickly buzzed into his ears?\nThen all too late comes counsel to be heard,\nWhere will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\nDirect not him whose way himself will choose:\n'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nMethinks I am a prophet new inspired\nAnd thus expiring do foretell of him:\nHis rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\nFor violent fires soon burn out themselves;\nSmall showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\nHe tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\nWith eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:\nLight vanity, insatiate cormorant,\nConsuming means, soon preys upon itself.\nThis royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,\nThis earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\nThis other Eden, demi-paradise,\nThis fortress built by Nature for herself\nAgainst infection and the hand of war,\nThis happy breed of men, this little world,\nThis precious stone set in the silver sea,\nWhich serves it in the office of a wall,\nOr as a moat defensive to a house,\nAgainst the envy of less happier lands,\nThis blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\nThis nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\nFear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,\nRenowned for their deeds as far from home,\nFor Christian service and true chivalry,\nAs is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,\nOf the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,\nThis land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\nDear for her reputation through the world,\nIs now leased out, I die pronouncing it,\nLike to a tenement or pelting farm:\nEngland, bound in with the triumphant sea\nWhose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\nOf watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\nWith inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:\nThat England, that was wont to conquer others,\nHath made a shameful conquest of itself.\nAh, would the scandal vanish with my life,\nHow happy then were my ensuing death!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe king is come: deal mildly with his youth;\nFor young hot colts being raged do rage the more.\n\nQUEEN:\nHow fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO how that name befits my composition!\nOld Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:\nWithin me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\nAnd who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\nFor sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\nWatching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:\nThe pleasure that some fathers feed upon,\nIs my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;\nAnd therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:\nGaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\nWhose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCan sick men play so nicely with their names?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, misery makes sport to mock itself:\nSince thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\nI mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nShould dying men flatter with those that live?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, no, men living flatter those that die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNow He that made me knows I see thee ill;\nIll in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\nThy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\nWherein thou liest in reputation sick;\nAnd thou, too careless patient as thou art,\nCommit'st thy anointed body to the cure\nOf those physicians that first wounded thee:\nA thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\nWhose compass is no bigger than thy head;\nAnd yet, incaged in so small a verge,\nThe waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\nO, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\nSeen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\nFrom forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\nDeposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\nWhich art possess'd now to depose thyself.\nWhy, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\nIt were a shame to let this land by lease;\nBut for thy world enjoying but this land,\nIs it not more than shame to shame it so?\nLandlord of England art thou now, not king:\nThy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA lunatic lean-witted fool,\nPresuming on an ague's privilege,\nDarest with thy frozen admonition\nMake pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\nWith fury from his native residence.\nNow, by my seat's right royal majesty,\nWert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\nThis tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\nShould run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\nFor that I was his father Edward's son;\nThat blood already, like the pelican,\nHast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:\nMy brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,\nWhom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!\nMay be a precedent and witness good\nThat thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:\nJoin with the present sickness that I have;\nAnd thy unkindness be like crooked age,\nTo crop at once a too long wither'd flower.\nLive in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\nThese words hereafter thy tormentors be!\nConvey me to my bed, then to my grave:\nLove they to live that love and honour have.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd let them die that age and sullens have;\nFor both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI do beseech your majesty, impute his words\nTo wayward sickliness and age in him:\nHe loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\nAs Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRight, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\nAs theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat says he?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, nothing; all is said\nHis tongue is now a stringless instrument;\nWords, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBe York the next that must be bankrupt so!\nThough death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\nHis time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\nSo much for that. Now for our Irish wars:\nWe must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\nWhich live like venom where no venom else\nBut only they have privilege to live.\nAnd for these great affairs do ask some charge,\nTowards our assistance we do seize to us\nThe plate, corn, revenues and moveables,\nWhereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHow long shall I be patient? ah, how long\nShall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\nNot Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment\nNot Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\nNor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\nAbout his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\nHave ever made me sour my patient cheek,\nOr bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\nI am the last of noble Edward's sons,\nOf whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:\nIn war was never lion raged more fierce,\nIn peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\nThan was that young and princely gentleman.\nHis face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\nAccomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\nBut when he frown'd, it was against the French\nAnd not against his friends; his noble hand\nDid will what he did spend and spent not that\nWhich his triumphant father's hand had won;\nHis hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\nBut bloody with the enemies of his kin.\nO Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\nOr else he never would compare between.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy, uncle, what's the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nO my liege,\nPardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased\nNot to be pardon'd, am content withal.\nSeek you to seize and gripe into your hands\nThe royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\nIs not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?\nWas not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?\nDid not the one deserve to have an heir?\nIs not his heir a well-deserving son?\nTake Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\nHis charters and his customary rights;\nLet not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\nBe not thyself; for how art thou a king\nBut by fair sequence and succession?\nNow, afore God--God forbid I say true!--\nIf you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\nCall in the letters patent that he hath\nBy his attorneys-general to sue\nHis livery, and deny his offer'd homage,\nYou pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\nYou lose a thousand well-disposed hearts\nAnd prick my tender patience, to those thoughts\nWhich honour and allegiance cannot think.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThink what you will, we seize into our hands\nHis plate, his goods, his money and his lands.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:\nWhat will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;\nBut by bad courses may be understood\nThat their events can never fall out good.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGo, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:\nBid him repair to us to Ely House\nTo see this business. To-morrow next\nWe will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:\nAnd we create, in absence of ourself,\nOur uncle York lord governor of England;\nFor he is just and always loved us well.\nCome on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;\nBe merry, for our time of stay is short\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nAnd living too; for now his son is duke.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBarely in title, not in revenue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRichly in both, if justice had her right.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nMy heart is great; but it must break with silence,\nEre't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more\nThat speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nTends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\nIf it be so, out with it boldly, man;\nQuick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nNo good at all that I can do for him;\nUnless you call it good to pity him,\nBereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNow, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\nIn him, a royal prince, and many moe\nOf noble blood in this declining land.\nThe king is not himself, but basely led\nBy flatterers; and what they will inform,\nMerely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,\nThat will the king severely prosecute\n'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,\nAnd quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined\nFor ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd daily new exactions are devised,\nAs blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:\nBut what, o' God's name, doth become of this?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\nBut basely yielded upon compromise\nThat which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:\nMore hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nThe king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nReproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nHe hath not money for these Irish wars,\nHis burthenous taxations notwithstanding,\nBut by the robbing of the banish'd duke.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHis noble kinsman: most degenerate king!\nBut, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\nYet see no shelter to avoid the storm;\nWe see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\nAnd yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nWe see the very wreck that we must suffer;\nAnd unavoided is the danger now,\nFor suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNot so; even through the hollow eyes of death\nI spy life peering; but I dare not say\nHow near the tidings of our comfort is.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nNay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nBe confident to speak, Northumberland:\nWe three are but thyself; and, speaking so,\nThy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay\nIn Brittany, received intelligence\nThat Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\nThat late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\nHis brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\nSir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\nSir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,\nAll these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne\nWith eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\nAre making hither with all due expedience\nAnd shortly mean to touch our northern shore:\nPerhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\nThe first departing of the king for Ireland.\nIf then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\nImp out our drooping country's broken wing,\nRedeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\nWipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt\nAnd make high majesty look like itself,\nAway with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\nBut if you faint, as fearing to do so,\nStay and be secret, and myself will go.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nTo horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nHold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n\nBUSHY:\nMadam, your majesty is too much sad:\nYou promised, when you parted with the king,\nTo lay aside life-harming heaviness\nAnd entertain a cheerful disposition.\n\nQUEEN:\nTo please the king I did; to please myself\nI cannot do it; yet I know no cause\nWhy I should welcome such a guest as grief,\nSave bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\nAs my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,\nSome unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\nIs coming towards me, and my inward soul\nWith nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,\nMore than with parting from my lord the king.\n\nBUSHY:\nEach substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\nWhich shows like grief itself, but is not so;\nFor sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\nDivides one thing entire to many objects;\nLike perspectives, which rightly gazed upon\nShow nothing but confusion, eyed awry\nDistinguish form: so your sweet majesty,\nLooking awry upon your lord's departure,\nFind shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;\nWhich, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\nOf what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,\nMore than your lord's departure weep not: more's not seen;\nOr if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\nWhich for things true weeps things imaginary.\n\nQUEEN:\nIt may be so; but yet my inward soul\nPersuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,\nI cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\nAs, though on thinking on no thought I think,\nMakes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n\nBUSHY:\n'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived\nFrom some forefather grief; mine is not so,\nFor nothing had begot my something grief;\nOr something hath the nothing that I grieve:\n'Tis in reversion that I do possess;\nBut what it is, that is not yet known; what\nI cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\nGREEN:\nGod save your majesty! and well met, gentlemen:\nI hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhy hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;\nFor his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:\nThen wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n\nGREEN:\nThat he, our hope, might have retired his power,\nAnd driven into despair an enemy's hope,\nWho strongly hath set footing in this land:\nThe banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\nAnd with uplifted arms is safe arrived\nAt Ravenspurgh.\n\nQUEEN:\nNow God in heaven forbid!\n\nGREEN:\nAh, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,\nThe Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\nThe Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\nWith all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n\nBUSHY:\nWhy have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\nAnd all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n\nGREEN:\nWe have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester\nHath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\nAnd all the household servants fled with him\nTo Bolingbroke.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\nAnd Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:\nNow hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,\nAnd I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\nHave woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n\nBUSHY:\nDespair not, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nWho shall hinder me?\nI will despair, and be at enmity\nWith cozening hope: he is a flatterer,\nA parasite, a keeper back of death,\nWho gently would dissolve the bands of life,\nWhich false hope lingers in extremity.\n\nGREEN:\nHere comes the Duke of York.\n\nQUEEN:\nWith signs of war about his aged neck:\nO, full of careful business are his looks!\nUncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShould I do so, I should belie my thoughts:\nComfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\nWhere nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.\nYour husband, he is gone to save far off,\nWhilst others come to make him lose at home:\nHere am I left to underprop his land,\nWho, weak with age, cannot support myself:\nNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\nNow shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, your son was gone before I came.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHe was? Why, so! go all which way it will!\nThe nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,\nAnd will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\nSirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\nBid her send me presently a thousand pound:\nHold, take my ring.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\nTo-day, as I came by, I called there;\nBut I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat is't, knave?\n\nServant:\nAn hour before I came, the duchess died.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGod for his mercy! what a tide of woes\nComes rushing on this woeful land at once!\nI know not what to do: I would to God,\nSo my untruth had not provoked him to it,\nThe king had cut off my head with my brother's.\nWhat, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\nHow shall we do for money for these wars?\nCome, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.\nGo, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts\nAnd bring away the armour that is there.\nGentlemen, will you go muster men?\nIf I know how or which way to order these affairs\nThus thrust disorderly into my hands,\nNever believe me. Both are my kinsmen:\nThe one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\nAnd duty bids defend; the other again\nIs my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,\nWhom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\nWell, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll\nDispose of you.\nGentlemen, go, muster up your men,\nAnd meet me presently at Berkeley.\nI should to Plashy too;\nBut time will not permit: all is uneven,\nAnd every thing is left at six and seven.\n\nBUSHY:\nThe wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,\nBut none returns. For us to levy power\nProportionable to the enemy\nIs all unpossible.\n\nGREEN:\nBesides, our nearness to the king in love\nIs near the hate of those love not the king.\n\nBAGOT:\nAnd that's the wavering commons: for their love\nLies in their purses, and whoso empties them\nBy so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n\nBUSHY:\nWherein the king stands generally condemn'd.\n\nBAGOT:\nIf judgement lie in them, then so do we,\nBecause we ever have been near the king.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, I will for refuge straight to Bristol castle:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n\nBUSHY:\nThither will I with you; for little office\nThe hateful commons will perform for us,\nExcept like curs to tear us all to pieces.\nWill you go along with us?\n\nBAGOT:\nNo; I will to Ireland to his majesty.\nFarewell: if heart's presages be not vain,\nWe three here art that ne'er shall meet again.\n\nBUSHY:\nThat's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n\nGREEN:\nAlas, poor duke! the task he undertakes\nIs numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:\nWhere one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\nFarewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.\n\nBUSHY:\nWell, we may meet again.\n\nBAGOT:\nI fear me, never.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBelieve me, noble lord,\nI am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:\nThese high wild hills and rough uneven ways\nDraws out our miles, and makes them wearisome,\nAnd yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\nMaking the hard way sweet and delectable.\nBut I bethink me what a weary way\nFrom Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\nIn Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\nWhich, I protest, hath very much beguiled\nThe tediousness and process of my travel:\nBut theirs is sweetened with the hope to have\nThe present benefit which I possess;\nAnd hope to joy is little less in joy\nThan hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords\nShall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\nBy sight of what I have, your noble company.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOf much less value is my company\nThan your good words. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my son, young Harry Percy,\nSent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\nHarry, how fares your uncle?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nI had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhy, is he not with the queen?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good Lord; he hath forsook the court,\nBroken his staff of office and dispersed\nThe household of the king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat was his reason?\nHe was not so resolved when last we spake together.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nBecause your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\nBut he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\nTo offer service to the Duke of Hereford,\nAnd sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\nWhat power the Duke of York had levied there;\nThen with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHave you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good lord, for that is not forgot\nWhich ne'er I did remember: to my knowledge,\nI never in my life did look on him.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen learn to know him now; this is the duke.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy gracious lord, I tender you my service,\nSuch as it is, being tender, raw and young:\nWhich elder days shall ripen and confirm\nTo more approved service and desert.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\nI count myself in nothing else so happy\nAs in a soul remembering my good friends;\nAnd, as my fortune ripens with thy love,\nIt shall be still thy true love's recompense:\nMy heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHow far is it to Berkeley? and what stir\nKeeps good old York there with his men of war?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThere stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\nMann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\nAnd in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;\nNone else of name and noble estimate.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHere come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\nBloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWelcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\nA banish'd traitor: all my treasury\nIs yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich'd\nShall be your love and labour's recompense.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nYour presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nEvermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\nWhich, till my infant fortune comes to years,\nStands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMy Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy lord, my answer is--to Lancaster;\nAnd I am come to seek that name in England;\nAnd I must find that title in your tongue,\nBefore I make reply to aught you say.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\nTo raze one title of your honour out:\nTo you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,\nFrom the most gracious regent of this land,\nThe Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\nTo take advantage of the absent time\nAnd fright our native peace with self-born arms.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI shall not need transport my words by you;\nHere comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShow me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\nWhose duty is deceiveable and false.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle--\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTut, tut!\nGrace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:\nI am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace.'\nIn an ungracious mouth is but profane.\nWhy have those banish'd and forbidden legs\nDared once to touch a dust of England's ground?\nBut then more 'why?' why have they dared to march\nSo many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\nFrighting her pale-faced villages with war\nAnd ostentation of despised arms?\nComest thou because the anointed king is hence?\nWhy, foolish boy, the king is left behind,\nAnd in my loyal bosom lies his power.\nWere I but now the lord of such hot youth\nAs when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\nRescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\nFrom forth the ranks of many thousand French,\nO, then how quickly should this arm of mine.\nNow prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee\nAnd minister correction to thy fault!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle, let me know my fault:\nOn what condition stands it and wherein?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nEven in condition of the worst degree,\nIn gross rebellion and detested treason:\nThou art a banish'd man, and here art come\nBefore the expiration of thy time,\nIn braving arms against thy sovereign.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\nBut as I come, I come for Lancaster.\nAnd, noble uncle, I beseech your grace\nLook on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:\nYou are my father, for methinks in you\nI see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,\nWill you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\nA wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\nPluck'd from my arms perforce and given away\nTo upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\nIf that my cousin king be King of England,\nIt must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\nYou have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\nHad you first died, and he been thus trod down,\nHe should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,\nTo rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\nI am denied to sue my livery here,\nAnd yet my letters-patents give me leave:\nMy father's goods are all distrain'd and sold,\nAnd these and all are all amiss employ'd.\nWhat would you have me do? I am a subject,\nAnd I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;\nAnd therefore, personally I lay my claim\nTo my inheritance of free descent.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath been too much abused.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nIt stands your grace upon to do him right.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBase men by his endowments are made great.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMy lords of England, let me tell you this:\nI have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs\nAnd laboured all I could to do him right;\nBut in this kind to come, in braving arms,\nBe his own carver and cut out his way,\nTo find out right with wrong, it may not be;\nAnd you that do abet him in this kind\nCherish rebellion and are rebels all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath sworn his coming is\nBut for his own; and for the right of that\nWe all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\nAnd let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, well, I see the issue of these arms:\nI cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\nBecause my power is weak and all ill left:\nBut if I could, by Him that gave me life,\nI would attach you all and make you stoop\nUnto the sovereign mercy of the king;\nBut since I cannot, be it known to you\nI do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\nUnless you please to enter in the castle\nAnd there repose you for this night.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAn offer, uncle, that we will accept:\nBut we must win your grace to go with us\nTo Bristol castle, which they say is held\nBy Bushy, Bagot and their complices,\nThe caterpillars of the commonwealth,\nWhich I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt may be I will go with you: but yet I'll pause;\nFor I am loath to break our country's laws.\nNor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:\nThings past redress are now with me past care.\n\nCaptain:\nMy lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days,\nAnd hardly kept our countrymen together,\nAnd yet we hear no tidings from the king;\nTherefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nStay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:\nThe king reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n\nCaptain:\n'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.\nThe bay-trees in our country are all wither'd\nAnd meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\nThe pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth\nAnd lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\nRich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,\nThe one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\nThe other to enjoy by rage and war:\nThese signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\nFarewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,\nAs well assured Richard their king is dead.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nAh, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind\nI see thy glory like a shooting star\nFall to the base earth from the firmament.\nThy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\nWitnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:\nThy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,\nAnd crossly to thy good all fortune goes.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBring forth these men.\nBushy and Green, I will not vex your souls--\nSince presently your souls must part your bodies--\nWith too much urging your pernicious lives,\nFor 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\nFrom off my hands, here in the view of men\nI will unfold some causes of your deaths.\nYou have misled a prince, a royal king,\nA happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\nBy you unhappied and disfigured clean:\nYou have in manner with your sinful hours\nMade a divorce betwixt his queen and him,\nBroke the possession of a royal bed\nAnd stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\nWith tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.\nMyself, a prince by fortune of my birth,\nNear to the king in blood, and near in love\nTill you did make him misinterpret me,\nHave stoop'd my neck under your injuries,\nAnd sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\nEating the bitter bread of banishment;\nWhilst you have fed upon my signories,\nDispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\nFrom my own windows torn my household coat,\nRazed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,\nSave men's opinions and my living blood,\nTo show the world I am a gentleman.\nThis and much more, much more than twice all this,\nCondemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over\nTo execution and the hand of death.\n\nBUSHY:\nMore welcome is the stroke of death to me\nThan Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n\nGREEN:\nMy comfort is that heaven will take our souls\nAnd plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\nUncle, you say the queen is at your house;\nFor God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:\nTell her I send to her my kind commends;\nTake special care my greetings be deliver'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nA gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\nWith letters of your love to her at large.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThank, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away.\nTo fight with Glendower and his complices:\nAwhile to work, and after holiday.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBarkloughly castle call they this at hand?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,\nAfter your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNeeds must I like it well: I weep for joy\nTo stand upon my kingdom once again.\nDear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\nThough rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:\nAs a long-parted mother with her child\nPlays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\nSo, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,\nAnd do thee favours with my royal hands.\nFeed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\nNor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\nBut let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\nAnd heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,\nDoing annoyance to the treacherous feet\nWhich with usurping steps do trample thee:\nYield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\nAnd when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\nGuard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder\nWhose double tongue may with a mortal touch\nThrow death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\nMock not my senseless conjuration, lords:\nThis earth shall have a feeling and these stones\nProve armed soldiers, ere her native king\nShall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nFear not, my lord: that Power that made you king\nHath power to keep you king in spite of all.\nThe means that heaven yields must be embraced,\nAnd not neglected; else, if heaven would,\nAnd we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\nThe proffer'd means of succor and redress.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nHe means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\nWhilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\nGrows strong and great in substance and in power.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDiscomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\nThat when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\nBehind the globe, that lights the lower world,\nThen thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\nIn murders and in outrage, boldly here;\nBut when from under this terrestrial ball\nHe fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\nAnd darts his light through every guilty hole,\nThen murders, treasons and detested sins,\nThe cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\nStand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\nSo when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\nWho all this while hath revell'd in the night\nWhilst we were wandering with the antipodes,\nShall see us rising in our throne, the east,\nHis treasons will sit blushing in his face,\nNot able to endure the sight of day,\nBut self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\nNot all the water in the rough rude sea\nCan wash the balm off from an anointed king;\nThe breath of worldly men cannot depose\nThe deputy elected by the Lord:\nFor every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\nTo lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\nGod for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\nA glorious angel: then, if angels fight,\nWeak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.\nWelcome, my lord how far off lies your power?\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nNor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\nThan this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue\nAnd bids me speak of nothing but despair.\nOne day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\nHath clouded all thy happy days on earth:\nO, call back yesterday, bid time return,\nAnd thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\nTo-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\nO'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:\nFor all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.\nAre gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBut now the blood of twenty thousand men\nDid triumph in my face, and they are fled;\nAnd, till so much blood thither come again,\nHave I not reason to look pale and dead?\nAll souls that will be safe fly from my side,\nFor time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI had forgot myself; am I not king?\nAwake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\nIs not the king's name twenty thousand names?\nArm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\nAt thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\nYe favourites of a king: are we not high?\nHigh be our thoughts: I know my uncle York\nHath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMore health and happiness betide my liege\nThan can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine ear is open and my heart prepared;\nThe worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\nSay, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care\nAnd what loss is it to be rid of care?\nStrives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\nGreater he shall not be; if he serve God,\nWe'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:\nRevolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;\nThey break their faith to God as well as us:\nCry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:\nThe worst is death, and death will have his day.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nGlad am I that your highness is so arm'd\nTo bear the tidings of calamity.\nLike an unseasonable stormy day,\nWhich makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\nAs if the world were all dissolved to tears,\nSo high above his limits swells the rage\nOf Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\nWith hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\nWhite-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\nAgainst thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\nStrive to speak big and clap their female joints\nIn stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:\nThe very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\nOf double-fatal yew against thy state;\nYea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\nAgainst thy seat: both young and old rebel,\nAnd all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nToo well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.\nWhere is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?\nWhat is become of Bushy? where is Green?\nThat they have let the dangerous enemy\nMeasure our confines with such peaceful steps?\nIf we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:\nI warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nPeace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\nDogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\nSnakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\nThree Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\nWould they make peace? terrible hell make war\nUpon their spotted souls for this offence!\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nSweet love, I see, changing his property,\nTurns to the sourest and most deadly hate:\nAgain uncurse their souls; their peace is made\nWith heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\nHave felt the worst of death's destroying wound\nAnd lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIs Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nAy, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the duke my father with his power?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo matter where; of comfort no man speak:\nLet's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\nMake dust our paper and with rainy eyes\nWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,\nLet's choose executors and talk of wills:\nAnd yet not so, for what can we bequeath\nSave our deposed bodies to the ground?\nOur lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,\nAnd nothing can we call our own but death\nAnd that small model of the barren earth\nWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.\nFor God's sake, let us sit upon the ground\nAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings;\nHow some have been deposed; some slain in war,\nSome haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;\nSome poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;\nAll murder'd: for within the hollow crown\nThat rounds the mortal temples of a king\nKeeps Death his court and there the antic sits,\nScoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,\nAllowing him a breath, a little scene,\nTo monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,\nInfusing him with self and vain conceit,\nAs if this flesh which walls about our life,\nWere brass impregnable, and humour'd thus\nComes at the last and with a little pin\nBores through his castle wall, and farewell king!\nCover your heads and mock not flesh and blood\nWith solemn reverence: throw away respect,\nTradition, form and ceremonious duty,\nFor you have but mistook me all this while:\nI live with bread like you, feel want,\nTaste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\nHow can you say to me, I am a king?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMy lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\nBut presently prevent the ways to wail.\nTo fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\nGives in your weakness strength unto your foe,\nAnd so your follies fight against yourself.\nFear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:\nAnd fight and die is death destroying death;\nWhere fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy father hath a power; inquire of him\nAnd learn to make a body of a limb.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come\nTo change blows with thee for our day of doom.\nThis ague fit of fear is over-blown;\nAn easy task it is to win our own.\nSay, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\nSpeak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMen judge by the complexion of the sky\nThe state and inclination of the day:\nSo may you by my dull and heavy eye,\nMy tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\nI play the torturer, by small and small\nTo lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\nYour uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,\nAnd all your northern castles yielded up,\nAnd all your southern gentlemen in arms\nUpon his party.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou hast said enough.\nBeshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\nOf that sweet way I was in to despair!\nWhat say you now? what comfort have we now?\nBy heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\nThat bids me be of comfort any more.\nGo to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;\nA king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\nThat power I have, discharge; and let them go\nTo ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\nFor I have none: let no man speak again\nTo alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy liege, one word.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe does me double wrong\nThat wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\nDischarge my followers: let them hence away,\nFrom Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo that by this intelligence we learn\nThe Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury\nIs gone to meet the king, who lately landed\nWith some few private friends upon this coast.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe news is very fair and good, my lord:\nRichard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt would beseem the Lord Northumberland\nTo say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day\nWhen such a sacred king should hide his head.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYour grace mistakes; only to be brief\nLeft I his title out.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe time hath been,\nWould you have been so brief with him, he would\nHave been so brief with you, to shorten you,\nFor taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTake not, good cousin, further than you should.\nLest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI know it, uncle, and oppose not myself\nAgainst their will. But who comes here?\nWelcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\nAgainst thy entrance.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRoyally!\nWhy, it contains no king?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nYes, my good lord,\nIt doth contain a king; King Richard lies\nWithin the limits of yon lime and stone:\nAnd with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\nSir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\nOf holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nO, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNoble lords,\nGo to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\nThrough brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\nInto his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\nHenry Bolingbroke\nOn both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand\nAnd sends allegiance and true faith of heart\nTo his most royal person, hither come\nEven at his feet to lay my arms and power,\nProvided that my banishment repeal'd\nAnd lands restored again be freely granted:\nIf not, I'll use the advantage of my power\nAnd lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\nRain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:\nThe which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\nIt is, such crimson tempest should bedrench\nThe fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\nMy stooping duty tenderly shall show.\nGo, signify as much, while here we march\nUpon the grassy carpet of this plain.\nLet's march without the noise of threatening drum,\nThat from this castle's tatter'd battlements\nOur fair appointments may be well perused.\nMethinks King Richard and myself should meet\nWith no less terror than the elements\nOf fire and water, when their thundering shock\nAt meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\nBe he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:\nThe rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\nMy waters; on the earth, and not on him.\nMarch on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\nSee, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\nAs doth the blushing discontented sun\nFrom out the fiery portal of the east,\nWhen he perceives the envious clouds are bent\nTo dim his glory and to stain the track\nOf his bright passage to the occident.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,\nAs bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\nControlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,\nThat any harm should stain so fair a show!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe are amazed; and thus long have we stood\nTo watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\nBecause we thought ourself thy lawful king:\nAnd if we be, how dare thy joints forget\nTo pay their awful duty to our presence?\nIf we be not, show us the hand of God\nThat hath dismissed us from our stewardship;\nFor well we know, no hand of blood and bone\nCan gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\nUnless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\nAnd though you think that all, as you have done,\nHave torn their souls by turning them from us,\nAnd we are barren and bereft of friends;\nYet know, my master, God omnipotent,\nIs mustering in his clouds on our behalf\nArmies of pestilence; and they shall strike\nYour children yet unborn and unbegot,\nThat lift your vassal hands against my head\nAnd threat the glory of my precious crown.\nTell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--\nThat every stride he makes upon my land\nIs dangerous treason: he is come to open\nThe purple testament of bleeding war;\nBut ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\nTen thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\nShall ill become the flower of England's face,\nChange the complexion of her maid-pale peace\nTo scarlet indignation and bedew\nHer pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe king of heaven forbid our lord the king\nShould so with civil and uncivil arms\nBe rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin\nHarry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand;\nAnd by the honourable tomb he swears,\nThat stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\nAnd by the royalties of both your bloods,\nCurrents that spring from one most gracious head,\nAnd by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\nAnd by the worth and honour of himself,\nComprising all that may be sworn or said,\nHis coming hither hath no further scope\nThan for his lineal royalties and to beg\nEnfranchisement immediate on his knees:\nWhich on thy royal party granted once,\nHis glittering arms he will commend to rust,\nHis barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\nTo faithful service of your majesty.\nThis swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\nAnd, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, say thus the king returns:\nHis noble cousin is right welcome hither;\nAnd all the number of his fair demands\nShall be accomplish'd without contradiction:\nWith all the gracious utterance thou hast\nSpeak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\nWe do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\nTo look so poorly and to speak so fair?\nShall we call back Northumberland, and send\nDefiance to the traitor, and so die?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNo, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\nTill time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,\nThat laid the sentence of dread banishment\nOn yon proud man, should take it off again\nWith words of sooth! O that I were as great\nAs is my grief, or lesser than my name!\nOr that I could forget what I have been,\nOr not remember what I must be now!\nSwell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\nSince foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNorthumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat must the king do now? must he submit?\nThe king shall do it: must he be deposed?\nThe king shall be contented: must he lose\nThe name of king? o' God's name, let it go:\nI'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\nMy gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\nMy gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\nMy figured goblets for a dish of wood,\nMy sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\nMy subjects for a pair of carved saints\nAnd my large kingdom for a little grave,\nA little little grave, an obscure grave;\nOr I'll be buried in the king's highway,\nSome way of common trade, where subjects' feet\nMay hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\nFor on my heart they tread now whilst I live;\nAnd buried once, why not upon my head?\nAumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\nWe'll make foul weather with despised tears;\nOur sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,\nAnd make a dearth in this revolting land.\nOr shall we play the wantons with our woes,\nAnd make some pretty match with shedding tears?\nAs thus, to drop them still upon one place,\nTill they have fretted us a pair of graves\nWithin the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies\nTwo kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\nWould not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\nI talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\nMost mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\nWhat says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty\nGive Richard leave to live till Richard die?\nYou make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, in the base court he doth attend\nTo speak with you; may it please you to come down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDown, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,\nWanting the manage of unruly jades.\nIn the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\nTo come at traitors' calls and do them grace.\nIn the base court? Come down? Down, court!\ndown, king!\nFor night-owls shriek where mounting larks\nshould sing.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat says his majesty?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSorrow and grief of heart\nMakes him speak fondly, like a frantic man\nYet he is come.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStand all apart,\nAnd show fair duty to his majesty.\nMy gracious lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFair cousin, you debase your princely knee\nTo make the base earth proud with kissing it:\nMe rather had my heart might feel your love\nThan my unpleased eye see your courtesy.\nUp, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\nThus high at least, although your knee be low.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\nAs my true service shall deserve your love.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWell you deserve: they well deserve to have,\nThat know the strong'st and surest way to get.\nUncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;\nTears show their love, but want their remedies.\nCousin, I am too young to be your father,\nThough you are old enough to be my heir.\nWhat you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\nFor do we must what force will have us do.\nSet on towards London, cousin, is it so?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYea, my good lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen I must not say no.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat sport shall we devise here in this garden,\nTo drive away the heavy thought of care?\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll play at bowls.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,\nAnd that my fortune rubs against the bias.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll dance.\n\nQUEEN:\nMy legs can keep no measure in delight,\nWhen my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:\nTherefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll tell tales.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf sorrow or of joy?\n\nLady:\nOf either, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf neither, girl:\nFor of joy, being altogether wanting,\nIt doth remember me the more of sorrow;\nOr if of grief, being altogether had,\nIt adds more sorrow to my want of joy:\nFor what I have I need not to repeat;\nAnd what I want it boots not to complain.\n\nLady:\nMadam, I'll sing.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis well that thou hast cause\nBut thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.\n\nLady:\nI could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd I could sing, would weeping do me good,\nAnd never borrow any tear of thee.\nBut stay, here come the gardeners:\nLet's step into the shadow of these trees.\nMy wretchedness unto a row of pins,\nThey'll talk of state; for every one doth so\nAgainst a change; woe is forerun with woe.\n\nGardener:\nGo, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\nWhich, like unruly children, make their sire\nStoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:\nGive some supportance to the bending twigs.\nGo thou, and like an executioner,\nCut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,\nThat look too lofty in our commonwealth:\nAll must be even in our government.\nYou thus employ'd, I will go root away\nThe noisome weeds, which without profit suck\nThe soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n\nServant:\nWhy should we in the compass of a pale\nKeep law and form and due proportion,\nShowing, as in a model, our firm estate,\nWhen our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\nIs full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,\nHer fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,\nHer knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs\nSwarming with caterpillars?\n\nGardener:\nHold thy peace:\nHe that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\nHath now himself met with the fall of leaf:\nThe weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\nThat seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\nAre pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,\nI mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n\nServant:\nWhat, are they dead?\n\nGardener:\nThey are; and Bolingbroke\nHath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it\nThat he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\nAs we this garden! We at time of year\nDo wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,\nLest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\nWith too much riches it confound itself:\nHad he done so to great and growing men,\nThey might have lived to bear and he to taste\nTheir fruits of duty: superfluous branches\nWe lop away, that bearing boughs may live:\nHad he done so, himself had borne the crown,\nWhich waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n\nServant:\nWhat, think you then the king shall be deposed?\n\nGardener:\nDepress'd he is already, and deposed\n'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night\nTo a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,\nThat tell black tidings.\n\nQUEEN:\nO, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\nThou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\nHow dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\nWhat Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee\nTo make a second fall of cursed man?\nWhy dost thou say King Richard is deposed?\nDarest thou, thou little better thing than earth,\nDivine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\nCamest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.\n\nGardener:\nPardon me, madam: little joy have I\nTo breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\nKing Richard, he is in the mighty hold\nOf Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:\nIn your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\nAnd some few vanities that make him light;\nBut in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\nBesides himself, are all the English peers,\nAnd with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\nPost you to London, and you will find it so;\nI speak no more than every one doth know.\n\nQUEEN:\nNimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\nDoth not thy embassage belong to me,\nAnd am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st\nTo serve me last, that I may longest keep\nThy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,\nTo meet at London London's king in woe.\nWhat, was I born to this, that my sad look\nShould grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\nGardener, for telling me these news of woe,\nPray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.\n\nGARDENER:\nPoor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,\nI would my skill were subject to thy curse.\nHere did she fall a tear; here in this place\nI'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:\nRue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\nIn the remembrance of a weeping queen.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCall forth Bagot.\nNow, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;\nWhat thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,\nWho wrought it with the king, and who perform'd\nThe bloody office of his timeless end.\n\nBAGOT:\nThen set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n\nBAGOT:\nMy Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\nScorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\nIn that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,\nI heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length,\nThat reacheth from the restful English court\nAs far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\nAmongst much other talk, that very time,\nI heard you say that you had rather refuse\nThe offer of an hundred thousand crowns\nThan Bolingbroke's return to England;\nAdding withal how blest this land would be\nIn this your cousin's death.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nPrinces and noble lords,\nWhat answer shall I make to this base man?\nShall I so much dishonour my fair stars,\nOn equal terms to give him chastisement?\nEither I must, or have mine honour soil'd\nWith the attainder of his slanderous lips.\nThere is my gage, the manual seal of death,\nThat marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,\nAnd will maintain what thou hast said is false\nIn thy heart-blood, though being all too base\nTo stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nExcepting one, I would he were the best\nIn all this presence that hath moved me so.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nIf that thy valour stand on sympathy,\nThere is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:\nBy that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\nI heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it\nThat thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\nIf thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;\nAnd I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\nWhere it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThou darest not, coward, live to see that day.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nNow by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nAumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\nIn this appeal as thou art all unjust;\nAnd that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\nTo prove it on thee to the extremest point\nOf mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nAn if I do not, may my hands rot off\nAnd never brandish more revengeful steel\nOver the glittering helmet of my foe!\n\nLord:\nI task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\nAnd spur thee on with full as many lies\nAs may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear\nFrom sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWho sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:\nI have a thousand spirits in one breast,\nTo answer twenty thousand such as you.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nMy Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\nThe very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\n'Tis very true: you were in presence then;\nAnd you can witness with me this is true.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nAs false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nSurrey, thou liest.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nDishonourable boy!\nThat lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,\nThat it shall render vengeance and revenge\nTill thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie\nIn earth as quiet as thy father's skull:\nIn proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nHow fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\nIf I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\nI dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\nAnd spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,\nAnd lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,\nTo tie thee to my strong correction.\nAs I intend to thrive in this new world,\nAumerle is guilty of my true appeal:\nBesides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\nThat thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\nTo execute the noble duke at Calais.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nSome honest Christian trust me with a gage\nThat Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,\nIf he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThese differences shall all rest under gage\nTill Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,\nAnd, though mine enemy, restored again\nTo all his lands and signories: when he's return'd,\nAgainst Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThat honourable day shall ne'er be seen.\nMany a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\nFor Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\nStreaming the ensign of the Christian cross\nAgainst black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:\nAnd toil'd with works of war, retired himself\nTo Italy; and there at Venice gave\nHis body to that pleasant country's earth,\nAnd his pure soul unto his captain Christ,\nUnder whose colours he had fought so long.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhy, bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nAs surely as I live, my lord.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\nOf good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\nYour differences shall all rest under gage\nTill we assign you to your days of trial.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGreat Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee\nFrom plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul\nAdopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\nTo the possession of thy royal hand:\nAscend his throne, descending now from him;\nAnd long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIn God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMarry. God forbid!\nWorst in this royal presence may I speak,\nYet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\nWould God that any in this noble presence\nWere enough noble to be upright judge\nOf noble Richard! then true noblesse would\nLearn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\nWhat subject can give sentence on his king?\nAnd who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\nThieves are not judged but they are by to hear,\nAlthough apparent guilt be seen in them;\nAnd shall the figure of God's majesty,\nHis captain, steward, deputy-elect,\nAnointed, crowned, planted many years,\nBe judged by subject and inferior breath,\nAnd he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\nThat in a Christian climate souls refined\nShould show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\nI speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\nStirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king:\nMy Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\nIs a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:\nAnd if you crown him, let me prophesy:\nThe blood of English shall manure the ground,\nAnd future ages groan for this foul act;\nPeace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\nAnd in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\nShall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\nDisorder, horror, fear and mutiny\nShall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\nThe field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\nO, if you raise this house against this house,\nIt will the woefullest division prove\nThat ever fell upon this cursed earth.\nPrevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\nLest child, child's children, cry against you woe!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\nOf capital treason we arrest you here.\nMy Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\nTo keep him safely till his day of trial.\nMay it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFetch hither Richard, that in common view\nHe may surrender; so we shall proceed\nWithout suspicion.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be his conduct.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLords, you that here are under our arrest,\nProcure your sureties for your days of answer.\nLittle are we beholding to your love,\nAnd little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAlack, why am I sent for to a king,\nBefore I have shook off the regal thoughts\nWherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\nTo insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs:\nGive sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\nTo this submission. Yet I well remember\nThe favours of these men: were they not mine?\nDid they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me?\nSo Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,\nFound truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none.\nGod save the king! Will no man say amen?\nAm I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.\nGod save the king! although I be not he;\nAnd yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\nTo do what service am I sent for hither?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTo do that office of thine own good will\nWhich tired majesty did make thee offer,\nThe resignation of thy state and crown\nTo Henry Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGive me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;\nHere cousin:\nOn this side my hand, and on that side yours.\nNow is this golden crown like a deep well\nThat owes two buckets, filling one another,\nThe emptier ever dancing in the air,\nThe other down, unseen and full of water:\nThat bucket down and full of tears am I,\nDrinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thought you had been willing to resign.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMy crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:\nYou may my glories and my state depose,\nBut not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPart of your cares you give me with your crown.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\nMy care is loss of care, by old care done;\nYour care is gain of care, by new care won:\nThe cares I give I have, though given away;\nThey tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAre you contented to resign the crown?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\nTherefore no no, for I resign to thee.\nNow mark me, how I will undo myself;\nI give this heavy weight from off my head\nAnd this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\nThe pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\nWith mine own tears I wash away my balm,\nWith mine own hands I give away my crown,\nWith mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\nWith mine own breath release all duty's rites:\nAll pomp and majesty I do forswear;\nMy manors, rents, revenues I forego;\nMy acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:\nGod pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\nGod keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!\nMake me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,\nAnd thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!\nLong mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\nAnd soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!\nGod save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,\nAnd send him many years of sunshine days!\nWhat more remains?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo more, but that you read\nThese accusations and these grievous crimes\nCommitted by your person and your followers\nAgainst the state and profit of this land;\nThat, by confessing them, the souls of men\nMay deem that you are worthily deposed.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMust I do so? and must I ravel out\nMy weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland,\nIf thy offences were upon record,\nWould it not shame thee in so fair a troop\nTo read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\nThere shouldst thou find one heinous article,\nContaining the deposing of a king\nAnd cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\nMark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven:\nNay, all of you that stand and look upon,\nWhilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\nThough some of you with Pilate wash your hands\nShowing an outward pity; yet you Pilates\nHave here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\nAnd water cannot wash away your sin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:\nAnd yet salt water blinds them not so much\nBut they can see a sort of traitors here.\nNay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\nI find myself a traitor with the rest;\nFor I have given here my soul's consent\nTo undeck the pompous body of a king;\nMade glory base and sovereignty a slave,\nProud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\nNor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,\nNo, not that name was given me at the font,\nBut 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day,\nThat I have worn so many winters out,\nAnd know not now what name to call myself!\nO that I were a mockery king of snow,\nStanding before the sun of Bolingbroke,\nTo melt myself away in water-drops!\nGood king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\nAn if my word be sterling yet in England,\nLet it command a mirror hither straight,\nThat it may show me what a face I have,\nSince it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRead o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nUrge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe commons will not then be satisfied.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThey shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,\nWhen I do see the very book indeed\nWhere all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\nGive me the glass, and therein will I read.\nNo deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck\nSo many blows upon this face of mine,\nAnd made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,\nLike to my followers in prosperity,\nThou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\nThat every day under his household roof\nDid keep ten thousand men? was this the face\nThat, like the sun, did make beholders wink?\nWas this the face that faced so many follies,\nAnd was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?\nA brittle glory shineth in this face:\nAs brittle as the glory is the face;\nFor there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\nMark, silent king, the moral of this sport,\nHow soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThe shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\nThe shadow or your face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSay that again.\nThe shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:\n'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;\nAnd these external manners of laments\nAre merely shadows to the unseen grief\nThat swells with silence in the tortured soul;\nThere lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,\nFor thy great bounty, that not only givest\nMe cause to wail but teachest me the way\nHow to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\nAnd then be gone and trouble you no more.\nShall I obtain it?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nName it, fair cousin.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\n'Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king:\nFor when I was a king, my flatterers\nWere then but subjects; being now a subject,\nI have a king here to my flatterer.\nBeing so great, I have no need to beg.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYet ask.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd shall I have?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYou shall.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen give me leave to go.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhither?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhither you will, so I were from your sights.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO, good! convey? conveyers are you all,\nThat rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOn Wednesday next we solemnly set down\nOur coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.\n\nAbbot:\nA woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThe woe's to come; the children yet unborn.\nShall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYou holy clergymen, is there no plot\nTo rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n\nAbbot:\nMy lord,\nBefore I freely speak my mind herein,\nYou shall not only take the sacrament\nTo bury mine intents, but also to effect\nWhatever I shall happen to devise.\nI see your brows are full of discontent,\nYour hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears:\nCome home with me to supper; and I'll lay\nA plot shall show us all a merry day.\n\nQUEEN:\nThis way the king will come; this is the way\nTo Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\nTo whose flint bosom my condemned lord\nIs doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:\nHere let us rest, if this rebellious earth\nHave any resting for her true king's queen.\nBut soft, but see, or rather do not see,\nMy fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,\nThat you in pity may dissolve to dew,\nAnd wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\nAh, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,\nThou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\nAnd not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\nWhy should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee,\nWhen triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nJoin not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\nTo make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,\nTo think our former state a happy dream;\nFrom which awaked, the truth of what we are\nShows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\nTo grim Necessity, and he and I\nWill keep a league till death. Hie thee to France\nAnd cloister thee in some religious house:\nOur holy lives must win a new world's crown,\nWhich our profane hours here have stricken down.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat, is my Richard both in shape and mind\nTransform'd and weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed\nThine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?\nThe lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,\nAnd wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\nTo be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\nTake thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,\nAnd fawn on rage with base humility,\nWhich art a lion and a king of beasts?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,\nI had been still a happy king of men.\nGood sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:\nThink I am dead and that even here thou takest,\nAs from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\nIn winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\nWith good old folks and let them tell thee tales\nOf woeful ages long ago betid;\nAnd ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs,\nTell thou the lamentable tale of me\nAnd send the hearers weeping to their beds:\nFor why, the senseless brands will sympathize\nThe heavy accent of thy moving tongue\nAnd in compassion weep the fire out;\nAnd some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\nFor the deposing of a rightful king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed:\nYou must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\nAnd, madam, there is order ta'en for you;\nWith all swift speed you must away to France.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\nThe mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\nThe time shall not be many hours of age\nMore than it is ere foul sin gathering head\nShalt break into corruption: thou shalt think,\nThough he divide the realm and give thee half,\nIt is too little, helping him to all;\nAnd he shall think that thou, which know'st the way\nTo plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\nBeing ne'er so little urged, another way\nTo pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\nThe love of wicked men converts to fear;\nThat fear to hate, and hate turns one or both\nTo worthy danger and deserved death.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy guilt be on my head, and there an end.\nTake leave and part; for you must part forthwith.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDoubly divorced! Bad men, you violate\nA twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,\nAnd then betwixt me and my married wife.\nLet me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\nAnd yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\nPart us, Northumberland; I toward the north,\nWhere shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\nMy wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp,\nShe came adorned hither like sweet May,\nSent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd must we be divided? must we part?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nBanish us both and send the king with me.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThat were some love but little policy.\n\nQUEEN:\nThen whither he goes, thither let me go.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo two, together weeping, make one woe.\nWeep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\nBetter far off than near, be ne'er the near.\nGo, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo longest way shall have the longest moans.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTwice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\nAnd piece the way out with a heavy heart.\nCome, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\nSince, wedding it, there is such length in grief;\nOne kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\nThus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nGive me mine own again; 'twere no good part\nTo take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\nSo, now I have mine own again, be gone,\nThat I might strive to kill it with a groan.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe make woe wanton with this fond delay:\nOnce more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\nWhen weeping made you break the story off,\nof our two cousins coming into London.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhere did I leave?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAt that sad stop, my lord,\nWhere rude misgovern'd hands from windows' tops\nThrew dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThen, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,\nMounted upon a hot and fiery steed\nWhich his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\nWith slow but stately pace kept on his course,\nWhilst all tongues cried 'God save thee,\nBolingbroke!'\nYou would have thought the very windows spake,\nSo many greedy looks of young and old\nThrough casements darted their desiring eyes\nUpon his visage, and that all the walls\nWith painted imagery had said at once\n'Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!'\nWhilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\nBareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\nBespake them thus: 'I thank you, countrymen:'\nAnd thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAs in a theatre, the eyes of men,\nAfter a well-graced actor leaves the stage,\nAre idly bent on him that enters next,\nThinking his prattle to be tedious;\nEven so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\nDid scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\nNo joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:\nBut dust was thrown upon his sacred head:\nWhich with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\nHis face still combating with tears and smiles,\nThe badges of his grief and patience,\nThat had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\nThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted\nAnd barbarism itself have pitied him.\nBut heaven hath a hand in these events,\nTo whose high will we bound our calm contents.\nTo Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\nWhose state and honour I for aye allow.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHere comes my son Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAumerle that was;\nBut that is lost for being Richard's friend,\nAnd, madam, you must call him Rutland now:\nI am in parliament pledge for his truth\nAnd lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWelcome, my son: who are the violets now\nThat strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMadam, I know not, nor I greatly care not:\nGod knows I had as lief be none as one.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, bear you well in this new spring of time,\nLest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\nWhat news from Oxford? hold those justs and triumphs?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor aught I know, my lord, they do.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYou will be there, I know.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIf God prevent not, I purpose so.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat seal is that, that hangs without thy bosom?\nYea, look'st thou pale? let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy lord, 'tis nothing.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo matter, then, who see it;\nI will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech your grace to pardon me:\nIt is a matter of small consequence,\nWhich for some reasons I would not have seen.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhich for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\nI fear, I fear,--\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat should you fear?\n'Tis nothing but some bond, that he is enter'd into\nFor gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBound to himself! what doth he with a bond\nThat he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\nBoy, let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\nTreason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHo! who is within there?\nSaddle my horse.\nGod for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, what is it, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\nNow, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,\nI will appeach the villain.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeace, foolish woman.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGood mother, be content; it is no more\nThan my poor life must answer.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThy life answer!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBring me my boots: I will unto the king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nStrike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amazed.\nHence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, York, what wilt thou do?\nWilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\nHave we more sons? or are we like to have?\nIs not my teeming date drunk up with time?\nAnd wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,\nAnd rob me of a happy mother's name?\nIs he not like thee? is he not thine own?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou fond mad woman,\nWilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\nA dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\nAnd interchangeably set down their hands,\nTo kill the king at Oxford.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHe shall be none;\nWe'll keep him here: then what is that to him?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAway, fond woman! were he twenty times my son,\nI would appeach him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHadst thou groan'd for him\nAs I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\nBut now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect\nThat I have been disloyal to thy bed,\nAnd that he is a bastard, not thy son:\nSweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:\nHe is as like thee as a man may be,\nNot like to me, or any of my kin,\nAnd yet I love him.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMake way, unruly woman!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAfter, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse;\nSpur post, and get before him to the king,\nAnd beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\nI'll not be long behind; though I be old,\nI doubt not but to ride as fast as York:\nAnd never will I rise up from the ground\nTill Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCan no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n'Tis full three months since I did see him last;\nIf any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\nI would to God, my lords, he might be found:\nInquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\nFor there, they say, he daily doth frequent,\nWith unrestrained loose companions,\nEven such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,\nAnd beat our watch, and rob our passengers;\nWhich he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\nTakes on the point of honour to support\nSo dissolute a crew.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy lord, some two days since I saw the prince,\nAnd told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAnd what said the gallant?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nHis answer was, he would unto the stews,\nAnd from the common'st creature pluck a glove,\nAnd wear it as a favour; and with that\nHe would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs dissolute as desperate; yet through both\nI see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\nMay happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the king?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat means our cousin, that he stares and looks\nSo wildly?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGod save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,\nTo have some conference with your grace alone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWithdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\nWhat is the matter with our cousin now?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor ever may my knees grow to the earth,\nMy tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth\nUnless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIntended or committed was this fault?\nIf on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\nTo win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThen give me leave that I may turn the key,\nThat no man enter till my tale be done.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHave thy desire.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nVillain, I'll make thee safe.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nStay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat is the matter, uncle? speak;\nRecover breath; tell us how near is danger,\nThat we may arm us to encounter it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\nThe treason that my haste forbids me show.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nRemember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd:\nI do repent me; read not my name there\nMy heart is not confederate with my hand.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\nI tore it from the traitor's bosom, king;\nFear, and not love, begets his penitence:\nForget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\nA serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!\nO loyal father of a treacherous son!\nThou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,\nFrom when this stream through muddy passages\nHath held his current and defiled himself!\nThy overflow of good converts to bad,\nAnd thy abundant goodness shall excuse\nThis deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSo shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\nAnd he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\nAs thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\nMine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\nOr my shamed life in his dishonour lies:\nThou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\nThe traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA woman, and thy aunt, great king; 'tis I.\nSpeak with me, pity me, open the door.\nA beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOur scene is alter'd from a serious thing,\nAnd now changed to 'The Beggar and the King.'\nMy dangerous cousin, let your mother in:\nI know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIf thou do pardon, whosoever pray,\nMore sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\nThis fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\nThis let alone will all the rest confound.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO king, believe not this hard-hearted man!\nLove loving not itself none other can.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\nShall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRise up, good aunt.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNot yet, I thee beseech:\nFor ever will I walk upon my knees,\nAnd never see day that the happy sees,\nTill thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,\nBy pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nUnto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAgainst them both my true joints bended be.\nIll mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPleads he in earnest? look upon his face;\nHis eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\nHis words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:\nHe prays but faintly and would be denied;\nWe pray with heart and soul and all beside:\nHis weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\nOur knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:\nHis prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\nOurs of true zeal and deep integrity.\nOur prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\nThat mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNay, do not say, 'stand up;'\nSay, 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\nAnd if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\nI never long'd to hear a word till now;\nSay 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:\nThe word is short, but not so short as sweet;\nNo word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSpeak it in French, king; say, 'pardonne moi.'\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nDost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\nAh, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\nThat set'st the word itself against the word!\nSpeak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\nThe chopping French we do not understand.\nThine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;\nOr in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;\nThat hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\nPity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI do not sue to stand;\nPardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\nYet am I sick for fear: speak it again;\nTwice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\nBut makes one pardon strong.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWith all my heart\nI pardon him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA god on earth thou art.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBut for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,\nWith all the rest of that consorted crew,\nDestruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\nGood uncle, help to order several powers\nTo Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:\nThey shall not live within this world, I swear,\nBut I will have them, if I once know where.\nUncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:\nYour mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nCome, my old son: I pray God make thee new.\n\nEXTON:\nDidst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,\n'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\nWas it not so?\n\nServant:\nThese were his very words.\n\nEXTON:\n'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,\nAnd urged it twice together, did he not?\n\nServant:\nHe did.\n\nEXTON:\nAnd speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,\nAnd who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'\nThat would divorce this terror from my heart;'\nMeaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:\nI am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI have been studying how I may compare\nThis prison where I live unto the world:\nAnd for because the world is populous\nAnd here is not a creature but myself,\nI cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.\nMy brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\nMy soul the father; and these two beget\nA generation of still-breeding thoughts,\nAnd these same thoughts people this little world,\nIn humours like the people of this world,\nFor no thought is contented. The better sort,\nAs thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\nWith scruples and do set the word itself\nAgainst the word:\nAs thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,\n'It is as hard to come as for a camel\nTo thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\nThoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\nUnlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails\nMay tear a passage through the flinty ribs\nOf this hard world, my ragged prison walls,\nAnd, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\nThoughts tending to content flatter themselves\nThat they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\nNor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\nWho sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,\nThat many have and others must sit there;\nAnd in this thought they find a kind of ease,\nBearing their own misfortunes on the back\nOf such as have before endured the like.\nThus play I in one person many people,\nAnd none contented: sometimes am I king;\nThen treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\nAnd so I am: then crushing penury\nPersuades me I was better when a king;\nThen am I king'd again: and by and by\nThink that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\nAnd straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,\nNor I nor any man that but man is\nWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased\nWith being nothing. Music do I hear?\nHa, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,\nWhen time is broke and no proportion kept!\nSo is it in the music of men's lives.\nAnd here have I the daintiness of ear\nTo cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;\nBut for the concord of my state and time\nHad not an ear to hear my true time broke.\nI wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\nFor now hath time made me his numbering clock:\nMy thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\nTheir watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\nWhereto my finger, like a dial's point,\nIs pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\nNow sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\nAre clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,\nWhich is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans\nShow minutes, times, and hours: but my time\nRuns posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\nWhile I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.\nThis music mads me; let it sound no more;\nFor though it have holp madmen to their wits,\nIn me it seems it will make wise men mad.\nYet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\nFor 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\nIs a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\nGroom:\nHail, royal prince!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThanks, noble peer;\nThe cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\nWhat art thou? and how comest thou hither,\nWhere no man never comes but that sad dog\nThat brings me food to make misfortune live?\n\nGroom:\nI was a poor groom of thy stable, king,\nWhen thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\nWith much ado at length have gotten leave\nTo look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\nO, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld\nIn London streets, that coronation-day,\nWhen Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,\nThat horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\nThat horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\nHow went he under him?\n\nGroom:\nSo proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\nThat jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\nThis hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\nWould he not stumble? would he not fall down,\nSince pride must have a fall, and break the neck\nOf that proud man that did usurp his back?\nForgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,\nSince thou, created to be awed by man,\nWast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\nAnd yet I bear a burthen like an ass,\nSpurr'd, gall'd and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.\n\nKeeper:\nFellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIf thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n\nGroom:\nWhat my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, will't please you to fall to?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTaste of it first, as thou art wont to do.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Exton, who\nlately came from the king, commands the contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\nPatience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n\nKeeper:\nHelp, help, help!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow now! what means death in this rude assault?\nVillain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\nGo thou, and fill another room in hell.\nThat hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\nThat staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\nHath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.\nMount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\nWhilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n\nEXTON:\nAs full of valour as of royal blood:\nBoth have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!\nFor now the devil, that told me I did well,\nSays that this deed is chronicled in hell.\nThis dead king to the living king I'll bear\nTake hence the rest, and give them burial here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nKind uncle York, the latest news we hear\nIs that the rebels have consumed with fire\nOur town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;\nBut whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\nWelcome, my lord what is the news?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nFirst, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\nThe next news is, I have to London sent\nThe heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent:\nThe manner of their taking may appear\nAt large discoursed in this paper here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWe thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\nAnd to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nMy lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\nThe heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,\nTwo of the dangerous consorted traitors\nThat sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\nRight noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\nWith clog of conscience and sour melancholy\nHath yielded up his body to the grave;\nBut here is Carlisle living, to abide\nThy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCarlisle, this is your doom:\nChoose out some secret place, some reverend room,\nMore than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\nSo as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:\nFor though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\nHigh sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\nEXTON:\nGreat king, within this coffin I present\nThy buried fear: herein all breathless lies\nThe mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\nRichard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nExton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\nA deed of slander with thy fatal hand\nUpon my head and all this famous land.\n\nEXTON:\nFrom your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThey love not poison that do poison need,\nNor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,\nI hate the murderer, love him murdered.\nThe guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\nBut neither my good word nor princely favour:\nWith Cain go wander through shades of night,\nAnd never show thy head by day nor light.\nLords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,\nThat blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:\nCome, mourn with me for that I do lament,\nAnd put on sullen black incontinent:\nI'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\nTo wash this blood off from my guilty hand:\nMarch sadly after; grace my mournings here;\nIn weeping after this untimely bier.\n\n\nSAMPSON:\nGregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, for then we should be colliers.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n\nGREGORY:\nAy, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI strike quickly, being moved.\n\nGREGORY:\nBut thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n\nGREGORY:\nTo move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:\ntherefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will\ntake the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n\nGREGORY:\nThat shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes\nto the wall.\n\nSAMPSON:\nTrue; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\nare ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push\nMontague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids\nto the wall.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n\nSAMPSON:\n'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I\nhave fought with the men, I will be cruel with the\nmaids, and cut off their heads.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe heads of the maids?\n\nSAMPSON:\nAy, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;\ntake it in what sense thou wilt.\n\nGREGORY:\nThey must take it in sense that feel it.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMe they shall feel while I am able to stand: and\n'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.\n\nGREGORY:\n'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou\nhadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes\ntwo of the house of the Montagues.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMy naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.\n\nGREGORY:\nHow! turn thy back and run?\n\nSAMPSON:\nFear me not.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, marry; I fear thee!\n\nSAMPSON:\nLet us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n\nGREGORY:\nI will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as\nthey list.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;\nwhich is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\nI do bite my thumb, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\n\nGREGORY:\nNo.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNo, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I\nbite my thumb, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nDo you quarrel, sir?\n\nABRAHAM:\nQuarrel sir! no, sir.\n\nSAMPSON:\nIf you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.\n\nABRAHAM:\nNo better.\n\nSAMPSON:\nWell, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nSay 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.\n\nSAMPSON:\nYes, better, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nYou lie.\n\nSAMPSON:\nDraw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nPart, fools!\nPut up your swords; you know not what you do.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\nTurn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,\nOr manage it to part these men with me.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,\nAs I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:\nHave at thee, coward!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nClubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!\nDown with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?\n\nCAPULET:\nMy sword, I say! Old Montague is come,\nAnd flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nThou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.\n\nPRINCE:\nRebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\nProfaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--\nWill they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\nThat quench the fire of your pernicious rage\nWith purple fountains issuing from your veins,\nOn pain of torture, from those bloody hands\nThrow your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,\nAnd hear the sentence of your moved prince.\nThree civil brawls, bred of an airy word,\nBy thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\nHave thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,\nAnd made Verona's ancient citizens\nCast by their grave beseeming ornaments,\nTo wield old partisans, in hands as old,\nCanker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:\nIf ever you disturb our streets again,\nYour lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\nFor this time, all the rest depart away:\nYou Capulet; shall go along with me:\nAnd, Montague, come you this afternoon,\nTo know our further pleasure in this case,\nTo old Free-town, our common judgment-place.\nOnce more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWho set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\nSpeak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere were the servants of your adversary,\nAnd yours, close fighting ere I did approach:\nI drew to part them: in the instant came\nThe fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,\nWhich, as he breathed defiance to my ears,\nHe swung about his head and cut the winds,\nWho nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:\nWhile we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\nCame more and more and fought on part and part,\nTill the prince came, who parted either part.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nO, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?\nRight glad I am he was not at this fray.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMadam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\nPeer'd forth the golden window of the east,\nA troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\nWhere, underneath the grove of sycamore\nThat westward rooteth from the city's side,\nSo early walking did I see your son:\nTowards him I made, but he was ware of me\nAnd stole into the covert of the wood:\nI, measuring his affections by my own,\nThat most are busied when they're most alone,\nPursued my humour not pursuing his,\nAnd gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMany a morning hath he there been seen,\nWith tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.\nAdding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\nBut all so soon as the all-cheering sun\nShould in the furthest east begin to draw\nThe shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\nAway from the light steals home my heavy son,\nAnd private in his chamber pens himself,\nShuts up his windows, locks far daylight out\nAnd makes himself an artificial night:\nBlack and portentous must this humour prove,\nUnless good counsel may the cause remove.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMy noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI neither know it nor can learn of him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHave you importuned him by any means?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBoth by myself and many other friends:\nBut he, his own affections' counsellor,\nIs to himself--I will not say how true--\nBut to himself so secret and so close,\nSo far from sounding and discovery,\nAs is the bud bit with an envious worm,\nEre he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,\nOr dedicate his beauty to the sun.\nCould we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.\nWe would as willingly give cure as know.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSee, where he comes: so please you, step aside;\nI'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI would thou wert so happy by thy stay,\nTo hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGood-morrow, cousin.\n\nROMEO:\nIs the day so young?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBut new struck nine.\n\nROMEO:\nAy me! sad hours seem long.\nWas that my father that went hence so fast?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIt was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n\nROMEO:\nNot having that, which, having, makes them short.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIn love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut--\n\nBENVOLIO:\nOf love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut of her favour, where I am in love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAlas, that love, so gentle in his view,\nShould be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n\nROMEO:\nAlas, that love, whose view is muffled still,\nShould, without eyes, see pathways to his will!\nWhere shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\nYet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\nHere's much to do with hate, but more with love.\nWhy, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\nO any thing, of nothing first create!\nO heavy lightness! serious vanity!\nMis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\nFeather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,\nsick health!\nStill-waking sleep, that is not what it is!\nThis love feel I, that feel no love in this.\nDost thou not laugh?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNo, coz, I rather weep.\n\nROMEO:\nGood heart, at what?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt thy good heart's oppression.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, such is love's transgression.\nGriefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\nWhich thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\nWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shown\nDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.\nLove is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;\nBeing purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\nBeing vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:\nWhat is it else? a madness most discreet,\nA choking gall and a preserving sweet.\nFarewell, my coz.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSoft! I will go along;\nAn if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n\nROMEO:\nTut, I have lost myself; I am not here;\nThis is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTell me in sadness, who is that you love.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall I groan and tell thee?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGroan! why, no.\nBut sadly tell me who.\n\nROMEO:\nBid a sick man in sadness make his will:\nAh, word ill urged to one that is so ill!\nIn sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.\n\nROMEO:\nA right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nA right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit\nWith Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;\nAnd, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\nFrom love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\nShe will not stay the siege of loving terms,\nNor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,\nNor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:\nO, she is rich in beauty, only poor,\nThat when she dies with beauty dies her store.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThen she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n\nROMEO:\nShe hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,\nFor beauty starved with her severity\nCuts beauty off from all posterity.\nShe is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\nTo merit bliss by making me despair:\nShe hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\nDo I live dead that live to tell it now.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBe ruled by me, forget to think of her.\n\nROMEO:\nO, teach me how I should forget to think.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy giving liberty unto thine eyes;\nExamine other beauties.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis the way\nTo call hers exquisite, in question more:\nThese happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows\nBeing black put us in mind they hide the fair;\nHe that is strucken blind cannot forget\nThe precious treasure of his eyesight lost:\nShow me a mistress that is passing fair,\nWhat doth her beauty serve, but as a note\nWhere I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\nFarewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.\n\nCAPULET:\nBut Montague is bound as well as I,\nIn penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\nFor men so old as we to keep the peace.\n\nPARIS:\nOf honourable reckoning are you both;\nAnd pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.\nBut now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n\nCAPULET:\nBut saying o'er what I have said before:\nMy child is yet a stranger in the world;\nShe hath not seen the change of fourteen years,\nLet two more summers wither in their pride,\nEre we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n\nPARIS:\nYounger than she are happy mothers made.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd too soon marr'd are those so early made.\nThe earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,\nShe is the hopeful lady of my earth:\nBut woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,\nMy will to her consent is but a part;\nAn she agree, within her scope of choice\nLies my consent and fair according voice.\nThis night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\nWhereto I have invited many a guest,\nSuch as I love; and you, among the store,\nOne more, most welcome, makes my number more.\nAt my poor house look to behold this night\nEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:\nSuch comfort as do lusty young men feel\nWhen well-apparell'd April on the heel\nOf limping winter treads, even such delight\nAmong fresh female buds shall you this night\nInherit at my house; hear all, all see,\nAnd like her most whose merit most shall be:\nWhich on more view, of many mine being one\nMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,\nCome, go with me.\nGo, sirrah, trudge about\nThrough fair Verona; find those persons out\nWhose names are written there, and to them say,\nMy house and welcome on their pleasure stay.\n\nServant:\nFind them out whose names are written here! It is\nwritten, that the shoemaker should meddle with his\nyard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with\nhis pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am\nsent to find those persons whose names are here\nwrit, and can never find what names the writing\nperson hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,\nOne pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\nTurn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\nOne desperate grief cures with another's languish:\nTake thou some new infection to thy eye,\nAnd the rank poison of the old will die.\n\nROMEO:\nYour plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nFor what, I pray thee?\n\nROMEO:\nFor your broken shin.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, Romeo, art thou mad?\n\nROMEO:\nNot mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;\nShut up in prison, kept without my food,\nWhipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.\n\nServant:\nGod gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, mine own fortune in my misery.\n\nServant:\nPerhaps you have learned it without book: but, I\npray, can you read any thing you see?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, if I know the letters and the language.\n\nServant:\nYe say honestly: rest you merry!\n\nROMEO:\nStay, fellow; I can read.\n'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\nCounty Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady\nwidow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely\nnieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine\nuncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece\nRosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin\nTybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair\nassembly: whither should they come?\n\nServant:\nUp.\n\nROMEO:\nWhither?\n\nServant:\nTo supper; to our house.\n\nROMEO:\nWhose house?\n\nServant:\nMy master's.\n\nROMEO:\nIndeed, I should have ask'd you that before.\n\nServant:\nNow I'll tell you without asking: my master is the\ngreat rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house\nof Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.\nRest you merry!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt this same ancient feast of Capulet's\nSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,\nWith all the admired beauties of Verona:\nGo thither; and, with unattainted eye,\nCompare her face with some that I shall show,\nAnd I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n\nROMEO:\nWhen the devout religion of mine eye\nMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\nAnd these, who often drown'd could never die,\nTransparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\nOne fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun\nNe'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, you saw her fair, none else being by,\nHerself poised with herself in either eye:\nBut in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\nYour lady's love against some other maid\nThat I will show you shining at this feast,\nAnd she shall scant show well that now shows best.\n\nROMEO:\nI'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\nBut to rejoice in splendor of mine own.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.\n\nNurse:\nNow, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,\nI bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!\nGod forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nHow now! who calls?\n\nNurse:\nYour mother.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am here.\nWhat is your will?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThis is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,\nWe must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;\nI have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.\nThou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nShe's not fourteen.\n\nNurse:\nI'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--\nAnd yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--\nShe is not fourteen. How long is it now\nTo Lammas-tide?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA fortnight and odd days.\n\nNurse:\nEven or odd, of all days in the year,\nCome Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.\nSusan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--\nWere of an age: well, Susan is with God;\nShe was too good for me: but, as I said,\nOn Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;\nThat shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\nAnd she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--\nOf all the days of the year, upon that day:\nFor I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\nSitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;\nMy lord and you were then at Mantua:--\nNay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,\nWhen it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\nOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\nTo see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\nShake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,\nTo bid me trudge:\nAnd since that time it is eleven years;\nFor then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,\nShe could have run and waddled all about;\nFor even the day before, she broke her brow:\nAnd then my husband--God be with his soul!\nA' was a merry man--took up the child:\n'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,\nThe pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'\nTo see, now, how a jest shall come about!\nI warrant, an I should live a thousand years,\nI never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;\nAnd, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEnough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.\n\nNurse:\nYes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,\nTo think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\nAnd yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow\nA bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;\nA parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:\n'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nJULIET:\nAnd stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n\nNurse:\nPeace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\nThou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:\nAn I might live to see thee married once,\nI have my wish.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, that 'marry' is the very theme\nI came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\nHow stands your disposition to be married?\n\nJULIET:\nIt is an honour that I dream not of.\n\nNurse:\nAn honour! were not I thine only nurse,\nI would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, think of marriage now; younger than you,\nHere in Verona, ladies of esteem,\nAre made already mothers: by my count,\nI was your mother much upon these years\nThat you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\nThe valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n\nNurse:\nA man, young lady! lady, such a man\nAs all the world--why, he's a man of wax.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nVerona's summer hath not such a flower.\n\nNurse:\nNay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat say you? can you love the gentleman?\nThis night you shall behold him at our feast;\nRead o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\nAnd find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\nExamine every married lineament,\nAnd see how one another lends content\nAnd what obscured in this fair volume lies\nFind written in the margent of his eyes.\nThis precious book of love, this unbound lover,\nTo beautify him, only lacks a cover:\nThe fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\nFor fair without the fair within to hide:\nThat book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\nThat in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\nSo shall you share all that he doth possess,\nBy having him, making yourself no less.\n\nNurse:\nNo less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSpeak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n\nJULIET:\nI'll look to like, if looking liking move:\nBut no more deep will I endart mine eye\nThan your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\nServant:\nMadam, the guests are come, supper served up, you\ncalled, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in\nthe pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must\nhence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe follow thee.\nJuliet, the county stays.\n\nNurse:\nGo, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\nOr shall we on without a apology?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe date is out of such prolixity:\nWe'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\nBearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\nScaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;\nNor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\nAfter the prompter, for our entrance:\nBut let them measure us by what they will;\nWe'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me a torch: I am not for this ambling;\nBeing but heavy, I will bear the light.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I, believe me: you have dancing shoes\nWith nimble soles: I have a soul of lead\nSo stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYou are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,\nAnd soar with them above a common bound.\n\nROMEO:\nI am too sore enpierced with his shaft\nTo soar with his light feathers, and so bound,\nI cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:\nUnder love's heavy burden do I sink.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd, to sink in it, should you burden love;\nToo great oppression for a tender thing.\n\nROMEO:\nIs love a tender thing? it is too rough,\nToo rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be rough with you, be rough with love;\nPrick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\nGive me a case to put my visage in:\nA visor for a visor! what care I\nWhat curious eye doth quote deformities?\nHere are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, knock and enter; and no sooner in,\nBut every man betake him to his legs.\n\nROMEO:\nA torch for me: let wantons light of heart\nTickle the senseless rushes with their heels,\nFor I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;\nI'll be a candle-holder, and look on.\nThe game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:\nIf thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\nOf this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\nUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n\nROMEO:\nNay, that's not so.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI mean, sir, in delay\nWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\nTake our good meaning, for our judgment sits\nFive times in that ere once in our five wits.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd we mean well in going to this mask;\nBut 'tis no wit to go.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, may one ask?\n\nROMEO:\nI dream'd a dream to-night.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd so did I.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, what was yours?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat dreamers often lie.\n\nROMEO:\nIn bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\nShe is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\nIn shape no bigger than an agate-stone\nOn the fore-finger of an alderman,\nDrawn with a team of little atomies\nAthwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\nHer wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,\nThe cover of the wings of grasshoppers,\nThe traces of the smallest spider's web,\nThe collars of the moonshine's watery beams,\nHer whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,\nHer wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,\nNot so big as a round little worm\nPrick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\nHer chariot is an empty hazel-nut\nMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\nTime out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\nAnd in this state she gallops night by night\nThrough lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\nO'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,\nO'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,\nO'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\nWhich oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\nBecause their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:\nSometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\nAnd then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\nAnd sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\nTickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,\nThen dreams, he of another benefice:\nSometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\nAnd then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\nOf breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\nOf healths five-fathom deep; and then anon\nDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\nAnd being thus frighted swears a prayer or two\nAnd sleeps again. This is that very Mab\nThat plats the manes of horses in the night,\nAnd bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,\nWhich once untangled, much misfortune bodes:\nThis is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\nThat presses them and learns them first to bear,\nMaking them women of good carriage:\nThis is she--\n\nROMEO:\nPeace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\nThou talk'st of nothing.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTrue, I talk of dreams,\nWhich are the children of an idle brain,\nBegot of nothing but vain fantasy,\nWhich is as thin of substance as the air\nAnd more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\nEven now the frozen bosom of the north,\nAnd, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\nTurning his face to the dew-dropping south.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThis wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;\nSupper is done, and we shall come too late.\n\nROMEO:\nI fear, too early: for my mind misgives\nSome consequence yet hanging in the stars\nShall bitterly begin his fearful date\nWith this night's revels and expire the term\nOf a despised life closed in my breast\nBy some vile forfeit of untimely death.\nBut He, that hath the steerage of my course,\nDirect my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStrike, drum.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWhere's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He\nshift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!\n\nSecond Servant:\nWhen good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\nhands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAway with the joint-stools, remove the\ncourt-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save\nme a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let\nthe porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\nAntony, and Potpan!\n\nSecond Servant:\nAy, boy, ready.\n\nFirst Servant:\nYou are looked for and called for, asked for and\nsought for, in the great chamber.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWe cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be\nbrisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.\n\nCAPULET:\nWelcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes\nUnplagued with corns will have a bout with you.\nAh ha, my mistresses! which of you all\nWill now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,\nShe, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?\nWelcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\nThat I have worn a visor and could tell\nA whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\nSuch as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:\nYou are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.\nA hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\nMore light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,\nAnd quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\nAh, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\nNay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;\nFor you and I are past our dancing days:\nHow long is't now since last yourself and I\nWere in a mask?\n\nSecond Capulet:\nBy'r lady, thirty years.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:\n'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,\nCome pentecost as quickly as it will,\nSome five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.\n\nSecond Capulet:\n'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;\nHis son is thirty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWill you tell me that?\nHis son was but a ward two years ago.\n\nROMEO:\n\nServant:\nI know not, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nO, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\nIt seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\nLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;\nBeauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\nSo shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,\nAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\nThe measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,\nAnd, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\nDid my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!\nFor I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n\nTYBALT:\nThis, by his voice, should be a Montague.\nFetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave\nCome hither, cover'd with an antic face,\nTo fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\nNow, by the stock and honour of my kin,\nTo strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?\n\nTYBALT:\nUncle, this is a Montague, our foe,\nA villain that is hither come in spite,\nTo scorn at our solemnity this night.\n\nCAPULET:\nYoung Romeo is it?\n\nTYBALT:\n'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n\nCAPULET:\nContent thee, gentle coz, let him alone;\nHe bears him like a portly gentleman;\nAnd, to say truth, Verona brags of him\nTo be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:\nI would not for the wealth of all the town\nHere in my house do him disparagement:\nTherefore be patient, take no note of him:\nIt is my will, the which if thou respect,\nShow a fair presence and put off these frowns,\nAnd ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n\nTYBALT:\nIt fits, when such a villain is a guest:\nI'll not endure him.\n\nCAPULET:\nHe shall be endured:\nWhat, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;\nAm I the master here, or you? go to.\nYou'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!\nYou'll make a mutiny among my guests!\nYou will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n\nTYBALT:\nWhy, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo to, go to;\nYou are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?\nThis trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:\nYou must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.\nWell said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:\nBe quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!\nI'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!\n\nTYBALT:\nPatience perforce with wilful choler meeting\nMakes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\nI will withdraw: but this intrusion shall\nNow seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\nGood pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this;\nFor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n\nROMEO:\nHave not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n\nJULIET:\nAy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.\n\nROMEO:\nO, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;\nThey pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n\nJULIET:\nSaints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n\nROMEO:\nThen move not, while my prayer's effect I take.\nThus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.\n\nJULIET:\nThen have my lips the sin that they have took.\n\nROMEO:\nSin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!\nGive me my sin again.\n\nJULIET:\nYou kiss by the book.\n\nNurse:\nMadam, your mother craves a word with you.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat is her mother?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, bachelor,\nHer mother is the lady of the house,\nAnd a good lady, and a wise and virtuous\nI nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;\nI tell you, he that can lay hold of her\nShall have the chinks.\n\nROMEO:\nIs she a Capulet?\nO dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAway, begone; the sport is at the best.\n\nROMEO:\nAy, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n\nCAPULET:\nNay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\nWe have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\nIs it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all\nI thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.\nMore torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.\nAh, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:\nI'll to my rest.\n\nJULIET:\nCome hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n\nNurse:\nThe son and heir of old Tiberio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that now is going out of door?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n\nNurse:\nI know not.\n\nJULIET:\nGo ask his name: if he be married.\nMy grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n\nNurse:\nHis name is Romeo, and a Montague;\nThe only son of your great enemy.\n\nJULIET:\nMy only love sprung from my only hate!\nToo early seen unknown, and known too late!\nProdigious birth of love it is to me,\nThat I must love a loathed enemy.\n\nNurse:\nWhat's this? what's this?\n\nJULIET:\nA rhyme I learn'd even now\nOf one I danced withal.\n\nNurse:\nAnon, anon!\nCome, let's away; the strangers all are gone.\n\nChorus:\nNow old desire doth in his death-bed lie,\nAnd young affection gapes to be his heir;\nThat fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\nWith tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\nNow Romeo is beloved and loves again,\nAlike betwitched by the charm of looks,\nBut to his foe supposed he must complain,\nAnd she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:\nBeing held a foe, he may not have access\nTo breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;\nAnd she as much in love, her means much less\nTo meet her new-beloved any where:\nBut passion lends them power, time means, to meet\nTempering extremities with extreme sweet.\n\nROMEO:\nCan I go forward when my heart is here?\nTurn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo! my cousin Romeo!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHe is wise;\nAnd, on my lie, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHe ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:\nCall, good Mercutio.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I'll conjure too.\nRomeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\nAppear thou in the likeness of a sigh:\nSpeak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;\nCry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'\nSpeak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\nOne nick-name for her purblind son and heir,\nYoung Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,\nWhen King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!\nHe heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;\nThe ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\nI conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,\nBy her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\nBy her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh\nAnd the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\nThat in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThis cannot anger him: 'twould anger him\nTo raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\nOf some strange nature, letting it there stand\nTill she had laid it and conjured it down;\nThat were some spite: my invocation\nIs fair and honest, and in his mistress' name\nI conjure only but to raise up him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, he hath hid himself among these trees,\nTo be consorted with the humorous night:\nBlind is his love and best befits the dark.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\nNow will he sit under a medlar tree,\nAnd wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\nAs maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.\nRomeo, that she were, O, that she were\nAn open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!\nRomeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;\nThis field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:\nCome, shall we go?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGo, then; for 'tis in vain\nTo seek him here that means not to be found.\n\nROMEO:\nHe jests at scars that never felt a wound.\nBut, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?\nIt is the east, and Juliet is the sun.\nArise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\nWho is already sick and pale with grief,\nThat thou her maid art far more fair than she:\nBe not her maid, since she is envious;\nHer vestal livery is but sick and green\nAnd none but fools do wear it; cast it off.\nIt is my lady, O, it is my love!\nO, that she knew she were!\nShe speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?\nHer eye discourses; I will answer it.\nI am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:\nTwo of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\nHaving some business, do entreat her eyes\nTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.\nWhat if her eyes were there, they in her head?\nThe brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,\nAs daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\nWould through the airy region stream so bright\nThat birds would sing and think it were not night.\nSee, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\nO, that I were a glove upon that hand,\nThat I might touch that cheek!\n\nJULIET:\nAy me!\n\nROMEO:\nShe speaks:\nO, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\nAs glorious to this night, being o'er my head\nAs is a winged messenger of heaven\nUnto the white-upturned wondering eyes\nOf mortals that fall back to gaze on him\nWhen he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\nAnd sails upon the bosom of the air.\n\nJULIET:\nO Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\nDeny thy father and refuse thy name;\nOr, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\nAnd I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;\nThou art thyself, though not a Montague.\nWhat's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\nNor arm, nor face, nor any other part\nBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!\nWhat's in a name? that which we call a rose\nBy any other name would smell as sweet;\nSo Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\nRetain that dear perfection which he owes\nWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,\nAnd for that name which is no part of thee\nTake all myself.\n\nROMEO:\nI take thee at thy word:\nCall me but love, and I'll be new baptized;\nHenceforth I never will be Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night\nSo stumblest on my counsel?\n\nROMEO:\nBy a name\nI know not how to tell thee who I am:\nMy name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\nBecause it is an enemy to thee;\nHad I it written, I would tear the word.\n\nJULIET:\nMy ears have not yet drunk a hundred words\nOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:\nArt thou not Romeo and a Montague?\n\nROMEO:\nNeither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n\nJULIET:\nHow camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\nThe orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\nAnd the place death, considering who thou art,\nIf any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nWith love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;\nFor stony limits cannot hold love out,\nAnd what love can do that dares love attempt;\nTherefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf they do see thee, they will murder thee.\n\nROMEO:\nAlack, there lies more peril in thine eye\nThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,\nAnd I am proof against their enmity.\n\nJULIET:\nI would not for the world they saw thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nI have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\nAnd but thou love me, let them find me here:\nMy life were better ended by their hate,\nThan death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n\nJULIET:\nBy whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n\nROMEO:\nBy love, who first did prompt me to inquire;\nHe lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.\nI am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\nAs that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\nI would adventure for such merchandise.\n\nJULIET:\nThou know'st the mask of night is on my face,\nElse would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\nFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night\nFain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny\nWhat I have spoke: but farewell compliment!\nDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'\nAnd I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,\nThou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries\nThen say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\nIf thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:\nOr if thou think'st I am too quickly won,\nI'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,\nSo thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\nIn truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\nAnd therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:\nBut trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\nThan those that have more cunning to be strange.\nI should have been more strange, I must confess,\nBut that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\nMy true love's passion: therefore pardon me,\nAnd not impute this yielding to light love,\nWhich the dark night hath so discovered.\n\nROMEO:\nLady, by yonder blessed moon I swear\nThat tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--\n\nJULIET:\nO, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,\nThat monthly changes in her circled orb,\nLest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat shall I swear by?\n\nJULIET:\nDo not swear at all;\nOr, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\nWhich is the god of my idolatry,\nAnd I'll believe thee.\n\nROMEO:\nIf my heart's dear love--\n\nJULIET:\nWell, do not swear: although I joy in thee,\nI have no joy of this contract to-night:\nIt is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\nToo like the lightning, which doth cease to be\nEre one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\nThis bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\nMay prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.\nGood night, good night! as sweet repose and rest\nCome to thy heart as that within my breast!\n\nROMEO:\nO, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n\nJULIET:\nWhat satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n\nROMEO:\nThe exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n\nJULIET:\nI gave thee mine before thou didst request it:\nAnd yet I would it were to give again.\n\nROMEO:\nWouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?\n\nJULIET:\nBut to be frank, and give it thee again.\nAnd yet I wish but for the thing I have:\nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea,\nMy love as deep; the more I give to thee,\nThe more I have, for both are infinite.\nI hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!\nAnon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\nStay but a little, I will come again.\n\nROMEO:\nO blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.\nBeing in night, all this is but a dream,\nToo flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\nJULIET:\nThree words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\nIf that thy bent of love be honourable,\nThy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\nBy one that I'll procure to come to thee,\nWhere and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\nAnd all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\nAnd follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nI come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well,\nI do beseech thee--\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nBy and by, I come:--\nTo cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:\nTo-morrow will I send.\n\nROMEO:\nSo thrive my soul--\n\nJULIET:\nA thousand times good night!\n\nROMEO:\nA thousand times the worse, to want thy light.\nLove goes toward love, as schoolboys from\ntheir books,\nBut love from love, toward school with heavy looks.\n\nJULIET:\nHist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,\nTo lure this tassel-gentle back again!\nBondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;\nElse would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\nAnd make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,\nWith repetition of my Romeo's name.\n\nROMEO:\nIt is my soul that calls upon my name:\nHow silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\nLike softest music to attending ears!\n\nJULIET:\nRomeo!\n\nROMEO:\nMy dear?\n\nJULIET:\nAt what o'clock to-morrow\nShall I send to thee?\n\nROMEO:\nAt the hour of nine.\n\nJULIET:\nI will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.\nI have forgot why I did call thee back.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me stand here till thou remember it.\n\nJULIET:\nI shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\nRemembering how I love thy company.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\nForgetting any other home but this.\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:\nAnd yet no further than a wanton's bird;\nWho lets it hop a little from her hand,\nLike a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\nAnd with a silk thread plucks it back again,\nSo loving-jealous of his liberty.\n\nROMEO:\nI would I were thy bird.\n\nJULIET:\nSweet, so would I:\nYet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\nGood night, good night! parting is such\nsweet sorrow,\nThat I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n\nROMEO:\nSleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\nWould I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\nHence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\nHis help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThe grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,\nChequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,\nAnd flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\nFrom forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:\nNow, ere the sun advance his burning eye,\nThe day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\nI must up-fill this osier cage of ours\nWith baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\nThe earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;\nWhat is her burying grave that is her womb,\nAnd from her womb children of divers kind\nWe sucking on her natural bosom find,\nMany for many virtues excellent,\nNone but for some and yet all different.\nO, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\nIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:\nFor nought so vile that on the earth doth live\nBut to the earth some special good doth give,\nNor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use\nRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:\nVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;\nAnd vice sometimes by action dignified.\nWithin the infant rind of this small flower\nPoison hath residence and medicine power:\nFor this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\nBeing tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\nTwo such opposed kings encamp them still\nIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;\nAnd where the worser is predominant,\nFull soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow, father.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBenedicite!\nWhat early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\nYoung son, it argues a distemper'd head\nSo soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:\nCare keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\nAnd where care lodges, sleep will never lie;\nBut where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\nDoth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:\nTherefore thy earliness doth me assure\nThou art up-roused by some distemperature;\nOr if not so, then here I hit it right,\nOur Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n\nROMEO:\nThat last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGod pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?\n\nROMEO:\nWith Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;\nI have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?\n\nROMEO:\nI'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.\nI have been feasting with mine enemy,\nWhere on a sudden one hath wounded me,\nThat's by me wounded: both our remedies\nWithin thy help and holy physic lies:\nI bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\nMy intercession likewise steads my foe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBe plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;\nRiddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n\nROMEO:\nThen plainly know my heart's dear love is set\nOn the fair daughter of rich Capulet:\nAs mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;\nAnd all combined, save what thou must combine\nBy holy marriage: when and where and how\nWe met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,\nI'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\nThat thou consent to marry us to-day.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHoly Saint Francis, what a change is here!\nIs Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,\nSo soon forsaken? young men's love then lies\nNot truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\nJesu Maria, what a deal of brine\nHath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\nHow much salt water thrown away in waste,\nTo season love, that of it doth not taste!\nThe sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\nThy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;\nLo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\nOf an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:\nIf e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,\nThou and these woes were all for Rosaline:\nAnd art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,\nWomen may fall, when there's no strength in men.\n\nROMEO:\nThou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nFor doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd bad'st me bury love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNot in a grave,\nTo lay one in, another out to have.\n\nROMEO:\nI pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now\nDoth grace for grace and love for love allow;\nThe other did not so.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, she knew well\nThy love did read by rote and could not spell.\nBut come, young waverer, come, go with me,\nIn one respect I'll thy assistant be;\nFor this alliance may so happy prove,\nTo turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n\nROMEO:\nO, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhere the devil should this Romeo be?\nCame he not home to-night?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNot to his father's; I spoke with his man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAh, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.\nTorments him so, that he will sure run mad.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,\nHath sent a letter to his father's house.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA challenge, on my life.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo will answer it.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAny man that can write may answer a letter.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNay, he will answer the letter's master, how he\ndares, being dared.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAlas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a\nwhite wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a\nlove-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the\nblind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to\nencounter Tybalt?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, what is Tybalt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMore than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is\nthe courageous captain of compliments. He fights as\nyou sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and\nproportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and\nthe third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk\nbutton, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the\nvery first house, of the first and second cause:\nah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the\nhai!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe what?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe pox of such antic, lisping, affecting\nfantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,\na very good blade! a very tall man! a very good\nwhore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\ngrandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with\nthese strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these\nperdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,\nthat they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their\nbones, their bones!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWithout his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,\nhow art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers\nthat Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a\nkitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to\nbe-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;\nHelen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey\neye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior\nRomeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation\nto your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\nfairly last night.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?\n\nROMEO:\nPardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in\nsuch a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat's as much as to say, such a case as yours\nconstrains a man to bow in the hams.\n\nROMEO:\nMeaning, to court'sy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou hast most kindly hit it.\n\nROMEO:\nA most courteous exposition.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n\nROMEO:\nPink for flower.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nRight.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, then is my pump well flowered.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWell said: follow me this jest now till thou hast\nworn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it\nis worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.\n\nROMEO:\nO single-soled jest, solely singular for the\nsingleness.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.\n\nROMEO:\nSwitch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have\ndone, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of\nthy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:\nwas I with you there for the goose?\n\nROMEO:\nThou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast\nnot there for the goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\nROMEO:\nNay, good goose, bite not.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most\nsharp sauce.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd is it not well served in to a sweet goose?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an\ninch narrow to an ell broad!\n\nROMEO:\nI stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added\nto the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, is not this better now than groaning for love?\nnow art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art\nthou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:\nfor this drivelling love is like a great natural,\nthat runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStop there, stop there.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:\nfor I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and\nmeant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.\n\nROMEO:\nHere's goodly gear!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA sail, a sail!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTwo, two; a shirt and a smock.\n\nNurse:\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nMy fan, Peter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the\nfairer face.\n\nNurse:\nGod ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGod ye good den, fair gentlewoman.\n\nNurse:\nIs it good den?\n\nMERCUTIO:\n'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the\ndial is now upon the prick of noon.\n\nNurse:\nOut upon you! what a man are you!\n\nROMEO:\nOne, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to\nmar.\n\nNurse:\nBy my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'\nquoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I\nmay find the young Romeo?\n\nROMEO:\nI can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when\nyou have found him than he was when you sought him:\nI am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.\n\nNurse:\nYou say well.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;\nwisely, wisely.\n\nNurse:\nif you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with\nyou.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nShe will indite him to some supper.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!\n\nROMEO:\nWhat hast thou found?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,\nthat is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.\nAn old hare hoar,\nAnd an old hare hoar,\nIs very good meat in lent\nBut a hare that is hoar\nIs too much for a score,\nWhen it hoars ere it be spent.\nRomeo, will you come to your father's? we'll\nto dinner, thither.\n\nROMEO:\nI will follow you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nFarewell, ancient lady; farewell,\n'lady, lady, lady.'\n\nNurse:\nMarry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy\nmerchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?\n\nROMEO:\nA gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,\nand will speak more in a minute than he will stand\nto in a month.\n\nNurse:\nAn a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him\ndown, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such\nJacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.\nScurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am\nnone of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by\ntoo, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?\n\nPETER:\nI saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon\nshould quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare\ndraw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a\ngood quarrel, and the law on my side.\n\nNurse:\nNow, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about\nme quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:\nand as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you\nout; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:\nbut first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into\na fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross\nkind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman\nis young; and, therefore, if you should deal double\nwith her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered\nto any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n\nROMEO:\nNurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I\nprotest unto thee--\n\nNurse:\nGood heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:\nLord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.\n\nNurse:\nI will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as\nI take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n\nROMEO:\nBid her devise\nSome means to come to shrift this afternoon;\nAnd there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\nBe shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.\n\nNurse:\nNo truly sir; not a penny.\n\nROMEO:\nGo to; I say you shall.\n\nNurse:\nThis afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:\nWithin this hour my man shall be with thee\nAnd bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;\nWhich to the high top-gallant of my joy\nMust be my convoy in the secret night.\nFarewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:\nFarewell; commend me to thy mistress.\n\nNurse:\nNow God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n\nNurse:\nIs your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\nTwo may keep counsel, putting one away?\n\nROMEO:\nI warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.\n\nNURSE:\nWell, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,\nLord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there\nis a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain\nlay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief\nsee a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her\nsometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer\nman; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks\nas pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not\nrosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, nurse; what of that? both with an R.\n\nNurse:\nAh. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for\nthe--No; I know it begins with some other\nletter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of\nit, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\nto hear it.\n\nROMEO:\nCommend me to thy lady.\n\nNurse:\nAy, a thousand times.\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nPeter, take my fan, and go before and apace.\n\nJULIET:\nThe clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\nIn half an hour she promised to return.\nPerchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.\nO, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,\nWhich ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,\nDriving back shadows over louring hills:\nTherefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,\nAnd therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\nNow is the sun upon the highmost hill\nOf this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\nIs three long hours, yet she is not come.\nHad she affections and warm youthful blood,\nShe would be as swift in motion as a ball;\nMy words would bandy her to my sweet love,\nAnd his to me:\nBut old folks, many feign as they were dead;\nUnwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\nO God, she comes!\nO honey nurse, what news?\nHast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n\nNurse:\nPeter, stay at the gate.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\nThough news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\nIf good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\nBy playing it to me with so sour a face.\n\nNurse:\nI am a-weary, give me leave awhile:\nFie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!\n\nJULIET:\nI would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:\nNay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.\n\nNurse:\nJesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?\nDo you not see that I am out of breath?\n\nJULIET:\nHow art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath\nTo say to me that thou art out of breath?\nThe excuse that thou dost make in this delay\nIs longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\nIs thy news good, or bad? answer to that;\nSay either, and I'll stay the circumstance:\nLet me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n\nNurse:\nWell, you have made a simple choice; you know not\nhow to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his\nface be better than any man's, yet his leg excels\nall men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,\nthough they be not to be talked on, yet they are\npast compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,\nbut, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy\nways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, no: but all this did I know before.\nWhat says he of our marriage? what of that?\n\nNurse:\nLord, how my head aches! what a head have I!\nIt beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\nMy back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!\nBeshrew your heart for sending me about,\nTo catch my death with jaunting up and down!\n\nJULIET:\nI' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\nSweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n\nNurse:\nYour love says, like an honest gentleman, and a\ncourteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I\nwarrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere is my mother! why, she is within;\nWhere should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\nWhere is your mother?'\n\nNurse:\nO God's lady dear!\nAre you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;\nIs this the poultice for my aching bones?\nHenceforward do your messages yourself.\n\nJULIET:\nHere's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?\n\nNurse:\nHave you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n\nJULIET:\nI have.\n\nNurse:\nThen hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\nThere stays a husband to make you a wife:\nNow comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,\nThey'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\nHie you to church; I must another way,\nTo fetch a ladder, by the which your love\nMust climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:\nI am the drudge and toil in your delight,\nBut you shall bear the burden soon at night.\nGo; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.\n\nJULIET:\nHie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSo smile the heavens upon this holy act,\nThat after hours with sorrow chide us not!\n\nROMEO:\nAmen, amen! but come what sorrow can,\nIt cannot countervail the exchange of joy\nThat one short minute gives me in her sight:\nDo thou but close our hands with holy words,\nThen love-devouring death do what he dare;\nIt is enough I may but call her mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThese violent delights have violent ends\nAnd in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\nWhich as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey\nIs loathsome in his own deliciousness\nAnd in the taste confounds the appetite:\nTherefore love moderately; long love doth so;\nToo swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\nHere comes the lady: O, so light a foot\nWill ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:\nA lover may bestride the gossamer\nThat idles in the wanton summer air,\nAnd yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n\nJULIET:\nGood even to my ghostly confessor.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n\nJULIET:\nAs much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n\nROMEO:\nAh, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\nBe heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more\nTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\nThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\nUnfold the imagined happiness that both\nReceive in either by this dear encounter.\n\nJULIET:\nConceit, more rich in matter than in words,\nBrags of his substance, not of ornament:\nThey are but beggars that can count their worth;\nBut my true love is grown to such excess\nI cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, come with me, and we will make short work;\nFor, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\nTill holy church incorporate two in one.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:\nThe day is hot, the Capulets abroad,\nAnd, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;\nFor now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou art like one of those fellows that when he\nenters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword\nupon the table and says 'God send me no need of\nthee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws\nit on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAm I like such a fellow?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as\nany in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as\nsoon moody to be moved.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd what to?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, an there were two such, we should have none\nshortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,\nthou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,\nor a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou\nwilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\nother reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what\neye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?\nThy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of\nmeat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as\nan egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a\nman for coughing in the street, because he hath\nwakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:\ndidst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing\nhis new doublet before Easter? with another, for\ntying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou\nwilt tutor me from quarrelling!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAn I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man\nshould buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe fee-simple! O simple!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy my head, here come the Capulets.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBy my heel, I care not.\n\nTYBALT:\nFollow me close, for I will speak to them.\nGentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd but one word with one of us? couple it with\nsomething; make it a word and a blow.\n\nTYBALT:\nYou shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you\nwill give me occasion.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCould you not take some occasion without giving?\n\nTYBALT:\nMercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--\n\nMERCUTIO:\nConsort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an\nthou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but\ndiscords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall\nmake you dance. 'Zounds, consort!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWe talk here in the public haunt of men:\nEither withdraw unto some private place,\nAnd reason coldly of your grievances,\nOr else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMen's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;\nI will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.\n\nTYBALT:\nWell, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBut I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:\nMarry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;\nYour worship in that sense may call him 'man.'\n\nTYBALT:\nRomeo, the hate I bear thee can afford\nNo better term than this,--thou art a villain.\n\nROMEO:\nTybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\nDoth much excuse the appertaining rage\nTo such a greeting: villain am I none;\nTherefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.\n\nTYBALT:\nBoy, this shall not excuse the injuries\nThat thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n\nROMEO:\nI do protest, I never injured thee,\nBut love thee better than thou canst devise,\nTill thou shalt know the reason of my love:\nAnd so, good Capulet,--which name I tender\nAs dearly as my own,--be satisfied.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\nAlla stoccata carries it away.\nTybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat wouldst thou have with me?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood king of cats, nothing but one of your nine\nlives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you\nshall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the\neight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher\nby the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your\nears ere it be out.\n\nTYBALT:\nI am for you.\n\nROMEO:\nGentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, sir, your passado.\n\nROMEO:\nDraw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\nGentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!\nTybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath\nForbidden bandying in Verona streets:\nHold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI am hurt.\nA plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\nIs he gone, and hath nothing?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhat, art thou hurt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAy, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.\nWhere is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n\nROMEO:\nCourage, man; the hurt cannot be much.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a\nchurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for\nme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I\nam peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'\nboth your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a\ncat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a\nrogue, a villain, that fights by the book of\narithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I\nwas hurt under your arm.\n\nROMEO:\nI thought all for the best.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHelp me into some house, Benvolio,\nOr I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\nThey have made worms' meat of me: I have it,\nAnd soundly too: your houses!\n\nROMEO:\nThis gentleman, the prince's near ally,\nMy very friend, hath got his mortal hurt\nIn my behalf; my reputation stain'd\nWith Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour\nHath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,\nThy beauty hath made me effeminate\nAnd in my temper soften'd valour's steel!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\nThat gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,\nWhich too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n\nROMEO:\nThis day's black fate on more days doth depend;\nThis but begins the woe, others must end.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n\nROMEO:\nAlive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!\nAway to heaven, respective lenity,\nAnd fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!\nNow, Tybalt, take the villain back again,\nThat late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\nIs but a little way above our heads,\nStaying for thine to keep him company:\nEither thou, or I, or both, must go with him.\n\nTYBALT:\nThou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\nShalt with him hence.\n\nROMEO:\nThis shall determine that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo, away, be gone!\nThe citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\nStand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,\nIf thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!\n\nROMEO:\nO, I am fortune's fool!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy dost thou stay?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhich way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\nTybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThere lies that Tybalt.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nUp, sir, go with me;\nI charge thee in the princes name, obey.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhere are the vile beginners of this fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO noble prince, I can discover all\nThe unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:\nThere lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\nThat slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\nO prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt\nO my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\nFor blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.\nO cousin, cousin!\n\nPRINCE:\nBenvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;\nRomeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink\nHow nice the quarrel was, and urged withal\nYour high displeasure: all this uttered\nWith gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,\nCould not take truce with the unruly spleen\nOf Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\nWith piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,\nWho all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\nAnd, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\nCold death aside, and with the other sends\nIt back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,\nRetorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,\n'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than\nhis tongue,\nHis agile arm beats down their fatal points,\nAnd 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\nAn envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\nOf stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\nBut by and by comes back to Romeo,\nWho had but newly entertain'd revenge,\nAnd to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I\nCould draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.\nAnd, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\nThis is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHe is a kinsman to the Montague;\nAffection makes him false; he speaks not true:\nSome twenty of them fought in this black strife,\nAnd all those twenty could but kill one life.\nI beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;\nRomeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.\n\nPRINCE:\nRomeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;\nWho now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nNot Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;\nHis fault concludes but what the law should end,\nThe life of Tybalt.\n\nPRINCE:\nAnd for that offence\nImmediately we do exile him hence:\nI have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\nMy blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\nBut I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\nThat you shall all repent the loss of mine:\nI will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\nNor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:\nTherefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,\nElse, when he's found, that hour is his last.\nBear hence this body and attend our will:\nMercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n\nJULIET:\nGallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\nTowards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner\nAs Phaethon would whip you to the west,\nAnd bring in cloudy night immediately.\nSpread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\nThat runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo\nLeap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.\nLovers can see to do their amorous rites\nBy their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\nIt best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\nThou sober-suited matron, all in black,\nAnd learn me how to lose a winning match,\nPlay'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:\nHood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\nWith thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,\nThink true love acted simple modesty.\nCome, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\nFor thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\nWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.\nCome, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,\nGive me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\nTake him and cut him out in little stars,\nAnd he will make the face of heaven so fine\nThat all the world will be in love with night\nAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.\nO, I have bought the mansion of a love,\nBut not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,\nNot yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day\nAs is the night before some festival\nTo an impatient child that hath new robes\nAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\nAnd she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\nBut Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\nNow, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\nThat Romeo bid thee fetch?\n\nNurse:\nAy, ay, the cords.\n\nJULIET:\nAy me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?\n\nNurse:\nAh, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\nWe are undone, lady, we are undone!\nAlack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n\nJULIET:\nCan heaven be so envious?\n\nNurse:\nRomeo can,\nThough heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!\nWho ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?\nThis torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\nHath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'\nAnd that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\nThan the death-darting eye of cockatrice:\nI am not I, if there be such an I;\nOr those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'\nIf he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:\nBrief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n\nNurse:\nI saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--\nGod save the mark!--here on his manly breast:\nA piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\nPale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\nAll in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.\n\nJULIET:\nO, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!\nTo prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!\nVile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;\nAnd thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n\nNurse:\nO Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\nO courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!\nThat ever I should live to see thee dead!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat storm is this that blows so contrary?\nIs Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?\nMy dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?\nThen, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\nFor who is living, if those two are gone?\n\nNurse:\nTybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\nRomeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n\nJULIET:\nO God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n\nNurse:\nIt did, it did; alas the day, it did!\n\nJULIET:\nO serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!\nDid ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\nBeautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\nDove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\nDespised substance of divinest show!\nJust opposite to what thou justly seem'st,\nA damned saint, an honourable villain!\nO nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,\nWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\nIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh?\nWas ever book containing such vile matter\nSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell\nIn such a gorgeous palace!\n\nNurse:\nThere's no trust,\nNo faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,\nAll forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\nAh, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:\nThese griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\nShame come to Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nBlister'd be thy tongue\nFor such a wish! he was not born to shame:\nUpon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;\nFor 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\nSole monarch of the universal earth.\nO, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n\nNurse:\nWill you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n\nJULIET:\nShall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\nAh, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,\nWhen I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\nBut, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\nThat villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:\nBack, foolish tears, back to your native spring;\nYour tributary drops belong to woe,\nWhich you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\nMy husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\nAnd Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:\nAll this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\nSome word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\nThat murder'd me: I would forget it fain;\nBut, O, it presses to my memory,\nLike damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:\n'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'\nThat 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\nHath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\nWas woe enough, if it had ended there:\nOr, if sour woe delights in fellowship\nAnd needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\nWhy follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\nThy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\nWhich modern lamentations might have moved?\nBut with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,\n'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,\nIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\nAll slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'\nThere is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\nIn that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\nWhere is my father, and my mother, nurse?\n\nNurse:\nWeeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:\nWill you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n\nJULIET:\nWash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,\nWhen theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\nTake up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,\nBoth you and I; for Romeo is exiled:\nHe made you for a highway to my bed;\nBut I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\nCome, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;\nAnd death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n\nNurse:\nHie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo\nTo comfort you: I wot well where he is.\nHark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:\nI'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n\nJULIET:\nO, find him! give this ring to my true knight,\nAnd bid him come to take his last farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:\nAffliction is enamour'd of thy parts,\nAnd thou art wedded to calamity.\n\nROMEO:\nFather, what news? what is the prince's doom?\nWhat sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,\nThat I yet know not?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nToo familiar\nIs my dear son with such sour company:\nI bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nA gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,\nNot body's death, but body's banishment.\n\nROMEO:\nHa, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'\nFor exile hath more terror in his look,\nMuch more than death: do not say 'banishment.'\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHence from Verona art thou banished:\nBe patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is no world without Verona walls,\nBut purgatory, torture, hell itself.\nHence-banished is banish'd from the world,\nAnd world's exile is death: then banished,\nIs death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,\nThou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,\nAnd smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\nThy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,\nTaking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\nAnd turn'd that black word death to banishment:\nThis is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,\nWhere Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\nAnd little mouse, every unworthy thing,\nLive here in heaven and may look on her;\nBut Romeo may not: more validity,\nMore honourable state, more courtship lives\nIn carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize\nOn the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\nAnd steal immortal blessing from her lips,\nWho even in pure and vestal modesty,\nStill blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\nBut Romeo may not; he is banished:\nFlies may do this, but I from this must fly:\nThey are free men, but I am banished.\nAnd say'st thou yet that exile is not death?\nHadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\nNo sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\nBut 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?\nO friar, the damned use that word in hell;\nHowlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,\nBeing a divine, a ghostly confessor,\nA sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\nTo mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.\n\nROMEO:\nO, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI'll give thee armour to keep off that word:\nAdversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\nTo comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n\nROMEO:\nYet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\nUnless philosophy can make a Juliet,\nDisplant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\nIt helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n\nROMEO:\nHow should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nLet me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n\nROMEO:\nThou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:\nWert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\nAn hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\nDoting like me and like me banished,\nThen mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\nAnd fall upon the ground, as I do now,\nTaking the measure of an unmade grave.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nArise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\nMist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\nThou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;\nRun to my study. By and by! God's will,\nWhat simpleness is this! I come, I come!\nWho knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?\n\nNurse:\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWelcome, then.\n\nNurse:\nO holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,\nWhere is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThere on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n\nNurse:\nO, he is even in my mistress' case,\nJust in her case! O woful sympathy!\nPiteous predicament! Even so lies she,\nBlubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\nStand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:\nFor Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;\nWhy should you fall into so deep an O?\n\nROMEO:\nNurse!\n\nNurse:\nAh sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n\nROMEO:\nSpakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?\nDoth she not think me an old murderer,\nNow I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\nWith blood removed but little from her own?\nWhere is she? and how doth she? and what says\nMy conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n\nNurse:\nO, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\nAnd now falls on her bed; and then starts up,\nAnd Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\nAnd then down falls again.\n\nROMEO:\nAs if that name,\nShot from the deadly level of a gun,\nDid murder her; as that name's cursed hand\nMurder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\nIn what vile part of this anatomy\nDoth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack\nThe hateful mansion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold thy desperate hand:\nArt thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:\nThy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote\nThe unreasonable fury of a beast:\nUnseemly woman in a seeming man!\nOr ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\nThou hast amazed me: by my holy order,\nI thought thy disposition better temper'd.\nHast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?\nAnd stay thy lady too that lives in thee,\nBy doing damned hate upon thyself?\nWhy rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\nSince birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet\nIn thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\nFie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;\nWhich, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\nAnd usest none in that true use indeed\nWhich should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:\nThy noble shape is but a form of wax,\nDigressing from the valour of a man;\nThy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\nKilling that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\nThy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\nMisshapen in the conduct of them both,\nLike powder in a skitless soldier's flask,\nIs set afire by thine own ignorance,\nAnd thou dismember'd with thine own defence.\nWhat, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,\nFor whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;\nThere art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,\nBut thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:\nThe law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend\nAnd turns it to exile; there art thou happy:\nA pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;\nHappiness courts thee in her best array;\nBut, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,\nThou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:\nTake heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\nGo, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\nAscend her chamber, hence and comfort her:\nBut look thou stay not till the watch be set,\nFor then thou canst not pass to Mantua;\nWhere thou shalt live, till we can find a time\nTo blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\nBeg pardon of the prince, and call thee back\nWith twenty hundred thousand times more joy\nThan thou went'st forth in lamentation.\nGo before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;\nAnd bid her hasten all the house to bed,\nWhich heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:\nRomeo is coming.\n\nNurse:\nO Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\nTo hear good counsel: O, what learning is!\nMy lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n\nROMEO:\nDo so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n\nNurse:\nHere, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:\nHie you, make haste, for it grows very late.\n\nROMEO:\nHow well my comfort is revived by this!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\nEither be gone before the watch be set,\nOr by the break of day disguised from hence:\nSojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,\nAnd he shall signify from time to time\nEvery good hap to you that chances here:\nGive me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.\n\nROMEO:\nBut that a joy past joy calls out on me,\nIt were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.\n\nCAPULET:\nThings have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,\nThat we have had no time to move our daughter:\nLook you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\nAnd so did I:--Well, we were born to die.\n'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:\nI promise you, but for your company,\nI would have been a-bed an hour ago.\n\nPARIS:\nThese times of woe afford no time to woo.\nMadam, good night: commend me to your daughter.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nI will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\nTo-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.\n\nCAPULET:\nSir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\nOf my child's love: I think she will be ruled\nIn all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.\nWife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\nAcquaint her here of my son Paris' love;\nAnd bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--\nBut, soft! what day is this?\n\nPARIS:\nMonday, my lord,\n\nCAPULET:\nMonday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,\nO' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,\nShe shall be married to this noble earl.\nWill you be ready? do you like this haste?\nWe'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;\nFor, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\nIt may be thought we held him carelessly,\nBeing our kinsman, if we revel much:\nTherefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\nAnd there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n\nPARIS:\nMy lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.\nGo you to Juliet ere you go to bed,\nPrepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.\nFarewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!\nAfore me! it is so very very late,\nThat we may call it early by and by.\nGood night.\n\nJULIET:\nWilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:\nIt was the nightingale, and not the lark,\nThat pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;\nNightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:\nBelieve me, love, it was the nightingale.\n\nROMEO:\nIt was the lark, the herald of the morn,\nNo nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks\nDo lace the severing clouds in yonder east:\nNight's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\nStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\nI must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n\nJULIET:\nYon light is not day-light, I know it, I:\nIt is some meteor that the sun exhales,\nTo be to thee this night a torch-bearer,\nAnd light thee on thy way to Mantua:\nTherefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me be ta'en, let me be put to death;\nI am content, so thou wilt have it so.\nI'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\nNor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat\nThe vaulty heaven so high above our heads:\nI have more care to stay than will to go:\nCome, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\nHow is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.\n\nJULIET:\nIt is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!\nIt is the lark that sings so out of tune,\nStraining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\nSome say the lark makes sweet division;\nThis doth not so, for she divideth us:\nSome say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,\nO, now I would they had changed voices too!\nSince arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\nHunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,\nO, now be gone; more light and light it grows.\n\nROMEO:\nMore light and light; more dark and dark our woes!\n\nNurse:\nMadam!\n\nJULIET:\nNurse?\n\nNurse:\nYour lady mother is coming to your chamber:\nThe day is broke; be wary, look about.\n\nJULIET:\nThen, window, let day in, and let life out.\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.\n\nJULIET:\nArt thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!\nI must hear from thee every day in the hour,\nFor in a minute there are many days:\nO, by this count I shall be much in years\nEre I again behold my Romeo!\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell!\nI will omit no opportunity\nThat may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n\nROMEO:\nI doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\nFor sweet discourses in our time to come.\n\nJULIET:\nO God, I have an ill-divining soul!\nMethinks I see thee, now thou art below,\nAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb:\nEither my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd trust me, love, in my eye so do you:\nDry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\n\nJULIET:\nO fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:\nIf thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.\nThat is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;\nFor then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,\nBut send him back.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\n\nJULIET:\nWho is't that calls? is it my lady mother?\nIs she not down so late, or up so early?\nWhat unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhy, how now, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am not well.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEvermore weeping for your cousin's death?\nWhat, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\nAn if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;\nTherefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;\nBut much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n\nJULIET:\nYet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSo shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\nWhich you weep for.\n\nJULIET:\nFeeling so the loss,\nCannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,\nAs that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat villain madam?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat same villain, Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat is, because the traitor murderer lives.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, madam, from the reach of these my hands:\nWould none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:\nThen weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\nWhere that same banish'd runagate doth live,\nShall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,\nThat he shall soon keep Tybalt company:\nAnd then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.\n\nJULIET:\nIndeed, I never shall be satisfied\nWith Romeo, till I behold him--dead--\nIs my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.\nMadam, if you could find out but a man\nTo bear a poison, I would temper it;\nThat Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\nSoon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\nTo hear him named, and cannot come to him.\nTo wreak the love I bore my cousin\nUpon his body that slaughter'd him!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFind thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\nBut now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n\nJULIET:\nAnd joy comes well in such a needy time:\nWhat are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\nOne who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\nHath sorted out a sudden day of joy,\nThat thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, in happy time, what day is that?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, my child, early next Thursday morn,\nThe gallant, young and noble gentleman,\nThe County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\nShall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,\nHe shall not make me there a joyful bride.\nI wonder at this haste; that I must wed\nEre he, that should be husband, comes to woo.\nI pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,\nI will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,\nIt shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\nRather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHere comes your father; tell him so yourself,\nAnd see how he will take it at your hands.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhen the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;\nBut for the sunset of my brother's son\nIt rains downright.\nHow now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?\nEvermore showering? In one little body\nThou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;\nFor still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\nDo ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,\nSailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;\nWho, raging with thy tears, and they with them,\nWithout a sudden calm, will overset\nThy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!\nHave you deliver'd to her our decree?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\nI would the fool were married to her grave!\n\nCAPULET:\nSoft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\nHow! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?\nIs she not proud? doth she not count her blest,\nUnworthy as she is, that we have wrought\nSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n\nJULIET:\nNot proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:\nProud can I never be of what I hate;\nBut thankful even for hate, that is meant love.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?\n'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'\nAnd yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,\nThank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,\nBut fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,\nTo go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\nOr I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\nOut, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!\nYou tallow-face!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFie, fie! what, are you mad?\n\nJULIET:\nGood father, I beseech you on my knees,\nHear me with patience but to speak a word.\n\nCAPULET:\nHang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\nI tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,\nOr never after look me in the face:\nSpeak not, reply not, do not answer me;\nMy fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\nThat God had lent us but this only child;\nBut now I see this one is one too much,\nAnd that we have a curse in having her:\nOut on her, hilding!\n\nNurse:\nGod in heaven bless her!\nYou are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,\nGood prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.\n\nNurse:\nI speak no treason.\n\nCAPULET:\nO, God ye god-den.\n\nNurse:\nMay not one speak?\n\nCAPULET:\nPeace, you mumbling fool!\nUtter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;\nFor here we need it not.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nYou are too hot.\n\nCAPULET:\nGod's bread! it makes me mad:\nDay, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,\nAlone, in company, still my care hath been\nTo have her match'd: and having now provided\nA gentleman of noble parentage,\nOf fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\nStuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\nProportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;\nAnd then to have a wretched puling fool,\nA whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\nTo answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,\nI am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'\nBut, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:\nGraze where you will you shall not house with me:\nLook to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.\nThursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\nAn you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\nAnd you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in\nthe streets,\nFor, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\nNor what is mine shall never do thee good:\nTrust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.\n\nJULIET:\nIs there no pity sitting in the clouds,\nThat sees into the bottom of my grief?\nO, sweet my mother, cast me not away!\nDelay this marriage for a month, a week;\nOr, if you do not, make the bridal bed\nIn that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTalk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:\nDo as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\nMy husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;\nHow shall that faith return again to earth,\nUnless that husband send it me from heaven\nBy leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.\nAlack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\nUpon so soft a subject as myself!\nWhat say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?\nSome comfort, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, here it is.\nRomeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,\nThat he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\nOr, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\nThen, since the case so stands as now it doth,\nI think it best you married with the county.\nO, he's a lovely gentleman!\nRomeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,\nHath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\nAs Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\nI think you are happy in this second match,\nFor it excels your first: or if it did not,\nYour first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,\nAs living here and you no use of him.\n\nJULIET:\nSpeakest thou from thy heart?\n\nNurse:\nAnd from my soul too;\nOr else beshrew them both.\n\nJULIET:\nAmen!\n\nNurse:\nWhat?\n\nJULIET:\nWell, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\nGo in: and tell my lady I am gone,\nHaving displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,\nTo make confession and to be absolved.\n\nNurse:\nMarry, I will; and this is wisely done.\n\nJULIET:\nAncient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\nIs it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\nOr to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\nWhich she hath praised him with above compare\nSo many thousand times? Go, counsellor;\nThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\nI'll to the friar, to know his remedy:\nIf all else fail, myself have power to die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nOn Thursday, sir? the time is very short.\n\nPARIS:\nMy father Capulet will have it so;\nAnd I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nYou say you do not know the lady's mind:\nUneven is the course, I like it not.\n\nPARIS:\nImmoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\nAnd therefore have I little talk'd of love;\nFor Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\nNow, sir, her father counts it dangerous\nThat she doth give her sorrow so much sway,\nAnd in his wisdom hastes our marriage,\nTo stop the inundation of her tears;\nWhich, too much minded by herself alone,\nMay be put from her by society:\nNow do you know the reason of this haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\n\nPARIS:\nHappily met, my lady and my wife!\n\nJULIET:\nThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n\nPARIS:\nThat may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat must be shall be.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's a certain text.\n\nPARIS:\nCome you to make confession to this father?\n\nJULIET:\nTo answer that, I should confess to you.\n\nPARIS:\nDo not deny to him that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nI will confess to you that I love him.\n\nPARIS:\nSo will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf I do so, it will be of more price,\nBeing spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n\nPARIS:\nPoor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.\n\nJULIET:\nThe tears have got small victory by that;\nFor it was bad enough before their spite.\n\nPARIS:\nThou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.\n\nJULIET:\nThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\nAnd what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n\nPARIS:\nThy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.\n\nJULIET:\nIt may be so, for it is not mine own.\nAre you at leisure, holy father, now;\nOr shall I come to you at evening mass?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nMy leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\nMy lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n\nPARIS:\nGod shield I should disturb devotion!\nJuliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:\nTill then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.\n\nJULIET:\nO shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\nCome weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nAh, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\nIt strains me past the compass of my wits:\nI hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\nOn Thursday next be married to this county.\n\nJULIET:\nTell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\nUnless thou tell me how I may prevent it:\nIf, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,\nDo thou but call my resolution wise,\nAnd with this knife I'll help it presently.\nGod join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\nAnd ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,\nShall be the label to another deed,\nOr my true heart with treacherous revolt\nTurn to another, this shall slay them both:\nTherefore, out of thy long-experienced time,\nGive me some present counsel, or, behold,\n'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\nShall play the umpire, arbitrating that\nWhich the commission of thy years and art\nCould to no issue of true honour bring.\nBe not so long to speak; I long to die,\nIf what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,\nWhich craves as desperate an execution.\nAs that is desperate which we would prevent.\nIf, rather than to marry County Paris,\nThou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\nThen is it likely thou wilt undertake\nA thing like death to chide away this shame,\nThat copest with death himself to scape from it:\nAnd, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.\n\nJULIET:\nO, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\nFrom off the battlements of yonder tower;\nOr walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk\nWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;\nOr shut me nightly in a charnel-house,\nO'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\nWith reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\nOr bid me go into a new-made grave\nAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud;\nThings that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;\nAnd I will do it without fear or doubt,\nTo live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, then; go home, be merry, give consent\nTo marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:\nTo-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\nLet not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:\nTake thou this vial, being then in bed,\nAnd this distilled liquor drink thou off;\nWhen presently through all thy veins shall run\nA cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse\nShall keep his native progress, but surcease:\nNo warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\nThe roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\nTo paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,\nLike death, when he shuts up the day of life;\nEach part, deprived of supple government,\nShall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:\nAnd in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death\nThou shalt continue two and forty hours,\nAnd then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\nNow, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\nTo rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:\nThen, as the manner of our country is,\nIn thy best robes uncover'd on the bier\nThou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\nWhere all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\nIn the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\nShall Romeo by my letters know our drift,\nAnd hither shall he come: and he and I\nWill watch thy waking, and that very night\nShall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\nAnd this shall free thee from this present shame;\nIf no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,\nAbate thy valour in the acting it.\n\nJULIET:\nGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous\nIn this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed\nTo Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n\nJULIET:\nLove give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\nFarewell, dear father!\n\nCAPULET:\nSo many guests invite as here are writ.\nSirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\nSecond Servant:\nYou shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they\ncan lick their fingers.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow canst thou try them so?\n\nSecond Servant:\nMarry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his\nown fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his\nfingers goes not with me.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, be gone.\nWe shall be much unfurnished for this time.\nWhat, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n\nNurse:\nAy, forsooth.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell, he may chance to do some good on her:\nA peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\nNurse:\nSee where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere I have learn'd me to repent the sin\nOf disobedient opposition\nTo you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\nBy holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,\nAnd beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!\nHenceforward I am ever ruled by you.\n\nCAPULET:\nSend for the county; go tell him of this:\nI'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n\nJULIET:\nI met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;\nAnd gave him what becomed love I might,\nNot step o'er the bounds of modesty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:\nThis is as't should be. Let me see the county;\nAy, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\nNow, afore God! this reverend holy friar,\nOur whole city is much bound to him.\n\nJULIET:\nNurse, will you go with me into my closet,\nTo help me sort such needful ornaments\nAs you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNo, not till Thursday; there is time enough.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.\n\nLADY  CAPULET:\nWe shall be short in our provision:\n'Tis now near night.\n\nCAPULET:\nTush, I will stir about,\nAnd all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:\nGo thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;\nI'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;\nI'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\nThey are all forth. Well, I will walk myself\nTo County Paris, to prepare him up\nAgainst to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,\nSince this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,\nI pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,\nFor I have need of many orisons\nTo move the heavens to smile upon my state,\nWhich, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat, are you busy, ho? need you my help?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\nAs are behoveful for our state to-morrow:\nSo please you, let me now be left alone,\nAnd let the nurse this night sit up with you;\nFor, I am sure, you have your hands full all,\nIn this so sudden business.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nGood night:\nGet thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n\nJULIET:\nFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\nI have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,\nThat almost freezes up the heat of life:\nI'll call them back again to comfort me:\nNurse! What should she do here?\nMy dismal scene I needs must act alone.\nCome, vial.\nWhat if this mixture do not work at all?\nShall I be married then to-morrow morning?\nNo, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.\nWhat if it be a poison, which the friar\nSubtly hath minister'd to have me dead,\nLest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,\nBecause he married me before to Romeo?\nI fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,\nFor he hath still been tried a holy man.\nHow if, when I am laid into the tomb,\nI wake before the time that Romeo\nCome to redeem me? there's a fearful point!\nShall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,\nTo whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\nAnd there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\nOr, if I live, is it not very like,\nThe horrible conceit of death and night,\nTogether with the terror of the place,--\nAs in a vault, an ancient receptacle,\nWhere, for these many hundred years, the bones\nOf all my buried ancestors are packed:\nWhere bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\nLies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,\nAt some hours in the night spirits resort;--\nAlack, alack, is it not like that I,\nSo early waking, what with loathsome smells,\nAnd shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,\nThat living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--\nO, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\nEnvironed with all these hideous fears?\nAnd madly play with my forefather's joints?\nAnd pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?\nAnd, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,\nAs with a club, dash out my desperate brains?\nO, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\nSeeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\nUpon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!\nRomeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nThey call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\nCAPULET:\nCome, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,\nThe curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:\nLook to the baked meats, good Angelica:\nSpare not for the cost.\n\nNurse:\nGo, you cot-quean, go,\nGet you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow\nFor this night's watching.\n\nCAPULET:\nNo, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now\nAll night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\nBut I will watch you from such watching now.\n\nCAPULET:\nA jealous hood, a jealous hood!\nNow, fellow,\nWhat's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nThings for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n\nCAPULET:\nMake haste, make haste.\nSirrah, fetch drier logs:\nCall Peter, he will show thee where they are.\n\nSecond Servant:\nI have a head, sir, that will find out logs,\nAnd never trouble Peter for the matter.\n\nCAPULET:\nMass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\nThou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:\nThe county will be here with music straight,\nFor so he said he would: I hear him near.\nNurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\nGo waken Juliet, go and trim her up;\nI'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,\nMake haste; the bridegroom he is come already:\nMake haste, I say.\n\nNurse:\nMistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:\nWhy, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!\nWhy, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!\nWhat, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;\nSleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\nThe County Paris hath set up his rest,\nThat you shall rest but little. God forgive me,\nMarry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!\nI must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\nAy, let the county take you in your bed;\nHe'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\nWhat, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!\nI must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!\nAlas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!\nO, well-a-day, that ever I was born!\nSome aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat noise is here?\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nNurse:\nLook, look! O heavy day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me, O me! My child, my only life,\nRevive, look up, or I will die with thee!\nHelp, help! Call help.\n\nCAPULET:\nFor shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n\nNurse:\nShe's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAlack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n\nCAPULET:\nHa! let me see her: out, alas! she's cold:\nHer blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\nLife and these lips have long been separated:\nDeath lies on her like an untimely frost\nUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO woful time!\n\nCAPULET:\nDeath, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\nTies up my tongue, and will not let me speak.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, is the bride ready to go to church?\n\nCAPULET:\nReady to go, but never to return.\nO son! the night before thy wedding-day\nHath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,\nFlower as she was, deflowered by him.\nDeath is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\nMy daughter he hath wedded: I will die,\nAnd leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.\n\nPARIS:\nHave I thought long to see this morning's face,\nAnd doth it give me such a sight as this?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAccursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\nMost miserable hour that e'er time saw\nIn lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\nBut one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\nBut one thing to rejoice and solace in,\nAnd cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n\nNurse:\nO woe! O woful, woful, woful day!\nMost lamentable day, most woful day,\nThat ever, ever, I did yet behold!\nO day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\nNever was seen so black a day as this:\nO woful day, O woful day!\n\nPARIS:\nBeguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\nMost detestable death, by thee beguil'd,\nBy cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\nO love! O life! not life, but love in death!\n\nCAPULET:\nDespised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\nUncomfortable time, why camest thou now\nTo murder, murder our solemnity?\nO child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\nDead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;\nAnd with my child my joys are buried.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nPeace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not\nIn these confusions. Heaven and yourself\nHad part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,\nAnd all the better is it for the maid:\nYour part in her you could not keep from death,\nBut heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\nThe most you sought was her promotion;\nFor 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:\nAnd weep ye now, seeing she is advanced\nAbove the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\nO, in this love, you love your child so ill,\nThat you run mad, seeing that she is well:\nShe's not well married that lives married long;\nBut she's best married that dies married young.\nDry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\nOn this fair corse; and, as the custom is,\nIn all her best array bear her to church:\nFor though fond nature bids us an lament,\nYet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n\nCAPULET:\nAll things that we ordained festival,\nTurn from their office to black funeral;\nOur instruments to melancholy bells,\nOur wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,\nOur solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,\nOur bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,\nAnd all things change them to the contrary.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\nAnd go, Sir Paris; every one prepare\nTo follow this fair corse unto her grave:\nThe heavens do lour upon you for some ill;\nMove them no more by crossing their high will.\n\nFirst Musician:\nFaith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.\n\nNurse:\nHonest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;\nFor, well you know, this is a pitiful case.\n\nFirst Musician:\nAy, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\nPETER:\nMusicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's\nease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhy 'Heart's ease?'\n\nPETER:\nO, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My\nheart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,\nto comfort me.\n\nFirst Musician:\nNot a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.\n\nPETER:\nYou will not, then?\n\nFirst Musician:\nNo.\n\nPETER:\nI will then give it you soundly.\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat will you give us?\n\nPETER:\nNo money, on my faith, but the gleek;\nI will give you the minstrel.\n\nFirst Musician:\nThen I will give you the serving-creature.\n\nPETER:\nThen will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on\nyour pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you,\nI'll fa you; do you note me?\n\nFirst Musician:\nAn you re us and fa us, you note us.\n\nSecond Musician:\nPray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n\nPETER:\nThen have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you\nwith an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer\nme like men:\n'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\nAnd doleful dumps the mind oppress,\nThen music with her silver sound'--\nwhy 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver\nsound'? What say you, Simon Catling?\n\nMusician:\nMarry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n\nPETER:\nPretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?\n\nSecond Musician:\nI say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.\n\nPETER:\nPretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n\nThird Musician:\nFaith, I know not what to say.\n\nPETER:\nO, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say\nfor you. It is 'music with her silver sound,'\nbecause musicians have no gold for sounding:\n'Then music with her silver sound\nWith speedy help doth lend redress.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat a pestilent knave is this same!\n\nSecond Musician:\nHang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the\nmourners, and stay dinner.\n\nROMEO:\nIf I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,\nMy dreams presage some joyful news at hand:\nMy bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;\nAnd all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\nLifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\nI dreamt my lady came and found me dead--\nStrange dream, that gives a dead man leave\nto think!--\nAnd breathed such life with kisses in my lips,\nThat I revived, and was an emperor.\nAh me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\nWhen but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\nNews from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!\nDost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\nHow doth my lady? Is my father well?\nHow fares my Juliet? that I ask again;\nFor nothing can be ill, if she be well.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nThen she is well, and nothing can be ill:\nHer body sleeps in Capel's monument,\nAnd her immortal part with angels lives.\nI saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,\nAnd presently took post to tell it you:\nO, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\nSince you did leave it for my office, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nIs it even so? then I defy you, stars!\nThou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,\nAnd hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI do beseech you, sir, have patience:\nYour looks are pale and wild, and do import\nSome misadventure.\n\nROMEO:\nTush, thou art deceived:\nLeave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.\nHast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nNo, my good lord.\n\nROMEO:\nNo matter: get thee gone,\nAnd hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.\nWell, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\nLet's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift\nTo enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\nI do remember an apothecary,--\nAnd hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted\nIn tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,\nCulling of simples; meagre were his looks,\nSharp misery had worn him to the bones:\nAnd in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\nAn alligator stuff'd, and other skins\nOf ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\nA beggarly account of empty boxes,\nGreen earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,\nRemnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,\nWere thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.\nNoting this penury, to myself I said\n'An if a man did need a poison now,\nWhose sale is present death in Mantua,\nHere lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\nO, this same thought did but forerun my need;\nAnd this same needy man must sell it me.\nAs I remember, this should be the house.\nBeing holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.\nWhat, ho! apothecary!\n\nApothecary:\nWho calls so loud?\n\nROMEO:\nCome hither, man. I see that thou art poor:\nHold, there is forty ducats: let me have\nA dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\nAs will disperse itself through all the veins\nThat the life-weary taker may fall dead\nAnd that the trunk may be discharged of breath\nAs violently as hasty powder fired\nDoth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n\nApothecary:\nSuch mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\nIs death to any he that utters them.\n\nROMEO:\nArt thou so bare and full of wretchedness,\nAnd fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,\nNeed and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\nContempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;\nThe world is not thy friend nor the world's law;\nThe world affords no law to make thee rich;\nThen be not poor, but break it, and take this.\n\nApothecary:\nMy poverty, but not my will, consents.\n\nROMEO:\nI pay thy poverty, and not thy will.\n\nApothecary:\nPut this in any liquid thing you will,\nAnd drink it off; and, if you had the strength\nOf twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,\nDoing more murders in this loathsome world,\nThan these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\nI sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\nFarewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.\nCome, cordial and not poison, go with me\nTo Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nHoly Franciscan friar! brother, ho!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThis same should be the voice of Friar John.\nWelcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?\nOr, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nGoing to find a bare-foot brother out\nOne of our order, to associate me,\nHere in this city visiting the sick,\nAnd finding him, the searchers of the town,\nSuspecting that we both were in a house\nWhere the infectious pestilence did reign,\nSeal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;\nSo that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nI could not send it,--here it is again,--\nNor get a messenger to bring it thee,\nSo fearful were they of infection.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nUnhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,\nThe letter was not nice but full of charge\nOf dear import, and the neglecting it\nMay do much danger. Friar John, go hence;\nGet me an iron crow, and bring it straight\nUnto my cell.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nBrother, I'll go and bring it thee.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNow must I to the monument alone;\nWithin three hours will fair Juliet wake:\nShe will beshrew me much that Romeo\nHath had no notice of these accidents;\nBut I will write again to Mantua,\nAnd keep her at my cell till Romeo come;\nPoor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!\n\nPARIS:\nGive me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:\nYet put it out, for I would not be seen.\nUnder yond yew-trees lay thee all along,\nHolding thine ear close to the hollow ground;\nSo shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,\nBeing loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,\nBut thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,\nAs signal that thou hear'st something approach.\nGive me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n\nPAGE:\n\nPARIS:\nSweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--\nO woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--\nWhich with sweet water nightly I will dew,\nOr, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:\nThe obsequies that I for thee will keep\nNightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.\nThe boy gives warning something doth approach.\nWhat cursed foot wanders this way to-night,\nTo cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\nWhat with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\nHold, take this letter; early in the morning\nSee thou deliver it to my lord and father.\nGive me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,\nWhate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,\nAnd do not interrupt me in my course.\nWhy I descend into this bed of death,\nIs partly to behold my lady's face;\nBut chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\nA precious ring, a ring that I must use\nIn dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:\nBut if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\nIn what I further shall intend to do,\nBy heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\nAnd strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:\nThe time and my intents are savage-wild,\nMore fierce and more inexorable far\nThan empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n\nROMEO:\nSo shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:\nLive, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.\n\nBALTHASAR:\n\nROMEO:\nThou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\nGorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,\nThus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\nAnd, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!\n\nPARIS:\nThis is that banish'd haughty Montague,\nThat murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,\nIt is supposed, the fair creature died;\nAnd here is come to do some villanous shame\nTo the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.\nStop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!\nCan vengeance be pursued further than death?\nCondemned villain, I do apprehend thee:\nObey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n\nROMEO:\nI must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\nGood gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;\nFly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;\nLet them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\nPut not another sin upon my head,\nBy urging me to fury: O, be gone!\nBy heaven, I love thee better than myself;\nFor I come hither arm'd against myself:\nStay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,\nA madman's mercy bade thee run away.\n\nPARIS:\nI do defy thy conjurations,\nAnd apprehend thee for a felon here.\n\nROMEO:\nWilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!\n\nPAGE:\nO Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n\nPARIS:\nO, I am slain!\nIf thou be merciful,\nOpen the tomb, lay me with Juliet.\n\nROMEO:\nIn faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\nMercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\nWhat said my man, when my betossed soul\nDid not attend him as we rode? I think\nHe told me Paris should have married Juliet:\nSaid he not so? or did I dream it so?\nOr am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,\nTo think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\nOne writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\nI'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;\nA grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,\nFor here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\nThis vault a feasting presence full of light.\nDeath, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\nHow oft when men are at the point of death\nHave they been merry! which their keepers call\nA lightning before death: O, how may I\nCall this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\nDeath, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\nHath had no power yet upon thy beauty:\nThou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet\nIs crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\nAnd death's pale flag is not advanced there.\nTybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\nO, what more favour can I do to thee,\nThan with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\nTo sunder his that was thine enemy?\nForgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,\nWhy art thou yet so fair? shall I believe\nThat unsubstantial death is amorous,\nAnd that the lean abhorred monster keeps\nThee here in dark to be his paramour?\nFor fear of that, I still will stay with thee;\nAnd never from this palace of dim night\nDepart again: here, here will I remain\nWith worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here\nWill I set up my everlasting rest,\nAnd shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\nFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\nArms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\nThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\nA dateless bargain to engrossing death!\nCome, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!\nThou desperate pilot, now at once run on\nThe dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!\nHere's to my love!\nO true apothecary!\nThy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSaint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\nHave my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nHere's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\nWhat torch is yond, that vainly lends his light\nTo grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,\nIt burneth in the Capel's monument.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nIt doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\nOne that you love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho is it?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nRomeo.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHow long hath he been there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nFull half an hour.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo with me to the vault.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI dare not, sir\nMy master knows not but I am gone hence;\nAnd fearfully did menace me with death,\nIf I did stay to look on his intents.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nStay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:\nO, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nAs I did sleep under this yew-tree here,\nI dreamt my master and another fought,\nAnd that my master slew him.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo!\nAlack, alack, what blood is this, which stains\nThe stony entrance of this sepulchre?\nWhat mean these masterless and gory swords\nTo lie discolour'd by this place of peace?\nRomeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?\nAnd steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\nIs guilty of this lamentable chance!\nThe lady stirs.\n\nJULIET:\nO comfortable friar! where is my lord?\nI do remember well where I should be,\nAnd there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\nOf death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:\nA greater power than we can contradict\nHath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\nThy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\nAnd Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\nAmong a sisterhood of holy nuns:\nStay not to question, for the watch is coming;\nCome, go, good Juliet,\nI dare no longer stay.\n\nJULIET:\nGo, get thee hence, for I will not away.\nWhat's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?\nPoison, I see, hath been his timeless end:\nO churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\nTo help me after? I will kiss thy lips;\nHaply some poison yet doth hang on them,\nTo make die with a restorative.\nThy lips are warm.\n\nFirst Watchman:\n\nJULIET:\nYea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\nThis is thy sheath;\nthere rust, and let me die.\n\nPAGE:\nThis is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nThe ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:\nGo, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.\nPitiful sight! here lies the county slain,\nAnd Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\nWho here hath lain these two days buried.\nGo, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:\nRaise up the Montagues: some others search:\nWe see the ground whereon these woes do lie;\nBut the true ground of all these piteous woes\nWe cannot without circumstance descry.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nHere's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHold him in safety, till the prince come hither.\n\nThird Watchman:\nHere is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:\nWe took this mattock and this spade from him,\nAs he was coming from this churchyard side.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nA great suspicion: stay the friar too.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat misadventure is so early up,\nThat calls our person from our morning's rest?\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThe people in the street cry Romeo,\nSome Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,\nWith open outcry toward our monument.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat fear is this which startles in our ears?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nSovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\nAnd Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\nWarm and new kill'd.\n\nPRINCE:\nSearch, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHere is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;\nWith instruments upon them, fit to open\nThese dead men's tombs.\n\nCAPULET:\nO heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\nThis dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house\nIs empty on the back of Montague,--\nAnd it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me! this sight of death is as a bell,\nThat warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\nPRINCE:\nCome, Montague; for thou art early up,\nTo see thy son and heir more early down.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAlas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;\nGrief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:\nWhat further woe conspires against mine age?\n\nPRINCE:\nLook, and thou shalt see.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nO thou untaught! what manners is in this?\nTo press before thy father to a grave?\n\nPRINCE:\nSeal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\nTill we can clear these ambiguities,\nAnd know their spring, their head, their\ntrue descent;\nAnd then will I be general of your woes,\nAnd lead you even to death: meantime forbear,\nAnd let mischance be slave to patience.\nBring forth the parties of suspicion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI am the greatest, able to do least,\nYet most suspected, as the time and place\nDoth make against me of this direful murder;\nAnd here I stand, both to impeach and purge\nMyself condemned and myself excused.\n\nPRINCE:\nThen say at once what thou dost know in this.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI will be brief, for my short date of breath\nIs not so long as is a tedious tale.\nRomeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\nAnd she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:\nI married them; and their stol'n marriage-day\nWas Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death\nBanish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,\nFor whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.\nYou, to remove that siege of grief from her,\nBetroth'd and would have married her perforce\nTo County Paris: then comes she to me,\nAnd, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean\nTo rid her from this second marriage,\nOr in my cell there would she kill herself.\nThen gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,\nA sleeping potion; which so took effect\nAs I intended, for it wrought on her\nThe form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,\nThat he should hither come as this dire night,\nTo help to take her from her borrow'd grave,\nBeing the time the potion's force should cease.\nBut he which bore my letter, Friar John,\nWas stay'd by accident, and yesternight\nReturn'd my letter back. Then all alone\nAt the prefixed hour of her waking,\nCame I to take her from her kindred's vault;\nMeaning to keep her closely at my cell,\nTill I conveniently could send to Romeo:\nBut when I came, some minute ere the time\nOf her awaking, here untimely lay\nThe noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\nShe wakes; and I entreated her come forth,\nAnd bear this work of heaven with patience:\nBut then a noise did scare me from the tomb;\nAnd she, too desperate, would not go with me,\nBut, as it seems, did violence on herself.\nAll this I know; and to the marriage\nHer nurse is privy: and, if aught in this\nMiscarried by my fault, let my old life\nBe sacrificed, some hour before his time,\nUnto the rigour of severest law.\n\nPRINCE:\nWe still have known thee for a holy man.\nWhere's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI brought my master news of Juliet's death;\nAnd then in post he came from Mantua\nTo this same place, to this same monument.\nThis letter he early bid me give his father,\nAnd threatened me with death, going in the vault,\nI departed not and left him there.\n\nPRINCE:\nGive me the letter; I will look on it.\nWhere is the county's page, that raised the watch?\nSirrah, what made your master in this place?\n\nPAGE:\nHe came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\nAnd bid me stand aloof, and so I did:\nAnon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\nAnd by and by my master drew on him;\nAnd then I ran away to call the watch.\n\nPRINCE:\nThis letter doth make good the friar's words,\nTheir course of love, the tidings of her death:\nAnd here he writes that he did buy a poison\nOf a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal\nCame to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\nWhere be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!\nSee, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\nThat heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.\nAnd I for winking at your discords too\nHave lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.\n\nCAPULET:\nO brother Montague, give me thy hand:\nThis is my daughter's jointure, for no more\nCan I demand.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I can give thee more:\nFor I will raise her statue in pure gold;\nThat while Verona by that name is known,\nThere shall no figure at such rate be set\nAs that of true and faithful Juliet.\n\nCAPULET:\nAs rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;\nPoor sacrifices of our enmity!\n\nPRINCE:\nA glooming peace this morning with it brings;\nThe sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:\nGo hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\nSome shall be pardon'd, and some punished:\nFor never was a story of more woe\nThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n\nWARWICK:\nI wonder how the king escaped our hands.\n\nYORK:\nWhile we pursued the horsemen of the north,\nHe slily stole away and left his men:\nWhereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\nWhose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\nCheer'd up the drooping army; and himself,\nLord Clifford and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\nCharged our main battle's front, and breaking in\nWere by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\nIs either slain or wounded dangerously;\nI cleft his beaver with a downright blow:\nThat this is true, father, behold his blood.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\nWhom I encounter'd as the battles join'd.\n\nRICHARD:\nSpeak thou for me and tell them what I did.\n\nYORK:\nRichard hath best deserved of all my sons.\nBut is your grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSuch hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n\nRICHARD:\nThus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\nBefore I see thee seated in that throne\nWhich now the house of Lancaster usurps,\nI vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\nThis is the palace of the fearful king,\nAnd this the regal seat: possess it, York;\nFor this is thine and not King Henry's heirs'\n\nYORK:\nAssist me, then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\nFor hither we have broken in by force.\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n\nYORK:\nThanks, gentle Norfolk: stay by me, my lords;\nAnd, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd when the king comes, offer no violence,\nUnless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n\nYORK:\nThe queen this day here holds her parliament,\nBut little thinks we shall be of her council:\nBy words or blows here let us win our right.\n\nRICHARD:\nArm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n\nWARWICK:\nThe bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\nUnless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be king,\nAnd bashful Henry deposed, whose cowardice\nHath made us by-words to our enemies.\n\nYORK:\nThen leave me not, my lords; be resolute;\nI mean to take possession of my right.\n\nWARWICK:\nNeither the king, nor he that loves him best,\nThe proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\nDares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.\nI'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares:\nResolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\nEven in the chair of state: belike he means,\nBack'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\nTo aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\nEarl of Northumberland, he slew thy father.\nAnd thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\nOn him, his sons, his favourites and his friends.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIf I be not, heavens be revenged on me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThe hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nWhat, shall we suffer this? let's pluck him down:\nMy heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPatience is for poltroons, such as he:\nHe durst not sit there, had your father lived.\nMy gracious lord, here in the parliament\nLet us assail the family of York.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell hast thou spoken, cousin: be it so.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, know you not the city favours them,\nAnd they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n\nEXETER:\nBut when the duke is slain, they'll quickly fly.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFar be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\nTo make a shambles of the parliament-house!\nCousin of Exeter, frowns, words and threats\nShall be the war that Henry means to use.\nThou factious Duke of York, descend my throne,\nand kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\nI am thy sovereign.\n\nYORK:\nI am thine.\n\nEXETER:\nFor shame, come down: he made thee Duke of York.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n\nEXETER:\nThy father was a traitor to the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nExeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\nIn following this usurping Henry.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhom should he follow but his natural king?\n\nWARWICK:\nTrue, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n\nYORK:\nIt must and shall be so: content thyself.\n\nWARWICK:\nBe Duke of Lancaster; let him be king.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nHe is both king and Duke of Lancaster;\nAnd that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\nThat we are those which chased you from the field\nAnd slew your fathers, and with colours spread\nMarch'd through the city to the palace gates.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\nAnd, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nPlantagenet, of thee and these thy sons,\nThy kinsman and thy friends, I'll have more lives\nThan drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nUrge it no more; lest that, instead of words,\nI send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\nAs shall revenge his death before I stir.\n\nWARWICK:\nPoor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless threats!\n\nYORK:\nWill you we show our title to the crown?\nIf not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhat title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\nThy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\nThy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\nI am the son of Henry the Fifth,\nWho made the Dauphin and the French to stoop\nAnd seized upon their towns and provinces.\n\nWARWICK:\nTalk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe lord protector lost it, and not I:\nWhen I was crown'd I was but nine months old.\n\nRICHARD:\nYou are old enough now, and yet, methinks, you lose.\nFather, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nGood brother, as thou lovest and honourest arms,\nLet's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n\nRICHARD:\nSound drums and trumpets, and the king will fly.\n\nYORK:\nSons, peace!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPeace, thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nPlantagenet shall speak first: hear him, lords;\nAnd be you silent and attentive too,\nFor he that interrupts him shall not live.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThink'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\nWherein my grandsire and my father sat?\nNo: first shall war unpeople this my realm;\nAy, and their colours, often borne in France,\nAnd now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\nShall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\nMy title's good, and better far than his.\n\nWARWICK:\nProve it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHenry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nYORK:\nWhat then?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAn if he may, then am I lawful king;\nFor Richard, in the view of many lords,\nResign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\nWhose heir my father was, and I am his.\n\nYORK:\nHe rose against him, being his sovereign,\nAnd made him to resign his crown perforce.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\nThink you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n\nEXETER:\nNo; for he could not so resign his crown\nBut that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nArt thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n\nEXETER:\nHis is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n\nYORK:\nWhy whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n\nEXETER:\nMy conscience tells me he is lawful king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nPlantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\nThink not that Henry shall be so deposed.\n\nWARWICK:\nDeposed he shall be, in despite of all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThou art deceived: 'tis not thy southern power,\nOf Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\nWhich makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\nCan set the duke up in despite of me.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nKing Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\nLord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence:\nMay that ground gape and swallow me alive,\nWhere I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n\nYORK:\nHenry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\nWhat mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n\nWARWICK:\nDo right unto this princely Duke of York,\nOr I will fill the house with armed men,\nAnd over the chair of state, where now he sits,\nWrite up his title with usurping blood.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Warwick, hear me but one word:\nLet me for this my life-time reign as king.\n\nYORK:\nConfirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\nAnd thou shalt reign in quiet while thou livest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI am content: Richard Plantagenet,\nEnjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhat wrong is this unto the prince your son!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat good is this to England and himself!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nBase, fearful and despairing Henry!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow hast thou injured both thyself and us!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nI cannot stay to hear these articles.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNor I.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nCome, cousin, let us tell the queen these news.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nFarewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\nIn whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe thou a prey unto the house of York,\nAnd die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\nOr live in peace abandon'd and despised!\n\nWARWICK:\nTurn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n\nEXETER:\nThey seek revenge and therefore will not yield.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, Exeter!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy should you sigh, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNot for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\nWhom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\nBut be it as it may: I here entail\nThe crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\nConditionally, that here thou take an oath\nTo cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\nTo honour me as thy king and sovereign,\nAnd neither by treason nor hostility\nTo seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n\nYORK:\nThis oath I willingly take and will perform.\n\nWARWICK:\nLong live King Henry! Plantagenet embrace him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd long live thou and these thy forward sons!\n\nYORK:\nNow York and Lancaster are reconciled.\n\nEXETER:\nAccursed be he that seeks to make them foes!\n\nYORK:\nFarewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n\nNORFOLK:\nAnd I to Norfolk with my followers.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd I unto the sea from whence I came.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\nEXETER:\nHere comes the queen, whose looks bewray her anger:\nI'll steal away.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nExeter, so will I.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWho can be patient in such extremes?\nAh, wretched man! would I had died a maid\nAnd never seen thee, never borne thee son,\nSeeing thou hast proved so unnatural a father\nHath he deserved to lose his birthright thus?\nHadst thou but loved him half so well as I,\nOr felt that pain which I did for him once,\nOr nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\nThou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there,\nRather than have that savage duke thine heir\nAnd disinherited thine only son.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFather, you cannot disinherit me:\nIf you be king, why should not I succeed?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son:\nThe Earl of Warwick and the duke enforced me.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nEnforced thee! art thou king, and wilt be forced?\nI shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\nThou hast undone thyself, thy son and me;\nAnd given unto the house of York such head\nAs thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\nTo entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\nWhat is it, but to make thy sepulchre\nAnd creep into it far before thy time?\nWarwick is chancellor and the lord of Calais;\nStern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\nThe duke is made protector of the realm;\nAnd yet shalt thou be safe? such safety finds\nThe trembling lamb environed with wolves.\nHad I been there, which am a silly woman,\nThe soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\nBefore I would have granted to that act.\nBut thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour:\nAnd seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself\nBoth from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\nUntil that act of parliament be repeal'd\nWhereby my son is disinherited.\nThe northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\nWill follow mine, if once they see them spread;\nAnd spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\nAnd utter ruin of the house of York.\nThus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\nOur army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nStay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hast spoke too much already: get thee gone.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nGentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhen I return with victory from the field\nI'll see your grace: till then I'll follow her.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nCome, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPoor queen! how love to me and to her son\nHath made her break out into terms of rage!\nRevenged may she be on that hateful duke,\nWhose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\nWill cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\nTire on the flesh of me and of my son!\nThe loss of those three lords torments my heart:\nI'll write unto them and entreat them fair.\nCome, cousin you shall be the messenger.\n\nEXETER:\nAnd I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, I can better play the orator.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\nYORK:\nWhy, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\nWhat is your quarrel? how began it first?\n\nEDWARD:\nNo quarrel, but a slight contention.\n\nYORK:\nAbout what?\n\nRICHARD:\nAbout that which concerns your grace and us;\nThe crown of England, father, which is yours.\n\nYORK:\nMine boy? not till King Henry be dead.\n\nRICHARD:\nYour right depends not on his life or death.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow you are heir, therefore enjoy it now:\nBy giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\nIt will outrun you, father, in the end.\n\nYORK:\nI took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n\nEDWARD:\nBut for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\nI would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n\nRICHARD:\nNo; God forbid your grace should be forsworn.\n\nYORK:\nI shall be, if I claim by open war.\n\nRICHARD:\nI'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n\nYORK:\nThou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n\nRICHARD:\nAn oath is of no moment, being not took\nBefore a true and lawful magistrate,\nThat hath authority over him that swears:\nHenry had none, but did usurp the place;\nThen, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\nYour oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\nTherefore, to arms! And, father, do but think\nHow sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;\nWithin whose circuit is Elysium\nAnd all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\nWhy do we finger thus? I cannot rest\nUntil the white rose that I wear be dyed\nEven in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n\nYORK:\nRichard, enough; I will be king, or die.\nBrother, thou shalt to London presently,\nAnd whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\nThou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk,\nAnd tell him privily of our intent.\nYou Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\nWith whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise:\nIn them I trust; for they are soldiers,\nWitty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\nWhile you are thus employ'd, what resteth more,\nBut that I seek occasion how to rise,\nAnd yet the king not privy to my drift,\nNor any of the house of Lancaster?\nBut, stay: what news? Why comest thou in such post?\n\nMessenger:\nThe queen with all the northern earls and lords\nIntend here to besiege you in your castle:\nShe is hard by with twenty thousand men;\nAnd therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAy, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\nEdward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\nMy brother Montague shall post to London:\nLet noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\nWhom we have left protectors of the king,\nWith powerful policy strengthen themselves,\nAnd trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBrother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not:\nAnd thus most humbly I do take my leave.\nSir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles,\nYou are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\nThe army of the queen mean to besiege us.\n\nJOHN MORTIMER:\nShe shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, with five thousand men?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, with five hundred, father, for a need:\nA woman's general; what should we fear?\n\nEDWARD:\nI hear their drums: let's set our men in order,\nAnd issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n\nYORK:\nFive men to twenty! though the odds be great,\nI doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\nMany a battle have I won in France,\nWhen as the enemy hath been ten to one:\nWhy should I not now have the like success?\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRUTLAND:\nAh, whither shall I fly to 'scape their hands?\nAh, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nChaplain, away! thy priesthood saves thy life.\nAs for the brat of this accursed duke,\nWhose father slew my father, he shall die.\n\nTutor:\nAnd I, my lord, will bear him company.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSoldiers, away with him!\n\nTutor:\nAh, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\nLest thou be hated both of God and man!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow now! is he dead already? or is it fear\nThat makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n\nRUTLAND:\nSo looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\nThat trembles under his devouring paws;\nAnd so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\nAnd so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\nAh, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\nAnd not with such a cruel threatening look.\nSweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\nI am too mean a subject for thy wrath:\nBe thou revenged on men, and let me live.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\nHath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n\nRUTLAND:\nThen let my father's blood open it again:\nHe is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHad thy brethren here, their lives and thine\nWere not revenge sufficient for me;\nNo, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\nAnd hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\nIt could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart.\nThe sight of any of the house of York\nIs as a fury to torment my soul;\nAnd till I root out their accursed line\nAnd leave not one alive, I live in hell.\nTherefore--\n\nRUTLAND:\nO, let me pray before I take my death!\nTo thee I pray; sweet Clifford, pity me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSuch pity as my rapier's point affords.\n\nRUTLAND:\nI never did thee harm: why wilt thou slay me?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThy father hath.\n\nRUTLAND:\nBut 'twas ere I was born.\nThou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\nLest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\nHe be as miserably slain as I.\nAh, let me live in prison all my days;\nAnd when I give occasion of offence,\nThen let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNo cause!\nThy father slew my father; therefore, die.\n\nRUTLAND:\nDi faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPlantagenet! I come, Plantagenet!\nAnd this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\nShall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\nCongeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nYORK:\nThe army of the queen hath got the field:\nMy uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\nAnd all my followers to the eager foe\nTurn back and fly, like ships before the wind\nOr lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.\nMy sons, God knows what hath bechanced them:\nBut this I know, they have demean'd themselves\nLike men born to renown by life or death.\nThree times did Richard make a lane to me.\nAnd thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out!'\nAnd full as oft came Edward to my side,\nWith purple falchion, painted to the hilt\nIn blood of those that had encounter'd him:\nAnd when the hardiest warriors did retire,\nRichard cried 'Charge! and give no foot of ground!'\nAnd cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\nA sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\nWith this, we charged again: but, out, alas!\nWe bodged again; as I have seen a swan\nWith bootless labour swim against the tide\nAnd spend her strength with over-matching waves.\nAh, hark! the fatal followers do pursue;\nAnd I am faint and cannot fly their fury:\nAnd were I strong, I would not shun their fury:\nThe sands are number'd that make up my life;\nHere must I stay, and here my life must end.\nCome, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\nI dare your quenchless fury to more rage:\nI am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, to such mercy as his ruthless arm,\nWith downright payment, show'd unto my father.\nNow Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\nAnd made an evening at the noontide prick.\n\nYORK:\nMy ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\nA bird that will revenge upon you all:\nAnd in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\nScorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\nWhy come you not? what! multitudes, and fear?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSo cowards fight when they can fly no further;\nSo doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\nSo desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\nBreathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n\nYORK:\nO Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\nAnd in thy thought o'er-run my former time;\nAnd, if though canst for blushing, view this face,\nAnd bite thy tongue, that slanders him with cowardice\nWhose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI will not bandy with thee word for word,\nBut buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHold, valiant Clifford! for a thousand causes\nI would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\nWrath makes him deaf: speak thou, Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\nTo prick thy finger, though to wound his heart:\nWhat valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\nFor one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\nWhen he might spurn him with his foot away?\nIt is war's prize to take all vantages;\nAnd ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSo doth the cony struggle in the net.\n\nYORK:\nSo triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\nSo true men yield, with robbers so o'ermatch'd.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat would your grace have done unto him now?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBrave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\nCome, make him stand upon this molehill here,\nThat raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\nYet parted but the shadow with his hand.\nWhat! was it you that would be England's king?\nWas't you that revell'd in our parliament,\nAnd made a preachment of your high descent?\nWhere are your mess of sons to back you now?\nThe wanton Edward, and the lusty George?\nAnd where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\nDicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\nWas wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\nOr, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\nLook, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\nThat valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,\nMade issue from the bosom of the boy;\nAnd if thine eyes can water for his death,\nI give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\nAlas poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\nI should lament thy miserable state.\nI prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.\nWhat, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\nThat not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\nWhy art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;\nAnd I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.\nStamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\nThou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport:\nYork cannot speak, unless he wear a crown.\nA crown for York! and, lords, bow low to him:\nHold you his hands, whilst I do set it on.\nAy, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\nAy, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\nAnd this is he was his adopted heir.\nBut how is it that great Plantagenet\nIs crown'd so soon, and broke his solemn oath?\nAs I bethink me, you should not be king\nTill our King Henry had shook hands with death.\nAnd will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\nAnd rob his temples of the diadem,\nNow in his life, against your holy oath?\nO, 'tis a fault too too unpardonable!\nOff with the crown, and with the crown his head;\nAnd, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThat is my office, for my father's sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, stay; lets hear the orisons he makes.\n\nYORK:\nShe-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\nWhose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\nHow ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\nTo triumph, like an Amazonian trull,\nUpon their woes whom fortune captivates!\nBut that thy face is, vizard-like, unchanging,\nMade impudent with use of evil deeds,\nI would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\nTo tell thee whence thou camest, of whom derived,\nWere shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\nThy father bears the type of King of Naples,\nOf both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nYet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\nHath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\nIt needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen,\nUnless the adage must be verified,\nThat beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\nBut, God he knows, thy share thereof is small:\n'Tis virtue that doth make them most admired;\nThe contrary doth make thee wonder'd at:\n'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\nThe want thereof makes thee abominable:\nThou art as opposite to every good\nAs the Antipodes are unto us,\nOr as the south to the septentrion.\nO tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!\nHow couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\nTo bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\nAnd yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\nWomen are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible;\nThou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\nBids't thou me rage? why, now thou hast thy wish:\nWouldst have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will:\nFor raging wind blows up incessant showers,\nAnd when the rage allays, the rain begins.\nThese tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies:\nAnd every drop cries vengeance for his death,\n'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false\nFrenchwoman.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBeshrew me, but his passion moves me so\nThat hardly can I cheque my eyes from tears.\n\nYORK:\nThat face of his the hungry cannibals\nWould not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood:\nBut you are more inhuman, more inexorable,\nO, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.\nSee, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears:\nThis cloth thou dip'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\nAnd I with tears do wash the blood away.\nKeep thou the napkin, and go boast of this:\nAnd if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\nUpon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\nYea even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,\nAnd say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\nThere, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse;\nAnd in thy need such comfort come to thee\nAs now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\nHard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world:\nMy soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHad he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\nI should not for my life but weep with him.\nTo see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\nThink but upon the wrong he did us all,\nAnd that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n\nYORK:\nOpen Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\nMy soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOff with his head, and set it on York gates;\nSo York may overlook the town of York.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nEDWARD:\nI wonder how our princely father 'scaped,\nOr whether he be 'scaped away or no\nFrom Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit:\nHad he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\nHad he been slain, we should have heard the news;\nOr had he 'scaped, methinks we should have heard\nThe happy tidings of his good escape.\nHow fares my brother? why is he so sad?\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot joy, until I be resolved\nWhere our right valiant father is become.\nI saw him in the battle range about;\nAnd watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\nMethought he bore him in the thickest troop\nAs doth a lion in a herd of neat;\nOr as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\nWho having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\nThe rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.\nSo fared our father with his enemies;\nSo fled his enemies my warlike father:\nMethinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.\nSee how the morning opes her golden gates,\nAnd takes her farewell of the glorious sun!\nHow well resembles it the prime of youth,\nTrimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n\nEDWARD:\nDazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n\nRICHARD:\nThree glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\nNot separated with the racking clouds,\nBut sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\nSee, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\nAs if they vow'd some league inviolable:\nNow are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\nIn this the heaven figures some event.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\nI think it cites us, brother, to the field,\nThat we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\nEach one already blazing by our meeds,\nShould notwithstanding join our lights together\nAnd over-shine the earth as this the world.\nWhate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\nUpon my target three fair-shining suns.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, bear three daughters: by your leave I speak it,\nYou love the breeder better than the male.\nBut what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\nSome dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n\nMessenger:\nAh, one that was a woful looker-on\nWhen as the noble Duke of York was slain,\nYour princely father and my loving lord!\n\nEDWARD:\nO, speak no more, for I have heard too much.\n\nRICHARD:\nSay how he died, for I will hear it all.\n\nMessenger:\nEnvironed he was with many foes,\nAnd stood against them, as the hope of Troy\nAgainst the Greeks that would have enter'd Troy.\nBut Hercules himself must yield to odds;\nAnd many strokes, though with a little axe,\nHew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.\nBy many hands your father was subdued;\nBut only slaughter'd by the ireful arm\nOf unrelenting Clifford and the queen,\nWho crown'd the gracious duke in high despite,\nLaugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\nThe ruthless queen gave him to dry his cheeks\nA napkin steeped in the harmless blood\nOf sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain:\nAnd after many scorns, many foul taunts,\nThey took his head, and on the gates of York\nThey set the same; and there it doth remain,\nThe saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\nNow thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\nO Clifford, boisterous Clifford! thou hast slain\nThe flower of Europe for his chivalry;\nAnd treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\nFor hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\nNow my soul's palace is become a prison:\nAh, would she break from hence, that this my body\nMight in the ground be closed up in rest!\nFor never henceforth shall I joy again,\nNever, O never shall I see more joy!\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot weep; for all my body's moisture\nScarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:\nNor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;\nFor selfsame wind that I should speak withal\nIs kindling coals that fires all my breast,\nAnd burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\nTo weep is to make less the depth of grief:\nTears then for babes; blows and revenge for me\nRichard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\nOr die renowned by attempting it.\n\nEDWARD:\nHis name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\nHis dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\nShow thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun:\nFor chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say;\nEither that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, fair lords! What fare? what news abroad?\n\nRICHARD:\nGreat Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\nOur baleful news, and at each word's deliverance\nStab poniards in our flesh till all were told,\nThe words would add more anguish than the wounds.\nO valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet,\nWhich held three dearly as his soul's redemption,\nIs by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n\nWARWICK:\nTen days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\nAnd now, to add more measure to your woes,\nI come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\nAfter the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\nWhere your brave father breathed his latest gasp,\nTidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\nWere brought me of your loss and his depart.\nI, then in London keeper of the king,\nMuster'd my soldiers, gather'd flocks of friends,\nAnd very well appointed, as I thought,\nMarch'd toward Saint Alban's to intercept the queen,\nBearing the king in my behalf along;\nFor by my scouts I was advertised\nThat she was coming with a full intent\nTo dash our late decree in parliament\nTouching King Henry's oath and your succession.\nShort tale to make, we at Saint Alban's met\nOur battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought:\nBut whether 'twas the coldness of the king,\nWho look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\nThat robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen;\nOr whether 'twas report of her success;\nOr more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\nWho thunders to his captives blood and death,\nI cannot judge: but to conclude with truth,\nTheir weapons like to lightning came and went;\nOur soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight,\nOr like an idle thresher with a flail,\nFell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\nI cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\nWith promise of high pay and great rewards:\nBut all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\nAnd we in them no hope to win the day;\nSo that we fled; the king unto the queen;\nLord George your brother, Norfolk and myself,\nIn haste, post-haste, are come to join with you:\nFor in the marches here we heard you were,\nMaking another head to fight again.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhere is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\nAnd when came George from Burgundy to England?\n\nWARWICK:\nSome six miles off the duke is with the soldiers;\nAnd for your brother, he was lately sent\nFrom your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\nWith aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled:\nOft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\nBut ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n\nWARWICK:\nNor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\nFor thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\nCan pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head,\nAnd wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\nWere he as famous and as bold in war\nAs he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n\nRICHARD:\nI know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not:\n'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\nBut in this troublous time what's to be done?\nShall we go throw away our coats of steel,\nAnd wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,\nNumbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\nOr shall we on the helmets of our foes\nTell our devotion with revengeful arms?\nIf for the last, say ay, and to it, lords.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\nAnd therefore comes my brother Montague.\nAttend me, lords. The proud insulting queen,\nWith Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\nAnd of their feather many more proud birds,\nHave wrought the easy-melting king like wax.\nHe swore consent to your succession,\nHis oath enrolled in the parliament;\nAnd now to London all the crew are gone,\nTo frustrate both his oath and what beside\nMay make against the house of Lancaster.\nTheir power, I think, is thirty thousand strong:\nNow, if the help of Norfolk and myself,\nWith all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\nAmongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\nWill but amount to five and twenty thousand,\nWhy, Via! to London will we march amain,\nAnd once again bestride our foaming steeds,\nAnd once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\nBut never once again turn back and fly.\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak:\nNe'er may he live to see a sunshine day,\nThat cries 'Retire,' if Warwick bid him stay.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\nAnd when thou fail'st--as God forbid the hour!--\nMust Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend!\n\nWARWICK:\nNo longer Earl of March, but Duke of York:\nThe next degree is England's royal throne;\nFor King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\nIn every borough as we pass along;\nAnd he that throws not up his cap for joy\nShall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\nKing Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\nStay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\nBut sound the trumpets, and about our task.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\nAs thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\nI come to pierce it, or to give thee mine.\n\nEDWARD:\nThen strike up drums: God and Saint George for us!\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now! what news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me,\nThe queen is coming with a puissant host;\nAnd craves your company for speedy counsel.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy then it sorts, brave warriors, let's away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWelcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\nYonder's the head of that arch-enemy\nThat sought to be encompass'd with your crown:\nDoth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck:\nTo see this sight, it irks my very soul.\nWithhold revenge, dear God! 'tis not my fault,\nNor wittingly have I infringed my vow.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy gracious liege, this too much lenity\nAnd harmful pity must be laid aside.\nTo whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\nNot to the beast that would usurp their den.\nWhose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\nNot his that spoils her young before her face.\nWho 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\nNot he that sets his foot upon her back.\nThe smallest worm will turn being trodden on,\nAnd doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\nAmbitious York doth level at thy crown,\nThou smiling while he knit his angry brows:\nHe, but a duke, would have his son a king,\nAnd raise his issue, like a loving sire;\nThou, being a king, blest with a goodly son,\nDidst yield consent to disinherit him,\nWhich argued thee a most unloving father.\nUnreasonable creatures feed their young;\nAnd though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\nYet, in protection of their tender ones,\nWho hath not seen them, even with those wings\nWhich sometime they have used with fearful flight,\nMake war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\nOffer their own lives in their young's defence?\nFor shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\nWere it not pity that this goodly boy\nShould lose his birthright by his father's fault,\nAnd long hereafter say unto his child,\n'What my great-grandfather and his grandsire got\nMy careless father fondly gave away'?\nAh, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\nAnd let his manly face, which promiseth\nSuccessful fortune, steel thy melting heart\nTo hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFull well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\nInferring arguments of mighty force.\nBut, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\nThat things ill-got had ever bad success?\nAnd happy always was it for that son\nWhose father for his hoarding went to hell?\nI'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\nAnd would my father had left me no more!\nFor all the rest is held at such a rate\nAs brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\nThan in possession and jot of pleasure.\nAh, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\nHow it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMy lord, cheer up your spirits: our foes are nigh,\nAnd this soft courage makes your followers faint.\nYou promised knighthood to our forward son:\nUnsheathe your sword, and dub him presently.\nEdward, kneel down.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nEdward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\nAnd learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.\n\nPRINCE:\nMy gracious father, by your kingly leave,\nI'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\nAnd in that quarrel use it to the death.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhy, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\nMessenger:\nRoyal commanders, be in readiness:\nFor with a band of thirty thousand men\nComes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York;\nAnd in the towns, as they do march along,\nProclaims him king, and many fly to him:\nDarraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI would your highness would depart the field:\nThe queen hath best success when you are absent.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe it with resolution then to fight.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy royal father, cheer these noble lords\nAnd hearten those that fight in your defence:\nUnsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\nEDWARD:\nNow, perjured Henry! wilt thou kneel for grace,\nAnd set thy diadem upon my head;\nOr bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGo, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!\nBecomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\nBefore thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n\nEDWARD:\nI am his king, and he should bow his knee;\nI was adopted heir by his consent:\nSince when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\nYou, that are king, though he do wear the crown,\nHave caused him, by new act of parliament,\nTo blot out me, and put his own son in.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAnd reason too:\nWho should succeed the father but the son?\n\nRICHARD:\nAre you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\nOr any he the proudest of thy sort.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n\nRICHARD:\nFor God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, how now, long-tongued Warwick! dare you speak?\nWhen you and I met at Saint Alban's last,\nYour legs did better service than your hands.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nYou said so much before, and yet you fled.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n\nRICHARD:\nNorthumberland, I hold thee reverently.\nBreak off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\nThe execution of my big-swoln heart\nUpon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI slew thy father, call'st thou him a child?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\nAs thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\nBut ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHave done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDefy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI prithee, give no limits to my tongue:\nI am a king, and privileged to speak.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\nCannot be cured by words; therefore be still.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, executioner, unsheathe thy sword:\nBy him that made us all, I am resolved\nthat Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n\nEDWARD:\nSay, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\nA thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,\nThat ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nIf thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\nFor York in justice puts his armour on.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIf that be right which Warwick says is right,\nThere is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\nFor, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\nBut like a foul mis-shapen stigmatic,\nMark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\nAs venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.\n\nRICHARD:\nIron of Naples hid with English gilt,\nWhose father bears the title of a king,--\nAs if a channel should be call'd the sea,--\nShamest thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\nTo let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n\nEDWARD:\nA wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,\nTo make this shameless callet know herself.\nHelen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\nAlthough thy husband may be Menelaus;\nAnd ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd\nBy that false woman, as this king by thee.\nHis father revell'd in the heart of France,\nAnd tamed the king, and made the dauphin stoop;\nAnd had he match'd according to his state,\nHe might have kept that glory to this day;\nBut when he took a beggar to his bed,\nAnd graced thy poor sire with his bridal-day,\nEven then that sunshine brew'd a shower for him,\nThat wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France,\nAnd heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\nFor what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\nHadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\nAnd we, in pity of the gentle king,\nHad slipp'd our claim until another age.\n\nGEORGE:\nBut when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\nAnd that thy summer bred us no increase,\nWe set the axe to thy usurping root;\nAnd though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\nYet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,\nWe'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\nOr bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.\n\nEDWARD:\nAnd, in this resolution, I defy thee;\nNot willing any longer conference,\nSince thou deniest the gentle king to speak.\nSound trumpets! let our bloody colours wave!\nAnd either victory, or else a grave.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nStay, Edward.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay:\nThese words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nForspent with toil, as runners with a race,\nI lay me down a little while to breathe;\nFor strokes received, and many blows repaid,\nHave robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\nAnd spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\nEDWARD:\nSmile, gentle heaven! or strike, ungentle death!\nFor this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, my lord! what hap? what hope of good?\n\nGEORGE:\nOur hap is loss, our hope but sad despair;\nOur ranks are broke, and ruin follows us:\nWhat counsel give you? whither shall we fly?\n\nEDWARD:\nBootless is flight, they follow us with wings;\nAnd weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.\n\nRICHARD:\nAh, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\nThy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\nBroach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\nAnd in the very pangs of death he cried,\nLike to a dismal clangour heard from far,\n'Warwick, revenge! brother, revenge my death!'\nSo, underneath the belly of their steeds,\nThat stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\nThe noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen let the earth be drunken with our blood:\nI'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\nWhy stand we like soft-hearted women here,\nWailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage;\nAnd look upon, as if the tragedy\nWere play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\nHere on my knee I vow to God above,\nI'll never pause again, never stand still,\nTill either death hath closed these eyes of mine\nOr fortune given me measure of revenge.\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine;\nAnd in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\nAnd, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,\nI throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee,\nThou setter up and plucker down of kings,\nBeseeching thee, if with they will it stands\nThat to my foes this body must be prey,\nYet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope,\nAnd give sweet passage to my sinful soul!\nNow, lords, take leave until we meet again,\nWhere'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\nLet me embrace thee in my weary arms:\nI, that did never weep, now melt with woe\nThat winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n\nWARWICK:\nAway, away! Once more, sweet lords farewell.\n\nGEORGE:\nYet let us all together to our troops,\nAnd give them leave to fly that will not stay;\nAnd call them pillars that will stand to us;\nAnd, if we thrive, promise them such rewards\nAs victors wear at the Olympian games:\nThis may plant courage in their quailing breasts;\nFor yet is hope of life and victory.\nForslow no longer, make we hence amain.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nNow, Clifford, I have singled thee alone:\nSuppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\nAnd this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\nWert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNow, Richard, I am with thee here alone:\nThis is the hand that stabb'd thy father York;\nAnd this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\nAnd here's the heart that triumphs in their death\nAnd cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\nTo execute the like upon thyself;\nAnd so, have at thee!\n\nRICHARD:\nNay Warwick, single out some other chase;\nFor I myself will hunt this wolf to death.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThis battle fares like to the morning's war,\nWhen dying clouds contend with growing light,\nWhat time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\nCan neither call it perfect day nor night.\nNow sways it this way, like a mighty sea\nForced by the tide to combat with the wind;\nNow sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\nForced to retire by fury of the wind:\nSometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\nNow one the better, then another best;\nBoth tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\nYet neither conqueror nor conquered:\nSo is the equal of this fell war.\nHere on this molehill will I sit me down.\nTo whom God will, there be the victory!\nFor Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\nHave chid me from the battle; swearing both\nThey prosper best of all when I am thence.\nWould I were dead! if God's good will were so;\nFor what is in this world but grief and woe?\nO God! methinks it were a happy life,\nTo be no better than a homely swain;\nTo sit upon a hill, as I do now,\nTo carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\nThereby to see the minutes how they run,\nHow many make the hour full complete;\nHow many hours bring about the day;\nHow many days will finish up the year;\nHow many years a mortal man may live.\nWhen this is known, then to divide the times:\nSo many hours must I tend my flock;\nSo many hours must I take my rest;\nSo many hours must I contemplate;\nSo many hours must I sport myself;\nSo many days my ewes have been with young;\nSo many weeks ere the poor fools will ean:\nSo many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\nSo minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\nPass'd over to the end they were created,\nWould bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\nAh, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\nGives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade\nTo shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\nThan doth a rich embroider'd canopy\nTo kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\nO, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\nAnd to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,\nHis cold thin drink out of his leather bottle.\nHis wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\nAll which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\nIs far beyond a prince's delicates,\nHis viands sparkling in a golden cup,\nHis body couched in a curious bed,\nWhen care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\nSon:\nIll blows the wind that profits nobody.\nThis man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,\nMay be possessed with some store of crowns;\nAnd I, that haply take them from him now,\nMay yet ere night yield both my life and them\nTo some man else, as this dead man doth me.\nWho's this? O God! it is my father's face,\nWhom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\nO heavy times, begetting such events!\nFrom London by the king was I press'd forth;\nMy father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\nCame on the part of York, press'd by his master;\nAnd I, who at his hands received my life, him\nHave by my hands of life bereaved him.\nPardon me, God, I knew not what I did!\nAnd pardon, father, for I knew not thee!\nMy tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\nAnd no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\nWhiles lions war and battle for their dens,\nPoor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\nWeep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear;\nAnd let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\nBe blind with tears, and break o'ercharged with grief.\n\nFather:\nThou that so stoutly hast resisted me,\nGive me thy gold, if thou hast any gold:\nFor I have bought it with an hundred blows.\nBut let me see: is this our foeman's face?\nAh, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\nAh, boy, if any life be left in thee,\nThrow up thine eye! see, see what showers arise,\nBlown with the windy tempest of my heart,\nUpon thy words, that kill mine eye and heart!\nO, pity, God, this miserable age!\nWhat stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\nErroneous, mutinous and unnatural,\nThis deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\nO boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\nAnd hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWoe above woe! grief more than common grief!\nO that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\nO pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\nThe red rose and the white are on his face,\nThe fatal colours of our striving houses:\nThe one his purple blood right well resembles;\nThe other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth:\nWither one rose, and let the other flourish;\nIf you contend, a thousand lives must wither.\n\nSon:\nHow will my mother for a father's death\nTake on with me and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nFather:\nHow will my wife for slaughter of my son\nShed seas of tears and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHow will the country for these woful chances\nMisthink the king and not be satisfied!\n\nSon:\nWas ever son so rued a father's death?\n\nFather:\nWas ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWas ever king so grieved for subjects' woe?\nMuch is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n\nSon:\nI'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n\nFather:\nThese arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\nMy heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\nFor from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\nMy sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\nAnd so obsequious will thy father be,\nEven for the loss of thee, having no more,\nAs Priam was for all his valiant sons.\nI'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\nFor I have murdered where I should not kill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\nHere sits a king more woful than you are.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFly, father, fly! for all your friends are fled,\nAnd Warwick rages like a chafed bull:\nAway! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain:\nEdward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\nHaving the fearful flying hare in sight,\nWith fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\nAnd bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\nAre at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n\nEXETER:\nAway! for vengeance comes along with them:\nNay, stay not to expostulate, make speed;\nOr else come after: I'll away before.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter:\nNot that I fear to stay, but love to go\nWhither the queen intends. Forward; away!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\nWhich, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\nO Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\nMore than my body's parting with my soul!\nMy love and fear glued many friends to thee;\nAnd, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts.\nImpairing Henry, strengthening misproud York,\nThe common people swarm like summer flies;\nAnd whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\nAnd who shines now but Henry's enemies?\nO Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\nThat Phaethon should cheque thy fiery steeds,\nThy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\nAnd, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\nOr as thy father and his father did,\nGiving no ground unto the house of York,\nThey never then had sprung like summer flies;\nI and ten thousand in this luckless realm\nHad left no mourning widows for our death;\nAnd thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\nFor what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\nAnd what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\nBootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;\nNo way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight:\nThe foe is merciless, and will not pity;\nFor at their hands I have deserved no pity.\nThe air hath got into my deadly wounds,\nAnd much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\nCome, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\nI stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow breathe we, lords: good fortune bids us pause,\nAnd smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\nSome troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,\nThat led calm Henry, though he were a king,\nAs doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\nCommand an argosy to stem the waves.\nBut think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n\nWARWICK:\nNo, 'tis impossible he should escape,\nFor, though before his face I speak the words\nYour brother Richard mark'd him for the grave:\nAnd wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n\nRICHARD:\nA deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n\nEDWARD:\nSee who it is: and, now the battle's ended,\nIf friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n\nRICHARD:\nRevoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\nWho not contented that he lopp'd the branch\nIn hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\nBut set his murdering knife unto the root\nFrom whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,\nI mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom off the gates of York fetch down the head,\nYour father's head, which Clifford placed there;\nInstead whereof let this supply the room:\nMeasure for measure must be answered.\n\nEDWARD:\nBring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\nThat nothing sung but death to us and ours:\nNow death shall stop his dismal threatening sound,\nAnd his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nI think his understanding is bereft.\nSpeak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\nDark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\nAnd he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n\nRICHARD:\nO, would he did! and so perhaps he doth:\n'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\nBecause he would avoid such bitter taunts\nWhich in the time of death he gave our father.\n\nGEORGE:\nIf so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n\nRICHARD:\nClifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n\nEDWARD:\nClifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n\nWARWICK:\nClifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhile we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n\nRICHARD:\nThou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n\nEDWARD:\nThou pitied'st Rutland; I will pity thee.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhere's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n\nWARWICK:\nThey mock thee, Clifford: swear as thou wast wont.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhat, not an oath? nay, then the world goes hard\nWhen Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\nI know by that he's dead; and, by my soul,\nIf this right hand would buy two hour's life,\nThat I in all despite might rail at him,\nThis hand should chop it off, and with the\nissuing blood\nStifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\nYork and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but he's dead: off with the traitor's head,\nAnd rear it in the place your father's stands.\nAnd now to London with triumphant march,\nThere to be crowned England's royal king:\nFrom whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\nAnd ask the Lady Bona for thy queen:\nSo shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\nAnd, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\nThe scatter'd foe that hopes to rise again;\nFor though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\nYet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\nFirst will I see the coronation;\nAnd then to Brittany I'll cross the sea,\nTo effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n\nEDWARD:\nEven as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\nFor in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\nAnd never will I undertake the thing\nWherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\nRichard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester,\nAnd George, of Clarence: Warwick, as ourself,\nShall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n\nRICHARD:\nLet me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\nFor Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n\nWARWICK:\nTut, that's a foolish observation:\nRichard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London,\nTo see these honours in possession.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Keeper:\nUnder this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves;\nFor through this laund anon the deer will come;\nAnd in this covert will we make our stand,\nCulling the principal of all the deer.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nI'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nThat cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\nWill scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\nHere stand we both, and aim we at the best:\nAnd, for the time shall not seem tedious,\nI'll tell thee what befell me on a day\nIn this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFrom Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\nTo greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\nNo, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\nThy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\nThy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed:\nNo bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\nNo humble suitors press to speak for right,\nNo, not a man comes for redress of thee;\nFor how can I help them, and not myself?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nAy, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee:\nThis is the quondam king; let's seize upon him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet me embrace thee, sour adversity,\nFor wise men say it is the wisest course.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWhy linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nForbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy queen and son are gone to France for aid;\nAnd, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\nIs thither gone, to crave the French king's sister\nTo wife for Edward: if this news be true,\nPoor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\nFor Warwick is a subtle orator,\nAnd Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\nBy this account then Margaret may win him;\nFor she's a woman to be pitied much:\nHer sighs will make a battery in his breast;\nHer tears will pierce into a marble heart;\nThe tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\nAnd Nero will be tainted with remorse,\nTo hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\nAy, but she's come to beg, Warwick to give;\nShe, on his left side, craving aid for Henry,\nHe, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\nShe weeps, and says her Henry is deposed;\nHe smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\nThat she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\nWhiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\nInferreth arguments of mighty strength,\nAnd in conclusion wins the king from her,\nWith promise of his sister, and what else,\nTo strengthen and support King Edward's place.\nO Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\nArt then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n\nSecond Keeper:\nSay, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMore than I seem, and less than I was born to:\nA man at least, for less I should not be;\nAnd men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nAy, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, so I am, in mind; and that's enough.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nBut, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy crown is in my heart, not on my head;\nNot decked with diamonds and Indian stones,\nNor to be seen: my crown is called content:\nA crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWell, if you be a king crown'd with content,\nYour crown content and you must be contented\nTo go along with us; for as we think,\nYou are the king King Edward hath deposed;\nAnd we his subjects sworn in all allegiance\nWill apprehend you as his enemy.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut did you never swear, and break an oath?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nNo, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhere did you dwell when I was King of England?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere in this country, where we now remain.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI was anointed king at nine months old;\nMy father and my grandfather were kings,\nAnd you were sworn true subjects unto me:\nAnd tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nNo;\nFor we were subjects but while you were king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, am I dead? do I not breathe a man?\nAh, simple men, you know not what you swear!\nLook, as I blow this feather from my face,\nAnd as the air blows it to me again,\nObeying with my wind when I do blow,\nAnd yielding to another when it blows,\nCommanded always by the greater gust;\nSuch is the lightness of you common men.\nBut do not break your oaths; for of that sin\nMy mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\nGo where you will, the king shall be commanded;\nAnd be you kings, command, and I'll obey.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe are true subjects to the king, King Edward.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo would you be again to Henry,\nIf he were seated as King Edward is.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe charge you, in God's name, and the king's,\nTo go with us unto the officers.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nIn God's name, lead; your king's name be obey'd:\nAnd what God will, that let your king perform;\nAnd what he will, I humbly yield unto.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrother of Gloucester, at Saint Alban's field\nThis lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\nHis lands then seized on by the conqueror:\nHer suit is now to repossess those lands;\nWhich we in justice cannot well deny,\nBecause in quarrel of the house of York\nThe worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour highness shall do well to grant her suit;\nIt were dishonour to deny it her.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIt were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWidow, we will consider of your suit;\nAnd come some other time to know our mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nRight gracious lord, I cannot brook delay:\nMay it please your highness to resolve me now;\nAnd what your pleasure is, shall satisfy me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHow many children hast thou, widow? tell me.\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nLADY GREY:\nThree, my most gracious lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nBe pitiful, dread lord, and grant it then.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLords, give us leave: I'll try this widow's wit.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n\nLADY GREY:\nAy, full as dearly as I love myself.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAnd would you not do much to do them good?\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo do them good, I would sustain some harm.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTherefore I came unto your majesty.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n\nLADY GREY:\nSo shall you bind me to your highness' service.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat service wilt thou do me, if I give them?\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhat you command, that rests in me to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut you will take exceptions to my boon.\n\nLADY GREY:\nNo, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then I will do what your grace commands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy stops my lord, shall I not hear my task?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAn easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThat's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nI take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut stay thee, 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThe fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but, I fear me, in another sense.\nWhat love, think'st thou, I sue so much to get?\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\nThat love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut now you partly may perceive my mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy mind will never grant what I perceive\nYour highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTo tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\nFor by that loss I will not purchase them.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTherein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n\nLADY GREY:\nHerein your highness wrongs both them and me.\nBut, mighty lord, this merry inclination\nAccords not with the sadness of my suit:\nPlease you dismiss me either with 'ay' or 'no.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, if thou wilt say 'ay' to my request;\nNo if thou dost say 'no' to my demand.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThen, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord:\nI am a subject fit to jest withal,\nBut far unfit to be a sovereign.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\nI speak no more than what my soul intends;\nAnd that is, to enjoy thee for my love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nAnd that is more than I will yield unto:\nI know I am too mean to be your queen,\nAnd yet too good to be your concubine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou cavil, widow: I did mean, my queen.\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Twill grieve your grace my sons should call you father.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo more than when my daughters call thee mother.\nThou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\nAnd, by God's mother, I, being but a bachelor,\nHave other some: why, 'tis a happy thing\nTo be the father unto many sons.\nAnswer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou'll think it strange if I should marry her.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo whom, my lord?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, Clarence, to myself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy so much is the wonder in extremes.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWell, jest on, brothers: I can tell you both\nHer suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\nNobleman:\nMy gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,\nAnd brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSee that he be convey'd unto the Tower:\nAnd go we, brothers, to the man that took him,\nTo question of his apprehension.\nWidow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, Edward will use women honourably.\nWould he were wasted, marrow, bones and all,\nThat from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,\nTo cross me from the golden time I look for!\nAnd yet, between my soul's desire and me--\nThe lustful Edward's title buried--\nIs Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\nAnd all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\nTo take their rooms, ere I can place myself:\nA cold premeditation for my purpose!\nWhy, then, I do but dream on sovereignty;\nLike one that stands upon a promontory,\nAnd spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\nWishing his foot were equal with his eye,\nAnd chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\nSaying, he'll lade it dry to have his way:\nSo do I wish the crown, being so far off;\nAnd so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\nAnd so I say, I'll cut the causes off,\nFlattering me with impossibilities.\nMy eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\nUnless my hand and strength could equal them.\nWell, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\nWhat other pleasure can the world afford?\nI'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\nAnd deck my body in gay ornaments,\nAnd witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\nO miserable thought! and more unlikely\nThan to accomplish twenty golden crowns!\nWhy, love forswore me in my mother's womb:\nAnd, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\nShe did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,\nTo shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;\nTo make an envious mountain on my back,\nWhere sits deformity to mock my body;\nTo shape my legs of an unequal size;\nTo disproportion me in every part,\nLike to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\nThat carries no impression like the dam.\nAnd am I then a man to be beloved?\nO monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!\nThen, since this earth affords no joy to me,\nBut to command, to cheque, to o'erbear such\nAs are of better person than myself,\nI'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\nAnd, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,\nUntil my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head\nBe round impaled with a glorious crown.\nAnd yet I know not how to get the crown,\nFor many lives stand between me and home:\nAnd I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,\nThat rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\nSeeking a way and straying from the way;\nNot knowing how to find the open air,\nBut toiling desperately to find it out,--\nTorment myself to catch the English crown:\nAnd from that torment I will free myself,\nOr hew my way out with a bloody axe.\nWhy, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\nAnd cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,\nAnd wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\nAnd frame my face to all occasions.\nI'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\nI'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\nI'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\nDeceive more slily than Ulysses could,\nAnd, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\nI can add colours to the chameleon,\nChange shapes with Proteus for advantages,\nAnd set the murderous Machiavel to school.\nCan I do this, and cannot get a crown?\nTut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nFair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\nSit down with us: it ill befits thy state\nAnd birth, that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNo, mighty King of France: now Margaret\nMust strike her sail and learn awhile to serve\nWhere kings command. I was, I must confess,\nGreat Albion's queen in former golden days:\nBut now mischance hath trod my title down,\nAnd with dishonour laid me on the ground;\nWhere I must take like seat unto my fortune,\nAnd to my humble seat conform myself.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy, say, fair queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFrom such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\nAnd stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\nAnd sit thee by our side:\nYield not thy neck\nTo fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\nStill ride in triumph over all mischance.\nBe plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\nIt shall be eased, if France can yield relief.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThose gracious words revive my drooping thoughts\nAnd give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\nNow, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis,\nThat Henry, sole possessor of my love,\nIs of a king become a banish'd man,\nAnd forced to live in Scotland a forlorn;\nWhile proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\nUsurps the regal title and the seat\nOf England's true-anointed lawful king.\nThis is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\nWith this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\nAm come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\nAnd if thou fail us, all our hope is done:\nScotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\nOur people and our peers are both misled,\nOur treasures seized, our soldiers put to flight,\nAnd, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nRenowned queen, with patience calm the storm,\nWhile we bethink a means to break it off.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThe more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThe more I stay, the more I'll succor thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\nAnd see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOur Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWelcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, now begins a second storm to rise;\nFor this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom worthy Edward, King of Albion,\nMy lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\nI come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\nFirst, to do greetings to thy royal person;\nAnd then to crave a league of amity;\nAnd lastly, to confirm that amity\nWith a nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\nThat virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\nTo England's king in lawful marriage.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\n\nWARWICK:\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nKing Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak,\nBefore you answer Warwick. His demand\nSprings not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\nBut from deceit bred by necessity;\nFor how can tyrants safely govern home,\nUnless abroad they purchase great alliance?\nTo prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\nThat Henry liveth still: but were he dead,\nYet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\nLook, therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\nThou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\nFor though usurpers sway the rule awhile,\nYet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n\nWARWICK:\nInjurious Margaret!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd why not queen?\n\nWARWICK:\nBecause thy father Henry did usurp;\nAnd thou no more are prince than she is queen.\n\nOXFORD:\nThen Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\nWhich did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\nAnd, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\nWhose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\nAnd, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\nWho by his prowess conquered all France:\nFrom these our Henry lineally descends.\n\nWARWICK:\nOxford, how haps it, in this smooth discourse,\nYou told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\nAll that which Henry Fifth had gotten?\nMethinks these peers of France should smile at that.\nBut for the rest, you tell a pedigree\nOf threescore and two years; a silly time\nTo make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhy, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\nWhom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\nAnd not bewray thy treason with a blush?\n\nWARWICK:\nCan Oxford, that did ever fence the right,\nNow buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\nFor shame! leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n\nOXFORD:\nCall him my king by whose injurious doom\nMy elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\nWas done to death? and more than so, my father,\nEven in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\nWhen nature brought him to the door of death?\nNo, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\nThis arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I the house of York.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nQueen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\nVouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,\nWhile I use further conference with Warwick.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHeavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\nIs Edward your true king? for I were loath\nTo link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n\nWARWICK:\nThereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut is he gracious in the people's eye?\n\nWARWICK:\nThe more that Henry was unfortunate.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen further, all dissembling set aside,\nTell me for truth the measure of his love\nUnto our sister Bona.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuch it seems\nAs may beseem a monarch like himself.\nMyself have often heard him say and swear\nThat this his love was an eternal plant,\nWhereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\nThe leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\nExempt from envy, but not from disdain,\nUnless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n\nBONA:\nYour grant, or your denial, shall be mine:\nYet I confess that often ere this day,\nWhen I have heard your king's desert recounted,\nMine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's;\nAnd now forthwith shall articles be drawn\nTouching the jointure that your king must make,\nWhich with her dowry shall be counterpoised.\nDraw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\nThat Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nTo Edward, but not to the English king.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDeceitful Warwick! it was thy device\nBy this alliance to make void my suit:\nBefore thy coming Lewis was Henry's friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd still is friend to him and Margaret:\nBut if your title to the crown be weak,\nAs may appear by Edward's good success,\nThen 'tis but reason that I be released\nFrom giving aid which late I promised.\nYet shall you have all kindness at my hand\nThat your estate requires and mine can yield.\n\nWARWICK:\nHenry now lives in Scotland at his ease,\nWhere having nothing, nothing can he lose.\nAnd as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\nYou have a father able to maintain you;\nAnd better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace,\nProud setter up and puller down of kings!\nI will not hence, till, with my talk and tears,\nBoth full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\nThy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\nFor both of you are birds of selfsame feather.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\nPost:\n\nOXFORD:\nI like it well that our fair queen and mistress\nSmiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, mark how Lewis stamps, as he were nettled:\nI hope all's for the best.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, what are thy news? and yours, fair queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMine, such as fill my heart with unhoped joys.\n\nWARWICK:\nMine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat! has your king married the Lady Grey!\nAnd now, to soothe your forgery and his,\nSends me a paper to persuade me patience?\nIs this the alliance that he seeks with France?\nDare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI told your majesty as much before:\nThis proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n\nWARWICK:\nKing Lewis, I here protest, in sight of heaven,\nAnd by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\nThat I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's,\nNo more my king, for he dishonours me,\nBut most himself, if he could see his shame.\nDid I forget that by the house of York\nMy father came untimely to his death?\nDid I let pass the abuse done to my niece?\nDid I impale him with the regal crown?\nDid I put Henry from his native right?\nAnd am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\nShame on himself! for my desert is honour:\nAnd to repair my honour lost for him,\nI here renounce him and return to Henry.\nMy noble queen, let former grudges pass,\nAnd henceforth I am thy true servitor:\nI will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\nAnd replant Henry in his former state.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWarwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;\nAnd I forgive and quite forget old faults,\nAnd joy that thou becomest King Henry's friend.\n\nWARWICK:\nSo much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\nThat, if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\nWith some few bands of chosen soldiers,\nI'll undertake to land them on our coast\nAnd force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n'Tis not his new-made bride shall succor him:\nAnd as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\nHe's very likely now to fall from him,\nFor matching more for wanton lust than honour,\nOr than for strength and safety of our country.\n\nBONA:\nDear brother, how shall Bona be revenged\nBut by thy help to this distressed queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRenowned prince, how shall poor Henry live,\nUnless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n\nBONA:\nMy quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd mine, fair lady Bona, joins with yours.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\nTherefore at last I firmly am resolved\nYou shall have aid.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLet me give humble thanks for all at once.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, England's messenger, return in post,\nAnd tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride:\nThou seest what's past, go fear thy king withal.\n\nBONA:\nTell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTell him, my mourning weeds are laid aside,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.\n\nWARWICK:\nTell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\nThere's thy reward: be gone.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut, Warwick,\nThou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\nShall cross the seas, and bid false Edward battle;\nAnd, as occasion serves, this noble queen\nAnd prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\nYet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt,\nWhat pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis shall assure my constant loyalty,\nThat if our queen and this young prince agree,\nI'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\nTo him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\nSon Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\nTherefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick;\nAnd, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable,\nThat only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nYes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\nAnd here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied,\nAnd thou, Lord Bourbon, our high admiral,\nShalt waft them over with our royal fleet.\nI long till Edward fall by war's mischance,\nFor mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n\nWARWICK:\nI came from Edward as ambassador,\nBut I return his sworn and mortal foe:\nMatter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\nBut dreadful war shall answer his demand.\nHad he none else to make a stale but me?\nThen none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\nI was the chief that raised him to the crown,\nAnd I'll be chief to bring him down again:\nNot that I pity Henry's misery,\nBut seek revenge on Edward's mockery.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\nOf this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\nHath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas, you know, 'tis far from hence to France;\nHow could he stay till Warwick made return?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lords, forbear this talk; here comes the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd his well-chosen bride.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice,\nThat you stand pensive, as half malcontent?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAs well as Lewis of France, or the Earl of Warwick,\nWhich are so weak of courage and in judgment\nThat they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSuppose they take offence without a cause,\nThey are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\nYour king and Warwick's, and must have my will.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd shall have your will, because our king:\nYet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNot I:\nNo, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\nWhom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\nTo sunder them that yoke so well together.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSetting your scorns and your mislike aside,\nTell me some reason why the Lady Grey\nShould not become my wife and England's queen.\nAnd you too, Somerset and Montague,\nSpeak freely what you think.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThen this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\nBecomes your enemy, for mocking him\nAbout the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\nIs now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat if both Lewis and Warwick be appeased\nBy such invention as I can devise?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nYet, to have join'd with France in such alliance\nWould more have strengthen'd this our commonwealth\n'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, knows not Montague that of itself\nEngland is safe, if true within itself?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis better using France than trusting France:\nLet us be back'd with God and with the seas\nWhich He hath given for fence impregnable,\nAnd with their helps only defend ourselves;\nIn them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFor this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\nTo have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, what of that? it was my will and grant;\nAnd for this once my will shall stand for law.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd yet methinks your grace hath not done well,\nTo give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\nUnto the brother of your loving bride;\nShe better would have fitted me or Clarence:\nBut in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOr else you would not have bestow'd the heir\nOf the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\nAnd leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAlas, poor Clarence! is it for a wife\nThat thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn choosing for yourself, you show'd your judgment,\nWhich being shallow, you give me leave\nTo play the broker in mine own behalf;\nAnd to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLeave me, or tarry, Edward will be king,\nAnd not be tied unto his brother's will.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy lords, before it pleased his majesty\nTo raise my state to title of a queen,\nDo me but right, and you must all confess\nThat I was not ignoble of descent;\nAnd meaner than myself have had like fortune.\nBut as this title honours me and mine,\nSo your dislike, to whom I would be pleasing,\nDoth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMy love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns:\nWhat danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\nSo long as Edward is thy constant friend,\nAnd their true sovereign, whom they must obey?\nNay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\nUnless they seek for hatred at my hands;\nWhich if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\nAnd they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, messenger, what letters or what news\nFrom France?\n\nPost:\nMy sovereign liege, no letters; and few words,\nBut such as I, without your special pardon,\nDare not relate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo to, we pardon thee: therefore, in brief,\nTell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\nWhat answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n\nPost:\nAt my depart, these were his very words:\n'Go tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Lewis so brave? belike he thinks me Henry.\nBut what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n\nPost:\nThese were her words, utter'd with mad disdain:\n'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI blame not her, she could say little less;\nShe had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\nFor I have heard that she was there in place.\n\nPost:\n'Tell him,' quoth she, 'my mourning weeds are done,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBelike she minds to play the Amazon.\nBut what said Warwick to these injuries?\n\nPost:\nHe, more incensed against your majesty\nThan all the rest, discharged me with these words:\n'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHa! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\nWell I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd:\nThey shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\nBut say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n\nPost:\nAy, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in\nfriendship\nThat young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBelike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\nNow, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\nFor I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\nThat, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\nI may not prove inferior to yourself.\nYou that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\nYet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\nAnd haste is needful in this desperate case.\nPembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\nGo levy men, and make prepare for war;\nThey are already, or quickly will be landed:\nMyself in person will straight follow you.\nBut, ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\nResolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\nAre near to Warwick by blood and by alliance:\nTell me if you love Warwick more than me?\nIf it be so, then both depart to him;\nI rather wish you foes than hollow friends:\nBut if you mind to hold your true obedience,\nGive me assurance with some friendly vow,\nThat I may never have you in suspect.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nSo God help Montague as he proves true!\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so! then am I sure of victory.\nNow therefore let us hence; and lose no hour,\nTill we meet Warwick with his foreign power.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nTrust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\nThe common people by numbers swarm to us.\nBut see where Somerset and Clarence come!\nSpeak suddenly, my lords, are we all friends?\n\nCLARENCE:\nFear not that, my lord.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\nAnd welcome, Somerset: I hold it cowardice\nTo rest mistrustful where a noble heart\nHath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\nElse might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\nWere but a feigned friend to our proceedings:\nBut welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\nAnd now what rests but, in night's coverture,\nThy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\nHis soldiers lurking in the towns about,\nAnd but attended by a simple guard,\nWe may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\nOur scouts have found the adventure very easy:\nThat as Ulysses and stout Diomede\nWith sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\nAnd brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\nSo we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\nAt unawares may beat down Edward's guard\nAnd seize himself; I say not, slaughter him,\nFor I intend but only to surprise him.\nYou that will follow me to this attempt,\nApplaud the name of Henry with your leader.\nWhy, then, let's on our way in silent sort:\nFor Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Watchman:\nCome on, my masters, each man take his stand:\nThe king by this is set him down to sleep.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nWhat, will he not to bed?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWhy, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\nNever to lie and take his natural rest\nTill Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nTo-morrow then belike shall be the day,\nIf Warwick be so near as men report.\n\nThird Watchman:\nBut say, I pray, what nobleman is that\nThat with the king here resteth in his tent?\n\nFirst Watchman:\n'Tis the Lord Hastings, the king's chiefest friend.\n\nThird Watchman:\nO, is it so? But why commands the king\nThat his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\nWhile he himself keeps in the cold field?\n\nSecond Watchman:\n'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n\nThird Watchman:\nAy, but give me worship and quietness;\nI like it better than a dangerous honour.\nIf Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nUnless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nAy, wherefore else guard we his royal tent,\nBut to defend his person from night-foes?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\nCourage, my masters! honour now or never!\nBut follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWho goes there?\n\nSecond Watchman:\nStay, or thou diest!\n\nSOMERSET:\nWhat are they that fly there?\n\nWARWICK:\nRichard and Hastings: let them go; here is The duke.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\nThou call'dst me king.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but the case is alter'd:\nWhen you disgraced me in my embassade,\nThen I degraded you from being king,\nAnd come now to create you Duke of York.\nAlas! how should you govern any kingdom,\nThat know not how to use ambassadors,\nNor how to be contented with one wife,\nNor how to use your brothers brotherly,\nNor how to study for the people's welfare,\nNor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother of Clarence, are thou here too?\nNay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\nYet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\nOf thee thyself and all thy complices,\nEdward will always bear himself as king:\nThough fortune's malice overthrow my state,\nMy mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, for his mind, be Edward England's king:\nBut Henry now shall wear the English crown,\nAnd be true king indeed, thou but the shadow.\nMy Lord of Somerset, at my request,\nSee that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\nUnto my brother, Archbishop of York.\nWhen I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\nI'll follow you, and tell what answer\nLewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\nNow, for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat fates impose, that men must needs abide;\nIt boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhat now remains, my lords, for us to do\nBut march to London with our soldiers?\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, that's the first thing that we have to do;\nTo free King Henry from imprisonment\nAnd see him seated in the regal throne.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhy brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\nWhat late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat! loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, but the loss of his own royal person.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen is my sovereign slain?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner,\nEither betray'd by falsehood of his guard\nOr by his foe surprised at unawares:\nAnd, as I further have to understand,\nIs new committed to the Bishop of York,\nFell Warwick's brother and by that our foe.\n\nRIVERS:\nThese news I must confess are full of grief;\nYet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\nWarwick may lose, that now hath won the day.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTill then fair hope must hinder life's decay.\nAnd I the rather wean me from despair\nFor love of Edward's offspring in my womb:\nThis is it that makes me bridle passion\nAnd bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\nAy, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\nAnd stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\nLest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\nKing Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown.\n\nRIVERS:\nBut, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI am inform'd that he comes towards London,\nTo set the crown once more on Henry's head:\nGuess thou the rest; King Edward's friends must down,\nBut, to prevent the tyrant's violence,--\nFor trust not him that hath once broken faith,--\nI'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,\nTo save at least the heir of Edward's right:\nThere shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\nCome, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\nIf Warwick take us we are sure to die.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\nLeave off to wonder why I drew you hither,\nInto this chiefest thicket of the park.\nThus stands the case: you know our king, my brother,\nIs prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands\nHe hath good usage and great liberty,\nAnd, often but attended with weak guard,\nComes hunting this way to disport himself.\nI have advertised him by secret means\nThat if about this hour he make his way\nUnder the colour of his usual game,\nHe shall here find his friends with horse and men\nTo set him free from his captivity.\n\nHuntsman:\nThis way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, this way, man: see where the huntsmen stand.\nNow, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nStand you thus close, to steal the bishop's deer?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, the time and case requireth haste:\nYour horse stands ready at the park-corner.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut whither shall we then?\n\nHASTINGS:\nTo Lynn, my lord,\nAnd ship from thence to Flanders.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nStanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut wherefore stay we? 'tis no time to talk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHuntsman, what say'st thou? wilt thou go along?\n\nHuntsman:\nBetter do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBishop, farewell: shield thee from Warwick's frown;\nAnd pray that I may repossess the crown.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMaster lieutenant, now that God and friends\nHave shaken Edward from the regal seat,\nAnd turn'd my captive state to liberty,\nMy fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\nAt our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n\nLieutenant:\nSubjects may challenge nothing of their sovereigns;\nBut if an humble prayer may prevail,\nI then crave pardon of your majesty.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFor what, lieutenant? for well using me?\nNay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\nFor that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\nAy, such a pleasure as incaged birds\nConceive when after many moody thoughts\nAt last by notes of household harmony\nThey quite forget their loss of liberty.\nBut, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\nAnd chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\nHe was the author, thou the instrument.\nTherefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\nBy living low, where fortune cannot hurt me,\nAnd that the people of this blessed land\nMay not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\nWarwick, although my head still wear the crown,\nI here resign my government to thee,\nFor thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n\nWARWICK:\nYour grace hath still been famed for virtuous;\nAnd now may seem as wise as virtuous,\nBy spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\nFor few men rightly temper with the stars:\nYet in this one thing let me blame your grace,\nFor choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNo, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\nTo whom the heavens in thy nativity\nAdjudged an olive branch and laurel crown,\nAs likely to be blest in peace and war;\nAnd therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I choose Clarence only for protector.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWarwick and Clarence give me both your hands:\nNow join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\nThat no dissension hinder government:\nI make you both protectors of this land,\nWhile I myself will lead a private life\nAnd in devotion spend my latter days,\nTo sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat he consents, if Warwick yield consent;\nFor on thy fortune I repose myself.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then, though loath, yet must I be content:\nWe'll yoke together, like a double shadow\nTo Henry's body, and supply his place;\nI mean, in bearing weight of government,\nWhile he enjoys the honour and his ease.\nAnd, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\nForthwith that Edward be pronounced a traitor,\nAnd all his lands and goods be confiscate.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat else? and that succession be determined.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut, with the first of all your chief affairs,\nLet me entreat, for I command no more,\nThat Margaret your queen and my son Edward\nBe sent for, to return from France with speed;\nFor, till I see them here, by doubtful fear\nMy joy of liberty is half eclipsed.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\nOf whom you seem to have so tender care?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy liege, it is young Henry, earl of Richmond.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nCome hither, England's hope.\nIf secret powers\nSuggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\nThis pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\nHis looks are full of peaceful majesty,\nHis head by nature framed to wear a crown,\nHis hand to wield a sceptre, and himself\nLikely in time to bless a regal throne.\nMake much of him, my lords, for this is he\nMust help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat news, my friend?\n\nPost:\nThat Edward is escaped from your brother,\nAnd fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n\nWARWICK:\nUnsavoury news! but how made he escape?\n\nPost:\nHe was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\nAnd the Lord Hastings, who attended him\nIn secret ambush on the forest side\nAnd from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him;\nFor hunting was his daily exercise.\n\nWARWICK:\nMy brother was too careless of his charge.\nBut let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\nA salve for any sore that may betide.\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\nFor doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\nAnd we shall have more wars before 't be long.\nAs Henry's late presaging prophecy\nDid glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\nSo doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts\nWhat may befall him, to his harm and ours:\nTherefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\nForthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\nTill storms be past of civil enmity.\n\nOXFORD:\nAy, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\nCome, therefore, let's about it speedily.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nYet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\nAnd says that once more I shall interchange\nMy waned state for Henry's regal crown.\nWell have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas\nAnd brought desired help from Burgundy:\nWhat then remains, we being thus arrived\nFrom Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\nBut that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\nFor many men that stumble at the threshold\nAre well foretold that danger lurks within.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTush, man, abodements must not now affright us:\nBy fair or foul means we must enter in,\nFor hither will our friends repair to us.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\nMayor:\nMy lords, we were forewarned of your coming,\nAnd shut the gates for safety of ourselves;\nFor now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut, master mayor, if Henry be your king,\nYet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n\nMayor:\nTrue, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\nAs being well content with that alone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, master mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\nOpen the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n\nMayor:\nAy, say you so? the gates shall then be open'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe good old man would fain that all were well,\nSo 'twere not 'long of him; but being enter'd,\nI doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\nBoth him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, master mayor: these gates must not be shut\nBut in the night or in the time of war.\nWhat! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\nFor Edward will defend the town and thee,\nAnd all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\nOur trusty friend, unless I be deceived.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWelcome, Sir John! But why come you in arms?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nTo help King Edward in his time of storm,\nAs every loyal subject ought to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\nOur title to the crown and only claim\nOur dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThen fare you well, for I will hence again:\nI came to serve a king and not a duke.\nDrummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, stay, Sir John, awhile, and we'll debate\nBy what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWhat talk you of debating? in few words,\nIf you'll not here proclaim yourself our king,\nI'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\nTo keep them back that come to succor you:\nWhy shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhen we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim:\nTill then, 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAway with scrupulous wit! now arms must rule.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\nBrother, we will proclaim you out of hand:\nThe bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\nAnd Henry but usurps the diadem.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAy, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\nAnd now will I be Edward's champion.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd:\nCome, fellow-soldier, make thou proclamation.\n\nSoldier:\nEdward the Fourth, by the grace of God, king of\nEngland and France, and lord of Ireland, &c.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd whosoe'er gainsays King Edward's right,\nBy this I challenge him to single fight.\n\nAll:\nLong live Edward the Fourth!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, brave Montgomery; and thanks unto you all:\nIf fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\nNow, for this night, let's harbour here in York;\nAnd when the morning sun shall raise his car\nAbove the border of this horizon,\nWe'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\nFor well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\nAh, froward Clarence! how evil it beseems thee\nTo flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\nYet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\nCome on, brave soldiers: doubt not of the day,\nAnd, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\nWith hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\nHath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas,\nAnd with his troops doth march amain to London;\nAnd many giddy people flock to him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet's levy men, and beat him back again.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little fire is quickly trodden out;\nWhich, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n\nWARWICK:\nIn Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\nNot mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\nThose will I muster up: and thou, son Clarence,\nShalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\nThe knights and gentlemen to come with thee:\nThou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\nNorthampton and in Leicestershire, shalt find\nMen well inclined to hear what thou command'st:\nAnd thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well beloved,\nIn Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\nMy sovereign, with the loving citizens,\nLike to his island girt in with the ocean,\nOr modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\nShall rest in London till we come to him.\nFair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\nFarewell, my sovereign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFarewell, my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn sign of truth, I kiss your highness' hand.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWell-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n\nMONTAGUE:\nComfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n\nOXFORD:\nAnd thus I seal my truth, and bid adieu.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\nAnd all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n\nWARWICK:\nFarewell, sweet lords: let's meet at Coventry.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHere at the palace I will rest awhile.\nCousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\nMethinks the power that Edward hath in field\nShould not be able to encounter mine.\n\nEXETER:\nThe doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThat's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\nI have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\nNor posted off their suits with slow delays;\nMy pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\nMy mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\nMy mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\nI have not been desirous of their wealth,\nNor much oppress'd them with great subsidies.\nNor forward of revenge, though they much err'd:\nThen why should they love Edward more than me?\nNo, Exeter, these graces challenge grace:\nAnd when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\nThe lamb will never cease to follow him.\n\nEXETER:\nHark, hark, my lord! what shouts are these?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSeize on the shame-faced Henry, bear him hence;\nAnd once again proclaim us King of England.\nYou are the fount that makes small brooks to flow:\nNow stops thy spring; my sea sha$l suck them dry,\nAnd swell so much the higher by their ebb.\nHence with him to the Tower; let him not speak.\nAnd, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course\nWhere peremptory Warwick now remains:\nThe sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\nCold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAway betimes, before his forces join,\nAnd take the great-grown traitor unawares:\nBrave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhere is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\nHow far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n\nFirst Messenger:\nBy this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow far off is our brother Montague?\nWhere is the post that came from Montague?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nBy this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\nWARWICK:\nSay, Somerville, what says my loving son?\nAnd, by thy guess, how nigh is Clarence now?\n\nSOMERSET:\nAt Southam I did leave him with his forces,\nAnd do expect him here some two hours hence.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt is not his, my lord; here Southam lies:\nThe drum your honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n\nWARWICK:\nWho should that be? belike, unlook'd-for friends.\n\nSOMERSET:\nThey are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSee how the surly Warwick mans the wall!\n\nWARWICK:\nO unbid spite! is sportful Edward come?\nWhere slept our scouts, or how are they seduced,\nThat we could hear no news of his repair?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\nSpeak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee,\nCall Edward king and at his hands beg mercy?\nAnd he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n\nWARWICK:\nNay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\nConfess who set thee up and pluck'd thee own,\nCall Warwick patron and be penitent?\nAnd thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI thought, at least, he would have said the king;\nOr did he make the jest against his will?\n\nWARWICK:\nIs not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, by my faith, for a poor earl to give:\nI'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n\nWARWICK:\nThou art no Atlas for so great a weight:\nAnd weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\nAnd Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner:\nAnd, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\nWhat is the body when the head is off?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\nBut, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\nThe king was slily finger'd from the deck!\nYou left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\nAnd, ten to one, you'll meet him in the Tower.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down:\nNay, when? strike now, or else the iron cools.\n\nWARWICK:\nI had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\nAnd with the other fling it at thy face,\nThan bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,\nThis hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair\nShall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\nWrite in the dust this sentence with thy blood,\n'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\nWARWICK:\nO cheerful colours! see where Oxford comes!\n\nOXFORD:\nOxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates are open, let us enter too.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo other foes may set upon our backs.\nStand we in good array; for they no doubt\nWill issue out again and bid us battle:\nIf not, the city being but of small defence,\nWe'll quickly rouse the traitors in the same.\n\nWARWICK:\nO, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMontague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\nEven with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe harder match'd, the greater victory:\nMy mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\nSOMERSET:\nSomerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTwo of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\nHave sold their lives unto the house of York;\nAnd thou shalt be the third if this sword hold.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd lo, where George of Clarence sweeps along,\nOf force enough to bid his brother battle;\nWith whom an upright zeal to right prevails\nMore than the nature of a brother's love!\nCome, Clarence, come; thou wilt, if Warwick call.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFather of Warwick, know you what this means?\nLook here, I throw my infamy at thee\nI will not ruinate my father's house,\nWho gave his blood to lime the stones together,\nAnd set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou, Warwick,\nThat Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\nTo bend the fatal instruments of war\nAgainst his brother and his lawful king?\nPerhaps thou wilt object my holy oath:\nTo keep that oath were more impiety\nThan Jephthah's, when he sacrificed his daughter.\nI am so sorry for my trespass made\nThat, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\nI here proclaim myself thy mortal foe,\nWith resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee--\nAs I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad--\nTo plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\nAnd so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\nAnd to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\nPardon me, Edward, I will make amends:\nAnd, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\nFor I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow welcome more, and ten times more beloved,\nThan if thou never hadst deserved our hate.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, good Clarence; this is brotherlike.\n\nWARWICK:\nO passing traitor, perjured and unjust!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, Warwick, wilt thou leave the town and fight?\nOr shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n\nWARWICK:\nAlas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\nI will away towards Barnet presently,\nAnd bid thee battle, Edward, if thou darest.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads the way.\nLords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, lie thou there: die thou, and die our fear;\nFor Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\nNow, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\nThat Warwick's bones may keep thine company.\n\nWARWICK:\nAh, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe,\nAnd tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\nWhy ask I that? my mangled body shows,\nMy blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows.\nThat I must yield my body to the earth\nAnd, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\nThus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\nWhose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\nUnder whose shade the ramping lion slept,\nWhose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\nAnd kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.\nThese eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\nHave been as piercing as the mid-day sun,\nTo search the secret treasons of the world:\nThe wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood,\nWere liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;\nFor who lived king, but I could dig his grave?\nAnd who durst mine when Warwick bent his brow?\nLo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\nMy parks, my walks, my manors that I had.\nEven now forsake me, and of all my lands\nIs nothing left me but my body's length.\nWhy, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\nAnd, live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are.\nWe might recover all our loss again;\nThe queen from France hath brought a puissant power:\nEven now we heard the news: ah, could'st thou fly!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\nIf thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand.\nAnd with thy lips keep in my soul awhile!\nThou lovest me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\nThy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\nThat glues my lips and will not let me speak.\nCome quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick! Montague hath breathed his last;\nAnd to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\nAnd said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\nAnd more he would have said, and more he spoke,\nWhich sounded like a clamour in a vault,\nThat mought not be distinguished; but at last\nI well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n'O, farewell, Warwick!'\n\nWARWICK:\nSweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves;\nFor Warwick bids you all farewell to meet in heaven.\n\nOXFORD:\nAway, away, to meet the queen's great power!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\nAnd we are graced with wreaths of victory.\nBut, in the midst of this bright-shining day,\nI spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud,\nThat will encounter with our glorious sun,\nEre he attain his easeful western bed:\nI mean, my lords, those powers that the queen\nHath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast\nAnd, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little gale will soon disperse that cloud\nAnd blow it to the source from whence it came:\nThe very beams will dry those vapours up,\nFor every cloud engenders not a storm.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\nAnd Somerset, with Oxford fled to her:\nIf she have time to breathe be well assured\nHer faction will be full as strong as ours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWe are advertised by our loving friends\nThat they do hold their course toward Tewksbury:\nWe, having now the best at Barnet field,\nWill thither straight, for willingness rids way;\nAnd, as we march, our strength will be augmented\nIn every county as we go along.\nStrike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGreat lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,\nBut cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\nWhat though the mast be now blown overboard,\nThe cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\nAnd half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?\nYet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\nShould leave the helm and like a fearful lad\nWith tearful eyes add water to the sea\nAnd give more strength to that which hath too much,\nWhiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\nWhich industry and courage might have saved?\nAh, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\nSay Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\nAnd Montague our topmost; what of him?\nOur slaughter'd friends the tackles; what of these?\nWhy, is not Oxford here another anchor?\nAnd Somerset another goodly mast?\nThe friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\nAnd, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\nFor once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\nWe will not from the helm to sit and weep,\nBut keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\nFrom shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.\nAs good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\nAnd what is Edward but ruthless sea?\nWhat Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\nAnd Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\nAll these the enemies to our poor bark.\nSay you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\nTread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink:\nBestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\nOr else you famish; that's a threefold death.\nThis speak I, lords, to let you understand,\nIf case some one of you would fly from us,\nThat there's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers\nMore than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.\nWhy, courage then! what cannot be avoided\n'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMethinks a woman of this valiant spirit\nShould, if a coward heard her speak these words,\nInfuse his breast with magnanimity\nAnd make him, naked, foil a man at arms.\nI speak not this as doubting any here\nFor did I but suspect a fearful man\nHe should have leave to go away betimes,\nLest in our need he might infect another\nAnd make him of like spirit to himself.\nIf any such be here--as God forbid!--\nLet him depart before we need his help.\n\nOXFORD:\nWomen and children of so high a courage,\nAnd warriors faint! why, 'twere perpetual shame.\nO brave young prince! thy famous grandfather\nDoth live again in thee: long mayst thou live\nTo bear his image and renew his glories!\n\nSOMERSET:\nAnd he that will not fight for such a hope.\nGo home to bed, and like the owl by day,\nIf he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.\n\nMessenger:\nPrepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand.\nReady to fight; therefore be resolute.\n\nOXFORD:\nI thought no less: it is his policy\nTo haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n\nSOMERSET:\nBut he's deceived; we are in readiness.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThis cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n\nOXFORD:\nHere pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood,\nWhich, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\nMust by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\nI need not add more fuel to your fire,\nFor well I wot ye blaze to burn them out\nGive signal to the fight, and to it, lords!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say\nMy tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\nYe see, I drink the water of mine eyes.\nTherefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\nIs prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\nHis realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\nHis statutes cancell'd and his treasure spent;\nAnd yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\nYou fight in justice: then, in God's name, lords,\nBe valiant and give signal to the fight.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow here a period of tumultuous broils.\nAway with Oxford to Hames Castle straight:\nFor Somerset, off with his guilty head.\nGo, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n\nOXFORD:\nFor my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n\nSOMERSET:\nNor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo part we sadly in this troublous world,\nTo meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs proclamation made, that who finds Edward\nShall have a high reward, and he his life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is: and lo, where youthful Edward comes!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBring forth the gallant, let us hear him speak.\nWhat! can so young a thorn begin to prick?\nEdward, what satisfaction canst thou make\nFor bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\nAnd all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nSpeak like a subject, proud ambitious York!\nSuppose that I am now my father's mouth;\nResign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\nWhilst I propose the selfsame words to thee,\nWhich traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAh, that thy father had been so resolved!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat you might still have worn the petticoat,\nAnd ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nLet AEsop fable in a winter's night;\nHis currish riddles sort not with this place.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFor God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nPeace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n\nCLARENCE:\nUntutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI know my duty; you are all undutiful:\nLascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,\nAnd thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all\nI am your better, traitors as ye are:\nAnd thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake that, thou likeness of this railer here.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAnd there's for twitting me with perjury.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, kill me too!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMarry, and shall.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHold, Richard, hold; for we have done too much.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy should she live, to fill the world with words?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, doth she swoon? use means for her recovery.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nClarence, excuse me to the king my brother;\nI'll hence to London on a serious matter:\nEre ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat? what?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe Tower, the Tower.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO Ned, sweet Ned! speak to thy mother, boy!\nCanst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\nThey that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\nDid not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\nIf this foul deed were by to equal it:\nHe was a man; this, in respect, a child:\nAnd men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\nWhat's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\nNo, no, my heart will burst, and if I speak:\nAnd I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\nButchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\nHow sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\nYou have no children, butchers! if you had,\nThe thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse:\nBut if you ever chance to have a child,\nLook in his youth to have him so cut off\nAs, deathmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, never bear me hence, dispatch me here,\nHere sheathe thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death:\nWhat, wilt thou not? then, Clarence, do it thou.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGood Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nDidst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, but thou usest to forswear thyself:\n'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\nWhat, wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\nHard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\nThou art not here: murder is thy alms-deed;\nPetitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway, I say; I charge ye, bear her hence.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo come to you and yours, as to this Prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhere's Richard gone?\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo London, all in post; and, as I guess,\nTo make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHe's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\nNow march we hence: discharge the common sort\nWith pay and thanks, and let's away to London\nAnd see our gentle queen how well she fares:\nBy this, I hope, she hath a son for me.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, my good lord:--my lord, I should say rather;\n'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better:\n'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\nAnd both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must confer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\nSo first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece\nAnd next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\nWhat scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSuspicion always haunts the guilty mind;\nThe thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe bird that hath been limed in a bush,\nWith trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\nAnd I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\nHave now the fatal object in my eye\nWhere my poor young was limed, was caught and kill'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,\nThat taught his son the office of a fowl!\nAn yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\nThy father, Minos, that denied our course;\nThe sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy\nThy brother Edward, and thyself the sea\nWhose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\nAh, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\nMy breast can better brook thy dagger's point\nThan can my ears that tragic history.\nBut wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThink'st thou I am an executioner?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nA persecutor, I am sure, thou art:\nIf murdering innocents be executing,\nWhy, then thou art an executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,\nThou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine.\nAnd thus I prophesy, that many a thousand,\nWhich now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\nAnd many an old man's sigh and many a widow's,\nAnd many an orphan's water-standing eye--\nMen for their sons, wives for their husbands,\nAnd orphans for their parents timeless death--\nShall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\nThe owl shriek'd at thy birth,--an evil sign;\nThe night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\nDogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\nThe raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\nAnd chattering pies in dismal discords sung.\nThy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\nAnd, yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\nTo wit, an indigested and deformed lump,\nNot like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\nTeeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\nTo signify thou camest to bite the world:\nAnd, if the rest be true which I have heard,\nThou camest--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI'll hear no more: die, prophet in thy speech:\nFor this amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, and for much more slaughter after this.\nGod forgive my sins, and pardon thee!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\nSink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\nSee how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!\nO, may such purple tears be alway shed\nFrom those that wish the downfall of our house!\nIf any spark of life be yet remaining,\nDown, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither:\nI, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\nIndeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\nFor I have often heard my mother say\nI came into the world with my legs forward:\nHad I not reason, think ye, to make haste,\nAnd seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\nThe midwife wonder'd and the women cried\n'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\nAnd so I was; which plainly signified\nThat I should snarl and bite and play the dog.\nThen, since the heavens have shaped my body so,\nLet hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\nI have no brother, I am like no brother;\nAnd this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine,\nBe resident in men like one another\nAnd not in me: I am myself alone.\nClarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light:\nBut I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\nFor I will buz abroad such prophecies\nThat Edward shall be fearful of his life,\nAnd then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\nKing Henry and the prince his son are gone:\nClarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,\nCounting myself but bad till I be best.\nI'll throw thy body in another room\nAnd triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nOnce more we sit in England's royal throne,\nRe-purchased with the blood of enemies.\nWhat valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\nHave we mow'd down, in tops of all their pride!\nThree Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\nFor hardy and undoubted champions;\nTwo Cliffords, as the father and the son,\nAnd two Northumberlands; two braver men\nNe'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\nWith them, the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\nThat in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\nAnd made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\nThus have we swept suspicion from our seat\nAnd made our footstool of security.\nCome hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\nYoung Ned, for thee, thine uncles and myself\nHave in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\nWent all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\nThat thou mightst repossess the crown in peace;\nAnd of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\nAnd kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThe duty that I owe unto your majesty\nI seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd, that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,\nWitness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow am I seated as my soul delights,\nHaving my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat will your grace have done with Margaret?\nReignier, her father, to the king of France\nHath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nAnd hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her, and waft her hence to France.\nAnd now what rests but that we spend the time\nWith stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\nSuch as befits the pleasure of the court?\nSound drums and trumpets! farewell sour annoy!\nFor here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on\nthe like occasion whereon my services are now on\nfoot, you shall see, as I have said, great\ndifference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia\nmeans to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\njustified in our loves; for indeed--\n\nCAMILLO:\nBeseech you,--\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nVerily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:\nwe cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know\nnot what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,\nthat your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,\nmay, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse\nus.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nBelieve me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\nand as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.\nThey were trained together in their childhoods; and\nthere rooted betwixt them then such an affection,\nwhich cannot choose but branch now. Since their\nmore mature dignities and royal necessities made\nseparation of their society, their encounters,\nthough not personal, have been royally attorneyed\nwith interchange of gifts, letters, loving\nembassies; that they have seemed to be together,\nthough absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and\nembraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed\nwinds. The heavens continue their loves!\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nI think there is not in the world either malice or\nmatter to alter it. You have an unspeakable\ncomfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a\ngentleman of the greatest promise that ever came\ninto my note.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it\nis a gallant child; one that indeed physics the\nsubject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on\ncrutches ere he was born desire yet their life to\nsee him a man.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWould they else be content to die?\n\nCAMILLO:\nYes; if there were no other excuse why they should\ndesire to live.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf the king had no son, they would desire to live\non crutches till he had one.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNine changes of the watery star hath been\nThe shepherd's note since we have left our throne\nWithout a burthen: time as long again\nWould be find up, my brother, with our thanks;\nAnd yet we should, for perpetuity,\nGo hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,\nYet standing in rich place, I multiply\nWith one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\nThat go before it.\n\nLEONTES:\nStay your thanks a while;\nAnd pay them when you part.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSir, that's to-morrow.\nI am question'd by my fears, of what may chance\nOr breed upon our absence; that may blow\nNo sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd\nTo tire your royalty.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe are tougher, brother,\nThan you can put us to't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo longer stay.\n\nLEONTES:\nOne seven-night longer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nVery sooth, to-morrow.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe'll part the time between's then; and in that\nI'll no gainsaying.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPress me not, beseech you, so.\nThere is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,\nSo soon as yours could win me: so it should now,\nWere there necessity in your request, although\n'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\nDo even drag me homeward: which to hinder\nWere in your love a whip to me; my stay\nTo you a charge and trouble: to save both,\nFarewell, our brother.\n\nLEONTES:\nTongue-tied, our queen?\nspeak you.\n\nHERMIONE:\nI had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\nYou have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\nCharge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure\nAll in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction\nThe by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,\nHe's beat from his best ward.\n\nLEONTES:\nWell said, Hermione.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTo tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:\nBut let him say so then, and let him go;\nBut let him swear so, and he shall not stay,\nWe'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\nYet of your royal presence I'll adventure\nThe borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\nYou take my lord, I'll give him my commission\nTo let him there a month behind the gest\nPrefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,\nI love thee not a jar o' the clock behind\nWhat lady-she her lord. You'll stay?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo, madam.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, but you will?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI may not, verily.\n\nHERMIONE:\nVerily!\nYou put me off with limber vows; but I,\nThough you would seek to unsphere the\nstars with oaths,\nShould yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\nYou shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's\nAs potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?\nForce me to keep you as a prisoner,\nNot like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\nWhen you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\nMy prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'\nOne of them you shall be.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYour guest, then, madam:\nTo be your prisoner should import offending;\nWhich is for me less easy to commit\nThan you to punish.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNot your gaoler, then,\nBut your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you\nOf my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:\nYou were pretty lordings then?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were, fair queen,\nTwo lads that thought there was no more behind\nBut such a day to-morrow as to-day,\nAnd to be boy eternal.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWas not my lord\nThe verier wag o' the two?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,\nAnd bleat the one at the other: what we changed\nWas innocence for innocence; we knew not\nThe doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\nThat any did. Had we pursued that life,\nAnd our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\nWith stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\nBoldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd\nHereditary ours.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBy this we gather\nYou have tripp'd since.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO my most sacred lady!\nTemptations have since then been born to's; for\nIn those unfledged days was my wife a girl;\nYour precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\nOf my young play-fellow.\n\nHERMIONE:\nGrace to boot!\nOf this make no conclusion, lest you say\nYour queen and I are devils: yet go on;\nThe offences we have made you do we'll answer,\nIf you first sinn'd with us and that with us\nYou did continue fault and that you slipp'd not\nWith any but with us.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs he won yet?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe'll stay my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt my request he would not.\nHermione, my dearest, thou never spokest\nTo better purpose.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNever?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, but once.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat! have I twice said well? when was't before?\nI prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\nAs fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless\nSlaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\nOur praises are our wages: you may ride's\nWith one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\nWith spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:\nMy last good deed was to entreat his stay:\nWhat was my first? it has an elder sister,\nOr I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!\nBut once before I spoke to the purpose: when?\nNay, let me have't; I long.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, that was when\nThree crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\nEre I could make thee open thy white hand\nAnd clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter\n'I am yours for ever.'\n\nHERMIONE:\n'Tis grace indeed.\nWhy, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice:\nThe one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\nThe other for some while a friend.\n\nLEONTES:\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI' fecks!\nWhy, that's my bawcock. What, hast\nsmutch'd thy nose?\nThey say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,\nWe must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:\nAnd yet the steer, the heifer and the calf\nAre all call'd neat.--Still virginalling\nUpon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf!\nArt thou my calf?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYes, if you will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\nTo be full like me: yet they say we are\nAlmost as like as eggs; women say so,\nThat will say anything but were they false\nAs o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false\nAs dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\nNo bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true\nTo say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\nLook on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain!\nMost dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?--\nAffection! thy intention stabs the centre:\nThou dost make possible things not so held,\nCommunicatest with dreams;--how can this be?--\nWith what's unreal thou coactive art,\nAnd fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent\nThou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost,\nAnd that beyond commission, and I find it,\nAnd that to the infection of my brains\nAnd hardening of my brows.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat means Sicilia?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe something seems unsettled.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow, my lord!\nWhat cheer? how is't with you, best brother?\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou look as if you held a brow of much distraction\nAre you moved, my lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, in good earnest.\nHow sometimes nature will betray its folly,\nIts tenderness, and make itself a pastime\nTo harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\nOf my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\nTwenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd,\nIn my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,\nLest it should bite its master, and so prove,\nAs ornaments oft do, too dangerous:\nHow like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\nThis squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\nWill you take eggs for money?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, my lord, I'll fight.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\nAre you so fond of your young prince as we\nDo seem to be of ours?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nIf at home, sir,\nHe's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,\nNow my sworn friend and then mine enemy,\nMy parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:\nHe makes a July's day short as December,\nAnd with his varying childness cures in me\nThoughts that would thick my blood.\n\nLEONTES:\nSo stands this squire\nOfficed with me: we two will walk, my lord,\nAnd leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\nHow thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome;\nLet what is dear in Sicily be cheap:\nNext to thyself and my young rover, he's\nApparent to my heart.\n\nHERMIONE:\nIf you would seek us,\nWe are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?\n\nLEONTES:\nTo your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,\nBe you beneath the sky.\nI am angling now,\nThough you perceive me not how I give line.\nGo to, go to!\nHow she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\nAnd arms her with the boldness of a wife\nTo her allowing husband!\nGone already!\nInch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and\nears a fork'd one!\nGo, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I\nPlay too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue\nWill hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour\nWill be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.\nThere have been,\nOr I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;\nAnd many a man there is, even at this present,\nNow while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,\nThat little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence\nAnd his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\nSir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't\nWhiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\nAs mine, against their will. Should all despair\nThat have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\nWould hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;\nIt is a bawdy planet, that will strike\nWhere 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,\nFrom east, west, north and south: be it concluded,\nNo barricado for a belly; know't;\nIt will let in and out the enemy\nWith bag and baggage: many thousand on's\nHave the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI am like you, they say.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy that's some comfort. What, Camillo there?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\nCamillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou had much ado to make his anchor hold:\nWhen you cast out, it still came home.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst note it?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe would not stay at your petitions: made\nHis business more material.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst perceive it?\nThey're here with me already, whispering, rounding\n'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone,\nWhen I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo,\nThat he did stay?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAt the good queen's entreaty.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent\nBut, so it is, it is not. Was this taken\nBy any understanding pate but thine?\nFor thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\nMore than the common blocks: not noted, is't,\nBut of the finer natures? by some severals\nOf head-piece extraordinary? lower messes\nPerchance are to this business purblind? say.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBusiness, my lord! I think most understand\nBohemia stays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa!\n\nCAMILLO:\nStays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nAy, but why?\n\nCAMILLO:\nTo satisfy your highness and the entreaties\nOf our most gracious mistress.\n\nLEONTES:\nSatisfy!\nThe entreaties of your mistress! satisfy!\nLet that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\nWith all the nearest things to my heart, as well\nMy chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\nHast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed\nThy penitent reform'd: but we have been\nDeceived in thy integrity, deceived\nIn that which seems so.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe it forbid, my lord!\n\nLEONTES:\nTo bide upon't, thou art not honest, or,\nIf thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward,\nWhich hoxes honesty behind, restraining\nFrom course required; or else thou must be counted\nA servant grafted in my serious trust\nAnd therein negligent; or else a fool\nThat seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\nAnd takest it all for jest.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy gracious lord,\nI may be negligent, foolish and fearful;\nIn every one of these no man is free,\nBut that his negligence, his folly, fear,\nAmong the infinite doings of the world,\nSometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\nIf ever I were wilful-negligent,\nIt was my folly; if industriously\nI play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\nNot weighing well the end; if ever fearful\nTo do a thing, where I the issue doubted,\nWhere of the execution did cry out\nAgainst the non-performance, 'twas a fear\nWhich oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,\nAre such allow'd infirmities that honesty\nIs never free of. But, beseech your grace,\nBe plainer with me; let me know my trespass\nBy its own visage: if I then deny it,\n'Tis none of mine.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa' not you seen, Camillo,--\nBut that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass\nIs thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--\nFor to a vision so apparent rumour\nCannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation\nResides not in that man that does not think,--\nMy wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,\nOr else be impudently negative,\nTo have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say\nMy wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\nAs rank as any flax-wench that puts to\nBefore her troth-plight: say't and justify't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI would not be a stander-by to hear\nMy sovereign mistress clouded so, without\nMy present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart,\nYou never spoke what did become you less\nThan this; which to reiterate were sin\nAs deep as that, though true.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs whispering nothing?\nIs leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?\nKissing with inside lip? stopping the career\nOf laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible\nOf breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot?\nSkulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?\nHours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes\nBlind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\nThat would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?\nWhy, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\nThe covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\nMy wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\nIf this be nothing.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGood my lord, be cured\nOf this diseased opinion, and betimes;\nFor 'tis most dangerous.\n\nLEONTES:\nSay it be, 'tis true.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo, no, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt is; you lie, you lie:\nI say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,\nPronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\nOr else a hovering temporizer, that\nCanst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\nInclining to them both: were my wife's liver\nInfected as her life, she would not live\nThe running of one glass.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho does infect her?\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, he that wears her like a medal, hanging\nAbout his neck, Bohemia: who, if I\nHad servants true about me, that bare eyes\nTo see alike mine honour as their profits,\nTheir own particular thrifts, they would do that\nWhich should undo more doing: ay, and thou,\nHis cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form\nHave benched and reared to worship, who mayst see\nPlainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\nHow I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup,\nTo give mine enemy a lasting wink;\nWhich draught to me were cordial.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, my lord,\nI could do this, and that with no rash potion,\nBut with a lingering dram that should not work\nMaliciously like poison: but I cannot\nBelieve this crack to be in my dread mistress,\nSo sovereignly being honourable.\nI have loved thee,--\n\nLEONTES:\nMake that thy question, and go rot!\nDost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\nTo appoint myself in this vexation, sully\nThe purity and whiteness of my sheets,\nWhich to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\nIs goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,\nGive scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,\nWho I do think is mine and love as mine,\nWithout ripe moving to't? Would I do this?\nCould man so blench?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI must believe you, sir:\nI do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\nProvided that, when he's removed, your highness\nWill take again your queen as yours at first,\nEven for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\nThe injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\nKnown and allied to yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou dost advise me\nEven so as I mine own course have set down:\nI'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nGo then; and with a countenance as clear\nAs friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\nAnd with your queen. I am his cupbearer:\nIf from me he have wholesome beverage,\nAccount me not your servant.\n\nLEONTES:\nThis is all:\nDo't and thou hast the one half of my heart;\nDo't not, thou split'st thine own.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI'll do't, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO miserable lady! But, for me,\nWhat case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\nOf good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\nIs the obedience to a master, one\nWho in rebellion with himself will have\nAll that are his so too. To do this deed,\nPromotion follows. If I could find example\nOf thousands that had struck anointed kings\nAnd flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since\nNor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,\nLet villany itself forswear't. I must\nForsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain\nTo me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!\nHere comes Bohemia.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is strange: methinks\nMy favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\nGood day, Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHail, most royal sir!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat is the news i' the court?\n\nCAMILLO:\nNone rare, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThe king hath on him such a countenance\nAs he had lost some province and a region\nLoved as he loves himself: even now I met him\nWith customary compliment; when he,\nWafting his eyes to the contrary and falling\nA lip of much contempt, speeds from me and\nSo leaves me to consider what is breeding\nThat changeth thus his manners.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI dare not know, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?\nBe intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;\nFor, to yourself, what you do know, you must.\nAnd cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,\nYour changed complexions are to me a mirror\nWhich shows me mine changed too; for I must be\nA party in this alteration, finding\nMyself thus alter'd with 't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThere is a sickness\nWhich puts some of us in distemper, but\nI cannot name the disease; and it is caught\nOf you that yet are well.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! caught of me!\nMake me not sighted like the basilisk:\nI have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better\nBy my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--\nAs you are certainly a gentleman, thereto\nClerk-like experienced, which no less adorns\nOur gentry than our parents' noble names,\nIn whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you,\nIf you know aught which does behove my knowledge\nThereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\nIn ignorant concealment.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI may not answer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nA sickness caught of me, and yet I well!\nI must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,\nI conjure thee, by all the parts of man\nWhich honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\nIs not this suit of mine, that thou declare\nWhat incidency thou dost guess of harm\nIs creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\nWhich way to be prevented, if to be;\nIf not, how best to bear it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I will tell you;\nSince I am charged in honour and by him\nThat I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,\nWhich must be even as swiftly follow'd as\nI mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\nCry lost, and so good night!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nOn, good Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI am appointed him to murder you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy whom, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nBy the king.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFor what?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\nAs he had seen't or been an instrument\nTo vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\nForbiddenly.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, then my best blood turn\nTo an infected jelly and my name\nBe yoked with his that did betray the Best!\nTurn then my freshest reputation to\nA savour that may strike the dullest nostril\nWhere I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\nNay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\nThat e'er was heard or read!\n\nCAMILLO:\nSwear his thought over\nBy each particular star in heaven and\nBy all their influences, you may as well\nForbid the sea for to obey the moon\nAs or by oath remove or counsel shake\nThe fabric of his folly, whose foundation\nIs piled upon his faith and will continue\nThe standing of his body.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow should this grow?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to\nAvoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\nIf therefore you dare trust my honesty,\nThat lies enclosed in this trunk which you\nShall bear along impawn'd, away to-night!\nYour followers I will whisper to the business,\nAnd will by twos and threes at several posterns\nClear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put\nMy fortunes to your service, which are here\nBy this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;\nFor, by the honour of my parents, I\nHave utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove,\nI dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\nThan one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon\nHis execution sworn.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI do believe thee:\nI saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:\nBe pilot to me and thy places shall\nStill neighbour mine. My ships are ready and\nMy people did expect my hence departure\nTwo days ago. This jealousy\nIs for a precious creature: as she's rare,\nMust it be great, and as his person's mighty,\nMust it be violent, and as he does conceive\nHe is dishonour'd by a man which ever\nProfess'd to him, why, his revenges must\nIn that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:\nGood expedition be my friend, and comfort\nThe gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing\nOf his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\nI will respect thee as a father if\nThou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is in mine authority to command\nThe keys of all the posterns: please your highness\nTo take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTake the boy to you: he so troubles me,\n'Tis past enduring.\n\nFirst Lady:\nCome, my gracious lord,\nShall I be your playfellow?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, I'll none of you.\n\nFirst Lady:\nWhy, my sweet lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYou'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if\nI were a baby still. I love you better.\n\nSecond Lady:\nAnd why so, my lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNot for because\nYour brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\nBecome some women best, so that there be not\nToo much hair there, but in a semicircle\nOr a half-moon made with a pen.\n\nSecond Lady:\nWho taught you this?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now\nWhat colour are your eyebrows?\n\nFirst Lady:\nBlue, my lord.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose\nThat has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\n\nFirst Lady:\nHark ye;\nThe queen your mother rounds apace: we shall\nPresent our services to a fine new prince\nOne of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,\nIf we would have you.\n\nSecond Lady:\nShe is spread of late\nInto a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\nI am for you again: pray you, sit by us,\nAnd tell 's a tale.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nMerry or sad shall't be?\n\nHERMIONE:\nAs merry as you will.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nA sad tale's best for winter: I have one\nOf sprites and goblins.\n\nHERMIONE:\nLet's have that, good sir.\nCome on, sit down: come on, and do your best\nTo fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nThere was a man--\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, come, sit down; then on.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nDwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;\nYond crickets shall not hear it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nCome on, then,\nAnd give't me in mine ear.\n\nLEONTES:\nWas he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBehind the tuft of pines I met them; never\nSaw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them\nEven to their ships.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow blest am I\nIn my just censure, in my true opinion!\nAlack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed\nIn being so blest! There may be in the cup\nA spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\nAnd yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\nIs not infected: but if one present\nThe abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\nHow he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\nWith violent hefts. I have drunk,\nand seen the spider.\nCamillo was his help in this, his pander:\nThere is a plot against my life, my crown;\nAll's true that is mistrusted: that false villain\nWhom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him:\nHe has discover'd my design, and I\nRemain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\nFor them to play at will. How came the posterns\nSo easily open?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBy his great authority;\nWhich often hath no less prevail'd than so\nOn your command.\n\nLEONTES:\nI know't too well.\nGive me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:\nThough he does bear some signs of me, yet you\nHave too much blood in him.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat is this? sport?\n\nLEONTES:\nBear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\nAway with him! and let her sport herself\nWith that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes\nHas made thee swell thus.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBut I'ld say he had not,\nAnd I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\nHowe'er you lean to the nayward.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou, my lords,\nLook on her, mark her well; be but about\nTo say 'she is a goodly lady,' and\nThe justice of your bearts will thereto add\n'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'\nPraise her but for this her without-door form,\nWhich on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\nThe shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\nThat calumny doth use--O, I am out--\nThat mercy does, for calumny will sear\nVirtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,\nWhen you have said 'she's goodly,' come between\nEre you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known,\nFrom him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\nShe's an adulteress.\n\nHERMIONE:\nShould a villain say so,\nThe most replenish'd villain in the world,\nHe were as much more villain: you, my lord,\nDo but mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou have mistook, my lady,\nPolixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!\nWhich I'll not call a creature of thy place,\nLest barbarism, making me the precedent,\nShould a like language use to all degrees\nAnd mannerly distinguishment leave out\nBetwixt the prince and beggar: I have said\nShe's an adulteress; I have said with whom:\nMore, she's a traitor and Camillo is\nA federary with her, and one that knows\nWhat she should shame to know herself\nBut with her most vile principal, that she's\nA bed-swerver, even as bad as those\nThat vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy\nTo this their late escape.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNo, by my life.\nPrivy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\nWhen you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\nYou thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\nYou scarce can right me throughly then to say\nYou did mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nNo; if I mistake\nIn those foundations which I build upon,\nThe centre is not big enough to bear\nA school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!\nHe who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\nBut that he speaks.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThere's some ill planet reigns:\nI must be patient till the heavens look\nWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\nI am not prone to weeping, as our sex\nCommonly are; the want of which vain dew\nPerchance shall dry your pities: but I have\nThat honourable grief lodged here which burns\nWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,\nWith thoughts so qualified as your charities\nShall best instruct you, measure me; and so\nThe king's will be perform'd!\n\nLEONTES:\nShall I be heard?\n\nHERMIONE:\nWho is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,\nMy women may be with me; for you see\nMy plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\nThere is no cause: when you shall know your mistress\nHas deserved prison, then abound in tears\nAs I come out: this action I now go on\nIs for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:\nI never wish'd to see you sorry; now\nI trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, do our bidding; hence!\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, call the queen again.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nBe certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\nProve violence; in the which three great ones suffer,\nYourself, your queen, your son.\n\nFirst Lord:\nFor her, my lord,\nI dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,\nPlease you to accept it, that the queen is spotless\nI' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,\nIn this which you accuse her.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it prove\nShe's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\nI lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\nThan when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\nFor every inch of woman in the world,\nAy, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.\n\nLEONTES:\nHold your peaces.\n\nFirst Lord:\nGood my lord,--\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIt is for you we speak, not for ourselves:\nYou are abused and by some putter-on\nThat will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,\nI would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,\nI have three daughters; the eldest is eleven\nThe second and the third, nine, and some five;\nIf this prove true, they'll pay for't:\nby mine honour,\nI'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,\nTo bring false generations: they are co-heirs;\nAnd I had rather glib myself than they\nShould not produce fair issue.\n\nLEONTES:\nCease; no more.\nYou smell this business with a sense as cold\nAs is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't\nAs you feel doing thus; and see withal\nThe instruments that feel.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it be so,\nWe need no grave to bury honesty:\nThere's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\nOf the whole dungy earth.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat! lack I credit?\n\nFirst Lord:\nI had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\nUpon this ground; and more it would content me\nTo have her honour true than your suspicion,\nBe blamed for't how you might.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, what need we\nCommune with you of this, but rather follow\nOur forceful instigation? Our prerogative\nCalls not your counsels, but our natural goodness\nImparts this; which if you, or stupefied\nOr seeming so in skill, cannot or will not\nRelish a truth like us, inform yourselves\nWe need no more of your advice: the matter,\nThe loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all\nProperly ours.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAnd I wish, my liege,\nYou had only in your silent judgment tried it,\nWithout more overture.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow could that be?\nEither thou art most ignorant by age,\nOr thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\nAdded to their familiarity,\nWhich was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\nThat lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\nBut only seeing, all other circumstances\nMade up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding:\nYet, for a greater confirmation,\nFor in an act of this importance 'twere\nMost piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post\nTo sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\nCleomenes and Dion, whom you know\nOf stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle\nThey will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,\nShall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\n\nFirst Lord:\nWell done, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThough I am satisfied and need no more\nThan what I know, yet shall the oracle\nGive rest to the minds of others, such as he\nWhose ignorant credulity will not\nCome up to the truth. So have we thought it good\nFrom our free person she should be confined,\nLest that the treachery of the two fled hence\nBe left her to perform. Come, follow us;\nWe are to speak in public; for this business\nWill raise us all.\n\nANTIGONUS:\n\nPAULINA:\nThe keeper of the prison, call to him;\nlet him have knowledge who I am.\nGood lady,\nNo court in Europe is too good for thee;\nWhat dost thou then in prison?\nNow, good sir,\nYou know me, do you not?\n\nGaoler:\nFor a worthy lady\nAnd one whom much I honour.\n\nPAULINA:\nPray you then,\nConduct me to the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI may not, madam:\nTo the contrary I have express commandment.\n\nPAULINA:\nHere's ado,\nTo lock up honesty and honour from\nThe access of gentle visitors!\nIs't lawful, pray you,\nTo see her women? any of them? Emilia?\n\nGaoler:\nSo please you, madam,\nTo put apart these your attendants, I\nShall bring Emilia forth.\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray now, call her.\nWithdraw yourselves.\n\nGaoler:\nAnd, madam,\nI must be present at your conference.\n\nPAULINA:\nWell, be't so, prithee.\nHere's such ado to make no stain a stain\nAs passes colouring.\nDear gentlewoman,\nHow fares our gracious lady?\n\nEMILIA:\nAs well as one so great and so forlorn\nMay hold together: on her frights and griefs,\nWhich never tender lady hath born greater,\nShe is something before her time deliver'd.\n\nPAULINA:\nA boy?\n\nEMILIA:\nA daughter, and a goodly babe,\nLusty and like to live: the queen receives\nMuch comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\nI am innocent as you.'\n\nPAULINA:\nI dare be sworn\nThese dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king,\nbeshrew them!\nHe must be told on't, and he shall: the office\nBecomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me:\nIf I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister\nAnd never to my red-look'd anger be\nThe trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\nCommend my best obedience to the queen:\nIf she dares trust me with her little babe,\nI'll show't the king and undertake to be\nHer advocate to the loud'st. We do not know\nHow he may soften at the sight o' the child:\nThe silence often of pure innocence\nPersuades when speaking fails.\n\nEMILIA:\nMost worthy madam,\nYour honour and your goodness is so evident\nThat your free undertaking cannot miss\nA thriving issue: there is no lady living\nSo meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\nTo visit the next room, I'll presently\nAcquaint the queen of your most noble offer;\nWho but to-day hammer'd of this design,\nBut durst not tempt a minister of honour,\nLest she should be denied.\n\nPAULINA:\nTell her, Emilia.\nI'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't\nAs boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted\nI shall do good.\n\nEMILIA:\nNow be you blest for it!\nI'll to the queen: please you,\ncome something nearer.\n\nGaoler:\nMadam, if't please the queen to send the babe,\nI know not what I shall incur to pass it,\nHaving no warrant.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou need not fear it, sir:\nThis child was prisoner to the womb and is\nBy law and process of great nature thence\nFreed and enfranchised, not a party to\nThe anger of the king nor guilty of,\nIf any be, the trespass of the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI do believe it.\n\nPAULINA:\nDo not you fear: upon mine honour,\nI will stand betwixt you and danger.\n\nLEONTES:\nNor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness\nTo bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If\nThe cause were not in being,--part o' the cause,\nShe the adulteress; for the harlot king\nIs quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\nAnd level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\nI can hook to me: say that she were gone,\nGiven to the fire, a moiety of my rest\nMight come to me again. Who's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nHow does the boy?\n\nFirst Servant:\nHe took good rest to-night;\n'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.\n\nLEONTES:\nTo see his nobleness!\nConceiving the dishonour of his mother,\nHe straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply,\nFasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\nThrew off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\nAnd downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go,\nSee how he fares.\nFie, fie! no thought of him:\nThe thought of my revenges that way\nRecoil upon me: in himself too mighty,\nAnd in his parties, his alliance; let him be\nUntil a time may serve: for present vengeance,\nTake it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\nLaugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow:\nThey should not laugh if I could reach them, nor\nShall she within my power.\n\nFirst Lord:\nYou must not enter.\n\nPAULINA:\nNay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:\nFear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\nThan the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul,\nMore free than he is jealous.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThat's enough.\n\nSecond Servant:\nMadam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded\nNone should come at him.\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so hot, good sir:\nI come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\nThat creep like shadows by him and do sigh\nAt each his needless heavings, such as you\nNourish the cause of his awaking: I\nDo come with words as medicinal as true,\nHonest as either, to purge him of that humour\nThat presses him from sleep.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat noise there, ho?\n\nPAULINA:\nNo noise, my lord; but needful conference\nAbout some gossips for your highness.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow!\nAway with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\nI charged thee that she should not come about me:\nI knew she would.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI told her so, my lord,\nOn your displeasure's peril and on mine,\nShe should not visit you.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat, canst not rule her?\n\nPAULINA:\nFrom all dishonesty he can: in this,\nUnless he take the course that you have done,\nCommit me for committing honour, trust it,\nHe shall not rule me.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nLa you now, you hear:\nWhen she will take the rein I let her run;\nBut she'll not stumble.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my liege, I come;\nAnd, I beseech you, hear me, who profess\nMyself your loyal servant, your physician,\nYour most obedient counsellor, yet that dare\nLess appear so in comforting your evils,\nThan such as most seem yours: I say, I come\nFrom your good queen.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood queen!\n\nPAULINA:\nGood queen, my lord,\nGood queen; I say good queen;\nAnd would by combat make her good, so were I\nA man, the worst about you.\n\nLEONTES:\nForce her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nLet him that makes but trifles of his eyes\nFirst hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;\nBut first I'll do my errand. The good queen,\nFor she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\nHere 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n\nLEONTES:\nOut!\nA mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:\nA most intelligencing bawd!\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so:\nI am as ignorant in that as you\nIn so entitling me, and no less honest\nThan you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\nAs this world goes, to pass for honest.\n\nLEONTES:\nTraitors!\nWill you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\nThou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted\nBy thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\nTake't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\n\nPAULINA:\nFor ever\nUnvenerable be thy hands, if thou\nTakest up the princess by that forced baseness\nWhich he has put upon't!\n\nLEONTES:\nHe dreads his wife.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\nYou'ld call your children yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nA nest of traitors!\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI am none, by this good light.\n\nPAULINA:\nNor I, nor any\nBut one that's here, and that's himself, for he\nThe sacred honour of himself, his queen's,\nHis hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\nWhose sting is sharper than the sword's;\nand will not--\nFor, as the case now stands, it is a curse\nHe cannot be compell'd to't--once remove\nThe root of his opinion, which is rotten\nAs ever oak or stone was sound.\n\nLEONTES:\nA callat\nOf boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband\nAnd now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\nIt is the issue of Polixenes:\nHence with it, and together with the dam\nCommit them to the fire!\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is yours;\nAnd, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,\nSo like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\nAlthough the print be little, the whole matter\nAnd copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,\nThe trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,\nThe pretty dimples of his chin and cheek,\nHis smiles,\nThe very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:\nAnd thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\nSo like to him that got it, if thou hast\nThe ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\nNo yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\nHer children not her husband's!\n\nLEONTES:\nA gross hag\nAnd, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,\nThat wilt not stay her tongue.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nHang all the husbands\nThat cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\nHardly one subject.\n\nLEONTES:\nOnce more, take her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nA most unworthy and unnatural lord\nCan do no more.\n\nLEONTES:\nI'll ha' thee burnt.\n\nPAULINA:\nI care not:\nIt is an heretic that makes the fire,\nNot she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant;\nBut this most cruel usage of your queen,\nNot able to produce more accusation\nThan your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours\nOf tyranny and will ignoble make you,\nYea, scandalous to the world.\n\nLEONTES:\nOn your allegiance,\nOut of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\nWhere were her life? she durst not call me so,\nIf she did know me one. Away with her!\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\nLook to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours:\nJove send her\nA better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\nYou, that are thus so tender o'er his follies,\nWill never do him good, not one of you.\nSo, so: farewell; we are gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\nMy child? away with't! Even thou, that hast\nA heart so tender o'er it, take it hence\nAnd see it instantly consumed with fire;\nEven thou and none but thou. Take it up straight:\nWithin this hour bring me word 'tis done,\nAnd by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\nWith what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse\nAnd wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\nThe bastard brains with these my proper hands\nShall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\nFor thou set'st on thy wife.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI did not, sir:\nThese lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\nCan clear me in't.\n\nLords:\nWe can: my royal liege,\nHe is not guilty of her coming hither.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou're liars all.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, give us better credit:\nWe have always truly served you, and beseech you\nSo to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,\nAs recompense of our dear services\nPast and to come, that you do change this purpose,\nWhich being so horrible, so bloody, must\nLead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.\n\nLEONTES:\nI am a feather for each wind that blows:\nShall I live on to see this bastard kneel\nAnd call me father? better burn it now\nThan curse it then. But be it; let it live.\nIt shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither;\nYou that have been so tenderly officious\nWith Lady Margery, your midwife there,\nTo save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard,\nSo sure as this beard's grey,\n--what will you adventure\nTo save this brat's life?\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAny thing, my lord,\nThat my ability may undergo\nAnd nobleness impose: at least thus much:\nI'll pawn the little blood which I have left\nTo save the innocent: any thing possible.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt shall be possible. Swear by this sword\nThou wilt perform my bidding.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nMark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail\nOf any point in't shall not only be\nDeath to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,\nWhom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\nAs thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry\nThis female bastard hence and that thou bear it\nTo some remote and desert place quite out\nOf our dominions, and that there thou leave it,\nWithout more mercy, to its own protection\nAnd favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\nIt came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\nOn thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\nThat thou commend it strangely to some place\nWhere chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI swear to do this, though a present death\nHad been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:\nSome powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\nTo be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say\nCasting their savageness aside have done\nLike offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\nIn more than this deed does require! And blessing\nAgainst this cruelty fight on thy side,\nPoor thing, condemn'd to loss!\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, I'll not rear\nAnother's issue.\n\nServant:\nPlease your highness, posts\nFrom those you sent to the oracle are come\nAn hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,\nBeing well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,\nHasting to the court.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSo please you, sir, their speed\nHath been beyond account.\n\nLEONTES:\nTwenty-three days\nThey have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells\nThe great Apollo suddenly will have\nThe truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\nSummon a session, that we may arraign\nOur most disloyal lady, for, as she hath\nBeen publicly accused, so shall she have\nA just and open trial. While she lives\nMy heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me,\nAnd think upon my bidding.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nThe climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\nFertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\nThe common praise it bears.\n\nDION:\nI shall report,\nFor most it caught me, the celestial habits,\nMethinks I so should term them, and the reverence\nOf the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\nHow ceremonious, solemn and unearthly\nIt was i' the offering!\n\nCLEOMENES:\nBut of all, the burst\nAnd the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,\nKin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense.\nThat I was nothing.\n\nDION:\nIf the event o' the journey\nProve as successful to the queen,--O be't so!--\nAs it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\nThe time is worth the use on't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGreat Apollo\nTurn all to the best! These proclamations,\nSo forcing faults upon Hermione,\nI little like.\n\nDION:\nThe violent carriage of it\nWill clear or end the business: when the oracle,\nThus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,\nShall the contents discover, something rare\nEven then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses!\nAnd gracious be the issue!\n\nLEONTES:\nThis sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\nEven pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried\nThe daughter of a king, our wife, and one\nOf us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd\nOf being tyrannous, since we so openly\nProceed in justice, which shall have due course,\nEven to the guilt or the purgation.\nProduce the prisoner.\n\nOfficer:\nIt is his highness' pleasure that the queen\nAppear in person here in court. Silence!\n\nLEONTES:\nRead the indictment.\n\nOfficer:\n\nHERMIONE:\nSince what I am to say must be but that\nWhich contradicts my accusation and\nThe testimony on my part no other\nBut what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\nTo say 'not guilty:' mine integrity\nBeing counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,\nBe so received. But thus: if powers divine\nBehold our human actions, as they do,\nI doubt not then but innocence shall make\nFalse accusation blush and tyranny\nTremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,\nWho least will seem to do so, my past life\nHath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\nAs I am now unhappy; which is more\nThan history can pattern, though devised\nAnd play'd to take spectators. For behold me\nA fellow of the royal bed, which owe\nA moiety of the throne a great king's daughter,\nThe mother to a hopeful prince, here standing\nTo prate and talk for life and honour 'fore\nWho please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\nAs I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,\n'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\nAnd only that I stand for. I appeal\nTo your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\nCame to your court, how I was in your grace,\nHow merited to be so; since he came,\nWith what encounter so uncurrent I\nHave strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond\nThe bound of honour, or in act or will\nThat way inclining, harden'd be the hearts\nOf all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\nCry fie upon my grave!\n\nLEONTES:\nI ne'er heard yet\nThat any of these bolder vices wanted\nLess impudence to gainsay what they did\nThan to perform it first.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThat's true enough;\nThrough 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will not own it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nMore than mistress of\nWhich comes to me in name of fault, I must not\nAt all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\nWith whom I am accused, I do confess\nI loved him as in honour he required,\nWith such a kind of love as might become\nA lady like me, with a love even such,\nSo and no other, as yourself commanded:\nWhich not to have done I think had been in me\nBoth disobedience and ingratitude\nTo you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,\nEven since it could speak, from an infant, freely\nThat it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,\nI know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd\nFor me to try how: all I know of it\nIs that Camillo was an honest man;\nAnd why he left your court, the gods themselves,\nWotting no more than I, are ignorant.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou knew of his departure, as you know\nWhat you have underta'en to do in's absence.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir,\nYou speak a language that I understand not:\nMy life stands in the level of your dreams,\nWhich I'll lay down.\n\nLEONTES:\nYour actions are my dreams;\nYou had a bastard by Polixenes,\nAnd I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,--\nThose of your fact are so--so past all truth:\nWhich to deny concerns more than avails; for as\nThy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\nNo father owning it,--which is, indeed,\nMore criminal in thee than it,--so thou\nShalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage\nLook for no less than death.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir, spare your threats:\nThe bug which you would fright me with I seek.\nTo me can life be no commodity:\nThe crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\nI do give lost; for I do feel it gone,\nBut know not how it went. My second joy\nAnd first-fruits of my body, from his presence\nI am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort\nStarr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,\nThe innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,\nHaled out to murder: myself on every post\nProclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred\nThe child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\nTo women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\nHere to this place, i' the open air, before\nI have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\nTell me what blessings I have here alive,\nThat I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.\nBut yet hear this: mistake me not; no life,\nI prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,\nWhich I would free, if I shall be condemn'd\nUpon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\nBut what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,\nI do refer me to the oracle:\nApollo be my judge!\n\nFirst Lord:\nThis your request\nIs altogether just: therefore bring forth,\nAnd in Apollos name, his oracle.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThe Emperor of Russia was my father:\nO that he were alive, and here beholding\nHis daughter's trial! that he did but see\nThe flatness of my misery, yet with eyes\nOf pity, not revenge!\n\nOfficer:\nYou here shall swear upon this sword of justice,\nThat you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\nBeen both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\nThe seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\nOf great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,\nYou have not dared to break the holy seal\nNor read the secrets in't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nAll this we swear.\n\nLEONTES:\nBreak up the seals and read.\n\nOfficer:\n\nLords:\nNow blessed be the great Apollo!\n\nHERMIONE:\nPraised!\n\nLEONTES:\nHast thou read truth?\n\nOfficer:\nAy, my lord; even so\nAs it is here set down.\n\nLEONTES:\nThere is no truth at all i' the oracle:\nThe sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.\n\nServant:\nMy lord the king, the king!\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat is the business?\n\nServant:\nO sir, I shall be hated to report it!\nThe prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\nOf the queen's speed, is gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow! gone!\n\nServant:\nIs dead.\n\nLEONTES:\nApollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\nDo strike at my injustice.\nHow now there!\n\nPAULINA:\nThis news is mortal to the queen: look down\nAnd see what death is doing.\n\nLEONTES:\nTake her hence:\nHer heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover:\nI have too much believed mine own suspicion:\nBeseech you, tenderly apply to her\nSome remedies for life.\nApollo, pardon\nMy great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!\nI'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\nNew woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,\nWhom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;\nFor, being transported by my jealousies\nTo bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\nCamillo for the minister to poison\nMy friend Polixenes: which had been done,\nBut that the good mind of Camillo tardied\nMy swift command, though I with death and with\nReward did threaten and encourage him,\nNot doing 't and being done: he, most humane\nAnd fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\nUnclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here,\nWhich you knew great, and to the hazard\nOf all encertainties himself commended,\nNo richer than his honour: how he glisters\nThorough my rust! and how his pity\nDoes my deeds make the blacker!\n\nPAULINA:\nWoe the while!\nO, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\nBreak too.\n\nFirst Lord:\nWhat fit is this, good lady?\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\nWhat wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?\nIn leads or oils? what old or newer torture\nMust I receive, whose every word deserves\nTo taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\nTogether working with thy jealousies,\nFancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\nFor girls of nine, O, think what they have done\nAnd then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all\nThy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\nThat thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing;\nThat did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant\nAnd damnable ingrateful: nor was't much,\nThou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\nTo have him kill a king: poor trespasses,\nMore monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon\nThe casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter\nTo be or none or little; though a devil\nWould have shed water out of fire ere done't:\nNor is't directly laid to thee, the death\nOf the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,\nThoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart\nThat could conceive a gross and foolish sire\nBlemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,\nLaid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords,\nWhen I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen,\nThe sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead,\nand vengeance for't\nNot dropp'd down yet.\n\nFirst Lord:\nThe higher powers forbid!\n\nPAULINA:\nI say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\nPrevail not, go and see: if you can bring\nTincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\nHeat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\nAs I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\nDo not repent these things, for they are heavier\nThan all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\nTo nothing but despair. A thousand knees\nTen thousand years together, naked, fasting,\nUpon a barren mountain and still winter\nIn storm perpetual, could not move the gods\nTo look that way thou wert.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo on, go on\nThou canst not speak too much; I have deserved\nAll tongues to talk their bitterest.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSay no more:\nHowe'er the business goes, you have made fault\nI' the boldness of your speech.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry for't:\nAll faults I make, when I shall come to know them,\nI do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much\nThe rashness of a woman: he is touch'd\nTo the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\nShould be past grief: do not receive affliction\nAt my petition; I beseech you, rather\nLet me be punish'd, that have minded you\nOf what you should forget. Now, good my liege\nSir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman:\nThe love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!--\nI'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\nI'll not remember you of my own lord,\nWho is lost too: take your patience to you,\nAnd I'll say nothing.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou didst speak but well\nWhen most the truth; which I receive much better\nThan to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\nTo the dead bodies of my queen and son:\nOne grave shall be for both: upon them shall\nThe causes of their death appear, unto\nOur shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\nThe chapel where they lie, and tears shed there\nShall be my recreation: so long as nature\nWill bear up with this exercise, so long\nI daily vow to use it. Come and lead me\nUnto these sorrows.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon\nThe deserts of Bohemia?\n\nMariner:\nAy, my lord: and fear\nWe have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly\nAnd threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\nThe heavens with that we have in hand are angry\nAnd frown upon 's.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nTheir sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\nLook to thy bark: I'll not be long before\nI call upon thee.\n\nMariner:\nMake your best haste, and go not\nToo far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather;\nBesides, this place is famous for the creatures\nOf prey that keep upon't.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nGo thou away:\nI'll follow instantly.\n\nMariner:\nI am glad at heart\nTo be so rid o' the business.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nCome, poor babe:\nI have heard, but not believed,\nthe spirits o' the dead\nMay walk again: if such thing be, thy mother\nAppear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream\nSo like a waking. To me comes a creature,\nSometimes her head on one side, some another;\nI never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\nSo fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes,\nLike very sanctity, she did approach\nMy cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me,\nAnd gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\nBecame two spouts: the fury spent, anon\nDid this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus,\nSince fate, against thy better disposition,\nHath made thy person for the thrower-out\nOf my poor babe, according to thine oath,\nPlaces remote enough are in Bohemia,\nThere weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe\nIs counted lost for ever, Perdita,\nI prithee, call't. For this ungentle business\nPut on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\nThy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks\nShe melted into air. Affrighted much,\nI did in time collect myself and thought\nThis was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys:\nYet for this once, yea, superstitiously,\nI will be squared by this. I do believe\nHermione hath suffer'd death, and that\nApollo would, this being indeed the issue\nOf King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\nEither for life or death, upon the earth\nOf its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\nThere lie, and there thy character: there these;\nWhich may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\nAnd still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch,\nThat for thy mother's fault art thus exposed\nTo loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\nBut my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I\nTo be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\nThe day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have\nA lullaby too rough: I never saw\nThe heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!\nWell may I get aboard! This is the chase:\nI am gone for ever.\n\nShepherd:\nI would there were no age between sixteen and\nthree-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the\nrest; for there is nothing in the between but\ngetting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,\nstealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but\nthese boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty\nhunt this weather? They have scared away two of my\nbest sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find\nthan the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by\nthe seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy\nwill what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very\npretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A\npretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape:\nthough I am not bookish, yet I can read\nwaiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been\nsome stair-work, some trunk-work, some\nbehind-door-work: they were warmer that got this\nthan the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for\npity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed\nbut even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!\n\nClown:\nHilloa, loa!\n\nShepherd:\nWhat, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk\non when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What\nailest thou, man?\n\nClown:\nI have seen two such sights, by sea and by land!\nbut I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the\nsky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust\na bodkin's point.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, boy, how is it?\n\nClown:\nI would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages,\nhow it takes up the shore! but that's not the\npoint. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!\nsometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the\nship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon\nswallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a\ncork into a hogshead. And then for the\nland-service, to see how the bear tore out his\nshoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said\nhis name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an\nend of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned\nit: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the\nsea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared\nand the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than\nthe sea or weather.\n\nShepherd:\nName of mercy, when was this, boy?\n\nClown:\nNow, now: I have not winked since I saw these\nsights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor\nthe bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it\nnow.\n\nShepherd:\nWould I had been by, to have helped the old man!\n\nClown:\nI would you had been by the ship side, to have\nhelped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.\n\nShepherd:\nHeavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,\nboy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things\ndying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for\nthee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's\nchild! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;\nopen't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be\nrich by the fairies. This is some changeling:\nopen't. What's within, boy?\n\nClown:\nYou're a made old man: if the sins of your youth\nare forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\n\nShepherd:\nThis is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up\nwith't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.\nWe are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires\nnothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good\nboy, the next way home.\n\nClown:\nGo you the next way with your findings. I'll go see\nif the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much\nhe hath eaten: they are never curst but when they\nare hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury\nit.\n\nShepherd:\nThat's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that\nwhich is left of him what he is, fetch me to the\nsight of him.\n\nClown:\nMarry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.\n\nShepherd:\n'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.\n\nTime:\nI, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\nOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\nNow take upon me, in the name of Time,\nTo use my wings. Impute it not a crime\nTo me or my swift passage, that I slide\nO'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried\nOf that wide gap, since it is in my power\nTo o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour\nTo plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\nThe same I am, ere ancient'st order was\nOr what is now received: I witness to\nThe times that brought them in; so shall I do\nTo the freshest things now reigning and make stale\nThe glistering of this present, as my tale\nNow seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\nI turn my glass and give my scene such growing\nAs you had slept between: Leontes leaving,\nThe effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\nThat he shuts up himself, imagine me,\nGentle spectators, that I now may be\nIn fair Bohemia, and remember well,\nI mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel\nI now name to you; and with speed so pace\nTo speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\nEqual with wondering: what of her ensues\nI list not prophecy; but let Time's news\nBe known when 'tis brought forth.\nA shepherd's daughter,\nAnd what to her adheres, which follows after,\nIs the argument of Time. Of this allow,\nIf ever you have spent time worse ere now;\nIf never, yet that Time himself doth say\nHe wishes earnestly you never may.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:\n'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to\ngrant this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is fifteen years since I saw my country: though\nI have for the most part been aired abroad, I\ndesire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent\nking, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling\nsorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\nthink so, which is another spur to my departure.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAs thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of\nthy services by leaving me now: the need I have of\nthee thine own goodness hath made; better not to\nhave had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having\nmade me businesses which none without thee can\nsufficiently manage, must either stay to execute\nthem thyself or take away with thee the very\nservices thou hast done; which if I have not enough\nconsidered, as too much I cannot, to be more\nthankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit\ntherein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal\ncountry, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very\nnaming punishes me with the remembrance of that\npenitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,\nmy brother; whose loss of his most precious queen\nand children are even now to be afresh lamented.\nSay to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my\nson? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not\nbeing gracious, than they are in losing them when\nthey have approved their virtues.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What\nhis happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I\nhave missingly noted, he is of late much retired\nfrom court and is less frequent to his princely\nexercises than formerly he hath appeared.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI have considered so much, Camillo, and with some\ncare; so far that I have eyes under my service which\nlook upon his removedness; from whom I have this\nintelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a\nmost homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from\nvery nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\nneighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a\ndaughter of most rare note: the report of her is\nextended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThat's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I\nfear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou\nshalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not\nappearing what we are, have some question with the\nshepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\nuneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither.\nPrithee, be my present partner in this business, and\nlay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI willingly obey your command.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMy best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhen daffodils begin to peer,\nWith heigh! the doxy over the dale,\nWhy, then comes in the sweet o' the year;\nFor the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\nThe white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\nWith heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\nDoth set my pugging tooth on edge;\nFor a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\nThe lark, that tirra-lyra chants,\nWith heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\nAre summer songs for me and my aunts,\nWhile we lie tumbling in the hay.\nI have served Prince Florizel and in my time\nwore three-pile; but now I am out of service:\nBut shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\nThe pale moon shines by night:\nAnd when I wander here and there,\nI then do most go right.\nIf tinkers may have leave to live,\nAnd bear the sow-skin budget,\nThen my account I well may, give,\nAnd in the stocks avouch it.\nMy traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to\nlesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who\nbeing, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise\na snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and\ndrab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is\nthe silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful\non the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to\nme: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought\nof it. A prize! a prize!\n\nClown:\nLet me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod\nyields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred\nshorn. what comes the wool to?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nI cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am\nI to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound\nof sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will\nthis sister of mine do with rice? But my father\nhath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it\non. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for\nthe shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good\nones; but they are most of them means and bases; but\none puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to\nhorn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden\npies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;\nnutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I\nmay beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of\nraisins o' the sun.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO that ever I was born!\n\nClown:\nI' the name of me--\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and\nthen, death, death!\n\nClown:\nAlack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay\non thee, rather than have these off.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more\nthan the stripes I have received, which are mighty\nones and millions.\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a\ngreat matter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel\nta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon\nme.\n\nClown:\nWhat, by a horseman, or a footman?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA footman, sweet sir, a footman.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, he should be a footman by the garments he\nhas left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat,\nit hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,\nI'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, tenderly, O!\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor soul!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my\nshoulder-blade is out.\n\nClown:\nHow now! canst stand?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nDost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have\na kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,\nunto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or\nany thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;\nthat kills my heart.\n\nClown:\nWhat manner of fellow was he that robbed you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\ntroll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the\nprince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his\nvirtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.\n\nClown:\nHis vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped\nout of the court: they cherish it to make it stay\nthere; and yet it will no more but abide.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he\nhath been since an ape-bearer; then a\nprocess-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a\nmotion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\nwife within a mile where my land and living lies;\nand, having flown over many knavish professions, he\nsettled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.\n\nClown:\nOut upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts\nwakes, fairs and bear-baitings.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that\nput me into this apparel.\n\nClown:\nNot a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had\nbut looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am\nfalse of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant\nhim.\n\nClown:\nHow do you now?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nSweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and\nwalk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace\nsoftly towards my kinsman's.\n\nClown:\nShall I bring thee on the way?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.\n\nClown:\nThen fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our\nsheep-shearing.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nProsper you, sweet sir!\nYour purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.\nI'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I\nmake not this cheat bring out another and the\nshearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name\nput in the book of virtue!\nJog on, jog on, the foot-path way,\nAnd merrily hent the stile-a:\nA merry heart goes all the day,\nYour sad tires in a mile-a.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThese your unusual weeds to each part of you\nDo give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora\nPeering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\nIs as a meeting of the petty gods,\nAnd you the queen on't.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, my gracious lord,\nTo chide at your extremes it not becomes me:\nO, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,\nThe gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured\nWith a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,\nMost goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts\nIn every mess have folly and the feeders\nDigest it with a custom, I should blush\nTo see you so attired, sworn, I think,\nTo show myself a glass.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI bless the time\nWhen my good falcon made her flight across\nThy father's ground.\n\nPERDITA:\nNow Jove afford you cause!\nTo me the difference forges dread; your greatness\nHath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble\nTo think your father, by some accident,\nShould pass this way as you did: O, the Fates!\nHow would he look, to see his work so noble\nVilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\nShould I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold\nThe sternness of his presence?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nApprehend\nNothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\nHumbling their deities to love, have taken\nThe shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\nBecame a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune\nA ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,\nGolden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\nAs I seem now. Their transformations\nWere never for a piece of beauty rarer,\nNor in a way so chaste, since my desires\nRun not before mine honour, nor my lusts\nBurn hotter than my faith.\n\nPERDITA:\nO, but, sir,\nYour resolution cannot hold, when 'tis\nOpposed, as it must be, by the power of the king:\nOne of these two must be necessities,\nWhich then will speak, that you must\nchange this purpose,\nOr I my life.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThou dearest Perdita,\nWith these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not\nThe mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\nOr not my father's. For I cannot be\nMine own, nor any thing to any, if\nI be not thine. To this I am most constant,\nThough destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\nStrangle such thoughts as these with any thing\nThat you behold the while. Your guests are coming:\nLift up your countenance, as it were the day\nOf celebration of that nuptial which\nWe two have sworn shall come.\n\nPERDITA:\nO lady Fortune,\nStand you auspicious!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSee, your guests approach:\nAddress yourself to entertain them sprightly,\nAnd let's be red with mirth.\n\nShepherd:\nFie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon\nThis day she was both pantler, butler, cook,\nBoth dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;\nWould sing her song and dance her turn; now here,\nAt upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;\nOn his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\nWith labour and the thing she took to quench it,\nShe would to each one sip. You are retired,\nAs if you were a feasted one and not\nThe hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid\nThese unknown friends to's welcome; for it is\nA way to make us better friends, more known.\nCome, quench your blushes and present yourself\nThat which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on,\nAnd bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\nAs your good flock shall prosper.\n\nPERDITA:\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShepherdess,\nA fair one are you--well you fit our ages\nWith flowers of winter.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, the year growing ancient,\nNot yet on summer's death, nor on the birth\nOf trembling winter, the fairest\nflowers o' the season\nAre our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\nWhich some call nature's bastards: of that kind\nOur rustic garden's barren; and I care not\nTo get slips of them.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWherefore, gentle maiden,\nDo you neglect them?\n\nPERDITA:\nFor I have heard it said\nThere is an art which in their piedness shares\nWith great creating nature.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSay there be;\nYet nature is made better by no mean\nBut nature makes that mean: so, over that art\nWhich you say adds to nature, is an art\nThat nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\nA gentler scion to the wildest stock,\nAnd make conceive a bark of baser kind\nBy bud of nobler race: this is an art\nWhich does mend nature, change it rather, but\nThe art itself is nature.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo it is.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThen make your garden rich in gillyvors,\nAnd do not call them bastards.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll not put\nThe dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\nNo more than were I painted I would wish\nThis youth should say 'twere well and only therefore\nDesire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you;\nHot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;\nThe marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun\nAnd with him rises weeping: these are flowers\nOf middle summer, and I think they are given\nTo men of middle age. You're very welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\nAnd only live by gazing.\n\nPERDITA:\nOut, alas!\nYou'd be so lean, that blasts of January\nWould blow you through and through.\nNow, my fair'st friend,\nI would I had some flowers o' the spring that might\nBecome your time of day; and yours, and yours,\nThat wear upon your virgin branches yet\nYour maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,\nFor the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall\nFrom Dis's waggon! daffodils,\nThat come before the swallow dares, and take\nThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,\nBut sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\nOr Cytherea's breath; pale primroses\nThat die unmarried, ere they can behold\nBight Phoebus in his strength--a malady\nMost incident to maids; bold oxlips and\nThe crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,\nThe flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,\nTo make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,\nTo strew him o'er and o'er!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat, like a corse?\n\nPERDITA:\nNo, like a bank for love to lie and play on;\nNot like a corse; or if, not to be buried,\nBut quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers:\nMethinks I play as I have seen them do\nIn Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine\nDoes change my disposition.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat you do\nStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.\nI'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,\nI'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,\nPray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,\nTo sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you\nA wave o' the sea, that you might ever do\nNothing but that; move still, still so,\nAnd own no other function: each your doing,\nSo singular in each particular,\nCrowns what you are doing in the present deed,\nThat all your acts are queens.\n\nPERDITA:\nO Doricles,\nYour praises are too large: but that your youth,\nAnd the true blood which peepeth fairly through't,\nDo plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\nWith wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\nYou woo'd me the false way.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI think you have\nAs little skill to fear as I have purpose\nTo put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray:\nYour hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,\nThat never mean to part.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll swear for 'em.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\nRan on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems\nBut smacks of something greater than herself,\nToo noble for this place.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe tells her something\nThat makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is\nThe queen of curds and cream.\n\nClown:\nCome on, strike up!\n\nDORCAS:\nMopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,\nTo mend her kissing with!\n\nMOPSA:\nNow, in good time!\n\nClown:\nNot a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\nCome, strike up!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\nWhich dances with your daughter?\n\nShepherd:\nThey call him Doricles; and boasts himself\nTo have a worthy feeding: but I have it\nUpon his own report and I believe it;\nHe looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:\nI think so too; for never gazed the moon\nUpon the water as he'll stand and read\nAs 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain.\nI think there is not half a kiss to choose\nWho loves another best.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe dances featly.\n\nShepherd:\nSo she does any thing; though I report it,\nThat should be silent: if young Doricles\nDo light upon her, she shall bring him that\nWhich he not dreams of.\n\nServant:\nO master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the\ndoor, you would never dance again after a tabour and\npipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings\nseveral tunes faster than you'll tell money; he\nutters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's\nears grew to his tunes.\n\nClown:\nHe could never come better; he shall come in. I\nlove a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful\nmatter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing\nindeed and sung lamentably.\n\nServant:\nHe hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no\nmilliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he\nhas the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without\nbawdry, which is strange; with such delicate\nburthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\nher;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would,\nas it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into\nthe matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me\nno harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with\n'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is a brave fellow.\n\nClown:\nBelieve me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited\nfellow. Has he any unbraided wares?\n\nServant:\nHe hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow;\npoints more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can\nlearnedly handle, though they come to him by the\ngross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he\nsings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\nwould think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants\nto the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\n\nClown:\nPrithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\n\nPERDITA:\nForewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes.\n\nClown:\nYou have of these pedlars, that have more in them\nthan you'ld think, sister.\n\nPERDITA:\nAy, good brother, or go about to think.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nLawn as white as driven snow;\nCyprus black as e'er was crow;\nGloves as sweet as damask roses;\nMasks for faces and for noses;\nBugle bracelet, necklace amber,\nPerfume for a lady's chamber;\nGolden quoifs and stomachers,\nFor my lads to give their dears:\nPins and poking-sticks of steel,\nWhat maids lack from head to heel:\nCome buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\nBuy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.\n\nClown:\nIf I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take\nno money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it\nwill also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\n\nMOPSA:\nI was promised them against the feast; but they come\nnot too late now.\n\nDORCAS:\nHe hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.\n\nMOPSA:\nHe hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has\npaid you more, which will shame you to give him again.\n\nClown:\nIs there no manners left among maids? will they\nwear their plackets where they should bear their\nfaces? Is there not milking-time, when you are\ngoing to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these\nsecrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all\nour guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour\nyour tongues, and not a word more.\n\nMOPSA:\nI have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace\nand a pair of sweet gloves.\n\nClown:\nHave I not told thee how I was cozened by the way\nand lost all my money?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;\ntherefore it behoves men to be wary.\n\nClown:\nFear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.\n\nClown:\nWhat hast here? ballads?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o'\nlife, for then we are sure they are true.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's\nwife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a\nburthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and\ntoads carbonadoed.\n\nMOPSA:\nIs it true, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, and but a month old.\n\nDORCAS:\nBless me from marrying a usurer!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress\nTale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were\npresent. Why should I carry lies abroad?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray you now, buy it.\n\nClown:\nCome on, lay it by: and let's first see moe\nballads; we'll buy the other things anon.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon\nthe coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,\nforty thousand fathom above water, and sung this\nballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was\nthought she was a woman and was turned into a cold\nfish for she would not exchange flesh with one that\nloved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.\n\nDORCAS:\nIs it true too, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nFive justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than\nmy pack will hold.\n\nClown:\nLay it by too: another.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThis is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\n\nMOPSA:\nLet's have some merry ones.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhy, this is a passing merry one and goes to\nthe tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's\nscarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in\nrequest, I can tell you.\n\nMOPSA:\nWe can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou\nshalt hear; 'tis in three parts.\n\nDORCAS:\nWe had the tune on't a month ago.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI can bear my part; you must know 'tis my\noccupation; have at it with you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nGet you hence, for I must go\nWhere it fits not you to know.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nO, whither?\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nIt becomes thy oath full well,\nThou to me thy secrets tell.\n\nDORCAS:\nMe too, let me go thither.\n\nMOPSA:\nOr thou goest to the orange or mill.\n\nDORCAS:\nIf to either, thou dost ill.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhat, neither?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nThou hast sworn my love to be.\n\nMOPSA:\nThou hast sworn it more to me:\nThen whither goest? say, whither?\n\nClown:\nWe'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my\nfather and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll\nnot trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after\nme. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's\nhave the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd you shall pay well for 'em.\nWill you buy any tape,\nOr lace for your cape,\nMy dainty duck, my dear-a?\nAny silk, any thread,\nAny toys for your head,\nOf the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?\nCome to the pedlar;\nMoney's a medler.\nThat doth utter all men's ware-a.\n\nServant:\nMaster, there is three carters, three shepherds,\nthree neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made\nthemselves all men of hair, they call themselves\nSaltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches\nsay is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are\nnot in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it\nbe not too rough for some that know little but\nbowling, it will please plentifully.\n\nShepherd:\nAway! we'll none on 't: here has been too much\nhomely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYou weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see\nthese four threes of herdsmen.\n\nServant:\nOne three of them, by their own report, sir, hath\ndanced before the king; and not the worst of the\nthree but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.\n\nShepherd:\nLeave your prating: since these good men are\npleased, let them come in; but quickly now.\n\nServant:\nWhy, they stay at door, sir.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.\nIs it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\nHe's simple and tells much.\nHow now, fair shepherd!\nYour heart is full of something that does take\nYour mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\nAnd handed love as you do, I was wont\nTo load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd\nThe pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\nTo her acceptance; you have let him go\nAnd nothing marted with him. If your lass\nInterpretation should abuse and call this\nYour lack of love or bounty, you were straited\nFor a reply, at least if you make a care\nOf happy holding her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nOld sir, I know\nShe prizes not such trifles as these are:\nThe gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\nUp in my heart; which I have given already,\nBut not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\nBefore this ancient sir, who, it should seem,\nHath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,\nAs soft as dove's down and as white as it,\nOr Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd\nsnow that's bolted\nBy the northern blasts twice o'er.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat follows this?\nHow prettily the young swain seems to wash\nThe hand was fair before! I have put you out:\nBut to your protestation; let me hear\nWhat you profess.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDo, and be witness to 't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAnd this my neighbour too?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd he, and more\nThan he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:\nThat, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\nThereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\nThat ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\nMore than was ever man's, I would not prize them\nWithout her love; for her employ them all;\nCommend them and condemn them to her service\nOr to their own perdition.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFairly offer'd.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis shows a sound affection.\n\nShepherd:\nBut, my daughter,\nSay you the like to him?\n\nPERDITA:\nI cannot speak\nSo well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:\nBy the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\nThe purity of his.\n\nShepherd:\nTake hands, a bargain!\nAnd, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't:\nI give my daughter to him, and will make\nHer portion equal his.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO, that must be\nI' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,\nI shall have more than you can dream of yet;\nEnough then for your wonder. But, come on,\nContract us 'fore these witnesses.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, your hand;\nAnd, daughter, yours.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSoft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\nHave you a father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI have: but what of him?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nKnows he of this?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe neither does nor shall.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMethinks a father\nIs at the nuptial of his son a guest\nThat best becomes the table. Pray you once more,\nIs not your father grown incapable\nOf reasonable affairs? is he not stupid\nWith age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?\nKnow man from man? dispute his own estate?\nLies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing\nBut what he did being childish?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, good sir;\nHe has his health and ampler strength indeed\nThan most have of his age.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy my white beard,\nYou offer him, if this be so, a wrong\nSomething unfilial: reason my son\nShould choose himself a wife, but as good reason\nThe father, all whose joy is nothing else\nBut fair posterity, should hold some counsel\nIn such a business.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI yield all this;\nBut for some other reasons, my grave sir,\nWhich 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\nMy father of this business.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nLet him know't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe shall not.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPrithee, let him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, he must not.\n\nShepherd:\nLet him, my son: he shall not need to grieve\nAt knowing of thy choice.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCome, come, he must not.\nMark our contract.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMark your divorce, young sir,\nWhom son I dare not call; thou art too base\nTo be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir,\nThat thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor,\nI am sorry that by hanging thee I can\nBut shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\nOf excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\nThe royal fool thou copest with,--\n\nShepherd:\nO, my heart!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made\nMore homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\nIf I may ever know thou dost but sigh\nThat thou no more shalt see this knack, as never\nI mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;\nNot hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\nFar than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:\nFollow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\nThough full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\nFrom the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.--\nWorthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,\nThat makes himself, but for our honour therein,\nUnworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou\nThese rural latches to his entrance open,\nOr hoop his body more with thy embraces,\nI will devise a death as cruel for thee\nAs thou art tender to't.\n\nPERDITA:\nEven here undone!\nI was not much afeard; for once or twice\nI was about to speak and tell him plainly,\nThe selfsame sun that shines upon his court\nHides not his visage from our cottage but\nLooks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone?\nI told you what would come of this: beseech you,\nOf your own state take care: this dream of mine,--\nBeing now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\nBut milk my ewes and weep.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, how now, father!\nSpeak ere thou diest.\n\nShepherd:\nI cannot speak, nor think\nNor dare to know that which I know. O sir!\nYou have undone a man of fourscore three,\nThat thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\nTo die upon the bed my father died,\nTo lie close by his honest bones: but now\nSome hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\nWhere no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,\nThat knew'st this was the prince,\nand wouldst adventure\nTo mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!\nIf I might die within this hour, I have lived\nTo die when I desire.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhy look you so upon me?\nI am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\nBut nothing alter'd: what I was, I am;\nMore straining on for plucking back, not following\nMy leash unwillingly.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGracious my lord,\nYou know your father's temper: at this time\nHe will allow no speech, which I do guess\nYou do not purpose to him; and as hardly\nWill he endure your sight as yet, I fear:\nThen, till the fury of his highness settle,\nCome not before him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI not purpose it.\nI think, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nEven he, my lord.\n\nPERDITA:\nHow often have I told you 'twould be thus!\nHow often said, my dignity would last\nBut till 'twere known!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nIt cannot fail but by\nThe violation of my faith; and then\nLet nature crush the sides o' the earth together\nAnd mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:\nFrom my succession wipe me, father; I\nAm heir to my affection.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe advised.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am, and by my fancy: if my reason\nWill thereto be obedient, I have reason;\nIf not, my senses, better pleased with madness,\nDo bid it welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis is desperate, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSo call it: but it does fulfil my vow;\nI needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\nNot for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\nBe thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\nThe close earth wombs or the profound sea hides\nIn unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\nTo this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you,\nAs you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\nWhen he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not\nTo see him any more,--cast your good counsels\nUpon his passion; let myself and fortune\nTug for the time to come. This you may know\nAnd so deliver, I am put to sea\nWith her whom here I cannot hold on shore;\nAnd most opportune to our need I have\nA vessel rides fast by, but not prepared\nFor this design. What course I mean to hold\nShall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\nConcern me the reporting.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO my lord!\nI would your spirit were easier for advice,\nOr stronger for your need.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHark, Perdita\nI'll hear you by and by.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe's irremoveable,\nResolved for flight. Now were I happy, if\nHis going I could frame to serve my turn,\nSave him from danger, do him love and honour,\nPurchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\nAnd that unhappy king, my master, whom\nI so much thirst to see.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNow, good Camillo;\nI am so fraught with curious business that\nI leave out ceremony.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I think\nYou have heard of my poor services, i' the love\nThat I have borne your father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nVery nobly\nHave you deserved: it is my father's music\nTo speak your deeds, not little of his care\nTo have them recompensed as thought on.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWell, my lord,\nIf you may please to think I love the king\nAnd through him what is nearest to him, which is\nYour gracious self, embrace but my direction:\nIf your more ponderous and settled project\nMay suffer alteration, on mine honour,\nI'll point you where you shall have such receiving\nAs shall become your highness; where you may\nEnjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\nThere's no disjunction to be made, but by--\nAs heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her,\nAnd, with my best endeavours in your absence,\nYour discontenting father strive to qualify\nAnd bring him up to liking.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHow, Camillo,\nMay this, almost a miracle, be done?\nThat I may call thee something more than man\nAnd after that trust to thee.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHave you thought on\nA place whereto you'll go?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNot any yet:\nBut as the unthought-on accident is guilty\nTo what we wildly do, so we profess\nOurselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\nOf every wind that blows.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThen list to me:\nThis follows, if you will not change your purpose\nBut undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,\nAnd there present yourself and your fair princess,\nFor so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes:\nShe shall be habited as it becomes\nThe partner of your bed. Methinks I see\nLeontes opening his free arms and weeping\nHis welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness,\nAs 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands\nOf your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one\nHe chides to hell and bids the other grow\nFaster than thought or time.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWorthy Camillo,\nWhat colour for my visitation shall I\nHold up before him?\n\nCAMILLO:\nSent by the king your father\nTo greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\nThe manner of your bearing towards him, with\nWhat you as from your father shall deliver,\nThings known betwixt us three, I'll write you down:\nThe which shall point you forth at every sitting\nWhat you must say; that he shall not perceive\nBut that you have your father's bosom there\nAnd speak his very heart.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am bound to you:\nThere is some sap in this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nA cause more promising\nThan a wild dedication of yourselves\nTo unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\nTo miseries enough; no hope to help you,\nBut as you shake off one to take another;\nNothing so certain as your anchors, who\nDo their best office, if they can but stay you\nWhere you'll be loath to be: besides you know\nProsperity's the very bond of love,\nWhose fresh complexion and whose heart together\nAffliction alters.\n\nPERDITA:\nOne of these is true:\nI think affliction may subdue the cheek,\nBut not take in the mind.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYea, say you so?\nThere shall not at your father's house these\nseven years\nBe born another such.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy good Camillo,\nShe is as forward of her breeding as\nShe is i' the rear our birth.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI cannot say 'tis pity\nShe lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\nTo most that teach.\n\nPERDITA:\nYour pardon, sir; for this\nI'll blush you thanks.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy prettiest Perdita!\nBut O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,\nPreserver of my father, now of me,\nThe medicine of our house, how shall we do?\nWe are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,\nNor shall appear in Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nFear none of this: I think you know my fortunes\nDo all lie there: it shall be so my care\nTo have you royally appointed as if\nThe scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\nThat you may know you shall not want, one word.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHa, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his\nsworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold\nall my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a\nribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,\nknife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,\nto keep my pack from fasting: they throng who\nshould buy first, as if my trinkets had been\nhallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer:\nby which means I saw whose purse was best in\npicture; and what I saw, to my good use I\nremembered. My clown, who wants but something to\nbe a reasonable man, grew so in love with the\nwenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes\ntill he had both tune and words; which so drew the\nrest of the herd to me that all their other senses\nstuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it\nwas senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a\npurse; I could have filed keys off that hung in\nchains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song,\nand admiring the nothing of it. So that in this\ntime of lethargy I picked and cut most of their\nfestival purses; and had not the old man come in\nwith a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's\nson and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not\nleft a purse alive in the whole army.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, but my letters, by this means being there\nSo soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd those that you'll procure from King Leontes--\n\nCAMILLO:\nShall satisfy your father.\n\nPERDITA:\nHappy be you!\nAll that you speak shows fair.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho have we here?\nWe'll make an instrument of this, omit\nNothing may give us aid.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf they have overheard me now, why, hanging.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHow now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear\nnot, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from\nthee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must\nmake an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,\n--thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and\nchange garments with this gentleman: though the\npennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee,\nthere's some boot.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\nI know ye well enough.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half\nflayed already.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAre you in earnest, sir?\nI smell the trick on't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDispatch, I prithee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIndeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with\nconscience take it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nUnbuckle, unbuckle.\nFortunate mistress,--let my prophecy\nCome home to ye!--you must retire yourself\nInto some covert: take your sweetheart's hat\nAnd pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\nDismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\nThe truth of your own seeming; that you may--\nFor I do fear eyes over--to shipboard\nGet undescried.\n\nPERDITA:\nI see the play so lies\nThat I must bear a part.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo remedy.\nHave you done there?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShould I now meet my father,\nHe would not call me son.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, you shall have no hat.\nCome, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAdieu, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\nPray you, a word.\n\nCAMILLO:\n\nFLORIZEL:\nFortune speed us!\nThus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThe swifter speed the better.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI understand the business, I hear it: to have an\nopen ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is\nnecessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite\nalso, to smell out work for the other senses. I see\nthis is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.\nWhat an exchange had this been without boot! What\na boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do\nthis year connive at us, and we may do any thing\nextempore. The prince himself is about a piece of\niniquity, stealing away from his father with his\nclog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of\nhonesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not\ndo't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it;\nand therein am I constant to my profession.\nAside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain:\nevery lane's end, every shop, church, session,\nhanging, yields a careful man work.\n\nClown:\nSee, see; what a man you are now!\nThere is no other way but to tell the king\nshe's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.\n\nShepherd:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nClown:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nShepherd:\nGo to, then.\n\nClown:\nShe being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh\nand blood has not offended the king; and so your\nflesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show\nthose things you found about her, those secret\nthings, all but what she has with her: this being\ndone, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.\n\nShepherd:\nI will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his\nson's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man,\nneither to his father nor to me, to go about to make\nme the king's brother-in-law.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you\ncould have been to him and then your blood had been\nthe dearer by I know how much an ounce.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nWell, let us to the king: there is that in this\nfardel will make him scratch his beard.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nPray heartily he be at palace.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nTo the palace, an it like your worship.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nYour affairs there, what, with whom, the condition\nof that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your\nnames, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any\nthing that is fitting to be known, discover.\n\nClown:\nWe are but plain fellows, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no\nlying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they\noften give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for\nit with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore\nthey do not give us the lie.\n\nClown:\nYour worship had like to have given us one, if you\nhad not taken yourself with the manner.\n\nShepherd:\nAre you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest\nthou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?\nhath not my gait in it the measure of the court?\nreceives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I\nnot on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,\nfor that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy\nbusiness, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier\ncap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck\nback thy business there: whereupon I command thee to\nopen thy affair.\n\nShepherd:\nMy business, sir, is to the king.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhat advocate hast thou to him?\n\nShepherd:\nI know not, an't like you.\n\nClown:\nAdvocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you\nhave none.\n\nShepherd:\nNone, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHow blessed are we that are not simple men!\nYet nature might have made me as these are,\nTherefore I will not disdain.\n\nClown:\nThis cannot be but a great courtier.\n\nShepherd:\nHis garments are rich, but he wears\nthem not handsomely.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be the more noble in being fantastical:\na great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking\non's teeth.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe fardel there? what's i' the fardel?\nWherefore that box?\n\nShepherd:\nSir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box,\nwhich none must know but the king; and which he\nshall know within this hour, if I may come to the\nspeech of him.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAge, thou hast lost thy labour.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a\nnew ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for,\nif thou beest capable of things serious, thou must\nknow the king is full of grief.\n\nShepard:\nSo 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have\nmarried a shepherd's daughter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:\nthe curses he shall have, the tortures he shall\nfeel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.\n\nClown:\nThink you so, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNot he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy\nand vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to\nhim, though removed fifty times, shall all come\nunder the hangman: which though it be great pity,\nyet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a\nram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into\ngrace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death\nis too soft for him, say I draw our throne into a\nsheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\n\nClown:\nHas the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't\nlike you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHe has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then\n'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a\nwasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters\nand a dram dead; then recovered again with\naqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as\nhe is, and in the hottest day prognostication\nproclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the\nsun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he\nis to behold him with flies blown to death. But what\ntalk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries\nare to be smiled at, their offences being so\ncapital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain\nmen, what you have to the king: being something\ngently considered, I'll bring you where he is\naboard, tender your persons to his presence,\nwhisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man\nbesides the king to effect your suits, here is man\nshall do it.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be of great authority: close with him,\ngive him gold; and though authority be a stubborn\nbear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show\nthe inside of your purse to the outside of his hand,\nand no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.'\n\nShepherd:\nAn't please you, sir, to undertake the business for\nus, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much\nmore and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAfter I have done what I promised?\n\nShepherd:\nAy, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWell, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?\n\nClown:\nIn some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful\none, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him,\nhe'll be made an example.\n\nClown:\nComfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show\nour strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your\ndaughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I\nwill give you as much as this old man does when the\nbusiness is performed, and remain, as he says, your\npawn till it be brought you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side;\ngo on the right hand: I will but look upon the\nhedge and follow you.\n\nClown:\nWe are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\n\nShepherd:\nLet's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would\nnot suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am\ncourted now with a double occasion, gold and a means\nto do the prince my master good; which who knows how\nthat may turn back to my advancement? I will bring\nthese two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he\nthink it fit to shore them again and that the\ncomplaint they have to the king concerns him\nnothing, let him call me rogue for being so far\nofficious; for I am proof against that title and\nwhat shame else belongs to't. To him will I present\nthem: there may be matter in it.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nSir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\nA saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,\nWhich you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\nMore penitence than done trespass: at the last,\nDo as the heavens have done, forget your evil;\nWith them forgive yourself.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhilst I remember\nHer and her virtues, I cannot forget\nMy blemishes in them, and so still think of\nThe wrong I did myself; which was so much,\nThat heirless it hath made my kingdom and\nDestroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\nBred his hopes out of.\n\nPAULINA:\nTrue, too true, my lord:\nIf, one by one, you wedded all the world,\nOr from the all that are took something good,\nTo make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\nWould be unparallel'd.\n\nLEONTES:\nI think so. Kill'd!\nShe I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me\nSorely, to say I did; it is as bitter\nUpon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,\nSay so but seldom.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nNot at all, good lady:\nYou might have spoken a thousand things that would\nHave done the time more benefit and graced\nYour kindness better.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou are one of those\nWould have him wed again.\n\nDION:\nIf you would not so,\nYou pity not the state, nor the remembrance\nOf his most sovereign name; consider little\nWhat dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,\nMay drop upon his kingdom and devour\nIncertain lookers on. What were more holy\nThan to rejoice the former queen is well?\nWhat holier than, for royalty's repair,\nFor present comfort and for future good,\nTo bless the bed of majesty again\nWith a sweet fellow to't?\n\nPAULINA:\nThere is none worthy,\nRespecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\nWill have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\nFor has not the divine Apollo said,\nIs't not the tenor of his oracle,\nThat King Leontes shall not have an heir\nTill his lost child be found? which that it shall,\nIs all as monstrous to our human reason\nAs my Antigonus to break his grave\nAnd come again to me; who, on my life,\nDid perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\nMy lord should to the heavens be contrary,\nOppose against their wills.\nCare not for issue;\nThe crown will find an heir: great Alexander\nLeft his to the worthiest; so his successor\nWas like to be the best.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood Paulina,\nWho hast the memory of Hermione,\nI know, in honour, O, that ever I\nHad squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,\nI might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\nHave taken treasure from her lips--\n\nPAULINA:\nAnd left them\nMore rich for what they yielded.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou speak'st truth.\nNo more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,\nAnd better used, would make her sainted spirit\nAgain possess her corpse, and on this stage,\nWhere we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,\nAnd begin, 'Why to me?'\n\nPAULINA:\nHad she such power,\nShe had just cause.\n\nLEONTES:\nShe had; and would incense me\nTo murder her I married.\n\nPAULINA:\nI should so.\nWere I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark\nHer eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\nYou chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears\nShould rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\nShould be 'Remember mine.'\n\nLEONTES:\nStars, stars,\nAnd all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\nI'll have no wife, Paulina.\n\nPAULINA:\nWill you swear\nNever to marry but by my free leave?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\n\nPAULINA:\nThen, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nYou tempt him over-much.\n\nPAULINA:\nUnless another,\nAs like Hermione as is her picture,\nAffront his eye.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGood madam,--\n\nPAULINA:\nI have done.\nYet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,\nNo remedy, but you will,--give me the office\nTo choose you a queen: she shall not be so young\nAs was your former; but she shall be such\nAs, walk'd your first queen's ghost,\nit should take joy\nTo see her in your arms.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy true Paulina,\nWe shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat\nShall be when your first queen's again in breath;\nNever till then.\n\nGentleman:\nOne that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\nSon of Polixenes, with his princess, she\nThe fairest I have yet beheld, desires access\nTo your high presence.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat with him? he comes not\nLike to his father's greatness: his approach,\nSo out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced\nBy need and accident. What train?\n\nGentleman:\nBut few,\nAnd those but mean.\n\nLEONTES:\nHis princess, say you, with him?\n\nGentleman:\nAy, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\nThat e'er the sun shone bright on.\n\nPAULINA:\nO Hermione,\nAs every present time doth boast itself\nAbove a better gone, so must thy grave\nGive way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\nHave said and writ so, but your writing now\nIs colder than that theme, 'She had not been,\nNor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse\nFlow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\nTo say you have seen a better.\n\nGentleman:\nPardon, madam:\nThe one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--\nThe other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\nWill have your tongue too. This is a creature,\nWould she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\nOf all professors else, make proselytes\nOf who she but bid follow.\n\nPAULINA:\nHow! not women?\n\nGentleman:\nWomen will love her, that she is a woman\nMore worth than any man; men, that she is\nThe rarest of all women.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, Cleomenes;\nYourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\nBring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange\nHe thus should steal upon us.\n\nPAULINA:\nHad our prince,\nJewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\nWell with this lord: there was not full a month\nBetween their births.\n\nLEONTES:\nPrithee, no more; cease; thou know'st\nHe dies to me again when talk'd of: sure,\nWhen I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\nWill bring me to consider that which may\nUnfurnish me of reason. They are come.\nYour mother was most true to wedlock, prince;\nFor she did print your royal father off,\nConceiving you: were I but twenty-one,\nYour father's image is so hit in you,\nHis very air, that I should call you brother,\nAs I did him, and speak of something wildly\nBy us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\nAnd your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas!\nI lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth\nMight thus have stood begetting wonder as\nYou, gracious couple, do: and then I lost--\nAll mine own folly--the society,\nAmity too, of your brave father, whom,\nThough bearing misery, I desire my life\nOnce more to look on him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nBy his command\nHave I here touch'd Sicilia and from him\nGive you all greetings that a king, at friend,\nCan send his brother: and, but infirmity\nWhich waits upon worn times hath something seized\nHis wish'd ability, he had himself\nThe lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\nMeasured to look upon you; whom he loves--\nHe bade me say so--more than all the sceptres\nAnd those that bear them living.\n\nLEONTES:\nO my brother,\nGood gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir\nAfresh within me, and these thy offices,\nSo rarely kind, are as interpreters\nOf my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,\nAs is the spring to the earth. And hath he too\nExposed this paragon to the fearful usage,\nAt least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\nTo greet a man not worth her pains, much less\nThe adventure of her person?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nGood my lord,\nShe came from Libya.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere the warlike Smalus,\nThat noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMost royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter\nHis tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,\nA prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\nTo execute the charge my father gave me\nFor visiting your highness: my best train\nI have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\nWho for Bohemia bend, to signify\nNot only my success in Libya, sir,\nBut my arrival and my wife's in safety\nHere where we are.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe blessed gods\nPurge all infection from our air whilst you\nDo climate here! You have a holy father,\nA graceful gentleman; against whose person,\nSo sacred as it is, I have done sin:\nFor which the heavens, taking angry note,\nHave left me issueless; and your father's blest,\nAs he from heaven merits it, with you\nWorthy his goodness. What might I have been,\nMight I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\nSuch goodly things as you!\n\nLord:\nMost noble sir,\nThat which I shall report will bear no credit,\nWere not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\nBohemia greets you from himself by me;\nDesires you to attach his son, who has--\nHis dignity and duty both cast off--\nFled from his father, from his hopes, and with\nA shepherd's daughter.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere's Bohemia? speak.\n\nLord:\nHere in your city; I now came from him:\nI speak amazedly; and it becomes\nMy marvel and my message. To your court\nWhiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems,\nOf this fair couple, meets he on the way\nThe father of this seeming lady and\nHer brother, having both their country quitted\nWith this young prince.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCamillo has betray'd me;\nWhose honour and whose honesty till now\nEndured all weathers.\n\nLord:\nLay't so to his charge:\nHe's with the king your father.\n\nLEONTES:\nWho? Camillo?\n\nLord:\nCamillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\nHas these poor men in question. Never saw I\nWretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;\nForswear themselves as often as they speak:\nBohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\nWith divers deaths in death.\n\nPERDITA:\nO my poor father!\nThe heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\nOur contract celebrated.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou are married?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWe are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\nThe stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:\nThe odds for high and low's alike.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy lord,\nIs this the daughter of a king?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShe is,\nWhen once she is my wife.\n\nLEONTES:\nThat 'once' I see by your good father's speed\nWill come on very slowly. I am sorry,\nMost sorry, you have broken from his liking\nWhere you were tied in duty, and as sorry\nYour choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\nThat you might well enjoy her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDear, look up:\nThough Fortune, visible an enemy,\nShould chase us with my father, power no jot\nHath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\nRemember since you owed no more to time\nThan I do now: with thought of such affections,\nStep forth mine advocate; at your request\nMy father will grant precious things as trifles.\n\nLEONTES:\nWould he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,\nWhich he counts but a trifle.\n\nPAULINA:\nSir, my liege,\nYour eye hath too much youth in't: not a month\n'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\nThan what you look on now.\n\nLEONTES:\nI thought of her,\nEven in these looks I made.\nBut your petition\nIs yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:\nYour honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\nI am friend to them and you: upon which errand\nI now go toward him; therefore follow me\nAnd mark what way I make: come, good my lord.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nBeseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old\nshepherd deliver the manner how he found it:\nwhereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all\ncommanded out of the chamber; only this methought I\nheard the shepherd say, he found the child.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI would most gladly know the issue of it.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI make a broken delivery of the business; but the\nchanges I perceived in the king and Camillo were\nvery notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with\nstaring on one another, to tear the cases of their\neyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language\nin their very gesture; they looked as they had heard\nof a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable\npassion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest\nbeholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not\nsay if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the\nextremity of the one, it must needs be.\nHere comes a gentleman that haply knows more.\nThe news, Rogero?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the\nking's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is\nbroken out within this hour that ballad-makers\ncannot be able to express it.\nHere comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can\ndeliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news\nwhich is called true is so like an old tale, that\nthe verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king\nfound his heir?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nMost true, if ever truth were pregnant by\ncircumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you\nsee, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle\nof Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it,\nthe letters of Antigonus found with it which they\nknow to be his character, the majesty of the\ncreature in resemblance of the mother, the affection\nof nobleness which nature shows above her breeding,\nand many other evidences proclaim her with all\ncertainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see\nthe meeting of the two kings?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nThen have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,\ncannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one\njoy crown another, so and in such manner that it\nseemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their\njoy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,\nholding up of hands, with countenances of such\ndistraction that they were to be known by garment,\nnot by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of\nhimself for joy of his found daughter, as if that\njoy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother,\nthy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then\nembraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his\ndaughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old\nshepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten\nconduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such\nanother encounter, which lames report to follow it\nand undoes description to do it.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWhat, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\nhence the child?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nLike an old tale still, which will have matter to\nrehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear\nopen. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this\navouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his\ninnocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a\nhandkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat became of his bark and his followers?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nWrecked the same instant of their master's death and\nin the view of the shepherd: so that all the\ninstruments which aided to expose the child were\neven then lost when it was found. But O, the noble\ncombat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in\nPaulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of\nher husband, another elevated that the oracle was\nfulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth,\nand so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin\nher to her heart that she might no more be in danger\nof losing.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThe dignity of this act was worth the audience of\nkings and princes; for by such was it acted.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nOne of the prettiest touches of all and that which\nangled for mine eyes, caught the water though not\nthe fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's\ndeath, with the manner how she came to't bravely\nconfessed and lamented by the king, how\nattentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one\nsign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,'\nI would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my\nheart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed\ncolour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world\ncould have seen 't, the woe had been universal.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAre they returned to the court?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nNo: the princess hearing of her mother's statue,\nwhich is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many\nyears in doing and now newly performed by that rare\nItalian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself\neternity and could put breath into his work, would\nbeguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her\nape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that\nthey say one would speak to her and stand in hope of\nanswer: thither with all greediness of affection\nare they gone, and there they intend to sup.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI thought she had some great matter there in hand;\nfor she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever\nsince the death of Hermione, visited that removed\nhouse. Shall we thither and with our company piece\nthe rejoicing?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWho would be thence that has the benefit of access?\nevery wink of an eye some new grace will be born:\nour absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.\nLet's along.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNow, had I not the dash of my former life in me,\nwould preferment drop on my head. I brought the old\nman and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard\nthem talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he\nat that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,\nso he then took her to be, who began to be much\nsea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of\nweather continuing, this mystery remained\nundiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I\nbeen the finder out of this secret, it would not\nhave relished among my other discredits.\nHere come those I have done good to against my will,\nand already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\ndaughters will be all gentlemen born.\n\nClown:\nYou are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me\nthis other day, because I was no gentleman born.\nSee you these clothes? say you see them not and\nthink me still no gentleman born: you were best say\nthese robes are not gentlemen born: give me the\nlie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\n\nClown:\nAy, and have been so any time these four hours.\n\nShepherd:\nAnd so have I, boy.\n\nClown:\nSo you have: but I was a gentleman born before my\nfather; for the king's son took me by the hand, and\ncalled me brother; and then the two kings called my\nfather brother; and then the prince my brother and\nthe princess my sister called my father father; and\nso we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like\ntears that ever we shed.\n\nShepherd:\nWe may live, son, to shed many more.\n\nClown:\nAy; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so\npreposterous estate as we are.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the\nfaults I have committed to your worship and to give\nme your good report to the prince my master.\n\nShepherd:\nPrithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\ngentlemen.\n\nClown:\nThou wilt amend thy life?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAy, an it like your good worship.\n\nClown:\nGive me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou\nart as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\n\nShepherd:\nYou may say it, but not swear it.\n\nClown:\nNot swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and\nfranklins say it, I'll swear it.\n\nShepherd:\nHow if it be false, son?\n\nClown:\nIf it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear\nit in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to\nthe prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and\nthat thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no\ntall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\ndrunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst\nbe a tall fellow of thy hands.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will prove so, sir, to my power.\n\nClown:\nAy, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not\nwonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not\nbeing a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings\nand the princes, our kindred, are going to see the\nqueen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy\ngood masters.\n\nLEONTES:\nO grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\nThat I have had of thee!\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat, sovereign sir,\nI did not well I meant well. All my services\nYou have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed,\nWith your crown'd brother and these your contracted\nHeirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\nIt is a surplus of your grace, which never\nMy life may last to answer.\n\nLEONTES:\nO Paulina,\nWe honour you with trouble: but we came\nTo see the statue of our queen: your gallery\nHave we pass'd through, not without much content\nIn many singularities; but we saw not\nThat which my daughter came to look upon,\nThe statue of her mother.\n\nPAULINA:\nAs she lived peerless,\nSo her dead likeness, I do well believe,\nExcels whatever yet you look'd upon\nOr hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\nLonely, apart. But here it is: prepare\nTo see the life as lively mock'd as ever\nStill sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well.\nI like your silence, it the more shows off\nYour wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege,\nComes it not something near?\n\nLEONTES:\nHer natural posture!\nChide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\nThou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\nIn thy not chiding, for she was as tender\nAs infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\nHermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\nSo aged as this seems.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, not by much.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo much the more our carver's excellence;\nWhich lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\nAs she lived now.\n\nLEONTES:\nAs now she might have done,\nSo much to my good comfort, as it is\nNow piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\nEven with such life of majesty, warm life,\nAs now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!\nI am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me\nFor being more stone than it? O royal piece,\nThere's magic in thy majesty, which has\nMy evils conjured to remembrance and\nFrom thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\nStanding like stone with thee.\n\nPERDITA:\nAnd give me leave,\nAnd do not say 'tis superstition, that\nI kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady,\nDear queen, that ended when I but began,\nGive me that hand of yours to kiss.\n\nPAULINA:\nO, patience!\nThe statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\nWhich sixteen winters cannot blow away,\nSo many summers dry; scarce any joy\nDid ever so long live; no sorrow\nBut kill'd itself much sooner.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nDear my brother,\nLet him that was the cause of this have power\nTo take off so much grief from you as he\nWill piece up in himself.\n\nPAULINA:\nIndeed, my lord,\nIf I had thought the sight of my poor image\nWould thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine--\nI'ld not have show'd it.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo not draw the curtain.\n\nPAULINA:\nNo longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\nMay think anon it moves.\n\nLEONTES:\nLet be, let be.\nWould I were dead, but that, methinks, already--\nWhat was he that did make it? See, my lord,\nWould you not deem it breathed? and that those veins\nDid verily bear blood?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMasterly done:\nThe very life seems warm upon her lip.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe fixture of her eye has motion in't,\nAs we are mock'd with art.\n\nPAULINA:\nI'll draw the curtain:\nMy lord's almost so far transported that\nHe'll think anon it lives.\n\nLEONTES:\nO sweet Paulina,\nMake me to think so twenty years together!\nNo settled senses of the world can match\nThe pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but\nI could afflict you farther.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo, Paulina;\nFor this affliction has a taste as sweet\nAs any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\nThere is an air comes from her: what fine chisel\nCould ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\nFor I will kiss her.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my lord, forbear:\nThe ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\nYou'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own\nWith oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, not these twenty years.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo long could I\nStand by, a looker on.\n\nPAULINA:\nEither forbear,\nQuit presently the chapel, or resolve you\nFor more amazement. If you can behold it,\nI'll make the statue move indeed, descend\nAnd take you by the hand; but then you'll think--\nWhich I protest against--I am assisted\nBy wicked powers.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat you can make her do,\nI am content to look on: what to speak,\nI am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\nTo make her speak as move.\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is required\nYou do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\nOn: those that think it is unlawful business\nI am about, let them depart.\n\nLEONTES:\nProceed:\nNo foot shall stir.\n\nPAULINA:\nMusic, awake her; strike!\n'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\nStrike all that look upon with marvel. Come,\nI'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,\nBequeath to death your numbness, for from him\nDear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:\nStart not; her actions shall be holy as\nYou hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her\nUntil you see her die again; for then\nYou kill her double. Nay, present your hand:\nWhen she was young you woo'd her; now in age\nIs she become the suitor?\n\nLEONTES:\nO, she's warm!\nIf this be magic, let it be an art\nLawful as eating.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe embraces him.\n\nCAMILLO:\nShe hangs about his neck:\nIf she pertain to life let her speak too.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAy, and make't manifest where she has lived,\nOr how stolen from the dead.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat she is living,\nWere it but told you, should be hooted at\nLike an old tale: but it appears she lives,\nThough yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\nPlease you to interpose, fair madam: kneel\nAnd pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\nOur Perdita is found.\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou gods, look down\nAnd from your sacred vials pour your graces\nUpon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.\nWhere hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found\nThy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,\nKnowing by Paulina that the oracle\nGave hope thou wast in being, have preserved\nMyself to see the issue.\n\nPAULINA:\nThere's time enough for that;\nLest they desire upon this push to trouble\nYour joys with like relation. Go together,\nYou precious winners all; your exultation\nPartake to every one. I, an old turtle,\nWill wing me to some wither'd bough and there\nMy mate, that's never to be found again,\nLament till I am lost.\n\nLEONTES:\nO, peace, Paulina!\nThou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\nAs I by thine a wife: this is a match,\nAnd made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\nBut how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\nAs I thought, dead, and have in vain said many\nA prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far--\nFor him, I partly know his mind--to find thee\nAn honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\nAnd take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty\nIs richly noted and here justified\nBy us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\nWhat! look upon my brother: both your pardons,\nThat e'er I put between your holy looks\nMy ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law,\nAnd son unto the king, who, heavens directing,\nIs troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\nLead us from hence, where we may leisurely\nEach one demand an answer to his part\nPerform'd in this wide gap of time since first\nWe were dissever'd: hastily lead away.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEscalus.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nOf government the properties to unfold,\nWould seem in me to affect speech and discourse;\nSince I am put to know that your own science\nExceeds, in that, the lists of all advice\nMy strength can give you: then no more remains,\nBut that to your sufficiency, as your Worth is able,\nAnd let them work. The nature of our people,\nOur city's institutions, and the terms\nFor common justice, you're as pregnant in\nAs art and practise hath enriched any\nThat we remember. There is our commission,\nFrom which we would not have you warp. Call hither,\nI say, bid come before us Angelo.\nWhat figure of us think you he will bear?\nFor you must know, we have with special soul\nElected him our absence to supply,\nLent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,\nAnd given his deputation all the organs\nOf our own power: what think you of it?\n\nESCALUS:\nIf any in Vienna be of worth\nTo undergo such ample grace and honour,\nIt is Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLook where he comes.\n\nANGELO:\nAlways obedient to your grace's will,\nI come to know your pleasure.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAngelo,\nThere is a kind of character in thy life,\nThat to the observer doth thy history\nFully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings\nAre not thine own so proper as to waste\nThyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.\nHeaven doth with us as we with torches do,\nNot light them for themselves; for if our virtues\nDid not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\nAs if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\nBut to fine issues, nor Nature never lends\nThe smallest scruple of her excellence\nBut, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\nHerself the glory of a creditor,\nBoth thanks and use. But I do bend my speech\nTo one that can my part in him advertise;\nHold therefore, Angelo:--\nIn our remove be thou at full ourself;\nMortality and mercy in Vienna\nLive in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,\nThough first in question, is thy secondary.\nTake thy commission.\n\nANGELO:\nNow, good my lord,\nLet there be some more test made of my metal,\nBefore so noble and so great a figure\nBe stamp'd upon it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo more evasion:\nWe have with a leaven'd and prepared choice\nProceeded to you; therefore take your honours.\nOur haste from hence is of so quick condition\nThat it prefers itself and leaves unquestion'd\nMatters of needful value. We shall write to you,\nAs time and our concernings shall importune,\nHow it goes with us, and do look to know\nWhat doth befall you here. So, fare you well;\nTo the hopeful execution do I leave you\nOf your commissions.\n\nANGELO:\nYet give leave, my lord,\nThat we may bring you something on the way.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy haste may not admit it;\nNor need you, on mine honour, have to do\nWith any scruple; your scope is as mine own\nSo to enforce or qualify the laws\nAs to your soul seems good. Give me your hand:\nI'll privily away. I love the people,\nBut do not like to stage me to their eyes:\nThrough it do well, I do not relish well\nTheir loud applause and Aves vehement;\nNor do I think the man of safe discretion\nThat does affect it. Once more, fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nThe heavens give safety to your purposes!\n\nESCALUS:\nLead forth and bring you back in happiness!\n\nDUKE:\nI thank you. Fare you well.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall desire you, sir, to give me leave\nTo have free speech with you; and it concerns me\nTo look into the bottom of my place:\nA power I have, but of what strength and nature\nI am not yet instructed.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,\nAnd we may soon our satisfaction have\nTouching that point.\n\nESCALUS:\nI'll wait upon your honour.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf the duke with the other dukes come not to\ncomposition with the King of Hungary, why then all\nthe dukes fall upon the king.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHeaven grant us its peace, but not the King of\nHungary's!\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nAmen.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that\nwent to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped\none out of the table.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\n'Thou shalt not steal'?\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, that he razed.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhy, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and\nall the rest from their functions: they put forth\nto steal. There's not a soldier of us all, that, in\nthe thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition\nwell that prays for peace.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI never heard any soldier dislike it.\n\nLUCIO:\nI believe thee; for I think thou never wast where\ngrace was said.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo? a dozen times at least.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat, in metre?\n\nLUCIO:\nIn any proportion or in any language.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think, or in any religion.\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all\ncontroversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a\nwicked villain, despite of all grace.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWell, there went but a pair of shears between us.\n\nLUCIO:\nI grant; as there may between the lists and the\nvelvet. Thou art the list.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAnd thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou'rt\na three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief\nbe a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou\nart piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak\nfeelingly now?\n\nLUCIO:\nI think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful\nfeeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own\nconfession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I\nlive, forget to drink after thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think I have done myself wrong, have I not?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nYes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.\n\nLUCIO:\nBehold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I\nhave purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to--\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo what, I pray?\n\nLUCIO:\nJudge.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo three thousand dolours a year.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAy, and more.\n\nLUCIO:\nA French crown more.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThou art always figuring diseases in me; but thou\nart full of error; I am sound.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as\nthings that are hollow: thy bones are hollow;\nimpiety has made a feast of thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHow now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried\nto prison was worth five thousand of you all.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWho's that, I pray thee?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMarry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nClaudio to prison? 'tis not so.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nNay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw\nhim carried away; and, which is more, within these\nthree days his head to be chopped off.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut, after all this fooling, I would not have it so.\nArt thou sure of this?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nI am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam\nJulietta with child.\n\nLUCIO:\nBelieve me, this may be: he promised to meet me two\nhours since, and he was ever precise in\npromise-keeping.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nBesides, you know, it draws something near to the\nspeech we had to such a purpose.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nBut, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.\n\nLUCIO:\nAway! let's go learn the truth of it.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nThus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what\nwith the gallows and what with poverty, I am\ncustom-shrunk.\nHow now! what's the news with you?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYonder man is carried to prison.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell; what has he done?\n\nPOMPEY:\nA woman.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut what's his offence?\n\nPOMPEY:\nGroping for trouts in a peculiar river.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat, is there a maid with child by him?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, but there's a woman with maid by him. You have\nnot heard of the proclamation, have you?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat proclamation, man?\n\nPOMPEY:\nAll houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nAnd what shall become of those in the city?\n\nPOMPEY:\nThey shall stand for seed: they had gone down too,\nbut that a wise burgher put in for them.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be\npulled down?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTo the ground, mistress.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhy, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!\nWhat shall become of me?\n\nPOMPEY:\nCome; fear you not: good counsellors lack no\nclients: though you change your place, you need not\nchange your trade; I'll be your tapster still.\nCourage! there will be pity taken on you: you that\nhave worn your eyes almost out in the service, you\nwill be considered.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat's to do here, Thomas tapster? let's withdraw.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHere comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to\nprison; and there's Madam Juliet.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?\nBear me to prison, where I am committed.\n\nProvost:\nI do it not in evil disposition,\nBut from Lord Angelo by special charge.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus can the demigod Authority\nMake us pay down for our offence by weight\nThe words of heaven; on whom it will, it will;\nOn whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFrom too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:\nAs surfeit is the father of much fast,\nSo every scope by the immoderate use\nTurns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,\nLike rats that ravin down their proper bane,\nA thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would\nsend for certain of my creditors: and yet, to say\nthe truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom\nas the morality of imprisonment. What's thy\noffence, Claudio?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhat but to speak of would offend again.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhat, is't murder?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNo.\n\nLUCIO:\nLechery?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCall it so.\n\nProvost:\nAway, sir! you must go.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nOne word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.\n\nLUCIO:\nA hundred, if they'll do you any good.\nIs lechery so look'd after?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus stands it with me: upon a true contract\nI got possession of Julietta's bed:\nYou know the lady; she is fast my wife,\nSave that we do the denunciation lack\nOf outward order: this we came not to,\nOnly for propagation of a dower\nRemaining in the coffer of her friends,\nFrom whom we thought it meet to hide our love\nTill time had made them for us. But it chances\nThe stealth of our most mutual entertainment\nWith character too gross is writ on Juliet.\n\nLUCIO:\nWith child, perhaps?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nUnhappily, even so.\nAnd the new deputy now for the duke--\nWhether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,\nOr whether that the body public be\nA horse whereon the governor doth ride,\nWho, newly in the seat, that it may know\nHe can command, lets it straight feel the spur;\nWhether the tyranny be in his place,\nOr in his emmence that fills it up,\nI stagger in:--but this new governor\nAwakes me all the enrolled penalties\nWhich have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall\nSo long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round\nAnd none of them been worn; and, for a name,\nNow puts the drowsy and neglected act\nFreshly on me: 'tis surely for a name.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on\nthy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love,\nmay sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to\nhim.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI have done so, but he's not to be found.\nI prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:\nThis day my sister should the cloister enter\nAnd there receive her approbation:\nAcquaint her with the danger of my state:\nImplore her, in my voice, that she make friends\nTo the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:\nI have great hope in that; for in her youth\nThere is a prone and speechless dialect,\nSuch as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art\nWhen she will play with reason and discourse,\nAnd well she can persuade.\n\nLUCIO:\nI pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the\nlike, which else would stand under grievous\nimposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I\nwould be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a\ngame of tick-tack. I'll to her.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI thank you, good friend Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nWithin two hours.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCome, officer, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo, holy father; throw away that thought;\nBelieve not that the dribbling dart of love\nCan pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee\nTo give me secret harbour, hath a purpose\nMore grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends\nOf burning youth.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nMay your grace speak of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy holy sir, none better knows than you\nHow I have ever loved the life removed\nAnd held in idle price to haunt assemblies\nWhere youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.\nI have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,\nA man of stricture and firm abstinence,\nMy absolute power and place here in Vienna,\nAnd he supposes me travell'd to Poland;\nFor so I have strew'd it in the common ear,\nAnd so it is received. Now, pious sir,\nYou will demand of me why I do this?\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nGladly, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe have strict statutes and most biting laws.\nThe needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,\nWhich for this nineteen years we have let slip;\nEven like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,\nThat goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,\nHaving bound up the threatening twigs of birch,\nOnly to stick it in their children's sight\nFor terror, not to use, in time the rod\nBecomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,\nDead to infliction, to themselves are dead;\nAnd liberty plucks justice by the nose;\nThe baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart\nGoes all decorum.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nIt rested in your grace\nTo unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:\nAnd it in you more dreadful would have seem'd\nThan in Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do fear, too dreadful:\nSith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,\n'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them\nFor what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,\nWhen evil deeds have their permissive pass\nAnd not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,\nI have on Angelo imposed the office;\nWho may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,\nAnd yet my nature never in the fight\nTo do in slander. And to behold his sway,\nI will, as 'twere a brother of your order,\nVisit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,\nSupply me with the habit and instruct me\nHow I may formally in person bear me\nLike a true friar. More reasons for this action\nAt our more leisure shall I render you;\nOnly, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;\nStands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses\nThat his blood flows, or that his appetite\nIs more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,\nIf power change purpose, what our seemers be.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd have you nuns no farther privileges?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nAre not these large enough?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, truly; I speak not as desiring more;\nBut rather wishing a more strict restraint\nUpon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nWho's that which calls?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nIt is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,\nTurn you the key, and know his business of him;\nYou may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.\nWhen you have vow'd, you must not speak with men\nBut in the presence of the prioress:\nThen, if you speak, you must not show your face,\nOr, if you show your face, you must not speak.\nHe calls again; I pray you, answer him.\n\nISABELLA:\nPeace and prosperity! Who is't that calls\n\nLUCIO:\nHail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses\nProclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me\nAs bring me to the sight of Isabella,\nA novice of this place and the fair sister\nTo her unhappy brother Claudio?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy 'her unhappy brother'? let me ask,\nThe rather for I now must make you know\nI am that Isabella and his sister.\n\nLUCIO:\nGentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:\nNot to be weary with you, he's in prison.\n\nISABELLA:\nWoe me! for what?\n\nLUCIO:\nFor that which, if myself might be his judge,\nHe should receive his punishment in thanks:\nHe hath got his friend with child.\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, make me not your story.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt is true.\nI would not--though 'tis my familiar sin\nWith maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,\nTongue far from heart--play with all virgins so:\nI hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted.\nBy your renouncement an immortal spirit,\nAnd to be talk'd with in sincerity,\nAs with a saint.\n\nISABELLA:\nYou do blaspheme the good in mocking me.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:\nYour brother and his lover have embraced:\nAs those that feed grow full, as blossoming time\nThat from the seedness the bare fallow brings\nTo teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb\nExpresseth his full tilth and husbandry.\n\nISABELLA:\nSome one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?\n\nLUCIO:\nIs she your cousin?\n\nISABELLA:\nAdoptedly; as school-maids change their names\nBy vain though apt affection.\n\nLUCIO:\nShe it is.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, let him marry her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the point.\nThe duke is very strangely gone from hence;\nBore many gentlemen, myself being one,\nIn hand and hope of action: but we do learn\nBy those that know the very nerves of state,\nHis givings-out were of an infinite distance\nFrom his true-meant design. Upon his place,\nAnd with full line of his authority,\nGoverns Lord Angelo; a man whose blood\nIs very snow-broth; one who never feels\nThe wanton stings and motions of the sense,\nBut doth rebate and blunt his natural edge\nWith profits of the mind, study and fast.\nHe--to give fear to use and liberty,\nWhich have for long run by the hideous law,\nAs mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act,\nUnder whose heavy sense your brother's life\nFalls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;\nAnd follows close the rigour of the statute,\nTo make him an example. All hope is gone,\nUnless you have the grace by your fair prayer\nTo soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business\n'Twixt you and your poor brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nDoth he so seek his life?\n\nLUCIO:\nHas censured him\nAlready; and, as I hear, the provost hath\nA warrant for his execution.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas! what poor ability's in me\nTo do him good?\n\nLUCIO:\nAssay the power you have.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy power? Alas, I doubt--\n\nLUCIO:\nOur doubts are traitors\nAnd make us lose the good we oft might win\nBy fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,\nAnd let him learn to know, when maidens sue,\nMen give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,\nAll their petitions are as freely theirs\nAs they themselves would owe them.\n\nISABELLA:\nI'll see what I can do.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut speedily.\n\nISABELLA:\nI will about it straight;\nNo longer staying but to give the mother\nNotice of my affair. I humbly thank you:\nCommend me to my brother: soon at night\nI'll send him certain word of my success.\n\nLUCIO:\nI take my leave of you.\n\nISABELLA:\nGood sir, adieu.\n\nANGELO:\nWe must not make a scarecrow of the law,\nSetting it up to fear the birds of prey,\nAnd let it keep one shape, till custom make it\nTheir perch and not their terror.\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, but yet\nLet us be keen, and rather cut a little,\nThan fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman\nWhom I would save, had a most noble father!\nLet but your honour know,\nWhom I believe to be most strait in virtue,\nThat, in the working of your own affections,\nHad time cohered with place or place with wishing,\nOr that the resolute acting of your blood\nCould have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,\nWhether you had not sometime in your life\nErr'd in this point which now you censure him,\nAnd pull'd the law upon you.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\nAnother thing to fall. I not deny,\nThe jury, passing on the prisoner's life,\nMay in the sworn twelve have a thief or two\nGuiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,\nThat justice seizes: what know the laws\nThat thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,\nThe jewel that we find, we stoop and take't\nBecause we see it; but what we do not see\nWe tread upon, and never think of it.\nYou may not so extenuate his offence\nFor I have had such faults; but rather tell me,\nWhen I, that censure him, do so offend,\nLet mine own judgment pattern out my death,\nAnd nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.\n\nESCALUS:\nBe it as your wisdom will.\n\nANGELO:\nWhere is the provost?\n\nProvost:\nHere, if it like your honour.\n\nANGELO:\nSee that Claudio\nBe executed by nine to-morrow morning:\nBring him his confessor, let him be prepared;\nFor that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.\n\nESCALUS:\n\nELBOW:\nCome, bring them away: if these be good people in\na commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in\ncommon houses, I know no law: bring them away.\n\nANGELO:\nHow now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it Please your honour, I am the poor duke's\nconstable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon\njustice, sir, and do bring in here before your good\nhonour two notorious benefactors.\n\nANGELO:\nBenefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are\nthey not malefactors?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it? please your honour, I know not well what they\nare: but precise villains they are, that I am sure\nof; and void of all profanation in the world that\ngood Christians ought to have.\n\nESCALUS:\nThis comes off well; here's a wise officer.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your\nname? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.\n\nANGELO:\nWhat are you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nHe, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that\nserves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they\nsay, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she\nprofesses a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow know you that?\n\nELBOW:\nMy wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,--\n\nESCALUS:\nHow? thy wife?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,--\n\nESCALUS:\nDost thou detest her therefore?\n\nELBOW:\nI say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as\nshe, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house,\nit is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow dost thou know that, constable?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman\ncardinally given, might have been accused in\nfornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.\n\nESCALUS:\nBy the woman's means?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she\nspit in his face, so she defied him.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, if it please your honour, this is not so.\n\nELBOW:\nProve it before these varlets here, thou honourable\nman; prove it.\n\nESCALUS:\nDo you hear how he misplaces?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she came in great with child; and longing,\nsaving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;\nsir, we had but two in the house, which at that very\ndistant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a\ndish of some three-pence; your honours have seen\nsuch dishes; they are not China dishes, but very\ngood dishes,--\n\nESCALUS:\nGo to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in\nthe right: but to the point. As I say, this\nMistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and\nbeing great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for\nprunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,\nMaster Froth here, this very man, having eaten the\nrest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very\nhonestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could\nnot give you three-pence again.\n\nFROTH:\nNo, indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery well: you being then, if you be remembered,\ncracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,--\n\nFROTH:\nAy, so I did indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I telling you then, if you be\nremembered, that such a one and such a one were past\ncure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very\ngood diet, as I told you,--\n\nFROTH:\nAll this is true.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then,--\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What\nwas done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to\ncomplain of? Come me to what was done to her.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, your honour cannot come to that yet.\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, sir, nor I mean it not.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's\nleave. And, I beseech you, look into Master Froth\nhere, sir; a man of four-score pound a year; whose\nfather died at Hallowmas: was't not at Hallowmas,\nMaster Froth?\n\nFROTH:\nAll-hallond eve.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir,\nsitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in\nthe Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight\nto sit, have you not?\n\nFROTH:\nI have so; because it is an open room and good for winter.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then; I hope here be truths.\n\nANGELO:\nThis will last out a night in Russia,\nWhen nights are longest there: I'll take my leave.\nAnd leave you to the hearing of the cause;\nHoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.\n\nESCALUS:\nI think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.\nNow, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow's wife, once more?\n\nPOMPEY:\nOnce, sir? there was nothing done to her once.\n\nELBOW:\nI beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech your honour, ask me.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, sir; what did this gentleman to her?\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face.\nGood Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a\ngood purpose. Doth your honour mark his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, sir, very well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNay; I beseech you, mark it well.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, I do so.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoth your honour see any harm in his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, no.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst\nthing about him. Good, then; if his face be the\nworst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the\nconstable's wife any harm? I would know that of\nyour honour.\n\nESCALUS:\nHe's in the right. Constable, what say you to it?\n\nELBOW:\nFirst, an it like you, the house is a respected\nhouse; next, this is a respected fellow; and his\nmistress is a respected woman.\n\nPOMPEY:\nBy this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected\nperson than any of us all.\n\nELBOW:\nVarlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! the\ntime has yet to come that she was ever respected\nwith man, woman, or child.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she was respected with him before he married with her.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhich is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity? Is\nthis true?\n\nELBOW:\nO thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked\nHannibal! I respected with her before I was married\nto her! If ever I was respected with her, or she\nwith me, let not your worship think me the poor\nduke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or\nI'll have mine action of battery on thee.\n\nESCALUS:\nIf he took you a box o' the ear, you might have your\naction of slander too.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't\nyour worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?\n\nESCALUS:\nTruly, officer, because he hath some offences in him\nthat thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him\ncontinue in his courses till thou knowest what they\nare.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou\nwicked varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art\nto continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhere were you born, friend?\n\nFROTH:\nHere in Vienna, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAre you of fourscore pounds a year?\n\nFROTH:\nYes, an't please you, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nSo. What trade are you of, sir?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nTapster; a poor widow's tapster.\n\nESCALUS:\nYour mistress' name?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nMistress Overdone.\n\nESCALUS:\nHath she had any more than one husband?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNine, sir; Overdone by the last.\n\nESCALUS:\nNine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master\nFroth, I would not have you acquainted with\ntapsters: they will draw you, Master Froth, and you\nwill hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no\nmore of you.\n\nFROTH:\nI thank your worship. For mine own part, I never\ncome into any room in a tap-house, but I am drawn\nin.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell.\nCome you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your\nname, Master tapster?\n\nPOMPEY:\nPompey.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat else?\n\nPOMPEY:\nBum, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nTroth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you;\nso that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the\nGreat. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey,\nhowsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you\nnot? come, tell me true: it shall be the better for you.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What\ndo you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the law would allow it, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nBut the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall\nnot be allowed in Vienna.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoes your worship mean to geld and splay all the\nyouth of the city?\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, Pompey.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then.\nIf your worship will take order for the drabs and\nthe knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.\n\nESCALUS:\nThere are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you:\nit is but heading and hanging.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf you head and hang all that offend that way but\nfor ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a\ncommission for more heads: if this law hold in\nVienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it\nafter three-pence a bay: if you live to see this\ncome to pass, say Pompey told you so.\n\nESCALUS:\nThank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your\nprophecy, hark you: I advise you, let me not find\nyou before me again upon any complaint whatsoever;\nno, not for dwelling where you do: if I do, Pompey,\nI shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd\nCaesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall\nhave you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI thank your worship for your good counsel:\nbut I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall\nbetter determine.\nWhip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade:\nThe valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master\nconstable. How long have you been in this place of constable?\n\nELBOW:\nSeven year and a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI thought, by your readiness in the office, you had\ncontinued in it some time. You say, seven years together?\n\nELBOW:\nAnd a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAlas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you\nwrong to put you so oft upon 't: are there not men\nin your ward sufficient to serve it?\n\nELBOW:\nFaith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they\nare chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I\ndo it for some piece of money, and go through with\nall.\n\nESCALUS:\nLook you bring me in the names of some six or seven,\nthe most sufficient of your parish.\n\nELBOW:\nTo your worship's house, sir?\n\nESCALUS:\nTo my house. Fare you well.\nWhat's o'clock, think you?\n\nJustice:\nEleven, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI pray you home to dinner with me.\n\nJustice:\nI humbly thank you.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt grieves me for the death of Claudio;\nBut there's no remedy.\n\nJustice:\nLord Angelo is severe.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt is but needful:\nMercy is not itself, that oft looks so;\nPardon is still the nurse of second woe:\nBut yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy.\nCome, sir.\n\nServant:\nHe's hearing of a cause; he will come straight\nI'll tell him of you.\n\nProvost:\nPray you, do.\nI'll know\nHis pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,\nHe hath but as offended in a dream!\nAll sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he\nTo die for't!\n\nANGELO:\nNow, what's the matter. Provost?\n\nProvost:\nIs it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?\n\nANGELO:\nDid not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?\nWhy dost thou ask again?\n\nProvost:\nLest I might be too rash:\nUnder your good correction, I have seen,\nWhen, after execution, judgment hath\nRepented o'er his doom.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to; let that be mine:\nDo you your office, or give up your place,\nAnd you shall well be spared.\n\nProvost:\nI crave your honour's pardon.\nWhat shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?\nShe's very near her hour.\n\nANGELO:\nDispose of her\nTo some more fitter place, and that with speed.\n\nServant:\nHere is the sister of the man condemn'd\nDesires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nHath he a sister?\n\nProvost:\nAy, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,\nAnd to be shortly of a sisterhood,\nIf not already.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, let her be admitted.\nSee you the fornicatress be removed:\nLet have needful, but not lavish, means;\nThere shall be order for't.\n\nProvost:\nGod save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nStay a little while.\nYou're welcome: what's your will?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am a woeful suitor to your honour,\nPlease but your honour hear me.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; what's your suit?\n\nISABELLA:\nThere is a vice that most I do abhor,\nAnd most desire should meet the blow of justice;\nFor which I would not plead, but that I must;\nFor which I must not plead, but that I am\nAt war 'twixt will and will not.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; the matter?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have a brother is condemn'd to die:\nI do beseech you, let it be his fault,\nAnd not my brother.\n\nProvost:\n\nANGELO:\nCondemn the fault and not the actor of it?\nWhy, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:\nMine were the very cipher of a function,\nTo fine the faults whose fine stands in record,\nAnd let go by the actor.\n\nISABELLA:\nO just but severe law!\nI had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nMust he needs die?\n\nANGELO:\nMaiden, no remedy.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes; I do think that you might pardon him,\nAnd neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.\n\nANGELO:\nI will not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut can you, if you would?\n\nANGELO:\nLook, what I will not, that I cannot do.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut might you do't, and do the world no wrong,\nIf so your heart were touch'd with that remorse\nAs mine is to him?\n\nANGELO:\nHe's sentenced; 'tis too late.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nToo late? why, no; I, that do speak a word.\nMay call it back again. Well, believe this,\nNo ceremony that to great ones 'longs,\nNot the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,\nThe marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,\nBecome them with one half so good a grace\nAs mercy does.\nIf he had been as you and you as he,\nYou would have slipt like him; but he, like you,\nWould not have been so stern.\n\nANGELO:\nPray you, be gone.\n\nISABELLA:\nI would to heaven I had your potency,\nAnd you were Isabel! should it then be thus?\nNo; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,\nAnd what a prisoner.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nYour brother is a forfeit of the law,\nAnd you but waste your words.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\nWhy, all the souls that were were forfeit once;\nAnd He that might the vantage best have took\nFound out the remedy. How would you be,\nIf He, which is the top of judgment, should\nBut judge you as you are? O, think on that;\nAnd mercy then will breathe within your lips,\nLike man new made.\n\nANGELO:\nBe you content, fair maid;\nIt is the law, not I condemn your brother:\nWere he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\nIt should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!\nHe's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens\nWe kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven\nWith less respect than we do minister\nTo our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;\nWho is it that hath died for this offence?\nThere's many have committed it.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nThe law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:\nThose many had not dared to do that evil,\nIf the first that did the edict infringe\nHad answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake\nTakes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,\nLooks in a glass, that shows what future evils,\nEither new, or by remissness new-conceived,\nAnd so in progress to be hatch'd and born,\nAre now to have no successive degrees,\nBut, ere they live, to end.\n\nISABELLA:\nYet show some pity.\n\nANGELO:\nI show it most of all when I show justice;\nFor then I pity those I do not know,\nWhich a dismiss'd offence would after gall;\nAnd do him right that, answering one foul wrong,\nLives not to act another. Be satisfied;\nYour brother dies to-morrow; be content.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo you must be the first that gives this sentence,\nAnd he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent\nTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous\nTo use it like a giant.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nCould great men thunder\nAs Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,\nFor every pelting, petty officer\nWould use his heaven for thunder;\nNothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,\nThou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt\nSplit'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak\nThan the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,\nDrest in a little brief authority,\nMost ignorant of what he's most assured,\nHis glassy essence, like an angry ape,\nPlays such fantastic tricks before high heaven\nAs make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,\nWould all themselves laugh mortal.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nProvost:\n\nISABELLA:\nWe cannot weigh our brother with ourself:\nGreat men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,\nBut in the less foul profanation.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat in the captain's but a choleric word,\nWhich in the soldier is flat blasphemy.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhy do you put these sayings upon me?\n\nISABELLA:\nBecause authority, though it err like others,\nHath yet a kind of medicine in itself,\nThat skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;\nKnock there, and ask your heart what it doth know\nThat's like my brother's fault: if it confess\nA natural guiltiness such as is his,\nLet it not sound a thought upon your tongue\nAgainst my brother's life.\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nGentle my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nI will bethink me: come again tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nHark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nHow! bribe me?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nNot with fond shekels of the tested gold,\nOr stones whose rates are either rich or poor\nAs fancy values them; but with true prayers\nThat shall be up at heaven and enter there\nEre sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,\nFrom fasting maids whose minds are dedicate\nTo nothing temporal.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; come to me to-morrow.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nHeaven keep your honour safe!\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nAt what hour to-morrow\nShall I attend your lordship?\n\nANGELO:\nAt any time 'fore noon.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nFrom thee, even from thy virtue!\nWhat's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?\nThe tempter or the tempted, who sins most?\nHa!\nNot she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I\nThat, lying by the violet in the sun,\nDo as the carrion does, not as the flower,\nCorrupt with virtuous season. Can it be\nThat modesty may more betray our sense\nThan woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,\nShall we desire to raze the sanctuary\nAnd pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!\nWhat dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?\nDost thou desire her foully for those things\nThat make her good? O, let her brother live!\nThieves for their robbery have authority\nWhen judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,\nThat I desire to hear her speak again,\nAnd feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?\nO cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,\nWith saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous\nIs that temptation that doth goad us on\nTo sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,\nWith all her double vigour, art and nature,\nOnce stir my temper; but this virtuous maid\nSubdues me quite. Even till now,\nWhen men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHail to you, provost! so I think you are.\n\nProvost:\nI am the provost. What's your will, good friar?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBound by my charity and my blest order,\nI come to visit the afflicted spirits\nHere in the prison. Do me the common right\nTo let me see them and to make me know\nThe nature of their crimes, that I may minister\nTo them accordingly.\n\nProvost:\nI would do more than that, if more were needful.\nLook, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,\nWho, falling in the flaws of her own youth,\nHath blister'd her report: she is with child;\nAnd he that got it, sentenced; a young man\nMore fit to do another such offence\nThan die for this.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhen must he die?\n\nProvost:\nAs I do think, to-morrow.\nI have provided for you: stay awhile,\nAnd you shall be conducted.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRepent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?\n\nJULIET:\nI do; and bear the shame most patiently.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,\nAnd try your penitence, if it be sound,\nOr hollowly put on.\n\nJULIET:\nI'll gladly learn.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove you the man that wrong'd you?\n\nJULIET:\nYes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then it seems your most offenceful act\nWas mutually committed?\n\nJULIET:\nMutually.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThen was your sin of heavier kind than his.\n\nJULIET:\nI do confess it, and repent it, father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,\nAs that the sin hath brought you to this shame,\nWhich sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,\nShowing we would not spare heaven as we love it,\nBut as we stand in fear,--\n\nJULIET:\nI do repent me, as it is an evil,\nAnd take the shame with joy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere rest.\nYour partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,\nAnd I am going with instruction to him.\nGrace go with you, Benedicite!\n\nJULIET:\nMust die to-morrow! O injurious love,\nThat respites me a life, whose very comfort\nIs still a dying horror!\n\nProvost:\n'Tis pity of him.\n\nANGELO:\nWhen I would pray and think, I think and pray\nTo several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;\nWhilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,\nAnchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,\nAs if I did but only chew his name;\nAnd in my heart the strong and swelling evil\nOf my conception. The state, whereon I studied\nIs like a good thing, being often read,\nGrown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,\nWherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,\nCould I with boot change for an idle plume,\nWhich the air beats for vain. O place, O form,\nHow often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,\nWrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls\nTo thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:\nLet's write good angel on the devil's horn:\n'Tis not the devil's crest.\nHow now! who's there?\n\nServant:\nOne Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nTeach her the way.\nO heavens!\nWhy does my blood thus muster to my heart,\nMaking both it unable for itself,\nAnd dispossessing all my other parts\nOf necessary fitness?\nSo play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;\nCome all to help him, and so stop the air\nBy which he should revive: and even so\nThe general, subject to a well-wish'd king,\nQuit their own part, and in obsequious fondness\nCrowd to his presence, where their untaught love\nMust needs appear offence.\nHow now, fair maid?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am come to know your pleasure.\n\nANGELO:\nThat you might know it, would much better please me\nThan to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.\n\nISABELLA:\nEven so. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nYet may he live awhile; and, it may be,\nAs long as you or I yet he must die.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnder your sentence?\n\nANGELO:\nYea.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhen, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,\nLonger or shorter, he may be so fitted\nThat his soul sicken not.\n\nANGELO:\nHa! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good\nTo pardon him that hath from nature stolen\nA man already made, as to remit\nTheir saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image\nIn stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy\nFalsely to take away a life true made\nAs to put metal in restrained means\nTo make a false one.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.\n\nANGELO:\nSay you so? then I shall pose you quickly.\nWhich had you rather, that the most just law\nNow took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,\nGive up your body to such sweet uncleanness\nAs she that he hath stain'd?\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, believe this,\nI had rather give my body than my soul.\n\nANGELO:\nI talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins\nStand more for number than for accompt.\n\nISABELLA:\nHow say you?\n\nANGELO:\nNay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak\nAgainst the thing I say. Answer to this:\nI, now the voice of the recorded law,\nPronounce a sentence on your brother's life:\nMight there not be a charity in sin\nTo save this brother's life?\n\nISABELLA:\nPlease you to do't,\nI'll take it as a peril to my soul,\nIt is no sin at all, but charity.\n\nANGELO:\nPleased you to do't at peril of your soul,\nWere equal poise of sin and charity.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat I do beg his life, if it be sin,\nHeaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,\nIf that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer\nTo have it added to the faults of mine,\nAnd nothing of your answer.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, but hear me.\nYour sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,\nOr seem so craftily; and that's not good.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me be ignorant, and in nothing good,\nBut graciously to know I am no better.\n\nANGELO:\nThus wisdom wishes to appear most bright\nWhen it doth tax itself; as these black masks\nProclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder\nThan beauty could, display'd. But mark me;\nTo be received plain, I'll speak more gross:\nYour brother is to die.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd his offence is so, as it appears,\nAccountant to the law upon that pain.\n\nISABELLA:\nTrue.\n\nANGELO:\nAdmit no other way to save his life,--\nAs I subscribe not that, nor any other,\nBut in the loss of question,--that you, his sister,\nFinding yourself desired of such a person,\nWhose credit with the judge, or own great place,\nCould fetch your brother from the manacles\nOf the all-building law; and that there were\nNo earthly mean to save him, but that either\nYou must lay down the treasures of your body\nTo this supposed, or else to let him suffer;\nWhat would you do?\n\nISABELLA:\nAs much for my poor brother as myself:\nThat is, were I under the terms of death,\nThe impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,\nAnd strip myself to death, as to a bed\nThat longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield\nMy body up to shame.\n\nANGELO:\nThen must your brother die.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd 'twere the cheaper way:\nBetter it were a brother died at once,\nThan that a sister, by redeeming him,\nShould die for ever.\n\nANGELO:\nWere not you then as cruel as the sentence\nThat you have slander'd so?\n\nISABELLA:\nIgnomy in ransom and free pardon\nAre of two houses: lawful mercy\nIs nothing kin to foul redemption.\n\nANGELO:\nYou seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;\nAnd rather proved the sliding of your brother\nA merriment than a vice.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,\nTo have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:\nI something do excuse the thing I hate,\nFor his advantage that I dearly love.\n\nANGELO:\nWe are all frail.\n\nISABELLA:\nElse let my brother die,\nIf not a feodary, but only he\nOwe and succeed thy weakness.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, women are frail too.\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, as the glasses where they view themselves;\nWhich are as easy broke as they make forms.\nWomen! Help Heaven! men their creation mar\nIn profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;\nFor we are soft as our complexions are,\nAnd credulous to false prints.\n\nANGELO:\nI think it well:\nAnd from this testimony of your own sex,--\nSince I suppose we are made to be no stronger\nThan faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold;\nI do arrest your words. Be that you are,\nThat is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;\nIf you be one, as you are well express'd\nBy all external warrants, show it now,\nBy putting on the destined livery.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,\nLet me entreat you speak the former language.\n\nANGELO:\nPlainly conceive, I love you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy brother did love Juliet,\nAnd you tell me that he shall die for it.\n\nANGELO:\nHe shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.\n\nISABELLA:\nI know your virtue hath a licence in't,\nWhich seems a little fouler than it is,\nTo pluck on others.\n\nANGELO:\nBelieve me, on mine honour,\nMy words express my purpose.\n\nISABELLA:\nHa! little honour to be much believed,\nAnd most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!\nI will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:\nSign me a present pardon for my brother,\nOr with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud\nWhat man thou art.\n\nANGELO:\nWho will believe thee, Isabel?\nMy unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,\nMy vouch against you, and my place i' the state,\nWill so your accusation overweigh,\nThat you shall stifle in your own report\nAnd smell of calumny. I have begun,\nAnd now I give my sensual race the rein:\nFit thy consent to my sharp appetite;\nLay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,\nThat banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother\nBy yielding up thy body to my will;\nOr else he must not only die the death,\nBut thy unkindness shall his death draw out\nTo lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,\nOr, by the affection that now guides me most,\nI'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,\nSay what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo whom should I complain? Did I tell this,\nWho would believe me? O perilous mouths,\nThat bear in them one and the self-same tongue,\nEither of condemnation or approof;\nBidding the law make court'sy to their will:\nHooking both right and wrong to the appetite,\nTo follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:\nThough he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,\nYet hath he in him such a mind of honour.\nThat, had he twenty heads to tender down\nOn twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,\nBefore his sister should her body stoop\nTo such abhorr'd pollution.\nThen, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:\nMore than our brother is our chastity.\nI'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,\nAnd fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe miserable have no other medicine\nBut only hope:\nI've hope to live, and am prepared to die.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe absolute for death; either death or life\nShall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:\nIf I do lose thee, I do lose a thing\nThat none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,\nServile to all the skyey influences,\nThat dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,\nHourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;\nFor him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun\nAnd yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;\nFor all the accommodations that thou bear'st\nAre nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;\nFor thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\nOf a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,\nAnd that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st\nThy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;\nFor thou exist'st on many a thousand grains\nThat issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;\nFor what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,\nAnd what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;\nFor thy complexion shifts to strange effects,\nAfter the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;\nFor, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\nThou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,\nAnd death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;\nFor thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,\nThe mere effusion of thy proper loins,\nDo curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,\nFor ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,\nBut, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,\nDreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth\nBecomes as aged, and doth beg the alms\nOf palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,\nThou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,\nTo make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this\nThat bears the name of life? Yet in this life\nLie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,\nThat makes these odds all even.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI humbly thank you.\nTo sue to live, I find I seek to die;\nAnd, seeking death, find life: let it come on.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nProvost:\nWho's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nMost holy sir, I thank you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy business is a word or two with Claudio.\n\nProvost:\nAnd very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nProvost, a word with you.\n\nProvost:\nAs many as you please.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNow, sister, what's the comfort?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy,\nAs all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.\nLord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,\nIntends you for his swift ambassador,\nWhere you shall be an everlasting leiger:\nTherefore your best appointment make with speed;\nTo-morrow you set on.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIs there no remedy?\n\nISABELLA:\nNone, but such remedy as, to save a head,\nTo cleave a heart in twain.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut is there any?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, brother, you may live:\nThere is a devilish mercy in the judge,\nIf you'll implore it, that will free your life,\nBut fetter you till death.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nPerpetual durance?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,\nThough all the world's vastidity you had,\nTo a determined scope.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut in what nature?\n\nISABELLA:\nIn such a one as, you consenting to't,\nWould bark your honour from that trunk you bear,\nAnd leave you naked.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me know the point.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,\nLest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,\nAnd six or seven winters more respect\nThan a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?\nThe sense of death is most in apprehension;\nAnd the poor beetle, that we tread upon,\nIn corporal sufferance finds a pang as great\nAs when a giant dies.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhy give you me this shame?\nThink you I can a resolution fetch\nFrom flowery tenderness? If I must die,\nI will encounter darkness as a bride,\nAnd hug it in mine arms.\n\nISABELLA:\nThere spake my brother; there my father's grave\nDid utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:\nThou art too noble to conserve a life\nIn base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,\nWhose settled visage and deliberate word\nNips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew\nAs falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil\nHis filth within being cast, he would appear\nA pond as deep as hell.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe prenzie Angelo!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,\nThe damned'st body to invest and cover\nIn prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?\nIf I would yield him my virginity,\nThou mightst be freed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO heavens! it cannot be.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,\nSo to offend him still. This night's the time\nThat I should do what I abhor to name,\nOr else thou diest to-morrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThou shalt not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, were it but my life,\nI'ld throw it down for your deliverance\nAs frankly as a pin.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThanks, dear Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nBe ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nYes. Has he affections in him,\nThat thus can make him bite the law by the nose,\nWhen he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,\nOr of the deadly seven, it is the least.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhich is the least?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIf it were damnable, he being so wise,\nWhy would he for the momentary trick\nBe perdurably fined? O Isabel!\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat says my brother?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nDeath is a fearful thing.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd shamed life a hateful.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAy, but to die, and go we know not where;\nTo lie in cold obstruction and to rot;\nThis sensible warm motion to become\nA kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\nTo bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\nIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\nTo be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\nAnd blown with restless violence round about\nThe pendent world; or to be worse than worst\nOf those that lawless and incertain thought\nImagine howling: 'tis too horrible!\nThe weariest and most loathed worldly life\nThat age, ache, penury and imprisonment\nCan lay on nature is a paradise\nTo what we fear of death.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\n\nCLAUDIO:\nSweet sister, let me live:\nWhat sin you do to save a brother's life,\nNature dispenses with the deed so far\nThat it becomes a virtue.\n\nISABELLA:\nO you beast!\nO faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!\nWilt thou be made a man out of my vice?\nIs't not a kind of incest, to take life\nFrom thine own sister's shame? What should I think?\nHeaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!\nFor such a warped slip of wilderness\nNe'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!\nDie, perish! Might but my bending down\nReprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:\nI'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,\nNo word to save thee.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNay, hear me, Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, fie, fie, fie!\nThy sin's not accidental, but a trade.\nMercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:\n'Tis best thou diest quickly.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO hear me, Isabella!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat is your will?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMight you dispense with your leisure, I would by and\nby have some speech with you: the satisfaction I\nwould require is likewise your own benefit.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be\nstolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSon, I have overheard what hath passed between you\nand your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to\ncorrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her\nvirtue to practise his judgment with the disposition\nof natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,\nhath made him that gracious denial which he is most\nglad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I\nknow this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to\ndeath: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes\nthat are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to\nyour knees and make ready.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love\nwith life that I will sue to be rid of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHold you there: farewell.\nProvost, a word with you!\n\nProvost:\nWhat's your will, father\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me\nawhile with the maid: my mind promises with my\nhabit no loss shall touch her by my company.\n\nProvost:\nIn good time.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:\nthe goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty\nbrief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of\nyour complexion, shall keep the body of it ever\nfair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,\nfortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but\nthat frailty hath examples for his falling, I should\nwonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this\nsubstitute, and to save your brother?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am now going to resolve him: I had rather my\nbrother die by the law than my son should be\nunlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke\ndeceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can\nspeak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or\ndiscover his government.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter\nnow stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made\ntrial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my\nadvisings: to the love I have in doing good a\nremedy presents itself. I do make myself believe\nthat you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged\nlady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from\nthe angry law; do no stain to your own gracious\nperson; and much please the absent duke, if\nperadventure he shall ever return to have hearing of\nthis business.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do\nanything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVirtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have\nyou not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of\nFrederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nShe should this Angelo have married; was affianced\nto her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between\nwhich time of the contract and limit of the\nsolemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea,\nhaving in that perished vessel the dowry of his\nsister. But mark how heavily this befell to the\npoor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and\nrenowned brother, in his love toward her ever most\nkind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of\nher fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her\ncombinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nCan this be so? did Angelo so leave her?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLeft her in her tears, and dried not one of them\nwith his comfort; swallowed his vows whole,\npretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,\nbestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet\nwears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,\nis washed with them, but relents not.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat a merit were it in death to take this poor maid\nfrom the world! What corruption in this life, that\nit will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the\ncure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps\nyou from dishonour in doing it.\n\nISABELLA:\nShow me how, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance\nof her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that\nin all reason should have quenched her love, hath,\nlike an impediment in the current, made it more\nviolent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his\nrequiring with a plausible obedience; agree with\nhis demands to the point; only refer yourself to\nthis advantage, first, that your stay with him may\nnot be long; that the time may have all shadow and\nsilence in it; and the place answer to convenience.\nThis being granted in course,--and now follows\nall,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up\nyour appointment, go in your place; if the encounter\nacknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to\nher recompense: and here, by this, is your brother\nsaved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana\nadvantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid\nwill I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you\nthink well to carry this as you may, the doubleness\nof the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.\nWhat think you of it?\n\nISABELLA:\nThe image of it gives me content already; and I\ntrust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily\nto Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his\nbed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will\npresently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated\ngrange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that\nplace call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that\nit may be quickly.\n\nISABELLA:\nI thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.\n\nELBOW:\nNay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will\nneeds buy and sell men and women like beasts, we\nshall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO heavens! what stuff is here\n\nPOMPEY:\n'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the\nmerriest was put down, and the worser allowed by\norder of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and\nfurred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that\ncraft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.\n\nELBOW:\nCome your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you, good brother father. What offence hath\nthis man made you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we\ntake him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found\nupon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have\nsent to the deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!\nThe evil that thou causest to be done,\nThat is thy means to live. Do thou but think\nWhat 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back\nFrom such a filthy vice: say to thyself,\nFrom their abominable and beastly touches\nI drink, I eat, array myself, and live.\nCanst thou believe thy living is a life,\nSo stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIndeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet,\nsir, I would prove--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,\nThou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:\nCorrection and instruction must both work\nEre this rude beast will profit.\n\nELBOW:\nHe must before the deputy, sir; he has given him\nwarning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if\nhe be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were\nas good go a mile on his errand.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat we were all, as some would seem to be,\nFrom our faults, as faults from seeming, free!\n\nELBOW:\nHis neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a\nfriend of mine.\n\nLUCIO:\nHow now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of\nCaesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there\nnone of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be\nhad now, for putting the hand in the pocket and\nextracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What\nsayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't\nnot drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest\nthou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is\nthe way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The\ntrick of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nStill thus, and thus; still worse!\n\nLUCIO:\nHow doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she\nstill, ha?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTroth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she\nis herself in the tub.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be\nso: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:\nan unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going\nto prison, Pompey?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYes, faith, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I\nsent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?\n\nELBOW:\nFor being a bawd, for being a bawd.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the\ndue of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he\ndoubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.\nFarewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,\nPompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you\nwill keep the house.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.\nI will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If\nyou take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the\nmore. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you.\n\nLUCIO:\nDoes Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nPOMPEY:\nYou will not bail me, then, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nThen, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?\nwhat news?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nLUCIO:\nGo to kennel, Pompey; go.\nWhat news, friar, of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know none. Can you tell me of any?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other\nsome, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from\nthe state, and usurp the beggary he was never born\nto. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he\nputs transgression to 't.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe does well in 't.\n\nLUCIO:\nA little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in\nhim: something too crabbed that way, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;\nit is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp\nit quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put\ndown. They say this Angelo was not made by man and\nwoman after this downright way of creation: is it\ntrue, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow should he be made, then?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he\nwas begot between two stock-fishes. But it is\ncertain that when he makes water his urine is\ncongealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a\nmotion generative; that's infallible.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the\nrebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a\nman! Would the duke that is absent have done this?\nEre he would have hanged a man for the getting a\nhundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing\na thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he\nknew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI never heard the absent duke much detected for\nwomen; he was not inclined that way.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, sir, you are deceived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis not possible.\n\nLUCIO:\nWho, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and\nhis use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the\nduke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;\nthat let me inform you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do him wrong, surely.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the\nduke: and I believe I know the cause of his\nwithdrawing.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, I prithee, might be the cause?\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the\nteeth and the lips: but this I can let you\nunderstand, the greater file of the subject held the\nduke to be wise.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWise! why, no question but he was.\n\nLUCIO:\nA very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEither this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:\nthe very stream of his life and the business he hath\nhelmed must upon a warranted need give him a better\nproclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own\nbringings-forth, and he shall appear to the\nenvious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.\nTherefore you speak unskilfully: or if your\nknowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I know him, and I love him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with\ndearer love.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir, I know what I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI can hardly believe that, since you know not what\nyou speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our\nprayers are he may, let me desire you to make your\nanswer before him. If it be honest you have spoke,\nyou have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call\nupon you; and, I pray you, your name?\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe shall know you better, sir, if I may live to\nreport you.\n\nLUCIO:\nI fear you not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, you hope the duke will return no more; or you\nimagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I\ncan do you little harm; you'll forswear this again.\n\nLUCIO:\nI'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,\nfriar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if\nClaudio die to-morrow or no?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy should he die, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would\nthe duke we talk of were returned again: the\nungenitured agent will unpeople the province with\ncontinency; sparrows must not build in his\nhouse-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke\nyet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would\nnever bring them to light: would he were returned!\nMarry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.\nFarewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The\nduke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on\nFridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee,\nhe would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown\nbread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo might nor greatness in mortality\nCan censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny\nThe whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong\nCan tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?\nBut who comes here?\n\nESCALUS:\nGo; away with her to prison!\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nGood my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted\na merciful man; good my lord.\n\nESCALUS:\nDouble and treble admonition, and still forfeit in\nthe same kind! This would make mercy swear and play\nthe tyrant.\n\nProvost:\nA bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please\nyour honour.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMy lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.\nMistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the\nduke's time; he promised her marriage: his child\nis a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:\nI have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!\n\nESCALUS:\nThat fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be\ncalled before us. Away with her to prison! Go to;\nno more words.\nProvost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;\nClaudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished\nwith divines, and have all charitable preparation.\nif my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be\nso with him.\n\nProvost:\nSo please you, this friar hath been with him, and\nadvised him for the entertainment of death.\n\nESCALUS:\nGood even, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBliss and goodness on you!\n\nESCALUS:\nOf whence are you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot of this country, though my chance is now\nTo use it for my time: I am a brother\nOf gracious order, late come from the See\nIn special business from his holiness.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat news abroad i' the world?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNone, but that there is so great a fever on\ngoodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it:\nnovelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous\nto be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous\nto be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce\ntruth enough alive to make societies secure; but\nsecurity enough to make fellowships accurst: much\nupon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This\nnews is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I\npray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?\n\nESCALUS:\nOne that, above all other strifes, contended\nespecially to know himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat pleasure was he given to?\n\nESCALUS:\nRather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at\nany thing which professed to make him rejoice: a\ngentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to\nhis events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous;\nand let me desire to know how you find Claudio\nprepared. I am made to understand that you have\nlent him visitation.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe professes to have received no sinister measure\nfrom his judge, but most willingly humbles himself\nto the determination of justice: yet had he framed\nto himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many\ndeceiving promises of life; which I by my good\nleisure have discredited to him, and now is he\nresolved to die.\n\nESCALUS:\nYou have paid the heavens your function, and the\nprisoner the very debt of your calling. I have\nlaboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest\nshore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I\nfound so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him\nhe is indeed Justice.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIf his own life answer the straitness of his\nproceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he\nchance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPeace be with you!\nHe who the sword of heaven will bear\nShould be as holy as severe;\nPattern in himself to know,\nGrace to stand, and virtue go;\nMore nor less to others paying\nThan by self-offences weighing.\nShame to him whose cruel striking\nKills for faults of his own liking!\nTwice treble shame on Angelo,\nTo weed my vice and let his grow!\nO, what may man within him hide,\nThough angel on the outward side!\nHow may likeness made in crimes,\nMaking practise on the times,\nTo draw with idle spiders' strings\nMost ponderous and substantial things!\nCraft against vice I must apply:\nWith Angelo to-night shall lie\nHis old betrothed but despised;\nSo disguise shall, by the disguised,\nPay with falsehood false exacting,\nAnd perform an old contracting.\n\n\nMARIANA:\nBreak off thy song, and haste thee quick away:\nHere comes a man of comfort, whose advice\nHath often still'd my brawling discontent.\nI cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish\nYou had not found me here so musical:\nLet me excuse me, and believe me so,\nMy mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm\nTo make bad good, and good provoke to harm.\nI pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired\nfor me here to-day? much upon this time have\nI promised here to meet.\n\nMARIANA:\nYou have not been inquired after:\nI have sat here all day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do constantly believe you. The time is come even\nnow. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may\nbe I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.\n\nMARIANA:\nI am always bound to you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVery well met, and well come.\nWhat is the news from this good deputy?\n\nISABELLA:\nHe hath a garden circummured with brick,\nWhose western side is with a vineyard back'd;\nAnd to that vineyard is a planched gate,\nThat makes his opening with this bigger key:\nThis other doth command a little door\nWhich from the vineyard to the garden leads;\nThere have I made my promise\nUpon the heavy middle of the night\nTo call upon him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut shall you on your knowledge find this way?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:\nWith whispering and most guilty diligence,\nIn action all of precept, he did show me\nThe way twice o'er.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre there no other tokens\nBetween you 'greed concerning her observance?\n\nISABELLA:\nNo, none, but only a repair i' the dark;\nAnd that I have possess'd him my most stay\nCan be but brief; for I have made him know\nI have a servant comes with me along,\nThat stays upon me, whose persuasion is\nI come about my brother.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis well borne up.\nI have not yet made known to Mariana\nA word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!\nI pray you, be acquainted with this maid;\nShe comes to do you good.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do desire the like.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDo you persuade yourself that I respect you?\n\nMARIANA:\nGood friar, I know you do, and have found it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nTake, then, this your companion by the hand,\nWho hath a story ready for your ear.\nI shall attend your leisure: but make haste;\nThe vaporous night approaches.\n\nMARIANA:\nWill't please you walk aside?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO place and greatness! millions of false eyes\nAre stuck upon thee: volumes of report\nRun with these false and most contrarious quests\nUpon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit\nMake thee the father of their idle dreams\nAnd rack thee in their fancies.\nWelcome, how agreed?\n\nISABELLA:\nShe'll take the enterprise upon her, father,\nIf you advise it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is not my consent,\nBut my entreaty too.\n\nISABELLA:\nLittle have you to say\nWhen you depart from him, but, soft and low,\n'Remember now my brother.'\n\nMARIANA:\nFear me not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.\nHe is your husband on a pre-contract:\nTo bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,\nSith that the justice of your title to him\nDoth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:\nOur corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.\n\nProvost:\nCome hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a\nmarried man, he's his wife's head, and I can never\ncut off a woman's head.\n\nProvost:\nCome, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a\ndirect answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio\nand Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common\nexecutioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if\nyou will take it on you to assist him, it shall\nredeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have\nyour full time of imprisonment and your deliverance\nwith an unpitied whipping, for you have been a\nnotorious bawd.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;\nbut yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I\nwould be glad to receive some instruction from my\nfellow partner.\n\nProvost:\nWhat, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?\n\nABHORSON:\nDo you call, sir?\n\nProvost:\nSirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in\nyour execution. If you think it meet, compound with\nhim by the year, and let him abide here with you; if\nnot, use him for the present and dismiss him. He\ncannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.\n\nABHORSON:\nA bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.\n\nProvost:\nGo to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn\nthe scale.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a\ngood favour you have, but that you have a hanging\nlook,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?\n\nABHORSON:\nAy, sir; a mystery\n\nPOMPEY:\nPainting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and\nyour whores, sir, being members of my occupation,\nusing painting, do prove my occupation a mystery:\nbut what mystery there should be in hanging, if I\nshould be hanged, I cannot imagine.\n\nABHORSON:\nSir, it is a mystery.\n\nPOMPEY:\nProof?\n\nABHORSON:\nEvery true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be\ntoo little for your thief, your true man thinks it\nbig enough; if it be too big for your thief, your\nthief thinks it little enough: so every true man's\napparel fits your thief.\n\nProvost:\nAre you agreed?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is\na more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth\noftener ask forgiveness.\n\nProvost:\nYou, sirrah, provide your block and your axe\nto-morrow four o'clock.\n\nABHORSON:\nCome on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have\noccasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find\nme yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you\na good turn.\n\nProvost:\nCall hither Barnardine and Claudio:\nThe one has my pity; not a jot the other,\nBeing a murderer, though he were my brother.\nLook, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:\n'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow\nThou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAs fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour\nWhen it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:\nHe will not wake.\n\nProvost:\nWho can do good on him?\nWell, go, prepare yourself.\nBut, hark, what noise?\nHeaven give your spirits comfort!\nBy and by.\nI hope it is some pardon or reprieve\nFor the most gentle Claudio.\nWelcome father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe best and wholesomest spirts of the night\nEnvelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?\n\nProvost:\nNone, since the curfew rung.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot Isabel?\n\nProvost:\nNo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThey will, then, ere't be long.\n\nProvost:\nWhat comfort is for Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere's some in hope.\n\nProvost:\nIt is a bitter deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot so, not so; his life is parallel'd\nEven with the stroke and line of his great justice:\nHe doth with holy abstinence subdue\nThat in himself which he spurs on his power\nTo qualify in others: were he meal'd with that\nWhich he corrects, then were he tyrannous;\nBut this being so, he's just.\nNow are they come.\nThis is a gentle provost: seldom when\nThe steeled gaoler is the friend of men.\nHow now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste\nThat wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.\n\nProvost:\nThere he must stay until the officer\nArise to let him in: he is call'd up.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHave you no countermand for Claudio yet,\nBut he must die to-morrow?\n\nProvost:\nNone, sir, none.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAs near the dawning, provost, as it is,\nYou shall hear more ere morning.\n\nProvost:\nHappily\nYou something know; yet I believe there comes\nNo countermand; no such example have we:\nBesides, upon the very siege of justice\nLord Angelo hath to the public ear\nProfess'd the contrary.\nThis is his lordship's man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd here comes Claudio's pardon.\n\nMessenger:\n\nProvost:\nI shall obey him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nProvost:\nI told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss\nin mine office, awakens me with this unwonted\nputting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPray you, let's hear.\n\nProvost:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the\nafternoon?\n\nProvost:\nA Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one\nthat is a prisoner nine years old.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow came it that the absent duke had not either\ndelivered him to his liberty or executed him? I\nhave heard it was ever his manner to do so.\n\nProvost:\nHis friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,\nindeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord\nAngelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is now apparent?\n\nProvost:\nMost manifest, and not denied by himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHath he born himself penitently in prison? how\nseems he to be touched?\n\nProvost:\nA man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but\nas a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless\nof what's past, present, or to come; insensible of\nmortality, and desperately mortal.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe wants advice.\n\nProvost:\nHe will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty\nof the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he\nwould not: drunk many times a day, if not many days\nentirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if\nto carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming\nwarrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMore of him anon. There is written in your brow,\nprovost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not\ntruly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the\nboldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.\nClaudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is\nno greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath\nsentenced him. To make you understand this in a\nmanifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;\nfor the which you are to do me both a present and a\ndangerous courtesy.\n\nProvost:\nPray, sir, in what?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIn the delaying death.\n\nProvost:\nA lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,\nand an express command, under penalty, to deliver\nhis head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case\nas Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my\ninstructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine\nbe this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nAngelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.\nShave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was\nthe desire of the penitent to be so bared before his\ndeath: you know the course is common. If any thing\nfall to you upon this, more than thanks and good\nfortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead\nagainst it with my life.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, good father; it is against my oath.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWere you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?\n\nProvost:\nTo him, and to his substitutes.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou will think you have made no offence, if the duke\navouch the justice of your dealing?\n\nProvost:\nBut what likelihood is in that?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see\nyou fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor\npersuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go\nfurther than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.\nLook you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the\nduke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the\nsignet is not strange to you.\n\nProvost:\nI know them both.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe contents of this is the return of the duke: you\nshall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you\nshall find, within these two days he will be here.\nThis is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this\nvery day receives letters of strange tenor;\nperchance of the duke's death; perchance entering\ninto some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what\nis writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the\nshepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these\nthings should be: all difficulties are but easy\nwhen they are known. Call your executioner, and off\nwith Barnardine's head: I will give him a present\nshrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you\nare amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you.\nCome away; it is almost clear dawn.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI am as well acquainted here as I was in our house\nof profession: one would think it were Mistress\nOverdone's own house, for here be many of her old\ncustomers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in\nfor a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,\nninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made\nfive marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not\nmuch in request, for the old women were all dead.\nThen is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of\nMaster Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of\npeach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a\nbeggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young\nMaster Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master\nStarve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young\nDrop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master\nForthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the\ngreat traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed\nPots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in\nour trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'\n\nABHORSON:\nSirrah, bring Barnardine hither.\n\nPOMPEY:\nMaster Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.\nMaster Barnardine!\n\nABHORSON:\nWhat, ho, Barnardine!\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nPOMPEY:\nYour friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so\ngood, sir, to rise and be put to death.\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nABHORSON:\nTell him he must awake, and that quickly too.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are\nexecuted, and sleep afterwards.\n\nABHORSON:\nGo in to him, and fetch him out.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.\n\nABHORSON:\nIs the axe upon the block, sirrah?\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery ready, sir.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nHow now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?\n\nABHORSON:\nTruly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your\nprayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nYou rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not\nfitted for 't.\n\nPOMPEY:\nO, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,\nand is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the\nsounder all the next day.\n\nABHORSON:\nLook you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do\nwe jest now, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily\nyou are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort\nyou and pray with you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nFriar, not I I have been drinking hard all night,\nand I will have more time to prepare me, or they\nshall beat out my brains with billets: I will not\nconsent to die this day, that's certain.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you\nLook forward on the journey you shall go.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nI swear I will not die to-day for any man's\npersuasion.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut hear you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nNot a word: if you have any thing to say to me,\ncome to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUnfit to live or die: O gravel heart!\nAfter him, fellows; bring him to the block.\n\nProvost:\nNow, sir, how do you find the prisoner?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA creature unprepared, unmeet for death;\nAnd to transport him in the mind he is\nWere damnable.\n\nProvost:\nHere in the prison, father,\nThere died this morning of a cruel fever\nOne Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,\nA man of Claudio's years; his beard and head\nJust of his colour. What if we do omit\nThis reprobate till he were well inclined;\nAnd satisfy the deputy with the visage\nOf Ragozine, more like to Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!\nDispatch it presently; the hour draws on\nPrefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,\nAnd sent according to command; whiles I\nPersuade this rude wretch willingly to die.\n\nProvost:\nThis shall be done, good father, presently.\nBut Barnardine must die this afternoon:\nAnd how shall we continue Claudio,\nTo save me from the danger that might come\nIf he were known alive?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLet this be done.\nPut them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:\nEre twice the sun hath made his journal greeting\nTo the under generation, you shall find\nYour safety manifested.\n\nProvost:\nI am your free dependant.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nQuick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.\nNow will I write letters to Angelo,--\nThe provost, he shall bear them, whose contents\nShall witness to him I am near at home,\nAnd that, by great injunctions, I am bound\nTo enter publicly: him I'll desire\nTo meet me at the consecrated fount\nA league below the city; and from thence,\nBy cold gradation and well-balanced form,\nWe shall proceed with Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nHere is the head; I'll carry it myself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nConvenient is it. Make a swift return;\nFor I would commune with you of such things\nThat want no ear but yours.\n\nProvost:\nI'll make all speed.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe tongue of Isabel. She's come to know\nIf yet her brother's pardon be come hither:\nBut I will keep her ignorant of her good,\nTo make her heavenly comforts of despair,\nWhen it is least expected.\n\nISABELLA:\nHo, by your leave!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.\n\nISABELLA:\nThe better, given me by so holy a man.\nHath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe hath released him, Isabel, from the world:\nHis head is off and sent to Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nNay, but it is not so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,\nIn your close patience.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou shall not be admitted to his sight.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!\nInjurious world! most damned Angelo!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;\nForbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.\nMark what I say, which you shall find\nBy every syllable a faithful verity:\nThe duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;\nOne of our convent, and his confessor,\nGives me this instance: already he hath carried\nNotice to Escalus and Angelo,\nWho do prepare to meet him at the gates,\nThere to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom\nIn that good path that I would wish it go,\nAnd you shall have your bosom on this wretch,\nGrace of the duke, revenges to your heart,\nAnd general honour.\n\nISABELLA:\nI am directed by you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis letter, then, to Friar Peter give;\n'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return:\nSay, by this token, I desire his company\nAt Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours\nI'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you\nBefore the duke, and to the head of Angelo\nAccuse him home and home. For my poor self,\nI am combined by a sacred vow\nAnd shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:\nCommand these fretting waters from your eyes\nWith a light heart; trust not my holy order,\nIf I pervert your course. Who's here?\n\nLUCIO:\nGood even. Friar, where's the provost?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot within, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nO pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see\nthine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain\nto dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for\nmy head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set\nme to 't. But they say the duke will be here\nto-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:\nif the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been\nat home, he had lived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your\nreports; but the best is, he lives not in them.\n\nLUCIO:\nFriar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:\nhe's a better woodman than thou takest him for.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWell, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, tarry; I'll go along with thee\nI can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou have told me too many of him already, sir, if\nthey be true; if not true, none were enough.\n\nLUCIO:\nI was once before him for getting a wench with child.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDid you such a thing?\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;\nthey would else have married me to the rotten medlar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.\n\nLUCIO:\nBy my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:\nif bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of\nit. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.\n\nESCALUS:\nEvery letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.\n\nANGELO:\nIn most uneven and distracted manner. His actions\nshow much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be\nnot tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and\nredeliver our authorities there\n\nESCALUS:\nI guess not.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd why should we proclaim it in an hour before his\nentering, that if any crave redress of injustice,\nthey should exhibit their petitions in the street?\n\nESCALUS:\nHe shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of\ncomplaints, and to deliver us from devices\nhereafter, which shall then have no power to stand\nagainst us.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes\ni' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give\nnotice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet\nhim.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall, sir. Fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nGood night.\nThis deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant\nAnd dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!\nAnd by an eminent body that enforced\nThe law against it! But that her tender shame\nWill not proclaim against her maiden loss,\nHow might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;\nFor my authority bears of a credent bulk,\nThat no particular scandal once can touch\nBut it confounds the breather. He should have lived,\nSave that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,\nMight in the times to come have ta'en revenge,\nBy so receiving a dishonour'd life\nWith ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!\nA lack, when once our grace we have forgot,\nNothing goes right: we would, and we would not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThese letters at fit time deliver me\nThe provost knows our purpose and our plot.\nThe matter being afoot, keep your instruction,\nAnd hold you ever to our special drift;\nThough sometimes you do blench from this to that,\nAs cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house,\nAnd tell him where I stay: give the like notice\nTo Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,\nAnd bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;\nBut send me Flavius first.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nIt shall be speeded well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:\nCome, we will walk. There's other of our friends\nWill greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo speak so indirectly I am loath:\nI would say the truth; but to accuse him so,\nThat is your part: yet I am advised to do it;\nHe says, to veil full purpose.\n\nMARIANA:\nBe ruled by him.\n\nISABELLA:\nBesides, he tells me that, if peradventure\nHe speak against me on the adverse side,\nI should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic\nThat's bitter to sweet end.\n\nMARIANA:\nI would Friar Peter--\n\nISABELLA:\nO, peace! the friar is come.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nCome, I have found you out a stand most fit,\nWhere you may have such vantage on the duke,\nHe shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;\nThe generous and gravest citizens\nHave hent the gates, and very near upon\nThe duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy very worthy cousin, fairly met!\nOur old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.\n\nANGELO:\nHappy return be to your royal grace!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany and hearty thankings to you both.\nWe have made inquiry of you; and we hear\nSuch goodness of your justice, that our soul\nCannot but yield you forth to public thanks,\nForerunning more requital.\n\nANGELO:\nYou make my bonds still greater.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,\nTo lock it in the wards of covert bosom,\nWhen it deserves, with characters of brass,\nA forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time\nAnd razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,\nAnd let the subject see, to make them know\nThat outward courtesies would fain proclaim\nFavours that keep within. Come, Escalus,\nYou must walk by us on our other hand;\nAnd good supporters are you.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nNow is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.\n\nISABELLA:\nJustice, O royal duke! Vail your regard\nUpon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!\nO worthy prince, dishonour not your eye\nBy throwing it on any other object\nTill you have heard me in my true complaint\nAnd given me justice, justice, justice, justice!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRelate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.\nHere is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:\nReveal yourself to him.\n\nISABELLA:\nO worthy duke,\nYou bid me seek redemption of the devil:\nHear me yourself; for that which I must speak\nMust either punish me, not being believed,\nOr wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:\nShe hath been a suitor to me for her brother\nCut off by course of justice,--\n\nISABELLA:\nBy course of justice!\n\nANGELO:\nAnd she will speak most bitterly and strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:\nThat Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?\nThat Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?\nThat Angelo is an adulterous thief,\nAn hypocrite, a virgin-violator;\nIs it not strange and strange?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, it is ten times strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nIt is not truer he is Angelo\nThan this is all as true as it is strange:\nNay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth\nTo the end of reckoning.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAway with her! Poor soul,\nShe speaks this in the infirmity of sense.\n\nISABELLA:\nO prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest\nThere is another comfort than this world,\nThat thou neglect me not, with that opinion\nThat I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible\nThat which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible\nBut one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,\nMay seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute\nAs Angelo; even so may Angelo,\nIn all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,\nBe an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:\nIf he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,\nHad I more name for badness.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy mine honesty,\nIf she be mad,--as I believe no other,--\nHer madness hath the oddest frame of sense,\nSuch a dependency of thing on thing,\nAs e'er I heard in madness.\n\nISABELLA:\nO gracious duke,\nHarp not on that, nor do not banish reason\nFor inequality; but let your reason serve\nTo make the truth appear where it seems hid,\nAnd hide the false seems true.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany that are not mad\nHave, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am the sister of one Claudio,\nCondemn'd upon the act of fornication\nTo lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:\nI, in probation of a sisterhood,\nWas sent to by my brother; one Lucio\nAs then the messenger,--\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's I, an't like your grace:\nI came to her from Claudio, and desired her\nTo try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo\nFor her poor brother's pardon.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat's he indeed.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou were not bid to speak.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, my good lord;\nNor wish'd to hold my peace.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI wish you now, then;\nPray you, take note of it: and when you have\nA business for yourself, pray heaven you then\nBe perfect.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant your honour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe warrants for yourself; take heed to't.\n\nISABELLA:\nThis gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--\n\nLUCIO:\nRight.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt may be right; but you are i' the wrong\nTo speak before your time. Proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nI went\nTo this pernicious caitiff deputy,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat's somewhat madly spoken.\n\nISABELLA:\nPardon it;\nThe phrase is to the matter.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMended again. The matter; proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nIn brief, to set the needless process by,\nHow I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,\nHow he refell'd me, and how I replied,--\nFor this was of much length,--the vile conclusion\nI now begin with grief and shame to utter:\nHe would not, but by gift of my chaste body\nTo his concupiscible intemperate lust,\nRelease my brother; and, after much debatement,\nMy sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,\nAnd I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,\nHis purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant\nFor my poor brother's head.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is most likely!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, that it were as like as it is true!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,\nOr else thou art suborn'd against his honour\nIn hateful practise. First, his integrity\nStands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason\nThat with such vehemency he should pursue\nFaults proper to himself: if he had so offended,\nHe would have weigh'd thy brother by himself\nAnd not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:\nConfess the truth, and say by whose advice\nThou camest here to complain.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd is this all?\nThen, O you blessed ministers above,\nKeep me in patience, and with ripen'd time\nUnfold the evil which is here wrapt up\nIn countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,\nAs I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!\nTo prison with her! Shall we thus permit\nA blasting and a scandalous breath to fall\nOn him so near us? This needs must be a practise.\nWho knew of Your intent and coming hither?\n\nISABELLA:\nOne that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;\nI do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord\nFor certain words he spake against your grace\nIn your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWords against me? this is a good friar, belike!\nAnd to set on this wretched woman here\nAgainst our substitute! Let this friar be found.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,\nI saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,\nA very scurvy fellow.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nBlessed be your royal grace!\nI have stood by, my lord, and I have heard\nYour royal ear abused. First, hath this woman\nMost wrongfully accused your substitute,\nWho is as free from touch or soil with her\nAs she from one ungot.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe did believe no less.\nKnow you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nI know him for a man divine and holy;\nNot scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,\nAs he's reported by this gentleman;\nAnd, on my trust, a man that never yet\nDid, as he vouches, misreport your grace.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, most villanously; believe it.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWell, he in time may come to clear himself;\nBut at this instant he is sick my lord,\nOf a strange fever. Upon his mere request,\nBeing come to knowledge that there was complaint\nIntended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,\nTo speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know\nIs true and false; and what he with his oath\nAnd all probation will make up full clear,\nWhensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.\nTo justify this worthy nobleman,\nSo vulgarly and personally accused,\nHer shall you hear disproved to her eyes,\nTill she herself confess it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood friar, let's hear it.\nDo you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?\nO heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!\nGive us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;\nIn this I'll be impartial; be you judge\nOf your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?\nFirst, let her show her face, and after speak.\n\nMARIANA:\nPardon, my lord; I will not show my face\nUntil my husband bid me.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, are you married?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre you a maid?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA widow, then?\n\nMARIANA:\nNeither, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are\nneither maid, widow, nor wife.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSilence that fellow: I would he had some cause\nTo prattle for himself.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;\nAnd I confess besides I am no maid:\nI have known my husband; yet my husband\nKnows not that ever he knew me.\n\nLUCIO:\nHe was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is no witness for Lord Angelo.\n\nMARIANA:\nNow I come to't my lord\nShe that accuses him of fornication,\nIn self-same manner doth accuse my husband,\nAnd charges him my lord, with such a time\nWhen I'll depose I had him in mine arms\nWith all the effect of love.\n\nANGELO:\nCharges she more than me?\n\nMARIANA:\nNot that I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo? you say your husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nWhy, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,\nWho thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,\nBut knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.\n\nANGELO:\nThis is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy husband bids me; now I will unmask.\nThis is that face, thou cruel Angelo,\nWhich once thou sworest was worth the looking on;\nThis is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,\nWas fast belock'd in thine; this is the body\nThat took away the match from Isabel,\nAnd did supply thee at thy garden-house\nIn her imagined person.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nKnow you this woman?\n\nLUCIO:\nCarnally, she says.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSirrah, no more!\n\nLUCIO:\nEnough, my lord.\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, I must confess I know this woman:\nAnd five years since there was some speech of marriage\nBetwixt myself and her; which was broke off,\nPartly for that her promised proportions\nCame short of composition, but in chief\nFor that her reputation was disvalued\nIn levity: since which time of five years\nI never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,\nUpon my faith and honour.\n\nMARIANA:\nNoble prince,\nAs there comes light from heaven and words from breath,\nAs there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,\nI am affianced this man's wife as strongly\nAs words could make up vows: and, my good lord,\nBut Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house\nHe knew me as a wife. As this is true,\nLet me in safety raise me from my knees\nOr else for ever be confixed here,\nA marble monument!\n\nANGELO:\nI did but smile till now:\nNow, good my lord, give me the scope of justice\nMy patience here is touch'd. I do perceive\nThese poor informal women are no more\nBut instruments of some more mightier member\nThat sets them on: let me have way, my lord,\nTo find this practise out.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAy, with my heart\nAnd punish them to your height of pleasure.\nThou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,\nCompact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,\nThough they would swear down each particular saint,\nWere testimonies against his worth and credit\nThat's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,\nSit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains\nTo find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.\nThere is another friar that set them on;\nLet him be sent for.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWould he were here, my lord! for he indeed\nHath set the women on to this complaint:\nYour provost knows the place where he abides\nAnd he may fetch him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo do it instantly.\nAnd you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,\nWhom it concerns to hear this matter forth,\nDo with your injuries as seems you best,\nIn any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;\nBut stir not you till you have well determined\nUpon these slanderers.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, we'll do it throughly.\nSignior Lucio, did not you say you knew that\nFriar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing\nbut in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most\nvillanous speeches of the duke.\n\nESCALUS:\nWe shall entreat you to abide here till he come and\nenforce them against him: we shall find this friar a\nnotable fellow.\n\nLUCIO:\nAs any in Vienna, on my word.\n\nESCALUS:\nCall that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.\nPray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you\nshall see how I'll handle her.\n\nLUCIO:\nNot better than he, by her own report.\n\nESCALUS:\nSay you?\n\nLUCIO:\nMarry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,\nshe would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,\nshe'll be ashamed.\n\nESCALUS:\nI will go darkly to work with her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's the way; for women are light at midnight.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all\nthat you have said.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with\nthe provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nIn very good time: speak not you to him till we\ncall upon you.\n\nLUCIO:\nMum.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, sir: did you set these women on to slander\nLord Angelo? they have confessed you did.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis false.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow! know you where you are?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRespect to your great place! and let the devil\nBe sometime honour'd for his burning throne!\nWhere is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.\n\nESCALUS:\nThe duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:\nLook you speak justly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBoldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,\nCome you to seek the lamb here of the fox?\nGood night to your redress! Is the duke gone?\nThen is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust,\nThus to retort your manifest appeal,\nAnd put your trial in the villain's mouth\nWhich here you come to accuse.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,\nIs't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women\nTo accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth\nAnd in the witness of his proper ear,\nTo call him villain? and then to glance from him\nTo the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?\nTake him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you\nJoint by joint, but we will know his purpose.\nWhat 'unjust'!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe not so hot; the duke\nDare no more stretch this finger of mine than he\nDare rack his own: his subject am I not,\nNor here provincial. My business in this state\nMade me a looker on here in Vienna,\nWhere I have seen corruption boil and bubble\nTill it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults,\nBut faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes\nStand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\nAs much in mock as mark.\n\nESCALUS:\nSlander to the state! Away with him to prison!\n\nANGELO:\nWhat can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?\nIs this the man that you did tell us of?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:\ndo you know me?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I\nmet you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMost notedly, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a\nfool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make\nthat my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and\nmuch more, much worse.\n\nLUCIO:\nO thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the\nnose for thy speeches?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI protest I love the duke as I love myself.\n\nANGELO:\nHark, how the villain would close now, after his\ntreasonable abuses!\n\nESCALUS:\nSuch a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with\nhim to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him\nto prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him\nspeak no more. Away with those giglots too, and\nwith the other confederate companion!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhat, resists he? Help him, Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you\nbald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must\nyou? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!\nshow your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!\nWill't not off?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.\nFirst, provost, let me bail these gentle three.\nSneak not away, sir; for the friar and you\nMust have a word anon. Lay hold on him.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis may prove worse than hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nO my dread lord,\nI should be guiltier than my guiltiness,\nTo think I can be undiscernible,\nWhen I perceive your grace, like power divine,\nHath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,\nNo longer session hold upon my shame,\nBut let my trial be mine own confession:\nImmediate sentence then and sequent death\nIs all the grace I beg.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Mariana.\nSay, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?\n\nANGELO:\nI was, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo take her hence, and marry her instantly.\nDo you the office, friar; which consummate,\nReturn him here again. Go with him, provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour\nThan at the strangeness of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Isabel.\nYour friar is now your prince: as I was then\nAdvertising and holy to your business,\nNot changing heart with habit, I am still\nAttorney'd at your service.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, give me pardon,\nThat I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd\nYour unknown sovereignty!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pardon'd, Isabel:\nAnd now, dear maid, be you as free to us.\nYour brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;\nAnd you may marvel why I obscured myself,\nLabouring to save his life, and would not rather\nMake rash remonstrance of my hidden power\nThan let him so be lost. O most kind maid,\nIt was the swift celerity of his death,\nWhich I did think with slower foot came on,\nThat brain'd my purpose. But, peace be with him!\nThat life is better life, past fearing death,\nThan that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,\nSo happy is your brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor this new-married man approaching here,\nWhose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd\nYour well defended honour, you must pardon\nFor Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--\nBeing criminal, in double violation\nOf sacred chastity and of promise-breach\nThereon dependent, for your brother's life,--\nThe very mercy of the law cries out\nMost audible, even from his proper tongue,\n'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'\nHaste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;\nLike doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.\nThen, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;\nWhich, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.\nWe do condemn thee to the very block\nWhere Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.\nAway with him!\n\nMARIANA:\nO my most gracious lord,\nI hope you will not mock me with a husband.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is your husband mock'd you with a husband.\nConsenting to the safeguard of your honour,\nI thought your marriage fit; else imputation,\nFor that he knew you, might reproach your life\nAnd choke your good to come; for his possessions,\nAlthough by confiscation they are ours,\nWe do instate and widow you withal,\nTo buy you a better husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my dear lord,\nI crave no other, nor no better man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNever crave him; we are definitive.\n\nMARIANA:\nGentle my liege,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do but lose your labour.\nAway with him to death!\nNow, sir, to you.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;\nLend me your knees, and all my life to come\nI'll lend you all my life to do you service.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAgainst all sense you do importune her:\nShould she kneel down in mercy of this fact,\nHer brother's ghost his paved bed would break,\nAnd take her hence in horror.\n\nMARIANA:\nIsabel,\nSweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;\nHold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.\nThey say, best men are moulded out of faults;\nAnd, for the most, become much more the better\nFor being a little bad: so may my husband.\nO Isabel, will you not lend a knee?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe dies for Claudio's death.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost bounteous sir,\nLook, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,\nAs if my brother lived: I partly think\nA due sincerity govern'd his deeds,\nTill he did look on me: since it is so,\nLet him not die. My brother had but justice,\nIn that he did the thing for which he died:\nFor Angelo,\nHis act did not o'ertake his bad intent,\nAnd must be buried but as an intent\nThat perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;\nIntents but merely thoughts.\n\nMARIANA:\nMerely, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYour suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.\nI have bethought me of another fault.\nProvost, how came it Claudio was beheaded\nAt an unusual hour?\n\nProvost:\nIt was commanded so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHad you a special warrant for the deed?\n\nProvost:\nNo, my good lord; it was by private message.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor which I do discharge you of your office:\nGive up your keys.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, noble lord:\nI thought it was a fault, but knew it not;\nYet did repent me, after more advice;\nFor testimony whereof, one in the prison,\nThat should by private order else have died,\nI have reserved alive.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat's he?\n\nProvost:\nHis name is Barnardine.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI would thou hadst done so by Claudio.\nGo fetch him hither; let me look upon him.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am sorry, one so learned and so wise\nAs you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,\nShould slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.\nAnd lack of temper'd judgment afterward.\n\nANGELO:\nI am sorry that such sorrow I procure:\nAnd so deep sticks it in my penitent heart\nThat I crave death more willingly than mercy;\n'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhich is that Barnardine?\n\nProvost:\nThis, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere was a friar told me of this man.\nSirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.\nThat apprehends no further than this world,\nAnd squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:\nBut, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;\nAnd pray thee take this mercy to provide\nFor better times to come. Friar, advise him;\nI leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?\n\nProvost:\nThis is another prisoner that I saved.\nWho should have died when Claudio lost his head;\nAs like almost to Claudio as himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nLUCIO:\n'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the\ntrick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I\nhad rather it would please you I might be whipt.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhipt first, sir, and hanged after.\nProclaim it, provost, round about the city.\nIs any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,\nAs I have heard him swear himself there's one\nWhom he begot with child, let her appear,\nAnd he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,\nLet him be whipt and hang'd.\n\nLUCIO:\nI beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.\nYour highness said even now, I made you a duke:\ngood my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUpon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.\nThy slanders I forgive; and therewithal\nRemit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;\nAnd see our pleasure herein executed.\n\nLUCIO:\nMarrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,\nwhipping, and hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSlandering a prince deserves it.\nShe, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.\nJoy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:\nI have confess'd her and I know her virtue.\nThanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:\nThere's more behind that is more gratulate.\nThanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:\nWe shill employ thee in a worthier place.\nForgive him, Angelo, that brought you home\nThe head of Ragozine for Claudio's:\nThe offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,\nI have a motion much imports your good;\nWhereto if you'll a willing ear incline,\nWhat's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.\nSo, bring us to our palace; where we'll show\nWhat's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.\n\nSLY:\nI'll pheeze you, in faith.\n\nHostess:\nA pair of stocks, you rogue!\n\nSLY:\nYe are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in\nthe chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror.\nTherefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa!\n\nHostess:\nYou will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n\nSLY:\nNo, not a denier. Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold\nbed, and warm thee.\n\nHostess:\nI know my remedy; I must go fetch the\nthird--borough.\n\nSLY:\nThird, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him\nby law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,\nand kindly.\n\nLord:\nHuntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:\nBrach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;\nAnd couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.\nSaw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\nAt the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?\nI would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nWhy, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\nHe cried upon it at the merest loss\nAnd twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:\nTrust me, I take him for the better dog.\n\nLord:\nThou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,\nI would esteem him worth a dozen such.\nBut sup them well and look unto them all:\nTo-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLord:\nWhat's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nHe breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,\nThis were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n\nLord:\nO monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!\nGrim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\nSirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\nWhat think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\nWrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\nA most delicious banquet by his bed,\nAnd brave attendants near him when he wakes,\nWould not the beggar then forget himself?\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nBelieve me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nIt would seem strange unto him when he waked.\n\nLord:\nEven as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.\nThen take him up and manage well the jest:\nCarry him gently to my fairest chamber\nAnd hang it round with all my wanton pictures:\nBalm his foul head in warm distilled waters\nAnd burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:\nProcure me music ready when he wakes,\nTo make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\nAnd if he chance to speak, be ready straight\nAnd with a low submissive reverence\nSay 'What is it your honour will command?'\nLet one attend him with a silver basin\nFull of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers,\nAnother bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\nAnd say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\nSome one be ready with a costly suit\nAnd ask him what apparel he will wear;\nAnother tell him of his hounds and horse,\nAnd that his lady mourns at his disease:\nPersuade him that he hath been lunatic;\nAnd when he says he is, say that he dreams,\nFor he is nothing but a mighty lord.\nThis do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:\nIt will be pastime passing excellent,\nIf it be husbanded with modesty.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nMy lord, I warrant you we will play our part,\nAs he shall think by our true diligence\nHe is no less than what we say he is.\n\nLord:\nTake him up gently and to bed with him;\nAnd each one to his office when he wakes.\nSirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:\nBelike, some noble gentleman that means,\nTravelling some journey, to repose him here.\nHow now! who is it?\n\nServant:\nAn't please your honour, players\nThat offer service to your lordship.\n\nLord:\nBid them come near.\nNow, fellows, you are welcome.\n\nPlayers:\nWe thank your honour.\n\nLord:\nDo you intend to stay with me tonight?\n\nA Player:\nSo please your lordship to accept our duty.\n\nLord:\nWith all my heart. This fellow I remember,\nSince once he play'd a farmer's eldest son:\n'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well:\nI have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\nWas aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n\nA Player:\nI think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n\nLord:\n'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.\nWell, you are come to me in a happy time;\nThe rather for I have some sport in hand\nWherein your cunning can assist me much.\nThere is a lord will hear you play to-night:\nBut I am doubtful of your modesties;\nLest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,--\nFor yet his honour never heard a play--\nYou break into some merry passion\nAnd so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\nIf you should smile he grows impatient.\n\nA Player:\nFear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,\nWere he the veriest antic in the world.\n\nLord:\nGo, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\nAnd give them friendly welcome every one:\nLet them want nothing that my house affords.\nSirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,\nAnd see him dress'd in all suits like a lady:\nThat done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;\nAnd call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\nTell him from me, as he will win my love,\nHe bear himself with honourable action,\nSuch as he hath observed in noble ladies\nUnto their lords, by them accomplished:\nSuch duty to the drunkard let him do\nWith soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\nAnd say 'What is't your honour will command,\nWherein your lady and your humble wife\nMay show her duty and make known her love?'\nAnd then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\nAnd with declining head into his bosom,\nBid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd\nTo see her noble lord restored to health,\nWho for this seven years hath esteem'd him\nNo better than a poor and loathsome beggar:\nAnd if the boy have not a woman's gift\nTo rain a shower of commanded tears,\nAn onion will do well for such a shift,\nWhich in a napkin being close convey'd\nShall in despite enforce a watery eye.\nSee this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst:\nAnon I'll give thee more instructions.\nI know the boy will well usurp the grace,\nVoice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:\nI long to hear him call the drunkard husband,\nAnd how my men will stay themselves from laughter\nWhen they do homage to this simple peasant.\nI'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\nMay well abate the over-merry spleen\nWhich otherwise would grow into extremes.\n\nSLY:\nFor God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWill't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your honour taste of these conserves?\n\nThird Servant:\nWhat raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n\nSLY:\nI am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor\n'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if\nyou give me any conserves, give me conserves of\nbeef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I\nhave no more doublets than backs, no more stockings\nthan legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,\nsometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my\ntoes look through the over-leather.\n\nLord:\nHeaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\nO, that a mighty man of such descent,\nOf such possessions and so high esteem,\nShould be infused with so foul a spirit!\n\nSLY:\nWhat, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher\nSly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a\npedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a\nbear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker?\nAsk Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if\nshe know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence\non the score for sheer ale, score me up for the\nlyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not\nbestraught: here's--\n\nThird Servant:\nO, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n\nSecond Servant:\nO, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n\nLord:\nHence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\nAs beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\nO noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,\nCall home thy ancient thoughts from banishment\nAnd banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\nLook how thy servants do attend on thee,\nEach in his office ready at thy beck.\nWilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,\nAnd twenty caged nightingales do sing:\nOr wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch\nSofter and sweeter than the lustful bed\nOn purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\nSay thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:\nOr wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,\nTheir harness studded all with gold and pearl.\nDost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar\nAbove the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?\nThy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\nAnd fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.\n\nFirst Servant:\nSay thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift\nAs breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.\n\nSecond Servant:\nDost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight\nAdonis painted by a running brook,\nAnd Cytherea all in sedges hid,\nWhich seem to move and wanton with her breath,\nEven as the waving sedges play with wind.\n\nLord:\nWe'll show thee Io as she was a maid,\nAnd how she was beguiled and surprised,\nAs lively painted as the deed was done.\n\nThird Servant:\nOr Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\nScratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,\nAnd at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\nSo workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n\nLord:\nThou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:\nThou hast a lady far more beautiful\nThan any woman in this waning age.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAnd till the tears that she hath shed for thee\nLike envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\nShe was the fairest creature in the world;\nAnd yet she is inferior to none.\n\nSLY:\nAm I a lord? and have I such a lady?\nOr do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?\nI do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\nI smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:\nUpon my life, I am a lord indeed\nAnd not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.\nWell, bring our lady hither to our sight;\nAnd once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your mightiness to wash your hands?\nO, how we joy to see your wit restored!\nO, that once more you knew but what you are!\nThese fifteen years you have been in a dream;\nOr when you waked, so waked as if you slept.\n\nSLY:\nThese fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\nBut did I never speak of all that time?\n\nFirst Servant:\nO, yes, my lord, but very idle words:\nFor though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\nYet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\nAnd rail upon the hostess of the house;\nAnd say you would present her at the leet,\nBecause she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts:\nSometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n\nSLY:\nAy, the woman's maid of the house.\n\nThird Servant:\nWhy, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\nNor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\nAs Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece\nAnd Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell\nAnd twenty more such names and men as these\nWhich never were nor no man ever saw.\n\nSLY:\nNow Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n\nALL:\nAmen.\n\nSLY:\nI thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.\n\nPage:\nHow fares my noble lord?\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.\nWhere is my wife?\n\nPage:\nHere, noble lord: what is thy will with her?\n\nSLY:\nAre you my wife and will not call me husband?\nMy men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman.\n\nPage:\nMy husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\nI am your wife in all obedience.\n\nSLY:\nI know it well. What must I call her?\n\nLord:\nMadam.\n\nSLY:\nAl'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n\nLord:\n'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords\ncall ladies.\n\nSLY:\nMadam wife, they say that I have dream'd\nAnd slept above some fifteen year or more.\n\nPage:\nAy, and the time seems thirty unto me,\nBeing all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\nMadam, undress you and come now to bed.\n\nPage:\nThrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\nTo pardon me yet for a night or two,\nOr, if not so, until the sun be set:\nFor your physicians have expressly charged,\nIn peril to incur your former malady,\nThat I should yet absent me from your bed:\nI hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n\nSLY:\nAy, it stands so that I may hardly\ntarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into\nmy dreams again: I will therefore tarry in\ndespite of the flesh and the blood.\n\nMessenger:\nYour honour's players, heating your amendment,\nAre come to play a pleasant comedy;\nFor so your doctors hold it very meet,\nSeeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\nAnd melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:\nTherefore they thought it good you hear a play\nAnd frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\nWhich bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I will, let them play it. Is not a\ncomondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n\nPage:\nNo, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.\n\nSLY:\nWhat, household stuff?\n\nPage:\nIt is a kind of history.\n\nSLY:\nWell, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side\nand let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, since for the great desire I had\nTo see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\nI am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,\nThe pleasant garden of great Italy;\nAnd by my father's love and leave am arm'd\nWith his good will and thy good company,\nMy trusty servant, well approved in all,\nHere let us breathe and haply institute\nA course of learning and ingenious studies.\nPisa renown'd for grave citizens\nGave me my being and my father first,\nA merchant of great traffic through the world,\nVincetino come of Bentivolii.\nVincetino's son brought up in Florence\nIt shall become to serve all hopes conceived,\nTo deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:\nAnd therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\nVirtue and that part of philosophy\nWill I apply that treats of happiness\nBy virtue specially to be achieved.\nTell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\nAnd am to Padua come, as he that leaves\nA shallow plash to plunge him in the deep\nAnd with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n\nTRANIO:\nMi perdonato, gentle master mine,\nI am in all affected as yourself;\nGlad that you thus continue your resolve\nTo suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\nOnly, good master, while we do admire\nThis virtue and this moral discipline,\nLet's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;\nOr so devote to Aristotle's cheques\nAs Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:\nBalk logic with acquaintance that you have\nAnd practise rhetoric in your common talk;\nMusic and poesy use to quicken you;\nThe mathematics and the metaphysics,\nFall to them as you find your stomach serves you;\nNo profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:\nIn brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\nIf, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\nWe could at once put us in readiness,\nAnd take a lodging fit to entertain\nSuch friends as time in Padua shall beget.\nBut stay a while: what company is this?\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, some show to welcome us to town.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, importune me no farther,\nFor how I firmly am resolved you know;\nThat is, not bestow my youngest daughter\nBefore I have a husband for the elder:\nIf either of you both love Katharina,\nBecause I know you well and love you well,\nLeave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n\nGREMIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, sir, is it your will\nTo make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,\nUnless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:\nI wis it is not half way to her heart;\nBut if it were, doubt not her care should be\nTo comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool\nAnd paint your face and use you like a fool.\n\nHORTENSIA:\nFrom all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd me too, good Lord!\n\nTRANIO:\nHush, master! here's some good pastime toward:\nThat wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut in the other's silence do I see\nMaid's mild behavior and sobriety.\nPeace, Tranio!\n\nTRANIO:\nWell said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, that I may soon make good\nWhat I have said, Bianca, get you in:\nAnd let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\nFor I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA pretty peat! it is best\nPut finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n\nBIANCA:\nSister, content you in my discontent.\nSir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:\nMy books and instruments shall be my company,\nOn them to took and practise by myself.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Baptista, will you be so strange?\nSorry am I that our good will effects\nBianca's grief.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy will you mew her up,\nSignior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\nAnd make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, content ye; I am resolved:\nGo in, Bianca:\nAnd for I know she taketh most delight\nIn music, instruments and poetry,\nSchoolmasters will I keep within my house,\nFit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\nOr Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\nPrefer them hither; for to cunning men\nI will be very kind, and liberal\nTo mine own children in good bringing up:\nAnd so farewell. Katharina, you may stay;\nFor I have more to commune with Bianca.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,\nshall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I\nknew not what to take and what to leave, ha?\n\nGREMIO:\nYou may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so\ngood, here's none will hold you. Their love is not\nso great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails\ntogether, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on\nboth sides. Farewell: yet for the love I bear my\nsweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit\nman to teach her that wherein she delights, I will\nwish him to her father.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSo will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.\nThough the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked\nparle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,\nthat we may yet again have access to our fair\nmistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to\nlabour and effect one thing specially.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat's that, I pray?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMarry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n\nGREMIO:\nA husband! a devil.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI say, a husband.\n\nGREMIO:\nI say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though\nher father be very rich, any man is so very a fool\nto be married to hell?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine\nto endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good\nfellows in the world, an a man could light on them,\nwould take her with all faults, and money enough.\n\nGREMIO:\nI cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with\nthis condition, to be whipped at the high cross\nevery morning.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFaith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\napples. But come; since this bar in law makes us\nfriends, it shall be so far forth friendly\nmaintained all by helping Baptista's eldest daughter\nto a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,\nand then have to't a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man\nbe his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.\nHow say you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nI am agreed; and would I had given him the best\nhorse in Padua to begin his wooing that would\nthoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the\nhouse of her! Come on.\n\nTRANIO:\nI pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\nThat love should of a sudden take such hold?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO Tranio, till I found it to be true,\nI never thought it possible or likely;\nBut see, while idly I stood looking on,\nI found the effect of love in idleness:\nAnd now in plainness do confess to thee,\nThat art to me as secret and as dear\nAs Anna to the queen of Carthage was,\nTranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\nIf I achieve not this young modest girl.\nCounsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\nAssist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, it is no time to chide you now;\nAffection is not rated from the heart:\nIf love have touch'd you, nought remains but so,\n'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:\nThe rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, you look'd so longly on the maid,\nPerhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\nSuch as the daughter of Agenor had,\nThat made great Jove to humble him to her hand.\nWhen with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n\nTRANIO:\nSaw you no more? mark'd you not how her sister\nBegan to scold and raise up such a storm\nThat mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, I saw her coral lips to move\nAnd with her breath she did perfume the air:\nSacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n\nTRANIO:\nNay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\nI pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,\nBend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\nHer eldest sister is so curst and shrewd\nThat till the father rid his hands of her,\nMaster, your love must live a maid at home;\nAnd therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\nBecause she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAh, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\nBut art thou not advised, he took some care\nTo get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI have it, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, for my hand,\nBoth our inventions meet and jump in one.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTell me thine first.\n\nTRANIO:\nYou will be schoolmaster\nAnd undertake the teaching of the maid:\nThat's your device.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nIt is: may it be done?\n\nTRANIO:\nNot possible; for who shall bear your part,\nAnd be in Padua here Vincentio's son,\nKeep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\nVisit his countrymen and banquet them?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBasta; content thee, for I have it full.\nWe have not yet been seen in any house,\nNor can we lie distinguish'd by our faces\nFor man or master; then it follows thus;\nThou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\nKeep house and port and servants as I should:\nI will some other be, some Florentine,\nSome Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n'Tis hatch'd and shall be so: Tranio, at once\nUncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak:\nWhen Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\nBut I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n\nTRANIO:\nSo had you need.\nIn brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\nAnd I am tied to be obedient;\nFor so your father charged me at our parting,\n'Be serviceable to my son,' quoth he,\nAlthough I think 'twas in another sense;\nI am content to be Lucentio,\nBecause so well I love Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, be so, because Lucentio loves:\nAnd let me be a slave, to achieve that maid\nWhose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\nHere comes the rogue.\nSirrah, where have you been?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhere have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\nMaster, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or\nyou stolen his? or both? pray, what's the news?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest,\nAnd therefore frame your manners to the time.\nYour fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\nPuts my apparel and my countenance on,\nAnd I for my escape have put on his;\nFor in a quarrel since I came ashore\nI kill'd a man and fear I was descried:\nWait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\nWhile I make way from hence to save my life:\nYou understand me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI, sir! ne'er a whit.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\nTranio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe better for him: would I were so too!\n\nTRANIO:\nSo could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\nThat Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\nBut, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise\nYou use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:\nWhen I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\nBut in all places else your master Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, let's go: one thing more rests, that\nthyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if\nthou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good\nand weighty.\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n\nSLY:\nYes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely:\ncomes there any more of it?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, 'tis but begun.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady:\nwould 'twere done!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVerona, for a while I take my leave,\nTo see my friends in Padua, but of all\nMy best beloved and approved friend,\nHortensio; and I trow this is his house.\nHere, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has\nrebused your worship?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that\nI should knock you here, sir?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me at this gate\nAnd rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n\nGRUMIO:\nMy master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock\nyou first,\nAnd then I know after who comes by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill it not be?\nFaith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it;\nI'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHelp, masters, help! my master is mad.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHow now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio!\nand my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n'Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato,' may I say.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor\nmio Petruchio.' Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound\nthis quarrel.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin.\nif this be not a lawful case for me to leave his\nservice, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap\nhim soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to\nuse his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,\ntwo and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had\nwell knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\nI bade the rascal knock upon your gate\nAnd could not get him for my heart to do it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these\nwords plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,\nknock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you\nnow with, 'knocking at the gate'?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge:\nWhy, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\nYour ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\nAnd tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\nBlows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSuch wind as scatters young men through the world,\nTo seek their fortunes farther than at home\nWhere small experience grows. But in a few,\nSignior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\nAntonio, my father, is deceased;\nAnd I have thrust myself into this maze,\nHaply to wive and thrive as best I may:\nCrowns in my purse I have and goods at home,\nAnd so am come abroad to see the world.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\nAnd wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\nThou'ldst thank me but a little for my counsel:\nAnd yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich\nAnd very rich: but thou'rt too much my friend,\nAnd I'll not wish thee to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\nFew words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\nOne rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\nAs wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\nBe she as foul as was Florentius' love,\nAs old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd\nAs Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,\nShe moves me not, or not removes, at least,\nAffection's edge in me, were she as rough\nAs are the swelling Adriatic seas:\nI come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\nIf wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his\nmind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to\na puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er\na tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases\nas two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss,\nso money comes withal.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\nI will continue that I broach'd in jest.\nI can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\nWith wealth enough and young and beauteous,\nBrought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:\nHer only fault, and that is faults enough,\nIs that she is intolerable curst\nAnd shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure\nThat, were my state far worser than it is,\nI would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect:\nTell me her father's name and 'tis enough;\nFor I will board her, though she chide as loud\nAs thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHer father is Baptista Minola,\nAn affable and courteous gentleman:\nHer name is Katharina Minola,\nRenown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know her father, though I know not her;\nAnd he knew my deceased father well.\nI will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\nAnd therefore let me be thus bold with you\nTo give you over at this first encounter,\nUnless you will accompany me thither.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts.\nO' my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she\nwould think scolding would do little good upon him:\nshe may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so:\nwhy, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in\nhis rope-tricks. I'll tell you what sir, an she\nstand him but a little, he will throw a figure in\nher face and so disfigure her with it that she\nshall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.\nYou know him not, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\nFor in Baptista's keep my treasure is:\nHe hath the jewel of my life in hold,\nHis youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca,\nAnd her withholds from me and other more,\nSuitors to her and rivals in my love,\nSupposing it a thing impossible,\nFor those defects I have before rehearsed,\nThat ever Katharina will be woo'd;\nTherefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\nThat none shall have access unto Bianca\nTill Katharina the curst have got a husband.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKatharina the curst!\nA title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\nAnd offer me disguised in sober robes\nTo old Baptista as a schoolmaster\nWell seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\nThat so I may, by this device, at least\nHave leave and leisure to make love to her\nAnd unsuspected court her by herself.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks,\nhow the young folks lay their heads together!\nMaster, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPeace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love.\nPetruchio, stand by a while.\n\nGRUMIO:\nA proper stripling and an amorous!\n\nGREMIO:\nO, very well; I have perused the note.\nHark you, sir: I'll have them very fairly bound:\nAll books of love, see that at any hand;\nAnd see you read no other lectures to her:\nYou understand me: over and beside\nSignior Baptista's liberality,\nI'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\nAnd let me have them very well perfumed\nFor she is sweeter than perfume itself\nTo whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\nAs for my patron, stand you so assured,\nAs firmly as yourself were still in place:\nYea, and perhaps with more successful words\nThan you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n\nGREMIO:\nO this learning, what a thing it is!\n\nGRUMIO:\nO this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPeace, sirrah!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGrumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\nTrow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\nI promised to inquire carefully\nAbout a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:\nAnd by good fortune I have lighted well\nOn this young man, for learning and behavior\nFit for her turn, well read in poetry\nAnd other books, good ones, I warrant ye.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\nHath promised me to help me to another,\nA fine musician to instruct our mistress;\nSo shall I no whit be behind in duty\nTo fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n\nGREMIO:\nBeloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd that his bags shall prove.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love:\nListen to me, and if you speak me fair,\nI'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\nHere is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\nUpon agreement from us to his liking,\nWill undertake to woo curst Katharina,\nYea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n\nGREMIO:\nSo said, so done, is well.\nHortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know she is an irksome brawling scold:\nIf that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBorn in Verona, old Antonio's son:\nMy father dead, my fortune lives for me;\nAnd I do hope good days and long to see.\n\nGREMIO:\nO sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!\nBut if you have a stomach, to't i' God's name:\nYou shall have me assisting you in all.\nBut will you woo this wild-cat?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill I live?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWill he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy came I hither but to that intent?\nThink you a little din can daunt mine ears?\nHave I not in my time heard lions roar?\nHave I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds\nRage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\nHave I not heard great ordnance in the field,\nAnd heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\nHave I not in a pitched battle heard\nLoud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\nAnd do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\nThat gives not half so great a blow to hear\nAs will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?\nTush, tush! fear boys with bugs.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFor he fears none.\n\nGREMIO:\nHortensio, hark:\nThis gentleman is happily arrived,\nMy mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI promised we would be contributors\nAnd bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd so we will, provided that he win her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\nTRANIO:\nGentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,\nTell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\nTo the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe that has the two fair daughters: is't he you mean?\n\nTRANIO:\nEven he, Biondello.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark you, sir; you mean not her to--\n\nTRANIO:\nPerhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n\nTRANIO:\nI love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell begun, Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, a word ere you go;\nAre you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n\nGREMIO:\nNo; if without more words you will get you hence.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\nFor me as for you?\n\nGREMIO:\nBut so is not she.\n\nTRANIO:\nFor what reason, I beseech you?\n\nGREMIO:\nFor this reason, if you'll know,\nThat she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSoftly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,\nDo me this right; hear me with patience.\nBaptista is a noble gentleman,\nTo whom my father is not all unknown;\nAnd were his daughter fairer than she is,\nShe may more suitors have and me for one.\nFair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\nThen well one more may fair Bianca have:\nAnd so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,\nThough Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat! this gentleman will out-talk us all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, to what end are all these words?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, let me be so bold as ask you,\nDid you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n\nTRANIO:\nNo, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,\nThe one as famous for a scolding tongue\nAs is the other for beauteous modesty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n\nGREMIO:\nYea, leave that labour to great Hercules;\nAnd let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, understand you this of me in sooth:\nThe youngest daughter whom you hearken for\nHer father keeps from all access of suitors,\nAnd will not promise her to any man\nUntil the elder sister first be wed:\nThe younger then is free and not before.\n\nTRANIO:\nIf it be so, sir, that you are the man\nMust stead us all and me amongst the rest,\nAnd if you break the ice and do this feat,\nAchieve the elder, set the younger free\nFor our access, whose hap shall be to have her\nWill not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, you say well and well you do conceive;\nAnd since you do profess to be a suitor,\nYou must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\nTo whom we all rest generally beholding.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof,\nPlease ye we may contrive this afternoon,\nAnd quaff carouses to our mistress' health,\nAnd do as adversaries do in law,\nStrive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n\nGRUMIO:\nO excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe motion's good indeed and be it so,\nPetruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.\n\nBIANCA:\nGood sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\nTo make a bondmaid and a slave of me;\nThat I disdain: but for these other gawds,\nUnbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\nYea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\nOr what you will command me will I do,\nSo well I know my duty to my elders.\n\nKATHARINA:\nOf all thy suitors, here I charge thee, tell\nWhom thou lovest best: see thou dissemble not.\n\nBIANCA:\nBelieve me, sister, of all the men alive\nI never yet beheld that special face\nWhich I could fancy more than any other.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMinion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n\nBIANCA:\nIf you affect him, sister, here I swear\nI'll plead for you myself, but you shall have\nhim.\n\nKATHARINA:\nO then, belike, you fancy riches more:\nYou will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n\nBIANCA:\nIs it for him you do envy me so?\nNay then you jest, and now I well perceive\nYou have but jested with me all this while:\nI prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf that be jest, then all the rest was so.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?\nBianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.\nGo ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\nFor shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,\nWhy dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\nWhen did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n\nKATHARINA:\nHer silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\nShe is your treasure, she must have a husband;\nI must dance bare-foot on her wedding day\nAnd for your love to her lead apes in hell.\nTalk not to me: I will go sit and weep\nTill I can find occasion of revenge.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWas ever gentleman thus grieved as I?\nBut who comes here?\n\nGREMIO:\nGood morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGood morrow, neighbour Gremio.\nGod save you, gentlemen!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\nCall'd Katharina, fair and virtuous?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.\n\nGREMIO:\nYou are too blunt: go to it orderly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.\nI am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\nThat, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\nHer affability and bashful modesty,\nHer wondrous qualities and mild behavior,\nAm bold to show myself a forward guest\nWithin your house, to make mine eye the witness\nOf that report which I so oft have heard.\nAnd, for an entrance to my entertainment,\nI do present you with a man of mine,\nCunning in music and the mathematics,\nTo instruct her fully in those sciences,\nWhereof I know she is not ignorant:\nAccept of him, or else you do me wrong:\nHis name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou're welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.\nBut for my daughter Katharina, this I know,\nShe is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI see you do not mean to part with her,\nOr else you like not of my company.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nMistake me not; I speak but as I find.\nWhence are you, sir? what may I call your name?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPetruchio is my name; Antonio's son,\nA man well known throughout all Italy.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know him well: you are welcome for his sake.\n\nGREMIO:\nSaving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\nLet us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:\nBaccare! you are marvellous forward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.\n\nGREMIO:\nI doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your\nwooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am\nsure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,\nthat have been more kindly beholding to you than\nany, freely give unto you this young scholar,\nthat hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning\nin Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other\nin music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,\naccept his service.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.\nWelcome, good Cambio.\nBut, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:\nmay I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n\nTRANIO:\nPardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,\nThat, being a stranger in this city here,\nDo make myself a suitor to your daughter,\nUnto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\nNor is your firm resolve unknown to me,\nIn the preferment of the eldest sister.\nThis liberty is all that I request,\nThat, upon knowledge of my parentage,\nI may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo\nAnd free access and favour as the rest:\nAnd, toward the education of your daughters,\nI here bestow a simple instrument,\nAnd this small packet of Greek and Latin books:\nIf you accept them, then their worth is great.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nLucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA mighty man of Pisa; by report\nI know him well: you are very welcome, sir,\nTake you the lute, and you the set of books;\nYou shall go see your pupils presently.\nHolla, within!\nSirrah, lead these gentlemen\nTo my daughters; and tell them both,\nThese are their tutors: bid them use them well.\nWe will go walk a little in the orchard,\nAnd then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\nAnd so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\nAnd every day I cannot come to woo.\nYou knew my father well, and in him me,\nLeft solely heir to all his lands and goods,\nWhich I have better'd rather than decreased:\nThen tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\nWhat dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAfter my death the one half of my lands,\nAnd in possession twenty thousand crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd, for that dowry, I'll assure her of\nHer widowhood, be it that she survive me,\nIn all my lands and leases whatsoever:\nLet specialties be therefore drawn between us,\nThat covenants may be kept on either hand.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\nThat is, her love; for that is all in all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,\nI am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\nAnd where two raging fires meet together\nThey do consume the thing that feeds their fury:\nThough little fire grows great with little wind,\nYet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:\nSo I to her and so she yields to me;\nFor I am rough and woo not like a babe.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!\nBut be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,\nThat shake not, though they blow perpetually.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI think she'll sooner prove a soldier\nIron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWhy, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\nI did but tell her she mistook her frets,\nAnd bow'd her hand to teach her fingering;\nWhen, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n'Frets, call you these?' quoth she; 'I'll fume\nwith them:'\nAnd, with that word, she struck me on the head,\nAnd through the instrument my pate made way;\nAnd there I stood amazed for a while,\nAs on a pillory, looking through the lute;\nWhile she did call me rascal fiddler\nAnd twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,\nAs had she studied to misuse me so.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\nI love her ten times more than e'er I did:\nO, how I long to have some chat with her!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, go with me and be not so discomfited:\nProceed in practise with my younger daughter;\nShe's apt to learn and thankful for good turns.\nSignior Petruchio, will you go with us,\nOr shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI pray you do.\nI will attend her here,\nAnd woo her with some spirit when she comes.\nSay that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain\nShe sings as sweetly as a nightingale:\nSay that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear\nAs morning roses newly wash'd with dew:\nSay she be mute and will not speak a word;\nThen I'll commend her volubility,\nAnd say she uttereth piercing eloquence:\nIf she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\nAs though she bid me stay by her a week:\nIf she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\nWhen I shall ask the banns and when be married.\nBut here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.\nGood morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\nThey call me Katharina that do talk of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,\nAnd bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;\nBut Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom\nKate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\nFor dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\nTake this of me, Kate of my consolation;\nHearing thy mildness praised in every town,\nThy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\nYet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\nMyself am moved to woo thee for my wife.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMoved! in good time: let him that moved you hither\nRemove you hence: I knew you at the first\nYou were a moveable.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, what's a moveable?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA join'd-stool.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThou hast hit it: come, sit on me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAsses are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWomen are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo such jade as you, if me you mean.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAlas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;\nFor, knowing thee to be but young and light--\n\nKATHARINA:\nToo light for such a swain as you to catch;\nAnd yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShould be! should--buzz!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMy remedy is then, to pluck it out.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, if the fool could find it where it lies,\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho knows not where a wasp does\nwear his sting? In his tail.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIn his tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhose tongue?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,\nGood Kate; I am a gentleman.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThat I'll try.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n\nKATHARINA:\nSo may you lose your arms:\nIf you strike me, you are no gentleman;\nAnd if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your crest? a coxcomb?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIt is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThere is, there is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThen show it me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHad I a glass, I would.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, you mean my face?\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell aim'd of such a young one.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYet you are wither'd.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis with cares.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI care not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNo, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.\n'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,\nAnd now I find report a very liar;\nFor thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\nBut slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:\nThou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\nNor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\nNor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,\nBut thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,\nWith gentle conference, soft and affable.\nWhy does the world report that Kate doth limp?\nO slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\nIs straight and slender and as brown in hue\nAs hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.\nO, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDid ever Dian so become a grove\nAs Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\nO, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\nAnd then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhere did you study all this goodly speech?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt is extempore, from my mother-wit.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA witty mother! witless else her son.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAm I not wise?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYes; keep you warm.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:\nAnd therefore, setting all this chat aside,\nThus in plain terms: your father hath consented\nThat you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;\nAnd, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.\nNow, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\nFor, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\nThy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,\nThou must be married to no man but me;\nFor I am he am born to tame you Kate,\nAnd bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\nConformable as other household Kates.\nHere comes your father: never make denial;\nI must and will have Katharina to my wife.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow but well, sir? how but well?\nIt were impossible I should speed amiss.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?\n\nKATHARINA:\nCall you me daughter? now, I promise you\nYou have show'd a tender fatherly regard,\nTo wish me wed to one half lunatic;\nA mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,\nThat thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world,\nThat talk'd of her, have talk'd amiss of her:\nIf she be curst, it is for policy,\nFor she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\nShe is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\nFor patience she will prove a second Grissel,\nAnd Roman Lucrece for her chastity:\nAnd to conclude, we have 'greed so well together,\nThat upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee\nhang'd first.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBe patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself:\nIf she and I be pleased, what's that to you?\n'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\nThat she shall still be curst in company.\nI tell you, 'tis incredible to believe\nHow much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!\nShe hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss\nShe vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\nThat in a twink she won me to her love.\nO, you are novices! 'tis a world to see,\nHow tame, when men and women are alone,\nA meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\nGive me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,\nTo buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\nProvide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\nI will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know not what to say: but give me your hands;\nGod send you joy, Petruchio! 'tis a match.\n\nGREMIO:\nAmen, say we: we will be witnesses.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;\nI will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:\nWe will have rings and things and fine array;\nAnd kiss me, Kate, we will be married o'Sunday.\n\nGREMIO:\nWas ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nFaith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\nAnd venture madly on a desperate mart.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you:\n'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nThe gain I seek is, quiet in the match.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\nBut now, Baptists, to your younger daughter:\nNow is the day we long have looked for:\nI am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd I am one that love Bianca more\nThan words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.\n\nGREMIO:\nYoungling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n\nTRANIO:\nGraybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n\nGREMIO:\nBut thine doth fry.\nSkipper, stand back: 'tis age that nourisheth.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nContent you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife:\n'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both\nThat can assure my daughter greatest dower\nShall have my Bianca's love.\nSay, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?\n\nGREMIO:\nFirst, as you know, my house within the city\nIs richly furnished with plate and gold;\nBasins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\nMy hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\nIn ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\nIn cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\nCostly apparel, tents, and canopies,\nFine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\nValance of Venice gold in needlework,\nPewter and brass and all things that belong\nTo house or housekeeping: then, at my farm\nI have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\nSixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,\nAnd all things answerable to this portion.\nMyself am struck in years, I must confess;\nAnd if I die to-morrow, this is hers,\nIf whilst I live she will be only mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\nI am my father's heir and only son:\nIf I may have your daughter to my wife,\nI'll leave her houses three or four as good,\nWithin rich Pisa walls, as any one\nOld Signior Gremio has in Padua;\nBesides two thousand ducats by the year\nOf fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\nWhat, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nTwo thousand ducats by the year of land!\nMy land amounts not to so much in all:\nThat she shall have; besides an argosy\nThat now is lying in Marseilles' road.\nWhat, have I choked you with an argosy?\n\nTRANIO:\nGremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\nThan three great argosies; besides two galliases,\nAnd twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her,\nAnd twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I have offer'd all, I have no more;\nAnd she can have no more than all I have:\nIf you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, then the maid is mine from all the world,\nBy your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI must confess your offer is the best;\nAnd, let your father make her the assurance,\nShe is your own; else, you must pardon me,\nif you should die before him, where's her dower?\n\nTRANIO:\nThat's but a cavil: he is old, I young.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd may not young men die, as well as old?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, gentlemen,\nI am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know\nMy daughter Katharina is to be married:\nNow, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca\nBe bride to you, if you this assurance;\nIf not, Signior Gremio:\nAnd so, I take my leave, and thank you both.\n\nGREMIO:\nAdieu, good neighbour.\nNow I fear thee not:\nSirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\nTo give thee all, and in his waning age\nSet foot under thy table: tut, a toy!\nAn old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.\n\nTRANIO:\nA vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide!\nYet I have faced it with a card of ten.\n'Tis in my head to do my master good:\nI see no reason but supposed Lucentio\nMust get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;'\nAnd that's a wonder: fathers commonly\nDo get their children; but in this case of wooing,\nA child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir:\nHave you so soon forgot the entertainment\nHer sister Katharina welcomed you withal?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut, wrangling pedant, this is\nThe patroness of heavenly harmony:\nThen give me leave to have prerogative;\nAnd when in music we have spent an hour,\nYour lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nPreposterous ass, that never read so far\nTo know the cause why music was ordain'd!\nWas it not to refresh the mind of man\nAfter his studies or his usual pain?\nThen give me leave to read philosophy,\nAnd while I pause, serve in your harmony.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,\nTo strive for that which resteth in my choice:\nI am no breeching scholar in the schools;\nI'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\nBut learn my lessons as I please myself.\nAnd, to cut off all strife, here sit we down:\nTake you your instrument, play you the whiles;\nHis lecture will be done ere you have tuned.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will be never: tune your instrument.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhere left we last?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere, madam:\n'Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;\nHic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n\nBIANCA:\nConstrue them.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Hic ibat,' as I told you before, 'Simois,' I am\nLucentio, 'hic est,' son unto Vincentio of Pisa,\n'Sigeia tellus,' disguised thus to get your love;\n'Hic steterat,' and that Lucentio that comes\na-wooing, 'Priami,' is my man Tranio, 'regia,'\nbearing my port, 'celsa senis,' that we might\nbeguile the old pantaloon.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, my instrument's in tune.\n\nBIANCA:\nLet's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSpit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n\nBIANCA:\nNow let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat\nSimois,' I know you not, 'hic est Sigeia tellus,' I\ntrust you not; 'Hic steterat Priami,' take heed\nhe hear us not, 'regia,' presume not, 'celsa senis,'\ndespair not.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, 'tis now in tune.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAll but the base.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe base is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\nHow fiery and forward our pedant is!\nNow, for my life, the knave doth court my love:\nPedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n\nBIANCA:\nIn time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistrust it not: for, sure, AEacides\nWas Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n\nBIANCA:\nI must believe my master; else, I promise you,\nI should be arguing still upon that doubt:\nBut let it rest. Now, Licio, to you:\nGood masters, take it not unkindly, pray,\nThat I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou may go walk, and give me leave a while:\nMy lessons make no music in three parts.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAre you so formal, sir? well, I must wait,\nAnd watch withal; for, but I be deceived,\nOur fine musician groweth amorous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, before you touch the instrument,\nTo learn the order of my fingering,\nI must begin with rudiments of art;\nTo teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\nMore pleasant, pithy and effectual,\nThan hath been taught by any of my trade:\nAnd there it is in writing, fairly drawn.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, I am past my gamut long ago.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\n\nServant:\nMistress, your father prays you leave your books\nAnd help to dress your sister's chamber up:\nYou know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n\nBIANCA:\nFarewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFaith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut I have cause to pry into this pedant:\nMethinks he looks as though he were in love:\nYet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\nTo cast thy wandering eyes on every stale,\nSeize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,\nHortensio will be quit with thee by changing.\n\nBAPTISTA:\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced\nTo give my hand opposed against my heart\nUnto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;\nWho woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\nI told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\nHiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:\nAnd, to be noted for a merry man,\nHe'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\nMake feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;\nYet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\nNow must the world point at poor Katharina,\nAnd say, 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\nIf it would please him come and marry her!'\n\nTRANIO:\nPatience, good Katharina, and Baptista too.\nUpon my life, Petruchio means but well,\nWhatever fortune stays him from his word:\nThough he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\nThough he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWould Katharina had never seen him though!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGo, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;\nFor such an injury would vex a very saint,\nMuch more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, master! news, old news, and such news as\nyou never heard of!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs it new and old too? how may that be?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs he come?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, no, sir.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe is coming.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhen will he be here?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhen he stands where I am and sees you there.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut say, what to thine old news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old\njerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair\nof boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,\nanother laced, an old rusty sword ta'en out of the\ntown-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless;\nwith two broken points: his horse hipped with an\nold mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;\nbesides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose\nin the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected\nwith the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with\nspavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives,\nstark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the\nbots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten;\nnear-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit\nand a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being\nrestrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been\noften burst and now repaired with knots; one girth\nsix time pieced and a woman's crupper of velure,\nwhich hath two letters for her name fairly set down\nin studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWho comes with him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned\nlike the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a\nkersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red\nand blue list; an old hat and 'the humour of forty\nfancies' pricked in't for a feather: a monster, a\nvery monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\nfootboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\nYet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell'd.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, sir, he comes not.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nDidst thou not say he comes?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWho? that Petruchio came?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, that Petruchio came.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNo, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, that's all one.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, by Saint Jamy,\nI hold you a penny,\nA horse and a man\nIs more than one,\nAnd yet not many.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, where be these gallants? who's at home?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou are welcome, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd yet I come not well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd yet you halt not.\n\nTRANIO:\nNot so well apparell'd\nAs I wish you were.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWere it better, I should rush in thus.\nBut where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?\nHow does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown:\nAnd wherefore gaze this goodly company,\nAs if they saw some wondrous monument,\nSome comet or unusual prodigy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:\nFirst were we sad, fearing you would not come;\nNow sadder, that you come so unprovided.\nFie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\nAn eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd tells us, what occasion of import\nHath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\nAnd sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:\nSufficeth I am come to keep my word,\nThough in some part enforced to digress;\nWhich, at more leisure, I will so excuse\nAs you shall well be satisfied withal.\nBut where is Kate? I stay too long from her:\nThe morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n\nTRANIO:\nSee not your bride in these unreverent robes:\nGo to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot I, believe me: thus I'll visit her.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGood sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words:\nTo me she's married, not unto my clothes:\nCould I repair what she will wear in me,\nAs I can change these poor accoutrements,\n'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\nBut what a fool am I to chat with you,\nWhen I should bid good morrow to my bride,\nAnd seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n\nTRANIO:\nHe hath some meaning in his mad attire:\nWe will persuade him, be it possible,\nTo put on better ere he go to church.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI'll after him, and see the event of this.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut to her love concerneth us to add\nHer father's liking: which to bring to pass,\nAs I before unparted to your worship,\nI am to get a man,--whate'er he be,\nIt skills not much. we'll fit him to our turn,--\nAnd he shall be Vincentio of Pisa;\nAnd make assurance here in Padua\nOf greater sums than I have promised.\nSo shall you quietly enjoy your hope,\nAnd marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWere it not that my fellow-school-master\nDoth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\nWhich once perform'd, let all the world say no,\nI'll keep mine own, despite of all the world.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat by degrees we mean to look into,\nAnd watch our vantage in this business:\nWe'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\nThe narrow-prying father, Minola,\nThe quaint musician, amorous Licio;\nAll for my master's sake, Lucentio.\nSignior Gremio, came you from the church?\n\nGREMIO:\nAs willingly as e'er I came from school.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n\nGREMIO:\nA bridegroom say you? 'tis a groom indeed,\nA grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n\nTRANIO:\nCurster than she? why, 'tis impossible.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n\nGREMIO:\nTut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him!\nI'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\nShould ask, if Katharina should be his wife,\n'Ay, by gogs-wouns,' quoth he; and swore so loud,\nThat, all-amazed, the priest let fall the book;\nAnd, as he stoop'd again to take it up,\nThe mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\nThat down fell priest and book and book and priest:\n'Now take them up,' quoth he, 'if any list.'\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat said the wench when he rose again?\n\nGREMIO:\nTrembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore,\nAs if the vicar meant to cozen him.\nBut after many ceremonies done,\nHe calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\nHe had been aboard, carousing to his mates\nAfter a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel\nAnd threw the sops all in the sexton's face;\nHaving no other reason\nBut that his beard grew thin and hungerly\nAnd seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\nThis done, he took the bride about the neck\nAnd kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\nThat at the parting all the church did echo:\nAnd I seeing this came thence for very shame;\nAnd after me, I know, the rout is coming.\nSuch a mad marriage never was before:\nHark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:\nI know you think to dine with me to-day,\nAnd have prepared great store of wedding cheer;\nBut so it is, my haste doth call me hence,\nAnd therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs't possible you will away to-night?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI must away to-day, before night come:\nMake it no wonder; if you knew my business,\nYou would entreat me rather go than stay.\nAnd, honest company, I thank you all,\nThat have beheld me give away myself\nTo this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife:\nDine with my father, drink a health to me;\nFor I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n\nTRANIO:\nLet us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt may not be.\n\nGREMIO:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt cannot be.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAre you content to stay?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content you shall entreat me stay;\nBut yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNow, if you love me, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGrumio, my horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, then,\nDo what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\nNo, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\nThe door is open, sir; there lies your way;\nYou may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\nFor me, I'll not be gone till I please myself:\n'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom,\nThat take it on you at the first so roundly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI will be angry: what hast thou to do?\nFather, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n\nKATARINA:\nGentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:\nI see a woman may be made a fool,\nIf she had not a spirit to resist.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThey shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\nObey the bride, you that attend on her;\nGo to the feast, revel and domineer,\nCarouse full measure to her maidenhead,\nBe mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:\nBut for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\nNay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\nI will be master of what is mine own:\nShe is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,\nMy household stuff, my field, my barn,\nMy horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing;\nAnd here she stands, touch her whoever dare;\nI'll bring mine action on the proudest he\nThat stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\nDraw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves;\nRescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\nFear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch\nthee, Kate:\nI'll buckler thee against a million.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n\nGREMIO:\nWent they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf all mad matches never was the like.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n\nBIANCA:\nThat, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n\nGREMIO:\nI warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNeighbours and friends, though bride and\nbridegroom wants\nFor to supply the places at the table,\nYou know there wants no junkets at the feast.\nLucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place:\nAnd let Bianca take her sister's room.\n\nTRANIO:\nShall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nShe shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and\nall foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever\nman so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent\nbefore to make a fire, and they are coming after to\nwarm them. Now, were not I a little pot and soon\nhot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my\ntongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my\nbelly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me: but\nI, with blowing the fire, shall warm myself; for,\nconsidering the weather, a taller man than I will\ntake cold. Holla, ho! Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho is that calls so coldly?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide\nfrom my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run\nbut my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, ay, Curtis, ay: and therefore fire, fire; cast\non no water.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n\nGRUMIO:\nShe was, good Curtis, before this frost: but, thou\nknowest, winter tames man, woman and beast; for it\nhath tamed my old master and my new mistress and\nmyself, fellow Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nAway, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAm I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and\nso long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a\nfire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress,\nwhose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon\nfeel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?\n\nCURTIS:\nI prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\ntherefore fire: do thy duty, and have thy duty; for\nmy master and mistress are almost frozen to death.\n\nCURTIS:\nThere's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, 'Jack, boy! ho! boy!' and as much news as\nwill thaw.\n\nCURTIS:\nCome, you are so full of cony-catching!\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, therefore fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\nWhere's the cook? is supper ready, the house\ntrimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the\nserving-men in their new fustian, their white\nstockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?\nBe the jacks fair within, the jills fair without,\nthe carpets laid, and every thing in order?\n\nCURTIS:\nAll ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFirst, know, my horse is tired; my master and\nmistress fallen out.\n\nCURTIS:\nHow?\n\nGRUMIO:\nOut of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby\nhangs a tale.\n\nCURTIS:\nLet's ha't, good Grumio.\n\nGRUMIO:\nLend thine ear.\n\nCURTIS:\nHere.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThere.\n\nCURTIS:\nThis is to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd therefore 'tis called a sensible tale: and this\ncuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech\nlistening. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a\nfoul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,--\n\nCURTIS:\nBoth of one horse?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat's that to thee?\n\nCURTIS:\nWhy, a horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nTell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me,\nthou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she\nunder her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how\nmiry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her\nwith the horse upon her, how he beat me because\nher horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt\nto pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed,\nthat never prayed before, how I cried, how the\nhorses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I\nlost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory,\nwhich now shall die in oblivion and thou return\nunexperienced to thy grave.\n\nCURTIS:\nBy this reckoning he is more shrew than she.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall\nfind when he comes home. But what talk I of this?\nCall forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip,\nWalter, Sugarsop and the rest: let their heads be\nsleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their\ngarters of an indifferent knit: let them curtsy\nwith their left legs and not presume to touch a hair\nof my master's horse-tail till they kiss their\nhands. Are they all ready?\n\nCURTIS:\nThey are.\n\nGRUMIO:\nCall them forth.\n\nCURTIS:\nDo you hear, ho? you must meet my master to\ncountenance my mistress.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she hath a face of her own.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho knows not that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou, it seems, that calls for company to\ncountenance her.\n\nCURTIS:\nI call them forth to credit her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nWelcome home, Grumio!\n\nPHILIP:\nHow now, Grumio!\n\nJOSEPH:\nWhat, Grumio!\n\nNICHOLAS:\nFellow Grumio!\n\nNATHANIEL:\nHow now, old lad?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWelcome, you;--how now, you;-- what, you;--fellow,\nyou;--and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce\ncompanions, is all ready, and all things neat?\n\nNATHANIEL:\nAll things is ready. How near is our master?\n\nGRUMIO:\nE'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be\nnot--Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere be these knaves? What, no man at door\nTo hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\nWhere is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n\nALL SERVING-MEN:\nHere, here, sir; here, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHere, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\nYou logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\nWhat, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\nWhere is the foolish knave I sent before?\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\nDid I not bid thee meet me in the park,\nAnd bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n\nGRUMIO:\nNathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\nAnd Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel;\nThere was no link to colour Peter's hat,\nAnd Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing:\nThere were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\nThe rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\nYet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.\nWhere is the life that late I led--\nWhere are those--Sit down, Kate, and welcome.--\nSound, sound, sound, sound!\nWhy, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\nOff with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\nIt was the friar of orders grey,\nAs he forth walked on his way:--\nOut, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:\nTake that, and mend the plucking off the other.\nBe merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!\nWhere's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\nAnd bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\nOne, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with.\nWhere are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\nCome, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\nYou whoreson villain! will you let it fall?\n\nKATHARINA:\nPatience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\nCome, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\nWill you give thanks, sweet Kate; or else shall I?\nWhat's this? mutton?\n\nFirst Servant:\nAy.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho brought it?\n\nPETER:\nI.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\nWhat dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?\nHow durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,\nAnd serve it thus to me that love it not?\nTheretake it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\nYou heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\nWhat, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, husband, be not so disquiet:\nThe meat was well, if you were so contented.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away;\nAnd I expressly am forbid to touch it,\nFor it engenders choler, planteth anger;\nAnd better 'twere that both of us did fast,\nSince, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\nThan feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\nBe patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended,\nAnd, for this night, we'll fast for company:\nCome, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nPeter, didst ever see the like?\n\nPETER:\nHe kills her in her own humour.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhere is he?\n\nCURTIS:\nIn her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;\nAnd rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\nKnows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,\nAnd sits as one new-risen from a dream.\nAway, away! for he is coming hither.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThus have I politicly begun my reign,\nAnd 'tis my hope to end successfully.\nMy falcon now is sharp and passing empty;\nAnd till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,\nFor then she never looks upon her lure.\nAnother way I have to man my haggard,\nTo make her come and know her keeper's call,\nThat is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\nThat bate and beat and will not be obedient.\nShe eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\nLast night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\nAs with the meat, some undeserved fault\nI'll find about the making of the bed;\nAnd here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\nThis way the coverlet, another way the sheets:\nAy, and amid this hurly I intend\nThat all is done in reverend care of her;\nAnd in conclusion she shall watch all night:\nAnd if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\nAnd with the clamour keep her still awake.\nThis is a way to kill a wife with kindness;\nAnd thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\nHe that knows better how to tame a shrew,\nNow let him speak: 'tis charity to show.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\nDoth fancy any other but Lucentio?\nI tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\nStand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nNow, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n\nBIANCA:\nWhat, master, read you? first resolve me that.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI read that I profess, the Art to Love.\n\nBIANCA:\nAnd may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhile you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nQuick proceeders, marry! Now, tell me, I pray,\nYou that durst swear at your mistress Bianca\nLoved none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n\nTRANIO:\nO despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\nI tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistake no more: I am not Licio,\nNor a musician, as I seem to be;\nBut one that scorn to live in this disguise,\nFor such a one as leaves a gentleman,\nAnd makes a god of such a cullion:\nKnow, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSignior Hortensio, I have often heard\nOf your entire affection to Bianca;\nAnd since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\nI will with you, if you be so contented,\nForswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSee, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\nHere is my hand, and here I firmly vow\nNever to woo her no more, but do forswear her,\nAs one unworthy all the former favours\nThat I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd here I take the unfeigned oath,\nNever to marry with her though she would entreat:\nFie on her! see, how beastly she doth court him!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWould all the world but he had quite forsworn!\nFor me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\nI will be married to a wealthy widow,\nEre three days pass, which hath as long loved me\nAs I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.\nAnd so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\nKindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\nShall win my love: and so I take my leave,\nIn resolution as I swore before.\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\nAs 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\nNay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\nAnd have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\nTranio, you jest: but have you both forsworn me?\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress, we have.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThen we are rid of Licio.\n\nTRANIO:\nI' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\nThat shall be wood and wedded in a day.\n\nBIANCA:\nGod give him joy!\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, and he'll tame her.\n\nBIANCA:\nHe says so, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nFaith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe taming-school! what, is there such a place?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, mistress, and Petruchio is the master;\nThat teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\nTo tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO master, master, I have watch'd so long\nThat I am dog-weary: but at last I spied\nAn ancient angel coming down the hill,\nWill serve the turn.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat is he, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, a mercatante, or a pedant,\nI know not what; but format in apparel,\nIn gait and countenance surely like a father.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him, Tranio?\n\nTRANIO:\nIf he be credulous and trust my tale,\nI'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\nAnd give assurance to Baptista Minola,\nAs if he were the right Vincentio\nTake in your love, and then let me alone.\n\nPedant:\nGod save you, sir!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd you, sir! you are welcome.\nTravel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n\nPedant:\nSir, at the farthest for a week or two:\nBut then up farther, and as for as Rome;\nAnd so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat countryman, I pray?\n\nPedant:\nOf Mantua.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Mantua, sir? marry, God forbid!\nAnd come to Padua, careless of your life?\n\nPedant:\nMy life, sir! how, I pray? for that goes hard.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis death for any one in Mantua\nTo come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\nYour ships are stay'd at Venice, and the duke,\nFor private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him,\nHath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly:\n'Tis, marvel, but that you are but newly come,\nYou might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n\nPedant:\nAlas! sir, it is worse for me than so;\nFor I have bills for money by exchange\nFrom Florence and must here deliver them.\n\nTRANIO:\nWell, sir, to do you courtesy,\nThis will I do, and this I will advise you:\nFirst, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\nPisa renowned for grave citizens.\n\nTRANIO:\nAmong them know you one Vincentio?\n\nPedant:\nI know him not, but I have heard of him;\nA merchant of incomparable wealth.\n\nTRANIO:\nHe is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\nIn countenance somewhat doth resemble you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\n\nTRANIO:\nTo save your life in this extremity,\nThis favour will I do you for his sake;\nAnd think it not the worst of an your fortunes\nThat you are like to Sir Vincentio.\nHis name and credit shall you undertake,\nAnd in my house you shall be friendly lodged:\nLook that you take upon you as you should;\nYou understand me, sir: so shall you stay\nTill you have done your business in the city:\nIf this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.\n\nPedant:\nO sir, I do; and will repute you ever\nThe patron of my life and liberty.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen go with me to make the matter good.\nThis, by the way, I let you understand;\nmy father is here look'd for every day,\nTo pass assurance of a dower in marriage\n'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here:\nIn all these circumstances I'll instruct you:\nGo with me to clothe you as becomes you.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNo, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe more my wrong, the more his spite appears:\nWhat, did he marry me to famish me?\nBeggars, that come unto my father's door,\nUpon entreaty have a present aims;\nIf not, elsewhere they meet with charity:\nBut I, who never knew how to entreat,\nNor never needed that I should entreat,\nAm starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,\nWith oath kept waking and with brawling fed:\nAnd that which spites me more than all these wants,\nHe does it under name of perfect love;\nAs who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\nI prithee go and get me some repast;\nI care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat say you to a neat's foot?\n\nKATHARINA:\n'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI fear it is too choleric a meat.\nHow say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n\nKATHARINA:\nI like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\nWhat say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA dish that I do love to feed upon.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,\nOr else you get no beef of Grumio.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy then, the mustard without the beef.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\nThat feed'st me with the very name of meat:\nSorrow on thee and all the pack of you,\nThat triumph thus upon my misery!\nGo, get thee gone, I say.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistress, what cheer?\n\nKATHARINA:\nFaith, as cold as can be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.\nHere love; thou see'st how diligent I am\nTo dress thy meat myself and bring it thee:\nI am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\nWhat, not a word? Nay, then thou lovest it not;\nAnd all my pains is sorted to no proof.\nHere, take away this dish.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, let it stand.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe poorest service is repaid with thanks;\nAnd so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI thank you, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\nCome, mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHaberdasher:\nHere is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, this was moulded on a porringer;\nA velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy:\nWhy, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\nA knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap:\nAway with it! come, let me have a bigger.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,\nAnd gentlewomen wear such caps as these\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhen you are gentle, you shall have one too,\nAnd not till then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\nAnd speak I will; I am no child, no babe:\nYour betters have endured me say my mind,\nAnd if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\nMy tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\nOr else my heart concealing it will break,\nAnd rather than it shall, I will be free\nEven to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\nA custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:\nI love thee well, in that thou likest it not.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLove me or love me not, I like the cap;\nAnd it I will have, or I will have none.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see't.\nO mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\nWhat's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon:\nWhat, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?\nHere's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\nLike to a censer in a barber's shop:\nWhy, what, i' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTailor:\nYou bid me make it orderly and well,\nAccording to the fashion and the time.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, and did; but if you be remember'd,\nI did not bid you mar it to the time.\nGo, hop me over every kennel home,\nFor you shall hop without my custom, sir:\nI'll none of it: hence! make your best of it.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI never saw a better-fashion'd gown,\nMore quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable:\nBelike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n\nTailor:\nShe says your worship means to make\na puppet of her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,\nthou thimble,\nThou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!\nThou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!\nBraved in mine own house with a skein of thread?\nAway, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\nOr I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard\nAs thou shalt think on prating whilst thou livest!\nI tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n\nTailor:\nYour worship is deceived; the gown is made\nJust as my master had direction:\nGrumio gave order how it should be done.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n\nTailor:\nBut how did you desire it should be made?\n\nGRUMIO:\nMarry, sir, with needle and thread.\n\nTailor:\nBut did you not request to have it cut?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou hast faced many things.\n\nTailor:\nI have.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFace not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not\nme; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto\nthee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did\nnot bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.\n\nTailor:\nWhy, here is the note of the fashion to testify\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRead it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThe note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nMaster, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in\nthe skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom\nof brown thread: I said a gown.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nProceed.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess the cape.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess two sleeves.\n\nTailor:\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, there's the villany.\n\nGRUMIO:\nError i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill.\nI commanded the sleeves should be cut out and\nsewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee,\nthough thy little finger be armed in a thimble.\n\nTailor:\nThis is true that I say: an I had thee\nin place where, thou shouldst know it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI am for thee straight: take thou the\nbill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGod-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nYou are i' the right, sir: 'tis for my mistress.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, take it up unto thy master's use.\n\nGRUMIO:\nVillain, not for thy life: take up my mistress'\ngown for thy master's use!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:\nTake up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\nO, fie, fie, fie!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow:\nTake no unkindness of his hasty words:\nAway! I say; commend me to thy master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\nEven in these honest mean habiliments:\nOur purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\nFor 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\nAnd as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\nSo honour peereth in the meanest habit.\nWhat is the jay more precious than the lark,\nBecause his fathers are more beautiful?\nOr is the adder better than the eel,\nBecause his painted skin contents the eye?\nO, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\nFor this poor furniture and mean array.\nif thou account'st it shame. lay it on me;\nAnd therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith,\nTo feast and sport us at thy father's house.\nGo, call my men, and let us straight to him;\nAnd bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\nThere will we mount, and thither walk on foot\nLet's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\nAnd well we may come there by dinner-time.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two;\nAnd 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt shall be seven ere I go to horse:\nLook, what I speak, or do, or think to do,\nYou are still crossing it. Sirs, let't alone:\nI will not go to-day; and ere I do,\nIt shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, this is the house: please it you that I call?\n\nPedant:\nAy, what else? and but I be deceived\nSignior Baptista may remember me,\nNear twenty years ago, in Genoa,\nWhere we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\nWith such austerity as 'longeth to a father.\n\nPedant:\nI warrant you.\nBut, sir, here comes your boy;\n'Twere good he were school'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nFear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\nNow do your duty throughly, I advise you:\nImagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nTut, fear not me.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI told him that your father was at Venice,\nAnd that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n\nTRANIO:\nThou'rt a tall fellow: hold thee that to drink.\nHere comes Baptista: set your countenance, sir.\nSignior Baptista, you are happily met.\nSir, this is the gentleman I told you of:\nI pray you stand good father to me now,\nGive me Bianca for my patrimony.\n\nPedant:\nSoft son!\nSir, by your leave: having come to Padua\nTo gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\nMade me acquainted with a weighty cause\nOf love between your daughter and himself:\nAnd, for the good report I hear of you\nAnd for the love he beareth to your daughter\nAnd she to him, to stay him not too long,\nI am content, in a good father's care,\nTo have him match'd; and if you please to like\nNo worse than I, upon some agreement\nMe shall you find ready and willing\nWith one consent to have her so bestow'd;\nFor curious I cannot be with you,\nSignior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSir, pardon me in what I have to say:\nYour plainness and your shortness please me well.\nRight true it is, your son Lucentio here\nDoth love my daughter and she loveth him,\nOr both dissemble deeply their affections:\nAnd therefore, if you say no more than this,\nThat like a father you will deal with him\nAnd pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\nThe match is made, and all is done:\nYour son shall have my daughter with consent.\n\nTRANIO:\nI thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\nWe be affied and such assurance ta'en\nAs shall with either part's agreement stand?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNot in my house, Lucentio; for, you know,\nPitchers have ears, and I have many servants:\nBesides, old Gremio is hearkening still;\nAnd happily we might be interrupted.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen at my lodging, an it like you:\nThere doth my father lie; and there, this night,\nWe'll pass the business privately and well.\nSend for your daughter by your servant here:\nMy boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\nThe worst is this, that, at so slender warning,\nYou are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIt likes me well. Biondello, hie you home,\nAnd bid Bianca make her ready straight;\nAnd, if you will, tell what hath happened,\nLucentio's father is arrived in Padua,\nAnd how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI pray the gods she may with all my heart!\n\nTRANIO:\nDally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\nSignior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\nWelcome! one mess is like to be your cheer:\nCome, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI follow you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nCambio!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhat sayest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nYou saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBiondello, what of that?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nFaith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to\nexpound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI pray thee, moralize them.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThen thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the\ndeceiving father of a deceitful son.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHis daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe old priest of Saint Luke's church is at your\ncommand at all hours.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of all this?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tell; expect they are busied about a\ncounterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her,\n'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the\nchurch; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient\nhonest witnesses: If this be not that you look for,\nI have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for\never and a day.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHearest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an\nafternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to\nstuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu,\nsir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint\nLuke's, to bid the priest be ready to come against\nyou come with your appendix.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI may, and will, if she be so contented:\nShe will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt?\nHap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her:\nIt shall go hard if Cambio go without her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.\nGood Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by my mother's son, and that's myself,\nIt shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\nOr ere I journey to your father's house.\nGo on, and fetch our horses back again.\nEvermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSay as he says, or we shall never go.\n\nKATHARINA:\nForward, I pray, since we have come so far,\nAnd be it moon, or sun, or what you please:\nAn if you please to call it a rush-candle,\nHenceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the moon.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:\nBut sun it is not, when you say it is not;\nAnd the moon changes even as your mind.\nWhat you will have it named, even that it is;\nAnd so it shall be so for Katharina.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\nAnd not unluckily against the bias.\nBut, soft! company is coming here.\nGood morrow, gentle mistress: where away?\nTell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\nHast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\nSuch war of white and red within her cheeks!\nWhat stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,\nAs those two eyes become that heavenly face?\nFair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\nSweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nA' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYoung budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\nWhither away, or where is thy abode?\nHappy the parents of so fair a child;\nHappier the man, whom favourable stars\nAllot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:\nThis is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,\nAnd not a maiden, as thou say'st he is.\n\nKATHARINA:\nPardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\nThat have been so bedazzled with the sun\nThat everything I look on seemeth green:\nNow I perceive thou art a reverend father;\nPardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDo, good old grandsire; and withal make known\nWhich way thou travellest: if along with us,\nWe shall be joyful of thy company.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFair sir, and you my merry mistress,\nThat with your strange encounter much amazed me,\nMy name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;\nAnd bound I am to Padua; there to visit\nA son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio, gentle sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHappily we met; the happier for thy son.\nAnd now by law, as well as reverend age,\nI may entitle thee my loving father:\nThe sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\nThy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\nNor be grieved: she is of good esteem,\nHer dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth;\nBeside, so qualified as may beseem\nThe spouse of any noble gentleman.\nLet me embrace with old Vincentio,\nAnd wander we to see thy honest son,\nWho will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nBut is it true? or else is it your pleasure,\nLike pleasant travellers, to break a jest\nUpon the company you overtake?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI do assure thee, father, so it is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, go along, and see the truth hereof;\nFor our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWell, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\nHave to my widow! and if she be froward,\nThen hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSoftly and swiftly, sir; for the priest is ready.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee\nat home; therefore leave us.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, faith, I'll see the church o' your back; and\nthen come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n\nGREMIO:\nI marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, here's the door, this is Lucentio's house:\nMy father's bears more toward the market-place;\nThither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nYou shall not choose but drink before you go:\nI think I shall command your welcome here,\nAnd, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.\n\nGREMIO:\nThey're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n\nPedant:\nWhat's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n\nPedant:\nHe's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to\nmake merry withal?\n\nPedant:\nKeep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall\nneed none, so long as I live.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.\nDo you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,\nI pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is\ncome from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.\n\nPedant:\nThou liest: his father is come from Padua and here\nlooking out at the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nArt thou his father?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nPedant:\nLay hands on the villain: I believe a' means to\ncozen somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI have seen them in the church together: God send\n'em good shipping! But who is here? mine old\nmaster Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHope I may choose, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCome hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nForgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I\nnever saw you before in all my life.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat, you notorious villain, didst thou never see\nthy master's father, Vincentio?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhat, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir:\nsee where he looks out of the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs't so, indeed.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHelp, help, help! here's a madman will murder me.\n\nPedant:\nHelp, son! help, Signior Baptista!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPrithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of\nthis controversy.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal\ngods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet\nhose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I\nam undone! I am undone! while I play the good\nhusband at home, my son and my servant spend all at\nthe university.\n\nTRANIO:\nHow now! what's the matter?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, is the man lunatic?\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your\nhabit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir,\nwhat 'cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I\nthank my good father, I am able to maintain it.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do\nyou think is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nHis name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought\nhim up ever since he was three years old, and his\nname is Tranio.\n\nPedant:\nAway, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is\nmine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold\non him, I charge you, in the duke's name. O, my\nson, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is my son Lucentio?\n\nTRANIO:\nCall forth an officer.\nCarry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista,\nI charge you see that he be forthcoming.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCarry me to the gaol!\n\nGREMIO:\nStay, officer: he shall not go to prison.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nTalk not, Signior Gremio: I say he shall go to prison.\n\nGREMIO:\nTake heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be\ncony-catched in this business: I dare swear this\nis the right Vincentio.\n\nPedant:\nSwear, if thou darest.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I dare not swear it.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n\nGREMIO:\nYes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAway with the dotard! to the gaol with him!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThus strangers may be hailed and abused: O\nmonstrous villain!\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO! we are spoiled and--yonder he is: deny him,\nforswear him, or else we are all undone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLives my sweet son?\n\nBIANCA:\nPardon, dear father.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow hast thou offended?\nWhere is Lucentio?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere's Lucentio,\nRight son to the right Vincentio;\nThat have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\nWhile counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.\n\nGREMIO:\nHere's packing, with a witness to deceive us all!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhere is that damned villain Tranio,\nThat faced and braved me in this matter so?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n\nBIANCA:\nCambio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLove wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\nMade me exchange my state with Tranio,\nWhile he did bear my countenance in the town;\nAnd happily I have arrived at the last\nUnto the wished haven of my bliss.\nWhat Tranio did, myself enforced him to;\nThen pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nI'll slit the villain's nose, that would have sent\nme to the gaol.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter\nwithout asking my good will?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but\nI will in, to be revenged for this villany.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd I, to sound the depth of this knavery.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLook not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n\nGREMIO:\nMy cake is dough; but I'll in among the rest,\nOut of hope of all, but my share of the feast.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHusband, let's follow, to see the end of this ado.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFirst kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, in the midst of the street?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, art thou ashamed of me?\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, then let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIs not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\nBetter once than never, for never too late.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAt last, though long, our jarring notes agree:\nAnd time it is, when raging war is done,\nTo smile at scapes and perils overblown.\nMy fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\nWhile I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\nBrother Petruchio, sister Katharina,\nAnd thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\nFeast with the best, and welcome to my house:\nMy banquet is to close our stomachs up,\nAfter our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\nFor now we sit to chat as well as eat.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nPadua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPadua affords nothing but what is kind.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor both our sakes, I would that word were true.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n\nWidow:\nThen never trust me, if I be afeard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\nI mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.\n\nWidow:\nHe that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRoundly replied.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMistress, how mean you that?\n\nWidow:\nThus I conceive by him.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nConceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMy widow says, thus she conceives her tale.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVery well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n\nKATHARINA:\n'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:'\nI pray you, tell me what you meant by that.\n\nWidow:\nYour husband, being troubled with a shrew,\nMeasures my husband's sorrow by his woe:\nAnd now you know my meaning,\n\nKATHARINA:\nA very mean meaning.\n\nWidow:\nRight, I mean you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAnd I am mean indeed, respecting you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTo her, Kate!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTo her, widow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat's my office.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSpoke like an officer; ha' to thee, lad!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n\nGREMIO:\nBelieve me, sir, they butt together well.\n\nBIANCA:\nHead, and butt! an hasty-witted body\nWould say your head and butt were head and horn.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nAy, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you?\n\nBIANCA:\nAy, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, that you shall not: since you have begun,\nHave at you for a bitter jest or two!\n\nBIANCA:\nAm I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;\nAnd then pursue me as you draw your bow.\nYou are welcome all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShe hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.\nThis bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\nTherefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nO, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\nWhich runs himself and catches for his master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA good swift simile, but something currish.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:\n'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nO ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nConfess, confess, hath he not hit you here?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA' has a little gall'd me, I confess;\nAnd, as the jest did glance away from me,\n'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\nI think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, I say no: and therefore for assurance\nLet's each one send unto his wife;\nAnd he whose wife is most obedient\nTo come at first when he doth send for her,\nShall win the wager which we will propose.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent. What is the wager?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTwenty crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTwenty crowns!\nI'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\nBut twenty times so much upon my wife.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nA hundred then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA match! 'tis done.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWho shall begin?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will I.\nGo, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI go.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSon, I'll be your half, Bianca comes.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\nHow now! what news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSir, my mistress sends you word\nThat she is busy and she cannot come.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow! she is busy and she cannot come!\nIs that an answer?\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, and a kind one too:\nPray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI hope better.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\nTo come to me forthwith.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, ho! entreat her!\nNay, then she must needs come.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI am afraid, sir,\nDo what you can, yours will not be entreated.\nNow, where's my wife?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nShe says you have some goodly jest in hand:\nShe will not come: she bids you come to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWorse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\nIntolerable, not to be endured!\nSirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\nSay, I command her to come to me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI know her answer.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nShe will not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your will, sir, that you send for me?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n\nKATHARINA:\nThey sit conferring by the parlor fire.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo fetch them hither: if they deny to come.\nSwinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:\nAway, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nAnd so it is: I wonder what it bodes.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,\nAnd awful rule and right supremacy;\nAnd, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!\nThe wager thou hast won; and I will add\nUnto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\nAnother dowry to another daughter,\nFor she is changed, as she had never been.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I will win my wager better yet\nAnd show more sign of her obedience,\nHer new-built virtue and obedience.\nSee where she comes and brings your froward wives\nAs prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\nKatharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:\nOff with that bauble, throw it under-foot.\n\nWidow:\nLord, let me never have a cause to sigh,\nTill I be brought to such a silly pass!\n\nBIANCA:\nFie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI would your duty were as foolish too:\nThe wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\nHath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe more fool you, for laying on my duty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nKatharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women\nWhat duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n\nWidow:\nCome, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, I say; and first begin with her.\n\nWidow:\nShe shall not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say she shall: and first begin with her.\n\nKATHARINA:\nFie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\nAnd dart not scornful glances from those eyes,\nTo wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:\nIt blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\nConfounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\nAnd in no sense is meet or amiable.\nA woman moved is like a fountain troubled,\nMuddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\nAnd while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\nWill deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\nThy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\nThy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\nAnd for thy maintenance commits his body\nTo painful labour both by sea and land,\nTo watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\nWhilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\nAnd craves no other tribute at thy hands\nBut love, fair looks and true obedience;\nToo little payment for so great a debt.\nSuch duty as the subject owes the prince\nEven such a woman oweth to her husband;\nAnd when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\nAnd not obedient to his honest will,\nWhat is she but a foul contending rebel\nAnd graceless traitor to her loving lord?\nI am ashamed that women are so simple\nTo offer war where they should kneel for peace;\nOr seek for rule, supremacy and sway,\nWhen they are bound to serve, love and obey.\nWhy are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\nUnapt to toil and trouble in the world,\nBut that our soft conditions and our hearts\nShould well agree with our external parts?\nCome, come, you froward and unable worms!\nMy mind hath been as big as one of yours,\nMy heart as great, my reason haply more,\nTo bandy word for word and frown for frown;\nBut now I see our lances are but straws,\nOur strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\nThat seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\nThen vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\nAnd place your hands below your husband's foot:\nIn token of which duty, if he please,\nMy hand is ready; may it do him ease.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, Kate, we'll to bed.\nWe three are married, but you two are sped.\n'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;\nAnd, being a winner, God give you good night!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.\n\nMaster:\nBoatswain!\n\nBoatswain:\nHere, master: what cheer?\n\nMaster:\nGood, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely,\nor we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.\n\nBoatswain:\nHeigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!\nyare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the\nmaster's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,\nif room enough!\n\nALONSO:\nGood boatswain, have care. Where's the master?\nPlay the men.\n\nBoatswain:\nI pray now, keep below.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhere is the master, boatswain?\n\nBoatswain:\nDo you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your\ncabins: you do assist the storm.\n\nGONZALO:\nNay, good, be patient.\n\nBoatswain:\nWhen the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers\nfor the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.\n\nGONZALO:\nGood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n\nBoatswain:\nNone that I more love than myself. You are a\ncounsellor; if you can command these elements to\nsilence, and work the peace of the present, we will\nnot hand a rope more; use your authority: if you\ncannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make\nyourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of\nthe hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out\nof our way, I say.\n\nGONZALO:\nI have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he\nhath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\nperfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his\nhanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,\nfor our own doth little advantage. If he be not\nborn to be hanged, our case is miserable.\n\nBoatswain:\nDown with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring\nher to try with main-course.\nA plague upon this howling! they are louder than\nthe weather or our office.\nYet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er\nand drown? Have you a mind to sink?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,\nincharitable dog!\n\nBoatswain:\nWork you then.\n\nANTONIO:\nHang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!\nWe are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.\n\nGONZALO:\nI'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were\nno stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an\nunstanched wench.\n\nBoatswain:\nLay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to\nsea again; lay her off.\n\nMariners:\nAll lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!\n\nBoatswain:\nWhat, must our mouths be cold?\n\nGONZALO:\nThe king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,\nFor our case is as theirs.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI'm out of patience.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:\nThis wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning\nThe washing of ten tides!\n\nGONZALO:\nHe'll be hang'd yet,\nThough every drop of water swear against it\nAnd gape at widest to glut him.\n\nANTONIO:\nLet's all sink with the king.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLet's take leave of him.\n\nGONZALO:\nNow would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an\nacre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any\nthing. The wills above be done! but I would fain\ndie a dry death.\n\nMIRANDA:\nIf by your art, my dearest father, you have\nPut the wild waters in this roar, allay them.\nThe sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,\nBut that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,\nDashes the fire out. O, I have suffered\nWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,\nWho had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,\nDash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock\nAgainst my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.\nHad I been any god of power, I would\nHave sunk the sea within the earth or ere\nIt should the good ship so have swallow'd and\nThe fraughting souls within her.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBe collected:\nNo more amazement: tell your piteous heart\nThere's no harm done.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, woe the day!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo harm.\nI have done nothing but in care of thee,\nOf thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who\nArt ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing\nOf whence I am, nor that I am more better\nThan Prospero, master of a full poor cell,\nAnd thy no greater father.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMore to know\nDid never meddle with my thoughts.\n\nPROSPERO:\n'Tis time\nI should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,\nAnd pluck my magic garment from me. So:\nLie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.\nThe direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd\nThe very virtue of compassion in thee,\nI have with such provision in mine art\nSo safely ordered that there is no soul--\nNo, not so much perdition as an hair\nBetid to any creature in the vessel\nWhich thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down;\nFor thou must now know farther.\n\nMIRANDA:\nYou have often\nBegun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd\nAnd left me to a bootless inquisition,\nConcluding 'Stay: not yet.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe hour's now come;\nThe very minute bids thee ope thine ear;\nObey and be attentive. Canst thou remember\nA time before we came unto this cell?\nI do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not\nOut three years old.\n\nMIRANDA:\nCertainly, sir, I can.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy what? by any other house or person?\nOf any thing the image tell me that\nHath kept with thy remembrance.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis far off\nAnd rather like a dream than an assurance\nThat my remembrance warrants. Had I not\nFour or five women once that tended me?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it\nThat this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else\nIn the dark backward and abysm of time?\nIf thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here,\nHow thou camest here thou mayst.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBut that I do not.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTwelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,\nThy father was the Duke of Milan and\nA prince of power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, are not you my father?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThy mother was a piece of virtue, and\nShe said thou wast my daughter; and thy father\nWas Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir\nAnd princess no worse issued.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\nWhat foul play had we, that we came from thence?\nOr blessed was't we did?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBoth, both, my girl:\nBy foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,\nBut blessedly holp hither.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, my heart bleeds\nTo think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,\nWhich is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio--\nI pray thee, mark me--that a brother should\nBe so perfidious!--he whom next thyself\nOf all the world I loved and to him put\nThe manage of my state; as at that time\nThrough all the signories it was the first\nAnd Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed\nIn dignity, and for the liberal arts\nWithout a parallel; those being all my study,\nThe government I cast upon my brother\nAnd to my state grew stranger, being transported\nAnd rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle--\nDost thou attend me?\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, most heedfully.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBeing once perfected how to grant suits,\nHow to deny them, who to advance and who\nTo trash for over-topping, new created\nThe creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em,\nOr else new form'd 'em; having both the key\nOf officer and office, set all hearts i' the state\nTo what tune pleased his ear; that now he was\nThe ivy which had hid my princely trunk,\nAnd suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, good sir, I do.\n\nPROSPERO:\nI pray thee, mark me.\nI, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated\nTo closeness and the bettering of my mind\nWith that which, but by being so retired,\nO'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother\nAwaked an evil nature; and my trust,\nLike a good parent, did beget of him\nA falsehood in its contrary as great\nAs my trust was; which had indeed no limit,\nA confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,\nNot only with what my revenue yielded,\nBut what my power might else exact, like one\nWho having into truth, by telling of it,\nMade such a sinner of his memory,\nTo credit his own lie, he did believe\nHe was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution\nAnd executing the outward face of royalty,\nWith all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--\nDost thou hear?\n\nMIRANDA:\nYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTo have no screen between this part he play'd\nAnd him he play'd it for, he needs will be\nAbsolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library\nWas dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties\nHe thinks me now incapable; confederates--\nSo dry he was for sway--wi' the King of Naples\nTo give him annual tribute, do him homage,\nSubject his coronet to his crown and bend\nThe dukedom yet unbow'd--alas, poor Milan!--\nTo most ignoble stooping.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\n\nPROSPERO:\nMark his condition and the event; then tell me\nIf this might be a brother.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI should sin\nTo think but nobly of my grandmother:\nGood wombs have borne bad sons.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow the condition.\nThe King of Naples, being an enemy\nTo me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;\nWhich was, that he, in lieu o' the premises\nOf homage and I know not how much tribute,\nShould presently extirpate me and mine\nOut of the dukedom and confer fair Milan\nWith all the honours on my brother: whereon,\nA treacherous army levied, one midnight\nFated to the purpose did Antonio open\nThe gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness,\nThe ministers for the purpose hurried thence\nMe and thy crying self.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for pity!\nI, not remembering how I cried out then,\nWill cry it o'er again: it is a hint\nThat wrings mine eyes to't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHear a little further\nAnd then I'll bring thee to the present business\nWhich now's upon's; without the which this story\nWere most impertinent.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWherefore did they not\nThat hour destroy us?\n\nPROSPERO:\nWell demanded, wench:\nMy tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,\nSo dear the love my people bore me, nor set\nA mark so bloody on the business, but\nWith colours fairer painted their foul ends.\nIn few, they hurried us aboard a bark,\nBore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared\nA rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,\nNor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\nInstinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,\nTo cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh\nTo the winds whose pity, sighing back again,\nDid us but loving wrong.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, what trouble\nWas I then to you!\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, a cherubim\nThou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.\nInfused with a fortitude from heaven,\nWhen I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,\nUnder my burthen groan'd; which raised in me\nAn undergoing stomach, to bear up\nAgainst what should ensue.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHow came we ashore?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy Providence divine.\nSome food we had and some fresh water that\nA noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,\nOut of his charity, being then appointed\nMaster of this design, did give us, with\nRich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,\nWhich since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,\nKnowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me\nFrom mine own library with volumes that\nI prize above my dukedom.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWould I might\nBut ever see that man!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow I arise:\nSit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\nHere in this island we arrived; and here\nHave I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit\nThan other princesses can that have more time\nFor vainer hours and tutors not so careful.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHeavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir,\nFor still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason\nFor raising this sea-storm?\n\nPROSPERO:\nKnow thus far forth.\nBy accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,\nNow my dear lady, hath mine enemies\nBrought to this shore; and by my prescience\nI find my zenith doth depend upon\nA most auspicious star, whose influence\nIf now I court not but omit, my fortunes\nWill ever after droop. Here cease more questions:\nThou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,\nAnd give it way: I know thou canst not choose.\nCome away, servant, come. I am ready now.\nApproach, my Ariel, come.\n\nARIEL:\nAll hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come\nTo answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,\nTo swim, to dive into the fire, to ride\nOn the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task\nAriel and all his quality.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHast thou, spirit,\nPerform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?\n\nARIEL:\nTo every article.\nI boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,\nNow in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,\nI flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide,\nAnd burn in many places; on the topmast,\nThe yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\nThen meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors\nO' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary\nAnd sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks\nOf sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune\nSeem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,\nYea, his dread trident shake.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brave spirit!\nWho was so firm, so constant, that this coil\nWould not infect his reason?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a soul\nBut felt a fever of the mad and play'd\nSome tricks of desperation. All but mariners\nPlunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,\nThen all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,\nWith hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,--\nWas the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty\nAnd all the devils are here.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhy that's my spirit!\nBut was not this nigh shore?\n\nARIEL:\nClose by, my master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut are they, Ariel, safe?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a hair perish'd;\nOn their sustaining garments not a blemish,\nBut fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,\nIn troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.\nThe king's son have I landed by himself;\nWhom I left cooling of the air with sighs\nIn an odd angle of the isle and sitting,\nHis arms in this sad knot.\n\nPROSPERO:\nOf the king's ship\nThe mariners say how thou hast disposed\nAnd all the rest o' the fleet.\n\nARIEL:\nSafely in harbour\nIs the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once\nThou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\nFrom the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:\nThe mariners all under hatches stow'd;\nWho, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,\nI have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet\nWhich I dispersed, they all have met again\nAnd are upon the Mediterranean flote,\nBound sadly home for Naples,\nSupposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd\nAnd his great person perish.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAriel, thy charge\nExactly is perform'd: but there's more work.\nWhat is the time o' the day?\n\nARIEL:\nPast the mid season.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAt least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now\nMust by us both be spent most preciously.\n\nARIEL:\nIs there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,\nLet me remember thee what thou hast promised,\nWhich is not yet perform'd me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow now? moody?\nWhat is't thou canst demand?\n\nARIEL:\nMy liberty.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBefore the time be out? no more!\n\nARIEL:\nI prithee,\nRemember I have done thee worthy service;\nTold thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served\nWithout or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise\nTo bate me a full year.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDost thou forget\nFrom what a torment I did free thee?\n\nARIEL:\nNo.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze\nOf the salt deep,\nTo run upon the sharp wind of the north,\nTo do me business in the veins o' the earth\nWhen it is baked with frost.\n\nARIEL:\nI do not, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot\nThe foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy\nWas grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?\n\nARIEL:\nNo, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.\n\nARIEL:\nSir, in Argier.\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, was she so? I must\nOnce in a month recount what thou hast been,\nWhich thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,\nFor mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible\nTo enter human hearing, from Argier,\nThou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did\nThey would not take her life. Is not this true?\n\nARIEL:\nAy, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThis blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child\nAnd here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,\nAs thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;\nAnd, for thou wast a spirit too delicate\nTo act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,\nRefusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,\nBy help of her more potent ministers\nAnd in her most unmitigable rage,\nInto a cloven pine; within which rift\nImprison'd thou didst painfully remain\nA dozen years; within which space she died\nAnd left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans\nAs fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island--\nSave for the son that she did litter here,\nA freckled whelp hag-born--not honour'd with\nA human shape.\n\nARIEL:\nYes, Caliban her son.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban\nWhom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st\nWhat torment I did find thee in; thy groans\nDid make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts\nOf ever angry bears: it was a torment\nTo lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax\nCould not again undo: it was mine art,\nWhen I arrived and heard thee, that made gape\nThe pine and let thee out.\n\nARIEL:\nI thank thee, master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nIf thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak\nAnd peg thee in his knotty entrails till\nThou hast howl'd away twelve winters.\n\nARIEL:\nPardon, master;\nI will be correspondent to command\nAnd do my spiriting gently.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDo so, and after two days\nI will discharge thee.\n\nARIEL:\nThat's my noble master!\nWhat shall I do? say what; what shall I do?\n\nPROSPERO:\nGo make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject\nTo no sight but thine and mine, invisible\nTo every eyeball else. Go take this shape\nAnd hither come in't: go, hence with diligence!\nAwake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!\n\nMIRANDA:\nThe strangeness of your story put\nHeaviness in me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nShake it off. Come on;\nWe'll visit Caliban my slave, who never\nYields us kind answer.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis a villain, sir,\nI do not love to look on.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut, as 'tis,\nWe cannot miss him: he does make our fire,\nFetch in our wood and serves in offices\nThat profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban!\nThou earth, thou! speak.\n\nCALIBAN:\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome forth, I say! there's other business for thee:\nCome, thou tortoise! when?\nFine apparition! My quaint Ariel,\nHark in thine ear.\n\nARIEL:\nMy lord it shall be done.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\nUpon thy wicked dam, come forth!\n\nCALIBAN:\nAs wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\nWith raven's feather from unwholesome fen\nDrop on you both! a south-west blow on ye\nAnd blister you all o'er!\n\nPROSPERO:\nFor this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\nSide-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\nShall, for that vast of night that they may work,\nAll exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd\nAs thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging\nThan bees that made 'em.\n\nCALIBAN:\nI must eat my dinner.\nThis island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,\nWhich thou takest from me. When thou camest first,\nThou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me\nWater with berries in't, and teach me how\nTo name the bigger light, and how the less,\nThat burn by day and night: and then I loved thee\nAnd show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,\nThe fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:\nCursed be I that did so! All the charms\nOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!\nFor I am all the subjects that you have,\nWhich first was mine own king: and here you sty me\nIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me\nThe rest o' the island.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou most lying slave,\nWhom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee,\nFilth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee\nIn mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate\nThe honour of my child.\n\nCALIBAN:\nO ho, O ho! would't had been done!\nThou didst prevent me; I had peopled else\nThis isle with Calibans.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAbhorred slave,\nWhich any print of goodness wilt not take,\nBeing capable of all ill! I pitied thee,\nTook pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour\nOne thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,\nKnow thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like\nA thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes\nWith words that made them known. But thy vile race,\nThough thou didst learn, had that in't which\ngood natures\nCould not abide to be with; therefore wast thou\nDeservedly confined into this rock,\nWho hadst deserved more than a prison.\n\nCALIBAN:\nYou taught me language; and my profit on't\nIs, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you\nFor learning me your language!\n\nPROSPERO:\nHag-seed, hence!\nFetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best,\nTo answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?\nIf thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly\nWhat I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,\nFill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar\nThat beasts shall tremble at thy din.\n\nCALIBAN:\nNo, pray thee.\nI must obey: his art is of such power,\nIt would control my dam's god, Setebos,\nand make a vassal of him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSo, slave; hence!\nCome unto these yellow sands,\nAnd then take hands:\nCourtsied when you have and kiss'd\nThe wild waves whist,\nFoot it featly here and there;\nAnd, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.\nHark, hark!\n\nFERDINAND:\nWhere should this music be? i' the air or the earth?\nIt sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon\nSome god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,\nWeeping again the king my father's wreck,\nThis music crept by me upon the waters,\nAllaying both their fury and my passion\nWith its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,\nOr it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.\nNo, it begins again.\nFull fathom five thy father lies;\nOf his bones are coral made;\nThose are pearls that were his eyes:\nNothing of him that doth fade\nBut doth suffer a sea-change\nInto something rich and strange.\nSea-nymphs hourly ring his knell\nHark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.\n\nFERDINAND:\nThe ditty does remember my drown'd father.\nThis is no mortal business, nor no sound\nThat the earth owes. I hear it now above me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe fringed curtains of thine eye advance\nAnd say what thou seest yond.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhat is't? a spirit?\nLord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,\nIt carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses\nAs we have, such. This gallant which thou seest\nWas in the wreck; and, but he's something stain'd\nWith grief that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him\nA goodly person: he hath lost his fellows\nAnd strays about to find 'em.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI might call him\nA thing divine, for nothing natural\nI ever saw so noble.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nFERDINAND:\nMost sure, the goddess\nOn whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer\nMay know if you remain upon this island;\nAnd that you will some good instruction give\nHow I may bear me here: my prime request,\nWhich I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!\nIf you be maid or no?\n\nMIRANDA:\nNo wonder, sir;\nBut certainly a maid.\n\nFERDINAND:\nMy language! heavens!\nI am the best of them that speak this speech,\nWere I but where 'tis spoken.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow? the best?\nWhat wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?\n\nFERDINAND:\nA single thing, as I am now, that wonders\nTo hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;\nAnd that he does I weep: myself am Naples,\nWho with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld\nThe king my father wreck'd.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for mercy!\n\nFERDINAND:\nYes, faith, and all his lords; the Duke of Milan\nAnd his brave son being twain.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhy speaks my father so ungently? This\nIs the third man that e'er I saw, the first\nThat e'er I sigh'd for: pity move my father\nTo be inclined my way!\n\nFERDINAND:\nO, if a virgin,\nAnd your affection not gone forth, I'll make you\nThe queen of Naples.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSoft, sir! one word more.\nThey are both in either's powers; but this swift business\nI must uneasy make, lest too light winning\nMake the prize light.\nOne word more; I charge thee\nThat thou attend me: thou dost here usurp\nThe name thou owest not; and hast put thyself\nUpon this island as a spy, to win it\nFrom me, the lord on't.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo, as I am a man.\n\nMIRANDA:\nThere's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:\nIf the ill spirit have so fair a house,\nGood things will strive to dwell with't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nFollow me.\nSpeak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;\nI'll manacle thy neck and feet together:\nSea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be\nThe fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots and husks\nWherein the acorn cradled. Follow.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo;\nI will resist such entertainment till\nMine enemy has more power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO dear father,\nMake not too rash a trial of him, for\nHe's gentle and not fearful.\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhat? I say,\nMy foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;\nWho makest a show but darest not strike, thy conscience\nIs so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward,\nFor I can here disarm thee with this stick\nAnd make thy weapon drop.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBeseech you, father.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHence! hang not on my garments.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, have pity;\nI'll be his surety.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSilence! one word more\nShall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!\nAn advocate for an imposter! hush!\nThou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,\nHaving seen but him and Caliban: foolish wench!\nTo the most of men this is a Caliban\nAnd they to him are angels.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMy affections\nAre then most humble; I have no ambition\nTo see a goodlier man.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome on; obey:\nThy nerves are in their infancy again\nAnd have no vigour in them.\n\nFERDINAND:\nSo they are;\nMy spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.\nMy father's loss, the weakness which I feel,\nThe wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats,\nTo whom I am subdued, are but light to me,\nMight I but through my prison once a day\nBehold this maid: all corners else o' the earth\nLet liberty make use of; space enough\nHave I in such a prison.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nBe of comfort;\nMy father's of a better nature, sir,\nThan he appears by speech: this is unwonted\nWhich now came from him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou shalt be free\nAs mountain winds: but then exactly do\nAll points of my command.\n\nARIEL:\nTo the syllable.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome, follow. Speak not for him.\n\nGONZALO:\nBeseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,\nSo have we all, of joy; for our escape\nIs much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe\nIs common; every day some sailor's wife,\nThe masters of some merchant and the merchant\nHave just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,\nI mean our preservation, few in millions\nCan speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh\nOur sorrow with our comfort.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe receives comfort like cold porridge.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe visitor will not give him o'er so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLook he's winding up the watch of his wit;\nby and by it will strike.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOne: tell.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,\nComes to the entertainer--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA dollar.\n\nGONZALO:\nDolour comes to him, indeed: you\nhave spoken truer than you purposed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.\n\nGONZALO:\nTherefore, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nFie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\n\nALONSO:\nI prithee, spare.\n\nGONZALO:\nWell, I have done: but yet,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe will be talking.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhich, of he or Adrian, for a good\nwager, first begins to crow?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nThe old cock.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe cockerel.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nDone. The wager?\n\nANTONIO:\nA laughter.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA match!\n\nADRIAN:\nThough this island seem to be desert,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHa, ha, ha! So, you're paid.\n\nADRIAN:\nUninhabitable and almost inaccessible,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet,--\n\nADRIAN:\nYet,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe could not miss't.\n\nADRIAN:\nIt must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate\ntemperance.\n\nANTONIO:\nTemperance was a delicate wench.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.\n\nADRIAN:\nThe air breathes upon us here most sweetly.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs if it had lungs and rotten ones.\n\nANTONIO:\nOr as 'twere perfumed by a fen.\n\nGONZALO:\nHere is everything advantageous to life.\n\nANTONIO:\nTrue; save means to live.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOf that there's none, or little.\n\nGONZALO:\nHow lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!\n\nANTONIO:\nThe ground indeed is tawny.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWith an eye of green in't.\n\nANTONIO:\nHe misses not much.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo; he doth but mistake the truth totally.\n\nGONZALO:\nBut the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost\nbeyond credit,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs many vouched rarities are.\n\nGONZALO:\nThat our garments, being, as they were, drenched in\nthe sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and\nglosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with\nsalt water.\n\nANTONIO:\nIf but one of his pockets could speak, would it not\nsay he lies?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, or very falsely pocket up his report\n\nGONZALO:\nMethinks our garments are now as fresh as when we\nput them on first in Afric, at the marriage of\nthe king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.\n\nADRIAN:\nTunis was never graced before with such a paragon to\ntheir queen.\n\nGONZALO:\nNot since widow Dido's time.\n\nANTONIO:\nWidow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in?\nwidow Dido!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat if he had said 'widower AEneas' too? Good Lord,\nhow you take it!\n\nADRIAN:\n'Widow Dido' said you? you make me study of that:\nshe was of Carthage, not of Tunis.\n\nGONZALO:\nThis Tunis, sir, was Carthage.\n\nADRIAN:\nCarthage?\n\nGONZALO:\nI assure you, Carthage.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHis word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath\nraised the wall and houses too.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat impossible matter will he make easy next?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI think he will carry this island home in his pocket\nand give it his son for an apple.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring\nforth more islands.\n\nGONZALO:\nAy.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhy, in good time.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir, we were talking that our garments seem now\nas fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage\nof your daughter, who is now queen.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd the rarest that e'er came there.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nBate, I beseech you, widow Dido.\n\nANTONIO:\nO, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido.\n\nGONZALO:\nIs not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I\nwore it? I mean, in a sort.\n\nANTONIO:\nThat sort was well fished for.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen I wore it at your daughter's marriage?\n\nALONSO:\nYou cram these words into mine ears against\nThe stomach of my sense. Would I had never\nMarried my daughter there! for, coming thence,\nMy son is lost and, in my rate, she too,\nWho is so far from Italy removed\nI ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir\nOf Naples and of Milan, what strange fish\nHath made his meal on thee?\n\nFRANCISCO:\nSir, he may live:\nI saw him beat the surges under him,\nAnd ride upon their backs; he trod the water,\nWhose enmity he flung aside, and breasted\nThe surge most swoln that met him; his bold head\n'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd\nHimself with his good arms in lusty stroke\nTo the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,\nAs stooping to relieve him: I not doubt\nHe came alive to land.\n\nALONSO:\nNo, no, he's gone.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nSir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,\nThat would not bless our Europe with your daughter,\nBut rather lose her to an African;\nWhere she at least is banish'd from your eye,\nWho hath cause to wet the grief on't.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou were kneel'd to and importuned otherwise\nBy all of us, and the fair soul herself\nWeigh'd between loathness and obedience, at\nWhich end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your\nson,\nI fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have\nMore widows in them of this business' making\nThan we bring men to comfort them:\nThe fault's your own.\n\nALONSO:\nSo is the dear'st o' the loss.\n\nGONZALO:\nMy lord Sebastian,\nThe truth you speak doth lack some gentleness\nAnd time to speak it in: you rub the sore,\nWhen you should bring the plaster.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nVery well.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd most chirurgeonly.\n\nGONZALO:\nIt is foul weather in us all, good sir,\nWhen you are cloudy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nFoul weather?\n\nANTONIO:\nVery foul.\n\nGONZALO:\nHad I plantation of this isle, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe'ld sow't with nettle-seed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOr docks, or mallows.\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd were the king on't, what would I do?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Scape being drunk for want of wine.\n\nGONZALO:\nI' the commonwealth I would by contraries\nExecute all things; for no kind of traffic\nWould I admit; no name of magistrate;\nLetters should not be known; riches, poverty,\nAnd use of service, none; contract, succession,\nBourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\nNo use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\nNo occupation; all men idle, all;\nAnd women too, but innocent and pure;\nNo sovereignty;--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet he would be king on't.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe latter end of his commonwealth forgets the\nbeginning.\n\nGONZALO:\nAll things in common nature should produce\nWithout sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,\nSword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,\nWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,\nOf its own kind, all foison, all abundance,\nTo feed my innocent people.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo marrying 'mong his subjects?\n\nANTONIO:\nNone, man; all idle: whores and knaves.\n\nGONZALO:\nI would with such perfection govern, sir,\nTo excel the golden age.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nGod save his majesty!\n\nANTONIO:\nLong live Gonzalo!\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd,--do you mark me, sir?\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.\n\nGONZALO:\nI do well believe your highness; and\ndid it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,\nwho are of such sensible and nimble lungs that\nthey always use to laugh at nothing.\n\nANTONIO:\n'Twas you we laughed at.\n\nGONZALO:\nWho in this kind of merry fooling am nothing\nto you: so you may continue and laugh at\nnothing still.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat a blow was there given!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAn it had not fallen flat-long.\n\nGONZALO:\nYou are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift\nthe moon out of her sphere, if she would continue\nin it five weeks without changing.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWe would so, and then go a bat-fowling.\n\nANTONIO:\nNay, good my lord, be not angry.\n\nGONZALO:\nNo, I warrant you; I will not adventure\nmy discretion so weakly. Will you laugh\nme asleep, for I am very heavy?\n\nANTONIO:\nGo sleep, and hear us.\n\nALONSO:\nWhat, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes\nWould, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find\nThey are inclined to do so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nPlease you, sir,\nDo not omit the heavy offer of it:\nIt seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,\nIt is a comforter.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe two, my lord,\nWill guard your person while you take your rest,\nAnd watch your safety.\n\nALONSO:\nThank you. Wondrous heavy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat a strange drowsiness possesses them!\n\nANTONIO:\nIt is the quality o' the climate.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhy\nDoth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not\nMyself disposed to sleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNor I; my spirits are nimble.\nThey fell together all, as by consent;\nThey dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,\nWorthy Sebastian? O, what might?--No more:--\nAnd yet me thinks I see it in thy face,\nWhat thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and\nMy strong imagination sees a crown\nDropping upon thy head.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat, art thou waking?\n\nANTONIO:\nDo you not hear me speak?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI do; and surely\nIt is a sleepy language and thou speak'st\nOut of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?\nThis is a strange repose, to be asleep\nWith eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,\nAnd yet so fast asleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNoble Sebastian,\nThou let'st thy fortune sleep--die, rather; wink'st\nWhiles thou art waking.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/markov-model.py",
    "content": "# Simple n-gram (Markov chain) model for character-based text generation.\n#\n# Only tested with Python 3.6+\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\n\nfrom collections import defaultdict, Counter\nimport random\nimport sys\n\n\n# This is the length of the \"state\" the current character is predicted from.\n# For Markov chains with memory, this is the \"order\" of the chain. For n-grams,\n# the n is STATE_LEN+1 since it includes the predicted character as well.\nSTATE_LEN = 4\n\n\ndef weighted_from_counter(c):\n    total = sum(c.values())\n    idx = random.randrange(total)\n    for elem, count in c.most_common():\n        idx -= count\n        if idx < 0:\n            return elem\n\n\ndef main():\n    filename = sys.argv[1]\n    with open(filename, 'r') as f:\n        data = f.read()\n\n    states = defaultdict(Counter)\n\n    print('Learning model...')\n    for i in range(len(data) - STATE_LEN - 1):\n        state = data[i:i + STATE_LEN]\n        next = data[i + STATE_LEN]\n        states[state][next] += 1\n\n    print('Model has {0} states'.format(len(states)))\n    j = 0\n    for k, v in states.items():\n        print(k, v)\n        if j > 9:\n            break\n        j += 1\n\n    print('Sampling...')\n    state = random.choice(list(states))\n    sys.stdout.write(state)\n    for i in range(200):\n        nextc = weighted_from_counter(states[state])\n        sys.stdout.write(nextc)\n        state = state[1:] + nextc\n    print()\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/min-char-lstm.py",
    "content": "# Minimal character-based language model learning with an LSTM architecture.\n#\n# Overall code structure based on Andrej Karpathy's min-char-rnn model:\n#    https://gist.github.com/karpathy/d4dee566867f8291f086\n#\n# But the architecture is modified to be LSTM rather than vanilla RNN.\n# The companion blog post is:\n#   https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2018/minimal-character-based-lstm-implementation/\n#\n# Tested with Python 3.6\n#\n# Eli Bendersky [https://eli.thegreenplace.net]\n# BSD License per original (@karpathy)\nfrom __future__ import print_function\n\nimport numpy as np\nimport sys\n\n# Make it possible to provide input file as a command-line argument; input.txt\n# is still the default.\nif len(sys.argv) > 1:\n    filename = sys.argv[1]\nelse:\n    filename = 'input.txt'\n\nwith open(filename, 'r') as f:\n    data = f.read()\n\n# All unique characters / entities in the data set.\nchars = list(set(data))\ndata_size = len(data)\nV = vocab_size = len(chars)\nprint('data has %d characters, %d unique.' % (data_size, vocab_size))\n\n# Each character in the vocabulary gets a unique integer index assigned, in the\n# half-open interval [0:N). These indices are useful to create one-hot encoded\n# vectors that represent characters in numerical computations.\nchar_to_ix = {ch:i for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nix_to_char = {i:ch for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nprint('char_to_ix', char_to_ix)\nprint('ix_to_char', ix_to_char)\n\n# Hyperparameters.\n\n# Size of hidden state vectors; applies to h and c.\nH = hidden_size = 100\nseq_length = 16 # number of steps to unroll the LSTM for\nlearning_rate = 0.1\n\n# The input x is concatenated with state h, and the joined vector is used to\n# feed into most blocks within the LSTM cell. The combined height of the column\n# vector is HV.\nHV = H + V\n\n# Stop when processed this much data\nMAX_DATA = 1000000\n\n# Model parameters/weights -- these are shared among all steps. Weights\n# initialized randomly; biases initialized to 0.\n# Inputs are characters one-hot encoded in a vocab-sized vector.\n# Dimensions: H = hidden_size, V = vocab_size, HV = hidden_size + vocab_size\nWf = np.random.randn(H, HV) * 0.01\nbf = np.zeros((H, 1))\nWi = np.random.randn(H, HV) * 0.01\nbi = np.zeros((H, 1))\nWcc = np.random.randn(H, HV) * 0.01\nbcc = np.zeros((H, 1))\nWo = np.random.randn(H, HV) * 0.01\nbo = np.zeros((H, 1))\nWy = np.random.randn(V, H) * 0.01\nby = np.zeros((V, 1))\n\n\ndef sigmoid(z):\n    \"\"\"Computes sigmoid function.\n\n    z: array of input values.\n\n    Returns array of outputs, sigmoid(z).\n    \"\"\"\n    # Note: this version of sigmoid tries to avoid overflows in the computation\n    # of e^(-z), by using an alternative formulation when z is negative, to get\n    # 0. e^z / (1+e^z) is equivalent to the definition of sigmoid, but we won't\n    # get e^(-z) to overflow when z is very negative.\n    # Since both the x and y arguments to np.where are evaluated by Python, we\n    # may still get overflow warnings for large z elements; therefore we ignore\n    # warnings during this computation.\n    with np.errstate(over='ignore', invalid='ignore'):\n        return np.where(z >= 0,\n                        1 / (1 + np.exp(-z)),\n                        np.exp(z) / (1 + np.exp(z)))\n\n\ndef lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev):\n    \"\"\"Runs forward and backward passes through the RNN.\n\n      TODO: keep me updated!\n      inputs, targets: Lists of integers. For some i, inputs[i] is the input\n                       character (encoded as an index into the ix_to_char map)\n                       and targets[i] is the corresponding next character in the\n                       training data (similarly encoded).\n      hprev: Hx1 array of initial hidden state\n      cprev: Hx1 array of initial hidden state\n\n      returns: loss, gradients on model parameters, and last hidden states\n    \"\"\"\n    # Caches that keep values computed in the forward pass at each time step, to\n    # be reused in the backward pass.\n    xs, xhs, ys, ps, hs, cs, fgs, igs, ccs, ogs = (\n            {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {})\n\n    # Initial incoming states.\n    hs[-1] = np.copy(hprev)\n    cs[-1] = np.copy(cprev)\n\n    loss = 0\n    # Forward pass\n    for t in range(len(inputs)):\n        # Input at time step t is xs[t]. Prepare a one-hot encoded vector of\n        # shape (V, 1). inputs[t] is the index where the 1 goes.\n        xs[t] = np.zeros((V, 1))\n        xs[t][inputs[t]] = 1\n\n        # hprev and xs[t] are column vector; stack them together into a \"taller\"\n        # column vector - first the elements of x, then h.\n        xhs[t] = np.vstack((xs[t], hs[t-1]))\n\n        # Gates f, i and o.\n        fgs[t] = sigmoid(np.dot(Wf, xhs[t]) + bf)\n        igs[t] = sigmoid(np.dot(Wi, xhs[t]) + bi)\n        ogs[t] = sigmoid(np.dot(Wo, xhs[t]) + bo)\n\n        # Candidate cc.\n        ccs[t] = np.tanh(np.dot(Wcc, xhs[t]) + bcc)\n\n        # This step's h and c.\n        cs[t] = fgs[t] * cs[t-1] + igs[t] * ccs[t]\n        hs[t] = np.tanh(cs[t]) * ogs[t]\n\n        # Softmax for output.\n        ys[t] = np.dot(Wy, hs[t]) + by\n        ps[t] = np.exp(ys[t]) / np.sum(np.exp(ys[t]))\n\n        # Cross-entropy loss.\n        loss += -np.log(ps[t][targets[t], 0])\n\n    # Initialize gradients of all weights/biases to 0.\n    dWf = np.zeros_like(Wf)\n    dbf = np.zeros_like(bf)\n    dWi = np.zeros_like(Wi)\n    dbi = np.zeros_like(bi)\n    dWcc = np.zeros_like(Wcc)\n    dbcc = np.zeros_like(bcc)\n    dWo = np.zeros_like(Wo)\n    dbo = np.zeros_like(bo)\n    dWy = np.zeros_like(Wy)\n    dby = np.zeros_like(by)\n\n    # Incoming gradients for h and c; for backwards loop step these represent\n    # dh[t] and dc[t]; we do truncated BPTT, so assume they are 0 initially.\n    dhnext = np.zeros_like(hs[0])\n    dcnext = np.zeros_like(cs[0])\n\n    # The backwards pass iterates over the input sequence backwards.\n    for t in reversed(range(len(inputs))):\n        # Backprop through the gradients of loss and softmax.\n        dy = np.copy(ps[t])\n        dy[targets[t]] -= 1\n\n        # Compute gradients for the Wy and by parameters.\n        dWy += np.dot(dy, hs[t].T)\n        dby += dy\n\n        # Backprop through the fully-connected layer (Wy, by) to h. Also add up\n        # the incoming gradient for h from the next cell.\n        dh = np.dot(Wy.T, dy) + dhnext\n\n        # Backprop through multiplication with output gate; here \"dtanh\" means\n        # the gradient at the output of tanh.\n        dctanh = ogs[t] * dh\n        # Backprop through the tanh function; since cs[t] branches in two\n        # directions we add dcnext too.\n        dc = dctanh * (1 - np.tanh(cs[t]) ** 2) + dcnext\n\n        # Backprop through multiplication with the tanh; here \"dhogs\" means\n        # the gradient at the output of the sigmoid of the output gate. Then\n        # backprop through the sigmoid itself (ogs[t] is the sigmoid output).\n        dhogs = dh * np.tanh(cs[t])\n        dho = dhogs * ogs[t] * (1 - ogs[t])\n\n        # Compute gradients for the output gate parameters.\n        dWo += np.dot(dho, xhs[t].T)\n        dbo += dho\n\n        # Backprop dho to the xh input.\n        dxh_from_o = np.dot(Wo.T, dho)\n\n        # Backprop through the forget gate: sigmoid and elementwise mul.\n        dhf = cs[t-1] * dc * fgs[t] * (1 - fgs[t])\n        dWf += np.dot(dhf, xhs[t].T)\n        dbf += dhf\n        dxh_from_f = np.dot(Wf.T, dhf)\n\n        # Backprop through the input gate: sigmoid and elementwise mul.\n        dhi = ccs[t] * dc * igs[t] * (1 - igs[t])\n        dWi += np.dot(dhi, xhs[t].T)\n        dbi += dhi\n        dxh_from_i = np.dot(Wi.T, dhi)\n\n        dhcc = igs[t] * dc * (1 - ccs[t] ** 2)\n        dWcc += np.dot(dhcc, xhs[t].T)\n        dbcc += dhcc\n        dxh_from_cc = np.dot(Wcc.T, dhcc)\n\n        # Combine all contributions to dxh, and extract the gradient for the\n        # h part to propagate backwards as dhnext.\n        dxh = dxh_from_o + dxh_from_f + dxh_from_i + dxh_from_cc\n        dhnext = dxh[V:, :]\n\n        # dcnext from dc and the forget gate.\n        dcnext = fgs[t] * dc\n\n    # Gradient clipping to the range [-5, 5].\n    for dparam in [dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby]:\n        np.clip(dparam, -5, 5, out=dparam)\n\n    return (loss, dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby,\n            hs[len(inputs)-1], cs[len(inputs)-1])\n\n\ndef sample(h, c, seed_ix, n):\n    \"\"\"Sample a sequence of integers from the model.\n\n    Runs the LSTM in forward mode for n steps; seed_ix is the seed letter for\n    the first time step, h and c are the memory state. Returns a sequence of\n    letters produced by the model (indices).\n    \"\"\"\n    x = np.zeros((V, 1))\n    x[seed_ix] = 1\n    ixes = []\n\n    for t in range(n):\n        # Run the forward pass only.\n        xh = np.vstack((x, h))\n        fg = sigmoid(np.dot(Wf, xh) + bf)\n        ig = sigmoid(np.dot(Wi, xh) + bi)\n        og = sigmoid(np.dot(Wo, xh) + bo)\n        cc = np.tanh(np.dot(Wcc, xh) + bcc)\n        c = fg * c + ig * cc\n        h = np.tanh(c) * og\n        y = np.dot(Wy, h) + by\n        p = np.exp(y) / np.sum(np.exp(y))\n\n        # Sample from the distribution produced by softmax.\n        ix = np.random.choice(range(V), p=p.ravel())\n        x = np.zeros((V, 1))\n        x[ix] = 1\n        ixes.append(ix)\n    return ixes\n\n\ndef gradCheck(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev):\n    global Wf, Wi, bf, bi, Wcc, bcc, Wo, bo, Wy, by\n    num_checks, delta = 10, 1e-5\n    (_, dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby,\n     _, _) = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev)\n    for param, dparam, name in zip(\n            [Wf, bf, Wi, bi, Wcc, bcc, Wo, bo, Wy, by],\n            [dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby],\n            ['Wf', 'bf', 'Wi', 'bi', 'Wcc', 'bcc', 'Wo', 'bo', 'Wy', 'by']):\n        assert dparam.shape == param.shape\n        print(name)\n        for i in range(num_checks):\n            ri = np.random.randint(0, param.size)\n            old_val = param.flat[ri]\n            param.flat[ri] = old_val + delta\n            numloss0 = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev)[0]\n            param.flat[ri] = old_val - delta\n            numloss1 = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev)[0]\n            param.flat[ri] = old_val # reset\n            grad_analytic = dparam.flat[ri]\n            grad_numerical = (numloss0 - numloss1) / (2 * delta)\n            if grad_numerical + grad_analytic == 0:\n                rel_error = 0\n            else:\n                rel_error = (abs(grad_analytic - grad_numerical) /\n                             abs(grad_numerical + grad_analytic))\n            print('%s, %s => %e' % (grad_numerical, grad_analytic, rel_error))\n\n\ndef basicGradCheck():\n    inputs = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[:seq_length]]\n    targets = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[1:seq_length+1]]\n    hprev = np.random.randn(H, 1)\n    cprev = np.random.randn(H, 1)\n    gradCheck(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev)\n\n# Uncomment this to run gradient checking instead of training\n#basicGradCheck()\n#sys.exit()\n\n# n is the iteration counter; p is the input sequence pointer, at the beginning\n# of each step it points at the sequence in the input that will be used for\n# training this iteration.\nn, p = 0, 0\n\n# Memory variables for Adagrad.\nmWf = np.zeros_like(Wf)\nmbf = np.zeros_like(bf)\nmWi = np.zeros_like(Wi)\nmbi = np.zeros_like(bi)\nmWcc = np.zeros_like(Wcc)\nmbcc = np.zeros_like(bcc)\nmWo = np.zeros_like(Wo)\nmbo = np.zeros_like(bo)\nmWy = np.zeros_like(Wy)\nmby = np.zeros_like(by)\nsmooth_loss = -np.log(1.0/V) * seq_length\n\nwhile p < MAX_DATA:\n    # Prepare inputs (we're sweeping from left to right in steps seq_length long)\n    if p+seq_length+1 >= len(data) or n == 0:\n        # Reset RNN memory\n        hprev = np.zeros((H, 1))\n        cprev = np.zeros((H, 1))\n        p = 0 # go from start of data\n\n    # In each step we unroll the RNN for seq_length cells, and present it with\n    # seq_length inputs and seq_length target outputs to learn.\n    inputs = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[p:p+seq_length]]\n    targets = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[p+1:p+seq_length+1]]\n\n    # Sample from the model now and then.\n    if n % 1000 == 0:\n        sample_ix = sample(hprev, cprev, inputs[0], 200)\n        txt = ''.join(ix_to_char[ix] for ix in sample_ix)\n        print('----\\n %s \\n----' % (txt,))\n\n    # Forward seq_length characters through the RNN and fetch gradient.\n    (loss, dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby,\n     hprev, cprev) = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev, cprev)\n    smooth_loss = smooth_loss * 0.999 + loss * 0.001\n    if n % 200 == 0:\n        print('iter %d (p=%d), loss %f' % (n, p, smooth_loss))\n\n    # Perform parameter update with Adagrad.\n    for param, dparam, mem in zip(\n            [Wf, bf, Wi, bi, Wcc, bcc, Wo, bo, Wy, by],\n            [dWf, dbf, dWi, dbi, dWcc, dbcc, dWo, dbo, dWy, dby],\n            [mWf, mbf, mWi, mbi, mWcc, mbcc, mWo, mbo, mWy, mby]):\n        mem += dparam * dparam\n        param += -learning_rate * dparam / np.sqrt(mem + 1e-8)\n\n    p += seq_length\n    n += 1\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/min-char-rnn.py",
    "content": "\"\"\"\nMinimal character-based language model learning with RNNs.\n\nTaken from Andrej Karpathy's min-char-rnn:\n\n    https://gist.github.com/karpathy/d4dee566867f8291f086\n\nThe companion blog post is:\n  https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2018/understanding-how-to-implement-a-character-based-rnn-language-model/.\n\nModified in various ways for better introspection / customization, Python 3\ncompatibility and added comments. I tried to retain the overall structure of\nthis code almost identical to the original.\n\nTo run, learning a char-based language model from some text:\n\n    $ python min-char-rnn.py <text file>\n\n----\n\nOriginal license/copyright blurb:\n\nMinimal character-level Vanilla RNN model.\nWritten by Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy)\nBSD License\n\"\"\"\nfrom __future__ import print_function\n\nimport numpy as np\nimport sys\n\n# Make it possible to provide input file as a command-line argument; input.txt\n# is still the default.\nif len(sys.argv) > 1:\n    filename = sys.argv[1]\nelse:\n    filename = 'input.txt'\n\nwith open(filename, 'r') as f:\n    data = f.read()\n\n# All unique characters / entities in the data set.\nchars = list(set(data))\ndata_size, vocab_size = len(data), len(chars)\nprint('data has %d characters, %d unique.' % (data_size, vocab_size))\n\n# Each character in the vocabulary gets a unique integer index assigned, in the\n# half-open interval [0:N). These indices are useful to create one-hot encoded\n# vectors that represent characters in numerical computations.\nchar_to_ix = {ch:i for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nix_to_char = {i:ch for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nprint('char_to_ix', char_to_ix)\nprint('ix_to_char', ix_to_char)\n\n# Hyperparameters\nhidden_size = 100 # size of hidden layer of neurons\nseq_length = 16 # number of steps to unroll the RNN for\nlearning_rate = 1e-1\n\n# Stop when processed this much data\nMAX_DATA = 1000000\n\n# Model parameters/weights -- these are shared among all steps. Weights\n# initialized randomly; biases initialized to 0.\n# Inputs are characters one-hot encoded in a vocab-sized vector.\n# Dimensions: H = hidden_size, V = vocab_size\nWxh = np.random.randn(hidden_size, vocab_size) * 0.01       # input to hidden\nWhh = np.random.randn(hidden_size, hidden_size) * 0.01      # hidden to hidden\nWhy = np.random.randn(vocab_size, hidden_size) * 0.01       # hidden to output\nbh = np.zeros((hidden_size, 1))     # hidden bias\nby = np.zeros((vocab_size, 1))      # output bias\n\ndef lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev):\n  \"\"\"Runs forward and backward passes through the RNN.\n\n  inputs, targets: Lists of integers. For some i, inputs[i] is the input\n                   character (encoded as an index into the ix_to_char map) and\n                   targets[i] is the corresponding next character in the\n                   training data (similarly encoded).\n  hprev: Hx1 array of initial hidden state\n  returns: loss, gradients on model parameters, and last hidden state\n  \"\"\"\n  # Caches that keep values computed in the forward pass at each time step, to\n  # be reused in the backward pass.\n  xs, hs, ys, ps = {}, {}, {}, {}\n\n  # Initial incoming state.\n  hs[-1] = np.copy(hprev)\n  loss = 0\n  # Forward pass\n  for t in range(len(inputs)):\n    # Input at time step t is xs[t]. Prepare a one-hot encoded vector of shape\n    # (V, 1). inputs[t] is the index where the 1 goes.\n    xs[t] = np.zeros((vocab_size,1)) # encode in 1-of-k representation\n    xs[t][inputs[t]] = 1\n\n    # Compute h[t] from h[t-1] and x[t]\n    hs[t] = np.tanh(np.dot(Wxh, xs[t]) + np.dot(Whh, hs[t-1]) + bh)\n\n    # Compute ps[t] - softmax probabilities for output.\n    ys[t] = np.dot(Why, hs[t]) + by\n    ps[t] = np.exp(ys[t]) / np.sum(np.exp(ys[t]))\n\n    # Cross-entropy loss for two probability distributions p and q is defined as\n    # follows:\n    #\n    #   xent(q, p) = -Sum q(k)log(p(k))\n    #                  k\n    #\n    # Where k goes over all the possible values of the random variable p and q\n    # are defined for.\n    # In our case taking q is the \"real answer\" which is 1-hot encoded; p is the\n    # result of softmax (ps). targets[t] has the only index where q is not 0,\n    # so the sum simply becomes log of ps at that index.\n    loss += -np.log(ps[t][targets[t],0])\n\n  # Backward pass: compute gradients going backwards.\n  # Gradients are initialized to 0s, and every time step contributes to them.\n  dWxh, dWhh, dWhy = np.zeros_like(Wxh), np.zeros_like(Whh), np.zeros_like(Why)\n  dbh, dby = np.zeros_like(bh), np.zeros_like(by)\n\n  # Initialize the incoming gradient of h to zero; this is a safe assumption for\n  # a sufficiently long unrolling.\n  dhnext = np.zeros_like(hs[0])\n\n  # The backwards pass iterates over the input sequence backwards.\n  for t in reversed(range(len(inputs))):\n    # Backprop through the gradients of loss and softmax.\n    dy = np.copy(ps[t])\n    dy[targets[t]] -= 1\n\n    # Compute gradients for the Why and by parameters.\n    dWhy += np.dot(dy, hs[t].T)\n    dby += dy\n\n    # Backprop through the fully-connected layer (Why, by) to h. Also add up the\n    # incoming gradient for h from the next cell.\n    # Note: proper Jacobian matmul here would be dy.dot(Why), that would give\n    # a [1,T] vector. Since we need [T,1] for h, we flip the dot (we could have\n    # transposed after everything, too)\n    dh = np.dot(Why.T, dy) + dhnext\n\n    # Backprop through tanh.\n    dhraw = (1 - hs[t] * hs[t]) * dh\n\n    # Compute gradients for the dby, dWxh, Whh parameters.\n    dbh += dhraw\n    dWxh += np.dot(dhraw, xs[t].T)\n    dWhh += np.dot(dhraw, hs[t-1].T)\n\n    # Backprop the gradient to the incoming h, which will be used in the\n    # previous time step.\n    dhnext = np.dot(Whh.T, dhraw)\n\n  # Gradient clipping to the range [-5, 5].\n  for dparam in [dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby]:\n    np.clip(dparam, -5, 5, out=dparam)\n\n  return loss, dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby, hs[len(inputs)-1]\n\ndef sample(h, seed_ix, n):\n  \"\"\"Sample a sequence of integers from the model.\n\n  Runs the RNN in forward mode for n steps; seed_ix is the seed letter for the\n  first time step, and h is the memory state. Returns a sequence of letters\n  produced by the model (indices).\n  \"\"\"\n  # Create a one-hot vector to represent the input.\n  x = np.zeros((vocab_size, 1))\n  x[seed_ix] = 1\n  ixes = []\n\n  for t in range(n):\n    # Run the forward pass only.\n    h = np.tanh(np.dot(Wxh, x) + np.dot(Whh, h) + bh)\n    y = np.dot(Why, h) + by\n    p = np.exp(y) / np.sum(np.exp(y))\n\n    # Sample from the distribution produced by softmax.\n    ix = np.random.choice(range(vocab_size), p=p.ravel())\n\n    # Prepare input for the next cell.\n    x = np.zeros((vocab_size, 1))\n    x[ix] = 1\n    ixes.append(ix)\n  return ixes\n\n# Gradient checking (from karpathy's own comment on the gist)\nfrom random import uniform\ndef gradCheck(inputs, targets, hprev):\n  global Wxh, Whh, Why, bh, by\n  num_checks, delta = 10, 1e-5\n  _, dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby, _ = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev)\n  for param,dparam,name in zip([Wxh, Whh, Why, bh, by],\n                               [dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby],\n                               ['Wxh', 'Whh', 'Why', 'bh', 'by']):\n    s0 = dparam.shape\n    s1 = param.shape\n    assert s0 == s1, 'Error dims dont match: %s and %s.' % (s0, s1)\n    print(name)\n    for i in range(num_checks):\n      ri = int(uniform(0,param.size))\n      # evaluate cost at [x + delta] and [x - delta]\n      old_val = param.flat[ri]\n      param.flat[ri] = old_val + delta\n      cg0, _, _, _, _, _, _ = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev)\n      param.flat[ri] = old_val - delta\n      cg1, _, _, _, _, _, _ = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev)\n      param.flat[ri] = old_val # reset old value for this parameter\n      # fetch both numerical and analytic gradient\n      grad_analytic = dparam.flat[ri]\n      grad_numerical = (cg0 - cg1) / ( 2 * delta )\n      rel_error = abs(grad_analytic - grad_numerical) / abs(grad_numerical + grad_analytic)\n      print('%f, %f => %e ' % (grad_numerical, grad_analytic, rel_error))\n      # rel_error should be on order of 1e-7 or less\n\n# This function invokes gradCheck with all the parameters properly set up.\ndef basicGradCheck():\n  inputs = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[:seq_length]]\n  targets = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[1:seq_length+1]]\n  hprev = np.zeros((hidden_size,1)) # reset RNN memory\n  gradCheck(inputs, targets, hprev)\n\n# Uncomment this to run a basic gradient check.\n#basicGradCheck()\n\n# n is the iteration counter; p is the input sequence pointer, at the beginning\n# of each step it points at the sequence in the input that will be used for\n# training this iteration.\nn, p = 0, 0\n\n# Memory variables for Adagrad.\nmWxh, mWhh, mWhy = np.zeros_like(Wxh), np.zeros_like(Whh), np.zeros_like(Why)\nmbh, mby = np.zeros_like(bh), np.zeros_like(by)\nsmooth_loss = -np.log(1.0/vocab_size)*seq_length\n\nwhile p < MAX_DATA:\n  # Prepare inputs (we're sweeping from left to right in steps seq_length long)\n  if p+seq_length+1 >= len(data) or n == 0:\n    hprev = np.zeros((hidden_size, 1)) # reset RNN memory\n    p = 0 # go from start of data\n\n  # In each step we unroll the RNN for seq_length cells, and present it with\n  # seq_length inputs and seq_length target outputs to learn.\n  inputs = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[p:p+seq_length]]\n  targets = [char_to_ix[ch] for ch in data[p+1:p+seq_length+1]]\n\n  # Sample from the model now and then.\n  if n % 1000 == 0:\n    sample_ix = sample(hprev, inputs[0], 200)\n    txt = ''.join(ix_to_char[ix] for ix in sample_ix)\n    print('----\\n %s \\n----' % (txt, ))\n\n  # Forward seq_length characters through the net and fetch gradient\n  loss, dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby, hprev = lossFun(inputs, targets, hprev)\n  smooth_loss = smooth_loss * 0.999 + loss * 0.001\n  if n % 200 == 0: print('iter %d (p=%d), loss: %f' % (n, p, smooth_loss))\n\n  # Perform parameter update with Adagrad\n  for param, dparam, mem in zip([Wxh, Whh, Why, bh, by],\n                                [dWxh, dWhh, dWhy, dbh, dby],\n                                [mWxh, mWhh, mWhy, mbh, mby]):\n    mem += dparam * dparam\n    param += -learning_rate * dparam / np.sqrt(mem + 1e-8)\n\n  p += seq_length\n  n += 1\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "min-char-rnn/preprocess-cnus.py",
    "content": "# Use Python 2...\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport sys\n\n\ndef clean_line(line):\n    line = line.strip().lower()\n    new_line = []\n    for c in line:\n        i = ord(c)\n        if i >= 32 and i <= 126:\n            new_line.append(c)\n    return ''.join(new_line)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    filename = sys.argv[1]\n    with open(filename, 'r') as f:\n        for line in f:\n            cl = clean_line(line)\n            if cl:\n                print(cl)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/README.md",
    "content": "From Andrej Karapathy's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCc8FmEb1nY\nHis code: https://github.com/karpathy/ng-video-lecture\n\nMany changes here and many comments to massage it all into a form that makes\nmore sense to me.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/bigram.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\nimport torch.nn.functional as F\n\n# Hyper parameters\nbatch_size = 32\nblock_size = 8\nmax_iters = 3000\neval_interval = 300\nlearning_rate = 1e-2\n\ntorch.manual_seed(1337)\ndevice = (\n    torch.accelerator.current_accelerator().type\n    if torch.accelerator.is_available()\n    else \"cpu\"\n)\nprint(f\"Using {device} device\")\n\nwith open(\"input.txt\", \"r\", encoding=\"utf-8\") as f:\n    text = f.read()\n\n# Our model is character-based; tokens are characters - all unique characters in\n# the dataset.\nchars = sorted(set(text))\nvocab_size = len(chars)\n# create a mapping from characters to integers\nstoi = {ch: i for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nitos = {i: ch for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nencode = lambda s: [\n    stoi[c] for c in s\n]  # encoder: take a string, output a list of integers\ndecode = lambda l: \"\".join(\n    [itos[i] for i in l]\n)  # decoder: take a list of integers, output a string\n\n# Train and test splits\ndata = torch.tensor(encode(text), dtype=torch.long)\nn = int(0.9 * len(data))  # first 90% will be train, rest val\ntrain_data = data[:n]\nval_data = data[n:]\n\n\n# data loading\ndef get_batch(split):\n    # generate a small batch of data of inputs x and targets y\n    data = train_data if split == \"train\" else val_data\n    ix = torch.randint(len(data) - block_size, (batch_size,))\n    x = torch.stack([data[i : i + block_size] for i in ix])\n    y = torch.stack([data[i + 1 : i + block_size + 1] for i in ix])\n    x, y = x.to(device), y.to(device)\n    return x, y\n\n\nclass BigramLanguageMode(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, vocab_size):\n        super().__init__()\n        C = vocab_size\n        # Embedding layer: a table (C, C). For each vocabulary token, it\n        # stores a dense vector of size C. C also serves as the embedding\n        # depth in this case, to avoid a separate unembedding layer at\n        # the end. Each of the C elements in the dense vector represent\n        # logics (un-normalized probabilities) of the corresponding character\n        # being generated.\n        self.token_embedding_table = nn.Embedding(vocab_size, vocab_size)\n\n    def forward(self, idx, targets=None):\n        # idx is (B, T) array of indices in the current context\n        # This basically predicts the next token from the current token only\n        # (bigram).\n        logits = self.token_embedding_table(idx)  # (B, T, C)\n\n        if targets is None:\n            loss = None\n        else:\n            B, T, C = logits.shape\n            # Reshape logits and targets to a form cross_entropy likes.\n            logits = logits.view(B * T, C)\n            targets = targets.view(B * T)\n            loss = F.cross_entropy(logits, targets)\n        return logits, loss\n\n    # Note: this function is written in a general way for educational purposes;\n    # it doesn't actually use the history (sequence) to predict the next token,\n    # all it uses is the last token.\n    def generate(self, idx, max_new_tokens):\n        # idx is (B, T) array of indices in the current context\n        for _ in range(max_new_tokens):\n            # get the logits (B, T, C)\n            logits, _ = self(idx)\n            # focus only on the last time step\n            logits = logits[:, -1, :]  # becomes (B, C)\n            # apply softmax to get probabilities\n            probs = F.softmax(logits, dim=-1)  # (B, C)\n            # sample from the distribution\n            idx_next = torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1)  # (B, 1)\n            # append sampled index to the running sequence\n            idx = torch.cat((idx, idx_next), dim=1)  # (B, T+1)\n        return idx\n\n\nxb, yb = get_batch(\"train\")\n\nm = BigramLanguageMode(vocab_size)\nm = m.to(device)\n\nprint(\"xb shape: \", xb.shape)\nprint(\"yb shape: \", yb.shape)\n\nout, loss = m(xb, yb)\nprint(\"out shape: \", out.shape)\nprint(\"out: \", out)\nprint(\"loss: \", loss)\n\n# Starting with a single zero token (newline)\n# Untrained model -- generates garbage\nidx = torch.zeros((1, 1), dtype=torch.long).to(device)\ntoks = m.generate(idx, max_new_tokens=100)[0].tolist()\nprint(decode(toks))\n\n\n# Estimate loss on both the train and validation sets. The loss is averaged\n# over multiple batches to reduce noise.\n@torch.no_grad()\ndef estimate_loss():\n    eval_iters = 200\n    out = {}\n    m.eval()\n    for split in [\"train\", \"val\"]:\n        losses = torch.zeros(eval_iters)\n        for k in range(eval_iters):\n            X, Y = get_batch(split)\n            logits, loss = m(X, Y)\n            losses[k] = loss.item()\n        out[split] = losses.mean()\n    m.train()\n    return out\n\n\n# create a PyTorch optimizer\noptimizer = torch.optim.AdamW(m.parameters(), lr=learning_rate)\n\nfor iter in range(max_iters):\n\n    # every once in a while evaluate the loss on train and val sets\n    if iter % eval_interval == 0:\n        losses = estimate_loss()\n        print(\n            f\"step {iter}: train loss {losses['train']:.4f}, val loss {losses['val']:.4f}\"\n        )\n\n    # sample a batch of data\n    xb, yb = get_batch(\"train\")\n\n    # evaluate the loss\n    logits, loss = m(xb, yb)\n\n    # clear old gradients\n    optimizer.zero_grad(set_to_none=True)\n\n    # compute new gradients from the loss\n    loss.backward()\n\n    # optimization step\n    optimizer.step()\n\n\n# generate from the model\ncontext = torch.zeros((1, 1), dtype=torch.long, device=device)\nprint(decode(m.generate(context, max_new_tokens=500)[0].tolist()))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/explore-input.py",
    "content": "# This script explores the input data and prepares it for training a language\n# model.\n\nwith open(\"input.txt\", \"r\", encoding=\"utf-8\") as f:\n    text = f.read()\n\nprint(\"length of dataset is\", len(text))\nprint(text[:200])\n\n# Our model is character-based; tokens are characters - all unique characters in\n# the dataset.\nchars = sorted(set(text))\nvocab_size = len(chars)\nprint(\"all unique characters:\", \"\".join(chars))\nprint(\"vocab size:\", vocab_size)\n\n# create a mapping from characters to integers\nstoi = {ch: i for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nitos = {i: ch for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nencode = lambda s: [\n    stoi[c] for c in s\n]  # encoder: take a string, output a list of integers\ndecode = lambda l: \"\".join(\n    [itos[i] for i in l]\n)  # decoder: take a list of integers, output a string\n\nprint(encode(\"hii there\"))\nprint(decode(encode(\"hii there\")))\n\n# Encoode the entire text dataset into a torch.Tensor\nimport torch\n\ndevice = (\n    torch.accelerator.current_accelerator().type\n    if torch.accelerator.is_available()\n    else \"cpu\"\n)\nprint(f\"Using {device} device\")\n\ndata = torch.tensor(encode(text), dtype=torch.long)\nprint(data.shape, data.dtype)\nprint(data[:200])\n\n# Split the data into train (90%) and validation (10%) sets\nn = int(0.9 * len(data))\ntrain_data = data[:n]\nval_data = data[n:]\nprint(\"shapes of train and val: \", train_data.shape, val_data.shape)\n\n# This is the sequence length used for training.\n# This snippet demonstrates the training examples taken from the single chunk\n# of block_size\n# It has multiple examples in it: predict the second character given the first,\n# predict the third character given the first and the second, and so on.\nblock_size = 8\nprint(train_data[: block_size + 1])\n\nx = train_data[:block_size]\ny = train_data[1 : block_size + 1]\nfor t in range(block_size):\n    context = x[: t + 1]\n    target = y[t]\n    print(f\"when input is {context} the target is {target}\")\n\n\n# For efficiency, training is done in batches. Each batch is a list of input\n# sequences and the corresponding targets.\n# target[b][i] is the target for input[b][:i + 1], as before.\ntorch.manual_seed(1337)\nbatch_size = 4\nblock_size = 8\n\n\ndef get_batch(split):\n    data = train_data if split == \"train\" else val_data\n    # random starting indices for the batch\n    ix = torch.randint(len(data) - block_size, (batch_size,))\n    x = torch.stack([data[i : i + block_size] for i in ix])\n    y = torch.stack([data[i + 1 : i + block_size + 1] for i in ix])\n    return x.to(device), y.to(device)\n\n\nxb, yb = get_batch(\"train\")\nprint(\"input batch shape: \", xb.shape)\nprint(\"inputs:\\n\", xb)\n\nprint(\"target batch shape: \", yb.shape)\nprint(\"targets:\\n\", yb)\n\nprint(\"----\")\nfor b in range(batch_size):\n    for t in range(block_size):\n        context = xb[b, : t + 1]\n        target = yb[b, t]\n        print(f\"when input is {context} the target is {target}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/gpt.py",
    "content": "import sys\nimport torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\nfrom torch.nn import functional as F\n\n# ----- hyperparameters\nbatch_size = 64  # B: batch\nblock_size = 256  # T: sequence / context length\n\nn_embd = 384  # C: embedding dimension\nn_head = 6  # number of attention heads. head_size will be n_embd // n_head\nn_layer = 6\ndropout = 0.2  # dropout for training\n\nmax_iters = 1000  # Note: this takes a while to run on a single GPU...\n\neval_interval = 500\nlearning_rate = 3e-4\neval_iters = 200\n# -----\n\ntorch.manual_seed(1337)\ndevice = (\n    torch.accelerator.current_accelerator().type\n    if torch.accelerator.is_available()\n    else \"cpu\"\n)\nprint(f\"Using {device} device\")\n\nwith open(\"input.txt\", \"r\", encoding=\"utf-8\") as f:\n    text = f.read()\n\n# Our model is character-based; tokens are characters - all unique characters in\n# the dataset.\nchars = sorted(list(set(text)))\nvocab_size = len(chars)\n# create a mapping from characters to integers\nstoi = {ch: i for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nitos = {i: ch for i, ch in enumerate(chars)}\nencode = lambda s: [\n    stoi[c] for c in s\n]  # encoder: take a string, output a list of integers\ndecode = lambda l: \"\".join(\n    [itos[i] for i in l]\n)  # decoder: take a list of integers, output a string\n\n# Train and validation splits; first 90% will be train, rest val\ndata = torch.tensor(encode(text), dtype=torch.long)\nn = int(0.9 * len(data))\ntrain_data = data[:n]\nval_data = data[n:]\n\n\n# Get a batch of data with the predicted output; both returned as (B,T) tensors,\n# where each item is an integer (the index of the character in the vocabulary).\n#\n# For each batch separately, the sequences work like this:\n#\n#  [ ... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ... ]\n#                 ^              ^\n#                 | <--- x --- > |\n#                  ^              ^\n#                  | <--- y --- > |\n#\n# y is always shifted by one from x, because y[i] is the predicted output\n# to come after for context x[:i].\ndef get_batch(split):\n    data = train_data if split == \"train\" else val_data\n    ix = torch.randint(len(data) - block_size, (batch_size,))\n    x = torch.stack([data[i : i + block_size] for i in ix])\n    y = torch.stack([data[i + 1 : i + block_size + 1] for i in ix])\n    x, y = x.to(device), y.to(device)\n    return x, y\n\n\nclass Head(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"one head of self-attention\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, head_size):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.key = nn.Linear(n_embd, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.query = nn.Linear(n_embd, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.value = nn.Linear(n_embd, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.register_buffer(\"tril\", torch.tril(torch.ones(block_size, block_size)))\n        self.dropout = nn.Dropout(dropout)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        # input (B,T,C)\n        # output (B,T,HS)\n        B, T, C = x.shape\n        k = self.key(x)  # (B,T,HS)\n        q = self.query(x)  # (B,T,HS)\n        # compute attention scores (\"affinities\")\n        wei = (\n            q @ k.transpose(-2, -1) * k.shape[-1] ** -0.5\n        )  # (B, T, HS) @ (B, HS, T) -> (B, T, T)\n        wei = wei.masked_fill(self.tril[:T, :T] == 0, float(\"-inf\"))  # (B, T, T)\n        wei = F.softmax(wei, dim=-1)  # (B, T, T)\n        wei = self.dropout(wei)\n        # perform the weighted aggregation of the values\n        v = self.value(x)  # (B,T,HS)\n        out = wei @ v  # (B, T, T) @ (B, T, HS) -> (B, T, HS)\n        return out\n\n\nclass MultiHeadAttention(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"multiple heads of self-attention in parallel\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, num_heads, head_size):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.heads = nn.ModuleList([Head(head_size) for _ in range(num_heads)])\n        self.proj = nn.Linear(head_size * num_heads, n_embd)\n        self.dropout = nn.Dropout(dropout)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        # input (B,T,C)\n        # output (B,T,C) (where C is split to num_heads * head_size, and the\n        # shape of each head's output is (B,T,HS))\n        out = torch.cat([h(x) for h in self.heads], dim=-1)\n        out = self.dropout(self.proj(out))\n        return out\n\n\nclass FeedFoward(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"a simple linear layer followed by a non-linearity\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, n_embd):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.net = nn.Sequential(\n            nn.Linear(n_embd, 4 * n_embd),\n            nn.ReLU(),\n            nn.Linear(4 * n_embd, n_embd),\n            nn.Dropout(dropout),\n        )\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        return self.net(x)\n\n\nclass Block(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"Transformer block: communication followed by computation\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, n_embd, n_head):\n        # n_embd: embedding dimension, n_head: the number of heads we'd like\n        super().__init__()\n        head_size = n_embd // n_head\n        self.sa = MultiHeadAttention(n_head, head_size)\n        self.ffwd = FeedFoward(n_embd)\n        self.ln1 = nn.LayerNorm(n_embd)\n        self.ln2 = nn.LayerNorm(n_embd)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        x = x + self.sa(self.ln1(x))\n        x = x + self.ffwd(self.ln2(x))\n        return x\n\n\nclass GPTLanguageModel(nn.Module):\n\n    def __init__(self):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.token_embedding_table = nn.Embedding(vocab_size, n_embd)\n        self.position_embedding_table = nn.Embedding(block_size, n_embd)\n        self.blocks = nn.Sequential(\n            *[Block(n_embd, n_head=n_head) for _ in range(n_layer)]\n        )\n        self.ln_f = nn.LayerNorm(n_embd)  # final layer norm\n\n        # de-embedding layer, translates from n_embd back to vocab_size.\n        self.demb = nn.Linear(n_embd, vocab_size)\n\n        # better init, not covered in the original GPT video, but important,\n        # will cover in followup video\n        self.apply(self._init_weights)\n\n    def _init_weights(self, module):\n        if isinstance(module, nn.Linear):\n            torch.nn.init.normal_(module.weight, mean=0.0, std=0.02)\n            if module.bias is not None:\n                torch.nn.init.zeros_(module.bias)\n        elif isinstance(module, nn.Embedding):\n            torch.nn.init.normal_(module.weight, mean=0.0, std=0.02)\n\n    def forward(self, idx, targets=None):\n        B, T = idx.shape\n\n        # C is n_embd\n        # idx and targets are both (B,T) tensor of integers\n        tok_emb = self.token_embedding_table(idx)  # (B,T,C)\n        pos_emb = self.position_embedding_table(torch.arange(T, device=device))  # (T,C)\n        x = tok_emb + pos_emb  # (B,T,C)\n        x = self.blocks(x)  # (B,T,C)\n        x = self.ln_f(x)  # (B,T,C)\n\n        # logits(b,t,v) are the un-normalized probabilities of character v\n        # (out of [0, vocab_size)) being generated after token t in batch b.\n        logits = self.demb(x)  # (B,T,vocab_size)\n\n        if targets is None:\n            loss = None\n        else:\n            B, T, C = logits.shape\n            # Reshape logits and targets to a form cross_entropy likes, and\n            # calculate the xent for the entire batch and sequence at once.\n            logits = logits.view(B * T, C)\n            targets = targets.view(B * T)\n            loss = F.cross_entropy(logits, targets)\n\n        return logits, loss\n\n    def generate(self, idx, max_new_tokens):\n        # idx is (B, T) array of indices in the current context\n        for _ in range(max_new_tokens):\n            # crop idx to the last block_size tokens\n            idx_cond = idx[:, -block_size:]\n            # get the predictions\n            logits, _ = self(idx_cond)\n            # focus only on the last time step\n            logits = logits[:, -1, :]  # becomes (B, C)\n            # apply softmax to get probabilities\n            probs = F.softmax(logits, dim=-1)  # (B, C)\n            # sample from the distribution\n            idx_next = torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1)  # (B, 1)\n            # append sampled index to the running sequence\n            idx = torch.cat((idx, idx_next), dim=1)  # (B, T+1)\n        return idx\n\n\nmodel = GPTLanguageModel()\nm = model.to(device)\n# print the number of parameters in the model\nprint(sum(p.numel() for p in m.parameters()) / 1e6, \"M parameters\")\n\n# create a PyTorch optimizer\noptimizer = torch.optim.AdamW(model.parameters(), lr=learning_rate)\n\n\n@torch.no_grad()\ndef estimate_loss():\n    out = {}\n    model.eval()\n    for split in [\"train\", \"val\"]:\n        losses = torch.zeros(eval_iters)\n        for k in range(eval_iters):\n            X, Y = get_batch(split)\n            logits, loss = model(X, Y)\n            losses[k] = loss.item()\n        out[split] = losses.mean()\n    model.train()\n    return out\n\n\nfor iter in range(max_iters):\n\n    # every once in a while evaluate the loss on train and val sets\n    if iter % eval_interval == 0 or iter == max_iters - 1:\n        losses = estimate_loss()\n        print(\n            f\"step {iter}: train loss {losses['train']:.4f}, val loss {losses['val']:.4f}\"\n        )\n\n    # sample a batch of data\n    xb, yb = get_batch(\"train\")\n\n    # evaluate the loss\n    logits, loss = model(xb, yb)\n    optimizer.zero_grad(set_to_none=True)\n    loss.backward()\n    optimizer.step()\n\n# generate from the model, using batch 1 and starting with a single\n# context token of value 0 (newline).\ncontext = torch.zeros((1, 1), dtype=torch.long, device=device)\nprint(decode(m.generate(context, max_new_tokens=500)[0].tolist()))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/input.txt",
    "content": "First Citizen:\nBefore we proceed any further, hear me speak.\n\nAll:\nSpeak, speak.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYou are all resolved rather to die than to famish?\n\nAll:\nResolved. resolved.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFirst, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.\n\nAll:\nWe know't, we know't.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nLet us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.\nIs't a verdict?\n\nAll:\nNo more talking on't; let it be done: away, away!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nOne word, good citizens.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.\nWhat authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they\nwould yield us but the superfluity, while it were\nwholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely;\nbut they think we are too dear: the leanness that\nafflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an\ninventory to particularise their abundance; our\nsufferance is a gain to them Let us revenge this with\nour pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I\nspeak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWould you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?\n\nAll:\nAgainst him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nConsider you what services he has done for his country?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nVery well; and could be content to give him good\nreport fort, but that he pays himself with being proud.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNay, but speak not maliciously.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did\nit to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be\ncontent to say it was for his country he did it to\nplease his mother and to be partly proud; which he\nis, even till the altitude of his virtue.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhat he cannot help in his nature, you account a\nvice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIf I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;\nhe hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.\nWhat shouts are these? The other side o' the city\nis risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!\n\nAll:\nCome, come.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSoft! who comes here?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWorthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved\nthe people.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe's one honest enough: would all the rest were so!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you\nWith bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOur business is not unknown to the senate; they have\nhad inkling this fortnight what we intend to do,\nwhich now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor\nsuitors have strong breaths: they shall know we\nhave strong arms too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,\nWill you undo yourselves?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe cannot, sir, we are undone already.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell you, friends, most charitable care\nHave the patricians of you. For your wants,\nYour suffering in this dearth, you may as well\nStrike at the heaven with your staves as lift them\nAgainst the Roman state, whose course will on\nThe way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs\nOf more strong link asunder than can ever\nAppear in your impediment. For the dearth,\nThe gods, not the patricians, make it, and\nYour knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,\nYou are transported by calamity\nThither where more attends you, and you slander\nThe helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,\nWhen you curse them as enemies.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCare for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us\nyet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses\ncrammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to\nsupport usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act\nestablished against the rich, and provide more\npiercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain\nthe poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and\nthere's all the love they bear us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nEither you must\nConfess yourselves wondrous malicious,\nOr be accused of folly. I shall tell you\nA pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;\nBut, since it serves my purpose, I will venture\nTo stale 't a little more.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to\nfob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please\nyou, deliver.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere was a time when all the body's members\nRebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:\nThat only like a gulf it did remain\nI' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,\nStill cupboarding the viand, never bearing\nLike labour with the rest, where the other instruments\nDid see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,\nAnd, mutually participate, did minister\nUnto the appetite and affection common\nOf the whole body. The belly answer'd--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWell, sir, what answer made the belly?\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,\nWhich ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--\nFor, look you, I may make the belly smile\nAs well as speak--it tauntingly replied\nTo the discontented members, the mutinous parts\nThat envied his receipt; even so most fitly\nAs you malign our senators for that\nThey are not such as you.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYour belly's answer? What!\nThe kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,\nThe counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,\nOur steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.\nWith other muniments and petty helps\nIn this our fabric, if that they--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat then?\n'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nShould by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,\nWho is the sink o' the body,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, what then?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe former agents, if they did complain,\nWhat could the belly answer?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will tell you\nIf you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--\nPatience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nYe're long about it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNote me this, good friend;\nYour most grave belly was deliberate,\nNot rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:\n'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,\n'That I receive the general food at first,\nWhich you do live upon; and fit it is,\nBecause I am the store-house and the shop\nOf the whole body: but, if you do remember,\nI send it through the rivers of your blood,\nEven to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;\nAnd, through the cranks and offices of man,\nThe strongest nerves and small inferior veins\nFrom me receive that natural competency\nWhereby they live: and though that all at once,\nYou, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,--\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, sir; well, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Though all at once cannot\nSee what I do deliver out to each,\nYet I can make my audit up, that all\nFrom me do back receive the flour of all,\nAnd leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nIt was an answer: how apply you this?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senators of Rome are this good belly,\nAnd you the mutinous members; for examine\nTheir counsels and their cares, digest things rightly\nTouching the weal o' the common, you shall find\nNo public benefit which you receive\nBut it proceeds or comes from them to you\nAnd no way from yourselves. What do you think,\nYou, the great toe of this assembly?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI the great toe! why the great toe?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,\nOf this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost:\nThou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,\nLead'st first to win some vantage.\nBut make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:\nRome and her rats are at the point of battle;\nThe one side must have bale.\nHail, noble Marcius!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,\nThat, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,\nMake yourselves scabs?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWe have ever your good word.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHe that will give good words to thee will flatter\nBeneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,\nThat like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,\nThe other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,\nWhere he should find you lions, finds you hares;\nWhere foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,\nThan is the coal of fire upon the ice,\nOr hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is\nTo make him worthy whose offence subdues him\nAnd curse that justice did it.\nWho deserves greatness\nDeserves your hate; and your affections are\nA sick man's appetite, who desires most that\nWhich would increase his evil. He that depends\nUpon your favours swims with fins of lead\nAnd hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?\nWith every minute you do change a mind,\nAnd call him noble that was now your hate,\nHim vile that was your garland. What's the matter,\nThat in these several places of the city\nYou cry against the noble senate, who,\nUnder the gods, keep you in awe, which else\nWould feed on one another? What's their seeking?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,\nThe city is well stored.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHang 'em! They say!\nThey'll sit by the fire, and presume to know\nWhat's done i' the Capitol; who's like to rise,\nWho thrives and who declines; side factions\nand give out\nConjectural marriages; making parties strong\nAnd feebling such as stand not in their liking\nBelow their cobbled shoes. They say there's\ngrain enough!\nWould the nobility lay aside their ruth,\nAnd let me use my sword, I'll make a quarry\nWith thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high\nAs I could pick my lance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;\nFor though abundantly they lack discretion,\nYet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,\nWhat says the other troop?\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey are dissolved: hang 'em!\nThey said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,\nThat hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,\nThat meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not\nCorn for the rich men only: with these shreds\nThey vented their complainings; which being answer'd,\nAnd a petition granted them, a strange one--\nTo break the heart of generosity,\nAnd make bold power look pale--they threw their caps\nAs they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,\nShouting their emulation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is granted them?\n\nMARCIUS:\nFive tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,\nOf their own choice: one's Junius Brutus,\nSicinius Velutus, and I know not--'Sdeath!\nThe rabble should have first unroof'd the city,\nEre so prevail'd with me: it will in time\nWin upon power and throw forth greater themes\nFor insurrection's arguing.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange.\n\nMARCIUS:\nGo, get you home, you fragments!\n\nMessenger:\nWhere's Caius Marcius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nHere: what's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nThe news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI am glad on 't: then we shall ha' means to vent\nOur musty superfluity. See, our best elders.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMarcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us;\nThe Volsces are in arms.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey have a leader,\nTullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't.\nI sin in envying his nobility,\nAnd were I any thing but what I am,\nI would wish me only he.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have fought together.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWere half to half the world by the ears and he.\nUpon my party, I'ld revolt to make\nOnly my wars with him: he is a lion\nThat I am proud to hunt.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen, worthy Marcius,\nAttend upon Cominius to these wars.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIt is your former promise.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, it is;\nAnd I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou\nShalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.\nWhat, art thou stiff? stand'st out?\n\nTITUS:\nNo, Caius Marcius;\nI'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other,\nEre stay behind this business.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, true-bred!\n\nFirst Senator:\nYour company to the Capitol; where, I know,\nOur greatest friends attend us.\n\nTITUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNoble Marcius!\n\nFirst Senator:\n\nMARCIUS:\nNay, let them follow:\nThe Volsces have much corn; take these rats thither\nTo gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutiners,\nYour valour puts well forth: pray, follow.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWas ever man so proud as is this Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe has no equal.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhen we were chosen tribunes for the people,--\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark'd you his lip and eyes?\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay. but his taunts.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBeing moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBe-mock the modest moon.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe present wars devour him: he is grown\nToo proud to be so valiant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSuch a nature,\nTickled with good success, disdains the shadow\nWhich he treads on at noon: but I do wonder\nHis insolence can brook to be commanded\nUnder Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nFame, at the which he aims,\nIn whom already he's well graced, can not\nBetter be held nor more attain'd than by\nA place below the first: for what miscarries\nShall be the general's fault, though he perform\nTo the utmost of a man, and giddy censure\nWill then cry out of Marcius 'O if he\nHad borne the business!'\n\nSICINIUS:\nBesides, if things go well,\nOpinion that so sticks on Marcius shall\nOf his demerits rob Cominius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome:\nHalf all Cominius' honours are to Marcius.\nThough Marcius earned them not, and all his faults\nTo Marcius shall be honours, though indeed\nIn aught he merit not.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's hence, and hear\nHow the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,\nMore than his singularity, he goes\nUpon this present action.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLets along.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSo, your opinion is, Aufidius,\nThat they of Rome are entered in our counsels\nAnd know how we proceed.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIs it not yours?\nWhat ever have been thought on in this state,\nThat could be brought to bodily act ere Rome\nHad circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone\nSince I heard thence; these are the words: I think\nI have the letter here; yes, here it is.\n'They have press'd a power, but it is not known\nWhether for east or west: the dearth is great;\nThe people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,\nCominius, Marcius your old enemy,\nWho is of Rome worse hated than of you,\nAnd Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,\nThese three lead on this preparation\nWhither 'tis bent: most likely 'tis for you:\nConsider of it.'\n\nFirst Senator:\nOur army's in the field\nWe never yet made doubt but Rome was ready\nTo answer us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNor did you think it folly\nTo keep your great pretences veil'd till when\nThey needs must show themselves; which\nin the hatching,\nIt seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery.\nWe shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was\nTo take in many towns ere almost Rome\nShould know we were afoot.\n\nSecond Senator:\nNoble Aufidius,\nTake your commission; hie you to your bands:\nLet us alone to guard Corioli:\nIf they set down before 's, for the remove\nBring your army; but, I think, you'll find\nThey've not prepared for us.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO, doubt not that;\nI speak from certainties. Nay, more,\nSome parcels of their power are forth already,\nAnd only hitherward. I leave your honours.\nIf we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,\n'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike\nTill one can do no more.\n\nAll:\nThe gods assist you!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAnd keep your honours safe!\n\nFirst Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nSecond Senator:\nFarewell.\n\nAll:\nFarewell.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a\nmore comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I\nshould freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he\nwon honour than in the embracements of his bed where\nhe would show most love. When yet he was but\ntender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when\nyouth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when\nfor a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not\nsell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering\nhow honour would become such a person. that it was\nno better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if\nrenown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek\ndanger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel\nwar I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows\nbound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not\nmore in joy at first hearing he was a man-child\nthan now in first seeing he had proved himself a\nman.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBut had he died in the business, madam; how then?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThen his good report should have been my son; I\ntherein would have found issue. Hear me profess\nsincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love\nalike and none less dear than thine and my good\nMarcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their\ncountry than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.\n\nGentlewoman:\nMadam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nBeseech you, give me leave to retire myself.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIndeed, you shall not.\nMethinks I hear hither your husband's drum,\nSee him pluck Aufidius down by the hair,\nAs children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:\nMethinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:\n'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,\nThough you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow\nWith his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,\nLike to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow\nOr all or lose his hire.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHis bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAway, you fool! it more becomes a man\nThan gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,\nWhen she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier\nThan Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood\nAt Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria,\nWe are fit to bid her welcome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nHeavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe'll beat Aufidius 'head below his knee\nAnd tread upon his neck.\n\nVALERIA:\nMy ladies both, good day to you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nSweet madam.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI am glad to see your ladyship.\n\nVALERIA:\nHow do you both? you are manifest house-keepers.\nWhat are you sewing here? A fine spot, in good\nfaith. How does your little son?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI thank your ladyship; well, good madam.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, than\nlook upon his school-master.\n\nVALERIA:\nO' my word, the father's son: I'll swear,'tis a\nvery pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o'\nWednesday half an hour together: has such a\nconfirmed countenance. I saw him run after a gilded\nbutterfly: and when he caught it, he let it go\nagain; and after it again; and over and over he\ncomes, and again; catched it again; or whether his\nfall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his\nteeth and tear it; O, I warrant it, how he mammocked\nit!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOne on 's father's moods.\n\nVALERIA:\nIndeed, la, 'tis a noble child.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nA crack, madam.\n\nVALERIA:\nCome, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play\nthe idle husewife with me this afternoon.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam; I will not out of doors.\n\nVALERIA:\nNot out of doors!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShe shall, she shall.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the\nthreshold till my lord return from the wars.\n\nVALERIA:\nFie, you confine yourself most unreasonably: come,\nyou must go visit the good lady that lies in.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nI will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with\nmy prayers; but I cannot go thither.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nWhy, I pray you?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.\n\nVALERIA:\nYou would be another Penelope: yet, they say, all\nthe yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill\nIthaca full of moths. Come; I would your cambric\nwere sensible as your finger, that you might leave\npricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will not forth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you\nexcellent news of your husband.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, good madam, there can be none yet.\n\nVALERIA:\nVerily, I do not jest with you; there came news from\nhim last night.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nIndeed, madam?\n\nVALERIA:\nIn earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it.\nThus it is: the Volsces have an army forth; against\nwhom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of\nour Roman power: your lord and Titus Lartius are set\ndown before their city Corioli; they nothing doubt\nprevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,\non mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nGive me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in every\nthing hereafter.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLet her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but\ndisease our better mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then.\nCome, good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy\nsolemness out o' door. and go along with us.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nNo, at a word, madam; indeed, I must not. I wish\nyou much mirth.\n\nVALERIA:\nWell, then, farewell.\n\nMARCIUS:\nYonder comes news. A wager they have met.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMy horse to yours, no.\n\nMARCIUS:\n'Tis done.\n\nLARTIUS:\nAgreed.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSay, has our general met the enemy?\n\nMessenger:\nThey lie in view; but have not spoke as yet.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, the good horse is mine.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll buy him of you.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNo, I'll nor sell nor give him: lend you him I will\nFor half a hundred years. Summon the town.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow far off lie these armies?\n\nMessenger:\nWithin this mile and half.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThen shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.\nNow, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,\nThat we with smoking swords may march from hence,\nTo help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.\nTutus Aufidius, is he within your walls?\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo, nor a man that fears you less than he,\nThat's lesser than a little.\nHark! our drums\nAre bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls,\nRather than they shall pound us up: our gates,\nWhich yet seem shut, we, have but pinn'd with rushes;\nThey'll open of themselves.\nHark you. far off!\nThere is Aufidius; list, what work he makes\nAmongst your cloven army.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, they are at it!\n\nLARTIUS:\nTheir noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThey fear us not, but issue forth their city.\nNow put your shields before your hearts, and fight\nWith hearts more proof than shields. Advance,\nbrave Titus:\nThey do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,\nWhich makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:\nHe that retires I'll take him for a Volsce,\nAnd he shall feel mine edge.\n\nMARCIUS:\nAll the contagion of the south light on you,\nYou shames of Rome! you herd of--Boils and plagues\nPlaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd\nFurther than seen and one infect another\nAgainst the wind a mile! You souls of geese,\nThat bear the shapes of men, how have you run\nFrom slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!\nAll hurt behind; backs red, and faces pale\nWith flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,\nOr, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe\nAnd make my wars on you: look to't: come on;\nIf you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives,\nAs they us to our trenches followed.\nSo, now the gates are ope: now prove good seconds:\n'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,\nNot for the fliers: mark me, and do the like.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFool-hardiness; not I.\n\nSecond Soldier:\nNor I.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nSee, they have shut him in.\n\nAll:\nTo the pot, I warrant him.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWhat is become of Marcius?\n\nAll:\nSlain, sir, doubtless.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nFollowing the fliers at the very heels,\nWith them he enters; who, upon the sudden,\nClapp'd to their gates: he is himself alone,\nTo answer all the city.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO noble fellow!\nWho sensibly outdares his senseless sword,\nAnd, when it bows, stands up. Thou art left, Marcius:\nA carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,\nWere not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier\nEven to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible\nOnly in strokes; but, with thy grim looks and\nThe thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,\nThou madst thine enemies shake, as if the world\nWere feverous and did tremble.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nLook, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO,'tis Marcius!\nLet's fetch him off, or make remain alike.\n\nFirst Roman:\nThis will I carry to Rome.\n\nSecond Roman:\nAnd I this.\n\nThird Roman:\nA murrain on't! I took this for silver.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSee here these movers that do prize their hours\nAt a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons,\nIrons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would\nBury with those that wore them, these base slaves,\nEre yet the fight be done, pack up: down with them!\nAnd hark, what noise the general makes! To him!\nThere is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,\nPiercing our Romans: then, valiant Titus, take\nConvenient numbers to make good the city;\nWhilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste\nTo help Cominius.\n\nLARTIUS:\nWorthy sir, thou bleed'st;\nThy exercise hath been too violent for\nA second course of fight.\n\nMARCIUS:\nSir, praise me not;\nMy work hath yet not warm'd me: fare you well:\nThe blood I drop is rather physical\nThan dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus\nI will appear, and fight.\n\nLARTIUS:\nNow the fair goddess, Fortune,\nFall deep in love with thee; and her great charms\nMisguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,\nProsperity be thy page!\n\nMARCIUS:\nThy friend no less\nThan those she placeth highest! So, farewell.\n\nLARTIUS:\nThou worthiest Marcius!\nGo, sound thy trumpet in the market-place;\nCall thither all the officers o' the town,\nWhere they shall know our mind: away!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBreathe you, my friends: well fought;\nwe are come off\nLike Romans, neither foolish in our stands,\nNor cowardly in retire: believe me, sirs,\nWe shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,\nBy interims and conveying gusts we have heard\nThe charges of our friends. Ye Roman gods!\nLead their successes as we wish our own,\nThat both our powers, with smiling\nfronts encountering,\nMay give you thankful sacrifice.\nThy news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe citizens of Corioli have issued,\nAnd given to Lartius and to Marcius battle:\nI saw our party to their trenches driven,\nAnd then I came away.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough thou speak'st truth,\nMethinks thou speak'st not well.\nHow long is't since?\n\nMessenger:\nAbove an hour, my lord.\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums:\nHow couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,\nAnd bring thy news so late?\n\nMessenger:\nSpies of the Volsces\nHeld me in chase, that I was forced to wheel\nThree or four miles about, else had I, sir,\nHalf an hour since brought my report.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho's yonder,\nThat does appear as he were flay'd? O gods\nHe has the stamp of Marcius; and I have\nBefore-time seen him thus.\n\nMARCIUS:\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour\nMore than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue\nFrom every meaner man.\n\nMARCIUS:\nCome I too late?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy, if you come not in the blood of others,\nBut mantled in your own.\n\nMARCIUS:\nO, let me clip ye\nIn arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart\nAs merry as when our nuptial day was done,\nAnd tapers burn'd to bedward!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nFlower of warriors,\nHow is it with Titus Lartius?\n\nMARCIUS:\nAs with a man busied about decrees:\nCondemning some to death, and some to exile;\nRansoming him, or pitying, threatening the other;\nHolding Corioli in the name of Rome,\nEven like a fawning greyhound in the leash,\nTo let him slip at will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWhere is that slave\nWhich told me they had beat you to your trenches?\nWhere is he? call him hither.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet him alone;\nHe did inform the truth: but for our gentlemen,\nThe common file--a plague! tribunes for them!--\nThe mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge\nFrom rascals worse than they.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut how prevail'd you?\n\nMARCIUS:\nWill the time serve to tell? I do not think.\nWhere is the enemy? are you lords o' the field?\nIf not, why cease you till you are so?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarcius,\nWe have at disadvantage fought and did\nRetire to win our purpose.\n\nMARCIUS:\nHow lies their battle? know you on which side\nThey have placed their men of trust?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAs I guess, Marcius,\nTheir bands i' the vaward are the Antiates,\nOf their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,\nTheir very heart of hope.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI do beseech you,\nBy all the battles wherein we have fought,\nBy the blood we have shed together, by the vows\nWe have made to endure friends, that you directly\nSet me against Aufidius and his Antiates;\nAnd that you not delay the present, but,\nFilling the air with swords advanced and darts,\nWe prove this very hour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThough I could wish\nYou were conducted to a gentle bath\nAnd balms applied to, you, yet dare I never\nDeny your asking: take your choice of those\nThat best can aid your action.\n\nMARCIUS:\nThose are they\nThat most are willing. If any such be here--\nAs it were sin to doubt--that love this painting\nWherein you see me smear'd; if any fear\nLesser his person than an ill report;\nIf any think brave death outweighs bad life\nAnd that his country's dearer than himself;\nLet him alone, or so many so minded,\nWave thus, to express his disposition,\nAnd follow Marcius.\nO, me alone! make you a sword of me?\nIf these shows be not outward, which of you\nBut is four Volsces? none of you but is\nAble to bear against the great Aufidius\nA shield as hard as his. A certain number,\nThough thanks to all, must I select\nfrom all: the rest\nShall bear the business in some other fight,\nAs cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;\nAnd four shall quickly draw out my command,\nWhich men are best inclined.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nMarch on, my fellows:\nMake good this ostentation, and you shall\nDivide in all with us.\n\nLARTIUS:\nSo, let the ports be guarded: keep your duties,\nAs I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch\nThose centuries to our aid: the rest will serve\nFor a short holding: if we lose the field,\nWe cannot keep the town.\n\nLieutenant:\nFear not our care, sir.\n\nLARTIUS:\nHence, and shut your gates upon's.\nOur guider, come; to the Roman camp conduct us.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee\nWorse than a promise-breaker.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWe hate alike:\nNot Afric owns a serpent I abhor\nMore than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.\n\nMARCIUS:\nLet the first budger die the other's slave,\nAnd the gods doom him after!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nIf I fly, Marcius,\nHolloa me like a hare.\n\nMARCIUS:\nWithin these three hours, Tullus,\nAlone I fought in your Corioli walls,\nAnd made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood\nWherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge\nWrench up thy power to the highest.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWert thou the Hector\nThat was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,\nThou shouldst not scape me here.\nOfficious, and not valiant, you have shamed me\nIn your condemned seconds.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,\nThou'ldst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it\nWhere senators shall mingle tears with smiles,\nWhere great patricians shall attend and shrug,\nI' the end admire, where ladies shall be frighted,\nAnd, gladly quaked, hear more; where the\ndull tribunes,\nThat, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours,\nShall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods\nOur Rome hath such a soldier.'\nYet camest thou to a morsel of this feast,\nHaving fully dined before.\n\nLARTIUS:\nO general,\nHere is the steed, we the caparison:\nHadst thou beheld--\n\nMARCIUS:\nPray now, no more: my mother,\nWho has a charter to extol her blood,\nWhen she does praise me grieves me. I have done\nAs you have done; that's what I can; induced\nAs you have been; that's for my country:\nHe that has but effected his good will\nHath overta'en mine act.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou shall not be\nThe grave of your deserving; Rome must know\nThe value of her own: 'twere a concealment\nWorse than a theft, no less than a traducement,\nTo hide your doings; and to silence that,\nWhich, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,\nWould seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you\nIn sign of what you are, not to reward\nWhat you have done--before our army hear me.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI have some wounds upon me, and they smart\nTo hear themselves remember'd.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nShould they not,\nWell might they fester 'gainst ingratitude,\nAnd tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,\nWhereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all\nThe treasure in this field achieved and city,\nWe render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth,\nBefore the common distribution, at\nYour only choice.\n\nMARCIUS:\nI thank you, general;\nBut cannot make my heart consent to take\nA bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;\nAnd stand upon my common part with those\nThat have beheld the doing.\n\nMARCIUS:\nMay these same instruments, which you profane,\nNever sound more! when drums and trumpets shall\nI' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be\nMade all of false-faced soothing!\nWhen steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,\nLet him be made a coverture for the wars!\nNo more, I say! For that I have not wash'd\nMy nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch.--\nWhich, without note, here's many else have done,--\nYou shout me forth\nIn acclamations hyperbolical;\nAs if I loved my little should be dieted\nIn praises sauced with lies.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nToo modest are you;\nMore cruel to your good report than grateful\nTo us that give you truly: by your patience,\nIf 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you,\nLike one that means his proper harm, in manacles,\nThen reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known,\nAs to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius\nWears this war's garland: in token of the which,\nMy noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,\nWith all his trim belonging; and from this time,\nFor what he did before Corioli, call him,\nWith all the applause and clamour of the host,\nCAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear\nThe addition nobly ever!\n\nAll:\nCaius Marcius Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will go wash;\nAnd when my face is fair, you shall perceive\nWhether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.\nI mean to stride your steed, and at all times\nTo undercrest your good addition\nTo the fairness of my power.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nSo, to our tent;\nWhere, ere we do repose us, we will write\nTo Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,\nMust to Corioli back: send us to Rome\nThe best, with whom we may articulate,\nFor their own good and ours.\n\nLARTIUS:\nI shall, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe gods begin to mock me. I, that now\nRefused most princely gifts, am bound to beg\nOf my lord general.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nTake't; 'tis yours. What is't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI sometime lay here in Corioli\nAt a poor man's house; he used me kindly:\nHe cried to me; I saw him prisoner;\nBut then Aufidius was within my view,\nAnd wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you\nTo give my poor host freedom.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, well begg'd!\nWere he the butcher of my son, he should\nBe free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.\n\nLARTIUS:\nMarcius, his name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBy Jupiter! forgot.\nI am weary; yea, my memory is tired.\nHave we no wine here?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nGo we to our tent:\nThe blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time\nIt should be look'd to: come.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThe town is ta'en!\n\nFirst Soldier:\n'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nCondition!\nI would I were a Roman; for I cannot,\nBeing a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!\nWhat good condition can a treaty find\nI' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,\nI have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,\nAnd wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter\nAs often as we eat. By the elements,\nIf e'er again I meet him beard to beard,\nHe's mine, or I am his: mine emulation\nHath not that honour in't it had; for where\nI thought to crush him in an equal force,\nTrue sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way\nOr wrath or craft may get him.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nHe's the devil.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nBolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd\nWith only suffering stain by him; for him\nShall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,\nBeing naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,\nThe prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,\nEmbarquements all of fury, shall lift up\nTheir rotten privilege and custom 'gainst\nMy hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it\nAt home, upon my brother's guard, even there,\nAgainst the hospitable canon, would I\nWash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to the city;\nLearn how 'tis held; and what they are that must\nBe hostages for Rome.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nWill not you go?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you--\n'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither\nHow the world goes, that to the pace of it\nI may spur on my journey.\n\nFirst Soldier:\nI shall, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGood or bad?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot according to the prayer of the people, for they\nlove not Marcius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNature teaches beasts to know their friends.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, who does the wolf love?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe lamb.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the\nnoble Marcius.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two\nare old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.\n\nBoth:\nWell, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIn what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two\nhave not in abundance?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.\n\nSICINIUS:\nEspecially in pride.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd topping all others in boasting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is strange now: do you two know how you are\ncensured here in the city, I mean of us o' the\nright-hand file? do you?\n\nBoth:\nWhy, how are we censured?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBecause you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry?\n\nBoth:\nWell, well, sir, well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of\noccasion will rob you of a great deal of patience:\ngive your dispositions the reins, and be angry at\nyour pleasures; at the least if you take it as a\npleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for\nbeing proud?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe do it not alone, sir.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI know you can do very little alone; for your helps\nare many, or else your actions would grow wondrous\nsingle: your abilities are too infant-like for\ndoing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you\ncould turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,\nand make but an interior survey of your good selves!\nO that you could!\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat then, sir?\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,\nproud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as\nany in Rome.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMenenius, you are known well enough too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that\nloves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying\nTiber in't; said to be something imperfect in\nfavouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like\nupon too trivial motion; one that converses more\nwith the buttock of the night than with the forehead\nof the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my\nmalice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as\nyou are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink\nyou give me touch my palate adversely, I make a\ncrooked face at it. I can't say your worships have\ndelivered the matter well, when I find the ass in\ncompound with the major part of your syllables: and\nthough I must be content to bear with those that say\nyou are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that\ntell you you have good faces. If you see this in\nthe map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known\nwell enough too? what barm can your bisson\nconspectuities glean out of this character, if I be\nknown well enough too?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, sir, come, we know you well enough.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You\nare ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you\nwear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a\ncause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;\nand then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a\nsecond day of audience. When you are hearing a\nmatter between party and party, if you chance to be\npinched with the colic, you make faces like\nmummers; set up the bloody flag against all\npatience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,\ndismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled\nby your hearing: all the peace you make in their\ncause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are\na pair of strange ones.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, come, you are well understood to be a\nperfecter giber for the table than a necessary\nbencher in the Capitol.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOur very priests must become mockers, if they shall\nencounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When\nyou speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the\nwagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not\nso honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's\ncushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-\nsaddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud;\nwho in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors\nsince Deucalion, though peradventure some of the\nbest of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to\nyour worships: more of your conversation would\ninfect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly\nplebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you.\nHow now, my as fair as noble ladies,--and the moon,\nwere she earthly, no nobler,--whither do you follow\nyour eyes so fast?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHonourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for\nthe love of Juno, let's go.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHa! Marcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous\napprobation.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTake my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!\nMarcius coming home!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay,'tis true.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nLook, here's a letter from him: the state hath\nanother, his wife another; and, I think, there's one\nat home for you.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for\nme!\n\nVIRGILIA:\nYes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven\nyears' health; in which time I will make a lip at\nthe physician: the most sovereign prescription in\nGalen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative,\nof no better report than a horse-drench. Is he\nnot wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO, no, no, no.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, he is wounded; I thank the gods for't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo do I too, if it be not too much: brings a'\nvictory in his pocket? the wounds become him.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nOn's brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home\nwith the oaken garland.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he disciplined Aufidius soundly?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTitus Lartius writes, they fought together, but\nAufidius got off.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that:\nan he had stayed by him, I would not have been so\nfidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold\nthat's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nGood ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate\nhas letters from the general, wherein he gives my\nson the whole name of the war: he hath in this\naction outdone his former deeds doubly\n\nVALERIA:\nIn troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his\ntrue purchasing.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe gods grant them true!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTrue! pow, wow.\n\nMENENIUS:\nTrue! I'll be sworn they are true.\nWhere is he wounded?\nGod save your good worships! Marcius is coming\nhome: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI' the shoulder and i' the left arm there will be\nlarge cicatrices to show the people, when he shall\nstand for his place. He received in the repulse of\nTarquin seven hurts i' the body.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,--there's\nnine that I know.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe had, before this last expedition, twenty-five\nwounds upon him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave.\nHark! the trumpets.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThese are the ushers of Marcius: before him he\ncarries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:\nDeath, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie;\nWhich, being advanced, declines, and then men die.\n\nHerald:\nKnow, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight\nWithin Corioli gates: where he hath won,\nWith fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these\nIn honour follows Coriolanus.\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nAll:\nWelcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo more of this; it does offend my heart:\nPray now, no more.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLook, sir, your mother!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO,\nYou have, I know, petition'd all the gods\nFor my prosperity!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, my good soldier, up;\nMy gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and\nBy deed-achieving honour newly named,--\nWhat is it?--Coriolanus must I call thee?--\nBut O, thy wife!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy gracious silence, hail!\nWouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,\nThat weep'st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,\nSuch eyes the widows in Corioli wear,\nAnd mothers that lack sons.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, the gods crown thee!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAnd live you yet?\nO my sweet lady, pardon.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI know not where to turn: O, welcome home:\nAnd welcome, general: and ye're welcome all.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep\nAnd I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome.\nA curse begin at very root on's heart,\nThat is not glad to see thee! You are three\nThat Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men,\nWe have some old crab-trees here\nat home that will not\nBe grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors:\nWe call a nettle but a nettle and\nThe faults of fools but folly.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nEver right.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMenenius ever, ever.\n\nHerald:\nGive way there, and go on!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI have lived\nTo see inherited my very wishes\nAnd the buildings of my fancy: only\nThere's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but\nOur Rome will cast upon thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKnow, good mother,\nI had rather be their servant in my way,\nThan sway with them in theirs.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOn, to the Capitol!\n\nBRUTUS:\nAll tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights\nAre spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse\nInto a rapture lets her baby cry\nWhile she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins\nHer richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,\nClambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,\nAre smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed\nWith variable complexions, all agreeing\nIn earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens\nDo press among the popular throngs and puff\nTo win a vulgar station: or veil'd dames\nCommit the war of white and damask in\nTheir nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil\nOf Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother\nAs if that whatsoever god who leads him\nWere slily crept into his human powers\nAnd gave him graceful posture.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOn the sudden,\nI warrant him consul.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThen our office may,\nDuring his power, go sleep.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe cannot temperately transport his honours\nFrom where he should begin and end, but will\nLose those he hath won.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn that there's comfort.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDoubt not\nThe commoners, for whom we stand, but they\nUpon their ancient malice will forget\nWith the least cause these his new honours, which\nThat he will give them make I as little question\nAs he is proud to do't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI heard him swear,\nWere he to stand for consul, never would he\nAppear i' the market-place nor on him put\nThe napless vesture of humility;\nNor showing, as the manner is, his wounds\nTo the people, beg their stinking breaths.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis right.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt was his word: O, he would miss it rather\nThan carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him,\nAnd the desire of the nobles.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI wish no better\nThan have him hold that purpose and to put it\nIn execution.\n\nBRUTUS:\n'Tis most like he will.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt shall be to him then as our good wills,\nA sure destruction.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSo it must fall out\nTo him or our authorities. For an end,\nWe must suggest the people in what hatred\nHe still hath held them; that to's power he would\nHave made them mules, silenced their pleaders and\nDispropertied their freedoms, holding them,\nIn human action and capacity,\nOf no more soul nor fitness for the world\nThan camels in the war, who have their provand\nOnly for bearing burdens, and sore blows\nFor sinking under them.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis, as you say, suggested\nAt some time when his soaring insolence\nShall touch the people--which time shall not want,\nIf he be put upon 't; and that's as easy\nAs to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire\nTo kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze\nShall darken him for ever.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMessenger:\nYou are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought\nThat Marcius shall be consul:\nI have seen the dumb men throng to see him and\nThe blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves,\nLadies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\nUpon him as he pass'd: the nobles bended,\nAs to Jove's statue, and the commons made\nA shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:\nI never saw the like.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol;\nAnd carry with us ears and eyes for the time,\nBut hearts for the event.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave with you.\n\nFirst Officer:\nCome, come, they are almost here. How many stand\nfor consulships?\n\nSecond Officer:\nThree, they say: but 'tis thought of every one\nCoriolanus will carry it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nThat's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and\nloves not the common people.\n\nSecond Officer:\nFaith, there had been many great men that have\nflattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there\nbe many that they have loved, they know not\nwherefore: so that, if they love they know not why,\nthey hate upon no better a ground: therefore, for\nCoriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate\nhim manifests the true knowledge he has in their\ndisposition; and out of his noble carelessness lets\nthem plainly see't.\n\nFirst Officer:\nIf he did not care whether he had their love or no,\nhe waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither\ngood nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater\ndevotion than can render it him; and leaves\nnothing undone that may fully discover him their\nopposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and\ndispleasure of the people is as bad as that which he\ndislikes, to flatter them for their love.\n\nSecond Officer:\nHe hath deserved worthily of his country: and his\nascent is not by such easy degrees as those who,\nhaving been supple and courteous to the people,\nbonneted, without any further deed to have them at\nan into their estimation and report: but he hath so\nplanted his honours in their eyes, and his actions\nin their hearts, that for their tongues to be\nsilent, and not confess so much, were a kind of\ningrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a\nmalice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck\nreproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.\n\nFirst Officer:\nNo more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they\nare coming.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHaving determined of the Volsces and\nTo send for Titus Lartius, it remains,\nAs the main point of this our after-meeting,\nTo gratify his noble service that\nHath thus stood for his country: therefore,\nplease you,\nMost reverend and grave elders, to desire\nThe present consul, and last general\nIn our well-found successes, to report\nA little of that worthy work perform'd\nBy Caius Marcius Coriolanus, whom\nWe met here both to thank and to remember\nWith honours like himself.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSpeak, good Cominius:\nLeave nothing out for length, and make us think\nRather our state's defective for requital\nThan we to stretch it out.\nMasters o' the people,\nWe do request your kindest ears, and after,\nYour loving motion toward the common body,\nTo yield what passes here.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe are convented\nUpon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts\nInclinable to honour and advance\nThe theme of our assembly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhich the rather\nWe shall be blest to do, if he remember\nA kinder value of the people than\nHe hath hereto prized them at.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's off, that's off;\nI would you rather had been silent. Please you\nTo hear Cominius speak?\n\nBRUTUS:\nMost willingly;\nBut yet my caution was more pertinent\nThan the rebuke you give it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe loves your people\nBut tie him not to be their bedfellow.\nWorthy Cominius, speak.\nNay, keep your place.\n\nFirst Senator:\nSit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear\nWhat you have nobly done.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour horror's pardon:\nI had rather have my wounds to heal again\nThan hear say how I got them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, I hope\nMy words disbench'd you not.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir: yet oft,\nWhen blows have made me stay, I fled from words.\nYou soothed not, therefore hurt not: but\nyour people,\nI love them as they weigh.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, sit down.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun\nWhen the alarum were struck than idly sit\nTo hear my nothings monster'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nMasters of the people,\nYour multiplying spawn how can he flatter--\nThat's thousand to one good one--when you now see\nHe had rather venture all his limbs for honour\nThan one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus\nShould not be utter'd feebly. It is held\nThat valour is the chiefest virtue, and\nMost dignifies the haver: if it be,\nThe man I speak of cannot in the world\nBe singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,\nWhen Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought\nBeyond the mark of others: our then dictator,\nWhom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,\nWhen with his Amazonian chin he drove\nThe bristled lips before him: be bestrid\nAn o'er-press'd Roman and i' the consul's view\nSlew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,\nAnd struck him on his knee: in that day's feats,\nWhen he might act the woman in the scene,\nHe proved best man i' the field, and for his meed\nWas brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age\nMan-enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea,\nAnd in the brunt of seventeen battles since\nHe lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,\nBefore and in Corioli, let me say,\nI cannot speak him home: he stopp'd the fliers;\nAnd by his rare example made the coward\nTurn terror into sport: as weeds before\nA vessel under sail, so men obey'd\nAnd fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp,\nWhere it did mark, it took; from face to foot\nHe was a thing of blood, whose every motion\nWas timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd\nThe mortal gate of the city, which he painted\nWith shunless destiny; aidless came off,\nAnd with a sudden reinforcement struck\nCorioli like a planet: now all's his:\nWhen, by and by, the din of war gan pierce\nHis ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit\nRe-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,\nAnd to the battle came he; where he did\nRun reeking o'er the lives of men, as if\n'Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd\nBoth field and city ours, he never stood\nTo ease his breast with panting.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWorthy man!\n\nFirst Senator:\nHe cannot but with measure fit the honours\nWhich we devise him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nOur spoils he kick'd at,\nAnd look'd upon things precious as they were\nThe common muck of the world: he covets less\nThan misery itself would give; rewards\nHis deeds with doing them, and is content\nTo spend the time to end it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHe's right noble:\nLet him be call'd for.\n\nFirst Senator:\nCall Coriolanus.\n\nOfficer:\nHe doth appear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased\nTo make thee consul.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do owe them still\nMy life and services.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIt then remains\nThat you do speak to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI do beseech you,\nLet me o'erleap that custom, for I cannot\nPut on the gown, stand naked and entreat them,\nFor my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you\nThat I may pass this doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, the people\nMust have their voices; neither will they bate\nOne jot of ceremony.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPut them not to't:\nPray you, go fit you to the custom and\nTake to you, as your predecessors have,\nYour honour with your form.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is apart\nThat I shall blush in acting, and might well\nBe taken from the people.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMark you that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTo brag unto them, thus I did, and thus;\nShow them the unaching scars which I should hide,\nAs if I had received them for the hire\nOf their breath only!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not stand upon't.\nWe recommend to you, tribunes of the people,\nOur purpose to them: and to our noble consul\nWish we all joy and honour.\n\nSenators:\nTo Coriolanus come all joy and honour!\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou see how he intends to use the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMay they perceive's intent! He will require them,\nAs if he did contemn what he requested\nShould be in them to give.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCome, we'll inform them\nOf our proceedings here: on the marketplace,\nI know, they do attend us.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOnce, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWe may, sir, if we will.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a\npower that we have no power to do; for if he show us\nhis wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our\ntongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if\nhe tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him\nour noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is\nmonstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,\nwere to make a monster of the multitude: of the\nwhich we being members, should bring ourselves to be\nmonstrous members.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAnd to make us no better thought of, a little help\nwill serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he\nhimself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe have been called so of many; not that our heads\nare some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,\nbut that our wits are so diversely coloured: and\ntruly I think if all our wits were to issue out of\none skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,\nand their consent of one direct way should be at\nonce to all the points o' the compass.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nThink you so? Which way do you judge my wit would\nfly?\n\nThird Citizen:\nNay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's\nwill;'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but\nif it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nWhy that way?\n\nThird Citizen:\nTo lose itself in a fog, where being three parts\nmelted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return\nfor conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou are never without your tricks: you may, you may.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAre you all resolved to give your voices? But\nthat's no matter, the greater part carries it. I\nsay, if he would incline to the people, there was\nnever a worthier man.\nHere he comes, and in the gown of humility: mark his\nbehavior. We are not to stay all together, but to\ncome by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and\nby threes. He's to make his requests by\nparticulars; wherein every one of us has a single\nhonour, in giving him our own voices with our own\ntongues: therefore follow me, and I direct you how\nyou shall go by him.\n\nAll:\nContent, content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO sir, you are not right: have you not known\nThe worthiest men have done't?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I say?\n'I Pray, sir'--Plague upon't! I cannot bring\nMy tongue to such a pace:--'Look, sir, my wounds!\nI got them in my country's service, when\nSome certain of your brethren roar'd and ran\nFrom the noise of our own drums.'\n\nMENENIUS:\nO me, the gods!\nYou must not speak of that: you must desire them\nTo think upon you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThink upon me! hang 'em!\nI would they would forget me, like the virtues\nWhich our divines lose by 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou'll mar all:\nI'll leave you: pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you,\nIn wholesome manner.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nBid them wash their faces\nAnd keep their teeth clean.\nSo, here comes a brace.\nYou know the cause, air, of my standing here.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWe do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMine own desert.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYour own desert!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, but not mine own desire.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHow not your own desire?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, sir,'twas never my desire yet to trouble the\npoor with begging.\n\nThird Citizen:\nYou must think, if we give you any thing, we hope to\ngain by you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell then, I pray, your price o' the consulship?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe price is to ask it kindly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nKindly! Sir, I pray, let me ha't: I have wounds to\nshow you, which shall be yours in private. Your\ngood voice, sir; what say you?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nYou shall ha' it, worthy sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices\nbegged. I have your alms: adieu.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBut this is something odd.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAn 'twere to give again,--but 'tis no matter.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your\nvoices that I may be consul, I have here the\ncustomary gown.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have deserved nobly of your country, and you\nhave not deserved nobly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYour enigma?\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have been a scourge to her enemies, you have\nbeen a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved\nthe common people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou should account me the more virtuous that I have\nnot been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my\nsworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer\nestimation of them; 'tis a condition they account\ngentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is\nrather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise\nthe insinuating nod and be off to them most\ncounterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the\nbewitchment of some popular man and give it\nbountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you,\nI may be consul.\n\nFifth Citizen:\nWe hope to find you our friend; and therefore give\nyou our voices heartily.\n\nFourth Citizen:\nYou have received many wounds for your country.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I\nwill make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.\n\nBoth Citizens:\nThe gods give you joy, sir, heartily!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMost sweet voices!\nBetter it is to die, better to starve,\nThan crave the hire which first we do deserve.\nWhy in this woolvish toge should I stand here,\nTo beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear,\nTheir needless vouches? Custom calls me to't:\nWhat custom wills, in all things should we do't,\nThe dust on antique time would lie unswept,\nAnd mountainous error be too highly heapt\nFor truth to o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so,\nLet the high office and the honour go\nTo one that would do thus. I am half through;\nThe one part suffer'd, the other will I do.\nHere come more voices.\nYour voices: for your voices I have fought;\nWatch'd for your voices; for Your voices bear\nOf wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six\nI have seen and heard of; for your voices have\nDone many things, some less, some more your voices:\nIndeed I would be consul.\n\nSixth Citizen:\nHe has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest\nman's voice.\n\nSeventh Citizen:\nTherefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy,\nand make him good friend to the people!\n\nAll Citizens:\nAmen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWorthy voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have stood your limitation; and the tribunes\nEndue you with the people's voice: remains\nThat, in the official marks invested, you\nAnon do meet the senate.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIs this done?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe custom of request you have discharged:\nThe people do admit you, and are summon'd\nTo meet anon, upon your approbation.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhere? at the senate-house?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThere, Coriolanus.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMay I change these garments?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou may, sir.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat I'll straight do; and, knowing myself again,\nRepair to the senate-house.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll keep you company. Will you along?\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stay here for the people.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFare you well.\nHe has it now, and by his looks methink\n'Tis warm at 's heart.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWith a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.\nwill you dismiss the people?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHow now, my masters! have you chose this man?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe has our voices, sir.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe pray the gods he may deserve your loves.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAmen, sir: to my poor unworthy notice,\nHe mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nCertainly\nHe flouted us downright.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo,'tis his kind of speech: he did not mock us.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nNot one amongst us, save yourself, but says\nHe used us scornfully: he should have show'd us\nHis marks of merit, wounds received for's country.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, so he did, I am sure.\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no; no man saw 'em.\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe said he had wounds, which he could show\nin private;\nAnd with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,\n'I would be consul,' says he: 'aged custom,\nBut by your voices, will not so permit me;\nYour voices therefore.' When we granted that,\nHere was 'I thank you for your voices: thank you:\nYour most sweet voices: now you have left\nyour voices,\nI have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy either were you ignorant to see't,\nOr, seeing it, of such childish friendliness\nTo yield your voices?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCould you not have told him\nAs you were lesson'd, when he had no power,\nBut was a petty servant to the state,\nHe was your enemy, ever spake against\nYour liberties and the charters that you bear\nI' the body of the weal; and now, arriving\nA place of potency and sway o' the state,\nIf he should still malignantly remain\nFast foe to the plebeii, your voices might\nBe curses to yourselves? You should have said\nThat as his worthy deeds did claim no less\nThan what he stood for, so his gracious nature\nWould think upon you for your voices and\nTranslate his malice towards you into love,\nStanding your friendly lord.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThus to have said,\nAs you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit\nAnd tried his inclination; from him pluck'd\nEither his gracious promise, which you might,\nAs cause had call'd you up, have held him to\nOr else it would have gall'd his surly nature,\nWhich easily endures not article\nTying him to aught; so putting him to rage,\nYou should have ta'en the advantage of his choler\nAnd pass'd him unelected.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDid you perceive\nHe did solicit you in free contempt\nWhen he did need your loves, and do you think\nThat his contempt shall not be bruising to you,\nWhen he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies\nNo heart among you? or had you tongues to cry\nAgainst the rectorship of judgment?\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you\nEre now denied the asker? and now again\nOf him that did not ask, but mock, bestow\nYour sued-for tongues?\n\nThird Citizen:\nHe's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd will deny him:\nI'll have five hundred voices of that sound.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nI twice five hundred and their friends to piece 'em.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGet you hence instantly, and tell those friends,\nThey have chose a consul that will from them take\nTheir liberties; make them of no more voice\nThan dogs that are as often beat for barking\nAs therefore kept to do so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet them assemble,\nAnd on a safer judgment all revoke\nYour ignorant election; enforce his pride,\nAnd his old hate unto you; besides, forget not\nWith what contempt he wore the humble weed,\nHow in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,\nThinking upon his services, took from you\nThe apprehension of his present portance,\nWhich most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion\nAfter the inveterate hate he bears you.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay\nA fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,\nNo impediment between, but that you must\nCast your election on him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSay, you chose him\nMore after our commandment than as guided\nBy your own true affections, and that your minds,\nPreoccupied with what you rather must do\nThan what you should, made you against the grain\nTo voice him consul: lay the fault on us.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAy, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.\nHow youngly he began to serve his country,\nHow long continued, and what stock he springs of,\nThe noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came\nThat Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,\nWho, after great Hostilius, here was king;\nOf the same house Publius and Quintus were,\nThat our beat water brought by conduits hither;\nAnd  \nTwice being  \nWas his great ancestor.\n\nSICINIUS:\nOne thus descended,\nThat hath beside well in his person wrought\nTo be set high in place, we did commend\nTo your remembrances: but you have found,\nScaling his present bearing with his past,\nThat he's your fixed enemy, and revoke\nYour sudden approbation.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSay, you ne'er had done't--\nHarp on that still--but by our putting on;\nAnd presently, when you have drawn your number,\nRepair to the Capitol.\n\nAll:\nWe will so: almost all\nRepent in their election.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet them go on;\nThis mutiny were better put in hazard,\nThan stay, past doubt, for greater:\nIf, as his nature is, he fall in rage\nWith their refusal, both observe and answer\nThe vantage of his anger.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTo the Capitol, come:\nWe will be there before the stream o' the people;\nAnd this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,\nWhich we have goaded onward.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTullus Aufidius then had made new head?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe had, my lord; and that it was which caused\nOur swifter composition.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSo then the Volsces stand but as at first,\nReady, when time shall prompt them, to make road.\nUpon's again.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThey are worn, lord consul, so,\nThat we shall hardly in our ages see\nTheir banners wave again.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSaw you Aufidius?\n\nLARTIUS:\nOn safe-guard he came to me; and did curse\nAgainst the Volsces, for they had so vilely\nYielded the town: he is retired to Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSpoke he of me?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHe did, my lord.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow? what?\n\nLARTIUS:\nHow often he had met you, sword to sword;\nThat of all things upon the earth he hated\nYour person most, that he would pawn his fortunes\nTo hopeless restitution, so he might\nBe call'd your vanquisher.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAt Antium lives he?\n\nLARTIUS:\nAt Antium.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI wish I had a cause to seek him there,\nTo oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.\nBehold, these are the tribunes of the people,\nThe tongues o' the common mouth: I do despise them;\nFor they do prank them in authority,\nAgainst all noble sufferance.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPass no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa! what is that?\n\nBRUTUS:\nIt will be dangerous to go on: no further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat makes this change?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe matter?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHath he not pass'd the noble and the common?\n\nBRUTUS:\nCominius, no.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave I had children's voices?\n\nFirst Senator:\nTribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe people are incensed against him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nStop,\nOr all will fall in broil.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAre these your herd?\nMust these have voices, that can yield them now\nAnd straight disclaim their tongues? What are\nyour offices?\nYou being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?\nHave you not set them on?\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe calm, be calm.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIt is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,\nTo curb the will of the nobility:\nSuffer't, and live with such as cannot rule\nNor ever will be ruled.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCall't not a plot:\nThe people cry you mock'd them, and of late,\nWhen corn was given them gratis, you repined;\nScandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them\nTime-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy, this was known before.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot to them all.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHave you inform'd them sithence?\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow! I inform them!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou are like to do such business.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot unlike,\nEach way, to better yours.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy then should I be consul? By yond clouds,\nLet me deserve so ill as you, and make me\nYour fellow tribune.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou show too much of that\nFor which the people stir: if you will pass\nTo where you are bound, you must inquire your way,\nWhich you are out of, with a gentler spirit,\nOr never be so noble as a consul,\nNor yoke with him for tribune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLet's be calm.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThe people are abused; set on. This paltering\nBecomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus\nDeserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely\nI' the plain way of his merit.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTell me of corn!\nThis was my speech, and I will speak't again--\n\nMENENIUS:\nNot now, not now.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNot in this heat, sir, now.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,\nI crave their pardons:\nFor the mutable, rank-scented many, let them\nRegard me as I do not flatter, and\nTherein behold themselves: I say again,\nIn soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate\nThe cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,\nWhich we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,\nand scatter'd,\nBy mingling them with us, the honour'd number,\nWho lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that\nWhich they have given to beggars.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, no more.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNo more words, we beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! no more!\nAs for my country I have shed my blood,\nNot fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\nCoin words till their decay against those measles,\nWhich we disdain should tatter us, yet sought\nThe very way to catch them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou speak o' the people,\nAs if you were a god to punish, not\nA man of their infirmity.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Twere well\nWe let the people know't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat, what? his choler?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCholer!\nWere I as patient as the midnight sleep,\nBy Jove, 'twould be my mind!\n\nSICINIUS:\nIt is a mind\nThat shall remain a poison where it is,\nNot poison any further.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall remain!\nHear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you\nHis absolute 'shall'?\n\nCOMINIUS:\n'Twas from the canon.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\n'Shall'!\nO good but most unwise patricians! why,\nYou grave but reckless senators, have you thus\nGiven Hydra here to choose an officer,\nThat with his peremptory 'shall,' being but\nThe horn and noise o' the monster's, wants not spirit\nTo say he'll turn your current in a ditch,\nAnd make your channel his? If he have power\nThen vail your ignorance; if none, awake\nYour dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,\nBe not as common fools; if you are not,\nLet them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,\nIf they be senators: and they are no less,\nWhen, both your voices blended, the great'st taste\nMost palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,\nAnd such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'\nHis popular 'shall' against a graver bench\nThan ever frown in Greece. By Jove himself!\nIt makes the consuls base: and my soul aches\nTo know, when two authorities are up,\nNeither supreme, how soon confusion\nMay enter 'twixt the gap of both and take\nThe one by the other.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, on to the market-place.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhoever gave that counsel, to give forth\nThe corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used\nSometime in Greece,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, well, no more of that.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThough there the people had more absolute power,\nI say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed\nThe ruin of the state.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy, shall the people give\nOne that speaks thus their voice?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI'll give my reasons,\nMore worthier than their voices. They know the corn\nWas not our recompense, resting well assured\nThat ne'er did service for't: being press'd to the war,\nEven when the navel of the state was touch'd,\nThey would not thread the gates. This kind of service\nDid not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war\nTheir mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd\nMost valour, spoke not for them: the accusation\nWhich they have often made against the senate,\nAll cause unborn, could never be the motive\nOf our so frank donation. Well, what then?\nHow shall this bisson multitude digest\nThe senate's courtesy? Let deeds express\nWhat's like to be their words: 'we did request it;\nWe are the greater poll, and in true fear\nThey gave us our demands.' Thus we debase\nThe nature of our seats and make the rabble\nCall our cares fears; which will in time\nBreak ope the locks o' the senate and bring in\nThe crows to peck the eagles.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, enough.\n\nBRUTUS:\nEnough, with over-measure.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, take more:\nWhat may be sworn by, both divine and human,\nSeal what I end withal! This double worship,\nWhere one part does disdain with cause, the other\nInsult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,\nCannot conclude but by the yea and no\nOf general ignorance,--it must omit\nReal necessities, and give way the while\nTo unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd,\nit follows,\nNothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,--\nYou that will be less fearful than discreet,\nThat love the fundamental part of state\nMore than you doubt the change on't, that prefer\nA noble life before a long, and wish\nTo jump a body with a dangerous physic\nThat's sure of death without it, at once pluck out\nThe multitudinous tongue; let them not lick\nThe sweet which is their poison: your dishonour\nMangles true judgment and bereaves the state\nOf that integrity which should become't,\nNot having the power to do the good it would,\nFor the in which doth control't.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHas said enough.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHas spoken like a traitor, and shall answer\nAs traitors do.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!\nWhat should the people do with these bald tribunes?\nOn whom depending, their obedience fails\nTo the greater bench: in a rebellion,\nWhen what's not meet, but what must be, was law,\nThen were they chosen: in a better hour,\nLet what is meet be said it must be meet,\nAnd throw their power i' the dust.\n\nBRUTUS:\nManifest treason!\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis a consul? no.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe aediles, ho!\nLet him be apprehended.\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, call the people:\nin whose name myself\nAttach thee as a traitorous innovator,\nA foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee,\nAnd follow to thine answer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, old goat!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWe'll surety him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAged sir, hands off.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones\nOut of thy garments.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHelp, ye citizens!\n\nMENENIUS:\nOn both sides more respect.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHere's he that would take from you all your power.\n\nBRUTUS:\nSeize him, AEdiles!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him! down with him!\n\nSenators, &C:\nWeapons, weapons, weapons!\n'Tribunes!' 'Patricians!' 'Citizens!' 'What, ho!'\n'Sicinius!' 'Brutus!' 'Coriolanus!' 'Citizens!'\n'Peace, peace, peace!' 'Stay, hold, peace!'\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat is about to be? I am out of breath;\nConfusion's near; I cannot speak. You, tribunes\nTo the people! Coriolanus, patience!\nSpeak, good Sicinius.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHear me, people; peace!\n\nCitizens:\nLet's hear our tribune: peace Speak, speak, speak.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYou are at point to lose your liberties:\nMarcius would have all from you; Marcius,\nWhom late you have named for consul.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\nThis is the way to kindle, not to quench.\n\nFirst Senator:\nTo unbuild the city and to lay all flat.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat is the city but the people?\n\nCitizens:\nTrue,\nThe people are the city.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBy the consent of all, we were establish'd\nThe people's magistrates.\n\nCitizens:\nYou so remain.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAnd so are like to do.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nThat is the way to lay the city flat;\nTo bring the roof to the foundation,\nAnd bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,\nIn heaps and piles of ruin.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis deserves death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nOr let us stand to our authority,\nOr let us lose it. We do here pronounce,\nUpon the part o' the people, in whose power\nWe were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy\nOf present death.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTherefore lay hold of him;\nBear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence\nInto destruction cast him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAEdiles, seize him!\n\nCitizens:\nYield, Marcius, yield!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me one word;\nBeseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.\n\nAEdile:\nPeace, peace!\n\nMENENIUS:\n\nBRUTUS:\nSir, those cold ways,\nThat seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous\nWhere the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,\nAnd bear him to the rock.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I'll die here.\nThere's some among you have beheld me fighting:\nCome, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDown with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLay hands upon him.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHelp Marcius, help,\nYou that be noble; help him, young and old!\n\nCitizens:\nDown with him, down with him!\n\nMENENIUS:\nGo, get you to your house; be gone, away!\nAll will be naught else.\n\nSecond Senator:\nGet you gone.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nStand fast;\nWe have as many friends as enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSham it be put to that?\n\nFirst Senator:\nThe gods forbid!\nI prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;\nLeave us to cure this cause.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor 'tis a sore upon us,\nYou cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, sir, along with us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI would they were barbarians--as they are,\nThough in Rome litter'd--not Romans--as they are not,\nThough calved i' the porch o' the Capitol--\n\nMENENIUS:\nBe gone;\nPut not your worthy rage into your tongue;\nOne time will owe another.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nOn fair ground\nI could beat forty of them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI could myself\nTake up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the\ntwo tribunes:\nBut now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic;\nAnd manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands\nAgainst a falling fabric. Will you hence,\nBefore the tag return? whose rage doth rend\nLike interrupted waters and o'erbear\nWhat they are used to bear.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray you, be gone:\nI'll try whether my old wit be in request\nWith those that have but little: this must be patch'd\nWith cloth of any colour.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nNay, come away.\n\nA Patrician:\nThis man has marr'd his fortune.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHis nature is too noble for the world:\nHe would not flatter Neptune for his trident,\nOr Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:\nWhat his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;\nAnd, being angry, does forget that ever\nHe heard the name of death.\nHere's goodly work!\n\nSecond Patrician:\nI would they were abed!\n\nMENENIUS:\nI would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!\nCould he not speak 'em fair?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is this viper\nThat would depopulate the city and\nBe every man himself?\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou worthy tribunes,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock\nWith rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,\nAnd therefore law shall scorn him further trial\nThan the severity of the public power\nWhich he so sets at nought.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nHe shall well know\nThe noble tribunes are the people's mouths,\nAnd we their hands.\n\nCitizens:\nHe shall, sure on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSir, sir,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\nWith modest warrant.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSir, how comes't that you\nHave holp to make this rescue?\n\nMENENIUS:\nHear me speak:\nAs I do know the consul's worthiness,\nSo can I name his faults,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nConsul! what consul?\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe consul Coriolanus.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHe consul!\n\nCitizens:\nNo, no, no, no, no.\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,\nI may be heard, I would crave a word or two;\nThe which shall turn you to no further harm\nThan so much loss of time.\n\nSICINIUS:\nSpeak briefly then;\nFor we are peremptory to dispatch\nThis viperous traitor: to eject him hence\nWere but one danger, and to keep him here\nOur certain death: therefore it is decreed\nHe dies to-night.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow the good gods forbid\nThat our renowned Rome, whose gratitude\nTowards her deserved children is enroll'd\nIn Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam\nShould now eat up her own!\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's a disease that must be cut away.\n\nMENENIUS:\nO, he's a limb that has but a disease;\nMortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.\nWhat has he done to Rome that's worthy death?\nKilling our enemies, the blood he hath lost--\nWhich, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,\nBy many an ounce--he dropp'd it for his country;\nAnd what is left, to lose it by his country,\nWere to us all, that do't and suffer it,\nA brand to the end o' the world.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is clean kam.\n\nBRUTUS:\nMerely awry: when he did love his country,\nIt honour'd him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThe service of the foot\nBeing once gangrened, is not then respected\nFor what before it was.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe'll hear no more.\nPursue him to his house, and pluck him thence:\nLest his infection, being of catching nature,\nSpread further.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOne word more, one word.\nThis tiger-footed rage, when it shall find\nThe harm of unscann'd swiftness, will too late\nTie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process;\nLest parties, as he is beloved, break out,\nAnd sack great Rome with Romans.\n\nBRUTUS:\nIf it were so,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat do ye talk?\nHave we not had a taste of his obedience?\nOur aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider this: he has been bred i' the wars\nSince he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd\nIn bolted language; meal and bran together\nHe throws without distinction. Give me leave,\nI'll go to him, and undertake to bring him\nWhere he shall answer, by a lawful form,\nIn peace, to his utmost peril.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNoble tribunes,\nIt is the humane way: the other course\nWill prove too bloody, and the end of it\nUnknown to the beginning.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNoble Menenius,\nBe you then as the people's officer.\nMasters, lay down your weapons.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo not home.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMeet on the market-place. We'll attend you there:\nWhere, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed\nIn our first way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll bring him to you.\nLet me desire your company: he must come,\nOr what is worst will follow.\n\nFirst Senator:\nPray you, let's to him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them puff all about mine ears, present me\nDeath on the wheel or at wild horses' heels,\nOr pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,\nThat the precipitation might down stretch\nBelow the beam of sight, yet will I still\nBe thus to them.\n\nA Patrician:\nYou do the nobler.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI muse my mother\nDoes not approve me further, who was wont\nTo call them woollen vassals, things created\nTo buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads\nIn congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,\nWhen one but of my ordinance stood up\nTo speak of peace or war.\nI talk of you:\nWhy did you wish me milder? would you have me\nFalse to my nature? Rather say I play\nThe man I am.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, sir, sir, sir,\nI would have had you put your power well on,\nBefore you had worn it out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou might have been enough the man you are,\nWith striving less to be so; lesser had been\nThe thwartings of your dispositions, if\nYou had not show'd them how ye were disposed\nEre they lack'd power to cross you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet them hang.\n\nA Patrician:\nAy, and burn too.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, you have been too rough, something\ntoo rough;\nYou must return and mend it.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThere's no remedy;\nUnless, by not so doing, our good city\nCleave in the midst, and perish.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPray, be counsell'd:\nI have a heart as little apt as yours,\nBut yet a brain that leads my use of anger\nTo better vantage.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell said, noble woman?\nBefore he should thus stoop to the herd, but that\nThe violent fit o' the time craves it as physic\nFor the whole state, I would put mine armour on,\nWhich I can scarcely bear.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat must I do?\n\nMENENIUS:\nReturn to the tribunes.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, what then? what then?\n\nMENENIUS:\nRepent what you have spoke.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFor them! I cannot do it to the gods;\nMust I then do't to them?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYou are too absolute;\nThough therein you can never be too noble,\nBut when extremities speak. I have heard you say,\nHonour and policy, like unsever'd friends,\nI' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,\nIn peace what each of them by the other lose,\nThat they combine not there.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTush, tush!\n\nMENENIUS:\nA good demand.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf it be honour in your wars to seem\nThe same you are not, which, for your best ends,\nYou adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,\nThat it shall hold companionship in peace\nWith honour, as in war, since that to both\nIt stands in like request?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhy force you this?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBecause that now it lies you on to speak\nTo the people; not by your own instruction,\nNor by the matter which your heart prompts you,\nBut with such words that are but rooted in\nYour tongue, though but bastards and syllables\nOf no allowance to your bosom's truth.\nNow, this no more dishonours you at all\nThan to take in a town with gentle words,\nWhich else would put you to your fortune and\nThe hazard of much blood.\nI would dissemble with my nature where\nMy fortunes and my friends at stake required\nI should do so in honour: I am in this,\nYour wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;\nAnd you will rather show our general louts\nHow you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em,\nFor the inheritance of their loves and safeguard\nOf what that want might ruin.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNoble lady!\nCome, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,\nNot what is dangerous present, but the loss\nOf what is past.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, my son,\nGo to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;\nAnd thus far having stretch'd it--here be with them--\nThy knee bussing the stones--for in such business\nAction is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant\nMore learned than the ears--waving thy head,\nWhich often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,\nNow humble as the ripest mulberry\nThat will not hold the handling: or say to them,\nThou art their soldier, and being bred in broils\nHast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,\nWere fit for thee to use as they to claim,\nIn asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame\nThyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far\nAs thou hast power and person.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis but done,\nEven as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;\nFor they have pardons, being ask'd, as free\nAs words to little purpose.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nPrithee now,\nGo, and be ruled: although I know thou hadst rather\nFollow thine enemy in a fiery gulf\nThan flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI have been i' the market-place; and, sir,'tis fit\nYou make strong party, or defend yourself\nBy calmness or by absence: all's in anger.\n\nMENENIUS:\nOnly fair speech.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI think 'twill serve, if he\nCan thereto frame his spirit.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nHe must, and will\nPrithee now, say you will, and go about it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMust I go show them my unbarbed sconce?\nMust I with base tongue give my noble heart\nA lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't:\nYet, were there but this single plot to lose,\nThis mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it\nAnd throw't against the wind. To the market-place!\nYou have put me now to such a part which never\nI shall discharge to the life.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nCome, come, we'll prompt you.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nI prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said\nMy praises made thee first a soldier, so,\nTo have my praise for this, perform a part\nThou hast not done before.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, I must do't:\nAway, my disposition, and possess me\nSome harlot's spirit! my throat of war be turn'd,\nWhich quired with my drum, into a pipe\nSmall as an eunuch, or the virgin voice\nThat babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves\nTent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up\nThe glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue\nMake motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,\nWho bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his\nThat hath received an alms! I will not do't,\nLest I surcease to honour mine own truth\nAnd by my body's action teach my mind\nA most inherent baseness.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAt thy choice, then:\nTo beg of thee, it is my more dishonour\nThan thou of them. Come all to ruin; let\nThy mother rather feel thy pride than fear\nThy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death\nWith as big heart as thou. Do as thou list\nThy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me,\nBut owe thy pride thyself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPray, be content:\nMother, I am going to the market-place;\nChide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,\nCog their hearts from them, and come home beloved\nOf all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going:\nCommend me to my wife. I'll return consul;\nOr never trust to what my tongue can do\nI' the way of flattery further.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nDo your will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAway! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself\nTo answer mildly; for they are prepared\nWith accusations, as I hear, more strong\nThan are upon you yet.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe word is 'mildly.' Pray you, let us go:\nLet them accuse me by invention, I\nWill answer in mine honour.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAy, but mildly.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWell, mildly be it then. Mildly!\n\nBRUTUS:\nIn this point charge him home, that he affects\nTyrannical power: if he evade us there,\nEnforce him with his envy to the people,\nAnd that the spoil got on the Antiates\nWas ne'er distributed.\nWhat, will he come?\n\nAEdile:\nHe's coming.\n\nBRUTUS:\nHow accompanied?\n\nAEdile:\nWith old Menenius, and those senators\nThat always favour'd him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you a catalogue\nOf all the voices that we have procured\nSet down by the poll?\n\nAEdile:\nI have; 'tis ready.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHave you collected them by tribes?\n\nAEdile:\nI have.\n\nSICINIUS:\nAssemble presently the people hither;\nAnd when they bear me say 'It shall be so\nI' the right and strength o' the commons,' be it either\nFor death, for fine, or banishment, then let them\nIf I say fine, cry 'Fine;' if death, cry 'Death.'\nInsisting on the old prerogative\nAnd power i' the truth o' the cause.\n\nAEdile:\nI shall inform them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nAnd when such time they have begun to cry,\nLet them not cease, but with a din confused\nEnforce the present execution\nOf what we chance to sentence.\n\nAEdile:\nVery well.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMake them be strong and ready for this hint,\nWhen we shall hap to give 't them.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo about it.\nPut him to choler straight: he hath been used\nEver to conquer, and to have his worth\nOf contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot\nBe rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks\nWhat's in his heart; and that is there which looks\nWith us to break his neck.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWell, here he comes.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCalmly, I do beseech you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece\nWill bear the knave by the volume. The honour'd gods\nKeep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice\nSupplied with worthy men! plant love among 's!\nThrong our large temples with the shows of peace,\nAnd not our streets with war!\n\nFirst Senator:\nAmen, amen.\n\nMENENIUS:\nA noble wish.\n\nSICINIUS:\nDraw near, ye people.\n\nAEdile:\nList to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFirst, hear me speak.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nWell, say. Peace, ho!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nShall I be charged no further than this present?\nMust all determine here?\n\nSICINIUS:\nI do demand,\nIf you submit you to the people's voices,\nAllow their officers and are content\nTo suffer lawful censure for such faults\nAs shall be proved upon you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI am content.\n\nMENENIUS:\nLo, citizens, he says he is content:\nThe warlike service he has done, consider; think\nUpon the wounds his body bears, which show\nLike graves i' the holy churchyard.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nScratches with briers,\nScars to move laughter only.\n\nMENENIUS:\nConsider further,\nThat when he speaks not like a citizen,\nYou find him like a soldier: do not take\nHis rougher accents for malicious sounds,\nBut, as I say, such as become a soldier,\nRather than envy you.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWell, well, no more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is the matter\nThat being pass'd for consul with full voice,\nI am so dishonour'd that the very hour\nYou take it off again?\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnswer to us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nSay, then: 'tis true, I ought so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe charge you, that you have contrived to take\nFrom Rome all season'd office and to wind\nYourself into a power tyrannical;\nFor which you are a traitor to the people.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHow! traitor!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, temperately; your promise.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people!\nCall me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!\nWithin thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,\nIn thy hand clutch'd as many millions, in\nThy lying tongue both numbers, I would say\n'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free\nAs I do pray the gods.\n\nSICINIUS:\nMark you this, people?\n\nCitizens:\nTo the rock, to the rock with him!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPeace!\nWe need not put new matter to his charge:\nWhat you have seen him do and heard him speak,\nBeating your officers, cursing yourselves,\nOpposing laws with strokes and here defying\nThose whose great power must try him; even this,\nSo criminal and in such capital kind,\nDeserves the extremest death.\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut since he hath\nServed well for Rome,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat do you prate of service?\n\nBRUTUS:\nI talk of that, that know it.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIs this the promise that you made your mother?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nKnow, I pray you,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI know no further:\nLet them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,\nVagabond exile, raying, pent to linger\nBut with a grain a day, I would not buy\nTheir mercy at the price of one fair word;\nNor cheque my courage for what they can give,\nTo have't with saying 'Good morrow.'\n\nSICINIUS:\nFor that he has,\nAs much as in him lies, from time to time\nEnvied against the people, seeking means\nTo pluck away their power, as now at last\nGiven hostile strokes, and that not in the presence\nOf dreaded justice, but on the ministers\nThat do distribute it; in the name o' the people\nAnd in the power of us the tribunes, we,\nEven from this instant, banish him our city,\nIn peril of precipitation\nFrom off the rock Tarpeian never more\nTo enter our Rome gates: i' the people's name,\nI say it shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so; let him away:\nHe's banish'd, and it shall be so.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHear me, my masters, and my common friends,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe's sentenced; no more hearing.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nLet me speak:\nI have been consul, and can show for Rome\nHer enemies' marks upon me. I do love\nMy country's good with a respect more tender,\nMore holy and profound, than mine own life,\nMy dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,\nAnd treasure of my loins; then if I would\nSpeak that,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe know your drift: speak what?\n\nBRUTUS:\nThere's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,\nAs enemy to the people and his country:\nIt shall be so.\n\nCitizens:\nIt shall be so, it shall be so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou common cry of curs! whose breath I hate\nAs reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize\nAs the dead carcasses of unburied men\nThat do corrupt my air, I banish you;\nAnd here remain with your uncertainty!\nLet every feeble rumour shake your hearts!\nYour enemies, with nodding of their plumes,\nFan you into despair! Have the power still\nTo banish your defenders; till at length\nYour ignorance, which finds not till it feels,\nMaking not reservation of yourselves,\nStill your own foes, deliver you as most\nAbated captives to some nation\nThat won you without blows! Despising,\nFor you, the city, thus I turn my back:\nThere is a world elsewhere.\n\nAEdile:\nThe people's enemy is gone, is gone!\n\nCitizens:\nOur enemy is banish'd! he is gone! Hoo! hoo!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, see him out at gates, and follow him,\nAs he hath followed you, with all despite;\nGive him deserved vexation. Let a guard\nAttend us through the city.\n\nCitizens:\nCome, come; let's see him out at gates; come.\nThe gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCome, leave your tears: a brief farewell: the beast\nWith many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,\nWhere is your ancient courage? you were used\nTo say extremity was the trier of spirits;\nThat common chances common men could bear;\nThat when the sea was calm all boats alike\nShow'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,\nWhen most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves\nA noble cunning: you were used to load me\nWith precepts that would make invincible\nThe heart that conn'd them.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nO heavens! O heavens!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNay! prithee, woman,--\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\nAnd occupations perish!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat, what, what!\nI shall be loved when I am lack'd. Nay, mother.\nResume that spirit, when you were wont to say,\nIf you had been the wife of Hercules,\nSix of his labours you'ld have done, and saved\nYour husband so much sweat. Cominius,\nDroop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:\nI'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,\nThy tears are salter than a younger man's,\nAnd venomous to thine eyes. My sometime general,\nI have seen thee stem, and thou hast oft beheld\nHeart-hardening spectacles; tell these sad women\n'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,\nAs 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well\nMy hazards still have been your solace: and\nBelieve't not lightly--though I go alone,\nLike to a lonely dragon, that his fen\nMakes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen--your son\nWill or exceed the common or be caught\nWith cautelous baits and practise.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMy first son.\nWhither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius\nWith thee awhile: determine on some course,\nMore than a wild exposture to each chance\nThat starts i' the way before thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO the gods!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI'll follow thee a month, devise with thee\nWhere thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us\nAnd we of thee: so if the time thrust forth\nA cause for thy repeal, we shall not send\nO'er the vast world to seek a single man,\nAnd lose advantage, which doth ever cool\nI' the absence of the needer.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFare ye well:\nThou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full\nOf the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one\nThat's yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.\nCome, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and\nMy friends of noble touch, when I am forth,\nBid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.\nWhile I remain above the ground, you shall\nHear from me still, and never of me aught\nBut what is like me formerly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThat's worthily\nAs any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.\nIf I could shake off but one seven years\nFrom these old arms and legs, by the good gods,\nI'ld with thee every foot.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nGive me thy hand: Come.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.\nThe nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided\nIn his behalf.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNow we have shown our power,\nLet us seem humbler after it is done\nThan when it was a-doing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nBid them home:\nSay their great enemy is gone, and they\nStand in their ancient strength.\n\nBRUTUS:\nDismiss them home.\nHere comes his mother.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLet's not meet her.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWhy?\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey say she's mad.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThey have ta'en note of us: keep on your way.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the gods\nRequite your love!\n\nMENENIUS:\nPeace, peace; be not so loud.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nIf that I could for weeping, you should hear,--\nNay, and you shall hear some.\nWill you be gone?\n\nVIRGILIA:\n\nSICINIUS:\nAre you mankind?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAy, fool; is that a shame? Note but this fool.\nWas not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship\nTo banish him that struck more blows for Rome\nThan thou hast spoken words?\n\nSICINIUS:\nO blessed heavens!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nMore noble blows than ever thou wise words;\nAnd for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what; yet go:\nNay, but thou shalt stay too: I would my son\nWere in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,\nHis good sword in his hand.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat then?\n\nVIRGILIA:\nWhat then!\nHe'ld make an end of thy posterity.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nBastards and all.\nGood man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!\n\nMENENIUS:\nCome, come, peace.\n\nSICINIUS:\nI would he had continued to his country\nAs he began, and not unknit himself\nThe noble knot he made.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI would he had.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\n'I would he had'! 'Twas you incensed the rabble:\nCats, that can judge as fitly of his worth\nAs I can of those mysteries which heaven\nWill not have earth to know.\n\nBRUTUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNow, pray, sir, get you gone:\nYou have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:--\nAs far as doth the Capitol exceed\nThe meanest house in Rome, so far my son--\nThis lady's husband here, this, do you see--\nWhom you have banish'd, does exceed you all.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWell, well, we'll leave you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy stay we to be baited\nWith one that wants her wits?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nTake my prayers with you.\nI would the gods had nothing else to do\nBut to confirm my curses! Could I meet 'em\nBut once a-day, it would unclog my heart\nOf what lies heavy to't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have told them home;\nAnd, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nAnger's my meat; I sup upon myself,\nAnd so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go:\nLeave this faint puling and lament as I do,\nIn anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFie, fie, fie!\n\nRoman:\nI know you well, sir, and you know\nme: your name, I think, is Adrian.\n\nVolsce:\nIt is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.\n\nRoman:\nI am a Roman; and my services are,\nas you are, against 'em: know you me yet?\n\nVolsce:\nNicanor? no.\n\nRoman:\nThe same, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou had more beard when I last saw you; but your\nfavour is well approved by your tongue. What's the\nnews in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state,\nto find you out there: you have well saved me a\nday's journey.\n\nRoman:\nThere hath been in Rome strange insurrections; the\npeople against the senators, patricians, and nobles.\n\nVolsce:\nHath been! is it ended, then? Our state thinks not\nso: they are in a most warlike preparation, and\nhope to come upon them in the heat of their division.\n\nRoman:\nThe main blaze of it is past, but a small thing\nwould make it flame again: for the nobles receive\nso to heart the banishment of that worthy\nCoriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take\nall power from the people and to pluck from them\ntheir tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can\ntell you, and is almost mature for the violent\nbreaking out.\n\nVolsce:\nCoriolanus banished!\n\nRoman:\nBanished, sir.\n\nVolsce:\nYou will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.\n\nRoman:\nThe day serves well for them now. I have heard it\nsaid, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is\nwhen she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble\nTullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his\ngreat opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request\nof his country.\n\nVolsce:\nHe cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus\naccidentally to encounter you: you have ended my\nbusiness, and I will merrily accompany you home.\n\nRoman:\nI shall, between this and supper, tell you most\nstrange things from Rome; all tending to the good of\ntheir adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?\n\nVolsce:\nA most royal one; the centurions and their charges,\ndistinctly billeted, already in the entertainment,\nand to be on foot at an hour's warning.\n\nRoman:\nI am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the\nman, I think, that shall set them in present action.\nSo, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.\n\nVolsce:\nYou take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause\nto be glad of yours.\n\nRoman:\nWell, let us go together.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly city is this Antium. City,\n'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir\nOf these fair edifices 'fore my wars\nHave I heard groan and drop: then know me not,\nLest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones\nIn puny battle slay me.\nSave you, sir.\n\nCitizen:\nAnd you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nDirect me, if it be your will,\nWhere great Aufidius lies: is he in Antium?\n\nCitizen:\nHe is, and feasts the nobles of the state\nAt his house this night.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhich is his house, beseech you?\n\nCitizen:\nThis, here before you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThank you, sir: farewell.\nO world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,\nWhose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,\nWhose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,\nAre still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love\nUnseparable, shall within this hour,\nOn a dissension of a doit, break out\nTo bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,\nWhose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep,\nTo take the one the other, by some chance,\nSome trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends\nAnd interjoin their issues. So with me:\nMy birth-place hate I, and my love's upon\nThis enemy town. I'll enter: if he slay me,\nHe does fair justice; if he give me way,\nI'll do his country service.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWine, wine, wine! What service\nis here! I think our fellows are asleep.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhere's Cotus? my master calls\nfor him. Cotus!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA goodly house: the feast smells well; but I\nAppear not like a guest.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat would you have, friend? whence are you?\nHere's no place for you: pray, go to the door.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI have deserved no better entertainment,\nIn being Coriolanus.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his\nhead; that he gives entrance to such companions?\nPray, get you out.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAway! get you away.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNow thou'rt troublesome.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAre you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat fellow's this?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nA strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him\nout of the house: prithee, call my master to him.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid\nthe house.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLet me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat are you?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA gentleman.\n\nThird Servingman:\nA marvellous poor one.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTrue, so I am.\n\nThird Servingman:\nPray you, poor gentleman, take up some other\nstation; here's no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nFollow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhat, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a\nstrange guest he has here.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd I shall.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere dwellest thou?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nUnder the canopy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nUnder the canopy!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy.\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhere's that?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI' the city of kites and crows.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!\nThen thou dwellest with daws too?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNo, I serve not thy master.\n\nThird Servingman:\nHow, sir! do you meddle with my master?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy\nmistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy\ntrencher, hence!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhere is this fellow?\n\nSecond Servingman:\nHere, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for\ndisturbing the lords within.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?\nWhy speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nIf, Tullus,\nNot yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not\nThink me for the man I am, necessity\nCommands me name myself.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhat is thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nA name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,\nAnd harsh in sound to thine.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay, what's thy name?\nThou hast a grim appearance, and thy face\nBears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.\nThou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nPrepare thy brow to frown: know'st\nthou me yet?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know thee not: thy name?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMy name is Caius Marcius, who hath done\nTo thee particularly and to all the Volsces\nGreat hurt and mischief; thereto witness may\nMy surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,\nThe extreme dangers and the drops of blood\nShed for my thankless country are requited\nBut with that surname; a good memory,\nAnd witness of the malice and displeasure\nWhich thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;\nThe cruelty and envy of the people,\nPermitted by our dastard nobles, who\nHave all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;\nAnd suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be\nWhoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity\nHath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--\nMistake me not--to save my life, for if\nI had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world\nI would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,\nTo be full quit of those my banishers,\nStand I before thee here. Then if thou hast\nA heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge\nThine own particular wrongs and stop those maims\nOf shame seen through thy country, speed\nthee straight,\nAnd make my misery serve thy turn: so use it\nThat my revengeful services may prove\nAs benefits to thee, for I will fight\nAgainst my canker'd country with the spleen\nOf all the under fiends. But if so be\nThou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes\nThou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am\nLonger to live most weary, and present\nMy throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;\nWhich not to cut would show thee but a fool,\nSince I have ever follow'd thee with hate,\nDrawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,\nAnd cannot live but to thy shame, unless\nIt be to do thee service.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nO Marcius, Marcius!\nEach word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart\nA root of ancient envy. If Jupiter\nShould from yond cloud speak divine things,\nAnd say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more\nThan thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine\nMine arms about that body, where against\nMy grained ash an hundred times hath broke\nAnd scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip\nThe anvil of my sword, and do contest\nAs hotly and as nobly with thy love\nAs ever in ambitious strength I did\nContend against thy valour. Know thou first,\nI loved the maid I married; never man\nSigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\nThou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart\nThan when I first my wedded mistress saw\nBestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,\nWe have a power on foot; and I had purpose\nOnce more to hew thy target from thy brawn,\nOr lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out\nTwelve several times, and I have nightly since\nDreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;\nWe have been down together in my sleep,\nUnbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,\nAnd waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,\nHad we no quarrel else to Rome, but that\nThou art thence banish'd, we would muster all\nFrom twelve to seventy, and pouring war\nInto the bowels of ungrateful Rome,\nLike a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,\nAnd take our friendly senators by the hands;\nWho now are here, taking their leaves of me,\nWho am prepared against your territories,\nThough not for Rome itself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nYou bless me, gods!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nTherefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have\nThe leading of thine own revenges, take\nThe one half of my commission; and set down--\nAs best thou art experienced, since thou know'st\nThy country's strength and weakness,--thine own ways;\nWhether to knock against the gates of Rome,\nOr rudely visit them in parts remote,\nTo fright them, ere destroy. But come in:\nLet me commend thee first to those that shall\nSay yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!\nAnd more a friend than e'er an enemy;\nYet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHere's a strange alteration!\n\nSecond Servingman:\nBy my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with\na cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a\nfalse report of him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat an arm he has! he turned me about with his\nfinger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nNay, I knew by his face that there was something in\nhim: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought,--I\ncannot tell how to term it.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged,\nbut I thought there was more in him than I could think.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nSo did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest\nman i' the world.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nI think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWho, my master?\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, it's no matter for that.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWorth six on him.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nNay, not so neither: but I take him to be the\ngreater soldier.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nFaith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:\nfor the defence of a town, our general is excellent.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and for an assault too.\n\nThird Servingman:\nO slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhat, what, what? let's partake.\n\nThird Servingman:\nI would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as\nlieve be a condemned man.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWherefore? wherefore?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,\nCaius Marcius.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nWhy do you say 'thwack our general '?\n\nThird Servingman:\nI do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always\ngood enough for him.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nCome, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too\nhard for him; I have heard him say so himself.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nHe was too hard for him directly, to say the troth\non't: before Corioli he scotched him and notched\nhim like a carbon ado.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAn he had been cannibally given, he might have\nbroiled and eaten him too.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut, more of thy news?\n\nThird Servingman:\nWhy, he is so made on here within, as if he were son\nand heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no\nquestion asked him by any of the senators, but they\nstand bald before him: our general himself makes a\nmistress of him: sanctifies himself with's hand and\nturns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But\nthe bottom of the news is that our general is cut i'\nthe middle and but one half of what he was\nyesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty\nand grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,\nand sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he\nwill mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nAnd he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.\n\nThird Servingman:\nDo't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as\nmany friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it\nwere, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as\nwe term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nDirectitude! what's that?\n\nThird Servingman:\nBut when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,\nand the man in blood, they will out of their\nburrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with\nhim.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nBut when goes this forward?\n\nThird Servingman:\nTo-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the\ndrum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a\nparcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they\nwipe their lips.\n\nSecond Servingman:\nWhy, then we shall have a stirring world again.\nThis peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase\ntailors, and breed ballad-makers.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nLet me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as\nday does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and\nfull of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;\nmulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more\nbastard children than war's a destroyer of men.\n\nSecond Servingman:\n'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to\nbe a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a\ngreat maker of cuckolds.\n\nFirst Servingman:\nAy, and it makes men hate one another.\n\nThird Servingman:\nReason; because they then less need one another.\nThe wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap\nas Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.\n\nAll:\nIn, in, in, in!\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe hear not of him, neither need we fear him;\nHis remedies are tame i' the present peace\nAnd quietness of the people, which before\nWere in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends\nBlush that the world goes well, who rather had,\nThough they themselves did suffer by't, behold\nDissentious numbers pestering streets than see\nOur tradesmen with in their shops and going\nAbout their functions friendly.\n\nBRUTUS:\nWe stood to't in good time.\nIs this Menenius?\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nHail sir!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHail to you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nYour Coriolanus\nIs not much miss'd, but with his friends:\nThe commonwealth doth stand, and so would do,\nWere he more angry at it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAll's well; and might have been much better, if\nHe could have temporized.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhere is he, hear you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, I hear nothing: his mother and his wife\nHear nothing from him.\n\nCitizens:\nThe gods preserve you both!\n\nSICINIUS:\nGod-den, our neighbours.\n\nBRUTUS:\nGod-den to you all, god-den to you all.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nOurselves, our wives, and children, on our knees,\nAre bound to pray for you both.\n\nSICINIUS:\nLive, and thrive!\n\nBRUTUS:\nFarewell, kind neighbours: we wish'd Coriolanus\nHad loved you as we did.\n\nCitizens:\nNow the gods keep you!\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nFarewell, farewell.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is a happier and more comely time\nThan when these fellows ran about the streets,\nCrying confusion.\n\nBRUTUS:\nCaius Marcius was\nA worthy officer i' the war; but insolent,\nO'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,\nSelf-loving,--\n\nSICINIUS:\nAnd affecting one sole throne,\nWithout assistance.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI think not so.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe should by this, to all our lamentation,\nIf he had gone forth consul, found it so.\n\nBRUTUS:\nThe gods have well prevented it, and Rome\nSits safe and still without him.\n\nAEdile:\nWorthy tribunes,\nThere is a slave, whom we have put in prison,\nReports, the Volsces with two several powers\nAre enter'd in the Roman territories,\nAnd with the deepest malice of the war\nDestroy what lies before 'em.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis Aufidius,\nWho, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,\nThrusts forth his horns again into the world;\nWhich were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,\nAnd durst not once peep out.\n\nSICINIUS:\nCome, what talk you\nOf Marcius?\n\nBRUTUS:\nGo see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be\nThe Volsces dare break with us.\n\nMENENIUS:\nCannot be!\nWe have record that very well it can,\nAnd three examples of the like have been\nWithin my age. But reason with the fellow,\nBefore you punish him, where he heard this,\nLest you shall chance to whip your information\nAnd beat the messenger who bids beware\nOf what is to be dreaded.\n\nSICINIUS:\nTell not me:\nI know this cannot be.\n\nBRUTUS:\nNot possible.\n\nMessenger:\nThe nobles in great earnestness are going\nAll to the senate-house: some news is come\nThat turns their countenances.\n\nSICINIUS:\n'Tis this slave;--\nGo whip him, 'fore the people's eyes:--his raising;\nNothing but his report.\n\nMessenger:\nYes, worthy sir,\nThe slave's report is seconded; and more,\nMore fearful, is deliver'd.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat more fearful?\n\nMessenger:\nIt is spoke freely out of many mouths--\nHow probable I do not know--that Marcius,\nJoin'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,\nAnd vows revenge as spacious as between\nThe young'st and oldest thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThis is most likely!\n\nBRUTUS:\nRaised only, that the weaker sort may wish\nGood Marcius home again.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe very trick on't.\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is unlikely:\nHe and Aufidius can no more atone\nThan violentest contrariety.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nYou are sent for to the senate:\nA fearful army, led by Caius Marcius\nAssociated with Aufidius, rages\nUpon our territories; and have already\nO'erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took\nWhat lay before them.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, you have made good work!\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat news? what news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have holp to ravish your own daughters and\nTo melt the city leads upon your pates,\nTo see your wives dishonour'd to your noses,--\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat's the news? what's the news?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYour temples burned in their cement, and\nYour franchises, whereon you stood, confined\nInto an auger's bore.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPray now, your news?\nYou have made fair work, I fear me.--Pray, your news?--\nIf Marcius should be join'd with Volscians,--\n\nCOMINIUS:\nIf!\nHe is their god: he leads them like a thing\nMade by some other deity than nature,\nThat shapes man better; and they follow him,\nAgainst us brats, with no less confidence\nThan boys pursuing summer butterflies,\nOr butchers killing flies.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made good work,\nYou and your apron-men; you that stood so up much\non the voice of occupation and\nThe breath of garlic-eaters!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe will shake\nYour Rome about your ears.\n\nMENENIUS:\nAs Hercules\nDid shake down mellow fruit.\nYou have made fair work!\n\nBRUTUS:\nBut is this true, sir?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nAy; and you'll look pale\nBefore you find it other. All the regions\nDo smilingly revolt; and who resist\nAre mock'd for valiant ignorance,\nAnd perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?\nYour enemies and his find something in him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWe are all undone, unless\nThe noble man have mercy.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nWho shall ask it?\nThe tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people\nDeserve such pity of him as the wolf\nDoes of the shepherds: for his best friends, if they\nShould say 'Be good to Rome,' they charged him even\nAs those should do that had deserved his hate,\nAnd therein show'd like enemies.\n\nMENENIUS:\n'Tis true:\nIf he were putting to my house the brand\nThat should consume it, I have not the face\nTo say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,\nYou and your crafts! you have crafted fair!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYou have brought\nA trembling upon Rome, such as was never\nSo incapable of help.\n\nBoth Tribunes:\nSay not we brought it.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts\nAnd cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,\nWho did hoot him out o' the city.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nBut I fear\nThey'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,\nThe second name of men, obeys his points\nAs if he were his officer: desperation\nIs all the policy, strength and defence,\nThat Rome can make against them.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHere come the clusters.\nAnd is Aufidius with him? You are they\nThat made the air unwholesome, when you cast\nYour stinking greasy caps in hooting at\nCoriolanus' exile. Now he's coming;\nAnd not a hair upon a soldier's head\nWhich will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs\nAs you threw caps up will he tumble down,\nAnd pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;\nif he could burn us all into one coal,\nWe have deserved it.\n\nCitizens:\nFaith, we hear fearful news.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nFor mine own part,\nWhen I said, banish him, I said 'twas pity.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAnd so did I.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very\nmany of us: that we did, we did for the best; and\nthough we willingly consented to his banishment, yet\nit was against our will.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYe re goodly things, you voices!\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou have made\nGood work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nO, ay, what else?\n\nSICINIUS:\nGo, masters, get you home; be not dismay'd:\nThese are a side that would be glad to have\nThis true which they so seem to fear. Go home,\nAnd show no sign of fear.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nThe gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home.\nI ever said we were i' the wrong when we banished\nhim.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nSo did we all. But, come, let's home.\n\nBRUTUS:\nI do not like this news.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNor I.\n\nBRUTUS:\nLet's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth\nWould buy this for a lie!\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray, let us go.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nDo they still fly to the Roman?\n\nLieutenant:\nI do not know what witchcraft's in him, but\nYour soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,\nTheir talk at table, and their thanks at end;\nAnd you are darken'd in this action, sir,\nEven by your own.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI cannot help it now,\nUnless, by using means, I lame the foot\nOf our design. He bears himself more proudlier,\nEven to my person, than I thought he would\nWhen first I did embrace him: yet his nature\nIn that's no changeling; and I must excuse\nWhat cannot be amended.\n\nLieutenant:\nYet I wish, sir,--\nI mean for your particular,--you had not\nJoin'd in commission with him; but either\nHad borne the action of yourself, or else\nTo him had left it solely.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI understand thee well; and be thou sure,\nwhen he shall come to his account, he knows not\nWhat I can urge against him. Although it seems,\nAnd so he thinks, and is no less apparent\nTo the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly.\nAnd shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,\nFights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon\nAs draw his sword; yet he hath left undone\nThat which shall break his neck or hazard mine,\nWhene'er we come to our account.\n\nLieutenant:\nSir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAll places yield to him ere he sits down;\nAnd the nobility of Rome are his:\nThe senators and patricians love him too:\nThe tribunes are no soldiers; and their people\nWill be as rash in the repeal, as hasty\nTo expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome\nAs is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\nBy sovereignty of nature. First he was\nA noble servant to them; but he could not\nCarry his honours even: whether 'twas pride,\nWhich out of daily fortune ever taints\nThe happy man; whether defect of judgment,\nTo fail in the disposing of those chances\nWhich he was lord of; or whether nature,\nNot to be other than one thing, not moving\nFrom the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace\nEven with the same austerity and garb\nAs he controll'd the war; but one of these--\nAs he hath spices of them all, not all,\nFor I dare so far free him--made him fear'd,\nSo hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit,\nTo choke it in the utterance. So our virtues\nLie in the interpretation of the time:\nAnd power, unto itself most commendable,\nHath not a tomb so evident as a chair\nTo extol what it hath done.\nOne fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;\nRights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.\nCome, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,\nThou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said\nWhich was sometime his general; who loved him\nIn a most dear particular. He call'd me father:\nBut what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him;\nA mile before his tent fall down, and knee\nThe way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd\nTo hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe would not seem to know me.\n\nMENENIUS:\nDo you hear?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nYet one time he did call me by my name:\nI urged our old acquaintance, and the drops\nThat we have bled together. Coriolanus\nHe would not answer to: forbad all names;\nHe was a kind of nothing, titleless,\nTill he had forged himself a name o' the fire\nOf burning Rome.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhy, so: you have made good work!\nA pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome,\nTo make coals cheap,--a noble memory!\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI minded him how royal 'twas to pardon\nWhen it was less expected: he replied,\nIt was a bare petition of a state\nTo one whom they had punish'd.\n\nMENENIUS:\nVery well:\nCould he say less?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI offer'd to awaken his regard\nFor's private friends: his answer to me was,\nHe could not stay to pick them in a pile\nOf noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly,\nFor one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,\nAnd still to nose the offence.\n\nMENENIUS:\nFor one poor grain or two!\nI am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,\nAnd this brave fellow too, we are the grains:\nYou are the musty chaff; and you are smelt\nAbove the moon: we must be burnt for you.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid\nIn this so never-needed help, yet do not\nUpbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you\nWould be your country's pleader, your good tongue,\nMore than the instant army we can make,\nMight stop our countryman.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, I'll not meddle.\n\nSICINIUS:\nPray you, go to him.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWhat should I do?\n\nBRUTUS:\nOnly make trial what your love can do\nFor Rome, towards Marcius.\n\nMENENIUS:\nWell, and say that Marcius\nReturn me, as Cominius is return'd,\nUnheard; what then?\nBut as a discontented friend, grief-shot\nWith his unkindness? say't be so?\n\nSICINIUS:\nYet your good will\nmust have that thanks from Rome, after the measure\nAs you intended well.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI'll undertake 't:\nI think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip\nAnd hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.\nHe was not taken well; he had not dined:\nThe veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then\nWe pout upon the morning, are unapt\nTo give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd\nThese and these conveyances of our blood\nWith wine and feeding, we have suppler souls\nThan in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him\nTill he be dieted to my request,\nAnd then I'll set upon him.\n\nBRUTUS:\nYou know the very road into his kindness,\nAnd cannot lose your way.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood faith, I'll prove him,\nSpeed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge\nOf my success.\n\nCOMINIUS:\nHe'll never hear him.\n\nSICINIUS:\nNot?\n\nCOMINIUS:\nI tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye\nRed as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury\nThe gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;\n'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise;' dismiss'd me\nThus, with his speechless hand: what he would do,\nHe sent in writing after me; what he would not,\nBound with an oath to yield to his conditions:\nSo that all hope is vain.\nUnless his noble mother, and his wife;\nWho, as I hear, mean to solicit him\nFor mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence,\nAnd with our fair entreaties haste them on.\n\nFirst Senator:\nStay: whence are you?\n\nSecond Senator:\nStand, and go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nYou guard like men; 'tis well: but, by your leave,\nI am an officer of state, and come\nTo speak with Coriolanus.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFrom whence?\n\nMENENIUS:\nFrom Rome.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou may not pass, you must return: our general\nWill no more hear from thence.\n\nSecond Senator:\nYou'll see your Rome embraced with fire before\nYou'll speak with Coriolanus.\n\nMENENIUS:\nGood my friends,\nIf you have heard your general talk of Rome,\nAnd of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,\nMy name hath touch'd your ears it is Menenius.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBe it so; go back: the virtue of your name\nIs not here passable.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI tell thee, fellow,\nThe general is my lover: I have been\nThe book of his good acts, whence men have read\nHis name unparallel'd, haply amplified;\nFor I have ever verified my friends,\nOf whom he's chief, with all the size that verity\nWould without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,\nLike to a bowl upon a subtle ground,\nI have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise\nHave almost stamp'd the leasing: therefore, fellow,\nI must have leave to pass.\n\nFirst Senator:\nFaith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his\nbehalf as you have uttered words in your own, you\nshould not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous\nto lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nPrithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,\nalways factionary on the party of your general.\n\nSecond Senator:\nHowsoever you have been his liar, as you say you\nhave, I am one that, telling true under him, must\nsay, you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nHas he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not\nspeak with him till after dinner.\n\nFirst Senator:\nYou are a Roman, are you?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI am, as thy general is.\n\nFirst Senator:\nThen you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you,\nwhen you have pushed out your gates the very\ndefender of them, and, in a violent popular\nignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to\nfront his revenges with the easy groans of old\nwomen, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with\nthe palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as\nyou seem to be? Can you think to blow out the\nintended fire your city is ready to flame in, with\nsuch weak breath as this? No, you are deceived;\ntherefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your\nexecution: you are condemned, our general has sworn\nyou out of reprieve and pardon.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would\nuse me with estimation.\n\nSecond Senator:\nCome, my captain knows you not.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI mean, thy general.\n\nFirst Senator:\nMy general cares not for you. Back, I say, go; lest\nI let forth your half-pint of blood; back,--that's\nthe utmost of your having: back.\n\nMENENIUS:\nNay, but, fellow, fellow,--\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat's the matter?\n\nMENENIUS:\nNow, you companion, I'll say an errand for you:\nYou shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall\nperceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from\nmy son Coriolanus: guess, but by my entertainment\nwith him, if thou standest not i' the state of\nhanging, or of some death more long in\nspectatorship, and crueller in suffering; behold now\npresently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee.\nThe glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy\nparticular prosperity, and love thee no worse than\nthy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son!\nthou art preparing fire for us; look thee, here's\nwater to quench it. I was hardly moved to come to\nthee; but being assured none but myself could move\nthee, I have been blown out of your gates with\nsighs; and conjure thee to pardon Rome, and thy\npetitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy\nwrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet\nhere,--this, who, like a block, hath denied my\naccess to thee.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAway!\n\nMENENIUS:\nHow! away!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs\nAre servanted to others: though I owe\nMy revenge properly, my remission lies\nIn Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,\nIngrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather\nThan pity note how much. Therefore, be gone.\nMine ears against your suits are stronger than\nYour gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,\nTake this along; I writ it for thy sake\nAnd would have rent it. Another word, Menenius,\nI will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,\nWas my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold'st!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nYou keep a constant temper.\n\nFirst Senator:\nNow, sir, is your name Menenius?\n\nSecond Senator:\n'Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the\nway home again.\n\nFirst Senator:\nDo you hear how we are shent for keeping your\ngreatness back?\n\nSecond Senator:\nWhat cause, do you think, I have to swoon?\n\nMENENIUS:\nI neither care for the world nor your general: for\nsuch things as you, I can scarce think there's any,\nye're so slight. He that hath a will to die by\nhimself fears it not from another: let your general\ndo his worst. For you, be that you are, long; and\nyour misery increase with your age! I say to you,\nas I was said to, Away!\n\nFirst Senator:\nA noble fellow, I warrant him.\n\nSecond Senator:\nThe worthy fellow is our general: he's the rock, the\noak not to be wind-shaken.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWe will before the walls of Rome tomorrow\nSet down our host. My partner in this action,\nYou must report to the Volscian lords, how plainly\nI have borne this business.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nOnly their ends\nYou have respected; stopp'd your ears against\nThe general suit of Rome; never admitted\nA private whisper, no, not with such friends\nThat thought them sure of you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThis last old man,\nWhom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,\nLoved me above the measure of a father;\nNay, godded me, indeed. Their latest refuge\nWas to send him; for whose old love I have,\nThough I show'd sourly to him, once more offer'd\nThe first conditions, which they did refuse\nAnd cannot now accept; to grace him only\nThat thought he could do more, a very little\nI have yielded to: fresh embassies and suits,\nNor from the state nor private friends, hereafter\nWill I lend ear to. Ha! what shout is this?\nShall I be tempted to infringe my vow\nIn the same time 'tis made? I will not.\nMy wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould\nWherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand\nThe grandchild to her blood. But, out, affection!\nAll bond and privilege of nature, break!\nLet it be virtuous to be obstinate.\nWhat is that curt'sy worth? or those doves' eyes,\nWhich can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not\nOf stronger earth than others. My mother bows;\nAs if Olympus to a molehill should\nIn supplication nod: and my young boy\nHath an aspect of intercession, which\nGreat nature cries 'Deny not.' let the Volsces\nPlough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never\nBe such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,\nAs if a man were author of himself\nAnd knew no other kin.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nMy lord and husband!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThese eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nThe sorrow that delivers us thus changed\nMakes you think so.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nLike a dull actor now,\nI have forgot my part, and I am out,\nEven to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,\nForgive my tyranny; but do not say\nFor that 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss\nLong as my exile, sweet as my revenge!\nNow, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss\nI carried from thee, dear; and my true lip\nHath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,\nAnd the most noble mother of the world\nLeave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i' the earth;\nOf thy deep duty more impression show\nThan that of common sons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, stand up blest!\nWhilst, with no softer cushion than the flint,\nI kneel before thee; and unproperly\nShow duty, as mistaken all this while\nBetween the child and parent.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nWhat is this?\nYour knees to me? to your corrected son?\nThen let the pebbles on the hungry beach\nFillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds\nStrike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun;\nMurdering impossibility, to make\nWhat cannot be, slight work.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThou art my warrior;\nI holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe noble sister of Publicola,\nThe moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle\nThat's curdied by the frost from purest snow\nAnd hangs on Dian's temple: dear Valeria!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nThis is a poor epitome of yours,\nWhich by the interpretation of full time\nMay show like all yourself.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThe god of soldiers,\nWith the consent of supreme Jove, inform\nThy thoughts with nobleness; that thou mayst prove\nTo shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars\nLike a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,\nAnd saving those that eye thee!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nYour knee, sirrah.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nThat's my brave boy!\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nEven he, your wife, this lady, and myself,\nAre suitors to you.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI beseech you, peace:\nOr, if you'ld ask, remember this before:\nThe thing I have forsworn to grant may never\nBe held by you denials. Do not bid me\nDismiss my soldiers, or capitulate\nAgain with Rome's mechanics: tell me not\nWherein I seem unnatural: desire not\nTo ally my rages and revenges with\nYour colder reasons.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nO, no more, no more!\nYou have said you will not grant us any thing;\nFor we have nothing else to ask, but that\nWhich you deny already: yet we will ask;\nThat, if you fail in our request, the blame\nMay hang upon your hardness: therefore hear us.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll\nHear nought from Rome in private. Your request?\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nShould we be silent and not speak, our raiment\nAnd state of bodies would bewray what life\nWe have led since thy exile. Think with thyself\nHow more unfortunate than all living women\nAre we come hither: since that thy sight,\nwhich should\nMake our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance\nwith comforts,\nConstrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow;\nMaking the mother, wife and child to see\nThe son, the husband and the father tearing\nHis country's bowels out. And to poor we\nThine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us\nOur prayers to the gods, which is a comfort\nThat all but we enjoy; for how can we,\nAlas, how can we for our country pray.\nWhereto we are bound, together with thy victory,\nWhereto we are bound? alack, or we must lose\nThe country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,\nOur comfort in the country. We must find\nAn evident calamity, though we had\nOur wish, which side should win: for either thou\nMust, as a foreign recreant, be led\nWith manacles thorough our streets, or else\ntriumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,\nAnd bear the palm for having bravely shed\nThy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,\nI purpose not to wait on fortune till\nThese wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee\nRather to show a noble grace to both parts\nThan seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner\nMarch to assault thy country than to tread--\nTrust to't, thou shalt not--on thy mother's womb,\nThat brought thee to this world.\n\nVIRGILIA:\nAy, and mine,\nThat brought you forth this boy, to keep your name\nLiving to time.\n\nYoung MARCIUS:\nA' shall not tread on me;\nI'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nNot of a woman's tenderness to be,\nRequires nor child nor woman's face to see.\nI have sat too long.\n\nVOLUMNIA:\nNay, go not from us thus.\nIf it were so that our request did tend\nTo save the Romans, thereby to destroy\nThe Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us,\nAs poisonous of your honour: no; our suit\nIs that you reconcile them: while the Volsces\nMay say 'This mercy we have show'd;' the Romans,\n'This we received;' and each in either side\nGive the all-hail to thee and cry 'Be blest\nFor making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,\nThe end of war's uncertain, but this certain,\nThat, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit\nWhich thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,\nWhose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;\nWhose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,\nBut with his last attempt he wiped it out;\nDestroy'd his country, and his name remains\nTo the ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son:\nThou hast affected the fine strains of honour,\nTo imitate the graces of the gods;\nTo tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,\nAnd yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt\nThat should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?\nThink'st thou it honourable for a noble man\nStill to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:\nHe cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:\nPerhaps thy childishness will move him more\nThan can our reasons. There's no man in the world\nMore bound to 's mother; yet here he lets me prate\nLike one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life\nShow'd thy dear mother any courtesy,\nWhen she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,\nHas cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home,\nLoaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,\nAnd spurn me back: but if it be not so,\nThou art not honest; and the gods will plague thee,\nThat thou restrain'st from me the duty which\nTo a mother's part belongs. He turns away:\nDown, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.\nTo his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride\nThan pity to our prayers. Down: an end;\nThis is the last: so we will home to Rome,\nAnd die among our neighbours. Nay, behold 's:\nThis boy, that cannot tell what he would have\nBut kneels and holds up bands for fellowship,\nDoes reason our petition with more strength\nThan thou hast to deny 't. Come, let us go:\nThis fellow had a Volscian to his mother;\nHis wife is in Corioli and his child\nLike him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:\nI am hush'd until our city be a-fire,\nAnd then I'll speak a little.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO mother, mother!\nWhat have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,\nThe gods look down, and this unnatural scene\nThey laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!\nYou have won a happy victory to Rome;\nBut, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,\nMost dangerously you have with him prevail'd,\nIf not most mortal to him. But, let it come.\nAufidius, though I cannot make true wars,\nI'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,\nWere you in my stead, would you have heard\nA mother less? or granted less, Aufidius?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI was moved withal.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nI dare be sworn you were:\nAnd, sir, it is no little thing to make\nMine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,\nWhat peace you'll make, advise me: for my part,\nI'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you,\nStand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nAy, by and by;\nBut we will drink together; and you shall bear\nA better witness back than words, which we,\nOn like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.\nCome, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve\nTo have a temple built you: all the swords\nIn Italy, and her confederate arms,\nCould not have made this peace.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSee you yond coign o' the Capitol, yond\ncorner-stone?\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhy, what of that?\n\nMENENIUS:\nIf it be possible for you to displace it with your\nlittle finger, there is some hope the ladies of\nRome, especially his mother, may prevail with him.\nBut I say there is no hope in't: our throats are\nsentenced and stay upon execution.\n\nSICINIUS:\nIs't possible that so short a time can alter the\ncondition of a man!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThere is differency between a grub and a butterfly;\nyet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown\nfrom man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a\ncreeping thing.\n\nSICINIUS:\nHe loved his mother dearly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nSo did he me: and he no more remembers his mother\nnow than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness\nof his face sours ripe grapes: when he walks, he\nmoves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before\nhis treading: he is able to pierce a corslet with\nhis eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a\nbattery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for\nAlexander. What he bids be done is finished with\nhis bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity\nand a heaven to throne in.\n\nSICINIUS:\nYes, mercy, if you report him truly.\n\nMENENIUS:\nI paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his\nmother shall bring from him: there is no more mercy\nin him than there is milk in a male tiger; that\nshall our poor city find: and all this is long of\nyou.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThe gods be good unto us!\n\nMENENIUS:\nNo, in such a case the gods will not be good unto\nus. When we banished him, we respected not them;\nand, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.\n\nMessenger:\nSir, if you'ld save your life, fly to your house:\nThe plebeians have got your fellow-tribune\nAnd hale him up and down, all swearing, if\nThe Roman ladies bring not comfort home,\nThey'll give him death by inches.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWhat's the news?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nGood news, good news; the ladies have prevail'd,\nThe Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone:\nA merrier day did never yet greet Rome,\nNo, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.\n\nSICINIUS:\nFriend,\nArt thou certain this is true? is it most certain?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAs certain as I know the sun is fire:\nWhere have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?\nNe'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide,\nAs the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!\nThe trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,\nTabours and cymbals and the shouting Romans,\nMake the sun dance. Hark you!\n\nMENENIUS:\nThis is good news:\nI will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia\nIs worth of consuls, senators, patricians,\nA city full; of tribunes, such as you,\nA sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:\nThis morning for ten thousand of your throats\nI'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!\n\nSICINIUS:\nFirst, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,\nAccept my thankfulness.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nSir, we have all\nGreat cause to give great thanks.\n\nSICINIUS:\nThey are near the city?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nAlmost at point to enter.\n\nSICINIUS:\nWe will meet them,\nAnd help the joy.\n\nFirst Senator:\nBehold our patroness, the life of Rome!\nCall all your tribes together, praise the gods,\nAnd make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them:\nUnshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,\nRepeal him with the welcome of his mother;\nCry 'Welcome, ladies, welcome!'\n\nAll:\nWelcome, ladies, Welcome!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nGo tell the lords o' the city I am here:\nDeliver them this paper: having read it,\nBid them repair to the market place; where I,\nEven in theirs and in the commons' ears,\nWill vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse\nThe city ports by this hath enter'd and\nIntends to appear before the people, hoping\nTo purge herself with words: dispatch.\nMost welcome!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nHow is it with our general?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nEven so\nAs with a man by his own alms empoison'd,\nAnd with his charity slain.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nMost noble sir,\nIf you do hold the same intent wherein\nYou wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you\nOf your great danger.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSir, I cannot tell:\nWe must proceed as we do find the people.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nThe people will remain uncertain whilst\n'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either\nMakes the survivor heir of all.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI know it;\nAnd my pretext to strike at him admits\nA good construction. I raised him, and I pawn'd\nMine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd,\nHe water'd his new plants with dews of flattery,\nSeducing so my friends; and, to this end,\nHe bow'd his nature, never known before\nBut to be rough, unswayable and free.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nSir, his stoutness\nWhen he did stand for consul, which he lost\nBy lack of stooping,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThat I would have spoke of:\nBeing banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth;\nPresented to my knife his throat: I took him;\nMade him joint-servant with me; gave him way\nIn all his own desires; nay, let him choose\nOut of my files, his projects to accomplish,\nMy best and freshest men; served his designments\nIn mine own person; holp to reap the fame\nWhich he did end all his; and took some pride\nTo do myself this wrong: till, at the last,\nI seem'd his follower, not partner, and\nHe waged me with his countenance, as if\nI had been mercenary.\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nSo he did, my lord:\nThe army marvell'd at it, and, in the last,\nWhen he had carried Rome and that we look'd\nFor no less spoil than glory,--\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nThere was it:\nFor which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.\nAt a few drops of women's rheum, which are\nAs cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour\nOf our great action: therefore shall he die,\nAnd I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!\n\nFirst Conspirator:\nYour native town you enter'd like a post,\nAnd had no welcomes home: but he returns,\nSplitting the air with noise.\n\nSecond Conspirator:\nAnd patient fools,\nWhose children he hath slain, their base throats tear\nWith giving him glory.\n\nThird Conspirator:\nTherefore, at your vantage,\nEre he express himself, or move the people\nWith what he would say, let him feel your sword,\nWhich we will second. When he lies along,\nAfter your way his tale pronounced shall bury\nHis reasons with his body.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nSay no more:\nHere come the lords.\n\nAll The Lords:\nYou are most welcome home.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nI have not deserved it.\nBut, worthy lords, have you with heed perused\nWhat I have written to you?\n\nLords:\nWe have.\n\nFirst Lord:\nAnd grieve to hear't.\nWhat faults he made before the last, I think\nMight have found easy fines: but there to end\nWhere he was to begin and give away\nThe benefit of our levies, answering us\nWith our own charge, making a treaty where\nThere was a yielding,--this admits no excuse.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nHe approaches: you shall hear him.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHail, lords! I am return'd your soldier,\nNo more infected with my country's love\nThan when I parted hence, but still subsisting\nUnder your great command. You are to know\nThat prosperously I have attempted and\nWith bloody passage led your wars even to\nThe gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home\nDo more than counterpoise a full third part\nThe charges of the action. We have made peace\nWith no less honour to the Antiates\nThan shame to the Romans: and we here deliver,\nSubscribed by the consuls and patricians,\nTogether with the seal o' the senate, what\nWe have compounded on.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nRead it not, noble lords;\nBut tell the traitor, in the high'st degree\nHe hath abused your powers.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nTraitor! how now!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, traitor, Marcius!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMarcius!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nAy, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think\nI'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name\nCoriolanus in Corioli?\nYou lords and heads o' the state, perfidiously\nHe has betray'd your business, and given up,\nFor certain drops of salt, your city Rome,\nI say 'your city,' to his wife and mother;\nBreaking his oath and resolution like\nA twist of rotten silk, never admitting\nCounsel o' the war, but at his nurse's tears\nHe whined and roar'd away your victory,\nThat pages blush'd at him and men of heart\nLook'd wondering each at other.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHear'st thou, Mars?\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nName not the god, thou boy of tears!\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nHa!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nNo more.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nMeasureless liar, thou hast made my heart\nToo great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!\nPardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever\nI was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,\nMust give this cur the lie: and his own notion--\nWho wears my stripes impress'd upon him; that\nMust bear my beating to his grave--shall join\nTo thrust the lie unto him.\n\nFirst Lord:\nPeace, both, and hear me speak.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nCut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,\nStain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!\nIf you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,\nThat, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I\nFlutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:\nAlone I did it. Boy!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nWhy, noble lords,\nWill you be put in mind of his blind fortune,\nWhich was your shame, by this unholy braggart,\n'Fore your own eyes and ears?\n\nAll Conspirators:\nLet him die for't.\n\nAll The People:\n'Tear him to pieces.' 'Do it presently.' 'He kill'd\nmy son.' 'My daughter.' 'He killed my cousin\nMarcus.' 'He killed my father.'\n\nSecond Lord:\nPeace, ho! no outrage: peace!\nThe man is noble and his fame folds-in\nThis orb o' the earth. His last offences to us\nShall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,\nAnd trouble not the peace.\n\nCORIOLANUS:\nO that I had him,\nWith six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,\nTo use my lawful sword!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nInsolent villain!\n\nAll Conspirators:\nKill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!\n\nLords:\nHold, hold, hold, hold!\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy noble masters, hear me speak.\n\nFirst Lord:\nO Tullus,--\n\nSecond Lord:\nThou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.\n\nThird Lord:\nTread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;\nPut up your swords.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy lords, when you shall know--as in this rage,\nProvoked by him, you cannot--the great danger\nWhich this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice\nThat he is thus cut off. Please it your honours\nTo call me to your senate, I'll deliver\nMyself your loyal servant, or endure\nYour heaviest censure.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBear from hence his body;\nAnd mourn you for him: let him be regarded\nAs the most noble corse that ever herald\nDid follow to his urn.\n\nSecond Lord:\nHis own impatience\nTakes from Aufidius a great part of blame.\nLet's make the best of it.\n\nAUFIDIUS:\nMy rage is gone;\nAnd I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.\nHelp, three o' the chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.\nBeat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:\nTrail your steel pikes. Though in this city he\nHath widow'd and unchilded many a one,\nWhich to this hour bewail the injury,\nYet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow is the winter of our discontent\nMade glorious summer by this sun of York;\nAnd all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\nIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\nNow are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\nOur bruised arms hung up for monuments;\nOur stern alarums changed to merry meetings,\nOur dreadful marches to delightful measures.\nGrim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;\nAnd now, instead of mounting barded steeds\nTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\nHe capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\nTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\nBut I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,\nNor made to court an amorous looking-glass;\nI, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;\nI, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,\nDeformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;\nWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\nHave no delight to pass away the time,\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,\nI am determined to prove a villain\nAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.\nPlots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\nBy drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,\nTo set my brother Clarence and the king\nIn deadly hate the one against the other:\nAnd if King Edward be as true and just\nAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,\nThis day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,\nAbout a prophecy, which says that 'G'\nOf Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\nDive, thoughts, down to my soul: here\nClarence comes.\nBrother, good day; what means this armed guard\nThat waits upon your grace?\n\nCLARENCE:\nHis majesty\nTendering my person's safety, hath appointed\nThis conduct to convey me to the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUpon what cause?\n\nCLARENCE:\nBecause my name is George.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;\nHe should, for that, commit your godfathers:\nO, belike his majesty hath some intent\nThat you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.\nBut what's the matter, Clarence?  may I know?\n\nCLARENCE:\nYea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\nAs yet I do not: but, as I can learn,\nHe hearkens after prophecies and dreams;\nAnd from the cross-row plucks the letter G.\nAnd says a wizard told him that by G\nHis issue disinherited should be;\nAnd, for my name of George begins with G,\nIt follows in his thought that I am he.\nThese, as I learn, and such like toys as these\nHave moved his highness to commit me now.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, this it is, when men are ruled by women:\n'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:\nMy Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\nThat tempers him to this extremity.\nWas it not she and that good man of worship,\nAnthony Woodville, her brother there,\nThat made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\nFrom whence this present day he is deliver'd?\nWe are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I think there's no man is secure\nBut the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds\nThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.\nHeard ye not what an humble suppliant\nLord hastings was to her for his delivery?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHumbly complaining to her deity\nGot my lord chamberlain his liberty.\nI'll tell you what; I think it is our way,\nIf we will keep in favour with the king,\nTo be her men and wear her livery:\nThe jealous o'erworn widow and herself,\nSince that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen.\nAre mighty gossips in this monarchy.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your graces both to pardon me;\nHis majesty hath straitly given in charge\nThat no man shall have private conference,\nOf what degree soever, with his brother.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\nYou may partake of any thing we say:\nWe speak no treason, man: we say the king\nIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\nWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\nWe say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\nA cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\nAnd that the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:\nHow say you sir? Can you deny all this?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWith this, my lord, myself have nought to do.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNaught to do with mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow,\nHe that doth naught with her, excepting one,\nWere best he do it secretly, alone.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat one, my lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHer husband, knave: wouldst thou betray me?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal\nForbear your conference with the noble duke.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWe know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWe are the queen's abjects, and must obey.\nBrother, farewell: I will unto the king;\nAnd whatsoever you will employ me in,\nWere it to call King Edward's widow sister,\nI will perform it to enfranchise you.\nMeantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\nTouches me deeper than you can imagine.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell, your imprisonment shall not be long;\nMeantime, have patience.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI must perforce. Farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\nSimple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,\nThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\nIf heaven will take the present at our hands.\nBut who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings?\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood time of day unto my gracious lord!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAs much unto my good lord chamberlain!\nWell are you welcome to the open air.\nHow hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n\nHASTINGS:\nWith patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:\nBut I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\nThat were the cause of my imprisonment.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\nFor they that were your enemies are his,\nAnd have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMore pity that the eagle should be mew'd,\nWhile kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat news abroad?\n\nHASTINGS:\nNo news so bad abroad as this at home;\nThe King is sickly, weak and melancholy,\nAnd his physicians fear him mightily.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.\nO, he hath kept an evil diet long,\nAnd overmuch consumed his royal person:\n'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\nWhat, is he in his bed?\n\nHASTINGS:\nHe is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo you before, and I will follow you.\nHe cannot live, I hope; and must not die\nTill George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.\nI'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,\nWith lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\nAnd, if I fall not in my deep intent,\nClarence hath not another day to live:\nWhich done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\nAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!\nFor then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\nWhat though I kill'd her husband and her father?\nThe readiest way to make the wench amends\nIs to become her husband and her father:\nThe which will I; not all so much for love\nAs for another secret close intent,\nBy marrying her which I must reach unto.\nBut yet I run before my horse to market:\nClarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:\nWhen they are gone, then must I count my gains.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSet down, set down your honourable load,\nIf honour may be shrouded in a hearse,\nWhilst I awhile obsequiously lament\nThe untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\nPoor key-cold figure of a holy king!\nPale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\nThou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\nBe it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,\nTo hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,\nWife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,\nStabb'd by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!\nLo, in these windows that let forth thy life,\nI pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\nCursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!\nCursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!\nCursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\nMore direful hap betide that hated wretch,\nThat makes us wretched by the death of thee,\nThan I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\nOr any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\nIf ever he have child, abortive be it,\nProdigious, and untimely brought to light,\nWhose ugly and unnatural aspect\nMay fright the hopeful mother at the view;\nAnd that be heir to his unhappiness!\nIf ever he have wife, let her he made\nA miserable by the death of him\nAs I am made by my poor lord and thee!\nCome, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\nTaken from Paul's to be interred there;\nAnd still, as you are weary of the weight,\nRest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nStay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat black magician conjures up this fiend,\nTo stop devoted charitable deeds?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVillains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\nI'll make a corse of him that disobeys.\n\nGentleman:\nMy lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nUnmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:\nAdvance thy halbert higher than my breast,\nOr, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,\nAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat, do you tremble? are you all afraid?\nAlas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,\nAnd mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\nAvaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\nThou hadst but power over his mortal body,\nHis soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFoul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;\nFor thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,\nFill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\nIf thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\nBehold this pattern of thy butcheries.\nO, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\nOpen their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!\nBlush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\nFor 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\nFrom cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\nThy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\nProvokes this deluge most unnatural.\nO God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!\nO earth, which this blood drink'st revenge his death!\nEither heaven with lightning strike the\nmurderer dead,\nOr earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\nAs thou dost swallow up this good king's blood\nWhich his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLady, you know no rules of charity,\nWhich renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVillain, thou know'st no law of God nor man:\nNo beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nO wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMore wonderful, when angels are so angry.\nVouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\nOf these supposed-evils, to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, but to acquit myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nVouchsafe, defused infection of a man,\nFor these known evils, but to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\nSome patient leisure to excuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nFouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\nNo excuse current, but to hang thyself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy such despair, I should accuse myself.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;\nFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,\nWhich didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay that I slew them not?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then they are not dead:\nBut dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI did not kill your husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, then he is alive.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNay, he is dead; and slain by Edward's hand.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIn thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\nThy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;\nThe which thou once didst bend against her breast,\nBut that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI was provoked by her slanderous tongue,\nwhich laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.\nWhich never dreamt on aught but butcheries:\nDidst thou not kill this king?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI grant ye.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too\nThou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\nO, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHe is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLet him thank me, that holp to send him thither;\nFor he was fitter for that place than earth.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd thou unfit for any place but hell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nSome dungeon.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour bed-chamber.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI'll rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo will it, madam till I lie with you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI hope so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\nTo leave this keen encounter of our wits,\nAnd fall somewhat into a slower method,\nIs not the causer of the timeless deaths\nOf these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\nAs blameful as the executioner?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThou art the cause, and most accursed effect.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour beauty was the cause of that effect;\nYour beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep\nTo undertake the death of all the world,\nSo I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIf I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\nThese nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThese eyes could never endure sweet beauty's wreck;\nYou should not blemish it, if I stood by:\nAs all the world is cheered by the sun,\nSo I by that; it is my day, my life.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nBlack night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCurse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I were, to be revenged on thee.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is a quarrel most unnatural,\nTo be revenged on him that loveth you.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nIt is a quarrel just and reasonable,\nTo be revenged on him that slew my husband.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,\nDid it to help thee to a better husband.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nHis better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe lives that loves thee better than he could.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nName him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPlantagenet.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhy, that was he.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe selfsame name, but one of better nature.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhere is he?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHere.\nWhy dost thou spit at me?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNever came poison from so sweet a place.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNever hung poison on a fouler toad.\nOut of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWould they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI would they were, that I might die at once;\nFor now they kill me with a living death.\nThose eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\nShamed their aspect with store of childish drops:\nThese eyes that never shed remorseful tear,\nNo, when my father York and Edward wept,\nTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\nWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;\nNor when thy warlike father, like a child,\nTold the sad story of my father's death,\nAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,\nThat all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\nLike trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time\nMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\nAnd what these sorrows could not thence exhale,\nThy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\nI never sued to friend nor enemy;\nMy tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\nBut now thy beauty is proposed my fee,\nMy proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\nTeach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made\nFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\nIf thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\nLo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\nWhich if thou please to hide in this true bosom.\nAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\nI lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\nAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.\nNay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,\nBut 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\nNay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,\nBut 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\nTake up the sword again, or take up me.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nArise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,\nI will not be the executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen bid me kill myself, and I will do it.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI have already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTush, that was in thy rage:\nSpeak it again, and, even with the word,\nThat hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,\nShall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;\nTo both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI would I knew thy heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis figured in my tongue.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nI fear me both are false.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen never man was true.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWell, well, put up your sword.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSay, then, my peace is made.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nThat shall you know hereafter.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut shall I live in hope?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAll men, I hope, live so.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nVouchsafe to wear this ring.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTo take is not to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook, how this ring encompasseth finger.\nEven so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\nWear both of them, for both of them are thine.\nAnd if thy poor devoted suppliant may\nBut beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\nThou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWhat is it?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat it would please thee leave these sad designs\nTo him that hath more cause to be a mourner,\nAnd presently repair to Crosby Place;\nWhere, after I have solemnly interr'd\nAt Chertsey monastery this noble king,\nAnd wet his grave with my repentant tears,\nI will with all expedient duty see you:\nFor divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,\nGrant me this boon.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nWith all my heart; and much it joys me too,\nTo see you are become so penitent.\nTressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBid me farewell.\n\nLADY ANNE:\n'Tis more than you deserve;\nBut since you teach me how to flatter you,\nImagine I have said farewell already.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirs, take up the corse.\n\nGENTLEMEN:\nTowards Chertsey, noble lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.\nWas ever woman in this humour woo'd?\nWas ever woman in this humour won?\nI'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\nWhat! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,\nTo take her in her heart's extremest hate,\nWith curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\nThe bleeding witness of her hatred by;\nHaving God, her conscience, and these bars\nagainst me,\nAnd I nothing to back my suit at all,\nBut the plain devil and dissembling looks,\nAnd yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\nHa!\nHath she forgot already that brave prince,\nEdward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\nStabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\nA sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,\nFramed in the prodigality of nature,\nYoung, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,\nThe spacious world cannot again afford\nAnd will she yet debase her eyes on me,\nThat cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,\nAnd made her widow to a woful bed?\nOn me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\nOn me, that halt and am unshapen thus?\nMy dukedom to a beggarly denier,\nI do mistake my person all this while:\nUpon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\nMyself to be a marvellous proper man.\nI'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\nAnd entertain some score or two of tailors,\nTo study fashions to adorn my body:\nSince I am crept in favour with myself,\nWill maintain it with some little cost.\nBut first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;\nAnd then return lamenting to my love.\nShine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\nThat I may see my shadow as I pass.\n\nRIVERS:\nHave patience, madam: there's no doubt his majesty\nWill soon recover his accustom'd health.\n\nGREY:\nIn that you brook it in, it makes him worse:\nTherefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\nAnd cheer his grace with quick and merry words.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIf he were dead, what would betide of me?\n\nRIVERS:\nNo other harm but loss of such a lord.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe loss of such a lord includes all harm.\n\nGREY:\nThe heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son,\nTo be your comforter when he is gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, he is young and his minority\nIs put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\nA man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n\nRIVERS:\nIs it concluded that he shall be protector?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nIt is determined, not concluded yet:\nBut so it must be, if the king miscarry.\n\nGREY:\nHere come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood time of day unto your royal grace!\n\nDERBY:\nGod make your majesty joyful as you have been!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.\nTo your good prayers will scarcely say amen.\nYet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,\nAnd loves not me, be you, good lord, assured\nI hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n\nDERBY:\nI do beseech you, either not believe\nThe envious slanders of her false accusers;\nOr, if she be accused in true report,\nBear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds\nFrom wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.\n\nRIVERS:\nSaw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?\n\nDERBY:\nBut now the Duke of Buckingham and I\nAre come from visiting his majesty.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat likelihood of his amendment, lords?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod grant him health! Did you confer with him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMadam, we did: he desires to make atonement\nBetwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\nAnd betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;\nAnd sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWould all were well! but that will never be\nI fear our happiness is at the highest.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThey do me wrong, and I will not endure it:\nWho are they that complain unto the king,\nThat I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?\nBy holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly\nThat fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\nBecause I cannot flatter and speak fair,\nSmile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,\nDuck with French nods and apish courtesy,\nI must be held a rancorous enemy.\nCannot a plain man live and think no harm,\nBut thus his simple truth must be abused\nBy silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n\nRIVERS:\nTo whom in all this presence speaks your grace?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\nWhen have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?\nOr thee? or thee? or any of your faction?\nA plague upon you all! His royal person,--\nWhom God preserve better than you would wish!--\nCannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,\nBut you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBrother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.\nThe king, of his own royal disposition,\nAnd not provoked by any suitor else;\nAiming, belike, at your interior hatred,\nWhich in your outward actions shows itself\nAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,\nMakes him to send; that thereby he may gather\nThe ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,\nThat wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:\nSince every Jack became a gentleman\nThere's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, we know your meaning, brother\nGloucester;\nYou envy my advancement and my friends':\nGod grant we never may have need of you!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMeantime, God grants that we have need of you:\nYour brother is imprison'd by your means,\nMyself disgraced, and the nobility\nHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotions\nAre daily given to ennoble those\nThat scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy Him that raised me to this careful height\nFrom that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\nI never did incense his majesty\nAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have been\nAn earnest advocate to plead for him.\nMy lord, you do me shameful injury,\nFalsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYou may deny that you were not the cause\nOf my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n\nRIVERS:\nShe may, my lord, for--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShe may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?\nShe may do more, sir, than denying that:\nShe may help you to many fair preferments,\nAnd then deny her aiding hand therein,\nAnd lay those honours on your high deserts.\nWhat may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat, marry, may she?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, marry, may she! marry with a king,\nA bachelor, a handsome stripling too:\nI wis your grandam had a worser match.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne\nYour blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:\nBy heaven, I will acquaint his majesty\nWith those gross taunts I often have endured.\nI had rather be a country servant-maid\nThan a great queen, with this condition,\nTo be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:\nSmall joy have I in being England's queen.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!\nThy honour, state and seat is due to me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat! threat you me with telling of the king?\nTell him, and spare not: look, what I have said\nI will avouch in presence of the king:\nI dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.\n'Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOut, devil! I remember them too well:\nThou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,\nAnd Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEre you were queen, yea, or your husband king,\nI was a pack-horse in his great affairs;\nA weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\nA liberal rewarder of his friends:\nTo royalize his blood I spilt mine own.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYea, and much better blood than his or thine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn all which time you and your husband Grey\nWere factious for the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\nIn Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?\nLet me put in your minds, if you forget,\nWhat you have been ere now, and what you are;\nWithal, what I have been, and what I am.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA murderous villain, and so still thou art.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nPoor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;\nYea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhich God revenge!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTo fight on Edward's party for the crown;\nAnd for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.\nI would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's;\nOr Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine\nI am too childish-foolish for this world.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,\nThou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.\n\nRIVERS:\nMy Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\nWhich here you urge to prove us enemies,\nWe follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:\nSo should we you, if you should be our king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:\nFar be it from my heart, the thought of it!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs little joy, my lord, as you suppose\nYou should enjoy, were you this country's king,\nAs little joy may you suppose in me.\nThat I enjoy, being the queen thereof.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nA little joy enjoys the queen thereof;\nFor I am she, and altogether joyless.\nI can no longer hold me patient.\nHear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\nIn sharing that which you have pill'd from me!\nWhich of you trembles not that looks on me?\nIf not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,\nYet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?\nO gentle villain, do not turn away!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFoul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut repetition of what thou hast marr'd;\nThat will I make before I let thee go.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWert thou not banished on pain of death?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI was; but I do find more pain in banishment\nThan death can yield me here by my abode.\nA husband and a son thou owest to me;\nAnd thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:\nThe sorrow that I have, by right is yours,\nAnd all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe curse my noble father laid on thee,\nWhen thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\nAnd with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\nAnd then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout\nSteep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland--\nHis curses, then from bitterness of soul\nDenounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;\nAnd God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo just is God, to right the innocent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\nAnd the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n\nRIVERS:\nTyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n\nDORSET:\nNo man but prophesied revenge for it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNorthumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat were you snarling all before I came,\nReady to catch each other by the throat,\nAnd turn you all your hatred now on me?\nDid York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven?\nThat Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\nTheir kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,\nCould all but answer for that peevish brat?\nCan curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\nWhy, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\nIf not by war, by surfeit die your king,\nAs ours by murder, to make him a king!\nEdward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,\nFor Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,\nDie in his youth by like untimely violence!\nThyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\nOutlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\nLong mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss;\nAnd see another, as I see thee now,\nDeck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\nLong die thy happy days before thy death;\nAnd, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,\nDie neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!\nRivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\nAnd so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\nWas stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,\nThat none of you may live your natural age,\nBut by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHave done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.\nIf heaven have any grievous plague in store\nExceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\nO, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\nAnd then hurl down their indignation\nOn thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\nThe worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!\nThy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,\nAnd take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\nNo sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\nUnless it be whilst some tormenting dream\nAffrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\nThou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\nThou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\nThe slave of nature and the son of hell!\nThou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!\nThou loathed issue of thy father's loins!\nThou rag of honour! thou detested--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMargaret.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRichard!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHa!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call thee not.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cry thee mercy then, for I had thought\nThat thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, so I did; but look'd for no reply.\nO, let me make the period to my curse!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThus have you breathed your curse against yourself.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPoor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\nWhy strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\nWhose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\nFool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\nThe time will come when thou shalt wish for me\nTo help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.\n\nHASTINGS:\nFalse-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\nLest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFoul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.\n\nRIVERS:\nWere you well served, you would be taught your duty.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTo serve me well, you all should do me duty,\nTeach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:\nO, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n\nDORSET:\nDispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, master marquess, you are malapert:\nYour fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\nO, that your young nobility could judge\nWhat 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!\nThey that stand high have many blasts to shake them;\nAnd if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nIt toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYea, and much more: but I was born so high,\nOur aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\nAnd dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!\nWitness my son, now in the shade of death;\nWhose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\nHath in eternal darkness folded up.\nYour aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\nO God, that seest it, do not suffer it!\nAs it was won with blood, lost be it so!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done! for shame, if not for charity.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nUrge neither charity nor shame to me:\nUncharitably with me have you dealt,\nAnd shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.\nMy charity is outrage, life my shame\nAnd in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHave done, have done.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,\nIn sign of league and amity with thee:\nNow fair befal thee and thy noble house!\nThy garments are not spotted with our blood,\nNor thou within the compass of my curse.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNor no one here; for curses never pass\nThe lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI'll not believe but they ascend the sky,\nAnd there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\nO Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\nLook, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\nHis venom tooth will rankle to the death:\nHave not to do with him, beware of him;\nSin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,\nAnd all their ministers attend on him.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?\nAnd soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\nO, but remember this another day,\nWhen he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\nAnd say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\nLive each of you the subjects to his hate,\nAnd he to yours, and all of you to God's!\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,\nShe hath had too much wrong; and I repent\nMy part thereof that I have done to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI never did her any, to my knowledge.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut you have all the vantage of her wrong.\nI was too hot to do somebody good,\nThat is too cold in thinking of it now.\nMarry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,\nHe is frank'd up to fatting for his pains\nGod pardon them that are the cause of it!\n\nRIVERS:\nA virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\nTo pray for them that have done scathe to us.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo do I ever:\nbeing well-advised.\nFor had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.\n\nCATESBY:\nMadam, his majesty doth call for you,\nAnd for your grace; and you, my noble lords.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCatesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, we will attend your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\nThe secret mischiefs that I set abroach\nI lay unto the grievous charge of others.\nClarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,\nI do beweep to many simple gulls\nNamely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;\nAnd say it is the queen and her allies\nThat stir the king against the duke my brother.\nNow, they believe it; and withal whet me\nTo be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:\nBut then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,\nTell them that God bids us do good for evil:\nAnd thus I clothe my naked villany\nWith old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;\nAnd seem a saint, when most I play the devil.\nBut, soft! here come my executioners.\nHow now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!\nAre you now going to dispatch this deed?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe are, my lord; and come to have the warrant\nThat we may be admitted where he is.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell thought upon; I have it here about me.\nWhen you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\nBut, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\nWithal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\nFor Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\nMay move your hearts to pity if you mark him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTush!\nFear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;\nTalkers are no good doers: be assured\nWe come to use our hands and not our tongues.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:\nI like you, lads; about your business straight;\nGo, go, dispatch.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWe will, my noble lord.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhy looks your grace so heavily today?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, I have pass'd a miserable night,\nSo full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,\nThat, as I am a Christian faithful man,\nI would not spend another such a night,\nThough 'twere to buy a world of happy days,\nSo full of dismal terror was the time!\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nWhat was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethoughts that I had broken from the Tower,\nAnd was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\nAnd, in my company, my brother Gloucester;\nWho from my cabin tempted me to walk\nUpon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,\nAnd cited up a thousand fearful times,\nDuring the wars of York and Lancaster\nThat had befall'n us. As we paced along\nUpon the giddy footing of the hatches,\nMethought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,\nStruck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,\nInto the tumbling billows of the main.\nLord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!\nWhat dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!\nWhat ugly sights of death within mine eyes!\nMethought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;\nTen thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;\nWedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\nInestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\nAll scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:\nSome lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes\nWhere eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,\nAs 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\nWhich woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,\nAnd mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nHad you such leisure in the time of death\nTo gaze upon the secrets of the deep?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMethought I had; and often did I strive\nTo yield the ghost: but still the envious flood\nKept in my soul, and would not let it forth\nTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;\nBut smother'd it within my panting bulk,\nWhich almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nAwaked you not with this sore agony?\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;\nO, then began the tempest to my soul,\nWho pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,\nWith that grim ferryman which poets write of,\nUnto the kingdom of perpetual night.\nThe first that there did greet my stranger soul,\nWas my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;\nWho cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury\nCan this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\nAnd so he vanish'd: then came wandering by\nA shadow like an angel, with bright hair\nDabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,\n'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,\nThat stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;\nSeize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'\nWith that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\nEnviron'd me about, and howled in mine ears\nSuch hideous cries, that with the very noise\nI trembling waked, and for a season after\nCould not believe but that I was in hell,\nSuch terrible impression made the dream.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;\nI promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO Brakenbury, I have done those things,\nWhich now bear evidence against my soul,\nFor Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!\nO God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,\nBut thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,\nYet execute thy wrath in me alone,\nO, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\nI pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;\nMy soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!\nSorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\nMakes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.\nPrinces have but their tides for their glories,\nAn outward honour for an inward toil;\nAnd, for unfelt imagination,\nThey often feel a world of restless cares:\nSo that, betwixt their tides and low names,\nThere's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHo! who's here?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nIn God's name what are you, and how came you hither?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nYea, are you so brief?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show\nhim our commission; talk no more.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI am, in this, commanded to deliver\nThe noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:\nI will not reason what is meant hereby,\nBecause I will be guiltless of the meaning.\nHere are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:\nI'll to the king; and signify to him\nThat thus I have resign'd my charge to you.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nDo so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat, shall we stab him as he sleeps?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nNo; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhen he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till\nthe judgment-day.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhy, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nThe urging of that word 'judgment' hath bred a kind\nof remorse in me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat, art thou afraid?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNot to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be\ndamned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nI thought thou hadst been resolute.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSo I am, to let him live.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nBack to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour\nwill change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one\nwould tell twenty.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow dost thou feel thyself now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet\nwithin me.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRemember our reward, when the deed is done.\n\nSecond Murderer:\n'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhere is thy conscience now?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nIn the Duke of Gloucester's purse.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo when he opens his purse to give us our reward,\nthy conscience flies out.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLet it go; there's few or none will entertain it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow if it come to thee again?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it\nmakes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it\naccuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;\nhe cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it\ndetects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that\nmutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of\nobstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\nthat I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it\nis turned out of all towns and cities for a\ndangerous thing; and every man that means to live\nwell endeavours to trust to himself and to live\nwithout it.\n\nFirst Murderer:\n'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me\nnot to kill the duke.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nTake the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he\nwould insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me,\nI warrant thee.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nSpoke like a tail fellow that respects his\nreputation. Come, shall we to this gear?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake him over the costard with the hilts of thy\nsword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt\nin the next room.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nO excellent devise! make a sop of him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHark! he stirs: shall I strike?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNo, first let's reason with him.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhere art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.\n\nSecond murderer:\nYou shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn God's name, what art thou?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA man, as you are.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBut not, as I am, royal.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNor you, as we are, loyal.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nMy voice is now the king's, my looks mine own.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHow darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\nYour eyes do menace me: why look you pale?\nWho sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n\nBoth:\nTo, to, to--\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo murder me?\n\nBoth:\nAy, ay.\n\nCLARENCE:\nYou scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\nAnd therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\nWherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n\nFirst Murderer:\nOffended us you have not, but the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI shall be reconciled to him again.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nNever, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAre you call'd forth from out a world of men\nTo slay the innocent? What is my offence?\nWhere are the evidence that do accuse me?\nWhat lawful quest have given their verdict up\nUnto the frowning judge? or who pronounced\nThe bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\nBefore I be convict by course of law,\nTo threaten me with death is most unlawful.\nI charge you, as you hope to have redemption\nBy Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\nThat you depart and lay no hands on me\nThe deed you undertake is damnable.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWhat we will do, we do upon command.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd he that hath commanded is the king.\n\nCLARENCE:\nErroneous vassal! the great King of kings\nHath in the tables of his law commanded\nThat thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,\nSpurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\nTake heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,\nTo hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nAnd that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,\nFor false forswearing and for murder too:\nThou didst receive the holy sacrament,\nTo fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAnd, like a traitor to the name of God,\nDidst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\nUnrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us,\nWhen thou hast broke it in so dear degree?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\nFor Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,\nHe sends ye not to murder me for this\nFor in this sin he is as deep as I.\nIf God will be revenged for this deed.\nO, know you yet, he doth it publicly,\nTake not the quarrel from his powerful arm;\nHe needs no indirect nor lawless course\nTo cut off those that have offended him.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nWho made thee, then, a bloody minister,\nWhen gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\nThat princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n\nCLARENCE:\nMy brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nThy brother's love, our duty, and thy fault,\nProvoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOh, if you love my brother, hate not me;\nI am his brother, and I love him well.\nIf you be hired for meed, go back again,\nAnd I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\nWho shall reward you better for my life\nThan Edward will for tidings of my death.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nYou are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:\nGo you to him from me.\n\nBoth:\nAy, so we will.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTell him, when that our princely father York\nBless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,\nAnd charged us from his soul to love each other,\nHe little thought of this divided friendship:\nBid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nAy, millstones; as be lesson'd us to weep.\n\nCLARENCE:\nO, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRight,\nAs snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:\n'Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt cannot be; for when I parted with him,\nHe hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,\nThat he would labour my delivery.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhy, so he doth, now he delivers thee\nFrom this world's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nMake peace with God, for you must die, my lord.\n\nCLARENCE:\nHast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,\nTo counsel me to make my peace with God,\nAnd art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,\nThat thou wilt war with God by murdering me?\nAh, sirs, consider, he that set you on\nTo do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nWhat shall we do?\n\nCLARENCE:\nRelent, and save your souls.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nRelent! 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNot to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\nWhich of you, if you were a prince's son,\nBeing pent from liberty, as I am now,\nif two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\nWould not entreat for life?\nMy friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:\nO, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\nCome thou on my side, and entreat for me,\nAs you would beg, were you in my distress\nA begging prince what beggar pities not?\n\nSecond Murderer:\nLook behind you, my lord.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nTake that, and that: if all this will not do,\nI'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n\nSecond Murderer:\nA bloody deed, and desperately dispatch'd!\nHow fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\nOf this most grievous guilty murder done!\n\nFirst Murderer:\nHow now! what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not?\nBy heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!\n\nSecond Murderer:\nI would he knew that I had saved his brother!\nTake thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\nFor I repent me that the duke is slain.\n\nFirst Murderer:\nSo do not I: go, coward as thou art.\nNow must I hide his body in some hole,\nUntil the duke take order for his burial:\nAnd when I have my meed, I must away;\nFor this will out, and here I must not stay.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so: now have I done a good day's work:\nYou peers, continue this united league:\nI every day expect an embassage\nFrom my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\nAnd now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,\nSince I have set my friends at peace on earth.\nRivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;\nDissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n\nRIVERS:\nBy heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:\nAnd with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake heed you dally not before your king;\nLest he that is the supreme King of kings\nConfound your hidden falsehood, and award\nEither of you to be the other's end.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSo prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMadam, yourself are not exempt in this,\nNor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;\nYou have been factious one against the other,\nWife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\nAnd what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHere, Hastings; I will never more remember\nOur former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nDorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.\n\nDORSET:\nThis interchange of love, I here protest,\nUpon my part shall be unviolable.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so swear I, my lord\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league\nWith thy embracements to my wife's allies,\nAnd make me happy in your unity.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhenever Buckingham doth turn his hate\nOn you or yours,\nbut with all duteous love\nDoth cherish you and yours, God punish me\nWith hate in those where I expect most love!\nWhen I have most need to employ a friend,\nAnd most assured that he is a friend\nDeep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\nBe he unto me! this do I beg of God,\nWhen I am cold in zeal to yours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nA pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\nis this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\nThere wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,\nTo make the perfect period of this peace.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the noble duke.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood morrow to my sovereign king and queen:\nAnd, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHappy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\nBrother, we done deeds of charity;\nMade peace enmity, fair love of hate,\nBetween these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:\nAmongst this princely heap, if any here,\nBy false intelligence, or wrong surmise,\nHold me a foe;\nIf I unwittingly, or in my rage,\nHave aught committed that is hardly borne\nBy any in this presence, I desire\nTo reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\nI hate it, and desire all good men's love.\nFirst, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\nWhich I will purchase with my duteous service;\nOf you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\nIf ever any grudge were lodged between us;\nOf you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;\nThat without desert have frown'd on me;\nDukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.\nI do not know that Englishman alive\nWith whom my soul is any jot at odds\nMore than the infant that is born to-night\nI thank my God for my humility.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA holy day shall this be kept hereafter:\nI would to God all strifes were well compounded.\nMy sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty\nTo take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, madam, have I offer'd love for this\nTo be so bouted in this royal presence?\nWho knows not that the noble duke is dead?\nYou do him injury to scorn his corse.\n\nRIVERS:\nWho knows not he is dead! who knows he is?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAll seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLook I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n\nDORSET:\nAy, my good lord; and no one in this presence\nBut his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Clarence dead? the order was reversed.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut he, poor soul, by your first order died,\nAnd that a winged Mercury did bear:\nSome tardy cripple bore the countermand,\nThat came too lag to see him buried.\nGod grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\nNearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,\nDeserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\nAnd yet go current from suspicion!\n\nDORSET:\nA boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.\n\nDORSET:\nI will not rise, unless your highness grant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen speak at once what is it thou demand'st.\n\nDORSET:\nThe forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\nWho slew to-day a righteous gentleman\nLately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHave a tongue to doom my brother's death,\nAnd shall the same give pardon to a slave?\nMy brother slew no man; his fault was thought,\nAnd yet his punishment was cruel death.\nWho sued to me for him? who, in my rage,\nKneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advised\nWho spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?\nWho told me how the poor soul did forsake\nThe mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?\nWho told me, in the field by Tewksbury\nWhen Oxford had me down, he rescued me,\nAnd said, 'Dear brother, live, and be a king'?\nWho told me, when we both lay in the field\nFrozen almost to death, how he did lap me\nEven in his own garments, and gave himself,\nAll thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\nAll this from my remembrance brutish wrath\nSinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\nHad so much grace to put it in my mind.\nBut when your carters or your waiting-vassals\nHave done a drunken slaughter, and defaced\nThe precious image of our dear Redeemer,\nYou straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\nAnd I unjustly too, must grant it you\nBut for my brother not a man would speak,\nNor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\nFor him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\nHave been beholding to him in his life;\nYet none of you would once plead for his life.\nO God, I fear thy justice will take hold\nOn me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!\nCome, Hastings, help me to my closet.\nOh, poor Clarence!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThis is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not\nHow that the guilty kindred of the queen\nLook'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\nO, they did urge it still unto the king!\nGod will revenge it. But come, let us in,\nTo comfort Edward with our company.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWe wait upon your grace.\n\nBoy:\nTell me, good grandam, is our father dead?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, boy.\n\nBoy:\nWhy do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,\nAnd cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'\n\nGirl:\nWhy do you look on us, and shake your head,\nAnd call us wretches, orphans, castaways\nIf that our noble father be alive?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy pretty cousins, you mistake me much;\nI do lament the sickness of the king.\nAs loath to lose him, not your father's death;\nIt were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n\nBoy:\nThen, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.\nThe king my uncle is to blame for this:\nGod will revenge it; whom I will importune\nWith daily prayers all to that effect.\n\nGirl:\nAnd so will I.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPeace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:\nIncapable and shallow innocents,\nYou cannot guess who caused your father's death.\n\nBoy:\nGrandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\nTold me, the king, provoked by the queen,\nDevised impeachments to imprison him :\nAnd when my uncle told me so, he wept,\nAnd hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\nBade me rely on him as on my father,\nAnd he would love me dearly as his child.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nOh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,\nAnd with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!\nHe is my son; yea, and therein my shame;\nYet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n\nBoy:\nThink you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAy, boy.\n\nBoy:\nI cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nOh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,\nTo chide my fortune, and torment myself?\nI'll join with black despair against my soul,\nAnd to myself become an enemy.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat means this scene of rude impatience?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo make an act of tragic violence:\nEdward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.\nWhy grow the branches now the root is wither'd?\nWhy wither not the leaves the sap being gone?\nIf you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\nThat our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;\nOr, like obedient subjects, follow him\nTo his new kingdom of perpetual rest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAh, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\nAs I had title in thy noble husband!\nI have bewept a worthy husband's death,\nAnd lived by looking on his images:\nBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance\nAre crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\nAnd I for comfort have but one false glass,\nWhich grieves me when I see my shame in him.\nThou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,\nAnd hast the comfort of thy children left thee:\nBut death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,\nAnd pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,\nEdward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,\nThine being but a moiety of my grief,\nTo overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!\n\nBoy:\nGood aunt, you wept not for our father's death;\nHow can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n\nGirl:\nOur fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\nYour widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGive me no help in lamentation;\nI am not barren to bring forth complaints\nAll springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,\nThat I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\nMay send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\nOh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!\n\nChildren:\nOh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.\n\nChildren:\nWhat stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWas never widow had so dear a loss!\n\nChildren:\nWere never orphans had so dear a loss!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWas never mother had so dear a loss!\nAlas, I am the mother of these moans!\nTheir woes are parcell'd, mine are general.\nShe for an Edward weeps, and so do I;\nI for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:\nThese babes for Clarence weep and so do I;\nI for an Edward weep, so do not they:\nAlas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,\nPour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\nAnd I will pamper it with lamentations.\n\nDORSET:\nComfort, dear mother: God is much displeased\nThat you take with unthankfulness, his doing:\nIn common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,\nWith dull unwilligness to repay a debt\nWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\nMuch more to be thus opposite with heaven,\nFor it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\nOf the young prince your son: send straight for him\nLet him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:\nDrown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\nAnd plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMadam, have comfort: all of us have cause\nTo wail the dimming of our shining star;\nBut none can cure their harms by wailing them.\nMadam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\nI did not see your grace: humbly on my knee\nI crave your blessing.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGod bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,\nLove, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,\nThat bear this mutual heavy load of moan,\nNow cheer each other in each other's love\nThough we have spent our harvest of this king,\nWe are to reap the harvest of his son.\nThe broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,\nBut lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\nMust gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:\nMe seemeth good, that, with some little train,\nForthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd\nHither to London, to be crown'd our king.\n\nRIVERS:\nWhy with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMarry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,\nThe new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\nWhich would be so much the more dangerous\nBy how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:\nWhere every horse bears his commanding rein,\nAnd may direct his course as please himself,\nAs well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,\nIn my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI hope the king made peace with all of us\nAnd the compact is firm and true in me.\n\nRIVERS:\nAnd so in me; and so, I think, in all:\nYet, since it is but green, it should be put\nTo no apparent likelihood of breach,\nWhich haply by much company might be urged:\nTherefore I say with noble Buckingham,\nThat it is meet so few should fetch the prince.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd so say I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be it so; and go we to determine\nWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\nMadam, and you, my mother, will you go\nTo give your censures in this weighty business?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWith all our harts.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\nFor God's sake, let not us two be behind;\nFor, by the way, I'll sort occasion,\nAs index to the story we late talk'd of,\nTo part the queen's proud kindred from the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy other self, my counsel's consistory,\nMy oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,\nI, like a child, will go by thy direction.\nTowards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNeighbour, well met: whither away so fast?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nI promise you, I scarcely know myself:\nHear you the news abroad?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nAy, that the king is dead.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nBad news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better:\nI fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world.\n\nThird Citizen:\nNeighbours, God speed!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nGive you good morrow, sir.\n\nThird Citizen:\nDoth this news hold of good King Edward's death?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nAy, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n\nThird Citizen:\nThen, masters, look to see a troublous world.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nNo, no; by God's good grace his son shall reign.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWoe to the land that's govern'd by a child!\n\nSecond Citizen:\nIn him there is a hope of government,\nThat in his nonage council under him,\nAnd in his full and ripen'd years himself,\nNo doubt, shall then and till then govern well.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nSo stood the state when Henry the Sixth\nWas crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n\nThird Citizen:\nStood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;\nFor then this land was famously enrich'd\nWith politic grave counsel; then the king\nHad virtuous uncles to protect his grace.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhy, so hath this, both by the father and mother.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBetter it were they all came by the father,\nOr by the father there were none at all;\nFor emulation now, who shall be nearest,\nWill touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\nO, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\nAnd the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud:\nAnd were they to be ruled, and not to rule,\nThis sickly land might solace as before.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nCome, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.\n\nThird Citizen:\nWhen clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;\nWhen great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;\nWhen the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\nUntimely storms make men expect a dearth.\nAll may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.\n\nSecond Citizen:\nTruly, the souls of men are full of dread:\nYe cannot reason almost with a man\nThat looks not heavily and full of fear.\n\nThird Citizen:\nBefore the times of change, still is it so:\nBy a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\nEnsuing dangers; as by proof, we see\nThe waters swell before a boisterous storm.\nBut leave it all to God. whither away?\n\nSecond Citizen:\nMarry, we were sent for to the justices.\n\nThird Citizen:\nAnd so was I: I'll bear you company.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nLast night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;\nAt Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:\nTo-morrow, or next day, they will be here.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI long with all my heart to see the prince:\nI hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut I hear, no; they say my son of York\nHath almost overta'en him in his growth.\n\nYORK:\nAy, mother; but I would not have it so.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, my young cousin, it is good to grow.\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,\nMy uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\nMore than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle\nGloucester,\n'Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:'\nAnd since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\nBecause sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nGood faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\nIn him that did object the same to thee;\nHe was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\nSo long a-growing and so leisurely,\nThat, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nWhy, madam, so, no doubt, he is.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n\nYORK:\nNow, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,\nI could have given my uncle's grace a flout,\nTo touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHow, my pretty York? I pray thee, let me hear it.\n\nYORK:\nMarry, they say my uncle grew so fast\nThat he could gnaw a crust at two hours old\n'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\nGrandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n\nYORK:\nGrandam, his nurse.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHis nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wert born.\n\nYORK:\nIf 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nA parlous boy: go to, you are too shrewd.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nGood madam, be not angry with the child.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPitchers have ears.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nHere comes a messenger. What news?\n\nMessenger:\nSuch news, my lord, as grieves me to unfold.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow fares the prince?\n\nMessenger:\nWell, madam, and in health.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is thy news then?\n\nMessenger:\nLord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,\nWith them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho hath committed them?\n\nMessenger:\nThe mighty dukes\nGloucester and Buckingham.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFor what offence?\n\nMessenger:\nThe sum of all I can, I have disclosed;\nWhy or for what these nobles were committed\nIs all unknown to me, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy me, I see the downfall of our house!\nThe tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;\nInsulting tyranny begins to jet\nUpon the innocent and aweless throne:\nWelcome, destruction, death, and massacre!\nI see, as in a map, the end of all.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAccursed and unquiet wrangling days,\nHow many of you have mine eyes beheld!\nMy husband lost his life to get the crown;\nAnd often up and down my sons were toss'd,\nFor me to joy and weep their gain and loss:\nAnd being seated, and domestic broils\nClean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.\nMake war upon themselves; blood against blood,\nSelf against self: O, preposterous\nAnd frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;\nOr let me die, to look on death no more!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCome, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.\nMadam, farewell.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI'll go along with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nYou have no cause.\n\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK:\nMy gracious lady, go;\nAnd thither bear your treasure and your goods.\nFor my part, I'll resign unto your grace\nThe seal I keep: and so betide to me\nAs well I tender you and all of yours!\nCome, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWelcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign\nThe weary way hath made you melancholy.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNo, uncle; but our crosses on the way\nHave made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy\nI want more uncles here to welcome me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years\nHath not yet dived into the world's deceit\nNor more can you distinguish of a man\nThan of his outward show; which, God he knows,\nSeldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\nThose uncles which you want were dangerous;\nYour grace attended to their sugar'd words,\nBut look'd not on the poison of their hearts :\nGod keep you from them, and from such false friends!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGod keep me from false friends! but they were none.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace with health and happy days!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.\nI thought my mother, and my brother York,\nWould long ere this have met us on the way\nFie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\nTo tell us whether they will come or no!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAnd, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWelcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?\n\nHASTINGS:\nOn what occasion, God he knows, not I,\nThe queen your mother, and your brother York,\nHave taken sanctuary: the tender prince\nWould fain have come with me to meet your grace,\nBut by his mother was perforce withheld.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFie, what an indirect and peevish course\nIs this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace\nPersuade the queen to send the Duke of York\nUnto his princely brother presently?\nIf she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,\nAnd from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\nCan from his mother win the Duke of York,\nAnon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\nTo mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\nWe should infringe the holy privilege\nOf blessed sanctuary! not for all this land\nWould I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou are too senseless--obstinate, my lord,\nToo ceremonious and traditional\nWeigh it but with the grossness of this age,\nYou break not sanctuary in seizing him.\nThe benefit thereof is always granted\nTo those whose dealings have deserved the place,\nAnd those who have the wit to claim the place:\nThis prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserved it;\nAnd therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:\nThen, taking him from thence that is not there,\nYou break no privilege nor charter there.\nOft have I heard of sanctuary men;\nBut sanctuary children ne'er till now.\n\nCARDINAL:\nMy lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for once.\nCome on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n\nHASTINGS:\nI go, my lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nGood lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\nSay, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\nWhere shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhere it seems best unto your royal self.\nIf I may counsel you, some day or two\nYour highness shall repose you at the Tower:\nThen where you please, and shall be thought most fit\nFor your best health and recreation.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI do not like the Tower, of any place.\nDid Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHe did, my gracious lord, begin that place;\nWhich, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIs it upon record, or else reported\nSuccessively from age to age, he built it?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon record, my gracious lord.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nBut say, my lord, it were not register'd,\nMethinks the truth should live from age to age,\nAs 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\nEven to the general all-ending day.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhat say you, uncle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI say, without characters, fame lives long.\nThus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\nI moralize two meanings in one word.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nThat Julius Caesar was a famous man;\nWith what his valour did enrich his wit,\nHis wit set down to make his valour live\nDeath makes no conquest of this conqueror;\nFor now he lives in fame, though not in life.\nI'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, my gracious lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if I live until I be a man,\nI'll win our ancient right in France again,\nOr die a soldier, as I lived a king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nRichard of York! how fares our loving brother?\n\nYORK:\nWell, my dread lord; so must I call you now.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAy, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:\nToo late he died that might have kept that title,\nWhich by his death hath lost much majesty.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n\nYORK:\nI thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\nYou said that idle weeds are fast in growth\nThe prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe hath, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAnd therefore is he idle?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n\nYORK:\nThen is he more beholding to you than I.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe may command me as my sovereign;\nBut you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n\nYORK:\nI pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy dagger, little cousin? with all my heart.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nA beggar, brother?\n\nYORK:\nOf my kind uncle, that I know will give;\nAnd being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n\nYORK:\nA greater gift! O, that's the sword to it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n\nYORK:\nO, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;\nIn weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is too heavy for your grace to wear.\n\nYORK:\nI weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, would you have my weapon, little lord?\n\nYORK:\nI would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow?\n\nYORK:\nLittle.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy Lord of York will still be cross in talk:\nUncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.\n\nYORK:\nYou mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:\nUncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\nBecause that I am little, like an ape,\nHe thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWith what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\nTo mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,\nHe prettily and aptly taunts himself:\nSo cunning and so young is wonderful.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, will't please you pass along?\nMyself and my good cousin Buckingham\nWill to your mother, to entreat of her\nTo meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy lord protector needs will have it so.\n\nYORK:\nI shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what should you fear?\n\nYORK:\nMarry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost:\nMy grandam told me he was murdered there.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI fear no uncles dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNor none that live, I hope.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAn if they live, I hope I need not fear.\nBut come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\nThinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThink you, my lord, this little prating York\nWas not incensed by his subtle mother\nTo taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNo doubt, no doubt; O, 'tis a parlous boy;\nBold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable\nHe is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\nThou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\nAs closely to conceal what we impart:\nThou know'st our reasons urged upon the way;\nWhat think'st thou? is it not an easy matter\nTo make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\nFor the instalment of this noble duke\nIn the seat royal of this famous isle?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe for his father's sake so loves the prince,\nThat he will not be won to aught against him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat think'st thou, then, of Stanley? what will he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHe will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,\nAnd, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,\nHow doth he stand affected to our purpose;\nAnd summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\nTo sit about the coronation.\nIf thou dost find him tractable to us,\nEncourage him, and show him all our reasons:\nIf he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,\nBe thou so too; and so break off your talk,\nAnd give us notice of his inclination:\nFor we to-morrow hold divided councils,\nWherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCommend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,\nHis ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\nTo-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;\nAnd bid my friend, for joy of this good news,\nGive mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGood Catesby, go, effect this business soundly.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy good lords both, with all the heed I may.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nShall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n\nCATESBY:\nYou shall, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAt Crosby Place, there shall you find us both.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive\nLord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nChop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:\nAnd, look, when I am king, claim thou of me\nThe earldom of Hereford, and the moveables\nWhereof the king my brother stood possess'd.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI'll claim that promise at your grace's hands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd look to have it yielded with all willingness.\nCome, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\nWe may digest our complots in some form.\n\nMessenger:\nWhat, ho! my lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\n\nMessenger:\nA messenger from the Lord Stanley.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nMessenger:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCannot thy master sleep these tedious nights?\n\nMessenger:\nSo it should seem by that I have to say.\nFirst, he commends him to your noble lordship.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd then?\n\nMessenger:\nAnd then he sends you word\nHe dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:\nBesides, he says there are two councils held;\nAnd that may be determined at the one\nwhich may make you and him to rue at the other.\nTherefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure,\nIf presently you will take horse with him,\nAnd with all speed post with him toward the north,\nTo shun the danger that his soul divines.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\nBid him not fear the separated councils\nHis honour and myself are at the one,\nAnd at the other is my servant Catesby\nWhere nothing can proceed that toucheth us\nWhereof I shall not have intelligence.\nTell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:\nAnd for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond\nTo trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers\nTo fly the boar before the boar pursues,\nWere to incense the boar to follow us\nAnd make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\nGo, bid thy master rise and come to me\nAnd we will both together to the Tower,\nWhere, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious lord, I'll tell him what you say.\n\nCATESBY:\nMany good morrows to my noble lord!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring\nWhat news, what news, in this our tottering state?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;\nAnd I believe twill never stand upright\nTim Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHow! wear the garland! dost thou mean the crown?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders\nEre I will see the crown so foul misplaced.\nBut canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n\nCATESBY:\nAy, on my life; and hopes to find forward\nUpon his party for the gain thereof:\nAnd thereupon he sends you this good news,\nThat this same very day your enemies,\nThe kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIndeed, I am no mourner for that news,\nBecause they have been still mine enemies:\nBut, that I'll give my voice on Richard's side,\nTo bar my master's heirs in true descent,\nGod knows I will not do it, to the death.\n\nCATESBY:\nGod keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n\nHASTINGS:\nBut I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,\nThat they who brought me in my master's hate\nI live to look upon their tragedy.\nI tell thee, Catesby--\n\nCATESBY:\nWhat, my lord?\n\nHASTINGS:\nEre a fortnight make me elder,\nI'll send some packing that yet think not on it.\n\nCATESBY:\n'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\nWhen men are unprepared and look not for it.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out\nWith Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so 'twill do\nWith some men else, who think themselves as safe\nAs thou and I; who, as thou know'st, are dear\nTo princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nThe princes both make high account of you;\nFor they account his head upon the bridge.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI know they do; and I have well deserved it.\nCome on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\nFear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:\nYou may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\nI do not like these several councils, I.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lord,\nI hold my life as dear as you do yours;\nAnd never in my life, I do protest,\nWas it more precious to me than 'tis now:\nThink you, but that I know our state secure,\nI would be so triumphant as I am?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThe lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\nWere jocund, and supposed their state was sure,\nAnd they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\nBut yet, you see how soon the day o'ercast.\nThis sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:\nPray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!\nWhat, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.\n\nHASTINGS:\nCome, come, have with you. Wot you what, my lord?\nTo-day the lords you talk of are beheaded.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nThey, for their truth, might better wear their heads\nThan some that have accused them wear their hats.\nBut come, my lord, let us away.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGo on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\nHow now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?\n\nPursuivant:\nThe better that your lordship please to ask.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\nThan when I met thee last where now we meet:\nThen was I going prisoner to the Tower,\nBy the suggestion of the queen's allies;\nBut now, I tell thee--keep it to thyself--\nThis day those enemies are put to death,\nAnd I in better state than e'er I was.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod hold it, to your honour's good content!\n\nHASTINGS:\nGramercy, fellow: there, drink that for me.\n\nPursuivant:\nGod save your lordship!\n\nPriest:\nWell met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\nI am in your debt for your last exercise;\nCome the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?\nYour friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;\nYour honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n\nHASTINGS:\nGood faith, and when I met this holy man,\nThose men you talk of came into my mind.\nWhat, go you toward the Tower?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI do, my lord; but long I shall not stay\nI shall return before your lordship thence.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\n\nHASTINGS:\nI'll wait upon your lordship.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nCome, bring forth the prisoners.\n\nRIVERS:\nSir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\nTo-day shalt thou behold a subject die\nFor truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n\nGREY:\nGod keep the prince from all the pack of you!\nA knot you are of damned blood-suckers!\n\nVAUGHAN:\nYou live that shall cry woe for this after.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n\nRIVERS:\nO Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\nFatal and ominous to noble peers!\nWithin the guilty closure of thy walls\nRichard the second here was hack'd to death;\nAnd, for more slander to thy dismal seat,\nWe give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.\n\nGREY:\nNow Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\nFor standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,\nThen cursed she Richard. O, remember, God\nTo hear her prayers for them, as now for us\nAnd for my sister and her princely sons,\nBe satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\nWhich, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMake haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n\nRIVERS:\nCome, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:\nAnd take our leave, until we meet in heaven.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy lords, at once: the cause why we are met\nIs, to determine of the coronation.\nIn God's name, speak: when is the royal day?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAre all things fitting for that royal time?\n\nDERBY:\nIt is, and wants but nomination.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nTo-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho knows the lord protector's mind herein?\nWho is most inward with the royal duke?\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nYour grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWho, I, my lord I we know each other's faces,\nBut for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,\nThan I of yours;\nNor I no more of his, than you of mine.\nLord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank his grace, I know he loves me well;\nBut, for his purpose in the coronation.\nI have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\nHis gracious pleasure any way therein:\nBut you, my noble lords, may name the time;\nAnd in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\nWhich, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nNow in good time, here comes the duke himself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.\nI have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,\nMy absence doth neglect no great designs,\nWhich by my presence might have been concluded.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHad not you come upon your cue, my lord\nWilliam Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,--\nI mean, your voice,--for crowning of the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThan my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;\nHis lordship knows me well, and loves me well.\n\nHASTINGS:\nI thank your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord of Ely!\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMy lord?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhen I was last in Holborn,\nI saw good strawberries in your garden there\nI do beseech you send for some of them.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nMarry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\nCatesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\nAnd finds the testy gentleman so hot,\nAs he will lose his head ere give consent\nHis master's son, as worshipful as he terms it,\nShall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWithdraw you hence, my lord, I'll follow you.\n\nDERBY:\nWe have not yet set down this day of triumph.\nTo-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;\nFor I myself am not so well provided\nAs else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\nBISHOP OF ELY:\nWhere is my lord protector? I have sent for these\nstrawberries.\n\nHASTINGS:\nHis grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;\nThere's some conceit or other likes him well,\nWhen he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.\nI think there's never a man in Christendom\nThat can less hide his love or hate than he;\nFor by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat of his heart perceive you in his face\nBy any likelihood he show'd to-day?\n\nHASTINGS:\nMarry, that with no man here he is offended;\nFor, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\nDERBY:\nI pray God he be not, I say.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI pray you all, tell me what they deserve\nThat do conspire my death with devilish plots\nOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\nUpon my body with their hellish charms?\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe tender love I bear your grace, my lord,\nMakes me most forward in this noble presence\nTo doom the offenders, whatsoever they be\nI say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThen be your eyes the witness of this ill:\nSee how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\nIs, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\nAnd this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\nConsorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\nThat by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nIf they have done this thing, my gracious lord--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf I thou protector of this damned strumpet--\nTellest thou me of 'ifs'?  Thou art a traitor:\nOff with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,\nI will not dine until I see the same.\nLovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:\nThe rest, that love me, rise and follow me.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWoe, woe for England! not a whit for me;\nFor I, too fond, might have prevented this.\nStanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;\nBut I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly:\nThree times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\nAnd startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,\nAs loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\nO, now I want the priest that spake to me:\nI now repent I told the pursuivant\nAs 'twere triumphing at mine enemies,\nHow they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\nAnd I myself secure in grace and favour.\nO Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\nIs lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nDispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:\nMake a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO momentary grace of mortal men,\nWhich we more hunt for than the grace of God!\nWho builds his hopes in air of your good looks,\nLives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\nReady, with every nod, to tumble down\nInto the fatal bowels of the deep.\n\nLOVEL:\nCome, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n\nHASTINGS:\nO bloody Richard! miserable England!\nI prophesy the fearful'st time to thee\nThat ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\nCome, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\nThey smile at me that shortly shall be dead.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,\nMurder thy breath in the middle of a word,\nAnd then begin again, and stop again,\nAs if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\nSpeak and look back, and pry on every side,\nTremble and start at wagging of a straw,\nIntending deep suspicion: ghastly looks\nAre at my service, like enforced smiles;\nAnd both are ready in their offices,\nAt any time, to grace my stratagems.\nBut what, is Catesby gone?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHe is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor,--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook to the drawbridge there!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHark! a drum.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCatesby, o'erlook the walls.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nLord mayor, the reason we have sent--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nLook back, defend thee, here are enemies.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGod and our innocency defend and guard us!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBe patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.\n\nLOVEL:\nHere is the head of that ignoble traitor,\nThe dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSo dear I loved the man, that I must weep.\nI took him for the plainest harmless creature\nThat breathed upon this earth a Christian;\nMade him my book wherein my soul recorded\nThe history of all her secret thoughts:\nSo smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,\nThat, his apparent open guilt omitted,\nI mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,\nHe lived from all attainder of suspect.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWell, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor\nThat ever lived.\nWould you imagine, or almost believe,\nWere't not that, by great preservation,\nWe live to tell it you, the subtle traitor\nThis day had plotted, in the council-house\nTo murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?\n\nLord Mayor:\nWhat, had he so?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, think You we are Turks or infidels?\nOr that we would, against the form of law,\nProceed thus rashly to the villain's death,\nBut that the extreme peril of the case,\nThe peace of England and our persons' safety,\nEnforced us to this execution?\n\nLord Mayor:\nNow, fair befall you! he deserved his death;\nAnd you my good lords, both have well proceeded,\nTo warn false traitors from the like attempts.\nI never look'd for better at his hands,\nAfter he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYet had not we determined he should die,\nUntil your lordship came to see his death;\nWhich now the loving haste of these our friends,\nSomewhat against our meaning, have prevented:\nBecause, my lord, we would have had you heard\nThe traitor speak, and timorously confess\nThe manner and the purpose of his treason;\nThat you might well have signified the same\nUnto the citizens, who haply may\nMisconstrue us in him and wail his death.\n\nLord Mayor:\nBut, my good lord, your grace's word shall serve,\nAs well as I had seen and heard him speak\nAnd doubt you not, right noble princes both,\nBut I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\nWith all your just proceedings in this cause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd to that end we wish'd your lord-ship here,\nTo avoid the carping censures of the world.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nBut since you come too late of our intents,\nYet witness what you hear we did intend:\nAnd so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\nThe mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:\nThere, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\nInfer the bastardy of Edward's children:\nTell them how Edward put to death a citizen,\nOnly for saying he would make his son\nHeir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,\nWhich, by the sign thereof was termed so.\nMoreover, urge his hateful luxury\nAnd bestial appetite in change of lust;\nWhich stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,\nEven where his lustful eye or savage heart,\nWithout control, listed to make his prey.\nNay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\nTell them, when that my mother went with child\nOf that unsatiate Edward, noble York\nMy princely father then had wars in France\nAnd, by just computation of the time,\nFound that the issue was not his begot;\nWhich well appeared in his lineaments,\nBeing nothing like the noble duke my father:\nBut touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off,\nBecause you know, my lord, my mother lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nFear not, my lord, I'll play the orator\nAs if the golden fee for which I plead\nWere for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIf you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's Castle;\nWhere you shall find me well accompanied\nWith reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI go: and towards three or four o'clock\nLook for the news that the Guildhall affords.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGo, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;\nGo thou to Friar Penker; bid them both\nMeet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\nNow will I in, to take some privy order,\nTo draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;\nAnd to give notice, that no manner of person\nAt any time have recourse unto the princes.\n\nScrivener:\nThis is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\nWhich in a set hand fairly is engross'd,\nThat it may be this day read over in Paul's.\nAnd mark how well the sequel hangs together:\nEleven hours I spent to write it over,\nFor yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;\nThe precedent was full as long a-doing:\nAnd yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,\nUntainted, unexamined, free, at liberty\nHere's a good world the while! Why who's so gross,\nThat seeth not this palpable device?\nYet who's so blind, but says he sees it not?\nBad is the world; and all will come to nought,\nWhen such bad dealings must be seen in thought.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nHow now, my lord, what say the citizens?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNow, by the holy mother of our Lord,\nThe citizens are mum and speak not a word.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTouch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\nAnd his contract by deputy in France;\nThe insatiate greediness of his desires,\nAnd his enforcement of the city wives;\nHis tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\nAs being got, your father then in France,\nHis resemblance, being not like the duke;\nWithal I did infer your lineaments,\nBeing the right idea of your father,\nBoth in your form and nobleness of mind;\nLaid open all your victories in Scotland,\nYour dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,\nYour bounty, virtue, fair humility:\nIndeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose\nUntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse\nAnd when mine oratory grew to an end\nI bid them that did love their country's good\nCry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAh! and did they so?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, so God help me, they spake not a word;\nBut, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\nGazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\nWhich when I saw, I reprehended them;\nAnd ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:\nHis answer was, the people were not wont\nTo be spoke to but by the recorder.\nThen he was urged to tell my tale again,\n'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'\nBut nothing spake in warrant from himself.\nWhen he had done, some followers of mine own,\nAt the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,\nAnd some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\nAnd thus I took the vantage of those few,\n'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;\n'This general applause and loving shout\nArgues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'\nAnd even here brake off, and came away.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nNo, by my troth, my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWill not the mayor then and his brethren come?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThe mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;\nBe not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:\nAnd look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\nAnd stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;\nFor on that ground I'll build a holy descant:\nAnd be not easily won to our request:\nPlay the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI go; and if you plead as well for them\nAs I can say nay to thee for myself,\nNo doubt well bring it to a happy issue.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGo, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.\nWelcome my lord; I dance attendance here;\nI think the duke will not be spoke withal.\nHere comes his servant: how now, Catesby,\nWhat says he?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord: he doth entreat your grace;\nTo visit him to-morrow or next day:\nHe is within, with two right reverend fathers,\nDivinely bent to meditation;\nAnd no worldly suit would he be moved,\nTo draw him from his holy exercise.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nReturn, good Catesby, to thy lord again;\nTell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,\nIn deep designs and matters of great moment,\nNo less importing than our general good,\nAre come to have some conference with his grace.\n\nCATESBY:\nI'll tell him what you say, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nAh, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\nHe is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,\nBut on his knees at meditation;\nNot dallying with a brace of courtezans,\nBut meditating with two deep divines;\nNot sleeping, to engross his idle body,\nBut praying, to enrich his watchful soul:\nHappy were England, would this gracious prince\nTake on himself the sovereignty thereof:\nBut, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.\n\nLord Mayor:\nMarry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI fear he will.\nHow now, Catesby, what says your lord?\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord,\nHe wonders to what end you have assembled\nSuch troops of citizens to speak with him,\nHis grace not being warn'd thereof before:\nMy lord, he fears you mean no good to him.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSorry I am my noble cousin should\nSuspect me, that I mean no good to him:\nBy heaven, I come in perfect love to him;\nAnd so once more return and tell his grace.\nWhen holy and devout religious men\nAre at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,\nSo sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\nLord Mayor:\nSee, where he stands between two clergymen!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTwo props of virtue for a Christian prince,\nTo stay him from the fall of vanity:\nAnd, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\nTrue ornaments to know a holy man.\nFamous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,\nLend favourable ears to our request;\nAnd pardon us the interruption\nOf thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMy lord, there needs no such apology:\nI rather do beseech you pardon me,\nWho, earnest in the service of my God,\nNeglect the visitation of my friends.\nBut, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nEven that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\nAnd all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI do suspect I have done some offence\nThat seems disgracious in the city's eyes,\nAnd that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYou have, my lord: would it might please your grace,\nAt our entreaties, to amend that fault!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nElse wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen know, it is your fault that you resign\nThe supreme seat, the throne majestical,\nThe scepter'd office of your ancestors,\nYour state of fortune and your due of birth,\nThe lineal glory of your royal house,\nTo the corruption of a blemished stock:\nWhilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\nWhich here we waken to our country's good,\nThis noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\nHer face defaced with scars of infamy,\nHer royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\nAnd almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf\nOf blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.\nWhich to recure, we heartily solicit\nYour gracious self to take on you the charge\nAnd kingly government of this your land,\nNot as protector, steward, substitute,\nOr lowly factor for another's gain;\nBut as successively from blood to blood,\nYour right of birth, your empery, your own.\nFor this, consorted with the citizens,\nYour very worshipful and loving friends,\nAnd by their vehement instigation,\nIn this just suit come I to move your grace.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI know not whether to depart in silence,\nOr bitterly to speak in your reproof.\nBest fitteth my degree or your condition\nIf not to answer, you might haply think\nTongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\nTo bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\nWhich fondly you would here impose on me;\nIf to reprove you for this suit of yours,\nSo season'd with your faithful love to me.\nThen, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.\nTherefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,\nAnd then, in speaking, not to incur the last,\nDefinitively thus I answer you.\nYour love deserves my thanks; but my desert\nUnmeritable shuns your high request.\nFirst if all obstacles were cut away,\nAnd that my path were even to the crown,\nAs my ripe revenue and due by birth\nYet so much is my poverty of spirit,\nSo mighty and so many my defects,\nAs I had rather hide me from my greatness,\nBeing a bark to brook no mighty sea,\nThan in my greatness covet to be hid,\nAnd in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\nBut, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,\nAnd much I need to help you, if need were;\nThe royal tree hath left us royal fruit,\nWhich, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\nWill well become the seat of majesty,\nAnd make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\nOn him I lay what you would lay on me,\nThe right and fortune of his happy stars;\nWhich God defend that I should wring from him!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, this argues conscience in your grace;\nBut the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\nAll circumstances well considered.\nYou say that Edward is your brother's son:\nSo say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\nFor first he was contract to Lady Lucy--\nYour mother lives a witness to that vow--\nAnd afterward by substitute betroth'd\nTo Bona, sister to the King of France.\nThese both put by a poor petitioner,\nA care-crazed mother of a many children,\nA beauty-waning and distressed widow,\nEven in the afternoon of her best days,\nMade prize and purchase of his lustful eye,\nSeduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts\nTo base declension and loathed bigamy\nBy her, in his unlawful bed, he got\nThis Edward, whom our manners term the prince.\nMore bitterly could I expostulate,\nSave that, for reverence to some alive,\nI give a sparing limit to my tongue.\nThen, good my lord, take to your royal self\nThis proffer'd benefit of dignity;\nIf non to bless us and the land withal,\nYet to draw forth your noble ancestry\nFrom the corruption of abusing times,\nUnto a lineal true-derived course.\n\nLord Mayor:\nDo, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nRefuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n\nCATESBY:\nO, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, why would you heap these cares on me?\nI am unfit for state and majesty;\nI do beseech you, take it not amiss;\nI cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIf you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,\nLoath to depose the child, Your brother's son;\nAs well we know your tenderness of heart\nAnd gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\nWhich we have noted in you to your kin,\nAnd egally indeed to all estates,--\nYet whether you accept our suit or no,\nYour brother's son shall never reign our king;\nBut we will plant some other in the throne,\nTo the disgrace and downfall of your house:\nAnd in this resolution here we leave you.--\nCome, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nO, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n\nCATESBY:\nCall them again, my lord, and accept their suit.\n\nANOTHER:\nDo, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWould you enforce me to a world of care?\nWell, call them again. I am not made of stone,\nBut penetrable to your. kind entreats,\nAlbeit against my conscience and my soul.\nCousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,\nSince you will buckle fortune on my back,\nTo bear her burthen, whether I will or no,\nI must have patience to endure the load:\nBut if black scandal or foul-faced reproach\nAttend the sequel of your imposition,\nYour mere enforcement shall acquittance me\nFrom all the impure blots and stains thereof;\nFor God he knows, and you may partly see,\nHow far I am from the desire thereof.\n\nLord Mayor:\nGod bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIn saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nThen I salute you with this kingly title:\nLong live Richard, England's royal king!\n\nLord Mayor:\nAmen.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow will it please you to be crown'd?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nEven when you please, since you will have it so.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTo-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:\nAnd so most joyfully we take our leave.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, let us to our holy task again.\nFarewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWho meets us here?  my niece Plantagenet\nLed in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\nNow, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,\nOn pure heart's love to greet the tender princes.\nDaughter, well met.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nGod give your graces both\nA happy and a joyful time of day!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAs much to you, good sister! Whither away?\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\nUpon the like devotion as yourselves,\nTo gratulate the gentle princes there.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nKind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.\nAnd, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\nMaster lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\nHow doth the prince, and my young son of York?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nRight well, dear madam. By your patience,\nI may not suffer you to visit them;\nThe king hath straitly charged the contrary.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe king! why, who's that?\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nI cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThe Lord protect him from that kingly title!\nHath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?\nI am their mother; who should keep me from them?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI am their fathers mother; I will see them.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nTheir aunt I am in law, in love their mother:\nThen bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame\nAnd take thy office from thee, on my peril.\n\nBRAKENBURY:\nNo, madam, no; I may not leave it so:\nI am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nLet me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\nAnd I'll salute your grace of York as mother,\nAnd reverend looker on, of two fair queens.\nCome, madam, you must straight to Westminster,\nThere to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart\nMay have some scope to beat, or else I swoon\nWith this dead-killing news!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nDespiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n\nDORSET:\nBe of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!\nDeath and destruction dog thee at the heels;\nThy mother's name is ominous to children.\nIf thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\nAnd live with Richmond, from the reach of hell\nGo, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\nLest thou increase the number of the dead;\nAnd make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\nNor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nFull of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\nTake all the swift advantage of the hours;\nYou shall have letters from me to my son\nTo meet you on the way, and welcome you.\nBe not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO ill-dispersing wind of misery!\nO my accursed womb, the bed of death!\nA cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\nWhose unavoided eye is murderous.\n\nLORD STANLEY:\nCome, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAnd I in all unwillingness will go.\nI would to God that the inclusive verge\nOf golden metal that must round my brow\nWere red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\nAnointed let me be with deadly venom,\nAnd die, ere men can say, God save the queen!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGo, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory\nTo feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo! why?  When he that is my husband now\nCame to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse,\nWhen scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\nWhich issued from my other angel husband\nAnd that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd;\nO, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\nThis was my wish: 'Be thou,' quoth I, ' accursed,\nFor making me, so young, so old a widow!\nAnd, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\nAnd be thy wife--if any be so mad--\nAs miserable by the life of thee\nAs thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!\nLo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\nEven in so short a space, my woman's heart\nGrossly grew captive to his honey words\nAnd proved the subject of my own soul's curse,\nWhich ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;\nFor never yet one hour in his bed\nHave I enjoy'd the golden dew of sleep,\nBut have been waked by his timorous dreams.\nBesides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\nAnd will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPoor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n\nLADY ANNE:\nNo more than from my soul I mourn for yours.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFarewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!\n\nLADY ANNE:\nAdieu, poor soul, that takest thy leave of it!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nStay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.\nPity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\nWhom envy hath immured within your walls!\nRough cradle for such little pretty ones!\nRude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\nFor tender princes, use my babies well!\nSo foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStand all apart Cousin of Buckingham!\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy gracious sovereign?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me thy hand.\nThus high, by thy advice\nAnd thy assistance, is King Richard seated;\nBut shall we wear these honours for a day?\nOr shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nStill live they and for ever may they last!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\nTo try if thou be current gold indeed\nYoung Edward lives: think now what I would say.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nSay on, my loving lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, Buckingham, I say, I would be king,\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, so you are, my thrice renowned liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHa! am I king? 'tis so: but Edward lives.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nTrue, noble prince.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO bitter consequence,\nThat Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'\nCousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:\nShall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;\nAnd I would have it suddenly perform'd.\nWhat sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nYour grace may do your pleasure.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:\nSay, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nGive me some breath, some little pause, my lord\nBefore I positively herein:\nI will resolve your grace immediately.\n\nCATESBY:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will converse with iron-witted fools\nAnd unrespective boys: none are for me\nThat look into me with considerate eyes:\nHigh-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\nBoy!\n\nPage:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKnow'st thou not any whom corrupting gold\nWould tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, I know a discontented gentleman,\nWhose humble means match not his haughty mind:\nGold were as good as twenty orators,\nAnd will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is his name?\n\nPage:\nHis name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI partly know the man: go, call him hither.\nThe deep-revolving witty Buckingham\nNo more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:\nHath he so long held out with me untired,\nAnd stops he now for breath?\nHow now! what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nMy lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled\nTo Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea\nWhere he abides.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRumour it abroad\nThat Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:\nI will take order for her keeping close.\nInquire me out some mean-born gentleman,\nWhom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:\nThe boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\nLook, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\nThat Anne my wife is sick and like to die:\nAbout it; for it stands me much upon,\nTo stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\nI must be married to my brother's daughter,\nOr else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\nMurder her brothers, and then marry her!\nUncertain way of gain! But I am in\nSo far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:\nTear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\nIs thy name Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nJames Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nArt thou, indeed?\n\nTYRREL:\nProve me, my gracious sovereign.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDarest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n\nTYRREL:\nAy, my lord;\nBut I had rather kill two enemies.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,\nFoes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers\nAre they that I would have thee deal upon:\nTyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n\nTYRREL:\nLet me have open means to come to them,\nAnd soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel\nGo, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:\nThere is no more but so: say it is done,\nAnd I will love thee, and prefer thee too.\n\nTYRREL:\n'Tis done, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nShall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?\n\nTYRREL:\nYe shall, my Lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord, I have consider'd in my mind\nThe late demand that you did sound me in.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let that pass. Dorset is fled to Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI hear that news, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, he is your wife's son well, look to it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,\nFor which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;\nThe earldom of Hereford and the moveables\nThe which you promised I should possess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStanley, look to your wife; if she convey\nLetters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhat says your highness to my just demand?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I remember, Henry the Sixth\nDid prophesy that Richmond should be king,\nWhen Richmond was a little peevish boy.\nA king, perhaps, perhaps,--\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHow chance the prophet could not at that time\nHave told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy lord, your promise for the earldom,--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nRichmond! When last I was at Exeter,\nThe mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,\nAnd call'd it Rougemont: at which name I started,\nBecause a bard of Ireland told me once\nI should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nMy Lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nI am thus bold to put your grace in mind\nOf what you promised me.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, but what's o'clock?\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nUpon the stroke of ten.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, let it strike.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy let it strike?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBecause that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke\nBetwixt thy begging and my meditation.\nI am not in the giving vein to-day.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then resolve me whether you will or no.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nTut, tut,\nThou troublest me; am not in the vein.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nIs it even so? rewards he my true service\nWith such deep contempt made I him king for this?\nO, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\nTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!\n\nTYRREL:\nThe tyrannous and bloody deed is done.\nThe most arch of piteous massacre\nThat ever yet this land was guilty of.\nDighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn\nTo do this ruthless piece of butchery,\nAlthough they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\nMelting with tenderness and kind compassion\nWept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.\n'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'\n'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another\nWithin their innocent alabaster arms:\nTheir lips were four red roses on a stalk,\nWhich in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\nA book of prayers on their pillow lay;\nWhich once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;\nBut O! the devil'--there the villain stopp'd\nWhilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\nThe most replenished sweet work of nature,\nThat from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\nThus both are gone with conscience and remorse;\nThey could not speak; and so I left them both,\nTo bring this tidings to the bloody king.\nAnd here he comes.\nAll hail, my sovereign liege!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nKind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n\nTYRREL:\nIf to have done the thing you gave in charge\nBeget your happiness, be happy then,\nFor it is done, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut didst thou see them dead?\n\nTYRREL:\nI did, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n\nTYRREL:\nThe chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\nBut how or in what place I do not know.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\nAnd thou shalt tell the process of their death.\nMeantime, but think how I may do thee good,\nAnd be inheritor of thy desire.\nFarewell till soon.\nThe son of Clarence have I pent up close;\nHis daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\nThe sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\nAnd Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.\nNow, for I know the Breton Richmond aims\nAt young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\nAnd, by that knot, looks proudly o'er the crown,\nTo her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood news or bad, that thou comest in so bluntly?\n\nCATESBY:\nBad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;\nAnd Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\nIs in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEly with Richmond troubles me more near\nThan Buckingham and his rash-levied army.\nCome, I have heard that fearful commenting\nIs leaden servitor to dull delay;\nDelay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary\nThen fiery expedition be my wing,\nJove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\nCome, muster men: my counsel is my shield;\nWe must be brief when traitors brave the field.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo, now prosperity begins to mellow\nAnd drop into the rotten mouth of death.\nHere in these confines slily have I lurk'd,\nTo watch the waning of mine adversaries.\nA dire induction am I witness to,\nAnd will to France, hoping the consequence\nWill prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\nWithdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAh, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!\nMy unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\nIf yet your gentle souls fly in the air\nAnd be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\nHover about me with your airy wings\nAnd hear your mother's lamentation!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHover about her; say, that right for right\nHath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSo many miseries have crazed my voice,\nThat my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,\nEdward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPlantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.\nEdward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,\nAnd throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\nWhen didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhen holy Harry died, and my sweet son.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nBlind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,\nWoe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\nBrief abstract and record of tedious days,\nRest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,\nUnlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave\nAs thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\nThen would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\nO, who hath any cause to mourn but I?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nIf ancient sorrow be most reverend,\nGive mine the benefit of seniory,\nAnd let my woes frown on the upper hand.\nIf sorrow can admit society,\nTell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:\nI had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nI had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:\nThou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nThou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\nI had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.\nFrom forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\nA hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:\nThat dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,\nTo worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\nThat foul defacer of God's handiwork,\nThat excellent grand tyrant of the earth,\nThat reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\nThy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.\nO upright, just, and true-disposing God,\nHow do I thank thee, that this carnal cur\nPreys on the issue of his mother's body,\nAnd makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\nGod witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\nAnd now I cloy me with beholding it.\nThy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:\nThy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\nYoung York he is but boot, because both they\nMatch not the high perfection of my loss:\nThy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;\nAnd the beholders of this tragic play,\nThe adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\nUntimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\nRichard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,\nOnly reserved their factor, to buy souls\nAnd send them thither: but at hand, at hand,\nEnsues his piteous and unpitied end:\nEarth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.\nTo have him suddenly convey'd away.\nCancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,\nThat I may live to say, The dog is dead!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO, thou didst prophesy the time would come\nThat I should wish for thee to help me curse\nThat bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;\nI call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;\nThe presentation of but what I was;\nThe flattering index of a direful pageant;\nOne heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;\nA mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;\nA dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,\nA sign of dignity, a garish flag,\nTo be the aim of every dangerous shot,\nA queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\nWhere is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?\nWhere are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?\nWho sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?\nWhere be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?\nWhere be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?\nDecline all this, and see what now thou art:\nFor happy wife, a most distressed widow;\nFor joyful mother, one that wails the name;\nFor queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\nFor one being sued to, one that humbly sues;\nFor one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\nFor one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\nFor one commanding all, obey'd of none.\nThus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,\nAnd left thee but a very prey to time;\nHaving no more but thought of what thou wert,\nTo torture thee the more, being what thou art.\nThou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\nUsurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\nNow thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;\nFrom which even here I slip my weary neck,\nAnd leave the burthen of it all on thee.\nFarewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:\nThese English woes will make me smile in France.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,\nAnd teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nForbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;\nCompare dead happiness with living woe;\nThink that thy babes were fairer than they were,\nAnd he that slew them fouler than he is:\nBettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:\nRevolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy should calamity be full of words?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWindy attorneys to their client woes,\nAiry succeeders of intestate joys,\nPoor breathing orators of miseries!\nLet them have scope: though what they do impart\nHelp not all, yet do they ease the heart.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nIf so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.\nAnd in the breath of bitter words let's smother\nMy damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother'd.\nI hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWho intercepts my expedition?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, she that might have intercepted thee,\nBy strangling thee in her accursed womb\nFrom all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,\nWhere should be graven, if that right were right,\nThe slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,\nAnd the dire death of my two sons and brothers?\nTell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?\nAnd little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhere is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!\nLet not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\nRail on the Lord's enointed: strike, I say!\nEither be patient, and entreat me fair,\nOr with the clamorous report of war\nThus will I drown your exclamations.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou my son?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThen patiently hear my impatience.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, I have a touch of your condition,\nWhich cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO, let me speak!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nDo then: but I'll not hear.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will be mild and gentle in my speech.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nArt thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\nGod knows, in anguish, pain and agony.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd came I not at last to comfort you?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNo, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,\nThou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.\nA grievous burthen was thy birth to me;\nTetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\nThy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,\nThy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,\nThy age confirm'd, proud, subdued, bloody,\ntreacherous,\nMore mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:\nWhat comfortable hour canst thou name,\nThat ever graced me in thy company?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFaith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\nyour grace\nTo breakfast once forth of my company.\nIf I be so disgracious in your sight,\nLet me march on, and not offend your grace.\nStrike the drum.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI prithee, hear me speak.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak too bitterly.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHear me a word;\nFor I shall never speak to thee again.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nEither thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,\nEre from this war thou turn a conqueror,\nOr I with grief and extreme age shall perish\nAnd never look upon thy face again.\nTherefore take with thee my most heavy curse;\nWhich, in the day of battle, tire thee more\nThan all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\nMy prayers on the adverse party fight;\nAnd there the little souls of Edward's children\nWhisper the spirits of thine enemies\nAnd promise them success and victory.\nBloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;\nShame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThough far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse\nAbides in me; I say amen to all.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStay, madam; I must speak a word with you.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI have no more sons of the royal blood\nFor thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,\nThey shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\nAnd therefore level not to hit their lives.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou have a daughter call'd Elizabeth,\nVirtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd must she die for this? O, let her live,\nAnd I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;\nSlander myself as false to Edward's bed;\nThrow over her the veil of infamy:\nSo she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\nI will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo save her life, I'll say she is not so.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHer life is only safest in her birth.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd only in that safety died her brothers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLo, at their births good stars were opposite.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, to their lives bad friends were contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAll unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTrue, when avoided grace makes destiny:\nMy babes were destined to a fairer death,\nIf grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYou speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nCousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd\nOf comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\nWhose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,\nThy head, all indirectly, gave direction:\nNo doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt\nTill it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,\nTo revel in the entrails of my lambs.\nBut that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,\nMy tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\nTill that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\nAnd I, in such a desperate bay of death,\nLike a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\nRush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, so thrive I in my enterprise\nAnd dangerous success of bloody wars,\nAs I intend more good to you and yours,\nThan ever you or yours were by me wrong'd!\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat good is cover'd with the face of heaven,\nTo be discover'd, that can do me good?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe advancement of your children, gentle lady.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nUp to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNo, to the dignity and height of honour\nThe high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nFlatter my sorrows with report of it;\nTell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\nCanst thou demise to any child of mine?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven all I have; yea, and myself and all,\nWill I withal endow a child of thine;\nSo in the Lethe of thy angry soul\nThou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\nWhich thou supposest I have done to thee.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBe brief, lest that be process of thy kindness\nLast longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat do you think?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:\nSo from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers;\nAnd from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe not so hasty to confound my meaning:\nI mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,\nAnd mean to make her queen of England.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSay then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nEven he that makes her queen who should be else?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat, thou?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI, even I: what think you of it, madam?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHow canst thou woo her?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThat would I learn of you,\nAs one that are best acquainted with her humour.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAnd wilt thou learn of me?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMadam, with all my heart.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSend to her, by the man that slew her brothers,\nA pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave\nEdward and York; then haply she will weep:\nTherefore present to her--as sometime Margaret\nDid to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--\nA handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\nThe purple sap from her sweet brother's body\nAnd bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.\nIf this inducement force her not to love,\nSend her a story of thy noble acts;\nTell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,\nHer uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,\nMadest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, come, you mock me; this is not the way\nTo win our daughter.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThere is no other way\nUnless thou couldst put on some other shape,\nAnd not be Richard that hath done all this.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that I did all this for love of her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,\nHaving bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nLook, what is done cannot be now amended:\nMen shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\nWhich after hours give leisure to repent.\nIf I did take the kingdom from your sons,\nTo make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.\nIf I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\nTo quicken your increase, I will beget\nMine issue of your blood upon your daughter\nA grandam's name is little less in love\nThan is the doting title of a mother;\nThey are as children but one step below,\nEven of your mettle, of your very blood;\nOf an one pain, save for a night of groans\nEndured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\nYour children were vexation to your youth,\nBut mine shall be a comfort to your age.\nThe loss you have is but a son being king,\nAnd by that loss your daughter is made queen.\nI cannot make you what amends I would,\nTherefore accept such kindness as I can.\nDorset your son, that with a fearful soul\nLeads discontented steps in foreign soil,\nThis fair alliance quickly shall call home\nTo high promotions and great dignity:\nThe king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.\nFamiliarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\nAgain shall you be mother to a king,\nAnd all the ruins of distressful times\nRepair'd with double riches of content.\nWhat! we have many goodly days to see:\nThe liquid drops of tears that you have shed\nShall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\nAdvantaging their loan with interest\nOf ten times double gain of happiness.\nGo, then my mother, to thy daughter go\nMake bold her bashful years with your experience;\nPrepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale\nPut in her tender heart the aspiring flame\nOf golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess\nWith the sweet silent hours of marriage joys\nAnd when this arm of mine hath chastised\nThe petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\nBound with triumphant garlands will I come\nAnd lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\nTo whom I will retail my conquest won,\nAnd she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhat were I best to say? her father's brother\nWould be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?\nOr, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\nUnder what title shall I woo for thee,\nThat God, the law, my honour and her love,\nCan make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nInfer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhich she shall purchase with still lasting war.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay that the king, which may command, entreats.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat at her hands which the king's King forbids.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTo wail the tide, as her mother doth.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I will love her everlastingly.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut how long fairly shall her sweet lie last?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nSo long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSay, I, her sovereign, am her subject love.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBe eloquent in my behalf to her.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAn honest tale speeds best being plainly told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen in plain terms tell her my loving tale.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nPlain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nYour reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nO no, my reasons are too deep and dead;\nToo deep and dead, poor infants, in their grave.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHarp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nHarp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by my George, my garter, and my crown,--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nProfaned, dishonour'd, and the third usurp'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI swear--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBy nothing; for this is no oath:\nThe George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;\nThe garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\nThe crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory.\nif something thou wilt swear to be believed,\nSwear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNow, by the world--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\n'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy father's death--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThy life hath that dishonour'd.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen, by myself--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThyself thyself misusest.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy then, by God--\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nGod's wrong is most of all.\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe unity the king thy brother made\nHad not been broken, nor my brother slain:\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe imperial metal, circling now thy brow,\nHad graced the tender temples of my child,\nAnd both the princes had been breathing here,\nWhich now, two tender playfellows to dust,\nThy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.\nWhat canst thou swear by now?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe time to come.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThat thou hast wronged in the time o'erpast;\nFor I myself have many tears to wash\nHereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\nThe children live, whose parents thou hast\nslaughter'd,\nUngovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\nThe parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd,\nOld wither'd plants, to wail it with their age.\nSwear not by time to come; for that thou hast\nMisused ere used, by time misused o'erpast.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAs I intend to prosper and repent,\nSo thrive I in my dangerous attempt\nOf hostile arms! myself myself confound!\nHeaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\nDay, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\nBe opposite all planets of good luck\nTo my proceedings, if, with pure heart's love,\nImmaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\nI tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!\nIn her consists my happiness and thine;\nWithout her, follows to this land and me,\nTo thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,\nDeath, desolation, ruin and decay:\nIt cannot be avoided but by this;\nIt will not be avoided but by this.\nTherefore, good mother,--I must can you so--\nBe the attorney of my love to her:\nPlead what I will be, not what I have been;\nNot my deserts, but what I will deserve:\nUrge the necessity and state of times,\nAnd be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if the devil tempt thee to do good.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I forget myself to be myself?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, if yourself's remembrance wrong yourself.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nBut thou didst kill my children.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBut in your daughter's womb I bury them:\nWhere in that nest of spicery they shall breed\nSelves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nShall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAnd be a happy mother by the deed.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI go. Write to me very shortly.\nAnd you shall understand from me her mind.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\nRelenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\nHow now! what news?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy gracious sovereign, on the western coast\nRideth a puissant navy; to the shore\nThrong many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\nUnarm'd, and unresolved to beat them back:\n'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\nAnd there they hull, expecting but the aid\nOf Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSome light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:\nRatcliff, thyself, or Catesby; where is he?\n\nCATESBY:\nHere, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nFly to the duke:\nPost thou to Salisbury\nWhen thou comest thither--\nDull, unmindful villain,\nWhy stand'st thou still, and go'st not to the duke?\n\nCATESBY:\nFirst, mighty sovereign, let me know your mind,\nWhat from your grace I shall deliver to him.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight\nThe greatest strength and power he can make,\nAnd meet me presently at Salisbury.\n\nCATESBY:\nI go.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nWhat is't your highness' pleasure I shall do at\nSalisbury?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, what wouldst thou do there before I go?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nYour highness told me I should post before.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy mind is changed, sir, my mind is changed.\nHow now, what news with you?\n\nSTANLEY:\nNone good, my lord, to please you with the hearing;\nNor none so bad, but it may well be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\nWhy dost thou run so many mile about,\nWhen thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?\nOnce more, what news?\n\nSTANLEY:\nRichmond is on the seas.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThere let him sink, and be the seas on him!\nWhite-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n\nSTANLEY:\nI know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell, sir, as you guess, as you guess?\n\nSTANLEY:\nStirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely,\nHe makes for England, there to claim the crown.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nIs the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd?\nIs the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?\nWhat heir of York is there alive but we?\nAnd who is England's king but great York's heir?\nThen, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?\n\nSTANLEY:\nUnless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUnless for that he comes to be your liege,\nYou cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\nThou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, mighty liege; therefore mistrust me not.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhere is thy power, then, to beat him back?\nWhere are thy tenants and thy followers?\nAre they not now upon the western shore.\nSafe-conducting the rebels from their ships!\n\nSTANLEY:\nNo, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,\nWhen they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n\nSTANLEY:\nThey have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:\nPlease it your majesty to give me leave,\nI'll muster up my friends, and meet your grace\nWhere and what time your majesty shall please.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAy, ay. thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond:\nI will not trust you, sir.\n\nSTANLEY:\nMost mighty sovereign,\nYou have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:\nI never was nor never will be false.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWell,\nGo muster men; but, hear you, leave behind\nYour son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.\nOr else his head's assurance is but frail.\n\nSTANLEY:\nSo deal with him as I prove true to you.\n\nMessenger:\nMy gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\nAs I by friends am well advertised,\nSir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate\nBishop of Exeter, his brother there,\nWith many more confederates, are in arms.\n\nSecond Messenger:\nMy liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;\nAnd every hour more competitors\nFlock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.\n\nThird Messenger:\nMy lord, the army of the Duke of Buckingham--\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOut on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?\nTake that, until thou bring me better news.\n\nThird Messenger:\nThe news I have to tell your majesty\nIs, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,\nBuckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd;\nAnd he himself wander'd away alone,\nNo man knows whither.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI cry thee mercy:\nThere is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\nHath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\nReward to him that brings the traitor in?\n\nThird Messenger:\nSuch proclamation hath been made, my liege.\n\nFourth Messenger:\nSir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,\n'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\nYet this good comfort bring I to your grace,\nThe Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:\nRichmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat\nUnto the shore, to ask those on the banks\nIf they were his assistants, yea or no;\nWho answer'd him, they came from Buckingham.\nUpon his party: he, mistrusting them,\nHoisted sail and made away for Brittany.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMarch on, march on, since we are up in arms;\nIf not to fight with foreign enemies,\nYet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\nCATESBY:\nMy liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;\nThat is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond\nIs with a mighty power landed at Milford,\nIs colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nAway towards Salisbury! while we reason here,\nA royal battle might be won and lost\nSome one take order Buckingham be brought\nTo Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n\nDERBY:\nSir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\nThat in the sty of this most bloody boar\nMy son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold:\nIf I revolt, off goes young George's head;\nThe fear of that withholds my present aid.\nBut, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nAt Pembroke, or at Harford-west, in Wales.\n\nDERBY:\nWhat men of name resort to him?\n\nCHRISTOPHER:\nSir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\nSir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;\nOxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\nAnd Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;\nAnd many more of noble fame and worth:\nAnd towards London they do bend their course,\nIf by the way they be not fought withal.\n\nDERBY:\nReturn unto thy lord; commend me to him:\nTell him the queen hath heartily consented\nHe shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\nThese letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWill not King Richard let me speak with him?\n\nSheriff:\nNo, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nHastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,\nHoly King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\nVaughan, and all that have miscarried\nBy underhand corrupted foul injustice,\nIf that your moody discontented souls\nDo through the clouds behold this present hour,\nEven for revenge mock my destruction!\nThis is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?\n\nSheriff:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nBUCKINGHAM:\nWhy, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\nThis is the day that, in King Edward's time,\nI wish't might fall on me, when I was found\nFalse to his children or his wife's allies\nThis is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\nBy the false faith of him I trusted most;\nThis, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\nIs the determined respite of my wrongs:\nThat high All-Seer that I dallied with\nHath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\nAnd given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\nThus doth he force the swords of wicked men\nTo turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:\nNow Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;\n'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\nRemember Margaret was a prophetess.'\nCome, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;\nWrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\n\nRICHMOND:\nFellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\nBruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,\nThus far into the bowels of the land\nHave we march'd on without impediment;\nAnd here receive we from our father Stanley\nLines of fair comfort and encouragement.\nThe wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\nThat spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\nSwills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\nIn your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine\nLies now even in the centre of this isle,\nNear to the town of Leicester, as we learn\nFrom Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\nIn God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,\nTo reap the harvest of perpetual peace\nBy this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n\nOXFORD:\nEvery man's conscience is a thousand swords,\nTo fight against that bloody homicide.\n\nHERBERT:\nI doubt not but his friends will fly to us.\n\nBLUNT:\nHe hath no friends but who are friends for fear.\nWhich in his greatest need will shrink from him.\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll for our vantage. Then, in God's name, march:\nTrue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:\nKings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHere pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.\nMy Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n\nSURREY:\nMy heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nMy Lord of Norfolk,--\n\nNORFOLK:\nHere, most gracious liege.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nNorfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not?\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe must both give and take, my gracious lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nUp with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;\nBut where to-morrow?  Well, all's one for that.\nWho hath descried the number of the foe?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSix or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhy, our battalion trebles that account:\nBesides, the king's name is a tower of strength,\nWhich they upon the adverse party want.\nUp with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,\nLet us survey the vantage of the field\nCall for some men of sound direction\nLet's want no discipline, make no delay,\nFor, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe weary sun hath made a golden set,\nAnd by the bright track of his fiery car,\nGives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.\nSir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\nGive me some ink and paper in my tent\nI'll draw the form and model of our battle,\nLimit each leader to his several charge,\nAnd part in just proportion our small strength.\nMy Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,\nAnd you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.\nThe Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him\nAnd by the second hour in the morning\nDesire the earl to see me in my tent:\nYet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go'st,\nWhere is Lord Stanley quarter'd, dost thou know?\n\nBLUNT:\nUnless I have mista'en his colours much,\nWhich well I am assured I have not done,\nHis regiment lies half a mile at least\nSouth from the mighty power of the king.\n\nRICHMOND:\nIf without peril it be possible,\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,\nAnd give him from me this most needful scroll.\n\nBLUNT:\nUpon my life, my lord, I'll under-take it;\nAnd so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,\nLet us consult upon to-morrow's business\nIn to our tent; the air is raw and cold.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat is't o'clock?\n\nCATESBY:\nIt's supper-time, my lord;\nIt's nine o'clock.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nI will not sup to-night.\nGive me some ink and paper.\nWhat, is my beaver easier than it was?\nAnd all my armour laid into my tent?\n\nCATESBY:\nIf is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGood Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\nUse careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI go, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nStir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n\nNORFOLK:\nI warrant you, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCatesby!\n\nCATESBY:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSend out a pursuivant at arms\nTo Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\nBefore sunrising, lest his son George fall\nInto the blind cave of eternal night.\nFill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\nSaddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\nLook that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\nRatcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSaw'st thou the melancholy Lord Northumberland?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\nMuch about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\nWent through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSo, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:\nI have not that alacrity of spirit,\nNor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.\nSet it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nIt is, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBid my guard watch; leave me.\nRatcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent\nAnd help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n\nDERBY:\nFortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n\nRICHMOND:\nAll comfort that the dark night can afford\nBe to thy person, noble father-in-law!\nTell me, how fares our loving mother?\n\nDERBY:\nI, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother\nWho prays continually for Richmond's good:\nSo much for that. The silent hours steal on,\nAnd flaky darkness breaks within the east.\nIn brief,--for so the season bids us be,--\nPrepare thy battle early in the morning,\nAnd put thy fortune to the arbitrement\nOf bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\nI, as I may--that which I would I cannot,--\nWith best advantage will deceive the time,\nAnd aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:\nBut on thy side I may not be too forward\nLest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\nBe executed in his father's sight.\nFarewell: the leisure and the fearful time\nCuts off the ceremonious vows of love\nAnd ample interchange of sweet discourse,\nWhich so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon:\nGod give us leisure for these rites of love!\nOnce more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGood lords, conduct him to his regiment:\nI'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,\nLest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,\nWhen I should mount with wings of victory:\nOnce more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\nO Thou, whose captain I account myself,\nLook on my forces with a gracious eye;\nPut in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,\nThat they may crush down with a heavy fall\nThe usurping helmets of our adversaries!\nMake us thy ministers of chastisement,\nThat we may praise thee in the victory!\nTo thee I do commend my watchful soul,\nEre I let fall the windows of mine eyes:\nSleeping and waking, O, defend me still!\n\nGhost of Prince Edward:\n\nGhost of King Henry VI:\n\nGhost of CLARENCE:\n\nGhost of RIVERS:\n\nGhost of GREY:\n\nGhost of VAUGHAN:\n\nAll:\n\nGhost of HASTINGS:\n\nGhosts of young Princes:\n\nGhost of LADY ANNE:\n\nGhost of BUCKINGHAM:\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nGive me another horse: bind up my wounds.\nHave mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.\nO coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\nThe lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\nCold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\nWhat do I fear?  myself?  there's none else by:\nRichard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\nIs there a murderer here?  No. Yes, I am:\nThen fly. What, from myself?   Great reason why:\nLest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?\nAlack. I love myself. Wherefore?  for any good\nThat I myself have done unto myself?\nO, no! alas, I rather hate myself\nFor hateful deeds committed by myself!\nI am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.\nFool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.\nMy conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\nAnd every tongue brings in a several tale,\nAnd every tale condemns me for a villain.\nPerjury, perjury, in the high'st degree\nMurder, stem murder, in the direst degree;\nAll several sins, all used in each degree,\nThrong to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!\nI shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\nAnd if I die, no soul shall pity me:\nNay, wherefore should they, since that I myself\nFind in myself no pity to myself?\nMethought the souls of all that I had murder'd\nCame to my tent; and every one did threat\nTo-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n'Zounds! who is there?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nRatcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\nHath twice done salutation to the morn;\nYour friends are up, and buckle on their armour.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\nWhat thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNo doubt, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nO Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,--\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nBy the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\nHave struck more terror to the soul of Richard\nThan can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\nArmed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.\nIt is not yet near day. Come, go with me;\nUnder our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\nTo see if any mean to shrink from me.\n\nLORDS:\nGood morrow, Richmond!\n\nRICHMOND:\nCry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\nThat you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n\nLORDS:\nHow have you slept, my lord?\n\nRICHMOND:\nThe sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams\nThat ever enter'd in a drowsy head,\nHave I since your departure had, my lords.\nMethought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd,\nCame to my tent, and cried on victory:\nI promise you, my soul is very jocund\nIn the remembrance of so fair a dream.\nHow far into the morning is it, lords?\n\nLORDS:\nUpon the stroke of four.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhy, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\nMore than I have said, loving countrymen,\nThe leisure and enforcement of the time\nForbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,\nGod and our good cause fight upon our side;\nThe prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\nLike high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\nRichard except, those whom we fight against\nHad rather have us win than him they follow:\nFor what is he they follow?  truly, gentlemen,\nA bloody tyrant and a homicide;\nOne raised in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\nOne that made means to come by what he hath,\nAnd slaughter'd those that were the means to help him;\nAbase foul stone, made precious by the foil\nOf England's chair, where he is falsely set;\nOne that hath ever been God's enemy:\nThen, if you fight against God's enemy,\nGod will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\nIf you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\nYou sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\nIf you do fight against your country's foes,\nYour country's fat shall pay your pains the hire;\nIf you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\nYour wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\nIf you do free your children from the sword,\nYour children's children quit it in your age.\nThen, in the name of God and all these rights,\nAdvance your standards, draw your willing swords.\nFor me, the ransom of my bold attempt\nShall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\nBut if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\nThe least of you shall share his part thereof.\nSound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\nGod and Saint George! Richmond and victory!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nWhat said Northumberland as touching Richmond?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nThat he was never trained up in arms.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe said the truth: and what said Surrey then?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nHe smiled and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nHe was in the right; and so indeed it is.\nTen the clock there. Give me a calendar.\nWho saw the sun to-day?\n\nRATCLIFF:\nNot I, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThen he disdains to shine; for by the book\nHe should have braved the east an hour ago\nA black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!\n\nRATCLIFF:\nMy lord?\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nThe sun will not be seen to-day;\nThe sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\nI would these dewy tears were from the ground.\nNot shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\nMore than to Richmond?  for the selfsame heaven\nThat frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\nNORFOLK:\nArm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nCome, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.\nCall up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:\nI will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\nAnd thus my battle shall be ordered:\nMy foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\nConsisting equally of horse and foot;\nOur archers shall be placed in the midst\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\nShall have the leading of this foot and horse.\nThey thus directed, we will follow\nIn the main battle, whose puissance on either side\nShall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\nThis, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk?\n\nNORFOLK:\nA good direction, warlike sovereign.\nThis found I on my tent this morning.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\n\nMessenger:\nMy lord, he doth deny to come.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nOff with his son George's head!\n\nNORFOLK:\nMy lord, the enemy is past the marsh\nAfter the battle let George Stanley die.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA thousand hearts are great within my bosom:\nAdvance our standards, set upon our foes\nOur ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\nInspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\nUpon them! victory sits on our helms.\n\nCATESBY:\nRescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\nThe king enacts more wonders than a man,\nDaring an opposite to every danger:\nHis horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\nSeeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\nRescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nCATESBY:\nWithdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.\n\nKING RICHARD III:\nSlave, I have set my life upon a cast,\nAnd I will stand the hazard of the die:\nI think there be six Richmonds in the field;\nFive have I slain to-day instead of him.\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n\nRICHMOND:\nGod and your arms be praised, victorious friends,\nThe day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n\nDERBY:\nCourageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.\nLo, here, this long-usurped royalty\nFrom the dead temples of this bloody wretch\nHave I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal:\nWear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n\nRICHMOND:\nGreat God of heaven, say Amen to all!\nBut, tell me, is young George Stanley living?\n\nDERBY:\nHe is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;\nWhither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n\nRICHMOND:\nWhat men of name are slain on either side?\n\nDERBY:\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\nSir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n\nRICHMOND:\nInter their bodies as becomes their births:\nProclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\nThat in submission will return to us:\nAnd then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\nWe will unite the white rose and the red:\nSmile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\nThat long have frown'd upon their enmity!\nWhat traitor hears me, and says not amen?\nEngland hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\nThe brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\nThe father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\nThe son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:\nAll this divided York and Lancaster,\nDivided in their dire division,\nO, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,\nThe true succeeders of each royal house,\nBy God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\nAnd let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.\nEnrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,\nWith smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!\nAbate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\nThat would reduce these bloody days again,\nAnd make poor England weep in streams of blood!\nLet them not live to taste this land's increase\nThat would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\nNow civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:\nThat she may long live here, God say amen!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nOld John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,\nHast thou, according to thy oath and band,\nBrought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,\nHere to make good the boisterous late appeal,\nWhich then our leisure would not let us hear,\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI have, my liege.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,\nIf he appeal the duke on ancient malice;\nOr worthily, as a good subject should,\nOn some known ground of treachery in him?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAs near as I could sift him on that argument,\nOn some apparent danger seen in him\nAim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen call them to our presence; face to face,\nAnd frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\nThe accuser and the accused freely speak:\nHigh-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,\nIn rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMany years of happy days befal\nMy gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nEach day still better other's happiness;\nUntil the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\nAdd an immortal title to your crown!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe thank you both: yet one but flatters us,\nAs well appeareth by the cause you come;\nNamely to appeal each other of high treason.\nCousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFirst, heaven be the record to my speech!\nIn the devotion of a subject's love,\nTendering the precious safety of my prince,\nAnd free from other misbegotten hate,\nCome I appellant to this princely presence.\nNow, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\nAnd mark my greeting well; for what I speak\nMy body shall make good upon this earth,\nOr my divine soul answer it in heaven.\nThou art a traitor and a miscreant,\nToo good to be so and too bad to live,\nSince the more fair and crystal is the sky,\nThe uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\nOnce more, the more to aggravate the note,\nWith a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\nAnd wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,\nWhat my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nLet not my cold words here accuse my zeal:\n'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\nThe bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\nCan arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\nThe blood is hot that must be cool'd for this:\nYet can I not of such tame patience boast\nAs to be hush'd and nought at all to say:\nFirst, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me\nFrom giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\nWhich else would post until it had return'd\nThese terms of treason doubled down his throat.\nSetting aside his high blood's royalty,\nAnd let him be no kinsman to my liege,\nI do defy him, and I spit at him;\nCall him a slanderous coward and a villain:\nWhich to maintain I would allow him odds,\nAnd meet him, were I tied to run afoot\nEven to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\nOr any other ground inhabitable,\nWhere ever Englishman durst set his foot.\nMean time let this defend my loyalty,\nBy all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\nDisclaiming here the kindred of the king,\nAnd lay aside my high blood's royalty,\nWhich fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\nIf guilty dread have left thee so much strength\nAs to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:\nBy that and all the rites of knighthood else,\nWill I make good against thee, arm to arm,\nWhat I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nI take it up; and by that sword I swear\nWhich gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,\nI'll answer thee in any fair degree,\nOr chivalrous design of knightly trial:\nAnd when I mount, alive may I not light,\nIf I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\nIt must be great that can inherit us\nSo much as of a thought of ill in him.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLook, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;\nThat Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles\nIn name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,\nThe which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,\nLike a false traitor and injurious villain.\nBesides I say and will in battle prove,\nOr here or elsewhere to the furthest verge\nThat ever was survey'd by English eye,\nThat all the treasons for these eighteen years\nComplotted and contrived in this land\nFetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\nFurther I say and further will maintain\nUpon his bad life to make all this good,\nThat he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\nSuggest his soon-believing adversaries,\nAnd consequently, like a traitor coward,\nSluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:\nWhich blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\nEven from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\nTo me for justice and rough chastisement;\nAnd, by the glorious worth of my descent,\nThis arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow high a pitch his resolution soars!\nThomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nO, let my sovereign turn away his face\nAnd bid his ears a little while be deaf,\nTill I have told this slander of his blood,\nHow God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:\nWere he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\nAs he is but my father's brother's son,\nNow, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,\nSuch neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\nShould nothing privilege him, nor partialize\nThe unstooping firmness of my upright soul:\nHe is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\nFree speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\nThrough the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\nThree parts of that receipt I had for Calais\nDisbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;\nThe other part reserved I by consent,\nFor that my sovereign liege was in my debt\nUpon remainder of a dear account,\nSince last I went to France to fetch his queen:\nNow swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,\nI slew him not; but to my own disgrace\nNeglected my sworn duty in that case.\nFor you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\nThe honourable father to my foe\nOnce did I lay an ambush for your life,\nA trespass that doth vex my grieved soul\nBut ere I last received the sacrament\nI did confess it, and exactly begg'd\nYour grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.\nThis is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,\nIt issues from the rancour of a villain,\nA recreant and most degenerate traitor\nWhich in myself I boldly will defend;\nAnd interchangeably hurl down my gage\nUpon this overweening traitor's foot,\nTo prove myself a loyal gentleman\nEven in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\nIn haste whereof, most heartily I pray\nYour highness to assign our trial day.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;\nLet's purge this choler without letting blood:\nThis we prescribe, though no physician;\nDeep malice makes too deep incision;\nForget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;\nOur doctors say this is no month to bleed.\nGood uncle, let this end where it begun;\nWe'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo be a make-peace shall become my age:\nThrow down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd, Norfolk, throw down his.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhen, Harry, when?\nObedience bids I should not bid again.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMyself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.\nMy life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\nThe one my duty owes; but my fair name,\nDespite of death that lives upon my grave,\nTo dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\nI am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,\nPierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\nThe which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\nWhich breathed this poison.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRage must be withstood:\nGive me his gage: lions make leopards tame.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nYea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.\nAnd I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\nThe purest treasure mortal times afford\nIs spotless reputation: that away,\nMen are but gilded loam or painted clay.\nA jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest\nIs a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\nMine honour is my life; both grow in one:\nTake honour from me, and my life is done:\nThen, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\nIn that I live and for that will I die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\nShall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?\nOr with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\nBefore this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue\nShall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,\nOr sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\nThe slavish motive of recanting fear,\nAnd spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\nWhere shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe were not born to sue, but to command;\nWhich since we cannot do to make you friends,\nBe ready, as your lives shall answer it,\nAt Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:\nThere shall your swords and lances arbitrate\nThe swelling difference of your settled hate:\nSince we can not atone you, we shall see\nJustice design the victor's chivalry.\nLord marshal, command our officers at arms\nBe ready to direct these home alarms.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAlas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\nDoth more solicit me than your exclaims,\nTo stir against the butchers of his life!\nBut since correction lieth in those hands\nWhich made the fault that we cannot correct,\nPut we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\nWho, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\nWill rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n\nDUCHESS:\nFinds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\nHath love in thy old blood no living fire?\nEdward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\nWere as seven vials of his sacred blood,\nOr seven fair branches springing from one root:\nSome of those seven are dried by nature's course,\nSome of those branches by the Destinies cut;\nBut Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\nOne vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\nOne flourishing branch of his most royal root,\nIs crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,\nIs hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\nBy envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\nAh, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,\nThat metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee\nMade him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\nYet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent\nIn some large measure to thy father's death,\nIn that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\nWho was the model of thy father's life.\nCall it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:\nIn suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,\nThou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\nTeaching stern murder how to butcher thee:\nThat which in mean men we intitle patience\nIs pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\nWhat shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,\nThe best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\nHis deputy anointed in His sight,\nHath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,\nLet heaven revenge; for I may never lift\nAn angry arm against His minister.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhere then, alas, may I complain myself?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nTo God, the widow's champion and defence.\n\nDUCHESS:\nWhy, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\nThou goest to Coventry, there to behold\nOur cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:\nO, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\nThat it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\nOr, if misfortune miss the first career,\nBe Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,\nThey may break his foaming courser's back,\nAnd throw the rider headlong in the lists,\nA caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\nFarewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife\nWith her companion grief must end her life.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nSister, farewell; I must to Coventry:\nAs much good stay with thee as go with me!\n\nDUCHESS:\nYet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,\nNot with the empty hollowness, but weight:\nI take my leave before I have begun,\nFor sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\nCommend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\nLo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so;\nThough this be all, do not so quickly go;\nI shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?--\nWith all good speed at Plashy visit me.\nAlack, and what shall good old York there see\nBut empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\nUnpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\nAnd what hear there for welcome but my groans?\nTherefore commend me; let him not come there,\nTo seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\nDesolate, desolate, will I hence and die:\nThe last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,\nStays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhy, then, the champions are prepared, and stay\nFor nothing but his majesty's approach.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, demand of yonder champion\nThe cause of his arrival here in arms:\nAsk him his name and orderly proceed\nTo swear him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nIn God's name and the king's, say who thou art\nAnd why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,\nAgainst what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:\nSpeak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;\nAs so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nMy name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\nWho hither come engaged by my oath--\nWhich God defend a knight should violate!--\nBoth to defend my loyalty and truth\nTo God, my king and my succeeding issue,\nAgainst the Duke of Hereford that appeals me\nAnd, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\nTo prove him, in defending of myself,\nA traitor to my God, my king, and me:\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMarshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\nBoth who he is and why he cometh hither\nThus plated in habiliments of war,\nAnd formally, according to our law,\nDepose him in the justice of his cause.\n\nLord Marshal:\nWhat is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,\nBefore King Richard in his royal lists?\nAgainst whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\nSpeak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby\nAm I; who ready here do stand in arms,\nTo prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\nIn lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nThat he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\nTo God of heaven, King Richard and to me;\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\nLord Marshal:\nOn pain of death, no person be so bold\nOr daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\nExcept the marshal and such officers\nAppointed to direct these fair designs.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\nAnd bow my knee before his majesty:\nFor Mowbray and myself are like two men\nThat vow a long and weary pilgrimage;\nThen let us take a ceremonious leave\nAnd loving farewell of our several friends.\n\nLord Marshal:\nThe appellant in all duty greets your highness,\nAnd craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will descend and fold him in our arms.\nCousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\nSo be thy fortune in this royal fight!\nFarewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\nLament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO let no noble eye profane a tear\nFor me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:\nAs confident as is the falcon's flight\nAgainst a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\nMy loving lord, I take my leave of you;\nOf you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\nNot sick, although I have to do with death,\nBut lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\nLo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\nThe daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:\nO thou, the earthly author of my blood,\nWhose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\nDoth with a twofold vigour lift me up\nTo reach at victory above my head,\nAdd proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;\nAnd with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\nThat it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,\nAnd furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,\nEven in the lusty havior of his son.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nGod in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\nBe swift like lightning in the execution;\nAnd let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\nFall like amazing thunder on the casque\nOf thy adverse pernicious enemy:\nRouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMine innocency and Saint George to thrive!\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nHowever God or fortune cast my lot,\nThere lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\nA loyal, just and upright gentleman:\nNever did captive with a freer heart\nCast off his chains of bondage and embrace\nHis golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\nMore than my dancing soul doth celebrate\nThis feast of battle with mine adversary.\nMost mighty liege, and my companion peers,\nTake from my mouth the wish of happy years:\nAs gentle and as jocund as to jest\nGo I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFarewell, my lord: securely I espy\nVirtue with valour couched in thine eye.\nOrder the trial, marshal, and begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nReceive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStrong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n\nLord Marshal:\nGo bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.\n\nFirst Herald:\nHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nStands here for God, his sovereign and himself,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nTo prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\nA traitor to his God, his king and him;\nAnd dares him to set forward to the fight.\n\nSecond Herald:\nHere standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nBoth to defend himself and to approve\nHenry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\nTo God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;\nCourageously and with a free desire\nAttending but the signal to begin.\n\nLord Marshal:\nSound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\nStay, the king hath thrown his warder down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nLet them lay by their helmets and their spears,\nAnd both return back to their chairs again:\nWithdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound\nWhile we return these dukes what we decree.\nDraw near,\nAnd list what with our council we have done.\nFor that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\nWith that dear blood which it hath fostered;\nAnd for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\nOf civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\nAnd for we think the eagle-winged pride\nOf sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\nWith rival-hating envy, set on you\nTo wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\nDraws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\nWhich so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,\nWith harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\nAnd grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\nMight from our quiet confines fright fair peace\nAnd make us wade even in our kindred's blood,\nTherefore, we banish you our territories:\nYou, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\nTill twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\nShall not regreet our fair dominions,\nBut tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYour will be done: this must my comfort be,\nSun that warms you here shall shine on me;\nAnd those his golden beams to you here lent\nShall point on me and gild my banishment.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\nWhich I with some unwillingness pronounce:\nThe sly slow hours shall not determinate\nThe dateless limit of thy dear exile;\nThe hopeless word of 'never to return'\nBreathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nA heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\nAnd all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:\nA dearer merit, not so deep a maim\nAs to be cast forth in the common air,\nHave I deserved at your highness' hands.\nThe language I have learn'd these forty years,\nMy native English, now I must forego:\nAnd now my tongue's use is to me no more\nThan an unstringed viol or a harp,\nOr like a cunning instrument cased up,\nOr, being open, put into his hands\nThat knows no touch to tune the harmony:\nWithin my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\nDoubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\nAnd dull unfeeling barren ignorance\nIs made my gaoler to attend on me.\nI am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\nToo far in years to be a pupil now:\nWhat is thy sentence then but speechless death,\nWhich robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIt boots thee not to be compassionate:\nAfter our sentence plaining comes too late.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nThen thus I turn me from my country's light,\nTo dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nReturn again, and take an oath with thee.\nLay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\nSwear by the duty that you owe to God--\nOur part therein we banish with yourselves--\nTo keep the oath that we administer:\nYou never shall, so help you truth and God!\nEmbrace each other's love in banishment;\nNor never look upon each other's face;\nNor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\nThis louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\nNor never by advised purpose meet\nTo plot, contrive, or complot any ill\n'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI swear.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nAnd I, to keep all this.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNorfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--\nBy this time, had the king permitted us,\nOne of our souls had wander'd in the air.\nBanish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\nAs now our flesh is banish'd from this land:\nConfess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\nSince thou hast far to go, bear not along\nThe clogging burthen of a guilty soul.\n\nTHOMAS MOWBRAY:\nNo, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,\nMy name be blotted from the book of life,\nAnd I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\nBut what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;\nAnd all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.\nFarewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;\nSave back to England, all the world's my way.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nUncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\nI see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect\nHath from the number of his banish'd years\nPluck'd four away.\nSix frozen winter spent,\nReturn with welcome home from banishment.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow long a time lies in one little word!\nFour lagging winters and four wanton springs\nEnd in a word: such is the breath of kings.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nI thank my liege, that in regard of me\nHe shortens four years of my son's exile:\nBut little vantage shall I reap thereby;\nFor, ere the six years that he hath to spend\nCan change their moons and bring their times about\nMy oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\nShall be extinct with age and endless night;\nMy inch of taper will be burnt and done,\nAnd blindfold death not let me see my son.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nBut not a minute, king, that thou canst give:\nShorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,\nAnd pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\nThou canst help time to furrow me with age,\nBut stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\nThy word is current with him for my death,\nBut dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThy son is banish'd upon good advice,\nWhereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:\nWhy at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThings sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\nYou urged me as a judge; but I had rather\nYou would have bid me argue like a father.\nO, had it been a stranger, not my child,\nTo smooth his fault I should have been more mild:\nA partial slander sought I to avoid,\nAnd in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\nAlas, I look'd when some of you should say,\nI was too strict to make mine own away;\nBut you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\nAgainst my will to do myself this wrong.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:\nSix years we banish him, and he shall go.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nCousin, farewell: what presence must not know,\nFrom where you do remain let paper show.\n\nLord Marshal:\nMy lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,\nAs far as land will let me, by your side.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\nThat thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI have too few to take my leave of you,\nWhen the tongue's office should be prodigal\nTo breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nJoy absent, grief is present for that time.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWhat is six winters? they are quickly gone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nTo men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCall it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\nWhich finds it an inforced pilgrimage.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nThe sullen passage of thy weary steps\nEsteem as foil wherein thou art to set\nThe precious jewel of thy home return.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNay, rather, every tedious stride I make\nWill but remember me what a deal of world\nI wander from the jewels that I love.\nMust I not serve a long apprenticehood\nTo foreign passages, and in the end,\nHaving my freedom, boast of nothing else\nBut that I was a journeyman to grief?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nAll places that the eye of heaven visits\nAre to a wise man ports and happy havens.\nTeach thy necessity to reason thus;\nThere is no virtue like necessity.\nThink not the king did banish thee,\nBut thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,\nWhere it perceives it is but faintly borne.\nGo, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour\nAnd not the king exiled thee; or suppose\nDevouring pestilence hangs in our air\nAnd thou art flying to a fresher clime:\nLook, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\nTo lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:\nSuppose the singing birds musicians,\nThe grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\nThe flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\nThan a delightful measure or a dance;\nFor gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\nThe man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO, who can hold a fire in his hand\nBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\nOr cloy the hungry edge of appetite\nBy bare imagination of a feast?\nOr wallow naked in December snow\nBy thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\nO, no! the apprehension of the good\nGives but the greater feeling to the worse:\nFell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\nThan when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nCome, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:\nHad I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThen, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\nMy mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\nWhere'er I wander, boast of this I can,\nThough banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\nHow far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\nBut to the next highway, and there I left him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFaith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\nWhich then blew bitterly against our faces,\nAwaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\nDid grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat said our cousin when you parted with him?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\n'Farewell:'\nAnd, for my heart disdained that my tongue\nShould so profane the word, that taught me craft\nTo counterfeit oppression of such grief\nThat words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\nMarry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours\nAnd added years to his short banishment,\nHe should have had a volume of farewells;\nBut since it would not, he had none of me.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\nWhen time shall call him home from banishment,\nWhether our kinsman come to see his friends.\nOurself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green\nObserved his courtship to the common people;\nHow he did seem to dive into their hearts\nWith humble and familiar courtesy,\nWhat reverence he did throw away on slaves,\nWooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\nAnd patient underbearing of his fortune,\nAs 'twere to banish their affects with him.\nOff goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\nA brace of draymen bid God speed him well\nAnd had the tribute of his supple knee,\nWith 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'\nAs were our England in reversion his,\nAnd he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.\nNow for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\nExpedient manage must be made, my liege,\nEre further leisure yield them further means\nFor their advantage and your highness' loss.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe will ourself in person to this war:\nAnd, for our coffers, with too great a court\nAnd liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\nWe are inforced to farm our royal realm;\nThe revenue whereof shall furnish us\nFor our affairs in hand: if that come short,\nOur substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\nWhereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\nThey shall subscribe them for large sums of gold\nAnd send them after to supply our wants;\nFor we will make for Ireland presently.\nBushy, what news?\n\nBUSHY:\nOld John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\nSuddenly taken; and hath sent post haste\nTo entreat your majesty to visit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhere lies he?\n\nBUSHY:\nAt Ely House.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNow put it, God, in the physician's mind\nTo help him to his grave immediately!\nThe lining of his coffers shall make coats\nTo deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\nCome, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:\nPray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n\nAll:\nAmen.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nWill the king come, that I may breathe my last\nIn wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nVex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\nFor all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, but they say the tongues of dying men\nEnforce attention like deep harmony:\nWhere words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,\nFor they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.\nHe that no more must say is listen'd more\nThan they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\nMore are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:\nThe setting sun, and music at the close,\nAs the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\nWrit in remembrance more than things long past:\nThough Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\nMy death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\nAs praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\nLascivious metres, to whose venom sound\nThe open ear of youth doth always listen;\nReport of fashions in proud Italy,\nWhose manners still our tardy apish nation\nLimps after in base imitation.\nWhere doth the world thrust forth a vanity--\nSo it be new, there's no respect how vile--\nThat is not quickly buzzed into his ears?\nThen all too late comes counsel to be heard,\nWhere will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\nDirect not him whose way himself will choose:\n'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nMethinks I am a prophet new inspired\nAnd thus expiring do foretell of him:\nHis rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\nFor violent fires soon burn out themselves;\nSmall showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\nHe tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\nWith eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:\nLight vanity, insatiate cormorant,\nConsuming means, soon preys upon itself.\nThis royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,\nThis earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\nThis other Eden, demi-paradise,\nThis fortress built by Nature for herself\nAgainst infection and the hand of war,\nThis happy breed of men, this little world,\nThis precious stone set in the silver sea,\nWhich serves it in the office of a wall,\nOr as a moat defensive to a house,\nAgainst the envy of less happier lands,\nThis blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\nThis nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\nFear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,\nRenowned for their deeds as far from home,\nFor Christian service and true chivalry,\nAs is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,\nOf the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,\nThis land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\nDear for her reputation through the world,\nIs now leased out, I die pronouncing it,\nLike to a tenement or pelting farm:\nEngland, bound in with the triumphant sea\nWhose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\nOf watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\nWith inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:\nThat England, that was wont to conquer others,\nHath made a shameful conquest of itself.\nAh, would the scandal vanish with my life,\nHow happy then were my ensuing death!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe king is come: deal mildly with his youth;\nFor young hot colts being raged do rage the more.\n\nQUEEN:\nHow fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO how that name befits my composition!\nOld Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:\nWithin me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\nAnd who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\nFor sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\nWatching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:\nThe pleasure that some fathers feed upon,\nIs my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;\nAnd therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:\nGaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\nWhose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nCan sick men play so nicely with their names?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, misery makes sport to mock itself:\nSince thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\nI mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nShould dying men flatter with those that live?\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNo, no, men living flatter those that die.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nNow He that made me knows I see thee ill;\nIll in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\nThy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\nWherein thou liest in reputation sick;\nAnd thou, too careless patient as thou art,\nCommit'st thy anointed body to the cure\nOf those physicians that first wounded thee:\nA thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\nWhose compass is no bigger than thy head;\nAnd yet, incaged in so small a verge,\nThe waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\nO, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\nSeen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\nFrom forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\nDeposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\nWhich art possess'd now to depose thyself.\nWhy, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\nIt were a shame to let this land by lease;\nBut for thy world enjoying but this land,\nIs it not more than shame to shame it so?\nLandlord of England art thou now, not king:\nThy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA lunatic lean-witted fool,\nPresuming on an ague's privilege,\nDarest with thy frozen admonition\nMake pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\nWith fury from his native residence.\nNow, by my seat's right royal majesty,\nWert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\nThis tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\nShould run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n\nJOHN OF GAUNT:\nO, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\nFor that I was his father Edward's son;\nThat blood already, like the pelican,\nHast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:\nMy brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,\nWhom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!\nMay be a precedent and witness good\nThat thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:\nJoin with the present sickness that I have;\nAnd thy unkindness be like crooked age,\nTo crop at once a too long wither'd flower.\nLive in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\nThese words hereafter thy tormentors be!\nConvey me to my bed, then to my grave:\nLove they to live that love and honour have.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd let them die that age and sullens have;\nFor both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI do beseech your majesty, impute his words\nTo wayward sickliness and age in him:\nHe loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\nAs Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRight, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\nAs theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat says he?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, nothing; all is said\nHis tongue is now a stringless instrument;\nWords, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBe York the next that must be bankrupt so!\nThough death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\nHis time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\nSo much for that. Now for our Irish wars:\nWe must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\nWhich live like venom where no venom else\nBut only they have privilege to live.\nAnd for these great affairs do ask some charge,\nTowards our assistance we do seize to us\nThe plate, corn, revenues and moveables,\nWhereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHow long shall I be patient? ah, how long\nShall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\nNot Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment\nNot Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\nNor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\nAbout his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\nHave ever made me sour my patient cheek,\nOr bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\nI am the last of noble Edward's sons,\nOf whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:\nIn war was never lion raged more fierce,\nIn peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\nThan was that young and princely gentleman.\nHis face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\nAccomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\nBut when he frown'd, it was against the French\nAnd not against his friends; his noble hand\nDid will what he did spend and spent not that\nWhich his triumphant father's hand had won;\nHis hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\nBut bloody with the enemies of his kin.\nO Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\nOr else he never would compare between.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhy, uncle, what's the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nO my liege,\nPardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased\nNot to be pardon'd, am content withal.\nSeek you to seize and gripe into your hands\nThe royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\nIs not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?\nWas not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?\nDid not the one deserve to have an heir?\nIs not his heir a well-deserving son?\nTake Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\nHis charters and his customary rights;\nLet not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\nBe not thyself; for how art thou a king\nBut by fair sequence and succession?\nNow, afore God--God forbid I say true!--\nIf you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\nCall in the letters patent that he hath\nBy his attorneys-general to sue\nHis livery, and deny his offer'd homage,\nYou pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\nYou lose a thousand well-disposed hearts\nAnd prick my tender patience, to those thoughts\nWhich honour and allegiance cannot think.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThink what you will, we seize into our hands\nHis plate, his goods, his money and his lands.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:\nWhat will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;\nBut by bad courses may be understood\nThat their events can never fall out good.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGo, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:\nBid him repair to us to Ely House\nTo see this business. To-morrow next\nWe will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:\nAnd we create, in absence of ourself,\nOur uncle York lord governor of England;\nFor he is just and always loved us well.\nCome on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;\nBe merry, for our time of stay is short\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nAnd living too; for now his son is duke.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBarely in title, not in revenue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRichly in both, if justice had her right.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nMy heart is great; but it must break with silence,\nEre't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more\nThat speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nTends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\nIf it be so, out with it boldly, man;\nQuick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nNo good at all that I can do for him;\nUnless you call it good to pity him,\nBereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNow, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\nIn him, a royal prince, and many moe\nOf noble blood in this declining land.\nThe king is not himself, but basely led\nBy flatterers; and what they will inform,\nMerely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,\nThat will the king severely prosecute\n'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,\nAnd quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined\nFor ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd daily new exactions are devised,\nAs blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:\nBut what, o' God's name, doth become of this?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\nBut basely yielded upon compromise\nThat which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:\nMore hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nThe king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nReproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nHe hath not money for these Irish wars,\nHis burthenous taxations notwithstanding,\nBut by the robbing of the banish'd duke.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHis noble kinsman: most degenerate king!\nBut, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\nYet see no shelter to avoid the storm;\nWe see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\nAnd yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nWe see the very wreck that we must suffer;\nAnd unavoided is the danger now,\nFor suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNot so; even through the hollow eyes of death\nI spy life peering; but I dare not say\nHow near the tidings of our comfort is.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nNay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nBe confident to speak, Northumberland:\nWe three are but thyself; and, speaking so,\nThy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay\nIn Brittany, received intelligence\nThat Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\nThat late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\nHis brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\nSir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\nSir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,\nAll these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne\nWith eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\nAre making hither with all due expedience\nAnd shortly mean to touch our northern shore:\nPerhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\nThe first departing of the king for Ireland.\nIf then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\nImp out our drooping country's broken wing,\nRedeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\nWipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt\nAnd make high majesty look like itself,\nAway with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\nBut if you faint, as fearing to do so,\nStay and be secret, and myself will go.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nTo horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nHold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n\nBUSHY:\nMadam, your majesty is too much sad:\nYou promised, when you parted with the king,\nTo lay aside life-harming heaviness\nAnd entertain a cheerful disposition.\n\nQUEEN:\nTo please the king I did; to please myself\nI cannot do it; yet I know no cause\nWhy I should welcome such a guest as grief,\nSave bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\nAs my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,\nSome unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\nIs coming towards me, and my inward soul\nWith nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,\nMore than with parting from my lord the king.\n\nBUSHY:\nEach substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\nWhich shows like grief itself, but is not so;\nFor sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\nDivides one thing entire to many objects;\nLike perspectives, which rightly gazed upon\nShow nothing but confusion, eyed awry\nDistinguish form: so your sweet majesty,\nLooking awry upon your lord's departure,\nFind shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;\nWhich, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\nOf what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,\nMore than your lord's departure weep not: more's not seen;\nOr if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\nWhich for things true weeps things imaginary.\n\nQUEEN:\nIt may be so; but yet my inward soul\nPersuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,\nI cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\nAs, though on thinking on no thought I think,\nMakes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n\nBUSHY:\n'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived\nFrom some forefather grief; mine is not so,\nFor nothing had begot my something grief;\nOr something hath the nothing that I grieve:\n'Tis in reversion that I do possess;\nBut what it is, that is not yet known; what\nI cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\nGREEN:\nGod save your majesty! and well met, gentlemen:\nI hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhy hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;\nFor his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:\nThen wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n\nGREEN:\nThat he, our hope, might have retired his power,\nAnd driven into despair an enemy's hope,\nWho strongly hath set footing in this land:\nThe banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\nAnd with uplifted arms is safe arrived\nAt Ravenspurgh.\n\nQUEEN:\nNow God in heaven forbid!\n\nGREEN:\nAh, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,\nThe Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\nThe Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\nWith all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n\nBUSHY:\nWhy have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\nAnd all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n\nGREEN:\nWe have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester\nHath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\nAnd all the household servants fled with him\nTo Bolingbroke.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\nAnd Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:\nNow hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,\nAnd I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\nHave woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n\nBUSHY:\nDespair not, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nWho shall hinder me?\nI will despair, and be at enmity\nWith cozening hope: he is a flatterer,\nA parasite, a keeper back of death,\nWho gently would dissolve the bands of life,\nWhich false hope lingers in extremity.\n\nGREEN:\nHere comes the Duke of York.\n\nQUEEN:\nWith signs of war about his aged neck:\nO, full of careful business are his looks!\nUncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShould I do so, I should belie my thoughts:\nComfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\nWhere nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.\nYour husband, he is gone to save far off,\nWhilst others come to make him lose at home:\nHere am I left to underprop his land,\nWho, weak with age, cannot support myself:\nNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\nNow shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, your son was gone before I came.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHe was? Why, so! go all which way it will!\nThe nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,\nAnd will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\nSirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\nBid her send me presently a thousand pound:\nHold, take my ring.\n\nServant:\nMy lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\nTo-day, as I came by, I called there;\nBut I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat is't, knave?\n\nServant:\nAn hour before I came, the duchess died.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGod for his mercy! what a tide of woes\nComes rushing on this woeful land at once!\nI know not what to do: I would to God,\nSo my untruth had not provoked him to it,\nThe king had cut off my head with my brother's.\nWhat, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\nHow shall we do for money for these wars?\nCome, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.\nGo, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts\nAnd bring away the armour that is there.\nGentlemen, will you go muster men?\nIf I know how or which way to order these affairs\nThus thrust disorderly into my hands,\nNever believe me. Both are my kinsmen:\nThe one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\nAnd duty bids defend; the other again\nIs my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,\nWhom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\nWell, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll\nDispose of you.\nGentlemen, go, muster up your men,\nAnd meet me presently at Berkeley.\nI should to Plashy too;\nBut time will not permit: all is uneven,\nAnd every thing is left at six and seven.\n\nBUSHY:\nThe wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,\nBut none returns. For us to levy power\nProportionable to the enemy\nIs all unpossible.\n\nGREEN:\nBesides, our nearness to the king in love\nIs near the hate of those love not the king.\n\nBAGOT:\nAnd that's the wavering commons: for their love\nLies in their purses, and whoso empties them\nBy so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n\nBUSHY:\nWherein the king stands generally condemn'd.\n\nBAGOT:\nIf judgement lie in them, then so do we,\nBecause we ever have been near the king.\n\nGREEN:\nWell, I will for refuge straight to Bristol castle:\nThe Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n\nBUSHY:\nThither will I with you; for little office\nThe hateful commons will perform for us,\nExcept like curs to tear us all to pieces.\nWill you go along with us?\n\nBAGOT:\nNo; I will to Ireland to his majesty.\nFarewell: if heart's presages be not vain,\nWe three here art that ne'er shall meet again.\n\nBUSHY:\nThat's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n\nGREEN:\nAlas, poor duke! the task he undertakes\nIs numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:\nWhere one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\nFarewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.\n\nBUSHY:\nWell, we may meet again.\n\nBAGOT:\nI fear me, never.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHow far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBelieve me, noble lord,\nI am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:\nThese high wild hills and rough uneven ways\nDraws out our miles, and makes them wearisome,\nAnd yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\nMaking the hard way sweet and delectable.\nBut I bethink me what a weary way\nFrom Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\nIn Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\nWhich, I protest, hath very much beguiled\nThe tediousness and process of my travel:\nBut theirs is sweetened with the hope to have\nThe present benefit which I possess;\nAnd hope to joy is little less in joy\nThan hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords\nShall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\nBy sight of what I have, your noble company.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOf much less value is my company\nThan your good words. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my son, young Harry Percy,\nSent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\nHarry, how fares your uncle?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nI had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhy, is he not with the queen?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good Lord; he hath forsook the court,\nBroken his staff of office and dispersed\nThe household of the king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat was his reason?\nHe was not so resolved when last we spake together.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nBecause your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\nBut he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\nTo offer service to the Duke of Hereford,\nAnd sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\nWhat power the Duke of York had levied there;\nThen with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHave you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nNo, my good lord, for that is not forgot\nWhich ne'er I did remember: to my knowledge,\nI never in my life did look on him.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThen learn to know him now; this is the duke.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy gracious lord, I tender you my service,\nSuch as it is, being tender, raw and young:\nWhich elder days shall ripen and confirm\nTo more approved service and desert.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\nI count myself in nothing else so happy\nAs in a soul remembering my good friends;\nAnd, as my fortune ripens with thy love,\nIt shall be still thy true love's recompense:\nMy heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHow far is it to Berkeley? and what stir\nKeeps good old York there with his men of war?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThere stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\nMann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\nAnd in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;\nNone else of name and noble estimate.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHere come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\nBloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWelcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\nA banish'd traitor: all my treasury\nIs yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich'd\nShall be your love and labour's recompense.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nYour presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nAnd far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nEvermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\nWhich, till my infant fortune comes to years,\nStands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIt is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMy Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy lord, my answer is--to Lancaster;\nAnd I am come to seek that name in England;\nAnd I must find that title in your tongue,\nBefore I make reply to aught you say.\n\nLORD BERKELEY:\nMistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\nTo raze one title of your honour out:\nTo you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,\nFrom the most gracious regent of this land,\nThe Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\nTo take advantage of the absent time\nAnd fright our native peace with self-born arms.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI shall not need transport my words by you;\nHere comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nShow me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\nWhose duty is deceiveable and false.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle--\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTut, tut!\nGrace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:\nI am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace.'\nIn an ungracious mouth is but profane.\nWhy have those banish'd and forbidden legs\nDared once to touch a dust of England's ground?\nBut then more 'why?' why have they dared to march\nSo many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\nFrighting her pale-faced villages with war\nAnd ostentation of despised arms?\nComest thou because the anointed king is hence?\nWhy, foolish boy, the king is left behind,\nAnd in my loyal bosom lies his power.\nWere I but now the lord of such hot youth\nAs when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\nRescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\nFrom forth the ranks of many thousand French,\nO, then how quickly should this arm of mine.\nNow prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee\nAnd minister correction to thy fault!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious uncle, let me know my fault:\nOn what condition stands it and wherein?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nEven in condition of the worst degree,\nIn gross rebellion and detested treason:\nThou art a banish'd man, and here art come\nBefore the expiration of thy time,\nIn braving arms against thy sovereign.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\nBut as I come, I come for Lancaster.\nAnd, noble uncle, I beseech your grace\nLook on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:\nYou are my father, for methinks in you\nI see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,\nWill you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\nA wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\nPluck'd from my arms perforce and given away\nTo upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\nIf that my cousin king be King of England,\nIt must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\nYou have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\nHad you first died, and he been thus trod down,\nHe should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,\nTo rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\nI am denied to sue my livery here,\nAnd yet my letters-patents give me leave:\nMy father's goods are all distrain'd and sold,\nAnd these and all are all amiss employ'd.\nWhat would you have me do? I am a subject,\nAnd I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;\nAnd therefore, personally I lay my claim\nTo my inheritance of free descent.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath been too much abused.\n\nLORD ROSS:\nIt stands your grace upon to do him right.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY:\nBase men by his endowments are made great.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMy lords of England, let me tell you this:\nI have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs\nAnd laboured all I could to do him right;\nBut in this kind to come, in braving arms,\nBe his own carver and cut out his way,\nTo find out right with wrong, it may not be;\nAnd you that do abet him in this kind\nCherish rebellion and are rebels all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe noble duke hath sworn his coming is\nBut for his own; and for the right of that\nWe all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\nAnd let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, well, I see the issue of these arms:\nI cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\nBecause my power is weak and all ill left:\nBut if I could, by Him that gave me life,\nI would attach you all and make you stoop\nUnto the sovereign mercy of the king;\nBut since I cannot, be it known to you\nI do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\nUnless you please to enter in the castle\nAnd there repose you for this night.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAn offer, uncle, that we will accept:\nBut we must win your grace to go with us\nTo Bristol castle, which they say is held\nBy Bushy, Bagot and their complices,\nThe caterpillars of the commonwealth,\nWhich I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt may be I will go with you: but yet I'll pause;\nFor I am loath to break our country's laws.\nNor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:\nThings past redress are now with me past care.\n\nCaptain:\nMy lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days,\nAnd hardly kept our countrymen together,\nAnd yet we hear no tidings from the king;\nTherefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nStay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:\nThe king reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n\nCaptain:\n'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.\nThe bay-trees in our country are all wither'd\nAnd meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\nThe pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth\nAnd lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\nRich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,\nThe one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\nThe other to enjoy by rage and war:\nThese signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\nFarewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,\nAs well assured Richard their king is dead.\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nAh, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind\nI see thy glory like a shooting star\nFall to the base earth from the firmament.\nThy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\nWitnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:\nThy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,\nAnd crossly to thy good all fortune goes.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBring forth these men.\nBushy and Green, I will not vex your souls--\nSince presently your souls must part your bodies--\nWith too much urging your pernicious lives,\nFor 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\nFrom off my hands, here in the view of men\nI will unfold some causes of your deaths.\nYou have misled a prince, a royal king,\nA happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\nBy you unhappied and disfigured clean:\nYou have in manner with your sinful hours\nMade a divorce betwixt his queen and him,\nBroke the possession of a royal bed\nAnd stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\nWith tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.\nMyself, a prince by fortune of my birth,\nNear to the king in blood, and near in love\nTill you did make him misinterpret me,\nHave stoop'd my neck under your injuries,\nAnd sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\nEating the bitter bread of banishment;\nWhilst you have fed upon my signories,\nDispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\nFrom my own windows torn my household coat,\nRazed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,\nSave men's opinions and my living blood,\nTo show the world I am a gentleman.\nThis and much more, much more than twice all this,\nCondemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over\nTo execution and the hand of death.\n\nBUSHY:\nMore welcome is the stroke of death to me\nThan Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n\nGREEN:\nMy comfort is that heaven will take our souls\nAnd plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\nUncle, you say the queen is at your house;\nFor God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:\nTell her I send to her my kind commends;\nTake special care my greetings be deliver'd.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nA gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\nWith letters of your love to her at large.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThank, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away.\nTo fight with Glendower and his complices:\nAwhile to work, and after holiday.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBarkloughly castle call they this at hand?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,\nAfter your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNeeds must I like it well: I weep for joy\nTo stand upon my kingdom once again.\nDear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\nThough rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:\nAs a long-parted mother with her child\nPlays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\nSo, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,\nAnd do thee favours with my royal hands.\nFeed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\nNor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\nBut let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\nAnd heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,\nDoing annoyance to the treacherous feet\nWhich with usurping steps do trample thee:\nYield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\nAnd when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\nGuard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder\nWhose double tongue may with a mortal touch\nThrow death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\nMock not my senseless conjuration, lords:\nThis earth shall have a feeling and these stones\nProve armed soldiers, ere her native king\nShall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nFear not, my lord: that Power that made you king\nHath power to keep you king in spite of all.\nThe means that heaven yields must be embraced,\nAnd not neglected; else, if heaven would,\nAnd we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\nThe proffer'd means of succor and redress.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nHe means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\nWhilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\nGrows strong and great in substance and in power.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDiscomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\nThat when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\nBehind the globe, that lights the lower world,\nThen thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\nIn murders and in outrage, boldly here;\nBut when from under this terrestrial ball\nHe fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\nAnd darts his light through every guilty hole,\nThen murders, treasons and detested sins,\nThe cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\nStand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\nSo when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\nWho all this while hath revell'd in the night\nWhilst we were wandering with the antipodes,\nShall see us rising in our throne, the east,\nHis treasons will sit blushing in his face,\nNot able to endure the sight of day,\nBut self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\nNot all the water in the rough rude sea\nCan wash the balm off from an anointed king;\nThe breath of worldly men cannot depose\nThe deputy elected by the Lord:\nFor every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\nTo lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\nGod for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\nA glorious angel: then, if angels fight,\nWeak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.\nWelcome, my lord how far off lies your power?\n\nEARL OF SALISBURY:\nNor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\nThan this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue\nAnd bids me speak of nothing but despair.\nOne day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\nHath clouded all thy happy days on earth:\nO, call back yesterday, bid time return,\nAnd thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\nTo-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\nO'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:\nFor all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.\nAre gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nBut now the blood of twenty thousand men\nDid triumph in my face, and they are fled;\nAnd, till so much blood thither come again,\nHave I not reason to look pale and dead?\nAll souls that will be safe fly from my side,\nFor time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nComfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI had forgot myself; am I not king?\nAwake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\nIs not the king's name twenty thousand names?\nArm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\nAt thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\nYe favourites of a king: are we not high?\nHigh be our thoughts: I know my uncle York\nHath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMore health and happiness betide my liege\nThan can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine ear is open and my heart prepared;\nThe worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\nSay, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care\nAnd what loss is it to be rid of care?\nStrives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\nGreater he shall not be; if he serve God,\nWe'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:\nRevolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;\nThey break their faith to God as well as us:\nCry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:\nThe worst is death, and death will have his day.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nGlad am I that your highness is so arm'd\nTo bear the tidings of calamity.\nLike an unseasonable stormy day,\nWhich makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\nAs if the world were all dissolved to tears,\nSo high above his limits swells the rage\nOf Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\nWith hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\nWhite-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\nAgainst thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\nStrive to speak big and clap their female joints\nIn stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:\nThe very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\nOf double-fatal yew against thy state;\nYea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\nAgainst thy seat: both young and old rebel,\nAnd all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nToo well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.\nWhere is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?\nWhat is become of Bushy? where is Green?\nThat they have let the dangerous enemy\nMeasure our confines with such peaceful steps?\nIf we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:\nI warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nPeace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\nDogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\nSnakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\nThree Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\nWould they make peace? terrible hell make war\nUpon their spotted souls for this offence!\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nSweet love, I see, changing his property,\nTurns to the sourest and most deadly hate:\nAgain uncurse their souls; their peace is made\nWith heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\nHave felt the worst of death's destroying wound\nAnd lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIs Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nAy, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the duke my father with his power?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo matter where; of comfort no man speak:\nLet's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\nMake dust our paper and with rainy eyes\nWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,\nLet's choose executors and talk of wills:\nAnd yet not so, for what can we bequeath\nSave our deposed bodies to the ground?\nOur lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,\nAnd nothing can we call our own but death\nAnd that small model of the barren earth\nWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.\nFor God's sake, let us sit upon the ground\nAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings;\nHow some have been deposed; some slain in war,\nSome haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;\nSome poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;\nAll murder'd: for within the hollow crown\nThat rounds the mortal temples of a king\nKeeps Death his court and there the antic sits,\nScoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,\nAllowing him a breath, a little scene,\nTo monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,\nInfusing him with self and vain conceit,\nAs if this flesh which walls about our life,\nWere brass impregnable, and humour'd thus\nComes at the last and with a little pin\nBores through his castle wall, and farewell king!\nCover your heads and mock not flesh and blood\nWith solemn reverence: throw away respect,\nTradition, form and ceremonious duty,\nFor you have but mistook me all this while:\nI live with bread like you, feel want,\nTaste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\nHow can you say to me, I am a king?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMy lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\nBut presently prevent the ways to wail.\nTo fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\nGives in your weakness strength unto your foe,\nAnd so your follies fight against yourself.\nFear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:\nAnd fight and die is death destroying death;\nWhere fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy father hath a power; inquire of him\nAnd learn to make a body of a limb.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come\nTo change blows with thee for our day of doom.\nThis ague fit of fear is over-blown;\nAn easy task it is to win our own.\nSay, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\nSpeak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n\nSIR STEPHEN SCROOP:\nMen judge by the complexion of the sky\nThe state and inclination of the day:\nSo may you by my dull and heavy eye,\nMy tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\nI play the torturer, by small and small\nTo lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\nYour uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,\nAnd all your northern castles yielded up,\nAnd all your southern gentlemen in arms\nUpon his party.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThou hast said enough.\nBeshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\nOf that sweet way I was in to despair!\nWhat say you now? what comfort have we now?\nBy heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\nThat bids me be of comfort any more.\nGo to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;\nA king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\nThat power I have, discharge; and let them go\nTo ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\nFor I have none: let no man speak again\nTo alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy liege, one word.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHe does me double wrong\nThat wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\nDischarge my followers: let them hence away,\nFrom Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo that by this intelligence we learn\nThe Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury\nIs gone to meet the king, who lately landed\nWith some few private friends upon this coast.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe news is very fair and good, my lord:\nRichard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt would beseem the Lord Northumberland\nTo say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day\nWhen such a sacred king should hide his head.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYour grace mistakes; only to be brief\nLeft I his title out.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThe time hath been,\nWould you have been so brief with him, he would\nHave been so brief with you, to shorten you,\nFor taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTake not, good cousin, further than you should.\nLest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI know it, uncle, and oppose not myself\nAgainst their will. But who comes here?\nWelcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\nAgainst thy entrance.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRoyally!\nWhy, it contains no king?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nYes, my good lord,\nIt doth contain a king; King Richard lies\nWithin the limits of yon lime and stone:\nAnd with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\nSir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\nOf holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nO, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nNoble lords,\nGo to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\nThrough brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\nInto his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\nHenry Bolingbroke\nOn both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand\nAnd sends allegiance and true faith of heart\nTo his most royal person, hither come\nEven at his feet to lay my arms and power,\nProvided that my banishment repeal'd\nAnd lands restored again be freely granted:\nIf not, I'll use the advantage of my power\nAnd lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\nRain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:\nThe which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\nIt is, such crimson tempest should bedrench\nThe fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\nMy stooping duty tenderly shall show.\nGo, signify as much, while here we march\nUpon the grassy carpet of this plain.\nLet's march without the noise of threatening drum,\nThat from this castle's tatter'd battlements\nOur fair appointments may be well perused.\nMethinks King Richard and myself should meet\nWith no less terror than the elements\nOf fire and water, when their thundering shock\nAt meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\nBe he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:\nThe rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\nMy waters; on the earth, and not on him.\nMarch on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\nSee, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\nAs doth the blushing discontented sun\nFrom out the fiery portal of the east,\nWhen he perceives the envious clouds are bent\nTo dim his glory and to stain the track\nOf his bright passage to the occident.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,\nAs bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\nControlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,\nThat any harm should stain so fair a show!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe are amazed; and thus long have we stood\nTo watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\nBecause we thought ourself thy lawful king:\nAnd if we be, how dare thy joints forget\nTo pay their awful duty to our presence?\nIf we be not, show us the hand of God\nThat hath dismissed us from our stewardship;\nFor well we know, no hand of blood and bone\nCan gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\nUnless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\nAnd though you think that all, as you have done,\nHave torn their souls by turning them from us,\nAnd we are barren and bereft of friends;\nYet know, my master, God omnipotent,\nIs mustering in his clouds on our behalf\nArmies of pestilence; and they shall strike\nYour children yet unborn and unbegot,\nThat lift your vassal hands against my head\nAnd threat the glory of my precious crown.\nTell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--\nThat every stride he makes upon my land\nIs dangerous treason: he is come to open\nThe purple testament of bleeding war;\nBut ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\nTen thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\nShall ill become the flower of England's face,\nChange the complexion of her maid-pale peace\nTo scarlet indignation and bedew\nHer pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe king of heaven forbid our lord the king\nShould so with civil and uncivil arms\nBe rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin\nHarry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand;\nAnd by the honourable tomb he swears,\nThat stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\nAnd by the royalties of both your bloods,\nCurrents that spring from one most gracious head,\nAnd by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\nAnd by the worth and honour of himself,\nComprising all that may be sworn or said,\nHis coming hither hath no further scope\nThan for his lineal royalties and to beg\nEnfranchisement immediate on his knees:\nWhich on thy royal party granted once,\nHis glittering arms he will commend to rust,\nHis barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\nTo faithful service of your majesty.\nThis swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\nAnd, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, say thus the king returns:\nHis noble cousin is right welcome hither;\nAnd all the number of his fair demands\nShall be accomplish'd without contradiction:\nWith all the gracious utterance thou hast\nSpeak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\nWe do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\nTo look so poorly and to speak so fair?\nShall we call back Northumberland, and send\nDefiance to the traitor, and so die?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNo, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\nTill time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,\nThat laid the sentence of dread banishment\nOn yon proud man, should take it off again\nWith words of sooth! O that I were as great\nAs is my grief, or lesser than my name!\nOr that I could forget what I have been,\nOr not remember what I must be now!\nSwell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\nSince foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nNorthumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhat must the king do now? must he submit?\nThe king shall do it: must he be deposed?\nThe king shall be contented: must he lose\nThe name of king? o' God's name, let it go:\nI'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\nMy gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\nMy gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\nMy figured goblets for a dish of wood,\nMy sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\nMy subjects for a pair of carved saints\nAnd my large kingdom for a little grave,\nA little little grave, an obscure grave;\nOr I'll be buried in the king's highway,\nSome way of common trade, where subjects' feet\nMay hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\nFor on my heart they tread now whilst I live;\nAnd buried once, why not upon my head?\nAumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\nWe'll make foul weather with despised tears;\nOur sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,\nAnd make a dearth in this revolting land.\nOr shall we play the wantons with our woes,\nAnd make some pretty match with shedding tears?\nAs thus, to drop them still upon one place,\nTill they have fretted us a pair of graves\nWithin the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies\nTwo kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\nWould not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\nI talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\nMost mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\nWhat says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty\nGive Richard leave to live till Richard die?\nYou make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, in the base court he doth attend\nTo speak with you; may it please you to come down.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDown, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,\nWanting the manage of unruly jades.\nIn the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\nTo come at traitors' calls and do them grace.\nIn the base court? Come down? Down, court!\ndown, king!\nFor night-owls shriek where mounting larks\nshould sing.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat says his majesty?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSorrow and grief of heart\nMakes him speak fondly, like a frantic man\nYet he is come.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nStand all apart,\nAnd show fair duty to his majesty.\nMy gracious lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFair cousin, you debase your princely knee\nTo make the base earth proud with kissing it:\nMe rather had my heart might feel your love\nThan my unpleased eye see your courtesy.\nUp, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\nThus high at least, although your knee be low.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nMy gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSo far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\nAs my true service shall deserve your love.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWell you deserve: they well deserve to have,\nThat know the strong'st and surest way to get.\nUncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;\nTears show their love, but want their remedies.\nCousin, I am too young to be your father,\nThough you are old enough to be my heir.\nWhat you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\nFor do we must what force will have us do.\nSet on towards London, cousin, is it so?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYea, my good lord.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen I must not say no.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat sport shall we devise here in this garden,\nTo drive away the heavy thought of care?\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll play at bowls.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,\nAnd that my fortune rubs against the bias.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll dance.\n\nQUEEN:\nMy legs can keep no measure in delight,\nWhen my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:\nTherefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n\nLady:\nMadam, we'll tell tales.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf sorrow or of joy?\n\nLady:\nOf either, madam.\n\nQUEEN:\nOf neither, girl:\nFor of joy, being altogether wanting,\nIt doth remember me the more of sorrow;\nOr if of grief, being altogether had,\nIt adds more sorrow to my want of joy:\nFor what I have I need not to repeat;\nAnd what I want it boots not to complain.\n\nLady:\nMadam, I'll sing.\n\nQUEEN:\n'Tis well that thou hast cause\nBut thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.\n\nLady:\nI could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd I could sing, would weeping do me good,\nAnd never borrow any tear of thee.\nBut stay, here come the gardeners:\nLet's step into the shadow of these trees.\nMy wretchedness unto a row of pins,\nThey'll talk of state; for every one doth so\nAgainst a change; woe is forerun with woe.\n\nGardener:\nGo, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\nWhich, like unruly children, make their sire\nStoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:\nGive some supportance to the bending twigs.\nGo thou, and like an executioner,\nCut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,\nThat look too lofty in our commonwealth:\nAll must be even in our government.\nYou thus employ'd, I will go root away\nThe noisome weeds, which without profit suck\nThe soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n\nServant:\nWhy should we in the compass of a pale\nKeep law and form and due proportion,\nShowing, as in a model, our firm estate,\nWhen our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\nIs full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,\nHer fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,\nHer knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs\nSwarming with caterpillars?\n\nGardener:\nHold thy peace:\nHe that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\nHath now himself met with the fall of leaf:\nThe weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\nThat seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\nAre pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,\nI mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n\nServant:\nWhat, are they dead?\n\nGardener:\nThey are; and Bolingbroke\nHath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it\nThat he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\nAs we this garden! We at time of year\nDo wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,\nLest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\nWith too much riches it confound itself:\nHad he done so to great and growing men,\nThey might have lived to bear and he to taste\nTheir fruits of duty: superfluous branches\nWe lop away, that bearing boughs may live:\nHad he done so, himself had borne the crown,\nWhich waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n\nServant:\nWhat, think you then the king shall be deposed?\n\nGardener:\nDepress'd he is already, and deposed\n'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night\nTo a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,\nThat tell black tidings.\n\nQUEEN:\nO, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\nThou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\nHow dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\nWhat Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee\nTo make a second fall of cursed man?\nWhy dost thou say King Richard is deposed?\nDarest thou, thou little better thing than earth,\nDivine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\nCamest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.\n\nGardener:\nPardon me, madam: little joy have I\nTo breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\nKing Richard, he is in the mighty hold\nOf Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:\nIn your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\nAnd some few vanities that make him light;\nBut in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\nBesides himself, are all the English peers,\nAnd with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\nPost you to London, and you will find it so;\nI speak no more than every one doth know.\n\nQUEEN:\nNimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\nDoth not thy embassage belong to me,\nAnd am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st\nTo serve me last, that I may longest keep\nThy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,\nTo meet at London London's king in woe.\nWhat, was I born to this, that my sad look\nShould grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\nGardener, for telling me these news of woe,\nPray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.\n\nGARDENER:\nPoor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,\nI would my skill were subject to thy curse.\nHere did she fall a tear; here in this place\nI'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:\nRue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\nIn the remembrance of a weeping queen.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCall forth Bagot.\nNow, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;\nWhat thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,\nWho wrought it with the king, and who perform'd\nThe bloody office of his timeless end.\n\nBAGOT:\nThen set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n\nBAGOT:\nMy Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\nScorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\nIn that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,\nI heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length,\nThat reacheth from the restful English court\nAs far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\nAmongst much other talk, that very time,\nI heard you say that you had rather refuse\nThe offer of an hundred thousand crowns\nThan Bolingbroke's return to England;\nAdding withal how blest this land would be\nIn this your cousin's death.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nPrinces and noble lords,\nWhat answer shall I make to this base man?\nShall I so much dishonour my fair stars,\nOn equal terms to give him chastisement?\nEither I must, or have mine honour soil'd\nWith the attainder of his slanderous lips.\nThere is my gage, the manual seal of death,\nThat marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,\nAnd will maintain what thou hast said is false\nIn thy heart-blood, though being all too base\nTo stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nExcepting one, I would he were the best\nIn all this presence that hath moved me so.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nIf that thy valour stand on sympathy,\nThere is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:\nBy that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\nI heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it\nThat thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\nIf thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;\nAnd I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\nWhere it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThou darest not, coward, live to see that day.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nNow by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nAumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\nIn this appeal as thou art all unjust;\nAnd that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\nTo prove it on thee to the extremest point\nOf mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nAn if I do not, may my hands rot off\nAnd never brandish more revengeful steel\nOver the glittering helmet of my foe!\n\nLord:\nI task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\nAnd spur thee on with full as many lies\nAs may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear\nFrom sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWho sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:\nI have a thousand spirits in one breast,\nTo answer twenty thousand such as you.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nMy Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\nThe very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\n'Tis very true: you were in presence then;\nAnd you can witness with me this is true.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nAs false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nSurrey, thou liest.\n\nDUKE OF SURREY:\nDishonourable boy!\nThat lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,\nThat it shall render vengeance and revenge\nTill thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie\nIn earth as quiet as thy father's skull:\nIn proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nHow fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\nIf I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\nI dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\nAnd spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,\nAnd lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,\nTo tie thee to my strong correction.\nAs I intend to thrive in this new world,\nAumerle is guilty of my true appeal:\nBesides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\nThat thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\nTo execute the noble duke at Calais.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nSome honest Christian trust me with a gage\nThat Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,\nIf he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThese differences shall all rest under gage\nTill Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,\nAnd, though mine enemy, restored again\nTo all his lands and signories: when he's return'd,\nAgainst Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThat honourable day shall ne'er be seen.\nMany a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\nFor Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\nStreaming the ensign of the Christian cross\nAgainst black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:\nAnd toil'd with works of war, retired himself\nTo Italy; and there at Venice gave\nHis body to that pleasant country's earth,\nAnd his pure soul unto his captain Christ,\nUnder whose colours he had fought so long.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhy, bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nAs surely as I live, my lord.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nSweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\nOf good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\nYour differences shall all rest under gage\nTill we assign you to your days of trial.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGreat Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee\nFrom plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul\nAdopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\nTo the possession of thy royal hand:\nAscend his throne, descending now from him;\nAnd long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIn God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nMarry. God forbid!\nWorst in this royal presence may I speak,\nYet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\nWould God that any in this noble presence\nWere enough noble to be upright judge\nOf noble Richard! then true noblesse would\nLearn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\nWhat subject can give sentence on his king?\nAnd who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\nThieves are not judged but they are by to hear,\nAlthough apparent guilt be seen in them;\nAnd shall the figure of God's majesty,\nHis captain, steward, deputy-elect,\nAnointed, crowned, planted many years,\nBe judged by subject and inferior breath,\nAnd he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\nThat in a Christian climate souls refined\nShould show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\nI speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\nStirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king:\nMy Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\nIs a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:\nAnd if you crown him, let me prophesy:\nThe blood of English shall manure the ground,\nAnd future ages groan for this foul act;\nPeace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\nAnd in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\nShall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\nDisorder, horror, fear and mutiny\nShall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\nThe field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\nO, if you raise this house against this house,\nIt will the woefullest division prove\nThat ever fell upon this cursed earth.\nPrevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\nLest child, child's children, cry against you woe!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\nOf capital treason we arrest you here.\nMy Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\nTo keep him safely till his day of trial.\nMay it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nFetch hither Richard, that in common view\nHe may surrender; so we shall proceed\nWithout suspicion.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be his conduct.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nLords, you that here are under our arrest,\nProcure your sureties for your days of answer.\nLittle are we beholding to your love,\nAnd little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAlack, why am I sent for to a king,\nBefore I have shook off the regal thoughts\nWherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\nTo insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs:\nGive sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\nTo this submission. Yet I well remember\nThe favours of these men: were they not mine?\nDid they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me?\nSo Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,\nFound truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none.\nGod save the king! Will no man say amen?\nAm I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.\nGod save the king! although I be not he;\nAnd yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\nTo do what service am I sent for hither?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nTo do that office of thine own good will\nWhich tired majesty did make thee offer,\nThe resignation of thy state and crown\nTo Henry Bolingbroke.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nGive me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;\nHere cousin:\nOn this side my hand, and on that side yours.\nNow is this golden crown like a deep well\nThat owes two buckets, filling one another,\nThe emptier ever dancing in the air,\nThe other down, unseen and full of water:\nThat bucket down and full of tears am I,\nDrinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI thought you had been willing to resign.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMy crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:\nYou may my glories and my state depose,\nBut not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nPart of your cares you give me with your crown.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nYour cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\nMy care is loss of care, by old care done;\nYour care is gain of care, by new care won:\nThe cares I give I have, though given away;\nThey tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAre you contented to resign the crown?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\nTherefore no no, for I resign to thee.\nNow mark me, how I will undo myself;\nI give this heavy weight from off my head\nAnd this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\nThe pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\nWith mine own tears I wash away my balm,\nWith mine own hands I give away my crown,\nWith mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\nWith mine own breath release all duty's rites:\nAll pomp and majesty I do forswear;\nMy manors, rents, revenues I forego;\nMy acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:\nGod pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\nGod keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!\nMake me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,\nAnd thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!\nLong mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\nAnd soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!\nGod save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,\nAnd send him many years of sunshine days!\nWhat more remains?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo more, but that you read\nThese accusations and these grievous crimes\nCommitted by your person and your followers\nAgainst the state and profit of this land;\nThat, by confessing them, the souls of men\nMay deem that you are worthily deposed.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMust I do so? and must I ravel out\nMy weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland,\nIf thy offences were upon record,\nWould it not shame thee in so fair a troop\nTo read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\nThere shouldst thou find one heinous article,\nContaining the deposing of a king\nAnd cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\nMark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven:\nNay, all of you that stand and look upon,\nWhilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\nThough some of you with Pilate wash your hands\nShowing an outward pity; yet you Pilates\nHave here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\nAnd water cannot wash away your sin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nMine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:\nAnd yet salt water blinds them not so much\nBut they can see a sort of traitors here.\nNay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\nI find myself a traitor with the rest;\nFor I have given here my soul's consent\nTo undeck the pompous body of a king;\nMade glory base and sovereignty a slave,\nProud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord,--\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNo lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\nNor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,\nNo, not that name was given me at the font,\nBut 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day,\nThat I have worn so many winters out,\nAnd know not now what name to call myself!\nO that I were a mockery king of snow,\nStanding before the sun of Bolingbroke,\nTo melt myself away in water-drops!\nGood king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\nAn if my word be sterling yet in England,\nLet it command a mirror hither straight,\nThat it may show me what a face I have,\nSince it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nRead o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nFiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nUrge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThe commons will not then be satisfied.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThey shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,\nWhen I do see the very book indeed\nWhere all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\nGive me the glass, and therein will I read.\nNo deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck\nSo many blows upon this face of mine,\nAnd made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,\nLike to my followers in prosperity,\nThou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\nThat every day under his household roof\nDid keep ten thousand men? was this the face\nThat, like the sun, did make beholders wink?\nWas this the face that faced so many follies,\nAnd was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?\nA brittle glory shineth in this face:\nAs brittle as the glory is the face;\nFor there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\nMark, silent king, the moral of this sport,\nHow soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThe shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\nThe shadow or your face.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSay that again.\nThe shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:\n'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;\nAnd these external manners of laments\nAre merely shadows to the unseen grief\nThat swells with silence in the tortured soul;\nThere lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,\nFor thy great bounty, that not only givest\nMe cause to wail but teachest me the way\nHow to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\nAnd then be gone and trouble you no more.\nShall I obtain it?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nName it, fair cousin.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\n'Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king:\nFor when I was a king, my flatterers\nWere then but subjects; being now a subject,\nI have a king here to my flatterer.\nBeing so great, I have no need to beg.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYet ask.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAnd shall I have?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nYou shall.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThen give me leave to go.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhither?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWhither you will, so I were from your sights.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGo, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nO, good! convey? conveyers are you all,\nThat rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOn Wednesday next we solemnly set down\nOur coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.\n\nAbbot:\nA woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n\nBISHOP OF CARLISLE:\nThe woe's to come; the children yet unborn.\nShall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nYou holy clergymen, is there no plot\nTo rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n\nAbbot:\nMy lord,\nBefore I freely speak my mind herein,\nYou shall not only take the sacrament\nTo bury mine intents, but also to effect\nWhatever I shall happen to devise.\nI see your brows are full of discontent,\nYour hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears:\nCome home with me to supper; and I'll lay\nA plot shall show us all a merry day.\n\nQUEEN:\nThis way the king will come; this is the way\nTo Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\nTo whose flint bosom my condemned lord\nIs doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:\nHere let us rest, if this rebellious earth\nHave any resting for her true king's queen.\nBut soft, but see, or rather do not see,\nMy fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,\nThat you in pity may dissolve to dew,\nAnd wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\nAh, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,\nThou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\nAnd not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\nWhy should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee,\nWhen triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nJoin not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\nTo make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,\nTo think our former state a happy dream;\nFrom which awaked, the truth of what we are\nShows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\nTo grim Necessity, and he and I\nWill keep a league till death. Hie thee to France\nAnd cloister thee in some religious house:\nOur holy lives must win a new world's crown,\nWhich our profane hours here have stricken down.\n\nQUEEN:\nWhat, is my Richard both in shape and mind\nTransform'd and weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed\nThine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?\nThe lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,\nAnd wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\nTo be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\nTake thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,\nAnd fawn on rage with base humility,\nWhich art a lion and a king of beasts?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nA king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,\nI had been still a happy king of men.\nGood sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:\nThink I am dead and that even here thou takest,\nAs from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\nIn winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\nWith good old folks and let them tell thee tales\nOf woeful ages long ago betid;\nAnd ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs,\nTell thou the lamentable tale of me\nAnd send the hearers weeping to their beds:\nFor why, the senseless brands will sympathize\nThe heavy accent of thy moving tongue\nAnd in compassion weep the fire out;\nAnd some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\nFor the deposing of a rightful king.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed:\nYou must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\nAnd, madam, there is order ta'en for you;\nWith all swift speed you must away to France.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nNorthumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\nThe mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\nThe time shall not be many hours of age\nMore than it is ere foul sin gathering head\nShalt break into corruption: thou shalt think,\nThough he divide the realm and give thee half,\nIt is too little, helping him to all;\nAnd he shall think that thou, which know'st the way\nTo plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\nBeing ne'er so little urged, another way\nTo pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\nThe love of wicked men converts to fear;\nThat fear to hate, and hate turns one or both\nTo worthy danger and deserved death.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nMy guilt be on my head, and there an end.\nTake leave and part; for you must part forthwith.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nDoubly divorced! Bad men, you violate\nA twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,\nAnd then betwixt me and my married wife.\nLet me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\nAnd yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\nPart us, Northumberland; I toward the north,\nWhere shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\nMy wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp,\nShe came adorned hither like sweet May,\nSent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n\nQUEEN:\nAnd must we be divided? must we part?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nAy, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nBanish us both and send the king with me.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThat were some love but little policy.\n\nQUEEN:\nThen whither he goes, thither let me go.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo two, together weeping, make one woe.\nWeep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\nBetter far off than near, be ne'er the near.\nGo, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n\nQUEEN:\nSo longest way shall have the longest moans.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTwice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\nAnd piece the way out with a heavy heart.\nCome, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\nSince, wedding it, there is such length in grief;\nOne kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\nThus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n\nQUEEN:\nGive me mine own again; 'twere no good part\nTo take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\nSo, now I have mine own again, be gone,\nThat I might strive to kill it with a groan.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nWe make woe wanton with this fond delay:\nOnce more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nMy lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\nWhen weeping made you break the story off,\nof our two cousins coming into London.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhere did I leave?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAt that sad stop, my lord,\nWhere rude misgovern'd hands from windows' tops\nThrew dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThen, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,\nMounted upon a hot and fiery steed\nWhich his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\nWith slow but stately pace kept on his course,\nWhilst all tongues cried 'God save thee,\nBolingbroke!'\nYou would have thought the very windows spake,\nSo many greedy looks of young and old\nThrough casements darted their desiring eyes\nUpon his visage, and that all the walls\nWith painted imagery had said at once\n'Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!'\nWhilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\nBareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\nBespake them thus: 'I thank you, countrymen:'\nAnd thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAlack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAs in a theatre, the eyes of men,\nAfter a well-graced actor leaves the stage,\nAre idly bent on him that enters next,\nThinking his prattle to be tedious;\nEven so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\nDid scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\nNo joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:\nBut dust was thrown upon his sacred head:\nWhich with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\nHis face still combating with tears and smiles,\nThe badges of his grief and patience,\nThat had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\nThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted\nAnd barbarism itself have pitied him.\nBut heaven hath a hand in these events,\nTo whose high will we bound our calm contents.\nTo Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\nWhose state and honour I for aye allow.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHere comes my son Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAumerle that was;\nBut that is lost for being Richard's friend,\nAnd, madam, you must call him Rutland now:\nI am in parliament pledge for his truth\nAnd lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWelcome, my son: who are the violets now\nThat strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMadam, I know not, nor I greatly care not:\nGod knows I had as lief be none as one.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWell, bear you well in this new spring of time,\nLest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\nWhat news from Oxford? hold those justs and triumphs?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor aught I know, my lord, they do.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nYou will be there, I know.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nIf God prevent not, I purpose so.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhat seal is that, that hangs without thy bosom?\nYea, look'st thou pale? let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nMy lord, 'tis nothing.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nNo matter, then, who see it;\nI will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech your grace to pardon me:\nIt is a matter of small consequence,\nWhich for some reasons I would not have seen.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nWhich for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\nI fear, I fear,--\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat should you fear?\n'Tis nothing but some bond, that he is enter'd into\nFor gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBound to himself! what doth he with a bond\nThat he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\nBoy, let me see the writing.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nI do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nI will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\nTreason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nHo! who is within there?\nSaddle my horse.\nGod for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, what is it, my lord?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\nNow, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,\nI will appeach the villain.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeace, foolish woman.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGood mother, be content; it is no more\nThan my poor life must answer.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nThy life answer!\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nBring me my boots: I will unto the king.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nStrike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amazed.\nHence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nGive me my boots, I say.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nWhy, York, what wilt thou do?\nWilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\nHave we more sons? or are we like to have?\nIs not my teeming date drunk up with time?\nAnd wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,\nAnd rob me of a happy mother's name?\nIs he not like thee? is he not thine own?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou fond mad woman,\nWilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\nA dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\nAnd interchangeably set down their hands,\nTo kill the king at Oxford.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHe shall be none;\nWe'll keep him here: then what is that to him?\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAway, fond woman! were he twenty times my son,\nI would appeach him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nHadst thou groan'd for him\nAs I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\nBut now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect\nThat I have been disloyal to thy bed,\nAnd that he is a bastard, not thy son:\nSweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:\nHe is as like thee as a man may be,\nNot like to me, or any of my kin,\nAnd yet I love him.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nMake way, unruly woman!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nAfter, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse;\nSpur post, and get before him to the king,\nAnd beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\nI'll not be long behind; though I be old,\nI doubt not but to ride as fast as York:\nAnd never will I rise up from the ground\nTill Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone!\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCan no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n'Tis full three months since I did see him last;\nIf any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\nI would to God, my lords, he might be found:\nInquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\nFor there, they say, he daily doth frequent,\nWith unrestrained loose companions,\nEven such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,\nAnd beat our watch, and rob our passengers;\nWhich he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\nTakes on the point of honour to support\nSo dissolute a crew.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nMy lord, some two days since I saw the prince,\nAnd told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAnd what said the gallant?\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nHis answer was, he would unto the stews,\nAnd from the common'st creature pluck a glove,\nAnd wear it as a favour; and with that\nHe would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nAs dissolute as desperate; yet through both\nI see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\nMay happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nWhere is the king?\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat means our cousin, that he stares and looks\nSo wildly?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nGod save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,\nTo have some conference with your grace alone.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWithdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\nWhat is the matter with our cousin now?\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nFor ever may my knees grow to the earth,\nMy tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth\nUnless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nIntended or committed was this fault?\nIf on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\nTo win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nThen give me leave that I may turn the key,\nThat no man enter till my tale be done.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nHave thy desire.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nVillain, I'll make thee safe.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nStay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat is the matter, uncle? speak;\nRecover breath; tell us how near is danger,\nThat we may arm us to encounter it.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nPeruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\nThe treason that my haste forbids me show.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nRemember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd:\nI do repent me; read not my name there\nMy heart is not confederate with my hand.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIt was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\nI tore it from the traitor's bosom, king;\nFear, and not love, begets his penitence:\nForget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\nA serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nO heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!\nO loyal father of a treacherous son!\nThou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,\nFrom when this stream through muddy passages\nHath held his current and defiled himself!\nThy overflow of good converts to bad,\nAnd thy abundant goodness shall excuse\nThis deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSo shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\nAnd he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\nAs thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\nMine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\nOr my shamed life in his dishonour lies:\nThou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\nThe traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWhat shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA woman, and thy aunt, great king; 'tis I.\nSpeak with me, pity me, open the door.\nA beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nOur scene is alter'd from a serious thing,\nAnd now changed to 'The Beggar and the King.'\nMy dangerous cousin, let your mother in:\nI know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nIf thou do pardon, whosoever pray,\nMore sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\nThis fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\nThis let alone will all the rest confound.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO king, believe not this hard-hearted man!\nLove loving not itself none other can.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nThou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\nShall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nSweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nRise up, good aunt.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNot yet, I thee beseech:\nFor ever will I walk upon my knees,\nAnd never see day that the happy sees,\nTill thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,\nBy pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n\nDUKE OF AUMERLE:\nUnto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nAgainst them both my true joints bended be.\nIll mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nPleads he in earnest? look upon his face;\nHis eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\nHis words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:\nHe prays but faintly and would be denied;\nWe pray with heart and soul and all beside:\nHis weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\nOur knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:\nHis prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\nOurs of true zeal and deep integrity.\nOur prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\nThat mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nNay, do not say, 'stand up;'\nSay, 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\nAnd if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\nI never long'd to hear a word till now;\nSay 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:\nThe word is short, but not so short as sweet;\nNo word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n\nDUKE OF YORK:\nSpeak it in French, king; say, 'pardonne moi.'\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nDost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\nAh, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\nThat set'st the word itself against the word!\nSpeak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\nThe chopping French we do not understand.\nThine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;\nOr in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;\nThat hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\nPity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nGood aunt, stand up.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nI do not sue to stand;\nPardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nI pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nO happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\nYet am I sick for fear: speak it again;\nTwice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\nBut makes one pardon strong.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWith all my heart\nI pardon him.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nA god on earth thou art.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nBut for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,\nWith all the rest of that consorted crew,\nDestruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\nGood uncle, help to order several powers\nTo Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:\nThey shall not live within this world, I swear,\nBut I will have them, if I once know where.\nUncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:\nYour mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n\nDUCHESS OF YORK:\nCome, my old son: I pray God make thee new.\n\nEXTON:\nDidst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,\n'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\nWas it not so?\n\nServant:\nThese were his very words.\n\nEXTON:\n'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,\nAnd urged it twice together, did he not?\n\nServant:\nHe did.\n\nEXTON:\nAnd speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,\nAnd who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'\nThat would divorce this terror from my heart;'\nMeaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:\nI am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nI have been studying how I may compare\nThis prison where I live unto the world:\nAnd for because the world is populous\nAnd here is not a creature but myself,\nI cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.\nMy brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\nMy soul the father; and these two beget\nA generation of still-breeding thoughts,\nAnd these same thoughts people this little world,\nIn humours like the people of this world,\nFor no thought is contented. The better sort,\nAs thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\nWith scruples and do set the word itself\nAgainst the word:\nAs thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,\n'It is as hard to come as for a camel\nTo thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\nThoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\nUnlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails\nMay tear a passage through the flinty ribs\nOf this hard world, my ragged prison walls,\nAnd, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\nThoughts tending to content flatter themselves\nThat they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\nNor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\nWho sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,\nThat many have and others must sit there;\nAnd in this thought they find a kind of ease,\nBearing their own misfortunes on the back\nOf such as have before endured the like.\nThus play I in one person many people,\nAnd none contented: sometimes am I king;\nThen treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\nAnd so I am: then crushing penury\nPersuades me I was better when a king;\nThen am I king'd again: and by and by\nThink that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\nAnd straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,\nNor I nor any man that but man is\nWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased\nWith being nothing. Music do I hear?\nHa, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,\nWhen time is broke and no proportion kept!\nSo is it in the music of men's lives.\nAnd here have I the daintiness of ear\nTo cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;\nBut for the concord of my state and time\nHad not an ear to hear my true time broke.\nI wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\nFor now hath time made me his numbering clock:\nMy thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\nTheir watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\nWhereto my finger, like a dial's point,\nIs pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\nNow sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\nAre clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,\nWhich is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans\nShow minutes, times, and hours: but my time\nRuns posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\nWhile I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.\nThis music mads me; let it sound no more;\nFor though it have holp madmen to their wits,\nIn me it seems it will make wise men mad.\nYet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\nFor 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\nIs a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\nGroom:\nHail, royal prince!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThanks, noble peer;\nThe cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\nWhat art thou? and how comest thou hither,\nWhere no man never comes but that sad dog\nThat brings me food to make misfortune live?\n\nGroom:\nI was a poor groom of thy stable, king,\nWhen thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\nWith much ado at length have gotten leave\nTo look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\nO, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld\nIn London streets, that coronation-day,\nWhen Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,\nThat horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\nThat horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nRode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\nHow went he under him?\n\nGroom:\nSo proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nSo proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\nThat jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\nThis hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\nWould he not stumble? would he not fall down,\nSince pride must have a fall, and break the neck\nOf that proud man that did usurp his back?\nForgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,\nSince thou, created to be awed by man,\nWast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\nAnd yet I bear a burthen like an ass,\nSpurr'd, gall'd and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.\n\nKeeper:\nFellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nIf thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n\nGroom:\nWhat my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, will't please you to fall to?\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nTaste of it first, as thou art wont to do.\n\nKeeper:\nMy lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Exton, who\nlately came from the king, commands the contrary.\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nThe devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\nPatience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n\nKeeper:\nHelp, help, help!\n\nKING RICHARD II:\nHow now! what means death in this rude assault?\nVillain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\nGo thou, and fill another room in hell.\nThat hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\nThat staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\nHath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.\nMount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\nWhilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n\nEXTON:\nAs full of valour as of royal blood:\nBoth have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!\nFor now the devil, that told me I did well,\nSays that this deed is chronicled in hell.\nThis dead king to the living king I'll bear\nTake hence the rest, and give them burial here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nKind uncle York, the latest news we hear\nIs that the rebels have consumed with fire\nOur town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;\nBut whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\nWelcome, my lord what is the news?\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nFirst, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\nThe next news is, I have to London sent\nThe heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent:\nThe manner of their taking may appear\nAt large discoursed in this paper here.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nWe thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\nAnd to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\nLORD FITZWATER:\nMy lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\nThe heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,\nTwo of the dangerous consorted traitors\nThat sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\nRight noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\nHENRY PERCY:\nThe grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\nWith clog of conscience and sour melancholy\nHath yielded up his body to the grave;\nBut here is Carlisle living, to abide\nThy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nCarlisle, this is your doom:\nChoose out some secret place, some reverend room,\nMore than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\nSo as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:\nFor though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\nHigh sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\nEXTON:\nGreat king, within this coffin I present\nThy buried fear: herein all breathless lies\nThe mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\nRichard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nExton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\nA deed of slander with thy fatal hand\nUpon my head and all this famous land.\n\nEXTON:\nFrom your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n\nHENRY BOLINGBROKE:\nThey love not poison that do poison need,\nNor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,\nI hate the murderer, love him murdered.\nThe guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\nBut neither my good word nor princely favour:\nWith Cain go wander through shades of night,\nAnd never show thy head by day nor light.\nLords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,\nThat blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:\nCome, mourn with me for that I do lament,\nAnd put on sullen black incontinent:\nI'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\nTo wash this blood off from my guilty hand:\nMarch sadly after; grace my mournings here;\nIn weeping after this untimely bier.\n\n\nSAMPSON:\nGregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, for then we should be colliers.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n\nGREGORY:\nAy, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.\n\nSAMPSON:\nI strike quickly, being moved.\n\nGREGORY:\nBut thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n\nGREGORY:\nTo move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:\ntherefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n\nSAMPSON:\nA dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will\ntake the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n\nGREGORY:\nThat shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes\nto the wall.\n\nSAMPSON:\nTrue; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\nare ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push\nMontague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids\nto the wall.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n\nSAMPSON:\n'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I\nhave fought with the men, I will be cruel with the\nmaids, and cut off their heads.\n\nGREGORY:\nThe heads of the maids?\n\nSAMPSON:\nAy, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;\ntake it in what sense thou wilt.\n\nGREGORY:\nThey must take it in sense that feel it.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMe they shall feel while I am able to stand: and\n'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.\n\nGREGORY:\n'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou\nhadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes\ntwo of the house of the Montagues.\n\nSAMPSON:\nMy naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.\n\nGREGORY:\nHow! turn thy back and run?\n\nSAMPSON:\nFear me not.\n\nGREGORY:\nNo, marry; I fear thee!\n\nSAMPSON:\nLet us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n\nGREGORY:\nI will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as\nthey list.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;\nwhich is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\nI do bite my thumb, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\nSAMPSON:\n\nGREGORY:\nNo.\n\nSAMPSON:\nNo, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I\nbite my thumb, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nDo you quarrel, sir?\n\nABRAHAM:\nQuarrel sir! no, sir.\n\nSAMPSON:\nIf you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.\n\nABRAHAM:\nNo better.\n\nSAMPSON:\nWell, sir.\n\nGREGORY:\nSay 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.\n\nSAMPSON:\nYes, better, sir.\n\nABRAHAM:\nYou lie.\n\nSAMPSON:\nDraw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nPart, fools!\nPut up your swords; you know not what you do.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\nTurn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,\nOr manage it to part these men with me.\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,\nAs I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:\nHave at thee, coward!\n\nFirst Citizen:\nClubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!\nDown with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?\n\nCAPULET:\nMy sword, I say! Old Montague is come,\nAnd flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nThou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.\n\nPRINCE:\nRebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\nProfaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--\nWill they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\nThat quench the fire of your pernicious rage\nWith purple fountains issuing from your veins,\nOn pain of torture, from those bloody hands\nThrow your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,\nAnd hear the sentence of your moved prince.\nThree civil brawls, bred of an airy word,\nBy thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\nHave thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,\nAnd made Verona's ancient citizens\nCast by their grave beseeming ornaments,\nTo wield old partisans, in hands as old,\nCanker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:\nIf ever you disturb our streets again,\nYour lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\nFor this time, all the rest depart away:\nYou Capulet; shall go along with me:\nAnd, Montague, come you this afternoon,\nTo know our further pleasure in this case,\nTo old Free-town, our common judgment-place.\nOnce more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWho set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\nSpeak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere were the servants of your adversary,\nAnd yours, close fighting ere I did approach:\nI drew to part them: in the instant came\nThe fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,\nWhich, as he breathed defiance to my ears,\nHe swung about his head and cut the winds,\nWho nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:\nWhile we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\nCame more and more and fought on part and part,\nTill the prince came, who parted either part.\n\nLADY MONTAGUE:\nO, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?\nRight glad I am he was not at this fray.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMadam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\nPeer'd forth the golden window of the east,\nA troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\nWhere, underneath the grove of sycamore\nThat westward rooteth from the city's side,\nSo early walking did I see your son:\nTowards him I made, but he was ware of me\nAnd stole into the covert of the wood:\nI, measuring his affections by my own,\nThat most are busied when they're most alone,\nPursued my humour not pursuing his,\nAnd gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMany a morning hath he there been seen,\nWith tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.\nAdding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\nBut all so soon as the all-cheering sun\nShould in the furthest east begin to draw\nThe shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\nAway from the light steals home my heavy son,\nAnd private in his chamber pens himself,\nShuts up his windows, locks far daylight out\nAnd makes himself an artificial night:\nBlack and portentous must this humour prove,\nUnless good counsel may the cause remove.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nMy noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI neither know it nor can learn of him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHave you importuned him by any means?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBoth by myself and many other friends:\nBut he, his own affections' counsellor,\nIs to himself--I will not say how true--\nBut to himself so secret and so close,\nSo far from sounding and discovery,\nAs is the bud bit with an envious worm,\nEre he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,\nOr dedicate his beauty to the sun.\nCould we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.\nWe would as willingly give cure as know.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSee, where he comes: so please you, step aside;\nI'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nI would thou wert so happy by thy stay,\nTo hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGood-morrow, cousin.\n\nROMEO:\nIs the day so young?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBut new struck nine.\n\nROMEO:\nAy me! sad hours seem long.\nWas that my father that went hence so fast?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIt was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n\nROMEO:\nNot having that, which, having, makes them short.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nIn love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut--\n\nBENVOLIO:\nOf love?\n\nROMEO:\nOut of her favour, where I am in love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAlas, that love, so gentle in his view,\nShould be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n\nROMEO:\nAlas, that love, whose view is muffled still,\nShould, without eyes, see pathways to his will!\nWhere shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\nYet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\nHere's much to do with hate, but more with love.\nWhy, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\nO any thing, of nothing first create!\nO heavy lightness! serious vanity!\nMis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\nFeather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,\nsick health!\nStill-waking sleep, that is not what it is!\nThis love feel I, that feel no love in this.\nDost thou not laugh?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNo, coz, I rather weep.\n\nROMEO:\nGood heart, at what?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt thy good heart's oppression.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, such is love's transgression.\nGriefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\nWhich thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\nWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shown\nDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.\nLove is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;\nBeing purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\nBeing vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:\nWhat is it else? a madness most discreet,\nA choking gall and a preserving sweet.\nFarewell, my coz.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nSoft! I will go along;\nAn if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n\nROMEO:\nTut, I have lost myself; I am not here;\nThis is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTell me in sadness, who is that you love.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall I groan and tell thee?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGroan! why, no.\nBut sadly tell me who.\n\nROMEO:\nBid a sick man in sadness make his will:\nAh, word ill urged to one that is so ill!\nIn sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.\n\nROMEO:\nA right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nA right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit\nWith Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;\nAnd, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\nFrom love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\nShe will not stay the siege of loving terms,\nNor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,\nNor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:\nO, she is rich in beauty, only poor,\nThat when she dies with beauty dies her store.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThen she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n\nROMEO:\nShe hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,\nFor beauty starved with her severity\nCuts beauty off from all posterity.\nShe is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\nTo merit bliss by making me despair:\nShe hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\nDo I live dead that live to tell it now.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBe ruled by me, forget to think of her.\n\nROMEO:\nO, teach me how I should forget to think.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy giving liberty unto thine eyes;\nExamine other beauties.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis the way\nTo call hers exquisite, in question more:\nThese happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows\nBeing black put us in mind they hide the fair;\nHe that is strucken blind cannot forget\nThe precious treasure of his eyesight lost:\nShow me a mistress that is passing fair,\nWhat doth her beauty serve, but as a note\nWhere I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\nFarewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.\n\nCAPULET:\nBut Montague is bound as well as I,\nIn penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\nFor men so old as we to keep the peace.\n\nPARIS:\nOf honourable reckoning are you both;\nAnd pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.\nBut now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n\nCAPULET:\nBut saying o'er what I have said before:\nMy child is yet a stranger in the world;\nShe hath not seen the change of fourteen years,\nLet two more summers wither in their pride,\nEre we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n\nPARIS:\nYounger than she are happy mothers made.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd too soon marr'd are those so early made.\nThe earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,\nShe is the hopeful lady of my earth:\nBut woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,\nMy will to her consent is but a part;\nAn she agree, within her scope of choice\nLies my consent and fair according voice.\nThis night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\nWhereto I have invited many a guest,\nSuch as I love; and you, among the store,\nOne more, most welcome, makes my number more.\nAt my poor house look to behold this night\nEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:\nSuch comfort as do lusty young men feel\nWhen well-apparell'd April on the heel\nOf limping winter treads, even such delight\nAmong fresh female buds shall you this night\nInherit at my house; hear all, all see,\nAnd like her most whose merit most shall be:\nWhich on more view, of many mine being one\nMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,\nCome, go with me.\nGo, sirrah, trudge about\nThrough fair Verona; find those persons out\nWhose names are written there, and to them say,\nMy house and welcome on their pleasure stay.\n\nServant:\nFind them out whose names are written here! It is\nwritten, that the shoemaker should meddle with his\nyard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with\nhis pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am\nsent to find those persons whose names are here\nwrit, and can never find what names the writing\nperson hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,\nOne pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\nTurn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\nOne desperate grief cures with another's languish:\nTake thou some new infection to thy eye,\nAnd the rank poison of the old will die.\n\nROMEO:\nYour plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nFor what, I pray thee?\n\nROMEO:\nFor your broken shin.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, Romeo, art thou mad?\n\nROMEO:\nNot mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;\nShut up in prison, kept without my food,\nWhipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.\n\nServant:\nGod gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, mine own fortune in my misery.\n\nServant:\nPerhaps you have learned it without book: but, I\npray, can you read any thing you see?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, if I know the letters and the language.\n\nServant:\nYe say honestly: rest you merry!\n\nROMEO:\nStay, fellow; I can read.\n'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\nCounty Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady\nwidow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely\nnieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine\nuncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece\nRosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin\nTybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair\nassembly: whither should they come?\n\nServant:\nUp.\n\nROMEO:\nWhither?\n\nServant:\nTo supper; to our house.\n\nROMEO:\nWhose house?\n\nServant:\nMy master's.\n\nROMEO:\nIndeed, I should have ask'd you that before.\n\nServant:\nNow I'll tell you without asking: my master is the\ngreat rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house\nof Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.\nRest you merry!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAt this same ancient feast of Capulet's\nSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,\nWith all the admired beauties of Verona:\nGo thither; and, with unattainted eye,\nCompare her face with some that I shall show,\nAnd I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n\nROMEO:\nWhen the devout religion of mine eye\nMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\nAnd these, who often drown'd could never die,\nTransparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\nOne fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun\nNe'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTut, you saw her fair, none else being by,\nHerself poised with herself in either eye:\nBut in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\nYour lady's love against some other maid\nThat I will show you shining at this feast,\nAnd she shall scant show well that now shows best.\n\nROMEO:\nI'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\nBut to rejoice in splendor of mine own.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.\n\nNurse:\nNow, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,\nI bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!\nGod forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nHow now! who calls?\n\nNurse:\nYour mother.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am here.\nWhat is your will?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThis is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,\nWe must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;\nI have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.\nThou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nShe's not fourteen.\n\nNurse:\nI'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--\nAnd yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--\nShe is not fourteen. How long is it now\nTo Lammas-tide?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nA fortnight and odd days.\n\nNurse:\nEven or odd, of all days in the year,\nCome Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.\nSusan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--\nWere of an age: well, Susan is with God;\nShe was too good for me: but, as I said,\nOn Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;\nThat shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\nAnd she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--\nOf all the days of the year, upon that day:\nFor I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\nSitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;\nMy lord and you were then at Mantua:--\nNay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,\nWhen it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\nOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\nTo see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\nShake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,\nTo bid me trudge:\nAnd since that time it is eleven years;\nFor then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,\nShe could have run and waddled all about;\nFor even the day before, she broke her brow:\nAnd then my husband--God be with his soul!\nA' was a merry man--took up the child:\n'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,\nThe pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'\nTo see, now, how a jest shall come about!\nI warrant, an I should live a thousand years,\nI never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;\nAnd, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEnough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.\n\nNurse:\nYes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,\nTo think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\nAnd yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow\nA bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;\nA parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:\n'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'\n\nJULIET:\nAnd stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n\nNurse:\nPeace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\nThou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:\nAn I might live to see thee married once,\nI have my wish.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, that 'marry' is the very theme\nI came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\nHow stands your disposition to be married?\n\nJULIET:\nIt is an honour that I dream not of.\n\nNurse:\nAn honour! were not I thine only nurse,\nI would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, think of marriage now; younger than you,\nHere in Verona, ladies of esteem,\nAre made already mothers: by my count,\nI was your mother much upon these years\nThat you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\nThe valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n\nNurse:\nA man, young lady! lady, such a man\nAs all the world--why, he's a man of wax.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nVerona's summer hath not such a flower.\n\nNurse:\nNay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat say you? can you love the gentleman?\nThis night you shall behold him at our feast;\nRead o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\nAnd find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\nExamine every married lineament,\nAnd see how one another lends content\nAnd what obscured in this fair volume lies\nFind written in the margent of his eyes.\nThis precious book of love, this unbound lover,\nTo beautify him, only lacks a cover:\nThe fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\nFor fair without the fair within to hide:\nThat book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\nThat in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\nSo shall you share all that he doth possess,\nBy having him, making yourself no less.\n\nNurse:\nNo less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSpeak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n\nJULIET:\nI'll look to like, if looking liking move:\nBut no more deep will I endart mine eye\nThan your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\nServant:\nMadam, the guests are come, supper served up, you\ncalled, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in\nthe pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must\nhence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe follow thee.\nJuliet, the county stays.\n\nNurse:\nGo, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\nOr shall we on without a apology?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe date is out of such prolixity:\nWe'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\nBearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\nScaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;\nNor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\nAfter the prompter, for our entrance:\nBut let them measure us by what they will;\nWe'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me a torch: I am not for this ambling;\nBeing but heavy, I will bear the light.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I, believe me: you have dancing shoes\nWith nimble soles: I have a soul of lead\nSo stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYou are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,\nAnd soar with them above a common bound.\n\nROMEO:\nI am too sore enpierced with his shaft\nTo soar with his light feathers, and so bound,\nI cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:\nUnder love's heavy burden do I sink.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd, to sink in it, should you burden love;\nToo great oppression for a tender thing.\n\nROMEO:\nIs love a tender thing? it is too rough,\nToo rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be rough with you, be rough with love;\nPrick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\nGive me a case to put my visage in:\nA visor for a visor! what care I\nWhat curious eye doth quote deformities?\nHere are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, knock and enter; and no sooner in,\nBut every man betake him to his legs.\n\nROMEO:\nA torch for me: let wantons light of heart\nTickle the senseless rushes with their heels,\nFor I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;\nI'll be a candle-holder, and look on.\nThe game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:\nIf thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\nOf this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\nUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n\nROMEO:\nNay, that's not so.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI mean, sir, in delay\nWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\nTake our good meaning, for our judgment sits\nFive times in that ere once in our five wits.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd we mean well in going to this mask;\nBut 'tis no wit to go.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, may one ask?\n\nROMEO:\nI dream'd a dream to-night.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd so did I.\n\nROMEO:\nWell, what was yours?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat dreamers often lie.\n\nROMEO:\nIn bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\nShe is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\nIn shape no bigger than an agate-stone\nOn the fore-finger of an alderman,\nDrawn with a team of little atomies\nAthwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\nHer wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,\nThe cover of the wings of grasshoppers,\nThe traces of the smallest spider's web,\nThe collars of the moonshine's watery beams,\nHer whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,\nHer wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,\nNot so big as a round little worm\nPrick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\nHer chariot is an empty hazel-nut\nMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\nTime out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\nAnd in this state she gallops night by night\nThrough lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\nO'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,\nO'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,\nO'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\nWhich oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\nBecause their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:\nSometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\nAnd then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\nAnd sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\nTickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,\nThen dreams, he of another benefice:\nSometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\nAnd then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\nOf breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\nOf healths five-fathom deep; and then anon\nDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\nAnd being thus frighted swears a prayer or two\nAnd sleeps again. This is that very Mab\nThat plats the manes of horses in the night,\nAnd bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,\nWhich once untangled, much misfortune bodes:\nThis is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\nThat presses them and learns them first to bear,\nMaking them women of good carriage:\nThis is she--\n\nROMEO:\nPeace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\nThou talk'st of nothing.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nTrue, I talk of dreams,\nWhich are the children of an idle brain,\nBegot of nothing but vain fantasy,\nWhich is as thin of substance as the air\nAnd more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\nEven now the frozen bosom of the north,\nAnd, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\nTurning his face to the dew-dropping south.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThis wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;\nSupper is done, and we shall come too late.\n\nROMEO:\nI fear, too early: for my mind misgives\nSome consequence yet hanging in the stars\nShall bitterly begin his fearful date\nWith this night's revels and expire the term\nOf a despised life closed in my breast\nBy some vile forfeit of untimely death.\nBut He, that hath the steerage of my course,\nDirect my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStrike, drum.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWhere's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He\nshift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!\n\nSecond Servant:\nWhen good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\nhands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAway with the joint-stools, remove the\ncourt-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save\nme a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let\nthe porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\nAntony, and Potpan!\n\nSecond Servant:\nAy, boy, ready.\n\nFirst Servant:\nYou are looked for and called for, asked for and\nsought for, in the great chamber.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWe cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be\nbrisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.\n\nCAPULET:\nWelcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes\nUnplagued with corns will have a bout with you.\nAh ha, my mistresses! which of you all\nWill now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,\nShe, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?\nWelcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\nThat I have worn a visor and could tell\nA whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\nSuch as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:\nYou are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.\nA hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\nMore light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,\nAnd quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\nAh, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\nNay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;\nFor you and I are past our dancing days:\nHow long is't now since last yourself and I\nWere in a mask?\n\nSecond Capulet:\nBy'r lady, thirty years.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:\n'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,\nCome pentecost as quickly as it will,\nSome five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.\n\nSecond Capulet:\n'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;\nHis son is thirty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWill you tell me that?\nHis son was but a ward two years ago.\n\nROMEO:\n\nServant:\nI know not, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nO, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\nIt seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\nLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;\nBeauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\nSo shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,\nAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\nThe measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,\nAnd, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\nDid my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!\nFor I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n\nTYBALT:\nThis, by his voice, should be a Montague.\nFetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave\nCome hither, cover'd with an antic face,\nTo fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\nNow, by the stock and honour of my kin,\nTo strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?\n\nTYBALT:\nUncle, this is a Montague, our foe,\nA villain that is hither come in spite,\nTo scorn at our solemnity this night.\n\nCAPULET:\nYoung Romeo is it?\n\nTYBALT:\n'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n\nCAPULET:\nContent thee, gentle coz, let him alone;\nHe bears him like a portly gentleman;\nAnd, to say truth, Verona brags of him\nTo be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:\nI would not for the wealth of all the town\nHere in my house do him disparagement:\nTherefore be patient, take no note of him:\nIt is my will, the which if thou respect,\nShow a fair presence and put off these frowns,\nAnd ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n\nTYBALT:\nIt fits, when such a villain is a guest:\nI'll not endure him.\n\nCAPULET:\nHe shall be endured:\nWhat, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;\nAm I the master here, or you? go to.\nYou'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!\nYou'll make a mutiny among my guests!\nYou will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n\nTYBALT:\nWhy, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo to, go to;\nYou are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?\nThis trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:\nYou must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.\nWell said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:\nBe quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!\nI'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!\n\nTYBALT:\nPatience perforce with wilful choler meeting\nMakes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\nI will withdraw: but this intrusion shall\nNow seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\nGood pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this;\nFor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n\nROMEO:\nHave not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n\nJULIET:\nAy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.\n\nROMEO:\nO, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;\nThey pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n\nJULIET:\nSaints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n\nROMEO:\nThen move not, while my prayer's effect I take.\nThus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.\n\nJULIET:\nThen have my lips the sin that they have took.\n\nROMEO:\nSin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!\nGive me my sin again.\n\nJULIET:\nYou kiss by the book.\n\nNurse:\nMadam, your mother craves a word with you.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat is her mother?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, bachelor,\nHer mother is the lady of the house,\nAnd a good lady, and a wise and virtuous\nI nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;\nI tell you, he that can lay hold of her\nShall have the chinks.\n\nROMEO:\nIs she a Capulet?\nO dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAway, begone; the sport is at the best.\n\nROMEO:\nAy, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n\nCAPULET:\nNay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\nWe have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\nIs it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all\nI thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.\nMore torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.\nAh, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:\nI'll to my rest.\n\nJULIET:\nCome hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n\nNurse:\nThe son and heir of old Tiberio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that now is going out of door?\n\nNurse:\nMarry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n\nNurse:\nI know not.\n\nJULIET:\nGo ask his name: if he be married.\nMy grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n\nNurse:\nHis name is Romeo, and a Montague;\nThe only son of your great enemy.\n\nJULIET:\nMy only love sprung from my only hate!\nToo early seen unknown, and known too late!\nProdigious birth of love it is to me,\nThat I must love a loathed enemy.\n\nNurse:\nWhat's this? what's this?\n\nJULIET:\nA rhyme I learn'd even now\nOf one I danced withal.\n\nNurse:\nAnon, anon!\nCome, let's away; the strangers all are gone.\n\nChorus:\nNow old desire doth in his death-bed lie,\nAnd young affection gapes to be his heir;\nThat fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\nWith tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\nNow Romeo is beloved and loves again,\nAlike betwitched by the charm of looks,\nBut to his foe supposed he must complain,\nAnd she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:\nBeing held a foe, he may not have access\nTo breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;\nAnd she as much in love, her means much less\nTo meet her new-beloved any where:\nBut passion lends them power, time means, to meet\nTempering extremities with extreme sweet.\n\nROMEO:\nCan I go forward when my heart is here?\nTurn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo! my cousin Romeo!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHe is wise;\nAnd, on my lie, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHe ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:\nCall, good Mercutio.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I'll conjure too.\nRomeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\nAppear thou in the likeness of a sigh:\nSpeak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;\nCry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'\nSpeak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\nOne nick-name for her purblind son and heir,\nYoung Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,\nWhen King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!\nHe heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;\nThe ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\nI conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,\nBy her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\nBy her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh\nAnd the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\nThat in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThis cannot anger him: 'twould anger him\nTo raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\nOf some strange nature, letting it there stand\nTill she had laid it and conjured it down;\nThat were some spite: my invocation\nIs fair and honest, and in his mistress' name\nI conjure only but to raise up him.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nCome, he hath hid himself among these trees,\nTo be consorted with the humorous night:\nBlind is his love and best befits the dark.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nIf love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\nNow will he sit under a medlar tree,\nAnd wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\nAs maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.\nRomeo, that she were, O, that she were\nAn open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!\nRomeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;\nThis field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:\nCome, shall we go?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nGo, then; for 'tis in vain\nTo seek him here that means not to be found.\n\nROMEO:\nHe jests at scars that never felt a wound.\nBut, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?\nIt is the east, and Juliet is the sun.\nArise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\nWho is already sick and pale with grief,\nThat thou her maid art far more fair than she:\nBe not her maid, since she is envious;\nHer vestal livery is but sick and green\nAnd none but fools do wear it; cast it off.\nIt is my lady, O, it is my love!\nO, that she knew she were!\nShe speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?\nHer eye discourses; I will answer it.\nI am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:\nTwo of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\nHaving some business, do entreat her eyes\nTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.\nWhat if her eyes were there, they in her head?\nThe brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,\nAs daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\nWould through the airy region stream so bright\nThat birds would sing and think it were not night.\nSee, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\nO, that I were a glove upon that hand,\nThat I might touch that cheek!\n\nJULIET:\nAy me!\n\nROMEO:\nShe speaks:\nO, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\nAs glorious to this night, being o'er my head\nAs is a winged messenger of heaven\nUnto the white-upturned wondering eyes\nOf mortals that fall back to gaze on him\nWhen he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\nAnd sails upon the bosom of the air.\n\nJULIET:\nO Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\nDeny thy father and refuse thy name;\nOr, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\nAnd I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n\nROMEO:\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;\nThou art thyself, though not a Montague.\nWhat's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\nNor arm, nor face, nor any other part\nBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!\nWhat's in a name? that which we call a rose\nBy any other name would smell as sweet;\nSo Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\nRetain that dear perfection which he owes\nWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,\nAnd for that name which is no part of thee\nTake all myself.\n\nROMEO:\nI take thee at thy word:\nCall me but love, and I'll be new baptized;\nHenceforth I never will be Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night\nSo stumblest on my counsel?\n\nROMEO:\nBy a name\nI know not how to tell thee who I am:\nMy name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\nBecause it is an enemy to thee;\nHad I it written, I would tear the word.\n\nJULIET:\nMy ears have not yet drunk a hundred words\nOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:\nArt thou not Romeo and a Montague?\n\nROMEO:\nNeither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n\nJULIET:\nHow camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\nThe orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\nAnd the place death, considering who thou art,\nIf any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nWith love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;\nFor stony limits cannot hold love out,\nAnd what love can do that dares love attempt;\nTherefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf they do see thee, they will murder thee.\n\nROMEO:\nAlack, there lies more peril in thine eye\nThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,\nAnd I am proof against their enmity.\n\nJULIET:\nI would not for the world they saw thee here.\n\nROMEO:\nI have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\nAnd but thou love me, let them find me here:\nMy life were better ended by their hate,\nThan death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n\nJULIET:\nBy whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n\nROMEO:\nBy love, who first did prompt me to inquire;\nHe lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.\nI am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\nAs that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\nI would adventure for such merchandise.\n\nJULIET:\nThou know'st the mask of night is on my face,\nElse would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\nFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night\nFain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny\nWhat I have spoke: but farewell compliment!\nDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'\nAnd I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,\nThou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries\nThen say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\nIf thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:\nOr if thou think'st I am too quickly won,\nI'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,\nSo thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\nIn truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\nAnd therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:\nBut trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\nThan those that have more cunning to be strange.\nI should have been more strange, I must confess,\nBut that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\nMy true love's passion: therefore pardon me,\nAnd not impute this yielding to light love,\nWhich the dark night hath so discovered.\n\nROMEO:\nLady, by yonder blessed moon I swear\nThat tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--\n\nJULIET:\nO, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,\nThat monthly changes in her circled orb,\nLest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat shall I swear by?\n\nJULIET:\nDo not swear at all;\nOr, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\nWhich is the god of my idolatry,\nAnd I'll believe thee.\n\nROMEO:\nIf my heart's dear love--\n\nJULIET:\nWell, do not swear: although I joy in thee,\nI have no joy of this contract to-night:\nIt is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\nToo like the lightning, which doth cease to be\nEre one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\nThis bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\nMay prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.\nGood night, good night! as sweet repose and rest\nCome to thy heart as that within my breast!\n\nROMEO:\nO, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n\nJULIET:\nWhat satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n\nROMEO:\nThe exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n\nJULIET:\nI gave thee mine before thou didst request it:\nAnd yet I would it were to give again.\n\nROMEO:\nWouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?\n\nJULIET:\nBut to be frank, and give it thee again.\nAnd yet I wish but for the thing I have:\nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea,\nMy love as deep; the more I give to thee,\nThe more I have, for both are infinite.\nI hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!\nAnon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\nStay but a little, I will come again.\n\nROMEO:\nO blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.\nBeing in night, all this is but a dream,\nToo flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\nJULIET:\nThree words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\nIf that thy bent of love be honourable,\nThy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\nBy one that I'll procure to come to thee,\nWhere and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\nAnd all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\nAnd follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nI come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well,\nI do beseech thee--\n\nNurse:\n\nJULIET:\nBy and by, I come:--\nTo cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:\nTo-morrow will I send.\n\nROMEO:\nSo thrive my soul--\n\nJULIET:\nA thousand times good night!\n\nROMEO:\nA thousand times the worse, to want thy light.\nLove goes toward love, as schoolboys from\ntheir books,\nBut love from love, toward school with heavy looks.\n\nJULIET:\nHist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,\nTo lure this tassel-gentle back again!\nBondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;\nElse would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\nAnd make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,\nWith repetition of my Romeo's name.\n\nROMEO:\nIt is my soul that calls upon my name:\nHow silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\nLike softest music to attending ears!\n\nJULIET:\nRomeo!\n\nROMEO:\nMy dear?\n\nJULIET:\nAt what o'clock to-morrow\nShall I send to thee?\n\nROMEO:\nAt the hour of nine.\n\nJULIET:\nI will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.\nI have forgot why I did call thee back.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me stand here till thou remember it.\n\nJULIET:\nI shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\nRemembering how I love thy company.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\nForgetting any other home but this.\n\nJULIET:\n'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:\nAnd yet no further than a wanton's bird;\nWho lets it hop a little from her hand,\nLike a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\nAnd with a silk thread plucks it back again,\nSo loving-jealous of his liberty.\n\nROMEO:\nI would I were thy bird.\n\nJULIET:\nSweet, so would I:\nYet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\nGood night, good night! parting is such\nsweet sorrow,\nThat I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n\nROMEO:\nSleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\nWould I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\nHence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\nHis help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThe grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,\nChequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,\nAnd flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\nFrom forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:\nNow, ere the sun advance his burning eye,\nThe day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\nI must up-fill this osier cage of ours\nWith baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\nThe earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;\nWhat is her burying grave that is her womb,\nAnd from her womb children of divers kind\nWe sucking on her natural bosom find,\nMany for many virtues excellent,\nNone but for some and yet all different.\nO, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\nIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:\nFor nought so vile that on the earth doth live\nBut to the earth some special good doth give,\nNor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use\nRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:\nVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;\nAnd vice sometimes by action dignified.\nWithin the infant rind of this small flower\nPoison hath residence and medicine power:\nFor this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\nBeing tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\nTwo such opposed kings encamp them still\nIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;\nAnd where the worser is predominant,\nFull soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow, father.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBenedicite!\nWhat early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\nYoung son, it argues a distemper'd head\nSo soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:\nCare keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\nAnd where care lodges, sleep will never lie;\nBut where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\nDoth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:\nTherefore thy earliness doth me assure\nThou art up-roused by some distemperature;\nOr if not so, then here I hit it right,\nOur Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n\nROMEO:\nThat last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGod pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?\n\nROMEO:\nWith Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;\nI have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?\n\nROMEO:\nI'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.\nI have been feasting with mine enemy,\nWhere on a sudden one hath wounded me,\nThat's by me wounded: both our remedies\nWithin thy help and holy physic lies:\nI bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\nMy intercession likewise steads my foe.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBe plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;\nRiddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n\nROMEO:\nThen plainly know my heart's dear love is set\nOn the fair daughter of rich Capulet:\nAs mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;\nAnd all combined, save what thou must combine\nBy holy marriage: when and where and how\nWe met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,\nI'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\nThat thou consent to marry us to-day.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHoly Saint Francis, what a change is here!\nIs Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,\nSo soon forsaken? young men's love then lies\nNot truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\nJesu Maria, what a deal of brine\nHath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\nHow much salt water thrown away in waste,\nTo season love, that of it doth not taste!\nThe sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\nThy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;\nLo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\nOf an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:\nIf e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,\nThou and these woes were all for Rosaline:\nAnd art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,\nWomen may fall, when there's no strength in men.\n\nROMEO:\nThou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nFor doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd bad'st me bury love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNot in a grave,\nTo lay one in, another out to have.\n\nROMEO:\nI pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now\nDoth grace for grace and love for love allow;\nThe other did not so.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, she knew well\nThy love did read by rote and could not spell.\nBut come, young waverer, come, go with me,\nIn one respect I'll thy assistant be;\nFor this alliance may so happy prove,\nTo turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n\nROMEO:\nO, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhere the devil should this Romeo be?\nCame he not home to-night?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNot to his father's; I spoke with his man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAh, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.\nTorments him so, that he will sure run mad.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,\nHath sent a letter to his father's house.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA challenge, on my life.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo will answer it.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAny man that can write may answer a letter.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nNay, he will answer the letter's master, how he\ndares, being dared.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAlas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a\nwhite wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a\nlove-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the\nblind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to\nencounter Tybalt?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy, what is Tybalt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMore than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is\nthe courageous captain of compliments. He fights as\nyou sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and\nproportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and\nthe third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk\nbutton, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the\nvery first house, of the first and second cause:\nah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the\nhai!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThe what?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe pox of such antic, lisping, affecting\nfantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,\na very good blade! a very tall man! a very good\nwhore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\ngrandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with\nthese strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these\nperdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,\nthat they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their\nbones, their bones!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWithout his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,\nhow art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers\nthat Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a\nkitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to\nbe-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;\nHelen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey\neye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior\nRomeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation\nto your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\nfairly last night.\n\nROMEO:\nGood morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?\n\nROMEO:\nPardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in\nsuch a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThat's as much as to say, such a case as yours\nconstrains a man to bow in the hams.\n\nROMEO:\nMeaning, to court'sy.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou hast most kindly hit it.\n\nROMEO:\nA most courteous exposition.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n\nROMEO:\nPink for flower.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nRight.\n\nROMEO:\nWhy, then is my pump well flowered.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWell said: follow me this jest now till thou hast\nworn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it\nis worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.\n\nROMEO:\nO single-soled jest, solely singular for the\nsingleness.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.\n\nROMEO:\nSwitch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have\ndone, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of\nthy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:\nwas I with you there for the goose?\n\nROMEO:\nThou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast\nnot there for the goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\nROMEO:\nNay, good goose, bite not.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most\nsharp sauce.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd is it not well served in to a sweet goose?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an\ninch narrow to an ell broad!\n\nROMEO:\nI stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added\nto the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nWhy, is not this better now than groaning for love?\nnow art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art\nthou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:\nfor this drivelling love is like a great natural,\nthat runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nStop there, stop there.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:\nfor I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and\nmeant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.\n\nROMEO:\nHere's goodly gear!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA sail, a sail!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTwo, two; a shirt and a smock.\n\nNurse:\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nMy fan, Peter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the\nfairer face.\n\nNurse:\nGod ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGod ye good den, fair gentlewoman.\n\nNurse:\nIs it good den?\n\nMERCUTIO:\n'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the\ndial is now upon the prick of noon.\n\nNurse:\nOut upon you! what a man are you!\n\nROMEO:\nOne, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to\nmar.\n\nNurse:\nBy my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'\nquoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I\nmay find the young Romeo?\n\nROMEO:\nI can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when\nyou have found him than he was when you sought him:\nI am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.\n\nNurse:\nYou say well.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nYea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;\nwisely, wisely.\n\nNurse:\nif you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with\nyou.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nShe will indite him to some supper.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nA bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!\n\nROMEO:\nWhat hast thou found?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,\nthat is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.\nAn old hare hoar,\nAnd an old hare hoar,\nIs very good meat in lent\nBut a hare that is hoar\nIs too much for a score,\nWhen it hoars ere it be spent.\nRomeo, will you come to your father's? we'll\nto dinner, thither.\n\nROMEO:\nI will follow you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nFarewell, ancient lady; farewell,\n'lady, lady, lady.'\n\nNurse:\nMarry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy\nmerchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?\n\nROMEO:\nA gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,\nand will speak more in a minute than he will stand\nto in a month.\n\nNurse:\nAn a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him\ndown, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such\nJacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.\nScurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am\nnone of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by\ntoo, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?\n\nPETER:\nI saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon\nshould quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare\ndraw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a\ngood quarrel, and the law on my side.\n\nNurse:\nNow, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about\nme quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:\nand as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you\nout; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:\nbut first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into\na fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross\nkind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman\nis young; and, therefore, if you should deal double\nwith her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered\nto any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n\nROMEO:\nNurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I\nprotest unto thee--\n\nNurse:\nGood heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:\nLord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.\n\nNurse:\nI will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as\nI take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n\nROMEO:\nBid her devise\nSome means to come to shrift this afternoon;\nAnd there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\nBe shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.\n\nNurse:\nNo truly sir; not a penny.\n\nROMEO:\nGo to; I say you shall.\n\nNurse:\nThis afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:\nWithin this hour my man shall be with thee\nAnd bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;\nWhich to the high top-gallant of my joy\nMust be my convoy in the secret night.\nFarewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:\nFarewell; commend me to thy mistress.\n\nNurse:\nNow God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n\nNurse:\nIs your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\nTwo may keep counsel, putting one away?\n\nROMEO:\nI warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.\n\nNURSE:\nWell, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,\nLord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there\nis a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain\nlay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief\nsee a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her\nsometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer\nman; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks\nas pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not\nrosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?\n\nROMEO:\nAy, nurse; what of that? both with an R.\n\nNurse:\nAh. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for\nthe--No; I know it begins with some other\nletter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of\nit, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\nto hear it.\n\nROMEO:\nCommend me to thy lady.\n\nNurse:\nAy, a thousand times.\nPeter!\n\nPETER:\nAnon!\n\nNurse:\nPeter, take my fan, and go before and apace.\n\nJULIET:\nThe clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\nIn half an hour she promised to return.\nPerchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.\nO, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,\nWhich ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,\nDriving back shadows over louring hills:\nTherefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,\nAnd therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\nNow is the sun upon the highmost hill\nOf this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\nIs three long hours, yet she is not come.\nHad she affections and warm youthful blood,\nShe would be as swift in motion as a ball;\nMy words would bandy her to my sweet love,\nAnd his to me:\nBut old folks, many feign as they were dead;\nUnwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\nO God, she comes!\nO honey nurse, what news?\nHast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n\nNurse:\nPeter, stay at the gate.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\nThough news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\nIf good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\nBy playing it to me with so sour a face.\n\nNurse:\nI am a-weary, give me leave awhile:\nFie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!\n\nJULIET:\nI would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:\nNay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.\n\nNurse:\nJesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?\nDo you not see that I am out of breath?\n\nJULIET:\nHow art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath\nTo say to me that thou art out of breath?\nThe excuse that thou dost make in this delay\nIs longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\nIs thy news good, or bad? answer to that;\nSay either, and I'll stay the circumstance:\nLet me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n\nNurse:\nWell, you have made a simple choice; you know not\nhow to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his\nface be better than any man's, yet his leg excels\nall men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,\nthough they be not to be talked on, yet they are\npast compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,\nbut, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy\nways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, no: but all this did I know before.\nWhat says he of our marriage? what of that?\n\nNurse:\nLord, how my head aches! what a head have I!\nIt beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\nMy back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!\nBeshrew your heart for sending me about,\nTo catch my death with jaunting up and down!\n\nJULIET:\nI' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\nSweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n\nNurse:\nYour love says, like an honest gentleman, and a\ncourteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I\nwarrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere is my mother! why, she is within;\nWhere should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\nWhere is your mother?'\n\nNurse:\nO God's lady dear!\nAre you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;\nIs this the poultice for my aching bones?\nHenceforward do your messages yourself.\n\nJULIET:\nHere's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?\n\nNurse:\nHave you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n\nJULIET:\nI have.\n\nNurse:\nThen hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\nThere stays a husband to make you a wife:\nNow comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,\nThey'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\nHie you to church; I must another way,\nTo fetch a ladder, by the which your love\nMust climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:\nI am the drudge and toil in your delight,\nBut you shall bear the burden soon at night.\nGo; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.\n\nJULIET:\nHie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSo smile the heavens upon this holy act,\nThat after hours with sorrow chide us not!\n\nROMEO:\nAmen, amen! but come what sorrow can,\nIt cannot countervail the exchange of joy\nThat one short minute gives me in her sight:\nDo thou but close our hands with holy words,\nThen love-devouring death do what he dare;\nIt is enough I may but call her mine.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThese violent delights have violent ends\nAnd in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\nWhich as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey\nIs loathsome in his own deliciousness\nAnd in the taste confounds the appetite:\nTherefore love moderately; long love doth so;\nToo swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\nHere comes the lady: O, so light a foot\nWill ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:\nA lover may bestride the gossamer\nThat idles in the wanton summer air,\nAnd yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n\nJULIET:\nGood even to my ghostly confessor.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n\nJULIET:\nAs much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n\nROMEO:\nAh, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\nBe heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more\nTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\nThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\nUnfold the imagined happiness that both\nReceive in either by this dear encounter.\n\nJULIET:\nConceit, more rich in matter than in words,\nBrags of his substance, not of ornament:\nThey are but beggars that can count their worth;\nBut my true love is grown to such excess\nI cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, come with me, and we will make short work;\nFor, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\nTill holy church incorporate two in one.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nI pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:\nThe day is hot, the Capulets abroad,\nAnd, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;\nFor now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThou art like one of those fellows that when he\nenters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword\nupon the table and says 'God send me no need of\nthee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws\nit on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAm I like such a fellow?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as\nany in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as\nsoon moody to be moved.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAnd what to?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNay, an there were two such, we should have none\nshortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,\nthou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,\nor a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou\nwilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\nother reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what\neye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?\nThy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of\nmeat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as\nan egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a\nman for coughing in the street, because he hath\nwakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:\ndidst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing\nhis new doublet before Easter? with another, for\ntying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou\nwilt tutor me from quarrelling!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nAn I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man\nshould buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nThe fee-simple! O simple!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nBy my head, here come the Capulets.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBy my heel, I care not.\n\nTYBALT:\nFollow me close, for I will speak to them.\nGentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAnd but one word with one of us? couple it with\nsomething; make it a word and a blow.\n\nTYBALT:\nYou shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you\nwill give me occasion.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCould you not take some occasion without giving?\n\nTYBALT:\nMercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--\n\nMERCUTIO:\nConsort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an\nthou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but\ndiscords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall\nmake you dance. 'Zounds, consort!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWe talk here in the public haunt of men:\nEither withdraw unto some private place,\nAnd reason coldly of your grievances,\nOr else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nMen's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;\nI will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.\n\nTYBALT:\nWell, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nBut I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:\nMarry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;\nYour worship in that sense may call him 'man.'\n\nTYBALT:\nRomeo, the hate I bear thee can afford\nNo better term than this,--thou art a villain.\n\nROMEO:\nTybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\nDoth much excuse the appertaining rage\nTo such a greeting: villain am I none;\nTherefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.\n\nTYBALT:\nBoy, this shall not excuse the injuries\nThat thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n\nROMEO:\nI do protest, I never injured thee,\nBut love thee better than thou canst devise,\nTill thou shalt know the reason of my love:\nAnd so, good Capulet,--which name I tender\nAs dearly as my own,--be satisfied.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nO calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\nAlla stoccata carries it away.\nTybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?\n\nTYBALT:\nWhat wouldst thou have with me?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nGood king of cats, nothing but one of your nine\nlives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you\nshall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the\neight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher\nby the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your\nears ere it be out.\n\nTYBALT:\nI am for you.\n\nROMEO:\nGentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nCome, sir, your passado.\n\nROMEO:\nDraw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\nGentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!\nTybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath\nForbidden bandying in Verona streets:\nHold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!\n\nMERCUTIO:\nI am hurt.\nA plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\nIs he gone, and hath nothing?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhat, art thou hurt?\n\nMERCUTIO:\nAy, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.\nWhere is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n\nROMEO:\nCourage, man; the hurt cannot be much.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nNo, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a\nchurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for\nme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I\nam peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'\nboth your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a\ncat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a\nrogue, a villain, that fights by the book of\narithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I\nwas hurt under your arm.\n\nROMEO:\nI thought all for the best.\n\nMERCUTIO:\nHelp me into some house, Benvolio,\nOr I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\nThey have made worms' meat of me: I have it,\nAnd soundly too: your houses!\n\nROMEO:\nThis gentleman, the prince's near ally,\nMy very friend, hath got his mortal hurt\nIn my behalf; my reputation stain'd\nWith Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour\nHath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,\nThy beauty hath made me effeminate\nAnd in my temper soften'd valour's steel!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\nThat gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,\nWhich too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n\nROMEO:\nThis day's black fate on more days doth depend;\nThis but begins the woe, others must end.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nHere comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n\nROMEO:\nAlive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!\nAway to heaven, respective lenity,\nAnd fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!\nNow, Tybalt, take the villain back again,\nThat late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\nIs but a little way above our heads,\nStaying for thine to keep him company:\nEither thou, or I, or both, must go with him.\n\nTYBALT:\nThou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\nShalt with him hence.\n\nROMEO:\nThis shall determine that.\n\nBENVOLIO:\nRomeo, away, be gone!\nThe citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\nStand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,\nIf thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!\n\nROMEO:\nO, I am fortune's fool!\n\nBENVOLIO:\nWhy dost thou stay?\n\nFirst Citizen:\nWhich way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\nTybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nThere lies that Tybalt.\n\nFirst Citizen:\nUp, sir, go with me;\nI charge thee in the princes name, obey.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhere are the vile beginners of this fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nO noble prince, I can discover all\nThe unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:\nThere lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\nThat slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\nO prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt\nO my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\nFor blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.\nO cousin, cousin!\n\nPRINCE:\nBenvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n\nBENVOLIO:\nTybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;\nRomeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink\nHow nice the quarrel was, and urged withal\nYour high displeasure: all this uttered\nWith gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,\nCould not take truce with the unruly spleen\nOf Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\nWith piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,\nWho all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\nAnd, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\nCold death aside, and with the other sends\nIt back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,\nRetorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,\n'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than\nhis tongue,\nHis agile arm beats down their fatal points,\nAnd 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\nAn envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\nOf stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\nBut by and by comes back to Romeo,\nWho had but newly entertain'd revenge,\nAnd to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I\nCould draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.\nAnd, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\nThis is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHe is a kinsman to the Montague;\nAffection makes him false; he speaks not true:\nSome twenty of them fought in this black strife,\nAnd all those twenty could but kill one life.\nI beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;\nRomeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.\n\nPRINCE:\nRomeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;\nWho now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nNot Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;\nHis fault concludes but what the law should end,\nThe life of Tybalt.\n\nPRINCE:\nAnd for that offence\nImmediately we do exile him hence:\nI have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\nMy blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\nBut I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\nThat you shall all repent the loss of mine:\nI will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\nNor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:\nTherefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,\nElse, when he's found, that hour is his last.\nBear hence this body and attend our will:\nMercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n\nJULIET:\nGallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\nTowards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner\nAs Phaethon would whip you to the west,\nAnd bring in cloudy night immediately.\nSpread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\nThat runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo\nLeap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.\nLovers can see to do their amorous rites\nBy their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\nIt best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\nThou sober-suited matron, all in black,\nAnd learn me how to lose a winning match,\nPlay'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:\nHood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\nWith thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,\nThink true love acted simple modesty.\nCome, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\nFor thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\nWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.\nCome, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,\nGive me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\nTake him and cut him out in little stars,\nAnd he will make the face of heaven so fine\nThat all the world will be in love with night\nAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.\nO, I have bought the mansion of a love,\nBut not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,\nNot yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day\nAs is the night before some festival\nTo an impatient child that hath new robes\nAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\nAnd she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\nBut Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\nNow, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\nThat Romeo bid thee fetch?\n\nNurse:\nAy, ay, the cords.\n\nJULIET:\nAy me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?\n\nNurse:\nAh, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\nWe are undone, lady, we are undone!\nAlack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n\nJULIET:\nCan heaven be so envious?\n\nNurse:\nRomeo can,\nThough heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!\nWho ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?\nThis torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\nHath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'\nAnd that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\nThan the death-darting eye of cockatrice:\nI am not I, if there be such an I;\nOr those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'\nIf he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:\nBrief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n\nNurse:\nI saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--\nGod save the mark!--here on his manly breast:\nA piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\nPale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\nAll in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.\n\nJULIET:\nO, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!\nTo prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!\nVile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;\nAnd thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n\nNurse:\nO Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\nO courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!\nThat ever I should live to see thee dead!\n\nJULIET:\nWhat storm is this that blows so contrary?\nIs Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?\nMy dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?\nThen, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\nFor who is living, if those two are gone?\n\nNurse:\nTybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\nRomeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n\nJULIET:\nO God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n\nNurse:\nIt did, it did; alas the day, it did!\n\nJULIET:\nO serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!\nDid ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\nBeautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\nDove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\nDespised substance of divinest show!\nJust opposite to what thou justly seem'st,\nA damned saint, an honourable villain!\nO nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,\nWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\nIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh?\nWas ever book containing such vile matter\nSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell\nIn such a gorgeous palace!\n\nNurse:\nThere's no trust,\nNo faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,\nAll forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\nAh, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:\nThese griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\nShame come to Romeo!\n\nJULIET:\nBlister'd be thy tongue\nFor such a wish! he was not born to shame:\nUpon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;\nFor 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\nSole monarch of the universal earth.\nO, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n\nNurse:\nWill you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n\nJULIET:\nShall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\nAh, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,\nWhen I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\nBut, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\nThat villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:\nBack, foolish tears, back to your native spring;\nYour tributary drops belong to woe,\nWhich you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\nMy husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\nAnd Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:\nAll this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\nSome word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\nThat murder'd me: I would forget it fain;\nBut, O, it presses to my memory,\nLike damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:\n'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'\nThat 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\nHath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\nWas woe enough, if it had ended there:\nOr, if sour woe delights in fellowship\nAnd needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\nWhy follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\nThy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\nWhich modern lamentations might have moved?\nBut with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,\n'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,\nIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\nAll slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'\nThere is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\nIn that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\nWhere is my father, and my mother, nurse?\n\nNurse:\nWeeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:\nWill you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n\nJULIET:\nWash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,\nWhen theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\nTake up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,\nBoth you and I; for Romeo is exiled:\nHe made you for a highway to my bed;\nBut I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\nCome, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;\nAnd death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n\nNurse:\nHie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo\nTo comfort you: I wot well where he is.\nHark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:\nI'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n\nJULIET:\nO, find him! give this ring to my true knight,\nAnd bid him come to take his last farewell.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:\nAffliction is enamour'd of thy parts,\nAnd thou art wedded to calamity.\n\nROMEO:\nFather, what news? what is the prince's doom?\nWhat sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,\nThat I yet know not?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nToo familiar\nIs my dear son with such sour company:\nI bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.\n\nROMEO:\nWhat less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nA gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,\nNot body's death, but body's banishment.\n\nROMEO:\nHa, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'\nFor exile hath more terror in his look,\nMuch more than death: do not say 'banishment.'\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHence from Verona art thou banished:\nBe patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is no world without Verona walls,\nBut purgatory, torture, hell itself.\nHence-banished is banish'd from the world,\nAnd world's exile is death: then banished,\nIs death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,\nThou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,\nAnd smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\nThy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,\nTaking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\nAnd turn'd that black word death to banishment:\nThis is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n\nROMEO:\n'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,\nWhere Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\nAnd little mouse, every unworthy thing,\nLive here in heaven and may look on her;\nBut Romeo may not: more validity,\nMore honourable state, more courtship lives\nIn carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize\nOn the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\nAnd steal immortal blessing from her lips,\nWho even in pure and vestal modesty,\nStill blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\nBut Romeo may not; he is banished:\nFlies may do this, but I from this must fly:\nThey are free men, but I am banished.\nAnd say'st thou yet that exile is not death?\nHadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\nNo sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\nBut 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?\nO friar, the damned use that word in hell;\nHowlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,\nBeing a divine, a ghostly confessor,\nA sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\nTo mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.\n\nROMEO:\nO, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI'll give thee armour to keep off that word:\nAdversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\nTo comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n\nROMEO:\nYet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\nUnless philosophy can make a Juliet,\nDisplant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\nIt helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nO, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n\nROMEO:\nHow should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nLet me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n\nROMEO:\nThou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:\nWert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\nAn hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\nDoting like me and like me banished,\nThen mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\nAnd fall upon the ground, as I do now,\nTaking the measure of an unmade grave.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nArise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.\n\nROMEO:\nNot I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\nMist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\nThou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;\nRun to my study. By and by! God's will,\nWhat simpleness is this! I come, I come!\nWho knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?\n\nNurse:\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWelcome, then.\n\nNurse:\nO holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,\nWhere is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThere on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n\nNurse:\nO, he is even in my mistress' case,\nJust in her case! O woful sympathy!\nPiteous predicament! Even so lies she,\nBlubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\nStand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:\nFor Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;\nWhy should you fall into so deep an O?\n\nROMEO:\nNurse!\n\nNurse:\nAh sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n\nROMEO:\nSpakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?\nDoth she not think me an old murderer,\nNow I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\nWith blood removed but little from her own?\nWhere is she? and how doth she? and what says\nMy conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n\nNurse:\nO, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\nAnd now falls on her bed; and then starts up,\nAnd Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\nAnd then down falls again.\n\nROMEO:\nAs if that name,\nShot from the deadly level of a gun,\nDid murder her; as that name's cursed hand\nMurder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\nIn what vile part of this anatomy\nDoth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack\nThe hateful mansion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold thy desperate hand:\nArt thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:\nThy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote\nThe unreasonable fury of a beast:\nUnseemly woman in a seeming man!\nOr ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\nThou hast amazed me: by my holy order,\nI thought thy disposition better temper'd.\nHast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?\nAnd stay thy lady too that lives in thee,\nBy doing damned hate upon thyself?\nWhy rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\nSince birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet\nIn thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\nFie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;\nWhich, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\nAnd usest none in that true use indeed\nWhich should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:\nThy noble shape is but a form of wax,\nDigressing from the valour of a man;\nThy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\nKilling that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\nThy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\nMisshapen in the conduct of them both,\nLike powder in a skitless soldier's flask,\nIs set afire by thine own ignorance,\nAnd thou dismember'd with thine own defence.\nWhat, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,\nFor whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;\nThere art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,\nBut thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:\nThe law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend\nAnd turns it to exile; there art thou happy:\nA pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;\nHappiness courts thee in her best array;\nBut, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,\nThou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:\nTake heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\nGo, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\nAscend her chamber, hence and comfort her:\nBut look thou stay not till the watch be set,\nFor then thou canst not pass to Mantua;\nWhere thou shalt live, till we can find a time\nTo blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\nBeg pardon of the prince, and call thee back\nWith twenty hundred thousand times more joy\nThan thou went'st forth in lamentation.\nGo before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;\nAnd bid her hasten all the house to bed,\nWhich heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:\nRomeo is coming.\n\nNurse:\nO Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\nTo hear good counsel: O, what learning is!\nMy lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n\nROMEO:\nDo so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n\nNurse:\nHere, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:\nHie you, make haste, for it grows very late.\n\nROMEO:\nHow well my comfort is revived by this!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\nEither be gone before the watch be set,\nOr by the break of day disguised from hence:\nSojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,\nAnd he shall signify from time to time\nEvery good hap to you that chances here:\nGive me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.\n\nROMEO:\nBut that a joy past joy calls out on me,\nIt were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.\n\nCAPULET:\nThings have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,\nThat we have had no time to move our daughter:\nLook you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\nAnd so did I:--Well, we were born to die.\n'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:\nI promise you, but for your company,\nI would have been a-bed an hour ago.\n\nPARIS:\nThese times of woe afford no time to woo.\nMadam, good night: commend me to your daughter.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nI will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\nTo-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.\n\nCAPULET:\nSir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\nOf my child's love: I think she will be ruled\nIn all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.\nWife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\nAcquaint her here of my son Paris' love;\nAnd bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--\nBut, soft! what day is this?\n\nPARIS:\nMonday, my lord,\n\nCAPULET:\nMonday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,\nO' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,\nShe shall be married to this noble earl.\nWill you be ready? do you like this haste?\nWe'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;\nFor, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\nIt may be thought we held him carelessly,\nBeing our kinsman, if we revel much:\nTherefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\nAnd there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n\nPARIS:\nMy lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.\nGo you to Juliet ere you go to bed,\nPrepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.\nFarewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!\nAfore me! it is so very very late,\nThat we may call it early by and by.\nGood night.\n\nJULIET:\nWilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:\nIt was the nightingale, and not the lark,\nThat pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;\nNightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:\nBelieve me, love, it was the nightingale.\n\nROMEO:\nIt was the lark, the herald of the morn,\nNo nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks\nDo lace the severing clouds in yonder east:\nNight's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\nStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\nI must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n\nJULIET:\nYon light is not day-light, I know it, I:\nIt is some meteor that the sun exhales,\nTo be to thee this night a torch-bearer,\nAnd light thee on thy way to Mantua:\nTherefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n\nROMEO:\nLet me be ta'en, let me be put to death;\nI am content, so thou wilt have it so.\nI'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\nNor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat\nThe vaulty heaven so high above our heads:\nI have more care to stay than will to go:\nCome, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\nHow is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.\n\nJULIET:\nIt is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!\nIt is the lark that sings so out of tune,\nStraining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\nSome say the lark makes sweet division;\nThis doth not so, for she divideth us:\nSome say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,\nO, now I would they had changed voices too!\nSince arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\nHunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,\nO, now be gone; more light and light it grows.\n\nROMEO:\nMore light and light; more dark and dark our woes!\n\nNurse:\nMadam!\n\nJULIET:\nNurse?\n\nNurse:\nYour lady mother is coming to your chamber:\nThe day is broke; be wary, look about.\n\nJULIET:\nThen, window, let day in, and let life out.\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.\n\nJULIET:\nArt thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!\nI must hear from thee every day in the hour,\nFor in a minute there are many days:\nO, by this count I shall be much in years\nEre I again behold my Romeo!\n\nROMEO:\nFarewell!\nI will omit no opportunity\nThat may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n\nROMEO:\nI doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\nFor sweet discourses in our time to come.\n\nJULIET:\nO God, I have an ill-divining soul!\nMethinks I see thee, now thou art below,\nAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb:\nEither my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n\nROMEO:\nAnd trust me, love, in my eye so do you:\nDry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\n\nJULIET:\nO fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:\nIf thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.\nThat is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;\nFor then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,\nBut send him back.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\n\nJULIET:\nWho is't that calls? is it my lady mother?\nIs she not down so late, or up so early?\nWhat unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhy, how now, Juliet!\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, I am not well.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nEvermore weeping for your cousin's death?\nWhat, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\nAn if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;\nTherefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;\nBut much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n\nJULIET:\nYet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nSo shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\nWhich you weep for.\n\nJULIET:\nFeeling so the loss,\nCannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,\nAs that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat villain madam?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat same villain, Romeo.\n\nJULIET:\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThat is, because the traitor murderer lives.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, madam, from the reach of these my hands:\nWould none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWe will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:\nThen weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\nWhere that same banish'd runagate doth live,\nShall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,\nThat he shall soon keep Tybalt company:\nAnd then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.\n\nJULIET:\nIndeed, I never shall be satisfied\nWith Romeo, till I behold him--dead--\nIs my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.\nMadam, if you could find out but a man\nTo bear a poison, I would temper it;\nThat Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\nSoon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\nTo hear him named, and cannot come to him.\nTo wreak the love I bore my cousin\nUpon his body that slaughter'd him!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFind thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\nBut now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n\nJULIET:\nAnd joy comes well in such a needy time:\nWhat are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWell, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\nOne who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\nHath sorted out a sudden day of joy,\nThat thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.\n\nJULIET:\nMadam, in happy time, what day is that?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nMarry, my child, early next Thursday morn,\nThe gallant, young and noble gentleman,\nThe County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\nShall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n\nJULIET:\nNow, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,\nHe shall not make me there a joyful bride.\nI wonder at this haste; that I must wed\nEre he, that should be husband, comes to woo.\nI pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,\nI will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,\nIt shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\nRather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHere comes your father; tell him so yourself,\nAnd see how he will take it at your hands.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhen the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;\nBut for the sunset of my brother's son\nIt rains downright.\nHow now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?\nEvermore showering? In one little body\nThou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;\nFor still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\nDo ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,\nSailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;\nWho, raging with thy tears, and they with them,\nWithout a sudden calm, will overset\nThy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!\nHave you deliver'd to her our decree?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\nI would the fool were married to her grave!\n\nCAPULET:\nSoft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\nHow! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?\nIs she not proud? doth she not count her blest,\nUnworthy as she is, that we have wrought\nSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n\nJULIET:\nNot proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:\nProud can I never be of what I hate;\nBut thankful even for hate, that is meant love.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?\n'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'\nAnd yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,\nThank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,\nBut fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,\nTo go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\nOr I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\nOut, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!\nYou tallow-face!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nFie, fie! what, are you mad?\n\nJULIET:\nGood father, I beseech you on my knees,\nHear me with patience but to speak a word.\n\nCAPULET:\nHang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\nI tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,\nOr never after look me in the face:\nSpeak not, reply not, do not answer me;\nMy fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\nThat God had lent us but this only child;\nBut now I see this one is one too much,\nAnd that we have a curse in having her:\nOut on her, hilding!\n\nNurse:\nGod in heaven bless her!\nYou are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n\nCAPULET:\nAnd why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,\nGood prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.\n\nNurse:\nI speak no treason.\n\nCAPULET:\nO, God ye god-den.\n\nNurse:\nMay not one speak?\n\nCAPULET:\nPeace, you mumbling fool!\nUtter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;\nFor here we need it not.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nYou are too hot.\n\nCAPULET:\nGod's bread! it makes me mad:\nDay, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,\nAlone, in company, still my care hath been\nTo have her match'd: and having now provided\nA gentleman of noble parentage,\nOf fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\nStuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\nProportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;\nAnd then to have a wretched puling fool,\nA whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\nTo answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,\nI am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'\nBut, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:\nGraze where you will you shall not house with me:\nLook to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.\nThursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\nAn you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\nAnd you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in\nthe streets,\nFor, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\nNor what is mine shall never do thee good:\nTrust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.\n\nJULIET:\nIs there no pity sitting in the clouds,\nThat sees into the bottom of my grief?\nO, sweet my mother, cast me not away!\nDelay this marriage for a month, a week;\nOr, if you do not, make the bridal bed\nIn that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nTalk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:\nDo as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.\n\nJULIET:\nO God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\nMy husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;\nHow shall that faith return again to earth,\nUnless that husband send it me from heaven\nBy leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.\nAlack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\nUpon so soft a subject as myself!\nWhat say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?\nSome comfort, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nFaith, here it is.\nRomeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,\nThat he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\nOr, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\nThen, since the case so stands as now it doth,\nI think it best you married with the county.\nO, he's a lovely gentleman!\nRomeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,\nHath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\nAs Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\nI think you are happy in this second match,\nFor it excels your first: or if it did not,\nYour first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,\nAs living here and you no use of him.\n\nJULIET:\nSpeakest thou from thy heart?\n\nNurse:\nAnd from my soul too;\nOr else beshrew them both.\n\nJULIET:\nAmen!\n\nNurse:\nWhat?\n\nJULIET:\nWell, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\nGo in: and tell my lady I am gone,\nHaving displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,\nTo make confession and to be absolved.\n\nNurse:\nMarry, I will; and this is wisely done.\n\nJULIET:\nAncient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\nIs it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\nOr to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\nWhich she hath praised him with above compare\nSo many thousand times? Go, counsellor;\nThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\nI'll to the friar, to know his remedy:\nIf all else fail, myself have power to die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nOn Thursday, sir? the time is very short.\n\nPARIS:\nMy father Capulet will have it so;\nAnd I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nYou say you do not know the lady's mind:\nUneven is the course, I like it not.\n\nPARIS:\nImmoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\nAnd therefore have I little talk'd of love;\nFor Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\nNow, sir, her father counts it dangerous\nThat she doth give her sorrow so much sway,\nAnd in his wisdom hastes our marriage,\nTo stop the inundation of her tears;\nWhich, too much minded by herself alone,\nMay be put from her by society:\nNow do you know the reason of this haste.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\n\nPARIS:\nHappily met, my lady and my wife!\n\nJULIET:\nThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n\nPARIS:\nThat may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n\nJULIET:\nWhat must be shall be.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThat's a certain text.\n\nPARIS:\nCome you to make confession to this father?\n\nJULIET:\nTo answer that, I should confess to you.\n\nPARIS:\nDo not deny to him that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nI will confess to you that I love him.\n\nPARIS:\nSo will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n\nJULIET:\nIf I do so, it will be of more price,\nBeing spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n\nPARIS:\nPoor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.\n\nJULIET:\nThe tears have got small victory by that;\nFor it was bad enough before their spite.\n\nPARIS:\nThou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.\n\nJULIET:\nThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\nAnd what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n\nPARIS:\nThy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.\n\nJULIET:\nIt may be so, for it is not mine own.\nAre you at leisure, holy father, now;\nOr shall I come to you at evening mass?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nMy leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\nMy lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n\nPARIS:\nGod shield I should disturb devotion!\nJuliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:\nTill then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.\n\nJULIET:\nO shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\nCome weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nAh, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\nIt strains me past the compass of my wits:\nI hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\nOn Thursday next be married to this county.\n\nJULIET:\nTell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\nUnless thou tell me how I may prevent it:\nIf, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,\nDo thou but call my resolution wise,\nAnd with this knife I'll help it presently.\nGod join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\nAnd ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,\nShall be the label to another deed,\nOr my true heart with treacherous revolt\nTurn to another, this shall slay them both:\nTherefore, out of thy long-experienced time,\nGive me some present counsel, or, behold,\n'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\nShall play the umpire, arbitrating that\nWhich the commission of thy years and art\nCould to no issue of true honour bring.\nBe not so long to speak; I long to die,\nIf what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,\nWhich craves as desperate an execution.\nAs that is desperate which we would prevent.\nIf, rather than to marry County Paris,\nThou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\nThen is it likely thou wilt undertake\nA thing like death to chide away this shame,\nThat copest with death himself to scape from it:\nAnd, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.\n\nJULIET:\nO, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\nFrom off the battlements of yonder tower;\nOr walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk\nWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;\nOr shut me nightly in a charnel-house,\nO'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\nWith reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\nOr bid me go into a new-made grave\nAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud;\nThings that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;\nAnd I will do it without fear or doubt,\nTo live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold, then; go home, be merry, give consent\nTo marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:\nTo-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\nLet not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:\nTake thou this vial, being then in bed,\nAnd this distilled liquor drink thou off;\nWhen presently through all thy veins shall run\nA cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse\nShall keep his native progress, but surcease:\nNo warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\nThe roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\nTo paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,\nLike death, when he shuts up the day of life;\nEach part, deprived of supple government,\nShall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:\nAnd in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death\nThou shalt continue two and forty hours,\nAnd then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\nNow, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\nTo rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:\nThen, as the manner of our country is,\nIn thy best robes uncover'd on the bier\nThou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\nWhere all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\nIn the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\nShall Romeo by my letters know our drift,\nAnd hither shall he come: and he and I\nWill watch thy waking, and that very night\nShall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\nAnd this shall free thee from this present shame;\nIf no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,\nAbate thy valour in the acting it.\n\nJULIET:\nGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous\nIn this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed\nTo Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n\nJULIET:\nLove give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\nFarewell, dear father!\n\nCAPULET:\nSo many guests invite as here are writ.\nSirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\nSecond Servant:\nYou shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they\ncan lick their fingers.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow canst thou try them so?\n\nSecond Servant:\nMarry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his\nown fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his\nfingers goes not with me.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, be gone.\nWe shall be much unfurnished for this time.\nWhat, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n\nNurse:\nAy, forsooth.\n\nCAPULET:\nWell, he may chance to do some good on her:\nA peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\nNurse:\nSee where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n\nCAPULET:\nHow now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?\n\nJULIET:\nWhere I have learn'd me to repent the sin\nOf disobedient opposition\nTo you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\nBy holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,\nAnd beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!\nHenceforward I am ever ruled by you.\n\nCAPULET:\nSend for the county; go tell him of this:\nI'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n\nJULIET:\nI met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;\nAnd gave him what becomed love I might,\nNot step o'er the bounds of modesty.\n\nCAPULET:\nWhy, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:\nThis is as't should be. Let me see the county;\nAy, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\nNow, afore God! this reverend holy friar,\nOur whole city is much bound to him.\n\nJULIET:\nNurse, will you go with me into my closet,\nTo help me sort such needful ornaments\nAs you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nNo, not till Thursday; there is time enough.\n\nCAPULET:\nGo, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.\n\nLADY  CAPULET:\nWe shall be short in our provision:\n'Tis now near night.\n\nCAPULET:\nTush, I will stir about,\nAnd all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:\nGo thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;\nI'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;\nI'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\nThey are all forth. Well, I will walk myself\nTo County Paris, to prepare him up\nAgainst to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,\nSince this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n\nJULIET:\nAy, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,\nI pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,\nFor I have need of many orisons\nTo move the heavens to smile upon my state,\nWhich, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat, are you busy, ho? need you my help?\n\nJULIET:\nNo, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\nAs are behoveful for our state to-morrow:\nSo please you, let me now be left alone,\nAnd let the nurse this night sit up with you;\nFor, I am sure, you have your hands full all,\nIn this so sudden business.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nGood night:\nGet thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n\nJULIET:\nFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\nI have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,\nThat almost freezes up the heat of life:\nI'll call them back again to comfort me:\nNurse! What should she do here?\nMy dismal scene I needs must act alone.\nCome, vial.\nWhat if this mixture do not work at all?\nShall I be married then to-morrow morning?\nNo, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.\nWhat if it be a poison, which the friar\nSubtly hath minister'd to have me dead,\nLest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,\nBecause he married me before to Romeo?\nI fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,\nFor he hath still been tried a holy man.\nHow if, when I am laid into the tomb,\nI wake before the time that Romeo\nCome to redeem me? there's a fearful point!\nShall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,\nTo whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\nAnd there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\nOr, if I live, is it not very like,\nThe horrible conceit of death and night,\nTogether with the terror of the place,--\nAs in a vault, an ancient receptacle,\nWhere, for these many hundred years, the bones\nOf all my buried ancestors are packed:\nWhere bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\nLies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,\nAt some hours in the night spirits resort;--\nAlack, alack, is it not like that I,\nSo early waking, what with loathsome smells,\nAnd shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,\nThat living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--\nO, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\nEnvironed with all these hideous fears?\nAnd madly play with my forefather's joints?\nAnd pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?\nAnd, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,\nAs with a club, dash out my desperate brains?\nO, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\nSeeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\nUpon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!\nRomeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nHold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.\n\nNurse:\nThey call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\nCAPULET:\nCome, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,\nThe curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:\nLook to the baked meats, good Angelica:\nSpare not for the cost.\n\nNurse:\nGo, you cot-quean, go,\nGet you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow\nFor this night's watching.\n\nCAPULET:\nNo, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now\nAll night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAy, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\nBut I will watch you from such watching now.\n\nCAPULET:\nA jealous hood, a jealous hood!\nNow, fellow,\nWhat's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nThings for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n\nCAPULET:\nMake haste, make haste.\nSirrah, fetch drier logs:\nCall Peter, he will show thee where they are.\n\nSecond Servant:\nI have a head, sir, that will find out logs,\nAnd never trouble Peter for the matter.\n\nCAPULET:\nMass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\nThou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:\nThe county will be here with music straight,\nFor so he said he would: I hear him near.\nNurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\nGo waken Juliet, go and trim her up;\nI'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,\nMake haste; the bridegroom he is come already:\nMake haste, I say.\n\nNurse:\nMistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:\nWhy, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!\nWhy, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!\nWhat, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;\nSleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\nThe County Paris hath set up his rest,\nThat you shall rest but little. God forgive me,\nMarry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!\nI must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\nAy, let the county take you in your bed;\nHe'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\nWhat, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!\nI must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!\nAlas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!\nO, well-a-day, that ever I was born!\nSome aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat noise is here?\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nWhat is the matter?\n\nNurse:\nLook, look! O heavy day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me, O me! My child, my only life,\nRevive, look up, or I will die with thee!\nHelp, help! Call help.\n\nCAPULET:\nFor shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n\nNurse:\nShe's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAlack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n\nCAPULET:\nHa! let me see her: out, alas! she's cold:\nHer blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\nLife and these lips have long been separated:\nDeath lies on her like an untimely frost\nUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n\nNurse:\nO lamentable day!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO woful time!\n\nCAPULET:\nDeath, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\nTies up my tongue, and will not let me speak.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nCome, is the bride ready to go to church?\n\nCAPULET:\nReady to go, but never to return.\nO son! the night before thy wedding-day\nHath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,\nFlower as she was, deflowered by him.\nDeath is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\nMy daughter he hath wedded: I will die,\nAnd leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.\n\nPARIS:\nHave I thought long to see this morning's face,\nAnd doth it give me such a sight as this?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nAccursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\nMost miserable hour that e'er time saw\nIn lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\nBut one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\nBut one thing to rejoice and solace in,\nAnd cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n\nNurse:\nO woe! O woful, woful, woful day!\nMost lamentable day, most woful day,\nThat ever, ever, I did yet behold!\nO day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\nNever was seen so black a day as this:\nO woful day, O woful day!\n\nPARIS:\nBeguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\nMost detestable death, by thee beguil'd,\nBy cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\nO love! O life! not life, but love in death!\n\nCAPULET:\nDespised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\nUncomfortable time, why camest thou now\nTo murder, murder our solemnity?\nO child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\nDead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;\nAnd with my child my joys are buried.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nPeace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not\nIn these confusions. Heaven and yourself\nHad part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,\nAnd all the better is it for the maid:\nYour part in her you could not keep from death,\nBut heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\nThe most you sought was her promotion;\nFor 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:\nAnd weep ye now, seeing she is advanced\nAbove the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\nO, in this love, you love your child so ill,\nThat you run mad, seeing that she is well:\nShe's not well married that lives married long;\nBut she's best married that dies married young.\nDry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\nOn this fair corse; and, as the custom is,\nIn all her best array bear her to church:\nFor though fond nature bids us an lament,\nYet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n\nCAPULET:\nAll things that we ordained festival,\nTurn from their office to black funeral;\nOur instruments to melancholy bells,\nOur wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,\nOur solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,\nOur bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,\nAnd all things change them to the contrary.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\nAnd go, Sir Paris; every one prepare\nTo follow this fair corse unto her grave:\nThe heavens do lour upon you for some ill;\nMove them no more by crossing their high will.\n\nFirst Musician:\nFaith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.\n\nNurse:\nHonest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;\nFor, well you know, this is a pitiful case.\n\nFirst Musician:\nAy, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\nPETER:\nMusicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's\nease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhy 'Heart's ease?'\n\nPETER:\nO, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My\nheart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,\nto comfort me.\n\nFirst Musician:\nNot a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.\n\nPETER:\nYou will not, then?\n\nFirst Musician:\nNo.\n\nPETER:\nI will then give it you soundly.\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat will you give us?\n\nPETER:\nNo money, on my faith, but the gleek;\nI will give you the minstrel.\n\nFirst Musician:\nThen I will give you the serving-creature.\n\nPETER:\nThen will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on\nyour pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you,\nI'll fa you; do you note me?\n\nFirst Musician:\nAn you re us and fa us, you note us.\n\nSecond Musician:\nPray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n\nPETER:\nThen have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you\nwith an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer\nme like men:\n'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\nAnd doleful dumps the mind oppress,\nThen music with her silver sound'--\nwhy 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver\nsound'? What say you, Simon Catling?\n\nMusician:\nMarry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n\nPETER:\nPretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?\n\nSecond Musician:\nI say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.\n\nPETER:\nPretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n\nThird Musician:\nFaith, I know not what to say.\n\nPETER:\nO, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say\nfor you. It is 'music with her silver sound,'\nbecause musicians have no gold for sounding:\n'Then music with her silver sound\nWith speedy help doth lend redress.'\n\nFirst Musician:\nWhat a pestilent knave is this same!\n\nSecond Musician:\nHang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the\nmourners, and stay dinner.\n\nROMEO:\nIf I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,\nMy dreams presage some joyful news at hand:\nMy bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;\nAnd all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\nLifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\nI dreamt my lady came and found me dead--\nStrange dream, that gives a dead man leave\nto think!--\nAnd breathed such life with kisses in my lips,\nThat I revived, and was an emperor.\nAh me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\nWhen but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\nNews from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!\nDost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\nHow doth my lady? Is my father well?\nHow fares my Juliet? that I ask again;\nFor nothing can be ill, if she be well.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nThen she is well, and nothing can be ill:\nHer body sleeps in Capel's monument,\nAnd her immortal part with angels lives.\nI saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,\nAnd presently took post to tell it you:\nO, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\nSince you did leave it for my office, sir.\n\nROMEO:\nIs it even so? then I defy you, stars!\nThou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,\nAnd hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI do beseech you, sir, have patience:\nYour looks are pale and wild, and do import\nSome misadventure.\n\nROMEO:\nTush, thou art deceived:\nLeave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.\nHast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nNo, my good lord.\n\nROMEO:\nNo matter: get thee gone,\nAnd hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.\nWell, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\nLet's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift\nTo enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\nI do remember an apothecary,--\nAnd hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted\nIn tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,\nCulling of simples; meagre were his looks,\nSharp misery had worn him to the bones:\nAnd in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\nAn alligator stuff'd, and other skins\nOf ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\nA beggarly account of empty boxes,\nGreen earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,\nRemnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,\nWere thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.\nNoting this penury, to myself I said\n'An if a man did need a poison now,\nWhose sale is present death in Mantua,\nHere lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\nO, this same thought did but forerun my need;\nAnd this same needy man must sell it me.\nAs I remember, this should be the house.\nBeing holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.\nWhat, ho! apothecary!\n\nApothecary:\nWho calls so loud?\n\nROMEO:\nCome hither, man. I see that thou art poor:\nHold, there is forty ducats: let me have\nA dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\nAs will disperse itself through all the veins\nThat the life-weary taker may fall dead\nAnd that the trunk may be discharged of breath\nAs violently as hasty powder fired\nDoth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n\nApothecary:\nSuch mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\nIs death to any he that utters them.\n\nROMEO:\nArt thou so bare and full of wretchedness,\nAnd fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,\nNeed and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\nContempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;\nThe world is not thy friend nor the world's law;\nThe world affords no law to make thee rich;\nThen be not poor, but break it, and take this.\n\nApothecary:\nMy poverty, but not my will, consents.\n\nROMEO:\nI pay thy poverty, and not thy will.\n\nApothecary:\nPut this in any liquid thing you will,\nAnd drink it off; and, if you had the strength\nOf twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n\nROMEO:\nThere is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,\nDoing more murders in this loathsome world,\nThan these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\nI sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\nFarewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.\nCome, cordial and not poison, go with me\nTo Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nHoly Franciscan friar! brother, ho!\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nThis same should be the voice of Friar John.\nWelcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?\nOr, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nGoing to find a bare-foot brother out\nOne of our order, to associate me,\nHere in this city visiting the sick,\nAnd finding him, the searchers of the town,\nSuspecting that we both were in a house\nWhere the infectious pestilence did reign,\nSeal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;\nSo that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nI could not send it,--here it is again,--\nNor get a messenger to bring it thee,\nSo fearful were they of infection.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nUnhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,\nThe letter was not nice but full of charge\nOf dear import, and the neglecting it\nMay do much danger. Friar John, go hence;\nGet me an iron crow, and bring it straight\nUnto my cell.\n\nFRIAR JOHN:\nBrother, I'll go and bring it thee.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nNow must I to the monument alone;\nWithin three hours will fair Juliet wake:\nShe will beshrew me much that Romeo\nHath had no notice of these accidents;\nBut I will write again to Mantua,\nAnd keep her at my cell till Romeo come;\nPoor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!\n\nPARIS:\nGive me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:\nYet put it out, for I would not be seen.\nUnder yond yew-trees lay thee all along,\nHolding thine ear close to the hollow ground;\nSo shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,\nBeing loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,\nBut thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,\nAs signal that thou hear'st something approach.\nGive me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n\nPAGE:\n\nPARIS:\nSweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--\nO woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--\nWhich with sweet water nightly I will dew,\nOr, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:\nThe obsequies that I for thee will keep\nNightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.\nThe boy gives warning something doth approach.\nWhat cursed foot wanders this way to-night,\nTo cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\nWhat with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.\n\nROMEO:\nGive me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\nHold, take this letter; early in the morning\nSee thou deliver it to my lord and father.\nGive me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,\nWhate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,\nAnd do not interrupt me in my course.\nWhy I descend into this bed of death,\nIs partly to behold my lady's face;\nBut chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\nA precious ring, a ring that I must use\nIn dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:\nBut if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\nIn what I further shall intend to do,\nBy heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\nAnd strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:\nThe time and my intents are savage-wild,\nMore fierce and more inexorable far\nThan empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n\nROMEO:\nSo shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:\nLive, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.\n\nBALTHASAR:\n\nROMEO:\nThou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\nGorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,\nThus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\nAnd, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!\n\nPARIS:\nThis is that banish'd haughty Montague,\nThat murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,\nIt is supposed, the fair creature died;\nAnd here is come to do some villanous shame\nTo the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.\nStop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!\nCan vengeance be pursued further than death?\nCondemned villain, I do apprehend thee:\nObey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n\nROMEO:\nI must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\nGood gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;\nFly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;\nLet them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\nPut not another sin upon my head,\nBy urging me to fury: O, be gone!\nBy heaven, I love thee better than myself;\nFor I come hither arm'd against myself:\nStay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,\nA madman's mercy bade thee run away.\n\nPARIS:\nI do defy thy conjurations,\nAnd apprehend thee for a felon here.\n\nROMEO:\nWilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!\n\nPAGE:\nO Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n\nPARIS:\nO, I am slain!\nIf thou be merciful,\nOpen the tomb, lay me with Juliet.\n\nROMEO:\nIn faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\nMercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\nWhat said my man, when my betossed soul\nDid not attend him as we rode? I think\nHe told me Paris should have married Juliet:\nSaid he not so? or did I dream it so?\nOr am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,\nTo think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\nOne writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\nI'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;\nA grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,\nFor here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\nThis vault a feasting presence full of light.\nDeath, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\nHow oft when men are at the point of death\nHave they been merry! which their keepers call\nA lightning before death: O, how may I\nCall this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\nDeath, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\nHath had no power yet upon thy beauty:\nThou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet\nIs crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\nAnd death's pale flag is not advanced there.\nTybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\nO, what more favour can I do to thee,\nThan with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\nTo sunder his that was thine enemy?\nForgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,\nWhy art thou yet so fair? shall I believe\nThat unsubstantial death is amorous,\nAnd that the lean abhorred monster keeps\nThee here in dark to be his paramour?\nFor fear of that, I still will stay with thee;\nAnd never from this palace of dim night\nDepart again: here, here will I remain\nWith worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here\nWill I set up my everlasting rest,\nAnd shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\nFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\nArms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\nThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\nA dateless bargain to engrossing death!\nCome, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!\nThou desperate pilot, now at once run on\nThe dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!\nHere's to my love!\nO true apothecary!\nThy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nSaint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\nHave my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nHere's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nBliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\nWhat torch is yond, that vainly lends his light\nTo grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,\nIt burneth in the Capel's monument.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nIt doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\nOne that you love.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nWho is it?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nRomeo.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nHow long hath he been there?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nFull half an hour.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nGo with me to the vault.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI dare not, sir\nMy master knows not but I am gone hence;\nAnd fearfully did menace me with death,\nIf I did stay to look on his intents.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nStay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:\nO, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.\n\nBALTHASAR:\nAs I did sleep under this yew-tree here,\nI dreamt my master and another fought,\nAnd that my master slew him.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nRomeo!\nAlack, alack, what blood is this, which stains\nThe stony entrance of this sepulchre?\nWhat mean these masterless and gory swords\nTo lie discolour'd by this place of peace?\nRomeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?\nAnd steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\nIs guilty of this lamentable chance!\nThe lady stirs.\n\nJULIET:\nO comfortable friar! where is my lord?\nI do remember well where I should be,\nAnd there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\nOf death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:\nA greater power than we can contradict\nHath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\nThy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\nAnd Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\nAmong a sisterhood of holy nuns:\nStay not to question, for the watch is coming;\nCome, go, good Juliet,\nI dare no longer stay.\n\nJULIET:\nGo, get thee hence, for I will not away.\nWhat's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?\nPoison, I see, hath been his timeless end:\nO churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\nTo help me after? I will kiss thy lips;\nHaply some poison yet doth hang on them,\nTo make die with a restorative.\nThy lips are warm.\n\nFirst Watchman:\n\nJULIET:\nYea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\nThis is thy sheath;\nthere rust, and let me die.\n\nPAGE:\nThis is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nThe ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:\nGo, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.\nPitiful sight! here lies the county slain,\nAnd Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\nWho here hath lain these two days buried.\nGo, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:\nRaise up the Montagues: some others search:\nWe see the ground whereon these woes do lie;\nBut the true ground of all these piteous woes\nWe cannot without circumstance descry.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nHere's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHold him in safety, till the prince come hither.\n\nThird Watchman:\nHere is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:\nWe took this mattock and this spade from him,\nAs he was coming from this churchyard side.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nA great suspicion: stay the friar too.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat misadventure is so early up,\nThat calls our person from our morning's rest?\n\nCAPULET:\nWhat should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nThe people in the street cry Romeo,\nSome Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,\nWith open outcry toward our monument.\n\nPRINCE:\nWhat fear is this which startles in our ears?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nSovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\nAnd Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\nWarm and new kill'd.\n\nPRINCE:\nSearch, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nHere is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;\nWith instruments upon them, fit to open\nThese dead men's tombs.\n\nCAPULET:\nO heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\nThis dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house\nIs empty on the back of Montague,--\nAnd it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n\nLADY CAPULET:\nO me! this sight of death is as a bell,\nThat warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\nPRINCE:\nCome, Montague; for thou art early up,\nTo see thy son and heir more early down.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAlas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;\nGrief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:\nWhat further woe conspires against mine age?\n\nPRINCE:\nLook, and thou shalt see.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nO thou untaught! what manners is in this?\nTo press before thy father to a grave?\n\nPRINCE:\nSeal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\nTill we can clear these ambiguities,\nAnd know their spring, their head, their\ntrue descent;\nAnd then will I be general of your woes,\nAnd lead you even to death: meantime forbear,\nAnd let mischance be slave to patience.\nBring forth the parties of suspicion.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI am the greatest, able to do least,\nYet most suspected, as the time and place\nDoth make against me of this direful murder;\nAnd here I stand, both to impeach and purge\nMyself condemned and myself excused.\n\nPRINCE:\nThen say at once what thou dost know in this.\n\nFRIAR LAURENCE:\nI will be brief, for my short date of breath\nIs not so long as is a tedious tale.\nRomeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\nAnd she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:\nI married them; and their stol'n marriage-day\nWas Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death\nBanish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,\nFor whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.\nYou, to remove that siege of grief from her,\nBetroth'd and would have married her perforce\nTo County Paris: then comes she to me,\nAnd, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean\nTo rid her from this second marriage,\nOr in my cell there would she kill herself.\nThen gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,\nA sleeping potion; which so took effect\nAs I intended, for it wrought on her\nThe form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,\nThat he should hither come as this dire night,\nTo help to take her from her borrow'd grave,\nBeing the time the potion's force should cease.\nBut he which bore my letter, Friar John,\nWas stay'd by accident, and yesternight\nReturn'd my letter back. Then all alone\nAt the prefixed hour of her waking,\nCame I to take her from her kindred's vault;\nMeaning to keep her closely at my cell,\nTill I conveniently could send to Romeo:\nBut when I came, some minute ere the time\nOf her awaking, here untimely lay\nThe noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\nShe wakes; and I entreated her come forth,\nAnd bear this work of heaven with patience:\nBut then a noise did scare me from the tomb;\nAnd she, too desperate, would not go with me,\nBut, as it seems, did violence on herself.\nAll this I know; and to the marriage\nHer nurse is privy: and, if aught in this\nMiscarried by my fault, let my old life\nBe sacrificed, some hour before his time,\nUnto the rigour of severest law.\n\nPRINCE:\nWe still have known thee for a holy man.\nWhere's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?\n\nBALTHASAR:\nI brought my master news of Juliet's death;\nAnd then in post he came from Mantua\nTo this same place, to this same monument.\nThis letter he early bid me give his father,\nAnd threatened me with death, going in the vault,\nI departed not and left him there.\n\nPRINCE:\nGive me the letter; I will look on it.\nWhere is the county's page, that raised the watch?\nSirrah, what made your master in this place?\n\nPAGE:\nHe came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\nAnd bid me stand aloof, and so I did:\nAnon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\nAnd by and by my master drew on him;\nAnd then I ran away to call the watch.\n\nPRINCE:\nThis letter doth make good the friar's words,\nTheir course of love, the tidings of her death:\nAnd here he writes that he did buy a poison\nOf a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal\nCame to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\nWhere be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!\nSee, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\nThat heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.\nAnd I for winking at your discords too\nHave lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.\n\nCAPULET:\nO brother Montague, give me thy hand:\nThis is my daughter's jointure, for no more\nCan I demand.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I can give thee more:\nFor I will raise her statue in pure gold;\nThat while Verona by that name is known,\nThere shall no figure at such rate be set\nAs that of true and faithful Juliet.\n\nCAPULET:\nAs rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;\nPoor sacrifices of our enmity!\n\nPRINCE:\nA glooming peace this morning with it brings;\nThe sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:\nGo hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\nSome shall be pardon'd, and some punished:\nFor never was a story of more woe\nThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n\nWARWICK:\nI wonder how the king escaped our hands.\n\nYORK:\nWhile we pursued the horsemen of the north,\nHe slily stole away and left his men:\nWhereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\nWhose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\nCheer'd up the drooping army; and himself,\nLord Clifford and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\nCharged our main battle's front, and breaking in\nWere by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\nIs either slain or wounded dangerously;\nI cleft his beaver with a downright blow:\nThat this is true, father, behold his blood.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\nWhom I encounter'd as the battles join'd.\n\nRICHARD:\nSpeak thou for me and tell them what I did.\n\nYORK:\nRichard hath best deserved of all my sons.\nBut is your grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n\nNORFOLK:\nSuch hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n\nRICHARD:\nThus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\nBefore I see thee seated in that throne\nWhich now the house of Lancaster usurps,\nI vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\nThis is the palace of the fearful king,\nAnd this the regal seat: possess it, York;\nFor this is thine and not King Henry's heirs'\n\nYORK:\nAssist me, then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\nFor hither we have broken in by force.\n\nNORFOLK:\nWe'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n\nYORK:\nThanks, gentle Norfolk: stay by me, my lords;\nAnd, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd when the king comes, offer no violence,\nUnless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n\nYORK:\nThe queen this day here holds her parliament,\nBut little thinks we shall be of her council:\nBy words or blows here let us win our right.\n\nRICHARD:\nArm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n\nWARWICK:\nThe bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\nUnless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be king,\nAnd bashful Henry deposed, whose cowardice\nHath made us by-words to our enemies.\n\nYORK:\nThen leave me not, my lords; be resolute;\nI mean to take possession of my right.\n\nWARWICK:\nNeither the king, nor he that loves him best,\nThe proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\nDares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.\nI'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares:\nResolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\nEven in the chair of state: belike he means,\nBack'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\nTo aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\nEarl of Northumberland, he slew thy father.\nAnd thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\nOn him, his sons, his favourites and his friends.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nIf I be not, heavens be revenged on me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThe hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nWhat, shall we suffer this? let's pluck him down:\nMy heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPatience is for poltroons, such as he:\nHe durst not sit there, had your father lived.\nMy gracious lord, here in the parliament\nLet us assail the family of York.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWell hast thou spoken, cousin: be it so.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, know you not the city favours them,\nAnd they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n\nEXETER:\nBut when the duke is slain, they'll quickly fly.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFar be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\nTo make a shambles of the parliament-house!\nCousin of Exeter, frowns, words and threats\nShall be the war that Henry means to use.\nThou factious Duke of York, descend my throne,\nand kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\nI am thy sovereign.\n\nYORK:\nI am thine.\n\nEXETER:\nFor shame, come down: he made thee Duke of York.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n\nEXETER:\nThy father was a traitor to the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nExeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\nIn following this usurping Henry.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhom should he follow but his natural king?\n\nWARWICK:\nTrue, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n\nYORK:\nIt must and shall be so: content thyself.\n\nWARWICK:\nBe Duke of Lancaster; let him be king.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nHe is both king and Duke of Lancaster;\nAnd that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\nThat we are those which chased you from the field\nAnd slew your fathers, and with colours spread\nMarch'd through the city to the palace gates.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\nAnd, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nPlantagenet, of thee and these thy sons,\nThy kinsman and thy friends, I'll have more lives\nThan drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nUrge it no more; lest that, instead of words,\nI send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\nAs shall revenge his death before I stir.\n\nWARWICK:\nPoor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless threats!\n\nYORK:\nWill you we show our title to the crown?\nIf not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhat title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\nThy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\nThy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\nI am the son of Henry the Fifth,\nWho made the Dauphin and the French to stoop\nAnd seized upon their towns and provinces.\n\nWARWICK:\nTalk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe lord protector lost it, and not I:\nWhen I was crown'd I was but nine months old.\n\nRICHARD:\nYou are old enough now, and yet, methinks, you lose.\nFather, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nGood brother, as thou lovest and honourest arms,\nLet's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n\nRICHARD:\nSound drums and trumpets, and the king will fly.\n\nYORK:\nSons, peace!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPeace, thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nPlantagenet shall speak first: hear him, lords;\nAnd be you silent and attentive too,\nFor he that interrupts him shall not live.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThink'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\nWherein my grandsire and my father sat?\nNo: first shall war unpeople this my realm;\nAy, and their colours, often borne in France,\nAnd now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\nShall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\nMy title's good, and better far than his.\n\nWARWICK:\nProve it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHenry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n\nYORK:\n'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nYORK:\nWhat then?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAn if he may, then am I lawful king;\nFor Richard, in the view of many lords,\nResign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\nWhose heir my father was, and I am his.\n\nYORK:\nHe rose against him, being his sovereign,\nAnd made him to resign his crown perforce.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\nThink you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n\nEXETER:\nNo; for he could not so resign his crown\nBut that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nArt thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n\nEXETER:\nHis is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n\nYORK:\nWhy whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n\nEXETER:\nMy conscience tells me he is lawful king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nPlantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\nThink not that Henry shall be so deposed.\n\nWARWICK:\nDeposed he shall be, in despite of all.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nThou art deceived: 'tis not thy southern power,\nOf Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\nWhich makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\nCan set the duke up in despite of me.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nKing Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\nLord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence:\nMay that ground gape and swallow me alive,\nWhere I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n\nYORK:\nHenry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\nWhat mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n\nWARWICK:\nDo right unto this princely Duke of York,\nOr I will fill the house with armed men,\nAnd over the chair of state, where now he sits,\nWrite up his title with usurping blood.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Warwick, hear me but one word:\nLet me for this my life-time reign as king.\n\nYORK:\nConfirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\nAnd thou shalt reign in quiet while thou livest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI am content: Richard Plantagenet,\nEnjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhat wrong is this unto the prince your son!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat good is this to England and himself!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nBase, fearful and despairing Henry!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow hast thou injured both thyself and us!\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nI cannot stay to hear these articles.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNor I.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nCome, cousin, let us tell the queen these news.\n\nWESTMORELAND:\nFarewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\nIn whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe thou a prey unto the house of York,\nAnd die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\nOr live in peace abandon'd and despised!\n\nWARWICK:\nTurn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n\nEXETER:\nThey seek revenge and therefore will not yield.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAh, Exeter!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy should you sigh, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNot for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\nWhom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\nBut be it as it may: I here entail\nThe crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\nConditionally, that here thou take an oath\nTo cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\nTo honour me as thy king and sovereign,\nAnd neither by treason nor hostility\nTo seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n\nYORK:\nThis oath I willingly take and will perform.\n\nWARWICK:\nLong live King Henry! Plantagenet embrace him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd long live thou and these thy forward sons!\n\nYORK:\nNow York and Lancaster are reconciled.\n\nEXETER:\nAccursed be he that seeks to make them foes!\n\nYORK:\nFarewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n\nNORFOLK:\nAnd I to Norfolk with my followers.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd I unto the sea from whence I came.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAnd I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\nEXETER:\nHere comes the queen, whose looks bewray her anger:\nI'll steal away.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nExeter, so will I.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBe patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWho can be patient in such extremes?\nAh, wretched man! would I had died a maid\nAnd never seen thee, never borne thee son,\nSeeing thou hast proved so unnatural a father\nHath he deserved to lose his birthright thus?\nHadst thou but loved him half so well as I,\nOr felt that pain which I did for him once,\nOr nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\nThou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there,\nRather than have that savage duke thine heir\nAnd disinherited thine only son.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFather, you cannot disinherit me:\nIf you be king, why should not I succeed?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son:\nThe Earl of Warwick and the duke enforced me.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nEnforced thee! art thou king, and wilt be forced?\nI shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\nThou hast undone thyself, thy son and me;\nAnd given unto the house of York such head\nAs thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\nTo entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\nWhat is it, but to make thy sepulchre\nAnd creep into it far before thy time?\nWarwick is chancellor and the lord of Calais;\nStern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\nThe duke is made protector of the realm;\nAnd yet shalt thou be safe? such safety finds\nThe trembling lamb environed with wolves.\nHad I been there, which am a silly woman,\nThe soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\nBefore I would have granted to that act.\nBut thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour:\nAnd seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself\nBoth from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\nUntil that act of parliament be repeal'd\nWhereby my son is disinherited.\nThe northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\nWill follow mine, if once they see them spread;\nAnd spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\nAnd utter ruin of the house of York.\nThus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\nOur army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nStay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThou hast spoke too much already: get thee gone.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nGentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nWhen I return with victory from the field\nI'll see your grace: till then I'll follow her.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nCome, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nPoor queen! how love to me and to her son\nHath made her break out into terms of rage!\nRevenged may she be on that hateful duke,\nWhose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\nWill cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\nTire on the flesh of me and of my son!\nThe loss of those three lords torments my heart:\nI'll write unto them and entreat them fair.\nCome, cousin you shall be the messenger.\n\nEXETER:\nAnd I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, I can better play the orator.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\nYORK:\nWhy, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\nWhat is your quarrel? how began it first?\n\nEDWARD:\nNo quarrel, but a slight contention.\n\nYORK:\nAbout what?\n\nRICHARD:\nAbout that which concerns your grace and us;\nThe crown of England, father, which is yours.\n\nYORK:\nMine boy? not till King Henry be dead.\n\nRICHARD:\nYour right depends not on his life or death.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow you are heir, therefore enjoy it now:\nBy giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\nIt will outrun you, father, in the end.\n\nYORK:\nI took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n\nEDWARD:\nBut for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\nI would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n\nRICHARD:\nNo; God forbid your grace should be forsworn.\n\nYORK:\nI shall be, if I claim by open war.\n\nRICHARD:\nI'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n\nYORK:\nThou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n\nRICHARD:\nAn oath is of no moment, being not took\nBefore a true and lawful magistrate,\nThat hath authority over him that swears:\nHenry had none, but did usurp the place;\nThen, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\nYour oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\nTherefore, to arms! And, father, do but think\nHow sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;\nWithin whose circuit is Elysium\nAnd all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\nWhy do we finger thus? I cannot rest\nUntil the white rose that I wear be dyed\nEven in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n\nYORK:\nRichard, enough; I will be king, or die.\nBrother, thou shalt to London presently,\nAnd whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\nThou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk,\nAnd tell him privily of our intent.\nYou Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\nWith whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise:\nIn them I trust; for they are soldiers,\nWitty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\nWhile you are thus employ'd, what resteth more,\nBut that I seek occasion how to rise,\nAnd yet the king not privy to my drift,\nNor any of the house of Lancaster?\nBut, stay: what news? Why comest thou in such post?\n\nMessenger:\nThe queen with all the northern earls and lords\nIntend here to besiege you in your castle:\nShe is hard by with twenty thousand men;\nAnd therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n\nYORK:\nAy, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\nEdward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\nMy brother Montague shall post to London:\nLet noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\nWhom we have left protectors of the king,\nWith powerful policy strengthen themselves,\nAnd trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBrother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not:\nAnd thus most humbly I do take my leave.\nSir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles,\nYou are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\nThe army of the queen mean to besiege us.\n\nJOHN MORTIMER:\nShe shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n\nYORK:\nWhat, with five thousand men?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, with five hundred, father, for a need:\nA woman's general; what should we fear?\n\nEDWARD:\nI hear their drums: let's set our men in order,\nAnd issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n\nYORK:\nFive men to twenty! though the odds be great,\nI doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\nMany a battle have I won in France,\nWhen as the enemy hath been ten to one:\nWhy should I not now have the like success?\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRUTLAND:\nAh, whither shall I fly to 'scape their hands?\nAh, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nChaplain, away! thy priesthood saves thy life.\nAs for the brat of this accursed duke,\nWhose father slew my father, he shall die.\n\nTutor:\nAnd I, my lord, will bear him company.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSoldiers, away with him!\n\nTutor:\nAh, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\nLest thou be hated both of God and man!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHow now! is he dead already? or is it fear\nThat makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n\nRUTLAND:\nSo looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\nThat trembles under his devouring paws;\nAnd so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\nAnd so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\nAh, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\nAnd not with such a cruel threatening look.\nSweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\nI am too mean a subject for thy wrath:\nBe thou revenged on men, and let me live.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nIn vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\nHath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n\nRUTLAND:\nThen let my father's blood open it again:\nHe is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHad thy brethren here, their lives and thine\nWere not revenge sufficient for me;\nNo, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\nAnd hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\nIt could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart.\nThe sight of any of the house of York\nIs as a fury to torment my soul;\nAnd till I root out their accursed line\nAnd leave not one alive, I live in hell.\nTherefore--\n\nRUTLAND:\nO, let me pray before I take my death!\nTo thee I pray; sweet Clifford, pity me!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSuch pity as my rapier's point affords.\n\nRUTLAND:\nI never did thee harm: why wilt thou slay me?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThy father hath.\n\nRUTLAND:\nBut 'twas ere I was born.\nThou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\nLest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\nHe be as miserably slain as I.\nAh, let me live in prison all my days;\nAnd when I give occasion of offence,\nThen let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNo cause!\nThy father slew my father; therefore, die.\n\nRUTLAND:\nDi faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nPlantagenet! I come, Plantagenet!\nAnd this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\nShall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\nCongeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nYORK:\nThe army of the queen hath got the field:\nMy uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\nAnd all my followers to the eager foe\nTurn back and fly, like ships before the wind\nOr lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.\nMy sons, God knows what hath bechanced them:\nBut this I know, they have demean'd themselves\nLike men born to renown by life or death.\nThree times did Richard make a lane to me.\nAnd thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out!'\nAnd full as oft came Edward to my side,\nWith purple falchion, painted to the hilt\nIn blood of those that had encounter'd him:\nAnd when the hardiest warriors did retire,\nRichard cried 'Charge! and give no foot of ground!'\nAnd cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\nA sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\nWith this, we charged again: but, out, alas!\nWe bodged again; as I have seen a swan\nWith bootless labour swim against the tide\nAnd spend her strength with over-matching waves.\nAh, hark! the fatal followers do pursue;\nAnd I am faint and cannot fly their fury:\nAnd were I strong, I would not shun their fury:\nThe sands are number'd that make up my life;\nHere must I stay, and here my life must end.\nCome, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\nI dare your quenchless fury to more rage:\nI am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nYield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, to such mercy as his ruthless arm,\nWith downright payment, show'd unto my father.\nNow Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\nAnd made an evening at the noontide prick.\n\nYORK:\nMy ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\nA bird that will revenge upon you all:\nAnd in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\nScorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\nWhy come you not? what! multitudes, and fear?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nSo cowards fight when they can fly no further;\nSo doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\nSo desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\nBreathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n\nYORK:\nO Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\nAnd in thy thought o'er-run my former time;\nAnd, if though canst for blushing, view this face,\nAnd bite thy tongue, that slanders him with cowardice\nWhose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI will not bandy with thee word for word,\nBut buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHold, valiant Clifford! for a thousand causes\nI would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\nWrath makes him deaf: speak thou, Northumberland.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\nTo prick thy finger, though to wound his heart:\nWhat valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\nFor one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\nWhen he might spurn him with his foot away?\nIt is war's prize to take all vantages;\nAnd ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nSo doth the cony struggle in the net.\n\nYORK:\nSo triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\nSo true men yield, with robbers so o'ermatch'd.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nWhat would your grace have done unto him now?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBrave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\nCome, make him stand upon this molehill here,\nThat raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\nYet parted but the shadow with his hand.\nWhat! was it you that would be England's king?\nWas't you that revell'd in our parliament,\nAnd made a preachment of your high descent?\nWhere are your mess of sons to back you now?\nThe wanton Edward, and the lusty George?\nAnd where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\nDicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\nWas wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\nOr, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\nLook, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\nThat valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,\nMade issue from the bosom of the boy;\nAnd if thine eyes can water for his death,\nI give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\nAlas poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\nI should lament thy miserable state.\nI prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.\nWhat, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\nThat not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\nWhy art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;\nAnd I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.\nStamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\nThou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport:\nYork cannot speak, unless he wear a crown.\nA crown for York! and, lords, bow low to him:\nHold you his hands, whilst I do set it on.\nAy, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\nAy, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\nAnd this is he was his adopted heir.\nBut how is it that great Plantagenet\nIs crown'd so soon, and broke his solemn oath?\nAs I bethink me, you should not be king\nTill our King Henry had shook hands with death.\nAnd will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\nAnd rob his temples of the diadem,\nNow in his life, against your holy oath?\nO, 'tis a fault too too unpardonable!\nOff with the crown, and with the crown his head;\nAnd, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nThat is my office, for my father's sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, stay; lets hear the orisons he makes.\n\nYORK:\nShe-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\nWhose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\nHow ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\nTo triumph, like an Amazonian trull,\nUpon their woes whom fortune captivates!\nBut that thy face is, vizard-like, unchanging,\nMade impudent with use of evil deeds,\nI would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\nTo tell thee whence thou camest, of whom derived,\nWere shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\nThy father bears the type of King of Naples,\nOf both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nYet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\nHath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\nIt needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen,\nUnless the adage must be verified,\nThat beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\nBut, God he knows, thy share thereof is small:\n'Tis virtue that doth make them most admired;\nThe contrary doth make thee wonder'd at:\n'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\nThe want thereof makes thee abominable:\nThou art as opposite to every good\nAs the Antipodes are unto us,\nOr as the south to the septentrion.\nO tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!\nHow couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\nTo bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\nAnd yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\nWomen are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible;\nThou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\nBids't thou me rage? why, now thou hast thy wish:\nWouldst have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will:\nFor raging wind blows up incessant showers,\nAnd when the rage allays, the rain begins.\nThese tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies:\nAnd every drop cries vengeance for his death,\n'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false\nFrenchwoman.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBeshrew me, but his passion moves me so\nThat hardly can I cheque my eyes from tears.\n\nYORK:\nThat face of his the hungry cannibals\nWould not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood:\nBut you are more inhuman, more inexorable,\nO, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.\nSee, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears:\nThis cloth thou dip'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\nAnd I with tears do wash the blood away.\nKeep thou the napkin, and go boast of this:\nAnd if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\nUpon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\nYea even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,\nAnd say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\nThere, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse;\nAnd in thy need such comfort come to thee\nAs now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\nHard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world:\nMy soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nHad he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\nI should not for my life but weep with him.\nTo see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhat, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\nThink but upon the wrong he did us all,\nAnd that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAnd here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n\nYORK:\nOpen Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\nMy soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOff with his head, and set it on York gates;\nSo York may overlook the town of York.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nEDWARD:\nI wonder how our princely father 'scaped,\nOr whether he be 'scaped away or no\nFrom Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit:\nHad he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\nHad he been slain, we should have heard the news;\nOr had he 'scaped, methinks we should have heard\nThe happy tidings of his good escape.\nHow fares my brother? why is he so sad?\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot joy, until I be resolved\nWhere our right valiant father is become.\nI saw him in the battle range about;\nAnd watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\nMethought he bore him in the thickest troop\nAs doth a lion in a herd of neat;\nOr as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\nWho having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\nThe rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.\nSo fared our father with his enemies;\nSo fled his enemies my warlike father:\nMethinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.\nSee how the morning opes her golden gates,\nAnd takes her farewell of the glorious sun!\nHow well resembles it the prime of youth,\nTrimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n\nEDWARD:\nDazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n\nRICHARD:\nThree glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\nNot separated with the racking clouds,\nBut sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\nSee, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\nAs if they vow'd some league inviolable:\nNow are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\nIn this the heaven figures some event.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\nI think it cites us, brother, to the field,\nThat we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\nEach one already blazing by our meeds,\nShould notwithstanding join our lights together\nAnd over-shine the earth as this the world.\nWhate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\nUpon my target three fair-shining suns.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, bear three daughters: by your leave I speak it,\nYou love the breeder better than the male.\nBut what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\nSome dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n\nMessenger:\nAh, one that was a woful looker-on\nWhen as the noble Duke of York was slain,\nYour princely father and my loving lord!\n\nEDWARD:\nO, speak no more, for I have heard too much.\n\nRICHARD:\nSay how he died, for I will hear it all.\n\nMessenger:\nEnvironed he was with many foes,\nAnd stood against them, as the hope of Troy\nAgainst the Greeks that would have enter'd Troy.\nBut Hercules himself must yield to odds;\nAnd many strokes, though with a little axe,\nHew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.\nBy many hands your father was subdued;\nBut only slaughter'd by the ireful arm\nOf unrelenting Clifford and the queen,\nWho crown'd the gracious duke in high despite,\nLaugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\nThe ruthless queen gave him to dry his cheeks\nA napkin steeped in the harmless blood\nOf sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain:\nAnd after many scorns, many foul taunts,\nThey took his head, and on the gates of York\nThey set the same; and there it doth remain,\nThe saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n\nEDWARD:\nSweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\nNow thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\nO Clifford, boisterous Clifford! thou hast slain\nThe flower of Europe for his chivalry;\nAnd treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\nFor hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\nNow my soul's palace is become a prison:\nAh, would she break from hence, that this my body\nMight in the ground be closed up in rest!\nFor never henceforth shall I joy again,\nNever, O never shall I see more joy!\n\nRICHARD:\nI cannot weep; for all my body's moisture\nScarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:\nNor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;\nFor selfsame wind that I should speak withal\nIs kindling coals that fires all my breast,\nAnd burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\nTo weep is to make less the depth of grief:\nTears then for babes; blows and revenge for me\nRichard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\nOr die renowned by attempting it.\n\nEDWARD:\nHis name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\nHis dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n\nRICHARD:\nNay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\nShow thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun:\nFor chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say;\nEither that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, fair lords! What fare? what news abroad?\n\nRICHARD:\nGreat Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\nOur baleful news, and at each word's deliverance\nStab poniards in our flesh till all were told,\nThe words would add more anguish than the wounds.\nO valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet,\nWhich held three dearly as his soul's redemption,\nIs by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n\nWARWICK:\nTen days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\nAnd now, to add more measure to your woes,\nI come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\nAfter the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\nWhere your brave father breathed his latest gasp,\nTidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\nWere brought me of your loss and his depart.\nI, then in London keeper of the king,\nMuster'd my soldiers, gather'd flocks of friends,\nAnd very well appointed, as I thought,\nMarch'd toward Saint Alban's to intercept the queen,\nBearing the king in my behalf along;\nFor by my scouts I was advertised\nThat she was coming with a full intent\nTo dash our late decree in parliament\nTouching King Henry's oath and your succession.\nShort tale to make, we at Saint Alban's met\nOur battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought:\nBut whether 'twas the coldness of the king,\nWho look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\nThat robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen;\nOr whether 'twas report of her success;\nOr more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\nWho thunders to his captives blood and death,\nI cannot judge: but to conclude with truth,\nTheir weapons like to lightning came and went;\nOur soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight,\nOr like an idle thresher with a flail,\nFell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\nI cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\nWith promise of high pay and great rewards:\nBut all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\nAnd we in them no hope to win the day;\nSo that we fled; the king unto the queen;\nLord George your brother, Norfolk and myself,\nIn haste, post-haste, are come to join with you:\nFor in the marches here we heard you were,\nMaking another head to fight again.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhere is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\nAnd when came George from Burgundy to England?\n\nWARWICK:\nSome six miles off the duke is with the soldiers;\nAnd for your brother, he was lately sent\nFrom your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\nWith aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled:\nOft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\nBut ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n\nWARWICK:\nNor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\nFor thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\nCan pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head,\nAnd wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\nWere he as famous and as bold in war\nAs he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n\nRICHARD:\nI know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not:\n'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\nBut in this troublous time what's to be done?\nShall we go throw away our coats of steel,\nAnd wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,\nNumbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\nOr shall we on the helmets of our foes\nTell our devotion with revengeful arms?\nIf for the last, say ay, and to it, lords.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\nAnd therefore comes my brother Montague.\nAttend me, lords. The proud insulting queen,\nWith Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\nAnd of their feather many more proud birds,\nHave wrought the easy-melting king like wax.\nHe swore consent to your succession,\nHis oath enrolled in the parliament;\nAnd now to London all the crew are gone,\nTo frustrate both his oath and what beside\nMay make against the house of Lancaster.\nTheir power, I think, is thirty thousand strong:\nNow, if the help of Norfolk and myself,\nWith all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\nAmongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\nWill but amount to five and twenty thousand,\nWhy, Via! to London will we march amain,\nAnd once again bestride our foaming steeds,\nAnd once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\nBut never once again turn back and fly.\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak:\nNe'er may he live to see a sunshine day,\nThat cries 'Retire,' if Warwick bid him stay.\n\nEDWARD:\nLord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\nAnd when thou fail'st--as God forbid the hour!--\nMust Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend!\n\nWARWICK:\nNo longer Earl of March, but Duke of York:\nThe next degree is England's royal throne;\nFor King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\nIn every borough as we pass along;\nAnd he that throws not up his cap for joy\nShall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\nKing Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\nStay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\nBut sound the trumpets, and about our task.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\nAs thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\nI come to pierce it, or to give thee mine.\n\nEDWARD:\nThen strike up drums: God and Saint George for us!\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now! what news?\n\nMessenger:\nThe Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me,\nThe queen is coming with a puissant host;\nAnd craves your company for speedy counsel.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy then it sorts, brave warriors, let's away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWelcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\nYonder's the head of that arch-enemy\nThat sought to be encompass'd with your crown:\nDoth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck:\nTo see this sight, it irks my very soul.\nWithhold revenge, dear God! 'tis not my fault,\nNor wittingly have I infringed my vow.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy gracious liege, this too much lenity\nAnd harmful pity must be laid aside.\nTo whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\nNot to the beast that would usurp their den.\nWhose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\nNot his that spoils her young before her face.\nWho 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\nNot he that sets his foot upon her back.\nThe smallest worm will turn being trodden on,\nAnd doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\nAmbitious York doth level at thy crown,\nThou smiling while he knit his angry brows:\nHe, but a duke, would have his son a king,\nAnd raise his issue, like a loving sire;\nThou, being a king, blest with a goodly son,\nDidst yield consent to disinherit him,\nWhich argued thee a most unloving father.\nUnreasonable creatures feed their young;\nAnd though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\nYet, in protection of their tender ones,\nWho hath not seen them, even with those wings\nWhich sometime they have used with fearful flight,\nMake war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\nOffer their own lives in their young's defence?\nFor shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\nWere it not pity that this goodly boy\nShould lose his birthright by his father's fault,\nAnd long hereafter say unto his child,\n'What my great-grandfather and his grandsire got\nMy careless father fondly gave away'?\nAh, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\nAnd let his manly face, which promiseth\nSuccessful fortune, steel thy melting heart\nTo hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFull well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\nInferring arguments of mighty force.\nBut, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\nThat things ill-got had ever bad success?\nAnd happy always was it for that son\nWhose father for his hoarding went to hell?\nI'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\nAnd would my father had left me no more!\nFor all the rest is held at such a rate\nAs brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\nThan in possession and jot of pleasure.\nAh, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\nHow it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMy lord, cheer up your spirits: our foes are nigh,\nAnd this soft courage makes your followers faint.\nYou promised knighthood to our forward son:\nUnsheathe your sword, and dub him presently.\nEdward, kneel down.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nEdward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\nAnd learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.\n\nPRINCE:\nMy gracious father, by your kingly leave,\nI'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\nAnd in that quarrel use it to the death.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nWhy, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\nMessenger:\nRoyal commanders, be in readiness:\nFor with a band of thirty thousand men\nComes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York;\nAnd in the towns, as they do march along,\nProclaims him king, and many fly to him:\nDarraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI would your highness would depart the field:\nThe queen hath best success when you are absent.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nBe it with resolution then to fight.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMy royal father, cheer these noble lords\nAnd hearten those that fight in your defence:\nUnsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\nEDWARD:\nNow, perjured Henry! wilt thou kneel for grace,\nAnd set thy diadem upon my head;\nOr bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGo, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!\nBecomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\nBefore thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n\nEDWARD:\nI am his king, and he should bow his knee;\nI was adopted heir by his consent:\nSince when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\nYou, that are king, though he do wear the crown,\nHave caused him, by new act of parliament,\nTo blot out me, and put his own son in.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAnd reason too:\nWho should succeed the father but the son?\n\nRICHARD:\nAre you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\nOr any he the proudest of thy sort.\n\nRICHARD:\n'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n\nCLIFFORD:\nAy, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n\nRICHARD:\nFor God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWhy, how now, long-tongued Warwick! dare you speak?\nWhen you and I met at Saint Alban's last,\nYour legs did better service than your hands.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nYou said so much before, and yet you fled.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND:\nNo, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n\nRICHARD:\nNorthumberland, I hold thee reverently.\nBreak off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\nThe execution of my big-swoln heart\nUpon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nI slew thy father, call'st thou him a child?\n\nRICHARD:\nAy, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\nAs thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\nBut ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHave done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDefy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI prithee, give no limits to my tongue:\nI am a king, and privileged to speak.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nMy liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\nCannot be cured by words; therefore be still.\n\nRICHARD:\nThen, executioner, unsheathe thy sword:\nBy him that made us all, I am resolved\nthat Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n\nEDWARD:\nSay, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\nA thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,\nThat ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n\nWARWICK:\nIf thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\nFor York in justice puts his armour on.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nIf that be right which Warwick says is right,\nThere is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\nFor, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nBut thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\nBut like a foul mis-shapen stigmatic,\nMark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\nAs venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.\n\nRICHARD:\nIron of Naples hid with English gilt,\nWhose father bears the title of a king,--\nAs if a channel should be call'd the sea,--\nShamest thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\nTo let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n\nEDWARD:\nA wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,\nTo make this shameless callet know herself.\nHelen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\nAlthough thy husband may be Menelaus;\nAnd ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd\nBy that false woman, as this king by thee.\nHis father revell'd in the heart of France,\nAnd tamed the king, and made the dauphin stoop;\nAnd had he match'd according to his state,\nHe might have kept that glory to this day;\nBut when he took a beggar to his bed,\nAnd graced thy poor sire with his bridal-day,\nEven then that sunshine brew'd a shower for him,\nThat wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France,\nAnd heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\nFor what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\nHadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\nAnd we, in pity of the gentle king,\nHad slipp'd our claim until another age.\n\nGEORGE:\nBut when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\nAnd that thy summer bred us no increase,\nWe set the axe to thy usurping root;\nAnd though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\nYet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,\nWe'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\nOr bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.\n\nEDWARD:\nAnd, in this resolution, I defy thee;\nNot willing any longer conference,\nSince thou deniest the gentle king to speak.\nSound trumpets! let our bloody colours wave!\nAnd either victory, or else a grave.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nStay, Edward.\n\nEDWARD:\nNo, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay:\nThese words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nForspent with toil, as runners with a race,\nI lay me down a little while to breathe;\nFor strokes received, and many blows repaid,\nHave robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\nAnd spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\nEDWARD:\nSmile, gentle heaven! or strike, ungentle death!\nFor this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow now, my lord! what hap? what hope of good?\n\nGEORGE:\nOur hap is loss, our hope but sad despair;\nOur ranks are broke, and ruin follows us:\nWhat counsel give you? whither shall we fly?\n\nEDWARD:\nBootless is flight, they follow us with wings;\nAnd weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.\n\nRICHARD:\nAh, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\nThy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\nBroach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\nAnd in the very pangs of death he cried,\nLike to a dismal clangour heard from far,\n'Warwick, revenge! brother, revenge my death!'\nSo, underneath the belly of their steeds,\nThat stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\nThe noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen let the earth be drunken with our blood:\nI'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\nWhy stand we like soft-hearted women here,\nWailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage;\nAnd look upon, as if the tragedy\nWere play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\nHere on my knee I vow to God above,\nI'll never pause again, never stand still,\nTill either death hath closed these eyes of mine\nOr fortune given me measure of revenge.\n\nEDWARD:\nO Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine;\nAnd in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\nAnd, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,\nI throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee,\nThou setter up and plucker down of kings,\nBeseeching thee, if with they will it stands\nThat to my foes this body must be prey,\nYet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope,\nAnd give sweet passage to my sinful soul!\nNow, lords, take leave until we meet again,\nWhere'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n\nRICHARD:\nBrother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\nLet me embrace thee in my weary arms:\nI, that did never weep, now melt with woe\nThat winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n\nWARWICK:\nAway, away! Once more, sweet lords farewell.\n\nGEORGE:\nYet let us all together to our troops,\nAnd give them leave to fly that will not stay;\nAnd call them pillars that will stand to us;\nAnd, if we thrive, promise them such rewards\nAs victors wear at the Olympian games:\nThis may plant courage in their quailing breasts;\nFor yet is hope of life and victory.\nForslow no longer, make we hence amain.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRICHARD:\nNow, Clifford, I have singled thee alone:\nSuppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\nAnd this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\nWert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n\nCLIFFORD:\nNow, Richard, I am with thee here alone:\nThis is the hand that stabb'd thy father York;\nAnd this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\nAnd here's the heart that triumphs in their death\nAnd cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\nTo execute the like upon thyself;\nAnd so, have at thee!\n\nRICHARD:\nNay Warwick, single out some other chase;\nFor I myself will hunt this wolf to death.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThis battle fares like to the morning's war,\nWhen dying clouds contend with growing light,\nWhat time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\nCan neither call it perfect day nor night.\nNow sways it this way, like a mighty sea\nForced by the tide to combat with the wind;\nNow sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\nForced to retire by fury of the wind:\nSometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\nNow one the better, then another best;\nBoth tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\nYet neither conqueror nor conquered:\nSo is the equal of this fell war.\nHere on this molehill will I sit me down.\nTo whom God will, there be the victory!\nFor Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\nHave chid me from the battle; swearing both\nThey prosper best of all when I am thence.\nWould I were dead! if God's good will were so;\nFor what is in this world but grief and woe?\nO God! methinks it were a happy life,\nTo be no better than a homely swain;\nTo sit upon a hill, as I do now,\nTo carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\nThereby to see the minutes how they run,\nHow many make the hour full complete;\nHow many hours bring about the day;\nHow many days will finish up the year;\nHow many years a mortal man may live.\nWhen this is known, then to divide the times:\nSo many hours must I tend my flock;\nSo many hours must I take my rest;\nSo many hours must I contemplate;\nSo many hours must I sport myself;\nSo many days my ewes have been with young;\nSo many weeks ere the poor fools will ean:\nSo many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\nSo minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\nPass'd over to the end they were created,\nWould bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\nAh, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\nGives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade\nTo shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\nThan doth a rich embroider'd canopy\nTo kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\nO, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\nAnd to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,\nHis cold thin drink out of his leather bottle.\nHis wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\nAll which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\nIs far beyond a prince's delicates,\nHis viands sparkling in a golden cup,\nHis body couched in a curious bed,\nWhen care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\nSon:\nIll blows the wind that profits nobody.\nThis man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,\nMay be possessed with some store of crowns;\nAnd I, that haply take them from him now,\nMay yet ere night yield both my life and them\nTo some man else, as this dead man doth me.\nWho's this? O God! it is my father's face,\nWhom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\nO heavy times, begetting such events!\nFrom London by the king was I press'd forth;\nMy father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\nCame on the part of York, press'd by his master;\nAnd I, who at his hands received my life, him\nHave by my hands of life bereaved him.\nPardon me, God, I knew not what I did!\nAnd pardon, father, for I knew not thee!\nMy tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\nAnd no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nO piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\nWhiles lions war and battle for their dens,\nPoor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\nWeep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear;\nAnd let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\nBe blind with tears, and break o'ercharged with grief.\n\nFather:\nThou that so stoutly hast resisted me,\nGive me thy gold, if thou hast any gold:\nFor I have bought it with an hundred blows.\nBut let me see: is this our foeman's face?\nAh, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\nAh, boy, if any life be left in thee,\nThrow up thine eye! see, see what showers arise,\nBlown with the windy tempest of my heart,\nUpon thy words, that kill mine eye and heart!\nO, pity, God, this miserable age!\nWhat stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\nErroneous, mutinous and unnatural,\nThis deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\nO boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\nAnd hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWoe above woe! grief more than common grief!\nO that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\nO pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\nThe red rose and the white are on his face,\nThe fatal colours of our striving houses:\nThe one his purple blood right well resembles;\nThe other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth:\nWither one rose, and let the other flourish;\nIf you contend, a thousand lives must wither.\n\nSon:\nHow will my mother for a father's death\nTake on with me and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nFather:\nHow will my wife for slaughter of my son\nShed seas of tears and ne'er be satisfied!\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHow will the country for these woful chances\nMisthink the king and not be satisfied!\n\nSon:\nWas ever son so rued a father's death?\n\nFather:\nWas ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWas ever king so grieved for subjects' woe?\nMuch is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n\nSon:\nI'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n\nFather:\nThese arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\nMy heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\nFor from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\nMy sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\nAnd so obsequious will thy father be,\nEven for the loss of thee, having no more,\nAs Priam was for all his valiant sons.\nI'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\nFor I have murdered where I should not kill.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\nHere sits a king more woful than you are.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nFly, father, fly! for all your friends are fled,\nAnd Warwick rages like a chafed bull:\nAway! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain:\nEdward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\nHaving the fearful flying hare in sight,\nWith fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\nAnd bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\nAre at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n\nEXETER:\nAway! for vengeance comes along with them:\nNay, stay not to expostulate, make speed;\nOr else come after: I'll away before.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nNay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter:\nNot that I fear to stay, but love to go\nWhither the queen intends. Forward; away!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nCLIFFORD:\nHere burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\nWhich, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\nO Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\nMore than my body's parting with my soul!\nMy love and fear glued many friends to thee;\nAnd, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts.\nImpairing Henry, strengthening misproud York,\nThe common people swarm like summer flies;\nAnd whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\nAnd who shines now but Henry's enemies?\nO Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\nThat Phaethon should cheque thy fiery steeds,\nThy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\nAnd, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\nOr as thy father and his father did,\nGiving no ground unto the house of York,\nThey never then had sprung like summer flies;\nI and ten thousand in this luckless realm\nHad left no mourning widows for our death;\nAnd thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\nFor what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\nAnd what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\nBootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;\nNo way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight:\nThe foe is merciless, and will not pity;\nFor at their hands I have deserved no pity.\nThe air hath got into my deadly wounds,\nAnd much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\nCome, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\nI stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.\n\nEDWARD:\nNow breathe we, lords: good fortune bids us pause,\nAnd smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\nSome troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,\nThat led calm Henry, though he were a king,\nAs doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\nCommand an argosy to stem the waves.\nBut think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n\nWARWICK:\nNo, 'tis impossible he should escape,\nFor, though before his face I speak the words\nYour brother Richard mark'd him for the grave:\nAnd wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.\n\nEDWARD:\nWhose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n\nRICHARD:\nA deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n\nEDWARD:\nSee who it is: and, now the battle's ended,\nIf friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n\nRICHARD:\nRevoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\nWho not contented that he lopp'd the branch\nIn hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\nBut set his murdering knife unto the root\nFrom whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,\nI mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom off the gates of York fetch down the head,\nYour father's head, which Clifford placed there;\nInstead whereof let this supply the room:\nMeasure for measure must be answered.\n\nEDWARD:\nBring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\nThat nothing sung but death to us and ours:\nNow death shall stop his dismal threatening sound,\nAnd his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n\nWARWICK:\nI think his understanding is bereft.\nSpeak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\nDark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\nAnd he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n\nRICHARD:\nO, would he did! and so perhaps he doth:\n'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\nBecause he would avoid such bitter taunts\nWhich in the time of death he gave our father.\n\nGEORGE:\nIf so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n\nRICHARD:\nClifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n\nEDWARD:\nClifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n\nWARWICK:\nClifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhile we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n\nRICHARD:\nThou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n\nEDWARD:\nThou pitied'st Rutland; I will pity thee.\n\nGEORGE:\nWhere's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n\nWARWICK:\nThey mock thee, Clifford: swear as thou wast wont.\n\nRICHARD:\nWhat, not an oath? nay, then the world goes hard\nWhen Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\nI know by that he's dead; and, by my soul,\nIf this right hand would buy two hour's life,\nThat I in all despite might rail at him,\nThis hand should chop it off, and with the\nissuing blood\nStifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\nYork and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but he's dead: off with the traitor's head,\nAnd rear it in the place your father's stands.\nAnd now to London with triumphant march,\nThere to be crowned England's royal king:\nFrom whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\nAnd ask the Lady Bona for thy queen:\nSo shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\nAnd, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\nThe scatter'd foe that hopes to rise again;\nFor though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\nYet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\nFirst will I see the coronation;\nAnd then to Brittany I'll cross the sea,\nTo effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n\nEDWARD:\nEven as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\nFor in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\nAnd never will I undertake the thing\nWherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\nRichard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester,\nAnd George, of Clarence: Warwick, as ourself,\nShall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n\nRICHARD:\nLet me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\nFor Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n\nWARWICK:\nTut, that's a foolish observation:\nRichard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London,\nTo see these honours in possession.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Keeper:\nUnder this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves;\nFor through this laund anon the deer will come;\nAnd in this covert will we make our stand,\nCulling the principal of all the deer.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nI'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nThat cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\nWill scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\nHere stand we both, and aim we at the best:\nAnd, for the time shall not seem tedious,\nI'll tell thee what befell me on a day\nIn this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFrom Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\nTo greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\nNo, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\nThy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\nThy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed:\nNo bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\nNo humble suitors press to speak for right,\nNo, not a man comes for redress of thee;\nFor how can I help them, and not myself?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nAy, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee:\nThis is the quondam king; let's seize upon him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet me embrace thee, sour adversity,\nFor wise men say it is the wisest course.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWhy linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nForbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy queen and son are gone to France for aid;\nAnd, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\nIs thither gone, to crave the French king's sister\nTo wife for Edward: if this news be true,\nPoor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\nFor Warwick is a subtle orator,\nAnd Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\nBy this account then Margaret may win him;\nFor she's a woman to be pitied much:\nHer sighs will make a battery in his breast;\nHer tears will pierce into a marble heart;\nThe tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\nAnd Nero will be tainted with remorse,\nTo hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\nAy, but she's come to beg, Warwick to give;\nShe, on his left side, craving aid for Henry,\nHe, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\nShe weeps, and says her Henry is deposed;\nHe smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\nThat she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\nWhiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\nInferreth arguments of mighty strength,\nAnd in conclusion wins the king from her,\nWith promise of his sister, and what else,\nTo strengthen and support King Edward's place.\nO Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\nArt then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n\nSecond Keeper:\nSay, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMore than I seem, and less than I was born to:\nA man at least, for less I should not be;\nAnd men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nAy, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, so I am, in mind; and that's enough.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nBut, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy crown is in my heart, not on my head;\nNot decked with diamonds and Indian stones,\nNor to be seen: my crown is called content:\nA crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n\nSecond Keeper:\nWell, if you be a king crown'd with content,\nYour crown content and you must be contented\nTo go along with us; for as we think,\nYou are the king King Edward hath deposed;\nAnd we his subjects sworn in all allegiance\nWill apprehend you as his enemy.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut did you never swear, and break an oath?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nNo, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhere did you dwell when I was King of England?\n\nSecond Keeper:\nHere in this country, where we now remain.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI was anointed king at nine months old;\nMy father and my grandfather were kings,\nAnd you were sworn true subjects unto me:\nAnd tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n\nFirst Keeper:\nNo;\nFor we were subjects but while you were king.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWhy, am I dead? do I not breathe a man?\nAh, simple men, you know not what you swear!\nLook, as I blow this feather from my face,\nAnd as the air blows it to me again,\nObeying with my wind when I do blow,\nAnd yielding to another when it blows,\nCommanded always by the greater gust;\nSuch is the lightness of you common men.\nBut do not break your oaths; for of that sin\nMy mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\nGo where you will, the king shall be commanded;\nAnd be you kings, command, and I'll obey.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe are true subjects to the king, King Edward.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo would you be again to Henry,\nIf he were seated as King Edward is.\n\nFirst Keeper:\nWe charge you, in God's name, and the king's,\nTo go with us unto the officers.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nIn God's name, lead; your king's name be obey'd:\nAnd what God will, that let your king perform;\nAnd what he will, I humbly yield unto.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrother of Gloucester, at Saint Alban's field\nThis lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\nHis lands then seized on by the conqueror:\nHer suit is now to repossess those lands;\nWhich we in justice cannot well deny,\nBecause in quarrel of the house of York\nThe worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nYour highness shall do well to grant her suit;\nIt were dishonour to deny it her.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIt were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWidow, we will consider of your suit;\nAnd come some other time to know our mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nRight gracious lord, I cannot brook delay:\nMay it please your highness to resolve me now;\nAnd what your pleasure is, shall satisfy me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHow many children hast thou, widow? tell me.\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nLADY GREY:\nThree, my most gracious lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nBe pitiful, dread lord, and grant it then.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLords, give us leave: I'll try this widow's wit.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n\nLADY GREY:\nAy, full as dearly as I love myself.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAnd would you not do much to do them good?\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo do them good, I would sustain some harm.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTherefore I came unto your majesty.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n\nLADY GREY:\nSo shall you bind me to your highness' service.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat service wilt thou do me, if I give them?\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhat you command, that rests in me to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut you will take exceptions to my boon.\n\nLADY GREY:\nNo, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then I will do what your grace commands.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy stops my lord, shall I not hear my task?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAn easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThat's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nI take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut stay thee, 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThe fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, but, I fear me, in another sense.\nWhat love, think'st thou, I sue so much to get?\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\nThat love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut now you partly may perceive my mind.\n\nLADY GREY:\nMy mind will never grant what I perceive\nYour highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTo tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n\nLADY GREY:\nTo tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n\nLADY GREY:\nWhy, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\nFor by that loss I will not purchase them.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTherein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n\nLADY GREY:\nHerein your highness wrongs both them and me.\nBut, mighty lord, this merry inclination\nAccords not with the sadness of my suit:\nPlease you dismiss me either with 'ay' or 'no.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, if thou wilt say 'ay' to my request;\nNo if thou dost say 'no' to my demand.\n\nLADY GREY:\nThen, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord:\nI am a subject fit to jest withal,\nBut far unfit to be a sovereign.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\nI speak no more than what my soul intends;\nAnd that is, to enjoy thee for my love.\n\nLADY GREY:\nAnd that is more than I will yield unto:\nI know I am too mean to be your queen,\nAnd yet too good to be your concubine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou cavil, widow: I did mean, my queen.\n\nLADY GREY:\n'Twill grieve your grace my sons should call you father.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNo more than when my daughters call thee mother.\nThou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\nAnd, by God's mother, I, being but a bachelor,\nHave other some: why, 'tis a happy thing\nTo be the father unto many sons.\nAnswer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nCLARENCE:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYou'll think it strange if I should marry her.\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo whom, my lord?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, Clarence, to myself.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy so much is the wonder in extremes.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWell, jest on, brothers: I can tell you both\nHer suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\nNobleman:\nMy gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,\nAnd brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSee that he be convey'd unto the Tower:\nAnd go we, brothers, to the man that took him,\nTo question of his apprehension.\nWidow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, Edward will use women honourably.\nWould he were wasted, marrow, bones and all,\nThat from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,\nTo cross me from the golden time I look for!\nAnd yet, between my soul's desire and me--\nThe lustful Edward's title buried--\nIs Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\nAnd all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\nTo take their rooms, ere I can place myself:\nA cold premeditation for my purpose!\nWhy, then, I do but dream on sovereignty;\nLike one that stands upon a promontory,\nAnd spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\nWishing his foot were equal with his eye,\nAnd chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\nSaying, he'll lade it dry to have his way:\nSo do I wish the crown, being so far off;\nAnd so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\nAnd so I say, I'll cut the causes off,\nFlattering me with impossibilities.\nMy eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\nUnless my hand and strength could equal them.\nWell, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\nWhat other pleasure can the world afford?\nI'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\nAnd deck my body in gay ornaments,\nAnd witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\nO miserable thought! and more unlikely\nThan to accomplish twenty golden crowns!\nWhy, love forswore me in my mother's womb:\nAnd, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\nShe did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,\nTo shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;\nTo make an envious mountain on my back,\nWhere sits deformity to mock my body;\nTo shape my legs of an unequal size;\nTo disproportion me in every part,\nLike to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\nThat carries no impression like the dam.\nAnd am I then a man to be beloved?\nO monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!\nThen, since this earth affords no joy to me,\nBut to command, to cheque, to o'erbear such\nAs are of better person than myself,\nI'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\nAnd, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,\nUntil my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head\nBe round impaled with a glorious crown.\nAnd yet I know not how to get the crown,\nFor many lives stand between me and home:\nAnd I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,\nThat rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\nSeeking a way and straying from the way;\nNot knowing how to find the open air,\nBut toiling desperately to find it out,--\nTorment myself to catch the English crown:\nAnd from that torment I will free myself,\nOr hew my way out with a bloody axe.\nWhy, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\nAnd cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,\nAnd wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\nAnd frame my face to all occasions.\nI'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\nI'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\nI'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\nDeceive more slily than Ulysses could,\nAnd, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\nI can add colours to the chameleon,\nChange shapes with Proteus for advantages,\nAnd set the murderous Machiavel to school.\nCan I do this, and cannot get a crown?\nTut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nFair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\nSit down with us: it ill befits thy state\nAnd birth, that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNo, mighty King of France: now Margaret\nMust strike her sail and learn awhile to serve\nWhere kings command. I was, I must confess,\nGreat Albion's queen in former golden days:\nBut now mischance hath trod my title down,\nAnd with dishonour laid me on the ground;\nWhere I must take like seat unto my fortune,\nAnd to my humble seat conform myself.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy, say, fair queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nFrom such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\nAnd stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\nAnd sit thee by our side:\nYield not thy neck\nTo fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\nStill ride in triumph over all mischance.\nBe plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\nIt shall be eased, if France can yield relief.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThose gracious words revive my drooping thoughts\nAnd give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\nNow, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis,\nThat Henry, sole possessor of my love,\nIs of a king become a banish'd man,\nAnd forced to live in Scotland a forlorn;\nWhile proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\nUsurps the regal title and the seat\nOf England's true-anointed lawful king.\nThis is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\nWith this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\nAm come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\nAnd if thou fail us, all our hope is done:\nScotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\nOur people and our peers are both misled,\nOur treasures seized, our soldiers put to flight,\nAnd, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nRenowned queen, with patience calm the storm,\nWhile we bethink a means to break it off.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThe more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThe more I stay, the more I'll succor thee.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\nAnd see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nOur Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWelcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, now begins a second storm to rise;\nFor this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n\nWARWICK:\nFrom worthy Edward, King of Albion,\nMy lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\nI come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\nFirst, to do greetings to thy royal person;\nAnd then to crave a league of amity;\nAnd lastly, to confirm that amity\nWith a nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\nThat virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\nTo England's king in lawful marriage.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\n\nWARWICK:\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nKing Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak,\nBefore you answer Warwick. His demand\nSprings not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\nBut from deceit bred by necessity;\nFor how can tyrants safely govern home,\nUnless abroad they purchase great alliance?\nTo prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\nThat Henry liveth still: but were he dead,\nYet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\nLook, therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\nThou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\nFor though usurpers sway the rule awhile,\nYet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n\nWARWICK:\nInjurious Margaret!\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd why not queen?\n\nWARWICK:\nBecause thy father Henry did usurp;\nAnd thou no more are prince than she is queen.\n\nOXFORD:\nThen Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\nWhich did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\nAnd, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\nWhose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\nAnd, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\nWho by his prowess conquered all France:\nFrom these our Henry lineally descends.\n\nWARWICK:\nOxford, how haps it, in this smooth discourse,\nYou told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\nAll that which Henry Fifth had gotten?\nMethinks these peers of France should smile at that.\nBut for the rest, you tell a pedigree\nOf threescore and two years; a silly time\nTo make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhy, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\nWhom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\nAnd not bewray thy treason with a blush?\n\nWARWICK:\nCan Oxford, that did ever fence the right,\nNow buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\nFor shame! leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n\nOXFORD:\nCall him my king by whose injurious doom\nMy elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\nWas done to death? and more than so, my father,\nEven in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\nWhen nature brought him to the door of death?\nNo, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\nThis arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I the house of York.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nQueen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\nVouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,\nWhile I use further conference with Warwick.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nHeavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\nIs Edward your true king? for I were loath\nTo link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n\nWARWICK:\nThereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut is he gracious in the people's eye?\n\nWARWICK:\nThe more that Henry was unfortunate.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen further, all dissembling set aside,\nTell me for truth the measure of his love\nUnto our sister Bona.\n\nWARWICK:\nSuch it seems\nAs may beseem a monarch like himself.\nMyself have often heard him say and swear\nThat this his love was an eternal plant,\nWhereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\nThe leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\nExempt from envy, but not from disdain,\nUnless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nNow, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n\nBONA:\nYour grant, or your denial, shall be mine:\nYet I confess that often ere this day,\nWhen I have heard your king's desert recounted,\nMine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's;\nAnd now forthwith shall articles be drawn\nTouching the jointure that your king must make,\nWhich with her dowry shall be counterpoised.\nDraw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\nThat Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nTo Edward, but not to the English king.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nDeceitful Warwick! it was thy device\nBy this alliance to make void my suit:\nBefore thy coming Lewis was Henry's friend.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd still is friend to him and Margaret:\nBut if your title to the crown be weak,\nAs may appear by Edward's good success,\nThen 'tis but reason that I be released\nFrom giving aid which late I promised.\nYet shall you have all kindness at my hand\nThat your estate requires and mine can yield.\n\nWARWICK:\nHenry now lives in Scotland at his ease,\nWhere having nothing, nothing can he lose.\nAnd as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\nYou have a father able to maintain you;\nAnd better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nPeace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace,\nProud setter up and puller down of kings!\nI will not hence, till, with my talk and tears,\nBoth full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\nThy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\nFor both of you are birds of selfsame feather.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\nPost:\n\nOXFORD:\nI like it well that our fair queen and mistress\nSmiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, mark how Lewis stamps, as he were nettled:\nI hope all's for the best.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWarwick, what are thy news? and yours, fair queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nMine, such as fill my heart with unhoped joys.\n\nWARWICK:\nMine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhat! has your king married the Lady Grey!\nAnd now, to soothe your forgery and his,\nSends me a paper to persuade me patience?\nIs this the alliance that he seeks with France?\nDare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nI told your majesty as much before:\nThis proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n\nWARWICK:\nKing Lewis, I here protest, in sight of heaven,\nAnd by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\nThat I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's,\nNo more my king, for he dishonours me,\nBut most himself, if he could see his shame.\nDid I forget that by the house of York\nMy father came untimely to his death?\nDid I let pass the abuse done to my niece?\nDid I impale him with the regal crown?\nDid I put Henry from his native right?\nAnd am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\nShame on himself! for my desert is honour:\nAnd to repair my honour lost for him,\nI here renounce him and return to Henry.\nMy noble queen, let former grudges pass,\nAnd henceforth I am thy true servitor:\nI will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\nAnd replant Henry in his former state.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nWarwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;\nAnd I forgive and quite forget old faults,\nAnd joy that thou becomest King Henry's friend.\n\nWARWICK:\nSo much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\nThat, if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\nWith some few bands of chosen soldiers,\nI'll undertake to land them on our coast\nAnd force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n'Tis not his new-made bride shall succor him:\nAnd as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\nHe's very likely now to fall from him,\nFor matching more for wanton lust than honour,\nOr than for strength and safety of our country.\n\nBONA:\nDear brother, how shall Bona be revenged\nBut by thy help to this distressed queen?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nRenowned prince, how shall poor Henry live,\nUnless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n\nBONA:\nMy quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd mine, fair lady Bona, joins with yours.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nAnd mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\nTherefore at last I firmly am resolved\nYou shall have aid.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLet me give humble thanks for all at once.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nThen, England's messenger, return in post,\nAnd tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride:\nThou seest what's past, go fear thy king withal.\n\nBONA:\nTell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nTell him, my mourning weeds are laid aside,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.\n\nWARWICK:\nTell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\nThere's thy reward: be gone.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nBut, Warwick,\nThou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\nShall cross the seas, and bid false Edward battle;\nAnd, as occasion serves, this noble queen\nAnd prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\nYet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt,\nWhat pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis shall assure my constant loyalty,\nThat if our queen and this young prince agree,\nI'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\nTo him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nYes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\nSon Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\nTherefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick;\nAnd, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable,\nThat only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nYes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\nAnd here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n\nKING LEWIS XI:\nWhy stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied,\nAnd thou, Lord Bourbon, our high admiral,\nShalt waft them over with our royal fleet.\nI long till Edward fall by war's mischance,\nFor mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n\nWARWICK:\nI came from Edward as ambassador,\nBut I return his sworn and mortal foe:\nMatter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\nBut dreadful war shall answer his demand.\nHad he none else to make a stale but me?\nThen none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\nI was the chief that raised him to the crown,\nAnd I'll be chief to bring him down again:\nNot that I pity Henry's misery,\nBut seek revenge on Edward's mockery.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\nOf this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\nHath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAlas, you know, 'tis far from hence to France;\nHow could he stay till Warwick made return?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lords, forbear this talk; here comes the king.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd his well-chosen bride.\n\nCLARENCE:\nI mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice,\nThat you stand pensive, as half malcontent?\n\nCLARENCE:\nAs well as Lewis of France, or the Earl of Warwick,\nWhich are so weak of courage and in judgment\nThat they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSuppose they take offence without a cause,\nThey are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\nYour king and Warwick's, and must have my will.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd shall have your will, because our king:\nYet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNot I:\nNo, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\nWhom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\nTo sunder them that yoke so well together.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSetting your scorns and your mislike aside,\nTell me some reason why the Lady Grey\nShould not become my wife and England's queen.\nAnd you too, Somerset and Montague,\nSpeak freely what you think.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThen this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\nBecomes your enemy, for mocking him\nAbout the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\nIs now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat if both Lewis and Warwick be appeased\nBy such invention as I can devise?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nYet, to have join'd with France in such alliance\nWould more have strengthen'd this our commonwealth\n'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, knows not Montague that of itself\nEngland is safe, if true within itself?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nBut the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n\nHASTINGS:\n'Tis better using France than trusting France:\nLet us be back'd with God and with the seas\nWhich He hath given for fence impregnable,\nAnd with their helps only defend ourselves;\nIn them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFor this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\nTo have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAy, what of that? it was my will and grant;\nAnd for this once my will shall stand for law.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd yet methinks your grace hath not done well,\nTo give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\nUnto the brother of your loving bride;\nShe better would have fitted me or Clarence:\nBut in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n\nCLARENCE:\nOr else you would not have bestow'd the heir\nOf the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\nAnd leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAlas, poor Clarence! is it for a wife\nThat thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn choosing for yourself, you show'd your judgment,\nWhich being shallow, you give me leave\nTo play the broker in mine own behalf;\nAnd to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nLeave me, or tarry, Edward will be king,\nAnd not be tied unto his brother's will.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nMy lords, before it pleased his majesty\nTo raise my state to title of a queen,\nDo me but right, and you must all confess\nThat I was not ignoble of descent;\nAnd meaner than myself have had like fortune.\nBut as this title honours me and mine,\nSo your dislike, to whom I would be pleasing,\nDoth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nMy love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns:\nWhat danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\nSo long as Edward is thy constant friend,\nAnd their true sovereign, whom they must obey?\nNay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\nUnless they seek for hatred at my hands;\nWhich if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\nAnd they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, messenger, what letters or what news\nFrom France?\n\nPost:\nMy sovereign liege, no letters; and few words,\nBut such as I, without your special pardon,\nDare not relate.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo to, we pardon thee: therefore, in brief,\nTell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\nWhat answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n\nPost:\nAt my depart, these were his very words:\n'Go tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\nThat Lewis of France is sending over masquers\nTo revel it with him and his new bride.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs Lewis so brave? belike he thinks me Henry.\nBut what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n\nPost:\nThese were her words, utter'd with mad disdain:\n'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\nI'll wear the willow garland for his sake.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nI blame not her, she could say little less;\nShe had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\nFor I have heard that she was there in place.\n\nPost:\n'Tell him,' quoth she, 'my mourning weeds are done,\nAnd I am ready to put armour on.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBelike she minds to play the Amazon.\nBut what said Warwick to these injuries?\n\nPost:\nHe, more incensed against your majesty\nThan all the rest, discharged me with these words:\n'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\nAnd therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHa! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\nWell I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd:\nThey shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\nBut say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n\nPost:\nAy, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in\nfriendship\nThat young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBelike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\nNow, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\nFor I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\nThat, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\nI may not prove inferior to yourself.\nYou that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\nYet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\nAnd haste is needful in this desperate case.\nPembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\nGo levy men, and make prepare for war;\nThey are already, or quickly will be landed:\nMyself in person will straight follow you.\nBut, ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\nResolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\nAre near to Warwick by blood and by alliance:\nTell me if you love Warwick more than me?\nIf it be so, then both depart to him;\nI rather wish you foes than hollow friends:\nBut if you mind to hold your true obedience,\nGive me assurance with some friendly vow,\nThat I may never have you in suspect.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nSo God help Montague as he proves true!\n\nHASTINGS:\nAnd Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, so! then am I sure of victory.\nNow therefore let us hence; and lose no hour,\nTill we meet Warwick with his foreign power.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nTrust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\nThe common people by numbers swarm to us.\nBut see where Somerset and Clarence come!\nSpeak suddenly, my lords, are we all friends?\n\nCLARENCE:\nFear not that, my lord.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\nAnd welcome, Somerset: I hold it cowardice\nTo rest mistrustful where a noble heart\nHath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\nElse might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\nWere but a feigned friend to our proceedings:\nBut welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\nAnd now what rests but, in night's coverture,\nThy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\nHis soldiers lurking in the towns about,\nAnd but attended by a simple guard,\nWe may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\nOur scouts have found the adventure very easy:\nThat as Ulysses and stout Diomede\nWith sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\nAnd brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\nSo we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\nAt unawares may beat down Edward's guard\nAnd seize himself; I say not, slaughter him,\nFor I intend but only to surprise him.\nYou that will follow me to this attempt,\nApplaud the name of Henry with your leader.\nWhy, then, let's on our way in silent sort:\nFor Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nFirst Watchman:\nCome on, my masters, each man take his stand:\nThe king by this is set him down to sleep.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nWhat, will he not to bed?\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWhy, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\nNever to lie and take his natural rest\nTill Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nTo-morrow then belike shall be the day,\nIf Warwick be so near as men report.\n\nThird Watchman:\nBut say, I pray, what nobleman is that\nThat with the king here resteth in his tent?\n\nFirst Watchman:\n'Tis the Lord Hastings, the king's chiefest friend.\n\nThird Watchman:\nO, is it so? But why commands the king\nThat his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\nWhile he himself keeps in the cold field?\n\nSecond Watchman:\n'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n\nThird Watchman:\nAy, but give me worship and quietness;\nI like it better than a dangerous honour.\nIf Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nUnless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n\nSecond Watchman:\nAy, wherefore else guard we his royal tent,\nBut to defend his person from night-foes?\n\nWARWICK:\nThis is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\nCourage, my masters! honour now or never!\nBut follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n\nFirst Watchman:\nWho goes there?\n\nSecond Watchman:\nStay, or thou diest!\n\nSOMERSET:\nWhat are they that fly there?\n\nWARWICK:\nRichard and Hastings: let them go; here is The duke.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\nThou call'dst me king.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, but the case is alter'd:\nWhen you disgraced me in my embassade,\nThen I degraded you from being king,\nAnd come now to create you Duke of York.\nAlas! how should you govern any kingdom,\nThat know not how to use ambassadors,\nNor how to be contented with one wife,\nNor how to use your brothers brotherly,\nNor how to study for the people's welfare,\nNor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYea, brother of Clarence, are thou here too?\nNay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\nYet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\nOf thee thyself and all thy complices,\nEdward will always bear himself as king:\nThough fortune's malice overthrow my state,\nMy mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen, for his mind, be Edward England's king:\nBut Henry now shall wear the English crown,\nAnd be true king indeed, thou but the shadow.\nMy Lord of Somerset, at my request,\nSee that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\nUnto my brother, Archbishop of York.\nWhen I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\nI'll follow you, and tell what answer\nLewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\nNow, for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat fates impose, that men must needs abide;\nIt boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n\nOXFORD:\nWhat now remains, my lords, for us to do\nBut march to London with our soldiers?\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, that's the first thing that we have to do;\nTo free King Henry from imprisonment\nAnd see him seated in the regal throne.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nRIVERS:\nMadam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nWhy brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\nWhat late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n\nRIVERS:\nWhat! loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nNo, but the loss of his own royal person.\n\nRIVERS:\nThen is my sovereign slain?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nAy, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner,\nEither betray'd by falsehood of his guard\nOr by his foe surprised at unawares:\nAnd, as I further have to understand,\nIs new committed to the Bishop of York,\nFell Warwick's brother and by that our foe.\n\nRIVERS:\nThese news I must confess are full of grief;\nYet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\nWarwick may lose, that now hath won the day.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nTill then fair hope must hinder life's decay.\nAnd I the rather wean me from despair\nFor love of Edward's offspring in my womb:\nThis is it that makes me bridle passion\nAnd bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\nAy, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\nAnd stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\nLest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\nKing Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown.\n\nRIVERS:\nBut, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nI am inform'd that he comes towards London,\nTo set the crown once more on Henry's head:\nGuess thou the rest; King Edward's friends must down,\nBut, to prevent the tyrant's violence,--\nFor trust not him that hath once broken faith,--\nI'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,\nTo save at least the heir of Edward's right:\nThere shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\nCome, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\nIf Warwick take us we are sure to die.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nNow, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\nLeave off to wonder why I drew you hither,\nInto this chiefest thicket of the park.\nThus stands the case: you know our king, my brother,\nIs prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands\nHe hath good usage and great liberty,\nAnd, often but attended with weak guard,\nComes hunting this way to disport himself.\nI have advertised him by secret means\nThat if about this hour he make his way\nUnder the colour of his usual game,\nHe shall here find his friends with horse and men\nTo set him free from his captivity.\n\nHuntsman:\nThis way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, this way, man: see where the huntsmen stand.\nNow, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nStand you thus close, to steal the bishop's deer?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, the time and case requireth haste:\nYour horse stands ready at the park-corner.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut whither shall we then?\n\nHASTINGS:\nTo Lynn, my lord,\nAnd ship from thence to Flanders.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWell guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nStanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBut wherefore stay we? 'tis no time to talk.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHuntsman, what say'st thou? wilt thou go along?\n\nHuntsman:\nBetter do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBishop, farewell: shield thee from Warwick's frown;\nAnd pray that I may repossess the crown.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMaster lieutenant, now that God and friends\nHave shaken Edward from the regal seat,\nAnd turn'd my captive state to liberty,\nMy fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\nAt our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n\nLieutenant:\nSubjects may challenge nothing of their sovereigns;\nBut if an humble prayer may prevail,\nI then crave pardon of your majesty.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFor what, lieutenant? for well using me?\nNay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\nFor that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\nAy, such a pleasure as incaged birds\nConceive when after many moody thoughts\nAt last by notes of household harmony\nThey quite forget their loss of liberty.\nBut, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\nAnd chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\nHe was the author, thou the instrument.\nTherefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\nBy living low, where fortune cannot hurt me,\nAnd that the people of this blessed land\nMay not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\nWarwick, although my head still wear the crown,\nI here resign my government to thee,\nFor thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n\nWARWICK:\nYour grace hath still been famed for virtuous;\nAnd now may seem as wise as virtuous,\nBy spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\nFor few men rightly temper with the stars:\nYet in this one thing let me blame your grace,\nFor choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n\nCLARENCE:\nNo, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\nTo whom the heavens in thy nativity\nAdjudged an olive branch and laurel crown,\nAs likely to be blest in peace and war;\nAnd therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd I choose Clarence only for protector.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWarwick and Clarence give me both your hands:\nNow join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\nThat no dissension hinder government:\nI make you both protectors of this land,\nWhile I myself will lead a private life\nAnd in devotion spend my latter days,\nTo sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n\nCLARENCE:\nThat he consents, if Warwick yield consent;\nFor on thy fortune I repose myself.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then, though loath, yet must I be content:\nWe'll yoke together, like a double shadow\nTo Henry's body, and supply his place;\nI mean, in bearing weight of government,\nWhile he enjoys the honour and his ease.\nAnd, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\nForthwith that Edward be pronounced a traitor,\nAnd all his lands and goods be confiscate.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat else? and that succession be determined.\n\nWARWICK:\nAy, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nBut, with the first of all your chief affairs,\nLet me entreat, for I command no more,\nThat Margaret your queen and my son Edward\nBe sent for, to return from France with speed;\nFor, till I see them here, by doubtful fear\nMy joy of liberty is half eclipsed.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIt shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nMy Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\nOf whom you seem to have so tender care?\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy liege, it is young Henry, earl of Richmond.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nCome hither, England's hope.\nIf secret powers\nSuggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\nThis pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\nHis looks are full of peaceful majesty,\nHis head by nature framed to wear a crown,\nHis hand to wield a sceptre, and himself\nLikely in time to bless a regal throne.\nMake much of him, my lords, for this is he\nMust help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat news, my friend?\n\nPost:\nThat Edward is escaped from your brother,\nAnd fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n\nWARWICK:\nUnsavoury news! but how made he escape?\n\nPost:\nHe was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\nAnd the Lord Hastings, who attended him\nIn secret ambush on the forest side\nAnd from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him;\nFor hunting was his daily exercise.\n\nWARWICK:\nMy brother was too careless of his charge.\nBut let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\nA salve for any sore that may betide.\n\nSOMERSET:\nMy lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\nFor doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\nAnd we shall have more wars before 't be long.\nAs Henry's late presaging prophecy\nDid glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\nSo doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts\nWhat may befall him, to his harm and ours:\nTherefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\nForthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\nTill storms be past of civil enmity.\n\nOXFORD:\nAy, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\nCome, therefore, let's about it speedily.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\nYet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\nAnd says that once more I shall interchange\nMy waned state for Henry's regal crown.\nWell have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas\nAnd brought desired help from Burgundy:\nWhat then remains, we being thus arrived\nFrom Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\nBut that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\nFor many men that stumble at the threshold\nAre well foretold that danger lurks within.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTush, man, abodements must not now affright us:\nBy fair or foul means we must enter in,\nFor hither will our friends repair to us.\n\nHASTINGS:\nMy liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\nMayor:\nMy lords, we were forewarned of your coming,\nAnd shut the gates for safety of ourselves;\nFor now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut, master mayor, if Henry be your king,\nYet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n\nMayor:\nTrue, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\nAs being well content with that alone.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nHASTINGS:\nWhy, master mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\nOpen the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n\nMayor:\nAy, say you so? the gates shall then be open'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nA wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n\nHASTINGS:\nThe good old man would fain that all were well,\nSo 'twere not 'long of him; but being enter'd,\nI doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\nBoth him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, master mayor: these gates must not be shut\nBut in the night or in the time of war.\nWhat! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\nFor Edward will defend the town and thee,\nAnd all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBrother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\nOur trusty friend, unless I be deceived.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWelcome, Sir John! But why come you in arms?\n\nMONTAGUE:\nTo help King Edward in his time of storm,\nAs every loyal subject ought to do.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\nOur title to the crown and only claim\nOur dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nThen fare you well, for I will hence again:\nI came to serve a king and not a duke.\nDrummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNay, stay, Sir John, awhile, and we'll debate\nBy what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nWhat talk you of debating? in few words,\nIf you'll not here proclaim yourself our king,\nI'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\nTo keep them back that come to succor you:\nWhy shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhen we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim:\nTill then, 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n\nHASTINGS:\nAway with scrupulous wit! now arms must rule.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\nBrother, we will proclaim you out of hand:\nThe bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThen be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\nAnd Henry but usurps the diadem.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAy, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\nAnd now will I be Edward's champion.\n\nHASTINGS:\nSound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd:\nCome, fellow-soldier, make thou proclamation.\n\nSoldier:\nEdward the Fourth, by the grace of God, king of\nEngland and France, and lord of Ireland, &c.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nAnd whosoe'er gainsays King Edward's right,\nBy this I challenge him to single fight.\n\nAll:\nLong live Edward the Fourth!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThanks, brave Montgomery; and thanks unto you all:\nIf fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\nNow, for this night, let's harbour here in York;\nAnd when the morning sun shall raise his car\nAbove the border of this horizon,\nWe'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\nFor well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\nAh, froward Clarence! how evil it beseems thee\nTo flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\nYet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\nCome on, brave soldiers: doubt not of the day,\nAnd, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhat counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\nWith hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\nHath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas,\nAnd with his troops doth march amain to London;\nAnd many giddy people flock to him.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nLet's levy men, and beat him back again.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little fire is quickly trodden out;\nWhich, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n\nWARWICK:\nIn Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\nNot mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\nThose will I muster up: and thou, son Clarence,\nShalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\nThe knights and gentlemen to come with thee:\nThou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\nNorthampton and in Leicestershire, shalt find\nMen well inclined to hear what thou command'st:\nAnd thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well beloved,\nIn Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\nMy sovereign, with the loving citizens,\nLike to his island girt in with the ocean,\nOr modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\nShall rest in London till we come to him.\nFair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\nFarewell, my sovereign.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nFarewell, my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.\n\nCLARENCE:\nIn sign of truth, I kiss your highness' hand.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nWell-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n\nMONTAGUE:\nComfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n\nOXFORD:\nAnd thus I seal my truth, and bid adieu.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\nAnd all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n\nWARWICK:\nFarewell, sweet lords: let's meet at Coventry.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHere at the palace I will rest awhile.\nCousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\nMethinks the power that Edward hath in field\nShould not be able to encounter mine.\n\nEXETER:\nThe doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThat's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\nI have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\nNor posted off their suits with slow delays;\nMy pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\nMy mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\nMy mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\nI have not been desirous of their wealth,\nNor much oppress'd them with great subsidies.\nNor forward of revenge, though they much err'd:\nThen why should they love Edward more than me?\nNo, Exeter, these graces challenge grace:\nAnd when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\nThe lamb will never cease to follow him.\n\nEXETER:\nHark, hark, my lord! what shouts are these?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSeize on the shame-faced Henry, bear him hence;\nAnd once again proclaim us King of England.\nYou are the fount that makes small brooks to flow:\nNow stops thy spring; my sea sha$l suck them dry,\nAnd swell so much the higher by their ebb.\nHence with him to the Tower; let him not speak.\nAnd, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course\nWhere peremptory Warwick now remains:\nThe sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\nCold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAway betimes, before his forces join,\nAnd take the great-grown traitor unawares:\nBrave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nWARWICK:\nWhere is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\nHow far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n\nFirst Messenger:\nBy this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n\nWARWICK:\nHow far off is our brother Montague?\nWhere is the post that came from Montague?\n\nSecond Messenger:\nBy this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\nWARWICK:\nSay, Somerville, what says my loving son?\nAnd, by thy guess, how nigh is Clarence now?\n\nSOMERSET:\nAt Southam I did leave him with his forces,\nAnd do expect him here some two hours hence.\n\nWARWICK:\nThen Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.\n\nSOMERSET:\nIt is not his, my lord; here Southam lies:\nThe drum your honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n\nWARWICK:\nWho should that be? belike, unlook'd-for friends.\n\nSOMERSET:\nThey are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nGo, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSee how the surly Warwick mans the wall!\n\nWARWICK:\nO unbid spite! is sportful Edward come?\nWhere slept our scouts, or how are they seduced,\nThat we could hear no news of his repair?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\nSpeak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee,\nCall Edward king and at his hands beg mercy?\nAnd he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n\nWARWICK:\nNay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\nConfess who set thee up and pluck'd thee own,\nCall Warwick patron and be penitent?\nAnd thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI thought, at least, he would have said the king;\nOr did he make the jest against his will?\n\nWARWICK:\nIs not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAy, by my faith, for a poor earl to give:\nI'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n\nWARWICK:\n'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhy then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n\nWARWICK:\nThou art no Atlas for so great a weight:\nAnd weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\nAnd Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBut Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner:\nAnd, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\nWhat is the body when the head is off?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAlas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\nBut, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\nThe king was slily finger'd from the deck!\nYou left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\nAnd, ten to one, you'll meet him in the Tower.\n\nEDWARD:\n'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nCome, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down:\nNay, when? strike now, or else the iron cools.\n\nWARWICK:\nI had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\nAnd with the other fling it at thy face,\nThan bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,\nThis hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair\nShall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\nWrite in the dust this sentence with thy blood,\n'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\nWARWICK:\nO cheerful colours! see where Oxford comes!\n\nOXFORD:\nOxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe gates are open, let us enter too.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo other foes may set upon our backs.\nStand we in good array; for they no doubt\nWill issue out again and bid us battle:\nIf not, the city being but of small defence,\nWe'll quickly rouse the traitors in the same.\n\nWARWICK:\nO, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\nMONTAGUE:\nMontague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\nEven with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThe harder match'd, the greater victory:\nMy mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\nSOMERSET:\nSomerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nTwo of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\nHave sold their lives unto the house of York;\nAnd thou shalt be the third if this sword hold.\n\nWARWICK:\nAnd lo, where George of Clarence sweeps along,\nOf force enough to bid his brother battle;\nWith whom an upright zeal to right prevails\nMore than the nature of a brother's love!\nCome, Clarence, come; thou wilt, if Warwick call.\n\nCLARENCE:\nFather of Warwick, know you what this means?\nLook here, I throw my infamy at thee\nI will not ruinate my father's house,\nWho gave his blood to lime the stones together,\nAnd set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou, Warwick,\nThat Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\nTo bend the fatal instruments of war\nAgainst his brother and his lawful king?\nPerhaps thou wilt object my holy oath:\nTo keep that oath were more impiety\nThan Jephthah's, when he sacrificed his daughter.\nI am so sorry for my trespass made\nThat, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\nI here proclaim myself thy mortal foe,\nWith resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee--\nAs I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad--\nTo plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\nAnd so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\nAnd to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\nPardon me, Edward, I will make amends:\nAnd, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\nFor I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow welcome more, and ten times more beloved,\nThan if thou never hadst deserved our hate.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWelcome, good Clarence; this is brotherlike.\n\nWARWICK:\nO passing traitor, perjured and unjust!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, Warwick, wilt thou leave the town and fight?\nOr shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n\nWARWICK:\nAlas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\nI will away towards Barnet presently,\nAnd bid thee battle, Edward, if thou darest.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nYes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads the way.\nLords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nSo, lie thou there: die thou, and die our fear;\nFor Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\nNow, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\nThat Warwick's bones may keep thine company.\n\nWARWICK:\nAh, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe,\nAnd tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\nWhy ask I that? my mangled body shows,\nMy blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows.\nThat I must yield my body to the earth\nAnd, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\nThus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\nWhose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\nUnder whose shade the ramping lion slept,\nWhose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\nAnd kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.\nThese eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\nHave been as piercing as the mid-day sun,\nTo search the secret treasons of the world:\nThe wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood,\nWere liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;\nFor who lived king, but I could dig his grave?\nAnd who durst mine when Warwick bent his brow?\nLo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\nMy parks, my walks, my manors that I had.\nEven now forsake me, and of all my lands\nIs nothing left me but my body's length.\nWhy, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\nAnd, live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are.\nWe might recover all our loss again;\nThe queen from France hath brought a puissant power:\nEven now we heard the news: ah, could'st thou fly!\n\nWARWICK:\nWhy, then I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\nIf thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand.\nAnd with thy lips keep in my soul awhile!\nThou lovest me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\nThy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\nThat glues my lips and will not let me speak.\nCome quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n\nSOMERSET:\nAh, Warwick! Montague hath breathed his last;\nAnd to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\nAnd said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\nAnd more he would have said, and more he spoke,\nWhich sounded like a clamour in a vault,\nThat mought not be distinguished; but at last\nI well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n'O, farewell, Warwick!'\n\nWARWICK:\nSweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves;\nFor Warwick bids you all farewell to meet in heaven.\n\nOXFORD:\nAway, away, to meet the queen's great power!\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nThus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\nAnd we are graced with wreaths of victory.\nBut, in the midst of this bright-shining day,\nI spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud,\nThat will encounter with our glorious sun,\nEre he attain his easeful western bed:\nI mean, my lords, those powers that the queen\nHath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast\nAnd, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n\nCLARENCE:\nA little gale will soon disperse that cloud\nAnd blow it to the source from whence it came:\nThe very beams will dry those vapours up,\nFor every cloud engenders not a storm.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\nAnd Somerset, with Oxford fled to her:\nIf she have time to breathe be well assured\nHer faction will be full as strong as ours.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWe are advertised by our loving friends\nThat they do hold their course toward Tewksbury:\nWe, having now the best at Barnet field,\nWill thither straight, for willingness rids way;\nAnd, as we march, our strength will be augmented\nIn every county as we go along.\nStrike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGreat lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,\nBut cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\nWhat though the mast be now blown overboard,\nThe cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\nAnd half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?\nYet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\nShould leave the helm and like a fearful lad\nWith tearful eyes add water to the sea\nAnd give more strength to that which hath too much,\nWhiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\nWhich industry and courage might have saved?\nAh, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\nSay Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\nAnd Montague our topmost; what of him?\nOur slaughter'd friends the tackles; what of these?\nWhy, is not Oxford here another anchor?\nAnd Somerset another goodly mast?\nThe friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\nAnd, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\nFor once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\nWe will not from the helm to sit and weep,\nBut keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\nFrom shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.\nAs good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\nAnd what is Edward but ruthless sea?\nWhat Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\nAnd Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\nAll these the enemies to our poor bark.\nSay you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\nTread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink:\nBestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\nOr else you famish; that's a threefold death.\nThis speak I, lords, to let you understand,\nIf case some one of you would fly from us,\nThat there's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers\nMore than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.\nWhy, courage then! what cannot be avoided\n'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nMethinks a woman of this valiant spirit\nShould, if a coward heard her speak these words,\nInfuse his breast with magnanimity\nAnd make him, naked, foil a man at arms.\nI speak not this as doubting any here\nFor did I but suspect a fearful man\nHe should have leave to go away betimes,\nLest in our need he might infect another\nAnd make him of like spirit to himself.\nIf any such be here--as God forbid!--\nLet him depart before we need his help.\n\nOXFORD:\nWomen and children of so high a courage,\nAnd warriors faint! why, 'twere perpetual shame.\nO brave young prince! thy famous grandfather\nDoth live again in thee: long mayst thou live\nTo bear his image and renew his glories!\n\nSOMERSET:\nAnd he that will not fight for such a hope.\nGo home to bed, and like the owl by day,\nIf he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nAnd take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.\n\nMessenger:\nPrepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand.\nReady to fight; therefore be resolute.\n\nOXFORD:\nI thought no less: it is his policy\nTo haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n\nSOMERSET:\nBut he's deceived; we are in readiness.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nThis cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n\nOXFORD:\nHere pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBrave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood,\nWhich, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\nMust by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\nI need not add more fuel to your fire,\nFor well I wot ye blaze to burn them out\nGive signal to the fight, and to it, lords!\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nLords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say\nMy tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\nYe see, I drink the water of mine eyes.\nTherefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\nIs prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\nHis realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\nHis statutes cancell'd and his treasure spent;\nAnd yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\nYou fight in justice: then, in God's name, lords,\nBe valiant and give signal to the fight.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow here a period of tumultuous broils.\nAway with Oxford to Hames Castle straight:\nFor Somerset, off with his guilty head.\nGo, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n\nOXFORD:\nFor my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n\nSOMERSET:\nNor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo part we sadly in this troublous world,\nTo meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nIs proclamation made, that who finds Edward\nShall have a high reward, and he his life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nIt is: and lo, where youthful Edward comes!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nBring forth the gallant, let us hear him speak.\nWhat! can so young a thorn begin to prick?\nEdward, what satisfaction canst thou make\nFor bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\nAnd all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nSpeak like a subject, proud ambitious York!\nSuppose that I am now my father's mouth;\nResign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\nWhilst I propose the selfsame words to thee,\nWhich traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAh, that thy father had been so resolved!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThat you might still have worn the petticoat,\nAnd ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nLet AEsop fable in a winter's night;\nHis currish riddles sort not with this place.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nBy heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nFor God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nNay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nPeace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n\nCLARENCE:\nUntutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n\nPRINCE EDWARD:\nI know my duty; you are all undutiful:\nLascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,\nAnd thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all\nI am your better, traitors as ye are:\nAnd thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nTake that, thou likeness of this railer here.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony.\n\nCLARENCE:\nAnd there's for twitting me with perjury.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO, kill me too!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nMarry, and shall.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHold, Richard, hold; for we have done too much.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy should she live, to fill the world with words?\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhat, doth she swoon? use means for her recovery.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nClarence, excuse me to the king my brother;\nI'll hence to London on a serious matter:\nEre ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat? what?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThe Tower, the Tower.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nO Ned, sweet Ned! speak to thy mother, boy!\nCanst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\nThey that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\nDid not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\nIf this foul deed were by to equal it:\nHe was a man; this, in respect, a child:\nAnd men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\nWhat's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\nNo, no, my heart will burst, and if I speak:\nAnd I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\nButchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\nHow sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\nYou have no children, butchers! if you had,\nThe thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse:\nBut if you ever chance to have a child,\nLook in his youth to have him so cut off\nAs, deathmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nNay, never bear me hence, dispatch me here,\nHere sheathe thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death:\nWhat, wilt thou not? then, Clarence, do it thou.\n\nCLARENCE:\nBy heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nGood Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.\n\nCLARENCE:\nDidst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nAy, but thou usest to forswear thyself:\n'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\nWhat, wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\nHard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\nThou art not here: murder is thy alms-deed;\nPetitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway, I say; I charge ye, bear her hence.\n\nQUEEN MARGARET:\nSo come to you and yours, as to this Prince!\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nWhere's Richard gone?\n\nCLARENCE:\nTo London, all in post; and, as I guess,\nTo make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nHe's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\nNow march we hence: discharge the common sort\nWith pay and thanks, and let's away to London\nAnd see our gentle queen how well she fares:\nBy this, I hope, she hath a son for me.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nGood day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, my good lord:--my lord, I should say rather;\n'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better:\n'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\nAnd both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must confer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nSo flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\nSo first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece\nAnd next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\nWhat scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nSuspicion always haunts the guilty mind;\nThe thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nThe bird that hath been limed in a bush,\nWith trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\nAnd I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\nHave now the fatal object in my eye\nWhere my poor young was limed, was caught and kill'd.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhy, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,\nThat taught his son the office of a fowl!\nAn yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nI, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\nThy father, Minos, that denied our course;\nThe sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy\nThy brother Edward, and thyself the sea\nWhose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\nAh, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\nMy breast can better brook thy dagger's point\nThan can my ears that tragic history.\nBut wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThink'st thou I am an executioner?\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nA persecutor, I am sure, thou art:\nIf murdering innocents be executing,\nWhy, then thou art an executioner.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nThy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nHadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,\nThou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine.\nAnd thus I prophesy, that many a thousand,\nWhich now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\nAnd many an old man's sigh and many a widow's,\nAnd many an orphan's water-standing eye--\nMen for their sons, wives for their husbands,\nAnd orphans for their parents timeless death--\nShall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\nThe owl shriek'd at thy birth,--an evil sign;\nThe night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\nDogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\nThe raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\nAnd chattering pies in dismal discords sung.\nThy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\nAnd, yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\nTo wit, an indigested and deformed lump,\nNot like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\nTeeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\nTo signify thou camest to bite the world:\nAnd, if the rest be true which I have heard,\nThou camest--\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nI'll hear no more: die, prophet in thy speech:\nFor this amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n\nKING HENRY VI:\nAy, and for much more slaughter after this.\nGod forgive my sins, and pardon thee!\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nWhat, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\nSink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\nSee how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!\nO, may such purple tears be alway shed\nFrom those that wish the downfall of our house!\nIf any spark of life be yet remaining,\nDown, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither:\nI, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\nIndeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\nFor I have often heard my mother say\nI came into the world with my legs forward:\nHad I not reason, think ye, to make haste,\nAnd seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\nThe midwife wonder'd and the women cried\n'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\nAnd so I was; which plainly signified\nThat I should snarl and bite and play the dog.\nThen, since the heavens have shaped my body so,\nLet hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\nI have no brother, I am like no brother;\nAnd this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine,\nBe resident in men like one another\nAnd not in me: I am myself alone.\nClarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light:\nBut I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\nFor I will buz abroad such prophecies\nThat Edward shall be fearful of his life,\nAnd then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\nKing Henry and the prince his son are gone:\nClarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,\nCounting myself but bad till I be best.\nI'll throw thy body in another room\nAnd triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n3 KING HENRY VI\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nOnce more we sit in England's royal throne,\nRe-purchased with the blood of enemies.\nWhat valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\nHave we mow'd down, in tops of all their pride!\nThree Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\nFor hardy and undoubted champions;\nTwo Cliffords, as the father and the son,\nAnd two Northumberlands; two braver men\nNe'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\nWith them, the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\nThat in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\nAnd made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\nThus have we swept suspicion from our seat\nAnd made our footstool of security.\nCome hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\nYoung Ned, for thee, thine uncles and myself\nHave in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\nWent all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\nThat thou mightst repossess the crown in peace;\nAnd of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nClarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\nAnd kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n\nCLARENCE:\nThe duty that I owe unto your majesty\nI seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n\nQUEEN ELIZABETH:\nThanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n\nGLOUCESTER:\nAnd, that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,\nWitness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nNow am I seated as my soul delights,\nHaving my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n\nCLARENCE:\nWhat will your grace have done with Margaret?\nReignier, her father, to the king of France\nHath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\nAnd hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n\nKING EDWARD IV:\nAway with her, and waft her hence to France.\nAnd now what rests but that we spend the time\nWith stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\nSuch as befits the pleasure of the court?\nSound drums and trumpets! farewell sour annoy!\nFor here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on\nthe like occasion whereon my services are now on\nfoot, you shall see, as I have said, great\ndifference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia\nmeans to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\njustified in our loves; for indeed--\n\nCAMILLO:\nBeseech you,--\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nVerily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:\nwe cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know\nnot what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,\nthat your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,\nmay, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse\nus.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nBelieve me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\nand as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.\nThey were trained together in their childhoods; and\nthere rooted betwixt them then such an affection,\nwhich cannot choose but branch now. Since their\nmore mature dignities and royal necessities made\nseparation of their society, their encounters,\nthough not personal, have been royally attorneyed\nwith interchange of gifts, letters, loving\nembassies; that they have seemed to be together,\nthough absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and\nembraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed\nwinds. The heavens continue their loves!\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nI think there is not in the world either malice or\nmatter to alter it. You have an unspeakable\ncomfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a\ngentleman of the greatest promise that ever came\ninto my note.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it\nis a gallant child; one that indeed physics the\nsubject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on\ncrutches ere he was born desire yet their life to\nsee him a man.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nWould they else be content to die?\n\nCAMILLO:\nYes; if there were no other excuse why they should\ndesire to live.\n\nARCHIDAMUS:\nIf the king had no son, they would desire to live\non crutches till he had one.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNine changes of the watery star hath been\nThe shepherd's note since we have left our throne\nWithout a burthen: time as long again\nWould be find up, my brother, with our thanks;\nAnd yet we should, for perpetuity,\nGo hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,\nYet standing in rich place, I multiply\nWith one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\nThat go before it.\n\nLEONTES:\nStay your thanks a while;\nAnd pay them when you part.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSir, that's to-morrow.\nI am question'd by my fears, of what may chance\nOr breed upon our absence; that may blow\nNo sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd\nTo tire your royalty.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe are tougher, brother,\nThan you can put us to't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo longer stay.\n\nLEONTES:\nOne seven-night longer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nVery sooth, to-morrow.\n\nLEONTES:\nWe'll part the time between's then; and in that\nI'll no gainsaying.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPress me not, beseech you, so.\nThere is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,\nSo soon as yours could win me: so it should now,\nWere there necessity in your request, although\n'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\nDo even drag me homeward: which to hinder\nWere in your love a whip to me; my stay\nTo you a charge and trouble: to save both,\nFarewell, our brother.\n\nLEONTES:\nTongue-tied, our queen?\nspeak you.\n\nHERMIONE:\nI had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\nYou have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\nCharge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure\nAll in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction\nThe by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,\nHe's beat from his best ward.\n\nLEONTES:\nWell said, Hermione.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTo tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:\nBut let him say so then, and let him go;\nBut let him swear so, and he shall not stay,\nWe'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\nYet of your royal presence I'll adventure\nThe borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\nYou take my lord, I'll give him my commission\nTo let him there a month behind the gest\nPrefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,\nI love thee not a jar o' the clock behind\nWhat lady-she her lord. You'll stay?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nNo, madam.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, but you will?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI may not, verily.\n\nHERMIONE:\nVerily!\nYou put me off with limber vows; but I,\nThough you would seek to unsphere the\nstars with oaths,\nShould yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\nYou shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's\nAs potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?\nForce me to keep you as a prisoner,\nNot like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\nWhen you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\nMy prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'\nOne of them you shall be.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYour guest, then, madam:\nTo be your prisoner should import offending;\nWhich is for me less easy to commit\nThan you to punish.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNot your gaoler, then,\nBut your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you\nOf my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:\nYou were pretty lordings then?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were, fair queen,\nTwo lads that thought there was no more behind\nBut such a day to-morrow as to-day,\nAnd to be boy eternal.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWas not my lord\nThe verier wag o' the two?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWe were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,\nAnd bleat the one at the other: what we changed\nWas innocence for innocence; we knew not\nThe doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\nThat any did. Had we pursued that life,\nAnd our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\nWith stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\nBoldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd\nHereditary ours.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBy this we gather\nYou have tripp'd since.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO my most sacred lady!\nTemptations have since then been born to's; for\nIn those unfledged days was my wife a girl;\nYour precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\nOf my young play-fellow.\n\nHERMIONE:\nGrace to boot!\nOf this make no conclusion, lest you say\nYour queen and I are devils: yet go on;\nThe offences we have made you do we'll answer,\nIf you first sinn'd with us and that with us\nYou did continue fault and that you slipp'd not\nWith any but with us.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs he won yet?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe'll stay my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt my request he would not.\nHermione, my dearest, thou never spokest\nTo better purpose.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNever?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, but once.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat! have I twice said well? when was't before?\nI prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\nAs fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless\nSlaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\nOur praises are our wages: you may ride's\nWith one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\nWith spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:\nMy last good deed was to entreat his stay:\nWhat was my first? it has an elder sister,\nOr I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!\nBut once before I spoke to the purpose: when?\nNay, let me have't; I long.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, that was when\nThree crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\nEre I could make thee open thy white hand\nAnd clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter\n'I am yours for ever.'\n\nHERMIONE:\n'Tis grace indeed.\nWhy, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice:\nThe one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\nThe other for some while a friend.\n\nLEONTES:\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI' fecks!\nWhy, that's my bawcock. What, hast\nsmutch'd thy nose?\nThey say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,\nWe must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:\nAnd yet the steer, the heifer and the calf\nAre all call'd neat.--Still virginalling\nUpon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf!\nArt thou my calf?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYes, if you will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\nTo be full like me: yet they say we are\nAlmost as like as eggs; women say so,\nThat will say anything but were they false\nAs o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false\nAs dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\nNo bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true\nTo say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\nLook on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain!\nMost dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?--\nAffection! thy intention stabs the centre:\nThou dost make possible things not so held,\nCommunicatest with dreams;--how can this be?--\nWith what's unreal thou coactive art,\nAnd fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent\nThou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost,\nAnd that beyond commission, and I find it,\nAnd that to the infection of my brains\nAnd hardening of my brows.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat means Sicilia?\n\nHERMIONE:\nHe something seems unsettled.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow, my lord!\nWhat cheer? how is't with you, best brother?\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou look as if you held a brow of much distraction\nAre you moved, my lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, in good earnest.\nHow sometimes nature will betray its folly,\nIts tenderness, and make itself a pastime\nTo harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\nOf my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\nTwenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd,\nIn my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,\nLest it should bite its master, and so prove,\nAs ornaments oft do, too dangerous:\nHow like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\nThis squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\nWill you take eggs for money?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, my lord, I'll fight.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\nAre you so fond of your young prince as we\nDo seem to be of ours?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nIf at home, sir,\nHe's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,\nNow my sworn friend and then mine enemy,\nMy parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:\nHe makes a July's day short as December,\nAnd with his varying childness cures in me\nThoughts that would thick my blood.\n\nLEONTES:\nSo stands this squire\nOfficed with me: we two will walk, my lord,\nAnd leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\nHow thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome;\nLet what is dear in Sicily be cheap:\nNext to thyself and my young rover, he's\nApparent to my heart.\n\nHERMIONE:\nIf you would seek us,\nWe are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?\n\nLEONTES:\nTo your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,\nBe you beneath the sky.\nI am angling now,\nThough you perceive me not how I give line.\nGo to, go to!\nHow she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\nAnd arms her with the boldness of a wife\nTo her allowing husband!\nGone already!\nInch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and\nears a fork'd one!\nGo, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I\nPlay too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue\nWill hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour\nWill be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.\nThere have been,\nOr I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;\nAnd many a man there is, even at this present,\nNow while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,\nThat little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence\nAnd his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\nSir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't\nWhiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\nAs mine, against their will. Should all despair\nThat have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\nWould hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;\nIt is a bawdy planet, that will strike\nWhere 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,\nFrom east, west, north and south: be it concluded,\nNo barricado for a belly; know't;\nIt will let in and out the enemy\nWith bag and baggage: many thousand on's\nHave the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI am like you, they say.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy that's some comfort. What, Camillo there?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAy, my good lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\nCamillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYou had much ado to make his anchor hold:\nWhen you cast out, it still came home.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst note it?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe would not stay at your petitions: made\nHis business more material.\n\nLEONTES:\nDidst perceive it?\nThey're here with me already, whispering, rounding\n'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone,\nWhen I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo,\nThat he did stay?\n\nCAMILLO:\nAt the good queen's entreaty.\n\nLEONTES:\nAt the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent\nBut, so it is, it is not. Was this taken\nBy any understanding pate but thine?\nFor thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\nMore than the common blocks: not noted, is't,\nBut of the finer natures? by some severals\nOf head-piece extraordinary? lower messes\nPerchance are to this business purblind? say.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBusiness, my lord! I think most understand\nBohemia stays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa!\n\nCAMILLO:\nStays here longer.\n\nLEONTES:\nAy, but why?\n\nCAMILLO:\nTo satisfy your highness and the entreaties\nOf our most gracious mistress.\n\nLEONTES:\nSatisfy!\nThe entreaties of your mistress! satisfy!\nLet that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\nWith all the nearest things to my heart, as well\nMy chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\nHast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed\nThy penitent reform'd: but we have been\nDeceived in thy integrity, deceived\nIn that which seems so.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe it forbid, my lord!\n\nLEONTES:\nTo bide upon't, thou art not honest, or,\nIf thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward,\nWhich hoxes honesty behind, restraining\nFrom course required; or else thou must be counted\nA servant grafted in my serious trust\nAnd therein negligent; or else a fool\nThat seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\nAnd takest it all for jest.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy gracious lord,\nI may be negligent, foolish and fearful;\nIn every one of these no man is free,\nBut that his negligence, his folly, fear,\nAmong the infinite doings of the world,\nSometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\nIf ever I were wilful-negligent,\nIt was my folly; if industriously\nI play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\nNot weighing well the end; if ever fearful\nTo do a thing, where I the issue doubted,\nWhere of the execution did cry out\nAgainst the non-performance, 'twas a fear\nWhich oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,\nAre such allow'd infirmities that honesty\nIs never free of. But, beseech your grace,\nBe plainer with me; let me know my trespass\nBy its own visage: if I then deny it,\n'Tis none of mine.\n\nLEONTES:\nHa' not you seen, Camillo,--\nBut that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass\nIs thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--\nFor to a vision so apparent rumour\nCannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation\nResides not in that man that does not think,--\nMy wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,\nOr else be impudently negative,\nTo have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say\nMy wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\nAs rank as any flax-wench that puts to\nBefore her troth-plight: say't and justify't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI would not be a stander-by to hear\nMy sovereign mistress clouded so, without\nMy present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart,\nYou never spoke what did become you less\nThan this; which to reiterate were sin\nAs deep as that, though true.\n\nLEONTES:\nIs whispering nothing?\nIs leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?\nKissing with inside lip? stopping the career\nOf laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible\nOf breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot?\nSkulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?\nHours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes\nBlind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\nThat would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?\nWhy, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\nThe covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\nMy wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\nIf this be nothing.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGood my lord, be cured\nOf this diseased opinion, and betimes;\nFor 'tis most dangerous.\n\nLEONTES:\nSay it be, 'tis true.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo, no, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt is; you lie, you lie:\nI say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,\nPronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\nOr else a hovering temporizer, that\nCanst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\nInclining to them both: were my wife's liver\nInfected as her life, she would not live\nThe running of one glass.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho does infect her?\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, he that wears her like a medal, hanging\nAbout his neck, Bohemia: who, if I\nHad servants true about me, that bare eyes\nTo see alike mine honour as their profits,\nTheir own particular thrifts, they would do that\nWhich should undo more doing: ay, and thou,\nHis cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form\nHave benched and reared to worship, who mayst see\nPlainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\nHow I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup,\nTo give mine enemy a lasting wink;\nWhich draught to me were cordial.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, my lord,\nI could do this, and that with no rash potion,\nBut with a lingering dram that should not work\nMaliciously like poison: but I cannot\nBelieve this crack to be in my dread mistress,\nSo sovereignly being honourable.\nI have loved thee,--\n\nLEONTES:\nMake that thy question, and go rot!\nDost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\nTo appoint myself in this vexation, sully\nThe purity and whiteness of my sheets,\nWhich to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\nIs goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,\nGive scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,\nWho I do think is mine and love as mine,\nWithout ripe moving to't? Would I do this?\nCould man so blench?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI must believe you, sir:\nI do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\nProvided that, when he's removed, your highness\nWill take again your queen as yours at first,\nEven for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\nThe injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\nKnown and allied to yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou dost advise me\nEven so as I mine own course have set down:\nI'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nGo then; and with a countenance as clear\nAs friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\nAnd with your queen. I am his cupbearer:\nIf from me he have wholesome beverage,\nAccount me not your servant.\n\nLEONTES:\nThis is all:\nDo't and thou hast the one half of my heart;\nDo't not, thou split'st thine own.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI'll do't, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nI will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO miserable lady! But, for me,\nWhat case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\nOf good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\nIs the obedience to a master, one\nWho in rebellion with himself will have\nAll that are his so too. To do this deed,\nPromotion follows. If I could find example\nOf thousands that had struck anointed kings\nAnd flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since\nNor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,\nLet villany itself forswear't. I must\nForsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain\nTo me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!\nHere comes Bohemia.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is strange: methinks\nMy favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\nGood day, Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHail, most royal sir!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat is the news i' the court?\n\nCAMILLO:\nNone rare, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThe king hath on him such a countenance\nAs he had lost some province and a region\nLoved as he loves himself: even now I met him\nWith customary compliment; when he,\nWafting his eyes to the contrary and falling\nA lip of much contempt, speeds from me and\nSo leaves me to consider what is breeding\nThat changeth thus his manners.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI dare not know, my lord.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?\nBe intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;\nFor, to yourself, what you do know, you must.\nAnd cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,\nYour changed complexions are to me a mirror\nWhich shows me mine changed too; for I must be\nA party in this alteration, finding\nMyself thus alter'd with 't.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThere is a sickness\nWhich puts some of us in distemper, but\nI cannot name the disease; and it is caught\nOf you that yet are well.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow! caught of me!\nMake me not sighted like the basilisk:\nI have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better\nBy my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--\nAs you are certainly a gentleman, thereto\nClerk-like experienced, which no less adorns\nOur gentry than our parents' noble names,\nIn whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you,\nIf you know aught which does behove my knowledge\nThereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\nIn ignorant concealment.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI may not answer.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nA sickness caught of me, and yet I well!\nI must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,\nI conjure thee, by all the parts of man\nWhich honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\nIs not this suit of mine, that thou declare\nWhat incidency thou dost guess of harm\nIs creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\nWhich way to be prevented, if to be;\nIf not, how best to bear it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I will tell you;\nSince I am charged in honour and by him\nThat I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,\nWhich must be even as swiftly follow'd as\nI mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\nCry lost, and so good night!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nOn, good Camillo.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI am appointed him to murder you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy whom, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nBy the king.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFor what?\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\nAs he had seen't or been an instrument\nTo vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\nForbiddenly.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, then my best blood turn\nTo an infected jelly and my name\nBe yoked with his that did betray the Best!\nTurn then my freshest reputation to\nA savour that may strike the dullest nostril\nWhere I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\nNay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\nThat e'er was heard or read!\n\nCAMILLO:\nSwear his thought over\nBy each particular star in heaven and\nBy all their influences, you may as well\nForbid the sea for to obey the moon\nAs or by oath remove or counsel shake\nThe fabric of his folly, whose foundation\nIs piled upon his faith and will continue\nThe standing of his body.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nHow should this grow?\n\nCAMILLO:\nI know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to\nAvoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\nIf therefore you dare trust my honesty,\nThat lies enclosed in this trunk which you\nShall bear along impawn'd, away to-night!\nYour followers I will whisper to the business,\nAnd will by twos and threes at several posterns\nClear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put\nMy fortunes to your service, which are here\nBy this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;\nFor, by the honour of my parents, I\nHave utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove,\nI dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\nThan one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon\nHis execution sworn.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI do believe thee:\nI saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:\nBe pilot to me and thy places shall\nStill neighbour mine. My ships are ready and\nMy people did expect my hence departure\nTwo days ago. This jealousy\nIs for a precious creature: as she's rare,\nMust it be great, and as his person's mighty,\nMust it be violent, and as he does conceive\nHe is dishonour'd by a man which ever\nProfess'd to him, why, his revenges must\nIn that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:\nGood expedition be my friend, and comfort\nThe gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing\nOf his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\nI will respect thee as a father if\nThou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is in mine authority to command\nThe keys of all the posterns: please your highness\nTo take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.\n\nHERMIONE:\nTake the boy to you: he so troubles me,\n'Tis past enduring.\n\nFirst Lady:\nCome, my gracious lord,\nShall I be your playfellow?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNo, I'll none of you.\n\nFirst Lady:\nWhy, my sweet lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nYou'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if\nI were a baby still. I love you better.\n\nSecond Lady:\nAnd why so, my lord?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNot for because\nYour brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\nBecome some women best, so that there be not\nToo much hair there, but in a semicircle\nOr a half-moon made with a pen.\n\nSecond Lady:\nWho taught you this?\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nI learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now\nWhat colour are your eyebrows?\n\nFirst Lady:\nBlue, my lord.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nNay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose\nThat has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\n\nFirst Lady:\nHark ye;\nThe queen your mother rounds apace: we shall\nPresent our services to a fine new prince\nOne of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,\nIf we would have you.\n\nSecond Lady:\nShe is spread of late\nInto a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\nI am for you again: pray you, sit by us,\nAnd tell 's a tale.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nMerry or sad shall't be?\n\nHERMIONE:\nAs merry as you will.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nA sad tale's best for winter: I have one\nOf sprites and goblins.\n\nHERMIONE:\nLet's have that, good sir.\nCome on, sit down: come on, and do your best\nTo fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nThere was a man--\n\nHERMIONE:\nNay, come, sit down; then on.\n\nMAMILLIUS:\nDwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;\nYond crickets shall not hear it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nCome on, then,\nAnd give't me in mine ear.\n\nLEONTES:\nWas he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBehind the tuft of pines I met them; never\nSaw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them\nEven to their ships.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow blest am I\nIn my just censure, in my true opinion!\nAlack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed\nIn being so blest! There may be in the cup\nA spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\nAnd yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\nIs not infected: but if one present\nThe abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\nHow he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\nWith violent hefts. I have drunk,\nand seen the spider.\nCamillo was his help in this, his pander:\nThere is a plot against my life, my crown;\nAll's true that is mistrusted: that false villain\nWhom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him:\nHe has discover'd my design, and I\nRemain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\nFor them to play at will. How came the posterns\nSo easily open?\n\nFirst Lord:\nBy his great authority;\nWhich often hath no less prevail'd than so\nOn your command.\n\nLEONTES:\nI know't too well.\nGive me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:\nThough he does bear some signs of me, yet you\nHave too much blood in him.\n\nHERMIONE:\nWhat is this? sport?\n\nLEONTES:\nBear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\nAway with him! and let her sport herself\nWith that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes\nHas made thee swell thus.\n\nHERMIONE:\nBut I'ld say he had not,\nAnd I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\nHowe'er you lean to the nayward.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou, my lords,\nLook on her, mark her well; be but about\nTo say 'she is a goodly lady,' and\nThe justice of your bearts will thereto add\n'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'\nPraise her but for this her without-door form,\nWhich on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\nThe shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\nThat calumny doth use--O, I am out--\nThat mercy does, for calumny will sear\nVirtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,\nWhen you have said 'she's goodly,' come between\nEre you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known,\nFrom him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\nShe's an adulteress.\n\nHERMIONE:\nShould a villain say so,\nThe most replenish'd villain in the world,\nHe were as much more villain: you, my lord,\nDo but mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou have mistook, my lady,\nPolixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!\nWhich I'll not call a creature of thy place,\nLest barbarism, making me the precedent,\nShould a like language use to all degrees\nAnd mannerly distinguishment leave out\nBetwixt the prince and beggar: I have said\nShe's an adulteress; I have said with whom:\nMore, she's a traitor and Camillo is\nA federary with her, and one that knows\nWhat she should shame to know herself\nBut with her most vile principal, that she's\nA bed-swerver, even as bad as those\nThat vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy\nTo this their late escape.\n\nHERMIONE:\nNo, by my life.\nPrivy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\nWhen you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\nYou thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\nYou scarce can right me throughly then to say\nYou did mistake.\n\nLEONTES:\nNo; if I mistake\nIn those foundations which I build upon,\nThe centre is not big enough to bear\nA school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!\nHe who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\nBut that he speaks.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThere's some ill planet reigns:\nI must be patient till the heavens look\nWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\nI am not prone to weeping, as our sex\nCommonly are; the want of which vain dew\nPerchance shall dry your pities: but I have\nThat honourable grief lodged here which burns\nWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,\nWith thoughts so qualified as your charities\nShall best instruct you, measure me; and so\nThe king's will be perform'd!\n\nLEONTES:\nShall I be heard?\n\nHERMIONE:\nWho is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,\nMy women may be with me; for you see\nMy plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\nThere is no cause: when you shall know your mistress\nHas deserved prison, then abound in tears\nAs I come out: this action I now go on\nIs for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:\nI never wish'd to see you sorry; now\nI trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, do our bidding; hence!\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, call the queen again.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nBe certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\nProve violence; in the which three great ones suffer,\nYourself, your queen, your son.\n\nFirst Lord:\nFor her, my lord,\nI dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,\nPlease you to accept it, that the queen is spotless\nI' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,\nIn this which you accuse her.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it prove\nShe's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\nI lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\nThan when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\nFor every inch of woman in the world,\nAy, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.\n\nLEONTES:\nHold your peaces.\n\nFirst Lord:\nGood my lord,--\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIt is for you we speak, not for ourselves:\nYou are abused and by some putter-on\nThat will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,\nI would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,\nI have three daughters; the eldest is eleven\nThe second and the third, nine, and some five;\nIf this prove true, they'll pay for't:\nby mine honour,\nI'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,\nTo bring false generations: they are co-heirs;\nAnd I had rather glib myself than they\nShould not produce fair issue.\n\nLEONTES:\nCease; no more.\nYou smell this business with a sense as cold\nAs is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't\nAs you feel doing thus; and see withal\nThe instruments that feel.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nIf it be so,\nWe need no grave to bury honesty:\nThere's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\nOf the whole dungy earth.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat! lack I credit?\n\nFirst Lord:\nI had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\nUpon this ground; and more it would content me\nTo have her honour true than your suspicion,\nBe blamed for't how you might.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhy, what need we\nCommune with you of this, but rather follow\nOur forceful instigation? Our prerogative\nCalls not your counsels, but our natural goodness\nImparts this; which if you, or stupefied\nOr seeming so in skill, cannot or will not\nRelish a truth like us, inform yourselves\nWe need no more of your advice: the matter,\nThe loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all\nProperly ours.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAnd I wish, my liege,\nYou had only in your silent judgment tried it,\nWithout more overture.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow could that be?\nEither thou art most ignorant by age,\nOr thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\nAdded to their familiarity,\nWhich was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\nThat lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\nBut only seeing, all other circumstances\nMade up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding:\nYet, for a greater confirmation,\nFor in an act of this importance 'twere\nMost piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post\nTo sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\nCleomenes and Dion, whom you know\nOf stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle\nThey will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,\nShall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\n\nFirst Lord:\nWell done, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nThough I am satisfied and need no more\nThan what I know, yet shall the oracle\nGive rest to the minds of others, such as he\nWhose ignorant credulity will not\nCome up to the truth. So have we thought it good\nFrom our free person she should be confined,\nLest that the treachery of the two fled hence\nBe left her to perform. Come, follow us;\nWe are to speak in public; for this business\nWill raise us all.\n\nANTIGONUS:\n\nPAULINA:\nThe keeper of the prison, call to him;\nlet him have knowledge who I am.\nGood lady,\nNo court in Europe is too good for thee;\nWhat dost thou then in prison?\nNow, good sir,\nYou know me, do you not?\n\nGaoler:\nFor a worthy lady\nAnd one whom much I honour.\n\nPAULINA:\nPray you then,\nConduct me to the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI may not, madam:\nTo the contrary I have express commandment.\n\nPAULINA:\nHere's ado,\nTo lock up honesty and honour from\nThe access of gentle visitors!\nIs't lawful, pray you,\nTo see her women? any of them? Emilia?\n\nGaoler:\nSo please you, madam,\nTo put apart these your attendants, I\nShall bring Emilia forth.\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray now, call her.\nWithdraw yourselves.\n\nGaoler:\nAnd, madam,\nI must be present at your conference.\n\nPAULINA:\nWell, be't so, prithee.\nHere's such ado to make no stain a stain\nAs passes colouring.\nDear gentlewoman,\nHow fares our gracious lady?\n\nEMILIA:\nAs well as one so great and so forlorn\nMay hold together: on her frights and griefs,\nWhich never tender lady hath born greater,\nShe is something before her time deliver'd.\n\nPAULINA:\nA boy?\n\nEMILIA:\nA daughter, and a goodly babe,\nLusty and like to live: the queen receives\nMuch comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\nI am innocent as you.'\n\nPAULINA:\nI dare be sworn\nThese dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king,\nbeshrew them!\nHe must be told on't, and he shall: the office\nBecomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me:\nIf I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister\nAnd never to my red-look'd anger be\nThe trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\nCommend my best obedience to the queen:\nIf she dares trust me with her little babe,\nI'll show't the king and undertake to be\nHer advocate to the loud'st. We do not know\nHow he may soften at the sight o' the child:\nThe silence often of pure innocence\nPersuades when speaking fails.\n\nEMILIA:\nMost worthy madam,\nYour honour and your goodness is so evident\nThat your free undertaking cannot miss\nA thriving issue: there is no lady living\nSo meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\nTo visit the next room, I'll presently\nAcquaint the queen of your most noble offer;\nWho but to-day hammer'd of this design,\nBut durst not tempt a minister of honour,\nLest she should be denied.\n\nPAULINA:\nTell her, Emilia.\nI'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't\nAs boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted\nI shall do good.\n\nEMILIA:\nNow be you blest for it!\nI'll to the queen: please you,\ncome something nearer.\n\nGaoler:\nMadam, if't please the queen to send the babe,\nI know not what I shall incur to pass it,\nHaving no warrant.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou need not fear it, sir:\nThis child was prisoner to the womb and is\nBy law and process of great nature thence\nFreed and enfranchised, not a party to\nThe anger of the king nor guilty of,\nIf any be, the trespass of the queen.\n\nGaoler:\nI do believe it.\n\nPAULINA:\nDo not you fear: upon mine honour,\nI will stand betwixt you and danger.\n\nLEONTES:\nNor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness\nTo bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If\nThe cause were not in being,--part o' the cause,\nShe the adulteress; for the harlot king\nIs quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\nAnd level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\nI can hook to me: say that she were gone,\nGiven to the fire, a moiety of my rest\nMight come to me again. Who's there?\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord?\n\nLEONTES:\nHow does the boy?\n\nFirst Servant:\nHe took good rest to-night;\n'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.\n\nLEONTES:\nTo see his nobleness!\nConceiving the dishonour of his mother,\nHe straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply,\nFasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\nThrew off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\nAnd downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go,\nSee how he fares.\nFie, fie! no thought of him:\nThe thought of my revenges that way\nRecoil upon me: in himself too mighty,\nAnd in his parties, his alliance; let him be\nUntil a time may serve: for present vengeance,\nTake it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\nLaugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow:\nThey should not laugh if I could reach them, nor\nShall she within my power.\n\nFirst Lord:\nYou must not enter.\n\nPAULINA:\nNay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:\nFear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\nThan the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul,\nMore free than he is jealous.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThat's enough.\n\nSecond Servant:\nMadam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded\nNone should come at him.\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so hot, good sir:\nI come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\nThat creep like shadows by him and do sigh\nAt each his needless heavings, such as you\nNourish the cause of his awaking: I\nDo come with words as medicinal as true,\nHonest as either, to purge him of that humour\nThat presses him from sleep.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat noise there, ho?\n\nPAULINA:\nNo noise, my lord; but needful conference\nAbout some gossips for your highness.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow!\nAway with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\nI charged thee that she should not come about me:\nI knew she would.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI told her so, my lord,\nOn your displeasure's peril and on mine,\nShe should not visit you.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat, canst not rule her?\n\nPAULINA:\nFrom all dishonesty he can: in this,\nUnless he take the course that you have done,\nCommit me for committing honour, trust it,\nHe shall not rule me.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nLa you now, you hear:\nWhen she will take the rein I let her run;\nBut she'll not stumble.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my liege, I come;\nAnd, I beseech you, hear me, who profess\nMyself your loyal servant, your physician,\nYour most obedient counsellor, yet that dare\nLess appear so in comforting your evils,\nThan such as most seem yours: I say, I come\nFrom your good queen.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood queen!\n\nPAULINA:\nGood queen, my lord,\nGood queen; I say good queen;\nAnd would by combat make her good, so were I\nA man, the worst about you.\n\nLEONTES:\nForce her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nLet him that makes but trifles of his eyes\nFirst hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;\nBut first I'll do my errand. The good queen,\nFor she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\nHere 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n\nLEONTES:\nOut!\nA mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:\nA most intelligencing bawd!\n\nPAULINA:\nNot so:\nI am as ignorant in that as you\nIn so entitling me, and no less honest\nThan you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\nAs this world goes, to pass for honest.\n\nLEONTES:\nTraitors!\nWill you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\nThou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted\nBy thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\nTake't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\n\nPAULINA:\nFor ever\nUnvenerable be thy hands, if thou\nTakest up the princess by that forced baseness\nWhich he has put upon't!\n\nLEONTES:\nHe dreads his wife.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\nYou'ld call your children yours.\n\nLEONTES:\nA nest of traitors!\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI am none, by this good light.\n\nPAULINA:\nNor I, nor any\nBut one that's here, and that's himself, for he\nThe sacred honour of himself, his queen's,\nHis hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\nWhose sting is sharper than the sword's;\nand will not--\nFor, as the case now stands, it is a curse\nHe cannot be compell'd to't--once remove\nThe root of his opinion, which is rotten\nAs ever oak or stone was sound.\n\nLEONTES:\nA callat\nOf boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband\nAnd now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\nIt is the issue of Polixenes:\nHence with it, and together with the dam\nCommit them to the fire!\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is yours;\nAnd, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,\nSo like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\nAlthough the print be little, the whole matter\nAnd copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,\nThe trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,\nThe pretty dimples of his chin and cheek,\nHis smiles,\nThe very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:\nAnd thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\nSo like to him that got it, if thou hast\nThe ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\nNo yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\nHer children not her husband's!\n\nLEONTES:\nA gross hag\nAnd, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,\nThat wilt not stay her tongue.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nHang all the husbands\nThat cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\nHardly one subject.\n\nLEONTES:\nOnce more, take her hence.\n\nPAULINA:\nA most unworthy and unnatural lord\nCan do no more.\n\nLEONTES:\nI'll ha' thee burnt.\n\nPAULINA:\nI care not:\nIt is an heretic that makes the fire,\nNot she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant;\nBut this most cruel usage of your queen,\nNot able to produce more accusation\nThan your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours\nOf tyranny and will ignoble make you,\nYea, scandalous to the world.\n\nLEONTES:\nOn your allegiance,\nOut of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\nWhere were her life? she durst not call me so,\nIf she did know me one. Away with her!\n\nPAULINA:\nI pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\nLook to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours:\nJove send her\nA better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\nYou, that are thus so tender o'er his follies,\nWill never do him good, not one of you.\nSo, so: farewell; we are gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\nMy child? away with't! Even thou, that hast\nA heart so tender o'er it, take it hence\nAnd see it instantly consumed with fire;\nEven thou and none but thou. Take it up straight:\nWithin this hour bring me word 'tis done,\nAnd by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\nWith what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse\nAnd wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\nThe bastard brains with these my proper hands\nShall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\nFor thou set'st on thy wife.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI did not, sir:\nThese lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\nCan clear me in't.\n\nLords:\nWe can: my royal liege,\nHe is not guilty of her coming hither.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou're liars all.\n\nFirst Lord:\nBeseech your highness, give us better credit:\nWe have always truly served you, and beseech you\nSo to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,\nAs recompense of our dear services\nPast and to come, that you do change this purpose,\nWhich being so horrible, so bloody, must\nLead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.\n\nLEONTES:\nI am a feather for each wind that blows:\nShall I live on to see this bastard kneel\nAnd call me father? better burn it now\nThan curse it then. But be it; let it live.\nIt shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither;\nYou that have been so tenderly officious\nWith Lady Margery, your midwife there,\nTo save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard,\nSo sure as this beard's grey,\n--what will you adventure\nTo save this brat's life?\n\nANTIGONUS:\nAny thing, my lord,\nThat my ability may undergo\nAnd nobleness impose: at least thus much:\nI'll pawn the little blood which I have left\nTo save the innocent: any thing possible.\n\nLEONTES:\nIt shall be possible. Swear by this sword\nThou wilt perform my bidding.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLEONTES:\nMark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail\nOf any point in't shall not only be\nDeath to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,\nWhom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\nAs thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry\nThis female bastard hence and that thou bear it\nTo some remote and desert place quite out\nOf our dominions, and that there thou leave it,\nWithout more mercy, to its own protection\nAnd favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\nIt came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\nOn thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\nThat thou commend it strangely to some place\nWhere chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nI swear to do this, though a present death\nHad been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:\nSome powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\nTo be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say\nCasting their savageness aside have done\nLike offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\nIn more than this deed does require! And blessing\nAgainst this cruelty fight on thy side,\nPoor thing, condemn'd to loss!\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, I'll not rear\nAnother's issue.\n\nServant:\nPlease your highness, posts\nFrom those you sent to the oracle are come\nAn hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,\nBeing well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,\nHasting to the court.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSo please you, sir, their speed\nHath been beyond account.\n\nLEONTES:\nTwenty-three days\nThey have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells\nThe great Apollo suddenly will have\nThe truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\nSummon a session, that we may arraign\nOur most disloyal lady, for, as she hath\nBeen publicly accused, so shall she have\nA just and open trial. While she lives\nMy heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me,\nAnd think upon my bidding.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nThe climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\nFertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\nThe common praise it bears.\n\nDION:\nI shall report,\nFor most it caught me, the celestial habits,\nMethinks I so should term them, and the reverence\nOf the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\nHow ceremonious, solemn and unearthly\nIt was i' the offering!\n\nCLEOMENES:\nBut of all, the burst\nAnd the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,\nKin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense.\nThat I was nothing.\n\nDION:\nIf the event o' the journey\nProve as successful to the queen,--O be't so!--\nAs it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\nThe time is worth the use on't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGreat Apollo\nTurn all to the best! These proclamations,\nSo forcing faults upon Hermione,\nI little like.\n\nDION:\nThe violent carriage of it\nWill clear or end the business: when the oracle,\nThus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,\nShall the contents discover, something rare\nEven then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses!\nAnd gracious be the issue!\n\nLEONTES:\nThis sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\nEven pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried\nThe daughter of a king, our wife, and one\nOf us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd\nOf being tyrannous, since we so openly\nProceed in justice, which shall have due course,\nEven to the guilt or the purgation.\nProduce the prisoner.\n\nOfficer:\nIt is his highness' pleasure that the queen\nAppear in person here in court. Silence!\n\nLEONTES:\nRead the indictment.\n\nOfficer:\n\nHERMIONE:\nSince what I am to say must be but that\nWhich contradicts my accusation and\nThe testimony on my part no other\nBut what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\nTo say 'not guilty:' mine integrity\nBeing counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,\nBe so received. But thus: if powers divine\nBehold our human actions, as they do,\nI doubt not then but innocence shall make\nFalse accusation blush and tyranny\nTremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,\nWho least will seem to do so, my past life\nHath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\nAs I am now unhappy; which is more\nThan history can pattern, though devised\nAnd play'd to take spectators. For behold me\nA fellow of the royal bed, which owe\nA moiety of the throne a great king's daughter,\nThe mother to a hopeful prince, here standing\nTo prate and talk for life and honour 'fore\nWho please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\nAs I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,\n'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\nAnd only that I stand for. I appeal\nTo your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\nCame to your court, how I was in your grace,\nHow merited to be so; since he came,\nWith what encounter so uncurrent I\nHave strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond\nThe bound of honour, or in act or will\nThat way inclining, harden'd be the hearts\nOf all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\nCry fie upon my grave!\n\nLEONTES:\nI ne'er heard yet\nThat any of these bolder vices wanted\nLess impudence to gainsay what they did\nThan to perform it first.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThat's true enough;\nThrough 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou will not own it.\n\nHERMIONE:\nMore than mistress of\nWhich comes to me in name of fault, I must not\nAt all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\nWith whom I am accused, I do confess\nI loved him as in honour he required,\nWith such a kind of love as might become\nA lady like me, with a love even such,\nSo and no other, as yourself commanded:\nWhich not to have done I think had been in me\nBoth disobedience and ingratitude\nTo you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,\nEven since it could speak, from an infant, freely\nThat it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,\nI know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd\nFor me to try how: all I know of it\nIs that Camillo was an honest man;\nAnd why he left your court, the gods themselves,\nWotting no more than I, are ignorant.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou knew of his departure, as you know\nWhat you have underta'en to do in's absence.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir,\nYou speak a language that I understand not:\nMy life stands in the level of your dreams,\nWhich I'll lay down.\n\nLEONTES:\nYour actions are my dreams;\nYou had a bastard by Polixenes,\nAnd I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,--\nThose of your fact are so--so past all truth:\nWhich to deny concerns more than avails; for as\nThy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\nNo father owning it,--which is, indeed,\nMore criminal in thee than it,--so thou\nShalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage\nLook for no less than death.\n\nHERMIONE:\nSir, spare your threats:\nThe bug which you would fright me with I seek.\nTo me can life be no commodity:\nThe crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\nI do give lost; for I do feel it gone,\nBut know not how it went. My second joy\nAnd first-fruits of my body, from his presence\nI am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort\nStarr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,\nThe innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,\nHaled out to murder: myself on every post\nProclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred\nThe child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\nTo women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\nHere to this place, i' the open air, before\nI have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\nTell me what blessings I have here alive,\nThat I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.\nBut yet hear this: mistake me not; no life,\nI prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,\nWhich I would free, if I shall be condemn'd\nUpon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\nBut what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,\nI do refer me to the oracle:\nApollo be my judge!\n\nFirst Lord:\nThis your request\nIs altogether just: therefore bring forth,\nAnd in Apollos name, his oracle.\n\nHERMIONE:\nThe Emperor of Russia was my father:\nO that he were alive, and here beholding\nHis daughter's trial! that he did but see\nThe flatness of my misery, yet with eyes\nOf pity, not revenge!\n\nOfficer:\nYou here shall swear upon this sword of justice,\nThat you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\nBeen both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\nThe seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\nOf great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,\nYou have not dared to break the holy seal\nNor read the secrets in't.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nAll this we swear.\n\nLEONTES:\nBreak up the seals and read.\n\nOfficer:\n\nLords:\nNow blessed be the great Apollo!\n\nHERMIONE:\nPraised!\n\nLEONTES:\nHast thou read truth?\n\nOfficer:\nAy, my lord; even so\nAs it is here set down.\n\nLEONTES:\nThere is no truth at all i' the oracle:\nThe sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.\n\nServant:\nMy lord the king, the king!\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat is the business?\n\nServant:\nO sir, I shall be hated to report it!\nThe prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\nOf the queen's speed, is gone.\n\nLEONTES:\nHow! gone!\n\nServant:\nIs dead.\n\nLEONTES:\nApollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\nDo strike at my injustice.\nHow now there!\n\nPAULINA:\nThis news is mortal to the queen: look down\nAnd see what death is doing.\n\nLEONTES:\nTake her hence:\nHer heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover:\nI have too much believed mine own suspicion:\nBeseech you, tenderly apply to her\nSome remedies for life.\nApollo, pardon\nMy great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!\nI'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\nNew woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,\nWhom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;\nFor, being transported by my jealousies\nTo bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\nCamillo for the minister to poison\nMy friend Polixenes: which had been done,\nBut that the good mind of Camillo tardied\nMy swift command, though I with death and with\nReward did threaten and encourage him,\nNot doing 't and being done: he, most humane\nAnd fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\nUnclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here,\nWhich you knew great, and to the hazard\nOf all encertainties himself commended,\nNo richer than his honour: how he glisters\nThorough my rust! and how his pity\nDoes my deeds make the blacker!\n\nPAULINA:\nWoe the while!\nO, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\nBreak too.\n\nFirst Lord:\nWhat fit is this, good lady?\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\nWhat wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?\nIn leads or oils? what old or newer torture\nMust I receive, whose every word deserves\nTo taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\nTogether working with thy jealousies,\nFancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\nFor girls of nine, O, think what they have done\nAnd then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all\nThy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\nThat thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing;\nThat did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant\nAnd damnable ingrateful: nor was't much,\nThou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\nTo have him kill a king: poor trespasses,\nMore monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon\nThe casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter\nTo be or none or little; though a devil\nWould have shed water out of fire ere done't:\nNor is't directly laid to thee, the death\nOf the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,\nThoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart\nThat could conceive a gross and foolish sire\nBlemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,\nLaid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords,\nWhen I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen,\nThe sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead,\nand vengeance for't\nNot dropp'd down yet.\n\nFirst Lord:\nThe higher powers forbid!\n\nPAULINA:\nI say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\nPrevail not, go and see: if you can bring\nTincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\nHeat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\nAs I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\nDo not repent these things, for they are heavier\nThan all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\nTo nothing but despair. A thousand knees\nTen thousand years together, naked, fasting,\nUpon a barren mountain and still winter\nIn storm perpetual, could not move the gods\nTo look that way thou wert.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo on, go on\nThou canst not speak too much; I have deserved\nAll tongues to talk their bitterest.\n\nFirst Lord:\nSay no more:\nHowe'er the business goes, you have made fault\nI' the boldness of your speech.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry for't:\nAll faults I make, when I shall come to know them,\nI do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much\nThe rashness of a woman: he is touch'd\nTo the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\nShould be past grief: do not receive affliction\nAt my petition; I beseech you, rather\nLet me be punish'd, that have minded you\nOf what you should forget. Now, good my liege\nSir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman:\nThe love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!--\nI'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\nI'll not remember you of my own lord,\nWho is lost too: take your patience to you,\nAnd I'll say nothing.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou didst speak but well\nWhen most the truth; which I receive much better\nThan to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\nTo the dead bodies of my queen and son:\nOne grave shall be for both: upon them shall\nThe causes of their death appear, unto\nOur shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\nThe chapel where they lie, and tears shed there\nShall be my recreation: so long as nature\nWill bear up with this exercise, so long\nI daily vow to use it. Come and lead me\nUnto these sorrows.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nThou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon\nThe deserts of Bohemia?\n\nMariner:\nAy, my lord: and fear\nWe have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly\nAnd threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\nThe heavens with that we have in hand are angry\nAnd frown upon 's.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nTheir sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\nLook to thy bark: I'll not be long before\nI call upon thee.\n\nMariner:\nMake your best haste, and go not\nToo far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather;\nBesides, this place is famous for the creatures\nOf prey that keep upon't.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nGo thou away:\nI'll follow instantly.\n\nMariner:\nI am glad at heart\nTo be so rid o' the business.\n\nANTIGONUS:\nCome, poor babe:\nI have heard, but not believed,\nthe spirits o' the dead\nMay walk again: if such thing be, thy mother\nAppear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream\nSo like a waking. To me comes a creature,\nSometimes her head on one side, some another;\nI never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\nSo fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes,\nLike very sanctity, she did approach\nMy cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me,\nAnd gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\nBecame two spouts: the fury spent, anon\nDid this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus,\nSince fate, against thy better disposition,\nHath made thy person for the thrower-out\nOf my poor babe, according to thine oath,\nPlaces remote enough are in Bohemia,\nThere weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe\nIs counted lost for ever, Perdita,\nI prithee, call't. For this ungentle business\nPut on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\nThy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks\nShe melted into air. Affrighted much,\nI did in time collect myself and thought\nThis was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys:\nYet for this once, yea, superstitiously,\nI will be squared by this. I do believe\nHermione hath suffer'd death, and that\nApollo would, this being indeed the issue\nOf King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\nEither for life or death, upon the earth\nOf its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\nThere lie, and there thy character: there these;\nWhich may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\nAnd still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch,\nThat for thy mother's fault art thus exposed\nTo loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\nBut my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I\nTo be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\nThe day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have\nA lullaby too rough: I never saw\nThe heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!\nWell may I get aboard! This is the chase:\nI am gone for ever.\n\nShepherd:\nI would there were no age between sixteen and\nthree-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the\nrest; for there is nothing in the between but\ngetting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,\nstealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but\nthese boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty\nhunt this weather? They have scared away two of my\nbest sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find\nthan the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by\nthe seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy\nwill what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very\npretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A\npretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape:\nthough I am not bookish, yet I can read\nwaiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been\nsome stair-work, some trunk-work, some\nbehind-door-work: they were warmer that got this\nthan the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for\npity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed\nbut even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!\n\nClown:\nHilloa, loa!\n\nShepherd:\nWhat, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk\non when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What\nailest thou, man?\n\nClown:\nI have seen two such sights, by sea and by land!\nbut I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the\nsky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust\na bodkin's point.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, boy, how is it?\n\nClown:\nI would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages,\nhow it takes up the shore! but that's not the\npoint. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!\nsometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the\nship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon\nswallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a\ncork into a hogshead. And then for the\nland-service, to see how the bear tore out his\nshoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said\nhis name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an\nend of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned\nit: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the\nsea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared\nand the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than\nthe sea or weather.\n\nShepherd:\nName of mercy, when was this, boy?\n\nClown:\nNow, now: I have not winked since I saw these\nsights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor\nthe bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it\nnow.\n\nShepherd:\nWould I had been by, to have helped the old man!\n\nClown:\nI would you had been by the ship side, to have\nhelped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.\n\nShepherd:\nHeavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,\nboy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things\ndying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for\nthee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's\nchild! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;\nopen't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be\nrich by the fairies. This is some changeling:\nopen't. What's within, boy?\n\nClown:\nYou're a made old man: if the sins of your youth\nare forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\n\nShepherd:\nThis is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up\nwith't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.\nWe are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires\nnothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good\nboy, the next way home.\n\nClown:\nGo you the next way with your findings. I'll go see\nif the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much\nhe hath eaten: they are never curst but when they\nare hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury\nit.\n\nShepherd:\nThat's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that\nwhich is left of him what he is, fetch me to the\nsight of him.\n\nClown:\nMarry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.\n\nShepherd:\n'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.\n\nTime:\nI, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\nOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\nNow take upon me, in the name of Time,\nTo use my wings. Impute it not a crime\nTo me or my swift passage, that I slide\nO'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried\nOf that wide gap, since it is in my power\nTo o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour\nTo plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\nThe same I am, ere ancient'st order was\nOr what is now received: I witness to\nThe times that brought them in; so shall I do\nTo the freshest things now reigning and make stale\nThe glistering of this present, as my tale\nNow seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\nI turn my glass and give my scene such growing\nAs you had slept between: Leontes leaving,\nThe effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\nThat he shuts up himself, imagine me,\nGentle spectators, that I now may be\nIn fair Bohemia, and remember well,\nI mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel\nI now name to you; and with speed so pace\nTo speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\nEqual with wondering: what of her ensues\nI list not prophecy; but let Time's news\nBe known when 'tis brought forth.\nA shepherd's daughter,\nAnd what to her adheres, which follows after,\nIs the argument of Time. Of this allow,\nIf ever you have spent time worse ere now;\nIf never, yet that Time himself doth say\nHe wishes earnestly you never may.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:\n'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to\ngrant this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nIt is fifteen years since I saw my country: though\nI have for the most part been aired abroad, I\ndesire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent\nking, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling\nsorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\nthink so, which is another spur to my departure.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAs thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of\nthy services by leaving me now: the need I have of\nthee thine own goodness hath made; better not to\nhave had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having\nmade me businesses which none without thee can\nsufficiently manage, must either stay to execute\nthem thyself or take away with thee the very\nservices thou hast done; which if I have not enough\nconsidered, as too much I cannot, to be more\nthankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit\ntherein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal\ncountry, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very\nnaming punishes me with the remembrance of that\npenitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,\nmy brother; whose loss of his most precious queen\nand children are even now to be afresh lamented.\nSay to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my\nson? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not\nbeing gracious, than they are in losing them when\nthey have approved their virtues.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What\nhis happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I\nhave missingly noted, he is of late much retired\nfrom court and is less frequent to his princely\nexercises than formerly he hath appeared.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI have considered so much, Camillo, and with some\ncare; so far that I have eyes under my service which\nlook upon his removedness; from whom I have this\nintelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a\nmost homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from\nvery nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\nneighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a\ndaughter of most rare note: the report of her is\nextended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThat's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I\nfear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou\nshalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not\nappearing what we are, have some question with the\nshepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\nuneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither.\nPrithee, be my present partner in this business, and\nlay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI willingly obey your command.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMy best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhen daffodils begin to peer,\nWith heigh! the doxy over the dale,\nWhy, then comes in the sweet o' the year;\nFor the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\nThe white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\nWith heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\nDoth set my pugging tooth on edge;\nFor a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\nThe lark, that tirra-lyra chants,\nWith heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\nAre summer songs for me and my aunts,\nWhile we lie tumbling in the hay.\nI have served Prince Florizel and in my time\nwore three-pile; but now I am out of service:\nBut shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\nThe pale moon shines by night:\nAnd when I wander here and there,\nI then do most go right.\nIf tinkers may have leave to live,\nAnd bear the sow-skin budget,\nThen my account I well may, give,\nAnd in the stocks avouch it.\nMy traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to\nlesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who\nbeing, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise\na snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and\ndrab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is\nthe silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful\non the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to\nme: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought\nof it. A prize! a prize!\n\nClown:\nLet me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod\nyields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred\nshorn. what comes the wool to?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nI cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am\nI to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound\nof sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will\nthis sister of mine do with rice? But my father\nhath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it\non. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for\nthe shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good\nones; but they are most of them means and bases; but\none puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to\nhorn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden\npies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;\nnutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I\nmay beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of\nraisins o' the sun.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO that ever I was born!\n\nClown:\nI' the name of me--\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and\nthen, death, death!\n\nClown:\nAlack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay\non thee, rather than have these off.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more\nthan the stripes I have received, which are mighty\nones and millions.\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a\ngreat matter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel\nta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon\nme.\n\nClown:\nWhat, by a horseman, or a footman?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA footman, sweet sir, a footman.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, he should be a footman by the garments he\nhas left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat,\nit hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,\nI'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, tenderly, O!\n\nClown:\nAlas, poor soul!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my\nshoulder-blade is out.\n\nClown:\nHow now! canst stand?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nDost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have\na kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,\nunto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or\nany thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;\nthat kills my heart.\n\nClown:\nWhat manner of fellow was he that robbed you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\ntroll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the\nprince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his\nvirtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.\n\nClown:\nHis vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped\nout of the court: they cherish it to make it stay\nthere; and yet it will no more but abide.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he\nhath been since an ape-bearer; then a\nprocess-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a\nmotion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\nwife within a mile where my land and living lies;\nand, having flown over many knavish professions, he\nsettled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.\n\nClown:\nOut upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts\nwakes, fairs and bear-baitings.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that\nput me into this apparel.\n\nClown:\nNot a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had\nbut looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am\nfalse of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant\nhim.\n\nClown:\nHow do you now?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nSweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and\nwalk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace\nsoftly towards my kinsman's.\n\nClown:\nShall I bring thee on the way?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNo, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.\n\nClown:\nThen fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our\nsheep-shearing.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nProsper you, sweet sir!\nYour purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.\nI'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I\nmake not this cheat bring out another and the\nshearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name\nput in the book of virtue!\nJog on, jog on, the foot-path way,\nAnd merrily hent the stile-a:\nA merry heart goes all the day,\nYour sad tires in a mile-a.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThese your unusual weeds to each part of you\nDo give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora\nPeering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\nIs as a meeting of the petty gods,\nAnd you the queen on't.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, my gracious lord,\nTo chide at your extremes it not becomes me:\nO, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,\nThe gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured\nWith a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,\nMost goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts\nIn every mess have folly and the feeders\nDigest it with a custom, I should blush\nTo see you so attired, sworn, I think,\nTo show myself a glass.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI bless the time\nWhen my good falcon made her flight across\nThy father's ground.\n\nPERDITA:\nNow Jove afford you cause!\nTo me the difference forges dread; your greatness\nHath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble\nTo think your father, by some accident,\nShould pass this way as you did: O, the Fates!\nHow would he look, to see his work so noble\nVilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\nShould I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold\nThe sternness of his presence?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nApprehend\nNothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\nHumbling their deities to love, have taken\nThe shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\nBecame a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune\nA ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,\nGolden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\nAs I seem now. Their transformations\nWere never for a piece of beauty rarer,\nNor in a way so chaste, since my desires\nRun not before mine honour, nor my lusts\nBurn hotter than my faith.\n\nPERDITA:\nO, but, sir,\nYour resolution cannot hold, when 'tis\nOpposed, as it must be, by the power of the king:\nOne of these two must be necessities,\nWhich then will speak, that you must\nchange this purpose,\nOr I my life.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nThou dearest Perdita,\nWith these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not\nThe mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\nOr not my father's. For I cannot be\nMine own, nor any thing to any, if\nI be not thine. To this I am most constant,\nThough destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\nStrangle such thoughts as these with any thing\nThat you behold the while. Your guests are coming:\nLift up your countenance, as it were the day\nOf celebration of that nuptial which\nWe two have sworn shall come.\n\nPERDITA:\nO lady Fortune,\nStand you auspicious!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSee, your guests approach:\nAddress yourself to entertain them sprightly,\nAnd let's be red with mirth.\n\nShepherd:\nFie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon\nThis day she was both pantler, butler, cook,\nBoth dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;\nWould sing her song and dance her turn; now here,\nAt upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;\nOn his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\nWith labour and the thing she took to quench it,\nShe would to each one sip. You are retired,\nAs if you were a feasted one and not\nThe hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid\nThese unknown friends to's welcome; for it is\nA way to make us better friends, more known.\nCome, quench your blushes and present yourself\nThat which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on,\nAnd bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\nAs your good flock shall prosper.\n\nPERDITA:\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShepherdess,\nA fair one are you--well you fit our ages\nWith flowers of winter.\n\nPERDITA:\nSir, the year growing ancient,\nNot yet on summer's death, nor on the birth\nOf trembling winter, the fairest\nflowers o' the season\nAre our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\nWhich some call nature's bastards: of that kind\nOur rustic garden's barren; and I care not\nTo get slips of them.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWherefore, gentle maiden,\nDo you neglect them?\n\nPERDITA:\nFor I have heard it said\nThere is an art which in their piedness shares\nWith great creating nature.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSay there be;\nYet nature is made better by no mean\nBut nature makes that mean: so, over that art\nWhich you say adds to nature, is an art\nThat nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\nA gentler scion to the wildest stock,\nAnd make conceive a bark of baser kind\nBy bud of nobler race: this is an art\nWhich does mend nature, change it rather, but\nThe art itself is nature.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo it is.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThen make your garden rich in gillyvors,\nAnd do not call them bastards.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll not put\nThe dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\nNo more than were I painted I would wish\nThis youth should say 'twere well and only therefore\nDesire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you;\nHot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;\nThe marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun\nAnd with him rises weeping: these are flowers\nOf middle summer, and I think they are given\nTo men of middle age. You're very welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\nAnd only live by gazing.\n\nPERDITA:\nOut, alas!\nYou'd be so lean, that blasts of January\nWould blow you through and through.\nNow, my fair'st friend,\nI would I had some flowers o' the spring that might\nBecome your time of day; and yours, and yours,\nThat wear upon your virgin branches yet\nYour maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,\nFor the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall\nFrom Dis's waggon! daffodils,\nThat come before the swallow dares, and take\nThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,\nBut sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\nOr Cytherea's breath; pale primroses\nThat die unmarried, ere they can behold\nBight Phoebus in his strength--a malady\nMost incident to maids; bold oxlips and\nThe crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,\nThe flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,\nTo make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,\nTo strew him o'er and o'er!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat, like a corse?\n\nPERDITA:\nNo, like a bank for love to lie and play on;\nNot like a corse; or if, not to be buried,\nBut quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers:\nMethinks I play as I have seen them do\nIn Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine\nDoes change my disposition.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhat you do\nStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.\nI'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,\nI'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,\nPray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,\nTo sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you\nA wave o' the sea, that you might ever do\nNothing but that; move still, still so,\nAnd own no other function: each your doing,\nSo singular in each particular,\nCrowns what you are doing in the present deed,\nThat all your acts are queens.\n\nPERDITA:\nO Doricles,\nYour praises are too large: but that your youth,\nAnd the true blood which peepeth fairly through't,\nDo plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\nWith wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\nYou woo'd me the false way.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI think you have\nAs little skill to fear as I have purpose\nTo put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray:\nYour hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,\nThat never mean to part.\n\nPERDITA:\nI'll swear for 'em.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\nRan on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems\nBut smacks of something greater than herself,\nToo noble for this place.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe tells her something\nThat makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is\nThe queen of curds and cream.\n\nClown:\nCome on, strike up!\n\nDORCAS:\nMopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,\nTo mend her kissing with!\n\nMOPSA:\nNow, in good time!\n\nClown:\nNot a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\nCome, strike up!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\nWhich dances with your daughter?\n\nShepherd:\nThey call him Doricles; and boasts himself\nTo have a worthy feeding: but I have it\nUpon his own report and I believe it;\nHe looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:\nI think so too; for never gazed the moon\nUpon the water as he'll stand and read\nAs 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain.\nI think there is not half a kiss to choose\nWho loves another best.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe dances featly.\n\nShepherd:\nSo she does any thing; though I report it,\nThat should be silent: if young Doricles\nDo light upon her, she shall bring him that\nWhich he not dreams of.\n\nServant:\nO master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the\ndoor, you would never dance again after a tabour and\npipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings\nseveral tunes faster than you'll tell money; he\nutters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's\nears grew to his tunes.\n\nClown:\nHe could never come better; he shall come in. I\nlove a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful\nmatter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing\nindeed and sung lamentably.\n\nServant:\nHe hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no\nmilliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he\nhas the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without\nbawdry, which is strange; with such delicate\nburthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\nher;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would,\nas it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into\nthe matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me\nno harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with\n'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\n\nPOLIXENES:\nThis is a brave fellow.\n\nClown:\nBelieve me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited\nfellow. Has he any unbraided wares?\n\nServant:\nHe hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow;\npoints more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can\nlearnedly handle, though they come to him by the\ngross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he\nsings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\nwould think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants\nto the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\n\nClown:\nPrithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\n\nPERDITA:\nForewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes.\n\nClown:\nYou have of these pedlars, that have more in them\nthan you'ld think, sister.\n\nPERDITA:\nAy, good brother, or go about to think.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nLawn as white as driven snow;\nCyprus black as e'er was crow;\nGloves as sweet as damask roses;\nMasks for faces and for noses;\nBugle bracelet, necklace amber,\nPerfume for a lady's chamber;\nGolden quoifs and stomachers,\nFor my lads to give their dears:\nPins and poking-sticks of steel,\nWhat maids lack from head to heel:\nCome buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\nBuy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.\n\nClown:\nIf I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take\nno money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it\nwill also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\n\nMOPSA:\nI was promised them against the feast; but they come\nnot too late now.\n\nDORCAS:\nHe hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.\n\nMOPSA:\nHe hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has\npaid you more, which will shame you to give him again.\n\nClown:\nIs there no manners left among maids? will they\nwear their plackets where they should bear their\nfaces? Is there not milking-time, when you are\ngoing to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these\nsecrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all\nour guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour\nyour tongues, and not a word more.\n\nMOPSA:\nI have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace\nand a pair of sweet gloves.\n\nClown:\nHave I not told thee how I was cozened by the way\nand lost all my money?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;\ntherefore it behoves men to be wary.\n\nClown:\nFear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.\n\nClown:\nWhat hast here? ballads?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o'\nlife, for then we are sure they are true.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's\nwife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a\nburthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and\ntoads carbonadoed.\n\nMOPSA:\nIs it true, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nVery true, and but a month old.\n\nDORCAS:\nBless me from marrying a usurer!\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress\nTale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were\npresent. Why should I carry lies abroad?\n\nMOPSA:\nPray you now, buy it.\n\nClown:\nCome on, lay it by: and let's first see moe\nballads; we'll buy the other things anon.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHere's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon\nthe coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,\nforty thousand fathom above water, and sung this\nballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was\nthought she was a woman and was turned into a cold\nfish for she would not exchange flesh with one that\nloved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.\n\nDORCAS:\nIs it true too, think you?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nFive justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than\nmy pack will hold.\n\nClown:\nLay it by too: another.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThis is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\n\nMOPSA:\nLet's have some merry ones.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhy, this is a passing merry one and goes to\nthe tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's\nscarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in\nrequest, I can tell you.\n\nMOPSA:\nWe can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou\nshalt hear; 'tis in three parts.\n\nDORCAS:\nWe had the tune on't a month ago.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI can bear my part; you must know 'tis my\noccupation; have at it with you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nGet you hence, for I must go\nWhere it fits not you to know.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nO, whither?\n\nDORCAS:\nWhither?\n\nMOPSA:\nIt becomes thy oath full well,\nThou to me thy secrets tell.\n\nDORCAS:\nMe too, let me go thither.\n\nMOPSA:\nOr thou goest to the orange or mill.\n\nDORCAS:\nIf to either, thou dost ill.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nWhat, neither?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNeither.\n\nDORCAS:\nThou hast sworn my love to be.\n\nMOPSA:\nThou hast sworn it more to me:\nThen whither goest? say, whither?\n\nClown:\nWe'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my\nfather and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll\nnot trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after\nme. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's\nhave the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAnd you shall pay well for 'em.\nWill you buy any tape,\nOr lace for your cape,\nMy dainty duck, my dear-a?\nAny silk, any thread,\nAny toys for your head,\nOf the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?\nCome to the pedlar;\nMoney's a medler.\nThat doth utter all men's ware-a.\n\nServant:\nMaster, there is three carters, three shepherds,\nthree neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made\nthemselves all men of hair, they call themselves\nSaltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches\nsay is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are\nnot in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it\nbe not too rough for some that know little but\nbowling, it will please plentifully.\n\nShepherd:\nAway! we'll none on 't: here has been too much\nhomely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nYou weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see\nthese four threes of herdsmen.\n\nServant:\nOne three of them, by their own report, sir, hath\ndanced before the king; and not the worst of the\nthree but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.\n\nShepherd:\nLeave your prating: since these good men are\npleased, let them come in; but quickly now.\n\nServant:\nWhy, they stay at door, sir.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.\nIs it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\nHe's simple and tells much.\nHow now, fair shepherd!\nYour heart is full of something that does take\nYour mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\nAnd handed love as you do, I was wont\nTo load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd\nThe pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\nTo her acceptance; you have let him go\nAnd nothing marted with him. If your lass\nInterpretation should abuse and call this\nYour lack of love or bounty, you were straited\nFor a reply, at least if you make a care\nOf happy holding her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nOld sir, I know\nShe prizes not such trifles as these are:\nThe gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\nUp in my heart; which I have given already,\nBut not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\nBefore this ancient sir, who, it should seem,\nHath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,\nAs soft as dove's down and as white as it,\nOr Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd\nsnow that's bolted\nBy the northern blasts twice o'er.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nWhat follows this?\nHow prettily the young swain seems to wash\nThe hand was fair before! I have put you out:\nBut to your protestation; let me hear\nWhat you profess.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDo, and be witness to 't.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAnd this my neighbour too?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd he, and more\nThan he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:\nThat, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\nThereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\nThat ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\nMore than was ever man's, I would not prize them\nWithout her love; for her employ them all;\nCommend them and condemn them to her service\nOr to their own perdition.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nFairly offer'd.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis shows a sound affection.\n\nShepherd:\nBut, my daughter,\nSay you the like to him?\n\nPERDITA:\nI cannot speak\nSo well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:\nBy the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\nThe purity of his.\n\nShepherd:\nTake hands, a bargain!\nAnd, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't:\nI give my daughter to him, and will make\nHer portion equal his.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO, that must be\nI' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,\nI shall have more than you can dream of yet;\nEnough then for your wonder. But, come on,\nContract us 'fore these witnesses.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, your hand;\nAnd, daughter, yours.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nSoft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\nHave you a father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI have: but what of him?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nKnows he of this?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe neither does nor shall.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMethinks a father\nIs at the nuptial of his son a guest\nThat best becomes the table. Pray you once more,\nIs not your father grown incapable\nOf reasonable affairs? is he not stupid\nWith age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?\nKnow man from man? dispute his own estate?\nLies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing\nBut what he did being childish?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, good sir;\nHe has his health and ampler strength indeed\nThan most have of his age.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nBy my white beard,\nYou offer him, if this be so, a wrong\nSomething unfilial: reason my son\nShould choose himself a wife, but as good reason\nThe father, all whose joy is nothing else\nBut fair posterity, should hold some counsel\nIn such a business.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI yield all this;\nBut for some other reasons, my grave sir,\nWhich 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\nMy father of this business.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nLet him know't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHe shall not.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nPrithee, let him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNo, he must not.\n\nShepherd:\nLet him, my son: he shall not need to grieve\nAt knowing of thy choice.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCome, come, he must not.\nMark our contract.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMark your divorce, young sir,\nWhom son I dare not call; thou art too base\nTo be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir,\nThat thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor,\nI am sorry that by hanging thee I can\nBut shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\nOf excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\nThe royal fool thou copest with,--\n\nShepherd:\nO, my heart!\n\nPOLIXENES:\nI'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made\nMore homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\nIf I may ever know thou dost but sigh\nThat thou no more shalt see this knack, as never\nI mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;\nNot hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\nFar than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:\nFollow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\nThough full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\nFrom the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.--\nWorthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,\nThat makes himself, but for our honour therein,\nUnworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou\nThese rural latches to his entrance open,\nOr hoop his body more with thy embraces,\nI will devise a death as cruel for thee\nAs thou art tender to't.\n\nPERDITA:\nEven here undone!\nI was not much afeard; for once or twice\nI was about to speak and tell him plainly,\nThe selfsame sun that shines upon his court\nHides not his visage from our cottage but\nLooks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone?\nI told you what would come of this: beseech you,\nOf your own state take care: this dream of mine,--\nBeing now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\nBut milk my ewes and weep.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, how now, father!\nSpeak ere thou diest.\n\nShepherd:\nI cannot speak, nor think\nNor dare to know that which I know. O sir!\nYou have undone a man of fourscore three,\nThat thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\nTo die upon the bed my father died,\nTo lie close by his honest bones: but now\nSome hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\nWhere no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,\nThat knew'st this was the prince,\nand wouldst adventure\nTo mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!\nIf I might die within this hour, I have lived\nTo die when I desire.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWhy look you so upon me?\nI am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\nBut nothing alter'd: what I was, I am;\nMore straining on for plucking back, not following\nMy leash unwillingly.\n\nCAMILLO:\nGracious my lord,\nYou know your father's temper: at this time\nHe will allow no speech, which I do guess\nYou do not purpose to him; and as hardly\nWill he endure your sight as yet, I fear:\nThen, till the fury of his highness settle,\nCome not before him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI not purpose it.\nI think, Camillo?\n\nCAMILLO:\nEven he, my lord.\n\nPERDITA:\nHow often have I told you 'twould be thus!\nHow often said, my dignity would last\nBut till 'twere known!\n\nFLORIZEL:\nIt cannot fail but by\nThe violation of my faith; and then\nLet nature crush the sides o' the earth together\nAnd mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:\nFrom my succession wipe me, father; I\nAm heir to my affection.\n\nCAMILLO:\nBe advised.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am, and by my fancy: if my reason\nWill thereto be obedient, I have reason;\nIf not, my senses, better pleased with madness,\nDo bid it welcome.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThis is desperate, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nSo call it: but it does fulfil my vow;\nI needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\nNot for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\nBe thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\nThe close earth wombs or the profound sea hides\nIn unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\nTo this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you,\nAs you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\nWhen he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not\nTo see him any more,--cast your good counsels\nUpon his passion; let myself and fortune\nTug for the time to come. This you may know\nAnd so deliver, I am put to sea\nWith her whom here I cannot hold on shore;\nAnd most opportune to our need I have\nA vessel rides fast by, but not prepared\nFor this design. What course I mean to hold\nShall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\nConcern me the reporting.\n\nCAMILLO:\nO my lord!\nI would your spirit were easier for advice,\nOr stronger for your need.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHark, Perdita\nI'll hear you by and by.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHe's irremoveable,\nResolved for flight. Now were I happy, if\nHis going I could frame to serve my turn,\nSave him from danger, do him love and honour,\nPurchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\nAnd that unhappy king, my master, whom\nI so much thirst to see.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNow, good Camillo;\nI am so fraught with curious business that\nI leave out ceremony.\n\nCAMILLO:\nSir, I think\nYou have heard of my poor services, i' the love\nThat I have borne your father?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nVery nobly\nHave you deserved: it is my father's music\nTo speak your deeds, not little of his care\nTo have them recompensed as thought on.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWell, my lord,\nIf you may please to think I love the king\nAnd through him what is nearest to him, which is\nYour gracious self, embrace but my direction:\nIf your more ponderous and settled project\nMay suffer alteration, on mine honour,\nI'll point you where you shall have such receiving\nAs shall become your highness; where you may\nEnjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\nThere's no disjunction to be made, but by--\nAs heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her,\nAnd, with my best endeavours in your absence,\nYour discontenting father strive to qualify\nAnd bring him up to liking.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nHow, Camillo,\nMay this, almost a miracle, be done?\nThat I may call thee something more than man\nAnd after that trust to thee.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHave you thought on\nA place whereto you'll go?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nNot any yet:\nBut as the unthought-on accident is guilty\nTo what we wildly do, so we profess\nOurselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\nOf every wind that blows.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThen list to me:\nThis follows, if you will not change your purpose\nBut undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,\nAnd there present yourself and your fair princess,\nFor so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes:\nShe shall be habited as it becomes\nThe partner of your bed. Methinks I see\nLeontes opening his free arms and weeping\nHis welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness,\nAs 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands\nOf your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one\nHe chides to hell and bids the other grow\nFaster than thought or time.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWorthy Camillo,\nWhat colour for my visitation shall I\nHold up before him?\n\nCAMILLO:\nSent by the king your father\nTo greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\nThe manner of your bearing towards him, with\nWhat you as from your father shall deliver,\nThings known betwixt us three, I'll write you down:\nThe which shall point you forth at every sitting\nWhat you must say; that he shall not perceive\nBut that you have your father's bosom there\nAnd speak his very heart.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nI am bound to you:\nThere is some sap in this.\n\nCAMILLO:\nA cause more promising\nThan a wild dedication of yourselves\nTo unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\nTo miseries enough; no hope to help you,\nBut as you shake off one to take another;\nNothing so certain as your anchors, who\nDo their best office, if they can but stay you\nWhere you'll be loath to be: besides you know\nProsperity's the very bond of love,\nWhose fresh complexion and whose heart together\nAffliction alters.\n\nPERDITA:\nOne of these is true:\nI think affliction may subdue the cheek,\nBut not take in the mind.\n\nCAMILLO:\nYea, say you so?\nThere shall not at your father's house these\nseven years\nBe born another such.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy good Camillo,\nShe is as forward of her breeding as\nShe is i' the rear our birth.\n\nCAMILLO:\nI cannot say 'tis pity\nShe lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\nTo most that teach.\n\nPERDITA:\nYour pardon, sir; for this\nI'll blush you thanks.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMy prettiest Perdita!\nBut O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,\nPreserver of my father, now of me,\nThe medicine of our house, how shall we do?\nWe are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,\nNor shall appear in Sicilia.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord,\nFear none of this: I think you know my fortunes\nDo all lie there: it shall be so my care\nTo have you royally appointed as if\nThe scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\nThat you may know you shall not want, one word.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHa, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his\nsworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold\nall my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a\nribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,\nknife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,\nto keep my pack from fasting: they throng who\nshould buy first, as if my trinkets had been\nhallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer:\nby which means I saw whose purse was best in\npicture; and what I saw, to my good use I\nremembered. My clown, who wants but something to\nbe a reasonable man, grew so in love with the\nwenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes\ntill he had both tune and words; which so drew the\nrest of the herd to me that all their other senses\nstuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it\nwas senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a\npurse; I could have filed keys off that hung in\nchains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song,\nand admiring the nothing of it. So that in this\ntime of lethargy I picked and cut most of their\nfestival purses; and had not the old man come in\nwith a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's\nson and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not\nleft a purse alive in the whole army.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, but my letters, by this means being there\nSo soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nAnd those that you'll procure from King Leontes--\n\nCAMILLO:\nShall satisfy your father.\n\nPERDITA:\nHappy be you!\nAll that you speak shows fair.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWho have we here?\nWe'll make an instrument of this, omit\nNothing may give us aid.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf they have overheard me now, why, hanging.\n\nCAMILLO:\nHow now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear\nnot, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\n\nCAMILLO:\nWhy, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from\nthee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must\nmake an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,\n--thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and\nchange garments with this gentleman: though the\npennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee,\nthere's some boot.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI am a poor fellow, sir.\nI know ye well enough.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half\nflayed already.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAre you in earnest, sir?\nI smell the trick on't.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDispatch, I prithee.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIndeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with\nconscience take it.\n\nCAMILLO:\nUnbuckle, unbuckle.\nFortunate mistress,--let my prophecy\nCome home to ye!--you must retire yourself\nInto some covert: take your sweetheart's hat\nAnd pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\nDismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\nThe truth of your own seeming; that you may--\nFor I do fear eyes over--to shipboard\nGet undescried.\n\nPERDITA:\nI see the play so lies\nThat I must bear a part.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNo remedy.\nHave you done there?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShould I now meet my father,\nHe would not call me son.\n\nCAMILLO:\nNay, you shall have no hat.\nCome, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAdieu, sir.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nO Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\nPray you, a word.\n\nCAMILLO:\n\nFLORIZEL:\nFortune speed us!\nThus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.\n\nCAMILLO:\nThe swifter speed the better.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI understand the business, I hear it: to have an\nopen ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is\nnecessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite\nalso, to smell out work for the other senses. I see\nthis is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.\nWhat an exchange had this been without boot! What\na boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do\nthis year connive at us, and we may do any thing\nextempore. The prince himself is about a piece of\niniquity, stealing away from his father with his\nclog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of\nhonesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not\ndo't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it;\nand therein am I constant to my profession.\nAside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain:\nevery lane's end, every shop, church, session,\nhanging, yields a careful man work.\n\nClown:\nSee, see; what a man you are now!\nThere is no other way but to tell the king\nshe's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.\n\nShepherd:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nClown:\nNay, but hear me.\n\nShepherd:\nGo to, then.\n\nClown:\nShe being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh\nand blood has not offended the king; and so your\nflesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show\nthose things you found about her, those secret\nthings, all but what she has with her: this being\ndone, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.\n\nShepherd:\nI will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his\nson's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man,\nneither to his father nor to me, to go about to make\nme the king's brother-in-law.\n\nClown:\nIndeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you\ncould have been to him and then your blood had been\nthe dearer by I know how much an ounce.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nWell, let us to the king: there is that in this\nfardel will make him scratch his beard.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nClown:\nPray heartily he be at palace.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\n\nShepherd:\nTo the palace, an it like your worship.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nYour affairs there, what, with whom, the condition\nof that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your\nnames, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any\nthing that is fitting to be known, discover.\n\nClown:\nWe are but plain fellows, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nA lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no\nlying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they\noften give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for\nit with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore\nthey do not give us the lie.\n\nClown:\nYour worship had like to have given us one, if you\nhad not taken yourself with the manner.\n\nShepherd:\nAre you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest\nthou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?\nhath not my gait in it the measure of the court?\nreceives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I\nnot on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,\nfor that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy\nbusiness, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier\ncap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck\nback thy business there: whereupon I command thee to\nopen thy affair.\n\nShepherd:\nMy business, sir, is to the king.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWhat advocate hast thou to him?\n\nShepherd:\nI know not, an't like you.\n\nClown:\nAdvocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you\nhave none.\n\nShepherd:\nNone, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHow blessed are we that are not simple men!\nYet nature might have made me as these are,\nTherefore I will not disdain.\n\nClown:\nThis cannot be but a great courtier.\n\nShepherd:\nHis garments are rich, but he wears\nthem not handsomely.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be the more noble in being fantastical:\na great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking\non's teeth.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe fardel there? what's i' the fardel?\nWherefore that box?\n\nShepherd:\nSir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box,\nwhich none must know but the king; and which he\nshall know within this hour, if I may come to the\nspeech of him.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAge, thou hast lost thy labour.\n\nShepherd:\nWhy, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nThe king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a\nnew ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for,\nif thou beest capable of things serious, thou must\nknow the king is full of grief.\n\nShepard:\nSo 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have\nmarried a shepherd's daughter.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:\nthe curses he shall have, the tortures he shall\nfeel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.\n\nClown:\nThink you so, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNot he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy\nand vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to\nhim, though removed fifty times, shall all come\nunder the hangman: which though it be great pity,\nyet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a\nram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into\ngrace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death\nis too soft for him, say I draw our throne into a\nsheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\n\nClown:\nHas the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't\nlike you, sir?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nHe has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then\n'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a\nwasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters\nand a dram dead; then recovered again with\naqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as\nhe is, and in the hottest day prognostication\nproclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the\nsun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he\nis to behold him with flies blown to death. But what\ntalk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries\nare to be smiled at, their offences being so\ncapital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain\nmen, what you have to the king: being something\ngently considered, I'll bring you where he is\naboard, tender your persons to his presence,\nwhisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man\nbesides the king to effect your suits, here is man\nshall do it.\n\nClown:\nHe seems to be of great authority: close with him,\ngive him gold; and though authority be a stubborn\nbear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show\nthe inside of your purse to the outside of his hand,\nand no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.'\n\nShepherd:\nAn't please you, sir, to undertake the business for\nus, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much\nmore and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAfter I have done what I promised?\n\nShepherd:\nAy, sir.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nWell, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?\n\nClown:\nIn some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful\none, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nO, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him,\nhe'll be made an example.\n\nClown:\nComfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show\nour strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your\ndaughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I\nwill give you as much as this old man does when the\nbusiness is performed, and remain, as he says, your\npawn till it be brought you.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side;\ngo on the right hand: I will but look upon the\nhedge and follow you.\n\nClown:\nWe are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\n\nShepherd:\nLet's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nIf I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would\nnot suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am\ncourted now with a double occasion, gold and a means\nto do the prince my master good; which who knows how\nthat may turn back to my advancement? I will bring\nthese two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he\nthink it fit to shore them again and that the\ncomplaint they have to the king concerns him\nnothing, let him call me rogue for being so far\nofficious; for I am proof against that title and\nwhat shame else belongs to't. To him will I present\nthem: there may be matter in it.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nSir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\nA saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,\nWhich you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\nMore penitence than done trespass: at the last,\nDo as the heavens have done, forget your evil;\nWith them forgive yourself.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhilst I remember\nHer and her virtues, I cannot forget\nMy blemishes in them, and so still think of\nThe wrong I did myself; which was so much,\nThat heirless it hath made my kingdom and\nDestroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\nBred his hopes out of.\n\nPAULINA:\nTrue, too true, my lord:\nIf, one by one, you wedded all the world,\nOr from the all that are took something good,\nTo make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\nWould be unparallel'd.\n\nLEONTES:\nI think so. Kill'd!\nShe I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me\nSorely, to say I did; it is as bitter\nUpon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,\nSay so but seldom.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nNot at all, good lady:\nYou might have spoken a thousand things that would\nHave done the time more benefit and graced\nYour kindness better.\n\nPAULINA:\nYou are one of those\nWould have him wed again.\n\nDION:\nIf you would not so,\nYou pity not the state, nor the remembrance\nOf his most sovereign name; consider little\nWhat dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,\nMay drop upon his kingdom and devour\nIncertain lookers on. What were more holy\nThan to rejoice the former queen is well?\nWhat holier than, for royalty's repair,\nFor present comfort and for future good,\nTo bless the bed of majesty again\nWith a sweet fellow to't?\n\nPAULINA:\nThere is none worthy,\nRespecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\nWill have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\nFor has not the divine Apollo said,\nIs't not the tenor of his oracle,\nThat King Leontes shall not have an heir\nTill his lost child be found? which that it shall,\nIs all as monstrous to our human reason\nAs my Antigonus to break his grave\nAnd come again to me; who, on my life,\nDid perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\nMy lord should to the heavens be contrary,\nOppose against their wills.\nCare not for issue;\nThe crown will find an heir: great Alexander\nLeft his to the worthiest; so his successor\nWas like to be the best.\n\nLEONTES:\nGood Paulina,\nWho hast the memory of Hermione,\nI know, in honour, O, that ever I\nHad squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,\nI might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\nHave taken treasure from her lips--\n\nPAULINA:\nAnd left them\nMore rich for what they yielded.\n\nLEONTES:\nThou speak'st truth.\nNo more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,\nAnd better used, would make her sainted spirit\nAgain possess her corpse, and on this stage,\nWhere we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,\nAnd begin, 'Why to me?'\n\nPAULINA:\nHad she such power,\nShe had just cause.\n\nLEONTES:\nShe had; and would incense me\nTo murder her I married.\n\nPAULINA:\nI should so.\nWere I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark\nHer eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\nYou chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears\nShould rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\nShould be 'Remember mine.'\n\nLEONTES:\nStars, stars,\nAnd all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\nI'll have no wife, Paulina.\n\nPAULINA:\nWill you swear\nNever to marry but by my free leave?\n\nLEONTES:\nNever, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\n\nPAULINA:\nThen, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nYou tempt him over-much.\n\nPAULINA:\nUnless another,\nAs like Hermione as is her picture,\nAffront his eye.\n\nCLEOMENES:\nGood madam,--\n\nPAULINA:\nI have done.\nYet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,\nNo remedy, but you will,--give me the office\nTo choose you a queen: she shall not be so young\nAs was your former; but she shall be such\nAs, walk'd your first queen's ghost,\nit should take joy\nTo see her in your arms.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy true Paulina,\nWe shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat\nShall be when your first queen's again in breath;\nNever till then.\n\nGentleman:\nOne that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\nSon of Polixenes, with his princess, she\nThe fairest I have yet beheld, desires access\nTo your high presence.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat with him? he comes not\nLike to his father's greatness: his approach,\nSo out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced\nBy need and accident. What train?\n\nGentleman:\nBut few,\nAnd those but mean.\n\nLEONTES:\nHis princess, say you, with him?\n\nGentleman:\nAy, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\nThat e'er the sun shone bright on.\n\nPAULINA:\nO Hermione,\nAs every present time doth boast itself\nAbove a better gone, so must thy grave\nGive way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\nHave said and writ so, but your writing now\nIs colder than that theme, 'She had not been,\nNor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse\nFlow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\nTo say you have seen a better.\n\nGentleman:\nPardon, madam:\nThe one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--\nThe other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\nWill have your tongue too. This is a creature,\nWould she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\nOf all professors else, make proselytes\nOf who she but bid follow.\n\nPAULINA:\nHow! not women?\n\nGentleman:\nWomen will love her, that she is a woman\nMore worth than any man; men, that she is\nThe rarest of all women.\n\nLEONTES:\nGo, Cleomenes;\nYourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\nBring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange\nHe thus should steal upon us.\n\nPAULINA:\nHad our prince,\nJewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\nWell with this lord: there was not full a month\nBetween their births.\n\nLEONTES:\nPrithee, no more; cease; thou know'st\nHe dies to me again when talk'd of: sure,\nWhen I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\nWill bring me to consider that which may\nUnfurnish me of reason. They are come.\nYour mother was most true to wedlock, prince;\nFor she did print your royal father off,\nConceiving you: were I but twenty-one,\nYour father's image is so hit in you,\nHis very air, that I should call you brother,\nAs I did him, and speak of something wildly\nBy us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\nAnd your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas!\nI lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth\nMight thus have stood begetting wonder as\nYou, gracious couple, do: and then I lost--\nAll mine own folly--the society,\nAmity too, of your brave father, whom,\nThough bearing misery, I desire my life\nOnce more to look on him.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nBy his command\nHave I here touch'd Sicilia and from him\nGive you all greetings that a king, at friend,\nCan send his brother: and, but infirmity\nWhich waits upon worn times hath something seized\nHis wish'd ability, he had himself\nThe lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\nMeasured to look upon you; whom he loves--\nHe bade me say so--more than all the sceptres\nAnd those that bear them living.\n\nLEONTES:\nO my brother,\nGood gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir\nAfresh within me, and these thy offices,\nSo rarely kind, are as interpreters\nOf my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,\nAs is the spring to the earth. And hath he too\nExposed this paragon to the fearful usage,\nAt least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\nTo greet a man not worth her pains, much less\nThe adventure of her person?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nGood my lord,\nShe came from Libya.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere the warlike Smalus,\nThat noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nMost royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter\nHis tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,\nA prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\nTo execute the charge my father gave me\nFor visiting your highness: my best train\nI have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\nWho for Bohemia bend, to signify\nNot only my success in Libya, sir,\nBut my arrival and my wife's in safety\nHere where we are.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe blessed gods\nPurge all infection from our air whilst you\nDo climate here! You have a holy father,\nA graceful gentleman; against whose person,\nSo sacred as it is, I have done sin:\nFor which the heavens, taking angry note,\nHave left me issueless; and your father's blest,\nAs he from heaven merits it, with you\nWorthy his goodness. What might I have been,\nMight I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\nSuch goodly things as you!\n\nLord:\nMost noble sir,\nThat which I shall report will bear no credit,\nWere not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\nBohemia greets you from himself by me;\nDesires you to attach his son, who has--\nHis dignity and duty both cast off--\nFled from his father, from his hopes, and with\nA shepherd's daughter.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhere's Bohemia? speak.\n\nLord:\nHere in your city; I now came from him:\nI speak amazedly; and it becomes\nMy marvel and my message. To your court\nWhiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems,\nOf this fair couple, meets he on the way\nThe father of this seeming lady and\nHer brother, having both their country quitted\nWith this young prince.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nCamillo has betray'd me;\nWhose honour and whose honesty till now\nEndured all weathers.\n\nLord:\nLay't so to his charge:\nHe's with the king your father.\n\nLEONTES:\nWho? Camillo?\n\nLord:\nCamillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\nHas these poor men in question. Never saw I\nWretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;\nForswear themselves as often as they speak:\nBohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\nWith divers deaths in death.\n\nPERDITA:\nO my poor father!\nThe heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\nOur contract celebrated.\n\nLEONTES:\nYou are married?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nWe are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\nThe stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:\nThe odds for high and low's alike.\n\nLEONTES:\nMy lord,\nIs this the daughter of a king?\n\nFLORIZEL:\nShe is,\nWhen once she is my wife.\n\nLEONTES:\nThat 'once' I see by your good father's speed\nWill come on very slowly. I am sorry,\nMost sorry, you have broken from his liking\nWhere you were tied in duty, and as sorry\nYour choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\nThat you might well enjoy her.\n\nFLORIZEL:\nDear, look up:\nThough Fortune, visible an enemy,\nShould chase us with my father, power no jot\nHath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\nRemember since you owed no more to time\nThan I do now: with thought of such affections,\nStep forth mine advocate; at your request\nMy father will grant precious things as trifles.\n\nLEONTES:\nWould he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,\nWhich he counts but a trifle.\n\nPAULINA:\nSir, my liege,\nYour eye hath too much youth in't: not a month\n'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\nThan what you look on now.\n\nLEONTES:\nI thought of her,\nEven in these looks I made.\nBut your petition\nIs yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:\nYour honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\nI am friend to them and you: upon which errand\nI now go toward him; therefore follow me\nAnd mark what way I make: come, good my lord.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nBeseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old\nshepherd deliver the manner how he found it:\nwhereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all\ncommanded out of the chamber; only this methought I\nheard the shepherd say, he found the child.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI would most gladly know the issue of it.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI make a broken delivery of the business; but the\nchanges I perceived in the king and Camillo were\nvery notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with\nstaring on one another, to tear the cases of their\neyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language\nin their very gesture; they looked as they had heard\nof a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable\npassion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest\nbeholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not\nsay if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the\nextremity of the one, it must needs be.\nHere comes a gentleman that haply knows more.\nThe news, Rogero?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the\nking's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is\nbroken out within this hour that ballad-makers\ncannot be able to express it.\nHere comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can\ndeliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news\nwhich is called true is so like an old tale, that\nthe verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king\nfound his heir?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nMost true, if ever truth were pregnant by\ncircumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you\nsee, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle\nof Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it,\nthe letters of Antigonus found with it which they\nknow to be his character, the majesty of the\ncreature in resemblance of the mother, the affection\nof nobleness which nature shows above her breeding,\nand many other evidences proclaim her with all\ncertainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see\nthe meeting of the two kings?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nThen have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,\ncannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one\njoy crown another, so and in such manner that it\nseemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their\njoy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,\nholding up of hands, with countenances of such\ndistraction that they were to be known by garment,\nnot by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of\nhimself for joy of his found daughter, as if that\njoy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother,\nthy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then\nembraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his\ndaughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old\nshepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten\nconduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such\nanother encounter, which lames report to follow it\nand undoes description to do it.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWhat, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\nhence the child?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nLike an old tale still, which will have matter to\nrehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear\nopen. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this\navouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his\ninnocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a\nhandkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat became of his bark and his followers?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nWrecked the same instant of their master's death and\nin the view of the shepherd: so that all the\ninstruments which aided to expose the child were\neven then lost when it was found. But O, the noble\ncombat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in\nPaulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of\nher husband, another elevated that the oracle was\nfulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth,\nand so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin\nher to her heart that she might no more be in danger\nof losing.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThe dignity of this act was worth the audience of\nkings and princes; for by such was it acted.\n\nThird Gentleman:\nOne of the prettiest touches of all and that which\nangled for mine eyes, caught the water though not\nthe fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's\ndeath, with the manner how she came to't bravely\nconfessed and lamented by the king, how\nattentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one\nsign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,'\nI would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my\nheart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed\ncolour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world\ncould have seen 't, the woe had been universal.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAre they returned to the court?\n\nThird Gentleman:\nNo: the princess hearing of her mother's statue,\nwhich is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many\nyears in doing and now newly performed by that rare\nItalian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself\neternity and could put breath into his work, would\nbeguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her\nape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that\nthey say one would speak to her and stand in hope of\nanswer: thither with all greediness of affection\nare they gone, and there they intend to sup.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI thought she had some great matter there in hand;\nfor she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever\nsince the death of Hermione, visited that removed\nhouse. Shall we thither and with our company piece\nthe rejoicing?\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWho would be thence that has the benefit of access?\nevery wink of an eye some new grace will be born:\nour absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.\nLet's along.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nNow, had I not the dash of my former life in me,\nwould preferment drop on my head. I brought the old\nman and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard\nthem talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he\nat that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,\nso he then took her to be, who began to be much\nsea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of\nweather continuing, this mystery remained\nundiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I\nbeen the finder out of this secret, it would not\nhave relished among my other discredits.\nHere come those I have done good to against my will,\nand already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\n\nShepherd:\nCome, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\ndaughters will be all gentlemen born.\n\nClown:\nYou are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me\nthis other day, because I was no gentleman born.\nSee you these clothes? say you see them not and\nthink me still no gentleman born: you were best say\nthese robes are not gentlemen born: give me the\nlie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\n\nClown:\nAy, and have been so any time these four hours.\n\nShepherd:\nAnd so have I, boy.\n\nClown:\nSo you have: but I was a gentleman born before my\nfather; for the king's son took me by the hand, and\ncalled me brother; and then the two kings called my\nfather brother; and then the prince my brother and\nthe princess my sister called my father father; and\nso we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like\ntears that ever we shed.\n\nShepherd:\nWe may live, son, to shed many more.\n\nClown:\nAy; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so\npreposterous estate as we are.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the\nfaults I have committed to your worship and to give\nme your good report to the prince my master.\n\nShepherd:\nPrithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\ngentlemen.\n\nClown:\nThou wilt amend thy life?\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nAy, an it like your good worship.\n\nClown:\nGive me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou\nart as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\n\nShepherd:\nYou may say it, but not swear it.\n\nClown:\nNot swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and\nfranklins say it, I'll swear it.\n\nShepherd:\nHow if it be false, son?\n\nClown:\nIf it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear\nit in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to\nthe prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and\nthat thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no\ntall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\ndrunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst\nbe a tall fellow of thy hands.\n\nAUTOLYCUS:\nI will prove so, sir, to my power.\n\nClown:\nAy, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not\nwonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not\nbeing a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings\nand the princes, our kindred, are going to see the\nqueen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy\ngood masters.\n\nLEONTES:\nO grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\nThat I have had of thee!\n\nPAULINA:\nWhat, sovereign sir,\nI did not well I meant well. All my services\nYou have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed,\nWith your crown'd brother and these your contracted\nHeirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\nIt is a surplus of your grace, which never\nMy life may last to answer.\n\nLEONTES:\nO Paulina,\nWe honour you with trouble: but we came\nTo see the statue of our queen: your gallery\nHave we pass'd through, not without much content\nIn many singularities; but we saw not\nThat which my daughter came to look upon,\nThe statue of her mother.\n\nPAULINA:\nAs she lived peerless,\nSo her dead likeness, I do well believe,\nExcels whatever yet you look'd upon\nOr hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\nLonely, apart. But here it is: prepare\nTo see the life as lively mock'd as ever\nStill sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well.\nI like your silence, it the more shows off\nYour wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege,\nComes it not something near?\n\nLEONTES:\nHer natural posture!\nChide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\nThou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\nIn thy not chiding, for she was as tender\nAs infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\nHermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\nSo aged as this seems.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nO, not by much.\n\nPAULINA:\nSo much the more our carver's excellence;\nWhich lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\nAs she lived now.\n\nLEONTES:\nAs now she might have done,\nSo much to my good comfort, as it is\nNow piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\nEven with such life of majesty, warm life,\nAs now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!\nI am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me\nFor being more stone than it? O royal piece,\nThere's magic in thy majesty, which has\nMy evils conjured to remembrance and\nFrom thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\nStanding like stone with thee.\n\nPERDITA:\nAnd give me leave,\nAnd do not say 'tis superstition, that\nI kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady,\nDear queen, that ended when I but began,\nGive me that hand of yours to kiss.\n\nPAULINA:\nO, patience!\nThe statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.\n\nCAMILLO:\nMy lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\nWhich sixteen winters cannot blow away,\nSo many summers dry; scarce any joy\nDid ever so long live; no sorrow\nBut kill'd itself much sooner.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nDear my brother,\nLet him that was the cause of this have power\nTo take off so much grief from you as he\nWill piece up in himself.\n\nPAULINA:\nIndeed, my lord,\nIf I had thought the sight of my poor image\nWould thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine--\nI'ld not have show'd it.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo not draw the curtain.\n\nPAULINA:\nNo longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\nMay think anon it moves.\n\nLEONTES:\nLet be, let be.\nWould I were dead, but that, methinks, already--\nWhat was he that did make it? See, my lord,\nWould you not deem it breathed? and that those veins\nDid verily bear blood?\n\nPOLIXENES:\nMasterly done:\nThe very life seems warm upon her lip.\n\nLEONTES:\nThe fixture of her eye has motion in't,\nAs we are mock'd with art.\n\nPAULINA:\nI'll draw the curtain:\nMy lord's almost so far transported that\nHe'll think anon it lives.\n\nLEONTES:\nO sweet Paulina,\nMake me to think so twenty years together!\nNo settled senses of the world can match\nThe pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\n\nPAULINA:\nI am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but\nI could afflict you farther.\n\nLEONTES:\nDo, Paulina;\nFor this affliction has a taste as sweet\nAs any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\nThere is an air comes from her: what fine chisel\nCould ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\nFor I will kiss her.\n\nPAULINA:\nGood my lord, forbear:\nThe ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\nYou'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own\nWith oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\n\nLEONTES:\nNo, not these twenty years.\n\nPERDITA:\nSo long could I\nStand by, a looker on.\n\nPAULINA:\nEither forbear,\nQuit presently the chapel, or resolve you\nFor more amazement. If you can behold it,\nI'll make the statue move indeed, descend\nAnd take you by the hand; but then you'll think--\nWhich I protest against--I am assisted\nBy wicked powers.\n\nLEONTES:\nWhat you can make her do,\nI am content to look on: what to speak,\nI am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\nTo make her speak as move.\n\nPAULINA:\nIt is required\nYou do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\nOn: those that think it is unlawful business\nI am about, let them depart.\n\nLEONTES:\nProceed:\nNo foot shall stir.\n\nPAULINA:\nMusic, awake her; strike!\n'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\nStrike all that look upon with marvel. Come,\nI'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,\nBequeath to death your numbness, for from him\nDear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:\nStart not; her actions shall be holy as\nYou hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her\nUntil you see her die again; for then\nYou kill her double. Nay, present your hand:\nWhen she was young you woo'd her; now in age\nIs she become the suitor?\n\nLEONTES:\nO, she's warm!\nIf this be magic, let it be an art\nLawful as eating.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nShe embraces him.\n\nCAMILLO:\nShe hangs about his neck:\nIf she pertain to life let her speak too.\n\nPOLIXENES:\nAy, and make't manifest where she has lived,\nOr how stolen from the dead.\n\nPAULINA:\nThat she is living,\nWere it but told you, should be hooted at\nLike an old tale: but it appears she lives,\nThough yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\nPlease you to interpose, fair madam: kneel\nAnd pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\nOur Perdita is found.\n\nHERMIONE:\nYou gods, look down\nAnd from your sacred vials pour your graces\nUpon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.\nWhere hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found\nThy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,\nKnowing by Paulina that the oracle\nGave hope thou wast in being, have preserved\nMyself to see the issue.\n\nPAULINA:\nThere's time enough for that;\nLest they desire upon this push to trouble\nYour joys with like relation. Go together,\nYou precious winners all; your exultation\nPartake to every one. I, an old turtle,\nWill wing me to some wither'd bough and there\nMy mate, that's never to be found again,\nLament till I am lost.\n\nLEONTES:\nO, peace, Paulina!\nThou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\nAs I by thine a wife: this is a match,\nAnd made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\nBut how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\nAs I thought, dead, and have in vain said many\nA prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far--\nFor him, I partly know his mind--to find thee\nAn honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\nAnd take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty\nIs richly noted and here justified\nBy us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\nWhat! look upon my brother: both your pardons,\nThat e'er I put between your holy looks\nMy ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law,\nAnd son unto the king, who, heavens directing,\nIs troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\nLead us from hence, where we may leisurely\nEach one demand an answer to his part\nPerform'd in this wide gap of time since first\nWe were dissever'd: hastily lead away.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEscalus.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nOf government the properties to unfold,\nWould seem in me to affect speech and discourse;\nSince I am put to know that your own science\nExceeds, in that, the lists of all advice\nMy strength can give you: then no more remains,\nBut that to your sufficiency, as your Worth is able,\nAnd let them work. The nature of our people,\nOur city's institutions, and the terms\nFor common justice, you're as pregnant in\nAs art and practise hath enriched any\nThat we remember. There is our commission,\nFrom which we would not have you warp. Call hither,\nI say, bid come before us Angelo.\nWhat figure of us think you he will bear?\nFor you must know, we have with special soul\nElected him our absence to supply,\nLent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,\nAnd given his deputation all the organs\nOf our own power: what think you of it?\n\nESCALUS:\nIf any in Vienna be of worth\nTo undergo such ample grace and honour,\nIt is Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLook where he comes.\n\nANGELO:\nAlways obedient to your grace's will,\nI come to know your pleasure.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAngelo,\nThere is a kind of character in thy life,\nThat to the observer doth thy history\nFully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings\nAre not thine own so proper as to waste\nThyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.\nHeaven doth with us as we with torches do,\nNot light them for themselves; for if our virtues\nDid not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\nAs if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\nBut to fine issues, nor Nature never lends\nThe smallest scruple of her excellence\nBut, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\nHerself the glory of a creditor,\nBoth thanks and use. But I do bend my speech\nTo one that can my part in him advertise;\nHold therefore, Angelo:--\nIn our remove be thou at full ourself;\nMortality and mercy in Vienna\nLive in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,\nThough first in question, is thy secondary.\nTake thy commission.\n\nANGELO:\nNow, good my lord,\nLet there be some more test made of my metal,\nBefore so noble and so great a figure\nBe stamp'd upon it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo more evasion:\nWe have with a leaven'd and prepared choice\nProceeded to you; therefore take your honours.\nOur haste from hence is of so quick condition\nThat it prefers itself and leaves unquestion'd\nMatters of needful value. We shall write to you,\nAs time and our concernings shall importune,\nHow it goes with us, and do look to know\nWhat doth befall you here. So, fare you well;\nTo the hopeful execution do I leave you\nOf your commissions.\n\nANGELO:\nYet give leave, my lord,\nThat we may bring you something on the way.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy haste may not admit it;\nNor need you, on mine honour, have to do\nWith any scruple; your scope is as mine own\nSo to enforce or qualify the laws\nAs to your soul seems good. Give me your hand:\nI'll privily away. I love the people,\nBut do not like to stage me to their eyes:\nThrough it do well, I do not relish well\nTheir loud applause and Aves vehement;\nNor do I think the man of safe discretion\nThat does affect it. Once more, fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nThe heavens give safety to your purposes!\n\nESCALUS:\nLead forth and bring you back in happiness!\n\nDUKE:\nI thank you. Fare you well.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall desire you, sir, to give me leave\nTo have free speech with you; and it concerns me\nTo look into the bottom of my place:\nA power I have, but of what strength and nature\nI am not yet instructed.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,\nAnd we may soon our satisfaction have\nTouching that point.\n\nESCALUS:\nI'll wait upon your honour.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf the duke with the other dukes come not to\ncomposition with the King of Hungary, why then all\nthe dukes fall upon the king.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHeaven grant us its peace, but not the King of\nHungary's!\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nAmen.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that\nwent to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped\none out of the table.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\n'Thou shalt not steal'?\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, that he razed.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhy, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and\nall the rest from their functions: they put forth\nto steal. There's not a soldier of us all, that, in\nthe thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition\nwell that prays for peace.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nI never heard any soldier dislike it.\n\nLUCIO:\nI believe thee; for I think thou never wast where\ngrace was said.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nNo? a dozen times at least.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWhat, in metre?\n\nLUCIO:\nIn any proportion or in any language.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think, or in any religion.\n\nLUCIO:\nAy, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all\ncontroversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a\nwicked villain, despite of all grace.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nWell, there went but a pair of shears between us.\n\nLUCIO:\nI grant; as there may between the lists and the\nvelvet. Thou art the list.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAnd thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou'rt\na three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief\nbe a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou\nart piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak\nfeelingly now?\n\nLUCIO:\nI think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful\nfeeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own\nconfession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I\nlive, forget to drink after thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nI think I have done myself wrong, have I not?\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nYes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.\n\nLUCIO:\nBehold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I\nhave purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to--\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo what, I pray?\n\nLUCIO:\nJudge.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nTo three thousand dolours a year.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nAy, and more.\n\nLUCIO:\nA French crown more.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nThou art always figuring diseases in me; but thou\nart full of error; I am sound.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as\nthings that are hollow: thy bones are hollow;\nimpiety has made a feast of thee.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nHow now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried\nto prison was worth five thousand of you all.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nWho's that, I pray thee?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMarry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nClaudio to prison? 'tis not so.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nNay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw\nhim carried away; and, which is more, within these\nthree days his head to be chopped off.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut, after all this fooling, I would not have it so.\nArt thou sure of this?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nI am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam\nJulietta with child.\n\nLUCIO:\nBelieve me, this may be: he promised to meet me two\nhours since, and he was ever precise in\npromise-keeping.\n\nSecond Gentleman:\nBesides, you know, it draws something near to the\nspeech we had to such a purpose.\n\nFirst Gentleman:\nBut, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.\n\nLUCIO:\nAway! let's go learn the truth of it.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nThus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what\nwith the gallows and what with poverty, I am\ncustom-shrunk.\nHow now! what's the news with you?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYonder man is carried to prison.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWell; what has he done?\n\nPOMPEY:\nA woman.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut what's his offence?\n\nPOMPEY:\nGroping for trouts in a peculiar river.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat, is there a maid with child by him?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, but there's a woman with maid by him. You have\nnot heard of the proclamation, have you?\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat proclamation, man?\n\nPOMPEY:\nAll houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nAnd what shall become of those in the city?\n\nPOMPEY:\nThey shall stand for seed: they had gone down too,\nbut that a wise burgher put in for them.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nBut shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be\npulled down?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTo the ground, mistress.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhy, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!\nWhat shall become of me?\n\nPOMPEY:\nCome; fear you not: good counsellors lack no\nclients: though you change your place, you need not\nchange your trade; I'll be your tapster still.\nCourage! there will be pity taken on you: you that\nhave worn your eyes almost out in the service, you\nwill be considered.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nWhat's to do here, Thomas tapster? let's withdraw.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHere comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to\nprison; and there's Madam Juliet.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?\nBear me to prison, where I am committed.\n\nProvost:\nI do it not in evil disposition,\nBut from Lord Angelo by special charge.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus can the demigod Authority\nMake us pay down for our offence by weight\nThe words of heaven; on whom it will, it will;\nOn whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nFrom too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:\nAs surfeit is the father of much fast,\nSo every scope by the immoderate use\nTurns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,\nLike rats that ravin down their proper bane,\nA thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.\n\nLUCIO:\nIf could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would\nsend for certain of my creditors: and yet, to say\nthe truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom\nas the morality of imprisonment. What's thy\noffence, Claudio?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhat but to speak of would offend again.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhat, is't murder?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNo.\n\nLUCIO:\nLechery?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCall it so.\n\nProvost:\nAway, sir! you must go.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nOne word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.\n\nLUCIO:\nA hundred, if they'll do you any good.\nIs lechery so look'd after?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThus stands it with me: upon a true contract\nI got possession of Julietta's bed:\nYou know the lady; she is fast my wife,\nSave that we do the denunciation lack\nOf outward order: this we came not to,\nOnly for propagation of a dower\nRemaining in the coffer of her friends,\nFrom whom we thought it meet to hide our love\nTill time had made them for us. But it chances\nThe stealth of our most mutual entertainment\nWith character too gross is writ on Juliet.\n\nLUCIO:\nWith child, perhaps?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nUnhappily, even so.\nAnd the new deputy now for the duke--\nWhether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,\nOr whether that the body public be\nA horse whereon the governor doth ride,\nWho, newly in the seat, that it may know\nHe can command, lets it straight feel the spur;\nWhether the tyranny be in his place,\nOr in his emmence that fills it up,\nI stagger in:--but this new governor\nAwakes me all the enrolled penalties\nWhich have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall\nSo long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round\nAnd none of them been worn; and, for a name,\nNow puts the drowsy and neglected act\nFreshly on me: 'tis surely for a name.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on\nthy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love,\nmay sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to\nhim.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI have done so, but he's not to be found.\nI prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:\nThis day my sister should the cloister enter\nAnd there receive her approbation:\nAcquaint her with the danger of my state:\nImplore her, in my voice, that she make friends\nTo the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:\nI have great hope in that; for in her youth\nThere is a prone and speechless dialect,\nSuch as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art\nWhen she will play with reason and discourse,\nAnd well she can persuade.\n\nLUCIO:\nI pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the\nlike, which else would stand under grievous\nimposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I\nwould be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a\ngame of tick-tack. I'll to her.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI thank you, good friend Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nWithin two hours.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nCome, officer, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo, holy father; throw away that thought;\nBelieve not that the dribbling dart of love\nCan pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee\nTo give me secret harbour, hath a purpose\nMore grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends\nOf burning youth.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nMay your grace speak of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy holy sir, none better knows than you\nHow I have ever loved the life removed\nAnd held in idle price to haunt assemblies\nWhere youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.\nI have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,\nA man of stricture and firm abstinence,\nMy absolute power and place here in Vienna,\nAnd he supposes me travell'd to Poland;\nFor so I have strew'd it in the common ear,\nAnd so it is received. Now, pious sir,\nYou will demand of me why I do this?\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nGladly, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe have strict statutes and most biting laws.\nThe needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,\nWhich for this nineteen years we have let slip;\nEven like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,\nThat goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,\nHaving bound up the threatening twigs of birch,\nOnly to stick it in their children's sight\nFor terror, not to use, in time the rod\nBecomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,\nDead to infliction, to themselves are dead;\nAnd liberty plucks justice by the nose;\nThe baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart\nGoes all decorum.\n\nFRIAR THOMAS:\nIt rested in your grace\nTo unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:\nAnd it in you more dreadful would have seem'd\nThan in Lord Angelo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do fear, too dreadful:\nSith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,\n'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them\nFor what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,\nWhen evil deeds have their permissive pass\nAnd not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,\nI have on Angelo imposed the office;\nWho may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,\nAnd yet my nature never in the fight\nTo do in slander. And to behold his sway,\nI will, as 'twere a brother of your order,\nVisit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,\nSupply me with the habit and instruct me\nHow I may formally in person bear me\nLike a true friar. More reasons for this action\nAt our more leisure shall I render you;\nOnly, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;\nStands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses\nThat his blood flows, or that his appetite\nIs more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,\nIf power change purpose, what our seemers be.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd have you nuns no farther privileges?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nAre not these large enough?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, truly; I speak not as desiring more;\nBut rather wishing a more strict restraint\nUpon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nWho's that which calls?\n\nFRANCISCA:\nIt is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,\nTurn you the key, and know his business of him;\nYou may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.\nWhen you have vow'd, you must not speak with men\nBut in the presence of the prioress:\nThen, if you speak, you must not show your face,\nOr, if you show your face, you must not speak.\nHe calls again; I pray you, answer him.\n\nISABELLA:\nPeace and prosperity! Who is't that calls\n\nLUCIO:\nHail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses\nProclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me\nAs bring me to the sight of Isabella,\nA novice of this place and the fair sister\nTo her unhappy brother Claudio?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy 'her unhappy brother'? let me ask,\nThe rather for I now must make you know\nI am that Isabella and his sister.\n\nLUCIO:\nGentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:\nNot to be weary with you, he's in prison.\n\nISABELLA:\nWoe me! for what?\n\nLUCIO:\nFor that which, if myself might be his judge,\nHe should receive his punishment in thanks:\nHe hath got his friend with child.\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, make me not your story.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt is true.\nI would not--though 'tis my familiar sin\nWith maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,\nTongue far from heart--play with all virgins so:\nI hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted.\nBy your renouncement an immortal spirit,\nAnd to be talk'd with in sincerity,\nAs with a saint.\n\nISABELLA:\nYou do blaspheme the good in mocking me.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:\nYour brother and his lover have embraced:\nAs those that feed grow full, as blossoming time\nThat from the seedness the bare fallow brings\nTo teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb\nExpresseth his full tilth and husbandry.\n\nISABELLA:\nSome one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?\n\nLUCIO:\nIs she your cousin?\n\nISABELLA:\nAdoptedly; as school-maids change their names\nBy vain though apt affection.\n\nLUCIO:\nShe it is.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, let him marry her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the point.\nThe duke is very strangely gone from hence;\nBore many gentlemen, myself being one,\nIn hand and hope of action: but we do learn\nBy those that know the very nerves of state,\nHis givings-out were of an infinite distance\nFrom his true-meant design. Upon his place,\nAnd with full line of his authority,\nGoverns Lord Angelo; a man whose blood\nIs very snow-broth; one who never feels\nThe wanton stings and motions of the sense,\nBut doth rebate and blunt his natural edge\nWith profits of the mind, study and fast.\nHe--to give fear to use and liberty,\nWhich have for long run by the hideous law,\nAs mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act,\nUnder whose heavy sense your brother's life\nFalls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;\nAnd follows close the rigour of the statute,\nTo make him an example. All hope is gone,\nUnless you have the grace by your fair prayer\nTo soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business\n'Twixt you and your poor brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nDoth he so seek his life?\n\nLUCIO:\nHas censured him\nAlready; and, as I hear, the provost hath\nA warrant for his execution.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas! what poor ability's in me\nTo do him good?\n\nLUCIO:\nAssay the power you have.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy power? Alas, I doubt--\n\nLUCIO:\nOur doubts are traitors\nAnd make us lose the good we oft might win\nBy fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,\nAnd let him learn to know, when maidens sue,\nMen give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,\nAll their petitions are as freely theirs\nAs they themselves would owe them.\n\nISABELLA:\nI'll see what I can do.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut speedily.\n\nISABELLA:\nI will about it straight;\nNo longer staying but to give the mother\nNotice of my affair. I humbly thank you:\nCommend me to my brother: soon at night\nI'll send him certain word of my success.\n\nLUCIO:\nI take my leave of you.\n\nISABELLA:\nGood sir, adieu.\n\nANGELO:\nWe must not make a scarecrow of the law,\nSetting it up to fear the birds of prey,\nAnd let it keep one shape, till custom make it\nTheir perch and not their terror.\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, but yet\nLet us be keen, and rather cut a little,\nThan fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman\nWhom I would save, had a most noble father!\nLet but your honour know,\nWhom I believe to be most strait in virtue,\nThat, in the working of your own affections,\nHad time cohered with place or place with wishing,\nOr that the resolute acting of your blood\nCould have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,\nWhether you had not sometime in your life\nErr'd in this point which now you censure him,\nAnd pull'd the law upon you.\n\nANGELO:\n'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\nAnother thing to fall. I not deny,\nThe jury, passing on the prisoner's life,\nMay in the sworn twelve have a thief or two\nGuiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,\nThat justice seizes: what know the laws\nThat thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,\nThe jewel that we find, we stoop and take't\nBecause we see it; but what we do not see\nWe tread upon, and never think of it.\nYou may not so extenuate his offence\nFor I have had such faults; but rather tell me,\nWhen I, that censure him, do so offend,\nLet mine own judgment pattern out my death,\nAnd nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.\n\nESCALUS:\nBe it as your wisdom will.\n\nANGELO:\nWhere is the provost?\n\nProvost:\nHere, if it like your honour.\n\nANGELO:\nSee that Claudio\nBe executed by nine to-morrow morning:\nBring him his confessor, let him be prepared;\nFor that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.\n\nESCALUS:\n\nELBOW:\nCome, bring them away: if these be good people in\na commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in\ncommon houses, I know no law: bring them away.\n\nANGELO:\nHow now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it Please your honour, I am the poor duke's\nconstable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon\njustice, sir, and do bring in here before your good\nhonour two notorious benefactors.\n\nANGELO:\nBenefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are\nthey not malefactors?\n\nELBOW:\nIf it? please your honour, I know not well what they\nare: but precise villains they are, that I am sure\nof; and void of all profanation in the world that\ngood Christians ought to have.\n\nESCALUS:\nThis comes off well; here's a wise officer.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your\nname? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.\n\nANGELO:\nWhat are you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nHe, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that\nserves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they\nsay, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she\nprofesses a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow know you that?\n\nELBOW:\nMy wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,--\n\nESCALUS:\nHow? thy wife?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,--\n\nESCALUS:\nDost thou detest her therefore?\n\nELBOW:\nI say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as\nshe, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house,\nit is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow dost thou know that, constable?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman\ncardinally given, might have been accused in\nfornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.\n\nESCALUS:\nBy the woman's means?\n\nELBOW:\nAy, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she\nspit in his face, so she defied him.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, if it please your honour, this is not so.\n\nELBOW:\nProve it before these varlets here, thou honourable\nman; prove it.\n\nESCALUS:\nDo you hear how he misplaces?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she came in great with child; and longing,\nsaving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;\nsir, we had but two in the house, which at that very\ndistant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a\ndish of some three-pence; your honours have seen\nsuch dishes; they are not China dishes, but very\ngood dishes,--\n\nESCALUS:\nGo to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNo, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in\nthe right: but to the point. As I say, this\nMistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and\nbeing great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for\nprunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,\nMaster Froth here, this very man, having eaten the\nrest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very\nhonestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could\nnot give you three-pence again.\n\nFROTH:\nNo, indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery well: you being then, if you be remembered,\ncracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,--\n\nFROTH:\nAy, so I did indeed.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I telling you then, if you be\nremembered, that such a one and such a one were past\ncure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very\ngood diet, as I told you,--\n\nFROTH:\nAll this is true.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then,--\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What\nwas done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to\ncomplain of? Come me to what was done to her.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, your honour cannot come to that yet.\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, sir, nor I mean it not.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's\nleave. And, I beseech you, look into Master Froth\nhere, sir; a man of four-score pound a year; whose\nfather died at Hallowmas: was't not at Hallowmas,\nMaster Froth?\n\nFROTH:\nAll-hallond eve.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir,\nsitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in\nthe Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight\nto sit, have you not?\n\nFROTH:\nI have so; because it is an open room and good for winter.\n\nPOMPEY:\nWhy, very well, then; I hope here be truths.\n\nANGELO:\nThis will last out a night in Russia,\nWhen nights are longest there: I'll take my leave.\nAnd leave you to the hearing of the cause;\nHoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.\n\nESCALUS:\nI think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.\nNow, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow's wife, once more?\n\nPOMPEY:\nOnce, sir? there was nothing done to her once.\n\nELBOW:\nI beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech your honour, ask me.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, sir; what did this gentleman to her?\n\nPOMPEY:\nI beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face.\nGood Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a\ngood purpose. Doth your honour mark his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nAy, sir, very well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nNay; I beseech you, mark it well.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, I do so.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoth your honour see any harm in his face?\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, no.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst\nthing about him. Good, then; if his face be the\nworst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the\nconstable's wife any harm? I would know that of\nyour honour.\n\nESCALUS:\nHe's in the right. Constable, what say you to it?\n\nELBOW:\nFirst, an it like you, the house is a respected\nhouse; next, this is a respected fellow; and his\nmistress is a respected woman.\n\nPOMPEY:\nBy this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected\nperson than any of us all.\n\nELBOW:\nVarlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! the\ntime has yet to come that she was ever respected\nwith man, woman, or child.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, she was respected with him before he married with her.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhich is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity? Is\nthis true?\n\nELBOW:\nO thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked\nHannibal! I respected with her before I was married\nto her! If ever I was respected with her, or she\nwith me, let not your worship think me the poor\nduke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or\nI'll have mine action of battery on thee.\n\nESCALUS:\nIf he took you a box o' the ear, you might have your\naction of slander too.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't\nyour worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?\n\nESCALUS:\nTruly, officer, because he hath some offences in him\nthat thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him\ncontinue in his courses till thou knowest what they\nare.\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou\nwicked varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art\nto continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhere were you born, friend?\n\nFROTH:\nHere in Vienna, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAre you of fourscore pounds a year?\n\nFROTH:\nYes, an't please you, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nSo. What trade are you of, sir?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nTapster; a poor widow's tapster.\n\nESCALUS:\nYour mistress' name?\n\nPOMPHEY:\nMistress Overdone.\n\nESCALUS:\nHath she had any more than one husband?\n\nPOMPEY:\nNine, sir; Overdone by the last.\n\nESCALUS:\nNine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master\nFroth, I would not have you acquainted with\ntapsters: they will draw you, Master Froth, and you\nwill hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no\nmore of you.\n\nFROTH:\nI thank your worship. For mine own part, I never\ncome into any room in a tap-house, but I am drawn\nin.\n\nESCALUS:\nWell, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell.\nCome you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your\nname, Master tapster?\n\nPOMPEY:\nPompey.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat else?\n\nPOMPEY:\nBum, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nTroth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you;\nso that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the\nGreat. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey,\nhowsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you\nnot? come, tell me true: it shall be the better for you.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What\ndo you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the law would allow it, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nBut the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall\nnot be allowed in Vienna.\n\nPOMPEY:\nDoes your worship mean to geld and splay all the\nyouth of the city?\n\nESCALUS:\nNo, Pompey.\n\nPOMPEY:\nTruly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then.\nIf your worship will take order for the drabs and\nthe knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.\n\nESCALUS:\nThere are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you:\nit is but heading and hanging.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf you head and hang all that offend that way but\nfor ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a\ncommission for more heads: if this law hold in\nVienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it\nafter three-pence a bay: if you live to see this\ncome to pass, say Pompey told you so.\n\nESCALUS:\nThank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your\nprophecy, hark you: I advise you, let me not find\nyou before me again upon any complaint whatsoever;\nno, not for dwelling where you do: if I do, Pompey,\nI shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd\nCaesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall\nhave you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI thank your worship for your good counsel:\nbut I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall\nbetter determine.\nWhip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade:\nThe valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master\nconstable. How long have you been in this place of constable?\n\nELBOW:\nSeven year and a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI thought, by your readiness in the office, you had\ncontinued in it some time. You say, seven years together?\n\nELBOW:\nAnd a half, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nAlas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you\nwrong to put you so oft upon 't: are there not men\nin your ward sufficient to serve it?\n\nELBOW:\nFaith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they\nare chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I\ndo it for some piece of money, and go through with\nall.\n\nESCALUS:\nLook you bring me in the names of some six or seven,\nthe most sufficient of your parish.\n\nELBOW:\nTo your worship's house, sir?\n\nESCALUS:\nTo my house. Fare you well.\nWhat's o'clock, think you?\n\nJustice:\nEleven, sir.\n\nESCALUS:\nI pray you home to dinner with me.\n\nJustice:\nI humbly thank you.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt grieves me for the death of Claudio;\nBut there's no remedy.\n\nJustice:\nLord Angelo is severe.\n\nESCALUS:\nIt is but needful:\nMercy is not itself, that oft looks so;\nPardon is still the nurse of second woe:\nBut yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy.\nCome, sir.\n\nServant:\nHe's hearing of a cause; he will come straight\nI'll tell him of you.\n\nProvost:\nPray you, do.\nI'll know\nHis pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,\nHe hath but as offended in a dream!\nAll sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he\nTo die for't!\n\nANGELO:\nNow, what's the matter. Provost?\n\nProvost:\nIs it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?\n\nANGELO:\nDid not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?\nWhy dost thou ask again?\n\nProvost:\nLest I might be too rash:\nUnder your good correction, I have seen,\nWhen, after execution, judgment hath\nRepented o'er his doom.\n\nANGELO:\nGo to; let that be mine:\nDo you your office, or give up your place,\nAnd you shall well be spared.\n\nProvost:\nI crave your honour's pardon.\nWhat shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?\nShe's very near her hour.\n\nANGELO:\nDispose of her\nTo some more fitter place, and that with speed.\n\nServant:\nHere is the sister of the man condemn'd\nDesires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nHath he a sister?\n\nProvost:\nAy, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,\nAnd to be shortly of a sisterhood,\nIf not already.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, let her be admitted.\nSee you the fornicatress be removed:\nLet have needful, but not lavish, means;\nThere shall be order for't.\n\nProvost:\nGod save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nStay a little while.\nYou're welcome: what's your will?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am a woeful suitor to your honour,\nPlease but your honour hear me.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; what's your suit?\n\nISABELLA:\nThere is a vice that most I do abhor,\nAnd most desire should meet the blow of justice;\nFor which I would not plead, but that I must;\nFor which I must not plead, but that I am\nAt war 'twixt will and will not.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; the matter?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have a brother is condemn'd to die:\nI do beseech you, let it be his fault,\nAnd not my brother.\n\nProvost:\n\nANGELO:\nCondemn the fault and not the actor of it?\nWhy, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:\nMine were the very cipher of a function,\nTo fine the faults whose fine stands in record,\nAnd let go by the actor.\n\nISABELLA:\nO just but severe law!\nI had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nMust he needs die?\n\nANGELO:\nMaiden, no remedy.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes; I do think that you might pardon him,\nAnd neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.\n\nANGELO:\nI will not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut can you, if you would?\n\nANGELO:\nLook, what I will not, that I cannot do.\n\nISABELLA:\nBut might you do't, and do the world no wrong,\nIf so your heart were touch'd with that remorse\nAs mine is to him?\n\nANGELO:\nHe's sentenced; 'tis too late.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nToo late? why, no; I, that do speak a word.\nMay call it back again. Well, believe this,\nNo ceremony that to great ones 'longs,\nNot the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,\nThe marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,\nBecome them with one half so good a grace\nAs mercy does.\nIf he had been as you and you as he,\nYou would have slipt like him; but he, like you,\nWould not have been so stern.\n\nANGELO:\nPray you, be gone.\n\nISABELLA:\nI would to heaven I had your potency,\nAnd you were Isabel! should it then be thus?\nNo; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,\nAnd what a prisoner.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nYour brother is a forfeit of the law,\nAnd you but waste your words.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\nWhy, all the souls that were were forfeit once;\nAnd He that might the vantage best have took\nFound out the remedy. How would you be,\nIf He, which is the top of judgment, should\nBut judge you as you are? O, think on that;\nAnd mercy then will breathe within your lips,\nLike man new made.\n\nANGELO:\nBe you content, fair maid;\nIt is the law, not I condemn your brother:\nWere he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\nIt should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!\nHe's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens\nWe kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven\nWith less respect than we do minister\nTo our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;\nWho is it that hath died for this offence?\nThere's many have committed it.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nThe law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:\nThose many had not dared to do that evil,\nIf the first that did the edict infringe\nHad answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake\nTakes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,\nLooks in a glass, that shows what future evils,\nEither new, or by remissness new-conceived,\nAnd so in progress to be hatch'd and born,\nAre now to have no successive degrees,\nBut, ere they live, to end.\n\nISABELLA:\nYet show some pity.\n\nANGELO:\nI show it most of all when I show justice;\nFor then I pity those I do not know,\nWhich a dismiss'd offence would after gall;\nAnd do him right that, answering one foul wrong,\nLives not to act another. Be satisfied;\nYour brother dies to-morrow; be content.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo you must be the first that gives this sentence,\nAnd he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent\nTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous\nTo use it like a giant.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nCould great men thunder\nAs Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,\nFor every pelting, petty officer\nWould use his heaven for thunder;\nNothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,\nThou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt\nSplit'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak\nThan the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,\nDrest in a little brief authority,\nMost ignorant of what he's most assured,\nHis glassy essence, like an angry ape,\nPlays such fantastic tricks before high heaven\nAs make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,\nWould all themselves laugh mortal.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nProvost:\n\nISABELLA:\nWe cannot weigh our brother with ourself:\nGreat men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,\nBut in the less foul profanation.\n\nLUCIO:\nThou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat in the captain's but a choleric word,\nWhich in the soldier is flat blasphemy.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhy do you put these sayings upon me?\n\nISABELLA:\nBecause authority, though it err like others,\nHath yet a kind of medicine in itself,\nThat skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;\nKnock there, and ask your heart what it doth know\nThat's like my brother's fault: if it confess\nA natural guiltiness such as is his,\nLet it not sound a thought upon your tongue\nAgainst my brother's life.\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nGentle my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nI will bethink me: come again tomorrow.\n\nISABELLA:\nHark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.\n\nANGELO:\nHow! bribe me?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nNot with fond shekels of the tested gold,\nOr stones whose rates are either rich or poor\nAs fancy values them; but with true prayers\nThat shall be up at heaven and enter there\nEre sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,\nFrom fasting maids whose minds are dedicate\nTo nothing temporal.\n\nANGELO:\nWell; come to me to-morrow.\n\nLUCIO:\n\nISABELLA:\nHeaven keep your honour safe!\n\nANGELO:\n\nISABELLA:\nAt what hour to-morrow\nShall I attend your lordship?\n\nANGELO:\nAt any time 'fore noon.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Save your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nFrom thee, even from thy virtue!\nWhat's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?\nThe tempter or the tempted, who sins most?\nHa!\nNot she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I\nThat, lying by the violet in the sun,\nDo as the carrion does, not as the flower,\nCorrupt with virtuous season. Can it be\nThat modesty may more betray our sense\nThan woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,\nShall we desire to raze the sanctuary\nAnd pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!\nWhat dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?\nDost thou desire her foully for those things\nThat make her good? O, let her brother live!\nThieves for their robbery have authority\nWhen judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,\nThat I desire to hear her speak again,\nAnd feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?\nO cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,\nWith saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous\nIs that temptation that doth goad us on\nTo sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,\nWith all her double vigour, art and nature,\nOnce stir my temper; but this virtuous maid\nSubdues me quite. Even till now,\nWhen men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHail to you, provost! so I think you are.\n\nProvost:\nI am the provost. What's your will, good friar?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBound by my charity and my blest order,\nI come to visit the afflicted spirits\nHere in the prison. Do me the common right\nTo let me see them and to make me know\nThe nature of their crimes, that I may minister\nTo them accordingly.\n\nProvost:\nI would do more than that, if more were needful.\nLook, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,\nWho, falling in the flaws of her own youth,\nHath blister'd her report: she is with child;\nAnd he that got it, sentenced; a young man\nMore fit to do another such offence\nThan die for this.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhen must he die?\n\nProvost:\nAs I do think, to-morrow.\nI have provided for you: stay awhile,\nAnd you shall be conducted.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRepent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?\n\nJULIET:\nI do; and bear the shame most patiently.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,\nAnd try your penitence, if it be sound,\nOr hollowly put on.\n\nJULIET:\nI'll gladly learn.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove you the man that wrong'd you?\n\nJULIET:\nYes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then it seems your most offenceful act\nWas mutually committed?\n\nJULIET:\nMutually.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThen was your sin of heavier kind than his.\n\nJULIET:\nI do confess it, and repent it, father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,\nAs that the sin hath brought you to this shame,\nWhich sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,\nShowing we would not spare heaven as we love it,\nBut as we stand in fear,--\n\nJULIET:\nI do repent me, as it is an evil,\nAnd take the shame with joy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere rest.\nYour partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,\nAnd I am going with instruction to him.\nGrace go with you, Benedicite!\n\nJULIET:\nMust die to-morrow! O injurious love,\nThat respites me a life, whose very comfort\nIs still a dying horror!\n\nProvost:\n'Tis pity of him.\n\nANGELO:\nWhen I would pray and think, I think and pray\nTo several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;\nWhilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,\nAnchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,\nAs if I did but only chew his name;\nAnd in my heart the strong and swelling evil\nOf my conception. The state, whereon I studied\nIs like a good thing, being often read,\nGrown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,\nWherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,\nCould I with boot change for an idle plume,\nWhich the air beats for vain. O place, O form,\nHow often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,\nWrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls\nTo thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:\nLet's write good angel on the devil's horn:\n'Tis not the devil's crest.\nHow now! who's there?\n\nServant:\nOne Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.\n\nANGELO:\nTeach her the way.\nO heavens!\nWhy does my blood thus muster to my heart,\nMaking both it unable for itself,\nAnd dispossessing all my other parts\nOf necessary fitness?\nSo play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;\nCome all to help him, and so stop the air\nBy which he should revive: and even so\nThe general, subject to a well-wish'd king,\nQuit their own part, and in obsequious fondness\nCrowd to his presence, where their untaught love\nMust needs appear offence.\nHow now, fair maid?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am come to know your pleasure.\n\nANGELO:\nThat you might know it, would much better please me\nThan to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.\n\nISABELLA:\nEven so. Heaven keep your honour!\n\nANGELO:\nYet may he live awhile; and, it may be,\nAs long as you or I yet he must die.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnder your sentence?\n\nANGELO:\nYea.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhen, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,\nLonger or shorter, he may be so fitted\nThat his soul sicken not.\n\nANGELO:\nHa! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good\nTo pardon him that hath from nature stolen\nA man already made, as to remit\nTheir saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image\nIn stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy\nFalsely to take away a life true made\nAs to put metal in restrained means\nTo make a false one.\n\nISABELLA:\n'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.\n\nANGELO:\nSay you so? then I shall pose you quickly.\nWhich had you rather, that the most just law\nNow took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,\nGive up your body to such sweet uncleanness\nAs she that he hath stain'd?\n\nISABELLA:\nSir, believe this,\nI had rather give my body than my soul.\n\nANGELO:\nI talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins\nStand more for number than for accompt.\n\nISABELLA:\nHow say you?\n\nANGELO:\nNay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak\nAgainst the thing I say. Answer to this:\nI, now the voice of the recorded law,\nPronounce a sentence on your brother's life:\nMight there not be a charity in sin\nTo save this brother's life?\n\nISABELLA:\nPlease you to do't,\nI'll take it as a peril to my soul,\nIt is no sin at all, but charity.\n\nANGELO:\nPleased you to do't at peril of your soul,\nWere equal poise of sin and charity.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat I do beg his life, if it be sin,\nHeaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,\nIf that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer\nTo have it added to the faults of mine,\nAnd nothing of your answer.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, but hear me.\nYour sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,\nOr seem so craftily; and that's not good.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me be ignorant, and in nothing good,\nBut graciously to know I am no better.\n\nANGELO:\nThus wisdom wishes to appear most bright\nWhen it doth tax itself; as these black masks\nProclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder\nThan beauty could, display'd. But mark me;\nTo be received plain, I'll speak more gross:\nYour brother is to die.\n\nISABELLA:\nSo.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd his offence is so, as it appears,\nAccountant to the law upon that pain.\n\nISABELLA:\nTrue.\n\nANGELO:\nAdmit no other way to save his life,--\nAs I subscribe not that, nor any other,\nBut in the loss of question,--that you, his sister,\nFinding yourself desired of such a person,\nWhose credit with the judge, or own great place,\nCould fetch your brother from the manacles\nOf the all-building law; and that there were\nNo earthly mean to save him, but that either\nYou must lay down the treasures of your body\nTo this supposed, or else to let him suffer;\nWhat would you do?\n\nISABELLA:\nAs much for my poor brother as myself:\nThat is, were I under the terms of death,\nThe impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,\nAnd strip myself to death, as to a bed\nThat longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield\nMy body up to shame.\n\nANGELO:\nThen must your brother die.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd 'twere the cheaper way:\nBetter it were a brother died at once,\nThan that a sister, by redeeming him,\nShould die for ever.\n\nANGELO:\nWere not you then as cruel as the sentence\nThat you have slander'd so?\n\nISABELLA:\nIgnomy in ransom and free pardon\nAre of two houses: lawful mercy\nIs nothing kin to foul redemption.\n\nANGELO:\nYou seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;\nAnd rather proved the sliding of your brother\nA merriment than a vice.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,\nTo have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:\nI something do excuse the thing I hate,\nFor his advantage that I dearly love.\n\nANGELO:\nWe are all frail.\n\nISABELLA:\nElse let my brother die,\nIf not a feodary, but only he\nOwe and succeed thy weakness.\n\nANGELO:\nNay, women are frail too.\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, as the glasses where they view themselves;\nWhich are as easy broke as they make forms.\nWomen! Help Heaven! men their creation mar\nIn profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;\nFor we are soft as our complexions are,\nAnd credulous to false prints.\n\nANGELO:\nI think it well:\nAnd from this testimony of your own sex,--\nSince I suppose we are made to be no stronger\nThan faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold;\nI do arrest your words. Be that you are,\nThat is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;\nIf you be one, as you are well express'd\nBy all external warrants, show it now,\nBy putting on the destined livery.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,\nLet me entreat you speak the former language.\n\nANGELO:\nPlainly conceive, I love you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy brother did love Juliet,\nAnd you tell me that he shall die for it.\n\nANGELO:\nHe shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.\n\nISABELLA:\nI know your virtue hath a licence in't,\nWhich seems a little fouler than it is,\nTo pluck on others.\n\nANGELO:\nBelieve me, on mine honour,\nMy words express my purpose.\n\nISABELLA:\nHa! little honour to be much believed,\nAnd most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!\nI will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:\nSign me a present pardon for my brother,\nOr with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud\nWhat man thou art.\n\nANGELO:\nWho will believe thee, Isabel?\nMy unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,\nMy vouch against you, and my place i' the state,\nWill so your accusation overweigh,\nThat you shall stifle in your own report\nAnd smell of calumny. I have begun,\nAnd now I give my sensual race the rein:\nFit thy consent to my sharp appetite;\nLay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,\nThat banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother\nBy yielding up thy body to my will;\nOr else he must not only die the death,\nBut thy unkindness shall his death draw out\nTo lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,\nOr, by the affection that now guides me most,\nI'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,\nSay what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo whom should I complain? Did I tell this,\nWho would believe me? O perilous mouths,\nThat bear in them one and the self-same tongue,\nEither of condemnation or approof;\nBidding the law make court'sy to their will:\nHooking both right and wrong to the appetite,\nTo follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:\nThough he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,\nYet hath he in him such a mind of honour.\nThat, had he twenty heads to tender down\nOn twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,\nBefore his sister should her body stoop\nTo such abhorr'd pollution.\nThen, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:\nMore than our brother is our chastity.\nI'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,\nAnd fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSo then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe miserable have no other medicine\nBut only hope:\nI've hope to live, and am prepared to die.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe absolute for death; either death or life\nShall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:\nIf I do lose thee, I do lose a thing\nThat none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,\nServile to all the skyey influences,\nThat dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,\nHourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;\nFor him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun\nAnd yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;\nFor all the accommodations that thou bear'st\nAre nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;\nFor thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\nOf a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,\nAnd that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st\nThy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;\nFor thou exist'st on many a thousand grains\nThat issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;\nFor what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,\nAnd what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;\nFor thy complexion shifts to strange effects,\nAfter the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;\nFor, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\nThou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,\nAnd death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;\nFor thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,\nThe mere effusion of thy proper loins,\nDo curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,\nFor ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,\nBut, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,\nDreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth\nBecomes as aged, and doth beg the alms\nOf palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,\nThou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,\nTo make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this\nThat bears the name of life? Yet in this life\nLie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,\nThat makes these odds all even.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nI humbly thank you.\nTo sue to live, I find I seek to die;\nAnd, seeking death, find life: let it come on.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nProvost:\nWho's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nMost holy sir, I thank you.\n\nISABELLA:\nMy business is a word or two with Claudio.\n\nProvost:\nAnd very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nProvost, a word with you.\n\nProvost:\nAs many as you please.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNow, sister, what's the comfort?\n\nISABELLA:\nWhy,\nAs all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.\nLord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,\nIntends you for his swift ambassador,\nWhere you shall be an everlasting leiger:\nTherefore your best appointment make with speed;\nTo-morrow you set on.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIs there no remedy?\n\nISABELLA:\nNone, but such remedy as, to save a head,\nTo cleave a heart in twain.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut is there any?\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, brother, you may live:\nThere is a devilish mercy in the judge,\nIf you'll implore it, that will free your life,\nBut fetter you till death.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nPerpetual durance?\n\nISABELLA:\nAy, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,\nThough all the world's vastidity you had,\nTo a determined scope.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nBut in what nature?\n\nISABELLA:\nIn such a one as, you consenting to't,\nWould bark your honour from that trunk you bear,\nAnd leave you naked.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me know the point.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,\nLest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,\nAnd six or seven winters more respect\nThan a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?\nThe sense of death is most in apprehension;\nAnd the poor beetle, that we tread upon,\nIn corporal sufferance finds a pang as great\nAs when a giant dies.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nWhy give you me this shame?\nThink you I can a resolution fetch\nFrom flowery tenderness? If I must die,\nI will encounter darkness as a bride,\nAnd hug it in mine arms.\n\nISABELLA:\nThere spake my brother; there my father's grave\nDid utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:\nThou art too noble to conserve a life\nIn base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,\nWhose settled visage and deliberate word\nNips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew\nAs falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil\nHis filth within being cast, he would appear\nA pond as deep as hell.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThe prenzie Angelo!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,\nThe damned'st body to invest and cover\nIn prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?\nIf I would yield him my virginity,\nThou mightst be freed.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO heavens! it cannot be.\n\nISABELLA:\nYes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,\nSo to offend him still. This night's the time\nThat I should do what I abhor to name,\nOr else thou diest to-morrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThou shalt not do't.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, were it but my life,\nI'ld throw it down for your deliverance\nAs frankly as a pin.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nThanks, dear Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nBe ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nYes. Has he affections in him,\nThat thus can make him bite the law by the nose,\nWhen he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,\nOr of the deadly seven, it is the least.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhich is the least?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nIf it were damnable, he being so wise,\nWhy would he for the momentary trick\nBe perdurably fined? O Isabel!\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat says my brother?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nDeath is a fearful thing.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd shamed life a hateful.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAy, but to die, and go we know not where;\nTo lie in cold obstruction and to rot;\nThis sensible warm motion to become\nA kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\nTo bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\nIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\nTo be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\nAnd blown with restless violence round about\nThe pendent world; or to be worse than worst\nOf those that lawless and incertain thought\nImagine howling: 'tis too horrible!\nThe weariest and most loathed worldly life\nThat age, ache, penury and imprisonment\nCan lay on nature is a paradise\nTo what we fear of death.\n\nISABELLA:\nAlas, alas!\n\nCLAUDIO:\nSweet sister, let me live:\nWhat sin you do to save a brother's life,\nNature dispenses with the deed so far\nThat it becomes a virtue.\n\nISABELLA:\nO you beast!\nO faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!\nWilt thou be made a man out of my vice?\nIs't not a kind of incest, to take life\nFrom thine own sister's shame? What should I think?\nHeaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!\nFor such a warped slip of wilderness\nNe'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!\nDie, perish! Might but my bending down\nReprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:\nI'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,\nNo word to save thee.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nNay, hear me, Isabel.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, fie, fie, fie!\nThy sin's not accidental, but a trade.\nMercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:\n'Tis best thou diest quickly.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nO hear me, Isabella!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat is your will?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMight you dispense with your leisure, I would by and\nby have some speech with you: the satisfaction I\nwould require is likewise your own benefit.\n\nISABELLA:\nI have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be\nstolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSon, I have overheard what hath passed between you\nand your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to\ncorrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her\nvirtue to practise his judgment with the disposition\nof natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,\nhath made him that gracious denial which he is most\nglad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I\nknow this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to\ndeath: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes\nthat are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to\nyour knees and make ready.\n\nCLAUDIO:\nLet me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love\nwith life that I will sue to be rid of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHold you there: farewell.\nProvost, a word with you!\n\nProvost:\nWhat's your will, father\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me\nawhile with the maid: my mind promises with my\nhabit no loss shall touch her by my company.\n\nProvost:\nIn good time.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:\nthe goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty\nbrief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of\nyour complexion, shall keep the body of it ever\nfair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,\nfortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but\nthat frailty hath examples for his falling, I should\nwonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this\nsubstitute, and to save your brother?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am now going to resolve him: I had rather my\nbrother die by the law than my son should be\nunlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke\ndeceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can\nspeak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or\ndiscover his government.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter\nnow stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made\ntrial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my\nadvisings: to the love I have in doing good a\nremedy presents itself. I do make myself believe\nthat you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged\nlady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from\nthe angry law; do no stain to your own gracious\nperson; and much please the absent duke, if\nperadventure he shall ever return to have hearing of\nthis business.\n\nISABELLA:\nLet me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do\nanything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVirtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have\nyou not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of\nFrederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nShe should this Angelo have married; was affianced\nto her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between\nwhich time of the contract and limit of the\nsolemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea,\nhaving in that perished vessel the dowry of his\nsister. But mark how heavily this befell to the\npoor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and\nrenowned brother, in his love toward her ever most\nkind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of\nher fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her\ncombinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nCan this be so? did Angelo so leave her?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLeft her in her tears, and dried not one of them\nwith his comfort; swallowed his vows whole,\npretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,\nbestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet\nwears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,\nis washed with them, but relents not.\n\nISABELLA:\nWhat a merit were it in death to take this poor maid\nfrom the world! What corruption in this life, that\nit will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the\ncure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps\nyou from dishonour in doing it.\n\nISABELLA:\nShow me how, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance\nof her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that\nin all reason should have quenched her love, hath,\nlike an impediment in the current, made it more\nviolent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his\nrequiring with a plausible obedience; agree with\nhis demands to the point; only refer yourself to\nthis advantage, first, that your stay with him may\nnot be long; that the time may have all shadow and\nsilence in it; and the place answer to convenience.\nThis being granted in course,--and now follows\nall,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up\nyour appointment, go in your place; if the encounter\nacknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to\nher recompense: and here, by this, is your brother\nsaved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana\nadvantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid\nwill I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you\nthink well to carry this as you may, the doubleness\nof the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.\nWhat think you of it?\n\nISABELLA:\nThe image of it gives me content already; and I\ntrust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily\nto Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his\nbed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will\npresently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated\ngrange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that\nplace call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that\nit may be quickly.\n\nISABELLA:\nI thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.\n\nELBOW:\nNay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will\nneeds buy and sell men and women like beasts, we\nshall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO heavens! what stuff is here\n\nPOMPEY:\n'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the\nmerriest was put down, and the worser allowed by\norder of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and\nfurred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that\ncraft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.\n\nELBOW:\nCome your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you, good brother father. What offence hath\nthis man made you, sir?\n\nELBOW:\nMarry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we\ntake him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found\nupon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have\nsent to the deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!\nThe evil that thou causest to be done,\nThat is thy means to live. Do thou but think\nWhat 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back\nFrom such a filthy vice: say to thyself,\nFrom their abominable and beastly touches\nI drink, I eat, array myself, and live.\nCanst thou believe thy living is a life,\nSo stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.\n\nPOMPEY:\nIndeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet,\nsir, I would prove--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,\nThou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:\nCorrection and instruction must both work\nEre this rude beast will profit.\n\nELBOW:\nHe must before the deputy, sir; he has given him\nwarning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if\nhe be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were\nas good go a mile on his errand.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat we were all, as some would seem to be,\nFrom our faults, as faults from seeming, free!\n\nELBOW:\nHis neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a\nfriend of mine.\n\nLUCIO:\nHow now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of\nCaesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there\nnone of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be\nhad now, for putting the hand in the pocket and\nextracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What\nsayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't\nnot drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest\nthou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is\nthe way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The\ntrick of it?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nStill thus, and thus; still worse!\n\nLUCIO:\nHow doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she\nstill, ha?\n\nPOMPEY:\nTroth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she\nis herself in the tub.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be\nso: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:\nan unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going\nto prison, Pompey?\n\nPOMPEY:\nYes, faith, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I\nsent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?\n\nELBOW:\nFor being a bawd, for being a bawd.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the\ndue of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he\ndoubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.\nFarewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,\nPompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you\nwill keep the house.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.\nI will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If\nyou take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the\nmore. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd you.\n\nLUCIO:\nDoes Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nPOMPEY:\nYou will not bail me, then, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nThen, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?\nwhat news?\n\nELBOW:\nCome your ways, sir; come.\n\nLUCIO:\nGo to kennel, Pompey; go.\nWhat news, friar, of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know none. Can you tell me of any?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other\nsome, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.\n\nLUCIO:\nIt was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from\nthe state, and usurp the beggary he was never born\nto. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he\nputs transgression to 't.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe does well in 't.\n\nLUCIO:\nA little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in\nhim: something too crabbed that way, friar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;\nit is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp\nit quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put\ndown. They say this Angelo was not made by man and\nwoman after this downright way of creation: is it\ntrue, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow should he be made, then?\n\nLUCIO:\nSome report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he\nwas begot between two stock-fishes. But it is\ncertain that when he makes water his urine is\ncongealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a\nmotion generative; that's infallible.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the\nrebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a\nman! Would the duke that is absent have done this?\nEre he would have hanged a man for the getting a\nhundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing\na thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he\nknew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI never heard the absent duke much detected for\nwomen; he was not inclined that way.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, sir, you are deceived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis not possible.\n\nLUCIO:\nWho, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and\nhis use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the\nduke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;\nthat let me inform you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do him wrong, surely.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the\nduke: and I believe I know the cause of his\nwithdrawing.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, I prithee, might be the cause?\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the\nteeth and the lips: but this I can let you\nunderstand, the greater file of the subject held the\nduke to be wise.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWise! why, no question but he was.\n\nLUCIO:\nA very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nEither this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:\nthe very stream of his life and the business he hath\nhelmed must upon a warranted need give him a better\nproclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own\nbringings-forth, and he shall appear to the\nenvious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.\nTherefore you speak unskilfully: or if your\nknowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, I know him, and I love him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLove talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with\ndearer love.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir, I know what I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI can hardly believe that, since you know not what\nyou speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our\nprayers are he may, let me desire you to make your\nanswer before him. If it be honest you have spoke,\nyou have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call\nupon you; and, I pray you, your name?\n\nLUCIO:\nSir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe shall know you better, sir, if I may live to\nreport you.\n\nLUCIO:\nI fear you not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, you hope the duke will return no more; or you\nimagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I\ncan do you little harm; you'll forswear this again.\n\nLUCIO:\nI'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,\nfriar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if\nClaudio die to-morrow or no?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy should he die, sir?\n\nLUCIO:\nWhy? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would\nthe duke we talk of were returned again: the\nungenitured agent will unpeople the province with\ncontinency; sparrows must not build in his\nhouse-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke\nyet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would\nnever bring them to light: would he were returned!\nMarry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.\nFarewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The\nduke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on\nFridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee,\nhe would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown\nbread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo might nor greatness in mortality\nCan censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny\nThe whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong\nCan tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?\nBut who comes here?\n\nESCALUS:\nGo; away with her to prison!\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nGood my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted\na merciful man; good my lord.\n\nESCALUS:\nDouble and treble admonition, and still forfeit in\nthe same kind! This would make mercy swear and play\nthe tyrant.\n\nProvost:\nA bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please\nyour honour.\n\nMISTRESS OVERDONE:\nMy lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.\nMistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the\nduke's time; he promised her marriage: his child\nis a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:\nI have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!\n\nESCALUS:\nThat fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be\ncalled before us. Away with her to prison! Go to;\nno more words.\nProvost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;\nClaudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished\nwith divines, and have all charitable preparation.\nif my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be\nso with him.\n\nProvost:\nSo please you, this friar hath been with him, and\nadvised him for the entertainment of death.\n\nESCALUS:\nGood even, good father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBliss and goodness on you!\n\nESCALUS:\nOf whence are you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot of this country, though my chance is now\nTo use it for my time: I am a brother\nOf gracious order, late come from the See\nIn special business from his holiness.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhat news abroad i' the world?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNone, but that there is so great a fever on\ngoodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it:\nnovelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous\nto be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous\nto be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce\ntruth enough alive to make societies secure; but\nsecurity enough to make fellowships accurst: much\nupon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This\nnews is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I\npray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?\n\nESCALUS:\nOne that, above all other strifes, contended\nespecially to know himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat pleasure was he given to?\n\nESCALUS:\nRather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at\nany thing which professed to make him rejoice: a\ngentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to\nhis events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous;\nand let me desire to know how you find Claudio\nprepared. I am made to understand that you have\nlent him visitation.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe professes to have received no sinister measure\nfrom his judge, but most willingly humbles himself\nto the determination of justice: yet had he framed\nto himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many\ndeceiving promises of life; which I by my good\nleisure have discredited to him, and now is he\nresolved to die.\n\nESCALUS:\nYou have paid the heavens your function, and the\nprisoner the very debt of your calling. I have\nlaboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest\nshore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I\nfound so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him\nhe is indeed Justice.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIf his own life answer the straitness of his\nproceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he\nchance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPeace be with you!\nHe who the sword of heaven will bear\nShould be as holy as severe;\nPattern in himself to know,\nGrace to stand, and virtue go;\nMore nor less to others paying\nThan by self-offences weighing.\nShame to him whose cruel striking\nKills for faults of his own liking!\nTwice treble shame on Angelo,\nTo weed my vice and let his grow!\nO, what may man within him hide,\nThough angel on the outward side!\nHow may likeness made in crimes,\nMaking practise on the times,\nTo draw with idle spiders' strings\nMost ponderous and substantial things!\nCraft against vice I must apply:\nWith Angelo to-night shall lie\nHis old betrothed but despised;\nSo disguise shall, by the disguised,\nPay with falsehood false exacting,\nAnd perform an old contracting.\n\n\nMARIANA:\nBreak off thy song, and haste thee quick away:\nHere comes a man of comfort, whose advice\nHath often still'd my brawling discontent.\nI cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish\nYou had not found me here so musical:\nLet me excuse me, and believe me so,\nMy mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm\nTo make bad good, and good provoke to harm.\nI pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired\nfor me here to-day? much upon this time have\nI promised here to meet.\n\nMARIANA:\nYou have not been inquired after:\nI have sat here all day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI do constantly believe you. The time is come even\nnow. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may\nbe I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.\n\nMARIANA:\nI am always bound to you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nVery well met, and well come.\nWhat is the news from this good deputy?\n\nISABELLA:\nHe hath a garden circummured with brick,\nWhose western side is with a vineyard back'd;\nAnd to that vineyard is a planched gate,\nThat makes his opening with this bigger key:\nThis other doth command a little door\nWhich from the vineyard to the garden leads;\nThere have I made my promise\nUpon the heavy middle of the night\nTo call upon him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut shall you on your knowledge find this way?\n\nISABELLA:\nI have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:\nWith whispering and most guilty diligence,\nIn action all of precept, he did show me\nThe way twice o'er.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre there no other tokens\nBetween you 'greed concerning her observance?\n\nISABELLA:\nNo, none, but only a repair i' the dark;\nAnd that I have possess'd him my most stay\nCan be but brief; for I have made him know\nI have a servant comes with me along,\nThat stays upon me, whose persuasion is\nI come about my brother.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis well borne up.\nI have not yet made known to Mariana\nA word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!\nI pray you, be acquainted with this maid;\nShe comes to do you good.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do desire the like.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDo you persuade yourself that I respect you?\n\nMARIANA:\nGood friar, I know you do, and have found it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nTake, then, this your companion by the hand,\nWho hath a story ready for your ear.\nI shall attend your leisure: but make haste;\nThe vaporous night approaches.\n\nMARIANA:\nWill't please you walk aside?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO place and greatness! millions of false eyes\nAre stuck upon thee: volumes of report\nRun with these false and most contrarious quests\nUpon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit\nMake thee the father of their idle dreams\nAnd rack thee in their fancies.\nWelcome, how agreed?\n\nISABELLA:\nShe'll take the enterprise upon her, father,\nIf you advise it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is not my consent,\nBut my entreaty too.\n\nISABELLA:\nLittle have you to say\nWhen you depart from him, but, soft and low,\n'Remember now my brother.'\n\nMARIANA:\nFear me not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.\nHe is your husband on a pre-contract:\nTo bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,\nSith that the justice of your title to him\nDoth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:\nOur corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.\n\nProvost:\nCome hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?\n\nPOMPEY:\nIf the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a\nmarried man, he's his wife's head, and I can never\ncut off a woman's head.\n\nProvost:\nCome, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a\ndirect answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio\nand Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common\nexecutioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if\nyou will take it on you to assist him, it shall\nredeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have\nyour full time of imprisonment and your deliverance\nwith an unpitied whipping, for you have been a\nnotorious bawd.\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;\nbut yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I\nwould be glad to receive some instruction from my\nfellow partner.\n\nProvost:\nWhat, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?\n\nABHORSON:\nDo you call, sir?\n\nProvost:\nSirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in\nyour execution. If you think it meet, compound with\nhim by the year, and let him abide here with you; if\nnot, use him for the present and dismiss him. He\ncannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.\n\nABHORSON:\nA bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.\n\nProvost:\nGo to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn\nthe scale.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a\ngood favour you have, but that you have a hanging\nlook,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?\n\nABHORSON:\nAy, sir; a mystery\n\nPOMPEY:\nPainting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and\nyour whores, sir, being members of my occupation,\nusing painting, do prove my occupation a mystery:\nbut what mystery there should be in hanging, if I\nshould be hanged, I cannot imagine.\n\nABHORSON:\nSir, it is a mystery.\n\nPOMPEY:\nProof?\n\nABHORSON:\nEvery true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be\ntoo little for your thief, your true man thinks it\nbig enough; if it be too big for your thief, your\nthief thinks it little enough: so every true man's\napparel fits your thief.\n\nProvost:\nAre you agreed?\n\nPOMPEY:\nSir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is\na more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth\noftener ask forgiveness.\n\nProvost:\nYou, sirrah, provide your block and your axe\nto-morrow four o'clock.\n\nABHORSON:\nCome on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have\noccasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find\nme yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you\na good turn.\n\nProvost:\nCall hither Barnardine and Claudio:\nThe one has my pity; not a jot the other,\nBeing a murderer, though he were my brother.\nLook, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:\n'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow\nThou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?\n\nCLAUDIO:\nAs fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour\nWhen it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:\nHe will not wake.\n\nProvost:\nWho can do good on him?\nWell, go, prepare yourself.\nBut, hark, what noise?\nHeaven give your spirits comfort!\nBy and by.\nI hope it is some pardon or reprieve\nFor the most gentle Claudio.\nWelcome father.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe best and wholesomest spirts of the night\nEnvelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?\n\nProvost:\nNone, since the curfew rung.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot Isabel?\n\nProvost:\nNo.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThey will, then, ere't be long.\n\nProvost:\nWhat comfort is for Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere's some in hope.\n\nProvost:\nIt is a bitter deputy.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot so, not so; his life is parallel'd\nEven with the stroke and line of his great justice:\nHe doth with holy abstinence subdue\nThat in himself which he spurs on his power\nTo qualify in others: were he meal'd with that\nWhich he corrects, then were he tyrannous;\nBut this being so, he's just.\nNow are they come.\nThis is a gentle provost: seldom when\nThe steeled gaoler is the friend of men.\nHow now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste\nThat wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.\n\nProvost:\nThere he must stay until the officer\nArise to let him in: he is call'd up.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHave you no countermand for Claudio yet,\nBut he must die to-morrow?\n\nProvost:\nNone, sir, none.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAs near the dawning, provost, as it is,\nYou shall hear more ere morning.\n\nProvost:\nHappily\nYou something know; yet I believe there comes\nNo countermand; no such example have we:\nBesides, upon the very siege of justice\nLord Angelo hath to the public ear\nProfess'd the contrary.\nThis is his lordship's man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAnd here comes Claudio's pardon.\n\nMessenger:\n\nProvost:\nI shall obey him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nProvost:\nI told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss\nin mine office, awakens me with this unwonted\nputting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nPray you, let's hear.\n\nProvost:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the\nafternoon?\n\nProvost:\nA Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one\nthat is a prisoner nine years old.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHow came it that the absent duke had not either\ndelivered him to his liberty or executed him? I\nhave heard it was ever his manner to do so.\n\nProvost:\nHis friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,\nindeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord\nAngelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is now apparent?\n\nProvost:\nMost manifest, and not denied by himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHath he born himself penitently in prison? how\nseems he to be touched?\n\nProvost:\nA man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but\nas a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless\nof what's past, present, or to come; insensible of\nmortality, and desperately mortal.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe wants advice.\n\nProvost:\nHe will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty\nof the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he\nwould not: drunk many times a day, if not many days\nentirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if\nto carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming\nwarrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMore of him anon. There is written in your brow,\nprovost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not\ntruly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the\nboldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.\nClaudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is\nno greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath\nsentenced him. To make you understand this in a\nmanifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;\nfor the which you are to do me both a present and a\ndangerous courtesy.\n\nProvost:\nPray, sir, in what?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIn the delaying death.\n\nProvost:\nA lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,\nand an express command, under penalty, to deliver\nhis head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case\nas Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my\ninstructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine\nbe this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nAngelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.\nShave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was\nthe desire of the penitent to be so bared before his\ndeath: you know the course is common. If any thing\nfall to you upon this, more than thanks and good\nfortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead\nagainst it with my life.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, good father; it is against my oath.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWere you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?\n\nProvost:\nTo him, and to his substitutes.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou will think you have made no offence, if the duke\navouch the justice of your dealing?\n\nProvost:\nBut what likelihood is in that?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see\nyou fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor\npersuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go\nfurther than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.\nLook you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the\nduke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the\nsignet is not strange to you.\n\nProvost:\nI know them both.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe contents of this is the return of the duke: you\nshall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you\nshall find, within these two days he will be here.\nThis is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this\nvery day receives letters of strange tenor;\nperchance of the duke's death; perchance entering\ninto some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what\nis writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the\nshepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these\nthings should be: all difficulties are but easy\nwhen they are known. Call your executioner, and off\nwith Barnardine's head: I will give him a present\nshrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you\nare amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you.\nCome away; it is almost clear dawn.\n\nPOMPEY:\nI am as well acquainted here as I was in our house\nof profession: one would think it were Mistress\nOverdone's own house, for here be many of her old\ncustomers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in\nfor a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,\nninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made\nfive marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not\nmuch in request, for the old women were all dead.\nThen is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of\nMaster Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of\npeach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a\nbeggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young\nMaster Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master\nStarve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young\nDrop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master\nForthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the\ngreat traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed\nPots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in\nour trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'\n\nABHORSON:\nSirrah, bring Barnardine hither.\n\nPOMPEY:\nMaster Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.\nMaster Barnardine!\n\nABHORSON:\nWhat, ho, Barnardine!\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nPOMPEY:\nYour friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so\ngood, sir, to rise and be put to death.\n\nBARNARDINE:\n\nABHORSON:\nTell him he must awake, and that quickly too.\n\nPOMPEY:\nPray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are\nexecuted, and sleep afterwards.\n\nABHORSON:\nGo in to him, and fetch him out.\n\nPOMPEY:\nHe is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.\n\nABHORSON:\nIs the axe upon the block, sirrah?\n\nPOMPEY:\nVery ready, sir.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nHow now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?\n\nABHORSON:\nTruly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your\nprayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nYou rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not\nfitted for 't.\n\nPOMPEY:\nO, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,\nand is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the\nsounder all the next day.\n\nABHORSON:\nLook you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do\nwe jest now, think you?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily\nyou are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort\nyou and pray with you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nFriar, not I I have been drinking hard all night,\nand I will have more time to prepare me, or they\nshall beat out my brains with billets: I will not\nconsent to die this day, that's certain.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you\nLook forward on the journey you shall go.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nI swear I will not die to-day for any man's\npersuasion.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBut hear you.\n\nBARNARDINE:\nNot a word: if you have any thing to say to me,\ncome to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUnfit to live or die: O gravel heart!\nAfter him, fellows; bring him to the block.\n\nProvost:\nNow, sir, how do you find the prisoner?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA creature unprepared, unmeet for death;\nAnd to transport him in the mind he is\nWere damnable.\n\nProvost:\nHere in the prison, father,\nThere died this morning of a cruel fever\nOne Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,\nA man of Claudio's years; his beard and head\nJust of his colour. What if we do omit\nThis reprobate till he were well inclined;\nAnd satisfy the deputy with the visage\nOf Ragozine, more like to Claudio?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!\nDispatch it presently; the hour draws on\nPrefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,\nAnd sent according to command; whiles I\nPersuade this rude wretch willingly to die.\n\nProvost:\nThis shall be done, good father, presently.\nBut Barnardine must die this afternoon:\nAnd how shall we continue Claudio,\nTo save me from the danger that might come\nIf he were known alive?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nLet this be done.\nPut them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:\nEre twice the sun hath made his journal greeting\nTo the under generation, you shall find\nYour safety manifested.\n\nProvost:\nI am your free dependant.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nQuick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.\nNow will I write letters to Angelo,--\nThe provost, he shall bear them, whose contents\nShall witness to him I am near at home,\nAnd that, by great injunctions, I am bound\nTo enter publicly: him I'll desire\nTo meet me at the consecrated fount\nA league below the city; and from thence,\nBy cold gradation and well-balanced form,\nWe shall proceed with Angelo.\n\nProvost:\nHere is the head; I'll carry it myself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nConvenient is it. Make a swift return;\nFor I would commune with you of such things\nThat want no ear but yours.\n\nProvost:\nI'll make all speed.\n\nISABELLA:\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe tongue of Isabel. She's come to know\nIf yet her brother's pardon be come hither:\nBut I will keep her ignorant of her good,\nTo make her heavenly comforts of despair,\nWhen it is least expected.\n\nISABELLA:\nHo, by your leave!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.\n\nISABELLA:\nThe better, given me by so holy a man.\nHath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe hath released him, Isabel, from the world:\nHis head is off and sent to Angelo.\n\nISABELLA:\nNay, but it is not so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,\nIn your close patience.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou shall not be admitted to his sight.\n\nISABELLA:\nUnhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!\nInjurious world! most damned Angelo!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;\nForbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.\nMark what I say, which you shall find\nBy every syllable a faithful verity:\nThe duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;\nOne of our convent, and his confessor,\nGives me this instance: already he hath carried\nNotice to Escalus and Angelo,\nWho do prepare to meet him at the gates,\nThere to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom\nIn that good path that I would wish it go,\nAnd you shall have your bosom on this wretch,\nGrace of the duke, revenges to your heart,\nAnd general honour.\n\nISABELLA:\nI am directed by you.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis letter, then, to Friar Peter give;\n'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return:\nSay, by this token, I desire his company\nAt Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours\nI'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you\nBefore the duke, and to the head of Angelo\nAccuse him home and home. For my poor self,\nI am combined by a sacred vow\nAnd shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:\nCommand these fretting waters from your eyes\nWith a light heart; trust not my holy order,\nIf I pervert your course. Who's here?\n\nLUCIO:\nGood even. Friar, where's the provost?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNot within, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nO pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see\nthine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain\nto dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for\nmy head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set\nme to 't. But they say the duke will be here\nto-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:\nif the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been\nat home, he had lived.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your\nreports; but the best is, he lives not in them.\n\nLUCIO:\nFriar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:\nhe's a better woodman than thou takest him for.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWell, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.\n\nLUCIO:\nNay, tarry; I'll go along with thee\nI can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou have told me too many of him already, sir, if\nthey be true; if not true, none were enough.\n\nLUCIO:\nI was once before him for getting a wench with child.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nDid you such a thing?\n\nLUCIO:\nYes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;\nthey would else have married me to the rotten medlar.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.\n\nLUCIO:\nBy my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:\nif bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of\nit. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.\n\nESCALUS:\nEvery letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.\n\nANGELO:\nIn most uneven and distracted manner. His actions\nshow much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be\nnot tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and\nredeliver our authorities there\n\nESCALUS:\nI guess not.\n\nANGELO:\nAnd why should we proclaim it in an hour before his\nentering, that if any crave redress of injustice,\nthey should exhibit their petitions in the street?\n\nESCALUS:\nHe shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of\ncomplaints, and to deliver us from devices\nhereafter, which shall then have no power to stand\nagainst us.\n\nANGELO:\nWell, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes\ni' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give\nnotice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet\nhim.\n\nESCALUS:\nI shall, sir. Fare you well.\n\nANGELO:\nGood night.\nThis deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant\nAnd dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!\nAnd by an eminent body that enforced\nThe law against it! But that her tender shame\nWill not proclaim against her maiden loss,\nHow might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;\nFor my authority bears of a credent bulk,\nThat no particular scandal once can touch\nBut it confounds the breather. He should have lived,\nSave that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,\nMight in the times to come have ta'en revenge,\nBy so receiving a dishonour'd life\nWith ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!\nA lack, when once our grace we have forgot,\nNothing goes right: we would, and we would not.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThese letters at fit time deliver me\nThe provost knows our purpose and our plot.\nThe matter being afoot, keep your instruction,\nAnd hold you ever to our special drift;\nThough sometimes you do blench from this to that,\nAs cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house,\nAnd tell him where I stay: give the like notice\nTo Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,\nAnd bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;\nBut send me Flavius first.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nIt shall be speeded well.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:\nCome, we will walk. There's other of our friends\nWill greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.\n\nISABELLA:\nTo speak so indirectly I am loath:\nI would say the truth; but to accuse him so,\nThat is your part: yet I am advised to do it;\nHe says, to veil full purpose.\n\nMARIANA:\nBe ruled by him.\n\nISABELLA:\nBesides, he tells me that, if peradventure\nHe speak against me on the adverse side,\nI should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic\nThat's bitter to sweet end.\n\nMARIANA:\nI would Friar Peter--\n\nISABELLA:\nO, peace! the friar is come.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nCome, I have found you out a stand most fit,\nWhere you may have such vantage on the duke,\nHe shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;\nThe generous and gravest citizens\nHave hent the gates, and very near upon\nThe duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMy very worthy cousin, fairly met!\nOur old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.\n\nANGELO:\nHappy return be to your royal grace!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany and hearty thankings to you both.\nWe have made inquiry of you; and we hear\nSuch goodness of your justice, that our soul\nCannot but yield you forth to public thanks,\nForerunning more requital.\n\nANGELO:\nYou make my bonds still greater.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nO, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,\nTo lock it in the wards of covert bosom,\nWhen it deserves, with characters of brass,\nA forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time\nAnd razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,\nAnd let the subject see, to make them know\nThat outward courtesies would fain proclaim\nFavours that keep within. Come, Escalus,\nYou must walk by us on our other hand;\nAnd good supporters are you.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nNow is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.\n\nISABELLA:\nJustice, O royal duke! Vail your regard\nUpon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!\nO worthy prince, dishonour not your eye\nBy throwing it on any other object\nTill you have heard me in my true complaint\nAnd given me justice, justice, justice, justice!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRelate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.\nHere is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:\nReveal yourself to him.\n\nISABELLA:\nO worthy duke,\nYou bid me seek redemption of the devil:\nHear me yourself; for that which I must speak\nMust either punish me, not being believed,\nOr wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:\nShe hath been a suitor to me for her brother\nCut off by course of justice,--\n\nISABELLA:\nBy course of justice!\n\nANGELO:\nAnd she will speak most bitterly and strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:\nThat Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?\nThat Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?\nThat Angelo is an adulterous thief,\nAn hypocrite, a virgin-violator;\nIs it not strange and strange?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNay, it is ten times strange.\n\nISABELLA:\nIt is not truer he is Angelo\nThan this is all as true as it is strange:\nNay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth\nTo the end of reckoning.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAway with her! Poor soul,\nShe speaks this in the infirmity of sense.\n\nISABELLA:\nO prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest\nThere is another comfort than this world,\nThat thou neglect me not, with that opinion\nThat I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible\nThat which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible\nBut one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,\nMay seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute\nAs Angelo; even so may Angelo,\nIn all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,\nBe an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:\nIf he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,\nHad I more name for badness.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy mine honesty,\nIf she be mad,--as I believe no other,--\nHer madness hath the oddest frame of sense,\nSuch a dependency of thing on thing,\nAs e'er I heard in madness.\n\nISABELLA:\nO gracious duke,\nHarp not on that, nor do not banish reason\nFor inequality; but let your reason serve\nTo make the truth appear where it seems hid,\nAnd hide the false seems true.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMany that are not mad\nHave, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?\n\nISABELLA:\nI am the sister of one Claudio,\nCondemn'd upon the act of fornication\nTo lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:\nI, in probation of a sisterhood,\nWas sent to by my brother; one Lucio\nAs then the messenger,--\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's I, an't like your grace:\nI came to her from Claudio, and desired her\nTo try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo\nFor her poor brother's pardon.\n\nISABELLA:\nThat's he indeed.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou were not bid to speak.\n\nLUCIO:\nNo, my good lord;\nNor wish'd to hold my peace.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI wish you now, then;\nPray you, take note of it: and when you have\nA business for yourself, pray heaven you then\nBe perfect.\n\nLUCIO:\nI warrant your honour.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThe warrants for yourself; take heed to't.\n\nISABELLA:\nThis gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--\n\nLUCIO:\nRight.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt may be right; but you are i' the wrong\nTo speak before your time. Proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nI went\nTo this pernicious caitiff deputy,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThat's somewhat madly spoken.\n\nISABELLA:\nPardon it;\nThe phrase is to the matter.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMended again. The matter; proceed.\n\nISABELLA:\nIn brief, to set the needless process by,\nHow I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,\nHow he refell'd me, and how I replied,--\nFor this was of much length,--the vile conclusion\nI now begin with grief and shame to utter:\nHe would not, but by gift of my chaste body\nTo his concupiscible intemperate lust,\nRelease my brother; and, after much debatement,\nMy sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,\nAnd I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,\nHis purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant\nFor my poor brother's head.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is most likely!\n\nISABELLA:\nO, that it were as like as it is true!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBy heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,\nOr else thou art suborn'd against his honour\nIn hateful practise. First, his integrity\nStands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason\nThat with such vehemency he should pursue\nFaults proper to himself: if he had so offended,\nHe would have weigh'd thy brother by himself\nAnd not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:\nConfess the truth, and say by whose advice\nThou camest here to complain.\n\nISABELLA:\nAnd is this all?\nThen, O you blessed ministers above,\nKeep me in patience, and with ripen'd time\nUnfold the evil which is here wrapt up\nIn countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,\nAs I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!\nTo prison with her! Shall we thus permit\nA blasting and a scandalous breath to fall\nOn him so near us? This needs must be a practise.\nWho knew of Your intent and coming hither?\n\nISABELLA:\nOne that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;\nI do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord\nFor certain words he spake against your grace\nIn your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWords against me? this is a good friar, belike!\nAnd to set on this wretched woman here\nAgainst our substitute! Let this friar be found.\n\nLUCIO:\nBut yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,\nI saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,\nA very scurvy fellow.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nBlessed be your royal grace!\nI have stood by, my lord, and I have heard\nYour royal ear abused. First, hath this woman\nMost wrongfully accused your substitute,\nWho is as free from touch or soil with her\nAs she from one ungot.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWe did believe no less.\nKnow you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nI know him for a man divine and holy;\nNot scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,\nAs he's reported by this gentleman;\nAnd, on my trust, a man that never yet\nDid, as he vouches, misreport your grace.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, most villanously; believe it.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWell, he in time may come to clear himself;\nBut at this instant he is sick my lord,\nOf a strange fever. Upon his mere request,\nBeing come to knowledge that there was complaint\nIntended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,\nTo speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know\nIs true and false; and what he with his oath\nAnd all probation will make up full clear,\nWhensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.\nTo justify this worthy nobleman,\nSo vulgarly and personally accused,\nHer shall you hear disproved to her eyes,\nTill she herself confess it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGood friar, let's hear it.\nDo you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?\nO heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!\nGive us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;\nIn this I'll be impartial; be you judge\nOf your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?\nFirst, let her show her face, and after speak.\n\nMARIANA:\nPardon, my lord; I will not show my face\nUntil my husband bid me.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat, are you married?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAre you a maid?\n\nMARIANA:\nNo, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nA widow, then?\n\nMARIANA:\nNeither, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhy, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are\nneither maid, widow, nor wife.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSilence that fellow: I would he had some cause\nTo prattle for himself.\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;\nAnd I confess besides I am no maid:\nI have known my husband; yet my husband\nKnows not that ever he knew me.\n\nLUCIO:\nHe was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!\n\nLUCIO:\nWell, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThis is no witness for Lord Angelo.\n\nMARIANA:\nNow I come to't my lord\nShe that accuses him of fornication,\nIn self-same manner doth accuse my husband,\nAnd charges him my lord, with such a time\nWhen I'll depose I had him in mine arms\nWith all the effect of love.\n\nANGELO:\nCharges she more than me?\n\nMARIANA:\nNot that I know.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNo? you say your husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nWhy, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,\nWho thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,\nBut knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.\n\nANGELO:\nThis is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.\n\nMARIANA:\nMy husband bids me; now I will unmask.\nThis is that face, thou cruel Angelo,\nWhich once thou sworest was worth the looking on;\nThis is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,\nWas fast belock'd in thine; this is the body\nThat took away the match from Isabel,\nAnd did supply thee at thy garden-house\nIn her imagined person.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nKnow you this woman?\n\nLUCIO:\nCarnally, she says.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSirrah, no more!\n\nLUCIO:\nEnough, my lord.\n\nANGELO:\nMy lord, I must confess I know this woman:\nAnd five years since there was some speech of marriage\nBetwixt myself and her; which was broke off,\nPartly for that her promised proportions\nCame short of composition, but in chief\nFor that her reputation was disvalued\nIn levity: since which time of five years\nI never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,\nUpon my faith and honour.\n\nMARIANA:\nNoble prince,\nAs there comes light from heaven and words from breath,\nAs there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,\nI am affianced this man's wife as strongly\nAs words could make up vows: and, my good lord,\nBut Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house\nHe knew me as a wife. As this is true,\nLet me in safety raise me from my knees\nOr else for ever be confixed here,\nA marble monument!\n\nANGELO:\nI did but smile till now:\nNow, good my lord, give me the scope of justice\nMy patience here is touch'd. I do perceive\nThese poor informal women are no more\nBut instruments of some more mightier member\nThat sets them on: let me have way, my lord,\nTo find this practise out.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAy, with my heart\nAnd punish them to your height of pleasure.\nThou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,\nCompact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,\nThough they would swear down each particular saint,\nWere testimonies against his worth and credit\nThat's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,\nSit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains\nTo find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.\nThere is another friar that set them on;\nLet him be sent for.\n\nFRIAR PETER:\nWould he were here, my lord! for he indeed\nHath set the women on to this complaint:\nYour provost knows the place where he abides\nAnd he may fetch him.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo do it instantly.\nAnd you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,\nWhom it concerns to hear this matter forth,\nDo with your injuries as seems you best,\nIn any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;\nBut stir not you till you have well determined\nUpon these slanderers.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, we'll do it throughly.\nSignior Lucio, did not you say you knew that\nFriar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing\nbut in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most\nvillanous speeches of the duke.\n\nESCALUS:\nWe shall entreat you to abide here till he come and\nenforce them against him: we shall find this friar a\nnotable fellow.\n\nLUCIO:\nAs any in Vienna, on my word.\n\nESCALUS:\nCall that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.\nPray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you\nshall see how I'll handle her.\n\nLUCIO:\nNot better than he, by her own report.\n\nESCALUS:\nSay you?\n\nLUCIO:\nMarry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,\nshe would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,\nshe'll be ashamed.\n\nESCALUS:\nI will go darkly to work with her.\n\nLUCIO:\nThat's the way; for women are light at midnight.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all\nthat you have said.\n\nLUCIO:\nMy lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with\nthe provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nIn very good time: speak not you to him till we\ncall upon you.\n\nLUCIO:\nMum.\n\nESCALUS:\nCome, sir: did you set these women on to slander\nLord Angelo? they have confessed you did.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n'Tis false.\n\nESCALUS:\nHow! know you where you are?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nRespect to your great place! and let the devil\nBe sometime honour'd for his burning throne!\nWhere is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.\n\nESCALUS:\nThe duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:\nLook you speak justly.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBoldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,\nCome you to seek the lamb here of the fox?\nGood night to your redress! Is the duke gone?\nThen is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust,\nThus to retort your manifest appeal,\nAnd put your trial in the villain's mouth\nWhich here you come to accuse.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.\n\nESCALUS:\nWhy, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,\nIs't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women\nTo accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth\nAnd in the witness of his proper ear,\nTo call him villain? and then to glance from him\nTo the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?\nTake him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you\nJoint by joint, but we will know his purpose.\nWhat 'unjust'!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nBe not so hot; the duke\nDare no more stretch this finger of mine than he\nDare rack his own: his subject am I not,\nNor here provincial. My business in this state\nMade me a looker on here in Vienna,\nWhere I have seen corruption boil and bubble\nTill it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults,\nBut faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes\nStand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\nAs much in mock as mark.\n\nESCALUS:\nSlander to the state! Away with him to prison!\n\nANGELO:\nWhat can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?\nIs this the man that you did tell us of?\n\nLUCIO:\n'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:\ndo you know me?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I\nmet you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.\n\nLUCIO:\nO, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nMost notedly, sir.\n\nLUCIO:\nDo you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a\nfool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make\nthat my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and\nmuch more, much worse.\n\nLUCIO:\nO thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the\nnose for thy speeches?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI protest I love the duke as I love myself.\n\nANGELO:\nHark, how the villain would close now, after his\ntreasonable abuses!\n\nESCALUS:\nSuch a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with\nhim to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him\nto prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him\nspeak no more. Away with those giglots too, and\nwith the other confederate companion!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nWhat, resists he? Help him, Lucio.\n\nLUCIO:\nCome, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you\nbald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must\nyou? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!\nshow your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!\nWill't not off?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.\nFirst, provost, let me bail these gentle three.\nSneak not away, sir; for the friar and you\nMust have a word anon. Lay hold on him.\n\nLUCIO:\nThis may prove worse than hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nANGELO:\nO my dread lord,\nI should be guiltier than my guiltiness,\nTo think I can be undiscernible,\nWhen I perceive your grace, like power divine,\nHath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,\nNo longer session hold upon my shame,\nBut let my trial be mine own confession:\nImmediate sentence then and sequent death\nIs all the grace I beg.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Mariana.\nSay, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?\n\nANGELO:\nI was, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nGo take her hence, and marry her instantly.\nDo you the office, friar; which consummate,\nReturn him here again. Go with him, provost.\n\nESCALUS:\nMy lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour\nThan at the strangeness of it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nCome hither, Isabel.\nYour friar is now your prince: as I was then\nAdvertising and holy to your business,\nNot changing heart with habit, I am still\nAttorney'd at your service.\n\nISABELLA:\nO, give me pardon,\nThat I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd\nYour unknown sovereignty!\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou are pardon'd, Isabel:\nAnd now, dear maid, be you as free to us.\nYour brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;\nAnd you may marvel why I obscured myself,\nLabouring to save his life, and would not rather\nMake rash remonstrance of my hidden power\nThan let him so be lost. O most kind maid,\nIt was the swift celerity of his death,\nWhich I did think with slower foot came on,\nThat brain'd my purpose. But, peace be with him!\nThat life is better life, past fearing death,\nThan that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,\nSo happy is your brother.\n\nISABELLA:\nI do, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor this new-married man approaching here,\nWhose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd\nYour well defended honour, you must pardon\nFor Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--\nBeing criminal, in double violation\nOf sacred chastity and of promise-breach\nThereon dependent, for your brother's life,--\nThe very mercy of the law cries out\nMost audible, even from his proper tongue,\n'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'\nHaste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;\nLike doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.\nThen, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;\nWhich, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.\nWe do condemn thee to the very block\nWhere Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.\nAway with him!\n\nMARIANA:\nO my most gracious lord,\nI hope you will not mock me with a husband.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nIt is your husband mock'd you with a husband.\nConsenting to the safeguard of your honour,\nI thought your marriage fit; else imputation,\nFor that he knew you, might reproach your life\nAnd choke your good to come; for his possessions,\nAlthough by confiscation they are ours,\nWe do instate and widow you withal,\nTo buy you a better husband.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my dear lord,\nI crave no other, nor no better man.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nNever crave him; we are definitive.\n\nMARIANA:\nGentle my liege,--\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYou do but lose your labour.\nAway with him to death!\nNow, sir, to you.\n\nMARIANA:\nO my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;\nLend me your knees, and all my life to come\nI'll lend you all my life to do you service.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nAgainst all sense you do importune her:\nShould she kneel down in mercy of this fact,\nHer brother's ghost his paved bed would break,\nAnd take her hence in horror.\n\nMARIANA:\nIsabel,\nSweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;\nHold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.\nThey say, best men are moulded out of faults;\nAnd, for the most, become much more the better\nFor being a little bad: so may my husband.\nO Isabel, will you not lend a knee?\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHe dies for Claudio's death.\n\nISABELLA:\nMost bounteous sir,\nLook, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,\nAs if my brother lived: I partly think\nA due sincerity govern'd his deeds,\nTill he did look on me: since it is so,\nLet him not die. My brother had but justice,\nIn that he did the thing for which he died:\nFor Angelo,\nHis act did not o'ertake his bad intent,\nAnd must be buried but as an intent\nThat perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;\nIntents but merely thoughts.\n\nMARIANA:\nMerely, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nYour suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.\nI have bethought me of another fault.\nProvost, how came it Claudio was beheaded\nAt an unusual hour?\n\nProvost:\nIt was commanded so.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nHad you a special warrant for the deed?\n\nProvost:\nNo, my good lord; it was by private message.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nFor which I do discharge you of your office:\nGive up your keys.\n\nProvost:\nPardon me, noble lord:\nI thought it was a fault, but knew it not;\nYet did repent me, after more advice;\nFor testimony whereof, one in the prison,\nThat should by private order else have died,\nI have reserved alive.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhat's he?\n\nProvost:\nHis name is Barnardine.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nI would thou hadst done so by Claudio.\nGo fetch him hither; let me look upon him.\n\nESCALUS:\nI am sorry, one so learned and so wise\nAs you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,\nShould slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.\nAnd lack of temper'd judgment afterward.\n\nANGELO:\nI am sorry that such sorrow I procure:\nAnd so deep sticks it in my penitent heart\nThat I crave death more willingly than mercy;\n'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhich is that Barnardine?\n\nProvost:\nThis, my lord.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nThere was a friar told me of this man.\nSirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.\nThat apprehends no further than this world,\nAnd squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:\nBut, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;\nAnd pray thee take this mercy to provide\nFor better times to come. Friar, advise him;\nI leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?\n\nProvost:\nThis is another prisoner that I saved.\nWho should have died when Claudio lost his head;\nAs like almost to Claudio as himself.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\n\nLUCIO:\n'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the\ntrick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I\nhad rather it would please you I might be whipt.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nWhipt first, sir, and hanged after.\nProclaim it, provost, round about the city.\nIs any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,\nAs I have heard him swear himself there's one\nWhom he begot with child, let her appear,\nAnd he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,\nLet him be whipt and hang'd.\n\nLUCIO:\nI beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.\nYour highness said even now, I made you a duke:\ngood my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nUpon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.\nThy slanders I forgive; and therewithal\nRemit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;\nAnd see our pleasure herein executed.\n\nLUCIO:\nMarrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,\nwhipping, and hanging.\n\nDUKE VINCENTIO:\nSlandering a prince deserves it.\nShe, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.\nJoy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:\nI have confess'd her and I know her virtue.\nThanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:\nThere's more behind that is more gratulate.\nThanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:\nWe shill employ thee in a worthier place.\nForgive him, Angelo, that brought you home\nThe head of Ragozine for Claudio's:\nThe offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,\nI have a motion much imports your good;\nWhereto if you'll a willing ear incline,\nWhat's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.\nSo, bring us to our palace; where we'll show\nWhat's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.\n\nSLY:\nI'll pheeze you, in faith.\n\nHostess:\nA pair of stocks, you rogue!\n\nSLY:\nYe are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in\nthe chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror.\nTherefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa!\n\nHostess:\nYou will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n\nSLY:\nNo, not a denier. Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold\nbed, and warm thee.\n\nHostess:\nI know my remedy; I must go fetch the\nthird--borough.\n\nSLY:\nThird, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him\nby law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,\nand kindly.\n\nLord:\nHuntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:\nBrach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;\nAnd couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.\nSaw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\nAt the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?\nI would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nWhy, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\nHe cried upon it at the merest loss\nAnd twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:\nTrust me, I take him for the better dog.\n\nLord:\nThou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,\nI would esteem him worth a dozen such.\nBut sup them well and look unto them all:\nTo-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nI will, my lord.\n\nLord:\nWhat's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nHe breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,\nThis were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n\nLord:\nO monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!\nGrim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\nSirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\nWhat think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\nWrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\nA most delicious banquet by his bed,\nAnd brave attendants near him when he wakes,\nWould not the beggar then forget himself?\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nBelieve me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n\nSecond Huntsman:\nIt would seem strange unto him when he waked.\n\nLord:\nEven as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.\nThen take him up and manage well the jest:\nCarry him gently to my fairest chamber\nAnd hang it round with all my wanton pictures:\nBalm his foul head in warm distilled waters\nAnd burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:\nProcure me music ready when he wakes,\nTo make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\nAnd if he chance to speak, be ready straight\nAnd with a low submissive reverence\nSay 'What is it your honour will command?'\nLet one attend him with a silver basin\nFull of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers,\nAnother bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\nAnd say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\nSome one be ready with a costly suit\nAnd ask him what apparel he will wear;\nAnother tell him of his hounds and horse,\nAnd that his lady mourns at his disease:\nPersuade him that he hath been lunatic;\nAnd when he says he is, say that he dreams,\nFor he is nothing but a mighty lord.\nThis do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:\nIt will be pastime passing excellent,\nIf it be husbanded with modesty.\n\nFirst Huntsman:\nMy lord, I warrant you we will play our part,\nAs he shall think by our true diligence\nHe is no less than what we say he is.\n\nLord:\nTake him up gently and to bed with him;\nAnd each one to his office when he wakes.\nSirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:\nBelike, some noble gentleman that means,\nTravelling some journey, to repose him here.\nHow now! who is it?\n\nServant:\nAn't please your honour, players\nThat offer service to your lordship.\n\nLord:\nBid them come near.\nNow, fellows, you are welcome.\n\nPlayers:\nWe thank your honour.\n\nLord:\nDo you intend to stay with me tonight?\n\nA Player:\nSo please your lordship to accept our duty.\n\nLord:\nWith all my heart. This fellow I remember,\nSince once he play'd a farmer's eldest son:\n'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well:\nI have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\nWas aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n\nA Player:\nI think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n\nLord:\n'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.\nWell, you are come to me in a happy time;\nThe rather for I have some sport in hand\nWherein your cunning can assist me much.\nThere is a lord will hear you play to-night:\nBut I am doubtful of your modesties;\nLest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,--\nFor yet his honour never heard a play--\nYou break into some merry passion\nAnd so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\nIf you should smile he grows impatient.\n\nA Player:\nFear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,\nWere he the veriest antic in the world.\n\nLord:\nGo, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\nAnd give them friendly welcome every one:\nLet them want nothing that my house affords.\nSirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,\nAnd see him dress'd in all suits like a lady:\nThat done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;\nAnd call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\nTell him from me, as he will win my love,\nHe bear himself with honourable action,\nSuch as he hath observed in noble ladies\nUnto their lords, by them accomplished:\nSuch duty to the drunkard let him do\nWith soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\nAnd say 'What is't your honour will command,\nWherein your lady and your humble wife\nMay show her duty and make known her love?'\nAnd then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\nAnd with declining head into his bosom,\nBid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd\nTo see her noble lord restored to health,\nWho for this seven years hath esteem'd him\nNo better than a poor and loathsome beggar:\nAnd if the boy have not a woman's gift\nTo rain a shower of commanded tears,\nAn onion will do well for such a shift,\nWhich in a napkin being close convey'd\nShall in despite enforce a watery eye.\nSee this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst:\nAnon I'll give thee more instructions.\nI know the boy will well usurp the grace,\nVoice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:\nI long to hear him call the drunkard husband,\nAnd how my men will stay themselves from laughter\nWhen they do homage to this simple peasant.\nI'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\nMay well abate the over-merry spleen\nWhich otherwise would grow into extremes.\n\nSLY:\nFor God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n\nFirst Servant:\nWill't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your honour taste of these conserves?\n\nThird Servant:\nWhat raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n\nSLY:\nI am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor\n'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if\nyou give me any conserves, give me conserves of\nbeef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I\nhave no more doublets than backs, no more stockings\nthan legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,\nsometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my\ntoes look through the over-leather.\n\nLord:\nHeaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\nO, that a mighty man of such descent,\nOf such possessions and so high esteem,\nShould be infused with so foul a spirit!\n\nSLY:\nWhat, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher\nSly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a\npedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a\nbear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker?\nAsk Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if\nshe know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence\non the score for sheer ale, score me up for the\nlyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not\nbestraught: here's--\n\nThird Servant:\nO, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n\nSecond Servant:\nO, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n\nLord:\nHence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\nAs beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\nO noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,\nCall home thy ancient thoughts from banishment\nAnd banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\nLook how thy servants do attend on thee,\nEach in his office ready at thy beck.\nWilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,\nAnd twenty caged nightingales do sing:\nOr wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch\nSofter and sweeter than the lustful bed\nOn purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\nSay thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:\nOr wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,\nTheir harness studded all with gold and pearl.\nDost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar\nAbove the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?\nThy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\nAnd fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.\n\nFirst Servant:\nSay thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift\nAs breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.\n\nSecond Servant:\nDost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight\nAdonis painted by a running brook,\nAnd Cytherea all in sedges hid,\nWhich seem to move and wanton with her breath,\nEven as the waving sedges play with wind.\n\nLord:\nWe'll show thee Io as she was a maid,\nAnd how she was beguiled and surprised,\nAs lively painted as the deed was done.\n\nThird Servant:\nOr Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\nScratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,\nAnd at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\nSo workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n\nLord:\nThou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:\nThou hast a lady far more beautiful\nThan any woman in this waning age.\n\nFirst Servant:\nAnd till the tears that she hath shed for thee\nLike envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\nShe was the fairest creature in the world;\nAnd yet she is inferior to none.\n\nSLY:\nAm I a lord? and have I such a lady?\nOr do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?\nI do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\nI smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:\nUpon my life, I am a lord indeed\nAnd not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.\nWell, bring our lady hither to our sight;\nAnd once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.\n\nSecond Servant:\nWill't please your mightiness to wash your hands?\nO, how we joy to see your wit restored!\nO, that once more you knew but what you are!\nThese fifteen years you have been in a dream;\nOr when you waked, so waked as if you slept.\n\nSLY:\nThese fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\nBut did I never speak of all that time?\n\nFirst Servant:\nO, yes, my lord, but very idle words:\nFor though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\nYet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\nAnd rail upon the hostess of the house;\nAnd say you would present her at the leet,\nBecause she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts:\nSometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n\nSLY:\nAy, the woman's maid of the house.\n\nThird Servant:\nWhy, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\nNor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\nAs Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece\nAnd Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell\nAnd twenty more such names and men as these\nWhich never were nor no man ever saw.\n\nSLY:\nNow Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n\nALL:\nAmen.\n\nSLY:\nI thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.\n\nPage:\nHow fares my noble lord?\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.\nWhere is my wife?\n\nPage:\nHere, noble lord: what is thy will with her?\n\nSLY:\nAre you my wife and will not call me husband?\nMy men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman.\n\nPage:\nMy husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\nI am your wife in all obedience.\n\nSLY:\nI know it well. What must I call her?\n\nLord:\nMadam.\n\nSLY:\nAl'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n\nLord:\n'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords\ncall ladies.\n\nSLY:\nMadam wife, they say that I have dream'd\nAnd slept above some fifteen year or more.\n\nPage:\nAy, and the time seems thirty unto me,\nBeing all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\nMadam, undress you and come now to bed.\n\nPage:\nThrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\nTo pardon me yet for a night or two,\nOr, if not so, until the sun be set:\nFor your physicians have expressly charged,\nIn peril to incur your former malady,\nThat I should yet absent me from your bed:\nI hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n\nSLY:\nAy, it stands so that I may hardly\ntarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into\nmy dreams again: I will therefore tarry in\ndespite of the flesh and the blood.\n\nMessenger:\nYour honour's players, heating your amendment,\nAre come to play a pleasant comedy;\nFor so your doctors hold it very meet,\nSeeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\nAnd melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:\nTherefore they thought it good you hear a play\nAnd frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\nWhich bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n\nSLY:\nMarry, I will, let them play it. Is not a\ncomondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n\nPage:\nNo, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.\n\nSLY:\nWhat, household stuff?\n\nPage:\nIt is a kind of history.\n\nSLY:\nWell, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side\nand let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, since for the great desire I had\nTo see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\nI am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,\nThe pleasant garden of great Italy;\nAnd by my father's love and leave am arm'd\nWith his good will and thy good company,\nMy trusty servant, well approved in all,\nHere let us breathe and haply institute\nA course of learning and ingenious studies.\nPisa renown'd for grave citizens\nGave me my being and my father first,\nA merchant of great traffic through the world,\nVincetino come of Bentivolii.\nVincetino's son brought up in Florence\nIt shall become to serve all hopes conceived,\nTo deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:\nAnd therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\nVirtue and that part of philosophy\nWill I apply that treats of happiness\nBy virtue specially to be achieved.\nTell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\nAnd am to Padua come, as he that leaves\nA shallow plash to plunge him in the deep\nAnd with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n\nTRANIO:\nMi perdonato, gentle master mine,\nI am in all affected as yourself;\nGlad that you thus continue your resolve\nTo suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\nOnly, good master, while we do admire\nThis virtue and this moral discipline,\nLet's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;\nOr so devote to Aristotle's cheques\nAs Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:\nBalk logic with acquaintance that you have\nAnd practise rhetoric in your common talk;\nMusic and poesy use to quicken you;\nThe mathematics and the metaphysics,\nFall to them as you find your stomach serves you;\nNo profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:\nIn brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\nIf, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\nWe could at once put us in readiness,\nAnd take a lodging fit to entertain\nSuch friends as time in Padua shall beget.\nBut stay a while: what company is this?\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, some show to welcome us to town.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, importune me no farther,\nFor how I firmly am resolved you know;\nThat is, not bestow my youngest daughter\nBefore I have a husband for the elder:\nIf either of you both love Katharina,\nBecause I know you well and love you well,\nLeave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n\nGREMIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, sir, is it your will\nTo make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,\nUnless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:\nI wis it is not half way to her heart;\nBut if it were, doubt not her care should be\nTo comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool\nAnd paint your face and use you like a fool.\n\nHORTENSIA:\nFrom all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd me too, good Lord!\n\nTRANIO:\nHush, master! here's some good pastime toward:\nThat wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut in the other's silence do I see\nMaid's mild behavior and sobriety.\nPeace, Tranio!\n\nTRANIO:\nWell said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, that I may soon make good\nWhat I have said, Bianca, get you in:\nAnd let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\nFor I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA pretty peat! it is best\nPut finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n\nBIANCA:\nSister, content you in my discontent.\nSir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:\nMy books and instruments shall be my company,\nOn them to took and practise by myself.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Baptista, will you be so strange?\nSorry am I that our good will effects\nBianca's grief.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy will you mew her up,\nSignior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\nAnd make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGentlemen, content ye; I am resolved:\nGo in, Bianca:\nAnd for I know she taketh most delight\nIn music, instruments and poetry,\nSchoolmasters will I keep within my house,\nFit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\nOr Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\nPrefer them hither; for to cunning men\nI will be very kind, and liberal\nTo mine own children in good bringing up:\nAnd so farewell. Katharina, you may stay;\nFor I have more to commune with Bianca.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,\nshall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I\nknew not what to take and what to leave, ha?\n\nGREMIO:\nYou may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so\ngood, here's none will hold you. Their love is not\nso great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails\ntogether, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on\nboth sides. Farewell: yet for the love I bear my\nsweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit\nman to teach her that wherein she delights, I will\nwish him to her father.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSo will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.\nThough the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked\nparle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,\nthat we may yet again have access to our fair\nmistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to\nlabour and effect one thing specially.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat's that, I pray?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMarry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n\nGREMIO:\nA husband! a devil.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI say, a husband.\n\nGREMIO:\nI say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though\nher father be very rich, any man is so very a fool\nto be married to hell?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine\nto endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good\nfellows in the world, an a man could light on them,\nwould take her with all faults, and money enough.\n\nGREMIO:\nI cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with\nthis condition, to be whipped at the high cross\nevery morning.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFaith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\napples. But come; since this bar in law makes us\nfriends, it shall be so far forth friendly\nmaintained all by helping Baptista's eldest daughter\nto a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,\nand then have to't a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man\nbe his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.\nHow say you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nI am agreed; and would I had given him the best\nhorse in Padua to begin his wooing that would\nthoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the\nhouse of her! Come on.\n\nTRANIO:\nI pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\nThat love should of a sudden take such hold?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO Tranio, till I found it to be true,\nI never thought it possible or likely;\nBut see, while idly I stood looking on,\nI found the effect of love in idleness:\nAnd now in plainness do confess to thee,\nThat art to me as secret and as dear\nAs Anna to the queen of Carthage was,\nTranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\nIf I achieve not this young modest girl.\nCounsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\nAssist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, it is no time to chide you now;\nAffection is not rated from the heart:\nIf love have touch'd you, nought remains but so,\n'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n\nLUCENTIO:\nGramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:\nThe rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, you look'd so longly on the maid,\nPerhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nO yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\nSuch as the daughter of Agenor had,\nThat made great Jove to humble him to her hand.\nWhen with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n\nTRANIO:\nSaw you no more? mark'd you not how her sister\nBegan to scold and raise up such a storm\nThat mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, I saw her coral lips to move\nAnd with her breath she did perfume the air:\nSacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n\nTRANIO:\nNay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\nI pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,\nBend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\nHer eldest sister is so curst and shrewd\nThat till the father rid his hands of her,\nMaster, your love must live a maid at home;\nAnd therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\nBecause she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAh, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\nBut art thou not advised, he took some care\nTo get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI have it, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nMaster, for my hand,\nBoth our inventions meet and jump in one.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTell me thine first.\n\nTRANIO:\nYou will be schoolmaster\nAnd undertake the teaching of the maid:\nThat's your device.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nIt is: may it be done?\n\nTRANIO:\nNot possible; for who shall bear your part,\nAnd be in Padua here Vincentio's son,\nKeep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\nVisit his countrymen and banquet them?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBasta; content thee, for I have it full.\nWe have not yet been seen in any house,\nNor can we lie distinguish'd by our faces\nFor man or master; then it follows thus;\nThou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\nKeep house and port and servants as I should:\nI will some other be, some Florentine,\nSome Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n'Tis hatch'd and shall be so: Tranio, at once\nUncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak:\nWhen Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\nBut I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n\nTRANIO:\nSo had you need.\nIn brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\nAnd I am tied to be obedient;\nFor so your father charged me at our parting,\n'Be serviceable to my son,' quoth he,\nAlthough I think 'twas in another sense;\nI am content to be Lucentio,\nBecause so well I love Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, be so, because Lucentio loves:\nAnd let me be a slave, to achieve that maid\nWhose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\nHere comes the rogue.\nSirrah, where have you been?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhere have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\nMaster, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or\nyou stolen his? or both? pray, what's the news?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest,\nAnd therefore frame your manners to the time.\nYour fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\nPuts my apparel and my countenance on,\nAnd I for my escape have put on his;\nFor in a quarrel since I came ashore\nI kill'd a man and fear I was descried:\nWait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\nWhile I make way from hence to save my life:\nYou understand me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI, sir! ne'er a whit.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\nTranio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe better for him: would I were so too!\n\nTRANIO:\nSo could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\nThat Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\nBut, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise\nYou use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:\nWhen I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\nBut in all places else your master Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTranio, let's go: one thing more rests, that\nthyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if\nthou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good\nand weighty.\n\nFirst Servant:\nMy lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n\nSLY:\nYes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely:\ncomes there any more of it?\n\nPage:\nMy lord, 'tis but begun.\n\nSLY:\n'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady:\nwould 'twere done!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVerona, for a while I take my leave,\nTo see my friends in Padua, but of all\nMy best beloved and approved friend,\nHortensio; and I trow this is his house.\nHere, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has\nrebused your worship?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that\nI should knock you here, sir?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVillain, I say, knock me at this gate\nAnd rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n\nGRUMIO:\nMy master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock\nyou first,\nAnd then I know after who comes by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill it not be?\nFaith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it;\nI'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHelp, masters, help! my master is mad.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHow now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio!\nand my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n'Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato,' may I say.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor\nmio Petruchio.' Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound\nthis quarrel.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin.\nif this be not a lawful case for me to leave his\nservice, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap\nhim soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to\nuse his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,\ntwo and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had\nwell knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\nI bade the rascal knock upon your gate\nAnd could not get him for my heart to do it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKnock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these\nwords plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,\nknock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you\nnow with, 'knocking at the gate'?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge:\nWhy, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\nYour ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\nAnd tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\nBlows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSuch wind as scatters young men through the world,\nTo seek their fortunes farther than at home\nWhere small experience grows. But in a few,\nSignior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\nAntonio, my father, is deceased;\nAnd I have thrust myself into this maze,\nHaply to wive and thrive as best I may:\nCrowns in my purse I have and goods at home,\nAnd so am come abroad to see the world.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\nAnd wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\nThou'ldst thank me but a little for my counsel:\nAnd yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich\nAnd very rich: but thou'rt too much my friend,\nAnd I'll not wish thee to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\nFew words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\nOne rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\nAs wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\nBe she as foul as was Florentius' love,\nAs old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd\nAs Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,\nShe moves me not, or not removes, at least,\nAffection's edge in me, were she as rough\nAs are the swelling Adriatic seas:\nI come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\nIf wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his\nmind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to\na puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er\na tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases\nas two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss,\nso money comes withal.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\nI will continue that I broach'd in jest.\nI can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\nWith wealth enough and young and beauteous,\nBrought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:\nHer only fault, and that is faults enough,\nIs that she is intolerable curst\nAnd shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure\nThat, were my state far worser than it is,\nI would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect:\nTell me her father's name and 'tis enough;\nFor I will board her, though she chide as loud\nAs thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nHer father is Baptista Minola,\nAn affable and courteous gentleman:\nHer name is Katharina Minola,\nRenown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know her father, though I know not her;\nAnd he knew my deceased father well.\nI will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\nAnd therefore let me be thus bold with you\nTo give you over at this first encounter,\nUnless you will accompany me thither.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts.\nO' my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she\nwould think scolding would do little good upon him:\nshe may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so:\nwhy, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in\nhis rope-tricks. I'll tell you what sir, an she\nstand him but a little, he will throw a figure in\nher face and so disfigure her with it that she\nshall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.\nYou know him not, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\nFor in Baptista's keep my treasure is:\nHe hath the jewel of my life in hold,\nHis youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca,\nAnd her withholds from me and other more,\nSuitors to her and rivals in my love,\nSupposing it a thing impossible,\nFor those defects I have before rehearsed,\nThat ever Katharina will be woo'd;\nTherefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\nThat none shall have access unto Bianca\nTill Katharina the curst have got a husband.\n\nGRUMIO:\nKatharina the curst!\nA title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\nAnd offer me disguised in sober robes\nTo old Baptista as a schoolmaster\nWell seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\nThat so I may, by this device, at least\nHave leave and leisure to make love to her\nAnd unsuspected court her by herself.\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks,\nhow the young folks lay their heads together!\nMaster, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPeace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love.\nPetruchio, stand by a while.\n\nGRUMIO:\nA proper stripling and an amorous!\n\nGREMIO:\nO, very well; I have perused the note.\nHark you, sir: I'll have them very fairly bound:\nAll books of love, see that at any hand;\nAnd see you read no other lectures to her:\nYou understand me: over and beside\nSignior Baptista's liberality,\nI'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\nAnd let me have them very well perfumed\nFor she is sweeter than perfume itself\nTo whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\nAs for my patron, stand you so assured,\nAs firmly as yourself were still in place:\nYea, and perhaps with more successful words\nThan you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n\nGREMIO:\nO this learning, what a thing it is!\n\nGRUMIO:\nO this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPeace, sirrah!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGrumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\nTrow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\nI promised to inquire carefully\nAbout a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:\nAnd by good fortune I have lighted well\nOn this young man, for learning and behavior\nFit for her turn, well read in poetry\nAnd other books, good ones, I warrant ye.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\nHath promised me to help me to another,\nA fine musician to instruct our mistress;\nSo shall I no whit be behind in duty\nTo fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n\nGREMIO:\nBeloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd that his bags shall prove.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love:\nListen to me, and if you speak me fair,\nI'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\nHere is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\nUpon agreement from us to his liking,\nWill undertake to woo curst Katharina,\nYea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n\nGREMIO:\nSo said, so done, is well.\nHortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI know she is an irksome brawling scold:\nIf that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBorn in Verona, old Antonio's son:\nMy father dead, my fortune lives for me;\nAnd I do hope good days and long to see.\n\nGREMIO:\nO sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!\nBut if you have a stomach, to't i' God's name:\nYou shall have me assisting you in all.\nBut will you woo this wild-cat?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWill I live?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWill he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy came I hither but to that intent?\nThink you a little din can daunt mine ears?\nHave I not in my time heard lions roar?\nHave I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds\nRage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\nHave I not heard great ordnance in the field,\nAnd heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\nHave I not in a pitched battle heard\nLoud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\nAnd do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\nThat gives not half so great a blow to hear\nAs will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?\nTush, tush! fear boys with bugs.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFor he fears none.\n\nGREMIO:\nHortensio, hark:\nThis gentleman is happily arrived,\nMy mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI promised we would be contributors\nAnd bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd so we will, provided that he win her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\nTRANIO:\nGentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,\nTell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\nTo the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe that has the two fair daughters: is't he you mean?\n\nTRANIO:\nEven he, Biondello.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark you, sir; you mean not her to--\n\nTRANIO:\nPerhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n\nTRANIO:\nI love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell begun, Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, a word ere you go;\nAre you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n\nGREMIO:\nNo; if without more words you will get you hence.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\nFor me as for you?\n\nGREMIO:\nBut so is not she.\n\nTRANIO:\nFor what reason, I beseech you?\n\nGREMIO:\nFor this reason, if you'll know,\nThat she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSoftly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,\nDo me this right; hear me with patience.\nBaptista is a noble gentleman,\nTo whom my father is not all unknown;\nAnd were his daughter fairer than she is,\nShe may more suitors have and me for one.\nFair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\nThen well one more may fair Bianca have:\nAnd so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,\nThough Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhat! this gentleman will out-talk us all.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHortensio, to what end are all these words?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, let me be so bold as ask you,\nDid you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n\nTRANIO:\nNo, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,\nThe one as famous for a scolding tongue\nAs is the other for beauteous modesty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n\nGREMIO:\nYea, leave that labour to great Hercules;\nAnd let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, understand you this of me in sooth:\nThe youngest daughter whom you hearken for\nHer father keeps from all access of suitors,\nAnd will not promise her to any man\nUntil the elder sister first be wed:\nThe younger then is free and not before.\n\nTRANIO:\nIf it be so, sir, that you are the man\nMust stead us all and me amongst the rest,\nAnd if you break the ice and do this feat,\nAchieve the elder, set the younger free\nFor our access, whose hap shall be to have her\nWill not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, you say well and well you do conceive;\nAnd since you do profess to be a suitor,\nYou must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\nTo whom we all rest generally beholding.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof,\nPlease ye we may contrive this afternoon,\nAnd quaff carouses to our mistress' health,\nAnd do as adversaries do in law,\nStrive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n\nGRUMIO:\nO excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe motion's good indeed and be it so,\nPetruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.\n\nBIANCA:\nGood sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\nTo make a bondmaid and a slave of me;\nThat I disdain: but for these other gawds,\nUnbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\nYea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\nOr what you will command me will I do,\nSo well I know my duty to my elders.\n\nKATHARINA:\nOf all thy suitors, here I charge thee, tell\nWhom thou lovest best: see thou dissemble not.\n\nBIANCA:\nBelieve me, sister, of all the men alive\nI never yet beheld that special face\nWhich I could fancy more than any other.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMinion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n\nBIANCA:\nIf you affect him, sister, here I swear\nI'll plead for you myself, but you shall have\nhim.\n\nKATHARINA:\nO then, belike, you fancy riches more:\nYou will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n\nBIANCA:\nIs it for him you do envy me so?\nNay then you jest, and now I well perceive\nYou have but jested with me all this while:\nI prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf that be jest, then all the rest was so.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?\nBianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.\nGo ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\nFor shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,\nWhy dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\nWhen did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n\nKATHARINA:\nHer silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\nShe is your treasure, she must have a husband;\nI must dance bare-foot on her wedding day\nAnd for your love to her lead apes in hell.\nTalk not to me: I will go sit and weep\nTill I can find occasion of revenge.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWas ever gentleman thus grieved as I?\nBut who comes here?\n\nGREMIO:\nGood morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGood morrow, neighbour Gremio.\nGod save you, gentlemen!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\nCall'd Katharina, fair and virtuous?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.\n\nGREMIO:\nYou are too blunt: go to it orderly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.\nI am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\nThat, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\nHer affability and bashful modesty,\nHer wondrous qualities and mild behavior,\nAm bold to show myself a forward guest\nWithin your house, to make mine eye the witness\nOf that report which I so oft have heard.\nAnd, for an entrance to my entertainment,\nI do present you with a man of mine,\nCunning in music and the mathematics,\nTo instruct her fully in those sciences,\nWhereof I know she is not ignorant:\nAccept of him, or else you do me wrong:\nHis name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou're welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.\nBut for my daughter Katharina, this I know,\nShe is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI see you do not mean to part with her,\nOr else you like not of my company.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nMistake me not; I speak but as I find.\nWhence are you, sir? what may I call your name?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPetruchio is my name; Antonio's son,\nA man well known throughout all Italy.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know him well: you are welcome for his sake.\n\nGREMIO:\nSaving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\nLet us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:\nBaccare! you are marvellous forward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.\n\nGREMIO:\nI doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your\nwooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am\nsure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,\nthat have been more kindly beholding to you than\nany, freely give unto you this young scholar,\nthat hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning\nin Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other\nin music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,\naccept his service.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.\nWelcome, good Cambio.\nBut, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:\nmay I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n\nTRANIO:\nPardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,\nThat, being a stranger in this city here,\nDo make myself a suitor to your daughter,\nUnto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\nNor is your firm resolve unknown to me,\nIn the preferment of the eldest sister.\nThis liberty is all that I request,\nThat, upon knowledge of my parentage,\nI may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo\nAnd free access and favour as the rest:\nAnd, toward the education of your daughters,\nI here bestow a simple instrument,\nAnd this small packet of Greek and Latin books:\nIf you accept them, then their worth is great.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nLucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nA mighty man of Pisa; by report\nI know him well: you are very welcome, sir,\nTake you the lute, and you the set of books;\nYou shall go see your pupils presently.\nHolla, within!\nSirrah, lead these gentlemen\nTo my daughters; and tell them both,\nThese are their tutors: bid them use them well.\nWe will go walk a little in the orchard,\nAnd then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\nAnd so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSignior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\nAnd every day I cannot come to woo.\nYou knew my father well, and in him me,\nLeft solely heir to all his lands and goods,\nWhich I have better'd rather than decreased:\nThen tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\nWhat dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAfter my death the one half of my lands,\nAnd in possession twenty thousand crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd, for that dowry, I'll assure her of\nHer widowhood, be it that she survive me,\nIn all my lands and leases whatsoever:\nLet specialties be therefore drawn between us,\nThat covenants may be kept on either hand.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\nThat is, her love; for that is all in all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,\nI am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\nAnd where two raging fires meet together\nThey do consume the thing that feeds their fury:\nThough little fire grows great with little wind,\nYet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:\nSo I to her and so she yields to me;\nFor I am rough and woo not like a babe.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!\nBut be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,\nThat shake not, though they blow perpetually.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI think she'll sooner prove a soldier\nIron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWhy, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\nI did but tell her she mistook her frets,\nAnd bow'd her hand to teach her fingering;\nWhen, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n'Frets, call you these?' quoth she; 'I'll fume\nwith them:'\nAnd, with that word, she struck me on the head,\nAnd through the instrument my pate made way;\nAnd there I stood amazed for a while,\nAs on a pillory, looking through the lute;\nWhile she did call me rascal fiddler\nAnd twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,\nAs had she studied to misuse me so.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\nI love her ten times more than e'er I did:\nO, how I long to have some chat with her!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, go with me and be not so discomfited:\nProceed in practise with my younger daughter;\nShe's apt to learn and thankful for good turns.\nSignior Petruchio, will you go with us,\nOr shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI pray you do.\nI will attend her here,\nAnd woo her with some spirit when she comes.\nSay that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain\nShe sings as sweetly as a nightingale:\nSay that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear\nAs morning roses newly wash'd with dew:\nSay she be mute and will not speak a word;\nThen I'll commend her volubility,\nAnd say she uttereth piercing eloquence:\nIf she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\nAs though she bid me stay by her a week:\nIf she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\nWhen I shall ask the banns and when be married.\nBut here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.\nGood morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\nThey call me Katharina that do talk of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,\nAnd bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;\nBut Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom\nKate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\nFor dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\nTake this of me, Kate of my consolation;\nHearing thy mildness praised in every town,\nThy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\nYet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\nMyself am moved to woo thee for my wife.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMoved! in good time: let him that moved you hither\nRemove you hence: I knew you at the first\nYou were a moveable.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, what's a moveable?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA join'd-stool.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThou hast hit it: come, sit on me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAsses are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWomen are made to bear, and so are you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo such jade as you, if me you mean.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAlas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;\nFor, knowing thee to be but young and light--\n\nKATHARINA:\nToo light for such a swain as you to catch;\nAnd yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShould be! should--buzz!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIf I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMy remedy is then, to pluck it out.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAy, if the fool could find it where it lies,\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho knows not where a wasp does\nwear his sting? In his tail.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIn his tongue.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhose tongue?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,\nGood Kate; I am a gentleman.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThat I'll try.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n\nKATHARINA:\nSo may you lose your arms:\nIf you strike me, you are no gentleman;\nAnd if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your crest? a coxcomb?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nIt is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThere is, there is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThen show it me.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHad I a glass, I would.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, you mean my face?\n\nKATHARINA:\nWell aim'd of such a young one.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYet you are wither'd.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis with cares.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI care not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNo, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.\n'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,\nAnd now I find report a very liar;\nFor thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\nBut slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:\nThou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\nNor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\nNor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,\nBut thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,\nWith gentle conference, soft and affable.\nWhy does the world report that Kate doth limp?\nO slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\nIs straight and slender and as brown in hue\nAs hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.\nO, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDid ever Dian so become a grove\nAs Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\nO, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\nAnd then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhere did you study all this goodly speech?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt is extempore, from my mother-wit.\n\nKATHARINA:\nA witty mother! witless else her son.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAm I not wise?\n\nKATHARINA:\nYes; keep you warm.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:\nAnd therefore, setting all this chat aside,\nThus in plain terms: your father hath consented\nThat you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;\nAnd, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.\nNow, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\nFor, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\nThy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,\nThou must be married to no man but me;\nFor I am he am born to tame you Kate,\nAnd bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\nConformable as other household Kates.\nHere comes your father: never make denial;\nI must and will have Katharina to my wife.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow but well, sir? how but well?\nIt were impossible I should speed amiss.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?\n\nKATHARINA:\nCall you me daughter? now, I promise you\nYou have show'd a tender fatherly regard,\nTo wish me wed to one half lunatic;\nA mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,\nThat thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world,\nThat talk'd of her, have talk'd amiss of her:\nIf she be curst, it is for policy,\nFor she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\nShe is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\nFor patience she will prove a second Grissel,\nAnd Roman Lucrece for her chastity:\nAnd to conclude, we have 'greed so well together,\nThat upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n\nGREMIO:\nHark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee\nhang'd first.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nBe patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself:\nIf she and I be pleased, what's that to you?\n'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\nThat she shall still be curst in company.\nI tell you, 'tis incredible to believe\nHow much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!\nShe hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss\nShe vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\nThat in a twink she won me to her love.\nO, you are novices! 'tis a world to see,\nHow tame, when men and women are alone,\nA meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\nGive me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,\nTo buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\nProvide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\nI will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI know not what to say: but give me your hands;\nGod send you joy, Petruchio! 'tis a match.\n\nGREMIO:\nAmen, say we: we will be witnesses.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFather, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;\nI will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:\nWe will have rings and things and fine array;\nAnd kiss me, Kate, we will be married o'Sunday.\n\nGREMIO:\nWas ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nFaith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\nAnd venture madly on a desperate mart.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you:\n'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nThe gain I seek is, quiet in the match.\n\nGREMIO:\nNo doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\nBut now, Baptists, to your younger daughter:\nNow is the day we long have looked for:\nI am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd I am one that love Bianca more\nThan words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.\n\nGREMIO:\nYoungling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n\nTRANIO:\nGraybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n\nGREMIO:\nBut thine doth fry.\nSkipper, stand back: 'tis age that nourisheth.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nContent you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife:\n'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both\nThat can assure my daughter greatest dower\nShall have my Bianca's love.\nSay, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?\n\nGREMIO:\nFirst, as you know, my house within the city\nIs richly furnished with plate and gold;\nBasins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\nMy hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\nIn ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\nIn cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\nCostly apparel, tents, and canopies,\nFine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\nValance of Venice gold in needlework,\nPewter and brass and all things that belong\nTo house or housekeeping: then, at my farm\nI have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\nSixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,\nAnd all things answerable to this portion.\nMyself am struck in years, I must confess;\nAnd if I die to-morrow, this is hers,\nIf whilst I live she will be only mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\nI am my father's heir and only son:\nIf I may have your daughter to my wife,\nI'll leave her houses three or four as good,\nWithin rich Pisa walls, as any one\nOld Signior Gremio has in Padua;\nBesides two thousand ducats by the year\nOf fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\nWhat, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n\nGREMIO:\nTwo thousand ducats by the year of land!\nMy land amounts not to so much in all:\nThat she shall have; besides an argosy\nThat now is lying in Marseilles' road.\nWhat, have I choked you with an argosy?\n\nTRANIO:\nGremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\nThan three great argosies; besides two galliases,\nAnd twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her,\nAnd twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I have offer'd all, I have no more;\nAnd she can have no more than all I have:\nIf you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, then the maid is mine from all the world,\nBy your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI must confess your offer is the best;\nAnd, let your father make her the assurance,\nShe is your own; else, you must pardon me,\nif you should die before him, where's her dower?\n\nTRANIO:\nThat's but a cavil: he is old, I young.\n\nGREMIO:\nAnd may not young men die, as well as old?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWell, gentlemen,\nI am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know\nMy daughter Katharina is to be married:\nNow, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca\nBe bride to you, if you this assurance;\nIf not, Signior Gremio:\nAnd so, I take my leave, and thank you both.\n\nGREMIO:\nAdieu, good neighbour.\nNow I fear thee not:\nSirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\nTo give thee all, and in his waning age\nSet foot under thy table: tut, a toy!\nAn old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.\n\nTRANIO:\nA vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide!\nYet I have faced it with a card of ten.\n'Tis in my head to do my master good:\nI see no reason but supposed Lucentio\nMust get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;'\nAnd that's a wonder: fathers commonly\nDo get their children; but in this case of wooing,\nA child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir:\nHave you so soon forgot the entertainment\nHer sister Katharina welcomed you withal?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut, wrangling pedant, this is\nThe patroness of heavenly harmony:\nThen give me leave to have prerogative;\nAnd when in music we have spent an hour,\nYour lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nPreposterous ass, that never read so far\nTo know the cause why music was ordain'd!\nWas it not to refresh the mind of man\nAfter his studies or his usual pain?\nThen give me leave to read philosophy,\nAnd while I pause, serve in your harmony.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,\nTo strive for that which resteth in my choice:\nI am no breeching scholar in the schools;\nI'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\nBut learn my lessons as I please myself.\nAnd, to cut off all strife, here sit we down:\nTake you your instrument, play you the whiles;\nHis lecture will be done ere you have tuned.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will be never: tune your instrument.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhere left we last?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere, madam:\n'Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;\nHic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n\nBIANCA:\nConstrue them.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Hic ibat,' as I told you before, 'Simois,' I am\nLucentio, 'hic est,' son unto Vincentio of Pisa,\n'Sigeia tellus,' disguised thus to get your love;\n'Hic steterat,' and that Lucentio that comes\na-wooing, 'Priami,' is my man Tranio, 'regia,'\nbearing my port, 'celsa senis,' that we might\nbeguile the old pantaloon.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, my instrument's in tune.\n\nBIANCA:\nLet's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nSpit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n\nBIANCA:\nNow let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat\nSimois,' I know you not, 'hic est Sigeia tellus,' I\ntrust you not; 'Hic steterat Priami,' take heed\nhe hear us not, 'regia,' presume not, 'celsa senis,'\ndespair not.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, 'tis now in tune.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAll but the base.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThe base is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\nHow fiery and forward our pedant is!\nNow, for my life, the knave doth court my love:\nPedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n\nBIANCA:\nIn time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistrust it not: for, sure, AEacides\nWas Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n\nBIANCA:\nI must believe my master; else, I promise you,\nI should be arguing still upon that doubt:\nBut let it rest. Now, Licio, to you:\nGood masters, take it not unkindly, pray,\nThat I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYou may go walk, and give me leave a while:\nMy lessons make no music in three parts.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAre you so formal, sir? well, I must wait,\nAnd watch withal; for, but I be deceived,\nOur fine musician groweth amorous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMadam, before you touch the instrument,\nTo learn the order of my fingering,\nI must begin with rudiments of art;\nTo teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\nMore pleasant, pithy and effectual,\nThan hath been taught by any of my trade:\nAnd there it is in writing, fairly drawn.\n\nBIANCA:\nWhy, I am past my gamut long ago.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nYet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\n\nServant:\nMistress, your father prays you leave your books\nAnd help to dress your sister's chamber up:\nYou know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n\nBIANCA:\nFarewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nFaith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nBut I have cause to pry into this pedant:\nMethinks he looks as though he were in love:\nYet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\nTo cast thy wandering eyes on every stale,\nSeize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,\nHortensio will be quit with thee by changing.\n\nBAPTISTA:\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced\nTo give my hand opposed against my heart\nUnto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;\nWho woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\nI told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\nHiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:\nAnd, to be noted for a merry man,\nHe'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\nMake feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;\nYet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\nNow must the world point at poor Katharina,\nAnd say, 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\nIf it would please him come and marry her!'\n\nTRANIO:\nPatience, good Katharina, and Baptista too.\nUpon my life, Petruchio means but well,\nWhatever fortune stays him from his word:\nThough he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\nThough he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWould Katharina had never seen him though!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nGo, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;\nFor such an injury would vex a very saint,\nMuch more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, master! news, old news, and such news as\nyou never heard of!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs it new and old too? how may that be?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs he come?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, no, sir.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHe is coming.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhen will he be here?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhen he stands where I am and sees you there.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut say, what to thine old news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old\njerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair\nof boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,\nanother laced, an old rusty sword ta'en out of the\ntown-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless;\nwith two broken points: his horse hipped with an\nold mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;\nbesides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose\nin the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected\nwith the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with\nspavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives,\nstark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the\nbots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten;\nnear-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit\nand a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being\nrestrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been\noften burst and now repaired with knots; one girth\nsix time pieced and a woman's crupper of velure,\nwhich hath two letters for her name fairly set down\nin studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWho comes with him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned\nlike the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a\nkersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red\nand blue list; an old hat and 'the humour of forty\nfancies' pricked in't for a feather: a monster, a\nvery monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\nfootboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\nYet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell'd.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhy, sir, he comes not.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nDidst thou not say he comes?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWho? that Petruchio came?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAy, that Petruchio came.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNo, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, that's all one.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, by Saint Jamy,\nI hold you a penny,\nA horse and a man\nIs more than one,\nAnd yet not many.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, where be these gallants? who's at home?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou are welcome, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAnd yet I come not well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd yet you halt not.\n\nTRANIO:\nNot so well apparell'd\nAs I wish you were.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWere it better, I should rush in thus.\nBut where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?\nHow does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown:\nAnd wherefore gaze this goodly company,\nAs if they saw some wondrous monument,\nSome comet or unusual prodigy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:\nFirst were we sad, fearing you would not come;\nNow sadder, that you come so unprovided.\nFie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\nAn eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd tells us, what occasion of import\nHath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\nAnd sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:\nSufficeth I am come to keep my word,\nThough in some part enforced to digress;\nWhich, at more leisure, I will so excuse\nAs you shall well be satisfied withal.\nBut where is Kate? I stay too long from her:\nThe morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n\nTRANIO:\nSee not your bride in these unreverent robes:\nGo to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNot I, believe me: thus I'll visit her.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGood sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words:\nTo me she's married, not unto my clothes:\nCould I repair what she will wear in me,\nAs I can change these poor accoutrements,\n'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\nBut what a fool am I to chat with you,\nWhen I should bid good morrow to my bride,\nAnd seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n\nTRANIO:\nHe hath some meaning in his mad attire:\nWe will persuade him, be it possible,\nTo put on better ere he go to church.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI'll after him, and see the event of this.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut to her love concerneth us to add\nHer father's liking: which to bring to pass,\nAs I before unparted to your worship,\nI am to get a man,--whate'er he be,\nIt skills not much. we'll fit him to our turn,--\nAnd he shall be Vincentio of Pisa;\nAnd make assurance here in Padua\nOf greater sums than I have promised.\nSo shall you quietly enjoy your hope,\nAnd marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWere it not that my fellow-school-master\nDoth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\nWhich once perform'd, let all the world say no,\nI'll keep mine own, despite of all the world.\n\nTRANIO:\nThat by degrees we mean to look into,\nAnd watch our vantage in this business:\nWe'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\nThe narrow-prying father, Minola,\nThe quaint musician, amorous Licio;\nAll for my master's sake, Lucentio.\nSignior Gremio, came you from the church?\n\nGREMIO:\nAs willingly as e'er I came from school.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n\nGREMIO:\nA bridegroom say you? 'tis a groom indeed,\nA grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n\nTRANIO:\nCurster than she? why, 'tis impossible.\n\nGREMIO:\nWhy he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhy, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n\nGREMIO:\nTut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him!\nI'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\nShould ask, if Katharina should be his wife,\n'Ay, by gogs-wouns,' quoth he; and swore so loud,\nThat, all-amazed, the priest let fall the book;\nAnd, as he stoop'd again to take it up,\nThe mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\nThat down fell priest and book and book and priest:\n'Now take them up,' quoth he, 'if any list.'\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat said the wench when he rose again?\n\nGREMIO:\nTrembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore,\nAs if the vicar meant to cozen him.\nBut after many ceremonies done,\nHe calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\nHe had been aboard, carousing to his mates\nAfter a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel\nAnd threw the sops all in the sexton's face;\nHaving no other reason\nBut that his beard grew thin and hungerly\nAnd seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\nThis done, he took the bride about the neck\nAnd kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\nThat at the parting all the church did echo:\nAnd I seeing this came thence for very shame;\nAnd after me, I know, the rout is coming.\nSuch a mad marriage never was before:\nHark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:\nI know you think to dine with me to-day,\nAnd have prepared great store of wedding cheer;\nBut so it is, my haste doth call me hence,\nAnd therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIs't possible you will away to-night?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI must away to-day, before night come:\nMake it no wonder; if you knew my business,\nYou would entreat me rather go than stay.\nAnd, honest company, I thank you all,\nThat have beheld me give away myself\nTo this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife:\nDine with my father, drink a health to me;\nFor I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n\nTRANIO:\nLet us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt may not be.\n\nGREMIO:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt cannot be.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLet me entreat you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAre you content to stay?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI am content you shall entreat me stay;\nBut yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNow, if you love me, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGrumio, my horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, then,\nDo what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\nNo, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\nThe door is open, sir; there lies your way;\nYou may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\nFor me, I'll not be gone till I please myself:\n'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom,\nThat take it on you at the first so roundly.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI will be angry: what hast thou to do?\nFather, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n\nKATARINA:\nGentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:\nI see a woman may be made a fool,\nIf she had not a spirit to resist.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThey shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\nObey the bride, you that attend on her;\nGo to the feast, revel and domineer,\nCarouse full measure to her maidenhead,\nBe mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:\nBut for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\nNay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\nI will be master of what is mine own:\nShe is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,\nMy household stuff, my field, my barn,\nMy horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing;\nAnd here she stands, touch her whoever dare;\nI'll bring mine action on the proudest he\nThat stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\nDraw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves;\nRescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\nFear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch\nthee, Kate:\nI'll buckler thee against a million.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n\nGREMIO:\nWent they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf all mad matches never was the like.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nMistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n\nBIANCA:\nThat, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n\nGREMIO:\nI warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNeighbours and friends, though bride and\nbridegroom wants\nFor to supply the places at the table,\nYou know there wants no junkets at the feast.\nLucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place:\nAnd let Bianca take her sister's room.\n\nTRANIO:\nShall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nShe shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and\nall foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever\nman so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent\nbefore to make a fire, and they are coming after to\nwarm them. Now, were not I a little pot and soon\nhot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my\ntongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my\nbelly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me: but\nI, with blowing the fire, shall warm myself; for,\nconsidering the weather, a taller man than I will\ntake cold. Holla, ho! Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho is that calls so coldly?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide\nfrom my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run\nbut my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, ay, Curtis, ay: and therefore fire, fire; cast\non no water.\n\nCURTIS:\nIs she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n\nGRUMIO:\nShe was, good Curtis, before this frost: but, thou\nknowest, winter tames man, woman and beast; for it\nhath tamed my old master and my new mistress and\nmyself, fellow Curtis.\n\nCURTIS:\nAway, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAm I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and\nso long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a\nfire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress,\nwhose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon\nfeel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?\n\nCURTIS:\nI prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?\n\nGRUMIO:\nA cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\ntherefore fire: do thy duty, and have thy duty; for\nmy master and mistress are almost frozen to death.\n\nCURTIS:\nThere's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, 'Jack, boy! ho! boy!' and as much news as\nwill thaw.\n\nCURTIS:\nCome, you are so full of cony-catching!\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, therefore fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\nWhere's the cook? is supper ready, the house\ntrimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the\nserving-men in their new fustian, their white\nstockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?\nBe the jacks fair within, the jills fair without,\nthe carpets laid, and every thing in order?\n\nCURTIS:\nAll ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFirst, know, my horse is tired; my master and\nmistress fallen out.\n\nCURTIS:\nHow?\n\nGRUMIO:\nOut of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby\nhangs a tale.\n\nCURTIS:\nLet's ha't, good Grumio.\n\nGRUMIO:\nLend thine ear.\n\nCURTIS:\nHere.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThere.\n\nCURTIS:\nThis is to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAnd therefore 'tis called a sensible tale: and this\ncuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech\nlistening. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a\nfoul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,--\n\nCURTIS:\nBoth of one horse?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat's that to thee?\n\nCURTIS:\nWhy, a horse.\n\nGRUMIO:\nTell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me,\nthou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she\nunder her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how\nmiry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her\nwith the horse upon her, how he beat me because\nher horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt\nto pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed,\nthat never prayed before, how I cried, how the\nhorses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I\nlost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory,\nwhich now shall die in oblivion and thou return\nunexperienced to thy grave.\n\nCURTIS:\nBy this reckoning he is more shrew than she.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall\nfind when he comes home. But what talk I of this?\nCall forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip,\nWalter, Sugarsop and the rest: let their heads be\nsleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their\ngarters of an indifferent knit: let them curtsy\nwith their left legs and not presume to touch a hair\nof my master's horse-tail till they kiss their\nhands. Are they all ready?\n\nCURTIS:\nThey are.\n\nGRUMIO:\nCall them forth.\n\nCURTIS:\nDo you hear, ho? you must meet my master to\ncountenance my mistress.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she hath a face of her own.\n\nCURTIS:\nWho knows not that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou, it seems, that calls for company to\ncountenance her.\n\nCURTIS:\nI call them forth to credit her.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nWelcome home, Grumio!\n\nPHILIP:\nHow now, Grumio!\n\nJOSEPH:\nWhat, Grumio!\n\nNICHOLAS:\nFellow Grumio!\n\nNATHANIEL:\nHow now, old lad?\n\nGRUMIO:\nWelcome, you;--how now, you;-- what, you;--fellow,\nyou;--and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce\ncompanions, is all ready, and all things neat?\n\nNATHANIEL:\nAll things is ready. How near is our master?\n\nGRUMIO:\nE'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be\nnot--Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere be these knaves? What, no man at door\nTo hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\nWhere is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n\nALL SERVING-MEN:\nHere, here, sir; here, sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHere, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\nYou logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\nWhat, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\nWhere is the foolish knave I sent before?\n\nGRUMIO:\nHere, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\nDid I not bid thee meet me in the park,\nAnd bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n\nGRUMIO:\nNathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\nAnd Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel;\nThere was no link to colour Peter's hat,\nAnd Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing:\nThere were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\nThe rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\nYet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.\nWhere is the life that late I led--\nWhere are those--Sit down, Kate, and welcome.--\nSound, sound, sound, sound!\nWhy, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\nOff with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\nIt was the friar of orders grey,\nAs he forth walked on his way:--\nOut, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:\nTake that, and mend the plucking off the other.\nBe merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!\nWhere's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\nAnd bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\nOne, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with.\nWhere are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\nCome, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\nYou whoreson villain! will you let it fall?\n\nKATHARINA:\nPatience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\nCome, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\nWill you give thanks, sweet Kate; or else shall I?\nWhat's this? mutton?\n\nFirst Servant:\nAy.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWho brought it?\n\nPETER:\nI.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\nWhat dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?\nHow durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,\nAnd serve it thus to me that love it not?\nTheretake it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\nYou heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\nWhat, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, husband, be not so disquiet:\nThe meat was well, if you were so contented.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away;\nAnd I expressly am forbid to touch it,\nFor it engenders choler, planteth anger;\nAnd better 'twere that both of us did fast,\nSince, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\nThan feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\nBe patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended,\nAnd, for this night, we'll fast for company:\nCome, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.\n\nNATHANIEL:\nPeter, didst ever see the like?\n\nPETER:\nHe kills her in her own humour.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhere is he?\n\nCURTIS:\nIn her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;\nAnd rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\nKnows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,\nAnd sits as one new-risen from a dream.\nAway, away! for he is coming hither.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThus have I politicly begun my reign,\nAnd 'tis my hope to end successfully.\nMy falcon now is sharp and passing empty;\nAnd till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,\nFor then she never looks upon her lure.\nAnother way I have to man my haggard,\nTo make her come and know her keeper's call,\nThat is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\nThat bate and beat and will not be obedient.\nShe eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\nLast night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\nAs with the meat, some undeserved fault\nI'll find about the making of the bed;\nAnd here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\nThis way the coverlet, another way the sheets:\nAy, and amid this hurly I intend\nThat all is done in reverend care of her;\nAnd in conclusion she shall watch all night:\nAnd if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\nAnd with the clamour keep her still awake.\nThis is a way to kill a wife with kindness;\nAnd thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\nHe that knows better how to tame a shrew,\nNow let him speak: 'tis charity to show.\n\nTRANIO:\nIs't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\nDoth fancy any other but Lucentio?\nI tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\nStand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nNow, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n\nBIANCA:\nWhat, master, read you? first resolve me that.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI read that I profess, the Art to Love.\n\nBIANCA:\nAnd may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhile you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nQuick proceeders, marry! Now, tell me, I pray,\nYou that durst swear at your mistress Bianca\nLoved none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n\nTRANIO:\nO despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\nI tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistake no more: I am not Licio,\nNor a musician, as I seem to be;\nBut one that scorn to live in this disguise,\nFor such a one as leaves a gentleman,\nAnd makes a god of such a cullion:\nKnow, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n\nTRANIO:\nSignior Hortensio, I have often heard\nOf your entire affection to Bianca;\nAnd since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\nI will with you, if you be so contented,\nForswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSee, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\nHere is my hand, and here I firmly vow\nNever to woo her no more, but do forswear her,\nAs one unworthy all the former favours\nThat I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd here I take the unfeigned oath,\nNever to marry with her though she would entreat:\nFie on her! see, how beastly she doth court him!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWould all the world but he had quite forsworn!\nFor me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\nI will be married to a wealthy widow,\nEre three days pass, which hath as long loved me\nAs I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.\nAnd so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\nKindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\nShall win my love: and so I take my leave,\nIn resolution as I swore before.\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\nAs 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\nNay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\nAnd have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n\nBIANCA:\nTranio, you jest: but have you both forsworn me?\n\nTRANIO:\nMistress, we have.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThen we are rid of Licio.\n\nTRANIO:\nI' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\nThat shall be wood and wedded in a day.\n\nBIANCA:\nGod give him joy!\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, and he'll tame her.\n\nBIANCA:\nHe says so, Tranio.\n\nTRANIO:\nFaith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe taming-school! what, is there such a place?\n\nTRANIO:\nAy, mistress, and Petruchio is the master;\nThat teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\nTo tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO master, master, I have watch'd so long\nThat I am dog-weary: but at last I spied\nAn ancient angel coming down the hill,\nWill serve the turn.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat is he, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nMaster, a mercatante, or a pedant,\nI know not what; but format in apparel,\nIn gait and countenance surely like a father.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him, Tranio?\n\nTRANIO:\nIf he be credulous and trust my tale,\nI'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\nAnd give assurance to Baptista Minola,\nAs if he were the right Vincentio\nTake in your love, and then let me alone.\n\nPedant:\nGod save you, sir!\n\nTRANIO:\nAnd you, sir! you are welcome.\nTravel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n\nPedant:\nSir, at the farthest for a week or two:\nBut then up farther, and as for as Rome;\nAnd so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n\nTRANIO:\nWhat countryman, I pray?\n\nPedant:\nOf Mantua.\n\nTRANIO:\nOf Mantua, sir? marry, God forbid!\nAnd come to Padua, careless of your life?\n\nPedant:\nMy life, sir! how, I pray? for that goes hard.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis death for any one in Mantua\nTo come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\nYour ships are stay'd at Venice, and the duke,\nFor private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him,\nHath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly:\n'Tis, marvel, but that you are but newly come,\nYou might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n\nPedant:\nAlas! sir, it is worse for me than so;\nFor I have bills for money by exchange\nFrom Florence and must here deliver them.\n\nTRANIO:\nWell, sir, to do you courtesy,\nThis will I do, and this I will advise you:\nFirst, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\nPisa renowned for grave citizens.\n\nTRANIO:\nAmong them know you one Vincentio?\n\nPedant:\nI know him not, but I have heard of him;\nA merchant of incomparable wealth.\n\nTRANIO:\nHe is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\nIn countenance somewhat doth resemble you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\n\nTRANIO:\nTo save your life in this extremity,\nThis favour will I do you for his sake;\nAnd think it not the worst of an your fortunes\nThat you are like to Sir Vincentio.\nHis name and credit shall you undertake,\nAnd in my house you shall be friendly lodged:\nLook that you take upon you as you should;\nYou understand me, sir: so shall you stay\nTill you have done your business in the city:\nIf this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.\n\nPedant:\nO sir, I do; and will repute you ever\nThe patron of my life and liberty.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen go with me to make the matter good.\nThis, by the way, I let you understand;\nmy father is here look'd for every day,\nTo pass assurance of a dower in marriage\n'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here:\nIn all these circumstances I'll instruct you:\nGo with me to clothe you as becomes you.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNo, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe more my wrong, the more his spite appears:\nWhat, did he marry me to famish me?\nBeggars, that come unto my father's door,\nUpon entreaty have a present aims;\nIf not, elsewhere they meet with charity:\nBut I, who never knew how to entreat,\nNor never needed that I should entreat,\nAm starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,\nWith oath kept waking and with brawling fed:\nAnd that which spites me more than all these wants,\nHe does it under name of perfect love;\nAs who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\nI prithee go and get me some repast;\nI care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhat say you to a neat's foot?\n\nKATHARINA:\n'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI fear it is too choleric a meat.\nHow say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n\nKATHARINA:\nI like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\nWhat say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n\nKATHARINA:\nA dish that I do love to feed upon.\n\nGRUMIO:\nAy, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n\nGRUMIO:\nNay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,\nOr else you get no beef of Grumio.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.\n\nGRUMIO:\nWhy then, the mustard without the beef.\n\nKATHARINA:\nGo, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\nThat feed'st me with the very name of meat:\nSorrow on thee and all the pack of you,\nThat triumph thus upon my misery!\nGo, get thee gone, I say.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMistress, what cheer?\n\nKATHARINA:\nFaith, as cold as can be.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.\nHere love; thou see'st how diligent I am\nTo dress thy meat myself and bring it thee:\nI am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\nWhat, not a word? Nay, then thou lovest it not;\nAnd all my pains is sorted to no proof.\nHere, take away this dish.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI pray you, let it stand.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe poorest service is repaid with thanks;\nAnd so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI thank you, sir.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSignior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\nCome, mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHaberdasher:\nHere is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, this was moulded on a porringer;\nA velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy:\nWhy, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\nA knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap:\nAway with it! come, let me have a bigger.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI'll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,\nAnd gentlewomen wear such caps as these\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhen you are gentle, you shall have one too,\nAnd not till then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhy, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\nAnd speak I will; I am no child, no babe:\nYour betters have endured me say my mind,\nAnd if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\nMy tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\nOr else my heart concealing it will break,\nAnd rather than it shall, I will be free\nEven to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\nA custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:\nI love thee well, in that thou likest it not.\n\nKATHARINA:\nLove me or love me not, I like the cap;\nAnd it I will have, or I will have none.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see't.\nO mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\nWhat's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon:\nWhat, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?\nHere's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\nLike to a censer in a barber's shop:\nWhy, what, i' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTailor:\nYou bid me make it orderly and well,\nAccording to the fashion and the time.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, and did; but if you be remember'd,\nI did not bid you mar it to the time.\nGo, hop me over every kennel home,\nFor you shall hop without my custom, sir:\nI'll none of it: hence! make your best of it.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI never saw a better-fashion'd gown,\nMore quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable:\nBelike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n\nTailor:\nShe says your worship means to make\na puppet of her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,\nthou thimble,\nThou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!\nThou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!\nBraved in mine own house with a skein of thread?\nAway, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\nOr I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard\nAs thou shalt think on prating whilst thou livest!\nI tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n\nTailor:\nYour worship is deceived; the gown is made\nJust as my master had direction:\nGrumio gave order how it should be done.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n\nTailor:\nBut how did you desire it should be made?\n\nGRUMIO:\nMarry, sir, with needle and thread.\n\nTailor:\nBut did you not request to have it cut?\n\nGRUMIO:\nThou hast faced many things.\n\nTailor:\nI have.\n\nGRUMIO:\nFace not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not\nme; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto\nthee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did\nnot bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.\n\nTailor:\nWhy, here is the note of the fashion to testify\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRead it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nThe note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nMaster, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in\nthe skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom\nof brown thread: I said a gown.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nProceed.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess the cape.\n\nTailor:\n\nGRUMIO:\nI confess two sleeves.\n\nTailor:\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nAy, there's the villany.\n\nGRUMIO:\nError i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill.\nI commanded the sleeves should be cut out and\nsewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee,\nthough thy little finger be armed in a thimble.\n\nTailor:\nThis is true that I say: an I had thee\nin place where, thou shouldst know it.\n\nGRUMIO:\nI am for thee straight: take thou the\nbill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nGod-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n\nGRUMIO:\nYou are i' the right, sir: 'tis for my mistress.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo, take it up unto thy master's use.\n\nGRUMIO:\nVillain, not for thy life: take up my mistress'\ngown for thy master's use!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n\nGRUMIO:\nO, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:\nTake up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\nO, fie, fie, fie!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow:\nTake no unkindness of his hasty words:\nAway! I say; commend me to thy master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\nEven in these honest mean habiliments:\nOur purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\nFor 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\nAnd as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\nSo honour peereth in the meanest habit.\nWhat is the jay more precious than the lark,\nBecause his fathers are more beautiful?\nOr is the adder better than the eel,\nBecause his painted skin contents the eye?\nO, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\nFor this poor furniture and mean array.\nif thou account'st it shame. lay it on me;\nAnd therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith,\nTo feast and sport us at thy father's house.\nGo, call my men, and let us straight to him;\nAnd bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\nThere will we mount, and thither walk on foot\nLet's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\nAnd well we may come there by dinner-time.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two;\nAnd 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIt shall be seven ere I go to horse:\nLook, what I speak, or do, or think to do,\nYou are still crossing it. Sirs, let't alone:\nI will not go to-day; and ere I do,\nIt shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n\nHORTENSIO:\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, this is the house: please it you that I call?\n\nPedant:\nAy, what else? and but I be deceived\nSignior Baptista may remember me,\nNear twenty years ago, in Genoa,\nWhere we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\nWith such austerity as 'longeth to a father.\n\nPedant:\nI warrant you.\nBut, sir, here comes your boy;\n'Twere good he were school'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nFear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\nNow do your duty throughly, I advise you:\nImagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nTut, fear not me.\n\nTRANIO:\nBut hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI told him that your father was at Venice,\nAnd that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n\nTRANIO:\nThou'rt a tall fellow: hold thee that to drink.\nHere comes Baptista: set your countenance, sir.\nSignior Baptista, you are happily met.\nSir, this is the gentleman I told you of:\nI pray you stand good father to me now,\nGive me Bianca for my patrimony.\n\nPedant:\nSoft son!\nSir, by your leave: having come to Padua\nTo gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\nMade me acquainted with a weighty cause\nOf love between your daughter and himself:\nAnd, for the good report I hear of you\nAnd for the love he beareth to your daughter\nAnd she to him, to stay him not too long,\nI am content, in a good father's care,\nTo have him match'd; and if you please to like\nNo worse than I, upon some agreement\nMe shall you find ready and willing\nWith one consent to have her so bestow'd;\nFor curious I cannot be with you,\nSignior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSir, pardon me in what I have to say:\nYour plainness and your shortness please me well.\nRight true it is, your son Lucentio here\nDoth love my daughter and she loveth him,\nOr both dissemble deeply their affections:\nAnd therefore, if you say no more than this,\nThat like a father you will deal with him\nAnd pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\nThe match is made, and all is done:\nYour son shall have my daughter with consent.\n\nTRANIO:\nI thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\nWe be affied and such assurance ta'en\nAs shall with either part's agreement stand?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNot in my house, Lucentio; for, you know,\nPitchers have ears, and I have many servants:\nBesides, old Gremio is hearkening still;\nAnd happily we might be interrupted.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen at my lodging, an it like you:\nThere doth my father lie; and there, this night,\nWe'll pass the business privately and well.\nSend for your daughter by your servant here:\nMy boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\nThe worst is this, that, at so slender warning,\nYou are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nIt likes me well. Biondello, hie you home,\nAnd bid Bianca make her ready straight;\nAnd, if you will, tell what hath happened,\nLucentio's father is arrived in Padua,\nAnd how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI pray the gods she may with all my heart!\n\nTRANIO:\nDally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\nSignior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\nWelcome! one mess is like to be your cheer:\nCome, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nI follow you.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nCambio!\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWhat sayest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nYou saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBiondello, what of that?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nFaith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to\nexpound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI pray thee, moralize them.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThen thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the\ndeceiving father of a deceitful son.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of him?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHis daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd then?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nThe old priest of Saint Luke's church is at your\ncommand at all hours.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAnd what of all this?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tell; expect they are busied about a\ncounterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her,\n'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the\nchurch; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient\nhonest witnesses: If this be not that you look for,\nI have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for\never and a day.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHearest thou, Biondello?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an\nafternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to\nstuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu,\nsir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint\nLuke's, to bid the priest be ready to come against\nyou come with your appendix.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI may, and will, if she be so contented:\nShe will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt?\nHap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her:\nIt shall go hard if Cambio go without her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.\nGood Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n\nKATHARINA:\nThe moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, by my mother's son, and that's myself,\nIt shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\nOr ere I journey to your father's house.\nGo on, and fetch our horses back again.\nEvermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSay as he says, or we shall never go.\n\nKATHARINA:\nForward, I pray, since we have come so far,\nAnd be it moon, or sun, or what you please:\nAn if you please to call it a rush-candle,\nHenceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say it is the moon.\n\nKATHARINA:\nI know it is the moon.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.\n\nKATHARINA:\nThen, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:\nBut sun it is not, when you say it is not;\nAnd the moon changes even as your mind.\nWhat you will have it named, even that it is;\nAnd so it shall be so for Katharina.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nPetruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\nAnd not unluckily against the bias.\nBut, soft! company is coming here.\nGood morrow, gentle mistress: where away?\nTell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\nHast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\nSuch war of white and red within her cheeks!\nWhat stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,\nAs those two eyes become that heavenly face?\nFair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\nSweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nA' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n\nKATHARINA:\nYoung budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\nWhither away, or where is thy abode?\nHappy the parents of so fair a child;\nHappier the man, whom favourable stars\nAllot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:\nThis is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,\nAnd not a maiden, as thou say'st he is.\n\nKATHARINA:\nPardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\nThat have been so bedazzled with the sun\nThat everything I look on seemeth green:\nNow I perceive thou art a reverend father;\nPardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nDo, good old grandsire; and withal make known\nWhich way thou travellest: if along with us,\nWe shall be joyful of thy company.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFair sir, and you my merry mistress,\nThat with your strange encounter much amazed me,\nMy name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;\nAnd bound I am to Padua; there to visit\nA son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio, gentle sir.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHappily we met; the happier for thy son.\nAnd now by law, as well as reverend age,\nI may entitle thee my loving father:\nThe sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\nThy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\nNor be grieved: she is of good esteem,\nHer dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth;\nBeside, so qualified as may beseem\nThe spouse of any noble gentleman.\nLet me embrace with old Vincentio,\nAnd wander we to see thy honest son,\nWho will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nBut is it true? or else is it your pleasure,\nLike pleasant travellers, to break a jest\nUpon the company you overtake?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI do assure thee, father, so it is.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, go along, and see the truth hereof;\nFor our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWell, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\nHave to my widow! and if she be froward,\nThen hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSoftly and swiftly, sir; for the priest is ready.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee\nat home; therefore leave us.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nNay, faith, I'll see the church o' your back; and\nthen come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n\nGREMIO:\nI marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSir, here's the door, this is Lucentio's house:\nMy father's bears more toward the market-place;\nThither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nYou shall not choose but drink before you go:\nI think I shall command your welcome here,\nAnd, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.\n\nGREMIO:\nThey're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n\nPedant:\nWhat's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n\nPedant:\nHe's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to\nmake merry withal?\n\nPedant:\nKeep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall\nneed none, so long as I live.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.\nDo you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,\nI pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is\ncome from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.\n\nPedant:\nThou liest: his father is come from Padua and here\nlooking out at the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nArt thou his father?\n\nPedant:\nAy, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\n\nPedant:\nLay hands on the villain: I believe a' means to\ncozen somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI have seen them in the church together: God send\n'em good shipping! But who is here? mine old\nmaster Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHope I may choose, sir.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCome hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nForgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I\nnever saw you before in all my life.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat, you notorious villain, didst thou never see\nthy master's father, Vincentio?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nWhat, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir:\nsee where he looks out of the window.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nIs't so, indeed.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nHelp, help, help! here's a madman will murder me.\n\nPedant:\nHelp, son! help, Signior Baptista!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPrithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of\nthis controversy.\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhat am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal\ngods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet\nhose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I\nam undone! I am undone! while I play the good\nhusband at home, my son and my servant spend all at\nthe university.\n\nTRANIO:\nHow now! what's the matter?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhat, is the man lunatic?\n\nTRANIO:\nSir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your\nhabit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir,\nwhat 'cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I\nthank my good father, I am able to maintain it.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nYou mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do\nyou think is his name?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nHis name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought\nhim up ever since he was three years old, and his\nname is Tranio.\n\nPedant:\nAway, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is\nmine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold\non him, I charge you, in the duke's name. O, my\nson, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is my son Lucentio?\n\nTRANIO:\nCall forth an officer.\nCarry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista,\nI charge you see that he be forthcoming.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nCarry me to the gaol!\n\nGREMIO:\nStay, officer: he shall not go to prison.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nTalk not, Signior Gremio: I say he shall go to prison.\n\nGREMIO:\nTake heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be\ncony-catched in this business: I dare swear this\nis the right Vincentio.\n\nPedant:\nSwear, if thou darest.\n\nGREMIO:\nNay, I dare not swear it.\n\nTRANIO:\nThen thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n\nGREMIO:\nYes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAway with the dotard! to the gaol with him!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nThus strangers may be hailed and abused: O\nmonstrous villain!\n\nBIONDELLO:\nO! we are spoiled and--yonder he is: deny him,\nforswear him, or else we are all undone.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n\nVINCENTIO:\nLives my sweet son?\n\nBIANCA:\nPardon, dear father.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow hast thou offended?\nWhere is Lucentio?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere's Lucentio,\nRight son to the right Vincentio;\nThat have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\nWhile counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.\n\nGREMIO:\nHere's packing, with a witness to deceive us all!\n\nVINCENTIO:\nWhere is that damned villain Tranio,\nThat faced and braved me in this matter so?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nWhy, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n\nBIANCA:\nCambio is changed into Lucentio.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLove wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\nMade me exchange my state with Tranio,\nWhile he did bear my countenance in the town;\nAnd happily I have arrived at the last\nUnto the wished haven of my bliss.\nWhat Tranio did, myself enforced him to;\nThen pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nI'll slit the villain's nose, that would have sent\nme to the gaol.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nBut do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter\nwithout asking my good will?\n\nVINCENTIO:\nFear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but\nI will in, to be revenged for this villany.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nAnd I, to sound the depth of this knavery.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nLook not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n\nGREMIO:\nMy cake is dough; but I'll in among the rest,\nOut of hope of all, but my share of the feast.\n\nKATHARINA:\nHusband, let's follow, to see the end of this ado.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nFirst kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat, in the midst of the street?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat, art thou ashamed of me?\n\nKATHARINA:\nNo, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, then let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.\n\nKATHARINA:\nNay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nIs not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\nBetter once than never, for never too late.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nAt last, though long, our jarring notes agree:\nAnd time it is, when raging war is done,\nTo smile at scapes and perils overblown.\nMy fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\nWhile I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\nBrother Petruchio, sister Katharina,\nAnd thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\nFeast with the best, and welcome to my house:\nMy banquet is to close our stomachs up,\nAfter our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\nFor now we sit to chat as well as eat.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nPadua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nPadua affords nothing but what is kind.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nFor both our sakes, I would that word were true.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNow, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n\nWidow:\nThen never trust me, if I be afeard.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nYou are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\nI mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.\n\nWidow:\nHe that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nRoundly replied.\n\nKATHARINA:\nMistress, how mean you that?\n\nWidow:\nThus I conceive by him.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nConceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nMy widow says, thus she conceives her tale.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nVery well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n\nKATHARINA:\n'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:'\nI pray you, tell me what you meant by that.\n\nWidow:\nYour husband, being troubled with a shrew,\nMeasures my husband's sorrow by his woe:\nAnd now you know my meaning,\n\nKATHARINA:\nA very mean meaning.\n\nWidow:\nRight, I mean you.\n\nKATHARINA:\nAnd I am mean indeed, respecting you.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTo her, Kate!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nTo her, widow!\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nThat's my office.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nSpoke like an officer; ha' to thee, lad!\n\nBAPTISTA:\nHow likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n\nGREMIO:\nBelieve me, sir, they butt together well.\n\nBIANCA:\nHead, and butt! an hasty-witted body\nWould say your head and butt were head and horn.\n\nVINCENTIO:\nAy, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you?\n\nBIANCA:\nAy, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, that you shall not: since you have begun,\nHave at you for a bitter jest or two!\n\nBIANCA:\nAm I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;\nAnd then pursue me as you draw your bow.\nYou are welcome all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nShe hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.\nThis bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\nTherefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n\nTRANIO:\nO, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\nWhich runs himself and catches for his master.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA good swift simile, but something currish.\n\nTRANIO:\n'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:\n'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nO ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nConfess, confess, hath he not hit you here?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA' has a little gall'd me, I confess;\nAnd, as the jest did glance away from me,\n'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\nI think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWell, I say no: and therefore for assurance\nLet's each one send unto his wife;\nAnd he whose wife is most obedient\nTo come at first when he doth send for her,\nShall win the wager which we will propose.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent. What is the wager?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nTwenty crowns.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nTwenty crowns!\nI'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\nBut twenty times so much upon my wife.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nA hundred then.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nContent.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nA match! 'tis done.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nWho shall begin?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nThat will I.\nGo, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n\nBIONDELLO:\nI go.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nSon, I'll be your half, Bianca comes.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\nHow now! what news?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nSir, my mistress sends you word\nThat she is busy and she cannot come.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nHow! she is busy and she cannot come!\nIs that an answer?\n\nGREMIO:\nAy, and a kind one too:\nPray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI hope better.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nSirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\nTo come to me forthwith.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nO, ho! entreat her!\nNay, then she must needs come.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI am afraid, sir,\nDo what you can, yours will not be entreated.\nNow, where's my wife?\n\nBIONDELLO:\nShe says you have some goodly jest in hand:\nShe will not come: she bids you come to her.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWorse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\nIntolerable, not to be endured!\nSirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\nSay, I command her to come to me.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nI know her answer.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhat?\n\nHORTENSIO:\nShe will not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nThe fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!\n\nKATHARINA:\nWhat is your will, sir, that you send for me?\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhere is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n\nKATHARINA:\nThey sit conferring by the parlor fire.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nGo fetch them hither: if they deny to come.\nSwinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:\nAway, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nHere is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n\nHORTENSIO:\nAnd so it is: I wonder what it bodes.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nMarry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,\nAnd awful rule and right supremacy;\nAnd, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy?\n\nBAPTISTA:\nNow, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!\nThe wager thou hast won; and I will add\nUnto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\nAnother dowry to another daughter,\nFor she is changed, as she had never been.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nNay, I will win my wager better yet\nAnd show more sign of her obedience,\nHer new-built virtue and obedience.\nSee where she comes and brings your froward wives\nAs prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\nKatharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:\nOff with that bauble, throw it under-foot.\n\nWidow:\nLord, let me never have a cause to sigh,\nTill I be brought to such a silly pass!\n\nBIANCA:\nFie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n\nLUCENTIO:\nI would your duty were as foolish too:\nThe wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\nHath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.\n\nBIANCA:\nThe more fool you, for laying on my duty.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nKatharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women\nWhat duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n\nWidow:\nCome, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome on, I say; and first begin with her.\n\nWidow:\nShe shall not.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nI say she shall: and first begin with her.\n\nKATHARINA:\nFie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\nAnd dart not scornful glances from those eyes,\nTo wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:\nIt blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\nConfounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\nAnd in no sense is meet or amiable.\nA woman moved is like a fountain troubled,\nMuddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\nAnd while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\nWill deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\nThy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\nThy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\nAnd for thy maintenance commits his body\nTo painful labour both by sea and land,\nTo watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\nWhilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\nAnd craves no other tribute at thy hands\nBut love, fair looks and true obedience;\nToo little payment for so great a debt.\nSuch duty as the subject owes the prince\nEven such a woman oweth to her husband;\nAnd when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\nAnd not obedient to his honest will,\nWhat is she but a foul contending rebel\nAnd graceless traitor to her loving lord?\nI am ashamed that women are so simple\nTo offer war where they should kneel for peace;\nOr seek for rule, supremacy and sway,\nWhen they are bound to serve, love and obey.\nWhy are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\nUnapt to toil and trouble in the world,\nBut that our soft conditions and our hearts\nShould well agree with our external parts?\nCome, come, you froward and unable worms!\nMy mind hath been as big as one of yours,\nMy heart as great, my reason haply more,\nTo bandy word for word and frown for frown;\nBut now I see our lances are but straws,\nOur strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\nThat seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\nThen vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\nAnd place your hands below your husband's foot:\nIn token of which duty, if he please,\nMy hand is ready; may it do him ease.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nWhy, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nWell, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.\n\nVINCENTIO:\n'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n\nLUCENTIO:\nBut a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n\nPETRUCHIO:\nCome, Kate, we'll to bed.\nWe three are married, but you two are sped.\n'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;\nAnd, being a winner, God give you good night!\n\nHORTENSIO:\nNow, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.\n\nLUCENTIO:\n'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.\n\nMaster:\nBoatswain!\n\nBoatswain:\nHere, master: what cheer?\n\nMaster:\nGood, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely,\nor we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.\n\nBoatswain:\nHeigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!\nyare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the\nmaster's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,\nif room enough!\n\nALONSO:\nGood boatswain, have care. Where's the master?\nPlay the men.\n\nBoatswain:\nI pray now, keep below.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhere is the master, boatswain?\n\nBoatswain:\nDo you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your\ncabins: you do assist the storm.\n\nGONZALO:\nNay, good, be patient.\n\nBoatswain:\nWhen the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers\nfor the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.\n\nGONZALO:\nGood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n\nBoatswain:\nNone that I more love than myself. You are a\ncounsellor; if you can command these elements to\nsilence, and work the peace of the present, we will\nnot hand a rope more; use your authority: if you\ncannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make\nyourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of\nthe hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out\nof our way, I say.\n\nGONZALO:\nI have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he\nhath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\nperfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his\nhanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,\nfor our own doth little advantage. If he be not\nborn to be hanged, our case is miserable.\n\nBoatswain:\nDown with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring\nher to try with main-course.\nA plague upon this howling! they are louder than\nthe weather or our office.\nYet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er\nand drown? Have you a mind to sink?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,\nincharitable dog!\n\nBoatswain:\nWork you then.\n\nANTONIO:\nHang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!\nWe are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.\n\nGONZALO:\nI'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were\nno stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an\nunstanched wench.\n\nBoatswain:\nLay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to\nsea again; lay her off.\n\nMariners:\nAll lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!\n\nBoatswain:\nWhat, must our mouths be cold?\n\nGONZALO:\nThe king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,\nFor our case is as theirs.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI'm out of patience.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:\nThis wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning\nThe washing of ten tides!\n\nGONZALO:\nHe'll be hang'd yet,\nThough every drop of water swear against it\nAnd gape at widest to glut him.\n\nANTONIO:\nLet's all sink with the king.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLet's take leave of him.\n\nGONZALO:\nNow would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an\nacre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any\nthing. The wills above be done! but I would fain\ndie a dry death.\n\nMIRANDA:\nIf by your art, my dearest father, you have\nPut the wild waters in this roar, allay them.\nThe sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,\nBut that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,\nDashes the fire out. O, I have suffered\nWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,\nWho had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,\nDash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock\nAgainst my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.\nHad I been any god of power, I would\nHave sunk the sea within the earth or ere\nIt should the good ship so have swallow'd and\nThe fraughting souls within her.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBe collected:\nNo more amazement: tell your piteous heart\nThere's no harm done.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, woe the day!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo harm.\nI have done nothing but in care of thee,\nOf thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who\nArt ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing\nOf whence I am, nor that I am more better\nThan Prospero, master of a full poor cell,\nAnd thy no greater father.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMore to know\nDid never meddle with my thoughts.\n\nPROSPERO:\n'Tis time\nI should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,\nAnd pluck my magic garment from me. So:\nLie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.\nThe direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd\nThe very virtue of compassion in thee,\nI have with such provision in mine art\nSo safely ordered that there is no soul--\nNo, not so much perdition as an hair\nBetid to any creature in the vessel\nWhich thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down;\nFor thou must now know farther.\n\nMIRANDA:\nYou have often\nBegun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd\nAnd left me to a bootless inquisition,\nConcluding 'Stay: not yet.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe hour's now come;\nThe very minute bids thee ope thine ear;\nObey and be attentive. Canst thou remember\nA time before we came unto this cell?\nI do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not\nOut three years old.\n\nMIRANDA:\nCertainly, sir, I can.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy what? by any other house or person?\nOf any thing the image tell me that\nHath kept with thy remembrance.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis far off\nAnd rather like a dream than an assurance\nThat my remembrance warrants. Had I not\nFour or five women once that tended me?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it\nThat this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else\nIn the dark backward and abysm of time?\nIf thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here,\nHow thou camest here thou mayst.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBut that I do not.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTwelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,\nThy father was the Duke of Milan and\nA prince of power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, are not you my father?\n\nPROSPERO:\nThy mother was a piece of virtue, and\nShe said thou wast my daughter; and thy father\nWas Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir\nAnd princess no worse issued.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\nWhat foul play had we, that we came from thence?\nOr blessed was't we did?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBoth, both, my girl:\nBy foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,\nBut blessedly holp hither.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, my heart bleeds\nTo think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,\nWhich is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio--\nI pray thee, mark me--that a brother should\nBe so perfidious!--he whom next thyself\nOf all the world I loved and to him put\nThe manage of my state; as at that time\nThrough all the signories it was the first\nAnd Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed\nIn dignity, and for the liberal arts\nWithout a parallel; those being all my study,\nThe government I cast upon my brother\nAnd to my state grew stranger, being transported\nAnd rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle--\nDost thou attend me?\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, most heedfully.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBeing once perfected how to grant suits,\nHow to deny them, who to advance and who\nTo trash for over-topping, new created\nThe creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em,\nOr else new form'd 'em; having both the key\nOf officer and office, set all hearts i' the state\nTo what tune pleased his ear; that now he was\nThe ivy which had hid my princely trunk,\nAnd suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO, good sir, I do.\n\nPROSPERO:\nI pray thee, mark me.\nI, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated\nTo closeness and the bettering of my mind\nWith that which, but by being so retired,\nO'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother\nAwaked an evil nature; and my trust,\nLike a good parent, did beget of him\nA falsehood in its contrary as great\nAs my trust was; which had indeed no limit,\nA confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,\nNot only with what my revenue yielded,\nBut what my power might else exact, like one\nWho having into truth, by telling of it,\nMade such a sinner of his memory,\nTo credit his own lie, he did believe\nHe was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution\nAnd executing the outward face of royalty,\nWith all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--\nDost thou hear?\n\nMIRANDA:\nYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.\n\nPROSPERO:\nTo have no screen between this part he play'd\nAnd him he play'd it for, he needs will be\nAbsolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library\nWas dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties\nHe thinks me now incapable; confederates--\nSo dry he was for sway--wi' the King of Naples\nTo give him annual tribute, do him homage,\nSubject his coronet to his crown and bend\nThe dukedom yet unbow'd--alas, poor Milan!--\nTo most ignoble stooping.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO the heavens!\n\nPROSPERO:\nMark his condition and the event; then tell me\nIf this might be a brother.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI should sin\nTo think but nobly of my grandmother:\nGood wombs have borne bad sons.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow the condition.\nThe King of Naples, being an enemy\nTo me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;\nWhich was, that he, in lieu o' the premises\nOf homage and I know not how much tribute,\nShould presently extirpate me and mine\nOut of the dukedom and confer fair Milan\nWith all the honours on my brother: whereon,\nA treacherous army levied, one midnight\nFated to the purpose did Antonio open\nThe gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness,\nThe ministers for the purpose hurried thence\nMe and thy crying self.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for pity!\nI, not remembering how I cried out then,\nWill cry it o'er again: it is a hint\nThat wrings mine eyes to't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHear a little further\nAnd then I'll bring thee to the present business\nWhich now's upon's; without the which this story\nWere most impertinent.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWherefore did they not\nThat hour destroy us?\n\nPROSPERO:\nWell demanded, wench:\nMy tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,\nSo dear the love my people bore me, nor set\nA mark so bloody on the business, but\nWith colours fairer painted their foul ends.\nIn few, they hurried us aboard a bark,\nBore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared\nA rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,\nNor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\nInstinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,\nTo cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh\nTo the winds whose pity, sighing back again,\nDid us but loving wrong.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, what trouble\nWas I then to you!\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, a cherubim\nThou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.\nInfused with a fortitude from heaven,\nWhen I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,\nUnder my burthen groan'd; which raised in me\nAn undergoing stomach, to bear up\nAgainst what should ensue.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHow came we ashore?\n\nPROSPERO:\nBy Providence divine.\nSome food we had and some fresh water that\nA noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,\nOut of his charity, being then appointed\nMaster of this design, did give us, with\nRich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,\nWhich since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,\nKnowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me\nFrom mine own library with volumes that\nI prize above my dukedom.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWould I might\nBut ever see that man!\n\nPROSPERO:\nNow I arise:\nSit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\nHere in this island we arrived; and here\nHave I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit\nThan other princesses can that have more time\nFor vainer hours and tutors not so careful.\n\nMIRANDA:\nHeavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir,\nFor still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason\nFor raising this sea-storm?\n\nPROSPERO:\nKnow thus far forth.\nBy accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,\nNow my dear lady, hath mine enemies\nBrought to this shore; and by my prescience\nI find my zenith doth depend upon\nA most auspicious star, whose influence\nIf now I court not but omit, my fortunes\nWill ever after droop. Here cease more questions:\nThou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,\nAnd give it way: I know thou canst not choose.\nCome away, servant, come. I am ready now.\nApproach, my Ariel, come.\n\nARIEL:\nAll hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come\nTo answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,\nTo swim, to dive into the fire, to ride\nOn the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task\nAriel and all his quality.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHast thou, spirit,\nPerform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?\n\nARIEL:\nTo every article.\nI boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,\nNow in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,\nI flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide,\nAnd burn in many places; on the topmast,\nThe yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\nThen meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors\nO' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary\nAnd sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks\nOf sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune\nSeem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,\nYea, his dread trident shake.\n\nPROSPERO:\nMy brave spirit!\nWho was so firm, so constant, that this coil\nWould not infect his reason?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a soul\nBut felt a fever of the mad and play'd\nSome tricks of desperation. All but mariners\nPlunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,\nThen all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,\nWith hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,--\nWas the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty\nAnd all the devils are here.'\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhy that's my spirit!\nBut was not this nigh shore?\n\nARIEL:\nClose by, my master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut are they, Ariel, safe?\n\nARIEL:\nNot a hair perish'd;\nOn their sustaining garments not a blemish,\nBut fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,\nIn troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.\nThe king's son have I landed by himself;\nWhom I left cooling of the air with sighs\nIn an odd angle of the isle and sitting,\nHis arms in this sad knot.\n\nPROSPERO:\nOf the king's ship\nThe mariners say how thou hast disposed\nAnd all the rest o' the fleet.\n\nARIEL:\nSafely in harbour\nIs the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once\nThou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\nFrom the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:\nThe mariners all under hatches stow'd;\nWho, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,\nI have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet\nWhich I dispersed, they all have met again\nAnd are upon the Mediterranean flote,\nBound sadly home for Naples,\nSupposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd\nAnd his great person perish.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAriel, thy charge\nExactly is perform'd: but there's more work.\nWhat is the time o' the day?\n\nARIEL:\nPast the mid season.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAt least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now\nMust by us both be spent most preciously.\n\nARIEL:\nIs there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,\nLet me remember thee what thou hast promised,\nWhich is not yet perform'd me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow now? moody?\nWhat is't thou canst demand?\n\nARIEL:\nMy liberty.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBefore the time be out? no more!\n\nARIEL:\nI prithee,\nRemember I have done thee worthy service;\nTold thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served\nWithout or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise\nTo bate me a full year.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDost thou forget\nFrom what a torment I did free thee?\n\nARIEL:\nNo.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze\nOf the salt deep,\nTo run upon the sharp wind of the north,\nTo do me business in the veins o' the earth\nWhen it is baked with frost.\n\nARIEL:\nI do not, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot\nThe foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy\nWas grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?\n\nARIEL:\nNo, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.\n\nARIEL:\nSir, in Argier.\n\nPROSPERO:\nO, was she so? I must\nOnce in a month recount what thou hast been,\nWhich thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,\nFor mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible\nTo enter human hearing, from Argier,\nThou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did\nThey would not take her life. Is not this true?\n\nARIEL:\nAy, sir.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThis blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child\nAnd here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,\nAs thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;\nAnd, for thou wast a spirit too delicate\nTo act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,\nRefusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,\nBy help of her more potent ministers\nAnd in her most unmitigable rage,\nInto a cloven pine; within which rift\nImprison'd thou didst painfully remain\nA dozen years; within which space she died\nAnd left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans\nAs fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island--\nSave for the son that she did litter here,\nA freckled whelp hag-born--not honour'd with\nA human shape.\n\nARIEL:\nYes, Caliban her son.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban\nWhom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st\nWhat torment I did find thee in; thy groans\nDid make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts\nOf ever angry bears: it was a torment\nTo lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax\nCould not again undo: it was mine art,\nWhen I arrived and heard thee, that made gape\nThe pine and let thee out.\n\nARIEL:\nI thank thee, master.\n\nPROSPERO:\nIf thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak\nAnd peg thee in his knotty entrails till\nThou hast howl'd away twelve winters.\n\nARIEL:\nPardon, master;\nI will be correspondent to command\nAnd do my spiriting gently.\n\nPROSPERO:\nDo so, and after two days\nI will discharge thee.\n\nARIEL:\nThat's my noble master!\nWhat shall I do? say what; what shall I do?\n\nPROSPERO:\nGo make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject\nTo no sight but thine and mine, invisible\nTo every eyeball else. Go take this shape\nAnd hither come in't: go, hence with diligence!\nAwake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!\n\nMIRANDA:\nThe strangeness of your story put\nHeaviness in me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nShake it off. Come on;\nWe'll visit Caliban my slave, who never\nYields us kind answer.\n\nMIRANDA:\n'Tis a villain, sir,\nI do not love to look on.\n\nPROSPERO:\nBut, as 'tis,\nWe cannot miss him: he does make our fire,\nFetch in our wood and serves in offices\nThat profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban!\nThou earth, thou! speak.\n\nCALIBAN:\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome forth, I say! there's other business for thee:\nCome, thou tortoise! when?\nFine apparition! My quaint Ariel,\nHark in thine ear.\n\nARIEL:\nMy lord it shall be done.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\nUpon thy wicked dam, come forth!\n\nCALIBAN:\nAs wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\nWith raven's feather from unwholesome fen\nDrop on you both! a south-west blow on ye\nAnd blister you all o'er!\n\nPROSPERO:\nFor this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\nSide-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\nShall, for that vast of night that they may work,\nAll exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd\nAs thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging\nThan bees that made 'em.\n\nCALIBAN:\nI must eat my dinner.\nThis island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,\nWhich thou takest from me. When thou camest first,\nThou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me\nWater with berries in't, and teach me how\nTo name the bigger light, and how the less,\nThat burn by day and night: and then I loved thee\nAnd show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,\nThe fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:\nCursed be I that did so! All the charms\nOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!\nFor I am all the subjects that you have,\nWhich first was mine own king: and here you sty me\nIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me\nThe rest o' the island.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou most lying slave,\nWhom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee,\nFilth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee\nIn mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate\nThe honour of my child.\n\nCALIBAN:\nO ho, O ho! would't had been done!\nThou didst prevent me; I had peopled else\nThis isle with Calibans.\n\nPROSPERO:\nAbhorred slave,\nWhich any print of goodness wilt not take,\nBeing capable of all ill! I pitied thee,\nTook pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour\nOne thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,\nKnow thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like\nA thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes\nWith words that made them known. But thy vile race,\nThough thou didst learn, had that in't which\ngood natures\nCould not abide to be with; therefore wast thou\nDeservedly confined into this rock,\nWho hadst deserved more than a prison.\n\nCALIBAN:\nYou taught me language; and my profit on't\nIs, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you\nFor learning me your language!\n\nPROSPERO:\nHag-seed, hence!\nFetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best,\nTo answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?\nIf thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly\nWhat I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,\nFill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar\nThat beasts shall tremble at thy din.\n\nCALIBAN:\nNo, pray thee.\nI must obey: his art is of such power,\nIt would control my dam's god, Setebos,\nand make a vassal of him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSo, slave; hence!\nCome unto these yellow sands,\nAnd then take hands:\nCourtsied when you have and kiss'd\nThe wild waves whist,\nFoot it featly here and there;\nAnd, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.\nHark, hark!\n\nFERDINAND:\nWhere should this music be? i' the air or the earth?\nIt sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon\nSome god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,\nWeeping again the king my father's wreck,\nThis music crept by me upon the waters,\nAllaying both their fury and my passion\nWith its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,\nOr it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.\nNo, it begins again.\nFull fathom five thy father lies;\nOf his bones are coral made;\nThose are pearls that were his eyes:\nNothing of him that doth fade\nBut doth suffer a sea-change\nInto something rich and strange.\nSea-nymphs hourly ring his knell\nHark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.\n\nFERDINAND:\nThe ditty does remember my drown'd father.\nThis is no mortal business, nor no sound\nThat the earth owes. I hear it now above me.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThe fringed curtains of thine eye advance\nAnd say what thou seest yond.\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhat is't? a spirit?\nLord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,\nIt carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.\n\nPROSPERO:\nNo, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses\nAs we have, such. This gallant which thou seest\nWas in the wreck; and, but he's something stain'd\nWith grief that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him\nA goodly person: he hath lost his fellows\nAnd strays about to find 'em.\n\nMIRANDA:\nI might call him\nA thing divine, for nothing natural\nI ever saw so noble.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nFERDINAND:\nMost sure, the goddess\nOn whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer\nMay know if you remain upon this island;\nAnd that you will some good instruction give\nHow I may bear me here: my prime request,\nWhich I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!\nIf you be maid or no?\n\nMIRANDA:\nNo wonder, sir;\nBut certainly a maid.\n\nFERDINAND:\nMy language! heavens!\nI am the best of them that speak this speech,\nWere I but where 'tis spoken.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHow? the best?\nWhat wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?\n\nFERDINAND:\nA single thing, as I am now, that wonders\nTo hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;\nAnd that he does I weep: myself am Naples,\nWho with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld\nThe king my father wreck'd.\n\nMIRANDA:\nAlack, for mercy!\n\nFERDINAND:\nYes, faith, and all his lords; the Duke of Milan\nAnd his brave son being twain.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nWhy speaks my father so ungently? This\nIs the third man that e'er I saw, the first\nThat e'er I sigh'd for: pity move my father\nTo be inclined my way!\n\nFERDINAND:\nO, if a virgin,\nAnd your affection not gone forth, I'll make you\nThe queen of Naples.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSoft, sir! one word more.\nThey are both in either's powers; but this swift business\nI must uneasy make, lest too light winning\nMake the prize light.\nOne word more; I charge thee\nThat thou attend me: thou dost here usurp\nThe name thou owest not; and hast put thyself\nUpon this island as a spy, to win it\nFrom me, the lord on't.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo, as I am a man.\n\nMIRANDA:\nThere's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:\nIf the ill spirit have so fair a house,\nGood things will strive to dwell with't.\n\nPROSPERO:\nFollow me.\nSpeak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;\nI'll manacle thy neck and feet together:\nSea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be\nThe fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots and husks\nWherein the acorn cradled. Follow.\n\nFERDINAND:\nNo;\nI will resist such entertainment till\nMine enemy has more power.\n\nMIRANDA:\nO dear father,\nMake not too rash a trial of him, for\nHe's gentle and not fearful.\n\nPROSPERO:\nWhat? I say,\nMy foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;\nWho makest a show but darest not strike, thy conscience\nIs so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward,\nFor I can here disarm thee with this stick\nAnd make thy weapon drop.\n\nMIRANDA:\nBeseech you, father.\n\nPROSPERO:\nHence! hang not on my garments.\n\nMIRANDA:\nSir, have pity;\nI'll be his surety.\n\nPROSPERO:\nSilence! one word more\nShall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!\nAn advocate for an imposter! hush!\nThou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,\nHaving seen but him and Caliban: foolish wench!\nTo the most of men this is a Caliban\nAnd they to him are angels.\n\nMIRANDA:\nMy affections\nAre then most humble; I have no ambition\nTo see a goodlier man.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome on; obey:\nThy nerves are in their infancy again\nAnd have no vigour in them.\n\nFERDINAND:\nSo they are;\nMy spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.\nMy father's loss, the weakness which I feel,\nThe wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats,\nTo whom I am subdued, are but light to me,\nMight I but through my prison once a day\nBehold this maid: all corners else o' the earth\nLet liberty make use of; space enough\nHave I in such a prison.\n\nPROSPERO:\n\nMIRANDA:\nBe of comfort;\nMy father's of a better nature, sir,\nThan he appears by speech: this is unwonted\nWhich now came from him.\n\nPROSPERO:\nThou shalt be free\nAs mountain winds: but then exactly do\nAll points of my command.\n\nARIEL:\nTo the syllable.\n\nPROSPERO:\nCome, follow. Speak not for him.\n\nGONZALO:\nBeseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,\nSo have we all, of joy; for our escape\nIs much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe\nIs common; every day some sailor's wife,\nThe masters of some merchant and the merchant\nHave just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,\nI mean our preservation, few in millions\nCan speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh\nOur sorrow with our comfort.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe receives comfort like cold porridge.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe visitor will not give him o'er so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nLook he's winding up the watch of his wit;\nby and by it will strike.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOne: tell.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,\nComes to the entertainer--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA dollar.\n\nGONZALO:\nDolour comes to him, indeed: you\nhave spoken truer than you purposed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.\n\nGONZALO:\nTherefore, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nFie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\n\nALONSO:\nI prithee, spare.\n\nGONZALO:\nWell, I have done: but yet,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHe will be talking.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhich, of he or Adrian, for a good\nwager, first begins to crow?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nThe old cock.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe cockerel.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nDone. The wager?\n\nANTONIO:\nA laughter.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nA match!\n\nADRIAN:\nThough this island seem to be desert,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHa, ha, ha! So, you're paid.\n\nADRIAN:\nUninhabitable and almost inaccessible,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet,--\n\nADRIAN:\nYet,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe could not miss't.\n\nADRIAN:\nIt must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate\ntemperance.\n\nANTONIO:\nTemperance was a delicate wench.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.\n\nADRIAN:\nThe air breathes upon us here most sweetly.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs if it had lungs and rotten ones.\n\nANTONIO:\nOr as 'twere perfumed by a fen.\n\nGONZALO:\nHere is everything advantageous to life.\n\nANTONIO:\nTrue; save means to live.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOf that there's none, or little.\n\nGONZALO:\nHow lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!\n\nANTONIO:\nThe ground indeed is tawny.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWith an eye of green in't.\n\nANTONIO:\nHe misses not much.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo; he doth but mistake the truth totally.\n\nGONZALO:\nBut the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost\nbeyond credit,--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAs many vouched rarities are.\n\nGONZALO:\nThat our garments, being, as they were, drenched in\nthe sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and\nglosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with\nsalt water.\n\nANTONIO:\nIf but one of his pockets could speak, would it not\nsay he lies?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAy, or very falsely pocket up his report\n\nGONZALO:\nMethinks our garments are now as fresh as when we\nput them on first in Afric, at the marriage of\nthe king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.\n\nADRIAN:\nTunis was never graced before with such a paragon to\ntheir queen.\n\nGONZALO:\nNot since widow Dido's time.\n\nANTONIO:\nWidow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in?\nwidow Dido!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat if he had said 'widower AEneas' too? Good Lord,\nhow you take it!\n\nADRIAN:\n'Widow Dido' said you? you make me study of that:\nshe was of Carthage, not of Tunis.\n\nGONZALO:\nThis Tunis, sir, was Carthage.\n\nADRIAN:\nCarthage?\n\nGONZALO:\nI assure you, Carthage.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nHis word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath\nraised the wall and houses too.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat impossible matter will he make easy next?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI think he will carry this island home in his pocket\nand give it his son for an apple.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring\nforth more islands.\n\nGONZALO:\nAy.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhy, in good time.\n\nGONZALO:\nSir, we were talking that our garments seem now\nas fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage\nof your daughter, who is now queen.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd the rarest that e'er came there.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nBate, I beseech you, widow Dido.\n\nANTONIO:\nO, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido.\n\nGONZALO:\nIs not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I\nwore it? I mean, in a sort.\n\nANTONIO:\nThat sort was well fished for.\n\nGONZALO:\nWhen I wore it at your daughter's marriage?\n\nALONSO:\nYou cram these words into mine ears against\nThe stomach of my sense. Would I had never\nMarried my daughter there! for, coming thence,\nMy son is lost and, in my rate, she too,\nWho is so far from Italy removed\nI ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir\nOf Naples and of Milan, what strange fish\nHath made his meal on thee?\n\nFRANCISCO:\nSir, he may live:\nI saw him beat the surges under him,\nAnd ride upon their backs; he trod the water,\nWhose enmity he flung aside, and breasted\nThe surge most swoln that met him; his bold head\n'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd\nHimself with his good arms in lusty stroke\nTo the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,\nAs stooping to relieve him: I not doubt\nHe came alive to land.\n\nALONSO:\nNo, no, he's gone.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nSir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,\nThat would not bless our Europe with your daughter,\nBut rather lose her to an African;\nWhere she at least is banish'd from your eye,\nWho hath cause to wet the grief on't.\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, peace.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYou were kneel'd to and importuned otherwise\nBy all of us, and the fair soul herself\nWeigh'd between loathness and obedience, at\nWhich end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your\nson,\nI fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have\nMore widows in them of this business' making\nThan we bring men to comfort them:\nThe fault's your own.\n\nALONSO:\nSo is the dear'st o' the loss.\n\nGONZALO:\nMy lord Sebastian,\nThe truth you speak doth lack some gentleness\nAnd time to speak it in: you rub the sore,\nWhen you should bring the plaster.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nVery well.\n\nANTONIO:\nAnd most chirurgeonly.\n\nGONZALO:\nIt is foul weather in us all, good sir,\nWhen you are cloudy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nFoul weather?\n\nANTONIO:\nVery foul.\n\nGONZALO:\nHad I plantation of this isle, my lord,--\n\nANTONIO:\nHe'ld sow't with nettle-seed.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nOr docks, or mallows.\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd were the king on't, what would I do?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\n'Scape being drunk for want of wine.\n\nGONZALO:\nI' the commonwealth I would by contraries\nExecute all things; for no kind of traffic\nWould I admit; no name of magistrate;\nLetters should not be known; riches, poverty,\nAnd use of service, none; contract, succession,\nBourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\nNo use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\nNo occupation; all men idle, all;\nAnd women too, but innocent and pure;\nNo sovereignty;--\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nYet he would be king on't.\n\nANTONIO:\nThe latter end of his commonwealth forgets the\nbeginning.\n\nGONZALO:\nAll things in common nature should produce\nWithout sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,\nSword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,\nWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,\nOf its own kind, all foison, all abundance,\nTo feed my innocent people.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nNo marrying 'mong his subjects?\n\nANTONIO:\nNone, man; all idle: whores and knaves.\n\nGONZALO:\nI would with such perfection govern, sir,\nTo excel the golden age.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nGod save his majesty!\n\nANTONIO:\nLong live Gonzalo!\n\nGONZALO:\nAnd,--do you mark me, sir?\n\nALONSO:\nPrithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.\n\nGONZALO:\nI do well believe your highness; and\ndid it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,\nwho are of such sensible and nimble lungs that\nthey always use to laugh at nothing.\n\nANTONIO:\n'Twas you we laughed at.\n\nGONZALO:\nWho in this kind of merry fooling am nothing\nto you: so you may continue and laugh at\nnothing still.\n\nANTONIO:\nWhat a blow was there given!\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nAn it had not fallen flat-long.\n\nGONZALO:\nYou are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift\nthe moon out of her sphere, if she would continue\nin it five weeks without changing.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWe would so, and then go a bat-fowling.\n\nANTONIO:\nNay, good my lord, be not angry.\n\nGONZALO:\nNo, I warrant you; I will not adventure\nmy discretion so weakly. Will you laugh\nme asleep, for I am very heavy?\n\nANTONIO:\nGo sleep, and hear us.\n\nALONSO:\nWhat, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes\nWould, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find\nThey are inclined to do so.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nPlease you, sir,\nDo not omit the heavy offer of it:\nIt seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,\nIt is a comforter.\n\nANTONIO:\nWe two, my lord,\nWill guard your person while you take your rest,\nAnd watch your safety.\n\nALONSO:\nThank you. Wondrous heavy.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat a strange drowsiness possesses them!\n\nANTONIO:\nIt is the quality o' the climate.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhy\nDoth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not\nMyself disposed to sleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNor I; my spirits are nimble.\nThey fell together all, as by consent;\nThey dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,\nWorthy Sebastian? O, what might?--No more:--\nAnd yet me thinks I see it in thy face,\nWhat thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and\nMy strong imagination sees a crown\nDropping upon thy head.\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nWhat, art thou waking?\n\nANTONIO:\nDo you not hear me speak?\n\nSEBASTIAN:\nI do; and surely\nIt is a sleepy language and thou speak'st\nOut of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?\nThis is a strange repose, to be asleep\nWith eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,\nAnd yet so fast asleep.\n\nANTONIO:\nNoble Sebastian,\nThou let'st thy fortune sleep--die, rather; wink'st\nWhiles thou art waking.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "nanogpt-lecture/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"nanogpt-lecture\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"numpy>=2.2.5\",\n    \"torch>=2.7.0\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "numpy-shapes-tutorial/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "numpy-shapes-tutorial/hello.py",
    "content": "def main():\n    print(\"Hello from numpy-shapes-tutorial!\")\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "numpy-shapes-tutorial/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"numpy-shapes-tutorial\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"numpy>=2.2.2\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "numpy-shapes-tutorial/shapes.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\n# One-dimensional array will have ndim=1, and shape (5,)\n# Passing in the tuple (5,) is the same as passing in 5\naa1 = np.random.rand(5)\nprint(\"aa1\", aa1.ndim, aa1.shape, aa1)\n\n# Two-dimensional array will have ndim=2, and shape (3, 4)\naa2 = np.random.rand(3, 4)\nprint(\"aa2\", aa2.ndim, aa2.shape, aa2)\n\n# The shape is always a tuple\n# A scalar is a zero-dimensional array, e.g. np.shape(1) will return ()\n\n# Dimensions are also called \"axes\". This array has 3 axes, the first with\n# size 2, the second with size 3, and the third with size 4\naa3 = np.random.rand(2, 3, 4)\nprint(\"aa3\", aa3.ndim, aa3.shape, aa3)\n\n# When Numpy arrays are printed, they are shown with the last dimesion changing\n# # the fastest (and thus shown contiguous in the output).\n# This is only the physical layout/representation, though; logically it makes\n# no difference - we can consider all axes to be equivalent in this sense\n# (like in a cube representing a 3D array - we can look at it from any side).\n#\n# The concept of \"rows\" and \"columns\" is just a convention. Notice how aa2 is\n# printed out. the size of axis 0 is 3, the size of axis 1 is 4. So we see it\n# as having 3 \"rows\", each with 4 \"columns\".\n\n# Indexing order is the same as the shape order; this is the \"last\" element\n# in aa3 because it's last in every dimension\nprint(\"last in aa3:\", aa3[1, 2, 3])\n\n# This will throw an error because the first index is out of bounds\n# print(\"last in aa3:\", aa3[2, 2, 3])\n\n# Dimensions of size 1 are valid, but the only valid addressing for them is\n# the 0th index.\n#\naa14 = np.random.rand(1, 4)\nprint(\"aa14\", aa14.ndim, aa14.shape, aa14)\naa41 = np.random.rand(4, 1)\nprint(\"aa41\", aa41.ndim, aa41.shape, aa41)\n\n# dot for 1d arrays is the same as inner product, we can use the dot method,\n# the dot function or the @ operator.\nbb1 = np.random.rand(5)\nprint(np.dot(aa1, bb1))\nprint(aa1.dot(bb1))\nprint(aa1 @ bb1)\n\n# When the arrays are 2d, the dot function and @ operator do matrix\n# multiplication. If LHS has shape (m,n), then RHS must have shape (n,p) for\n# any p and the result is shape (m,p).\nbb2 = np.random.rand(4, 5)\ndotres = aa2 @ bb2\nprint(\"dotres:\", dotres.shape, dotres)\n\n# Therefore, an outer product is achieved by multiplying a (n,1) array by\n# an (1,m) array.\nouter = np.random.randn(3, 1) @ np.random.randn(1, 2)\nprint(\"outer:\", outer.shape, outer)\n\n# Dot between a matrix and a vector will produce a 1d array (\"row\" vector)\nmat = np.ones((3, 4))\nprint(\"mat @ v:\", mat @ np.arange(4))\n\n# If we want a column vector, we have to explicitly reshape the RHS vector\n# to a column vector.\nprint(\"mat @ v col:\", mat @ np.arange(4).reshape(4, 1))\n\n# LHS vector\nprint(\"v @ mat:\", np.arange(3) @ mat)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/README.md",
    "content": ""
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/attention-head.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\nfrom torch.nn import functional as F\n\nimport os\n\nos.environ[\"CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES\"] = \"\"\n\ndevice = (\n    torch.accelerator.current_accelerator().type\n    if torch.accelerator.is_available()\n    else \"cpu\"\n)\nprint(f\"Using {device} device\")\n\n\nblock_size = 256  # what is the maximum context length for predictions?\n\n\n# Attention head taken from https://github.com/karpathy/ng-video-lecture/blob/master/gpt.py\n# with masking/dropout removed\nclass Head(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"one head of self-attention\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, C, head_size, do_mask=False):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.key = nn.Linear(C, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.query = nn.Linear(C, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.value = nn.Linear(C, head_size, bias=False)\n        self.do_mask = do_mask\n        self.register_buffer(\"tril\", torch.tril(torch.ones(block_size, block_size)))\n        # self.dropout = nn.Dropout(dropout)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        # input of size (batch, time-step, channels)\n        # output of size (batch, time-step, head size)\n        B, T, C = x.shape\n        k = self.key(x)  # (B,T,hs)\n        q = self.query(x)  # (B,T,hs)\n        # compute attention scores (\"affinities\")\n        wei = (\n            q @ k.transpose(-2, -1) * k.shape[-1] ** -0.5\n        )  # (B, T, hs) @ (B, hs, T) -> (B, T, T)\n\n        if self.do_mask:\n            wei = wei.masked_fill(self.tril[:T, :T] == 0, float(\"-inf\"))  # (B, T, T)\n        wei = F.softmax(wei, dim=-1)  # (B, T, T)\n        # wei = self.dropout(wei)\n        # perform the weighted aggregation of the values\n        v = self.value(x)  # (B,T,hs)\n        out = wei @ v  # (B, T, T) @ (B, T, hs) -> (B, T, hs)\n        return out\n\n\nclass MultiHeadAttention(nn.Module):\n    \"\"\"multiple heads of self-attention in parallel\"\"\"\n\n    def __init__(self, C, num_heads, head_size, do_mask=False):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.heads = nn.ModuleList(\n            [Head(C, head_size, do_mask) for _ in range(num_heads)]\n        )\n        self.proj = nn.Linear(head_size * num_heads, C)\n        # self.dropout = nn.Dropout(dropout)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        out = torch.cat([h(x) for h in self.heads], dim=-1)\n        out = self.proj(out)\n        # out = self.dropout(self.proj(out))\n        return out\n\n\nprint(\"---- Single attention head, B=1 ----\")\nB = 1\nT = 6\nC = 4\nHS = 4\n\nx = torch.linspace(0.1, 2.4, T * C).reshape(B, T, C)\nprint(x)\n\nhead = Head(C, HS)\n\nkseq = torch.linspace(0.1, 0.4, B * C * HS).view(head.key.weight.shape)\nqseq = torch.linspace(1.1, 1.4, B * C * HS).view(head.query.weight.shape)\nvseq = torch.linspace(2.1, 2.4, B * C * HS).view(head.value.weight.shape)\n\nwith torch.no_grad():\n    head.key.weight.copy_(kseq)\n    head.query.weight.copy_(qseq)\n    head.value.weight.copy_(vseq)\n\nout = head(x)\n\nprint(out.shape)\nprint(out)\n\nprint(\"---- Single attention head, B=3 ----\")\nB = 3\nT = 4\nC = 2\nHS = 2\n\nx = torch.linspace(0.1, 5.4, B * T * C).reshape(B, T, C)\nprint(x)\n\nbhead = Head(C, HS)\n\nkseq = torch.linspace(0.1, 0.8, C * HS).view(bhead.key.weight.shape)\nqseq = torch.linspace(1.1, 1.8, C * HS).view(bhead.query.weight.shape)\nvseq = torch.linspace(2.1, 2.8, C * HS).view(bhead.value.weight.shape)\n\nwith torch.no_grad():\n    bhead.key.weight.copy_(kseq)\n    bhead.query.weight.copy_(qseq)\n    bhead.value.weight.copy_(vseq)\n\nout = bhead(x)\nprint(out.shape)\nprint(out)\n\nprint(\"---- Multi-head attention, B=3 ----\")\nB = 3\nT = 4\nC = 6\nHS = 2\nNH = 3\n\nx = torch.linspace(0.1, 8.4, B * T * C).reshape(B, T, C)\nprint(x)\n\nmhead = MultiHeadAttention(C, NH, HS, do_mask=False)\n# mhead = MultiHeadAttention(C, NH, HS, do_mask=True)\n\nkseqs = [\n    torch.linspace(i + 0.1, i + 0.8, C * HS).view(mhead.heads[0].key.weight.shape)\n    for i in range(NH)\n]\n\nqseqs = [\n    torch.linspace(i + 3.1, i + 3.8, C * HS).view(mhead.heads[0].key.weight.shape)\n    for i in range(NH)\n]\n\nvseqs = [\n    torch.linspace(i + 6.1, i + 6.8, C * HS).view(mhead.heads[0].key.weight.shape)\n    for i in range(NH)\n]\n\npseq = torch.linspace(9.1, 9.8, C * HS * NH).view(mhead.proj.weight.shape)\n\nwith torch.no_grad():\n    for i in range(NH):\n        mhead.heads[i].key.weight.copy_(kseqs[i])\n        mhead.heads[i].query.weight.copy_(qseqs[i])\n        mhead.heads[i].value.weight.copy_(vseqs[i])\n    mhead.proj.weight.copy_(pseq)\n\nout = mhead(x)\nprint(out.shape)\nprint(out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/basic-device.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\n\ndevice = torch.accelerator.current_accelerator().type if torch.accelerator.is_available() else \"cpu\"\nprint(f\"Using {device} device\")\n\n# Simple model example\nclass MyModel(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.linear = nn.Linear(10, 5)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        return self.linear(x)\n\nmodel = MyModel()\n\n# Generate random input data (e.g., batch size 2, input dimension 10)\nx = torch.randn(2, 10)\nout = model(x)\nprint(out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/cross-entropy.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn.functional as F\n\n# Suppose we have 2 samples and 3 classes\n# logits can be any real numbers (raw, un-normalized scores)\nlogits1 = torch.tensor([[2.0, 0.5, 0.1], [0.1, 0.2, 3.0]])  # sample 0  # sample 1\n\n# target labels: each in {0,1,2}, shape (batch,)\ntargets = torch.tensor([0, 2])\n\n# compute loss (default reduction='mean')\nloss1 = F.cross_entropy(logits1, targets)\nprint(f\"Mean loss1: {loss1.item():.3f}\")\n\nlogits2 = torch.tensor([[1.0, 1.5, 1.1], [2.1, 2.2, 2.0]])  # sample 0  # sample 1\nloss2 = F.cross_entropy(logits2, targets)\nprint(f\"Mean loss2: {loss2.item():.3f}\")\n\n# If you want per-sample losses:\nloss_none = F.cross_entropy(logits1, targets, reduction=\"none\")\nprint(f\"Per-sample losses: {loss_none.tolist()}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/linear-compare.py",
    "content": "import torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\n\n# input shape is (M, N)\n# output shape is (M, K)\nM = 6\nN = 4\nK = 3\n\n# Linear with in_features=N, out_features=K\n# This expects inputs that are (M, N) in shape, and then\n# multiplies (M, N) by (N, K) to get (M, K).\n\n# Internally, nn.Linear creates its tensor as (out_features, in_features),\n# so when we assign to its weights directly we have to use the same shape,\n# which is (K, N) in our case.\nlayer = nn.Linear(N, K, bias=False)\nlseq = torch.tensor(\n    [\n        [10.0, 100.0, 1000.0, 10000.0],\n        [20.0, 200.0, 2000.0, 20000.0],\n        [30.0, 300.0, 3000.0, 30000.0],\n    ]\n)\n\nwith torch.no_grad():\n    layer.weight.copy_(lseq)\n\nx = torch.linspace(0.1, 2.4, M * N).reshape(M, N)\nout = layer(x)\nprint(f\"x:\\n {x}\")\nprint(f\"Linear out:\\n {out}\")\n\n# Reproducing the same thing with plain Numpy\nimport numpy as np\n\nW = lseq.numpy()\nx_np = x.numpy()\nout_np = x_np @ W.T\nprint(f\"Linear out (Numpy):\\n {out_np}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/moe.py",
    "content": "from dataclasses import dataclass\nfrom typing import List\n\nimport torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\nimport torch.nn.functional as F\n\n\n@dataclass\nclass ModelParams:\n    dim: int\n    hidden_dim: int\n    num_experts: int\n    topK: int\n\n\nMP = ModelParams(\n    dim=512,\n    hidden_dim=2048,\n    num_experts=8,\n    topK=2,\n)\n\n\n# Feed-forward NN with ReLU activation and one hidden layer.\nclass FF(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.w1 = nn.Linear(MP.dim, MP.hidden_dim, bias=False)\n        self.w2 = nn.Linear(MP.hidden_dim, MP.dim, bias=False)\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        return self.w2(F.relu(self.w1(x)))\n\n\nclass Moe(nn.Module):\n    def __init__(self, experts: List[nn.Module], gate: nn.Module):\n        super().__init__()\n        self.experts = nn.ModuleList(experts)\n        self.gate = gate\n\n    def forward(self, x):\n        # x is (B, N, dim)\n        # Multiply by gate (dim, num_experts), to get (B, N, num_experts). For\n        # each token, we get a score per expert.\n        gate_scores = self.gate(x)\n\n        # Select top K experts with the highest scores. top_scores is\n        # (B, N, topK), and top_experts is the indices of the selected\n        # experts (B, N, topK).\n        top_scores, top_experts = torch.topk(gate_scores, MP.topK, sorted=False)\n\n        # Apply softmax to the top scores to get weights that sum to 1.\n        weights = F.softmax(top_scores, dim=-1)\n\n        out = torch.zeros_like(x)\n        # For each token in batch and sequence.\n        for b in range(x.shape[0]):\n            for n in range(x.shape[1]):\n                # Select the top K experts and their corresponding weights for\n                # this token.\n                for expert_idx, weight in zip(top_experts[b, n], weights[b, n]):\n                    # Apply the expert to the input token and multiply by the\n                    # corresponding weight.\n                    out[b, n] += weight * self.experts[expert_idx](x[b, n])\n\n        return out\n\n\nexperts = [FF() for _ in range(MP.num_experts)]\ngate = nn.Linear(MP.dim, MP.num_experts, bias=False)\nmodel = Moe(experts, gate)\n\nB = 16\nN = 64\n\nprint(f\"Model parameters: {MP}\")\nx = torch.randn(B, N, MP.dim)\nout = model(x)\nprint(f\"Input shape: {x.shape}\")\nprint(f\"Output shape: {out.shape}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"pytorch-samples\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"numpy>=2.2.3\",\n    \"torch>=2.6.0\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/topk.py",
    "content": "# Experimenting with Pytorch's topk function\nimport torch\nimport torch.nn as nn\n\n# New torch array with given values\nx = torch.tensor([10, 20, 11, 4, 8, 19, 71, 9, 15])\n\nvalues, indices = torch.topk(x, 3)\nprint(f\"Top 3 values: {values}\")\nprint(f\"Top 3 indices: {indices}\")\n\n\n# Numpy equivalent\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef topk_np(x, k):\n    # Using np.argpartition to get the indices of the top k elements: they\n    # are not necessarily sorted. Can be sorted if needed.\n    idx = np.argpartition(x, -k)[-k:]\n    return x[idx], idx\n\n\nx_np = x.numpy()\nvalues_np, indices_np = topk_np(x_np, 3)\nprint(f\"Top 3 values (Numpy): {values_np}\")\nprint(f\"Top 3 indices (Numpy): {indices_np}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "pytorch-samples/where.py",
    "content": "import torch\n\nx = torch.tensor(\n    [\n        [10, 20, 11, 4, 8, 20, 19, 20],\n        [20, 30, 31, 20, 9, 22, 15, 90],\n        [5, 6, 31, 5, 9, 20, 15, 90],\n    ]\n)\n\nprint(x.shape)\n\na, b = torch.where(x == 20)\nprint(a)\nprint(b)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "softmax/softmax.py",
    "content": "# Softmax function, its gradient, and combination with other layers.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef softmax(z):\n    \"\"\"Computes softmax function.\n\n    z: array of input values.\n\n    Returns an array of outputs with the same shape as z.\"\"\"\n    # For numerical stability: make the maximum of z's to be 0.\n    shiftz = z - np.max(z)\n    exps = np.exp(shiftz)\n    return exps / np.sum(exps)\n\n\ndef softmax_gradient(z):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of the softmax function.\n\n    z: (T, 1) array of input values where the gradient is computed. T is the\n       number of output classes.\n\n    Returns D (T, T) the Jacobian matrix of softmax(z) at the given z. D[i, j]\n    is DjSi - the partial derivative of Si w.r.t. input j.\n    \"\"\"\n    Sz = softmax(z)\n    # -SjSi can be computed using an outer product between Sz and itself. Then\n    # we add back Si for the i=j cases by adding a diagonal matrix with the\n    # values of Si on its diagonal.\n    D = -np.outer(Sz, Sz) + np.diag(Sz.flatten())\n    return D\n\n\ndef softmax_gradient_simple(z):\n    \"\"\"Unvectorized computation of the gradient of softmax.\n\n    z: (T, 1) column array of input values.\n\n    Returns D (T, T) the Jacobian matrix of softmax(z) at the given z. D[i, j]\n    is DjSi - the partial derivative of Si w.r.t. input j.\n    \"\"\"\n    Sz = softmax(z)\n    N = z.shape[0]\n    D = np.zeros((N, N))\n    for i in range(N):\n        for j in range(N):\n            D[i, j] = Sz[i, 0] * (np.float32(i == j) - Sz[j, 0])\n    return D\n\n\ndef fully_connected_gradient(x, W):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of a fully connected layer w.r.t. the weights.\n\n    x: (N, 1) input\n    W: (T, N) weights\n\n    A fully connected layer acting on the input x is: W.dot(x). This function\n    computes the full Jacobian matrix of this formula. The W matrix is flattened\n    in row-major order to rows of the Jacobian, such that DijFCt is the\n    derivative of output t (the t'th row of W.dot(x)) w.r.t. W[i, j].\n\n    Returns D (T, N * T)\n    \"\"\"\n    N = x.shape[0]\n    T = W.shape[0]\n    D = np.zeros((T, N * T))\n    for t in range(T):\n        for i in range(T):\n            for j in range(N):\n                # Computing gradient of the t'th output w.r.t. W[i, j]. Its\n                # index in the D matrix is: (t, i*N + j)\n                # The t'th output only depends on the t'th row in W. Otherwise\n                # the derivative is zero. In the t'th row, each weight is\n                # multiplied by the respective x.\n                if t == i:\n                    D[t, i*N + j] = x[j]\n    return D\n\n\ndef softmax_layer(x, W):\n    \"\"\"Computes a \"softmax layer\" for input vector x and weight matrix W.\n\n    A softmax layer is a fully connected layer followed by the softmax function.\n    Mathematically it's softmax(W.dot(x)).\n\n    x: (N, 1) input vector with N features.\n    W: (T, N) matrix of weights for N features and T output classes.\n\n    Returns s (T, 1) the result of applying softmax to W.dot(x)\n    \"\"\"\n    logits = W.dot(x)\n    return softmax(logits)\n\n\ndef softmax_layer_gradient(x, W):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of a \"softmax layer\" for weight matrix W.\n\n    x: (N, 1) input\n    W: (T, N) weights\n\n    A fully connected layer acting on the input x is: W.dot(x). This function\n    computes the full Jacobian matrix of this formula. The W matrix is flattened\n    in row-major order to rows of the Jacobian, such that DijFCt is the\n    derivative of output t (the t'th row of W.dot(x)) w.r.t. W[i, j].\n\n    Returns D (T, N * T)\n    \"\"\"\n    logits = W.dot(x)\n    return softmax_gradient(logits).dot(fully_connected_gradient(x, W))\n\n\ndef softmax_layer_gradient_direct(x, W):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of a \"softmax layer\" for weight matrix W.\n\n    Arguments and return value exactly the same as for softmax_layer_gradient.\n    The difference is that this function computes the Jacobian \"directly\" by\n    assigning each cell in the matrix, rather than explicitly computing the\n    matrix multiplication of the two composed Jacobians.\n    \"\"\"\n    N = x.shape[0]\n    T = W.shape[0]\n    S = softmax_layer(x, W)\n    D = np.zeros((T, N * T))\n    for t in range(T):\n        for i in range(T):\n            for j in range(N):\n                DiSt = S[t, 0] * (np.float32(i == t) - S[i, 0])\n                D[t, i*N + j] = DiSt * x[j, 0]\n    return D\n\n\ndef cross_entropy_loss(p, y):\n    \"\"\"Cross-entropy loss between predicted and expected probabilities.\n\n    p: vector of predicted probabilities.\n    y: vector of expected probabilities. Has to be the same shape as p.\n\n    Returns a scalar.\n    \"\"\"\n    assert(p.shape == y.shape)\n    return -np.sum(y * np.log(p))\n\n\ndef cross_entropy_loss_gradient(p, y):\n    \"\"\"Gradient of the cross-entropy loss function for p and y.\n\n    p: (T, 1) vector of predicted probabilities.\n    y: (T, 1) vector of expected probabilities; must be one-hot -- one and only\n              one element of y is 1; the rest are 0.\n\n    Returns a (1, T) Jacobian for this function.\n    \"\"\"\n    assert(p.shape == y.shape and p.shape[1] == 1)\n    # py is the value of p at the index where y == 1 (one and only one such\n    # index is expected for a one-hot y).\n    py = p[y == 1]\n    assert(py.size == 1)\n    # D is zeros everywhere except at the index where y == 1. The final D has\n    # to be a row-vector.\n    D = np.zeros_like(p)\n    D[y == 1] = -1/py.flat[0]\n    return D.flatten()\n\n\ndef softmax_cross_entropy_loss_gradient(x, W, y):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of a cross-entropy loss for a softmax layer.\n\n    x: (N, 1) input\n    W: (T, N) weights\n    y: (T, 1) correct labels (one-hot vector with one element 1.0, others 0.0)\n\n    Returns D (1, N * T)\n    \"\"\"\n    p = softmax_layer(x, W)\n    return cross_entropy_loss_gradient(p, y).dot(softmax_layer_gradient(x, W))\n\n\ndef softmax_cross_entropy_loss_gradient_direct(x, W, y):\n    \"\"\"Computes the gradient of a cross-entropy loss for a softmax layer.\n\n    Arguments and return value exactly the same as for\n    softmax_cross_entropy_loss_gradient. The difference is that this function\n    computes the Jacobian \"directly\" by assigning each cell in the matrix,\n    rather than explicitly computing the matrix multiplication of the two\n    composed Jacobians.\n    \"\"\"\n    N = x.shape[0]\n    T = W.shape[0]\n    S = softmax_layer(x, W)\n    D = np.zeros(N * T)\n    yindex = np.argwhere(y == 1)[0, 0]\n    for i in range(T):\n        for j in range(N):\n            D[i*N + j] = (S[i, 0] - np.float32(i == yindex)) * x[j, 0]\n    return D\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    #pa = [2945.0, 2945.5]\n    #pa = np.array([[1000], [2000], [3000]])\n    #print(softmax(pa))\n    #print(stablesoftmax(pa))\n\n    W = np.array([\n        [2, 3, 4],\n        [3, 5, -1]])\n    x = np.array([\n        [0.1],\n        [-0.2],\n        [0.3]])\n    print(softmax_layer(x, W))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "softmax/softmax_test.py",
    "content": "# Tests for softmax.\n#\n# Eli Bendersky (https://eli.thegreenplace.net)\n# This code is in the public domain\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport unittest\n\nfrom softmax import *\n\n\ndef eval_numerical_gradient(f, x, verbose=False, h=1e-5):\n    \"\"\"A naive implementation of numerical gradient of f at x.\n\n    Used for gradient checking.\n\n    f: function taking a single array argument and returning a scalar.\n    x: array starting point for evaluation.\n\n    Based on http://cs231n.github.io/assignments2016/assignment1/, with a\n    bit of cleanup.\n    Also uses the centered formula described in\n    http://cs231n.github.io/neural-networks-3/#gradcheck\n\n    Returns a numerical gradient, same shape as x.\n    \"\"\"\n    grad = np.zeros_like(x)\n    # iterate over all indexes in x\n    it = np.nditer(x, flags=['multi_index'], op_flags=['readwrite'])\n    while not it.finished:\n        ix = it.multi_index\n        oldval = x[ix]\n        x[ix] = oldval + h\n        fxph = f(x) # evalute f(x + h)\n        x[ix] = oldval - h\n        fxmh = f(x) # evaluate f(x - h)\n        x[ix] = oldval # restore\n\n        # compute the partial derivative with centered formula\n        grad[ix] = (fxph - fxmh) / (2 * h)\n        if verbose:\n            print(ix, grad[ix])\n        it.iternext()\n    return grad\n\n\nclass TestSoftmaxGradient(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkSoftmaxGradientSimpleVsVec(self, z):\n        dz_vec = softmax_gradient(z)\n        dz_simple = softmax_gradient_simple(z)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(dz_vec, dz_simple)\n\n    def test_simple_vs_numerical(self):\n        z = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [0.9],\n            [-0.3],\n            [-0.5]])\n        grad = softmax_gradient_simple(z)\n\n        for i in range(z.shape[0]):\n            # Compute numerical gradient for output Si w.r.t. all inputs\n            # j=0...N-1; this computes one row of the jacobian.\n            gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(lambda z: softmax(z)[i, 0], z)\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(grad[i, :].flatten(),\n                                       gradnum.flatten(),\n                                       rtol=1e-4)\n\n    def test_simple_vs_vectorized_small(self):\n        z = np.array([\n            [0.2],\n            [0.9]])\n        self.checkSoftmaxGradientSimpleVsVec(z)\n\n    def test_simple_vs_vectorized_larger(self):\n        z = np.array([\n            [1.2],\n            [0],\n            [-0.01],\n            [2.12],\n            [-0.9]])\n        self.checkSoftmaxGradientSimpleVsVec(z)\n\n    def test_simple_vs_vectorized_random(self):\n        z = np.random.uniform(low=-2.0, high=2.0, size=(100,1))\n        self.checkSoftmaxGradientSimpleVsVec(z)\n\n\nclass TestFullyConnectedGradient(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_small(self):\n        W = np.array([\n            [2.0, 3.0, 4.0],\n            [5.0, 6.0, 7.0]])\n        x = np.array([\n            [-2.0],\n            [6.0],\n            [1.6]])\n        grad = fully_connected_gradient(x, W)\n\n        for t in range(W.shape[0]):\n            # This computes the t'th row in the Jacobian\n            gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(lambda W: W.dot(x)[t, 0], W)\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(grad[t, :], gradnum.flatten(order='C'))\n\n\nclass TestSoftmaxLayerGradient(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkForData(self, x, W, rtol=1e-5, atol=1e-8):\n        # Set custom rtol/atol to the ones used by numpy.isclose; by default\n        # assert_allclose uses atol=0 which is problematic for values very close\n        # to zero.\n        grad = softmax_layer_gradient(x, W)\n        grad_direct = softmax_layer_gradient_direct(x, W)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, grad_direct, rtol=rtol, atol=atol)\n\n        for t in range(W.shape[0]):\n            gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n                lambda W: softmax_layer(x, W)[t, 0], W)\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(grad[t, :], gradnum.flatten(order='C'),\n                                       rtol=rtol, atol=atol)\n\n    def test_small(self):\n        W = np.array([\n            [2.0, 3.0, 4.0],\n            [5.0, 6.0, 7.0]])\n        x = np.array([\n            [-2.0],\n            [2.0],\n            [1.6]])\n        self.checkForData(x, W)\n\n    def test_bigger(self):\n        W = np.array([\n            [2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 1.0],\n            [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, -0.1],\n            [1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 2.3],\n            [1.4, -3.3, -1.0, 1.1]])\n        x = np.array([\n            [-0.1],\n            [0.3],\n            [-0.2],\n            [0.6]])\n        self.checkForData(x, W)\n\n    def test_random_big(self):\n        np.random.seed(42)\n        N = 80\n        T = 10\n        W = np.random.uniform(low=-2.0, high=2.0, size=(T, N))\n        x = np.random.uniform(low=-1.0, high=1.0, size=(N, 1))\n        self.checkForData(x, W)\n\n\nclass TestCrossEntropyLossAndGradient(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_cross_entropy_with_onehot_y(self):\n        # Simple test of the cross_entropy_loss function with a one-hot y\n        # typical in classification tasks.\n        T = 5\n        p = np.vstack((1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 4.8, 0.75))\n\n        for i in range(T):\n            y = np.zeros((T, 1))\n            y[i] = 1.0\n            xent = cross_entropy_loss(p, y)\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(xent, -np.log(p[i]))\n\n            grad = cross_entropy_loss_gradient(p, y)\n            gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n                lambda z: cross_entropy_loss(z, y), p)\n            np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum.flatten())\n\n\nclass TestSoftmaxCrossEntropyLossGradient(unittest.TestCase):\n    def checkForData(self, x, W, y, rtol=1e-5, atol=1e-8):\n        # Set custom rtol/atol to the ones used by numpy.isclose; by default\n        # assert_allclose uses atol=0 which is problematic for values very close\n        # to zero.\n        grad = softmax_cross_entropy_loss_gradient(x, W, y)\n        grad_direct = softmax_cross_entropy_loss_gradient_direct(x, W, y)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, grad_direct, rtol=rtol, atol=atol)\n\n        gradnum = eval_numerical_gradient(\n            lambda W: cross_entropy_loss(softmax_layer(x, W), y), W)\n        np.testing.assert_allclose(grad, gradnum.flatten(order='C'),\n                                   rtol=rtol, atol=atol)\n\n    def test_small(self):\n        W = np.array([\n            [2.0, 3.0, 4.0],\n            [5.0, 6.0, 7.0]])\n        x = np.array([\n            [-2.0],\n            [2.0],\n            [1.6]])\n        y0 = np.array([\n            [1.0],\n            [0.0]])\n        y1 = np.array([\n            [0.0],\n            [1.0]])\n        self.checkForData(x, W, y0)\n        self.checkForData(x, W, y1)\n\n    def test_random_big(self):\n        np.random.seed(42)\n        N = 30\n        T = 10\n        W = np.random.uniform(low=-2.0, high=2.0, size=(T, N))\n        x = np.random.uniform(low=-1.0, high=1.0, size=(N, 1))\n\n        for i in range(T):\n            y = np.zeros((T, 1))\n            y[i] = 1.0\n            self.checkForData(x, W, y)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-cnn-tutorial/.gitignore",
    "content": "*.keras\n*.png\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-cnn-tutorial/README.md",
    "content": "For installation, created a virtual env and ran:\n\n    pip install tensorflow\n    pip install matplotlib\n    pip install tensorflow[and-cuda]\n\nThen, run `train.py`, it saves weights to a `.keras` file (which is not in Git).\nThen `predict.py` loads the weights from this file and runs predictions.\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-cnn-tutorial/predict.py",
    "content": "import time\nimport tensorflow as tf\nfrom tensorflow.keras import datasets, layers, models\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n# Info on the format of CIFAR10 data:\n# * https://keras.io/api/datasets/cifar10/\n# * https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/cifar.html\n\nmodel = models.load_model(\"trained-weights.keras\")\n\n(train_images, train_labels), (test_images, test_labels) = datasets.cifar10.load_data()\n\n# Normalize pixel values to be between 0 and 1\ntrain_images, test_images = train_images / 255.0, test_images / 255.0\n\nprint(test_images.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\nlabel_classes = [\n    \"airplane\",\n    \"automobile\",\n    \"bird\",\n    \"cat\",\n    \"deer\",\n    \"dog\",\n    \"frog\",\n    \"horse\",\n    \"ship\",\n    \"truck\",\n]\n\n# for small predicts, calling the model object directly works\n# Alternatively, can call predict:\n#   model.predict(test_images[:1])\n# Doc: https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/keras/Model\n\n# Predict the first num images; softmax converts them into probabilities,\n# and we use argmax to find the most likely class for each one.\nnum = 20\n\n# Do it in the loop one by one because we want to measure the prediction\n# latency for a single image after warmump (model cachedi in GPU, etc.)\nfor i in range(num):\n    time_start = time.time()\n    prediction = model(test_images[i : i + 1])\n    probs = tf.nn.softmax(prediction)\n    predindices = tf.argmax(probs, axis=1).numpy()\n    time_end = time.time()\n\n    predidx = predindices[0]\n    testidx = test_labels[i][0]\n    plt.imshow(test_images[i])\n    plt.savefig(f\"test_image_{i}.png\")\n\n    print(\n        f\"{i:2d} Predicted: {label_classes[predidx]}, Actual: {label_classes[testidx]}    (elapsed: {time_end - time_start:.6f} seconds)\"\n    )\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-cnn-tutorial/train.py",
    "content": "# Follows tutorial here: https://www.tensorflow.org/tutorials/quickstart/beginner\n# Adds the model.save call at the end to serialize the model weights.\n\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nfrom tensorflow.keras import datasets, layers, models\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n(train_images, train_labels), (test_images, test_labels) = datasets.cifar10.load_data()\n\n# Normalize pixel values to be between 0 and 1\ntrain_images, test_images = train_images / 255.0, test_images / 255.0\n\nprint(len(train_images))\nprint(len(train_labels))\n\nmodel = models.Sequential()\nmodel.add(layers.Conv2D(32, (3, 3), activation=\"relu\", input_shape=(32, 32, 3)))\nmodel.add(layers.MaxPooling2D((2, 2)))\nmodel.add(layers.Conv2D(64, (3, 3), activation=\"relu\"))\nmodel.add(layers.MaxPooling2D((2, 2)))\nmodel.add(layers.Conv2D(64, (3, 3), activation=\"relu\"))\n\nmodel.add(layers.Flatten())\nmodel.add(layers.Dense(64, activation=\"relu\"))\nmodel.add(layers.Dense(10))\n\nprint(model.summary())\n\nmodel.compile(\n    optimizer=\"adam\",\n    loss=tf.keras.losses.SparseCategoricalCrossentropy(from_logits=True),\n    metrics=[\"accuracy\"],\n)\n\nhistory = model.fit(\n    train_images, train_labels, epochs=50, validation_data=(test_images, test_labels)\n)\n\nsavefile = \"trained-weights.keras\"\nmodel.save(savefile)\nprint(f\"Model saved to {savefile}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/basic_operations.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\n# Basic constant operations - added to the default global graph.\n# The value returned by the constructor represents the output\n# of the Constant op.\na = tf.constant(2)\nb = tf.constant(3)\n\n# Launch the default graph.\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    print('a =', sess.run(a))\n    print('b =', sess.run(b))\n    print('a + b =', sess.run(a + b))\n\n# Basic Operations with variable as graph input\n# The value returned by the constructor represents the output\n# of the Variable op. (define as input when running session)\n# tf Graph input\na = tf.placeholder(tf.int16)\nb = tf.placeholder(tf.int16)\nadd = tf.add(a, b)\n\n# Launch the default graph.\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    print('a + b [from placeholders]', sess.run(add, feed_dict={a: 2, b: 3}))\n\n# Define two constants and a matmul node on them, in a new default graph.\ngraph = tf.Graph()\n\nwith graph.as_default():\n    # Matmul of two constants.\n    matrix1 = tf.constant([[1, 1, 1], [2, 2, 2]], dtype=tf.float32)\n    matrix2 = tf.constant([[2], [3], [4]], dtype=tf.float32)\n    product = tf.matmul(matrix1, matrix2)\n\nwith tf.Session(graph=graph) as sess:\n    # Ask product for its shape (using TF's shape inference) and also run the\n    # graph.\n    print('product shape =', product.get_shape())\n    print('product =', sess.run(product))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/conv2d-numpy.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport numpy.testing as npt\nimport unittest\n\n# Tensorflow is used to verify the results of numpy computations - you can\n# remove its usage if you don't need the testing.\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\n\ndef conv2d_single_channel(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Two-dimensional convolution of a single channel.\n\n    Uses SAME padding with 0s, a stride of 1 and no dilation.\n\n    input: input array with shape (height, width)\n    w: filter array with shape (fd, fd) with odd fd.\n\n    Returns a result with the same shape as input.\n    \"\"\"\n    assert w.shape[0] == w.shape[1] and w.shape[0] % 2 == 1\n\n    # SAME padding with zeros: creating a new padded array to simplify index\n    # calculations and to avoid checking boundary conditions in the inner loop.\n    # padded_input is like input, but padded on all sides with\n    # half-the-filter-width of zeros.\n    padded_input = np.pad(input,\n                          pad_width=w.shape[0] // 2,\n                          mode='constant',\n                          constant_values=0)\n\n    output = np.zeros_like(input)\n    for i in range(output.shape[0]):\n        for j in range(output.shape[1]):\n            # This inner double loop computes every output element, by\n            # multiplying the corresponding window into the input with the\n            # filter.\n            for fi in range(w.shape[0]):\n                for fj in range(w.shape[1]):\n                    output[i, j] += padded_input[i + fi, j + fj] * w[fi, fj]\n    return output\n\n\ndef conv2d_multi_channel(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Two-dimensional convolution with multiple channels.\n\n    Uses SAME padding with 0s, a stride of 1 and no dilation.\n\n    input: input array with shape (height, width, in_depth)\n    w: filter array with shape (fd, fd, in_depth, out_depth) with odd fd.\n       in_depth is the number of input channels, and has the be the same as\n       input's in_depth; out_depth is the number of output channels.\n\n    Returns a result with shape (height, width, out_depth).\n    \"\"\"\n    assert w.shape[0] == w.shape[1] and w.shape[0] % 2 == 1\n\n    padw = w.shape[0] // 2\n    padded_input = np.pad(input,\n                          pad_width=((padw, padw), (padw, padw), (0, 0)),\n                          mode='constant',\n                          constant_values=0)\n\n    height, width, in_depth = input.shape\n    assert in_depth == w.shape[2]\n    out_depth = w.shape[3]\n    output = np.zeros((height, width, out_depth))\n\n    for out_c in range(out_depth):\n        # For each output channel, perform 2d convolution summed across all\n        # input channels.\n        for i in range(height):\n            for j in range(width):\n                # Now the inner loop also works across all input channels.\n                for c in range(in_depth):\n                    for fi in range(w.shape[0]):\n                        for fj in range(w.shape[1]):\n                            w_element = w[fi, fj, c, out_c]\n                            output[i, j, out_c] += (\n                                padded_input[i + fi, j + fj, c] * w_element)\n    return output\n\n\n\ndef tf_conv2d_single_channel(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Single-channel conv2d using TF.\n\n    Params same as in conv2d_single_channel.\n    \"\"\"\n    # We only have one item in our \"batch\", one input channel and one output\n    # channel; prepare the shapes TF expects for the conv2d op.\n    input_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(input, dtype=tf.float32),\n                         [1, input.shape[0], input.shape[1], 1])\n    kernel_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(w, dtype=tf.float32),\n                           [w.shape[0], w.shape[1], 1, 1])\n    output = tf.nn.conv2d(input_4d, kernel_4d,\n                          strides=[1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')\n    with tf.Session() as sess:\n        ans = sess.run(output)\n        # Remove the degenerate batch dimension, since we use batch 1.\n        return ans.reshape(input.shape)\n\n\ndef tf_conv2d_multi_channel(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Multi-channel conv2d using TF.\n\n    Params same as in conv2d_multi_channel.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Here the input we get already has the in_depth dimension; we just have to\n    # set batch to 1.\n    input_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(input, dtype=tf.float32),\n                          [1, input.shape[0], input.shape[1], input.shape[2]])\n    kernel_4d = tf.constant(w, dtype=tf.float32)\n    output = tf.nn.conv2d(input_4d, kernel_4d,\n                          strides=[1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')\n    with tf.Session() as sess:\n        ans = sess.run(output)\n        # Remove the degenerate batch dimension, since we use batch 1.\n        return ans.reshape((input.shape[0], input.shape[1], w.shape[3]))\n\n\ndef depthwise_conv2d(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Two-dimensional depthwise convolution.\n\n    Uses SAME padding with 0s, a stride of 1 and no dilation. A single output\n    channel is used per input channel (channel_multiplier=1).\n\n    input: input array with shape (height, width, in_depth)\n    w: filter array with shape (fd, fd, in_depth)\n\n    Returns a result with shape (height, width, in_depth).\n    \"\"\"\n    assert w.shape[0] == w.shape[1] and w.shape[0] % 2 == 1\n\n    padw = w.shape[0] // 2\n    padded_input = np.pad(input,\n                          pad_width=((padw, padw), (padw, padw), (0, 0)),\n                          mode='constant',\n                          constant_values=0)\n\n    height, width, in_depth = input.shape\n    assert in_depth == w.shape[2]\n    output = np.zeros((height, width, in_depth))\n\n    for c in range(in_depth):\n        # For each input channel separately, apply its corresponsing filter\n        # to the input.\n        for i in range(height):\n            for j in range(width):\n                for fi in range(w.shape[0]):\n                    for fj in range(w.shape[1]):\n                        w_element = w[fi, fj, c]\n                        output[i, j, c] += (\n                            padded_input[i + fi, j + fj, c] * w_element)\n    return output\n\n\ndef separable_conv2d(input, w_depth, w_pointwise):\n    \"\"\"Depthwise separable convolution.\n\n    Performs 2d depthwise convolution with w_depth, and then applies a pointwise\n    1x1 convolution with w_pointwise on the result.\n\n    Uses SAME padding with 0s, a stride of 1 and no dilation. A single output\n    channel is used per input channel (channel_multiplier=1) in w_depth.\n\n    input: input array with shape (height, width, in_depth)\n    w_depth: depthwise filter array with shape (fd, fd, in_depth)\n    w_pointwise: pointwise filter array with shape (in_depth, out_depth)\n\n    Returns a result with shape (height, width, out_depth).\n    \"\"\"\n    # First run the depthwise convolution. Its result has the same shape as\n    # input.\n    depthwise_result = depthwise_conv2d(input, w_depth)\n\n    height, width, in_depth = depthwise_result.shape\n    assert in_depth == w_pointwise.shape[0]\n    out_depth = w_pointwise.shape[1]\n    output = np.zeros((height, width, out_depth))\n\n    for out_c in range(out_depth):\n        for i in range(height):\n            for j in range(width):\n                for c in range(in_depth):\n                    w_element = w_pointwise[c, out_c]\n                    output[i, j, out_c] += depthwise_result[i, j, c] * w_element\n    return output\n\n\ndef tf_depthwise_conv2d(input, w):\n    \"\"\"Two-dimensional depthwise convolution using TF.\n\n    Params same as in depthwise_conv2d.\n    \"\"\"\n    input_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(input, dtype=tf.float32),\n                          [1, input.shape[0], input.shape[1], input.shape[2]])\n    # Set channel_multiplier dimension to 1\n    kernel_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(w, dtype=tf.float32),\n                           [w.shape[0], w.shape[1], w.shape[2], 1])\n    output = tf.nn.depthwise_conv2d(input_4d, kernel_4d,\n                                    strides=[1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')\n    with tf.Session() as sess:\n        ans = sess.run(output)\n        # Remove the degenerate batch dimension, since we use batch 1.\n        return ans.reshape(input.shape)\n\n\ndef tf_separable_conv2d(input, w_depth, w_pointwise):\n    \"\"\"Depthwise separable convolution using TF.\n\n    Params same as in separable_conv2d.\n    \"\"\"\n    input_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(input, dtype=tf.float32),\n                          [1, input.shape[0], input.shape[1], input.shape[2]])\n    # Set channel_multiplier dimension to 1\n    depth_kernel_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(w_depth, dtype=tf.float32),\n                                 [w_depth.shape[0], w_depth.shape[1],\n                                  w_depth.shape[2], 1])\n    pointwise_kernel_4d = tf.reshape(tf.constant(w_pointwise, dtype=tf.float32),\n                                     [1, 1, w_pointwise.shape[0],\n                                      w_pointwise.shape[1]])\n\n    output = tf.nn.separable_conv2d(input_4d,\n                                    depth_kernel_4d,\n                                    pointwise_kernel_4d,\n                                    strides=[1, 1, 1, 1],\n                                    padding='SAME')\n    with tf.Session() as sess:\n        ans = sess.run(output)\n        # Remove the degenerate batch dimension, since we use batch 1.\n        return ans.reshape(input.shape[0], input.shape[1], w_pointwise.shape[1])\n\n\nclass TestConvs(unittest.TestCase):\n    def test_single_channel(self):\n        inp = np.linspace(-5, 5, 36).reshape(6, 6)\n\n        w = np.linspace(0, 8, 9)[::-1].reshape(3, 3)\n        np_ans = conv2d_single_channel(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_conv2d_single_channel(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n        w = np.array([[1, -1, 1], [0, -1, 1], [1, -1, 0]])\n        np_ans = conv2d_single_channel(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_conv2d_single_channel(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=4)\n\n    def test_multi_channel(self):\n        # input is 6x6, with 3 channels\n        # filter is 3x3 with 3 input channels, 4 output channels\n        inp = np.linspace(-5, 5, 6*6*3).reshape(6, 6, 3)\n\n        w = np.linspace(0, 107, 108).reshape(3, 3, 3, 4)\n        np_ans = conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n        w = np.ones((3, 3, 3, 4))\n        w[0, 0, 0, 0] = -1\n        w[0, 0, 0, 1] = -1\n        w[0, 0, 0, 2] = -1\n        w[0, 0, 0, 3] = -1\n        np_ans = conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n    def test_depthwise(self):\n        # input is 6x6, with 3 channels\n        # filter is 3x3 with 3 input channels\n        inp = np.linspace(-6, 6, 6*6*3).reshape(6, 6, 3)\n\n        w = np.linspace(0, 26, 27).reshape(3, 3, 3)\n        np_ans = depthwise_conv2d(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_depthwise_conv2d(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n        w = np.ones((3, 3, 3))\n        w[0, 0, 0] = 2\n        w[0, 1, 0] = 2\n        w[1, 1, 0] = 1\n        w[1, 1, 1] = 3\n        w[0, 1, 2] = 5\n        np_ans = depthwise_conv2d(inp, w)\n        tf_ans = tf_depthwise_conv2d(inp, w)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n    def test_separable(self):\n        # input is 6x6 with 3 channels\n        # depth filter is 3x3 with 3 input channels\n        # pointwise filter is 3x5 with 5 output channels\n        inp = np.linspace(-8, 8, 8*8*3).reshape(8, 8, 3)\n\n        w_depth = np.linspace(0, 26, 27).reshape(3, 3, 3)\n        w_pointwise = np.linspace(-2, 2, 3*5).reshape(3, 5)\n        np_ans = separable_conv2d(inp, w_depth, w_pointwise)\n        tf_ans = tf_separable_conv2d(inp, w_depth, w_pointwise)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n        w_depth = np.sin(np.linspace(0, 26, 27)).reshape(3, 3, 3)\n        w_pointwise = np.zeros((3, 5))\n        for i in range(5):\n            w_pointwise[0, i] = 1 + i\n            w_pointwise[1, i] = 3 - i\n            w_pointwise[2, i] = 0.2 + 0.6 * i\n        np_ans = separable_conv2d(inp, w_depth, w_pointwise)\n        tf_ans = tf_separable_conv2d(inp, w_depth, w_pointwise)\n        npt.assert_almost_equal(np_ans, tf_ans, decimal=3)\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    unittest.main()\n\n    # Comment out unittest.main() above to actually run this code...\n    inp = np.ones((6, 6))\n    w = np.zeros((3, 3))\n    w[0, 0] = 1\n    w[1, 1] = 1\n    w[2, 2] = 1\n\n    out = conv2d_single_channel(inp, w)\n    #print(out)\n\n    inp = np.ones((6, 6, 3))\n    w = np.zeros((3, 3, 3, 5))\n    w[0, 0, 0, 1] = 1\n    w[0, 1, 0, 1] = 1\n    w[1, 1, 0, 1] = 1\n    w[1, 1, 1, 1] = 1\n    w[1, 1, 2, 1] = 1\n    w[1, 1, 2, 1] = 1\n    w[1, 1, 2, 0] = 1\n\n    out = conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n    print(out)\n\n    outtf = tf_conv2d_multi_channel(inp, w)\n    print(outtf)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/conv2d.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nin_channels = 3 # 3 for RGB, 32, 64, 128, ...\nout_channels = 6 # 128, 256, ...\ninput = np.ones((5,5,in_channels)) # input is 3d, in_channels = 32\n\n# filter must have 3d-shpae x number of filters = 4D\nweight_4d = np.ones((3,3,in_channels, out_channels))\nstrides_2d = [1, 1, 1, 1]\n\nin_3d = tf.constant(input, dtype=tf.float32)\nfilter_4d = tf.constant(weight_4d, dtype=tf.float32)\n\nin_width = int(in_3d.shape[0])\nin_height = int(in_3d.shape[1])\n\nfilter_width = int(filter_4d.shape[0])\nfilter_height = int(filter_4d.shape[1])\n\ninput_3d   = tf.reshape(in_3d, [1, in_height, in_width, in_channels])\nkernel_4d = tf.reshape(filter_4d, [filter_height, filter_width, in_channels, out_channels])\n\n#output stacked shape is 3D = 2D x N matrix\noutput_3d = tf.nn.conv2d(input_3d, kernel_4d, strides=strides_2d, padding='SAME')\n\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    print(sess.run(output_3d))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/embedding_partitioned.py",
    "content": "# Explores a partitioned embedding.\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\n# The vocabulary is partitioned to npartitions embedding tables using the 'div'\n# strategy. This means:\n# the first partition holds mappings for [0, vocab_per_partition),\n# the second holds [vocab_per_partition, 2 * vocab_per_partition), and so on.\n# Each partition is just a regular matrix, so indices have to be computed\n# properly. In the second partition, row 0 is the embedding mapping for ID\n# number 'vocab_per_partition', etc.\nvocab_size = 20\nnpartitions = 4\nvocab_per_partition = vocab_size // npartitions\nembedding_dim = 3\nbatch_size = 16\n\ndataset = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size])\n\nembeddings = []\nfor _ in range(npartitions):\n    embeddings.append(tf.Variable(tf.random_uniform(\n        [vocab_per_partition, embedding_dim], -1.0, 1.0)))\n\nembed_out = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(embeddings,\n                                   dataset,\n                                   partition_strategy='div',\n                                   validate_indices=True)\n\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n\n    print('dataset shape:', dataset.get_shape())\n    print('embeddings shapes:',\n        [\"{0}: {1}\".format(i, embeddings[i].get_shape())\n         for i in range(npartitions)])\n    print('embed_out shape:', embed_out.get_shape())\n\n    indata = np.random.randint(0, vocab_size, size=(batch_size,))\n    print('indata:', indata)\n    emb = [0] * npartitions\n    emb[0], emb[1], emb[2], emb[3], embed_out = sess.run(\n        fetches=[embeddings[0], embeddings[1], embeddings[2], embeddings[3],\n                 embed_out],\n        feed_dict={dataset: indata})\n    for i in range(npartitions):\n        print('embeddings[{0}]\\n'.format(i), emb[i])\n    print('embed_out:\\n', embed_out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/embedding_shape.py",
    "content": "# Explores the shapes involved in the embedding_lookup op.\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nvocab_size = 10\nembedding_dim = 5\nbatch_size = 16\n\n# The data set is an array of integer values, each being an ID in the range\n# [0, vocab_size)\ndataset = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size])\n\n# embedding is a lookup table for IDs, mapping them into\n# embedding_dim-dimensional vectors.\nembedding = tf.Variable(tf.random_uniform(\n    [vocab_size, embedding_dim], -1.0, 1.0))\n\nembed_out = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(embedding, dataset)\n\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n\n    print('dataset shape:', dataset.get_shape())\n    print('embedding shape:', embedding.get_shape())\n    print('embed_out shape:', embed_out.get_shape())\n\n    indata = np.random.randint(0, vocab_size, size=(batch_size,))\n    print('indata:', indata)\n    embedding, embed_out = sess.run(\n        fetches=[embedding, embed_out],\n        feed_dict={dataset: indata})\n    print('embedding:\\n', embedding)\n    print('embed_out:\\n', embed_out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/embedding_shape_extra_dim.py",
    "content": "# Explores the shapes involved for embedding lookup in the presence of extra\n# dimensions.\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nvocab_size = 10\nembedding_dim = 5\nbatch_size = 2\ncontext_size = 4\n\n# Each \"sample\" in a batch is a context of context_size words (think input to a\n# CBOW training for word2vec). So the shape of the dataset is\n# (batch_size, context_size), where each element of this array is an integer\n# value in the range [0, vocab_size) -- word ID.\ndataset = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size, context_size])\n\n# embedding is a lookup table for IDs, mapping them into\n# embedding_dim-dimensional vectors.\nembedding = tf.Variable(tf.random_uniform(\n    [vocab_size, embedding_dim], -1.0, 1.0))\n\n# The embedding_lookup is clever... the docs say:\n#   \"The returned tensor has shape shape(ids) + shape(params)[1:].\"\n# By which they mean that the shape of embed_out will be the shape of dataset,\n# with an additional dimension appended on the right; and this additional\n# dimension is dimension \"embedding_dim\". So the result we expect will have\n# the shape (batch_size, context_size, embedding_dim).\nembed_out = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(embedding, dataset)\n\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n\n    print('dataset shape:', dataset.get_shape())\n    print('embedding shape:', embedding.get_shape())\n    print('embed_out shape:', embed_out.get_shape())\n\n    indata = np.random.randint(0, vocab_size, size=(batch_size, context_size))\n    print('indata:', indata)\n    embedding, embed_out = sess.run(\n        fetches=[embedding, embed_out],\n        feed_dict={dataset: indata})\n    print('embedding:\\n', embedding)\n    print('embed_out:\\n', embed_out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "tensorflow-samples/reduce_sum.py",
    "content": "# Explore the shapes around tf.reduce_sum\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nbatch_dim = 16\nfeature_dim = 3\n\ninit = np.random.uniform(0.0, 0.1, (batch_dim, feature_dim))\n\ndata = tf.constant(init)\n# reduce_sum along dimension 0, keeping dim 0 with size 1\nreduced_along_0 = tf.reduce_sum(data, reduction_indices=0, keep_dims=True)\n# reduce_sum along dimension 1, keeping dim 1 with size 1\nreduced_along_1 = tf.reduce_sum(data, reduction_indices=1, keep_dims=True)\n# reduce_sum along dimension 1, collapsing dim 1\nreduced_along_1_nodim = tf.reduce_sum(data, reduction_indices=1,\n                                      keep_dims=False)\n\nprint('data:\\n', init)\n\nwith tf.Session() as sess:\n    print('reduced_along_0:', reduced_along_0.get_shape(),\n          '\\n', sess.run(reduced_along_0))\n    print('reduced_along_1:\\n', reduced_along_1.get_shape(),\n          '\\n', sess.run(reduced_along_1))\n    print('reduced_along_1_nodim:\\n', reduced_along_1_nodim.get_shape(),\n          '\\n', sess.run(reduced_along_1_nodim))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/README.md",
    "content": "Run `uv run pytest` to run all tests (auto-discovery).\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/experimental/position_enc_sin.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n\n# Sinusoidal position encoding, as in the Transformer model paper.\n# x is the inputs (N, D), each in a row.\n# The output has the same shape.\ndef position_enc_sin_single(x):\n    # PE(pos, 2i) = sin(pos / 10000^(2i/D))\n    # PE(pos, 2i+1) = cos(pos / 10000^(2i/D))\n    N, D = x.shape\n\n    # pos is a column vector of shape (N, 1) with the position in the sequence.\n    # i is a row vector of shape (1, D) with the dimension index. denom will\n    # be the same shape as i.\n    # pos / denom is a broadcast division of shape (N, D).\n    pos = np.arange(N).reshape(-1, 1)\n    i = np.arange(0, D, 2)\n    denom = 10000 ** (2 * i / D)\n    penc = np.zeros((N, D))\n    penc[:, 0::2] = np.sin(pos / denom)\n    penc[:, 1::2] = np.cos(pos / denom)\n    return x + penc\n\n\n# Batched version; x shape is (B, N, D).\ndef position_enc_sin(x):\n    B, N, D = x.shape\n\n    # penc is exactly the same as in position_enc_sin_single, and the final\n    # addition will properly broadcast it over the B axis.\n    pos = np.arange(N).reshape(-1, 1)\n    i = np.arange(0, D, 2)\n    denom = 10000 ** (2 * i / D)\n    penc = np.zeros((N, D))\n    penc[:, 0::2] = np.sin(pos / denom)\n    penc[:, 1::2] = np.cos(pos / denom)\n    return x + penc\n\n\ninp = np.zeros((3, 120, 48))\nout = position_enc_sin(inp)[0, :, :].T\n\nfig, ax = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=1, figsize=(8, 3))\npos = ax.imshow(out, extent=(1, out.shape[1] + 1, out.shape[0] + 1, 1))\nfig.colorbar(pos, ax=ax)\nax.set_xlabel(\"position in sequence\")\nax.set_ylabel(\"dimension\")\nplt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/moe.py",
    "content": "from dataclasses import dataclass\nfrom typing import List\n\nimport numpy as np\nfrom softmax import softmax_lastdim\n\n\ndef feed_forward_relu(x, W1, W2):\n    \"\"\"Feed-forward layer with ReLU activation.\n\n    Args:\n        x: Input tensor (B, N, D).\n        Wh: Weights for the hidden layer (D, DH).\n        Wo: Weights for the output layer (DH, D).\n\n    Returns:\n        Output tensor (B, N, D).\n    \"\"\"\n    assert x.shape[-1] == W1.shape[0] == W2.shape[1]\n    assert W1.shape[1] == W2.shape[0]\n\n    x = x @ W1  # hidden layer (B, N, DH)\n    x = np.maximum(0, x)  # ReLU activation (B, N, DH)\n    x = x @ W2  # output layer (B, N, D)\n    return x\n\n\ndef topk_lastdim(x, k):\n    \"\"\"Get the top k elements and their indices.\n\n    x is an arbitrary array with at least two dimensions. The returned\n    array has the same shape as x, but its elements are the top k elements\n    across the last dimension. The indices of the top k elements are also\n    returned.\n    \"\"\"\n    idx = np.argpartition(x, -k, axis=-1)[..., -k:]\n    return np.take_along_axis(x, idx, axis=-1), idx\n\n\n# Parameters for a feed-forward layer with a fixed activation function.\n@dataclass\nclass FFParams:\n    Wh: np.ndarray\n    Wo: np.ndarray\n\n\n# Parameters for a Mixture of Experts (MoE) layer.\n@dataclass\nclass MoEParams:\n    # Embedding dimension of each token (a.k.a. model dimension, Dmodel)\n    D: int\n\n    # Hidden dimension in FF layers\n    DH: int\n\n    # Total number of experts\n    NEXP: int\n\n    # K in the top-k selection of top experts per token\n    TOPK: int\n\n    # List of experts: each expert is a forward layer with FFParams.\n    ff_weights: List[FFParams]\n\n    # Router weights: a linear layer (D, NEXP) that maps input to expert scores.\n    router_weights: np.ndarray\n\n\ndef moe(x: np.ndarray, params: MoEParams):\n    \"\"\"Mixture of Experts (MoE) layer.\n\n    Args:\n        x: Input tensor (B, N, D).\n        params: MoEParams.\n\n    Returns:\n        Output tensor (B, N, D).\n    \"\"\"\n    assert x.shape[-1] == params.D\n    assert params.router_weights.shape == (params.D, params.NEXP)\n    assert len(params.ff_weights) == params.NEXP\n    for expert in params.ff_weights:\n        assert expert.Wh.shape == (params.D, params.DH)\n        assert expert.Wo.shape == (params.DH, params.D)\n\n    # Run input through router to get expert scores for each token.\n    expert_scores = x @ params.router_weights  # (B, N, NEXP)\n\n    # Select the top-k expert scores and their indices for each token.\n    top_scores, top_experts = topk_lastdim(expert_scores, params.TOPK)  # (B, N, TOPK)\n\n    # Apply softmax to the top scores to get weights that sum to 1.\n    weights = softmax_lastdim(top_scores)  # (B, N, TOPK)\n\n    out = np.zeros_like(x)\n    for b in range(x.shape[0]):\n        for n in range(x.shape[1]):\n            # Unvectorized implementation: for each token in the batch and\n            # sequence, select the top-k experts and apply them with the\n            # calculated weights.\n            for expert_idx, weight in zip(top_experts[b, n], weights[b, n]):\n                expert = params.ff_weights[expert_idx]\n                out[b, n] += weight * feed_forward_relu(x[b, n], expert.Wh, expert.Wo)\n\n    return out\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    B = 4\n    N = 6\n    D = 8\n    DH = 16\n    NEXP = 4\n    TOPK = 2\n\n    params = MoEParams(\n        D=D,\n        DH=DH,\n        NEXP=NEXP,\n        TOPK=TOPK,\n        ff_weights=[\n            FFParams(np.random.randn(D, DH), np.random.randn(DH, D))\n            for _ in range(NEXP)\n        ],\n        router_weights=np.random.randn(D, NEXP),\n    )\n\n    x = np.linspace(0.1, 8.4, B * N * D).reshape(B, N, D)\n\n    y = moe(x, params)\n    print(\"Output shape:\", y.shape)  # Should be (B, N, D)\n    print(\"Output:\", y)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/multiheadattention.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom softmax import softmax_lastdim\n\n\n# x has shape (B, N, D)\n# In what follows:\n#   NH = number of heads\n#   HS = head size\n#   NH * HS = D\n# W is expected to have shape (D, 3 * D), with all the weight matrices for\n# Qs, Ks, and Vs concatenated along the last dimension, in this order.\n# Wp is a weight matrix for the final linear projection, of shape (D, D).\n# The result is (B, N, D).\n# If do_mask is True, each attention head is masked from attending to future\n# tokens.\ndef multihead_attention_vec(x, W, NH, Wp, do_mask=False):\n    B, N, D = x.shape\n    assert W.shape == (D, 3 * D)\n    qkv = x @ W  # (B, N, 3 * D)\n    q, k, v = np.split(qkv, 3, axis=-1)  # (B, N, D) each\n\n    if do_mask:\n        # mask is a lower-triangular (N, N) matrix, with zeros above\n        # the diagonal and ones on the diagonal and below.\n        mask = np.tril(np.ones((N, N)))\n\n    HS = D // NH\n    q = q.reshape(B, N, NH, HS).transpose(0, 2, 1, 3)  # (B, NH, N, HS)\n    k = k.reshape(B, N, NH, HS).transpose(0, 2, 1, 3)  # (B, NH, N, HS)\n    v = v.reshape(B, N, NH, HS).transpose(0, 2, 1, 3)  # (B, NH, N, HS)\n\n    kq = q @ k.swapaxes(-1, -2) / np.sqrt(k.shape[-1])  # (B, NH, N, N)\n\n    # The last statement is equivalent to the following:\n    #\n    #   kq = np.einsum(\"bhqd,bhkd->bhqk\", q, k) / np.sqrt(k.shape[-1])\n    #\n    # The transpose of k is implied in the dimension order of the einsum\n    # subscript. b is the batch dimension, h is the head dimension, q and k\n    # are the query and key dimensions, and d is the depth of the query/key\n    # vectors. Even though in our case the query and key vectors have the same\n    # depth, einsum needs to use distinct dimension labels for them.\n\n    if do_mask:\n        # Set the masked positions to -inf, to ensure that a token isn't\n        # affected by tokens that come after it in the softmax.\n        kq = np.where(mask == 0, -np.inf, kq)\n\n    att = softmax_lastdim(kq)  # (B, NH, N, N)\n    out = att @ v  # (B, NH, N, HS)\n    return out.transpose(0, 2, 1, 3).reshape(B, N, D) @ Wp  # (B, N, D)\n\n\n# x has shape (B, N, D)\n# In what follows:\n#   NH = number of heads\n#   HS = head size\n# Each W*s is a list of NH weight matrices of shape (D, HS).\n# Wp is a weight matrix for the final linear projection, of shape (NH * HS, D)\n# The result is (B, N, D)\n# If do_mask is True, each attention head is masked from attending to future\n# tokens.\ndef multihead_attention_list(x, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp, do_mask=False):\n    # Check shapes.\n    NH = len(Wks)\n    HS = Wks[0].shape[1]\n    assert len(Wks) == len(Wqs) == len(Wvs)\n    for W in Wqs + Wks + Wvs:\n        assert W.shape[1] == HS\n    assert Wp.shape[0] == NH * HS\n\n    # List of head outputs\n    head_outs = []\n\n    if do_mask:\n        # mask is a lower-triangular (N, N) matrix, with zeros above\n        # the diagonal and ones on the diagonal and below.\n        N = x.shape[1]\n        mask = np.tril(np.ones((N, N)))\n\n    for Wq, Wk, Wv in zip(Wqs, Wks, Wvs):\n        # Calculate self attention for each head separately\n        q = x @ Wq  # (B, N, HS)\n        k = x @ Wk  # (B, N, HS)\n        v = x @ Wv  # (B, N, HS)\n\n        kq = q @ k.swapaxes(-2, -1) / np.sqrt(k.shape[-1])  # (B, N, N)\n\n        if do_mask:\n            # Set the masked positions to -inf, to ensure that a token isn't\n            # affected by tokens that come after it in the softmax.\n            kq = np.where(mask == 0, -np.inf, kq)\n\n        att = softmax_lastdim(kq)  # (B, N, N)\n        head_outs.append(att @ v)  # (B, N, HS)\n\n    # Concatenate the head outputs and apply the final linear projection\n    all_heads = np.concatenate(head_outs, axis=-1)  # (B, N, NH * HS)\n    return all_heads @ Wp  # (B, N, D)\n\n\n# Cross attention between two input sequences that can have different lengths.\n# xq has shape (B, Nq, D)\n# xv has shape (B, Nv, D)\n# In what follows:\n#   NH = number of heads\n#   HS = head size\n# Each W*s is a list of NH weight matrices of shape (D, HS).\n# Wp is a weight matrix for the final linear projection, of shape (NH * HS, D)\n# The result is (B, Nq, D)\ndef multihead_cross_attention_list(xq, xv, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp):\n    # Check shapes.\n    NH = len(Wks)\n    HS = Wks[0].shape[1]\n    assert len(Wks) == len(Wqs) == len(Wvs)\n    for W in Wqs + Wks + Wvs:\n        assert W.shape[1] == HS\n    assert Wp.shape[0] == NH * HS\n\n    # List of head outputs\n    head_outs = []\n\n    for Wq, Wk, Wv in zip(Wks, Wqs, Wvs):\n        q = xq @ Wq  # (B, Nq, HS)\n        k = xv @ Wk  # (B, Nv, HS)\n        v = xv @ Wv  # (B, Nv, HS)\n\n        kq = q @ k.swapaxes(-2, -1) / np.sqrt(k.shape[-1])  # (B, Nq, Nv)\n\n        att = softmax_lastdim(kq)  # (B, Nq, Nv)\n        head_outs.append(att @ v)  # (B, Nq, HS)\n\n    # Concatenate the head outputs and apply the final linear projection\n    all_heads = np.concatenate(head_outs, axis=-1)  # (B, Nq, NH * HS)\n    return all_heads @ Wp  # (B, Nq, D)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"transformer-attention\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"matplotlib>=3.10.0\",\n    \"numpy>=2.2.3\",\n]\n\n[tool.pytest.ini_options]\npythonpath = [\".\"]\n\n[dependency-groups]\ndev = [\n    \"pytest>=8.3.4\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/selfattention.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom softmax import softmax_cols, softmax_lastdim\n\n\n# self_attention the way it happens in the Transformer model. No bias.\n# D = model dimension/depth (length of embedding)\n# N = input sequence length\n# HS = head size\n#\n# x is the input (N, D), each token in a row.\n# Each of W* is a weight matrix of shape (D, HS)\n# The result is (N, HS)\ndef self_attention(x, Wk, Wq, Wv):\n    # Each of these is (N, D) @ (D, HS) = (N, HS)\n    q = x @ Wq\n    k = x @ Wk\n    v = x @ Wv\n\n    # kq: (N, N) matrix of dot products between each pair of q and k vectors.\n    # The division by sqrt(HS) is the scaling.\n    kq = q @ k.T / np.sqrt(k.shape[1])\n\n    # att: (N, N) attention matrix. The rows become the weights that sum\n    # to 1 for each output vector.\n    att = softmax_lastdim(kq)\n    return att @ v  # (N, HS)\n\n\n# self_attention with inputs that have a batch dimension.\n# x has shape (B, N, D)\n# Each of W* has shape (D, HS)\ndef self_attention_batched(x, Wk, Wq, Wv):\n    q = x @ Wq  # (B, N, HS)\n    k = x @ Wk  # (B, N, HS)\n    v = x @ Wv  # (B, N, HS)\n\n    kq = q @ k.swapaxes(-2, -1) / np.sqrt(k.shape[-1])  # (B, N, N)\n\n    att = softmax_lastdim(kq)  # (B, N, N)\n    return att @ v  # (B, N, HS)\n\n\n# D = model dimension (length of embedding)\n# N = input sequence length\n#\n# x is the inputs (D, N)\n# Each of W* is a weight matrix of shape (D, D)\n# Each of B* is a vector of shape (D, 1)\ndef self_attention_cols(x, Wk, Wq, Wv, Bk, Bq, Bv):\n    q = Wq @ x + Bq\n    k = Wk @ x + Bk\n    v = Wv @ x + Bv\n\n    kq = (k.T @ q) / np.sqrt(k.shape[0])\n\n    # att: (N, N) attention matrix. The columns become the weights that sum\n    # to 1 for each output vector.\n    att = softmax_cols(kq)\n    return v @ att\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/softmax.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\n\n\ndef softmax_lastdim(x):\n    \"\"\"Compute softmax across last dimension of x.\n\n    x is an arbitrary array with at least two dimensions. The returned array has\n    the same shape as x, but its elements sum up to 1 across the last dimension.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Subtract the max for numerical stability\n    ex = np.exp(x - np.max(x, axis=-1, keepdims=True))\n    # Divide by sums across last dimension\n    return ex / np.sum(ex, axis=-1, keepdims=True)\n\n\ndef softmax_cols(x):\n    \"\"\"Compute softmax for each column of x.\n\n    The result has the same shape as x, with each column replaced by the\n    softmax of that column.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Subtract the max for numerical stability\n    ex = np.exp(x - np.max(x, axis=0, keepdims=True))\n    # Divide by column-wise sums\n    return ex / np.sum(ex, axis=0, keepdims=True)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/test_moe.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom moe import topk_lastdim\n\n\ndef test_topk_lastdim():\n    np.random.seed(12)\n    B = 6\n    N = 4\n    D = 8\n\n    x = np.random.randn(B, N, D)\n\n    k = 3\n    y, idx = topk_lastdim(x, k)\n    assert y.shape == (B, N, k)\n    assert idx.shape == (B, N, k)\n\n    for i in range(B):\n        for j in range(N):\n            # Get the top k values and their indices\n            top_k_values = np.partition(x[i, j], -k)[-k:]\n            top_k_indices = np.argpartition(x[i, j], -k)[-k:]\n            assert np.allclose(y[i, j], top_k_values)\n            assert np.all(idx[i, j] == top_k_indices)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/test_multiheadattention.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom multiheadattention import (\n    multihead_attention_list,\n    multihead_cross_attention_list,\n    multihead_attention_vec,\n)\n\n\ndef test_values_vec():\n    D = 6\n    NH = 3\n    HS = 2\n    B = 3\n    N = 4\n    x = np.linspace(0.1, 8.4, B * N * D).reshape(B, N, D)\n\n    Wqs = [np.linspace(i + 3.1, i + 3.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wks = [np.linspace(i + 0.1, i + 0.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wvs = [np.linspace(i + 6.1, i + 6.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wp = np.linspace(9.1, 9.8, NH * HS * D).reshape(D, NH * HS).T\n\n    # concatenate all Ws: first Q, then K, then V\n    Wq = np.concatenate(Wqs, axis=1)\n    Wk = np.concatenate(Wks, axis=1)\n    Wv = np.concatenate(Wvs, axis=1)\n    W = np.concatenate([Wq, Wk, Wv], axis=1)\n    assert W.shape == (D, 3 * D)\n\n    y = multihead_attention_vec(x, W, NH, Wp)\n    assert y.shape == (B, N, D)\n    assert np.allclose(y, _multihead_want, rtol=1e-3)\n\n    # Now test with masking\n    y2 = multihead_attention_vec(x, W, NH, Wp, do_mask=True)\n    assert np.allclose(y2, _multihead_masked_want, rtol=1e-3)\n\n\ndef test_shapes():\n    # 4 heads (NH), each with depth 3 (H). Total H*NH=D=12\n    D = 12\n    N = 8\n    HS = 3\n    NH = 4\n    B = 2\n    x = np.random.randn(B, N, D)\n    Wqs = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wks = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wvs = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wp = np.random.randn(NH * HS, D)\n\n    y = multihead_attention_list(x, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp)\n    assert y.shape == (B, N, D)\n\n\ndef test_values():\n    D = 6\n    NH = 3\n    HS = 2\n    B = 3\n    N = 4\n    x = np.linspace(0.1, 8.4, B * N * D).reshape(B, N, D)\n\n    # As before, we have to reshape these into the transposed form when filling\n    # them in, then transpose. This is because PyTorch transposes the weight\n    # matrix directly assigned to a layer.\n    Wqs = [np.linspace(i + 3.1, i + 3.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wks = [np.linspace(i + 0.1, i + 0.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wvs = [np.linspace(i + 6.1, i + 6.8, D * HS).reshape(HS, D).T for i in range(NH)]\n    Wp = np.linspace(9.1, 9.8, NH * HS * D).reshape(D, NH * HS).T\n\n    y = multihead_attention_list(x, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp)\n    assert np.allclose(y, _multihead_want, rtol=1e-3)\n\n    # Now test with masking\n    y2 = multihead_attention_list(x, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp, do_mask=True)\n    assert np.allclose(y2, _multihead_masked_want, rtol=1e-3)\n\n\ndef test_shapes_cross():\n    # def multihead_cross_attention(xq, xv, Wks, Wqs, Wvs, Wp):\n    D = 12\n    Nq = 6\n    Nv = 8\n    HS = 3\n    NH = 4\n    B = 2\n    xq = np.random.randn(B, Nq, D)\n    xv = np.random.randn(B, Nv, D)\n    Wqs = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wks = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wvs = [np.random.randn(D, HS) for _ in range(NH)]\n    Wp = np.random.randn(NH * HS, D)\n\n    y = multihead_cross_attention_list(xq, xv, Wqs, Wks, Wvs, Wp)\n    assert y.shape == (B, Nq, D)\n\n\n_multihead_want = np.array(\n    [\n        [\n            [6136.3379, 6216.7163, 6297.3208, 6377.4688, 6458.0137, 6538.4683],\n            [6136.3379, 6216.7163, 6297.3208, 6377.4688, 6458.0137, 6538.4683],\n            [6136.3379, 6216.7163, 6297.3208, 6377.4688, 6458.0137, 6538.4683],\n            [6136.3379, 6216.7163, 6297.3208, 6377.4688, 6458.0137, 6538.4683],\n        ],\n        [\n            [\n                13024.3350,\n                13195.0098,\n                13365.9102,\n                13536.3564,\n                13707.1973,\n                13877.9473,\n            ],\n            [\n                13024.3350,\n                13195.0098,\n                13365.9102,\n                13536.3564,\n                13707.1973,\n                13877.9473,\n            ],\n            [\n                13024.3350,\n                13195.0098,\n                13365.9102,\n                13536.3564,\n                13707.1973,\n                13877.9473,\n            ],\n            [\n                13024.3350,\n                13195.0098,\n                13365.9102,\n                13536.3564,\n                13707.1973,\n                13877.9473,\n            ],\n        ],\n        [\n            [\n                19912.3320,\n                20173.3027,\n                20434.5000,\n                20695.2402,\n                20956.3789,\n                21217.4258,\n            ],\n            [\n                19912.3320,\n                20173.3027,\n                20434.5000,\n                20695.2402,\n                20956.3789,\n                21217.4258,\n            ],\n            [\n                19912.3320,\n                20173.3027,\n                20434.5000,\n                20695.2402,\n                20956.3789,\n                21217.4258,\n            ],\n            [\n                19912.3320,\n                20173.3027,\n                20434.5000,\n                20695.2402,\n                20956.3789,\n                21217.4258,\n            ],\n        ],\n    ]\n)\n\n\n_multihead_masked_want = np.array(\n    [\n        [\n            [970.5113, 982.8517, 995.4508, 1008.5833, 1021.2378, 1033.4402],\n            [2692.5103, 2727.4250, 2762.5979, 2798.3047, 2833.5334, 2868.3098],\n            [4414.5088, 4471.9976, 4529.7451, 4588.0254, 4645.8281, 4703.1792],\n            [6136.5073, 6216.5708, 6296.8916, 6377.7466, 6458.1230, 6538.0483],\n        ],\n        [\n            [7858.5068, 7961.1440, 8064.0391, 8167.4678, 8270.4189, 8372.9180],\n            [9580.5049, 9705.7168, 9831.1865, 9957.1885, 10082.7139, 10207.7871],\n            [\n                11302.5049,\n                11450.2910,\n                11598.3350,\n                11746.9111,\n                11895.0098,\n                12042.6572,\n            ],\n            [\n                13024.5049,\n                13194.8643,\n                13365.4814,\n                13536.6338,\n                13707.3066,\n                13877.5273,\n            ],\n        ],\n        [\n            [\n                14746.5029,\n                14939.4375,\n                15132.6289,\n                15326.3545,\n                15519.6016,\n                15712.3965,\n            ],\n            [\n                16468.5039,\n                16684.0098,\n                16899.7754,\n                17116.0762,\n                17331.8965,\n                17547.2676,\n            ],\n            [\n                18190.5020,\n                18428.5820,\n                18666.9238,\n                18905.7969,\n                19144.1934,\n                19382.1348,\n            ],\n            [\n                19912.5020,\n                20173.1562,\n                20434.0703,\n                20695.5195,\n                20956.4883,\n                21217.0059,\n            ],\n        ],\n    ]\n)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "transformer-attention/test_selfattention.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nfrom selfattention import self_attention, self_attention_batched, self_attention_cols\n\n\ndef test_shapes_cols():\n    D = 8\n    N = 12\n    x = np.random.randn(D, N)\n    Wk = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wq = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wv = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Bk = np.random.randn(D, 1)\n    Bq = np.random.randn(D, 1)\n    Bv = np.random.randn(D, 1)\n    y = self_attention_cols(x, Wk, Wq, Wv, Bk, Bq, Bv)\n    assert y.shape == (D, N)\n\n\ndef test_shapes_rows():\n    D = 8\n    N = 12\n    x = np.random.randn(N, D)\n    Wk = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wq = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wv = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    y = self_attention(x, Wk, Wq, Wv)\n    assert y.shape == (N, D)\n\n\ndef test_rows_values():\n    # These expected values are taken from a Pytorch implementation of\n    # self-attention.\n    N = 6\n    D = 4\n    x = np.linspace(0.1, 2.4, N * D).reshape(N, D)\n\n    # These have to be transposed to compare to torch because torch uses the\n    # transposed weight matrix in a linear layer.\n    Wk = np.linspace(0.1, 0.4, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    Wq = np.linspace(1.1, 1.4, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    Wv = np.linspace(2.1, 2.4, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    y = self_attention(x, Wk, Wq, Wv)\n\n    want = np.array(\n        [\n            [17.3399, 17.9907, 18.6416, 19.2925],\n            [18.9277, 19.6382, 20.3487, 21.0592],\n            [19.1339, 19.8521, 20.5704, 21.2887],\n            [19.1712, 19.8908, 20.6105, 21.3302],\n            [19.1783, 19.8982, 20.6182, 21.3381],\n            [19.1797, 19.8997, 20.6196, 21.3396],\n        ]\n    )\n    assert np.allclose(y, want, atol=1e-3)\n\n\ndef test_batched():\n    B = 3\n    N = 4\n    D = 2\n\n    # This is for testing shape\n    x = np.random.randn(B, N, D)\n    Wk = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wq = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    Wv = np.random.randn(D, D)\n    y = self_attention_batched(x, Wk, Wq, Wv)\n    assert y.shape == (B, N, D)\n\n    # Testing values\n    x = np.linspace(0.1, 5.4, B * N * D).reshape(B, N, D)\n    Wk = np.linspace(0.1, 0.8, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    Wq = np.linspace(1.1, 1.8, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    Wv = np.linspace(2.1, 2.8, D * D).reshape((D, D)).T\n    y = self_attention_batched(x, Wk, Wq, Wv)\n\n    want = np.array(\n        [\n            [[5.0515, 6.1093], [6.3565, 7.6890], [6.8308, 8.2633], [6.9991, 8.4669]],\n            [\n                [15.2371, 18.4392],\n                [15.2638, 18.4716],\n                [15.2750, 18.4852],\n                [15.2798, 18.4909],\n            ],\n            [\n                [23.4546, 28.3867],\n                [23.4554, 28.3878],\n                [23.4558, 28.3882],\n                [23.4560, 28.3884],\n            ],\n        ]\n    )\n    assert np.allclose(y, want, atol=1e-3)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/.gitignore",
    "content": "*.gz\nnotMNIST_*\n*.pickle\ntext8.zip\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/.vimrc",
    "content": "\" Force indentation styles for this directory\nautocmd FileType python set shiftwidth=4\nautocmd FileType python set tabstop=4\nautocmd FileType python set softtabstop=4\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign1_train_logistic.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\nfrom sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression\n\nfrom utils import show_image, shuffle_data_and_labels, Timer\n\n\nPICKLE_DATA = 'notMNIST.pickle'\n\n# Load data from the pickle\ndata = pickle.load(open(PICKLE_DATA, 'r'))\nfor key in data:\n    print(key, ':', data[key].shape)\n\n\ndef get_data_and_labels(dataset, labelset, nmax=None, shuffle=False):\n    \"\"\"Createa a dataset and labelset from pickled inputs.\n\n    Reshapes the data from samples of 2D images (N, 28, 28) to linearized\n    samples (N, 784). Also cuts a subset of the data/label-set when nmax is\n    set. shuffle lets us reshuffle the set before cutting.\n    \"\"\"\n    if shuffle:\n        d, l = shuffle_data_and_labels(dataset, labelset)\n    else:\n        d, l = dataset, labelset\n\n    assert l.ndim == 1 and d.shape[0] == l.shape[0]\n    if nmax is None:\n        nmax = l.shape[0]\n\n    # Assuming data comes in with shape (nsamples, M, N); we linearize each\n    # sample to transform it to (nsamples, M*N).\n    assert d.ndim == 3\n    d, l = d[:nmax, :].reshape(nmax, -1), l[:nmax]\n    return d, l\n\n\nNTRAIN = 500\n\nwith Timer('preprocess'):\n    traindata, trainlabels = get_data_and_labels(data['train_dataset'],\n                                                 data['train_labels'],\n                                                 nmax=NTRAIN,\n                                                 shuffle=False)\n\n#print(d50_data.shape, d50_labels.shape)\n#img7 = d50_data[17].reshape(28, 28)\n#print(chr(ord('A') + d50_labels[17]))\n#show_image(img7)\n\nreg = LogisticRegression(C=1)\n\nwith Timer('fit'):\n    reg.fit(traindata, trainlabels)\n\ntestdata, testlabels = get_data_and_labels(data['test_dataset'],\n                                           data['test_labels'])\n\nprint('Test data shape:', testdata.shape)\nprint('Test labels shape:', testlabels.shape)\n\nwith Timer('score'):\n    print(reg.score(testdata, testlabels))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign2_tf_sgd.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\nfrom six.moves import range\n\npickle_file = 'notMNIST.pickle'\n\nwith open(pickle_file, 'rb') as f:\n  save = pickle.load(f)\n  train_dataset = save['train_dataset']\n  train_labels = save['train_labels']\n  valid_dataset = save['valid_dataset']\n  valid_labels = save['valid_labels']\n  test_dataset = save['test_dataset']\n  test_labels = save['test_labels']\n  del save  # hint to help gc free up memory\n  print('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\n  print('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\n  print('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\nimage_size = 28\nnum_labels = 10\n\n# Flatten the images to vectors of length 784\n# Encode labels with 1-hot\n\ndef reformat(dataset, labels):\n  dataset = dataset.reshape((-1, image_size * image_size)).astype(np.float32)\n  # Map 0 to [1.0, 0.0, 0.0 ...], 1 to [0.0, 1.0, 0.0 ...]\n  labels = (np.arange(num_labels) == labels[:,None]).astype(np.float32)\n  return dataset, labels\ntrain_dataset, train_labels = reformat(train_dataset, train_labels)\nvalid_dataset, valid_labels = reformat(valid_dataset, valid_labels)\ntest_dataset, test_labels = reformat(test_dataset, test_labels)\nprint('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\nprint('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\nprint('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\n\ndef accuracy(predictions, labels):\n  return (100.0 * np.sum(np.argmax(predictions, 1) == np.argmax(labels, 1))\n          / predictions.shape[0])\n\ndef run_gradient_descent():\n    # The whole dataset (or its subset) is used as a TF constant node to compute\n    # the gradient.\n\n    # With gradient descent training, even this much data is prohibitive.\n    # Subset the training data for faster turnaround.\n    train_subset = 10000\n\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n    with graph.as_default():\n      # Input data.\n      # Load the training, validation and test data into constants that are\n      # attached to the graph.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.constant(train_dataset[:train_subset, :])\n      tf_train_labels = tf.constant(train_labels[:train_subset])\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Variables.\n      # These are the parameters that we are going to be training. The weight\n      # matrix will be initialized using random values following a (truncated)\n      # normal distribution. The biases get initialized to zero.\n      weights = tf.Variable(\n        tf.truncated_normal([image_size * image_size, num_labels]))\n      biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([num_labels]))\n\n      # Training computation.\n      # We multiply the inputs with the weight matrix, and add biases. We compute\n      # the softmax and cross-entropy (it's one operation in TensorFlow, because\n      # it's very common, and it can be optimized). We take the average of this\n      # cross-entropy across all training examples: that's our loss.\n      logits = tf.matmul(tf_train_dataset, weights) + biases\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      # We are going to find the minimum of this loss using gradient descent.\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.5).minimize(loss)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      # These are not part of training, but merely here so that we can report\n      # accuracy figures as we train.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n        tf.matmul(tf_valid_dataset, weights) + biases)\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(tf.matmul(tf_test_dataset, weights) + biases)\n\n    num_steps = 801\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      # This is a one-time operation which ensures the parameters get initialized as\n      # we described in the graph: random weights for the matrix, zeros for the\n      # biases.\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print('Initialized')\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        # Run the computations. We tell .run() that we want to run the optimizer,\n        # and get the loss value and the training predictions returned as numpy\n        # arrays.\n        _, l, predictions = session.run([optimizer, loss, train_prediction])\n        if (step % 100 == 0):\n          print('Loss at step %d: %f' % (step, l))\n          print('Training accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(\n            predictions, train_labels[:train_subset, :]))\n          # Calling .eval() on valid_prediction is basically like calling run(), but\n          # just to get that one numpy array. Note that it recomputes all its graph\n          # dependencies.\n          print('Validation accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print('Test accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\ndef run_sgd():\n    # Run stochastic gradient descent, where training samples are fed as\n    # minibatches into a TF placeholder at each iteration.\n    batch_size = 128\n\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n    with graph.as_default():\n\n      # Input data. For the training data, we use a placeholder that will be fed\n      # at run time with a training minibatch.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                        shape=(batch_size, image_size * image_size))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Variables.\n      weights = tf.Variable(\n        tf.truncated_normal([image_size * image_size, num_labels]))\n      biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([num_labels]))\n\n      # Training computation.\n      logits = tf.matmul(tf_train_dataset, weights) + biases\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.5).minimize(loss)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n        tf.matmul(tf_valid_dataset, weights) + biases)\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(tf.matmul(tf_test_dataset, weights) + biases)\n\n    num_steps = 3001\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print(\"Initialized\")\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        # Pick an offset within the training data, which has been randomized.\n        # Note: we could use better randomization across epochs.\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        # Generate a minibatch.\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        # Prepare a dictionary telling the session where to feed the minibatch.\n        # The key of the dictionary is the placeholder node of the graph to be fed,\n        # and the value is the numpy array to feed to it.\n        feed_dict = {tf_train_dataset : batch_data, tf_train_labels : batch_labels}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 500 == 0):\n          print(\"Minibatch loss at step %d: %f\" % (step, l))\n          print(\"Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print(\"Validation accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print(\"Test accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\ndef run_sgd_with_hidden_layer(num_steps=3001):\n    # The \"problem\" part of the assignment\n    batch_size = 128\n    nfeatures = image_size * image_size\n    nhidden = 1024\n\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n    with graph.as_default():\n      # Input data. For the training data, we use a placeholder that will be fed\n      # at run time with a training minibatch.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                        shape=(batch_size, nfeatures))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Variables.\n      # Input shape is batch_size x nfeatures\n      # w1 is hidden layer: nfeatures x nhidden\n      # b1 is: nhidden x 1\n      # w2 is output (softmax) layer: nhidden x num_labels\n      # b2 is: num_labels x 1\n      w1 = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([nfeatures, nhidden]))\n      b1 = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([nhidden]))\n      w2 = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([nhidden, num_labels]))\n      b2 = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([num_labels]))\n\n      # Training computation.\n      hidden_out = tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_train_dataset, w1) + b1)\n      logits = tf.matmul(hidden_out, w2) + b2\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.5).minimize(loss)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n              tf.matmul(\n                  tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_valid_dataset, w1) + b1),\n                  w2) + b2)\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n              tf.matmul(\n                  tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_test_dataset, w1) + b1),\n                  w2) + b2)\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      writer = tf.train.SummaryWriter(\"/tmp/tflogs\", session.graph_def)\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print(\"Initialized\")\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        # Pick an offset within the training data, which has been randomized.\n        # Note: we could use better randomization across epochs.\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        # Generate a minibatch.\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        # Prepare a dictionary telling the session where to feed the minibatch.\n        # The key of the dictionary is the placeholder node of the graph to be fed,\n        # and the value is the numpy array to feed to it.\n        feed_dict = {tf_train_dataset : batch_data, tf_train_labels : batch_labels}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 500 == 0):\n          print(\"Minibatch loss at step %d: %f\" % (step, l))\n          print(\"Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print(\"Validation accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print(\"Test accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    #run_sgd()\n\n    # This emits logs for tensorboard.\n    run_sgd_with_hidden_layer(701)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign3_regularization.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\n\npickle_file = 'notMNIST.pickle'\n\nwith open(pickle_file, 'rb') as f:\n  save = pickle.load(f)\n  train_dataset = save['train_dataset']\n  train_labels = save['train_labels']\n  valid_dataset = save['valid_dataset']\n  valid_labels = save['valid_labels']\n  test_dataset = save['test_dataset']\n  test_labels = save['test_labels']\n  del save  # hint to help gc free up memory\n  print('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\n  print('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\n  print('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\nimage_size = 28\nnum_labels = 10\n\ndef reformat(dataset, labels):\n  dataset = dataset.reshape((-1, image_size * image_size)).astype(np.float32)\n  # Map 2 to [0.0, 1.0, 0.0 ...], 3 to [0.0, 0.0, 1.0 ...]\n  labels = (np.arange(num_labels) == labels[:,None]).astype(np.float32)\n  return dataset, labels\ntrain_dataset, train_labels = reformat(train_dataset, train_labels)\nvalid_dataset, valid_labels = reformat(valid_dataset, valid_labels)\ntest_dataset, test_labels = reformat(test_dataset, test_labels)\nprint('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\nprint('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\nprint('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\ndef accuracy(predictions, labels):\n  return (100.0 * np.sum(np.argmax(predictions, 1) == np.argmax(labels, 1))\n          / predictions.shape[0])\n\ndef run_sgd_with_reg():\n    # Run stochastic gradient descent, where training samples are fed as\n    # minibatches into a TF placeholder at each iteration.\n    batch_size = 128\n\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n    with graph.as_default():\n\n      # Input data. For the training data, we use a placeholder that will be fed\n      # at run time with a training minibatch.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                        shape=(batch_size,\n                                               image_size * image_size))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                       shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Regularization factor. 0.01 improves the test set accuracy. 0.005\n      # improves it even a bit more.\n      # 0.1 makes it worse than no-regularization, so it must be too large\n      # (underfitting).\n      beta = tf.constant(0.005)\n\n      # Variables.\n      weights = tf.Variable(\n        tf.truncated_normal([image_size * image_size, num_labels]))\n      biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([num_labels]))\n\n      # Training computation.\n      logits = tf.matmul(tf_train_dataset, weights) + biases\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      reg_loss = loss + beta * tf.nn.l2_loss(weights)\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.5).minimize(reg_loss)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n        tf.matmul(tf_valid_dataset, weights) + biases)\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n              tf.matmul(tf_test_dataset, weights) + biases)\n\n    num_steps = 3001\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print(\"Initialized\")\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        # Pick an offset within the training data, which has been randomized.\n        # Note: we could use better randomization across epochs.\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        # Generate a minibatch.\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        # Prepare a dictionary telling the session where to feed the minibatch.\n        # The key of the dictionary is the placeholder node of the graph to be fed,\n        # and the value is the numpy array to feed to it.\n        feed_dict = {tf_train_dataset : batch_data, tf_train_labels : batch_labels}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, reg_loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 500 == 0):\n          print(\"Minibatch loss at step %d: %f\" % (step, l))\n          print(\"Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print(\"Validation accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print(\"Test accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\ndef run_sgd_with_hidden_layer_with_reg(num_steps=3001,\n                                       learning_rate=0.1,\n                                       l2_reg_beta=0.0,\n                                       dropout_keep_prob=0.5):\n    \"\"\"Run SGD with a hidden layer and regularization.\n\n    num_steps:\n        Number of steps to run SGD minibatch training. In each step a new\n        minibatch is fed through the network.\n\n    learning_rate:\n        SGD learning rate, passed direction to GradientDescentOptimizer.\n\n    l2_reg_beta:\n        The loss is regularized with L2 loss on all weights. This is the\n        regularization coefficient. Setting it to 0 means no L2 loss\n        regularization. Otherwise, small values work well.\n\n    dropout_keep_prob:\n        Dropout \"keep\" probability for outputs of the hidden layer. Set to 1 to\n        avoid dropout altogether.\n    \"\"\"\n    # The \"problem\" part of the assignment\n    batch_size = 128\n    nfeatures = image_size * image_size\n    nhidden = 1024\n\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n    with graph.as_default():\n      # Input data. For the training data, we use a placeholder that will be fed\n      # at run time with a training minibatch.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                        shape=(batch_size, nfeatures))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,\n                                       shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_dropout_keep_prob = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # setting beta=0 means no L2-loss regularization\n      beta = tf.constant(l2_reg_beta)\n\n      # Variables.\n      # Input shape is batch_size x nfeatures\n      # w1 is hidden layer: nfeatures x nhidden\n      # b1 is: nhidden x 1\n      # w2 is output (softmax) layer: nhidden x num_labels\n      # b2 is: num_labels x 1\n      w1 = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([nfeatures, nhidden]))\n      b1 = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([nhidden]))\n      w2 = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([nhidden, num_labels]))\n      b2 = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([num_labels]))\n\n      # Training computation. Adding dropout to hidden layer output.\n      hidden_out = tf.nn.dropout(\n        tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_train_dataset, w1) + b1),\n        keep_prob=tf_dropout_keep_prob)\n      logits = tf.matmul(hidden_out, w2) + b2\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n      reg_loss = loss + beta * tf.nn.l2_loss(w1) + beta * tf.nn.l2_loss(w2)\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      global_step = tf.Variable(0)  # count the number of steps taken.\n      learning_rate = tf.train.exponential_decay(\n        learning_rate=learning_rate,\n        global_step=global_step,\n        decay_steps=1000,\n        decay_rate=0.96) \n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(\n            learning_rate).minimize(reg_loss, global_step=global_step)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n              tf.matmul(\n                  tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_valid_dataset, w1) + b1),\n                  w2) + b2)\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(\n              tf.matmul(\n                  tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(tf_test_dataset, w1) + b1),\n                  w2) + b2)\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n\n      # Enable this to emit logs for TensorBoard.\n      #writer = tf.train.SummaryWriter(\"/tmp/tflogs\", session.graph_def)\n\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print(\"Initialized\")\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        # Pick an offset within the training data, which has been randomized.\n        # Note: we could use better randomization across epochs.\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        # Generate a minibatch.\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        # Prepare a dictionary telling the session where to feed the minibatch.\n        # The key of the dictionary is the placeholder node of the graph to be fed,\n        # and the value is the numpy array to feed to it.\n        feed_dict = {\n            tf_train_dataset: batch_data,\n            tf_train_labels: batch_labels,\n            tf_dropout_keep_prob: dropout_keep_prob}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, reg_loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 100 == 0):\n          print(\"Minibatch loss at step %d: %f\" % (step, l))\n          print(\"Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print(\"Validation accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print(\"Test accuracy: %.1f%%\" % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    #run_sgd_with_reg()\n\n    run_sgd_with_hidden_layer_with_reg(\n        num_steps=3711,\n        learning_rate=0.01,\n        l2_reg_beta=0.005,\n        dropout_keep_prob=0.8)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign4_conv.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport tensorflow as tf\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\n\npickle_file = 'notMNIST.pickle'\n\nwith open(pickle_file, 'rb') as f:\n  save = pickle.load(f)\n  train_dataset = save['train_dataset']\n  train_labels = save['train_labels']\n  valid_dataset = save['valid_dataset']\n  valid_labels = save['valid_labels']\n  test_dataset = save['test_dataset']\n  test_labels = save['test_labels']\n  del save  # hint to help gc free up memory\n  print('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\n  print('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\n  print('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\nimage_size = 28\nnum_labels = 10\nnum_channels = 1 # grayscale\n\ndef reformat(dataset, labels):\n  dataset = dataset.reshape(\n    (-1, image_size, image_size, num_channels)).astype(np.float32)\n  labels = (np.arange(num_labels) == labels[:,None]).astype(np.float32)\n  return dataset, labels\ntrain_dataset, train_labels = reformat(train_dataset, train_labels)\nvalid_dataset, valid_labels = reformat(valid_dataset, valid_labels)\ntest_dataset, test_labels = reformat(test_dataset, test_labels)\nprint('Training set', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\nprint('Validation set', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\nprint('Test set', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\ndef accuracy(predictions, labels):\n  return (100.0 * np.sum(np.argmax(predictions, 1) == np.argmax(labels, 1))\n          / predictions.shape[0])\n\nbatch_size = 16\npatch_size = 5\ndepth = 16\nnum_hidden = 64\n\ndef conv_with_stride(num_steps=1001):\n    \"\"\"Two conv layers using strides of 2 to downsample the input.\"\"\"\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n\n    with graph.as_default():\n      # Input data.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(\n        tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, image_size, image_size, num_channels))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Variables.\n\n      # The filter size for the conv layer is patch x patch x nchannels x depth,\n      # where depth is the output depth of the layer.\n      layer1_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [patch_size, patch_size, num_channels, depth], stddev=0.1))\n      layer1_biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([depth]))\n\n      # Another conv layer, this time patch x patch x depth x depth, since its\n      # input is the output of conv layer 1; output has same depth.\n      layer2_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [patch_size, patch_size, depth, depth], stddev=0.1))\n      layer2_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[depth]))\n\n      # Each of the conv layers has stride 2 in the space dimensions, so overall the\n      # size of the output from the second conv layer is [height/4, width/4]. Then\n      # there's also the depth.\n      layer3_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [image_size // 4 * image_size // 4 * depth, num_hidden], stddev=0.1))\n      layer3_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[num_hidden]))\n      layer4_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [num_hidden, num_labels], stddev=0.1))\n      layer4_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[num_labels]))\n\n      # Model.\n      def model(data):\n        conv = tf.nn.conv2d(data, layer1_weights, [1, 2, 2, 1], padding='SAME')\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(conv + layer1_biases)\n        conv = tf.nn.conv2d(hidden, layer2_weights, [1, 2, 2, 1], padding='SAME')\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(conv + layer2_biases)\n        shape = hidden.get_shape().as_list()\n        print('hidden shape is', shape)\n        reshape = tf.reshape(hidden, [shape[0], shape[1] * shape[2] * shape[3]])\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(reshape, layer3_weights) + layer3_biases)\n        return tf.matmul(hidden, layer4_weights) + layer4_biases\n\n      # Training computation.\n      logits = model(tf_train_dataset)\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      # Optimizer.\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.05).minimize(loss)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(model(tf_valid_dataset))\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(model(tf_test_dataset))\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print('Initialized')\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :, :, :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        feed_dict = {tf_train_dataset : batch_data, tf_train_labels : batch_labels}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 50 == 0):\n          print('Minibatch loss at step %d: %f' % (step, l))\n          print('Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print('Validation accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print('Test accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\n\ndef conv_with_pooling(num_steps=1001, learning_rate=0.1):\n    \"\"\"Two conv layers using max-pooling layers to downsample the input.\"\"\"\n    graph = tf.Graph()\n\n    with graph.as_default():\n      # Input data.\n      tf_train_dataset = tf.placeholder(\n        tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, image_size, image_size, num_channels))\n      tf_train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, num_labels))\n      tf_valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_dataset)\n      tf_test_dataset = tf.constant(test_dataset)\n\n      # Variables.\n\n      # The filter size for the conv layer is patch x patch x nchannels x depth,\n      # where depth is the output depth of the layer.\n      layer1_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [patch_size, patch_size, num_channels, depth], stddev=0.1))\n      layer1_biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([depth]))\n\n      # Another conv layer, this time patch x patch x depth x depth, since its\n      # input is the output of conv layer 1; output has same depth.\n      layer2_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [patch_size, patch_size, depth, depth], stddev=0.1))\n      layer2_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[depth]))\n\n      # Each of the conv layers has a 2x2 pooling layer stride 2 in the space\n      # dimensions, so overall the size of the output from the second conv layer\n      # is [height/4, width/4]. Then there's also the depth.\n      layer3_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [image_size // 4 * image_size // 4 * depth, num_hidden], stddev=0.1))\n      layer3_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[num_hidden]))\n      layer4_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n          [num_hidden, num_labels], stddev=0.1))\n      layer4_biases = tf.Variable(tf.constant(1.0, shape=[num_labels]))\n\n      # Model.\n      def model(data):\n        conv = tf.nn.conv2d(data, layer1_weights, [1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')\n        pooled_conv1 = tf.nn.max_pool(conv,\n                                      ksize=[1, 2, 2, 1],\n                                      strides=[1, 2, 2, 1],\n                                      padding='SAME')\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(pooled_conv1 + layer1_biases)\n        conv = tf.nn.conv2d(hidden, layer2_weights, [1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')\n        pooled_conv2 = tf.nn.max_pool(conv,\n                                      ksize=[1, 2, 2, 1],\n                                      strides=[1, 2, 2, 1],\n                                      padding='SAME')\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(pooled_conv2 + layer2_biases)\n        shape = hidden.get_shape().as_list()\n        print('hidden shape is', shape)\n        reshape = tf.reshape(hidden, [shape[0], shape[1] * shape[2] * shape[3]])\n        hidden = tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(reshape, layer3_weights) + layer3_biases)\n        return tf.matmul(hidden, layer4_weights) + layer4_biases\n\n      # Training computation.\n      logits = model(tf_train_dataset)\n      loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(logits, tf_train_labels))\n\n      # Optimizer, with learning rate decay.\n      global_step = tf.Variable(0)  # count the number of steps taken.\n      learning_rate = tf.train.exponential_decay(\n        learning_rate=learning_rate,\n        global_step=global_step,\n        decay_steps=1000,\n        decay_rate=0.96)\n      optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate).minimize(\n              loss, global_step=global_step)\n\n      # Predictions for the training, validation, and test data.\n      train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n      valid_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(model(tf_valid_dataset))\n      test_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(model(tf_test_dataset))\n\n    with tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n      tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n      print('Initialized')\n      for step in range(num_steps):\n        offset = (step * batch_size) % (train_labels.shape[0] - batch_size)\n        batch_data = train_dataset[offset:(offset + batch_size), :, :, :]\n        batch_labels = train_labels[offset:(offset + batch_size), :]\n        feed_dict = {tf_train_dataset : batch_data, tf_train_labels : batch_labels}\n        _, l, predictions = session.run(\n          [optimizer, loss, train_prediction], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        if (step % 50 == 0):\n          print('Minibatch loss at step %d: %f' % (step, l))\n          print('Minibatch accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(predictions, batch_labels))\n          print('Validation accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(\n            valid_prediction.eval(), valid_labels))\n      print('Test accuracy: %.1f%%' % accuracy(test_prediction.eval(), test_labels))\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    #conv_with_stride(877)\n    conv_with_pooling(877)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign5_cbow.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport itertools\nimport math\nimport numpy as np\nimport os\nimport random\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\n\nfrom timer import Timer\nfrom word_utils import read_data, build_dataset, report_words_distance\n\ndef generate_batch_cbow(data, batch_size, context_size):\n    \"\"\"\n    Args:\n        data: List of IDs - the input sequence.\n        batch_size: Number of samples to generate.\n        context_size:\n            How many words to consider around the target word, left and right.\n            With context_size=2, in the sentence above for \"consider\" as the\n            target word, the context will be [words, to, around, the].\n\n    Yields:\n        Pairs of (context, label) where context is an array with shape\n        (batch_size, context_size * 2) and label is an array with shape\n        (batch_size,). For each context vector, a single label is matched\n        (target ID).\n    \"\"\"\n    data_index = 0\n    window_size = 2 * context_size + 1\n    while True:\n        context = np.zeros((batch_size, context_size * 2), dtype=np.int32)\n        label = np.zeros((batch_size, 1), dtype=np.int32)\n        for b in range(batch_size):\n            window_end = (data_index + window_size) % len(data)\n            window = data[data_index:window_end]\n            context[b, 0:context_size] = window[:context_size]\n            context[b, context_size:] = window[context_size + 1:]\n            label[b, 0] = window[context_size]\n            data_index = (data_index + 1) % len(data)\n        yield (context, label)\n\npickle_filename = 'textdata.pickle'\n# Only the vocabulary_size most common words are retained in the dictionary.\n# All others are mapped to UNK.\nvocabulary_size = 50000\n\ntry:\n    with Timer('Loading pickle...'):\n        with open(pickle_filename, 'rb') as pickle_file:\n            save = pickle.load(pickle_file)\n            data = save['data']\n            count = save['count']\n            dictionary = save['dictionary']\n            reverse_dictionary = save['reverse_dictionary']\nexcept:\n    print('No pickle... recomputing data.')\n    filename = 'text8.zip'\n    with Timer('read_data'):\n        words = read_data(filename)\n    with Timer('build_dataset'):\n        data, count, dictionary, reverse_dictionary = build_dataset(words)\n    save = {\n        'data': data,\n        'count': count,\n        'dictionary': dictionary,\n        'reverse_dictionary': reverse_dictionary,\n    }\n    with open(pickle_filename, 'wb') as pickle_file:\n        pickle.dump(save, pickle_file, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)\n\nprint('First words in data:')\nprint(data[:50])\n\ngen = generate_batch_cbow(data, 10, 2)\nfor i in range(5):\n    print(gen.next())\n\nbatch_size = 128\nembedding_size = 128  # Dimension of the embedding vector.\ncontext_size = 2 # How many words to take for context, left and right\n\n# Number of input words to the network\ncontext_full_size = context_size * 2\n\n# We pick a random validation set to sample nearest neighbors. here we limit the\n# validation samples to the words that have a low numeric ID, which by\n# construction are also the most frequent.\nvalid_size = 16  # Random set of words to evaluate similarity on.\nvalid_window = 100  # Only pick dev samples in the head of the distribution.\nvalid_examples = np.array(random.sample(range(valid_window), valid_size))\nnum_sampled = 64  # Number of negative examples to sample.\n\ngraph = tf.Graph()\n\nwith graph.as_default(), tf.device('/cpu:0'):\n    # Input data.\n    train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.int32,\n                                   shape=[batch_size, context_full_size])\n    train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size, 1])\n    valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_examples, dtype=tf.int32)\n\n    # Variables.\n    # The embeddings is a VxN matrix, where V is the vocabulary size and N\n    # is the embedding dimensionality.\n    embeddings = tf.Variable(tf.random_uniform([vocabulary_size, embedding_size\n                                                ], -1.0, 1.0))\n\n    softmax_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n        [vocabulary_size, embedding_size],\n        stddev=1.0 / math.sqrt(embedding_size)))\n    softmax_biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([vocabulary_size]))\n\n    # Model.\n    # Look up embeddings for inputs, for each input...\n    # The shape should be (batch_size, context_full_size, embedding_size).\n    # We want to average all the context vectors within each batch, so we\n    # reduce-mean along dimension 1.\n    embed = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(embeddings, train_dataset)\n    embed_mean = tf.reduce_mean(embed, reduction_indices=[1])\n\n    # Compute the softmax loss, using a sample of the negative labels each time.\n    loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.sampled_softmax_loss(softmax_weights, softmax_biases, embed_mean,\n                                   train_labels, num_sampled, vocabulary_size))\n\n    # Optimizer.\n    # Note: The optimizer will optimize the softmax_weights AND the embeddings.\n    # This is because the embeddings are defined as a variable quantity and the\n    # optimizer's `minimize` method will by default modify all variable\n    # quantities that contribute to the tensor it is passed. See docs on\n    # `tf.train.Optimizer.minimize()` for more details.\n    optimizer = tf.train.AdagradOptimizer(1.0).minimize(loss)\n\n    # Compute the similarity between minibatch examples and all embeddings.\n    # We use the cosine distance:\n    norm = tf.sqrt(tf.reduce_sum(tf.square(embeddings), 1, keep_dims=True))\n    normalized_embeddings = embeddings / norm\n    valid_embeddings = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(normalized_embeddings,\n                                              valid_dataset)\n    similarity = tf.matmul(valid_embeddings,\n                           tf.transpose(normalized_embeddings))\n\nnum_steps = 23001\n\nwith tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n    tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n    print('Initialized')\n    print('embed shape:', embed.get_shape())\n    print('embed_mean shape:', embed_mean.get_shape())\n    initial_embeddings = embeddings.eval()\n    #do_report_distances(initial_embeddings)\n    average_loss = 0\n    batch_gen = generate_batch_cbow(data, batch_size, context_size)\n    for step, batch in itertools.izip(range(num_steps), batch_gen):\n        batch_data, batch_labels = batch\n        feed_dict = {train_dataset: batch_data, train_labels: batch_labels}\n        _, l = session.run([optimizer, loss], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        average_loss += l\n        if step % 2000 == 0:\n            if step > 0:\n                average_loss = average_loss / 2000\n            # The average loss is an estimate of the loss over the last 2000\n            # batches.\n            print('Average loss at step %d: %f' % (step, average_loss))\n            average_loss = 0\n        # note that this is expensive (~20% slowdown if computed every 500\n        # steps)\n        if step % 10000 == 0:\n            sim = similarity.eval()\n            for i in range(valid_size):\n                valid_word = reverse_dictionary[valid_examples[i]]\n                top_k = 8  # number of nearest neighbors\n                nearest = (-sim[i, :]).argsort()[1:top_k + 1]\n                log = 'Nearest to %s:' % valid_word\n                for k in range(top_k):\n                    close_word = reverse_dictionary[nearest[k]]\n                    log = '%s %s,' % (log, close_word)\n                print(log)\n    final_embeddings = normalized_embeddings.eval()\n\nprint('final_embeddings shape:', final_embeddings.shape)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign5_word2vec.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport collections\nimport math\nimport numpy as np\nimport os\nimport random\nimport tensorflow as tf\n\ntry:\n  from matplotlib import pylab\n  HAS_PYLAB = True\nexcept ImportError:\n  HAS_PYLAB = False\n\nfrom six.moves import range\nfrom six.moves.urllib.request import urlretrieve\n\ntry:\n  from sklearn.manifold import TSNE\n  HAS_SKLEARN = Trie\nexcept ImportError:\n  HAS_SKLEARN = False\n\nfrom word_utils import read_data, build_dataset, report_words_distance\n\nfilename = 'text8.zip'\nwords = read_data(filename)\n# Only the vocabulary_size most common words are retained in the dictionary. All\n# others are mapped to UNK.\nvocabulary_size = 50000\ndata, count, dictionary, reverse_dictionary = build_dataset(words)\n\nprint('Total # of words', len(words))\nprint('Most common words (+UNK)', count[:5])\nprint('Sample data', data[:10])\ndel words  # Hint to reduce memory.\n\n# State for generate_batch_skipgram.\ndata_index = 0\n\ndef generate_batch_skipgram(batch_size, num_skips, skip_window):\n    \"\"\"Generate a batch of data for training.\n\n    Args:\n        batch_size: Number of samples to generate in the batch.\n        skip_window:\n            How many words to consider around the target word, left and right.\n            With skip_window=2, in the sentence above for \"consider\" we'll\n            build the window [words, to, consider, around, the].\n        num_skips:\n            For skip-gram, we map target word to adjacent words in the window\n            around it. This parameter says how many adjacent word mappings to\n            add to the batch for each target word. Naturally it can't be more\n            than skip_window * 2.\n\n    Returns:\n        batch, labels - ndarrays with IDs.\n        batch: Row vector of size batch_size containing target words.\n        labels:\n            Column vector of size batch_size containing a randomly selected\n            adjacent word for every target word in 'batch'.\n    \"\"\"\n    global data_index\n    assert batch_size % num_skips == 0\n    assert num_skips <= 2 * skip_window\n    batch = np.ndarray(shape=(batch_size), dtype=np.int32)\n    labels = np.ndarray(shape=(batch_size, 1), dtype=np.int32)\n    span = 2 * skip_window + 1  # [ skip_window target skip_window ]\n\n    # buffer is a sliding window through the 'data' list. We initially fill it\n    # with the first 'span' IDs in 'data'.\n    buffer = collections.deque(maxlen=span)\n    for _ in range(span):\n        buffer.append(data[data_index])\n        data_index = (data_index + 1) % len(data)\n    # Generate the batch data in two nested loops. The outer loop takes the next\n    # target word from 'data'; the inner loop picks random 'num_skips' adjacent\n    # words to map from the target.\n    for i in range(batch_size // num_skips):\n        target = skip_window  # target label at the center of the buffer\n        targets_to_avoid = [skip_window]\n        for j in range(num_skips):\n            while target in targets_to_avoid:\n                target = random.randint(0, span - 1)\n            targets_to_avoid.append(target)\n            batch[i * num_skips + j] = buffer[skip_window]\n            labels[i * num_skips + j, 0] = buffer[target]\n        buffer.append(data[data_index])\n        data_index = (data_index + 1) % len(data)\n    return batch, labels\n\nprint('data:', [reverse_dictionary[di] for di in data[:8]])\n\nfor num_skips, skip_window in [(2, 1), (4, 2)]:\n    data_index = 0\n    batch, labels = generate_batch_skipgram(\n        batch_size=8,\n        num_skips=num_skips,\n        skip_window=skip_window)\n    print('\\nwith num_skips = %d and skip_window = %d:' %\n          (num_skips, skip_window))\n    print('    batch:', [reverse_dictionary[bi] for bi in batch])\n    print('    labels:', [reverse_dictionary[li] for li in labels.reshape(8)])\n\nbatch_size = 128\nembedding_size = 128  # Dimension of the embedding vector.\nskip_window = 1  # How many words to consider left and right.\nnum_skips = 2  # How many times to reuse an input to generate a label.\n# We pick a random validation set to sample nearest neighbors. here we limit the\n# validation samples to the words that have a low numeric ID, which by\n# construction are also the most frequent.\nvalid_size = 16  # Random set of words to evaluate similarity on.\nvalid_window = 100  # Only pick dev samples in the head of the distribution.\nvalid_examples = np.array(random.sample(range(valid_window), valid_size))\nnum_sampled = 64  # Number of negative examples to sample.\n\n\ndef do_report_distances(emb):\n    report_words_distance('apple', 'banana', dictionary, emb)\n    report_words_distance('apple', 'fruit', dictionary, emb)\n    report_words_distance('apple', 'hebrew', dictionary, emb)\n    report_words_distance('apple', 'help', dictionary, emb)\n    report_words_distance('apple', 'seven', dictionary, emb)\n\ngraph = tf.Graph()\n\nwith graph.as_default(), tf.device('/cpu:0'):\n    # Input data.\n    train_dataset = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size])\n    train_labels = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=[batch_size, 1])\n    valid_dataset = tf.constant(valid_examples, dtype=tf.int32)\n\n    # Variables.\n    # The embeddings is a VxN matrix, where V is the vocabulary size and N\n    # is the embedding dimensionality.\n    embeddings = tf.Variable(tf.random_uniform([vocabulary_size, embedding_size\n                                                ], -1.0, 1.0))\n    softmax_weights = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal(\n        [vocabulary_size, embedding_size],\n        stddev=1.0 / math.sqrt(embedding_size)))\n    softmax_biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([vocabulary_size]))\n\n    # Model.\n    # Look up embeddings for inputs.\n    embed = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(embeddings, train_dataset)\n    # Compute the softmax loss, using a sample of the negative labels each time.\n    loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n        tf.nn.sampled_softmax_loss(softmax_weights, softmax_biases, embed,\n                                   train_labels, num_sampled, vocabulary_size))\n\n    # Optimizer.\n    # Note: The optimizer will optimize the softmax_weights AND the embeddings.\n    # This is because the embeddings are defined as a variable quantity and the\n    # optimizer's `minimize` method will by default modify all variable\n    # quantities that contribute to the tensor it is passed. See docs on\n    # `tf.train.Optimizer.minimize()` for more details.\n    optimizer = tf.train.AdagradOptimizer(1.0).minimize(loss)\n\n    # Compute the similarity between minibatch examples and all embeddings.\n    # We use the cosine distance:\n    norm = tf.sqrt(tf.reduce_sum(tf.square(embeddings), 1, keep_dims=True))\n    normalized_embeddings = embeddings / norm\n    valid_embeddings = tf.nn.embedding_lookup(normalized_embeddings,\n                                              valid_dataset)\n    similarity = tf.matmul(valid_embeddings,\n                           tf.transpose(normalized_embeddings))\n\nnum_steps = 93001\n\nwith tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n    tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n    print('Initialized')\n    initial_embeddings = embeddings.eval()\n    do_report_distances(initial_embeddings)\n    average_loss = 0\n    for step in range(num_steps):\n        batch_data, batch_labels = generate_batch_skipgram(batch_size, num_skips,\n                                                  skip_window)\n        feed_dict = {train_dataset: batch_data, train_labels: batch_labels}\n        _, l = session.run([optimizer, loss], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n        average_loss += l\n        if step % 2000 == 0:\n            if step > 0:\n                average_loss = average_loss / 2000\n            # The average loss is an estimate of the loss over the last 2000\n            # batches.\n            print('Average loss at step %d: %f' % (step, average_loss))\n            average_loss = 0\n        # note that this is expensive (~20% slowdown if computed every 500\n        # steps)\n        if step % 10000 == 0:\n            sim = similarity.eval()\n            for i in range(valid_size):\n                valid_word = reverse_dictionary[valid_examples[i]]\n                top_k = 8  # number of nearest neighbors\n                nearest = (-sim[i, :]).argsort()[1:top_k + 1]\n                log = 'Nearest to %s:' % valid_word\n                for k in range(top_k):\n                    close_word = reverse_dictionary[nearest[k]]\n                    log = '%s %s,' % (log, close_word)\n                print(log)\n    final_embeddings = normalized_embeddings.eval()\n\nprint('final_embeddings shape:', final_embeddings.shape)\nprint('Reporting after training')\ndo_report_distances(final_embeddings)\n\nnum_points = 50\n\nif HAS_SKLEARN:\n  tsne = TSNE(perplexity=30, n_components=2, init='pca', n_iter=5000)\n  two_d_embeddings = tsne.fit_transform(final_embeddings[1:num_points+1, :])\n\ndef plot(embeddings, labels):\n  assert embeddings.shape[0] >= len(labels), 'More labels than embeddings'\n  pylab.figure(figsize=(15,15))  # in inches\n  for i, label in enumerate(labels):\n    x, y = embeddings[i,:]\n    pylab.scatter(x, y)\n    pylab.annotate(label, xy=(x, y), xytext=(5, 2), textcoords='offset points',\n                   ha='right', va='bottom')\n  pylab.show()\n\nwords = [reverse_dictionary[i] for i in range(1, num_points+1)]\n\nif HAS_PYLAB:\n  plot(two_d_embeddings, words)\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/assign6.py",
    "content": "# These are all the modules we'll be using later. Make sure you can import them\n# before proceeding further.\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport os\nimport numpy as np\nimport random\nimport string\nimport tensorflow as tf\nimport zipfile\nfrom six.moves import range\nfrom timer import Timer\nfrom word_utils import read_data_asstring\n\nfilename = 'text8.zip'\nwith Timer('read_data'):\n    text = read_data_asstring(filename)\n\nprint('Data size %d' % len(text))\nvalid_size = 1000\nvalid_text = text[:valid_size]\ntrain_text = text[valid_size:]\ntrain_size = len(train_text)\nprint(train_size, train_text[:64])\nprint(valid_size, valid_text[:64])\n\nvocabulary_size = len(string.ascii_lowercase) + 1  # [a-z] + ' '\nfirst_letter = ord(string.ascii_lowercase[0])\n\n\ndef char2id(char):\n    if char in string.ascii_lowercase:\n        return ord(char) - first_letter + 1\n    elif char == ' ':\n        return 0\n    else:\n        print('Unexpected character: %s' % char)\n        return 0\n\n\ndef id2char(dictid):\n    if dictid > 0:\n        return chr(dictid + first_letter - 1)\n    else:\n        return ' '\n\n\nprint(char2id('a'), char2id('z'), char2id(' '))\nprint(id2char(1), id2char(26), id2char(0))\n\nbatch_size = 64\nnum_unrollings = 10\n\n\nclass BatchGenerator(object):\n    def __init__(self, text, batch_size, num_unrollings):\n        self._text = text\n        self._text_size = len(text)\n        self._batch_size = batch_size\n        self._num_unrollings = num_unrollings\n        segment = self._text_size // batch_size\n        self._cursor = [offset * segment for offset in range(batch_size)]\n        self._last_batch = self._next_batch()\n\n    def _next_batch(self):\n        \"\"\"\n        Generate a single batch from the current cursor position in the data.\n\n        A batch is a BatchSize x VocabSize matrix, mostly full of 0s.\n        batch[b][v] == 1 if the b'th letter in the batch is vocabulary word #v.\n\n        Note that letters within a single batch are not consecutive in the input\n        text, but rather are spread out from the input text, at the distance\n        of (text_size // batch_size) from each other.\n\n        Consecutive batches will hold consecutive letters from the input text.\n        \"\"\"\n        batch = np.zeros(shape=(self._batch_size, vocabulary_size),\n                         dtype=np.float)\n        for b in range(self._batch_size):\n            batch[b, char2id(self._text[self._cursor[b]])] = 1.0\n            self._cursor[b] = (self._cursor[b] + 1) % self._text_size\n        return batch\n\n    def next(self):\n        \"\"\"\n        Generate the next array of batches from the data. The array consists of\n        the last batch of the previous array, followed by num_unrollings new\n        ones.\n        \"\"\"\n        batches = [self._last_batch]\n        for step in range(self._num_unrollings):\n            batches.append(self._next_batch())\n        self._last_batch = batches[-1]\n        return batches\n\n\ndef characters(probabilities):\n    \"\"\"\n    Turn a 1-hot encoding or a probability distribution over the possible\n    characters back into its (most likely) character representation.\n    \"\"\"\n    return [id2char(c) for c in np.argmax(probabilities, 1)]\n\n\ndef batches2string(batches):\n    \"\"\"\n    Convert a sequence of batches back into their (most likely) string\n    representation.\n    \"\"\"\n    s = [''] * batches[0].shape[0]\n    for b in batches:\n        print('s is now', s)\n        print('characters(b)', characters(b))\n        s = [''.join(x) for x in zip(s, characters(b))]\n    return s\n\n\ntrain_batches = BatchGenerator(train_text, batch_size, num_unrollings)\n\nbatch = train_batches.next()\nprint('batch shape', [b.shape for b in batch])\nprint('chars in batch', [characters(b) for b in batch])\n\nvalid_batches = BatchGenerator(valid_text, 1, 1)\n\nprint(batches2string(batch))\n#print(batches2string(train_batches.next()))\n#print(batches2string(valid_batches.next()))\n#print(batches2string(valid_batches.next()))\n\ndef logprob(predictions, labels):\n  \"\"\"Log-probability of the true labels in a predicted batch.\"\"\"\n  predictions[predictions < 1e-10] = 1e-10\n  return np.sum(np.multiply(labels, -np.log(predictions))) / labels.shape[0]\n\ndef sample_distribution(distribution):\n  \"\"\"Sample one element from a distribution assumed to be an array of normalized\n  probabilities.\n  \"\"\"\n  r = random.uniform(0, 1)\n  s = 0\n  for i in range(len(distribution)):\n    s += distribution[i]\n    if s >= r:\n      return i\n  return len(distribution) - 1\n\ndef sample(prediction):\n  \"\"\"Turn a (column) prediction into 1-hot encoded samples.\"\"\"\n  p = np.zeros(shape=[1, vocabulary_size], dtype=np.float)\n  p[0, sample_distribution(prediction[0])] = 1.0\n  return p\n\ndef random_distribution():\n  \"\"\"Generate a random column of probabilities.\"\"\"\n  b = np.random.uniform(0.0, 1.0, size=[1, vocabulary_size])\n  return b/np.sum(b, 1)[:,None]\n\nnum_nodes = 64\n\ngraph = tf.Graph()\nwith graph.as_default():\n\n  # Parameters:\n  # Input gate: input, previous output, and bias.\n  ix = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([vocabulary_size, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  im = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([num_nodes, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  ib = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  # Forget gate: input, previous output, and bias.\n  fx = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([vocabulary_size, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  fm = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([num_nodes, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  fb = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  # Memory cell: input, state and bias.\n  cx = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([vocabulary_size, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  cm = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([num_nodes, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  cb = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  # Output gate: input, previous output, and bias.\n  ox = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([vocabulary_size, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  om = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([num_nodes, num_nodes], -0.1, 0.1))\n  ob = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  # Variables saving state across unrollings.\n  saved_output = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([batch_size, num_nodes]), trainable=False)\n  saved_state = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([batch_size, num_nodes]), trainable=False)\n  # Classifier weights and biases.\n  w = tf.Variable(tf.truncated_normal([num_nodes, vocabulary_size], -0.1, 0.1))\n  b = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([vocabulary_size]))\n\n  # Definition of the cell computation.\n  def lstm_cell(i, o, state):\n    \"\"\"Create a LSTM cell. See e.g.: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.1128v1.pdf\n    Note that in this formulation, we omit the various connections between the\n    previous state and the gates.\"\"\"\n    input_gate = tf.sigmoid(tf.matmul(i, ix) + tf.matmul(o, im) + ib)\n    forget_gate = tf.sigmoid(tf.matmul(i, fx) + tf.matmul(o, fm) + fb)\n    update = tf.matmul(i, cx) + tf.matmul(o, cm) + cb\n    state = forget_gate * state + input_gate * tf.tanh(update)\n    output_gate = tf.sigmoid(tf.matmul(i, ox) + tf.matmul(o, om) + ob)\n    return output_gate * tf.tanh(state), state\n\n  # Input data.\n  train_data = list()\n  for _ in range(num_unrollings + 1):\n    train_data.append(\n      tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=[batch_size,vocabulary_size]))\n  train_inputs = train_data[:num_unrollings]\n  train_labels = train_data[1:]  # labels are inputs shifted by one time step.\n\n  # Unrolled LSTM loop.\n  outputs = list()\n  output = saved_output\n  state = saved_state\n  for i in train_inputs:\n    output, state = lstm_cell(i, output, state)\n    outputs.append(output)\n\n  # State saving across unrollings.\n  with tf.control_dependencies([saved_output.assign(output),\n                                saved_state.assign(state)]):\n    # Classifier.\n    logits = tf.nn.xw_plus_b(tf.concat(0, outputs), w, b)\n    loss = tf.reduce_mean(\n      tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(\n        logits, tf.concat(0, train_labels)))\n\n  # Optimizer.\n  global_step = tf.Variable(0)\n  learning_rate = tf.train.exponential_decay(\n    10.0, global_step, 5000, 0.1, staircase=True)\n  optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate)\n  gradients, v = zip(*optimizer.compute_gradients(loss))\n  gradients, _ = tf.clip_by_global_norm(gradients, 1.25)\n  optimizer = optimizer.apply_gradients(\n    zip(gradients, v), global_step=global_step)\n\n  # Predictions.\n  train_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(logits)\n\n  # Sampling and validation eval: batch 1, no unrolling.\n  sample_input = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=[1, vocabulary_size])\n  saved_sample_output = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  saved_sample_state = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes]))\n  reset_sample_state = tf.group(\n    saved_sample_output.assign(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes])),\n    saved_sample_state.assign(tf.zeros([1, num_nodes])))\n  sample_output, sample_state = lstm_cell(\n    sample_input, saved_sample_output, saved_sample_state)\n  with tf.control_dependencies([saved_sample_output.assign(sample_output),\n                                saved_sample_state.assign(sample_state)]):\n    sample_prediction = tf.nn.softmax(tf.nn.xw_plus_b(sample_output, w, b))\n\nnum_steps = 7001\nsummary_frequency = 100\n\nwith tf.Session(graph=graph) as session:\n  tf.initialize_all_variables().run()\n  print('Initialized')\n  mean_loss = 0\n  for step in range(num_steps):\n    batches = train_batches.next()\n    feed_dict = dict()\n    for i in range(num_unrollings + 1):\n      feed_dict[train_data[i]] = batches[i]\n    _, l, predictions, lr = session.run(\n      [optimizer, loss, train_prediction, learning_rate], feed_dict=feed_dict)\n    mean_loss += l\n    if step % summary_frequency == 0:\n      if step > 0:\n        mean_loss = mean_loss / summary_frequency\n      # The mean loss is an estimate of the loss over the last few batches.\n      print(\n        'Average loss at step %d: %f learning rate: %f' % (step, mean_loss, lr))\n      mean_loss = 0\n      labels = np.concatenate(list(batches)[1:])\n      print('Minibatch perplexity: %.2f' % float(\n        np.exp(logprob(predictions, labels))))\n      if step % (summary_frequency * 10) == 0:\n        # Generate some samples.\n        print('=' * 80)\n        for _ in range(5):\n          feed = sample(random_distribution())\n          sentence = characters(feed)[0]\n          reset_sample_state.run()\n          for _ in range(79):\n            prediction = sample_prediction.eval({sample_input: feed})\n            feed = sample(prediction)\n            sentence += characters(feed)[0]\n          print(sentence)\n        print('=' * 80)\n      # Measure validation set perplexity.\n      reset_sample_state.run()\n      valid_logprob = 0\n      for _ in range(valid_size):\n        b = valid_batches.next()\n        predictions = sample_prediction.eval({sample_input: b[0]})\n        valid_logprob = valid_logprob + logprob(predictions, b[1])\n      print('Validation set perplexity: %.2f' % float(np.exp(\n        valid_logprob / valid_size)))\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/check_images_dir.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport os, sys\n\nif len(sys.argv) < 2:\n    print('expecting dir as argument')\n    sys.exit(1)\n\ndirname = sys.argv[1]\nfiles = os.listdir(dirname)\nprint(dirname, 'file count:', len(files))\n\ntotalsize = 0\nfor file in files:\n    fullpath = os.path.join(dirname, file)\n    size = os.stat(fullpath).st_size\n    totalsize += size\n\nprint('totalsize:', totalsize)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/notmnist_prepare_data.py",
    "content": "# Prepare notMNIST data in a notMNIST.pickle file\n\nfrom __future__ import print_function\nimport numpy as np\nimport os\nimport sys\nimport tarfile\nfrom scipy import ndimage\nfrom sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression\nfrom six.moves.urllib.request import urlretrieve\nfrom six.moves import cPickle as pickle\n\nurl = 'http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/books1000/'\nlast_percent_reported = None\nkNumClasses = 10\n\n# Uncomment this for reproducible randoms\n#np.random.seed(133)\n\ndef download_progress_hook(count, blockSize, totalSize):\n  \"\"\"A hook to report the progress of a download. This is mostly intended for users with\n  slow internet connections. Reports every 1% change in download progress.\n  \"\"\"\n  global last_percent_reported\n  percent = int(count * blockSize * 100 / totalSize)\n\n  if last_percent_reported != percent:\n    if percent % 5 == 0:\n      sys.stdout.write(\"%s%%\" % percent)\n      sys.stdout.flush()\n    else:\n      sys.stdout.write(\".\")\n      sys.stdout.flush()\n    last_percent_reported = percent\n\ndef maybe_download(filename, expected_bytes, force=False):\n  \"\"\"Download a file if not present, and make sure it's the right size.\"\"\"\n  if force or not os.path.exists(filename):\n    print('Attempting to download:', filename)\n    filename, _ = urlretrieve(url + filename, filename, reporthook=download_progress_hook)\n    print('\\nDownload Complete!')\n  statinfo = os.stat(filename)\n  if statinfo.st_size == expected_bytes:\n    print('Found and verified', filename)\n  else:\n    raise Exception(\n      'Failed to verify ' + filename + '. Can you get to it with a browser?')\n  return filename\n\ntrain_filename = maybe_download('notMNIST_large.tar.gz', 247336696)\ntest_filename = maybe_download('notMNIST_small.tar.gz', 8458043)\n\ndef maybe_extract(filename, force=False):\n  root = os.path.splitext(os.path.splitext(filename)[0])[0]  # remove .tar.gz\n  if os.path.isdir(root) and not force:\n    # You may override by setting force=True.\n    print('%s already present - Skipping extraction of %s.' % (root, filename))\n  else:\n    print('Extracting data for %s. This may take a while. Please wait.' % root)\n    tar = tarfile.open(filename)\n    sys.stdout.flush()\n    tar.extractall()\n    tar.close()\n  data_folders = [\n    os.path.join(root, d) for d in sorted(os.listdir(root))\n    if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(root, d))]\n  if len(data_folders) != kNumClasses:\n    raise Exception(\n      'Expected %d folders, one per class. Found %d instead.' % (\n        kNumClasses, len(data_folders)))\n  print(data_folders)\n  return data_folders\n\ntrain_folders = maybe_extract(train_filename)\ntest_folders = maybe_extract(test_filename)\n\nimage_size = 28  # Pixel width and height.\npixel_depth = 255.0  # Number of levels per pixel.\n\ndef load_letter(folder, min_num_images):\n  \"\"\"Load the data for a single letter label.\"\"\"\n  image_files = os.listdir(folder)\n  dataset = np.ndarray(shape=(len(image_files), image_size, image_size),\n                         dtype=np.float32)\n  print(folder)\n  num_images = 0\n  for image in image_files:\n    image_file = os.path.join(folder, image)\n    try:\n      image_data = (ndimage.imread(image_file).astype(float) -\n                    pixel_depth / 2) / pixel_depth\n      if image_data.shape != (image_size, image_size):\n        raise Exception('Unexpected image shape: %s' % str(image_data.shape))\n      dataset[num_images, :, :] = image_data\n      num_images = num_images + 1\n    except IOError as e:\n      print('Could not read:', image_file, ':', e, '- it\\'s ok, skipping.')\n\n  dataset = dataset[0:num_images, :, :]\n  if num_images < min_num_images:\n    raise Exception('Many fewer images than expected: %d < %d' %\n                    (num_images, min_num_images))\n\n  print('Full dataset tensor:', dataset.shape)\n  print('Mean:', np.mean(dataset))\n  print('Standard deviation:', np.std(dataset))\n  return dataset\n\ndef maybe_pickle(data_folders, min_num_images_per_class, force=False):\n  dataset_names = []\n  for folder in data_folders:\n    set_filename = folder + '.pickle'\n    dataset_names.append(set_filename)\n    if os.path.exists(set_filename) and not force:\n      # You may override by setting force=True.\n      print('%s already present - Skipping pickling.' % set_filename)\n    else:\n      print('Pickling %s.' % set_filename)\n      dataset = load_letter(folder, min_num_images_per_class)\n      try:\n        with open(set_filename, 'wb') as f:\n          pickle.dump(dataset, f, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)\n      except Exception as e:\n        print('Unable to save data to', set_filename, ':', e)\n\n  return dataset_names\n\ntrain_datasets = maybe_pickle(train_folders, 45000)\ntest_datasets = maybe_pickle(test_folders, 1800)\n\ndef check_dataset_balance(datasets):\n    for ds in datasets:\n        with open(ds) as f:\n            data = pickle.load(f)\n            # Note: since most of these images are small (few hundred bytes),\n            # the actual size on disk of the input PNGs is larger because the\n            # minimal actual size occupied by each file is 4KB.\n            print('Data size for %s is %d; bytesize=%d' % (\n                ds, len(data), data.nbytes))\n\n#check_dataset_balance(train_datasets)\n#check_dataset_balance(test_datasets)\n\ndef make_arrays(nb_rows, img_size):\n  if nb_rows:\n    dataset = np.ndarray((nb_rows, img_size, img_size), dtype=np.float32)\n    labels = np.ndarray(nb_rows, dtype=np.int32)\n  else:\n    dataset, labels = None, None\n  return dataset, labels\n\ndef merge_datasets(pickle_files, train_size, valid_size=0):\n  num_classes = len(pickle_files)\n  valid_dataset, valid_labels = make_arrays(valid_size, image_size)\n  train_dataset, train_labels = make_arrays(train_size, image_size)\n  vsize_per_class = valid_size // num_classes\n  tsize_per_class = train_size // num_classes\n\n  start_v, start_t = 0, 0\n  end_v, end_t = vsize_per_class, tsize_per_class\n  end_l = vsize_per_class+tsize_per_class\n  for label, pickle_file in enumerate(pickle_files):\n    try:\n      with open(pickle_file, 'rb') as f:\n        letter_set = pickle.load(f)\n        # let's shuffle the letters to have random validation and training set\n        np.random.shuffle(letter_set)\n        if valid_dataset is not None:\n          valid_letter = letter_set[:vsize_per_class, :, :]\n          valid_dataset[start_v:end_v, :, :] = valid_letter\n          valid_labels[start_v:end_v] = label\n          start_v += vsize_per_class\n          end_v += vsize_per_class\n\n        train_letter = letter_set[vsize_per_class:end_l, :, :]\n        train_dataset[start_t:end_t, :, :] = train_letter\n        train_labels[start_t:end_t] = label\n        start_t += tsize_per_class\n        end_t += tsize_per_class\n    except Exception as e:\n      print('Unable to process data from', pickle_file, ':', e)\n      raise\n\n  return valid_dataset, valid_labels, train_dataset, train_labels\n\ntrain_size = 200000\nvalid_size = 10000\ntest_size = 10000\n\nprint('Merging data sets and creating validation set...')\nvalid_dataset, valid_labels, train_dataset, train_labels = merge_datasets(\n  train_datasets, train_size, valid_size)\n_, _, test_dataset, test_labels = merge_datasets(test_datasets, test_size)\n\nprint('Training:', train_dataset.shape, train_labels.shape)\nprint('Validation:', valid_dataset.shape, valid_labels.shape)\nprint('Testing:', test_dataset.shape, test_labels.shape)\n\ndef randomize(dataset, labels):\n  permutation = np.random.permutation(labels.shape[0])\n  shuffled_dataset = dataset[permutation,:,:]\n  shuffled_labels = labels[permutation]\n  return shuffled_dataset, shuffled_labels\n\ntrain_dataset, train_labels = randomize(train_dataset, train_labels)\ntest_dataset, test_labels = randomize(test_dataset, test_labels)\nvalid_dataset, valid_labels = randomize(valid_dataset, valid_labels)\n\n# Save shuffled training/validation/test sets for reuse.\npickle_file = 'notMNIST.pickle'\n\ntry:\n  f = open(pickle_file, 'wb')\n  save = {\n    'train_dataset': train_dataset,\n    'train_labels': train_labels,\n    'valid_dataset': valid_dataset,\n    'valid_labels': valid_labels,\n    'test_dataset': test_dataset,\n    'test_labels': test_labels,\n    }\n  pickle.dump(save, f, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)\n  f.close()\nexcept Exception as e:\n  print('Unable to save data to', pickle_file, ':', e)\n  raise\nstatinfo = os.stat(pickle_file)\nprint('Compressed pickle size:', statinfo.st_size)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/softmax.py",
    "content": "\"\"\"Softmax.\"\"\"\n\nscores = [1.0, 2.0, 3.0]\n\nimport numpy as np\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    \"\"\"Compute softmax values for each set of scores in x.\"\"\"\n    exps = np.exp(x)\n    sumcols = np.sum(exps, axis=0)\n    return exps / sumcols\n\n\n\nprint(softmax(scores))\n\n# Plot softmax curves\n#import matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nx = np.arange(-2.0, 6.0, 0.1)\nscores = np.vstack([x, np.ones_like(x), 0.2 * np.ones_like(x)])\n\n\nscores = np.array([[1, 2, 3, 6],\n                   [2, 4, 5, 6],\n                   [3, 8, 7, 6]]) * 0.1\n\nprint(scores)\nprint(softmax(scores))\n\n#plt.plot(x, softmax(scores).T, linewidth=2)\n#plt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/timer.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\nimport sys\nimport time\n\nclass Timer(object):\n    def __init__(self, name=None):\n        self.name = name\n\n    def __enter__(self):\n        self.tstart = time.time()\n        if self.name:\n            print('[%s] ' % self.name, end='')\n            sys.stdout.flush()\n\n    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):\n        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/utils.py",
    "content": "from __future__ import print_function\n\nimport time\n\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport numpy as np\n\n\ndef show_image(imgarr):\n    \"\"\"Given a numpy 2D array for a sample image, show and describe it.\n    \"\"\"\n    print('Image type:', type(imgarr))\n    print('Image shape:', imgarr.shape, '    dtype:', imgarr.dtype)\n    if imgarr.ndim != 2:\n        raise ValueError('Expected ndim=2')\n    print('Image data:')\n    for row in imgarr:\n        for v in row:\n            print('%6.2f ' % v, end='')\n        print()\n    plt.imshow(imgarr, cmap='gray')\n    plt.show()\n\n\ndef shuffle_data_and_labels(dataset, labels):\n    assert labels.ndim == 1\n    permutation = np.random.permutation(labels.shape[0])\n    shuffled_dataset = dataset[permutation, :]\n    shuffled_labels = labels[permutation]\n    return shuffled_dataset, shuffled_labels\n\n\nclass Timer(object):\n    def __init__(self, name=None):\n        self.name = name\n\n    def __enter__(self):\n        self.tstart = time.time()\n\n    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):\n        if self.name:\n            print('[%s] ' % self.name, end='')\n        print('Elapsed: %s' % (time.time() - self.tstart))\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "ud730/word_utils.py",
    "content": "# Utils for word2vec models\nfrom __future__ import print_function\n\nimport os, sys\nimport collections\nimport scipy.spatial\nfrom six.moves.urllib.request import urlretrieve\nimport tensorflow as tf\nimport zipfile\n\n\ndef maybe_download(filename, expected_bytes):\n    \"\"\"Download a file if not present, and make sure it's the right size.\"\"\"\n    url = 'http://mattmahoney.net/dc/'\n    if not os.path.exists(filename):\n        filename, _ = urlretrieve(url + filename, filename)\n    statinfo = os.stat(filename)\n    if statinfo.st_size == expected_bytes:\n        print('Found and verified %s' % filename)\n    else:\n        print(statinfo.st_size)\n        raise Exception('Failed to verify ' + filename +\n                        '. Can you get to it with a browser?')\n    return filename\n\n\nfilename = maybe_download('text8.zip', 31344016)\n\n\ndef read_data(filename):\n    \"\"\"Extract the first file enclosed in a zip file as a list of words\"\"\"\n    with zipfile.ZipFile(filename) as f:\n        data = tf.compat.as_str(f.read(f.namelist()[0])).split()\n    return data\n\n\ndef read_data_asstring(filename):\n    \"\"\"Extract the first file enclosed in a zip file as a string\"\"\"\n    with zipfile.ZipFile(filename) as f:\n        for name in f.namelist():\n            # weird to 'return' on the first iteration but this is copy-pasted\n            # from assignment 6....\n            return tf.compat.as_str(f.read(name))\n\n\ndef build_dataset(words, vocabulary_size=50000):\n    \"\"\"Returns:\n\n    data:\n        list of the same length as words, with each word replaced by a unique\n        numeric ID.\n    count:\n        counters for the vocabulary_size most common words in 'words'.\n    dictionary:\n        maps word->ID\n    reverse_dictionary:\n        maps ID->word. Note that if the Kth word in 'words' is WORD, and the\n        Kth ID in 'data' is 42, then reverse_dictionary[42] is WORD.\n    \"\"\"\n    count = [['UNK', -1]]\n    count.extend(collections.Counter(words).most_common(vocabulary_size - 1))\n    dictionary = dict()\n    for word, _ in count:\n        dictionary[word] = len(dictionary)\n    data = list()\n    unk_count = 0\n    for word in words:\n        if word in dictionary:\n            index = dictionary[word]\n        else:\n            index = 0  # dictionary['UNK']\n            unk_count = unk_count + 1\n        data.append(index)\n    count[0][1] = unk_count\n    reverse_dictionary = dict(zip(dictionary.values(), dictionary.keys()))\n    return data, count, dictionary, reverse_dictionary\n\n\ndef report_words_distance(w1, w2, dictionary, embeddings):\n    id1 = dictionary[w1]\n    id2 = dictionary[w2]\n    v1 = embeddings[id1]\n    v2 = embeddings[id2]\n    assert v1.shape == v2.shape\n    euc = scipy.spatial.distance.euclidean(v1, v2)\n    cos = scipy.spatial.distance.cosine(v1, v2)\n    print('Distance between %s and %s:' % (w1, w2))\n    print('  Euclidean:', euc)\n    print('  Cosine:', cos)\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "understanding-deep-learning-book/nb-04-03-deep-networks.py",
    "content": "# Plots a function twice (second time after the first plot is closed)\n\nimport numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n\n# Define the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) function\ndef ReLU(preactivation):\n    activation = preactivation.clip(0.0)\n    return activation\n\n\n# Define a shallow neural network with, one input, one output, and three hidden units\ndef shallow_1_1_3(\n    x,\n    activation_fn,\n    phi_0,\n    phi_1,\n    phi_2,\n    phi_3,\n    theta_10,\n    theta_11,\n    theta_20,\n    theta_21,\n    theta_30,\n    theta_31,\n):\n    # Initial lines\n    pre_1 = theta_10 + theta_11 * x\n    pre_2 = theta_20 + theta_21 * x\n    pre_3 = theta_30 + theta_31 * x\n    # Activation functions\n    act_1 = activation_fn(pre_1)\n    act_2 = activation_fn(pre_2)\n    act_3 = activation_fn(pre_3)\n    # Weight activations\n    w_act_1 = phi_1 * act_1\n    w_act_2 = phi_2 * act_2\n    w_act_3 = phi_3 * act_3\n    # Combine weighted activation and add y offset\n    y = phi_0 + w_act_1 + w_act_2 + w_act_3\n    # Return everything we have calculated\n    return y, pre_1, pre_2, pre_3, act_1, act_2, act_3, w_act_1, w_act_2, w_act_3\n\n\ndef plot_neural(x, y):\n    fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n    ax.plot(x.T, y.T)\n    ax.set_xlabel(\"Input\")\n    ax.set_ylabel(\"Output\")\n    ax.set_xlim([-1, 1])\n    ax.set_ylim([-1, 1])\n    ax.set_aspect(1.0)\n    plt.show()\n\n\n# Now lets define some parameters and run the first neural network\nn1_theta_10 = 0.0\nn1_theta_11 = -1.0\nn1_theta_20 = 0\nn1_theta_21 = 1.0\nn1_theta_30 = -0.67\nn1_theta_31 = 1.0\nn1_phi_0 = 1.0\nn1_phi_1 = -2.0\nn1_phi_2 = -3.0\nn1_phi_3 = 9.3\n\n# Define a range of input values\nn1_in = np.arange(-1, 1, 0.01).reshape([1, -1])\n\n# We run the neural network for each of these input values\nn1_out, *_ = shallow_1_1_3(\n    n1_in,\n    ReLU,\n    n1_phi_0,\n    n1_phi_1,\n    n1_phi_2,\n    n1_phi_3,\n    n1_theta_10,\n    n1_theta_11,\n    n1_theta_20,\n    n1_theta_21,\n    n1_theta_30,\n    n1_theta_31,\n)\n# And then plot it\nplot_neural(n1_in, n1_out)\n\n# Now we'll define the same neural network, but this time, we will use matrix\n# form as in equation 4.15. When you get this right, it will draw the same plot\n# as above.\n\nbeta_0 = np.zeros((3, 1))\nOmega_0 = np.zeros((3, 1))\nbeta_1 = np.zeros((1, 1))\nOmega_1 = np.zeros((1, 3))\n\nbeta_0[0, 0] = n1_theta_10\nbeta_0[1, 0] = n1_theta_20\nbeta_0[2, 0] = n1_theta_30\nOmega_0[0, 0] = n1_theta_11\nOmega_0[1, 0] = n1_theta_21\nOmega_0[2, 0] = n1_theta_31\n\nbeta_1[0, 0] = n1_phi_0\nOmega_1[0, 0] = n1_phi_1\nOmega_1[0, 1] = n1_phi_2\nOmega_1[0, 2] = n1_phi_3\n\n# Make sure that input data matrix has different inputs in its columns\nn_data = n1_in.size\nn_dim_in = 1\nn1_in_mat = np.reshape(n1_in, (n_dim_in, n_data))\n\n# This runs the network for ALL of the inputs, x at once so we can draw graph\nh1 = ReLU(beta_0 + np.matmul(Omega_0, n1_in_mat))\nn1_out = beta_1 + np.matmul(Omega_1, h1)\n\n# Draw the network and check that it looks the same as the non-matrix case\nplot_neural(n1_in, n1_out)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "understanding-deep-learning-book/nb-10-01-1d-convolution.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n\n# Define a signal that we can apply convolution to\nx = np.array([5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.1, 10.1, 10.3, 9.9, 10.3, 3.2, 3.4, 3.3, 3.1])\n\n\n# Draw the signal\n# fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n# ax.plot(x, \"k-\")\n# ax.set_xlim(0, 11)\n# ax.set_ylim(0, 12)\n# plt.show()\n\n\n# Now let's define a zero-padded convolution operation\n# with a convolution kernel size of 3, a stride of 1, and a dilation of 1\n# as in figure 10.2a-c.  Write it yourself, don't call a library routine!\n# Don't forget that Python arrays are indexed from zero, not from 1 as in the book figures\ndef conv_3_1_1_zp(x_in, omega):\n    x_out = np.zeros_like(x_in)\n\n    # padded is x_in, with zeros on both ends\n    padded = np.zeros(len(x_in) + 2)\n    padded[1:-1] = x_in\n\n    for i in range(len(x_out)):\n        x_out[i] = np.sum(padded[i : i + 3] * omega)\n\n    return x_out\n\n\nomega = np.array([0.33, 0.33, 0.33])\nh = conv_3_1_1_zp(x, omega)\n\n# Check that you have computed this correctly\nprint(f\"Sum of output is {np.sum(h):3.3}, should be 71.1\")\n\n# Draw the signal\n# fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n# ax.plot(x, \"k-\", label=\"before\")\n# ax.plot(h, \"r-\", label=\"after\")\n# ax.set_xlim(0, 11)\n# ax.set_ylim(0, 12)\n# ax.legend()\n# plt.show()\n\n# omega = np.array([-0.5, 0, 0.5])\n# h2 = conv_3_1_1_zp(x, omega)\n\n# # Draw the signal\n# fig, ax = plt.subplots()\n# ax.plot(x, \"k-\", label=\"before\")\n# ax.plot(h2, \"r-\", label=\"after\")\n# ax.set_xlim(0, 11)\n# # ax.set_ylim(0, 12)\n# ax.legend()\n# plt.show()\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "understanding-deep-learning-book/nb-12-01-self-attention.py",
    "content": "# Based on the notebook\n# https://github.com/udlbook/udlbook/blob/main/Notebooks/Chap12/12_1_Self_Attention.ipynb\n\nimport numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n# Seeds follow the order/values of the notebook (f)\nnp.random.seed(3)\n\n# Number of inputs\nN = 3\n# Number of dimensions of each input\nD = 4\n\n# The self-attention mechanism maps N inputs x_n to N outputs x'_n.\n# Inputs and outputs are (D,1) arrays.\n\nall_x = []\nfor n in range(N):\n    all_x.append(np.random.normal(size=(D, 1)))\nprint(all_x)\n\nnp.random.seed(0)\n\n# Attention parameters for Q,K,V: matrices are (D,D) arrays, with corresponding\n# biases that are (D,1) arrays.\nomega_q = np.random.normal(size=(D, D))\nomega_k = np.random.normal(size=(D, D))\nomega_v = np.random.normal(size=(D, D))\nbeta_q = np.random.normal(size=(D, 1))\nbeta_k = np.random.normal(size=(D, 1))\nbeta_v = np.random.normal(size=(D, 1))\n\n# Compute Q,K,V for each input\nall_queries = []\nall_keys = []\nall_values = []\n\nfor x in all_x:\n    # Shapes: (D, 1) = (D, D) @ (D, 1) + (D, 1)\n    query = omega_q @ x + beta_q\n    key = omega_k @ x + beta_k\n    value = omega_v @ x + beta_v\n\n    all_queries.append(query)\n    all_keys.append(key)\n    all_values.append(value)\n\n\ndef softmax(x):\n    \"\"\"Compute the softmax of vector (or list) x.\"\"\"\n    exps = np.exp(x)\n    return exps / np.sum(exps)\n\n\n# Output\nall_x_prime = []\n\n# For each output\nfor n in range(N):\n    # A list of dot products of query n with all keys.\n    # all_km_qn[i] is the dot product of key i with query n. It's a list with\n    # N elements.\n    all_km_qn = []\n    for key in all_keys:\n        dot_product = all_queries[n].T @ key\n        all_km_qn.append(dot_product[0][0])\n\n    attention = softmax(all_km_qn)\n    print(f\"Attentions for output n={n}: {attention}\")\n\n    # Compute self-attention: a weighted sum of all values.\n    x_prime = np.zeros((D, 1))\n    for i in range(len(all_values)):\n        x_prime += attention[i] * all_values[i]\n\n    all_x_prime.append(x_prime)\n\n# Print out true values to check you have it correct\nprint(\"x_prime_0_calculated:\", all_x_prime[0].transpose())\nprint(\"x_prime_0_true: [[ 0.94744244 -0.24348429 -0.91310441 -0.44522983]]\")\nprint(\"x_prime_1_calculated:\", all_x_prime[1].transpose())\nprint(\"x_prime_1_true: [[ 1.64201168 -0.08470004  4.02764044  2.18690791]]\")\nprint(\"x_prime_2_calculated:\", all_x_prime[2].transpose())\nprint(\"x_prime_2_true: [[ 1.61949281 -0.06641533  3.96863308  2.15858316]]\")\n\n\n# Vector formulation\n\n\ndef softmax_cols(data_in):\n    # Exponentiate all of the values\n    exp_values = np.exp(data_in)\n    # Sum over columns\n    denom = np.sum(exp_values, axis=0)\n    # Replicate denominator to N rows\n    denom = np.matmul(np.ones((data_in.shape[0], 1)), denom[np.newaxis, :])\n    # Compute softmax\n    softmax = exp_values / denom\n    # return the answer\n    return softmax\n\n\n# X: (D,N) matrix of inputs\n# omega_v, omega_q, omega_k: (D,D) matrices\n# beta_v, beta_q, beta_k: (D,1) vectors\ndef self_attention(\n    X, omega_v, omega_q, omega_k, beta_v, beta_q, beta_k, is_scaled=False\n):\n\n    Q = omega_q @ X + beta_q\n    K = omega_k @ X + beta_k\n    V = omega_v @ X + beta_v\n\n    KQ = K.T @ Q\n    if is_scaled:\n        KQ /= np.sqrt(K.shape[0])\n    att = softmax_cols(KQ)\n    print(\"attention matrix:\", att)\n    X_prime = V @ att\n\n    return X_prime\n\n\n# Represent all inputs as a (D,N) matrix. Each column is an input.\nX = np.column_stack(all_x)\nprint(self_attention(X, omega_v, omega_q, omega_k, beta_v, beta_q, beta_k))\n\nprint(\n    self_attention(X, omega_v, omega_q, omega_k, beta_v, beta_q, beta_k, is_scaled=True)\n)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "understanding-deep-learning-book/nb-12-02-multihead-attention.py",
    "content": "import numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\n# Set seed so we get the same random numbers\nnp.random.seed(3)\n# Number of inputs\nN = 6\n# Number of dimensions of each input\nD = 8\n\nX = np.random.normal(size=(D, N))\nprint(\"X=\\n\", X)\n\n# Number of heads\nH = 2\n# QDV dimension\nH_D = int(D / H)\n\n# Set seed so we get the same random numbers\nnp.random.seed(0)\n\n# Choose random values for the parameters for the first head\nomega_q1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nomega_k1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nomega_v1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nbeta_q1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\nbeta_k1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\nbeta_v1 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\n\n# Choose random values for the parameters for the second head\nomega_q2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nomega_k2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nomega_v2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, D))\nbeta_q2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\nbeta_k2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\nbeta_v2 = np.random.normal(size=(H_D, 1))\n\n# Choose random values for the final transform\nomega_c = np.random.normal(size=(D, D))\n\n\n# Define softmax operation that works independently on each column\ndef softmax_cols(data_in):\n    # Exponentiate all of the values\n    exp_values = np.exp(data_in)\n    # Sum over columns\n    denom = np.sum(exp_values, axis=0)\n    # Compute softmax (numpy broadcasts denominator to all rows automatically)\n    softmax = exp_values / denom\n    # return the answer\n    return softmax\n\n\ndef multihead_scaled_self_attention(\n    X,\n    omega_v1,\n    omega_q1,\n    omega_k1,\n    beta_v1,\n    beta_q1,\n    beta_k1,\n    omega_v2,\n    omega_q2,\n    omega_k2,\n    beta_v2,\n    beta_q2,\n    beta_k2,\n    omega_c,\n):\n    # Calculate each of the heads separately.\n    #\n    # For each head, the dimensions of omega_* are D/H x D, beta_* is D/H x 1.\n    # X is D x N, so te intermediate Q,K,V values are D/H x N.\n    # The attention matrix is N x N, and the output of the head is D/H x N.\n    Q1 = omega_q1 @ X + beta_q1\n    K1 = omega_k1 @ X + beta_k1\n    V1 = omega_v1 @ X + beta_v1\n\n    KQ1 = (K1.T @ Q1) / np.sqrt(K1.shape[0])\n    att1 = softmax_cols(KQ1)\n\n    Q2 = omega_q2 @ X + beta_q2\n    K2 = omega_k2 @ X + beta_k2\n    V2 = omega_v2 @ X + beta_v2\n\n    KQ2 = (K2.T @ Q2) / np.sqrt(K2.shape[0])\n    att2 = softmax_cols(KQ2)\n\n    # Shape of KQN is D/H x N. Vertically concatenate them into a single\n    # matrix of shape D x N, and calculate the final transform.\n    cc = np.concatenate((V1 @ att1, V2 @ att2), axis=0)\n    X_prime = omega_c @ cc\n\n    return X_prime\n\n\n# Run the self attention mechanism\nX_prime = multihead_scaled_self_attention(\n    X,\n    omega_v1,\n    omega_q1,\n    omega_k1,\n    beta_v1,\n    beta_q1,\n    beta_k1,\n    omega_v2,\n    omega_q2,\n    omega_k2,\n    beta_v2,\n    beta_q2,\n    beta_k2,\n    omega_c,\n)\n\n# Print out the results\nnp.set_printoptions(precision=3)\nprint(\"Your answer:\")\nprint(X_prime)\n\nprint(\"True values:\")\nprint(\"[[-21.207  -5.373 -20.933  -9.179 -11.319 -17.812]\")\nprint(\" [ -1.995   7.906 -10.516   3.452   9.863  -7.24 ]\")\nprint(\" [  5.479   1.115   9.244   0.453   5.656   7.089]\")\nprint(\" [ -7.413  -7.416   0.363  -5.573  -6.736  -0.848]\")\nprint(\" [-11.261  -9.937  -4.848  -8.915 -13.378  -5.761]\")\nprint(\" [  3.548  10.036  -2.244   1.604  12.113  -2.557]\")\nprint(\" [  4.888  -5.814   2.407   3.228  -4.232   3.71 ]\")\nprint(\" [  1.248  18.894  -6.409   3.224  19.717  -5.629]]\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/.gitignore",
    "content": "text8\n*.gz\n*.pickle\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/.python-version",
    "content": "3.12\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/README.md",
    "content": "This is a reproduction of the classical word2vec embedding model using JAX.\n\nThere are several steps to get a trained model we can use to query for\nembeddings.\n\n# 1. Download the training set\n\nAny training set of text will do, as long as it's properly cleaned up. For this\nproject I'm using the same set used by the\n[original word2vec project](https://code.google.com/archive/p/word2vec/).\nThe `download-dataset.sh` script should be run - it downloads a 100 MB\ntext file named `text8`. This is just concatenated English text, all lowercase,\nspace separated, with no punctuation.\n\nIf you'd like to use a different dataset (such as Wikipedia dumps), make sure\nthe input file has the same format as `text8`.\n\n# 2. Prepare data for training\n\nTo prepare the data for training, we want to\nsub-sample the input (reducing the frequency of very common words), and compile\na vocabulary of the N most common words (20,000 by default).\n\nAfter step 1 is completed, run:\n\n    uv run make-train-data.py\n\nThis creates a file named `train-data.pickle`, which can be directly loaded\nby subsequent steps. See the script's top-level comment for details on what\nthis file contains.\n\n# 3. Train the model\n\nTo train the model, run:\n\n    uv run train.py\n\nThis reads `train-data.pickle` and trains a CBOW word2ver model using JAX. The\ntraining process runs multiple epochs over the data set in shuffled batches,\nand saves a checkpoint every epoch. The checkpoint contains a dict with two\narrays representing the model's layers.\n\nOf particular interest is the `projection` array, shaped (V, D) where V\nis our vocabulary size and D our embedding model depth. This is the embedding\ntable, mapping word index to the word's learned embedding.\n\n# 4. Query embeddings for similar words and analogies\n\nOnce the model has trained sufficiently for 15-25 epochs (the loss should go\ndown), the latest checkpoint can be used to query the embeddings for word\nsimilarities and analogies. Here are some examples:\n\n    # Find the most similar words to \"paris\"\n    uv run similar-words.py -word paris -checkpoint checkpoint.pickle -traindata train-data.pickle\n\n    # Find the best analogies for \"berlin is to germany as tokyo is to ??\"\n    uv run similar-words.py -analogy berlin,germany,tokyo -checkpoint checkpoint.pickle -traindata train-data.pickle\n\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/download-dataset.sh",
    "content": "#!/bin/bash\n\n# Downloads the text8 datased.\n\nset -eu\nset -o pipefail\n\nif [ ! -e text8 ]; then\n  wget http://mattmahoney.net/dc/text8.zip -O text8.gz\n  gzip -d text8.gz -f\nfi\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/make-train-data.py",
    "content": "# Takes the raw dataset (text8) and creates training data from it, by\n# subsampling frequent words and creating a vocabulary. The training data is\n# saved to a pickle file as the dict\n# {\n#     \"train_data\": list of words,\n#     \"vocab\": dict from word to ID\n# }\n#\nfrom collections import Counter\nimport random\nimport math\nimport pickle\n\n\ndef read_words_from_file(file_path):\n    \"\"\"Reads whitespace-separated words from a file.\n\n    Returns a list of words.\n    \"\"\"\n    with open(file_path, \"r\") as file:\n        return file.read().split()\n\n\ndef subsample(words, threshold=1e-4):\n    \"\"\"Subsample frequent words, return a new list of words.\n\n    Follows the subsampling procedure described in the paper \"Distributed\n    Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality\" by\n    Mikolov et al. (2013).\n    \"\"\"\n    word_counts = Counter(words)\n    total_count = len(words)\n    freqs = {word: count / total_count for word, count in word_counts.items()}\n\n    # Common words (freq(word) > threshold) are kept with a computed\n    # probability, while rare words are always kept.\n    p_keep = {\n        word: math.sqrt(threshold / freqs[word]) if freqs[word] > threshold else 1\n        for word in word_counts\n    }\n    return [word for word in words if random.random() < p_keep[word]]\n\n\ndef make_vocabulary(words, top_k=20000):\n    \"\"\"Creates a vocabulary from a list of words.\n\n    Keeps the top_k most common words and assigns an index to each word. The\n    index 0 is reserved for the \"<unk>\" token.\n    \"\"\"\n    word_counts = Counter(words)\n    vocab = {\"<unk>\": 0}\n    for word, _ in word_counts.most_common(top_k - 1):\n        vocab[word] = len(vocab)\n    return vocab\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    input_filename = \"text8\"\n    print(\"Reading words from\", input_filename)\n    words = read_words_from_file(input_filename)\n    print(\"Number of words:\", len(words))\n\n    ss = subsample(words)\n    print(\"Number of words after subsampling:\", len(ss))\n\n    vocab = make_vocabulary(ss)\n    print(\"Vocabulary size:\", len(vocab))\n\n    # TODO: this should be IDs... in a function\n    train_data = [word for word in ss if word in vocab]\n    print(\"Number of words in training data:\", len(train_data))\n\n    output_filename = \"train-data.pickle\"\n    print(\"Saving training data to\", output_filename)\n    with open(output_filename, \"wb\") as file:\n        pickle.dump({\"train_data\": train_data, \"vocab\": vocab}, file)\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/pyproject.toml",
    "content": "[project]\nname = \"word2vec-jax\"\nversion = \"0.1.0\"\ndescription = \"Add your description here\"\nreadme = \"README.md\"\nrequires-python = \">=3.12\"\ndependencies = [\n    \"jax[cuda12]>=0.5.3\",\n    \"optax>=0.2.4\",\n]\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/similar-words.py",
    "content": "import pickle\nimport numpy as np\nimport argparse\nfrom itertools import islice\n\n\ndef find_similar_words(word, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding, top_k=10):\n    \"\"\"Finds the top_k most similar words to a given word.\n\n    Returns a list of (word, similarity) pairs.\n    \"\"\"\n    if word not in vocab:\n        return []\n\n    word_id = vocab[word]\n\n    # embedding is of shape (V, D), where V is the vocabulary size and D is the\n    # embedding dimension.\n    word_embedding = embedding[word_id]  # (D,)\n\n    # Compute cosine similarity between the word and all other words using\n    # numpy. The result is a (V,) array of cosine similarities of word with each\n    # of the vocabulary words.\n    norms = np.linalg.norm(embedding, axis=1)  # (V,)\n    similarities = np.dot(embedding, word_embedding) / (\n        norms * np.linalg.norm(word_embedding)\n    )\n\n    # Extract the top_k indices with the highest similarities\n    top_k_words = np.argsort(similarities)\n    return [\n        (inv_vocab[word], similarities[word])\n        for word in islice(reversed(top_k_words), top_k)\n    ]\n\n\ndef find_analogies(a, b, c, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding, top_k=10):\n    \"\"\"Finds analogies for \"A is to B as C is to ?\".\n\n    Returns a list of (word, similarity) pairs.\n    \"\"\"\n    if a not in vocab or b not in vocab or c not in vocab:\n        return []\n\n    # embedding is of shape (V, D), where V is the vocabulary size and D is the\n    # embedding dimension.\n    a_embedding = embedding[vocab[a]]  # (D,)\n    b_embedding = embedding[vocab[b]]  # (D,)\n    c_embedding = embedding[vocab[c]]  # (D,)\n\n    # Compute the analogy vector\n    analogy = b_embedding - a_embedding + c_embedding\n\n    # Compute cosine similarity between the analogy and all other words using\n    # numpy. The result is a (V,) array of cosine similarities of word with each\n    # of the vocabulary words.\n    norms = np.linalg.norm(embedding, axis=1)  # (V,)\n    similarities = np.dot(embedding, analogy) / (norms * np.linalg.norm(analogy))\n\n    # Extract the top_k indices with the highest similarities\n    top_k_words = np.argsort(similarities)\n    return [\n        (inv_vocab[word], similarities[word])\n        for word in islice(reversed(top_k_words), top_k)\n    ]\n\n\ndef show_similarity(w, cs, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding):\n    \"\"\"Shows the similarity of a word with a list of context words.\n\n    Returns a list of (word, similarity) pairs. Each pair has one word\n    from cs and its degree of similarity with w.\n    \"\"\"\n    if w not in vocab:\n        return []\n    w_embedding = embedding[vocab[w]]  # (D,)\n\n    # Compute the cosine similarity between w_embedding and the embeddings of\n    # each of cs.\n    sims = []\n    for c in cs:\n        if c not in vocab:\n            continue\n        c_embedding = embedding[vocab[c]]\n        # Compute cosine similarity\n        similarity = np.dot(w_embedding, c_embedding) / (\n            np.linalg.norm(w_embedding) * np.linalg.norm(c_embedding)\n        )\n        sims.append((c, similarity))\n\n    return sims\n\n\nDESCRIPTION = \"\"\"\nFind similar words or analogies using word embeddings. Only one of -analogy,\n-sims or -word should be specified; -analogy has priority.\n\"\"\"\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=DESCRIPTION)\n    parser.add_argument(\n        \"-analogy\",\n        help=\"Comma-separated list of words to perform analogy task (e.g., 'king,man,queen').\",\n    )\n    parser.add_argument(\n        \"-sims\",\n        help=\"Comma-separated list of words: w,c1,c2...\",\n    )\n    parser.add_argument(\"-word\", help=\"The word to find similar words for.\")\n    parser.add_argument(\n        \"-checkpoint\", required=True, help=\"Path to the checkpoint pickle file.\"\n    )\n    parser.add_argument(\n        \"-traindata\", required=True, help=\"Path to the training data pickle file.\"\n    )\n    args = parser.parse_args()\n\n    model_params_file = args.checkpoint\n    train_data_file = args.traindata\n\n    with open(model_params_file, \"rb\") as file:\n        model_params = pickle.load(file)\n    with open(train_data_file, \"rb\") as file:\n        train_data = pickle.load(file)\n        vocab = train_data[\"vocab\"]\n        inv_vocab = {v: k for k, v in vocab.items()}\n\n    # The projection array is our embedding matrix.\n    # Its shape is (V, D).\n    embedding = model_params[\"projection\"]\n\n    if args.analogy:\n        a, b, c = args.analogy.split(\",\")\n        analogies = find_analogies(a, b, c, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding)\n        print(f\"Analogies for '{a} is to {b} as {c} is to ?':\")\n        for word, similarity in analogies:\n            print(f\"{word:15} {similarity:.2f}\")\n    elif args.sims:\n        w, *cs = args.sims.split(\",\")\n        similarities = show_similarity(w, cs, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding)\n        print(f\"Similarities for '{w}' with context words {cs}:\")\n        for word, similarity in similarities:\n            print(f\"{word:15} {similarity:.2f}\")\n    else:\n        similar_words = find_similar_words(args.word, vocab, inv_vocab, embedding)\n        print(f\"Words similar to '{args.word}':\")\n        for word, similarity in similar_words:\n            print(f\"{word:15} {similarity:.2f}\")\n"
  },
  {
    "path": "word2vec-jax/train.py",
    "content": "import jax.nn\nimport jax.numpy as jnp\nimport optax\nimport numpy as np\nimport pickle\n\n\ndef generate_train_vectors(train_data, vocab, window_size=4, batch_size=128):\n    \"\"\"Generates training vectors from a list of words and vocabulary.\n\n    Generates (target_batch, context_batch) pairs, where target_batch is a\n    (batch_size,) array of target word IDs and context_batch is a\n    (batch_size, 2*window_size) array of context word IDs.\n\n    Stops when it runs out of data. The leftover data (whatever doesn't fit in\n    the last batch) will be discared.\n    \"\"\"\n    target_batch = np.zeros(batch_size, dtype=np.int32)\n    context_batch = np.zeros((batch_size, 2 * window_size), dtype=np.int32)\n    batch_idx = 0\n\n    for i in range(len(train_data)):\n        if i + 2 * window_size >= len(train_data):\n            break\n\n        # 'i' is the index of the leftmost word in the context.\n        target_word = train_data[i + window_size]\n        left_context = train_data[i : i + window_size]\n        right_context = train_data[i + window_size + 1 : i + 2 * window_size + 1]\n\n        target_batch[batch_idx] = vocab.get(target_word, 0)\n        context_batch[batch_idx, :] = np.array(\n            [vocab.get(word, 0) for word in left_context + right_context]\n        )\n\n        batch_idx += 1\n        if batch_idx == batch_size:\n            yield np.array(target_batch), np.array(context_batch)\n            batch_idx = 0\n\n\n@jax.jit\ndef word2vec_forward(params, context):\n    \"\"\"Forward pass of the word2Vec model.\n\n    context is a (batch_size, 2*window_size) array of word IDs.\n\n    V is the vocabulary size, D is the embedding dimension.\n    params[\"projection\"] is a (V, D) matrix of word embeddings.\n    params[\"hidden\"] is a (D, V) matrix of weights for the hidden layer.\n    \"\"\"\n    # Indexing into (V, D) matrix with a batch of IDs. The output shape\n    # is (batch_size, 2*window_size, D).\n    projection = params[\"projection\"][context]\n\n    # Compute average across the context word. The output shape is\n    # (batch_size, D).\n    avg_projection = jnp.mean(projection, axis=1)\n\n    # (batch_size, D) @ (D, V) -> (batch_size, V)\n    hidden = jnp.dot(avg_projection, params[\"hidden\"])\n    return hidden\n\n\n@jax.jit\ndef word2vec_loss(params, target, context):\n    \"\"\"Compute the loss of the word2Vec model.\"\"\"\n    logits = word2vec_forward(params, context)  # (batch_size, V)\n\n    target_onehot = jax.nn.one_hot(target, logits.shape[1])  # (batch_size, V)\n    loss = optax.losses.softmax_cross_entropy(logits, target_onehot).mean()\n    return loss\n\n\ndef train(train_data, vocab):\n    V = len(vocab)\n    D = 200\n    LEARNING_RATE = 1e-3\n    WINDOW_SIZE = 8\n    BATCH_SIZE = 1024\n    EPOCHS = 25\n\n    initializer = jax.nn.initializers.glorot_uniform()\n    params = {\n        \"projection\": initializer(jax.random.PRNGKey(501337), (V, D)),\n        \"hidden\": initializer(jax.random.PRNGKey(501337), (D, V)),\n    }\n\n    optimizer = optax.adam(LEARNING_RATE)\n    opt_state = optimizer.init(params)\n\n    print(\"Approximate number of batches:\", len(train_data) // BATCH_SIZE)\n\n    for epoch in range(EPOCHS):\n        print(f\"=== Epoch {epoch + 1}\")\n        epoch_loss = []\n        for n, (target_batch, context_batch) in enumerate(\n            generate_train_vectors(\n                train_data, vocab, window_size=WINDOW_SIZE, batch_size=BATCH_SIZE\n            )\n        ):\n            # Shuffle the batch.\n            indices = np.random.permutation(len(target_batch))\n            target_batch = target_batch[indices]\n            context_batch = context_batch[indices]\n\n            # Compute the loss and gradients; optimize.\n            loss, grads = jax.value_and_grad(word2vec_loss)(\n                params, target_batch, context_batch\n            )\n            updates, opt_state = optimizer.update(grads, opt_state)\n            params = optax.apply_updates(params, updates)\n\n            epoch_loss.append(loss)\n            if n > 0 and n % 1000 == 0:\n                print(f\"Batch {n}\")\n\n        print(f\"Epoch loss: {np.mean(epoch_loss):.2f}\")\n        checkpoint_filename = f\"checkpoint-{epoch:03}.pickle\"\n        print(\"Saving checkpoint to\", checkpoint_filename)\n        with open(checkpoint_filename, \"wb\") as file:\n            pickle.dump(params, file)\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    print(jax.devices())\n    print(jax.default_backend())\n    # Load train-data from pickle file\n    with open(\"train-data.pickle\", \"rb\") as file:\n        data = pickle.load(file)\n        train_data = data[\"train_data\"]\n        vocab = data[\"vocab\"]\n    print(\"Number of words in train data:\", len(train_data))\n    print(\"Vocabulary size:\", len(vocab))\n    print(\n        \"First 10 words and their IDs:\",\n        [(word, vocab[word]) for word in train_data[:10]],\n    )\n\n    train(train_data, vocab)\n"
  }
]